Uncle Ash was back from South America, and he and Aunt Zell were already following the teenagers down the slope for some serious square dancing.
I was surprised to see that people were still arriving and hoped it omened something for the runoff. The side pasture was lined three deep in cars, but the snaggle-toothed child who’d been helping her brother direct traffic had wandered down to the shelter. I saw her talking to Gayle Whitehead and pointing back through the crowd.
I hadn’t had much opportunity to talk to Gayle since Denn’s death and indeed, I’d almost tried to avoid her because she kept wanting to talk about the SBI’s failure to find Denn and Michael’s killer, and I couldn’t really comment on the drug-connection theory making the rounds because Terry Wilson had sworn me to silence.
On the other hand, there was still such a ragged and unfinished feeling that I couldn’t quite put it behind me either. Usually when I hear a murder case unraveled in front of a jury, I’m left with a satisfied sense of understanding how and why. This time, some of Michael’s actions still weren’t clear, and I knew Gayle had begun to pick up on my frustration.
Stevie came past. “Neat party, huh?” he said. “I’m ready to boogie. You seen Gayle?”
“Right over-” I started to point, then realized Gayle was no longer there. “Well, she was right over there.”
As he headed off to look for her in the growing darkness, I had one quick surge of envy that there wasn’t somebody special here for me, too. Before the night was over I’d probably dance with Jed Whitehed, Terry Wilson, Dwight Bryant, maybe even Gray Talbert, but none of them would quicken my pulse the way Gayle quickened Stevie’s.
More people were drifting down toward the music and dancing now, though there were animated huddles around several tables with brisk political discussions and bursts of raucous laughter here, some quiet lapel-pulling there. I saw the tobacco lobbyists in earnest conversation with one of our state assemblymen. There was such a shortfall in revenues that for the first time in years there was serious talk that the state assembly might actually consider raising the three-cents-a-pack cigarette tax.
Bo Poole was in earnest conversation with the vice president of the Democratic Women as I passed.
Daddy and Dwight had their heads together talking fishing with Terry-“that sucker fought me all the way across the lake, heading for them root snags and-” Out on the dance floor, Reid had made up a square with Fitzi, Will, and Amy, and some others I didn’t recognize. Will looked as if he might’ve visited the beer keg a little more than he should’ve. Stevie still hadn’t located Gayle and was scanning the crowded floor for her.
L. V. Pruitt, Colleton County ’s coroner, had stepped up to the front of the platform to call the figures. A small spare man who normally spoke in hushed funereal tones, he had a lively inventive talent for spontaneous rhyme and could make himself heard above the fiddles: “Now you swing your partner out the back door, then you promenade all around the floor! Ladyfolks left and the gentlemen right; see who goes home with who tonight.”
Out beyond the circle of light, as many people were talking in tight clusters as were dancing.
“-like a drowned puppy that needed to be put out of its misery!”
“-so I said, well, if that’s the way the rest of the pulpit committee felt, I’d go along with their decision and just go home and pray on my own failings because-”
“-’cause the main thing to remember is that integration’s been a bigger success in the South than it could ever hope to be in the North and the reason-”
“Still didn’t find your mother?” I asked Faith Vickery, who was standing on tiptoes to see across the crowd.
She came down on her heels and looked at me blankly for a moment, almost as if she didn’t recognize me. “Oh. Deborah. No, and I’m concerned. She really isn’t well, you know. She really shouldn’t have come.”
“Why don’t I go look up at the house?” I offered. “Maybe she’s sitting with some of the older women on the porch.”
“No, I already looked there.”
Some of Faith’s concern began to transfer itself to me. What if she’d stumbled and fallen out here in the dark? “Do you want me to stop the music and ask if anyone’s seen her?”
Faith looked undecided. “You know how Mother is,” she said. “If she’s just off in a quiet corner somewhere in conversation with a friend, she’ll be so annoyed at me for making a fuss.”
