Home Fires (15 page)

Now cars began to stream in, filling the old pasture.

The Reverend Freeman arrived with his teenage son and seven-year-old daughter.

“Stan and Lashanda, right?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lashanda grinned. Her hair was braided into a dozen or more pigtails and each was clipped by playful yellow barrettes so that it seemed as if she was wearing a headful of yellow violets to match her yellow T-shirt.

She looked so cute that I had to hug her.

“Hey, dibs on Stan!” called one of my nephews from the volleyball court. “We need a good spike. Get in here!”

Zach’s Emma came by and gathered up Lashanda. “Did you bring your bathing suit? Good! I’ll show you where to change.”

“This is awfully nice of you, Judge,” said Ralph Freeman. His handclasp was firm, his smile warm and friendly.

“It’s Deborah,” I told him.

His smile widened. “Then I’m Ralph.”

“Actually, it’s good you could come with all that’s been happening. Have you found a place to hold services yet?”

“Well, Mount Olive offered to let us use their sanctuary after their second service, but now they’re scrambling, too. For the time being, our board of deacons has come up with an old-fashioned revival tent. We’re going to pitch it on our new site.”

“That’s right. I heard that Balm of Gilead was selling its land to Shop-Mark, but I didn’t know you were that close to breaking ground on a new church.”

Freeman gave a rueful laugh. “Talk about the Lord working in mysterious ways. We thought the land we wanted was out of our range, but when Balm of Gilead burned, the man selling felt so bad about it he came down considerably on his price. And you’d be surprised by the donations we’ve received this week. The story of our loss went all over the country and people are sending their support from as far away as California.”

“And then there’s probably insurance, too?”

“Maybe enough to buy us a new piano,” he conceded. “Which reminds me. Our board’s voted to send you a letter of thanks along with a letter to the Fire Department. It means a lot to our congregation that you saved our pulpit Bible.” He gave me a teasing smile. “And the fans, too, of course.”

I grinned back. “My fifty-cent milk pitchers.”

“Excuse me?”

So I gave him an abbreviated version of Daddy’s tale of old Mrs. Crocker and how determined she’d been to save a worthless piece of china.

He nodded. “That’ll happen.”

As new arrivals bore down upon us, I said, “I hope your wife will be joining us later?”

“No, I’m afraid she doesn’t feel well. She’s subject to migraines and one caught up with her today.”

He wasn’t used to lying and I wondered what the real story was there. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to wonder long because I was immediately surrounded by friends and relatives and half the county’s movers and shakers, each needing a hug or a handshake and some words of welcome or, since many of them had been at Mount Olive last Sunday, words of dismay about what had happened in Colleton County.

To my surprise, Wallace Adderly arrived with the Reverend Ligon.

“Hope you don’t mind me crashing, Judge,” he said with easy charm. “I hear your brothers are famous for their barbecue.”

Early forties or not, Adderly had no gray strands in his close-cropped hair. I’d seen pictures of him back in his activist days when he wore his hair in an enormous Afro. Back then he’d been tall and whippet-thin with a feral cast to his features. Now, he was broader of face and figure. Not fat, just matured to his fullest physical potential through prosperity and regular meals.

“Delighted you could come,” I assured him. “I’d have sent you an invitation had I known you were going to still be here.”

“Oh yes,” he said with pointed deliberation. “I’m probably going to be here quite a while yet.”

The pigs started coming off the grills at one o’clock and Isabel and Aunt Sister got their hushpuppy assembly line fired up. By one-thirty, Will and Robert had chopped enough pork to get started.

We didn’t have a podium per se, but my brothers and sisters-in-law and I gathered together near the front tent where Daddy was sitting with Luther and Louise Parker and my cousin John Claude Lee, home from Turkey only yesterday. When Daddy stood up and rang the hand bell, everyone fell silent. Past eighty now, he was still straight and tall and his soft white hair held the mark of the straw Stetson he was holding in his strong hands.

“My family and I welcome you,” he said. “It’s always a pleasure to us to have friends and neighbors join us like this. I ain’t much for making speeches—yeah, Rufus, I hear you back there saying ‘Good’—”

People laughed as Aunt Sister’s husband held up his wrist and tapped his watch.

