Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

  I hadn’t studied the list of entrants with the same attention to detail that Todd had given it, so the next arrival surprised me. I heard Dacus’s resident motorcycle gang blocks before they turned onto Broad Street. At first, I had a shot of concern, but causing trouble is not really their style. Mad Max and the Posse cultivated a “we’re bad” attitude, but they were businessmen. Mostly the kind of business that wanted to avoid too much scrutiny.

  Since regular jobs would violate their tough, free-spirit image and since selling Girl Scout cookies wouldn’t keep up their gleaming Harleys, I suspected they engaged in the classic fund-raising schemes—drugs, prostitution, gambling, whatever presented itself. Whatever they were doing, they did it somewhere other than Camden County. Still, I was surprised to see the Posse Motorcycle Club on my parade lineup sheet. “Club,” not “gang.” Semantics make all the difference.

  Every bike in the line sported a stuffed animal on back. Scooby-Doo, Pooh Bear, a giant floppy rag doll, what looked like a walrus—they all rode by in a slow sweep.

  I’d met the boys when they’d come calling at my lake cabin in late November, to offer me some critical information and—without a single threatening word or gesture—to scare the daylights out of me. I’d helped them out by serving as a go-between with L.J., and we’d maintained a nodding acquaintance since then. I wasn’t sure why, but I seemed to rank a “tolerable” rating in some book of unwritten rules.

  They drove to the end of the block and turned back toward their lineup position. I arrived at Slot Number 16 just as Max pulled in at the head of the group. Talking over the roar of the mufflers was impossible, but I threw up an open-palmed wave. See, I come in peace—and a bright yellow Fourth Festival T-shirt.

  Do-Rag—Clyde on his birth certificate—rode the shotgun slot behind Max. The two offered interesting contrasts. Max, with his bushy man-mountain beard, Christmas bow lips, and cold, flat, staring black eyes, offered me a barely perceptible nod. Do-Rag flung up his beefy arm, stretching the sleeveless denim shirt under his leather vest. His head rag today was predictable: a stylized American flag motif with swirling stripes.

  The others stopped in formation. Most had to give the throttle one last punch so the engines roared, then pop-pop-popped before they quieted.

  “Really like your passengers,” I called to them.

  Max stared at me with an intensity that looked as though it could sear flesh.

  Do-Rag/Clyde yelled back. “We’re early for the toy campaign, but thought the kids would love it.”

  At the same time, the kids’ dads would love the bikes and the hint of the wild life they offered. Some of the moms might secretly wonder just how wild those biker boys could be. Everyone would smile at the incongruous scene with the stuffed animals.

  The last biker boasted a gigantic American flag, mounted on a pole fixed to the rear of the bike. The biker craned around to make certain the flag wasn’t touching the ground. If a cross-wind caught him while he was riding, I hoped he wouldn’t have trouble controlling his bike. The flag was that big.

  I kept walking, not worried he’d sue the city if he skinned up himself or his bike. We had enough people worrying about that kind of silliness already. Todd was probably worried the bikers would run wild in the crowd, raping and pillaging their way down Main Street.

  I bit back a snicker just as I saw a real problem approaching.

  From my vantage point near the Posse’s lineup slot, I watched a familiar figure on a skinned-up scooter buzz softly down the opposite lane of the street, turn, and head straight for us.

  I checked my clipboard. There it was. Slot Number 17: Donlee Griggs.

  Tuesday Morning

  Donlee Griggs is a goofball who’d nursed all through school a crush on me and any other girl unfortunate enough to be nice to him. Donlee’s not quite right, as we say. He takes care of himself by working odd jobs, then gets himself in trouble by hanging out at Tap’s Pool Room. Most of the time, that’s okay, but when the guys there have been drinking, they forget about watching out for Donlee and they suggest stunts that can get him in trouble.

  This looked like something Donlee had planned all on his own. He wore his glow-in-the-dark orange helmet with an Uncle Sam costume. At six-foot-seven, Donlee as Uncle Sam was an impressive sight, even though his pants legs barely topped his dingy white athletic socks, leaving his scuffed work boots fully exposed.

