Southern Gentlemen: John Rip PetersonBilly Ray Wainwright Read online

  The times the three of them spent with Papa Vidal had been balmy, endless days. But they were long gone.

  Over her shoulder, Anna said to Rip, “Things have changed since you left. For one thing, my dad died.”

  “A heart attack, wasn’t it?”

  His voice came from much closer than she expected. He had followed her, moving with the powerful, silent grace she remembered so well.

  “He never really got over Tom’s disappearance. He left a fair-size insurance policy but not a lot more. My mother and I had to cut back, move into a smaller house. I couldn’t manage college so I went to trade school. Afterward, I took a job as a legal assistant—”

  “And married your boss,” he said, the words without expression.

  She turned to lean against the chair rail under the mural. “If you know that, then you probably know it lasted less than three years, so the job and the husband terminated at the same time. Now I work at the courthouse. What I’m trying to say is, I don’t have the influence you seem to think, not anymore.”

  “I hear you went back to your maiden name, that you’re a Montrose again.”

  “For what good it does. Nobody cares about things like that.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Don’t kid yourself.”

  “Times are different. Montrose isn’t quite the insular backwater it used to be. New people, new businesses have moved in so the old order is almost gone. Anyway, I still don’t know why you care. You’ve moved on, put what happened behind you and become somebody. Peterson Systems is a giant player in cyberspace. You’ve lived in Dallas, on the West Coast—”

  “Was a player,” he interrupted. “I’ve sold out.”

  She’d heard the rumor but couldn’t bring herself to believe it, especially with the millions said to be involved. “Why would you do that?”

  “It wasn’t fun anymore,” he answered, with a moody shrug. “Besides, I had other things to do.”

  “But you could do them anyplace. Why come back here?”

  “What happened here was important to me,” he answered, his gaze challenging. “It changed my life, took away a lot of hopes, a lot of plans. I want them back. More than that, I want compensation.”

  A quick frown pleated her brows. “Compensation? What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t do it, Anna.” His eyes were dark coffee brown as they held hers. “I didn’t rob anybody, and you should know it.”

  “What? But—”

  “Tell me something,” he interrupted. “Is the old Bon Vivant Club still around?”

  “Yes, certainly,” she answered, trying to follow his fast change of subject. What a men’s club like the Bon Vivants—with their fish fries on the lake and venison cookouts at the hunting camp—had to do with anything, she couldn’t imagine.

  “Good. I’d like membership.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “A matter of principle.”

  Anna thought about it even as she noted the taut muscle in his jaw, the lines that radiated from the corners of his eyes, the width of his shoulders that strained his polo shirt. Finally, she said, “I don’t know if it’s possible. You’d have to be proposed and approved. It’s the kind of thing a man does for his son, his nephew, his wife’s brother or maybe an old friend.”

  “Exactly. It’s the Louisiana version of an old boy’s club, where the important things get decided, such as who’s going to run for state representative or who leases out space for government offices.” He paused. “I want it.”

  “Surely you don’t care about any of those things,” she protested.

  “Call it a symbol,” he countered with grim determination. “When I’m in, a paid-up member, I’ll know I’ve made it in Montrose. That’s when your job will be over and done.”

  She could see his point, but there were problems. “You’ll need the backing of someone important.”

  “So persuade one of your cousins to do it.”

  “I’m not sure it would help.”

  “You mean considering my criminal record? Or is the problem my Red Bone blood? Those things are what make it a challenge. It would be too easy, otherwise.”

  “What if it doesn’t happen? Isn’t there something else that would serve the same purpose?”

  He watched her for a long instant, his face shadowed. Then a brief smile flickered across the firmly molded contours of his mouth. With a voice rough yet beguiling in its rich depth, he said, “There is, now that you mention it.”

  The glint in his eyes warned her; the fleeting expression caused her heart to slam against the wall of her chest. “Yes?”

  He smiled again as he answered with precision, “You could marry me.”

