CHAPTER SIXTEEN

They started back just as the sun was setting in a vivid palette of violet and flame. Earlier, in the summer, he might have invited her to spend the night on the boat. That late in November, the temperature began to fall from mild to chill at twilight, and chilly wasn’t on the menu for Thanksgiving.

The day had left Shelby feeling free of preoccupation. They spent the evening watching a program on the Civil War, and she stayed the night. The next morning they had breakfast of leftover chicken and the pears and, since she had a client scheduled for the afternoon, she left for home mid-morning. They said they’d see each other Saturday and said nothing of Collette.

In the afternoon she worked with an older minister who was having trouble with his second wife. Retired from his congregation, he told Shelby he had married some years before to a woman fifteen years his junior. It seemed the woman saw him not just as her Godly representative, but as God himself. Now that he had climbed down from his pedestal and had settled for the couch, his wife had begun to see him as an ordinary man. She was showing signs of restlessness. A power issue, to be sure or his lack of it, Shelby thought. So she began to help him face retirement and to return to competence. The reverend saw the situation, and he left her office with a plan of action.

Wil was off until Monday. Shelby was alone that day. Before her client came, she had done a small amount of paper work and tidied up the office. Afterward, she drove to the market and stocked up for another week. Returning, she thawed some frozen shrimp, chopped vegetables—one green and one red pepper, some scallions, celery, a small yellow squash—added almonds and conjured up a stir-fry for her evening meal. With generous soy and the last of a pinot grigio, she settled in to read a book on Scottish history for a nearly perfect kind of evening.

Or so she thought. As she rested on the settee in her bedroom, she’d read of Bannockburn three times and still remembered nothing. She clicked on the remote and watched a program on forensics on Discovery, all about how footprints and tracks are cast and matched up to the ‘perp.’ Shelby wondered if the cops in Collette’s case had found footprints or tracks or .... She surmised they probably hadn’t. Why would they even look? She wished she knew more about the scene. She could go back to the quarry when Lockman wasn’t watching to scope out the place where Collette had stood. Or, go back to Chere’s to speak to Robert Gaines again. She was curious what the authorities would tell her if she asked. Maybe the time had come to talk to them, but what could she say? She’d be up against the confidentiality issue once again.

Shelby walked back into the kitchen and heated water for tea. Something bland like orange or chamomile would be wisest, but she picked her favorite green tea with the caffeine still intact. Outside, the trees were blowing in a growing breeze, the kind that made you know you’re not far from water in the semi-tropics even when you’re landlocked. Leaves on the oaks whirled like a dervish in the muted light. She was edgy. She sat down at the table with her tea and made another pass at reading without much luck. When finished, she quickly washed the cup, brushed her teeth, and went to bed. Her thoughts about Collette had her attending to the slightest thing. She had trouble going to sleep.

Through the window, roiling branches danced a ballet on the ceiling. They reminded her of cloud designs when she was very young—ships and villages, angels and faces—extrusions in the sky. Outside, in the parking lot next door, she heard the sound of laughter, followed by car doors slamming loudly. She wondered whether Cole was home alone or maybe hanging with his buddies, though he’d said he didn’t do much of that any more. She burrowed deeper in the covers to encourage dropping off, making a mental list of minor jobs for Wil next week—update case notes for a minor court case Shelby was involved in and send a copy of a file to Memphis of a family who moved. She began to run a song of Sting’s sub-vocally, the one about his loss of faith. Some pre-sleep moments passed without much thought. But then, she heard a sound below, a sound like water rushing or ... breaking glass!

Wil had warned her, “The house needs burglar bars.” She knew Cole would say that, too. But she hated them. So ugly. And claustrophobic, like a prison. They would ruin the place. She had decided from the first she could be terrified or not. If she took reasonable precaution, she had decided, she’d choose not to be afraid. At least to try.

But on this night, Shelby tensed. She pulled the sheet down from her ears and listened. Nothing. Silence. She heard a rumble but thought it was likely just a train. Did she hear another noise downstairs? No train. A thud? These extraneous sounds were likely from the wind. More silence. She tried to snuggle in the covers once again, even pulled her comforter around her. She was cool. That week, for the first time since spring, the temperature had lowered to the 50’s.

