Death in Living Gray

by John Clayton

  Disappointed, but not really surprised at his refusal, I turned back to the others. “Are you in?”

  “I’ll do what I can to help,” Henry said. “There’s something funny going on.”

  Fanny nodded. “I think it’s a good idea. Pickerill can’t be for real.”

  “He’s too good,” Stuart agreed.

  So we broke up until the party that night. Jack Senior was the only one who wasn’t going to help, but the same Mason County code of honor that had prevented him from helping would also prevent him from telling anybody else what we were going to do.

  As we got up to go, Hank Cooper was still lying in a fetal position on the floor. Henry stopped and leaned over, but when a voice from the bar called out, “What you gon’ do? Teach him to dance better?” Henry backed off, silently disappearing into the woodwork.

  Jack Senior took the cue, however, to have a quiet word with Weevil Tuttle at the other end of the bar. The latter got up and slung Hank over one shoulder with one hand while picking up his baseball bat in his other. Henry held the door open as Weevil toted his charge out in the direction of his pickup. I followed, turning to thank Henry for trying, but found that he was still holding the door for Jack Senior, who in turn was insisting that Henry should go first. They would probably have stayed there all day except that Jezebel grabbed the door and shooed them both out.

  ***

  I was in the kitchen, ironing my ball dress, when the phone rang and Victoria called from the living room that it was my mother.

  I carefully set aside the iron so that I wouldn’t leave it burning on the fabric, as I have a tendency to do these days, and switched the speakerphone off.

  “Are you all right? How did the trial go? Do they know you didn’t do it? Of course they do. What am I thinking? With a lawyer for a husband, there shouldn’t be any problem.” She started right in.

  We’d never told her that Jack Senior had gotten disbarred, but I was about to explain that there was no trial, when I remembered that I hadn’t told her about the jewels either. Jack Senior must have intercepted an earlier call. He was pals with her, just like he was pals with all the good ol’ boys down at ex-Jezebel’s.

  “But I don’t have time for that now,” she zoomed on. “The reason I called is to find out whose birthday it is today: Jack Junior’s or Sissy’s. I just can’t remember. It’s not like that dear sweet old Mrs. Applethorpe, who can’t remember her own kids. That’s so sad. But, of course, I’m not getting any younger, and with that knee operation last year, and your father running around with his altogether hanging out and not bothering to help, it was nice that dear Jack sent some money.”

  I wondered which Jack, but then remembered the two hundred dollars that had disappeared from the petty cash I used to buy things when the seller didn’t want to take a check. I knew Jack Senior wouldn’t take it to spend on women, since a free lunch seemed to be one of his criteria where his girlfriends were concerned. So I had thought it must have been taken by some neighborhood kids. But now it turned out it was just Jack Senior ingratiating himself with my mother on my tab. I was getting really annoyed at them both until I remembered that it was my mother’s birthday. Only, it had been yesterday and I’d forgotten to send a card, so I didn’t tell her the truth, because she’d have been miffed that I forgot. I took the chicken’s way out. “It’s Jack Junior’s birthday,” I said. He got about three birthday cards a year from his grandmother, so he was used to it. Of course, some readers might suspect that she knew it was her own birthday and was giving me the needle, but she didn’t do things like that. She’d probably misplaced the reminder calendar that she was always updating. “Have you lost your little book again?” I asked.

  “No, I’ve got it right here so that when I find out whose birthday it is I can write it down. If you were as organized as I am, you probably wouldn’t have misplaced those jewels. Well, I’ve got to go. Conversations with you just eat up the time, and I have so many other things to get done.” Click.

  ***

  Jack Senior and I were silently sharing the same space as we dressed for the ball. He was going as a Confederate captain because that was his rank in the real U.S. army. As usual, he’d be the only captain among all the majors and colonels. The other odd thing about his attire was the U.S. Army patch on his right shoulder. It had a white eagle on a black background, with the letters AIRBORNE in gold across the top. Ever since I’d known him, I’d intended to ask what the patch meant, but then I always either forgot or got sidetracked. Now didn’t seem like a good time. So I started to ask him to reconsider helping me with the search, but then I decided it would be hopeless. So I inquired about Hank Cooper instead.

