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  “No,” the Judge spat out—his first word since Ruby’s attack. He exhausted himself shaking his head, and began wheezing.

  McAvoy nodded. “You take it easy there, son.” The doctor’s eyes flitted up to Lucille. “Help me clean him up. Pull the chair closer, so we can shift him into it. Then go find some clean sheets.” Lucille did as she had been commanded. She assumed she’d have to bear the greater part of the Judge’s weight, but he came up off the bed much more easily than she’d expected. Once he had been moved, Dr. McAvoy held the Judge by the shoulders to make sure he didn’t tumble out of the chair. Lucille did her best not to stare at the sight of the Judge pinned in that armchair. Just two months back, he’d glowed with health. His eyes may have glistened with cruelty, but they had been clear and sharp. His hair had been black like a raven’s feathers, like the soul that lived within him. Now he was a waste of a man. He looked so old and dried up.

  These ain’t never gonna come clean, Lucille thought to herself as she tore the fouled sheets from the bed. She carried them from the room, letting them drop to the floor of the linen closet, and pulled out a fresh pair of sheets and a thick blanket. The blanket would cover any bloodstains left on the mattress. It would keep the doctor from telling her to flip it, and having to find a way to balance the weight of the mattress without letting any of the bloody mess covering it rub off on her. She carried her burden back to the room, moving quickly to cover the mattress and dress the bed with the clean, ironed sheets. The pillows and cases had been completely ruined, so she snatched them up and turned on her heel to find replacements.

  She made it to the closet in no time, but she took her time finding her way back, feeling for all the world like her legs had turned to lead. To her surprise, McAvoy met her in the hall. The door to the Judge’s room had been closed and the doctor stood before it, like he was standing guard.

  “I’ll take him these,” Lucille said raising the pillows.

  “Wait,” the doctor said, blocking her way. “You realize your employer is seriously ill?”

  “Yes, sir. I can see he’s doing real poorly.”

  The doctor licked his lips. “Yes, poorly.” He squinted. “He should be in the hospital, but you know how stubborn the Judge is.”

  “It’s more than stubbornness. There are folk around these parts who’d like nothing better to see him in this state,” Lucille said, instantly regretting her words. “I’m sorry, sir, I shouldn’t be speaking out of turn about the Judge.”

  “No, Lucille, you are right. The Judge cannot afford to appear weak. He’s got too many enemies who would be quick to take advantage of it. Given how long you’ve worked for Ovid, you are certainly aware of that.”

  Lucille judged it best to hold her peace. She kept quiet, clutching the pillows to her chest as she waited for him to speak.

  The doctor continued, “But I have to ask myself, what could be at the root of the Judge’s illness? Sure, he took Ruby’s passing hard—I’ll be honest, a whole hell of a lot harder than I thought he had—and grief can do a lot of harm to a man, but I managed to get a little bit of a look at him. I could tell he has been coughing up blood.”

  Against her better instincts, Lucille spoke up. “Could be cancer,” she said. “Man from my church, he had the lung cancer, and he coughed up blood.”

  “Yes, you are correct. Coughing up blood is a symptom of lung cancer. So are fatigue and headaches. Poor Ovid has complained of those, too. But something doesn’t sit right with me about all this. This could be cancer, or it could be something else entirely. The kind of something a body could arrange.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You know the Judge has enemies. Like you said, making the Judge look weak would do harm enough. A person wouldn’t even need to kill him outright. Maybe someone has been giving him something to make him this way. A bit in his food, his drink. Someone wishing the Judge harm might just pay a pretty penny to get what they want.”

  “There’s no way that’s happening, sir. Least not at home. I do all the cooking for the Judge.” Lucille realized too late this was the point he’d been making all along.

  “Of course you do. You take real good care of him. That’s what’s got me wondering why you didn’t come to me when Ovid fell sick.”

  “You know he told me not to.”

  “But you got better sense than that, Lucille. You have eyes in your head; you must have known the man might well be dying. I have to wonder, Lucille—you came in and saw the Judge was in distress, but you took the time to walk over to my house rather than call. Why is that?”

