Old Wounds (27 page)

22.

L
AST
G
IFTS

Monday, October 17

She stared at
him in complete bewilderment. “What does someone from Vietnam have to do with what happened to my house?”

“I’ll get to that.” He reached out, took her hand, and studied it for a moment. Fine-boned and long-fingered, it bore the calluses of hard work. He noted that the heavy wedding ring she had worn till very recently was gone, though a band of pale skin on her fourth finger was a ghostly reminder of the ring’s long tenure. “Do you recollect Sam ever mentioning a guy named Lawrence Landrum—Lieutenant Landrum in Nam?”

“Sam made it something of a rule never to talk about Vietnam—at least when he was awake. For a long time though, he couldn’t stop talking about it when he was asleep. He said a lot of names—I know I heard ‘Phil’ over and over. But no Landrum, as far as I can remember.”

She looked down at her ringless hand where it rested in his. “You know, those dreams were a real problem between us for several years. I wanted him to get help—or to let
me
help him. I had the naïve belief that if he’d just once open up—but that wasn’t going to happen.”

“And the dreams?…”

“As time passed, the dreams went from being almost every night to once every few months, and then to just a couple of times a year. I think the nightmares had been triggered by the stress of moving from the suburbs to the farm—abandoning the security of the life we’d grown up with to come here. And as we got accustomed to life on the farm, the nightmares decreased.”

She smiled sadly. “Eventually they stopped altogether. There were years that he never had a Vietnam dream and I was sure it was all behind him. But then for some reason, they started again. A couple of years before he died, the dreams came back. Really bad again, but this time he told me he knew what to do for them. And it must have worked, because after a month or so they stopped again. But, as I said, I never heard Sam mention the name Landrum. Who was he?”

It had been tricky, Phillip thought, but he’d done it. He’d told her the truth—most of it—as much as she needed to alert her to the potential danger. He’d carefully omitted the circumstances that had brought him to the Carolina mountains—
Let her believe that was coincidence.

Elizabeth had listened quietly as he related, with a careful lack of detail, the events of that last day on the Mekong. She had even—
thank god
—nodded in understanding as he had explained the surviving crew’s decision to remain silent about Landrum’s psychotic slaughter of unarmed civilians.

“We thought he was done for—hell, even the
medics
said he’d bought the farm. And he’d been shot all to pieces while he was saving two of our crew…one of the bravest things I ever saw. He was a hero
then,
all right. We figured it wouldn’t bring anyone back to report the incidents—we just wanted to get away and forget about it all as best we could. It wasn’t till six or seven years ago that we even knew Landrum was still alive.”

He studied her face anxiously. She was frowning in an effort of memory. Then she leapt up and disappeared into the kitchen. He could hear the muffled sound of paper rustling and the words “I know it’s in here” followed by a triumphant “Aha!”

She returned, triumphantly waving a crumpled copy of
Time.
“It was in the recycling, near the bottom. I’m pretty sure that your guy Landrum was mentioned in the article about the far right and their influence on this administration. I wouldn’t have remembered the name, but they made a big deal of how, unlike most of the folks at the top, this guy was actually a veteran and a hero, wounded while saving his men. There was a picture of him and his prosthetic legs and empty sleeve.” She riffled the pages eagerly. “It’s gotta be the same guy—they called him a power behind the scene. Lots of family money, which he’s parlayed into a mega-fortune…Here it is!” She thrust the open magazine toward him. “Lawrence Landrum—is this your lieutenant? Even without the atrocity story, this guy’s a total disaster. Just a little to the right of the Taliban.”

He took the magazine, glanced at the picture, and nodded. “That’s him. And Del, the one at the Pentagon, says this sick bastard is about to be named Secretary of Defense.”

She plopped down beside him. “That
is
sick. But I still don’t see what this has to do with my house being torn apart.”

Elizabeth listened in shocked disbelief.
Pictures of an atrocity, thirty-five-year-old pictures…and a video-taped deposition…hidden in her house?
She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense, Phillip. Why wouldn’t Sam have just put them in a safe-deposit box or—”

“You know, Sam could be pretty paranoid sometimes. He told me and Del that safe-deposit boxes just advertised that you had something worth protecting. He was convinced that Landrum could have bought his way into a Swiss bank, much less the Farmers and Mercantile in Ransom. No, Sam did it his way.” Phillip looked unhappy. “Sam talked to Del and to me right before…well, it was just a few weeks before the plane crash. He said that he’d been in touch with Landrum and warned him to stay out of politics or Sam would go public with the photos. He said he’d videotaped a deposition relating the events of that last day on the Swift Boat and swearing to the authenticity of the pictures. Then he said a weird thing: he said that he’d given
you
the key to where he’d hidden them. But that you didn’t know what it was.”

“A key? An actual key? Or…Because I don’t think…” Her mind was busy, sorting through drawers, old jewelry boxes, all the places in her house where incongruous assortments of small objects gathered.
There’re some old keys in one of the little drawers of the secretary…and that basket in the mudroom has old house keys and car keys and…

“No idea if he meant a real key or not. Del said Sam was really pleased with himself—like he’d come up with the perfect hiding place. Del thought it was pretty risky, doing it that way, and he tried to convince Sam to let him have duplicates of the photos and the taped deposition. Finally Sam said he’d get some copies and send them to Del right after Christmas.”

