The Blackstone Commentaries (43 page)

Eddie was in uniform—he'd put it on again for the occasion, pistol and all—when he pushed open the heavy oak door into the big commissioners' room with its platform up front like a low judge's bench, only real long, all five commissioners sitting behind it, four of them staring at him like he'd caught them behind the woodshed doing something nasty. The fifth commissioner was Pemberton, looking his old unflappable self. Apparently Eddie had interrupted a welcome-back-to-the-fold session for the doctor put on by the other four, who'd always known he'd be exonerated, yessir, been behind him all the way.
Anyone can get a little tanked now and then. We all have our moments
.

Charlie, at a table down front, apparently had been subjected to the entire spectacle. For all Eddie knew, it was put on for his benefit. There might have been twenty other people in the room. He saw that the press was there scribbling away, and more than the usual
Gazette & Reformer
reporter. The press seemed to know what was coming, too. He could feel
the anticipation in the air. He walked right down the center aisle, pulled out a chair and sat down beside Charlie. Charlie, his Stetson on the table in front of him, gave Eddie a glance that betrayed nothing, then looked back at the commissioners and waited.

The commissioners glanced at each other when Eddie sat down, wondering what they were going to do now. All except Pemberton, who sat there calm as anything, with that smile that wasn't a smile fixed on his face as he looked right at Eddie and Charlie. Eddie didn't believe that counted as courage or guts, but it sure was power, and brother, those other commissioners knew it.
Sometimes when you run into it
, he admitted to himself,
it's all you can do not to bow down and roll over
.

They were working from an agenda, and so they did a little other business, but first they had to open the meeting officially with a prayer; there had been a recent push to bring religious values back to county government, along with patriotism, so there was also a Pledge of Allegiance. A very healthy-looking local preacher in a blue suit and tie got up and asked the good Lord to give the commissioners guidance and direction in their work, to bless them and the flag and the county and North Carolina. Then he sat down, and they got going.

After a while, Jack Lasier, the chairman and the one with the gavel, asked if there was “any other new business,” and another commissioner—not Pemberton, who just sat there taking it all in, his face as unreadable as Dugan's, so there was no doubting whose game this really was, as far as Eddie was concerned—said, “I believe the sheriff's got some business,” like it was Charlie had business with
them
, not the other way around. So they made sincere, interested and encouraging faces at Charlie and waited with the utmost patience for him to say what was on his mind, which of course Charlie, one hand on the table, the other arm in its sling, didn't.

Finally Lasier, who was the plant manager at a small furniture factory just outside Damascus, said, “Sheriff, we're glad to see you here and your arm mending.”

“Thank you,” Charlie said. Not “Thank you, sir,” as he might once have said out of basic—not necessarily earned—respect, or force of habit.

“What do you have to say about these complaints, sheriff?” Lasier said finally.

“I haven't been informed of any complaints,” Charlie said.

“Well, there's certainly a bunch!” The chairman looked around at the others with a
didn't-I-tell-you?
look, then lifted his nose a bit as he turned back, putting Eddie in mind of a nice brick wall to slam it against, scruff it up a bit. “First of all, there's the shooting in which you got wounded by your own deputy, and though we are sincerely sorry about your injury, it certainly seems you had no control of your own men, no control of that situation, and that you put human life needlessly at risk. And there's another question of dereliction of duty—”

“I don't understand,” Charlie interrupted, his voice soft like always at such times, a contradiction, betraying nothing.

“It's been brought to our attention that you let a man who sustained a head injury earlier in the evening of Friday, October 6, work an extra shift while you went home.” Before Charlie could answer, the chairman barged right on to the meat of it, working himself into a perfect rage: “And when deputies chase drunks right down the middle of the main street of the county seat, or start a brawl in some hardworking taxpayer's store, you know … Well, we're a growing community, not some damn-fool Wild West show, and we have businesses to think of.” At this point, he yanked a pair of reading glasses out of his pocket and put them on while he flapped some newspaper clippings in the air. “This headline is from the
Charlotte Observer
: ‘Bad Day In Blackstone.' And here's another from the eastern part of the state: ‘Outlaws, Monster Terrorize County.' Good God, man, I got a handful of them!” He threw the clippings onto the table, yanked his glasses off and glared at Dugan.

