Slow Dollar

by Margaret Maron

  “Oh.”

  He doused the truck lights and followed me into the house. The moon followed, too, and we did not turn on any lamps.

  After a lifetime of treating Dwight like family, I was afraid that sex with him would feel vaguely incestuous. Instead, once we got past the first awkward kiss, it felt normal.

  Okay, better than normal.

  All right, dammit! It felt wonderful.

  Nevertheless, as the coital glow faded, a wave of sadness washed over me. Lying next to him in the moon-softened darkness of my bedroom, I said, “We’re just settling, aren’t we?”

  “Settling?”

  “Settling for safe and comfortable because we’re afraid the real thing’s never going to come along?”

  “You want an escape clause?” he asked quietly.

  “Well, we ought to look at it logically.”

  For some reason, that seemed to irritate him. “Oh shit, Deb’rah Knott! You never looked at love logically in your whole damn life.”

  “But this isn’t love, is it? I mean, we love each other. We always have. But this isn’t romantic love. This is expedience. And I don’t know why you’re getting so huffy.”

  “Well, why wouldn’t I? You no sooner say yes than you’re looking for a way to bust us up. If we do this, I expect it to be for better or worse till death do us part. No more divorces.”

  “And what if someone comes along who makes you feel the way you felt when you and Jonna first fell in love?”

  “Not going to happen,” he said stubbornly. “And even if it does, I’ll just remind myself where that feeling ended up the last time around.”

  His denial of love’s importance made me so much sadder that I couldn’t speak and his head turned on the pillow beside me.

  “But if you want an escape clause, if that someone comes along for you... Well, then, I won’t try to make you stay, okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  He rolled closer and gathered me into his arms. “It’ll all work out, shug. You’ll see. It’ll be fine.”

  His hand was gentle as he smoothed my hair away from my face, and his soothing words reminded me of someone trying to reassure a nervous filly that the saddle wouldn’t hurt at all. Amused and comforted, I eventually quit nickering and took the carrot he offered on his open hand.

  After a second test of compatibility (we needed to be absolutely certain, didn’t we?), Dwight and I put our clothes back on and sat at my kitchen table to talk until after midnight.

  Over coffee and some of Maidie’s oatmeal cookies, we agreed that he’d move in with me after the wedding and we’d think about adding on to my small house in the spring.

  We also agreed he’d tell his mother and I’d tell Daddy; then he’d drive up to Virginia to tell Cal himself. Until then, to guard against any rumors reaching the boy first, no siblings and no friends.

  “Just Portland,” I emended. We’ve always told each other everything and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep her from guessing that something serious was on my mind.

  “That means Avery, too, you know.”

  I nodded. “It always has, but he’s never talked out of turn that I know of.” I looked at Dwight suspiciously. “Has he?”

  “Well, maybe to me once or twice,” he admitted sheepishly. “When he and Portland were worried about you out there messing in stuff that could get you hurt.”

  “So that’s how you found out,” I said, remembering a couple of those times when I’d have sworn there was no way he could know what I was up to. “Okay, Portland and Avery and nobody else till you tell Cal.”

  “You gonna want a big church wedding?”

  “Not really. You?”

  “Hell, no. I say we go stand in front of a magistrate. How about Gwen Utley next week sometime?”

  “Be serious, Dwight. There’s a lot of middle ground between a big church wedding and a magistrate’s court. Part of this is PR—show the voters I’m becoming a respectable married woman, remember? That means pictures in the newspaper and some sort of church ceremony. And you know how hurt the boys would be if we didn’t invite them to come. Or their wives if we didn’t let them do the reception.”

  Dwight laughed and leaned back in the wooden chair till he was extended his full length. “In other words, the usual big, sprawly Knott family celebration with two pigs on the cookers and half the county invited?”

  “It’ll probably be too cold for a pig-picking,” I murmured, sneaking a discreet glance at the fit of his jeans. My body still pinged and tingled like an overheated engine cooling down.

