Blindside (21 page)

S
am
and Keely were playing chess, loosely speaking, given that Keely had had only two lessons. Katie had a No-TV rule during the week so the house was quiet, with just a soft layer of light rock coming from the speakers, and an occasional ember popping in the fireplace. The air felt thick, heavy. Another big storm was coming.

“No, Sam,” Keely said, “you can't do that. The rook has to go in straight lines, he can't go sideways.”

“That's boring,” said Sam, and moved his bishop instead because he liked the long diagonal. The only problem was he stopped his bishop in front of a pawn, which Keely promptly removed. Sam yelled out, then sat back, stroked his chin like his father did, and said, “I will think about this and then you'll be very sorry.”

Keely crowed.

“Killers, both of them,” said Miles, happy to see Sam acting like a normal kid again.

Katie and Miles were seated on opposite ends of the long sofa, doing nothing but sipping coffee and listening to the fascinating chess moves made by two children whose combined age was eleven.

Two deputies, Neil Crooke, who got no end of grief for his name, and Jamie Beezer, who did a great imitation dance of Muhammad Ali in his heyday, were outside watching the house. When Neil called to ask if he could go unlock ancient Mr. Cerlew's 1956 Buick for him since he'd locked his keys in it, Katie said go, but get back as soon as possible.

She excused herself a moment, and came back into the living room with a plate of brownies in her hands. “They're not homemade like Elsbeth's, but I'll tell you, the Harvest Moon bakery can't be beat.”

Miles took a brownie, saying, “You think they're better than the ones Elsbeth McCamy made?”

“We'll never know, at least I hope we won't. Kids? Can the chess battle stop for a brownie break?”

When the plate was empty, in just under four minutes, Miles sat back and laced his fingers over his belly. He stretched out his legs, crossed them at the ankles, and leaned his head back against the sofa. He said as he closed his eyes, “It's Wednesday night. I've known you since Saturday. Isn't that amazing?”

Katie slowly nodded even though she knew he couldn't see her, and said, “We're sitting here like two folks who've been sitting here for a very long time.” Except for the SIG tucked into the waistband of her jeans and the derringer strapped at her ankle.

That was sure the truth, Miles thought.

Katie stared at the glowing embers in the fireplace that periodically spewed up a mist of color. “It seems much longer,” she said after a moment. “It seems natural.”

He opened his eyes and turned his head to face her. “I can't stay here indefinitely, Katie, although I'm becoming fond of your microwave and your teakettle. The oatmeal was pretty good, too. But the bed is too short, and Sam snores on occasion.” He stopped, and sat forward, his hands clasped between his knees, staring at the rag rug
Katie's grandmother had made in the thirties. “This still isn't over, Katie. What am I to do?”

Because Katie didn't have an answer for that, she looked over to make sure the kids were occupied. They were on their stomachs, their noses almost touching the chess pieces. She said, “The meeting with the McCamys—you did good, Miles, asking Elsbeth that question point-blank. At least we know for sure now they're involved—Elsbeth's face gave it all away. She's not good at lying. She'd lose her knickers in a poker game.”

Miles said quietly, “All right, they're involved. Tell me why a preacher would have Sam kidnapped.”

“Okay, let's just cut to the bone. Reverend McCamy had Clancy and Beau kidnap Sam, told them to take him to Bleaker's cabin. To wait? Why? Well, I suppose, so he could make arrangements.”

“For what?”

“We don't know yet, but if that's the case, there has to be a reason, one that makes a great deal of sense to the McCamys. You know, Miles, there was something else Homer Bean mentioned. He said something about Reverend McCamy wanting a successor. No, wanting a
worthy
successor.”

“If that rumor about seeing Reverend McCamy in Knoxville at a real estate office is true, and he is planning to pick up stakes, then it would be logical, I suppose, that he'd want to find someone to take his place with all the sinful children. But what does that have to do with Sam? Sam's a little young to be anyone's successor. Just last month I told him for sure that he'd be my successor, but he couldn't take over until he could spell guidance system.”

Katie smiled at that. Miles watched her scuff her toe against the carpet and leaned toward her as she said, “Bits and pieces, Miles, that's what we're gathering. Soon it will
all come together. We're close, I can feel it. I do wish that Agent Hodges would get back to us on the McCamy personal bank transactions and the church's books.”

“Since he had trouble getting a warrant, he said it wouldn't be until tomorrow.”

“There's something else. It's Reverend McCamy. I've known him a long time. This is the first time I've seen him come close to losing it. He was out of control a couple of times.”

“If they're behind Sam's kidnapping, they have to know that it's just a matter of time before everything collapses.”

“Check!”

Sam came up on his knees, shook his fist, and shouted, “You moved the queen like a knight, Keely, and that's cheating!”

Keely punched him in the arm, told him she was tired of chess, and got her favorite board game out of the cabinet, The Game of Life. In the next moment, they were flicking the spinner and laughing, fighting over the rules, which neither of them really understood.

Miles said, “You've done an excellent job with Keely.”

“And you with Sam. Can you imagine learning chess from a five-year-old who's had only two lessons?”

“I gather you play?”

“Oh yes, my father gave me my first lesson when I was about Keely's age. There are a couple of old guys who sit out in front of City Hall playing chess, probably been there since the Depression. I've never had the nerve to challenge either of them.”

He laughed and said in a voice that was too good an imitation of Reverend McCamy's, “It's a pity your husband left you and you lost your focus.”

She laughed, too, but it was forced since she really wanted to spit. “Can you believe he actually said that?”

“You handled him very well.”

