The Blackstone Commentaries (45 page)

During the early winter, he'd considered moving back north, but then he imagined the only thing lonelier than what he was already enduring would be enduring it up there without even the laughter and craziness. Thereafter the full dreariness of winter, the rains and occasional snowstorm, had settled in. Then April returned.

One Friday, a thin, tall man came into his office and stood in the middle of the rug he'd just purchased—it wasn't a very large or very good rug, for that matter, but it looked nice. The man, in well-worn sneakers and jeans that hung from a hipless frame by a wide leather belt, sported a T-shirt that said “Creedence” in large black letters. There was grease on the jeans and the T-shirt. “Mr. Willis,” the man said.

He remembered Winthrop Reedy from court after the trailer shooting. Elmore had defended his wife on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, four counts, as well as felonious destruction of property.
Try attempted murder
, he thought wryly, remembering the look that came over Elizabeth Reedy every time her former husband was mentioned, or Grady Snipes, or the Living Dead. He didn't even allude to the other woman, Peanut, if he could help it. To win Lizzie's acquittal, he had used a general defense of justifiable rage combined with her time of month and the humiliation of finding her once-upstanding husband among a nest of snakes, not to mention the social embarrassment. But it had been clear before the first day was over that no jury in Blackstone County was going to convict her, guilty or not. It had been equally clear there'd be no acquittal until every last detail was dragged out for public consumption. Theater was theater. “Mr. Reedy.”

“Winn,” Winthrop replied with a shy smile and a touch of irony in his voice, like “Mr.” didn't fit anymore, so why play at it?

Elmore caught the look in his eyes, a momentary glimpse of loss and bewilderment, like the man was way out at sea and had lost sight of land and everything he'd known.
Will the anger come next?
Elmore wondered.
It ought to. Or is it already too late? Give them a taste, then throw them away—they'll never bother you again, though they'll never stop hoping. Long as they
hope, you own 'em
. And Elmore wasn't thinking about love either. Reedy wouldn't be here if that were the case. No. Elmore read the newspaper. “Okay, Winn,” he said, and offered his hand.

“I thought, Mr. Willis …”

“Elmore, Winn.”

“I thought, sir …” He seemed startled by his own awkwardness. “I need a lawyer for that high-speed chase I got myself in.”

It even made the front page. The paper had carried a picture of a smashed car and some deputies looking at it—one of several smashed cars, he recalled. Started in the east somewhere and damn near made it out of the county. Full moon. Airborne, too, when he crossed Highway 60 on the bypass, or so they claimed, one officer saying he actually saw the belly of the car. “That was quite a run you gave 'em,” Elmore replied, grinning, hoping to put the man at his ease.

“Yessir.” For just a moment, there was a light in his eyes, a twinkle, Elmore decided, suddenly liking the man and feeling awful for him. “Only I wrecked my only car.”

“Deputies lost two, no, four cars, wasn't it?” Grinning harder now. It
had
been a good run. Everyone had talked about it.

“Three. The city lost one. Anyhow, I done 'em a favor getting rid of those Chevy sixes. Junior there thanked me while I was waiting bail. Kind of whispered it to me.”

“What are you driving now?”

“Oh, Cub loaned me one—that's Clyde Dean—”

“Forrest,” Elmore finished for him, still smiling. “He's a hell of a guy.”

“Yessir, he is. They've always been like family to me. I'm driving trucks for them, doing a little work in the shop when things are slow. I have a lot of bills to pay.”

“I imagine.”
Damn,
he thought,
there I go again!

“You did a real good job defending Lizzie. She didn't deserve jail or anything bad at all.” Winthrop winced.

“Thank you.”

“Can you defend me? I haven't got much to pay the court, and a lot less for you. But if I could work it off somehow … I need some help, Mr. Willis. Man's got to stop falling at some point. I got to have a license to work.” He stared right at Elmore, his chin up slightly, holding onto that pride the
best he could, Elmore thought. No self-pity. Just fact.

“Have a seat,” Elmore said.

A little while later, Elmore was walking up South Charlotte Street from the courthouse, the sun warm on his face, his thoughts on Winthrop Reedy, turns of fate and such matters. If he wasn't exactly happy these days, he suddenly reasoned, at least he was occupied, richly so. Eyes on the sidewalk, he was even feeling a moment's gratitude when he bumped into another pedestrian. “I'm terribly sorry, ma'am,” he said, turning red as his gaze lifted over the swollen belly of a pregnant woman. Then he found her face.

Rachel was blushing furiously.

His attention plunged over her big belly and then up again to find her eyes wide in dismay. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. Something she'd once told him about getting pregnant started gnawing at him, in the car after that first god-awful visit at her parents'. Then he remembered: “I would never,
never
marry anyone because I got pregnant! Especially if I loved him. I've seen that kind of hell.”

“No,” she whispered.

They stared at each other, Elmore vaguely aware of other people passing, someone even greeting him by name, a car honking somewhere down the street. He found himself counting back: one … two … three …

“Elmore?” she said, panic edging into her voice. “Elmore!”

In a dreamlike state, he turned away and started back the way he'd come.

“Elmore Willis,
where
are you going?”

He walked slowly at first, then faster. Soon he was running.

“
Elmore!
” she shrieked, almost a block away by then.

He ran full tilt, his face split by a huge, unruly grin.

He stopped the car beyond the portico of the small, unused frame building with its white paint and red trim faded like the sign hanging over the rusting gas pumps. He recalled when he first saw the place in 1948, the car fan up front whirring furiously over his mother's perpetual discontent, but there was a haze around all that now, and it wasn't unpleasant. He
found he wanted to run here, too, just like in town a little earlier, feeling his impatience tickle up through his chest, but he held back. With some semblance of dignity, he strode past the store and up the grassy bank just north of it toward the neat, recently painted house. A new Ford sedan, fresh from the road, sat under the carport. He knocked on the screen door to the kitchen, then turned away to look back down toward the highway and the forest crowding it on the other side.

