by With Heart
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD.
“I wonder if we have an engraving of Clara in a group picture.”
“I looked,” Paul said. “Nothing in the file.”
“We could use one of the sheriff above his quote. I have a feeling we need to butter him up. We may want him to help us find Judy’s mother.”
“That would push Johnny’s picture down under the fold.”
“Then let’s skip it. We’ll butter the sheriff up in another way.”
Paul grinned. “You’ve got newspaper ink in your veins.”
On her way back to her desk, she stopped in the office doorway. Her heart began a crazy dance in her chest. Johnny was standing beside the counter talking to Adelaide. From the shocked look on his face, she knew that Adelaide had told him about Clara. Kathleen went on to her desk and sat down.
“You’ve been out there?” Johnny asked without a greeting.
“Just got back.”
“What does Carroll think happened?”
“She was hit by a car after she’d been beaten up.”
“It wasn’t an accident?”
“He didn’t seem to think so.” She rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter just to be doing something.
“I came in to fix your tire.” Johnny stood in front of her desk on spread legs, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get it fixed.” Without looking up at him she knew he was gazing down at her. For some reason, unknown even to herself, she was angry with him.
“I said I would fix it, and I will,” he said stubbornly. “First I want to go out to where they found Clara.”
“Why? The sheriff won’t welcome your help.”
“I don’t give a damn if he does or not. I know a hell of a lot more about tracks than he does.”
“You’d better get going then. People by the dozens will be swarming out there out of curiosity.”
“I’m going, but I’ll be back to fix that tire.”
Kathleen wanted to put her head down on the desk and cry. The combination of troubles set her nerves on edge: worry about Johnny and his thoughts about seeing her with Barker, worry about having to tell Hazel that her daughter was dead, and worry about the poor little waif who had come to Rawlings to find her mother.
An hour passed, and Kathleen was beginning to fear Hazel would hear the news before she and the sheriff got there. Then he drove up in front of the office. A gray-haired man was with him. Kathleen went out to the car.
“Sheriff, I’ve been thinking about Emily, Clara’s little girl. Why don’t I go to the school, get Emily, and take her home? In the meanwhile you and the Reverend can tell Hazel. I’ll . . . try to tell Emily. It will take some of the burden off Hazel.”
“I’d forgotten Clara had a girl.”
“A few of the ladies from the church are going out to be with Mrs. Ramsey,” the preacher said.
“Where did they take Clara, Sheriff?”
“To the funeral parlor. Doc said it was accident.” When he spoke he looked away from Kathleen.
“An accident? She was beaten up, Sheriff. You said so. Doc is full of hot air,” Kathleen said angrily.
“It’s what he said, and that’s final. He’s the coroner.”
“For Christ’s sake! Doesn’t anyone in this town have enough backbone to stand up to that little dictator.”
“Watch your mouth, girl!”
“I’ll pick up Emily.”
Back in the office, Kathleen faced Adelaide and gave vent to her frustration.
“Doc Herman had pronounced Clara’s death an accident. She had been beaten around the head, has black eyes, and a cut mouth. I know enough to know that if she had been killed instantly when she was hit by a car, she’d not be bruised like that, especially when the ground is soft. What’s going on here? Sheriff Carroll didn’t want me to question Doc’s decision.
“Another thing was strange, Adelaide. He wanted to know how I knew to go out to the scene. He blamed Flossie. I tried to cover for her by telling him a man came to the door and told us.”
“We’ll stick to that. He could have Flossie fired.”
“I’m disliking that man more and more.”
• • •
Kathleen’s heart was beating with dread when she stopped at the schoolhouse and went to Emily’s classroom. She motioned to the teacher to come to the hall and then waited for Emily to come out.
“Hello, Sugarpuss.”
“Miss Ryan said I could go home.”
“How would you like to go for a little ride first?”
“Did Mama come home?”
The question caused Kathleen to pause. “No, sweetheart, she didn’t.”
