Bootlegger’s Daughter

by Margaret Maron

  “Buy what?” I asked.

  “And she’s nosey as hell, too,” said Terry, shaking his head.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Look, Deborah, what I’m about to say goes no further, okay? We haven’t run all the tests yet, but the lab’s trying to work us up a hopper pattern on those shotgun pellets.”

  “I didn’t know you could trace shotgun pellets,” I said.

  “You can’t. Not like bullets. But you know how they’re made?”

  Interested, I shook my head.

  “Not to go into too much detail, what it amounts to is that you melt a bunch of lead ingots in a vat and then you make the melted lead into pellets. Each vat’s got a slightly different metallurgic composition, so when the pellets are poured into a giant hopper to load the shells, each day’s production means a distinctive pattern effect in the hopper. More than likely, when somebody buys a box of shells, they all came out of the same hopper. When you analyze all the pellets in a single shotgun blast, you can say whether or not they match the metallurgic composition of another shotgun blast. Got it?”

  “Sounds awfully complicated and not terribly accurate,” I said.

  Scotty shrugged. “Sometimes it’s all we’ve got to go on.”

  “The point is,” said Terry, “the new boyfriend may or may not be involved in some other mess that’s going on, but these are not the first two guys that’ve been blown away with shotguns in the last six weeks.”

  I looked at them, flabbergasted, remembering that shooting down near Fort Bragg a few weeks back. “Drugs?”

  “Well, think about it,” Terry said, his homely face dead serious. “Who had a motive to kill them? Jed Whitehead? Maybe. If he’d known that Vickery killed his wife and McCloy helped cover it up. But how could he’ve known? Besides, he was at a schoolboard meeting that night till almost ten.

  “The Pot Shot’s fifteen minutes from I-95 that ties Miami to New York. Every two or three weeks, Vickery ships a load of pottery to Atlanta. Maybe the pottery didn’t always travel empty. You hear what I’m saying?”

  I heard, and oddly enough, it was more believable than their first solution. Just last week, one of the businessmen in Makely, an ex-police captain in fact and a man I’d have sworn was above reproach, was arrested for laundering drug money.

  “Just cool it for a while, okay?” asked Terry. “I don’t want to be doing a pattern analysis on pellets we dig out of you, okay?”

  “You got it,” I said, trying to assimilate all they’d given me to think about.

  As the two agents stood to leave, Terry cut his eyes at me in a familiar flash of droll amusement. “Guess I’ll see you next week.”

  I was confused. “You will?”

  “Yeah, Stanton and me. Kezzie’s invited us to your pig picking.”

  “He’s really giving one?”

  Terry grinned. “You mean he forgot to invite you? Hell, girl, it’s gonna be the social event of the political year. I hear Jim Hunt’s coming, and they’re even trying to get Terry Sanford- all the biggies.”

  A week later, Ambrose Daughtridge stopped by for a heart-to-heart after court adjourned and began by telling me that Denn and Michael had indeed written mutually beneficial wills.

  “Each named the other as executor of his estate and, failing that, I was named substitute executor,” he said.

  That Michael had intended to rewrite his will carried no legal weight, of course, and his original instrument would be probated as written: everything to Denn. His left everything to Michael as primary legatee and, should Michael die first, to his own brother’s sons, two teenage boys.

  Ambrose leaned closer and, in a softer than usual tone that meant this was to go no further, confided that Mrs. Vickery intended to try to have the ninety-nine-year lease on her Dancy property set aside.

  “If she just could’ve brought herself to tell me about Michael back then, I’d have sure made some different provisions in that reversion clause,” he said.

  To look after his sons’ interests, Denn’s brother had retained the legal services of a high-powered law firm in Raleigh. For starters, they were claiming that the lease alone was worth over a million dollars; and the court fight was shaping up to be every bit as complicated as John Claude had anticipated.

  I wanted no part of the battle, and it gave me great satisfaction to tell Ambrose, “I really do appreciate your courtesy in consulting me and your concern for the proprieties, so let me assure you, for the record, Ambrose, that there was nothing in my dealings with Mr. McCloy that would preclude your settling his affairs any way you choose.”

