A Stillness of Chimes (39 page)

She stumbled through prickly weeds and lunged across the road, the bank hiding the men from her view. Sharp stones and burrs cut her feet. Then the cement steps were underneath her. She scrambled up them. At the top, she gulped a breath and took a long, hard look at her dad.

Her dad, alive—but he was so thin! Tottery, stooped, long-haired. Ragged clothes hung on his bony frame. Still, she would have known that smile anywhere.

“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” She raced up the hill, crying.

“Laura.” He opened his arms, an old, broken bird spreading crippled wings.

His hands were contorted. Twisted. The sight jolted her almost to a stop. Careful not to hurt him, she forced herself to a walk.

His feverish blue eyes faded from clarity to confusion and back again as she approached. “Excuse me if I stare,” he said. “You’re not the little girl I remember.”

“But it’s me,” she said, stepping into his wiry, smelly embrace. She wanted to ask what had happened to his hands, but she didn’t want to ruin his homecoming with tears.

“You’re all right?” His voice was thin with fear.

“I’m fine, Dad. Just fine. But what about you?” She pulled back and took in his hollow cheeks and his watery eyes. “You okay?”

He reached out to brush her hair off her forehead. Like talons, his fingers couldn’t uncurl enough to make solid contact. “The man said you were in danger,” he said fretfully. “It’s … Slattery, isn’t it? Slattery’s back.”

She looked toward Sean again. He shrugged, apparently as mystified as she was.

“I’m fine, really. But Dad, Slattery’s long gone.”

“He’s not after you, now? If he is, I’ll—” He stopped, his forehead puckered. “No, you’re right. He’s gone. I made sure of it. The lake, you know.”

“Aw, no.” Sean’s face paled. “No, Elliott. Don’t.”

“What?” Laura asked, lightheaded now. “What are y’all talking about?”

“Slattery.” Sean wheeled around, strode a few paces away, and came back, pressing his fingers to his temples. “You didn’t hear that, Laura. You didn’t hear that.” He looked behind him. “Is Dale close enough to—thank God, he isn’t. Oh, Lord.”

“Hear what?” she demanded. “What does it mean?”

Her dad rambled on. “He’s gone, Slattery is. He’s with his car in Bennett’s lake. I remember now, mostly.” He passed one hand over his forehead. “They couldn’t keep him in prison, so I took care of it for ’em. He’ll never stalk another little girl.”

“Enough,” Sean bit out. “We don’t want the details.”

Her dad kept going, his voice thin but clear. “After ’Nam, I vowed I
would never kill again. And I vowed to protect the innocent, like I sometimes couldn’t, over there. Then came a day when I had to break the one vow to keep the other.” He blinked, and twin tears trickled down the sides of his nose. “God help me, but I had to do it. I don’t quite recall how, but I did it.”

Slattery hadn’t skipped town, then. And Sean hadn’t witnessed some unknown car thief hiding his crime. He’d seen her father.

The blood rushed from Laura’s head. The sunny day wobbled around her, everything slanting off balance. When her mom had accused her husband of having blood on his hands, it wasn’t antiwar rhetoric. She must have known.

“When?” Laura asked. “Where?”

“Summertime,” her dad said. “Late summer, by the tracks. The little one … you know. The happy little one. Nobody was watching her. She didn’t know Slattery was after more than her blackberries. I—I stopped him before he could take what he wanted.”

“Tigger,” Laura whispered. Her knees lost their strength. Sean grabbed her elbow, steadied her.

Late that summer, the year Slattery disappeared, they’d picked a bumper crop of berries. But one day, Tigger stayed to fill her bucket by herself. Laura’s dad had returned to check on her, and he’d kept something terrible from happening. He’d dealt with Slattery somehow. No wonder he’d been in such a black mood that night when Laura came home with painted nails like a grown woman.

His face clear now, no trace of trouble on it, he cocked his head toward distant music. “Listen. ‘Foggy Mountain Breakdown.’ There’s a good tune.” The wreckage of his fingers fidgeted as if he were coaxing notes from a
fiddle. “There’s not much music in the mountains. I’ve missed it.” He patted his chest pocket, producing a metallic clinking. “This is my only music now. For Jess. My Valentine.” When he lowered his hand, the silvery wind chimes peeked through a hole in his pocket.

Sean laid his hand on her father’s narrow shoulder. “Looks like you’ve missed a few meals. What would you say to a bite to eat? Maybe a bath? Some clean clothes?”

