Light of the World

Chapter 29

The room reverend Geta Noonen had rented was located on the second floor of an old frame house at the far end of the hollow, below a slit in the mountains through which he could see the evening star from his window. Geta, as his host family called him, had a backstairs entrance and his own bathroom with an old-fashioned claw-footed bathtub. There was a nostalgic element about his new home, a hint of the agrarian Midwest and the immigrant farm families who plowed the prairies and planted the land with Russian wheat. Everything about the house reminded him of the world in which he had grown up: the glider on the front porch, the linoleum floor in the bathroom, the freeze cracks in the paint around the window, the stamped tin ceiling, a stovepipe hole in the wall patched with an aluminum pie plate. The upstairs echoed with the sounds of the teenage girls running through the hallways, slamming doors, giggling about the boys who called them on the phone, not unlike the way his sisters had carried on during adolescence. Geta thought of all these things with great fondness until he began to remember other things that had occurred in the foster home west of Omaha, a house in which one room always stayed locked and no one ever asked what was beyond the door.

It was not a time to reflect upon these matters. The world moved on and so did he. As he soaked in the tub, his chin barely above the gray patina of soap that covered the surface, he could see the sun setting beyond trees that grew out of the rocks, its orange glow as bright as a burnished shield hung on a castle wall. No, it was not a shield, he told himself. It was a celestial talisman, a source of enormous natural heat and energy that was about to be transferred into the hands of a man the world had too long taken for granted.

Many a night he had studied the heavens through a cell window and had seen his destiny as clearly as he saw the Milky Way, a shower of white glass on black velvet trailing into infinity, not unlike the magical light that he sometimes felt radiating from his palms.

The greatest gift he possessed and that others did not was recognition. He saw a universe that was not expanding but contracting, a vortex at the center sucking all of creation into its maw. The goal of the physical universe was the reverse of what everyone thought. Its goal was annihilation. What could equal nothingness in terms of perfection? Those who could accept such conclusions became the captains of their souls, the masters of their fate, the puppeteers who looked down from above at the stick figures jiggling on the ends of strings.

Did he cause pain in the world? So what? Moses executed hundreds if not thousands; during the Great War, the kings of Europe dined on pheasant while sending hundreds of thousands to their deaths. No one dwelled upon the damage a boot print did to an anthill. The strong not only prevailed over the weak, they deliberately freed themselves from the restraints of morality. In so doing, they became weightless, able to float loose from their earthly moorings. It wasn’t a complex idea.

He shut his eyes and slipped deeper into the water, luxuriating in its warmth, his hands clasped on the tub’s rim, his phallus floating to the top of the water. Half of the upstairs had been ceded to him by the family, along with keys to the back entrance and the bathroom. He kept the bathroom door locked whenever he was not using it, in part so no one else would see the photos he had taped to the walls, in part to conceal the odor he left twice a day clinging to the sides of the tub, the bar of soap he used, the brush he scrubbed his skin with, the towel he wiped under his armpits.

The problem was a parasite, he was sure, one he had ingested by eating off a dirty plate in prison. It had laid its eggs in his viscera and cycled its way through his system and hidden in his glands, filling his clothes with an odor that made people move away from him in elevators and on public transportation. He was not the only victim. A blind inmate who had murdered his wife and children and stayed in twenty-three-hour lockdown had the same syndrome. So did a pederast who worked in the prison laundry. The prison psychiatrist said the problem was caused by either an obstructed bowel or food poisoning, and the odor associated with it was only natural; he said it would pass. When the psychiatrist excused himself to use the restroom, Geta spit in his coffee cup.

Now he drained the tub and washed himself again, this time with ice-cold water, sealing his pores, then sprayed his body with deodorant. He dressed in clean slacks and a white shirt and combed his bleached hair straight back in the mirror. He had lost weight and browned his skin and added bulk to his upper arms by splitting firewood in the sun, taking ten years off his appearance. Maybe it would be a good evening to do a little trolling downtown, visit a college bar or two. Just for fun. Nothing serious. A test of his powers. His own kind of catch-and-release program. He smiled at his sense of humor.

All the photos on the walls had been shot with a zoom lens after he decided to reopen his career in western Montana. Of the twenty photos, eight of them contained a diminutive yet buxom middle-aged woman who affected the dress and indifferent air of a 1960s flower child.

