The Devil Walks in Mattingly (3 page)

You can’t do it, Jake
, he says.

I
shrink
back in horror. The butterflies twitch and flutter

(opencloseopen)

and
I
shake my head
NO, NO this cannot be, and I bend to
where another stone has appeared. I place it over Phillip’s arm, building the pile ever higher.

You can’t, Jake. Do you know why?

I
weep. I weep because I do know and because Phillip has told
me before and he’ll tell me again.

Because you’re a dead man, Jake
.
You’re a dead man and he’s coming and you’ll remember true, because I want an end.

I look over my shoulder and around the river’s bend, all the way to where the tall cone of Indian Hill rises beyond. No one is coming.

He is, Jake. I’m coming too. I’m coming for you and you’re a dead man. See? I have something for you.

Phillip reaches out with the fist I’ve not yet covered. His fingers turn upward to the sky as the white butterflies around us leap. I scream. It is a howling wail swallowed by flapping wings that sound as thunder in the twilight around us. I tumble down the pile of rocks that cannot cover Phillip McBride and run toward the hill, toward home, and though I always say I will not stumble, I always do because I once did. My feet slip and spill me forward, and I feel the skin between the elbow and wrist of my left arm rip open against the rocks. There is no time to lie in shock of the blood that spills from that wound, no time to think of what I’ve done, because Phillip’s heavy footfalls come behind me and I hear him say that he’s coming, he’s coming and I’m dead. His dead hand grabs hold of me, pulling, and I cried
out into the pillow beneath my face.

The hand on me was Kate’s. It was her screams I heard. Not simply out of fear for me, but for the blood dripping from my scarred left arm.

2

Kate Barnett let
the phone ring three times that next morning, unsure why anyone would squander their Saturday by calling the sheriff’s office on purpose. She eased her left hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn, spotted a dollop of Jake’s dried blood on her fingertips, and wiped them on her jeans. The blood was still there when she brought her hand back and the phone chirped for the second time. By the third, Kate had already replayed the previous night in her thoughts: how she had bandaged her husband’s arm and it had taken her an hour to calm him down, how it had then taken another for Jake to calm her, and how they had both finished the night as they had every night for the past month—her asleep in bed, Jake waiting for the sun from the porch rocker.

She picked up the phone before it could ring again and found herself in the middle of her usual “Sheriff’s office, this is Kate.” The voice that greeted her was Timmy Griffith’s, Kate’s brother and owner of the Texaco on the outskirts of town. Their conversation was brief, and Kate said she’d be right over. She tried calling Jake, wanting to ask how he was and where he was and how long he would be, but got only his voicemail. Doc March was at the office, having stopped by at Kate’s request to check Zach’s eye. The doc volunteered to help man phones that likely wouldn’t ring. Zach leaped at the chance to be in charge and bid his mother to go, especially upon his discovery of why his momma was in such a rush.

Timmy had a name to give her.

Kate made the drive across town to the Texaco and gathered her notebook from the seat of her rusting Chevy truck. She found Timmy waiting behind the counter. He dried his giant paws on a red-and-white checkered apron three sizes too
small. Kate stifled a grin at the bits of chicken breading dangling from the front. Timmy called himself an entrepreneur and the Texaco a modern convenience store. Kate had misgivings about the former (she knew few entrepreneurs who kept both a shotgun and a spit cup under the counter), but she harbored no doubts of the latter. Not that it counted for much, but the Texaco was the most technologically able business in Mattingly.

She tilted her chin up and kissed Timmy’s cheek. “I see you’re busy this morning.”

“Hey, sis,” Timmy said. “Thanks for coming by.”

“Always a pleasure. So you got a name for me?”

“I do—Lucy Seekins.”

Kate sat the binder atop the counter and flipped through the thick stack of papers. The earliest entries were all but faded and saved from disintegration only by the thick layer of Scotch tape that preserved them. The names on those first pages had been written in a young and idealistic script—
i
’s dotted with tiny hearts, smiley faces that marked successes—and corresponded to dates that began shortly after Phillip’s death. She turned to a page with
211
scrawled in the upper right corner and wrote Lucy’s name.

“Don’t think I know her,” she said. “I’ll have to do some digging.”

