A Judgment of Whispers (23 page)

He gave a disgusted snort. “I should have known this wouldn't be easy.”

He stepped back, trying to avoid an oil slick when suddenly the loud
brrrppp
of a siren caught him totally off-guard. As Lucky began barking furiously, he turned to see a police cruiser just inches from the back of his truck, its light bar flashing. Immediately, he lifted his hands, figuring someone had made a prowler call. Then the passenger door of the cruiser opened. Buck Whaley emerged.

“I thought I might find you here,” Whaley called, draping his fleshy arms over the door.

“You son of a bitch.” Jack lowered his hands. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Yeah? Well, you almost gave me one, saying you might have put a slug in someone's ass.”

“Did you find out who?” asked Jack.

“Possibly,” said Whaley. “Get over here and we'll talk about it.”

Thirty-Seven

“You think he's armed?”
whispered Saunooke, who sat watching Jack from the driver's seat.

“He's got a Smith and Wesson .45 in a shoulder holster,” Whaley replied as Jack came toward them.

“Shouldn't you disarm him?”

Whaley looked at the young patrolman as if he were an idiot. “He's not going to shoot me, Saunooke. He's after the Salola Street boys. You stay here while I go talk to him.”

Whaley left the cruiser and walked toward Jack's truck. The dog in the front seat leaned out the window barking, snapping at him as he drew closer. Then Jack came over and patted the dog's head. Immediately, he started trying to lick Jack's face.

“Quite a watchdog you've got there,” said Whaley.

“He wasn't until you drove up,” Jack replied. “Your siren must have scared the shit out of him too.”

Whaley shrugged. “I had to get your attention somehow.” He looked at the lump under Jack's jacket. “You carrying?”

Jack allowed him a brief glimpse of dark brown holster just under his left arm. “Just my old pal.”

Whaley frowned. “Don't you think you're too old for this?'

“There's no statute of limitations on murder, Buck—on either side of the coin. Did you find out anything about my bullet wound for real, or were you just trying to make an old man faint?”

“Nobody with their ass shot up is in any hospital around here. That made me think maybe it was just wishful thinking on your part. Then I remembered something.”

“What?”

“When I was wrangling the very reluctant Salola Street boys into giving their DNA, I found McConnell and Russell sitting right in that office, thick as thieves. I put the fear of God into them, and they complied with the DNA right quick. But a few days before that, I'd gone over to Russell's house looking for him. His holy roller mother invited me inside. While she was yakking about how much psychological damage we'd done to her precious son, I saw a picture of her and Two Toes McCoy.”

“Janet Russell? With Two Toes?”

Whaley nodded. “Wearing robes, at some kind of retreat. She said Two Toes was a great healer—spiritual as well as physical.” He smirked. “Now I know you don't think I'm the sharpest knife in the drawer, but if my little boy came home with a bullet in his ass and I had a real chummy relationship with an Indian healer …”

“And your little boy didn't want to call attention to a gunshot wound,” added Jack.

“Then I might take him up to Two Toes,” Whaley finished. “Which is why I busted you with Saunooke, instead of by myself.”

Jack peered at the squad car. “Why?”

“Because Saunooke's the only one who knows exactly where Two Toes lives.”

“And you two are going up there to check it out.”

Whaley nodded. “That's the plan. You need to go home now, Jack. Leave it to us.”

Whaley watched as Jack Wilkins cocked his head, looking at the cruiser wistfully, as if he'd bumped into a long-ago lover who had no memory of him at all. “Take me with you,” he said softly. “Just one last time.”

“You know I … ”

“Please. It's the last shot I'll have at this. I don't want to die with my life in pieces and not know why.”

Whaley looked up at the leprechaun on top of Devin McConnell's office, mostly because he didn't want to see the look in Jack's eyes. He could lose his badge for involving a civilian in a police operation; yet he would have lost his badge years ago if Jack hadn't covered for him. Jack must still be pretty damn good with a gun and though Saunooke was a good man, he was also a young man, untested in many ways. What would it hurt to have Jack with him? Nobody would ever know, unless Two Toes blew all their brains out. Then it wouldn't matter anyway.

“Okay,” he finally said. “But this is it.”

