The Matriarch (29 page)

“Jim!” Al yells, his vision blurred with sweat. His deputy peers around the doorjamb like a buffoon right out of the
Three Stooges.

“Yes, sir?”

“Get me a Goddamned Kleenex!”

“Yes—”

“Not right this fucking minute! First tell me when the coroner is getting here.”

“Yes, well … I was going to tell you, sir.” Al watches in amazement as his deputy produces a small white towel from a hip pocket and carefully wipes his face.

I guess you gotta know somebody around here to get somethin’ to mop up with!

“Guy there says Dr. Beaumont’s not available right now.”

“Not available?”
Al is close to losing it. “He’s got to be—it’s his fucking job to be available!” He knows that in the small community of Diablo, the medical examiner and the coroner are one and the same—Jason Beaumont, an M.D. retired from private practice.

“Guy there told me there’s another death in Diablo,” Deputy Jim says. “Suspicious-like.”

“Suspicious-like. Is that a technical term?” The deputy opens his mouth and takes a breath, but Al hurries on. “Who’s dead, please, and why wasn’t I notified? I am, after all, the acting sheriff of this county.”

The deputy closes his mouth and thinks a minute. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Male or female?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Anyone dispatched to go along with the doctor?”

“I don—”

“Where’s the body of this person you know absolutely nothing about?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I realize I should have asked more—”

“Call ’em back,” Al shouts, “and get me some fucking answers! Think you can handle that?”

Frank kneels by his fallen Georgie, weeping. Lester and I stand near him, my hand on his shoulder.

“How could you shoot him that way, Cassidy?” He’s stroking Georgie’s velvet nose.

“He was going to kill you, Uncle Frank. Run you down.”

“No. Not my Georgie. He was confused, that’s all. He would have stopped.” Frank speaks as if he’s not quite sure.

I try to make my voice calm, soothing. “It’s natural you feel that way. But Georgie has obviously been eating a lot of those figs, and they changed him. He wasn’t—”

“Lordy-God, Cassidy!” He looks up at me, his face contorted by anger and grief. “You’re tellin’ me these figs made a killer out of Georgie? A horse? A
male
horse?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.” I glance over at Lester. No help there; he’s just staring at me with a questioning look.

Am I the only one getting this?

“Georgie was a gelding.”

Frank snorts and staggers to his feet. “And that makes him one of your female killers? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yeah. The sort of female killer that just now tried to kill the man he, or she, used to love. Just like Carla and Lindee.”

“And a twelve-year old girl … right?”

I rub at my face. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“I’ve tried to go along with you, Cassidy. You’re my brother’s boy. My family. The figs are … well … evil, I guess.” He shakes his head. “But what your sayin’ here is plum crazy! Nuts!”

“Boss,” Lester says softly, “could be he’s right. Georgie
was
out of his mind.”

I’m grateful for his support, but I keep my face neutral. I look at The Tree, and I’m alarmed to see her branches moving even more. The tentacles twitch and ripple, as if eager.

“Let’s get moving,” I say and pull Frank to his feet. “We gotta burn this mother down while we still can. Don’t actually touch The Tree, boys,” I say as we walk to the Ranger. “Just remember, she’s a killer.”

We unload the hay, the spray jug, and the two backup cans of gas. With rakes, we spread the tinder-dry hay under The Tree and over the soggy mass of decomposing figs. I spray gas onto the hay that covers the figs at the base of The Tree and up into the branches. I spray a gas-soaked circle around it, refill the can, and finish up with more at the base and trunk. Keeping an eye on her tentacles, I work as fast as I can. There’s an almost tangible aura of malevolent hostility coming from The Tree, and I shiver, even in the heat.

She knows. Mama Tree knows exactly what we’re doing.

Frank makes two torches with gas-soaked cloths tied onto kindling sticks. He throws one onto the dry hay and the base of the trunk, while I take the other and ignite the lower limbs of The Tree itself. We step back from the edge of the circle and join Lester.

We watch as the hay and lower branches begin to burn. The fire spreads with satisfying speed, both on the ground and in The Tree.

“It’s gonna work!” Frank states.

“Looks good,” Lester agrees, and I allow myself a small measure of hope.

A hissing sound then. It’s coming from The Tree. Acrid smoke is billowing from the burning areas. Gobbets of white sap are forming on the branches and the thick braided trunk; it collects on the vines. Even the leaves become streaked with the white of it. There’s a burst of nausea in my belly.

“What’s happening?” Lester asks. He sounds like a bewildered child, and I taste bile in the back of my throat, acidic and harsh. We take a few steps back.

A cramp hits me then, and I turn away from Frank and Lester to spit into the ground at my feet. I’m close to puking up my guts.

“Mother’s milk,” Frank says softly. “Her milk’s let down. Just like a nursing mother.”

I don’t want to look but I have to. Like milky pus, profuse quantities of sap bubble up out of The Tree and run down her limbs to the ends of her leaves and vines, and then drip onto the flames. The fire is sputtering out both in the branches and the mush of fallen figs on the ground.

