Night Fever

Her mind drifted as she stared out her windshield at the residential area she was passing through. There were a number of stately homes on the main street of town, ringed by big oak and pine trees, and dogwoods that spread their petals wide in the spring in white and pink splendor. On the back roads to town were several old farms whose tumbledown barns and houses gave silent testimony to the stubborn pride of the Georgians who had held on to them for generations, no matter what the sacrifice.

One of those old farms belonged to Granger Cullen, the third Cullen to inherit it in a genealogy that dated to the Civil War in Georgia. The Cullens had always managed somehow to hold on to their hundred-acre possession. The farm was ramshackle these days, with a white clapboard house that needed everything done to it. There was television, but no cable because it was too expensive. There was a telephone, but on a party line with three neighbors who never got off the phone. There was city water and city sewerage, for which Becky thanked her lucky stars, but the plumbing tended to freeze up in winter and there never seemed to be enough gas in the tank to heat the house until money was saved to buy more.

Becky parked the car in the leaning shed that served as a garage, and then just sat and looked around. The fences were half down, rusted, and held up with posts that had all but decayed. The trees were bare, because it was winter, and the field had grown up with broom sage and beggar lice. It needed turning over before spring planting, but Becky couldn’t operate the tractor and Clay was too wild to trust with it. There was plenty of hay in the loft of the old barn to feed the two cows they kept for milking, plenty of mash to feed the hens, and corn to add to the bulk of food the animals ate. Thanks to Becky’s tireless efforts last summer, the big freezer was full of vegetables and the pantry had canned things in it. But that would all be gone by summer, and more would have to be put up. In the meanwhile, Becky had to work. Her whole life was one long, endless sequence of work. She’d never been to a party, or to a fancy dance. She’d never worn silk against her skin, or expensive perfume. She’d never had her long hair professionally cut or her nails manicured, and probably she never would. She’d grow old taking care of her family and wishing for a way out.

She felt guilty at her own horrible self-pity. She loved her grandfather and her brothers, and she shouldn’t blame them for her lack of freedom. After all, she’d been raised in a way that would prevent her from enjoying any kind of modern life-style. She couldn’t sleep around because it was against her nature to be that casual about something so profound. She couldn’t do drugs or guzzle booze because she had no head for alcohol and even small amounts put her to sleep. She opened the car door and got out. She couldn’t even smoke, because it choked her. As a social animal, she was a dead loss, she mused.

“I was never meant for jet planes and computers,” she told the chickens staring at her from the barnyard. “I was meant for calico and buckskin.”

“Granddad! Becky’s talking to the chickens again!” Mack yelled from the barn.

Granddad was sitting on the sunny side of the porch in a cane-bottomed chair, grinning at his granddaughter. He was wearing a white shirt and sweater with his overalls, and he looked healthier than he had in weeks. It was warm for a February afternoon, almost springlike.

“As long as they don’t answer her back, it’ll be okay, Mack,” he called back to the grinning, towheaded youngster.

“Have you done your homework?” Becky asked her youngest brother.

“Aw, Becky, I just got home! I have to feed my frog!”

“Excuses, excuses,” she murmured. “Where’s Clay?”

Mack didn’t answer. He disappeared quickly into the barn. Becky saw Granddad avert his eyes to toy with his stick and pocketknife as she climbed the steps, purse in hand.

“What’s wrong?” she asked the old man, placing an affectionate hand on his shoulder.

He shrugged, his balding silvery head bent. He was a tall man, very thin and stooped since his heart attack, and brown from years of outside work. He had age marks on the backs of his long-fingered hands and wrinkles in his face that looked like road ruts in the rain. He was sixty-six now, but he looked much older. His life had been a hard one. He and Becky’s grandmother had lost two children in a flood and one to pneumonia. Only Becky’s father, Scott, of all their four children, had survived to adulthood, and Scott had been a source of constant trouble to everybody. Including his wife. It said on the death certificate that Becky, Mack, and Clay’s mother, Henrietta, had died of pneumonia. But Becky was sure that she had simply given up. The responsibility for three children and a sick father, added to her own poor health and Scott’s ceaseless gambling and womanizing, had broken her spirit.

