Blindfold (18 page)

"So it could have been you," Whit said, and she

knew she wasn't imagining the tension in his voice. "Maggie, look at me."

"No."

"Look at me. I can't apologize if you won't look at me."

"You don't owe me an apology." She kept her eyes on the sheriff, lying prone now on the ground at the edge of the hole, aiming a large flashlight into its depths. "And I can't think about this now. I have to find out if Lane is okay." She pulled her arm free and turned away.

"I'm sorry," he called softly after her. "I'm really sorry."

Alex had just returned from the edge of the hole.

"Is she . . ." Helen's voice quavered, "is she dead?"

"No," Alex answered quickly, "she's not dead. We heard her. She made a noise."

Whit asked if anyone knew how far down Lane had fallen. "How deep is the hole?"

"It's plenty deep," an old man volunteered from behind them. "I know what that hole is. That's Otis Bransom's old well, the one he dug when him and his dad built this place." He nodded toward the building. "Otis had the well boarded over when he got indoor plumbing. Boards musta rotted through."

Maggie wondered why Lane hadn't seen the hole. It was perfectly visible, and not really small enough to overlook, even if you were in a hurry.

"Girl wouldn't be dead, though," the man continued. "Might not even have any broken bones. That

well's partway filled in with dirt. Otis's wife insisted. She was afraid one of their own girls would fall through the boards. George, their handyman, was supposed to fill it in all the way, but he had his-self a heart attack before he finished. All that shoveling, Fd guess. So Otis just covered it up, then added dirt, planted grass. But there'd be plenty of dirt down inside there to cushion your friend's fall. If you're sure she's down there."

As if he'd overheard, the sheriff, still lying prone at the edge of the well, turned his head to call out to Maggie, "She's down here, alright. We can see her plain enough. Not that far down, either. He's right about the fill."

"Just get her out" Maggie called back. "Get her out of there!"

It took a while. The speeches forgotten, Lady Justice lying ignored, still in the scoop, all efforts went to rescuing Lane from Otis Bransom's old well. Scout put a comforting arm around Maggie while they waited. What was not comforting was Helen repeatedly mumbling, "I knew it, I just knew it, bad things always happen here."

Maggie wanted to throttle her. She settled instead for hissing, "Helen, if you don't stop that right this second, you're going to join Lane in that well!"

Helen clamped her lips together.

Instead of dispersing, the crowd swelled as word of the accident spread throughout Felicity. Lane's parents, who had chosen not to attend the ceremony, arrived.

"I told her to stay away from here," Lane's mother said, sounding like Helen. She directed a malevolent gaze at Maggie's mother, standing nearby. "If anyone in this town had half a grain of sense, this building would have been torn down long ago. My daughter may have complained about being bored out in the country, but at least she was safeV

Just once during the lengthy process, Maggie moved close enough to peer down into the well. The lantern propped at its edge illuminated the interior as the sheriff and a deputy attempted to rig up some sort of harness. Maggie could see Lane's still, silent form resting on a narrow stone outcropping, as if she had chosen this deep, dark spot to take a nap.

If she had been conscious, they would have lowered a rope to her. But she hadn't stirred. And no one could be sure that a ladder would have a firm enough footing on the mounded dirt.

"How long has she been down there?" Maggie asked Helen.

"Don't know. Can't find my watch. But it feels like hours."

Just about the time that Maggie felt like she had to start screaming at the top of her lungs for somebody to do something, a group of men including Lane's father and two deputies began lowering the sheriff, wearing the harness, into the well.

There wasn't a sound in the watching crowd.

The silence was broken once by the distant rumble of thunder, a second time by a shrill train whis---

tie at the railroad crossing five blocks away. The only other sound was the scraping of the sheriffs boots on the stone walls of the well as he descended.

Maggie's neck began to ache from looking steadily downward. When she lifted her head to ease the ache, the first thing she saw, still in its yellow scoop, its blindfolded stone features blankly facing upward, was Lady Justice . . . the reason they had come to the old courthouse today. Forgotten now.