  Without the least hint of irony, he said, “Thank you, Deborah. Now you be sure and bill his estate for services rendered, you hear?”

  A rainy afternoon in a Pullen Park caboose? An arm to lean on, the night of his lover’s wake?

  Sure.

  28 i will arise and go back to my father’s house

  My mother had been such a sociable and hospitable person that people loved to come visit almost as much as she loved having them come. Daddy might grumble over the upset and inconvenience, but he enjoyed being a patriarch and acting the host to all the far-flung friends and family who trekked back to the farm. No matter how full the house, floor space for one more sleeping bag or pallet could always be found. Her favorite parties were big ones. Not the “cocktails from seven to nine” type, but big sprawling affairs that might go on for days.

  The summer that one of the little twins decided to get married at the farm, Mother brought home a stack of etiquette books from the library. I remember that when Daddy started to fuss about the size of the guest list at breakfast one morning, Mother opened one of the books and said, “Now, Kezzie, listen to this: ‘Whether or not you have included a request to RSVP, once invitations are extended beyond the bride and groom’s immediate family, you may safely assume that at least twenty-five percent of your guest list will not attend.’ ”

  Daddy shook his head at that. “That stuffs written for New York City, not down here,” he said pessimistically. “Everybody’ll come and bring along their friends.”

  In the end, formal invitations were mailed to 220 people, Mother rented 250 folding chairs just to be on the safe side, but Daddy was right: at least twenty-five people had to stand through the ceremony.

  The year before she got sick, Mother threw a Saturday birthday party for Daddy that had people coming in from seven states up and down the eastern seaboard. The first guests arrived on a Tuesday, the last didn’t depart till the following Wednesday week. At one point, the old farmhouse slept eight extra adults and two babies, and Daddy threatened to have the boys dig a three-holer in the backyard so he wouldn’t have to stand in line for a bathroom.

  She would have loved the pig picking Daddy put on for me: three pigs, an iron wash pot full of real Brunswick stew (“It ain’t real Brunswick stew if it ain’t got at least one squirrel in it”), wooden tubs of lemonade and iced tea for children and teetotalers, and kegs of beer discreetly off to one side for those who liked their liquids a little wetter.

  The pigs weren’t due to come off the cookers till six-thirty, but by the time I got there a little after two, cars were already lining the lane and one of my nephews had begun directing guests into the near pasture. “But I saved you a place right at the front door, Aunt Deb’rah,” grinned his snaggle-toothed eight-year-old sister who was helping out.

  A volleyball game was in sweaty progress in the side yard and the clank of iron against iron drew me past the cookers and on down to a stretch of open space beside the potato house, where horseshoes were flying back and forth. I got there just in time to see Minnie win her game with a ringer. “Come and take my place,” she said. “I’ve got to get back to the kitchen and see if they’ve got enough cabbage chopped up.”

  Ostensibly she and Seth and three of my other brothers and their wives were hosting this party. Even though it was Daddy’s idea, Minnie had done most of the planning and she was the one who coor
dinated all the details. If Minnie had organized the flight out of Egypt, it wouldn’t have taken forty years to reach the Promised Land.

  My brother Will and I paired up against an agricultural extension agent and her boyfriend, the principal of a Widdington high school. We’d have taken them, too, if my leaner at the end hadn’t been knocked flying by the principal’s second shot. They easily fended off Dwight Bryant and his sister-in-law Kate, a couple of tobacco lobbyists from over in Widdington, and two attorneys from Makely, only to be done in finally by Terry Wilson’s son Stanton and Linsey Thomas.

  “Y’all hear ’bout Perry Byrd?” Linsey boomed from behind his bushy moustache as he and Stanton waited to see who their challengers would be.

  “Hear what?”

  “He had a stroke this morning.”

  “What?”

  “Yep. Went out after breakfast this morning to cut his grass, leaned over to crank his lawnmower, and never came back up.”

  The two attorneys from Makely chimed in with more details about the rescue squad’s arrival, its resuscitation attempts, and the rush to Dobbs Memorial.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  They shrugged. In that near-shout that was his normal speaking voice, Linsey said, “I called over to the hospital right before I came out here and they said he’s critical but stable, whatever that means.”

