No Defense

by Rangeley Wallace

  “Fine, fine,” Estelle said. “I just had to ask you, or I’d feel like I’d shirked my duties as your best friend. I don’t want you to get yourself into something you can’t get out of, LuAnn. You know-”

  She stopped talking as the kitchen door swung open and Doris, who was working lunch and dinner that day, walked by us, popping her gum. She went behind the stainless-steel island, piled a plate high with food, grabbed two corn sticks from the bread warmer, and went into the back dining room to eat her own lunch before the lunch rush began.

  “Estelle,” I said, “I’m married, happily married.”

  “But you and Eddie haven’t been spending any time together lately, none as far as I can see, and the way Ben looks at you, anyone can tell he’s smitten. Don’t you think it’s possible that-”

  “No, I don’t,” I interrupted. “Ben is my friend. That’s all. Just like you are. Forget about it.”

  “You two ladies do not look happy,” Roland said when he returned through the swinging door. “So what’s going on? What are y’all so upset about?”

  “Nothing!” I said.

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing,” Roland said.

  Estelle moved to one of the stainless-steel work areas, where she began to crack eggs, carefully separating the yolks from the whites for pie meringue. A small mountain of egg shells grew next to her right arm.

  “Tell me,” Roland begged.

  “It’s nothing!” I insisted. “Did you talk to the fish guy?”

  “Yes,” Roland said. “Dinner is under control, considering I have to cook city food.”

  “Leaf and romaine lettuce are not city food. Neither is tuna steak with bell peppers and mushrooms. They are just good, healthy food.” I sighed. “Maybe I’ve made the menu too complicated. Do y’all really think tonight’s going to work out?”

  “We’ve told you a hundred times to stop worrying about tonight,” Estelle said.

  “I will if you stop worrying about me,” I said. “Can you meet me upstairs in twenty minutes to start setting up, Estelle? First I’m going to clean the check-out counter. It’s a mess up there, and it’s the first thing all our guests will see.”

  “Sure, boss,” Estelle said.

  “Oh, and Buck is bringing by that gigantic picture of Daddy to hang behind the speaker’s table, plus he has something for every place setting-a commemorative thing, a pen or something. He should be here soon. Do we have all the waitresses and busboys we need lined up?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Estelle said. “Believe it or not, I know what I’m doing here.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I gave her a quick hug. “Sorry I got a little mad,” I whispered in her ear.

  “No whispering in my kitchen,” Roland called out, “unless I’m included.” He laughed.

  Kneeling down behind the check-out counter, I moved cigars, Life Savers, and candy bars out, cleaned the glass shelves with Windex, refilled the boxes, and put them back. I was directly visible to anyone four feet tall or less.

  Someone standing in front of the counter cleared their throat. “LuAnn,” a familiar voice called, “could you get up and take my money please? I have a trial in five minutes.”

  “Just a sec, Junior,” I said. I pushed myself up, holding on to the top of the cashier’s stool for support. “Who are you putting in jail today?”

  He handed me his check and a five. His top shirt button was open under his tie. It had always been difficult for him to find shirts that would close comfortably around his thick neck.

  “Nobody,” he said. “Taking a kid away from his crazy father and trying to find a place for a teenager who can’t stop stealing. That’s all I have on the docket for today.”

  He picked up a handful of thinly wrapped toothpicks from the fake gold bowl on the counter, each wrapper bearing the name of the Steak House, and stuck them in his jacket pocket.

  I counted out his change. “One, two, three, four, and that makes five. You happy with your work here, Junior?”

  “I sure am.”

  “Don’t you miss D.C.? All the excitement, the big cases, politics, all that stuff?”

  “Not really. I feel like I’m having an impact here. And it’s nice and quiet, safe and predictable. You know me: I like life a little slower than some. I’m happy.”

  “I hear you may be using Tallagumsa as a stepping stone to something bigger,” I said.

  He shrugged and smiled. “We’ll see.” Then he folded one of the dollars I’d just given him several times over and pushed it through the narrow opening in the plastic container attached to the York mint-patty display. “I love these,” Junior said, picking up a handful of mints. “How ‘bout you, LuAnn? Restaurant life suit you?”

  “I think so. Except for this to-do tonight. I hope I don’t embarrass Daddy with bad food or lousy service on his big night. Are you coming?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m sure it will be a success. You’re doing a great job, LuAnn. Everybody says so.”

  “Thanks, Junior.”

  “See you tonight.” He patted my hand gently, his large hand covering mine. Then he ambled away.

  I knelt back down and finished restocking the top shelf of the cabinet with M&M’s, Hershey Bars, Baby Ruths, and Butterfingers and tried to remember why I’d been so madly in love with Junior all through high school. Although I was fond of him now, I wasn’t attracted to him in the least. Not for the first time I wondered: What made love come, what made love go?

  That afternoon I hadn’t been home from work even an hour when it was time to dress and go back to the Steak House. The party preparations and the heat had left me feeling very frazzled. I’d tried to leave earlier, in time to fit in a nap, but there’d been too many details to attend to.

