The Matriarch (18 page)

Those Goddamned figs.

Frank snorts, his face blooming red. “Lordy-God. You and Cassidy got an imagination that just don’t quit!” He turns his bloodshot eyes on me. “And a’ course, the killer’s a female. Young, yes, but a female. I don’t believe this crap, not for one little bitty minute!” He tosses off his Irish and lifts the bottle to pour another.

I put a hand on the whiskey and bring it back down to the table. “Cool it with the booze, will you Frank? This is a hell of a mess, and we have to stay sharp.” He looks pissed but pushes his glass away.

“What do you mean,” Dott asks, “about ‘of course it’s a female killer’?”

“Boy’s got a notion,” Frank says, flashing me an angry look. “Some half-assed idea about my figs making women crazy. He thinks there’s something in them that just affects women. If you got a dick, you’re okay.”

“I don’t
know
anything, Frank! Why do you get so pissed? I’m just trying to come up with a reason for these murders, that’s all.”

“Maybe you feel … responsible?” Dott asks, her voice soft. She reaches for Frank’s hand, but he jerks it away. “Not that you are, of course. But maybe because it’s your tree—”

“Bullshit!” Frank says.

“Okay, okay, let’s move on.” I say. “Let me lay out for you what we know for sure. In just the past few days, three woman have admitted serious problems with their marriages and two have apparently been driven to murder. That’s unheard of in a community as small as Diablo, and that’s just the ones we know about. And now, Dott tells us that Molly has confessed to killing her stepfather.” I fish a cigarette from my shirt pocket, light up, and sit down at the table. “If that’s true, there have been three men murdered. The women and the girl all had access to the figs and had eaten plenty. When you add all this to the phenomenal growth of that fig—”

“Bullshit” Frank says again. “Doesn’t make sense. None of this crap makes sense. Figs turning women into killers? Hah!”

“I know there are huge holes in my theory, but there’s enough to it, I think, to take some action. And I keep telling you, Frank, you haven’t seen that tree for three or four days now.”

“Sweet baby Jesus, Cassidy, I saw it four days ago!”

“It’s a different tree today. The barricade I started on Monday is too small now.”

“Couldn’t be,” Frank says, shaking his head.

“So Cass,” Dott says, arms folded, sitting forward at the edge of her chair. “You believe the figs affected these … females. They changed emotionally?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Finally, I own up to what I truly think.

“Interesting,” Dott says. She stands, and the kitchen seems smaller. “The tree
is
different, Frank. I think it’s evil.” She speaks in a matter of fact manner, as if her analysis is the only logical conclusion.

“Hah!” says Frank, cheeks rosy once again. “Evil, is it? My tree is evil and comes from the devil. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Uncle Frank—”

The old man stands up so fast he knocks his chair over, and Louie careens out from under the table. Frank glares at Dott. “You’d do well to keep your crazy ideas—”

“Shut the fuck up, Frank,” I say, grabbing Louie’s collar and pulling him to me. In the stunned silence that follows my outburst, I can hear my uncle’s ragged breath. I need to shut up as well, but I can’t. “If you’ve got another theory, let’s hear it. If not, how about getting off this derisive kick you’re on? If we’re going to do any good here, we have to get along with each other. Right?”

I wonder then if Frank is going to cock that skinny right arm of his and let me have it. But he’s just looking at me like he doesn’t know who the hell I am.

“Cass, you say you have enough belief in this theory of yours to act on it,” Dott says calmly, as if participating in an intelligent discussion. “What do you have in mind?”

“If I’m right about this, there may be a real epidemic. There may be bodies out there we don’t know anything about yet. It could be there’s one for every man connected to a woman who’s eaten figs from that tree. First off, we need to destroy The Tree. Then we need to contact every woman … Frank, the only time those figs were offered to the public was at the funeral reception, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so, Cassidy, but hold on a minute,” Frank says, calmer now. “If you’re serious about this, we’ll have to get Manny in on it. He’s the law around here, you know.”

“Right now the law is that dickhead Schmidt. I don’t think he’d take us very seriously, do you?”

Right then I hear footsteps on the porch. I hear the screen door open, and Shelly walks into the kitchen followed by Lester-Lee. They look like they’ve been rolling in dirt; Shelly’s knees are caked with it. Both are flushed, excited.

“We’ve had a wild ride!” Shelly says, her eyes bright. She grins at everyone, and I have to grin back.

Whatever’s happened, this girl has had a fine time!

Lester is another story—he looks scared.

“Is Georgie all right?” Frank asks. As usual, the old man seems more concerned with his horse than with the people involved.

“I’m gonna walk him,” Lester says. “But first I have to tell you what happened.” Clearly unnerved, he speaks in a nervous, halting manner. “Women, two of them. Off their horses, they were picking up figs under the tree. They saw us. Waved and the like but not friendly. They yelled at us, called Georgie by name. I couldn’t figure how they knew his name.”

“Everybody around here knows Georgie,” Frank says.

“Georgie was weird,” Shelly says. She seems almost breathless with excitement. “At first, he wanted to go to the tree. But then, when the women called to him, he didn’t want to go. He got scared and he threw me!”

“He was just confused,” Frank says, looking pretty confused himself.

“The women were mounted by then,” Lester says, “coming toward us. Chasing us! I got Georgie, yanked Shelly up onto him along with me, and took off. We were just barely ahead of the women! They almost got to Shelly before I pulled her up.”

Shelly seems more excited than scared, like the whole thing was a thrilling adventure.

“Describe ’em,” Frank says. “The women.”

“Both tall and lean,” Lester says. “Dark hair pulled back.”

