The town’s answers would spread through the county. So far we’d holed up and left Martina and her ilk to shape this conversation. A bad idea, especially since the Macks and the Tackreys had old ties. If the last day or two had taught me anything, it was that Cody and Martina were pulling us down a path that ended in pitchforks and torches. And shotguns.
We hadn’t been working more than half an hour when Alston Rhodes came walking down Crepe Myrtle Avenue, seemingly oblivious to the great crowd of us in Martina’s yard. I’d played with Alston every summer, so I recognized her the second she turned the corner. Her hair had not changed since 1994, when she’d cut it to look like she had just stepped off the set of Friends. She had on a full face of makeup, but she was wearing sweatpants and Nikes and dragging her fat pug, Punchkin, on a string. Punchkin was being the worst excuse for a power walk I’d ever seen. He tried to sit down twice as Alston marched him along.
She was out of her neighborhood, too, but we’d passed quite a few First Baptist people on the way here. The phone tree had activated, and Alston was the first wave of townly recon, careful to keep her gaze on the sky and the grass and parked cars and trees and anything else that wasn’t us even as she beelined our way, a woman on a mission. I was glad they’d picked Alston, or that she’d volunteered. It boded well. She had planted her butt firmly on Birchie’s side of the church last Sunday.
I’d stationed Birchie and Wattie deep in the front yard, under the shade of a puffball tree. They were bait, and Alston couldn’t get to them without passing Rachel and me, picking shreds of Charmin from the leaves of the big gardenia near the mailbox. I handed Rachel the trash bag and intercepted Alston at the curb.
“Oh, hello!” Alston said, faux surprised but seeming genuinely pleased to see us out of hiding. The second she stopped walking, Punchkin flopped onto his belly, panting. “Goodness, what happened here?”
“You’re raising teenagers,” I said, grinning at her. “I think you can guess.”
We both paused to watch Lavender pluck another string of toilet paper off the azaleas. Frank Darian had to be in court this morning, but Hugh was here. He’d helped Jake carry his dad’s big ladder over.
It was odd to see Jake still in Birchville, red-faced and sweating through his polo shirt. When I’d finally quit sketching to scare up some breakfast, Birchie and Wattie were in the kitchen and Lavender was sitting at the dining-room table, cheerfully horking down a fried egg and biscuits with syrup. She’d told me that her parents were taking a walk. I’d wondered if Jake would return from it. Rachel could send him back to Norfolk alone, or, more likely, years from now some descendant of mine might find his bones hidden in their own trunk in the attic. But Lavender had seemed unconcerned that her dad might disappear again. She’d been practically glowing.
“Finish eating and put your shoes on,” I’d told her. “We’re all going down to fix Mrs. Mack’s place as soon as you’re ready.”
Jake returned with Rachel as we were leaving, sporting a sheepish expression and pink, exhausted eyes. She was cloaked in cool blond dignity. They were not holding hands the way they used to, but he didn’t get into his truck and go, and he turned down the nap that Birchie offered him, choosing instead to come along and help us.
Now Jake held the base of the ladder firmly against the trunk of Martina’s big loblolly pine. Hugh Darian was at the top, too high up by half for my taste, trying to yank down the white banners he’d lofted so professionally last night. It wasn’t going well.
We’d had a heavy dew, and the dampened toilet paper stuck to everything and disintegrated easily. We were practically having to remove it square by square. As Hugh jerked the streamers, they broke off, and the bits at the top were well beyond the ladder’s reach. It would take the fire department or Cirque du Soleil to get them down. It probably said something very damning about my character that I secretly wanted those white crisscrosses fluttering on for a few days, until rain or the wind dissolved them or carried them away. They looked like little flags proclaiming Martina’s jackassery.
“Oh, goodness’ sake, Hugh Darian! You know better. I hope my Connor wasn’t helping?” Alston called up to Hugh, then added aside to me, “Those two are thick as thieves.”
“No, ma’am!” Hugh hollered back. “It was just me and Lavender.”
Behind her, coming up Crepe Myrtle from the other direction, I saw Grady and Esme Franklin walking at a good clip toward us. They were a comfortably portly couple in their fifties, recent empty-nesters. Grady was a deacon at Wattie’s church, the one who most often picked up Birchie and Wattie on their Redemption weeks. Our march around the square had activated the Redemption Baptist phone tree, too.
The Franklins lived close, west of Cypress Street. Their part of the neighborhood had the same postage-stamp yards and gardens, the same brick ranches. Most of the houses were tidy and well cared for, though a few had bald yards and moldering sofas on the front porch, just like here. But black families lived on that side of Cypress Street, and on this side the neighborhood was white.
I took ruthless hold of Alston’s arm. “Oh, look, here come Esme and Grady Franklin.” I headed fast to intercept them, dragging reluctant Alston and exhausted Punchkin down the curb with me, talking with relentless cheery volume over Alston’s protests. “Do you know each other? Come and meet them.”
As we traded good-mornings and handshakes, Lavender came over and joined us. She knelt down to pet Punchkin, saying, “We should have brought water bottles. This poor guy needs a drink.”
“Don’t we all,” I said, so damn perky. I was wishing mine could be tequila. “Lav, maybe take Punchkin and run the hose for him? I doubt Ms. Mack would mind. She’s got dogs, and it’s shaping up to be a scorcher.”
Martina probably would mind. Well, too bad. I was doing public-relations work here. It would be awesome if she came out into the street and publicly begrudged a pug dog a drink of water. Lavender took the leash and dragged Punchkin off toward the side of the house.
“Yes, it is,” Alston said. “Should Miss Birchie and Miss Wattie be standing out here in it?”
It was the opening I needed.
“I don’t think so, but they both insisted. They feel responsible. Lav and Hugh were defending their honor, after all.” I tipped my head significantly at the house, and Alston followed my gaze. The drapes in the front window twitched; Martina Mack was watching. To Esme and Grady, I added, “The lady who lives here implied some rather harsh things about my grandmother and Miss Wattie down at First Baptist on Sunday.”
As I spoke, Rachel drifted toward us, picking up fragments that led her close enough to hear the conversation.
“Oh, no!” Esme said, but then she caught the implication and asked, amused, “You mean the kids rolled her house for it?”