“That’s true,” I admit.
“Don’t be a stranger,” she says, as I get into the Blazer. I wave as I drive off, wondering if when I get home there will be a note from Woogie to the effect that he has run off to join a Christian dog sect.
“Sarah’s an impressive young woman,” Shane Norman tells me the next morning in my office.
“Since so many other kids her age are concerned only with themselves and their friends, which is natural from a developmental point of view, she’s quite extraordinary.”
I unwrap a lemon drop and slip it into my mouth. Un like his daughter, Norman is sparing no effort to cooperate in Leigh’s defense. Having called Chet at home last night, who told him to talk with me as soon as possible, he was waiting for me when I got to work. His wife is a no-show. Still on the booze, I guess.
“She’s been searching pretty hard for most of the last year,” I say cautiously, not wanting to offend Norman. I was relieved to find out when Sarah came home yesterday that Norman had not put the hard sell on her. After learning she was Catholic, he responded by telling her that as much as Christian Life would be delighted to have her, she needed to think a little bit more about whether she was truly ready to leave her Roman Catholic faith.
“Most kids, not all, don’t feel a spiritual need at that age,” Norman says, as if he were talking to a colleague.
“When you find one like Sarah, every word becomes important. They take you so seriously that you feel under the gun to find just the right tone with them.”
Disarmed by his apparent genuine humility, I say, “You should try being her father. She’s pretty sensitive these days. Everything I say or do goes under a micro scope.”
Norman, now that I see him at a distance of less than fifty yards, is attractive in a craggy sort of way. His jaw juts out sharply, and his cheekbones are prominent under a high forehead that is crowned by a widow’s peak of brown hair. He doesn’t look a thing like Leigh except in his dark eyes.
“We forget sometimes,” he gently reminds me, “that kids that age are just as hard on themselves.”
I wait for the inevitable “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?” but decide I won’t get it from this guy. Dressed in a blue business suit and fancy silk tie, he could pass for a bond lawyer. I have to give the man credit. He seems genuinely interested in Sarah’s welfare at a difficult time in his own life. I realize I have been feeling like an errant member of his congregation, when, in fact, he needs much more help with his own daughter than I do with mine. I say, “I’m sure Chet and Leigh both told you I visited with her last week.
Frankly, I haven’t learned a whole lot, since Leigh didn’t have much to say.”
Norman rubs his mouth with his right hand as if his lips are burning. Shaking his head, he says, “Surely, if Leigh is involved, it had to be self-defense. Her husband wasn’t at all what he seemed.”
The lemony taste of the candy is irresistible, and I crunch into it. My teeth are congenitally bad, so I might as well finish them off. It dawns on me that Norman is assuming that Leigh is lying. He thinks she did it. I am amazed that he could think his own daughter capable of murder, but why not? He raised her.
“Leigh admitted the only reason Art joined Christian Life was so he could marry her.”
Norman, who only moments before seemed so benevolent, says angrily, “Leigh hardly participated in anything at church after they married. He couldn’t have been any more effective in separating her from Christian Life if he had been the Devil himself.”
I take another lemon drop from my drawer and begin to unwrap it. The little pleasures are as addictive as the large ones. From the frown on Norman’s face, I have no doubt that he believes in a literal Devil and an all consuming hell.
“But she says she was at Christian Life at the time of the murder.”
Norman shakes his head.
“Nobody yet can back up her story.”
I watch Norman’s face as he fights for control of his emotions. I wish Leigh had showed herself capable of having them. I say what I’m thinking.
“You’re convinced Leigh shot him, aren’t you?”
Norman stands up from his chair and goes over to the window.
“I know she’s lying because I called her at her house that morning about ten. Art answered the phone and said she was at the church, but I heard her voice in the background.”
I suck on the lemon drop in my mouth while Norman gazes out the window. I wonder if he, like Dan, is mentally undressing the women in the Adcock Building.
Surely not. Chet hadn’t told me Norman called Leigh. I wonder if he even knew. “Tell me what you know about Wallace,” I encourage him.
“He sounds like he got his hooks pretty good into Leigh.”
Norman turns from the window and comes back to his seat.
“If you had known my daughter before she met Art, you would understand how different she is.”
For the next fifteen minutes he paints a picture of Leigh that is very sympathetic to somebody who thinks his own daughter is wonderful. From almost the moment Leigh was born, she was a “daddy’s girl.” After two girls (Alicia and Mary Patricia, now married and living out of state). Pearl was hoping for a boy, and, in truth, so was he; but when Leigh was born, he somehow bonded with her in a way he hadn’t with his two older daughters. Maybe it was because Pearl paid her less attention, or that Leigh was more an extrovert like him, but whatever the reason, his youngest daughter took to Christian Life like nobody else.
“Preachers’ kids can be a pain in the ass….” (the word “ass” sounds queer coming from Norman), and Alicia and Mary Patricia rebelled in many little ways, but Leigh never did. As far as he knew, Alicia doesn’t attend any church, and Mary Patricia, he says, his face clouded with disapproval, has become a Unitarian or something absurd like that. Until she married Wallace, Leigh was a delight. Every spare minute was spent at Christian Life. She had been to Thailand, Mexico, Haiti, Taiwan, and El Salvador with him and loved every minute of it.
“I tried to make her feel guilty about how she separated herself from us,” he says without apology, “but nothing worked. She was obsessed with him.”
It occurs to me that Norman’s parenting techniques are more sophisticated than my own. The difference is that he thinks he is entirely correct. Sarah accuses me of manipulating her if I even look at her hard.
“How did she meet Wallace?” I ask, watching the time. Knowing how much I like to talk about Sarah, I try to move him along. We could be here all morning and never get her out of college. It is easy for me to identify with Norman.
He worries as much as I do. I probably bore people talking about Sarah. Strip away the religious gloss, and he and I have a lot in common.
At the mention of his dead son-in-law’s name, Norman frowns.
“I sent Leigh to Harding to keep her away from men like Art, and he found her anyway.”
I nod, resisting my desire for a third lemon drop.
“How?” I ask, curious. Located in a small town north of Blackwell County, Harding is a strict Church of Christ school with as many rules as the game of bridge.
Norman sighs and crosses his legs.
“Art was originally from Crossett. He had been invited by a friend who taught in the business school to deliver a couple of lectures on opportunities in international business and saw Leigh in the student center. He didn’t stop pursuing her until they were married a year after she graduated, and, believe me, that took some doing. The man quit a successful career with Chase Manhattan Bank in New York and started his own business down here.”