Deep Down (I) (19 page)

“Oh, right,” she muttered under her breath as she bent to give the nightshade and ground-cherry branches a last couple of whacks. “A couple of poisoners in a health drink ad.”

She sensed someone behind her before she heard a step. She spun and there he stood, daring to come into her holler, onto her land.

“Hello, Cassandra,” he said. “I saw you and the girl from a distance at the funeral. Two beauties now instead of one.”

He’d been at Mariah’s funeral, and she hadn’t seen him? Cassie lifted her long knife in one raised hand. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She started to shake with shock and rage.

“Unless you want to attend another funeral—yours—get quit of here right now,” she said, her voice trembling. “When you left, you left for good, and good riddance.”

Handsome as ever, he cocked his head slightly; she saw he wore a bulky pack that made him look humpbacked. “Not the welcome I was hoping for. I’ll leave, but I’ll be seeing you.”

She thought of a lot of things to shout at him, but since he’d turned on his booted heel and left, she just stood there, frozen. Finally, when his footsteps had been swallowed by forest sounds, she turned to rush inside. She’d lock the door, she’d call Tyler and tell him to get here as soon as he could.

As she ran toward the house with her knife in her hand, she caught sight of Pearl’s pale face pressed to her bedroom window.

Drew didn’t turn into Sung’s drive but went past it. For once, the immaculate, white fences with bars closer together, probably to keep in dogs instead of horses, and the large, pillared house looked not inviting but foreboding.

“What is it?” Jess cried. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“No, I just didn’t know we’d get here this quickly. I told him eleven-thirty, and I don’t want to seem overeager. Besides, I told Emmy she could e-mail me if anything important came up, and that I’d check my laptop before we visited him. We’ve been so engrossed, I didn’t think to stop somewhere.”

About a half mile down the road, he pulled off into a side lane by another ubiquitous white fence and reached for his laptop in the backseat. It was a different world out here, he thought. In Deep Down, cell phones seldom worked and never a Wi-Fi laptop.

He booted it up and skimmed his mail. “One thing from her,” he said, “something she’s forwarding from Tyler.”

“Another picture?”

“No, just text with an attachment,” he said, skimming her note and then reading the one she’d attached. “Damn. Damn!”

Jess leaned closer. The sweet scent of her hair was distracting. “What?” she asked, trying to read the screen by pressing her chin on his shoulder.

“Emmy says that Tyler stopped by the office this morning—with Beth Brazzo—and left some info for me about Seth,” he said, rereading the note she’d attached. “I can see why Tyler wanted me to have it, but it makes Seth look bad again.”

“Drew, what does it say?”

“It’s pretty strange info on Cherokee lore,” he explained, propping the laptop a bit higher against the steering wheel so she could see the screen. “Tyler must be losing his mind, if he believes this or thinks we will. Have you ever heard Seth mention skillies?”

“Skillies? No, what—”

“Okay, listen to this,” he said, when he realized she still couldn’t see the screen well. “Tyler evidently got this from some Cherokee Web site but also from some blogs on Bigfoot.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes! Bigfoot?”

“Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Shoot.”

“According to Cherokee lore, a skilly is a malevolent ghost or bad spirit in the woods, appearing as a large, hairy creature. One particular two-legged skilly supposedly stood over eight feet tall. Skillies can move through the woods like a puff of smoke and sometimes can be spotted by their two, glowing eyes. They usually appear after dark, but have been known to inhabit shadowed forests and mountain coves.”

“That’s got to be a superstition that developed from seeing deer or raccoon eyes glowing from the dark,” she said. He watched her rub her arms with her hands; like him, she had gooseflesh. “I saw eyes like that the day we found my mother’s body, but it was just a raccoon. I’m sure of it. I saw one run away. I heard heavy footsteps, but it turned out to be Tyler.”

“But you see where he’s going with this?”

“You think Tyler Finch believes in skillies?”

“No, I’m thinking he believes Seth might—or might have somehow dressed himself like one and got caught in a picture.”

They looked at each other. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she narrowed them, looking as skeptical as she’d sounded.

“Does he say anything else?” she asked, after an awkward silence. She broke their mutual gaze, looking jerkily down at the laptop again, so he did too.

