Bootlegger’s Daughter

by Margaret Maron

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “They were stacked on top of every News and Observer box in Makely this morning,” he answered grimly.

  “Oh, Lord,” I groaned. “Let’s see. When does the Makely Weekly go to press?”

  “Noon on Thursdays.” He glanced at his watch. “Four and a half hours ago.”

  “Luther, I swear to God I know nothing about this. My sister-in-law’s helping with my campaign. Let me talk to her and then, if that’s what you want, I’ll meet you at the Ledger first thing tomorrow and we’ll get Linsey Thomas to run a disclaimer, okay?”

  Neither of us was very happy with this solution, but we couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  At least Luther was back to calling me Deborah before we parted.

  When I returned to the office, Sherry had put the dustcover over her computer and was ready to leave.

  “Minnie’s been trying-to get you for the last hour,” she said, handing me a sheaf of message slips.

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Mr. John Claude and Reid-”

  “Ah, Deborah,” said John Claude from the doorway of his office. “May Reid and I see you for a few minutes?”

  Sherry discreetly left and I crossed the hall to John Claude’s office. He and Reid both had angry expressions on their faces and copies of the same trash Luther had shown me in their hands.

  “This is quite unconscionable,” said John Claude.

  “Really stinks,” Reid agreed.

  “Now wait a minute,” I said. “You don’t think I knew anything about this, do you?”

  “Of course not!” John Claude snapped.

  Reid handed me a gin and tonic, the gin poured with a stingy hand, the way I take it these days when I drink at all.

  “John Claude thinks it’s Hector Woodlief’s people.”

  Hector Woodlief had run unopposed on the Republican ticket in Tuesday’s primary, even though the only way he could realistically expect to win in November was if the Democratic candidate was dead or under indictment for something major.

  “I take it Hector Woodlief doesn’t get your vote?” I asked Reid.

  “Seems more likely this came from some of Luther Parker’s people.”

  “What?”

  “Foolishness,” muttered John Claude.

  “No, it’s not! Reid argued. ”Think about it, Deborah. This kind of crap hurts you a lot more than it hurts him. Gets the race thing right out in the open with you as the bigoted villain.”

  I thought about it and then shook my head. “No. It just doesn’t compute. If Parker’s that Machiavellian, wouldn’t he do it closer to the election for maximum impact?”

  “I didn’t say Parker himself; I said his people.”

  “No,” I said again. “I just spoke to Luther on the courthouse steps not ten minutes ago and he accused me of writing this. He’s a good attorney, but I’ve never seen him try out for any of the Possum Creek Player’s productions. He really and truly thought I-or somebody belonging to me anyhow-did this.”

  John Claude was distressed. “Oh, surely not.”

  “I think I convinced him.” I took a deep swallow of my drink and sat down on the blue leather couch to leaf through my messages. Most were from Minnie. “I’ll talk to Minnie tonight and I told Luther I’d meet him in Linsey Thomas’s office tomorrow morning so we can issue a joint statement.”

  John Claude shook his head pessimistically. “Reid’s right, I’m afraid. This does have the potential to harm you more than it harms Parker.”

  Supper with Minnie and Seth brought us to pretty much the same conclusion.

  I’d driven over to the modern farmhouse they’d built on the northwest side of the Grimes place-still called that even though Daddy’d bought it at auction back in the early sixties when North Carolina’s short-staple cotton took a double blow from polyesters and boll weevils. Farm acreage was going dirt cheap then, but even if it’d been high, Daddy still would have bid it in since it bounded his own land. He’d deeded it to Seth for a wedding present and Seth seemed to be doing pretty good with tobacco, sweet potatoes, and soy beans.

  Minnie’s in her midforties, old enough to be accepting of people and their shortcomings, yet wise to how they enjoy scandalous gossip. She was seriously disturbed over the potential damage the scurrilous flyer could do and had sent the kids off for pizza over in Cotton Grove so we could talk without the distraction of TV or stereos.

