Muletrain to Maggody (20 page)

“He was all fired up to hunt for family plots. I dunno why he thought anybody’d give a rat’s ass about a bunch of Buchanons that are long dead and buried.”

“Or some that are still breathing,” I said.

I left him growling and went to the PD to look through the address book. There was no notation of Wendell’s mother’s telephone number, but there would hardly be since he lived with her. Having heard of her frailty, however, I opted not to track down the number via the ever-friendly employees of directory assistance, and instead called Harve’s home number.

“Speak your piece,” he said brusquely. “The Cubs are gearin’ up to take on the Cardinals.”

“You have to send someone to the victim’s home to inform his mother. I don’t think she’s capable of making an official identification, but she should know the name of his fiancée.” I took a breath. “We agreed that this isn’t my case, Harve. I don’t see why I should have to drive to Farberville and do your dirty work.”

“But you did say you’d write up a report, didn’t you? Was there anybody else up on Cotter’s Ridge who might have been in the vicinity? We’re talking potential witnesses.”

“Is this a pregame warmup? You give me this, I give you that? One of us takes left field and the other right?”

Harve paused, then said, “Sounds like it, although that’s not how the game is usually played. You do the preliminary paperwork and I send a deputy over to break the news to Mother Streek. I also send you two deputies on Saturday to cause much distress to those good citizens of Stump County who don’t give a shit about the Civil War. Frankly, it sounds like you got the slicker end of the stick.”

“And you’re going to sit on your butt and watch baseball.”

“I most certainly am, soon as Mrs. Dorfer and I eat meatloaf and butter beans. I’m gonna hold off on the pecan pie until the seventh-inning stretch.”

“I’m not going to vote for you next time, Harve.”

“As long as you don’t think about running against me. You’re not near able to fill my britches just yet, little lady.”

I banged down the receiver and rocked back. Filling his britches, so to speak, would require thirty years of slapping backs at noontime civic club meetings and riding on the backs of convertibles in local parades. Shaking hands with the prosecutor during press conferences on the steps of the courthouse. Gaining two hundred pounds and developing a fondness for smoky rooms on the third floor of city hall. Winking at indiscretions and sweeping all manner of dirt under the rug.

After a few more minutes dedicated to fuming and sulking, I pulled over a pad of paper and started a list of potential witnesses, or at least those who might have been on Cotter’s Ridge that morning. Kevin, who’d already told me what he knew. Private Jeb Stewart. Private Waylon Pepperstone, who could have headed there after I left him. Dahlia’s granny. Darla Jean, unless she could explain her whereabouts. Ruby Bee and Estelle. Hammet, for that matter. Raz, most definitely but least appealing.

Take me out of the ball game.

I decided to start with Ruby Bee, since I might have a chance for a decent meal before I put on the thumbscrews and dragged out her confession. In that Jack might be at the bar & grill, I went to my apartment, showered, and changed into jeans and a tee-shirt. I was in a foul mood, but there was no reason to smell like an auction barn on an August afternoon. He was, after all, going to be in town for several more days. And nights.

Ruby Bee glared at me as I sat down on a stool as far away from Estelle as I dared. “I was beginning to wonder when you’d show your face. How hard can it be to return your own mother’s calls? You’re lucky I ain’t on a respirator in the emergency room.”

“And she might well have been,” said Estelle. “You would have been wracked with the guilt the rest of your born days. If I hadn’t been there to pull her out of that cave, why, who’s to say what might have happened? She had so many spider-webs in her hair that she looked like she’d decorated herself for Halloween. I had to hold her head between her knees for a good five minutes.”

“And this is my fault?” I said.

“You could have called me back,” Ruby Bee grumbled. “I hear you know about Hammet. We only fetched him so he could learn to appreciate his Southern heritage. You should have given a thought to that. These days history books sound like the Civil War was all about slavery. What about courage and sacrifice and—”

“Give me a break, and maybe a grilled cheese sandwich,” I said. “I know exactly why you picked him up at his foster home and brought him here. Where is he?”

