Sins of the Fathers (29 page)

Posey, coached by Katharine, insisted that Dr. Flo sleep downstairs. After they carried in their bags, the professor said, “If you all don’t mind, I’d like to boil an egg and make a cup of tea and some toast, then I’d like to go to bed and read the rest of the letters in private.”

When she had retired, Posey rummaged in the freezer and put together a supper of jambalaya, rice, turnips, and cornbread. “See? I can cook,” she told her daughter.

“As long as Julia leaves stuff in the freezer for you to thaw.”

“Hush your mouth and set the table. At least I made cornbread.”

“From a Jiffy box.”

“If you two don’t behave, I’m sending you both to your rooms,” Katharine warned.

Posey and Hollis were laughing as they sat down to eat. Katharine didn’t want to worry them, but she eyed the glass doors warily. When Posey suggested they carry wine outside for a while after dinner, she objected.

“We’ve got close neighbors,” Posey reminded her. “I think you’re being silly.”

“The Bayards must guess that we know all about Mallery by now.”

“So what? They gave us the stuff, for heaven’s sake. And Dr. Flo signed that paper agreeing not to spread their family sins all over. Besides, there are still people on the beach. If you want to sit up all night with a gun in your lap, Wrens has one in the bedroom safe, but I’m taking my wine out on the deck.” She picked up the bottle and her own glass and marched out. Katharine and Hollis followed. What else could they do?

Seeing the citronella lamps, the woman next door called, “Is that you, Posey?”

“Sure is. Come on over and have some wine.” Posey added in a low voice, “What did I tell you? I never worry about the house when we’re not here because if anything happened, Jenny-Jill would call me right away.”

“Can we take a rain check?” Jenny-Jill asked.

A man’s voice added, “We’re waiting for a call from our daughter. She’s due to have a baby any minute and I can’t get my wife more than twenty feet from the phone.”

“I don’t blame her one bit. Let us know when the baby comes.”

Katharine’s cell phone rang. “It’s probably Tom,” Posey said again. “Third time’s the charm.”

“Tom is busy,” Katharine said firmly. Still, she didn’t recognize the number. Perhaps a stranger was calling to tell her he’d had an accident on the way to the party. She carried the telephone out on the boardwalk for better reception.

“Miz Murray, this is Lamar Franklin. I learned something you might be interested in.” What Katharine was most interested in was how he’d gotten her cell phone number, but the man seemed to be a master at finding information.

“I got a friend online who specializes in seafaring history, so I asked him about pirates down around Haiti after our War of Secession. He said there weren’t many, piracy having pretty much died out in that area by 1850, but there was one feller whose name was—here, let me spell it: H-e-n-r-i G-u-i-l-b-e-r-t. Wasn’t that the name you were looking for?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Well, he was something of a hero around those parts between 1860 and 1879, when he was captured. He was executed for piracy, and he did take a number of ships, but what he did mostly was sail down to Brazil and help slaves escape. They didn’t get around to abolishing slavery down there until some time after we did, and conditions were apparently appalling on the big plantations. Henri Guilbert would take his boat down around the horn of Brazil and pick up slaves who had made it to the coast, then he’d take them back to Haiti. Apparently his wife was something of a nurse and sailed with him. I wondered if these could be the ones Dr. Gadney was looking for.”

“They have to be.” Her heart was beating fast, and she could hardly wait to tell Dr. Flo. “She’s already gone to bed. We’ve had a long day. But this is so important, I’ll wake her up to let her know. Thank you so much.”

“You’re welcome. I wish I’d found this sooner, but I was up on a roof all day and just got to my computer a little while ago. I’ve printed out everything I can find online about the feller, plus the e-mail from my friend. I could drop it off by your house sometime tomorrow afternoon, if you like.”

“That would be wonderful. I’m not in town, but there’s a young woman staying there who is feeding my cats.”

“I already spoke to her. She gave me this number. Okay, I’ll leave it with her. Hope this is helpful.”