  “I just wish you didn’t have to give it more publicity with a Ledger story,” she said.

  “I don’t see that I have much choice,” I said as Seth poured steaming cups of coffee all around after supper.

  “No,” Minnie sighed. “But right now, not that many people know about it. I called around the whole district. Makely’s the only place they were distributed.”

  We went over it and over it from every angle, then worked on my statement until my nieces and nephews came home.

  As I drove through Cotton Grove on my way home to Dobbs, I passed by the neat house on the edge of town that my brother Will had once shared with Trish. It was still early, barely dark good; and through the thick trees, I saw that a light was on in Trish’s living room.

  I braked with such abruptness that the pickup behind almost rear-ended me. Well, what the hell, I thought. Talking with Trish about Janie Whitehead would at least make a change from worrying about my campaign.

  13 daytime friends and nighttime lovers

  Will’s ex-wife is a vice president in charge of customer service at my bank in Dobbs, so I’ve run into her frequently over the years. We’re friendly enough, but I hadn’t been in her house since Mother died.

  Mother was what everyone called a “good woman” (as distinct from “a good ol’ gal”) even though I realized right before she died that a narrow streak of wildness lay just beneath her surface serenity. Most of the time she kept it repressed, but when it got out of hand… well, that little streak of wildness was what took her off to Goldsboro during World War II and what later made her want to marry a widowed bootlegger with a houseful of motherless boys after the war.

  Nine times out of ten, a good woman does exactly what her family and society expect of her.

  That tenth time? Better stand back out of her way.

  She’ll burn down her world just for the hell of it, or risk everything she’s worked a lifetime for on pure-out whimsy.

  A similar streak in Trish is probably why Mother liked her and stayed friends even after the divorce. Not that she didn’t do everything in her power to talk my brother out of marrying Trish.

  “I thought you liked her,” Will said plaintively when he first started talking engagement rings.

  “Liking has nothing to do with it,” said Mother. “I just don’t believe you two are suited.”

  “Who’s not?” he asked. “Me for her or her for me?”

  Mother just shook her head. She never said another word against the match once it was made, and she never said “I told you so” when it came unmade after two and a half years.

  As I pulled into the driveway behind Trish’s conservative white Japanese import, I found myself wondering for the first time in years what actually had gone wrong with their marriage. Will just tightened his mouth and we assumed he’d caught Trish in bed with someone since he was the one that wanted out. There’d been talk of her having round heels, but no one specific had ever been named.

  Even after the divorce, when she could have been a little less discreet, there’d been no stories of some man’s car parked all night in her driveway. True, she and Kay Saunders had spent a lot of weekends down at the beach that year, and everybody knows what kind of messing around two women off the leash can do, especially at the beach; but Kay was going through a rough time with Fred. He’d always cheated on Kay; that summer he quit trying to hide it.

  Divorce can be a contagious virus and we half expected that Fred and Kay’s marriage might go bust too, but somehow they kept it going. Last I heard
, they were still together, living in Maryland somewhere.

  The front drape moved a finger’s width, then Trish opened the door.

  “Well, I’ll be darned! Deborah? Come on in!” She stood back to let me pass.

  Time had been nice to her. She had to be early forties, yet her reddish-blonde hair fell softly around a smooth face, her breasts were still firm inside a cotton peasant blouse, her legs as magnificent as ever in cut-off jeans. She was barefooted, and I smelled the open bottle of nail polish on the coffee table just as I noticed that seven of her toes sported glistening pink polish.

  On the couch sat another woman, in white slacks, tailored apricot silk shirt, and gold-tooled thongs. Short dark hair, green eyes, probably in her late thirties. Her triangular, catlike features were softened by the few extra pounds she carried.

  “You and Margie know each other, don’t you?” asked Trish, and when I shook my head, she introduced us. “Deborah Knott, Margie McGranahan. Margie works in our Makely branch. Deborah’s my ex’s sister.‘

  “Oh, yes,” said the woman with a smile. “You’re running for judge. Congratulations on your win Tuesday.”

