“Hey, Wallis. Hi, Sharon! Saw the article about David in the Times Dispatch this morning. Man, I hope you’re getting a piece of that!” said Rhonda Bridgeforth, the class mom. Every time Rhonda smiled her eyes grew larger until Wallis could clearly see white all the way around the brown irises. Made her look a little crazy. Wallis wondered if someday over a class project Rhonda might finally snap.
Sharon looked up nervously, glanced at Wallis, and mumbled, “Well, can’t be sure if it’s true. David’s been known to polish the apple a little.”
“What article?” said Wallis. She didn’t always get a chance to read the paper.
“Oh, you should have seen it. Nice big write-up in the business section how Whittaker Technologies just got the big Cardinal Group account for all of their software. Boy, that must be worth millions!” Rhonda looked breathless just thinking about all of that money.
Wallis’ face dropped into her best lawyer face with a stony expression of resolve. “I won’t charge you, Sharon. Just let me represent you,” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.
“Wow, when a lawyer wants to take a case without the money then you know it’s time,” said Rhonda. Wallis ignored the dig, she was used to them.
“Okay, then,” said Sharon, not looking directly at either one of them. “Maybe you have a point.”
“Oh! Glad I could help,” said Rhonda, smiling, her eyes growing wild.
Just getting Sharon that far did make Wallis feel like there’d been some kind of victory.
Wallis piled the two boys into the car, stuffing their backpacks into the trunk amongst her files. She waited till a few of the cars closer to the curved driveway had a chance to pull out before she backed up and made a semi-circle in the grass, slowly going over the curb with each tire, back onto the pavement.
She’d felt pretty calm through the concert and short reception but now that she had a chance to think and knew she could finally find Norman the sense of urgency was returning and her stomach was tightening up all over again.
The boys chattered the whole way home occasionally wrestling in the back seat with their seat belts firmly in place, but still managing to get an occasional head-lock on each other.
“Five, four, three…” said Wallis, firmly, glancing at them in the rear view mirror. Ned knew that if she ever got to one privileges would start getting stripped away with ever-increasing speed. The two boys giggled and sat still for a moment.
Ned turned toward his window and let out a long breath, fogging up a small patch of glass. He took his fist and made the imprint of a baby foot, using his pinky to add the toes. Paul giggled and turned toward his window, fogging it up and drawing a scary face. Wallis knew it was only a matter of time before somehow this descended into bathroom humor. It always did.
Ned was the first to get there. No surprise, thought Wallis as she saw the word, poop, materialize on Ned’s window. The boys let out shrieks of laughter before Ned wiped it away with his sleeve, the boys glancing at Wallis in the rear view mirror with looks of shared conspiracy.
Wallis let it go. A little tasteless humor was usually in order when you’re a nine year old boy and fogging up the windows wasn’t trying to cut off each other’s air supply. They were almost home anyway.
She made herself get out of the car at a normal pace and reminded the boys to come get their backpacks out of the trunk. They each grabbed one and raced for the door, disappearing inside and Wallis guessed, straight up to Ned’s room and the computer.
She left her briefcase and purse just inside the door and called out for Norman.
“Norman? Norman?”
She knew he was home, the front door had been unlocked and the Jeep was blocking the entire bottom half of the driveway near the house, as usual.
“Hey,” said Norman, coming out of the kitchen. “What’s up? You forget where the kitchen is?”
Wallis suddenly didn’t know what to say. She could hear the explanation in her head and realized she didn’t really know anything. Her anxieties were based on rumor or guesses and her own gut instinct.
“Wallis? What is it? Did something happen? Is it Harriet?”
“No, no,” said Wallis, quickly. Boy, what does my face look like, she thought, trying to take a deeper breath.
“Well, what? Is it…”
“No, no one’s dead, well, no one we really know anyway. I’m not sure what’s happened, but I need your help,” she said, pulling out the paper and holding it out for Norman.
“What’s this?”
“That man in the driveway this morning, he dropped it. He was a friend of Ray Billings…”
“The guy who died? I heard it on the news. Do you know him?”
“I was representing Lilly Billings. They were getting a divorce. She tracked me down in the Henrico courthouse. She said it couldn’t have been a suicide.”