  “Wonder who Hardison’ll appoint if Byrd has to resign?” asked one of the attorneys.

  “Oh Lord,” I grinned. “You don’t suppose this is where Hector Woodlief finally gets a public office?”

  They reminded me that the governor would have to pick another Democrat, since Perry Byrd was one.

  “Maybe I’ll have to rethink my editorial policy,” said Linsey as Haywood and Seth banged their horseshoes together and wanted to know if he was there to talk or play.

  Linsey may have endorsed Luther Parker, but after running a brief story about how it’d been Denn McCloy who’d written those flyers, he’d quietly decided that the Ledger would have no further comment on the race for judge.

  He also had enough of his grandmother in him that he’d refrained from sensationalizing Denn’s allegations against Michael Vickery, and the N amp;O was so surprisingly restrained in its coverage that I wondered if maybe some behind-the-scenes personal plea hadn’t persuaded the publisher to back off. Terry’s speculation that the two men had been involved in drug trafficking had not found its way into print; even so, a lot of people around the county had come up with a similar explanation for their violent deaths.

  By now, it was two weeks since I’d discovered Michael’s body, and talk had begun to die down as life returned to normal for almost everyone involved.

  Since the Vickerys were such faithful Democrats, kind-hearted Minnie told me that an invitation had been sent to them-out of courtesy for their position in Cotton Grove, not because she actually expected them to attend. “Of course, you can’t predict what Dr. Vickery’ll do,” she’d said.

  Indeed, Dr. Vickery had played golf the Sunday before, causing some raised eyebrows; but Mrs. Vickery hadn’t yet been seen in public, not even in church. Their daughter Faith had stayed on after the funeral and was said to be concerned about her mother’s health.

  By six o’clock, the luscious aroma of hickory-cooked pork well seasoned with Daddy’s “secret sauce” had a lot of people circling the cookers like buzzards. Over two hundred people had been invited and while I tried to act nonchalant about it, I was gratified by the number of dignitaries who had accepted Minnie’s low-keyed invitation to attend a pig picking “in honor of Deborah Knott, candidate for district judge,” even though I knew that several of them had also accepted invitations to a fish fry for Luther Parker the previous weekend.

  Among the state’s movers and shakers were Thad Eure, former secretary of state and self-proclaimed “oldest rat in the Democratic barn,” there in his trademark red bow tie, and Bill Friday, former president of the state’s university system, who everyone regarded as a shoo-in for senator or governor if he could only be persuaded to run.

  I had a cryptic conversation with a black female judge from the third division, who gave me some good advice and told me to feel free to call if I won and ever needed somebody to unload on about the way the system worked. She was nearing the end of her first term, and sounded cynical about certain aspects. “I thought my big problem was going to be race. Honey, race is nothing compared to being a woman in a good ol’ boy system.”

  As the afternoon wore on and the sun began to set, Gray Talbert came driving through the back lanes in his black Porsche and parked at the edge of the orchard. I went over to welcome him and to thank him for his earlier letter to the Ledger.

  “You didn’t change parties, did you?” I asked.

  “Nope,” he grinned.

  “So?”

  “So why not?” he drawled with a supercilious smile that sort of got my back up. “Was I wrong? Aren’t you the best candidate? That’s what your daddy told me.”

  “Oh? And what about your daddy?” I cooed sweetly. “Doesn’t he mind about you supporting Democrats?”

  He shrugged indifferently. “I’m sure you know my daddy doesn’t give a damn what I do long as it doesn’t make the six o’clock news.” He spotted Morgan Slavin’s long blonde hair and ambled off to make her acquaintance.

  I wasn’t sure which rankled more: that he’d written that letter to the editor to ingratiate himself with my father or that he’d opted to flirt with Morgan instead of me.

  Soon Minnie sent one of her children to locate me and bring me up to the side porch where Daddy waited with Barry Blackman and my brothers and sisters-in-law. Minnie made a graceful speech of welcome, acknowledged the notables, spoke of Democratic unity, then introduced Daddy, who welcomed everybody again and said he hoped they’d forgive him for being partial to one particular candidate.

