The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (23 page)

The rains began in March, always a wet month in the Southern mountains. Sometimes it was snow—once, when Spencer was in grade school, it had snowed every Monday in March without melting in between, giving the children the best sledding of their lives and keeping them school-bound till mid-June, making up snow days. Lately, though, the winters had been milder, and the rains brought out the daffodils and the redbud before winter was over. There had been one good snow last week, and it was still sitting on the ground waiting for a thaw when the rains began. "Bad combination," the old-timers said. "Better set up the flood watches tonight. Them creeks is gonna go."

Spencer stood at his office window watching the leaden sheets of rain pelt the street. The rain made shining puddles in the asphalt, and swirled along the curbing like tiny mountain streams. It had been raining for three days now, and the pall of slate skies and pervading damp penetrated even the fluorescent brightness of the sheriff's office, creating a chill that belied the thermostat. Spring seemed a thousand years away.

Joe LeDonne strolled in, flipping through the mail, and glanced out at the curtain of rain. "Is that supposed to be a costume or not?" He pointed to Vernon Woolwine, who was hurrying toward the cafe for his morning doughnut. He was slouched low against the onslaught of rain, hands thrust deep in his pockets. He was wearing a yellow plastic raincoat and matching rubber boots.

"Could be Paddington Bear," called Martha, who had been observing Vernon from her own window.

"Or Spencer Tracy in Captains Courageous," Spencer suggested.

LeDonne turned away. "Maybe he just doesn't want to get wet."

Spencer reached for the pile of letters. "Anything interesting?"

"Letter from the army," said LeDonne, trying to sound disinterested. "Probably a response to my inquiry about Justin Warren. About damn time."

"Well, unless he's wanted for mass murder, you'd better be prepared to put his case on the back burner for a while," said the sheriff. "We may be on flood duty before long. How are you doing on the Underhill investigation?"

"I talked to my psychologist in Knoxville. He says they may be suffering from a form of delayed shock, a reaction to the murders. Definitely they need counseling. He thinks we may be able to persuade them to get help by offering not to prosecute them for grave robbing if they seek treatment for mental disturbance. Not that we're going to prosecute, anyway, if it's just grave tampering, because Withrow doesn't want the word to get out that we have ghouls in Wake County."

"You haven't spoken with the Underhills yet, have you?"

"No. I wanted to take my time with this one. Check out the laws. Get the cemetery to exhume the body. Talk to the shrink. Talk to the jeweler in Johnson City and get him to identify their photos. All that is done now. I'm just trying to figure out what it means."

Spencer nodded. "Just how crazy are they? Were they the ones who killed the family?"

"That's what I've been trying to decide. And I just don't know yet. Remember that dead rabbit at the scene that we couldn't make sense of? That could be another indication of Satan-ist behavior. Animal sacrifice."

"Did you talk to their teachers?"

"Yeah. They weren't much help. Nobody noticed any signs of cult behavior in either of them."

"Being a teenager is cult behavior," said Martha. "The girl was a churchgoer, though. Remember, Joe? She sang at the Christmas service."

"I wouldn't expect it to be her, anyway," said Spencer.

LeDonne said, "I guess I'll take a ride out there if this rain ever lets up. Figured you might need me around, though, while the weather is this bad. If the temperature drops five degrees, we're going to have more wrecks than John ever saw."

Spencer smiled at this use of a mountain expression. His mother sometimes used that phrase, too, but as far as he could tell, no one who said it remembered who "John" was.

"We may have more trouble than wrecks," said Martha from the doorway. "If this rain doesn't let up, every creek in this county will leap the banks. We'd better start calling around for boats."

Spencer took his khaki raincoat from the oak coat stand by the door. "I think it's time we started riding the roads," he said. "We may have to block off some sections where bridges are submerged. Martha, start phoning people with boats, and rounding them up for emergency duty. We'll radio in to tell you the trouble spots, and you mark them on the county map there."

"The Underhills' house is pretty close to the Little Dove. It's not much of a problem normally, but with all this rain, it might be," said LeDonne. "Maybe I ought to get them out of there."

"Not yet," said Spencer. "Let's wait and see how bad things are first."

