Jackie loved Clanton until the day Dexter died, but not long after the funeral she realized she couldn’t stay. The most immediate reason was that the church wanted the parsonage. A new minister would be assigned and his family would need a place to live. The church hierarchy generously offered to provide housing for a year at no cost, but she declined. Another reason, indeed the most significant one, was that the children were suffering. They adored their father and could not accept his absence. And in such a small town, they would be forever stigmatized as the kids whose father was gunned down under mysterious circumstances. To protect them, Jackie moved to a place they knew only as the home of their grandparents.
Once in Rome, and once the children returned to the ritual of school, she realized how temporary the arrangements were. Her parents’ home was modest and certainly not large enough for three children. She collected $10,000 in life insurance and began looking for a place to rent. Much to the concern of her parents, she began skipping church. They were devout Methodists who never missed a Sunday. Indeed, few people in their part of the world missed church and those who did were talked about. Jackie was not in the mood to do much explaining, but she made it clear to her parents that she was struggling with her faith and needed time to reexamine her beliefs. Privately, she was asking the obvious question: Her husband, a devout servant and follower of Christ, was reading his Bible and preparing his sermon, at church, when he was murdered. Why couldn’t God protect him, of all people? Upon deeper reflection, this often led to the more troubling question, one she never asked aloud: Is there really a God? The mere consideration of this as a passing thought frightened her, but she could not deny its existence.
Before long, she was being talked about, according to her mother, but she didn’t care. Her suffering was at a level far above anything a few local gossips could inflict. Her kids were struggling in a new school. Day-to-day living was a challenge.
Two weeks after moving in with her parents, she moved out and into a rental home on the other side of town. It was owned by a lawyer named Errol McLeish, a thirty-nine-year-old bachelor she had known years earlier at Rome High School. McLeish and Dexter had been in the same class, though in different circles. Like everyone in the small town, McLeish knew the story behind Dexter’s demise and wanted to help his young widow.
After weeks of barely eating enough to sustain herself, Jackie had finally lost the pounds she’d gained six years earlier with her last pregnancy. It was not a weight loss scheme she would recommend to anyone, and it was so far the only bright spot in an otherwise hideous nightmare, but she had to admit, as she looked at herself in the mirror, that she was skinnier than she had been in years. Now at thirty-eight, she weighed the same as on her wedding day, and she admired her newly uncovered hip bones. Her eyes were puffy and red from all that weeping, and she vowed to finally stop it.
McLeish stopped by twice a week to check on things, and Jackie began using a bit of makeup and wearing tighter dresses when he was around. She felt guilty at first, with Dexter still warm in the ground, but she wasn’t even flirting yet. She had no plans to pursue a romance for the remainder of her life, she told herself, but then educated bachelors were probably scarce in Rome. She was, after all, now single, and what was wrong with looking nice?
For his part, McLeish thought her cute but with serious baggage. The widowhood was one thing, and something that could be dealt with over time, but he wanted no part of a ready-made family. As an only child who had spent little time around children, he found the idea overwhelming. He led her along, though, quietly taking advantage of her pain and loneliness, and the noticing advanced to flirting.
His real interest was in her possible lawsuit. McLeish owned several properties, all heavily mortgaged, and he had debts from other deals, and after lawyering for ten years he realized it was not going to be that profitable. As soon as Jackie moved back to Rome, McLeish began setting his traps. He traveled to Clanton and snooped around the courthouse long enough to learn about the Bannings. He spent hours digging through the land records, and when confronted with the inevitable inquiry, he claimed to be a leasing agent for a “big oil and gas company.” As he expected, this rippled through the courthouse and around the square and through the law offices and before long Clanton was seized by its first and only oil rush. Lawyers and their assistants pored over dusty old plat books while keeping a sharp ear for gossip and a close eye on this stranger. McLeish, though, soon vanished as quietly as he had arrived, leaving the town to wonder when the oil boom was coming. He was back in Georgia, where he checked on the widow Bell with a polite regularity, never appearing eager or interested but always thoughtful, almost deferential, as though he understood her tangled world and wanted no part of it.
* * *
—
In 1946, Hollins had an enrollment of 375 students, all female. The college was a hundred years old and had a sterling reputation, especially among upper-class southern ladies. Stella Banning chose it because many of her mother’s well-to-do friends in Memphis went there. Liza did not, primarily because her family couldn’t afford it.
The girls wrapped themselves around Stella like a tight cocoon and shielded her from intrusions and negativity. They found it hard to believe that someone as pretty and sweet as Stella could be in the midst of such a tragic family drama, but it certainly wasn’t her fault. No one at Hollins had ever been to Clanton. A few knew her father was a war hero, but to most girls that mattered little. No one had met her parents, though her brother, Joel, had made quite a splash during a recent visit for alumni weekend.
In the days and weeks after the killing, Stella was never alone. Her two roommates stayed with her during the nights when she often awoke with nightmares and bursts of emotion. During the days, she was surrounded by friends who kept her busy. Her professors understood her fragility and she was allowed to miss class and postpone homework and papers. Counselors checked on her daily. The president monitored her situation and was briefed by a provost twice a week. It was soon known that she would not be going home for the Thanksgiving holiday. Her father had ordered her to stay away. This prompted a flood of invitations, some from friends and professors, some from girls she hardly knew.
Stella was touched almost to tears and thanked them all, then left Roanoke on the train with Ginger Reed, perhaps her best friend, and headed to Alexandria, Virginia, for a week of partying in D.C. She had been once before, with Ginger, and she was enthralled by the big city. Though she had not told her parents, nor Joel, she planned to graduate as soon as possible and follow the bright lights. New York was her first choice, D.C. her second. New Orleans was a distant third. Long before the killing, she knew she would never again live in Ford County. After the killing, she wanted to stay as far away from the place as possible.
Though her dreams had been interrupted, she was still determined to become a writer. She adored the short fiction of Eudora Welty and the bizarre and colorful characters of Carson McCullers. Both were strong southern women writing in authentic voices about families, conflicts, soil, and the tortured history of the South, and they were successfully publishing in a time when men dominated American fiction. Stella read them all, men and women, and she was convinced there was room for her. She might start with stories about her own family, she often thought to herself, now more than before, but knew that would not happen.