Do Unto Others

by Jeff Abbott

  “Listen to me, please.” Bob Don didn’t ease the pressure of his hands on my arms but his tone softened. “This isn’t pleasant, but it’s true. And goddamn it, you’re going to hear it from me.”

  “Well, get your lies over with,” I retorted. “I have places to go and people to see.”

  “I was friends with your mama and your daddy. They were my closest friends. They were damned good to me. But then they had a baby—your sister—and sometimes couples go through a rough time when a child comes along and they’re not quite ready for it. I tried to be there for both of them, but I ended mostly on your mama’s side in the disagreements. I cared about your mama and she cared about me, and we weren’t strong when we were together.”

  “You’re sick! My mother never even looked at you! She loved my father!”

  “God, yes, she did. She told me she’d have to go back to him, that she’d have to make it work with him. So she did go back to him, but not without you. I gave her you.” He looked hard into my eyes, unwavering.

  “Shut up! Don’t you talk about my mama like that, you piece of trash!”

  He didn’t even blink. “Lloyd took her back, and she took him back. He loved you like you were his own, and I don’t know that he knew. He must’ve, though, but he loved you anyway. Anne made me promise I’d stay away from them and away from you. So I met Gretchen right off and married her, to try and heal the pain.” He eased up his weight from me and the couch, letting me move, his story told. “And it didn’t heal. God, it never healed. I had to sit back and watch you grow up, and never tell you all the things I wanted to say.”

  I stood, stumbling against the coffee table, rubbing my wrists where he’d squeezed hard. I made my lips stop trembling. “Why are you making this up? What did my folks ever do to you, that you would say such horrible things about them?”

  “Your folks,” he rasped, “were decent, caring people with just as many flaws and shortcomings as you got. You’d do well to remember that and not keep them on such a high pedestal.”

  “I suppose you think this is some joke you can play,” I said slowly. “Do you just prey on women, Bob Don? You’ve turned your wife into a drunk and now you’re attacking a woman who’s got Alzheimer’s and can’t even answer your slander. Some damned gentleman you are.”

  “First of all,” Bob Don glared, his anger showing, “it breaks my heart that your mama’s sick. And second, it is not a damned joke. I didn’t view it that way and neither did Beta Harcher.”

  I didn’t want to register that last part. I had to. “What did you say? Beta Harcher?”

  “Yes, Beta Harcher. She knew. She knew I was your father.”

  “Quit saying that!”

  “No, Jordy, I don’t believe I will. Just because you don’t want it to be so doesn’t change a blessed thing. God, I’ve been saving up stuff to say to you for thirty years, so don’t you tell me to be quiet!”

  Beta Harcher. I shut my eyes and covered my face. The list. Mother of God. Bob Don’s quote talked about dividing prey—a damsel or two to every man. Gretchen and my mother, oh my God, I thought. And the quote beside my mother’s name, from Genesis: In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. Oh, God, I was a child of sorrow. Of sin.

  “If this is true,” I whispered, waving a finger at him, “then how would Beta Harcher know about this? How would she have any proof? Where’s your proof?”

  “When your mother went back to your father, I left Mirabeau for a while. I went to Houston, ’cause it hurt too much to be so near her. So your mother didn’t ask me to stay away from you in person. She wrote me letters. I kept them, not to hurt her with later or to try to claim you, but because they mattered to me. To me!” Bob Don pounded his thick chest with his fist. “They were my private possessions. Mine!”

  I thought of another letter I’d seen today, belonging to Eula Mae, and I felt suddenly cold.

  “I kept the letters from your mama in a lockbox, stored in the attic. Gretchen found them a few years back, but I didn’t know. She drinks because she knows that … someone else mattered more to me than she does. She’s known that for years. She heard me arguing on the phone with Beta; Beta was trying to get me to restart the censorship fight since I’d replaced her on the board. I told her she wasn’t going to do anything to hurt you. Gretchen got mad, and she gave the letters to Beta. Gretchen only knows how to torture herself; she ain’t good at torturing other folks. I guess she figured that Beta could cause me more grief in town than anyone else.” He shook his head. “It was like putting venom in the snake. Beta made my life a living hell.”