  “Thanks,” I said, taking a chair opposite. “I like your sandals.”

  Other women notice jewelry. I always notice shoes.

  “These old things?” She stretched out a shapely foot and I saw that her toenails had been freshly painted in the same pink shade as Trish’s. “I got these on sale at the end of last summer. At the Bigg Shopp, of all places.”

  She capped the nail polish and slid it across the coffee table to Trish, then began gathering up her purse, car keys, and a folder of papers.

  “Did I interrupt?” I asked, noticing the opened bottle of wine and nearly empty glasses.

  “No, no,” Trish reassured me. “Margie was just leaving. We did all we were going to do tonight.”

  “My husband had to work late,” Margie explained, “so this was a good time for us to talk and catch up on some bank mess, but I really do need to get on home. When do you want to let’s try and finish this, Trish? Monday night?”

  Trish had drifted over to the front door and opened it. “How about I give you a call when I see how things are working out?”

  “Fine. Nice meeting you, Deborah,” said Margie. “And good luck in the runoff.”

  She glanced out the open door and hesitated. “I’m afraid you’ve got me blocked in.”

  “Oh, is that your car?” I was surprised. “I thought it was Trish’s.”

  “No, mine’s in the garage,” said Trish.

  “But isn’t it the same model?”

  “Yes, isn’t that a funny coincidence? I reckon you were confused.”

  As I backed my car out of the driveway so Margie McGranahan could leave, I had a vague sense of déjà vu, yet no matter how I grabbed for that tag end of subconsciousness, the whole memory wouldn’t come.

  Margie tapped her horn in thanks and sped off toward Makely as I pulled back into the drive.

  Since Cotton Grove’s town limits were less than a thousand feet away, streetlights were few and far between out here. The trees had matured amazingly since I last stood in Trish’s yard. Coupled with the overgrown shrubbery all around, the place was effectively shielded from its neighbors on either side and had an unexpected sense of privacy for a town lot. The moon hadn’t yet risen, but Jupiter shone with a steady white fire in the western sky in competition with all the other bright points now pricking through the darkness.

  “How about some wine?” asked Trish as I followed her back into the softly lit house.

  “No thanks, but I could sure use some iced tea.”

  Every refrigerator in the South holds a jug or half-gallon jar of strong sweet tea, and Trish’s was no exception.

  I trailed her out to the kitchen and sat down at her breakfast table while she poured us both tea and then began stacking the dishwasher with the things she and Margie had dirtied at supper. She’d redone the room completely. Everything was blue-and-white gingham and white ruffles. Very feminine.

  “Haven’t seen much of you these last few years,” said Trish. “What’ve you been up to? Besides work and running for judge, I mean?”

  “You mean how’s my love life?”

  She laughed. “Well, I was going to work up to that more subtle-like. I heard you were seeing Jed Whitehead again.”

  “Who on earth told you that?”

  A fork clattered to the blue-tiled floor and she stooped for it gracefully. One side of the loose scooped-neck blouse slipped off her shoulder and she pulled it up absent-mindedly. “Let me think. It was either Toni Bledsoe or Ina Jean Freeman, I forget which. Whichever it was said she saw you leaving some political dinner or something with Jed. Was she wrong?”

  “No, I did ride home with him, but that was to talk about Gayle. I’m not actually seeing him.”

  “Why not? I remember what a crush you used to have on him.”

  “God! Was it all that obvious back then?” First Scotty Underhill, now Trish.

  “Not really.” She finished stacking the plates, closed the dishwasher, and then sat down across the table from me. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed only Janie thought it was so cute.”

  “Cute?” A brand-new wave of mortification washed over me. “Oh, Lord! Janie said that?”

  Trish looked uncomfortable.

  “What else?” I demanded.

