The Bullet Page 8

  Does it sound callous to eat with such gusto given recent events? Given the bleak reason for my mission to Atlanta? It felt that way. As though I were being disrespectful. I pulled out the photograph that Jessica had printed for me and studied it. My birth parents looked so happy, laughing and flipping burgers on the grill. The sun was beating down on them, and she appeared to be batting smoke out of her eyes. On a table behind them you could make out jars of mustard and mayonnaise, a platter of buns. All of a sudden, I broke into a grin. This must have been why I’d been craving a cheeseburger all day. I’d seen the photograph this morning, and the suggestion of flame-grilled beef had insinuated itself somewhere in my subconscious.

  It was funny, now that I thought about it, but we Cashions never made burgers when I was growing up. Tony and Martin preferred steak or barbecued chicken, hands down. Mom did, too, and Dad is a casserole man. But Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith had apparently liked a good quarter-pounder, and they’d passed on the taste to their only daughter. It was such a silly thing, but I felt a connection to them, zinging back over the decades and the loss and all the things that might have been. I decided that if they could see me now, licking grease off my fingers, they wouldn’t find it disrespectful. No, they’d want me to eat a burger or two for them.

  I was still smiling to myself an hour later when I crawled into bed and fell into a deep sleep, snuggled beneath the high-thread-count sheets.

  Fourteen

  * * *

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013

  It was on Wednesday that things began to happen fast.

  Leland Brett showed up for breakfast right on time, and to give him his due, he conducted a detailed and thorough interview. He’d asked me to bring along a copy of my adoption papers, proving that I really had once been Caroline Smith, daughter of Boone and Sadie Rawson. He studied this until he seemed satisfied, then questioned me about my work, my hobbies, my family up in Washington. What sports did I like? (Um, none.) What kind of music did I listen to? (Classical. Hip-hop. Aerosmith. Everything really, except country.) Leland had done his homework, reading up on me on the university website. He wanted to know how I’d learned French and how often I made it to Paris. I got the sense he was warming me up. Pitching softball questions, waiting for me to relax and drop my guard before he broached the real subject at hand. When the food arrived, we hadn’t yet touched on the events of 1979.

  Incredibly, I was starving again. I’d ordered the signature sweet-­potato pancakes, served with hot bourbon sauce, candied pecans, and a side of sausage.

  Leland looked impressed. “I see you’ve got a healthy appetite.” He eyed both me and my pancakes hungrily. “I like that in a woman.”

  God, here we went again. I frowned. “Leland, in case I’ve somehow given you the wrong impression, I should make clear . . . this is a business meeting, okay? I’m here to help with the article. Period.”

  He feigned innocence. “Well, of course. And I’m just here doing my job, which at the moment includes enjoying breakfast with a fine-­looking woman. That’s no crime, is it?”

  “No,” I agreed through gritted teeth.

  “But that does make a good segue. You married?”

  “For God’s sake.”

  “For the story, that’s why I’m asking!” I was about to push back my chair and walk out when he chuckled. “Calm down, hon. I don’t bite. Just having a little fun with you. A little bit of fun. Otherwise this whole business is downright morbid, you have to agree.”

  “It’s morbid whether I agree or not,” I snapped.

  “That is the truth. Now, have yourself a bite of those pancakes, and then I want you to tell me about why you decided to come back to Atlanta now, after all these years.”

  I glared at him but complied. He looked surprised to hear that I’d only recently learned my birth parents had been murdered.

  “But what did you think had happened to them? Car crash or something?”

  “No, you misunderstand. I’d never heard of them. I didn’t know I was adopted.”

  “Good Lord in heaven. Your parents—the Cashions, I mean—they never told you?”

  “No. They thought it best—how did Dad put it? Best to ‘let sleeping dogs lie.’ I’d never heard of Boone and Sadie Rawson Smith before last Thursday.”

  Leland opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

  “It’s been . . . something of a shock.”