  Jolene bathed the children while I tried to choose an outfit. Usually I knew what to wear to a party, but that night, the more I stared at my clothes, the less I knew what would be right. Buck had instructed me carefully on what the children, Eddie, and I should wear for all the photo ops of the campaign, but I didn’t own much that fit within his narrow range of approved clothes.

  Five outfits lay across my bed. I had placed matching shoes at the ends of pants legs and a foot or so. below the hems of skirts and dresses. It looked like a party was in progress. Only the bodies were missing.

  After trying on every outfit, I was no closer to a final decision than when I started. Each seemed worse than the one before, and I felt bone tired, tired of lifting one arm after the other, picking up one leg, then the next, tired of buttoning buttons and zipping zippers. Dressed only in my underwear, I flopped down in the armchair by the bed, pushed the footstool away, and crossed my bare legs and feet Indian style. The next thing I knew, something brushed against my arm and woke me from a sound sleep.

  Jessie held her “magic wand,” a star made of a silver clothlike material that sparkled in the sunlight as though someone had covered it with glue and dipped it over and over again into a vat of sparkles until it seemed to explode with light. When she waved the wand, the purple ribbons attached to it had floated through the air and tickled me awake.

  “Hey, honey,” I said. “You look beautiful!” She had on a new dress from her aunt Jane, a sleeveless summer dress in a yellow, green, and lavender floral pattern with a giant yellow bow in back.

  I looked at the clock. Five. Cocktails were at six, so I should already have been back at the restaurant. I’d slept for thirty minutes. “Where’s Daddy, Jessie?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  “Is he home from work?”

  “No.”

  “He’s working so hard, isn’t he? You know why? His show is coming up soon. He’ll hang all his best cartoons up at the college and people from all over can come and look at them,” I said. What I was thinking, though, was that I’d never forgive him if he didn’t get home soon. He knew I’d need help getting the kids to the Steak House. He knew it was important that we arrive together.

  “Like the ones he d
raws for me?”Jessie asked, leaning against the bed. She had a scrapbook of cartoons Eddie had made just for her over the years, cartoons featuring Jessie and various members of our family.

  “Exactly.” I stood up and started to dress.

  “Does he need mine?” she asked, a worried look on her face.

  “No, sweetie, he has plenty of his own.” The cartoons Eddie had finally chosen for the show had been framed the week before and delivered to the college. The right side of Eddie’s studio bulletin board was now empty.

  “Jolene,” I yelled as soon as I was dressed. After all that agonizing, I had chosen the outfit I’d started with. Buck would approve of the simple black linen dress, pearls, and black high heels.

  “Yes?” she yelled back.

  “Are the twins ready?”

  “Just about.”

  “Great. We’ve got to get going. Will you come with me over to the Steak House and help with the kids until Eddie arrives? Please? I’m desperate.”

  I knew she’d say yes.

  Jessie and I gathered the twins’ diaper bags, bottles, a few plastic toys they liked to hold and suck, and the baskets they sometimes slept in. We put the things in the trunk of the car. I went back in for Will, stopping to grab a few extra pacifiers from his crib just in case, and Jolene picked up Hank.

  Jolene and I walked out of the house with the boys. I grabbed the wrought-iron porch railing to steady myself-I wasn’t used to walking in high heels. I never wore them to work. Hobbling a little, I reached the car, strapped the kids in, and drove us all to the Steak House.

  My mother and father were seated in the middle of the head table as the guests of honor. Next to Daddy was Senator Harold Collins and his wife, Sally, then Buck and Jane. The present governor, Stu Gordon, and his wife, Didi, were on Mother’s side, then Jessie and I. The oversized photograph of Daddy hung right behind us. Ben and Junior were at a table with a group of press people from around the state. A few photographers roamed the room, snapping pictures for different publications.

  The cocktail hour had ended. The soup course had come and gone. Eddie still hadn’t arrived.

  He walked in just as the salad was being served, said hello to everyone at the head table, kissed me and Jessie, and sat down, no apology at all. He wore his usual jeans, a button-down shirt, and a tie.

  “Go down and tell Jolene she can leave, then bring the twins’ baskets up here,” I hissed, furious at his timing.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “I was busy at school, okay? I didn’t realize how late it was. At least I’m here. There are a lot of other places I’d rather be.”

  “That’s flattering,” I said, smiling for the benefit of the people eating at the tables in front of the speakers’ table.

  He glared at me.

  “Smile when you talk,” I ordered Eddie.

  “You know what I meant,” he said. “I’d prefer anywhere to a bullshit political function. Why do I have to smile?”

  “You’re impossible,” I said. “Just go tell Jolene.”

  I slipped my high heels off and walked around in my stocking feet, helping the waitresses dean up after the last guest left a little before ten. Jessie was coloring in a Raggedy Ann coloring book with her aunt Jane, who was still pregnant, thank goodness. My father and Buck were discussing the opening of the campaign: who’d come, who hadn’t, what it all meant. Eddie sat at the far end of the room near the sleeping twins, smoking a Salem.

  “Could I give you a hand?” Mother asked me as I piled silverware on a large round serving tray.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “You just relax. I’m not going to work much longer.”

