SAFELY BURIED Chapter 7: Just Playing

The bottomland was so flat I could see her car half a mile ahead of me. I was hitting eighty on the straightaways and gaining on her. She’d have to slow down in the knobs, so I could close the gap even more before I’d get there. Of course, on the other side of the hills, she’d pull away again—unless I drove like a maniac.

My hands sweated as they clutched the wheel. I took the curves as fast as I could as I chased her from ridge to ridge. Either she was a better driver than I was, or she knew the roads better, or both, because the gap between us grew wider and wider.

Down I went into the valley of death. Walls of corn closed in on me at the bottom of the last hill. I slowed down as I approached the Grapevines’ house. The Miata was not in the driveway, and both garage doors were open. I stepped on the gas again.

About a mile past the Neidig cabin, the county road angled into a hidden gap between the hills. The road climbed only slightly as it hugged the side of a hill alongside the creek that drained the hollow. I passed a faded green-and-white mobile home whose yard was littered with plastic toys, lawn chairs, and assorted junk. A wheelless carapace, an ancient Hudson, rested on concrete blocks. Half-buried tires that looked something like a humped sea serpent edged an overgrown flower garden.

I passed another trailer and a rundown house before emerging from the knobs near Hampstead. The village had seen better days. A general store occupied the first floor of a peeling three-story building with two antique gas pumps in front. The post office next door had been closed for years. There were no other businesses on the only street, the county road, which twisted and turned past a couple dozen houses and a few trailers. The only signs of prosperity were two well-kept churches, Baptist and Pentecostal.

Jodie’s car was nowhere in sight. I figured I had lost her, but on the other side of Hampstead, about a quarter mile past the Pentecostal church, I spotted her car in front of a large Colonial home that stood on a rise about fifty yards off the road. The exterior of the house was gray brick, and four dormer windows studded a high blue-black roof. Surrounded by acres of manicured lawn, the house looked more like a country club. I wondered what the peasantry of Hampstead thought of it.

A pair of monument gateposts that matched the bricks of the house stood at the entrance to a concrete driveway that curved up toward the house. A brass plaque in the middle of each post displayed the name “Brandon” etched in script. It was an old name in Meridian County. Brandons owned some of the biggest farms, and there were bankers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers named Brandon. Jack “Red” Brandon had served as judge of the Circuit Court for forty-five years before retiring a few years ago. It dawned on me that this must be where he lived. I remembered hearing that he had built a mansion way out in the country on land where his ancestors had settled in the 1820s.

I drove up the long driveway and parked next to Jodie’s car. Even before I opened the door I heard voices yelling and screaming. I got out and ran around the house. A child’s voice blubbered and cried. A woman whom I did not know was walking back and forth next to a swimming pool. She was soaking wet and pleading with someone in the water.

I ran up and saw a young boy, six or seven years old, tied to a six-foot-long log that was floating in the pool. With him was a much older boy, husky, thick-armed, broad-shouldered, more like a man really. He was methodically rolling the log from side to side, bringing the boy’s face to the surface of the water first on one side, then on the other, as if working up the speed to roll the log completely around. A thick rope was wrapped like a cocoon around the boy and the log from his neck to his ankles.

Jodie was standing in the pool, pleading and coaxing: “Scott, stop it! You’re scaring Cory. Push him over here. He’s afraid. He doesn’t want to play this game.”

With his big hands around one end of the log, Scott went on rolling it left and right. Gleaming in the sun, his shiny wet shoulders rose and fell in regular rhythm. He seemed content to play the game all day long.

The boy kept screaming. His voice trembled: “Stop-p-p-p-p-i-t-t-t-t! Make him stop-p-p-p-p-p!” Tears and snot ran off his cheeks into the water.

I was ready to pull off my shoes and jump in. Jodie saw me and shook her head with a surprised, disapproving look on her face.

The other woman saw Jodie’s reaction and turned and saw me. “Who are you?” she asked somewhat hesitantly.

