Death's Half Acre (8 page)
It did not immediately register with either woman that Mrs. Arnfeldt was going to be out at least five hundred dollars while Mrs. Udell would break even, assuming her attorney didn’t bill too many hours.
With an amused nod of his head, George Francisco said, “Thank you, Your Honor.”
He started to follow his client out but I motioned for him to come up to the bench. As Kevin Foster looked through his shucks before calling the next case, I leaned forward and said, “Did you have a pet chicken when you were a kid?”
He smiled. “A white silkie. Her name was Blossom. You?”
“A Rhode Island Red named Maisie Lou,” I told him.
The relating debris scatters enough tiny reckonings to force off a Remembrance of tomorrows . . .
—Paul’s Hill,
by Shelby Stephenson
I
got to Will’s warehouse on the west side of Dobbs a few minutes past noon. It’s an old brick building with its own scruffy charm, sort of like Will himself, although Amy—she’s his third wife—has done what she could with both of them. Like the wisteria vine she planted in front of the warehouse, a vine that now grows lushly across the whole front right up to the roof and blossoms with great purple clusters, she’s given Will the freedom to be himself.
Growing up, his nickname in the family was Won’t and not only because it’s an easy pun on Will Knott. Our mother was a Stephenson and while Stephensons are quick to anger, quick to tears, quick to forgive, Will was hardheaded as well, always ready to strike out across the field rather than plow a straight furrow, no matter what the consequences.
To the dismay of his first two wives, he was constitutionally unable to hold down a nine-to-five job for longer than six months. We’ve lost count of how many different things he tried before he finally stumbled into auctioneering, which combines a certain amount of risk, ever-changing novelty, freedom to stick his nose into interesting places, and the possibility of big profits.
Amy’s the director of human resources out at the hospital and it’s her job that provides medical insurance, buys groceries, and pays their day-to-day bills. Will’s earnings are more erratic, but they probably come close to matching hers on a year-to-year reckoning.
He doesn’t keep regular hours at his warehouse. Instead, he roams the state as a freelance auctioneer. Your mother’s left you a houseful of furniture? Will can come and advise you on whether to hold an estate sale or offer it to an antiques dealer. Even after his commission, a well-advertised sale will usually net you more than a straight cash offer from a dealer.
He doesn’t have any training in appraisals, but he does have a good eye for what’s quality and what should probably go to a flea market. During the year, the owners will often give him whatever doesn’t sell—the odd lamps, tables, mule collars, or mismatched dishes—and he sticks it in his warehouse. Then, twice a year, he holds his own auction. When Dwight was furnishing his bachelor apartment after his divorce from Jonna, he got a box of decent tableware and glasses at one of Will’s sales for ten dollars.
His spring sale was coming up at the end of the month, so the warehouse was fairly cluttered when I walked in.
“Will?” I called.
“Down here, Deb’rah.”
I followed the sound of his voice back to where he was trying to inventory what was to go into that sale.
A very pretty young woman was perched on a nearby stool. A laptop was balanced atop a file cabinet and she seemed to be taking dictation from him.
“Number 238,” he said, hefting a gloomy-looking portrait in a gilded frame. “The Reverend Jacob Saunders.”
He looked at a Post-it note on the back. “Native of Colleton County, 1899 to 1980.”
The girl’s slender fingers darted over the keyboard. “Nineteen-eighty. Got it.”
“Saunders,” I said, trying to see a likeness in that grim, unsmiling face. “Any kin to Fred?”
“His granddaddy. Scared the shit out of Fred and his brothers when they were kids. None of ’em want his picture hanging in their house. Nice frame though. You know Dee Bradshaw?”
I took a second look at the girl. Cute, long brown hair, green eyes, short legs? Yes, this could be Candace Bradshaw’s daughter.
“I don’t believe so.”
“I know you, though,” she said with a friendly smile. “You gave my boyfriend a prayer for judgment when he got caught for speeding last month.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. He’s kept it on cruise control ever since.”
Will glanced at his watch. “We’ll break for lunch now, Dee. Back at one?”
“Sure thing,” she said. “Nice meeting you, Judge Knott.”
