Deep South

by Nevada Barr

  The Barneses lived in a well-kept home in a cul-de-sac between Highway 80 and I-20 in south Clinton. The development had been built in the sixties, but the homes were in good condition, with the exception of the occasional roofline or porch eave that looked to have been bent. “Do they have earthquakes here?” Anna asked as Barth turned onto Smoke Hill Drive. She was remembering homes in Santa Ana, California, having slightly surreal architecture from one too many shifts of the foundation.

  “Yazoo clay,” Barth said. “It’s under a lot of the county. It kind of buckles and moves I guess. One-sixty-one?”

  Anna checked the address she’d written down the morning Heather nursed a hangover at Rocky Springs. “One-sixty-one,” she confirmed.

  Mrs. Barnes recognized Anna, which made things go more smoothly. After she’d been reassured several times that Heather wasn’t in any kind of trouble and she had informed Anna that the errant girl was being kept on a very short leash, Mrs. Barnes told her Heather was at the home of her best friend, Shandra Lea.

  “New best friend?” Anna asked, thinking of Danni, slated to be buried the following day.

  “Old best friend. Heather and Danielle Posey hadn’t been friends all that long.” Anna noted the use of Danni’s first and last name, the distancing of oneself from the violently dead. Few were comfortable with the memory of the murdered. Some, to make themselves important, claimed to be closer to the deceased than they were. Others, those with something to lose, severed ties.

  “Heather and Shandra Lea made the finals for the Mississippi Junior Miss Pageant,” Mrs. Barnes said with obvious pride. “They’re trying on makeup.”

  “Danni was in the finals,” Anna said, remembering Cindy Posey’s remarks.

  “Working on the pageant’s where she and Heather started being friendly,” Mrs. Barnes conceded.

  A case from the not too distant past fluttered through Anna’s mind. It had been a news bonanza for a couple days. A woman had murdered a teenage girl because she was in competition with her daughter for a coveted cheer-leading spot.

  Anna shook off the thought. Already the case had her knee-deep in crazy people; she didn’t need one more. Anna didn’t include Cindy Posey in that list—Mrs. Posey was genuinely mentally ill. She was thinking garden-variety crazy: rangers whose wives left them, dark-browed preachers, psalm-singing sheriffs, grown men playing soldier and dog-eating alligators.

  Shandra Lea lived less than half a mile away. Mrs. Barnes gave them directions and went inside, probably to call ahead and warn Shandra Lea’s mother and the girls. Anna didn’t care. There was no element of surprise here, just a few questions.

  The days were getting longer but the late April sun, though full with the heat of the mountain midsummer, retained the thin yellows of winter, backlighting the fresh leaves of two weeping willows until they glowed fierce green and cast long shadows on the lawn.

  A cracked and buckled sidewalk cut neatly between the trees, leading a straight and narrow path to Shandra Lea’s front door. Low-roofed, rectangular, snuggled down in a riot of azaleas grown as high as the eaves and iridescent in crimson blooms, the house had a fairy-tale aspect that pleased Anna.

  Heather and a girl, who Anna surmised was the old/new best friend, sat shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip on the front steps waiting for them. The girls wore brightly colored clogs and shorts that were hidden beneath voluminous T-shirts.

  The two of them were disconcertingly schizophrenic, their faces old with the sophisticated makeup they’d applied in anticipation of a Junior Miss sash, their bodies childlike under the cotton tees.

  “Hey, Heather,” Anna said as she preceded Barth up the walk. “Your mom said we’d find you here.” She was careful not to say any nauseatingly grown-up thing that referenced the girl’s recent intoxication. Nobody likes to be reminded they, in Jackie Doolittle’s poetic parlance, “showed their butt.”

  Anna introduced Barth, and Heather, mindful of her manners, introduced her girlfriend. Shandra Lea was pageant-pretty like Danni and Heather and nearly every other pubescent female Anna’d seen in Mississippi. Her dark skin was even-toned—due either to Max Factor or to nature—her eyes melting and close to black under winged brows. A wide nose and full lips lent her an inviting air that, had Anna been her mom, might have gotten her clapped in a nunnery till she was thirty. Shandra Lea had eschewed the slavish attempt to re-create Caucasian hair-styles on Negroid hair and wore hers in a sleek, glossed-down cap with sharp spit-curls at ears and temples. Very French. Very twenties. Very charming.