It occurred to me that perhaps she might have been too overwhelmed by too many sympathetic well-wishers and had gone on back to the car to wait for Faith.
“I’ll bet that’s it!” Faith exclaimed. “I’ll go right now and check and if she’s there, I’ll just take her on home. Please thank your brothers for inviting us.”
She cut across the side yard and headed for the part of the pasture where she’d parked.
Up by the house, where the pasture gate actually entered the lane, a departing guest struggled to maneuver a car into the lane without scraping any of those parked on either side. As I neared the gate, I realized it was Gayle behind the steering wheel of an elderly Mercedes. She seemed to be having difficulty driving the large car.
“Gayle?” I called.
She didn’t hear, and as I hurried over, I saw Mrs. Vickery on the seat beside her. I thumped on the window, and when Gayle rolled it down after a quick glance at Mrs. Vickery, I bent down to look inside.
“Faith’s been looking for you everywhere, Mrs. Vickery.”
“I’m afraid I’m not feeling at all well,” she said, “and Gayle has kindly agreed to drive me home.” She sat erectly in the passenger seat with her large purse in her lap. Her left hand was on top of the shapeless purse, her right hand was inside it, and I felt as if I were looking at a copperhead moccasin.
“But Faith-”
“I’m quite sorry,” Mrs. Vickery said politely, “but we truly must go now.”
“Then why not let me drive you?” I said. “Gayle’s father’s looking for her, and anyhow, I’m more familiar with a straight drive than Gayle is.”
“You mustn’t leave your guests, Miss Knott. I’m sure she can manage. Drive on, Gayle.”
Helplessly, Gayle shifted into first and lurched slowly down the lane.
Equally helpless, I looked around and saw no one but the child who must have delivered Mrs. Vickery’s message that had lured Gayle out to her car.
“Melissa, listen!” I said as I ran back to my own car, pulled my revolver from the trunk, and slipped it in the pocket of my jacket. “Do you know Dwight Bryant?”
Large-eyed at the sight of my gun, she shook her head.
“Okay, then, run find Granddaddy or Uncle Seth and tell them Mrs. Vickery’s trying to hurt Gayle and that I’ve gone after them to make her stop. Scoot!”
She darted off and I jumped in the car just as Faith Vickery came though the pasture gate, looking frantic. “Mama’s car’s gone.”
I flung open the door and cried, “Get in! She’s got Gayle Whitehead.”
Faith hesitated and I revved the motor. “Dammit, either get in or get out of my way!”
Quickly, she hurried around to the side and half-fell in as I’d already started moving.
“Your mother’s flipped out, hasn’t she?” I said.
No answer.
“She’s holding a gun on Gayle. Why?”
Faith let out a half-strangled sob.
“Why?”
“Because she thinks Michael would still be alive if Gayle hadn’t asked you to look into her mother’s death.”
In the distance, red taillights glowed briefly, then turned right toward Cotton Grove. I hadn’t yet turned on my lights because I could have driven the lane blindfolded.
As the ramifications of what she’d said sunk in, I was seized with horror. “Your mother shot Michael!”
“No!” Faith cried.
“And Denn, too? Oh God, I told Denn that first blast was meant for him and it was! Michael was in Denn’s car,
sitting where she expected to find Denn.”
Faith had begun to cry with low hopeless sobs. “No, no, no,” she moaned.
I barely heard, for I was trying to remember what Daddy had said about Mrs. Vickery when she was a teenager and used to come out to the old Dancy place with her brother to go hunting. Of course, she’d know how to handle guns. Any guns.
“Denn and Michael were splitting up, and Denn grabbed Janie’s slicker to give me that night,” I said aloud, working it out as I spoke. “When Michael realized, he must have called your mother. Why? Unless-yes! She must have known. He must have told her all those years ago. He probably blamed her for Janie’s death, since he’d tried to be straight to please her. That’s what Denn said: he’d tried to deny his own nature and look what happened. That’s why she held her head high when he brought Denn down here. He didn’t give her any choice, did he? What’d he do, say let me be gay or I’ll tell the world I’m a killer?”
