There were cars parked all around the square, and the pretty streetlights that had been put up for the tourists lent the area an air of prosperity and quaintness. The broad courthouse lawn was strewn with folding chairs of all kinds. Little children were dashing through the gathering crowd, shrieking and excited in the chill evening air. Since I was an outsider, I couldn't tell the leafers from the locals, but Hollis told me the ratio was about forty to sixty.
The stage that had been thrown up at the base of the old courthouse was not very high, and it was crowded with the equipment of the first group to perform. A woman in a long full skirt and a wide turquoise belt was tuning a guitar. Her gray hair fell to her waist, and her face was deeply lined, intent and calm. The men behind her were in their forties and fifties, and they all shared her air of professionalism.
"This here's Roberta Moore and her Sons of Grace," Hollis said. "They're from over to Mountain Home."
"How many groups will play?"
"We just see who shows up," he said. "Sometimes six or seven, but tonight I only see three others. Bobby Tatum, he sings by himself." Bobby Tatum was a very young man in a cowboy hat and a very elaborate cowboy shirt and boots. His jacket was Western-tailored, of course, and his clean-shaven face gleamed with eagerness. He was chatting with a cluster of girls who looked about Mary Nell's age, and they were giggling at everything he said.
The other entertainers seemed to be groups like Roberta Moore's. I eyed the amount of expensive equipment piled up behind the stage and was taken aback. This wasn't slapdash and amateurish. These people knew their stuff.
As the darkness gathered closer, Hollis got a blanket from the truck and moved his chair right by mine so we could share its warmth. Terry Vale, the mayor, made some public service announcements. He was far from the anxious man I'd met at the sheriff's office. He was happy, relaxed. "The tan Chevy Venture blocking the driveway to Martin's Pharmacy, be advised you've blocked Jeb Martin in, and he sure wants to go home. Unless you want him to call the tow truck, you better get over there with an apology on your lips," Terry Vale said, and the crowd laughed. A very young man with a sparse mustache got up, abashed, and headed for the pharmacy. After a couple more public service announcements, including a reminder to pick up trash when the concert was over, Terry Vale introduced Roberta Moore and the Sons of Grace to a big round of applause. The gray-haired woman nodded absently at the crowd and continued tuning her guitar. When she felt she was ready, Roberta Moore gave her band a signal, and she began to sing.
It was just great. I was sure these people were pharmacists and pest control sprayers and farmers by day, but by night they were talented musicians, and I was enthralled. I didn't know any of the songs, though I had a vague feeling that when I was very young I'd heard one or two of the spirituals. The voices, twangy and plangent, rose through the clear night air. From time to time, one of the singers would say, "Now we're gonna do an old favorite, and if you know it, you sing along." But it was not an old favorite of mine or my parents, or even my grandparents, as far as I knew, and I realized how ignorant I was. It wasn't the first time I'd reflected on that, and it wouldn't be the last.
Hollis sang along with "The Old Rugged Cross." To my surprise he had a nice baritone.
Just when I was thinking I was getting too cold to enjoy any more singing, Hollis produced a thermos of hot chocolate, and I was glad to drink some. I felt so relaxed. No one was paying me any attention, and that was just fine. Hollis's hand was warm and dry when he held mine, and the hot chocolate was good.
The singing drew to an end after a couple of hours, and people began to pack up their blankets and chairs. Children were carried to cars, their sleeping heads resting on parental shoulders. I gathered up the blanket and the thermos while Hollis toted the chairs. I was surprised to cross the path of Sybil Teague. She was doing exactly the same thing; the man in charge of her chairs was Paul Edwards.
It was a draw as to which one of us was the more astonished. "I didn't know you were in town," Sybil said. She looked a bit more expensive than anyone else in the crowd. So did Paul, for that matter.
"The sheriff doesn't want us to go just yet," I said. I thought Sybil had certainly known we were in town. I thought Sybil had to have heard about the incident this morning, especially since the boy who was the ringleader was such a follower of Mary Nell's. I thought Sybil was just surprised to see me here on the courthouse lawn. Paul Edwards didn't make any effort to charm or greet me, he just stood behind Sybil with their two chairs slung across his back.
