Final Justice

by Patricia Hagan

  Tammy suddenly pushed back from her chair so hard it fell backwards as she leaped to her feet. "I can't stand it. All you two do is fight." She ran from the room.

  Alma glared at Luke. "Now see what you've done? You've ruined the child's supper and driven her from the table, all because you can't control that temper of yours."

  "Not when you're spreading lies about my deputy." He wasn't about to let on it was Emma Jean he was concerned about. If Rudy heard gossip about her and any man, all hell would break loose.

  "Don't blame me. Matt's the one who's got folks talking. And your traipsing to the hospital to see her doesn't look nice, either. Why did you have to stick your nose in?"

  "I'm the sheriff. I check things out, and I was satisfied with what she told me."

  "Which was?"

  "Like I said, she had too much to drink and fell down and cut her arm. So let it go, Alma. Doesn't that preacher of yours ever preach against gossip?"

  "What do you care? You're going to hell, anyway."

  "I hope so. I sure don't want to spend eternity with you and those old biddies who call themselves Christians."

  She hit the bottle too hard and catsup spurted all over her plate. "Oh, see what you made me do? You and your blasphemy."

  He started to leave, but he was hungry, and she did make good French fries, maybe because they were fried in pure lard. So he ignored her and finished a big helping, along with a thick hamburger smothered in onions. She could cook good when she wanted to, which wasn't often.

  He allowed thoughts of Emma Jean to take him away from the misery of the moment and wondered if she could cook but really didn't care. As long as he could be with her, he'd be happy living on peanut butter nabs and bologna sandwiches.

  He wished they could be together more often, but in the month since she'd hurt her arm, they'd only managed to see each other once or twice a week. He had managed to get her to Birmingham right away to a doctor, though, and now she had her diaphragm.

  So far, they had spent what time they were together making love. He sneaked into her house at night on occasion but preferred she meet him on a back road somewhere. He knew a few out-of-the way places for daytime meetings, too. They were careful. They confided in no one. They took no chances. He was determined they would not be found out.

  He forced himself to take one day at a time and not worry about the future because he didn't want to think about Emma Jean no longer being a part of his life. But more and more lately, he had begun to wonder if maybe it would really have to be that way, if he would, in fact, have to leave her behind when he finally got the hell out of town. But he never said anything, never wanted to lead her to hope for something that might never happen.

  "I made dessert," Alma said grudgingly, as though wishing she hadn't bothered after they'd wound up having a fight. "Banana pudding."

  He figured he might as well have a bowl since he had time. It wasn't quite eight o'clock, and Emma Jean was meeting him at nine behind the cemetery. They wouldn't have long. Rudy got off work at eleven, but it was better than nothing.

  "Maybe I'll take a bowl in for Tammy and eat with her," he said, thinking out loud and wishing his daughter didn't resent him so. Alma had done a good job of turning her against him.

  "She don't want any. She's watching her figure. Says if she don't watch it, the boys won't, either."

  "She's got no business thinking about boys at her age. She's not even twelve, yet, for pete's sake."

  "Well, it doesn't do her any harm to flirt a little, Luke. All the girls do it."

  "Not my daughter."

  The phone rang. Alma turned from dipping the pudding to answer. "Yeah, he's here. Who is this?" She listened, then yelled, "Well, if you don't want to say, you aren't talking to him."

  Luke knocked the chair over in his haste to lunge across the room and snatch the phone. "Sheriff Ballard."

  Alma tried to wrest it away as she protested, "I'm not having women call my husband and not say who they are."

  She continued to rail, and Luke turned away, straining to hear who was on the phone.

  "Luke? It's me, Murline. I didn't mean to cause any trouble, but I didn't want Alma to know it was me. She'd wonder why I called, and you promised you'd keep me out of all this."

  "And I will," he reassured. "And it's okay. Now what's going on?"

  "I'm working late. Mr. Hampton needs some letters typed before he goes out of town tomorrow, and I just noticed he left his personal file drawer unlocked. If you can get here fast enough, I can let you in while the guard's gone to supper. We can worry about your getting out without being seen later."