  “I should think so.” He shook his head. “Imagine that. Did they say why they chose to tell you now?”

  I’d known we would end up here. We’d been tiptoeing around the bullet this whole conversation; Leland Brett just hadn’t known it. I felt uncomfortable talking about my neck. I don’t like being the center of attention at the best of times, and the thought that everything I confided now would end up printed in the newspaper . . . it was enough to give even a more extroverted person pause. But, hell, we’d come this far. And going public did seem my best chance to connect with people who had once known my family. So I told Leland about the carpal tunnel in my wrist, about getting an MRI, and finally about what the X-ray had shown.

  He dropped his fork. “You’re not saying it’s still in there?”

  I nodded.

  “A bullet? A bullet? From the day your parents were shot?”

  I nodded again. “Apparently it’s been in there all this time. Thirty-­four years. It never bothered me. There’s no scar.”

  “Christ Almighty.” He was scribbling furiously in his notebook. “You’re sure? You have a copy of that X-ray?”

  “On my phone. If you need to see it.”

  “Christ Almighty,” he repeated. “That’s the craziest story I ever heard. And I’ve heard a few.” He was firing questions at me, trying to reconstruct the exact sequence of how I’d learned about the bullet, when my phone rang.

  I squinted down. Will Zartman, calling from his office. He would be trying to firm up the appointment with that neurosurgeon. I sent the call to voice mail; I’d call him later.

  I turned back to Leland. “Sorry, where were we?”

  “I was saying, I’ve got a few more questions. Why don’t I give you a ride over to the newsroom? We can finish up there, and—”

  “Can’t. I’m going over to Cheral Rooney’s after this.”

  “Oh, so that phone number worked?”

  “Mm-hmm. She called me back this morning, right before I came down to meet you. I don’t think she could get her head around what I was telling her. Poor woman. She sounded even more stunned by all this than you are.”

  • • •

  “MY GOD, YOU’RE so like her. Same eyes. There’s not an ounce of Boone in you.”

  Cheral Rooney sat studying me across her living room. She had given me directions to her home, a compact, gray stucco house that backed up to the Chattahoochee River. “I was going to ask you for ID before I let you in. There’s a lot of crazies in the world. But when I saw you walking up the driveway, I realized—no need. Like watching Sadie Rawson herself walk through my front door.”

  “You knew them both, then? Both my birth parents?”

  “Your birth parents?” She cocked her head. “Yes, I suppose that’s how you would think of them. But look at me, I’ve forgotten my manners. Would you care for coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Are you sure? I’ve just brewed a pot.”

  “I’m not much of a coffee drinker. But I’d love some tea, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  She bustled off and returned a few minutes later, carrying a tray. It held a plate of cookies, a mug of steaming coffee, and a tall crystal goblet filled with ice and pale brown liquid. I took a cautious sip. Iced tea. I’d heard this, how Southerners remain loyal to cold tea no matter how chilly the weather outside.

  I set down my glass and met her eyes. “The newspaper identified you as a close
friend of my birth . . . of my mother’s. How did you know her?”

  “We lived in the house next door. Moved there in ’74 and stayed more than twenty years. Until we bought this.” She swept her hand to indicate the room where we were sitting. “Eulalia was a great street for young families. Starter homes, you know. Although too expensive for that now. Did you know a house down on the Lenox end just sold for one point six million dollars? Incredible. We paid fifty-five thousand dollars when we first bought.”

  I shook my head. “It’s a lovely street. So you were already living there when the Smiths moved in?”

  “We were. We were glad to get a nice young couple next door. The four of us got to be good friends. And then when John and you came along, your mother and I spent nearly every morning together.”

  I tried to follow this. “John is—your son?”

  She pointed at a framed photograph on a side table beside the sofa. It showed a pudgy man in a golf shirt and khakis. “My oldest. You’re older than him, but only by a couple of months. You and he were great pals as toddlers. You don’t remember him?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t remember anything from those years.”

