Flight of the Stone Angel (3 page)

So, like himself, Mallory had been fluent in sign language as a child. In the past thirty minutes, Charles had discovered more about her early childhood than his old friend, the late Louis Markowitz, had learned over the years of raising her. For all poor Louis knew, his foster child had sprung to life as a full-blown ten-year-old thief on the streets of New York City.

And now, because Augusta Trebec wanted to keep an eye out for an expected visitor, he picked up his coffee cup and followed the old woman back down the hall toward the small door in the brick wall. He was wondering where the cat had gone. Then he saw the animal’s bright eyes gleaming in the shadow of an ancient porcelain umbrella stand. She was set to spring, and her gaze was fixed on him.

“Be sure you don’t let that cat out,” said Augusta, as she passed by the umbrella stand. “I can’t have that poor animal getting her hopes up, thinking she might catch a bird for supper.”

“I thought cats were rather good at that.” He would have bet his life that this one was particularly good at bloody violence.

“She shows real talent with mice, ‘cause that’s a footrace, and the quickest wins. But the birds usually see her coming in time to fly off. It’s that bright yellow fur. She’s like a little bonfire in the grass.”

Charles nodded. Mallory had much the same problem. So she had certainly not been in Dayborn all these months – not if one appearance could cause the commotion of a heart attack, a beating and a death. Surely she would have wiped out the entire town by now. The sign which had welcomed him to Dayborn had only boasted a population of eleven hundred people.

He was closing the door, when through the crack, he saw the cat bounding down the hallway, her lips pulled back over sharp white fangs and her eyes outraged. He pulled the door shut, and heard the angry cat’s body hitting the wood three feet off the ground.

CHARLES WAS BREAKING the tradition of courting staircases, admiring Augusta’s fine legs and trim ankles as she led him up to the wide veranda. Black birds perched on the curving wrought-iron rail, unperturbed by the old woman’s presence. But, one by one, they took flight as he climbed the stone steps behind her.

When he was eye-level with the massive base of one column, he could see patches of encroaching moss. At the top of the stairs, he stepped over a thick vine, which had crawled up from the yard and now reached out for the front door in bursts of new sprouts. He could almost hear it growing, creeping across the boards. Autumnal wildflowers bloomed all around the house, and their perfume was layered over the heady aroma of chicory coffee wafting up from the cup in his hand.

“I’m waiting on a relative,” said Augusta, walking to the far side of the veranda. “Her parents phoned me this morning to say she was coming to town. Lilith’s father would have told her to pay a courtesy call before she even thought of sitting down to dinner.”

She settled into a high-backed throne chair, the sturdiest piece among the collection of aging wicker. As he sat down beside her and gazed across the wide expanse of tall grass, he understood why the porch furniture was clustered here at the far end. Now he believed in Augusta’s invisible ten-foot hill. According to his guidebook, the levee was nearly thirty feet high along this stretch of the river. Only the rise of Augusta’s and and the added footage of the brick foundation below them would have afforded this panoramic view across the barrier.

Sea gulls dipped and soared, screamed and swooped above the surging Mississippi. A majestic white steamboat was heading downriver toward New Orleans and churning the muddy water with her paddle wheel. He could see all three tiers of the vessel’s superstructure. For one moment of magic, the great ship seemed to glide with perfect balance along the top of the earthen dike. He followed its slow progress until he was distracted by the runner on the levee.

Against the backdrop of bright light reflected on the water, she was a lean, dark silhouette with the long legs of a colt and the speed of a longdistance runner. She turned down the steep incline of the embankment and was lost behind the trees near Henry Roth’s cottage.

“That would be Lilith Beaudare, my cousin’s child,” said Augusta.

He caught sight of the runner’s shadow sprinting through an exposed sliver of the cemetery and then disappearing behind the cover of encircling trees.

The running woman had cleared that ground with amazing speed, appearing again at the foot of the oak alley to his right. She had settled into a slower gait, jogging up the dirt path toward the house. Charles could see the runner’s true colors now: the red of her T-shirt, the purple shorts – the black skin.

He turned to the pale woman beside him.

In the manner of delivering the last line of a fine joke, she said, “The world has changed, Charles. You must try to keep up.”

Augusta laughed, and he liked the sound of it, no matter that she was laughing at him.

