Final Justice

by Patricia Hagan

  She said she did.

  He knew she didn't.

  As he left, he paused to scrape the bottom of his shoe against the steps.

  * * *

  Luke was stopped for a traffic light when he recognized Emma Jean Veazey crossing the street in front of his car. She glanced in his direction and quickly ducked her head and pretended not to see him.

  She was wearing light blue pedal pushers, white sneakers with no socks, and a beige pullover sweater that had seen better days. Her hair was pulled back in a perky pony tail. She looked like a sixteen-year-old. Luke was amused to think how, even though she obviously played down her looks to pacify Rudy's jealous streak, she could not completely hide the fact she was a damn fine-looking woman.

  The light changed, and he turned in the opposite direction toward the funeral home. As he passed, he saw Lucy Moon getting into her car. She waved. He waved back. He liked Lucy. Always had. It was just a shame she was so plain homely she had leaped at the chance to marry Hardy without stopping to think he was only after her money. The funeral home was a gold mine, and Hardy had known it.

  * * *

  Luke made up a story to satisfy Jubal. He said the wreaths had been taken off the wire stands and put on the ground so they wouldn't blow around. This was flimsy, but Luke hadn't bothered to check. He had bigger fish to fry than charging Hardy with scoffing flowers off stands to use again and charge for new ones each time he did.

  As for the coffin Jubal had seen in the storage shed, Luke lied and said he'd learned another one like Jubal had bought had come in and was being kept there due to lack of space inside the funeral home. He wasn't about to tell him the truth. He was also glad he didn't have to worry about the same thing having happened to his mother because he'd stayed till the grave was covered. Ozzie and Hank hadn't dared tell him to leave.

  When he got off the phone with Jubal, Wilma said Rudy Veazey was on the other line. "He says somebody stole his wallet."

  Luke told her to let Kirby handle it.

  A little while later, Kirby came into his office. "I can't believe that guy. Claims he fell asleep in his car at the grill Friday night, and somebody stole his wallet right out of his pocket. He probably got drunk and lost it."

  Luke told him not to worry about it, all the while hoping Rudy wouldn't take his bad mood out on Emma Jean. Then he chided himself for thinking so much about her lately anyway.

  A call came about a fender bender out on the Talladega highway and Kirby left. Right after he did, Wilma yelled, "Sheriff, your wife's on the phone."

  Luke barely had time to speak into the receiver before Alma started in. "Don't give me no excuses about tonight, Luke. You promised Tammy you'd go to revival with us."

  "I didn't promise anything, and you put her up to asking." It really griped him how Alma had started to use Tammy to try and get her own way. "All I told her was that I'd try to go if I wasn't busy, but it looks like I will be."

  "Doing what? Luke, damn it to hell, you're never home."

  Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, he whirled his chair around so his back was to the open door to the outer office. "I've told you before. Don't call me down here raising hell. And listen to you cussing like a sailor in the same breath you're talking about going to church."

  "Don't you tell me how to talk. Now are you going to go or not?"

  "I told you I've got to work. Maybe next time." Maybe never, he thought, or at least not unless she outlived him and had his funeral in her kooky church. That was the only way she would ever get him there. "Now I've got to go."

  "You can go to hell," she snapped into the receiver before slamming it down.

  Luke leaned back in his chair, pulled a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket, and lit it. He didn't really have anything to do that night, and, like so many other times, he would probably stay right in his office and read till all hours. It beat going home to Alma.

  He decided to have supper at the Bulldog and kill some time there. Mondays were never busy, and Clyde joined him in the booth with a cup of coffee. Luke always enjoyed the chance to talk to Clyde and was annoyed when Ned phoned to report someone had found Rudy's wallet behind the grill. Only there was no money in it, and Wanda was worried Rudy would think she took it since she was the one who found it.

  Kirby and Matt were patrolling on opposite ends of the county, so Luke drove out to the grill where Wanda was waiting to swear over and over that the wallet was empty when she found it next to the dump bin when she took the trash out.