The older boy’s head spun around. “Whoooooo’s that?” His face turned from me to Jodie to me again. “Whoooooo’s that?”

“You’re scaring him,” the other woman said. “He doesn’t know you. You’d better go.”

“Yes, please leave,” Jodie called. “We can handle this.” To the log roller she said, “It’s all right, Scott. Don’t worry. The man won’t hurt you.”

“Whooooooooo’s he?”

Jodie took a couple of small steps toward him, and Scott pulled the log toward the deep end of the pool. The boy screamed even louder, if that was possible: “Lemme go! I wanta go home. Lemme go-o-o-o-o!”

Jodie said, “Scott won’t hurt you, Cory. He just wants to play.”

The other woman sneaked around behind Scott at the far end of the pool. She crawled out on the diving board toward him. I didn’t know what she planned to do, but whatever it was, it was not working. Scott saw her out of the corner of his eye, and just as she reached the end of the board, he let go of the log with one hand and grabbed the end of the board. He was a big strong kid, and he began pulling the diving board down. The woman lay flat on her chest and wrapped her arms around the board. Scott pulled it down as far as he could and let go, as if trying to catapult the woman over the house.

Jodie took advantage of the diversion and swam to the log, where the boy was now absolutely terrified. She tried to pull it to the shallow end of the pool, but Scott saw her and went underwater, leaving Jodie to control the log. She kicked at Scott with one leg as she frantically pulled the log. Scott came up underneath her like a whale, lifting her on his shoulders. She screamed at him as she fought to hang on to the log. The other woman dropped into the pool to help steady the log. Scott began laughing. He put both hands on Jodie’s head and ducked her. The air crackled with screams and shrieks.

Enough was enough. I pulled off my shoes, grabbed a towel off a chair, and dove in behind Scott. Underwater, I saw him rotate in my direction. I came up behind him and twisted the towel around his neck. He released Jodie and swung his arms backward at me. The water heaved as he tried to pull off the towel and shake me loose. Then he let out a long howl, a deep enraged bellow. He twisted and turned, trying to hit me with his elbows. I felt as if I was wrestling a steer in a rodeo. I stuck a knee against his spine and pulled back hard with the towel. He seemed confused—one moment his hands would go for the towel, the next his elbows would come at my head. Sometimes they found their target.

Coughing and spitting, Jodie made her way to the log, and the two women pushed it to the far end of the pool, where they struggled to untie the boy. I was tempted to duck Scott once or twice to give him a taste of his own medicine, but I didn’t want to make the women more upset than they already were. They finally unwound the rope and freed the boy. Crying, coughing, gagging, he clambered out of the pool and ran off toward Hampstead.

Scott finally calmed down, and I untwisted the towel. “There you go,” I said, backing away.

As I climbed the ladder out of the pool, Jodie came over and stood in front of me. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Saving your life, evidently.”

“You followed me.”

“I knew you saw me. Why didn’t you wave?”

The other woman said, “Do you two know each other?”

Jodie snapped, “Yes—ever since midnight. He works for the Gleaner.”

“Oh.” She began putting it together.

“I’m Phil,” I said. “And you are . . .?”

Uncertainly, she held out her hand. “Lillian Brandon. I’m Jodie’s cousin.”

We were all dripping into puddles at our feet, but I could already feel the sun drying the back of my shirt.

“Who’s Scott?” I said. He was standing in the middle of the pool and running his hands back and forth across the surface of the water.

Jodie said, “I hope you don’t put this in the paper.”

“It never occurred to me,” I said.

“Oh please, you mustn’t,” Lillian said. “No one was hurt. Scott gets carried away sometimes when he gets excited.”

“I noticed that,” I said. I wondered if Scott was her son, but I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “Is Scott your brother?” I asked.

Lillian’s eyes went to Jodie, then me. “No. He’s my cousin—and Jodie’s.” From her haplessly polite manner I got the idea she thought it might be wise not to irritate the press. She was a plain, slender woman with a slightly wedge-shaped face and a slightly pointed chin. She spoke gently to her hulking cousin: “It’s time to come out now, Scott. Let’s dry off.” He went on sulking in the pool.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Sixteen,” Lillian said.