“Just that the basic power of a skilly is fear. That’s word for word—‘When you come in contact with a skilly, you will be filled with a dark, primal fear, one that you cannot ignore. It will haunt you, even if you escape its claws. The basic power of a skilly is fear.’”

“Claws? Like badger claws, I suppose!” she added, her voice dripping sarcasm again. “Unlike Peter Sung,
who seems happy to tell everything about his people’s beliefs, Seth’s closemouthed. You said he wouldn’t talk much about that ‘grandfather tree’ where my mother was hidden, so he probably won’t talk about this. Besides, it’s just tradition—superstition.”

Drew e-mailed Emmy he had the received message, signed off and shut down the laptop. That reminded him, he wanted to carefully question her about what she really knew about Ryan Buford. But now he had to face Peter Sung and fight an urge to put something as silly as a skilly on his list of suspects for Mariah’s murder.

19

P eter Sung came out to greet them with four dark hounds at his heels. The dogs had sleek, black coats brindled with specks of gray, almost smoky-looking. Jessie and Drew could hear other dogs from the kennel beyond the backyard. Compared to the deep howls of most hunt hounds, Jessie noted these Plott hounds had a high-pitched, sharp bark, almost like a woman’s shriek.

Smiling, gracious, Peter shook their hands. “We all welcome you,” he said with a sweeping gesture at his canine companions. “But do not think the Plotts still in the kennel are baying at you. They do not approve that I have only these four with me, but each dog will have his day.”

He escorted them into his lovely home. Jessie had expected it to be furnished in Oriental style, but, except for a touch here and there—a painted screen, an ornamental vase—it was tastefully Southern.

“My wife lives in Hong Kong,” he told them, proudly displaying a family photograph. “Until our son graduates from his private secondary school there and comes to college in the States, she is best at home.”

He had a luncheon table laid out for them, or rather, his
young Asian male servant did. Large votive candles with tall, flickering flames served as the centerpiece. Jessie noticed their strange but intoxicating scent, like incense, maybe something exotic like jasmine or frangipani. Come to think of it, the whole house, even Peter himself, smelled faintly of that scent. The day they had spoken outside her house, the fresh air must have muted it, but it was distinctive here.

With the four hounds lying obediently around Peter’s chair, the young man served the three of them crab Rangoon, egg rolls, shrimp tempura and fried rice washed down with mint tea. They all ate with chopsticks. The excellence of the food reminded Jessie of her aborted trip to Hong Kong.

“No fortune cookies today,” Peter told them. “But despite the tragedy of Mariah’s loss, I predict all will be well in Deep Down from now on.”

“Which means,” Drew said, “I must find a murderer.”

“Sadly so. But let us treasure this day you were so kind to visit me and ask about the thing I love third best in this life. First, of course, my family, second my work to bring wild Kentucky jen-shen, the root of life, to my people and thirdly, these clever hounds of the hunt. Brilliant, aren’t you, boys and girls?” he asked, looking down on the floor where Jessie saw the hounds raise their eager heads.

“I know it’s a tiring drive from Deep Down,” Peter went on, “so, I thought you might wish to eat and relax before we talk Plotts and tracking collars. Jessica, I’m pleased to see that you are getting away from your cares for a while, though, of course, you carry your loss with you always.”

“I am finding ways to honor her,” she told Peter. They had decided she should tell him that she was continuing the ginseng count and note his reaction and comments carefully. “I have decided to complete her ginseng work, for
which I have her boss Frank Redmond’s permission and assistance.”

“Ah!” he said with a single clap of his hands. “I am so relieved and so will my sponsors, the Kulong family, be. Am I to understand that Mariah left records of the count she had done so far?”

“A partial, yes.”

“I hadn’t heard. Vern is kind enough to let me know how things are going in town. Not as a sub-agent, but as a friend. In return, I help to support the museum he so treasures. But, let us speak of the ‘sang’ again, as Deep Down calls it. A Chinese legend claims jen-shen is the child of lightning. Up in heaven, the story goes, water and fire are in an eternal struggle. When those hostile elements battle, they strike the earth with lightning. Where a bolt hits the soil, jen-shen springs up, a union of fire and water, darkness and light, yin and yang—eternal opposites. I am not boring you?”

“No, please, go on,” Jessie encouraged him. Drew had said the purpose of this visit was to get Peter to talk, to reveal as much of himself and his pursuits as possible.

