Post Facto

by Darryl Wimberley

  That’s the story behind the stent in my heart.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Trail Riders Host Competition near Lamb Property

  The Clarion

  A few days after my heart attack and subsequent “procedure,” I stopped by Doc Trotter’s office for a routine inspection of my groin. My surgeon snaked the stent to my heart through the femoral artery—standard procedure. You just want to make sure there’s no infection or clot afterward. It would take me an hour at least to drive to Shands Hospital in Gainesville for that post-op examination, not to mention the wait once I got there. Lucky for me, Trotter was closer by and equally competent.

  “When do I get off the blood thinners, Doc?”

  “Week or two at a guess—but that’s your surgeon’s call.”

  “How am I looking otherwise?”

  “Like a woman in denial. You had a heart attack, Clara Sue, not a hang nail.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “The hell were you doing out in those woods anyway?”

  “Taking pictures,” I replied evasively.

  “Hope they were worth it,” Doc grunted.

  “Couple of them maybe,” I said, hedging. “There was a smokehouse way distant from the residence. I shot a pair of saddles inside should turn out nice. Didn’t expect to find tack in a smoker.”

  “Prob’ly converted to a stable,” Doc replied absently. “The McCray family loved to ride. All except Annie’s husband.”

  “Harold didn’t ride?”

  “Scared to death of horseflesh, according to my grandpa. Not Annie, though. She loved to take the reins. In fact, Papa once sold her a mount. This was before Harold got killed.”

  I sat up straight.

  “Your grandfather sold Annette McCray a horse?”

  “Not a horse. A mule.”

  “A mule? You’re sure?”

  “Papa sold all kind of animals but this one stuck out.”

  “Why?”

  “It was an albino.”

  I felt a stir in my bowels. “An albino mule?!”

  “Pale as death. Papa sold Annie a saddle, too, but that was a waste of tack.”

  “A waste? How’s that?”

  “Because Annie McCray rode bareback.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Riderless Mule Sighted near Convict Springs

  The Clarion

  I trusted Doc Trotter and Sheriff Buchanan to hear what I ’d experienced on Hiram Lamb’s property, but I was not about to broaden that audience. I brushed aside casual inquiries—“Had a heart attack. Don’t recall much else”—and froze out everyone else, including my husband. Randall didn’t push for more, which surprised me a little.

  “You’re back. You’re alive,” he declared through a mop of hair. “That’s all I care about.”

  Suited me fine. I would have been happy to write off my equestrienne encounter as a product of hypothermia and cardiac stress. Not enough oxygen in the brain, I told myself. Just because a hallucination feels real doesn’t mean it’s not a hallucination.

  But the thing that still nags is—it did feel real.

  There’s also an undisputed fact that has to be taken into account which is that I damn sure did not walk out of those woods on my own.

  So what part of my experience was real and what wasn’t? It got to the point that I could not say, and that insecurity began to affect my confidence in all sorts of ways. I began to second-guess the simplest of decisions at work, and delayed action on others. Randall tried to help me by filling the days with distraction. I passed the time on light duty cropping photographs for the Henderson family reunion or the Rotary Club meeting or the honor roll. It was a sensible tactic, but in the end, it didn’t work. Rightly or wrongly, I had seen something I couldn’t let go, even if it was a product of my own imagination.

  But I couldn’t talk about it openly and I sure as hell couldn’t write about it in the Clarion. Barbara Stanton could report that she’d seen her murdered husband smoking a stogie without penalty, but if I wrote a column in the Clarion claiming I’d ridden bareback with Annie McCray’s ghost, my credibility as a journalist would be destroyed.

  No matter what anybody tells you, nobody trusts a reporter in congress with dead people.

  And, in any case, how could I use my backwoods epiphany to help Butch McCray? So what if Harold McCray was murdered by Hiram Lamb’s father? So what if Butch’s mother colluded? Even if I had incontrovertible proof of those crimes, I didn’t see how Butch could benefit. There’d be a dent in the Lambs’ halo, of course. In Lafayette County, the sins of the father still visit his sons to some extent, but Hiram Lamb wasn’t trying to acquire Annie’s steam trunk because he was worried about his father’s reputation.

