Revenant (12 page)

B
eer had never been my drink, but I ordered a Corona with lime and sat at a corner of the table and listened. None of the reporters were freaking out. They discussed the pros and cons of going with a chain. Ultimately, though, they realized that their fate would be determined by Brandon. Some saw it as a chance to move up through a corporate structure, others as the death of whatever small journalistic impulses still survived at the paper. I kept my opinions to myself, which seemed to work best. For most of them, the Biloxi paper was where they worked because Biloxi was where they lived. Lack of talent wasn't what held them there. They were rooted, and not even a hurricane could easily blow them away.

When the meeting broke up, I put my half-finished beer on the bar, considered a martini, but decided to go home to the cats. It was already seven. I'd eaten fried crab claws and a salad, so the evening meal was behind me. I could take a walk. I felt drained.

 

My trek took me down the shoreline and back to my own yard, where I sat on the old, upturned bucket. Darkness fell over the slope of the lawn and the undulating water with a gentleness that saddened me. Another day had closed. Time was endless in the passing, but change touched us each with pain. I went in the house and ran my bath.

I was about to step in the water when I realized I hadn't checked my phone messages. Normally, it was the first thing I did on returning home. But I had a cell, if anyone really needed to track me down.

The red light blinked, and a wild hope that Daniel had called made me pick up the receiver. There was one new message.

“Carson, it's Dorry. Tommy didn't come home from work this afternoon. He was supposed to get off early and be home by two. It's eight now.” She spoke fast, stumbling over her words. “I haven't heard from him. He left the office at three. I tracked down one of his nurses and she told me he left right at three. I checked the hospital, but he isn't there.” Her voice broke. “I'm afraid he's been in an accident. Could you check with your sources? I've called the highway patrol and the Mobile County sheriff's office, but no one will tell me anything.”

I called the Biloxi PD and asked the desk sergeant to make a few calls. There was professional courtesy between law-enforcement agencies, and he could easily obtain the information. He didn't have to do it, but he did. He called me back within ten minutes.

“Ms. Lynch, there haven't been any reported accidents on Highway 98 in Mobile County or Highways 98 or 63 in Mississippi.” I heard the click on the line that indicated someone else was calling me.

“Thank you, Sergeant,” I said. “It was nice of you to do that for me. My sister will be relieved.”

He hung up and I clicked over.

“Carson!” Dorry's voice fluttered with relief. “Tommy just drove up. He's fine. He was in surgery.”

“Are you okay, Dorry?” I was more worried about her than Tommy at this point. Dorry never lost her cool, and she'd been on the verge of hysteria when she'd called. She wasn't one to jump to dire conclusions. I'd seen her wait up all night for her teenage son and never bat an eyelash.

“I'm fine. I called the hospital and they said he was off, but he was pulled into an emergency situation. Some child was stepped on by a horse and his thoracic cavity was crushed. They caught Tommy after he'd signed out. I guess no one even realized he was operating.”

She was talking a mile a minute, probably from the rush of adrenaline still in her bloodstream. I let her talk, but I was wondering why Tommy couldn't have asked someone to give his wife a call when he realized he was going to be tied up for six hours.

“Tommy said the little boy still may not make it. Can you imagine? I never gave riding horses a thought until I had my own children. I'm glad Mother wasn't such a scaredy-cat.”

“I'm glad Tommy's okay,” I said. It was only nine o'clock, but I wanted a martini and the bed. Dorry's frantic energy only served to make me feel drained.

“You're coming home this weekend, aren't you?”

Dorry wanted me home. That much was clear. “Depends on the story,” I lied. “I'll try.”

“Carson, I know Mother stays on your raw side, but she's trying. She loves you. She just wants you to be happy.”

“That's not true, Dorry. She wants me to be happy within the framework she provides. If I can't be happy within that, she doesn't care if I'm happy or not as long as I do what she wants.”

There was a pause. “I'm not going to argue with you on the phone. I'm going to hang up, go make my husband a drink and then enjoy his company. But you're wrong about Mother. Good night, Carson. Thank you.” She hung up softly.

I climbed in the still-warm tub with a double shot of vodka and the intention of preparing myself for a deep sleep. I wanted six hours without dreaming or panicking. It wasn't a lot to ask.

 

Avery was waiting outside my office Wednesday morning when I got there—on time. He gave me a critical look. “Change your makeup?”

“I got some sleep,” I answered.

“Maybe you should try that more often. It looks good on you.”

I pretended to lift my bottom jaw with my hand. “A compliment? Your wife must have been awfully good to you last night.”

He laughed. “A jab below the belt. Ah, that's the exchange rate when you converse with a reporter.”

We were both smiling, and I realized what a handsome man he was when he wasn't scowling disapproval at me. He had thick, dark, curly hair, an olive complexion and dark brown eyes that often looked black. His nose was sharp, aristocratic, and he dressed with care.

He walked in behind me, closed the door and took a seat in the interview chair. “We don't really have anything new.” He held up a hand to halt my comments. “It would be nice if you didn't print that.”

“This is what you didn't want to tell me over the phone?”

He nodded. My front-page story of my interviews with Verda Coxwell and Bonita Lopez was on his lap. He unfolded the paper to the sidebar of material I'd obtained from Sheila Picket Bellington. Her name was never used. “You've done some good stories without sensationalizing things. I know Sheila. You could have made it hard on her, and you didn't.”

“I had no reason to use her name.”

“You made Mrs. Lopez and Mrs. Coxwell sound like real people. You weren't making fun of them or using them.”

“I don't use people.”

“Is that a guarantee?”

“No more than you use people when you're gathering information.”