“Clay’s gone off with those Harris kids,” her grandfather said finally.

“Son and Bubba?” she sighed. They had given names, but like many Southern boys, they had nicknames that had little to do with their Christian appelations. The name Bubba was common, like Son and Buster and Billy-Bob and Tub. Becky didn’t even know their given names, because nobody used them. The Harris boys were in their late teens and they both had drivers’ licenses. In their case, it was more like a license to kill. Both brothers were drug users and she’d heard rumors that Son was a pusher. He drove a big blue Corvette and always had money. He’d quit school at sixteen. Becky didn’t like either one of the boys and she’d told Clay as much. But apparently he wasn’t taking any advice from his big sister if he was out with the scalawags.

“I don’t know what to do,” Granger Cullen said quietly. “I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me he was old enough to make his own decisions, and that you and I had no rights over him. He cussed me. Imagine that, a seventeen-year-old boy cussing his own grandfather?”

“That doesn’t sound like Clay,” she replied. “It’s only since Christmas that he’s been so unruly. Since he started hanging around with the Harris boys, really.”

“He didn’t go to school today,” her grandfather added. “He hasn’t gone for two days. The school called and wanted to know where he was. His teacher called, too. She says his grades are low enough to fail him. He won’t graduate if he can’t pull them up. Then where’ll he be? Just like Scott,” he said heavily. “Another Cullen gone bad.”

“Oh, my goodness.” Rebecca sat down heavily on the porch steps, letting the wind brush her cheeks. She closed her eyes. From bad to worse, didn’t the saying go?

Clay had always been a good boy, trying to help with the chores and look out for Mack, his younger brother. But in the past few months, he’d begun to change. His grades had dropped. He had become moody and withdrawn. He stayed out late and sometimes couldn’t get up to go to school at all. His eyes were bloodshot and he’d come in once giggling like a little girl over nothing at all—symptoms, Becky was to learn, of cocaine use. She’d never seen Clay actually use drugs, but she was certain that he was smoking pot, because she’d smelled it on his clothes and in his room. He’d denied it and she could never find any evidence. He was too careful.

Lately, he’d begun to resent her interference in his life more and more. She was only his sister, he’d said just two nights ago. She had no real authority over him, and she wasn’t going to tell him what to do anymore. He was tired of living like a poor kid and never having money to spend, like the Harris boys. He was going to make himself a place in the world, and she could go to hell.

Becky hadn’t told Granddad. It was hard enough trying to excuse Clay’s bad behavior and frequent absences. She could only hope that he wasn’t headed toward addiction. There were places that treated that kind of thing, but they were for rich people. The best she could hope for, for her brother, would be some sort of state-supported rehabilitation center, and Granddad wouldn’t agree to that even if Clay would. Granddad wanted nothing that even looked like charity. He was too proud.

So here they were, Becky thought, staring out over the land that had been in her family for over a hundred years, hopelessly in debt, and with Clay headed for trouble. They said that even an alcoholic couldn’t be helped unless he realized he had a problem. Clay didn’t. It was not the best ending to what had started off as a perfectly terrible day anyway.

Chapter Two

Becky changed into jeans and a red pullover sweater and gathered her long hair into a ponytail to cook supper. While she fried chicken to go with the mashed potatoes and home-canned green beans, she baked biscuits in the old oven. Maybe she could straighten Clay out, but she didn’t have a clue as to how. Talking wasn’t going to do the job. She’d tried that herself. Clay either walked away and refused to listen, or flew off the handle and started cursing. And to make matters worse, lately she’d noticed bills missing from the jar containing her egg money. She was almost certain that Clay was taking them, but how could she ask her own brother if he was stealing from her?

In the end, she’d taken the remaining money out of the jar and put it in the bank. She hadn’t left anything around that could be sold or pawned for easy cash. Becky felt like a criminal, which added to her guilt about resenting her responsibility for her family.

There was no one she could talk to about her problems except Maggie, and she hated to bother the older woman with her woes. All her longtime girlfriends were married or out on their own in other cities. It would have helped if she’d only had that. She couldn’t talk to Granddad. His health was precarious enough already, without taking on Clay. So she’d told Granddad that she’d handle it. Maybe she could talk to Mr. Malcolm at work and have him advise her. He was the only person outside her family who might do that.

