by Bret Lott
Black smoke wafted up from those burning clothes, the soles of the shoes curling up like they meant to start walking off and escape themselves. Mom looked at me then, still hugging herself and smiling—she had on a new top, a green silk thing with no sleeves, and new jeans, culled from the new wardrobe in the bags and boxes she had piled up in her bedroom, all of it from the boutiques on King Street downtown—and said, sweet as anything I’d ever heard her say, “Landgrave Hall.”
I’d only smiled back at her, then turned to the fire, watched the black smoke of those burning shoes and uniforms, her old life and the toil of it disappearing just like that.
I cut through a thin buffer of trees to the right of the cart path between the eighth tee box and the seventh green, and stepped out onto our gravel drive. Here stood our house a good fifty yards away, every light in the whole thing on, like a 4:00 A.M. party set to start.
It was a big white clapboard colonial, a covered porch stretching the whole front of the house, all of it four or five feet off the ground, built over a crawl space. All the windows had Charleston Black shutters, the roof above the second story steep-pitched with three dormers. The gravel drive swept off to the left, on that side of the house the separate garage big as the house on Marie, just past it the dock out to Goose Creek. To the right of the house and a good thirty yards away lay the seventh green.
A place Unc wouldn’t be caught dead trying to golf, even if it was only putting. Because the chance existed he might be seen by Mom herself, who, he feared, wouldn’t let such a ridiculous thing as a missed putt by a blind man go without comment.
The pride thing again.
Like every time Unc and I left for one of his nocturnal golf jaunts, the place had been dark save for the single flood at the peak of the garage, where all three of our vehicles and the golf cart were safely tucked away for the night, the driveway empty. But now every bit of the landscape lighting was on out here, the twin palmettos at the front corners of the house lit up like two torches blazing, the crepe myrtle and sago palms and Indian hawthorn that littered the front walkway all perfectly highlighted, little explosions of light and growth that charted the tabby path to the broad set of stairs up to the porch.
The lamps were on inside the windows on either side of the oak front door, too, the library on the right, the living room on the left, along with the porch lights blasting down on the wicker chairs and little side tables up there, outdoor furniture that cost more than all the furniture we’d left in the old house when we moved out. The upstairs windows were all lit, even the dormers, and I pictured Mom going room to room to room, flipping switches on everywhere. The landscape lighting all shut down at midnight, their timers inside the laundry room at the back of the house, so she’d had to go in there and make it a point to turn all of it on, too, and for about a second the idea crossed my mind that maybe she was afraid of something. Maybe she’d heard already about a body over at the Dupont place, and so she’d gone around and turned all this on in some attempt to fill time and quiet and being alone until her idiot son and her prideful ex-brother-in-law made it home to tell her everything would be okay.
Maybe she was afraid in there.
But the thought—a dumb one—only lasted just that long, because I knew my mom. I knew her.
I’ve already called your momma, Huger, Mrs. Q had said not a minute after she’d gotten to Judge Dupont’s. She’s on her way as we speak, she’d said.
Mrs. Quillie Izerd Grimball: mother of the Grimball daughter whose Prioleau husband had sold this fine house out from under her before the sale could be tied up in divorce court. Mrs. Q, the arbiter of good blood and bad, still riled and certain to be the rest of her days that her daughter hadn’t gotten this house, a clutch of rednecks soiling up the place instead.
And I knew, just like I’d known the first second I’d come through those trees to find this Roman candle of a lit-up house, that Mom’d turned on every light to make a point: she was up, and waiting to give Unc and me the hell we were owed.
I made it to the foot of the drive, peeled off to the right on the tabby walkway through the planter beds, then stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looked down. I closed my eyes, slowly shook my head, and thought, What am I going to tell her?
We’d found a body? That the Navy was involved, and something called a master-at-arms and his sidekick had drawn their guns on us, ready to fire? That I was toting a set of night-vision goggles it seemed Unc was hell-bent on keeping close?
That we’d found a body?