“My cousin, Guy Beaudare, moved his family to New Orleans when Lilith was a little girl. They used to come back every summer for a visit – but no more. I haven’t seen that child in years. It’s strange that Lilith should turn up in Dayborn just after your friend was jailed.” There was a caution in her voice as she leaned closer. “You should find it odd, too.”

The young woman was walking toward them with an easy confident stride. Charles noted the detail of the serious competitor’s track shoes. While the young woman was still out of earshot, Augusta smiled at him. “You think
Lilith
is dark? Her mother is so black she’s blue – pure Africa.”

As the introductions were made, Charles believed he saw African suns in Lilith Beaudare’s eyes, twin orbs of yellow on the rise as she looked up to his face. Her black hair was cropped close to a finely shaped skull, and her lips were the color of plum wine. It was an intoxicating array of hue and form. She was a bit taller than her elder cousin, and he guessed her height as closer to Mallory’s five foot ten.

After kissing Augusta on both cheeks, Lilith took his hand in hers, and she kept it a few moments too long for a first handshake. She was smiling, but not with her eyes.

“Lilith is on loan to Sheriff Jessop,” said Augusta. “I think I mentioned that his deputy was in the hospital.”

Charles detected a warning note in Augusta’s tone. But six blunt questions into the conversation, he would have guessed Lilith’s occupation anyway. Her style of conversation might have been off-balancing for some. The young woman never phrased a sentence that did not elicit –
demand
– information, and she left him no room for return volleys. But she had no edge, no leverage with him. Charles was long accustomed to the interrogation mode. Sometimes Mallory could not turn it off.

“How long have you known Augusta, Mr. Butler?”

“We met this afternoon.”

Lilith leaned toward him to press her next question. “And exactly what is your business with my cousin?”

Augusta waved her hands behind Lilith’s back to stop his mouth. “Will you
listen
to that? She graduated from the police academy not two weeks ago, and she’s already interrogating people.” Augusta paused to glare at her young relation before the next rush of words. “Not that it’s any of your business, Lilith – I hired him to investigate a woman who might be Cass Shelley’s daughter. If she is, then it’s time to turn over her mother’s estate.”

Augusta rose from her chair, and Charles stood up, taking this as his cue to leave.

The old woman lowered her eyes like gun sights. “In case your daddy never mentioned it, I’m the executrix. I’ve been collecting rents and paying taxes on the house since Cass died – and I’m tired of it. So as soon as Mr. Butler nails down the line of inheritance, I can get rid of that chore.”

The young woman nodded and turned back to Charles. “Are you licensed in the state of – ”

“That’s enough, Lilith. Don’t mess with my affairs again.”

The two women locked eyes, and in this peculiar form of wrestling, the younger woman’s gaze was beaten back – not sufficient experience in the world to outglare the old one, not yet.

“I expect you’ll be wanting to get on with your business.” Augusta reached out to shake his hand in farewell.

Charles said good evening to the women and walked back the way he had come, down the covered lane of oaks. A bird screamed after him, and other birds flew overhead as he crossed the open ground and entered the wide circle of trees.

A fat black starling perched on the roof of a tomb and followed him with its eyes and the cock of its head. As he walked on through the cemetery, he heard the flap of pursuing wings and felt a rush of air as the starling lit on a marble monument level with Charles’s head. The creature pointed its sharp beak at his face. Its eyes were cold, showing no more emotion than a reptile.

He could well believe the theory that the dinosaur had not died off, but had taken wings and lived on in the smaller form of modern birds. A memory of majesty must survive in this one, for it looked upon Charles as no threat whatever – merely a man, an upstart creature in the scheme of time on earth.

He watched the black bird fly off toward the low-riding sun, and now he noticed that all the graves and monuments were aligned east to west. Perhaps local custom arranged the dead to face the sunrise, ancient symbol of resurrection.

Only one tomb was facing north.

Curious.

He went back to the rim of the cemetery and walked around this structure to stand before a door gated with intricate designs of ironwork and flanked by narrow windows of exquisite stained glass. At first, he placed the tomb in the colonial period, for it was showing the wear of ages: corners rounding and fissures running through the walls. And then he realized that it was constructed with a soft, porous stone. Given the fine craftsmanship of the tomb, this use of shoddy material made no sense at all.

