Up Jumps the Devil

22

« ^ » Many of the old residenters in the inland counties of this province... have, in general, little inclination to mingle with the new-comers, who now arrive in such crowds. . .“Scotus Americanus,” 1773

I went to sleep Monday night firmly resolved to mind my own business and stay out of things.

Tuesday morning I showered, dressed in a simple, long-sleeved black knit turtleneck dress with black tights and Cuban heels, and snagged a cup of coffee on my way through the kitchen.

“At least let me toast you a bagel,” said Aunt Zell.

(She was so pleased when Winn-Dixie added bagels to their in-house bakery. I myself still find it hard to believe that there are enough people in Dobbs who even know what a bagel is to make stocking them economically feasible for Winn-Dixie.)

“No time,” I said. “I have an early court date with Portland.”

Uncle Ash smeared a dab of cream cheese on half of his blueberry bagel and held it out to me. “If you don’t eat, your aunt worries. Portland can wait.”

I dropped a kiss on his white head, took a bite of his bagel, and left the rest for him.

“Just because she’s your niece doesn’t mean you can fritter away her time,” I said, and hurried on out to my car.

Driving over to the courthouse, I kept thinking about Daddy and Adam and the pawprints Blue and Ladybelle had left outside the garage door where Jap Stancil was struck down.

After the rain. Sometime between midnight and when I found them with Adam.

And thinking of Adam, did he burn his hand on a brush fire? Or was it an acetylene torch?

I convened court fifteen minutes earlier than usual.

A grim-faced Portland was seated at the defendant’s table. She wore an authoritative, don’t-mess-with-me coat-dress of power red. Beside her sat two very apprehensive people, Timothy Collins and Diana Henderson.

Ambrose Daughtridge, who had represented Clea Beecham and her small daughter, sat at the opposing table. Mid-fifties, silver-haired, soft-spoken and courtly, he looks as if he should be cataloging books in a library at some small elite college.

I fixed the two miscreants with what I hoped was a steely eye and said, “It has come to my attention that there may have been some irregularities in the paternity testing procedure done by you, Mrs. Henderson, resulting in some false testimony in the trial. I’m going to give you and Mr. Collins each an opportunity now to correct any testimony you may have given during the trial. I warn you that perjury and subornation of perjury are both felonies that carry serious penalties. Now, before I refer this matter to the DA for investigation of these charges, do either of you have anything to say?”

Collins wanted to stonewall, but Mrs. Henderson started crying almost immediately.

It was a shabby story that unfolded in the next few minutes. Each blamed the other for initiating the lie, but the end disclosure was that Collins paid her five hundred dollars in return for testimony that would let him weasel out of giving any support to his daughter.

I thought of Dwight, who paid above and beyond for his son Cal.

I thought of all the time and money Kidd devoted to his daughter Amber.

Hell, even Allen, scoundrel that he was, not only paid for his daughter Wendy Nicole (admittedly not always on time), he was actually helping his girlfriend out with her daughter, little Tiffany Jane.

But Timothy Collins, white-collar civil engineer, was ready to walk away from two-year-old Brittany, a baby he helped make, as if she were nothing more than a kitten or puppy that could be returned to the pet store for all he cared just so long as the monthly payments didn’t show up on his charge card statements.

Dwight and Kidd and Allen were—

I lost the rest of that thought because something niggled at the perimeter of my mind. Something not only niggled, it danced up and down and yelled, “Hey! Over here! Pay attention!”

Diana Henderson? I checked back through the records. Jamerson Labs is headquartered in Burlington, only a stone’s throw from Greensboro.

As I’d noticed before, her eyes were her best facial feature, but they were red and tear-drenched now. Her long nose was also red and her recessive chin quivered with suppressed sobs as I set about trying to undo the damage they’d done.

I asked my recording clerk to prepare a transcript of this morning’s session and to deliver it to the DA, who would probably initiate an investigation of Mrs. Henderson’s previous court appearances. I told Mrs. Henderson that she could expect him to notify the appropriate agencies as well.

“And, Mr. Daughtridge? If you wish to file a motion to set aside my earlier verdict, along with a motion for a new trial, I will allow it.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

I ended the session by calling for a ten-minute recess before getting into the day’s calendar. As everyone stood for me to leave the courtroom, Timothy Collins glanced at Portland. “Guess you want me to find another attorney?”

“Yes, Mr. Collins, I certainly do,” she answered crisply.

I poured myself a cup of coffee from the communal urn in the hallway and went on into my chamber, not realizing that Diana Henderson had followed.

She stood in my doorway and fumbled with her coat. Early forties, ash blond hair and not a pretty face, but her voice still had that lovely timbre as she said, “May I speak to you a minute, Your Honor?”

When I nodded, she came in and closed the door and headed for the chair by my desk. I kept trying to look at her from a male viewpoint. The dark green knit dress she wore demurely flattered a nicely proportioned body, accenting slender hips and full rounded breasts.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked fearfully.

“I can’t say,” I replied, “but I suggest that you retain an attorney as soon as possible.”

Another flood of tears.

She seemed to have reduced all her tissues to damp shreds, so I went into the lavatory off my office and brought her some paper towels and toilet tissue.

“Thank you.” She blew her nose and looked up at me. I was still standing beside her chair.

“Oh, God! Why did I ever let him talk me into this?” she sobbed.

I would have felt sorrier for her had not a strong conviction been growing inside me with every sob.

