Death's Half Acre

CHAPTER 23

I don’t know what’s happening,

and I don’t know how to say it.

—Paul’s Hill, by Shelby Stephenson

Weekday mornings are normally harried and a rush to get Dwight off to work and Cal off to school, but Wednesday morning seemed to move on snail legs. Cal’s backpack was sitting by the kitchen door at least twenty minutes before he needed to leave with Dwight to catch the bus at the end of our long drive and he had already bicycled down and back with the morning paper.

There was plenty of time for him to show us the new trick he had taught Bandit. I’ve always liked dogs, but I became particularly fond of this one after he helped get me out of a very tight spot last winter.

“Watch, y’all!” said Cal.

He told the little dog to sit, then gave an upward swoop of his hand.

Immediately, Bandit rose on his hind feet and bobbled across the kitchen floor.

Dwight laughed and I shook my head. “All that dog needs is an opposable thumb and he could be people.”

Cal beamed and gave Bandit a small morsel of food as a reward.

He performed twice more, then it was finally time for them to go meet the bus.

“Lunch?” I asked Dwight as they headed out to the truck.

“Buzz me,” he said. “I don’t know what the day’s going to be like.”

Once I was sure they were really gone, I rushed to my computer and popped the flash drive into one of the side ports.

To my total chagrin, the thing was password-protected. Who the hell protects a flash drive?

“Someone with something juicy to hide,” said the pragmatist, looking up from the morning paper.

“So give it to Dwight and take your punishment,” said the preacher. “You’re never going to get into it.”

“Oh, don’t be such a pessimist,” said the pragmatist, laying aside the paper. “You like puzzles. Maybe you can solve this one yourself. It’s worth a try.”

I started with the obvious things—variations of her name and the company’s name, her daughter’s name, Danny Creedmore’s, Woody Galloway’s, the Colleton Board of Commissioners, with A-B-C or 1-2-3 before and after each one. Nothing.

By the time I was ready to bang my head against the screen, I had to quit to get dressed and go to work, but I put the flash drive in my purse and a notebook and pen on the passenger seat beside me. On the drive to the courthouse, I jotted down everything I could think of that Candace might have used as her password.

At the break, I found a computer down in the clerk of court’s office that wasn’t being used and ran through my list in about four minutes flat.

No luck.

As I slowly returned to my courtroom, I had to admit to myself that I had only three choices at this point: smash this stubborn piece of aluminum, plastic, and memory circuits to bits, give it to Dwight, or slip it back in the dollhouse. I was pretty sure it would fit inside the miniature freezer and I could suddenly “remember” that I had heard the freezer clunk after I’d wrapped it and then got so distracted when Will and Mr. Bradshaw came back, that I hadn’t unwrapped it to see what caused the clunk.

Okay, that was weak. Dwight knows how seldom I let my curiosity go unsatisfied, but maybe he’d be so glad to get the damn thing that he’d overlook how it actually turned up.

Besides, if Candace had recorded anything about Daddy, Talbert, and me, his knowing I’d palmed it would be the least of my concerns.

When I buzzed Dwight at noon, he was too tied up to meet me. I took that as an omen that it was okay to implement my third option and to drive over to Will’s warehouse.

On my way out of the courthouse, I was surprised to see Daddy coming up the steps with a man I didn’t recognize.

“Daddy! Hey. Were you coming to look for me?” I asked.

“Naw,” he said. “I just got a little business needs tending to.”

I looked at the other man inquiringly and Daddy reluctantly introduced us. “This is my daughter Deb’rah, Mr. McKinney. Deb’rah, Mr. McKinney’s the preacher at that new church over near us.”

“The Church of Jesus Christ Eternal?” A sour taste rose in my throat. This was the pompous bastard who used scripture to humiliate his wife and keep the women of his church in check?

“Brother Kezzie’s told me a lot about you, Judge Knott,” he said, taking my hand in a two-handed clasp that was no doubt meant to convey warmth and pleasure in the meeting.

Brother Kezzie? All of Maidie’s forebodings rushed back to me. Was Daddy trusting this control freak to get himself straight with the Lord?

I was speechless, and when I looked at Daddy there was an odd expression on his face that I couldn’t quite interpret.

“Sorry, Deb’rah, but we ain’t got time to stand here a-chitter-chattering,” he said briskly.

McKinney told me again how really nice it was to meet me, then they were gone, striding across the lobby to a hallway that led to the tax offices and to our register of deeds.

Register of deeds?

For a moment I was tempted to dash after them and demand to know what was going on. I’ve heard that McKinney has a silver tongue when it comes to talking the elderly into giving parcels of their land to the church so that he could do the Lord’s work. The catch to that is that the church is his personal property, which means that all the deeds are registered in his name. It’s said he sold some of the donated land to finance a used-car dealership that was supposed to turn a profit for the church, but so far there’s been nothing to show for the prosperity except a nicer-than-usual parsonage and the well-cut suits that McKinney wore.

Surely Daddy wasn’t about to turn over some of his land to McKinney?

“And what if he is?” said the pragmatist in my head. “It’s his, isn’t it?”

The preacher was silent.

As Judith Viorst once put it, this was turning into a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

When I pulled up at the side door of Will’s warehouse, I did get a small break. There was no sign of his van and a small, hand-lettered card in the door window informed the world that he expected to be back by one-thirty. I tried the door. Locked, of course, but with a little more luck, he had only pulled the door to without bothering to throw the dead bolt on the upper lock. One of my nephews had showed me the credit card trick and the simple lock opened on my first try.