"I don't understand why," Sybil said. "I'm sorry you're being, ah, inconvenienced this way." She looked at me as if she had no idea how to end the encounter, and I was petty enough to leave her in the lurch. "Why don't you come to lunch with me tomorrow?" she suggested, I guess since she couldn't think of anything else to say. "You and your brother. Noon okay? Do you know how to get to my house?"
"Thanks. I expect we can find it." I gave her a very small smile and nod, and then Hollis and I moved on to his pickup.
Hollis made a choked noise, and I realized he was trying not to laugh out loud. "What's up with you?" I asked, smiling a little myself.
"She couldn't get out of that one," he said.
"Nope. She feels obliged to the hired help."
"You could have helped her out some," he said, but not as if he were too worried about Sybil's social dilemma.
"Nah. I figured she'd come up with an idea. And she did."
We deposited our burdens in the bed of the pickup and climbed into the cab. Hollis put his hands on my waist and gave me an unnecessary but pleasant boost.
When we got to the motel, I asked him in.
He said, "I always did want to make love to someone in a motel."
"That's my goal... expanding your horizons."
The motel bed was much nicer with someone else in it.
ten
HOLLIS slipped out at five o'clock. He whispered that he had to go home, shower, and get to work. He kissed me, and I hugged him close for a long moment, wishing he didn't have to go. Though finesse would never be Hollis's trademark, either in making love or conversation, that wasn't a bad thing. He was warm and big, and he had a delicate snore that made me feel all cozy. It was like being in bed with a giant, enthusiastic teddy bear.
I would not mind being with him for lots of nights.
That thought woke me up completely.
I almost never had sex. One reason I picked a sex partner so rarely was the sure brevity of the connection. One-night stands were about scratching an itch, and I'd rather do that by myself than enlist a human dildo. Oh yeah, I knew consenting adults could give and take a little of themselves in one night. I knew it didn't have to be tawdry and cheap. But most often it was; and it left me feeling a little nauseous and dissatisfied with myself, no matter how satisfying the physical act had been.
This was the other downside. Now, I'd been with Hollis two nights, and already I found myself wanting extended time with him. But I knew damn good and well that the nature of my life precluded more.
It seemed so much easier for Tolliver. He made eye contact with a woman, she agreed to have sex, they did it, and she left. She knew he was leaving town, of course, as suddenly as he'd blown into it. Or did some of these women think, "It'll be so good, he'll like me so much, he'll send his sister away by herself and he'll stay with me for a while." Since I didn't have any women friends, hadn't had for years, I couldn't say what other women thought. But maybe, some day, that would happen.
Despite that niggling worry, I dozed back to sleep, but by seven I was in the shower. I was dressed when Tolliver knocked carefully on the outer door to my room.
He looked around quickly when I let him in and relaxed when he saw we were alone. "How was the gospel singing?" he asked.
"Really good. You would have enjoyed it." I didn't ask him what he'd done instead. "You ready for breakfast?"
"Yeah. Let's go to the Denny's."
Maybe Denny's fruit plate would be better. Like many lightning-strike survivors, I have trouble with terrible headaches, and my right leg is much weaker than my left. I can lessen those symptoms by avoiding fried food and starches. Our lunch at McDonald's the day before had been a serious fall from grace, and my leg had twitched all night. Luckily, Hollis hadn't noticed. But I'd been too uncertain on my feet to run this morning.
"Oh, we've been invited to lunch," I told Tolliver as we buckled our seat belts. The day was cloudy and chilly. Soon there'd be a rainstorm with high winds, and it would whip all the beautiful leaves off the trees - oak and maple and gum. Sarne would roll up the few sidewalks it had left out for the leafers. Its people would put away their hillbilly costumes and close their fruit and crystal stands, and Sarne would be alone for the winter.
"Where?" Tolliver asked, drawing me back into the present.
"At Sybil Teague's." I told him about running into Sybil and Paul the night before.