  Donlee pulled up close behind the last two Harleys in the Posse line. His big face, squished at the sides by his helmet, beamed when he realized he’d scored a place of honor with his fellow bikers.

  A biker at the rear of the pack rode with a potbellied plush bear wearing a flag motif head wrap; biker and bear looked like they were headed to a father-and-son fashion show. The biker traded a look with his closest comrade but never turned to look in Donlee’s direction. The bikers could see all they needed to see in their round rearview mirrors.

  Donlee didn’t mind. He wasn’t much for conversation. Whether that came from being teased as a kid because he stuttered or because most of Donlee’s life was carried on inside his head, I didn’t know. Donlee’s thoughts always played on the revealing screen of his face, so he didn’t have to talk. He was just happy to be there.

  When he caught sight of me, he cocked his palm in a touchingly childlike wave and grinned as broadly as his tight helmet would permit, for a moment transforming his face into one of those dried-apple old men.

  I waved back. “Nice costume, Donlee,” I called and gave him a thumbs-up sign. With more squint-faced beaming, he returned the thumbs-up and settled proudly astride his scooter, his lanky red-and-white-striped pants akimbo on either side of his scooter and his blue coattails trailing in the dirt.

  Before I could turn to leave, more trouble approached, this time from two different directions. The first to arrive was Donlee’s runty friend PeeVee Probert, swaggering up the sidewalk to join us.

  “Donlee, you nidgit. What the hell’re you doin’ dressed in that git-up?”

  Donlee frowned and turned to face forward, pointedly ignoring PeeVee and waiting for the parade to start.

  “What’re you supposed to be, any how? You look like a frozen Tasty Rocket, all red, white, and blue and too big for your wrapper.”

  “You just jealous,” Donlee said, still refusing to look in PeeVee’s direction.

  “Holy shit. Why didn’t somebody warn me? I need my sunglasses.” Pudd Pardee, head of the county Rescue Squad, had approached from the direction of Main Street riding half in, half out of a golf cart that leaned with his weight.

  He made a soundless stop beside Donlee’s bike. The Posse bikers continued to ignore Donlee and his crowd of hecklers.

  “If it idn’t the Jolly Green Giant in patriotic camouflage,” said Pudd.

  Donlee frowned as if confused by the reference.

  Pudd leaned over closer, as if whispering to Donlee. “You gonna invite A-ver-ee here to ride with you? I hear she’s hot for that kind of thing.”

  Donlee’s eyes danced from one side to another, from Pudd to me and back again. He wriggled on his scooter seat, trying to process what Pudd had said.

  I could’ve smacked Pudd. Donlee had recently had a girlfriend with a matching pumpkin helmet, who’d appeared in his life about the same time the scooter did. Some of us had assumed the girl and the scooter had come as a package, but then Donlee started appearing around town without his passenger. I didn’t know the story, but I did know from long experience how difficult Donlee was to distract once his affections attached. I didn’t need Pudd’s help—and neither did Donlee.

  Donlee knew to be wary of Pudd and his practical jokes, but Donlee also had an endless spring of hope bubbling in his barrel chest.

  “No helmet,” I said. “Pudd, you know better than that. It just wouldn’t be safe for me to ride without one. What kind of message would that send to all the kids watching the parade?”

  “This is South Carolina,” Pudd said. “Who the hell cares
whether you wear a helmet?”

  “Nice advice from the county’s safety expert,” I said. “At least Donlee’s got the good sense to send the right message.”

  Donlee’s mouth twisted in a lopsided grin, though he never once looked directly at me.

  I waved good-bye and headed to the command card table, in the opposite direction from where Pudd’s cart was headed. He and his crude jokes have a limited shelf life with me.

  About ten parade slots ahead of me, I saw Sheriff L. J. Peters herself walking in my direction. I expected to see her hassling the participants, making illegal searches and seizures of contraband bags of candy at Adrienne’s instigation. Instead, L.J. was shaking hands. I thought I also spotted a smile, though it passed so quickly, I couldn’t be sure.

