Cold Vengeance

CHAPTER 14

Malfourche, Mississippi

NED BETTERTON PULLED UP BEFORE THE GRIMY plate-glass storefront of the Ideal Café, stepped into the bacon- and onion-perfumed interior, and ordered himself a cup of coffee, sweet and light. The Ideal wasn’t much of a café, but then Malfourche wasn’t much of a town: dirt-poor and half deserted, its fabric slowly crumbling into ruin. The kids with any talent obviously got their asses out of town just as fast as they could, running for bigger and more exciting cities, leaving the losers behind. Four generations of that and look what you got, a town like Malfourche. Hell, he’d grown up in a place just like it. Problem was, he hadn’t run far enough. Scratch that: he was still running, running like hell, but getting nowhere.

At least the coffee was halfway decent and once inside, it felt like home. He had to admit, he liked hardscrabble joints like this, with the gut-solid waitresses, truckers bellying up to the counters, greasy burgers, orders conveyed full throat, and strong fresh coffee.

He was the first in his family to graduate high school, not to mention college. A small and scrappy child, he’d been raised by his mother, just the two of them, his father doing time for robbing a Coca-Cola bottling plant. Twenty years, thanks to a careerist prosecutor and pitiless judge. His father died of cancer in the slammer, and Betterton knew it was despair that caused the cancer that killed him. And in turn, his father’s death had killed his mother.

As a result, Betterton was inclined to assume that anyone in a position of authority was a lying, self-interested son of a bitch. For that reason he’d gravitated toward journalism, where he figured he could fight those people with real weapons. Problem was, with his state college degree in communications all he could land was a job at the Ezerville Bee, and he’d been there for the past five years, trying to move up to a bigger paper. The Bee was a throwaway, an excuse for advertising mailed free to all residents and stacked a foot high at gas stations and supermarkets. The owner, editor, and publisher, Zeke Kranston, was mortally afraid of offending anyone if there was even a microscopic chance of hustling them for ad space. So: no investigative stories, no exposés, no hard-hitting political pieces. “The job of the Ezerville Bee is to sell advertising,” Kranston would say, after removing the sodden toothpick that always seemed to be hanging from his lower lip. “Don’t try to dig up another Watergate. You’ll only alienate readers — and businesses.” As a result, Betterton’s clipping book looked like something out of Woman’s World: all service pieces, rescued dogs, and reports from church bake sales, high-school football games, and ice-cream socials. With a book like that, no wonder he couldn’t get an interview at a real newspaper.

Betterton shook his head. He sure as hell wasn’t going to stay in Ezerville the rest of his life, and the only way to get out of Ezerville was to find that scoop. It didn’t matter if it was crime, a public interest story, or aliens with ray guns. One story with legs — that’s all he needed.

He drained his cup, paid, then stepped out into the morning sunlight. There was a breeze coming in off the Black Brake swamp, uncomfortably warm and malodorous. Betterton got into the car and started the engine, putting the A/C on full blast. But he didn’t go anywhere — not yet. Before he got into this story, he wanted to think it out. With great difficulty and many promises, he had persuaded Kranston to let him cover it. It was a curious human interest story and it could become the first real journalism clip in his book. He intended to exploit the opportunity to the max.

Betterton sat in the cooling car, going over what he’d say, what questions he’d ask, trying to anticipate the objections he was sure to hear. After five minutes, he was ready. He recombed his limp hair and mopped the sweat off his brow. He glanced down at the Internet map he’d printed, then shifted into drive, making a U-turn and heading back down the ramshackle street toward the outskirts of town.

Even covering the fluff, he had learned to pay attention to the slightest crumb of rumor or gossip, no matter how trivial. He’d heard rumors about the mysterious couple: about their disappearance years ago and their sudden reappearance a few months back, and a fake suicide somewhere along the way. A visit to the local parish police station earlier that morning had confirmed that the rumor was, in fact, true. And the police report, perfunctory as hell, had raised more questions than it answered.

He glanced down at the map, then at the rows of sad-looking clapboard houses that lined both sides of the potholed street. There it was: a small bungalow, painted white and bracketed by magnolias.

He nosed his car to the curb, killed the engine, and spent another minute psyching himself up. Then he got out, straightened his sports jacket, and marched with determined step up to the door. There was no doorbell, just a knocker, and he grasped it and gave an authoritative knock.

Betterton could hear it echoing through the house. For a moment, nothing. Then the sound of approaching feet. The door opened and a tall, svelte woman appeared in the entrance. “Yes?”

Betterton hadn’t known what to expect, of course, but the last thing he’d anticipated was that she would be beautiful. Not young, of course, but exceedingly handsome.

“Mrs. Brodie? June Brodie?”

The woman looked him up and down with cool blue eyes. “That’s correct.”

“My name’s Betterton. I’m from the Ezerville Bee. Please, could I have a few minutes of your time?”

“Who is it, June?” came a man’s high-pitched voice from within the house. Good, Betterton thought. They’re both in.

“We have nothing to say to the press,” June Brodie said. She took a step back and began to close the door.

Betterton wedged a desperate foot between the door and the sill. “Please, Mrs. Brodie,” he said. “I already know almost everything. I’ve been to the police, it’s a matter of public record. I’m going to run the story, regardless. I just thought you’d like the opportunity to have your own voice heard.”

She looked at him a minute. Her intelligent gaze seemed to bore right through him. “What story are you talking about?”

“About how you staged your own suicide and disappeared without a trace for a dozen years.”