“I know,” Jack whispered.

In the parking lot they conferred with Saunooke, who told them they'd never catch Two Toes unawares. “He's got all these dogs,” he told Whaley. “If they're tied up, they'll just bark like crazy. If they're not tied up, they'll eat you alive.”

“We can shoot the damn dogs,” said Whaley. “What else? What's the layout up there?”

“He's got a trailer in a little clearing, surrounded by some teepees. I imagine that's where he'd put somebody who was sick.”

“How many teepees?” asked Whaley.

“I saw two. There could be more.”

“Why don't we do this,” suggested Jack. “Saunooke goes in as a decoy, sirens blaring, gets the dogs all crazy, and asks Two Toes if he's seen McConnell or Williams.” He looked at Whaley. “You and I can sneak around and check out those teepees. If we find either one of those guys, we can bring 'em in on suspicion of criminal mischief at the Collier home.”

“That's pretty shaky ground, Jack,” said Whaley.

“Well, it gets them cooling their heels in jail until you can drum up something better. Lucky dug up those underpants in July—now it's almost September. I've seen faster DNA tests come back on dinosaurs.”

Whaley couldn't help but laugh. “No offense Jack, but are you sure you're up to playing commando? Run around peering in teepees?”

“Don't worry about me.” Jack eyed Whaley's rotund stomach. “I'll be fine.”

So they started off, Saunooke and Whaley in the cruiser, Jack and Lucky following.

“You do know to keep your mouth shut about this, don't you?” Whaley asked Saunooke.

“I do.”

“If it gets ugly up there, you take care of Jack. He may be old and crazy, but I don't want anything to happen to him.”

“Yes sir.”

Saunooke drove deep into the reservation, turning where the old woman had told him weeks before. When the pavement ended, he continued down the trail of mashed-down grass that tunneled through the forest. At the end of the path, where the
Right Path Retreat
sign arched over the road, he stopped.

“If you want to reconnoiter those teepees on foot, you should start here,” he told Whaley. “Two Toes's trailer is about a hundred yards that way.” He pointed to the left. “The teepees are set up around it.”

“Okay.” Whaley opened the passenger door. “Let's switch cars. You take Jack's truck and tell Two Toes you're here unofficially, that you got a tip about him and the vandalism at the Collier house. It might piss him off so bad that he'll give up Russell and McConnell. At any rate, it'll be a good way to keep him occupied while Jack and I check things out.”

“You got it.”

Whaley and Saunooke went back to the truck and explained the plan to Jack. The old man got out of the truck, leaving Lucky with a pat on the head. As he handed his keys to Saunooke, he said, “If anything happens to me, give this dog to Mary Crow. Tell her I said to take good care of him. His name is Lucky.”

“Don't worry about the dog,
enisi
. Worry about yourself.”

“
Enisi
?”

“Grandfather,” replied Saunooke.

Jack laughed. “Good luck to you, too, junior.”

The two older men took off through the trees while Saunooke headed toward Two Toes's cabin. A quarter mile up the ridge they heard dogs barking wildly, as if they were within seconds of tearing something to pieces.

Wilkins just hoped it wasn't Lucky.

They kept going in the direction Saunooke had told them, Whaley breathing hard, Wilkins feeling the climb in his bad leg. When they got to a break in the foliage, they looked down at the trailer. They had a perfect view—Saunooke had cleverly angled the truck around so that his back was to the dogs. Two Toes was facing Saunooke, unaware of them on the rise behind him. All six dogs had hushed, but they kept their eyes riveted on Two Toes. Whaley only hoped that the rope that tethered them held fast.

“Smart boy, that Saunooke, turning Two Toes away from us,” whispered Wilkins.

“He might have a future,” Whaley admitted. He scanned the perimeter of the trailer. “I count three teepees. How about you?”

“Me, too,” said Wilkins. “You want to split up or take 'em together?”

“Together. It doesn't look like anybody's in them, but I like backup when I'm dealing with Two Toes.”

“Lead on, then. And hurry. That Saunooke won't be able to stall him forever.”

