The Final Judgment (5 page)

home was, her father told Caroline as a child, an enduring monument to how foolish some women can make some men, a folly which every Masters for generations since had borne the cost of heating. To Caroline, it had seemed quite funny, then. He still bore the cost, of course. The outbuildings—a barn, the attached garage which had once been a stable—were newly painted. Walking the stone path that rose gently up the hill and beneath the shade of ancient trees, Caroline saw that the grounds were well maintained, the water of the small pond near the barn fresh and clear. It seemed much as it was on the day she had last seen it. She paused, drawing a breath. Then the front door opened; the instant before she saw who it was, Caroline steeled herself. And then Betty appeared in the doorway, hands shoved in the pockets of her khaki pants, gazing across the years at her half-sister.

Caroline walked toward Betty, studying her face. Comparing her to that last time she had seen her. Betty stepped onto the covered porch. “Hello, Caroline.” She’s a middle-aged woman, Caroline thought with foolish surprise. Betty wore wire-rimmed glasses, and the brown had faded to a dull sheen in her short-cut gray hair. Age had brought out the gauntness that had waited beneath the surface of the younger Betty’s face; the ridged nose was more pronounced; the hollows of her face were deeper, the gray eyes somehow more intent next to the crow’s-feet and pale skin. In the years of their fractious sisterhood, Caroline had thought with a teenager’s unspoken savagery that Betty looked like the pictures of her mother, who had at once achieved sainthood and cheated an unflattering middle age through the mercy of dying in childbirth. Now, for an instant, the sight of Betty made Caroline sad, for whom she was not sure. Without preface, Caroline asked, “How is she?” Betty gave her a sharp look. How do you suppose she is?

Caroline imagined her thinking. Softly, Caroline said, “You’ll remember that I don’t know her.”

Another swift look, as if Betty had forgotten this, and then a nod of concession. “She’s emotional, sometimes willful, but alive. The girl of the last two days is a sunken-eyed wreck. At any given moment, she goes from stoic mourning to fear to disbelief.”

Caroline nodded. “The marijuana won’t have helped. Some part of her may not be sure what really happened.”

Another stabbing glance; all at once, her sister looked pinched and afraid. “She didn’t kill him ....”

Silent, Caroline watched Betty realize that she had answered a question Caroline had not asked, then founder in the complexities of their shared past. Stiffly, Betty said, “It was Father’s idea to send for you.”

Caroline nodded again. “I know that.”

Betty seemed to blanch. She was off balance, Caroline saw, searching for the meaning of Caroline’s words. Quietly, Caroline said, “We’re both out of practice, Betty. And the end was what it was.”

Betty looked down, breathed out audibly. But when she looked at Caroline again, it was with a shade less tension. “You look well, Caroline. But that’s no longer a surprise.

Not since we saw you on television.”

“‘We’?”

A brief glint in Betty’s eyes—the hint of jealousy and irony. So it still matters to you, Caroline saw her think, and despised herself for her question. For a time, Betty seemed to study her. “You’re a famous woman, Caroline. You did that alone—without him, or any of us. Is that what you wanted?”

You know what I wanted, Caroline thought with sudden bitterness. With a restraint that took all her effort, she said, “How can you even ask that?”

Betty looked away. After a moment, she said, “Brett’s upstairs, Caroline.”

Caroline shook her head. “I’m not ready yet. Not for that.”

Betty turned to her in surprise. “Then why are you here.”? Don’t you understand that they may charge her with murder ... ?”

Caroline did not bother to explain herself.

“Where is he?” she asked.

In a jacket borrowed from Betty, Caroline climbed the twisting trail up the side of Masters Hill.

It was where, Caroline remembered, he always climbed to think.

“He wasn’t expecting you this soon,” Betty had told her. “And I couldn’t stop him.”

It took Caroline a moment to recall that he was well past seventy, another moment to raise her eyebrows.

“Heart trouble,” Betty said, as if to a stranger. “An attack last year—mild, but a warning. He won’t give up hiking, though, or even talk about it.”

Traversing the steep hillside, Caroline remembered when he would take her with him to the top: the child then, and the woman now, could not imagine him as vulnerable.

