Old Wounds (5 page)

She told him about Ben’s decision to go to Florida for some time off, adding that she and Julio and Homero were up to taking care of the farm. “Remember, for several years I did it all by myself. We’ll be fine, really.”

“Yeah, but if I remember right, you said your business has more than doubled since then.”

“Trust me, Phillip. We’ll manage. What I called about…”

He turned down her invitation to family dinner that weekend, holding to his decision not to complicate her dealings with her daughters and her nephew. “But after that first dinner…I’d really like to meet your Rosemary. Sam always said that she took after you and Laurel took after him.”

Elizabeth considered. “Well…I guess that’s mostly true…especially in personality. But really, each of them is very much her own person. Rosemary does have dark hair like mine. Or like mine was, anyway.” The ever-increasing number of white hairs that silvered her long braid was always something of a surprise on the rare occasions she glimpsed herself in a well-lit mirror. The ancient, streaked mirror above the bathroom sink where she brushed her teeth was dim—and kind, like candlelight. “But she has Sam’s brown eyes.”

“Yeah, and Laurel has Sam’s red hair and your blue eyes. Man, genetics is a real crapshoot, isn’t it?”

They talked on, the pleasant, inconsequential chat of good friends reluctant to end their conversation. Phillip told her about his night class and some of the unlikely characters who were seeking a career in law enforcement. Elizabeth asked about his daughter, Janie, provoking a spate of fatherly complaint. “Well, I wasn’t going to mention this, but she’s up to her old tricks. Here she is, a senior, almost a senior, anyway—hell, she’s changed majors so many times, I can’t keep track—and now she’s taking classes at night to become a massage therapist. What is it about Asheville? Every other young person you meet wants to be a massage therapist. And none of them wants to leave the area. Like something I read the other day said, you can’t swing a cat in Asheville without hitting a massage therapist—”

“Phillip,” Elizabeth interrupted, compelled by some lingering doubt. “This afternoon I went to Mullmore.”

T
HE
S
ISTERS

June 1984

I
CAN’T GO
too far off. I promised Mum I’d stay close enough to hear the big bell if she rang it.

Rosemary struggled after the brown, bramble-scratched legs of her best friend, moving swiftly up the old logging road. The long-abandoned trace was little more than a footpath now, switching back and forth through the woods above the Goodweathers’ unfinished house. Maythorn’s thin brown legs kept going, up and down, up and down, and her glossy black braids bounced against her shoulders with every step.

It’s not much farther. And it’s my most secret hiding place. No one in the whole world knows about it but me. At last she paused to allow Rosemary to catch up. I think Indians used to stay there, Maythorn confided, lowering her voice and looking around as if fearful of being overheard. There’s some kind of writing on the rock. I’ll show you. C’mon.

As she trudged up the slope after her friend, Rosemary glanced back down the hill. The bright metal roof that Pa and Uncle Wade had put on the new house was still visible through the trees. It wasn’t so very far; she would surely be able to hear if Mum rang the bell. But now Maythorn was disappearing behind some clumps of bushes. Just beyond the tangle of green were two huge rocks that leaned together like friends whispering secrets. Rosemary stared up at the towering giants, amazed to find such a magical place within eyesight and earshot of her own home.

Come on! Maythorn urged. We have to get down and crawl here. Behind the bushes, a ledge of rock stuck out at the base of the two massive boulders. Maythorn had already dropped to her hands and knees. We crawl under here for just a little bit and then there’s a cave big enough to stand up in.

Rosemary hesitated. A cave? Is it dark? We don’t have flashlights. She had been reading Tom Sawyer and now that she was actually faced with it, the idea of going into a cave was not appealing. Maythorn, we might get lost!

Oh, Rosie! Maythorn twisted to look back at her. It’s not a real cave—it’s just a little room under these big rocks. It’s partly open at the top and there’s plenty of light. Come on! Follow me! And with a sudden slithering movement, she was gone. Only her hiking boots were visible for an instant before they, too, disappeared under the big shelving rock. Scrabbling sounds could be heard and then Maythorn’s voice, nearby, but oddly muffled, called out, Come on! If you come right now, I’ll show you the Looker Stone.

With one last desperate look at the friendly twinkle of the sun through the trees, Rosemary dropped to her knees and followed.

It was a short dusty crawl through powdery dirt and old leaves, but though the light was dim, Rosemary had no trouble seeing the sunlight on the white sand that lay a few yards beyond. With one last frantic push, her head was out from under the rock ledge. She quickly pulled the rest of her body free and scrambled to her feet.

It was a little room, just like Maythorn had said. Big enough for three or four people to stand in and open to the sky in the middle, but at the sides where the big rocks were leaning, there would be some shelter from rain or snow.

