Wells loomed in the doorway, an unlit cigar in his mouth. He gave Max an indifferent stare and made no apology for the delay, mumbling indistinctly, "Oh, yeah. You're here. I've got a few minutes." He turned away.
Max dropped the magazine on an end table and strolled into Wells's barracks-bare office, which contained a steel-gray desk, an army cot against one wall, a shabby leather chair behind the desk, and a hardwood straight chair facing it.
"Any word on Courtney Kimball?" Max asked.
Wells sat down heavily behind the desk. He dropped the cigar stub in the green-glass ashtray. Near it was a single brown manila file folder. Wells pointed at the chair facing thedesk. It sat directly beneath a glaring light that hung unshaded from the ceiling.
Max casually shoved the chair from beneath the light and dropped into it.
Wells's obsidian-dark eyes glinted; then he creaked back in his oversized leather chair. He absently touched an old scar that curved near his right cheekbone. "No word. You ready to tell us where Miss Kimball is?"
Max ignored that. Instead, he looked pointedly at his watch. "It's getting late, Chief. Yesterday at a few minutes after five, Courtney Kimball phoned me. Nobody's heard from her since. So far as I know, nobody's seen her since. I've always understood that if a missing person isn't found within the first twenty-four hours, the likelihood of turning up dead runs about ninety percent."
"I don't like your face, Darling. I don't like your mouth. And I don't like this setup." The chief's hard-edged face looked like a gunmetal sculpture. "We've dragged that damn river all day and into the night and all we've got are old tires and logs. It's costing the county a fortune. I don't think she's in there, Darling. Something stinks here, and I think it's you."
"Wrong again, Wells. When something dead's dug up, it smells rotten—and that's what's happening here. Let's go back twenty-two years, Wells. Let's go back to May ninth, 1970." Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a small spiral notebook. He flipped it open. "Oh, by the way, I thought you might be interested to know that I have a new client."
Wells waited, his unblinking black eyes never leaving Max's face.
"Miss Dora Brevard has employed me." It felt like slapping an ace on a king.
Wells folded his massive hands across his chest. He'd played a little poker himself. "Miss Dora doesn't know what she's doing."
Max met the chief's pit-viper gaze without a qualm. "Oh, yes, she does. She told me to tell you, she very specifically told me' to tell you that the truth had to come out."
Wells reached for his tin of chewing tobacco, pulled out a thumb-size plug, and stuffed it in his right cheek. "Twenty-two years ago." His voice sounded like stone grating against steel. "I'd been chief for six years." His jaw moved rhythmically, the scar stretching; his dark eyes were cold and appraising. "I grew up here in Chastain. My people have been here for two hundred years. I know the Tarrants. The Judge was a fine man."
A grating voice giving that accolade now; earlier an old lady's whispery voice.
"A hanging judge." There was no mistaking the approbation and respect. "Judge Tarrant expected men to do their duty, wouldn't accept excuses when they didn't."
A fine man.
A hanging judge.
Max scrutinized that heavy, slablike face. "What really happened to Judge Tarrant?"
A flicker of what might have been a smile touched Wells's somber mouth. "That was a damn long time ago, Darling," he drawled. He was very relaxed now, his big arms resting loosely on the armrests, his jaw moving the tobacco between phrases. "Only reason I recollect anything at all is because I thought a lot of Judge Tarrant. Since it was natural causes, there was no reason for my office to be involved. You see, in South Carolina when a doctor is present at the time of death and can certify the cause of death, no autopsy is required. That was the case with the Judge. Seems that when he was told about young Ross's accident"—was there just a hint of stress on "accident"?—"the Judge took bad real fast, and they called for his doctor—he only lived a couple of doors away—and he got there just before the Judge died. Damn sad situation. Since it was natural causes, I had no call to go to the house, and I had my hands full, dealing with young Ross's body. But you're all fired up to know everything about that day—a tragic day for a fine family—so I thought maybe it'd cool you down if you saw how the investigation into Ross's death was conducted. I went down to the dead files in the basement and got the folder on
Ross. You're welcome to take a look at it. There's an empty office across the hall. When you finish with this"—he lifted up the manila folder—"you can return it to the desk sergeant." He pushed the file across the desk and stood, his craggy face expressionless, his dark eyes amused.
It was the longest speech Max had ever heard from him.
The lying son of a bitch.
The evening breeze rattled the palmetto palms and the waxy magnolia leaves, but it wasn't strong enough to disperse the sweet smell of the magnolia. The huge tree, full of fist-size blossoms, crowded the end of Evangeline Copley's back porch.
It was fully dusk now, the shrubs indistinct against the darkening horizon.
Annie knew she was trespassing. But no one had answered her knock at Evangeline Copley's house—and what could it hurt if she just slipped toward the back and took a quick look around?
Although every twig underfoot—she was carefully walking to one side of the oyster shell path—cracked as loud as a circus cannon, Annie reached the back of the house without challenge.
No lights shone in the back of the house either. Annie began to breathe a little more easily, though her hands were damp with sweat.
The garden stretched before her, a jumbled mass of scented shadows. An ivied wall stretched between the Copley garden and the Tarrant grounds.
Evangeline Copley, Annie thought, is a liar.
Miss Copley certainly couldn't have seen into the Tarrant gardens from her own garden.
Stealthily, Annie crept up the back steps to the piazza. All right, that explained it—now the Tarrant grounds were visible. Annie strained to see through the thickening darkness. She looked toward the river. Toward the back of the garden
rose a marble obelisk, spotted with moonlight. The wind stirred the leaves of nearby trees, making the branches creak, sounding almost like far-distant cries.
Annie felt the skin of her skull tighten.
Suddenly, with no warning, Annie smelled freshly turned earth—the unmistakable odor of a new grave, deep and pungent. But it wouldn't be the smell of a grave, not really. It was just a trick of the wind, sweeping the scent from Miss Copley's garden. That's all it was.
She didn't believe in ghosts. She did not. She wouldn't run away. In fact, she would go down into the garden. She walked stiffly down the steps, heading for the gate in the wall that led to the Tarrant grounds.
Annie followed the path. Shrubs rustled. Palm leaves rattled. She approached the gate, treading cautiously. But, of course, there was no one to hear her. Still, she slipped up to the gate and peered through the bars. The shadows were so deep now and so dark that it was hard to separate trees from shrubs. Then, she held her breath for a long moment. There was a flash of white near the obelisk. Just that, a quick flash, and nothing more. Now it was dark, all dark.
But there had been something there.
Something.
She heard a lilting calclass="underline" "Amanda, are you there? Amanda?"
And another faint, high, pleading call. "Amanda? Amanda?"
Annie wanted to run, yet she had the terrified instinct that she would never be able to run fast enough. But she burst on down the path, stumbling over uneven flagstones, pushing away trailing vines. When she reached the path along the bluff, she saw the bobbing lights out on the river, and drew courage—there were people out there. They would hear if she shouted. Then, with a shiver, she realized that the lights marked the continuing search for the body of Courtney Kimball.