Flight of the Stone Angel (26 page)

“Say hello to your visitor, Alma.” Jane took the flowers from his hand and began to arrange this larger bouquet in the water pitcher, brutally snapping the long elegant stalks to better fit the short length of glass, bruising every petal as she forced them into the narrow container. The overflow of water spilled out on the table, smearing the ink on Alma’s only get-well card, which was signed by Jane.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Miss Furgueson.” He pulled up a chair and sat on the other side of her bed. “I know it had something to do with the angel in the – ”

“Oh, no it didn’t,” said Jane, answering for Alma. “She does this at least once a year. She’s pixilated, you know. Now you just call her Alma – everyone does.”

Charles began again, speaking to Alma. “I was in the cemetery when you – ”

“Wasn’t that a sight?” said Jane. “I guess everyone in town’s been up there. But angel or no angel, Alma was due for another round of slashing and bleeding.”

And now Charles looked down to the bandaged wrists. Older scars protruded from the line of the white bandages. It was true then; this was a ritual with Alma. That assuaged his guilt only a little. Suppose she had died?

“I understand you’re a member of the New Church,” he said in a game attempt at making conversation with the woman on the bed.

“Well, everyone in Owltown belongs to New Church,” said Jane. “I did try to talk Alma out of that. She was a staunch Catholic, you know. It was pure insanity to deed her house over to the
New Church.”
She made a distasteful moue as she spat out the last two words, and for a moment, Charles thought she might spit on the floor.

Alma was staring at him. He couldn’t fathom her expression. Was she frightened or glad of a visitor? Again, he looked down at the history of mental illness in the old scars above her bandaged wrists.

“Would you like me to go?” he asked Alma.

“Certainly not,” said Jane.

Alma’s eyes never left his face. When he smiled at her, she smiled back. Well, lunatics liked him. That was his curse in life. There was something about his foolish smile that made them believe he was one of their number.

He covered Alma’s hand with his own. “Perhaps you should be resting.”

“Now don’t you worry about her,” said Jane. “She’s only a little peaked because the sheriff was in here upsetting her with a lot of questions about a meeting. ‘What about that meeting?’ he yells, like she’s deaf or something. And poor Alma turned white as a sheet. But she’s all right now.”

“What sort of meeting?” He spoke to Jane this time.

“Oh, nothing special,” said Alma. “Just a business meeting for the board members. And I told him that. We were talking about repairs on the tent and budgets for the mail order catalogues. And then Cass walked in.”

Now Jane chimed in. “Alma bought herself a place on the governing board of the New Church when she deeded over her house.”

Charles looked at Alma. “What was Cass Shelley doing at that meeting?”

Alma looked to the glass and pitcher, both filled with flowers. “Jane, could you get me some water?”

When Jane had gone off in search of flowerless water, Alma touched his arm. “Jane says you’re real tight with Malcolm.”

“We met in her cafe. I don’t – ”

“And I saw you in the front row at the memorial service the other night. You were in the chair with the velvet rope.” Now she clutched his wrist, her nails dug into his skin and she smiled with fever-bright eyes. “I never told the sheriff anything about the letter.”

The letter again. What had Ira said about the letter? “You mean the
blue
letter?”

“Yes, it was blue.” And now she smiled, very pleased with him, as if he had passed a test of sorts. “Tom Jessop’s not a believer, you know, not one of us. He knew I was there when Cass died, but he didn’t understand the importance of her ascendance into heaven. Now she’s come back to take me away. You know, Cass always wanted to do that. She would get all her legal papers together, and then Jane – Oh, doesn’t Jane love a good fight. Jane would get a legal-aid man out of New Orleans to say that there was no cause to take me anywhere. But now Cass is back, and this time she will bear me away.”

Yes, Alma was quite insane. And someone
should
send her away, but he thought that was unlikely. Every notch cut into her wrists represented a lost opportunity to get her the help she needed. He could see her future now. One day she would get it right, and she would die alone. What a friend she had in Jane.

“What do you remember about the meeting?”

“Cass came in as we were talking about mending the tent for the next road show. She was real angry. Her office had been robbed. I know the sheriff was out of town, but I don’t know what she expected us to do about it. And she was waving that letter. Now she said that it was stolen, but there it was in her hand.”

