Sins of the Fathers (24 page)

In a few hours you’ll be swimming,
she reminded herself.
Focus on that.

She paused to point out the remaining foundations of the old Episcopal church and to explain to Posey what had happened to it. Posey’s eyes widened in indignation. “You mean the Bayards used wood from a church to fix up their barn? That is so tacky!”

“The Bayards do tacky real well.”

“But Mona is supposed to have perfectly
gaw-geous
antebellum furniture.”

“If she shows up, you can ask her if she wants to sell any of it. Watch out for those sandspurs.”

The warning came too late. With a yelp of pain, Posey clutched Katharine for support while she lifted one foot and then the other to pull prickly little balls from her ankle. “You should have told me to wear hip boots,” she grumbled. After that she minced her way warily toward the cemetery.

As they approached the green tent, Katharine was astonished to see three large floral arrangements that were only beginning to wilt in the heat. They sat near a mound of bare sand at one end of the four Morrison graves.

Dr. Flo had stopped nearby. “I think Agnes was buried here. These flowers had to have been placed this morning. In this heat, they’d be dead if they were older than that.” As Katharine and Posey came up beside her, she added, “In case this is her, I think we should have a little prayer, don’t you?” She bowed her head and offered thanksgiving for Agnes’s life and kindness to strangers.

While Dr. Flo prayed, Katharine couldn’t help thinking that somebody could have been praying that afternoon over two women shot by Agnes’s shotgun in that very cemetery. Maybe Agnes was chuckling up in heaven at the identical thought?

When Dr. Flo finished, she headed for the Guilbert plot. As she stepped over the low tabby wall, she called back to Posey with a shade of pride, “That’s my granddaddy.”

She bent to touch the stone. At the same moment, a bullet whizzed over her head and took a chunk out of Mallery’s obelisk. Katharine was never sure whether she even heard the shot.

“Down!” Posey shouted.

Katharine hit the ground facefirst and got a mouthful of sand. She turned her head and laid her cheek on a sandspur, but stifled a yelp of pain. As scared as she was, she had a sense of déjà vu. Any minute they ought to hear Agnes’s gruff laugh overhead.

Except Agnes lay under the green tent that now sheltered Katharine and Posey, as well.

Either their party had gotten in the way of a careless hunter, or—

The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Where was Hollis? “Don’t let her come back into this,” she whispered a prayer.

Across the cemetery she heard the sound of Dr. Flo repeating softly, “Dear God, preserve us. Preserve us.”

Another bullet hit a rail of the iron fence, eliminating any fantasy about a careless hunter. Somebody was hunting, all right. They were the prey.

After that, the only sounds in the clearing were the rise and fall of the cicadas’ whine and the scream of gulls.

Katharine felt malignant intent all around them. Was someone creeping closer to the cemetery to finish them off, like victims in a horrid film? She was frantic to know whether the second shot had hit Dr. Flo, but when she lifted her head, Posey whispered, “Keep down and keep quiet!”

Katharine lowered her head. Sand caked her lips and got into the trough between her lower lip and her teeth. She slowly brought her hand to her mouth and scrubbed it with her fingers, but they were sandy, too. She dared not lift her head to spit. One part of her mind ridiculed her for worrying about sand in her mouth when she lay in peril, but small irritants grow with time. Eventually she inched one side of her jacket up to her face and wiped out her mouth with that.

Emboldened by the continued silence and by no response to her little bit of motion, she considered her position. A large oleander bush grew inside the cemetery fence and provided a flimsy shield between her and the sniper, its leaves long and narrow like fingerling fish. Moving slower than a snail, Katharine scooted closer and peered through the branches. To her right, the vista was eerily normal and lovely: marshes, hammocks like ranges of hills, a wide sky with gulls wheeling and swooping. To her left, the woods were mysterious, terrifying.

Dr. Flo lay on her grandfather’s grave, pressed close to the stone. One hand stroked it. Katharine was so relieved to see movement that she started to sob.

Dr. Flo lifted her head a fraction. “Katharine? Are you all right?”

“You all keep down and hush!” Posey commanded softly. “He may not be through.”

Katharine shivered, even though the heat was scarcely bearable. What was it like for Dr. Flo, exposed to the blazing sun?

“We’ve got to get out of here,” she called softly to Posey.

“Did you bring your phone? Mine’s in the car.”

“So’s mine.” Katharine regretted not letting Posey carry her bag. “But who would you call?” Anybody Katharine knew who lived within rescuing distance could be on the other end of that gun. “I don’t even know if they have 911 down here.”

“They’ve got a sheriff. The operator could find him.” For all her frivolous appearance, Posey was competent in a crisis. In that way, she was very like her brother.

Oh, Tom, I didn’t say I love you,
Katharine grieved silently.
Why did I get mad about that stupid party?
She didn’t want to die with that on her conscience. She didn’t want to die at all.

