Breath of Scandal (29 page)

One Sunday evening as he was preparing to leave for the long trip to Mississippi, he drew her into his arms. "I'll take next Friday off and come home a day early. Do you think you could stand that?"

Her smile was tremulous but brilliant. "Oh, Dillon, would you? That would be wonderful."

"I didn't get to all the chores on your list this weekend. I'll have plenty of time to do everything next week and still be lazy. Get a babysitter for Saturday night. We'll dress up and go out. Dinner. Dancing. A movie. Whatever you want. "

"I love you," she said, burying her nose in the collar of his shirt. They held each other and kissed some more, until he either had to make love to her again or leave. Regrettably, he picked up his crash helmet. Debra followed him to the door, carrying Charlie, who, out of practice, had learned to wave bye-bye.

Dillon didn't dare formally request the day off from Scanlan, so he bribed one of the subcontractors to oversee things while he was away. It only cost him a case of beer.

On Thursday afternoon, he called Debra. "This isn't to say you're not coming, is it?" she asked anxiously.

"Oh, ye of little faith. Of course I'm coming." He lowered his voice and added in a Groucho Marx accent, "I plan on coming a lot this weekend." She giggled. "What are you doing?"

"Putting together a few surprises for you."

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-Hmm. I can't wait. is that my son I hear in the background?"

"He's squealing because he knows I'm talking to you.' "Tell him I'll be there in a few hours."

"Be careful, Dillon. The weather here is terrible." "I'll be there before you know it."

The inclement weather couldn't have stopped him from making the trip, but it certainly slowed him down. The Florida panhandle was experiencing the coldest weather on record. Rainfall was heavy. Sometimes pellets of sleet would strike the visor of his helmet. Inside his leather gloves, his fingers froze in their grip around the handlebars. When he finally arrived, Tallahassee had never looked so good.

The moment he opened the front door of his house, he was greeted with tantalizing aromas wafting from the kitchen. In the center of the dining table were a vase of fresh flowers and a chocolate cake with his name spelled out in the icing. A pot roast was simmering in the oven.

"Debra?" He dropped his helmet and gloves in a chair and moved toward the back of the house, where the bedrooms were. "Are you in the tub?" He checked Charlie's room, but the crib was empty. "What are you two up to? Is this part of the surprise?"

Dillon opened the door to the master bedroom and paused to gaze at his wife and son as they slumbered peacefully on the bed. Charlie was tucked into the curve of Debra's arm. Her golden hair looked beautiful spread out across the pillow. Dillon's heart ached with love. She had worn herself out to make this a special weekend for him. He moved toward the bed, sat down on the edge, and stroked her flawless cheek.

That's when he realized they weren't sleeping.

Haskell Scanlan often worked late in his pursuit of success, but on one particular evening he stayed even later than usual. It was after dark before he left the building. His car was the only one remaining in the parking lot.

A tall, shadowed figure appeared and blocked his path. Even before Scanlan could exclaim his astonishment, a fist with the impetus of a pile driver slammed into his mouth, breaking off all his front teeth at the gum line and snapping his head back with such impact that he was in traction for two months. Before he slumped to the ground, he was caught by the collar and struck again. The second blow fractured his jaw. A final blow was derivered to his midsection; it ruptured his spleen.

He had been in the hospital for a week, wavering in semiconsciousness, before he could communicate to the police whom he suspected of the brutal and seemingly unprovoked attack.'

The police squad car rolled to a stop at the address he'd given them. No one answered the doorbell. The two officers questioned the next-door neighbor.

"After the funerals," she told them, "he only stuck around for a few days."

"Funerals?" "His wife and son died three weeks ago, of suffocation. Remember when we had that freak ice storm? Before Mrs. Burke lay down to take a nap., she turned on the furnace for the first time of the season. It wasn't ventilating properly, so they died in their sleep. Mr. Burke found them when he got home. "

"You don't know where he is?"

"I haven't seen him for more than a week. I assumed he went back to work."