“Dereliction of duty, I believe you said, Mr. Chairman. Are these charges you're bringing against me?”

“Well, no,” Lasier said. Clearly caught by the question, he lost his train of thought and turned to his colleagues for assistance.

A new voice cut in. “I think what we're talking about here, Charlie, is incompetence,” the voice smooth and familiar and self-assured. You could hear breath sucked in on that one. Everyone in the room looked at Pemberton. “This county has been subjected to the kind of antics you might expect from circus clowns, not a professional sheriff's department. We seem to have lost sight of true law enforcement, haven't we? We have wasted money on show trials and, I might add, on public theater on the courthouse square that might have set the example for all this nonsense,
and I think we all feel our public safety has become compromised, if not outright imperiled, as a result. Not to mention Blackstone County's reputation as a reasonably safe place to raise a family and do business. If you were not directly involved in some of these events, you are certainly directly responsible, as I'm sure you know. They are your men. Have we lost our bearings just a bit, Charlie?” He spoke softly and slowly and with such audacious authority it took Eddie's breath away.

But at least it was now clear what was happening, and what had already happened—what Pemberton's courtroom admission three days earlier had meant and the verdict confirmed. Not that they, Charlie and Eddie, hadn't known, though they would have been hard pressed to convince anyone else in that courtroom otherwise, the prosecution and the Carvers excepted. Still, it was breathtaking, this audacity and skill. The other commissioners faded into the background, were comfortably out of it, and they even looked relieved. The truth of the setup was there, but as Eddie acknowledged later, you can't prove setups, or not so you can report them in the paper. The room was absolutely still, waiting for Charlie to speak, to answer, to defend himself against those apparent facts. Eddie felt the poised-pen anticipation.

“Come now, Charlie.” Spoken softly. “We realize you've been through a lot, and you know how supportive we've been. Surely you have an explanation.”

What could he say? It was all so true and untrue at the same time. Eddie felt if he didn't wake up quickly, he'd suffocate.

Then Charlie did speak, softly, too, and with force and dignity, refusing to be intimidated. “I think this is improper, Dr. Pemberton. I think this entire proceeding is improper. This is obviously a personnel matter, this charge of incompetence. I was neither informed prior to this meeting of the direction of the board's thinking, nor that there were charges against my performance. I believe this belongs in executive session, without the press, where we can freely discuss your concerns and I can more freely answer.”

“No, Charlie. You chose—you have always chosen—public, even theatrical, undertakings to express your views. You can't deny that's a political choice. You have thrived on politics in order to build your and your department's reputations. Now I believe the public is entitled to some explanation
for what appears to be an egregious betrayal of their trust these past few weeks, and longer. I think, viewed that way, the presence of the press is justified, and we're entitled to an explanation.”

Charlie let out a sigh and looked down at his lap a moment. Then, reaching for his hat with his good hand, he rose to his feet, put the hat in the hand in the sling and slipped his jacket off the back of the chair. “I can't honor these proceedings,” he said flatly, as Eddie rose in turn, stepped into the aisle—sensing the faces of the press and whoever else was there but seeing nothing but a blur—and let Charlie by.

“Dugan!”

Charlie stopped and slowly turned to face Pemberton. Eddie was convinced, and had been since walking into the commissioners' room, it was never about anybody or anything but the two of them that night, never had been since the night Dugan shamed that hundred dollars out of him, at least as far as Pemberton was concerned.

“Given your attitude, perhaps for the sake of the county, you had better resign.” Pemberton's voice quaked slightly.

“Yes, that would certainly be the honorable thing,” another commissioner chimed in, though Eddie didn't know which one because he couldn't see straight. There were only two people in that room he could see.

