Breath of Scandal (39 page)

"Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. But this one worries

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me. She hasn't forgotten what happened right before y'all graduated." Ivan stabbed his blunt finger at the space separating them. "She's out to bury us, boy. She wasn't a dim-witted child, you know. If anything, she's smarter now. She's out for blood. Our blood."

Neal's eyes glittered above the rim of his brandy snifter. "All I know is, if there's a new industry in Palmetto, it's going to belong to the Patchetts. "

Ivan cackled. "That's the way I taught you to think. It does my heart good to know that some of the lessons took. Nobody's gonna come in and muscle us out."

"No, but Jade can sure as hell muck things up temporarily. For beginners, she can cause a wage war. If she offers a dime more an hour to her employees, who do you figure folks will want to work for?"

"Our employees are loyal."

"Loyal, my ass," Neal said scornfully. "This is the new South, Daddy. Wake up. All that generational crap is just that-crap. If Jade promises to pay them more than we do, we'll lose them. It won't matter if their daddies and granddaddies worked for us. Damn! Every time I think about it, I wish I had my hands around her throat."

Ivan looked at Neal from beneath his brows. "Y'all probably should have gone ahead and killed her that night, then blamed it on niggers or white, trash."

"Yeah. Wish I'd known then what I know now." "She's out for revenge all right. I've gone after it enough times myself to recognize the signs." Ivan smacked his lips with disgust. "Wouldn't you know it, that chickenshit kid of Myrajane's had to up and die. Our venerable sheriff sure as hell ain't in any condition to fight this thing. So, guess who's left?"

Neal clamped his hand on his father's shoulder. "Don't worry, Daddy. We're all we need."

5R!

Jade pulled the Jeep Cherokee into the yard, which looked remarkably, and lamentably, the same as it had the last time she had seen it. The chickens were probably several gen-

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erations removed from the previous ones, but they still pecked about the yard. A sow grunted from her muddy sty.

Through the kitchen window she could see Mrs. Parker wiping her hands on a cup towel and looking through the window to see who had arrived. Jade experienced an eerie sense of d6jA vu. She should have come at another time of day, one not so reminiscent of that other dusk when she had made the grisly discovery in the barn. But suppertime was the only time she was certain to catch Otis in the house.

She approached the front door and knocked. With the cup towel slung over her shoulder, Mrs. Parker answered the door and peered at Jade through the loose screen, shading her eyes against the setting sun. "Can I help you?"

"Hello, Mrs. Parker. It's Jade. Jade Sperry."

Jade heard her quick intake of breath. It gave a brief rise to her bony chest. She adjusted her hand against her brow and took a closer look.

"What do you want here?"

"I'd like to come in and talk to you." "We got nothing to say to each other."

"Please, Mrs. Parker. It's important or I wouldn't have come. Please. -

Jade waited anxiously through a seemingly interminable silence, then the screen door squeaked loudly as Mrs. Parker pushed it open. She inclined her gray head; Jade stepped into the front room of the house. The upholstery on the sofa was so threadbare that, in spots, the cotton stuffing showed through. There was a stain on the headrest of the easy chair. The rug had unraveled around the edges. No improvements had been made in the room since Jade had last been in it. It was a gloomy room with dingy wallpaper, derelict furniture, a loudly ticking clock, and a frarned picture of Gary in his graduation cap and gown, which he had never worn to con-imencement.

Since her return, Jade had visited Gary's grave. Seeing his face srailing at her now from the dimestore frame gave her a start, but strengthened her resolve. She turned back to Gary's mother, who had aged beyond the fifteen years that had passed. Her hair was thin and unkempt, and her

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clothes fit loosely. Beneath them, her skin sagged, covering nothing but bone.

"Where are the younger children, Mrs. Parker? What happened to them?"

Without any elaboration, she told Jade that two of the girls were married and had children. One of the boys lived in town with his wife and worked at the Patchett soybean plant; another had joined the navy; another had left home without saying where he was going. The last postcard they had received from him had been mailed in Texas.

"The baby's still here at home," she reported tiredly. "She'll graduate high school next year."

