Dangerous Undertaking (12 page)
I knocked the jar back like it was a shot of Scotch, but I wasn’t prepared for the tidal wave that poured out of the wide-mouthed container and slammed into the back of my throat. The fire exploded into my nose and set my ears ringing. For a moment I was too paralyzed to even swallow, and I panicked that I would cough or gag. I handed the jar to Talmadge and hoped neither the old man nor Tommy Lee noticed the agony on my face. Just when I thought I could hold out no longer, the pain subsided, and I forced the potent brew down my throat, feeling every drop as it burned its way to my stomach.
Talmadge again offered the jar, but both of us declined. The old man took another sip, then said more to himself, “All the Willards gone, a whole family gone.”
“Talmadge,” said Tommy Lee. “We don’t know how it happened. Maybe an accident, maybe he killed himself.”
“I heard the boy had gone crazed.”
“He also killed Fats McCauley.”
“Fats McCauley? That don’t make no sense at all.”
“I know. I was hoping you’d see a reason. Was Fats connected to the Willards or the Watsons in any way?”
“You mean like blood-kin?”
“Blood-kin or even close friend.”
“No. The McCauleys hailed out of Tennessee. They’ve always been town people.” He thought for a few seconds. “Why are you askin’ about the Watsons?”
“Because the Willard land now comes to you.”
“It does? What do I want with it?”
If there was any suspicion that Talmadge was somehow even remotely involved with the killings, it evaporated with his question.
“Well, it will get figured out,” said Tommy Lee. “But till then, I’m not gonna tell anybody you’re Martha’s heir. No sense having you pestered by the press.” He rose from the stone. “Thanks, Talmadge.”
“Thanks for coming in person, Sheriff.” He turned to me. “Here.” He passed me the sealed jar of moonshine. “Want you to keep this. Sheriff’s runnin’ for office. I don’t want to cost him the election.”
I slipped it into my jacket pocket.
We returned to the car in silence. As I opened the door, I felt a firm slap on my shoulder.
“You boys come back,” said Talmadge.
After we reached the paved road, I said, “Talmadge is an interesting fellow.”
“He’s an original all right. He likes you. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him take to anyone so fast.”
“He hardly spoke to me.”
“He slapped you on the back. Believe me, touchie feelie, he ain’t.”
When we got back to the department, Tommy Lee pulled alongside my Jeep.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked.
“Yeah. Take tomorrow off. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
As I grabbed the inside door handle, Tommy Lee added, “And thanks for indulging my drink with Talmadge. He and his sister may have been estranged, but family is family. I didn’t want him hearing the news any other way.”
“I know,” I said. “Family is family.”
I started the Jeep and felt the need to make my own visit.
I let myself in through the back door and walked to the kitchen. As expected, the old white counters gleamed from Mom’s after-supper cleansing. An ironed blue-checked cloth covered the Formica table where I had eaten daily meals until I went off to college. Worn paths criss-crossed the gold-flecked linoleum, etched into the floor by the thousands of footsteps taken between sink, refrigerator, and stove. The hands of the round red clock above the table showed eight-thirty-five. I heard the murmur of voices coming down the back stairway. Mom was probably watching a television talk show since such a continuous conversation had not occurred between her and Dad in the past year. I didn’t want to startle her so I called up from the base of the stairs.
She sat in the upstairs den, watching a gardening show on PBS, wearing an apricot-colored, quilted housecoat and holding her knitting needles and the beginnings of what looked like a new sweater in her lap. She looked up with a smile that could not quite chase the exhaustion from her face.
“Hi, son. You want to spend the night here? I changed the sheets after Reverend Pace stayed over.”
I shook my head, then bent over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “No. I just stopped by for a few minutes. You heard about Dallas Willard?”
“Yes. Terrible, terrible thing. Don’t know what this world’s coming to. Wayne says the body is going over to Buncombe County for a full autopsy. It won’t be released till tomorrow afternoon.” She glanced down at the knitting and stifled a sob. “And poor Travis. After all that man has been through.”
“Tell Uncle Wayne I’m available to help.”
“He’s accustomed to it. He used to tell your Dad, ‘birthin’ and dyin’ are the two things man’s got no control of.’”
“You know Susan has Wednesdays off. I was thinking we might come by for lunch, if that’s not a problem.”
“No,” said Mom. “That would be nice. What time?”
“How about one? We’ve got something to do in the morning.”
“One will be fine.”
“Is Dad asleep?” I asked.
“Maybe, but I heard him stirring a little while ago.”
