by Don Reid
“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your help, although I sense you don’t approve.”
Winifred smiled. “You could be wrong, you know.”
“Yes, sir. And I hope I am.”
As Cal crossed the room and opened the door, he didn’t look back at the professor/adviser until the old man spoke.
“You are wrong in thinking I don’t approve. I’m an elder in the First Presbyterian Church here in Durham. I’ll pray for you. Godspeed and good luck, Cal.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The changes came easy for Cal, and when college ended in the spring of ’37, he went immediately into Duke Divinity School. He was led by his passion to learn and by his dedication to the faith in which he was reared. He thought of Dr. Alvin Winifred many times over the next years of study and was taken by the summary of his chosen profession that the elder professor had compacted into a dramatic soliloquy in his tiny office. But he was also amused at all the negative components the man had included without touching on any of the positives. And that’s what Cal Vaxter saw with each passing day. The good he could do. The fulfillment he felt in doing it. And the knowledge he gained with each subject and class. He loved every minute of hard work that went into his degree. He even looked forward to the responsibility that would go with the commitment. He was sure he could handle it. And, yes, he wanted to minister to the people. He wanted to make a difference, no matter how small the scale. Ever since his heart had been touched that special night, he had been changed. And he had talked to no one about it. To do so at that point would be to denigrate the sanctity of the experience. Someday he would be able to put it all into words, but now he would just have to answer all the questions from his family and friends—“What made you want to go into the ministry? You’re the last one I would ever have thought would do that”—with a smile and knowing headshake. “Just something I felt led to do” was as far as he was willing to go.
Durham had become like a second home. He loved the feel of the town even though it was quite a bit bigger than Mt. Jefferson. But it didn’t take him long to adjust and feel like he belonged. It became even easier when he met a town girl at a local restaurant one fall evening when he was eating by himself.
“Excuse me. Could I borrow your saltshaker? Nothing will come out of mine.”
Cal looked up from the book he was reading: The Pilgrim’s Regress by C. S. Lewis. He focused for a second on the girl in the booth next to his table and said, “Sure,” and handed her the requested shaker.
Then he added, “They get damp and clog up.”
“You must be a science student. You talk like you know something about the atmosphere.” She laughed.
“No. Just that I’ve filled up about a million of those little devils in my life. I worked in a restaurant when I was growing up.”
“Really? You a chef or something?”
“Hardly. I bused tables and waited and swept up. Everything except cooking. But I do know how to keep that salt from going solid on you. Put a few grains of rice in there, and it will flow like water.”
“Good to know.” She smiled. “I’ll just pull my bag of white rice out of my purse and go table to table and fix them all.”
They laughed.
“You’ll make somebody a good wife,” she teased.
“I can’t tell if that’s sarcasm or a come-on.”
“Suit yourself.”
At this point, Cal took a closer look and liked what he saw. She had short dark hair that curled around a heart-shaped face and green eyes that seemed to stop just short of looking into his brain.
“You waiting on someone?” he asked.
“Not particularly.”
“Me either. You’re welcome to join me, if you like,” he invited.
“That doesn’t seem quite right. Why don’t you join me?”
Cal picked up his iced tea and moved to the booth with the pretty girl with the viridescent eyes.
“What’re you reading?”
“C. S. Lewis. You familiar with him?”
“Can’t say I am. I don’t read much. No time for it.”
“Well, just what do you do that would keep you so busy you don’t have time to read an occasional book?”
“I work. In an office. A small office. So I stay pretty busy all day long and most nights.”
“A secretary?”
“I resent that, thank you very much.”
“Oh, excuse me. What did I say wrong?”
“I’m a CPA. Official and licensed.”
“Well, now. I’m impressed. What led a pretty young lady like you into the world of correctional finance?”
“That’s a smart-aleck way of putting it.”
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? You keep books for people who can’t keep them for themselves. And you advise and correct their mistakes.”
“It’s a little more than that, and you make it sound so much less.”
“Maybe we’re starting off on the wrong foot here. I was just having fun with you because you looked so friendly. Let’s start fresh. What’s your name, pretty young lady?”
“My name is Ellie. I work at Harnott Associates. I’m a certified public accountant. I’m single and have Saturdays and Sundays off. I like fishing and tennis. I don’t dance, and I hate fried chicken. I was born in Louisville, went to school at Duke, and got this job my senior year and have decided to stay here until I find something I like better. Now, what about you, near-handsome young man?”
She made Cal laugh again and not for the last time. He loved her edgy personality and the sharp, biting words that came out of her timid-looking little mouth. She was an enigma of contradictions, and he was pretty sure he had fallen in love with her before the salad came.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Christina Melito Drakos was nearly six feet tall. Her hair was a perfect mix of natural gray and original black. She carried her three score and three years with such grace, women half her age paled in the presence of her beauty. She smiled when she saw Vic open the front door and walked to him and hugged him with equal parts sincere greeting and pure affection.