The Tree is putting herself out.

Al calls the medical examiner’s office again, and the man on phone duty, a William Jenson, tells him Dr. Beaumont is en route back to his office with a body.

“What’s the location he’s coming from?”

“What?”

Sweet Christ, is everybody out to lunch?
“The body, Jenson, where did the doc pick it up?”

A pause then while sweat rolls down Al’s back as he listens to Jenson breathe. “I’m not at liberty to give out that information, sir. That will have to come from Dr. Beaumont himself.”

Al doesn’t trust himself to speak. He gulps in air, fighting for some sort of control. This lack of respect is mind-boggling!

This doc is gonna pay. I don’t know how yet, but I’m sure-as-shit gonna think of something.

“Tell the doctor,” Al manages finally, “I’ve got a body here that needs attention. That’s ASAP, Jenson. You understand?”

A pause. Then Jenson says, “‘Here, you say? You mean at your station? At the jail?”

“Yeah. Looks like a suicide.”

“No kidding!”

Al begins chewing on the inside of his right cheek. “Yeah, no kidding. Tell the doc I really need to speak with him. Like now. It’s important.”

“I’ll let him know right away. I think I can patch him through to you right now.”

Al waits.

Then, “Schmidt?”

“Yeah, doc. We got a body here. Suicide.”

The doctor sighs. “I’ll be there soon as I can. Meantime, don’t touch anything, take some pictures, and turn up the air conditioning.”

“Well, see, that’s goin’ to be a prob—” A click in Al’s ear.

The bastard’s hung up on me.

Al slams the phone down. “Jim-Boy,” he yells. “Where’s that Goddamned Kleenex?” He tastes blood from the inside of his cheek.

We sit on the slight swell of land near the smoking tree. The smell of scorched fruity rot settles over us in a tangible cloud. I cover my nose and mouth with a shaking hand while the stench creeps between my fingers. I squeeze my eyes shut, pull my knees up, and hold them tight against my chest. A hand on my knee pushes at me.

“Take one, Cassidy. It helps against the smell.” Frank thrusts a crumpled pack of Camels at me.

“Right, there’s not enough crap in the air,” I say with a short laugh. I pull a cigarette from the package. We all light up.

“She’s somethin’ else,” my uncle says admiringly, as if remarking on really fine weather. “Her power is—”

“Awesome,” Lester fills in. He looks at me and takes a deep drag. Frank is peering at me too, like he’s waiting for me to come up with … what? A solution?

Apparently, further action is up to me. Sure, why not? I’m sitting here with a crazy old man, and a one-armed man, and a killer tree that’s out to get us all.

I suck down another lung-full of smoke and stare down at the ground, trying to think.

“In the movies,” Frank says, ruffling his smoky hair with a dirty hand, “this is where the president is notified, and he gets the Army and the Air Force in on the problem. They all go into action and bomb the hell out a’ this here tree.”

“Not a bad idea,” Lester says. “Outside help sounds pretty good, right about now.”

“Yeah, it does,” I allow. “But it’s cumbersome too. In those same movies, the government is full of dickheads who don’t believe anyone and who take forever to mobilize and do anything. They always have to go through ‘channels.’ Can you hear us explaining this tree to the government?”

“Like how we tried to explain it to Schmidt,” Lester puts in.

“We could try, though,” I say. “We can try to get Manny again, in case he’s still kicking, and have him—”

“Shouldn’t we have reported our suspicion about him by now?” Frank asks.

“Yeah, but that’s Schmidt again. It’s not easy talking to that guy. We could, though, tell him we’re worried and ask him to check on Manny in person. But let’s not get distracted here. The Tree is the thing right now. Got to stop her.”

“I think bombing sounds good,” Lester says. “Bomb this thing right to Hell.”

“Even if we could convince someone to do that, it may not be the answer. This fire today may not have done the job either, even if she hadn’t put herself out. By now her root system is probably deep and pretty extensive. Hell, she could pop up anywhere.”

I look over at The Tree. She’s still smoking, and the figs at her base are mere cinders now. At least that much damage has been done. But even from where I’m sitting I can see those obscene bulbs, the new crop of poisonous figs poking out from behind her leaves. The Mama Tree is still fertile and still birthing her young.

“I think we have to find a poison to fight her with. A chemical that will kill her—cause her root system to die, completely and quickly.” Frank and Lester are looking at me as if what I’m saying actually makes sense. “We have to create some kind of chemical catastrophe for her.”

“I think,” Frank says slowly, “it would help us to figure out the ‘why’ of it. Of
her.
Do you believe, Cassidy, that she thinks and feels? Like a human being?”

I think a moment. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

“And you believe that somehow the tree forces women to kill men?”

“Maybe compels is a better word. Through her figs somehow she compels women to kill men. With Carla and Lindee it was the men they loved.”

“But why?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe she sees men as a threat. A threat to her very life. She can’t control us the way she can women, because her figs have no effect on us. Maybe we’re chemically immune, and that makes us dangerous to her.”