Saltwater in the Bluegrass (23 page)

Lamar was now a memory.

Charlie and Kristina
had both
missed the funeral. Charlie spent most of the day over at Churchill Downs at the races. Kristina was still unsure of what Katherine had in store for her, as she was now considered the widow of Lamar Ingram, not the wife of Lamar Ingram. Unfortunately there is a difference.

Charlie did not pretend to like his family. He could not see being on the evening news broadcast portrayed as someone who did. He always had a history of instability towards his family and could not see drinking the day away just to fit in with his sister and the funeral crowd. Besides, there were eleven races today at the track, and Charlie had high expectations of having winning tickets in all of them.

He continued to see himself as one for the books in both talent and skill when it came to picking winners at the track. He had always been one for passing along his knowledge and magic formula to anyone who would listen.

“Remember the wins and forget the losses.” That was his motto. Over the last twenty years, he must have won millions. It seemed more lucrative that way in a gambling sense of things. As for Kristina, she was still not ready to face the family yet. She still was not sure if Katherine even knew that she had survived the illfated accident in Florida. The surprise for Katherine was going to be kept for another time and another place. Most likely it would be at the reading of the will.

Kristina was still determined to get the last laugh. Her plan, with my help, was to see that Katherine paid for what she had done to her father.

Life near the river was
starting to find its way into my soul. With the time I had spent watching the currents of the river, the barges and boats floating past my hotel window, I found myself starting to like the atmosphere.

During the afternoon I walked down along River Front Park. I watched the busy river traffic as it continued to go by. I began to understand that the deep seated illusion of paradise is really all in a person’s head. It does not really matter where you are, as long as you are elevated into the relaxation mode, listening in tempo and living and dying in three-quarter time.

I was content with the passing of time, like that frog Mark Twain had written about. The frog that jumped onto a log as it was going by on its way down the river, now floating to new adventures and not seeming to care. Simply satisfied with the thought the sun was shining on his back. You know, when one door closes, one opens. If you are not smart enough to see what is given you, it may just as quickly be gone. It’s not that the gift was not special; it might just be that you were not interested in dealing with the challenges that came along with it.

I made my way into the condominium and waited for Kristina to explain her reasoning for leaving Florida in such a hurry.

Milford spent most
of the evening after the funeral back at the stables with the company of a bottle of Jim Beam and the smell of fresh horse manure.

Bourbon and serenity.

One good for clearing your senses after a bad day, and the other to make you forget you needed your senses cleared in the first place. At the Simpsonville Farm, there were no cameras, no microphones, no reporters, and no media personalities around asking stupid questions about how he felt having just buried his long-time friend. Milford had excused himself from his wife shortly after the funeral procession. Katherine was still eating up the cameras, the limelight, and the possibility of being on television during the nightly newscast. She had not responded to his leaving; she simply did not care that he was gone.

The distant family members were sure to stay around. They were busy soaking up all the free booze and food that had been prepared by the staff. Katherine wished they would leave, like Milford had. Katherine knew money, notoriety, and greed were the only reasons the relatives were still here. They had been popping up from around the region all afternoon.

Everyone Lamar knew was interested in the possibility of being named in his last will and testament. Milford, for one, was not interested. He did not want any part of the whole thing. Tonight he had his horses to keep him company, the smell of the country air coming through the doors of the open barn, the late edition of the Farm Report on the radio from Shelbyville, and the lingering medicinal friendship of one soon-to-be-empty bottle of Kentucky’s finest bourbon.

Milford eventually passed out while sitting on some dry, seasoned, year-old horse manure. Before falling asleep, he quietly sang the immortal words of Oliver Wendell Douglas: “Farm living is the life for me.” And with that, he knew nothing would ever be the same. At the Ingram Mansion, Carlton was in the back of the kitchen. He was busy helping Mrs. Kimball clean up the pots and pans and the mess that had been left from all the people who had stopped by after the funeral.

Most of the people hanging around the Ingram home were really just there to socialize. They were there to mingle and to memorialize the events of the day. They were busy trying to tell anyone who would listen how they had always been so close to Lamar, how they had been his dearest friends, and how they just did not know how they could go on without him being around. They talked about the funeral service and the floral arrangements and how they felt when Lamar’s casket was brought into the chapel covered in the Stars and Stripes.

“It is a tragedy. That is what it is, a real, honest-to-goodness tragedy.”

Katherine despised these people. She hated what they represented. From what I had come
to realize, everyone connected to the Ingram family were a bunch of nuts. Totally lost, completely ignorant to morals, principles, and ethics, and the sad part was that none of them seemed to really care.

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for these people, the way they lived. Even so, I would not let my feelings get in the way of doing my job, and my job was finding out who had killed Uncle Buddy.
Frank Manning,
known as Big Frank, spent the majority of the evening in an editing bay at the Channel 3 News station after leaving the burial service. Being the public relations liaison for Ingram Enterprises for all these years, he felt obligated to be at the station as the research team pieced together the day’s events relative to Lamar Ingram and his life’s documentary.

The managing director of the station, Bob Delaney, was utterly sincere in giving liberties the day of the funeral. He had given more than considerable latitude to the Ingram family, especially Katherine, by letting Frank sit in on the project, since it was policy—not an unwritten rule—that no one be allowed in the editing bay without Channel 3 News credentials.

Frank had worked his way up in the company for thirty-nine years. To most people in the Ingram Company, Frank was considered old school, a dinosaur, not only because of his age, gray hair, and mannerisms, but because he had been hired by Baxter Ingram, Lamar’s father.

