Shrink asks about my childhood.
Only one thing ever felt good:
Ma let me brush her long
black hair,
And let me touch her anywhere.
But when I turned ten
She stopped me then.
She didn’t care.
She lost her hair
And left me there.
Life sure ain’t fair.
LOUIE BRONK
Death Row, Ellis I Unit,
Huntsville, Texas
Molly sat in Charlie McFarland’s big leather desk chair and stared at the telephone. It was comforting to pretend that all the random violence in the world was concentrated in one evil man, a criminal locked up in a nine-by-twelve-foot cell in East Texas. If he had escaped and come back to prey on this family again, then he could be recaptured and contained again and the world would be restored to sanity. No wonder that was the first idea Charlie had grabbed at.
She felt stupid making the call, but she’d promised, so she decided to get it over with quick while Charlie was still talking in the kitchen with Grady Traynor and another detective. It took four tries but she finally reached Steve Demaris, the warden of the Texas Prison System’s Ellis Unit in Huntsville. She got him on his car phone as he was driving home from work.
“Louie Bronk?” he said in his distinctive East Texas drawl. “You don’t have to worry none about that sucker, Miz Cates. We just did our body count and he’s right where he ought to be—locked up tight on death row, in ad seg. We’re keeping him healthy and safe for his date Tuesday; he ain’t going nowhere nohow. Why you asking?”
When Molly explained what had happened, he was silent. For a moment Molly thought she had lost the connection. “Well, hell,” he said finally, “I’m real sorry for your troubles there in Austin. The wives of Mr. McFarland seem to attract bad luck. But you tell old Stan Heff to catch this one and send him on to us. We know what to do with his kind.”
“I’ll tell him,” Molly said. “And I’ll see you in Huntsville Monday night, Mr. Demaris. I’m coming for the execution.”
“God willing,” he said, “the creeks don’t rise and the federal courts mind their own damned business.”
Molly cradled the phone and tilted back in the chair. She gave a start when she saw that Frank Purcell was standing in the office door; she hadn’t heard him approach. His jacket was slung over his shoulder and his white shirt showed half-moons of sweat under his arms.
“Mr. Purcell. I didn’t know you were there.”
“Didn’t want to interrupt your call. They finished with me in the kitchen. Now they’re talking to Charlie alone. Could I fetch you a glass of ice water, ma’am? I don’t know if you lost as much fluid as I did down there on the hill, but I am parched.”
“Yes. Thank you,” Molly said. “I sure could use one.”
He walked to a panel in the wall and gave it a tap. The panel swung open, revealing a full wet bar with crystal glasses on a glass shelf and an ice maker below. He filled a tall glass with ice cubes and poured over them some bottled Utopia water. He carried it to her where she sat at Charlie’s huge mahogany desk. “I guess Louie Bronk’s right where he oughtta be,” he said.
As she took the glass from him, Molly looked up into his face and said, “Mr. Purcell, I keep thinking I’ve met you before, but I can’t remember where.”
He put a big hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. “Everybody around here calls me Frank, ma’am.”
“If you’ll call me Molly.”
He nodded.
“Can you think where it might have been?” she asked.
“Well, ma’am, I don’t believe we met as such, but I recollect seeing you once or twice when you came down to Hays County. You were reporting on Louie Bronk when we had him in custody down there back in ’82.” His hand still cupped the back of his neck. “Just like he was some sort of celebrity,” he said in a low voice, “rather than the vicious animal he is.”
Molly looked at him more closely. Of course. She would have known him right away if he’d been wearing a gray Stetson pulled down low on his forehead like he used to. “You used to be a Ranger down there,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. I sure was. For seventeen years.”
“When did you go to work for Charlie?”
“Oh, about six, seven years ago. There’s better money in corporate security and the wife likes it ’cause I’m home more.”
“And how long have you known Charlie?”
“Charlie? Oh, I knowed him for a long time; he had some projects down our way, years back. There was some vandalism—pilfering and such—on the construction sites. I got to know him then. Did a little security work for him on my off hours. Always was the most decent fellow.” He shook his head slowly, as if it had been Charlie killed down the hill.
“Yes. I was wondering—” She stopped speaking when they heard the noise of several more vehicles squealing into the courtyard.
He began to back away. “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am, I need to check on that.”
Molly watched him hurry down the hall to the front door. She felt the vague uneasiness that always afflicted her when someone knew more about her than she knew about him. Would this man have mentioned that he’d been a Ranger involved with the Bronk case if she hadn’t asked?