The hospital room seemed to be composed of shades of gray. Even the window, with its view of distant hills, offered only pewter-colored variations: a sheet of rain and a clabbered sky. Taw McBryde was tired of the bleakness, not so much for his own sake, but for Tavy. His last glimpse of earth should be a better sight than this one. He wished his friend could hold on until spring, when the world would be green and gold and warm, but perhaps such a glorious place would be harder to leave behind than this one.

Tavy seemed to have left the world already, though, the way he lay there, parchment-faced, staring at nothing. For days now he had been letting go, an inch at a time, and now he was nearly ready to fall back and let his life slip away. He seldom spoke. Maybe he didn't even care if there was anyone in the room with him or not, but still Taw felt that he could not leave. He wouldn't have it on his conscience that he had left his best friend to die alone. So he sat in the plastic chair next to the bed, sleeping in catnaps, and waiting to see if Tavy needed anything, or had any final message to impart before he moved on.

Taw had hoped that the crusade against the paper company would fuel Tavy's resistance and make him want to live, but the hopelessness of a decade of litigation had not proved inspiring. Fighting a major corporation took more strength than most people had, and the victories were few. Tavy no longer seemed to care. When Taw tried to start up a conversation on the subject, his friend would answer in monosyllables, without even bothering to turn his head.

Taw looked up at the blank television screen, wishing that something besides soap operas came on in the daytime. He had tried everything he knew to amuse Tavy, even a round of five-card stud, but nothing could penetrate the cotton wool between Tavy Annis and the world.

The tap at the door came as a welcome relief. He went to let in the visitor, expecting someone from the church with another potted plant, but he found that it was their lawyer, Dallas Stuart, who had stopped by to pay his last respects. Stuart was a few years older than they were, but they remembered him from the old days. Nobody had reckoned him exactly brilliant, but he was decent, and he worked hard. Taw hadn't considered hiring anybody else when he thought they might need a lawyer, He stood there now in his hat and a dripping black raincoat, looking like a man who has made a left turn into a funeral procession and can't think how to get out. He opened his umbrella and set it under the sink to dry out and then approached the sickbed with a look of solemn apprehension.

"How is he?" murmured Stuart, glancing toward the still form on the bed.

"He can still talk," said Taw. "He's just dozing right now. I'll wake him up."

Before Stuart could protest, Taw walked to his friend's bedside, and gently shook him awake. "Mr. Stuart's here," he said softly. "He's probably going to tell us there's a posse surrounding the hospital right now."

A smile flickered on Tavy Annis's transparent face. "Never take me alive," he rasped.

"So what's the good word, Counselor?" asked Taw. The bravado was for Tavy's sake. "Do we old desperadoes have to flee to Bolivia, or what?"

Dallas Stuart ran his fingers around the brim of his felt hat, looking nervously from one man to the other. He sat down in the straight-backed chair beside the nightstand and thought for a moment about what he ought to say. "Boys, I'm just a simple country lawyer," he said at last. "I'm not any Ralph Nader or a muckraker like that fellow on 60 Minutes, so I might not be the best person in the world to advise you in this matter. But you know I care about you and about the rest of the people here in the valley, so I'm doing what I can." He shook his head. "I have to tell you, though, y'all are the first clients I've ever had that flat-out tried to get arrested."

Taw laughed and slapped his knee. "How are we doing so far?"

"I don't know what to tell you boys," said Dallas Stuart. Men of his generation called their peers boys at any age shy of a century. "You can't force a man to press charges, and I hate to tell you this, but Roger Sheridan of Titan Paper Company claims he never heard of you two. Swears it never happened. I believe your side of the story, because I don't think you could make up anything that outlandish, but I can't get anybody to arrest you without a complaint, and there's not going to be one from Titan."

"What do they think we are—cranks?" Taw's voice was too loud for the little white room.

"No," said Tavy in a whisper like dry grass. "Martyrs. And they're afraid."

"We need to get arrested, Mr. Stuart," said Taw.

"I don't think you can count on it, boys. The paper company doesn't want the publicity."

"Then we'll think of something else," said Taw.

