“Midge? Drying out again near Asheville last I heard. She’s after some Jew-boy right now. A Boston lawyer, is it, hon?”
Chet caught my expression and Barbara Jean caught his.
She twisted around in her seat. “Deborah knows I don’t mean anything ugly by that, don’t you, Deborah? If Midge Pope never cared who or what his wife screwed, why should I? But this new guy is Jewish and he is from Boston, so what’s wrong with saying it?”
“Long as some of your best friends are black,” I said wryly.
I don’t think she got it because she started talking about someone named Shirl Kushner.
Even so, it was lovely to slip along the shoreline like this. The slap of water against our hull, the snap of the ensign in the stern, and the cry of gulls all around exaggerated the differences, but for a moment I was reminded of being on a train, slicing through backyards and alleyways usually hidden from view. Had we been driving through the street along this same stretch of land, we’d have glimpsed only the public facade masked by live oaks and yaupon, not these wide terraces, lush flower gardens, and sturdy docks with some sort of water craft tied up at each.
For some reason, I’d assumed that Linville Pope lived over in Morehead. Instead, it seemed we’d barely gotten onto the water good until Chet was putting in at a long private pier with white plank railings. Other boats were there before us and several hands reached out to take the line Chet threw and to help us step onto the dock when the line was secured.
More people spilled across the broad flagstoned terrace that began at the end of the planked walk. Everyone greeted Chet and Barbara Jean, and names and faces blurred as my friends rattled off introductions.
One elderly white-haired lady—“Miss Louisa Ferncliff, this is Judge Knott”—grasped my arm dramatically. “My dear, how on earth could you manage to sit in court after such a horrible, horrible experience?”
She made it sound like a breach of good taste that I hadn’t gotten the vapors from finding Andy Bynum’s body. I smiled vaguely and trundled after Barbara Jean.
Two white-jacketed black men were passing trays of white wine or taking drink orders and the older one spoke warmly to Barbara Jean. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him, too.
“Deborah, meet Micah Smith,” she said. “He was one of the chanteymen when my daddy first took over. Helped pull the nets before everything went hydraulic, then helped with the cooking till he retired last year. He said he was going to sit on a dock and fish the rest of his life.”
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” he told me. “And I found out fishing every day quits being fun when you can fish every day. Now I he’p Miz Pope when she gives parties. And what can I fetch you two pretty ladies tonight?”
I opted for a Bloody Mary since I hadn’t eaten anything except an English muffin for breakfast and a cone of frozen yogurt at lunchtime. Barbara Jean wanted a margarita. “And where’s our hostess, Micah? Judge Knott hasn’t met her yet.”
He pointed toward a set of open French doors that led into the house. “She’s in yonder.”
“Come on, Deborah. We’ll go make nice and then I’ll introduce you to one of the richest and hunkiest bachelors here. You like to marlin fish? You should see some of those million-dollar boats up close.”
Without waiting for an answer, she hauled me through the crowd and only laughed when I muttered, “If this is just a few friends over for drinks, what constitutes a real party?”
• • •
Drink in hand, Linville Pope stood facing us as we entered the long living room, but her attention seemed totally focused on the man to whom she was speaking. I remembered how still she’d sat in the restaurant yesterday when accosted by that angry shouter. An unusual ability, this knack she had of centering a pool of stillness and silence around her small body.
“How nice you could come,” she said when Barbara Jean had introduced us. “I didn’t realize when we spoke Sunday night that you’d been involved with Andy Bynum’s death. How awful for you.”
I barely heard because her companion turned and it was the same man who’d sat in court this morning with the Llewellyns, the couple who were related to the puppeteer. Not much taller than me, he had short wiry hair which was flecked with gray, as was his neatly clipped beard.
I suddenly felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of me as Linville Pope said, “And this is Levi Schuster. I believe you two have met before?”
Lev smiled and said, “Hello, Red. So. Don’t I get a kiss for old times’ sake?”
6
“Red?” asked Barbara Jean. “But she’s a blonde.” She gave my hair a critical look. “Sort of. Sandy anyhow. So why Red?”
You’d have to be thicker than a creosoted piling not to sense the waves cresting around us, and Barbara Jean’s not thick.
Her question gave me time to find breath enough to steady my voice—I
“It’s short for Redneck,” Lev told Barbara Jean. My hand was swallowed up in his. I’d forgotten how big his hands were. He was only one and three-fourths inches taller than me, yet each hand would make almost two of mine. Hands that had picked me up when I slipped on those icy steps, hands that later pulled me down upon him, hands that guided my—
