The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (10 page)

"Maggie? It's good to hear your voice. You did all right in the play tonight. You remembered all your lines, and you looked beautiful. I'm real proud."

"Thank you." The cold in the kitchen seemed to penetrate Maggie's brown wool coat, and travel up her arm into the receiver, and finally into her brain. The words took several heartbeats to register after she heard them, and by the time she had recognized the voice and realized all the implications of hearing it, she realized that they had been talking such a long time, and so amicably, that it would be pointless to scream, so she kept listening, and watching her breath make clouds in front of her. The voice was saying kind things, soothing words.

"I've missed you, Maggie, and I thought you might be sort of lonely, too. So I thought I'd just tell you that everything is all right, and you did fine tonight. Now why don't you clean up the kitchen, all right? It's an awful mess. Why don't you clean it up before you go to bed?"

Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper. "All right, Josh. Good-bye."

Maggie hung up the phone, and slid off her coat, heedless of the cold. She cleared the stack of food-encrusted dishes out of the sink, and filled it with hot water and dish soap. Humming tunelessly in the freezing kitchen, Maggie Underhill began to clean up the mess.

Little girl, tell me where did you get that dress,

And the shoes that are so new? —I got the dress from a railroad man,

And the shoes from a man in the mines. In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never

shines,

And I shiver when the cold wind blows.

—"In the Pines"

"I have been doing some research," said Tavy Annis, taking a sip of his iced tea. He still looked thin and haggard, but there was an animation in his face that had been absent for many weeks. He sat in their usual booth at the grill with a plate of uneaten meat loaf pushed away from him, a manila folder filled with papers in its place.

Taw McBryde picked at his own helping of country-style steak. "Well, that's good, Tavy," he said. "You look better." He supposed he'd be doing research, too, if he had been given a death sentence. Second opinions; experimental treatments; hell, faith healers. But the words of encouragement he wanted to utter stuck in his throat. He hoped Tavy wasn't going to be bilked out of his life savings by some quack who couldn't give him an extra hour of life. "What kind of new treatment is it?"

"It isn't about me," said Tavy, shaking his head. "There's not much point in fretting over that. But I've got a little time left, and I figured I'd spend it on something worthwhile. Leave a mark, you know."

"Yeah."

"Get the bastards who did this to me."

Taw speared a forkful of fried apples, avoiding his friend's eyes. "You're still going to the doctor, aren't you?"

"Of course I am. I need all the time he can give me, and I sure as hell don't need any pain. He says if it comes to the worst, he can fix me up with a black box on my side that'll pump morphine directly into me any time day or night, if I need it for the pain."

"I thought that stuff was illegal."

Tavy's smile was grim. "Well, Taw, do you reckon I might get hooked?"

"You're a hell of a dinner companion these days, I tell you that," said Taw, reddening. "You don't eat enough to choke a cat, and your idea of small talk makes me want to hang myself."

Tavy grinned. "If you ever start being polite to me, I'll know my time is up. But that's okay. I don't want you to humor me, but I might need some help getting even. If I run out of steam, I want you to keep up the fight."

His friend looked uneasy. He speared a chunk of fried steak, looked at the congealing gravy dripping from it, and put down the fork. After a moment, he said, "You heard from the congressman yet?"

"Yeah. I got the letter right here." Tavy waved an official-looking envelope postmarked Nashville. "Looks like a form job to me. Share your concern ... blah blah . . . Have no jurisdiction in North Carolina . . . These things take time . . . Making every effort." He sighed. "I bet 162

if we sent that joker a complaint about sighting a UFO on the top of Lookout Mountain, we'd get the same damn letter."

"But at least you let the congressman know about the problem," said Taw. "That's what the newspaperman told you to do. Did you write any of the bigger papers?"

Tavy nodded. "Knoxville Journal Not that it'll do much good. And I called the Environmental Protection Agency, and got the runaround. So I decided to get the facts for myself."

"So what's in the rest of the folder?"

"Photocopies of articles. I've been spending time in the library in Johnson City, doing some research on this pollution business. I figure the next letter we write ought to contain less bitching and more facts."

Taw grunted. "Facts like what?"

"I got hold of a book called Green Index: A State-by-State Guide to the Nation's Environmental Health. And according to it, the South ranks in last place."

"Meaning?"

Tavy ran a bony finger down the page. "Out of seventeen states with the highest toxic chemical emissions, nine of them are in the South. Out of twelve states producing the most hazardous waste, same nine Southern states."