She put the food on the table and called Mack and her grandfather. He said grace and they ate as they listened to Mack’s complaints about math and teachers and school in general.

“I won’t learn math,” Mack promised her, staring at her with hazel eyes just a shade lighter than her own. His hair was much lighter, almost blond. He was tall for a ten-year-old, and getting taller by the day.

“Yes, you will,” Becky told him. “You’ll have to help keep the books one of these days. I won’t last forever.”

“Here, you stop talking like that,” Granddad said sharply. “You’re too young to talk that way. Although,” he sighed, staring down at his mashed potatoes, “I reckon you feel like running away from time to time. What with all of us to look after...”

“You stop that,” Becky muttered, glaring at him. “I love you or I wouldn’t stay. Eat your mashed potatoes. I made a cherry pie for dessert.”

“Wow! My favorite!” Mack grinned.

“And you can have all you want. After you do your math and I check it,” she added with an equally wide grin.

Mack made a terrible face and propped his chin in his hands. “I shoulda gone with Clay. He said I could.”

“If you ever go with Clay, I’ll take away your basketball and hoop,” she threatened, using the only weapon she had.

He actually paled. Basketball was his life. “Come on, Becky, I was just kidding!”

“I hope so,” she said. “Clay is keeping bad company. I have enough trouble without adding you to it.”

“That’s right,” Granddad seconded.

Mack picked up his fork. “Okay. I’ll keep away from Bill and Dick. Just don’t bother my B-ball.”

“That’s a deal,” Becky promised, and tried not to look too relieved.

She’d done the dishes and cleaned up the living room and washed two loads of clothes while Granddad and Mack watched television. Then she supervised Mack’s homework, got him to bed, settled Granddad, took a bath, and started to go to bed herself. Before she could, however, Clay staggered into the living room, giggling and reeking of beer.

The overpowering maltish smell made her sick. Nothing in her experience had prepared her to deal with this. She stared at him with helpless fury, hating the home life that had led him into such a trap. He was at the age where he needed a man to guide him, a man’s example to follow. He was looking for a measuring stick, and instead of using Granddad, he’d found the Harris brothers.

“Oh, Clay,” she said miserably. He looked so much like her, with his brown hair and slender build, but his eyes were pure green, not hazel like hers and Mack’s, and his face had a ruddy look.

He grinned at her. “I won’t be sick, you know. I smoked a joint before I tanked up on beer.” He blinked. “I’m quitting school, Becky, because it’s for wimps and retards.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said shortly. “I’m not working myself to death to watch you become a professional bum.”

He glared at her dizzily. “You’re just my sister, Becky. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“Stand and watch me,” she said. “I don’t want you hanging around with those Harris boys anymore. They’re leading you right into trouble.”

“They’re my friends, and I’ll hang out with them if I want to,” he informed her. He felt wild. He’d smoked some crack, as well, and his head was about to explode. The high had been beautiful, but now that it was wearing off, he felt more depressed than ever. “I hate being poor!” he announced.

Becky glared at him. “Then get a job,” she said coldly. “I did. I got one even before I graduated from high school. I worked at three before I found this one, and took night courses so that I could land it.”

“Here we go again, Saint Becky,” he said, slurring the words. “So you work. Big deal. What do we have to show for it?! We’re dirt poor, and now that Granddad’s ill, it’ll get worse!”

She felt herself getting sick inside. She knew that, but having Clay fling it in her face didn’t help. He was drunk, she tried to tell herself, he didn’t know what he was saying. It hurt all the same.

“You selfish little boy,” she said angrily. “You ungrateful brat! I’m working myself to death, and here you are complaining that we don’t have anything!”

He swayed, sat down heavily, and took a slow breath. She probably was right, but he was too stoned to care. “Leave me alone,” he muttered, stretching out on the couch. “Just leave me alone.”

“What have you had besides beer and marijuana?” she demanded.

“A little crack,” he said drowsily. “Everybody does it. Leave me alone—I’m sleepy.”