“That man of yours took him to Farberville for pizza and a movie.”

“As opposed to dragging him all over Cotter’s Ridge for the last two days?”

Estelle snorted. “And for all the good it did. I’ve got chigger bites all the way up to my privates, and I’ve been obliged to slather myself with ointment until I stink like a locker room. There’s no way I can stand long enough to give a perm, or even a shampoo and set. I had to cancel Joyce’s appointment on Thursday.”

Ruby Bee set down a plate of chicken and dumplings in front of me. “So what’s this I heard about someone falling off a bluff on Cotter’s Ridge this morning?”

I could have demanded her sources, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Once Kevin had told Dahlia, and Dahlia had told Eileen, I could have heard it on NPR, had the radio in my car worked. “Harriet Hathaway’s colleague, the treasurer of the historical society. It seems he was hot on the trail of backwoods family cemeteries.”

“Buchanons, most likely,” Estelle said, then buried her nose in a glass of sherry.

“I heard they showed up early,” said Ruby Bee, “and Mrs. Jim Bob was fit to be tied, since Perkin’s eldest always takes off Mondays to go to her dance class. Estelle, do you recollect when we went to her recital at that Unitarian fellowship hall?”

Estelle grimaced. “How could I forget that? Grown women in tutus, pretending they were autumn leaves.”

“I thought it was real sweet.” Ruby Bee dabbed the corner of her eye with a dishtowel. “At the reception afterward, Perkin’s eldest told me that she felt like a sycamore leaf, yellow and mottled, welcoming death and then resurrection as compost.”

I finished eating and pushed away my plate. “As much as I would like to explore the topic of the regeneration of the life force, I’m more interested in knowing if either of you saw Wendell Streek or anyone else on the ridge this morning.”

“I saw that Confederate soldier,” Estelle said, “but he sure wasn’t any ghost. That’s not to say he wasn’t sickly, but he had some flesh on his bones. Once he spotted me, he ducked out of sight quicker than a rooster darting into a henhouse. Ruby Bee didn’t believe me, but I know what I saw.”

Ruby Bee gave her a cool look. “You also said you saw a bear, a wildcat, and a vampire bat. I kept waiting for you to add Bigfoot to your list.”

“I do not appreciate your attitude, Rubella Belinda Hanks.”

I intervened. “Can you give me any idea where you were at the time?”

Estelle took a few seconds to select a pretzel from the basket and examine it for defects before she said, “Maybe a mile or so south of the road that goes past the Pot O’ Gold.”

“Not near Robin’s shack, then?” I said.

“Hard to say, since we were wandering around in circles. It’s a miracle Ruby Bee and I found our way back here.”

“What about this soldier?” I asked. “Any impression of his height, age, or hair color?”

Ruby Bee set down a piece of apple pie in front of me. “If she saw anything at all. I know I didn’t, and I certainly wasn’t taking a snooze.”

Estelle snorted. “You was taking something, squatted like you were behind some bushes. I hope you didn’t grab a handful of poison ivy when you finished.”

“The soldier,” I said. “Can you tell me anything?”

“No, I just caught a glimpse, like I said. The only reason I even saw him was the sun glinted off the buttons on the front of his uniform.”

“You said he was sickly.”

Estelle closed her eyes. “Skinny, kinda gangly, sleeves too short to cover his wrists. I didn’t see his face.”

I decided I’d learned as much as I would, and I wasn’t inclined to be there when Ruby Bee stopped huffing and came around the bar to tell Estelle a thing or two about blurting out whatever came to mind, and so forth. Pies and pretzels might be flying before too long.

It was time to allow Darla Jean to explain her recent behavior. I drove to the McIlhaneys’ house and rang the doorbell.

Millicent opened the door. “Didn’t you get my message, Arly? Darla Jean came home in the middle of the afternoon. She wouldn’t say where she’d been or anything else, and locked herself in her room. I couldn’t coax her out for supper.”

