Christmas Mourning Read online

  To

  Nancy and Jim Olson,

  for thirty years of friendship and support

  DEBORAH KNOTT’S FAMILY TREE

  CHAPTER 1

  Marley was dead to begin with.

  —A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

  “—which means I can usually adjourn around five o’clock. After that, I may have to sign some judgments or search warrants or other documents, but most days I’m done by five or five-thirty.” I made a show of looking at my watch. Although I had ninety seconds left of the five minutes I’d been allotted, it was chilly here in the gym and my toes felt frozen. I smiled at the high school freshmen, who sat on tiered benches beneath secular swags of fake evergreens tied with red plastic ribbons, and gestured to the tables over by the far wall. “So I’ll adjourn for now and be back there if you have any questions.”

  There was polite applause as I yielded the microphone to a nurse-practitioner from the new walk-in clinic that had recently opened up in a shopping center that sprawled around one of I-40’s exits here in the county.

  It was Thursday afternoon, the day before the beginning of their Christmas—oops! Winter—break.

  (Political correctness has finally, begrudgingly, arrived in Colleton County. Forty percent of our population call themselves Christian, and at least sixty percent of those write alarmist letters to the editor every year claiming that Christ is being dissed by the ten percent who check off “other” when polled about religious beliefs.)

  Today was Career Day at West Colleton High, and I was the sixth of seven speakers that the principal, who’s also my mother-in-law, hoped would inspire these way-too-cool-to-look-interested students. My name card—District Court Judge Deborah Knott—was on one of the long tables that lined the end wall, and I sat down beside my husband, whose own name card read Major Dwight Bryant, Chief Deputy, Colleton County Sheriff’s Department.

  He can’t say no to his mother either.

  My only props were a brass-bound wooden gavel, a thick law book, some gavel-headed personalized pencils left over from my last campaign, a summary of the education needed to become an attorney before running for the bench, and a list of the more common infractions of the law that a district court judge might rule on.

  Dwight’s array was much more impressive: a pair of handcuffs, a nightstick, a gold badge, a Kevlar vest, and an empty pistol with a locked trigger guard just to be on the safe side. He also had a stack of flyers that outlined requirements for joining the sheriff’s department.

  “The way the county’s growing, we keep needing new recruits,” he said when Miss Emily asked us to do this shortly after Thanksgiving.

  That sneaky lady had invited us over for Sunday dinner and then softened us up with fried chicken, tender flaky biscuits, and a melt-in-your-mouth coconut cream pie. I don’t know what she had to do to get the chief of the West Colleton Volunteer Fire Department to come, but it’s a good thing that my handouts take up a minimal amount of space. Between his hazmat suit and fire axe and Dwight’s show-and-tell, there was no room for anything else.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see one of my eleven older brothers. Zach is next to me in age, the second-born of the “little twins” and five down from the “big twins” produced in Daddy’s first marriage. Zach is also an assistant principal here at West Colleton.

  “Good job,” he said, handing me a welcome cup of steaming hot coffee. “Thanks for coming.”

  “No problem,” I said.

  Dwight had already emptied his own coffee cup, but he took a swallow of mine when offered. Sometimes I think he should just open a vein and mainline his caffeine. “I sure hope some of these kids will fill out an application form for us in three or four years,” he told Zach.

  “I got dibs on the Turner boy,” said the fire chief. His big hand almost hid a clear plastic bottle of water and he drained it in two gulps. “His brother Donny’s unit left for Iraq last week, but little Jeb there’s already turning out with us on weekends.”

  I remembered Donny Turner from the church burnings summer before last and said a silent prayer for all the kids who have gone to the Middle East these past few years. One glance at Dwight’s face and I knew he was thinking of the young deputy who’d signed on for a tour with one of the private security companies there. To lighten the moment, I said, “I guess I’ll get nothing but bad jokes if I say that some of them could wind up going to law school.”

  Zach grinned. “Adam e’d me a good one this morning.”

  Adam’s his twin out in California and I was sure he’d emailed me the same joke. I sighed and rolled my eyes, but there was no stopping Zach.

  “A lawyer telephones the governor’s mansion just after midnight and says he’s got to talk to the governor right away. So the aide wakes up the governor, who says, ‘What’s so damn urgent it can’t wait till morning?’

  “ ‘Judge Smith just died,’ says the attorney, ‘and I’d like to take his place.’

  “The governor yawns and says—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, stomping on his punch line. “ ‘If it’s okay with the undertaker, it’s okay with me.’ ”

  Zach’s grin widened; Dwight and the chief tried to keep their laughs down in deference to the last speaker at the front of the gym, but it was a struggle for both of them.

  Rednecks, lawyers, and blondes. The only safe butts left. My hair is more light brown than dandelion gold (thank you, Jesus!), so I don’t have to wince at all the dumb-blonde lawyer jokes. You’d be surprised how many there are.

  “Did I tell you, Dwight?” said the fire chief. “That warm spell last week? We got a call from one of them new houses out your way about hazardous fumes.”

  Hazardous fumes in our neighborhood? My head came up on that one.

