“I don’t know about that. Around here, everybody wants to mind their own business. It seems to me, justice would be letting Ella alone. She doesn’t want you or anybody else prying,” Prosper told Rita. I’d never heard Prosper say that much at one time.
Rita had removed her pad and my pencil stub from her purse when she got out of the car, but she put them back and snapped shut the lock on the pocketbook. “What I don’t understand is why everybody wants to cover this up.”
Mrs. Judd came out from behind the screen, letting it slam behind her, making Rita jump. Before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of Ella sitting in a rocker in the kitchen. “What’s that you said?”
I had to admire Rita for being braver than I’d ever been. She didn’t flinch one bit under Mrs. Judd’s frown. “I said it seems to me that everybody wants to cover up this murder. Nobody wants to talk about it,” Rita replied.
Prosper took a step toward Rita and opened his mouth, but Mrs. Judd held up her hand. “Cover up!” she said, spit flying out of her mouth. “What’s there to cover up? Ben Crook’s death is none of your business. None of my business—or Queenie’s, over there, either. You’re trying to stir up trouble with your newspaper stories. I don’t know of anybody in Harveyville who wants their name in the newspapers.” Even though Mrs. Judd couldn’t see me, I blushed.
“If you keep on asking fool questions like you’ve been doing, people’ll get suspicious of their neighbors and say things they don’t mean. There’re already kids out there digging up Ella’s field, looking for buried treasure, because somebody said Ben was killed for money. Ben never had any money. Why, do you think he’d have let Ella live like they did with no electricity or running water if he’d had money? He thought the sun rose and set—”
Rita cut her off. “Well, somebody must have had a reason for killing him. And what if the murderer is living right here in Harveyville? Do you want to live with a killer? What if he goes after Mr. Judd? Or Ella? Or Queenie?” I shivered, even though it was so hot, I was sweating.
Mrs. Judd put her hands on her hips, stretched her neck, and puffed out her chest like a hen who’s just laid an egg. “There isn’t anybody going after a one of us that I know of.”
“Tima,” Prosper said. Mrs. Judd turned her eyes to Prosper without turning her face. The two of them looked at each other a long time, Mrs. Judd staring through her thick spectacles and Prosper looking right back with his beady pig eyes. I guess he was telling her something, the way married people do without talking, but I didn’t know what it was.
After a minute, Mrs. Judd turned her eyes back to Rita. “If I let you talk to Ella, will you promise you’ll never ask her another thing about Ben Crook? Ben’s dead, and he’s been dead over a year. It doesn’t do her any good to dig up his memory, the way Hiawatha dug up his body. Ella’s none too strong, and all these questions don’t help her one bit. You promise you’ll let her be?”
Rita nodded. “All right.”
Rita started toward the door, but Mrs. Judd held up her hand. “I’ll bring her out.” She called inside in the sweet voice you’d use for a little child, “Ella, sweetheart, come out here, please, if you would. You’ve got you a visitor from Pickle.”
The rocker scraped in the kitchen, and Ella, wearing her carpet slippers, shuffled out the screen door. She seemed smaller than ever since the funeral, and older, too. I jumped out of the car and ran to her and took her hand. “Why, Ella, you come and sit beside me on the swing. It’s such a nice day. The fresh air will do you good. If I’d known we’d be stopping by, I’d have brought a kuchen. I make it just like my mother did. She said you were the only one who could make it better, and she always meant to ask you for your recipe.” I chattered away as I led Ella to the swing, thinking Mrs. Judd would tell me to be still, but she didn’t. Rita sat down in a chair next to us, and Mrs. Judd hefted her weight onto one of the porch steps. She motioned for Prosper, who came over and leaned against a porch post.
Rita slipped off her hat and laid it on the floor, running her hand through her damp curls, which were as springy as Shirley Temple’s. I thought she’d take out her pad of paper again, but she didn’t. Maybe it was because the pencil I’d given her was two inches long and had been sharpened with a knife. It was all right for putting down what you needed on a grocery list, but you wouldn’t want to write a newspaper story with it.
“I don’t want this to be painful, Ella. I’m just thinking that you might remember something that will help me find the man who killed your husband.” Rita talked in the same little-girl voice Mrs. Judd had used.