The teepees circled the back of the trailer, roughly fifty feet apart. Wilkins and Whaley drew their weapons as they approached the first one. Tall, straight poles were covered in white canvas painted with red symbols that could have been either stars or swastikas. Wilkins watched as Whaley crept up to the entrance and put his
ear to the tent flap. For a long moment he listened, then looked
at Wilkins and shook his head. Wilkins inched forward, slowly pulling back the tent flap. He peered inside but saw nothing except a stone-lined circle in the middle of the floor and a few blankets scattered around it.

He made a rolling motion with his right hand, their old signal for “keep going.”

Whaley headed for the second teepee. They approached it as silently as the first. Decorated with the same red squiggles, it too stood as empty—holding a fire pit and few moth-eaten blankets. The third was the same, except someone had left a crumpled pack of cigarettes in the fire pit. Jack stooped inside to retrieve them. When he crawled out, Whaley was waiting.

“I think we've crapped out, buddy. Nothing here but—”

Suddenly Jack shook his head, pointing over Whaley's right shoulder. Through the trees they could see a thin plum of white smoke another twenty yards away. Immediately, they melded into their old team—Wilkins taking the lead, Whaley following. They crept up to a fourth teepee hidden in the woods. They stopped, listening for a word, a breath, a rustle from inside. Amazingly, they started to hear voices, loud and argumentative.

“Do you have to put that shit on me?” a male voice cried.

“Yes,” replied a female voice. “Two Toes says it shrinks the wound without leaving a scar.”

There was a moment of silence, then a scream of pain. “Jesus, it feels like a blowtorch! I don't know why you think fucking Two Toes knows anything about healing.”

“You're the one who didn't want to go to the hospital,” the woman warned.

“I wouldn't have needed to go to the hospital if you two had just stayed out of my damn room.”

“Somebody had to pack your things before they bulldozed the house. You sure weren't. ”

“But did you have to bury my things under that tree? Couldn't you have thrown them the fuck away?”

Whaley locked eyes with Wilkins. This was huge … more huge than they'd ever dreamed.

“I saw what it was! I was afraid to throw it away! If you bury a bad thing with tobacco, it can't harm you. You throw it away and its ghost haunts you for the rest of your life.”

Whaley looked down at the ground and offered a silent prayer.
Please dear God, let them say the word
underwear
. That's all we need. Just one
underpants
and it will be all over for good.

“They were a fucking pair of girl's panties, Mom. Panties don't have ghosts. They weren't going to follow anybody, anywhere.”

They grinned at each other, then moved as one, smooth as old silk. Whaley through the door first, Wilkins right behind him, both pointing their weapons. Butch Russell was lying facedown on a blanket, Janet Russell putting some kind of foul-smelling poultice on his left butt cheek. Janet Russell shrieked, terrified, as Butch started flailing his arms and legs, like a swimmer on dry land. “Nooooooooo!” he screamed. “Nooooooo!”

Whaley tossed Wilkins his handcuffs. “Congratulations, detective. You do the honors and I'll call Saunooke.”

Trembling, Wilkins grabbed both of Russell's arms and shackled them together at the wrist.

With his gun pointed at the terrified Janet Russell, Whaley punched the number that would connect him to Saunooke. The young officer answered a few seconds later, over a barrage of static.

“We need backup at a teepee about fifty yards behind the trailer,” he told the young man. “We have two individuals in custody.”

“What for?” asked Saunooke.

“The murder of Teresa Ewing.”

Thirty-Eight

The first day at
Rugby, all Zack did was pace around the little cottage and cry. He wept over his maimed toys, over the fledgling wrens they'd left behind in a nest in their back yard, over the fact that he wouldn't see Clara for a long time. Mainly, though, he mourned the loss of Adam, his one and only friend.

“I don't see why he couldn't come and
say
good-bye,” he told Grace repeatedly.

“He did, honey. He told us his family was moving, and he had to help them.”

“But he could have taken me with him,” he said miserably. “I'm strong. I could have helped them. I helped Adam move a rug one time.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. We put it in his dad's wheelbarrow.”

Grace could just picture Leslie Shaw's expression if Adam had shown up with Zack, ready to help them move to South Carolina. It would have been laughable were it not so sad.