“Could it have been a copy?”

“It could have been. Now that would make more sense, wouldn’t it?”

“Do you know what was in the letter?”

“Yes, of course I do. She wanted to take me away. I told you that.”

“All right – the meeting. Did that have anything to do with the stoning?”

“No, that was God’s work. The stones came out of the sky like rain and one fell into my hand. Not hard, mind you, but it just settled there in my hand. I took it home with me, and I keep it under my bed. It was so quiet between the fall of one stone and another.”

Alma’s voice was shrill now, and her eyes were very bright. “Cass didn’t scream or anything. That was part of the miracle. You wouldn’t think a woman could die in silence while her body was being broken that way. It was a test. But she understood what was happening to her.”

Alma clutched his arm with one hand and raked the other through her hair. “And the rocks only rained on Cass. It was a miracle the way she died.” Tears were streaming down her face and her voice was louder, almost shouting. “And now she’s back, going about His work. She’s come for me. I was afraid once, but no more. It’s my time of atonement for all my sins.” She looked to the ceiling, and screamed. “I’m so sorry! I have offended Thee!”

“What have you done?” Jane pushed the door, open with one meaty elbow. Her hands were filled with a pitcher and a glass. “She’s not supposed to be upset. Maybe you’d better leave, Mr. Butler.” Behind Jane, a nurse’s voice seconded this opinion. When Charles stepped into the hallway, the door was slammed behind him.

Riker was leaning against a gurney, an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. “Have a nice visit, Charles? Sounded like a prayer meeting. Is Alma worried about going to hell for what she did?”

“I’m not sure she did anything. Alma says she did have a rock in her hand, but she took it home with her. She’s not lucid, but I believe that much.”

“Did the rock just appear in her hand?”

“How did you know that? She thinks it fell from the sky.”

“The deputy had a similar story, and he wasn’t the least bit crazy.

“I don’t think Alma will stand up to any more questions, if you’re – ”

“I’m not here for that. I think you should wait till the sheriff leaves before you pick up the brat.”

“Pardon?”

“Cut the crap, Charles. I just gave Mallory the pills from the pharmacy. She was down in the basement stealing files. Do you know what those pills are for?”

“For Augusta.”

“That’s what Mallory told you?” Riker gave him a pity smile. “She’s got a gunshot wound in her shoulder, Charles.
That’s
what the pills are for. I have to get her out of here before she takes another bullet, and I need your help. I’ll tell the sheriff you’re giving me a lift back to town. We can load her into your car and just keep driving.”

A bullet wound? Charles shook his head in disbelief. It couldn’t be. How could she –

“Charles, you know she killed Babe Laurie.”

“No I don’t, and neither do you.”

“Well, let’s see what I got to work with here,” said Riker. “I got one dead mother killed by a mob. And that wacko religious cult fits nice with the mob concept, doesn’t it? According to the feds, Babe Laurie led that cult. And this bastard gets his ass murdered within an hour of Mallory hitting town. You wanna play connect-the-dots?”

“That’s enough, Riker.”

“Or maybe a fast round of blindman’s buff? I’ll wear the blindfold first, okay? I’ll pretend I can’t see her killing a man just because he stoned her mother to death.”

“Mallory wouldn’t use a rock.”

“Why not? That’s the way her mother died. You gotta admit the kid has an interesting sense of justice.”

“Put a lid on it, Riker.”

“The sheriff still has good memories of a tiny little girl who couldn’t even lift a gun. If she stays much longer, it’ll be too late – he’ll have her jacket from NYPD, maybe psych files too. Do you want that man to find out what Mallory’s really made of?”

“So you want to lure Mallory into the car, and – ”

“Yeah, I owe it to Lou Markowitz. He’d do the same if he was alive. Hell, the old man would toss her in the trunk and drive straight through till morning. I just want to keep his kid alive and out of prison. Help me, Charles. You want me to beg? Okay, I’m begging. Lou would be down on one knee if he was here.”

Of course Riker couldn’t do it without a trusted friend to betray her to lead her into the car, where Riker would be waiting.

“No.” Charles looked down the hall as Tom Jessop was walking toward them. “I think the sheriff’s ready to leave now. Goodbye, Riker.”

Riker turned to the sheriff and called out, “Two minutes.” The sheriff waved and walked off.

