Shame on me!
Loretta thought, then tried to remember when she'd painted her own toenails. It was the summer before she went into the ninth grade. That was the only time. It wasn't the kind of thing for her looks, she'd decided right then. Hers was the stripped-down look, no frills, and she felt good that way.
“Would you repeat that again, please, Mrs. Stacy?” their solicitor asked, pronouncing Mrs. as “Misrus.”
“I think his name was Ronnie Patton. He had the gun and pointed it out the window. I don't think anyone knew he had a gun. I know
I
didn't!”
“And Dr. Pemberton was driving?” The question seemed matter-of-fact and innocent. The solicitor pointed to the surgeon, sitting beside his attorney at the defense table. Pemberton was wearing a nice-fitting tan summer suit and a pink shirt. He looked very striking and out of place to Loretta, not what she expected. He had gray hair at his temples and was older looking than she would have thought for a man of forty-five or so, now that she could actually see him. He seemed to be smiling, but she didn't think he wasâit was in the shape of his lips, the curl of them. He was handsome but not attractive to her. He looked coddled and untrustworthy, a user, but maybe that was just her feelings. It didn't seem to her like he could be happy, or anyone close to him, but she didn't know why exactly. Then she recalled nights before the girls were born, driving down the mountains from her parents' home, stopping somewhere to lie down on moss or pine needles, Danny's arms encircling her, the warm smell of his skin, the hair of his chest tickling her nose while they listened to the creeks and the night birds and the wind in the treetops, breathed in the lush smells of the forest and their own bodies. It was almost painful to be alive like that, so very alive! Had that doctor ever known such a feeling?
And what do I care what he knows?
How out of place he looked! He seemed very calm and showed no anger. He'd come in by the east doors, Dugan's polite nod causing the doctor to turn his back on him. He'd crossed the room to the bar, where he stopped and, like an old friend, said hello
to the clerk, Marianne, who helloed back. He even looked right at Danny and herself as he passed and nodded slightly, like a gentleman, not a man who was vengeful or angry but one who contained his hurt and outrage because everyone had to know he was innocent of what had befallen this most unfortunate couple.
Just like a gentleman
, she'd thought, biting her lip. But she'd met those eyes in her own unflinching manner. Except for that moment at the door with Sheriff Dugan, it
was
hard to believe he could have been in that car in such a state and doing such a thing, that he could have been with such a woman, that he could or even should be there in that courtroom.
“Sir?” There it was again, that trace of insolence. Something had changed in Mary Stacy when she got in the witness stand. She no longer seemed lonely or awkward, causing Loretta to wonder what had captured her sympathy earlier.
“Was Dr. Pemberton driving?”
“I don't know,” the woman replied, dropping her voice to little more than a whisper and making her eyes go big. It was very dramatic, but why? What on earth was the point? Loretta wondered. “I was very drunk.”
I am very cute
. Oh.
“Speak up for the court, please!”
“I don't know!” Truculence now.
There! You've gone and offended me!
There was no awkwardness or innocence in that. In her mind's eye, Loretta could see the two women in the car the way Danny had seen them in that instant before the gun went off, “all teeth, blond hair and laughter,” as he put it still when the rage hit him.
“You couldn't see?”
“I was
drunk,
I told you!”
“Well, it was his car, now, didn't you say that?”
“I said I
thought
it was. It was a Eldorado, a Eldorado Cadillac, and had these opry lights that glowed just past my head in the night.” She offered a tiny, hesitant, pointless smile.
“Where was Dr. Pemberton sitting?” The solicitor pointed at the doctor again.
“I don't
know
! There was some man in the back with us, I think. And there was two up front. It began as a hoot.”
“Who was
us
?”
“Me and my girlfriend.”
“Would that be Miss Katy Robinson?”
“Yessir.”
“Tell me about this Ronnie Patton. Who is he?”
“Just some guy we met at Natty Moon's.”
“Natty Moon's?”
An
Oh, come on! Everyone knows Natty Moon's!
look came over her. A pout.
She's on stage!
Loretta realized, startled.