“It’s amazing,” Katharine assured him. “Thank you so much.”

Katharine hurried in and found Dr. Flo sitting with the letters in her lap. “Mallery did sail with a privateer,” the professor announced. “She wrote her mother and father that she couldn’t stand it that their cousin John was going to sea and she had to stay behind because she was a woman. Later she wrote that she had cut her hair and signed on with the
Retribution,
and nobody knew she was a girl until after they sailed. Apparently after that, they accepted her as part of the crew because she had some nursing skills. One letter was written from the Bahamas. I’d guess that’s where she met Henri Guilbert.”

“Wait until you hear what I’ve just learned from Lamar.”

When Katharine finished, Dr. Flo clasped her hands on the bedspread. “They rescued slaves? No wonder my daddy was tediously adamant that his people were never slaves. And no wonder Mallery’s daddy was furious. Right after he’d lost his slaves and his livelihood, his daughter marries a man who is foreign and black, and whose life’s mission is helping slaves.”

“What a wonderful heritage!” Katharine reached out and hugged her.

Dr. Flo’s eyes shone. “It is, isn’t it? I’ll proudly hang Mallery on my wall, and I’ll sleep well tonight. Good night.” She lifted one hand and touched Katharine’s cheek briefly.

Now that she knew the whole story, though, Katharine returned to the deck and looked around apprehensively. If Mona had feared the paper getting wind of blacks buried in their family cemetery, how much more would the family fear the whole truth coming out?

The sky was growing dark. The dunes loomed as large shadows. While she could hear the ocean, she could barely see it. Normally she would have been suggesting a walk at that time of night. At the moment, all she wanted was to get everybody inside and arm the security system.

She sat down again long enough to tell the others what Lamar had discovered.

“Freeing slaves!” Hollis said the words like she had discovered a new world. “That ought to make Dr. Flo like Mallery better.”

“It has. In time, Dr. Flo may even forgive her for leaving the children in Georgia while she sailed with her husband.”

They sat for a few minutes chatting about the new discovery. Then Posey cocked her head. “Was that the phone?” Nobody else had heard it. Posey hurried inside and came right back out. “I guess it was my imagination. Katharine, aren’t you going for your usual walk on the beach? I see people out there still. You ought to be perfectly safe.”

Katharine’s first impulse was to demand, “Are you crazy?” But then she realized, S
he’s so used to Wrens doing all the worrying for her, I think she’s forgotten how.
Oddly, Katharine felt grateful to Tom for helping her learn to stand on her own two feet.

If Posey wouldn’t take their danger seriously, though, Katharine needed to take it seriously for all of them. Maybe it would be wise to leave the house and check it all the way around from the outside on her return.

Or was she just rationalizing what she wanted so badly to do?

Accustomed to being alone most of the time, Katharine was feeling antsy from too many hours at a stretch in the close company of other women. She could use some solitude. Besides, it was a lovely night for a walk. The surf was pounding in her ears like a lover’s call.

“I don’t like leaving you all alone,” she made one more half-hearted protest.

“We’ll be fine,” Posey insisted. “We’re going in as soon as I finish my drink.”

“Will you promise to arm the security system?”

“Of course. I’m not dumb. I’ll even get out Wrens’s gun and put it where we can get to it easily, if necessary. And you take your cell phone. Take a key, too, in case I turn in before you get back—and don’t go too far.”

Katharine was half afraid Hollis would want to come along, but Hollis yawned and said, “I think I’ll go on up to bed. I was sewing real late last night.”

Katharine fetched her phone and a key and made her way along the darkened boardwalk to the beach.
I won’t be gone long,
she promised Tom silently. He’d never forgive her if she let anything happen to his sister or his niece.

