At the station she filed a complaint for each offense: the highway assault, the breakin at Anne?s, Falon?s attack on her behind the drugstore, and the breakin at her house in Rome when Sergeant Leonard had refused to make a written report.
Detective Palmer, a thin, dark-haired officer of Cherokee background, asked that Caroline bring in her car.?Will you call her? I want to take paint samples. With luck, I can lift chips from it, left by Falon?s car. And if we pick up his car, we should find scrapes there from Caroline?s vehicle. One more piece of evidence,? Palmer said. ?Every small thing counts.?
He stood looking down at her.?The FBI will want to talk with you, as part of the federal investigation on Falon?s land scam. The Atlanta bureau will call you at your aunt?s if you?ll give me the number.?
Becky wrote down both numbers, Anne?s and her private one. She saw no animosity in Palmer, she didn?t think he?d been among the many officers who?d turned against Morgan. She found it comforting that the FBI wanted to question her about Falon; that made her feel more in control. As she and Sammie headed for Atlanta she drovethe narrow, rainy highway filled only with positive thoughts, with new hope. She wasn?t in the habit of saying prayers to ask for special favors; such begging was, in her mind, self-serving. Her prayers were more often of thanks, for the many blessings they did have. But last night and now, this morning, she prayed hard that Falon would be found and sent to L.A., that a California judge or jury would convict him for the land scam, that he would be locked up for the maximum time. And that maybe, in prison, someone would kill him. If her prayers were a sin, so be it, that was what he deserved.
It rained all the way to Atlanta, harsh rain slanting across the road in gusts so sharp they rocked the car. They were home at Anne?s just before noon. Mariol had made hot vegetable soup and a plate of cornbread.
?I?m just going to grab a bite,? Becky said, ?and go on to work, it?s payroll time.?
Mariol nodded.?Go in the dining room first, take a look at what was in the attic.?
Becky found Anne at the dining table leafing carefully through the pages of a black leather album, a thin folder so ancient and ragged that the disintegrating covers had shed bits of rotting leather onto the white runner.
?Mariol found it,? Anne said. ?I?d forgotten about those few boxes we?d stored away. We cleaned out most of the relics a couple of years ago, left a few family papers, this album, and a small trunk of antique clothes. I forgot, but Mariol remembered.?
The faded pictures were all in sepia tones, some of men in coveralls standing by their teams of horses, or women in long dresses over laced-up boots, women with serious, unsmiling faces beneath hand-tucked sunbonnets. Becky touched the old pictures gently, thinking how it would be to live in that time when life was so hard. Raising and canning or curing all your food or going without, doing the laundry over a corrugated washboard, traveling on foot or in a horse-dawn wagon or by horseback, maybe sometimes by train. No telephone to call for the sheriff, if there even was one, only your own firearms and your courage to protect your children.
When Sammie came to stand beside them, Anne said,?This is our family,your family.?
Sammie stood looking as Anne turned the pages, then excitedly she pointed.?Wait. That?s the cowboy. That?s Lee.?
The boy was maybe fourteen. He did look like Lee, the same long bony face, same challenging look in his eyes, even at that young age. Sammie looked up at Becky, her dark eyes deep with pleasure.?I dream of him, Mama, we?re family. Lee?s part of our family.?
Gently Becky touched the picture. All along, was this what Sammie?s dreams had been about?
?Here?s another of the boy,? Anne said, turning the page. ?And that?s your great-aunt Mae.?
The woman in the picture was maybe thirty, but Becky could see the resemblance to Sammie.?Mae .†.†. Mae was Lee?s sister,? she said.
Anne turned back several pages.?Here .†.†. here?s Mae as a child.? She looked from the picture to Sammie, looked at Becky, but said nothing more. The child was about ten. Becky studied her for a long while, as did Sammie. They were looking at Sammie?s twin, except for Mae?s long, old-fashioned skirt and laced boots. Sammie reached out a hesitant hand, gently touching the faded likeness just as Becky had touched the picture of Lee. Mae?s mirror image of Sammie made Becky shiver. How could any child be so like her own little girl?
She left Anne and Sammie at last, numb with putting the pieces together, with accepting the reality of a family she had never known. Sammie was doing a better job of it, seemed to have accepted it alclass="underline" her great-uncle Lee, stepping out of a formless past; her great-aunt Mae, who had dreamed just as Sammie dreamed.
Returning to the kitchen, Becky ate her lunch quickly, then hurried downstairs to call Caroline, to tell her they?d arrived home safely, that they had seen no more of Falon. Upstairs again she pulled on her coat and was out the door into the rain ducking into her car. But, heading for work, she felt tired and worn out. She told herself she?d be better once she got into the books, began writing checks and adding up bills and charges. The neatness and logic of bookkeeping always eased her. She wished life could be as ordered, its problems as readily untangled and made right.
By five that afternoon she?d finished the payroll and billing for the five stores. Only in the car heading home did the tiredness hit her again, leave her longing for sleep. She found Sammie and Mariol in the kitchen, Mariol ironing, Sammie standing at the table folding and stacking towels. Mariol took one look at Becky and set down her iron. ?Go take a nap. Take a couple of aspirin and cover up, you?re white as these sheets. You don?t want to be sick.?
?I can?t afford to be sick.? She did as Mariol told her, headed obediently downstairs, took the aspirins, and collapsed on the bed, pulling the heavy quilt over her.
She didn?t mean to sleep long. She was deep under when the ringing phone woke her, cutting harshly through the pounding of the rain. Reaching for the phone, she hesitated, frightened suddenly. This was a private line, no one had this number but Caroline and Quaker Lowe. And the prison.
The bedside clock said six-thirty. She could smell supper cooking, the aroma of frying onions and browned beef. She picked up the phone. Lowe?s voice brought her wide awake. ?What?s wrong?? she said, sitting up, her heart pounding.
?Nothing?s wrong. I??
?The appeal .†.†.? Becky said. She didn?t want to hear this, she didn?t want to hear what was coming.
There was a long pause. Lowe said,?I have never found it so hard to give anyone bad news, as I find it now.?
?Denied,? she said woodenly. ?It was denied.?
?Insufficient new evidence. Of course I?ll keep trying. Now, with the federal warrant, and the complaints you filed, we?ll have a better chance. Neither is direct evidence of the robbery and murder, but they are evidence of Falon?s destructive intent toward your family. I?m going up to Rome inthe morning to dig some more, do some more interviewing.?
?You?ve talked to everyone. What good??
?It?s possible, now that Falon is wanted by the feds, that Natalie Hooper will be less inclined to lie for him.?
Becky didn?t think Natalie would ever testify against Falon. The appeal had been denied, they were beaten, everything was over.
?We?re not giving up,? Lowe said.
Mutely she shook her head. Quaker was grasping at straws, they would never get an appeal, his continued effort would only lead Morgan on uselessly. And the added cost would be more than she could ever pay.
?I mean to charge only half the hourly rates,? Lowe said, ?for whatever time it takes to file again. Now, if Falon is picked up, I think Natalie will talk rather than getting crosswise with the bureau. I wish we could find the money or the gun,? he said dryly. ?I?ll pick up copies of the complaints when I get to Rome. I don?t mean to quit on this, Becky.?