A Shred of Truth (28 page)

“But you told me that—”

“Saw him. This morning.”

“Where?”

“Near the Marathon Building. He was hunched over on the tracks. A train was coming, and he just looked at me. Afraid. He remembered. The train blew its horn, and he never moved. Never even made a sound.”

On some level I guess we all want to pay for our sins. While most cultures embrace the concept of a sacrifice for wrongdoing, most of us don’t want the sacrifice of another in our place. Seems unfair. Who would do such a thing anyway?

“Freddy.” I tried to comfort him. “You know, Jesus was whipped too.”

“Because of people like me.”

“And me.” I felt my throat tighten. “But he still forgave.”

Whether Freddy C defied the idea or found strength in it, I’m not sure. He ran his hands over his face, through his hair, poked at the inside of his cheek with his tongue. He then pivoted on one foot and faced the black maw of the cave system.

“On through there,” he said. “The cabin.”

“No. Let’s go back. We don’t need any more of this.”

“Said we need evidence.”

“First, we need to get some fresh air. Clear our heads. You can just tell me what to look for, and I’ll come back on my own.”

“You need help. The dogs.”

I hesitated. “They’re sedated.”

“They wake up, they’ll kill you. I’ll be a lookout.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Friends, Artemis.” He turned. “They work together. Let’s go.”

T
he tunnel’s uneven stone walls curled to the right and came to an abrupt stop. Between two beams, the door to a small service elevator faced us.

Not your usual residential appliance.

I hit the button, and we waited like new check-ins at a hotel. The whir of motors told us it was descending. The door slid open. We stepped in. There was a panel with a keyhole and three buttons. The lowest was illuminated, and I assumed the other two represented the levels of the log cabin.

“Where to, Freddy?”

“Never been in the house.”

“How do you know we’ll find any evidence?”

“Upstairs.”

“What’s up there?”

“Chigger. He said we’d understand if we saw upstairs. Said it would explain.”

“Explain what?”

“Why he has hate.”

“The second floor then.”

The elevator rose with creaks and complaints. My heart accelerated with each ascending foot. What would we find up there? Were the dogs still in la-la land, or would they pound up the stairs and tear into us upon arrival?

No doubt Chigger had built this spacious dwelling over the ruins of his
predecessors. He probably felt a physical connection, a sense of honor, living off the same land that had swallowed and crushed into dust the bones of his people. Meanwhile, racism in the name of religion continued to rise through the family tree and discolor the newest offshoots.

To rid oneself of this blight? To reprogram one’s way of thinking? I couldn’t pretend to understand what that would entail.

Or maybe I could.

For two years I’d been tearing free from the clutches of my own past.

The elevator slowed, bounced once, stopped. In the small space, there was no way to press back out of sight. Head-on—that’s how we’d have to do this.

The door opened into a bedroom darkened by heavy drapes. At the edges, sunlight sliced through and revealed wall decorations in a country-western motif—hats and spurs and chaps. No sign of the dogs, thank goodness.

We stepped over the threshold. Floorboards cringed beneath our feet.

Still no movement.

I reached for a lamp by the window, my hand finding the switch even as it brushed the crystals that dangled from the rose-colored cloth shade.

“Hello?” A drowsy female voice startled me. “Who’s there?”

The lamplight cast warm hues onto a fourposter bed. A young woman pulled herself up against the headboard, questions on her lips and fear ballooning in her eyes. A tray of food rested on the nightstand next to a pile of James Lee Burke novels.

“Hi,” I said. Great start. “Who are you?”

“Who are
you
?” She lifted a baton attached to a cord. “This feeds straight to the alarm company. I push this button, and the cops’ll be here in minutes.”

“Hold on. Lemme explain.”

“Does my brother know you’re here?”

“Chigger. Uh, he’s on the road, but he—”

“I know my family’s whereabouts. I want to know why
you’re
here.”

“I’m Johnny Ray’s brother. Johnny Ray Black.”

“Never met you before.” The baton hand motioned. “And who’s he?”

“My friend, Freddy C. He’s harmless.”

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he mumbled from just outside the lamp’s pool of light. In his bulky layers of coats, he cut an imposing figure.

Trying to divert her attention, I pointed at the books on the nightstand. “You a Burke fan?”

She set her hand on the stack. “I’m a big reader. He’s in my top five.”

“The Dave Robicheaux books—”

“Are the
best
. His word pictures, the atmosphere … He’s like a poet.”

“That’s what got me hooked too.”

This literary connection seemed to win her over, and she lowered the baton onto the bedspread. Fellow readers share a camaraderie that goes beyond class or sex or skin color. I felt almost guilty for taking advantage of that.

Almost.

“Chigger told you to come, didn’t he?” she surmised. “That hardheaded fool. He said he’d send one of his buddies to keep an eye out for me, as if I can’t take care of myself. I’m nineteen years old, you know. Not a baby.”

“Gotta humor the guy. So everything’s okay?”

“The dogs were going wild earlier, but they quieted down.” She pulled her ponytail around so that it draped down the front of her sweatshirt. “Next time you should call first. Didn’t your mama teach you any manners?”

“Sorry.”

“A girl needs a chance to look proper. Speaking of, where are
my
manners? My name’s Trish.” She extended her arm. “Not Tricia, not Patricia. Just Trish.”

I shook her hand. It was cold. “Good to meet you, Just Trish.”