“Then I better go home and see about Granny.”
“All right.” Kathleen took the child’s hand, and they went out to the car.
She told the child about her mother as they sat in the car beneath the pecan tree at the edge of the playground. Emily cried, Kathleen cried. It was one of the hardest things Kathleen had ever had to do. Although Emily was not attached to Clara as a child is normally attached to her mother, she had feelings for her.
“Granny’s goin’ to feel awful bad,” Emily said after she had stopped crying.
“Yes. Your mother was her little girl.”
“I’d better go home and see about her.”
Kathleen wiped her eyes and started the car.
• • •
Kathleen’s eyes were red when she returned to the office and heard the sound of the press printing the paper.
“You didn’t have to come right back,” Adelaide said, “Judy has been helping stuff the papers.”
“Three of Hazel’s friends are with her and Emily. That child is old for her years. Her concern was for her grandmother.”
“The only good thing Clara ever did for Hazel was to give her Emily. She adores the child. Was anything said about services?”
“Not to me. I think Hazel feared that something like this would happen to Clara but didn’t expect it here in Rawlings.”
Adelaide tilted her head to look out the window. “Johnny’s back. I wonder what he found out.”
Johnny’s dark eyes swept the office when he entered, then moved over to the desks where Kathleen and Adelaide sat and came right to the point.
“I’d bet my life it was no accident.”
“At first Sheriff Carroll said it was not an accident. He’s changed his mind now that Doc Herman says it was,” Kathleen replied.
“Yeah. That’s what I was told down at the funeral parlor.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Eldon is sort of a friend of mine.”
“He’s the undertaker,” Adelaide explained to Kathleen.
“Would you be squeamish about taking pictures of the body?” Johnny addressed his words to Kathleen.
“I’ve never done anything like it, but I can if it’s necessary.”
“Then get your Kodak. Eldon agrees with me that it wasn’t an accident. Pictures may be the only way that we can prove it. I owe it to Hazel to find out the truth if I can.”
“You mean there’s one man in this town that isn’t in Doc Herman’s pocket?”
“I know several . . . Paul, Claude, Eldon, and probably more if it came right down to it.”
Kathleen checked the Kodak. “There are eight pictures left on this roll. Is that enough?”
“I’d think so. Let’s go out the back and walk down the alley. No need to advertise where we’re going.”
“Johnny, be careful,” Adelaide cautioned. “Be careful about going against Doc Herman.”
“I’ll be careful; but if Clara was murdered, it’s only right that her murderer be found.”
Kathleen and Johnny walked behind the stores to the funeral parlor in back of the furniture store.
“You must have good cause to do this.” Kathleen had to walk fast to keep up with Johnny’s long steps.
“After looking at the body and tal
king to Eldon, I came to the conclusion she was beaten up; and while she lay in the road, the car ran over her, backed up and ran over her again. Then, not sure that she was dead, the murderer put his foot on her throat.”
“How do you know he ran over her while she was lying in the road?”
“Tire tracks. When I was a boy in Red Rock, Tom taught me to read tire marks because we were trying to catch rustlers coming into the fields and killing beef. He showed me the marks made by different tires. I used what he taught me once before when I worked with Hod.”
“Oh, gosh! I just remembered Hazel said that Clara had gone somewhere yesterday afternoon and when she came home, she was very angry. She told Hazel that someone owed her money and that she would get it or get even.”
“Maybe we can find out where she went.” At the door of the funeral parlor, he stopped. “Are you sure you’re up to this? It’s not a pretty sight. I’d not ask you to do it, but I’m a lousy picture taker, and these need to be as good as we can make them.”
“I’ll be all right. We’ll need plenty of light.”
“I’ll ask Eldon about that. The body is on a cart that can be moved to the window, and if that isn’t light enough, we may be able to open the double doors on the back. The danger would be that someone would see us.”
“We’ll need as much light as we can get in order to get good close-up pictures.”
