The Clouds Roll Away Read online

  But I opened the door again.

  My mother’s sleepy face turned to DeMott like a morning blossom seeking sunshine. He stopped talking midsentence and my mother sat up.

  “Raleigh, look who came to see if you’re okay!” she exclaimed.

  I looked at DeMott. “How did you get here?”

  “Is that the only question you can think to ask?” she demanded.

  “We keep a bunch of plows on the farm.” He moved his hands, showing my mother. “The blade just hooks to the front of my truck, ready to go.”

  She touched his arm. “But it was still very, very difficult to get here, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am.”

  She threw me a look, insinuating his white horse waited at the curb.

  “I need a ride,” I said.

  “Raleigh, sit down,” she said. “There’s nowhere to go on a day like this.”

  “I got a call from work.”

  “That office, what is wrong with that office?” She touched his arm again. “They call her at all hours. As if the rocks are in a hurry.”

  “Five minutes?” I asked DeMott.

  He nodded and I was closing the patio door when I heard my mother attempt a whisper.

  “Don’t let Raleigh fool you,” she was saying. “She’s actually quite lonely.”

  DeMott plowed a path to Stonewall Jackson and said, “I’m really sorry about the other night.”

  The tire chains chinked down the road, the rubber wipers stuttered across the windshield, sweeping away fresh snow. The words I wanted to speak were stuck in my throat, but I forced them out.

  “I was wrong, DeMott, not you. I put my job ahead of everything else, including family and friends. It wasn’t fair to put you in that situation. I’m sorry.”

  He stopped at the light on the Boulevard and Broad Street. “So we accept our mutual apologies?”

  I nodded.

  “Excellent.” He smiled. “Which way to your office?”

  “I’m headed to Rapland.”

  “What?”

  I stared at the CVS drugstore across the street. The windows were shuttered and dark.

  “Oh,” he said. “Something else I’m not supposed to know about.”

  “It doesn’t involve you,” I said. Then, remembering Stuart Morgan, I added, “At this point, I can’t see that it involves you.”

  He ignored all the other traffic lights, slowing down just long enough to glance both ways. But the streets were empty and white, the snow falling in thick bundled flakes. His truck chugged up the overpass by the baseball stadium, then down the other side to the interstate. In the haze of snow, a bright red garland of brake lights carved the highway’s middle lane. We joined the procession, inching toward I-64.

  “You’re still coming for Christmas, right?” he asked.

  “If I can get there.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  After several minutes of silence, I took out my phone and called Zennie. She sounded only slightly less cranky than earlier, but still nobody had contacted her.

  When I hung up, DeMott was taking the exit for Williamsburg Road. He asked, “How long have we known each other, Raleigh?”

  “Since sixth grade.”

  “It was the first spring dance, to be exact,” he said. “St. Catherine’s girls and St. Christopher’s boys. You were wearing white pants before Memorial Day. I think I fell in love with you right there.”

  He stopped at the light for Williamsburg Road. I didn’t dare turn to look at him. I watched an army of jacked-up pickups with snow blades scraping the road to Varina, refusing to wait for help.

  “Do you remember that dance?” he asked.

  “You wore a shark’s tooth on a leather string around your neck.”

  “Raleigh, look at me.”

  All of the reflected light from the snow seemed to gather in his blue eyes.

  “If I thought it would convince you, I’d climb out of this truck right now and get down on one knee in the snow.”

  “DeMott—”

  “No, listen. The whole time you were in Seattle, all I could think about was you meeting somebody else. When I heard you were back, I knew it was time to tell you how I really feel. No more playing games and acting cool. I’ve always felt this way about you. But you don’t like surprises—”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Yes, I don’t like surprises.”

  “Oh.”

  “The light’s green.”

  The truck’s back wheels spun, then the chains caught, carrying us through Varina. The streets were clear, the sidewalks shoveled, even though more snow was falling.

  Inside the truck, there was more silence.

  Finally he said, “I had all these romantic ideas how I would ask you. Then I realized it would just push you away. So here’s the deal. I’m asking if you would consider getting engaged, maybe at some point in the near future?”

  I stared at the falling snow, unable to look at him.

  But I nodded.

  We drove in silence. When we reached New Market Road, the stone elephants looked like white hummocks. At the keyhole at the other end, two county cruisers and the sheriff ’s vehicle were parked in the driveway, chains on the back wheels, snow packed into the undercarriages.

  By the front door, an officer bounced on his feet, trying to keep warm. No Cujo. No Sid.

  “When should I pick you up?” DeMott asked.

  “I’ll call you.” I held the door handle, hesitating. “Thanks, DeMott.”

  “For what?”

  Once again the words stuck in my throat. It wasn’t just the place that waited for me, but the people. The people who made room for my flaws.

  “Just, thanks,” I managed.

  “Be careful.”

  I walked toward the front door, and behind me his truck made its way down the melting slush. The chains were chinking rhythmically, metallically, and a deep and unspeakable ache was squeezing at my heart.

  chapter thirty-six

  The county officer bouncing from foot to foot was a large man, and his nose was crimson from the cold. He followed me into the house, although the temperature inside felt no warmer. Checking my credentials, he slapped his arms across his chest, bouncing again.

