CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The morning of Chere’s and Darley’s appointment, Brad Brezinski left a message on her answering machine. “Dr. Wallace, this is Brad. I’ve thought of something the brother, Frenchy, said, you might want to hear. I’ll be in the newsroom after two.” When Shelby finished with her session—a history teacher with a meddling mother-in-law—she dialed his number at the paper.

“News room, Brad.”

Shadows from the oak trees fell across the out-sized poppy painting on her wall, turning it into an orange and scarlet abstract. Shelby’s voice was rushed, and she was not quite settled in her seat. “Brad, this is Dr. Wallace. You left a message for me? Something about Frenchy Collette?”

“Oh, yes, I got to thinking,” his cadence quickened, too, “Frenchy told me something about the son—does Frenchy have a son? In any case, what I remember is about a son and him and something about ‘the plan’.”

“The son?” Shelby responded, hesitating. “Well, I don’t know if Frenchy does. Claude did, I understand.” She paused again, considering what to tell him. “I believe that he was killed out on the river. What is this about a plan?”

“I’m not sure at all,” Brezinski said, “but he alluded to something tied to the brother’s death. Could it have to do with money? I got the feeling this Frenchy is a wheeler-dealer.”

“That makes sense from what I’ve seen, Brad. I have the strong impression he makes his living, how should I say, following opportunities.” She was aware that she was tempted to be chummy with this young man, so she gave herself a word of caution. Keep confidentiality and professional credibility, my dear. “Is there anything more you can remember now?”

“The thing that hit me is the way he said it. In fact, that’s how it came to me. Last night, I was playing cards with friends when it struck me Frenchy had said he would ‘play the ace’. That’s how he put it, that he had a plan he’d hatched out with the son—or something like that—and soon he would be ‘playing the ace’. Do you know what that could mean?”

“No, Brad, I surely don’t. I’ll have to give it thought.”

“Okay. Fair enough. Just remember that you agreed to fill me in on this.”

“Yes, I remember. I’ll tell you what I can. You remember, there’s a professional issue here.”

“Well, I sure don’t want you to be sued. That way I’d lose my book.” His voice was jaunty, but she took it he was serious.

“We wouldn’t want that, would we?” Shelby laughed. “I’ll keep in touch, for sure.”

She ended the conversation just as Wil entered the outer office for the afternoon. Through the open door, Shelby saw that Wil was wearing a figure-hugging electric blue silk dress cut low in front with blue high heels to match. Her deep red hair was pinned up in an elaborate “do,” her requisite crystal earrings reaching nearly to her shoulders.

Shelby called, “Glory! Woman, where are you going?”

Wil pirouetted and answered, “Mark is over here on business, and he’s takin’ me to Tampa. You think I look okay?”

As Shelby met her at her desk, the scent of Shalimar infused the room. “I think you are a knockout.”

Wil was beaming. “I just want to be noticed.”

“Well, you can count on that. Anyone who doesn’t will be looking the other way. How are things, Wil? For you. With Mark? Is it going as you want it?

Wil placed her purse inside a drawer and glanced at the schedule of appointments. “Oh, I can’t complain. One of these days, this thing is gonna end. I know it’s comin’. But I’ll face that when it’s here.” Wil looked up at Shelby, and for the briefest moment, melancholy stained her face. Then she smiled. “Say, I see that Chere and Dar are comin’ in. I lost sight of that. You sure you’re ready for ‘em?” Wil sat down behind her desk.

“Yes, I’m ready.” Shelby answered and walked slowly to the window. She watched the traffic on the highway. A steady stream—a propane truck, two SUV’S, a sports car, and a Wal-Mart rig—went by on 301. She turned back to Wil. “Actually, I‘ll be glad to see them and, if I can, help them set some limits in this little game they play. And see Dar, especially. Chere talks like he’s a danger. He’s a real unknown to me these days. It’s been five years at least since I saw him in the flesh.”

Wil asked. “How are you comin’ with that report you’re doin’, you know, the autopsy thing?”

