Stone Angel

CHAPTER 5

Charles Butler stared at the drugstore window display. Stacks of multicolored T-shirts were emblazoned with the name and likeness of the murdered evangelist. One bit of T-shirt art depicted the Virgin Mary holding an infant with Babe Laurie’s adult face. Beyond this novel heresy was a rack of paperback books and shelves crowded with sunglasses and dental floss. Toothbrushes kept company with cellophane-packaged voodoo dolls and all the other little things that tourists might have forgotten to bring with them.

Charles turned back to the alley between the sheriff’s office and the fire department. The mute sculptor had located Mallory’s cell. Henry Roth was staring up at the second-floor window and making conversation with his hands. Charles walked across the square to listen in with his eyes.

As he neared the municipal building, his gaze was pulled toward another man seated on a wooden bench in front of the sheriff’s office. Charles noted the resemblance to the face on the T-shirts. The general features were the same, but not so dramatic. And unlike the wild-eyed Babe Laurie, intelligence was more in evidence here. He was perhaps thirty-five years old. His long hair was the color of sand, and it brushed the collar of his denim shirt. His eyes were blue and serene as he nodded a greeting in the familiar way of an old friend.

Charles found himself drifting toward this man, for the invitation was clear and compelling. Come to me, said the tranquil expression. Sit and talk awhile, said his glance to the empty side of the bench.

Then Charles remembered that he had business elsewhere, very pressing business, and he turned away with the slightly disoriented feeling of awakening. In the next moment, the man on the bench was forgotten as he moved closer to the mouth of the alley and concentrated on reading the silent language of Henry Roth.

The sculptor’s eyes were fixed on the second-floor window. A pair of white hands appeared at the bars, signaling back to him. Charles read the words off her fingers. “Tell him to go away.”

Henry Roth glanced at him and shrugged, then turned his face up to her window, hands flying in conversation.

Charles was staring at his shoes. Go away? He had traveled more than a thousand miles for that?

He turned his back on them and walked off to the fountain at the center of the square. Water flowed from ornate spigots and splashed into a large basin. Atop the fountain pranced a saddled but riderless bronze stallion. Charles was facing the horse’s rear end.

How fitting.

He paced one turn around the wide pool of water, ruminating over all the sleep he had lost on her account, all the anxiety she had caused. Done with feeling sorry for himself, anger won out over deeply ingrained good manners. He decided to disregard her wishes, and he fairly flew up the stairs to the sheriff’s office and pushed through the front door.

When he entered the reception area, the first person he saw was Augusta’s young cousin. Her short-sleeved tan uniform was so crisply starched, he knew the fabric would crack before it wrinkled. Lilith Beaudare was wiping the screen of her desktop computer. The dust cloth moved in listless circles, for her attention was focussed on the scene in the private office at the far side of the room. And now Charles also looked through this open doorway.

A woman in a gray suit was standing before a man in rolled-up shirtsleeves and jeans. A six-pointed golden star was pinned to the lapel of a wrinkled linen blazer which lay carelessly draped on a chair back. Though he was more casually dressed than the woman, he exuded authority. His arms folded across his chest to tell her that whatever she wanted, she wasn’t getting it. The woman’s hands were placed on her hips to say she would not be moved until she had satisfaction from this man.

Standing near this couple was a young man with vacuous eyes and no apparent relationship to either of them. He was slender with an innocent, unlined face and bandages on both his hands.

As Charles drew nearer to the office door, Deputy Lilith Beaudare glanced up at him, but she said nothing. They eavesdropped in easy companionship.

“I have a statement from Malcolm,” said the sheriff, addressing the woman with the light brown hair. “Malcolm says Babe asked your boy, real polite, if he would please stop playing the same damn five notes over and over again. The boy went wild and attacked Babe. Malcolm says his brother just defended himself.”

The woman stared at the sheriff as if he had just flown down from the moon, an alien land of strange custom and law. “Babe defended himself? By breaking Ira’s fingers with a piano lid?”

Exasperated, she threw up her hands, perhaps wondering if these words had the same meaning in Lunarspeak. “When did you ever know my boy to do any violence? Ira hates any kind of physical contact, and you damn well know it! That should have been your first clue that Malcolm Laurie was lying.”

