A Judgment of Whispers (19 page)

Thirty

The first bat hit
Grace's mailbox just after sunrise. She was asleep and dreaming when three sharp
blam
s made her sit up in bed, her heart thumping. At first she thought it was her usual chase nightmare, then a car roared off, tires squealing. By the time she got out of bed and ran to the front window, the mailbox was in pieces, all over the street. When she heard a second car approaching, she hurried outside and stood on the front porch, hands on hips, daring the driver to whack the remains of it. A low-slung black coupe rolled past her house slowly, as if reconnoitering her property. But the driver must have seen her and recognized her challenge. He gunned his engine and roared off down the road.

Something has happened,
Grace thought.
Something bad.
She went back to her bedroom and dialed Mary Crow.

“How bad is it, Grace?” Mary said immediately, as if she'd been expecting her call.

“Two drive-bys already. The first destroyed my mailbox. I went outside and scared the second one away. What's going on?”

“The paper posted an interview with one of the Salola Street gang on their website last night. Now somebody's re-posted the thing on YouTube.”

“The Salola Street gang?” Grace cried. “One of those boys?”

“One of those men, now. But they never showed the guy's face on camera and his voice was distorted.”

“But what did he say?”

“Nothing new, until the very end. Then he claimed to have come back to the tree and watched a tall person in a dark hoodie carry Teresa Ewing toward your house.”

Grace went cold inside.

Mary continued. “It sounds fabricated, plus it's too vague a description to be of any use in court, so don't worry about that. But things could get dicey out there. I was just going to call you.”

“I see.” Grace opened her blinds to keep watch on the front yard.

“Have you got any relatives you could visit for a couple of weeks?” asked Mary.

“No.” She gave a bitter laugh. “The people who would welcome me would not welcome Zack.”

“Even in an emergency?”

“You know the word
oolundeeha?”

Mary translated the Cherokee. “Crazy.”

Grace said, “My great aunt Junebug calls Zack
egwa oolundeeha
, Big Crazy. She's afraid of him. Throws salt over her shoulder every time she sees him.”

“And there's nowhere else you could go?”

“My parents are dead, and my two brothers live in Alaska.”

“Okay,” said Mary. “I'll ask Cochran to up his patrols out there. But be careful, Grace, and keep a record of what goes on. The world isn't short of crazies these days.”

“No kidding.” Grace replied, giving a heavy sigh. “It's not like this is anything new.”

For a moment she sat on the bed, angry tears welling in her eyes. Then she blinked them away and padded into the den, to the computer. First she watched the video on the paper's website, then she watched it again on YouTube. Though it was impossible to tell which of the Salola Street gang was talking, the idea of some coward hiding in the shadows, implicating her son relit her anger. She found her cell phone at the bottom of her purse and punched in Adam's number.

“Were you the one on that video?” she spat, shaking with rage.

“Huh?” he asked, his voice husky with sleep. “What are you talking about?”

“Go look at the paper's website,” she said. “Or just search Teresa Ewing on YouTube.”

She clicked off the phone and made some coffee. By the time she'd poured her first cup, he called her back. “It's Devin.”

“How do you know?”

“His speech pattern. Plus he's always tilted his head funny—probably because of his goony eye.”

Suddenly she wanted to cry, to scream. “But why say all this now? Does he not realize how much evil this brings down on our heads?”

“He's scared, Grace. Whatever new evidence the police have must be making him very nervous.”

“So of course he implicates Zack.”

“He actually just implicated somebody taller than he was. It sounds like he's desperate to blame anybody but himself.”

“Do you think he killed Teresa?”

“I don't know,” said Adam.

She gave a deep sigh. Though talking to him had dissipated her rage, she was now exhausted, at only 7:13 in the morning. “Well, thanks for talking to me. I'm sorry I woke you up.”

“You didn't really think that was me on the video, did you?”

“No. I was just angry. And I didn't have anybody else to call.”

“I would never do anything like that, Grace. Not to you, not to Zack, not to anybody.”