Faith was still into heavy denial. Ahead, the taillights had reached the stop sign at Old Forty-Eight and turned left. I let two cars go by, then finally put on my lights and pulled onto the highway. Maybe the normal Saturday night traffic would keep her from noticing me.
“My nieces and nephews were out watching the town the night Michael was killed,” I told Faith. “They kept logs, too. If she was out in that Mercedes, one of them may well remember seeing her.”
“She always adored Michael,” Faith said dully. “He was the Prince of Light for her. It nearly killed her when she learned he was gay. I could never understand how she could be so-so accepting. And all these years, she’s loathed Denn McCloy. I never realized till after my brother’s wake. She made me go invite him to the funeral home. I was so proud of her for that. And all the time-” She broke off and fumbled in her purse until she found a tissue. “We were exhausted when we came home that night. Everyone fell into bed. But I couldn’t sleep. I got up and went downstairs around midnight for a book. A few minutes later, I heard the garage door open and her car drive in. I slipped to the side door, opened it just wide enough to see her take the shotgun out of the car and hide it up on the garage rafters. I was so frightened. And then the next morning when we heard-When I saw her eyes-”
“She murdered your brother!” I burst out.
“She thought it was Denn,” Faith protested. “Don’t you understand? She thought she had to protect Michael.”
The two cars ahead of me abruptly swung out to pass the slower Mercedes. What was going on? And how could I avoid passing, too, without giving us away? But what-?
Then I realized that they were slowing down for the entrance lane to Ridley’s Mill. “It’s blocked,” I muttered and was forced to pass as the Mercedes turned off the road.
There was a driveway a few hundred feet down, and I cut my lights and coasted to a stop without touching the brakes. The cable across the mill lane gleamed dully in the lights of the other car.
As I hesitated over whether to go back, the Mercedes suddenly backed out onto the highway and swept past us, once again headed for town.
“Where’s she taking Gayle?” I asked as I fell in one car behind.
“Maybe they’re going home,” Faith said with hope in her voice.
The hope died as we entered the town limits. Instead of turning onto the Vickerys’ street, the Mercedes continued north on Forty-Eight, right through town.
“The theater!” I exclaimed. “She wanted to go to the mill, and since she can’t, she’s going to take Gayle to where she killed Michael. And then what, Faith? Kill her, too?”
“I don’t know,” Faith moaned. “I don’t know!”
If I was right, there’d be no way in hell I could follow down that winding drive to the theater without Mrs. Vickery noticing. I had the feeling that some warped sense of divine retribution would require that Gayle be standing on the spot where Michael had died, but if I spooked Mrs. Vickery, she might go ahead and pull the trigger.
With a prayer to God and fingers crossed, I stepped on the gas, passed the Mercedes as if it were standing still, and zoomed out of town doing seventy as I wove in and out of the four-lane traffic. If I got stopped by a patrol car, well and good. If not-
“What are you doing?” gasped Faith.
“We’re going to get there first,” I told her. It was another three minutes to the theater entrance and I took the turn on two wheels. The first production of the new season was due to open the next weekend, but the theater was as dark as ever.
I zipped down the graveled drive, cut my headlights as I drove through the rear lot, and used my parking lights to fumble past the loading area and around to the far side of the building. I winced as bushes tore at the paint job and the housing of the universal joint hit a rock.
“We’ll get out,” I told Faith, “and wait at the corner here till they get out of the car.”
The overhead light came on as we opened our doors, and she protested when she saw the gun in my hand.
“You’re not going to-? She’s my mother!”
“She’s a killer, Faith, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let her kill Gayle, too. You try to warn her or stop me from doing whatever has to be done and I swear to God I’ll shoot you where you stand. You understand?”
She stood gaping at me in the starlight.
“That’s not a rhetorical question, dammit! Do you understand?”
“Y-yes.”
