Old Wounds (10 page)

Delighted with the success of turning the questions back on her questioner, Elizabeth pressed on. “Maybe we should call the sheriff and let him know Calven’s missing. Since you don’t have a phone, I’ll be glad to—”

“How come you to know his name’s Calven?” Maitland snapped, voice and eyes cold and suspicious. “And what fer are you so quick about callin’ the law? This ain’t none of your business, you hear me?”

His angry eyes looked past her and she turned to follow his gaze. It swept the slope, following the trace of the trail that led through the pasture and up into the woods toward Mullmore. He studied the path intently for a few seconds then fixed Elizabeth with a withering stare. “I know who you are. You and your man are more of them goddamned Florida people. I remember back when you uns bought the place from ol’ lady Baker. And I’ll lay money you’re the nosy bitch what called the law on me t’other day.”

The vehemence of Maitland’s words was like a hurled weapon and Elizabeth pulled back from the truck. She opened her mouth to say something—just what, she had no idea—but Maitland continued, leaving no room for interruption and spitting venom with every syllable. He leaned out the window, his narrow, pale eyes holding her.

“You new people come to these mountains, buyin’ up our land and sendin’ the price of an acre up to where a pore man cain’t afford to farm no more. You let your dogs run loose in folkses fields and amongst their livestock and you put up yore yeller signs to keep folks from huntin’ the same woods they hunted with their daddies and them
their
daddies afore that. You think you know everything they is to know and you think you can tell us how we ought to do, but I’m here to tell you, lady, you don’t know shit.”

A fleck of spittle hit her cheek and Elizabeth fought back all the words that were tumbling over one another in an eager desire to justify her right to be here on this land—this land she had loved and tended for twenty-some years. But her inner good sense prevailed.
Walk away, Elizabeth. The guy is not rational. There will be nothing you can say that won’t just piss him off even more.

Wiping her cheek, she backed away from the truck, then deliberately crossed the road behind it in order to approach her house through the garden.
If I walk up the road, he might follow me, ranting all the way. I’ll cut through the garden and the front yard and go in the basement door.
Once in the house she could call the sheriff, if this man didn’t leave. And Sam’s gun was there.

8.

L
ONG
S
HOTS AND
F
ORLON
H
OPES

Saturday, October 8

Elizabeth climbed the
slope on the far side of the garden, keeping her pace deliberate and unhurried.
Like dealing with a mean dog—run and it’ll chase you; walk away slowly and, with any luck, it’ll leave you alone.
From the corner of her eye she could see that the truck had not moved and that Bib’s head was turned toward her. As she reached the front yard and started for the basement door, the truck’s motor growled to life. She stopped and waited, relieved to see the big vehicle back off the gravel, turn, and head down the road.

When it was out of sight she looked up the mountainside, to see Rosemary hurrying down the narrow cow trail toward the house. A smile spread itself across Elizabeth’s face. Back then she’d come barreling down the mountain just like that, pigtails flapping and arms waving when we rang the bell for lunch. A skinny little monkey of a girl. Our sweet Rosie. So happy with her life here. And so pleased to have found a friend next door. If only…

The memories stung. She grew up overnight, it seemed. All the lovely, carefree silliness and make-believe stopped as if it had never existed. I hope…I hope that digging back into all of it is the right thing….

“Who was that in the truck, Mum?” Rosemary’s cheeks were flushed and her glossy hair had escaped its ponytail to tumble about her face. “I thought I heard him yelling, so I came down.”

“Let’s go in and get some lunch, Rosie. I’ll tell you all about it.” Elizabeth reached out to pull a clump of cockleburs from the tail of her daughter’s old flannel shirt, suddenly feeling the need to touch this lovely creature that she had birthed, raised, loved, and protected till at last it was time to let her go out on her own. Surely, by most standards, Rosemary had a good life: a rewarding career, the respect of her peers.

But one thing had always nagged at Elizabeth, and that was Rosemary’s apparent avoidance of any emotional involvement. Unlike her sister, who gets involved at the drop of a hat, thought Elizabeth as they climbed the stone steps that led from the front yard to the house. And that worries me too. Are mothers ever completely happy with the way their offspring turn out? God knows, I’m luckier than most with my girls. But I just want them to be happy.

