The Cypress House (45 page)

    "It
is not," she said, "an inherent family trait."

    "I
hope you're right," Barrett said.

    The
phone rang then, and a moment later Barrett's wife called for him. He rose and
went inside to take the call. He wasn't gone long.

    "That
was Tampa," he said. "It's been decided that you're to go back."

    "Go
back?" Rebecca echoed. "I thought they wanted to see us."

    "That's
what they said. But the man in charge is down in Miami, a fella named Cooper, and
he says it's not worth the risk of having strangers up here until the show
starts. He figures the longer you're gone from your place, the more likely Wade
gets edgy and calls it off. He doesn't want it called off."

    It
made a bit of sense, but it also left the group at the Cypress House operating
on the promise of immunity granted by a shop- keep turned undercover agent.
Barrett seemed to be a good man and a sharp operator, but his clout with the
agency that had brought him in was minimal at best. Arlen said, "What
about the papers, Barrett? The immunity?"

    "You'll
have to take my word."

    Arlen
shook his head. "I'd like some writing with that. No offense."

    Barrett
said, "Ain't going to be any writing, Wagner. So you'll have to make a
decision. Take my word, or don't."

    Arlen
looked at Rebecca, who gave him a nod, deferring to him. He didn't like the
situation, but he also didn't know what else he could say.

    "It
better be worth something," he said. "Your word."

    "It
always has been, and always will be."

    Arlen
nodded and got to his feet, and Rebecca followed. They stepped outside the
store and into a thick breeze fragrant with the smell of coming rain.

    "Just
see that it goes off as planned," Barrett said. "All you got to do is
see that . . ."

    His
voice trailed off, and when Arlen looked up, he saw that

    Barrett
was staring up the road. Tolliver's sheriff's car was approaching from the
north. It went by slow, and Barrett lifted a hand, gave a friendly wave that
wasn't returned. The car carried on down the road and then turned left. Away
from the jail. Toward Solomon Wade's house.

    "Just
see that it goes off as planned," Barrett said again, but his voice was
softer now. "And watch your asses, hear?"

    He
went back inside without waiting for a response.

    "I
don't like it," Rebecca said as soon as they were in the truck again.
"I don't feel good about this, Arlen. Owen and Paul out on that boat . . .
what if there's trouble? What if people start shooting?"

    "The
way it was told, they're going to wait until the orange crates have been
unloaded before they move," he said. "Owen and Paul should be back
inside the inn by then, and we'll all stick together and out of the way until
whatever trouble there is dies down."

    She
shook her head, unconvinced. The bagful of money was on the seat between them.
Five thousand damn dollars, just sitting there. Arlen wondered how much it
really meant to those nameless, faceless men in New Orleans who ran this whole
show. He knew how much it would mean to most people in the world, but men like
those? He really couldn't figure.

    "Look,"
he said, "I don't like it either. But what else can we do? "

    She
was quiet for a mile or two, then said, "He was right, you know."

    "Barrett?
About what?"

    "My
father," she said. "I don't blame Barrett for looking at Owen and me
the way he does. My father would have done anything for the right amount of
money. He would have done just about anything."

    "Well,
you've kept your brother from being the same," Arlen said. "You see
that, don't you? You've shown him the truth, and he's changed."

    "I
hope so," she said.

    They
drove west under a strange sky, dark clouds massed to the south and then split
on an almost perfectly even line with clearer skies showing to the north. It
was the way fronts often developed here, blowing in fast and shifting in ways
that were tough for a native of the mountains like Arlen to follow. A few stray
raindrops speckled the windshield, but the wind was puffing in unenthusiastic
gusts, the storm front sliding away to the south this time, leaving them clear.

    It
seemed that way until they were a mile from the inn at least, and then the wind
swung around fast and sudden and drove the clouds up over them, and the sun was
hidden again and the path to the Cypress House was bathed in shadow. An
armadillo waddled along the dirt road, indifferent to the truck that nearly
ended its life. They broke out of the trees and the inn came into view, the sea
beyond it caught between light and dark beneath the shifting cloud front.
Owen's convertible was parked where it had been when they left, and there was
no sign of visitors. Everything looked calm.

    "What
time is it?" Rebecca asked.

    "Nearly
noon."

    "And
the boat's supposed to come in after dark. Around nine is what Owen said."
"Right."

    "So
we've got one afternoon left," she said as they stepped out of the truck
and faced the inn. "That may be it. That may truly be the last time I
spend here."

    She
stood on the hill and looked down at the inn as the sky continued to darken and
the wind pushed the Cypress House sign back and forth on creaking hinges. A
pair of gulls shrieked as they flew over the roof and then vanished down toward
the beach, where a large wave blew in with a cloud of spray and an angry snarl.

    "I
won't miss it," she said. "Not one bit."

    "We'll
get you to Maine," Arlen said. "I promise."

    She
smiled faintly and took his hand and squeezed it, and then they walked down to
the inn together. Up the front steps as the sign continued its rhythmic
creaking, like a porch swing on a hazy summer afternoon in some sleepy, happy
town, and then they were through the door and into the barroom. Arlen was
carrying the money bag. The lights were off and it was dark with the sudden
cloud cover, and Rebecca called, "Owen? Paul?" as they came in. Arlen
closed the door behind them. The latch had just clicked when she screamed.

