Right Hand of Evil (13 page)

Scout led him around to the back of the carriage house, then reared up, placing his forepaws on the building's siding.

And in the moonlight, Jared saw it.

Hanging with head down, its tongue lolling out of its mouth, was Muffin.

Or at least what was left of Muffin.

The cat's hide had been nailed neatly to the wall, the legs spread, even the tail tacked in a curve so it looked as if Muffin were trying to climb down the wall.

It was just out of Scout's reach, but the dog kept stretching, as if trying to touch the cat's head.

Jared stared at the hide for a long time, then reached out and tore it loose from the wall. He was about to throw it into one of the garbage cans when he changed his mind. What if Kim came out in the morning and found it? Better put it somewhere else. He cast about in his mind and remembered the packing boxes he'd stowed inside the carriage house. Leaving Scout whimpering next to the wall where the hide had been nailed, Jared disappeared into the building. A moment later he was back. "Okay, Scout," he said, his voice low but hard. "Who did it? Show me who did it, Scout. Find him!"

In response, the dog began sniffing around the area. Then, catching a scent, he headed for the scrubby woods that edged the eastern boundary of the property. Pulling in most of the clothesline, Jared followed Scout to the edge of the woods, where he stopped.

Maybe he should go back and try to find a flashlight, he thought. But who even knew which one of the cartons to look in? Besides, the moon was still high, and the night was clear.

And Scout could see anything, even in the dark.

"Okay, boy," he said softly, making up his mind. "Let's go."

Following close behind the dog, giving him no more than six feet of rope, Jared made his way along the path through the woods. The dog kept his nose to the ground, moving quickly, taking them farther and farther from the house. Then, just as Jared was about to pull Scout off the scent and start back toward him, the retriever froze, one foot off the ground, tail extended.

Jared crept forward and dropped to his knees next to the big dog. He peered through the darkness, and at first saw nothing. Then, barely visible in the gloom, he made out the silhouette of a cabin. "There?" he asked. "Is that where he came from?"

Scout trembled, whining eagerly. Then he tensed.

Feeling the dog's muscles harden, Jared, too, held perfectly still, listening.

Off to the left he heard something.

Not much. Just the softest rustling, as if something were moving in the bushes.

Something, or
someone?

Jared's heart began pounding, and for a second he was certain that whatever-or
whoever
-was out there must surely hear it.

The rustling came again, and then something else.

The snap of a twig?

He heard it again.

Closer this time.

Much closer.

His fingers tightening on Scout's collar, he pulled the dog back. "Come on, Scout," he whispered. "We'd better-"

Before he could finish his sentence, or move away, the night was rent by a howling sound that exploded out of the cabin. A second later the howling dropped into the steady baying of hounds. The cabin door opened. An oil lamp was held high, casting a yellowish glow a few feet from the ramshackle structure. "Who's out there?" a rough voice yelled. "I'm warnin' you! You get away right now, or I'm turnin' these dogs loose!"

Under the cover of the hounds' baying, Jared scurried back down the path, pulling Scout with him.

Twenty minutes later, he crept back into the house and up to his room. Stripping off his clothes, he slipped back into bed. Though he'd been out only an hour, he felt as if he'd been up all night. But it didn't matter how he felt-he'd found out what he needed to know.

He'd found out, and he'd do something about it.

I'm leaving him. This time, I'm actually going to leave him.

It had been the last thought in Janet's mind last night, and it was still there as the alarm dragged her out of sleep that morning. She started to get out of bed, then stopped.

Something had changed.

She listened.

Nothing in the house sounded different. A mockingbird was singing in the yard outside, not quite drowning out a rooster crowing in the distance, and when she went to the window, she saw only a sunny morning, the soft blue of the sky broken by a few fluffy clouds. Her gaze dropped to the landscape around the house, and as she focused on the kudzu that had wrapped itself around every growing thing in the yard, a wave of claustrophobia broke over her. She felt as if she couldn't breathe, and her arms-no, her whole body-were wrapped in layers of cloth from which she couldn't free herself. Dear God, what was happening to her? She was suffocating; she could hardly move-

No! She wasn't suffocating. It was only the kudzu. And once the house and the yard were free of it-She cut off the thought, refusing even to finish it.

Out,
she reminded herself.
I'm getting out.
She turned away from the window and surveyed the room. Most of her clothes were still packed in the boxes they'd brought from Shreveport. Most of the kids' things were still packed as well. Would all those cartons fit into the Toyota? And she'd have to repack some suitcases…

The Toyota! Where was it?

