No Daughter of the South Page 26

  Okay, so I overestimated my abilities there.

  I had just grabbed for the cushion when the big guy grabbed me and Forrest picked up the photos. I kicked and screamed with everything in me, but he just laid me out on the couch, held my arms with one hand and my legs with the other. I screamed louder and spit at him, but I might as well have been screaming in a hurricane and spitting in the Gulf.

  Forrest tore the photographs into little pieces and put them in a little heap in the fireplace. Then he turned, and opened a drawer in his desk. As he did, he noticed his gun lying on top where I’d left it. He laughed and picked it up. “So you were playing with my firearm. I bet you don’t even know how to use it.”

  I admitted as to how he was right.

  “If you think you can behave now, I’ll let you up.”

  I said I thought I could behave. The big guy let me up, but he kept a close eye on me as he moved toward the door and stood there with his arms folded.

  I sat up on the couch, smoothed my hair, and grasped at that old crutch of mine. Sex as a weapon. I unbuttoned a button on my blouse. Forrest stood there watching me, still smiling. Then he turned back to the drawer he was looking through.

  “You know,” I said, “I’ve always wanted to touch your gun.” So it wasn’t subtle. I knew he’d know what I was up to, but I hoped he’d be so sure of himself that he’d want to play.

  He looked up at me, poker faced, “Found them,” he said, picking up a box of matches. “Is that right?” he asked. “You’d like to touch my gun?”

  “Could I, please?” I asked.

  He picked it up off the desk top and walked over to me. He sat down right beside me, his thigh against me. He held out the gun. I stroked it suggestively. He smiled, the way he’d been smiling all night, and I looked at his long yellow teeth and mentally flagellated myself for ever admiring the man. I glanced over at the big guy. He was still standing there, but he seemed to be enjoying the game.

  “Tell me, how does the safety work?” I purred.

  Forrest grinned, and the big guy was laughing. “You think I can’t see what you’re up to?” he said “But you can’t shoot me, Laurie. First, you’re not that kind of girl. Second, you don’t want to spend time in prison. Just because you’ve got some ass-backward theory, you still don’t have to go shoot a man in his own house. Here, I’ll take off the safety and hand it to you. That’s how sure I am you aren’t going to do something stupid.”

  He handed me the gun. Then he turned, kneeled before the fireplace, and struck a match.

  “Stop!” I screamed, half-crazy with impotent anger. “Stop right now or I’ll shoot you!”

  He put the match to the little pile of paper. “No, you won’t.”

  “Yes I will!” I screamed, holding the gun out with both hands, trying my best to point it in his direction, but my arms were shaking.

  The big guy dove at me. I went down on the floor, the gun still in my hands. From far off, I heard a shot and I felt something jump in my hand. There were two surprised yells, and some swearing. I don’t know if I dropped the gun, or if it was taken from me. I just shut my eyes.

  When I opened them, Forrest was on the floor cussing and groaning, holding his thigh. There was blood pooling on the carpet.

  I jumped up and ran to the fireplace only to find a small, gray heap of ashes on the red brick.

  The big guy had the phone, calling for an ambulance. He hung up hurriedly and went over to look at Forrest’s leg. Forrest was still cursing. They ignored me. I picked up the phone and called the only local number I knew by heart. I called my Momma. Loud and clear I told her she’d better hurry on over as I watched Forrest’s man applying pressure with a cushion to stop the bleeding.

  First there was the sound of a car engine so revved up it sounded like a rocket coming down the street. Then a squeal of rubber as it swung into the driveway. A car door opened before the engine was off. Just about the time the front door burst open, I heard the sirens. Momma got there first, with Johnny a close second. She came into that study door like the Marines. For a moment I was wondering how I was going to explain what had happened.

  Turned out I didn’t need an explanation. It was enough for Momma that her daughter had found it necessary to shoot Forrest Miller. She lit into him, cussing him up one way and down the next. Problem was, apparently Momma hadn’t had much experience with those words. She had the general rhythm and vocabulary right, but something was wrong in the translation. “You fuck-damned-shit piece! God asshole you mother!”

