Old Wounds (43 page)

H
ALLOWEEN

1986

T
HE MENDED INDIAN
outfit had been under the message stone, just where Rosie had said she would leave it. A note was in the plastic bag with it.

Dear F-T-W,

Mum said this was the best she could do for now. She’ll make us both new ones for Christmas. Pa will take us trick-or-treating at 5. He put hay in the back of his truck so we can have a hayride. I’m glad your not grounded anymore. Meet me here at 4:30.

See you then!

S.D. of O.H.

Maythorn carefully unfolded the precious garments and, dropping her jeans and sweatshirt on the floor of her bedroom, she pulled on the mended trousers and shirt. There were odd, slanting lines where Rosie’s mum had sewn the pieces back together, and both top and bottom fit more tightly than they had before. But the fringe down the trouser legs still jiggled when she walked and the bone beads on the shirt still traced their intricate zigzag patterns.

She slid her hand under the mattress and pulled out the big scissors that Mama had thrown down on the floor. Opening and closing them a few experimental times, Maythorn watched the long vicious blades slash the air. Satisfied, she turned to her closet where the ballerina costume was hanging, and began her work.

When the closet floor was littered with shreds of lavender satin and little wads of netting, she shut the door on the destruction. In her head she could hear the echoing chant—the chant she had heard that night in the woods when she and Shining Deer had watched the men do the Booger Dance.

Like a ghost, Maythorn slipped down the hall to the stairs. It had worked; Mama and Krystalle had left for the pageant without her, thinking she was with the Goodweathers. The house was still and empty, except for Moon, who was fast asleep in his den. Down the stairs and into the back hallway, moving on silent moccasined feet, Fox-That-Watches crept through the deserted house. In the hallway by the kitchen she froze, listening with all her might, but no sound came to her. Even the cook and houseman were gone.

The stealthy Cherokee edged out the door, into the cool afternoon air, bound for the secret hiding place of the masks. They were waiting. She would put on the face of the enemy and, so doing, would dance them into nothingness. She would become fearless. The wail of the chant echoed in her head as she padded past the deserted pool house, her lips moving silently.

The crack of a black walnut falling on a metal roof made her jump and she spun around. Who is it? she whispered, but there was no answer, nothing but the rattle of bare branches overhead, restless in the small breeze.

Be brave, like Driver said, she told herself. Be strong like all the ancestors. Put on the face of your enemy and dance the Booger Dance.

At the little shed, she looked around once more before reaching for the latch. Her breath was coming fast and the chant was loud in her head.

She put out her hand, and at her touch, the door swung open. In the shadows, the booger stood before her.

43.

S
HE
W
ANTS TO
B
E
F
OUND

Friday, October 28

“She’s under there,
just where Rosie wrote her name.”

Moon sank to his knees, his face a study in anguish. “I put her there, and not an hour passes that I don’t beg her to forgive me.” Sobs racked his thin body.

They watched, speechless and helpless. Jared moved to Moon’s side and leaned close to whisper a few words in his father’s ear. Moon shook his head and the horrible, broken sounds continued while the rest of them stood frozen, dreading further revelations.

At last the fit of weeping subsided and Moon looked up. His eyes went at once to Rosemary, and when he began to speak it was as if his words were for her and her alone.

“I was drunk; I didn’t know what I was doing. I swear it. When I came to and saw her lying there, I thought it was a hallucination…I had no memory of what had happened…what I must have done. I still don’t. But God help me, there must have been a devil in me to have hit her like that—again and again. Her face was so swollen and battered that I wouldn’t have known it was Maythorn, little Maythorn…except for that Cherokee Pride sweatshirt she always wore.”

They listened in horror as he described waking up on the basement floor, the child’s body at his side, a bloody shovel by his hand.

“My head was spinning. Nothing made any sense. But there she was, and her blood was on me. And there were bags of Qwikcrete piled to one side and the workmen’s tools and the place where the new furnace was going to go. The dirt was soft—”

“Dad, stop, you don’t know what you’re saying…you couldn’t have…” Jared gripped his father’s shoulder to stop the dreadful flow. “He used to have terrible hallucinations back then…that’s what he’s remembering. He couldn’t have done a thing like that.”

“Jared’s right.” Mike Mullins moved forward. “Moon, it was a nightmare, not something that really happened. Between your drinking back then and the loss of Maythorn, it’s not surprising—”

“Will somebody listen to me?” Moon struggled to his feet. His eyes were still wild but his voice had become calm, almost peaceful. “I knew when Elizabeth first came to Redemption House how this was going to end. I’m tired of pretending, of trying to live with the horror of who I was…of what I did.”

He turned and walked to a sheet-covered table, leaned down, and brought out a pickaxe. “I came out here a few days ago, thinking I’d get it over with. I was going to uncover her, to ask her forgiveness again,” The pickaxe dragged behind him as he slowly approached the concrete pad.