After that day, there was nothing to do but slog through. Hillview Haven sent her a nice letter, thanking her for her interest, but saying that they did not consider Zack a good fit for their program. Hardly surprised, Grace kept on teaching, relying on Clara to take care of Zack. Adam, whose parents had hit a plumbing snag with their new home in South Carolina, visited most afternoons, helping Zack catalog his vast collection of videotapes. Grace slept poorly at night, one ear attuned for a footstep outside her window, a car rolling up her drive. Every morning she woke at dawn to search the front yard for dead animals. Her landline began ringing constantly. Afternoons, a group of little girls would call and ask for Zack. The first time Clara handed him the phone, one of the young callers pretended to be Teresa Ewing speaking from the grave. It scared him so badly that he cried. After that Clara started screening the calls, telling the girls off in rapid Spanish.

At night the calls were for her. Most of them were stupid, but one caller frightened her. Always it was eerie, whistling music playing, then a gravelly whispered
I'm coming for you, Grace. You and your fucked-up son.
The voice was male, younger than her fifty-eight years, his accent distinctly Southern. A couple of times she was tempted to say, “Go fuck yourself, Dev!” But she had no proof that it was Devin McConnell. With her luck it would be John Cooksey, who would then put her on YouTube, or Twitter, or some other stupid site where teenagers could make fun of an old woman using the F word.

Ultimately, painting saved her. She had her upcoming show in Asheville, and when she wasn't teaching at the college or checking the front yard for dead squirrels, she holed up in the little mudroom off the garage and worked on her canvasses. Entering a world of color and light was like diving in a pool of warm water. As long as she kept a paint brush in her hand, the accusations and hatefulness seemed distant and far away.

Finally one afternoon she lined up all her canvasses and signed them with the GC monograph she'd used throughout her career. Twelve landscapes, representing a year of work. Before, she'd hoped to make enough for a weekend at the beach. Now, all her money would have to go to Mary Crow.

She studied the paintings another moment, then called down to the den, where Adam and Zack were watching videos.

“You guys up for a road trip to Asheville?”

“Sure,” yelled Zack, excited.

“If you two will help me get these canvasses up there, I'll take you out for dinner afterward.”

“Can we go to the restaurant with the hat?” asked Zack.

“Yes,” she replied. “Casa Lupe it is.”

With her available manpower doubled, they got the van loaded quickly. Two hours later, she stood in the Gallery L'Atelier, talking with Sue Creason as Adam and Zack brought the canvasses. The coil of nervousness in her stomach loosened as the no-nonsense, spiked hair Sue enthused over the paintings.

“Grace, these are just amazing,” she gushed. “I don't know how you do it.” She glanced at Zack, who was carrying a huge landscape to a far corner of the exhibit space and lowered her voice. “I heard you had some trouble in Hartsville. That little girl who was killed years ago.”

“We've had some tough days,” Grace admitted. “But we're getting through them.”

“Well, it doesn't show in your work,” said Sue. “We won't have a bit of trouble selling these. You have any preference about how we hang these?”

“Any way so they sell like hot cakes,” said Grace. “I need the money.”

After that they were done. As promised, she drove them to a Mexican restaurant north of Asheville. Usually, the floppy black sombrero was reserved for people celebrating their birthdays, but she whispered to the manager that her son was autistic, and wearing the hat would mean a lot to him. A few minutes later Zack was sitting at a corner table, the sombrero casting a shadow over all their food. Grace ordered a pitcher of beer and sat back, happy. It had been a good day. She'd finished her paintings, Sue was confident that she could sell them, and Zack was sitting with his best pal, Adam.
Maybe the worst is over,
she thought.
Maybe the phone will stop ringing and the cars will stop driving by and the DNA test will exonerate Zack, forever. Then you can get back to your regular, everyday troubles
.

They finished at Casa Lupe's and drove home. It was dusk when she pulled into the driveway, fireflies twinkling over the front yard. She was tempted, for a moment, to check the yard for dead squirrels, but
she decided she could do that in the morning. Better to get Zack
inside and settled down for the night. They'd all had a big day. Zack hurried into the house, eager to watch a final video before bed. She followed him, assuming that Adam was right behind her, when he called her name.

“Grace,” he said softly, looking up at her from the bottom of the steps. “I didn't want to say anything at the restaurant, but I'll be leaving tomorrow. We've gotten everything loaded and Dad says the plumbing at the new house is working fine.”

“Oh,” she replied. His words took her by surprise. She knew he was only here temporarily, but she'd grown accustomed to having him around. “I'm happy for you, Adam, but Zack and I will miss you terribly.”

He smiled. “I wanted to ask you the best way to say good-bye to—”

Before he could finish a scream came from inside the house. “Nooooooo!” Zack screamed. “Not them!”