  Luke felt an excited rush. He had instructed Murline to let him know if Buddy left anything unlocked because she didn't have keys to his desk or file cabinet. He had been planning to sneak in and jimmy them open but hadn't got to it because he was so intent on being with Emma Jean every chance he got.

  "I'm on my way."

  "I've also got something to tell you about Cubby."

  "Great. I'll see you in a few minutes."

  He hung up the phone and turned to meet Alma's blazing eyes. "So who is she, Luke? Who are you screwing now?"

  "Grow up, Alma." He pushed by her and started for the door.

  "Damn you, Luke, for the whore-hopper you are."

  From experience, he knew what would happen next and ducked just in time to keep from getting hit by the bowl of pudding. She was always throwing things at him, and seeing the globs of meringue and bananas splattering against the wall, he felt like wiping her face in it.

  "One of these days I'm gonna take Tammy and leave you," she shrieked. "Just you wait and see."

  He kept on going. Long ago he had given up trying to reason, trying to make a go of a marriage that never should have been. All he could do for now was endure the misery and give thanks Emma Jean had come into his life to make it a little easier to bear.

  He was almost to the car when he heard the phone ring again but kept on going. An instant later, Alma ran out on the back porch. "It's another one," she screamed. "This time it's your old girlfriend."

  He almost said "Sara?", knowing that's who she meant, but instead yelled back, "I don't know who you're talking about."

  Alma spat the name as though it tasted vile and bitter upon her tongue. "Sara Daughtry Speight."

  Luke got in the car and slammed the door. Sara had been having trouble with somebody stealing her newspaper off her porch. She said she'd call him if she had a clue as to who might be doing it, but there was no rush. He would take care of it later. "Tell her I'm in a hurry, and I'll call her first chance."

  Alma stared after him, thinking he had to be the world's biggest fool if he thought she was going to make it easy for him to chase around. She went back to the phone and told Sara, "He says he hasn't got time to mess with you now, and if you've got a problem to take it to one of his deputies. And I'd really prefer that you not call here. I don't like you chasing after my husband."

  Sara hung up.

  Alma gloated to think she'd bested her this time but still wondered why Sara was crying, why she'd sounded so scared.

  * * *

  "Luke, aren't you done yet?" Murline stood just outside the open door to Buddy's office, knees shaking because she was so nervous.

  Luke, caught up in what he was doing, did not respond.

  She glanced at her watch again. "It's almost ten-thirty, and I've never stayed this late before. I'm afraid the security guard might wonder why."

  He raised his eyes from the Western Union receipts in his hand to look at her long and hard before asking in a don't-bull-shit-me tone, "What do you know about these?"

  She entered the office to see what he was talking about, and then her face paled as it had when he had shown her the shoe she'd lost out the window of Dennis Blum's car. Backing away, she began to stammer, "Uh, I... I really can't say."

  He shook them at her. "Your signature is on every single one of them, and they go back for the last twent
y years. Five hundred dollars a month, sometimes more, wired from the Western Union office in Anniston to the name C. Swain in Birmingham. So what's the story?"

  "I don't know. I swear I don't."

  "But you sent them."

  She leaned against the door frame, closed her eyes momentarily, then looked everywhere but at him as she admitted, "Yes, I did, but I don't know anything else about them."

  "Well, it's easy enough to figure out Buddy was trying to hide something, but why did he have you send them from Anniston?"

  "I'm always going there. My parents moved there right after I graduated from high school when my dad changed jobs. Buddy told me to send the wires when I visited them around the first of the month."

  "Are you sure you don't know who C. Swain is?"

  "I swear I don't. I just do what Buddy tells me to. I don't ask questions. Maybe that's why I've managed to keep my job all this long." She spread her hands in a pleading gesture. "Please. Don't make me get fired. Thurman doesn't make much in his repair shop, and we've got a lot of bills. He was sick in the hospital a few years ago, and we're still paying for it."

