Divine Evil (18 page)

She sat and told him a little because they both knew it would help ease her into what she had come to say or to ask.

“So, Mom and Jerry should be back in Virginia in a couple of weeks. She likes it there.”

“Since you're this far, maybe you'll go visit them before heading back.”

“Maybe.” Eyes lowered, she brushed at a smudge on her slacks. “I'm glad she's happy. I really am glad she's happy.”

“Of course you are.”

“I didn't know it would be so hard.” Her voice shook, broke. She had to take two deep breaths to control it. “I went upstairs last night. Into the attic.”

“Clare.” He reached for her hand, tucked it comfortably between his. “You didn't have to do that alone.”

“I'm not a child anymore, afraid of ghosts.”

“You'll always be your father's child. You still miss him. I understand that. I miss him, too.”

She gave a shaky sigh, then went on. “I know what a good friend you were to him. How you tried to help when he started drinking. And how you stood by us when the scandal came out.”

“A friend doesn't turn his back because of hard times.”

“Some do.” She straightened and smiled at him. “But not you. Never you. I was hoping you were still his friend so that you'd help me.”

Disturbed by the strain in her voice, he kept her hand in his. “Clare, you've been coming around here since you could toddle. Of course I'll help you. For Jack. And for you.”

“I've made a mess out of my life.”

His brows drew together. “How can you say that? You're a very successful young woman.”

“Artist,” she corrected. “Pretty successful there. But as a woman…You'll have heard I was married and divorced.”
The faintest trace of humor lit her eyes. “Come on, Doc, I know how you disapprove of divorce.”

“Generally, yes.” He huffed a bit, not wanting to sound pompous. “A vow is a vow, as far as I can see. But I'm not so set in my ways that I don't understand there are sometimes…circumstances.”

“I was the circumstances.” Reaching down, she plucked a blade of grass that grew close to the wall. “I couldn't love him enough, couldn't be what he wanted. Couldn't be what I wanted, I guess. So I messed it up.”

Now he pursed his lips. “I would say that it takes two people to cause a marriage to succeed or to fail.”

She nearly laughed. “Rob wouldn't agree, believe me. And when I look back over it and the other relationships I've had, or tried to have, I realize I keep holding something back.”

“If you believe that, you must have an idea why.”

“Yes. I-I need to understand how he could have done it,” she blurted out. “Oh, I know all about addiction and alcoholism as an illness. But those are just generalities, and he was my father. He was mine. I have to understand, somehow, so I can… ”

“Forgive him,” Crampton said gently, and Clare closed her eyes.

“Yes.” That was the one thing, the single thing, she had refused to admit no matter how Janowski had prodded. But the guilt wasn't so painful saying it here, with her hand clasped warmly in the hand of her father's closest friend. “Last night when I went up there, I realized I never had. I'm so afraid I never will.”

Crampton was silent for a moment, smelling the smells of his garden, listening to the birdsong and the light ruffle of leaves in the spring breeze. “Jack and I talked about more than mulch and beetles in those long evenings. He
used to tell me how proud he was of you, and Blair. But you were special to him, the way I suppose you understand Blair's special to Rosemary.”

“Yes.” Her lips curved a little. “I know.”

“He wanted the best for you. He wanted the world for you.” Crampton sighed, remembering, regretting. “Perhaps he wanted too much, and that was why he made mistakes. I know this, Clare, that whatever he did, right or wrong, everything he did circled back to love for you. Don't blame him too much for being weak. Even in weakness he put you first.”

“I don't want to blame him. But there are so many memories. They drown me.”

He studied her with his solemn eyes. “Sometimes you can't go back, however much you'd like to. Trying to go back can hurt more than it can heal.”

“I'm finding that out.” She looked away, over the neatly trimmed lawn. “But I can't go forward, Doc. Not until I know.”

N
O AMOUNT OF REASON
could sway Jane Stokey from having an open casket. When a man was dead, it was the duty of those who had known him to look one last time at his face, to remember him. To speak over him.

