A Darker Justice (8 page)

“Don’t worry about it.” Mary shouldered her belongings. “The walk will do me good.”

“Stay in touch!” Safer called sternly. “You’ve got your cell phone . . .”

“Right.” Mary watched as Safer got back into the truck, then she started up the drive, wondering what Irene would say when she found out what Santa Claus had in store for her this year.

CHAPTER 10

The remnants of a light snow still dusted Irene Hannah’s farm. Though most of it had melted, some lay thick along the edge of the slick clay driveway, making the footing treacherous. Mary slipped and slid up the drive, alternately crunching through the icy snow or sliding along the slimy clay soil. With her backpack on her shoulder, she clambered between two rolling pastures of vibrant orange grass. Unlike most mountain farms, Irene’s land lay soft, her acres rolling out almost flat in a little cove tucked between two ridges.

Mary remembered the day she and her mother first visited Upsy Daisy. Irene had been riding in her front fields and had galloped up to the driveway to greet them.

“Hi, Mary!” she’d called, grinning down into the car. “You ever ride a horse before?”

“No,” Mary answered, embarrassed. She and her mother lived in the woods. She’d never even seen a real horse before.

Irene laughed. “Want to learn how?”

Mary glanced at her mother for permission, then nodded.

“Come on, then,” said Irene. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll teach you how to ride if you’ll teach me how to speak Cherokee.”

“Okay.” Mary got out of the car. Irene told her to stand on the hood and she’d pick her up. Mary climbed up on the fender and in an instant Irene had pulled her up on the back of the horse. “Are you okay?” Irene asked as Mary clung to her, terrified to be sitting on such a powerful animal so high off the ground.

“I think so.”

“Good. We’ll go slow this time. But pretty soon, I bet you’ll be beating me out to the mailbox.”

And so Mary had, over that and succeeding summers, learned to ride as Irene had learned
Kituwah.
Now she smiled as she saw two of the small, elegant Appalachian Single Foot horses nuzzling in the tall grass, looking for the tender buds of clover that lurked close to the ground. What fun she and Irene and her mother had that day. How she treasured the memory of that afternoon!

She trudged on. The driveway ended at a narrow suspension bridge that spanned a broad, shallow creek. Across the stream sat Irene’s bungalow, looking like an illustration on a calendar. Cheery and well kept, it had white clapboards that sparkled in the sun while brightly colored winter pansies poked their fierce little faces up from two long boxes that edged the porch. Smoke curled from the chimney, a big wreath of holly graced the front door, and a substantial brood of small chickens scratched in the grass.

It looked just as it had when she’d come as a kid to ride; just as it had that awful afternoon when she was eighteen. In all the world it was the one single physical place she allowed herself to rely upon. Whatever might befall her beyond these thirty acres, she knew she could always walk up this drive and over this bridge and return to this safe harbor.

Mary smiled as the chill fear in her stomach that had been there since Safer entered her life warmed. By all indications, Upsy Daisy Farm looked fine. Now she had to cross the bridge and find out if Irene Hannah was equally well.

“Okay,” she said aloud. “Here goes nothing.” Switching her backpack to her left shoulder, she grasped the thick wire railing of the bridge and took a deep breath. She didn’t mind heights, but this suspension bridge had always presented a challenge. Not only did it sway, but whenever she walked it, she started a syncopated jounce that made it increasingly hard to navigate. Unless she waded the creek, though, there was no other way to get to Irene’s house. Stepping as gently as she could, Mary put one foot forward and started across. The rushing water tumbled over the creek rocks below, and chilly, coppery-smelling spray dampened the hem of her jeans. She had gotten just three steps along when the bridge began its dance. Last time she’d been here she’d figured out to step forward only on the rising motion, but after eighteen months, she was out of practice. As she walked along, the bucking grew worse, and soon she had to clutch the rail and bend her knees to keep from falling. She tried going faster, then slower, but nothing helped. The bridge rumbled on, sounding like fifty men stomping across it all at once.