The young man with the bandaged hands stood just outside the fray in body and mind, utterly captivated by the slow-moving blades of the ceiling fan directly above him. Head tilted back, eyes trancegazing, his body moved in a circular sway. He seemed unconcerned with his mother’s complaint, or even aware that she was in the room.

“Well, seeing that Babe is dead,” the sheriff countered, “it doesn’t make much sense to file charges against him, now does it, Darlene?”

“That’s not what I come about.” Darlene was rummaging in a black purse hanging off her shoulder by a thin strap. “That young girl you arrested? I want to pay her bail. If she did kill that little bastard, it’s the least I can do to thank her.” Darlene produced a checkbook and a pen.

The sheriff waved her off. “There’s no bail for the prisoner.”

“Tom Jessop, you have no right to keep that child in jail. You don’t know she did it. For all you know, I could have killed him. You never thought of that, did you?”

Sheriff Jessop smiled. “Well now, Darlene, that just isn’t true. I thought so much of your prospects, I had you at the top of my suspect list – right in front of Babe Laurie’s widow and that youngster in the cell.

Hell, I ain’t got around to suspecting a single man yet. That’s how highly I prize a woman as killer material. The Dayborn Women’s Club is gonna make me damn Feminist of the Year.“

The sheriff sat down in the green leather armchair behind what was possibly the messiest desk Charles had ever seen. The man swiveled his chair to face the window, saying goodbye to Darlene with his back.

But she would not be dismissed. She walked around the desk to stand by the window and call his attention back to her. “Nobody asked where I was when Babe Laurie was murdered.”

“Didn’t need to.” His words were distracted, but now he smiled again and seemed to be gathering the energy he needed for one more round with her. “I know your car took off in the same direction as Malcolm and Babe. But they stopped at the gas station – you went flying toward the hospital. And I do mean flying.”

He swiveled around to face his desk and the sprawling loose piles of papers and folders. He reached into the mess, plucked out a sheet of handwritten text and held it up to her, waving it like a flag. “Manny, the gas jockey? This is his statement. He was just real impressed with your driving.”

The sheriff reached into the middle of another loose arrangement of paper and pulled out a second sheet. Charles wondered how he had managed that, for there was no discernible order to this paper storm which resembled the aftermath of vandalism.

“Now this is the doctor’s statement. He said you left the hospital sometime after dark.” The sheriff let this sheet waft back to the desk. Then he sat back and splayed his hands in the air, perhaps to show her that he had nothing up his sleeves – though Charles was convinced that the desktop filing system was a magic act.

“I am sorry, Darlene. Your alibi is solid. However, I do admire your competitive spirit.”

Though she did not stamp her foot, anyone could see that she wanted to. “Tom, you got to allow bail – that’s the law!”

“Not in a murder case I don’t. She was carrying a concealed weapon, a damn cannon of a gun.”

Darlene leaned down until her face was within a few inches of the sheriff’s, and now it was her turn to smile. “Exactly how many times was the victim shot with the rock?”

“Shit.” And the sheriff did look as though he had just stepped on a dog turd. “Is there anybody in town that doesn’t know about that damn rock?”

Tom Jessop stood up now, the better to look down at Darlene. From this high ground, he said, “Rock or gun, it doesn’t matter – it was a very thorough job with clear intent to kill. I have to figure she had some purpose for that gun, whether she used it on him or not.”

Darlene folded her arms. “It’s all supposition. You don’t even have a motive. You can’t hold her.”

The sheriff countered, “Clerking for a lawyer don’t make you one, Darlene. It so happens I can hold her as a material witness. She’s already demonstrated willingness of flight.”

“If that is Kathy in there, then you know damn well she was a month shy of seven years old when she made that flight.”

“It still fits the criteria. But don’t you worry – I’m keeping an open mind. Haven’t charged anybody yet. So I’ll give some more thought to your alibi, if you like. Hell, I’d be happy to put you in a cell just to pacify you, but who’d look after Ira?”

Darlene smashed her checkbook back into her purse, and turned to her son. “Ira, we’re leaving!”

The young man continued to stare at the ceiling. Darlene moved one hand across Ira’s line of vision, dislodging his gaze from the blades of the fan. She was not touching him, but gesturing with both hands to herd him across the room.

