“No,” Victoria said with a laugh. “I went to the governor’s mansion.”
“Unannounced?”
“I hear that’s how things get done these days.”
“You’re going to make a great congresswoman. It will be a pleasure serving you.”
“Time will tell, my friend,” Victoria said. “For now, we’ve got a race to run. It isn’t over until tomorrow night, and Mitchell has been on the street, going door-to-door, all week.”
“She doesn’t make it easy.”
“Mitchell never does,” Victoria said. “If we’re lucky, maybe she’ll run for mayor.”
“You think Atlanta is ready for a white mayor?”
“The demographics have changed a lot over the last few election cycles. More black folks are moving to the suburbs, where they can get a bigger house and better schools. And, well, the city is full of new condominium complexes.”
“And gentrification.”
“Yes, and gentrification,” Victoria said.
“I assume you’ve heard the news about Richard Lester?”
“Feels like forever since I saw him,” Victoria said. “It doesn’t make it any easier. We were close in high school. Never thought he’d end up like that. It’s a shame, really. He could’ve been sitting right here in this seat. Dickey was always smarter than me.”
“He wasn’t in the lockup for three good hours,” Huggins said. “Somebody must’ve wanted him bad.”
“Dickey had a lot of enemies, and he earned every one of them.”
“We’ve got to get going. You’ve got a round of television interviews on your calendar this morning, and then we’re packed with campaign stops until late tonight.”
“I’ll be out in a minute,” Victoria said. “I’ve got a call or two to make.”
Huggins closed the door, and suddenly Victoria was alone again. She reached into her desk, pulled out a manila envelope, and emptied out the contents. Her daughter Mahalia had been right the first time.
A paper god.
She’d spent weeks trying to discern their meaning, unable to wrap her head around what was happening. She’d been caught up in the horror of it all and hadn’t even trusted her own police chief with her suspicions. She never loved Dickey, she knew that for sure now, but the fact that he openly admitted to being behind the murders took her breath away. He’d talked about Ezra and Chip like he was knocking pawns off a chessboard.
She ran her fingers across the fine edges and admired her own craftsmanship. She’d chosen black silk paper. She was overcome with its graceful silence, the finality of it all.
* * *
At exactly 8 A.M., Victoria strode into the E. Rivers Elementary School gymnasium on Peachtree Battle Avenue. A bank of cameras followed her in as she signed her name on the roll, presented her driver’s license, and stepped to the ballot box. Marsh was in the booth next to her. There was one race on the ballot, the special election for U.S. Congressional District 15, and two names.
She said a silent prayer and checked the box next to her own name.
Rosetta and their twin daughters waited near a checkout table while she and her husband collected their stickers.
“I know who you voted for,” he said with a broad smile.
“It’s a secret ballot, Dr. Overstreet, protected by the Constitution.”
They kissed for the cameras and she waved to supporters as she exited the building.
“You gotta believe!” a man shouted from the parking lot.
Victoria raised her fists in the air and pumped them. “You gotta believe,” she said.
“Honey,” she said, turning to Marsh, “I’ve got a stop to make. I’ll see you back at the house later.”
“What time should we get to Centennial Park?”
“We canceled the concert,” she said. “We’re going back to Ebenezer. We can have dinner at home first.”
“I started looking at homes in the District,” he said. “I found a few you might like, and I made a call to Sidwell Friends too. The admissions officer is eager to meet Maya and Hallie.”
“I think we should stay right here in Georgia,” Victoria said. “I’m not interested in taking the girls out of school, and you’ve got to be here to run your practice. I’ll commute. Let the work fall on me.”
Eleven minutes later, Victoria entered the Cathedral of Saint Philip through the forward sanctuary doors. The glorious room, with its polished hardwoods and stained-glass windows, was more wonderful than she had remembered. She’d been here only once before, for a christening some years ago.
The long narrow center aisle, lit up by candles, led to the pulpit. She took a seat in the end row, rested against the wood, and watched a man as he knelt at the altar.
