The Cat, The Devil, The Last Escape

24

BECKY WOKE TO rain pounding at the windows, and to a residue of fear. In the night she had experienced again Falon’s car careening at hers, had fought the wheel again to avoid going off the bridge. Now, waking fully, she lay listening to the comforting clatter from the kitchen, smelling the aromas of baking bread and pies and, this morning, the scent of bacon as Caroline made their breakfast. Rising, she showered and dressed quickly, then woke Sammie, watched as Sammie sleepily pulled her on clothes and ran a brush through her hair.

In the big kitchen Caroline and her assistant, redheaded Nettie Parks, were lifting pecan pies and fresh bread from the two big ovens. Nettie was a neighbor, a widow whose five children had left the nest. She liked getting up early, she liked the extra money, and most of all, she and Caroline enjoyed working together. Nettie was among the few who had stood by them during the trial. Nettie set their breakfast on a corner of the long, crowded table and hugged Becky. “I hope Brad Falon burns in hell.”

That made Becky smile. Sitting down, she cupped her hands around the warm coffee cup while listening to the rain, watched her mother turn out muffins from their tins and ease them into the familiar bakery boxes stamped CAROLINE’S. They ate quickly this morning and didn’t linger; it would take a while at the police station to file the complaints and go over the details of Falon’s attacks. Their overnight stay with Caroline was too short, but they’d had a cozy visit after Sergeant Trevis left.

She had called Quaker Lowe last night, too, on the after-hours number he’d given her. He said, “I tried to call you, at your aunt’s, Becky. Good news! There’s a warrant out for Falon, he’s wanted in California.”

She laughed. “I know. I’m in Rome, Sergeant Trevis told me.” She told Lowe about Falon’s attack on the bridge, and that she was on her way to the station.

“But you’re both all right?”

“We’re fine. Sammie’s a soldier.”

“I’m glad you changed your mind about naming Falon, glad the police have a record of his attacks. This will be a big help if . . . if there are complaints on file against Falon,” Lowe said quietly. His unspoken words If we lose the appeal resonated in silence between them. If we lose the appeal and have to start over . . .

Now, rising from the table, promising Caroline she’d call when they were safely home, she hugged her mother, hugged Nettie, and went to get her car from the garage—leaving Caroline to deal with her own poor, damaged vehicle.

Getting Sammie settled in the front seat with her books, they headed along the rain-sloughed streets for the station. Becky missed Caroline already. Sometimes she felt as needful of mothering as was Sammie. That amused and annoyed her.

At the station she filed a complaint for each offense: the highway assault, the break-in at Anne’s, Falon’s attack on her behind the drugstore, and the break-in at her house in Rome when Sergeant Leonard had refused to make a written report.

Detective Palmer, a thin, dark-haired officer of Cherokee background, asked that Caroline bring in her car. “Will you call her? I want to take paint samples. With luck, I can lift chips from it, left by Falon’s car. And if we pick up his car, we should find scrapes there from Caroline’s vehicle. One more piece of evidence,” Palmer said. “Every small thing counts.”

He stood looking down at her. “The FBI will want to talk with you, as part of the federal investigation on Falon’s land scam. The Atlanta bureau will call you at your aunt’s if you’ll give me the number.”

Becky wrote down both numbers, Anne’s and her private one. She saw no animosity in Palmer, she didn’t think he’d been among the many officers who’d turned against Morgan. She found it comforting that the FBI wanted to question her about Falon; that made her feel more in control. As she and Sammie headed for Atlanta she drove the narrow, rainy highway filled only with positive thoughts, with new hope. She wasn’t in the habit of saying prayers to ask for special favors; such begging was, in her mind, self-serving. Her prayers were more often of thanks, for the many blessings they did have. But last night and now, this morning, she prayed hard that Falon would be found and sent to L.A., that a California judge or jury would convict him for the land scam, that he would be locked up for the maximum time. And that maybe, in prison, someone would kill him. If her prayers were a sin, so be it, that was what he deserved.

It rained all the way to Atlanta, harsh rain slanting across the road in gusts so sharp they rocked the car. They were home at Anne’s just before noon. Mariol had made hot vegetable soup and a plate of cornbread.

“I’m just going to grab a bite,” Becky said, “and go on to work, it’s payroll time.”

Mariol nodded. “Go in the dining room first, take a look at what was in the attic.”

Becky found Anne at the dining table leafing carefully through the pages of a black leather album, a thin folder so ancient and ragged that the disintegrating covers had shed bits of rotting leather onto the white runner.

