First Lady by Michael Malone

from SBI documents had called to confirm that the snake tattoos on Jane’s ankles had been drawn with the same red magic marker that had written the label addressing the corpse to me. “Guess Who drew those tattoos.”
    â€œWonder why?”
    The forensics chief said, “I do what . You do why .”
    â€œI wish I was doing why faster,” I said.
    The taciturn Etham surprisingly confided something: “I got a friend tight with the Mayor, says Homer Louge is spreading bad junk about Cuddy, and folks on the city council are listening. Council’s had a lot of flack about y’all arresting Tyler Norris. Something needs to break on Jane soon.” In other words, should Sheriff Louge succeed in his smear campaign, I would be to blame for Cuddy’s downfall.
    â€¢ • •
    My mother’s family has held office in this state for a long time, and my wife was in the legislature for a term, so I know most of the people who show up at political receptions. It took me a while to make my way through the familiar flushed faces and recognizable high-pitched laughs in the crush of babble. In the crowd, former Raleigh Medal winners milled about wearing their medals on blue ribbons. Among them was the poet, Fulke Norris, father of the math professor on trial. Accustomed to being adored (he’d been one of the youngest and most decorated heroes in World War II), he now looked like Robert Frost and knew it and made sure everybody else did too: his carefully disheveled white hair looked exactly the same tonight as it did on the jackets of his twenty-three books of inspirational verse.
    The Norrises turned ostentatiously away from me as I approached their area. Frankly, I was surprised to see them here, since the evening was to honor the chief of the police department that had arrested their son Tyler. But perhaps they felt that their absence would be construed as fear bred of guilt. Slowly I squeezed past them toward the far side of the rotunda where I saw Cuddy backed against a Corinthian column shaking hands with pudgy businessmen. Tall and lanky in his white dinner jacket, he stood under a huge painting of a few ragtag Tarheel Revolutionaries defeating the entire British army. He was smiling but looked strained. Maybe he was disappointed that Lee wasn’t coming to the ceremony tonight. Or maybe her absence was a relief to him.
    â€œI saw where the People’s Poet cut you dead.” He pointed at Fulke Norris. “Your mama’s got a bunch of his books right there by her hospital bed. I checked one out. A Chorus of Comfort. Terrible. Anybody who rhymes ‘Dalmatian’ with ‘salvation’ and ‘offspring’ with ‘golf green,’ it’s no surprise his son’s a killer.” Cuddy waved his jacket flaps. “This air-conditioning needs to fight harder.”
    Sergeant Zeke Caleb joined us and pumped our hands, glad to find familiar faces. Six-foot-three and 220 pounds, he took shallow breaths in order not to explode out of his rented tuxedo.
    Cuddy patted his ruffled shirt. “ Oh-see-yoh. Toh-hee-joo .”
    Zeke grinned at him. “ Oh-sah-dah. Nee-hee-nah ?”
    Cuddy grinned back. “ Oh-sah-dah. Wah-doh.”
    I asked, “What’s that all about?”
    â€œZeke’s teaching me Cherokee. You just heard everything I know. ‘Hi, how are you? Fine. How ’bout you? Fine. Thanks.’”
    Zeke stopped smiling before he popped his collar button. “We got a deal. He’s teaching me Spanish. I bet I get a lot more use out of mine.”
    Suddenly a state militia guard marched over, saluted us, and barked, “Captain Mangum. Please follow me, sir.”
    Cuddy said to me, “Good-bye, old friend. It’s a far far better place I go than you have ever been. Or are likely ever to get to go.”
    Zeke said, “Chief, Nancy just wants you to know she’s sorry she had to blow off your big night, but