Stone Angel

CHAPTER 16

Jimmy Simms passed through a patch of soggy ground, but one of his father’s overlarge shoes had not moved on with him. It was stuck fast in the mud. He dropped a bulky laundry bag in the grass at the side of the road, and then he did a crane dance on one foot as he pulled the shoe out of the muck and slipped it back on. He settled down beside the cloth bag on the grass and tightened the shoelaces, as though that would help much.

And now he eyed the heavy bag, a gift from Darlene Wooley. If there was a God in heaven, there would be a pair of Ira’s castoff shoes in there.

He had helped Darlene change the oil in her car, doing all the messy work at her direction. Then she had taken him into the house and cleaned his hands, as though she thought he could not do this for himself. Or maybe she thought he was as lame as Ira.

And perhaps he was.

No matter. He had relished this warm, mother contact, closed his eyes and made believe that his own mother was doing this small service for him. Darlene had scrutinized the oil spots on his clothes, lamenting that those stains would never come out. She had then sat him down at the kitchen table and made him a cold lunch. She had admonished him to drink all his milk, while she stuffed the bag with laundry-faded clothes, saying Ira wouldn’t wear them anymore. All of Ira’s shirts and socks must be bright red, she told him, and her boy would only wear dark blue jeans.

Darlene had also given him a crisp five-dollar bill. He had used part of it to buy a treat for Good Dog. A fine square of cooked meatloaf from the Levee Market was still warm in his pocket.

Jimmy riffled the bag, hands roaming over T-shirts, jeans and socks. He grasped one white leather running shoe and pulled it out, examining it in amazement. There was not one sign of wear. It was not even scuffed. He quickly found its mate, but there was nothing amiss with that one either. What had Darlene Wooley been thinking of? This pair was just a few months shy of new. He pulled off one of his father’s shoes, and slipped on the new-old shoe of Ira’s.

It fit. It was nearly new and just the right size.

He didn’t want to muddy them, so he put his father’s shoe back on and carefully tucked Ira’s pair into the bag with the rest of his treasure.

Jimmy was unreasonably happy, and he was crying. Not wanting the dog to see him this way, he wiped his eyes as he made his way along the dirt road, limping on the foot with the worst of the blisters.

When he was standing in the yard of Cass Shelley’s house, he found the bowl of food and the pan of water were empty. The dog was nowhere in sight.

“Good Dog,” he called, over and over.

No response.

But the dog never strayed from the house – never. Well, Kathy had broken out of jail. Maybe the animal had gone off with her for a while.

He left his gift in Good Dog’s bowl, regretting that it would be cold when the dog found it, and hoping that the old black Lab would know where the meatloaf had come from.

And now Jimmy wondered about the commotion in the cemetery. The voices were excited. Prayers and hallelujahs carried through the trees and up the winding road.

A few of the remaining people from the tour group were still snapping pictures of the statue. Betty had quit the scene, running past Charles and Henry and not even noticing them.

Henry explained, “She has to be first to tell the story of the miracle. Her reputation for gossip hangs on it.”

Charles stole a quick glance around the corner of a tomb. More people were coming into the cemetery, and some had brought rosary beads. “This is going to upset Malcolm – a miracle with no admission charge.”

Henry handed him a piece of cold meat from a wicker picnic basket Charles bit into the crispy cold skin and he was reborn. “This is wonderful. Is it one of your own chickens?”

Henry nodded.

“Does Augusta know you’re killing birds?”

Henry put down his lunch to talk with his hands, to tell Charles that as a bird lover, Augusta was no purist, not when it came to chickens. “She doesn’t recognize them as true birds. She calls them ‘gumbo ingredients.’ One thing Augusta and I agree on – the only good chicken is a dead one.”

Charles was looking at the roof of Trebec House and seeing it in the new light of Betty’s tour ramble. “I had no idea Augusta’s father disinherited her. But still, I can’t believe she’s allowing that beautiful mansion to decay just for spite. Was Betty right about that, or is there more to it?”

Henry shrugged. “The house is Augusta’s business. She can do what she likes with it.”

“Can you at least explain Augusta’s animosity toward the sheriff?”

“She blames him for the death of an old friend.”

“And who was that?”

“The man Tom Jessop could have been, if only Cass had lived.”