“—and I ain’t gonna let people who
are
good at making speeches talk till all the barbecue gets cold. But all across this country, they’s folks like you and me having picnics and cookouts today and taking a minute to think about why we celebrate the Fourth of July. It’s our birthday. The birthday of America. America don’t always get it right and she’s messed up pretty bad sometimes. But even messed up, she’s still a lot better than anyplace else and we got to work to keep her that way. I ain’t saying reelect my daughter and Luther Parker or reelect these county commissioners and Sheriff Bo Poole because America will fall apart if you don’t, but it’s people like them that does America’s work and keeps her strong. Long as they’re doing a good job in our little part of America, I say let’s keep them!”

Loud applause, then Daddy called for everybody to stand and Annie Sue stepped forward to lead the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

She and Louise Parker were probably the only ones who hit “And the rockets’ red glare” dead on, but the rest of us made up in enthusiasm for what we lacked in ability.

More clapping.

“They’s too many preachers here today for us to favor one over the other,” Daddy said slyly, “so I’m gonna ask Judge Luther Parker to say grace.”

Luther had evidently been primed, for he did ask God’s help during these trying times and he did commend the soul of Arthur Hunt to God’s mercy. Then he gave thanks for the day’s fellowship and concluded by asking “that Thou bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies and our souls to Thy service. Amen.”

Hearty amens echoed his and soon double lines were passing down both sides of the serving tables where Minnie stood with a watchful eye, calling for fresh bowls of coleslaw or more hushpuppies as the baskets got low.

When I stopped to see if she needed any help, she had an infectious smile on her face. “Don’t you just love watching people?”

“Who?”

“Second table on the left. Don’t stare. Clifford Gevirtz and Alison Lazarus. He’s wearing a yellow shirt, she’s got on a blue dress. I said don’t stare.”

The woman looked vaguely familiar but I didn’t recognize the man and certainly neither of them had Colleton County names.

“Who’re Clifford Gevirtz and Alison Lazarus?”

“He’s the new large-animal vet.”

“The one that pulled Silver Dollar through colic this spring?”

Minnie nodded. “And she directs the literacy program here in the county. I introduced them last week and now here they are together. Don’t they make a nice couple?”

“Matchmaking again, Minnie?”

“Well, why not? They’re both from New York and they’re both single and he’s the best horse doctor we’ve had in a long time. And married men are more likely to stay put than bachelors. I do wish we could find somebody for Dwight Bryant.”

Dwight was going through the line just then with a tow-headed little boy in front of him.

“Hey, Cal,” I called. “When’d you get down?”

“Hey, Miss Deborah!” A snaggle-toothed grin lit up his face. “My daddy came and got me last night.”

Dwight’s son and ex-wife lived in the western part of Virginia, a good five-hour drive away the way Dwight drives, but that doesn’t stop him from making the trip whenever Jonna will let him have Cal for the weekend.

I broke line for a crisp hot hushpuppy and munched my way through hungry ranks to the table occupied by some of the courthouse crowd, including Cyl DeGraffenried, who didn’t look overjoyed to be here. Clerk of Court Ellis Glover stood up with a half-eaten ear of corn in his hand and tried to give me his seat, but I motioned him back down and perched on the edge of my cousin Reid’s chair as they hashed over the week’s events yet again.

“—only thing saving us from the media sticking a microphone in our face every minute is no decent hotels out in the country,” said Sheriff Bo Poole. “Keeps ’em in Raleigh.” He sprinkled a few drops of Texas Pete hot sauce over his barbecue. “Keeps ’em there at night, anyhow.”

“That and the quick arrest,” said Magistrate Gwen Utley, blotting her lips with a paper napkin. “Knowing who did it takes the air out of their stories.”

Reid was representing the Bagwell boy. He said nothing.

“You
are
going to plead your client guilty, aren’t you?” asked Alex Currin, who, like me, is a district court judge and would therefore not be hearing the case.

“Hard to make a man plead guilty when he knows he didn’t do it,” said Reid.

“Yeah?” said Currin. “I heard they took a handwriting sample and Starling’s printing matches what’s on the church.”