  “Oh, he’s all right. Just a little internal bleeding,” Jack Senior answered.

  “Just a little internal bleeding,” I gave a slight sneer. “Delilah was pretty hard on him.”

  “You’d be hard, too, if you just lost your livelihood down the river.”

  I was about to retort that I knew just how she felt, because my livelihood almost went up the river. But Jack Senior didn’t quite get criminally charged. Apparently, you can be disbarred for a level of stupidity that is a little less that what it takes to get you thrown in jail. Even then, I wouldn’t have taken it out on Hank Cooper. And then I reconsidered. If I’d known Hank Cooper fifteen years ago, I might very well have kicked him in the balls just for the hell of it.

  With nothing more to say on the subject, I mutely let Jack Senior button up the back of my dress. It was the same dress I had worn the previous year except I’d made a new silver bodice to go with the green taffeta over-crinoline that had been my standby since these parties started. I also sprinkled a little flour to simulate gray in the chignon that graced my head. It was a wig, since my own hair wasn’t long enough to really do an 1850s style. The flour, I thought, would make it closer to what my real color would be if I didn’t dye it regularly. Or maybe I should have used the whole bag. I hadn’t let my hair grow out in a long time, so I wasn’t really sure what its natural color currently was. And I didn’t want to think about it, so I readjusted and then readjusted again the crinoline under my skirt.

  As we came down the not-so-grand staircase of the tenant house, we were greeted by Fanny coming in the front door. As a widow, it was appropriate that she should be escorted by us. Besides, it would keep her from driving home. Last year she had insisted that she would come back and pick up her own car, but then after the ball she was in no condition to object when Jack Senior drove straight to her house. Tonight she was wearing a brilliant blue silk outfit that swung out wide on a hoop just above the ankles and which was complemented by slightly deeper blue flounces around the skirt, bodice, and arms. It was a dress for someone about thirty years younger, but I must say it didn’t look all that bad on her.

  Victoria, on the other hand, was wearing her own début dress from the 1930s: a gray and white silk with no supports from either crinoline or a hoop. In fact, it looked pretty much like a proper matron’s evening dress from the 1830s—just like an older woman with a limited budget might have used for a party in 1860. She’d worn the same dress without alteration for the previous four years—because her only extravagances were bridge and golf. For the DAR, clothes didn’t matter as much as the pedigree.

  As we headed out to the van, Jack Senior took his mother on one arm and Fanny on the other—out of deference to age and the status as guest. I tagged along behind, observing. He really looked good in the freshly pressed uniform topped by the gray hat with his almost pure white hair flowing out in smooth waves. If he’d just be willing to make some money or defend his wife a little better, he’d have been the sexiest man I knew. Better even than the Peter Torgesen, of my recent acquaintance. But he didn’t do either, so I was left with my disappointment, my fantasies, and my group of friends to get me through this fiasco.

  Chapter 11

  Sheriff Overhouse was out directing traffic to the parking area—either knocking down a few extra
bucks or winning points for the next election. As we stopped at the front gate, he looked in the driver side at Jack Senior and then over at me in the passenger seat—I still let Jack Senior drive my van when we were together. A man thing legacy from my youth. The sheriff nodded and mumbled, “Mr. Pickerill says the party’s open to everybody as long as they don’t cause trouble.” Associating with Pickerill was making him a little uppity, I guessed.

  “Hello, Miz Abernathy and Miz Beecham,” he said as he looked into the back seats that we’d reinstalled for the occasion.