He touched one of the photos with his fingertips, then breathed on it as if trying to fog a windowpane. He stroked her face and hair and wet his index finger and drew a damp line across her throat and another one across her eyes and another one across her ribs. There was a whirring sound in his ears, like the hum of a crowd in a giant stadium, the sun boiling down directly overhead. He thought he heard the cry of wild beasts, a rattling of chains, an iron grille sliding open, the crowd roaring. He could have sworn he smelled the raw odor of blood and hot sand and the sweaty stench of people held captive in underground rooms.

He patted the photo affectionately, his cheeks dimpled with a suppressed smile. Our time is almost at hand, he thought. It will be a grand event announced by trumpets and dwarfs beating drums and a costumed Chiron waiting to dance around the dead and soldiers thumping the shafts of their spears on stone.

He began to experience a sense of arousal so intense that he had to close his eyes and open his mouth, as though he were on an airplane that had lost altitude in the midst of an electric storm.

Through the door, he heard the two girls hurrying down the wood stairs and out the front of the house, their father telling them to be home early. Geta went back to his bedroom and bolted the door behind him, then took four clear plastic wardrobe bags from his footlocker and laid them on the bed. Yes, be home early, my little ones, he thought. And you, Mommy and Daddy, enjoy your menial, insignificant lives while you can. Your embryonic sacs await you.

He was startled by a knock on the door. “Who is it?” he said.

“It’s me,” the wife said. “Will you join us for coffee and dessert?”

He thought for a moment. “Are you having cherry pie?” he asked through the door.

“Why, how did you know?”

“The season for cherry picking is upon us,” he replied. “I’ll be along in just a minute. It’s so nice of you to invite me.”

I slept until seven A.M. Friday and woke with no memories of my dreams or even of having gotten up during the night. I woke with a clarity of mind that seems to come less and less frequently as we grow older, maybe because the memory bank is full or because our childhood fears are unresolved in the unconscious. Regardless, I came to a realization that had eluded me prior to that morning — namely, that Asa Surrette, a man I had never seen, had threaded his way into all our lives and divided us among ourselves.

I had alienated both Alafair and Gretchen by going to the FBI and placing Gretchen in their bomb sights. I suspected the discord and distrust was exactly what Surrette wanted. The great irony in combating evil people is the fact that any proximity you have to them always leaves you soiled, a little diminished, a little less sure about your fellow man. It’s theft by osmosis.

After I brushed my teeth and shaved, I went downstairs and fixed two cups of coffee and hot milk, then took them to Alafair’s bedroom. She was awake in bed, lying on her side, gazing out the window at a yearling and its mother playing with one of Albert’s colts, racing up and down the pasture.

Alafair looked over her shoulder at me. “What’s up, doc?” she said.

I pulled a chair up to her bed and handed her one of the coffee cups. “The only lasting lesson I’ve learned in life is that nothing counts except family and friends,” I said. “When you get to the end of the road, money, success, fame, power, all of the things we kill each other for, fade into insignificance. The joke is, it’s usually too late to make use of that knowledge.”

She sat up, her back against a pillow, her long black hair touching her shoulders. “I never doubted what was in your heart,” she said.

“We’ve all done the best we could in dealing with Surrette,” I said. “He wins if we become angry and distrustful with one another.”

“I started all this when I interviewed him.”

“That’s good of you to say, but I don’t think that’s where it started. Surrette didn’t follow us from Louisiana to Albert’s place. He was already here.”

“But why?”

“Maybe it has to do with the Youngers. Maybe not. He shot an arrow at you on the ridge behind the house. He left his message in the cave behind the house. He set a bear trap for Gretchen behind the house. He seems to take an enormous interest in this particular stretch of terrain.”

“Albert?” she said.

“Surrette fancies himself an intellectual and a writer. Albert is both, and notorious for his radical political views. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

Alafair drank the rest of her coffee and put on a robe. “Gretchen and I did some background checking on Angel Deer Heart’s family,” she said. “Her parents were killed in an automobile accident. The three children were sent to an orphans’ home in Minnesota. Angel’s brother and sister died during an outbreak of meningitis. That’s when Angel was adopted by Caspian Younger and Felicity Louviere. You with me so far?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“The family owned a hundred acres between the rez and the boundary of Glacier National Park. The Deer Heart land isn’t far from where several exploratory wells have been drilled.”

