A Killing at Cotton Hill (10 page)

“Oh? Was it her heart?” She doesn't sound particularly moved by the news that her mother is dead. She has a different kind of accent, like someone who has been gone from Texas a long time.

“No, ma'am. I'm sorry to tell you she was murdered.”

“Murdered! Who would do something like that? Do they know who did it?” Although she sounds shocked, we could be talking about something that happened to a stranger.

“Not yet.”

There's a long pause. “I'm sorry, who did you say I'm speaking to?”

I tell her again. “I was a friend of your mamma's.”

Her voice warms up. “I remember you. I remember your wife, Jeanne. She's one of the nicest people I ever met. How is she?”

“She's no longer with us. She passed away last year from cancer.”

“Oh, that's terrible. She was good to me when I needed a friend.” If Caroline had wanted to get on my good side she couldn't have picked a better way than through Jeanne.

She asks when and where Dora Lee's funeral will be. I tell her, and suggest that it might be nice if she comes Sunday night for visitation.

“Is there a motel around there?”

“We have a new Holiday Inn Express on the east side on the way to Bryan. But you could stay out at Dora Lee's house.” And then I realize that I have no idea if Caroline even knows her sister is dead and that Greg lives out there. “You know your nephew lives out there?”

“Mother told me,” she says. So Caroline did have some contact with Dora Lee, although I know she didn't come back home for her sister's funeral.

I ask her if she wants me to make her a reservation at the hotel, but she says she'll tend to it.

I'm itching to know if Dora Lee went to Houston to see Caroline, so I slip in the question. “How long has it been since you've seen your mamma?”

There's a long silence. “Not since I left home.”

“She didn't come to Houston to see you?”

“I had been planning on getting together with her, but I hadn't been able to arrange it.” With her tone of voice, I don't need any air-conditioning to cool things down.

“Well, you let me know if you can be here Sunday, and I'll see to it there's a meal on the table.”

“I'll have to think about it,” she says.

Her coming to sit at the funeral home with her mamma's body is the least she can do, but she has already done the least she can do, which is abandon her mamma. Even I didn't do that, and I had every reason in the world to. Mamma treated my daddy and us two boys like we were snakes who had slithered into her house when she wasn't looking. It took me until I was grown before I put together my daddy's drinking with my mamma's meanness. And even longer before I realized she must have had something mentally wrong with her to act the way she did. Still, when she was dying, I stayed by her every minute I could, with Jeanne right next to me.

For the millionth time I wonder, how did I get so lucky to meet and marry Jeanne? And for her not to mind that I wanted to bring her to live in this small town. I went to college at Texas A&M. I chose it because it was the closest college to Jarrett Creek, and I could come home weekends and help my daddy with the cattle. Then in my last year I met Jeanne. We were married for forty years. I don't believe a couple was ever more suited to one another.

Thinking of Jeanne puts me in mind of another call I could make. I've been mulling over why Clyde Underwood would take a notion to buy Dora Lee's property. In these parts, if a property suddenly seems to be valuable, the first thing you think of is oil and gas. My brother-in-law, DeWitt Simms, is retired, but he still has a lot of connections. The truth is, I have connections, too, but I'd like to talk to DeWitt. He's living out in the hill country in a place called Horseshoe Bay. His answering machine says he's out “probably on the golf course,” so I leave a message for him to call me, giving him Dora Lee's phone number as well as my own.

Before I leave for Dora Lee's I go back down to the pasture to check up on the cows. They gather around me like I'm an old friend, which I guess I have been since Jeanne died. I walk by the tank and decide I'm still not ready to give up and let Jenny run her horses here.

As I get into my truck I admit to myself that after only a couple of nights at Dora Lee's I'm ready to come back home. But I'll stay out at the farm a little longer, until I can sit down with Greg and figure out what's to be done with Dora Lee's place and how he's going to make his way. But then I realize maybe it's Caroline I'll have to deal with. Dora Lee's place will be her property now as well as Greg's. From the way she dealt with her mamma, I have a feeling she won't be on friendly terms with her nephew.

But the biggest reason for me to stay out there is to continue to dig around in what Dora Lee has left behind, to find any clues as to who killed her.

When I get out to Dora Lee's, there's a hulking, black Acura SUV pulled up next to the house with a license plate number that's not from around here. The license plate holder has a Houston dealer's name. For a minute, I wonder if Caroline has decided to come right away. But then I realize there's no way she could have made it here so fast.

I go around back to the kitchen door. It's late afternoon and the sun hasn't let up, and as I walk into the kitchen I take off my hat and mop my brow. I surprise a man who is standing with the refrigerator door open. Closing in on fifty, with extra girth and an extra chin, he's dressed for town in a shirt and tie and wing tip shoes. He's got a good head of hair with some gray in it, and thick eyebrows.

“Sorry to barge in on you, I'm Samuel Craddock.” I put out my hand and he takes it up with a nice firm grip.

“No, I'm the one to apologize for making myself at home. I'm Wayne Jackson, Dora Lee's nephew.”

“Would you be Leslie's boy?” I wonder why he has a different name from Leslie's.

“That's right. Daddy called to tell me what happened to Dora Lee. I live in Houston, not that far away, and he asked me to come and see what needed to be done to take care of things, maybe help out Dora Lee's grandson. He said you shouldn't have to be putting yourself out.”

I tell him it was no trouble, and realize he's saying in a polite way that I should clear out. I think of that stack of Dora Lee's papers and wish I had taken a closer look at them this morning when I wasn't so tired, in case I missed something. But I really have no rights here. It's fitting that someone from the family should take care of Dora Lee's business. I feel like the Wizard of Oz with the curtain pulled back.

