“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“They were stacked on top of every News and Observer box in Makely this morning,” he answered grimly.
“Oh, Lord,” I groaned. “Let’s see. When does the Makely Weekly go to press?”
“Noon on Thursdays.” He glanced at his watch. “Four and a half hours ago.”
“Luther, I swear to God I know nothing about this. My sister-in-law’s helping with my campaign. Let me talk to her and then, if that’s what you want, I’ll meet you at the Ledger first thing tomorrow and we’ll get Linsey Thomas to run a disclaimer, okay?”
Neither of us was very happy with this solution, but we couldn’t think of anything else to do.
At least Luther was back to calling me Deborah before we parted.
When I returned to the office, Sherry had put the dustcover over her computer and was ready to leave.
“Minnie’s been trying-to get you for the last hour,” she said, handing me a sheaf of message slips.
“I’ll bet.”
“Mr. John Claude and Reid-”
“Ah, Deborah,” said John Claude from the doorway of his office. “May Reid and I see you for a few minutes?”
Sherry discreetly left and I crossed the hall to John Claude’s office. He and Reid both had angry expressions on their faces and copies of the same trash Luther had shown me in their hands.
“This is quite unconscionable,” said John Claude.
“Really stinks,” Reid agreed.
“Now wait a minute,” I said. “You don’t think I knew anything about this, do you?”
“Of course not!” John Claude snapped.
Reid handed me a gin and tonic, the gin poured with a stingy hand, the way I take it these days when I drink at all.
“John Claude thinks it’s Hector Woodlief’s people.”
Hector Woodlief had run unopposed on the Republican ticket in Tuesday’s primary, even though the only way he could realistically expect to win in November was if the Democratic candidate was dead or under indictment for something major.
“I take it Hector Woodlief doesn’t get your vote?” I asked Reid.
“Seems more likely this came from some of Luther Parker’s people.”
“What?”
“Foolishness,” muttered John Claude.
“No, it’s not! Reid argued. ”Think about it, Deborah. This kind of crap hurts you a lot more than it hurts him. Gets the race thing right out in the open with you as the bigoted villain.”
I thought about it and then shook my head. “No. It just doesn’t compute. If Parker’s that Machiavellian, wouldn’t he do it closer to the election for maximum impact?”
“I didn’t say Parker himself; I said his people.”
“No,” I said again. “I just spoke to Luther on the courthouse steps not ten minutes ago and he accused me of writing this. He’s a good attorney, but I’ve never seen him try out for any of the Possum Creek Player’s productions. He really and truly thought I-or somebody belonging to me anyhow-did this.”
John Claude was distressed. “Oh, surely not.”
“I think I convinced him.” I took a deep swallow of my drink and sat down on the blue leather couch to leaf through my messages. Most were from Minnie. “I’ll talk to Minnie tonight and I told Luther I’d meet him in Linsey Thomas’s office tomorrow morning so we can issue a joint statement.”
John Claude shook his head pessimistically. “Reid’s right, I’m afraid. This does have the potential to harm you more than it harms Parker.”
Supper with Minnie and Seth brought us to pretty much the same conclusion.
I’d driven over to the modern farmhouse they’d built on the northwest side of the Grimes place-still called that even though Daddy’d bought it at auction back in the early sixties when North Carolina’s short-staple cotton took a double blow from polyesters and boll weevils. Farm acreage was going dirt cheap then, but even if it’d been high, Daddy still would have bid it in since it bounded his own land. He’d deeded it to Seth for a wedding present and Seth seemed to be doing pretty good with tobacco, sweet potatoes, and soy beans.
Minnie’s in her midforties, old enough to be accepting of people and their shortcomings, yet wise to how they enjoy scandalous gossip. She was seriously disturbed over the potential damage the scurrilous flyer could do and had sent the kids off for pizza over in Cotton Grove so we could talk without the distraction of TV or stereos.
“I just wish you didn’t have to give it more publicity with a Ledger story,” she said.
“I don’t see that I have much choice,” I said as Seth poured steaming cups of coffee all around after supper.
“No,” Minnie sighed. “But right now, not that many people know about it. I called around the whole district. Makely’s the only place they were distributed.”
We went over it and over it from every angle, then worked on my statement until my nieces and nephews came home.
As I drove through Cotton Grove on my way home to Dobbs, I passed by the neat house on the edge of town that my brother Will had once shared with Trish. It was still early, barely dark good; and through the thick trees, I saw that a light was on in Trish’s living room.
I braked with such abruptness that the pickup behind almost rear-ended me. Well, what the hell, I thought. Talking with Trish about Janie Whitehead would at least make a change from worrying about my campaign.
13 daytime friends and nighttime lovers
Will’s ex-wife is a vice president in charge of customer service at my bank in Dobbs, so I’ve run into her frequently over the years. We’re friendly enough, but I hadn’t been in her house since Mother died.
Mother was what everyone called a “good woman” (as distinct from “a good ol’ gal”) even though I realized right before she died that a narrow streak of wildness lay just beneath her surface serenity. Most of the time she kept it repressed, but when it got out of hand… well, that little streak of wildness was what took her off to Goldsboro during World War II and what later made her want to marry a widowed bootlegger with a houseful of motherless boys after the war.
Nine times out of ten, a good woman does exactly what her family and society expect of her.
That tenth time? Better stand back out of her way.
She’ll burn down her world just for the hell of it, or risk everything she’s worked a lifetime for on pure-out whimsy.
A similar streak in Trish is probably why Mother liked her and stayed friends even after the divorce. Not that she didn’t do everything in her power to talk my brother out of marrying Trish.
“I thought you liked her,” Will said plaintively when he first started talking engagement rings.
“Liking has nothing to do with it,” said Mother. “I just don’t believe you two are suited.”
“Who’s not?” he asked. “Me for her or her for me?”
Mother just shook her head. She never said another word against the match once it was made, and she never said “I told you so” when it came unmade after two and a half years.
As I pulled into the driveway behind Trish’s conservative white Japanese import, I found myself wondering for the first time in years what actually had gone wrong with their marriage. Will just tightened his mouth and we assumed he’d caught Trish in bed with someone since he was the one that wanted out. There’d been talk of her having round heels, but no one specific had ever been named.
Even after the divorce, when she could have been a little less discreet, there’d been no stories of some man’s car parked all night in her driveway. True, she and Kay Saunders had spent a lot of weekends down at the beach that year, and everybody knows what kind of messing around two women off the leash can do, especially at the beach; but Kay was going through a rough time with Fred. He’d always cheated on Kay; that summer he quit trying to hide it.
Divorce can be a contagious virus and we half expected that Fred and Kay’s marriage might go bust too, but