He sprawled and closed his eyes. He was asleep at once. Becky stood over him in stunned agony. Crack. She’d never seen it, but she knew very well what it was from the news—an illegal drug. She had to stop him somehow before he got in over his head. The first step was going to be keeping him away from those Harris boys. She didn’t know how she was going to manage it, but she’d have to find a way.

She covered him with a blanket, because it was simpler to let him sleep where he was than to cope with moving him. Clay was already almost six feet tall, and he weighed more than she did. She couldn’t lift him. Crack, of all things. She didn’t have to wonder how he’d gotten it, either. His friends had probably given it to him. Well, with any luck, it would only be this once and she’d stop him before he could do it again.

She went into her bedroom and lay down on the worn coverlet in her cotton gown, feeling old. Perhaps things would look better in the morning. She could ask Reverend Fox at church to talk to Clay—that might do a little good. Kids needed something to hold on to, to get them through the hard times. Drugs and religion were opposite ends of a security blanket, and religion was certainly preferable. Her own faith had taken her through some storms.

She closed her eyes and slept. The next morning, she got Mack off to school, but Clay wouldn’t get up.

“We’ll talk when I get home,” she told him firmly. “You aren’t going out with those boys again.”

“Want to bet?” he asked her, his eyes challenging. “Stop me. What can you do?”

“Wait and see,” she replied, mentally praying she could think of something.

She went to work worrying about it. She’d settled Granddad and asked him to talk to Clay, but he seemed to want to hide his head in the sand about Clay’s difficult behavior. Perhaps it was the fact that he’d failed so miserably with Scott, his son, and couldn’t admit that he was failing again with his grandson. The old man had a double dose of pride.

Maggie glanced at her as she sat brooding at her desk. “Anything I can do?” she asked softly, so that nobody else could hear.

“No, but thank you,” Becky told her with a smile. “You’re a nice lady, Maggie.”

“Just a fellow human being,” the older woman corrected. “Life has storms, but they pass. Just hang on to the tree until the wind stops, that’s all you have to do. After all, Becky, no wind blows forever, good or bad.”

Becky laughed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

And she did. Right up until that afternoon when the call came from the magistrate’s office, informing her that Clay had been picked up for drug possession. Mr. Gillen, the magistrate, told her that he’d called the D.A. and they’d both talked to Clay, after which they’d sent him over to the juvenile detention center while they decided whether or not to book him. He had a pocketful of crack when he’d been picked up, drunk, in the company of the Harris boys outside town.

The decision to press charges for felony possession was up to the D.A., Mr. Gillen said, and Becky could bet that if Kilpatrick had enough evidence, he’d go for a conviction. He was very hard on people who dealt drugs.

Becky thanked Gillen for telephoning her personally and walked immediately into Bob Malcolm’s office to ask for advice.

Mr. Malcolm patted her absently on the shoulder after he’d closed the door, to spare her any scrutiny by people in the waiting room.

“What do I do? What can I do?” Becky asked him miserably. “They say he’s got over an ounce and a half on him. That it could mean a felony charge.”

“Becky, it’s your father who should do something,” he said firmly.

“He isn’t in town right now,” she said. Well, it was true. He hadn’t been in town for two years, and he hadn’t been responsible for his children ever. “And my grandfather isn’t well,” she added. “He has a bad heart.”

Bob Malcolm shook his head and sighed. He said, after a minute, “Okay. We’ll go see the D.A. and try to talk to him. I’ll phone and make an appointment. Maybe we can make a deal.”

“With Mr. Kilpatrick? I thought you said he didn’t make deals,” she said nervously.

“It depends on the severity of the charge, and how much evidence he has. He doesn’t like to waste the taxpayers’ money on a trial he can’t win. We’ll see.”

He spoke to the D.A.’s secretary and was told that Rourke Kilpatrick had a few minutes free right now.

“We’ll be right up,” he told her and hung up. “Let’s go, Becky.”

“I hope he’s in a good mood,” she said, and glanced in the mirror. Her hair was neatly in its bun, her face pale even with its hint of pastel makeup. But her red plaid wool skirt showed its three years, and her black shoes were scuffed and scratched. The cuffs on her long-sleeved white blouse were frayed, and her slender hands showed the ravages of the work she did on the farm. She was no lady of leisure and there were lines in her face that should never have been noticeable in a woman her age. She was afraid she wouldn’t make much of an impression on Mr. Kilpatrick. She looked what she was—an overworked, overresponsible country woman with no sophistication at all. And maybe that would work in her favor. She couldn’t let Clay go to prison. She owed her mother that much. She’d failed him too many times already.