Suddenly, she was caught up short by the sight of Charles filling out the doorway – all six feet, four inches of him. No one could help but notice him. It was like trying to avoid a Kodiak bear in the shower stall.

“Good afternoon. My name is Charles Butler.” He felt almost apologetic for looming over these people of normal size. “I’m here to see a woman called Mallory.”

“I would never have guessed that.”

But, by the sheriff’s tone, Charles gathered the man had grown weary of Mallory’s visitors.

“Now don’t tell me,” said the sheriff, closing the door behind the retreating Darlene and her son. “You’re from New York City, right?”

“Yes,” said Charles, standing before him in a Savile Row suit, handmade Italian shoes, an oxford shirt, and a silk tie from Galeries Lafayette in Paris. “How did you know?”

“Saw the license plate on your car outside of Betty’s. Had to be your car – it goes with that three-piece suit.” Sheriff Jessop sat down and motioned Charles to take a seat in the chair by his desk.

The sheriff picked up a stack of papers to expose an aged manila envelope with writing in faded blue ink. He opened it and pulled out a sheet of yellowed paper. Attached was a photograph which Charles easily recognized as Mallory the child. Her foster father, Louis Markowitz, had carried a similar portrait in his wallet until the day he died.

“When she was a little kid, her name was Kathy Shelley.” The sheriff dipped one hand into his shirt pocket and grasped a gold chain. “The only name we got for her now is Mallory. That’s the name engraved inside this watch, following a slew of Markowitzes.”

He was holding up Louis’s pocket watch – Mallory’s inheritance. It twirled on the chain, precious metal softly gleaming in the morning light. Charles would have known it from a thousand other timepieces. On the cover of its case was the familiar figure of a solitary wanderer crossing open country. Clouds had been wrought on the golden sky; a master engraver had given them motion and direction, and it was possible to see that the wanderer was walking against the wind.

“So, Mr. Butler,” said the sheriff, calling him out of his fugue. “Is she using Mallory for her first name or her last?”

Oh, I’m sorry. You misunderstand. I’m not here at the request of the prisoner.“ That was true enough – too true. ”I represent Augusta Trebec, the executrix of the Shelley estate.“

The sheriff sat well back in his chair, more wary now. “So what are you then – a lawyer or a private investigator?” It was more an accusation than a question.

“Neither one. I’m only doing a favor for Miss Trebec.” Knowing that Mallory, the consummate liar, would have cautioned him to mix in more than equal parts of truth with every lie, he said, “Generally, I work with government agencies and universities. I evaluate people with odd talents, and then I find applications for their gifts.”

“Odd talents? Well, you come to the right place.” The sheriff pointed to the window beside his desk. Charles could see the woman and her son crossing the square and heading for the cafe.

“That boy, Ira Wooley? He’s an idiot savant and a world-class piano player. He can rip off any tune he hears but once. Oh, but you should hear him sing. He has perfect pitch and a voice like a damn angel. Now what do you make of that, Mr. Butler?”

“Well, his mother mentioned a revulsion for physical contact. And then there was his preoccupation with the ceiling fan.” Charles leaned closer to the window to watch the boy’s progress across the square. “Judging by his rather good coordination, and without any evidence of retardation – I would have guessed he was autistic. So the correct term is ‘autistic savant.’”

And now Charles realized he had been telling the sheriff what he already knew. He had also passed a test of sorts and allayed this man’s suspicions.

The sheriff seemed less interested in his visitor as he turned back to the window. Ira and his mother were passing through a doorway under the sign for Jane’s Cafe. “Years ago, a damn schoolteacher pronounced Ira an idiot savant, and the words stuck to him. Most people shortened it to ‘the idiot,’ like they forgot Ira ever had a name. Bastards.”

He turned back to Charles, his mood more affable now. “We did have one other odd talent you might’ve liked even better. The late Babe Laurie was a born orator. He was preaching the gospel at the age of five. I’ll bet you’ve never come across a gift like that.”

Oh, but he had. In the prairie states, it was a talent as common as cornstalks. The rarer, more impressive gift was Ira’s. Charles had always been fascinated with savants. But he was even more intrigued with Ira’s connection to Mallory, his part in the chain of odd events occurring within the hour of Mallory’s homecoming.

