Burial Ground (18 page)

The servant pointed to the sofa. “Please sit down.”

We looked at each other and shook our heads at the same time.

“I think we’ll stand,” I said.

Another little bow of acknowledgment and the old man vanished back into the hallway. I turned to P. E., but she was looking at something else, and I followed her eyes.

The oil portrait over the fireplace was of a woman. And there was no doubt, from the antebellum attire, and the dark, piercing eyes, that we were looking at a painting of Eulalia Wascom.

“My God,” P. E. breathed, “she’s beautiful.”

I regarded the slightly rounded face, the almost catlike eyes, and the long, onyx hair, and I nodded.

“Yes,” I agreed. “She was.”

“She’s dead?”

“For four years now,” I said. “She was Carter Wascom’s wife.”

“She was more than that,” a voice said from behind me. “She was my life.”

We turned together and saw Carter Wascom in the doorway, motionless. He wore tight-fitting blue jeans and a blue workshirt, open at the neck, and there was a smudge of dirt on his forehead.

“Mr. Wascom,” I said, and took a step toward him. “I’m Alan Graham. We met the other day. This is Dr. Courtney. She’s an archaeologist, too.”

“Pleasure.” He gave me a cold hand and then released my own after the first shake, as if the warmth of living flesh had burned him and gave Pepper a stiff little bow. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting, but this isn’t a very good day, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry.”

He turned to the manservant, standing behind him.

“I think it’s deep enough now, Louis. I’ll be there in a minute and we can finish.” He turned back to us: “I was digging a grave.”

“A grave?” I asked.

“Balfour, the black Lab you saw with us the other day. He belonged to Eulalia. The last living link to her, really, besides myself. I loved that dog.” He gave a little shake of his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Thank you.”

“How did the dog die?” Pepper asked.

For a split second Wascom looked startled.

“I think it was a snake bite,” he said. “I found him behind the house this morning.” He sighed.

“We won’t bother you for very long, then,” I said. “I just needed to ask you a question about the deal you made with T-Joe Dupont.”

“Oh?”

“I understand he and his family came up here together to look at the land and afterward you and he made a handshake agreement?”

Wascom frowned. “That’s correct.”

“And his son, Willie, was there at the time?”

“Oh, yes.” Wascom nodded. “I thought he and his father were going to come to blows.”

“Really.”

“Willie thought his father was paying too much. I don’t think he liked the idea from the start. He said the oil market wasn’t good enough, this wasn’t the old days, that his father was still acting like it was 1975.” Wascom gave his brittle little laugh. “As if he remembered 1975.”

“I see. Well, thank you for your time. We’re sorry about the dog.”

“Life is so fragile,” Wascom said, cocking his head slightly. “Don’t you think?”

“It is,” I said, waiting.

“People can be robust one minute, in the flower of health, and the next…” He shook his head. “I used to believe in God, Mr. Graham. I don’t anymore. No deity could be so cruel…” I noticed that his eyes were on the portrait now. “Isn’t she beautiful? I had that painted the first year we were married. I paid quite a lot for it. It captures her spirit. She was such a vivacious lady.”

I was feeling chills despite the closeness of the room.

“Mr. Wascom …”

“I wish you’d tell me what you’re doing for the Duponts,” he said. “I hear you’re looking for something.”

I nodded. “T-Joe wanted an archaeological survey and Willie asked us to follow through. He’s interested in Indian culture. That’s the work we do.”

Wascom frowned. “Indian culture. You mean you’re looking for artifacts?”

“That’s right.”

“I see.” He walked across the room, head down, and then raised it suddenly to fix me with his dead eyes.

“You know, that was my family’s land.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Eulalia never would have let me sell it to someone outside the family. Not one square inch.”

“What about Marcus Briney?”

Wascom blinked. “Oh, well, Marcus is sort of a guardian. Used to be up at Angola, you know. Keeps an eye on the place.”

“He claims he wasn’t at home when T-Joe Dupont was killed.”

“No, that’s right. He passed us in his truck, coming from town, after I found the wreck.”

“This road makes a horseshoe, though, doesn’t it? A person could go out to the highway taking the northern route, and then come back this way.”

“But he didn’t. I saw him leave earlier that morning. Why?”

“Just trying to make sense of things,” I said. “Thank you, Mr. Wascom.”

“By the way,” P. E. asked. “Have you seen Absalom Moon?”

Wascom’s thin brows went up a half-inch. “Absalom? Not for a week or so. But that isn’t strange. He comes and goes. Why?” He took a step toward us. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said quickly. “We were just looking for him.”

“Well, if there’s nothing else?” he asked.

“No. Thanks for your time,” I said, and we started for the door. I pulled it open and gulped in the fresh air from the hallway.

“Come back,” Wascom called from behind us. “Come back and see us, you hear?” He started toward us, then stopped.

“I’ll have Louis make some iced tea. I…” He gazed around him in confusion.

The manservant appeared from nowhere and took Wascom’s shoulder.

“I’ve put Balfour in, Mr. Carter. I wrapped him up in Miss Eulalia’s blanket like you wanted. You can come say some words now, if you’d like.”

Wascom nodded.

“Balfour. Yes, of course.”

We slipped out. It was good to get out of the suffocating old house and into the sun.

S
EVENTEEN

It was five minutes before either of us spoke and then P. E. said, “Strange.”

“I don’t like it, either,” I said, as she halted her car in the field, by the boat trailer. “Wascom isn’t telling us everything.”

“I had the same feeling. But what do you think he’s holding out?”

