Deadly Decision (30 page)

“A long time later I heard someone feed the dogs. It seemed to scare Jimmy, and he crawled to his corner. Jack never came in, but Jimmy didn't come back. I wanted to call to him, but I couldn't.

“Then the sound of his breathing changed, and I knew he was dying.”

Ted pressed his lips to the top of his wife's head. His tears slipped silently into her hair.

“You came just in time,” Trina said, shifting in Ted's arms so she could see me. “I was frantic for you to help him.” She smiled. “And you understood; I knew you would.”

Actually, it had been Sandra who first spotted Jimmy, but I didn't mention it. Trina needed to live in her story, and I needed to feel like the saving father one more time.

Ted's words came to me: ‘I don't think God is done yet.' The thought made me uneasy, but I was more prepared than ever to face the next challenge.

 

 

 

 

35

 

Jimmy was released from the hospital three days later. We started sharing supper together at Sandra's house.

“I need to go home and get back into my life,” Betsy said at the dinner table a couple of nights after Jimmy's discharge.

“Aunt Betsy, can't you stay?”

“Honey, I'll come back, maybe when it's cooler.” She fanned herself with her hand.

Trina chuckled. “Sandra's house is air conditioned! You shouldn't be hot.”

Sandra reached for Betsy's hand across the table. “I feel like you're the sister I never had.”

“You're a special person,” Betsy replied, linking her gaze with Sandra's. “I feel blessed to have gotten to know you. This place has the feel of home. Maybe it's because my family is here right now,” she said with a laugh, “but it feels comfortable.”

Among hugs and tears, Betsy left the next morning. She promised to drive slower on the way home, and to call often.

I walked her to the car. “I love you, Bets.” I gripped her hand, not wanting to let go. “You were right about Barbara. I should have listened to you.”

“I think God needed you to take the path you took. Grandpa always said life's lessons are there for God's use. Nothing we experience is by chance. He has a plan, Bill. I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling God isn't done revealing His will yet.”

“Ted said the same thing.”

“Smart man. You should listen to your son-in-law once in a while.”

I returned her grin, and closed the car door behind her.

 



 

After a week at home, Jimmy still tired quickly and often rested, but the nightmares subsided, and his guarded expression melted more often into relaxed smiles.

He still refused to have anything around his neck. Although one place on the left side of his neck still seeped, his wound was healing better than expected, considering how infected it had been.

My new favorite past time was watching Sandra and Jimmy together. Overwhelming love flowed between them. I could feel its intensity radiating off of them.

The coroner called with more papers for Sandra to sign. Apparently, dead bones require as much red tape as live ones.

We lingered over the lunch table. “So what about the satchel?” Sandra asked. “Should we open it?”

With all the activity since we had found the cave, I had forgotten about the satchel again.

“Do you feel up to it?” Trina questioned.

“Are you kidding? I've never felt better. I hope it has something in it that will identify the skeleton. The coroner keeps insisting there must be a family legend about the body. I keep telling him there isn't.”

It only took me minutes to drive to our place and retrieve the satchel from under my bed where I had shoved it ten days ago.

“Looks like it might rain,” I said when I got back. Sandra was the only one in the kitchen. I placed the satchel in the middle of the kitchen table and sat down. Sandra sat beside me, and I was surprised when she wrapped one of my large hands in both of hers. My heart thumped pleasantly.

“Bill, I can never repay all you've done for me. God used you to find Jimmy. I don't understand His ways, but I have been so blessed.”

Her eyes were hazel, but different from Trina's. Had I even looked at them before? I was suddenly spellbound by their depth. We stared into each other's eyes, comfortable with the intimacy of the moment.

Trina bounded into the kitchen with Ted behind her. The moment was over.

“Where's Jimmy?” I grunted, rubbing my chin.

“Fast asleep on his bed.” Trina smiled, settling herself at the table. “I hope we do find out who those bones belong to. I hate to bury them as ‘unknown skeleton.”

“We have a family plot here in Darlington. We can put him there. He's been a part of the house for a long time, so I suppose it's only right he be buried with us.”

Ted stared at her. “You're sad.”

Sandra sat very still, her hands now clutched together in her lap. “I guess I am. The satchel made me remember a story my husband used to tell about his old family house—the one you live in now. Anyone want coffee?” She got up from the table and measured out grounds and poured water. I stared after her, unsure what was wrong.

Turning from the coffee pot, she leaned against the cupboard. “Dan—my late husband—used to talk about how his great-great-great-grandfather had built the house for his bride, and then passed it down to his two sons. When the War Between the States seemed imminent, many husbands sent their wives and children to the mountains to keep them safe. Only one of the brothers was married at the time, and he arranged for his wife and son to leave Darlington. Shortly after, according to the story, both brothers disappeared and were never heard from again. People believed they went north to avoid fighting.”

“That probably happened more than we know,” I said. “Not everyone agreed with the war.”

“I don't think so, Bill. There has always been a solid feeling of loyalty among southerners. Once the south is in your blood, it stays there. Nowadays southerners move north all the time, but they still remain southern.”

“So what happened to the brothers?” Trina asked, getting up to help Sandra with the mugs. “Did they come home after the war?”

“That's where the story gets confusing. The town sheriff disappeared at the same time. His body was found a few days later in the river, with a bullet hole in it. Some say the brothers killed the sheriff when he tried to stop them from leaving town, but there's disagreement about that, too. Dan found letters at the historical society that led him to believe someone else shot the sheriff and used the missing brothers as a cover-up. I don't know what's true, and I guess it doesn't matter.”

The clink of spoons momentarily replaced talk. Trina and Ted added sugar and milk; Sandra, with great precision, dribbled a dot of creamer into hers. Mine stayed black.

Trina wrapped her hands around the warm mug. “What happened to the wife and son?”