  I burst out laughing. Forrest got this look on his face like Momma’s diction was hurting him more than his leg.

  When Johnny burst through the door, his gun in hand, he looked from me, hysterical with laughter, to my mother spouting twisted obscenities, to Forrest still writhing on the floor.

  The rest of it went by fast forward. Forrest Miller claimed I’d broken into his house, was discovered by some of his friends, and when he’d tried to settle the matter quietly with me, I’d taken his gun from his own desk and shot him. The big guy said it had happened exactly like that. Then the ambulance arrived and took Forrest away. Johnny sent Momma home, too.

  Then he sent a couple of officers over to the Dalman house to get Tom and Susan’s statements. I didn’t want to think about what Susan would be forced to say to back up Forrest and Tom.

  I showed Johnny the tiny pile of ashes in the fireplace. I showed him the blank spots in the photo album filled with pictures of Klan rallies. I told him what I’d seen, and who I had recognized. Then I asked him, without any real hope, if he’d be able to get Forrest for murder.

  Johnny shook his head. “Laurie, who got shot here tonight?”

  I looked at him. “Forrest Miller.”

  “That’s right. And where did he get shot?”

  “In the leg.”

  “In his own study. And who shot him?”

  “Me.”

  “So who is the most likely person to be charged with anything here?”

  I sat in dumb silence for a few moments. I already knew this, but had been fighting not to admit it to myself. “But he planned and organized a man’s murder.”

  “How are you going to prove it? The pictures are gone. No one’s going to testify. Assuming anyone did talk, he would be testifying to attempted murder himself.”

  “You could offer immunity in exchange for testimony.”

  “But why would anyone do that? I don’t have any evidence to hold over anyone. So why would anyone implicate himself in this?”

  “Sammy’s mother could testify.”

  “She has no real evidence.”

  “Susan…?”

  “Do you really think she’d testify against her own father?”

  I sat there quietly for a long time. After awhile, Johnny put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned my head against him, and then I found myself crying. We just sat there like that, for a long time. Every now and then, one of the other officers would stick his head in the door and Johnny would motion him away. And I just kept crying.

  I don’t cry much, as a rule, but I had been making up for lost time ever since I arrived in Port Mullet. Right then, I cried for Elijah Wilson, and for Billie. I cried for Sammy, growing up without a daddy. And for Etta Mae and Sapphire, spending their lives in their father’s power. And for Susan, who, despite all her plans, still lived as a prisoner. I cried for my own daddy, who couldn’t make peace with having a daughter who inherited his own lusty spirit, who insisted on the rights he thought were the privileges that came to him and his sons as a result of their maleness. And for Momma, who had struggled with me so because she had been afraid that I’d end up like Billie.

  The sobs were getting louder and harder, and I felt out of control. Johnny’s shirt was wet and smeared with snot. He didn’t move, except to give me a handkerchief, which I demolished in no time. He didn’t say anything at all. I cried for awhile about what Johnny and I had done to each other, things we would never be able to fo
rget.

  And then I’d finished crying. My eyes were red and swollen and my sinuses ached. My head hurt like hell.

  When I’d been still for a few minutes, Johnny gently disentangled himself from me and got up. “Don’t move,” was all he said.

  He went into the bathroom, and I heard the water running. He came back with a hand towel wrung out in cold water. He lifted my face with one hand, and with the other softly wiped my face clean. He went back, rinsed out the towel again. He told me to lie down on the couch, and I did. He folded the towel carefully, and laid the cool cloth across my swollen, ugly eyes.

  He went away for awhile, to make phone calls and talk to his officers. Then he came back, took me out to his car and took me home.

  Momma was in the kitchen. She started making coffee when we came in. He walked me to my bedroom door. I threw myself on the bed with all my clothes on. I think I went right to sleep, but in my dreams Momma and Daddy and Johnny were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and talking in a low murmur, and I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I got up about five in the afternoon. Dinnertime in that part of the world. Momma fixed me a plate, and I sat down to eat it. She sat down across from me.

