The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living

by Martin Clark

  “I’ve tried to find out a little about Ruth Esther and haven’t gotten too far. And I don’t want to make her uncomfortable or do anything unethical.”

  “I agree,” Evers said. “I’ve really grown to like her myself. She’s been pretty decent and straight up with all of us. You especially.”

  “She’s a good person. And a good friend. I’ve never met a better person. But what about Artis? Maybe we could find out a little about their backgrounds that way.” Pauletta’s tone turned sour and lost its warmth when she mentioned Artis. “When he was convicted before, when he went to prison, there had to be a presentence report, correct? You do that in North Carolina, don’t you? Parents, schools, work history, place of birth, the whole nine yards. Maybe that would help us some. I’m assuming you could get that with no problem.”

  “True. I guess I could.”

  “So what do you think?” Pauletta asked.

  “Sounds good.”

  “When would you be able to look?”

  “I’ll go first thing tomorrow,” Evers said. He took a bite of pizza and balanced the slice on his knee. “This may seem a little simplistic, but I guess you have asked her about the letter. It’s possible she might tell you what’s in it or why she wanted it so badly.”

  “I’ve asked. She was like she often is—very polite, very nice, but completely quiet about her business.”

  “I’ll look tomorrow. It will give me something to look forward to. I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks. Call and tell me what you find out.”

  The next day, Evers drove to the courthouse in Winston-Salem, but he didn’t get to look at Artis English’s report until after lunch. Before he began his first case, he had his secretary retrieve eleven different files and not sign any of them out; he had no interest in the other ten, but didn’t want any more connection with Artis and Ruth Esther than was absolutely necessary. Evers figured he would get to the file before noon, but the morning turned hectic and roiling. The lawyers were cranky and unprepared, Evers started court late, a defendant tried to run out of the courtroom after Evers sent him to jail, a crazy woman in a red wig representing herself in a traffic case kept demanding that Evers read her copy of the Magna Carta, and things got balled and knotted and jammed into a clump of poor timing and well-burnished idiocy that wouldn’t move, wouldn’t go anywhere. Evers finally got through with his morning work at one-thirty, and he went into his chambers, shut the door and lit a cigarette. He sorted through the files on his desk until he found Artis’, and he had just opened the folder when he heard a knock on the door. He looked up, and his secretary had stuck her head into his office.

  “I’m sorry, Judge, to bother you. What a morning, huh?” Geneva Pullins had worked in Winston-Salem Superior Court for thirty-three years, since she was twenty-three years old, and was a nice contrast to Evers’ inexperienced, middling secretary in Norton. Geneva had gray hair, rouge-pink cheeks, and took quick, choppy steps when she walked. Evers liked her; she was kind and helpful, and she knew where everything was. “I just heard—this is really hard to believe, really bad. John Waddell, the deputy, just told me, and I thought you’d want to know and you wouldn’t mind being bothered since it’s important and all, but Deputy Waddell told me that Warren Dillon got shot last night. Shot and killed, down in Florida, on his vacation. He’d taken some extra time, had some more vacation and was even thinking about retiring, I hear. And how about that, he got shot.” Geneva shook her head. Her glasses fell down almost to the end of her nose, but she kept talking and didn’t bother to slide them back up. “Just like that, that’s what I hear, he got shot.”

  Evers put his hands on the edge of his desk and shoved his chair back; the chair rolled over the floor on four metal balls. “Warren Dillon got shot? Really? Do they know what happened?”

  “It seems, well, I should say Deputy Waddell told me, like I say, told me just this minute, and I knew you’d want to know and that’s why I bothered you, he told me it was just an accident, that he got shot by a man in a gang or something like that, got caught in the middle of these two gangs fighting. They caught the man right away, the man who shot him, that’s what I understand. At least that’s good, that they caught him. It’s just terrible. He was getting out of his car at a restaurant, and all that time as a policeman, and to get shot on vacation—what a shame, huh? Get shot for no reason while you’re on vacation.”