The guineas, alarmed by any commotion, flapped their stubby wings and started to squawk. Holding tightly to the railing, Mary had to laugh. Between the shrieking chickens and the bouncing bridge, Irene might be better guarded than Agent Safer could have dreamed.

Finally she reached the other side of the creek, and the tumult ended. She paused, fully expecting Irene to burst out onto the porch to see who was making such a racket, but nobody beyond the guineas seemed to take note of her arrival. Walking up on the porch, she knocked once, then pressed her face to the window and looked inside. Irene’s living room looked just as always. A gleaming grand piano commanded most of it, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookcases crammed to overflowing. The portrait of Phoebe, Irene’s long-dead daughter, still hung over the fireplace, and in one corner stood a Christmas tree, covered with tiny, dazzling lights. Mary smiled. She loved this farmhouse better than her grandmother’s mansion, better even than her mother’s old cabin on Otter Creek. Every time she came here, she felt as if she’d come home.

She knocked again on the door, but still no one answered. She had just lifted her hand to knock a third time when a loud
hoonnkk
came from behind her.

She turned. Not a foot away from her stood a huge white goose.

“Hoonnkk!”
The bird eyed Mary with a bright, malicious gaze.
“Hoonnkk!”

“Hi, there, fella.” Mary gave a nervous grin. Except for its bright orange beak and steel-blue eyes, the bird looked as if it had been carved from snow. It kept its neck stuck out and its beak parted, revealing the tiny, ratchet-like teeth. Though she had no memory of Irene ever owning anything like a goose, this creature acted as if it belonged here.

“Do you know where Irene is?” Mary adopted her grandmother Bennefield’s habit of talking to who- or whatever was available. “Is she out feeding the horses?”

Though the goose kept its beady blue gaze on her, it did not move to attack. Mary decided to leave her pack on the porch and tiptoe around to the back of the house. The goose sentry notwithstanding, a silence had suddenly fallen on Upsy Daisy. Mary shivered. Surely she hadn’t gotten here too late.

With the goose waddling behind her, she circled the house, hoping to see some kind of activity. A new brick patio spread out from the rear of the house; more winter pansies bloomed in flower boxes along one end. Just beneath the back door, a big German shepherd lay dozing in the sun. The dog leaped to its feet, lips curling in a growl as Mary approached, but when it caught sight of the goose, it hunkered back down and peered up meekly with worried brown eyes.

“Hi, boy,” Mary said, again taken aback. When she’d been here two summers ago, Irene had nothing but her horses, the guineas, and a tiny, nearly toothless Chihuahua named Chico that someone had dumped outside her office in Richmond. Now she had an attack goose and a German shepherd who had a full set of fangs and was ten times the size of Chico. Again it occurred to Mary that Irene might have no need of the FBI.

Moving cautiously toward the dog, she crossed the patio and peered through the glass-paned door. She could see one large room—a kitchen at one end, the other end a den dominated by a fieldstone hearth, where a small, banked fire flickered. Irene had lit a fire, Mary thought. But where had she gone? Once more she lifted her hand and was just about to knock when she became aware of motion in the room. On the floor, in front of the fireplace, two blanket-clad figures were moving close together, in tandem. The figure on top had short, steely gray hair, and was thrusting back and forth over a tangled mass of longer hair the color of a cloud. Mary’s heart started to hammer as she peered hard through the thick glass, terrified she’d stumbled upon the very attack the FBI feared. Then she realized what she was seeing.

Mortified, she pivoted and turned her back instantly to the door. Judge Irene Hannah, one of the most prominent jurists in the nation, was boffing someone in front of her fireplace. No wonder the place had been quiet! She smothered the laugh that bubbled up as she wondered what she should do next. She couldn’t knock on the door now and pretend she hadn’t seen anything; neither could she just casually sit there with the dog and the goose and wait for the couple inside to finish. Quickly, with both animals trotting behind her, she tiptoed off the patio and back to the porch. She would pretend to have seen nothing and just start all over again. This time she would bang on the front door as hard as she could. Maybe the dog would bark. Maybe the goose would honk louder. Surely between them and the guineas, she could rouse someone’s attention.