“What happened to the land?”

“It was put in a trust for the children. It doesn’t have much agricultural value, but the family held on to the mineral rights.”

“Who owns it now?”

“Angel Deer Heart would have inherited the land on her eighteenth birthday.”

I looked at her blankly. “So it goes to whom?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Caspian Younger and his wife?”

“No, just Caspian. Isn’t that lovely?”

“How’d you find out all this?” I asked.

“Gretchen hired two reference librarians. Both of them are retired and in their eighties. They asked if ten dollars an hour would be too much to charge,” she said.

I couldn’t concentrate. I did not like Caspian Younger. I had known many like him, raised in an insular environment, protected from the suffering and pain and toil of the masses, effete and vain and incapable of understanding privation. But the implication was hard to accept.

“You think Caspian knows Surrette?”

“We couldn’t find any evidence to that effect. After Surrette got out of the navy, he did security for some casinos. Atlantic City and Reno and Vegas were second homes for Caspian as well as his father. Gretchen told you the father kept fuck pads in several places, didn’t she?”

“How about it on the language?”

“When will you stop moralizing at my expense?”

“I’m serious. It sounds terrible. You can’t imagine how bad that word sounds when it comes out of your mouth.”

“Not someone else’s?”

Don’t take the bait, I thought. I also knew, with a great sense of relief, that our relationship was back to normal. “I’m going to fix breakfast for you and Molly. You coming?” I said.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’ll always be my little girl, whether you like it or not.”

“You’ll never change,” she said. “That’s why I love you, Pops.”

Gretchen woke at sunrise and looked out her window. Normally, at this time of day, the horses were grazing by the wheel line, where the grass was taller. Instead, they were in a grove of aspens up by the road, their heads and necks extended over the rail fence, eating carrots a woman was feeding them from a sack. Gretchen put on jeans and a jacket and her half-topped suede boots and walked into the trees.

“Clete’s still asleep, if that’s who you’re looking for,” she said.

“I was just taking a drive. I stopped at the grocery in Lolo and bought these for the horses,” Felicity Louviere said. “Does anyone mind if I feed them?”

Her face held no color or expression. Even her voice was toneless. She made Gretchen think of someone who wanted to offer condolences or amends at a funeral but arrived too late and found the church empty.

“You want me to wake Clete?” Gretchen said.

“No. He said you were in contact with Asa Surrette. Is that true?”

“I’ve been in contact with a guy who might be him. But I can’t swear to it.”

“He has the waitress with him?”

“I don’t know. Can I help you, Ms. Louviere? You don’t look well.”

“You’ve actually talked to this man?”

“He’s called me on my cell phone.”

“Did he say anything about Angel?”

“No. I think you should come inside.” Gretchen stepped between two of the horses and took the bag of carrots. “You shouldn’t give treats to horses with your fingers. You let them take it from the flat of your hand so they won’t accidentally bite you.”

“Thank you.”

“Did something happen that you want to talk about?”

“I shouldn’t have bothered you. What time is it? There’s no light in this valley until after nine, is there? Or is it dark most of the time? It seems Montana is like that. Often dark.”

“I’m going to the health club in a few minutes,” Gretchen said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“That’s very nice of you, but I’ve probably already bothered you enough.”

“Ms. Louviere, I don’t have great experience in these things, but I think you’re blaming yourself for something that happened recently, or something you just found out about. Is it related to your daughter’s death?” The hollowness in Felicity’s eyes was such that Gretchen could hardly look at them. “I know Clete would like to see you,” Gretchen said. “Stay awhile. We can have breakfast together.”

“Maybe another time. Thank you, Ms. Horowitz. I think you’re a nice woman.” Felicity got into her Audi and drove away.

Gretchen went back into the cabin, packed her workout bag, and went to the health club, thinking that her strange encounter with Felicity Louviere was over. Early on in her life, she had come to believe that the differences in human beings were not of great magnitude and had more to do with appearance than motivation. The exception was the difference between the sick and the well. Some people glowed with sunshine and health; others seemed stricken in body and spirit, as though they had walked through an invisible cobweb and their pores could not breathe.