Dickey was dead now, by her order, and she was at peace with that. There had been a struggle, she was told. He was found in his bunk with a sheet wrapped around his throat, just hours after he’d been booked into the jail. By the time the federal transport van arrived, Dickey was already in the morgue.
No one came to claim him.
“Forgive me, Father,” she whispered.
Victoria could hear the man on the altar praying, uttering something indiscernible from the distance. She watched as he lifted his hands toward a cross draped in purple sheeting. That they were here, together now, in this church, weighed on her. Pelosi had begged against it, but there were some things that she had to see through for herself.
When justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but terror to evildoers.
PROVERBS 21:15.
She crossed her heart, stood up, and walked down the aisle. As she approached, the man continued to pray. She could hear the longing in his voice now, the tearful pleadings of a broken spirit. He saw her and immediately recoiled. He had been crying, she could tell. His face was swollen with grief. She wanted to feel something, but found nothing.
“God works in mysterious ways,” she said.
“We have some things to work out,” he said.
“You’ve run out of things I want,” Victoria said. “I worked things out with Dickey.”
“You killed him, didn’t you?”
Victoria let the question fall away and said, “Sometime next fall, a new school will open in South Africa. I thought you would want to know that I endowed the academy in your name: The John Virgil Loudermilk School for Girls.”
“This war between you and me is over as far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“You always were the kind to confuse the battle with a war,” she said. “I come in peace, yours and mine.”
She pitched the folded black dragon at his feet and walked away.
“God help me,” he said.
EPILOGUE
It took some doing, but Whit Delacourte had the day to himself. Thanks to the shots of bourbon he’d had after supper last night, his stomach was in knots. Between that and the dull throb in his head, Whit thought the day could only get better. Besides, the Good Lord saw fit to let it rain and kept Patsy Jo’s mouth shut long enough for him to get a decent night’s sleep. He knew little about what his wife had planned that day, except that she was on the way up over to Phipps and his accountant was likely to get an itemized bill from American Express, spelling out the damage, at some point. His wife was no doubt behind the wheel of her convertible CL Mercedes, her glorious mane of silver-gray hair flowing in the wind.
It was late morning when he finally crawled out of bed, slipped on a pair of drawstring pajama pants, and reluctantly parted the balcony doors. Blinding sunlight poured into the bedroom, creeping over the furniture, casting hard-edged shadows. He propped himself against the doorjamb, squinting just hard enough to see his twin granddaughters, Maya and Mahalia, play hand-clapping games under the pagoda.
I wish I had a nickel, I wish I had a dime,
I wish I had a boyfriend to kiss me all the time!
His lungs craved smoke, though he denied himself the pleasure of heading over to the filling station for a fresh p
ack of Marlboros. It’d been six months since he had his last cigarette. For the first seventy-two hours, he thought he was going to jump clean out of his skin. It took everything he had not to go digging around in the kitchen trash in search of discarded butts with at least two good puffs left on them.
Whit was convinced that Dr. Kessler had it in for him. He was, after all, the same Trip Kessler who’d lost his high school sweetheart to Whit two days before the ’67 Westminster High School prom. The girl in question was Patricia Jolene Lindsey. Whit picked her up in his daddy’s brand-new Cadillac, married her six years later, and spent nearly every day since wishing he could give her back. He wasn’t thinking any better of his beloved the day she dragged him over to Kessler’s office for a checkup. Dr. Kessler told Whit that if he kept living like there was no tomorrow, pretty soon one day there wouldn’t be.
“You must have some kind of death wish,” Dr. Kessler had said, looking up from the patient chart.
“So, I got a little winded on that fancy machine of yours,” Whit said. “A man my age ain’t got any business running anyhow.”
“I’m recommending drug therapy.”
“Well, write me a prescription and I’ll be on my way.”
“You’ll have to change your diet and start exercising too.”
“Here we go,” Whit said, twirling his muddy brown eyes in the air. “I’m going to eat what I’m going to eat. The next thing you’re going to tell me is that I can’t have fried pork chops.”