Shelby shook her head. “The Psychological Autopsy? I guess you’d say I’m inching forward. I haven’t talked to anyone who said Claude was depressed. Though the M.E. sounds like she was pretty thorough, I’ve wanted to take a second look at whether it was suicide. Right now, I don’t think so. They—the M.E. and the Sheriff’s office—must have convincing reasons why they ruled it was an accident. There’s still something about all this that really bothers me. I just can’t tie it down. I’ve had a lot of crazy clients through the years so it certainly isn’t that. Alone. I just don’t know ....”

As Shelby looked back out the window, a red Mustang pulled up before the office. Darley Blanton stepped out and wandered up the walk. He was dressed in Western jeans and boots and a pale gray cowboy shirt of some metallic fiber. He was a full half hour early. He glanced across the side street at the convenience store, and she wondered if he was thinking about the night he called. Just then he turned around, looking back toward the road as though waiting none too patiently for Chere. Dar was handsome in his rangy way, like a country music singer, so she thought, someone who might drive in from Nashville with a guitar on the front seat of his car. With his curly mocha hair still damp from his shower or from some exotic mousse, he moved closer. She could almost smell his after-shave from where she stood.

Shelby stepped from the window and said to Wil. “Darley’s here. I want to work with him alone at first. When Chere comes, would you have her wait out here?”

“Sure,” Wil said as Darley climbed the porch. The women watched his movements through the glass. “Whew-ha!” Wil exclaimed, whispering. “Hain’t he purty! If Chere don’t want him, maybe I will take him on.”

Wallace whispered back and rolled her eyes, “Don’t you have enough to deal with as it is?”

Wil grimaced, responding, “Guess so,” just as Darley entered and began his war of scents with her. He looked around, then made eye contact with Shelby.

“Hello, Darley. How are you?” She touched him on his arm. “It’s been a long while since I’ve seen you.”

“Hi, Dr. Wallace. Nice set-up you got here.” He scanned more of the office until he stopped with Wil and did a double-take.

With the dimple in his cheek its most endearing and his voice as melodic as a Randy Dunn, Shelby wondered if Wil would get hooked, but she introduced them anyway. “Darley Blanton. Willowdean Maynard.”

“Hey.” Wil said and cocked her head in a most alluring pose.

“How do.” He answered, bending slightly, and an image from The Three Musketeers slid through Shelby’s mind.

Wallace hurried Dar into her office as he asked, “Chere not here?” He paused inside the door and scoped the room, turning his head around to take in every corner.

“Not yet,” Shelby said. “But she’ll be here very soon, I’m sure. We’ll begin, and she can join us in a bit.” She gave Wil a solemn glance and closed the door.

“Where’d ya want me, Doc?” Darley asked.

“Right there is fine.” Shelby gestured to a chair in front and sat behind her desk. Dar took his time arranging himself, angling long legs to one side. The country music station that she’d chosen sounded in the background.

“First off,” he said, his brown eyes widening, “I ain’t hit her.”

“I’m glad to hear that, and ...,” She considered what to say, “First of all, Dar, thanks for coming. I’d like to ask for a commitment, like the kind you gave in Tampa in the Program, that you never will.”

He settled with a sigh into his chair. “Sure, okay. And, why wouldn’t I come here? I’ve been pushin’ her for marriage counselin’ now for months.”

“Dar, let’s make it clear. This isn’t marriage counseling that we’re doing, strictly speaking. You’d both have to agree to that. I asked you here to get to know you once again, and to try to help the two of you work out a plan where you’re not fighting all the time. One you both can live with.”

Darley shifted in his seat. “I don’t care what you call it, Doc. I know what it is.”

An inkling of concern about mis-communication rumbled in her stomach. Still, she went on. “How do you see things, with you and Chere?”

“See things?” He answered very slowly. “Well, I see she loves me. Just like always. She’s just f—- , ah, messed up, by that bastard, Kingston. And she hasn’t been herself since her Daddy died.” At this, Wallace didn’t know if it was helpless whining or outright anger that was the dominant feature of his voice.

“And how is that?”

“Oh, you know. Nervous. Never sittin’ still. Runnin’ everywhere. Draggin’ that f—-’n lawyer in the picture.” At his mention of Attorney Kingston, Darley scowled.

She decided to follow up his reference to Claude Collette. “Dar, what was your view of ‘her Daddy,’ of Collette, before he died? I mean, how would you describe him? And what was your relationship with him?”