Lilith Beaudare entered the room with a handful of faxes. She did not even glance at Charles to let on that they had met before. Now that was another odd thing, and he filed it away in his growing collection.

“The extradition on Mrs. Laurie has gone through,” said Lilith, setting the faxes on the sheriff’s desk. “She caved in and waived rights. The Georgia State Police say we can pick her up at the airport day after tomorrow. If you plan to hold her overnight, I have to call social services to take her son.”

“No need. I don’t plan to spend more than five minutes with Sally Laurie. I just hauled her back because she pissed me off leaving town that way.” The sheriff rustled the faxes and handed them back to her. “File these or burn ‘em.”

She hesitated, looking for something to say, but finding no way to prolong her presence here, she turned and left the room.

“And close that door!” the sheriff hollered after her. He smiled at Charles. “Babe’s widow left town with her kid the day of the murder. I tracked her down inside of a morning. Not bad for a hick sheriff, is it?”

Charles ignored this opportunity to flatter the sheriff with a predictable denial of the man’s hickdom. Mallory would not have approved of that tactic. ‘Never suck up’ was a Mallory constant. “So the dead man had a wife and child.”

“Well, the dead man’s widow has a son – that part’s a fact.”

“Not Babe Laurie’s son?”

“That’s the rumor. Babe and his wife have big blue eyes, and the boy’s got little slitty brown ones. Just by coincidence, Babe’s brother Fred has those same slitty brown eyes.”

“Well, you know, genetically it’s possible if there’s a factor of – ”

“No, it isn’t possible, Mr. Butler. This is too small a town to make room for hard science. The sign at the highway says population eleven hundred, but that’s pure bragging – more like nine hundred.”

And the stranger in a small town was always first to be suspected of a crime. Charles refrained from jumping to Mallory’s defense, though he did long to point out that, for many reasons, she was the least likely suspect.

“You must be under a lot of pressure, Sheriff.”

“Pressure?”

“The news media?”

The sheriff seemed to find that funny. “A man’s head connected with a rock. You can’t make the evening news with a murder like that. Those reporters are looking for inspired killing, real talent.”

“But he was a religious leader.”

“He was the freak headliner in a road show called the New Church. Babe’s only publicity is a mention in Betty Hale’s tour ramble for the guests at the bed and breakfast. Now that does sell a few souvenirs at the drugstore, and I’m sure Betty gets her cut.”

How embarrassing for Mallory to be embroiled in a mediocre murder. “I’d like to see this woman now, if you don’t mind.”

The sheriff accompanied him out to the reception room and handed him into Lilith’s care. Charles followed her up the stairs and broke the uncomfortable silence as she opened the door for him. “Aren’t you going to check me for dangerous weapons?”

Her expression was insulting, only because it obviously never occurred to her that he would know the barrel of a gun from its butt end. The deputy hung back by the door at the end of the cell block as he walked down the narrow corridor.

He had been prepared to see Mallory languishing in a cold impersonal cell; he had never imagined anything like this. On one wall was the print of a quaint landscape in a gilded frame, and a braided rug sat at the foot of a stuffed armchair. Her bed was decked with a colorful patchwork quilt, and fresh violets sat in a mason jar on a small chest of drawers. But for the iron bars of door and window, it was all rather charming.

How she must hate this.

Her own tastes ran to stark simplicity in her surroundings and superb tailoring in the blazers she wore with her blue jeans. That gingham dress must be humiliating. But when she looked up at him, she was only angry.

He stood with his back to Lilith Beaudare, his body blocking her sight of Mallory. “Augusta Trebec has asked me to ascertain whether or not you’re the legal heir of Cass Shelley.” His hands said, “I only want to help. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“Go away,” Mallory said. And then her hands said, “Go away.”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d at least hear me out.” He restricted his sign language to finger spelling to conceal the movements from the deputy at his back. “Let me call Riker or Jack Coffey. They can do something.”

“No,” she said, and “No way,” said her hands and her angry face. “Are you nuts? They’re both cops.”

