So we stayed buddies, and though we no longer partied together, we did still go fishing occasionally. In fact, the large-mouth bass mounted on the wall opposite his desk came out of one of my Daddy’s lakes. Stanton and I were both in the boat the day Terry pulled it in. Only eight pounds, but he was using ten-pound test, so it’d been a classic battle between man and fish. There’d been other, bigger bass, but that was the day we acknowledged our moment had passed and I sometimes wondered if that was the real reason he’d mounted this particular fish. Of course, at the time, he said it was because its big mouth reminded him of me.
Looking at him now, I suddenly realized it’d been over a year since we’d gone fishing together. His flat brown hair had thinned a little more, his crisp white shirt didn’t quite conceal the faint beginning of a paunch, and laugh lines were just a shade deeper around his hooded eyes. He was checking me for changes, too. I wore my sandy blonde hair a little shorter these days, and though I’d taken a few pains with makeup and clothes, time hadn’t exactly stood still for me either.
“How far’d you have to chase him for those ugly suspenders?” I teased even though they matched his maroon tie and actually looked rather sharp against the white cotton.
“He was right behind the good-looking gal you took that raggedy old blouse off of,” Terry grinned, maligning the beautiful turquoise silk shirt that I was wearing with a soft paisley skirt. He propped his feet on the open top drawer of his desk and leaned all the way back in his chair till his long body was lying almost horizontal beneath a large blue-and-gold plaque depicting the great seal of North Carolina. Esse quam videri with Liberty and Plenty for all.
I helped myself to the chair in front of his executive-size desk.
Except for one or two papers, the broad top itself was quite tidy for someone in charge of MUST, the SBI’s Murder Unsolved Task Force. In fact, the whole office was strangely bare of excess books and papers, as if the real work must surely be done elsewhere, not in this roomy, stripped-down office with spring sunlight blazing through the two tall windows onto the clean white rug. Nothing was piled on the two matching sand-colored file cabinets. A narrow white Parsons table beside Terry’s desk held a laptop and a printer and nothing else. The bulletin board over the table was only one layer deep, and there were even a few open spaces between an up-to-date wanted poster and some cryptic memos to himself.
His tackle box was always just that neat. No broken lures, no flutter of leaders, weights, or feathers.
On the opposite wall, the head-high bookcase was empty except for a row of looseleaf notebooks on the bottom shelf and some framed pictures of Stanton on the top shelf. He’d be about fifteen now, and of the three of us, he’d changed most of all, if the pictures were any indication-a young man all of a sudden and not a little kid anymore.
“ Stanton ’s getting handsomer all the time,” I said, picking up the wood-framed photograph on his desk. When Terry started to beam, I added, “Must take after his mother.”
“Like hell! Everybody says he’s me all over again.”
“What’s he up to these days?” I asked, truly wanting to know. I liked Stanton from the beginning. He lived with his mother, Terry’s first wife, and I knew he looked forward to weekends with Terry, yet he’d never seemed to mind when I came fishing with them.
“Doing real good. Plays shortstop on the varsity baseball team. Carrying a good solid B, too,” he bragged.
I put the picture back on his desk. “Starting to break a few hearts?”
The tip of his nose twitched. “Like I told you-he’s me all over again.”
“You wish!”
We talked trash a few minutes more before I broached Janie Whitehead’s murder and explained why I was asking.
“That was before my time,” Terry said, and without sitting up, he stretched across to snag a slim folder from the rack neatly aligned with the far edge of his desk. “I believe Scotty Underhill worked that case.”
He leafed through the eight or nine sheets in the file folder. From where I sat, I couldn’t make out specific words, but it looked like a condensed printout of all the unsolved cases assigned to Terry’s MUST team: names, dates, a one- or two-sentence description of each case and some comment as to any solvability factors.
“When was the last time it was worked?” I asked.
“Seven years ago,” he murmured, still reading.
The MUST force was developed only four years earlier.
“You didn’t rework it when you took over?”
“Oh, come on, Deborah,” he said. “I’ve got eight men and over two hundred cases. Janie Whitehead’s murder was thoroughly worked at the beginning and Scotty went back and poked around some more back in eighty-three. Nada.”
I vaguely remembered a flurry of hushed talk around Cotton Grove in the spring of 1983, but I hadn’t paid it much mind, especially since it died down almost as soon as it began. “And no suspects either time?”
Terry closed the folder and replaced it in the rack. “Now you know well and good I wouldn’t name names if we had any, which, as a matter of fact, we don’t. You can ask Scotty yourself if you want.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’m supposed to meet him at six. Want to come along?”
Miss Molly’s Bar and Grill on South Wilmington Street hadn’t changed all that much since I was last there with Terry. A few more neon beer brands had been added to the already crowded walls and I saw that Spot had finally found him that old blue guitar he’d been looking for last time we talked about his collection of neon signs. He hadn’t taken Little Richard and Elvis off the jukebox, but Randy Travis and Reba McEntire were there now, too.
Spot acted glad to see me.
“The usual,” Terry said as we passed the bar.
“You still drinking gin and tonics?” Spot asked me.