Three hours later, when Gretchen emerged from the dressing room at the health club, her skin ruddy, her hair damp from her shower, she was convinced that Felicity Louviere carried a form of perdition with her wherever she went.

Felicity was standing by the registration desk, her bag on her shoulder, oblivious to the club members who had to step around her to swipe their membership cards. Gretchen put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s have a bagel and some cream cheese,” she said.

“I’d like that,” Felicity said. “Is Clete with you?”

“He’s at the ranch. It’s just you and me. I’ll put in our order. Sit down over there on the sofa, and we’ll talk.”

After Gretchen had ordered, she checked her phone for messages, then sat down next to Felicity in a quiet area by the fireplace.

“I have to confide in somebody,” Felicity said. “I feel worse than I’ve ever felt in my life. I don’t want to burden or hurt Clete any more than I have.”

“What is it?”

“My husband left his financial statement from Vanguard on his desk. In four months, he’s made withdrawals of eighty-five thousand dollars from his money-market account. I thought maybe he was gambling again. I looked at the accounting book he keeps in the bottom of his desk. He enters every expenditure and deposit and transaction in ink and never puts information in a computer. The Vanguard withdrawals were there. Beside each of them were the initials A.S.”

“Asa Surrette?”

“That’s what I asked him. He went into a rage.”

“Why would he be paying Surrette?” Gretchen asked.

Felicity stared into Gretchen’s face without replying. Felicity had put on no makeup; her lips were cracked.

“Surrette is blackmailing him?” Gretchen said.

“I think he paid Surrette to murder our daughter. I think I shut my eyes to what he did. I think I’m responsible for my daughter’s death.”

“You mustn’t say that,” Gretchen said. “You had nothing to do with your daughter’s death. Where’s your husband now?”

“I don’t know. He’s frightened. He was drunk last night, and I saw him doing lines on a mirror this morning. I don’t think he’s bathed in days. He hates Clete and he hates Dave Robicheaux. He killed our daughter. The man I have slept with for years killed Angel.”

“Regardless of what may or may not have happened, you’re not responsible. Do you understand me?”

“There’s something else. I think I’ve seen him. Twice, maybe three times.”

“Seen who?”

“Him, the man who killed Angel. He had a camera with a zoom lens. I looked at the photographs of him that are posted on the Internet. He’s lost weight since he went to prison in Kansas, but I’m almost sure it was him.”

“Did you tell your husband?”

“Yes. It terrified him.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying. He fears for your safety?”

“He fears Surrette will take both of us. Ms. Horowitz, you’ve been very patient. But I know what I have done, or what I have failed to do. I didn’t protect Angel. I’m partly at fault for her death. I’ll never forgive myself.”

One of the club’s employees held up the heated bagels on a plate so Gretchen could see them, then set the plate on the counter.

“I’ll be right back,” Gretchen said. She charged the bagels to her account, then picked up the plate and returned to the sofa. Felicity had disappeared. Gretchen’s hobo bag lay on the coffee table, the drawstring pulled loose. She rummaged through it. Her cell phone was gone. Through the glass doors, she watched Felicity’s Audi drive away.

Alafair was sitting in the passenger seat of Gretchen’s pickup when they turned off the Higgins Street Bridge and parked down by the river, next to the old train station that had become the national headquarters of a conservation group founded by Teddy Roosevelt.

Six hours had passed since Felicity had stolen Gretchen’s cell phone.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Alafair asked.

“Love Younger is one of the most powerful men in the United States,” Gretchen said. “You think he doesn’t know what’s going on in his own family?”

“I doubt he does.”

“You can say that with a straight face?” Gretchen said. She cut the engine. The river was high, slate-green, coursing over the submerged boulders close to the banks.

“Younger probably used Cronus as a role model,” Alafair said.

“Who?”

“The Greek god who ate his children,” Alafair said.

“I don’t care about Younger’s children. They were born rich. They had choices. I was wrong about Felicity Louviere. She wants to punish herself, and I think she’s going to use Asa Surrette to do it.”

“She’s not innocent in all this, Gretchen.”

“Are you coming with me or not?”

“I’m your friend, aren’t I?”

