Margaret Maron - Bootlegger’s Daughter

“She murdered your brother!” I burst out.

“She thought it was Denn,” Faith protested. “Don’t you understand? She thought she had to protect Michael.”

The two cars ahead of me abruptly swung out to pass the slower Mercedes. What was going on? And how could I avoid passing, too, without giving us away? But what-?

Then I realized that they were slowing down for the entrance lane to Ridley’s Mill. “It’s blocked,” I muttered and was forced to pass as the Mercedes turned off the road.

There was a driveway a few hundred feet down, and I cut my lights and coasted to a stop without touching the brakes. The cable across the mill lane gleamed dully in the lights of the other car.

As I hesitated over whether to go back, the Mercedes suddenly backed out onto the highway and swept past us, once again headed for town.

“Where’s she taking Gayle?” I asked as I fell in one car behind.

“Maybe they’re going home,” Faith said with hope in her voice.

The hope died as we entered the town limits. Instead of turning onto the Vickerys’ street, the Mercedes continued north on Forty-Eight, right through town.

“The theater!” I exclaimed. “She wanted to go to the mill, and since she can’t, she’s going to take Gayle to where she killed Michael. And then what, Faith? Kill her, too?”

“I don’t know,” Faith moaned. “I don’t know!”

If I was right, there’d be no way in hell I could follow down that winding drive to the theater without Mrs. Vickery noticing. I had the feeling that some warped sense of divine retribution would require that Gayle be standing on the spot where Michael had died, but if I spooked Mrs. Vickery, she might go ahead and pull the trigger.

With a prayer to God and fingers crossed, I stepped on the gas, passed the Mercedes as if it were standing still, and zoomed out of town doing seventy as I wove in and out of the four-lane traffic. If I got stopped by a patrol car, well and good. If not-

“What are you doing?” gasped Faith.

“We’re going to get there first,” I told her. It was another three minutes to the theater entrance and I took the turn on two wheels. The first production of the new season was due to open the next weekend, but the theater was as dark as ever.

I zipped down the graveled drive, cut my headlights as I drove through the rear lot, and used my parking lights to fumble past the loading area and around to the far side of the building. I winced as bushes tore at the paint job and the housing of the universal joint hit a rock.

“We’ll get out,” I told Faith, “and wait at the corner here till they get out of the car.”

The overhead light came on as we opened our doors, and she protested when she saw the gun in my hand.

“You’re not going to-? She’s my mother!”

“She’s a killer, Faith, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let her kill Gayle, too. You try to warn her or stop me from doing whatever has to be done and I swear to God I’ll shoot you where you stand. You understand?”

She stood gaping at me in the starlight.

“That’s not a rhetorical question, dammit! Do you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

Not knowing if she could be trusted, I pushed her in front of me and we waited without talking.

Two weeks ago I had waited like this with Dwight. If only I had his comforting bulk beside me now!

Headlights swept across the side of the theater and traveled steadily down the graveled road. As they disappeared around the front, I flicked off the safety and held my breath until I saw them wash over the bushes at the rear. Then there was only a reflected glow as the lights shone directly on the rear door of the theater. Abruptly, the engine died and silence flooded in.

I put my left hand on the small of Faith’s back.

“Not a sound,” I whispered and nudged her forward.

She stumbled, caught herself, and then we were peeking around the corner, straight across the loading platform and into Evelyn Dancy Vickery’s ravaged, maniacal face.

Gayle was a dark silhouette between us, and I cursed myself for not thinking far enough ahead to have circled around to the other side of the theater as they drove in.

Too late.

“On your knees!” cried Mrs. Vickery, waving the pistol at Gayle.

“Mama, no!” Faith screamed as I pushed her out of my way.

Instinctively, Gayle ducked behind the car as Mrs. Vickery’s first shot slammed into a board beside my head. The next one ricocheted off the roof of her car. I fell to the ground, took a two-handed grip on my gun, and fired. The bullet spun her around and I heard her pistol hit the hood of the Mercedes.

Instantly, I was on my feet, found the gun, and flung it into the far bushes.

Then Gayle was in my arms, sobbing hysterically. “She was going to kill me! To make up for Michael. Sh-she said she should have done it in the first place instead of leaving me to grow up. Oh, Deborah! She shot my mother!”

I held her tightly. “Sh-h. It’s okay, honey. You’re safe now. It’s all over.”

“I was so scared.” Her teeth were chattering as reaction set in. “I thought you didn’t know she had a gun. I kept looking to see if anybody was following. How-?”

Faith was kneeling beside her mother’s unconscious form. Blood drenched the lower right side of her white cotton shirtdress.

“There’s a phone inside,” I said. “Gayle and I’ll go call.”

This time there was no open window and I had to use a rock.

It was one of the best-attended crime scenes in the county’s history: one sheriff, one deputy sheriff, three SBI agents, and a coroner arrived in a dead heat with an ambulance and two patrol cars.

Gayle had calmed down some by then, and she listened quietly while I told Dwight and Terry that Mrs. Vickery had killed Michael by mistake, Denn on purpose, and that she was the one who’d actually fired the bullet that killed Janie. “All three of them,” I concluded.

“Four,” said Gayle. “Howard Grimes, too. He saw Michael parked with my mother at Hardee’s that day, and he’d been blackmailing her. When the SBI came back, she thought he was going to tell, so she substituted stronger heart pills for the ones Dr. Vickery prescribed and everybody thought he died naturally.”

After all that, the runoff election was anticlimactic. There were so many rumors, so many wild tales. It took some backing and hauling but eventually the media got it all perfectly straight and within three days had revised and emended until the absolute truth was told. Nevertheless, the electorate seemed to feel it had two choices.

Judicial candidate (a), the daughter of a known bootlegger, had shot and seriously wounded one of the most respected citizens of Colleton County after running around the district befriending and defending drug pushers, homosexuals, murderers, and God knows what else.

Judicial candidate (b) hadn’t.

The electorate went to the polls that Tuesday and cast fifty-nine percent of its votes for (b).

Okay, it was childish and immature, but I couldn’t go to the office on Wednesday as if nothing had happened. To have to endure everybody’s condolences and attempts to buck me up? To have to hear “better luck next time”? To have to say, “Luther Parker’s going to be a fine judge”?

In yer ear, Norton.

Luther Parker was going to be a fine judge and I’d played the gracious loser and told him so two hours after the polls closed. That Harrison Hobart’s seat wasn’t going to be filled by a Perry Byrd clone was the only lily among the bouquet of nettles and bitter herbs I’d been handed.

(But I would have been a fine judge too, dammit.)