Post Facto

by Darryl Wimberley

  There were a few voices in dissent, naturally. Hiram’s surviving sons were not inclined to credit any account that left their father responsible for his own death. “Daddy would never grab a gun by the barrel,” Trent Lamb claimed to anyone who’d listen, but even those most sympathetic to his family blamed Trent’s father for trusting a shotgun to the village idiot.

  “I don’t know what Hiram was thinking,” Principal Wilburn lamented.

  You could have sold tickets to the funeral. There must have been a half mile of cars and trucks up and down the road, those rides spilled over from vehicles parked bumper to bumper on the church grounds. No surprise there. The fall of aristocracy is always more interesting than the trials of the unwashed.

  But the real story followed Hiram’s interment and took months to wrap up. Hiram had a will of his own, naturally, but relatives eager to inherit a chunk of land were flummoxed to learn that the title to that 640 acres was being contested on the strength of a confession stitched onto a length of silk. Judge Walker admitted Annie’s unusual parchment as evidence relevant to a possible homicide and testimony from an unexpected corner bolstered the state’s claim that Annie and her second husband murdered Butch McCray’s father. Roscoe Lamb, seeking to reduce a prison sentence following his conviction for trafficking methamphetamine, testified that just a few days before Annie’s death he and his brother, Hiram, heard their father tell Annie that he’d “shut her up for good” if she breathed a word about “their business” with Harold McCray. “Me and Hiram always knew Annie had somethin’ over daddy,” Roscoe admitted. “They was always rumors inside the family that daddy killed Harold McCray.”

  Annie’s unusual parchment became the centerpiece in a paroxysm of civil litigation. An action taken on Butch McCray’s behalf went all to the way to Florida’s Supreme Court. Hiram Lamb’s would-be heirs engaged a firm from Miami in a last-ditch effort to deny Butch his birthright. Thurman Shaw represented Butch’s interests. It took a state-appointed arbiter to settle the mess and when it was all dusted, Butch wound up with something like four hundred thousand dollars in a cash settlement, along with four hundred acres of his original birthright, all carved out of Hiram Lamb’s ill-gotten estate. Roscoe Lamb learned of that verdict as he languished behind bars in Raiford. He’d be leaving prison in seven years with nothing but a Social Security check for support.

  The Clarion had the scoop on the whole shebang, of course, and at first I planned to serialize the whole story in soap-opera detail, beginning with Annette McCray’s affair with Kelly Lamb. I mean, this was the kind of story that could go viral. The story that would put me back on the map! But then I started finding ways to put it off. There was always something. In a single week, the Glee Club got an invitation to the Sugar Bowl, Edward Henderson’s grandson reeled in a twelve-pound bass out of some pond in Madison County, and the Morgans enjoyed their seventeenth family reunion.

  Not every story brought fodder folksy or comforting. Barbara Stanton lost her home, by no means the only foreclosure in our region, but easily the most notorious. The property was auctioned off soupspoon to water heater this past February. Closer to home, Connie Koon went in for drug rehab and Carl probably should have. Edgar Uribe’s mammoth compadre Raul Herrera managed to avoid jail time for muling methamphetamines, which was heartening, but the experience tore apart his family. No one knows where the Herreras got off to, and they’re not the only migrants to pull up stakes. In fact, there has been an exodus of the undocumented from our county. Sheryl Lee Pearson told me that Edgar Uribe dropped out of school not two weeks before graduation. I drove out to the young sculptor’s trailer home and found it abandoned. Nothing remaining but a candle and the scent of prophecy.

  That and the miraculous mural on a bedroom wall.

  Hopes for local glory took a big hit when Trent Lamb ripped an ACL his second day in pads at Florida State. Hiram’s elder son limped home with shattered dreams to a decimated seigneury and never recovered. Trent’s at the pulpwood mill in Buckeye, now, working a caterpillar alongside his thickset brother.

  In other developments, the Koon twins are pregnant. With twins.

  As for Butch McCray? You can see Butch most days in a porch swing at his single-wide watching the traffic of children across the street as he feeds a scurry of squirrels in a well-shaded yard. But though Butch is retired, his store is not. A well-documented couple from Laredo took over McCray’s tar-papered shack and within weeks the new business was thriving, to the point that Jarritos and tacos have now displaced the domestic sodas and candy familiar to generations of Laureate’s youth. People who never gave a damn about Butch or globalized trade are raising hell over this fresh and foreign incursion, but at least we know it didn’t come from outer space or the nether regions of Hell. No, sir.

  It came from Mexico.

  Hiram Lamb would turn in his silk-lined coffin if he knew that Butch gave away his half-acre plot to Senor Sanchez free of charge, though I understand Butch did exact a price for inventory still on the shelves. “Man never went broke showin’ a profit,” Butch said, explaining the wisdom of that transaction.

  Some of us were worried that Butch would be incapable of handling his newly gained wealth. Thurman’s right there to help, of course, though truthfully Butch doesn’t much lean on Shaw’s counsel. In fact, Thurman told me just the other day that his sometime client is a lot smarter about dollars and cents that any of us would have credited. Of course, seeing Butch day to day in those overalls and cap, you’d never guess that capacity, but then you’d never know who paid for the town’s new baseball field, either, nor the identity of the patron behind the Thurman Shaw Scholarship for graduating seniors. I get a kick thinking about some kid who’ll go off to college never knowing her benefactor was a man who once sought enlightenment in the wrappers of candy bars.