“He was a mean motherfucker,” Oscar Roody commented, tugging on the knot of his tie. “After a couple of beers, old Biff would as soon punch you in the face as look at you.”

“That's a fact.” Less nodded wisely as he studied Biff's face. Rot in hell, you bastard, he thought. “Chuck sure knows his business now, don't he? From what I hear, Biff was messed up good and proper, but it just looks like he's taking a little snooze.”

“Probably used a pile of makeup.” Oscar took out a bandanna and honked into it. “You ask me, it's gotta be creepy putting makeup on a dead man.”

“I'd do it if it'd buy me a pool. I heard he got every bone in his body broke.” Less shifted, looking for evidence and for the thrill. “Sure can't tell it.”

They moved on and snuck outside for a smoke.

Jane was there, already seated in a chair at the front of the rows Griffith's had set up. Since Biff had had no church affiliation, the simple service would be held right there in the funeral parlor, with Chuck officiating. She wore the stiff black dress, her hair neatly pinned back, and accepted the condolences and awkward words of sympathy.

People filed by Biff to pay their last respects.

“He tried to get his fat hand up my skirt more times than I can count.” Sarah Hewitt smirked down at the dead face.

“Come on, Sarah.” Flushing, Bud looked right and left, hoping no one was close enough to have heard. “You can't talk that way here.”

“It's stupid that we can say whatever we want about the living, but once someone's dead, we have to say what a nice guy he was-even if he was a bastard.” She lifted a brow. “Did they really castrate him?”

“Jesus, Sarah.” Bud took her arm and pulled her to the rear of the room.

“Well, look who's here.” Sarah's smile became thoughtful as she watched Clare walk into the room. “The prodigal daughter.” She skimmed her gaze up and down Clare's figure, envying the simple and expensive dark suit. “Never did fill out, did she?”

Clare's heart was a hot ball lodged in her throat. She hadn't known it would be so bad. The last time she had entered this room, had seen a coffin decked with flowers and flanked by townspeople, her father had been inside it. She would swear the same dreary recorded organ music had been playing.

The stench of gladiolas and roses spun in her head. There was horror in her eyes as she stared down the narrow center
aisle between the rows of folding chairs and fought the urge to turn and bolt.

God, you're a grown woman, she reminded herself. Death is a part of life. One you've got to face up to. But she wanted to run, run out into the sunshine, so badly that her knees were vibrating.

“Clare?”

“Alice.” She gripped her friend's hand and fought to steady herself. “Looks like half the town turned out.”

“For Mrs. Stokey.” Her gaze flicked over faces. “And for the entertainment.” She was feeling awkward herself in her waitress's uniform, but she had only managed to steal twenty minutes away. Besides, the closest thing she had to funeral gear was a black sweatshirt. “They're going to start in a minute.”

“I'm just going to sit in the back.” Clare had no intention of marching up to the coffin and peeking in.

Hey, Biff, haven't seen you for years. Sorry you're dead.

The thought of it had her choking back a nervous laugh, then fighting off a wave of hot tears. What was she doing here? What the
hell
was she doing here? She was here for Cam, Clare reminded herself. And she was here to prove that she could sit in this little overheated room and get through a ritual like a responsible adult.

“You all right?” Alice whispered.

“Yes.” She took a long, cleansing breath. “We'd better sit down.”

As she and Alice took a seat, Clare scanned the room for Cam. She spotted Min Atherton in navy polyester, her face in solemn lines, her bright eyes gleeful. The mayor was beside her, his head bowed as if in prayer.

Farmers and merchants and mechanics stood in their Sunday suits and discussed business and the weather. Mrs. Stokey was flanked by townswomen. Cam stood to the
side, a set, unapproachable look on his face as he watched his mother.

Chuck Griffith walked to the front of the room, turned, and waited. With murmurs and shuffles, people filed to the folding chairs.

Silence.

“Friends,” he began, and Clare remembered.

The room had been packed both evenings during the viewing. There hadn't been a man, woman, or child in Emmitsboro who hadn't known Jack Kimball. All of them had come. The words they had spoken had blurred in her head, leaving only their meaning behind. Sorrow and regret. But no one, no one had known the depth of her own grief.