"Including Tennessee?"

"It's North Carolina we have to worry about, buddy. The good old Tarheels sending some of that tar down the river toward the Volunteer State. And we just volunteered for cancer. Speaking of which, it says here that out of 179

plants constituting the greatest risk of cancer, more than a hundred of them are in the South."

Taw frowned. "That don't seem right. I thought we lost the Civil War 'cause we weren't industrialized. How come all of a sudden we have all these killer factories?"

"Well, we're not the only states in trouble. The fat cats who run the industries got their own way for a long time without having to clean up diddly squat. Oh, yeah, it's a mess in the Great Lakes region: bad air, polluted water, toxic waste. And out West they got permanent smog, but those folks got smart faster than we did. They started passing tougher laws to stop all that shit. All we seem to be doing is trying to lure new factories into locating down here." He sneered. "God forbid we should discourage them with a few environmental restrictions."

Taw reached for the paper, and skimmed the list of statistics, his lips moving as he read. Finally, he looked up at his friend. "Tavy, you don't have time to run for Congress, and I sure can't do it."

Tavy let the manila folder fall shut. He closed his eyes. "No. But we have to do something. Something."

At the sheriff's office Martha Ayers had strung a ribbon from the bulletin board to the calendar nail, and now she was balanced on a chair, slipping Christmas cards over the ribbon to form a line of colorful greetings. Joe LeDonne, reared back in his swivel chair with his feet up on his desk, watched her in bemused silence.

"Well, we need a little festivity around here," Martha declared. "It's going to be Christmas pretty soon, for God's sake! And it's not like we have any prisoners around so that we have to act all strict in front of anybody. I just wish we had a better class of cards."

"What do you mean?" asked LeDonne. "They look all right to me."

"They're just impersonal, Joe. Look at this one: We Wish Our Customers Happy Holidays, from your friends at the Power and Light Company. Big whoop. And Have Yourself a Sober Little Christmas, from the Tennessee Highway Patrol. You'd think some of the people in this town could send us a Christmas card, considering all we do for them!"

"Arresting their kids for vandalism?" Joe was grinning, but Maitha refused to abandon her cause.

"Like watching their houses day and night every time they take off for Myrtle Beach. And going out and helping to get their cows off the road every time the fence breaks! I'd just like to see a little more appreciation from the citizens, that's all."

"They can keep their Christmas cards," grunted LeDonne. "All I want for Christmas is not to see the inside of the emergency room, so if the people of Wake County would just stay off the damn road on Christmas Eve, and not shoot their in-laws at the Christmas party, I'll be happy."

"You'll get part of your wish, Joe. Spencer's on patrol Christmas Eve. No ER for you." Mar-

tha balanced a red-and-white Noel card on the end of the ribbon. "That one is from Mrs. Arrowood," she said. "It was nice of her to send us one. That reminds me, I've got the best present for Spencer. It's perfect! Do you want it to be from both of us?"

"That depends," said LeDonne. "If it's candy-cane underwear, then I'll pass."

The dispatcher made a face at him. "Very funny. I don't know his size—just yours! This is just perfect for Spencer. I mean, it's kind of a gag, but I think he'll really like it, anyhow, even if he pretends he doesn't."

"What'd you get him?"

Martha reached into her desk and pulled out a small envelope marked Ticketron. "I'm going to put these in a great big box and make him dig through a mess of tissue paper to find them. It's a ticket to the Judds' farewell concert in March!"

LeDonne raised his eyebrows. "Just one ticket?"

"Well, it was eighteen dollars, Joe. I'm not made of money. Besides, as gone as he is on Naomi Judd, I didn't think he'd want to take another woman along to distract him. This way he can see her one last time before she retires from show business. I think he'll like it, don't you?"

"Yeah, probably." LeDonne reached for his wallet. "Here's a ten, Martha. Put my name on the card, too."

Martha sighed. "Well, that's most of my 166

Christmas shopping done. I just wish you were that easy to buy for."

The deputy smiled. "Why, just tie a bow around your waist, Martha." He ducked as a paper clip came flying in his direction.

