In the absence of a prospective oil well, Cole set about selling what he had on hand—himself—usually to the prettier and more adventurous wives in town. He promoted himself to his chosen paramour with the same enthusiasm he gave to oil wells—though with slightly more discretion—ultimately convincing her that she had to have Cole Smith in her life, beginning in her bed. It was all about ego and acceptance. Cole had that manic yet magical combination of insecurity and bravado that drives sports agents, fashion models, and Hollywood stars. And in the oil business, Cole Smith was a star. That was why his name was first on the sign and on the letterhead. Years ago, Cole had suggested this order based on the alphabet, but Waters knew better. It made no difference to him. The proof of primacy in the partnership was in their private discourse and in the awareness of the close-knit oil community. The people who mattered knew who put the “X” on the map and said, “This is where the oil will be.” The rest was showbiz.
“Oh, hey,” Cole said casually. “I meant to tell you. I’m in a little bind over some margin calls on that WorldCom. I need some cash to tide me over the next thirty days.”
Waters struggled to keep a straight face. Cole had said this as if he made such requests all the time, but in fact, it was the first time he had ever asked for a substantial loan. Cole had been in financial trouble from time to time, but he always found sources of emergency cash, and he’d never borrowed more than fifty bucks from Waters for a bar tab.
“How much do you need?” Waters asked.
“About fifty-five, I think.”
“Fifty-five…thousand?”
Cole nodded, then pursed his lips. “Well, seventy-five might be better. It’s just for thirty days, like I said. But seventy-five would smooth things out a little flatter.”
“A little flatter,” Waters echoed, still in shock. “Cole, what the hell’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” A lopsided grin. “Business as usual in the Smith empire.”
“Business as usual?”
The grin vanished. “Look, if you don’t want to do it—”
“That’s not it. It’s just that I want to really help you, not—”
“You think I’m a bum on the street?” Cole’s face went red. “You’ll give me five bucks for food, but nothing for another drink?”
His bitter tone set Waters back in his chair. “Look, maybe we need to talk realistically about what could happen if the EPA investigation goes against us.”
“Why? If it goes our way, seventy-five grand is nothing to you. And if it doesn’t, that money won’t help either of us.”
He was right. But Waters couldn’t help thinking that their exposure would be a lot less if Cole had paid the goddamn liability premium like he was supposed to. Cole had always said it was an oversight, but Waters was beginning to wonder if he had needed and used that cash for something else.
“Cole, why didn’t you pay that insurance premium? Are you in real trouble?”
His partner toyed distractedly with his cigar. “John, you’re like a wife who keeps dredging up some old affair. ‘But why did you do it, Cole? Why.’ I just forgot, okay? It’s that simple.”
“Okay.”
Waters thought Cole would look relieved at his acceptance of this explanation, but he didn’t. He glanced nervously through the cloud of smoke and said, “So, you can slide me the cash?”
Waters was searching for a noncommittal answer when the phone on the desk rang. Cole picked it up but did not switch on the speakerphone, as he once had with all calls. “What is it, Sybil?…Yeah? She give a name?”
Cole’s face suddenly lost its color.
“What is it?” asked Waters. “What’s happened?”
“You’ve got a phone call. A woman.”
“Is it Lily? Is Annelise all right?”
“Sybil says she gave her name as Mallory Candler.”
A cold finger of dread hooked itself around Waters’s heart.
“Let me handle this,” Cole said sharply. “I’ll put a stop to this bullshit right now.”
“No. Give me the phone.”
Cole reluctantly passed the hard line across the desk. The cold plastic pressed Waters’s ear flat.
“Who is this?”
“Eve,” said a low female voice. “I thought you might hang up unless I said what I did.”
“What the hell are you trying to do?”
“I just want to talk to you, Johnny. That’s all.”
Johnny… “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I know you’re suspicious. Maybe even afraid. You don’t understand what’s happening. I’m going to prove to you that I’m not trying to hurt you. Only to help you.”
“How can you do that?”
“Your daughter’s in trouble, Johnny.”
Waters went into free fall. He covered the phone and hissed at Cole: “Call St. Stephens and make sure Annelise is in class.”
“What? Why?”
“Just do it!”
Cole grabbed a different extension. “Sybil, get me St. Stephens Prep. The lower elementary office.”
“What do you know about my little girl?” Waters said into the phone. “Have you hurt her?”
“God, no. She’s fine right now. I’m just telling you that she’s in danger at that school. That’s all I want to say. Talk to her about it, then call me. I’m going now.”
“Wait—”
“You’ll understand soon, Johnny. I’ll explain everything. But you have to trust me first.”
“I’ll understand what?”
“What happened to Mallory.”
“What about Mallory? Did you—”
Cole whispered, “They just let the kids out of school. Your maid picked up Annelise five minutes ago.”
Waters felt only slight relief. “Listen to me, Ms. Sumner. Did you have something to do with Mallory Candler’s death? Did you know her?”