  Truth was she had wanted to get out of the house before Ruby could return. She found a quick answer. “I was afraid news might get out if I called. The Judge has a private line, but I didn’t know if you were still on a party line. I was afraid somebody might be listening in.”

  McAvoy nodded, seeming to accept her excuse. Then the doctor ran his hand over his mouth, holding it beneath his chin. “How are your children doing?”

  She paused, uncertain where this was heading. “They’re just fine, sir. Thank you.”

  The doctor tilted his head back, a wry smile forming on his lips. “Well, that’s the funny thing. I heard you sent your children away to visit family up north. Maybe you were thinking about joining them? Of course, we both know there is no way that could happen. Ovid always says you’ll leave him over his dead body. We both know how true that is, don’t we? If Ovid doesn’t get better, and real soon, I may just have to bring Sheriff Bell in to consider matters.” He paused, she gathered, to make sure his words had fully registered with her. “Now, I don’t for a moment believe you’re capable of poisoning the Judge. Not really. But I can tell you know a hell of a lot more than what you’re telling me.”

  A burst of anger shot up her spine. She stood tall and dropped the pillows to the floor. Had he already tried and convicted her, or did he just know the sheriff would be too lazy to try and find out the truth when there was such a convenient scapegoat at hand? “I got nothing to do with any of this. I came upstairs to check on him, just like you told me to, and I found him this way.” She pointed at him, her hand shaking. That she had come up here at all tonight was the doctor’s fault.

  McAvoy grabbed her wrist, bending it with more pressure than she would have thought him capable of mustering. “Now, you listen up. I don’t really think you have anything to do with Ovid’s state, but I am not a fool. There is something you are not telling me. If Ovid passes, I will cut him open, and if I don’t find his lungs eaten up with cancer, I will go to the sheriff and spin him the kind of story that will make sure you swing. Unless you start talking. Now.”

  With her free hand, she pried the old man’s fingers from her wrist, then took a step back. “I heard voices. I heard the Judge, and I heard a woman . . .”

  McAvoy looked at her through narrowed eyes. “You recognized the voice?”

  Lucille knew that once she spoke the words, she’d never be able to take them back. “Yes, sir. It was Miss Ruby.”

  The doctor lunged at her, and Lucille jumped back, fearing he would strike her. Instead he stopped and fell back against the closed door. He started to speak, then stopped. Finally he said, “Woman, you must have taken leave of your senses.”

  “You may just be right about that, Doctor, but I know what I heard. The Judge, he and Miss Ruby were talking. He was begging her. Pleading with her to leave him be.”

  “You heard someone in there harassing your employer, and you didn’t step in to help him?”

  “No, sir. I heard Miss Ruby in there with her father, and sir, I ain’t ashamed to tell you I was too afraid to open the door. I done seen . . .” She was about to tell him what she had witnessed in her own yard, but she stopped herself. It was bad enough to risk being on the hook for the Judge’s death. She didn’t need anything else laid at her doorstep.

  The Judge had made sure she could never escape Conroy by public transport, but Lucille began to wonder if she should
just start walking. If she kept off the main roads and hid during the day and walked by night, maybe she could get to where she wasn’t recognized, where she wasn’t thought of as the Judge’s chattel. Of course, in the event that the Judge didn’t make it, her flight would be read as her confession, and that would spell her end. Even if she weren’t officially convicted and hung on the gallows, she knew she’d end up swinging from a tree limb. Lord knew, one ride to the pearly gates worked just as well as the other. No. She needed to sit tight for now. If the Judge died, and she managed not to get blamed for it, she’d join her children. It was the only plan that made sense. After all, if she fled and the Judge didn’t die, he’d hunt her down and have her brought back as surely as he’d done with Ruby.

  “You saw what?” the doctor pressed her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

  “I done seen Miss Ruby being put in that crypt next to her mama. I knew they ain’t no way she could be in this house. Not really. But she was. I didn’t just hear her voice; I felt that it was her.”

  “What do you mean, you felt it?”

  Lucille drew her arms in around herself. She felt trapped in this airless space. She wanted to fling open a window or, better yet, leave this hall, this house, leave Conroy altogether. “When Miss Ruby came back from Los Angeles, you and the Judge, you thought she was sick. But she didn’t come home sick. She came home wrong.”