  "With that temper of his, I don't need him on my back, and I'm afraid he's going to go around calling me a thief."

  Luke said he would handle it. Besides, it was a nice evening for a drive in that almost hallowed time between dusk and darkness, when the land seems hesitant, yet poised, to leap into night. The few cotton blossoms remaining in Sid Dootree's fields running along both sides of the road seemed like sprinkles of silver from the half-moon rising in the sky.

  A nip of fall was in the air. Luke rolled up the window, but not before catching a whiff of boll weevil poison lingering on the brown cotton stalks since spring. The sweetly acrid smell brought back memories of long-ago summer nights when he would take Sara parking on the backside of the fields. The thought ignited a fire in his loins, not for the woman-wife-mother she was now, but for the recklessness and hot blood of his youth.

  He slowed to gaze longingly at the fields. A part of him would always be there. A part of Sara, too, and every other teen who had been there in search of something he, or she, could not understand, knowing only that a hunger was awakening within that begged to be fed.

  In times when his memories took him back, Luke always found himself wondering how his life would have turned out if Sara had loved him back. But she hadn't. It had always been Dewey for her. Still, he couldn't help thinking about it, imagining what it would be like to share the kind of love Sara told him she and Dewey had for each other.

  Maybe he was meant to be alone. He had said that to Sara once when they were having one of their soulful conversations on her front porch. They only got to do that in the summer when Tim was working a late shift and it was warm enough for them to sit outside. They never went in the house alone, knowing it would cause talk if anybody saw them.

  So they visited outside in front of God and everybody. Sara told him that he should never give up hope of finding a true love. Maybe he would have to hide his feelings from the world as she did, but the necessary deceit was worth it.

  "There's always an excuse for love," she had said many times. "It would be a real sad life if there wasn't."

  Luke's life was sad because it seemed his only reason for existing anymore was wreaking justice. He had no idea what he would do with the rest of his life when he felt like his mother could finally rest in peace. For the moment love didn't seem important, but he still couldn't deny feeling lonely sometimes.

  Luke could not tell whether Rudy was home till he drove around back of the house. Seeing his truck wasn't there, he started to leave, but the porch light came on, and Emma Jean appeared, framing her eyes with her hand against the light as she strained to see who it was.

  Luke stopped and got out. No need to make her worry over why a patrol car had pulled into her yard. "Evening, Mrs. Veazey," he called as he walked towards the porch. "I've got Rudy's wallet. Somebody found it behind the grill and turned it in."

  "He'll be so glad," she said, sounding relieved herself. "All his pay was in there."

  "Well, I'm afraid somebody stole that. I'm sorry."

  "Oh, no." Her hand flew to her throat. "He... we... needed that money. The hospital bill and all..." Her voice trailed and she glanced away, embarrassed to bring up that humiliating night. "But thanks for coming out here with it. I'll tell Rudy when he gets home. He's working third shift this week."

  Luke felt a relaxing wave for not having to worry about Rudy tearing into the drive any second to raise hell about his being there. "Are you doing all right now?"

/>   "Yes, I am. Thank you."

  Luke wondered again how anybody could hit something that looked that good. "Well, I'm glad to hear it, and I hope things work out for you."

  He turned to go. He didn't want to but knew it was best because looking at her, being so close, gave him a strange feeling he did not understand.

  "Sheriff..."

  He whipped about to see how scared she looked and thought how there was no need to be. Not around him. No, Lord. Never around him.

  "I'm sorry I told you what I did."

  "About what?"

  "About Frank Goforth. I had no right. I mean, a woman shouldn't talk about such things to a man. I've been embarrassed ever since. Please don't tell nobody else."

  "I won't. And it's okay that you told me. Besides, I wasn't surprised. Frank is like that. I've seen how he acts around women, especially when he's drinking."

  "You have?"

  "Oh, yeah." He stepped up on the porch and leaned back against the railing. Folding his arms across his chest, he continued, "To tell you the truth, I think when married folks go to those dances, they're asking for trouble when they dance with other people and get to flirting and all. Frankly, I'm surprised Rudy took you there. I remember in high school he was always crazy jealous over whatever girl he was going with."

