Grave Undertaking (11 page)
“She knows something about Sammy Calhoun?”
“She thinks so. He’d come to her about a story.”
I felt the tingle in the back of my neck. That fit with Cassie’s information. “Did she contact Ewbanks?”
“No, and she won’t. She’s afraid.”
“Of Ewbanks?”
“She just said she couldn’t trust anyone in the system. Sammy Calhoun was proof of that.”
“Are you printing her story?”
“What story? She won’t talk to me. Says she doesn’t want to get me killed.”
“How about Tommy Lee? Will she tell him?”
“She wants to talk to you.”
“Me? I don’t know the woman and only vaguely remember seeing her byline.”
“She knows we worked together on the Willard murders,” said Melissa. “She guessed you helped get the information for yesterday’s story. Annette’s sharp. She figures you’ve got a vested interest since Susan’s involved.”
That’s the problem with a small town. Everybody knows your vested interests. “Where does she want to meet?”
“Her place. It’s off the road to Chimney Rock.”
“Can we go tomorrow?”
“You can. I’m shut out.”
“Shut out?”
“She’s scared,” said Melissa. “Scared for me. And Annette Nolan doesn’t frighten easily. She told me she’s afraid I’ll stick my nose in some hole and end up buried in one like Calhoun.” Melissa laughed. “For some reason she thinks you’ll keep your nose out of trouble.”
I touched my nose and the pain shot up to my eyes. “Okay. Give me her number.”
“Sure,” she said, and the lilt in her voice told me what was coming next. “For a price.”
“You’ll get the story, Melissa.”
“The exclusive story,” she corrected. “You talk to no one until it clears my paper and the wires. Including Susan’s aunt.”
“I promise.” What did I have to lose? When Annette Nolan saw my nose for trouble, there’d be no story.
Maybe she’d believe I was injured in a high-speed funeral procession.
The night passed in fitful chunks. At one in the morning, I took two more Tylenol and got three hours’ sleep out of the next five. Dawn was another hour away when I gave up and went downstairs to the office.
I reviewed the packet of material from Hoffman Enterprises. Their fringe benefits were far greater than what we could afford as an independent operation. Even Freddy would qualify for the 401-k, and I knew he had trouble squirreling away money for a rainy day. The supplies Hoffman used weren’t my first choice, but I might be able to supplement their basic stock with my preferences, particularly the restorative cosmetics. I thought about applying a heavy coat to my own face.
At seven-thirty, I heard Mom and Dad stirring upstairs. I started a pot of coffee to greet them and returned to the Slumber Room to get things ready for transport to Crab Apple Valley Baptist Church.
Claude McBee had been whisked away to the cooler temperature of the back room last night. A scattering of loose petals and leaves marked the spot where I had crashed through the largest floral arrangement. I carried the remaining ones onto the back porch where it would be easier for Uncle Wayne and Freddy to load them later.
A check in the downstairs bathroom mirror showed me I did indeed look worse. My nose needed only horn-rimmed glasses to pass for the joke disguise kids bought from novelty shops. The color under my eyes had darkened from blue-green to black, and I was glad I wouldn’t be giving Stony McBee the satisfaction of seeing his handiwork.
I poured myself a cup of coffee as Mom and Dad entered the kitchen. They were dressed and ready for their morning outing. A flash of alarm crossed Mom’s face at the sight of my bruised features. Then she managed a smile.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like Muhammad Ali’s sparring partner,” I said.
“Can I bring you anything from the store?”
“Just a grocery bag to put over my head so I don’t scare small children.”
Dad came right up to me and stared. He reached out and gently touched my nose. “Football?”
I knew he wasn’t commenting on the size. His mind had jumped back fifteen years to when I’d taken a cleated foot to the face. My unorthodox defensive move had tripped the opposing fullback short of the goal line and stopped the game while the referees removed his shoe from my helmet. At least I’d gotten a standing ovation as they carried me off the high school field.
“Yeah, Dad. Big game last night. I knocked them dead.”
I helped my parents navigate the ice to their car and gave Mom a warning to watch slick spots in the Ingles supermarket parking lot. I told her I felt well enough to return to my cabin and I’d call later to let her know how I was doing.
At eight-thirty, I telephoned Annette Nolan, afraid if I waited any longer, she’d leave for a day of Saturday errands. A woman creaked a hello. She sounded as ancient as the hills.
“Miss Nolan?”
“Yes, who’s this?” she demanded, her voice suddenly stronger.
“Barry Clayton. Melissa Bigham suggested I call you. I wondered if you’d have time to see me today.”
