Dark River Road (52 page)

“While there weren’t enough fragments of money to make a positive identification left in the ruins of the house, they did find enough money bands with the bank’s stamp on them to verify that Rainey did have a great deal of cash on hand. The metal box wasn’t found.”

“Quinton would have made sure of that.”

She looked at him. “Quite possibly. He seems very determined to send you to jail. Is there more you haven’t told me, Chantry? Something that might make sense of this single-minded persecution?”

“Nothing that’d make sense of it.”

Miss Pat didn’t seem convinced. He thought of her that day confronting Quinton on the steps of the courthouse, how she’d stood right up to him and shook her finger in front of his nose like she was scolding a third grader. It’d reminded him of Mama. Except Mama had let Quinton get the best of her somehow.

He looked at his grandmother. “I think Quinton is involved in selling drugs.”

She blinked. “You mean, he’s a drug dealer?”

“No, not like that. Rainey’s boys are drug dealers. I think they worked for Quinton. I think Rainey was in on it, too, only not like they were. He got drunk and talked too much. But Beau and Rafe know how to keep their mouths shut about stuff. Rainey thought they made all their money being rod busters, but they’d never make enough to buy their booze and new trucks doing iron work. I saw them with some guys one night out at the Hideaway. One of the guys worked for Quinton. The others I didn’t know, but the guy I did know had had his picture in the paper a while before that. He got caught with a lot of drugs in his car over in Arkansas. Then he paid his bail, and the charges never did stick. And he was back in Cane Creek not too long after that. Working for Quinton again.”

After a moment, his grandmother drew in a deep breath. “But you have no proof of any of that.”

He shook his head. “Not a lick. Guess Quinton worried I might figure it out. Especially after I caught Beau and Rafe dealing drugs and now they’re doing time. I think he didn’t step in for them because of me. Maybe he thought it’d work out better to have them out of sight for a while.”

Miss Pat looked thoughtful. “I’d like to share what you’ve told me with the attorneys. Perhaps they can come up with something that will make a difference to Quinton.”

He nodded, even though he didn’t have much faith that’d happen. Bert Quinton had always been slick as goose grease. He’d slide right out of any trouble with not a drop sticking to him. And leave Chantry covered with it.

It might have turned out that way, too, if not for Dale Ledbetter. The court case got a lot of coverage in Quinton County, and up in Tunica County, and even in Memphis. Anything to do with Bert Quinton was news, it seemed.

But before the trial seated all the jurors, Mr. Pace called a meeting with Quinton and his attorneys. Dale Ledbetter showed up, looking calm. He nodded at Chantry, then at Quinton, and Chantry didn’t know what was going on.

Then Mr. Ledbetter said he had a few things to say that might make a big difference. He said Rainey Lassiter had come out to his place the day before the fire, claiming he’d come into a lot of money and wanted to buy a Catahoula dog.

“He was drunk, and I had no intention of selling him a dog, but Lassiter kept talking. He said some very interesting things.” Ledbetter looked over at Quinton. “Talked about his late wife’s insurance policies, and how he and Quinton were coming into a lot of money the next day. Unfortunately, the policy he showed me is made out to her sons, not to her husband.”

“Mr. Ledbetter, with all due respect,” Quinton’s lawyer stood up and said, “this is all hearsay. Lassiter isn’t alive to verify or contradict your claims.”

Ledbetter lifted a brow. “I’m well aware of that. That’s why I decided to bring this to the attorneys.” He tossed what looked like a copy of an insurance policy to the long, gleaming table that separated them. Quinton’s attorney sat down real quick.

It got all loud then, as Quinton’s lawyers saw Farmers Insurance in big letters and knew it couldn’t be good. It was the original policy, not the one that had the name of one of Quinton’s corporations written on it, the same one that had paid out money to Quinton as executor for Carrie’s estate.

Quinton leaned forward on the desk, his voice calm, a placating smile on his face. “I can clear this all up, gentlemen. This came to my attention a few weeks ago. One of my employees, a new man and not yet fully trained, made a mistake. Carrie Lassiter was employed by the county school system, which as you all know, reports to me as the administrator. There was an odd misinterpretation in her policy, and I was named executor. Therefore, to save time and get benefits to her survivors as quickly as possible, I simply acted as the middle-man. Perhaps not the wisest thing to do, but I felt Carrie’s children should be cared for quickly rather than have to wait any longer. I had no idea Rainey Lassiter would squander their money.”

“That’s a lie,” Chantry said softly, and Quinton gave him a swift, hard look. “You knew what Rainey was. Everyone in town knew what Rainey was. Mama left that money to Mikey and me, and you made a deal with Rainey to get your hands on most of it.”

Mr. Pace put a hand on his arm but Chantry shook it off and stood up to look down at Quinton.

“You didn’t need that money, you just wanted to make sure Mikey didn’t get it. You knew giving any money to Rainey meant he’d blow it all so there’d be nothing left for Mikey, and you knew that was the best way to get at me. You’re a greedy, heartless bastard.”

“No, let him go on,” Quinton said softly when his lawyer started to object. “I’m quite interested in hearing what he has to say.”