  "I think he wanted to dance with Inez Turnage. He was real hugged up to her a few times till Bobby Ray Walston cut in. Then Ronnie got mad and left, and, well, you know what happened after that. Such a shame, all them folks getting killed over what went on at a dance."

  "Well, you lost your baby for the same reason." Realizing what he'd said, he was quick to apologize. "I shouldn't have brought that up. I'm sorry."

  "It's okay. I told you I didn't care I lost it. Oh, dang it!" She stamped her foot. "There I go again, saying something I got no business saying."

  "It's all right."

  "What I mean is, I don't feel like I'm ready to have a baby yet, so it's just as well I lost it. I didn't mean I didn't want one by Rudy."

  He knew she was lying. "Well, if you feel that way, maybe it was for the best."

  She was wearing a dress made from a feed sack. Luke knew because he had been at the Seed 'n Feed the day the truck unloaded the bags with that particular pattern. He had thought it was pretty then, and even prettier now on her. It was a soft plaid, turquoise and gold with a few splashes of tiny white daisies woven into the pattern. She had fashioned it into a neat little dress with puffed sleeves, a sash, and a billowing skirt.

  "You sew real well," he said, a bit awkwardly, because he wasn't sure how she would feel about his complimenting her on something personal like her clothes. But he need not have worried. Not used to praise, Emma Jean was delighted. "Why, thank you, sheriff. Nobody's ever told me that before. Miss Ruby is always criticizing, saying I make things fit me too tight or too short."

  "Don't pay her any mind. She's wears her clothes big to try and hide her fat, but you don't have to do that. She's got ugly legs, too. Like a knock-kneed goat."

  Emma Jean giggled, and it was a good feeling because she could not remember the last time there had been any laughter in her life. "So have you always lived here, Sheriff?" she asked, sitting down on the top step.

  He dropped beside her, keeping a proper space between them. "Yes, except for when I was in the army. And call me Luke."

  "Luke," she repeated softly.

  He felt a little shiver deep inside. Nobody had ever said his name like that before, like they were stroking it with a velvet hand.

  "Okay, and you can call me Emma Jean."

  He nodded in acceptance of the new familiarity between them, then felt the need to remind, "I meant what I said, you know, about your calling me if you ever need me."

  "Oh, I don't think I'll be doing that again," she said quickly, nervously.

  "Then you don't think Rudy will hit you again? I hope you're right, but I've always heard and known it to be true that if a man ever hits a woman the first time, he'll do it again." He boldly added, "I've got a feeling the other night wasn't the first time anyway."

  She did not say anything, and he had learned early on in law enforcement that silence usually meant assent. "I thought so," he said. "And I know it's none of my business, but why do you put up with it? Are you that crazy about him?"

  The look she gave him was one of horror that he could think such a thing, but it was with careful control that she responded, "I took vows for better or worse."

  "Bull!"

  She blinked. "You don't believe in keeping your marriage vows?"

  "You're just making excuses, and you know it. Either you're crazy or you're a coward with nowhere else to go. Those are the only reasons I can think of that a woman would put up with a man low enough to beat on her. So which is it? You seem to have plenty of sense to me."

  "I guess I got nowhere to go."

  "Everybody's got someplace to go. Where's your family?"

  She met his probing gaze and was struck to think how he was probably the easiest person to talk to that she'd ever met in her whole life, and she had never wanted, or needed, a friend more.

  "Would you like some coffee, Luke?" she suddenly asked. "I've got some left over from lunch, and it might not be as good as fresh, but I can heat it up and bring it out here so's if anybody should happen by they won't think nothing about our talking out in the open like this, even if it is nighttime."

  How well he knew the reason for such precaution. He smiled at her, really smiled, for the first time in too long to remember. "I'd really like that, Emma Jean. I'd like it a lot."

  Chapter 11

  "Wait till you hear what went on at Junior Kearney's place last night."

