When Venus Fell (20 page)

Carter dramatically leaped down from the cart, patted the buffalo’s narrow rump, then held up his arms to Ella. She laughed and scrambled off with less grace but infinite adorable awkwardness, while Carter caught her by the elbows. They stood on the front lawn with his hands on her shoulders, and her hands on his forearms, and they gazed at each other mistily.

I rapped on the window. Ella jumped and looked up sheepishly. I retreated down the hall and into our bedroom.

When she came in she avoided my stern gaze and headed for the claw-footed tub in our bathroom with a packet of her favorite bath salts in one hand and two vanilla-scented candles in the other. “I can’t wait to soak in that deep tub filled with hot water,” she called in a high, too-cheerful voice.

“I think you might better take a cold shower,” I retorted, and slammed the bathroom door.

The next afternoon, when she disappeared with Carter again, I was so angry I thought I’d explode. I slipped out of the house and made my way to a gazebo along the river, brooding over Carter’s instant effect on my sister. I leaned on a railing and stared down at the water.

A car pulled up the road then stopped. I didn’t recognize the woman who got out and started my way.
She looks like a high F-sharp to me
, I thought as she marched across the lawn. She was tall and upholstered—easily two hundred pounds—all of the round flesh firmly fitted into a soft blue blouse and a snug beige skirt. Her dark hair was wound into a plump French braid with tendrils escaping as if pulled outward by the static electricity of her attitude. She looked prickly.

“It’s about time I took a look at you,” she brayed, then smiled ferociously and strode to me, thrust out her hand, and pumped mine in a firm grip. “Ruth Cameron Attenberry,” she announced. “I’ve been in Washington on state business. A legal seminar.”

Aha. Gib’s other sister. The lawyer who lived in Hightower with her husband and baby daughter. The sister who “disapproved” of Ella and me. “Nice to meet you, Ruth,” I lied. “State business? Should I salute?”

She leveled a brusque hazel stare at me as she made herself at home in a white wicker chair. “Are you always a smartass?”

I squinted at her. Interesting way she had of putting things. “Oops,” I said breezily. “My reputation precedes me.”

Her nostrils flared. “I hope mine precedes me. I’m an assistant district attorney.”

“Technically, then, you get paid by the government to be obnoxious?”

“You
are
a piece of work. The rumors don’t do you justice. I heard in town that you had a big mouth and a chip on your shoulder. That’s an understatement, obviously.”

“Look, I’m sorry you and I are getting off on the wrong foot. I’m a little testy at the moment. Let’s start over.”

“Right.” She dismissed my apology with a wave of one plump, manicured hand. “For the record, my brother insisted I stop by and welcome you and your sister.” She made the word
welcome
sound like a chore. Her expression was anything but gracious. “I’m not happy about this visit of yours. I didn’t agree to it. I’m also not happy about the money your old daddy foisted on my brother Simon. Listen up, now, missy, I’m going to be as blunt as a hound’s snout with you.”

I burst out laughing. She stared at me while I wiped my eyes. “I haven’t heard so much deliberate, down-home lawyer bullshit since I watched a whole afternoon of
Matlock
reruns.”

Color rose in her cheeks. Her mouth formed a perfect, flat line. “I’d like to know why you arrived early the other day and went after Gib when he was alone and drunk.”

I leveled an unwavering look at her. “You make it sound like a sinister plan. I wanted to check out the circumstances here before we met everyone. I’m not accustomed to strangers
issuing innocent invitations and offering me large sums of money.”

“Oh, I bet you’ve taken gifts from strange men a few times along the road.”

“You’re obnoxious and catty, too. I’m impressed. Even Matlock isn’t that complex.”

“I find it very interesting that you had no significant qualms about driving hundreds of miles to learn more about the Cameron family and property.”

“I find you very interesting, too,” I said in the even, controlled voice I used when club managers wanted to negotiate a nooky clause in the contracts. “Why don’t you stop playing coy little variations on your theme and get straight to the big movement.”

“Fine. I think you and your sister came here planning to hop on the Cameron gravy train. You think your old daddy’s hundred thousand bucks might be small pickings compared to the money you could wrangle out of my family. I’m here to say that if you or your sister pull any stunts I’ll be all over you like white on rice.”