She whirled back to the window and gazed down at the empty space where Ted had parked the car when he'd finally come home yesterday.

Had he put it in the carriage house?

Of course not-he'd left it outside, and spent the rest of the evening drinking. By the time she'd finally told him she was leaving, he'd been barely able to stand up, let alone-

Abruptly, she understood.

If he took the car, she couldn't take it herself. Her moment of panic when she'd seen that the car was gone dissolved into anger. How drunk must he have been to think that taking the car would keep her here?

Far too drunk to drive.

A stab of fear jabbed through her anger, and she sagged back down onto the bed, her roiling emotions draining the energy out of her. Automatically, she reached for the phone by the bed. How many times had she done this? How many times had she called the police, called the hospitals, even called the morgue, looking for her husband?

She couldn't even count them.

It wasn't until she'd started dialing the old-fashioned Princess phone on the nightstand that she remembered it wasn't hooked up. The telephone man was supposed to come today.

This morning, or this afternoon?

She couldn't remember.

And suddenly she didn't care.

Get through it,
she told herself.
Just get dressed, fix some breakfast, get the kids off to school, and get through it. He'll come back. He always does. And when he does
…

When he did, she would be ready. She'd have a suitcase packed, and one for the kids, and as soon as he showed up, she'd take the car, and that would be that. She'd put Molly and Scout in the backseat, pick up the kids at St. Ignatius, and they'd be gone.

Pulling on her robe, she lifted Molly-who was rubbing her eyes sleepily-out of her crib, unlocked the bedroom door, and carried her youngest daughter down to the kitchen. Kim had already started a pot of coffee and was getting cereal and milk out of the refrigerator.

But there was no sign of Jared, who was usually up even earlier than Kim.

"Where's your brother?" she asked.

Kim's eyes clouded and she shrugged her shoulders. "Still asleep, I guess," she said. The listlessness in her voice spoke far more clearly than the words she had uttered.

They'd heard it all,
Janet thought.
They both heard the whole thing.
"I guess you know I've decided to leave your father," she said carefully.

Kim turned to look at her. "You mean we're going back to Shreveport?"

Janet hesitated, then nodded. Now that Kim had spoken the words out loud, she realized that this time she really did mean it. She bit her lip, trying to hold back tears, but couldn't hold them back any longer. "I just can't take it anymore," she said, crying softly now. "I can't, and you and Jared can't, either. I don't know what we're going to do, but I don't know what else to do. I-" Janet sank into one of the kitchen chairs as Molly began crying, too.

Kim lifted her little sister out of her mother's arms. "It'll be okay, Mom," she said as Molly calmed down. "We'll figure it out. Jared and I can get jobs after school-"

She stopped abruptly, and Janet realized someone else had just come into the room. No, she said silently to herself.
Don't let it be Ted. Not now. Not right now. Just give me a little time.
But when she turned, she saw that it wasn't Ted, it was Jared.

Her son stood in the doorway, his worn denim jacket slung carelessly over his shoulder. His head was cocked and his eyes were fixed on Kim.

"What do you mean, we'll get jobs after school?" Jared asked.

Janet opened her mouth, but it was Kim who spoke. "Mom says we're going back to Shreveport. After last night-"

"Yeah, right," Jared cut in, rolling his eyes scornfully. "Mom's not going anywhere. None of us are." With a derisive toss of his head, he turned away. "See you at school."

He was gone before either Kim or Janet could speak. The front door slammed. As Molly began crying again, Janet once more struggled to control her own tears. "Oh, God," she said, her voice breaking as the turmoil of emotions she'd been through since she'd awakened overwhelmed her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. How could I have put you both through all of this?" She buried her face in her hands, sobbing.

"It'll be all right, Mom," she heard her daughter say, Kim's hand on her shoulder. "As soon as we get out of here, everything will be all right."

Fifteen minutes later, after cleaning up the kitchen, Kim left the house for St. Ignatius.

It wasn't until she was halfway there that it hit her.

Not once had she walked to school alone, she realized. Always before, until this morning, Jared had been with her.

But not today.

Today she was walking by herself.

But it was more than that: today she couldn't even find Jared in that strange corner of her mind where, for as long as she could remember, she'd always felt his presence, always felt a connection to her twin.

Today, that connection was gone.