  “What do they know about the suspect?”

  “He was in a fight with another man, they were shooting at each other, one of them was in a car, and poor old Warren was in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time. Just bad luck, that’s all, bad, bad luck.”

  “So it was just—”

  John Waddell stepped around Geneva, into Evers’ office. He was wearing a blue police uniform, and he rested his hand on her shoulder for a moment. The policeman was almost a foot taller than Evers’ secretary. “Did Geneva tell you about Officer Dillon?” Waddell asked.

  “Yes, she just was.”

  “Terrible.”

  Evers scooted his chair forward, closer to his desk. “Yeah. Yes, it is.” He put his forearms and elbows on top of Artis’ file so the name and number were hidden. “I understand they have the man who shot him?”

  “Yeah. Complete accident. Guns and drugs. The world’s just gone crazy, Judge.”

  “I used to never even lock my car door or my house,” Geneva pointed out. “When I started here working for Judge Cummins, I just parked out on the street and never worried about it, didn’t even think about it, about something happening to me or my car.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about Officer Dillon,” Evers said. “Let me know about the arrangements.”

  “Evidently, he was going to retire down there. I understand he’d put his house up for sale. He was eligible for that early retirement program, too, because he had in twenty years of service.”

  Geneva spoke up. “That’s another thing. We just keep on lettin’ all these foreigners into our country, one right after the other, thousands of them, without checking or looking into their backgrounds, just let them pour in and this is what we get. Where was this man who shot Mr. Dillon from?” Geneva looked at Officer Waddell. “You told me. Tahiti—what did you say? Where was it?”

  “Haiti. An illegal immigrant, evidently. Fighting over drugs, I’ll bet you anything. Or a car, or a street corner, or a woman. People are somethin’, Judge.” Waddell raised his hand. “Good to see you, Judge Wheeling. I’ll get out of your hair and let you get back to work. Just thought you should know.”

  “Well, well, well …,” Evers said under his breath after Waddell left and Geneva had gone to get him a soft drink and a vending machine sandwich. Evers lit another cigarette and opened Artis’ file again. He found the presentence report and turned through several pages until he got to the section on family history.

  FAMILY AND SOCIAL HISTORY:

  The author of this report is unable to verify English’s exact age. English’s biological mother is deceased, his father unknown. He has one sister, Ruth Esther English, who is a car saleswoman. She works regularly and maintains a close and supportive relationship with the defendant. English’s biological mother died in New York in 1989. In 1985, she brought English and his sister to the Anchor House program in Columbia, South Carolina. She placed the children in Anchor House for adoption. English’s mother had a lengthy history of psychological problems and repeated hospitalizations. According to records from South Carolina, she told the workers at the Anchor House, depending on her mood and mental state, that her children were born when “Jesus touched her, like on the roof of the Sistine Chapel,” that she “found them,” and that “Apollo had sent a swarm of lightning bugs” and that she conceived when she walked through the insects at night while they “all flashed at the same time.” Records also indicate that English’s mother struggled with alcohol and drug abuse.

  Finally, it is noteworthy that English’s mother claimed that the children, who were teen
agers when they came into Anchor’s custody in 1985, were born before the turn of the century. English’s age was guesstimated to be sixteen at the time. He was allowed to pick a birthday for himself and chose February 2. English and his sister were legally adopted by John and Nadine English in 1986. Mr. and Mrs. English are both dead. Mrs. English was a homemaker, Mr. English was a retired missionary. English and his sister refer to John and Nadine English as their parents, even though they were adopted by this family late in their teens and spent most of their lives with their biological mother. The children both took the last name English. Artis English was signed in to the Anchor House by his mother as “Artis Matthew Wright.” There were no birth records or other documents available from the mother when she appeared at Anchor.

  Evers turned back to the beginning of the report to read about the theft from Lester Jackson.

