Cheri on Top

  “God,” Cherise groaned.

  “Well? What is it?”

  “He … he almost kissed me.”

  Candy was silent for a moment, then said, “Cherise, I’ve been telling you since second grade that it’s nice you’re always so sweet to Tater Wayne, but he misinterprets your good nature. He thinks you’re hitting on him.”

  Cherise giggled. “I’m talking about J.J.”

  “Out at Paw Paw Lake? You mean, he almost gave you a ‘hello’ kiss on the cheek?”

  “Uh, not exactly.”

  Candy whistled low and long. “Details, please.”

  “I was in the process of slapping him for being such a dickhead, you know, not saying a single freakin’ word to me while Turner was nothing but a gentleman.”

  “How’s Turner doing? He’s always been a good guy.”

  “Actually, he seems very sad, even though it’s been years since his wife died.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “He asked about you.”

  “Really? That was nice of him. Tell him I say ‘hey.’ But we were talking about you—what did you mean by ‘slap’? A real slap? You were trying to slap J.J.?”

  “Yes, but he grabbed my wrist and yanked me up against him and stared at me like some kind of sex-crazed, wild—”

  “Cheri? Are you in there?”

  The bathroom doorknob jiggled back and forth. This was followed by a series of quick little knocks on the door. “Everything all right, sweetie? Can I get you anything? I bought you some sanitary pads. They’re on the second shelf of the linen closet, behind the Dippity-Do.”

  “I’ll be out in a second, Aunt Viv.”

  Candy began laughing into the phone. “Better hang up before you get grounded! And save some of that Dippity-Do for me!”

  “Oh, my God,” Cherise whispered. “I don’t care if I’m sleeping on a bed of leaves out at the lake. I gotta get out of here and get a cell phone.”

  “Maybe with your first check you can buy yourself one of those pay-as-you-go phones.”

  “I plan on it. I’ll get you one, too.”

  “That’d be great! We haven’t had cell phones since—”

  “Cheri?”

  “I better go.”

  “Hold up,” Candy said. “J.J. was staring at you like he wanted to kiss you? Are you sure?”

  Cherise laughed. “Of course I’m sure. He just grabbed me and—”

  “Cheri? Did you find the pads?”

  “I really gotta go. I miss you.”

  “Miss you more. Call me tomorrow. This shit is so good I don’t even miss having cable.”

  * * *

  Purnell pushed up from the rocking chair and stumbled through his living room to the front door, kicking over his bottle of gin in the process. He watched the remaining liquid soak into the carpet.

  It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

  The pounding on the door continued. He could pretend to be asleep, he supposed, but what was the point? The prick had a key. The prick was his landlord. The prick owned Purnell’s home. The prick owned his soul.

  Purnell yanked his suspenders onto his shoulders as he answered the door. “Fuck you,” he said by way of greeting. Then he staggered back to the rocker and took a minute to catch his breath. When he looked up, the prick stood over him, disgust in his eyes and glee in his smirk.

  Wim Wimbley had one hell of a smirk.

  “Just love what you’ve done with the place, Lawson.” Wim nudged the gin bottle with the toe of his polished loafer. “It’s got a nice Late Stage Alcoholic vibe to it.”

  Purnell ignored him. He hooked his fingers into his suspender straps and rocked back and forth, the hate roiling in him. Sometimes he had to laugh at how he’d misjudged this young man. The senior Wimbley had been a soulless bastard his entire life—back in school, all the time he was Cataloochee County sheriff, and later when he started buying and selling every acre of land he could get his hands on this side of Tennessee. Even after Wimbley had gone and knocked up his third wife—becoming a daddy at fifty—Purnell used to tell himself that his nightmare would be over once the old bastard was dead. What a pitiful miscalculation that had been.

  Wimbley’s spawn was twice the prick his father ever was, and he’d inherited more than the land development company—he’d inherited the family’s profitable little blackmail business as well.

  The transition from father to son had been seamless. After Winston died, Wim continued with the collections. Six hundred dollars on the first day of every month, month after month, year after year, with a sixteen percent penalty for late payment. Thanks to the Wimbleys, the fear of being prosecuted for murder had turned Purnell into a thief and drained every bit of decency from his life.

