LITMIR.BIZ

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fooling coming back here. It sure isn’t me. He said he expects to see my face in the pew next Sunday. I suppose Liberty University made him a straight, born-again Christian, and now he’s going to do the same for me,” I said.

      “Honey, we all know that dog won’t hunt.”

      “I am going at Christmas, though. Trace is real excited about Daryl taking on the youth choir. Says Daryl is making all kinds of changes, and rehearsals have never been better.” Just then, I saw the Wabash Valley Baptist Church’s ancient organist, Myrna Boil, shuffling her way across the dining room, her plate heaped high with fried chicken. Enough fried chicken for an entire football team.

      “Myrna’s got her plate full, and I mean that in every sense of the word,” I told Rosabelle. “You should see her coming off the buffet line.”

      “You’re terrible,” Rosabelle said.

      “She wobbles around town giving everybody orders like she’s some sort of bacon-eating, Bible-thumping Baptist star or something. Anyway, I have to say I was shocked to see Daryl. I don’t think I’ve seen him since high school, since after the grand jury investigation into Robbie’s murder.”

      “Wasn’t Daryl a part of that?” Rosabelle asked. “I remember someone coming to the orchard and saying Daryl had been called to testify, that he was one of the guys at the party when Robbie disappeared.”

      “Those were the rumors, but I don’t think so. He and Robbie didn’t really have anything to do with one another, unless it had something to do with Harrison’s golf team. Daryl was always nice to him, kind of like I was. But Daryl being the jock and all, well, he had to keep some distance from Robbie.”

      “I don’t know. I seem to remember some scuttlebutt about Daryl and Robbie at that party. I recall someone saying that’s why Farmer Stone got Daryl the hell out of town. He called in a favor with some buddy of his, the golf coach at Liberty University,” Rosabelle said. “I just can’t shake the idea that Daryl is a lot like his mamma: self-serving and manipulative. Oh, the trials and tribulations she put upon her husband! Yep, when it comes to Daryl, I bet dollars to donuts that apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

      “I suppose so,” I said. “But I don’t remember Daryl and Robbie ever hanging out—at least not in public. Daryl wouldn’t have risked it. Anyway, it sure is going to be interesting to see Daryl about town. I gotta tell you, he looks pretty damn good.”

      “Forbidden fruit always does, sugar.”

      I laughed. “You said fruit.”

      Rosabelle giggled.

      “I should probably get back out on the floor.” I said. “I’ll pop by this week. Let me know about dinner.”

      “Okay, sugar. I’m glad you’re back, and I can’t wait to hear all about it.”

      “Only the PG stuff,” I said.

      We hung up, and I sat a moment thinking about what Rosabelle had said, about Daryl and that party. About Robbie. I began to wonder: In high school, had Daryl ever shown up at Robbie’s bedroom window like he had at mine? Had they fooled around too? Nah. I would’ve known about it. I knew Daryl too well; he’d come back to Fort Sackville to prove something. He had reinvented himself as a man of God, and now, I suppose, he had to convince people.

      Grand jury to probe Palmer murder

       By Foster Lawrence

      Fort Sackville Sentinel staff writer

      FORT SACKVILLE, Ind. — A grand jury will convene next week in an attempt to shed light on the death of Robbie Palmer.

      Prosecutor Dallas Ellerman has been focusing his attention on the death of Palmer, which occurred at a party in Fort Sackville on the morning of May 3.

      Fort Sackville Police interviewed party attendees, but no charges in Palmer’s death have resulted.

      A grand jury is an opportunity for the prosecutor to gather information. Grand jury investigations are considered private.

      Ellerman said if all goes smoothly, the grand jury inquiry should take no more than a week.

      Palmer’s mother, Ruth Palmer, has pressed the Fort Sackville Police and the prosecutor to continue the investigation.

      She believes there is more information to be uncovered and hopes the grand jury will provide more facts. “I feel deep in my heart they will find hidden information if everyone under oath is truthful,” she said.

      Chapter Three

       December

      The Thanksgiving holiday weekend came and went, and before I knew it December had arrived. With holiday business and private parties in the banquet room picking up, in addition to another one of Dad’s “spells” and his time spent in the hospital, I’d not had the opportunity since returning from South Beach to meet Rosabelle and Mae for dinner. I barely had any phone conversations with Rosabelle, except for our Sunday one p.m. phone calls. I knew both she and Mae were up to their armpits in Christmas at the gift shop. Christmas was closing in fast—only a week away. Yet it was a warm Friday afternoon, unusual for the season. The sun was shining, and the air was alive and fresh like a spring day. I stood near the kitchen entrance behind the restaurant and looked upon the valley in which my hometown lay, savoring the final moments before Friday’s supper rush.

      Fort Sackville was first settled by French fur traders and became a spoil of war after American revolutionaries—during a surprise attack on the British—captured the town’s namesake. Landlocked, the community lay in a flat flood plain bordered to the west by the Wabash River, the town and farms to the south safeguarded by a levee. The rest of the community to the north and east was isolated from the outside world by a crescent ridge of highlands from which one could look down—as I was—upon the valley of sycamores, grain silos, and shining white church steeples.

      Farming and God were two industries by which family fortune might flourish or fail in Fort Sackville.

      Its townsfolk had, for the most part since the American Revolution, succeeded in isolating themselves from wantonness, even from the occasional nonsense—whores, queers, and politicians—that washed downriver or traveled Highway 41 from larger cities. Robbie Palmer’s murder twenty years ago was the exception. I had lived all of my life in Fort Sackville; most of the town ate in my family’s restaurant. Daniels’ Family Buffet was a benefactor of the industry, relying on its supply: farmers for food, God for customers—most especially the Sunday Christians and the Friday fried catfish Catholics.

      Friday’s supper rush was a big night and, like Sundays, we ran with a full staff. The teenage bussers typically arrived around four-thirty p.m. to eat dinner before clocking in for their five p.m. shift. While standing outside, feeling invigorated by each breath of the warm winter air and enjoying the remaining minutes of quiet control—soon to be controlled chaos—I saw the familiar black vintage Corvette whip around the corner of the restaurant parking lot, pull near me, and stop. It was Daryl. Trace was sitting in the passenger seat. Why is Daryl bringing Trace to work? I thought. As I stood there, certain my expression registered my curiosity, Trace opened his passenger side door, grabbed his backpack, and stepped out of the car. Then, without hesitation, Daryl whipped away as fast as he’d arrived, barely a smile to acknowledge my presence.

      “Isn’t that car cool?” Trace asked, approaching. “I’ve never ridden in a Corvette before.”

      “Yes, it is. And I have. That same one years ago. It was his dad’s,” I said.

      “Oh, yeah. That’s right. You and Pastor Daryl went to high school together. Were you guys friends?” Trace asked.

      “You could say that.” I paused a moment, my eyes focused on Trace, as if searching for hints of Daryl there. “I’m curious, if you don’t mind my asking, why is Dar—I mean, Pastor Daryl bringing

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