I walked down the hall to my parents’ room. The door was open and the lamp between the twin beds turned on. The spread and blanket on my father’s bed were pulled back from the pillow, but he was not there. The bathroom next to the bedroom was dark. Beyond it, a sliver of light split the gap between the door and jamb of the guest room which had once been mine.
Time had settled the old house on its foundation so that the door swung closed on its own. My father did not like to be alone in a room with the door shut, but he was probably in there, unaware of his confinement.
The creak of the hinges should have alerted him someone was entering. Instead, I found him standing in front of the bureau in his green and white striped pajamas. His back was to me, but I saw his reflection in the mirror, saw the gaunt face and disheveled gray hair, saw the watery blue eyes staring down with bewildered fascination.
“Dad,” I said. “It’s me, Barry.”
Slowly, he turned around. He looked at me and smiled the old smile, the one that used to break just before he made some teasing remark. “My son,” he started, and then faltered as the rest of the sentence left him. The smile wavered with confusion, and he lifted up his hands to show me the gold-framed photograph he held. I was eight years old, in my Cub Scout uniform, grinning through two missing front teeth. This was the son. He did not recognize the man standing in front of him.
He looked around the room as if by seeing the remnants of my childhood—the books Mom left on the shelves, the model cars and ships he and I had spent Sunday afternoons building, the small trophies from Little League baseball and youth football—by seeing these he could tell the friendly stranger about his boy. It dawned on me how much of a museum my room had become. Not for my benefit, but for my father. Suddenly, Fats’ shrine to Brenda did not seem quite so strange. When you lose someone, you look for them where the memories are strongest. But what do you do when you are losing yourself? How frightening it must be to reach out for those memories and grab a handful of fog. And what of Mom and me? Our memories were strongest in the visible presence of a husband and father whose personality was dying, whose spark of identity flickered weaker and weaker until one day it would be extinguished completely.
For the first time in my life, I fully realized Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors provided a service far greater than just chemically preparing a body for burial. We enabled the ritual of grief to be expressed and offered a family the closure of a casket and the memorializing of a life which could be fondly remembered. But what can we do when the body still walks among us?
I took the photograph from his hands and set it on the bureau. Then, as gently as I could, I led him by the arm back to his own room. As soon as we crossed the threshold, he hurried to his bed and sat on the edge, clutching the spread as if the familiar texture of its ribbed fabric gave him comfort. I sat on Mom’s bed across from him and started to talk in a quiet, steady voice. I told him about Dallas and Fats, about Talmadge and his moonshine and burial money, about Tommy Lee and Bob Cain. Occasionally, my father would meet my eye and smile, but I could only hope that my words registered with any meaning, however briefly that may be. At last, while I was still speaking, my father lay down and curled up in a fetal ball. I leaned over, kissed his forehead, and turned out the light. In the hallway just outside the door, I leaned against the wall and cried.
Talmadge’s moonshine left an arid wasteland of dehydrated tissue that still clung to my teeth and gums the next morning. The false dawn gave just enough light for me to see my watch. Five-thirty. Earlier than I wanted to get up, but the drive for a drink of water became overpowering.
I tiptoed out of the bedroom and gulped three glasses of cold water at the kitchen sink. They cured the cotton feeling in my mouth but left me wide-awake. I accepted I was up for the day and put on the clothes I had shed by the hearth. A sheet of paper was in the front pocket of my pants. I fished it out and unfolded the copy of the drawing Tommy Lee had found in Dallas Willard’s cabin. I stared at it.
“I enjoyed the bed, but breakfast service seems a little slow.” Susan stood in the hallway, wrapped in a heavy, gray terry-cloth robe.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you on your day off.”
“Tell me why you’re up and maybe I’ll grant you a pardon.” She bent down and kissed me, unconcerned that the loose robe opened to the morning chill.
“Thinking.”
“About Dallas Willard?”
“About where I’m taking you to breakfast.”
“Right answer.” She nestled into the sofa beside me. “What’s this?” she asked, pointing to the drawing.
“The way Dallas thought his grandmother’s land was going to be divided. When he learned his brother and sister had gotten legal control to sell it all, he killed them.”
“And they told him?”
“What do you mean?
“Well, seems strange they would have sprung the news any sooner than they needed to. You told me Norma Jean said Dallas left the room when Martha died and they hadn’t seen him since. Did Lee and Norma Jean bring it up as the woman expired? I doubt it. If Dallas had been aware of the will earlier, why wait till the cemetery for revenge? And why didn’t he try to reach you as soon as his grandmother died?”