Timmy said, “No need,” and pointed through the doors behind her. “Lives across the street.”

Kate looked up but not around. “The Kingman house?”

“The very one. Moved in back before school started. Don’t know much about her daddy, never seen her momma. Divorced, I guess. Lucy’s in here quite a bit, though. Seen that black Beemer around town?”

“That’s hers?”

He nodded. “Lucy’s on her own mostly. Dad works. Chased her outta here a few days ago for trying to swipe smokes and drinks. Told her I’d call Jake if I caught her in here again. She’s trouble if I’ve ever seen it. Always got a different boy with her too.”

That last bit piqued Kate’s interest. “Who are the boys?”

“Johnny Adkins, lately. I told him Lucy was trouble and that I might have to let his daddy know. The rest of ’em?” Timmy shrugged. “You’d know before I would. From what I’ve seen, it’s anyone who’ll give her the time of day. She’s walking a fine line, Katie. Just go talk to her. You don’t have to do any sneaking about.”

Kate tapped her fingernails on the counter. She certainly felt sorry for the girl (which wasn’t saying much, Kate generally felt sorry for everyone), but she knew there was little she could offer. Folk who drove fancy cars and lived in fancy houses were not the sort Kate tended to.

Still, it was a name.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go.”

Timmy beamed. It was all white teeth and pink gums.

“Still coming tonight?” Kate asked.

“Might be late, but I’ll be there.”

“Good. Call me later.”

Kate pecked her brother’s cheek again and left, waving to the driver of an old John Deere as she pulled out and across the road. Her truck kicked up a cloud of dust against a clear morning sky as it pulled up Kingman Hill. She stopped at the mouth of a large driveway in the shadow of the towering maples and magnolias that circled the old stone manor. A cobbled walk led to a set of massive concrete steps. A ten-speed bicycle stood there, its tires worn and its handlebars duct taped. Kate climbed the steps to a wide porch and took in her surroundings. There were
no rocking chairs or swings from which to enjoy the view, which covered not only the Texaco but most of Mattingly’s downtown and the mountains beyond. The lawn was thick and lush and bore no signs of play. The old flower gardens lay barren. The bicycle below her seemed the only thing on the hill that had recently been used.

Kate was reaching for the brass knocker when the front door flung open, jarring both her and the half-naked boy about to step out. Their eyes met in a moment of panicked recognition.

“Johnny?” she asked.

The boy twisted away, fumbling with his jeans. Kate stepped back and turned away, but not before noticing the logo above the left front pocket and how new those jeans were. That it was Johnny Adkins was bad enough. That Johnny was nearly naked and trying to pull on a pair of Wranglers Kate herself had left on his front porch two weeks before was worse. She waved her notebook over her eyes like a shield.

“Hey, Mrs. B.”

Kate heard him stumble for what she hoped was his shirt (and one she hoped she hadn’t bought along with the jeans).

“Sorry. Didn’t . . . didn’t know that was you. Or anybody. Sorry.”

A sweaty wind passed her, followed by the sound of bare feet padding down the steps and the click of a kickstand. Then came the sound of two worn rubber tires and a shaky, “Sorry, Mrs. B,” as Johnny scampered away. Only then did Kate look—not back to him, but to the open door in front of her.

She took a deep breath to remind herself this was a name and it was page 211 (more, the
bottom
of page 211, which meant 212 was close), and called, “Hello? Lucy?”

No answer came. Kate stepped through the doorway into a grand foyer dominated by an antique grandfather clock. She
heard singing from the room to her left, high-pitched and off key—the voice of someone trying too hard to sound too good. Kate looked into what she found was a living room. Several wing chairs and a love seat had been tastefully placed around a large leather sofa. Pillows covered the thick carpet. A stone hearth dominated almost the entire far wall, beside which was the biggest television Kate had ever seen. She passed her eyes over that briefly. What had her attention at the moment was the wooden mantel above the hearth. The collection of framed pictures there unsettled her in a way she could not define.

