by Karen Young
Beatrice filled a mug with tea and handed it to Anne. “Something’s definitely stolen your joy today. Is it Buck?”
“No, it’s his mother.” In the tight confines of the office it was difficult to pace, but Anne was unable to stay still as she described to Beatrice the gist of Victoria’s visit. “She practically accused me of having a hidden agenda. Some kind of plan to discredit her precious Pearce. How ridiculous is that!”
Beatrice reached for the sugar bowl. “She’s never been particularly perceptive.”
Anne picked up a tin of organic tea, sniffed it and put it back. “All she’s accomplished is to fire up my curiosity. Instead of persuading me to quit, I’m convinced there’s something she doesn’t want me to find.”
Propping her elbows at her desk, Beatrice watched Anne move restlessly about the office, picking up, handling, poking into boxes, but with only vague interest in what she touched. Her thoughts were still locked on the interview with her mother-in-law.
“Put yourself in Victoria’s shoes, Anne,” Beatrice said. “Belle Pointe and her life there are everything to her. So, here you come along and start poking around in the past—her past. For whatever reason, she senses a potential for disaster. I don’t know what she thinks you might stumble on, but surely her concern is understandable.”
Frowning, Anne moved to the chair, transferred the stack of folders to the floor and sat down. “Maybe you’re right and I’m overreacting. You went to high school with her, Beatrice. Tell me something that might help me understand her better. Right now, I’m just appalled and, frankly, offended by the woman’s incredible arrogance.”
“Maybe her protective attitude toward Belle Pointe and the Whitaker name is understandable when you consider her background,” Beatrice said, settling back in her chair. “Remember, she came from a home where her father was the mechanic at Belle Pointe and her mother a waitress, so marrying John Whitaker elevated her social status to the most elite level in Delta society. Could be she’s a bit sensitive to any threat to that, real or imagined.”
Anne tapped a finger against her lips, thinking. “I’ve been wondering about that. Around here, there’s obviously a gulf between the haves and the have-nots. And it isn’t confined to race, as far as I can tell. So here’s my question. If Victoria’s social status was so much less than John Whitaker’s, were his parents okay with his choice of a bride? Were John and Victoria just so passionately in love that they overruled any opposition? You were classmates. Wasn’t there talk?”
“Isn’t there always gossip?”
“Hello? That’s why I’m asking. I know when I was in high school, if a girlfriend pulled off a coup like that, we would have been chattering about it like mad. C’mon, Beatrice, what was it like back then?”
“In the olden days?” Smiling, Beatrice settled again in her chair behind the cluttered desk. “You realize you sound like Paige, don’t you? And both of us would be all over her for stirring the ashes of an old scandal.”
“I won’t repeat anything you tell me. So, was it a scandal?”
Beatrice released a sigh. “Maybe scandal is the wrong word, but it was a hot topic. It’s been a long time, keep that in mind along with the fact that Victoria was three years older than I. Still, I do remember her as well as anybody at Tallulah High School would. She was a natural beauty. Striking amber eyes, honey-blond hair and a perfect figure. Not model slim, as girls want to be today, but…curvaceous.” Beatrice moved her hands in an hourglass shape. “All the boys in school were mad about her, but when she was about sixteen, she stopped paying attention to them. And Rudy Baker was the reason.”
“Who?”
“Rudy Baker’s uncle owned a saloon, the Boll Weevil. It was a popular hangout because it had live music starting Thursday night and going through Sunday.” Beatrice gave a little shrug as she met Anne’s amused eyes. “You’re thinking that sounds pretty tame considering what goes on nowadays, but back then—this was in the sixties—it was a little rowdy. My daddy would have skinned me alive if he caught me there.”
“Rowdy?” Anne couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Live music, beer and what else?”
“Maybe you could get a little marijuana but, again, my daddy would have killed me. Anyway,” she went on briskly, “Rudy Baker fancied himself a musician. Elvis was big then, you’ll recall. Oh, I guess you wouldn’t since you weren’t born. Anyway, Rudy was tall and drop-dead handsome, he had coal-black hair and dark, dark eyes and a sexy way about him. He could pick and sing and Vickie Hinton didn’t have time for any of those THS boys after she had a taste of Rudy Baker.”