  “The two of you used to play together, in a playpen we would set up in the kitchen and fill with balls and toys. Sadie Rawson and I would drink coffee and bake together. That girl could burn things, I tell you. She had a true talent for it. She’d roll out dough and pop it in the oven, get to talking, and forget all about it. Next thing you knew, your kitchen was filled with smoke.” Cheral smiled. “And we went for walks. Endless walks. There wasn’t much to do back then when you stayed home with a baby. None of these play groups and Gymboree classes that young mothers do today.”

  I was hanging on her every word. “What was she—like? I mean, was she quiet, or funny, or—”

  “Funny, yes. And about as far from quiet as a person can get. She was the life of the party. Boone was the serious, steady one. They played off each other. I guess all couples do.”

  “Sounds like I take after my father.”

  “Not in the looks department, you don’t. It’s incredible, how you favor her. She was a pretty, pretty girl. Bedroom eyes and shiny, lip-glossy lips. We’d be out pushing baby strollers, just walking around the block in our housedresses, and you’d see the men’s heads snap when they drove past. Sades would just laugh and wave.”

  A cloud passed over Cheral’s face. She was no beauty, didn’t look as if she had ever been. Late middle age had scored her mouth with dry lines, and her hair was bleached and brittle. But surely that wasn’t jealousy I detected? Not after all these years.

  “She sounds like she must have been a handful. I thought so. I thought she must have been feisty. Keeping her maiden name, and all.”

  Cheral looked confused. “No, she went by Smith.”

  “Right, but Sadie Rawson Smith. Like Hillary Rodham Clinton. That must have been progressive, for Georgia in the 1970s.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t a Hillary Rodham thing. Sadie Rawson was her first name. You know, like . . . Mary Belle. Or Georgia Ruth. Lots of girls down here used double-barreled names. Still do.”

  “Oh. Quite a mouthful.”

  She shrugged. “Sadie Rawson has the same number of syllables as Elizabeth, if you think about it. And nobody thinks that’s too long a name.”

  We fell silent.

  “It must be very upsetting for you,” she ventured after a bit. “Learning about all this now.” I’d told her the broad outlines of what I knew and when I’d come to know it, on the phone this morning. I left out the bullet details.

  “It’s been strange. It’s good to meet you, though. I love hearing what the Smiths were like. My parents—the Cashions—don’t seem to know much. And the newspaper accounts about what happened are pretty bare-bones. The paper ran four stories and then . . . it seemed to fall off the radar.”

  She nodded.

  “The police must have talked to you. Did they ever let anything slip? I mean, could you tell if they ever had a good lead?”

  “They interviewed us twice. Rick and me. We hadn’t heard or seen anything out of the ordinary that day. We told them everything we could. To be honest, I wasn’t that impressed with the efforts of the Atlanta police. They were convinced from day one that it must have been a burglar who got surprised by your parents and started shooting. But they never did catch him.”

  “I don’t understand how that happens. A burglar breaks in, kills two people, and the police just . . . let it drop.”

  “Well, it was an unusual case. No physical evidence, at least not that I could gather. There weren’t any fingerprints in the house that weren’t supposed to be there. And they never found a murder weapon. All they had was an eyewitness.”

  “There was an eyewitness?”

  “Of course, honey. You.”

  Fifteen

  * * *

  Before I left, Cheral Rooney pressed a pair of gold earrings into my hands. “They were your mom’s. Only thing I have of hers. They’ve been sitting in my jewelry box all these years—I never could bring myself to wear them.”

  The earrings were enormous, finely braided hoops. They had a vaguely Gypsy quality to them, delicate and gaudy at once. Not the kind of thing I would ever wear. But then, I hadn’t been a fashionable young woman in the 1970s.

  “They were the height of fashion back then,” said Cheral, reading my mind. “I’d borrowed them to wear to a party, only reason I have them. After your parents died the whole house was a crime scene. Police tape everywhere. I wasn’t allowed in to try to scoop up anything else of hers. Then one day, movers appeared. Boxed everything up and the house was sold.”