“Yeah, only make it a virgin,” I told him. “I’ve got to drive to Makely tonight.”
“Getting old, kid?” Terry needled.
“Getting cautious. All I need’s a headline in the Dobbs Ledger: ‘Judicial Candidate Cited for DWI.’ ”
We headed back to the big round table at the rear, which had always been populated by law people. That hadn’t changed much either.
I recognized two homicide detectives from the Raleigh PD, a couple of SBI arson investigators, and someone from the attorney general’s office, all males if no longer all white. We’d barely reached the table when a familiar whiff of musky perfume overtook me and I felt light fingers on my shoulder.
“Deborah? That you? Well, hey, gal! How you been? Where you been? God, it’s been ages!”
I turned and there was Morgan Slavin, a blur of long blonde hair, long gorgeous legs, and the clearest, brightest blue eyes south of Finland. We hugged and grinned at each other and found chairs while she pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims and lit up, talking all the while.
“You remember Max, don’t you? And Simon? And, hey, Jasp! Lacy know you’ve slipped your chain?”
Last time I saw Morgan she looked like one of those skinny, white trash motorcycle mamas-tight jeans, denim jacket studded with red-white-and-blue glass nailheads, no makeup, hair skinned back under a baseball cap, and flying high. She’d just infiltrated the busiest crack house in the Triangle and was waiting for the warrants and backups to get there before she closed it down.
Big change from the high heels and chic teal suit she wore this evening.
“Busting corporation types now?” I queried as we pulled out adjacent chairs.
“Naw. This is how supervisors dress.” She poked Terry’s shoulder. “Less’n you’ve got one of them Y chromosomes.”
“Always bragging about double Xs,” Terry grumbled. “Only reason they promoted you.”
“Hey, that’s great,” I said. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, thank you,” she said with mock modesty. “And you’re going to be a judge, I hear?”
I held up crossed fingers as Spot arrived with a tray of drinks.
Morgan was still drinking scotch on the rocks and the other men had beers, but I lifted my brows at the can of Diet Pepsi and glass of ice cubes that Spot placed in front of Terry.
“Getting old, Terry?” I mocked, squeezing the slice of lime into my tonic water.
“ Stanton ’s got a game tonight.”
“Yeah, sure.” I was going to let him get away with it, but then he remembered I’d heard him order “the usual” and he raised the can sheepishly.
Across the table, the men were trading war stories.
“Y’all work that Smithfield warehouse last week?” Terry asked.
They nodded and Morgan laughed with delight. “You hear about that one, Deborah?”
I shook my head and leaned back and waited for it.
SBI agents have to be brave, cheerful, thrifty, loyal, and all those other Boy Scout virtues, but I sometimes wondered if an SBI director hadn’t added “warped sense of humor” to the job description somewhere along the line.
“Tell her, Max,” said Morgan, acting like a big sister pushing her little brother out to show off
Max was the agent directly across who’d been coming on to me with those big brown eyes ever since I sat down.
“These two guys got a contract to burn out an old dilapidated tobacco warehouse over in Smithfield, see? Insurance scam. You sure you didn’t read about it?”
I shook my head. Smithfield was in Johnston, a county that touched Colleton but wasn’t in my judicial district.
“They had the preliminary hearing yesterday, and one of the perpetrators copped a plea and blamed it all on his partner. He just carried the can, he says, and it was his Dumbo partner who sloshed around all that gas. And it was Dumbo that made the Pall Mall fuse. You know what that is, don’t you?”
Actually I did, but he was cute and wanted to stretch it out.
“It’s a delay device,” he explained, taking his own cigarette from the ashtray and threading the unlit end through a book of matches. “See, tobacco burns at approximately 350 degrees Fahrenheit. I could burn this cigarette all day long and never set off gas vapors because it takes between 550 and 850 degrees to ignite them. Now this cigarette’ll take about ten minutes to burn down to the match heads, giving me time to get back here to Miss Molly’s and establish my alibi. The match heads’ll ignite at less than 350 degrees and generate enough fire and heat to set the paper on fire. The paper will generate up to 1,000 degrees and that’s finally hot enough to ignite the vapors, see?”
I nodded.
“Well, Dumbo does it all-matchbook nailed low to a center post ’cause he did know gas vapors are heavier than air, cigarette laced through the matches, only he forgot to light the cigarette till the last minute and what does he do?”
Everyone was grinning in anticipation.
“He flicks his goddamn Bic. I figure ol’ Dumbo probably had time to say Oh… but by the time he got to shit, he was standing in front of St. Peter, one pitiful crispy critter.”
Through the laughter, Morgan said, “Pretty good, Max. Almost beats one we had a few years ago. Before your time. He and his old lady’d been fighting half the night and she kicked him out of her trailer at two o’clock in the morning. He was so pissed he went next door and borrowed a match.”
I sipped my virgin GT and smiled lazily at Max. Enough to show him he was appreciated but not enough to move him around the table. I couldn’t afford any new entanglements right then.
Morgan misinterpreted and, with misguided generosity, offered me a Wake County sheriff’s deputy. “Tell Deborah ’bout that guy from California yesterday,” she said, gracefully stubbing her cigarette in one of the glass ashtrays.
