Killer Market

14

« ^ » “Such industry tends towards introducing union and the mutual sympathy of a common destiny among mankind in the place of the jealousies and isolations which have hitherto marked the progress of humanity upon this planet.”The Great Industries of the United States, 1872

It was nearly eleven before the last visitor left and I was still on the shadowy porch, by then half drowsing beneath a Peruvian shawl on Pell’s wicker swing.

Drew had gone back over to Dixie’s and must have left from there because she wasn’t with the others when they came to see about the girls.

“You might as well let Shirley Jane stay over,” Dixie told the Ragsdales as they settled wearily into wicker chairs. “Lynnette’s spent the night here before so it wouldn’t feel strange to her if she should wake up. You don’t mind, do you, Pell?”

Pell made a murmur of assent from the other end of the swing.

“He’s very good with children,” said Dixie.

“I’m sure,” said Millie’s husband.

Two clipped syllables, but they told me everything I needed to hear about Quentin Ragsdale’s opinion of homosexuals.

“We’ll go on to Chan’s house,” said Millie. “It’s not all that far and I have a key.”

“Don’t be silly,” Dixie protested. “It’s fifteen miles. You and Quentin can have the guest room, Shirley Jane and Lynnette can sleep in my room if you want her near you and I’ll take the couch.”

I gathered by this that the California decorina had probably found a bed somewhere with a more partylike atmosphere.

“Thank you,” said Millie, “but I really think we’d all be more comfortable if Quentin and I took the girls and went over there. Besides, I’ll need to look through Chan’s papers and see about transferring Lynnie’s school records.”

“School records?” asked Pell.

“I know it’s late in the year, but the quicker we can get her settled into her new school, the easier it’ll be on her.”

“Wait a minute!” said Dixie. “What the L-M-N are you talking about? You’re not taking Lynnette anywhere.”

“But surely you know that Chan asked me to be her guardian if anything happened to him?”

Pell turned to Dixie. “I thought you said Chan tore up that will.”

“He did. Last week when he applied for passports. He was going through the papers in his lockbox, looking for Lynnette’s birth certificate. He saw how hard this move was on me and asked if I’d feel better about things if he made me her guardian. And then he took out the envelope that had his will in it and tore it in half.”

“Did he make a new will?” Quentin Ragsdale asked sharply.

“I don’t know,” Dixie said. “All I know is that he tore up the old one. I saw him.”

“But if he didn’t make a new one, I still have the copy he sent me and he definitely named me executor and guardian.” Millie gazed at Dixie with tearful defiance. “It’s what my brother wanted.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Ragsdale,” I said, “but is your copy signed and witnessed or notarized?”

She wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “No.”

“Then I suggest you hire an attorney. Without a signed will, it’ll be up to the court to decide who’ll administer your brother’s estate and have guardianship of his child.”

“Who are you?” she asked peevishly, not remembering which one I was of the many that she’d met in the past few hours. “Do we know you?”

“No,” I said.

“She’s my friend,” Dixie told her. “Deborah Knott. Judge Deborah Knott.”

Quentin Ragsdale gave me an angry look. “I thought judges weren’t allowed to practice law or give legal advice.”

I shrugged. “That wasn’t legal advice. That was just common sense.”

“Look,” Pell said in a reasonable voice. “You people don’t want to get into a fight over Lynnette tonight, do you? You’re tired and unhappy and—”

“And we don’t need any of your pansy platitudes,” said Ragsdale.

“Now just a minute,” Dixie said, jumping to her feet.

“Grandmama?” Lynnette stood at the porch door in her nightgown, barefooted, her braid half undone, sleepy-eyed and troubled. “How come everybody’s yelling?”

“Oh, sweetie, we’re not yelling,” said Millie before Dixie could answer. She held out her arms to the child. “Not really. We’re just upset ’cause we’re missing your daddy.”

“Me, too,” said Lynnette, who went to her and crawled willingly into her lap. Her aunt smoothed her tousled hair away from her face and rocked back and forth until everyone calmed down. Quentin, as well.

