“Evil. I believe to my soul, he was truly evil, even though I hate to say that about a body,” Ceres said. “I know he’s in hell, and I’m glad for it.” I glanced at Ella, who nodded her head up and down but wasn’t aware of it, because she continued nodding after Ceres finished speaking.
“We saw him close the car door on Ella’s hand once,” Forest Ann said.
“On purpose. You can see yourself how it’s bent because Ben wouldn’t let Doc Sipes administer to Ella,” Nettie added. I looked at Ella’s little twisted hands and felt that pain myself. “Ben took to sneaking around Forest Ann’s place evenings after her husband got killed. She was afraid of Ben, so she asked Doc to start stopping by—” Forest Ann shook her head at Nettie, who didn’t finish.
“I saw him—” Agnes T. Ritter said, but Mrs. Judd broke in.
“He was always after Ella. Just opening her mouth was an excuse for Ben to hit her. He used his fist or a poker, anything he could put his hands on. Who knows how she lived through it, or how she turned out to be the sweet thing she is. I think Ella goes someplace back in her head to hide, and that’s what saved her.”
I glanced at Ella, who seemed to hiding there now.
“Sometimes she’d run away and hide with us,” Mrs. Judd continued. “Prosper would stand up to Ben when he came looking for her, and there were times I thought Ben would kill him for it. Ben was a big man, and Prosper … isn’t so big. But he’s man enough. Don’t you doubt it.” Mrs. Judd paused to make sure we all knew how proud she was of her husband.
“There were other ways Ben was mean. He trampled Ella’s flowers because she loved them so, and he’d hide her shoes so she couldn’t come to Pickle. Once, when Ella had club meeting at her house, she baked a cake, got it all iced, too, and Ben threw it to the pigs. That was the day he died, and I’ve never been sorry for it. I don’t suppose anybody else in this room is, either.” As we nodded in agreement, Mrs. Judd took a deep breath and sat back in her chair, talked out.
“Septima knew everything, but the rest of us, we only saw a little of it. We never knew how terrible Ben was. Until that day,” Opalina said. She reached over and put her hand on top of Mrs. Judd’s.
“I remember when they were married. We didn’t think Ben was much of a catch, except he was handsome, and oh, those hips! Hips’ll do it. Ella was so happy,” Ceres said. “Who would have guessed?” Ceres looked at Opalina and Mrs. Judd, who had known Ella in her youth, and both shook their heads.
Now, Rita spoke for the first time since I’d told our secret. “Well, why didn’t Ella leave him? She could have gone to the sheriff. I suppose Sheriff Eagles is her brother, isn’t he?” She’d stopped trembling, but her face was still pale.
“Yes, he’s that. Ella was too ashamed to tell him—” Mrs. Judd stopped talking because Ella had put up her hand, and I knew she understood what was going on. “What is it, sugar pie? Did you want to say something?” Mrs. Judd asked her.
Ella gave a wistful little smile as she traced the circle of the Dresden plate in front of her with her forefinger. “I loved Ben,” she said without looking up. “He promised, promised he wouldn’t hit me again.”
“Ha!” Mrs. Judd said.
“So Prosper killed him because he was mean to Ella?” Rita asked. “Then, after he did it, all of you buried the body?”
“I told you, Prosper didn’t kill anybody,” Mrs. Judd yelled, as though the loudness would get the words through Rita’s head. I glanced out the window, glad no one was outside to hear. “Prosper didn’t even know Ben was dead until Hiawatha found the body.”
“Then who killed him?” Rita asked.
The question hung in the air as we all grew quiet again. We’d told Rita almost everything, but not that, not the final part of the secret. We looked around the circle at one another, avoiding Rita’s eyes; then each of us turned to Mrs. Judd, just as we always did when there was a difficult decision to make.
Mrs. Judd sat with her elbow on her knee, her mouth in the palm of her hand, knowing without looking up that we expected her to speak. She blew out her breath, but before she could, Ella opened and shut her mouth like a little bird, then whispered, “I did.”
Rita looked at that tiny woman with astonishment. The rest of us did, too. “I did it,” Ella repeated, then shrank back against her chair. She would have toppled over if Ada June hadn’t grabbed her.
“You?” Rita asked. “How?” Obviously, she didn’t believe Ella.
Mrs. Judd snorted at the idea of Ella killing Ben Crook, but Ella replied quickly, “Snuck up behind him. I hit him with the fry pan. I said, ‘Don’t throw out the cake.’ He hurt me bad.” Tears rolled down Ella’s cheeks, and she rubbed her eyes with her little fists. She was used to crying without making a sound, however, and the only noise in the room was the ticking of Rita’s wristwatch, which seemed as loud as our alarm clock.
“That’s a lie.”
I didn’t know who’d spoken. I looked at Ada June and Nettie and Forest Ann. Then, with astonishment, I turned to Agnes T. Ritter, who spoke louder this time. “That’s a lie, and you know it is, Ella,” she said. “I killed Ben Crook.” Agnes T. Ritter stared at Rita with her lips pressed together so hard, they’d gone inside her mouth.