“And work a little less,” Dr. Kessler said.
Whit shrugged again and said, “That’ll be the day.”
“And quit smoking.”
Whit let out a hard grunt. “I’m trying,” he said.
“Think about your grandchildren, Whit,” Patsy said. “You want to be around to see your granddaughters get married, don’t you?”
“Not if I’m footing the tab,” Whit said with a chuckle.
“Whit Delacourte, this is serious business,” Patsy said. “We’re talking about your life, here.”
Whit assessed the situation and determined he was cornered. “Alright, alright,” Whit said, waving her away. “Tell me what I gotta do, Trip.”
Before they left the doctor’s office that day, Whit was forced to swear on his mother’s grave that he’d give up tobacco, whiskey, and anything deep-fried in Crisco, though he begged for a reprieve on Jack Daniel’s at least until regular-season college football was over and longer if (by the grace of God and despite losing to second-ranked Alabama last year) the Georgia Bulldogs advanced to the SEC championship game, which in Whit’s mind was a foregone conclusion since Mark Richt was head coach and Aaron Murray was throwing the ball.
Patsy snorted, folded her arms across her chest, and said, “You can watch football without your friend Jack. And I hate to break it to you, but Georgia ain’t going to the big show anyway. You and I both know that.”
Whit answered with a knowing nod, silently conceding both the fate of the Dawgs and his own declining health. “Maybe not this year or the next, but they’ll get there.”
Patsy rolled her eyes.
“Fine,” Whit said finally. “No more liquor.”
“You swear?” Patsy said.
“On my dear mama’s grave,” Whit replied, tossing his meaty palm in the air. “Are you happy now?”
Whit had no intention of keeping that promise. Besides, his mother had been dead for close to ten years, and he could see no harm coming to her just because he had a shot of whiskey every now and then, not to mention Emma Louise Delacourte died loving liquor and Georgia football (preferably in big doses and at the same time) almost as much as he did.
To everybody’s surprise, including Whit’s, he stayed dry for nearly three weeks before he gave in to the temptation of a round of shots at Chops. One thing led to another, and before he knew it, he was spilled out all over the passenger seat of his Dodge Ram pickup truck, singing Travis Tritt’s “Walkin’ All Over My Heart.” This time, like the last, Lucky Mitchell came to fetch him and drove him home.
Patsy shook her head as she watched him stumble up the redbrick walkway sometime after 2 A.M. She opened the screen door and stood to the side to let him by. Patsy mumbled something under her breath. She didn’t know which one she was madder about: the drinking or the fact that he’d missed dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, who’d come all the way from D.C. with their granddaughters to see them. He shuffled up the winding stairwell, stripped down to his skivvies, and crawled into bed.
Whit figured Patsy was blazing through Saks Fifth Avenue by now, where she would try her able best to spend him into the poorhouse. She would rest her feet over chamomile tea and frosted petits fours at the St. Regis Hotel.
A book rested on the nightstand. He’d promised himself he would get around to it at some point. Whit had reluctantly sat for hours of interviews with Hampton Bridges.
“Might as well tell it,” he started.
His brother, Virgil, was dead now, shot dead in a robbery gone bad as he left the Cathedral of Saint Philip on Peachtree. The assailants were never caught. They left his pockets turned inside out and a bullet in his chest.
Watching his granddaughters play in the yard below, Whit released the tinge of regret perched in the small of his back. It had been a year since Virgil died and six months since he and Rosetta sat down with Victoria. There had been a lump of tears, mostly from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “We did what we thought was right.”
Victoria reached over, hugged his neck, and said, “I’m sorry too.”
“I want to make it up to you, if you’ll let me,” Whit said.
“You’ve given me all I will ever need,” Victoria said wistfully.
The girls were still small enough to snuggle up in the bend of his arms. He figured it would be soon enough before they developed a taste for designer clothes and started treating their granddaddy like an all-night cash box. At that moment, Whit couldn’t think of anything he wouldn’t give them.
