Burnt Incense

BURNT INCENSE

A NOVEL of

TRUST – DECEIT – DEFENSE

EILEEN BIRIN

Burnt Incense

By Eileen Birin

Copyright © 2012 by Eileen Birin

All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced in whole or in part, scanned, photocopied, recorded, distributed in any printed or electronic form, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without express written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Published by Neelie Publishing at Smashwords

13-Digit ISBN: 976-0-9655339-7-2 First Edition eBook

Neelie

Publishing

Glendale, Arizona

www.write-today.com

ABOVE ALL, TO THYSELF BE TRUE

TO MICHAEL AND JOSEPHINE,

DANIEL AND ALIEDA

WITH

LOVE, JOY AND LAUGHTER.

PROLOGUE

SHE JUMPED FROM the deck and landed on soft sand. The change in surface made her stumble. Footsteps pounded the planks right behind her, closing in. A light shone in the distance, a pale yellow beacon from the marina. If she could get close enough, her scream would be heard—but before she could catch her breath, the footsteps reached the edge of the balcony and an instant later, sand sprayed the backs of her legs. A muscular arm thrust around her neck and another wrapped around her stomach.

He dragged her toward the waiting ocean. Chilly water touched her ankles, and then a wave encircled her thighs. The tide was in. Even though she was full of adrenaline and terrified, she could not break his grip. Tonight, in the next second, the cold waters of the Atlantic would close over her like a tomb.

###

CHAPTER ONE

A BLACK TOYOTA TRUCK hissed through a puddle and parked with two tires on the sidewalk. Its headlights illuminated a halo of water drops on the office window, and its exhaust made a heavy tail of steam in the October night. The passenger door opened, and a woman climbed down holding her coat over her head, then over the heads of her two daughters while they squeezed out from the cab. They were maybe eight and six, both carrying pink backpacks. She called something to them, but they ducked and ran ahead. She levered a plastic gym bag onto her shoulder, waved to the driver, whom Kathryn couldn’t see, slammed the door and followed the girls.

A nurse had called at the end of her shift to tell Kathryn another patient and her children were on their way. While Kathryn had been drafting a letter to the board, answering e-mails, purchasing a new sofa and ordering a lasagna special from Vincenzo’s for delivery, across town, the woman’s husband had come home from the auto shop and perceived an insult in her hello, and went from sullen to violent. He stopped short of attacking the two daughters only because the downstairs neighbor summoned the police. By the time the police arrived, he had dragged the girls’ mother to the living room and raped her. St. Vincent’s sent at least one woman a week to Sallie’s Place. The number of people who dealt with sexual violence compared to the number who actually sought help from Sallie’s Place, or any of Norfolk’s other shelters, made a dismal ratio that bothered Kathryn immensely—to the point of her imagining, of all the men and women she encountered in a day, little invisible white ribbons pinned to the sleeves of the survivors among them as they made her coffee, shook her hand, picked up the phone to answer her call. One woman in every three. One man in every six. So, in the past few weeks, about forty a day, and most of them would never go for help.

If she forced herself to do the math, Sallie’s Place seemed no more useful than a Band-Aid for a gunshot wound. Kathryn turned off her computer and shut the office door. Regan was coming down the stairs with an armload of linens, and her eyes went wide.

Oh, they’re here already?

I got it, said Kathryn. Just put that in the laundry room and then go ahead home. I can stay a little longer before Nelson’s guy comes to pick me up. The front door opened with a whoosh, and the woman pushed into the foyer with her daughters, shoulders flecked with rain. Her daughters stayed close to her and kept their eyes down. She was full of disguised exhaustion, and there was an awkwardness about the way she occupied the front doorway.

I’m Cheryl Goss, she said. The nurse called? We’re here to see someone about spending a few nights?

Kathryn waved them in. Yes, welcome. I’m Kathryn, and there’s a room ready upstairs. She didn’t offer her hand to the woman to shake; she stayed out of her space as much as possible as she took their coats and led them upstairs. She glanced at Regan as she headed for the staff exit; Regan nodded goodnight. I’ll just show you three around and let you get settled.