“How’s the love of my life?” he asked softly.
“Still the love of your life. Where have you been keeping yourself?”
“Laboring day and night just like you.”
“Every day, we’re less than two blocks from each other, and I see you, what, three, four times a year?”
“You’re forgetting, my love—you have a husband. And speaking of such, where is the royal Nick?”
“In the back. If he sees you out here, he’ll be out. And pretty quick, too.”
The customers dining in the dimly lit setting paid no attention to the slick-haired man in the gray suit and dark tie as he came through the swinging doors from the kitchen and breezed past their tables. They had seen him do it many times in pursuit of an arriving customer. He walked to the man and woman standing near the front door and reached out his hand.
“Hello, Prince.”
“Nick.” Vic shook his hand.
“Did you finally stop in to get a decent meal for a change?”
“Don’t have the time. But I will take a decent cup of coffee. Providing you know how to make one.”
Nick’s guffaw gave way for Christina’s exit, and the two men walked to and sat at the most private table near the back. Nick sat so he could still see the front door. Vic understood. Had they been down the street, Nick would have allowed him the same courtesy.
“You haven’t come to tell me you want me to buy you out, have you?” Nick said through a half grin.
“No, no. Why would you think that?”
“Just wishful thinking. And you’re getting closer to that retirement age all the time. Maybe past it.”
“I’m no older than you are, Nick.”
“Well, if you’ve come to borrow money, I’m your man.”
“Not that either. Did you hear about Harlan Stone this morning?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I did. What a shame. Said somebody just walked in his house and let him have it.”
“The police have ideas about who it was.”
“Really? Suspects already?”
“Ideas. And I was wondering if you could help. You got any thoughts on who might have it in for the boy? Who he might be in debt to or indebted to?”
Nick Drakos put all his attention on tearing off half of the tinfoil top from his fresh pack of Lucky Strikes. He patted one out and tossed the rest across the table to Vic. He took his time lighting up with a gold-encrusted lighter, and after exhaling the first deep drag, he looked up at the man with his back to the door.
“When did you go to work for the local police, Prince?”
“Just concerned for the boy, Nick.”
“Yeah, you took those little punks under your wing when they were kids, didn’t you? One turned out to be a cop. One a preacher. And one a jeweler.”
Nick laughed too big and too long at the nonjoke he had made.
“Now, I’ll let you decide which one was more apt to get into trouble,” Nick said. “Lots of money in those baubles he wholesales and retails up there in that little goldmine of his. You mother-henned those boys, and two out of three—that’s not bad, Prince. So don’t waste your time fretting over the jeweler.”
Nick laughed again while Vic stared him down.
“Has he been in the games, Nick?”
“Games?”
“Who does he owe?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific with me, old friend of mine. Say what you mean.”
“Who does Harlan owe money to? Local boys or the out-of-towners?”
“I’m not a banker, Prince. I run a restaurant just like you do.”
“Yeah, but you run it from the back room with the shades down on Thursday nights. Don’t play dumb with me, Nick. The boy has been shot, and there could be a lot of people in this town hurt if it came from one of those games.”
“Harlan Stone doesn’t owe me a dime. Is that what you want to hear?”
“I want to hear the truth.”
“Well, you just did. And you’ve heard all there is to hear about it. I have a party of thirty coming in here for some kind of school reunion in about twenty minutes. So we’re going to have to break up this little get-together. Sure nice of you stop in and say hi, Prince. Come back anytime. Always good to see you.”
Vic stood and paused to say something but wasn’t sure he could control his temper long enough to get it out. And he didn’t want to damage anything for Buddy’s investigation. As he went to the front door, he caught Christina’s eye from where she stood by the register. But he didn’t react to her because he could still feel Nick’s eyes piercing him in the back.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Darcy Brennaman got a job teaching grade school. It’s what she had dreamed of ever since she was barely five years old, lining up her rag dolls and china dolls and her collie, Lady, on the front porch and, with a ruler in her hand, teaching them the “A-B-C” song, running through the alphabet musically and ending with “next time sing along with me.” Sitting at her desk in front of real children now, she had to smile as she remembered teaching that old 1835 children’s song to her make-believe subjects. Here she was now with real first graders, and they actually sang it back to her. This was just one of her dreams that was coming true.
The other one would be picking her up after school and taking her to dinner in Richmond. Just the two of them on a long, romantic Friday evening. She had confided to her closest girlfriends that she felt sure she had conquered Mt. Jefferson’s most renowned Romeo and bachelor. When they would set the date had become just a matter of assumption. She would like it in the spring of the coming year. And with nearly two whole years of dating and getting to know one another behind them, the “Spring of ’39” had a nice matrimonial ring to it. She and Harlan would talk about it at dinner. It was a long road trip down and back to the capital city, so she would feel him out and make the proposal official.