The church had been packed for the service, and the line of cars heading out to the cemetery at Quiet Knolls had stretched for blocks.

Some of the same people were here today. Older, with more flesh and less hair. They took their seats and held their silence and thought their thoughts.

Rosemary Kimball had been surrounded by towns-women, just as Jane Stokey was. They had stood by her, a unified line of support, filled with sympathy for her loss, filled with relief that their own widowhood was somewhere down the road of a murky future.

They had brought food to the house-ham, potato salad, chicken-to feed the grieving. The food had meant nothing, but the kindness helped fill some of the empty spaces.

Days later-only days-the scandal had hit. Jack Kimball, well-loved member of the community, was now an opportunist charged with kickbacks, bribery, falsified documents. While her grief was still blood-fresh, she'd been
told to accept the fact that her father had been a liar and a cheat.

But she had never accepted it. Nor had she accepted his suicide.

Cam saw her. He was surprised she was there and less than pleased when he noted that her face was too pale, her eyes too wide. She had a hand gripped in Alice's as she stared straight ahead. He wondered what it was she saw, what it was she heard. He was certain she wasn't listening to Chuck Griffith's words about eternal life and forgiveness any more than he was.

But others listened. With their faces blank and their hands still, they listened. And they feared. A warning had been given. When one of their number broke the Law, he would be plucked out, without mercy. The wrath of the few was no less than the wrath of the Dark Lord. So they listened, and they remembered. And behind their somber eyes and bent heads, they were afraid.

“I have to get back.” Alice squeezed Clare's hand. “I have to get back,” she repeated. “Clare?”

“What?” She blinked. People were shuffling to their feet and filing out. “Oh.”

“I could only get time off to come for the service. Are you driving out to the cemetery?”

“Yes.” Clare had her own grave to visit. “I'll be driving out.”

A half dozen cars slid into position in the back lot of Griffith's. There were farms to run and shops to open, and the fact was there weren't too many people willing to take the time to see Biff Stokey get plopped in the ground. Clare pulled in at the rear and settled into the short, stately drive. Ten miles out of town, the grim parade drove through the open iron gates.

Clare's fingers were clammy when she turned off the ignition.
She waited in the car. The pallbearers hefted their burden. She saw the mayor, Doc Crampton, Oscar Roody, Less Gladhill, Bob Meese, and Bud Hewitt. Cam walked beside his mother. They didn't touch.

Clare got out of her car and, turning away, walked up the slope of the hill. Birds were singing as birds do on warm May mornings. The grass smelled strong and sweet. Here and there among the stones and plaques were plastic flowers or wreaths. They wouldn't fade. Clare wondered if the people who had placed them there realized how much sadder their bright artificial colors were than drooping carnations or dying daisies.

There was family here. Her mother's mother and father, great-aunts and uncles, a young cousin who had died of polio long before Clare had been born. She walked among them while the sun stung her eyes and warmed her face.

She didn't kneel at her father's grave. She hadn't brought flowers. She didn't weep. Instead she stood, reading his headstone over and over, trying to find some sense of him there. But there was nothing but granite and grass.

As he stood beside his mother, Cam watched Clare. The sun turned her hair to copper. Bright and brilliant. Alive. His fingers flexed as he realized just how much he needed to touch life. Each time he put a hand on his mother's arm, her shoulder, her back, he was met with a cold wall. She had nothing for him, not even need.

Yet he couldn't leave her, couldn't turn away as he wanted to and go to Clare, put a hand on that bright, brilliant hair, absorb that life, that need.

He hated cemeteries, he thought, and remembered staring down into the empty grave of a child.

When Clare walked away, returned to her car, drove away, he knew what it was to be utterly alone.

* * *

Clare worked furiously for the rest of the day. Driven. Her second metal sculpture was almost done. When it was time to let the steel cool, she would turn off her torch, strip off her skullcap, and take up the clay model of Ernie's arm.

She couldn't bear to rest.

