Carole Ann looked out at the crowd that filled Merle and Eldon's yard. Old people and young, and those in the middle; Black people and people she once would have assumed were white but which she now easily and readily accepted could be—and probably were—relatives; prosperous-looking city people dressed in silk and linen, and swamp babies she knew to be prosperous—Eldon and Merle and Ella Mae and Warren and Lil—dressed in blue jeans and overalls and walking barefoot. Most of them had greeted her at some point, shaking her hand or hugging her or smiling and thanking her for righting old wrongs. Stories. Yes, stories definitely were why she was sitting out in the Louisiana countryside.
Lil sat back and took a long swallow of her beer. The ice had melted and now was running down the side of the bottle and dripping on to her pink blouse, creating a polka dot pattern. She had a far-away look in her eyes for a moment, then she forged ahead. "You know, Hattiesburg's not that far from here. We could be related. I got plenty Mississippi kin. Let's see now. Do I know any Hattiesburg Gibsons..." Lil made an elaborate show of tilting her head back and pursing her lips and squeezing her eyes shut, working to conjure up some knowledge of Gibsons from Hattiesburg.
"My mother was an Asher." Carole Ann was smiling, playing along with Lil, enjoying the exercise, when the other woman snapped to attention. "Asher!" Lil exclaimed, pronouncing it As-shay. "My Daddy was first cousins to some Ashers from up around Hattiesburg. Melvin and Leotha and...and...Clarence? Clyde! That's it." And Lil sat there, the smug, self-satisfied look easing gently into the creases of her face as she read the disbelief in Carole Ann's. "What? WHAT? Tell me what!" Lil screeched, dancing her feet up and down on the ground and wiggling in her chair. "You know Clyde Asher, don't you?"
"My grandfather's name was Clyde Asher. My mother's father."
Now Lil actually did jump up from her chair and do a little dance. "Mama! Tante Sadie! Where y'all?" Her eyes roamed the crowd. She waved her hand at a man in overalls carrying a fiddle. "Uncle Bo, you see my Mama and Tante Sadie over by the table? Ask 'em to come here quick, please." And she turned back to Carole Ann and laughed and then scooped her up in a big hug and danced around with her and Carole Ann forgot that she was in pain. Within the hour, every person at the party knew of the blood relationship between Carole Ann and the late Warren Forchette, Senior; and though it was so distant a connection as to have questionable legal authority, it didn't matter. Carole Ann already had been gathered into the Warmsley clan and was considered family. So were Dave and Jean Crandall, Tommy and Valerie, and, in abstencia, Jake Graham. A legitimate blood tie, no matter how tenuous, was serious business on the bayou. Carole Ann learned how serious when a humble, somber Warren Forchette led her to the dance tent and, after leading her gently and slowly through a two-step, led her to the edge of the make-shift dance floor and presented her to the crowd:
"This is my cousin, Carole Ann." And with one voice, the yelled her name back to her for a long, long, time, and she was reminded of something Lil had read to about the family one chooses being as crucial as the family into which one is born. Carole Ann opened her arms in a wide embrace and accepted her family.
"You some kin to me. You understand what that means? What that means to us in this part of the world?" In an instant Lil had lost her erudite, citified way of speaking and now sounded so much like Eldon Warmsley it was eerie. Carole Ann almost didn't understand her. Lil had said, 'woild' instead of 'world;' 'unnestan'' instead of 'understand.' Startled as she was, however, Carole Ann did understand.
"It means nobody better fuck with you or I'll kick their ass," she said to her cousin. Lil was still laughing when Carole Ann got in the car with Dave and Jean Crandall to make the drive back to Atlanta.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dave read and re-read the document Carole Ann placed in the center of his desk. Then he studied it, scrutinized it, dissected it. Then he took a pen from his pocket and a yellow legal pad from one of the desk drawers, and he began writing, and he wrote for what felt to Carole Ann a very long time. When he finished, he looked up at her with a wry, sheepish smile.
