23 this ain’t my first rodeo

The next hour passed rapidly. The large outer hall ran the entire width of the funeral home and people who had already paid their respects to the family either lingered there to speak with those still waiting on line to go in, or, as I had done, broke off into quiet conversational groups.

In addition to friends and neighbors, there were also some prominent faces out from Raleigh. G. Hooks Talbert was accompanied by the current president of the bank that had bought out the Cotton Grove bank Mrs. Vickery’s family had founded. The Vickerys were not especially political, but they contributed generously to the Democratic Party and I recognized a member of a former governor’s cabinet and some division heads.

Several of the people I spoke to were curious about my involvement with Michael’s murder and were not shy about asking, including Sammy Junior Johnson and his wife, Helen, who lived a few miles out in the country, near Bethel Baptist. Sammy’s mother and mine had been best friends from girlhood, and Sammy Junior didn’t mind telling me that he was worried about the effect all this could have on the runoff election. Both of them had campaigned for me in their community and Helen, too, was concerned.

“I mean, don’t you think it’s getting a little bizarre?” she asked. “First there’s Gray Talbert’s letter to the editor supporting you-Gray Talbert? Whose daddy’s one of the biggest Republicans in the state? Do you know how weird that sounds?”

Even though her voice was almost too low for me to hear, Sammy Junior shushed her. “He’s right over there.”

Helen ignored him. “Then that story in the paper about those two phony letters, and more stories-on television even! -about you finding Michael Vickery’s body, and now people are saying you’re the only reason Denn McCloy’s not reading about the funeral from the new jail over in Dobbs.”

“I can explain all that,” I protested.

“I’m sure you can, honey,” she said, “but who’s going to listen to the truth with such nice juicy rumors flying? You really ought to quit this messing around till after the election.”

“She’s right,” said Minnie. She, Seth, and Haywood and their kids had joined our circle just as Helen launched into her indictment.

The teenagers soon splintered off to form their own circle with Sammy Junior and Helen’s two, and when Minnie and Helen stopped lecturing me for things I mostly had no control over if they’d just stop and think about it, I stuck my head into the kid’s circle to thank them for riding the N amp;O newsbox trail for me the past few nights.

“I’ll fill you in later, but y’all can stop watching now,” I told them. “There’s not going to be any more of those letters.”

Haywood’s Stevie and Seth’s Jessica looked a bit disappointed that their night-riding was over so quickly, but I noticed that Stevie brightened up when Gayle Whitehead appeared on the line with Jed.

In the midst of death, we are in life.

It was after nine-thirty before the final visitors left. The three grandchildren and two sons-in-law had escaped twenty minutes earlier when the crowds first thinned. Dr. Vickery was bearing up well, but Mrs. Vickery looked absolutely at the point of collapse and her daughters hovered over her nervously. Even knowing how devoted she’d been to Michael, I couldn’t help wondering how much of her exhaustion was from grief and how much from all the touching and hugging she’d had to endure since Saturday night.

I lingered discreetly on the veranda while Duck Aldcroft confirmed a few final details about the next day’s arrangements. The service was going to be out at Sweetwater with interment among those Dancys who had first farmed the land where the Pot Shot now stood, and Duck needed to find out who was going to ride where. They fixed it that daughter Hope would ride in the lead car with her parents and that Denn would be taken in the second car with Faith and her family.

The Vickerys left, and Duck and I passed a few words while we waited on the veranda for Denn to have a final time alone with Michael. It was almost ten before he emerged, clutching his handkerchief, red blotches under his eyes.

“Thanks for waiting, kiddo,” he said and then didn’t speak again until we crossed Possum Creek and headed south on Forty-Eight.

“I just wish Michael could somehow know how nice his family were tonight. Mrs. Vickery… You know how much she hated it when Michael brought me down.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. “People thought it would absolutely kill her to admit Michael was gay.”

I flicked my beams and the oncoming driver hastily dimmed his. On such a dark night, brights were even more dazzling than usual.

“Perversion is abomination unto the Lord,” said Denn. “That’s what she told Michael when she came up to New York and realized I wasn’t just an ordinary roommate. She almost won, too, did you know that?”

Despite an emotionally draining day, he seemed keyed up and anxious to talk, as if he needed to put his years with Michael in perspective.

“How?”

“That time he left me and came home. She almost owned his soul. See, she comes to New York, finds out for sure her only son is gay and just about flips out. The abomination. The shame. She goes berserk and does such a head job on Michael that he gets schizoid about it; starts to think maybe she’s right and New York is a bad influence. Lots of people are AC/DC and maybe he can be straight in an all-straight community. So he comes back, starts to date a debutante, takes over the barn, lays every brick of the kiln himself till he falls into bed exhausted every night.”

“And it didn’t work?”

“Well, here I am, aren’t I?” he said simply. “Mrs. V. hates it when he sends for me, but you know something? Once I get here, even though she never pretends to like me, every time I see her, she’s always polite. But nothing like tonight. She’s a real class act, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” I said, turning into the Pot Shot’s lane. “She certainly is that.”

A minute or so later, I pulled up beside the pickup and Lily trotted over to greet us.

“I hate to drive this truck, but I sure don’t want the Volvo back either,” Denn mused, as he opened the door and rubbed the dog’s ears.

“Were you going out again tonight?” I asked.

“No, no,” he said hastily. “Just thinking out loud. I guess I’ll have to file an insurance claim on the car.” He sighed. “Michael always took care of stuff like that. I never even had to balance a checkbook.”

He sighed again. “Thanks for everything, Deborah. I’d invite you in, but I’m really beat. The only thing I want is to just go upstairs and fall into bed.”

I was thoughtful as I drove back down the lane, and the ceramic pitcher on the backseat only fueled my speculations. So many loose ends, so many unanswered questions, starting with did Denn think I maybe only scored a 380 on my SATs?

As I neared the intersection of New Forty-Eight and Old Forty-Eight, I met a sheriff’s patrol car that passed and headed on south. Too dark to recognize the driver, but Jack Jamison was probably home watching television at this hour.

The sensible thing was to go on home to bed myself.

“Better to confirm a suspicion than let it fester,” said the pragmatist.

“Right on!” said the preacher.

Back of Possum Creek Theatre, a rough drive circled down to the edge of the creek, and I stuck my car in amongst some tall bushes. There was friction tape in the glove compartment and I used it to tape the light button closed so the overhead wouldn’t come on every time I opened the door, then I kicked off my leather sandals and put on the beat-up sneakers I always keep in the trunk next to the locked tool box.

Inside the box, on top of the usual screwdrivers and pliers, was the loaded.38 Daddy gave me when I told him I didn’t need a man to take care of me. I checked to make sure the safety was in place, then strapped on the leg holster that I occasionally use when I’m out on the road late at night by myself. Carrying a concealed weapon without a license is against the law, of course, but one advantage of being a white, well-dressed female in this part of the country is that if you get stopped for a traffic violation, you’re never going to have to submit to much of a pat down. Especially if you’ve made it clear up front that you’re an attorney.