Flight of the Stone Angel (24 page)

The sheriff leaned out the window and yelled. “Riker, if you still want to talk to Travis, you better come quick. He wants to make a confession. The doctor says he’s not gonna last all day.”

“We’ll talk later,” said Riker in a low voice.

“Maybe I’ll see you at the hospital,” said Charles. “I think I’d like to visit Alma Furgueson.”

“Good idea.” Riker walked across the grass toward the sheriff’s car. The passenger door was hanging open.

When the car was out of sight beyond the trees, Charles heard the basement door open and close behind him. He turned around, not really surprised to see Mallory standing there. But he was unsettled by the changes in her. The running shoes had been replaced with boots, and she wore a flowing white blouse from another era. A dark bandanna covered her throat. There was nothing to cover her gun. A heavy belt dipped low on her right hip with the weight of the revolver – in the best tradition of a gunslinger.

When they had cleared Augusta’s yard, the sheriff’s car pitched into a lake of rainwater flanked by trees. The wheels turned while the car went nowhere.

Riker leaned over to light the cigarette dangling from the sheriff’s mouth. “You don’t think it would have been easier to leave the car at Roth’s place and walk to Augusta’s?”

They were rolling forward again.

“Yeah, but I do like to annoy that old woman. She thinks she’s got her place locked off from the rest of the world. So I come through in the car every now and then, just to thumb my nose at her. Most days she yells at me, and it’s a lot more fun. You know small towns. We’re all so easily amused.”

Yeah, right
. “How’d you know where to find me?”

“Oh, my deputy tailed you out to Augusta’s.”

“The deputy was on
my
tail?”

“Well, yeah. Real early, she caught on that you’d seen her, so she started to follow Henry instead, just to throw you off. Then she let Henry lose her so she could double back and pick up on you again. Don’t let it bother you, Riker. She did say that for a city boy, you did a good job of staying with Henry. I understand he took a real snaky route.”

Now Riker had to wonder if the deputy’s act in the bar had been a double blind. The sheriff was that convoluted.

“So Travis is dying,” said Riker. “You’ve been waiting for this a long time, haven’t you?”

“Seventeen years. I thought that little bastard’s heart would never give out. Glad to have you with me, Riker. I need a witness if that deathbed confession is gonna carry weight in court.”

The car turned onto the wide highway.

“Oh, by the way, Riker.” The sheriff was grinning. “When you see your old friend’s foster daughter, you tell Detective Mallory she can have her pocket watch back anytime she wants to come and get it.”

Riker slumped down in his seat and stared out the window. “Okay, you got me.”

They rode in silence for another mile. There was a comforting monotony in the endless fields of sugar cane, the flat landscape with nothing higher than a tree. No surprises out there.

“Professional courtesy, Riker, cop to cop? Is Kathy a good detective?”

“She’s as good as it gets. You’re not half bad yourself, Sheriff. I suppose you ran Markowitz through the back door – a warrant call on a New York car registration?”

“Yeah, but that only told me he was a dead cop. I got the rest from Jeff Mckenna in Missing Persons. You know him?”

“Sure. That old bastard’s been around for a hundred years.”

“I met him eighteen years ago when I was hunting a runaway. I knew the boy was in New York, so I called Mckenna. He found him a month later when the kid got picked up in a drug sweep. I met the man when I went up north to fetch the boy home.”

“So you called Mckenna and asked after your old friend, Louis Markowitz, who you never met in your life.”

“That I did. And Mckenna breaks the news that old Lou is dead. Then I asked what became of Mallory, and he says she’s still on the force, and she’s got a detective’s shield now.”

“And then you asked about me?”

“Oh, he had a lot to say about you, Riker. Yeah, good old Mckenna – memory like an elephant. He even remembered the name of the boy he tracked down for me. We were lucky to get the kid back as quick as we did. He was sick as a little dog, but no holes in him bigger than a needle, thank God. Interesting town you got there, Riker. Children getting stoned on drugs, people pissing on the walls, perverts cruising Forty-second Street, looking to buy little boys. Must get you down after a while.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But now I’ve found the Lord in Louisiana.”