  If a crime was concealed, it had become a secret without significance. Hiram and Roscoe might be discomfited to see their father’s stature diminished, but how could a decades-old homicide figure into Hiram Lamb’s bid for Butch McCray’s half-acre plot? And what relation did any of this have to do with a silk shawl in a cedar chest?

  There was something I was missing—had to be.

  But I could not imagine what it was.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you, Clara?”

  It was midweek. I’d been staring at a picture of somebody’s baby for half an hour.

  “Let what go?”

  “You saw something, Clara. So let’s talk about it.”

  “Why? It’s not real. No different than seeing dead relatives or UFOs.”

  “And yet you can’t let it go.”

  Well, he was right about that. I took a deep breath. “Okay.”

  I spread my hands as though warming by a fire. “You know about the smokehouse.”

  “Where you found the noose.”

  “A lariat, actually, but it got me thinking. Speculating, really. Come upstairs with me.”

  Randall followed me up to my lofty retreat. I wanted another look at the issue of the Clarion that featured the faculty of Shamrock’s mill town. I especially wanted another gander at Annette McCray’s tintype. I spread out the fading paper. There she was, just as I remembered, though of course the long fall of gingham in the paper’s printing gave no glimpse of her legs. Those gams would remain a construct of my imagination.

  I took more time to pore over Reverend Odom’s stark visage. He was handsome behind those dark glasses, stoic in the long wool coat and formal tie, tall and lean and white as ivory. The other faculty and staff stared stiffly anemic and straight into the camera, but not Odom. His head was turned just slightly, as though distracted, the long fingers of his hand resting on Annette McCray’s modestly covered shoulder.

  “Is that the shawl?” I asked my husband. “Is that the fabric we found in Annie’s trunk?”

  “Lemme see.” He leaned in close. “Could be, I guess. Hard to tell from this.”

  “I don’t suppose Reverend Odom could have been Father Odom,” I mused.

  “No indication. Is that important?”

  “I just wonder if Shamrock’s chaplain took confessions,” I answered.

  “Whose confession?” Randall asked.

  “Annie’s,” I answered, but did not elaborate.

  Was Annie McCray a hussy or a saint? Did she even have a sin worth confessing? Was the long-fingered hand on her shoulder a gesture of intimacy or absolution? Or did the reverend’s casual contact mean anything at all?

  I returned the newspaper to a pile on my desk and pushed my roll-around over to Annette McCray’s hope chest. I’d only had the trunk and shawl a couple of days, but I knew I couldn’t keep them much longer. Annette’s luggage and autographed scarf were clearly Butch McCray’s property, and I had no right to keep those artifacts without Butch’s permission. On the other hand, I did not want Hiram Lamb anywhere near those relics. I had already left a message with Thurman Shaw Esq., Thurman being one of only three lawyers in Laureate, indicating in general terms that I’d come into possession of property belonging to Butch. Thur
man was probably the only lawyer in the county who wasn’t in Hiram Lamb’s pocket. I was sure that once he’d digested my message, Thurman would expect me to immediately hand the chest and shawl over and with that surrender I’d lose any chance to ferret out their significance—assuming there was any. The shawl might only be a length of silk, and the trunk no more than an empty box.

  But something kept pushing me to take one more look.

  I opened Annie’s trunk and lifted out her autographed scarf, and for the umpteenth time inspected the fabric end to end hoping against hope to see something of significance, something other than Annette’s black-threaded signature.

  “See anything different?” Randall asked, and I shook my head.

  “Nothing.”

  I was about to put the fabric back into its keep when Randall stopped me. “Wait a sec.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes, Clara.”

  “What?”

  “Close your eyes. Run your fingertips across the fabric.”

  So I closed my eyes and brushed my hand absently over the welted silk, the raised pimples teasing the tips of my fingers—

  And then I knew.

  “Well, I’ll be damned!”

  The tiny pimples which textured Annie’s shawl were not, as I had supposed, decorative; I knew now, as surely as shit stinks, what the purpose of that needlework had to be. And I knew as well why Reverend Odom required Annette’s steady shoulder to locate his photographer.

