Stone Angel

CHAPTER 18

The air was foul, and the only light came from bright holes in the rotted fabric covering the windows. Mallory pulled aside the heavy velvet drapes and threw up the sash. A cold breeze gusted over the sill and whipped through the room to set a storm of dust motes spinning in the bright shaft of sunlight. Now she could clearly see the bat droppings on the floor and the insects crawling off to the more hospitable shadows in the corners of the room.

Mallory’s strong aversion to dirt and disorder had become numbed on the upper floors of Trebec House. She was also losing her fanatic compulsion about time. Force of habit no longer drove her to reach for the lost pocket watch ten times a day. She only knew that it was still morning, and only by the low-riding sun shining in the east window. As she laid a bundle of clothing down on a cedar chest, she caught a movement in sidelong vision and turned to face the intruder in a far dark corner of the room.

It was a woman standing barefoot in the shadowy glass of a full-length mirror. She wore an antique poet’s blouse and pale blue jeans. Time was slipping by Mallory, seconds melding into minutes as she drank in this soft, feminine image so like her mother. The face in the mirror was stained with glistening tears.

Footfalls in the hallway brought her back to the solid world. Mallory’s hand passed over her face to erase the evidence of crying.

But there was none – her face was dry.

She stood very still, staring down at her hand. There was no trace of -

The footsteps were coming closer.

Get a grip.

“The temperature is dropping like mad,” said the old woman, coming through the doorway, her arms filled with clothing.

Apparently, canny Augusta could ferret out the invisible tracks of phantom tears, for her voice was gentle now. “You’ll need a coat. I’ve got one here. I think it’s your size. Now those running shoes were just ruined. Couldn’t do a thing with them.” She held up a pair of riding boots for Mallory’s approval. “How do these suit you?” The fine leather was black, and the detailing was western.

“Perfect. And I already found a coat.”

Augusta cast a dubious eye on the garment draped over the cedar chest. This long black coat had been more fashionable in the days when overland travel was on horseback. It did fit well with the period blouse, but Augusta had hit on its more useful quality. “Yes, that would blend well with the dark, wouldn’t it? I can’t believe that old duster is still hanging together. It’s a lot older than I am. Well, it’s yours if you like it so much.”

The old woman opened an armoire and began to pull out boxes from the top shelf. “There’s a hat that goes with it, if I can only remember where it was stored. My grandmother wore it when she went riding.” A large round box came apart in her hands, and the black hat tumbled to the rug. Augusta picked it up and turned it over in her hands, smoothing out the low flat crown and the wide brim.

“It won’t cover up all that bright gold hair.” She reached back to the shelf. “But I guess we can do something with this.” Augusta held up a black bandanna.

Mallory pulled back a pair of red drapes from another window. Light washed through the room, killing every corner shadow. She turned to the mirror again and appraised the white linen blouse. The romantic flow of material was far from her own severely tailored tastes, but the billowy lines hid every trace of her bandages. She pulled on the harness for her shoulder holster and winced as the leather strap crossed her wound.

Augusta stood behind her and spoke to the reflection. “You’ll have to find some other way to wear that gun. That left shoulder is gonna be sore for a while. You won’t have full strength or mobility for another week or so. But I guess I pulled that yellow cat through worse wounds than you had.”

Continuing a conversation that had begun over breakfast, Mallory asked, “Why did Ira’s father commit suicide?”

“Suicide? Oh, now don’t go making more of that than it was. Ira’s daddy never was the best driver in town. That car had a lot of dents in it long before it ever hit that phone pole.” She pulled open a dresser drawer and rummaged through the musty clothing. “Maybe we can fix your holster to a regular belt.”

“The insurance company contested the settlement,” said Mallory. She had raided the local agent’s computer, but the investigator’s report had been sloppy and incomplete. It contained only bare bones of dates and physical evidence. It had been no more helpful than the data she had stolen from the sheriff’s computer.

“The company man did make a fuss at first. But he finally paid the claim in full.” Augusta held up a narrow strip of leather. She looked at Mallory’s large gun and discarded the flimsy belt with a shake of her head. “Darlene had to use all the policy money to buy her own house back from the New Church. Seems her husband had signed over the deed as a donation and a tax deduction.”

“I thought the New Church was all Laurie family.”

“Most but not all. I don’t know that Ira’s father was that religious. I think he was just looking for a way to avoid taxes. If you gave up your house, you got to live in it rent-free till you died.” She had found a broad belt with an ornate buckle and held it up to the light. “Now that’s promising.” She handed it off to Mallory. “That was how Malcolm wound up with all that prime property on the lower bayou. He convinced a lot of fools that the best way to hold on to something was to give it away, and the best way to save money was not to earn any.”

Mallory threaded the belt through her holster. “But why did the insurance company contest it? There must have been – ”

“It was just a formality is all. It’s a common thing when there’s an alteration in the paperwork a few days before a death. The original policy favored the New Church, and then he changed it to name Darlene as the sole beneficiary.”