  2

  “You can’t be serious.”

  Rip watched Anna’s eyes widen as she spoke, the pupils growing large and dark. Still, she didn’t look particularly shocked or angry. A prickle of wariness crawled down the back of his neck.

  “You’d be surprised how serious I can be about that subject,” he said quietly.

  She looked away. “Even marriage might not bring the acceptance you seem to think it will.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” There was something going on behind her smooth, even features, Rip thought. It seemed she could actually be considering his proposition.

  “Let me be certain I have this straight,” she said, her voice not quite even as she turned back to him. “Either I help you become a respected citizen of Montrose or you’ll bulldoze Blest to the ground. As proof of success, you require membership in the Bon Vivant Club. If that fails, you expect me to—become your wife.”

  “That’s about the size of it. Except for one last thing.”

  “And that is?”

  Anna wasn’t quite as calm as she appeared, for her lips trembled at the corners before she tightened them. With satisfaction, Rip said, “There’s a deadline. One month. You have until the Bon Vivant’s midsummer dance.”

  “That isn’t much time!”

  “It’s all I intend to give it. Anyway, it’s enough if it can be done.”

  She didn’t appear convinced. “When would you want an answer?”

  “Now would be good.”

  “You can’t expect me to decide so soon. There’s a lot at stake. I need time to think.” She swallowed hard as she waited for his answer.

  Rip dragged his gaze away from that small, convulsive movement, firmly squelching the need to press his lips to her slender throat. “I’ll be having dinner tomorrow night at the old steak house on Jimerson Road. If you show up, I’ll know we’re on. If not, I bring in the demolition crew.”

  Disdain rose in the fathoms-deep gray of her eyes. “Just like that? You really are a bastard, aren’t you.”

  “I always was.” His laugh was hollow as he discovered that the truth still had the power to hurt. “But there’s one difference. I know what I want now, and I go for it.”

  She flinched as she absorbed the threat. For an instant, Rip thought she would answer it. Then she compressed her lips and swung away from him, striding down the long hall. She was silhouetted for an instant against the sunlight beyond the open front door, then she was gone.

  The early summer heat struck Anna like a blow as she descended the front steps. It reflected off the worn treads where the paint had flaked away from the wood, eddied up from the uneven brick sidewalk. The sun’s glare was so brilliant that-stepping into the deep shade of the old oak where she had parked her car was like entering a cool, dark pool.

  Something shifted in front of her. She stopped abruptly.

  “Afternoon, Miss Anna.”

  Relief washed through her at that familiar greeting. Moving forward more slowly, she said, “Papa Vidal. I didn’t see you.”

  “Reckon I’m so old I’m ‘bout a ghost,” he said, chuckling. “‘Course, you were studyin’ on other things, important things.”

  She made a wry grimace. “You could say that.”

  “Only natural, considerin’. Been think
in’ a lot my own self lately.” He gave her an intent look before he wagged his head. “I’m getting on, you know. Be ninety-four, come August.”

  It was hard to believe, since he never seemed to change. Still, as Anna looked closer, she could see his face was like a wizened brown apple, and his clothes sagged on his frail, bony frame. She smiled with affection as she touched his arm. “Your ninety-fourth birthday! That’s fantastic.”

  “Don’t like to think of leavin’ Blest. Always expected I’d see a hundred here. It’s my home.”

  “Your work is here, too. It breaks my heart to think of it being destroyed.”

  “‘Preciate that, Miss Anna,” he said, ducking his head. “I know it’s just a lot of cheap paint slopped over the walls, hardly worth botherin’ about a-tall, but the big paintings are my best. The house goes, they go.”

  The big murals would never survive removal; Papa Vidal was right about that. The paint was so fragile it would crumble away at any attempt. Pieces might be cut out and preserved, but that would be a sacrilege, since a large part of their impact depended on size and position in the rooms.