  “Thank you for keeping these.”

  “She had beautiful jewelry. And clothes. With her figure, she could wear anything. She had this green coat, so chic, with matching green suede boots. . . .” Cheral smiled sadly. “You’d have loved her taste.”

  I nodded.

  “I would have come to visit you. I would have liked to stay in touch. Your mother would have wanted that. But afterwards the doctors wouldn’t let me see you. You were in intensive care for weeks. And I assume the police were trying to question you during that time.”

  “Do you know if I—if I saw anything? Was I able to tell them anything that helped?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve no idea. You don’t remember?”

  “No. Not anything.”

  “Probably for the best. You were a baby, Caroline, barely more than a baby. I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise when I said that, about you being an eyewitness. Who knows what you saw or didn’t?” She patted my shoulder. “Anyway, after a time the social services must have gotten involved. Next thing I heard, you’d been adopted by a new family. We never had word again; it was like you’d just been spirited away. I hope they were kind to you. The couple that adopted you, I mean.”

  “Very kind.” I felt my voice tighten with love. “The kindest family ever. I couldn’t have asked for a more loving home.”

  “I’m glad.” Cheral touched my shoulder again. “Mercy, it’s brought back some memories, seeing you. To think that you’re older now than Sadie Rawson and Boone when they died. Such a nice man, your daddy. Didn’t deserve what he got.”

  “Neither of them did.”

  She blinked, then nodded. Tears were in her eyes as she closed the door. Tears, and something else. A hint of jealousy again? Or some other emotion? I couldn’t tell, could only sense it twitching, a sour under­current beneath the surface.

  • • •

  SOMETHING CHERAL ROONEY had said was nagging at me. Something, some detail, didn’t sit right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and the more I tried to catch it, the more it eluded me, like a kitten batting at a piece of yarn.

  I was parked back on Eulalia Road for my appointment with the Journal-Constitution photographe
r. I was not looking forward to it, was already regretting my decision to participate in this entire exercise. It felt tacky. As though I were exploiting a long-ago tragedy to seize fifteen minutes of fame. That was the farthest thing from the truth, but still, people would judge. I pulled out a compact and reapplied my lipstick. My brothers would have something to say if they could see me sitting here, primping for pictures to accompany the presumably breathless article that Leland Brett would be typing up right now (“Dark Beauty Still Distressed by Bullet in Neck!”). The only question was whether Martin and Tony would be appalled or doubled over with laughter.

  I glanced at my watch. The photographer was late. He had insisted we meet at five o’clock, to get set up in plenty of time for the golden-hour light. I decided to wait another fifteen minutes, then I was out of here. A few cars rumbled by. Across the street two boys kicked a ball back and forth in their yard. The smaller boy kept missing and sending the ball rolling dangerously close to the street; the older one managed to pounce and catch it each time, just before it bounced over the curb.

  I leaned back in the front seat and imagined a young Cheral Rooney and my mother pushing baby strollers along this same block on a late-afternoon stroll. What would they have chatted about? I pictured Sadie Rawson wearing the sassy green coat and suede boots that Cheral had described. Now, those I would have liked to inherit.

  I sat up. That was it. Where had they gone? The coat, the boots, the allegedly fabulous wardrobe? Cheral said everything had been boxed up and carted away. But to where? The clothes must have been donated to charity long ago. Books and knickknacks, too. That left my mother’s jewelry, though. I fingered the gold, braided hoops, wondered what necklaces and bracelets she used to slip on to match. Now that I thought about it, where were my parents’ wedding rings? Had they been buried in them, or had everything been sold off? They must have had a car. They might have had life insurance. My thoughts raced along these lines for several minutes, before my gaze swung toward the brick house in front of me. This house had once belonged to Boone and Sadie Rawson. Where had the money gone when it was sold?