The mild spring night worked its magic and when Pell brought a jug of rosé out to the porch, Quentin Ragsdale even accepted a glass without any homophobic hostility.

Millie began to tell Dixie, Pell and Lynnette about some incident from Chan’s childhood and Quentin turned to me. “Judge, eh?”

He was about my age and he cited the names of three or four attorneys or judges he had known over the years. I recognized only one, but that was evidently the right one, and I heard more about Baxter Haynes’ fraternity days at Duke than I really wanted—although it might give me some ammunition the next time we crossed paths. (Haynes is almost as ardent a Republican as I am a Democrat.)

“You know,” he confided, “we named Evelyn and Chan in our wills as Shirley Jane’s guardians. And we told them sure when they asked if we’d take Lynnie. But none of us ever thought it’d really happen. It’s a big step, taking somebody else’s kid into your own household.”

“Yes, it is,” I agreed.

“Of course, she and Shirley Jane get along like sisters.”

“But still—?”

“Exactly!” he said and held his glass out for more wine when Pell offered it around again.

The mild night air, the dim light, the wine—we were starting to mellow out when Detective David Underwood appeared in the alley, having deduced from Dixie’s brilliantly lit and unlocked house that she couldn’t have gone far.

“Miss Dixie?” he called from the edge of Pell’s walk.

“Over here, David,” she called back.

(And why was I not surprised that she, too, was on a first-name basis with a homicide detective? Yeah, yeah. Directed Market traffic when he was in uniform. Daughter in the industry. Probably brothers and sisters and eighteen cousins, too.)

He accepted a chair, refused wine, and pronounced himself pleased to meet the Ragsdales.

“I’m real sorry about your brother,” he told Millie, “but we’re going to do everything we can to—”

Dixie turned to Millie in wordless communication.

“Come on, honey,” she said to Lynnette. “Let’s get you some milk and then back to bed, okay?”

“Okay,” the little girl said sleepily and allowed herself to be led back to my bed where her cousin slept undisturbed.

“Sorry,” said Detective Underwood when they had gone inside. “Guess I wasn’t thinking. It’s been a long day.”

“Do you know who fed my brother penicillin?” Millie asked bluntly.

“Not yet, ma’am. But don’t you worry. We’ve got the newspaper, radio and television asking folks to get in touch with us if they know anything. As many people as were in that building last night, somebody’s bound to’ve seen him.”

Underwood was good. Despite the deep shadows here on the porch, I could see him becoming folksier and warmer by the minute and the Ragsdales were responding in kind.

“If there’s anything we can do,” said Millie.

“Well, now, you were real close to him, weren’t you?” Underwood paused to let her nod vigorously. “Y’all see each other much?”

“He and Lynnie drove up every couple of months and we talked on the phone every week. Before Evelyn died, we’d come here for Thanksgiving and they’d come to us for Christmas, or vice versa. We wanted Shirley Jane and Lynnie to love each other and be friends. I can’t have any more children and he didn’t plan to either after Evelyn died, so we wanted them to grow up like sisters.”

“I see. And did he talk to you about his work? The people he worked with?”

“Not really. Just that he loved it and made a good living from it.”

“So he never mentioned any enemies?” asked Underwood as Dixie reappeared in the doorway.

“Never. He got along good with everyone, so far as I know.”

Neither Pell nor Dixie was rude enough to snort at that, but I saw Millie looking at me suspiciously, as if she could hear my eyebrows lift in the darkness.

“Of course, there might have been girlfriends. Before he married Evelyn, he used to have three or four at a time fighting over him.” She said it admiringly, as if vicariously proud of her brother’s affairs.

“So he was one of those,” sniffed my internal preacher. “A man who bragged about his sexual conquests.”

The pragmatist shrugged. “Human nature, and what else is new?”

“Since Evelyn died—”

She broke off abruptly and stared at me with wide eyes. “Deborah Knott! Now I remember. You’re Miss Barbara’s niece. Well, I’ll be darned. I always used to wonder and of course, I couldn’t ask her.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“About the baby. Did you have it or did you get an abortion?”