With knives and hands and wooden pallets, she carved and smoothed and formed. She could feel the defiance as she shaped the fist. The restlessness as she detailed the taut muscles of the forearm. Patiently, she carved away minute scraps of clay with thin wire, then smoothed and textured with a damp brush.

The music blared on her radio-the edgiest, grittiest rock she could find on the dial. Sparked with energy, she washed the clay from her hands, but she didn't rest. Couldn't. At another worktable sat a slab of cherry wood with much of its center already carved away. She took up her tools, mallet, chisels, calipers, and poured that nervous energy into her work.

She stopped only when the sun lowered enough to force her to switch on lights, then to turn the music from rock to classical, just as passionate, just as driving. Cars cruised by unheard. The phone rang, but she ignored it.

Her other projects faded completely from her mind. She was part of the wood now, part of its possibilities. And the wood absorbed her emotions. Cleansed them. She had no sketch, no model. Only memories and needs.

For the fine carving, her fingers were deft and sure. Her eyes burned, but she rubbed the back of her wrist over them and kept going. The fire in her, rather than banking, grew and grew.

Stars came out. The moon started its rise.

Cam saw her bent over her work, a wood file flashing in her hand. Overhead the bright, naked bulbs burned, drawing pale, wide-winged moths to their death dance. Music soared, all slashing strings and crashing bass.

There was a glow of triumph on her face, in her eyes. Every few moments, she would stroke her fingers over the curve of wood in a form of communication he recognized but couldn't understand.

There was something raw and powerful in the shape. It swept down, forming an open profile. As he stepped inside the garage, he could see that it was a face, eerily masculine, a head lifted back and up as if toward the sun.

He didn't speak and lost track of the time as he watched her. But he could feel the passion trembling out of her. It reached him and clashed almost painfully with his own.

Clare set the tools aside. Slowly, she slid from the stool to step back. Her breath was coming fast, so fast she instinctively pressed a hand to her heart. Pain mixed with pleasure as she studied what she had been driven to create.

Her father. As she remembered him. As she had loved him. Dynamic, energized, loving. Alive. Most of all alive. Tonight, finally, she had found a way to celebrate his life.

She turned and looked at Cam.

She didn't stop to wonder why she wasn't surprised to see him there. She didn't pause to ask herself if this new surge of excitement was dangerous or if she was ready for the needs she read in his eyes.

He reached up to pull the garage door down. Metal banged against concrete. She didn't move, didn't speak, but waited with every nerve in her body humming taut.

He crossed to her. The music was trapped with them, blasting from walls, ceiling, floor.

Then his hands were on her face, his rough palms shaping her, his thumbs rubbing across her lips, then her
cheekbones, before his fingers dug into her hair. Her breath caught as he dragged her head back, as his body slammed into hers. But it wasn't fear that made her shudder. And the sound in her throat as his lips crushed to hers was one of triumph.

He'd never needed anyone more than he needed her at that moment. All the misery, all the pain, all the bitterness he had carried with him that day faded at the first hot taste of her. She was pure energy in his arms, snapping and pulsing with life. Starving, he dived deeper into her mouth while her heart pounded against his.

His hands moved down to grip her hips, then her thighs. If it had been possible, he would have pulled her inside him, so great was his need to possess. On an oath, he dragged her with him, stumbling blindly into the kitchen.

He thought of bed, of sinking with her onto the mattress. Of sinking into her.

Impatient, he tugged at her shirt, yanking it over her head and letting it fly. They rammed into a wall as he filled his hands with her breasts.

She laughed and reached for him, but could only moan when he bent low and suckled. Fisting her hands in his hair, she held on.

He seemed to be feasting on her. There was a wildness in him, a greed, a violence that staggered her. Her body arched, offering more. Straining for more. The prick of his teeth against her sensitive skin had her blood beating hotter. She could feel it, almost hear it, the primitive drumbeat rhythm just under her skin. She'd forgotten that she could feel passion like this for a man. This hunger that could only be sated by rough and frenzied joining. She wanted him to take her now, as they stood. Quickly, even viciously.