  It was obvious the girls had no intention of inviting them inside. As there was no car in the carport, Anna made an educated guess that Shandra Lea’s mother wasn’t home and that Heather’s mom was unaware the girls were unchaperoned. Content to let them keep that secret, Anna settled comfortably on the warm concrete walk. Barth remained standing. Big men didn’t take easily to sitting tailor fashion on the ground.

  Anna decided to pretend rumor was fact and see what she could scare up. “Danielle had a boyfriend of color,” she said without preamble. “Who was he?”

  Shandra Lea and Heather exchanged a mascara-laden glance. Alarm? Conspiracy? Anna wasn’t sure. What she was sure of, given the age of the interviewees, was that they had few secrets from each other.

  Shandra Lea spoke first. “We don’t know that she did,” she said carefully.

  “But you guessed.” Again the glance. Anna pegged it this time. They’d not foreseen this line of questioning and so hadn’t discussed what to say and what to leave unsaid. Time to divide and conquer. “Heather, why don’t you give Ranger Dinkin your statement. I’ll talk with Shandra Lea.” Knowing the legal pitfalls of leaving a male officer alone with a young female subject, Anna suggested they adjourn only as far as the patrol car, in plain sight of Anna and Heather’s girlfriend.

  Left with Shandra Lea, Anna resumed: “You know how serious this is. We’re trying to find Danni’s murderer.”

  “To pin it on a black boy, you mean,” Shandra Lea said. At sixteen, she carried the well-justified fear of an entire people.

  Anna thought awhile before replying. This was new territory. She had to wait till the spurt of anger at having her motives impugned drained away.

  “That’s not part of my plan,” she said when a better answer refused to frame itself. “I don’t have a plan, really. I’m just asking questions.” She waited patiently while Shandra Lea decided whether or not she could be trusted. Behind her she heard the mellow purr of Barth’s voice. From the south came the rumble of trucks on I-20.

  Shandra Lea pressed her fingers to her temples. Her fingertips were sheathed in porcelain nails painted in a psychedelic swirl of colors. An expensive affectation for a girl her age. She must have saved for a while.

  “That girl was trouble,” Shandra Lea said at length. “Not bad bad, like in evil. She just couldn’t help stirring things up. Making people say, ‘Hey, that’s Danni Posey!’ She never got it that they weren’t always saying it because they were impressed.”

  Given time and silence, she’d say more. Anna adjusted her face to an open look and watched the play of light and shadow on the painted concrete steps.

  “Me and Heather talked about it some,” Shandra Lea admitted after a while. “My brother goes to Alcorn State. We went down there, me, Heather and Danni, to watch one of his games. There was a party after, and we went. We think maybe Danni met up with somebody there. She didn’t ride home with us. We waited, but we couldn’t find her, so finally we had to go. Next day she said she’d met up with a girlfriend she hadn’t seen in a while. Give me a break! In this town you see everybody every day. There wasn’t no girlfriend. Why would she lie if it wasn’t a black boy?”

  “Maybe because it was a college boy,” Anna suggested. “I doubt her folks would want her dating a college boy. Could be white.”

  Shandra Lea laughed. “You’re not from around here, are you? Alcorn’s a black college. Maybe there’s a white boy there somewhere, but I neve
r seen him.”

  “How long ago was this party?”

  “Maybe three months—February sometime.”

  Plenty of time for a high school romance to blossom. “Danni’s longtime boyfriend, Brandon DeForest, did he know about this?”

  Shandra Lea looked to where Heather stood talking with Barth. There was a secret close to the surface—Anna could see it in the liquid ink of the girl’s eyes. “He did, didn’t he?” Anna pressed. “Heather heard him talk about it.”

  The liquid went dull, shutters drawn on the windows of the soul. “I don’t know what Heather hears.”

  It was Heather’s secret, not Shandra Lea’s.

  “Is Brandon DeForest a friend of yours?” Anna asked.

  “Brandon’s a jerk,” Shandra Lea said disdainfully.