  I dropped in on Butch just the other day. A nice spring day. Baby blue sky. A hint of cumulus building like cotton candy in the sky. I saw McCray rocking back and forth on his porch swing and on pure impulse pulled over beneath the shade of a pecan tree that shelters the old man’s modest porch. A hedge of honeysuckle climbing.

  “Mr. Butch, how you doin’?” I called from my 4-Runner.

  “Miz Clara Sue,” came the reply from beneath that long bib cap. “Come sit with me a spell.”

  So I did. The smell of honeysuckle redolent. The gentle oscillation of his swing as comforting as a sea breeze. The pleasant squeak squeak of chain on iron.

  I took a rocker opposite Butch’s swaying perch and accepted a glass of sweet tea.

  “I halfway expected you to offer me a Pepsi, Mr. Butch.”

  He plucked a chew of tobacco from a moldy pouch and laughed.

  Was not an idiot’s laugh. Was not the laugh of someone who’d missed the irony of my remark. And when I looked up I saw that Butch was looking me straight in the eye.

  “You drop in for, Miz Clara Sue?’

  “Me? Why, no particular reason.”

  “Ah hah.”

  Suddenly I felt a little uncomfortable. I could not ever remember Butch challenging me, or anyone, for any reason. Probably just a consequence of independence. No need to kiss butt when you’re comfortably retired, after all.

  “I just saw you on the porch and thought I’d drop in,” I explained.

  He didn’t say anything. But those idiot eyes were not wandering now. There was no deference, no turned head or Uncle Tom shuffle.

  Butch McCray was looking at me as though I were a target.

  “Always nice to have company,” he said.

  “Looks like your old store’s doing well.” I steered my remarks toward what I thought was neutral ground and was shocked at the elder man’s reply.

  “Goddamn store.” Butch broke off his gaze. “Fucking near killed me.”

  I have rarely been caught off guard in any interview, but Butch’s comment left me completely flummoxed.

  “. . . I guess we all have a tendency to take other people’s work for gra
nted,” I rejoined lamely.

  “Never took yers for granted,” he contradicted, those eyes now returned with purpose to meet my own. “We on record, here, Miz Clara Sue?”

  I sat there stunned.

  “Clara Sue? We visitin? Or is there somethin’ else?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you mean, Butch. Honestly!”

  “You hadn’t been by in all this time,” he pointed out. “Not a ‘Hello.’ Not a ‘How you doin.’ Fact, I don’t think you spoke to me since that day in the woods.”

  “Butch, really—I’m not here for anything.”

  “We’re just folks, then? Just shootin’ the breeze?”

  “We are, of course, but—” I began to feel some heat of my own. “Butch, you do remember that I played some role in helping your situation? I’m not asking for a medal, but I went to bat for you, Mr. Butch—I hope you recall.”

  “I recall plenty.”

  He dragged a boot along the porch’s floor and spit.

  “An’ I do ’preciate ever-thing you done, Miz Clara Sue. You and Colt both. An’ Mr. Thurman. I don’t take none of it for granted.”

  I pulled back, speechless. Then he leaned over with a long sigh. The swing resumed its gentle rhythm; a breeze brought the sweet nectar of honeysuckle and in a minute or two I was lulled to some desultory topic or another. The weather. Spring gardens, sweet corn and okra. By the time our colloquy was finished, Butch was back to being the old coot with whom I was familiar.

  “Nice seeing you, Mr. Butch,” I offered as I made my way down the wide, pine steps of his porch.

  “Anytime,” he replied vacantly, those eyes returned to some distant horizon.

  I didn’t know what to make of my face-to-face with Annie McCray’s son. Certainly there was nothing I could put my finger on—nothing definitive to add to what I already knew, or wanted to believe. Anyway, what with one thing or another, I never got around to printing the story of Annie and Harold and old man Kelly Lamb and I never publicly aired the possibility that Hiram Lamb was attempting to destroy his stepmother’s confession. However, preoccupation and procrastination only partially account for that lapse.

  Oh, sure, I could tell myself that exposing Butch’s mother as an adulteress and murderer or branding the patriarch of the Lamb family as a cuckold and killer did not serve any useful purpose. But if I scratched just a little deeper, I’d have to admit there was no way I could chronicle the sins of Annie and her separate husbands without also raising implications dangerous for Butch himself. In particular, I couldn’t relate Annie’s story without raising the possibility that her son also had a motive for murder.

  It was public knowledge that Butch had the means to kill Hiram, and the circumstances of the alleged accident made it obvious that he had the opportunity. What would be the community’s reaction to the possibility that Hiram lured Butch to the old homestead for the purpose of destroying Annie’s confession? How would folks react if they imagined that Butch was wise to Hiram’s intent? I didn’t know what people would think, or do, in light of that information.