Dallas Stuart nodded toward the eggshell man swallowed in the bedsheets. "I don't think he can fight anymore," he whispered.

"No," said Taw. "But I can."

Maggie Underhill pressed her nose to the front window, and stared out at the sheet of water stretching from the edge of the far woods to the house itself. There should have been a field, a county road, and a concrete low-water bridge between the Underhills' home and the stand of pines on an upland slope, but those landmarks had vanished beneath the tide .of coffee-colored river water spilling over its banks, swollen with runoff from the mountain streams. The river had jumped its banks a day ago, and the bridge was swallowed by the deluge sometime during the night. Now the torrent was swirling around the porch railings, and Maggie could see objects floating past: logs, porch chairs, wooden crates, and tires. Once she saw the side of a white metal object sailing through the original channel; a refrigerator, perhaps, or an old washing machine. Was it a junked appliance, or had someone's house washed away?

Maggie wasn't afraid. She couldn't imagine a house being swept away by something so harmless as the Little Dove. She could remember seeing the cows wading in the river in the dry-est days of summer, when it was hardly more than ankle-deep and so studded with rocks that you could walk from one side to the other without getting your feet wet.

The brown tide that surged past her now looked nothing like last summer's sluggish stream. But there was a silky look to it; smooth, as if you could snuggle down in it and go to sleep. She wondered if she and Mark ought to do anything about the flood. Call someone? But the phone didn't seem to work anymore. The only one who ever called was Josh, and when Maggie tried to dial a number, the phone was silent in her ear, so she had given up trying. She wished Josh would call her now, and tell her what to do about the water. There wasn't any point in discussing anything with Mark. He stayed shut up in his room now, playing music so loud that she could feel the vibrations in her chest. He no longer talked to her about the money, or his plans to find the number of the bank account. Now he stalked past her in the hall as if she were a stranger, muttering to himself. She wondered when he ate and slept, and if he ever bathed. If she told him about the torrent of water lapping against the house, would he listen?

Maggie felt a rush of cold at her feet, and for

an instant she thought that cold fingers had

reached for her ankle, but when she looked

down, she saw that rivulets of water were sliding across the wooden floor. Water seeped in under the front door, and up through cracks between the pine boards, making the door shine like a mirror. She ran for the stairs, calling out for Joshua.

Shiloh Church sat on high ground, just at the crest of a rolling hill, so expertly graded by nature or the road builders that the incline was hardly noticeable. Now, though, nature had made its lofty aspect apparent: The church and its parking lot sat ringed by oaks and yellow fields, an island in a muddy sea that stretched across the valley from ridge to ridge.

Half a dozen muddy cars were in the parking lot; mostly four-wheel drives. But nearest the door sat Laura Bruce's little white Chevrolet. She had arrived at nine that morning, with Morgan Robsart, sporting a blue-and-yellow rubber raincoat and new boots, in tow. He was in the Sunday school room with two little girls and his entire arsenal of toy weapons, while Laura and a handful of volunteers readied the church to become an emergency shelter.

"Of course, it may come to nothing," Jane Arrowood had told Laura that morning when she phoned. "But my son Spencer said he'd be patrolling the roads today, looking for flooded sections and washed-out bridges. Usually at times like this we get the church set up to take flood victims, and to dispense coffee and hot meals to the rescue workers. I can stay as long as I'm needed. If you don't feel up to it, I'm sure we can find enough Circle members to handle it."

"Of course I'll come," said Laura. "I'll bring all our extra food and blankets and meet you there in half an hour."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Jane asked. "It could be a very long day, and if heavy flooding comes, we may not be able to get you home tonight."

"Never mind," said Laura. "I'm tired of looking at these same walls, anyhow."

Fortunately, there were no bridges to cross between her little house on the ridge and Shiloh Church, but still Laura drove slowly, watching for the shine of water on the pavement ahead, and marveling at the strangeness of the familiar roads. Fields and fences had vanished beneath a brown coverlet, making it difficult at times for her to tell where she was. Once, she saw white chickens perched in tree branches at the side of the road: someone in the lowlands had turned his livestock loose to fend for themselves until the waters subsided.