There was a brief silence. “June?” Betterton could hear the male voice call again.

Mrs. Brodie opened the door and stepped to one side.

Quickly, before she could change her mind, Betterton went in. Directly ahead lay a tidy living room that smelled faintly of mothballs and floor polish. The room was almost empty: a couch, two chairs, a side table on a small Persian rug. His footsteps echoed hollowly as he trod the wooden floor. It felt like a house that had just been moved into. A moment later he realized that was, in fact, the case.

A small man, pale and slightly built, emerged from a darkened hallway, holding a plate in one hand and a dish towel in the other. “Who was that—” he began, then stopped when he caught sight of Betterton.

June Brodie turned toward him. “This is Mr. Betterton. He’s a newspaper reporter.”

The small man looked from his wife to Betterton and back again, face suddenly hostile. “What does he want?”

“He’s doing a story on us. On our return.” There was an edge of something — not quite scorn, not quite irony — in her voice that made Betterton a little nervous.

Carefully, the man set the plate down on the side table. He was as frumpy as his wife was elegant.

“You’re Carlton Brodie?” Betterton asked.

The man nodded.

“Why don’t you tell us what you know — or think you know?” June Brodie said. She had pointedly not offered him a seat or refreshment of any kind.

Betterton licked his lips. “I know that your vehicle was left on the Archer Bridge more than twelve years ago. Inside was a suicide note in your handwriting that read: Can’t take it anymore. All my fault. Forgive me. The river was dragged but no body was ever found. A few weeks later, the police paid a follow-up visit to your husband, Carlton, only to find that he had left on a trip of indefinite duration to an unknown location. That was the last anyone ever heard of the Brodies — until you suddenly reappeared here, out of nowhere, a few months ago.”

“That would seem to sum things up,” June Brodie said. “Not much of a story, is it?”

“On the contrary, Mrs. Brodie — it’s a fascinating story, and I think the readers of the Bee would feel the same way. What would lead a woman to do such a thing? Where has she been all this time? And why — after more than a decade — would she return?”

June Brodie frowned but said nothing. There was a brief, frosty silence.

After a moment, Mr. Brodie sighed. “Look, young man. I’m afraid it isn’t as interesting as you think.”

“Carlton, don’t bother to humor him,” June Brodie said.

“No, dear, I think it’s better if we get it said,” Mr. Brodie told her. “Say it once, then refuse to speak of it again. We’ll only prolong the story if we don’t cooperate.” He turned to Betterton. “We were going through a difficult time with our marriage.”

Betterton nodded.

“Things were bad,” Mr. Brodie went on. “Then June’s employer died in a fire and she lost her job with Longitude Pharmaceuticals when the company went bankrupt. She was at her wit’s end, half crazy. She had to get away — away from everything. And so did I. It was a foolish thing for her to do, staging a suicide, but at the time there seemed like no other choice. Later I went to her. We decided to travel. Stopped at a B and B, loved it at first sight, found it was up for sale, bought it and ran it for years. But… well, we’re older and wiser now, and things are less raw, so we decided to come home. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” Betterton repeated, hollowly.

“If you read the police report, you know that already. There was an investigation, naturally. Everything happened a long time ago; no fraud was involved; there was no escape from debt, no insurance scam, no laws broken. So the matter was dropped. And now we just want to live here, in peace and quiet.”

Betterton considered this for a moment. The police report had mentioned the B&B but included no details. “Where was this B and B?”

“Mexico.”

“Where in Mexico?”

A brief hesitation. “San Miguel de Allende. We fell in love with the place at first sight. It’s a city of artists in the mountains of Central Mexico.”

“What was the name of the B and B?”

“Casa Magnolia. A beautiful place. Within walking distance of the Mercado de Artesanias.”

Betterton took a deep breath. He could think of no other questions. And the man’s frank ingenuousness left him with nothing to follow up on. “Well, I thank you for being candid.”

In reply, Brodie nodded, picked up the dish and the dish towel.

“May I call you? If I have any further questions, that is?”

“You may not,” June Brodie said crisply. “Good morning.”

Outside, walking to his car, Betterton’s step grew jauntier. It was still a good story. All right, not the scoop of a lifetime, but it would make people sit up and take notice and it would look good among his clips. A woman who faked her suicide, got her husband to join her in exile, then returned home after a dozen years: a human interest story with a twist. With a little bit of luck, the wire services might get wind of it.

“Ned, you rascal,” he said as he opened the car door. “Okay, so it isn’t Watergate, but it just might get your sorry ass out of Ezerville.”

June Brodie watched through the window, face impassive, cold blue eyes unblinking, until the car receded into the distance. Then she turned toward her husband. “Do you think he bought it?”

Carlton Brodie was polishing the china plate. “The police bought it — didn’t they?”

“We had no choice about that. But now it’s public.”

“It was already public.”

“Not newspaper public.”

Brodie chuckled. “You’re giving the Ezerville Bee too much credit.” Then he stopped and looked at her. “What is it?”

“Don’t you remember what Charles said? How frightened he always was? ‘We must stay hidden,’ he’d insist. ‘Stay secret. They can’t know we’re alive. They would come for us.’ ”

“So?”

“So what if ‘they’ read the paper?”

Brodie chuckled again. “June, please. There is no ‘they.’ Slade was old. Old, sick, mentally ill, and paranoid as hell. Trust me, this is for the better. Get it said, and said our way — without a lot of rumor and speculation. Nip it in the bud.” And he walked back toward the kitchen, still wiping the plate.