Come Back Dead (13 page)

I maneuvered the chair behind him, and he collapsed into it, laughing wildly. “Was ever rabble in this humor wooed? Was ever rabble in this humor won? If I hadn't gotten a little light-headed toward the end, I could have worked them till they were singing spirituals!

“Remind you of the war, Scotty?”

“This was over quicker.”

Drury laughed again, less nervously. “I hope you're right.”

20

The next day we had a council of war. That is, we had one eventually. At first light I drove the wagon to the nearest farm and used the phone there to call the local law. It arrived at Riverbend in the form of the county sheriff himself, Sheriff Frank Gustin. He was a big man with a round, downy face and rosy cheeks. While he listened to Drury's account of our night, Gustin stood with his straw hat planted squarely on his head and his hands on his gun belt. He didn't make a comment, ask a question, or even blink very often. The sheriff's immobility had Shepard rolling his bloodshot eyes. Even Drury, who could sell a story to a lamppost, seemed to lose heart.

When he finished listening, Gustin went out to look at the charred pole that was all that was left of the Klan's cross. I joined him there.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“Damned if I know, Mr. Elliott.” He gave me a long-toothed smile and took off his hat. His blond hair was cut so short that it had a pink cast from the skin underneath. It gave off a rasping sound when he scratched his head. “I didn't want to sound ignorant in front of Mr. Drury–not someone I've listened to on the radio a hundred times. But the truth is, I'm flat stumped. It's a relief to say it out loud.

“I mean to say, the Klan, for God's sake. You gentlemen wouldn't know, being from California. You probably think we Midwesterners keep eye holes cut in our sheets so we'll be able to wear them on short notice. But the Klan is dead and buried around here.”

“I grew up in Indianapolis,” I said. “I remember the Klan.”

“Remember it from the twenties, right? So do I. They came close to running this county back then, from what I've been told. They would have run it if it hadn't been for the Traynors.”

“They fought the Klan?”

“The old man did. Mark and Gilbert's father. From what I hear, he went toe-to-toe with them pointy heads. See, he was hiring a lot of immigrants for his factory at the time, a lot of them Catholic. The Klan didn't like it, but old man Traynor never backed down.”

“Do you think one of the motives for this cross burning could have been revenge against the Traynor family?”

“I'm telling you, the Klan is history. There's nobody left to take revenge for anything, not for what the Traynors did in the twenties or for some movie Mr. Drury made whenever.”

“Nineteen forty-one,” I said.

“That's another thing,” Gustin said, scratching away again at the five o'clock shadow on the top of his head. “Even if the Klan were meeting once a week around here like the Rotary, why would they still be mad about something that happened in '41? It's like a ghost story where somebody rises up from the grave fretting over something no living soul can even remember.”

Gustin reached out to poke the blackened post. It didn't disappear. “I'd hate to think this was a slap at the Traynors. They're good people. The folks in this county owe them a lot. Me, especially. I'm an appointee, you know, and the Traynors did the appointing. Sheriff Pyle, my predecessor, had a heart attack last year. He could have told you all about the Klan if he were still with us.”

More to the point, he could have told Gustin what to do next. Luckily, there were other people around to provide the service. Two of them arrived just then in a low, black car.

Linda Traynor got out of the driver's seat of the coupé before the dust had settled behind it. She was wearing another crisp white blouse, this one with short cuffed sleeves. There was a wisp of orange scarf tied around her neck. It matched her uncuffed, Saturday-morning slacks. Her brother-in-law also looked as if he'd been caught on his way to the golf course–or maybe the polo field if he'd gotten around to building himself one. Gilbert shook my hand but didn't meet my eye.

“Sorry I haven't been out to see you,” he said. “Hope you've had everything you've needed.”

“And then some,” I said.

“We tried calling, Scotty,” Linda said, “but your phone is out of order.”

Gustin, who had been standing at attention, finally thought of something practical to do. “I'll radio for a repairman.”

“Already taken care of, Frank,” Linda said. “Why didn't you call us, Scotty?”

“Carson didn't want to bother you,” I said, being careful not to say “frighten you off” by mistake.