"Dave, I only wanted you to tell me how to go about implementing this plan. I didn't need you to re-structure it." She worked at not sounding peevish, but almost the entire time she'd been in Atlanta, she and Dave had argued about money. Her money. And she was weary of the battle. The only reason she hadn't left two days ago was because dealing with her brother, Mitch, would be worse than dealing with Dave; and because having to manage the money herself would be worse than death.
"Your intentions are admirable, C.A., but your proposal is lacking. I've re-worked it in what I believe to be a way that both adheres to your principles, while at the same time, providing for your own welfare and well-being." He'd spoken calmly and deliberately and without the slightest trace of emotion in his voice. Carole Ann did not respond in kind.
"Goddammit, Dave!" She erupted. "If you can't do what I've asked you to do, I'll hire someone who can and will! I'm tired of justifying and explaining myself to you."
"And I'm tired of your self-righteous bullshit!" It was Dave's turn to erupt, and he did a masterful job, first pounding the desk in anger, then jumping to his feet and beginning to pace the floor. Carole Ann was as impressed as she was surprised as he revealed a side of himself she'd never seen, and a response to her that was totally out of character for him. "You walk around wrapped in your full-length, I-hate-money fur coat, without ever understanding or acknowledging that it is precisely because you have as much money as you do that you can afford your snotty little attitude. If you were broke, Carole Ann, and had to work for a living, you could not have afforded to indulge your ego in the dangerous game of catching your husband's murderer. You were able to go to Louisiana and play cops and robbers precisely because you're rich. You were able to sue that crooked law firm and the crooked congressman because you're rich. And now you're even richer because of it. So, why can't you reach way down inside yourself and find the button marked 'gratitude' and punch it!" He was shouting at her, and sounding like Jake Graham.
"Why can't you accept that I'm not comfortable with having all that money and help me dispose of it in ways that help other people? Why can't you understand that in my view, that is the only real advantage to having money that you don't need: You get to help people who do need it." She held her hands out, palms up, willing his acquiescence.
"And that proves my point exactly," he exclaimed, crossing to her and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Only the wealthy can afford to be altruistic about money, Carole Ann. The poor are too busy trying to make ends meet."
She responded bitterly. "Do you call that a slap in the face, Dave, or a kick in the ass?" She walked away from him.
"Do you have any idea how much money you spent in Louisiana?"
"It doesn't matter," Carole Ann responded wearily.
"It would if you hadn't had it to spend," Dave snapped at her, "and since you neither know nor care to know, I'll tell you: More than many people earn in a year. People feed and clothe and educate children and pay rent and utility bills on what you spent in less than a month in Louisiana and you've got the gall to say it doesn't matter! Climb down off your high horse, Carole Ann, before it bucks and throws you on your ass."
Dave was visibly tired after his tirade, and Carole Ann was too shocked to speak. So they stood there looking at each other across the room until Dave returned his body to his desk and his attention to the yellow legal pad. He scribbled out a few more lines, ripped off the page, and extended it to Carole Ann. It could have been five feet of venomous cobra for her reaction to it but Dave did not withdraw it, so she accepted it, and finally read it, as he talked her through it.
"You will see that your plan to endow college trust funds for your nieces remains intact. I eliminated the similar trust for the OPTC because Lil Gailliard is richer than you are, owing to the fact that she now owns a plastics factory and a few oil wells."
"But they're not going to drill them Dave," she wail
ed in renewed exasperation. "Don't you understand? And they've already closed that awful, poisonous plant."
Dave was shaking his head. "Only until it can be brought into compliance with EPA guidelines, C.A. Lil didn't want any part of putting two hundred people out of work, and all the drilling will take place off-shore."
Carole Ann's mood shifted suddenly and dramatically. "How do you know so much about it?" she snapped at him.
"'Cause I'm the new tax attorney for the new corporation," he said with a shrug and a grin, and Carole Ann could only give in graciously. She bowed to him from the waist, sat down, crossed her legs, and gestured for him to continue. "I left in your money for Orleans Parish Legal Services, but structured it so the gift will become self-sustaining. All you need do is stipulate that the money be used only for hiring lawyers, paralegals, researchers, and their support staff, and the fund can receive in-kind, tax deductible contributions and perhaps live on forever. The plan I propose for Jake Graham is a little different because his needs are different, but the objective of having him financially secure for the rest of his life is met. My ultimate objective, you will note, is to reserve a healthy chunk of the proceeds for you, which we will invest in such a way that you can spend the rest of your life chasing murderers if you like, and still have money left to give away."