  The doctor stepped toward her again, this time with less violence, but still with determination. “I don’t have time for your Negro superstitions.” Lucille was more than happy for him to believe she was suffering from delusions if it meant he no longer held her under suspicion. He shepherded her down the hall and toward the stairs. “I need to use the phone. Don’t worry”—he held up his hand to fend off an objection she had no intention of making—“I will speak in veiled terms of the situation. You go put on some coffee.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, relieved to have a task that didn’t require her to be near the Judge.

  “And Lucille . . .”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Whatever it is you’re thinking, you need to keep it to yourself. Don’t go sharing your nonsensical ideas with anyone else, and don’t you go getting the other coloreds worked up about any of this either. From now on, you do as I tell you, and that might just help me forget how guilty you look right now, hear?”

  Lucille nodded. “I’ll get that coffee.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Corinne sat at the edge of the water for what felt like hours. She stared into the depths, doing her best to convince herself she had been dreaming, that her first day in Conroy had been too much for her, that she had sleepwalked into the water and had been awakened by its cold currents. Deep down, she knew that was bullshit. She had spent years in a war zone without suffering any hallucinations, but the only two alternatives she could come up with were that she had gone mad or the woman from the photo truly had called her out for a starlight swim before disappearing into thin air. Corinne felt another chill and wrapped her arms around herself, doing her best to rub the goose pimples from her flesh. Her damp and muddied gown clung to her like a second skin. She forced herself to her feet, then took a few stumbling steps toward the sleeping porch. She would get inside and change. Rinse the mud out of her gown in the sink.

  Suddenly, the darkness was pierced by the porch’s light being turned on.

  The screen door squeaked open, and Ava stepped out and stood beneath the light, the brightness of which reflected off the white lace cap she wore over her hair rollers. Her pink robe glowed like the dawn. She scanned the field with one hand over her eyes, the other resting on her hip. Corinne fought the urge to turn and run before Ava spotted her, but it was too late by the time the thought occurred to her. She had already been spotted. Ava stomped out from under her hundred-watt halo into the shadows. “Good Lord, girl, what is wrong with you?”

  “I just wanted to cool off,” she said, but even though Ava’s face was now obscured by darkness, she could tell the woman’s expression had grown even more sour. She knew Ava would launch into a lecture, so she tried to cut her off. “I only meant to dip my feet in the pond, but I slipped.”

  Ava started to speak, but then shook her head. “Get on inside and clean yourself up. Dr. McAvoy needs your help. Clay’s gone to fetch Elijah out of the barn. He’ll drive you into town once he’s up.” Ava headed back toward the light without another word.

  “Wait.” Corinne hurried forward and grasped Ava’s forearm. The older woman froze, her eyes delivering a withering glance to the spot where Corinne’s flesh connected with her own. Corinne felt a nearly physical shock from the venom in her soon-to-be mother-in-law’s eyes. She pulled her hand back. Ava’s angry eyes rose to meet hers. “Dr. McAvoy wants my help? Why?”

  “It seems you make quite the first impression. On the menfolk, at least. He has requested your help in caring for a patient. A special patient.” Ava scanned her up and down. “If he saw you like this, he might question the wisdom of that.” Then she tugged the screen door open and let the spring slam it shut in Corinne’s face.

  Without stopping to consider the dismissive gesture, Corinne pulled it open, and hurled herself over the threshold. She wouldn’t dream of refusing to help care for someone in need, but the odd hour of the request, combined with the fact she had spoken only briefly to the doctor on the train, raised a lot of questions. “Who is this patient? Why me? Why not a local nurse?” she asked in quick succession. Ava turned to face her, her eyes hard. Her expression showed Corinne that she considered her questions, or perhaps any question, impertinent.

  “I don’t know for sure. The doctor wasn’t forthcoming with details, but as you’re to be taken to the Lowell house, I think it’s safe to assume the patient is Judge Lowell, the most important man in these parts. As to why Dr. McAvoy would ask for you rather than a woman with good sense, I’m sure that is a question the doctor will be asking himself in an hour or two.” Ava reached for the knob of the door leading into the kitchen.