But she could tell that he hiked seldom now. The trail—once well trod by the Masters family as they followed his tall, lean frame—kept disappearing in underbrush or beneath a carpet of needles: only the thread of Caroline’s memory helped her find it again. It rose between thick pine trees at a steep angle, causing her to walk sideways, sometimes slipping or pausing for breath.

She was out of practice, Caroline thought to her disgust. But that was not the reason her temples pounded. Part of it was Betty; a greater part the unseen girl. But the other part lay moments ahead.

She reached a clearing: a granite-face bare cliff weathered by wind and rain. When she was a child, too young to

reach the top, she would stop here with her father. Now she

paused, half expecting to find him.

No one.

Caroline sat on the rock, resting. From here, the view went on for miles. There were only a few clearings now; nature had reclaimed the land, shrouding abandoned farms and old stone walls as the energy of man moved west, out of sight and mind. As land turned fallow, the Masters family had bought it, with a fortune made first in lumber, then by selling their private railroad line—which once serviced their mills—to the Boston and Maine Railroad. This was not an investment, in the ordinary sense. It was a statement, tinged with unspoken hubris: The Masterses were here to stay, as timeless as the land.

But they were not. Years later, they had sold what land they could; Caroline suspected that the prideful look of the Masters home had cost her father dearly and that, in his heart, Channing Masters feared that he would be the last generation to live and die in that same house. So that Caroline, leaving, had abandoned more than a family.

But he would go with pride, and no one outside the family would read its decline on the face of his home. The place was too much part of him, and he part of it.

This hill remained his property. The entire town could be seen from here, a toy New England village in a clearing. Caroline still recalled when they once sat here and she asked how Resolve had been named. She had imagined some stirring piece of history, a stand against Indians or for independence. But when her father turned, his eyes had the light of humor.

“Resolve,” he said, with mock solemnity, “earned its name by seceding from Connaughton Falls. In the storied conflict over total versus partial immersion baptism. Back then, Caroline, New Englanders took their religion to heart.”

She saw that he was not teasing. “Which side were we

on?”

“The total immersers, of course.” As always, his smile

for Caroline relieved a somewhat forbidding mien. “We citizens of Resolve brook no half measures.” Even at eight, Caroline heard the ironic undertone. For Judge Channing Masters was Resolve’s first citizen, who could speak with confidence for the others. Later, she understood that Channing—who, as a judge, could not himself serve—helped pick the selectmen, the police chief, the school board, the vestrymen for his church, and, of course, the minister. He never said this to her; it was simply known. It was not a privilege but a duty; his interest was in finding men of probity and judgment. But the men whom Channing Masters picked treated him differently than they did others. Sitting here next to him, it had seemed to Caroline that her father watched over the town. Caroline doubted that had changed much. In this pocket of New England, time moved slowly. Channing, with his dislike of fashion in thought or dress, found that right. Caroline’s mother had not. Rising, Caroline gazed up the mountainside, and then she resumed her climb. At the top of the mountain, Caroline found her father sitting on a fallen log.

Channing Masters looked up at her. Caroline saw him fight several emotions at once—pain, thwarted love, instinctive pleasure in seeing her, anger that she should catch him unprepared. His voice, attempting simple gravity, caught the edge of something more. “Caroline,” he said. She stopped some distance away, preserving space they both seemed to need, fought the numbness seeping through her as she saw the work of time: the piercing eyes looked deep and bruised; harsh lines etched his mouth; the forehead rose to midskull; gray cloaked his hair and mustache, the bushy eyebrows. Age had brought a closeness of skin to bone, and the rawboned frame seemed to stretch his body to a painful thinness. But his jawline was still clean, his

black gaze alert and almost fierce. He was as she had imagined him. She could not bring herself to call him “Father.”

“You wanted me here,” she said. “So I am.” He gazed at her, as if wishing to open what was closed to him. Quietly, he asked, “What were you doing on Martha’s Vineyard, staying in our home.”?”

