DALE OFFERED TO DRIVE them back to Rocky Mount, claiming it was the least he could do. Deacon and Marcus exchanged glances over the man’s bowed head, both of them hearing the hollow tone of one lost to all but his own wretchedness. Marcus excused himself and walked over to the bank of phones on the courthouse’s brick wall. He obtained the number for the Raleigh News and Observer and asked for Omar Dell’s voice mail.
To his surprise, the young man himself answered the phone. Marcus asked, “What’s a court reporter doing in the office on a Saturday afternoon?”
“The editor lets me come in weekends and work on side issues. Man on the move’s gotta go the extra mile.” Omar’s voice gradually heightened in pitch. “You’re phoning me with something, right? This ain’t no weekend social call, see how your favorite hack is spending his time.”
“I’ve just gotten out of an arraignment hearing. Dale Steadman has been charged with murder one.”
“Wait!” There was the sound of a drawer being violently torn open. “All right. I’m ready!”
Marcus sketched out what had taken place. “That’s all I know so far.”
The court reporter responded to the news with his own cry of delight. “Didn’t I say this was gonna happen? The man makes it his job to light up the sky!”
“I just felt like I owed you.”
“This is the kind of payback I like!”
“I assume I don’t have to state the obvious.”
“Course not. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name. Who is this I’m talking to?”
Marcus hung up the phone and walked outside to where the pair waited in the Esplanade. “Let’s go.”
It was dark by the time they dropped off Deacon and drove to Marcus’ home. The silent ride had seemed endless. Dale’s morose state had defied all attempts at conversation and planning. Marcus climbed out of the car, stretched, and offered, “Why don’t you come in and stay the night?”
Dale did not turn from his grim inspection of the night ahead.
“It’s too late for you to drive back to Wilmington, Dale.”
“Shut the door.”
Marcus knew the tone and the intention all too well. “Friend, that voice you’re hearing is only speaking lies.”
In reply, Dale slapped the Esplanade into gear and gunned the engine. Marcus stepped back as the SUV shot forward. His door slammed shut with the sound of a gavel pounding nails into the grim and uncaring dark.
Marcus ate a weary dinner standing by the kitchen sink. The wall phone was there at eye level, waiting for him to end his futile debate. He called Kirsten’s hotel and left a message for her to get in touch. Then he stood cradling the phone and knowing he had to make the call.
Thankfully it was Darren who answered at the sheriff’s office. The young man understood enough not to bother him with senseless questions.
Marcus washed his dinner dishes, then cut off the air conditioner and moved about the house, opening the windows. The night filtered through the screens, humid and earthy with the flavors of late summer. Marcus stepped onto his front porch and settled into one of the rockers. Heat lightning flickered against the horizon, a visual accompaniment to the crickets’ serenade. A nightbird shrilled a soprano’s high call, answered by a dog barking several doors down. He rocked in time to the night rhythms, exhausted from the day, yet knowing if he went to bed he would not sleep. There was nothing to do but wait.
About two hours later, Marcus was drawn to his feet by a patrol car pulling into his drive. Darren Wilbur slid his bulk from behind the wheel and waved Marcus over.
“F-Found the man leaning on the w-wall outside the Deadline Bar and G-Grill.” Darren reached down and hefted Dale by an utterly limp arm. “Staring at his c-car like he c-couldn’t make up his m-mind.”
Marcus moved to Dale’s other side. Up close the man smelled of sour mash and other people’s smoke. “If you’re going to be sick, I’d rather you do it out here.”
Dale struggled to raise his head and draw Marcus into focus. “Don’t be angry with me.”
Even with the two of them helping, Dale made hard going of the front stairs. Marcus used his foot to push open the screen door. “Let’s take him straight upstairs.”
“S-stand aside.” Darren gripped Dale so hard the air huffed from his lungs, and hustled up the steps.
“First door on the right.”