“Why don’t you sleep on it, Charles. We’ll talk again tomorrow. If I have to do this alone, I might have to hurt her, and I’d rather not do that.”

“I don’t believe you could hurt her. And I know you couldn’t force her to go with you, not by yourself. Did you ever try to take Mallory
anywhere?”

“Yeah, I did,” said Riker. “Once I took her to the Bronx Zoo. She was eleven. The animals in the monkey house didn’t wanna play with her. I think the kid made them nervous – they wouldn’t come anywhere near the bars. She didn’t take rejection very well in those days. So the kid points to the monkeys, and she looks up at me and says, ‘Shoot ’em.‘ ”

“You’re making that up.”

“But you’re not sure, are you?”

“I like this one best,” said Malcolm Laurie, in admiration of the statue wielding a sword over his head.

Sergeant Riker was startled. He had not expected company from that direction, not in this predawn hour.

“Good morning,” said Malcolm, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to find a New York City detective crouching in the grass behind a tomb. “You left the bar too early. I was just about to break out the good stuff.” In his hand was a flat silver bottle.

Riker stood up and accepted the hip flask, breaking his time-honored rule of no hard liquor before breakfast. After one sip of whiskey, he pronounced it very good stuff indeed. Averting his eyes from the angel and her stone sword, Riker’s gaze wandered over the surrounding faces of more passive, unarmed sculpture. “Never saw so many angels in one place. It’s a damn convention.”

“There are sixteen of them. Seventeen, if you count Nancy Trebec.” Malcolm walked over to the marble woman standing off to one side of the cemetery, all but lost in the trees. He pulled out a gold cigarette lighter and flashed the flame in her face.

What a pretty face, full of sorrow.

“No wings,” said Riker, returning the flask.

“A fallen angel doesn’t need wings. She’s not going anywhere.” Malcolm leaned one arm on the statue’s slight shoulder as he tipped back the whiskey for a long draught. “No room for a suicide in Catholic heaven.”

“Why did she kill herself?”

“You didn’t take Betty’s tour?”

Riker turned back to look at the angel with Mallory’s face and a lethal weapon. “The statue broke up the party when it started crying.”

“Well, Betty tells it better, but I can give you the short version.” Malcolm stood back from the statue and regarded it with a half-smile. “Jason Trebec wanted a male heir to carry his name. But after Augusta was born, Nancy couldn’t have another baby. She was barren. And Catholic – no divorce. Jason was a cruel old bastard, and every last day of Nancy’s life, he found some new way to punish her for not giving him a son.”

“The old man was nuts. I’ve met Augusta. She’s twice the man I am.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it.” Malcolm had seemed cold sober only a moment ago, and now he split his face with the wide smile of a happy drunk. “Augusta has balls, all right.” He grabbed his crotch. “They used to be
mine.”

He was laughing as he sank down to the stone pedestal at Nancy’s feet. “Augusta snipped them off me in court. Sued me for damaging a bird habitat. Then she moved on to the chemical plants, snipping off trophy testicles in courtrooms up and down the Corridor. Now she has enough balls to set up a damn pool table.”

Riker sat down on the cold stone slab at Nancy Trebec’s feet. “Naw, I don’t think that’s Augusta’s style. I see her banging ‘em across a net with a paddle.”

Malcolm nodded as he considered this. “Or baseball?” He nudged Riker’s arm. “Splat with a bat?”

Riker winced and leaned back against the statue. In the benign afterglow of a long night’s boozing, he studied the man beside him. When they had first met over a watered-down whiskey in Owltown, he had not known what to make of Malcolm. But very quickly, the personality had jelled into a man’s man with a taste for Riker’s unfiltered cigarettes and an unlimited capacity for drink. Riker’s approval had grown with each glass he downed on Malcolm’s tab.

And now the hip flask came back to him again. The scotch was smooth, and it warmed him. Life was good.

Ah, wait. Here’s a snag.
He upended the silver bottle and one golden drop hit the ground. “Aw, you killed it,” said Riker, perhaps ungraciously.

“That’s no problem.” Malcolm took it out of his hand. “I’m in the resurrection business.” He turned his back and said a brief prayer to Bacchus. When he offered the hip flask to Riker again, it was full.