“Mariol found it,” Anne said. “I’d forgotten about those few boxes we’d stored away. We cleaned out most of the relics a couple of years ago, left a few family papers, this album, and a small trunk of antique clothes. I forgot, but Mariol remembered.”

The faded pictures were all in sepia tones, some of men in coveralls standing by their teams of horses, or women in long dresses over laced-up boots, women with serious, unsmiling faces beneath hand-tucked sunbonnets. Becky touched the old pictures gently, thinking how it would be to live in that time when life was so hard. Raising and canning or curing all your food or going without, doing the laundry over a corrugated washboard, traveling on foot or in a horse-dawn wagon or by horseback, maybe sometimes by train. No telephone to call for the sheriff, if there even was one, only your own firearms and your courage to protect your children.

When Sammie came to stand beside them, Anne said, “This is our family, your family.”

Sammie stood looking as Anne turned the pages, then excitedly she pointed. “Wait. That’s the cowboy. That’s Lee.”

The boy was maybe fourteen. He did look like Lee, the same long bony face, same challenging look in his eyes, even at that young age. Sammie looked up at Becky, her dark eyes deep with pleasure. “I dream of him, Mama, we’re family. Lee’s part of our family.”

Gently Becky touched the picture. All along, was this what Sammie’s dreams had been about?

“Here’s another of the boy,” Anne said, turning the page. “And that’s your great-aunt Mae.”

The woman in the picture was maybe thirty, but Becky could see the resemblance to Sammie. “Mae . . . Mae was Lee’s sister,” she said.

Anne turned back several pages. “Here . . . here’s Mae as a child.” She looked from the picture to Sammie, looked at Becky, but said nothing more. The child was about ten. Becky studied her for a long while, as did Sammie. They were looking at Sammie’s twin, except for Mae’s long, old-fashioned skirt and laced boots. Sammie reached out a hesitant hand, gently touching the faded likeness just as Becky had touched the picture of Lee. Mae’s mirror image of Sammie made Becky shiver. How could any child be so like her own little girl?

She left Anne and Sammie at last, numb with putting the pieces together, with accepting the reality of a family she had never known. Sammie was doing a better job of it, seemed to have accepted it all: her great-uncle Lee, stepping out of a formless past; her great-aunt Mae, who had dreamed just as Sammie dreamed.

Returning to the kitchen, Becky ate her lunch quickly, then hurried downstairs to call Caroline, to tell her they’d arrived home safely, that they had seen no more of Falon. Upstairs again she pulled on her coat and was out the door into the rain ducking into her car. But, heading for work, she felt tired and worn out. She told herself she’d be better once she got into the books, began writing checks and adding up bills and charges. The neatness and logic of bookkeeping always eased her. She wished life could be as ordered, its problems as readily untangled and made right.

By five that afternoon she’d finished the payroll and billing for the five stores. Only in the car heading home did the tiredness hit her again, leave her longing for sleep. She found Sammie and Mariol in the kitchen, Mariol ironing, Sammie standing at the table folding and stacking towels. Mariol took one look at Becky and set down her iron. “Go take a nap. Take a couple of aspirin and cover up, you’re white as these sheets. You don’t want to be sick.”

“I can’t afford to be sick.” She did as Mariol told her, headed obediently downstairs, took the aspirins, and collapsed on the bed, pulling the heavy quilt over her.

She didn’t mean to sleep long. She was deep under when the ringing phone woke her, cutting harshly through the pounding of the rain. Reaching for the phone, she hesitated, frightened suddenly. This was a private line, no one had this number but Caroline and Quaker Lowe. And the prison.

The bedside clock said six-thirty. She could smell supper cooking, the aroma of frying onions and browned beef. She picked up the phone. Lowe’s voice brought her wide awake. “What’s wrong?” she said, sitting up, her heart pounding.

“Nothing’s wrong. I—”

“The appeal . . .” Becky said. She didn’t want to hear this, she didn’t want to hear what was coming.

There was a long pause. Lowe said, “I have never found it so hard to give anyone bad news, as I find it now.”

“Denied,” she said woodenly. “It was denied.”

“Insufficient new evidence. Of course I’ll keep trying. Now, with the federal warrant, and the complaints you filed, we’ll have a better chance. Neither is direct evidence of the robbery and murder, but they are evidence of Falon’s destructive intent toward your family. I’m going up to Rome in the morning to dig some more, do some more interviewing.”

“You’ve talked to everyone. What good—”

“It’s possible, now that Falon is wanted by the feds, that Natalie Hooper will be less inclined to lie for him.”

