Wedding Bell Blues (21 page)

 

Chapter Thirty-three

Nothing about Littleboro on the front page, but that wasn't surprising.
The Pilot
is published in Southern Pines, our sophisticated neighbor. I liked to read news of the rich and world traveled who lived there. What was surprising was that
The Pilot
ever had anything at all about Littleboro.

Nothing about Debbie Booth in the obituaries—it was too soon. She'd make the next issue. I hoped her write-up would be all she'd want it to be. In the second section was a photo of some Boy Scouts hanging a rope bridge in the park in Carelock County. I wondered if their bridge was across the “moat” dug by Miss Tempie's handyman near her property, the moat that almost claimed Malinda last year with its slime and sludge. I hoped somebody had filled the moat in and this rope bridge was across a sparkling little tumbling-over-rocks creek along a wooded trail.

I flipped pages as Ida Plum, at my elbow, looked on. Nothing on page 2 or 3 or 4, but on the society page of
The Pilot
were pictures of Mayor Moss's luncheon and who all were “feted,” the word that used to give me and Mama Alice hysterics. There were no details of the menu, the mock turtle soup and corn sticks, assorted desserts, and alas, Nadine the turtle was not mentioned here. Poor Nadine. Her moment of fame and glory had gone unrecorded.

Winners of the Green Bean Cook-off, nobody I knew, were pictured along with the judges: Miss Isabella, Miles Fortune with his teeth-whitening commercial smile and Debbie Booth. Must have been taken just before she fell ill and had to bow out. I looked closer at the photograph. Debbie didn't look her perky self, but had a rather distant and faraway gaze in her eyes. Poor girl. It was as if she was feeling her own mortality even then. The paragraphs below the photo said Debbie Booth was replaced at the last minute by Mayor Calista Moss.

The winning dishes almost made me pitch the paper right then into the recycling bin. Green Scene Canapés, Verde Verde Soup, Salad à la Littleboro, casseroles (of course), then desserts: the green bean brownies and the flourless chocolate cake. I really felt a bit ill just reading them. The same page had photos of jars of pickled beans, dried shucky beans and just plain canned green beans, some of which were arranged so straight they looked like works of art.
The Pilot
's food photos were in glorious color. I could have shredded the pages, poured on some oil and vinegar and had a salad.

“Well,” said Ida Plum. “That only leaves the crowning and the finale fireworks.” She picked up the broom to sweep the porch, pushed open the screen door, turned back to me and said, “Isn't it too early for the fireworks?”

“A day too early, in fact,” I said.

I walked out onto the front porch, looked at the sky where she was looking and saw red, red, red. And orange. And smoke. The sky was filled with smoke. Then I heard fire trucks. It sounded like more than one.

The whole western sky was ablaze. It looked like the whole downtown of Littleboro was on fire, all of Littleboro, burning like Hell.

“That's not fireworks!” I shouted. “That's fire!”

We started toward it, running.

People I didn't know came from houses I didn't even think were occupied. People came up side streets and back streets and stores along Main Street. Mr. Gaddy and Malinda came from the drugstore, grabbed my arm and we walked together, Ida Plum behind us.

The courthouse. My God, the Carelock County Courthouse was on fire! Two hundred years old, heart-of-pine timbers and walls and floors throughout. It would go up like a rocket.

Flames shot from the roof. I saw the clock in the cuppola melting, the rooster weathervane twirling frantically in the whoosh from the flames. Fire hoses covered the ground, hoses big as conduit pipes, water pulsing through them, shooting great streams of water on the red, orange, yellow and black dragons that breathed fire. As fast, as furious as the firefighters swung hoses around and aimed at the giant flames, more shot up, bigger, bigger. They filled the sky. The courthouse was burning, burning. All the records of Littleboro history, who begot who and married whom and died and were buried where, were going up in flames.

Ossie, in his good guy white hat, kept the crowds from getting too close. He worked the front of the courthouse. I saw Bruce taking care of the back.

Malinda clung to me and I clung to Ida Plum. We stood there in the crowd, stunned. The fire crackled and roared. We heard timbers drop inside the building. I thought of the portraits that hung on the courtroom walls: the one of Lord Carelock, of Judge Little, whom Littleboro was named after. The whole wall was filled with Littleboro legendaries.

