Lorraine waited until they were in their assigned seats on the porch. Conley poured her grandmother some unsweetened iced tea and served herself a sunsetter.
Suddenly, Lorraine whipped out her obsolete flip phone and brandished it at her granddaughter as though it were a switch and the screened porch was the woodshed.
“Sarah, what on earth have you been up to today?”
Conley took a sip of her cocktail, strictly to bolster her courage. “Who called?”
“The question is, who didn’t? I have been on this phone off and on all afternoon, listening to complaints about you.”
“Grayson called, right? Did she tell you I quit?”
“She said you quit a hot second before she was about to fire you.”
“I told you this wasn’t going to work,” Conley said. “Grayson won’t listen to me. She just wants a puff piece about Symmes Robinette’s death. And I’m not about to put my byline on that kind of cotton candy bullshit.”
“We’ll get to that in a moment. I also heard from Charlie Robinette. He’d worked himself up into quite a lather after your visit.”
“G’mama, I only asked him the questions I’d ask anybody else in the same circumstances.”
“I don’t fault the questions you asked, Sarah. It’s your technique. Or lack thereof. You apparently went charging into the law offices of a man who just lost his father this week. And the first thing you do is tell him you find his father’s death highly suspicious! You tell him you’ve called the sheriff and the funeral home, asking them all kinds of inflammatory questions. How did you think he was going to react?”
Conley’s cheeks burned because not only did her grandmother’s criticism sting, it rang true. Seeing Charlie after all these years, so smug and entitled, so dismissive. She hated the word triggered, but that’s how she’d felt. She’d lost her objectivity. Maybe if she’d tried to seem sympathetic, even obsequious, she could have lulled Charlie Robinette into giving up the information she was seeking.
“Didn’t you learn anything at all from growing up in this family?” Lorraine pressed. “How many times have I told you that you’ll always catch more flies with honey than vinegar?”
Conley stared out at the Gulf. The bright turquoise shade of the water had deepened, and a light breeze ruffled a stand of sea oats atop the dune line.
“You’re right,” she murmured.
“What’s that? Sit up and speak up, child.”
“I said, ‘You’re right.’ I should have taken my time, buttered Charlie up, and laid it on thick about what a great public servant and war hero his father was. And then asked about the death certificate.”
“At the very least,” Lorraine said. “And you had no business telling him that Kennedy McFall had given you any information about the service or about the lack of a death certificate. You betrayed a confidence from someone whose business depends on discretion. My God, Sarah. That’s Journalism 101, and I never went to journalism school.”
“I guess being married to Pops was like going to journalism grad school,” Conley said.
“Being his granddaughter and being brought up in the newspaper business should have done the same for you,” Lorraine fired back.
“So now what?” Conley asked. “Just have Grayson run Rowena’s piece and be done with it?”
“Don’t be absurd,” her grandmother said. “If there really is a story in Symmes Robinette’s death, I want us to get to the bottom of it.”
“You’re not worried about pissing off his family, alienating the community, and losing subscribers?”
“Of course I worry about it. Your sister worries about it too. But that’s Grayson’s job. It’s your job to go out and get the real story. What’s that thing you’re always saying?”
“Turning over rocks and kicking up dirt?”
“I am worried about something else, though,” G’mama said. “Charlie alluded to some kind of bad blood between the two of you. He claims you’re trying to settle an old score because of some silly teenage prank.”
Conley’s face grew hot. “He called it a silly teenage prank?”
“His exact words. I wasn’t even aware you knew him. I’d heard Symmes and Vanessa shipped him off to military school because of some bad behavior on the boy’s part. What kind of prank is he talking about?”
“I don’t want to get into all that,” Conley said. “All you need to know is that Charlie was a pig. When I started asking him questions about Symmes’s death today, he threatened to ‘grind us into dust.’ What’s that tell you about him?”
“It tells me there’s something he’s trying to hide, but it also tells me we need to be absolutely certain any story we print is impeccably sourced and fact-checked.”
“It will be,” Conley said.
Lorraine nibbled on a cracker with a slice of cheese. “What makes you so sure there really is a story here? And I’m not talking about the fact that Symmes fathered a baby by his secretary while he was still married to Toddie. It might be true, but it is no longer noteworthy or germane to his untimely death.”
“Unless it is,” Conley insisted. “Remember how Granddaddy had us all sit down together to watch All the President’s Men, way back when he bought his first VCR?”
“He wanted you children to watch a story about two intrepid reporters bringing down a corrupt president so that you could understand the power and potential of great journalism,” Lorraine said. “I just liked looking at Robert Redford.” She fanned herself and smiled. “I liked him better in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
“Who didn’t?” Conley said. “I never forgot that scene when the confidential informant meets Bob Woodward in that dark parking garage and tells them to ‘follow the money.’ That’s what I intend to do. Follow the money.”