  “Down the hall,” he said. “Turn at that room with all the pictures. You won’t believe it.”

  The room with all the pictures was where I’d spoken to RPM after he returned from Liberia, where pictures of celebrities hung near pictures of wounded Africans. But the room looked even more surreal now. Like an optical illusion, the back wall had rotated thirty degrees. Stepping into the opening, I smelled a damp odor of mildew rising from below. Gray marble stairs led down to a cellar, and centuries of dripping humidity had dimpled the stones and rounded off their edges, shortening the steps so much that I had to walk sideways and keep one hand on the wall for balance. The wall felt slimy.

  I knew how these old plantation houses nested around secret passages. The most famous ones were at Monticello, designed by Thomas Jefferson. But I’d been in the one at Weyanoke, when Mac hosted our debutante party, and I remembered playing hide-and-seek as a child at Belle Grove, discovering Flynn tucked behind a swiveling bookcase.

  But as I made my way down the dim curvature of stairs, hearing voices echo from below, I began to realize this passage was different.

  I counted three dead bodies on the floor.

  Glancing away, pressing back a wave of nausea, I saw the sheriff on the other side of the cellar. Two officers stood with him. Behind them RPM leaned against the stone wall. His elongated posture was broken, his face slack with shock.

  I walked around the bodies, glancing down only to avoid stepping on body parts and the puddle of blood. I went to RPM first.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  He swallowed hard enough that the Adam’s apple bobbed in his neck. “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

 
; He shifted his head. His eyes were moist, the long eyelashes flat. “I was in there.” He pointed to a short door disguised by the gray rock wall around it. A passage within a passage.

  Unlike the rest of the cellar, the ten-by-twenty room was sleek with modern technology. Poured concrete covered the floor and the walls. Track lighting ran along the ceiling, and stainless steel appliances gleamed from a corner, providing a kitchen. One couch was positioned in front of a flat-screen TV. The air was dry. Holding my breath, listening, I heard the faint hum of a dehumidifier.

  “It’s called a safe room,” the sheriff said, coming in behind me. “You know what that is?”

  I nodded. It was a human vault. The wealthy built safe rooms to secure themselves against intruders and kidnappers.

  “Bulletproof,” the sheriff continued. “Lock yourself in and wait for the bad guys to leave.”

  “Or die,” I said.

  He glanced over his shoulder, making sure RPM hadn’t followed us.

  “He heard shots fired,” the sheriff said. “Somebody broke in, his bodyguard fought them off. RPM called 911. They sliced the phone line, but he keeps a cell phone charged down here.” He pointed to a small desk next to the kitchen area.

  After a moment I said, “Where is everybody?”

  “You mean all his buddies?” The sheriff flipped the pages in his small notebook. “They went to New York for a shopping trip.”

  I stepped back through the stone door. RPM was bent at the waist, vomiting in the corner of the cellar. Bracing myself, I looked at the dead men and resisted the same reaction.

  The bottom jaw remained on two of them, above a now-useless neck, but the heads were cored like melons. They were black. Across from those two, Sid lay with his mouth parted as though saying something. His gold tooth glinted, the diamond shining persistently. He gripped an assault rifle in his right hand, apparently used to blow away the other two. But not before somebody got off a round. The blood under his body formed a maroon-colored lake.

  I glanced back at the other two. One of them held a small black pistol.

  RPM spat discreetly. I waited for him to wipe his chin.

  “Can you take me through it?” I said.

  He shook his head. The confident millionaire was gone. He dragged a wrist over his mouth, the midnight blue jogging suit clean except for that right sleeve.

  “Nobody else was home?” I asked. “Just you and Sid?”

  “I sent my family to the city. I do it every year. They stay at The Plaza. My kids go to FAO Schwarz . . . I couldn’t say no. Not after the kids heard that bomb go off.”

  “So you and Sid stayed, knowing what had already happened?”

  “We always stay.” He opened his arms plaintively. “Sid insisted I sleep down here, with the door locked. I woke up hearing gunfire. And Sid—” He pressed the sleeve to his mouth. “They killed my best friend. They killed him.”

  The sheriff walked up beside me. He nodded, as if to say the story matched what he’d heard too.

  “Do you know these guys?” I indicated the other two bodies.

  RPM opened his arms again, pleading. “They don’t even have faces.”

  The officer guarding the front door suddenly appeared on the stone stairs.

  “Coroner’s here,” he said.

  The medical examiner stepped into the basement wearing an all-black outfit. She looked ready for Aspen, her snow pants clinging to every fit curve of her body. She glanced at the sheriff and I could sense the shift in the room. She was a woman who studied death but carried a live electrical charge, like a downed cable in search of grounding.

  “Just these three bodies?” she asked. “No more anywhere else?”

  “That’s correct,” the sheriff said.

  I glanced at RPM. Tears hovered in his dark eyes. He turned his head, coughing.

  “I need everyone to clear out,” she said. “There’s not even room for us to think in here.”