“Why,
Elmore
! It's been a long time.”

Friendly
, Elmore thought. “Mr. Cady,” he said, turning to the gaunt man stuffing his shirt into his pants, his hair still wet from an after-work shower. Cady looked no different, no older than the man he remembered from behind the counter almost a quarter of a century earlier, as though in the shadowy interior of that little building down by the highway preserving spirits had worked, keeping him equally young or old, depending on how one looked at the tall, wiry and slightly stooped figure who, except for the graying hair, could be any age at all. That Rachel, with her beauty, could be born of such rocklike and homely material was truly wonderful, he realized.

Cady's features softened as he pushed open the door. “Come on in.”

“Thank you, sir.” Elmore stepped into the kitchen with its spotless linoleum floor, chrome-edged table and four chrome-and-vinyl chairs. A plastic-encased clock was grinding through the hours above the sink. Cady had started for the door leading to the dining room and parlor beyond when Elmore stopped him. “I don't have time to visit, sir,” he said, halting in the middle of the kitchen.

Cady turned just as his wife called from another room, “Who is it?”

“It's Elmore Willis.”

“Elmore? Have him come in!” Again, no trace of reproach, Elmore noted, certain now. He shook his head as Cady indicated the living room.

“I really have only a minute,” he heard himself say, thinking,
I have only a lifetime
. “It's about Rachel.” Cady's countenance grew stern as he sensed something in Elmore's gravity. “I didn't bring any shame on her on account of Charlie Dugan.”

“Good Lord, whoever said you did?”

“Rachel kind of said she walked out on me because I turned my back
on your family and defended Puma Wardell.” He heard a car coming up the mountain fast. “I still am Puma's attorney. What happened with Puma and the department, Charlie getting shot and all that, that wasn't my doing. But I had to represent Puma. That was my word.”

“I agree,” Cady said, leaning his tall frame closer. “I'm sure Charlie does, too. It's a real shame, his resigning, God knows, the real shame being how few will probably ever know what really happened.” He gave Elmore a quizzical look, but it wasn't unkind. “Anyhow, Charlie isn't angry at Puma—he never wanted him charged. Everyone knows the politics of that department and this whole blasted county are shameful.”

Elmore heard the car slow. “The law of family and kinship saying I can't see her anymore …,” he began.

“What on earth are you talking about, man?”

I'm dead right!
He heard a car door slam, then the crunch of feet on gravel. Awkward, heavy. “Because I defended Puma, sir. Anyhow, I didn't shame her that way.”

“Rachel told you that?”

Glancing past Cady to Rachel's mother, now standing in the doorway, her face so familiar yet different, softer, without the hard edge, pale, worried, Elmore listened to the footsteps slowing on the carport's concrete apron.

“Elmore, we haven't seen Rachel since the first of the year,” Cady said. “And in any case, I couldn't speak for her. She's a grown woman with her own mind. Lord, how I know! If she doesn't want to see you, that's between the two of you, and she can give you whatever reason she wants, though I'm truly sorry. I suspect you're a good man, and we thought she was much more than fond of you. We've missed your visits.”

“But I did shame her.”

“You what?”

“Elmore Willis!” The door flew open, jerking Cady's attention away.

“I brought shame on her, and on you and your family,” he persisted.

“
Elmore!
”

“Quiet, girl!” her father said, staring at Elmore.

“Look at her. That child she's carrying is mine.”

“You don't know that for sure, Elmore Willis,
damn
you! I've slept with
more men than you.” She yanked his arm, trying to turn him toward her, but he kept his face toward her father's. She began to pound on his shoulder with her fists.

“Rachel Cady, this is a Christian household!” her mother cried, looking frantically from daughter to husband.

Cady stared at Elmore, first in disbelief, then bewilderment, then finally with a look as cold and hard as Elmore had ever seen. For a long moment, his silent agitation filled the room, stilling even the women. Feeling the older man's looming violence, Elmore met his gaze as though to dare him. Then all at once, Cady relaxed. “What do you plan to do about it, Willis?” he asked almost mildly and with what sounded like genuine curiosity.

“Not a damn thing,” Elmore said, yanking free of Rachel, who was now sobbing, “Are you
crazy
?” Elmore headed out the door and down the mountain, never looking back.

It was dusk when he entered Damascus. He stopped at Dorothy's Restaurant, where he ate a huge meal—steak, eggs, toast, grits and coffee, lots of coffee. He was in no hurry. After chatting with some city cops, he headed out and put Phineas on his leash.

They took a long downtown walk, Elmore thinking he still had plenty of time. It was Friday night, and people had begun to arrive for the movies, parking along the courthouse square, some walking in pairs, chatting, a lightness in their step as they headed up North Charlotte Street toward the theater.
Patience
, he reminded himself, watching them.

The cars, too, began to circle, the big Plymouths, Dodges, Chevys and Fords, jacked and gleaming under the street lights, throbbing and swollen-looking as they commenced their slow rounds of the square, then on up North Charlotte and back down South Charlotte to the Southern Railway overpass, before they rumbled back up the hill with an almost matronly stateliness.

Not now
, Elmore thought.
It's still too early
. So, to the dog's delight, they walked farther out from the square in a widening concentric pattern, exploring the tree-lined streets with their neat bungalows that within weeks would be peeking through heavy leaves and shrubs but now looked stark blue or orange in the street lamps, the silence profound against the increasingly distant sounds of downtown.