She had to breathe, however, so her lips came back out, and she opened her mouth a crack. Agnes T. Ritter’s eyes gleamed, almost as if she was having a good time, because, at last, her mother wasn’t telling her to be still. “I was the first one to arrive for Persian Pickle that day because Mom had the car in town, and I walked. It didn’t take as long as I’d thought. So I got there early and heard Ben screaming at Ella. He hit her with his fist, and when she fell down, Ben kicked her. I saw it through the window, and by the time I got to the door, Ben had a butcher knife in his hand. Ella was curled up in a little ball, and I knew if she wasn’t dead already, she would be in a minute if I didn’t stop him. I picked up the skillet from the stove next to the door and bashed Ben over the head with it. I didn’t mean to kill him, but I’m not sorry I did.” Agnes T. Ritter sat back in her chair, defiant.
Mrs. Ritter leaned over and put her arms around Agnes T. Ritter. “No, dear. You don’t have to protect me,” Mrs. Ritter said, then turned to Rita. “The stove isn’t next to the door. You’re smart enough to find that out, Rita. I got to Ella’s in the car before Agnes arrived, and I killed Ben. I didn’t use any skillet, either. It was the side of the ax that Ella kept outside for chopping wood. I never saw a mad dog go after a person the way Ben went for Ella. He was an insane man. I didn’t have a choice—”
“You didn’t either do it, Sabra,” Nettie interrupted. “I did.”
“We did,” Forest Ann corrected her. “Nettie and I killed him dead. Nettie called out to him to stop, and I ran around behind him and bashed him on the noggin with a flatiron. I’m not one bit sorry. I sleep good at night knowing nobody has to worry about Ben Crook again.”
“I’m an old woman, and I’m willing to take my punishment,” Ceres told Rita.
Ada June shook her head. “I know you’re trying to protect me, with my kids and all, but I’ll own up to it. Lord knows, he deserved it.” She looked Rita in the eye. “I struck him with a piece of kindling. I did it two or three times, until he stopped moving.”
“The truth is,” Mrs. Judd broke in, and everyone turned to her. “The truth is, I’m the only one strong enough to mash in Ben Crook’s head. And I’m the only one mean enough to do it.”
“Oh, no, dear, I stood on a chair so I could hit him,” Opalina said. Mrs. Judd gave Opalina such an astonished look that I almost laughed.
“We all put him in Mrs. Judd’s Packard and drove him out to the field to bury him. Then we swore a pact that if anyone ever brought up Ben’s name, we’d say he loved Ella and thought the sun rose and set on her,” I explained. “I guess we said it too much.”
“With so many men walking away from their families these days, why, folks just naturally thought that’s what Ben did,” Ceres added.
“Ben didn’t have any family, and Ella was the only one who cared about him. Everybody else in Harveyville was glad he was gone. Who’d take the trouble to look for him?” I said. The others nodded.
“But it was murder,” Rita said, drawing out the word and shuddering.
“Murder? You think killing a crazy man who’s about to beat his own wife to death is murder?” Agnes T. Ritter asked.
Rita didn’t reply. No one else spoke, either. We were relieved when a car drove past to give us something to listen to besides the sound of our voices. I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life. I could have put my head down on the quilt right then and gone to sleep. The others were weary, too, especially Mrs. Judd, who had black half-moons under her eyes. The fire had gone out of her.
She knew this wasn’t over, however, and when the sound of tires on the dirt road faded away, she asked, “Now that you know the truth, Rita, what are you going to do?”
Mrs. Judd question was the one we all wanted answered, although not one of us had had the courage to ask it. Rita frowned as she thought it over, and she wouldn’t meet our eyes. I wondered if the others heard my heart pounding away.
“You won’t put it in the paper, will you? Anson would lose his job, and they might chop off our heads, just like chickens,” Opalina said. She began to cry.
Ceres reached over to hold Opalina’s hand while Mrs. Judd said, “Hush. The state of Kansas doesn’t behead anybody.”
“We didn’t tell you this to put in the newspaper,” Agnes T. Ritter said slowly. “We told you because you are a member of the Persian Pickle Club, because you are one of us. We extended the hand of friendship to you, and there’s nothing in this world that’s stronger than friendship. You had the right to know our secret, because we trust you.” I had never heard Agnes T. Ritter say anything so fine, and I wanted to hug her for it. The idea of doing that almost made me giggle.
Rita thought hard, her teeth biting into her bottom lip. She’d chewed off all the lipstick, and the skin was raw. I remembered that night in the Ritter kitchen when Rita had sworn to sell her soul to get out of Harveyville. She wouldn’t have to sell her soul now. She’d just have to sell our story to the newspaper.
As I watched Rita twist her wedding ring around her finger, I saw how rough and cracked her hands were, not at all pretty like they were the first time I saw her. The thumb, where she’d torn off a hangnail, was bleeding onto the edge of the quilt.