“I didn’t know her,” Eve said in a soft voice. “I am her.”
Waters closed his eyes. His voice, when it finally came, emerged as a whisper. “Did you just say—”
“The world isn’t how we think it is, Johnny. I know that now. And soon you will too. Soon you’ll understand.”
“What do you mean? What are you—”
The phone clicked dead.
Waters jumped to his feet and ran for the door.
“What the hell’s going on?” Cole yelled.
“I’m going to get Annelise!” Waters veered into the hall, checking his pocket for his keys as he ran. “I’ll call you when I find her.”
“Let me drive you!” Cole shouted, but Waters was already halfway down the stairs.
Waters drove fifty miles an hour through the center of town, the Land Cruiser’s emergency lights flashing. When he hit State Street, he accelerated to eighty. The beautiful boulevard tunneled through a large wooded area in the center of town that concealed two antebellum homes: sprawling Arlington plantation; and his own smaller estate, Linton Hill. He’d tried to reach Lily on her cell phone but failed, which meant she was probably swimming at the indoor pool downtown. That was why Rose, their maid, had picked up Annelise from school. He’d bought Rose a cell phone last year, but half the time she forgot to switch it on.
Annelise didn’t have soccer practice this afternoon, and he prayed that she didn’t have ballet or gymnastics or any of the other countless activities she pursued with the dedication of a seven-year-old career woman. He often wished the world were as simple as it had been when he was a kid; that there were long afternoons when Annelise would have nothing to do but use her imagination and play.
He slowed and swung the Land Cruiser into his driveway, then accelerated again. For the first thirty yards, trees shielded the house, but when he rounded the turn, he saw Rose’s maroon Saturn parked in the semicircular drive, and his pulse slowed a little. He parked beside her and sprinted up the steps, then paused at the door and took a breath. He didn’t want to panic Rose or Annelise if there was nothing
to worry about.
When he opened the door, he smelled mustard greens and heard metal utensils clanking in the kitchen. He started to move toward the sounds, but then he heard Annelise’s voice down the hall to his left.
He found her sitting on the floor in the den, playing with Pebbles, her cat. She was trying to coax Pebbles into a house she had built out of plastic blocks that reminded him of LEGOS but weren’t.
“Daddy,” she complained, “Pebbles won’t check into the kitty hotel!”
Waters smiled, then struggled to keep the smile in place as tears of relief welled in his eyes. Seeing Ana playing there, it was hard to imagine what he’d been afraid of two minutes ago. Yet Eve Sumner had sounded deadly serious on the telephone. Your daughter’s in danger at that school….
“How was school today, punkin?” he asked, sitting beside Annelise on the floor.
“Good. Why won’t she go inside, Dad?”
“Cats are pretty independent. They don’t like being told what to do. Does that remind you of anybody?”
She grinned. “Me?”
“You said it, not me.”
Ana pushed the cat’s bottom, but Pebbles pressed back against her hand and glared like a woman groped in an elevator. Waters started to laugh, but stopped when he saw something that would normally have caused him to scold his daughter. The family’s fifteen-hundred-dollar video camera was lying on the floor behind Annelise.
“Honey, what’s the camcorder doing on the floor?”
Annelise hung her head. “I know. I wanted to make a movie of Pebbles in the hotel I built.”
“What’s the rule about that camera?”
“Only with adult supervision.”
“We’ll make a movie later, okay? I want to talk to you for a minute. We haven’t spent enough time together lately.”
She looked up at him. “It’s always like that when you’re drilling a well.”
From the mouths of babes. “Has everything been going okay at school lately?”
“Uh-huh.” Annelise’s attention had returned to Pebbles.
“Are there any bullies bothering you?”
“Fletcher hit Hayes on the ear, but Mrs. Simpson put him in the sweet chair for an hour.”
The sweet chair. “But no one’s picking on you? Other girls, maybe?”
“No.” Annelise grabbed a paw and earned a feline slap.
“Have you seen any strangers hanging around the school? Around the playground, maybe?”
“Um…no. Junie’s dad hung around the fence for a while one day, but then a policeman came and made him leave. Her parents are divorced, and her dad’s not supposed to see her except sometimes.”
God, they have to grow up fast, Waters thought bleakly. Another idea came to him. He didn’t want to consider it—Annelise was only in the second grade—but he knew that the dark side of human nature observed no rules. “Honey, has anyone…touched you somewhere they’re not supposed to? Boys, I mean?”
Annelise looked up, her eyes interested. “No.”
She said nothing else, but she continued to look at Waters, and he knew something was working behind her eyes.
“What is it, Ana?”
“Well…I think maybe Lucy and Pam have been doing something they’re not supposed to.”
Two girls, Waters thought. This can’t be too bad. “Like what?”
Annelise clearly wanted to speak, but still she hesitated.
“You know you can tell me anything, baby. You’re not going to get in trouble. No matter what it is.”
“Well…they’ve been going to the closet during recess to see stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Stuff Mr. Danny shows them.”