  “Too cold?” he scoffed. “It won’t get too cold till November.”

  “I was thinking the Christmas holidays,” I said. “When Cal could be here.”

  “Christmas!” He sounded dismayed. “That’s three whole months away.”

  “No, it’s not.” I pulled out a calendar and laid it on the table between us to count the weeks. “We’re practically into October, see? So it’s only ten or twelve weeks till Christmas vacation starts. We’ll need that much time to get it together. You’ll have to give notice on your apartment. I have to clear my court calendar and find a dress. Not white satin with a train and veil,” I assured him, “and you won’t have to wear a tux, but I think I ought to look a little bit bridal, don’t you?”

  There was a discreet glance of his own as he ran his eyes over my snug shirt. “I guess.”

  (Ping!)

  “It won’t be easy finding something for a matron of honor who’s gonna be about nine months pregnant,” I mused aloud, already making lists in my head.

  “You’re having bridesmaids?”

  “Just Portland. To balance your brother. You’ll want Rob to be your best man, won’t you?”

  He nodded. “Did you hear that he and Kate are expecting a baby?”

  “No! When?”

  “January or February.”

  Rob and Kate were already raising two children: her son, who was born after her first husband died, and her orphaned cousin, who was four or five when Kate married Rob. This would be their first child together.

  January or February? Nice. That should help distract Miss Emily’s attention from Dwight and me. I adore his eccentric mother, but sometimes she’s a real force of nature.

  We talked some more, then Dwight got up to go. I walked him out to the truck and he gave me a chaste goodnight kiss on the forehead. At least it started out chaste. We were both breathing heavily when we pulled apart.

  “No,” I said a little unsteadily, “not repulsive at all.”

  He laughed and stepped up into his truck.

  I watched till his taillights disappeared through the trees, then went back to bed where I lay awake another hour thinking about where I’d landed myself this time. It might not be a great and burning romance, it might be settling for safe and comfortable, but it was certainly going to have its compensations.

  (“Ping!” chortled the pragmatist.)

  (“Would you just quit that and go to sleep?” the preacher scolded.)

  (But I noticed he was grinning, too.)

  CHAPTER 12

  MONDAY MORNING

  I had just dragged myself out of bed, put on the coffee, and was now going through the daily ritual of deciding how to retrieve my morning newspaper. I could jog the half mile to the box at the end of my driveway, or I could pedal down on the dirt bike I’d bought secondhand from a niece who recently acquired her driver’s license, or I could cheat and drive. I’d about decided on the bike when I heard a car door slam. My back door stood open to the screened porch and April didn’t bother to knock.

  Automatically, I glanced at the clock. Seven-oh-five. Court didn’t start till nine, and I’d showered last night, so I had plenty of time, but I was under the impression that April’s school day started at eight so why was she over here in stained shorts and sneakers, no makeup, and a ravaged face? After Minnie, April’s the sturdiest, most got-it-together of my sisters-in-law, but today even her short br
own hair with its threads of gray stood up in un-combed tufts.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as my heart froze. “Daddy—?”

  Well past eighty now, he’s always my first thought when someone obviously bearing bad news shows up at my door unexpectedly.

  April shook her head mutely.

  “The kids?”

  “No, I sent them over to Seth and Minnie’s to spend the night and go on to school from there.” April was freckled all over, and now her face was red and splotchy as tears filled her hazel eyes and ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away with an impatient hand. “It’s Andrew.”

  “What’s wrong? Is he hurt? Sick?”

  “You tell me, Deborah. What happened over here Saturday?” she demanded. “He came back from seeing you and Mr. Kezzie and went straight to the bourbon. He’s been drunk ever since, cussing you and not too happy with Mr. Kezzie and sloppy maudlin over Ruth and A.K. He drinks till he passes out, then comes to just long enough to drink again. I haven’t seen him like this since before we were married and I’m scared, Deborah. What set him off?”