  As I drew closer, I saw her offer something to one of the convertible drivers. The beauty queen or politician passenger hadn’t shown up yet. Was L.J. handing out tickets? For what?

  “How do, L.J.?”

  As she turned, her hand went with a deliberate reflex to her gun belt, which bristled with threatening implements.

  “A-vry.” L.J. returned my greeting with a curt nod.

  She held brochures, printed on a cheap color laser printer, announcing Reelect L. J. Peters—Sheriff. A Proven Record.

  “Getting an early start on November?” I nodded toward the brochure. She didn’t offer me one.

  “Might be a primary,” she said.

  L.J. tends to do little but growl around me. Today, though, I saw something in her eyes that I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was because she wasn’t wearing her Oakleys, but she looked—vulnerable.

  With a twinge, I remembered the negative comments about her around the festival committee table. A primary? Who was considering a run against L.J.? Now wouldn’t be a good time to ask her, so I just said, “You’ve got my vote, L.J.”

  The look of surprise, followed by fleeting gratitude, made me glance away. I wasn’t used to seeing L.J. so exposed.

  If she’d been anyone else, I’d have patted her arm. Though I didn’t always agree with Lucinda Jane Peters, I’d grown to grudgingly admire her. She hired good people, let them do their jobs, and she was honest. That’s a good sheriff, in my book. We’d had lots worse.

  “See you around.” I waved and strolled on with a knot in my stomach. What the heck would L.J. do if she weren’t sheriff?

  I wasn’t even sure what she’d done before she joined the Sheriff’s Office. Had she been in the military? She’d come through the deputy ranks, but I doubted she could return to a patrol car if someone else became sheriff. That just wasn’t done. What do defeated sheriffs do, anyway?

  South Carolina appoints judges and hires police chiefs, but elects sheriffs and county solicitors. When a solicitor is defeated in an election, she can just go back to practicing law—and usually makes more money than she did as a solicitor. Not so easy for defeated sheriffs. I guess they have to move somewhere else to find a job.

  I didn’t think that would suit L.J. Her family, like mine, were long-time Camden County residents. Of course, I was proof you could leave home—and even come back again. I had a knot of anxiety in my stomach for L.J., though. Odd how relationships change over time, even though the people involved don’t really change. They just get more so, as Aunt Letha says.

  I drew even with the first entries in line: the high school drill corps and the band. The kids moved and shuffled and danced without cease, a perpetual motion machine, their marching lines fluid with the pent-up energy of youth. The increasingly sticky air was filled with the constant chatter and occasional bleats and blasts and clicks from horns, woodwinds, and drums.

  At command central, Lissie Caper, a woman I knew casually from church, stood in front of the folding table talking to Todd.

  Todd faced her across the table. Something in his stance or the tightness around his mouth telegraphed that theirs was not a how-do conversation.

  I slowed my approach, not wanting to interrupt what might be a confidential lawyer-client confab, being held in a decidedly unconfidential place.

  Lissie caught sight of me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Avery! How are you?”

  “Fine, Lissie,” I said and drew closer. “Is your daughter marching? How old is she now? Five?”

  She gave the beleaguered Mom eye roll. “She’s been so excited. She’s a twirler this year. I just dropped her off with the dance troupe. Got to go find a spot on the shady side of the street.”

  “Nice.” I’d been a dance-class twirler, too, when I was her daughter’s age. It’s hard to live that down, as Aunt Letha periodically reminds me.

  Whatever I’d interrupted, both she and Todd seemed willing to let it drop. Lissie, though, shuffled in place with an awkwardness that she just couldn’t leave alone.

  “Todd and I were just talking business. Did you know Todd’s been elected as secretary for the board of Manna Advisers?” She said it as though she was announcing he’d become secretary of state.

  “Congratulations, Todd,” I said. He acknowledged my words with a nod.

  “And we just found out we have a mutual friend: Spencer Munn. Have you met Spence yet?”

  “We met recently,” I said, not admitting to much.