  He sensed she was close to tears, and he didn't need her going to pieces. "Help me, Murline, and I promise you won't have anything to worry about." Hell, he'd even see to it she got a raise, she and anybody else at the mill that he named. All he had to do was get something to hold over Buddy, and Buddy would dance to his tune forevermore, like Junior Kearney and Hardy Moon. "But you can't just feed me bits and pieces along. I have to find all the skeletons in Buddy's closet at one time because, if he figures out I'm onto him, he'll start covering his tracks, destroying evidence, like these receipts..." He shook them at her again.

  She was twisting her hands nervously and starting to sniffle. "But I just don't know anything else. He gives me the money in cash the first week of every month, and I wire it like I've done for years. I never ask questions. I just do it. I had no idea he even kept the receipts."

  "Maybe somebody is blackmailing him."

  She could not resist a sarcastic comeback. "Like the way you're blackmailing me?"

  He gave her a dark look. "Call it what you will, but if you don't keep working with me on this, I promise Thurman will find out it wasn't Cinderella's foot hanging out Dennis Blum's car window when a shoe fell off."

  She sank into the nearest chair in defeat. "I just don't like snitching, Luke. I've always minded my own business and let anything I hear go in one ear and out the other because Buddy has been good to me. I make more than any of the other secretaries, and..."

  He cut her off to remind, "You said on the phone you've got something to tell me about Cubby Riddle."

  "It's like you thought, about why Buddy sent him to the Klan rally. I forgot my gloves the other day and came back to get them, and Cubby was in here. They didn't know I was around, and I heard Cubby say there was nothing to worry about, that the Klan had promised to deal with anybody who started stirring up support for the union."

  "Did they mention any names?"

  "Just one—Ocie Rhoden. But I probably could have told you that without overhearing Cubby. Everybody knows Ocie is for the union. He's been very outspoken, handing out leaflets, talking it up."

  Luke remembered the first year he was sheriff, Ocie had gotten his discharge from the army and told him how the only job he could find was at the mill and that he hated how the coloreds were mistreated. They didn't make minimum wage, and their working conditions were terrible. They had to use the outdoor toilets because indoor facilities were for whites only. The same was true of water fountains. If the coloreds wanted water, they had to wait till lunch break to get a drink from an outdoor spigot. Ocie also confided that the supervisors cursed and yelled at them. He likened the situation to slavery, except for the small pittance they received.

  So it came as no surprise to Luke that Ocie would get involved in the struggle to bring the union into the mill if it meant fair wages and decent working conditions for him and his people.

  Luke pointed a warning finger at Murline. "You don't want anything to happen to Ocie Rhoden and have me think that you knew something and didn't tell me beforehand. Understand?"

  She managed to shake her head, worried she was going to be sick again. The boiled pork and peas she'd gulped down for supper were rolling around in her stomach.

  "I want you to keep your eyes and ears open, and if you hear even a whisper that Buddy is about to sic the Klan on Ocie, you better tell me quick."

  She pressed her hand against her mouth and spoke through her fingers. "Yes."

  "How often do Buddy and Cubby have private meetings?"

  "Often."

  "Well, sooner or later they're going to talk about Ocie again, so I'd suggest you start forgetting your gloves every day, so you can be listening outside that door when they do."

  She tasted boiled pork and peas. "I'm sorry..." She leaped to her feet and ran from the room.

  Glancing around to make sure he'd left no clue that he'd been there, he thought of Emma Jean and wondered how long she had waited behind the cemetery before giving up on him. He hadn't meant to take so long going through Buddy's files, but then he never thought there would be so many.

  He left as he had come, without being seen. He was done. Now all he had to do was figure out why Buddy Hampton sent money to Birmingham every month and hope he had scared Murline into keeping him informed of anything else he might find useful.

  He drove by Emma Jean's house. The lights were on in the kitchen. Rudy would be home, and she was probably fixing him something to eat, and then they'd go to bed, and...