She sat down on the front steps. The dog and goose watched her quizzically, as if intrigued to see what this strange human would do next. She waited there a few moments, giving the embarrassment time to drain from her face, then she got up and knocked on the door again. This time she pounded hard, like cops on a drug bust. A cacophony erupted in the front yard. The dog barked, the guineas shrieked, and the goose made a noise that sounded like a broken saxophone. She waited, without peeking in the windows, a full minute, then pounded again. Suddenly the lock turned, the knob twisted, and the door opened with a jerk. A broad-shouldered man with tousled gray hair stood there bare-chested, red suspenders holding up a pair of canvas work pants.

“Aye?” he demanded gruffly, his blue eyes blazing.

Mary met his withering gaze evenly. “I’d like to see Judge Hannah, please.”

“Is it business you’ve got with her on Christmas Eve?” He scowled. His speech sounded musical and strange.

“My name is Mary Crow. I’m an old friend of hers.”

The man peered at her, his expression softening only slightly. “Hang on, then.”

He closed the door, but did not relock it. Mary heard his footsteps echoing through the house, then in a moment, other, swifter footsteps approached.

“Mary?” This time Irene appeared, fully dressed in a white blouse and faded jeans. Her silver hair floated like an aura around her head, and she looked radiant, with high color on both cheeks, her brown eyes sparkling like sherry.

“I can’t believe this!” she cried as she swung open the door, her still-rosy lips breaking into a smile. “You are the last person in the world I expected to see!”

“No kidding.” Mary chuckled as she stepped into Irene’s warm embrace. The women hugged for a long moment while the goose flapped around them, honking like something gone mad. Finally Irene stepped back and studied her.

“I figured you’d bug out of Atlanta for the holidays. I was picturing you sunning on some beach in the Caribbean.”

“Surprise!” said Mary. “This year I decided to drop in on you.”

“But how did you get here?” Irene’s shrewd gaze darted to the backpack at Mary’s feet, then to the goose, who stood eyeing them both. “How did you get past Lucy?”

“It wasn’t easy,” admitted Mary, laughing at the creature, who was now rubbing her feathered head up and down Irene’s leg.

Irene held the door open wide. “This is wonderful!” She pointed to the back of the house, toward the kitchen. “You’re just in time for Christmas dinner!”

“Thanks.” With a final triumphant glance at Lucy, Mary picked up her pack and walked into Irene Hannah’s home.

CHAPTER 11

“Don’t get your hopes up, Cabe. It ain’t gonna happen!”

Tommy Cabe glanced over at Willett, who stood in line next to him. Though Willett was speaking through the badly split lip that Tallent had gifted him with, his words were clear. He still did not believe that Sergeant Wurth would award Cabe a phone call for a week of no demerits.

“I’m still gonna ask,” whispered Cabe.

“You’d better watch out, Tommy-boy,” Willett warned. “He’s been in a piss-poor mood ever since he got back from wherever he went!”

Tommy Cabe held his breath as Sergeant Wurth made his way down the inspection line. The boys stood lined up in front of the castle, the Troopers toasty warm in leather flight jackets while the Grunts shivered in whatever clothes FaithAmerica had donated. For half an hour Wurth delivered some Christmas harangue about how richly blessed they were to have a roof over their heads and food on their table. Now, with his clipboard out in front of him, he worked his way down the line, reading each boy’s report.

