Bootlegger’s Daughter

22 lying eyes

Denn McCloy had played the aging punk for so long that it really surprised me when he emerged from his bedroom. He couldn’t do anything about the buzz cut on such short notice, but otherwise he might have been one of the middle-aged VPs over at First Federal: neat gray suit, white shirt, conservative tie, the works. He picked up on my surprise and shrugged. “Church and Christmas dinner with his parents. Michael was pretty conventional about some things.”

I had come back to the barn with Denn because he wanted to go to the funeral home, but he didn’t want to walk in alone. Even though it was stretching the attorney-client relationship, the whole situation was so bizarrely awkward that I couldn’t help sympathizing. Dwight just shook his head when he heard me agree to go, but what else could I do?

There was a powder room at the top of the stairs. “Make yourself at home,” Denn had said, so while he changed clothes in his bedroom, I’d taken a quick tour around the converted loft and decided to freshen my makeup in the master bathroom- Michael’s evidently-where the light was better. Despite the long day, my slacks and silk cardigan still looked fresh. A skirt would have been more appropriate, but at least I wasn’t wearing jeans.

Lily followed me in, flopped down on a towel that had been thrown on the floor, laid her muzzle on the cool tiles, and let out such a long sigh that I knelt and talked baby talk to her a minute. You always wonder how much they sense.

This was the first time I’d been upstairs at the Pot Shot, and I admit I was impressed with the quiet good taste and tidiness that permeated the whole apartment, especially Michael Vickery’s bedroom, which was on the opposite side of the loft from Denn’s quarters. In spite of the luxurious sand-colored carpet, the heavy handwoven beige coverlet on the king-sized bed, the expensive chests of blond oak, there was an austere feel to the room.

“Almost like a monk’s cloistered cell,” said the preacher approvingly.

“Yeah, if the monk had a Dancy trust fund,” jeered the pragmatist. “You don’t find these fabrics or those custom-built chests in a thrift shop. And look at those wall hangings. Like medieval tapestries!”

“Exactly. I knew Michael was religious, but not that he was so devout.”

“May I point out that you don’t have to be devout to hang works of art on your wall?”

“But look how they’re arranged-almost like an altar in a Gothic chapel. And I don’t care what you think, that’s certainly a cross.”

Pragmatist and preacher dissolved into pure curiosity as I righted the heavy ceramic cross that had fallen over on the chest top and looked closer at the wall hangings. There were two, approximately two feet wide by three and a half feet long; and each hung from its own heavy oak dowel that rested on inconspicuous oak pegs. Not strictly medieval now that I took another look. More a Pre-Raphaelite flavor to the figures woven into the scenes. The one on the left was a familiar-looking Madonna with long flowing brown hair, her luminous brown eyes fixed on the curly-haired infant in her lap. On the right was the woman taken in adultery, with the Christ figure pointing to a white stone in the foreground.

“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”

Surely an odd choice of subjects?

Between the two was an empty space about four feet wide, and I realized it held a third pair of pegs positioned slightly higher on the wall. One peg was snapped off flush. And there was the third dowel itself, wedged between the back edge of the chest and the wall. Was that what had knocked over the cross?

Dwight’s people had searched here, but they wouldn’t have disturbed things more than necessary and they would have left all as they found it. Certainly they wouldn’t have thrown a towel on the bathroom floor, nor dirtied the sink. Amid such disciplined tidiness, these anomalies leaped out at me.

I could almost see it happening: Michael had returned from the creek, seen that his truck was gone, questioned Cathy King, who was on her way home, and learned about Denn’s phone call to me. Cathy told Dwight that she’d left Michael loading one of the racks with greenware; and from the condition of the workshop, one of the other potters thought he must have put in at least an hour’s work.

After that, for some reason, he’d suddenly rushed upstairs, into the bathroom to wash the clay dust from his face and hands, then back here where he’d yanked down the middle panel in such a hurry that he’d broken one of the pegs and knocked over the cross.

And then what? Driven over to the theater with it? Why? And where was it now?

No sooner had Lily and I returned to the living room than Denn entered, properly dressed for a funeral. There was a lost look in his eyes when he mentioned Michael’s strong streak of conventionality, but I was too wired to be his comforter at that moment.

“Tell me, Denn, what was the middle tapestry in Michael’s bedroom?”

His head jerked up and his eyes blazed. “What the fuck were you doing in there?”

I stepped back involuntarily and he rushed past me toward Michael’s room.

“And how’d you get in?” he cried. “Pick the goddamned lock?”

“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to like that?” I shouted and strode after him with matching anger. He was on his knees in the hall, examining the lock on the door, and I saw immediately that it was a heavy-duty Yale lock, not the usual flimsy thing found on interior doors but one that required a key both to lock and unlock it. For some reason, the open door caused Denn to break down again and once more I was disarmed.

“It’s always locked,” he wept. “Always. No one’s allowed in when Michael’s not here. No one!”

“Not even you?” Surprised dissipated the rest of my anger.

“We each needed private space,” he said defensively as he pulled out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. “Michael didn’t go into my room uninvited either.”

Didn’t go/no one’s allowed. Where was Denn’s choice in the matter? I filed it in the back of my head.

“Dwight had a search warrant,” I said, “but that lock doesn’t look forced. You sure Michael wouldn’t have left it open when he rushed out?”

I told him about the crumpled towel, the dirty sink, and then the missing panel.

Denn stood as if dazed and uncomprehending.

“Why would he take it down?” I prodded. “What was the scene?”

“Scene?” he asked stupidly, staring at the empty wall a long moment. Then he sighed and shrugged his shoulder. “It wasn’t a scene. Just symbols of the Holy Ghost. You know-a white dove. Lilies. That sort of thing.”

