Mortal Fear

periphery, standing apart from the rest, a couple of tall, stunningly dressed and coiffed young women accompanied by a gray-hatted man wearing dark sunglasses. Friends of Erin’s from her New York days. I’m surprised any of them showed.

I can’t see Drewe, but she must be seated under the sun-bleached tent. She’ll be holding one parent’s hand in each of hers and quieting Holly when she gets too distracted. Anna, the black maid who has worked for the Andersons since before I was born, will be with them. I should be there too. But I am not wanted. I have forfeited my place.

I hate the flatness of this sun-scorched boneyard. I once attended a funeral in Natchez; the burial took place on majestic bluffs high above the Mississippi River, in a white-stoned Athens of a cemetery shaded by moss-draped oaks. That’s how a cemetery should be. A place that can bring a little peace to the living.

Erin’s graveside service is mercifully short. The crowd thins at the edges first, the impatient ones heading for cars they parked away from the cortege in order to facilitate a quick exit. A few people move in my direction, possibly to visit their own dead, but I stand my ground. To hell with them and whatever they think about why I’m not at Drewe’s side.

As larger waves move toward the line of waiting cars, I know that one word is on the lips of everyone. Murder. More evil has probably been spoken of Erin on this day than on any during her life. Whispered rumors of drug addiction and promiscuity recalled in the glare of a sensational crime, savored as the most titillating gossip to touch this town in a decade. Most of the local citizens will have convinced themselves that she brought the murder on herself. The wages of sin, brother, amen. Yet somewhere beneath that summary judgment lies fear. A nameless dread that perhaps this daughter of Rain did nothing to bring her fate upon herself. That some faceless being has for unknown or unknowable reasons chosen this little enclave as his hunting ground. Or perhaps even-God forbid-that he was raised here. I am glad for that fear. They deserve it.

When the muted rumble of engines rolls past me, I focus on the tent that shades Erin’s grave. My line of sight is clear now. The family is there, standing together. A much diminished group of mourners stands a respectful distance apart. Close friends.

At last, with Drewe and Anna at their head, escorting Margaret, the family steps from beneath the tent and joins the waiting mourners. When I spy Patrick with Holly in his arms, anger ambushes me again. I should be there. That is my family, whatever may have happened, and Erin would want me there. But Drewe does not. She blamed my exclusion on her father, but I think she lied. This separation is punishment for my intimacy with Erin.

Bob Anderson looks lost in the ritual of hugs and tears, like a soldier separated from his unit after a battle. He moves constantly, restlessly. I want to talk to him. Exactly why, I’m not sure. But in this patriarchal family, making peace with Bob is the first step toward reconciliation.

The problem is how to approach him. Would Drewe cause a scene? Maybe I should wait and see him at his office. He’ll probably be working tomorrow morning, trying like all reticent men to grind away his grief with labor.

But I don’t have to wait. Without a discernible glance in my direction, Bob detaches himself from the crowd and walks across the grass toward me. He has the hunter’s eye; he’s known I was here all along. He must be sixty, but he still moves with animal ease, his burly limbs churning around that low center of gravity like an organic machine. I feel myself tensing for the inevitable explosion of his rage. I doubt he would desecrate the ceremony by hitting me here, but there’s no knowing for sure.

He stops two feet from me and looks into my face. Bob is shorter than I by a good six inches, but his presence has little to do with his physical mass. The windburned skin and blue-gray eyes seem to show first anger, then grief, then disgust. But perhaps I am merely reading my own feelings onto his face. Glancing past him for an instant, I see Drewe looking our way.

“Look at me,” Bob says sharply.

“Dr. Anderson-”

He stops me by raising one hand to the level of his lapel. “I want to ask you one question.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you know who killed my baby girl?”

My baby girl. Words so far from the image I will always carry of Erin, the very archetype of sensual womanhood. But behind the eyes of her father, a combat veteran who watched friends die by the dozen in Korea, there is only ineffable love for a being he will always see as an infant, or perhaps a beautiful toddler.

“I know his name,” I tell him. “But I don’t know where he is.”

“You think he’s alive, then?”

“Yes, sir. I do.”

“The FBI says he’s probably dead.”

“I know that. But I don’t believe it.”

Bob nods almost imperceptibly. “I don’t either. I’ve known men who fell into that river and came out alive.”

I wait.

“I want you to promise me something, Harper.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you find out this man is alive somewhere, you pick up the phone and call me. First thing. You understand? First thing.”

The baldness of Bob’s intent reaches toward me like wind-blown flame. It’s the sort of intensity that makes even veteran cops nervous. “What do you have in mind to do?” I ask.

His mouth twitches at one corner. “Put him down.”

“Dr. Ander-”

“In the ground.”

A chill prickles the hair on my neck and shoulders. For the first time since this madness began, I feel I am looking at a man who is a match for Edward Berkmann. Unlike Lenz, Miles, or Baxter, Bob Anderson is terrifyingly simple. Clever rather than brilliant, he can handle any weapon from a deer-skinning knife to an automatic rifle, and he is possessed by a righteous anger that looks not to the law for guidance but to the Old Testament by which he was raised.

“Promise me,” he says again.

“I will.”

Bob exhales deeply, a sound almost like a sigh, but heavier, a sound that carries the weight of a burden I cannot begin to comprehend. “Drewe is my pride and joy,” he says, looking over his shoulder to where his wife and surviving daughter stoically accept the condolences of the last stragglers. “She’s already accomplished more than I ever did. I’m so damned proud of her I can’t sit still with it. But Erin…”

He looks back at me, allowing his shield of impassivity to drop a little. “Erin was always different. I knew from the start. She was a wayward girl, God knows, but it wasn’t her fault. It was her nature. She put us through the trials of Job, but I think we loved her all the more for it.”

For a moment he seems unable to continue. Then he wipes both eyes and regains his voice. “I don’t know what went on between you and Erin, but I always sensed there was something.”

Jesus-

“No man’s immune to the temptations of the flesh, son. And God knows she was a temptation to every man who ever saw her. But this…. When you told me she was dead, I thought I’d kill you the second I could get my hands on you. I knew that somehow that computer sex thing of yours had gotten her killed. But flying back from Memphis, I realized you were gonna punish yourself more than I ever could. And if you didn’t, God would.”

Bob runs a hand over his balding scalp. “But this other… bastard. He’s my responsibility. Ain’t no father and mother no place gonna have to endure what Margaret and I have because of this man.”

“Dr. Anderson….”

“You listen to me, son. I got enough money to take care of Margaret if she lives to be a hundred and fifty. I’m gonna leave some to Patrick to take care of Holly, and some to Drewe for the kids you two will have one day. The rest is going to Margaret, and I’m naming you as trustee. Just be still, Harper. You know more about money than anybody I ever knew, and more important, I trust you.”