She walked at the water’s edge, enjoying the sudden flash of a wave in the dimness, the hard sand under her feet. There were enough other walkers—both people and dogs—for her to feel safe. Worry trailed off her like beads of water. When a wave rolled higher than she had expected and splashed her to the knees, she laughed. “I am so glad I got to do this!” she said aloud. “It’s exactly what I needed at the end of this day.”

She went much farther than she had planned. Only when she saw a house that was the landmark for her long morning walks did she realize she ought to be getting back.

As she turned, the moon went behind thick clouds and a gentle rain began to fall.

Next door to Posey’s, Jenny-Jill Roberts was uneasy. The thought of her daughter having that baby without her was driving her crazy. Why had those kids decided to do this on their own?

“We’ll call you as soon as the baby is here,” her son-in-law had promised, “but we want this to be a bonding experience for the three of us.”

Lordy, those kids had no idea of all the things that could go wrong with a birth. Jenny-Jill, who had dropped three children so easily her husband teased she had “textbook deliveries,” imagined every single complication happening to her only daughter over in Valdosta, with her mother miles away. What if the baby was breech? What if the contractions wouldn’t strengthen? What if they went on and on, leaving poor Jennifer too weak and limp to push?

As was her custom, after she had watched the Jay Leno show on the bedroom TV, Jenny-Jill stepped out onto her back deck for one last look at the ocean. A light rain was falling, almost a mist. She lifted her face to greet it. The sky was a flat charcoal and all color had drained from the earth. Between their house and the ocean, the dunes were a drab, mysterious gray. She could not see much of the water except an occasional flash of white, but she knew it was out there, and she could hear its relentless approach to land.
Splash! Suck. Splash! Suck
. Jenny-Jill took a deep breath to fill her lungs with salt air and winged her nightly prayer of thanksgiving for the ever-fresh miracle that she and Jeff had been able to buy a house on the ocean for their retirement. Some people took oceanfront property as their due. Jenny-Jill never would.

Back in the house Jeff snorted and then resumed a low, steady snore. The den TV was still showing
High Noon
, but he was sprawled on the couch sleeping not like a baby—no mother ever coined that expression—but like the friendly drunk he tended to become when Jenny-Jill got grumpy. She’d have to rouse him to get him to bed.

As she turned to go in, she saw movement on her neighbor’s deck. Hadn’t she heard them drive out some time ago? Maybe Posey’s daughter or sister-in-law had been out on the beach. Maybe they’d like to come over for a glass of wine.

She opened her mouth to call, but hesitated. The figure was dressed all in black and peering in Posey’s sliding glass doors, keeping to one side so it could not be seen. As it shifted, Jenny-Jill saw something glint. Dear God in heaven, was that a rifle?

Weak in the knees, Jenny-Jill hurried inside. She locked her door and pulled the vertical blinds. Then she rushed to shake Jeff.

“Hon? I think there’s somebody trying to break in next door. And I think he’s got a gun.”

“What? Huh?” Jeff sat up and rubbed his face. “Is the baby here?”

“No, I saw somebody on Posey’s deck. Do you think I ought to call 911?”

“They’ve got a houseful of people over there. It was probably one of them.” He pulled himself to his feet and lumbered toward the bedroom. “Come on to bed.”

“In a minute.”

Jenny-Jill went to the sliding glass doors off the living room, the ones nearest Posey’s house, and pressed her ear to the glass. Was that glass breaking? She strained to listen. A minute later, she jumped. Had that been a shot?

She went to the phone and stood in painful indecision. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself. Should she call 911?

Walking on the beach in a light rain was normally one of Katharine’s great pleasures. She took deep breaths of the salty air, lifted her face to the misty rain, and enjoyed ripple waves tickling her toes while breakers boomed out of sight.

Gradually, however, her contentment dissipated. As scenes from the afternoon replayed in her mind, she felt rain seeping through her clothes and the dark night seeping into her soul. When she looked about her and realized all the other walkers had vanished, she grew uneasy.

