Old Wounds (14 page)

The little woman was in her kitchen, seated at the formica-topped table, a bowl of cornbread and buttermilk in front of her “Git you a chair, Lizzie Beth.” Her bright blue eyes twinkled. “And git you some of this cornbread and buttermilk.”

“Just a little, Miss Birdie.” Elizabeth poured herself a small glass of the thick, creamy liquid. Tiny flecks of yellow clung to the sides of the gallon jar. She cut a narrow wedge from the partial cake of cornbread and dipped it into the buttermilk. The gritty, slightly salty bread was perfectly complemented by the smooth, tart buttermilk. Elizabeth smiled.

“It’s delicious, Miss Birdie. Almost makes me wish I still kept a cow.”

“Now, hit
is
good, and that’s the truth. When Louvanda brung it by this mornin’, I told her I was going to make my supper of it. Git you some more, honey.”

After a few moments of quiet communion as they enjoyed the simple meal, Elizabeth broached the subject of Maythorn Mullins. Miss Birdie laid down her spoon and fixed Elizabeth with a steady gaze.

“And you say your Rosemary’s a-wantin’ to find out the truth of it?” Birdie’s wrinkled face held some unreadable expression—was it sorrow or anger? “Well, I believe hit’s about time
someone
does, don’t you? That was a terrible thing—terrible fer them folks what lost their little girl and might near as bad for them folks what got fingers pointed at ’em, saying they might of knowed something about it.”

The old woman’s voice quavered. “Lizzie Beth, honey, don’t you remember? Back then, they was folks thought my boy Cletus might have done away with that little girl. I believe they’s still some that think it.”

How could I have forgotten? I guess I was as bad as Rosemary—just wanting to blank out that whole year. But now that Miss Birdie reminded me—now I remember.

Maythorn’s disappearance had ignited the latent distrust that existed between some portions of the newcomer and local communities—what had been a gently smoldering perception of deep differences had burst into flame, threatening to divide the two groups forever.

In the weeks and months following the girl’s disappearance, families and groups had taken sides. Native-born residents tended to believe that some outsider had come in and kidnapped the child, hopeful of squeezing a big ransom from the wealthy family. “Just seems to me like that’s what it had to be,” Miss Birdie had said. “And then somethin’ bad happened—like with that pore little Lindbergh baby.”

Among the newcomers, however, a different mind-set emerged. A local man who had previously been warned against trespassing on the Mullins’ property had been taken into custody, questioned, and exonerated. Then, Patricia Mullins, desperate and distraught, had told anyone who would listen that “It had to be that half-wit who roams the woods all the time.” Evidently, Maythorn had mentioned encountering Cletus and, with visions cobbled together from
Deliverance
and some B horror movie, Patricia had accused Miss Birdie’s simpleminded son of murder.

Nothing had come of it—beyond a great deal of bad feeling. There had been no evidence whatsoever to link Cletus to Maythorn’s disappearance, but still there were those in the newcomer community who muttered to one another in undertones at the sight of Cletus roaming the woods with his shotgun. Indeed, several families who moved away gave the unsolved case as their reason for doing so. “That, and a sheriff who would let a half-wit wander around with a shotgun in the first place.”

Sam and Elizabeth had ignored these whispers, believing in Cletus’s innocence. And, after a few years, the entire event had been forgotten. Cletus continued to range the woods. And no more young girls vanished.

Remembering that unpleasant episode had done nothing to lift Elizabeth’s spirits. She trudged wearily up her steps.
First, I’ll try to call Phillip.
She ignored the three dogs, eager for their dinner and whining anxiously as she entered the house. Instead, she made straight for the telephone in the little office.

She felt a surge of delighted expectation as she saw the blinking light on the answering machine. Eagerly she touched the PLAY button to retrieve the message.

“This here is Bib Maitland, that pore ignorant redneck what you called the law on when I weren’t doin’ nothing but huntin’ on land what had belonged to my woman’s family, time out of mind. I just wanted you to know I done a little askin’ round about you and yore family.”

There was an ugly chuckle. The menacing voice continued.
“Well, what do you know? Come to find out your man done got hisself killed in a airplane wreck. Now, ain’t that too bad. There you are, ’thout no man to look after you. S’posin’ I was to pay you a little visit one of these nights—”

Without waiting to hear the rest, Elizabeth’s finger stabbed the ERASE button. Then she went to her bedroom and took Sam’s gun from its hiding place.

11.

W
AITING
G
AME

Sunday, October 9

Phillip yawned, checked
his watch again, and shifted restlessly behind the steering wheel. The flight must have been delayed. That, or there was trouble. He scanned the short-term parking lot but there was no sign of the man he had been so urgently summoned to meet.