  I sure as hell was not going to print anything that suggested Butch McCray murdered Hiram Lamb. As a journalist, I was obliged to print facts, sure—but speculation regarding Butch’s motivation? Or Hiram’s, for that matter? Was a job for mind readers, not journalists, I told myself. A newspaper doesn’t print rumor. That said, there was one fact I’d noticed on the day of Hiram’s death, one small detail, that I could not let go.

  Spring was headed to summer before I finally approached Sheriff Buchanan with my concerns. I began by asking Colt point-blank if he thought there was any possibility that Butch McCray knew or believed that Hiram Lamb was hell-bent on destroying Annie’s confession.

  “What about it, Colt? You think it’s possible?”

  “Did you tell Butch that Hiram wanted to get rid of his mama’ confession?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Well, I sure as hell didn’t. And I know Thurman didn’t.” “Maybe we didn’t need to tell him. Maybe Butch isn’t as stupid as we like to think.”

  “You got any evidence to back that up, Clara Sue?”

  “The shotgun shells,” I answered.

  “What damn shells?”

  “In the bedroom. You remember when we found Butch there was a box of buckshot sitting right there beside his stool?”

  “Those ones, sure. Two shells minus a full count. What about it?”

  “It was raining. It was bone-cold wet out of doors and that box of shells was dry as toast. Now, Butch told us that Hiram had him bring that box of Number Ones along with the shotgun out to hunt. Butch would’ve had to drop that box in the mud and rain if the rest of his story is true. If Hiram’s homicide was accidental that box should have been soaking wet.

  “But what if Butch lied to us? What if that box of buckshot never left the house?”

  “You lookin’ for a headline, Clara Sue?”

  “Dammit, Colt, you know Hiram was carrying his carbine. Why would he need Butch to bring a shotgun in the first place?”

  “Cause it’s a hell of a lot easier to kill a running deer with a shotgun than a rifle. I got me as many bucks with my Marlin as I have with my Winchester.”

  “Fair enough,” I allowed. “But if Butch intended to kill Hiram, he wouldn’t need a whole box of shells, would he? Butch was carrying Hiram’s Remington, the over ’n’ under. If his purpose was to make Hiram’s death look accidental he couldn’t use more than the two rounds already loaded. He sure as hell wouldn’t need a box.”

  “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘woulds,’ Clara Sue.”

  “I’m just saying that if Butch murdered Hiram he would not likely be carrying an entire box of shells out of doors, which would give one explanation why we found that ammunition clean and dry in the room.”

  Sheriff Buchanan scanned the street casually left and right.

  “Am I on the record, Clara Sue?” my cousin asked privately. “An’ you better be damn sure of your answer cause I don’t want any misunderstanding between us.”

  “Why should there be a misunderstanding?”

  “Answer my damn question: Am I on record?”

  I realized right then that I did not want the sheriff on record for this story, any more than I wanted to go on record myself.

  “No. Not on the record,” I said, and then added, “I’m probably making things too complicated.”

  “I believe you are,” Colt agreed.

  “Butch probably brought the box of shells back in with him after the accident. Plenty of time to dry out by the fire before I showed up.”

  “What I’m thinkin’,” Colt said, nodding. “Most likely.”

  I could have pressed with more questions—and should have. It shouldn’t have mattered that Hiram Lamb was a mean and despicable man. It shouldn’t have mattered that I detested the son of a bitch. In fact, my bias toward Hiram ought to have obliged me to push even harder to find out exactly what happened on the last day of Lamb’s life. But I didn’t. I did not publicly challenge the dominant opinion that Hiram’s death was accidental. I did not probe the very real possibility that Butch McCray not only killed Hiram but had the wiles to conceal his crime.

  Was Butch ever the simpleton we imagined? I’m not sure. I don’t know what to believe, and in the end, I decided I did not want to know. I wrestled it over on my own, and with Randall, but at the end of the day, I took off my journalist’s hat and walked away.

  Safer to cover flying saucers or the appearance of the Virgin. That and football and the splendid accomplishments of the Future Farmers of America. Of course, sometimes real news sneaks in. Sheriff Colt Buchanan has announced he’ll run for a fourth term in office and my readers are thrilled to hear that President Trump wants a shot at his second. I’d like to know whether the tax cuts enacted on The Donald’s watch have created jobs or simply ballooned the nation’s debt. What about the impact of legislation on health care? Immigration policy? The never-ending co
ntest with jihadists worldwide? I have my opinions, of course, but am no longer in a frenzy to pen a column. There will always be zealots on all sides of any question that matters; that is to be expected, but I have come to understand that even in a post-factual world there is a difference between true believers and those who truly believe.

  The UFOs are long vanished, by the way, along with visits from the grave and other unsettling manifestations. It wasn’t long after Hiram Lamb was buried that those reports began to dwindle sharply in both variety and number, and by Christmas things were back to normal. Local ministers invoked divine intervention to explain the rout of alien influence. The demonic subdued by the divine. Up to you whether to buy that explanation or reject it.

  Believe what you like.

  After all—I’m just the reporter.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I always enjoy thanking folks who in one way or the other help me as I craft a narrative. I am especially glad to thank Barbara Anderson and all the folks at The Permanent Press.