“Makes no matter if you believe or not, truth is truth. You don’t believe in God, God still exists and laughs at you for yur stupidity. Things happen. Bad things happen. Yur dear old daddy wuz an evul sonofabitch and he caused the death of my sist’r Selma.”
I could feel some tension mounting, so I crossed the large room towards Bella to ask her about her friend in the car outside. I was hoping that my interruption and vague attempt at Southern hospitality might slow down the explosion Saunders intended for all of us. While Saunders was silently fuming at this revelation concerning her life, I spoke to Bella.
“Someone drove you here,” I said.
“My friend Bart. He wanted to stay in the car. Not very sociable.”
“We might as well invite him inside to eat with us. What is one more mouth to feed?” my mother said. May nodded and stood to no doubt go to the kitchen.
I looked at Saunders thinking that she would react to my mother’s remark and to May’s movement. She was now silently fuming and talking to herself. She had returned to a seated position and was on the edge of her chair as if planning to move quickly at some juncture.
“He won’t cum inside. He’s shy and don’t talk much to strangers. He’s a’little shell-shocked. Served in the Korean conflict. He’s satisfied out there. We’d be better off to leave ‘im be,” Bella said to me in low tones.
I shook my head at my mother and held up a palm to May to signal a no on adding another plate.
Saunders broke the intense mood.
“Reverend Rowland’s wife was Cybil. She was a sister to my mother, Selma. That’s what they told me all of my life. No one ever mentioned anybody like you in the family,” Saunders said, still upset over Bella’s comments. I could tell that her anger was growing towards this strange woman who had invited herself to our so-called party. Bella’s revelations were not sitting well with Saunders. To be sure.
“That was true enough. Never tolt’ you ‘bout me, huh?” Bella answered.
“Not even a hint.”
“No surprises there. Cybil wuz the stupid one. She wuz under the spell of yur daddy. By the way, his real name was Robert Lee Saunders. After yur muther died, he changed his name to Rowland and moved away, he and Cybil. Moved to Virginia and became the good reverend. He always was real good at pretense. But the truth is that he wuz still evul. Evul can hide, but evul can’t change. Evul has no reason to change.”
I walked slowly to position myself between Saunders and Bella. At first I had my back to Saunders and faced Bella. I had some questions. I was hoping to contain the mounting anger in Saunders. I wanted to defuse the situation happening at that moment. I also wanted to give Rosey some more time to do something heroic here. Really heroic. I was still calm, but I could sense my anxiety climbing to undesirable heights.
“I have some questions for you, Bella,” I said as I moved towards the seat I had previously occupied. I was walking back to my seat in Saunders’ direction.
“You told me that a man named Franklin Saunders, an older brother to Robert Lee, had raped your sister Selma,” I said.
“As far as Selma wuz concerned, that’s what happen’d. She had never met Cybil’s boyfriend. Robert Lee and Cybil met at sum dance. Cybil wuz immediately under his spell. Later, Robert Lee saw Selma at church and wanted her. ‘Cause he had giv’n my sister Cybil his real name at that dance, he lied to Selma at church and told’er that he wuz Franklin Saunders. She agreed to meet him later at sum greasy spoon place for drinks. Then he ask’d to walk her home, and that’s when he raped her.”
“So Selma never saw Robert Lee and Cybil together,” I said.
“Selma wuz the pretty one. Cybil was the gullible one. I wuz ugly and smart, and had that other thing. Selma wuz beaten up durin’the rape. Lots of head wounds. Affected her memory. All she cud say wuz a good lookin’ man named Franklin Saunders had his way with her. Funny how she could recollect his name and nothing else, huh?”
“Explains the birth certificate,” I said.
“You know about this crap?” Saunders interjected suddenly as if she had emerged from some trance and realized that I knew some of her history.
“I know what I have researched and been lied to about,” I said.
“I jest misled you, didn’t lie directly. Robert Lee call’d hisself Franklin to deceive Selma and the family.”
“So who got killed? Who was murdered by the McCoys?” I said.
“Sum poor old guy. He wuz a no-count Hatfield and had done his share of killin’, but I never did rightly know who he wuz. Easy enough to call him Franklin since that wuz a made-up person by Robert Lee anyway. That’s why Robert Lee left the county with Cybil. He knew he wuz not safe, that word wud get out soon ‘nough.”
“When did you unravel this story and figure out that Robert Lee was the culprit?” I asked.
“’Bout a year or so later. It came to me in a vision of sorts. I wuz doin’ a readin’ fur some pore soul named Eileen. Don’t recall much else ‘bout her, except that she claimed to be raped by sum tall stranger years back. Said his name wuz Franklin sum’thin’-other. I did the readin’ holdin’ her palm and all. It all came to me then. I saw the whole thing. Robert Lee had raped that girl as well. Scum that he was.”
Saunders suddenly snapped.
She stood abruptly and crossed toward Bella. It was the first time that Saunders had actually moved out from her corner seat into an unprotected space. As it turned out, it was the first unintentional mistake that I had ever known her to make besides trusting her good reverend father who had lied to her all of her life. It was a fatal mistake. It was to be her last one.