Grace turned and raced up the stairs, Adam following. Zack was standing in the doorway of his room, hands flapping like wings, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Something happened, Mama!” He pointed into the room. “Something bad!”

She looked where just hours ago he'd had bird paintings on the wall, stuffed animals piled on the bed, Barbie dolls arranged in some kind of tableau only he could understand. Now the room was a wreck. The bird paintings had been sprayed with black paint. All the stuffed animals had been decapitated, their heads grotesquely re-arranged on different bodies. But the Barbies were the most disturbing—someone had arranged them in sexual positions. One doll's head was between a prone one's legs; another doll's face was on her breast while another straddled her face. The fifth stood propped against the wall, apparently observing the whole scene.

“Jesus,” Adam whispered. “Who the fuck did this?”

“I don't know,” replied Grace, feeling shaky inside.

“Let's get it cleaned up,” said Adam, moving toward the Barbie dolls.

“No.” Grace touched his arm. “Not yet. I want Mary Crow to see it first.”

Thirty-One

Emily Kurtz was the
one who inadvertently received Grace's urgent calls to Mary Crow. She was sitting in the back of the Lions Club dining room, listening as the candidates for District Attorney spoke to the gathered Lions. Mary had left her purse and phone in Emily's keeping, and the campaign manager gave an inward groan when she saw Grace Collier's name appear on the phone screen.
Every candidate has a fatal flaw
, she remembered one of her political science professors saying.
It's your job to figure out how to hide it
. Misplaced loyalty was Mary Crow's flaw. She doubted it would take George Turpin to figure that out.

As it turned out, not long at all. Mary had just given her basic pitch for more transparency and equal justice in domestic abuse cases when Turpin took the microphone.

“Ms. Crow, how can you talk about cleaning up the DA's office when you have so much dirt among your own campaign staff?”

“Excuse me?” Mary turned to face the man. Though Emily could tell he'd caught her off-guard, Mary's expression revealed nothing.

“I think you need to put your own house in order before you tackle the courthouse,” Turpin went on. “One of your clients is a murder suspect, and his mother is on your payroll. Seems to me that's lying down with dogs and getting up with fleas.”

The audience gave a low murmur. Emily bit her lip as she waited for Mary to respond. Smiling, Mary addressed her opponent as she might a jury—friendly, but oh so firm.

“Mr. Turpin, unless you have some inside information from the sheriff's department, I don't believe any of my clients have been indicted for murder.”

Turpin tried to speak, but Mary went on. “Let's not be coy, though. I'm assuming you're speaking of Zack Collier, who is among several suspects in the Teresa Ewing case. His mother Grace volunteered to design my signage over six months ago. She has never been on my payroll. Unlike yours, my campaign's run mostly by volunteers.

Again, Turpin started to respond, but Mary didn't give him the chance. “What's more distressing about your question is that it makes me think you've fallen victim to rumor.” Mary turned to the audience. “If Mr. Turpin's planning on building his cases from clips on YouTube, I've got some great footage of a Skunk Ape I'll send his way.”

The audience roared. Emily released the breath she'd been holding. This time Mary had nicely dodged the DA's bullet this time, but she knew Turpin would bring up Zack and Grace Collier again. It was just too sketchy, and neither he nor Pugh were rookie politicians.

The meeting lasted another twenty minutes. The candidates restated their positions one final time, then started to work the crowd. Emily noted with relief that the knot of people around Mary equaled the knot around Turpin. Like a wallflower at a dance, Prentiss Herbert stood by the speakers table alone, courted by no one.

When everything finally ended, Mary came over to retrieve her purse. “How many votes did I lose tonight?” she asked, a thin line of worry between her brows.

“You may have gained a few,” said Emily. “You responded well under pressure. And you were funny. Voters remember funny.”

“The bastard really blindsided me with that question about the Colliers.”

“You'd better get used to it, then. I guarantee he'll use it next time, and he'll use it better.”

Mary shrugged. “It won't change anything. Zack's my client, Grace is my friend.”

Emily held out Mary's phone. “Speaking of your friend, she's called three times.”

“Did you answer any of them?”

“She's not my client,” Emily replied coolly. “And I wish to God she wasn't yours.”