Just to be safe, though, I called out as soon as I was inside. “Will? Anyone here?”

The office was empty, so I passed on into the warehouse proper and called again.

My luck was still holding. There was no response.

Will had left a few lights on, but they did little to cut the gloom and the floor space was so jammed with boxes, furniture, and bric-a-brac that it took me a few minutes to locate the dollhouse. When I did, I was surprised to see that half the furnishings had been unwrapped and lay strewn across the tabletop where the dollhouse sat. Happily, Will hadn’t gotten to the kitchen things yet. I’d wrapped them last and put them near the top of the second, smaller, cardboard box. I soon found the little freezer and, as I’d hoped, once the shelves were removed, the flash drive ought to fit perfectly. I took it out of my pocket, but before I could slide it inside, I thought I heard something rustle behind me.

Trying to look innocent, I turned with the drive and freezer in my hands and said, “Will? Guess what I’ve found?”

But I saw no one and realized that I was letting my guilty conscience spook me.

I turned back, intending to wrap up the freezer and put it back in the box because I wanted Will here when I made my great discovery. But as I reached for the paper, two things happened. I heard a shot and my left arm immediately felt as if it’d been stung by a very angry hornet. What the hell?

A second shot zinged past my head so close it almost singed my hair.

I dropped everything and dived for cover behind a chest of drawers just as another shot buried itself in the wood.

I eeled along the floor till I was behind a tall wardrobe. My arm was on fire and when I looked down, I saw that the sleeve of my white linen jacket was red with blood and I had left a trail of bright drops on the floor. Bleeding like a stuck pig, where could I hide? The shooter was between me and the only way out. Beyond the office were roll-up garage-type doors, but even if I could get there without being seen, they would be locked and I wouldn’t have time to figure out how to unlock them before the shooter heard me.

Frantically, I looked around for a safe haven and saw a heavy metal door standing ajar nearby. Of course! The warehouse toilet!

Clutching my burning arm, I made a desperate sprint for it. Another shot rang out and ricocheted off the metal door. As I slipped inside, I glanced back.

Halfway down the cluttered aisle, a shadowy figure held the little gun with two hands braced on a wingback chair.

Terrified, I slammed the door shut and rammed the sturdy lockbolt in place.

An instant later, the door rattled and banged in manic frustration.

“Go away!” I screamed inanely.

Something heavy crashed against the door but the metal held firm.

With my ear against the door, I thought I heard footsteps click away, but it could have been a trick. Didn’t matter to me at that point because no way was I coming out before Will got back.

If the warehouse was poorly lit, this place was even darker, and the smell of urine and cheap pine cleansers almost gagged me. The single window was small and dirty and no bigger than a legal pad. Hinged at the bottom, it was probably meant for ventilation before air-conditioning. For the moment, I was glad it was at least twelve feet above my head so that I didn’t have to worry about being attacked from the outside. Too, it let me see a light switch by the door.

The bulb hanging down from the ceiling must have been a forty-watter, but I didn’t care. It was enough to show me the sink. Also filthy. I tried to wipe it out with liquid soap on a paper towel, but by now the pain was so intense that I quit dithering about germs. Easing off my jacket, I soaked it in cold water and held it to the oozing gash the bullet had made in my arm. Ah! Better. Much better. The wound still hurt like hell, but it didn’t seem to be spurting. Not spurting was good, wasn’t it? Meant no major vessel had been hit? I tried to remember the first-aid instruction Portland and I got when we gave Girl Scouts a brief try a million years ago.

Irrelevant thoughts and disconnected images tumbled through my head in kaleidoscopic turmoil as the adrenaline that had been pumping through my veins slowed down and leveled off. Throughout it all, I worried with the identity of who had shot me. In the dim light, that face had looked vaguely familiar, like a face I might have seen around town without ever putting a name to it.

Whether it was the adrenaline rush or the loss of blood, I felt myself getting light-headed and sank down on the floor. Random and almost incoherent thoughts flicked in and out of my mind—the dollhouse . . . the flash drive . . . Dwight . . . Candace Bradshaw’s irritating giggles . . . insider information . . . power plays . . . playing loose and dirty . . . this dirty floor . . . Candace’s shining clean bathroom and this filthy, stinking hole . . .

I don’t know if I actually passed out, but when my head cleared again, I thought I knew who that face was and why Candace and Dee had been killed. If I was right, it explained how John Claude had lost that big case to Greg Turner and why Jamie’s presentation didn’t win her the contract for Grayson Village.

I looked at my watch. Ten till one and I was due back at the courthouse at one. Forget that. Call Dwight. Tell him—

Oh. Right. Phone’s in my purse and it must have slipped from my shoulder when that first shot hit me.

Well, it would have to stay out there. Sooner or later someone would come and then—

Abruptly, I realized it wasn’t just the odor of pine cleanser and urine that was making me cough. Smoke seemed to be seeping in around the edges of the door.

I managed to stand and quietly slide back the bolt, then eased the door open slowly, half expecting gunfire. Instead, I heard the crackle of flames. Horrified, I saw a wall of fire blocking my way to the doors, and clouds of smoke billowed toward me.