“I thought I could do it, but I kept hearing sounds…sounds that frightened me and wouldn’t let me think. God help me, I ran away…again.”

“Dad, please…please don’t say these things.” Jared stopped his father as the pickaxe began its upward swing. Gently he took the heavy tool from the older man.

“Son, please, she’s tired of being hidden; she wants to come out!” The frenzy had returned to Moon’s voice. Phillip took a step forward, but Mike intervened.

“No. Let him see the truth—let him see that this is all a fantasy, just a product of his illness. Give me the pickaxe, Jared.”

Without a word, Jared handed the implement to Mike, who lifted it high over his head, bringing it down with a resounding crack in the loop of the
R
in the inscription. To Elizabeth’s surprise, the concrete broke at once, revealing that it was just a few inches thick.

Only the repeated thuds broke the strained silence as the pickaxe swung again and again. Moon fell to his knees, watching the tool bite eagerly into the thin concrete. As the material shattered, Mike paused, allowing Jared to reach in and lay the pieces to one side.

At last an area was cleared. In a voice raw with emotion, Moon called out, “Stop, you’ll hit her! I can’t bear it if you hit her.”

Like a medieval penitent, Moon Mullins, still on his knees, approached the newly revealed patch of soil. Just as Rosemary had done, he began to sweep aside the dirt with his bare hands, muttering as he worked.

Elizabeth pulled at Phillip’s sleeve. “He’s insane! Shouldn’t we try to—”

Mike, who had been watching his brother with an inscrutable expression, turned to her. “We might as well let him work through this, Elizabeth. Let him see for himself that there’s nothing—”

“No!” A cry of despair rang out and Jared was on his knees beside his father. “No!”

Even as he cried out, Jared’s hands were working frantically to uncover the smooth brownish-white object that was emerging from the soil—the elegant fanlike shape of a small bone protruding from a gray piece of cloth and the horrible shattered teeth of a partially hidden skull. Clumps of matted blond hair still clung to the bone.

“Mike, Jared, get him away from there. This is a crime scene. I’ll call the sheriff—we can’t do anything till he gets here.” Phillip had his phone in his hand. Suddenly he looked puzzled and took a careful step nearer to the half-revealed bones. “But this…this was a blonde—I thought Maythorn…”

“It’s dyed. Patricia thought it would make Maythorn look more like one of us.” Jared helped his father to his feet and slowly pulled him back from the excavation. Phillip had his cell phone to his ear as he shepherded them all up the steps and outside. They obeyed him without protest, happy to be away from the darkening basement and the subtle stench of dirt and decay.

“I never went back down there, I never could…. When the men came to set up that furnace, I was dead drunk….”

While they waited on the steps of the mansion for the arrival of the sheriff, Moon talked incessantly. Words tumbled out of him as he looked from one to another of them, his eyes begging for understanding, for compassion, for forgiveness.

“I’ve tried to pay…to make my life count for something…to help others. It didn’t seem right, that I should have to go to jail, maybe even die for something I couldn’t remember doing.”

His filthy hands reached out to his son. “Jared, forgive me, but for a while I was able to convince myself that
you
had accidentally killed her—you had such a temper back then—and I told myself I was protecting
you.”

The haggard face turned to Rosemary. “And Rosie, when you came looking for her, I lied, I said Maythorn was in her room. And I let you write your name and make your handprint…and all the time, she was there…under there.”

It was a long, sad wait. Jared’s arm was around Rosemary and he was whispering to her. Moon, babbling and weeping, was hunched over, his face buried in his hands, as his brother tried to calm him.

When Sheriff Blaine arrived at last, he quickly took charge. A deputy read Moon his rights and led him, stumbling and dazed, to a waiting car. Jared and Mike followed.

“Hawk, you take the ladies home. No need to keep them out here. We’ll get statements later, after we see what’s down there.”

“Moon’s made a full confession, Elizabeth.” Phillip came to sit beside her in front of the fire.

On returning home, Rosemary had refused dinner, saying only that she wanted to go to sleep, that she might wake later and fix a sandwich. Elizabeth had watched without comment as Rosemary climbed the stairs to her old room.
This has been terrible for her—but at least it’s at an end. Sleep is probably the best thing for her right now.

“Evidently Jared’s taking it pretty hard.” Phillip put his arm around her. “He doesn’t believe his dad knows what he’s saying.”

“And Mike?”

“Mike…Well, Blaine said he got the impression that Mike might have had some suspicions about his brother all along. Something he said implied that was one reason he moved so far away.

“Blaine said Mike’s talking about staying around a while, maybe even moving back here.” Phillip was looking directly into her eyes now. “Would it make a difference to you if he did?”