  “I don’t believe this,” I said to him and to myself. I needed to keep saying it to myself.

  “Beta wanted money from me not to show them to you. I told her to get the hell out of my office, I don’t pay money to goddamned blackmailers.”

  I steadied myself. “This … this is what you argued about with her Saturday?”

  He nodded, not wondering how I knew about that. “She said if I didn’t pay, she’d hurt you and your mama. She said y’all would really pay, if I didn’t. But I told her I wasn’t gonna pay no damn extortionist.”

  “But you did,” I said faintly. “You paid her $25,000.”

  Bob Don shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t want that bitch having money from me. I saw her the day she died and told her there was no point in keeping the secret.”

  “No point?”

  “Listen to me, Jordy. Listen good. This is the truth. Just think about it. Lloyd—your daddy that raised you—is dead. He was a fine man, but he’s gone. Your mama’s sick. She needs us both. She can’t object to us having a relationship. My marriage with Gretchen has run its course. And you’ve come home to Mirabeau. There’s no reason you and I can’t have a relationship as father and son now, like I’ve prayed for, like I’ve always wanted—”

  “What?” I whispered. “You can’t be serious. You lay this on me, with no proof, and want me to hug you and call you Dad? I don’t think so, Bob Don.” I was shaking and something was on my face. The back of my hand told me they were tears. “I mean, what do you even know about me? What do I know about you?”

  “I know a lot about you,” Bob Don answered, his voice softening like he was speaking to a frightened child. “Your Little League number was seventeen, and you liked to play shortstop. You hit your first home run on June 13, 1975, a little late but it still counts. You hated math from first grade on, and you never liked to study it. Your first girlfriend was a little redhead in the third grade and her name was Leslie Minter. The other boys teased you for being sweet on her but you paid them no heed. You got 1210 on your SATs. Your GPA at Rice was 3.4, and it would’ve been higher except you didn’t do good in economics—you hated it and didn’t want to study it, just like math. Just like your mama, you only wanted to work at what you like.” He paused and took a step toward me. “But I don’t know if you’re a happy person, Jordy. I don’t know if you’ve ever really been in love. I don’t know what you want from your life—”

  “Just shut up!” I said. “Just be quiet a minute, please.” I felt sick and dizzy and angry and betrayed. How did he know all that? Was he watching me my whole life, some distant shadow that followed me wherever I went? A lie. My whole life was a fat, ugly lie.

  “Okay, you need time. This is a shock, I understand that, Jordy.” He wiped the drying blood from his cheek where his wife had scored him. “And proof. I don’t have that, Beta does. Or did. She had the letters.”

  “Oh, God,” I swayed. Shannon, lying shot amidst the wreckage of Beta’s living room. “You didn’t. Tell me you didn’t—”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Someone tore apart Beta’s house today. They shot her niece. In the face. She may not live.” I stared at this man who’d destroyed my world. “Did you do that? Did you kill Beta to keep her from talking and then shoot Shannon when you were looking for those letters? Just what would you have done to get your proof back, Bob Don?”

&nb
sp; “I didn’t. I didn’t hurt anybody, Jordy!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t!”

  “I hope you didn’t,” I said. “I’m not worth killing over, I’m not, I’m not.” It was too much, too much said in this room in the past few minutes and too much unsaid the thirty years before. I ran from the room, I ran from the house, hardly hearing Bob Don Goertz calling after me.

  Emotional autopilot steered me away from home. I couldn’t even look at Mama. I couldn’t ask her if Bob Don was telling the truth and I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her without asking. How do you ask? “Gosh, Mama, this fellow claims I’m his son. Any truth to that?” Asking Mama anything was as futile as getting a running start to jump across the Colorado.

  Instinct brought me to the library, where a light still shone inside. The door was locked and the CLOSED sign was up, but I managed to jab my key in the lock and practically fall into the building. I got up, locked the door behind me, and staggered to the checkout counter. Candace was still there, gluing date-due slips into new books.

  She paled when she saw my face. I tottered, taking deep, hard breaths, trying to get my emotions under control. I failed. I cried in front of her, I cried like a baby, and she came to me, wrapping me in her arms, letting my face dampen her shoulder.