  “Well,” she said reluctantly, picking invisible crumbs off the blue tablecloth. “You know how you used to go over and help out before the baby was born? And then all that cheap babysitting after? Janie said that you’d probably work for nothing if Jed could just get himself home early enough to drive you back to the farm every evening.”

  I could almost hear Janie’s ripple of laughter and for the first time in years I felt lumpish and homely again, the way I always got whenever I compared myself to her.

  “I don’t know if you remember, but I tried to warn you,” said Trish. “She could be a real bitch, Janie.”

  “Is that why you broke up with her?” I blurted.

  Trish frowned. “Broke up?”

  “Why you quit being friends with her. You and Kay Saunders and Janie used to run around a lot together, and then a couple of weeks before she died, it was like y’all had never met.”

  She stood abruptly. “Look at me! I forgot to turn on the dishwasher.”

  As she started to measure detergent and rearrange the load, I went down the hall to the bathroom. It was tacky, still, long as I was there and already snooping, I checked out her medicine cabinet. There was an extra toothbrush, but no condoms, no birth control pills, no shaving lotion or aftershave. Trish’s love life must be in even worse shape than mine, I decided.

  The dishwasher was chugging and Trish was wiping cabinets and cleaning the sink when I returned to the kitchen.

  “You don’t have time for another glass of tea, do you?”

  “Sure,” I said cheerfully, ignoring the delicate hint to say thanks, but I probably ought to be getting on home. “So why did you all quit being friends?”

  “I don’t really remember. It was so long ago.” She poured us both fresh glasses of tea, added several ice cubes and said, “Let’s go to the living room where it’s quieter.”

  We carried our glasses inside, away from the noisy dishwasher. Trish immediately uncapped the nail polish, propped her foot on the coffee table, and returned to the three toenails that had been left undone. As the smell of acetone filled the room, she started to inquire about some of my farther-flung family, but I interrupted.

  “Look, Trish, I didn’t ask about you and Kay and Janie just to be nosy. Gayle’s asked me to do an informal investigation-find out what was going on in Janie’s head back then, see if any of it had to do with why she was killed.”

  She finished with her toes. A hair clip was lying on the end table and she gathered her long strawberry-blonde hair up into a loose knot on top of her head. “Aren’t you a little old to be playing
Nancy Drew, Girl Detective?”

  “It’s not much different from what I do now when I take depositions from witnesses before a trial,” I said stiffly.

  “But I didn’t witness anything to do with her death.”

  “How do you know? Maybe y’all’s fight triggered something.”

  “No.” She shook her head vigorously.

  I pounced on her unspoken admission. “But you did have a fight?”

  “It wasn’t really a fight and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But why?”

  She stood up purposefully. “I was awfully glad to see you here again, Deborah, but right now, I think you ought to go.”

  “Okay.” Frustrated and puzzled, I stood too. “I didn’t mean to make you mad, Trish. I don’t see why you can’t tell me, but if that’s the way you feel-”

  “I’m sorry,” she said as she moved toward the door, “but it is.”

  “Then how about giving me Kay Saunders’s address? Maybe she’ll tell me what happened.”

  The idea seemed to amuse Trish. “I doubt it. Anyhow, I don’t have it. We don’t even exchange Christmas cards anymore.”

  “Really?” Somehow that surprised me more than anything else that evening. “But you were so close.”

  “Fred didn’t approve of me,” she said dryly. “Good night, Deborah. Come back some time when you’re tired of digging up all the dirt about Janie Whitehead.”

  Interesting, I thought as I went down the walk to my car. Digging up all the dirt? Surely that said there was dirt to be dug.

  I put my key in the ignition, but before I turned it, the memory that had nagged at me earlier finally came hobbling like a cork to the surface of my mind: Mother and I had pulled into this same driveway that spring behind what we thought was Trish’s blue Ford sedan. A few minutes later, we discovered that Kay was there, too, and the blue Ford in the drive was hers. Trish’s was in the garage. I’d had to go out and move our station wagon when Kay was ready to leave.

  And Janie had owned an identical blue Ford sedan.