“No! Sorry. No, the closest thing we got to a gator around here is Augusta. When she smiles, you can see the resemblance, and if you get on her bad side, her eyes will go dead on you – just like a gator. Oh, and just because a gator’s dead, that doesn’t mean it’s safe to approach one. An alligator can bite you two hours after it’s been killed. I plan to be several hours late to Augusta’s funeral when she goes.”
“But suppose there was just one alligator.”
Betty’s smile was broad, but her teeth were grinding. “Cass Shelley died this same time of year. Even if there was a gator in there, he would have been hibernating. Cass did not end up as gator food. Now, Mr. Porter, if we are done with the alligators?”
She pointed to the monument which towered over all the others. “That’s the back of the angel. She’s the image of Cass Shelley, God rest her soul. And the little girl in her arms? That’s Kathy. She’s come home again and murdered Babe Laurie.”
The first of the tour group stood in front of the angel while Betty brought up the rear. “Now you just gather around. As I was saying, the little girl in the angel’s arms – ”
“What little girl?” The California woman was looking up at the angel.
“The little girl in her arms.” What kind of blind fools did they make up north? They shouldn’t allow idiots to travel; there ought to be a law. “Later, I’ll take you into the alley alongside the sheriff’s office and show you where her jail cell is.” No point in telling them the fugitive was on the loose. That might result in some empty rooms. “She might even come to the window, so take a good look at the little girl.”
“What little girl?” asked the very sensible man from Maine.
Now Betty came around to the front of the statue to point out the little girl you couldn’t fail to notice even if you were just this side of legal blindness.
But the stone child was gone.
The angel was alone on her pedestal, eyes cast down and holding out her empty arms.
“Oh, my God. It’s a miracle.” Betty walked up to the angel and stared into her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
“She’s crying,” said the man from Maine. “The statue is crying.”
Ten cameras shot the angel simultaneously.
Augusta wondered if sleep had been induced by the herbal concoction to stave off infection. Or had the girl passed out from the pain of irrigating the bullet wounds? Well, better that she slept.
All around the room were soggy towels and windings of gauze. Augusta picked up the bloody debris and put it into a plastic garbage bag. When she had washed her hands, she sat down in a chair by the bed and removed the bandages. She pulled the packing from the back wound and replaced the poultice. The girl slumbered on as Augusta taped the poultice in place and then turned the body over to clean the front wound in the shoulder.
With no warning, one white hand snaked out and held Augusta’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip. The cat leapt onto the foot of the bed and made a low growl. Augusta hushed the cat and looked back at her patient and deep into a pair of very angry young eyes.
“What did you give me to make me sleep?”
“Nothing I didn’t grow in my herb garden,” said Augusta. “Now do you mind if I get on with this? It’s a big hole.” She bent low over the wound, ignoring the tight squeeze of her arm, and finally the hand fell away. “Must have been a hollow-point bullet. This exit wound was real good for drainage.”
Augusta’s patient looked down at the new packing in her flesh. “Is that what I think it is?”
The old woman nodded. “Spider silk resists bacteria. I wrap herbs inside it so the medicine releases slowly. Takes a lot of silk to make a good packing, but my house is a damn factory of spiders spinning webs ”
Augusta unraveled a long strand of cotton gauze and clipped it with a pair of shears. “You were lucky. It’s a soft-tissue wound. Missed the joint and the bone. No permanent damage.” She wrapped the gauze over the naked shoulder to cover both wounds. “This is a pressure bandage. I know it hurts, but the greater the pressure the less you bleed.”
“How long will I be laid up?”
“Not long at all, now that the bleeding is under control. In fact, the sooner you begin moving this shoulder the better. It won’t be so stiff later on if you use it now. But go easy – you don’t want to do anything to start the bleeding again.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Augusta looked up to the greenest eyes she’d ever seen, and they were drilling holes in her. Strange child.
“Real estate,” Augusta said, bending to the work at hand, winding another layer of gauze over the holes. “I never lose an opportunity to do a real estate deal. If you die intestate, it could take more years than I got left to tear your mother’s house loose from the state.” And now she risked another glance at her patient.
Not good enough, said the girl’s bright eyes, narrow with suspicion. “Why didn’t you let the place go for back taxes?”
“And pay top dollar in a bidding war at auction?” She put one hand to her breast to say, What kind of fool do you take me for? “I tried to buy this place from your grandfather in a fair deal, but he wouldn’t sell. Then after he died, and your mother moved back to Dayborn, she wouldn’t sell either. But now I got you, don’t I? I think you’ll like my offer, Kathy.”
“Call me Mallory.” This was not a suggestion, but clearly an order.
“All right then. You know, your mother never did say who your father was. That name you took – Mallory. Might that be his name?”
The younger woman only stared at her, impassive.
Well, there was silence, and there was silence. Maybe she did know who her father was, and perhaps she also knew how to keep a secret.
Augusta pointed to the corner. “There’s your bags over there.” She had recovered them from the woods and made it back to the house not ten minutes before Tom Jessop had pulled into her yard with the patrol car.
“What about my dog?”
“I slipped him into the bog at the top of Finger Bayou. Fred Laurie too. Those bodies won’t stay down forever, but I guess we can worry about that later. I hope you don’t mind the dog keeping company with Fred. That animal deserved better, but it was as good a burial as I could manage on short notice. Poor demented dog, his dying was a mercy,” she said in lament for the dog and passing over the incidental death of a man.
Augusta continued to wind the bandage tight. And all the while, Mallory and the cat exchanged looks of suspicion, two distrustful beings taking one another’s measure, resolving into a standoff. And then the cat curled up in a ball, perhaps intentionally insulting her adversary by closing her eyes while the larger animal, Mallory, was still within harming distance.
“What was my dog’s name?”
“You named him with your first words,” said Augusta, tying off the bandage and binding it with adhesive. “You wouldn’t talk till you were three years old. It drove your mother nuts, but not me. I always figured you could talk – you were just taking your own sweet time.”
Augusta picked up the old bandages and dropped them into the garbage bag. “So, one day, I’m out in the yard with your mother, making her a very good offer on the house, when Tom Jessop comes by with a birthday present for you. He put that little black pup in your arms and asked what name you would give him. Well, you and your dog locked eyes and fell in love.
“Then your mother ripped into Tom for giving you a pet without first discussing it with her. Cass was mad, and Tom was real confused. Men always know when they’ve done something wrong, but they’re never sure just what it is. So all he can think of to say is, ‘But Cass, it’s a real good dog, papers and everything.’ Your mother was backing him up to the wall, explaining the error of his ways in simple words a man could understand. And then, clear as a bell, you said, ‘Good dog,’ and Cass’s mouth dropped open. She’d never heard the sound of your voice until that second. Tom laughed and said, ‘Good Dog it is.’ And Good Dog was his name from then on. And you never did shut up for the rest of that day ”