No Controlling Legal Authority Ch. 26

"She is, she is," he confirmed earnestly, glancing toward the front door as if he expected Miss Kate to appear on the porch at any second. "What you do in the privacy of your own room is strictly your business, according to her, but she says that the way young people act out in public is scandalous, and she won't have anything of the sort going on in front of her house."

"So, she's flashing the lights to get you to stop what you're doing?" she giggled. "My daddy used to do that with the porch light when he and momma thought I was staying outside with my date too long."

"I don't think she wants me to stop, actually," he grimaced as the lights blinked insistently again. "She just wants whatever we're doing to be done inside."

"Does she now?" Anne responded a little stiffly in defense of her independence, when Caleb began groping for the door handle. "And, all she has to do to make Judge Montcastle come arunning, is flick her lights a few times?"

"OK," he laughed as he climbed out of the car, "you found me out. I have a weakness for very old French ladies, especially if they wield a pretty mean parasol."

Moon Dog was standing by the car holding her suitcase as she opened the door. Caleb circled the car and, when he reached Anne's side, Moon Dog handed the bag to him and turned to Anne.

"Miss," he said solemnly as he returned the keys to her car, "it's been a real pleasure knowing you."

"You're not leaving are you, Clarence?" she asked in alarm. His presence, despite the interrogation, had been the source of considerable comfort to her in the preceding days, and the news that she was losing his protection was disconcerting.

"Yes, ma'am. The President's planning on spending his first Christmas in office in London at No. 10 Downing Street, and the Secret Service's contracted with Hunter and me to go over with the advance party to set up security for him. They're sending a plane out here for us first thing in the morning."

"I hope having you guys protecting him makes him feel as safe as it did me," she said warmly.

"Don't you worry little lady, you'll be safe enough with the Judge here for the next few weeks anyway. We shook the Caruthers back in St. Louis, and I expect they're still trying to figure out which direction we took. It's a big country and St. Louis is right smack in the middle of it; it's gonna take them a long time to track you down, if they ever do."

"I hope you're right," she responded pensively.

"I am," he answered with assurance. "You just remember what I told you, Miss Noble, turn loose of the contacts with your past and nobody will ever find you."

"I remember," she told him, but Caleb thought her voice sounded a little wistful as though she wasn't entirely convinced that just laying low would do the trick.

"Good, and while you're letting go and starting over fresh, Hunter has some contacts at the FBI that he's using to find out what in the hell is going on over at the Post Office, 'cause this business with the Postal Inspectors sounds pretty suspicious to me."

"What does that mean, Dog?" Caleb interjected.

"Nothing, maybe, but 'drive-bys' and leaving a material witness in danger without protection aren't business as usual at the P.O. They've had too much experience with their own people 'going postal' on them to disregard any threat."

"Does that mean what I think it means, Caleb," Anne asked turning to him with her eyes widening in concern.

"If you're thinking that maybe those weren't really Postal Inspectors…" Caleb began.

"Hold on, folks," Moon Dog interrupted. "I didn't intend to worry you more than you already are. It's just that the Judge here pays top dollar for me to be suspicious of everything and everybody, so if something doesn't smell one hundred percent right to this old sniffer of mine, I'm gonna check it out. Now, I don't expect to find much if anything behind my suspicions, so if I were you two, I'd just relax, kick back and enjoy the holidays."

"Will I see you again?" Anne asked.

"Sure you will. We'll be back in the States in three weeks or so, and then I'll be heading back to Missouri to check on the investigation into your friend's death. If I can, I'll stop by Posey's Bend on the way."

"Oh, Clarence," she sniffed, rising on her tiptoes and snaking her hand behind the big man's neck to pull his cheek to her lips, "it seems like all I've been doing lately is trying to come up with a way to say thank you and everything I've thought of is too little and too late."

Caleb watched with interest and noted a softening of the usual impenetrable iciness in the old warrior's eyes.

The man's fingers lightly touched his cheek where her lips had brushed him and for a minute his words forsook him. Finally, he muttered, "I wish we didn't have to leave."

"Nonsense," she said patting his arm. "The President of the United States is a lot more important that I am."

"Not to me," Moon Dog answered.

"To me either," Caleb joined in just as the house lights blinked again. "Oops," he continued, "there she goes again."

"What the hell is that?" Moon Dog grumbled at the interruption.