  OFFENDER’S VERSION OF EVENTS:

  English claims that his sister and adoptive father actually planned the crime and broke into the antique business of Mr. Lester Jackson. English claimed that he had nothing to do with this offense. The victim reported $10,056 in cash missing as well as some other small items. Nothing has been recovered. English’s version seems extremely suspect since he was found trapped in the building by the police. English has offered to “turn state’s evidence” and testify against his father and sister. Both have alibis, and the author of this report feels certain that Mr. English’s accomplice was someone else.

  Evers looked through the rest of the report and put it back into the file. He called Pauletta and told her what he’d found.

  “So John English isn’t her real father?” Pauletta asked.

  “Correct. He adopted them. Ruth Esther’s birth name is Wright. Just like the letter.”

  “And their mother was crazy?”

  “It’s not good, not acceptable, to use the word ‘crazy.’ You should know that. Her mother was ‘profoundly disturbed.’” Evers was smiling a little. Geneva scuttled into his office on the balls of her feet and put a Coke and a sandwich on his desk. The sandwich was cold and in a sealed, clear plastic triangle.

  “Nothing more than that?”

  Evers mouthed thank you to Geneva, and she hurried out of his office. “Well, Artis claimed that he wasn’t even there, and sly Lester only reported ten thousand and change missing and a few other things. The ‘other things’ would be our letter and envelope, I’m sure. It goes without saying that he didn’t really feel like explaining why he had a hundred grand in drug cash lying around.”

  Pauletta was quiet for a while. “Well … so, anyway, thanks for looking. We know more now than we did.”

  “That’s not the news of the day, however.”

  “Oh?”

  “Oh no. I hate to sound sinister, but the good news is that Warren Dillon will no longer be plaguing us.”

  “Why? How do you know? Did you talk to him? Is he back in North Carolina?” Pauletta rushed through her questions.

  “Because he got killed in a drive-by shooting in Miami, at some restaurant. The monkey man was getting out of his car at feeding time and some crackhead Haitian shot him. An accident, so I hear. I can’t say I’m all broken up about it.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about that?” Pauletta’s voice was faint, as if her mouth was not very close to the receiver.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else, but so far it’s just a random thing,” Evers said.

  “How about that? How about that?” Pauletta kept repeating. When she hung up, she still seemed a little ruffled.

  Evers worked until after five-thirty. He left his office and drove to his health club in Winston-Salem; he wanted to take a swim before driving back to Norton, to jump in the pool and go all the way under and then pop back through the surface and shake the clear beads of water out of his face and eyes. He would put his suit and shirt and tie back on after he got out of the pool and leave his hair wet, comb it straight back and let it dry on the ride home. Evers drank a mini bottle of scotch and smoked most of a joint during the ride—a little celebration of Warren Dillon’s demise. “Feting fate for a change,” Evers said out loud so that he could hear the words.

  After parking and surveying the splashing mob in the outside pool, Evers decided to swim inside because that pool was almost empty. The indoor pool was covered by a clear dome, and you could see the sun and sky when you looked up. Before he went into the locker room to change, Evers saw a small girl, six or seven, sitting on a towel beside the water, her legs crossed Indian style. The child was bent over a coloring book. She had thick black hair and a ring of chocolate around the circumference of her mouth. As Evers walked past, she looked up and said hello.

  “How are you?” Evers asked.

  “Okay.” The girl had on a yellow sundress and tennis shoes with purple Quasimodo faces. “I’m coloring.”

  “I see that,” Evers said.

  “I have to stay here,” the girl volunteered. “At home I can get into the little part of the pool, but I can’t here. That’s my dad.” The girl pointed to a man swimming laps.

  “I’ll bet you’re a good swimmer,” Evers said.

  “Nope. Not really. I can swim a little and open my eyes under water and jump off the side. I can do that.”

  “I’m impressed. That’s good for someone your age.”

  “Do you want to see what I’m coloring?”

  “Sure.”

  The child held up her coloring book. She was using an orange crayon to color a horse.