  But Papa Vidal was far too modest about the value of his work. There was not another African-American painter of his stature in the country, especially not one who had been painting for so long. From his earlier, more primitive paintings done in Blest’s outbuildings to the softer, idealized scenes in the big house, his mural series was an invaluable record of how things had been and how he had seen them, as well as a monument to his vision and talent.

  The elderly man reached into the gaping pocket of his vest and pulled out his Silky chicken with its feathers like strings of fretted white satin. Cradling it in the crook of his arm, he smoothed the chicken as if to comfort it, while the little hen closed its eyes in bliss. The Silky was the same one he had raised from a chick the summer everything went wrong, Anna thought.

  Reaching out to touch the little hen’s satiny back, she asked, “How is Henrietta?”

  “Tolerable,” the old man allowed, “but gettin’ old, like me. She won’t like leavin’ Blest, either.”

  “I know.” Anna sighed. “It’s so hard to believe Rip would actually destroy it.”

  “Mist’ Rip, now, he’s not a bad man,” Papa Vidal said, cocking his head. “He’s just kinda lost and hurt-in’ inside. Reckon he has been for a long time.”

  “That’s no excuse for destroying Blest.”

  “That’s so. But he won’t do it, not if you don’t let him.”

  Papa Vidal obviously knew something of what Rip had in mind. He could have overheard a snatch of her exchange with the new owner of Blest, or Rip might even have discussed it with him. The two of them must have had ample opportunity to talk since Rip had taken possession.

  “Did he send you to tell me that?” she asked, her voice taut with suspicion.

  Papa Vidal raised his white brows. “Mist’ Rip? He don’t bother me none and I don’t bother him.”

  “You’re sure? He spent a lot of time hanging around here with you at one time.”

  “Didn’t have nowhere else to go, not after his mama died and his daddy turned snake mean, took to knockin’ him around. He was a good boy, used to hold my ladder while I climbed up to paint my skies.”

  “Yes, I—remember.”

  Looking away, she followed the swooping flight of a brown thrasher that landed on the sagging, wrought-iron fence of the old family cemetery located on the far side of the drive. The thrasher flitted into a tangle of Muscatine vines and briars under the cedar trees that shaded the graves.

  Anna, Rip and Tom had spent long days, years ago, playing among the tall monuments and white marble sofas of the above-ground tombs that lay inside the old fence. It had been their special, quiet place where no one else ever came.

  She had given Rip his nickname there one summer after he fell asleep while lying on the weathered slab covering her great-grandfather’s grave. It had seemed natural, since his dark head had been pillowed on the ancient, etched initials RIP—Rest in Peace. She had been only, what? Twelve, thirteen? Even so, she’d sat watching him a long time, letting him sleep because she knew his father often staggered home drunk at night and dragged Rip from bed to punish him for some imagined misdeed.

  Rip’s father had drowned while fishing on the lake near town during a thunderstorm. Evidence indicated he’d been too drunk at the time to seek safety. Rip, then at Angola prison, had not attended the funeral.

  “I know Mist’ Rip wouldn’t do anything against me,” Papa Vidal said, reclaiming her attention, “not if he could help it. But if he can’t have what he wants, then he’ll pull down the whole shebang, get rid of the reminders. Then he’ll go away and never come back. Reckon old Papa Vidal will have to head on over to the nursin’ home on the east side then.”

  “Autumn Manor? They say it’s nice. You might like it.”

  “It’s not bad, no, ma’am, just won’t be home. And ain’t no place there for Henrietta.”

  Papa Vidal, crafty old soul that he was, had an oblique way of getting at things, Anna knew. He would never come right out and plead his case, since that would make her feel bad if she had to decline Mid cause him the embarrassment of being refused. Regardless, he was asking for her help. He thought he had that right, given that once, generations ago, her ancestors and his had lived and worked together at Blest. The ancient obligation was unspoken, possibly even unrecognized, yet went deep.

  She said quietly, “I’ll do my best to see that everything turns out right.”