The sheriffs voice floated up from inside the well. "Got her!" he called. Scout, Whit, Alex, and several Bransom High football players rushed to help the men pull on the rope attached to the harness. They were careful to hold the rope away from the edge of the well to keep the sheriff and Lane from being slammed against the stone wall.

A loud cheer went up from the crowd as the sheriffs head emerged, then his shoulders, chest, and arms ... with Lane folded up inside them. The way she looked reminded Maggie of the doll in the box. She'd forgotten all about it, but now it came flooding back, and her knees went weak.

Lane's red sweatsuit was chalky with stone dust, and there was a small cut on her left temple, trickling blood. But to everyone's surprise, as they emerged into the fresh air, she began stirring, and by the time her father lay her gently on the ground, she was conscious, her eyes open. She began murmuring to her father, her voice low and husky.

"See?" Scout said, bending his head toward Maggie. "Didn't I tell you? She looks okay, right?"

But Maggie wasn't agreeing until she saw and heard for herself that Lane was okay. She ran to kneel beside Lane, who lay quietly, gingerly moving a leg, then another leg, then an arm, and another arm.

"I didn't break anything," she said, sounding amazed.

Everyone began talking at once then, some people congratulating the sheriff, others wondering aloud if someone was going to do something about the statue now that the girl had been rescued. Others began deploring the state of the well's cover.

Maggie reached out to take Lane's left hand in hers. She couldn't do that. The hand wasn't empty. It was a closed fist, with something inside. Maggie couldn't see what it was.

"Hey, Maggie," Lane murmured, her eyes clearing somewhat. "What happened?"

"You fell. The covering gave way on Otis's old well. The boards were rotted through. But," she added hastily, "you're going to be okay."

The sheriff, kneeling at the edge of the hole and fingering the edges of the broken boards, said to no one in particular, "Oh, this wood wasn't rotted. Not at all. Old Otis always used only the best materials. The cover that was nailed over this well prob'ly would have lasted another fifty years or so. If someone hadn't sawed it in half."

Uncomprehending, the crowd fell silent again at his words.

Lane's father, kneeling beside her, asked,

"Sawed? What are you talking about, Donovan?"

"What I'm talkin' about," the sheriff answered, climbing to his feet, "is, someone came at that cover with a saw and sliced right through its center, grass, dirt, boards, and all. It wouldn't have taken that long with a small power saw. See, it's got a slit all the way across it. Like a slot in a piggy bank, you might say. It wouldn't have looked any different, though. Not unless you checked real close."

No response from the crowd, which he now had in the palm of his hand. He might have been reciting a Shakespearean soliloquy, so rapt was the attention of his audience.

"The minute she stepped into the center of the cover, it gave. Just like it was meant to."

Maggie gasped.

The sheriff took his hat off, wiped his brow with a handkerchief, put the hat back on. "That's what happened. I knew it the minute I saw how smooth the edges of those boards were. Sliced as neatly as cheese. Right through the center."

"It was done on purpose?" There was both anger and disbelief in Mr. Bridgewater's voice. His daughter was popular. Why would someone want to hurt her?

"Couldn't have been meant for her, especially," the sheriff said. "The thing is, with this ceremony business here today, whoever did it knew for certain that someone was bound to fall in. Musta meant for that very thing to happen, you ask me."

Understanding exactly what he was saying, Maggie felt sick. Someone had deliberately created

a trap, a trap that Lane had fallen into. Why would someone do that?

As if he'd read her mind, the sheriff asked of the crowd, "Anyone here know why someone would do that?"

No one answered him.

ily. "She must be glad, though, that she's already canceled the restoration plans."

Maggie would have retorted angrily if the sheriff hadn't called out just then, "Anybody know what this is?"

Maggie turned to look.

Lane was already inside the ambulance and the paramedics were closing the doors. The sheriff was standing at the rear of the vehicle, holding up in the air a dirty square of cloth. It looked like it might have once been white, though it was hard to tell.

"The girl gave it to me," the sheriff continued. "She was holding it in her hand."

Maggie nodded. The closed fist.

"Looks like a handkerchief, but she says it's not hers. Said it was on that ledge in the well. Could have been there for years, I suppose. Or maybe not." He glanced around the crowd. "Anyone know whose it might be?"