A chill raced up Waters’s back, and a vague image of a soft-faced thirty-year-old carrying a ladder came into his mind. “What does Mr. Danny show them?”
“I don’t know. But I think it’s stuff girls aren’t supposed to look at.”
Waters desperately wanted more information, but he didn’t want to press his daughter on something sexual. “Have you been in that closet, Ana?”
“No way. I don’t like Mr. Danny.”
“Why not?”
“He reminds me of something. I don’t know what. Something from a movie. When he looks at me, I feel creepy.”
Waters realized his hands were shaking. “Rose!”
With a sudden clank of metal, Rose’s footsteps sounded in the hall and she appeared in the door, a stout black woman in her sixties who looked as though she would make it through her nineties with ease.
“What is it, Mr. John?”
“I’ve got to run an errand. I want you to keep Annelise with you in the kitchen until Lily gets back. You understand?”
Rose often forgot things like switching on cell phones, but she was hypersensitive to the subtleties of human behavior.
“I’ll keep her right by me. Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.” He got to his feet. “I’ll be back soon.”
Rose smiled at Annelise. “You run in the kitchen, girl. I’ll let you mix the cornbread today.”
Annelise smiled, then stood and ran into the kitchen.
Rose’s smile vanished. “Something bad done happened, Mr. Johnny? Is Lily all right?”
“She’s fine. It’s business, Rose.”
Rose’s look said she knew different. “You go on. I won’t let that baby out of my sight.”
“Thank you.”
Waters hurried out to the Land Cruiser and roared down the driveway. Picking up his cell phone, he called directory assistance and got the number of Kevin Flynn, the president of the Board of Trustees of St. Stephens Prep. Waters had not known Flynn well growing up, but as a major contributor to the school’s annual fund, he knew the man would bend over backward to accommodate him.
“Hello?” said Flynn.
“Kevin, this is John Waters.”
“Hey, John. What’s up?”
“I think we have a problem at the school.”
“Oh, no. Air-conditioning gone again?”
“No. It’s much more serious. I don’t want to discuss it on a cell. I think we should meet at the school.”
“Why don’t you come by my office?”
An attorney with two partners, Flynn owned a nice building four blocks up Main Street from Waters’s office. “The school would be better. Would that maintenance man still be there? Danny?”
“I think he stays till five, most days.”
“Meet me there. Do you know Tom Jackson well?”
A hesitation. “The police detective?”
“Yes. He and I graduated from South Natchez together.”
“Is this a police matter, John?”
“I’m not sure. But I’m going to have Tom meet us there if he can.”
“Jesus. I’m on my way.”
Waters tried to hold the Land Cruiser at the speed limit as he called the police department.
Kevin Flynn’s Infiniti was parked near the front door of St. Stephens when Waters arrived, and the lawyer climbed out when he saw the Land Cruiser. An athletic man of medium height, Flynn had an open manner that made people like him immediately. Waters got out and shook hands, noticing as he did that some of the school’s front windows were open to let in the autumn air.
“What’s going on, John?” Flynn asked. “Why the secrecy? Why the cops?”
“Let’s talk inside.”
Flynn’s smile slipped a little, but he led Waters through the front door and into the headmaster’s empty office. He sat behind the desk, Waters on a sofa facing him.
“You look pretty upset,” the attorney said.
“You’re about to join me.” Waters quickly recounted his conversation with Annelise, omitting any mention of Eve Sumner’s initial warning. By the time he finished, Flynn had covered his mouth with one hand and was shaking his head.
“Jesus Christ, John. This is my worst nightmare. We do background checks on everyone we
hire, for just this reason. We’re required to by the insurance company. Danny Buckles came back clean.”
A soft knock sounded at the office door. Waters turned and saw Tom Jackson leaning through the door, his outsized frame intimidating in the small space. The detective had light blue eyes and a cowboy-style mustache, and the brushed gray nine-millimeter automatic on his hip magnified the subtle aura of threat he projected.
“What’s going on, fellas?” he asked, extending a big hand to Waters. “John? Long time.”
Waters let Flynn take the lead.
“We’re afraid we may have a molestation situation on our hands, Detective. Our maintenance man, Danny Buckles. John’s daughter said Danny’s been taking some second-grade girls into a closet to ‘show them things.’”
Jackson sighed and pursed his lips. “We’d better talk to him, then.”
“I have a civil practice. Nothing criminal. How should we handle this?”
“Is Buckles here now?”
“Yes. Or he should be, anyway.”
“You’re the head of the school board, right? Invite him in for a friendly chat. I’ll stand where he can see me when he goes in to talk to you. You got a portable tape recorder?”
“Dr. Andrews has one, I think.” Flynn searched the headmaster’s desk and brought out a small Sony. “Here we go.”
“Tell him you want to record the conversation as a formality. If he starts screaming for a lawyer, that’ll tell us something.”
“I’d scream for a lawyer,” Flynn declared, “and I’m innocent.”