“He looks older.”

“Well, thanks for your help,” Jodie said to me. “I imagine you need to get back to work, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t mind drying off before I get in the car.”

Lillian said, “Would you like me to put your clothes in the dryer for a few minutes? I’ll get you a robe to wear while you wait.”

Jodie said, “We can dry in the sun.”

“That’s nice of you,” I told Lillian, “but she’s right—I have to get back to work.”

Jodie said, “You are going to put this in the paper, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not. Don’t worry about it.”

“Scott wasn’t trying to drown me,” she said.

“He had me fooled.”

“Why did you follow me here?”

“Force of habit. Whenever I see a woman driving like she’s trying to kill herself, I go after her to get a picture of the wreck.”

“Very funny.”

I looked straight in her eyes, which at the moment had a golden sheen. “When you went flying past me, you looked as if you’d seen a ghost. I wondered if someone else had been murdered.” I added an explanatory note for Lillian: “I was in the area because I’d been talking to some of the neighbors about the couple who were murdered. I was at your sister’s house earlier this afternoon.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “I never met them—what was their name—Garth? It’s awful what happened to them.” She walked over to a short stack of towels and carried it back to us.

Jodie took one to dry her hair, which hugged her ears like seaweed. “Lillian called me to help her with Scott,” she said. “I was in Campbellsville shopping.” She walked to the edge of the pool and said, “Come on now, Scott. Time to get out of there. Do you think you can handle him, Lill?”

“Sure. He’ll be all right now. He’ll probably take a nap.” Again she tried to coax him out. His head and shoulders rose from the still water like an atoll in a lagoon.

“I hope so,” Jodie said.

“Who was the kid he was playing with?” I asked.

Lillian glanced at Jodie. “One of his friends,” she said. “He lives in Hampstead.”

I said, “Are you worried about what his parents will do when they hear what happened?”

“It’ll be all right,” Jodie said. “They understand.”

“They must be very understanding.”

“They are.” She gritted her teeth on one side. “It was a difficult situation, but it’s over now.”

“This is Judge Brandon’s house, isn’t it?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Lillian said.

Jodie said, “This wouldn’t have happened if he’d been here. Scott always listens to his grandfather.”

“Where is the judge?” I asked.

“He and his wife are on a trip to Asia,” Lillian said. “Vietnam and Cambodia.”

Jodie leaned over the edge of the pool and tried again: “Scott! Out! Now! Papaw wouldn’t like how you’re behaving.” She glanced at Lillian and said, “He’s going to look like a prune.”

Slowly Scott came pushing through the water toward her.

Jodie straightened up and turned around. “There. Praise the Lord.” She raised her eyes and folded her hands in mock prayer.

Lillian hurried over to help Scott up the ladder.

I wondered if he would blow up and come after me as soon as he was out of the pool, but he wasn’t hostile. All I got was a dimwitted stare as Lillian led him across the patio toward a bank of French doors.

As she and Scott reached the house, she turned and said, “It was nice meeting you, Phil.”

“Nice meeting you, Lillian.”

Jodie said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Lill.”

I followed Jodie around the house to our cars. Suddenly she turned and faced me, hands on hips. “Promise me you won’t put anything in the paper.”

“I promise I won’t put anything in the paper,” I said. “Why won’t you believe me? It was a private matter. As long as no one files a police report, there won’t be anything in the paper.”

Her shoulders relaxed a bit. “My grandfather would die if Scott had to be put in a home. It would break his heart.” She began to choke up, and tears welled in her eyes. She turned away and got in her car. She started the engine and shifted into first, but just before she took off she looked up at me and said, “Thanks, Phil. I’m sorry I was so bitchy.” Then she roared off.

Her damp, straggly hair blew in the wind as the bright red car raced down the hill.