“Praise the Lord,” said Riker, wishing he could remember the words to Malcolm’s prayer so he could try this stunt at home. “I’ve seen the light.”

“Sooner or later, they all do.”

“I hear you’ve got quite an act, Mal.”

“Well, I’ve been working on it for thirty years.”

“You don’t look much over thirty now.” According to the roadies, Malcolm was only a few years his junior. In the better light of an Owltown bar, he had searched for signs of a face-lift, but found none. “What’s your beauty secret?”

“Clean living,” said Malcolm, tilting back the flask. “Got another cigarette?”

Riker fished in a side pocket where the package had fallen through the torn lining. Impatient, Malcolm plucked a cigarette from the air. He snapped his fingers, and a flame appeared to spurt out of his thumb.

Riker was about to say he had seen Charles Butler do that same trick a hundred times.

Well, he had definitely had enough to drink for one night.

Not wanting to lose face with a fellow boozer, he put the silver bottle to his lips but didn’t drink before he handed it to Malcolm. But after a few more passes, the flask hadn’t lightened any. And now Riker realized he had been drinking alone tonight.

Shit.

Either that or Malcolm was the Second Coming.

“The roadies tell me you can turn water into wine.”
And cops into babbling idiots.

“Yes, sir. Now that’s a real crowd pleaser.”

“But they think you’re really making wine out of tap water. These guys go on the road with you. They do the setups for the act, right? So how can they believe it’s for real?”

“Most every religion demands faith in impossible acts.” He pointed to the crucifix on the tomb next to them. “People believe that man on the cross was begotten by a god. He could heal the sick and raise the dead. How magical.”

The pointing finger moved on to another stone house. “That’s the tomb of a local woman in the same trade.” The walls were marred with graffiti and the base was littered with colored bits of broken glass, ribbons and pins. “The drawings are voodoo symbols. The things on the ground are religious offerings. She’s a hundred years dead, but some people believe she’s still got the power.”

Malcolm stood up, his arms lifting into a crucifixion pose, and his hands spread wide on the rising wind. The air was blowing cold, and his long hair flew back to reveal the shape of his skull. As he spoke, his smile was dazzling – even in the dark. “This part of the world is ripe with magical thinking.”

A more pragmatic, enlightened thinker of the late twentieth century, Charles Butler, Ph.D. stood at the edge of the cemetery, holding a jar of blood – still warm from the recent sacrifice of a chicken’s life.

He waited in uneasy silence. Finally Malcolm walked down the gravel path and through the circle of trees with one arm thrown around Riker’s shoulders. Evidently, the seduction was a great success, for Riker was laughing as the salesman of wonders led him away.

Charles turned to face Henry Roth, and together they moved on to the avenging angel and proceeded to bind her wings with rope. They worked quietly through the next hour, exchanging one piece of sculpture for another. They worked faster toward the end of the hour, for it was getting light, and the believers would be coming soon.

How disappointed they would be.

Henry wiped the sweat from his brow as he walked back to the tomb of Jason Trebec and turned an old-fashioned key in the lock on the door. He stored his tools alongside the chicken blood and a block of dry ice.

Charles was staring down at the sad face of barren Nancy Trebec.

“Henry, do you think Babe Laurie could have been sterile?”

“Possible. Most of the Lauries are as prolific as rabbits, but Babe’s only child was a bastard.”

“What do you think of a bastard child as a motive for murder? Suppose Babe took it out on the boy, Fred’s son? Maybe Fred retaliated?”

“Ugly things have been done on account of bastards.”
He looked up at the bas-relief of a man’s crumbling face above the door.
“Jason Trebec once hauled his wife into court and tried to have Augusta declared illegitimate.”

“Do you believe Augusta was a bastard?”

“No, and neither did the judge. The resemblance was so obvious. If this stone portrait was in better shape, you could see it, too. I think Jason just wanted an annulment so he could get on with the business of begetting a son by another woman.”

For a long time after Henry had gone home, Charles was still searching the stone likeness of Jason Trebec, looking for traces of Augusta. He found them in the shape of one uncrumbled eye and what remained of the mouth.

He turned away and walked along the path heading east. The sun was a pale white disk behind the cloud cover. The birds had begun to sing again, but he discerned another sound above the racket, footsteps on gravel. He glanced over one shoulder.