Above the door was the bas-relief carving of a man’s face, minus the nose which had crumbled to dust. The stone eyes were gazing through a break in the trees which allowed a view of Trebec House. The first name engraved over the door was lost to erosion, and the surname was barely legible.
Trebec?
Yes, that was it. Well, what would Mr. Trebec think of his ruined mansion now?

Charles walked around the tomb and headed for the path back to Henry Roth’s house. Before leaving the ring of trees, he remembered one more anomaly and turned to Cass Shelley’s monument, visible through a narrow alley of tombs. The stone angel was facing south. And what was
she
looking at?

A gust of wind came ripping through the trees, tearing leaves away, and sighing off with them to the other end of the cemetery. The soft racket of thrashing branches stopped suddenly, as though the wind had closed a door behind it. The air was colder now and unnaturally still. No sound of insects, no birdcall. The stones were casting their longest shadows toward the close of day.

He felt a light breeze on his skin, as though someone unseen had just walked by, caressing his face in passing. His involuntary shiver was delicious.

Oh, what Cousin Max could have done with a stage like this.
Cemeteries were primed for the illusionist’s art. The atmosphere alone would have done half the magician’s work for him.

As Charles left the circle of trees and drew closer to Henry Roth’s yard, he heard the sound of an engine. His own car sat in the wide driveway, its silver metal gleaming, throwing back light from the sunset sky. There was no other vehicle in sight. He approached the front door, already sensing the stillness of no one home. The sound of the engine stopped now, but suddenly, not tapering off down some road in the distance. It must be close by.

He followed the curving driveway as it wound around the house and past a large chicken coop attached to an empty
garage.
The meandering road led him into the trees and ended at the heart of a grove. A brace of heavy branches concealed the upper portion of an old chapel made of large, rough-hewn blocks of gray. Only the religious arches of the windows and the open doors were not obscured by leaves. A large and blocky tarpaulined shape lay in the bed of a red pickup truck parked in front of the building.

Charles rounded the truck and walked up a short flight of steps. He paused on the threshold and peered inside. Two massive skylights were set into the steep pitch of the high ceiling. Slow floating clouds of pink and gold seemed within
grazing
distance of the glass.

The vast room was full of day’s end shadows. The pews and religious trappings were gone. At the back of the church, ghostly shapes in white drapes formed a circle on the raised floor where the altar had been. Uncovered sculptures stood about the room in a more casual arrangement and varying states of emergence from granite and marble. Many of these figures had wings and appeared to be flying out of their uncarved sections.

A small, delicate man came out of the shadows to dance with the tall statue of a woman. The strange couple glided past a long worktable, and now Charles could see the feet of the man and the wheeled pallet beneath his stone partner as he rolled her to the wall.

Charles would have called out, but remembered that Henry Roth only conversed in sign language and written notes. He came up behind the man as he was arranging a drape around the statue. With no hint of surprise, the sculptor turned to face his uninvited guest. Charles assumed the man had felt the warning vibrations of approaching footfalls on the wooden floorboards.

This person was neither white nor black, but a stunning new race of golden skin and light brown eyes with sparks of green. His hair was pure white and tightly kinked about his crown. The sculptor truly belonged in this company of angels, for his smile was charming and gentle as he spread his hands on the air. His face was an open question.

Charles fumbled for a moment, but the movements came back to him quickly enough. As a toddler, he had signed his words before he had ever spoken aloud. This was his first language, though he had abandoned it over the twenty years since his father’s death. With broad gestures and finger spelling, his hands said, “My
name is Charles Butler.
You
are Mr. Roth?”

The man nodded. Charles made more signs, his hands curving and pointing. When memory failed him, he spelled what he could not sign in a fluid movement. Here and there, he made a slip of the fingers and erred, but all the intricate nuances of tense and adverb were coming back to him as he stabbed the air and danced one hand in a circle. Facial expression gave depth to his feeling when he described his relationship to Kathy Mallory, whom Henry Roth would remember as young Kathy Shelley. He raised his brows to punctuate with a question mark when he asked for help. He tightened his lips for the sense of an emphatic exclamation point when he explained his dire need to see her again.

Only the ignorant believed that sign language was dumb show, simple mime. This graceful three-dimensional voice of hands flying through space,
this
was the true art of conversation. One gesture flowed smoothly into the flight of a bird, and then he finger-stepped across the stage of midair to describe the details of Augusta’s ruse with Lilith – his role as Augusta’s agent. And then, after one last plea for aid, Charles’s hands fell silent.