Slow Dollar

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 brown 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?”

“Isn’t being in lust with him almost as good?” I asked lightly.

She wasn’t to be deterred. “It’ll be like one of those cut-and-dried arranged marriages.”

I shrugged. “From what I’ve heard, a lot of arranged marriages were very happy.”

Portland just sat there, shaking her head.

“Look,” I argued. “If an Avery had come along for me, I’d probably have three kids and be lending you maternity dresses right now. But one didn’t. You know my track record, Por. Allen. Lev. Terry. Kidd. Not to mention Randolph Englert and at least a half dozen more that nearlymade junior varsity. It’s time to quit kidding myself. I don’t have an Avery out there. He probably got run over by an eighteen-wheeler twenty years ago. Dwight’s here and now and he’s one of us. We have history together.”

“But without love?”

“But we do love each other,” I said, knowing I was using the same arguments to convince her that I was still using to convince myself. “We always have. So it’s not thrills and chills. Big deal. That just means it’s no spills, either. No letdown after the honeymoon’s over. We’re going into this with our eyes wide open and no illusions.”

Portland sighed. “Sugar, you’ve done some crazy things in your life, but arranging a sensible marriage probably wins the jackpot. When do you two plan on getting this business deal notarized?”

“If you’re not going to take it seriously,” I said stiffly, “we might as well go on back to the courthouse.”

“Oh, no, you don’t. You invited me to lunch.” She waved to the waitress. “Mary? We’re ready to order now.”

When Mary had taken our orders and gone away, Portland said, “You’re really going to do this?”

I nodded solemnly. “I’m really going to do it. We haven’t set an exact date yet, but probably over the Christmas holidays.”

Portland laughed and patted the little bulge beneath the jacket of her dark red suit. “My due date’s the twenty-eighth. I’ll come as the goddess of fertility.”

“You don’t get out of it that easily, girlfriend. You’re gonna be my matron of honor. If I could wear bright pink satin for you, you can wear red velvet trimmed in white fur for me.”

Her glee turned to horror. “I’m coming as Santa Claus?”