“His mother believed it was blood. For God’s sake, she videotaped it! She could probably smell the blood. You can, you know. Smell blood, that is.” She shook her head, bringing herself back from some memory. “She gave the tape to a senile old priest whose sister recognized its value and knew a member of the Reverend’s congregation. That’s how it came to Reverend McCamy. Who are you to question any of this? You’re just some hick sheriff.”
“Let me ask you this, Elsbeth. Was Sam the only child like that Reverend McCamy had ever heard about, had ever tracked down?”
Slowly, Elsbeth nodded her head. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“I suppose it doesn’t. I’m surprised and pleased that you managed to escape the fire, Elsbeth.”
“I doubt you’ll be pleased much longer. If I’d burned to a crisp with Reverend McCamy, you wouldn’t be looking death in the eye.”
“How did you get out?”
Elsbeth McCamy shrugged. “We had a little . . . playroom at the back of the closet. There’s a door that leads down from there and out of the mud room. Reverend McCamy was dead, I knew it, and I didn’t want to die with him, and so I got out of there really fast.”
“That little playroom, I saw it once.”
“That’s impossible. No one ever saw it.”
“Well, yes, I did. Agent Sherlock and I looked around your house once because we thought Clancy was there. I can understand why Reverend McCamy wouldn’t want servants hanging around to find it by accident. I’ll admit I was really surprised that Reverend McCamy was the sort of man who tied his wife down and whipped her.”
Elsbeth McCamy looked blank a moment, then she threw back her head and let out a high wild laugh, and that laugh blended in with the crashing water and sent puffs of cold breath into the air. Katie was ready, only an instant from jumping at her, when Elsbeth’s head came back down, her laughter cut off like water from a spigot, and she whispered, “I want to kill you anyway, Sheriff, so please, come at me, please.”
“Why did you laugh?”
“Because you’re so wrong about us,” she said. “Just like his damned aunt Elizabeth. I know that she snuck in there when we were building the room, looking, poking about. She believed Reverend McCamy was crazy, that he abused me and that I loved it, that I was a pathetic victim. But you’re all wrong. Before I shoved that old busybody down the stairs, I told her what we were going to use that room for. I told her why Reverend McCamy was having it built, and how much he needed it. He gave himself over to me when we were in that room, and he forgave himself for his faults for a few moments at least, when he was strapped down on his belly over that fur-covered block of wood and I whipped him, whipped him until sometimes the whip cut through and brought blood. And I could smell it. He dedicated that blood to God, and prayed that God would reward him with the return of the sacred stigmata.”
“Those vials in that cabinet. What did you use those for?”
“Reverend McCamy used them to help him mortify his flesh, help him transcend the pain of giving himself over to God, pain that was both corporeal and spiritual. He cried in that room, not from the pain, but from how exalted he felt in those moments when the whip split his flesh and his blood flowed off his body onto that beautiful marble altar.
“But you ruined our life, Sheriff, destroyed everything. I’ve thought of nothing else but killing you since my husband died.”
Now! Katie dived and rolled, hoping that Roosevelt’s sculpted cloak covered her, and jerked her derringer out of its ankle holster the instant she stopped rolling. It was nearly worthless at any distance at all, that little gun, but if you got close enough, it could kill.
Elsbeth fired, one shot, then another and another, all three of them striking the sculpture, ricocheting off, sending stone shards flying. Katie stayed down, protecting her face.
Elsbeth yelled, “Come out of there, Katie Benedict! You deserve to die for what you did! That statue won’t help you!”
Katie stuffed herself tighter against the sculpture. “Don’t come any closer, Elsbeth, I have a gun. Do you hear me? I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you force me to. Give it up. Toss the gun over here. There are bodyguards here, two of them, FBI agents. They heard the shots. You don’t have a prayer, just give it up!”
Elsbeth suddenly appeared around FDR’s huge cloak. She stopped not three feet from Katie, smiled down at her. She didn’t see the small derringer. “You’re lying to me again, Katie. You don’t have a gun. You’re expecting your precious bodyguards to ride up like the cavalry and save you. But there won’t be time for that.” And she laughed again. It made Katie’s skin crawl, that laugh.