“I can coax her out.” I went upstairs and knocked on her door. “Okay, Darla Jean, we can discuss this in the living room with your parents sitting on the sofa, or we can go out to my car and talk.”

“I didn’t commit a crime,” she responded. “You ain’t got any call to drag me out of here against my wishes.”

“Then you can call the ACLU when we’re finished. Now where’s it going to be?”

Darla Jean banged open her door. “In your car,” she said in a fierce whisper. “Can we please just get this over with?”

I led the way to my car and leaned against the hood. “Okay, what’s going on? From what your mother and Heather said, you’ve been acting really strange for the last few days.”

“So you’re arresting me for truancy? Didn’t you ever skip school?”

“I might have, but that’s not the issue. Where were you today?”

She began to snuffle. “I needed to be by myself, so I made a sandwich and took a walk. Is there some crime in that? My ma nags me day and night about chores and homework, and my pa sits in front of the TV in his undershirt and drinks beer till he falls asleep. All they do is criticize me.” She gave me a furtive look. “So what did Heather say about me?”

“Only that she was worried. Exactly where did you take this walk? Cotter’s Ridge?”

She sank to the ground and leaned her head against the bumper. “Okay, so maybe I thought I might find this gold. All these folks are coming into town this week. I don’t see why one of them should snatch the gold from under our noses. I mean, those of us who live here deserve it, don’t we? It’s been in Maggody for a hundred and forty years. It wouldn’t be fair if some Yankee came into town and took it.”

“Were you anywhere near Robin’s shack?”

“Yeah, I thought Robin or one of her bastards might have found the gold and stuck it under the shack or buried it somewhere. I even thought about searching the outhouse, but there was some critter scratching in there. I wasn’t about to open the door and find myself facing a rabid coon or possum. My second cousin in Benish had to have all those rabies shots, and she said it hurt like hell.”

“Could someone have been hiding in there?”

She curled her lip at my question. “It’s got so many knot-holes and rotten boards that it’s liable to fall over in the next big wind. I made sure nothing taller than six inches was in there.”

“Did you see anyone at all?”

“A guy all dressed up like a rebel soldier came up the logging road, gave me a real dirty look, and kept on going. I was so scared I could hear my teeth chattering. I finally realized he was one of those reenactors, although I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what he was doing on the ridge.”

“He didn’t say anything?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? He gave me a dirty look, that’s all, like I was the one who didn’t have any business being there. I mean, I’m the one who grew up here. You’d think I was trespassing on his private property.”

She was beginning to snuffle again, so I gave her a few minutes to get hold of herself before I said, “Did you see anyone else?”

“Some man dressed in a suit and tie, like he got lost on the way to a prayer meeting. He wasn’t anywhere near as scary as that soldier. In fact, he sort of reminded me of Mr. Frenchi, who taught math in junior high until he ran off with the vice-principal’s wife. He never gave us any homework on Fridays.”

“What was this man doing?”

“Sitting on a stump, wiping his neck with a handkerchief and peering at a notebook. I went over and asked him if he was lost. He said he was more like confused by this map he had. It was hard to make any sense of, but then he said he was looking for Hospiss Buchanon’s old place. I’ve never been there, but I told him I thought he was going in the right direction and all he needed to do was keep moving east.”

“Did he tell you why he was looking for Hospiss’s place?”

“Oh, something about folks buried in her yard. I didn’t pay much attention. After he left, I just sat there trying to think what to do, and then I got worried that the soldier was coming back to murder me, so I went back past Robin’s shack and came home. Can I go inside now?”

“Not yet,” I said, trying to sound sympathetic. “I can understand why you want to find the gold, but it doesn’t explain why you locked yourself in your bedroom all weekend and then skipped school today.”

“I wasn’t in my bedroom. There’s a walnut tree outside my window. I spent all weekend looking for…well, the gold.”

“And that’s all you were looking for? Crawling in caves seems haphazard, as well as dangerous.”