“She already told everything to Sheriff Eagles,” Mrs. Judd butted in.
Rita pretended she hadn’t heard Mrs. Judd and kept on. “Maybe someone in Topeka will read the article and know who did it. Or perhaps something you say will give somebody an idea. Even the itty-bittiest thing could help.”
“Why would anybody in Topeka kill Ben Crook?” Mrs. Judd asked. That wasn’t what Rita meant, but Rita didn’t answer her.
Ella looked at Rita for a long time. Then she gave her a sorrowful little smile and said, “Okay.” Rita smiled back at her.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?” Rita asked.
“June twentieth of last year. Everybody knows that,” Mrs. Judd answered for Ella. Rita raised her shoulders and sighed to show she was peeved at Mrs. Judd, but she kept looking at Ella. It became clear to me that Mrs. Judd’s plan was to let Rita ask Ella questions, but Mrs. Judd would answer them. After all, Mrs. Judd had promised that Rita could talk to Ella. She hadn’t said anything about Ella talking back.
“That was the day he disappeared. I asked when was the last time Ella saw him?”
“Are you asking Ella if she saw him after he disappeared?” Prosper butted in before Mrs. Judd could answer. Rita would have done a whole lot better if she’d gotten the Judds on her side in the first place instead of going against them.
“Did he mention he was seeing anybody?” Rita asked, and Ella shook her head. She made little bird scratches on her lap with her hands, then put them into her apron pockets. They wouldn’t stay still, however, and in a minute, they were out of her pockets again. It was the first time I’d seen Ella sitting down without quilting or fancywork to occupy her hands. She played with a spot on the hem of her apron where the stitches holding the bias tape trim had come out. I wondered how she could have such dainty hands with all the heavy farmwork she’d done in her life.
“Did he ever have any fights with other men? Or did anybody owe him money or threaten him? Or did you ever see someone sneaking around your farm?” With the first question Rita asked, Ella shook her head no and kept on shaking it long after Rita finished. Mrs. Judd didn’t have to stop Ella from talking, because Ella didn’t have anything to say.
Rita realized that, too, and gave a sigh and was quiet. Then, to my surprise, she turned to Prosper. “I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Judd. Alone, if I may.”
Mrs. Judd protested that anything Rita had to say to Prosper could be said in front of her, but Prosper put up a little pink hand. “It’s all right, Mother.” He and Rita walked over to the horse trough, which was iron and had green slime on the edges. Prosper stood with his back to the sun, and Rita squinted to see him. From what I could tell, she did most of the talking, while Prosper looked into the horse trough and ran his hand along the cool rim. His little eyes squinted until they were all but closed.
All of a sudden, Prosper gave a sharp sound. It wasn’t a word really, just a sound that was like “huh” or “ha.” I wasn’t sure what it meant. He turned without so much as a glance at us and walked quickly into the barn, closing the door behind him. The barn was old, and long cracks had opened up between the wall-boards when the big building shifted. I knew Prosper was standing in the gloom inside, watching us through one of those openings. Mrs. Judd stared at the closed door. Then she put a large hand on Ella’s shoulder, and Ella’s hands stopped scratching and lay still in her lap.
> Rita called, “Thanks just the same, Mr. Judd.” Instead of coming back to the porch, she took jerky high-heeled steps to the car and waited for me.
I stood and reached for Rita’s hat, which she’d left behind on the porch, but before I could pick it up, Ella’s hand shot out and grabbed it. She stroked the soft navy blue felt, then carefully brushed the dust off the feather.
Rita opened the car door and put a foot inside, but Ella was still playing with the hat, and I was no longer in a hurry to leave. Rita got tired of waiting and came back to the porch. “You think it’ll rain?” Rita asked like some old farmer.
Mrs. Judd blinked at her without answering. Ella handed Rita her hat and said, “Pretty.”
Rita put it on, fastening it with the hat pin, then took Ella’s hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ella. Honest I don’t. It’s just that I’ve got a job to do, and wouldn’t you rather talk to me than some reporter you don’t even know?”