  “Yeah,” said the chief. “We suited up and went rolling out. Thing is, that’s the first time the wind had blown from that particular direction since them new folks moved in.”

  “Jeeter Langdon’s hog farm?” Dwight asked.

  The chief chuckled. “You got it.”

  Back at the podium, the nurse-practitioner finished her spiel and headed for her spot at the next table. The school’s guidance counselor took the mike and instructed the students to use the rest of the period to learn more about our varied professions.

  The kids streamed off the bleachers. All were on the right side of the dress code, but just barely. The boys’ jeans were loose and baggy; the girls’ had not an extra millimeter of denim, although today’s icy December chill had put them all in hoodies and fleecy sweatshirts or sweaters.

  My brother Andrew’s daughter Ruth and her cousin Richard, Seth and Minnie’s youngest child, were both in the stands and both had given me a thumbs-up when our eyes met earlier in the period, but neither of them would be over to our tables for career suggestions. Last year when the family met to discuss the future of the land we owned, Richard had announced that he for one was going to stay right there and farm, while Ruth planned to open a stable with Richard’s sister Jessica. Both girls have been crazy about horses since they were lifted into a saddle as toddlers.

  The first to reach us was a white boy with spiked hair and clear plastic retainers where his forbidden eyebrow and nose rings would normally ride. “Were you ever on Court TV?”

  I shook my head and started to explain the difference between reality shows and reality, but he had already moved on to Dwight.

  Picking up the handgun and hefting it with more familiarity than you like to see in a boy that age, he said, “So like how many guys have you shot?”

  A tattooed green viper circled his wrist and stretched its triangular head across the back of his hand. Judging by his stubbly chin, he was probably closer to six
teen than the average freshman and had probably been left back a time or two. With a better haircut and no facial piercings, he would have been a good-looking kid—clear green eyes and smooth, acne-free skin most teenage girls would kill for.

  “What’s your name, son?” Dwight asked mildly as he reached out to reclaim the weapon.

  The boy clearly wanted to wise off, but with Zach looking on, he released his hold on the gun and muttered, “Matt Wentworth.”

  Dwight lifted an eyebrow at that name. “Any kin to Tig Wentworth?”

  “My uncle,” he admitted, realizing that we must know Tig Wentworth was currently over in Central Prison, serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of his stepfather-in-law.

  By their fruits ye shall know them.

  Here in Colleton County, apples still don’t roll very far from the tree, and among Cotton Grove natives the Wentworths were well known as a violent family, root and stock, for several generations back. Hux Wentworth, this boy’s oldest brother, had been killed in a home invasion, and now that I was reminded, I was pretty sure that another brother—Jack? Jay? No, Jason. That was his name.

  Our little weekly, the Cotton Grove Clarion, had used his arrest and conviction as a lead-in to an article on violations of hunting regulations. Jason Wentworth had been brought up before me back around Halloween for jacklighting deer, i.e., illegally hunting them at night with a powerful spotlight that would temporarily blind them and keep them immobile long enough to get off a shot. I had fined him and, as the law requires, made him forfeit both his rifle and his hunting license. The odds were three to one that I’d be seeing this kid in court before he graduated.

  If he graduated.

  Just before the bell rang to end the period, Miss Emily came bustling through the gym doors and paused to answer her pager. I’m always amazed that this small wiry woman who barely tops five feet is the mother of Dwight and his sister Nancy Faye, who are both built like their tall, big-boned daddy, a farmer who was killed in a tractor accident when they were children. Dwight’s brother Rob and their other sister Beth got Miss Emily’s slender build along with her red hair and green eyes. Normally, Miss Emily’s a force of nature, and there was no hesitation on the part of the school board to make her principal of West Colleton and its two thousand-plus students when this shiny new complex replaced rickety old Zachary Taylor High, where Dwight and I had gone to school.

  But as she clipped the pager back in its case, she looked suddenly tired and drained and, for the first time, almost old. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears by the time she reached our table and looked at Dwight with anguish.

  “They just called,” she told him. “The Johnson girl died.”

  CHAPTER 2

  … he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.

  —A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

  The double doors of the gym had been propped open, and from the hallway the normal end-of-the-school-day chatter abruptly changed to murmurs of disbelief. With new cell phone applications being invented every other month, relevant news spreads through the ether at warp speed. Several kids burst into the gym, teetering between grief and drama, eyes wide. Some of the girls were already sobbing as they reached Zach.

  “Is it true, Mr. Knott?” they cried. “Is Mallory dead?”

  Zach’s daughter Emma was among them. “Daddy?” she moaned, sounding like a little girl again instead of a high school sophomore who normally tries to pretend that the school’s assistant principal is no kin. She was dressed in her red-and-gold cheerleader’s outfit for tonight’s away game over in Dobbs. “What’s happening to us?”

  I looked at Dwight, who had put out a comforting arm to his mother. Mallory Johnson would be the county’s eighth teenage traffic death since summer; the third in this school alone.

  “I swear to God I wish they’d pass a law that kids couldn’t drive till they’re thirty-five,” I heard him mutter.

  All around us, girls were openly crying, and even some of the boys had eyes that were suspiciously moist.