They always held this formation on Sunday. Everyone called it “Judgment Day” because various forms of “corrections” were doled out to the boys, depending on the number and nature of demerits they’d collected during the week. The Troopers always got off light. The Grunts soon learned that their Sundays were expendable: an untucked shirttail might condemn a boy to spend a sunny afternoon in the dark library, copying Bible verses; an unmade bed could send him high up in the hills to chop kudzu. Insubordination garnered the worst correction. For that, Wurth sent them to the basement of the old castle for “Attitude Realignment.” In six months, Tommy had chopped a mountain of kudzu and copied Ecclesiastes three times over, but his attitude had never once had to be realigned. He’d heard from Willett what went on down in the basement.

Today, though, was different. For the first time since he’d come here, Tommy Cabe was about to stand before Sergeant Wurth demerit-free. He gave his shoes a final swipe against his pants legs as Wurth drew near. If David Forrester had told him the truth, Tommy would soon be talking to his grandfather. Maybe together they could figure out a way to get him out of here. Maybe they could even figure out a way to get Willett out, too.

“Mr. Cabe!”

Tommy jumped as Wurth towered in front of him. Despite all his efforts to “stand like a man,” his knees began to quiver.

“Sir?”

“This says you’ve not had one demerit all week.” From over his clipboard, Wurth eyed Tommy suspiciously. “How can that be, Mr. Cabe?”

“I j-j-just tried real hard, sir.” Someone down the line snickered. Only Willett never laughed when Tommy talked.

Wurth made a mark beside his name. “Well, Mr. Cabe. That’s good news. Maybe you should try-try-try real hard more often.”

Tommy nodded, his cheeks on fire.

“Congratulations, son,” Wurth told him. “You’re finally beginning to catch on.”

With a gulp, Tommy waited for Wurth to award him his phone call, but instead the sergeant moved on down the line, questioning Willett about his split lip. Why hadn’t Wurth said anything? Surely he hadn’t forgotten.

“Uh, sir?” Tommy asked, sweat beginning to trickle down his armpits, despite the freezing temperature.

Wurth glared at him as the hiss of twenty-six breaths being simultaneously held rose from the line. No one had ever called Sergeant Wurth back to stand in front of them a second time. “Mr. Cabe?”

Tommy swallowed hard. “C-c-can I make my phone call now?”

“Your phone call?” Wurth frowned.

Out of the corner of his eye Tommy saw Tallent and Grice growing red-faced as they struggled to suppress their laughter.

“What phone call would that be, Cabe?”

He realized then that it had been a lie. David Forrester had been no better than the others, setting him up for the unlikely day when he stood here, demerit-free. But there was nothing he could do now. He could not call back his request for a phone call; the whole camp was waiting to hear what he was going to say. He heard Willett groan beside him.

“I thought that if you had a perfect week on Judgment Day you got to m-make a phone call, sir.”

Wurth took a step back; his bulging eyes narrowed. “Just who is it that you want to call, Mr. Cabe?”

“My grandfather, sir,” explained Tommy over the tittering line. “He lives in Kentucky. He doesn’t know where I am.”

“Is this your mother’s father, Mr. Cabe?”

“Yessir.” Tommy’s voice cracked.

“Is this the father of the woman who’s currently in jail for robbery and prostitution? The woman who spends every dime she makes on whiskey? The woman who cared so little about you that she dumped you at a skating rink so she could flee prosecution for passing bad checks?”

His cheeks blazing as more giggles broke from the line, Tommy shook his head. “It wasn’t like that, sir. She didn’t—”

“Yes, she did, Cabe. I’ve seen your mother’s criminal record. This grandfather of yours raised a whore and a thief.”

“He did not!” Tommy cried. “She’s not like—”

Suddenly Wurth stepped forward, and pushed his face into Tommy’s. “I’m not sure where you got the idea that you could make a telephone call, Cabe, but you are sadly mistaken. I am working very hard to see that you grow up to be a decent human being. To communicate with an old man who raised some whiskey-besotted sow would run exactly counter to that purpose. Do you understand, Cabe?”

Fighting hard to keep the tears from spilling down his cheeks, Tommy shook his head in protest. He moved his mouth, but his words balked, now worse than ever. “She’s n-n-not—!”

“N-n-not what, Cabe?”