Gretchen hooked the strap of her hobo bag over her shoulder, but did not get out of the truck. The refurbished train station looked like an orange fortress and had the clean lines of an architectural work of art. It was located at the base of a hill that sloped abruptly down to the river. At the top of the hill was the maple-lined street where Bill Pepper had lived and where he had drugged and sexually assaulted her. “You’re more than a friend,” she said.

“You don’t need to say any more.”

“I’ll say what I feel like. You know what you mean to me, Alafair?”

“Sometimes it’s better not to be too specific about feelings.”

“What did you think I was going to say?”

“I’m not quite sure.”

“You’re everything I want to become. You’re educated and smart and beautiful. You stand up to people without having to threaten them. I sleep with a gun. You can walk away from situations that make me want to tear people apart.”

“I don’t know if that’s always a virtue.”

“You’ve published a novel. You were Phi Beta Kappa at Reed. You had a four-point average at Stanford Law. Everybody in New Iberia respects you.”

“People respect you, too, Gretchen.”

“Because they fear me. They know I have blood on my hands. You know what’s even worse?”

Alafair shook her head, her eyes lowered, not wanting to hear more.

“I’m glad they know,” Gretchen said. “I want them to know what blood smells like. I want them to know what it’s like to live with the kind of anger that can make you kill people. You know how I feel today, even though I think I’ve changed? I wish I could dig up every person who ever hurt me and kill them all over again. What do you think of me now, Alafair?”

“I love you. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. I’d do anything for you.”

Gretchen grasped her by the back of the neck and kissed her on the mouth. “You rip me up, girl,” she said.

Then she got out of the pickup and started toward the train station, her bag swinging from her shoulder. Alafair stared through the windshield at the river and at the water sliding over the boulders and eddying in deep pools that were dark with shadow and strung with foam. Her face was tingling as though it had been stung by bees. She let out her breath and blinked and followed Gretchen inside.

A meeting was under way in a spacious room hung with rustic paintings containing scenes from America’s national parks. Perhaps ten men were seated at a long hardwood table set with a silver service and a decanter and glasses and a silver bowl with red flowers floating in the water. Love and Caspian Younger were seated at the head of the table. A well-dressed man with gray hair was in the midst of introducing Love Younger to the group. He was a pleasant-looking man whose manner was deferential and whose sentiments seemed genuine. He had probably labored for hours on his introductory remarks.

“Mr. Younger formed an early and protective attachment to the woods and rivers and streams and mountains of his East Kentucky home,” he said. “The cabin in which he was born was not far from the Revolutionary fort built on the Cumberland River by Daniel Boone. His ties to American history, however, are not simply geographical in nature. He’s a descendant of Tecumseh, the great Shawnee leader, and proud of his relationship to Cole Younger, who fought for his beliefs during the Civil War and was admired by both friend and foe. Mr. Younger’s donation of ten thousand acres to the Conservancy is not only an act of great generosity but of vision.”

The gray-haired man turned to Love Younger and continued, “I cannot tell you how appreciative we are of your support. Your investment in wind and solar power has set an example for everyone committed to finding a better way to supply energy for the twenty-first century. You’ve demonstrated that the rancher and the sportsman and the conservationist and the industrialist can work together for the common good. It’s a great honor to have you here today, sir.”

Love Younger studied the tumbler of whiskey in his hand, tilting the glass slightly, as though more praise had been given him than was his due. He rose from his chair. “The honor is mine,” he said. “You gentlemen have invested a lifetime in a higher cause. I have not. People such as me are bystanders. Tecumseh was a man with a noble vision, one far greater than mine has been. Cole Younger led a violent life but became a Christian before his death. He was a business partner in the operation of a traveling Wild West show with Frank James. The two men were not cut out of the same cloth. I say this not to judge or condemn Frank James but to remind myself of the biblical admonition that many are invited and yet only a few are chosen. I believe my ancestor redeemed himself. The donation I make to your cause is my small attempt at righting some wrong choices in my own life.” Younger raised his whiskey glass. “Here’s to each and every one of you,” he said, and drank it to the bottom. Only then did he seem to notice Alafair and Gretchen standing in the doorway. “Would you ladies like to come in?” he asked.