  Her crew stood to the side as the sheriff ’s officers went up the stairs first, followed by the sheriff, then RPM. I looked back, taking in the crime scene one more time. The brutality bothered me, the violent slaughter of it. But something else nagged at my mind as I made my way up the steps, balancing myself with one hand on the mildewed wall. I listened to the ME giving orders.

  “I want this done right,” she was saying. “Bag the hands on those two. Forget dental records. We need fingerprints, DNA matches. Otherwise, identification’s going to be a nightmare.”

  In the foyer, the sheriff was telling RPM how his officers would guard the property 24/7. RPM stood at the base of the stairs, leaning on the dark banister.

  “When will they clean this up?” RPM asked.

  “It’s a crime scene. I want it sealed,” the sheriff said.

  “My kids come back tomorrow, and they like to go play down there. I don’t want them to see it.”

  “Then keep them out,” the sheriff said. “It’s evidence.”

  RPM nodded, turning. He shuffled up the stairs, holding the rail for support.

  The sheriff posted the large officer at the door, with another patrolling the grounds outside. As he gave them instructions, telling them that if nobody was available to relieve them he’d come out himself, I stepped outside. I called DeMott, asking him to come pick me up.

  I watched the snow fall. Two fresh inches rested on the roofs of the cruisers. I stepped off the porch, looking for footwear impressions. The ground had been trampled by officers and the ME’s staff. The white vans her staff drove were parked all over the lawn.

  The sheriff stepped outside.

  “Something’s not right,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  “Those guys are not with the KKK.”

  “Not unless the Klan’s trying for diversity.” He took out his cell phone, punching in a number. “Erlanger,” he said, “can you work today?”

  I walked over to the guardhouse. There were no footprints in the snow.

  I walked back to the sheriff. “Do you believe his story?”

  “About being in that safe room?”

  I nodded.

  “The front door lock was busted,” he said. “I checked. Door was wide open when we got here. Our dispatcher said he was panicking when he called.” The sheriff kept his flickering eyes on the falling snow. “So right now,” he said, “there’s nothing else to believe, is there?”

  When DeMott drove me home, I stared out the windshield feeling as if I was adding two and two and getting five. In my mind I saw the cellar, the bodies, the blood on the stone floor. I would never forget the sight of missing faces. And I would never forget seeing the famous RPM spitting up fear.

  Cranking the window three inches, I let the cold air brush my forehead. I felt feverish, dizzy. Maybe I was coming down with the detective’s flu. But when DeMott’s truck made the slow turn around General Lee, I was still going over the facts in my mind.

  I looked over.

  And he nodded, as though we’d been having a long conversation, even though I hadn’t spoken one word.

  chapter thirty-seven

  When my grandmother passed away, I overheard grown-ups saying she had a good death. I was nine.

  I’d already heard about people in high cotton, people who chewed the fat, people who got on like a house afire.

  People enjoying a good death joined the list.

  But later, when life sifted out its elemental truths, I realized that climbing into bed after seventy-nine years of living and reading yourself into eternal sleep was a pretty fine way to go.

  To use another Southernism, that was a whole heap better than what happened to those guys at Rapland.

  Saturday morning, with another five inches of snow on the ground, I shoveled my way to the garage and found chains for my mother’s old Mercedes. An hour later I was heading west out of town, the big German auto relishing the challenge, chewing up the white drifts like a Prussian attack on Mother Nature. It still took almost two hours to ge
t to Chopping Road, and from there I had to walk down a packed foot trail. Outside the chicken shack, a lopsided snowman grinned a copper-penny smile.

  “She won’t come out of her bedroom,” Granny Lew said, answering my knock on her front door. A cameo brooch clasped the lace collar of her wool dress. Nylon hose turned her ankles into sandstone pillars. “I’m trying to celebrate Jesus’ birthday and she’s busted up over a man who’s not worth the salt in her tears.”

  She took my coat. In the next room somebody was playing a piano, the notes that described the little town of Bethlehem.

  “We’re keeping the boy occupied,” she said. “Go on and talk some sense into her.”

  Upstairs, Zennie was lying on a twin bed with her back to the door. Her straightened hair spiked around her head like an onyx crown. Hearing my approach, she rolled over.

  “What’d Moon do now?” she asked.

  I sat down on the bed parallel to hers. It was decorated with Star Wars pillows and a stuffed rabbit. The boy’s bed.

  “Zennie, I need to ask you a favor.”

  “I already did you a favor. Look what it got me. I’m hiding for my life.”

  “Has Moon tried to contact you?” I asked.

  She raised her chin, injured but proud. Her small hands toyed with a black velvet box, turning it over and over. “He will soon enough. I expect today.”

  “Did Moon have any distinguishing marks? Moles, scars, maybe some tattoos?”

  Her hands squeezed the velvet box. “He got himself killed?”

  “I don’t even know if—”

  Before the words were out, she threw the box across the room, covering her face with her hands. She let out a wail.

  The box hit the wall, exploding its contents. The pieces scattered across the floor as she sobbed. Feeling useless, I walked across the room and began picking up the pieces, putting them back inside the velvet box.

  “What’d they do to him?” she asked.

  “I don’t even know if it’s him,” I said, dropping the stuff into the box. They were pale objects, like rock chips. “That’s what I need you for.”