“That call we got about some suspicious activity out near Fuquay?”
This one was a big, corn-fed blond with an easy aw-shucks-ma’am smile, who didn’t have to be asked twice to perform.
“I got out there and found a red GT with California plates. Unattended. Trunk lid up though, and the trunk half filled with that there stuff we call green vegetable matter when we have to take the stand.”
Terry leaned forward to listen. This was evidently a new story to him and he’d worked drugs. Tobacco is North Carolina ’s biggest legal cash crop, but they say marijuana puts more cash into the state economy than tobacco, and Terry takes it personal.
“Well I just hung around a few minutes and pretty soon, here comes this joker crashing out of the underbrush with his arms full of more green vegetable matter, freshly cut. He’s stripped to the waist. Sweaty. Briar scratches on his chest. Man, he’s been working double-time.”
He paused and tipped up his beer glass, then wiped his lips with calm, assured motions.
“He’s halfway up the ditch bank before he sees me standing there, my unit nosed right in behind his little GT. He drops his load so quick you’d think all that g.v.m.’s suddenly turned to poison oak. I don’t move a muscle or say a word till he gets up level with me. He’s scared shitless and just stands there looking.
“Finally I say, ‘Son, what the hell you think you’re doing trespassing on private property?’
“He doesn’t know whether to lie or tell the truth and starts moaning, ‘Omigawd, omigawd, omigawd.’
“ ‘Son,’ I say, ‘let me see your driver’s license.’ He hands it over and now he’s whining, ‘Please, officer, I didn’t mean nothing. I was driving through-everybody says North Carolina has good weed growing wild-I thought I’d check it out. I swear to God I’ve never done anything like this before.’ ”
“Sure he hadn’t,” said Terry sarcastically.
“Well, now, Terry, that’s where you and me might differ. There was something that made me believe maybe he hadn’t. And that’s exactly what I told him. ‘Son,’ I said, ‘you’ve got the pure look of truth in your eyes, so I’m gonna let you off easy this time. You empty your trunk and then you get your tail out of the state of North Carolina and don’t ever come back, you hear?”
“Well he dumped all that g.v.m. and was in his car hightailing it back to California before you could spit twice.”
He took another deep swallow of his beer and leaned back in his chair, smiling through those sleepy blue eyes.
Terry frowned. “You let him go?”
“Well, hell, Terry,” the deputy drawled. “Far as I know, there ain’t no law yet against filling your trunk with fresh-cut ragweed.”
Laughter erupted all around and Terry threw Max’s book of matches at him. “You sorry rascal!”
As the raucous hoots and gotchas turned into general conversation, Morgan waved to a quiet older man across the room. I knew Scotty Underhill by sight, but he’d always been a family man, not one to dawdle long in bars after-hours, so I didn’t know him all that well.
According to Terry, his daughters were grown now so he’d started stopping by occasionally. Morgan offered to scoot over and slide in another chair next to hers, but he shook his head and went off to a side booth with Terry. When they’d finished their business a few minutes later, Terry motioned for me to join them.
Underhill started to rise. I appreciate good manners, but he looked tired, so I said, “No, don’t get up,” and slipped into the booth next to Terry.
“I told Scotty you’re looking into the Janie Whitehead case,” said Terry.
“Her daughter’s eighteen now,” I explained, “and wants to know more about what happened to her mother.”
“That baby’s eighteen? Good golly Moses.” He sighed, tucked the ends of his blue plaid tie back inside his neat gray jacket and shook his head at the rapid passage of time. “But yeah, she was a year younger than my youngest daughter, and Delia’s sure enough nineteen now.”
“If you have daughters, then you can probably appreciate how Janie Whitehead’s daughter must feel, growing up not knowing why her mother was killed,” I coaxed.
“Yeah, sure, but we reworked it about three or four years ago.” He glanced at Terry for confirmation.
“Seven years,” said Terry.
He took another sip of his ice water. “The baby was dehydrated, though, and it was a damn good thing she hadn’t started crawling yet ’cause there was a Christ almighty big gaping drop where the paddle wheel used to go.”
“Could you account for all Janie’s movements that day?”
He leaned back in the booth and regarded me steadily, though it was Terry he spoke to. “You say she’s going to be a judge?”
“Is that a problem?” I asked mildly.
His eyes may have been pale blue but they were the eyes of a weary old spaniel who’d learned to wait instead of chasing after every breeze that bent the grass, and they didn’t waver now. “Not as long as I go by the book.”
Terry started to stir, but I laid my hand on his arm. “Primary’s not till Tuesday,” I pointed out. “And we’re a long way from November.”
Underhill seemed to consider, then shrugged. “Well, Terry’s my boss now. If he says it’s okay…?”
“It is okay,” said Terry.
“All technicalities anyhow. We didn’t find a damn thing the first time through and not a hell of a lot more the second time. So what do you want me to tell you?”
“Everything,” I said and signaled Spot for another round of drinks. Terry and I switched to coffee; Underhill opted for tomato juice.
It was sensible. It was healthy. We were all going to live to be a hundred.
Bootlegger’s Daughter Page 5