“Funny man. And what’s your name?”

“Aramis.” No use hiding it now that I’d revealed my brother’s identity.

“Like in
The Three Musketeers
.”

“Exactly. That’s where my mom got it.”

“A woman with good taste in names
and
books. Ooh, I like her already.”

Casual, keep it casual. “You sound like you might know her.”

“Should I?”

“I don’t know. I just—”

“It’s not like my brother lets me out much. He’s afraid something else might happen. Since the accident, I get these blackouts. That’s why he installed the elevator—so I wouldn’t fall down the stairs during a seizure.”

Did Chigger keep her locked up to protect her? Was she the motivation for his prejudice? I’d never even heard about his having a sister. On the far nightstand, plastic prescription bottles stood in a row. Did he keep her sedated? Or maybe there was even more to this, something darker.

Trish seemed spunky enough though. Not exactly the abused stereotype.

I decided to push a little. “You ever been to the bottom level of the elevator?”

“No, and that’s a perfect example of Chigger being a worrywart. He’s afraid I’ll go wandering around down there and get lost. Without his key, the car won’t even go all the way down.”

“Hmm.”

“You know, Aramis, my great-granddaddy ran moonshine out of those caves. Least that’s what he told us. He used to exaggerate things, but he was quite a storyteller. Maybe that’s where I got my love of books.”

“Well.” I looked at Freddy, then back at the fourposter. “Guess we should get going now that we’ve done our good deed and checked on you. Anything you need before we head out?”

“I can make my way around, thanks.”

“Just offering.”

“I’ll show you to the door.” As if to prove she was capable, Trish flipped back the bedspread and hitched her legs over the mattress. The sweatshirt caught and exposed soft, youthful thighs. She shifted the shirt back down over her knees.

I found something else on the far wall to look at. “You need a hand?”

“What’d I tell you? I’m fine.”

“What happened? If you don’t mind. In the accident.”

“My brother’s never told you? I’m not surprised.” She stood, slipped into a long housecoat, then braced a hand against the bedpost. “We were in New York. He’d always dreamed of going to see Radio City Music Hall and those places. When he finally signed on here with one of the big labels, he said we were going to celebrate. Of course, I had no idea that’s where he was taking me.”

“Pretty cool.”

“I was thirteen.” She took a breath. Her cheeks looked rosy in the lamplight. “It was exciting stuff—the Statue of Liberty, the Stock Exchange, Times Square, all the touristy places. The morning we were supposed to fly home, Chigger insisted on taking a cab to the Twin Towers. Didn’t even care about going inside. He just wanted to look up at them. We’d never seen anything that tall. I mean, the BellSouth Tower’s nothing in comparison.”

“You know that Signature Tower’s gonna be a thousand feet tall.”

“In Nashville? Ooh, I’d love to go to the top of that.”

“I interrupted you.”

She stood taller, tightening her grip on the post. “He still has nightmares of that day—September eleventh. When the first plane hit, we were only two blocks away. People were in shock. Our cab stopped, and my side got speared by another taxi driver, an African American man. He was rubbernecking—not like I can blame him—but Chigger won’t let it go. He thinks America’s problems all stem from the ‘Negroids’ and ‘ragheads,’ as he calls them. Funny
how I’m the one who suffered the traumatic brain injury, but he’s the one who’s still angry.”

I cupped my hand around the back of my neck. “I never knew.”

In the shadows, Freddy remained silent.

“Johnny Ray could’ve told you,” said Trish. “I met him once, and he signed his CD for me. Seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.”

“Chigger tries, he really does. He’s played nurse and cook for me through a lot of the past six years. But I worry about him. It’s as if those al-Qaida guys were filled with some sort of poison that spilled down and infected him too.”

Trish stepped into the elevator. “Hop in, gentlemen. And no funny business, or I’ll sic my dogs on you.”

“We’ll be good,” I promised.

The doors were closing when she turned and stared at us. “Speaking of which, how’d the two of you get past them in the first place?”

“This elevator.”

“From the lowest level? From the caves?” When Freddy and I nodded in unison, she said, “Tell me again, what were you doing down there? Even better, take me down and let me look around a little.”

“We can’t.”

“I won’t tell. Chigger will never know.”

“Actually”—I showed her bare palms—“we don’t have the key.”

“Then you’re trapped.” She pressed the first-floor button. “If you want to get out of this place alive, I suggest you come with me now.”

T
he dogs were unresponsive to Trish’s calls. “That’s strange.”

Praying the acepromazine was still working its magic, I followed her from the elevator into the country-style kitchen. An island stood tall beneath a brass rack of pots and pans. A built-in knife set bristled on one end of the fixture, while a dense, reddish wood served as a cutting board on the other.

“Smells good,” I whispered. My nose was picking up the lingering aromas of beef and onions and herbs.

“Supper’s in the Crock-Pot. You two can join me if you’d like.”

Freddy’s eyes snapped up.

“No,” I said. “We should go.”

“Where are those silly dogs?”

A huge living room opened before us, with windows stretching from floor to vaulted ceiling. Notched into the front end, the entryway was the size of a small bedroom and included wide stairs that spiraled upward. The slumbering bull mastiffs covered the floorboards at the foot of the staircase, eyes half open, jaws slack.

Trish said, “That sunshine must’ve zapped them good.”

“Don’t disturb your babies,” I told Trish. “We’ll just go out the back.”