The phrase echoed in her mind. How many times had her own mother used that same excuse as she urged Elizabeth to do something entirely alien to her nature: dancing classes, joining a sorority, studying to be a secretary? At least I try to stay out of their lives and keep my worries to myself. And the girls and I get along far better than my mother and I ever did.

As she heated up some Spanish bean soup from the freezer, Elizabeth told Rosemary about Bib Maitland and his evident animosity toward newcomers.

“As long as he’s hanging around next door, I don’t think it’s a good idea to go over there. I know you came home hoping to do just that, but maybe there are some other things you could do.”

Rosemary’s brow wrinkled and she looked down at her bowl of soup. For a moment she was silent, her spoon prodding at the thick spicy mass of garbanzo beans and sausage. She seemed to be working out some complicated problem in her head, but then her face brightened and she smiled at her mother.

“No worries. I think that the best thing I can do this weekend is find out where the Mullins went and try to get in touch with them. Didn’t you say they still own Mullmore? Maybe we can find out from the tax office or something where they are now.”

Elizabeth considered. “It’s Saturday—the tax place will be closed. But I could give Sallie Kate a call. She’s probably at her office and she may know something about Mullmore. I’m pretty sure I remember hearing her say that she had some buyer it would be perfect for but the owners refused to sell.”

They finished their soup and left the bowls on the table while Elizabeth called her longtime friend. Sallie Kate was a successful realtor who delighted in matching the right people to the right places. She took pride in walking the lines of the properties she listed, no matter how steep or wooded, and probably knew as much, if not more, about Marshall County property as any native. Elizabeth punched in the number and was delighted when the phone was answered on the second ring.

“Country Manors. Sallie Kate speaking.”

“Hey, Sallie Kate. This is Elizabeth. I’m looking for some information. It’s a long story I won’t get into ’cause I know you’re busy, but it’s about Mullmore—you know, the big place next to us? Do you have any idea who owns it now?”

“Mullmore? Omigod—the realtor’s wet dream. Lord knows
I’d
love to list it. I approached your ex-neighbor—What’s-his-name Mullins—way back when they moved off, but they weren’t interested in selling. And at that time, the way the housing market was, I doubt they could have gotten what they put into the place. So I didn’t pursue it. But now, with all the deep pockets moving into the county, I’ve had several buyers that wouldn’t think twice about spending that kind of money.”

Sallie Kate chuckled and Elizabeth could hear her tapping at the keys of her computer. “Let me just take a look in my Long Shots and Forlorn Hopes file…I know I’ve got something about Mullmore in there. Honey, sometimes I stay awake at night just
fantasizing
about what I could do with the kind of commission I’d get from a sale like that…. Oh, yeah, here it is.”

Again, the throaty laugh gurgled in Elizabeth’s ear. “Lord, honey, how could I have forgotten? There was this couple came to me back in ’99, right when lots of folks were hedging their bets in case the Millennium ended Life As We Know It.” The capital letters were clear in Sallie Kate’s tone. “You remember all those poor souls who suddenly decided they had to find a place in the country to ride out whatever might happen.
Anyway,
there were these rich folks from Delaware and the wife had heard of Mullmore—you know it was written up in one of those fancy house magazines back when it was first built—and these people had found out somehow that it was sitting vacant. Well, you couldn’t get in to see the place, not legally, with those big old gates across the road, so these Delaware people hired someone to fly them over the property in a helicopter and, grown up as it was, they were hot to buy it. I told them it wasn’t listed, but the wife did everything but throw herself down right here on the rug in my office and have a hissy fit, she wanted that place so bad.

“So, I decided to try to get up with the Mullins and see if they might be tempted to sell—quite a few years had passed since they’d moved and that big house just sitting there empty and losing value every day. I went to the deeds office and come to find out Mullmore had been handed over to some kind of foundation called Redemption Walk.”

Sallie Kate paused as a voice in the background seemed to be asking her something and Elizabeth could hear her saying, “Lord, honey,
I
don’t know. Tell them it’s a good price and the owners are in no hurry to sell. Don’t let those people waste your time with a piddling little offer like that.”

Then she was back. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Well, I couldn’t find out a thing about this so-called foundation, but I did learn the taxes on the property were paid through an attorney in Asheville. I got up with him and told him what kind of offer the Delaware people were prepared to make and, honey, he broke my heart. I had already mentally spent that commission and he more or less told me to get lost: Mullmore was not for sale. Lord,
I
was the one about to pitch a hissy fit when he hung up. I swear, if I—”

“Sallie Kate,” Elizabeth, clinging desperately to her purpose, overrode her friend’s lamentations, “Sallie Kate, what was the attorney’s name?”