Cold fury. And amazement. Somehow, no matter how cynical I’d become, this woman’s gall got to me, probably because I had been suckered by the welcome the others had given us.

Ruth went on talking. “If you have any intention of ingratiating yourself with my brother or our great-aunt in return for money or other favors, I highly recommend you drop the idea. And if you think you can cook up some bogus legal offenses worthy of some jackshit lawyer’s attention—if you think you can find some excuse to badger my family for more money—let me tell you why that dog won’t hunt.” She leaned toward me, her eyes glittering with disgust. “I’ll make sure the IRS lives and breathes to audit every tax return you send in for the rest of your life. I’ll make sure you can’t even spit on a street corner without a federal agent showing up to ask you why. You think you’ve been harassed for the past ten
years? If you try to milk my family for charity I’ll make certain you and your sister can’t even apply for driver’s licenses without getting your asses raked over the coals.”

“I have never,” I said slowly, “met anyone more paranoid than I am. Until now.”

“You’d better take me seriously. I think we both agree the world’s not a gentle place to live. You either stomp or you get stomped.”

“Now let me tell you something. You represent every power-happy, anal-retentive, prejudiced sadist who ever took advantage of people I love. I don’t want anything from you or your family. The charm of being one of the dispossessed people of the world, ol’ girl, is that being threatened loses its power after a while. I’ve got nothing to lose as long as I still have
my
family. You stay away from my sister, because if you give her the lecture you just gave me—if you accuse her of motives she can’t even fathom—
I’ll tell the whole freakin’ world how Simon Cameron hid money for my father—and how the rest of you became his accomplices.”

That was a terrible bluff. I couldn’t begin to imagine myself actually repaying Simon Cameron’s kindness—or Gib’s honest discharge of duty—with that brand of revenge. But neither could I give Ruth free rein to threaten me and Ella.

Ruth stood. So did I. She was so mad she was trembling. “I’ll be watching you and your sister until the second you leave this place,” she said in a tone like a sharp hunting knife.

“That won’t be long, I promise you.”

She walked down the gazebo’s steps, stalked to her car, and drove up to the Hall.

I let myself start shaking after I was alone. Staring after her, I said under my breath, “I know you. The first time I met you I was six years old and you were Nanny Robicheaux. I’ve been fighting you ever since.”

•   •   •

I was ready to sizzle. I made my way down a path that followed the river into the woods. The September day was still hot enough for me to appreciate the cold water.

In a quiet spot where laurel shrubs shielded both sides of the river, I pulled off every stitch of clothes and sank down in a shallow pool. I must have sat there for an hour, watching minnows scoot around me. I examined my prune-skinned hands and wondered how long I’d have to soak before I shriveled to the size of a raisin. I splashed water on my breasts then stretched my arms overhead wearily. At that moment, in full, nipple-to-the-air extension, I heard the bushes rustle behind me.

I forced myself to move as if I hadn’t noticed. I stood slowly, then slipped into my bra and panties as if I had all the time in the world to dress. I faked a yawn as I pulled on my white T-shirt, jeans, and sandals. Humming loudly, I slid my hands into my jeans’ back pockets. I closed the fingers of my right hand around my pepper spray.

I pounced into the laurel shrubs, screeched some incoherent but ferocious attack cry, and squirted pepper into sixteen-year-old Jasper Cameron’s startled face.

“Please, ma’am,” Jasper said miserably as I marched him up a forest path beyond the cottage, “just kill me before anybody finds out. I’d be happier that way.”

“You should have thought of that before you decided to become a Peeping Tom.”

We trudged along. Sweat beaded under my bath-damp hair. I’d told him I was taking him to his mother, and I wanted to hear him confess to her. I just wanted to make him sweat.

It was working.

His head up, his eyes watering badly, his jaw set and shoulders back, Jasper walked ahead of me with miserable dignity. “I’m not askin’ for mercy, ma’am,” he mumbled.

“Good. Because you’re fresh out of luck, mister. I’ve got no sympathy. I’m having a lousy day.” I waved my pepper spray at him. Poor kid. I had only caught him a glancing squirt, but his eyes were streaming tears despite ten minutes of fervent rinsing. He stumbled along in a Braves jersey and huge, knee-length plaid shorts. He was too polite and clumsy to be anything worse than he appeared to be: a clean-cut teenage boy with a bad case of naked-female fever.