"That's interesting," he said. "Before we go in the restaurant, let me tell you what I learned from Janine last night. Paul Edwards was the lawyer Helen hired to get her restraining order and then her divorce from Jay Hopkins. And he'd represented Jay and Helen before, in a lawsuit they brought against Terry Vale."
"What'd they sue the mayor for?"
"Maybe he wasn't the mayor then. He owns the local furniture and carpet sales company. Jay Hopkins said the carpet Terry sold them wasn't stain resistant, and Terry wouldn't make good on the warranty."
"Hmm," I said. "I'm not sure what that all means." And I needed a cup of coffee before I even began to figure it out.
"It means," Tolliver said, "that Paul Edwards is in a position to know all the secrets of both families."
"Like?"
"Who Teenie's father really was, for one."
"Oh."
"And maybe he knows why Teenie and Dell were out in the woods that day. What could have made them go out to that place, on land that neither family owned, to be killed?"
"Who does own that land?"
"I guess we don't know."
"Could we find that out this morning?"
"Sure. We can go to the county clerk's office. But why should we go to the effort?"
"I'd rather have something to do than go back to the motel room and work crossword puzzles."
"Yeah, me, too." We worked out a plan for the day.
First thing after breakfast, we did our laundry in the Sudsy Kleen Laundromat, owned by (not to our surprise) Terry Vale. His representative at the Laundromat was a seamed old woman with a walker who dispensed correct change for the washers and dryers. She also sold little boxes of detergent and dryer sheets from behind a dilapidated desk. We learned by observation that the old woman also washed and folded laundry upon request. Sudsy Kleen did a great drop-off business.
This stout old woman performed a great service and did a good job, we decided, but she was determined to be as unpleasant as possible while she did it.
Initially, the fluffy white hair and the crocheted white sweater suckered me into believing I should be gently polite with this old bat. But when I asked for change for a dollar bill so I could feed the dryer, she drew in her breath as if I'd made a nasty suggestion. I stood transfixed, trying to figure out what I'd done. Dumbly, I held out the money. Granny Grump fumblingly took the dollar from my hand and examined it, since I was obviously a counterfeiter, I guess. Then she very slowly counted out the correct change, casting quick glances at me all the while as if she suspected I was going to snatch the money box and run. Her glasses glinted with every glance, just a quick flash in the overhead lights, as if she had bionic eyes. When I took the coins to my brother, I was half amused and half angry.
"She's charming, you need to go meet her," I said, in a conversational tone, dumping the quarters into the slots on the machine.
Tolliver glanced her way, started to say something, tried not to smile.
"I mean, it's just adorable when she glowers," I told him. "What a character! You just can't find old ladies like that anymore!"
"Shh," he said, but not as if he meant it.
I wasn't sure if she'd heard me or not - her expression of extreme disgust never changed. Was there something personal about us that she loathed? Or did she distrust us simply because we weren't from Sarne? Hard to tell. I wasn't sure I cared.
We finished washing and folding our clothes pretty quickly, since the Laundromat had few customers early in the morning. Maybe the dragon had driven all the self-serve customers away.
Our next stop was closer to the center of town. The county clerk's office was in the old courthouse in the square. It was the first time we'd actually entered the building. The ceilings were just as high as I'd imagined, and the windows just as huge; obviously this building predated the widespread use of air-conditioning. The room we entered was so disproportional, the distance from floor to ceiling to much more than from wall to wall, that I felt a little uneasy. I couldn't imagine working in such a room.
The two women who did work there were definitely surprised to see strangers come in, but the older of the two, a very round woman with dyed brown hair, immediately rose from her desk and came to the counter. When we asked to see a map of the county, she pointed silently to the wall behind us.
"Snake," I muttered to Tolliver after we turned around. There was a huge map of Colleton County right there. He nodded, understanding that I'd meant, "If it had been a snake, it would have bit us." I tried to orient myself by following the two main roads that formed a waggly X through Sarne, but I was still working it out when Tolliver pinpointed the area where we'd gotten out of our car when we'd been searching for Teenie's body.