That sounded like a threat, and Mrs. Judd pinched in her mouth while she thought it over. “Do you mean, if you weren’t to write this up, somebody else would?”
“They’d send out a reporter from Topeka, probably one of those men who get people to confess to all kinds of things. They know how to do it,” Rita told her.
Mrs. Judd mulled that over. “I don’t want outsiders bothering Ella.”
“That’s why I’m helping Rita. She’ll be nicer to Ella than somebody from Topeka,” I put in.
Instead of looking at me, Mrs. Judd put up her hand to tell me to be still. She told Rita, “If they send one of those men reporters out, you let me know.”
Rita and I went to the car, and I started the engine. Before I could put the Studebaker into reverse and back out onto the road, however, Mrs. Judd waved her arm and started toward us, calling my name. I stuck my head out of the window, waiting for her to reach us while I wondered if she’d scold me for my part in Rita’s newspaper work.
“Queenie,” Mrs. Judd said, puffing a little. “Queenie, I’d be obliged to you for a scrap of that nice red you have with the white stars—that is, if it wouldn’t rob you. I’m making me a Dresden Plate, and the red’ll look awful good in it.”
I’d been holding my breath ever since Mrs. Judd called my name, and I was so relieved that I let it out in a rush. Asking for a piece of yard goods was Mrs. Judd’s way of telling me she didn’t blame me for Rita’s prying, that everything between us was normal. “I’d be proud to see it in your quilt,” I said. “I’ll drop it off the next time I come this way.”
When we were out on the road, Rita took her lip between her teeth and fanned herself with her hat. Then she asked what Mrs. Judd had meant by asking for a piece of my fabric.
I slowed down, thinking over my reply, before I turned to Rita. “She meant she wanted a scrap of my red with the stars in it for her Dresden Plate,” I said. “That’s all.”
Chapter
7
When we left the Judds’, I hoped Rita was ready to give up and go home. I was tired of being a reporter’s helper and didn’t like people frowning at me, but she insisted we had to talk to the sheriff, so I drove us into Harveyville.
It was a Friday. No old bachelors leaned against the Flint Hills Home & Feed. Socializing was Saturday work, and the few people in town that day were hurrying to finish errands so they could go home and get their chores done and be back in town by dark. A sign on the door of the Home & Feed read: MOVIE TONIGHT, SUNDOWN. On Friday nights, the Home & Feed set up a big projector outside and beamed a motion picture on the side of the building. People brought their chairs from home so they could sit in the street and watch it. Tonight’s picture was Murders in the Rue Morgue. I thought I’d had enough of murder that day, so I wouldn’t ask Grover to take me.
Harveyville wasn’t any “Gasoline Alley.” Only one car was parked on the street, and it was in front of the sheriff’s office— a Hudson Super Six with last year’s license plate on it. The car had been there more than a year, ever since Pap Logan parked it in that spot, then walked into the street without looking and was hit by a farm kid in an old Willys Overland. Pap was laid up in bed for six months, and even today, he couldn’t walk without crutches, so he never went back for the Hudson. He wouldn’t let anyone else drive it, either. So it just stayed there. The tires were flat.
When I pulled in next to the Super Six, Sheriff Eagles was sitting on the running board on the car’s shady side, whittling a stick with his pocketknife. I turned off the engine, and Rita and I got out.
“This is better than a front-porch swing,” Sheriff Eagles said, not getting up, although he touched the brim of his hat to us.
“You know Rita Ritter?” I asked while the sheriff nodded how-do at Rita. “She’s Tom’s wife. She wants to talk to you.”
He squinted at Rita. “You writing up another article about Ben Crook?”
“Did you read the first one?” Rita asked, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt. She liked it when people told her they’d read her newspaper stories.
“I guess everybody in Harveyville’s read it,” he said, and turned away to spit. “As least, everybody in Harveyville’s told me you didn’t spell my name right. It’s Eagles with an s on the end of it, not Eagle. You know, not just one bird, a whole flock of ‘em.” Rita looked embarrassed and turned red, and Sheriff Eagles told her, “Oh, heck. That’s all right, sis. Everybody spells it wrong.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say, just spell my name right,” Rita muttered.
