Four and Twenty Blackbirds (Eden Moore 1)

I sat up straight and peered over the wheel like a short retiree. Inch by inch I guided my car back onto the road and pointed it straight at the nearest exit. Adrenaline from the close call kept me alert, but even that shock of near-calamity wouldn't hold for long. It was 3:00 A. M. and I needed sleep badly, regardless of how close to my destination I'd come.

No more silly risks.

The city was near enough that I was not hard-pressed to find a major hotel chain. I left a credit card with an honest receptionist at the front desk (by exhausted accident, not by request), and tucked myself into a room last decorated sometime in the early 1980s. I hung a Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob and fell asleep before I had time to think too hard about my gently petulant passenger. I decided to come to the conclusion that I'd dreamed her, and any message she delivered sprang from my own unconscious concerns.

Leave it to me to take the easy way out.

I slept until the next morning, though when I checked the big red numbers on the clock beside my head, it was two hours into the afternoon. I didn't much care. I took my time with a shower and getting dressed, then gathered my things and threw them into the car. Up at the main desk they returned my wayward credit card, which was good of them—I hadn't even noticed it was missing. I folded my receipt and shoved it in my back pocket as I reached for the glass doors to leave.

Something stopped me—a collection of words at the far corner of my vision, hiding behind a clear door in a small red metal booth. It was just a short phrase, a headline and a grainy photograph that captured my attention. "Police Widen Search for Twice-Escaped Convict. " And beneath the bold black banner was posted an old mug shot of my maniac cousin.

I turned away from the exit and fed enough change into the slot to buy one of the newspapers with Malachi's face on it. I didn't read the article right away; I waited until I was safely alone in my car. Even then I didn't really read the story, I only skimmed it to confirm what the headline had led me to guess. He'd gotten loose, diving out of a second-story window at the courthouse during his arraignment. The police had an idea that he was headed home to Macon. And why not? Who had ever defended him but Tatie? I wondered after his parents. Had I seen them before? Had they been at his trial when I was small?

No, all I remembered so far as his family went was the wicked old Eliza, glaring at me as her nephew was led away. If his mom and dad had been there, they'd been reserved enough that I couldn'trecall seeing them. But his religious fervor must have been imparted to him by someone. His parents were the most likely suspects. For some reason, Tatie didn't strike me as the religious type.

I set the paper on the passenger seat and started my car. What I'd learned changed nothing. All it meant was that there would likely be police watching the Dufresne household, which was fine by me. I wasn't breaking in, I was visiting; and if they wanted to make sure Malachi didn't get inside, I was fine with that too. So much the better. It wasn't as if he was chasing me down, for he couldn't possibly know I was on my way to Eliza's. In a way, I had the drop on him,

a turnaround which left me smug.

I was less than twenty miles from Macon, and it took me less than twenty minutes to get there. I picked an exit with an abundance of fast-food places, settling on a sandwich shop where the polyester-clad employees provided me with a phone book. I found four listings for Dufresne: Eliza M. , John, James-Henry and Esther, and an S. F. , otherwise unspecified.

Eliza M. Her address was listed as 3112 Chiswick Lane, and her phone number was printed alongside the entry. I copied the information onto the back of a sturdy napkin and put it in my pocket with the credit card receipt. Should I call first? No. Better to land on her doorstep. Combine surprise and audacity, and see what sort of reaction it got.

I asked around the restaurant, but no one knew how to point me towards Chiswick until an older gentleman looked at the zip code. "That's a ways off from here, if it's where I'm thinking. South of town a few miles and then a few more into the middle of nowhere. " He gave me directions to where he believed the road was that turned out to be rough directions indeed.

I didn't find the house until it was almost dark, and when I dragged my car alongside it, I almost wished I'd missed it. The place was enormous and horrible—a bleak, Gothic Tara. Giant trees older than Georgia's statehood crowded in against the pale wooden walls, thick and menacing guardians who would have actively discouraged visitors if only they could. Not to be outdone, the glass at every black-shuttered window was mottled, wavy, and warped as testament to the house's age and resilience; and along the wide exterior kudzu clung tight from the bushes to the storm drains and up all three chimneys, pretending to be ivy. It cast a black lace shadow against the few windows where a light was on.

A frail, stooped figure passed across one broken square of light and disappeared back into the recesses of the antebellum labyrinth.

Eliza was home.

Two shiny, dark-colored cars were parked as inconspicuously as unmarked police cars can park. Their bulk lurked partially hidden by the big troll trees, but their hoods and bumpers poked out from either side of the monstrous trunks. It wouldn't do me any good to sneak up—they'd seen me long before I'd seen them. Besides, I hadn't done anything wrong—at least, I hadn't done anything illegal. Why should I feel forced to sneak anywhere?

Feigning confidence, I zipped the Death Nugget around the circular driveway and stopped it in front of the door, ignoring the cop cars with conscious effort. I slammed my car door closed, making a show of the noise. See? I'm not trying to sneak or skulk. See? Just minding my own business, paying a visit to an elderly relative. Innocent as can be.

I rang the doorbell.

From the other side I heard footsteps too heavy to be hers. Two great, resounding clacks echoed as the bolts were drawn back and the door swung inward. A large man greeted me. He was too old to be middle-aged but wasn't yet a senior citizen, and he was tall enough to be staring down at the top of my head, but not so wide that he could be called fat. I lifted my eyes from his chest and planted them squarely on his somber face.

"Can I help you, madam?"

"Yes sir, you can. You can tell Eliza her niece is here to see her. "

One of his bushy, salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted as he scanned me from curly head to black-booted foot. "I think perhaps you are mistaken. "

I pressed my fingertips to my chest in faux astonishment. "What? Tatie didn't tell you she had a nigger in the family woodpile? I assure you that we are in fact near and dear relations, and I think she might be interested in talking to me. "

The doorman hesitated, but he did not withdraw. He recovered his composure and said, with carefully measured dignity, "Ms. Dufresne is not receiving visitors at this time. Perhaps if you were to leave a message and return, she might give you an audience at a later date. Since you are family, you no doubt know about the unpleasantness with her nephew—your cousin, I suppose. She's quite elderly, you understand, and she's not taken the news well. "

It was all I could do not to laugh in his face, but he seemed perfectly nice, and being rude wasn't likely to get me half so far as manners might. "Malachi? Of course I know. I'm the reason he was in jail to begin with. " I let that sink in before following it up with the rest. "I'm the kid he tried to kill fifteen years ago. And a couple of nights ago, too, come to think of it. "

His right eyebrow joined the left one, high up in the creases of his forehead. "You're Eden?"

I propped a hand on my hip and smiled with my lips pressed together. "C'est moi. "

"And . . . and you want to talk to Ms. Dufresne?"

"I sure do. Last time I saw her, she made it pretty clear she had some things to say to me; I just thought I'd give her the opportunity. "