The sheriff smiled. “I heard you were drinking with the New Church roadies in Owltown. Pick up anything useful?”

Riker pulled a crumpled pamphlet from his pocket, held it out at arm’s length and read from it. “ ‘You are on a long journey over perilous ground. You can take the tortuous road, or buy a miracle and fly.’ ” He wadded the pamphlet and tossed it to the floor of the car to join the debris of empty beer cans. “I don’t get it. A religion based on fortune cookies and airline commercials?”

The walls had been painted the color of an orange Popsicle in a cheerful attempt to brighten the hospital room. But the framed pictures of budding spring flowers were a bad joke on Deputy Travis, who lay dying. Yet he seemed to play the good sport. His mouth was set in a grimace of pain that passed for a bizarre smile.

His skin was sallow and filmed with sweat. The tubes in his nostrils tied him to an oxygen unit in the wall. More tubes were plugged into his body, running down from an IV pole where Riker counted six hanging plastic bags of fluids. The lead wires for the pacemaker were sutured to the man’s skin. His breathing was labored, and his erratic heartbeat was graphically displayed by three waveforms on a monitor screen. Cross-wired machines were gathered near the bed like consulting physicians in discussions of lights, beeps and lines.

The smell rising off the body was earthy and dank. Decay prevailed over the medicinal smells from the collection of bottles on the bedside table. Over the past thirty years, Riker had become something of an expert on the smell of death.

On the opposite side of the bed, a young man with a stethoscope and a white coat was talking in an arrogant, high-pitched Godspeak, explaining to the sheriff that this interview was against his professional advice. He had counseled Travis to cancel it. He was sworn to protect his patient at all cost, and his authority superseded the law’s. So he must insist that the sheriff collect his friend and go. Now. That was an
order.

The sheriff moved closer to the doctor, who was a smaller man with narrower shoulders and no gun. Tom Jessop explained, in a somewhat larger voice, that the younger man had best back off. Now. That was a
suggestion.
Or they might need to roll Travis over to make room for the doctor on that hospital bed.

Riker watched the doctor’s face go slack and noted the general shakiness in the younger man’s stance – all the signs of a virgin mugging victim. The doctor glanced at his patient, reconsidered his oath and backed off to the far side of the room to slump against a friendly orange wall.

Riker checked Travis’s chart for recent doses of painkillers which might void his confession. Rules of evidence demanded lucidity. He also scanned the dates and times for a series of resuscitations by violent shocks from a crash cart. And now Riker wondered if the young doctor had ever read this chart. Above another physician’s signature was a shaky scrawl that must be Travis’s own hand. It said, ‘No more.’ And another doctor had signed her name after the words ‘no code,’ the instruction not to resuscitate one more time.

The sheriff leaned over the deputy’s bed and read from a card. “Travis, do you make this confession in the full knowledge that you are about to die?”

Travis looked up at the sheriff, stunned. He had clearly not expected this, despite the six times he had already died and his own written plea not to interfere with his next death. The deputy’s wide eyes had suddenly taken on the fixed and dulled aspect of a corpse, and so Riker was disturbed by the tears.

Tom Jessop repeated the question, and Travis slowly moved his head to indicate that he believed it now.

The sheriff’s face had no emotion as he crumpled the card in one fist, dispensing with formality. “Were you in that mob? Did you murder Cass Shelley?”

“I threw a rock at the dog. He was coming for me. I don’t even know where that rock came from. It was just in my hand, and the dog was coming for me.”

“You were there when she died.”

“I didn’t go there to hurt anybody. Cass was going to accuse me of – ”

His hand rose to make weak circles in the air. “It was all in the letter – the lab tests. She was gonna hang me with science. I knew it was a mistake, and I was gonna tell her that. I never hurt a kid in my life. And I didn’t want to hurt Cass. But Christ, you just whisper a thing like that in a small town – ” He stopped with a look of sudden pain.

An alarm went off, and a line on the monitor broke into jagged spikes. The doctor approached on cat’s feet, and the sheriff pushed him away without needing to touch him, only nodding him back to the wall.