There was not another sound until ... she swore she heard a movement down below. Her bed was right above the office. In fact, her feet were likely straight above her desk. Her heart began a syncopation in her chest. She could grab her cell phone from the night stand—its rapid dial was set for 911. But all was quiet again. She could throw the deadbolt on the door and hole up in here. But if she needed to use a weapon, what would she choose? She wouldn’t have a gun. She didn’t care that she had friends who had them. Still, it was stupid just waiting there, defenseless.

She slipped up from the bed and, padding softly to the closet, grabbed the first thing she could find—her jogging jacket—and threw it on above the knee-length tee shirt that she wore to bed. Her feet were bare and chilly. The house was unlit except for the faint glow of the night-light in the bathroom and random pools of amber from the street lamps. She tiptoed to the kitchen where she grabbed a sharp knife from the butcher block arrangement on the counter. Impulsively, she grabbed a kitchen towel and covered what was left so no one else could see and have their use. She tiptoed to the top step of the stairs and sat there in the darkness.

She could only see the bottom of the entrance door. She waited. One minute. Maybe five. Nothing. Outside, another clatter like the crashing of a flower pot. The wind? A cat? She should have called police. But if there was no one in the house, she would certainly be foolish, and, there was no one there, of course. There couldn’t be. Still silence. She edged farther down the stairs, fingering the knife. She thought of the class she took in self-defense. She certainly wasn’t using what she’d learned. As she approached the bottom, she began to see the door more clearly. The lower part was wood and the upper was an oval window. Tossing in the wind, the palm fronds in the front yard cast slashes on the floor like so many thrusting blades. She reached the lower floor and, as she scanned around the foyer, she saw nothing. She moved off to the right to peer into her office, but just before she did, she slipped her arm around the corner, flipping on the ceiling light. Then, she saw him—Darley Blanton—slumped down in one client chair, appearing “out of it.” “Darley!”

“Wha!” He jumped, his rangy legs unwinding, tensed, leaning forward in the seat.

“How in hell did you get in here?”

“Hey, Doc.” He stammered, thickly. “Where you been. Been waitin’ for ya. ‘Bout time you came around.”

“Dar, I’m serious! I asked you how you got in here.”

He gestured around his shoulder toward the back. “I’m afraid I had to break your window.” He said this with a slur.

She looked across the room and saw a gaping hole in the window at the rear. The floor was sprayed with glass. She was standing by the door and brandishing her knife. “That does it, Dar! I warned you.”

“Doc, I told you I’d be back. I need to talk to you.” He whined and smiled a goofy smile. “Say, nice outfit you got on.”

She glanced down at her toes, remembering her dress. “Enough! I’ve had enough. You’re drunk.”

“Well ... ah ... I may be drunk, but I know jus’ what I’m doin’. You know, I wouldn’t hurt you, Doc.”

She thought, I’m not convinced of that, but did not respond to him. “Dar, what is it you think you want?”

He moved forward as though to rise and pled, “Just let me talk to you.”

“Dar, just stay!” She stopped him with her upheld hand and ordered, like she was handling a puppy.

“Okay, okay.” He settled back.

She stood still for a time and stared at him. That she should turn him in, she knew. But, something kept her going. “Just stay right there!” She turned and walked behind Wil’s desk to a closet beneath the stairs, the knife beneath her arm. She grabbed a broom and dustpan and a chalkboard that she used for presentations and clumsily returned. “Darley, here’s the deal. If you want to talk to me, then you’ll stay right here and fix this window. You’ll sweep up all the glass and use this thing to plug the hole. How you do it, I don’t care. Just do it. I’ll get you something for the glass and tape to hold this board. Then, I’ll come back when I have changed. Any move, I’ll turn you in. You get it?” Her voice was hard and firm.

“Well, I reckon I can do that.” His words came out like they were pasted to each other.

Shelby set the fix-it items down beside her desk and moved back into the foyer, rifling through Wil’s desk until she found some duct tape in the bottom drawer. Then, thinking for a moment, she retrieved a cardboard box from the closet. She placed them both inside the office door and said to Darley who was standing limply by the chair, “You want to talk to me, get to it, Dar!” The knife was at her side but still apparent.

