As Cherry Lou Stancil’s court-appointed attorney, Avety Brewer wanted to hear my account of Mr. Jap’s death.
“Too bad she didn’t get to sign the farm back over to him,” I said. “That leaves her going to trial with her primary motive still intact.”
“You never know,” Avery said gamely. “Juries have acquitted with a lot more evidence than a Kmart sales slip for the weapon.”
“Right. And I suppose Millard King’s going to argue accidental discharge of said weapon and have Tig Wentworth plead to involuntary manslaughter?”
Portland grinned at her husband. “Now there’s a thought, honey. She said the shotgun was a present. Maybe her little ol’ son-in-law tripped on a mole run as he was going out to give it to him.”
Avery was not amused and went on ahead to warm up their car.
As the rest of the congregation streamed through the broad oak doors, then clumped for snatches of Sunday morning conversation along the steps and sidewalk, Portland touched my sleeve and drew me aside.
“Can I speak to you a minute, Deborah? Off the record?”
“Sure, Por. What’s up?”
Portland was a Smith before she married Avery Brewer and is Uncle Ash’s brother’s daughter, which makes us courtesy cousins. Not that the courtesy is needed. We’ve been good friends since we got thrown out of the Junior Girls’ class in Sunday school for teasing prissy Caroline Atherton. Indeed, Portland’s one of the reasons I stuck with law. After nearly messing up my life, I looked around to see what my friends were doing with theirs and Portland seemed to be having the most fun.
She and I were still the same height and approximate build, only on her, it looked better. She had short wiry black hair that curled all over her head as if a mad beautician had styled a Persian lamb, and her brown eyes were worried as she drew me even further away from the crowd.
“You remember that contested paternity suit I argued before you a couple of weeks ago?”
“Vaguely. Refresh my memory.”
“Beecham versus Collins? Single mom and cute little girl? I represented the alleged father.”
“Oh, yeah. The one where blood tests proved he couldn’t have fathered the child?”
“That’s the one.”
“So?”
“So day before yesterday—Friday? I got a call from one of Collins’ friends. He’s facing a paternity suit, too, and Collins recommended me.”
“What’s wrong with that? You won the case, why wouldn’t he recommend you?”
“Because I wasn’t Collins’ only recommendation,” Portland said grimly. “This friend tried to be subtle about it, but he asked me to make certain that we used Jamerson Labs and that it’d sure be nice if Mrs. Diana Henderson could be the technician who actually draws the blood and runs the test since she did such a good job for ol’ Tim there, wink-wink, nudge-nudge.”
“What?”
She nodded unhappily.
“He bribed her?”
“Maybe.”
As the implications sank in, I said, “You’re talking perjury here. And subornation of perjury, too. Or conspiracy. And that’s just for starters. Who approached whom?”
If possible, Portland looked even more unhappy. The ethical ground she was walking over at the moment was shakier than Jell-O.
“I don’t know, Deborah. Swear to God. And maybe I’m jumping to conclusions.”
“Do you honestly think so?” I asked her squarely.
Her eyes met mine. “No.”
“Who was the opposing attorney? Ambrose Daughtridge? I want your client and Mrs. Henderson in my courtroom first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Ex-client,” Portland said hastily.
“Whichever.”
“We’ll be there.” She gave my arm a squeeze, then with her wiry dark curls bouncing in the sunlight, she hurried over to the curb where Avery waited in their car.
As I started to cross the street to my own car, a white pickup stopped in the crosswalk in front of me and my nephew Reese leaned over and pushed open the passenger door.
“Want to buy me a cup of coffee?” he asked.
With those oversized tires, I had to hike my Sunday skirt to make that long step up to the cab, but one glance at the diamond-patterned treads made me think that it might well be worth the price of a cup of coffee to hear what Reese had to say about yesterday morning.
18
« ^ » As in every rising colony, so in this, tradesmen are much wanted; and the demand for them must increase in proportion to the number of settlers that resort to it.“Scotus Americanus,” 1773
As the youngest of my father’s twelve children, I have nieces and nephews who range in age from four years older than me, right down to high school.
Reese, the second of Herman and Nadine’s four, had to be at least twenty-six, but going on for sixteen if the love and money he was lavishing on this juked-up truck meant anything.
The white exterior was waxed to a diamond sheen that dazzled my eyes, and the heavy chrome bumpers were even shinier.
The interior was lushly upholstered in a supple honey-brown vinyl that made everything—from the adjustable seat to the doors to the dashboard and even the steering wheel itself—feel buttery soft. Besides the standard accessories, the dashboard had a built-in CD player with extra speakers concealed in the doors, and the lid of the padded armrest not only had a place to hold drink cups, it flipped back to reveal a cellular phone. The golden oak gun rack across the rear window and the stock of the Winchester hanging in the rack both matched the light caramel tones of the upholstery.
“Done much hunting this season?” I asked as I buckled myself in.
“Naw. Don’t have time. Got a few doves back in September, but we been so busy wiring that new subdivision south of town lately, I’m doing good to get away by dinnertime on Saturday. Now that daylight savings is over, sunset comes mighty early.”
“What about sunrise?” I asked snidely.
He snorted and took the turn on the truck lane a hair too sharply so that we bumped up over the curb. “You sound just like Ma.”
“Bite your tongue, boy!”
Nadine’s a good woman, but she can be awfully rigid about the morality of early rising and hard work and going to church three times a week.
Reese laughed. “Yeah, I’m thinking of getting me a doublewide and putting it out near the long pond. Dad said he’d cut me off an acre or two if I wanted it. I shouldn’t never have moved back home again. If I stay out late on a Saturday night and then try to sleep in, they act like I’m going straight to the devil. I tell you what’s the truth—I’m getting too old to have to be up and out on Sunday mornings before they get back from church.”
We pulled into the drive-through at Bojangles and I told him I’d spring for a sausage biscuit as well, if they were still serving breakfast. “I got up too late to eat, myself,” I admitted.
The truck windows operated electronically. Reese pushed the button to lower his and yelled down into the staticky speaker, “Two sausage biscuits and two large coffees. No cream. No sugar. You do take your coffee black, don’t you, Deb’rah?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Good. Coffee stains’ll sponge right up if you spill it on the carpet, but that creamer stuff’s hell to get out.”
He sounded like Hints from Heloise.
When we drove around to the serving window, those oversized tires put us up so high that Reese had to lean out and reach down to take our order. “And could we have some extra napkins?”
“Don’t you trust me not to smear sausage grease on your seats,” I teased.
“Never hurts to be safe,” he said mildly.
That was so unlike the old devil-may-care Reese that I took a good long look at him as he reseated his ball cap so that his light brown hair lay smooth before he pulled out of the Bojangles driveway into the Sunday church traffic that clogged the main commercial street through town.