“There was something between them?”

Henry nodded. “Ira’s not the only one who communes with the angel. I’ve seen Tom out here late at night. And I’ve heard him too – sloppy drunk and sorry for all the things he never said to her. But he’s said it all to the angel. In a way, there is more between Tom and Cass now than there was when she was a living breathing woman. But the love of stones is highly unnatural, and from what I have seen of it, I don’t recommend it. I hope nothing happens to Kathy… for your sake.”

Charles pulled his long legs back behind the stone house as another straggle of pilgrims passed down the alley of tombs on their way to a miracle. And now he noticed one woman standing alone at the edge of the cemetery.

For a moment, his eyes had been fooled into believing that she was real. The statue stood well apart from the other monuments, deep in the lush shadows of dense foliage, picking up a green cast of life in refracted light. This was the statue of a wingless, mortal woman, small and slender, wearing a long dress and standing on a broad pedestal. She lacked the angel’s drama and the baroque quality of motion and flowing robes. She appeared to be only pausing among the trees. So great was the sculptor’s talent, her stance evoked the feeling that she might eventually continue on her way through the woods.

Charles pointed to her. “Henry?”

“Augusta’s mother. She committed suicide. The church wouldn’t allow her to be buried in consecrated ground. That’s why she’s out there on the edge. Originally, there was only a slab of concrete. Jason Trebec wouldn’t pay for a tomb or headstone.”

“She seems more delicate than Augusta.”

“Nancy was a very gentle woman. Augusta is more like her father, ruthless and hideously single-minded.” He regarded the statue with loving eyes. “I entered that piece in a competition and won a scholarship to study in Rome for four years. It was a wonderful time to be young and alive. I think of Rome almost every day.”

“Why did you come back to Dayborn?”

“I was born in the rear bedroom of my house. The pull of home is very strong. Look at Trebec House. That place is Augusta’s raison d‘ètre.”

“But she lives for its destruction.”

“I was the beneficiary of some of that destruction. Did you see the broken tiles in the ballroom? Augusta ordered new marble for repairs. The bank trustee didn’t know the difference between a receipt for marble tiles and a solid block of stone. She gave me that block and my first commission – Nancy Trebec’s monument. I was only fifteen years old. Augusta changed my life.”

“But her own life was ruined by revenge.”

“Ruined? What gave you that idea? Augusta has had more than her fair portion of fine wines, good lovers and fresh horses. She always had a wonderfully greedy appetite.”

“But the house and all those beautiful, irreplaceable things.”

“You look at her house and you see the ruined ballroom floor. You don’t see a young girl riding her horse through the rooms, breaking the marble at a gallop. 1 was there.”

With his hands, Henry made Charles see Augusta as she was, half a century ago, her face flushed with heat, her blue eyes unnaturally bright. She made the horse dance on two legs, then on four, pounding, crashing across the marble tiles, cracks opening in the wake of hooves. The horse seemed to step in time. “And I believed that I heard music, I swear. But it was only Augusta laughing. I would not part with that memory for the whole earth. Augusta has nothing to regret.”

It was Charles that Henry Roth felt sorry for. This was not imagination; he could read that much in the artist’s face. This was the second time that Henry had suggested something might be passing Charles by, some portion of a life.

A gunshot was fired behind them, and then another shot and another. It seemed as though the leaves of the trees were being blown away, but it was only clouds of birds taking flight from every branch. A man bearing Laurie features was shooting the statue.

The sightseers ran along every path leading out and away from the cemetery. Deputy Lilith Beaudare rushed through the line of trees. She put the muzzle of her gun to the man’s mouth while she held a handful of his blond hair and made him scream until he dropped the rifle.

Where had she come from? Had she been watching -

“That makes eight,” said Henry, unfazed by the violence, as though he had been expecting it. He wrote the man’s name on a page of his notebook.

After the deputy had taken the handcuffed gunman away, Charles was about to rise, when Henry restrained him with one hand on his arm. The sculptor pointed to a figure on the path leading into the cemetery from the bridge road. It was Alma Furgueson, the woman with purple highlights in her black hair. A few days ago she had run from the square in tears, and now she was slow-stepping toward the angel, and her face was a study in horror. The woman fell to her knees and said. “I’m so sorry, so sorry.. sorry.”