Carole Ann folded the yellow paper and returned it to Dave. She slumped into the chair nearest his desk and buried her head in her hands. She didn't like the feeling of having profited financially from Al's death a second time. She'd listened reluctantly to Warren and Dave when they urged her to sue Al's former law firm and its partners. As a senior managing partner, Larry Devereaux had acted as an officer of the firm every time he engaged in an illegal activity—he’d acknowledged as much in sworn depositions. Ergo, reasoned Warren and Dave, the firm was liable for Al's death. The same reasoning made Leland Devereaux's assets vulnerable to a civil suit. Because both the firm and Leland were extremely prosperous, she now was wealthier by several million dollars. Money she felt she neither deserved nor wanted.
She raised her head and looked at Dave across the desk. Looked at Dave and heard his angry words to her: "Find the button marked 'gratitude' and punch it." Looked at Dave and saw Al and recalled his plans—their plans—to spend the balance of their lives doing the things that made them happy. How joyful she'd been those few, precious hours when she and Al had known they were free. And Dave was correct: The money had bought and paid for the freedom. So, she would keep it and her freedom and pray for a return, some day, of the joy.
"I guess I'd better go get dressed," she said standing. Warren and Lil were driving over from New Orleans and they all were going to a parade and a football game. Then they were going to the city's Christmas Tree lighting ceremony, then to dinner, and finally to a new jazz club on the west side of town that also served what was reputed to be the best sweet potato pie in town. Carole Ann tried to smile at Dave but the effort broke on her face and he rushed from behind his desk to hold her. He didn't speak because there was nothing to say, and she was glad he didn't try. The last thing she wanted was for another person to tell her that everything would be all right. It was Thanksgiving and her husband had been dead for eight months and there was nothing right about that. But there were things for which she was thankful, like the money, but the money didn't fill every one of her waking moments, making certain that she wasn't alone and brooding. People did that. Friends. Family. And for them, she was thankful.
Carole Ann's bags were packed. The limousine was scheduled to arrive in exactly one hour. She was ready to leave. To go to Denver, ostensibly to spend the holidays with her brother and his family and her mother, who was flying in from Los Angeles, but she and everyone else knew that she spent as little time in Washington as possible since Al's death, and that she certainly would not spend Christmas here, alone. Could not welcome a new year that would not contain her husband, but that would, instead, contain memories of a year that would haunt her dreams for years to come.
She stood at the balcony door looking out at the velvety black and bitter cold December night. The sky was almost white with glittering stars, usually a sign of the severity of the cold. Tommy would be arriving at any moment with a surprise, he'd said. She'd made him promise that he wasn't bringing her a Christmas present. She didn't want any presents. She wanted only to leave as soon as possible, but he'd insisted on seeing her before her departure since she could not say when she planned to return. So he and Valerie were coming to say good-bye. Coming with a surprise.
The ringing of the phone broke her reverie. She crossed quickly to the wall phone in the kitchen and answered, listened, and told the doorman to send them up. Tommy and Valerie. Wonderful young people who'd become her friends. Closer: Her family. They cared about her and for her and she would miss them, for she didn't know when she would return to D.C. from Denver; had no specific plans to return.
The doorbell chimed and she hurried down the hallway to admit them, the smile ready on her face. The smile turned to astonishment when she saw, standing between Tommy and Valerie, Jacob Graham. Standing. A metal crutch was attached to each arm for support, but standing he was. She knew her mouth was hanging open in speechless amazement, but she couldn't help herself, and she readily accepted the good-humored laughter at her expense.
"So, you gonna invite us in, or what?" Tommy finally said, and she stepped away, holding the door open for their entry. Valerie entered first, followed by Graham, slowly propelling himself, step by step, down the hall. Tommy stood with her as she watched him. She closed and locked the door and set the alarm: Old habits die hard. Then she followed them into the living room in time to watch Graham lay his crutches aside and lower himself into the arm chair. The grin on his face was a priceless treasure. Still she did not speak. Could not speak. Tommy, as usual, found words.