Her green knit dress had a loose cowl neckline.

“May I?” I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I pulled it down over her left shoulder.

There, where Allen’s hand would have rested when they walked arm in arm, was a small black star. The day she had testified, it was not a mole I had noticed under her semi-sheer white blouse. It was another one of those damn tattoos.

“How much did Allen Stancil pay you to lie for him?” I asked her. “Or did you take it out in trade?”

My court calendar was longer than usual as the DA tried to schedule as many cases as possible in light of the Thanksgiving holiday coming up.

Despite all that I had on my mind, I applied myself just as diligently as Cyl DeGraffenried, the ADA who was prosecuting that day. I kept our mid-session recesses to ten minutes and allowed only forty-five minutes for lunch. We got through everything except a small handful of defendants represented by Zack Young, who seemed to have disappeared even though he’d been in and out of my court all afternoon. I sent the bailiff out to look for him and asked my clerk to call his office, but I knew as well as Cyl that both would come back empty. When Zack doesn’t want to be found, nobody’s seen him.

“On behalf of the court, I apologize,” I told his waiting clients, “but because Mr. Young can’t be found, you’ll have to come back another day. I’m here, Ms. DeGraffenried is here, you’re here. But your attorney isn’t and we can’t proceed without him. Come on up after I adjourn and she’ll reschedule your appearance. If this is an inconvenience, if you’re mad because you’ve wasted the whole day sitting here, don’t blame the court, blame Mr. Young. This court is adjourned.”

“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” said the bailiff.

Out of curiosity, I left the door of my chamber open. It wasn’t two minutes before Zack Young sauntered past.

He nodded to me, pokerfaced. “Judge.”

“Mr. Young.” I play poker, too.

He continued on down to the courtroom to oversee the rescheduling of his clients, and it was hard for me not to chortle out loud.

Zack’s probably the best criminal lawyer in the state. If I ever get charged with anything serious, he’s the one I’ll retain in a heartbeat.

He had entered Not Guilty pleas for every one of those clients left waiting at the end of the day, but he clearly didn’t want to argue their cases before me.

It was the first time he’d ever gone judge-shopping when I was the one scheduled to hear his cases.

Hot damn!

I went by Dwight’s office to tell him about the promissory note between Mr. Jap and Dick Sutterly which Allen and I had found in Mr. Jap’s burial papers. He wasn’t there so I scribbled the details on his scratch pad and left it on his desk.

It was still chilly when I left the courthouse and headed for my car, but warmer weather was predicted by tomorrow morning. In the car just exiting from the parking lot, I saw a familiar face, but he didn’t seem to see me even though I waved.

Adam.

And there getting into his own car was Dick Sutterly. He must have thought I was waving at him for he waved back and waited, beaming, till I came up to him.

“Was that my brother who just left?”

“Oh, yes indeed, Judge!” He grabbed my hand and shook it enthusiastically. “And let me say how pleased I am. You know, when we were talking the other day, I got the impression that you opposed my plans, but Adam—Mr. Knott—said I must have misunderstood. I really do appreciate y’all’s cooperation.”

In his euphoria, his cheeks were pinker than I’d ever seen and his eyes glowed with visions of the future. “I know people throw off on some of the places I’ve built, but this is going to change their minds. This is going to be my Carolina Trace! My Fearrington Village! A self-contained clustered village with lake and shops and—” He suddenly seemed to realize that his tongue was running away with him and he looked around warily. “But not a word to that Allen Stancil or Merrilee Grimes, okay? We don’t want any talk of Phase One to get out before we can get a lock on the land for Phase Two.”

It was as if the ground had begun to open up beneath my feet. Somehow I managed to keep my face friendly and my voice normal. “So you and Adam were able to come to terms?”

“He drives a mighty hard bargain,” Sutterly said ruefully, “but I won’t register this deed either, till after disposition of the Stancil land. We’re still hoping not to have to pay top dollar, so not a word now!”

“My lips are sealed,” I told him.

My car was an icebox and I sat there a long moment chilling out and trying to put all the pieces together.

A clustered village? Shops? Something as upscale as those two developments Sutterly had mentioned?

After watching Jerry Upchurch’s restaurant take off, I wasn’t about to predict what could succeed and what would fail out here in the country, but unless Dick Sutterly was blowing soap bubbles, this could be a multimillion-dollar operation. So who was the “we” with the big bankroll? G. Hooks Talbert and his hunting partner, the well-barbered Tom?

“I won’t register this deed either,” Sutterly had said, which implied more than the single deed to Adam’s land. Phase One must be Leo Pleasant’s farm and Talbert Nursery, with Adam’s 2.9 acres as the crucial connector. Right there was enough land to make a huge start.

If Phase Two were the Stancil farm…?

Mr. Jap had let slip last Friday that he was planning to sell some of his land as soon as he had title to it, a plan confirmed by that promissory note he’d signed to Dick Sutterly.

What if Mr. Jap’s murder wasn’t about stolen corn money or unsigned wills? What if it was really about selling land that bordered Daddy’s along Possum Creek? Mr. Jap had told me not to tell Daddy, but why did Daddy himself tell Adam and me to keep quiet about any land deals? Did he suspect Adam was selling us out?

I should have broken my word to Adam. I should have warned Daddy and rallied my brothers to buy Adam’s land for whatever it took, instead of letting Dick Sutterly buy it.

Sixty thousand—the going value of a mess of pottage these days.