Not knowing if she could be trusted, I pushed her in front of me and we waited without talking.
Two weeks ago I had waited like this with Dwight. If only I had his comforting bulk beside me now!
Headlights swept across the side of the theater and traveled steadily down the graveled road. As they disappeared around the front, I flicked off the safety and held my breath until I saw them wash over the bushes at the rear. Then there was only a reflected glow as the lights shone directly on the rear door of the theater. Abruptly, the engine died and silence flooded in.
I put my left hand on the small of Faith’s back.
“Not a sound,” I whispered and nudged her forward.
She stumbled, caught herself, and then we were peeking around the corner, straight across the loading platform and into Evelyn Dancy Vickery’s ravaged, maniacal face.
Gayle was a dark silhouette between us, and I cursed myself for not thinking far enough ahead to have circled around to the other side of the theater as they drove in.
Too late.
“On your knees!” cried Mrs. Vickery, waving the pistol at Gayle.
“Mama, no!” Faith screamed as I pushed her out of my way.
Instinctively, Gayle ducked behind the car as Mrs. Vickery’s first shot slammed into a board beside my head. The next one ricocheted off the roof of her car. I fell to the ground, took a two-handed grip on my gun, and fired. The bullet spun her around and I heard her pistol hit the hood of the Mercedes.
Instantly, I was on my feet, found the gun, and flung it into the far bushes.
Then Gayle was in my arms, sobbing hysterically. “She was going to kill me! To make up for Michael. Sh-she said she should have done it in the first place instead of leaving me to grow up. Oh, Deborah! She shot my mother!”
I held her tightly. “Sh-h. It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now. It’s all over.”
“I was so scared.” Her teeth were chattering as reaction set in. “I thought you didn’t know she had a gun. I kept looking to see if anybody was following. How-?”
Faith was kneeling beside her mother’s unconscious form. Blood drenched the lower right side of her white cotton shirtdress.
“There’s a phone inside,” I said. “Gayle and I’ll go call.”
This time there was no open window and I had to use a rock.
It was one of the best-attended crime scenes in the county’s history: one sheriff, one deputy sheriff, three SBI agents, and a coroner arrived in a dead heat with an ambulance and two patrol cars.
Gayle had calmed down some by then, and she listened qui
etly while I told Dwight and Terry that Mrs. Vickery had killed Michael by mistake, Denn on purpose, and that she was the one who’d actually fired the bullet that killed Janie. “All three of them,” I concluded.
“Four,” said Gayle. “Howard Grimes, too. He saw Michael parked with my mother at Hardee’s that day, and he’d been blackmailing her. When the SBI came back, she thought he was going to tell, so she substituted stronger heart pills for the ones Dr. Vickery prescribed and everybody thought he died naturally.”
29 that just about does it, don’t it?
After all that, the runoff election was anticlimactic. There were so many rumors, so many wild tales. It took some backing and hauling but eventually the media got it all perfectly straight and within three days had revised and emended until the absolute truth was told. Nevertheless, the electorate seemed to feel it had two choices.
Judicial candidate (a), the daughter of a known bootlegger, had shot and seriously wounded one of the most respected citizens of Colleton County after running around the district befriending and defending drug pushers, homosexuals, murderers, and God knows what else.
Judicial candidate (b) hadn’t.
The electorate went to the polls that Tuesday and cast fifty-nine percent of its votes for (b).
30 daddy’s hands
Okay, it was childish and immature, but I couldn’t go to the office on Wednesday as if nothing had happened. To have to endure everybody’s condolences and attempts to buck me up? To have to hear “better luck next time”? To have to say, “Luther Parker’s going to be a fine judge”?
In yer ear, Norton.
Luther Parker was going to be a fine judge and I’d played the gracious loser and told him so two hours after the polls closed. That Harrison Hobart’s seat wasn’t going to be filled by a Perry Byrd clone was the only lily among the bouquet of nettles and bitter herbs I’d been handed.
Bootlegger’s Daughter Page 24