Chapter
11
ROBIE STEPPED UP onto the porch and knocked on the door. The heat of the day was bearing down on him; it was a humid heat, unlike the desert kind he’d recently been in. He’d take dry over wet. The humidity just sucked everything right out of you. He remembered how his mother would take a bath in the morning and then again in the afternoon for that very reason.
He heard feet coming down the set of grand stairs he remembered that flared out at the bottom, and that he also remembered were set right in the center of the substantial foyer.
The door opened and there was the face he had glimpsed a minute ago. Priscilla was in her early sixties, about five feet four inches tall, thickset, with straight graying black hair tied back in a severe bun. She had on a maid’s outfit, and her feet were encased in worn, soft-soled shoes, the kind that nurses wore, only black.
“You Will Robie?” she said immediately, almost fiercely.
“I am.”
“I’m Priscilla. I take care’a your daddy’s home.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you. Ms. Victoria said you was around. Liked to knock me over when she said so.”
“How long have you been helping my father?”
“Four years now.”
“Do you mind if I come in and look around a bit?”
She opened the door wider and moved aside, shutting the door after he entered the foyer.
She stared up at him. “You handsome, like your daddy. Though not as big. But you not too scrawny. You look like you can take care’a yourself.”
Robie was gazing around at the rooms bleeding off the entrance hall. The furnishings were tasteful, solid, everything situated just so. His father’s doing, most certainly. But he could see a bit of Victoria, perhaps, in the fresh-cut flowers and colorful drapes and throw pillows. And the artwork that ranged from simple to substantial carried a whimsical feel that he just didn’t see his Marine father possessing.
His gaze dropped to Priscilla. “Can you tell me what happened? Why my father’s in jail for killing Sherman Clancy?”
“I just made a pitcher’a tea. You want some?”
“Is it sweet tea?”
She looked at him funny. “Is there any other kind?”
She led him into the large, sunny kitchen with blackened beams across the ceiling. Priscilla poured out two glasses of sweet tea, and they sat at a round cedar table in front of a bay window overlooking the rear grounds.
Robie took a sip of his drink and couldn’t keep his face from puckering as the truckload of sugar walloped his taste buds.
Priscilla took a long drink of her tea and smacked her lips before saying slyly, “You been gone from Mississippi a long time?”
“Yes, I have,” said Robie, putting the glass down.
“Sherman Clancy,” said Priscilla, watching him closely.
Robie leaned in a bit and met her gaze directly. “I’d appreciate all that you can tell me.”
“Sherman Clancy wasn’t a good man. But truth is, I ain’t see him as no killer, neither.”
“Why not?”
She took another gulp of tea. “You want something to eat?”
“No, I’m good.” He watched her expectantly.
“Clancy was in with those casino boys. Those junkyard dogs drain every cent from you and laugh all the way to the bank while they givin’ you another watered-down glass of whiskey cost ’em ten cents and they sell for ten dollahs.”
“But he wasn’t a killer?”
“What he mostly was, was fat and drunk. Doubt he’d have the energy or what you need upstairs to kill nobody and then get away with it.”
“And Janet Chisum?”
“Didn’t know her. Her family ain’t here too long. Seem nice ’nuff. Saw ’em drivin’ to church on Sundays. That’s all they got to keep ’em now. God’s love. He’ll see those poor folks through this, yes he will. When I lost my baby, God was with me all the way.”
Robie’s mind went back to the tragic image of Sasha toppling dead to the floor. “How’d your child die?” he asked a moment later.
“Was livin’ up near Hattiesburg back then. Big old rattler done got my Earl when he was just a little boy. Went over to the county hospital but the man there said there was nothin’ they could do and I’d best take him over the clinic near where we lived. So’s I took him there, but they told me the county hospital was the only place ’round got the serum for the rattler. Earl died in my arms in the car on the way back to the county hospital. I walked into that place holdin’ my dead son and you know what that same man done told me?”
“What?”
“That he ain’t remember me comin’ in. That I must’ve made some mistake. That I must not be right in the head. And that I needed to take my boy’s body outta there right that very second, ’cause it was upsettin’ his staff.” She shook her head. “Upsettin’ his staff? Hear them words till I breathe my last.”
“Why wouldn’t they treat your son?”
She glanced up at him. “What planet you livin’ on? White hospital, black boy. You from Mississippi. You forget how it is down here? And this was over forty years back.”
“You could’ve taken the hospital and the man to court. Hell, had him tried for criminal negligence or something.”
“Oh, thank you for tellin’ me, Mr. Will Robie,” she replied in feigned astonishment. “You mean all I got to do was get me a lawyer and go to court and then they got to get to work on savin’ my baby? Why ain’t I think’a that? Oh, but he was already dead.”
“The point is the man should have been punished for what he did.”
“Oh, he was. You ain’t let me get to that part. He died sudden like just a few weeks later.”
“How?”
“Somebody done shot him.”
“Who?”
“My husband, Carl. That why I ain’t got no more husband. They executed him over at the state penitentiary. I was there watchin’ him when he went. Had a smile on his face.”
“I’m sorry, Priscilla. None of that should have happened.”
Priscilla finished her tea and said, “Water under the bridge. Can’t do nothin’ ’bout it now ’cept pray to God the next life is better’n this one. So they say your daddy done killed Sherman Clancy, but I don’t believe that for one little minute.”
“How was Clancy killed?”
Priscilla pointed to her neck. “Slit from ear to ear. Newspaper say it was a knife like the military use.”
“And my dad was in the Marines.”
“Well, lots of folks down here served in the military. And lots of folks got them knives like that.”
“Where was he found?”
“In his ca
r, down by the Pearl. He got himself one’a them Bentley cars. Only one hereabouts, I can tell you that. ’Bout a half mile from his house. Lonely old swamp road. Hell, what other kind’a swamp road is