No Defense (19 page)

“Still, LuAnn, it won’t hurt to ask him.
Just see what he has to say.”

“Fine, if you want me to I will, but I can
tell you already what he’ll say.”

“Is he still at work?”

“Probably. This is so weird,” I said. “I
feel like it’s a ‘Candid Camera’ routine or something. Next thing
you know you’ll pull the microphone out from under your
sweater.”

“Do I look like Alan Funt?” he joked.

I ignored him. “Okay.” I stood up. The
pieces of napkin in my lap fluttered to the floor like confetti.
“This is stupid,” I said.

“Just get it over with,” Ben said.

I didn’t want to call my father, but I had
to do something. “I’ll call from my office,” I said.

“I have the most bizarre thing to tell you
about,” I said to my father after his secretary, Franny, got him to
answer the call I giggled nervously. “You won’t believe this,
Daddy, but Ben just showed me some documents he got from some nut
in Washington about the Tumbow-Johnson murders, and, well, you’ll
die, but they say that Dean Reese told the FBI that you and Mr.
Waddy were involved in the murders.” After a few seconds of
silence, I said, “Daddy, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here, honey.”

“Well, I know it’s a dirty trick or
something, but Ben insisted I call you, that you might have heard
something back then about this nutcase Dean Reese talking about you
and all. You know how reporters are. I shouldn’t have bothered you
at all, right? That’s what I told Ben.”

“Ben has these papers, you say?”

“Yes.”

“How lucky. I’ve noticed y’all seem to be
pretty chummy lately. The best thing is for you to tell Ben to give
them to you and then both of you forget all about them.”

“What?” I asked. I probably sounded
surprised. This was not what I had expected to hear from him at
all.

“Look, sweetie, this town has been through
enough over those poor boys. It was a long time ago, and it’s done
with. I don’t want to go into it, but if Ben doesn’t drop the whole
thing innocent people will be hurt. I promise you that. Good people
who had nothing to do with anybody dying. And who would help Ben
with his book if he drags all this out again? You just do what I
said now.”

“What if he won’t ignore them, Daddy?” I was
pretty sure Ben wouldn’t simply give me the documents and forget he
ever saw them.

“You can do it. I know you,” Daddy said.

“But what should I tell him?”

“Tell him justice was done. It’s true, and
the rest is nobody’s business. You trust me, LuAnn, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“And you love me?”

“Daddy, yes.”

“Then just listen to me. It would be a big
waste of his time and ours too. Tallagumsa deserves not to be
dragged into that hornets’ nest again. Don’t worry. Just do what I
ask.”

“Okay, but-”

“No
buts
. Go on now.”

“Maybe you could talk to Ben for a minute
yourself, Daddy. He’s right in the front dining room.”

“No, hon. Now you’re giving me a
headache.”

“I’m sorry. Forget I ever called.”

“I’ll be fine if you do what I say.”

“We have to talk, Ben,” I announced. I had
grabbed my purse from my office file drawer and told Estelle to
cover for me so we could leave the restaurant immediately. “Let’s
go for a ride.”

“What about the dinner rush?” he asked,
surprised that I would miss it.

“They can manage without me. I told Estelle
you needed help with an important interview,” I said.

We climbed into Ben’s BMW.

“I have a favor to ask,” I said as he pulled
away from the Steak House.

“First, what did he say?” Ben asked. “And,
second, where are we going?”

“He said forget about it. Why don’t we go to
your house?”

“He what?” Ben asked incredulously.

“Really, he did. Don’t act so shocked. It’s
not because he did anything wrong.”

“Oh?”

“
Oh?
What’s that mean?
Oh?
Daddy made some very good points. This town has suffered enough
over the murders, and if you get started on this wild rumor you’ve
got here it’ll stir up all those bad feelings again. He said
nothing would be accomplished either-nothing good, anyway.
And-listen to this and stop looking so amazed-he said some innocent
people would be hurt.
And
he reminded me that no one would
look kindly on you anymore, on your work or your book.”

“Doesn’t he want to talk to me about it?”
Ben asked. He sounded shocked.

“Not really.”

“That seems a little cavalier, don’t you
think?”

“I can see your point, but I know he
wouldn’t lie to me. I trust him. You have to trust him too.”

“I don’t really know what to say, LuAnn. I
certainly didn’t expect this response from him.” He looked
troubled.

We reached Ben’s house. In the living room
we talked and argued until he agreed to think about what my father
had asked. I kissed him, anxious to make up and hopeful that this
would be the end of the matter. My kiss exploded into fierce
lovemaking, a mixture of anger, passion, and fear. Afterward we lay
on the living-room rug and watched the sun descend toward the lake,
turning the wisps of white clouds in the sky pink. It was a
peaceful scene that made me all the more agitated.

I got up and carried my clothes into Ben’s
bedroom. He followed. As I straightened my skirt in Ben’s bedroom
mirror, I talked to his reflection. “Just throw the documents away
and forget they ever existed,” I said lightly.

I walked across the room and sat on the bed
next to him. “Come on,” I said, trying to maintain a gentle,
flirtatious tone. “Please.” I so wanted this to be a problem I
could conquer with charm.

“What if the documents are telling the
truth?” he asked.

“How can you say that about my father!” I
jumped up and walked to the mirror, where I began to brush my
hair.

“Well, what if they are the truth?” he
insisted. “Couldn’t that
be
why he’s asked me to throw the
papers away? Think about that.”

“No, I won’t think about anything so
ridiculous. This is a stupid conversation. And you’re behaving like
an ass.” I brushed harder and faster. “I can’t believe you’d even
suggest that. Don’t ever say anything like that again.”