She checked her watch. It was after seven and it might be a long time before she could leave. Grady and Detective Caleb Shawcross had listened to her account of finding the body, and her story of the anonymous poem and pages from her book. They said they’d send someone to pick them up from the DA’s office and told her to stick around while they talked to Charlie. She suspected it might be a long time before they got back to her.
She walked to the front of the house to see what was going on. Frank Purcell stood at the open door impassively watching the black coroner’s van back up in the driveway. When it stopped, two men in white jackets climbed out and walked around to the back where they opened the double doors and pulled out a litter. A uniformed policeman approached them and gestured to the path down the hill.
Just then, a beat-up red Toyota labored up the driveway and chugged to a stop in the courtyard. The driver, a young man with black hair, drove with one arm around a young woman whom Molly recognized from the photograph Charlie had showed her: Alison McFarland.
The young couple got out of the car and gazed around, looking stunned at all the police vehicles filling the courtyard. They talked for a minute with the uniformed cop standing in the middle of it all. He gestured first down the hill, then to the door where Molly stood behind Frank Purcell.
A week ago Molly had spoken to the girl on the phone about an interview, but this was the first time she had seen Alison in person since she testified at the trial ten years ago. Amazingly, she hadn’t really changed much. Very small-boned and pale-skinned, she wore old jeans with holes in both knees, a dingy-looking T-shirt, and hightop sneakers that were laced only partway up. Looking at her narrow hips and shoulders, Molly couldn’t help thinking about the photos of her mother stretched out on the autopsy table. Mother and daughter had the same childlike build, as unlike Charlie McFarland as it was possible to get, as if they were different species as well as different sexes.
Frank stepped out to meet the girl and put an awkward hand on her thin shoulder. “Alison, I’m so sorry about this.”
“How’s Daddy?”
“I don’t know, honey. He’s in the kitchen talking to two police detectives. They’ve been in there for about a half hour.”
“Mrs. Cates. I recognized you from the picture on your book jacket. I’m Alison.”
Molly extended her hand. Alison’s fingers felt small and sticky.
The dark-haired young man appeared at Alison’s side, towering over her. He draped a protective arm around her shoulders. “This is Mark Redinger,” Alison said, her arm automatically reaching out and snaking around his waist.
This was Mark Redinger, the cousin. Molly had never met him, but she knew the name. He was a first cousin of the McFarland children, several years older than Stuart. Stuart had been at his house the day Tiny was killed. What confused her was that just now she would have sworn the interplay between Alison and him was of a sexual nature.
He smiled down at Molly, his deep-set navy-blue eyes glowing under thick dark lashes. His face was tanned, and close-up, she could see that he was older than she had first thought, near thirty probably. Like Alison, he wore old jeans and a white T-shirt, but his jeans were soft and faded and his shirt was snowy white. Definitely a hunk.
Mark Redinger and Frank Purcell stood aside for the two women to enter the house, then stayed at the doorway, talking in hushed voices.
Inside, Alison wrinkled her nose in what looked to Molly like distaste. “Poor Georgia. This should have been such a happy time for her. She and Daddy were really in love, but she married into an unlucky family.”
Unlucky, Molly thought. That was certainly one way to explain getting hit twice by lightning. Maybe the McFarlands were unlucky, but she had always suspected that when lightning strikes twice, it must have had a real good reason for striking in the first place—maybe because you lived on the highest hill around or next to a huge oak tree. Or maybe it struck the second time because the first had created some sort of electromagnetic field that attracted a second strike—some sort of unfinished business.
Alison wandered around the big living room as if she were looking for a place to sit but couldn’t find any surface that suited her. Finally she perched on the arm of one of the immaculate suede sofas. “Can you tell me about finding her, Mrs. Cates? Daddy said on the phone you got here first.”
“The police asked me not to discuss it until they’ve had a chance to talk to everyone.”
Alison’s gray eyes widened. “Does that mean me? Will they want to talk to me?” She pressed both hands against her breastbone.
“I imagine so.” The girl was very pale. Her skin in places was transparent; at her temples and along her jaw you could see the delicate lavender veins under the skin. The startled look which Molly had noticed in the photograph came from round lashless eyes and an upper lip which naturally lifted to show her prominent front teeth.