  When that was over, I turned away from her, suddenly and deeply ashamed. I’d never wept in front of a woman. The last time I’d cried was when Sister broke the news to me over the phone that the doctors were pretty sure Mama had Alzheimer’s. I’d been alone with my grief, as most men prefer to be. I guess I could have driven down to the river that night, or into the woods, but I needed company. I needed Candace. I brokenly told her what had happened at Bob Don’s.

  She steered me to the couch by the coffee table where we kept the daily newspapers. “You don’t have any proof this is true, Jordy,” she said softly.

  “Then why would he make up such a lie? What’s his reason for telling me this?”

  “Okay,” she said softly. “Maybe he did love your mother. But maybe you’re not his, and he always wished that you were.”

  “Do I even look like Bob Don, Candace?”

  “No,” she admitted. “Your looks are your mother’s. But your daddy wasn’t a big man, and you are.” She studied my face, as though seeing it for the first time. “Listen, Jordy, looking at profiles isn’t going to resolve this. You need to find those letters he says Beta took.”

  “I know.” I thought of Beta’s living room. “Maybe the person who shot Shannon, when they were looking for whatever they were, maybe they found the letters and took them—”

  “Or maybe they’re still in her house,” Candace added. “Hidden there somewhere. Or maybe, someone else has them now and has destroyed them. To keep Beta’s mischief from hurting anyone else.”

  “I have to find those letters,” I muttered to myself. “God, it’s even more important now to find who killed Beta.” I shook my head. “Beta, goddamn her! She was going to blackmail Bob Don and maybe even my mother. That must’ve been why she checked out that book on Alzheimer’s. Maybe she wanted to figure out how advanced Mama’s condition was and what she could get out of Mama to keep quiet. To fund that damned church of hers.”

  “Listen, Jordy. I know you’re horribly upset right now. But you need to think straight. You need those letters, but they could also be evidence in a murder trial. You need to call Junebug, call your uncle Bid—”

  “No way,” I interrupted. “I don’t want anyone to know about this who doesn’t have to. For God’s sake, you think I want it going around Mirabeau that Mama might’ve had an affair? That I’m Bob Don’s bastard? And tell Uncle Bid, no thanks, he already hates my guts.”

  “Maybe you know why now,” Candace said softly.

  I thought about it. The years of dislike Bid had shown me, the utter disinterest in his sister-in-law, the warning he’d given me in Mama’s kitchen to stay away from that lying Bob Don. Maybe Uncle Bid already knew about this. The only bright spot was that if Bob Don was telling the truth, I was no blood kin to Bidwell J. Poteet. There was a silver lining, after all.

  I put my face in my hands. “You know, I always prided myself on being strong. On not letting the rough stuff in life get me down. Right now I feel as weak as a hundred-year-old man.”

  “You are strong, Jordy, you are.” Candace rubbed my shoulder. “You’re the strongest man I know. You gave up your career, your independence to come home to help your family. I couldn’t be so brave.”

  “My family,” I snorted. “I’m not even sure who my family is.” Hot anger flashed in me as I thought of my sacrifices. “Damn her, Candace! I gave up my life, my career, to take care of that woman, and what if she never bothered to tell me the truth about who I am? How could they do that to me?” I thought of my father, Lloyd Poteet. Of his love, his kindness to me, his pride in my accomplishments, his gentle hands on my shoulders, letting me know he was there for me. Had he known? If he had, I marveled at the depth of his unconditional love. Not every man would have so willingly raised another’s child as his own. I missed him fiercely.

  “Jordy, please, quit beating yourself up over this.”

  “And if it’s true, Beta Harcher knew?” I didn’t listen to Candace. “Let’s face it, that witch was my worst enemy. That she knew, and I didn’t! God, that makes me sick!”

  “Jordy!” Candace snapped. “Shut up for a minute and listen to me. Quit wallowing in self-pity. It’s just not like you.”

  I shut up.

  “I’m going to tell you a bit of wisdom here, babe,” Candace brought her face close to mine and her voice fell to a whisper. “Do me the courtesy of not interrupting. It really doesn’t matter if you’re a Poteet or a Goertz or if you’re sired by a man from Mars. What matters is the kind of person that you are, you sweet little idiot. You’re a good person. Now Lloyd Poteet raised you and loved you. Even if he didn’t make you, that doesn’t mean he’s not your daddy for all intents and purposes. It just doesn’t matter.”