Thunder rumbled outside. “I think that storm is finally getting here,” I said.

We looked toward the window. Dark clouds swirled across the sky.

Sandra continued to stir her coffee. “Enough people believed that the brothers had abandoned the south, and feelings against the men were so bitter, that after the war the wife refused to return to Darlington. The house stood empty for years until their son, as a grown man, returned. It's been occupied by someone from the family ever since.”

Ted rubbed his jaw. “The cave must have been made when the house was originally built while there were still safety issues. I wonder if the two brothers moved all their valuables into the cave to protect them from theft while they were gone.”

“That makes sense,” Sandra said. “And when the brothers didn't come home, their possessions stayed buried.”

“I wonder why they didn't, at least, get the wife and son after the war?” Ted asked.

“So the cave must be where the story of hidden treasure came from,” Trina said. “After a while someone must have broken into the house but found all the valuables gone. Maybe the townspeople didn't know about the cave, or maybe they did, but didn't know where it was…”

I was impatient with the discussion. Speculation was not my favorite sport, preferring activity spurred by fact. “We'll never know the answers, so we should let it go.”

Ted raised his eyebrows. He had given me that advice once, and I had refused to accept it.

Thunder rumbled.

“Someone should go home and close our windows,” Trina stated, looking out the window again. “It's going to pour.”

“Already did it. I closed them when I went to get the satchel.”

“Thanks Dad.” She rewarded me with a smile. “But back to the cave, maybe the mom never told her son about it. If he had known, he could have sold some of the things that were stored there.” Trina's mouth turned down. “Poor little Isabelle. She had a room full of treasure and had to sell her bed.”

“We don't know that diary belonged to a family member,” I stated.

“Yes, we do,” Trina retorted.

“What has all of this got to do with the satchel?” I asked, looking at Sandra. “Why did the satchel make you remember that story?”

Sandra pulled the satchel closer to me. “Look at it, Bill. It looks like the letters DM are burned on the front.”

I turned the dusty satchel so that it faced me, and brushed the dirt that still clung to the leather.

“I see it,” said Trina, leaning across the table. “It does look like DM. Why is that important?”

“Are we assuming the satchel belonged to the skeleton?” Sandra asked.

“That would be my guess. I found it right beside him.”

“One brother, the older one I think, was named David McIverson.”

“McIverson?” I repeated. Besides being eerily like my own name, I had heard it somewhere recently, but couldn't remember where. “I thought the family name was Barnett.”

“That was Uncle Carl's name. His mother's maiden name was McIverson. She married a Barnett. She was the only child who survived the flu epidemic of 1912. Uncle Carl was her only child. He lived in the house all his life and never married. The house now belongs to Jimmy.”

I tried to connect Sandra's story, the satchel, and the initials.

“Did he accidentally lock himself in the cave?' Trina asked. “Why didn't someone look for him?”

“The way the door is held closed with that beam,” Ted said, “there's no way you could accidentally get locked inside. Whoever our skeleton is, he was locked in there on purpose, against his will most likely.”

It felt like someone was running a feather across the back of my neck. I rubbed the spot. A sense of wariness settled over me. It was the same feeling I had when entering Trina's house for the first time. Something was about to happen.

I don't think God is done yet
. Ted's words, and then Betsy's, played through my head.

The atmosphere became charged, and my heart rate accelerated. It could be the storm, but I didn't think so.

Something was going to happen.

Quickly I glanced around the kitchen; I didn't see the second ghost boy. There were no black shadows. Trina had wrapped her arms around herself, and Sandra was staring at me. Only Ted seemed unaffected by the change.

Suddenly opening the satchel took on more importance. The black spot on the family name could be erased if the skeleton turned out to be one of the McIverson brothers. The mystery would remain as to what happened to the other brother, but at least our skeleton would have a name.

But there had to be more causing the tension than the potential of giving a name to the skeleton. There would be no answers until I opened the satchel and discovered what was hidden within it, discover another part of why I had been brought to Darlington.

The wind picked up, pelting the windows with bits of sand. It sounded like millions of tiny fingernails trying to chip their way inside. My skin crawled. Pulling myself from the eerie sound, I tugged at the stiff leather binding that held the satchel closed.

Chairs scraped on the wood floor as everyone tried to get closer.

As the binding released, my heart rate soared to double-time. I pulled away from the leather, wondering if opening the satchel was a mistake. Maybe the tension pushing against me was not from needing to open the satchel, but a warning not to.

Some things were meant to stay in the past. What good would it really do to find out who the skeleton was? Our curiosity would be appeased. But would it make a difference to the dead man himself?

A second thought crowded into my head. I remembered what Sandra had said. The power of
name
was still strong in the south. It wouldn't help the dead man, but it was important to Sandra, perhaps more so for Jimmy. And, strangely, it felt important to me.

Whatever the reason, I was
compelled
to open the satchel.

Three sets of eyes stared at me, waiting. I grabbed the pouch and slid the open end over the edge of the table. I wiggled it back and forth.”

“What are you doing?” Sandra asked.

“This thing has been down there a long time. You never know what might have made a home in it.”

Nothing crawled out, and nothing scratched within it. Still thinking of spiders, I gingerly slid my hand into the stiff opening. Immediately my fingers touched something and I pulled it out.

“What is it?” Trina asked.

“Papers of some kind.”

I placed them on the table and lifted one decaying sheet at a time. The edges crumbled in my hands.

“Looks like business letters,” I said. “Here's a date, April 22, 1860.”

“That's the right time for David,” Sandra said. “Are there any names?”

“Most of the tops of the pages are too crumbled to read. Wait, here's one.” I separated the page from the others. Across the top was printed
David McIverson, Attorney at Law.
I slid the paper to Sandra.