Forests of the Night (11 page)

“I'm talking self-protection. If I get into this and it leads to another encounter with the guy, I want to know which way he jumps when he's shot at, whether he's right- or left-handed. Everything you got.”

She held up the black device.

“You wouldn't send one of your own guys undercover without a briefing, right? He's got to know the names, the evidence, what to look for, what to discount. You know I'm right.”

“Problem is, you're not one of our guys.”

“Well, then take me home—this date is over.”

“Not even a kiss at the door.”

“The files, Frank. I'll take your gizmo home with me tonight, okay, but tomorrow my in-basket better be stuffed with Panther's files or I'll toss this sucker into the nearest canal.”

He started the car and put the shifter in drive and eased out of the lot.

“No can do,” he said. “That's a line I can't cross.”

“Have a couple of drinks,” said Charlotte. “Lube up your morals.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Speaking of morals.”

He circled the fountains on Granada and headed south.

“Just to get the ball rolling on this share-and-share-alike thing. Seems our Atlanta field office took down a man by the name of Charles Levi last night.”

“And this is relevant to what?”

“Mr. Levi apparently ran a Web site, kind of a switchboard that hooked up customers with suppliers.”

Charlotte was quiet. Frank had his own pace. Nothing she could say would change it.

“The dart Panther used to bring down this Martin Tribue, it was coated with something, I forget the name, comes from seashells, deadly, fast-acting. They're using it in pharmaceutical labs, tinkering with it for some
reason, cancer or something. Seems this Levi character was offering this god-awful shit for sale. Our Atlanta guys been monitoring his e-mail the last few months, snooping on his transactions. A lot of the shit he's selling is perfectly legal. Poison for hunters, if you can believe that. There's a whole blowgun culture out there. Militia types, the Nazi crowd. I mean, for chrissakes, this guy is doing a couple of thousand dollars a week in cobra venom alone.”

“Panther was on his mailing list.”

“Exactamundo.”

“And you've traced the e-mail?”

“Public library terminal in Bryson City, North Carolina.”

“Which is where you've been looking for Panther.”

“Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal to you, Monroe. But it's always nice to have a little confirmation you're turning over rocks in the right forest.”

“I want the files, Frank.”

“That's a no. Can't be done. Not even me, with my slipshod ways and my notorious don't-give-a-shit view of life, it's the big impossible.”

“Okay, then, call a number for me.”

She dug through her purse, found the card, then reached out to Frank's visor and tore off a sheet from his memo pad. She scribbled the number on the sheet and handed it to him.

“What's this, dial-a-fantasy?”

“A guy named Mears. He's up your chain of command. One of those Washington types that calls the shots.”

“You don't mean Charles Mears?”

“When you get him, tell him the situation you're in. And tell him this. I'll agree to join his gang of wackos, but I want the Panther files.”

“What gang of wackos?”

“Just call him, Frank. Just call the guy.”

“You did what?”

“You should've heard this kid, Parker. He was practically inciting a riot, mocking parental authority, telling these impressionable kids they should work on developing multiple personalities. Expose themselves to the brutalities of the world. That's where Gracey gets this stuff. I wanted to strangle the kid.”

They were in Parker's study. He was at his oak rolltop, looking up at her from his old swivel chair. It was just after seven, Parker home early for a change, still in his work clothes, tan slacks and a French blue shirt, his red tie undone. Outside in the drive a white rental car was parked.

“Why didn't you go to the principal, an administrator, someone in charge? Or you could've spoken directly to Underwood and confronted him.”

“I was too angry,” she said. “It wouldn't have worked anyway. They're not going to fire this guy because a parent doesn't like his teaching style. And the guy's not going to change on my say-so. He was bad, Parker. He's a sick, twisted, immature little shit and even if he's not the sole cause of how Gracey's been behaving, he's an accelerant. Gasoline on her personal bonfire.”

“You had no right, Charlotte.”

“I'm her mother. I have a perfect right.”

“What about consulting with her father? Or maybe sitting down with Gracey and me and the three of us talking it through? We don't do things unilaterally. At least we never have.”

“I made a command decision.”

“This isn't about Gracey, is it?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“It's not about Gracey and it's not about her having a bad teacher. This is about last night. You're angry about Lucy Panther, the story I told, and you're angry at Gracey for helping Panther escape, and this is how you're going to punish us both. Pulling your daughter out of a school she loves without even a word to me. Just a couple of weeks left in the academic year. It's just spite, pure and simple.”