“He should have known we'd hear,” Gilbert said. “Everyone in Traynorville knew about it within an hour of your call to the sheriff.”

“A fair number of people knew about it before that,” I said.

Linda led the parade in to see Drury. She headed up the little conference that followed, too. This time, Gustin sat down, with his hat off. We all sat, the six of us, in a circle of chairs while Drury told his story again. Given a more appreciative audience, Drury put a little more into it. I was surprised to hear, for example, that I'd stared down the mob with flinty eyes. Gilbert and Linda both glanced at me on that line. I couldn't call up flinty on short notice, so I just smiled modestly. Neither Traynor smiled back.

“I'd like to apologize to you three on behalf of the town,” Gilbert said.

“We owe them more than an apology, Gilbert. We owe them action.”

Gilbert looked as stuck for an inspiration as Gustin had been. Then he said, “There is that Faris person.”

“Who?” Drury asked.

It was my dropped ball, so I picked it up. “Eric Faris, Ralph Lockard's man from Alora. He's here in Indiana. Mrs. Traynor stopped by last night to tell you that. I forgot about it in all the excitement.”

“Think you could find Mr. Faris for us, Frank?” Gilbert asked. “Maybe bring him here for a visit?”

“If he's still in Traynorville, we'll find him.” Gustin went out to his car to make the call.

Linda didn't stop him, but when he'd gone, she said, “No stranger from California could arrange a cross burning in Traynorville.”

“It has always amazed me what money can arrange,” Drury said. It was a casual comment, but it killed the conversation. We all sat watching one another until Gustin came back in.

“He's likely to be staying in the hotel in town or the motel out on 32,” the sheriff said. “It won't take long to check.”

“You should be staying at the hotel, Mr. Drury, or at our home,” Linda said. “You shouldn't spend another night out here.”

“I can't let myself be scared off by some thugs in bed linen, either,” Drury said. “I have my reputation to think of. Anyway, I'm safe enough here with Hank and Scotty and Clark.”

“Clark made himself plenty scarce last night,” Shepard said. “I wonder if he knew what was going to happen.”

“Something may have happened to him,” Gustin said. “I'd better go back and check.”

I was curious about Clark's absence, too, so I volunteered to go along for the walk. Linda made it a threesome. “I could use the exercise,” she said.

This time Gustin led the way. It was an easy route to follow. Clark's solitary comings and goings had worn a smooth path from the collection of outbuildings, along the edge of the fallow field, and into the woods.

Gustin pulled away from us as we neared the field. Linda had lost the take-charge air she'd arrived with, or she'd set it aside. Even her purposeful walk had changed, becoming so hesitant that she actually stumbled once on the featureless path.

I caught her arm. “If seeing Clark bothers you, maybe you should go back.”

“It's not that. I wanted a chance to talk with you about last night. Alone. Now I don't know how to start.”

“Drury didn't leave anything out of his report except maybe the bit about how scared we were.”

“That's not the part of last night I mean, and you know it. Don't make this harder on me than it has to be.”

Gustin had stopped to examine the ground at the point where the field met the woods, and we caught up to him there, cutting our private conversation short.

“Deer tracks,” Gustin said as we came up behind him. “I do a little hunting,” he explained to me. “I wonder if Clark does. This would be a great spot.”

“Clark doesn't like guns,” Linda said.

Clark's home was a hundred yards or so into the woods. The cabin, which stood up off the ground on fieldstone pilings, was built of hewn timbers notched together at the corners and chinked with cement. The wooden shingles of the roof were green in spots, and the door and the window frames were unpainted, their wood as gray with weathering as the timbers. The only decorative thing about the building was its chimney. In place of the flat, sharp-edged stones that held up the cabin, the chimney's mason had used rounded stones from the bed of a creek or a river, probably the river that had given the farm its name. I couldn't see any water or hear any, so I asked Gustin where it was kept.

“The west fork of the White River is just through those trees behind the cabin. Isn't that right, Mrs. Traynor?”

“Yes. We'll wait here while you knock, Sheriff.”