  “Of course, I’ll have to charge you for damage to the carpet upon termination of the lease,” Wim said.

  Purnell howled with laughter. That statement was absurd and they both knew it. The lease would terminate when Purnell did. Besides, the carpet—like everything else in this little ranch house—had been purchased by Purnell a long, long time ago, when he still owned the place, back before Lizzie got sick, back when there was a reason to get up every morning.

  “What do you want, Wimbley?”

  He chuckled. “You could at least offer me a drink.”

  Purnell gestured to the gin-soaked carpet. “Help yourself. Straws are in the kitchen.”

  Wim laughed.

  It never failed to disgust him how he’d gotten himself into this mess. After Lizzie got the cancer diagnosis, Purnell didn’t have the time or energy to keep up with blackmail payments to Winston Wimbley. Out of the kindness of the bastard’s blackened heart, the senior Wimbley offered to hold the house title in lieu of payments. Once Purnell was up to date again, he’d get the title back. Never happened, obviously. And now Purnell paid rent on his own home in addition to the blackmail payments. His wife was dead. His kids were grown and gone. The carpet—like the roof, the yard, the furnace, and Purnell’s arteries—was beyond repair.

  “I suppose you’ve heard the big news,” Wim said.

  Purnell looked away. “You came all the way over here to gloat? Is that it?”

  “Not really.”

  Purnell produced a raspy chuckle and shook his head. “Don’t be coy, son. No time to fritter away. My ticker could give out at any moment.”

  Wim looked around the room for somewhere to sit, then thought better of it. “I stopped by to tell you that you got a problem over at the Bugle.”

  Purnell nodded. “We got lots of problems over at the Bugle. Shitty advertising revenue. Shitty circulation. Garland installing his bimbo granddaughter in the publisher’s chair.”

  “Hey, careful now,” Wim said with a wry smile. “That bimbo is my fiancée’s sister.”

  Purnell snapped his suspenders in surpise. “Well, now, that’ll be as near perfect a marital union as this town’s ever seen. Don’t forget to purchase an engagement announcement in the Bugle. I can get you a discount.”

  “Of course you can.” Wim smiled down at him. “The point is, you’re going to need to keep J.J. from writing about that car. Nobody wants that.”

  One of Purnell’s eyebrows shot high on his forehead. “Really now? What kind of sick game are you playing, Wim? You knew as well as I did what was on the bottom of Paw Paw Lake and you dug it up anyway—got all your permits in place and merrily sucked the lake dry. If you didn’t want the truth to come out, why did you go and do that, boy? For sport? To see an old man squirm on the hook just one last time?”

  “I didn’t know she was down there,” Wim said.

  “That’s horseshit.”

  “No. I’m telling you the truth.” Wim suddenly looked nervous. He rubbed his smooth-shaven chin. Not for the first time, Purnell wondered how Wim was able to pull it off—he was just as handsome and golden as he’d always been. None of the rotten, stinking foul mess at his core had ever leached to the surface. It was another way in whic
h the son surpassed the father.

  At least with Winston, he’d been as ugly on the outside as the inside.

  “Give me a fuckin’ break, son,” Purnell said. “Besides, J.J.’s not your problem. There are FBI agents in town. And I sure as hell can’t do anything about the FBI.”

  “No. Listen to me.” Wim began to pace back and forth. It occurred to Purnell that all he had to do was stretch out his foot and he could trip the little prick. Now wouldn’t that be fun?

  “I heard it’s going to take a while for the police to get a positive ID on the body. I need you to keep J.J. from printing anything in the meantime. I gotta sell those lots.”

  Purnell laughed. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Listen.” Wim held his palms out. “Daddy always said there was nothing down there. Whenever I asked him about it, he’d laugh and say that you were too drunk to know what really happened that night, and there was no car in the lake. No ghost. No murder. Nothing. He said you blacked out. He told you that you killed the girl so he could use you.”

  Purnell didn’t think he had it in him, but he shot out of the rocking chair, energized by a burst of clear, pure rage. He grabbed Wim by the collar of his preppy shirt. “What?”