“You know something?” Elsbeth said, nearly choking. “I wish Reverend McCamy could see me now.”
“I could tell he was proud of you, Elsbeth.”
Those beautiful blue eyes lightened a moment with pleasure. Thank God, Katie thought. Maybe she’d bought herself some time. That big Beretta was pointed right at her head.
Elsbeth McCamy blinked, looked momentarily confused, then shook her head so hard her ski cap fell off. “He was my dearest mentor, a great man who had God’s ear and made me scream with pleasure when he made love to me. And you sent him to his death.”
As she flexed her finger around the trigger of the Beretta, Katie brought up her derringer and fired its two shots point-blank into Elsbeth’s chest.
Elsbeth stumbled backward, but she didn’t go down. “My God, you shot me! You miserable bitch, I won’t let you kill me like you did my husband!”
Katie threw herself at Elsbeth’s knees. She heard a gunshot close to her head. She could smell her singed hair burning as she used all her strength to shove Elsbeth down.
The front of Elsbeth’s coat was drenched with blood now. She raised the gun and fired toward Katie again, wildly now. Katie rolled into Elsbeth, pushing hard against her legs, throwing her arms up to dislodge the Beretta. She knew that at any moment a bullet would smash through her flesh.
There was a single shot, only one. Katie, her arms still pressing against Elsbeth’s knees, looked up and saw a frown of faint surprise on Elsbeth’s face. The frown was frozen in death. Slowly, she fell backward, landing hard. Katie jerked back and leaped to her feet. Her hip burned, and her heart was pounding.
She looked down at Elsbeth McCamy, surely dead this time, her eyes open, staring at nothing at all. Her beautiful hair spilled around her face. She looked very young, innocent even, without any evil or madness about her, just lying there on the ground, the front of her coat soaked with blood and the back of her head ruined.
She heard the sound of the cascading water and the wind whipping between the monuments. She heard the water running fast in the tidal basin, not fifty feet away. And her own harsh breathing, so deadened with relief that she couldn’t move.
She heard running feet. Katie turned to see the two FBI agents, panting, their guns still drawn. “You okay, Katie?”
“Yes, I am, Ollie. I’m very glad you came when you did. That was an excellent shot. I’m also very glad that you’re both all right. I didn’t know if she’d killed you.”
Agent Ollie Hamish shook his head, looking embarrassed and angry at himself.
Agent Ruth Warnecki patted his arm. She said to Katie even as she nodded over at Elsbeth, “She did something much smarter than try to kill us. She came right up to us, knocked on the window, and when Ollie here rolled it down, his hand on his gun, mind you, she told us she was your sister-in-law, that she had to speak to you about Sam, and she promised to keep a sharp eye out for anyone suspicious. We didn’t think anything of it. You’d think after all our years of being suspicious of anything that walked on two feet—but she was so believable, so young and nice-looking. We bolted out of the car when we heard the shots.”
Ollie Hamish pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Hello, Savich? We’re here at the FDR Memorial. You’ll want to get down here real fast. You’ll want to call Detective Raven, too.”
> “And Miles Kettering, please,” Katie said. She looked again at Elsbeth, then slowly sank down to the ground, clasped her hands around her knees, and bowed her head.
43
Detective Raven rose. “You guys like to live on the wild side, don’t you?”
Katie couldn’t move because Miles was holding her so tightly against his side she could barely breathe. “Oh yeah,” Katie said. “I live for excitement. This time though, I think I’d like to just lie in the sun for a good long while and not think about anything but my husband’s beautiful body.”
“Hmm,” Detective Raven said, startled. “Not just yet, okay? There’ll be more questions, more discussions, particularly with the D.A., so check with me before you go off to find a nice white beach.”
When he was out the door, whistling, Katie realized that Miles was holding her even more tightly and he was shaking. She was surprised, somehow, despite everything that had happened. She lightly touched her fingers to his face. “I made a small joke, Miles, just for you. It’s over now, really, it’s all over.”