Then I remembered. I opened my eyes, looked up to the porch and that oak door and whatever it was waiting to happen inside.
Hide the goggles, Unc’d told me just before I’d taken off, headed here, to this moment. Tell your momma we’ll all be all right.
I could do that. Both those things.
I hitched the book bag a little higher on my shoulders, started up the stairs, the hollow slug of each step I made what seemed loud as a hammer in the quiet out here, and then I was on the porch and across it, my hand out for the bright brass door handle.
But the door opened, all by itself.
I looked up: Mom, her mouth and eyes open wide, and here were her arms up already for me, the trembling word “Huger!” out of her like it was some tremendous gift she’d been given even to utter it, and I stepped in to her, closed my eyes and felt her arms around my shoulders and her crying now, and for a moment I knew that, yes, everything was going to be all right. That Unc’s words weren’t any sort of fake promise meant to placate either Mom or me. He’d given us the truth: We’ll all be all right.
Mom moved her arms, eased off, and started to step back from me, and I opened my eyes.
First, I saw her eyes and the wet of them, her quivering chin, and heard out of her the broken-up words “What took you so long? What took you so long?” and already I felt bad for whatever I’d caused her. That worry, that pain. She’d already known there was a body involved before I’d said a thing. I knew that, just from her chin and the way she let out these words to me.
That was the first thing I saw.
But then I looked up, past her shoulder, and saw next, there behind her and a few feet into the foyer, a man in a khaki uniform, smiling.
I tensed quick at him, a shot of cold surprise through me, and held harder to Mom in just that moment, nearly clutched her in to me.
“Huger,” the man said, and nodded, and now I saw the gold at his collar, the four narrow bands of bright colors above his left shirt pocket. I knew already who he was, even before Mom in that next second pulled away from me and linked her arm in my elbow, turned to him and, gathering together what she could of herself, said, “Huger, this is Commander Prendergast.” She took in a quick, broken breath. “He’s been here keeping me company until you and Leland got back.”
I could hear on Mom’s voice a forced ease about this whole thing—a Navy officer in her house in the middle of the night—and I glanced down at her, saw her chin still trembling, saw her quick swipe at her eyes with the back of her free hand. But I saw too that she was smiling, giving this man her best shot at trying to get herself back together.
“Good to finally meet you,” the man said, and took a step toward me, put out his hand to shake. “Though I think I’ve laid eyes on you a time or two out to Warchester’s place.”
I said nothing, still too startled at who was standing here inside our house: Prendergast: the one who’d lost the goggles to Unc.
“Poker night,” he said, and tried at a little bigger smile. “I see you now and again bringing Leland in.”
His voice was higher than I’d thought it would be, and he stood a good six inches taller than me. He had dark hair in the standard officer cut: nearly shaved above the ears, thicker on up, parted on the side but the hair so short the part was more an idea than anything else. He was tan, and every crease in his shirt and pants could’ve cut stone.
He smiled, nodded again, and now here was my hand out to him, slowly, a
nd I could feel of a sudden the book bag on my shoulders, the weight of it.
He squeezed hard my hand, shook it once, let go and stepped back, put his hands behind him like he was at parade rest. He looked down at Mom, nodded at her, looked at me again. “Surprised we haven’t met before,” he said. “Not just because of our shenanigans on poker night, but because—” And he stopped, tilted his head a little toward Mom and looked at her again, gave another quick smile.
“Jamison and I go way back,” Mom said, and I looked at her, saw her smiling at him still. She seemed not to hold on to my arm so tightly, and now I saw that she was dressed, had on a white turtleneck shirt and a blue sweater, a pair of jeans, and not the robe and pajamas I’d expected. She looked up at me, smiling. “Jamison was a year ahead of me at Stall,” she said, and nodded. Maybe she was smiling too hard now, I couldn’t quite tell, but she went right on, “Everybody knew him because he was a receiver for the football team.” She looked at him then. “Of course he’d never give me the time of day, all the girls chasing after him, and me—”
“If I’d had the nerve, Eugenie, I’d have asked you out. But you had your own cadre, if you’ll remember. There was Tommy Sanborn and Trace Suggs and Alton—”
“Why are you here?” I cut in. The words were too loud, I could already hear. But Prendergast was in my home. The exact man I had to keep these goggles away from, and Unc’s words—Hide the goggles—came to me again, as though he’d known already this man would be waiting for me here.