“I was just going to get myself a cold drink,” he says. “You want anything?”

I show him the iced tea Loretta left and he fills a couple of glasses.

“Did you meet Dora Lee's grandson, Greg?” I say.

“I did. He was in here getting himself some lunch when I came in. Seems like a good kid. Reminds me of my oldest boy.”

“Dora Lee thought the world of him. Come on back and let me show you what I've been up to,” I say. “Might save you some time.”

We leave our tea on the counter and go back to the room where I've gotten everything organized. I show him the stacks I've made of her papers, and give him the list of people I've called. “The only close family Dora Lee has left is her sister in Virginia and she can't make it out for the funeral,” I say.

“That's like my sister Lou,” he says. “She and her husband are back in North Carolina, and they're not going to make the trip.”

“How come you have a different name from your daddy?” I say.

He puts his hands in his pockets and jingles some coins. “My real daddy died when I was a few months old. Some kind of farm accident. I didn't know him at all, of course. My mamma married Leslie when I was two and he raised me like I was his own.”

I wonder why Leslie didn't give the boy his last name, but you can only take curiosity so far. “Your mamma still living?” I ask.

He gives me a tight smile. “Yes. She's over in Sugarland.”

I can see I've stepped into shaky territory, so I move on and tell Wayne I haven't been able to find a will in Dora Lee's papers. “If she didn't have a will, I expect what she has goes to her daughter, Caroline, and the boy.”

“Caroline,” he says and gives a bark of laughter. “She was a wild little thing. I only saw her a few times when we were kids. My daddy and her daddy didn't get along well. Didn't she move out to California and nobody ever heard anything from her?”

“Yes, she was in California for a long time. I had the devil of time locating her to tell her about Dora Lee. Turns out she's living in Houston now.”

“Is that right? I'll have to look her up.” He's jingling those coins again.

“I talked to her this afternoon, just before I came out here. I have her telephone number if you want to call her.” I pull out my notes and write down the number for him. I also write down my name and number.

“Is she coming to the funeral?”

“She didn't say one way or another. She hasn't seen her mamma in a long time.”

“Seems like she'd want to come out here. She'll inherit the farm and if it was me, I'd want to look things over.” His face is starting to get red, like he's flustered. I think about what Dora Lee told me about Leslie Parjeter being so stingy, and I wonder if Leslie has sent his son here to see if he can scrounge a little something out of the estate for himself.

“Caroline didn't seem all that interested. Anyway, the inheritance isn't going to amount to much. Dora Lee owed a lot on the farm.”

“That's too bad. I guess I should find out what Caroline's plans are.” He gestures toward the papers on the desk. “I wouldn't want her to think I'm overstepping myself being here.”

“I expect she'll be glad of the help,” I say. “There's one thing I ought to show you.” I find the letter from Clyde Underwood and hand it to him. “I know a little bit about land around here, and this is a low-ball offer. Whoever arranges to sell it can do better than that.”

He looks over the letter, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting in the middle with the frown on his face. “I do appreciate your letting me know,” he says. “I'll bear this in mind.”

He's got a friendly way about him, but I get the feeling he's ready for me to be gone. But he needs to know one more thing. So I tell him about Greg being taken for questioning and me getting him out of jail.

Jackson frowns. “You don't think there's anything to it? About the boy, I mean?”

“No, I do not. I think you'll find he's a fine boy who loved his grandmother. Don't let Rodell get away with anything. That's Rodell Skinner, he's the chief of police and a man inclined to take the easy way out. He may think prosecuting your cousin Greg is going to tidy up the business of who killed Dora Lee without him having to work too hard. Which means the real killer would get away.”

He nods, but I'm not sure he gets it. With a jingle of coins, he starts easing toward the hallway.

“If you have any questions, you let me know,” I tell him, “Now I'll just pack my things and get out of your way.”

“Take your time,” he says. “I'll be in the kitchen.”

I go into Dora Lee's bedroom to put my things back in my duffle, and I notice that Jackson has already set his big suitcase in here, up against one wall. My mind is working overtime, knowing this may be my last chance to get a close-up look at Dora Lee's things. I open the closet door. The idea of Caroline's wedding announcement has been eating at me. When I was going through Dora Lee's papers, I didn't find any little sentimental mementos, like birthday cards or shower invitations or letters from old friends. I'm thinking Dora Lee might have kept her sentimental belongings separate from her business papers. A few months after Jeanne died I was just about knocked over when I found a couple of shoeboxes in the closet filled with every letter and every valentine anybody ever sent her.

Dora Lee has several shoeboxes on the closet shelf above her clothes. My intended theft makes me so nervous that I fumble with the lids of the shoeboxes, scared Jackson is going to barge in to find out what's taking me so long and find me rummaging around. After looking through the first few boxes and finding only shoes, I step into the bathroom and flush the toilet. If he thinks I was in the can that should give me a little more time.

Sure enough, at one end of the shelf I find a couple of boxes full of cards. The boxes won't fit in my bag, so I spill the contents into my duffle and put the empty boxes back on the shelf.

When I get to the kitchen, I tell Jackson I'm just going to stop and say goodbye to Greg. “I'll see you at the visitation tomorrow night,” I say. “And if there's anything I can do to grease any wheels for you, just let me know.”

I throw the duffle into my truck, relieved that the evidence of my theft is out of sight. Then I go see Greg, whose eyes are all lit up.