“Come on. We’ll give it our best shot.”
To Kathleen’s surprise, Johnny put an arm protectively around her as they approached the building.
The instant Johnny rapped on the door it was opened. Eldon Radner was a small, thin man with wiry faded brown hair. He never just walked anywhere but scurried or sprinted. Owner of the furniture store and the funeral parlor, he took the business of laying out the dead very seriously.
“Come in, come in. I’ve rigged up some lights. Hello, Miss Dolan. We haven’t met, but I know about you from Johnny. This is a terrible thing for Rawlings. We must hurry, Johnny. I’ve work to do on the body before Mrs. Ramsey comes down, and you can never tell who else. Folks are curious, especially in a case like this. There hasn’t been a woman murdered in Tillison County in a long time. Doc Herman will want it hushed up. Oh, yes, I discovered her jaw is broken and some of her teeth are missing.”
Most of this was said without Eldon taking a breath. Kathleen was to learn that was his natural way of speaking. He threw out a hand beckoning them to follow and bustled through another set of doors, a long white duster flapping about his legs.
Clara’s body lay on a waist-high cart just as it had come from the ditch where she died. A string of hooded lights hung above the body and when Eldon turned them all on, Kathleen had to blink. To keep from looking directly at the pitiful heap on the cart, Kathleen fiddled with the adjustments on the camera.
“What do you think, Kathleen? Is it light enough?”
“Do you want overall, or just up-close areas?”
“Mostly close-up.”
“Can one of the lights be lowered to the area you want?”
“You betcha,” Eldon said, and scurried to the other side of the cart. “Show her the tire marks, Johnny. I’ll hold the light where you want it, Miss Dolan. This is sorry business, I tell you. I’ve not had a corpse this tore up in a long time. I don’t know if I can make her presentable for the laying away. Oh, poor Mrs. Ramsey. It’ll be hard for her, that’s sure.”
Kathleen tried to tune out the voice of the undertaker. Johnny folded Clara’s skirt up over her thighs. Oklahoma red clay was clearly imprinted on the white flesh.
“Take the thighs, Kathleen. These are tire tracks.” He pointed to the mud streaks.
Eldon held the hooded light, and Kathleen lowered the camera until only the area of the marks was visible in the viewfinder and snapped the picture. The prints on the lower, broken legs were not as distinct, but she took a photo of them anyway. Johnny folded back the gray jacket to reveal prints from the muddy tire on Clara’s white blouse where the wheel of the car had run over her chest. After the picture was taken, Johnny pointed to the flicks of mud on her side.
“This will be rough, Kathleen,” Johnny said as he removed the cloth covering Clara’s face.
Kathleen steeled herself to think that what she was seeing and photographing was a broken doll. Clara’s face was a sight that would long haunt Kathleen’s dreams. When the light was lowered, she snapped the picture. Eldon tilted Clara’s chin so a picture would be taken of the neck area. Her windpipe had been crushed. By the time Johnny covered the face, Kathleen was swallowing rapidly.
“How many exposures left?” Johnny asked the question in a sharp business like tone.
“Two.”
“Let’s turn her over, Eldon.” After the body was turned, Eldon lifted Clara’s dress up over her bare buttocks. “Are you all right, honey?” Johnny asked gently. Kathleen nodded. “See this bruise? It was made before she died because you don’t bruise after your heart stops pumping. It’s a bootprint. You can see the heel. He stomped on her before he killed her. Take the last two pictures of it.”
Eldon was careful to get the light just right, and Kathleen took the two pictures, each from a different angle. When she finished, she stepped back, turned away, and headed for the door. Johnny caught up and put his arm around her.
“Are you all right?” After she nodded, he said, “I’m proud of you, Kathleen. I’ve seen men faint after seeing such a sight.”