Chapter 41
The first shot hit Saunders in the left temple and exited taking a portion of her skull with it. Blood spattered the windows and door that looked out onto the deck. The second shot followed some three to four seconds later hitting Saunders in the chest, about the spot one might suspect whatever heart she had to be located. She crumpled to the floor in seconds, motionless. Two shots. Two kill shots. No question in my mind that she was dead immediately. No need to check.
Everyone around me dove for cover. If they were seated, they hit the floor quickly. If standing, they moved behind a large piece of furniture. I was the only one who moved towards Saunders to see if there was any pulse. I knew the futility, but it was instinctive to check her.
No pulse. I knew she was dead after the first shot.
I then made my way towards the front door, the direction in which both shots had come. I passed Aunt May who was lying on the kitchen floor unmoving.
“You okay?”
She moved her head so she could see me and nodded.
“I’m okay. What’s happening?” she asked.
“The party’s over.”
I looked briefly at the shattered glass in the remaining door frame. My eyes followed what I assumed to be the path of the twin shots towards the grassy knoll close to three hundred yards away. It was the same spot that Rosey and I had examined. It was the same spot that we both had decided was too exposed to be a good position to shoot someone inside the house. We had been mistaken.
Nothing was moving on the hillside. Too many minutes had gone by since the two shots were fired.
My mind was racing. Diamond was my first choice as the shooter. It was easy enough for her to see the dilemma of our situation and to wait for Saunders to move into her line of fire. Saunders, on her part, made the fatal error of allowing her emotions to motivate her into doing something stupid. She helped her killer.
I also had to contend with the possibility that Rosey had made those two shots. His training and expertise with rifles was noteworthy. Not only did he have the skill to make such a shot, I had seen him do it. Our present crisis with Saunders could have persuaded him to end the thing before Saunders killed anyone in the house. Rosey had no qualms about shooting a threat like Saunders. It was more than simply possible.
My eyes moved into the direction of the car from Kentucky to se
e if the man sitting there was okay. I had no visual on him. I reached for my handgun in the small of my back, but there was only emptiness there. I crouched to a low walking position and following along the sides of the parked cars towards the one from Kentucky. Perhaps the man was lying down on the car seat out of harm’s way.
He was not in the car.
It crossed my mind briefly that maybe the rifle shots triggered an attack of fear in him and that he likely took cover in the nearby woods. Poor old man, I thought, he was likely scared to death at the abruptness of the gunfire. Bella’s line about his long ago involvement in Korea came to mind. Perhaps he had some type of PTSD. The rifle shots could have easily triggered something in him which had been dormant for decades.
I moved to the short front porch and studied the surrounding area. Nothing moved. I heard no sounds except what nature was providing on this unusually warm early December day in Pitt County.
Rosey and Sam were walking down from the grassy knoll towards the porch and my position. Rosey was carrying his Remington 30.06. Sam ran the last several yards as if to check on me and to assure himself that I was okay. I patted his head and hugged him.
“I’m okay,” I said to him.
Rosey approached.
“Whoever it was is gone now.”
“Wasn’t you, I take it?”
He shook his head.
“Find any casings?” I said.
“No. But I did find some impressions in the dirt where the shooter had knelt and rested his weapon preparing for the shots. Definitely an expert. I figure about 250 to 275 yards for the shot. Everyone okay inside?” Rosey asked.
“Nervous and excited and a little fearful, but okay. All except Saunders.”
“I heard two shots. Both hit her?”
“Two kill shots. Head and heart.”
“Good shooting.”
“Yeah. You could have made those shots yourself.”
“Yeah, I could have,” Rosey said.
“You see any sign of Diamond?” I said.
“Nothing. If she was here, she’s a ghost.”
“I’d bet money that she was here.”
“And took the shots?” he said.
I shrugged. I had trusted her to keep her word. It was the one bond between us.
Wineski was on the porch with us by now after retrieving his handgun from Saunders’ corner of the room. He was holding it in a downward position.
“Any signs of the shooter?” he asked.
“Some impressions in the soil,” Rosey said, “but nothing else. There was an odor of gun powder around those impressions, but no other signs of the shooter.”
“You got any ideas?” Wineski asked me.
I shrugged without answering his question.
“We need to call this in,” Wineski said. He replaced his weapon in his shoulder holster inside his lightweight jacket.
“The locals as well as Dan River. We’ll need both,” I said.
“The locals get testy if bypassed I would imagine,” Wineski said.
“Even at the hint,” I said. “I’ll call them and you can call Dan River. You know anyone in the Dan River force?”
“Used to, but not now. Too many years gone by since I had dealings with them.”
We made our calls. Rosey and Sam made another pass around the perimeter to see if there were any signs elsewhere. Wineski and I talked to the gathering inside. We moved them into the basement area away from the crime scene to protect the integrity of the place. May and my mother were the only ones irritated because they could not work in the kitchen to prepare something to eat for the group. Most of us were too busy or too excited to worry about food.
By the time our local sheriff’s department sent three deputies out, most of our party was calm and collected enough to answer all of their bane and inane questions. Thirty minutes later two Dan River detectives arrived and all the questioning started over. Dan River also sent out their version of a crime scene unit. Apparently they paid no attention to what we had told them about what had happened since they dusted the entire great room and kitchen for prints. Too much training and not enough common sense.
