"I knew I didn't like Charlotte," Annie said decisively. "Being a lousy parent doesn't equate to committing murder," Max cautioned.
"I know," Annie said regretfully. "Besides, the woman's obviously scared to death."
When Max didn't immediately comment, Annie raised an eyebrow.
He looked at her with a gravity so foreign to his usual confident demeanor that she felt suddenly uneasy.
"Annie, the hell of it is, I think Charlotte's damned smart to be scared. I'm scared, too, about that roundup at Tarrant House tomorrow afternoon. It's almost twenty-two years to the day when murder occurred, and, you can bet on it, the murderer will be there." He jammed a hand through his thick, unruly blond hair. "I wish to God we knew where that gun was!"
2:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1970
Chapter 18.
Ross listened tensely to the news through the crackle of static on the car radio. The station faded in and out, but he heard enough. Campuses were closing across the country, in California, in Illinois. in Massachusetts. Witnesses were saying no one had fired at the National Guard. Witnesses were saying the students, walking to class, were gunned down for no reason. The Guard was claiming an attack. Students were marching. . . . The station faded out. Ross turned the dial and Hank Thompson's mournful voice filled the car. Ross turned off the radio. He was almost home.
He'd made the right decision. He squared his shoulders, gripped the wheel tighter.
He could see his father's face, proud and arrogant. Always the Judge's somber eyes lighted for him.
What would his father say?
Annie gripped the door as the Maserati bumped down the deep-rutted, overgrowth-choked, dusty gray road. Cones from the slash pines crunched beneath the tires. Giant ferns glistened with dew beneath spreading live oaks. Holly and sharp-edged yucca, saw palmetto, and running oak flourished. Annie, for an instant, envisioned the land as it appeared to long-ago travelers: wild, untamed, inimical, with an almost overpowering fecundity.
The road curved left.
Max jammed on the brake at a flurry of movement in the foliage. Annie hung on tight. A blue-gray hawk zoomed across the road, swooping to pounce on a pinkish copperhead stretched in a sunny spot on a rotting log.
It was the only time Annie had ever felt sorry for a snake.
She wondered how much she would have loved the Low
Country two hundred years ago. She wasn't altogether crazy
about this present-day, off-the-beaten-path forest. She loved
sassafras, sweet gum, and red bay trees, but nicely pruned and
cut back, thank you. It was exciting to glimpse white-tailed deer, but the sudden thrashing in the undergrowth and the sight of bristly black hair and an ugly snout with razor-sharp tusks made her long for the confines of a well-kept clay tennis court.
Annie hunched tensely in her seat. Any kind of horror could occur in the midst of these longleaf-pine flatwoods.
"Do you think it's much farther?" She tried to sound casual.
Max, as always, wasn't deceived. "Don't worry, honey. As long as you don't step on a diamondback, you'll be okay."
She did not consider his answer especially reassuring.
"Oh, hell," Max swore, and the Maserati jolted to a stop.
One of last winter's nor'easters had toppled a dead pine. Breaking as it fell, a portion of the trunk blocked the road. A huge limb had splintered the wooden bridge over the sluggish stream.
Max glanced at the mileage counter he had punched when they left the blacktop. "It's about a half-mile farther. Look, Annie, you can stay here and—"
She was already opening her door. "In for a penny," she announced stalwartly, wishing she had put on hiking boots and jeans and a long-sleeved cotton top instead of white flats, a pleated pink-rose cotton skirt, and a delicate white cotton blouse with a lacy embroidered collar. She had considered it a fetching outfit (and perfectly appropriate) this morning at the St. George Inn. It was little comfort that she would be as out of place slapping away resurrection ferns and skidding on pine hay as that briefly spotted bristly black-haired wild boar would be reclining on the chintz-covered chaise longue at the inn.
Max retrieved a flashlight from the car pocket. They stepped out of the car into insect hell. The air was alive with whirring patches of no-see-urns. Mosquitos and biting flies attacked. Wasps buzzed angrily.
Annie waved her arms and broke into a trot, then almost slid into water scummed with green duckweed when her shoe soles skimmed over the pine hay.
Max caught her in time. "Be careful, Annie. Watch where you step. There will be plenty of snakes out."
Annie repressed a shudder. She knew she should reverenc all God's creatures, but who could love a venomous pit vir
She was glad she didn't have a video of their progress. Their careful, considered footfalls (rattlesnakes always have the right-of-way) were in stark contrast to the continued wild movements of their arms and hands as they tried to deflect the scores of starved or insanely bored insects.
The horde of biting bugs pursued them as they hopped from one remnant of the bridge to another to cross the stream. The buzzing cloud whirled around them as they hurried through the now thinning stand of pines. They came out onto a huge expanse of grass, covered with the vivid shades of spring wildflowers, the brilliant yellow of Carolina jessamine, the maroon of purple trillium, the bright red of crossvine. They'd reached the savannah, and there before them was the Tarrant hunting lodge.
Weathered wooden steps—the third sagged alarmingly—led up to a shallow porch. Although the paint had long ago peeled away, the square box building, well built, was still in good repair. As Max unlocked the front door, Annie did note a broken pane in the window on her left. She wondered how Miss Dora had obtained the keys. From Whitney? Yes, more than likely. She couldn't picture Milam here. She vainly swatted another mosquito and hurried inside as Max opened the door.