Dar wriggled once again and said, “We had our ups and downs. He didn’t want Chere and me to marry. Early on. But he got over that, then we, ah, mostly got along okay. Course, he was used to gettin’ what he wanted.”

“Did you and he have fights? Like quarrels, I mean?”

As Darley paused before he answered, George Strait filled the background. “Well, I s’pose you’d say we had some words or two, but nothin’ really heavy.”

“Did you think he was depressed before he died?”

“Depressed? Him? Hell no! Had too much goin’ in his life for that. He had somethin’ doin’ mornin’, noon, and night.”

“Sounds pretty vigorous for a man of 63.”

Darley quieted and fell into his thoughts. He finally responded, “He was strong enough.”

She sensed she’d gone as far as he would reasonably go. “Let’s get back to you and Chere.”

“That’s what I came for, Doc.”

“When she comes, I’d like to help the two of you work out a contract, of a sort. For no harassment. Would you commit to that?”

“Sure. I want to work it out. I want her to quit jerkin’ me around.”

“How do you mean that, Darley? How does she jerk you?”

“By sayin’ one thing one time and doin’ somethin’ else the next.”

“Like what?”

“She goes to bed with me one day, then has that Kingston f—- with me the next.” He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Sorry.”

“How long ago was that?”

“It’s happened more than once. See, I want the marriage, Doc. Always have. But a couple years back when she asked for a divorce, I fought it first. Then I agreed. I tried to get on past it. Even had a girl friend at the time. Well, sort of. Nothin’ set. But she was nice enough. Then here comes Chere, all lovey-dovey, turnin’ on the sex, and drags me back again. She does that all the time. I’ve asked her to come to you and get it fixed a bunch a times.”

“How recently has she, ah, tried to lure you back again?”

“Just a couple weeks ago. Not long before I called.”

“Oh, so you remember that you called me?”

“Well, kinda.” He tucked his head, a sheepish look fell on his face. “I know I called you. But to tell the truth, I don’t remember much of what I said. I remember wakin’ up next door. And, it’s really weird. I didn’t know you was over here at all.” Dar looked back up at her, and Shelby wondered if he spoke the truth. “Anyway, Chere comes down to my place. Says she’s worried. Says she needs me to protect her. That I’m the only man she ever trusted. That she’s in over her head. She declares that she still loves me and we end up in bed. And, Doc, that drives me crazy.”

“So you say you have been intimate with her just recently?”

He nodded his head.

“What does this do to you?”

“It makes me feel like shit.” Darley grimaced. “Sorry for my language, Doc. But, what the hell am I supposed to do? Do I protect her like she asks me? Like I aught to, for a wife? Or do I pay her back for all the jerkin’? Like I said, she drives me crazy.” His handsome face was flushed, and his tone was definitely one of irritation at this point.

“I understand your frustration, Dar, but you’re not supposed to pay her back. You know that. You’re supposed to design your life so it’s positive and stable, so you don’t let someone jerk you.” Shelby paused. She thought she sounded something like her teacher, Mrs. Maxwell, when the woman caught her doodling in the second grade—with that shaming, haughty tone of self-importance. Still, it was vital that she try to make some headway here with Dar before Chere was in the room. “Dar, how much are you drinking?”

He took his time in answering, then he said, “I dunno. More than I should. I reckon. Sometimes.” He drummed his thumb against his leg as the sound of Alabama drifted from the radio.

“Do you have other times you can’t remember like that night with me?” The memory of that night, his tone, and not knowing what he would do next seemed almost like another person from this young man sitting there before her now.

“Well, I s’pose.” His face became unexpressive like he’d had a sudden turn-about in thinking.

“There are some things I need to ask you.” She reached down to her lower drawer and removed two basic forms she used for screening, one for questions on addiction and one for violent behavior. She questioned him on each and determined, as she surmised, he still had problems with his anger and a serious problem with his alcohol consumption.

“I hope you’ll get some help with these problems, Dar. I have a list of AA meetings here. You don’t have to face it all alone.” She handed him the paper, yet conscious she could be spinning wheels and driving him away. It was possible he’d already started on his drinking for today.