“Oh, he was one of the Mullins. Hang on while I scroll down here…. Yeah, his name was Jared Mullins, Jared R. Mullins.”

It was almost too easy, Rosemary thought, running her finger down the page of tiny print. No Jared Mullins, but two listings for a J. R. Mullins in the Asheville directory. One was followed by the designation “atty” and a downtown address; the second, evidently a home address, was a street that her mother recognized as being in the upscale Beaver Lake area.

“Okay, Rosie.” Elizabeth pushed the phone across the table. “You’ve got your first lead. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to catch Jared at home. He’ll remember you, don’t you think?”

Rosemary stared at the telephone as if it were some unfamiliar piece of technology, then slowly picked it up and studied the keypad.
Jared. She remembered
him—
a handsome, oddly mysterious presence in the Mullins household—more like an uncle than a brother to his sisters—his stepsister and half-sister. Maythorn and Krystalle had both danced attendance on him in their different ways, eager for his approval. But there had been an uncle there, too, at least some of the time…

She realized with a start that her mother was waiting for an answer. “I don’t know…. Jared didn’t pay much attention to me. He was…at least, he
seemed…
a lot older, almost a grown-up. He could drive and his parents let him drink beer and—”

“And you were his sister’s best friend and in and out of their place all the time.” Elizabeth stood and stacked their bowls to carry to the kitchen. “Of course he’ll remember you. You see what you can find out; I’m going to go do these dishes.”

Rosemary hesitated, bit her lip, then tapped in the number. Three, four, five rings, and she was about to click off—
No way I could explain this to a machine
—when suddenly there was a voice in her ear.

“Hello?”

“H-hello,” she stammered. “Is this Jared Mullins?”

“Yes…” An instantly guarded response, as from one wary of telemarketers. “This is Jared Mullins. And you are—?”

“Rosemary Goodweather. I’m Maythorn’s friend.” She heard a sharp intake of breath followed by a stifled sound, and hastened to clarify her words. “I mean, I
was
her friend, back before…My family lived
…still
lives just over the ridge from Mullmore. Maybe you don’t remember me—”

“Rosie? Rosie from the next hollow? I almost hung up on you. I thought it was another one of those sick prank calls.”

The voice at the other end that had been so coolly suspicious was suddenly warm, even welcoming. “Little Rosie…I can hardly believe it! You know, I haven’t thought about you or any of the good things about back then—well, in a long time. I guess it was easier just to forget it all.”

“I
know,
I’ve been the same way.” Rosemary found herself nodding in agreement. “But recently…That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Maybe you can help me…. you see, I feel like I might be able to find out what really happened to her.”

There was a silence and then Jared spoke. “Oh, Rosie…Rosie, Rosie, Rosie.” There was no mistaking the leaden ring of finality in his response.

“No, I’m serious…really. Jared, I know it sounds absurd—after all this time, and I’m sure your family has done its grieving and moved on. Please, believe me—the last thing I want to do is reopen old wounds needlessly, but…but if it would finally bring a resolution to the whole mystery—”

“Rosie, what makes you think that you can—”

“I know, what can
I
do that wasn’t done nineteen years ago by the sheriff’s people and the tracking dogs and the private investigators. It’s just a feeling, but it’s so strong that I can’t ignore it—this nagging sense that there’s something I
know
about all this but have forgotten. That’s why I was hoping to get in touch with all your family—somewhere, somehow, I’m hoping for the word or the…
whatever
that will jog my memory.”

When Jared didn’t comment, she hastened on. “I guess I sound like a lunatic. Believe it or not, I’m a fairly respectable academic—I teach English at Chapel Hill—and I am not now, nor have I ever been a psychic.”

There was a short, humorless bark of a laugh at the other end of the line. “Oh yeah, we had a few of those call back then—they’d get everyone all worked up, just when we’d begun to accept the reality, the
fact
that she was gone and we’d never see her again. Even now, there’s one odiously persistent woman who keeps insisting that she has news of Maythorn from the Other Side. She calls me every year just around Halloween. When you said you were Maythorn’s friend…well, I thought it was just another sicko.”