Frank was old school. He had been with the old man since early 1962 when he was given his first leg up in the business world. Frank felt obligated to give his best for the Ingram family. It was his way of paying back Baxter Ingram for all that he had done for him over the years. It was as though Frank felt like he was part owner in something still meaningful, even if he was not. Today, everything in the business world concerned pleasing the stock holders.

There were not too many employees left with a seniority date as old as Frank Manning’s. Matter of fact, there were only two other employees hired before 1970, and both of them were men that worked in the Ink and Dye Division, Claude Knight and Jordan Moser. Frank had gone from a clerk in the lumberyard as a young and spry teenager to the District Manager of the Personnel and Public Relations Department, where he had been for the last seventeen years. He was great at thinking on his feet. He was quick with a comeback, especially when talking to the press. He had an air about himself, something that made people believe whatever he was saying, whether he was talking off the cuff or was actually sure about what he was saying.

Katherine liked that. She liked staying a step or two ahead of the news reporters at all times. She liked the professionalism, manners, and savvy that Frank demonstrated in controlling tough questions. With Katherine and Lamar keeping Ingram Enterprises competitive in the marketplace, Frank was able to keep the media at bay. Reporters were constantly looking for dirt or something they could use to write a column about the Ingram family or a project their company had under construction.

Frank was good at keeping the reporters off guard and out of Katherine and Lamar’s hair, at least most of the time. As for, Bob Delaney, he had been good
friends with Lamar and Katherine for years. He wanted desperately to make this piece a polished tribute, an acknowledgement to Lamar’s life, his homage, and his legacy.

Bob respected Lamar. He greatly appreciated all the work that Lamar had done throughout his life, the way Lamar and the Ingram family had raised awareness in the local community to help the hungry and misfortunate through the start up of the Kentucky Children’s Helping Hand Network.

Katherine had called Bob Delaney early in the day asking if Frank Manning could come down to the station and help develop the piece. Bob not only felt obligated to say yes, but he also felt comfortable with the idea and made the necessary arrangements to make it happen. Frank would get the clearance he needed.

Frank, along with the help of the history and archives department, the editing department, and the video production department, laid out ideas and thoughts, and collectively they put together a twenty-two minute documentary tribute representing Lamar’s life.

This came from fifty-nine different articles that had been written in the newspaper, forty-one press clippings, and six features that had once run on television news broadcasts in the last twenty-five years. It was a finished piece. Everyone in the editing room who had helped on the project felt proud to say that they had been a part of it.

Thomas Chandler and his
wife, Elle,
along with Douglas Richards and his wife, Estelle, made the best of their time together in Louisville. It had been almost a year since Tommy and Doug had seen each other. The last time had been during a corporate outing Lamar had put together in Paris.

Sitting back now, they could not remember the last time all four of them had spent a night out on the town together.

The wives had decided to stay with their husbands through the upcoming week. Both men had been named in Lamar’s last will and testament and would need to stay in Louisville for the reading. Since all four were going to stay, it was quickly decided that tonight the ladies would choose where they ate. It did not take long for Elle to make her selection, perking up as she looked at Thomas and smiled without saying a word.

“Driver,” Thomas said.

“Yes, sir.”

“Take us to the Galt House.”

“Are you sure?” Elle said with a smile.

“I am thirty-six years-worth-of-marriage sure.”

Thomas knew whenever they were in Louisville she was bound and determined to eat at her favorite restaurant, The Flag Ship Room at the top of the Galt House. She hoped that the restaurant was still there.

At the top of the Galt House, she could watch the city and the river below. She could watch through glass windows as the twenty-fourth floor restaurant turned slowly in a circular motion, while a pianist played easy-listening show tunes and today’s soft hits by request. It was a real dining experience with delightful character, exquisite quality, and an attribute of social ambience.

Nightmares were
something
Katherine never worried about. She found out early in life that sleeping through problems, troubles, and family crises was just something she was able to easily control and manage.

Katherine could not remember losing a minutes sleep since the night back when she was a young woman and her father had woken her up to tell her that her mother had died in a sailing accident. Since then, she had always considered lack of sleep an adolescent mistake and frowned on the possibilities of any repetition. She refused to let anything dance around in her head, anything that would keep her from falling to sleep.

During the daylight hours, problems were even easier to control. She controlled the controllers and always found convenient ways to get rid of the little pest that buzzed around in her way. She would either have them fired or relocated to some remote location. Lamar, on the other hand, could not find an easy way to relax. He could never get a good night sleep.

He was always up late walking the halls of the house. That or down in the kitchen getting something to drink or eat or locked in his office, sitting and worrying about the business or what Katherine might be up to next. This is what bothered him night after night for all these years. What was Katherine up to? It is what finally made him sit down and write out his thoughts and feelings.

First he started by writing a journal. Over the last couple of years he found it necessary to have his will revised. As days passed, things continued to unravel around the estate. Katherine hated Kristina; Kristina hated Katherine. Charlie was a drunk. Mom, Dad, and Emily were dead. Beth Ann was in prison, and Katherine was busy trying to control everyone and everything that was left. It was as though everyone was being sized up for a wooden box, and Katherine was the only funeral director in town with a shovel big enough to dig the hole.

Six o’clock
came especially early on the first day of May. There were quite a few people who had made arrangements to be downtown this morning. No one who was invited to the reading of the will was going to be late.

Katherine was waiting to expand her piece of the pie. In her eyes, she had always been a good sister to Lamar. Charlie was already downtown. He was wearing a new sports jacket he had purchased the evening before. Now he was looking at new sports cars through the dealers’ windows, expecting to find a large piece of inheritance in his morning stocking.