They both stopped, caught in the nothing of this squirrelly nonsense talk about high school and who knew who when, and I stood there in the middle of it, the book bag hanging on my back, while what we weren’t talking about—where the goggles were—lay square in front of us all. Because that’s why Prendergast was here. Plain and simple.
“Had the men drop me off first, just in case you were already here. I ended up staying just to make sure your momma was all right, and let the men handle things down at the Dupont residence,” he said, still at parade rest, still with that tight smile, and I realized only then there hadn’t been a vehicle out front of our house, the driveway empty. “We had a report,” he went on, “that there was some trespassing going on at the Weapons Station, and one of my men said he saw the two of you. That’s all I know, and all we’re here for, but—”
“Nobody trespassed,” I said. “Nobody. We never even came close. We only—”
He shot out a hand from behind him like a traffic cop: Stop. “But our men found otherwise, once they were on scene,” he said, and here was that same stupid smile of his, that same tan tightness to his face. “But no one dispatched out here knew anything about a body, and so we’ll be on scene for a little while longer, just to make sure everything’s all right.”
He nodded again, and I felt Mom’s arm slip from mine, let go altogether, her getting hold of herself like I thought she would have all along—there was still hell to pay, and I knew it—until finally she took a step away from me so that we three stood in a kind of triangle there in the foyer, the doorway still open behind me. She put her hands in front of her, laced her fingers together, and started sort of bouncing in the smallest way: how she lets you know she’s done with you, that you ought to move along now before she blows up.
It wasn’t lost on Prendergast. Still with his hands behind him, he nodded hard this time, said, “Well, I have to be heading out, now you’re home safe.” He turned to Mom, leaned in and kissed her cheek, brought a hand from behind him and put it to her shoulder, like the evening’d been some simple get-together. I stepped back and away from the door, let him pass between me and Mom, his hands at his sides now, and saw a radio clipped on his belt at his back.
Mom and I both followed him, stepped out onto the porch. He took a step down the stairs out there, then another, and stopped, half turned to us.
“The police will be over here pretty soon, and SLED,” he said. “They’ll be asking questions. Feel free to let them know about Master-at-Arms Stanhope and Petty Officer First Class Harmon, why they came over to Judge Dupont’s for a visit.” He took a breath, held it a moment, then said, “And we’ll find out what happened and who that is over there. The body. I’m thinking you’re safe, though. That’s what’s important.”
I said nothing. I knew what would happen next, who’d be showing up at the door. But I hadn’t actually thought of what I’d be saying to them, and especially about Stanhope and Harmon. I only knew the cops’d be here, and want some answers.
And it was a relief, if only a small one, to hear somebody say something about the body. About her.
“Fine,” I said, and Mom, leaning against me again but this time, I knew, for only an effect—this piece of the family was safe at home—said, “Thank you, Jamison, for staying until he got here.”
And it hit me: I could play along too, just like Mom was doing already. She didn’t lean into me like this when I was in trouble, and I knew I was in trouble.
“You want,” I said, “I can drive you in the golf cart over there. To the judge’s house.”
He’d taken another step, but stopped again, slowly turned to me. Here was that smile, still and always there: tight and determined.
“I’ll walk, if you don’t mind.” He nodded over his shoulder, just a touch of a move, his eyes right on me, his face clear as day for the landscape lights out here. “Petty Officer Harmon here will take me back the same way you two came in.”
I blinked once, felt my face start into some kind of a question, but then I looked past him, down to the left of the foot of the stairs.
There on the tabby walkway stood Harmon, that M4 pointed down. He was looking at me, and nodded.