She pictured Tom standing among Washington’s elite and being approached by a policeman. Would they tell him there in the crowd that his wife had been shot? She was picturing his face going white with shock when she realized that Posey was demanding, in a voice that was half-whisper, “Lend me your
shoes
.” She sounded irritated, like she was repeating the request.

“What?”

“Lend me your shoes.” Posey shoved her sandals across the sand. Somehow she had managed not only to get out of them without lifting herself into shooting range, she had wriggled across Agnes’s grave and close enough to reach Katharine. But Tom and Wrens would never forgive Katharine if Posey got shot.

She looked at the car, trying to judge how far away it was. “I’ll go.” She started toward it by pulling herself along on her elbows.

“You can’t slither all that way on your belly,” Posey protested. “You’ll be full of sandspurs, chiggers, and who knows what else?”

“Have you got a better idea?” But Katherine herself suspected she couldn’t make it that far. She wasn’t dressed for slithering. Shards of shell were already cutting her palms and wearing out her shirt, and she was pulling a sandspur out of one forearm. Worse, once she got a few feet beyond the cemetery, her progress would be visible across the clearing.

“I’m going to run for it.” Posey grabbed one of Katharine’s flats and shoved her foot into it. “Good thing we wear the same size.” When Katharine started to protest, Posey added, “I can run faster than you. I exercise.”

“You can’t outrun a bullet!”

“It’s hard to hit a moving target.” Before Katharine could question how she knew that and whether the information came from a reliable source, Posey had swiped her second shoe, leaped to her feet, and started speeding toward the car in a low, zigzagging crouch. Katharine hoped she was right about the moving target. She suspected Posey had heard that—and seen the crouch—on TV. Dumb, lovable Posey.

Still, she
was
fast. All that exercise paid off. Nevertheless, a bullet hit a tree as Posey passed it. She ran behind the wide trunk and stopped running.

Katharine held her breath and prayed. She waited for a fourth shot. She pictured someone moving stealthily in their direction, but dared not lift her head to see. She strained her ears for a telltale crunch or slithering sand and heard nothing except the rise and fall of the low-pitched cicada symphony and the whine of mosquitoes. She wriggled closer to the fence, heedless of the oleander branches in her face, until she remembered that oleander is one of the few plants that is poisonous clear through: leaves, flowers, stems, and roots. That sent her scuttling backward. She didn’t want to dodge bullets only to die from oleander poisoning.

She lifted her head a fraction and saw Dr. Flo was still burrowed close to Claude Gilbert’s stone. The low tabby wall gave her protection so long as she didn’t lift her head. But could any of them survive long enough for help to arrive?

The sound of the car door opening sounded loud as a shot. With all her being Katharine willed her sister-in-law to be able to activate the cell phone and call for help before it was too late. “Please, God,” she found herself whispering over and over. “Please, God. Please! Please! And keep your head down, Posey!”

The roar of the engine surprised her. She turned her head to see the SUV crossing the rough ground toward her. It stopped beside the tree and Posey jumped in the back.

“Good job, Hollis!” Katharine breathed. As the SUV neared, Hollis kept its wide body between her and the sniper’s original position. Katharine ignored sandspurs and saw-grass and headed for the car in a running crouch, ready to spring inside. The SUV was still rolling when she heard an urgent command through the half-open window. “Jump in, Aunt Kat! Now!”

She fell in on top of Posey. Through the space between the seats she saw Hollis sitting low in the driver’s seat, peering through the steering wheel.

“I forgot your sandals,” Katharine remembered as they started to move.

“Too late now.” Posey struggled beneath her.

“Where’s Dr. Flo?” Hollis asked.

“Other side. Keep going.” Katharine and Posey struggled to untangle themselves as the SUV pulled up beside the tabby wall. “Get in, Dr. Flo. Hurry!” Hollis called urgently.

Dr. Flo scrambled over the wall and through the back door. She fell on Katharine and Hollis took off. The back door hadn’t latched. Dr. Flo grabbed for it, but Hollis said, “Get it later!”

The three women pulled themselves onto the backseat while she roared toward the road from the clearing. As she took the turn, the unlatched door swung open. Katharine tried to catch it, but missed. A bullet from the woods shattered the window.

Hollis floored the pedal. The SUV took off with the power of all its horses. Katharine had never been so glad to hear branches scrape paint. She didn’t even mind when one smacked the door closed. Had she ever worried about anything so trivial as dents in her car? The only thing that mattered at the moment was catching her breath and hoping it wouldn’t be her last.

Not until they passed the curve beyond where Katharine and Dr. Flo first met Dalt and Chase did Hollis finally sit erect behind the wheel. She exhaled a long breath. “I tried, but I couldn’t get a signal on any of the phones.” Her voice trembled.

Posey leaned up and clutched her shoulder. “You did good, baby. You did real good.”