Cheryl crossed her arms and started up the stairs, keeping her daughters close. Yeah, that’s fine. There was irritation in her voice. Just an extra layer of pride, probably. But despite many years in this line of work, including being a mother herself, Kathryn had never gone through hell and she worried that sometimes it showed. Sallie, for whom the shelter was named, told her that sympathy was enough—she never wanted Kathryn to survive something that gave her empathy.

The upstairs was remodeled from a jumble of antebellum architecture into six distinct living sections. Three were unoccupied, and the one reserved for Cheryl and her daughters was Kathryn’s favorite: an antique white and blue jacquard throw covered the bed, woven by Kathryn’s great-grandmother. Her father’s home was full of antiques she used to recruit into make-believe, and since no one would miss a few of the larger ones now that he lived there alone, Sallie’s Place received a steady infusion of fine things. The rest of the suite was average – a fold-out couch for the girls, a television, a small refrigerator and microwave in case they didn’t want to come down to the common room, and a shelf of glossy resource books, inspirationals, and a set of Encyclopedia Britannica Elevens filched from the Cunningham estate. Children liked the encyclopedias’ ancient pages and brittle fold-out maps, and without exception, handled them as gingerly as they’d handle butterfly wings. Cheryl set her bag next to the television and sent the girls to the bathroom to wash their hands and put on dry sweaters.

It’s just around the corner – yes, there, said Kathryn. Breakfast is at eight. There’s a counselor on call all night if you need her. During the day, there are a few of us about, and someone will come by to check in on you after lunch if we don’t see you at breakfast. Otherwise, we won’t disturb your privacy.

The bright reading light next to the bed made Kathryn look again at the woman. She wore her hair in a tight Cinderella bun, and she had put on red glass earrings and lipstick. But something wasn’t quite right about her hair; in the light, one strip of it seemed stiff and too dark. Kathryn’s stomach tightened. Dried blood. The assault was so recent she hadn’t had time to shower. Downstairs, the door slammed.

I hope you find the house restful, Kathryn said. A rustling on the stairs grew louder and started to nag. This is my card. I’ll be in first thing tomorrow.

Cheryl accepted the card, bent it back and forth without creasing it. Her face seemed about to crack; but she laughed. God. I’m sorry – I’m usually so talkative. She was holding Kathryn’s gaze wide-eyed, hanging onto her with a small, anxious smile. We have a nice home, a townhouse, and the girls are used to having what they want most of the time. Nothing like this has ever happened, and it feels a little funny to accept charity—

Kathryn began to say it wasn’t charity, but rustling and heavy footfalls topped the stairs and rounded the corner. The suite door banged open the rest of the way, and one of Nelson’s pinguid staffers stopped and eyeballed the two of them, only just aware that he’d interrupted. Uh-huh, yeah, Dave? His cell phone started to slip from between his face and shoulder. Gotta go. Bye. Hey, Mrs. B. – sorry, but Sheila sent me to fetch you. Ball’s in thirty.

Cheryl’s body stiffened. She looked at Kathryn as if afraid she was about to be asked to leave, and also with some confusion; the man was carrying a violet Armani gown in a dry cleaner’s bag. He wiped his phone on the front of his jacket and holstered it.

Mrs. B? Ball’s in thirty. I was told to bring this and drive you.

Get out. Kathryn gained momentum the faster she walked toward him, and even though a small voice was telling her to modulate for Cheryl’s sake, she seized his shoulders and spun him around with the same force and authority she would have used on her son when he was twelve and learning sarcasm. Get out, immediately – this room belongs to this woman, and you can’t just walk in. I don’t care who sent you. She propelled him toward the stairs. When she was out of earshot, she whispered at him, Harvard doesn’t teach common sense? God.

His cheeks speckled with red, but otherwise, he didn’t seem to hear her. This is your dress, Mrs. Bradford. The campaign ball begins in thirty minutes, and the photographers are already setting up in your dining room.