Under there’s where the Indians slept, I reckon. And the writing’s back there too. Maythorn motioned with her head and the two of them crept closer to the wall of rock.

It’s like in Tom Sawyer! Rosemary crouched down to examine the markings more closely. I’ll bet someone made those marks with smoke from a candle, just like in Tom’s cave.

Maythorn crowded close, her fingers sketching the outlines of the dark shapes just visible on the smooth gray rock. That’s a snake there, she said, indicating a curving shape. And I bet that’s an arrowhead next to it.

Rosemary peered. I think it looks like an S. And a crooked L. See, that curvy thing across the top—that could be the top

piece of a heart…like a valentine heart.

That’s dumb, Maythorn scoffed. Indians don’t draw valentines. That top thing is a bird flying. I say it’s a hunting picture—probably what the Indian who drew that shot for supper.

Okay, said Rosie, moving back into the sunlit center of the little hidden room. I guess you’re right. She tilted her head back to admire the two boulders looming above her till their utmost peaks delicately kissed. Do these rocks have a name? Like Froghead has a name?

Maythorn scooted away from the wall and sat cross-legged in the center of the room. They’re the Two Sisters. They were twins and they lived together all their lives and when they got old they prayed to the Great Spirit not to let one die and leave the other one all alone. And the Great Spirit heard their prayer and turned them into stone so they’d be like this for always and always.

Rosemary stared openmouthed at her friend and then up at the great rocks. They’re cool, she said softly. I always wished I had a twin. Laurel’s such a baby.

Maythorn fixed her with a considering look. At last she said, Well, our birthdays are the same. That makes us kind of twins.

Yeah, but I wish we were real twins. I wish I was Cherokee like you.

Maythorn smiled and reached for her knapsack. We can be blood twins, if you aren’t chicken. Then you’ll have Cherokee blood in you.

There was a pocketknife beneath the sandwiches in the knapsack and after a tiny hesitation, Rosemary agreed to the ceremony. The knife was so sharp that she hardly felt the tiny cut on the tip of her little finger. Then Maythorn nicked her own finger and they pressed the open wounds together.

Are there words we should say? Rosie gazed into Maythorn’s dark eyes. Indian words?

I know what we can do, Maythorn said. We’ll use the Looker Stone.

They unhooked their fingers from each other. Rosemary pushed hers against the rough cloth of her jeans to make it stop bleeding but Maythorn ignored the spot of blood on her own finger and rooted in her knapsack again. At last she pulled out a flat, roundish something in a soft leather pouch.

This is the Looker Stone, she announced, taking from the pouch a dark flat rock, only a little larger than her hand. Roughly and irregularly circular, it had a dime-sized hole in its very center.

Granny Thorn gave it to me. It was hers when she was little but she says it doesn’t work for grown-ups. She told me the Little People made it. And if I look through it at someone, I’ll see them without the mask they wear and know what they really are. Granny Thorn says most everybody wears a mask
—

No, not a real mask. Maythorn made an impatient gesture as Rosemary started to speak. A mask like when you feel sad but you don’t let it show or you smile when you really want to hit someone—that kind of mask.

Maythorn raised the Looker Stone to her eye and turned to face Rosemary. Now that we’re blood twins, we don’t have to wear that kind of mask around each other. But we’ll do this like a reminder—a very solemn ritual.

Standing straight and still, Maythorn gazed at Rosemary through the hole in the dark stone. Slowly she brought up her free hand and stretched it toward her friend, palm to the earth. Adopting the solemn tones of a shaman, she intoned the words: Rosemary Goodweather, I see you.

4.

W
ATCHDOGS

Wednesday, October 5 and Thursday, October 6

Phillip frowned and
leaned back on his sofa. Elizabeth’s words had been urgent, even ominous, but they were immediately followed by a rich chuckle. “Good grief, I sound like the second Mrs. DeWinter: ‘Last night I dreamed I went to Manderly,’ or however it went.” He could imagine her tanned face crinkling into a grin, her eyes sparkling. “But it
was
like a dream—”

“Elizabeth, hold on a minute. You lost me there. The second Mrs. who? And where’s Manderly?”

He had finally grown accustomed to her way of speaking, the obscure quotes and allusions that seemed to bubble up sudden and unbidden from some inexhaustible spring. Her sources were many and eclectic—from Gilbert and Sullivan to Bob Dylan, Monty Python to Jane Austen, Shakespeare or the Bible to the Firesign Theatre and beyond. Phillip smiled to himself and waited.

“No, not Mrs. Who. That’s
A Wrinkle in Time;
I’m thinking about
Rebecca.
I sounded like a character in
Rebecca
just now…a book by Daphne du Maurier.” The throaty chuckle filled his ear again. “I’m sorry, Phillip. I can’t help it, the old English major thing, I mean. No, I was just trying to tell you that I hiked over the south ridge to Mullmore—the place in the next hollow where the little girl who disappeared used to live.”