Amazingly enough, the outside walls of the courthouse stood. Brick may get sooty and flame streaked but it doesn't burn. Brick buildings leave foundations and outside walls.

It seemed in no time the whole building looked gutted, a shell, a smoldering picture of destruction, the area around it sodden and black. Exhausted firefighters rolled up limp hoses, took off their hats, wiped their smoke-streaked faces and crawled into their trucks.

The crowd talked about what could have started such a fire as that. What would it cost to replace our courthouse, Littleboro's centerpiece, our icon? For as long as anyone could remember, the profile of the Carelock County Courthouse had been the symbol of our town. Some of the crowd wept. I choked, but told myself it was from the heat, the smoke. My eyes burned.

“Crazy Reba,” Malinda said, suddenly clenching my arm tighter.

“What?” I asked. “Oh, she's not in the jail. Don't worry.”

“It's not that,” Malinda said. “I know she's not in there.”

“What then?” Ida Plum asked.

“Birthday candles,” Malinda said. “Reba was in today wanting birthday candles. No money, of course. I gave her all the packs we had. They were old and dusty. I didn't think they'd even light.”

“You don't think…?” I asked. Surely you couldn't burn down a building with birthday candles. Surely not.

But the contrary evidence stood before us, black and empty. Somebody, something had set it on fire. Then I realized I had not seen Miles Fortune in the crowd. I searched the crowd again. And it was a crowd. Families of all sizes, shapes and colors I didn't know we had in Littleboro. I waved to Pastor Pittman, and to Birdie from Calico Cottage. I didn't see a soul that could have been Miles Fortune, and he certainly would have stood out, even though not nattily dressed. Just his stature, his stance, his haircut would have identified him. Could he be a firebug? Had he been hanging around Littleboro planning this grand finale?
His
grand finale?

And Scott? Didn't see him anywhere. But it was a big, big crowd and he could have been anywhere in it. Whatever Green Bean Festival construction he'd planned for today wasn't happening. All festivities had come to a halt when the fire started and smoldered for hours.

The sky darkened toward night and the air hung wet and heavy as though full of sadness and sorrow. Even the statue of the Confederate soldier was black as the smoke had been, covered in soot head to foot, sword to scabbard.

There was no joy anywhere in Littleboro tonight.

 

Chapter Thirty-four

Walking home, I couldn't bear to look back, to even think of the skyline of Littleboro without that landmark.

Ida Plum had gone on home and Malinda back to Gaddy's to get her Jeep.

Back at the courthouse that still smoldered, firefighters rolled up their hoses, took off their blackened boots and hats, sat down on the curbs, weary heads resting in their hands.

In my living room when I got to the Dixie Dew I saw someone standing with his back to me. Miles Fortune? I brushed flakes of charred paper from my hair and my shoulders. Where had he been all this time? Not in the crowd watching the courthouse burn. I waited for him to say something.

He wore a short, monogrammed robe, brown suede, and he was barefoot.

“Oh,” I said.

“I know you want an explanation or maybe more than one,” he said, walked over to the fireplace, picked up a vintage vase that had been one of Mama Alice's wedding gifts. He toyed with it, turned to face me, put the vase back.

I picked up Sherman, but he squirmed loose and followed Robert Redford down the hall.

I sat in the blue chair and waited for his explanations.

“I was upset this morning,” he said. “I apologize for my rudeness.”

“You were fine,” I lied. “I thought you were just not a morning person.”

“No, I was horrible,” he said. “I was upset about Debbie, but more than that my whole reason for being in Littleboro fell apart for the third time when she didn't show up.”

“Who?”

“Sunnye,” he said and wiggled his feet. I noticed he had elegant, long, white feet and carefully trimmed pink toenails. A man who gets French pedicures. “She was supposed to judge the Miss Green Bean contest. I was to make a documentary of her in her hometown. Local girl makes good, hits Hollywood like a cyclone, goes international, etc.”

