Last Chance Christmas Read online

  To make matters even more complicated, Daddy was now beholden to Jimmy Marshall’s wife, Hettie, who chaired the Committee to Resurrect Golfing for God. Jimmy and Hettie had been estranged for the last several months, but the scuttlebutt around town was that they had reconciled. So making nice to Lee, Jimmy, and Hettie was in Stone’s best interest.

  Not to mention the fact that Kamaria LaFlore, the mayor-elect and soon to be Stone’s boss, had her own good reasons for wanting Lark Chaikin gone.

  “I hear you, Lee,” Stone said.

  “That’s good. You keep me apprised of this situation, and you have a real nice day.”

  Stone knew a dismissal when he heard one. He turned and headed back to his cruiser, his annoyance growing with each step he took.

  He was not going to be pushed around by Lee Marshall, or Jimmy, or Hettie, or even Mayor-Elect LaFlore. In fact, the more they protested, the more he was starting to think that Lizzy was right.

  Maybe he should dig up those old files and see what had happened in 1968.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Lark opened her eyes. Pale winter sunshine slanted through the curved turret windows to her right. Spanish-moss-laden branches waved beyond the windowpanes. The dance of branches and sun made a pattern across the dusky green carpet of the room where she had been sleeping and sweating out a raging fever. She didn’t feel feverish anymore. Just tired. The nightmares had taken a lot out of her.

  “You feeling better?” a voice asked from her left.

  Lark shifted her gaze from the oak windowsills to the wizened lady sitting beside her bed.

  “You remember me, don’t you?” The little old lady gazed at Lark from behind a pair of upturned trifocals decorated with rhinestones. She wore her white hair parted down the middle, with twin braids pulled up over her head like a crown. Her skin was ivory, with a network of lines radiating from her eyes and the corners of her mouth. It was a good face, a kind face. The lines and wrinkles told of a life well lived. Lark wanted to capture her portrait.

  This old lady had been holding Lark’s hand on and off during the nightmares.

  “How long have I been out of it?” Lark asked.

  “Oh, a day or so. It’s Sunday, December sixteenth. Christmas is almost upon us.”

  Lark studied her surroundings: old-lady wallpaper and Victorian furniture. “Where am I?” she asked, pushing herself up in the bed.

  Lark’s caregiver rested a pair of arthritic hands on an aluminum cane. Her nails were painted bright red, which clashed with her 1980s-vintage, purple plaid pantsuit. “Oh,” the lady said, waving one hand, “this is Randall House. Back a hundred years ago, it used to be a hotel for the folks who traveled the railroad. We sometimes take in boarders for short periods. Doc Cooper sent you here because there was no room at the nursing home, and the hospital in Orangeburg didn’t think you were sick enough to take in. We’ve been nursing you for a couple of days.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “The ladies of the Christ Church Auxiliary.”

  Oh. My. God. She was in the hands of good Christian women. Who knew the Bible Belt was really like this? She pasted a smile on her face. “Oh. Well, thank you.”

  “It’s nothing, darlin’. Helping out poor wayfarers is a joy, especially this time of year.”

  The woman wasn’t even being ironic or sarcastic.

  “Thank you,” Lark said again because it seemed appropriate.

  A pang of grief hit her chest as Lark fluffed up her pillows and leaned back on them. For a little while she had forgotten that Pop was dead. Where the hell was Pop?

  “You wouldn’t happen to know where my car is?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry. Your car’s in the lot down at Bill’s Grease Pit. Your daddy’s remains and your camera equipment have been removed, of course. No sense in tempting fate.” The old woman gestured toward a rosewood armoire that matched the dresser and the bed. “We reckoned you’d want to keep your daddy close. And, what with all the upset forty years ago, Stony felt it might not be a good idea to leave his ashes laying around. No telling what some folks might do, even if we have, more or less, turned the page on the past.”

  “Stony? The chief of police?” A mental image of Carmine Falcone filled Lark’s head.

  “Yes, ma’am. He is.” The little lady gave Lark a smile as mysterious as Mona Lisa’s.

  “Um… I didn’t get your name,” Lark said.