  “Why do you hate me?” Corinne heard the question spill out before she could prevent her tongue from asking it. “Is it the woman in the photo? The beautiful girl with the dark eyes? Ruby. Did you want Elijah to marry her?”

  Ava looked back over her shoulder, her eyes wide. Her lips parted, but then cinched shut. She turned away, twisting the doorknob a couple of times before opening the door. “That girl is dead,” she finally said without looking back. Her voice changed, sounding weaker, perhaps defeated. Something about the way she spoke told Corinne all she needed to know. “But no, I would not have chosen her for my son . . . And I do not hate you.” The words came out in a near whisper, as delicate as a spider’s web. “Now get changed. Elijah will be ready soon.” She paused. “I’ll put on some coffee.” She pulled the door shut behind her.

  Corinne lowered the Roman blinds, relying on the light seeping in from behind the chifferobe and the blinds covering the porch light to change from her wet gown. She wished she had time for a hot bath or, better yet, a shower, to wash away the pond water and the clinging remnants of the already distant nightmare. She opened a drawer and tugged out clean underwear. Before she closed it, she slid her hand into it and found her pistol. Corinne felt safer with its velvet-swathed metal beneath her fingertips. Logic told her that she would have no need for the firearm tonight—after all, she had sensed that McAvoy was harmless, avuncular even. The circumstances of his request for her to help nurse the ill—or was it wounded?—judge felt odd, but there was no need to see this as anything more than an emergency situation that called for her nursing skills. Conroy was a small town in a mostly rural area, so perhaps she was just the closest nurse. Yes, logic told her she would have no need for the gun. Still, instinct insinuated that she might.

  She told herself she was being foolish. She had come to live among these people, to become one of them, and the surest way to inclusion was not to carry around a firearm to use against them. She took the gun and returned it to
the drawer.

  Her angry subconscious caused hot prickles to dance along her skin, but it admitted defeat and bargained with her to at least transfer the roll of bills she had stashed next to the gun into her bra. She had heard others refer to this instinct as “fight or flight.” An inappropriate response in this situation, perhaps—no, certainly—but something chewed on her gut, and her gut had carried her through Korea and her own family war zone prior to that. Again she considered taking the gun. Instead she fastened her bra and stuffed the soft purse filled with bills inside the left cup.

  “You about ready?” Elijah’s voice startled her. She spun around and took in his silhouette, which the porch light had cast on the blinds. For a moment, she was tempted to raise the blinds and show herself to him. Would the sight bring fire to his eyes, or would it cause him to turn away and yearn for the beautiful Ruby? Corinne reached out, felt the fabric of the blinds beneath her fingertips.

  The door to the kitchen banged open to reveal Ava with a steaming cup of coffee in hand. “Not just yet,” Corinne replied, quickly stepping into a modest, button-front blue dress, not too terribly different in style from what a lot of stateside nurses wore as a uniform.

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping to the door that led from the porch into the kitchen and accepting the coffee from Ava.

  Ava lifted her head and addressed her son’s shadow. “Dr. McAvoy called ahead. The ferry is waiting for you.” She turned to Corinne. “Don’t dawdle.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The glow of a kerosene lamp cast a halo on the grimy table where Charlie Aarons sat shirtless, sweaty, and hunched over, one arthritic hand rubbing the other that was cramped around the latest addition to his collection of French postcards. These were the queens of his three-room, no-electricity, no-plumbing castle. It was hours until dawn, and he should be asleep on the thin feather mattress he called a bed, but Charlie’s body ached too much to let him sleep, no matter how many times he tipped the Mason jar to his lips. Charlie made his living doing odd jobs, mostly for the Dunne family who lived across the field, barely a mile as the crow flies, but his only sure source of income was what he made working for the funeral home out by the river’s bend. Tonight, his arms and shoulders and back ached from the digging it had taken to plant Joe Gentry. His manhood ached from the fantasies fed by the dirty pictures that were now spread out before him. Grave digging was a young man’s work; rutting between a woman’s thighs was a young man’s pleasure. Charlie had long since stopped being a young man, but he forced his body to work like one. In revenge, his body remembered the needs no woman was willing to satisfy.