  “Nice. Good-looking horse.” Evers grinned. His mouth was dry from smoking the marijuana.

  “Do you want to color something? My dad is still swimming.”

  “Me?” Evers asked.

  “Yep.”

  He looked at the book and the crayons. “Okay. Pick your page and I’ll pick mine.”

  “You don’t want to really.” The girl started twisting and giggling.

  “Yes I do. Let me see your crayons.”

  “Really?”

  “I’d enjoy a little coloring.”

  Evers leaned over the book and turned a seal burnt umber, a color he picked because he liked the name and the shade. He pushed down hard with the crayon and made a dark outline around the seal when he finished coloring the inside. The girl was still working on a lion.

  When he put his crayon down and looked at the burnt umber seal, it appeared to come off the page, to move through the air in front of him, sailing around, its flippers and tail moving up and down in gawky, two-count flaps. Evers shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the pool and the girl and then the pool again, and all the cuts and sparkles in the pool ran together into quiet, white waves, like a flooded shroud, the water covered over by light, the seal working in the air under the clear dome. He could taste the dope and liquor in his mouth, a lot of bitter alcohol and a few patches of sweet, burned pot, pits and nicks on his tongue and cheeks and the roof of his mouth that were different from everything around them. Not a bad sensation, he decided.

  Evers crawled to the edge of the pool, stuck his head under the water, opened his eyes and breathed out. Bubbles came out of his nose and mouth under the water in different shapes and sizes, heading to the surface. Evers stayed underwater as long as he could, and when he took his head out of the pool the seal was gone, his summer jacket and starched shirt were wet to his chest with water and the little girl was laughing, looking at him, clapping and pointing. Evers started laughing, too. He thanked the girl for letting him use her book and crayons and shuffled back through the club toward the parking lot, forgot about swimming. The dope and scotch pumped up everything along the way, brightened all the colors and moved the plants and pictures and furniture an extra space or so from where they really were.

  He decided to drive back to his office, even though it was late and everyone would be gone for the day. He wanted to call Pascal and talk to him. He drove slowly, stayed in the right lane and kept his window d
own. A car with three yellow and black Wake Forest parking stickers and a bad muffler passed him, and the kids in the car—five of them, all college students, no doubt—glanced over and kept on going, straight and too fast for the speed limit, driving someone’s parents’ hand-me-down car, traveling too quickly for no reason. Evers watched the trunk of the car and wished he were back in college, and that he and Pascal could drink beer and eat deli sandwiches for lunch and speed around town and fall asleep watching sports on TV.

  When Evers called, a message from Henry was on his brother’s answering machine. “Gone to the creek to pay our respects to the shrine. Leave a message.” Evers was still damp from the pool, but his head had started to clear; all the fuzz and jitters had gone away. He had no idea what the message meant.

  The next day, Evers checked his answering machine when he got home from work. There were two messages, the first one a call from Detective Loggins. He was coming to Norton in the morning to talk to Evers about an “important development in your wife’s death.” This despite Evers telling him not to, and that he didn’t want to see either him or Greenfield anymore. Jo Miller’s mother had also phoned and asked Evers to call her back. “Right. I need to get screamed at some more,” Evers said after he heard the message from Mrs. Covington.

  Loggins arrived at ten-thirty sharp in Evers’ office. Evers ignored him and made him sit in the waiting area for almost an hour. Evers stood in his office and peered out at the streets and buildings in Norton, saw old slate roofs, vehicles with red mud speckled on their quarter panels and a farmer selling tomatoes off the back of a flatbed truck; two men with newspapers under their arms were talking in front of the post office. He knew that Loggins wasn’t about to leave after driving so far.

  When his secretary let Loggins in, Evers did not get up from behind his desk. Loggins walked across the office to the edge of the desk and reached his hand across. Evers shook it and released it very quickly.

  “More good news, Detective?” Evers asked sarcastically.

  “Bad news, I’m afraid.” Loggins sat down, wearing his customary cowboy boots and bolo tie.