“Yes, Ma’am, I surely will.” He made the silly bowing flourish he had used before.

Shelby turned abruptly on her heel and hurried up the stairs. She put some water on to boil, then in her bedroom, threw the deadbolt, took her cell phone from the stand, held it for a moment while she thought to call police, then placed it on the mattress by the knife while she changed her clothes. She donned a pair of blue jeans, a well-worn dark gray sweatshirt, sneakers without socks, and, picking up the items of defense, went back into the kitchen, thrust a teabag in one cup and two bags in the other, poured the water and carried all of it downstairs to the office. As she approached, she heard the sound of glass. Entering, she walked halfway toward the back where she watched Darley sweep the last shards of the broken glass into the pan and empty them into the cardboard box. He had the chalkboard over the damage and had taped it to the window sill.

“You finished?” Shelby asked him, coolly.

“Yes, Ma’am.” He flourished once again, his brown hair swooping as he dipped.

From what she saw, the restoration looked complete. She told him, “I expect you to pay for this.” She waited for him to look directly at her. He did, albeit with unfocused eyes. Shelby said, “Dar, I want you to get what I am saying. This isn’t going to happen again. If it does, I’ll turn you in without a second’s thought. You get it?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I do.”

“What is it you want to talk to me about?” As she spoke, she moved back behind her desk, setting down the tea, the strong cup on the front for him and hers beside her elbow, along with the butcher knife. Thumbing through the Rolodex on top, she jotted several names and numbers on a note pad and placed it in a conspicuous spot.

“Well, Chere, ‘a course!” Darley lurched forward from his position at the window and found his seat again.

Shelby sat, too. “What about Chere?”

He whined, “Like I told you. B’fore. She’s in a lot of trouble.”

“I heard that.”

“No, you don’t get what I’m sayin’, Dr. Wallace.” Her name came out like ’Wall-leash.’ Dar’s face was knotting as he spoke. “She’s divin’ off the deep end. With the sharks, I’m here to tell ya. ‘N’ she’s got some other man.”

“Have you seen her?”

“Tried to find her. Been over there. She ain’t there. Again. Waited and waited. She just didn’t come.”

“Have you been driving while you’re drinking like this?”

“No, Ma’am. I started drinking after. Barney’s.” He gestured toward a nearby bar a few blocks north on 301. “Called and called. She wasn’t there. So I come on over here. Walked.”

“Okay. Then, you’ve not seen Chere at all? Since the last time you were here?”

“Ain’t seen her. She called me. Two times. Crying. Messed up.”

“Here, Darley. Drink this.” She handed him the second cup of tea, took a sip of hers, then said, “All right. You say I don’t ‘get’ it. Help me then. Just who are these ‘sharks’ you speak of?”

He stared a long time at the cup she gave him, took a drink, and fumed, “Holy shit! That’s awful stuff!” He set it back down on the desk. “Sharks? That bastard Kingston, first up. Her Uncle—Frenchy. And some guy over at the mine. Lock or somethin’. ‘N’ there’s someone else. I know it. They all are talkin’ money. Hers.”

“Hers?”

“Well, her Daddy’s money.” Dar answered with impatience. “It all should come to her.”

“And you, too, Dar?”

He started to rise, then fell back. “I told ya.” His voice was hardening. “I don’t care about the money.”

“If you remember, that’s not how Chere describes you.”

“Don’t you know nothin’? That’s ‘cause she can’t stand no one to really love her. Me. She has to think the worst.”

“If it’s so, then why is that, you suppose?”

“Hell, Doc, you’re the shrink. It all started with her Daddy. The mighty Mr. Claude.”

“What did?”

“Whatever’s wrong. Hell, that’s your job to say. But somethin’ happened ‘bout the time we got together that’s got worse right along.”

“Exactly what? Tell me how Chere acts that makes you talk like this.”

“Hell, you seen her. Runs all hot and cold. Changes faster ‘n one of them li’l’ lizards.”