“See you tonight,” Prendergast said.
I blinked again, felt Mom stiff beside me.
Harmon had followed me the whole time.
I said, “What’s tonight?”
“Poker!” Prendergast shot out, and now he laughed, a high-pitched thing that sent a kind of black twist through me. “Over to Warchester’s,” he said and shook his head. “It may be four in the morning right now, but it’s a Thursday.”
He took the last two steps down, and turned one more time. “I imagine I’ll be seeing Leland over at Judge Dupont’s,” he said, and it seemed that smile of his was even tighter, that laugh he’d given as fake as Mom’s leaning into me right now. “But in case I forget to tell him, you let him know I’ll be taking him to the cleaners tonight.” He paused. “You tell him to bring only what he’s willing to lose.”
He nodded again, and turned. Harmon stood at attention, saluted him, but Prendergast did nothing, only started on the path toward the drive, away and to our right. Harmon fell in right behind him without looking back up at us.
And I’d gotten the message: Bring the goggles. Prendergast would get them tonight.
But then, as if all of this weren’t enough, Prendergast and Harmon only made it to the end of the walkway and a step or so out into the drive before they both stopped, sudden and sharp, as though they’d been scared by something.
I felt Mom beside me jump for it, felt too the blitz of hot blood to my face and neck, the rush of it, all in an instant, and looked past them off into the dark on the other side of the drive, there past where the landscape lighting blazed down.
A man stood there, maybe fifty feet away from the two of them.
Jessup, in his black ball cap, black windbreaker, and black pants.
“Thought I’d tag along, just in case,” he said, and I saw the ball cap nod at them. He looked up at us on the porch, called out, “Huger, Mrs. Dillard. How you doing?”
“I’m sorry for all this mess Huger and Leland are putting you through,” Mom called out quick as that, when I hadn’t even got my breath yet, hadn’t any words even to answer back.
“No problem,” he called out, and nodded again, a dark figure down there. “Just doing my job,” he called, then looked back at Prendergast and Harmon. “Think I know a little quicker w
ay than the one y’all came in on.” He turned then, started away down the drive, and into the black out there.
I looked at Prendergast down at the edge of the drive, saw he was turned to Harmon behind him, his head cocked to one side, eyes open wide.
You know he was there? I could hear loud as a brick on an aluminum hull for the look he was giving him, that tilt of his head.
Harmon shook his head, just once, and they were gone, walking fast across the gravel drive, following a security guard who’d been there all along.
Mom wouldn’t talk to me, only went to the kitchen at the back end of the house, pulled the coffeepot from the maker, turned it upside down in the sink and rinsed it out. Two empty cups sat on the glass-topped breakfast table, two of the four wrought-iron chairs pulled out, too, the ones that faced the picture window to the dock and marsh and creek out there.
I didn’t egg her on, didn’t ask her the dumb question what was wrong, didn’t volunteer any apology. Whatever was coming would come, and so I stayed quiet, only went around the table to the far side closest to the window, and took off the book bag and leaned over, slipped it beneath the glass tabletop.
I turned then, looked out the window at the dock lit up every few feet with the knee-high solar lamps we had running the whole length. The lights were dimming down now, night almost over and the solar power nearly bled out.
From here the creek made an arc away to the left and right so that I could see a good long stretch of it, maybe a mile altogether, our dock off the back of the house, maybe twenty yards out, at the bottom of the sweep of it all. Even in the dark out there and the light in here, I could see the water, the silver run of it, like a thin ribbon lying in the uneven lay of blacks and grays and silvers of the marsh. Out there, farther now, a couple miles off and to my left, sat the Weapons Station land, on it nothing I could see, just that ragged black tree line, to my right the far spread of marsh that led out to the Cooper River. From inside the kitchen it was all a guess what exactly it looked like, the broad void out there filled in with my memory of being on my boat, or at the end of the dock and just throwing a cast net for mullet to bring along with me fishing somewhere. But I could see from here the creek, the curve of it away on both sides. I could see that much.