“Maybe, but Elsbeth still didn't let me taste the brownie batter.”

Miles looked at her straight on. She'd French-braided her hair again, and a few tendrils had worked loose to curl around her ears. He really liked that French braid, and those tendrils. She was wearing her usual oxford shirt and jeans, and scuffed low-heeled boots. “I saw a cream-colored straw hat on the coatrack by the front door. Do you ever wear that hat?”

“Oh yes. To be honest, there's just been so much happening, that I haven't thought of it. I'm lucky to remember my coat.”

“Eastern Tennessee is a very beautiful place, Katie.”

She nodded. “Yes, it is. It's the mountains, really—always there right beside you, going on farther than the eye can see. Then you'll look at this incredible hazy blue glaze over the Appalachians. You know, I've always found it strange that people think we're country bumpkins, living out here. But the fact is, we aren't exiled here. We look up and see more stars than any city person can ever hope to see, and you know what? We actually sometimes feel the urge to talk to strangers. You've seen the cows, the dairy farms, the rolling farmlands. We're rich here, Miles, more than rich, we're blessed.”

Miles studied her face as she spoke. “Yes, I can see that.” He paused, looked toward the kids, then said, “I won't be here in the winter, Katie.”

“No,” she said slowly, “I don't suppose you will.”

He slashed his hand through the air in frustration but he kept his voice low so the kids wouldn't hear. “Usually I ask a woman I'm interested in to go out to dinner, maybe a show in Washington. Yet here I am living in a woman's house and I've known her for what—four days?”

“I'm the sheriff, that's different.”

“Is it?”

She made a restless movement with her hand, then
smoothed out her fingers along her thigh. “You know what's funny? My husband never lived here.”

He let her sidetrack him, it was safer. “What did you do with the jerk?”

She turned on the sofa, tucked one leg beneath the other, and leaned toward him. “The jerk's name is Carlo Silvestri, and he's the eldest son of an Italian aristocrat, and you're right, he's a jerk all the way down to his Ferragamos.”

“An Italian aristocrat? You're kidding.”

“Nope. His father is Il Conte Rosso, a big shot who lives near Milan, into arms manufacturing, I believe.”

“How ever did you meet an Italian aristocrat?”

She gave a really big sigh. “I still feel like I should punch myself in the head for being so stupid. Carlo and two of his buddies were visiting Nashville. They wanted to see Dolly Parton's breasts, one of them told me, so they drove east. When they landed in Knoxville, one of them, a Frenchman who must have thought it was Le Mans, was speeding like a maniac on Neyland Avenue, one of Knoxville's main streets. I stopped them after a bit of a chase. The idiot had been drinking and nearly went over the guardrail into the Tennessee River.”

“So you hauled his ass off to jail?”

“Yeah, I did. Carlo decided he didn't want to leave when his buddy got sprung. He said he fell in love with me when he saw me clap on the handcuffs. It was a whirlwind romance, I'll tell you that. I was twenty-four years old, he was thirty-six, and I knew he was too old for me, knew the last thing he could ever do was leave Italy for good and live in Tennessee, but none of it mattered. I stopped thinking and married him. It didn't matter that he was a spoiled egotist, too rich to have a clue about what responsibility meant. Women do that, you know. Stop thinking.”

“So do men.”

“For men, it's lust. For women, it's romance. You can get blindsided by both. I got pregnant right away. The
problems started probably about a week later and never stopped. When Keely was about a month old, Carlo's father, Carlo Silvestri senior, Il Conte Rosso, shows up on our doorstep in Knoxville, announces that his son called him to come and save him. I really got a good laugh out of that one. I told Carlo senior that I'd removed his son's handcuffs a very long time before.”

“So what happened?”

“Daddy did something that will endear him to me and this town for the rest of our collective lives.”

Miles sat up. “What did he do?”

“He offered to buy me off for a million dollars if I would divorce Carlo without fuss, change Keely's name to Benedict—my name—and never contact them again.”

“You've got to be joking.”

“No, I'm not. I remember I just sat there and stared at him, trying to picture all those zeroes following a one and all those commas actually written out on a check, and wondering: Will they all fit in that little space?

“He actually believed I was playing him, that I was a tough cookie, and so do you know what the dear man did? He actually upped the ante. I'll tell you though, I made sure the money was wired into my account before I agreed. Then both Silvestris were out the door within four hours.”

“What was the final buyout?”

“A million and a half big ones. I used it to put my dad's company, Benedict Pulp Mill, back on its feet, which guaranteed a lot of folks around here continued employment and thereby, truth be told, got me elected sheriff of Jessborough. I'm the first woman sheriff of Jessborough or, for that matter, just about anywhere in eastern Tennessee.” She frowned at her boots, then said, “I don't know if they would have elected me without the bribe.”

“It was more a by-product of the bribe, wasn't it? It's not as though you're incompetent.”

“You're a sweet-talking guy, Miles,” she said, laughing.
“I'll tell you the truth though, I was the best-trained candidate for the job.”

“Wade was the one who wanted to be sheriff, wasn't he? The one you beat out for the job?”

She nodded. “Wade's a good man, but he's never worked on the streets of a good-sized city where there's actual crime.”

Sam turned around and said, “Katie, since you're the sheriff, can I be your assistant?”

“You know, that might not be a bad idea. But you might end up becoming something else, like president, so you just keep playing.”

Sam chewed on this a moment, then sprawled back onto his stomach, his nose nearly touching the spinner on the game board. They heard Keely say, “If I become president, I'll make you vice president.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, that'd be cool.”

“I can give you orders all the time and you'll have to listen to me.”