Today, she was truly by herself.

The problem with being mayor of St. Albans-or anyplace else, for that matter-was that you had to be nice to everyone, whether you liked them or not. And with the man who now sat across from Phil Engstrom, who had held the office of mayor for ten years, and fully intended to hold it for at least twenty more, the problem became a double-edged sword. Mayor Engstrom's visitor that morning was Father MacNeill, who was not only a constituent-though the priest regularly assured him that the Church was
always
above politics-but was Phil Engstrom's confessor, as well. The cleric invariably provided the extra emphasis to the word
always
in his disclaimer of any church interest in local politics, as if somehow that would convince Engstrom of the statement's veracity. The fact that Phil had never particularly liked MacNeill only added to the problem, but at least this morning nothing so important as his soul was at stake. Of course, his dislike of the priest had long ago made him less than candid in the confessional. That, he thought, combined with his recent yearnings to skip mass entirely in favor of putting in eighteen holes at the new course up in Valhalla, had undoubtedly already condemned him to an eternity in purgatory, or worse. Now, as the priest finally came to the point after ten minutes of small talk to which Engstrom had made all the proper responses, he put on his best look of concerned interest.

"It just doesn't seem that the old Conway house is the right place for a hotel," the priest said. "It's always been a residential area, and if we allow one commercial enterprise to take root there, how can we protect the integrity of the neighborhood?"

Engstrom leaned back in his chair, tenting his fingers over a belly that had lately been suffering from a little too much of his wife's perfectly fried chicken. "I'm not exactly sure I'm followin' your interest in all this," he said, sweetening his voice with a little extra drawl and putting on a look of vague confusion. "Sort of seems like fixin' the old Conway place up would be good for the community. Pretty old house like that-seems a shame to just let it go to the kudzu, now doesn't it? And now's I think about it, it's not really in any specific neighborhood, is it? Not too many houses out there on Pontchartrain, and it's at the end of the street, kinda set off by itself, so it doesn't hardly seem like much of a variance would have to be made." Something flashed over the priest's face that Phil Engstrom couldn't quite put his finger on. "'Course, if there's somethin' I don't know about, I'm sure here to listen." He gave the priest a smile.

"Just like you're always there to hear me out when I been less than the man I'd like to be, right?"

Father MacNeill returned the smile, but Engstrom felt no warmth from it. "It is a lovely old house," the priest agreed, but something in his voice warned the mayor what was coming next. "But I'm not sure the Conways are the kind of people we want to encourage."

Aha!
Engstrom thought.
Now we get to the grits.
"An' why might that be?" he asked. "Ya'll know somethin' about 'em that the rest of us don't?"

Father MacNeill's lips pursed and his expression tightened, a sign that he was about to confide in the mayor.

Sure enough, the priest leaned forward slightly, and his eyes darted around the office as if seeking some unseen person who might be eavesdropping. "If I might speak confidentially…?" he began, letting his voice trail off in an invitation to Engstrom to reassure him that his confidence would not be violated.

"Ya'll can think of this office as my own personal confessional," the mayor said, picking up his cue. "You'd be surprised the things I've heard in here, and I'm happy to tell you there's not a single soul in St. Albans ever regretted talkin' to me."

Father MacNeill still hesitated, as if trying to make up his mind, though Engstrom suspected the man paused only to decide how much poison to throw in the well. "He's… evil," the priest finally said. "Whenever there have been Conway men living in this town, there has been trouble." For the next five minutes he detailed the death of George Conway, as if Phil Engstrom had never heard the story before. "As the spiritual guardian of our community, I simply don't believe I can countenance his presence here," Father MacNeill finally concluded.

Phil Engstrom leaned back in his chair and nodded in satisfaction. "I do appreciate your comin' down here to fill me in on all this, Father Mack. I purely do. And I can tell you I'll give everything you've told me every consideration if Conway ever tries to bring a variance up before the council." He glanced at the clock on the wall with a practiced manner that would ensure that his visitor not only saw him, but thought he was trying to check the time surreptitiously. "It's people like you who make this town what it is," he went on, launching into what he and Marge called his Exit Speech. Sure enough, the priest was already getting up from his chair, so Engstrom quickly got to his own feet and strode around the desk to walk his visitor to the door. He went through the rest of the speech, putting a genial arm around the priest's shoulders as he opened the door. "I know how busy you are, and I can't thank you enough for cuttin' into your schedule."