He looked down at the paper for what seemed like a long time. “I'm going to tell you this because Mitch says we have to trust you. We've found nothing on the Sparks girl except rug fibers in her hair. She wasn't raped. There were no defensive wounds, no bruises or torture. It would seem the killer grabbed her or somehow got her in his vehicle without a struggle. The M.E. is still working on it. That would give us our best lead.”

“Have the M.E. check for Thorazine, or something like that. A psychotropic.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“When Annabelle died, I was suicidal. My family was afraid my mind would snap.” I looked at him with a steady gaze. “My husband was desperate. He called a doctor friend who prescribed Thorazine for me, just to tide me over through the funeral and relocating. I was a walking zombie. Someone could take my elbow and I would stand and shuffle after him. If they sat me in a chair, I'd stay there without moving. It's a very effective drug on the mentally unstable prone to violence. It would make Pamela manageable, unable to defend herself, but still mobile.”

He listened with as cool a stare as mine. Not a shred of pity flickered in his eyes, and that was good, or I would have hated him.

“I'll check it out. That's a good lead, Carson. If the M.E. can screen for a particular type of drug, it makes it so much quicker.”

“Pamela's funeral is today.” I wasn't going regardless of what Brandon said. “I think Jack will be there.”

“Jack's done a lot of that kind of duty.” He stood up. “My wife is wondering if you're going to write your column here.”

“I don't know,” I said, surprised that anyone even knew about the weekly column that covered Miami's politics and the cultural mishmash of the city I loved so much.

“Mitch downloaded a whole bunch of them from the Internet, and Celeste and my daughter, Jill, read them all. They even made me read a few.” He gave a wry smile and leaned just a hint closer. “I told you Mitch had a crush on you. I foresee a very cozy relationship between the police and the newspaper in the future.” He stood up and left my office without ever looking back, so he missed the gesture of my middle finger.

 

Sarah Weaver was the fourth and final victim I could find record of in the 1981 killing spree. In the search for her family, I found myself driving down the tree-shaded lane of the Veteran's Administration Hospital just off Pass Road. The VA system was something I'd heard horror stories about—men who'd served their country honorably given minimal medical care. In Miami, one veteran had shown me scars where deep, cyst-like tumors had been excised from his back without anesthesia. There had been no money for local anesthesia. The result had been another series of stories that had won enemies for me. The government hadn't torched my house, though. That had been done by Charlie Sebring, a Miami contractor who'd erected multimillion-dollar public buildings that didn't meet the hurricane code. I'd nailed him in the newspaper—along with the politicians who subsidized him—and he'd murdered my daughter. That I'd been the intended victim didn't matter.

I pushed the past back and focused on my job. Royce Weaver was in a ward, his bed curtained off, but his rasping breath could be clearly heard ten beds away. I steeled myself against a wave of emotion as I stood outside the curtain. He was very sick and had been in the hospital for three months, without a single visitor. He'd raised Sarah alone. He was divorced, and his ex-wife was long gone, hadn't been seen in at least thirty years.

I cleared my throat to announce my presence, then stepped around the curtain. He should have been in his late sixties, but he looked ninety. Death was camping in the room, waiting. He struggled for oxygen, even though he had a tube in his nose. He took my card in trembling hands and examined it.

“I hope you're here to do a story on this. Agent Orange. I hope you've come to make the fucking government pay.” He panted for breath. “They poisoned me while I was doing their fucking dirty work on the Cong.”

“Don't exert yourself,” I cautioned, afraid for a moment that my mere presence would overexcite him. “I'm here about Sarah, your daughter.”

The tears were instant, and I fought back my own. This man was dying, alone, because his daughter had been stolen from him. “I'm glad she never saw this.” He panted. “I wasn't always this way.”

I stood by the bed and told him why I was there and what I wanted. I did most of the talking to save him.

He told me, in spurts and gasps, that Sarah had just broken up with her boyfriend, a twenty-year-old named Eddie Banks. They'd been engaged, but they'd argued, and she'd returned the ring because she'd caught him cheating on her. Sarah was angry and hurt, and she and some friends went out to some clubs, the Gold Rush being one of them. Clubbing was something she didn't normally do, but her pride was wounded and she wasn't going to sit at home and cry about Eddie. At 2:00 a.m., when she hadn't returned home, Royce had called her friends and then the police, but he'd been told to wait twenty-four hours. Sarah was nineteen, old enough to stay out if she chose.

“I knew she was dead,” he said, too weak to even try to control the tears. “All this time, I knew. Now I can't even visit her grave.”

The pressure of tears stung my own eyes, but crying wasn't professional, and it certainly wouldn't help Royce Weaver for me to stand over his bed, sobbing. Tears seldom achieved anything except difficulty breathing. I was pretty certain of that.

“Do you think Eddie Banks could have hurt your daughter?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Eddie cheated on her, but he wasn't violent. He hurt her because he was weak. He didn't kill her.”

I nodded, made a note, then thought of my last question. “Did Sarah have a wedding gown and veil selected?”

“She did. I kept it for years and finally gave it to Goodwill. I'm dying. I wanted to sort through her things myself. Cleaning out her clothes was the last thing I did, because I knew I wasn't going back home. I'm ready to die, Ms. Lynch. Ready, willing and able.”

I left the VA thinking about Sarah's closeness with her dad. She'd been engaged and hurt. I hadn't pressed Royce Weaver to give me details of her high school social life or friends. He hadn't the breath or emotional reserve. Finding Eddie Banks was the solution to that.

I also had to locate Charlotte Kyle's family. My efforts so far had yielded little, but I simply hadn't searched hard enough.