“Sunnye? Sunnye Deye?”
Bonk
. I slapped the side of my head. Of course. Cedora Harris, who had been Miss Talent-Running-Out-Her-Rear-End when she was at Littleboro High. Cedora, who went to Hollywood as Sunnye Deye and took our Scott Smith along, only he came back and she stayed. All this had been relayed to me by Ida Plum when Scott first showed up to help renovate the Dixie Dew. How long had he suckled a broken heart before I came back to Littleboro? Did he still have stirrings toward a sweet songstress the likes of which I could never compare to nor compete with?

At this point in my life I had all I could handle trying to support myself in an on-again/off-again bed-and-breakfast business and deal with a couple of murders in which I was somehow, even indirectly, involved. For all I knew Ossie and his crew could padlock all the doors to the Dixie Dew and arrest me tomorrow. I'm sure he'd make up something! I could almost still feel the sharp arrow point of his finger and hear the way he accused when he said “You!” very loud and very direct when he came about Debbie Booth's demise.

Miles Fortune took the chair across from me, stretched out his long, bare legs and reached his arms toward the ceiling. Was he naked under that robe?

“I'm not sure what I'm going to do next. Where to go?” he said.

“Well,” I said, “you were a pretty good judge in the Green Bean Cook-off.” I tried to lighten up the mood showing on his long, mournful face. “Maybe you have some talent in that direction.” I gave a little chirp of a laugh.

He smiled for the first time, a little weak, half attempt. “Not much pay in that, I'd think.”

“So does that mean I can rent out her room?”

“Mine, too,” he said, looking at the ceiling, his tone so mournful I wanted to get up and go hug him, except if he stood, his robe might fall open and Lord knows what he had, or didn't have, under it.

“There are no jobs in Littleboro,” he said. “Especially for a filmmaker, unless you want to show a town standing still. The downfall of the old South.” He yawned. “And I already got some of that. Great footage of the fire.”

“You were filming the fire?”

“Standing on the roof of the library,” he said. “I got some better shots than those of the burning of Atlanta in
Gone With the Wind
.” His voice was excited now. Don't stand up, I thought. Just stay quietly seated until I leave the room. “I was covered with soot. That's why I took a shower,” he said retying the belt to his robe. “This afternoon I got some great shots of houses in ruin, old Colonial types.”

I thought of Miss Tempie's house, among others.

“And some tobacco fields out in the country. Barns,” he said. “Nothing stands like those old barns. I got shots that will knock your eyes out. Those that show how the old South ain't no more.”

So this explained his goings and comings and why we had no one in the reserved bedroom. Without a judge would there even be a Miss Green Bean? Poor Mayor Moss. Two missing judges, one dead, then the courthouse fire. And I was beginning to think maybe my Dixie Dew business was being done in by bad luck. Two deaths in two years were too many. If word got out in the trade, I would be done in.

“I think we've had a really bad day and what we need is a really good night's sleep.” I stood to leave before Miles Fortune beat me to it. “That old cliché about things looking better in the morning just might have some truth to it.”

But oh, my Lord, before I could get out of the room, he stood up, his robe swung open and I saw a flash of … silver satin boxer shorts. Whew. He retied his robe with great haste and flourish. He seemed totally embarrassed, but maybe no more than me.

“Good night,” I said. “Sleep well.”

“I'll try,” he said. “Tomorrow. No false airport runs. No Sunnye Deye to jerk me around by my camera strap.” Then he started singing, “‘Sunnye days aren't here again. Tra la tra la.' Never could remember the real words.”

“Good night,” I said again from the back hall.

Here we were, the only two people in the house, him half-undressed and me still rocking from the day's events. I wanted nothing more to happen today. Nothing I couldn't handle.

Miles Fortune went upstairs to bed.

In the kitchen I made myself a cup of tea and felt the house settle in for the night in a soft, resting sort of slumber. I could have relaxed except the courthouse fire had me all in jitters. Butch Rigsbee could have set it. Nobody seemed to know his whereabouts. Or his crazy wife's. Nobody knew if he was alive or dead and Ossie didn't seem to care. I'd heard brides get jitters; maybe bridegrooms do, too. Makes sense, just not talked about because men wouldn't dare admit to such things.

For no more reason that I was restless and had so many questions hanging over me, I got in Lady Bug and drove out to Motel 3.