  “Then you’re protecting a jerk; you’re not protecting Heather,” Anna said. “You’re protecting Brandon DeForest. Why would you want to do that? Because he’s a big man on campus? Homecoming king? You want to get in good with the white crowd?” Anna dragged up everything she could think of to piss Shandra Lea off. With the last, she hit pay dirt.

  “I don’t give a shit about that,” Shandra Lea shot back. “Brandon could ruin Heather’s chances. And he’d do it.”

  Foul language. Anna was winning. She smiled but only on the inside. Teenagers have a nose for mockery comparable only to that of a cat for tuna.

  “Chances for what?” Anna asked mildly.

  Shandra Lea knew she’d been had, and she wasn’t relishing the feeling. “I’m not talking to you anymore, ’less you come back with a warrant.” She stood up and went inside, slamming the door behind her. Shandra Lea might not have much knowledge of the law, but she knew you didn’t rat on a friend.

  At sixteen the emotion was pure, unsullied by the decision of whether ratting on a friend wasn’t sometimes in that friend’s best interest and having to find the courage to do it anyway, knowing you’d be forever called Judas.

  Anna got to her feet. She could still do it in one fluid motion without using her hands, but where it had once been thoughtless it was now showing off. The effect was somewhat marred by the cracking of knee and ankle joints.

  Hands in her pockets, she ambled to the car. Spring in Mississippi was too hot for winter uniforms, and Anna felt hers sticking to her back. Heather and Barth had run out of things to say and looked relieved at her arrival.

  “So,” Anna said to Heather. “Brandon DeForest says if you don’t keep quiet, he’ll ruin your chances. What a jerk.”

  Anna’s little bomb was rewarded by an explosion of red suffusing Heather’s cheeks. Shame first, then anger. “Did Shandra Lea tell you that?” she demanded.

  “Yup.”

  “She had no right.” Heather started to cry, loud and ugly and leading to hiccups, like the crying of a little kid.

  Barth drifted soundlessly away. The man had excellent instincts, but Anna rather wished he’d stayed. Barth, at least, had children. Presumably he’d learned to deal with them on an interpersonal level. Anna’d grown up on John Wayne movies. When women cried she wanted to spank them, yell at them or shoot the guy that hurt them. Frieda, Christine, Lynette—the women in Anna’s life had taught her the rudiments. At their uncorporal urgings, it crossed her mind to summon up her courage, take the wet wailing girl into her arms and mutter, “There, there.” The prospect was too alarming so she stood, leaning against the Crown Vic, arms crossed, watching the celebration of light on the azaleas till Heather subsided to the gasping, snorting stage.

  “You about done?” Anna asked kindly.

  “Yes, ma’am. Do you have a hankie?”

  “I don’t carry one. Hang on.” Anna got a brand-new red oil rag from the trunk of the car. “It’s clean,” she promised.

  Heather fixed that. Anna was amazed one small girl could have so much liquid in her.

  Nose blown, Heather looked up with watery red eyes. “She had no right,” she said, starting over.

  “She had no choice. It’s the law,” Anna lied.

  “What did she tell you?” Recovered somewhat, Heather was getting cagey.

  Anna decided to go on the offensive before Heather called her bluff. “Brandon DeForest can ruin your chances. That’s why you’ve been less than forthcoming, isn’t it?”

  Heather folded the oil rag into a smaller and smaller square and said nothing.

  “Chances for what?”

  Nothing.

  “He said if you didn’t keep quiet he’d do it. That’s blackmail. Blackmail’s illegal.”

  Nothing.

  Exasperated, Anna went back to the shimmer of flowers beneath the eaves until her desire to shake Heather till her teeth rattled subsided.

  “Can I go now?” Heather asked in the voice of a little girl.

  “Nope.” A fat gray squirrel ventured partway across the lawn to study them. “Here it is,” Anna said finally. “I have got to find out who killed Danni. I don’t necessarily have to screw up your life in the process, but I don’t mind much if I do. There’s bits and pieces of information you’re holding back. They may be of use to me. They may not. But I’ve got to have them.”

  “You can’t make me talk. I want a lawyer. You can’t ask any more questions after I ask for a lawyer.” Heather’d seen plenty of cop shows on television.

  “Sure I can,” Anna said. “You’re not under arrest. You’re not a suspect. I want you to tell me about Brandon, Danni, prom night—anything you can remember. If you don’t, I’ll tell Brandon you told me everything. I’ll let on you’re working with me.”