And now a young man, clutching a cloth bag in his arms, entered the cemetery. He was gaping at the angel, moving closer, flapping his oversized clown shoes. His rolled up pantlegs were coming undone.

“Oh, Jimmy, she’s crying.” Alma extended a hand to this young man. “Come pray with me, Jimmy. We’ll ask her forgiveness.”

“I’ve seen that man before,” said Charles. “He was at the tent show. Do you know him?” He looked down at Henry’s notebook as the artist was adding the name Jimmy Simms to the list. Henry slipped the notebook back in his shirt pocket so his hands could speak.

“He’s a small-job man. Every town has one. He washes windows and sands floors. Most of the time, he just walks around the town, waiting for the day to end.”

“He’s homeless?”

“No, the sheriff arranged a room for him in the back of the library. I think he sweeps the floors for his keep.”

Jimmy Simms reminded Charles of Ira: both were young men walking on the edge of a life.

Once more, Alma begged the young man to join her in a quest for atonement. The man seemed more like a child in his oversized clothes and his shattered face – a child who had just been brutally slapped. And now he did what all children do when they are badly frightened – Jimmy ran away.

And Charles died a little.

Alma went after him on her knees for a bit, and then she stood up and came back to the angel. Her legs were unsteady, and now she fell.

What had he done? Charles was moving toward her when Henry blocked his way and shook his head.

“Now what’s that all about?” said a familiar voice behind them. Riker?

Charles whirled around to see his old friend standing there. The detective was staring at the prostrate woman, and he was not happy. “Charles, why do I think you’ve been picking up bad habits from Mallory?”

The three men watched in silence as the woman made an awkward stand and walked aimless through the city of tombs, careening toward the perimeter, arms outstretched, seeking balance, crying.

Now Riker reached up to tap Charles’s shoulder, and in his face was the question Why? He was probably alluding to the maiming of an unarmed woman.

Riker turned his face away from Henry Roth and spoke in low tones. “I told the sheriff I never heard of you or Mallory. Will the little guy play along with that?”

And now Charles realized that Riker had been watching them long enough to see Henry use sign language, and he had assumed the man was deaf as well as mute. Charles didn’t correct this impression when Riker turned his back on Henry to hold a more private conversation.

“Henry is an old friend of Mallory’s,” said Charles. “He wouldn’t do anything to – ”

“Good.” Riker put one hand on Charles’s arm and guided him over to the angel. There were chips in the marble. One ear was gone and the tip of a wing had been blown away by the recent gunfire.

“What a travesty.” Charles looked down at Henry. “It was a beautiful piece of work.”

“Oh, I especially like the tears,” said Riker, staring up at the angel’s moist eyes. “I know a guy in SoHo who specializes in weeping icons. Only two bills a miracle. So what did you use – calcium chloride?”

“No, nothing that sophisticated. My secret ingredient is beef fat. In a proper mixture, it liquefies in the first hour of sunlight.”

“So you timed it for the tour group?” Riker turned to see Alma at the edge of the cemetery. She fell down again and did not get up this time, but crawled down the path on her hands and knees. “Very effective, but a bullet would have been quicker and cleaner.”

Charles jammed his hands into his pockets, and lowered his tell-all face to hide his thoughts from Riker. He stared at the ground, as though he might find salvation there.

“I understand,” said Riker, sounding almost genuine in his consolation. “It’s not your fault. The devil made you do it, right? And just where is our little Princess of Darkness?”

“The truth, Riker? I don’t know. I don’t think she’d trust me with that information.” And now he let Riker see his face as naked proof.

“But you can get a message to her, right?” Now Riker smiled, gleaning an affirmation from Charles’s silence and averted eyes. “I have to talk to her, and real soon. The kid must have been in a hurry to pull information out of government files. She got sloppy. The feds found her little footprints in a highly classified computer. That’s a federal rap, but they’re willing to cut a deal.”

“But you know she’s compulsively neat. So, our government said Mallory was sloppy, and you believed that?”

“Nice try, Charles. Tell Mallory to get in touch while I can still run interference for her, okay?”