Riker was back, slogging down the path, as though his legs weighed a hundred pounds each. The sky was light gray now, and so was the detective.

“Hey, Charles. Given any more thought to helping me with my problem?” Each word was very distinct. The man took great pride in never slurring his speech, no matter how much he’d been drinking.

Charles regarded the slack face, the poor color, and wondered why his old friend didn’t fall down. Between the liquor and the chain-smoking, Riker had never been in the best of shape. “You need to get some rest.”

“I take that as a
no.”
Riker was suddenly in thrall to the angel recently restored to her pedestal. “Oh, Jesus. Charles, you gotta stop this. It’s weirding me out.”

Distant thunder rumbled in the west. And the gray sky was bright for one split second.

“It’s over now,” said Charles. “That’s the original angel.”

Riker stepped closer to look at the child in the woman’s arms. He turned back to Charles, who nodded. “It’s Mallory. Six years old, going on seven.”

“She’s really into this, isn’t she? The bastards must be going nuts wondering when she’ll make her move.” Riker drew the collar of his suitcoat close about his neck and folded his arms against the cold.

“I suppose it’s a bit unsettling,” said Charles.

“Unsettling? A woman tried to kill herself.” Riker was shivering in his flimsy suit.

“Don’t throw that up to me again. And don’t ask me to turn on Mallory.” Charles sat down on the grass, suddenly very tired. “Why must you do this to me?”

“I have to get her away from here before Babe Laurie’s crowd finds her. Travis placed Babe on the scene of the stoning, so Mallory has the best motive in town. The sheriff probably – ”

“You’re tired, Riker, and off your game. You should know by now that nobody cares what happened to Babe Laurie.”

“Except the people from the mob that killed her mother.” The first drop of morning rain found Riker and stained his suit with a small circle of a darker gray. “They’ll wonder how she knew Babe was one of them. They’ll see her as a threat.”

“A very smooth recovery. Much better logic.”

“But no sale?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

The rainfall was light, but the incessant birdsong stopped, and every more sensible creature ran for cover.

“Charles, the sheriff wants her to go. This might crush the brat’s ego – couldn’t hurt to try – but I’m not so sure the jailbreak was Mallory’s idea.”

“You think the sheriff set her up for that?” Not
likely.
On the day of the jailbreak, the sheriff had seemed very determined to get her back again – assuming that the sheriff wasn’t lying.

Riker shrugged. “There’s no warrant for her arrest. Interesting, huh? No cop outside this parish knows she’s missing or wanted. If we take her out of here right now, I don’t think anybody’s gonna come after us.”

Assuming that Riker wasn’t lying.

“She has a right to investigate her mother’s death,” said Charles.

“And when she’s got the complete list of names? What then?” Raindrops streaked Riker’s face. They looked like tears.

But they’re not. Only the rain.

It was coming down harder now, pelting the leaves of the surrounding trees. Riker’s hair was wet. “You can’t go on blind faith. You got no idea what she’s planning. Suppose more people die?” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the gold pocket watch. “Here, take it. The sheriff wants her to have it back. And then he wants her to go.”

Charles quickly grabbed the watch and closed his massive hand around it in a tight fist to keep it from the rain. “Why can’t you be on her side? All she wants is a little justice.”

He was walking away from the detective, crossing the circle of tombs, half blind with the rain slanting into his face.

Riker said to his back, “I gotta figure she came back to destroy maybe twenty, thirty people.” His voice was rising to cross the distance between them. “I don’t want you to be too disappointed in the kid… when she actually pulls that off.”

And Charles kept walking.

“Does anyone know where the sheriff was when Babe Laurie died?”

“Charles, you don’t really think he did that.” Augusta presided over the kitchen table. It was laid with plates of sweetbreads and bowls of steaming concoctions, mingled aromas of saffron and chicken, sweet-meats and vegetables. Augusta was spooning a broad array of food onto Charles’s plate. “Tom Jessop wouldn’t take time out of his day to talk to Babe, let alone kill the man.”

“But the sheriff has a history of violence. I understand he beat up Fred Laurie for taking shots at the dog.”

“Oh, that was years ago. Now Tom was there, but I was the one who beat up on Fred.”

“You, Augusta?”