The Cutting Season by Attica Locke Page A

had had wine with dinner, a lot actually. She’d slept soundly and heard nothing at all.
    Morgan had her back pressed against the headboard.
    Again, she was mumbling something Caren could hardly hear.
    “What is it, ’Cakes?”
    What came out was barely a whisper. “You said I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    “Oh, Morgan,” Caren whispered.
    She felt a brick-sized lump forming in her throat.
    “I’m only going to ask you this one more time. How did you get blood on your shirt?” But when her daughter gave a small shrug and said, “I don’t know, Mom,” Caren simply accepted it. She knew it was all she was going to get. “Okay,” she said calmly. She pushed against the side of the twin bed, rising slowly to her feet. She picked up the soiled shirt. And because she had no better idea, she tucked it into the top drawer of Morgan’s wooden dresser. “Gerald will be here in a few minutes. You are not to leave this building under any circumstances, do you understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Okay, then.”
    S he didn’t intend to stay long, just until the guests were seated and she’d shaken hands with Giles Schuyler, the chief executive of Merryvale Properties. He was not at all what she’d pictured. He resembled something of an aging football player, with broad shoulders that no suit could contain with any grace and jowls thick and going soft with age. On his right hand, he wore a small mountain of gold, in the form of an LSU class ring, the center stone cheap and dull. If you’d told her he’d just gotten off his shift at Sears selling Amana washer-dryers, she would have believed it. His appearance was that of a simple man, a local boy, not one you’d necessarily expect to be running a company that traded on the New York Stock Exchange. He was affable and warm, patting her on the back and offering to fetch her a flute of champagne, as if they were standing in his living room. He was completely at home, an aperitif in hand and his suit coat undone. Whatever, if anything, Ms. Quinlan had told him about the body out by the fence, he didn’t seem fazed in the least. Ms. Quinlan, on the other hand, hadn’t let a glass of butter-colored rum too far from her lips. She was glued to Schuyler’s side, taking one small sip after another and eyeing closely the goings-on in the room, tracking the invited guests.
    “I understand your little girl is at Laurel Springs Elementary.”
    “Yes,” Caren said, glancing down at her watch, trying to think what time it was in D.C., how soon she could get to a phone. “We’ve been very happy there.”
    “Well, that’s what we’re all about,” Schuyler said. “Building communities where families can thrive.” It was a line right out of his brochure. He took a sip of his drink, gesturing toward the gathered crowd. The guests in the dining room were in their midthirties and older, part of a generation late to home ownership, men and women whose first home might very well be their last. Each of them had been brought here, beneath the crystal chandeliers, as an invitation to take part in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to become founding investors in Louisiana’s next great upscale living community, Douxville Estates, for which residential plots were currently being sold. The houses in the brochure were an echo of the historical elegance of a place like Belle Vie, only with new plumbing, of course, and custom-made granite countertops. It was an offer to retire inside of a Margaret Mitchell novel, to a time of opulence and refinement where you could end each workday as your forefathers had, sitting out on the front porch with a drink, imagining land that stretched for acres and acres instead of stopping crudely at the end of a concrete driveway. Mr. Schuyler opened the evening by asking the guests to stand and toast their new neighbors, before reminding them, with a salesman’s flair, that time was running out. There were only a handful of plots left. “Act now,” he