"That's my new chaperone and protector," Anne laughed. "I think she's meant to be your replacement, Clarence."

"That couldn't be…?" Moon Dog asked, turning toward Caleb.

"Yep, Miss Kate," Caleb acknowledged only a little ruefully.

"The same Miss Kate who…?" Moon Dog sputtered, but the lights came on again and cut him off in mid-sentence.

"That's the one," Caleb grinned quickly. "But, we can't stand out here yacking all night or she'll call the police on us."

"Good Lord," Moon Dog grumbled, and then, he turned toward Anne and whispered to her loudly enough for Caleb to overhear, "Whatever that old woman tells you about Caleb's daddy or his granddaddy, don't you pay any attention to it at all, you understand me?"

"Sure, I guess so, Clarence," she responded with a puzzled look.

"What was that all about?" she asked Caleb as he led her up the sidewalk to the temporarily darkened house.

"Oh, nothing much," he answered casually, dismissing her question with a head shake. "Just some nonsense that supposedly happened years ago. Every time it came up, they just told me I was too young, so I never did get the whole story."

"Sounded like Clarence was worried that I might get the whole story, didn't it?" Anne asked as they reached the doorstep.

"Yeah, it did, but if you find out from her where she came from and what she was doing before she got here, that would be a lot more interesting, I expect."

As he spoke, Caleb unlocked the door and pushed it open. A single lamp was burning on a table in the entry hall. He handed her the key and her suitcase, and before he turned to leave, said, "Your room's the fifth door on the left; your key fits the front door and the lock on your room. I'll pick you up at quarter to ten in the morning and run you over to the bank, OK?"

"I'll be ready," she replied as she shut the door.

* * *

The days immediately following Anne's arrival were a whirlwind of activity. There were meetings at the bank and at her school, introductions to the shopkeepers on the square and an afternoon reception that Caleb had arranged with her new principal, Mr. Jenks, and some of the other third grade teachers with whom she would be sharing teaching facilities. There had even been a trip to the local clinic, where Caleb led her through the back door directly to the doctors offices and took her around introducing her to her new gynecologist, internist, and, just because he happened to be standing in the hall when they walked past, she surmised, proctologist. Caleb had taken her to dinner at Le Maison du Maurice so many nights in succession that the maitre'd began putting vases of her favorite flowers on "His Honor's special table," and the cocktail waitress had taken to asking her if she wanted "the usual" when taking their order.

All that had ended abruptly a few days earlier when Caleb told her he was getting behind in his work and had some catching up to do. He said he would give her a call as soon as he could get free, but the phone hadn't rung once. It was turning out to be a lonesome Christmas Eve. Late in the afternoon, while heading home from a last minute trip to the grocery, Anne drove around the square on her way to Miss Kate's and confirmed that Caleb's car remained parked at the curb. It was alone and not difficult to spot. The courthouse windows were darkened, except for those in Caleb's offices, and when she saw the lights burning, she felt an immediate pang of disappointment. That means he's working late tonight too and probably eating grilled cheese sandwiches again, she thought, as she circled the deserted square a second time.

"Hi, Miss Kate," Anne said in as cheerful a voice as she could manage upon entering the kitchen and seeing her elderly landlady sitting alone with a glass and a half empty bottle of cognac on the table in front of her. Anne guessed by the smudge of lipstick circling the rim of the glass that Miss Kate had gotten an early start on her Christmas celebrations.

"I bought a few things at the grocery just now. Do you mind if I use a little of your refrigerator?" Anne asked, making her way through the room.

"Of course, not, Cheri," the old lady said agreeably, turning to watch Anne transfer a quart bottle of skim milk and a few containers of yogurt from her shopping bag to the refrigerator.

"Mon Deiu, Cheri, you eat like zee bird; I do not know how you keep zee curves, no?" Kate observed wryly. Her own figure, once curvaceous, had succumbed to the forces of time and of gravity despite her best efforts, but she retained her admiration for shapely girls.

"Some bird, Miss Kate" Anne laughed. "I ate at Le Maison du Maurice three times last week. I feel like my curves have grown curves."

"Zay have not, mon Cheri. You continue to look, ah, uh, how do they say eet? Ah, awesome, oui, awesome," Kate replied beaming proudly that she had recalled the word.

"Merci beau coup," Anne answered, dipping in a slight curtsy to acknowledge the compliment, but then she continued with a frown, "I'm glad someone appreciates me."