An hour later, Mary turned into Grace's driveway. Every light blazed inside the house, giving it a strangely festive look. She parked beside a car she did not recognize and hurried up the front steps. Just as she was about to ring the bell, Grace opened the door. She looked in shock, as if she'd just walked away from a bad wreck unscathed.

“Come inside,” Grace said, her voice wobbly. “You need to see this.”

Mary followed her into the living room. Distantly, she heard a television and the sound of male laughter. “Zack's friend Adam is here,” explained Grace. “He and Zack are watching videos.”

“Adam Shaw? The other suspect at the DNA test?” Mary remembered the slender man who'd stepped between Zack Collier and Buck Whaley.

“Yes. He's been a godsend to us these last couple of weeks.”

Mary shrugged as they walked down the hall. It was nice, Mary guessed, that the boys could still be friends. Jack Wilkins had told her the other families on Salola Street hadn't spoken to each other in years.

“This afternoon Adam and Zack helped me take my paintings up to Asheville,” said Grace as she led Mary down a short hall. “When we got back, we found this.”

She opened the door to a bedroom. Clearly, it was Zack's—though the décor was dolls and stuffed animals, it smelled of soiled sheets and unwashed man. But the room had been trashed—pictures on the wall had been sprayed with black paint, the stuffed animals lined up on the bed with their heads gruesomely rearranged. A big yellow dog had the tiny head of a pink rabbit; the plump body of a brown teddy bear wore the small green head of a turtle.

“Whoa,” Mary whispered.

“Look on the floor,” said Grace.

Mary turned. At the foot of Zack's bed, someone had constructed a bizarre tableau of Barbie dolls, all in sexual poses, legs spread wide, arms above their heads. Mary felt the hair lift on the back of her neck. She turned to Grace. “Are you sure Zack didn't do this?”

“No. I came in here about five minutes before we left for Asheville, to get him a clean shirt. His room was messy, but not like this.” She leaned against the door, defeated. “This is new. Not like the other stuff.”

Mary frowned. “Other stuff beyond your mailbox?”

“Phone calls night and day,” said Grace. “Dead animals arranged in the yard.”

“Dead animals?”

“Squirrels and rabbits, mostly. Some are roadkill, but most have been shot. The worst day we found a dozen posed around the bird feeder. Adam can show you a picture of that.”

Mary couldn't believe what she was hearing. “Jeez, Grace, why didn't you tell me?”

“What could you have done? The people come at night. Occasionally I hear their footsteps in the driveway, but by the time I look out the window, they're gone.”

Mary tamped down a flash of anger. Grace was a lot smarter than this. “Did it ever occur to you to call the police?”

Grace backed up a step. “And have Detective Whaley come over here? No thanks. That's why I called you. Somebody needed to see this, but not the cops.”

“Yes they do, Grace. Now.” Mary flipped out her phone and started to call Jerry Cochran.

“Wait!” Grace grabbed her hand. “Please don't call them. This room is the one place Zack feels totally safe. If the police come in here in the middle of the night, he won't sleep for months.”

“Grace, there could be fingerprints on these dolls—evidence pertinent to the Ewing case. The cops need to know what's been going on out here.”

“Couldn't you just take the dolls to the police station?”

“No. Is that his pal Adam's Toyota in the drive?” asked Mary.

Grace nodded.

Mary dug in her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. “Give Adam this and have him take Zack to the late show at the Brew N View,” said Mary. “Then he won't be here when Jerry Cochran comes.”

Two hours later, Jerry Cochran had Grace Collier sign the complaint she'd made. He'd taken pictures of the room, bagged up the Barbies, and studied the little notebook Grace had whimsically titled “How I
was Driven Crazy, Volume 4.” The current vandals, Jerry deter
mined, had jimmied the lock on the back door to gain entry to the house. How they knew the house would be empty for several hours was up for grabs.

“Is Adam Shaw always with you when these incidents occur?” asked Cochran.

Grace nodded. “He was today, when we went to Asheville. Mostly, he's helping his parents get ready to move.”

“Does he come here often?”

Mary noticed Grace stiffen slightly. “He comes by evenings, to watch videos with Zack. Look, Sheriff, stuff like this happens every time the paper runs a story about Teresa Ewing. Adam Shaw hasn't been in Pisgah County since he was a kid.”

Cochran made a note and went on. “Any other people come here on a regular basis?”

“Only Clara Perez, Zack's hab-tech.”