  A veil of innocence fell from Heather’s face, leaving it looking indefinably older. Anna was sorry she’d been the one to make it so. “Why, you’re no better than he is!” Heather exclaimed.

  Anna was in no position to argue that one. “No guarantees,” she said. “But I can promise that I will do my utmost to keep your secret—unless it’s dangerous or illegal—and to see to it that the DeForest kid does too.”

  “It’s not dangerous or anything. He’s just got—he’s got this thing and if he shows it to somebody he can—I won’t get something I want.”

  Eyes down, words vague, color up: Anna guessed Heather was awash with shame. Guilt, anger and resentment didn’t drag down the corners of one’s eyes, bow one’s neck the way shame could.

  Sixteen, not illegal, not dangerous—Brandon could have proof she’d cheated at school. That would cost her a grade or a reward, maybe even college. He could have proof of an indiscretion that would cause her parents to revoke some coveted privilege.

  Anna studied her face, streaked now, tears rendering the pageant queen a sad-faced little clown.

  That was it. “Brandon has something that could keep you out of the Junior Miss pageant, or make sure you don’t win it.”

  “I wouldn’t even have a chance.” Heather’s voice was rising to a wail. Waterworks threatened.

  “Take it easy,” Anna ordered. “That’s my last clean rag. Tell me what he’s got. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Can Shandra Lea come back out?”

  “Sure. Barth!” Anna hollered.

  “Here.”

  She was startled to hear his voice so close. The man had faded back, out of her line of sight, and had been standing stock-still in the shadow of a red-tipped fotina that edged the yard. Effectively gone, reassuringly near. “Hey,” Anna said, smiling at him because she felt like it. “Could you get Shandra Lea?”

  The other girl came outside before Barth was halfway up the walk. She’d been watching from one of the windows and noted a change in the action.

  “You had no right—” Heather started the litany.

  “Come on, Heather, this is real,” Shandra Lea said dismissively. Heather quieted. It was easy to see who the leader was in this twosome. Anna expected it. Heather Barnes was one of those very biddable young women, the sort blown easily by the winds of fashion, popularity and trends.

  Anna took over. “Heather’s told us B
randon DeForest has been blackmailing her. Is that right?”

  Shandra Lea looked at her friend for permission to rat, but Heather had her head down, acquiescent. “That’s right,” the black girl said. “He’s got a picture he’s been threatening to show around that would spoil Heather’s chances at the Junior Miss title.”

  “Pornographic picture?” Anna asked.

  “Yes,” Heather mumbled, and her head drooped further.

  “Oh, give it a rest,” Shandra Lea snapped. “You don’t know porn, girl. It’s this silly-ass snapshot Brandon took at a swim party when Danni and Heather flashed him.” She mimed pulling up her top and showing her breasts for Anna’s edification.

  “You’re kidding,” Anna said. “They’d throw you out of the Junior Miss for that?”

  “Maybe not throw me out,” Heather said, talking to the pavement between her feet.

  “But they won’t go giving you no rhinestone tiara if they got a picture of you flashing your titties for the camera.” Shandra Lea was a pragmatist.

  “I’ll see if I can get your picture back for you,” Anna said. “Tell me about prom night.”

  After twenty minutes poking and prodding, Anna was able to piece together a better picture of what had happened. Heather had gone to the dance with Matt, Danni with Brandon DeForest. Both couples had been fighting. Danni was “in a mood” and dropping hints about her college boyfriend. Heather left the dance to join Danni, Brandon and his two cohorts, Lyle Sanders and Thad Meyerhoff, in the parking lot to drink. Matt followed, offered to take her home. When she refused, he left. Brandon got drunk and abusive, calling Danni a slut and threatening to kill her and her new boyfriend. Danni ran to the car and said she’d been with a “real man” before Brandon picked her up, and she was going to him, and she’d just used Brandon to get out of the house. Heather jumped in DeForest’s car with Danni, and they left. Brandon, Lyle and Thad followed them in Thad’s car. On the Trace, they kept trying to run Danni and Heather off the road. Heather found a fifth of some kind of booze under the seat, and she and Danni passed it back and forth.