Her voice grew serious as she described her exploration of the abandoned estate. It was obvious that the sight of the empty house and overgrown garden had affected her deeply. And there was an edge to her voice that hinted at things not said. “It was so unreal…so…suspended in time…at least till I found all the trash someone had left in the gazebo…and till I heard a four-wheeler coming.”

She tried to make a joke of her hasty retreat back to the ridge but he could sense an undercurrent of real terror “…I kept going like the booger man was after me. I don’t know why I was so spooked—it was probably only some hunters, trespassing just like I was. But I was freaked to the point that when I heard a sound like a cry, I immediately thought it might be Maythorn. Even when I saw the hawk, I kept thinking…”

Her voice wobbled unsteadily again, and he was reminded of a child recounting a bad dream, unable to shake the spell of the nightmare. He broke in. “Tell me something, Elizabeth. You said they never found any trace of that little girl?”

“No, none. At first they kept thinking that she’d run away, that she’d turn up. She had some family over in Cherokee, a grandmother and some aunts and uncles. But they didn’t know anything about it.”

“Cherokee? You mean the Indian reservation? But I thought…”

“Maythorn wasn’t Moon’s child. She was the result of a brief affair Patricia had before she married Moon. She married him not knowing—at least she
said
she didn’t know—she was already pregnant by someone else. The little girl was always called Maythorn Mullins. But she told us that her real last name was Blackfox or something like that. Her father was a Cherokee and extremely proud of it too. He was a physician and I think he became something of an activist in Native American causes…at least that’s the impression Patricia gave me, the one and only time she mentioned him. Evidently Blackfox, if that’s the name, insisted that Maythorn spend time with him and his mother over in Cherokee so that Maythorn would be aware of her heritage. But—”

“Maybe the father snatched her…that happens—”

“No, when we knew Maythorn, her father was already dead—some kind of accident, if I remember right. Most people, including the sheriff, decided she’d been kidnapped—since the Mullins were so wealthy, that seemed a likely motive. But there was never any contact…no demand for money. And as the months went on with no clue…it just got harder and harder to believe that she might still be alive. The assumption was that the kidnapping had gone wrong and the child had died.”

She paused, then went on. “You know, eventually, I think, horrible as it sounds, the family would have been relieved if her body had been found…just so they wouldn’t be trapped in that horrible limbo of not knowing.”

“Did you see much of the family during that time…after the disappearance? I wonder—”

“No.” Her reply was curt. “The two girls had been big friends but Sam and I really didn’t have much in common with the parents…with Moon and Patricia. They never socialized with us back-to-the-land types much. I think our big free-for-all potlucks were not exactly Patricia’s cup of tea—or Moon’s martini, for that matter.”

The harsh tones gave way at once. “Oh, Phillip, I sound like such a bitch. As you can tell, I didn’t like the parents much. But truly, when it happened the Mullins didn’t seem to want a lot of people clustering round and offering condolences—particularly at first, when we all kept thinking that Maythorn was going to come back.”

They had talked on and on, neither wanting to end the call. Elizabeth had told him more about the Mullins but always with a curious hesitancy.
There’s something else going on here, something she’s not ready to talk about,
he had thought as they had finally, reluctantly, said good night. His years as a police detective made him fairly astute in reading people.
And I’ve sure as hell made a close study of Elizabeth…as close as she’d let me, anyway. I know there’s something.

Hawkins stood, stretched, then picked up his briefcase, full of papers to be graded. He turned off the lights in the living room and headed down the narrow hall to the small room that he now called his study, by virtue of having replaced the sagging double bed and rickety night table there with a foldout sleeper sofa and a small desk. Clicking on the lamp, he set his briefcase on the desk.
Might as well get through these…

Three hours later he was finished. He padded down the hall, pulling off his shirt and T-shirt as he went and dropping them on top of the washer that lurked in the shuttered alcove just outside his bedroom door. The slacks and boxer shorts were next and finally the socks.
Now, that’s handy. Hell, if we’d had a setup like this, Sandy wouldn’t have had to bitch so much about the laundry.

In the bathroom, he shuddered as he always did at the flamingo pink of the tiles and fixtures, wondering as he had before if the color might have had something to do with the house’s comparatively low rent. He hadn’t
needed
three bedrooms and two baths, but the thought that there would be room for both kids, should they, through some miracle, decide to visit him at the same time, had been reassuring and had allowed him to feel like a good dad for once.

Nice little house but you got to wonder about the woman—it had to be a woman—who picked out this crap.