"So, how do you like your surprise?" he asked innocently.
"It's...I'm...what..." She stuttered and sputtered to the amusement of the other three until finally Tommy rescued her again.
"I'm glad you saved me from the firing squad before you caught this hoof-and-mouth disease," he said uncharitably. "Who ever heard of lawyer who couldn't talk?"
"Jake, what happened?" she finally managed, shooting Tommy an evil look under hooded eyelids.
"I took the money you got for me from the crooked law firm and took a chance that the Good Lord didn't mean for me to spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair," Jake Graham said with a satisfied grunt, and explained that he'd flown to Havana, Cuba, for the operation that no American physician would perform. "I'd heard and read about this Cuban guy, a pioneer in spinal cord injuries. I heard he had lots of successes, and more than a few failures. It was the failures that people kept throwing in my face, and it was the successes that I kept seeing in my mind. Suppose I could be one of those successes? My wife agreed with me. She was so sick of me moanin' and groanin' about bein' tied to that damn chair that she said she'd rather both of us took Doc Malina's offer. She said we couldn’t beat the odds."
"And they were what?" Carole Ann asked.
"That I'd either be walking or be dead," Graham said without a hint of emotion. "My wife said either way I'd be dead 'cause she was gonna kill me if I didn't stop complainin’." Graham laughed his growly laugh. "And here I am," he said, arms extended in a wide embrace of the world, kicking his legs like a toddler learning to swim. "He sliced open my back and stole that bullet that was layin' on my spinal cord. I knew soon as I woke up from the anesthesia that I could walk because my legs were tingling. You know how it feels when the circulation comes back after you've sat in one position too long? That's what I felt in my legs and I hadn't felt anything in my legs in months. I knew I wasn't dead and I knew I was gonna walk."
Carole Ann sat there soaking up Jake Graham's joy, grateful that he'd wanted to share it with her. She'd known that he partly blamed her for the bullet he took, though only partly. She knew also that he knew that taking bullets is what cop
s did. Still, she relished sharing his happiness. And that's what she was thinking and feeling when she realized that he had pushed himself up to a standing position and, using one the crutches for balance, had reached into his pocket and extracted an envelope which he offered to her. She quickly took it from him and looked at him and then at the envelope.
"What's this?" she asked.
"Your fee," Jake said.
"What fee? What are you talking about?" Carole Ann's hackles were up as she ripped open the envelope: A check, made out to her. "What is the meaning of this?" She was angry and didn't mind letting him know it.
Jake Graham had been a homicide cop too long to let anger directed at him affect him. He answered calmly. "If it hadn't been for you, C.A., I'd still be chained to that damn wheel chair. Or be dead, 'cause my wife really was gonna kill me. You didn't have to make to make those bastards pay me but you did, and I'm grateful. Even if the operation hadn't worked, I'd be grateful. But it did work and I owe you. More than money. But, again, thanks to you, money is all I got. So, you just pretend that I hired you to right a wrong and now I'm paying my bill." And with that he leaned down and retrieved his other crutch. They were the metal kind with cuffs. He fit his arms into the supportive circles and grasped the padded hand bars. Then, stepping slowly but surely, he crossed to the couch were Valerie and Tommy sat and reached for the brightly-wrapped package that Valerie held. He took it and both hands and extended it to Carole Ann. "This is from my wife. Grace is her name. You'll have to meet her some time. She's a hell of a woman. She asked me to give you this. She painted it herself."
Carole Ann stripped away the paper to reveal an eight-inch-by-ten-inch stretched and unframed canvas. On it, in brilliant oils, a sunset and water and trees and a path leading into the trees. Tears sprang to her eyes and Carole Ann did not attempt to wipe them away. "Tell her..." she began, and was stopped by emotion. The stark, simple beauty of the little sketch released all the emotion she'd been holding. She allowed the tears to spill out, down her cheeks. "Tell your wife my mother's name is Grayce," Carole Ann said, and hugged the portrait to her heart.
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