Alison lowered her head, raised a thumb to her mouth, and began to chew furiously on the side of the nail. Then she pulled her hand away from her mouth and gripped both hands together in her lap. “It’s hard to think of Georgia as dead. She was always so … lively. And so pretty. But dead? God.” She looked down at her bony knees, visible through the holes in her jeans. “Poor Daddy.”
She lifted her head and the intensity of her gaze almost made Molly take a step back. “Isn’t this weird? Daddy said she was shot. Just like my mother. And right now, when Mom’s killer is about to get executed.” Her voice grew higher as she began enumerating how very strange it was. “And you’re here. You’ve written a book about my mother’s killer and you happen to be here and find Georgia’s body.” She held her hands out, palms up, as if she were waiting to receive something. “I mean don’t you think that’s all really strange?”
“Yes,” Molly said with conviction, “I do. Very strange.”
Alison’s eyes opened wide, showing white all the way around the light irises. “He hasn’t escaped or anything, has he?” she asked.
“No. I just talked with the warden in Huntsville. Louie Bronk’s locked up in his cell on death row.”
The girl let out a sigh. She looked toward the kitchen. “I wish they’d finish, so I could see him. He must be devastated.”
“Yes. I believe he is devastated,” Molly said.
“It’s just so unfair he should have to go through something like this again. I mean you don’t see that many happy marriages, and even though they were so old, Georgia and Daddy, they really …”
“Yes. They seemed to have a good thing going,” Molly said softly.
Alison’s eyes teared up. She lowered her head.
Molly said, “Alison, I hear you’re planning to attend the execution next week.”
“Yeah, I am. Another weird thing, isn’t it? He asked for me and my brother to witness it. Can you believe that? And David, too.”
Molly looked at the girl’s thin arms and birdlike wrists and felt the aura of vulnerability surrounding her. It wasn’t difficult to see why her father would want to protect her. “How does your father feel about that?”
Alison whipped her head up and fixed Molly with a fierce look. “What difference does that make? I’m twenty-two years old. I make my own decisions, Mrs. Cates. Daddy doesn’t want me to do an interview with you, either. He doesn’t want me to live with Mark; he doesn’t want me to study journalism—he thinks it will be upsetting. My God, of course it’s upsetting. Life’s upsetting.”
She gripped her knees with her hands. It was the same gesture Charlie had made. “Daddy thinks I should avoid anything difficult or unpleasant. As if that were even possible. When I decided to attend the execution, it was because I thought it might be, oh, like a ritual or ceremony where I could finally say good-bye to the whole thing. But now, this—with Georgia, I don’t know. I just never expected that anything—”
The sound of voices in the courtyard made Alison jump up and hurry to the door where the two men were still standing. Molly walked up behind her.
The two coroner’s men were loading a litter with a long green body bag on it into the back of the black van. Sweat stains broke through their shirts. From the stunned look on Alison’s face Molly could see that the reality of Georgia’s death was just now registering on the girl. Hearing about death over the phone was a different matter from seeing it up-close.
Alison glanced toward the closed kitchen door and said, “I’m glad Daddy’s not seeing this. He hates death.”
Well, Molly thought, he can join the club.
A silver Lexus pulled into the courtyard and Alison let out a long breath. “Oh, good. It’s Stuart.” She glanced at Molly. “He must have found someone to cover for him in the emergency room.” She ran out into the courtyard. As soon as her brother got out of the car, she threw her arms around his neck and held on to him for dear life. Stuart returned the hug with one arm, then disengaged himself.
Molly remembered Stuart McFarland well from the trial; he’d been an excellent witness for one so young—articulate and forthright. At the time he’d been a skinny, forlorn-looking fourteen-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses and dry tan hair. His hair had darkened and he wasn’t skinny anymore. He was shorter than his father by six inches, she guessed, and husky, his upper body muscled like a weight lifter. He no longer wore glasses, but he still had that forlorn look of someone who’d just lost something important but couldn’t remember what. A bit like his sister’s look. Molly had a sudden flash of an idea. Maybe it had to do with losing a parent early in life. And maybe she, Molly, had that look, too—as if she were roaming the world, room to room, and place to place, looking for someone who was never there.
In the courtyard, the officer on duty was asking them some questions. Then he talked into his radio, probably informing Grady Traynor in the kitchen of the arrivals.
Brother and sister came into the house side by side. Stuart shook hands with Frank Purcell and raised a lackadaisical hand in greeting to Mark Redinger who was leaning against the door frame, looking like a male model in a J. Crew catalogue.
Alison pointed toward Molly and said, “Stu, this is Molly Cates. You know, the lady who wrote the book I gave you.”