Now a nurse appeared at the bedside. She was a large woman, dark and round. One pudgy hand held up a syringe and squirted fluid into the air. Now she bent over her patient to probe him for a likely vein among the bruises on his arm.

“What’s that?” Jessop demanded.

“Morphine for the pain,” she said, looking up at him as though he had just crawled out of a roach trap. And now her glare included the doctor at the wall in the same sentiment.

“You can’t give him that!” Jessop shouted at her, moving forward. “Drugs invalidate the – ”

“Fuck off,” said the nurse. And then she shot the needle home.

Riker gave the sheriff points for recognizing the voice of ultimate authority in this room, and for having the grace to know when to quit. The man kept his silence for all the minutes it took the nurse to satisfy herself that the drug was doing its work on her patient and destroying a prime piece of evidence.

Riker marked the nurse as a class act when she refrained from spitting on the doctor as she majestically sailed out of the room.

Travis’s face was relaxed. His mouth sagged open and his words came slowly. “Then the rocks were flying, and the dog was coming for me.”

“Tell me about the letter.”

“That’s all I know about the letter.”

“Who else was there?”

“Ira’s father. Then I had a rock in my hand, but I never picked one up from the ground till after I threw that first one at the dog. I never – ”

“Who else? Was Babe Laurie there?”

Travis nodded.

“You saw him throwing rocks?”

“No. He could’ve, I guess. I was busy with the dog.”

“Malcolm and Fred Laurie?”

“Not Malcolm. Fred was there, and I did see him chucking rocks. Malcolm had walked off before Jack Wooley threw the first one. I picked up more rocks to hit the dog. He was still coming at me.”

“Forget that dog. What about Alma Furgueson?”

He was drifting for a moment. The sheriff grabbed his shoulder to call him back, and then Travis nodded.

Riker leaned in and asked softly, “Did Babe Laurie ever threaten you? Did he have anything to do with your heart attack? Were you in a fight with him the day he died?”

“I had nothing to do with that. I never killed a living thing in my life. I stoned the dog, but the dog lived.”

“What brought on the heart attack?” asked Riker.

“I was out at the Shelley house to pick up Good Dog and take him to the vet. Henry Roth always helps me with that, but he wasn’t there yet. And the dog was jumping up and beating his head into the window glass. Then I had the pain in my chest. I was driving back to town, when I saw her walking in the road.”

“Mallory?” asked Riker.

“Kathy,” said Travis. “She looked just like her mother. Then I felt like I’d been stabbed by lightning, and I ran the car off the road. Kathy saved my life. She should’ve let me die.”

“You got that right,” said the sheriff. “Why did that mob murder Kathy’s mother?”

“I don’t know. It was me Cass was after. But it was a mistake – I swear to God. She barged into the meeting and said – ” His hands were rising, flailing about.

“What meeting?”

“But I’d never hurt a kid. I don’t know why she – ”

“I don’t think that mob assembled to save your sorry ass from a charge of child abuse. I want the
truth,
Travis!”

“You might as well go ask the dog.” Travis’s eyes closed.

The sheriff reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Don’t you die on me, you son of a bitch!” He shook the deputy’s thin body with real violence. “Why did they murder Cass?” He was yelling to be heard above the scream of the monitor alarm.

The question went unanswered. The monitor’s flat line and loud noise said that it was now wired up to a corpse, and the other machines agreed that the heart was no longer beating. The doctor stepped to the bedside. He flipped all the switches to the off positions and cut the feed on the oxygen line. Then he looked at his wristwatch and penned a note on the chart, marking the exact time when the technology died.

Charles slowed the car just beyond the gas station. Mallory turned to the rear window. “The car is stopping. It’s not a tail. Gun the engine, Charles.” She kept the gas station in sight for another few minutes as they barreled down the road and joined the highway.