CHAPTER TWO

THE STREET TO THE Briarcrest cul de sac was already filling up with limousines and chauffeured cars. All black. In the rain, they looked like wet missiles, orderly and dangerous. There was more power and more money lining up in front of her house than she had ever imagined, least of all when she left home twenty-five years ago to wed Nelson. In fact, power and money were the kinds of situations she’d tried to marry out of, and as much as her father thought the rebellious streak would fade, it only got deeper with time. She didn’t want people to give her money. She didn’t need it, so wasn’t the act a wasteful one? But Nelson had been scooping it up left and right, and he authorized a fundraising party in spite of her protest.

How are things? she asked over the back of the driver’s seat.

The staffer looked over his shoulder. It was the first time she’d spoken since they left Sallie’s Place. Mr. Bradford pulled ahead two points after his university speech today. Press ate it up. Sheila’s thinking the economic plank might be the one that puts him in the Senate, if he keeps swinging it. You’ll have quite the celebration tonight.

And Peter?

His rebuttal was just weak. All the press is talking about is the new Civil War and how Nelson is the brains of the two brothers. The staffer – Kip was his name, or no, Pip? – grinned into the rearview mirror put the car in park. Sheila’s giving the other Bradford one hell of a fight all the way to Washington. The side with the best general wins.

Several generations of her ancestors screeched in protest, including her grandfather, who made it clear that his respect for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the only reason he removed the portrait of General Lee from the house. Kathryn snapped her purse shut.

You didn’t say you studied history, did you?

No, ma’am. Law.

Well, then, goodnight, Pip, she said, putting one violet heel carefully down on the wet pavement. I appreciate the ride. And if you need to come by Sallie’s Place again, ring the doorbell.

It’s Chip, ma’am. My apologies. He ducked a little to see her better in the mirror. And ma’am? I don’t mean to pry, but – that woman, was she…

It is a shelter, Chip.

I’m deeply sorry for her, ma’am.

A valet shut her door and led her to the house – her house, festooned with lights and bunting. It was a colonial, and she and Nelson bought it together with whatever money they could scrape together after law school, a matter of pride for them both that they didn’t accept a house from her father. The year they moved in, Melissa was two and Chad was on the way, and he was in kindergarten by the time they could afford to landscape it. Now, under Sheila’s advisement, all but the ancient sycamores had been torn out of the front yard and replaced. The winter beds were artificially bright, glowing with chrysanthemums and other flowers she couldn’t name, lit by tiny orange lanterns that made the walkway more inviting and safer—lest without them, thought Kathryn wryly, a million-dollar donor might partake too liberally of the forty-year-old Laphroaig, bumble his exit, and sue Nelson blind.

Ma’am, said the valet. He’d stepped off the walkway onto the path that led to the basement door. This way. Sheila said you and Mr. Bradford should—

Is this Sheila’s house or mine? she snapped, but let herself be led to the back entrance. Only thirty-five more days and Sheila would be out of their lives, no matter who won the Senate seat, Nelson or Peter. The basement was campaign HQ for the night – busy, but still quiet. The pool table had been shoved against the louvered furnace room doors and topped with a white linen tablecloth, and hosted about six computers, cell phone chargers, a fax machine/printer, a nest of cables, and the remains of last Thanksgiving’s cornucopia centerpiece. Two of Sheila’s aides de camp were scouring the news at all hours. One of them was barely out of high school—Freddy, who was eating chocolate chips out of a bag next to the cornucopia. Tonight, his tuxedo made his neck look even longer as he hunched at one of the laptops, and whatever Walgreens version of Brylcreem he’d bought wasn’t helping his orange kinks. She snagged his sleeve and tugged him out of the way before he got run over by a pair of caterers lugging three airports of coffee.

Freddy, is Nelson here yet?

Mrs. B! His face got two shades darker than his hair. Hi. Yeah, I uhh… He stepped out of the way of more caterers. What’s that again?

Nelson?

Oh, right. Uh, Sheila says Mr. Bradford and her are on their way. His speech went great today. A phone on the table started to ring, and he grabbed one. Hello? He put it down again and grabbed another. Hello? Hey Sheila. Yeah, she just came in. He shrugged and hung up. They’re pulling up front now. Have some chocolate chips.