Maya and Mahalia headed back toward the house. Whit smiled. His eyes glistened as they skipped through the stand of magnolia trees that lined both sides of the redbrick drive. If there was anything he loved more than watching them, he couldn’t think of it right then. They were as beautiful as the day itself, though the slightly damp wind and its earthy smell promised more rain.
Whit stepped out onto the long balcony, barefoot and shirtless, wearing only the pair of rumpled lounging pants he’d fished out of the hamper. He eased into the large wicker armchair and rested his feet on the padded footstool. There, underneath one of three Marble Queens suspended from the veranda roof, he closed his eyes and surrendered to the day. He decided going after cigarettes was a bad idea. After all, he was in no mood to drive, had no idea where his truck was, and knew those sweet little granddaughters of his would tattle on him as surely as day leads to night.
He took a deep breath, let his chest fill with air, and decided Patsy Jo wasn’t so bad after all.
Miss Bea appeared before him with a serving tray. “I didn’t mean to wake you, Mr. Delacourte,” she said.
“I wasn’t sleeping,” he said with one eye open and one eye closed.
“I thought you might want to put a little something in your stomach,” Miss Bea said, setting the tray down on a side table.
Whit opened the other eye, pulled himself up from a slump, planted his chubby feet on the deck boards, and let out a soft grunt, which Miss Bea took as a yes.
He reached over, unfurled the cloth covering the small basket of buttermilk biscuits, and let the warmth escape. “They do look good,” he said. “Perfect as always.”
“I hear Cole is moving to Florida.”
“Week after next. With the divorce and all, the change of scenery might be good for him.”
“You oughta take it easy, Mr. Delacourte,” Miss Bea said, pouring the coffee. “You’re a long way past twenty-five.”
“Oh, I’m alright, Bea. A little
bourbon ain’t never hurt nobody. Hell, I’ve been drinking since I was—”
“—fifteen,” she said, finishing the story she’d not only witnessed but had also heard a hundred times.
Miss Bea had caught young Whit and his brother, Virgil, sneaking nips of his father’s whiskey. Big Whit had been angry, but Miss Emma Louise wrote it all off to the gene pool. The boys got off scot-free without so much as a swat to their backsides.
“How long have you been with us, Bea?”
“Longer than I ever thought I would be,” she answered with a pearly smile.
“No, really, Bea. How long has it been?”
“Too dern long.”
“Hell, you raised us up, Miss Bea,” Whit said, laughing.
“And you ain’t no better for it,” she said.
“I should give you a raise.”
“Mr. Delacourte, you gave me a pay raise three months ago and another one six months before that.”
“Well, I’m the boss, and I say it’s time for another one. You can retire anytime you want to, you know? We’ll take care of things like we always have.”
“You know I appreciate it. You won’t ever hear of me turning away good money,” Miss Bea said as she left the balcony.
“Is there any such thing as bad money?” Whit called after her.
He smeared the first biscuit with a dollop of apple butter, ate it, decided it tasted like heaven, and had a bite of a second. He could hear the girls singing again as he lifted the elegant porcelain cup to his lips. From the sound of things, they’d made their way into the house. That was a good thing, seeing as how the light drizzle had turned into a hard, insistent rain.
Victoria found him two hours later, sprawled out on his back across the cushioned deck chair, his mouth slightly open, snoring like a two-day-old kitten. She kissed his forehead and crawled in beside him.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is near on midnight, two days before Christmas, and my two grandchildren are snuggled together in my bed, their heads rustling with curiosities and dreams. Their mothers, my daughters, are two of the most amazingly beautiful women I have ever known. The eldest, Katherine, is here with me tonight and together we are struggling in the darkness to find enough space for the four of us—the children, her, and me. My baby girl, Haley, is now a woman in fullness, too, and is herself the mother of the wickedly smart four-year-old, whose warm brown toes are nestled against my tummy. She is, like her mother, the perfection of my reflection.
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