She ran one light finger across the mending tear in the wing.
“And you’re not at all curious about the body, Augusta?”
“No.” She basted the wound with the foul-smelling contents of a small dark bottle.
“Because you know where it is. Finger Bayou literally points to her grave, doesn’t it? Is that why you became the executrix? So you could stop the herbicide on the water along her property line? When the water hyacinth ran wild, it choked off the bayou and made it impassable by boat. And then you planted trees on the road to Trebec House to discourage visitors. Betty does have a way of whipping up the tourists’ curiosity.”
“It’s an interesting theory. I guess I’ve heard worse logic over the years.” She layered fresh gauze on the wound and set the bat back in the box.
“It’s your style, Augusta. You watched Cass Shelley grow up in that house – and then Kathy. And then when you saw what had been done to that woman, ordinary justice wasn’t good enough, was it? Not for an artist like yourself. What an original revenge.”
“And when did I have time to do all of this? Henry was the one who found the body.”
“He reported the murder on the following day. You had all night to dispose of her body.”
“I never heard that mob, and that’s the truth.”
He believed that much. “The mob never made any noise, but you can hear a dog howl in pain from quite a distance. You would have wondered about that howling. You would have seen the dog from this window and gone to help him. You’d do anything for a wounded animal.” The cat gave away her character. It was a natural enemy of her precious birds, yet she had saved the creature. And now she was working over a bat she had once characterized as owl food.
“You’re talking through your hat, Charles.”
“As Mallory said, all the evidence of the murder was lying around in plain sight. No one had attempted to hide the crime. But the sheriff told me the back stairs had been cleaned. I don’t believe Mallory knows about that. If she did, she would have put it together before I did. You took the body down those stairs, and then you erased your tracks – and the smaller tracks Kathy made when she ran from the house.”
“The sheriff was all over my land, poking and digging.” She gently prodded the bat with one finger until the animal was roused from his herbal sleep. “Tom even dragged Finger Bayou. It was a damn thorough job.”
“You put Cass’s body in a temporary hiding place. Later, you had all the time in the world to bury her in ground he’d already covered. She’s probably lying under something heavy enough to keep a corpse from rising – say; a pile of rocks. You were standing on a pile of rocks on the day you fed the alligator.”
“You have a flair for spinning stories, Charles.”
“I wonder if the sheriff could do anything with my guesswork. I think he might go to a lot of trouble to find out where Cass Shelley is.”
“If you start spreading that story of yours, you’ll cause Mallory more grief than you know.”
Oh, very good shot, Augusta. She knew the pressure points.
“That’s Cass Shelley’s grave at the tip of Finger Bayou, isn’t it?”
She was grinning gloriously, unintimidated, unafraid. Might she be laughine at him? And now it crossed his troubled mind that Riker was right, he’d been altered somehow – blinded. Here he was, virtually threatening Augusta, who had done him no wrong. Quite the opposite, she only had helped him, and then she had trusted him with the secret of the alligator.
Her smile was more subdued now, and he could see that she was already forgiving him.
“Charles, I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt Mallory. So I know you’ll keep all this wild speculation to yourself – and without ever knowing why. It’ll drive you crazy at first, but everybody needs a little mystery in their lives.” She tilted her head to one side as she studied his face. “I’d say you need it more than most.”
It was dark when Mallory left the house. The birds were louder than usual, when they should have been settling down for the night. And it was well past time for Augusta to put the horse in his stall. But there he was, racing back and forth in the paddock, rearing up on his hind legs.
The long black duster whipped around her boots as she walked down the oak lane. What was spooking the animals? Her eyes scanned everything in view, hunting for the thing out of place. She used the mini cell phone to call the sheriff’s office again. No answer. She was on the path leading into the cemetery when she heard the woman.
Mallory was through the skirt of trees, following the sound of crying. Her gun was drawn as she slowly cleared the ground, stopping at each small side street of tombs, watching for movement, then moving on.
She found Darlene Wooley kneeling near the south rim, leaning over Ira’s body and cradling his bloody head in her arms. Ira allowed it. He was past his fear of the human touch, but not yet dead.
“So you’re the witness,” said Ira, as Mallory bent over him, scanning the blood, and wondering how much real damage had been done to him.
Darlene looked up at her. “He was late for dinner. I came to get him for – ”
“So you’re the witness,” Ira said again.
Mallory pulled her palm computer and its electronic bundle from the deep pocket of her duster. She detached the mini cell phone from the battery pack and dialed the emergency number. When the dispatcher answered, she handed the phone to Darlene. “Just tell them you need an ambulance.”
Darlene nodded, and Mallory set to work on Ira’s wounds. He had all the signs of a deadly beating; most of the damage would be internal. She wiped away the blood from his mouth. No broken teeth, but there was a bad head wound, and one arm was broken. “Everything will be all right, Ira.” She walked to the oldest tree and gripped a dry branch, cracking it straight down and pulling it from the tree. Now she tore a cable from her battery pack and wound it around his arm, binding it to the branch to keep him from moving it and causing more damage.
Ira stared at her quietly, his eyes large and full of trust.
She smiled down at her old playmate, humming the music she remembered from their brief childhood. He began to sing as Mallory ripped off a section of his torn red shirt and his mother cried into the telephone.
After a few minutes, Darlene put her hand over the miniphone and spoke to Mallory. “They’re out on a call – all of them, ambulances, fire trucks. One of the chemical plants went up in a ball of fire and torched a cane field. The dispatcher is patching me into the sheriff’s car.”
“Don’t mention my name.” Mallory wound a bloody strip of Ira’s shirt around the bloody head wound. She couldn’t smell any smoke. The fire must be miles down the road.
Now Darlene broke the connection and closed her hand over the tiny phone. “The sheriff is pulling off the highway. He’ll be here in a few minutes.”
Mallory checked Ira’s pupils. He was holding his own. Darlene was not doing so well by half.
In her own strange way of offering comfort, Mallory said, “I know who did this. I’ll kill him for you, okay?”
Darlene was shaking her head in confusion. “No, Kathy.” She was talking in the mother tone now. “Cass wouldn’t want that, and neither would I. It has to end, don’t you see?” Her hand wound around Mallory’s arm. “The damage can’t just go on and on. All these years, all this damage.”
Mallory gently pried loose Darlene’s restraining fingers and stood up. As she was moving through the cemetery with slow deliberation, Darlene called out after her, “Kathy, don’t kill anybody.”
Mallory recognized the same worried intonation her own mother had once used to caution her not to touch a dead bird she had found in the yard. As she walked, she checked the chambers of her revolver, and ceased to hear Darlene.