“But, you’re a cop.” Or was she? Though she had neglected to do the proper paperwork for separating from the police department, she had left her badge behind in New York City, along with the police-issue.38 revolver. She had always preferred to carry her own personal weapon, the cannon of a gun that so intrigued the sheriff. If she was not a cop anymore, then what was she?

The term “rogue” came to mind. The word suited her on so many levels.

“Just go away and leave me alone,” she said.

“No, I won’t leave you sitting in a jail cell.”

“I won’t be here for long. Go away.”

Aloud, he said, “I could hire an attorney for you.”

“I don’t need one. Get out,” she said, rising, walking to the bars. “They can’t prove motive. But I think the sheriff might be working on that. He’s smart. Don’t underestimate him. I don’t.”

“Well, that’s high praise, coming from you.” He handed her the garage bill for an oil change and the warranty on his car’s new transmission. “This is the paperwork on your estate. It’s an affidavit of inheritance. Will you please read through it and sign it?”

She put the papers down the front of her dress to free her hands for speech. “You have to go now. You can’t help me. Everything will go sour if you stay in Dayborn.”

He knew what she meant. Mallory was predicting that he would botch every attempt at deception with the inexperience of an honest man. So she didn’t trust him to do anything base or even remotely shady, but he was not offended by her confidence in his good character.

“I just put a lie past the sheriff,” he signed hopefully, offering this act of gross wrongdoing as a sign of improvement.

Mallory winced, going beyond mere skepticism to near pain. She was probably wondering how much damage he had already done.

She handed the papers back to him. “I’ve read it, okay? Now get out!” She brought her face closer to the bars, her hands extending through them to touch his own hand, and then she signed, “You haven’t asked me if I killed that man.”

In her expression, there was the slight suggestion that she might have done it. Perhaps it was that unwholesome smile of hers. And now there was a question in her eyes.

One would not say of Mallory, she couldn’t possibly do murder. However, because he took his friendships so seriously, if she had set fire to a school bus full of nuns and orphans and pushed it off a cliff, he would have assumed that she was merely having a bad day.

Charles was leaving the municipal building when he saw the woman emerge from the alley and stop a few feet from the stone steps. Her hair was what he noticed first. It was a black dye job gone awry and turned to purple in the highlights. The thin middle-aged woman revolved slowly, eyes wide with confusion, looking now to heaven for some sign to point her in the right direction. There was time to note that her slip hung below the hem of a dress that needed washing; that her face was wet with tears and deep etched with agony lines. Her mouth hung open in an eerie prelude to a scream as she bolted to the far side of the square.

A tall stocky woman, wearing an apron and carrying a covered tray, appeared on the steps of the municipal building beside Charles.

“Alma!” she called out to the running woman, but the purple-haired Alma never looked back. The stocky woman shrugged and carried her tray across the square to Jane’s Cafe, where Darlene had gone with Ira.

Charles turned back to the alley in time to see Henry Roth emerge. The mute was smiling at the running woman’s back, as though pleased with some handiwork of his own. Charles had the feeling of something gone terribly wrong with the universe today. In the face of that woman’s extreme distress, Henry Roth’s smile was unnerving. This was simply not in the artist’s character, or what Charles had surmised of it.

Henry discreetly signed his farewell to Charles and walked off in the direction of his truck. And now it was the sculptor’s back that was marked. His departure was followed by the eyes of the man on the bench, the one who so resembled the late Babe Laurie. This man now turned his gaze back to Charles, and with only a nod, he renewed his invitation to sit down and pass the time.

But something was different. The man’s aspect had altered. Now the eyes were far from serene; they were alive with light. He wore the winning smile of a wild and handsome child. A lock of hair strayed over one eye, and he grinned to say he had a card trick Charles might like to see, or a secret he might want to know. Come to me, said the disarming face of a charming, barefoot boy of ten. We’ve got games to play, places to go.

So compelling was this silent call, Charles was made young again, and he was moving slowly toward the bench.

Then he stopped, as though he had met with a wall.

This was no shoeless, artless boy, but a grown man with heavy boots and an agenda involving subterfuge. Here was a polished actor with at least two personas.

Charles thought he had done well against the sheriff, but elected not to press his luck with a man who made an art form out of guile. So he nodded an acknowledgment, shrugged his apology, and turned toward Jane’s Cafe.