  He slammed his hands on the steering wheel and cursed himself for fretting because it was a danger signal he was getting too involved. Hell, he'd known for weeks he was getting in over his head, but what to do about it was bugging him badly. He drove on through the night, the air sweet and loamy from fresh-planted crops as he took back roads, not only through the countryside but also through his mind. So many landmarks to ignite memories. Some good. Some bad. But all there, indelibly stamped in his brain.

  He wondered if maybe it didn't get worse as a person got older, the years stretching out behind and leaving a trail in the dust like drops from a leaky oil tank, making more and more memories to hurt and sting and prod wishes for having done things differently. But it was called life, and there was no getting around it. Face it. Feel the hurt. Mull the disappointments. Keep on going, and try like hell to leave some good drops along with the bad.

  Chapter 19

  Spring came to Alabama.

  Dogwood blossoms dotted the woods like popcorn, and cotton plants strained to burst forth from the earth. There had been some heavy rains and a few small tornadoes, which was not unusual for this time of year, but the sweet fragrance of gardenias wafted from front porches banked by red and pink and white azaleas. Lawns were greening, and birds were nesting.

  It was a most glorious season, and, for the first time in his life, Luke welcomed and enjoyed it because, in the past, springtime hadn't meant anything to him. Maybe that was because he had never had anyone to share it with. And now he did—Emma Jean.

  Lord, that woman had a hold on his heart he didn't want to think about. Every time they were together, he fell harder and counted the days and hours till next time.

  He had been especially looking forward to the day ahead because Bert Veazey, the old skinflint, was being forced to close the laundromat long enough to install two new dryers after the old ones finally gave out and couldn't be fixed. So Emma Jean was off while Rudy was on day shift.

  It wasn't quite nine o'clock. Luke was picking her up on the road a little ways from her house at a spot where she could duck into a thicket of wild plum bushes and hide if anybody happened along before he did. He had a blanket in the trunk and knew of a real isolated spot by a creek below Crow's Knob where he'd played as a kid. Nobody ever went there anymore.

  He stopped by the store and picked up a couple of ready-made sandwiches, a can
of pork and beans, a slab of hoop cheese, two Moon Pies, and a couple of sodas. They would have a picnic on the creek bank... and a picnic in each other's arms. Yes, it was going to be a mighty fine day, and he was whistling when he turned into Creech's station.

  He got out of the car as one of the attendants started filling the tank, intending to go inside and catch up on any gossip from the men hanging around in there. Then he saw Sara drive up to a pump and remembered it had been several weeks since that night she'd called and Alma got her back up about it.

  He walked over. "Sorry, I haven't had a chance to call you, Sara. Is somebody still swiping your papers?"

  "It wasn't about the damn newspapers, Luke."

  "Oh?" He put a hand on the roof of the truck and leaned closer. "What then?"

  She turned her head, but not before he saw tears in her eyes. "Tim hasn't found out about Dewey, has he?"

  She was curt. "No."

  "Then what's wrong?"

  "I'll handle it myself."

  "Okay, so you're mad at me because I didn't get back to you, and I'm sorry. Now tell me about it."

  "Not here." She darted anxious glances about. "God knows, Luke, Alma was so mad about my calling you I half-expected her to come running right over to my house that night to tear my hair out."

  He felt a rush of peeve. "Don't worry about her. Just tell me what you wanted."

  "Not here," she repeated, looking at him again, this time in desperation rather than anger. "I've got to get back to the field. Dewey is setting tomato plants, and I've got to stop at the store to get sodas for the hands. Follow me, and we can talk there."

  The store was in the opposite direction from where he was supposed to meet Emma Jean in ten minutes. If he followed Sara, he'd be delayed at least a half hour, maybe longer. Emma Jean wouldn't know what was keeping him and give up and go home. There was no way for him to contact her, and the day would be ruined. "Look, Sara, I can't right now. There's some place I've got to go. But later..."

  "Oh, forget it." She turned the ignition key to start the engine.

  "Hey, Sara," Leonard Creech yelled. "Hang on. I'll be right with you."