“Well, Doc, I got my help. I got you.” His heated affect now had disappeared and his voice was turning cooler. “I’ll cut down when Chere and I are back together. And, ah, why ain’t she here yet?” He stretched up from his seat and craned so as to see behind Shelby out the window. “Her car’s out there.”

“I’ll call her here in just a minute. Let me just say this before she comes. Dar, I’m concerned about you, and I want to help. There are things I can and cannot do. Chere is my client now. I have a commitment to her, and she hasn’t said she wants marriage counseling .... ”

He interrupted, “Well, she will. You just get her away from that asshole, Kingston.”

Shelby made a mental note that he had ceased apologizing for his language. “Dar, that’s not my job. My job is to give my client, Chere, in this case, what she wants if I think it’s reasonable and healthy. I’ve asked you to come in briefly to negotiate the plan I mentioned and to urge you to get counseling of your own. I can give you the name of another therapist if you’d rather have that than AA.” She figured this would likely be the coup de grace, the final confrontation or rejection, if Darley has the serious addiction she’d determined.

His voice was icy now. “No, Doc, I’ll be workin’ just with you. There won’t be no one else.”

“Dar, the best that I can do,” Shelby leaned toward him and showed as much compassion as she could, “is to suggest to her again that we try marriage counseling before the two of you proceed with a divorce. But I must be frank with you, I don’t hold much hope that she’ll agree to that.”

As Wallace stood, Dar’s dark eyes narrowed imperceptibly, and his face was noncommittal. Momentarily, she felt like shaking him and shouting, “Do you hear me?” Still, she’d been through resistance many times before with clients. She knew that no one faced reality until they’re ready. Including you, my dear. She walked over to the door, opened it, and prompted Chere to enter. With her skin-tight jeans and sneakers and her turtleneck of jonquil yellow, she looked like an aging majorette. Wil’s eyes followed Chere across the room and into the office, and Shelby closed the door.

“Chere, have a seat,” she said.

Chere looked disgusted for a moment, then placed herself by Dar to whom she gave an introductory snort. “Well, Dr. Wallace,” her mouth a sneering gash, “let’s get this show on the road.”

Shelby settled once again behind her desk while Dolly Parton lent a surrealistic air to the proceedings. “I’d like to ask each of you again what you want to take home from this meeting. Who wants to start?”

Chere squirmed and whined, “I want my divorce and I want him to leave me alone.”

Wallace said, “Tell Dar.”

“You heard me.” Chere turned obliquely to her husband. “I told you. I want you to get on with it. I’m sick and tired of waiting. I want you to sign the papers. Yesterday. And let me go.”

Dar rotated sideways in his seat. “Well, now, you know I just can’t do that, baby.” His voice was cold.

Chere bounced forward like a rabbit, wailing, “See that, Dr. Wallace? See? What did I tell you. See what he does?”

The therapist held her hand, palm forward, toward her client. “Hang on, now, Chere. Take a breath. Let’s go at this more slowly. You say you want Dar to sign the papers of divorce. What do you want, Darley?” Shelby turned to him.

“I want her to cut out all this bullshit, get rid of that son-of-a-bitch, Kingston, and come on home.” His face was hard, his voice low and raspy.

“Dar, I’d like you to speak to Chere directly and omit the nasty language if you would.”

“Okay. Okay.” He smirked and looked at Chere. “Chere, cut the cr—, ah, baloney, and come on back home.”

“This is my home. Up here.” Chere’s voice was hard now, too.

“And give up worrying about the f——n’ money.” Dar sneered, disregarding Chere’s statement. “Sorry, Dr. Wallace. But Chere’s old lover boy ain’t going to get her any more than what’s comin’ to her already.”

“That’s it! I knew it.” Chere shot a glance at Shelby, then turned back to Darley and fumed. “That’s what you’re waiting for. The money. You’re trying to drag this out so you can get my money.”

“Damn it, Chere, I don’t give a damn about the money. I told your Daddy that. Him accusin’ me of being after money. It’s just you I wanted. Y’all should’a knowed that.” Dar leaned toward Chere, fuming.

Chere recoiled. “You and Daddy. I knew it, too! Both of you! Angling to bring me into line. Trying to keep me from what should rightfully come to me.”

“You know damn well you wanted me to save you from him.” Dar’s body tensed like a tomcat after prey.