“Sadly, we Chinese cannot grow the root in our huge country because it takes cool, shady forests and deep soil from centuries of decomposed leaves. Our land is old, played-out, used. Other people value the herb, too, so we get some from them, but not the quality of Kentucky jen-shen.”

“Do the other places you buy ginseng have stories of it, too?”

“Indeed. In Korea, a legend says jen-shen can talk or even turn itself into another plant to hide.”

“I wish that were true,” Drew put in. “The sang Mariah was covered in would have a lot to tell.”

“Ah—yes. We used to get some from Siberia, too, where the root is highly valued, almost sacred, and was traditionally hunted by a clan of fierce outcasts. From infancy to old age, they dedicated their lives to gathering it. And, it’s said some Appalachians—not you, Jessica, I know that—believe the plant can hide itself underground when it believes itself to be in danger.”

She heaved an intentionally dramatic sigh. “I wish my mother could have had time to hide when she found herself threatened. But then, perhaps she knew her killer and didn’t realize that he or she meant her harm until it was too late.”

She noted Peter repeatedly tugged both of his long shirtsleeves down as if he were trying to hide his hands. Body language that meant something, or just a nervous habit?

“I had thought perhaps,” Peter said, “she surprised poachers, who just panicked, then they tried to cover up their horrid deed by making someone else look guilty. But, at any rate, pictorial representations for all these jen-shen legends can be found in Vern’s museum. Sad so few visit it. Not to change the subject, Jessica, but I have something for you—good luck indeed, much better than a hopeful fortune cookie message.”

He said, “Stay!” to the hounds, then rose and walked to a massive credenza in the corner of the dining room and opened the glass doors. Jessie turned in her chair and gasped to see what was on the shelves behind her. Tall, clear glass bottles filled with pale amber liquid, in which floated large, perfectly formed ginseng roots, were displayed. Each one, she knew, must be worth thousands of dollars on the Chinese market. These roots were especially precious because each was shaped like a person with the
tap root as the torso, then the smaller roots as arms and legs, even to the tiny roots as hands and fingers. Since the plant itself had been lopped off when the root was dug, each body was, of course, headless.

Peter presented one of the bottles to Jessie with a flourish. “The Chinese written characters for jen-shen mean ‘man-root,’” he told them, “and possessing one of these is very good luck, very good.”

“I could use that,” she told him, carefully cradling the bottle in both hands. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one so perfectly formed, and to think you have an entire array of them. I thank you.”

“I meant to give it to your mother when she registered her count this year,” he said, “but it is now yours—with the obligations it carries.”

She wondered if he meant it as a bribe or a clever, subtle threat. Of course, he intimated that he expected the count to be high enough to keep the ginseng flowing to him and to his country. But she would display this in her lab, and trust Chinese tradition that it would bring good luck to her sang count and her study of cancer.

“My question is,” Drew said, “how do you get that big root in that small-necked bottle?”

“Did you never make a ship in a bottle when you were a boy?” Peter asked, smiling. “I cannot give away all my secrets, can I? But I am delighted, Sheriff, that you wish to see my hounds and hear how easy it is for me to track them with the radio transmitting collars. Come outside, please, both of you, and let me give you a thorough demonstration. And, if you approve, I shall keep one pup for you from the next litter. Then I shall train and donate her to find lost souls in Deep Down’s forests.”

Tyler wanted to go back to the hills and cliffs overlooking Indian Falls, the site they’d visited their first day together. Cassie didn’t care where they went. She just plain wanted to get out of the house and off her property, where Pearl could have died from poisoning herself and where the man she had to blame for it all had dared to set foot today.

Pearl sat between her and Tyler in the front seat of the truck, holding tight to Teddy as if she couldn’t stand to let him out of her sight. At least she wasn’t her usual chatterbox self. Earlier, she’d asked who the man with the big backpack was. When Cassie had told her he was a salesman, she’d only replied, “Did you have to wave your big knife to make him leave?”

“We’re going to meet Beth Brazzo here,” Tyler told them. “A couple weeks ago, she found a great ginseng site with the falls in the background when she was jogging, and hasn’t found a better one since. The ginseng leaves have turned yellow, but we can’t wait for next summer for this shoot, so we’ll just doctor up the photo to turn them green.”