“What happened? She married John Whitaker in 1965 because I found the wedding announcement in the archives.”
“Rudy was drafted and sent to Vietnam. Later, he was killed in action.”
“Wait a minute.” Anne frowned, thinking back. “I remember something about that. Paige found a write-up about a local man killed in Vietnam. There’s a picture of him on the photo wall.”
“Then that would be Rudy because he was the only soldier killed in action in the whole county.”
Anne got up for more tea. “I think Baker was also the name of the man who died in a hunting accident involving Pearce,” she said in a thoughtful tone. “Do you remember that, Beatrice?”
“I certainly do. That was Jim Bob Baker, Rudy’s younger brother. He owned part interest in the cotton gin here in Tallulah. It was a sad thing, two sons from the same family dying young.”
“Do you remember if there was much discussion about the accident?”
“What do you mean?”
“I found the story—again when I was digging in the archives—and I thought it odd that Buck had never mentioned it. Of course, it was Pearce who was directly involved, but Buck was there and he was only seventeen. When he realized I’d found it in the archives and wanted to talk about it, he got very agitated. I decided it was one of those links to Belle Pointe in his past that he tried hard to forget.”
She returned to the chair and sat down again. “It’s as if he’s wary about telling me anything that touches him in a personal sense. I think he fears I might one day use it in some negative way against him. It’s so frustrating.”
“If he doesn’t have a good relationship with his mother, it could be the root of his wariness about trusting any woman.”
“Maybe,” Anne said, thinking it made sense. “But back to Victoria. It sounds as if she was passionately in love with Rudy Baker. So how did she wind up marrying John Whitaker so soon after seeing the love of her life go off to Vietnam?”
“I couldn’t say she was passionately in love with him or that he was the love of her life,” Beatrice said. “I’m just telling you the way things appeared. She had no time for high school boys and she certainly spent a lot of time with Rudy. He was older than she was and, as I said, he had a way about him. And then he was gone. Not killed in action right away, you know, but absent from Tallulah.”
“And then she took up with John,” Anne guessed.
“Well, even though he was also four or five years older, she’d known him all her life because, as I said, her daddy worked at Belle Pointe. His name was Benny Hinton. She’d always been a bit of a tomboy and spent a lot of time there. She could operate the equipment that Benny worked on as well as any field hand. But if she had ever been romantically involved with John before that summer when they up and married, I never knew about it. Nobody knew.”
“I see it now,” Anne said, squinting thoughtfully. “John’s a randy college student, home for the summer. The hometown girl that he’s probably never paid much attention to has turned into this gorgeous, sexy siren. But she’s forbidden fruit. Still, they play around a little—or a lot. It’s a story as old as time.”
“Maybe you should be a novelist instead of a journalist,” Beatrice said. “But I see where you’re going and I don’t know that it happened that way at all. And Victoria will certainly never tell.”
Anne held a piece of
pottery in her hand. “Next is the surprise wedding and Pearce is born…how many months later?”
“I have no idea,” Beatrice said. “They were away at Duke University for the next two years. John was in graduate school, I believe.”
“How convenient.”
“Even if it did happen that way, Anne,” Beatrice said, her voice gently chiding, “it’s ancient history. These things happen. In those days, a baby out of wedlock wasn’t as easily dismissed as it is today. I shouldn’t have told you. It’s just that I thought you might—” She got up from her desk suddenly, sending her chair bumping against a stack of boxes behind her. “People make mistakes, mistakes that can sometimes have grave consequences. If that is what happened, Victoria was very fortunate that it was John Whitaker and not some irresponsible man or worse, a man who couldn’t marry her because of…circumstances.”
“Of course,” Anne said with a pang of conscience. “I didn’t mean to imply anything else. It’s just that she’s so…so full of herself and her position.”
“She’s earned it, hasn’t she? She took over at John’s death—actually before John’s death—and Belle Pointe has flourished.”
