"Did she tell you? Is that how you found out?"
Josephine stopped beneath one of the windy, scaly-barked trees. Her eyes were beyond sad and beyond angry now, more like the eyes of a dead person. "No. Not the first way I know. Come home, there's things knocked over. I figure it's party night, maybe some Beauforte friend extra drunk and cuttin' loose, I straighten things up before Charmian gets in. But when I see Lila in the mornin', she's walkin' wrong an' her eyes are wrong! Her fire, see, her fire was different! Mos'ly it was out, but then it burn too hot. Then it out again. An' she scared – scared to talk to me, even look at me! An' later I'm doin' my job, I'm changin' her sheets an' I see the blood. After that I ask her an' she tell me."
Josephine was vibrating slightly, a shiver that shook every inch of her gaunt frame. The habitual control had vanished as the ancient pain and rage took over again, and now her voice was just a rasp, coming out under great pressure: "I's a Christian woman. I knowed to kill's a sin. But I knowed he had to be punished. Couldn't do anything right away, seemed to take forever, havin' to wait. Even then, didn't mean to kill him. Didn't go into the lib'ary thinkin' to kill him. But when the time come, Lord Jesus, I did it, I took that iron an' I hit him. He layin' there, movin' around like a snake with its back broke, an' that exactly what he was, a snake, an' Lord forgive, I took that poker an' hit him in his head. Hard as I could. Did it again! Didn't hardly know I's doin' it. An' after that, that snake didn't move no more. No he didn't. No he didn't. God Jesus, help me an' forgive me!"
Josephine had gotten breathless and unsteady, and now she sort of swooned as her eyes rolled up and the tall straight body toppled into the bushes. Cree rushed to her and held her, lifted her out of the tangle. They limped together to a fallen log and Cree helped her sit, folding her body in long rigid sections like a hinged thing.
A terrible sense of alarm shrilled in Cree's nerves, the awareness that something was very wrong.
"Josephine, I don't understand. Richard Beauforte died of poison. You poisoned his drink. Something in his amaretto."
Josephine looked up at her with those frighteningly dead eyes, eyes that had looked for answers and had found none. "Not Richard. Talkin' 'bout Bradford. Bradford the one chased Lila, raped her. Bradford the one I killed. Richard, he help me. Richard beat him till he down, mos'ly dead. I just finish it."
Cree felt suddenly dizzy herself, and she caught at a nearby branch to stabilize herself as she sat down on the ground. "No, Josephine, I saw the photos! Richard wore the boar mask! Brad, he was a pirate, he – "
A pair of military jets roared by overhead, deafening, making the foliage shiver and startling a flock of blackbirds from the bushes thirty feet away. The birds scattered like buckshot but then swarmed together again as the thunder diminished.
And Josephine explained: Yes, Richard had worn the boar head and the tattered swamp rat clothes for three or four years, and Bradford had worn the pirate getup, the patched and bearded face mask, the wig and low-slung three-cornered hat. But of course everybody knew who everybody was, so that year the two of them had worked out a prank to play on the other Epicurus partyers, even on Charmian and Ron and Lila. They switched costumes. Only Josephine, who had helped Richard get done up, knew about the joke. For the whole evening, they played not only their masked parts, but they played each other, a disguise within the disguise. They avoided talking, but when they did their voices were muffled by the masks and camouflaged by the outlandish accents they each put on. It was a big success, and later in the evening it took everybody by surprise when they unmasked. But Lila had gone home before then. And it had been Bradford, wearing the boar mask, who had slipped away after her, so drunk, so abandoned, so angry inside, that night.
There was no question that Josephine told the truth: She was implacable, beyond doubting. More, it made sense at last of the differences between the two ghosts, two ghosts after all, and the beating motion in the library.
It was a horrifying story, but as Cree thought it through, she began to realize it was in many ways the best possible discovery. This alone made coming down here worthwhile. The fact that she could now identify both ghosts and their issues was the least of it. Knowing the truth brought a huge gust of relief and hope: It wasn't Lila's beloved father who had raped her! Richard was, after all, the good man he seemed. Lila could recover memory of the night and cope with it, and, crucially, live on with a sure knowledge of her father's love. She could love him in return without the nagging ambivalence, subconsciously blaming him for the long-forgotten violation. She would learn that far from being her attacker himself, Richard in outrage had helped kill her real violator, her real betrayer. And if Cree could bring her to share his dying moment, to receive into her heart the arrow of love Richard lofted her way, she would be strengthened enormously.
Cree played through therapeutic scenarios, feeling hugely relieved, grateful for the truth.
But then a lingering problem occurred to her. Josephine had fallen silent as she let Cree sort through the ramifications, just watching her, clearly anticipating where it would take her.
"But… but Richard was poisoned!" Cree cried. "If you didn't kill him, who did? Charmian?"
Josephine looked at her with that implacable sympathy. "You poor baby. You poor girl. Now you got to grow into a ol' lady. Now you gon' know what's worse'n Lila got raped by her daddy."
"Nothing's worse!"
"Worse is, Lila killed her daddy! Lila burnt hot, she thought it was him had raped her, she stood up for herself, she put that poison in his drink. And she'd be right to! 'Cept Richard di'n't do it. He love her like I did! He the one beat Bradford near to death for it! But Lila didn't know. She killed her own daddy for somethin' he di'n't do. An' now you know why she got to forget."
40
The heat was still intensifying as they hobbled along the paths in the dappled tree shade. Cree found herself limping, too, all the injuries of the past weeks coming back to pain her. She felt almost too weak to carry her own weight, as old as Josephine, as stiff. Behind them they heard the rhythmic whunk! of Hiram's mattock, and to the west the faint rush of cars on the highway. Here and there in the little ragtag wilderness were partially cultivated areas, Josephine's extended garden of wild herbs.
Broken mirrors, Cree was thinking. Murdering your own father, even if you believed him guilty of the ultimate betrayal – yes, that would freight you with enough subconscious guilt and self-hatred for a lifetime.
For the life of her, she could not imagine a way to free Lila. In this case, the truth set no one free. She walked numb and stiff and speechless as Josephine filled in the story.
Bradford had always been wild and reckless. The kids loved him because he was charming and funny and let them do things their parents didn't and because Charmian and Richard both adored him. Brad was smart, affectionate, and engaging – he quickly understood people and their feelings and motivations. Richard and he were very close. Josephine thought it was because each provided the other with a counterbalance for the excesses of his nature. Where Richard was responsible, overcom-mitted, staid, dutiful, Brad was freewheeling, pleasure seeking, risk taking, free of constraints and obligations. Around Brad, Richard could have fun, let his guard down, feel young and free and easy; around Richard, Brad could feel more important, useful, legitimate, connected. They could talk about Charmian, they could talk about women in general, they could talk about Ron's development. Their fishing trips together were a chance for both to leave behind their habitual roles and connect in some primal male way, as equals. Richard sometimes helped Brad out in business matters. Brad occasionally helped smooth over arguments between Richard and Charmian, or served as mediator between Richard and his sometimes rebellious son, his spirited daughter. Over the years, they had forged a deep bond, more like brothers than brothers-in-law.