Finally she put forth an ultimatum, which proved to be a bad strategy. Ultimatums did not impress Reuben Atlee. The year before he got booted from office, Claudia married a man nine years younger. The Judge promptly fired her, and the coffee shops and knitting clubs talked of nothing else. After a few rocky years, her younger man died. She was lonely, so was the Judge. But she had betrayed him by remarrying, and he never forgave her.
"Where's Forrest?" she asked.
"He should be here soon."
"How is he?"
"He's Forrest."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"It's up to you."
"I'd rather talk to you, Ray. I need to talk to someone."
"Don't you have friends?"
"No. Reuben was my only friend."
He cringed when she called him Reuben. She stuck the cigarette between her gluey red lips, a pale red for mourning, not the bright red she was once known for. She was at least seventy, but wearing it well. Still straight and slim, and wearing a tight dress that no other seventy-year-old woman in Ford County would attempt. She had diamonds in her ears and one on her finger, though he couldn't tell if they were real. She was also wearing a pretty gold pendant and two gold bracelets.
She was an aging tart, but still an active volcano. He would ask Harry Rex whom she was seeing these days
He poured more coffee and said, "What would you like to talk about?"
"Reuben."
"My father is dead. I don't like history."
"Can't we be friends?"
"No. We've always despised each other. We're not going to kiss and hug now, over the casket. Why would we do that?"
"I'm an old woman, Ray."
"And I live in Virginia. We'll get through the funeral today, then we'll never see each other again. How's that?"
She lit another one and cried some more. Ray was thinking about the mess in the study, and what he would say to Forrest if he barged in now and saw the footprints and scattered boxes. And if Forrest saw Claudia sitting at the table, he might go for her neck.
Though they had no proof, Ray and Forrest had long suspected that the Judge had paid her more than the going rate for court reporters. Something extra, in exchange for the extras she was providing. It was not difficult holding a grudge.
"I want something to remember, that's all," she said.
"You want to remember me?"
"You are your father, Ray. I'm clinging here."
"Are you looking for money?"
"No."
"Are you broke?"
"I'm not set for life, no."
"There's nothing here for you."
"Do you have his will?"
"Yes, and your name is not mentioned."
She cried again, and Ray began a slow burn. She got the money twenty years ago when he was waiting tables and living on peanut butter and trying to survive another month of law school without getting evicted from his cheap apartment. She always had a new Cadillac when he and Forrest were driving wrecks. They were expected to live like impoverished gentry while she had the wardrobe and the jewelry.
"He always promised to take care of me," she said.
"He broke it off years ago, Claudia. Give it up."
"I can't. I loved him too much."
"It was sex and money, not love. I'd rather not talk about it."
"What's in the estate?"
"Nothing. He gave it all away."
"He what?"
"You heard me. You know how he loved to write checks. It got worse after you left the picture."
"What about his retirement?" She wasn't crying now, this was business. Her green eyes were dry and glowing.
"He cashed in the year after he left office. It was a terrible financial blunder, but he did it without my knowledge. He was mad and half-crazy. He took the money, lived on some of it, and gave the rest to the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Lions Club, Sons of the Confederacy, Committee to Preserve Historic Battlefields, you name it.
If his father had been a crooked judge, something Ray was not willing to believe, then Claudia would know about the money. It was obvious she did not. Ray never suspected she knew, because if she had then the money would not have remained hidden in the study. Let her have a rip at three million bucks and everybody in the county would know about it. If she had a dollar, you were going to see it. As pitiful as she looked across the table, Ray suspected she had very few dollars.
"I thought your second husband had some money," he said, with a little too much cruelty.
"So did I," she said and managed a smile. Ray chuckled a bit. Then they both laughed, and the ice thawed dramatically. She had always been known for her bluntness.
"Never found it, huh?"
"Not a dime. He was this nice-looking guy, nine years younger, you know - "
"I remember it well. A regular scandal."
"He was fifty-one years old, a smooth talker, had a line about making money in oil. We drilled like crazy for four years and I came up with nothing."
Ray laughed louder. He could not, at that moment, ever remember having a talk about sex and money with a seventy-year-old woman. He got the impression she had plenty of stories. Claudia's greatest hits. ^
"You're looking good, Claudia, you have time for another one."
"I'm tired, Ray. Old and tired. I'd have to train him and all. It's not worth it."
"What happened to number two?"
"He croaked with a heart attack and I didn't even find a thousand dollars," she said.
"The Judge left six."
"Is that all?" she asked in disbelief.
"No stocks, no bonds, nothing but an old house and six thousand dollars in the bank."
She lowered her eyes, shook her head, and believed everything Ray was saying. She had no clue about the cash.
"What will you do with the house?"
"Forrest wants to burn it and collect the insurance."
"Not a bad idea."
"We'll sell it."
There was noise on the porch, then a knock. Reverend Palmer was there to discuss the funeral service, which would begin in two hours. Claudia hugged Ray as they walked to her car. She hugged him again and said good-bye. "I'm sorry I wasn't nicer to you," she whispered as he opened her car door.
"Good-bye, Claudia. I'll see you at the church."
"He never forgave me, Ray."
"I forgive you."
"Do you really?"
"Yes. You're forgiven. We're friends now."
"Thank you so much." She hugged him a third time and started crying. He helped her into the car, always a Cadillac. Just before she turned the ignition, she said, "Did he ever forgive you, Ray?"
"I don't think so."
"I don't think so either."
"But it's not important now. Let's get him buried."
"He could be a mean old sumbitch, couldn't he?" she said, smiling through the tears.
Ray had to laugh. His dead father's seventy-year-old former lover had just called the great man a son of a bitch.
"Yes," he agreed. "He certainly could be."
Chapter 12
They rolled Judge Atlee down the center aisle in his fine oak casket and parked him at the altar in front of the pulpit where Reverend Palmer was waiting in a black robe. The casket was left unopened, much to the disappointment of the mourners, most of whom still clung to the ancient Southern ritual of viewing the deceased one last time in a strange effort to maximize the grief. "Hell no," Ray had said politely to Mr. Magargel when asked about opening things up. When the pieces were in place, Palmer slowly stretched out his arms, then lowered them, and the crowd sat.