“I don’t know. But what’s so worth protecting that he needs Marcus Briney living next door?”

“You think Briney could be the killer, then?”

“I don’t know what the motive would be. Besides, Carter just told us Briney wasn’t there, at least when T-Joe was killed.”

“A point,” she said.

I opened my door.

“You may want to leave your car here,” I said. “The roads can be pretty rugged in these parts.”

“Good idea.” She locked up, then came around to the Blazer and got in on the passenger side.

“Want to stop and see if Absalom ever came home?” she asked.

“Sure.”

But he hadn’t. The place was as deserted as ever and I had a bad feeling about it. Worse, the sky had clouded and I knew an afternoon thunderstorm might make a muddy slop of the road. All I could think to do was to find the track, and if it looked like a trap, to come back out and go boating some other day.

P. E. pulled out a topographic map. “According to the map the trail to the river is about a mile from here,” she said.

As we curved up the road, heading north now with the river somewhere to our left beyond the trees, I caught a glimpse the stacks of the nuclear plant. Could there be any truth to Carter Wascom’s accusations? The plant had been plagued by shutdowns and safety problems. But only a complete medical study could say whether any waste product could have harmed his wife. I was just an archaeologist, not a physician or a nuclear engineer.

We passed the end of the fence and were alone now in a long tunnel of trees. All at once I began to doubt my sanity. What was I doing here, getting ready to take a small boat down to the Father of Waters? It was as harebrained a notion as any I’d ever succumbed to. We could be cap-sized, carried away by the current, we could—

“Here it is,” she said and I saw a narrow dirt road heading off to the left. I braked to a halt.

“Do we really want to do this?” I asked.

“I think you can make it,” she said.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

“Let’s hope,” I said and turned left, onto the dirt.

It took twenty minutes to bump our way down from the hills to the floodplain. The ruts were dry, and I knew they’d fill up quickly in a good rain. The sky was still blurred by clouds. How the hell was I going to explain it if we got stuck?

“Why are you going so slowly?” she asked. “Is the hitch loose?”

I recalled the split-moment of vulnerability I’d seen a few days ago in her office. To think that I’d almost been lulled into sympathy!

I wrenched the wheel to avoid a hole in the road and waited for her comment but, surprisingly, there wasn’t any. She was looking out the window now, an odd, almost fixated stare.

“Something the matter?” I asked.

She gave a little shake of her head.

“I don’t know. It was
d
é
jà
vu
. I had the sudden feeling I’d been here before.” She turned her head around to face me. “I think that portrait of Eulalia Wascom spooked me. Does that sound crazy?”

“No, it’s a spooky place,” I said. “Him living like that, in a dream world, with nothing but a big picture.” I made a low, wailing sound. “Maybe she’s in the car with us now.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Never.”

We came down onto the floodplain then and I saw a wet patch ahead. I gunned the engine and we bumped through it. As we neared the river, the temperature rose, along with my sense of uneasiness.

“Can’t you run up the windows and put on the air?” she asked.

“We can run up the windows,” I said, “but the only air you’re going to get is from outside. The unit’s broken.”

“Oh, God,” she muttered.

I sloughed through another puddle. “We could’ve brought your Integra,” I said.

“That’s very funny.”

We came up a slight rise that I recognized as the natural levee of the river and then it was in front of us, a mile wide of choppy, gray water, all snags and whirlpools and logs headed for the Gulf.

I stopped and got out, a warm breeze hitting me in the face. The banks here were covered with rip-rap, broken rocks dumped by the Corps of Engineers to retard erosion. On either side of us were trees, mostly oaks, with a few willows at water’s edge. I calculated for a few minutes how I’d turn the rig around, then got back in.

“What now?” she asked.

“I’m going to try to back this rig down to the water,” I said, not bothering to complain about the rip-rap and how hard it would be to stand on it without twisting an ankle. I managed to turn in the little clearing and then backed toward the river. When I was as far as I dared go, I cut the engine and put on the hand brake.

I got out and motioned for her to stand on the other side of the trailer, then unfastened the cables holding the boat in place, and together we pulled the boat backward until it was half out of the trailer and half hanging in air. I made sure the outboard motor was cocked up so that the propeller wouldn’t strike the rip-rap and then together we eased the boat down onto the rocks. I reached into the boat and tossed her an orange life vest.

“Put that on,” I said, picking up one for myself. I went back, got my field pack from the Blazer, and put it into the boat. Then I locked the Blazer and went back to the boat, threading my GPS unit onto my belt.

“A
Trailblazer
?” she asked.

“I know,” I told her: “You have one with a map display that can give you accuracy within ten meters.”

“Two meters,” she said smugly.

I patted my global positioning unit. “Well, I’ve done okay with this one,” I said, thinking of the days when we’d had to reckon from maps instead of satellites.

We manhandled the aluminum hull down the uneven slope, and over the rocks until the stern touched the water and began to float. Without being told, she got in as I held the gunwale steady. I checked. The paddles were inside, and so were the oil and gas cans. I shoved the bow until the entire boat was floating and then pulled it until it was parallel to the bank.

“Come up front,” I said and waited while she scrambled toward the bow. Then I stepped into the stern, by the motor, and began to pour in the oil and gas mixture that the outboard required. There wasn’t any current here, a few feet from the bank, because the water was shallow, but twenty feet away, where the bank dropped off, I saw sticks and debris racing past.

I was crazy to be doing this. Totally, irremediably, hopelessly crazy.

“Hold on,” I said, and pulled the cord to start the motor.