  “Oh, darlin’, I’m sorry. I’m Miriam Randall, and this is my house.”

  “Oh. Well. I’m sorry for imposing. I—”

  “Oh, it’s no imposition. You were pretty sick. I’m guessing you let yourself get worn out in the days before your daddy passed. What did he die of? He wouldn’t have been very old.”

  “Cancer, and he was only sixty-two.”

  “I figured it had to be something like that. And you were at his side?”

  Lark nodded. Miriam Randall might look like a harmless old lady, but she had mad skills as an interrogator.

  “And your momma?” Miriam asked.

  “She died a long time ago, when I was a kid.” Lark looked down at herself. She was wearing a pink cotton nightgown that didn’t belong to her. It looked exactly like the sort of thing a little old lady would wear. If the guys at the Baghdad Hilton ever saw her in something pink and frilly like this, she’d be laughed right out of the brotherhood of war correspondents.

  “You should know that everyone in town is dying to know why your daddy wanted to have his remains scattered on the eighteenth hole,” Miriam said.

  Lark looked up. “And how does the entire town know of my father’s last request?”

  “Darlin’, this is Last Chance, South Carolina,” Miriam said. “News travels faster here than it does on The Facebook, or whatever you young ’uns call that thing. Of course, the speed of the gossip probably has something to do with the fact that, around here, your daddy is somewhat notorious.”

  “Notorious? Really? I didn’t think his books were that controversial.”

  Miriam frowned. “Books? What books?”

  “Pop’s pen name was Vitto Giancola. He was the author of the Carmine Falcone mysteries.”

  Miriam’s brown eyes lit up. “Oh, my goodness. I just love Carmine Falcone.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Miriam must have heard the sarcasm in Lark’s tone. “Honey, I wasn’t talking about that pretty-boy actor who plays Carmine in the TV show. I was talking about the Carmine Falcone in the books. Now, there’s a man who is sexy and complicated. You know, the kind of man who doesn’t say much, but manages to speak volumes with his actions.”

  For an old lady, Miriam was remarkably with it. “Yeah,” Lark said, “but being an author didn’t make Pop notorious.”

  “Well,” Miriam replied, “when I said notorious, I meant that back in 1968 he took Nita Wills to breakfast at the Kountry Kitchen. I tell you, Lark, when Nita sat down at that lunch counter she stirred up a big heap of trouble. See, Nita is black.”

  “But it was 1968. Wasn’t the Civil Rights Act passed in ’64?”

  “Well, we aren’t at the cutting edge of things here,” Miriam said. “By ’68, Clyde Anderson, the owner of the Kountry Kitchen, had taken down his offensive ‘whites only’ sign. But no one really wanted to test Clyde’s commitment to integration. The irony is that a year later Clyde died, and T-Bone Carter bought the place. It would probably have served us right if T-Bone had put up a sign saying ‘African-Americans only.’ The Kountry Kitchen is the only real café in town, unless you count the doughnut shop.”

  “And people here still remember that? After all this time?”

  The little lady leaned forward. “You know, darlin’, we probably would have forgotten all about it, but your daddy disappeared the same day he challenged our social order. And that would be the same day Zeke Rhodes died. You can imagine how people put two and two together.”

  “Just because he left the same day?”

  “Well no
w, you see, your daddy was what some folks referred to as a no-good Yankee hippie. And some ignorant folks believed that Nita wouldn’t have done what she did except that your daddy put her up to it. God help us when the ignoramuses band together—they go looking for someone to blame. And since Zeke had let your daddy camp out at Golfing for God, I’m thinking old Zeke might just have gotten himself in the middle of trouble that wasn’t his. Of course, that’s not the official story. The official story is that, within a twenty-four-hour period, the rednecks ran your daddy out of town. Nita’s mother put her on the next bus heading toward Chicago, where her aunt lived. And Zeke died in an accidental fall out at Golfing for God.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it is. So you can imagine that there are some folks in this town, notably Elbert Rhodes, the current owner of Golfing for God, who think your daddy was responsible for Zeke’s death. There is another group of folks who think maybe Zeke got into an altercation with a group of idiots. So, you see, any light you could shed on this would solve a long-standing town mystery.”