The mayor, a short, heavyset man with a thick crop of graying hair, removed his straw hat, scratched his head, and said, "Maybe it belongs to one of the construction workers," pointing to the roof of the old courthouse. "Coulda dropped it when they were traipsing through here with their equipment on their way to pulling that statue down. In fact," he added, clearly hoping that this unpleasant event could be dismissed as quickly as possible, "maybe they accidentally split the well cover, too."

The sheriff uttered a disgusted sound. "Your construction crew uses linen hankies, do they, Carter? And how do you 'accidentally' saw straight

through the middle of a wooden well cover?"

Carter P. Rockwell put his straw hat back on and fell sullenly silent.

"Nope," the sheriff said, shaking his head, "nothin' accidental about this." He let that sink in. Then he waved the scrap of cloth again. "So let me ask again, anyone know who this here hankie belongs to?"

Into the tense silence that followed, Alex's voice said, 'That looks like yours, Helen. Isn't Ms. Gross always giving you those? With your initials on them?"

Helen gasped. But she didn't move forward to examine the grimy piece of cloth. She stayed where she was, safely situated between Whit and Maggie. "Of course not!" she declared hotly. "What would one of my hankies be doing in that well? I didn't even know there was a well there!"

But in the next second, as the sheriff turned the handkerchief over in his hands, he was saying aloud, "H. E. M." He tapped a finger against the embroidered initials, so dirty they were indecipherable to the onlookers. He lifted his head, repeating, "Anyone here know who H.E.M. might be?"

Helen's middle name was Electra. Her face had gone ghostly white. She shook her head vehemently. "No, no, that's not minel I wasn't anywhere near that well."

But all eyes in the crowd were on her, and many of them were full of suspicion.

"He didn't say you did anything," Maggie urged in a low voice. "Don't get all upset. Just go check

out the hankie, see if it's one of yours, and then tell him the truth." In a more normal voice, she said, "We all know you didn't have anything to do with this, Helen." She waited for Alex and Scout to echo that sentiment, but they didn't. She wasn't expecting it from Whit, who didn't know Helen that well, but he surprised her by saying, "Considering what's been going on around here lately, Helen, someone could have filched one of your hankies and put it there, just like they took Maggie's gavel. Just go talk to the sheriff. We'll wait for you."

Maggie sent him a grateful smile, and Helen, with obvious reluctance, did as they had suggested.

When Helen had thoroughly examined the handkerchief, she spoke to the sheriff so quietly that no one watching could hear her. But they saw her nod her head.

Maggie, sickened, half expected the sheriff to whip out a pair of handcuffs.

Instead, he simply nodded, and said, "Thank you, miss. We'll talk about this later. Right now, I'm goin' along to the hospital to talk to that girl who fell, see if she can remember anything important."

Helen's steps back to her friends were heavy with relief.

"Sheriff," Maggie called, not caring who heard her, "if you want to talk to someone, talk to Alice Ann Beckwith! She's furious with the peer jury, and she knew we were all going to be here today. She threatened me yesterday. You talk to herl"

But the sheriff was already walking away, and the crowd, awash in mutterings and grumblings,

began to dissipate, as workmen from the roof brought new boards to nail across the well.

Lady Justice continued to lie in the scoop next to the building, still forgotten.

In the heavy silence that followed Helen rejoining them, Alex was the first to speak in Maggie's group. "Well, that tears it!" he declared, his voice low and angry. "This place always was unlucky for the Goodman family. From now on, Fm steering clear of it. You guys will just have to get along without me when you start moving stuff out of here to the new building. Fm not setting one foot inside this one."

"Fm not either," Helen said.

The mayor, to Maggie's surprise, canceled his speech, announcing that he would save it for the following week at the new courthouse. With the statue still lying in the yellow scoop as if it were lolling in a bathtub, the ceremony was canceled and a deputy began to disperse the crowd. "No speeches today, folks. Excitement's over, go on home now."

Shrugging and muttering, the crowd began to disperse. One woman said loudly as she walked away, "This better be the end of it, that's all Fve got to say! The sooner we tear this old eyesore down, the better off we'll all be."