The house was furnished and the price was right. And he hadn’t expected to be here more than a year. So he had hidden away some of the more offensive items of décor: the teddy bears, the fussy pink and blue ruffled pillows, the framed prints depicting improbable cottages, lighthouses, and villages with light pouring from every window and flowers blooming profusely regardless of season. There was nothing he could do about the bed—a monstrosity of brass curlicues that seemed to have escaped from a Victorian bordello. He had replaced the deep rose velvet and satin coverlet with a no-nonsense navy blue bedspread—but the price of king-sized sheets had shocked him deeply and he continued to use the pink linens that had come with the house.

“It’s a wonder my balls don’t fall off,” he muttered as he slid into bed. Hastily he clicked off the bedside light, to avoid the sight of the lace-edged top sheet across his hairy chest.

I bet she’d laugh her head off. I got a real feeling the sheets on
her
bed aren’t all frilly. The ones in her guest room were just white—kind of a creamy white.

The thought crossed his mind—not for the first time—that maybe it was time to spring for some plainer sheets.
Old Sam’s wife…he always said she was a special lady. And here I come just to check up on her and then it hits me…kinda like it did Sam, I guess.

He rolled over, punching his pillow into a more com fortable shape. It was hard to articulate what it was about this woman that attracted him so—there were no words that really fit. Instead images flowed through his mind: homemade bread, warm and honest; a tall poplar tree, straight and green against the clear sky; the scent of rain falling on parched earth.

His thoughts wandered.
She was so…wounded there at first. Defensive and determined to be independent. I think she’d made her mind up not to trust anyone. But now…
He drifted into sleep, seeing a pair of deep blue eyes staring up at him, looking into his very soul.

The cell phone at his bedside beeped and, without turning on the light, Phillip reached for it.

“What?…Yeah, I have…. No, nothing on that front…What the hell time is it, anyway?…Oh, yeah, I know you boys work 24/7…. This is the country, man, we go to bed with the chickens…. Well, your sense of humor hasn’t improved…. The voice murmured on: instructions, queries, hypotheses. Phillip was wide-awake now and he broke in. “There
was
one thing, though. It’s probably nothing, but maybe I’d better get Blaine to check it out.”

He explained his concern to the voice on the other end and, after a few more minutes, ended the call. Immediately, he keyed in another number.

“Hawkins here. Sorry to call so late, but I was talking to my friend and there could be a problem.”

The cell phone beeped again as he was shaving the next morning. Hastily wiping away lather, he hurried to the bedside table. It was Blaine, who announced without preamble that he was on his way over with a bag of sausage biscuits, some good news…and some bad. He’d be there in ten minutes and he took his coffee black.

It was eight minutes and Blaine was at the door with a white paper bag in one hand. He wore jeans and a light windbreaker and it was his personal car rather than a cruiser parked in the driveway.

“Didn’t want to give your neighbors too much to talk about,” he drawled as he followed Phillip to the kitchen, where the coffeemaker was signaling, with a series of asthmatic gurgles, that the brew was ready.

They sat at the round table. Phillip chose two mugs from the house’s collection: one with big-eyed kittens on it for Blaine; and another, adorned with sunflowers, for himself. Blaine eyed his mug balefully, but accepted it and tossed two paper-wrapped biscuits in front of Phillip.

“These aren’t any fast-food sausage biscuits; these are from Sadie’s Place—best in three counties.”

The biscuits were tender and flaky, the sausage patty thick and spicy. Phillip smiled happily as he finished the first one and began to unwrap the second.

“You’re a real pal, Mac. This makes a nice change from cold cereal.” He bit into the second biscuit. “So, what’s the story? You send some boys out to take a look?”

Mackenzie Blaine, sheriff of Marshall County, swallowed his coffee before replying. His shrewd brown eyes surveyed the kitchen. “Nice place you got here, Hawk. I wouldn’t of figured you for a pink and baby blue type but—”

“Yeah, yeah, beneath this rough exterior…Come on, Mac, do we have a problem? You said good news and bad news.”

Blaine took a paper napkin from the stack in the center of the table and fastidiously wiped the greasy crumbs from his fingers. His folksy, down-home accent disappeared. “I’m reasonably sure it’s not what you were worried about. My deputies and I searched the premises and found evidence that two people have been camping out in the basement. We set a watch but no one has showed as of yet. And I talked to the Roberts—the neighbors just below the Mullins place. They confirm seeing a man on an ATV up that way a couple of times in the last week. And they came pretty close to giving us a positive ID.”

Phillip refilled their mugs from the glass carafe. “So, you don’t think it’s…”

The sheriff leaned back in his chair, “No, I’m pretty sure this is a local bad boy—no connection to the folks your ‘friend’ is so worried about.”

A frown creased Phillip’s brow as he brushed the crumbs on the table in front of him into a tidy line then bisected the line with one finger. “How worried should I be about this local fella? I told you her older daughter’s coming back, wants to—”