Night Scents (9 page)

But if she started digging for treasure without more to go on than Hannah's slippery memory, the men in white coats would probably carry them both off...unless whoever was on the other end of the phone that morning decided to stop her first.

Or unless Clate Jackson lost all patience and simply called the police. At that point, who cared about the men in white coats?

With a loud groan of pure frustration, Piper flung herself to her feet and into her keeping room, where she dragged out crocks of flour and sugar and a tub of frozen homemade butter, a bit of wheat germ, some yeast, a little salt, and started to throw some bread dough together.

Chapter 5

The proliferation of gas stations, motels, and fast-food places along interstate exchanges hadn't reached the winding roads deep in the hills of east Tennessee, where Clate had spent his first sixteen years. Nothing much had changed in his tiny, poor hometown since he was a scraggly eleven-year-old with a tattered fishing pole and a bad attitude.

He eased off the gas pedal as he came to the crossroads that passed for the center of town. A little white church stood on one corner. He could see cars and pickups crowded in the gravel parking lot. He cut off his air-conditioning and rolled down his window, feeling the drop in humidity from the Nashville basin, smelling the fresh-cut grass, the cedar trees, all the rich, fragrant smells of a southern summer.

His grip tight on the wheel, he pulled into the church parking lot. Two or three dozen people were gathered out back. Young, old, black, white. He could see picnic tables laid out with coleslaw, biscuits, ham, tomatoes, fried corn, fried pies, watermelon. He used to crash funerals, just because the food was usually good.

The service itself would be over. Irma's friends and neighbors, many of them former students, would be laughing, crying, remembering how she'd badgered, cajoled, done whatever she had to do to persuade even the most troubled and stubborn of her sixth-graders that poverty and isolation didn't mean they couldn't learn, couldn't make a contribution, whether they stayed in their little town or left, whether they got rich or stayed poor. She'd already retired by the time she'd got hold of Clate. But that hadn't stopped her or even slowed her down. She introduced him to books, manners, the peace and power of sitting quietly on her front porch and watching the sun set, odd ways, perhaps, to save a boy's life, but without them, he knew, he would have crashed and burned long before now. He doubted he'd have lived to twenty-one. From the time he turned eleven, he knew he was destined for jail or an early grave.

Irma Bryar had helped him see his destiny in a new way, as something that was entirely within his control.

A warm breeze carried the smoke from the barbecued chicken and ribs. Clate climbed out of his car and stood there in the hot sun, breathing in the smells, absorbing the sounds. His chest was tight, his throat raw. There was no blaming the southern air, the long trip from Cape Cod, the phone calls and meetings and catching up he'd done at his offices in his Nashville hotel before heading into the Cumberland hills. He was home for the first time in years and he was tense as hell.

He smiled, almost hearing Irma's reproach for swearing. She had saved him from himself, set him free, and had never asked him one thing in return.

He crossed the crabgrass-infested yard in front of the church. In spite of the crushing heat, he wore a dark suit. Irma would have expected that much courtesy from him. He could hear a booming laugh from the crowd behind the church, but forced himself not to speculate whose it might be. He'd given jobs over the years to people from his hometown, people who still had family there, friends. Irma usually sent them. She never asked him to provide a job, simply had them stop by with a bit of country ham from home, a peach cobbler, a batch of fried apricot pies. Mabel Porter, his new assistant, was one. She was smart, crafty, and maybe as ambitious and jaded as he'd been when he'd first arrived in Nashville.

A rickety wooden gate opened into a small graveyard where Clate would sometimes hide from his father when he was in a violent, drunken rage. Irma had taken him out once to show him where she would be laid to rest, in a shaded plot between her husband, who'd died in World War II before they'd had any children, and her parents. The visit had been one of her ways of impressing upon her recalcitrant, angry student that life was short and death certain, and he'd best make good use of his time and talents. Irma Bryar had always operated more on gut instinct and example than whatever educational theory was currently in vogue during her long life and career. She did whatever she thought was right, and whatever she thought might work.

Her grave was covered with fresh dirt, flowers all around, wilting in the strong afternoon sun. Clate could feel the sweat dripping down his temples, matting his shirt to his back. He keenly remembered Irma's disappointment in him when he'd left town before graduating, a disappointment coupled, not incongruously in her own mind, with an uncompromising faith in him. His mother had just died. His father had been too drunk to come to her funeral. There was nothing to keep Clate home. He had no money. Eventually he'd earned his G.E.D. and gone on to college. He seldom returned home. Irma put him on the mailing list for her church newsletter and issued an open invitation for him to stop by her house and have iced tea with her on her porch.

He hadn't often enough, and now it was too late.

