It was the living who suffered, and Caroline wondered who the woman had left behind to grieve and mourn and question.
Her heart ached to make music, to make music so passionate it would drive away everything else. She could still do that, thank God she could still do that. Escape there when there was nowhere else to run.
Leaning against the post, she closed her eyes and played it in her head, filled her mind with melody so rich she didn't hear the next car jolt down the lane.
'Hey there.' Josie slammed her car door, and finishing off the last of a cherry Popsicle, started toward the porch. 'Hey,' she said again, and offered a friendly, curious smile when Caroline raised her head. 'Y'all got a commotion here.' She licked the stick clean with a savoring tongue. 'Saw all these cars turn in while I was heading home and thought I'd see what was doing.'
Caroline gave her a blank look. It was odd, almost obscene, to see someone so vivid and pulsing with life when death was still hovering. 'I beg your pardon?'
'No need for that, honey.' Still smiling, Josie walked up the steps. 'I'm just nosy, that's all. Can't stand for something to be going on and not know about it. Josie Longstreet.' She held out a hand still a bit sticky from the melted ice.
'Caroline. Caroline Waverly.' After she'd shaken hands, Caroline thought how innate manners were, how absurdly automatic.
'You got trouble here, Caroline?' Josie set the sticks on the porch rail. 'I see Burke's car. Gorgeous, isn't he? Hasn't cheated on his wife, not even once in better than seventeen years. Never seen anyone take marriage so damn serious. But there you go. Doc Shays, too.' She glanced back at the crowded lane. 'Now,
Caroline nearly smiled. 'Yes. I'm sorry, would you like to sit down?'
'Don't worry about me.' Josie took a cigarette out of her purse. She lighted it with a gold butane. 'You got all these visitors, but I don't see a soul.'
'They're…' She looked toward the trees. She swallowed hard. 'The sheriffs coming now.'
Josie shifted position subtly, turning her body slightly, lifting her shoulders. The sassy smile she offered Burke faded when she saw his eyes. Still, her voice was bright. 'Why, Burke, I'm jealous. You hardly ever come to pay calls on us at Sweetwater, and here you are.'
'Official business, Josie.'
'Well, well.'
'Miss Waverly, I need to speak to you. Could we go inside?'
'Of course.'
As he started by, Josie took his arm. The teasing had gone out of her face. 'Burke?'
'I can't talk to you now.' He knew he should tell her to leave, but he thought Caroline might want another female around when he'd finished with her. 'Can you wait? Maybe stay with her awhile?'
The hand on his arm trembled. 'How bad is it?'
'As bad as it gets. Why don't you go in the kitchen, fix us something cold? I'd be obliged if you'd stay in there until I call you.'
Caroline settled him in the front parlor, on the striped divan. The little cuckoo clock that she had wound faithfully since her arrival tick-tocked cheerfully. She could smell the polish she'd used on the coffee table just that morning, and her own sweat.
'Miss Waverly, I'm awfully sorry to have to ask you questions now, when you must be upset. But it's best to get to all this quickly.'
'I understand.' How could she understand, she thought frantically. She'd never found a body before. 'Do you know… do you know who she is?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
'The deputy-Johnson?' Her hand was up at her throat, rubbing up and down as if she could stroke the words free. 'He said she didn't drown.'
'No, ma'am.' Burke took a notebook and pencil from his pocket. 'I'm sorry. I have to tell you she was murdered.'
She only nodded. She wasn't shocked. A part of her had known it from the moment she had looked into the wide, sightless eyes. 'What do you want me to do?'
'I want you to tell me anything you saw, anything you heard in the last forty-eight hours.'
'But there's nothing, really. I've only just arrived, and I've been trying to-to settle, to put things in order.'
'I understand that.' He tipped his hat back on his head, used his forearm to dab at sweat on his brow. 'Maybe you could think back. You didn't maybe hear a car pull into your lane at night, or anything that didn't sound quite right to you?'
'No… that is, I'm used to city noises, so nothing really sounds right to me.' She dragged an unsteady hand through her hair. It was going to be all right, she told herself, now that they were down to the questions and answers, the mechanics of law and order.
'The quiet seems so loud, if you know what I mean. And the birds, and insects. The owls.' She stopped, and what was left of her color drained away. 'The other night, the first night I was here… oh, God.'
'You just take your time, ma'am.'
'I thought I heard a woman scream. I'd been asleep, and it woke me. Frightened me. Then I remembered where I was, and about the owls. Those screech owls.' She closed her eyes on a flood of guilt. 'I went back to sleep. It could have been her, calling for help. I just went back to sleep.'
'Or it could have been an owl. Even if it was her, Miss Waverly, you couldn't have helped. Could you tell me what time it woke you up?'
'No, I'm sorry. I have no idea. I didn't look.'
'Do you walk back there much?'
'I have a couple of times. My grandfather took me fishing back there once when I visited.'
'I've gotten some good cats back there myself,' he said conversationally. 'Do you smoke?'
'No.' Manners rising again, she glanced around for an ashtray. 'Please, go ahead.'
He pulled one out, but he was thinking about the single cigarette butt he'd found near the log. Edda Lou didn't smoke either. 'You haven't noticed anyone poking around here? No one's come by to see you?'
'As I said, I haven't been here long. I did run into someone the first day. He said my grandmother let him come down to watch the water.'
Burke kept his face impassive, but his heart began to sink. 'Do you know who that was?'
'His name was Longstreet. Tucker Longstreet.'
Tucker was back in the hammock holding a cold beer against his swollen eye and sulking. His body no longer felt like it had been trampled by horses. It felt like it had been dragged a few miles first. He was regretting, bitterly, his decision to face Austin. Far better to have slunk off to Greenville or even Vicksburg for a few days. What the hell had made him think that pride and honesty were worth a fist in the eye? Worse yet was the fact that Edda Lou was probably off somewhere smirking at all the trouble she'd caused. The more he thought about it, the surer he was that Austin had battered him for no good reason. Edda Lou wasn't about to have an abortion. Not that Tucker figured she'd turn from one on moral or maternal grounds. But if she wasn't pregnant, she wouldn't have any hold on him.
A hold, he thought miserably, that would last the rest of his life.
Nothing took hold of you like family, he thought. And his blood would mix with Edda Lou's in the baby she was carrying. All the good and bad there was between them would stir around, leaving it up to God or fate or maybe just timing to determine which traits endured.
He took a long swallow of beer, then rested the bottle against his eye again. It wasn't any use thinking about something that wasn't going to happen for months yet. He was better off worrying about the almighty present.
He hurt, and if he didn't feel so damn stupid about the whole mess, he'd have called Doc Shays.
To lull himself, he let his thoughts drift to more pleasant matters.
Caroline Waverly. She was as pretty as one of those tall, glossy ice-cream parfaits. The kind that cooled you off and made you greedy for more. He grinned to himself as he remembered the snooty look she'd given him in