  “If you need any help managing your money affairs, you really ought to talk to Spence. I was telling Todd what a great job he’s done for me. You know, with the money from my divorce. A lump sum. That’s got to last me.”

  I nodded again. What do you say to that? Sorry it didn’t work out?

  “So,” she said, scrambling for another topic. “How’s your mom and dad? And Lydia? I never see her anymore.”

  We both retreated into the comfortable, unrevealing exchange of life lived closely in a small town.

  “They’re all just fine. Thanks for asking. Where’s your daughter in the parade today?”

  “The Apple School of Dance. I’d better go find a spot. She’ll be asking if I saw her.” She waved good-bye.

  Adrienne materialized at our card table, as if conjured from eye of newt.

  “Everything under control here?” She sounded like a drill sergeant addressing first-week recruits.

  “Yes, ma’am.” My voice snapped like a salute. I swear I didn’t mean to mock her. It just came out that way.

  As a peace offering, I searched for a question she’d love to answer.

  “Adrienne, how—do the numbers look? For the festival, I mean. For everything.”

  She looked up from her clipboard, the harried executive with too many demands on her attention, gracing the little people who make it happen.

  “Just fine,” she said.

  “As good as you’d hoped? In line with the Hellhole Swamp Festival? Or the Chitlin’ Strut?”

  Her eyes narrowed, as if she’d suddenly remembered I was the irreverent one who’d tried to sabotage both the dignity and the success of her event by reopening that scandalous fright house and pushing to allow Shriners to pelt small children with rock-hard candy.

  “We really can’t tell this early, now can we? Besides, those are our aspirant festivals. We want to aim higher than we might hit, don’t we?”

  She made it so easy. It is, after all, hard to surpass festivals touting respectively the joys of being a tobacco-spitting redneck and the sublime nature of smelly fried pig intestines. I just smiled. “We’ve got the parade under control.” I didn’t salute.

  Somewhere back in the parade line, a baritone horn gave a blubbery bleep and a Harley without a muffler restrictor fired to life. Adrienne’s eyes narrowed, but the miscreants were saved by the singing of her cell phone.

  “Yes? Who?”

  She stepped away from our card table, her hand to her left ear to block some of the background noise. “What?”

  The disbelief in her tone held my attention. Whatever was afoot had riveted Adrienne to the sidewalk. Apparently at the direction of whoever was talking to her, her gaze snapped toward Main Street just as a large w
hite truck topped by a dish antennae came over the slight rise beside the Lutheran church.

  Adrienne’s mouth fell open as she clapped her phone shut. That’s when I noticed Adrienne wasn’t wearing a regulation yellow T-shirt. Guess her tumbled stone necklace and designer sunglasses would’ve clashed.

  The truck’s logo announced the arrival of one of the regional television stations from Greenville. Why Adrienne looked so distressed at the promise of parade publicity, I couldn’t fathom.

  Tuesday Morning

  The television truck stopped in front of our folding table, heading the wrong way down the street toward the high school drum corps and the rest of the parade lineup.

  “Hello,” said Adrienne as she approached the truck’s passenger window. Her greeting sounded brittle and forced, in danger of cracking. “So good of you to come cover our parade. It’ll make a great special inter—”

  “Are you Avery Andrews?”

  Adrienne didn’t look surprised by the question, though I certainly was. Adrienne stepped closer to the truck, rested her hand on the window ledge, and stood on tiptoe as if to shield the blond reporter and her inch-long eyelashes from me.

  “You’ll find better shots at the viewing stand on Main Street. I’ll be glad—”

  The reporter opened her door, forcing Adrienne back on her heels and away from the truck. She wasn’t pushy, just persistent, her gaze for no one but me. I was leaning back against the giant tree trunk, hoping for shelter from the heat.

  Over her shoulder, the reporter said, “Can you leave the truck here? Will the boom clear?”

  He must have agreed that it would work because he began operating controls that activated all manner of equipment on the truck.

  “Gray, you got the camera?”

  Gray finished with the controls, stepped down from the truck, wrestled out a bulky camera, and slung it over his shoulder as if it didn’t weigh more than I could have lifted.