“Maybe someone else told him,” I said. “Told him between the time Martha died and the funeral.”
“Could that have been Fats McCauley?”
“I don’t see how Fats knew anything about it. If he did, it’s a stretch to make that a motive for Fats’ murder.”
“Carl Romeo?”
“Carl hadn’t spoken to him. His secretary said Dallas showed up at their office because he learned the will had been changed.”
“Do you think that it’s important now who told him?”
“I think you ask good questions,” I said, squeezing her hand. “And I think Tommy Lee is lucky you’re not running for sheriff.”
“So, where are we going for breakfast? Not Herbie’s House of Pancakes. They go straight to my hips, syrup and all.”
“No, ‘Barry’s House of the Lord.’ And if that’s not good enough, we’re having lunch with Mom and Dad. I’ll check your hips later.”
The discovery of Dallas Willard’s body had one effect on me I hadn’t fully anticipated. Tremendous relief. I didn’t comprehend the pressure I had been under until that pressure was released at Hope Quarry Pond. The string of deaths I had witnessed underscored the fragile nature of life, a fragility we cannot consciously bear all the time or all alone. That is why funerals are communal rituals. At some point, we must all feel connected to something larger than ourselves: there is no point quite as dramatic as when we are forced to face our own mortality. Had Dallas Willard aimed six inches more to his left, I would surely have perished.
I am not a particularly religious person. As a kid, I attended the First Methodist Church of Gainesboro with Mom and Dad, went to Sunday school and summer vacation bible school, and endured the prayers and preachers that always seemed to fill the funeral home. Two years ago when I first returned to help Mom and Uncle Wayne, we would go to church as a family. But, as Dad’s condition deteriorated, the Sunday morning ordeal of worrying whether he would be able to follow the continuity of a worship service caused Mom to limit our attendance to special occasions and holidays.
We replaced pew time with quiet hours together on Sunday afternoons. Mom would fix a special lunch, and then she and I talked while Dad nodded off in his chair with either cartoons or football on the television. These were the good Sundays now.
While I’m not religious, I am spiritual. There is a mystery to life that is made all the more real when tear-streaked faces bend over the casket and see the remnant of someone whose love will never leave their hearts. It is proof to me that the kingdom of heaven intervenes in our world in ways that religion prefers to contain and control, to package for dispensation on defined terms, when really the only term acceptable is unconditional love. In short, why make the simple complicated? Religion is to spirituality as lawyers are to handshakes.
My cathedral for spirituality was Pisgah National Forest. This “House of the Lord” had its genesis in the George Vanderbilt Estate. At the end of the 19th century, when the railroad heir chose the site to build his summer castle near Asheville, he wanted a mountain view. He also wanted to own everything within that view. His purchase of 125,000 acres with the nearly six-thousand-foot-high Mt. Pisgah as the tract’s pinnacle would have impressed even an English feudal lord. It certainly impressed the U.S. Government when, after Vanderbilt’s death in 1914, a major section of the Estate was deeded to it and became the core of Pisgah National Forest, including the trout-rich Davidson River that tumbles and rambles off the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Susan and I entered the lush forest preserve traveling along a two-lane highway that paralleled that wide, white-water stream. Behind us the commercial scars of civilization encroached right up to the forest’s entrance. I turned left onto the road leading to the Pisgah fish hatchery and then made a quick right into an unpaved clearing barely large enough to swing the Jeep around. A short walk into the woods brought us to our destination, a single picnic table on the point where the stream flowing from the trout hatchery merged with the river. Across that broader, rushing body of water lay the main road, hidden from sight and sound by a thicket of mountain laurel. “Beautiful,” said Susan. “I love it.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m real tight with the maitre de. I’ll tell him you approve.”
We unloaded the Jeep. I had gone on a shopping spree on my way there. In my right hand, I toted two lounge chairs with price stickers still glued to the metal legs. Amazing what one can buy in a twenty-four-hour drug store at seven-thirty on a Wednesday morning. My sling-encumbered left arm easily managed the bag of apple cinnamon muffins. Susan brought the thermos of coffee and three newspapers. I had picked up
The Charlotte Observer
because I like the sports section, Susan wanted
The Asheville Citizen
for the calendar of regional events, and we had agreed to fight over the crossword in
The New York Times
.
The coffee and muffins were great, and the temperature hovered in the comfortably cool range. I lost myself in the sports page until my attention was diverted to Susan’s slim form walking by the edge of the stream. She moved with such grace, like a deer coming to the water to drink. Watching her against the backdrop of nature’s beauty pushed the horrors of the past week into another time, another life.