He took her hand and looked at her with interest. “Yes. Mrs. Cates, we’ve talked on the phone,” he said. Up-close you could see the shadows under his eyes and the gray tone of his skin. Molly had heard how difficult medical residencies were and it certainly showed on this young man. Both McFarland children looked as if they led stressful lives and didn’t get enough sleep.
“What the hell happened here, Frank?” Stuart demanded.
“I don’t know, Stu. I went with your dad to Dallas this morning. Picked him up at ten to seven and Georgia was just getting up.”
“Did you see her?”
“Uh, no, but—”
He broke off when the uniformed policeman entered. He was holding his radio to his ear and said into it, “Yessir. Ten-four.” He said to Alison, “Miss McFarland, the detectives would like to talk to you in a few minutes. Could you please wait for them in the office?”
Alison looked at Mark before replying. “Just me? Alone? Sure. Right now?”
“Yes, please,” the cop said. “And Mr. McFarland—”
“Doctor,” Stuart said, under his breath, so low Molly was certain she was the only one who’d heard it.
“They’ll see you right after your sister, sir. Lieutenant Traynor asked if you would wait for them in the master bedroom.”
Stuart shrugged and walked off.
Frank was still standing in the door and Mark had sat down on one of the suede sofas and draped a long leg over the arm. His shoe wasn’t quite on the upholstery, but close. He was surveying the room.
Molly walked over and sat next to him. “Dramatic room, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah.” He looked up at the cathedral ceiling. “I bet it costs more to air-condition this barn than I pay in rent. All that glass, in this climate.” He crossed his arms across his chest and looked directly at Molly. His scrutiny started at her waist, studied her breasts, and moved up to her face. Then he smiled as if they shared some secret. It took her breath away, it was so insinuating and suggestive, so totally offensive.
“You’re the one that wrote the book about that guy Bronk, right?”
Molly nodded.
“I didn’t read it. Alison’s obsessed with that sort of stuff—cops and robbers stuff. Not me. Too creepy.”
“Mr. Redinger,” Molly said, “am I remembering right that you’re kin to Alison and Stuart?”
He leaned back and let his hands fall into his crotch. “My mother was Charlie’s sister.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. She died when I was eighteen. She was his poor relation and now I am.” Again he gave her the smile and narrowed his eyes in an Elvis Presley way, to suggest all sorts of possibilities. Molly wondered if it actually worked with anyone.
“Well,” she said, “compared to Charlie, most people would be poor relations.”
“And does he ever love to rub it in,” Mark said sourly.
“He does?”
“Boy, howdy. You should have seen the way he treated my mom.”
“How was that?” Molly asked.
“Like trash. Just because Charlie got lucky and made big bucks he’s always pretended the rest of his family just doesn’t exist.”
“That surprises me. I wouldn’t have pegged Charlie McFarland as the sort of man to repudiate his family.”
“Well, he is,” Mark said. “Until the day of her death, he never had anything to do with my mother, his own sister. He didn’t approve of her and he’s never approved of me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t have any money, of course. I teach tennis and wait tables and he doesn’t think that’s sufficiently classy.”
“Am I remembering right that Stuart was at your house the day his mother was killed?”
“Yup. He stayed with us lots, liked to get away from home. My mom was a lot more … motherly than his.” He raised both eyebrows to insinuate something.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t want to tell tales out of school, but my Aunt Tiny was something else.” He lifted his right hand in the air and shook it as though he’d just burned himself.
Molly was choosing the right words to pursue this when Grady Traynor stuck his head through the swinging door in the dining room and called out to her to come in for a minute. Molly made a mental note of wanting to get back to Mr. Redinger. She was trying to remember if sexual congress between first cousins was considered incest in Texas.
It was nine-thirty, a dark and muggy evening, before the police had finished with the crime scene. With Charlie’s help, they had looked through Georgia’s things and found nothing amiss or missing. They had talked with everyone, several times.
The last of the officers to leave was Grady Traynor. He looked reluctant to go as he stood in the cavernous living room with Charlie McFarland, Alison McFarland, Mark Redinger, Frank Purcell, and Molly Cates. Stuart McFarland had left an hour earlier, after talking with the detectives. The hospital was shorthanded and they’d had an emergency.
“Mr. McFarland,” Grady said to Charlie, “if you’d come to police headquarters tomorrow around ten to sign your official statement, we’d sure appreciate it. And you, too, Mr. Purcell, and Miz Cates. We’ve cordoned off the immediate area down the hill, just in case we need to come back tomorrow, so please stay away from there, just until tomorrow afternoon.”