  Jack Senior drove through the gate and was directed by Stuart’s flashlight to a parking space around to the left of the mansion. Stuart had wangled the job as parking attendant to be on hand if needed. We ended up parking over by the dog run where the two Dobermans were howling at each guest who had the temerity to park in their territory. As we walked across the still mushy ground toward the antebellum columns of the front portico, I saw Robert E. Lee’s horse, Traveler, sitting on one of the flowery iron benches that were placed at intervals among the boxwoods bordering the front of the house. His front legs seem to be sitting on his back legs, with part of the mane offering a drink through a straw to someplace in the neck.

  “Hi, Miz Abernathy,” came a deep tone, accompanied by a vigorous shaking of the horse’s head.

  In spite of knowing who it was, I jumped, saying “Hi,” but catching myself just in time to avoid saying Mr. and Mrs. Short. I wasn’t sure whether bantering one’s name about in public causes stress to an agoraphobic, but why take the chance?

  Jack Senior looked at me sideways but didn’t break stride. Neither Fanny nor Victoria observed the exchange, since they were busy criticizing Pickerill’s restoration of the front columns of the old house.

  Maurice greeted us at the front door with a polite little bow, exhorting us to have a good time. So we obliged him by making the obligatory turn around the ballroom, greeting friends and some not-so-friends with the expected smiling courtesy. We circled fast at first, but then Jack Senior stopped to discuss sports with various acquaintances and Victoria was angling her DAR ladies away from their husbands so they could compare notes about who had violated the rules of proper dress. Fanny went in search of some courtly gentleman to get her a drink from the bar.

  So I wandered over to Henry, who was, as usual, resplendent in his General Lee outfit. Standing next to him was, unexpectedly, Lucille. Only, instead of being in Southern belle costume, she was wearing a black mammy outfit complete with a red bandanna wrapped around her head and a feather duster clutched in her hand: a pointed slap at the antebellum exploitation of her ancestors by the white gentry—most of whose descendants were carefully pretending they didn’t see her.

  Henry greeted me warmly, leaning close to whisper, “Lucille volunteered to come and help keep a lookout for any funny goings-on. You know what I mean.” He straightened back up.

  Even I could tell Lucille hadn’t volunteered and I wondered what Henry would have to pay for this.

  “If you have any trouble, we’re right here,” he added.

  After an awkward half curtsey, half bow in Lucille’s direction, I turned back to survey the room. Most of the guests had already arrived and were dancing in the middle of the big open area or drinking in little knots along the edges. Maurice was still at his post by the door, but he was looking across the room in my direction, trying not to be obvious.

  Defiantly, I tried to catch his attention. But he was gazing at something over to my right. I followed the direction of his eyes.

  There was Lucille, chin stuck out, diligently dusting a Queen Anne tea table.

  ***

  I moved off to reconnoiter my path to the office. I was planning to wait until alcohol and the passage of time had loosened things up a bit, but I wanted to know what obstacles might be in the way. The house had a big wide entrance hall that ran from front to back. In the center of the front part of the hall, which was about twenty feet wide, was a flight of steps to the second floor. The hallway area really wasn’t big enough for a ballroom, but you could waltz or do the Virginia reel in a big circle around the stairs making the latter an integral part of the dance. Off to the right, as you came in the front door, was the parlor that served as the bar, and behind that, directly above the basement kitchen, was the dining room where the buffet was laid out. To the left, at the front of the house, was another parlor, filled with chairs where older people could sit and gossip and the younger set could rest between dances. The restrooms were up the stairs, the ladies’ being off of the master’s bedroom where the Southern belles could rescue their hoops and crinoline from the damage caused by their unpracticed escorts.

  On the left side of the main floor, halfway down the center hall from the front door was a little corridor that led first to the stairs to the basement rec room and the billiards table, and then, a little further along, to the downstairs bathroom. J. Augustus had really endeared himself to the women of Mason County by having a second ladies’ room. Directly across from that, taking up the back corner of the house, was Mr. Pickerill’s office.