“Right now.”
It wasn’t a question.
I crossed an ice-choked creek and wound the jeep up through a barren apple orchard. The road had been plowed, and the gravel was thick enough to provide good traction. Annette Nolan said her farmhouse was about halfway to the top of the ridge.
She had described her home as two storied and white sided, which fit most farmhouses that were better than a tarpaper shack or the abandoned homestead collapsing beside the next generation’s mobile home.
The road turned onto the ridge’s southern exposure where patches of rock and weeds broke through the melted snow. The apple trees stopped at the edge of a barbed wire fence encompassing several acres of sloping pasture. Beyond the enclosure stood a barn and what I gathered to be Annette Nolan’s residence. It wasn’t what I expected.
The paint was dingy, but the architecture appeared wondrously Victorian. A corner turret contained round windows with mullions shaped like the steering wheel of a sailing ship. One would expect to stare out those glass panes at the ocean, not the Appalachian mountains.
The road split, with a branch headed to the barn and the other looping back to form a circular driveway in front of the house. I parked beside the stone steps to the porch. Embedded in the side of the top step was a tarnished plaque reading
CONNEMARA
II—1955. I recognized the word Connemara as the name of the poet Carl Sandburg’s home over in Flat Rock and knew this structure must hold an interesting story.
I rapped on the door and then listened for footsteps. Hearing none, I peered through the window. A log burned low in the living room fireplace. The glow flickered across an afghan-covered sofa and a couple of dilapidated easy chairs. Hundreds of books were piled along the floor and jammed into shelves that lined the walls.
I stuck my head in the door and called for Miss Nolan. Somewhere out of sight, a cat meowed. Hesitant to wander in uninvited, I left the porch and followed the cleared road around to the barn. A green Subaru Outback sat next to the windowless side of the rough plank building. The snow lay heavier in the protection of the barn’s shadow, and my boots crunched through the crusty surface as I sought an entrance.
The barn’s doors were wide open, but an inner gate of unfinished slats barred the way. An old man with a long gray beard studied me from the other side. He let out a sharp raspy bleat that made me jump. A billy goat.
The chilly breeze bore the pungent odor of livestock. Even my swollen nose caught a strong whiff. I heard more bleats and a chanting chorus of goats emerged from the depths to see what triggered the alarm. They crowded together, jostling their brown fur hides against each other and eyeing me suspiciously. Over their cries, I heard, “Let yourself in. They won’t hurt you.”
I opened the gate just enough to squeeze through. My original greeter met me and immediately pressed his knobby head into my thigh. I scratched him behind the ears. He eased the pressure, content to be rubbed in a place he couldn’t reach. We walked in step in the direction of the voice, my guard nudging me forcefully each time I stopped petting him.
Inside the first stall, I saw a tethered nanny goat standing broadside. Underneath her belly, hands rhythmically squeezed the dangling teats, sending short bursts of milk into a pail. A pair of brown scuffed brogans held the shiny aluminum receptacle in place.
“Miss Nolan?” I asked, finding it hard to believe the owner of the hands and shoes could be my quarry.
The milking stopped. Around the butt end of the goat appeared a smiling face whose youthful, blue eyes seemed out of place in the wind-burned features of an old woman. A black knit stocking hat almost covered wisps of gray hair, and the upturned collar of a Navy pea coat touched the lobes of her ears.
If she startled me, I, at least, jarred her expectations. “Good gracious alive,” she exclaimed. “What did the other guy look like?”
“A lot like Stony McBee. We had a little disagreement about the best place to carry a pocket watch.”
“You must have argued for the owner’s pocket.”
A hard push knocked me sideways.
“Jasper,” yelled the woman. “Git!”
The perfectly named creature snorted, and then bolted away to resume his station at the barn gate.
“Sorry. Jasper’s prone to forget who runs this place. Now, I just need a few minutes more with Molly.”
“That’s okay, Miss Nolan. I’m in no hurry.”
“The name’s Annette. I haven’t been a Miss since three daughters and five grandchildren ago.”
She returned to her milking. I stood there, not sure whether to talk to the side of a goat or not.
“Melissa Bigham says you’re okay,” she said.
“She’s a straight shooter.”
“Surprised we haven’t met, Barry. I’ve known your dad and mom for years.”
“I’ve only been back since my father’s illness got too bad.”
The milking paused as she considered what to say. Evidently, nothing measured up.
“I seem to have a knack for attracting trouble,” I said.
“That’s what happens when you’re the clearing house for all the bodies. My cousin runs a funeral home in Brevard.”