"I sink he must appreciate you very much to take you out so often," Kate said reassuringly.

"Do you really think so?" Anne asked uncertainly.

"Oui, it ees le tres chic bistro, zis Le Maison du Maurice, n'est pas?"

"Oh, my yes," Anne bubbled enthusiastically. "It is so romantic; high on a bluff overlooking the river. He reserved his special, very private, table with curtains that closed it off from everyone else and a view that's to die for, and we got there early so we could see 'the sunset turn the water into gold,' he said. And he ordered wonderful French wines that I had never heard of, and we drank a bottle before dinner with appetizers and another with dinner, and he wanted to order a third to drink with desert, but I was afraid that I would make a fool of myself."

"Ach, you're making an old woman jealous," Kate moaned playfully.

"Really? Have you been there, Kate?" she asked.

"Where? To Le Maison du Maurice? Alas, no, Cheri, I do not venture far from home zees days, but I was sinking of zee romance with your young man, not zee food. Your romance, I am jealous of; what is life without romance? I do miss zat."

"I'm beginning to miss it too, Kate," she said pensively. "I thought surely he would call today."

"I am sorry, Cheri; zee phone it deed not ring all zee day."

"He's working, I suppose. I drove past the courthouse and his car was there. The whole building was dark except for his office lights."

"Mon Deiu," Kate swore dismally with a shake of her head. "I do not know where zee world has gone, that a young man works on zee eve of Christmas and neglects the desires of zee femme magnifique."

"His work is really important, I guess," Anne explained defensively.

"Rubbish!" Kate replied, dismissing the excuse out of hand. "Compared with l'amour, no man's work ees important."

Anne looked at the old woman and smiled. Her back was unbowed, and she still carried herself with the regal bearing of a courtesan. Her face was lined, but traces of the beauty that had sustained her for seventy years or more could still be seen in the curve of her lips and the clear, shining pools of her eyes. She had about her a sort of earthy, old world charm that bespoke of wisdom and of knowledge that had been sifted from the accumulated secrets of a thousand-year heritage.

"Come, Cheri," the old woman beckoned curling her gnarled fingers toward Anne. "Bring a glass and sit with me a moment."

"I knew hees father, you know," she began while pouring Anne a brimming glass of cognac.

"No, I didn't," Anne answered unnecessarily. The cognac was smooth but potent, and the first sip warmed her to her toes.

"Oui," Kate said, nodding her head emphatically as though the added movement would erase any doubt about her veracity. "And, hees grand-p`ere, as well. From before zee fall of Dien Bien Phu, I knew zem."

"Goodness, Kate, that must have been a long time ago," Anne murmured while trying to place the reference.

"Oui, Cheri, long ago," she responded reflectively as she lifted her glass toward the light and gazed into its amber depths. "I was beautiful zen, too, like vous, with zee firm, full poitrine and zee wide hips," she sighed wistfully, and as she spoke the word "poitrine" her empty hand rose to her bosom and plucked the delicate lace fringe of her robe. "I was ripe, like zee fruit to be plucked, no, and I had beau coup admirers in zose years."

"I can see why," Anne said gently as she reached across the table to cover Kate's hand with her own. "I think you are still a beautiful woman."

"Aha!" she exclaimed with a wink. "I told heem there vould be much about you to like, Cheri."

"He told you about me?" Anne questioned in surprise. She took a quick sip of cognac and noticed her glass was nearly empty.

"Oui, Cheri, he told me much," Kate replied, reaching across the table to refill Anne's glass.

"But, but, why?" Anne sputtered dubiously.

Kate's smile broadened disarmingly and, as she set the bottle on the table, she turned her eyes to the young woman's face. "Because, Cheri, zee Montcastle men have always talked to me of their women, n'est pas?"

"Why do you think I'm 'his woman?'" Anne blurted indignantly. She had no patience for being taken for granted and thought, under the circumstances, that the presumption was dubious.

"Because, Cheri, if you are not his woman now, you will be soon," the old woman responded cannily.

"How could you possibly know that?"

"It is zee thing you both want, n'est pas?"

"Well," Anne began noncommittally, trying to buy time to collect her thoughts, "how do you know he wants me; he's sure not acting much like it?"

"Because, my dear," Kate answered without affectation, "as I said, I know what the Montcastle men desire in their women; this one of yours is no different that those I have known before him."