So Ira’s father had a falling-out with the New Church before he drove his car into a telephone pole, head-on, according to Deputy Travis’s accident report. He had made no attempt to break his speed.

The air was colder this morning. Charles buttoned up his new denim jacket as he stood on Darlene Wooley’s porch and watched the town square coming to life, people walking by, cars slowly driving past the fountain, friends hailing friends, open and gregarious in asking after one another’s health.

Ira would never be part of that flow, not entirely. Autism was the cult of one, the self-involved, but Charles wondered which of these outward-looking folk would have noticed the loss of one of their stars, if not for Ira.

The door opened behind him. He turned to see the tired but smiling face of Darlene Wooley.

“Well, Charles Butler. I thought you’d left town.” She opened her door wide and stepped back to allow him to pass into the foyer. “I was just getting ready for work. Can I offer you a cup of coffee? It’s already made. Won’t take a minute to set out another cup.”

“Yes, thank you.” He followed her into a wide room of perfect symmetry. The couch and coffee table were placed dead center against one wall and flanked with a balance of identical armchairs. Matching incidental tables were centered on the side walls, and paintings were hung with an eye to pattern, large pieces accompanied by smaller works of equal size on each side. Mallory would have approved, for it was very neat, each thing in its place, though some pieces of furniture showed wear at the arms and the cushions.

“I’d like to see Ira, too, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind. He remembers you very well. He says ‘sandwich man’ over and over, every time we have lunch at Jane’s. Well, you have a seat, and I’ll get us some coffee.”

He settled into a large armchair with a prominent darn in the upholstery.

“This house hasn’t changed in twenty years.” Her voice was apologetic. “I never redo the furniture or move anything around. It makes extra work for Ira. If you were to move something just a hair out of place, he would notice that, and then he’d have to memorize the room all over again. When he’s not at school, he spends most of his time in the house.”

“I’ve seen him in the cemetery.”

“That used to be his favorite place. Until recently, the stones never moved.”

“He’s seen the statue?”

“No. I told him to stay away for a while, till the sheriff can figure out what’s going on out there. So you came to see Ira. Well, isn’t that nice. I don’t think he’s had a visitor since he was six. Back in a minute.” Her voice trailed off into the kitchen. As she had promised, a minute later she was back and handing him a cup of coffee. “Black, with three sugars, right?”

“Yes, thank you. Actually, I have a professional interest in Ira. I’ve been on the phone with the director of the Dallheim Project in New Orleans. They explore the gifts of the savant with a view toward learning more about the brain itself. They have a young adult program for autism. It would take years of work, but he might have an independent life.”

“I know all about the Dallheim people.” She sank down on the couch and stared at her coffee cup. “That was my big dream, Ira with a life of his own. The way he is now – ” She looked up at him, her face sad, casting around for words. “If anything should happen to me, he’d wind up in an institution. I begged those people to take him. They told me not to come back until Ira could hold simple conversations.”

“The director told me Ira never sang for them.”

“No, he only does that when he wants to. It’s easy to get him to play the piano. He did that real nice. He played Chopin for them.”

“I told them about his singing. Multiple talents made Ira more interesting. There’s still a long waiting list. It may be months or even a year before they take him, but I have to get his paperwork in before his twenty-fifth birthday. That’s the cutoff age for the program.”

“There’s no point in taking him back if he can’t talk to them.”

“You don’t have to take him anywhere. I have the credentials and their permission to do another screening test – right here.”

“He won’t talk. He might talk at you, but it’s nonsense.”

“Not entirely. Sometimes the echolalia is an effort at direct response. When he echoes what you say, don’t you feel he’s communicating?”

“Well, yes, and I did tell them that, but they said it didn’t count.”

“I faxed them pages from Cass Shelley’s journals on Ira’s therapy. He was remarkably articulate for a small child. No difficulty with personal pronouns – that’s atypical. He showed a normal grasp of grammar and syntax. She rated his intelligence in the upper ten percentile. The Dallheim people didn’t know about that, either.”

“But the screening test – ”

“One simple conversation. There’s a way to get a quick result. It’s a method Cass Shelley used when Ira had his setback. She forced him to talk. It may be very rough on him. I have to get him to focus for a while, but I won’t do anything Cass wouldn’t have done. The director suggested I go for a traumatic event, like the violent death of his doctor. He’ll talk to me just to make it end, to get rid of me, but he will talk. I only need a few direct responses to questions and the screening requirement is satisfied.”

Anyone would talk under torture. Given Ira’s fear and revulsion of the human touch, what he planned to do to the boy was very cruel.

She nodded, looking more hopeful now. “But he stopped talking before that happened. It was the faith healing that did the damage. Cass was real upset with his father for taking him to that freak show.”

He had agreed with the sheriff that it would be a bad idea to mention the certainty that Ira had witnessed the murder. But this should have come out long ago. Ira could not wait forever.

“The death of a mentor is a major trauma, but I could try another approach. I understand Ira lost his father within a year of Cass Shelley’s death. That would have been a devastating event.”