Mr. Kilpatrick’s secretary was tall and dark-haired and very professional. She greeted Mr. Malcolm and Becky warmly.

“He’s waiting for you,” she said, gesturing toward the closed office door. “You can go right in.”

“Thanks, Daphne,” Mr. Malcolm replied. “Come on, Becky, chin up.”

He knocked briefly at the door and opened it, letting Becky precede him. He shouldn’t have. She stopped dead at the face she met across the big wooden desk piled high with legal documents.

“You!” she exclaimed involuntarily.

He put down the thin black cigar he was smoking and stood up. He didn’t acknowledge the exclamation or smile or make any kind of attempt at a formal greeting. He looked just as intimidating as he had in the elevator, and just as cold.

“You didn’t need to bring your secretary to take notes,” he told Bob Malcolm. “If you want to plea bargain, I’ll stick to what I tell you after I hear the facts. Sit down.”

“It’s the Cullen case.”

“The juvenile.” Kilpatrick nodded. “The boys he’s running with are scum. The younger Harris boy has been pushing drugs in the local high school between classes. His brother deals everything from crack to horse, and he’s already got one conviction for attempted robbery. That time he walked in and out of juvenile hall, but he’s of age now. If I catch him again, I’ll send him up.”

Becky had been sitting stock-still. “And the Cullen boy?” she asked in a husky whisper.

Kilpatrick gave her a cold glare. “I’m talking to Malcolm, not to you.”

“You don’t understand,” she said heavily. “Clay Cullen is my brother.”

His dark brown, almost black eyes narrowed and he gave her a look that made her feel half an inch high. “Cullen is a name I know. Another Cullen was in here a few years ago on a robbery charge. The victim refused to testify and he got off. I would have gone for a conviction without parole if I’d gotten him to trial. Any kin to you?”

She flinched. “My father.”

Kilpatrick didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His level stare told her exactly what he thought of her family. You’re wrong, she wanted to say. We’re not all like that. But before she could even speak, he turned back to Malcolm. “Am I right in assuming that you’re representing your secretary and her brother?”

“No,” Becky began, thinking of the legal fees she couldn’t afford to pay.

“Yes,” Bob Malcolm interrupted. “It’s a first offense, and the boy is a hardship case.”

“The boy is a sullen, uncooperative young brat,” he corrected. “I’ve already spoken to him. I don’t consider him a hardship case,” Kilpatrick said curtly.

Becky could imagine how Clay would react to a man like Kilpatrick. The boy had no respect at all for men—not with the example his father had set. “He’s not a bad boy,” she pleaded. “It’s the company he’s keeping. Please, I’ll try to work with him...”

“Your father’s done a great job of that already,” Kilpatrick said, totally unaware of the real situation at home as he went for her throat with sickening ease, his dark brown eyes stabbing into hers as he leaned back with his cigar between his big fingers. “There’s no point in letting the boy back on the streets unless his home situation changes. He’ll just do the same thing again.”

Her hazel eyes met his dark ones. “Do you have a brother, Mr. Kilpatrick?”

“Not to my knowledge, Miss Cullen.”

“If you had one, you might understand how I feel. This is the first time he’s done anything like this. It’s like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”

“This baby was in possession of illegal drugs. Cocaine, to be exact, and not just cocaine—crack.” He leaned forward, looking more Indian than ever, his level, unblinking stare faintly dangerous. “He needs guidance. You and your father quite obviously aren’t capable of giving it to him.”

“That was a low blow, Kilpatrick,” Bob Malcolm said tautly.

“It was an accurate one,” he returned without apology. “At this age, boys don’t change without help. He should have gotten that in the beginning, and it may be too late already.”

“But...!” Becky said.

“Your brother is damned lucky he didn’t get caught peddling any of that poison on the street!” he said shortly. “I hate drug pushers. I’ll go to any lengths to prosecute them.”