“A penny for your thoughts,” Darcy said.
“That should be some easy money. I’m just concentrating on this highway. This is the most boring stretch of road I’ve ever driven. Just miles and miles of straight up-and-down road for as far as you can see.”
“You want the radio on?”
“Only if you do.”
She quickly spun the dial and, getting nothing but static and high whistles and an occasional news report, clicked it off for the lack of decent music. She wanted to talk anyway.
“You thought any more about what we talked about the other night?” she asked.
“What did we talk about? Going to the movies, or you working part time for me at the store over Christmas?”
“Neither, silly. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Getting married. That wouldn’t be it, now would it?”
“You’re so smart, Mr. Stone. You should really be on one of those radio quiz shows.”
“No doubt. I’ve got all the answers. You just throw me the questions.”
“Okay. When?”
“Right now. I’m ready.”
“No. That was the question. When? When are we going to get married?”
Harlan paused just a little too long to satisfy Darcy’s hunger for the subject. She stared out the windshield, watching the tall trees and hillsides whiz past, but the silence in the car was getting louder by the second. Finally she looked at Harlan, and he was staring back at her. At first she was startled at his gaze but then became frightened at how long he held her eyes with his.
“Watch the road, Harlan! Or you’re going to kill us both!”
She grabbed for the wheel, but he pulled it back to the center of the lane just before she had a chance to grip it with both hands. She wound up nearly sitting on his lap as he jerked the steering wheel and threw her toward him. With his right hand he grabbed her around the shoulders and held her tight, their faces a mere two inches from one another.
“Darcy Brennaman. Can you hear me? Can you?”
“Yes.” She was not frightened but a little taken back at this unexpected reaction to her original question.
“I love you. With all my heart and soul. Wasn’t it me who proposed to you eighteen months ago on the front steps of your house at midnight in the moonlight?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you tell me?”
“That I wasn’t ready to take that step and that I …”
“And that you wanted to think about it. And wasn’t it me who asked you again six months later in the back booth of Mulligans while we cut your birthday cake?”
“It was. And …”
“And you said no again. Some guys’ egos can’t take that many rejections. Some guys would be gone by now and never ask again. And the other night when we talked about marriage in your driveway with the heater running full blast, I didn’t propose again, did I?”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You know why? Because I’m not going to be turned down again. When I ask again, it’s going to be yes. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Stone, I do. And it will be.”
Harlan released his playful grip on her and looked into the face that had only grown lovelier since the post-office episode. He smiled his full-charm smile and showed her all his teeth. That was the smile he saved for all the beauties when he wanted to make his biggest impression. But this time he wasn’t conscious of even doing it. This time it just came natural.
“I have never asked anyone else to marry me, Darcy. No o
ne. So one more time. Will you marry me?”
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“How is this time different from the other two times you said no?”
“Well, I never really said no. I just said I wasn’t ready, which was kind of a lie. Oh, I was ready. Boy, was I ready! I was just not sure you were.”
“And you’re sure now that I am?”
“I think so. All we have to decide is when and where.”
“I’ll leave all that up to you. The sooner the better.”
“Oh, I can’t believe it. Since I was a little girl, I have dreamed of a big church wedding!”
“Really?”
”What?”
“Nothing. I was just thinking … let’s make it a party. Get a judge to do the honors and have the whole thing at the country club. But I guess we could have the actual wedding at a church if you really want to.”
There was silence again as Darcy remembered the conversation she and her daddy had had that evening on the porch. She had ended it with a promise that she would bring Harlan to church with her, and yet, after two years of courtship, she hadn’t been able to fulfill that promise. Her dad didn’t mention it, and she knew he never would. But a country club wedding. This might not be as easy to explain away.
“What’s wrong? You didn’t go to sleep over there, did you? What do you think?”
“I’m thinking we have a lot to come to terms with, Harlan. We’ve got a lot of things to work out.”
“I didn’t say something wrong, did I? You finally say yes, and then I say something wrong.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Time and circumstance can change the best-laid plans, and the meeting Vic, Buddy, and Cal had intended that evening after their respective interviews fell prey to these very ingredients. Buddy’s meeting with Darcy, where he had hoped to ask harder questions than the softballs he threw her earlier that day, couldn’t be coordinated with her hospital visits. Then the station required Buddy’s presence on other matters in the late afternoon, so Darcy had agreed for him to stop by the house the next morning before she went back to spend the day at Harlan’s bedside. That morning, Buddy knocked at the same back door, where the uniformed policeman had been posted all day yesterday. This morning, everything looked to be back to normal, and he could hear Darcy in the kitchen through the open windows.