  “He won’t talk to you?”

  “No, and when I beg him to tell me what’s wrong, he just gets mad and starts cussing.”

  Alarmed, I asked, “He hasn’t hurt you, has he?”

  “Hit me, you mean?” Indignation stiffened her back. “No, of course not. He’ll never get that drunk.”

  All this time, I’d been getting her seated, pouring two mugs of coffee, and pushing sugar and milk at her in hopes that small routines might calm her down. Suggesting that Andrew might knock her around seemed to have done the trick. As Andrew’s third wife, April’s only got a few years on me and there’s no submissiveness in that marriage. Not on her part anyhow.

  I handed her a box of tissues and said, “April, you do know that Andrew was married before, don’t you?”

  “To Lois McAdams. So?”

  “Before Lois.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Carol somebody. Carol Hatcher?”

  “That’s right.”

  “She claimed Andrew was the father of her baby and her father made them get married. But after the baby was born, she ran off with it and—oh my God!” Her face went white beneath her freckles. “She’s back, isn’t she? And the divorce was never legal, was it?”

  “No, no, no,” I said before she could follow that train of thought right on into the station and start worrying that her children were bastards. “Carol’s dead. She died years ago. Before you and Andrew got married.”

  Having never met the woman, I could speak easily of her death.

  “Really? Does Andrew know? Is that why Mr. Kezzie called him over here? To tell him that? But why would that make him—?” She heard herself jittering and broke off with the first semblance of a smile. “And if I’ll shut up a minute, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”

  I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Carol’s dead, but her daughter’s come back to Colleton County. Andrew’s daughter. She owns her grandfather’s farm over near Widdington, and she also has a share of the carnival that’s playing at the harvest festival in Dobbs.”

  “Daughter? Olivia?” April was bewildered. “But Andrew said she wasn’t his. He wouldn’t lie to me about that.”

  “Maybe he’s honestly believed that all these years, or maybe he’s just talked himself into it, but trust me, honey. She’s his. He can get a DNA test if it’ll make him feel any better about it, but it’d just be a waste of money. She’s his child.”

  “You’ve met Olivia? Talked to her?”

  “I told you. She and her husband own part of the carnival that’s playing Dobbs. Her name is Tallahassee Ames now and it was her son that got killed Friday night.”

  April sat there numb and speechless, and I could almost see her brain working under that thatch of wild brown curls as she processed the data I’d just given her. I poured myself another coffee and brandished the pot toward her half-empty mug. She nodded and drank deeply.

  “If that’s true, he’d be Andrew’s grandson? My God! No wonder he’s crawled into a bottle.”

  “The funeral’s tomorrow morning at ten,” I told her. “Over at the homeplace.”

  She was bewildered. “Does everybody in the family know about this but me?”

  “No. Just Daddy and me. We were waiting for Andrew to talk to you before we told the others. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, though, does it?”

  I descibed how Daddy had been keeping tabs on the situation all these years and how Andrew had gone into denial Saturday afternoon and told us to leave him and his family out of it.

  “Well, that was pretty dumb of him,” she said in exasperation.

  “Maybe he feels guilty for not trying to find her in all these years,” I suggested neutrally.

  April is as practical as she is pretty and has more common sense than a farmer’s almanac. “Now, why would he feel guilty if he’s been sure all these years that the baby wasn’t his?”

  I shrugged.

  Her hazel eyes narrowed. “Carol told him she wasn’t.”

  “Yeah, but Mother told him she was,” I said, and described the visit Mother had made to the Hatcher farm when I was too young to remember, and how, when she finally persuaded him to return with her, Carol and Olivia were gone again.

  “In the end, which one do you think he really believed in his heart of hearts?” I asked her.

  There was a long silence, then April said softly, “Poor Andrew.”

  “Yes.”

  “And poor Olivia, too,” April said with returning briskness. “You say she calls herself Tallahassee now? That’s sort of cute, isn’t it? What’s she like, Deborah? Is she nice?”