  His wise old face settled into lines of fatalistic acceptance as he reached to open her car door and hold it for her. “That’s all a body can do, ain’t it? Their best.”

  The words remained with Anna as she drove on to work, and then as she tried to concentrate on her job. The things Rip had said tumbled through her mind as well, along with old images of him, Tom and herself at Blest, images that she had thought long forgotten. She could almost see the three of them: roasting hot dogs over a fire in the old smokehouse in winter; playing dress-up with ancient clothes dragged from an attic trunk; spending a whole week one spring gluing a broken china plate back together. That day, they had used a piece of the plate to cut their wrists before mingling their blood and swearing to always protect and be true to each other.

  Papa Vidal had been a part of that time. He was always there, always looking out for them. She was troubled by his plea, and by the feeling that she must not fail him.

  There was one other thing that haunted her. It was the possibility Rip knew more about Tom’s disappearance than he was telling. That she might be able to discover just how much he knew had occurred to her in the parlor at Blest.

  She wasn’t sure it would work; still, she had to try. To do that, she had to agree to what Rip wanted from her, for there was no other way. But there was a major problem. First she had to convince her mother that trying to reestablish Rip Peterson was not only feasible but reasonable.

  Matilda Montrose could be depended on to go off the deep end when she discovered Anna had talked to Rip. She had never liked him, never approved of her son’s friendship with him, much less Anna’s, so she had always made things extremely uncomfortable when he was around. After the robbery and Tom’s failure to come home following Rip’s arrest, Anna’s mother had become almost unhinged in her hatred. Far from feeling any regret or compassion that he’d wound up in prison at only eighteen, she told everyone who would listen that he got exactly what he deserved. Anna would have to choose her words carefully to make Matilda listen to what she had in mind.

  She never got the chance.

  “What in the name of heaven were you doing at Blest with that man?” Matilda Montrose demanded as she met Anna at the door of their plain, ranch-style home when Anna returned from work. “I couldn’t believe my ears when Carolyn Bates told me she passed by and saw your car. How could you be so stupid? There’s no telling what he might have done to you!”

  Her mother had been drinki
ng; Anna could smell it on her breath, hear it in her voice. It had become the answer to everything for the older woman, an escape from memories she couldn’t bear, refuge from the changes in her life she despised. In weary irritation, Anna said, “Rip didn’t do a thing. In fact, he was a perfect gentleman.”

  “As if that were possible. Well, he won’t get another chance because you won’t be going anywhere near him. You hear me?”

  “How can I help but hear since you’re yelling.” Moving past her mother, Anna put her purse down on the catchall table in the entrance and walked on toward her bedroom at the far end.

  “I’m telling you how it’s going to be,” the older woman insisted as she followed her. “I won’t have you taking up with your brother’s murderer.”

  “You don’t know that Tom’s dead,” Anna said wearily. “And you certainly don’t know if Rip killed him.”

  “But I do! I feel it here, in my heart.” Matilda Montrose clenched a fist and pressed it to her ample bosom.

  It was an old claim. Anna felt she should have more patience with it, and with her mother’s anguish, but found it hard to sympathize with someone so determined to be miserable. She said with careful logic, “That isn’t proof.”

  “We’ve had no word in all these years. How much more do you need?”

  “I don’t know…Something more substantial.” She kicked off her plain leather pumps and began to unbutton the jacket of her suit. Her fingers weren’t quite as deft as normal—the only sign of her disturbance. Anna took after her father’s family, calm in a crisis and stoic in the face of pain. She was slender and of medium height where her mother was stout and short, fair where Matilda was dark. It seemed the two of them were never more different than when things went wrong.

  “He’s gone, you just won’t admit it,” the older woman insisted. “But never mind. I want to know what possessed you to stop at Blest knowing that man was there.”

  Anna explained the meeting in a few succinct sentences, omitting only the details concerning a possible marriage. There was no point in upsetting her mother over something so unlikely to take place.