Ron Rash - Serena

Serena withdrew her hand and sat back. She said nothing more as Pemberton poured himself more wine.

The day had been warm so the window was open. Someone on the commissary steps strummed a guitar and sang about a big rock candy mountain. Pemberton listened to the words intently. It was the same tune he'd heard the porter whistling on the train the day Pemberton had brought Serena from Boston. Just twenty-six months ago, but it felt so much longer than that. The servers came and brought dessert and coffee. Pemberton finally felt the alcohol spread its calming glow inside his head. He let the wine have its way with him, glide him past where he didn't want to dwell.

Pemberton and Serena were finishing their coffee when Galloway came in. He acknowledged only Serena.

"I got something to tell you."

"About what?" Serena said.

"Vaughn," Galloway said. "Had me a little chat with the switchboard operator. I figured that old biddy would of been listening in. It was Vaughn tipped off McDowell, which explains why the little piss ant's skedaddled." Galloway paused. "And that ain't the only thing. A sawyer seen McDowell driving toward Asheville Monday evening with that Harmon girl and her young one. The dumb son-of-a-bitch didn't think it worth telling anybody till today."

"That explains a lot," Serena said.

After Galloway left, Serena and Pemberton finished their meal in silence, then walked to the house. The porch light had not been turned on, and Pemberton stumbled on the steps, would have fallen if Serena had not caught his arm.

"Careful, Pemberton," she said, then ever so softly. "I don't want to lose you."

EDMUND Wagner Bowden the Third arrived at the camp office the following morning. He was a recent Duke graduate and, according to the senator who'd sent him, fancied the job might do for him what being police commissioner in New York had done for Teddy Roosevelt. Though, the senator had hastened to add, Bowden was no follower of Roosevelt in other ways. Bowden was exactly what Pemberton expected-soft and florid, a reflexive smirk behind a few tentative hairs attempting to pass as a moustache. The smirk disappeared when Serena quickly exhausted the young man's conversational Latin.

Bowden departed mid-morning for his first full day as the new Haywood County sheriff. He'd been gone less than an hour when he called Pemberton's office.

"Mr. Luckadoo from the savings and loan just came by to tell me that McDowell and a police detective from Nashville are at Higgabothom's Café. They've been there all morning with Ezra Campbell's brother. Mr. Luckadoo said you'd want to know."

"Did the detective come and see you first?"

"No."

"Go tell him he's collaborating with a man indicted for malfeasance," Pemberton said. "Tell him that if he's got questions you are the law in town, not McDowell."

Seconds passed and all Pemberton heard was static.

"Speak, damn it."

"This Campbell fellow is telling the detective and anyone else who'll listen not to trust me. He's claiming his brother said you and Mrs. Pemberton would try to kill him."

"What's the detective's name?"

"Coldfield."

"Let me make a few phone calls. Then I'll come over there. If they look like they're going to leave, tell Coldfield I'm on my way to talk to him."

Pemberton hesitated a moment.

"Tell McDowell I want to talk to him as well."

Pemberton hung up the receiver and went to the Mosler safe behind the desk. He stood before it and turned the black dial slowly left and right and then left, listening as if he might hear the tick of the tumblers as they found their grooves. He pulled the handle, and the immense metal door yawned open. For almost a minute, he simply stared at the stacks of bills, then gathered up enough twenties to fill an envelope. He closed the metal door slowly, the safe's contents sinking back into darkness, a crisp snap as the door locked into place.

Pemberton took the photograph album from the desk drawer. He'd tried to dismiss the idea of Serena using his photograph to identify the child, but the thought had seized his mind like a snare he couldn't pull free from. Pemberton hadn't opened the bottom drawer, although several times in the last few days he'd allowed his hand to settle on its handle. Now he did. He opened the album and found the photograph of himself still there, as was the one of Jacob. But what did that prove or disprove, Pemberton thought. Like the hunting knife, it could have been taken and returned. He carried the photograph album to the house, shuffling papers and ledgers aside to place it at the bottom of the steamer trunk.

As Pemberton drove out of the camp, he saw Serena on Half Acre Ridge, Galloway close behind. The eagle was aloft, making a slow widening circle over the valley. Their prey believes if it stays still long enough, it won't be noticed, Serena had told him, but the prey eventually flinches, and when it does the eagle always sees it.

When Pemberton arrived at the sheriff's office, Bowden told him that Campbell's brother had left but that the Nashville detective and McDowell remained at the café.

"Do you want me to go with you?"

"No," Pemberton said. "This won't take long."

Pemberton walked across the street to the café. He'd thought McDowell might go quietly, in part because the day he'd been forced to resign McDowell simply left his keys and badge and state-issue pistol on the office desk, his uniform hung neatly on the coat rack. There'd been no curses or threats, no calls to a congressman or senator. The man had simply walked out, leaving the door wide open.

Coldfield and McDowell were in the back booth, green coffee cups in front of them. Pemberton pulled a chair from the closest table and sat down. He turned to the man sitting opposite McDowell.

"Detective Coldfield, my name is Pemberton."

Pemberton held out his hand, and the detective looked at it as if he'd been offered a piece of rancid meat.

"I talked to Lieutenant Jacoby half an hour ago," Pemberton said, lowering his hand. "He and I have some mutual friends."

A waitress approached with her pencil and pad but Pemberton waved her away.

"Lieutenant Jacoby said you should call him immediately. Do you need me to write down his telephone number for you?"

"I know his number," Coldfield said tersely.

"There's a telephone in the sheriff's office across the street, detective," Pemberton said. "Just tell Sheriff Bowden you have my permission to make the call."

Coldfield got up without comment. Pemberton watched through the window as the detective walked across the street and into the sheriff's office. Pemberton pulled his chair back a few inches and studied McDowell, who stared where Coldfield had sat. McDowell seemed to be studying a small tear in the booth's padding. Pemberton placed his hands on the table and clasped them, spoke quietly.

"You know where that Harmon girl and the child are, don't you?"

McDowell turned and stared at Pemberton. The ex-lawman's amber eyes registered incredulity.

"Do you think I'd tell you if I did?"

Pemberton took the envelope from his back pocket and laid it on the table.

"That's three hundred dollars. It's for her and the child."

McDowell stared at the envelope but didn't pick it up.

"I don't want to know where they are," Pemberton said, sliding the envelope toward McDowell as he might a playing card. "Take it. You know they'll need it."

"Why should I believe this isn't a trick to find out where they are?" McDowell asked.

"You know I had nothing to do with what happened on Colt Ridge," Pemberton said.

McDowell hesitated a few moments longer, then took the envelope and placed it in his pocket.

"This doesn't change anything between us."

"No, nothing changes between you and me," Pemberton said, looking toward the entrance. "You'll soon enough see the truth of that."