“And if it did happen that way,” Anne went on, “I guess I’m envious of her ease in getting pregnant.” There, she’d said the word. No more dancing around it. With a wistful look, she put the piece of pottery back in the box. “I’d take a baby under any circumstances.”
“When you and Buck work out your differences, you’ll have a baby.”
“I don’t know, Beatrice.” She crossed the small room to the door. “There were times when I forgot to take the Pill for a day or two but I never conceived. I need to know for certain that there’s nothing genetically wrong. I don’t have time to waste. I’m not getting any younger.”
“One miscarriage doesn’t mean something’s genetically wrong. I wish you would stop obsessing over that.”
“I will once I know the facts of my background.”
“What good will it do if you and Buck aren’t reconciled?”
“That’s a bridge I’ll cross when I get to it.” Anne moved to the door. “Thanks for sharing all that about my mother-in-law. I still don’t like her much, but I do understand her a little better. I’ll see you tonight.”
Buck told himself he didn’t have any particular purpose in stopping by the police department other than the fact that he hadn’t seen Jack Breedlove in a number of years. Like Ty and Buck, Jack had been active in sports and they’d drunk a lot of beer and raised a lot of hell together.
Inside, he found the station looking the same as a thousand others in small towns across America. Smelled the same, too, Buck thought. Old coffee, stale cigarette smoke—in spite of a No Smoking sign—and pine-scented disinfectant. A young rookie cop manned the front desk. He looked up without much interest, but did a quick double take upon recognizing Buck.
He scrambled up from his chair, tall and skinny with a buzz cut and significant ears. “Mr. Whitaker. Can I help you?”
Buck smiled and glanced at the name tag as he crossed to the counter. Daniel Peyton. “I’m looking for Chief Breedlove, Daniel.”
“Yes, sir. He’s right back there in his office. I’ll show you.” He started out of the counter area, then stopped and turned back, scrambled around on his desk looking for what, Buck hadn’t a clue. He finally grabbed up one of Jack Breed-love’s campaign flyers. “Sir, would you autograph this, please?”
“I’m Buck to anybody from Tallulah,” he told him, taking the flyer. “Especially a cop.” He scribbled his name, enjoying the irony of autographing the campaign flyer of Pearce’s opponent.
“Hey, thanks, Buck.” Daniel took the flyer and headed down the hall. “I saw that game last year when you pitched against Chicago. Put y’all two games from the play-offs. You think the Jacks can do that again this year?”
“Without a doubt.” Actually, there was considerable doubt, but it was Schrader’s problem this year, not Buck’s. It surprised him that he didn’t feel as miserable over missing out as he had before he left St. Louis.
“Here we are.” Daniel rapped his knuckles on the open door and, without waiting for a response from the man behind the desk, went right up to him, grinning. “Look who’s here, Chief.”
Jack Breedlove sat facing a computer. Before turning to his visitor, he hit a key and closed out a program. Recognition dawned, wiping away his distraction. He rose from his chair and with genuine pleasure, stuck out his hand to shake. “Sonofagun, Buck, it’s about damn time you showed up. Another day or so and I planned to arrest you just to say hello.”
Buck found himself grinning. “Good to see you, Jack.”
“Take a load off. Damn, Buck, it’s great to see your pretty face.” He dropped back in his chair, shaking his head, his smile wide.
“How’s that campaign going?” Buck asked.
“Smooth as a sewing machine.”
“C’mon.”
“Okay, we both know it’ll take a miracle to beat a Whitaker in this jurisdiction, but I’m giving it a shot. If Walter Birdsong hadn’t retired, that seat would still be safe and secure, but now he’s gone it’s up for grabs. I think I can do the job as well as Pearce. Better, actually.” He winked. “Especially with a little help from the wife of a friend.”
Before Buck could deny having anything to do with Anne’s article, Jack reached behind him for a campaign flyer. “Look this over and tell me what you think. I don’t expect an endorsement. I figure your loyalty has to lie with your brother.”