He pulled her so close she could hear his heart pounding against hers. She raised her face and kissed him, and was kissing him a second time when he said into her mouth, “When I got that call from Savich I was so afraid I nearly passed out. Here we’ve been worried about the kids, and I guess—”
“I know. We’ve been so worried about them that we didn’t stop to think about how all this was affecting us.” He was still shaking. She kept holding him tight, kissing him until she felt him relax a bit. She smiled. “Do you want to know something, Miles?”
“No, not unless it’ll make me want to sing and dance. I can’t take any more bad stuff for a while.” He pressed his face against her neck. “Don’t tell me, Keely wants Sam’s room.”
“Oh no, we’ve made hers even more girlie girl now and I don’t think we could get her out if we tried. Just maybe, I hope, it is something that will make you want to dance and maybe hum a tune.”
She could feel his mouth grinning against her. “Okay, Cracker’s found a boyfriend and is moving out this afternoon?”
“Could be, but she hasn’t said anything to me about finding a guy and moving. Nope, it’s something else entirely.”
“All right, tell me.”
She said slowly, her voice dead serious now, “When I was facing Elsbeth and I knew she could raise that Beretta and shoot me just like that”—Katie snapped her fingers—“I knew for sure the last thing I wanted was to never see you or Sam or Keely again. I guess the bottom line here is that I love the kids and I love you, Miles.”
He was silent as a tomb, didn’t so much as flinch. He didn’t do anything at all. She couldn’t even feel his heart against her chest any longer.
She fidgeted, tapping her fingertips on his shoulder. “Miles?”
“Yeah?”
“Does that make you want to dance and sing?”
More silence, heavy winter silence.
“Miles? If you don’t say something, I’m going to have to toss you to the floor and sit on you.”
“That might be a good start,” he said and bit her earlobe.
She pushed away from him to see him grinning like a thief who’d just lifted Bill Gates’s wallet.
“Sit on me, Katie, do whatever you like. I don’t want to sing or dance right this minute, what I do want to do is strip you naked and do everything I can think of to your injured body.”
“My very serious declaration makes you horny?”
“Let me tell you what it makes me. I’m going to very gently help you upstairs to the bedroom, and then I’m going to feast. I’ll set the alarm for about the time Sam and Keely come home from school.”
As he carried her up the stairs, just like Rhett Butler, he whispered in her ear, “I love you, too, Katie.”
Since Miles forgot to set the alarm, when Sam and Keely came running into their bedroom, they stopped in their tracks and looked at each other. They looked at their parents, sound asleep, Katie on top of Miles, the blankets, thankfully, drawn up to their ears.
“Hey, Papa, why are you home this early?” When Miles mumbled something, and waved a hand at them, Sam and Keely jumped onto the bed, laughing.
EPILOGUE
JANUARY
JESSBOROUGH, TENNESSEE
Hey, Sheriff, where you been? You’ll freeze your butt out there.”
Sheriff Katie Kettering pulled off her gloves and tossed her cream-colored straw hat onto the small table next to Linnie’s station, given to her by Sam for Christmas after her old one was destroyed in November. “It’s cold but the butt isn’t frozen yet,” she said, rubbing her hands.
“Perfect shot. You sail that new hat as good as the old one, Sheriff,” Linnie said. “You’re really late. What’s up?”
Katie shrugged. “Mr. Turner’s rottweiler, Sugar Plum, chased Benny Phelps all the way to Molly’s Diner, where he barricaded himself in, much to everyone’s enjoyment.”
Pete Margolis, one of the firefighters from next door, there to steal some of Linnie’s coffee, said, “Oh well, Benny’s the new postman and Sugar Plum just doesn’t know him well enough yet. What are you going to do about it?”
“When I took Sugar Plum home and explained the problem, Mr. Turner gave me some of Sugar Plum’s treats. Benny can try tossing them to her when he delivers the mail.”
“After a week of the treats,” Wade said, “she’ll probably want to deliver mail with him.”
Linnie said, “Mayor Tommy called, now he’s begging. He wants you to talk to some reporters from Knoxville, help put Jessborough on the map.”