  “Mrs. Randall, I hate to disappoint you. I don’t know a thing about Pop’s stay in Last Chance. All I’m sure of is that Pop didn’t murder anyone. He could be a real pain in the neck, but he wasn’t mean or violent.”

  Just then, the door opened, and a zaftig woman with blue-gray hair stepped into the room bearing a bed table and tray. She wore a printed polyester dress splashed with blue flowers that did nothing for her larger-than-life figure.

  “Ah,” the woman said, stepping across the room in her old-lady flats. “I see our patient is awake.”

  She placed the bed table over Lark’s legs. On the tray was a breakfast that would never get the American Heart Association’s seal of approval: eggs, bacon, biscuits, and a bowl of something that looked like Cream of Wheat with a large pat of butter melting in it.

  “I’m Lillian Bray, chair of the Christ Church Ladies’ Auxiliary,” polyester lady said.

  “Hi, I’m Lark. Thanks for taking care of me. And, um, is that grits?”

  “You’ve never eaten grits, have you?” Lillian asked.

  “No, I haven’t. I usually have a bagel and a cup of coffee. I’m not much of a breakfast eater.”

  “Oh,” Lillian said, “I didn’t think. You don’t eat bacon either, do you?”

  Lark looked up, right into Lillian’s blue eyes. The woman’s concern over Lark’s dietary habits masked something else. There was just a hint of uneasiness in Lillian’s gaze, as if she didn’t like outsiders, or maybe she didn’t care for people who weren’t exactly like her.

  Or maybe she was just worried that she’d made a big mistake.

  Lark needed to quit projecting things onto people. It was a sure sign that she’d spent too much time knocking around places where people went to war over small, insignificant differences.

  Well, at least she could put Lillian’s fear about her dietary restrictions to rest. She smiled and picked up a thick slice of bacon. “That rumor about my being a vegetarian is completely untrue,” Lark said between chews.

  Lillian seemed a little nonplussed by Lark’s snappy comeback. She cleared her throat. “I reckon that’s a good thing. I mean, seeing as pork is one of the staples of our diet.”

  “Yes, and it’s very nice to be in a place where bacon is readily available. You should try ordering a BLT in Baghdad.”

  Lillian dropped her bulk into an empty chair on the other side of the bed. “So you’re not Jewish?”

  “Nope,” Lark said. It was amazing how one little word eliminated the need to explain how Pop had been born Jewish and died an atheist, or how Mom had been born Catholic and died a Buddhist. Or how, as a kid, Lark had been dragged off to Humanist Sunday School at the Ethical Culture Society. Best to enjoy the bacon and keep her mouth shut.

  “Lark was just telling me that her daddy went on to become Vitto Giancola, the author of those mystery books,” Miriam said into the sudden silence.

  Lillian’s gaze narrowed. “You don’t say so. The Carmine Falcone stories? Oh, I just love that TV show. Clint Burroughs is so handsome, don’t you think?”

  Neither Miriam nor Lark answered Lillian’s rhetorical question.

  After another awkward moment, Miriam once again picked up the stalled conversation. “You’ve been through a lot lately, haven’t you, Lark?” she said.

  Lark went on alert, pausing in the middle of slathering butter on a biscuit. She didn’t look up.

  “So,” Miriam continued in a leading tone, “those cameras look like something a professional would have. Are you a photographer?”

  Lark nodded and took a bite out of the biscuit. It practically melted in her mouth, no doubt because it was made with copious quantities of lard or something. No one cooked with lard where Lark came from. She concentrated on the heavenly taste of the food and remained silent.

  The conversation stalled completely until Miriam said, “You know, honey, I’m thinking that you need to find someone who understands you. Someone you can talk honestly with.”

  Lark looked up from her breakfast right into the glittering eyes of Miriam Randall. “What do you mean? Like a therapist?”

  “Why, do you need a therapist?”

  Lark’s face burned, but she said nothing.

  Miriam shook her head. “No, I was thinking that you need to be on the lookout for a lost friend. Someone you may have missed or overlooked. Someone who understands you and your demons.”