She was dizzy with rage. About to spit back at him, when she caught herself. Because she knew some portion of what he said was true. She'd been angry at Underwood, sure, and justifiably, but that anger was compounded by the swarm of emotions buzzing in her gut, most of it brought on by Parker's confession last night. Just why a teenage fling should be so devastating, she wasn't sure. All night and all day she'd pushed the thoughts away, though she'd been feeling something happening inside her, some trapdoor springing open, and Charlotte falling through a place she'd always believed was solid and true, plummeting through cold, airless space without any sign of bottom.

She sat down on the gold couch across the room.

“Where is she now?” Parker cleared his throat, shifted in his chair, composing himself.

“At Diana's.”

“Why?”

“She was screaming. Hysterical. Diana stopped by in the middle of it.”

“So you shunted her off on Mother?”

“Yes, I did. Diana suggested it, but I agreed she could go over there and cool off. We can pick her up after dinner.”

Parker bowed his head and touched a hand to his temple. Prayerful, patient. But from her angle she could see the flash of anger at the edge of his
mouth. Another expression for Dr. Fedderman's list. A teeth-baring jaw-grinder. But as he raised his head and looked at her again, all that disappeared behind his patient face, his mouth finding a forgiving smile. Saint Parker.

Even though she hated to admit it, that stupid punk Underwood was right about one thing. Everyone was acting. Everyone was a bundle of conflicting feelings, and we were sorting through them constantly, editing, repressing, selecting the best face to show the world. Not necessarily the one that expressed our truest self. We were all simply getting by, coping with conditions. Most people were only passable performers who'd settled into a lifetime role, ignoring the constantly shifting needs and grievances and urges and fantasies that skated below the surface.

Parker was peering at her curiously. For all appearances he was a reasonable man who simply wanted to understand his wife, to come to some peaceful resolution. A harmless, unthreatening look.

“So it's Gables High, then, just a regular, mainstream public school? And you believe she'll be better off there? She'll fit in, find friends, inspiring teachers, all the things that matter to a teenage girl?”

“I went to a regular public high school.”

“Yes, you did.”

But there was nothing affirmative in his tone.

He let his words hang there for her to absorb.

He was maddening to argue with. Two steps ahead, laying his logic traps, blithe and sly in his delivery, but dealing stunning blows when you least expected. Yes, Charlotte had gone to public high school. And yes, only a month before she was to graduate she'd been jailed as an accomplice in the murder of a woman in a convenience store. All that echoed through his simple yes. And yes, if it had not been for Parker Monroe's legal expertise, where would Charlotte be today? Yes. Yes. Yes.

“We need to put this aside for the moment.”

“All right,” she said. “I'm for that.”

“You need to take a look at something.”

He held out a scrap of yellow paper. She rose and took it from him and sat back down. It was a Post-it note, the same size they kept by the phone in the kitchen. She looked but could make no sense of it. She held it upside
down, then the other way. Tried holding it up to the light and squinting through the paper but could make no sense of the hieroglyphics.

“It's Cherokee,” he said. “It was on the mirror in the guest bath.”

“And of course you didn't report it to anyone.”

He shook his head. No, he certainly hadn't.

“What does it say?”

“I spent the day trying to figure that out.”

“And?”

“I can tell you what it says. But I can't tell you exactly what it means.”

“One thing at a time. What does it say?”

He swallowed and looked away toward the darkened windows, then back at her.

“ ‘We have lifted up the red war club.' ”

She repeated it. Then repeated it again.

“Tell me the truth, Parker. What did he say to you out on the patio?”

“You mean while you were calling your buddies at the FBI?”

“Parker, don't do this. We're both dealing with this the best we can. Let's don't make it any worse with cheap shots, okay?”

“Like changing Gracey's school.”

“Okay, yes, you're right, I was angry. I'm still angry.”

“Because I never told you about some summer romance a lifetime ago.”

“Because you fell in love with some girl and you're still in love with her.”

“What! I never said anything like that.”

“You didn't mean to, but you did. The way you told the story last night. How your voice was. It's true, Parker. Whether you know it or not. It's true.”

“Jesus Christ. You hear something in my voice and that incriminates me? I betrayed you before I even met you?”

“Can we move on?” she said. “ ‘We have lifted up the red war club.' I think that's the priority of the moment.”

“All right, but we're going to get back to that, Charlotte. You can't just take a potshot like that and then run off like it didn't happen.”

“The red war club, Parker.”