This is her big moment
.
“It's a place in Pinetown.”
“A place? Do you mean by a
place
a drinking and gambling establishment owned by a bootlegger?”
“Objection, Your Honor! And Your Honor, may I remind the court this is a preliminary hearing, an attempt to see if there are any grounds for charges, nothing else. This is not a trial.”
“I think we all know what a
place
is,” the judge told the solicitor. The judge seemed interested, not bored like the last time.
“Did you see Dr. Pemberton at this place?”
“I think so.” Mary Stacy looked at the judge.
“Yes or no, Mrs. Stacy,” the solicitor said.
“Yessir!”
“This Ronnie Patton you mentioned, where's he from, Mrs. Stacy?”
“I don't know
that
! He was just a guy.” The woman's face turned a little pinkish, as though the heat was getting to her. But she was bold, Loretta realized, riveted despite herself.
“Did anyone mention Billy Gaius Ford, Mrs. Stacy?”
“Who?”
“You know Billy Gaius Ford, don't you, Mrs. Stacy? Didn't you tell Sheriff Dugan that you knew him, that you once associated with him?”
Truculent again. “I didn't really
associate
.” But she wasn't afraid or really upset at all. That was obvious now to Loretta, who felt she was reading a subscript that had nothing to do with the performance.
“Didn't this Ronnie Patton and Billy Gaius Ford have some argument at Natty Moon's place and step outside the building at one point?”
“They might have.”
“Didn't this Ronnie Patton get severely beaten by Billy Gaius Ford some two years ago when you were
associating
or whatever it was you were
doing with Mr. Ford, Mr. Ford using a tire iron on him, and didn't Patton fail to appear in court later, so the charge of secret assault against Mr. Ford was dropped? And weren't you and Ronnie Patton and Dr. Pemberton and whoever else was in the car looking for Billy Gaius Ford's car that night this last April, which was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo just like Mr. Carver's here, even to the color?”
“Your
Honor!
” The defense lawyer was out of his chair. “The witness already said she didn't know if Dr. Pemberton was in the car!”
“I was
drunk
, I tell you,” she said, like that explained everything, her anger showing now.
But it's still not real
, Loretta thought.
“This is only a determination of certain facts,” the solicitor said gently. “No one's on trial, Mrs. Stacy.” All of a sudden, he seemed so kindly.
Loretta watched Dr. Pemberton's attorney turn and glare at the solicitor, like he might really be upset, not just playing a game.
Dugan really caught them off guard,
she thought. Then she turned and looked at the sheriff, who was watching Mary Stacy, unmoved. His look surprised and impressed her, because just for an instant she thought she felt there was a subscript there, too, some kind of high-stakes game being played. But he sure looked unconcerned.
She turned back and was amazed to see that Mary Stacy was somehow looking more attractive, like one of those paper-flower pills you drop in water and it blossoms. The too-pale face had become more animated, like there was almost some kind of pride there. Even the judge appeared to be paying closer attention, waiting to hear what she said next. Without the witness actually looking at the judge, or even making those exaggerated faces anymore, Loretta could sense he was the focus of her entire attention. Then it occurred to Loretta that Mary Stacy was flirting.
Loretta heard the defense attorney say something, then the judge, his voice fatherly. Then she realized the witness had stood and was coming down the steps from the stand, her visage demure, her gait studied and slow with self-conscious pleasure.
After Mary Stacy was dismissed, Pemberton's lawyer addressed the judge, arguing, “How can a man who can't identify a woman who admits she was in a car involved in an assaultâwhoever's car that might be, and nothing's been proven, Your Honorâan assault
like
the one that occurred to the Carvers, though she never said for sure she saw any Carvers, and
who just happens to have blond hair like he saysâhow can a man, Your Honor, be so certain he
might
have seen the driver of that very same vehicle and can identify him? It's absurd. Terrible as that event may have been, and no matter how sorry I personally feel for the Carvers and their
near
-tragedy, there is just no cause to ruin this doctor's good and honorable reputation by binding him over.”
