The Unquiet Grave: A Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

  I have not seen Zona again since those times she came to me a little while after her passing, but I still talk to her, for now I know for a certainty that her spirit lives on somewhere, and I hope she knows what is going on in the world that she left behind. I pray that she can hear me. When we go to church on Sunday, I still stop by her grave with a few flowers or a pretty pebble from down by the creek, and as I lay the gift on her grave, I tell her that her brute of a husband is locked away in a box not much bigger than the one she’s in. I have never seen the jail in Lewisburg, but I hope this is true, and I hope that once the trial is over and done with, they send him to hell at the end of a rope. I have stood at Zona’s grave and promised her out loud that if they hang him, I will go and watch. Jacob would probably say that it wouldn’t be proper for a God-fearing woman to witness such a spectacle, but I have lived on a farm all my life. I have wrung chicken’s necks and seen hogs killed, and I bore that without tears, even though some were pets and their deaths came through no fault of their own. Edward Shue has earned his execution. I hope he gets it.

  Anyhow, I know I will see him in a few weeks, for I am to testify at his trial, and Jacob cannot stop me from going to that, because I have been summoned as a witness and the law says I must go. They wouldn’t have to force me, though. Why, if I had to, I’d walk all the way to town for the privilege of telling what I know about Mr. Edward Shue. The prosecutor, Mr. Preston, has written me to say that he would like to see me a few days before the trial so that we can go over my testimony. He thinks I will be nervous or frightened appearing before all those people in court, but even if I were, it wouldn’t stop me. I know Zona wants me to do this; she came back from the dead to tell me so. I must do whatever I can to help Mr. Preston put that monster away.

  I hear that Edward Shue has got himself a lawyer now, though I don’t know how that came about. He is a no-account blacksmith who never had two nickels to rub together, so it’s strange that he can afford to pay for the services of a lawyer, much as he needs one. My brother-in-law Johnson Heaster says there is some provision made by the courts to provide counsel for them that cannot afford it, so maybe that’s it. Perhaps the county lawyers take it in turn to work for free, as a kind of charity.

  So I don’t know exactly how Edward came to be represented by Dr. William P. Rucker, but I’d say it’s a coin toss as to which of them is the worse villain. I remember people talking about Dr. Rucker when I was a young girl back during the war—how he burned the Cowpasture bridge, and led the soldiers to people’s homes to steal their food and their livestock, and to burn whatever they didn’t feel like taking. They came through Meadow Bluff. Folks never forgot it. Mamas would scare their children by saying that if they didn’t behave, Dr. Rucker would come and get them.

  They also say that Dr. Rucker killed a man his own self over in Covington in the early days of the war, and he never served a day in prison for that murder, so perhaps he doesn’t think anybody else should be punished for doing away with someone, either. But Jacob says that maybe if a judge appointed Dr. Rucker to defend Edward Shue as a charity case, he would not have been allowed to refuse.

  Whatever the rights of it, I think Dr. Rucker will have a hard time defending Edward Shue. Ever since the story came out in the newspaper about him being charged with Zona’s murder, people have begun to talk about Shue’s past, and every story that comes out of Pocahontas County just makes him sound worse. No one here had any idea about the wickedness he had got up to before he moved to Greenbrier County. Zona knew about his two previous wives, but I’ll bet he told her a pack of lies about what really happened to those poor women. His first wife, Allie, who is now Mrs. Todd McMillion, lives over here in Greenbrier with her new husband, and she’s not shy about telling folks how Edward Shue beat her when they were married and living in Pocahontas County. It’s a pity she couldn’t have made free with that information before more women fell prey to his wickedness.

  People say that his ill-treatment of Allie Cutlip was so widely known about the settlement that one winter night some of the neighbors went over to their place, lured Edward out of the house, and then threw him in the icy creek to teach him a lesson about beating up on women. I’m sorry for the poor woman, having to go through all that at the hands of a brute, but compared to Zona, she was lucky. She lived to tell the tale. Then Edward got caught stealing horses, and got sent to Moundsville for a couple of years. She divorced him while he was in prison. They had a daughter that he didn’t seem to care anything about, either, which shows you what a coldhearted devil he was.

