Ron Rash - Serena

"Why aren't you undressing?" Pemberton asked.

"I have one more thing to do tonight."

"It can't wait till morning?"

"No, I'd rather get it done tonight."

Serena rose from the ladderback chair, came over and kissed Pemberton full on the mouth.

"Just us," she whispered, her lips still touching his.

Pemberton followed her to the door. As Serena stepped onto the porch, Galloway, seemingly unbidden, emerged from the shadows.

Pemberton watched as they walked to the office. Vaughn came out a few moments later and brought Galloway's car from behind the stable. When Galloway and Serena stepped onto the office porch, Pemberton saw something was in Serena's hand. As she passed directly under the porch's yellow light bulb, it gave off a silvery wink.

Galloway handed Vaughn a pen and notepad, and the youth wrote on it, pausing a moment to make movements with his index finger when Galloway asked something further. Pemberton watched Serena and Galloway drive off, his gaze following the headlights as the automobile moved across the valley floor, then disappeared. Vaughn, who'd watched the car beams diminish as well, went inside the office and closed the door. In a few minutes, Vaughn came out. He turned off the porch light and walked rapidly toward his stringhouse.

Pemberton went back into the house but did not go to bed. He set invoices before him on the kitchen table, attempting to lose himself in calculations of board feet and freight costs. Since the moment Serena and Galloway had driven off, he'd tried to block his mind from imagining where they were going. If he didn't know, he couldn't do anything about it.

But his mind worked in that direction anyway, wondering if what Serena had whispered was not "just us" but instead a single word. He figured the only way to stop the flow of thoughts was with the half-filled bottle of Canadian bourbon in the cabinet. Pemberton didn't bother with a glass. Instead, he tipped the bottle and drank until he gasped for breath, the bourbon scalding his throat. He drank again and finished off the bottle. He sat in one of the Coxwell chairs and closed his eyes, waited for the whiskey to take hold. Pemberton hoped the half-quart was enough and tried to help it along. He imagined the thoughts seeking connection in his head were like dozens of wires plugged into a switchboard, wires the whiskey would begin pulling free until not a single connection was possible.

In a few minutes, Pemberton felt the alcohol expanding in his skull, the wires pulling free, one at a time, the chatter lessening until there was no chatter at all, just a glowing hum. He closed his eyes and let himself sink deeper into the chair.

When the clock on the fireboard chimed midnight, Pemberton stepped back out on the porch. The whiskey made his gait unsteady, and he held onto the porch railing as he looked down at the camp. No light glowed through the office window, and Galloway's car was still gone. A dog barked near the commissary, then quit. Someone in a stringhouse played a guitar, not strumming but plucking each string slowly, letting the note fade completely before offering another. In a few minutes the guitar stopped, and the camp was completely silent. Pemberton raised his head, felt a moment of vertigo as he did so. Soon the last coal-oil lamp in the stringhouses was snuffed. To the west, a few mute spasms of heat lightning. Dark thickened but offered no stars, only a moon pale as bone.

SHERIFF MCDOWELL DROVE INTO CAMP AT MID-MORNING. He didn't knock before entering the office. Pemberton found the sheriff's manner typically insolent and remembered it was Wilkie who'd advocated McDowell remain in office when the timber camp first opened. It will mollify the locals to have one of their own in the position, Wilkie had argued. Pemberton did not offer McDowell a seat, nor did the sheriff ask for one. Pemberton still felt the effects of the whiskey, not just the hangover but a residue of drunkenness as well.

"What brings you here that a telephone call couldn't convey?" Pemberton asked, looking at the invoices on his desk. "I've got too much work to deal with uninvited guests."

McDowell did not speak until Pemberton's gaze again focused on him.

"There was a murder up on Colt Ridge last night."

The sheriff's eyes absorbed Pemberton's surprise. The only sound in the room was the Franklin clock on the credenza. As Pemberton listened, the clock's ticking seemed to gain volume. Wires the alcohol had severed reconnected. Pemberton felt something shift inside him, something small but definite, the way a knob's slight twist allowed a door to swing wide open.

"A murder," Pemberton said.

"A murder," the sheriff repeated, emphasizing the first syllable. "Just one, Adeline Jenkins, an old widow-woman who never harmed anyone. Her throat was slashed. Cut left to right, which means whoever did it was left-handed."

"Why are you telling me this, Sheriff?"

"Because whoever did it didn't bother to step around the blood on the floor. I found two sets of boot prints. One's just a brogan, nothing special about it except small-sized for a man, but the other is something fancy. Narrow toed, nothing you'd buy around here. From the size and shape I'm betting it's a woman's. All I've got to do is find a match, and the fact that I'm here should tell you I know where to look."

"I'd be careful about any accusations," Pemberton said. "I have no idea who this Jenkins woman is. She doesn't work for me."

"Your wife and that henchman of hers thought she'd tell them where the Harmon girl and her child were. That's what I think. They went to the girl's cabin first. The door was wide open this morning, and I know for a fact it was fastened last night. Cigarette butts by the barn as well. Only I don't know which one they were after." McDowell paused. "Which one was it, the child or the mother? Or was it both?"

"The Harmon girl and the child," Pemberton said. "You're saying they weren't harmed?"

"Ask your wife."

"I don't need to," Pemberton said, his voice not as assertive as he wished. "Whatever happened, she wasn't involved. Any tramp off a train could have killed that old woman. If you're looking for a suspect, you should go down to the depot."

McDowell looked at the floor a few moments as if studying the grain of the wood. He slowly raised his eyes and stared directly at Pemberton.

"Do you people think you can do anything?" McDowell asked. "I went over to Asheville last week and found out more about Doctor Cheney's killing. There were at least five possible causes of death and all of them slow. Campbell at least got killed quick, the Nashville sheriff says. Harris did too."

"Harris fell and broke his neck," Pemberton said. "Your own coroner said it was an accident."

"Your coroner, not mine," McDowell replied. "I'm not the one paying him off every month."

The sheriff's uniform was rumpled, as if he'd slept in it the night before. McDowell suddenly seemed conscious of this, and tucked his shirt tail tighter into his pants. As he raised his eyes, his features pinched into a rictus of loathing.

"I can't do anything about Buchanan or Cheney or Harris, maybe not Campbell either, but I vow I'll do something about the murder of an old woman, and I'll not let a mother and her child be killed," McDowell said, then more softly. "Even if it is your child."

For a few moments neither man spoke. The sheriff splayed his fingers and ran them through hair he'd obviously not combed that morning, revealing a few streaks of gray Pemberton had never noticed before. The sheriff let the raised hand settle over the right side of his face. He rubbed his forehead as if he'd banged it against a door jamb or window sill. The hand was withdrawn, resettled on the side of McDowell's leg.

"When's the last time you saw that boy?"