“I would say thank you very much, sir.” He inclined his head toward Laura in a familiar, courtly nod. “But first, together, let’s pay our respects to your sweet mother.”

Together, they walked toward the family plot. The head of the grave wasn’t far from the bright pink bushes where Laura had cut azaleas days ago. The tin vase had fallen, and the flowers were limp and faded.

The wind picked up, sending an empty paper cup rolling down the slope. Distracted, her scarecrow of a dad laughed at it. Then he started singing an old ballad, but not the one the PA system was pumping out, downtown. The two songs clashed in key, in rhythm, in mood.

“Where did you stay last night, O Randall, my son,”
he crooned, out of tune.

He’d once had perfect pitch. Strong, skillful hands. His own business. A circle of friends who’d loved him. A wife and daughter—yes, she was his daughter! As much as if he’d adopted her from an orphanage and claimed her as his own.

Laura stole another look at his ruined hands. They had crafted sweet-voiced mandolins and cozy rocking chairs and doll furniture. Those hands had protected. And they’d killed.

The PA system kicked into another number, louder and faster, spinning
into a toe-tapping reel. Her dad tilted his head, seeming to focus on the music, or maybe he was listening to a train. Another one was approaching town on the long curve from the north.

“Where did Dale sneak off to?” Sean asked abruptly, turning in a circle.

Laura spotted him first and pointed. Leaning against the brick wall of the church, Dale watched them.

She turned her back on him, and movement across the road caught her eye. Gary was walking down the porch steps. With his shirttails flapping, he started across the road, toward the steps that led up the bank to the graveyard. He kept to his deliberate pace as he climbed the steps and then the hillside.

Laura moved close to her dad, taking his arm and leaning her head against him. “Dad, I know you and Gary have—have clashed before, but this isn’t the right time to fly into one of your moods. Sit tight. Keep yourself under control.”

His dry laugh seemed to mock her worries. “Don’t fret about me. I can handle my old compadre.”

Gary slowed. He stopped, maybe at some inner Rubicon, then thinned his lips and started moving again.

He drew nearer, hiking up the gradual slope, and didn’t stop again until he’d nearly reached them. “Elliott,” he said. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you kindly.”

Gary hung his head. “Cassie just finished ordering me to face you like a man, but I guess you already know what I did.”

“Yes, I do.”

Laura’s pulse quickened. Her dad knew everything, then? Knew about both affairs? Even knew she wasn’t his baby?

“I’m very sorry.” Gary extended his hand. “Will you forgive me?”

Blinking back tears, Laura wondered how many times her dad had said those words to Gary. Now the tables were turned.

She lifted her hand from her dad’s arm, and he stepped forward.

“I have already forgiven you,” he said, extending his claw-like hand to Gary. “I’ve forgiven my good friend and my dear wife.”

Gary’s eyes were wet. “Thank you. I want to make amends. I want you to have whatever you need. All the best. The best care. The best doctors.”

“I hate doctors. Hospitals.” He released Gary’s hand. “I … I … you won’t do that to me. No sir, you will not.”

“You don’t hate Doc Marsh,” Sean said. “He won’t put you in a hospital.”

Paying no attention to that, her dad turned and walked to the grave. Laura, Sean, and Gary turned in unison to watch as her dad righted the tin vase. Slowly and carefully, he began to straighten the azalea branches.

A stillness settled over her, an acceptance that was very much like peace. She couldn’t change the past, nor could she know the future. She had this moment, though, with her dad only a few feet away. It was strange and wonderful to see a living man so close to his name on a memorial plaque. He was alive. Alive!

“Hurry up there, old man.” Dale’s raspy voice came from behind her. “You got places to go. People to see.”

As Laura faced him, so did Sean and Gary. A rush of courage swept her. The three of them stood between Dale and her dad. Together, they could keep him safe.

She glanced behind her, meeting her dad’s puzzled gaze. He held a small stem of azaleas in his mangled fingers.

“It’s all right, Dad,” she said. “We’ll be home soon.”

“Oh no you won’t.” Dale came closer. “Mr. Gantt has an appointment with the law.”

Sean clenched his fists. “You really called the cops? Why?”

“He’s a criminal,” Dale said. “A prowler. So I turned him in. Like he turned me in. He made me lose my job, my house, my building.”

“No, that was me,” Gary said mildly, as if he didn’t mind the accusation.

Dale’s chest seemed to grow larger, puffing up. His eyes, usually so cold, burned with hatred. “You, Bright?
You
made that call?”