The second morning of their vacation Grace was standing on the back porch, staring into the thick woods that pressed up against their cabin. At first she felt as if she'd been condemned to an undetermined sentence in an upscale prison, but then, as abruptly as the sun appearing after a summer shower, she realized the one enormous difference between North Carolina and Tennessee. She and Zack had no history here. Nobody knew who they were or that they'd been accused of anything. They were as free as the birds that fluttered around that feeder, to go wherever they pleased.

The thought buoyed her, making her turn to her son. “I've got an idea, Zack. Go find that book on day hikes that we saw in the bookcase. You choose a hike, I'll pack a lunch, and we'll go exploring.”

She expected him to balk, to insist on staying inside and watching his videos. But he surprised her. Excited, he got the book and found a half-day hike to a place called the Gentlemen's Swimming Hole. He packed a small knapsack with drawing paper, a pack of chewing gum, and a first-aid kit. Though it took them most of the morning to hike to the wide expanse of water that nestled between lush stands of hemlock and laurel, Zack jumped in and splashed away the rest of the afternoon, finally sunning himself dry on the boulders that edged up against the water.

That adventure set their vacation on a radically different course. From then on they hiked every day, exploring both the mountains and the little town. They learned that Rugby had been founded by an Englishman who'd wanted to create a “new Eden” for the second sons of the British gentry. Each day she and Zack made a circuit of the little village, nodding at people they were coming to recognize, always ending with a stop at Carson's General Store. Grace used its free Wi-Fi to keep in touch with Mary Crow, and Zack loved the old-fashioned pinball machine with its silver balls and red flippers.

One day they'd made their daily tour of the town and were going up the steps to Carson's when Zack asked a question.

“Can I call Adam?”

“I imagine he's back in New York, honey.”

“But couldn't I call him? Just once? We never said good-bye.”

She knew how important closure was to Zack. It had eluded him most of his life; he'd had too many people—his father, more caregivers than she could count—happily tell him “see you tomorrow” and then vanish forever. And Zack had been so good lately—no meltdowns, no hitting her, not even too many tears. Surely he'd earned one phone call to his friend.

“Do you know his number?” It was in her phone, but she tried for one last reason to deny him the call.

“212-555-0342,” he repeated without hesitation.

“Okay. Here.” She handed him her cell phone. “But you have to promise not to tell him where we are. It's a secret.”

“I promise.” He punched in the number, listened for a few moments, then handed the phone back to her. “Nobody home,” he said, disappointed.

“He's probably on assignment,” she told him, secretly relieved that Adam had not picked up. “You can try again tomorrow. Let's go get something to cook for dinner.”

They went inside the store. William Carson, the owner, looked up from the cash register. He reminded Grace of an overgrown teddy bear—bushy gray hair and beard, but so tall that even Zack looked small beside him. Oddly, her son did not seem intimidated by William Carson. Grace figured it was because he always spoke softly and gave Zack plenty of space.

“Hey, Zack.” Carson smiled, typically greeting Zack first. “How's it going?”

“Okay,” he replied shyly.

“Here for your daily Internet fix?”

“Yes,” said Grace. “But we need some groceries too.”

“You came at the right time, then,” said William. “I just got some Grainger County tomatoes in and fresh corn from Sunbright.”

“Wonderful.” Grace reached for a small basket. “I'll get Zack going on the pinball machine and do some shopping.”

Carson watched her search for quarters, then said, “How about I give Zack a little job? He can earn a few bucks and pay for his own pinball.”

“What kind of job?” asked Grace.

“I've got some boxes that need to be broken down and stacked up for recycling. Shouldn't take him more than about ten minutes.”

She turned to her son. “Would you like to earn some money, Zack?”

He nodded, though he kept his gaze on the floor.

“Come on then,” said William Carson. “Let's get busy.”

As Grace watched, Zack trooped after William Carson into the back room of the store. A few minutes later she saw him flattening cardboard boxes, readying a pile for the loading dock. William Carson returned to the cash register, smiling.

“That was amazing,” Grace said. “He's only ever earned money for cutting my grass.”

“Makes them feel self-reliant,” William Carson replied. “Getting paid to do something.”

“Have you worked with autistic people before?”