Will watched appreciatively as she threaded her way through a maze of straight-back wooden chairs, her shapely hips swinging provocatively in her tight jeans.
“Quit it,” I said.
“What?” He tried to look innocent, then gave a sheepish grin. “I’m allowed to look. Amy doesn’t care if I look.”
“She’s young enough to be your granddaughter.”
“Go to hell!” he said indignantly. “She’s almost twenty-two.”
“How long’s she been working for you?”
“I only hired her yesterday. Nobody else answered my want ad for some temporary clerical work.” He peered at the computer screen. “At least she can spell.”
“So where are those folders? I have to be back at the courthouse in an hour.”
“Still in Linsey’s hassock.” He led me deeper into the warehouse. “I moved that thing over here after it didn’t sell last summer and I knew it was godawful heavy, but I didn’t realize the top could open. Then, when I was shifting it yesterday, I noticed a little keyhole up under the ledge.”
He pointed to a cube with a cushioned top. The thing was covered in scuffed brown leather. “I tried to pick the lock, but nothing worked, so I finally took a crowbar to it.”
Will lifted the hinged lid and I immediately saw that he’d wrecked the lock. “Doesn’t hurt the value,” he assured me. “It’s vinyl, not leather, and ugly as Aunt Sister’s pet goat.”
Aunt Sister’s a little younger than Daddy and her pet goat died when she was still a child. No one ever took its picture, so we don’t know if it really did have bald spots and a misshapen horn that curled in the wrong direction. Nevertheless, it’s the standard of ugliness in our family. Aunt Sister swears that Daddy exaggerates the goat’s bad features, but we’ve heard her say things like, “Now I won’t say that baby’s as ugly as my pet goat, but . . .”
Will cocked his head at that hassock. “I wonder if it came with a lock or if Linsey had it added? For a minute there, I thought I was going to find a real treasure—maybe the Thomas family silver or Confederate gold or something.”
I knelt down for a closer examination. “It could’ve started life as a trunk or a footlocker that someone upholstered. Who knows? Maybe Linsey bought it at an estate sale himself.”
The interior was deeper and slightly wider than the file folders that took up most of the space.
I lifted one and a packet of letters slid into my lap. The pale blue and green envelopes were tied with a faded satin ribbon. “Oh, Will! Look at the return address.”
“Meg Woods? Who was she?”
“His wife. She died of a ruptured appendix when she was only thirty. Mother said it broke his heart and he never remarried. These must be her love letters to him.”
I opened the file to put the letters back inside and found a photograph of a laughing girl with a pixie cut.
“Wow!” Will gave a soft whistle. “If that’s her, no wonder he never married again.”
Another folder was labeled DAD and seemed to be letters written to Linsey when he was in school over in Chapel Hill.
And then there was the folder labeled KNOTT.
As Will had said when he called last night, there were sheets of typescript, jotted notes, and several news clippings that chronicled my first campaign, my loss, and then my appointment. The papers were crammed in haphazardly with no apparent order and Will had to flip through to find a scrap of paper that looked as if it’d been torn from a yellow legal pad.
“See this?”
In what looked like Linsey’s distinctive printing, my name was circled with several arrows that pointed to different names: Kezzie Knott, G. Hooks Talbert, and the former governor. All were surrounded by aimless doodles that appeared to have begun as question marks, as if Linsey had been trying to work out a connection. Luckily for me, he was missing the name that linked the three of us, that of Talbert’s older son, the son whose crime furnished the material for Daddy to blackmail G. Hooks. “Help my daughter and I won’t send your son to prison.”
“What do you suppose that’s about?” Will asked.
“I haven’t a clue,” I lied, “but these look like Linsey’s personal files. Wonder why he had us in here?”
“Not just you and Daddy, kiddo. There’s files on half the commissioners, on our DA—”
“But here’s one with his birth certificate, his marriage license . . . hmm. Who’s this, I wonder?”
It was a picture of a teenage boy in a Confederate uniform, complete with sword and rifle. On the back, spidery handwriting identified the boy as Cpl. Joshua Thomas.