  It did matter, but I stayed quiet till I sensed she was done speaking. I laughed bitterly. “Southerners are always so concerned about the families they come from. My friends up North used to tease me about being one of the Poteets of Mirabeau because I made such a big deal about my family. And now I don’t even know who I am anymore.” I sagged against the couch. “I feel like a nobody.”

  “You are somebody,” Candace whispered, and she kissed me. Her mouth didn’t taste of chocolate like Ruth Wills’s, but the kiss was far sweeter. I lost myself in her. I vaguely remembered my arm going around her shoulders, her fingers locking in my hair, passion and heat rising between us like close campfires. Her finger-tips traced delicious patterns on my face, my chest, my stomach. Wanting her burned away the old miasma of death that Beta Harcher had left on the library. And as we made love, shuddering together on that old couch, the deepest part of myself came through, telling me that Jordy Poteet was still alive.

  I WASN’T ABOUT TO CASTIGATE HALF MY FAMILY tree for all the lying that they might’ve done to me over my lifetime and then lie to Candace. Especially not after making love. I don’t imagine either of us had thought we’d consummate our relationship, if we ever had one, on the library couch where Old Man Renfro read the Houston papers every morning. So, with Candace lying against me, her warm back against my chest, I told her about Ruth’s advances to me, and her request that I meet her later this evening.

  “Are you going?” Candace asked, looking at the floor as though there was an object of monumental interest on the carpet.

  “No, I don’t believe so,” I said, stroking Candace’s hair. “I’m not going to pretend that Ruth isn’t sexy, but she’s not real attractive to me. You know the difference.”

  “I wonder what she meant, though. Saying she could help you be sure that your mama was never in a home.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Probably just a coy lure to get me over there. I am, of course, above such common ploys.”

  “Maybe she was go
ing to offer you money for your services.” Candace giggled, now that Ruth was swept under the rug. “She certainly seems to do well for a nurse in a small town.”

  “Doesn’t she, though? Nice jewelry, new Miata.”

  “Kept woman,” Candace guessed. “She’d fit the bill.”

  “Kept by whom?” I said, kissing her ear. “Maybe that’s an angle we haven’t considered.”

  Candace considered. “There’s any number of candidates in town, but that’d be a damned hard secret to keep.”

  “I’m starting to think that adage about no secrets in a small town is a load of crap,” I answered. “We seem to be unearthing them left and right.”

  “Adam Hufnagel,” Candace said. “That’d be my guess. He’s smooth but sometimes I swear he’s got his mind elsewhere. Like maybe on a sweet young thang for a mistress.”

  “Your ability to see scandal everywhere,” I laughed, hugging her, “is one of your most attractive traits.” I hadn’t expected to smile or laugh anytime soon, considering the past two hours. Candace was good for me.

  “You’re smiling,” she said, glancing up at me.

  “You put it there.”

  It was she who smiled this time. “Look, about Bob Don—”

  “Honey, if I dwell on that I’m going to go crazy. I have to deal with it, no doubt. But I want to finish what I started. I want to find out who killed Beta and shot Shannon. I want the suffering that crazy bitch caused people to stop. And I want to find those letters.” I paused. “Anyhow, if Ruth is a kept woman, how could she say she’d help me? That would only work if the money was hers. I don’t think her lover would take too kindly to underwriting her affairs.”

  “I don’t think you should pursue this anymore, Jordy,” Candace said carefully, turning in my arms to face me. She snuggled to me, kissing my cheek with small nibbles. It felt so good I held my breath. “You’ve gone through enough in the past few days. Just tell Junebug what you’ve learned and let him do it.”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not going to have Mama’s possible indiscretions broadcast around town as part of a murder investigation. I already know that Beta blackmailed Eula Mae and tried to blackmail Bob Don and might’ve tried to get money out of my mother, if she thought she could. That list of Beta’s must be a blackmail list, some way she thought she was going to get money out of folks for their sins so she could build her damned Holy-Roller church. I still don’t believe that Eula Mae could’ve killed her. I can’t let her rot in jail.”