“I don’t think she’d appreciate interference just now. Perhaps if you – ”

“How many people do you figure that kid has on her hate list, Charles? Twenty? Maybe thirty people? That’s bad, real bad, because Mallory wouldn’t waste time hating anyone she couldn’t destroy.”

Charles didn’t consider the import of these words beyond wondering if Riker knew he was mangling a quotation of Goethe’s. He had always suspected Riker of being much more than he let on. Beneath that incredibly awful suit, the badly spotted tie, the slovenly, crude, unshaven veneer, was a -

“I’ve known her longer than you have,” said Riker. “I watched her grow up. You know how much I love that kid, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then believe me when I tell you, for the last time, Charles – Mallory is a freaking sociopath. I know at least one of your degrees is in psychology, so why do you still have so much trouble with that? And don’t give me any of that ‘little lost soul’ crap. She doesn’t have a soul.”

“She does.”

“Doesn’t! She lost her soul before Lou Markowitz found her. Lou’s wife tried to knit her a new one, but the kid wouldn’t wear it.”

Charles was casting around for some defense of Mallory, and failing in this, he offered, “But did you know that she could play the piano when she was only six years old?”

Riker looked up at the sky for a moment. And then he shrugged in surrender and inclined his head as a bow to the absurd. Without another word, he turned around and walked away.

Now Henry was standing by Charles’s side, words flying off his fingers asking why this man said all these things about Kathy. “I’ve only known her to tell one lie. She said she was seven years old while she was still six.”

“She told a similar lie to a friend of mine,” said Charles. “When he was filling out papers for her foster care, she told him she was twelve when she was only ten. They compromised at eleven.”

However, that had not been her best piece of work. Louis Markowitz had brought the child home one night, after arresting her for theft. It was to be a one-night arrangement for his own convenience, or so he said. But he was a very warm and decent man, so that part of his story had always been suspect.

By Louis’s account, when young Kathy appeared at the breakfast table the following morning, her glittering eyes were cold, and she wore a very unnerving smile. His wife had stood behind Kathy’s chair and explained to Louis that he would not be taking the little girl off to Juvenile Hall, or anywhere else – not ever. Kathy was here to stay, Helen told him flatly, and that was that. And then poor Louis realized that the baby thief had casually pocketed his wife and one mortgaged wood-frame house in Brooklyn.

Until the day Louis died, he never underestimated Kathy Mallory again. Or so he said.

When Tom Jessop came home to visit his bed for the first time in thirty-six hours, he walked in the back door and found a package was sitting on his kitchen table.

How did it get there? The cleaning woman was not due back for days, and the evidence of her absence was the load of dishes in the sink, the hamper filled to overflowing and dirty socks trailing out the door of the bathroom.

Distrustfully, carefully, he untied the string and opened the brown paper wrapper. Now he looked down at the gun he had lost to his erstwhile prisoner. A sheet of paper was rolled around the barrel. He spread the curling paper flat on the table. He was so tired, his eyes were closing to slits as he read her letter:

You wanted to know what my mother said to me when she was dying. She wrote a lot of numbers on the back of my hand and told me to run to the public telephone on the highway and dial that number. She said a woman would come for me. Most of the phone number was smudged, so I never did get through to anyone. I just kept running. I wanted to run to you, but she said, ‘No, don’t go near the sheriff’s office, you’ll get hurt.’ So I always figured you were part of it. Until tonight, I didn’t know the deputy was in the mob that stoned her. That must have been why she wanted me to stay clear of your office. She was afraid Travis would hurt me before I could get to you. If I could get to you now, I would – because I want my pocket watch back.

He slipped the gold watch from his shirt pocket, opened the case and speculated on the name engraved above hers. Was this the man who had raised her? She must have loved him, she prized his watch so much. So it was Louis Markowitz who had been there for her when she needed help. It might have been himself, if only he had stayed in town that day. But Cass had known that he wouldn’t be back before dark – not in time to save her daughter.

A cascade of images overwhelmed him: the blood on the floor of Kathy’s bedroom, the small red handprints inside the closet, Cass’s flesh on the rocks in the yard. And now he saw Kathy as a badly frightened child, all alone on the road and grieving for her mother.

He walked around the house in the slow shuffle of a much older man, closing all the curtains. It wouldn’t do for any passerby to glance in a window and see the sheriff crying.