“What the hell you talking about? Y’all were scheming against me—you and your mighty club of boys.” Chere wailed.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Let’s stop here,” Wallace intervened. “We’ve gotten off the track. Let’s cut out ‘who shot John.’ ” She realized immediately the significance of what she said, but they neither seemed to notice. Shelby continued with a weak attempt at clarity, “You both are angry and you see things differently. You want a divorce, Chere, is that correct? And, Dar, you don’t?”

Chere started to nod as Darley snapped, “No, she doesn’t. No, you don’t,” he said to her. “You still need me. Hell, you told me that. A buncha times. You know damn well you’ll be back in bed with me before the month is out.”

“Aach!” Chere jabbed her hands into her curly hair and pulled it. “My God! You make me nuts! She’ll have to lock me up if you don’t stop it. I just don’t know where you come up with all of this.”

Dar stared at her and Chere began to make a crying sound.

“Okay, you guys.” Shelby moved forward in her chair. “If you want to work with me, here’s what we’re going to do. Let me ask you one more time if you would agree to marriage counseling?”

“No!” Chere said.

“Yes!” Dar countered.

“I’m sorry, Dar,” Shelby interceded. “But we have no joint commitment. I want you both to agree to stay away from each other and communicate through letters, your attorneys, or through me. Or if your attorneys recommend a mediator, even better. Whatever they suggest. Will you each consent to that?”

Darley looked prepared to spring. He turned to Shelby. “Sorry, too, Doc. You may think you know what’s best, but .... He stood. “You just don’t know the situation. She acts one way here, but I know her better. I know what’s really goin’ on.”

Shelby’s voice was as conciliatory as she could manage, “Yes, I’m sure you do. I think you both are sending double messages. Regardless, Darley, you can’t force someone to do what they don’t want to do. Why don’t you sit back down, so we can face this situation calmly.”

Dar started toward the door and as he did, he raised his hand. “Doc, you’ll hear from me later. You, too, Chere. You both will hear from me. Now’s not the time, I see. But you can believe ... you’ll hear.”

“Darley, stop! ” Wallace stood and said, “I need to know what you intend to do. You have given a commitment. Is that our understanding?”

“Oh, not to worry, Doc. I won’t lay a hand on her.” He hurried out and slammed the door behind him.

Chere lifted her head. Her tears were non-existent. “Now what?”

Wallace said, “Now, I help you face what’s really going on. What are you feeling, Chere?”

“Well, what would you feel? I’m pissed.” The woman’s mouth had tightened and her shoulders rose. Her eyes bored into Shelby.

“Go on.” Shelby’s tone was low.

“Shit! I’m right back where I started. With Darley Blanton leeching onto me.”

“Yes, you’re really angry, Chere. Dar is not cooperating with your plan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve got a scenario in your head and, unless he follows it, you’re going to make yourself feel miserable.” Shelby decided then, that if she lost Chere, too, that would have to be the case, that it was time to get some honest answers to her questions. She waited until Chere’s breathing calmed. “You know, Dar said that lately you’ve been coming on to him. Wanting to resume your marriage. Could that be the case?”

Chere looked away and fiddled in her seat. “He reads too much into things.”

“Chere, this is not a court and I’m not a prosecuting attorney, so I won’t grill you for the truth. Still, I’ve got to tell you, there are things about your situation that just don’t reconcile for me. I’d bet my practice on it. And, unless you really level with me—tell it like it is, I’m saying—we’ll be getting nowhere. I’ve told you and Kingston, too, that there’s nothing I can do about Dar or your divorce if Darley doesn’t want it. You’ll just have to take your time and go through the process.” Here, Shelby paused for impact. “I urge you to face your father and yourself. I’m asking you to talk about his life and death and you.” Pausing for a second, she then said, “Your father really must have hurt you.”

Chere looked at her a long time while her mood appeared to undergo a metamorphosis—from belligerence to sadness to dejection. “I can’t talk about it all at once.” Her voice was like a child.

“Then just say what you can.”