“Some of this stuff probably needs to go to the historical society. I’ll take my folder, but—”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” he said. “You want yours, you’re going to have to take them all and let me know what’s worth giving. And I want my name on it as the donor, okay?”
“Okay, but there’s no way I can go through everything now. Give me a box and we’ll stick them in my car.”
Ten minutes later, we had emptied the hassock and stashed the files in the trunk of my car. By then I was more than ready for some lunch. A small refrigerator stood in Will’s makeshift office and he brought out the chilled chicken salad sandwiches and soft drinks that he had picked up earlier.
As we ate, he finally got around to his real reason for getting me over there.
“Dwight says he and Cal are going up to Virginia and empty out Jonna’s house when school’s out. You think he’d like me to come help? I don’t want to step on the boy’s toes if there are things of his mother’s y’all think he might want someday, but it sounds like there’s gonna be a lot to get rid of.”
“There is,” I said, trying to remember the way the house was furnished. We had stayed there briefly after Jonna was killed. Because she had died intestate, Cal had inherited everything. “Dwight wants to sell the house and fatten up Cal’s college fund.”
“Many antiques?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I’m no expert. Her family founded the town and she had nice furniture, but only five or six pieces looked really old. There were some family portraits that Mrs. Shay wants back and Dwight says she can have them since Cal’s her only grandchild and they’ll probably come to him eventually anyhow. You’ll have to ask Dwight, but you know something, Will? It might be easier on both of them to move it all down here to your warehouse if you’ve got room for it. Less emotional for Cal to think about it here than in that house, don’t you reckon?”
We finished eating and he walked me out to my car. Dee Bradshaw pulled in beside us as we stood talking.
“Not late, am I?” she chirped as she got out of the car and pushed her sunglasses up on her hair.
Before Will could reply, her cell phone began to play a rap song. She checked the screen and made a face. “It’s just my dad. He probably wants to know if you’ve fired me yet.”
As the phone continued to boogie, Will said, “Give him a break and answer it. You’ve still got a few minutes on your lunch hour.”
She shrugged and touched the talk button as she moved away from us. “Yeah?”
“So why don’t you and Amy come for supper this weekend?” I said. “We’ll grill some steaks and you can ask Dwight if—”
“
What?
” Dee Bradshaw shrieked. “No! When? Oh, Daddy,
why
!”
She was wailing like a child and we turned to see what the trouble was.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and her hands trembled so badly that the phone slipped to the ground. She stood there too shaken to pick it up.
“Mom’s killed herself!”
A scraping gentles an air of oak and mimosa
and I hear sounds of boys playing basketball in the barnyard.
—Middle Creek Poems,
by Shelby Stephenson
W
hen I got back from Will’s, it was all over the courthouse. As a prominent business owner and chair of the county commissioners, Candace Bradshaw had enjoyed a degree of power that affected a lot of lives, so her death was major news. A cat’s-paw for the building trades and land developers, she was less liked by those of us who wanted to slow growth until a thoughtful plan was in place; but both sides generally conceded that however ill-equipped she might be to run the county, she was thoroughly conscientious in her ownership of Bradshaw Management. Not only did she provide benefits and health insurance, she also paid her menial employees more than the minimum wages required by law—the result, it was said, of her own humble start.
In return, she expected to get full value for every dollar. The janitorial branch of Bradshaw Management had contracts to clean offices all around the county and it was well known that she could suddenly appear in the middle of the evening to be sure that her people were doing a satisfactory job and not simply going through the motions with their mops and buckets and dusting cloths. One uncleaned sink or toilet got a warning; two and the careless worker would be fired on the spot.
By the time I reconvened court, courthouse regulars agreed that Candace Bradshaw had died sometime after her daughter stormed out of the house and well before noon that day, when her cleaning woman let herself in. They also agreed that she had been found in her bedroom with a white plastic trash bag over her head. After that, the real truth was up for grabs.
“I hear she was in bed buck naked, so she’d probably been with a man.”
“I heard she was made up to go out.”
“Drunk as a skunk.”
“Sober as an owl.”
“Her face and arms were covered in bruises and somebody’d given her a black eye.”
“No, there wasn’t a mark on her.”