  Wim twisted himself free. “It’s the truth! Daddy said you were so drunk you thought you killed her and he went along with your delusion because he could use you to get money to start buying land. Daddy said that he knew for a fact that Barbara Jean Smoot ran off and changed her name. He used to laugh at you all the time.”

  Purnell’s chest tightened. He had trouble breathing. “Nonsense!” he whispered.

  That was crazy talk. How many times had he relived that night in 1964? Barbara Jean had picked him up behind the newspaper offices and they did what they usually did—they got liquored up and went for a ride. Music blared from the dashboard radio, the wind whipped all that gorgeous blond hair of hers around her head, Purnell dragged his fingers across the bare flesh of her upper arm, tweaked a hard little nipple … that Barbara Jean had been something special, all wild and hell-bent on living life to the fullest. He was damn happy to help her.

  Admittedly, the rest of the evening’s events were fuzzy, but of course Purnell had been responsible for the girl’s death! He woke up in the woods near Paw Paw Lake late that night, his fingers smelling like girl juice, dried blood under his eye, a little pair of white cotton panties shoved in his trouser pocket. What in the name of God had happened? Where did Barbara Jean get herself to? he wondered. It must have been one hell of a night!

  Purnell had walked home in the dark. He snuck in his own front door without waking Lizzie. He showered and dressed for work, putting a dab of Mercurochrome on the cut and telling Lizzie he’d nicked himself shaving again. He staggered into the newsroom. It wasn’t unusual for him to be a little rough around the edges first thing in the morning, so nobody seemed to notice.

  But then again, no one was paying any mind to him that morning. The newsroom was buzzing—there’d been a possible murder! A witness told the sheriff he saw a car plunge into Paw Paw Lake with a woman behind the wheel! And a man was seen jumping out of the vehicle at the last instant. He ran into the woods. Police were looking for him.

  Purnell thought he’d vomit. He escaped to his office and shut the door. He could barely catch his breath. What had he done? He and Lizzie had two kids at that point. He’d just been promoted to chief financial officer at the Bugle. He’d just become president-elect of the Bigler Chamber of Commerce. This could not be happening!

  “You all right, old man?”

  Purnell blinked. It took him a few moments to make sense of where he was, when it was, and why Winston Wimbley’s son was standing in front of him. The pain in his chest helped Purnell regain his focus.

  Of course he hadn’t imagined anything. He’d killed that girl, no question. But it had obviously been an accident. And as Purnell had sat in his office at the Bugle that morning so long ago, he told himself he should confess. That was the only way out. He’d do it tomorrow. Or the day after that. But he’d do it.

  Turned out, a confession wasn’t necessary. Sheriff Winston Wimbley had figured it out by the afternoon. Of course he had—Wimbley knew all about Purnell’s dalliances with the pretty and willing Barbara Jean Smoot, and might have had a few rolls in the grass with her himself. It was no secret she had a thing for older, successful men, after all.

  And, oh! Purnell’s body shook in terror as he watched that bastard stroll through the newsroom on his way to the business office, gun on his hip, badge on his chest, and a swagger in his step. Purnell was certain the first words out of his lifelong buddy’s lips would be, “You’re under arrest.”

  Instead, Wimbley shut Purnell’s office door behind him and pulled its shade. “Now what have you gone and done, Purnell?” Sheriff Wimbley shook his head like he was straining to have patience. “Y’all probably don’t even remember what happened last night.”

  Purnell started shaking. He fingered the cut under his eye. He was on the verge of crying. “I don’t remember! Oh, God, what have I done?”

  “Looks like she fought you pretty good, too.” With a deep sigh, Wimbley settled into the chair across from Purnell’s desk. “This is an unfortunate turn of events, no doubt, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. I can get you out of this mess.”

  “What?” Purnell had looked at Wimbley in shock. “How?”

  “I got a little proposition for you.”

  And that’s when he got his marching orders. It remained unspoken, but Wimbley had to have been aware that Purnell didn’t have the kind of money he was asking for. They both knew the only way he could comply with Wimbley’s demands would be to steal from the Bugle. So that’s what Purnell did.

