Forests of the Night (28 page)

Farris turned his gaze from the miles of green and looked into his father's dark eyes.

“My question to you, sir, is this. Why did you leave it to our mother to inform us of our condition? Did you lack the courage, Father?”

Otis sighed and dodged Farris's eyes and shook his head sadly as if these were words he'd long dreaded.

“You left your children in ignorance of their damaged state. You told us nothing about our birthright. If it weren't for Mother's last-minute confession, Martin and I would never have known. How could you do that, Father? What possible reason did you have for hiding such a thing? Letting me marry without forewarning, bring my boy Shelley into the world. Was it cowardice?”

His father took another small swing at the tips of grass, and Farris reached out and twisted the golf club from his father's grasp and tossed it into the yard. The poodles came to attention, focused on Farris's hands.

Otis composed his face, though his cheeks darkened with fury.

“You should ask yourself, Farris, what your mother's motives were in telling her outrageous stories. That woman devoted herself to keeping the embers of blame and guilt constantly aglow, searching always for scapegoats for her many complaints. Eventually I found it unendurable, but I had the good grace to wait till you and Martin were mature adults before departing. That wasn't easy, knowing how close you were to the woman, risking the loss of my boys. But I could endure her no longer. Although her condition was never diagnosed, I believe the woman was unbalanced in some fundamental way.”

“Stop it,” Farris said. “I won't hear your slurs. I'll strike you down where you stand.”

Otis Tribue took a measuring look into his son's eyes, then his gaze shied away toward the cliff edge, where his golf club lay in the grass.

Farris said, “Mother informed us of what you did, Father. The botched
job you made of it. I know every detail of that fateful evening. In fact, it is the lingering aftereffects of your failed exploit that caused my brother's murder. You may deny it all you want, old man, but the past haunts us still. And now it is left to me alone to finish what you failed at.”

“No, Farris. You must not do this. It's not true. She lied to you.”

“It's true, all right. I have the proof. My damaged son, a brother murdered. I have all the proof I need to finish what you so poorly began.”

He burned the old man with a final look, then marched over to the fallen mannequin and wrenched it from its moorings and hoisted the dummy over his shoulder and carried it thirty yards to the lip of Raven's Gorge and heaved it over.

He stepped close to the rocky edge, and leaned forward to follow its flight until it crashed into the boulders and scrub pines a half-mile below. For several years the mannequin had served its purpose well, but it was now time to test the dogs on more challenging quarry.

Charlotte woke with a jerk at five that morning. Another dream of detached heads. These were floating bodiless in the air. And this time they were all jabbering at once, ridiculing her, cursing her ignorance, screaming at the pain she had caused them, or crying out in ecstasy as if to mock her pleasure of the night before.

She lay there for a while, staring up at the dark ceiling, and knew she would not be able to slide back into sleep. While Parker continued to snore, she rose quietly and dug her laptop from her bag and plugged it into the phone line.

She accessed her e-mail, then used the link Marie Salzedo sent her to retrieve the trial transcript from the North Carolina archives. Charles Andrew Monroe's murder, the fire at Camp Tsali.

On the slow phone line it took several minutes to download the thirty-page document of supporting material Marie managed to sweet-talk from the State Bureau of Investigation. Police reports, autopsy files, even some handwritten notes of the detectives working the case that had been scanned and added to the electronic file.

Parker woke just as Charlotte was filling the last of her legal pad with notes. When he came out of the bathroom, he asked if she'd had any luck.

“I got a few things, yeah. Not quite finished.”

“I'll go get coffee, maybe call Miriam on my cell, see what she has.”

“Good plan.”

He was back in fifteen minutes with two black coffees. He set one beside Charlotte's laptop.

“Done yet?”

She nodded that she was.

“I got a little from Miriam. Who goes first?”

Charlotte straightened her notes.

“You,” she said.

He cleared his throat and reset his shoulders the way he did when he was about to make a summation before the jury.

“A year ago, about this time, something major happened. Something that set this whole thing off.”

She took a sip of the scalding java and set it down.

“I'm listening.”

“Last June, Lucy Panther was teaching her class at the tribal school, and Jacob was working in Cox's sawmill a few miles from here. He'd been on the job for over ten years, ever since he graduated high school, already promoted to assistant foreman. Making almost twenty thousand a year, which is a damn good wage around here. New pickup truck, renting a trailer not far from his mother's place. Had a few friends, dated some women. He'd had that one brush with the law. Stole a car, but that was years earlier, just out of high school. A kid thing. But otherwise, no sign of trouble in their lives. Then bam.”

“The banks started blowing up,” she said.

“Not exactly,” he said. “First thing that happened, Lucy quit her job and Jacob walked away from his.”

“Before the bombings?”