  They say Moundsville is a terrible place—cold, dark cells that stay damp all winter, so that more men die of sickness than ever see the hangman. Still, if you do something bad enough to warrant going to prison—like beating and killing your wife—then I guess you don’t deserve any better treatment. Still, seeing what a dreadful place it was, you wouldn’t think he’d risk going back there, after experiencing it firsthand. I don’t suppose he gave it any thought, though. Either he struck Zona in anger, not thinking of the consequences, or else he was so cocky he thought he’d get away with it.

  Well, he had got away with it before. There’s even more talk about his second wife. Lucy Tritt, I think her name was. She was about the same age as Zona when she passed. Edward Shue claimed that she fell down and hit her head on a rock, but folks now figure that either the rock was in his hand when it hit her or else he killed her some other way and lied about it, like he did with Zona.

  I wish we had known all that before Zona up and married him. Maybe if we had known, we could have saved her.

  John Alfred Preston stared at the page of notes he’d made for the upcoming trial of Edward Erasmus Shue: summary of the case, notes regarding the evidence, a list of witnesses. It seemed straightforward. The man had obviously killed his young wife, and according to the authorities over in Pocahontas County, where Shue had grown up, he had a history of violence toward two previous wives there, too. Violence seemed to be very much in character for the defendant. Preston could not imagine a jury doubting the evidence in the case.

  Besides, the prisoner’s attitude told against him at every turn. Even before the autopsy had provided physical evidence, people had been grumbling about the insouciance with which Shue had met with the death of his wife. People said that he had been laughing and making jests, even while he accompanied the dead woman’s body back to her parents’ farm. That, coupled with his attitude of defiance when he was forced to attend the autopsy, evincing not one trace of grief or shock at the sight of the corpse of his bride of three months, had turned the community against him. His reaction when they found the finger marks on her broken neck had been You’ll never prove it!—not a protestation of innocence but a brazen boast, daring the authorities to convict him.

  Preston hoped that Shue would prove equally repellent in the witness box. Sometimes juries made up their minds not on the evidence, but on their impressions of the accused. The defendant was a handsome fellow, but fortunately ladies did not serve on juries. Before the all-male jury, Shue’s arrogance and bluster would win him no sympathy, and his history of violence toward his wives would make the jurors despise him as a cowardly bully.

  Preston didn’t envy the lawyer who had the task of defending the wretched fellow. If the attorney knew his business, he would do his utmost to persuade Shue to adopt a pose of humility on the stand and to play the grief-stricken widower at every turn. If he could weep in front of the jury, it might save him. William Rucker was defending him, though, and Rucker would win no prizes himself for humility, so would he think to counsel such behavior for his client? Probably not, which meant that the business of bringing the heartless wife-killer to justice ought to be plain sailing for the prosecution.

  There was only one snag that Preston could see in the whole matter of convicting Edward Shue. One question that he hoped no one would think to ask. How did Mrs. Heaster know to request an autopsy?

  twenty-one

 
LAKIN, WEST VIRGINIA

  1931

  JAMES P. D. GARDNER WAS STARING through the window bars and the rain-spattered panes at the leaden sky. Back home, his mother would have called it a “clabbered sky,” because the clusters of thick clouds reminded her of the lumps that form in milk when it is being churned into butter. He drew no comfort from the sight, though, nor from the memory of his mother. He was so far from that lifetime, both in years and experience, that it might as well have happened to someone else. This dead time of gray institutional life seemed to stretch backward and forward until it encompassed the whole of his life.

  The damp chill had seeped into his bones. He took the thin gray blanket from his bed and wrapped it around his shoulders, hoping to ward off the aches that invariably followed the cold. He had not left his cell, even for breakfast, and the prospect of wandering the halls or sitting in the dayroom, blanketed by the aimless noise of his fellow patients, did not appeal to him.