  The band, which was positioned at the rear of the hall, was on break, so I could make a full circle among the milling crowd without drawing attention to myself. It looked pretty good, so I was aiming for the bar to find Fanny when I passed right next to J. Augustus, who was standing on the lower step of the main stairway, looking up a couple of steps toward his wife, the ever-elegant Cassie, who was in deep conversation with Prissy Goodenough, the Chair of the Mason County Board of Supervisors

  He turned away from them and said in a firm voice, “Oh, Mrs. Abernathy, please note that both Maurice and Sheriff Overhouse have been instructed to watch all the guests carefully. But, of course, that won’t be necessary for most of them. Feel free to enjoy yourself.”

  Everybody stopped talking. And that allowed Cassie’s stage-whispered comment to carry all over the hall: “If that disgusting woman hadn’t stolen the jewels, I could be wearing them now, instead of these baubles.” She waved an arm encircled with bracelets of red rubies, the stones large enough to have been paste for all but the extremely rich.

  I was trying to work up the courage to ask her if the baroness had demanded last year’s jewelry back when she found out how her gigolo had used it. But I was saved from being mean and petty by Prissy, who turned full face to the gathering audience around the steps as if she were giving one of her political speeches.

  “Augie is too polite to say it, but your actions have given the whole of Mason County a bad name, just when we’re trying to attract new business development away from all that congestion in northern Virginia. This is, or was, a crime-free home of good Christians where you can raise a family away from all the immorality that blights our cities. Now the entire community will pay for what you did.”

  By the end of the speech, about thirty people had gathered in front of the stairs and were staring at Prissy with their mouths open, while J. Augustus smirked.

  I didn’t know whether to cry or spit out the tidbit about Prissy’s little affair with Old Oilhead. My mouth was grappling with my jaw, trying to get itself open when “May I have this dance?” interposed itself.

  Jack Senior took me in his arms without waiting for an answer, and we had spun halfway down the hall by the time the band, just back from break, had played the first note of something that sounded like the “Tennessee Waltz.”

  As we turned, I reviewed what I should have said if Jack Senior hadn’t interceded. The problem with blurting out Prissy’s secret was that most of the local gentry would have thought her sordid little affair amusing rather than immoral. And I’d just come across as an ingrate for publicizing the Southern double standard—they had, after all, almost taken me in as one of their own. And it would do nothing to clear my name. I had to keep my cool for searching the office.

  ***

  We finished the waltz and went on to the Virginal reel, concentrating on the dancing, not talking. Most of the people we
passed smiled politely, as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t tell whether it was because they sympathized or just didn’t understand what was going on. I wanted to stop but Jack Senior was suggesting one more waltz when Robert E. Lee tapped him on the shoulder and asked to cut in—an old-fashioned but effective technique.

  After a couple of circles, he said, “You better get going. Fanny’s starting to act strange and it would look a little odd for me to be hanging around the ladies’ restroom.”

  He spun me across the floor and did a deep bow as I waltzed myself off toward the side corridor—and Pickerill’s office.

  ***

  I was almost there when I heard a loud, “I declare, isn’t that just the tackiest thing!” Victoria was coming down the hall from the ladies’ room, talking with Ruby Dixon as she came. I was dragged willy-nilly into the conversation.

  “Don’t you think that’s just disgusting?” she asked me, pointing, without using her forefinger, toward a damsel in a lavender silk dress with a daringly deep cut orange bodice between flounced lavender sleeves.

  At first, I didn’t notice anything odd, except that the wearer was over six feet tall. And then I recognized the lady as Spike Bender, one part of the homosexual couple who ran the Cherry Tree Antique Shoppe over between Mason City and the highway. They were my competitors, sort of, except that their goods were generally higher-end than mine, though they had taken two of my tractor sofas and sold them on healthy commissions. For the first four years of the Confederate Ball, the shorter partner, Frank Dresser, had come in female garb, since he was only five foot ten and Spike was six foot six. But they had decided that turnabout was fair, and tonight Frank came as a reasonable replication of John Wilkes Booth while Spike was the Southern belle, a little overblown with the colors but not much more so than the average commuter.

  Ruby, who was leaning forward because her hearing wasn’t what it used to be, provided a vigorous nod of approval.