  “You got a couple of calls this afternoon.”

  “Did I?” I was buttering biscuits like there was no tomorrow.

  “Johnny called to tell you that Forrest Miller isn’t going to press charges.”

  I nodded, added fig preserves to one of my biscuits. One just butter and biscuit, austere, as it were. The other with the sweet richness of figs. I wasn’t surprised by the news. I had woken up with several certainties right there in my mind, all orderly and ready, even before I opened my eyes.

  One of them had been that Forrest wouldn’t press charges. If he did, I would defend myself by dragging in Elijah’s murder and the Klan. A lot of it wouldn’t be admissible, of course, but Forrest wouldn’t want to open himself up to any of the publicity and scandal.

  The other certainty was that I was going to do my damnedest to tell the story I knew, about Billie and Elijah and the murder, and tell it the best I knew how, come hell or high water. I’d need to talk to Sapphire and Etta Mae, of course, because they might not want to stay in that isolated little house in Sheriff Pierre country once the shit hit the fan. On the other hand, they were two strong women, and they just might. There were others who were going to be hurt by what I was going to do—I thought of Johnny’s face when I told him about his father in the photograph—and there were still others that were just going to be angry at me for making such a fuss and causing so much trouble. I hated to think I was risking the tentative connections I’d made with my parents. But I’d made up my mind to let the chips fall where they might. It wasn’t the kind of carelessness I’d usually been guilty of, the not thinking things through kind. I’d thought it up one side and down the other, and I knew I was going to hurt for the folks I was hurting, but I was going to do it anyway.

  Momma continued, “He had more to say, too, but, really, I think it best you hear it from the horse’s mouth.”

  “Hear what, Momma?” A car pulled up in the driveway as I spoke.

  “Look, here he is now, with little Susan Dalman. That poor child.”

  My appetite evaporated suddenly. Momma hurried to clear away my dishes and put up more coffee. She had it perking before they got to the kitchen door. She put out cups and fixings, and then discreetly floated away towards the back of the house.

  Susan’s face was pale; she wasn’t wearing make-up, and she wasn’t smiling. In spite of that, she didn’t seem to be falling apart. There was a sense of serenity and composure about her that I’d never seen before.

  Johnny was pale, too, and he did seem nervous. His hands trembled slightly and he had trouble with the cover to the sugar bowl.

  Susan spoke first. “We’re on our way to the station, Laurie, but I had to see you first.”

  I nodded, immensely lost and curious. Was she going to apologize to me for having to back up Tom and Forrest’s stories? That wasn’t something she’d say in front of Johnny, was it?

  Johnny placed a thin folder on Momma’s wood-grained formica table and pushed it toward me. Nobody said anything. The two of them just watched me as I flipped it open.

  Inside was the photo of the armed men standing over Elijah’s body. I looked up at them in bewilderment.

  “But Forrest burned... Where did you... ?”

  “I slipped it down the front of my shorts.”

  “What?”

  “When Daddy and Tom got there. Remember, you stepped out into the foyer? I waited just long enough to get this before I followed you out of the study. I’m sorry. I was too frightened to get any more.”

  “Sorry?” In my excitement, I jumped up so quickly that my chair fell over on the floor with a clatter. Of the three of us, no one made a move to pick it up. “You’re sorry? Is that what you have to say?” I ran around the table to Susan and pulled her from her chair, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight against me.

  “Oh, Susan, I always knew you had it in you, I swear I did. I’m damned proud of you, girl!”

  When I finished my merciless hug, I pulled back, arm’s distance away. She looked good and solid, but serious, and she gave me a slight, sad smile that was as real as smiles get.

  I looked past her at Johnny, who was standing now and who also looked serious. “So, Johnny, what does it mean? Can we get him?”