By the time Rosey and Sam returned from their perimeter walk, two of the Deputy Sheriffs of Pitt County made their own search of the boundary around May’s cabin.
I watched the locals as they tried without success to interview Bella’s friend Bart. He had reappeared from wherever it was he had fled. He had little to say. Bella tried to run as much interference for him as she could. The whole scene was like controlled chaos with an emphasis on the chaos and less on control. It was obvious to me that she cared about him, but it was hard to discern exactly the nature of their relationship. I stood close enough to hear Bart tell each questioner the same story. He had heard two rifle shots, ducked down inside the car, and saw no one coming or going. That was his story and he stuck to it. Mr. Consistent.
Rosey was the only one who had any difficulty in accounting for his whereabouts when the shooting began. He said he was on the small rise overlooking the deck on what we refer to as the backside of the cabin, opposite the grassy knoll. No one but Sam could have substantiated his claim. Sam was silent on the matter and that left some questions in the minds of the Dan River people as well as the sterling deputies of Pitt County.
It was well after dark before the police network allowed for the removal of the body. The crime scene people were the last ones to leave. They removed the tape and told us that we were free to clean up, an altogether unpleasant experience and more so on empty stomachs. We held a silent vote and decided to move in another direction.
With the frustration clearly evident from Aunt May and my mother on not being able to eat their prepared full-scale feast with the accumulated group, I suggested that we go somewhere and satisfy our appetites. Bella said that she and Bart needed to head back towards Kentucky. They would stop somewhere en route and eat a sandwich.
“You saw this coming, didn’t you?” I said.
“Clear as a bell,” Bella answered.
“You’re likely pleased at the outcome.”
“Evul should be dealt with whenever it is found out. You can’t dance with the devul.”
“Doesn’t justify killing the person.”
“My way of thinkin’ it does. She wuz too much like her daddy, thorough and disgustin’ evul.”
“I would rather have her answer for her crimes under the law.”
“Virginia has capital punishment. She wud ‘a died anyway.”
“Still doesn’t justify shooting her,” I said.
“What’s that sayin’ about the end justifying the means, somethin’ like that, right?”
“If you subscribe to that reasoning.”
“I gotta go. Sorry to leave you folks in such tizzy,” she said, turned and walked towards the car with Bart.
Bart had stood by us during our exchange but spoke not a word. I could tell he listened carefully, though.
I watched them walk slowly to the vehicle, get inside, and then drive away. Bella Cantrella was a strange woman with unusual gifts, if that was the right word to use. Bart was a wiry little man who had little to say about anything. Close spitter and a tight chewer as my grandfather used to say.
“I think I’m gonna head back to Norfolk,” Wineski said walking up to me.
“That’s a long trip at night on an empty stomach.”
“Yep, it is. But I can’t eat after studying that crime scene. She was definitely a crazy woman and I’m glad she’s gone, but blood is blood. I need time to reflect and study some more. It appears to me to be a professional shoot. I’ll eat somewhere between here and there.”
“Keep it on the road,” I said.
Estelle Stevens decided to stay on with us and spend the night. We had plenty of room, either here at May’s, or we could house some back at my mother’s place in Clancyville. The rest of the group piled into the various cars on hand and rode into Clancyville to find some place to eat a bite. My mothe
r was reluctant, but she didn’t desire to pass the time alone in the house where a murder had just occurred. She came along for the ride, she said.
We found a comfortable eating place in the heart of my little hometown, dined on sandwiches and other fattening foods while we talked about the events of our dramatic day. Everyone had their own version. Sam waited patiently in the Jag since he was not allowed to dine inside the restaurant. My powers of persuasion only stretched so far.
Chapter 42
It was raining the next morning when I got up. Dawn was slowly coming onto the scene, but I needed some light as I sat in a cushioned chair directly in front of the fireplace. It was a chair that didn’t have any blood on it. I never liked to sit on blood-splattered furniture.
Rosey, Sam and I stayed with May and Mother. Estelle had the guest room downstairs. Our long-time friend Sarah had returned to her home after our common meal in downtown Clancyville. Uncle Walters and Scott spent the night in Mother’s house in town.
Rosey slipped in beside me as I drank my coffee. He brought a chair from the dining room table. We sat in silence together for several minutes. Light was emerging outside and coloring the world with a sort of mysterious glow. I marveled to myself that sunrises are seldom ever the same, much like sunsets. Each one unique to the day.
“You think I shot her,” he said breaking our silence.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“It was likely Diamond then. She never showed herself, but you and I know that she was there.”
“A presence.”
“I guess she saved our lives.”
“Interpretation.”
“I just don’t know what Saunders was planning. Her MO of late was the bomb. The police found nothing in her vehicle parked a mile down the road just off the pavement in the trees. You think she was simply going to shoot all of us?”
“Lot of bullets.”
“She did have extra cartridges. Not out of the question.”
“Messy, even for her.”
“Agreed, but I have no other answer. Crazy people do not always behave logically.”
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