The cell phone in her pocket was a connection to the house, but Posey was probably in bed. Besides, Katharine disliked getting calls from people waiting at airports or stuck in traffic, who called to fill their own empty moments. She toyed with the idea of ringing Tom at his party, but Ashley would think her pathetic. She stood ankle-deep in water for a moment of indecision, then punched the buttons to redial Hasty’s number. Because she was nervous—she wasn’t in the habit of calling him. Would he make too much of the call?—she began without preamble as soon as he answered.

“I said I’d let you know what we found in the box.” She walked up onto firm sand and strode briskly home while she filled him in on the box’s contents, the letters, and what Lamar had said. He was suitably impressed—and, being Hasty, pontificated about what Dr. Flo should do with the contents of the box because of their historical value.

Katharine, however, felt curiously flat. “I keep wondering. Has a single thing been accomplished this week besides adding a couple more branches to Dr. Flo’s family tree?”

“They are pretty impressive branches.”

“I know, but there still seem to be an awful lot of loose ends. Agnes’s murder, if that’s what it was, is unlikely to be solved. It has officially been declared an accident. Dr. Flo’s claim to part of Bayard Island isn’t likely to be settled without a legal battle she—” Katharine stopped just before she blurted “can’t afford.” “—doesn’t need. And what about the island itself? It’s probably going to get covered with garage Mahals, just like the rest of the coast.”

“You’re in a lovely mood, Katie-bell. Are there any nails around you could chew?”

Her foot hit something sharp. “Ow! I think I just stepped on one.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“I don’t know. Let me see.” She grabbed the injured foot and rubbed an exploratory finger along it. “I guess not.” She felt around in the sand for the offending object. “It was just a conch. But it’s a good symbol of Bayard Island: perfect on one side and broken on the other.”

“Where are you?” His voice was suddenly sharp with concern.

“Walking on the beach. Posey’s lights just came into view.”

“You have been telling me all day what danger you’ve been in, and you’re walking on the beach at this hour? Who’s with you?”

“Nobody, but there were lots of other people out walking when I started.” Again she peered around, but saw no other walkers. She picked up her pace, glad of his company even if it was just a voice. “Did I tell you about what happened at the cemetery, when Iola informed the world that Nell is Dalt’s daughter?”

“Twice. It seems to have made a big impression.”

“It embarrassed Nell to death. Then Iola started shooting, and they raced out of the clearing like the proverbial bat out of hell. I wonder if Major White ever found her. I hope not, but she can’t hide forever. Then Dalt will haul her into court, and she may lose her business and wind up with nothing. I wish Burch had left those graves alone and never started this mess.”

“He
started the mess?” She could picture Hasty’s eyebrows rising. “It sounds to me like Francis Bayard started it, disowning and burying his daughter before she died.”

“Not to mention Claude, who refused to acknowledge Mallery’s children or send her the money to save her life,” Katharine agreed.

“Hamilton sounds like he may have been all right.”

“Yeah, and Asa might not have been too bad, but he fathered Dalton, who fathered a daughter he refused to claim and who hid the family’s dirty linen from his own son.” She clenched her fist around the broken conch. “The family record on taking care of their children has been abominable—even Mallery’s. Not to mention Iola’s, who never told Nell who her father was, but who has been flaunting Dalt’s daughter in front of him all these years while refusing to leave the island. Why did I have to get mixed up in their business?”

She hurled the shell into the sea with a silent imprecation:
May you be crushed and broken until you turn to sand.

“Exactly what I’ve been asking. Are you at Posey’s yet? I won’t hang up until you are.”

“I’m almost there.” Since she didn’t have a key to the glass doors at the back, she took a path up to the street. It was reassuringly well lit by halogen lights, and she saw cars passing. “Thanks for listening. I’ll let you go, now. I’m out of danger.”

“Call anytime. And Katie-bell? Speaking of danger, I want to tell you something. I don’t much care what Hollis thinks, but I don’t want
you
to see me as a danger. I like you. Hell, I may even still love you. But I don’t want to break up your marriage. I don’t even want to break up mine, as rotten as it is at the moment. The problem is, I don’t want to lose you again, either. Do you hear me?” His voice was as soft and silky as the dry sand sliding between her bare toes.