When Father MacNeill had left, Phil Engstrom went back to his desk, sat down in the big black-leather executive chair the council had approved for him only last year, and swiveled around to gaze out the window. It was a view he never tired of. The town square was spread out across the street, and beyond that lay a neighborhood of generously proportioned old houses, most of them sitting on lots of at least half an acre, shaded by huge spreading oaks and magnolias that seemed to throw a comforting green quilt over the whole town. But in the midst of that neighborhood, its steeple poking through the leafy canopy like a needle through the quilt, was the church of St. Ignatius.

It was also a needle in Phil Engstrom's side, a constant reminder that his was not the only power base in St. Albans, and that if he wanted to keep his office, he'd better pay more than simple lip service to Father MacNeill.

Not that there could be anything to what the priest had told him; the very idea that Ted Conway was "evil" was ridiculous on the face of it. Still, if a man wanted to remain in that big black-leather chair-and Phil Engstrom very much liked being mayor of St. Albans-he had to choose his battles carefully, and Ted Conway's battle was one he didn't need to fight. Maybe it might be just as well to put a few well-placed words in certain of the town's ears, he thought. Of course, if he let Father Mack have his way on this, he'd have to find another issue-something trivial, preferably-upon which to thwart the priest, so MacNeill didn't start getting any ideas about who was really in charge. Sighing, and wondering if maybe he could trade off his support for the priest on this hotel deal for a few Sundays on the golf course, he reached for the phone. A few well-placed calls would get "a groundswell of public opinion" rolling against whatever plan this Conway person might have in mind. But just as his fingers touched the receiver, the instrument came alive, and he heard Myrtle Pettibone's voice float over the intercom.

"There's a Mr. Conway here to see you," his secretary said. "A Mr. Ted Conway?"

Phil hesitated, but only for a moment. Might as well at least have a look at the chicken whose head he was about to chop off. "Well, send him on in," he boomed, already preparing his warmest smile of welcome. "Don't keep him waiting, Myrt. Just send him on in!"

Half an hour later Phil Engstrom was once again alone in his office, but when he picked up the phone, it wasn't to start torpedoing Ted Conway's plan. In fact, sometime in the last thirty minutes he'd completely changed his mind about where he stood on this particular deal. Ted Conway, it turned out, wasn't the man he'd been expecting at all. In fact, he'd turned out to be a downright fine fellow-"charming" was the word his wife would have used-and everything he'd said had made perfect sense to Phil Engstrom. By the time the half-hour meeting had ended, he knew Conway was not only a man he could work with, but a man he could be friends with, as well. But if he was going to go against Father Mack on this thing-and he surely was-he would have to be subtle.

Dialing his home number, Phil drummed his fingers impatiently on the desk while he waited for Marge to answer, meanwhile steeling himself to keep even the slightest trace of annoyance out of his voice when she finally did. He'd learned years ago that there wasn't any point in riling up a horse you were planning to break. "I think we ought to be havin' those new people to a dinner party," he said after his wife had finished repeating every word she and her mother had exchanged that morning. "Maybe on Saturday night."

"This Saturday?" Marge fretted. Phil read her intonation perfectly: Marge always worried that if she called people for dinner less than two weeks in advance, it might look as though the Engstroms' calendar wasn't full. "Don't you think it's awfully late to be-"

"Now, honeychild," Phil cut in smoothly, "you know people always love your fried chicken. I can't think of a single person in this town who wouldn't drop whatever they're doing for one of your dinners. And I want you to invite the new people-the Conways." There was a long silence, and for a moment Phil was afraid Father Mack might already have talked to his wife. But when Marge finally spoke, he relaxed.

"You're up to something, aren't you?" she asked.

"Who, me?" Phil countered with exaggerated innocence. Home free.

"Don't you try to fool me," Marge scolded. "I know how you stay mayor of this town."

"And how you stay Mrs. Mayor," Phil replied. "Here's what I want you to do…" As he talked, he could almost see Marge making quick notes, already planning the menu, the flowers, the seating plan, and every other detail that would make the evening perfect.

Marge would set the stage.

He would introduce the cast.

But the rest would be up to Ted Conway; the man would have to sink or swim on his own.

Either way, nobody would ever be able to accuse Phil Engstrom of having taken a stand.

Still, he'd go this far. After all, Ted Conway had struck him as a hell of a nice fellow, and it couldn't hurt just to introduce the man to a few people.

Could it?