The sheriff looked at me, and I shrugged because I didn’t know what Rita meant any more than he did. He asked, “How’s that?”
“It’s just an old newspaper saying,” Rita explained. She put her elbow on the Hudson so she could get closer to the sheriff, but it slipped, and Rita nearly fell. She straightened up, then leaned over to Sheriff Eagles. “You don’t mind being in the newspaper, do you, Sheriff Eagles?” She pronounced Eagles as if it ended in a whole string of s’s.
“Can’t say it’s any worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”
Rita laughed hard, although I’d heard that expression a thousand times and didn’t see why she thought it was so funny. She started to reply, then noticed that several people on the sidewalk had stopped to listen. So she said, “Why don’t we go inside to talk.”
“Suit yourself.” Sheriff Eagles took his time, however, as he carefully folded the knife and put it into his pocket, then slowly got to his feet. He brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants but not off the back of his shirt, which was dusty from leaning against the car.
Rita and I followed him into the office, Rita whispering to me, “Where’s his gun?”
Sheriff Eagles put his fists on his waist and turned to Rita. “What do I need a gun for?”
“I thought lawmen always carried guns,” Rita said.
“This is Harveyville, Kansas, not Dodge City, Kansas,” he said. “It ain’t Abilene, Kansas, either,” he added, but I think Rita had already gotten the point. “It’s not…” He couldn’t think of another Wild West place in Kansas and shook his head. “You don’t need a gun to sit on the running board of a Super Six in Harveyville.” Sheriff Eagles winked at me. I winked back, then decided he might think I was siding with him against Rita, so I reached up and rubbed my eye as if I’d gotten a cinder in it.
I’d never been in the sheriff’s office before, and I was as disappointed with it as Rita was with Sheriff Eagles not carrying a gun. It was just a dusty room with an old wooden desk and a chair with an Indian blanket folded up for a cushion. Against the wall stood a rusty wood stove with dirty coffee cups on it. A row of upright bars like an iron fence marked off the jail end of the room, and you could see right through it to the two bunks and a slop jar. I wondered how anybody who was locked up in there had the privacy to go to the bathroom. I wished Rita would ask Sheriff Eagles about that!
The sheriff sat down behind the desk and leaned forward on his elbows, squinting at us. He didn’t invite us to si
t down, but Rita pulled up a chair, and I found one for myself.
“Rita—” I started to tell the sheriff, but she cut me off with a sharp look. I should have learned by now that she wanted to ask the questions.
Rita leaned forward and smiled at the sheriff. “I’m writing a follow-up to that story you read, and I’ll make sure I spell your name right this time.”
“You do that.”
“You wouldn’t have a pencil, would you?” Rita asked, and the sheriff rummaged around in the drawer and found a tiny pencil with a broken lead.
“You got a penknife so’s I can sharpen it?” he asked.
I was about to ask what was wrong with the one in his pocket, but Rita said, “Never mind.” She opened her pocket-book and took out my pencil stub and poised it over her pad of paper. The smile disappeared from her face, and she narrowed her eyes at the sheriff and asked, “Who killed Ben Crook?”
Sheriff Eagles looked at her as if she’d just asked him what day of the year we would get the next hard rain. “How the hell do I know, sis?” he replied. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.” He said that to me.
“Don’t you know?”
“I’m working on it. Ben Crook died more than a year ago. There ain’t a lot of evidence left around. I didn’t find anybody’s name and address written down and stuck inside Ben’s overalls pocket.”
“Did you find any weapons?”
“Naw. Ben was killed someplace else and hauled there in an automobile. The man who done it most likely used a two-by-four or maybe a piece of cordwood to kill him. He did a right smart job of it, judging from the way Ben’s skull was bashed in. It was a doozy.”
Rita gave me an “I told you so” look before she licked the end of her pencil with her tongue, but she didn’t write down anything. “What leads do you have?”
“Why would I tell you? You’d put it in the newspaper, wouldn’t you, and the fellow who done it would run off. Ain’t that about right?” Sheriff Eagles leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. He glanced at me, but even though I thought he’d been pretty quick, I frowned. After all, I was on Rita’s side.
The Persian Pickle Club Page 12