Long Upon the Land (9 page)

“He ever talk about his personal life?”

“Not to me he didn’t. But then I never asked,” she said briskly. “None of my business. Vick’s route was mostly residential and nobody’s ever complained about him running over their septic line or tearing up their yard. I can give you a list of them if you like.”

“Let’s wait and see if it’s needed,” said one of the detectives. Canvassing a long list of possible contacts was usually just busy work and not a fun way to spend a hot August day. No point giving the boss ideas, he decided.

Deputy Ray McLamb was having only marginally better luck with Vick Earp’s brother Tyler, who shared a rental house on Old 48 with two other guys. Two small brick houses were wedged in between a filling station and a tire repair shop. One of them had a
FOR RENT
sign in front and looked empty. The other house made it immediately obvious that Tyler Earp didn’t share his brother’s compulsion for order. No manicured lawn and pruned shrubbery here, just a fringe of weeds next to the foundation and around the edges of a dirt yard that served as parking space for a Honda Civic that looked as if it’d been towed there after a serious wreck. It was missing a bumper and a right fender. A sheet of clear plastic had replaced the right front window on the passenger side. Next to the Civic was a red Ford pickup with a couple of ladders, two long-handled paint rollers, and a clutter of paint cans, buckets, and tarps in the bed.

A man in a dirty white tank top came to the screen door when Ray knocked. Through the screen Ray saw several deer antlers mounted on the far wall.

“Hey, Ty!” the man called. “Somebody here to see you.”

When there was no immediate response from further inside the house, the man said, “You a cop? This about Vick?”

Ray nodded and showed his badge. “And you are?”

“Cully Lamb. Hell of a note, idn’t it?”

“Did you know him?”

“Oh yeah.” He did not elaborate and he did not open the screen door, but he did point to the metal lawn chair on the porch and said, “Take a seat.”

“You here Friday night?” Ray asked.

“No. Sorry.”

“What about Tyler?”

“What about me?”

Lamb turned back into the house and a beefy man with a beer belly took his place in the doorway. He was barefooted and his jeans were streaked and speckled with paint of different colors as was his dark green tee. His left arm seemed to have come in contact with some wet white paint.

Ray flashed his badge again and identified himself. “I need to talk to you about your brother Vick.”

“What about him?”

“You know that he died Saturday?”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“I’m sorry for your loss, but I—”

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tyler Earp said. He pushed open the screen door, stepped out into the yard to light a cigarette, and sat down on the edge of the low porch. “Tight-assed SOB. Not much of a brother. Cheated me going and coming our whole life and died owing me fifteen hundred dollars for painting his house.”

“That why you shot out his windshield?” Ray asked.

“Who said I did that?”

Ray shrugged. “You have a gun, don’t you?”

“Who says?”

“I see a gun rack in your truck. And I saw those antlers on your wall. One of ’em looks to be an eight-pointer.”

“Nine,” Earp said proudly. “Ought to’ve had a taxidermist mount it, but I couldn’t afford it. Took him down with one clean shot right through the heart.”

“So if you’d really been meaning to shoot Vick, he’d’ve been dead two weekends ago, not this past one?”

“Hey, no, man! That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it? Where were you between Friday afternoon at six and Saturday noon?”

“Cully and me and Rocky were at the Lillie Pad.”

Named for the original owner, a Lillie Hunsacker, the club had figured in more than one official report over the years. Cotton Grove didn’t have too many places that welcomed the sort of people the Lillie Pad attracted, so it was a popular hangout for the town’s less desirables.

“Then Cully got lucky, so me and Rocky came back here.”

“Rocky’s your other roommate?”

“Yeah.”

“And he can vouch for you the rest of the night?”

“I reckon. He was pretty wasted, though. Me, too, for that matter.” He finished his cigarette and crushed the butt out in a large clamshell that served as an ashtray.

“Rocky have a last name?”

“Capps. Rocky Capps.”

“He here now?”

“His car’s gone so he’s probably at work. In Fuquay. He sets tile.” He gave Ray the name of the shop.

“Did you see Vick anytime that night?”

“Nah. He does his drinking at home.”

“His truck’s missing. You happen to know where it is?”

Tyler Earp shrugged. “Probably in a shop somewhere getting a new windshield.”

Back in Dwight’s office, after the others had given their report, Ray said, “He wasn’t happy about me bringing his gun in, Major, and it’s a twelve-gauge shotgun, not a rifle. I know his brother wasn’t shot, but I thought we’d better do a test firing before it goes missing in case we need to prove he was the one who shot up that windshield.

“Good thinking,” Dwight said. “Right now, the only one with a solid alibi is Mrs. Earp. Ray, how ’bout you run down this Rocky Capps and find out if he can vouch for the brother. I’ll swing back by Rolling Vista tomorrow, see if I can catch up with the uncle. We’ll try Mrs. Earp again tomorrow, too. Maybe she’s had time to remember who else had it in for her husband.”

And maybe, he thought to himself, he’d also go have a talk with his father-in-law.