Buck let that pass without comment. “I never thought I’d see the day you’d get into politics, Jack. What’ll you do if some of that stuff we did comes out? I mean, if I ever had a teenage boy, I’d hog-tie him to his bed for fear insanity was in his genes. It’s a wonder we didn’t wind up dead or in jail.”
Jack chuckled. “Hopefully, other folks won’t have your long memory.” He shook his head. “You and me and Ty. We were crazy, weren’t we?”
“And here you are chief of police.” Buck was grinning, too. “Is this a great country, or what?”
“I hear you.”
Neither said anything for a minute, reminiscing. Then Buck shifted, laying his cane over his knees. “Pearce is bound to try and discredit you, Jack. He was unhappy with Anne’s article. Said it was tilted to you. He’ll try and recover.”
“And the mud will fly, I guess. But stop and think. I figure Pearce will be hesitant about it. You know that old saying, ‘people who live in glass houses—’”
“Yeah, tell me.” Jack Breedlove had been at the lodge the weekend that Jim Bob Baker died. Buck always suspected that Jack had his own suspicions about the accidental death ruling. Bud Breedlove, Jack’s uncle, had been a deputy sheriff at the time. Even back then, Jack had been keen to get into law enforcement, so he’d followed every step of the investigation all the way to the ruling. Then Buck left for college and Jack decided abruptly to join the U.S. Army.
“How’s that knee doing?” Jack asked. “An injury like that can be a killer. You think it’s restored, start using it again and wham, it goes out again.”
Buck rubbed the side of his knee which was, in fact, aching. “That’s always a possibility.”
“What if it happens, Buck? Would you consider coming back here?”
“Don’t they say you can’t ever do that?”
“That’s what they say, but it can be done.” Jack hitched his chair closer to his desk and leaned forward on his elbows. “Listen, this town—this area—could use someone with your charisma, Buck. Not only would Belle Pointe benefit if you took a hand in its management, but the town itself could use your name and benevolence.”
It was disappointing to hear Jack hit him up for money. Buck got that often, but it was unexpected coming from Jack. He made to stand up, but Jack put up a hand to stop him. “I’m not hitting on you for cash, Buck. I imagine you get enough of that. I’m just saying—although the possibility is remote—that young athletes
in Tallulah who might never have an opportunity to develop would sure benefit from mentoring by somebody of your stature. Just in case that knee puts you permanently out of commission.”
“Jesus,” Buck said, shaking his head. “Pearce better look out if he thinks he’s gonna roll right over you in this election, Jack. You’re either gonna make a damn fine politician or you should take up preaching. Another few words and I’d be shaking your hand and making a commitment.”
Jack grinned and hiked a chin at Buck’s injured knee. “You can’t leave until that knee is fixed, so I have a little more time to work on you.” He stood up as Buck got to his feet. “Before you go…”
At the door, Buck looked back. “Yeah?”
“How’s Claire doing?”
Buck looked at him directly. “I don’t see—”
Jack put up a hand. “I ask because I think she’s got a drinking problem and if things don’t change, she could hurt herself or somebody on these two-lane roads around here. One of my deputies stopped her a couple weeks ago and could have booked her for a DUI. It would have looked bad for Pearce and I didn’t want folks thinking I was taking a cheap shot at my opponent by arresting his wife.”
Buck moved a step closer to the desk, not wanting to be overheard. “She’s got her problems, like we all do, I guess.” Claire’s problems had been obvious Sunday night at dinner.
“I stopped her Monday morning for speeding in a school zone. She was going so damn fast—nearly eighty miles an hour—that I thought she might be drinking again. Turns out, she was just distracted. Her daughter was in the car with her. She needs help, Jack.”
Buck studied the top of Jack’s desk for a minute. “You’re right. But frankly I don’t feel right talking about it to you, Jack…” He looked up at him. “…considering.”
“That happened over fifteen years ago, Buck.” His gaze wandered to the window as if remembering. “We haven’t had a conversation since.”
Buck heard regret in his friend’s voice. “And you shouldn’t. She’s a married woman.”