Darren pushed into the guest bedroom and eased the man down. Dale’s fumbling would have cast the side table and lamp to the floor, had Marcus not been there to catch them. Dale’s gaze roved with the unwilling fervor of lost control. “So afraid.”
“The bathroom is through the door straight ahead of you.” Marcus positioned the trash can by the side of the bed, then laid a towel by Dale’s head. “Don’t worry. Their case is full of holes.”
Confusion writhed across his features. “What’re you talking about?”
“Prison. This afternoon. New York. Remember?”
Dale laughed with drunken contempt. “Couldn’t care less about all that.”
Marcus stared down at the rumpled man.
“Where is my baby, Marcus?”
He motioned Darren toward the door. “Sleep it off. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
As he flipped off the light and closed the door, a voice crushed by a mountain of pain moaned, “Where is my daughter?”
Sleep, night’s intimate companion, bid Marcus a jarring farewell. He dressed and stood in the upstairs hallway, listening to the house. A sonorous snoring came from the guest bedroom. Marcus tread quietly down the stairs, grateful for the isolation.
He made a coffee and took his mug and the cordless phone out onto his front porch. His thoughts shifted in time to the pungent predawn breeze. Strands of honeysuckle and bougainvillea climbed trellises to either side of the porch, offering aromatic alms to the day ahead. The previous autumn he had planted a stand of fruit trees beside his office, replacing the huge elm burned by New Horizons lackeys sent to destroy his home. The day was so young and the sky so clear the saplings and neighboring pines stood as Chinese etchings upon a gold-embossed sky. Between him and the road, magnolia blossoms cupped the first glimmer of light in scented white hands.
The night’s final dream lingered like half-heard whispers. He had been seated in this very same spot, rocking away and watching his little corner of the world. Fay had appeared and spoken to him. In the dream he could not make out her words, but he heard the wisdom of hard-fought years and knew the woman’s message. He waited through his second cup, then dialed the New York hotel’s number from memory.
Kirsten answered with the soft breathiness of one still asleep.
“It’s me.”
“Marcus, hi.” The voice was so intimate he tasted the words as he would love’s caress. “I was at dinner when you called. When I got back I was so sleepy I just fell into bed. I’ve still got on half my clothes.”
He forced himself to push that thought away. “It’s early, but I couldn’t wait. We’ve got to talk.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Kirsten, I need your help.”
There was a moment’s pause, then, “Wait just a second.”
The first birds of dawn chirped a welcome as he waited. She returned equipped with a totally different tone. “All right, I’m back.”
He took it slow, giving her the full details. Walking her through the three court appearances, the way opposing counsel had constantly stayed ahead of him, the news yesterday, the journey, the confrontations. Then, because it had tasted so good the first time, he finished as he had started. “I know I’m missing something. I just can’t seem to see this clearly.”
“Someone else is involved here.”
Fifteen minutes on the phone and she had the answer. Marcus found it difficult not to scoff. “Kirsten, who on earth could possibly have such a strong interest in this baby they’d go to all this trouble?”
“That’s our problem.” She remained as soft-spoken as always, but there was no doubt to her response. “We’ve been hitting our heads on a question we can’t answer. Let’s look at it another way.”
He stared at the gathering light. “What other way is there?”
“We need to discover,” Kirsten answered, “who else could be pulling Hamper Caisse’s string.”
“But what would they want?”
“That’s exactly the issue we have to work out.”
The impulse to play the lawyer and pick away at her certainty was so potent it forced him out of his chair and across the dew-flecked lawn. “You’re saying we look first for motive, then the person.”
“Erin had a secret. We know that much. We’ve assumed it was nothing more than a desire to avoid bad publicity. What if it was something else?”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“We’ve got to start looking for answers where she cared the most.” She pondered a moment. “I need an introduction at the Met. That was her obsession, right? It’s as good a place to start as any. But I need a contact.”
He shrugged in silent bafflement to reasoning he could not fathom. “Let me make a call.”