I
made good time driving west that afternoon. Going with the flow put me about eight or ten miles over the speed limit. Even at that, though, cars were regularly passing me. Times like this I feel like a gazelle, running with the herd. Yes, an occasional lion (i.e., patrol car) might bring one of us down but as long as I stay in the middle of the pack and don’t make myself conspicuous by cutting in and out, I’m safe.

Dwight laughed the first time I told him my herd philosophy. “You think a few poor schmucks get ticketed so the rest of the herd can run free?”

“Works for me,” I told him.

I put the car on cruise control and automatically kept two lengths behind the car in front. Running with the herd left my brain running free to puzzle over Walter Raynesford McIntyre and to wonder if he and Mother were mentioned in those diaries. It was not surprising that Dr. Livingston connected me to her when he heard my name. People say I look a lot like her so my looks must have reminded him of her, especially when he heard I was a Knott. Daddy still has a high name recognition around this part of the state and Dr. Livingston probably knew who Mother had married.

All of which led me once again to wonder how they wound up together. Surely he didn’t propose to her simply because she pulled Robert and Frank out of that icy creek?

And how did she find the nerve to disregard the social barriers?

I have only dim and disconnected memories of my Stephenson grandmother and they are not warm and fuzzy ones. Certainly my brothers never took to her. They say she acted as if they were slightly dirty. She never cuddled any of us and she terrified Benjamin the one time she came out to the farm. Mother always shrugged whenever the little twins and I asked what she actually did. The older boys could only say that she looked at them meanly. “Like the Wicked Witch of the West,” says Seth.

Although Aunt Zell and Uncle Ash were fine with Daddy and his sons after they got over their surprise, she admitted to me years later that Grandmother never did. “She was a snob, honey. Pure and simple. A product of her time and her social standing. Try not to blame her.”

But I did blame her. How could anybody look down on Daddy and my brothers? But now that I’d begun thinking about it, I realized that he never brought her up on his own. My grandfather was a different matter and Daddy always spoke of “Lawyer Stephenson” with warmth and respect. But then Grandfather had defended Daddy and several of his workers more than once in court and he was the one who got Daddy’s federal prison record expunged.

“That was Dad’s wedding present to Sue,” Aunt Zell once told me, back when I was living in her upstairs mother-in-law suite. “But your grandmother—”

The memory had made her laugh. “Did you know that Kezzie bought our piano as
his
wedding present to Sue? He wanted to surprise her so he came over to the house when Sue wasn’t there to ask if Mother would sell it. Mother named her price and I could tell that she didn’t think he had two nickels to rub together. She was going to be the gracious grande dame and just give it to him but he pulled out a roll of bills big enough to choke a horse and peeled off what she’d asked without blinking an eye. She was so startled that she automatically took the money he was holding out to her. Then he winked at me said, “You might want to wash your hands after handling this, Miz Stephenson. It might have chicken shit on it.”

“He didn’t!” I said.

Daddy knows all the words, but he never uses strong language in front of a woman if he can help it.

“Well, maybe he didn’t phrase it quite like that, but that’s what he meant.”

I shook my head in wonder. “She must have hated having him in the family.”

“Mother never did have a sense of humor,” Aunt Zell said dryly.

S
he emerges from the larger of Dobbs’s two department stores with two full shopping bags. The store will deliver the linen tablecloth for her mother and a place setting of the Royal Doulton china pattern Zell and Ash picked out last week, but Sue has opted to carry her lighter gifts: a dark red dress for Mary, monogrammed handkerchiefs for Dad and Brix Junior, gloves and scarves for her friends. She has always been popular and several girls claim to be her best friend, so she feels obliged to give them all the same presents to avoid hurt feelings.

She has spent the afternoon running last-minute errands for her mother. Usually the Stephensons entertain at the country club, but once a year they hold an open house for friends and important clients. Extra hands have been hired to help Mary, who’s had them polishing silver candelabras and serving trays, washing the crystal, and making sure that everything is spotless for tomorrow night. Roses for the centerpiece will be delivered first thing in the morning and Zell has wired garlands of holly and cedar to the staircase.

One of Sue’s shopping bags holds a five-pound fruitcake dense with pecans and candied fruit that an impoverished cousin has made for them, the first since before the war. It will be sliced into little squares and tucked into the tiny fluted paper cups Sue bought at the dime store. Now that rationing has ended, there will also be trays of butter creams and pralines to go with after-dinner coffee.

At the corner crossing, someone calls, “Miss Stephenson?”

She turns to answer. The street is busy with Christmas shoppers and children coming home from school, but none of them seem to be looking her way.

Then a tall, loose-jointed man steps from the truck parked at the curb and walks around the front of it to join her on the sidewalk. Kezzie Knott. He carries two folded blankets and holds them out to her. “I was coming to give these back to you. My hired gal washed ’em and—”

Belatedly he realizes that her hands are already full.