    He'd
had his eyes down, but now he raised them. Looked across the room and through
the windows to the back porch. Saw Owen Cady's body dangling in the wind,
upside down, a wide dark gash torn through the center of his throat.

    There
was a rope knotted around his ankles, holding his feet together, secured to
someplace on the roof. Probably the widow's walk. His hair hung straight down,
matted here and there with blood. There were also streaks of blood tracing his
jaw and lining his face. Either the wound had been very fresh when they'd hung
him up or they'd cut his throat with him in that position.

    Rebecca
screamed again, calling out his name this time in an anguished howl, and then
she ran for the porch. Arlen grabbed at her arm and missed, and then he dropped
the bag of cash and followed as she burst through the back door. The wind
pushed her brother's corpse closer to her before his weight swung it away
again, a gentle pendulum motion. She said
Owen,
this time so soft it
could scarcely be heard, and then dropped to her knees on the porch.

    Arlen
knelt and held her in silence, thinking,
Paul, where is Paul?
as the
body swung back and forth and Owen Cady's blood dried in his hair, an
occasional drip still plinking off the floorboards, where a pool of it had
gathered.

    "Get
inside," he said, looking away from the corpse and out to the open beach
and realizing for the first time how exposed they were. "Come on."

    She
was unresponsive but didn't fight him. He tugged her inside and let her go
again, and she slumped back to the floor. He let her drop, looking around the
room and seeing now what he hadn't at first, when the body occupied all of his
focus — a single chair turned over, a broken glass, two gashes in the front
wall surely left by bullets.

    The
gun was still in the truck. He said, "Wait here, Rebecca, please
wait," and then ran across the room and through the door and out to the
truck. When he had the gun in his hand, he closed the door and straightened
slowly, took a long, panning gaze around him. It was a different sort of look
than he'd given in many years, a battlefield survey, everything significant now
and everything potentially threatening. All around the Cypress House, it was
quiet but for the wind and the gulls and the creaking of the sign.

    He
shouted, "Paul!"

    Silence.

    "Paul!"

    Silence.

    "Damn
them," he said, and his voice shook a little now. "Damn them."

    He
went back through the yard and inside the house. Rebecca was still on the
floor, but now she'd lifted her hands to cover her face. When she spoke, her
voice was muffled.

    "What?"
Arlen said.

    "Get
him down," she said, and this time he heard it through the sobs.
"Please get him down."

    He
laid his hand on her back. "Rebecca, we've got to get out of —"

    
"
Get him down!
"

    He
straightened. "All right." Logic screamed at him to get her the hell
away from here immediately, back to Barrett before the bastards who'd done this
showed up again, but instinct told him they were gone now and wouldn't be
coming back. Where was Paul, though?

    "We
can't leave him like that," Rebecca said, not looking up, her voice heavy
with tears. "We can't."

    "I'm
going for him," Arlen said.

    He
stepped out onto the porch and gave the beach another one of those slow,
panning stares, saw nothing but sand and shells and water. Just as it always
had been. There were no indentations in the beach where a boat had been put in.
Anyone coming from the water would have used the inlet.

    He
stepped over to the dangling corpse, taking care to avoid the blood, and
dragged a porch chair behind him. Then he climbed onto it and took hold of
Owen's legs, making sure to keep his eyes on the shoes and not look down into
the poor dead kid's face.

    
I
didn't see it in you,
he thought
. I'm sorry. It wasn't there this
morning. Something changed after we left. I couldn't have warned you. I wish I
could have, but I couldn't. I'm sorry
.

    He
was thinking this as he took a firm hold of Owen's legs and drew his
pocketknife out. At the touch of the dead body, he thought of Paul Brickhill
and said, in a whisper, "I'm coming for you, Paul. I don't know if there's
time left, but I'm coming for you."

    He
lifted the knife to the rope as he said the words, and when the response came
he nearly sawed through his own finger.

    
There's
time
.

    Two
words, spoken right in his ear, right inside his damned head. He stumbled and
fell from the chair, upending it. The gun was on the porch rail, and he
snatched it up.

    Nothing
but silence now. Those two words only a memory.

    He
turned and pointed the gun in first one direction and then the other, still
backing away from the body, and saw nothing, heard nothing.

    It
had been Owen's voice.

    "No,"
Arlen said softly. "No, it wasn't."

    But
it was.

    For a
moment he was frozen there, but then the sound of Rebecca's sobbing from inside
shook him loose, and he stepped up to the body again. This time he didn't touch
Owen's legs but reached higher on the rope. He grasped the lower portion of the
cord with his left hand and sawed away above it with his right, and eventually
the rope parted and the body was deadweight tugging his arm down. He let him go
as gently as he could, laid him on the porch in his own blood. Then he picked
up the gun again and went back inside.

    "He's
down," he said gently, kneeling beside Rebecca and lifting her face so he
could see her eyes. He regretted it as soon as he got a glimpse of the terrible
pain trapped in them. "He's resting easy now, okay? But I've got to go
have a look around. I've got to see . . ."