I came up beside her and wrapped my good arm around her waist. She leaned against me.
“A penny for your thoughts,” I said.
“No,” she whispered. “Today they’re priceless.”
A trout broke the surface a few feet away, and the silver tail sparkled in the sunlight an instant before disappearing. The water gurgled across brown and gray stones, hurrying along to join the river just fifteen yards away. Even over that short distance, eddies pulled twigs and leaves out of the current to loop back against the bank where they became trapped in the counterflow of turbulence.
Susan bent over, grabbed a stick, and tossed it in. Bobbing along the rapids, it wove around the stones and floated into the river. I broke a second stick and launched it from the same spot. A few yards downstream, it coursed off to the right and wedged against a tree limb dangling in the water.
I heard Susan sigh. “What?” I asked.
“I was just remembering. There was a game my brother Stevie taught me where you threw a stick in the rushing water and tried to make it strike a particular rock downstream. We would take turns and the first one to hit it won.”
“Not easy,” I said. “I dropped my stick in the same place as yours and wound up going a completely different route.”
“Unpredictable,” she said. “Like the weather. Too many variables affect the water flow. Did a trout underneath flip his tail and shift the current, or did a bear four hundred yards upstream wade across? No two sticks ever go the same way. Stevie and I would play for hours.” Her voice caught on her brother’s name.
I pulled her close and rested my cheek against her silky hair.
How many unpredictable, random events occur to create the pattern of our lives? What sends one stick safely through the rapids and another into a snag? How many connected events result in sending one man into a cemetery to pray and another to kill? And for Dallas Willard, was this chain of events forged at random, or specifically programmed?
Mom placed a pot of hot tea and a platter of pecan cookies on the low table in front of the sofa where Susan and I sat. As she went to retrieve her knitting basket from the corner, I leaned forward and scooped up three of her homemade delights.
“Remember your hips,” I warned Susan.
She gave me a hard kick on the ankle.
Dad pulled his chair close to the TV and watched as the roadrunner ran circles around the coyote. He enjoyed the colors and action without any need to follow the plot or hear the sound. Sadly, even the old cartoons were fresh.
Mom steadied herself with the armrest as she eased into the rocker across from us. It was in those small movements that I realized that although her mind was as sharp as ever, she too was slipping under the weight of time.
“Lunch was delicious,” said Susan. “I insist you let me clean up.”
“Nonsense,” said Mom. “You relax. Barry has told me you often work eighteen-hour days.” She sorted out yarn from needles and began knitting.
“And she’s still got work to do today,” I said.
“Back at the hospital?” asked Mom.
“News to me,” said Susan.
“Campaigning. Tommy Lee was supposed to have dropped off some posters this week. I told him I’d put them up at the intersections near my cabin.”
“I saw them by the back porch,” said Mom.
“I might just want to sit here and eat cookies,” said Susan. “Broaden one’s voter base, so to speak.”
“No comment,” I said. “But, I figured as my doctor you wouldn’t want me on the side of the road with only one good arm trying to hold a poster, a hammer, and a nail.”
“That’s true,” said Susan. “You’d probably lose three fingers and a thumb.”
The needles in Mom’s fingers halted. “Sheriff Wadkins sure has his hands full. All those murders.”
“That he does,” I agreed.
“And coming at the time when he is running for re-election,” continued Mom. “Just gives that other fellow something to pick on.”
“Cain,” I said.
“Cain,” she repeated as if the word tasted sour in her mouth. “Seems every day the mail brings more of his ads. Must be spending a lot of money.”
“I think he has got money behind him,” I said. “He’s in the pay of the power company.”
“Still, I look at it this way,” said Mom. “If he were qualified to be sheriff, he’d know Tommy Lee is doing a great job and he wouldn’t run against him.”
“I like your logic,” said Susan. “You should be Tommy Lee’s campaign manager.”
Mom laughed. “I don’t know about that. If he asked me to serve, then I’d doubt his judgment as well.” She looked at me. “You’re helping with these murder cases, aren’t you?”
“Some.”
I saw her eyes fill with tears.
“I’m being careful, Mom. Nothing dangerous. Especially since Dallas is dead. Now we’re just going to brainstorm a little.”
“Brainstorm?” she asked.
“Yeah. Possible motives. I’m not in the line of fire. Been there, done that. I don’t want to be a target again. I’m not that crazy.”