“Here, let me,” he says and, ignoring her protests, he opens the truck door and lays the blankets on the bench seat. He puts the shopping bags under the dash and holds the door for her. “I’ll take you home.”

She keeps telling him she is perfectly capable of managing by herself, then realizes how silly that sounds because clearly she cannot carry the blankets, too, so she thanks him and steps up into the cab, tucking her skirt around her legs so that he can close the door.

When he slides under the wheel and starts the engine, she says, “I live over on South Third.”

“I know.”

The truck is old and shabby, with dented fenders, but the motor purrs smoothly and she senses it has more power under the hood than one might think.

“I met the rest of your sons,” she says brightly.

“Yeah, they said you come out to see ’em.” His voice is curt. “Brought ’em candy.”

“I hope you don’t mind.”

“They don’t need no charity. I can buy candy for ’em myself.”

“I’m sure you can, Mr. Knott, but it wasn’t charity. It was for friendship, or don’t they need that either?”

He doesn’t answer, just keeps his eyes on the road.

It’s only a few short blocks to her home and when he parks at the curb, she jumps out of the truck with her shopping bags before he can come around. She opens the front door, sets the bags inside, and turns to take the blankets. She cannot decide if he’s angry or merely shy. Not that it matters.

“Is that you, Sue?” her mother calls from the living room. “What on earth took you so long? Philip Johnson’s called at least four times. Did you get the fruitcake?”

Sue grabs the blankets and quickly stuffs them into the coat closet before Mrs. Stephenson can reach the hall, where she pauses in the archway. “I didn’t realize we had company.”

Had he been one of Sue’s usual crowd, Mrs. Stephenson would not have hesitated. She would have expected an introduction and she would have invited him to come in and stay for a few minutes. Instead Sue sees her mother’s eyes turn cold as she notes his scuffed brogans, his overalls, and the worn cuffs on his brown barn jacket. Her smile becomes slightly less cordial.

“Were you looking for Mr. Stephenson?” She assumes he’s one of her husband’s clients who has coincidentally arrived just as Sue was returning. “I’m afraid he only sees clients at his office.”

Her tone is so dismissive that Sue says, “Mother, may I introduce Mr. Knott?”

He takes off his brown Stetson and gives a formal nod. “Ma’am.”

“Mr. Knott was kind enough to drive me home with all my packages.”

“Drive you home? I don’t understand.”

“Won’t you let me thank you with a cup of coffee, Mr. Knott?” Sue says sweetly.

Cold air is blowing through the open door, but Mrs. Stephenson’s lips tighten as if she expects him to track manure on her carpet if he should step across the threshold.

“No, ma’am. I got to get on back. I just come to—” He catches himself, realizing that Sue doesn’t want him to mention the blankets. “I just thought them bags looked too heavy for her to carry this far.”

He puts his hat back on and turns to leave. Sue follows him out into the chilly air and closes the door behind her.

“Mr. Knott? Wait. I want to apologize for what I said out there at the creek. I was so frightened by what almost happened to Frank and Robert that I spoke out of turn. I had no right to question the way you take care of them or to assume they’re neglected because they wandered off.”

He keeps walking. “They ain’t town boys, Miss Stephenson, and they ain’t yard dogs to be kept on a chain. They didn’t wander off. They got the freedom of the whole farm and they know where the boundaries are.”

“They could have drowned.”

He turns at that and his blue eyes bore coldly into hers. “They said you scared ’em into bolting. Was they lying to me?”

Her own eyes drop as she realizes that she probably did startle them. “But what if I’d been a bear?” she argues. “That would have scared them even more.”

He suddenly grins. “Would’ve scared me, too, ’cause they ain’t been no bears in Colleton County in forty years.”

Chuckling, he continues toward the street. Then, without looking back, he suddenly thrusts one arm in the air, snaps his fingers, and sings, “Click, click, click!” as he gets into his truck and drives away, leaving her both smiling and confused.

But when she returns to the house, her mother is not smiling.

“What on earth possessed you to let that roughneck drive you home?” she asks angrily. “And in such a vehicle! What will people think?”

“Sorry, Mother.”

“What if he’d been a criminal or—or—”

“Tried to molest me?” she asks innocently.

“Really, Sue!”

She’s saved by the telephone bell. It’s Philip Johnson. Friends are putting together a caroling party tonight and he invites her to go with him.

“I’d love to,” she says.

Philip never confuses her.

Later that night, she asks her father about the farm and is pleasantly surprised to hear how much money she and Zell have earned from it since their grandmother deeded it to them. “With the new price support program, your tobacco quota makes those hundred acres more valuable than they would have been before 1938,” he says.

“A hundred acres?”

“A hundred and fourteen, actually. Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you and Zell want to start managing it?”

“If we did, could we make enough to live on?”

“Lots of men do, honey, but it’s hard dirty work. You’d have to hire someone and buy equipment.” He smiles. “You’d need a mule, too. Better to leave things as they are. I really don’t think Ash would want Zell messing with it, do you?”

“Probably not,” she agrees and goes upstairs to have a long talk with her sister.