He loosened his tie another notch, and reached behind him for a heavy volume. He closed his eyes for a moment as if wiping away the echo of her
words. Releasing a long breath, he held the book out to her.
Sacred Rites of the Cherokees
.

“I spent the day in the university library,” he said.

Charlotte came over and took the book and paged through it.

He'd tagged a half dozen pages with more Post-its.

“Panther left a message that he wanted you to decode. Why?”

“I don't know why, Charlotte. It has something to do with what he said while you were in the other room, something about being next.”

“Next? Next what?”

“Goddamn it, if I knew I'd tell you the whole thing right now. I'm not playing games. I'm telling you what I know. He said we or I was next. The way he phrased it, ‘you're next,' it could've been singular or plural. I'm not sure. He was vague, whether it was intentional or not, I don't know.”

“Like we're in some kind of danger?”

“I took it that way and I asked him that very question, and he said he'd done what he could to slow things down, that we had a few days probably before anything happened.”

“Jesus Christ, Parker. This goddamn killer comes into our house and tells you all this shit and afterward you just button up and go on your merry way to the fucking library?”

He touched a fingertip to his forehead again. Maybe it was a gesture he'd used a thousand times, and she was just noticing it. Maybe Fedderman was right, and his facial coding bullshit was making her see things she'd missed before. Either way, the gesture suddenly grated like hell. This man communing with his private gods, pleading for divine assistance in dealing with his wife.

“ ‘Slow things down?' What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know.”

“Anything else you forgot to mention?”

“He might've told me where he's hiding out.”

Charlotte groaned.

“Again, it's the way he put it,” Parker said. “The way it came into the conversation. He mentioned a specific spot at summer camp, a place a couple of us used to go, you know, a private hideout.”

“More sex?”

“Not sex. When I was a kid, I smoked dope there a few times. It was a good spot because it was the highest point around and you could look down all the trails leading to the place so no one could sneak up on you. None of the other boys knew about it, even the ones who'd been there a long time. I don't think Dad even knew it was there.”

“And Panther mentioned this place.”

“It came out of left field, a non sequitur. We were talking about the other thing, being next, and then he was reminiscing about this place. Like he wanted to insert it into the conversation, something for me to remember later. But he didn't want to be blatant about it.”

“And where is this place? What is it?”

Parker shook his head. He glanced suspiciously around the room.

“You think we're bugged?”

“It's entirely possible.”

“Well, if we are, they should be here in another minute or two and put both of us under arrest for withholding.”

“Lawyer-client,” he said. “They're out in the cold on that one.”

“Christ, Parker. You're going to play legal games with our lives?”

“Jacob's innocent.”

His look of certainty was so deeply rooted, it almost swayed her.

“That's absurd, Parker. The FBI has it all wrong? They made him one of their most sought-after fugitives by mistake?”

“It happens every day. People falsely accused.”

Charlotte reached out, stuck the Post-it to the edge of a side table.

“What about this red club thing?”

“Like I said, I spent the day in the library. I scanned a dozen books before I came across the phrase. It's part of a Cherokee chant. But I don't understand its connection to us. I mean, I have a general idea about the interpretation. But there are nuances I'm missing. I know people I can ask. People I can talk to if I can locate them. People versed in these things.”

“Or you can turn this over to the people it belongs to.”

“It belongs to me, Charlotte. You understand that. Let's say we
are
in some kind of danger, that it was a plural
you
, and all of us are at risk, you, me, Gracey, all of us. Is that what you want? For a bunch of Frank Sheffields to insure your safety?”

“You'll do a better job?”

“I'm not the expert Dad was, but I still remember a lot of the Cherokee lore from back then. I've got the resources, and I sure as hell have the motivation. I'd bet on me before Frank Sheffield. Damn right.”

“Okay, yeah, Frank's a cabana boy,” she said. “He's one margarita away from dancing on the table at any given moment.”

“So you agree?”

Charlotte drew a deep breath and blew it out.

“We have lifted up the red war club,” she said.

“It's a war chant,” Parker said. “It was repeated for four nights in a row by the warriors before they left for battle.”

“That's it?”

“It's a paragraph long, full of traditional Cherokee symbols, colors and images. Red and blue and black. ‘There under the earth the black war club and the black fog have come together for their covering.' That kind of thing. A sacred song to prepare the warriors for battle, protect them from their foes.”

Charlotte got up and walked to the liquor cabinet.

“Red or white? Or something stronger?”

“Whatever you're having,” he said.

“I'm going with strong.”