“I hear you. I even agree.”

“So what are we to do?”

“Be friends?”

“More than that. Is there a word for ‘more than friends and less than lovers’?”

“Liends?” she tried. “Frovers? I guess there isn’t.”

“Well, I just want to be there for you when you need me, and to be with you when I can. Is that too much to ask?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“We’ll work it out.” He sounded as confident as he used to when they were hopelessly snarled in a geometry problem.

She smiled in the darkness, feeling a blessed sweet lightness of release.

“One more thing,” he said. “I once heard your dad say that no lie remains hidden forever—that truth inevitably comes to light. I think he’d say that this week, you’ve been walking beside Dr. Flo while her family went through the painful process of birthing truth. It wasn’t just bodies buried on Bayard Island, you know. There were a lot of underground secrets and lies, waiting for somebody to look hard at those graves. I think your dad would be real proud of what the two of you have done.”

She was so touched, she could hardly speak. “That’s nice!

Thank you. Good night.”

As she reached the walk to the house, she lifted a happy face to the misty rain.

She let herself into the house with her key. Because the downstairs lights were still on, she called softly, “Posey? I’m back.”

“It’s about time.”

It was not Posey who came around the staircase. It was Iola Stampers. She was still dressed for the disinterments, but her red skirt was bedraggled, her curls coming down in places, and her mascara smudged. And she held a black pistol like she knew how to use it.

She gestured with the gun. “Come on in. I found this lying real convenient on the kitchen counter.”

Dismay rose in Katharine like a tide. “What do you want? Where’s Posey?” How and why had Iola chosen their house as her hideout from the sheriff?

“She was gone when I arrived. I been waitin’ for you ’n’ her. Come on in here.” Iola gestured again with the gun.

Katharine walked toward the living room, but under the overhead bridge, she stopped. The vertical blinds had been pulled and loosely closed, but they were rattling in a breeze. A splash of glass littered the floor. And a blood-brown smear marred the tiles near Dr. Flo’s door.

Iola saw her notice the stain, and gave a brutal bray. “Your niece was feisty. I gotta give her credit for that. Come on in and sit down.”

Katharine’s knees turned to mush.

Was feisty? Was Hollis dead? Was Dr. Flo gone, too? Oh, Posey! Thank goodness you weren’t here! Or was she? Had she been surprised by the intrusion, pretended to be away, and hidden herself upstairs until Katharine’s return?

Katharine brushed raindrops from her hair while she strained to hear any sound in the house, however faint. All she heard was the soft purr of the air conditioning. She raised her voice. “I’ve been out walking on the beach and I got soaked. Just let me go change my clothes.”

Iola shook her head. “You ain’t going nowhere. Get in here and sit down.” She backed to the couch and settled herself among its cushions, still covering Katharine with the gun. “Fancy place you got here. Must be nice. Sit down, I said!”

Katharine stumbled to the nearest chair and perched on the edge. “It’s my sister-in-law’s house. We came to visit for a few days.” She could feel her soaked pants oozing into the cushion.

“Planning your next move to take over Bayard Island?” Iola inquired.

“Nobody’s planning to take over Bayard Island. What gave you that idea?”

“Agnes. She said that friend of yours might inherit her property, and that she’d never sell. I’m curious. How could a black woman own part of the island?”

Katharine sucked saliva to moisten her mouth, which felt very dry. “It’s a long story.”

“Go ahead. We could have a while before your sister-in-law gets back.” The woman was edgy, peering off to each side and then quickly back to make sure Katharine hadn’t moved.

Chills ran up Katharine’s body that had nothing to do with air conditioning and damp clothes.