Chere’s face had stiffened, mask-like, as she started, very slowly, “I was his special girl. My daddy. Always called me his June Feeya. One day he just up and tosses me away. Said he was going to change his will and leave it all to Claudie. The business. The farm and everything.” Her voice was bitter. “Oh, sure, he’d leave me some money. But that was it. The important stuff would go to ‘Baby Claude.’ Cause he’s ‘The Precious Son’.”

“So, you felt betrayed.”

“I surely did. I WAS betrayed.” Chere’s eyes began to glisten.

“That must have been extremely painful for you.”

“It was. It is. It ruined everything.” Large drops streamed down her face leaving furrows in her makeup.

“What was the end result of this? I know your brother passed away?”

“Well, that’s when I came back up here—to Quarry. About the time that Claudie died. To get back into the business.” She sniffled. “The trouble is, he kept telling me to go back home to Dar.”

“And you didn’t want to.”

Chere ducked her head. “Well, Dr. Wallace, I mostly didn’t.”

“Chere, I’m confused. You say your Father wanted you to heal your marriage yet it sounds like Darley thinks your Daddy didn’t trust him, that he thought Dar was after money.”

All the spunk had drained from Chere, and she responded very softly. “I just don’t know where he’s coming from with this. My Daddy had a, ah, circle going with the boys. And Darley was a part of it.”

“How do you mean that, Chere?”

“I mean, I used to think that Daddy loved me,” she said, defeated, “but I found out I was just a pissy girl to him, not worth something like the men.”

“What men are you meaning?” Shelby asked.

“Well, Claudie. Darley. Uncle Louis. Even the men he worked with.”

“So you’re ‘less than’?”

“What?”

“You’re not important, compared to them.”

“You got it.” Chere’s alluring body sagged. She slumped down in her chair.

“That must have made you very angry.”

“Yes.”

“Angry enough to hurt someone?”

“Well, sure, I was mad enough. But I didn’t hit him. That son-of-a—.” She said this very slowly, thickly, like she was talking through molasses. Shelby realized that Chere was meaning Dar. “Did he say I did?”

“No, he didn’t. I know you are furious with Darley. Dealing with him is extremely trying. What about your Father, Chere?”

“What about him?” Chere didn’t move.

“Did you want him dead?”

Chere stared out the window for what seemed like minutes as the roar of daytime commerce on the highway now sounded through the room. Finally she answered, her voice like lead, “He was dead to me already.”

Shelby spoke as quietly as she could and still have Chere hear her. “You have hurt and rage that runs so deep, you killed him off before he really died.” Wallace made it as a statement, but it was actually a question.

“I—I don’t know what you mean.” Chere sat up very straight, her face flame red, as though she had been slapped.

“I mean you were so profoundly hurt, you had to kill him off, emotionally.”

“I did what I had to do. If he wasn’t going to take care of me, then I had to take care of myself.”

“You have a lot of pain and grief about your Father.” With Chere less withholding, Shelby hoped to tap into what the woman held beneath the surface.

Chere squirmed in her chair, and brushing her ample baby curls across her shoulder, answered, “I suppose you’d say that’s so, but I’m past that now.”

“Well, I don’t think so. I think you’re really sorrowful. Underneath all the maneuvering that you’re doing.”

“Whose side are you on?”

“There is no side. There is only truth. About the pain each one of us is carrying. Chere, aren’t you really sad at what your father did to you.”

Chere looked away, then glanced down, staring at her hands; finally she answered, “Yes.” She closed her eyelids, seeming lost in memory, and said, “But I don’t want to feel it.” George Jones rang out behind her.

The two sat throughout the song without a word. After it had finished, Wallace asked her, “Chere, do you think someone could have harmed your Father?”

Chere answered very quickly. “No. ‘Course not. But, I wouldn’t care if someone did. It’s like Gone With the Wind, “frankly, I don’t give a damn.”

Shelby looked at her a long time and asked, “Right now, then, with the givens as they are, what do you want from me?”

“I want you just ... to be here for me. And stop asking me these questions.”

“I am here, Chere, but I can’t help you without asking you questions. There are secrets you are carrying you’re not telling me about.” Wallace looked directly in her eyes.

Chere crossed and uncrossed her legs, bit her lips, and then, with a frantic look, began to cry in earnest. “I miss my Mama.”

Coming Tuesday, August 24: Installment 14: Digging for Details