I walked out into the huge marble foyer and began climbing the steps to the second floor of Vernell's home.
Vernell and I had started out poor, so poor we lived in a repossessed trailer that had been gutted by its former owners. Somehow, I remembered those days fondly. We were still in love then, puppy love, the kind where you can't see obstacles, only possibilities.
I was pregnant with Sheila, sick as a dog, and still I couldn't help but feather our nest. Vernell would drag in used bits of wood and Formica, rebuilding me a kitchen, hand-laying the tiles to form the floor. He worked for a mobile home lot as a repo man. The pay was terrible and the hours were long, but the promotions came quick. Before we knew it, Vernell was a salesman and the little bit of money he brought home bought the crib and curtains for Sheila's room.
I looked around Vernell's stone palace and shuddered. It was cold and loveless. The trailer in southeast Greensboro had been dog-ugly but filled to the brim with love. But that didn't last.
"I don't know what it's all about anyway," I muttered. I stopped at the top of the stairs and looked both ways up and down the hall. Vernell's master suite lay off to the right, the only room in the house that I'd never seen. Sheila's room and the guest rooms lay to the left.
When Sheila had lived with Vernell, he and Jolene had tried to give her all the love money could buy, and for a while it had worked, and I'd lost her. But those things have a way of showing themselves to be just what they are, and Sheila came back to me. Poor Vernell couldn't understand why she left, but then, he hadn't understood Jolene either.
I shook myself and turned to the right. Might as well step into the lion's den. It couldn't hurt me now anyway. But I was wrong. My feet sank into the thick white carpeting as I walked into his room. But when I crossed over the threshold, I stepped onto a hard wood floor. The room was dark. Dark hulks of furniture stood out, casting dark shadows in the reflection of the streetlight outside.
I reached for the light switch, deciding to take the risk. I had to be able to search his room. What I saw took my breath away. Vernell's room was a huge expanse that took up the entire end of the house, but that wasn't what stopped me.
Vernell had pulled up the carpeting that covered the rest of the upstairs and laid hardwood floors. The carpet was shoved into one of the two walk-in closets, the closet with all of Jolene's clothing. Along with the carpeting, Vernell had torn the curtains from the windows and torn the bedding from the king-sized bed, throwing it all in on top of the carpet. What he had done next broke my heart.
The yellow wedding ring quilt Mama had made as a gift for us on our wedding day covered the bed. Vernell had pulled out all of the pictures he had of Sheila, from infancy until last year, slipped them into plain wooden frames, and hung or placed them with care around the room. Against the far wall he had hung a picture from our first home, a cheap watercolor print of a forest scene. His mother's green velvet rocker stood against the window, with an ancient floor lamp beside it, and on the floor lay a bible and an empty Jack Daniel's bottle.
Vernell Spivey had done his best to come home. I stepped into the room and looked around some more. Vienna sausage cans filled the trash can, along with an empty bottle of hot sauce and an empty saltine cracker box. It was obvious that Vernell lived alone in his palace, in one solitary room, grieving his roots. No wonder Bess King had seemed like such a miracle. She was a home girl, just like I had been, just like Vernell's mama and her mama before her.
I walked over to the rocker and sat down, reaching over to pick up the heavy family Bible. The underlined words on the page blurred as my eyes filled up with tears. Vernell had been highlighting his favorite passages, reading them over and over. My curiosity overwhelmed me and I wiped the tears away and began to read.
"The righteousness of the upright saves them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their schemes… Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live, but whoever pursues evil will die." I flipped through the pages of Proverbs, reading the passages Vernell had carefully underlined in yellow. "Misfortune pursues sinners, but prosperity rewards the righteous. The good leave an inheritance to their children's children, but the sinner's wealth is laid up for the righteous." Then the last passage, underlined twice, read "Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing; others pretend to be poor yet have great wealth. Wealth is a ransom for a person's life but the poor get no threats."
Poor Vernell. If it were possible, he seemed to be changing his ways, or at least considering it. A piece of paper fluttered out of the Bible as I turned the pages, falling into my lap. It was scrap paper, and on it Vernell had written "The Satellite Kingdom," then scratched that out. "The Mobile Home Kingdom," and scratched that out. This was followed by a series of names: "Vernell's Palace of the Future," "Millennium World," "Divine Accommodations," and "Seek and Ye Shall Find It All World," all scratched out. Finally Vernell had arrived at something that worked for him. "The Promised Land Kingdom of Earthly Transportation and Accommodation."
I shook my head and looked away. What scheme had Vernell concocted now? I looked across the room at the bed and saw a piece of wood sticking out from underneath the dust ruffle.
When I pulled the dust ruffle aside and looked, I found Vernell's master plan. It was a balsa wood model, carefully constructed and delicately laid out, a two-foot-by-two-foot square. Vernell's "Promised Land Kingdom." There, in miniature, was his plan to take over Greensboro's transportation and accommodation needs. An entire village of mobile homes, satellite dishes, and used cars that would sit on a huge plot of land just beyond the water park on South Holden Road.
I picked up the miniature mobile homes and saw crosses carefully engraved on the rear panels of the trailers. Each used car bore a tiny cross. Each satellite dish was carefully painted in black, with an image of Jesus, stretching out his hands to better receive the signal.
"Oh, Vernell," I sighed. "What have you done now?"
I had to admit, Greensboro had nothing like it. One-stop shopping for those of us living paycheck to paycheck. The used car lot was huge, bigger than any I'd ever seen. I'd heard tell of used car superstores in Atlanta, but Greensboro had nothing of this magnitude. And Vernell had plans to more than double his mobile home inventory. How had he intended to pull it all off?
Nosmo King. That's why Vernell had been talking to Nosmo. So what stopped him? What had changed his mind? I looked back at the Bible. "Wealth is a ransom for a person's life, but the poor get no threats." What was that all about?
"Okay," I whispered, "let's get to the bottom of all this."
I turned out Vernell's bedroom light and left the room, closing the door behind me. It was time to find Pauline Conrad and make her talk to me. I looked at my watch. It was almost eleven thirty. In three more hours I had to be back at the Golden Stallion, ready to face down three men and one angry teenager.
I walked back through the darkened house, mulling it all over. Vernell always seemed to have money, but the piles of bills on his desk seemed to say otherwise. The fact that he'd put together another outrageous business scheme didn't surprise me at all. Vernell always had something up his sleeve. But going to illegal ends to get the money, now that surprised me. What would make him do a thing like that? And what would make him decide against it?
I walked into the kitchen, headed for the back door and stopped as I was walking by the wall phone. I could hear Tony Carlucci's voice in my head. "He's got someone who cares about him. He's got Bess."