"Just how well did you know these Montcastles, Miss Kate?" Anne challenged.

"How well can a woman know a man, Cheri?"

"Good God," Anne gasped when she grasped the implication of that claim. "All three of them?"

"No, no, Cheri," answered quickly, giggling at the misapprehension. The cognac had made her tipsy, and that, along with, perhaps, the season, had made her garrulous far beyond her nature. "Not your Caleb, but his father and his grandfather, oui, oh, my, yes," she continued and her memories rose on amber fumes to wrap her in their warm embrace.

Anne's jaw dropped and her mouth gaped in astonishment. She reached for the nearly empty bottle and poured the remainder of its contents into Miss Kate's glass. A million questions jostled for recognition in her mind, and she struggled to maintain the appearance of casual interest.

"You knew both of them that well, then," Anne breathed softly to avoid rousing Miss Kate.

"Oui," she said distantly as though the memories had deprived her of her responsiveness. Then, she turned to Anne and studied her face for a moment like she was seeing her for the first time. "There is another bottle in the cabinet under the sink. Go get it, Cheri, I have much to tell you."

She waited patiently while Anne returned to the table and, breaking the seal on the neck, set the fresh bottle between their glasses, and then slipped expectantly into her seat.

Kate refilled Anne's glass and then her own, ceremoniously, taking her time and allowing Anne's anticipation to grow, and then, she recapped the bottle and set it aside.

Kate lifted her glass and extended her hand toward Anne in the proffer of a toast, and when Anne brought her glass to hers, she said, "To l'amour, mon Cheri, may it fill your days with unending happiness and your nights with unimaginable pleasure."

"To love," Anne replied, humoring the old woman by taking a generous sip from her glass, because, in truth, she could not imagine a relationship that was capable of fulfilling that benediction.

"It all began so long ago when I was just a girl, not really unlike yourself, and he was older, but tall and grand, with the strength of a bull and an insatiable passion," she began in low steady tones, and, by the time she had finished, Anne was agog and the second bottle of cognac was nearly empty.

It was as though the old courtesan had found in Anne a kindred spirit, or perhaps a transgenerational bridge from the past to the future over which she could vicariously pass to savor once again the sweet nectar of l'amour. Perhaps, Anne thought in the days that followed, she was seeking immortality like the heroines of eons past whose glorious loves found life everlasting in the oft-told tales of oral historians. Or, maybe, she was passing the wisdom of the ages to her understudy in the guise of personal experiences. Whatever her purpose may have been in revealing herself so completely, Anne paid full homage to her gift by duly noting and faithfully recording every word on the chalkboard of her memory.

"He actually brought young Hiram with him when he came to see you?" Anne gasped incredulously about half way through the old woman's tale.

"Oui, he did, and the boy would wait in the parlor and play games with les femmes while I entertained his father in the rooms upstairs."

"But, but," Anne sputtered, "when did he, I mean, how did he?"

"Ah," Kate smiled wickedly, and Anne could see the warm glow of seduction in the old woman's eyes. "So you want to know how I came to feel the prick of young Hiram's sweet dart of love, n'est pas?"

"Oui!" Anne gushed excitedly and refilled her empty glass and Kate's. She leaned forward expectantly and held her breath, waiting for the tale to resume.

"His father brought him up the stairs one day and into my boudoir. He said to me, 'The boy's too old to sit in the parlor with a bunch of whores, while his daddy fucks the night away upstairs, and besides it's time he learns a few things that you can teach him better than I can, Kate.'"

"Oh!" Anne gasped with a blush of excited interest. Her eyes widened and she took another sip of cognac.

"And so, he led him to the chair beside the bed, and he watched his pappa take out his prick and put it into my mouth, and, while I sucked him, his pappa told him how wonderful it felt to fuck a woman in the mouth. Then, his pappa came, and when he did so, he pushed my face away so young Hiram could see the flood of his semen, and I held my mouth open for him, so the boy could know how a woman yearns for the taste of her lover's cum."

"God," Anne groaned appreciatively and a tremor of déjà vu swept through her limbs.

"And then, he positioned me on my back with my legs in the air, and he called the boy over and had him kneel on the floor beside the bed, and he opened my cunt lips for him to look inside and he said, 'This is pussy, son. Your cock goes in here, just like this, and you fuck like this till you cum.' And so, while the boy knelt by the bed, his father showed him how to fuck,"