Sadly, Jade remembered all that Gary had wanted to do to pave the way for his younger brothers and sisters.

She heard a door closing in another part of the house. "That'll be Otis," Mrs. Parker said anxiously. "He won't cotton to your being here."

"I need to see him."

Otis Parker had aged even more than his wife. He was stooped, and what hair he had left was white. The elements, along with fatigue, despair, and grief, had carved deep ravines into his face. He drew up short when he saw Jade.

"We got comp'ny, Otis." Mrs. Parker had removed the cup towel from her shoulder and was wringing it between her hands.

"Who is it?" He moved forward in his rolling, bow legged gait and stopped a few feet from Jade, squinting at her through nearsighted eyes.

"It's Jade Sperry, Mr. Parker."

The breath left his body in a slow hiss. Jade almost expected him to deflate. Instead, he pulled himself to his full height. "I can see that now. What are you doing here?"

Jade wanted to put her arms around them. Embracing them would almost be like touching Gary again. She resisted the impulse. She had tried to share their grief at Gary's funeral and had been rebuffed. They believed, as everyone else did, that her unfaithfulness to Gary had caused his suicide.

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"I'd heard you were back in town," Otis said. "What do you want with us?"

"Could we sit down?"

The couple silently consulted each other with exchanged glances. Otis turned his back and went to sit in the chair with the dark stain on the headrest. Mrs. Parker indicated the sofa to Jade, then sat down in a straight chair with a ratty cane seat.

"You said you'd heard that I was back in town," Jade began. "Do you know why?"

"Heard you was building a new plant of some kind." "That's right. " She gave them an elementary explanation. "My company is already considering several ways to diversify. In order to expand, we'll need more land. That's why I came to see you this evening, Mr. Parker. " She drew a breath through her tight chest. "I want to buy your farm on behalf of GSS. "

Mrs. Parker raised a hand to her lips but didn't utter a peep. Otis continued to squint at Jade. "This place? What for?"

"There are several possibilities," she replied evasively. "Like what?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss them, Mr. Parker. I would also ask that you keep this offer in strictest confidence." She glanced at Mrs. Parker, then back at Otis. "I hope you understand that. Absolutely no one must know."

"It don't matter. I ain't interested in selling."

"I realize that the property has been in your family for a long time, Mr. Parker. There's certainly a sentimental attachment to consider, but-"

"It ain't for sale."

Jade rolled her lips inward. She was making them remember, pushing them into painful recollection. Her presence in their home was a reminder of the son they had loved so much and lost so tragically. She was tempted to leave and alleviate their misery. Instead, she forced herself to go on.

"Would you at least grant me permission to have the property appraised by an impartial third party? It would be

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done with the utmost discretion and with no inconvenience to you, I promise. Once I review the appraisal, I'd appreciate an opportunity to speak with you again. "

"It won't hurt nothing, will it, Otis?" Mrs. Parker asked. Otis regarded Jade with animosity. "You hurt my boy. You broke his heart and his spirit right in two."

Jade bowed her head. "I can't explain to you what happened that spring, but you must believe that I loved Gary with all my heart. If I'd been given a choice, I never would have hurt him."

"You think buying this place is going to ease your guilty conscience?" Mr. Parker asked.

"Something like that."

"Well, neither you or that highfalutin company you work for has enough money to make up for our Gary. " "You're absolutely right, Mr. Parker. A price tag could

never be placed on his life. It's just that your farm lies in the path of our progress. GSS is prepared to pay you a premium price for it."

"It ain't for sale. Not to you." He rose to his feet and left the room.

After a moment Jade reluctantly stood to go. Mrs. Parker led her to the door. "Do you think it would be all right if I have the property appraised?"

The woman cast a worried glance toward the rear of the house. "He didn't say a flat-out no, did he?"

"No, he didn't."

"Then I guess it'd be okay

"Afterward, may I come to see you again?"

Her pursed mouth began to work with emotion. "Jade, we loved that boy. We like to never got over what he done to hisself. "

"Neither have 1.

