So when I picked out my wedding dress, I really did plan to wear it again. The strapless silk brocade sheath had a side slit to make dancing easier and was the color of pale champagne. A matching fitted jacket had kept it ladylike for the wedding, but tonight I substituted a silky soft stole woven in subtle stripes that merged from pale beige to deep gold. I had put my hair up in a modified french twist, and added gold earrings, my new gold bracelet, and a necklace that lay like a flat gold collar. When I emerged from our bedroom, the look on Dwight’s face was worth all the trouble I had taken with my makeup.
“Oh, wow, Aunt Deborah!” said Jess.
Cal beamed at us. “You and Dad look really nice.”
I curtsied and Dwight, who looked more than nice in his dark suit, gave a formal half bow, then held my coat for me. As he opened the door and I was giving last-minute instructions, car lights swept across the yard.
“Emma and Ruth and some of the others are coming over, if that’s okay,” Jessica said. “We want to work on our party piece. We’re doing something special this year.”
Every year, we gather at Daddy’s for a big communal Christmas dinner in the potato house where we held our reception last year. After the food is cleared away and gifts have been opened, everyone’s encouraged to step up to the front and perform—to play or sing, recite a funny poem, act out an original skit, or collaborate on something amusing. Mother started the tradition the year she married Daddy as a way to help her young stepsons develop self-confidence. From the conspiratorial grins Jess shared with Cal, this year’s performance might top last year’s. That one had a heavenly choir that swooshed around overhead on swings hung from the rafters while Richard flew down from the back on a cable slide, waving sparklers that almost set the tree on fire.
“No sparklers inside,” Dwight said sternly as the kids trooped past.
“Don’t worry, Uncle Dwight,” Stevie said with a laugh. “It’s warm enough tonight that we can set up on the porch.”
“Set what up?” Dwight asked suspiciously.
“Ask us no questions, we’ll tell you no lies,” chanted Jess, who seemed to have bounced back from the heavy load she was carrying earlier. “Just remember that you promised to call when you’re leaving Dobbs, so we can get all our props cleared away before you get home.”
“
Delighted to be included in the merriment, Cal straddled the back of the leather couch as if he were riding a horse and called to us that he’d keep an eye on everybody.
They saw us off in high glee.
Dwight and I had both gotten home late and this was the first quiet moment we’d had together. At the end of the drive, before he turned onto the hardtop, Dwight looked over at me and smiled. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey, yourself,” I said and leaned in for a kiss.
“How ’bout we just skip the dance and go check in at the Dik-a-Doo Motel?”
I drew myself up in indignation. “Why, Major Bryant. Just what sort of woman do you think I am?”
“Not think, Judge Knott.
The moon, now in its last quarter, would not rise until well after midnight, but zillions of stars were crisp sharp points of silver and the air was so clean and clear that the Milky Way swirled with more brilliance than I had noticed in months.
As we drove, I asked him about his interview with Joy Medlin. “Did she admit that she was the one who put booze in Mallory’s Coke?”
“Where on earth did Jess find time to tell you that?”
“She didn’t. She did come up to my courtroom after you kicked her out of your interview with Joy, though. She was worried because Joy was talking to you without an attorney present.”
“Joy Medlin was reminded of her rights,” Dwight said. “More than once.”
“I’m sure she was, darling. I’m not accusing you of anything wrong. But if she was on edge because of taking herself off painkillers, I can just imagine someone like Zack Young arguing about the admissibility of whatever she told you.”
“I’ve been in the burn box before,” he reminded me.
Between Jess, Dwight, and needing to satisfy my own curiosity, I realized I’d have to recuse myself if Joy were charged with a crime and came up before me, so I went ahead and said, “But she did spike Mallory’s drink, right?”
“With more than vodka,” he said grimly. “She threw in a Vicodin for good measure.”
“But why?”
“Remember what Mama told you about how Mallory liked to flirt with other girls’ boyfriends?”
I nodded.
“She was pulling the same thing with the Loring boy. Joy says Mallory texted him just before he wrecked the car and offered to give him good phone sex once he was alone.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Joy blamed Mallory for the wreck and she’s probably right. Mayleen’s going to get the phone company to pull that message. If it’s as raw as Joy says it was, there’s no question it would have excited a horny teenage boy who’d had too much to drink and was hot to dump his passengers and get home.”
“Oh, Lord.” I sighed.
“Yeah.” He pulled a DVD from his jacket pocket. “Look, I don’t want to spoil the whole evening, but would you