  Luke did not look up as Kirby rushed into his office. He was going over the latest "Wanted" posters, not that any big-time fugitives ever passed through town. It was just something to try and keep his mind off Emma Jean. "Yeah, I heard a rumor he's been selling moonshine again. We need to check it out."

  "It's worse than that. He made two little colored kids put on a show last night."

  "What kind of show?"

  "A sex show."

  "Say again?"

  "The way I heard it, Junior caught Rufus Bynum's boy, Wooly, stealing soda and cigarettes at the fruit stand and told him if he'd bring his girlfriend in and put on a show he wouldn't have him arrested."

  "How old is this kid?"

  "Twelve or thirteen. I'm not sure. Lehman Fuller was there and told it at Creech's this morning. Wooly brought a little girl. Lehman said she couldn't have been over eleven or twelve, and she was crying the whole time."

  Luke clenched his teeth. "Who was she?"

  "Lehman didn't know, but I figure we've got Junior on contributing to the delinquency of a minor, and no telling what else once you check the statutes. Want me to go pick him up?"

  "I'll take care of it."

  "Okay. I'll tell Wanda to get the warrant ready."

  Luke started leafing through the posters again. "That won't be necessary. I'm just going to have a talk with him."

  Kirby's eyes bugged. "A talk? Is that all?"

  "For now."

  Luke's face was like granite, his voice cold and final. Kirby knew he was plenty steamed, just like he knew he probably had a good reason for not rushing to arrest Junior. But he wasn't about to ask what it was. When Luke was mad, it was best to leave him alone.

  * * *

  Luke had been keeping an eye on Junior for some time. He knew Friday nights were when he drove out to the old logging road to meet his bootlegger. Probably the bootlegger was from somewhere up on Cheaha mountain, but he wasn't after him. Let the revenue boys do their job. All he wanted was to catch Junior red-handed.

  It was cold, drizzling rain, and foggy. Luke backed his car off the road into a pine thicket. He was directly across from the rendezvous point, which was a clearing next to the old grist mill and the stream flowing down from the mountain. Kids swam there in the summer. Fishermen came around in t
he spring. Other than that, there was no traffic because Hampton Mill owned the property and had no intentions of selling. The Hamptons had always been a greedy lot and would have owned everything in the whole damn county if there had been a way.

  He opened a second pack of cigarettes. He'd been chain smoking since he had got there shortly after signing off to Ned for the night. He just hoped Alma didn't call in looking for him. If she found out he'd gone off duty, she'd accuse him of being with another woman.

  He acknowledged as he stared out the window into the fog that there was a time when she would have been right. But he had learned a long time ago that if he was with the same girl more than once or twice, she wanted a serious relationship, and he didn't want to get all tangled up. He wanted to keep his promise to his mother, then leave town and get on with his life.

  At least that's how it had been till Emma Jean.

  Time had gotten away from them that night on her porch as they had drifted into easy conversation. It was like they had once been old friends, separated for a time, but reunited and anxious to share everything that had happened since.

  After the coffee, she had gone inside and made a pitcher of grape KoolAid and found a box of vanilla wafers. They might as well have been drinking champagne and eating caviar at some fancy, big city party because they fell into fun and laughter so easily.

  After a while, he said maybe he should leave because somebody might come by and get the wrong idea. She said it was too late for folks to be out, and she wasn't the least bit sleepy and really enjoyed having someone to talk to.

  So he stayed, and she chatted on about how Rudy was going to get her an old car but not so she could gad about. He warned her not to even think about that. He wanted her to have a way to get to work at the laundromat that his cousin, Bert Veazey, ran, but only during the months she wasn't working for Mr. Dootree in the fields. Part of the deal when Rudy rented the house was that she'd be available for picking tomatoes or any other work in the fields.

  At one point, their knees had accidently touched, and Emma Jean jumped and moved away. Luke had self-consciously cleared his throat and said he really ought to be getting home. Then she thanked him for going to see her at the hospital and said she knew he had been right in urging her to take out a warrant against Rudy but just couldn't.