  “Randall, you’re a genius!”

  “So what’re you gonna do now?”

  “I think it’s about time for Butch McCray to see what his mother left him.”

  Randall helped me load Annie’s trunk into my 4-Runner. By the time I reached Butch McCray’s candy store, the last of his customers were gone. It was cold outside, but clear. The school’s parking lot was empty leaving the grounds vacant and unnaturally silent, but Butch remained, as usual, to stock his modest shelves and count the slender pile of bills and change derived from a day’s enterprise.

  “Miz Clara Sue! Brings you to ole Butch?”

  The old fellow looking up from a calculation of pennies and nickels to welcome me with genuine delight. “Woana Pepsi Cola? Popsicle? I still got some Popsicles.”

  “Pepsi sounds good, Butch.”

  “Can or bottle?”

  “Bottle, I think.”

  “Cold ain’t it?” he burbled, plunging a raw hand into a footlocker of melting ice.

  “Cold as hell,” I agreed.

  “Be fifty cent.”

  I placed a pair of quarters on the counter along with Annette McCray’s shawl.

  Butch jerked away, startled.

  “It’s okay, Butch. It’s all right.”

  “Where you get this? Where?!”

  “It’s your mother’s then? You recognize it?”

  “Sho, I do! Mama used to make ’em at the school over in Shamrock. She be in the kitchen knittin’. And Preacher Odom too. He’d take ’em and doll ’em up.”

  “Doll them up?”

  Butch looked to his left and right as if wary of goblins and then waves me over.

  “They’s little pickles; you feel ’em?”

  “I do feel them, yes. And you say the preacher put these on?”

  “Yes, he did,” Butch smiled happily. “Tole me they was a message from my mama. Tole me wherever I went, no matter what happen, mama would send me messages. Thass how come I save my candy wrappers; they the same thing, cain’t you see? No different than these here.”

  “I can see where you’d think that, Butch, I can,” I agreed.

  “Can I keep this?” he asked innocently.

  “It belongs to you,” I tell him. “But, Butch, this isn’t just a shawl. It’s a letter or document of some kind.”

  “From MAMA!?”

  “I believe so.” I had to chuckle. “Your mother stitched it onto the fabric. Can you feel these little bumps? It’s a language called Braille, Butch. It’s made for blind people.”

  “Preacher Odom was blind,” Butch offered eagerly. “Blind as a bat.”

  Of course. That was why the school’s chaplain wore glasses as opaque as tortoise shells. Why he needed Annette McCray’s guiding shoulder. I couldn’t tell if it was a rush or relief, but it felt like a barrel of wet cow shit was suddenly jerked off my chest.

  “Butch, I know someone can read this shawl like a book.”

  Butch brightened. “Read it to me? When?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  I reached for the coded scroll, but Butch clutched it to his narrow chest.

  “I wanna keep it! It was mama’s. It belong to me!”

  “It is yours, Butch,” I assured him. “But you need to keep this shawl out of sight until we can get it read. Okay? No one can see this, especially not Hiram or Roscoe. You understand, Mr. Butch?”

  His head bobbed like an apple on a string.

  “You know Thurman Shaw, don’t you, Butch?”

  “Mr. Thurman, sho. He hep me with my sosh security check. My Medicare.”

  “I believe it’d be smart for you to let Mr. Thurman keep this for you, Butch. It won’t be long. Just a day or two.”

  “But it’s mine, ain’t it?” Butch’s voice quavered. “Mama meant it for me!”

  “Of course she did, Butch. Absolutely. But there’s a message from your mother on this shawl and it could be very important. Something your mama very much wanted you to hear. You don’t want to chance losing that, do you?”

  “No, no!” He recoiled at the prospect. “I wanna know what mama said.”

  “Good man. But you can’t tell anyone about this business, Butch, and I mean no one. Nobody. Especially not Hiram or Roscoe Lamb.”

  “No, ma’am. Not Hiram.”

  “All right then.”

  With that capitulation, I opened the chest and Butch tenderly laid his mother’s shawl inside.