“N-n-not—”

“What, Cabe?”

“N-n-n—”

“He’s telling you she’s not like that!” came a small, angry bellow. Tommy glanced to the left. Willett stood glaring up at Wurth, his face white with rage.

A silence akin to death fell over the line of boys. No one had ever spoken in such a way to Sergeant Wurth. Willett’s words seemed to burn and crackle down the line, like a live wire twisting among them. Wurth lowered his head and looked at both boys, his eyes dark angry holes in his head.

“I don’t know what in the hell you two are talking about.” Wurth’s voice quivered with fury. “But there won’t be any phone calls for you, Mr. Cabe, until you’re eighteen years old. And for this little request, you just earned yourself five hundred demerits. Do you understand me?”

Trying with all his might to keep from weeping aloud, Tommy Cabe nodded. Five hundred demerits was easily a whole year of hard work.

Wurth moved on to Willett. “As for you, Pierson, I would put you in Attitude Realignment ASAP, except the proctors who run AR don’t deserve to spend their Christmas with scum like you!” Wurth stepped forward and pressed his forefinger into Willett’s trachea. Involuntarily, the boy began to cough. “But at oh eight hundred hours on December twenty-six, Pierson, you will report to me in my office, where I will personally escort you down to AR. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Now Willett answered like a boot-camp Marine, throwing in a snappy salute for good measure. “How long can I expect to stay, sir?”

For a moment Wurth looked as if he might incinerate Willett with his gaze alone. He stretched his lips back to speak; then, abruptly, his expression changed. The anger drained from his face, and his eyes took on a resolved look, as if he’d just settled some irksome quarrel within himself.

“Indefinitely,” he answered, his voice soft as a feather.

*  *  *

Cabe didn’t remember the rest of the inspection. A hot, impotent rage surged through him, and it seemed that all the poisonous words Sergeant Wurth let loose about his mother had floated up into the sky like ugly black balloons. Everyone had heard them. Everyone had laughed. And now Willett had waded into it, too.

When Sergeant Wurth finished with the last boy, he strode back up to the front of the line and addressed them all. Usually he dismissed them for their corrections, but today he stood and looked at them.

“Gentlemen, we have a big week ahead of us. Beginning the day after Christmas, we at Camp Unakawaya will be undertaking an important mission. Troopers and Grunts alike will be asked to cooperate, doing jobs you may not necessarily understand. I know, though, that you will all make me and your country proud. We’ll be running on a tight schedule here, and slackers will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir!” shouted everyone but Willett and Cabe.

“So in view of the extremely hard work that I’m expecting from you later, and of course the fact that tomorrow is Christmas, everyone is hereby granted liberty until oh eight hundred hours on December twenty-six.” Wurth smiled up and down his line of boys. When his gaze fell on Willett and Cabe, his smile grew strangely broader. “Merry Christmas, gentlemen! For the next day and a half, have fun. Then be prepared to work as never before.”

The Grunts waited for Wurth and his Troopers to march away, then they broke ranks and ran—some thundering up the steps into the old mansion, others streaking across the stiff dead grass to the gym. As they jostled past, Tommy Cabe and Willett Pierson stood side by side, alone.

“Oh, man,” Willett finally said when they were the only two left standing. “What an asshole.”

Cabe turned to his friend. For the first time in the six months he’d known him, Willett Pierson looked scared. “You didn’t have to say anything, Willett. I would have gotten the words out.”

“I know.” Willett looked up at him, his skin still pale beneath his freckles. “He just pissed me off. So you wanted to make a fucking phone call. Hell, so would I—if I had anybody to call.”

Cabe looked at the ground. Most of the Grunts at Camp Unakawaya were outcast mountain boys, what city people called trailer trash. Willett was the son of a homeless girl from Charlotte. Together they’d bounced around the North Carolina welfare system until she died of an overdose. When he came to Camp Unakawaya two years ago, he’d come as a true orphan of the streets, preferring Eminem to ’N Sync, Michael Jordan to Mark McGwire.