  “Do you want me to make the announcement?” Zach asked Miss Emily.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath as she pulled herself free of Dwight’s arm, and I watched the steel flow back into her spine.

  “Thank you, Mr. Knott,” she said formally, “but I’ll do it.”

  A few minutes later, her calm voice came over the intercom to report the death of yet another classmate. “Tonight’s game is cancelled and grief counselors will be in the gym all afternoon for anyone who wants to speak to them.” She closed by saying, “If you drove to school today, please drive carefully on your way home. Pay attention to the road, turn off your cell phones, and no drinking. West Colleton can not bear to lose any more of you.”

  Useless to pretend that none of the kids listening to her words would leave this afternoon and go straight to whatever convenience store would sell them beer or fortified wine, texting or talking on their phones as they went. This latest death would give them all the excuse they needed.

  The state of North Carolina prohibits speeding. It prohibits driving with a blood alcohol level above .08, and it prohibits all alcoholic beverages for kids under the age of twenty-one. Unless you are eighteen and have driven without any violations for at least six months, you are also banned from using cell phones while behind the wheel and from having more than one other unrelated person under the age of twenty-one in the car with you, although that last is seldom enforced or adhered to, especially where there are several siblings or, as with my nieces and nephews, several cousins who carpool.

  Unfortunately, the state can’t prohibit teenagers from thinking they’re ten feet tall and bulletproof.

  I didn’t know any details about Tuesday night’s accident, but when Stacy Loring, another West Colleton senior, crashed his car into a tree shortly before Halloween, he would have blown a .12. There were six kids in that car. Stacy and another boy were killed instantly. Two walked away from the wreck with only superficial scratches, one remains in a coma with brain damage, and one—Stacy’s girlfriend Joy Medlin—is still on crutches. According to my nieces, her surgeon says she will probably walk with a limp the rest of her life.

  Because Joy could no longer do the moves, Emma had been moved up to the varsity cheerleading squad. Mallory Johnson had been the varsity head cheerleader, and now the newly depleted squad, all dressed in their red-and-gold uniforms, were helplessly weeping on each other’s shoulders, Joy and Emma among them.

  I knew that three of my nieces carpooled, as did their brothers, but the girls would be in no shape to drive after this emotional outpouring. I had ridden over from the courthouse this afternoon with Dwight, and now I told him to go on without me. “I’ll drive the girls home.”

  “Thanks, Deborah,” Zach said. “It’s going to be a while before I can leave.”

  The gym emptied out slowly. Some students lingered because they wanted to talk to the two grief counselors who had arrived almost instantly; others stayed because they were simply reluctant to leave their friends until they had wrung every bit of news and comments from each other. Eventually though, my nieces and nephews zipped or buttoned their jackets and trailed me out to the parking lot. This close to the winter solstice, the sun was low in the west and I could feel the temperature dropping as Jessica handed me the keys to her candy apple red car. The boy cousins piled into the pickup that my eighteen-year-old nephew A.K. drives and the girls got in with me.

  I knew who Mallory Johnson was, of course. Her mom had graduated from high school a few years ahead of me and her dad even earlier. We were never close; but enough of the old community remains that we all have a loose idea of each other’s lives. They had contributed to my last campaign and Malcolm Johnson, now a partner in his father’s insurance company, occasionally shows up in my courtroom as a character witness for some of his clients or their wayward children. I knew that Mallory was a senior in high school, the younger of two children, and that her older brother w
as enrolled at our local community college.

  On the drive back to the farm, though, I gained an even clearer picture of her from the things my nieces said. Even taking it all with a grain of salt and allowing for the shock of her sudden death, I heard that Mallory Johnson had evidently been one of the golden ones—enormously popular, a bubbly personality, bright, pretty, and musically talented. No ego and genuinely nice, despite her dad’s attempts to spoil the hell out of her.

  Although a junior, Seth’s daughter Jessica had taken an occasional class with her. “We sit next to each other in Spanish class,” she said, choking back her tears. “We were collecting Spanish-language children’s books for the homeless shelter in Dobbs.”

  “I might have been one of the last ones she texted before the crash,” Emma sniffled. “She reminded us to wear our uniforms today for a yearbook picture.”

  I bit down hard on my tongue for that one. No way was I going to suggest that Mallory might still be alive if she had cut off her phone and concentrated on the road.

  “Poor Joy,” said Emma, who still felt guilty for how she had moved up to the varsity squad. “First Stacy and now Mallory. They’ve been best friends since first grade, and even though she can’t do the moves, she still comes to all the practices and she’s really good at choreographing. Mallory kept pushing her to come up with new routines. She thought it was helping Joy get past Stacy’s death.”

  As a lowly freshman, Ruth had barely known the dead girl, but that didn’t stop her from remembering that Mallory had come to her brother’s eighteenth birthday party back in the fall and how pretty she was. “I think A.K. thought she was hot.”

  “Tell me a single guy in this school who didn’t think that,” Jess said tartly.

  Even as the girls talked, their thumbs were busy on the keypads of their phones, the ubiquitous clickety-click that forms the soundtrack of a teenager’s life like never-silent crickets or cicadas.