Katharine opened the back door, which had only partly caught, and slammed it shut. “You’re our hero, Hollis.” She peered at the forest through a hole where her window used to be and heaved a sigh. “I think we’ve made it.”

Dr. Flo’s voice shook. “I thought I was gonna see Maurice any minute there.” She shook like she was sitting in an igloo.

“Turn on the heat,” Katharine directed Hollis. “We’re freezing back here.” She had never expected to hear herself say that in July. She turned to Dr. Flo, “You do realize that somebody was shooting directly at you.”

“Oh, yes. Dear God, yes!”

Katharine could have kissed Posey when she turned and hauled her big thermos of coffee up from the back. Steam rose as she opened the lid. “There’s still some in here. Hand me Dr. Flo’s cup, Hollis.”

She flung the dregs out her window, refilled the cup, and stirred in four sugars. She touched Dr. Flo’s arm. “Drink this.”

Dr. Flo took the cup like an obedient child, but shook too much to bring it to her lips. Coffee sloshed out of the cup and onto her lap, but she didn’t seem to notice. Katharine took it. “Let me.” She held the cup to Dr. Flo’s lips like a chalice. “Drink,” she commanded gently.

When the coffee was gone, Katharine found a stadium cushion in the back, with a blanket inside. She tucked the blanket around Dr. Flo’s shoulders and circled her with her own arms. At last Dr. Flo stopped shaking enough to say, “You can sit back, now. I’ll be all right. It was just so unexpected.”

Katharine spread her fingers and shoved them through her hair, wishing she could comb out all the memories. “We walked straight into an ambush. They told you to come down at two-thirty, then they lay in wait to kill you.”

Hollis called over one shoulder. “You got any more coffee back there, Mama? Pour me a little.” As Katharine passed it over the back of the seat, she saw that Hollis was pale and shaking, yet she managed to keep the car on the sandy, rutted road.

Katharine kept trying both her cell phone and Posey’s while they sped down the asphalt road, over the bridge, and off the island. She couldn’t get a signal. When they neared the stop sign for the highway, she ordered, “Turn into the store on the right.”

“That
dump?” Posey demanded. “You think they’ll have a phone?”

“You’ve led a very sheltered life, Posey. There’s sure to be a phone, and I know the owners. Give me my shoes and you all wait here.”

The shoes, warm from Posey’s feet, felt like a hug. Katharine brushed off burrs and dried sprigs of grass that clung to the front of her shell and pants. She straightened her striped jacket, pulled a comb from her purse and dragged it through her hair. She refreshed her lipstick.

“Who the hell are you getting dolled up for?” Posey demanded. “Get out of here and call the sheriff, or I’ll do it myself.”

Like Katharine, Posey seldom swore. Katharine gave her a comforting pat as she climbed down from the car. “You did good, lady. Hang in there. I’ll be right back.”

Posey clasped both hands over her mouth and nose and rested her head on the back of the seat ahead. Fat tears oozed between her lashes and made tracks of mascara down her cheeks.

Katharine didn’t wait to see if someone would console Posey. She was too busy trying to get her legs coordinated enough to march them both into the store.

A dusty black radio blared. Behind the counter, hands up and in front of her and eyes closed, Miranda swayed to the beat. With her pale hair rippling over her thin arms like leaves in a breeze, she looked like a wood nymph freed from her tree.

When she heard the door slam, she opened her eyes. “Hey!” she greeted Katharine, stopping her gyrations. “Chase said your friend was coming today, but I didn’t know you were coming, too. Did you come up with something to stop them digging up them graves? You gonna stop Burch from building?”

“Maybe, but right now, I need a phone. My cell won’t work down here.” To her relief, she spotted a phone hanging on the wall behind Miranda.

“Mine won’t, neither. Ain’t enough towers or something. I can’t let you use ours, though. Granny’s real strict about that. Otherwise we’d have every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the area running in here all the time to use our phone, getting in the way of the customers.”

Katharine could hear Iola loud and clear in that sentence. She also saw no customers to get in the way of. “This is an emergency, Miranda. Please!”

“You figuring on calling the Bayards?” The sharp little face brightened. “I could call ’em for you. You wanting ’em to know you’re on your way?”

It was a start. “Yeah, let me speak to somebody at their house.” Maybe she could identify the shooter by a process of elimination, and then call the sheriff.

Miranda dialed the number without looking it up and turned her back while it rang, a revealing gesture that insisted on privacy for the first precious moments after the ring had been answered. She rose on her toes and stood that way until somebody spoke on the other end, then her whole body slumped. “Hey, Miz Bayard. It’s Miranda, up to the store. That woman from Atlanta is here for the digging up of the graves, and she wanted me to tell you—wait a minute.” She cupped a hand over the mouthpiece and asked Katharine, “What was it you wanted me to tell her, again?”