The officers got a search warrant and went into the house. As far as they could tell, nothing had been disturbed since the day of the fatal accident. There was a bouquet of dead flowers standing in a vase of smelly, stagnant water on the dining table. Beside it was the remains of a chocolate cake that ants had gotten to.

No one at the construction site in Mississippi had seen Mr. Burke since the Thursday night he left for home. His co-workers expressed sorrow over the deaths of his family. "He was crazy about that kid," one said. "Talked about him all the time."

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"How'd he feel about his wife?"

"Her picture's still here in the trailer where he left it. He didn't screw around on her, if that's what you're asking." Assault charges were never filed for the attack on Haskell

Scanlan. The only viable suspect had vanished. It seemed as though he had simply walked away from everything.

CHAPTER

Sixteen

Palmetto, South Carolina, 1987

"A freaking faggot! Can you believe it?" Neal Patchett shook his head in disbelief and took another sip of his bourbon and water.

Hutch Jolly was as shocked as Neal by the news about Lamar. Hutch just     wasn't as outspoken. "I hadn't been around Lamar very much for the last few years, " he remarked. "Not near as much as you."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Neal asked defensively.

"Hell. It's not supposed to mean a damn thing except that I hadn't been around him much. Did you notice any changes in him over the years?"

"No, and that can only mean one thing." "What's that?"

"He was queer all along," Neal said. "All those years he stuck to us like glue, he was a fairy. It gives me the willies to think about it. I lived with the guy! Jesus!"

Until now Donna Dee had refrained from entering the conversation. "The way y'all are bad-mouthing somebody who just died is pitiful. I don't care if Lamar was gay, he

was still a human being, He was our friend. I feel sorry for him - "

Neal snickered. "You ought to have a talk with your old lady, Hutch. Set her straight on a few things. Feeling sorry for queers the way she does, maybe she should have moved out to San Francisco like Lamar did.

"You know," he continued, "that should have been my first clue. First he moves out of the house we shared, then he got all fired up about going to California as soon as we graduated. Who in their right mind would want to live among all those freaks unless you were one of them? I should have known then he was a faggot."

Donna Dee opened her mouth to speak, but Hutch shot her a warning glance and asked, "Is there any of that clam dip left, honey?"

Resentfully she flounced from the room and went into the kitchen. She was frequently short-tempered. Lately she'd been on a tear about moving to a larger house. They had bought this one after returning from Hutch's stint in Hawaii. It wasn't much better than the one they'd had on base, but it was all they could afford.

Besides, Donna Dee only used the house-among a number of other things-as an excuse for her bad moods. Hutch ignored the racket of clattering dishes and banging cabinet doors coming from the kitchen and freshened his guest's drink.

Neal was still on the subject of Lamar Griffith's recent demise. "You know that disease he died of-what's it called?"

"AIDS," Donna Dee said as she rejoined them, bearing a tray of dip and chips.

"My daddy says that only queers can get it. It comes from fucking each other in the ass. How's that for a way to go,?"

Hutch dug into the dip. Most of his football muscle had turned to flab and collected around his middle, but he continued to feed his athlete's appetite. "The paper said he died of pneumonia," he mumbled around a mouthful.

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"That's what Myrajane wants everybody to believe," Neal said. "She didn't even have Lamar buried here in the Cowan plot she's so damned proud of. He was cremated out in California. The pile of ashes probably wasn't this high," he said, indicating a space of about two inches with his hands. "I heard he didn't weigh a hundred pounds at the end. "

He laughed. "Christ, can you imagine what the funeral was like? It must have been a sideshow-a bunch of fairies sitting around sniveling. 'Oh, dear me, I don't know what I'll do without my precious Lamar,' " Neal said in a singsong falsetto.

Donna Dee shot to her feet. "You are, and always have been, a prick, Neal Patchett. Excuse me. " She left the room again. Seconds later, they heard the bedroom door slam.

Neal rolled his tongue in one cheek. "Your old lady's a barrel of laughs, Hutch.

Hutch glanced in the direction of Donna Dee's angry exit. "I've been having to work some overtime, and she doesn't enjoy being alone at night."