“In my former life I taught teachers how to teach. Special needs students were a large part of our curriculum.”

“How did you wind up here?'

William Carson smiled. “I came up here from Nashville for a long weekend and fell in love with the place. Shortly after I retired from teaching, this store went up for sale. I pounced.”

“And you've never looked back?”

“Not once.” His eyes crinkled up behind his glasses. “This truly has turned out to be a new Eden. For me, anyway.”

Suddenly Zack appeared in the doorway. “All done,” he said, grinning proudly.

William Carson went to check his work, then came back and opened his cash drawer, handing twelve quarters to Zack. “You did a good job,” he said. “Maybe you can help me out again sometime.”

Zack nodded, pocketing his wages and hurrying over to the pinball machine. As he started firing the silver balls, Grace checked her messages via Wi-Fi. None from Mary Crow, thank God. Then she took her basket and shopped for necessities—toilet paper and wine, a pound of bacon and some of the fresh tomatoes William had bragged about. After that, she headed to the cash register.

“Are you enjoying the Burton cabin?” asked Carson as he rang up her purchase.

Grace flinched—their location was supposed to be secret. “How did you know we were there?”

He grinned. “Just a little downside to Eden. The local gossip grapevine swings pretty wide.”

She swallowed hard, suddenly nervous. “What else did the grapevine reveal about us?”

“That you're wealthy, from North Carolina, and that your son
is … different.”

“It got two out of three things right,” replied Grace.

“You're not from North Carolina?”

“No, I'm from North Carolina and Zack is different. But I'm about as far from wealthy as you can get. I'm a painter.”

“Really?” He smiled, interested. “What do you paint?”

“Landscapes, mostly,” Grace answered truthfully at first, then added a lie. “Which is why we're here. We're friends with the Burtons and I'm doing some painting, up in the forest.”

“And you probably don't wish to be disturbed,” said William.

She didn't know how to answer him—probably they shouldn't make friends with anybody up here, but some nights she would give anything to hear another voice besides the ones coming from Zack's videotapes.

“I've put you on the spot,” William said quickly. “I apologize.”

“No, it's not that. It's just that Zack doesn't deal that well with strangers.”

“I understand.”

“But don't please don't tell anybody that,” she added. “People have been so friendly to us.”

“How about I just don't add to the gossip one way or the other,” said William. “And you and Zack can go at your own pace.”

“Thank you,” said Grace, grateful. “That would probably be best.”

She paid for their groceries and they started the mile-long walk back to the cabin.

“I like Mr. Carson,” said Zack, her two bottles of Merlot clanking together in his backpack. “He doesn't smackertalk.”

“I know. He was nice to give you a job.”

“I did a good job too,” he added proudly.

“Yes, you did.”

They walked down the main road, the sun warm on their backs. Zack spotted a turtle crossing the pavement and ran to move it off the road.

“Mama, can we stay here?” he asked when he returned to walk beside her.

“Where?”

“Here. In this town. We get to walk around. Go places. It's fun.”

“I'm sorry, honey, but I don't think we can stay.”

“Why not?”

“Because our home is in North Carolina. My job is there and Clara is waiting for you to come back.”

“But I like it here better. Adam moved away; couldn't we move away too?”

She sighed, her own backpack suddenly growing heavy. What could she tell him? That life wasn't that simple? That teaching jobs were scarce and making a living as a full-time painter was virtually impossible?

“No, honey. We just don't have the money.”

“So we'll have to go home?”

“Eventually.” She suddenly wished she could tell him her dream instead of their reality. That the DNA on those underpants would be someone else's, and they would go home to find that people had forgiven him for being different, forgiven her for trying to protect him from the viciousness of rumor. But she doubted that would happen—hate was a hard habit for people to break. But what not even Zack knew was that if his DNA showed up on those underpants, they would not be going home at all. They would walk up to Carson's store one last time. She would buy chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream and make a big milk shake with it. Then she'd empty all the bottles of tranquilizers she'd brought into it. Then she and Zack would curl up in front of that fancy TV and fall into one final, deep sleep as they watched videos of other people's lives, where husbands remained true, boys grew into healthy men, and little girls like Teresa Ewing weren't allowed outside after dark.