  Mother sat down near Buck and Daddy and placed her glasses on the table. She stared off into space, twisting her wedding band around her finger over and over.

  When I was too tired to be of any further help, I approached Eddie. “I’m ready. You want to take Jessie home?” I asked. “I’ll take the twins in the Toyota.”

  “I don’t have my car,” he said. “I left it at the shop this morning, remember?”

  “I thought you got it. How’d you get here?”

  “Barbara brought me. We came straight from the college.”

  “How sweet,” I said.

  “What are you sounding so nasty about? Jesus! All night you have been a total bitch.”

  “Can we just go?” I said.

  As we walked out the Steak House doors, Ben’s BMW pulled up to the curb. He rolled down his window and held out a large manila envelope to me. “I forgot to give you this tonight. The results of the appeal. There’s more information from the FBI, but not much. I thought you’d be more interested than I am.” he said.

  I peeked inside. It was the FBI documents I’d seen at his house. “Thanks! I’ll read them tonight.”

  “What’s that?” Eddie asked as we strapped the children in my car.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said.

  Eddie drove. I tried to read by the light of the overhead lamp. Far fewer words were blacked out in this set of memos:

  MEMO

  To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field Office

  From: Special Agent Dorr

  Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

  Date: August 28, 1963

  I have confirmed that a Bureau informant, Dean Reese, was in the car involved in the murders. Thus I expect a speedy resolution of the matter. Hopefully, the State of Alabama will bring indictments here. Perhaps they will be able to get convictions with the help of Reese’s eyewitness testimony. If the State refuses to go forward, however, as often occurs in these cases, this would definitely be a good candidate for federal civil rights charges.

  Eddie switched off the car light. “The boys might wake up,” he said.

  I didn’t argue.

  After we got the children settled in bed, I took off my shoes and stockings, fixed a glass of iced tea, and sat down at the kitchen table to finish reading.

  MEMO

  To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field Office

  From: Special Agent Dorr

  Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

  Date: August 30, 1963

  Dean Reese has provided me with the --------------- Agent Moon and I will attempt to interview each of them and other possible witnesses. As always in this kind of case, if we can secure even one cooperative witness (in addition to Reese) we will be lucky, particularly here where, according to Reese, --------------- Tallagurnsa, Alabama, the town outside of which the killings occurred.

  For what it’s worth, there is a rumor around town that they were shot by someone whose daughter was involved with one of them.

  MEMO

  To: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field Office

  From: Special Agent Dorr

  Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

  Date: September 5, 1963

  As you know, it appears that the shells found at the scene of the crime came from the which --------------- Reese turned over to us ---------------

  As I mentioned over the phone, we may have serious problems here. After spending a few days in town, we’ve discovered that Reese has a reputation for being an extremely unstable alcoholic, someone who is known for violent and unpredictable behavior. This was not a complete surprise. We had some reason to believe that there were problems with Reese. In a similar Mississippi case his evidence proved unreliable. We had kept him on the payroll though because we had no one else in the area. I have set up a meeting with him tonight.

  MEMO (marked URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL)

  To: David Metzger, Assistant to the Director

  From: Carl Best, Chief, Atlanta Field Office

  Re: Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson

  Date: September 7, 1963

  We recommend strongly that the Bureau --------------- and that we any of the information gathered --------------- Without our involvement, they will not bring a case. As you pointed out, Reese’s suicide --
-------------. Not only is our best evidence gone, but any trial might ------------------------------ Department --------------- civil rights cases in the Deep South.

  A few more interviews have been scheduled, just to tie up loose ends. One is with Liz Reese, the wife. It is unclear whether she’ll cooperate. We understand that the Reeses’ marriage was a very troubled one.

  I couldn’t remember exactly what was included in the documents this time that hadn’t been in the documents I’d seen at Ben’s, but I was sure Dean Reese and all the information relating to him hadn’t been mentioned at all in the earlier version. Miss Reese’s husband had been an FBI informant! I put the papers back in the envelope, picked up the phone, and called Ben.

  “Did you read these?” I asked as soon as he answered.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  “It’s great stuff,” I said.

  “I told you that everyone involved was dead. Dean Reese is dead.”

  “Yes, but these memos are full of leads. You could talk to his wife, follow up on this Mississippi thing, play detective.”

  “You know his wife?”

  “No. Daddy does, I think. Ever hear of Miss Reese’s Pies? That’s her. She moved away around the time Dean Reese killed himself Reading these just now from beginning to end, you can see the FBI started out real optimistic about making a case and then they up and ran off. Something sounds fishy to me. Don’t you think so?”

  “No, I don’t. I think it’s pretty obvious why they left town: Their evidence killed himself,” Ben said.

  “But what about this Mississippi case they mention that Reese was involved in, and what about the possibility the murderer’s daughter dated Leon or Jimmy?”

  “LuAnn,” Ben interrupted.

  “Yes?”

  “I am not going to get into all that. I have a book contract and my own plans, and I don’t really want to learn anything else about some violent alcoholic who’s dead.”