He handed a card to each of them. “Here’s my number. Call if anything comes up or you think of anything more you’d like to tell me.” He handed Molly her card last and as he did it, he angled his back to the others and flashed her a quick smile, raising his eyebrows as if he were asking something. To her amazement, it made her pulse quicken.
As soon as Grady Traynor was out the door, Alison turned to her father, whose shoulders were bent and whose face looked as if the flesh were dripping off. She put her arms around him and rested her head on his chest. “Daddy, you must be exhausted,” she said, not seeing Charlie’s face screw up in pain. “Go on to bed. I’m going to stay here tonight and take care of you.”
When she tipped her head back to look up at her father’s face, she exclaimed, “Oh, your back. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to stay, honey. Frank will stay with me.” Charlie glanced at Frank. Purcell gave him a thumbs-up sign.
“No,” Alison insisted, “I want to stay. I’ll drive you to the police station in the morning.”
“Well, thanks, honey.” Charlie kissed his daughter’s cheek, then without once looking at Mark Redinger, or saying a word to him, he turned away and put a hand on Molly’s arm. “Could you stay for a minute, Molly? I need to have a word with you.”
Charlie led the way down the hall, limping and bent forward at the waist. Molly looked back and saw Frank Purcell let Mark out the door and then start doing up the multiple locks.
Once they were in his office, he closed the door and leaned against it. “Molly, it must’ve been awful for you, finding her like that. I’m just sorry me asking you to come here let you in for that experience.”
Molly nodded and waited. One thing you had to say for Charlie, the man had grace even under the most intense pressure.
“They’re treating me like a suspect in this thing even though I was gone all day, out of the city. It feels real bad to have people think I might do something like that. I suppose I’ll have to get a lawyer now, pay the bastard an arm and a leg to see me through this. On top of everything else.”
“I think that’s a good idea, Charlie,” Molly said. “It sure can’t hurt to have a good attorney in your corner when you’re dealing with the cops.”
He made his way over to his recliner. Slumping down into it with a low groan, he said, “You called the warden over in Huntsville?”
“Yeah. Louie Bronk’s in his cell.”
Charlie nodded as if he’d known it all along. “There’s someone else out there, then.” His voice was dispirited. “A copycat. Traynor showed me that stuff you got in the mail—poem and the pages about the murder. He asked if I knew anything about it. As if I’d know anything about that craziness.” His whole body seemed to slump even farther down in the chair. “So sick.”
Molly said, “Alison’s right; you need some sleep.”
“I reckon so. Molly, you haven’t asked me what it was I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I knew you’d get around to it when you felt up to it. You don’t have to tell me right now.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “Well, I got to thinking about our talk yesterday and I felt bad about it. Sometimes I get a little crazy on trying to control things. I wanted to tell you if you still wanted that interview, I was willing to talk about it—on the record. I think I have some things to say I’d like printed, might do some good. As for my children, they’ll do what they want no matter what I do so I might as well give up. Of course now isn’t a good time, but I’ll carry through on this if you want—when I feel better.”
Molly knew that the humane thing was to say it wouldn’t be necessary; it might be too much of a strain for him. But that cold part of her mind that was always hunting for the good story just couldn’t allow that. Now more than ever she wanted to hear what he had to say. “Thank you, Charlie,” she said. “When you’ve gotten some sleep.”
About to leave, she thought of something that had been bothering her. “Charlie, about Frank Purcell—was he directly involved in the Bronk investigation when he was a Ranger in Hays County?”
He looked up as if he were slow in registering the question. “Frank? Directly involved? Oh, I think there was so much to do early on with all Bronk’s confessions that all of them down there got involved some. Why?”
“Just wondered. I recognized him from when I was going down there as a reporter. He’s been working for you eight years?”
“For my company, yes. A damn good man, best we’ve had. The Rangers train ’em good.” He struggled to his feet. “Well, I guess I will try some sleep. This has been one hell of a day and tomorrow’s not gonna be much better. The condolences again. God. I’ve had enough condolences for a lifetime.”
Molly wanted to take his elbow and help him, but she restrained herself. “It’ll get worse before it gets better. But you already know that.”
His left eye twitched involuntarily. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Unfortunately, I do know. And this is going to be worse than last time, if that’s possible.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “If that’s possible,” he repeated.