The Shiloh Church Ladies' Circle (and formerly Sewing Society) was meeting on a small farm outside Hamelin, at the carefully decorated home of Barbara Givens. Because her husband worked in Johnson City, Barbara Givens was able to afford a nicer house than many of her rural neighbors, and she had lavished time and energy embellishing the place with country decor. At the Ladies' Circle Christmas party, Laura Bruce devoted much of her attention to surreptitiously observing the Givens's furnishings. If Will hadn't been a minister, Laura would have written a catty but hilarious letter detailing the more virulent excesses of Barbara Givens's country mania. . . . The bathroom is definitely not for claustrophobics. This overwrought room, the size of a broom closet, is completely shrouded in dark brown wallpaper with little tiny pineapples all over it. The facial tissue is disguised as a crocheted country cottage, and the bathtub is lurking behind ruffled curtains of brown satin. The toilet evidently has delusions of being an art gallery, because it is surrounded by about a dozen little archly precious pictures of flowers and childlike animals. ... Laura realized that the Givens's rustic splendor was the envy of half the church Circle, but that knowledge did not help her fight off the

urge to smirk when her gaze encountered a duck decoy. Laura had no doubt that Will would find the house equally silly, but she knew that he would not approve of any ridicule on her part. The house is immaculate, and Barbara is terribly proud of it, Laura told herself, as a concession to her husband's generosity of spirit. Surely kitsch is in the eye of the beholder.

The truth was that she found the entire event tacky, but she refused to acknowledge this fact, even to herself, because she felt that such superficial judgments would be a great failing in a minister's wife. So Laura smiled and tasted bizarre dessert recipes, and maintained an expression of rapt interest through discussions of the fabric store's monthly sale, applesauce cake recipes, and the minor ailments of everyone they knew. She parried questions about Will's experiences overseas, her age, and she resisted all eiforts to make her take sides in local squabbles.

They almost got her, though, with the childbirth horror stories. Laura's "condition" seemed to remind every woman of some tale of protracted labor or agonizing complication, and every time Laura changed the subject, someone else would begin a new reminiscence.

"I'm sure you have nothing to worry about, dear," Mrs. Hoskins assured her. "Although you did wait a bit late to have a first baby."

"I wanted to be married first," said Laura, unable to resist the quip.

The others laughed merrily. In old ladies and pregnant women, displays of temper passed for 168

wit. "Is Reverend Bruce going to get to come home for the birth?" someone else wanted to know.

Laura felt a sting in her eyes, but she swallowed air until it went away. "No. The Red Cross will get the word to him as soon as they can. Unless he gets sent home before April. We could always pray for that."

"Is it due that soon?" asked Amy Jessup. "You aren't showing very much."

Laura was saved from another tart reply by the hostess's announcement that it was time to open the gifts. The Ladies' Circle observed an old-fashioned custom of choosing prayer partners each September. Each Circle member drew the name of someone else in the group to be her prayer partner; the information was a secret: each woman knew whose name she had drawn from the box, but she did not know who had drawn hers. For the next three months, Circle members prayed for their prayer partners, but they might also send encouraging notes in the mail or do favors, like leaving a jar of preserves at the door. The prayer partner's identity was revealed at the Ladies' Circle Christmas party. Under Barbara Givens's beribboned chintz-and-bunny-"country" Christmas tree lay packages, one for each member of the Circle. Each gift was from a prayer partner, and her name was revealed on the card inside.

Laura's prayer partner had been Sarah Nevells, a fourth-grade teacher at Hamelin Elementary. Laura had been too busy to do much in the way of thoughtful kindnesses over the past 169

few months, but she did send a greeting card to the school once, saying Teachers are a National Treasure, which Laura sort of believed, but mainly she had sent it because she thought Sarah Nevells would appreciate the sentiment. She had signed it Your Prayer Partner, which seemed very silly to her.

Choosing a gift for a stranger (under five dollars, the rules specified) was more of a challenge. After wandering around the mall for an hour, debating every possible purchase, Laura decided that the task was impossible. Scented soap: Would she take that as an implication that she needs to wash? A book: What if she doesn't like it or thinks I intended some message in choosing it? Earrings: Are her ears pierced; does she even wear earrings? Finally, in a last-minute panic, Laura bought her prayer partner a box of flowered stationery. It wasn't exciting, but at least she couldn't think of any way for it to be offensive.

Laura wondered who had drawn her name. She had come to church one Saturday to find an arrangement of flowers on the altar, with a note saying, Arranged by Laura's Prayer Partner, but other than that, there had been no sign of a benevolent hand at work on her behalf.

At least it would make a good story to tell Will, she thought. It proved that she was attempting to observe the parish customs. As the others tore into their packages of scented soaps and paperback romance novels, Laura carefully unwrapped the small box in her lap. Inside was 170

a homemade baby bib, appliqued with a scene of black sheep grazing beneath an apple tree.