  Lillian straightened in her chair. “Demons?”

  Miriam snorted. “Not demons from hell, Lillian. I was talking about the other kind.”

  “Are there any other kind?” Lillian gave Lark another assessing gaze, as if she were searching Lark’s forehead for horns.

  “Well,” Miriam said. “I was talking about the demons that people create for themselves.”

  Lark put down the half-eaten biscuit, her appetite suddenly vanishing. “Excuse me, but I don’t think I’ve created any demons for myself. And why do you even think I have demons?”

  “Because you do,” Miriam said, her deep brown eyes clear and sober.

  Lark looked away. The old lady liked to meddle in other people’s business, didn’t she? “Any demons I have were created by the bad guys,” Lark finally said.

  “Bad guys?” Lillian asked.

  “Yeah, like Muammar Gaddafi and the warring factions in Libya last April.”

  Lillian’s mouth dropped open, but Miriam seemed unfazed. She leaned in and patted Lark on her blanket-covered leg. “Honey, you should be looking for someone to talk to. Someone who can help you find your balance again.”

  “Well, I’ll be,” Lillian said. “Is this one of your matches, Miriam?”

  “What?” Lark asked.

  “Oh, well, sometimes the Lord gives me hints about the kind of match a person should be looking for in life. And when I get a hint like that, I do my best to pass on the advice.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Holy crap, these nice Christian ladies were like a bunch of yentas.

  “Miriam never kids, do you?” Lillian said to her friend.

  “No, I don’t,” Miriam said.

  “Uh, look, ladies, I have no interest in romance. I’m thirty-six, a respected photojournalist, and I’m completely happy with my life.”

  Miriam turned her gaze on Lark like a laser beam, slicing her open for the world to inspect. “Are you really happy with your life?”

  “Daddy, I need the computer,” Lizzy said as she walked into the little den off the front parlor.

  “I’m almost finished,” Stone said as he continued to stare at the screen in front of him, both amazed and humbled by the image there.

  “What are you doing?” Lizzy came up behind him and stared at the screen. “I didn’t know you were all that interested in the famine in Somalia.”

  “I’m not,” he said. Riveted by the image of a young woman holding an infant who was small, starving, and obviously ill. The woman evoked the M
adonna. The photo was disturbing, but he couldn’t look away. There was an expression in the mother’s eyes as she looked down at her infant that was so tender and so full of love and hope.

  Lizzy leaned over his shoulder. “Oh, that’s the photo that UNICEF used on its posters this October.”

  “What posters?”

  “You know, at Halloween. The kids in the service club sponsored a schoolwide fast to raise awareness. Everyone was asked to donate their lunch money. It’s totally a shame. You know, millions of people have died, and the famine hardly gets a mention on the evening news.”

  “How do you know these things? You’re just a kid.”

  She rolled her eyes and flipped her hair and gave him that chin-up defiant stare. “I’m older than you seem to think. I read The New York Times every day. I edit the news and politics section of the school newspaper. I’m well informed.”

  Stone blinked. He was obviously not paying enough attention to Lizzy. She was growing up in front of his eyes. She looked like him, but in a lot of ways she was so much like her mother. Paying attention to starving kids in Africa was just the kind of thing Sharon did. Sharon had been his beautiful crusader.

  “Why are you suddenly interested in the famine?” Lizzy asked.

  “I’m not. These photos were taken by Lark Chaikin.”

  “What?”

  He turned back toward the computer and opened another browser tab. This one showed two soldiers wearing battle gear and full camouflage. They were holding on to each other. Their eyes were closed, the emotions playing across their faces raw and arresting. Framed in the background was a rifle, bayonet impaled in the sand, with a helmet resting on the stock and a pair of boots lined up beside it.

  “Wow,” Lizzy said.

  “Yeah.” Stone didn’t need to say much more than that. You couldn’t possibly explain in words what those soldiers were feeling. But the photo explained it. Strong emotions churned in Stone’s gut. He’d been to war. He’d lost buddies. He knew.

  It wasn’t an easy photo to look at. Lark had captured the spirit of brotherhood that exists in every battle-tested unit. The humanity of the soldiers sang from the image.