“They call it illegal. He was running a damn mini-Mafia for years. That’s how he got shot. Mama knows that.” Albert Lee put the dishes into the sink and began to rinse them. “He got away with it, though, and then turned legal. The son of a bitch owns a bank now. He and his son. Lock, stock, and barrel, and the coal company their biggest account.”

“You’re kidding,” I exclaimed. I thought of Betsy Mahall working at the telephone company, of my worry about their being able to afford in-vitro procedures. Was nothing on this damn mountain what it seemed?

“I told you I bet they have Thomas Jefferson floors in that house,” Sister said.

“Probably,” Miss Beulah agreed as if Thomas Jefferson floors were common knowledge. “I think that house is why his wife Louellen married the old coot.”

“Terry’s mother?” I asked.

“No. Terry’s mother got taken with pneumonia a long time ago. Louellen was about twenty-five years younger. A country singer. Said she was on the Grand Ole Opry, but nobody had ever heard of her. Leastways up here on the mountain, we hadn’t. Heard of Conway Twitty, but no Louellen Conway.”

Albert Lee sat back down and crossed his arms.

“What’s the matter with you?” his mother asked.

“Nothing, Mama. Just waiting to hear the rest of the story.”

Miss Beulah gave him a hard look but continued. “Anyway, the girl was cute as she could be, little and blond like Barbara Mandrell, but I think she found out real soon that she’d made a bad bargain.”

“I think she was clinically depressed,” Albert Lee said.

“Well, of course she was, Bertie. Who wouldn’t be, having to live with Eugene Mahall?”

“Did he lose the use of his legs in the explosion?” I asked.

“Sure did. We thought he’d lost more, but then Terry was born, and Terry’s mama was a saint, so there wasn’t a handyman in the woodpile, I guarantee you.”

There was a challenge to Miss Beulah’s voice so we all nodded that we were sure that Terry Mahall was indeed a legitimate Mahall.

“Anyway, that Louellen hadn’t been there six months until she started trying to commit suicide. Jumped out of a second-story window two times, but just scratched herself up in some legustrum. The third time they say she crawled up on the roof and broke her arm when she jumped.”

“Why didn’t she just leave him?” Mary Alice asked.

“Well, she did, finally. Just disappeared. Old Eugene Mahall said she went back to Nashville, but everybody thinks she’s part of the Welcome to Alabama rest-stop ramp they were building up I-59.”

“Lord have mercy,” Mary Alice murmured.

The yellow cat strolled into the kitchen and jumped up on Albert’s lap.

“Or maybe the Chandler Mountain booger got her,” he said, scratching the purring cat’s head.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter
Fifteen