She turned toward the movement in the corner of her right eye and saw a young girl facing a mirror in the opposite corner, swaying to music piped through a pair of hot-pink earphones. Only one of her eyes and half of her nose and mouth were visible through the glass. She was short for her age, with a head of long and full auburn hair. Her legs were thick, almost stubby, and connected to hips Kate thought destined to grow east and west as the years went on. The left back pocket of her shorts hung inside out and limp. Her white polo shirt hitched up in the back, exposing bulging love handles and a back the color of chalk. To Kate, the girl looked like someone who longed to be pretty and knew she never would be.

She had yet to see Kate in the doorway, focusing instead on taming her hair with gentle, almost loving caresses of the brush in her hand. She turned the bristles down and brought the handle to her mouth (
This girl thinks she’s Martina McBride,
Kate thought) when her eyes met Kate’s through the mirror. The brush dropped. She spun around.

“Lucy Seekins?” Kate asked.

The girl retreated a step and thumped her heel against the wall’s molding. Kate switched her notebook to her left hand and held her right up.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Are you Lucy Seekins?”

A nod. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I knocked,” Kate said. “Guess you didn’t hear me over your music. You’ve a lovely voice.”

It was a small lie, one Kate hoped would smooth things over. Lucy didn’t appear thankful.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said again. “I’m just a little flustered, I guess. I saw Johnny Adkins leaving. He was all . . .” Kate shook her head. “
Bared
and . . . well, Johnny knows me.”

Lucy winked. “Well, I’d say Johnny knows me a little better now. He’s my boyfriend, you see. Miss . . .”

“Barnett,” Kate said. “Kate Barnett.”

Lucy backed away from the wall. She straightened herself as though remembering this was her house.

“Maybe you should tell me why you’re here, Ms. Barnett. Otherwise I’m sure you can find your way out, seeing as how you found your way in.”

Kate moved to the sofa and then thought better of it, considering the slanted cushions and tossed pillows she found there. She took one of the high-back chairs near the window instead. A stack of books sat upon the small end table beside her. Kate studied them.

“Your daddy a philosophy buff? Never could understand that stuff myself.”

“They’re mine,” Lucy said, “and please don’t touch them.”

Kate didn’t. “Pretty heavy reading for someone your age. They for school?”

“No, for me. We all need to get our answers from somewhere, Ms. Barnett.” Lucy bent for her brush. “Where do you get yours?”

“Church, I suppose.”

Lucy straightened and rolled her eyes. “You’re not here to give me Jesus, are you? Because I’m afraid I’ll just stick to my books. Church brings God down to man. I’m more interested in what lifts man to God.”

Kate said nothing to this, though she thought that sort of thinking could do more damage to a young lady than any half-naked boy could manage. She also thought things could be going worse, but she didn’t know how.

“I just wanted to introduce myself,” Kate said, “tell you a little about what I do.” Her eyes found the pictures on the mantel again. Mother, father, Lucy. Or at least a younger version of her. “I know you and your family are still new to town. I work out of the sheriff’s office. Jake’s my husband—”

“You mean the cowboy who thinks he’s an Indian?”

Kate bristled at the way Lucy asked that, as though it were the punch line of some joke. Lucy crossed the room and sat on the sofa. She spread her arms along the cushions, massaging them like a memory.

“Yes,” Kate said. “Jake. I work in an unofficial capacity. I guess you could say I tend to the needs of folk in and around town in sort of a . . . spiritual way.”

“Isn’t that like a violation of church and state or something?” Lucy asked.

“Well, I don’t know, honey, politics doesn’t count for much here. Mayor Wallis doesn’t seem to mind, and I don’t get paid for what I do.”

“You work for free?” Lucy shook her head, but there was something in that quick turn that was more than disbelief. Kate thought it may have been admiration. “My father’d call you crazy.”

“It isn’t work,” Kate said. “I see it more as fate. It’s my destiny.”

“What’s that like?”

“Not working?”

“No,” Lucy said. “Having a destiny.”

The question caught Kate by surprise, and for a moment she thought Lucy had asked it in the same tone she’d asked Kate if her husband was the cowboy who pretended to be an Indian. But then Kate realized Lucy had stopped massaging the couch cushions and that wry smile she’d been sporting was gone. She truly wanted an answer, and the thought humbled Kate. No one had ever asked her what it felt like to do the things she did, not even Jake. And though she expected Lucy wanted to hear something else besides the truth, the truth was what Kate would give her.