“He just doesn’t give up, you have to give him that. Tell him no way, again, Linnie.”
“He also wants to know Miles’s timetable for moving the plant here. He’s all ready to shove it through the county planning commission, and he needs the plans for the plant. He said it should sail through, given Kettering Helicopters Inc. won’t be sitting any farther than fifty yards from the Benedict Pulp Mill.”
“I gave Miles a real good deal on the price,” Katie said.
“Mayor Tommy’s rubbing his hands together about all the new jobs he’ll get credit for.”
Katie said, “Tell Tommy that Miles will be here tomorrow. He can talk to him then.”
Deputy Neil Crooke stuck his head around the corner. “The toilet in the men’s room needs work, Sheriff.”
“Call Joyce at City Hall. She’ll take care of it.”
Wade said, “Oh yeah, Billy Bob Davis was hitting on his wife again, but when I went over there, she just snuffled and said she’d run into the door. There was nothing I could do.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “You know what, Wade, why don’t you and I go out to their farm and have a little chat with Billy Bob. Maybe if we rub his nose in some of the manure out there, it’ll help him listen better.”
Wade grinned and grabbed his leather jacket. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll follow you out there.”
Katie bundled up again, planted her straw hat on her head, and headed out, sucking in the sweet cold air. She walked to her newly repainted Silverado, all the bullet holes and dents finally repaired. She smiled toward the thick fog-covered mountains. She could reach out her hand and touch them, nearly. She hummed as she revved the powerful engine. She drove slowly down Main Street, making sure none of the snowdrifts would cause any problems. She waved to Dr. Sheila Raines, running across a well-plowed Main Street after her cat, Turpentine, black as sin and easy to see against all the snow. She saw Dr. Jonah Flint wave to Sheila, then eagerly join her to go after Turpentine. Hmm, something just might be going on there.
She was still humming forty minutes later when she had her knee on the small of Billy Bob’s back, pressing his face in the dirty snow in his backyard while she told him what was what.
She heard one of the Gibsons’ dairy cows moo loudly into the bright blue sky. She heard the Benedict Pulp Mill’s noon whistle.
It was a perfect day in the most beau
tiful place on God’s earth.
Turn the page for a preview ofCatherine Coulter’s new FBI thriller
BLOWOUT
Coming soon from G. P. Putnam’s Sons
1
POCONO MOUNTAINS
NEAR BLESSED CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA
FRIDAY EVENING
It was darker than Savich was used to, with no city lights for fifty miles. The starrk white moon floated in and out of bloated black clouds. It would rain soon, Savich thought as he rolled down the window and sniffed the air. A pity. Rain would ruin the new snowfall and that meant Sean wouldn’t get to build his first big snowman. Perhaps it would be sunny, cold, and clear tomorrow, if the weatherman was to be believed, and he, Sherlock, and Sean could go tromping through the beautiful woods he remembered, filled with spruce and pine, hiking to Lake Klister.
Savich stuck out his hand. No raindrops yet. On the seat next to him was a grocery bag from Lew’s Friendly Staples in Blessed Creek, ten miles from the cabin where they were staying for a long weekend. The real staples at Lew’s were tourists; he was expensive, but his little store was open nearly 24/7 and that was what counted to everyone from out of town. In the bag was a wizened bunch of carrots for the snowman’s nose, a quart of two-percent milk for Sean, some buttered microwave popcorn for Sherlock and himself, and a lovely big watermelon, an unexpected find in the middle of January in a nearly empty produce bin in a grocery store the size of his dining room.
The cabin belonged to Jimmy Maitland, Savich’s boss, who regularly loaned the place to his friends and his college-age sons. The boys’ recent presence had necessitated two hours of scrubbing before the cabin was habitable again.
Savich started singing one of his favorite country-western songs, “A Blameless Life Ain’t No Fun at All,” written by his friend James Quinlan. The road was straight and lined with trees set off a bit from the asphalt, the branches thick and impenetrable. “I robbed that bank, laughin’ till my belly hurt, till I—”