The Cutting Season by Attica Locke Page A

had felt shamed by the incident, but also confused.
    She hadn’t seen Leland in a long time.
    Raymond was the one who signed her checks.
    “Daddy ought not have any unnecessary stress, and that’s straight from the doctor’s mouth,” he said. “This kind of thing would just mess with his head.”
    “Sure, Raymond.”
    “Bobby neither, hear?” Clancy said, and Caren found it amusing that Raymond, all these years later, still imagined she and Bobby had some special connection, when the two of them had seen each other only once in four years, a brief encounter in town that had been awkward and somewhat strained. “Let’s keep him out of this, too. There’s a whole lot in this world my brother doesn’t hardly understand, and he’s liable to take something like this personal, somebody leaving that gal out there like that. He still calls the plantation home.” Caren nodded, though she suspected Raymond was working himself up for nothing. Until very recently, Bobby had stayed out of Ascension Parish, even skipping out on a seventy-sixth birthday party Lorraine had arranged for his father. “You let me break the news to him,” Raymond said.
    “Sure.”
    She glanced again at her rearview mirror.
    The red pickup truck was gone.
    A few minutes later, she got a second call on her cell phone, just as she was exiting State Highway 1 for the decorative gates of the town of Laurel Springs. It was Mr. Schuyler’s assistant, Patricia Quinlan, informing Caren that she would be arriving at least one hour before the guests, to make sure there were no more surprises.
    “Have they removed—”
    “The coroner took the body late this morning, yes,” Caren said.
    On the other end of the phone, Ms. Quinlan sighed heavily. “Well, Mr. Schuyler would greatly prefer if the news of this morning’s incident did not reach our guests.”
    “Understood.”
    “Good, then,” Ms. Quinlan said. “I’ll see you at four.”
    T he kids were already pouring out of the elementary school when Caren pulled into the circle drive in front, into the crush of SUVs and minivans. The three schools, for grades pre-K through twelve, were a mile past the Unitarian church. The campus spanned both sides of Main Street, with a raised walkway bridging the elementary school to the other buildings, all of which were done up in a vaguely neocolonial style, with lots of red brick and black shutters and eaves trimmed in white. The girls wore smock dresses of navy and green plaid. The boys were instructed to wear khaki pants. Otherwise, their tops were to be all white, polos or cotton button-downs only.
    Morgan was one of twenty black students in the lower school, which made her easy enough to spot in the crowd. She was sitting cross-legged on top of her backpack, set a few feet back from the curb, and she was reading a library book. She looked up once, scanning the line of cars in the circle drive, only to go right back to reading her book. She was, Caren knew, expecting Letty’s van. Caren honked her horn, even though that was generally frowned upon by the school’s staff. Morgan looked up again. She saw Caren this time, and smiled widely. She started to gather her things. By the time Caren reached the end of the curved driveway, Morgan was already waiting at the curb, her navy backpack over her shoulder. “Where’s Letty?” she asked.
    “Artie’s sick.”
    Morgan’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, an almost comic expression of skepticism on a nine-year-old. “She didn’t say anything to me about it.” She was standing at the open passenger window. She still hadn’t made a move to get into the car. Behind them, the line of waiting cars had grown even longer. “Just get in, Morgan, and we’ll talk about it, okay?” Caren said. This only served to confirm her daughter’s suspicion that something else was behind her unscheduled appearance at the school. Up ahead, the traffic guard was looking in their direction, waving the Volvo forward.
    “Get