“I’m sorry, Willett,” Tommy said miserably. “I didn’t mean for you to wind up in AR.”

“I know.” Willett wiped his nose with the sleeve of his jacket. “I just wish he’d told me how long I was going to have to stay.”

Tommy tried to put a good face on it. “You’ll be out before I work off my demerits.”

“Tommy-boy, I’ll be
dead
before you work off your demerits.”

The boys gazed at the lake that sparkled dark blue in the wintry sunlight, then Willett put his Bulls cap back on and said, “Come on. I want to show you something. We’ve got a day and a half of liberty. We may as well make the most of it.”

With that, Willett turned and ran to the back of the castle. Cabe loped behind him, following as he scampered past the cottages that ringed the back of the huge old building and up into the ridge beyond. They climbed high, through frozen gorse and scrub cedar, scrambling through the weeds like a coon chased by hounds. Halfway up the ridge Willett stopped. When Cabe huffed up to stand beside him, the castle lay far below. Other than a few Grunts tossing a football in the side yard, the grounds were empty. The house had turned in on itself; no one was watching them at all. Grinning at Cabe, Willett scrambled higher, cresting the mountain with his cheeks ablaze from the cold. When he reached the top he thrust his short arms up in triumph, then he ran across a flat quarter-acre of ground overgrown with tall yellow weeds. Cabe watched, astonished, as Willett dashed over to the foot of the mountain. Passing a weatherbeaten sign that said “Welcome to Russell Cave! It’s Cooooool Inside!” he turned, waved, then abruptly disappeared.

“Willett?” Tommy called, amazed and a little frightened by his friend’s vanishing act. “Willett? Where did you go?”

“Come on,” came the distant muffled reply. “It’s cooooool inside!”

Tommy ran over. Willett stood on the other side of some rusty iron bars that barricaded the mouth of the cave. He grinned from the penumbra of light, his face luminous as a ghost’s.

“Step right up, my boy.” Willett beckoned. “Come see the mysteries of Willett’s Den. You can shimmy, you can shake, and you can go flying inside your own head. And for you, Tommy-boy, today only I’ll reveal the secret weapon that will destroy Sergeant Wurth!”

“I don’t know, Willett.” Tommy wrinkled his nose as the cave’s breath wafted toward him. “I think the only thing in here that could destroy Sergeant Wurth is the smell.”

“I’ve got something better than that,” Willett replied, his voice suddenly serious. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Tommy wiggled through the bars while Willett walked over to the side of the cave and reached behind a rock, pulling out one of the long flashlights Wurth assigned to his Troopers.

“Where’d you get that?” Cabe cried. “Grunts aren’t supposed to have those.”

“You ever hear of the old five-finger discount?”

Cabe nodded, not wanting to seem stupid. He guessed Willett meant that he’d stolen it.

Willett switched the flashlight on. Though the beam was not enormous, it gave enough light so Tommy could see they were standing in a chamber the size of a large living room. The cave walls were amber-colored and smooth, and towered up to a ceiling that was shrouded in shadow.

“Come on,” said Willett. “Follow me.”

He walked through a gap in the boulders and down a hall-like passageway. After a moment, Tommy followed. Water seeped along the right wall, making the surface glow pearlescent in Willett’s light. Though the air was no less smelly, the cave itself was beautiful; it reminded Tommy of those caverns in France with the Stone Age horses drawn on the walls.

“In here.” Willett made a sharp turn to the right, then he dropped to his knees and began to crawl through a short tunnel. Tommy did the same, not wanting to be left in the utter darkness of the flashlight’s wake. They entered a small chamber that water had probably carved from the mountain millennia ago. Dusty orange, it was veined with streaks of purple and speckled with glittering quartz. Along one side was a shelf-like formation upon which Willett kept an airplane magazine, a Polaroid of Tarheel, a dog he and his mom had owned, and a six-pack of Coca-Cola.