While she took some time to sip her tea and look at him, Shelby mused on what he said. Though Darley was describing Chere quite accurately, he actually could be talking about himself. He sat there, sprawling in her client chair, swinging from tensing to enraged and back around to helpless. Could Chere have killed her father in a turn through agitation? Or could Dar? And, if he did, and thought Shelby knew it, what might he do to her? At the moment, he seemed like an ineffectual drunk. She hesitated to think what Cole would say if he knew what was going on just then. She asked, “What is this thing that happened when the two of you first got together?”

Dar writhed in his seat. “Need a cigarette. C’n I light up in here?”

“No. But if you’ve really got to have one, we can step outside.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” He wobbled up and fumbled through his pockets.

Shelby stood and headed for the front. Darley followed her onto the porch where he fiddled with his lighter and a cigarette, stuffing the remainder in his shirt. Blowing smoke into the air, he leaned at a rakish angle against a column. The air was chill, and, though the breeze was gusting from time to time, it was not so strong as the hour before. Shelby sat down on the top step, shivering slightly, just as a Sheriff’s car rolled by at snail speed, a comfort in the autumn night.

“So what you wonderin’, Doc?” Between puffs, Darley’s voice was clearer and less fuzzed with booze.

“What happened to Chere when you and she first got together?”

“Well, them days, she and Daddy Claude was real tight. She was scared shitless what he’d think of me. She shoulda’ been, too. ‘Cause he didn’t like me worth a shit.

“How did he make that known?”

“What?”

“I mean how did you know he didn’t like you?”

“Well, she told me! So’d the Old Man himself. Tried to run me off a couple times. Said somethin’ ‘bout ‘white trash’ and, worse thing, I wasn’t Catholic.”

“That must have made you really angry.”

“ ‘Course it did! I told him he could stick it, ‘cause I’d see her if I wanted! Had a couple real bad run-ins. Then a buncha’ things came down all at once. Buncha’ stuff ‘bout l’il Claudie. That’s Chere’s brother. Can’t ‘member what came first. But her Daddy kicked him out the house, for one. And Chere and I run off, got married. Claudie ends up at the river. With the Uncle. Chere started acting really loony right through there. ‘Bout then her Daddy calls me in. But I can’t say what all was happenin’ first.”

“What was it that Claudie did? The son. What kind of trouble was he in?”

Darley stepped down from the porch and tamped his cigarette on the sidewalk. He stretched and sat down at the far end of the step. “Well, Doc, I don’t know it all for sure, but he was actin’ up—bad grades, cuttin’ classes, stuff like that. Then droppin’ out of school. He went to livin’ out at Frenchy’s.”

Shelby was shivering, but Dar was so forthcoming that she didn’t want to stop. “So when Claude, Senior, called you in, what did he want?”

“Well, we was livin’ down there then, east a’ Tampa. Just past the time we got with you. Hadn’t seen Old Man Collette in ‘bout a year, I guess.” Dar’s delivery slowed and fell into a rhythmic cadence. “Coulda’ bowled me over. Called me in—just me—said he wanted things set right. Said Chere wasn’t strung so good, but she’d made her bed with me and that was how he’d take it. Boy, did he have that story down. ‘Bout her bein’ bent, I mean. ‘Course he told me I should turn a Catholic. I tell him, I’ll just see ‘bout all that. He said somethin’ ‘bout ‘commencement’ and young Claudie—that he’d graduate, I guess—but he never did it as I saw.”

Darley’s words were dragging. He dropped his head back on the porch rail. Shelby was worried that he’d fall asleep without finishing his story so she said, “Let’s go back into the office.”

“Just one more smoke, Doc?” Dar was pleading.

“Okay. One more. Then we’re going in.”

A dark Camaro hurried by and broke the stillness. Dar stood and lit another cigarette, then sat down again.

Shelby asked him, “Did your talk with Claude make things any better?”

“Well, Doc, that’s just the thing.” He nearly sounded like he was crying. “First, when I told her—Chere—she’s really happy. Like she wasn’t for quite a while. She went to see her Dad. But when she came back home, everything was different. You’d a’ thought she’s another person. Acted really crazy. ‘Bout then is when young Claudie died and her and I just come apart.”