Becky didn’t think Natalie would ever testify against Falon. The appeal had been denied, they were beaten, everything was over.

“We’re not giving up,” Lowe said.

Mutely she shook her head. Quaker was grasping at straws, they would never get an appeal, his continued effort would only lead Morgan on uselessly. And the added cost would be more than she could ever pay.

“I mean to charge only half the hourly rates,” Lowe said, “for whatever time it takes to file again. Now, if Falon is picked up, I think Natalie will talk rather than getting crosswise with the bureau. I wish we could find the money or the gun,” he said dryly. “I’ll pick up copies of the complaints when I get to Rome. I don’t mean to quit on this, Becky.”

Becky ended up crying into the phone. The disappointment of the denial and then Lowe’s kindness undid her. She wept so hard she couldn’t talk and had to hang up. Shutting herself in the bathroom she gave over to painful sobs, she cried until she was limp, all the weeks of worry and stress shaking her. Her whole body felt drained, her eyes red and swollen. Her helplessness enraged her. She wanted to call Lowe back and apologize but what could she say? She didn’t let herself think about visiting day, about telling Morgan tomorrow that they’d have to start over, that the appeal had been shot down.

DRIVING DOWN PEACHTREE headed for the prison, Sammie sitting quietly in the seat beside her, Becky dreaded this visit. She’d wanted to leave Sammie home again, had wanted to tell Morgan alone about the appeal, not force him to deal with his rage in front of Sammie. But Sammie had been so insistent, wanting to see Lee, to show him the album. Becky wished Lee wouldn’t come to visiting day either; she wanted only to be alone with Morgan. But, in the end, it was the album that saved her.

In the sally port, she cautioned the guard that the thin black folder was very old and fragile. She watched him page through it, making only a small show of being careful. When she and Sammie entered the visiting room, Becky handed Lee the album and glanced across to an unoccupied corner.

Lee accepted the disintegrating book, watching her face. Cradling the album, he took Sammie’s hand and moved to the far lounge chair. With Sammie on his lap he sat turning the pages, looking at the pictures as Sammie pointed to various relatives and recited the names and what she could remember of the family relationships as Anne had told her. Becky, sitting quietly with Morgan, watched Lee’s expression change as he pored over the old photos: at first he was startled, then his look turned vulnerable and uncertain. From across the room, Becky gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. Lee looked back at her and grinned, shy and embarrassed. She smiled, then turned away, took Morgan’s hand, snuggling against him.

She told him she loved him, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face into his shoulder. He sat quietly, waiting. When she didn’t speak, he said, “The appeal was denied.”

“Quaker called last night,” she said softly. When she looked up at Morgan, his eyes were hard and rage sculpted his face. He turned away, didn’t want her to comfort him. She felt that the denial was her fault, felt that again she had chosen the wrong lawyer.

“Lowe is still trying,” she said. “He’s not a quitter, he’s up in Rome now, seeing what more he can find. He’s dropped his fees to half, he’s been very kind, Morgan. He wants this appeal, he believes in you. Please give him a chance, don’t lose faith. Somewhere there has to be more evidence.”

He said nothing.

“But here’s the good news,” she said. “Morgan, please look at me.”

He turned toward her, his face hard and closed.

“There’s a warrant out for Falon. A federal warrant.”

“A warrant for what? Not the robbery?”

“The FBI wants him. For some land scams out on the West Coast, and for fraud by wire. The other four men in it have already been indicted. If they’re convicted, if Falon’s convicted, Sergeant Trevis said he could get ten to twenty years.”

“If they find him,” Morgan said. “If they can get him to trial. If they can convict him.”

“The FBI will find him. If he’s arrested in Georgia, he’ll be shipped out to the coast. Trevis says he’d be tried out there, that if he’s convicted he’ll most likely be in prison out there—far away from us.”

Morgan took her in his arms, holding her close—but not believing Falon would ever be imprisoned.

“We have to go with this, Morgan. We have to put our faith in this. If Falon’s wanted for another federal crime, the U.S. attorney will look at him differently. He’ll look differently at our new try for an appeal.”

“Maybe,” he said noncommittally.

“Believe it will happen. We have to believe, have to hang on to something.” Holding his hand, she looked across the room again at Lee and Sammie, so engrossed in the frail album. “Our family pictures,” she said gently. “Lee as a child. His sister Mae, aunts and uncles, they all belong to us and to Lee.”

Watching Morgan as he considered her words, as he considered the tough old man and Sammie, so comfortable together, she saw his face soften, saw the hint of a smile.