She was silent, thinking of all the might-have-beens. Finally, she answered. “Years ago, when Sam and I were having…difficulties, I was attracted to Mike. He was a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on. But in the end, Sam, my marriage, and my family were more important. Now…”

It was with a joyful burst of revelation that she found the words. “Now it’s
you
who’s more important.” She grinned happily. “As Laurel would put it, I am
so over
Mike Mullins.”

44.

U
NSETTLED

Saturday, October 29

Rosemary lay still,
listening to the morning sounds below: the gurgle of the coffeepot; James’s excited bark as he danced, toenails clicking; her mother’s cheerful “Go play, you dogs;” and the opening and closing of the front door. There was the chunking sound of logs being added to the fire and Phillip’s deep gravelly tones asking some question.

Phillip. He seems to be a part of life here now. Mum is finally having to acknowledge what’s going on between them. Once the guy who did the break-in was in jail, she didn’t really need a bodyguard anymore. But he’s still here.

Rosemary rolled out of her bed and reached for her jeans. Her quest was over: Maythorn had been found; her murderer had confessed.

It’s what I thought she wanted. Why do I feel so…unsettled?

“I talked to Jared, Mum. I won’t be here for supper; we’re eating at his place.”

Elizabeth looked up from the computer, where she was wrestling with the end-of-month billing. Rosemary, her face pale and drawn, stood fidgeting in the doorway of the little office.

“How is Jared doing with all this, sweetie?”
And how are you doing, my dearest baby?

“He’s trying to line up a legal team for his dad. I don’t think he can accept what happened. He keeps saying that his father couldn’t have…Oh, Mum, I saw the skull. Maythorn’s teeth had been knocked out…and the bones around the eyes all shattered. How could someone do that to a child?”

How could someone do that to a child?
She and Phillip had talked late into the night, asking that same question. Eventually the subject had turned to Calven.

“Miss Birdie says he’s having trouble settling down. ‘That pore little young un keeps thinkin’ his no-good mama’s gonna come back fer him. Won’t hear nary a word agin her even though she’s treated him like a sorry cur’ is how Birdie put it.”

Phillip’s eyes were distant. “I worked a few child abuse cases and that’s one of the saddest things—seeing the kids defend their worthless mothers and fathers—fathers who abuse them, mothers who’d sell their kids for a bag of crack. But the kids fight to believe that their parents love them, particularly their mothers. They’ll beg to stay with her even when she’s mistreating them.”

Phillip left for Weaverville to pick up his mail, and mother and daughter ate lunch in almost complete silence.
We should at least be relieved that it’s all over,
Elizabeth thought, watching Rosemary pick at the carrot sticks beside her half-eaten sandwich.
But she’s still so…bemused, almost like that strange, fey state she was in yesterday. Of course, seeing what was left of her friend, imagining what she’d suffered…

Rosemary pushed her chair back. “Sorry, Mum, I’m just not very hungry. If you don’t mind, I’m going to change and go on to Asheville early. Laurel wants me to come by where she’s working on that mural. I’ll hang out with her for a while. Maybe poke around some bookstores. Phillip’s coming back, isn’t he? I hate to leave you here alone….”

Elizabeth smiled at her. “Hey, I’ll be fine, sweetie. All the bad guys are where they belong. But, yes, he is coming back.”

And at some point I’m going to have to stop blushing about it.

Elizabeth drove Rosemary down to her car and watched the little vehicle depart. She was filled with an irrational feeling of unease.
It was Moon, not Jared. Rosie’s perfectly safe with Jared, you fool.

She crossed the little branch and began a leisurely inspection of the beds of perennial herbs and flowers, now nestled under thick blankets of mulch in preparation for the coming winter. She was leaning down to break off a few branches of variegated sage when she heard the now familiar sound of Phillip’s car.

He spotted her across the field and waved. Pulling up beside the drying shed, he flung open the car door, sprang out, and started jogging toward her. Agreeably surprised at his impatience to see her again, she hurried to meet him.

“I missed you, too, Phillip.” Smiling, she took his hand. “You took a long time picking up your mail.”

He leaned forward to kiss her briefly. There was no returning grin.

“I had a call from Mac—Sheriff Blaine—so I went into Ransom on the way back.” Phillip’s expression was solemn. “Mac said that he’d had Doc Adams come take a look at the skull—at the teeth—before the remains went off to the ME.”

“Doc Adams? The dentist?
My
dentist?”

“The one in Ransom, yeah. Anyway, Mac said he figured since Doc Adams is the only dentist on this side of the county, it was likely he’d had the Mullins family as patients. Mac gave the doc a call first thing this morning and asked him about it. Sure enough, the doc remembered the whole family—said he still had their dental records. He came right in, with a quick stop by his office to get Maythorn’s file.

“Mac said it didn’t take thirty seconds—Doc Adams took a look at the teeth in the skull and said that he’d bet his license to practice that those remains weren’t Maythorn.”