  For the first few years, he made a habit of skimming off revenues, hiding what he’d stolen by underreporting how much the paper was earning through retail advertising, classified liners and displays, and preprint inserts. But after Garland started asking questions, Purnell knew he had to find another way to pay Wimbley. That’s when he got the idea to steal from the debit side of the ledger instead.

  He began padding the costs of doing business wherever possible. This included payments for newsprint, ink, machinery, transportation costs, and especially the steady stream of technology upgrades needed from the eighties on. Perhaps Purnell’s most ingenious move was inventing a series of shell “consulting” firms that were paid handsomely for services they never provided.

  And that’s how he’d managed it, month after month for more than forty years—a lifetime of stealing from Garland Newberry to pay Winston Wimbley. In exchange, Sheriff Wimbley made the witness go away. As he told Purnell that day in his office, “That Negro don’t have the brains God gave a goose. Won’t be much of a loss.”

  Oh, how Purnell had come to wish Winston had just gone ahead and handcuffed him that day, dragged him through the newsroom, and put his ass in jail. It would have been the proper punishment for killing Barbara Jean. It would have spared the life of that poor Johnston bastard, and many years later, Loyal Newberry and his pretty young wife.

  Why had Garland’s son turned out to be such a goddamned do-gooder of a publisher? Why did he have to go poking his nose into what was buried in the past? Ah, hell … Oh, Lord have mercy … of course I killed Barbara Jean! Because if I didn’t, it would mean Garland’s son and daughter-in-law died for no damn reason at all!

  “You should probably sit down, you old fool,” Wim said. “You look kinda green all of a sudden.”

  Purnell fell back into the rocking chair, his throat burning with bile. Then a sharp pain sliced through his chest. He stared at the young Wimbley, suddenly unable to get his breath. “You’re a fuckin’ liar,” he wheezed.

  Wim raised his hands over his head. “I’m not shitting you! When I went to drag the lake, I had no idea she was there! Now we’ve got a dead body and a big-ass publicity problem. Who’s gonna want to shell out a third of a million for a retirem
ent cottage at the scene of a murder, haunted by an honest-to-God ghost? Fuck! Do you have any idea how much fuckin’ money I’m about to lose on this?”

  Purnell gasped. It was unthinkable. He couldn’t grasp it … his vision was going dark … “On the kitchen counter … my pills … hurry.”

  Wim ran from the room. When he returned seconds later, he shoved the bottle toward him. Purnell shook out a single tablet and placed it under his tongue, waiting for the relief to come.

  “Should I take you to the hospital?”

  Purnell shook his head.

  “Well. All right then, I guess.” Wim cleared his throat and headed for the door. “Remember what I said about stopping J.J.”

  Relief washed through Purnell at the sound of the door shutting. He didn’t want the little prick to see him cry.

  * * *

  The moon was off duty that night and the path was severely overgrown, but J.J. knew the way. He’d taken this walk hundreds of times in life, and again in his dreams.

  When he reached the lake’s edge, he saw that the water was as lifeless as black glass. No breeze rippled its surface. No stars peeked from the cloud cover to reflect in its mirror. And since it was still May, the nighttime symphony of amphibians, insects, and loons hadn’t yet gotten their act together. It was all silence. Darkness. Memories.

  J.J. held the flower arrangement against his leg and inhaled the cool night air. What everybody said about him was true—he belonged in hill country. He’d traveled the world, but these North Carolina mountains were in his blood and bone. Nowhere else rang true. This would always be home, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He smiled and shook his head in the dark. He hoped Cheri would discover it was the same for her. In fact, he’d bet everything on it.

  He remembered the day he and Garland discussed the possibility of Cheri coming to town. Yes, the publisher’s job was supposed to be his, but he’d be all right if it went to Cheri. “She’s a Newberry and I’m not,” he’d told Garland.

  “You sure, son?” Garland’s white eyebrows twitched as he studied J.J. “It’s not going to be an easy road, you know. Cheri has made a point of avoiding this family, and I can’t say as I blame her. She’s complicated, you know, always been a prickly girl. Still angry about losing her mama and daddy.”