Ben got up and walked to the dresser. He
took hold of my shoulders, turned me around, and looked at me, his
hands coming to rest on my waist. “You must know that the matter
wouldn’t be resolved even if I destroyed the papers. I don’t have
the only copy. Apart from me, the FBI, the Justice Department, and
my paper have copies. Someone at Justice obviously wants the world
to know about what’s in them. We need to learn the truth.”

“But I know the truth!” I said.

I swatted his arm with my brush and moved
his hands off my waist. Then I sat down in the chair across from
the bed.

“You have to believe Daddy! Sometimes it
takes a long time to
prove
the truth, and sometimes you can
never prove the truth about something that happened fifteen long
years ago. All you’re going to accomplish is to ruin my father’s
reputation.”

“It’s not up to me. I’m surprised my paper
hasn’t called yet,” he said.

“Why?”

Ben lay down on the bed and rested his
forearm across his eyes. He took a deep breath. “This story isn’t
going to go away no matter what I do. Something pretty screwy
happened at the FBI, something that involved the present front
runner for governor of Alabama-and my paper knows it. If I don’t
look into it, someone else will.”

He looked over at me. “If I could do what
you want me to do, I would. But it’s not in me to do something like
that, and I don’t think it’s in you, either. I suspect you’d hate
me for that at some point. And I’d be miserable. I’ve never
fabricated a story or destroyed evidence, and I hope I never
will.”

“Come on, Ben, please, for
me
? Just
forget them.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“It most certainly is. He is my daddy and
that’s what he wants. I know: You could tell your paper and they
could tell whoever sent this that you talked to everybody in town
and there’s absolutely no truth to those documents. That’s that.
Over and done with.” I tried to calm down. A more reasonable tone
might convince Ben that I was right.

“But that’s not true.”

“What if you got a call and some crazed
stranger said that your father had killed someone fifteen years ago
and you were certain that it wasn’t true and that following up on
it would cause only pain and misery?”

“That’s not a fair comparison, LuAnn!” He
stood up and paced around his room, hitting his hands together,
trying to contain his anger. “But the answer is that I would pursue
that, and I will pursue this. That’s the only way to find out what
really happened.”

“But it could take so long. What will
everybody think about you if you start asking questions about the
murders and Daddy and Mr. Waddy, even though it will turn out all
right someday? And what about us? You couldn’t even come in the
Steak House if you start on this.”

Ben stopped walking and stood in front of
me. “You want to play this game? Okay. Let me ask you something
then: What if you were Leon Johnson’s mother, or Jimmy Turnbow’s?
How would you feel? Wouldn’t you want someone to pursue every lead
possible? No matter what anyone said? This is exactly what you’ve
wanted ever since we met. You’re the one who pushed me to pursue
this. You asked me to do it for their families. I told my editor to
move the appeal on the redacted documents along quickly, that there
were people here who cared, and I was talking about you. You know
damn well that if the documents hadn’t named your father you’d
still be pushing me full steam ahead.”

I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to
think about those lies I’d read another minute. I ran from the
house. Ben followed, calling after me. I kept running toward my
parents’ house. Ben yelled again, but as my distance from him
increased his voice faded.

I slowed to a walk along the lakefront and
started picking up flat stones almost the size of my palm-a habit
from my childhood, when we’d spent summer days skimming stones
across the lake. Standing at the bottom of the trail, I stared
through the trees at my parents’ modem glass-and-wood house. Each
fist gripped a handful of smooth, damp stones.

I walked up the path to the house, slowly
opening my fists and dropping the stones one by one onto the
ground. Neither of their cars was parked in the driveway. I peered
through the picture window across the back of the house and tried
the door. It was locked. I knocked. No answer. I went around to the
front of the house. No answer there. I turned and walked away.

Taking the trail just to the right of the
house, I walked toward Mother’s chapel. I was surprised to find
that once inside the chapel I was comforted, whether by the chapel
as a sacred place or by the physical refuge it offered me at this
particular moment when I had nowhere to go, I didn’t know.

I sat on the bench and tried to catch my
breath. Suddenly I was on my knees in front of the altar, hands
clasped together, head bowed. I was so bewildered by what Dean
Reese had said fifteen years ago, by my father’s reaction to it, by
Ben’s refusal to accommodate him, and by unarticulated fears about
what it all might come to that I would do almost anything, even
pray.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

I went to work the next day, hoping that I
could lose myself in the restaurant’s demands. Wishful thinking.
Every time the Steak House door opened, I looked up. Every time the
phone rang, I flinched, my anxiety exacerbated because I didn’t
know who or what I was waiting for.

For the first time in weeks, Ben didn’t call
or come by the Steak House for breakfast or coffee. I hoped that he
was meeting with my father and faring better with him than I had,
but I had the feeling this was not going to be resolved so easily.
Otherwise wouldn’t Daddy have dealt differently with the
accusations when I called him? Wouldn’t he have set the matter
straight then and there?

In the late morning, my mother phoned me at
the restaurant. Annoyed that she would interrupt my vigil, I
trudged up the stairs to my office to take the call anyway.

“Your friend Ben was just here,” she
said.

“What?” Since seeing the FBI memos, I had
imagined any number of different scenarios, from good (the author
of the documents revealed they were a hoax) to bad (my father was
accused publicly of murder), but I had not considered the
possibility that Ben might involve Mother.

“He asked me some questions about your
father.”

“You’re kidding!’ I said, annoyed. “What did
he want to know?”

“Whether your father had been a suspect in
the murders. He told me you saw the FBI memos that he showed
me.”