Seems like he would have called—Dammit, did I leave my cell off?
Phillip yanked the phone from his belt, powered it on, and tapped the keys impatiently. The screen lit up and at once he saw that there were two messages from Elizabeth.
Well, Ms. Goodweather…got those biddies safely off to bed?
He stared at the screen, fighting the annoyance he felt at the memory of Elizabeth’s inexplicable retreat.
This game is beginning to get damn tedious…and goddam frustrating.

The sudden vibration of the instrument in his hand startled him and he barked a peremptory “Hawkins” as he keyed the CALL button.

“I’m here.” The voice from the past was low, but eerily familiar. “Are you in the vehicle and location he told me?”

“Yeah, I’m—”

“Thirty seconds.”

The call ended and Phillip peered into the halogen-lighted gloom to see a tall figure in dark trousers and a black windbreaker striding briskly toward his car. There was a quick triple tap at the window, an ID was pressed briefly against the glass, and Phillip unlocked the door.

The man was in his late fifties or early sixties, his weather-beaten face marked with broken veins and the deep wrinkles of an outdoorsman. Thinning hair was pulled back in a short graying ponytail and he wore steel-rimmed glasses. As he slid into the seat beside Phillip, his face split into a wide grin.

“So Del told you he got in touch with me? I guess you guys had figured I was out of things for good.”

“Gabby!” Phillip clapped his old shipmate on the shoulder. “Good to see you, buddy.” He studied the man beside him, looking for traces of the brash young gunner’s mate he had last seen being loaded onto a medevac chopper.
God, do
I
look that old? Of course, he was hit pretty bad and in and out of rehab centers for years. A user, too, Del said. But he’s clean now supposedly. And running a security business of some kind.

“Yeah, I was surprised when Del told me you were flying in and I had to drag my ass out here in the dead of night to talk to you. What’s up?”

“Things are starting to move and Del thought I should be here too.” Gabby grinned wickedly. “I’ve picked up some special skills since the old days and Del knows he can trust me to get the job done. First off, though, I need to bring you up to speed.”

Gabby glanced at his watch. “I’ll be renting a car and staying in Asheville. And this…” He pulled a very small cell phone from his pocket, “…this will be how we communicate from now on. There’s a real possibility that both your cell and your landline are no longer secure.”

“Whoa!” Hawkins held up a hand. “What happened? I talked to Del just a few days back and everything was routine.”

“Maybe so. But you must not have been watching the news. Landrum’s set to make his move. They’re shuffling the Cabinet around and he’s a shoo-in for Defense. With his Medal of Honor and that little show he can put on with his missing arm and legs, there won’t be many hard questions. And he has political ambitions that reach way past a cabinet position. This war we’re in isn’t likely to go away very soon, and come the next election, Landrum’s going to sound more and more like the man for the top job. He has all the money he needs and solid backing from the right wing. With all this at stake, Del figures that Landrum’s people will be desperate to find and destroy the deposition and photos that Red threatened him with. So we have to find those photos first…no matter what the consequences.”

As he drove back to Weaverville along near-deserted roads, Phillip Hawkins was mired deep in memories. Memories he struggled never to revisit in the waking hours—and had prayed to be free of in his dreams.

Early 1970 and the whole SEALORDS operation was winding down. There were just a few days to go before it was all handed over to the Vietnamese and emotions ran high.
We’d been in-country so long and most of us had known from the beginning that it was hopeless. But the situation was eating at Landrum. He’d always been moody, driven—but that last day…We should have done something after the thing with the girl on the bicycle.

Images assailed him. Patrol: The PCF—Patrol Craft, Fast, in the military’s inverted language, more commonly known as Swift Boat—chugging down the canal; the crew of six almost stupefied with the hypnotic thrum of the dual diesels and the blazing sun of the Mekong Delta. Sam had been playing with his new camera, a recent acquisition in the marathon poker game that went on back at base. He had been snapping shots, first of water buffalo near the river’s edge and then of his crewmates.

The Lieutenant had the tub,
Catch a few rays,
he had said, as he pulled off his shirt and leaned back beside the dual .50 caliber machine guns there high atop the little vessel’s pilothouse.

A bird-boned girl in black pajamas pedaling madly down a dirt path beside the canal, a baby in a sling on her back—
Her little brother or sister? She had to be too young to have a child of her own
—the baby’s dark head bobbing rhythmically with the motion.

And the sudden bark of the .50 caliber machine gun from the tub, the girl’s arms outflung as she and her burden parted company: she, cartwheeling in slow motion into the shallow water at the canal’s edge, while the swaddled infant fell to the path and the ancient bicycle wobbled crazily on for a few feet before teetering and crashing.