  Johnny’s voice was firm, but unusually quiet and slow. “Forrest? I hope so, eventually. He’s not in this photo, obviously, and only a few of the other men are. It’s a hell of a good place to start an investigation, though. I interview those guys, tell him I have the photo, and, believe me, some of them will start talking. We can offer some of them immunity in exchange for their testimony against Forrest and the others. We can exhume Elijah’s body, too, and investigate the cover-up in the coroner’s office. It’ll be long and hard and messy, but there’s a good chance we’ll reel in Forrest in the end. The photo by itself is enough for you to publish one hell of an expose.” He leaned over to the table and picked up his cup, took a sip of coffee, put down the cup, and stared in it. “And it’s enough to ruin my father. Hell, it’ll pull down the whole structure of this town, and I bet you anything everybody in the state will be making jokes about Port Mullet. Congratulations, Laurie. Not only did you burn your bridges behind you, you’re gonna leave the whole damned town in flames.”

  I looked at Susan standing with her head bowed and I thought of what that photo meant to her marriage, to her mother, to her children’s future, to her whole life as she had known it before last night. I knew no words powerful enough to help her with what she had to face.

  I turned back to Johnny. “But you’re going through with it?” I hadn’t meant to, but I spoke it in a whisper.

  “Hell, yes. I’m going through with it.” He closed the folder, picked it up, and took Susan’s arm. The color was coming back to his face.

  I followed them to the door like I was sleepwalking, the magnitude of the implications only beginning to seep into my consciousness. Susan put her hand on my arm and looked in my eyes. “I didn’t do it for you, Laurie. I did it for Billie. I owed it to Billie.” We hugged again, this time lightly, as if we had already started to move apart. Then she walked down the sidewalk between Momma’s hibiscus plants, leaving me alone with Johnny.

  Through the fog and confusion wrapped around my heart, I felt a sharp stab of pain. I didn’t want Johnny to hate me. I would still do what I had to do, but I deeply regretted all the sorrow I’d brought into his life.

  “So, you’re leaving me with the ashes again,” he said.

  I couldn’t reply.

  He extended his hand toward my face and I almost flinched. He touched my cheek gently, a sad tenderness in his eyes. I grabbed his hand with both of mine, pressed it hard against my lips and kissed it. Then I let it go. He turne
d and walked towards the car where Susan was waiting.

  “Emma’s a good woman,” I called after him. “Be happy with her. I know you have it in you.”

  He gave no indication that he’d heard.

  I walked back into the house. I didn’t know where Momma had been hiding, but now she was back in the kitchen, already shoving the coffee cups in the dishwasher.

  Then she turned to me. “Your daddy’s gone to the airport.”

  That was a surprise. “What for?”

  “Another one of your calls while you where asleep. Your nice friend, Sammy. She’s coming to visit. Says she was worried about you. Makes me feel better, knowing someone is looking out for you like that.”

  I looked around the kitchen like I was looking for an escape. Sammy? Here? I was more than ready to leave this place, go back to my real life. Home. My home was in the city. Even Momma had said it like that.

  I didn’t want Sammy to see me at my parents’ house. I didn’t want her to see her lover as a trapped adolescent, acting like a jerk around her family, being treated like a child in return. And I wanted to tell her what I had found out about her father on our own territory. I didn’t want to tell her in Port Mullet, where we were surrounded by the rednecks who had killed him.

  I was relieved, grateful beyond belief, that my father had not been in those photographs. And I was grateful that he had tried to protect me from the ugliness of the Klan, by letting me grow up ignorant of its very existence. He had apparently raised my brothers to share his belief that the Klan was silly and pathetic. With a pang of anxiety, I wondered what he was doing that very minute. Was he treating Sammy with his patronizing Southern chivalry act? Would she know he treated all females like that, or would she think it was a matter of race?

  My stomach was churning when the car pulled up. I felt as naked and vulnerable as I ever had. My major victory in leaving Port Mullet had been that I’d created a persona to hide behind, and, now, with my two separate worlds colliding in one place, I was afraid it was me who would suffer the damage. I might just disintegrate into bits of matter, flung out to float through the cold, empty distances of the universe.