"It almost kilt Otis, too." She wiped her nose on the cup towel. "He's proud, you know, the way men are. Me, I figure we got something coming for all the grief we suffered over Gary. Somebody ought to pay for what happened. "

Jade reached out and pressed her arm. "Thank you. I'll

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be in touch soon. And please remember not to say anything to anyone about this."

CHAPTER

TwMty-TWO

"Say, Mom?" "Say, what?"

Graham looked up from the Sports illustrated he was thumbing through. He was stretched out on the floor of their living room, lying on his stomach. "That sounded funny coming from you. Mostly black guys say that to one another. "

"I met a man once-a white man-who began most of his sentences with 'say,' and it annoyed me so much I sent him to jail."

Graham rolled to his back, then sat up. "No kiddin'T' "No kidding."

His dark hair was tousled, his eyes bright. Unabashedly, Jade took a moment to adore him. Since his and Cathy's arrival in Palmetto the week before, Jade couldn't seem to look at him enough. She had missed him terribly during their six-week separation- It was the longest stretch of time they had ever spent apart, and she hadn't enjoyed it.

-if you don't believe me," she said, "ask Mr. Burke the next tirne you see him. He knows better than I that the man belonged in jail."

"Mr. Burke's so cool.'9 "Cool?"

Jade tried to apply the slang adjective to the man. He worked incessantly and took every delay-such as incle-

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ment weather or malfunctioning equipment-as a personal affront. He elevated conscientiousness to the degree of fanaticism. Building the plant had become his crusade. He was almost as obsessive about it as she.

"I guess you could call him cool." She deliberately kept her tone noncommittal.

Dillon had no vices that she knew of. He had never been drunk or hung over in her presence. If he saw women, he saw them away from the trailer. To her knowledge, he had never brought a woman to the construction site.

"When I first met him, I thought he was sorta mean," Graham told her.

"Mean?" "He doesn't smile a lot, does he?"

"No, I guess he doesn't," she said thoughtfully. On the few occasions she had seen him smile, it had been a selfderisive expression.

"And the first day you took me out to the site, he yelled at me when I climbed up on the bulldozer. "

In the brief time he'd been in Palmetto, Graham had talked her into taking him to the site three times. He was fascinated with it. Now she wondered if it was Dillon and not the excavation that attracted him.

461, in glad Dillon yelled at you. You had no business playing around that machinery. It could be dangerous."

"'Mat's what Mr. Burke said, too. He told me that people who flirt with getting hurt like that have shit for brains." "Graham!"

"He said it, Mom, not me. I'm just telling you." "What other quaint expressions have you picked up from Mr. Burke?"

He grinned. "I think he likes me now, but he totally lost it when Loner and me got up on that gravel heap."

6 - WnerT9

"His dog. 71at's what Mr. Burke calls him. Anyway, I was just scaling it like a regular hill when Mr. Burke carne ninning out of his trailer yelling at me to get the bell down from there-that's what he said, Mom. Then he took my

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arm and kinda shook me and asked me didn't I have a lick of sense and didn't I know that kids smother in gravel heaps all the time.

"I told him I wasn't a kid. He said, 'You aren't grown, either. And while you're around here, you'll do as I say.' He was scary, 'cause when he talks all quiet and mean like that, you can't see his lips move under his mustache, you know?"

"Yes, I know." She'd seen Dillon lose his temper. Like Graham, she had caught herself watching his mustache and his lips for signs of movement.

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Hell no. I mean, heck no. Later he apologized for grabbing my arm. He said when he saw me and Loner up on the gravel, he was scared shitless it would swallow us whole. " She frowned at his language. Again Graham grinned up at her guilelessly. It was fun to be saying words he was ordinarily forbidden to use. "He's gotta grip that would break bone. 9'

His strength had never been in doubt. On more than one occasion Jade had paused at the window of her portable office to gaze at him while he was at work and unaware that anyone was watching. His stride was long and sure as he moved about, overseeing the excavation. Even at a distance, she could pick him out from the other workers because he always wore a white hard hat and aviator sunglasses ...  and there was his mustache, of course.