Chapter 7
B y early December, just over two weeks into rehearsals, the sky was winter dark before
Miss Garber would let us leave, and Jamie asked me if I wouldn’t mind walking her home.
I don’t know why she wanted me to. Beaufort wasn’t exactly a hotbed of criminal activity
back then. The only murder I’d ever heard about had occurred six years earlier when a guy
was stabbed outside of Maurice’s Tavern, which was a hangout for people like Lew, by the
way. For an hour or so it caused quite a stir, and phone lines buzzed all over town while
nervous women wondered about the possibility of a crazed lunatic wandering the streets,
preying on innocent victims. Doors were locked, guns were loaded, men sat by the front
windows, looking for anyone out of the ordinary who might be creeping down the street.
But the whole thing was over before the night was through when the guy walked into the
police station to give himself up, explaining that it was a bar fight that got out of hand.
Evidently the victim had welshed on a bet. The guy was charged with second-degree
murder and got six years in the state penitentiary. The policemen in our town had the most
boring jobs in the world, but they still liked to strut around with a swagger or sit in coffee
shops while they talked about the “big crime,” as if they’d cracked the case of the
Lindbergh baby.
But Jamie’s house was on the way to mine, and I couldn’t say no without hurting her
feelings. It wasn’t that I liked her or anything, don’t get the wrong idea, but when you’ve
had to spend a few hours a day with someone, and you’re going to continue doing that for
at least another week, you don’t want to do anything that might make the next day
miserable for either of you.
The play was going to be performed that Friday and Saturday, and lots of people
were already talking about it. Miss Garber had been so impressed by Jamie and me that
she kept telling everyone it was going to be the best play the school had ever done. She
had a real flair for promotion, too, we found out. We had one radio station in town, and
they interviewed her over the air, not once, but twice. “It’s going to be marvelous,” she
pronounced, “absolutely marvelous.” She’d also called the newspaper, and they’d agreed
to write an article about it, primarily because of the Jamie– Hegbert connection, even
though everyone in town already knew about it. But Miss Garber was relentless, and just
that day she’d told us the Playhouse was going to bring in extra seats to accommodate the
extra-large crowd expected. The class sort of oohed and aahed, like it was a big deal or
something, but then I guess it was to some of them. Remember, we had guys like Eddie in
class. He probably thought that this would be the only time in his life when someone
might be interested in him. The sad thing was, he was probably right.
You might think I’d be getting excited about it, too, but I really wasn’t. My friends
were still teasing me at school, and I hadn’t had an afternoon off in what seemed like
forever. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that I was doing the “right thing.” I