It was a struggle for her the first few years until the building boom hit so hard that developers didn’t care if their builders were male, female, or little green hermaphrodites from Alpha Centauri as long as the houses went up as fast as their profits. Since then, she’s built a pile of them and gives a chunk of money to the Democratic party every year.
Candace Bradshaw’s suicide was still on everyone’s mind and like them, we also speculated on whom the Republicans would choose to succeed her.
“Danny Creedmore could pick himself,” Portland said gloomily.
“No way,” said Betty Ann, who is fifteen years older and wiser than we. “He’d have to recuse himself every time one of his projects came up. Much easier to put in another puppet he can keep claiming is disinterested.”
“What I just can’t get my mind around,” said Jamie, “is why Candace killed herself. She adored chairing the board and playing Lady Bountiful. She acted as if the citizens who came to us with requests were asking her permission alone, as if she was doing them a favor with money out of her own pocket. Everybody knows whose pocket she was in—”
“Don’t you mean whose bed?” Betty Ann said cynically.
“Same difference,” Jamie agreed. “My point is, if she was doing something that could be proved to be illegal, then he’d be in it, too, and I’ve heard that Doug Woodall’s cut a deal with Danny Creedmore. If the county Republicans promise not to give his opponent much support, then he won’t rock any boats right now.”
“That may not be a promise he can keep,” I said. “Once her suicide note becomes public, there will have to be an investigation.”
“You’ve read it?”
“You know what’s in it?”
“Did she get specific?”
I held up my hands to block their questions. “Have I read it? No. Has Dwight told me one single word? No. But I’ve heard the same thing the rest of y’all have heard. That she misused her office and took kickbacks. If that’s true, then Doug’s obligated to do a pro forma investigation if nothing else.”
Our food arrived, and talk turned to whether or not Kevin Foster could take Doug’s place as our new DA, the number of turned ankles our friends had gotten from those high-heeled platform wedges (“Ugliest shoe of my lifetime,” said Betty Ann), and did we think Cameron Bradshaw was going to keep the business going long enough for Dee to get her act together and take over?
“I hope so,” said Jamie as she forked through her salad to extract the onions she normally liked. “Meeting with a client this afternoon,” she explained parenthetically. “Much as I hated Candace’s high-handed ways on the board, I have to say that she did give good value for the money when it came to cleaning our office. I once mentioned that I thought they were missing the floor behind the commode in the bathroom and she came in herself the next evening to make sure it was done right.”
“I’ll give her that,” said Betty Ann. “We don’t use Bradshaw Management ourselves, but the architects that rent in our complex do. I was working late one night last week and as I was leaving, here she came tripping across the parking lot in a fancy embroidered jacket and high heels to check up on one of her new cleaning gals. Tried to give me a sales talk right there in the parking lot about how she could probably give me a better deal than what I was paying.”
“Could she?” asked Jamie.
Betty Ann shrugged. “I didn’t get a quote. It helps out my crew if I hire some of their family members to clean for us. I give the crew chief a flat fee and they work it out between themselves. Don’t you want your peach cobbler, Deborah?”
I virtuously handed it over. No way was I going to let Portland out-skinny me. “John Claude still uses her service,” I said, “but I never remember seeing her there after hours.”
Portland dipped the edge of her napkin into her water glass and tried to sponge away a spot of salad dressing that had dripped on the front of her green jacket. I leaned over to help.
“Candace tried really hard to sell Avery and me on her services,” she said when the worst was out, “but the woman who cleans our house is willing to go by a couple of times a week, so we didn’t bother. Speaking of which, did y’all hear what happened out at that Church of Christ Eternal on Easter morning?”
“Is that the one split off from Jensen Memorial?” I asked.
“The one they built with no windows like they’re barricading themselves against the world?” Betty Ann asked.
“I guess so,” Portland said dubiously. “That’s where my cleaning woman goes. Or rather, where she used to go up until Easter Sunday. Their preacher’s one of those little pricks who think they’re divinely appointed and that men are superior to women.”
“Oh yeah, a guy named McKinney. I’ve heard about him,” said Betty Ann. “The women can’t wear slacks or sleeveless dresses. What’s he done now?”
What she told us was almost unbelievable in this day and age. A man demanding so much obedience that he would order his wife to drink from his water glass after he’d spit in it?
“Don’t tell me she did it?” I said.
Portland nodded. “Rena says she cried, but she drank it.”
For a moment, I thought I was going to throw up and I saw my own horror and disgust mirrored on the faces of my friends.
“Dear Lord!” said Jamie. “Does he make her wear a veil and walk three paces behind him?”
“I don’t know about that, but I do know it finished Rena with that church. She put her pride in her pocket and moved her membership back to Jensen Memorial.”
“Good for her.”
“But isn’t it appalling?” said Portland. “Next thing you know he’ll be telling her to drink the Kool-Aid.”
“Been me,” said Betty Ann, “I’d have put a little more spit in the glass and thrown it right back in his arrogant face.”
Someone at the next table shushed us and we turned our attention to the podium as Elaine Marshall rose to speak. She was her usual witty and intelligent self and she wore a beautifully cut dark red pantsuit.
But then she was never going to get any votes from any Reverend Mr. McKinneys anyhow.
Judge Luther Parker, who was supposed to hold juvenile court that afternoon, had been called away at noon on a family emergency, and because my afternoon load was light enough to shift to the others, I volunteered to sit in for him. His calendar included the type of case that is becoming more and more common these days as town and country keep bumping up against each other. If we were totally suburban, there would be one set of problems with common perceptions, experiences, and assumptions. All country would present a different set, but again, most everyone would be on the same page.
But when you slap a closely built, hundred-house development down in the middle of farming country, neither side completely understands the other.
Today’s case in point: trespass and malicious damage to real property.
Three twelve-and thirteen-year-old boys had been arrested after roaring over a farmer’s field of young soybean plants on four-wheel ATVs, chasing one another in circles. They had torn up so many plants that the whole six acres would have to be disked under and replanted.
The farm was posted with NO TRESPASSING signs and yes, the kids could read and yes, it was thoughtless of them to do that much damage. No farm kid would have dreamed of wrecking a crop—anybody’s crop—but these boys were from a nearby development and neither the kids nor their parents seemed to have a smidgen of knowledge of farming.
Several Christmases ago, I chipped in for a couple of ATVs for the nieces and nephews out on the farm. They’ve mostly graduated to cars, and the four-wheelers stay parked at our house these days for Cal and Mary Pat to use; but even at eight, they know to stick to the lanes or they’ll lose their ticket to ride.