“Perhaps for the sake of democratic principles, Dr. Pemberton, and this seems to be an ongoing issue with you,” Charlie said, never raising his voice, truly calm—better than he'd ever been, it seemed to Eddie as he watched him standing not inches away, Eddie feeling and despising the heat of all those eyes looking at them—“I'd better not. There's an election next week. Let people speak for themselves.”

“For the sake of the democratic process, you might let someone else in your party who could still have a good race restore respect for the office!” Pemberton snapped, his mask for that brief moment pulled right down, not that anyone cared.

Dugan didn't look back, just pushed out through that oak door, on across the lobby and into the night. It was cold, but there were stars—Eddie had noticed them coming in—and a wind that scrabbled leaves along the concrete walk. The Dodge was parked in front of the county building, gleaming silver in the light from the porch. Beyond it were the orange mercuryvapor lights of downtown Damascus running up North Charlotte Street
toward a dark mass of trees that only half-hid the courthouse now that it was late autumn, lights winking in the windows of the little building that was the jail, just down the hill. Eddie hurried ahead to open the door while Charlie adjusted his Stetson.

“I'll walk back to the office, Eddie, thanks.” It was clear he wanted no company. “And thank you for being there.”

Eddie watched him walk around the front of the car and into the shadows on the lawn. “You know, sheriff,” he called as Charlie became just another silhouette, “it's an honor working for you.”

XLVI

Eddie

Crumpled
. That was how Harlan Monroe was usually described, and knew it and couldn't care less. He wasn't big, and his head looked mashed—the cheeks puffed out a bit—like it had been caught top-ways in a vise. He had a hell of a time getting his glasses to sit even on his face. But his clothes especially bothered Eddie, the well-made, expensive suits and shirts that had the ultimate crumpled look to them, like his office with its stacks of books, magazines, old newspapers and fresh newsprint that he was always slamming into his Underwood to hammer out some editorial or article, like he was keeping his demons at bay. He typed with his two index fingers faster than most secretaries could touch-type, and he was a chain-smoker. His ashtrays were always spilling over, giving Eddie the shivers. An ugly habit, Harlan would admit—probably be his death. He found Eddie leaving the courthouse with a capias. “Fillmore said you were here. Got a moment?”

“Sure,” Eddie said. “We can use Charlie's office—he's off for the day.”

“How about over here?” Harlan indicated a park bench. That's when
Eddie became troubled. “Pemberton came to see me a couple of hours ago.”

Eddie waited.

“He was waving today's paper and telling me, ‘What a great headline!' ”

“I know the one,” Eddie said. “Board Seeks Sheriff's Resignation,” the headline read.

“ ‘I'm disillusioned by my lack of welcome,' Pemberton told me when he came in,” Harlan continued with something approaching bitterness, Eddie thought. “ ‘I expect impartiality from the press in all things.'

“ ‘It'll be a rainy day in hell when you have any illusions about anything,' I told him back. Mind you, Eddie, I have never called that sonuvabitch ‘Doc.' Anyway, uninvited, he took a seat and began, ‘Regarding last night's meeting …'

“ ‘You didn't have enough to say?'

“ ‘I was being discreet,' Pemberton told me, so I told him that word and him seemed to be a contradiction in terms—he was out to destroy a good man.

“ ‘As long as you believe that,' he said, ‘the public will remain ignorant of the criminal we have enforcing law in this county.' Eddie, the man
hates
Dugan.”

Eddie nodded.

“I mean, I knew it was bad, but I wasn't prepared for that. Anyhow, I told him I didn't think he succeeded in what he set out to do, and for the same reason people seemed ready to forgive him, the good doctor, for his alleged sins.

“ ‘You don't believe I'm not guilty?' that sonuvabitch actually asked me.

“ ‘Not for a second,' I told him. ‘We both know you were driving that car on that mountain.' He didn't say anything, like he knew he'd won, so it didn't matter. I went on: ‘For the same reason they absolved you, they'll vote him in again, because they know he's a good man, that he has only limited control over those damn yahoo deputies of his, given the politics. You made it uglier, but you didn't win.'