“Yeah, a month or two before. Left their homes, started moving around—motels, friends' apartments. Vagabonds. Something happened, they reacted. Then seven, eight weeks later the bombings started. It was during that period that Jacob filed that police report in Cherokee County. Not with the tribal police, mind you, but the county police chief. Like maybe he didn't trust Farris.”

“Can't blame him.”

“Miriam got the same story Sheriff Tribue was selling last night. This whole murder conspiracy thing is old news. People had been bugging the cops on and off with this stuff for years. Some kind of urban legend that crops up every so often, Cherokees being murdered in some kind of plot. Somebody gets a wild hair and runs off to the police and starts babbling.”

“Where there's smoke,” she said.

He nodded.

“So Lucy and her son were doing the good-citizen thing, living a normal life, then something happens, they go on the run, somewhere in there they take a shot at going to the cops for help, and get nowhere.”

“Then the banks start blowing,” she said. “And shortly thereafter the sheriff IDs Jacob for the crimes, and the entire U.S. Cavalry is chasing Jacob Panther.”

Parker closed his eyes and ran it through a couple of times, then opened them again and shrugged.

“This isn't about banks and insurance fraud,” she said.

“No, it's not.”

“Something bigger. Something weirder.”

“It's about Tsali, the camp, the Tribue family.”

“That much we know.”

“And you? What'd you dig up?”

She drew a breath. This wouldn't be easy.

“I did the trial,” she said. “
People of North Carolina versus Standingdog Matthews
.”

“Jesus, Charlotte. You just can't let that go. Determined to prove he's innocent.”

“He is, Parker. He didn't do it.”

“You read the transcript and now you're certain. This I got to hear.”

“First thing you should know—your dad didn't die from the fire.”

“What?”

“He died of gunshot wounds. Same with Jeremiah Tribue. Gunshots.”

“Bullshit.”

“Gunshots, Parker.”

“Impossible. You got the wrong transcript.”

“Nope. I got the right one.
State of North Carolina versus Standingdog
.”

“Death by asphyxiation,” he said. “Injuries they suffered in the fire.”

“The Philpot kid, yes, that was his official cause of death, but not your dad. And not Tribue.”

Parker stared down at the carpet, shaking his head.

“You were fifteen years old, sweetheart, in shock, you'd just lost your father, almost died yourself, and you didn't know anything about the law. It's not surprising you'd get things wrong.”

“I remember every goddamn word, Charlotte. I don't have it wrong.”

“Transcript's right here. Check it out if you want. You understand the technicalities better than I do.”

He waved the thought away.

“Go on,” he said. “But damn it, there were no guns mentioned in the trial, I was there.”

“Well, that part you got right. The guns weren't mentioned because Standingdog wasn't being tried for your dad's death or Tribue's.”

“Do that again?”

“Standingdog was on trial for the Philpot kid alone. He took a plea deal, put up no defense, and took life in prison, but it was for the fifteen-year-old kid. Not your dad or Jeremiah Tribue.”

Parker stood up and did a quick turn around the room, then went back to his coffee, finished it off, and sunk into his chair.

“Because Philpot died of asphyxiation and there was lots of testimony about that, you probably assumed your dad's cause of death was the same. But it wasn't. They didn't even introduce it in Standingdog's trial.”

Charlotte shut down her laptop and stood up.

“I'm assuming,” she said, “the DA went with Philpot instead of your dad because they had an eyewitness. You might remember him, he was your cabinmate that summer. Jeremy Banks.”

“Vaguely,” Parker said. “Some prissy kid from Knoxville.”

“DAs love eyewitnesses. Never mind that Jeremy was a fifteen-year-old boy, awakened from a dead sleep, in a dark cabin. He wore glasses but confessed he wasn't wearing them. And the abductor was in and out of the cabin in a second or two. Even with all that, the government still liked Philpot better than what they had with your dad and Tribue. A kid pointing
his finger at Standingdog. It makes for such good theater. And hey, what's the worst that can happen? They lose the Philpot case, they could still indict Standingdog for your dad and Tribue. But as it turned out, they didn't need to.”

“Where does the gun come in?”

“Not
gun. Guns
. Two different ones.”

“Whoa, whoa.”

“All of it's in the police reports, the coroner, medical examiner. It's all there. Go ahead and read it if you don't believe me.”

“Just tell me.”

“Your dad took two shots to the chest. Different weapon than the one used to kill Tribue.”

“This is crazy. This is a whole different story.”

“Exactly.”

Parker bent forward in his chair, elbows on his knees.

“I know Dad had an old Colt he kept in his bedroom.”

“That was the weapon used on Jeremiah Tribue, registered to your dad. The gun that killed your dad was a small caliber, probably a twenty-two. It wasn't found.”

“All right, okay. So let's say Dad brought his Colt down. He wrestled with Standingdog, the gun goes off and kills Jeremiah Tribue, who'd come there to help put out the fire.”