  He turned to look at the woods that bordered the grounds of the asylum. The sight of them was his only respite from the metal and concrete surrounding him. Those scrubby weed trees looked nothing like the soaring oaks and chestnuts back in the eastern part of the state, but he found them soothing, even in the winter months, when their bare twisted branches made them look like frozen dancers. A red-tailed hawk was hunting somewhere on the edge of that cluster of trees beside the overgrown field separating the forest and the close-cropped grass of the asylum lawn. The hawk—he thought of it as a she—would sit motionless on a high branch, watching the tall brown grass for a sign of movement. When she lifted her broad rounded wings and plunged downward in a deliberate, purposeful dive, he knew that she had spotted her quarry—a field mouse, perhaps, or a young rabbit that would not live to learn caution.

  He wondered if Boozer watched him that way—staring with those expressionless black eyes in a face that was the same brown as the hawk’s, preternaturally alert, waiting for some slip that would lead to a useful revelation. He conceded to himself that Boozer meant well, wanting only to help. No doubt it would grieve the earnest young doctor to be compared to a bird of prey, but help is only a benevolence if the recipient wants it, and Gardner wasn’t sure that he did. Dying would be easier than trying to keep thinking up reasons not to.

  The hawk must have missed her target, for she flew back to her accustomed branch to begin again the ritual of staring and waiting.

  Gardner found himself thinking about Dr. Rucker, but not because the hawk in any way resembled him. Rucker was never one to bide his time and wait patiently for favorable circumstances. He made things happen, and whether they worked or not seemed to matter little, because he would go charging off to the next thing with very little regard or regret for the results of his last endeavor. A Rucker hawk would fly down to the field and beat at the long grass with his wings, trying to force the mice to panic and run. Perhaps they would escape or perhaps he would snatch them up, but either way, there would be no long stretches of silent waiting.

  Rucker had certainly beaten his wings against the weeds in the preparations for the trial of Edward Shue.

  He remembered the bright day in June, a few weeks before the trial, when Dr. Rucker had summoned him to his law office to discuss their strategy for the defense. On his desk a mason jar of pink cabbage roses sweetened the air with their heavy perfume, and for a long time the only breach of silence was the drone of a lone housefly hovering near the open window. After the briefest of greetings, a mere acknowledgment of his presence, really, Rucker had returned to studying the notes in front of him, his lips moving silently as he reviewed them.

  Gardner, who had not been invited to sit down, stood there, clutching his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a linen handkerchief. He waited another two minutes for Rucker’s attention, and then, as unobtrusively as possible, he sat down in the chair beside the desk, facing the window. Outside, a trio of scruffy neighborhood boys, two white and one colored, were taking turns pulling a homemade toy wagon. A shaggy collie-mix mongrel rode in the back of the wagon, its tongue lolling happily as the triumphant procession passed along, trailing dust in its wake. He thought of a prisoner riding in a cart on the way to the gallows, and he closed his eyes until the boys and the wagon were out of sight.

  Finally Dr. Rucker reared back, swiveled his chair, and slapped the case notes with the flat of his hand. “Wake up, James! We have a lot of work to do in the next few weeks. A miracle wouldn’t come amiss, either.”

  Gardner sighed and bit back the hasty retort that was lodged in his throat. “No, Dr. Rucker, I wasn’t asleep. I was just collecting my thoughts while I waited for you to finish.” He set his satchel on the floor, and took out a notebook and his fountain pen. He assumed his most alert expression, waiting for Dr. Rucker to initiate the discussion.

  “Well, what are your thoughts in the matter then? You’re a capable fellow, James. How do we save this foolish client of ours?”

  Gardner shook his head, knowing better than to take the lead in a discussion of strategy, especially since this was a defense of chicanery rather than a belief in the innocence of the accused. Rucker was much better at that sort of strategy than he was. “I was hoping you knew, because it sure looks to the rest of the world like Mr. Shue is guilty.”