When she didn’t speak at once, Iola gestured with her gun. “Tell the story—and make it snappy!” Then she gave a raspy bark of laughter. “Sorry. I ain’t had a cigarette for a while, and I’m feeling a bit edgy.” Katharine looked at the gun and saw it wobble. That was not reassuring. “I don’t suppose you got a smoke, have you?” Iola added hopefully.

Katharine shook her head, and although she didn’t smoke and deplored the habit, she heard herself giving the standard well-mannered Southern apology. “No, I’m sorry.”

“Well, we might as well have the story, then. Go ahead.” Iola lolled back against Posey’s cushions, her skirt like a wide bloodstain on the white couch.

“It started before the Civil War, with a girl named Mallery Bayard.”

Katharine could usually tell a good story, but it was hard, facing a gun. She kept thinking about that small round hole. She drew the tale out as long as she could, but eventually she ran out of breath and story at the same time.

When she finished, Iola was grinning. “Don’t that beat all? Dalton so high and mighty proud of his precious family, and they ain’t no better than the rest of us.” She scratched one cheek with her free forefinger. “Will your friend sell Burch her part of the island, if she can get a judge to give it to her?”

Katharine was relieved to hear the present tense, but where was Dr. Flo?

And Hollis? Just the thought of Hollis made her throat clog with tears of fear.

She was shaking hard inside, but Katharine willed her voice to be steady. “She hasn’t proven her claim yet, so I don’t know what she’ll do. What do you think she
should
do?” She was as surprised by the question as Iola, but it seemed to relax the woman, put a patina of a normal chat on the bizarre conversation.

Iola settled herself more comfortably among the cushions and dropped the hand holding the gun into her lap. “I think she ought to sell and let Burch bulldoze the whole damned island. Bury it in stucco houses and Yankees.” She brayed a laugh. “That’d kill his daddy quicker than anything, and send him straight to hell where he belongs.” She puckered her brow and said in a frustrated tone, “I told Agnes—only she wouldn’t listen. The only way to get at Dalton Bayard is through his land. He never loved man, woman, or child the way he loves that island.”

Katharine stared at her blankly.
Was that what Agnes’s death had been about? Revenge on Dalt?

“When…?” She had to stop and clear her throat. “When did you talk to Agnes last?”

“Day after Miranda told us she and Agnes had found a deed proving she owned her land. I took the motor launch from our dock and headed over to her place, and I told her to sell the cemetery bit to Burch and keep her house, but she wouldn’t.”

Iola added, a touch of regret in her voice, “Agnes was a tough old bird. I always respected her. Your friend’s tough, too. I thought I’d scared the living daylights out of her this afternoon. I sure never expected to see you all back at that cemetery.”

“That was you shooting at us? You could have killed us!” Too late, Katharine remembered this was no time for indignation.
Dear God, help!

Iola gave her a rueful grin. “I tried, but she moved. Besides, my dadgum rifle kicks a bit to the left, and I failed to compensate. I really need to replace that thing.” She nodded toward the kitchen. Katharine looked over her shoulder and saw a rifle lying on the counter. It looked like the one Iola had aimed at Dalt that afternoon. “Guess I keep it for sentimental reasons, you might say. Dalt gave it to me years ago—it’s older than Nell. But like I said, it ain’t real accurate. Pulls to the left. I tried to compensate for that when your friend was running for the car, and I nearly got her, too, but it’s hard to hit a moving target, and she’s fast for an old lady.”

“That was my sister-in-law. She exercises a lot.” A voice in Katharine’s head said,
Keep her talking. Keep her talking.
“But why on earth did you shoot my car?”

Iola grinned again. “For the hell of it. Messed it up right smart, didn’t I? Never did like it that Cadillac started making SUVs. Seems to cheapen the whole line. I’ve always driven Caddies, and—”

Something crashed on the deck outside.

Iola leaped to her feet like a cat. “What was that?” She headed for the wall of glass, gun cocked and ready.

Katharine didn’t wait to find out. She was sprinting for the front door.