“Starling’s not my client,” Reid said.

“But your client says they were together that night,” said Portland Brewer, and she reminded Reid of a story that had appeared in the paper only yesterday.

A reporter had gone back and researched the sale of Starling land some twenty-two years earlier, at least two years before Charles Starling was even born, to what became Balm of Gilead Church. He had spoken to contemporaries of Starling’s grandfather, Leon, and he had pieced together a portrait of a hot-tempered alcoholic who used to run up huge tabs at various shot houses around the county. In less than fifteen years, the man literally drank up an inheritance of thirty-two acres and a crossroads country store back when you could still buy a farm for another four hundred dollars an acre.

Last to go was the land around the crossroads itself even though the store had been closed for several years. A devout black carpenter named Augustus Saunders had held the note on it for longer than any white bank would have, and when old Leon said he could have it for another five hundred dollars to finance what turned out to be his last alcoholic binge before his liver failed, Saunders took him up on it.

The store became a church and now the church was selling that parcel for almost a quarter-million. More than once in the past month, since word of the sale began leaking out, Charles Starling had been heard to curse Balm of Gilead and to swear that “a nigger stole my granddaddy’s land for five gallons of white lightning” and “I’m owed, ain’t I?” along with several other incendiary remarks. 

Reid just shrugged. “I don’t represent Charles Starling and my client had no grudge against any of those churches.”

“Yes, but Bagwell—”

“Wait a minute—”

“
I
heard—”

As the others attacked, I stood up. “Anybody else want some fresh hushpuppies?”

Across the crowded tent, I saw Wallace Adderly making his way toward us.

Cyl DeGraffenried jumped to her feet. “I’ll come with you,” she said.

This was the first time she’d spoken to me directly since I found her crying in my office but I tried not to show my surprise. We picked up big cups of iced tea as we passed the drinks table and were halfway down the slope to where Isabel and Doris were frying up hushpuppies fast as they could when Wallace Adderly overtook us.

“Ms. DeGraffenried?”

I paused but Cyl kept walking.

“Ms. DeGraffenried!”

Without turning around, she said, “Yes?”

“Ms. DeGraffenried, have I done something to offend you?”

“Yes!” she snapped and continued walking.

I trailed along, just as puzzled as Adderly seemed to be, judging from the look on his face.

“When?” he asked. “What?”

Cyl stopped and turned and her eyes were as cold as the ice cubes in her tea. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“We know each other?”

“I know you, Snake Man.” She fairly hissed the word. 

Adderly did a double take, then shook his head. “I’ll be damned! Little Silly. What’s-his-name’s baby sister.”

“Niece,” she snapped. “And his name is Isaac Mitchiner. My God! You took him into a snakepit and you don’t even remember his name? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

CH CH
What’s missing?
U R

—Plymouth Christian Church

Wallace Adderly stared at Cyl as if she were a copperhead moccasin herself, coiled and ready to strike, and he unable to run. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Snake Man. Because of you, my uncle’s gone. Because of you, my grandmother’s grieved all these years. Because of you, she’s never known what happened to him. But you know and you’re going to tell her.”

“What you talking, lady?” His usual cool had slipped away, revealing the wary, street-smart kid he’d once been.

“You think I was too little to understand and remember how you carried him off to Boston?” Cyl was almost rigid with anger.

“Boston?” Adderly asked blankly. Apprehension suddenly left his face and he nodded as if distantly recalling something almost beyond the reach of memory. “Boston. Yes.”

People passing back and forth between the cookers and the tents gave the three of us curious glances but only Cyl’s body language betrayed the intensity of the moment. She may have lost her temper, but she didn’t lose control of her voice. Even enraged, her words were so low they could barely be heard above the clang of horseshoes against iron, the trash-talking kids at the volleyball net, and the lively buzz of a dozen or more conversations going on beneath the tents.

“Twenty-one years ago,” she snarled. “You came through here. You with your big hair and your big head, spouting about injustice and oppression and how black power was going to change all that. All these years of seeing ‘Black Advocate Wallace Adderly’ in the news and I never realized you were Snake until last Thursday.”