All around them, sugarcane stalks were moving with the wind, rippling like water on the surface of a vast green sea. The car sped toward an unnatural structure on the horizon; it bore the logo of a chemical company. Waves of stalks lapped up against this skeletal monster of towering dark steel pipes and girders, a specter from the future, a taste of world’s end. White smoke plumed from the stacks and joined up with the wind. Charles knew the whiteness was deception. What was smoking into the air was not something Augusta’s birds should be breathing. He better understood her ruthless ambition to give them sanctuary.

It was a good fight.

He pulled off the highway and onto a side road marked with the hospital sign. “What makes you think they’d keep the records this long? Don’t most hospitals toss them after ten years or so?”

“Not anymore. Computers solved the storage problem.” The hospital was in sight now, a bland building of straight lines. “Augusta’s favorite cashier at the Levee Market has a part-time job scanning the old hardcopy into a data bank. If she’d only worked a little faster, I could’ve lifted everything I wanted from my laptop.”

He slowed down and pointed out the sheriff’s car parked near the entrance. “We could come back later.”

“No, I need this stuff now. Don’t worry about it, Charles. They won’t ask questions. You told Riker you wanted to visit Alma, didn’t you?”

“But what about you?”

He didn’t hold out much hope for this disguise of hers. She would have seemed less out of place on horseback in another century. The long black duster was wide in the shoulders and covered most of her body, stopping short of the riding boots and a bit of the blue jeans. The black hat was also an antique, short in the crown but wide enough in the brim to resemble a cowboy hat. Beneath the hat a black scarf covered every strand of her hair. The incongruous aviator sunglasses made her look even more dangerous. He thought the costume was actually more revealing of her character than disguising of person.

“Seriously, Mallory? You don’t think Jessop and Riker will notice you the second you walk in the door?” Could a bright red fire engine be less conspicuous in the hospital lobby?

“I’m going in through a basement window.”

Oh, of course. He had forgotten who he was dealing with. Any fool could go in by the front door. He pulled into the visitors’ parking lot and rolled along the side of the building. “Just stop me when you see a window you like.”

“It’s the last one at the rear.” Mallory consulted his wristwatch. It was safely past the hour when the clerk went off shift. “Augusta says this woman always complains about the view from the back end of the parking lot. Pull up here. And park the car close by.” She handed him a piece of paper. “And get this prescription filled at the pharmacy. It’s for Augusta.”

He stared down at the paper in his hand. “This has my name on it as the prescribing physician.”

“Well, you’re a doctor.”

“I’m a Ph.D. not a medical doctor.”

“You are now. I gave you a New Orleans physician’s number. You’ll be on the pharmacy computer. Don’t worry about it.”

She crept out of the car, and he gave her cover while she opened the basement window. He had expected her to whip out an elaborate tool kit with delicate lockpicks. Instead, she opted for expediency and used a rock.

Riker changed his mind about going outside for a smoke. Charles Butler had just entered the lobby, bearing a huge bouquet of brilliant flowers. Though he usually attracted some attention for his size and height, he walked through the crowded area without turning a head. In the aftermath of a highway accident, people in hospital garb were moving with urgent purpose. The civilians were haranguing the personnel at the front desk, and others sat, worried and waiting, filling all the chairs and couches scattered about the lobby. All around the giant in blue jeans, people were preoccupied with matters of life and death.

Only Riker noticed Charles approaching the pharmacy window and handing a piece of paper over the counter. The gray-haired pharmacist looked at the paper, nodded and held up five fingers, to say this transaction wouldn’t take much time.

Charles had only walked a few steps away from the counter, when he was roughly shouldered by a speeding nurse, who bounced off of him. Riker could read the body language of Charles rushing to apologize for what
she
had done to
him.
The nurse gently touched one of the exotic blooms in Charles’s bouquet and nodded. Now she pointed down the hall where Charles would find Alma Furgueson’s room and her visitor, the sheriff.

Riker had begged off that interview. He hadn’t wanted to see the sheriff’s interrogation style applied to the woman who had crawled from the cemetery on her hands and knees.

He felt around in his pockets for cigarettes and matches as he walked outside. Charles’s Mercedes was nowhere in sight. He strolled around the side of the building and spotted the silver car at the back of the lot, though there were a dozen spaces close to the front door.