“I did. I don’t regret it, either.”

“That’s how you got your filthy hands on my building?”

Gary shook his head. “Now, Halloran, you’d better get your facts straight.”

“I got all the facts I need,” Dale said. “That’s how you can afford to be the big, generous rich man. You turned me in. You sent me to prison. You stole my building. You stole my son.”

“You don’t deserve your sons,” Gary said, his eyes wet. “Either one of them.”

“Shut up before I shut you up, Bright. You lying thief.” Dale’s face was flushed. Sweating.

“Gary never stole anything,” Sean said. “He has given. And given.”

Dale turned on Sean. “Yeah? You want me to pay it forward for you, Mr. Luthier? Here’s how I pay you and your highfalutin pals.” He pulled something small and shiny from his pocket—a toy gun.

“Give it to me,” Sean said quietly. “You don’t want to go there, Dale.”

Laura took a sharp breath. Not a toy. Tiny but real. The pansy gun?

In the silence, she heard a faint stirring behind her. Felt a small breeze.

Her dad brushed past her. “I love you,” he whispered with a wink that said
I’ll be all right
. He stepped in front of Gary.

A huge blast ripped out of the tiny gun. Laura screamed. Her dad crumpled backward, his arms twisting around his head. He fell into Gary, knocking him over.

Laura hit her knees and crawled to her dad. Blood was already spreading across his threadbare shirt. Screaming again, she looked up—into the barrel of the tiny gun.

Sean, in a blur, rushed Dale. Another shot exploded in the burning air. Sean roared and fell beside Laura.

Sandwiched between them, between the warmth of their bodies, she smelled smoke. Sweat. Blood. Spitting out grass and dirt, she tried to speak but lost her own voice in the confusion and shouting.

Afraid to look, she looked anyway. Gary was shoving Dale to the grass. Pinning him there.

Laura struggled to sit up, to see. Her daddy was gone, his eyes open but sightless. A baby doll’s eyes. His chest, a ruin of blood. Feathery gray hair, streaked with white, lifted by the wind. Chimes, spilling from his pocket. In his hand, faded pink flowers splashed with red. On his skinny forearm,
life everlasting
.

Sean moaned. Laura twisted, bending over him. High on his chest, a red hole spurted blood on his shirt in time with his pulse.

Blue eyes wide, he stared at her. Blinked.

“Sean!” She scrambled up, gravel grinding into her knees.

Pressure points. Pressure points. What had she learned? Something about the clavicle. Collarbone. Arteries, pressure points. She couldn’t think.

“No!” A distant scream—her own. “No!”

She’d lost her dad—again—and Sean’s lifeblood was spurting out of him. Faster now. A regular rhythm, speeding fast, faster. Bright red blood. An artery.

She tore her bandanna off her head and pressed it hard against his chest. Scarlet blood pulsing into white-and-black cotton. Soaking it, so quickly.

Laura leaned closer. “Don’t you dare die. I already lost Mom. I can’t lose you and Daddy and Mikey all in the same day. I won’t have it! Do you hear me?”

His eyes opened. “You’d rather … have … the cat,” he said faintly, one corner of his mouth curling up. His eyes rolled up in his head. The lids fluttered and closed.

Desperate, she looked for help. A sheriff’s cruiser swept into the church parking lot. An officer climbed out. A woman. It had to be Kim Milton. Speaking into a radio, so far away that her voice was inaudible, she headed up the slope at a slow jog, her revolver drawn.

“Kim!” Laura screamed. “Help! Hurry!”

Somewhere in town, a siren wailed. The train whistle blew, fading into the south.

Dale ranted unintelligible words but couldn’t escape. Gary, straddling him, cursed and cried. Cassie flew at him too, shrieking. Kicking.

Sean’s eyes opened, glassy and strangely calm. They closed again with no sign that he’d seen her. His skin was white.

Squeezing two fingers to the cold skin of his wrist, Laura sought his pulse. Still there. Fainter. Faster.

Her shoulders heaved with deep, rasping sobs. “Sean, stay with me!”

The wind blew her hair into her mouth. Did Kim even see that two men were down? One dead, one dying. The two men Laura loved most.

“I need help
now
, Kim! Help!”

Sirens wailed over the fiddles and banjos. The train’s whistle faded, a ribbon of sound sliding away into the distance. Her hair covered her face, her eyes. She couldn’t see Sean. She could hardly breathe.

His pulse fluttered faster now. Weaker. He was slipping away. He’d be gone even before the train.