Gustin hitched up his holster and stepped forward. The cabin door opened before he reached it. Clark came out as far as the top step. I'd seen him several times over the course of the week, and I'd almost gotten used to his face–or his lack of a face. But I was shocked all over again by the sight of him in the cabin doorway. It took me a second to realize that it was the first time I'd seen him without his ball cap. The cap had hidden a scar that ran across his forehead, a jagged dividing line between the pale, ordinary skin of his scalp and the red, raw remains of his face.

Clark missed the cap, too. He raised one hand to cover the scar, pretending to shield his eyes from sunlight that was barely penetrating the canopy of trees. “What do you want?” he asked.

The question hung there for a moment, allowing me to think, not for the first time, that the voice didn't match the man. It was too soft, too genteel. It seemed especially out of place against the background of the rustic cabin.

Then Gustin said, “We wanted to see if you were all right. There was some trouble at the farm last night.”

“What trouble?”

“May we come in?” Linda asked.

“You're welcome and you,” Clark said, looking from Linda to Gustin, “but not him.”

“Mr. Elliott is a guest of our family,” Linda said.

“He's not my guest,” Clark said.

Linda stepped closer to me. “If he's not welcome here, I'm not staying, either.”

“Suit yourself.”

The insubordination so moved Gustin that I thought he might pull his gun. He collected himself with an effort. “If you two would like to start back,” he said, “I'll be along directly.”

Linda nodded and led me away. It was an opportunity to resume our interrupted talk, but she was too shaken to take advantage of it. She did take advantage of my arm, though. She slipped her own arm under mine after another misstep, and left it there.

When we were clear of the woods, she said, “I apologize for Clark. He can be difficult. And unreliable. I meant what I said earlier. You three should come and stay with us at Traynor House.”

“Put Drury under the same roof as your mother-in-law? That wouldn't make your life any easier.”

A little of her hard edge came back. “What do you know about my life?”

I knew what Gilbert had told me, that Marvella had seized on her son's widow as a way of keeping the Traynor Company alive. But I didn't mention that. Gilbert was in enough hot water with his boss. I said, “The warning you passed on last night about Marvella–about her having to be in control–that's based on your own experience, isn't it? It can't make life very easy for you.”

“It makes it impossible,” Linda said. She slid her arm out from under mine. “I forgot you were an investigator. Or is this a sample of your hand holding?”

“I'm also a good listener. If you ever want to talk about it, give me a call.”

She didn't have a chance to turn the offer down. Gustin came up behind us then at a quick march. If he'd seen the local gentry walking arm in arm with the rabble, he kept it to himself.

“Clark was drunk last night, ma'am. That's all there was to that. He got back from Augie's around midnight and fell asleep or plain passed out. Didn't hear any of the commotion. I can check in town to verify the timing.”

“Don't bother,” Linda said. And then, less curtly, “Thank you, Sheriff.”

She had reason to thank him again when we reached the house. Eric Faris was already there, in the custody of a beanpole deputy. The baby-faced land agent was even more fidgety than he'd been in Alora. Of course, he now had something worthwhile to fidget about. He straightened, smoothed, and scratched away, presenting quite a contrast to Gustin, the deerstalker, who could do stock-still as well as any tree stump.

Their confrontation took place in the parlor with the rest of the cast looking on. It was a short confrontation, as it consisted of Gustin asking Faris where he'd been at two that morning and Faris stammering, “In bed.”

Before Gustin could ask about witnesses, Linda Traynor stepped in. “That should do for the moment, Sheriff. Mr. Faris, we know why you've come to Traynorville: to make trouble for Mr. Drury. We asked you here this morning to tell you that while Mr. Drury is staying in Indiana, he is under the protection of the Traynor family. You'll find that means something around here.”

Faris had found that out already.

“I'd also like you to pass a message along to your employer in California. Please tell him that the Traynor Company is prepared to offer Mr. Drury whatever financial backing he needs to finish his picture.”

That was news to everyone in the room, including, it seemed to me, Gilbert. The way he looked at Linda reminded me of how Drury studied Shepard during their chess games when the publicist made an unexpected move.

Linda was all moves now. Her energy was back, and she fairly glowed with it. “Sheriff, please arrange to have deputies posted here tonight. You can coordinate it with my brother-in-law. He'll be staying here, too.”