“They wore black blouses, long black skirts,” Shelly adds. “Religious looking.”

“Sisters,” Frank says. “The McClain sisters. Religious crazy ladies. They were at the funeral reception.”

“Eating figs like crazy, I’ll bet,” I say.

“Well … maybe,” Frank says. He looks bewildered.

Lester-Lee sets off to unsaddle and walk Georgie while Shelly calls Charlotte to fill her in and ask for a ride back to the Russo house. She then helps Frank make up some sandwiches.

Molly is still asleep, and no one has heard from her mother.

When Charlotte arrives, we all sit down at the kitchen table for lunch and to try to come up with some sort of plan.

“We need a list of women who may have picked up some figs at the reception,” Charlotte says. “Who put that service together, Frank?”

“Schwartz,” Frank says, “Gwendolyn. Her number’s in the book by the phone.”

“I’ll call her,” Charlotte says, and I’m grateful for her help.

Frank has a fast sandwich and then excuses himself. “Start this plan-stuff without me,” he says. “I’ve got an errand.”

To say he’s sick of this tree situation is putting it mildly for sure. Frank Murphy is fed up. To the teeth, for shit sakes! He knows he’s being a pain about that tree, but he’s just not sure. How could a tree produce a fruit that turns females into bloodthirsty killers? How? Next thing, he’ll find out Godzilla is real too.

When Frank had finally lured Cassidy back to the ranch, he had been downright thrilled. And now he’s downright pissed. He had been spooked by that quake, and he’d thought the presence of his nephew would be just the thing to shoo that feeling away. But Cassidy has disappointed him. He’s turned out spookier than the earthquake with this wild theory of his, and yet Frank knows he
has
to have another look at that tree.

He whistles for the dog and then hollers to the group in the kitchen that he’s takin’ Louie for a walk.

Frank hitches his belt and gun up onto his skinny hips, plops his cowboy hat on, and he and Louie start off. The walk is pleasant as Louie lopes back and forth in front of him. The dog seems to be having a protective look-see around Frank, and he has to admit that Louie’s presence is giving him a sense of security he hasn’t felt in a while.

He sees it at the top of the rise, and yes, it surely is big. Much larger than on Monday. That could probably be explained though … couldn’t it? The tree’s leaves and branches are a neon-bright green, shimmering in the hot sun.

Frank slows his pace, and about thirty yards from it, stops completely. “Long walk for an old man,” he explains to Louie. “Let’s just have a look from here while I catch my breath.”

Even from where he stands, Frank sees bulbs shining out from within the foliage. Figs, all different colors.

“Lordy-God, but those things are big!” A gaudy jumble of color circles the base of the tree, with its mush of decaying, fallen figs. The smell is awful—the too-sweet odor sickening.

“Well, it
has
changed, Cassidy; I’ll give you that.” Frank makes his voice hearty, that of a competent un-afraid rancher—a man in complete control. He pulls his hat down lower onto his forehead and starts walking toward the tree. Slowly. Not the best of ideas, Frank realizes, walking all the way out here in the mid-day heat. He feels light-headed, somewhat dizzy.

Louie keeps pace, so close to Frank’s leg they might have been joined. The tree looms in front of them, and yes, the new barricade is almost too small.

Soon they’re just a scant twenty or so yards away from it, inching closer. Frank drops his right hand down onto the butt of his holstered gun, then figures “what the hell” and draws it. He holds it out in front of him, pointed at the tree. Fifteen yards away, the smell is a powerful stench. He keeps going. To stop would mean admitting …

“You don’t scare me, you mess a’ green shit!” He tries to shout, but it comes out a whisper.

Frank wants to laugh at the ridiculous picture Louie and he must make. A puppy and a doddering old fool aiming his Colt at a fig tree. And then telling that tree—

His boot. Something grabs it and wrenches his foot back. Hurts. Hurts bad. He pitches forward and breaks his fall at the last second with his hands, his right still clutching the gun. Frank twists onto his side and looks down at his foot. The toe of his boot is held fast by a shiny, bright green rope. A root. Has to be a root. It looks fresh, like it’s just popped up from the ground.

Louie drops to his belly, his forelegs extended and his butt in the air. He growls at the root, teeth bared.

Frank lets go of the gun, sits up, and lunges for the root, his fingers clawing at it. The thing is cold, but alive. He knows it’s alive. Like a snake. And it’s strong. As he watches, it makes another loop and now holds his boot—and therefore his foot—firmly at both the toe and lower ankle.

Louie’s growl becomes a snarl. He springs onto the root, his jaws trying to find purchase. In a froth of saliva, the dog’s teeth slide off the green rope’s smooth armor.

Frank loses it. He moans and beats at the root with both hands. But it holds. And grows tighter. Through Louie’s noisy rage, he hears himself sobbing. He braces his elbows and the heels of his hands in the dirt and pulls against the green coil with everything he’s got. It tightens itself even more firmly around his boot. When he lightens up to catch his breath, the thing seizes the advantage and slides higher up the boot.

As if it has a mind.

Frank is tired. So tired now, he knows he has precious little strength left.

Louie is still a blur of motion and primal rage. Spitting foam, his head thrashes back and forth over Frank’s trapped foot.

Is this how it ends? How my life ends?

He thinks to loosen the boot ties then and gives one last frantic try. He pulls hard against the root, and at last his foot comes sliding right out of the boot.

For a moment he just stares at his dirty sweat sock. Is he truly free? His focus flies to the boot that’s still ensnared. Frank watches the glowing green rope tighten around the empty boot, squeezing it,
strangling
it, until it’s no longer recognizable.