  Laughter.

  “Now some of y’all’ve seen her hold her own against all the menfolk in this family, so you know she can handle anything they throw at her. The only thing against her is that she’s my daughter, and there ain’t much she can do about that. I just hope y’all’ll vote for her anyhow.”

  Laughter and applause.

  Next, Minnie introduced Porter Creech, the most colorful official in the Department of Agriculture and one of Daddy’s old hunting buddies. He began with a couple of sly remarks about how much it pleasured him to speak on behalf of the daughter of a farmer who’d done so much for agriculture: “A man, ladies and gentleman, who single-handedly increased the production of corn in this county by twenty-seven percent all during the thirties and forties. And when he quit raising corn-least he says he’s quit?”

  (“Just enough for the cows,” Daddy said amid more laughter from the crowd.)

  “When he quit raising cain, he started turning out a bumper crop of fine upstanding citizens, including this young lady here, who brings it back full circle. I’ve known her since she was nothing but a twinkle in Kezzie Knott’s eye and a blush on Susan Knott’s cheeks. I’ve watched her grow. I know what kind of intelligence and integrity she will bring to the bench if she’s elected.”

  My three b’s of public speaking are be bright, be brainy, be brief; and since the first two would only undercut Porter Creech’s remarks, I limited myself to a few words of welcome, thanked them for their support, and concluded by turning to Barry as I said, “Preacher Barry Blackman has kindly agreed to ask the Lord’s blessing on us all.”

  Barry delivered an eloquent prayer of thanksgiving for food and fellowship, then folks headed for the cookers, where the three master cooks had sliced the meat from the bone, deftly mixed some of the dry meat from the hams with the juicier shoulders, chopped it together a little, and were now prepared to start serving. Good servers can eyeball a crowd and tell whether to load the plates or stretch the meat out a little further to make sure everybody gets some.

  At the head of the double-sided table were bowls of additional sauce labe
led Hot, Hotter and The Devil Made Me Do It. There were huge platters of deep-fried onion-flavored hush puppies, bowls of cole slaw, and more bowls of Brunswick stew. A dozen or more round tables, each with ten chairs, dotted the grass, but many people either sat in lawn chairs they’d thought to bring or perched on a low stonewall that had defined Mother’s iris border.

  I stood with my brothers and sisters-in-law for another thirty minutes or so, shaking hands with late arrivals, accepting their words of encouragement, and telling them, “Now y’all be sure and get you some of that pig before it’s all gone.”

  We’d already used a host’s privilege and fixed ourselves a sandwich a couple of hours earlier when the pigs were turned, so we were in no hurry to fill a plate.

  I was surprised to see Faith Vickery near the end of the line.

  “So pleased y’all could come,” Minnie said, clasping her hand warmly.

  “Well, Mama thought it would be good to get out of the house,” Faith said. She’d lived in California so long that there was no Southern accent left. Only the “Mama” betrayed her. She looked a little worried though as she said, “I just hope she isn’t overdoing. I haven’t seen her in the last half-hour.”

  “Maybe down by the shelter?” said Will’s wife, Amy. “I thought I saw her going that way a little while ago.”

  “Thanks,” said Faith and set out to find her.

  “Is Dr. Vickery here, too?” I asked, not having noticed either of them.

  “Faith and Mrs. Vickery are the only ones I’ve seen,” said Seth, and Haywood’s wife added, “If he’s here, he came by himself because he wasn’t in the car with them that I saw.”

  Our reception line disintegrated as the others drifted off to eat or socialize. I lingered a moment to savor the relative quiet.

  Stars were coming out and bats were graceful silhouettes as they swooped and darted overhead for night-flying insects.

  Lights had been strung through the trees, and as twilight deepened, the fiddlers started tuning up down at the potato house, a warehouse-sized structure where hundreds of crates of sweet potatoes were cured out each fall. Tonight, the big space had been cleared except for a makeshift musicians’ platform at the far end. The sliding metal doors had been shoved up onto their overhead tracks, and strings of small clear lights turned the place into an open-air dance hall.