“The right to privacy is as basic as the air we breathe,” I lectured grimly as we marched through the forest. “You could say I deserved to be looked at because I sat naked in the river, but I think I deserved to be respected. You make a habit of spying on guests who stay at the Hall?”

“No, ma’am! I was raised to be a gentleman, ma’am.”

“I’ve known a lot of so-called gentlemen who don’t have your conscience then.”

“Ma’am, I figured you didn’t mind, uh, to be looked at, ma’am! Because you’re a musician and all. You get up on stages in front of people all the time.”

I gave his arm a threatening prod with the nozzle of the pepper spray. “That’s right. I choose to let people look at me sometimes. But not offstage. There have been too many times when I had no say in what or how or who looked at me—or how they looked at my home, my personal business, my family. My privacy belongs to
me
. What you did isn’t a joke to me.”

“Ma’am, I apologize again, ma’am,” he barked. “I didn’t mean to look, ma’am, I just happened to be nearby and the chance came up. Ma’am.”

That’s not the only thing that came up, I expect
. “You don’t have to call me ma’am, mister.”

“Yes, I do, ma’am. Title of respect to ladies, ma’am.”

As if I weren’t armed with a table condiment. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen, ma’am,” he reminded me crisply.

“Old enough to know better.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“I’m not a drill sergeant. Stop answering me that way.”

“It’s a habit, ma’am! I’m joining the Marines after I graduate from high school!”

“Why?”

“Duty, ma’am! Service to my country! Family tradition of government duty!”

“You can serve your country much better by going to college and peeping into the open windows of the girls’ dorms.”

“I’m not a pervert, ma’am! I intend to make my daddy proud!”

Here was the crux of Jasper Cameron, I thought. His life revolved around still-raw memories of a beloved father. “Your daddy wanted you to be a Marine?” I asked quietly. We strode up a hill out of the woods, between grassy meadows rimmed in white board fence. I was suddenly immersed in bright sunshine, the fresh blue scent of the sweetest air I’d ever smelled, and meadows of golden wildflowers stretching up the hills to puff-cake clouds above the horizon.

“I decided on the Marines this year,” Jasper said hoarsely, still marching ahead of me, face-forward, his shoulders hunching with emotion. “My uncle Gib served in the Marine Corps before he joined the Secret Service, ma’am. My daddy was proud of Uncle Gib.”

“I take it, then, that your daddy was never interested in being a Marine himself?”

“No, ma’am. My daddy was a businessman and a preacher, ma’am.”

“What kind of preacher?”

“No particular church, ma’am. But he was elected county commissioner and stuff. He could marry people and stuff like that. And he could preach sermons. He didn’t have time to go to college. He studied religion on his own. He said he sort of made up his own rules as he went along. People trusted him. Asked him for advice.”

“Then tell me why your daddy would be proud if you put
on a soldier’s uniform and vowed to kill your fellow human beings if the government asked you to.”

“I … ma’am, I don’t intend to shoot people unless I have to. You’re not a Communist, are you? I heard you might be.”

I bristled. “Mister, I’d bet money you don’t know enough politics to tell me the difference between a Communist and a toad frog.”

“Communists want the government to own everything.”

“Well, I don’t believe in politics. I’m not a political joiner. I just want the government to stay out of my bathroom window. Why don’t you decide what
you
would be happy doing after high school, instead of what your daddy might want based on what you think he was proud of about your uncle Gib?”

This convoluted question evidently escaped him. We topped the hill, and he halted, his shoulders slumping again. I looked across at the magnificent old mansion set atop the next hill, with the small, lovely river gleaming peacefully below it.

“Please just kill me, ma’am,” he repeated. “I don’t want my mama to know what I did.”

“Move it.” We walked onward. “Why don’t you get yourself a nice girlfriend, Marine?”

“I don’t know how to talk to girls, ma’am. I always say the wrong thing. Or I don’t say anything at all.”

“You’re talking to me.”

“I’m scared of you in a different way, ma’am.”

“Why, thank you.”

“I was hoping you might help me out, ma’am.”