“You can do things like that?” Cassie asked as she pulled into a grassy spot just off the bumpy track that served as a road here. No other vehicle was in sight, so maybe Beth Brazzo had jogged up here. It was only a couple of miles from town, and Tyler had told her the woman ran many miles each day to stay in shape.

“You’d be surprised at my photographic magic,” he said. He was happy and excited today, but that made her even more upset than she already was. Once the shoot for their ad was over, surely Tyler as well as Ms. Brazzo would be leaving Deep Down. Cassie knew she was coming to care for him. A mistake, of course, but she couldn’t help herself.
But it was really riling her right now that he’d mentioned doctoring up a photo. Could he have fixed up that picture with the beast in it, just to get everyone’s attention?

Tyler was explaining all the things he could do to make a photo reveal things that were not true. “I can insert clouds in a clear sky,” he boasted, “or take them out. I can make someone short look tall, or take a pair of open eyes from one photo and substitute them in the face of someone who had their eyes closed.”

“That’s really magic!” Pearl finally spoke.

“It’s called digital imagery, Pearl. Actually, amateurs can do that these days, too, but it’s my job, so I’ve been good at it for a long time. The sounds in the ad can be altered, too—as a matter of fact, I told Beth we’ll probably have to redub that background whine from Shrieking Peak. Okay, I’ll play guide today instead of you, Cassie,” he said, getting out his heavy gear, including a silver tripod with a large cupped disk on the end of it. She knew the tripod opened up quite tall, but he had it telescoped right now to one-fourth of its length.

With his free hand, he held hers and squeezed it, then, when she took Pearl’s, led them off across the meadow toward the trees with the falls roaring far beyond under the frowning brow of Shrieking Peak.

“Beth said the ginseng’s in a stand of beeches and maples just across from the falls,” he told them. “You have any idea what beeches look like?”

“So you do need me, after all,” Cassie told him. She was amazed at the teasing, flirty tone she’d used. She’d felt so low lately, but Tyler’s mere presence perked her up a bit. Is that what love was, not the kind that tore you up but lifted you up?

“Right this way, over here,” she said, pointing and tugging him in that direction. “The maples will soon be flaming-red, but the beeches will go gold. Those are beeches over there, see?”

Still holding hands, they looked into each other’s eyes. “I’ll have to come back to see them when they turn gold. I will come back, to visit my cousin in Highboro, but more importantly, to visit you and Pearl—and Teddy.”

“I hope so. I’d like that.”

“Deep Down grows on you,” he whispered. “I’m kind of glad Beth’s late today, because…” He leaned forward to kiss her.

Pearl, thank heavens, didn’t make a peep. Besides, it was only a peck on the cheek, but it sent her head spinning with possibilities. After he’d set up his equipment and Pearl was picking Queen Anne’s lace a few trees away, he kissed her harder on the mouth. She returned his kiss and embrace fervently, surprising herself with the hot rush of need that left her breathless. She’d had no man—wanted no man—trusted no man—this way for years.

When the kiss ended, she peeked at Pearl. She was getting too close to the steep bank facing the falls. “Pearl, come on back here now,” she called, reluctantly moving from Tyler’s embrace.

“Bring those flowers, Pearl,” Tyler added. “I’d like to take a few photos of you and your mother before Beth gets here.”

Pearl turned back to face them but didn’t budge. Her pale face had gone even whiter. Cassie’s insides lurched. What if she was going to be sick again?

“If she has lots of black hair,” the child said, pointing behind her, “I think she’s already here. But she’s sleeping.”

Both frowning, Cassie and Tyler looked at each other,
then rushed to where Pearl stood. On a flat stone ledge below, in her jogging sweats and shoes, stretched out with her head twisted at a sharp angle, lay Beth Brazzo.

Drew had to admit that Peter Sung’s hounds were amazing. A breed developed by the mountain men of the Plott family over a two-hundred-year period in North Carolina, the muscular, agile dogs were quick and clever, perhaps like their master.

“They can tree anything, including a bear,” Peter boasted. “They’re tenacious and fearless. They may drool and slobber a bit, but that’s their only weakness. In a home, they’re loyal, gentle and good with children, too. But you wanted to see the tracking collars?”