  Rucker fixed him with a cold stare, and the seconds passed in such silence that the fly’s buzzing sounded loud again. “The community has taken against Mr. Shue? I suppose they have. What about you then? Do you think the client is guilty? That he ought to be strung up?”

  The right answer was also the wrong answer. He knew that. “I don’t think anything, Dr. Rucker. You’re the one getting paid to do the thinking. I’m just here to do whatever it is you think needs doing. I talked to the Jones family awhile back at your behest.”

  Rucker grinned at the word behest. He was highly diverted when James Gardner “talked white,” as he put it. “All right then, let me tell you what I think. I think that somebody else killed that little lady. Somebody other than her devoted husband. He was away at work, wasn’t he? And she was there alone in that house. No way to defend herself.”

  “Defend herself?”

  “That’s right. I think somebody broke in, maybe a stranger, maybe not.”

  “Mr. Shue never said anything about signs of a break-in. I don’t think they had much to steal, anyway.”

  Rucker stared at him for a moment, eyes wide and mouth open, and then he broke into a braying laugh and slapped the desk again. “There you go, James! You should go back on over there and count the jars of green beans in the pantry, or wherever the lady kept them. Not much to steal! What about her virtue, huh? Have you considered that?”

  Gardner thought about saying that, having heard the rumors about her, he wasn’t aware that Mrs. Shue had any virtue to steal, but to say such a thing would be impolitic, especially when the woman in question was not of his race. He was not supposed to have any speculations whatever about the sexual behavior of white women. After a pause that was almost too long, he said, “I confess that it did not occur to me. If there were a shred of evidence . . . Was her clothing in any way disturbed?”

  Rucker scowled. “Not that anybody noticed. But that doesn’t stop us from bringing up the suggestion.”

  “Reasonable doubt. I suppose if you’re going to argue that the husband did not kill her, then you have to suggest an alternative.”

  Rucker smiled. “The mysterious cloaked stranger. Yes, indeed. I almost got Kenos Douglas off with that one three years ago. Got myself a hung jury in the first trial, but for some reason, the next bunch in the jury box wasn’t having any. You can never tell what people will cotton to. I like to give them some choices, because of course nobody can know what really happened. All we’re doing is guessing.”

  We’re guessing that the sun will come up, too, thought Gardner, but he assumed a solemn expression and nodded in agreement. “Do you have any other choices, Dr. Rucker?”

  “Well, I was hoping yo
u’d have a thought or two about it, James.”

  What could he say that Dr. Rucker couldn’t use to ruin someone else’s life? “Well, I suppose it might have been just what Mr. Shue always said it was: an accident.”

  Rucker nodded and pulled at a few stray hairs of his beard, which meant that he was cogitating. “Came over faint, you mean? The lady had been attended by George Knapp in the weeks before her death. That’s true. I don’t suppose we can be so indelicate as to talk about female trouble before the court, but it certainly does make a lot of sense.”

  “Yes, sir, it does.” Sometimes Gardner made a game of seeing how few times he could say “sir” in the course of his conversation with Rucker, but at times the honorific was unavoidable, particularly when he was forced to voice an objection. “Except that Dr. Knapp said he found that Mrs. Shue had a broken neck, and there were fingerprints and bruising there.”

  “Oh, he says.” Rucker waved away the objection. “She was his patient, though, wasn’t she? He might have had all kinds of reasons for wanting people to believe that her death was a result of foul play. Maybe he gave her the wrong medicine. Maybe she fainted on account of something he prescribed in error.”

  “I wouldn’t know, but since you are a physician yourself, perhaps you can suggest something?”

  Rucker scowled. “Not offhand. Besides, Knapp is a decent enough fellow. No call to cast aspersions on him if I can help it.”

  “And remember that he had two other doctors with him during the autopsy. Surely they would testify to the veracity of his claim about her injuries. Even if you could persuade a jury to believe that Dr. Knapp is lying, Dr. Rupert and Dr. McClung would have no reason to do so.”