Kathryn tossed the dry cleaner’s bag and hanger of her work clothes over their old TV. She smoothed her dress, sinking for a moment into its sensuous, almost liquid texture, then twisted her wedding band and engagement ring until the diamonds lined up. The rings occupied that finger since the day Nelson slid them over her knuckle; the engagement ring in a cabin in the Smoky Mountains, the wedding band on the altar of his family church in Danville. She could almost feel herself leaning toward him now, him being there in front of her, ready to fold her in.

…hell in a hand basket! The screen door banged open. Michael Dell is upstairs and they’re still setting up tables? Who else? Sheila navigated past six staffers and a mobile serving tray without looking, jamming her earpiece into her ear with one hand and punching out a text message on a second cell phone. Three judges, two state representatives, the county commissioner, the chief of police, the fire chief, and more lawyers than… Nelson! She turned around in a spray of white-blonde hair and reached back outside. Sheila Saunders: so tall, so blonde, so incredibly efficient in whatever she managed, and so totally in control of Nelson’s campaign. She lived in a bubble of noise. If she wasn’t so beautiful, people might stop gawking long enough to notice that she was on a one-woman mission to twist arms, fray nerves and generally get her way. Nelson, I need you in here. Where’s Kathryn? Kathryn.

I’m here. I hope you were able to put a lock on my mother’s china? If I’d been able to see the setup—

We moved the whole cabinet upstairs. Sheila’s makeup achieved a remarkable imitation of the White Witch of Narnia. In the twenty-five years they’d known each other, she’d gotten better at turning the effect to her advantage. Are you ready yet? It’s showtime.

Nelson backed through the door in his tux, smiling and waving his way out of a conversation. Kathryn’s heart sped a little. He cleaned up like a movie star. Or, like a future Senator of the United States and her date to tonight’s ball. Instinctively, she stepped toward him to smooth his jacket shoulders and kiss him hello.

But before she could get there, Sheila took her arm, tugged Nelson next to her, hooked their arms together and barked into her phone, Cue the orchestra.

###

TWO TUXEDOED STAFFERS wobbled out the front door toward a limo at midnight, but the wind-down wasn’t contagious. Nelson was still schmoozing and pumping fists. Empty wine glasses and decimated silver platters of brie left their prints all over the downstairs in little splatters and smudges. The vaulted living room, transformed by a portable parquet floor and a NELSON 2012 banner, held net worth enough to buy half of Wall Street. Forgetting for a moment the churchmouse-poor campaign staffers, and the complete who’s-who in city government, the guest list included friends of the party’s underwriters, Ross and Marjorie Bergson. Ross was a major contributor to Nelson’s campaign and founder of ExCELL Computer Graphics, a billion-dollar graphics card manufacturer that made Dell Computers, Intel Corp., Apple and Nokia all look like ugly stepsisters on the Nasdaq. As Ross’s personal attorney, Nelson represented him in a brace of lawsuits and managed to break the financial backs of anybody who’d ever sued him, including his ex-wife. One evening a few years ago, when the Bergsons had invited them to dinner to celebrate Chad’s high school graduation, an anchor on the evening news called Ross a corporate raider; Kathryn was embarrassed for him, but Ross only lifted his glass to the television and praised free publicity. During the early stages of the campaign, she worried that the friendship might hinder Nelson rather than help. Well, he’s my client and my friend, Nelson said, and I think that pretty much says it, don’t you?

A knot in her chest had been bothering her all night, especially when Ross aired another sexist joke. The knot tightened when she thought of how quickly she’d dashed out of Sallie’s Place. When she tried to put herself in the woman’s place, the knot grew painful and prevented her from imagining any more. She wanted these people out of her home, and quiet, and time to reflect. Kathryn smiled correctly at someone’s drunk husband, wished him goodnight as he stumbled down the hallway toward the powder room. It was on her way outside that she noticed that all the photographs of Chad and Melissa, family friends, Peter and his wife Yvonne, had been removed from the wall and replaced with antique photographs of her Cunningham ancestors. She stopped. Had Nelson dug them out of the attic?

Her family name was still the best way