Shelby realized she held her breath, waiting for the resolution to his story. “What happened then? How did the family deal with Claudie’s death.”

“Well, I’m not super sure ‘cause Chere didn’t want me at the funeral. She moved back up here in just a couple weeks. Told me we was over. I still don’t buy that, Doc. I won’t! Like I said, I am sure that she still loves me.” He slammed his hand in emphasis as he spoke.

“So you don’t know what caused this change with Chere, precisely?” Shelby wrapped her arms around her chest.

“Ah, no.” Dar began to sound distracted. “Somethin’ that her Daddy said, I always thought.”

She focused on her most important questions. “And she didn’t tell you what it was?”

“No, Ma’am. Then’s when she started actin’ like I’s one of the bad guys.”

“How did young Claude die?”

“Some boat thing on the river.” In the last glow of his cigarette, Darley’s eyes were closed.

“Dar!” Shelby raised her voice on purpose. “How did Senior take the death?”

He chucked his cigarette and stirred himself a bit. “Best I know, went back north a week or two. With Miss Irene. Come back the same as ever.”

“To Canada, you mean?”

“New York. Up state. Where he come from.”

Dar and she were barely feet apart, so she leaned close enough to see his face and asked, “Could he have been so thrown by Claudie’s death, he could have killed himself?”

Dar scoffed, “Hell, no! He was the kind of man was gonna live forever.”

“So you think he slipped and fell.”

He took considerable time to answer. “Guess so.”

“Did you see him much again?”

“Well, yeah. A time or two.” Darley yawned. “Said he wanted me with Chere.”

“So he told you that again?”

“Well, yeah. Like I told ya, the Old Man wanted her with me.” This, Dar said with vehemence. “And Mr. Claude was used to gettin’ what he wants.”

Here Shelby began to think that Chere’s perspective could be right about her Daddy’s favoring men. “Dar, I’m really cold. Let’s go on in.” He followed dutifully as she moved back into her office where they took their seats again. She asked, “Why did you feel the need to break in here tonight?” He was slumping in the chair, and his handsome, dimpled face was slack and almost puffy.

Voice very low, through tightened teeth, he answered, “ It’s like I told you, ’cause of Chere.”

“When you say she’s ‘diving with the sharks,’ is there more than just her going out with Kingston?”

“You ain’t listenin’, Doc. There’s someone ‘sides that damned attorney. I found Kingston lookin’ for her, too. They all want her dough. And she don’t know which one to fight. Or who to sleep with.”

“I see. And what is it you think I should do I’m not doing?” Shelby was suddenly very weary.

He roused a bit. “Find out what’s wrong with her. And faster than it’s goin’. Found out who else she’s with. I tell you somethin’ serious ain’t right.”

“I am working with her, Dar. But I can’t control her choices. Nor can you. I’ve told you. You can’t force her to heal the marriage if she doesn’t want to.” She realized she was so fatigued she just had to stop. And Dar looked like he was fading fast. Shelby stood and moved around the desk. “Let me have your keys.”

“What?”

“Please give me your keys. It’s the price you pay for breaking in my house.” Shelby’s heart was racing once again as Dar struggled back into a pocket of his jeans and thrust his keys into her hands. She said, “Now, I want your word you’ll stay down here ‘till morning when I’m up.”

He stared at her, looking disgruntled. “Okay.”

“I mean it, Dar. Your word.”

He nodded. “Okay. Okay!”

“You can stretch out on the floor in here.” She gestured around the office. “Or out there on the sofa. And if you’re bored, just look at this.” She stepped back to the desk and handed him the papers that she’d written earlier with the names of several therapists in Tampa who specialized in addiction and co-dependency—one man, one woman—and several local AA chapters. “Now you’re not going to cause me any trouble, and I’m going to sleep.” She looked at him. He stared at her. As she retrieved her knife and walked out of the office, she tried to sell herself on that. She moved on up the stairs and into the bedroom, throwing the dead-bolt on the door. Her internal voice defended, I’m sorry, Cole, I just can’t fess up to you on this.

Coming Friday, September 3: Installment 17: Questions on the Morning After