“Sailing.” She paused. “Why else would I be there.”?” Caroline saw him wince at the wall between them. In that moment, she seemed to recover her balance. She walked to the far end of the log and sat several feet away, gazing out at the sweep of hills and valleys, which seemed less to end than to vanish. When she was ready, she turned to him. “You summoned me here as a lawyer. In every way but that—and perhaps that tooit’s the very worst thing for all of us.” Channing turned to her “Brett is innocent.” Suddenly, his voice was stern. “You’ll think of me as you like. But she won’t be just another case to you.” Caroline studied him. “You may come to wish that she were.” He seemed to consider her meaning. With equal quiet, he answered, “You have better judgment than that.” Caroline felt the familiar weight of childhood, his expectation stated as certainty. “Then I should tell you that I don’t know if I’m staying past tomorrow. Let alone if I’ll defend her, should it come to that.” His eyes filled with astonishment. “How can you not ... ?”

“How can you not understand?” Pausing, Caroline spoke more softly. I would have thought you learned from me what emotion does to judgment. I won’t visit that on her.” Channing gave her a stoic look. But in his eyes she read both hope and apprehension. “You’ve met her, then.” Caroline drew a breath. “No. I haven’t.” His gaze narrowed. “She’s been waiting—”

“And I’d like to know what the police know. Before I invite her to tell me whatever story leaps to mind.”

His face went hard. “She’d never do that—”

”Frightened people do that,” Caroline cut in sardonically. “Even the occasional innocent one. And I’m quite certain that you know far more about what the police know than she does.” A first faint smile at the corner of her father’s mouth, remembered pleasure at the cut and thrust of their minds. Then the expression vanished, and he was grave, almost respectful. “Where would you care for me to start?”

“With the first call from Jackson. After he saw that it was Brett they had in custody.” Channing folded his hands in front of him, pensive. “Jackson called around dawn,” he said at length. “Betty answered. She was already up, and worried.”

“Where did she think Brett was?”

“With him, I assume.” His voice went flat. “Long ago, Brett became quite sanguine about staying out all night, without feeling the need to explain herself .... “ He paused abruptly; only then did Caroline feel the chill smile on her face. Their eyes met, and then her father continued in a subdued tone. “Betty was too shaken to make sense of it. Moments later, I had to call Jackson back. He gave me only the barest details: the body, Brett’s condition, the blood and knife and wallet, that she’d made some sort of statement. Then he agreed that we could come for her in exchange for her passport.”

“Which puzzles me. Can it be possible that Jackson doubts she killed him? Or is it that he expects she’ll make some mistake?” Her father gave her a sharp look. “Jackson knows our family, knew Brett as a child, though she couldn’t quite remember him. He can’t easily believe this.” He paused. “But, of course, he can tell me nothing.” Caroline cocked her head. “And the chief of police?” He gave a small shrug. “Told me, as a kindness, that Jackson is waiting for the crime lab results—blood type, fingerprints, and the like—while he checks on this dead boy’s background. I believe what bothers Jackson is that

Brett waited to tell them what had happened. Or where.” His voice turned cold again. “But then James Case had fed her wine or marijuana. Neither of which she was used to.” Caroline found his anger an irritant; it was hard to keep her own thoughts clear. “That’s some comfort,” she answered in an arid tone. “It also cuts against premeditation.” He stood abruptly, looming over her. His voice filled with anger. “Brett did not do this, damn you. She’s compassionate to a fault, from stray animals to this stray boy.” Caroline stared up into his face, her own face hard, her tone even. “I once defended a serial killer, who cut his victims’ throats and then raped them while they bled to death.” Her manner became almost conversational. “After that, he went home and slept with his English spaniel. His biggest fear when they caught him was who would feed the dog.” There was a tremor in his voice now. “This is your own flesh and blood—”

“And I’m a lawyer now. That’s why you asked me here, I assume. So spare me the childhood stories, please. This is painful enough.” Standing, Caroline faced him. “When we meet, I’ll show Brett all the compassion her aunt Caroline should. In the meanwhile, let’s return to the problem at hand. For example, have they traced the knife?” He turned from her, gazing out at the mountains. The rain of midday had become a mist, Caroline saw, settling into the valleys. “Not that I know of,” he said at last. “Did they search the house?”

“Yes.”

“And found?”

“Nothing. At least nothing they took.”

“What about witnesses?” He turned back to her. “As I understand it, no one in the area saw anyone come in or go from that trailhead, nor any car or truck. Not even Brett’s?” Caroline smiled a little. “Your friend the chief is not exactly a sphinx, is he?” she said, and then her smile faded. “They questioned all of you about the knife, I assume.”