  “I’ll drop these off at Thurman’s office. And then tomorrow? We’ll see what Annette had to say.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Roscoe Lamb Arraigned Federal Contracts Stall

  The Clarion

  The next day Butch McCray followed Sheryl Lee Pearson and me into the warren of Thurman Shaw, attorney at law. It was about ten in the morning, the first of December on a gorgeous North Florida day, the sky clear and blue and windless. Thurman keeps his office in a frame house right off Main Street on a lot right behind what used to be West’s Drug Store. On one wall you’ll see plaques of appreciation from the Rotary Club and Booster Club and PTA; the other walls are speckled with diplomas and certifications and photos of Thurman in his glory days on a basketball court, these last always striking me as hilarious since Thurman stands about eye level with a rooster.

  I was never convinced Thurman wanted to be a lawyer, though he seemed to enjoy his years as a prosecutor. For sure, Thurman hates being tied to an office. Until the Koons lost their business, you’d find him at the coffee shop, the only customer there aside from Bull Putnal in a suit and tie. Most often, though, Thurman takes his breaks from tedium at the counter of Dr. West’s drugstore, kicking back with a Cherry Coke and a newspaper, the Tampa Tribune, mostly, or sometimes a Wall Street Journal. It’s Thurman’s attempt to broaden a horizon typically defined by divorce court and foreclosures.

  “Mr. Butch, good to see you.”

  Thurman left the space heater beside his desk to usher Butch and me into his office. Sheryl Lee Pearson was already waiting. I knew that Sheryl Lee had been reading Braille for many years, that skill acquired in the course of tending her blind and aging mother.

  Laureate High’s long-time teacher took off her outsized spectacles to smile a greeting.

  “Butch, how are you?”

  “Fine, Miz Pearson.”

  Butch doffed his molding cap with automatic courtesy, but I knew what he was looking for.

  “It’s on Mr. Shaw’s desk.” I nudged Butch in that direction and he crabbed over in that duck-
walk he has. We all watched as Butch bent over the shawl to trace with aging fingers his mother’s finely sewn moniker.

  “Signature’s legal, by the way,” Thurman announced. “That is, if it was voluntary and properly witnessed or notarized.”

  “But we can’t assume it’s a legal document,” I cautioned. “Might be nothing but a letter.”

  “We’ll know soon enough.” Thurman extricated the shawl from Butch’s inspection. “I’m just giving this to Miss Pearson, all right, Mr. Butch? So she can read it to you.”

  “You want to hear what she had to say, don’t you, Butch?” Sheryl Lee inquired sweetly and with that the old man parted with the shawl, though with reluctance, like a priest handing over a relic.

  “Everybody ready, then?” Thurman asked, but we were all too anxious to reply.

  “All right then. Let’s see what this is all about.”

  “Give me just a minute or two.”

  Sheryl Lee making that request as she smoothed the fabric over Thurman’s desk, her fingertips scanning back and forth, back and forth.

  Butch waiting anxiously.

  “It’s fine,” she reassured him absently. “In fact, it’s beautiful. A bit archaic. Like reading a Bible in the King James, if you know what I mean.”

  I saw her pause over the ciphered text.

  “It’s definitely from your mother.” Sheryl Lee took a moment to offer Butch that encouragement.

  “Does it say she loves me?” Butch asked Sheryl Lee, and I thought I’d lose it right on the spot.

  “Why don’t I just read for you, Mr. Butch? And you can hear for yourself.”

  Sheryl Lee settled back in a hard-backed chair and from her translation a voice emerged as if from another world, a presence speaking to us that was as real and vital as a separate and living person in our midst:

  I, Annette Elizabeth McCray, being of sound mind do here in this document amend and change my previous will and testament.

  “Good Lord!” Thurman breathed.

  I watched as Sheryl Lee’s fingers coaxed speech from cloth.

  I first want to confess that I have sinned in my life. I have sinned against my first husband, Harold, who though abusive to me and mean did not deserve to be murdered. I did what I did thinking that the good would outweigh the bad, that Kelly would take me and my precious son and liberate us from the hard life and the hard man I had grown to hate.