“We have to call Dwight,” I said.

“Why?”

“If it wasn’t in the Volvo when I found Michael, that might mean he either gave it to someone or his killer took it. Either way, it could be important.”

We both looked at our watches.

“It’s eight o’clock,” Denn said plaintively.

He was right. Too soon for Dwight to have gotten back to Dobbs and getting too late if we wanted to have much time at the funeral home.

“I’ll call him from Aldcroft’s,” I said.

As we passed back through the living room, Denn suddenly darted over to the open shelves that lined the stairwell and landing. Samples of the Pot Shot’s products were displayed on lighted glass shelves like works of art.

“Here,” said Denn and presented me with a pitcher that had such subtle tones in the glazes that the colors seemed to glow with jewel-like intensity. I hated to think what it would cost in that expensive Atlanta store, but it felt good in my hands, with a nice balance and a well-designed lip. Just looking at it, I was positive this was one pitcher that would never let liquids drip or slop when I poured.

“It’s not much compensation,” said Denn, “but I really am sorry if I’ve damaged your campaign.”

“Sorry enough to let Linsey Thomas run a statement from you in the next Ledger?” I asked.

“I-yeah, okay. I guess I owe you that, too.”

Downstairs, he found a box, swathed the pitcher with tissues, and set it on the backseat of my little sports car. Lily watched with resignation as we drove off and left her sitting in the dooryard again.

Aldcrofts have been burying the dead of Cotton Grove and Colleton County from this location on Front Street for more than a hundred years; and with two Aldcroft sons recently graduated from mortuary school, it looked as if they were going to continue on into the twenty-first century.

When the first Aldcroft’s burned down around 1910, they had replaced it with a stately white mansion reminiscent of Tara; and though the interior’s been remodeled and modernized over the years, the exterior remains firmly antebellum. Across the front was a wide veranda graced by huge columns with Corinthian capitals. Inside were wide halls and three spacious viewing rooms furnished with comfortable sofas and soft chairs. Tall, gilt-framed mirrors on the wall reflected the subdued pink light cast by lamps with pale rose-colored glass shades.

The wide parking lot was so jammed when we arrived that I had to park on the street a half block away. Even though it was a quarter past eight, there was still a line of people that extended from the front door, across the veranda, and halfway down the broad front steps.

“Oh God!” moaned Denn as we drew near. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“Yes, you can,” I soothed. “These are your friends, too.”

Taking his arm, we walked across the veranda and those who recognized Denn stepped back to let us pass up the shallow steps and into the crowded hall. It was just a little unnerving the way a point of silence preceded us, while a cone of low buzzing followed in our wake.

“Natural human solicitude,” whispered the preacher.

The pragmatist was too busy responding to solemn smiles and sober handshakes and trying to get a handle on the mood to remark on natural human gossips.

At most visitations, the recently deceased is the natural focal point. As a rule, collateral members of the family-cousins, nieces and nephews, or aunts and uncles-form a sort of receiving line on the right, just inside the doorway. You’ve come to pay your respects, so you’re passed along the line till you arrive at the open coffin, where there is a moment of silence, a moment to gaze with good remembrances (often), or hungry curiosity (always), upon that still face forever silent till the trump of judgment calls it from the grave.

A closed coffin seems somehow almost antisocial. Even where there are compelling reasons for it, as with Michael, there’s always a sense of something incomplete when one is confronted with nothing more than polished wood and a blanket of carnations and baby’s breath.

Then the line moves again and now you are face-to-face with the immediate family.

I have been to wakes of unloved men that were like Sunday afternoon socials where folks caught up on their visiting and almost forgot the reason they’d come together. I’ve been to wakes for well-loved matriarchs of large families and seen such gladness for release from long or painful illnesses that the wakes often turned into bittersweet celebrations of their lives. Tragic are the wakes for toddlers, more tragic still for children and youths cut down in the morning of their lives with all those shining possibilities consigned to the grave. If I never attend another funeral for a teenager killed in a car crash, it will be too soon.

Until now though, Janie Whitehead’s was the only wake for a murdered person that I’d attended and if there was a pattern, it lay in the numb disbelief of the victim’s loved ones and in the low-voiced speculations of their friends.

Denn’s presence exacerbated both.

Yet people were tactful and kind. Michael’s two sisters and their husbands and three adolescent children were first in the family line beyond the coffin and they closed ranks around Denn as soon as we had found a pathway through the crush of mourners. Each sister squeezed his arm, each brother-in-law and Dr. Vickery gave him a firm handclasp, and even Mrs. Vickery held out her hands and lifted her ravaged face for a formal kiss. Then the sisters positioned themselves on each side of him, so as to minimize any remaining awkwardness.

And I had not been wrong when I reminded Denn that many of these people were his friends, too. Most were firmly against homosexuality in theory. Most were also firmly against atheism, secular humanism, adultery, alcoholism, kleptomania, and a whole range of other things people did or were that deviated from the perceived norm; and that didn’t stop them from looking past all that if the person was basically decent and didn’t do whatever it was in the middle of the road and scare the mules.

Michael and Denn had been liked for who they were and for their positive contributions to the community, and there were wreaths from both the volunteer fire department and the Possum Creek Players to prove it.

Nevertheless, I could feel an unusual electricity in the air, and I’m sure more than one person wondered when they murmured condolences and shook Denn’s hand why Denn wasn’t in jail or at least under heavy bond.

When I had been through the line and signed the register, I went down the rear hall to the business office and used their phone to call Dwight.

“A what?” he asked.

Patiently I described the tapestry wall hanging as Denn had described it to me.

“No,” said Dwight. “There was nothing like that in the car. I’ll get Fletcher to make a sketch of it tomorrow and we’ll keep an eye out for it.”