“That’s Robicheaux’s daughter,” Caspian said, looking up from his chair at his father’s side. There was an ugly scab across the bridge of his nose from the beating Clete had given him, and a bruise couched like a tiny blue-black mouse under one eye.

Alafair waited for Gretchen to answer, then said, “We can speak with you later, Mr. Younger.”

“No, if you have something to say to me, do it now,” Love Younger replied.

“Your son is being blackmailed by Asa Surrette,” Gretchen said. “Your granddaughter’s death might make your son an independently wealthy man. I’m saying your son may have paid Asa Surrette to kill your granddaughter.”

“Who sent you here?” Younger said.

“No one. I called your office and was told this is where I could find you. I think your daughter-in-law is in danger, Mr. Younger,” Gretchen said. “I think she may be trying to contact Surrette.”

The gray-haired man leaned toward Younger. “I’m sorry about this, Mr. Younger. I’ll take care of it,” he said.

Younger placed his hand on the man’s shoulder so he couldn’t rise from his chair, his gaze never leaving Gretchen’s face. “Felicity is trying to contact this killer?” he said.

“She thinks she’s responsible for Angel’s death,” Gretchen replied.

“And out of goodwill, you’ve come here to discuss my family’s personal tragedy in public? You use my granddaughter’s first name as though you knew her?”

“Maybe you’d rather see your daughter-in-law dead?” Gretchen said.

“I know all about you. You’re a contract killer from Miami. I think you’re working with Albert Hollister to blacken my name in any way you can.”

“I came here to prevent your daughter-in-law from being killed. I don’t see you as a victim, Mr. Younger.”

The other men at the table were silent, without expression, hands motionless on the tabletop. One man cleared his throat, then picked up his water glass and drank from it and set it down as quietly as he could.

“I think you ladies have come here to cause a scene and to further the agenda of Albert Hollister and the ecoterrorists who are his proxies,” Younger said.

“I’ve told you the truth,” Gretchen said. “I think your son has done everything in his power to provoke Wyatt Dixon into harming you. Why would he want to do that, Mr. Younger? Dixon said you were out on his property. Why do you and your son have all this interest in a rodeo cowboy?”

Love Younger looked at the other men at the table. “My apologies, gentlemen,” he said. “My family has been through a difficult ordeal. I’m sorry that you’ve been witness. I’m sure we’ll see one another again soon. Thank you again for allowing me to participate in your mission. I think you’re a fine group of men.”

“We feel the same about you, Mr. Younger,” one of the seated men said.

“I have to say something else,” Gretchen said. “You’re educated and wealthy and have knowledge about foreign governments that only intelligence agencies have access to. But you use your education and experience to deceive people who never had your advantages. I’m not talking about these men here; I’m talking about people who never had a break. You exploit their trust and patriotism and inspire as much fear in them as possible. Tell me, Mr. Younger, do you know of any viler form of human behavior?”

The only sound in the room was the wind blowing through the trees behind the train station.

“Come on, Caspian,” Younger said to his son. “We’ve taken up too much of these gentlemen’s time.”

“I’m sorry I had to disrupt your meeting,” Gretchen said to the men at the table. “I admire the work you do. If I could have talked to Mr. Younger somewhere else, I would have.”

She walked outside, leaving Alafair behind, the back of her neck as red as a sunburn.

“Is there something you wanted to say, Ms. Robicheaux?” Love Younger asked.

“Yeah, you got off easy,” Alafair replied. “Your son is mixed up with Asa Surrette, a man who ejaculates on the bodies of the little girls he tortures and murders, the same guy who murdered your foster granddaughter. You’re a real piece of work. I’ve known some scum in my time, but you take the cake.”

“You can’t talk to me like that,” he said, his face quivering.

“I just did,” she replied.

Alafair caught up with Gretchen outside. “Where are you going?” she said.

“I think I’ll drown myself.”

“I’m proud of you,” Alafair said.

“For what?”

“What you said in there. The way you talked to those guys when you left.”

“What about it?”

“They know courage and integrity when they see it. They can’t say it to Love Younger, but they respected what you did. It was in every one of their faces.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“You shouldn’t ask me that. I’ve never lied to you,” Alafair said.

“Care to explain why you’re looking at me like that?”

“Your smile,” Alafair said.