“What money is that?”
“Symmes Robinette owns a house on Sugar Key, where, from what I’m told, waterfront houses start at two million. His house in D.C. is in Georgetown. I looked it up. The median price of a home there is one-point-six million.”
“Good Lord! I had no idea. How can any of these politicians afford to live like that and maintain a house back in their district?”
“That’s what I want to know. Robinette didn’t come from a wealthy family, right?”
“Not really,” Lorraine said. “Symmes’s mother was widowed when he was quite young, I believe. She worked in the mill, over in Plattesville, and her second husband was a plant manager.”
“Where’s Plattesville?” Conley asked. “I keep hearing about it, but I know I’ve never been there.”
“It’s mostly gone now,” Lorraine said. “But at one time, it was a thriving neighborhood on the west side of Varnedoe. There was a blue jeans factory and a big railroad switchyard. You could ask Winnie about Plattesville. She grew up there. Most of the homes and churches were torn down in the early nineties, after it was condemned by the state due to chemical contamination from the industries there. There were all kinds of lawsuits and accusations about cancer-causing agents in the water.”
“So that’s what Winnie meant when she said Robinette was responsible for Nedra’s death?”
Lorraine looked startled. “When did she tell you that?”
“Just now,” Conley said.
“Winnie almost never talks about Nedra or what happened to her.” Lorraine toyed with the hem of her scarf. “It was a terrible thing. The railroad operated a huge switchyard in her neighborhood. For decades, they stored hundreds of barrels of caustic chemicals there. Eventually, they abandoned the site, but there was a retention pond on the property, and over the years, the chemicals seeped into the soil and leached into the water. Winnie told me there were drainage ditches that wound all through the neighborhood. Winnie and Nedra and the neighborhood children played in that water. Their grandmother grew vegetables in that contaminated soil.”
“And that’s what gave Nedra the cancer?”
“It was so horrible,” G’mama said, shuddering. “Nedra’s husband, Ed, was a no-account drifter. By the time she was thirty, she was raising those three little boys by herself. And then she got sick. I can’t remember the kind of cancer, but it was quite rare. She was having excruciating abdominal pain. By the time she was correctly diagnosed, the cancer was so advanced, there wasn’t much they could do. As it turned out, there were other, similar cancers diagnosed in people who’d grown up around Plattesville and that chemical dump.”
“A cancer cluster,” Conley said.
“There was a young lawyer, a woman who worked for some environmental action organization. Randee something. She heard about the cancer cases, organized the families who’d been affected, and started filing suits against the railroad.”
“Let me guess. Symmes Robinette represented the railroad.”
“Of course,” Lorraine said. “He was already making a name for himself around this part of the state. And he was in the state legislature by then. Politically connected through and through.”
“What happened to the lawsuits?”
“Some of them were settled out of court. Those people were poor, and most of them were poorly educated. Their family members were sick and dying, so it was easy for the railroad to throw a few dollars their way and make them go away.”
“And Nedra’s case?”
“If you think Winnie is stubborn, you should have met Nedra! As sick as she was, she refused to settle, because by then, it was a matter of principle. So Symmes played the long game. He was a master at foot-dragging. Every time the judge would set a date for a hearing, Robinette would claim he had to be in Tallahassee on state business, and the judge, who, I suspect, was one of his cronies, would grant him a continuation. Poor Nedra died before she ever got her day in court.”
“That’s so sad,” Conley said.
“Winnie told me the state came in and paid all the families a nominal amount of money for the homes that they tore down. Nedra was always certain that she’d prevail in court and that her boys would be provided for after her death, but none of that happened.”
“No wonder she hates Robinette,” Conley said.
G’mama craned her neck and looked toward the stairway to make certain the housekeeper wouldn’t overhear the next part of their conversation.
“There was an incident…”
They heard heavy footsteps on the stairs, and Lorraine stopped talking. But when she spotted their visitor, her bruised face was wreathed in a smile.
“Sean Kelly! Oh my goodness. What a nice surprise!”
Sean carried a bouquet of brightly colored zinnias in an old jelly jar in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. He put the jelly jar on the table, leaned over, and kissed the cheek that Lorraine offered. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in to make sure Conley delivered your prescription.” He touched the bruise on her cheek. “Have you taken up boxing since I saw you last, Miss Lorraine?”
“Just a silly fall earlier today. I got overheated after working in the garden.” She pointed at a wicker armchair. “Sit down there and fill me in on what’s new in town.”