“And then there was the plane crash.”

“Right. Del never got any copies. And Landrum laid low for a while. Now he must have figured that, after all this time and with Sam gone, it would be safe for him to resume his political career. But he has to be sure those photos don’t turn up. And this is what you need to understand, Elizabeth: Del thinks that Landrum has sent some of his men to find those incriminating snapshots and destroy them.”

“Maybe they
did
find them. Maybe—”

“Elizabeth, Del knows who these people are. He says Landrum’s people are still nearby. If they think that you know where this stuff is, their next move will be to threaten you. That’s why I’m asking you to take this gun class—until those photos and Sam’s deposition are found, you could be in real danger: these people have a lot at stake and wouldn’t think twice about…”

His voice trailed off. Elizabeth pondered, looking around the living room, as if hoping to see a faded manila envelope protruding from behind a picture frame or an ancient scrolled key lying casually on the floor.
Ridiculous. Whoever tore the place apart would have found that stuff…if it was hidden here. But what if…?

“What if the key Sam said he gave me is something like a treasure map, something that tells where this evidence is hidden? After all, he had the whole farm—barns, drying sheds, tenant house, equipment shed. There’re lots of places he could have hidden a small package, wrapped to make it weatherproof.”

“Now you’re talkin’, Sherlock.” Phillip draped an arm around her and pulled her closer. “He said he
gave
you the key. Think about that. Was Sam a big gift-giver? Let’s see, what are gift-giving occasions—birthdays? Christmas? anniversary? Mother’s Day? Valentine’s—”

“No, not all of those. Christmas and my birthday for sure, but not…” She felt compelled to explain, to come to Sam’s defense. “Early on we decided to go easy on exchanging gifts with each other—there were too many things the girls or the farm needed and never enough money. Mostly we gave each other stuff we’d made—for our anniversary sometimes we went out to dinner, but we were more likely just to splurge on champagne and something really good and easy to fix from the Fresh Market. The same for Valentine’s—if we remembered. The girls made Mother’s Day presents, not Sam…. I think that about covers it.”

“Okay, let’s see. We didn’t know that Landrum was alive till…I think it was ’98. Sam wouldn’t have had reason to make the deposition till then.”

“And Sam died in ’99. So, let me think…what did he give me for Christmas and for my birthday in those years.” She closed her eyes, remembering. “The one thing I can remember is what he gave me that last Christmas. It was already wrapped and under the tree—he’d really been on top of things that year.”

And all the presents sat there, unopened till New Year’s Eve.
Memories of that bleak December crowded into her mind, as if released from some subterranean dungeon and eager for the light.

The fatal plane crash, just a few days before Christmas
…freak accident…less-than-skillful amateur pilot…light planes inherently dangerous…pilot appeared to be attempting a stunt…
The explanations had inundated her and she had become almost paralytic with grief…and anger. Grief at the loss of her husband, friend, lover; grief at the sight of the girls’ wounded faces; anger at the stupidity of the accident.

Only tradition, passed down from her grandmother, tradition that said it was bad luck to have the Christmas tree still up on New Year’s Day, had roused her from the sleepwalking state that had settled on her. The irony of attempting to avoid bad luck at this particular dark moment had been apparent, but she had forced herself to make this return to normalcy, for the girls’ sake, if not her own.

On the morning of December 31, she and the girls had sat round the Christmas tree. Its piercing fragrance filled the room. No one, in the shock and tragedy of the past week, had thought to fill the tub in which the big Fraser fir stood, inexorably drying and dying. In spite of the fact that its needles were dropping fast, the tree was still a lordly presence in the living room. One by one Elizabeth and her daughters had opened presents. By unspoken consent, they’d saved the gifts from Sam for last.

Finally there were only five unopened packages left. “You first, Laurie,” Rosemary had said, with the authority of her twenty-three years.

Unwilling to cut the red yarn with which the packages were tied, nineteen-year-old Laurel had picked at the knots patiently till at last she could remove the yarn. Then she gingerly undid the paper on both packages, pausing to smooth and fold it away, finally opening the first box.

It was a beautiful edition of the works of Georgia O’Keeffe—something of an icon to Laurel at the time. An expensive, coffee table–type book, used but in excellent condition, it was crammed with exquisite reproductions and thoughtful commentary. Laurel read the inscription aloud: “‘Merry Christmas, 1999, to Laurie, with love from Pa. Someday there’ll be a book like this of
your
paintings.’”

Her voice had broken as she read the few words. Quickly she turned to the second gift. Inside the white cardboard box was another box, made of rich cherry-wood. On the lid was a spray of bay leaves, carefully carved from black walnut.

Rosemary’s gifts had been similar: her book was a gently used first edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s
Their Eyes Were Watching God
with the inscription: “Someday people will be collecting
your
first editions.” The box Sam had made for his older daughter was of black walnut. On the lid was a half-relief rosebud, daintily carved from cherry.

Finally just one small package was left among the fallen needles. Laurel had retrieved it and held it out. “Here, Mum.” A small box and a card that read “For Liz, who has deserved better, with all my love, Sam.”

She had understood then why the girls had been so slow, so deliberate in the unwrapping of their gifts.
Sam tied this bow…and now I’m untying it. He placed this tape, folded this paper…and now I’m undoing it. This is my last present from Sam…there will be no more.