Cochran frowned. “Hab-tech?”

“A caregiver, provided by the State. She watches Zack during the week, while I teach. She's worked here two years.

“You have her phone number?”

“Please don't call her, Sheriff. She's a sweet girl, and Zack loves her.” Abruptly, Grace teared up. “If you start investigating her, then she might quit. It's almost impossible to find good people to work with autistic adults. Most of them just camp out in front of the television and eat Cheetos all day.”

Cochran nodded. “I understand.” He checked his notes, then closed his notebook. “We'll take these dolls for evidence and bump up the patrols along this road. In the meantime, I urge you to get an alarm and an unlisted phone number. Put a good dead bolt lock on the back door and a floodlight for your front yard.”

Grace sighed. “I moved out here because I thought we'd be safe. I guess I was wrong.”

“You never know what goes on in some people's minds,” said Cochran. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.”

Mary followed Cochran as he returned to his car. “What do you think?”

“Friend to friend?” replied Jerry.

“Of course.”

“If I were you, I'd get them both out of here. None of my squads can get out here in under thirty minutes, and this could get ugly.”

“That's exactly what I was thinking,” said Mary. “Do you have any idea when the DNA report might come in?”

“I call Winston every day. They say soon.” He opened his door, slid in behind the steering wheel. “You know, I've never seen anything like this case. It happened when we were in grade school, but people act like the girl died yesterday.”

She thought of the years of anguish she had endured, before she found out who killed her mother. “I guess an unsolved murder just sticks in the collective craw.”

“I know it sticks in Whaley's. Probably Jack Wilkins's too. The whole thing is like trying to catch smoke. Every time you think you've grasped a clue, it vanishes. Unless we get a hit from the DNA, I don't think we'll ever solve this one.”

“God, I hope that's not the case,” said Mary. “Grace and Zack deserve some kind of closure.”

“Don't they all?” Cochran replied. He turned the engine on. “You be careful, okay?”

“
Tsutshintasti
,” she answered in Cherokee.

She watched him go down Grace's driveway, the taillights of his Camaro squinting a demonic red in the darkness. When she returned to Grace's house, she found her sitting on Zack's bed, her hands shaking as she tried to match the right animal torso with its proper head. Mary came in and sat down beside her.

“Grace, we need to talk.”

“I've got to get these things back together,” she said, tearing off a strip of gray duct tape. “Zack sleeps with them at night.”

Mary put her hand on Grace's, stopping her frantic restoring of the toys. “Grace, you and Zack need to relocate. It's dangerous for you to stay here. Sheriff Cochran said so.”

“We've been over that before, Mary. I've got nowhere else to go.”

“I might have a place for you.”

Grace looked up from the stuffed rabbit. “Where? Jail?”

“A cabin. It's part of an estate I'm settling. I'm going to call the owners and see if they're agreeable to having you and Zack stay there.”

Grace shook her head. “You don't understand, Mary. I don't have any extra money and we can't do cabins, anyway. We need electricity. Indoor plumbing. A TV Zack can watch his tapes on.”

“It's got all of that,” said Mary. “And the heirs don't need the money.”

“Why don't they want to use it themselves?

“Because it's in Rugby, Tennessee. The absolute middle of nowhere.” Mary picked up the head of a penguin. “Pack up your stuff. I'm calling them tonight, when I get home. I'm pretty sure they won't mind.”

“But what about my job?” Grace cried. “And Clara's job? She needs to work too.”

“Call in sick. Use some vacation days. Tell Clara this is just until the DNA results comes back.”

“And when will that be?” she said, growing angry. “How long will our lives be in this limbo?”

“As long as the lab in Winston takes, Grace.”

“I don't know.” Her hands trembled as she held the little rabbit. “I don't know what to do anymore.”

Mary took the toy from her grasp. “Grace, these are dolls. With some tape and thread, we can fix them. Next time, it might be you and Zack. You two won't fix so easily.”

For a long moment Grace just stared at the rabbit, then she gave a great sigh. “Okay. I've got two weeks of vacation, plus some sick leave. I guess we can go for a little while.”

“Good,” said Mary. “There's just one thing you've got to remember. You can't tell anyone—not Clara or Adam or anybody—where you're going.”

Grace suddenly gave a wild laugh. “Crazy is where I'm going, Mary. And everybody knows I'm pretty much already there.”