She shook her head.

“Listen to me, Parker. The only prints on the Colt were Diana's.”

“No.”

“It's all right here.” She tapped the lid of her laptop.

Parker stared at the far wall for several long moments, breathing slow and deep, as though he might be shouldering large boulders of memory from one place to another, rearranging the foundations of his past.

Charlotte walked over, and moved behind him. She settled her hands onto his shoulders and began to massage. An old formula between them, a prelude to lovemaking on more than one occasion. Easing his tension, then easing toward the bed.

“Just go with this for a second, okay? Say Jeremiah and Mr. Big set the fire.”

She dug her fingers into the tight muscles, kneading upward to the base of his neck.

“One of them has already grabbed the Philpot kid from your cot, mistaking Philpot for you, drags him over to the house and starts splashing kerosene around. They want to wipe out your family. So far it's the same story as yours, but with Tribue and Mr. Big instead of Standingdog.

“Your dad is upstairs, sleeping, he hears something, goes downstairs, sees the Philpot kid lying there, the fire going. Tribue is splashing his kerosene. But before Chief can do anything, Mr. Big shoots him.”

Parker laid a hand on hers and stopped the massage.

“And Mother?”

“She hears the gunshot, grabs your dad's gun from the bedside table or wherever, runs down, starts firing. Kills Jeremiah and scares away Mr. Big. That's how the second weapon leaves the scene.”

“And when did I come in?”

“I put it about now. Diana's up on the stairs, working on your dad, trying to revive him maybe, stop his bleeding. The flames are spreading fast, you walk in, the smoke's so thick you don't see the bodies. You head toward the stairs, beam falls, knocks you out. Diana hauls you outside to safety.”

Parker ran through it for several moments before replying.

“Couldn't happen,” he said. “Standingdog's attorney had access to all this. The two guns, Diana apparently using one, the other disappearing. All of it exculpatory or potentially so. But they didn't use any of it, didn't even try.”

Charlotte finger-combed his sandy hair back in place, realigned his part.

“It's because of the plea deal, Parker. Standingdog pled to the Philpot murder, but wouldn't go along with a joint trial on the other two.”

“No defense attorney worth two cents is going to let him take that deal.”

“Maybe somebody else had Standingdog's ear. Telling him how to play it.”

“No way,” Parker said. “No DA's going to leave two murders dangling like that. Especially somebody like my dad. Well-known in the area.”

“So they keep his file open,” Charlotte said. “Happens all the time.
They wait for Standingdog to confess to somebody in prison, wham, they're back in court.”

“They had enough to indict him then. I don't see why they'd wait, much less why they'd make any deals.”

“You're the expert, Parker. But I've seen my share of trials. And this case looks too damn messy. Too many different facts. Diana's prints on one murder weapon, no sign of the second weapon. Most DAs I've met would be happy to take a deal like that. They got an eyewitness for Philpot, and they've got a strong motive for Standingdog. The DA gets to tell a simple story and Standingdog hangs. Everybody goes home happy.”

“Okay, so why the hell would he go along? Standingdog pleads guilty, winds up sitting in prison the rest of his life for something he didn't do. What is he, some kind of masochist?”

“Maybe he's a martyr.”

“Bullshit. The guy's no martyr.”

Parker was shaking his head to all of it. In full-blown denial.

“When you described this Beloved Woman thing, Parker, you said one of her roles was to make life-and-death decisions. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Which prisoner was executed, which went free.”

“That's ancient history, hundreds of years ago.”

“I'm just brainstorming, Parker, trying to work with what's here.”

“So what're you saying? Diana told Standingdog to take the fall? And he went along? That's ridiculous, Charlotte. Completely absurd. Why would he agree? What's in it for him? You didn't know the man. He was ruthless, mean. The man you saw the other day, dying in his wheelchair, that's not who he was when he was young. You're sentimentalizing the guy.”

Charlotte smoothed her hands across his knotted back muscles.

“I remember you said Standingdog was silent during the whole trial.”

“That's right. He just sat there. Gloating or furious, who knows?”

“That's another thing you got wrong. The transcript says different. After the verdict, when the judge asked if he had any final statement, an expression of remorse or an explanation for his actions, he spoke in Cherokee. A single word.”

Charlotte gave him a parting pat and walked over to her desk and found the note. She spelled out the word and Parker pronounced it for her.

“Ga-du-gi.”

“Court reporter didn't bother to translate it in the transcript. You know what it means?”

He nodded.

“Common Cherokee custom. Working together for some mutual goal. Communal generosity, something like that. Dad was always preaching it. Many hands are better than two.”

“Like I said. Sacrificing for the greater good.”

Parker sighed again and took a calming breath. He cleared his throat, looked back at her with fresh clarity.