But suddenly it was the judge himself reminding everyone it was just a preliminary hearing, an attempt to see if there were grounds for charges. No one was being
convicted
of anything. Any facts would be proved or disproved at a trial.
And in that instant, Loretta knew everything had shifted, and knew Danny felt it, too, and they held their breath, it was that exciting. Dugan was right! All the judge wanted to do now was wash his hands of this one, get it the hell out of his court. He was going to bind Pemberton over to superior court. Pemberton was going to trial!
She leaned forward to look at the doctor, to gloat a bit, though she wasn't particularly proud of that desire. She saw that his head was bowed slightly, that he was staring somewhere beyond his folded hands, maybe at his knees. He seemed thoughtful and far away, and somewhere through the triumph beginning to roar through her she felt a little pity.
Stunned, Winthrop Reedy put down the morning's newspaper. Dr. Pemberton had been bound over for trial in connection with that shooting up in Sentry back in Aprilâ
damn
! Doc always was kind of wild, but aiding and abetting an assault with intent to kill? Hell, Doc had done surgery on Winthrop's daddy.
And that other front-page headline: “Board Awaits Trial Outcome.” The board of county commissioners had asked Doc, himself a member, to step down until his guilt or innocence was determined. Imagine! Politics was Doc's blood. Politics
was
Pembertons in this countyâtheir family pride. Just went to show, when you figured you had it made, things happened, he thought, and was promptly zinged by a deep fear he hadn't felt in a long, long time, since before he met Lizzie. He found himself staring across the little office at something like a diploma framed and hanging on the simulated pecan paneling:
Winthrop S. Reedy
Businessman of the Year 1970
Damascus Chamber of Commerce
He was also a member of the Lions Clubâthat emblem was on the wall, tooâthough not quite as active since a friend, after seeing a TV show, remarked, “From all I can see, Winn, female lions do all the work. Males just piss and roar.”
He was a member of the Rotary as well, and scoutmaster for a local troop of Boy Scouts, and member of both the finance and education committees of the Second Baptist Church. All of which, he reminded himself from time to time, wasn't bad for the youngest of eight children whose daddy had worked at Trotter Mills all his life and retired on thirty-seven dollars a week, a dollar a week for every year at the mill.
Lizzie had been so proud of that award she'd had it framed, and not just in some off-the-shelf dollar frame from the five-and-dime, but custom-made at Hetty's Framery on South Charlotte Street. Cost over fifty dollars, and though he tried he couldn't see the money in it. It made Lizzie happy, though. Hell, they were still probably paying it off, like their new dining-room suite, which he, like everybody else he knew, pronounced “suit,” just like the people in the ads on TV did, because it was stupid to think you could spell “sweet” with a
u
, no matter what his tenth-grade teacher had told him. He was also worried about some charge-account bills at Norman's Department Store up along the courthouse square. And then there was the Master Charge bill on which they were carrying their washer and dryer and the dirt bike Lizzie had bought him for his birthday, and they were still paying off a slick vacation to Bermuda, not to mention the monthly installments on their new Firebird and payments on their new brick house in Tara Woods. Also, he and Lizzie had just been nominated for membership in the Damascus Country Club, and if it wasn't the Creek River Club, where the likes of the Trotters and Pembertons went, Lizzie thought the nomination the nuts. Winthrop could play golf all he wanted, and dues, only a thousand a year, could be written off as a business expense.
Winthrop, who was twenty-seven, worked hard, often putting in
twelve- and fourteen-hour days in the little hut with aluminum siding and black shutters located in the middle of the lot on which he generally kept eight to ten mobile homes, anything from twenty-six- to sixty-footers. But July had been slow. He had three more units coming down from Tennessee in the next couple of weeks, and he needed space, as well as an additional loan.
Not that the loan would be a problem. He had great credit at both banks in town and controlling interest in a new mobile-home park called Willow RunâLizzie had named itâthat had been bulldozed on some grown-over farmland in Little Zion, west of Damascus. But because he needed to make some sales, he had that very morning tied a huge, hand-painted banner across the high gateposts in the split-rail fence where his driveway came off the bypass.