“It wasn’t . . . easy—”
“Let me know how the prints turn out, Johnny.” Eldon unlocked the back door. “I’ve got work to do. Poor girl. Poor, poor girl. She was worked over all right. Didn’t deserve it even if she was ah . . . loose. Hazel and Sam Ramsey were fine folks. I knew Sam back in the twenties. He was in the war and fought in France. Hazel will be here soon. I don’t know how she’s goin’ to pay for a funeral. I’ll do the best I can, but I’ve got expenses, too.”
“I’ll check back with you, Eldon.”
“He would wear me out,” Kathleen said after the door closed.
“It took me a while to get used to him. But he’s a man of his word, and he doesn’t knuckle under to Doc Herman.” Johnny held her arm as they walked back up the alley to the Gazette building.
“I hope the pictures are plain enough to do some good. Paul will develop the film and enlarge the pictures.”
“I want to show the prints to Keith. He worked on a tracking case once with me, and he’s pretty good.”
“Can you tell what kind of car ran over her by looking at the tracks?”
“Maybe not the kind of car, but we may be able to match the prints to tires on a car. This was a big heavy car, I know that.”
“Who would have done such a terrible thing to Clara? She was just a stupid, terribly irritating girl.”
“She was a girl that started her loose ways young. She must have had Emily when she was fourteen or fifteen.”
“Does Hazel know who Emily’s father is?”
“I doubt if Clara knew.”
“What will a funeral cost?”
“There may be room to bury her beside her daddy. If not, I’d say between fifty to a hundred dollars.”
“Hazel doesn’t have that kind of money.”
“I don’t imagine she does,” Johnny said sadly.
Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t want to ever have to do that again.” Kathleen was in the office with Adelaide. “It was just awful. Poor, poor girl. She looked like a broken doll.”
“Johnny seems sure that Clara was murdered. Doc Herman won’t stand for there being a murder in his simon-pure town.”
“Is that why Sheriff Carroll now calls it an accident?”
“He must have his reasons.”
“I wonder if the doctor is afraid of the attention it would bring to the town if it becomes known that a woman was murdered here?”
“I can’t think of any other reason.” Adelaide leaned back in her chair wearily and stretched her arms
over her head. Press day was always hard, but this one had been especially difficult.
“You’re worn-out. You had to do my share of the work today.”
“Judy was a big help. She and Woody stuffed all the papers. Paul helped me get them ready for the post office.”
“With all that’s happened, I had almost forgotten about Judy.”
“She a quiet girl. She hasn’t asked me one time about finding her mother. She has thanked me a hundred times for letting her stay. When I went upstairs this morning, the bed was made; and you couldn’t tell that she’d been in the kitchen.”
“Her sorry excuse for a mother must have taught her something.”
“I was glad that she was here today. She pitched right in, and I didn’t have to explain things to her but one time.”
“Tomorrow I’ll go to the courthouse and look at the birth records.”
“You’ll not be greeted with open arms, I’ll tell you that. When I insisted on seeing them a year ago, the clerk watched me like I was about to raid the U.S. Mint.”
“They have to let me see public records.”
“I was surprised at how many babies were born here. Doc must advertise in Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, and even as far away as Denver. When I came back and told Paul what I had discovered, we both decided that something wasn’t quite right about so many out-of-town women coming here to have babies.”
“Did you ever mention it to Sheriff Carroll?”
“Heavens no! Pete is a good man . . . or he used to be. But he’s cowed where Doc is concerned. He’d tell me to tend to my own business . . . or something like that.”
“I’ve a niggling suspicion in the back of my mind about all this. I’m going to wait until I see the birth records and get it sorted out before I tell you because you’re going to think that I’ve lost my mind.”
“I doubt that. I think you’ve got a pretty good hold on that mind of yours.”
Lately Adelaide appeared to be more lighthearted than when Kathleen had first arrived. It was as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. An astute student of human nature, Kathleen was sure that Adelaide’s change of mood was because she now shared the secret of her love for Paul with someone who didn’t disapprove.