Through the open archway was a living room far removed from anything I’d ever seen in Colleton County. Or in New York City, for that matter. The jungle motif continued in the dark green walls and leafy prints on the loveseat and chaise.
Pride of place, though, went to a life-size stuffed lion who stood frozen in mid-pace in front of the windows. Instead of a swag of drapery fabric, a well-preserved boa constrictor was looped over a hunting spear that acted as curtain rod. The snake’s head curved upward and seemed to have its eyes fixed on a porcelain monkey that gibbered from the top of a decoupaged chest, but I couldn’t be sure since it was wearing dark wraparound sunglasses.
The end tables came in the guise of two life-size ebony native boys who knelt in slightly different poses with thick squares of clear glass in their hands. Both were buck-naked except for matching white plastic sunglasses. (The boa constrictor’s sunglasses had red frames.)
“So what do you think?” asked Pell Austin from the kitchen doorway.
“Well, it’s certainly different,” I said.
“It’s all that’s left of my faux fey period,” he said in his gentle voice as I followed the aroma of fresh coffee back down the hall. “I keep it for sentimental reasons.”
His blue chambray shirt had mother-of-pearl snap buttons and looked freshly ironed, his red-and-blue neckerchief was crisply knotted, and his thick gray hair had been neatly combed, but from his bloodshot eyes and the lines of fatigue in his long thin face, I wondered if he’d made it to bed at all.
“People expect designers like me to live in larger-than-life settings. It’s part of the window dressing. Besides, Dix’s granddaughter likes to ride on the lion.”
He stepped aside to let me enter the tastefully designed kitchen and I glanced around with even more appreciation than I had given it last night, taking mental notes for my own future kitchen. “This room certainly doesn’t—”
I suddenly saw we were not alone. Seated at Pell’s breakfast table in front of a bowl of cereal was a young child who wore pink sneakers, jeans, and a Bugs Bunny T-shirt. Her hair was as thick and straight as Pell’s, the color of beach sand, and it was plaited into a single braid that hung halfway down her thin back. The shorter side wisps were held back by two plastic barrettes shaped like little yellow ducks.
“Well, hello,” I said.
Her two front baby teeth were missing and so far, only the leading edge of one adult tooth had emerged to fill the gap. She gave me an appealing lopsided smile. “Hello.”
“I just bet that you’re Lynnette.”
The child giggled at my unconscious rhymes and glanced at Pell. “She makes poems, too.”
“Judge Knott, may I present Miss Lynnette Nolan?” said Pell.
“Judge Knott/ got a lot/ of hot—” She ran out of rhyming words. “A lot of hot what, Uncle Pelly-Jelly?”
“Fudge?” I suggested.
“Judge Fudge?” She considered and then nodded. “That would work.” She cut her eyes mischievously at Pell. “ ’Specially since I’m not supposed to say snot.”
He ignored the bait and she grinned at me again.
I am always fascinated by the genetic repackaging of children. Whenever a new baby is born into our family, we can spend inordinate time deciding where he got his hair and eye coloring, skin tone, bones, the shape of his chin, the crook of his little finger and whether that sleepy burp indicates Knott patience, a Stephenson sense of humor, or merely the Carroll appetite.
The only time I’d seen Lynnette’s mother was when I once stopped past Dixie’s boarding house in Chapel Hill to drop off some study notes. Back then, Evelyn would have been a few years older than Lynnette was now, but I recalled a similar slender build and fair coloring. Something of Chan’s forehead was in her brow, and her eyes were blue like his even though hers had the same feline tilt as Dixie’s. There was something familiar about the way her small lips quirked that I couldn’t quite place until I remembered that Evelyn’s smile had also been delightfully asymmetrical.
“Judge/fudge/budge/grudge—if you’re a judge, do you have one of those little hammers?”
I nodded.
“Did you ever hit anybody with it?”
“No, I just bang it to make people be quiet.”
“You probably wish you had one now,” said Pell with mock severity.
Lynnette laughed and chattered brightly as she spooned Cheerios from a dark red cereal bowl. I gingerly sipped the orange juice Pell handed me. My stomach considered rebellion, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
“Grandmama’s talking to Aunt Millie and Uncle Quentin and Shirley Jane,” she told me. “They’re maybe going to come see us soon.”
I glanced at Pell and a slight shake of his head let me know that Lynnette had not yet been told of Chan’s death. I couldn’t fault Dixie for putting it off as long as possible, but it did limit conversation at the breakfast table. Instead, we discussed how much money Lynnette could expect to make off the Tooth Fairy in the next year or so, we heard how her cousin Shirley Jane was half a year younger but none of her teeth were loose yet, and we were given a demonstration of how nicely she could print our names.
“Next year we’ll write cursive. Daddy already showed me how to do a capital L. See?”
I learned that the school she attended was out this way from Lexington and close enough that she’d been staying with Dixie most of the spring because of Chan’s frequent trips to Texas and Malaysia. Normally, a baby-sitter drove her back and forth, “But Grandmama said I could stay home today.”
She doodled a wiry creature with four legs and a long tail on her paper. “Does this look like a monkey, Uncle Pell?”
Before he could answer, she said abruptly, “I wish Daddy wasn’t going to make us move so far away. Malaysia is even farther than Aunt Millie’s house and we have to drive all day to go see her.”
“To Frederick, Maryland?” Pell scoffed. “Four and a half hours tops.”
“Well, it seems like all day,” said Lynnette as she finished off her cereal and carried the empty bowl over to the dishwasher.
From their easy familiar manner toward each other, I guessed that Lynnette must have ran in and out of Pell’s house since birth.
Pell offered to fix me toast and scrambled eggs, but my stomach still felt too queasy for anything except coffee and juice. He thought that the soup kitchen wouldn’t open its door before noon, but he knew the number of a locksmith who agreed to meet me at my car so I could pick up my suitcase and the garment bag that held my judicial robe. At least, we agreed to meet where I’d left my car the day before. My back bumper carries a small shield that identifies me as an officer of the court plus stickers for temporary parking at several courthouses around the state, but that was no guarantee that some overly zealous traffic officer hadn’t had it towed.
“Take my van,” Pell said. ”I don’t keep any set schedule during Market Week and if you’re not due in court till ten, you can come back here and change and I’ll drop you at the courthouse.”
I started to demur but then Dixie let herself in the back door. She looked almost as haggard as I felt, and after I’d hugged her and heard that Chan’s sister was on her way, I accepted the keys to Pell’s blue Ford Aerostar and took myself off so that they could tell Lynnette in private.
My car had a parking ticket tucked under the wiper blade; otherwise my rendezvous with the locksmith—“Jimmy’s my name, and jimmying’s my game”—went off smoothly. Ol’ Jimmy had a door open before I finished writing a note of explanation on the back of the ticket in case that officer came back, then he put my suitcase and garment bag in Pell’s car and offered to get me a new set of keys for a price. I told him I’d let him know.
The morning paper had a little box on the front page: Fitch-Patterson Exec Dies and a few sketchy details.