“I’ll bet you are.” Chantry looked at him, and knew what he meant. There were things that could be proved, and things that couldn’t. There wasn’t much point in saying stuff he couldn’t prove. Quinton would only laugh at that. So he leaned forward and said something just for Quinton’s ears. He’d know what it meant. “I know about Ted. One of these days, everyone will know.”

Quinton kept the smile on his face, but a tic beat beneath his left eye as he stared back at Chantry. Dead silence filled the room. No one spoke for several moments, or even moved. Not so much as a paper rustled until Chantry straightened and looked at his lawyer.

“Mr. Pace,” he said, “I’m going to put a letter in a sealed envelope for you. If I die under suspicious circumstances, open it. “

It was something he’d once seen on television, and may be melodramatic, but he wanted Quinton to know he’d taken precautions. It wasn’t much, and probably wouldn’t work anyway, but to Bert Quinton, it might be important that no one knew what his oldest son had done.

After that, with the original policy copy Dale Ledbetter brought in and Quinton’s claim that an employee had made a mistake, the lawyers worked out a deal. The money that’d burned up in the fire had really belonged to Chantry and Mikey anyway so couldn’t have been stolen, so the rest of what Quinton got was to be paid out to Carrie’s parents to be held in trust for her sons. It was a lot better than Chantry had hoped.

Maybe it wasn’t what he really wanted—to see Quinton go to jail—but it’d have to do. He just knew that now Mikey was safe, and that was all that mattered.

When they all went outside and the specter of jail hanging over Chantry’s head no longer existed, Miss Pat asked Mr. Pace why the drug dealer charges against Quinton weren’t brought up.

Mr. Pace shook his head. “There’s no proof, Mrs. Callahan. Unsubstantiated allegations are worthless. If not for Mr. Ledbetter, this might have had a very different ending.”

Chantry saw Dale Ledbetter come down the courthouse steps and walked over to him. Since he didn’t know how to say what he felt, he just stuck out his hand and said, “Thank you.”

Mr. Ledbetter smiled and shook his hand. “You’re welcome, son. I hope life starts treating you a lot better now.”

Chantry nodded. “It might.”

“How’s that dog?”

“Good. Still limps a little, but that doesn’t slow him down much.”

Ledbetter squinted up at the bright blue sky for a minute, then back down at Chantry. “Looks like a good time for planting cotton.”

“Yessir. It sure does.”

Mr. Ledbetter went his way then, and Chantry went back to his grandparents standing on the courthouse steps still talking to the lawyers. Bert Quinton came out of the courthouse doors about then, flanked by attorneys, and paused when he saw Chantry. The look on his face said he wouldn’t forget, but that was okay. Chantry wouldn’t forget, either. Quinton went past without saying anything, but it was easy to tell from the way he walked and the tight set of his back and shoulders that he was madder than spit. Chantry smiled.

After a couple of minutes, they parted with the lawyers and got into their cars, Chantry in the back seat of the silver Jaguar again. He rested his head on the plush leather and thought about Mama. Sometimes it was hard to stay mad at her. It didn’t have anything to do with how much he loved her. He just couldn’t understand why she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth.

When Miss Pat wanted to go by the cemetery again, Chantry stayed in the back seat. He couldn’t. It was all still too raw and painful. But he did look toward the tree where Mama lay, and saw that a new headstone marked her grave. Something hard and thick stuck right in the middle of his throat, so for a minute he couldn’t swallow. He looked away, and saw Dempsey just a few yards from the car, weeding around some fading daffodils.

When Dempsey beckoned, Chantry got out of the car and walked over to him. Dempsey straightened and leaned on the end of his rake, one of those good strong ones with thick metal teeth on the end.

“I got your card,” Dempsey said, smiling. “Made me feel real good.”

Chantry nodded. “Heard from Tansy?”

Dempsey’s smile faded and he shook his head. “Not a word since she ran off from her auntie’s house. All I can do is wait and pray.”

“She’ll come back.”

“I know.”

Their eyes met and held. Dempsey’s eyes looked kind of wet, and the sun must be in his eyes too, because they stung. Chantry looked away for a minute. The air smelled sweet and new like it did every spring. Soft green leaves on oak and maple trees promised summer.

“They dropped the charges against me,” he said, looking back at Dempsey. “Ledbetter had a copy of Mama’s original policy and the amount supposed to go to me and Mikey.”

“Can’t steal your own money, I guess. I bet Quinton didn’t like losing.”

“Not worth spit.”

They both smiled. Then Dempsey said, “Winning isn’t so much about beating the other guy as it is about doin’ the right thing. Quinton just hasn’t ever figured that out.”

“He’s figured it out. He just plain don’t care.”

Dempsey allowed how that was true enough. For a few minutes longer they stood in the shade of a flowering quince and talked of things that didn’t matter while the wind blew soft and Mama’s parents said their goodbyes to new grass and granite. Then Chantry looked at Dempsey like it might be the last time they saw each other, and he looked back the same way. There wasn’t much a person could count on to be there the next day, he’d found. That’s just the way it was in life.

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and Dempsey nodded.

“You, too.”

Some goodbyes were pretty hard, but some just seemed like a promise to see each other again soon. Maybe it’d be all right. Tansy had believed in promises, and maybe she was right about that after all.

Dempsey seemed to think so, and he wasn’t wrong too often.