“Bryant and Son?” I asked. “They’ve been in business forever.”
“My uncle founded it in 1928. Same year my father started the Vista.”
“You own the newspaper?”
“No. Dad sold it in 1955.”
“And built Connemara the second,” I said.
Annette Nolan stood up from behind the goat. Her surprise lasted only an instant. “Oh, you saw the plaque.” She bent over, lifted the pail, and unhooked Molly from her tether. “After I put this in the fridge, we’ll have a cup of hot tea.”
As we left the barn, I asked, “What’s the connection to Sandburg’s Connemara?”
“My father and Sandburg were friends. When he moved to Flat Rock in the late Forties, Sandburg gave my father an interview. He was an old newspaperman himself and they hit it off. He didn’t socialize much with the locals. Most people knew him as Sandburg the goatkeeper, not Sandburg the poet.”
“Goatkeeper?”
“Actually it was his wife. Mrs. Sandburg developed her own breed. You just met some descendants.”
“And the house?”
“My father admired Connemara. He knew the Smythe family who lived there before the Sandburgs. Our home isn’t a carbon copy, to use a word lost in today’s computer age, but the inside has the same feel. My father built it on land the family had owned since his grandfather ran the inn and tavern on the coach road from Shelby to Asheville. When Daddy sold the paper, he secured a lifelong position for me, built Connemara the second, and put the rest of his money in a company called International Business Machines.” She winked at me.
Even I knew International Business Machines became better known as IBM, Big Blue. I suspected Annette Nolan didn’t need to sell goat cheese and apples to supplement her social security check.
We entered the house through the back porch, and she pointed me to a chair at her kitchen table. The cabinets and counters were white with red enamel trim, a color scheme shared with some cars of 1955. Mismatched appliances told me replacements had been made upon the death of the old ones and not before.
Annette hung her pea coat and cap on the knob of the pantry door and revealed a pair of bib overalls and a red flannel shirt underneath. She wore her gray hair close cropped, and her short, wiry body moved around the room without signs of arthritis common to most of her generation. She set a pot of tea, two mugs, and a pitcher of goat’s milk between us.
“Sugar?” she asked.
“No, thanks.”
“Then try this.” She pulled a mason jar from a cabinet and slid it over to me. The light golden color of its contents tipped me off.
“Sourwood honey,” I said.
“Make it myself. Or rather my bees do.” She shook her head. “Don’t know for how much longer. Something’s destroying them. Mites or pollution. There’s a reason we call sex the birds and the bees. That we’re killing off both of them doesn’t bode well for humanity’s future.”
I stirred a thick teaspoon into my mug.
Without missing a beat, Annette continued, “So, somebody killed off Sammy Calhoun and bunked him with Pearly Johnson.”
“Shot him right between the eyes.” Annette was a woman for whom I didn’t feel I needed to sugarcoat, or rather honey-coat, anything.
“Well, that makes me feel better.”
She couldn’t help but see the shock in my blackened eyes. “I didn’t want him murdered. I’m just glad he didn’t cheat me.”
“Cheat you?”
She took a sip of tea. “I guess it’s about time we got down to it. I suppose Melissa told you she’s mad at me because I’m going to tell you things I wouldn’t share with her.”
“She says you shut her out, but she’s negotiated for my exclusive story.”
Annette chuckled. “Glad to know I trained her well. But I didn’t train her to take on a killer.” Her expression turned deadly serious. “This was nearly seven years ago. I was seventy-three and figuring to retire at seventy-five. Maybe just write a weekly column. My husband had died the year before and I was taking stock of life. As a reporter, I regretted that I’d never broken a major story. Those don’t come along in a small town like Gainesboro.”
“That’s the trade-off for living in a place where you leave your doors unlocked.”
“You’re right, and I had almost made peace with that. Then Sammy Calhoun came to me with a proposition. He claimed to have evidence of sexual misconduct in the justice system.”
“In Laurel County?”
“Why not? We have sex in Laurel County.”
“But Tommy Lee is such—”
She cut me off. “A straight arrow? Calhoun didn’t say it was in the Sheriff’s Department. Wouldn’t say much of anything other than the story was too hot and could be squelched. I was skeptical and he knew it.”
“Did you turn him away?”
“Sammy was a slick operator. Somehow he read me like a book, knew I wanted the story for my own ego.” She laughed. “Remember, I was young and foolish.”
“A mere seventy-three.”
“And there was something else. Calhoun told me he suspected some of the girls were underage, maybe acting out of fear. I thought about my own granddaughters and the idea made me furious.”