“Done, done, and done,” says Donnelly. “Have a good day, Marshall.”
The oilman extends his hand, and God forgive me, I take it. This is the way business is done in America in 2018.
“Walk me out, Blake,” I tell him. “I don’t want any bullshit from Beau or Tommy.”
On the street outside the bank, I check my text messages. One from Nadine informs me that my father is still unconscious, but his cardiologist plans to bring him out of the coma later this morning. Nadine is at her store, but she’s staying in close touch with my mother. I text her back: Deal terms agreed. Will pick you up on way to hospital, probably 1 hour from now. Have errand to run first.
She texts me a thumbs-up emoji in reply. Then she adds: Be safe.
After a last look at the Greek Revival façade of the Bienville Southern Bank, I get into the Flex and head east out of town. I want to be back at the hospital to watch my father sign the papers that will return the Watchman to the McEwan family. But before I do, I need to speak to Tallulah Williams.
Chapter 46
The Belle Rose neighborhood in late morning looks like the cover of a Frontgate catalog. Zero-turn mowers scuttle over perfect lawns like manta rays combing the floor of a green sea. A gleaming mail truck rolls slowly from oversize box to oversize box, looking like a prop from a Steven Spielberg movie. And set well back from the road on every lot stands a McMansion to shelter the white refugees of Jackson, Mississippi. A few prosperous Bienvillians live out here, though I’m told that more bought in Beau Chene, built just five years ago. Only the lowering sky ruins what would have been a perfectly saturated Technicolor morning in America.
When Paul and I were growing up, he lived in a subdivision about a mile away from mine. The houses in his neighborhood were newer than ours, and nicer, but the Mathesons at that time were fully integrated into the middle-class life of Bienville. Now Paul and his father own homes in this physical expression of Beau Holland’s dream: an exclusive refuge from the black crime of both Bienville and the state capital, which is only twenty-two miles from the entrance to Belle Rose. Paul and Jet live in a conventional McMansion, which Jet claims to detest, but Max built a Spanish hacienda that looks remarkably authentic. Besides the house, the property boasts a lavish outdoor kitchen, an infinity pool, a pool house, and a seemingly endless terrace of clay tiles. Behind the pool house stands another outbuilding, styled like a stable. For the past few years it has housed the family maid, Tallulah Williams, and her husband, Terrence, who worked as the Mathesons’ yard man until he got too old for outdoor labor.
I park at the side of the hacienda, trying to keep the Flex out of sight in case Paul happens to return from Jackson. Not wanting to give Tallulah a chance to brush me off by phone, I didn’t call ahead. The maid is probably busy inside the main house, so I walk quickly around it on the terra-cotta pavers, cross the expansive patio, and step up to the glass doors at the rear of the house. I knock casually, hoping she’ll assume I’m a pool boy or a neighbor.
I stand alone for half a minute, but as I raise my hand to knock again, I see a large black woman slowly making her way to the door. She’s not wearing the white uniform I remember from childhood, but a pair of blue jeans and an enormous flower print blouse. When Tallulah reaches the door, she puts her palm over her eyes to shield them and peers at me. At first she looks suspicious, but then the light of recognition dawns, and she pushes down the handle.
“Sorry I took so long,” she says, pulling open the door. “I was in the kitchen watchin’ my story and sortin’ socks.”
Tallulah’s face is old and heavy, with pendulous jowls, but her eyes radiate wisdom and perception that misses nothing. She’s been a maid all her life, but as a boy I learned you had to get up damned early to pull anything over on her.
“What can I do for you?” she asks.
“I’m Marshall McEwan, Mrs. Williams. You might—”
“Oh, I ’member you, Marshall. You and Paul used to play together at the old house. You’s just a little string bean back then. You filled out good.”
“I remember you, too. You took good care of us.”
“I tried, Lord knows. I liked that old house better than this one. Even when I was younger, this would have been too much. Who you lookin’ for out here? Paul? He up in Jackson at University Hospital.”
I consider telling her that I’ve come looking for Max, then decide against it. “Actually, Mrs. Williams, I came to see you.”
She stands in the open door with hands on her hips, studying me with an expression I cannot read. She looks worried but also intrigued.
“You’d better just call me Tallulah. That’s what you called me when you was seven. No use changin’ now.”
“Yes, ma’am. Tallulah, I believe a friend of mine came out to see you yesterday. Blond, cute, about five-foot-six—”
She smiles. “Name of Nadine, like that Chuck Berry song?”
“That’s her.”
“You’re lucky to have her as a friend. That girl got a good soul. Treats people right.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tallulah glances behind her, then says, “I reckon I ought to let you in, but I got a feeling Mr. Max might not like you bein’ here just now. Am I right to figure that?”
“You could be.”
“Well, then. What you wantin’ to know? Same thing Nadine ax me?”
“Did she ask whether you’d caught Max with her mother, Margaret Sullivan?”
Tallulah gives me a conspiratorial look. “Sho’ did. But Mrs. Sullivan wasn’t the first wife I seen in here with her clothes off. Or the last.”
“Did you tell Sally about it? Catching Mrs. Sullivan?”
“No, indeed. I wouldn’t have hurt Mrs. Sally for all the money in the world. Poor soul put up with more trouble than any two white ladies I ever knew. That Mrs. Sullivan was all right, too. Didn’t have no business messin’ with Mr. Max. But then . . . a lot of ’em was like that. Moths to the flame, I reckon.”
“I think you’re right.” I hate to push her, but I need to know what she knows. “Tallulah, I don’t want to get you in trouble with Max. I’m going to get right to the point.”
The maid looks wary. She probably hasn’t had many good experiences with white men who tell her they are coming to the point.
“I know Max is Kevin’s father,” I tell her.
The maid grunts down deep in her chest. “Who told you that? Nadine, I expect?”
“No. Kevin’s mother.”
Tallulah draws back her head and regards me with open suspicion. “You don’t come around this neighborhood much, do you?”
“I haven’t, no. I stay pretty busy.”
There’s a new light in the maid’s eyes, cold and judgmental. “That the only reason?”
“Why do you ask?”
“’Cause I seem to ’member you and Miss Jet bein’ an item back in the day. I wondered if maybe it’s hard for you to be around her.”
I try not to betray any emotion, but my odds of hiding anything from this woman are pathetically low. “I think it’s probably best to leave the past in the past.”