The only job Hutch could find when he mustered out of the navy was at the soybean plant. Donna Dee resented his working for the Patchetts, although he didn't want to tell Neal that. Going back to college had never been considered. Even if he had the money, he lacked the initiative.

Donna Dee was working as a receptionist in a gynecologist's office. One of the benefits was that she got free treatment and advice. They'd been married almost ten years, yet she had still failed to conceive. She fought her barrenness with a fanaticism that bewildered Hutch.

Over the years he had tried to reason with her about it. "You don't understand!" she would scream at him. "If we don't have a baby, then there's no reason for us to be together. " He failed to see the logic in that, but didn't pursue the argument because it always resulted in a fight that left him feeling rotten. He figured it was a female hormonal thing that men weren't equipped to understand. His own mother had suffered from the same malady because she had wanted more kids.

At least once a week, Donna Dee came home from work with an article about a new reproductive technique for infertile couples. Invariably, the revolutionary method of fertilization would involve him in some demeaning and embarrassing way.

Either they would screw until his balls ached, or he'd have to jack off in a plastic bag, or she would walk around with a then-nometer in her mouth, and when the time was right, she would say, "Now," and he'd have to perform whether it was the middle of the night or during Sunday lunch. Once she had even caught him while he was taking a crap and had_ knocked on the bathroom door, saying, "Don't bother pulling your pants back on. It's time." He thought her tactics hardly romantic.

Hutch supposed he shouldn't be judgmental of her obsession. He wasn't the one who was malfunctioning. His sperm count was fine. Every doctor they had consulted had said the same thing: Donna Dee couldn't make a baby. But Donna Dee was damned and determined to make one. It was as though she had to prove to the world, to him, and to herself that she could. What he feared was that her baby mania had something to do with the Jade Sperry incident. He didn't want to know for certain that guilt was Donna Dee's propellant, so he had never suggested it.

Neal drained his glass of bourbon and set it on the edge of the coffee table. "You married too early, Hutch. Didn't I tell you so? But you wouldn't listen. Now you're stuck at home with a wife who's got a buff up her ass, and I'm still out catting around. " He smacked his lips with satisfaction. "A different pussy every night." Leaning forward, he lowered his voice. "Come along with me tonight. We'll raise some hell, just like old times. I can't think of a more befitting send-off for our pal Lamar."

"No, thanks. I promised Donna Dee we'd go to the picture show."

"Too bad." With a sigh, Neal got up and sauntered to the door. Hutch ambled after him. "By the way," Neal said, "my old man told me to ask after your mama. How's she doing?"

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"As well as can be expected. She finally sold the house and got her a smaller place. She does a lot of work at the church, filling time, you know, since she doesn't have Daddy to take care of."

A year earlier, Sheriff Fritz Jolly had been investigating a burned-out building when a beam collapsed. The fall had broken his hip. He was hospitalized for months. Even after returning home, he never regained his original strength and developed one complication after another until he died of an infection.

"Tell her my daddy said that if she needs anything to holler. "

"Thanks,   Neal. I'll give her the message. She'll appreciate it."

"Looking   after her is the least he can do. Your daddy did a lot of favors for mine. You know . . . " He reached out and tapped the pocket of Hutch's shirt. "it never hurts to have an open-minded man in the sheriff's department. How well do you like working in the factory?"

"It stinks like shit."

Neal chuckled and lightly socked Hutch on the shoulder. "Let me see what I can do."

Hutch grabbed Neal's sleeve as he tried to leave. "What do you mean?"

Neal removed Hutch's hand. "Better go see to your old lady. Apologize for your prick of a friend. I've never run across a woman yet who didn't cream over an apology."

Hutch shook his large, rusty head like an irritated dog. "Tell me what you meant about my job at the plant." Neal frowned as though he were reluctant to impart a

secret. Lowering his voice, he said, "It's time somebody did some creative thinking for you, Hutch. The sheriff who took office after your daddy died is so tight-assed, he squeaks when he walks. My daddy thinks the department needs some new blood. Now do you see what I'm getting at?"