  I shared with her my impressions of Tally Ames, her family, and her way of life and April listened intently while the clock edged closer to eight. When I’d finished, she said, “Use your phone?”

  Her first call was to her school to tell them that she wouldn’t be in that day and that the substitute would find today’s lesson plans on her desk under her roll book.

  Next, she called Robert, who lives here on the extended farm, too. He was on his way out to cut silage when Doris called him back in. April was concise. “Andrew’s drunk as a skunk, Robert. I’m going to call Seth to come help you, and I’d appreciate it if y’all would take him out to the barn, throw him under that cold shower out there and see if you can sober him up.”

  Lastly, she called Seth, explained that Robert needed his help with Andrew, then asked him to put Minnie on. Years in the classroom had given April the ability to convey a lot of information in clear, short sentences, and she explained the situation to Minnie a lot quicker than I could have done it.

  “So thanks for letting the kids stay over there last night and I’d appreciate it if you’d let all the others know about the funeral,” she said as she hung up.

  I admit that I was standing there with my mouth open.

  “I’m going to go take a shower and get dressed and drive over to Dobbs,” she told me. “Shouldn’t you be getting dressed, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  When she’d gone, I called Daddy to give him a heads-up on April and how she’d told Minnie to get the word out. “And I talked to Tally, too. The funeral’s scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

  “Yeah, Duck Aldcroft’s people are coming to open the grave this morning,” he said. “Anything else, shug?”

  “No,” I lied. “That’s about it.”

  “Fine,” he said, and hung up.

  Driving into Dobbs, my thoughts were focused on April, Andrew, and Tally, with forebodings about the funeral tomorrow, but as I started to get out of my car in the parking lot across the street from the courthouse, I saw Dwight heading toward the departmental lot diagonally across the street from where I was parked. The mere sight of him flooded all my senses and it was as if the bottom had dropped out of my stomach.

  He had his back to me and was in deep conversation with
three other officers. They stood there on the sidewalk talking for another moment or two before Raeford McLamb got into one of the squad cars with Jack Jamison, and Mayleen Richards went off alone in another. I saw Dwight check his watch, then he drove off alone, too.

  Yesterday, I would have called to him or certainly waved. Today, I just sat motionless, half in, half out of the seat until he’d driven away and I could start breathing normally again.

  Maidenly vapors or sudden misgivings?

  (“Get a grip,” said the pragmatist. “Think about last night. Remember compatibility? Remember Ping?”)

  (“Gonna be a long time till Christmas,” sighed the preacher.)

  By the time the DA and I’d disposed of sixty or seventy cases of DWI, speeding violations (I know, I know!), seat belt violations, improper equipment, etc., etc., I was back to normal.

  I recessed for lunch early, snagged Portland, and hauled her over to an end booth at the Bright Leaf Restaurant before the rest of the regulars came straggling over. Normally when the courts are in session, a table near the back is reserved for judges, and the waitress tried to seat me there, but I made her give us the most private booth in the place. Even so, the four elderly ladies two empty tables away looked at us as Portland squealed in a perfect blend of surprise, horror, and amusement.

  “You and Dwight? I don’t believe it.”

  “Will you keep your voice down?” I snapped. “This is for your ears only.”

  With black hair so curly she has to keep it short, Portland sometimes reminds me of a well-clipped poodle. Today, though, she was like a bright-eyed terrier on the scent of a weasel as she leaned forward conspiratorially. “So what’s he like in bed? Tell, tell!”

  “It was fine,” I said.

  “Only fine?” She gave me such a leer that I couldn’t restrain my own smile.

  “Actually, it was better than fine,” I confessed. “He probably learned a lot while he was in the Army.”

  “Well, that’s something anyhow. But marriage, Deborah? I mean, you know Avery and I are crazy about Dwight, but marriage? When you’re not in love with him?”