The PCF had continued on, the men who were topside looking up at the gun tub in paralyzed silence, watching as the dual guns swung round, coming to bear on the target that was rapidly falling behind them. Hawkins had been aware of the groan that had come from…Was it Sam? Or had he made that sound himself? And then, before anything could be said, before anyone could move, the stuttering thud of multiple rounds hit the swaddled bundle, which jumped and skittered off the path into the murky, blood-dyed water where the girl lay, facedown and still.

“Sometimes they have grenades.” Lieutenant Landrum had been matter-of-fact. “That’s two less gooks in the world. And before we’re out of here, I plan to take out some more.”

It was war, Phillip and Sam had reminded each other later. Girls that young and younger had lobbed grenades, aimed rifles….

Hawkins winced. The girl and the baby had been bad enough—but on that same night, as their Swift Boat made its way back to base…

It didn’t bear thinking of.
We should have disarmed him. He’d lost it, big-time. Me and Sam and Del…Would the others have gone along with us? I don’t know….

This time it was a tattered group of farmers, mostly old men and women with children at their sides. They were pulling a dilapidated handcart of some sort—
That was his excuse; he said it might have been weapons
—and Landrum had ordered the rating at the helm to slow the boat to an idle. There had been no Vietnamese liaison available when they set out on patrol so it was left to Sam, whose command of Vietnamese was generally adequate, to call to the group to stop and turn the cart over so that its contents could be viewed.

The boat rocked gently in the muddy water as Sam tried to make himself heard over the low rumble of the idling diesels and the sudden alarmed chatter of the villagers. The big, lanky redhead had repeated himself over and over, forcing the unfamiliar words across the little strip of water that lay between them and the frightened group of people.

They called back in high, incomprehensible syllables and the handcart remained upright, its contents hidden. Slowly the little crowd began to move away from the canal edge, toward a distant village.

A familiar metallic cranking caught Phillip’s ear as Sam continued to call out to the Vietnamese to stop. He had turned to see the Lieutenant at the mortar on the fantail, his face calm, as he calculated his shot. The sudden
puumph
of a round had been followed by the explosion of the handcart. At least half of the civilians were down. A second and a third round in swift succession accounted for the rest.

“Hit it!” Landrum had called out to the helmsman. “Let’s get back to base.” He had remained by the mortar, head turning from side to side, scanning both banks of the canal. Phillip remembered feeling that if he had looked into the Lieutenant’s eyes at that moment it would have been like staring into a void.

Sam had started toward Landrum, sputtering and incoherent with rage, but Landrum’s only reaction had been to raise his .45 automatic and level it on his raging subordinate.

“Back off, Red,” Phillip had whispered, hastily pulling his buddy away. “He’s over the edge…look at his eyes. Nothing we can do about those folks. Keep quiet and I’ll back you in reporting this later—hell, we all will.”

At their side Delfino Reyes, the quartermaster, who had just emerged from belowdeck, gave a mutter of assent. “Court-martial time, man,” he told Sam.

But before they reached the floating base in the bay, Nemesis, or something like it, had reached out with a savagely avenging hand. Their boat had come under heavy fire. Two of the six-man crew had been hit. Landrum, while trying to drag the wounded men to safety, was ripped apart by the hail of bullets.

He was still alive when they limped into Sea Float, the base at the mouth of the Delta. But the medics who took him off the Swift Boat shook their heads knowingly.

“He’s lost an arm; both his legs are toast; and he’s gut-shot too. You might as well say good-bye now. Your buddy’s bought the farm.”

And that was the last we saw of Lt. J. G. Laurence Landrum. We figured he’d be dead in a few hours, and besides, we were licking our own wounds. The hell of it was, he’d saved Gabby and Vermin at the risk of his own life—how do you explain someone like that?

Hawkins, Sam, and Delfino had talked it over.
What’s the point,
Del had argued.
What’s the point of reporting this shit when the one guy responsible for it is as good as dead? We gotta go back to the World, not him. And who’s gonna believe he did it all alone?

But it makes me sick.
Phillip could still hear the raw agony in Sam’s protest.
I thought we were here to help these people. That little girl, that baby…she was trying to get away from us, for Christ’s sake. I even got some photos…if I didn’t screw up and they show what I think they show, there’d be an airtight case….

I hear they’re calling returning vets “baby killers,”
Del insisted.
Girls spittin’ on ’em and shit like that. Not me, man. I say we forget about it. They can give him all the posthumous medals they want to. I’m not saying a word.