Wild daisies swayed in the hot breeze over in the small, oak-shaded field that would, in time, provide ground for more graves. Clate walked into the tall grass and picked a handful, their long stems turning his palms green. Bugs that he'd barely have noticed as a kid found him, buzzing in his ears, lighting on his neck, his hair. Ignoring them, he ducked under the low branch of a huge old oak and made his way without thinking, without feeling, to his mother's grave.

He used to pick wildflowers for her as a small boy, and he could remember, even now, the sense of urgency he'd felt as he scooped up handfuls of daisies, black-eyed Susans, dandelions. He'd wanted to make her happy. It wasn't until years later, long after he'd buried her, after he'd become a wunderkind of Nashville business, that he understood his mother had spent her short life trying to fill an abyss that couldn't be filled, that his flowers were just one more thing that had gone into the void. She couldn't be happy; she wouldn't. There was nothing he or anyone could do.

"Peace to you, Mama," he whispered, still feeling a stab of that desperate five-year-old who'd wanted, needed, the reassurance that Lucinda Jackson was happy. She'd been just thirty-two when she'd died. Younger than he was now.

He left her the daisies, went back to Irma Bryar's grave for a final good-bye, then headed out through the gate, across the churchyard, and back into his car.

He didn't breathe again until he was out of the church parking lot and onto the main road.

But he couldn't stop himself from glancing in his rearview mirror.

A man in his early fifties stood at the edge of the graveyard, watching the expensive car head out of town. Clate didn't stop, didn't even slow down, although he knew the man was his father.

Clate Jackson didn't stay in Nashville for four days as he'd estimated. He stayed for three. This Piper knew because she and Hannah were standing out on his terrace when he returned, discussing the night her parents had been lured to their deaths.

Alone, Piper could have scooted back to her property before he was any the wiser, but with her elderly aunt at her side, there'd be no escaping. They had heard an engine out front, assumed it was Tuck, then heard a curse from the kitchen. Now there were sounds of locks being unlocked, the back door banging open. Piper deliberately kept her back to the commotion because to have looked around would have indicated she was aware she was doing something wrong.

"Just let me do the talking," she said in a low voice to her aunt, still absorbed in memories of mooncussers who would deliberately lure boats onto sandbars and treasure and paying no attention to the man who'd bought her house. She had insisted his No Trespassing signs didn't apply to her. "Do
not
mention buried treasure."

A shadow fell over them. "I see you've yet to learn the difference between mine and thine."

Piper knew he was addressing her, not Hannah. She could tell by his tone, a husky mix of drawl and fatigue that somehow made her feel warm, despite the persistent drizzle and the cool breeze off the water. Hannah glanced back at the man she believed she'd summoned north, then raised her eyebrows at Piper and smiled with satisfaction. Obviously Clate had passed muster, not that Hannah had had any doubts he wouldn't.

"Oh, hello." Piper gave her hair a flip, a transparent attempt to look unchagrined. "I didn't realize you were back."

"I take it you only trespass when you think no one's around."

"Be dumb to try it when I knew you were home."

Even so, she'd tried to persuade Hannah of the folly of venturing onto posted land. What if Clate had asked the police to swing by his place from time to time while he was gone? After the Stan Carlucci incident, it wouldn't be in her best interests to get caught trespassing. But after two days of Piper dragging her heels, her aunt's patience was worn thin. She wanted her treasure. She was convinced of the accuracy of her restored memory.

Piper kept her tone light, as if she didn't believe she'd done a thing wrong. "You haven't met my aunt yet, have you? Hannah, this is Clate Jackson. Clate, my aunt, Hannah Frye."

Hannah put out a bony hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Jackson."

The way she said "at last" made it sound as if she'd anticipated their meeting for years, not just the few months since he'd taken an interest in her house. Clate didn't seem to notice. Piper suspected he was distracted by her aunt's odd appearance: her homespun dress reminiscent of times gone by, her antique cameo brooch, the calico kerchief holding back her wisps of snow-white hair, and her new, top-of-the-line Reeboks.

"Likewise," he murmured, the Southern gentleman.

"Are you enjoying my home?"

A trace of irritation crept into his eyes, but he seemed to direct it more at Piper than at Hannah, either because it wasn't in him to be rude to old women or because, like most everyone else in Frye's Cove, he was holding Piper responsible for her aunt's behavior. "I've only spent a couple of nights here, but so far it's been... interesting. Is there something I can help you two with?"

Hannah opened her mouth to reply, probably to suggest he grab a shovel and start digging under the wisteria, but Piper shot forward. "My aunt and I just came to see about the hummingbirds."

He tilted his head back slightly. "Hummingbirds."

"Yes, she's always put out feeders, and she was worried they wouldn't adapt to having to fend for themselves. We planted bee balm last year—hummingbirds love it—but I don't know if it's well enough established to make up for the loss of the feeders."

Hannah picked up on Piper's half truth right away. They
had
discussed hummingbirds along with buried treasure. "Have you seen any hummingbirds since you've been here, Mr. Jackson?"