Sean pulled the chair up closer to his hostess. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“Not really. You’ll stay for dinner, of course. I know Winnie has fixed enough to feed the whole town. Why don’t you go back downstairs and tell her you’ll be joining us?”
“She already invited me, and of course I said yes. I never pass up an offer for a home-cooked meal. Miss Lorraine, how were you feeling before you passed out? Did you have a headache? Were you dizzy? Had you eaten?”
G’mama regarded her granddaughter and Skelly with growing suspicion. “I should have known,” she said angrily. She pointed at Conley. “You put him up to this. You’ve been sneaking around behind my back—”
“It was my idea,” Skelly said hastily. “When Sarah was in the store this morning, we had a disagreement. I called to apologize, and she happened to invite me to dinner. It was all completely innocent, I can assure you.”
“There’s nothing innocent about this girl,” Lorraine said. “She told you about my stupid fall and asked you to come out here and check up on me.”
“You wouldn’t go to the hospital, and you won’t let me call your doctor. I’m worried about you, G’mama,” Conley said. “Do you want me to call Grayson and get her in on this conversation?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Lorraine said coldly. She turned to the pharmacist. “To answer your questions, I very foolishly didn’t eat properly this morning. I was gardening outside in the heat, and I was feeling a little dizzy when I came in, and that’s when I had my spell. No, I don’t have a headache. I know I don’t have any broken bones, because I was able to walk out here, unassisted.”
“No vomiting or funny metallic taste in your mouth?” Skelly asked. “Your eyes aren’t sensitive to light?”
“No and no. Can we talk about something more pleasant now?”
“If you insist,” Skelly said. “The good news is, I don’t think you have a concussion. But you definitely need to see Dr. Holloway and discuss this latest episode with him.”
Lorraine pointed out the window. “Now look what you’ve gone and done, Sean. You almost made me miss the sunset.”
It was true. The sun hovered just slightly above the quivering waters of the Gulf, bathing everything in a coral-tinged light. A string of pelicans soared past, silhouetted in the dying purple light.
Lorraine held up her glass. “Quickly, Sean. Pour yourself a drink. It’s bad luck not to toast at sunset.”
Skelly did as instructed, dropping cubes into a glass and pouring himself a cocktail.
Lorraine clinked her glass against Conley’s and then against his. “Here’s to the light. Here’s to the sunset.”
“Here’s to old friends,” Conley added, touching her glass to Skelly’s.
“And here’s to your health,” he added, tapping Lorraine’s glass.
They all drank, then paused, watching as the last golden glimmer slipped out of sight.
“How is June?” Lorraine asked as they were finishing up their dinner.
Skelly poured the last of the white wine into Conley’s glass and then his own.
“Physically, she’s fine. I took her to the store, and she recognized Conley right off, although she forgot both Conley’s and my dad are both dead. Then, by tonight, when her favorite cousin, Anita, arrived for their regular Saturday night movie date, Mama didn’t know her. She thought Anita was her own mother.”
“I’m sorry, Sean,” G’mama said. “It must be very hard for you to watch her decline. Your mother was such a smart, vibrant woman.”
“It’s hardest on her,” Skelly said. “She gets so frustrated sometimes. She’ll come into the store and sit behind the counter, and it’s all familiar. Her favorite part of being a pharmacist was compounding drugs for patients. She said it was like cooking. Now she looks at the tools and she can’t remember how they work.”
He put his fork carefully on the side of his plate. “That was the best meal I’ve had in a long, long time. I’m afraid my bachelor cooking leaves a lot to be desired.”
Winnie came in from the kitchen and began clearing the dishes. “You should taste her cooking,” she said, nodding at Lorraine. “Can’t even scramble an egg without burning it.”
“It’s true,” G’mama admitted without rancor. “We’d all starve without Winnie.” She touched her granddaughter’s hand. “The only thing my mother ever fixed was franks and beans on the cook’s night out. But Sarah is quite a good cook, aren’t you?”
“I get by,” Conley said.
“One year, after she’d been to Italy on vacation, she came home and made osso buco. From memory! It was the most marvelous thing I’d ever tasted. And she’s a wonderful baker, aren’t you, Sarah? My goodness, she can make cookies and pies. She used to bake her daddy a chocolate silk pie for his birthday—”
Conley stood up from the table and began gathering the rest of the plates. “Come on, Skelly. Let’s give Winnie a hand.”
“No, no,” Lorraine protested. “I’ll help Winnie. It’s your first Saturday night at the beach. You young people should go have some fun.”
Conley turned to Skelly and rolled her eyes. “Is it my imagination, or is my grandmother trying to set me up with you?”
Skelly grinned. “It might work, if you’d bake me a chocolate silk pie.”