“No, not really. That last year, his father didn’t spend much time with him. He tried taking Ira to a doctor in New Orleans for vitamin therapy. When that didn’t work, I guess he just gave up on the boy. He gave up on everything.”

“And you? Have you given up?”

“No. I guess I – ” She looked down at the tight fists in her lap. “You have to put your hands on him, don’t you? Cass did that. You know that’s like real pain to him? He can’t stand it – it terrifies him.”

“I know that. It’s your decision.”

Darlene shook her head, more in indecision than a negative response. “He’s happy in his own world. I don’t think he’d like this one much, do you?”

“He might never fully appreciate being – ”

“Human?” She seemed tensed for a fight, or at least a reproach.

“He’s always been that. I think Ira’s only more intense about day-to-day life than we are. It’s not that he’s unaware of the world around him. Ira is frighteningly aware of every detail of the universe. It’s threatening to overload his consciousness. He must pull the plug, shut the world down now and then, or he could not survive. And he knows this. Ira is a very sophisticated human being.”

And because of Ira’s gifts and his strange vision, Charles found him to be exquisitely beautiful.

“The program you have him in now is tailored for the mentally retarded. I’m sure he’s making progress, but that type of school has severe limitations.” He produced the faxed forms with the Dallheim letterhead. “Perhaps you could fill in the medical history while I talk to Ira. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”

Before they reached the door to Ira’s room, the boy had begun to sing. Charles recognized the aria from the cemetery concert. Darlene put her hand on the door and hesitated. She smiled as she hovered on this periphery, basking in the music of her mysterious child. Then the door opened, and Ira, suddenly alarmed, stopped singing.

The door closed, and Ira was left alone with the sandwich man. His large visitor sat down on the bed and talked softly for a while, as Ira rocked back and forth on his heels, not listening, blocking it out and searching for a safe place inside his head.

The man stood up and came toward him.

No! Don’t!

Ira backed up to the wall. The sandwich man grabbed him by the shoulders and repeated the words until they became real, intruding on his mind with sense and weight. He was using Dr. Cass’s words.

He remembered Cass’s face before him, forcing the jarring contact of the eyes, holding him by the shoulders, insisting. “Say one thing that is real, that is you, just one thing, just for me.”

Now he said to the sandwich man, “I am afraid.”

The man dropped his hands away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a photograph of Dr. Cass. “Look at this, Ira. Tell me about the day she died. I know you were there. What did you see?”

Ira said nothing. The sandwich man grabbed his shoulders again. His face was coming closer. His eyes -

“Rocks!” Ira screamed. And then he went rigid, waiting for the man to keep the old rules of the game.

The sandwich man released him. An hour passed in this way. The big man would come toward him, and Ira would concentrate on the words. If he spoke, the sandwich man would back away.

“Who threw the rocks? Do you remember the deputy being there? Deputy Travis?”

Ira started to flap his hands. The man advanced on him. Ira covered his ears and began to rock frantically. The sandwich man pulled Ira’s hands away from his head. The man’s voice was louder now. “Was the deputy there? A man in a uniform?”

Ira nodded, but the sandwich man still held on to his hands, for nodding was not good enough. There were rules.

“Did he throw rocks at Cass?”

“He threw rocks at the dog.”

The man let go of Ira’s hands and lowered his voice. “Did you see people throwing rocks at Cass Shelley?”

“They listened to the blue letter. Cass never said a word. And then she was red. The dog lay down in the dirt. He cried. The deputy hit him with another rock. He didn’t move again. Cass was all red. They left. All quiet.”

He had run from the house, from the bleeding bodies, dog and mistress. He had departed from the road and waded into the thickness of the water, slapping himself, testing the parameters, finding out where his body ended and the bayou began. He kept falling, water filling his mouth and choking him. Then as the muddy liquid was coughed back to the bayou, he knew the edges of self and the beginning of water, even before his father screamed in anguish and rushed into Finger Bayou to drag him back to the solid ground, and finally to home and bed, saying all the while, “Ira, what were you doing there?” But Ira couldn’t answer his father. He was still seeing images of Cass mingling her blood with the dog’s.

The sandwich man came toward him again. “I need a direct answer to a direct question, Ira. Do you know who threw rocks at Cass? Did you see -

“Daddy.” He began to rock, harder and harder, consoling himself as only he could do. He had never looked outside himself for comfort. Outside was only pain.

“What?”

“Daddy threw the first rock at Dr. Cass.” Ira beat his head against the wall.

The sandwich man restrained him. “Your father was part of the mob?”

“Yes!” he screamed, his back sliding along the wall. He sank down to the floor. “Daddy! Daddy threw rocks at Cass!”

“That’s enoughl” His mother stood by the open door, hands covering her face, and she was shaking.

“Mommy, make him go!”

And his tiny mother did make the large man go. She pushed the sandwich man out of the room and slammed the door after him.

Now she came at Ira, falling to her knees in front of him, as he drew in his legs and made himself into a ball. Her hands danced all about his face and body, never touching him, wild to get at him, but fluttering only, like terrified birds that could never light on any branch of arm or leg for fear of causing him fresh pain.