“I promised to write one more article for the Topeka Enterprise, and I told the editor I was certain I knew who killed Ben Crook. He’d think I was stupid if I didn’t come up with something,” Rita said, choosing her words carefully. She put her hands in her lap and looked directly at me. I wanted to turn away, but knew I had to look her in the eye. Ceres put her arm around my shoulder.
“Just today, Queenie told me a story that happened before Mr. Crook’s body was found. A man at a campfire said he knew somebody was buried in Ella’s field.” Rita paused, then gave a high little laugh. “Why, you’d have to be as big a dummy as Charlie McCarthy to think it was anybody but that Skillet. It’s my duty to write a story about Skillet—you know, to warn people to watch out for drifters.”
Rita looked a little pleased with herself as she finished and winked at me. As each of us understood what Rita had said, we sighed with relief and smiled at her. I unclenched my hands to see that my nails had sunk through the flesh and drawn blood that had dripped onto the quilt in front of me. We’d spilled more blood on Mrs. Judd’s Dresden Plate that day than the Whig’s Defeat had gotten during the whole Civil War.
“That’s a real good idea. You tell folks to start locking their doors at night,” Nettie said.
“It would be what you call a service to mankind,” Forest Ann added.
“And women,” Opalina added.
The rest of us chimed in about what a help a story like that would be to people, especially those who live out in the country. Ceres said she knew Rita would do a bang-up job.
“Maybe you could run his picture,” Opalina said.
“Now, who takes a picture of a hired man?” Mrs. Judd asked her, and we all laughed.
Ella didn’t laugh. She didn’t say anything, either, which made the rest of us grow quiet again. I wondered if Ella would object to Rita’s story, but she didn’t. In fact, she wasn’t listening to us anymore. She smiled to herself and took up her needle, which had been lying on top of the quilt, and made half a dozen stitches, pulling the thread through as she hummed a little tune under her breath.
“Why, shame on us. We’ve hardly quilted at all today,” Mrs. Ritter said. One by one, each member of the Persian Pickle Club, including Rita, picked up her needle and begin stitching around the Dresden plates.
We sewed quietly for a long time, no longer feeling a need to talk, until at last, Mrs. Judd stuck her needle into the quilt and took off her thimble. “Somebody tell me where’s the time gone. I forgot all about refreshments.” She placed her hands on the side of her chair and hefted herself up. “I’ll put the teakettle on. Hot tea always hits the spot after an afternoon’s sewing. Did I tell you I’ve got fresh lemons?”
Mrs. Judd took a few heavy steps toward the kitchen before stopping to place her hand on the back of Rita’s chair and leaning over to examine the quilt in front of her. “Honey, those are real nice stitches. You’re coming along just fine.” She straightened up and added, “We’ve had an awful good quilting this evening, haven’t we, ladies? Why, you might say it’s the best Persian Pickle we ever had.”
Chapter
12
It was my turn for Persian Pickle, and I could hardly wait. I’d kept quiet for two days, ever since I found the package and the postcard in the mailbox, both of them on the same day. The other club members would be as thrilled as I was!
I checked the icebox pudding again and made sure that no dust had collected in the last five minutes on the dining room table. Then I leaned over the cradle and kissed Grover junior, who was sleeping under the Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Bill quilt that Nettie and Forest Ann had made for him.
He was the sweetest baby in the world, and pretty, too. He didn’t look the least bit like Tyrone Burgett, although Grover said it would be a while before we knew whether he had Tyrone’s beer belly. That was the one and only time Grover mentioned that our baby was Tyrone’s grandson. After that, Grover forgot about it, and so did I. The Persian Pickles never mentioned Grover junior’s parents, of course. He was our baby.
Things had gone just the way we’d planned. Velma turned over her little boy to us two weeks after he was born, then went on to Moline, where she found a job as a clerk in the house-wares department of a Kresge’s five-and-dime. She’d never once written to ask about him. People in Harveyville knew we’d adopted, of course, but, except for the Pickles, no one ever suspected the baby’s mother was someone they knew.
Of course, I’d have mortgaged the farm to pay for Grover junior, but Velma’s stay in the unwed mothers’ home in Kansas City hadn’t cost us much at all. That’s because the folks there gave us credit for the $124 we raised selling raffle tickets on the Celebrity Quilt.
An old bachelor who lived north of Paxico won it. He wasn’t at the drawing, so I volunteered to mail the quilt, but Opalina warned us not to trust the United States Post Office. Someone who worked there was bound to recognize the box and take the Celebrity Quilt home, she said, and how would we explain that to Mrs. Roosevelt? She was right, I guess, so I drove all the way over to Paxico to deliver the quilt in person, which tickled that old boy. Ada June, who’d ridden along with me, said what a pity it was he couldn’t read and so didn’t know whose names he slept under.
At last, I heard the first car turn into our yard, and I glanced out the window, to see Nettie and Forest Ann pulling in next to the balm of Gileads, which still glistened with water. It hadn’t been much of a rain, but we weren’t particular, being grateful for any amount of moisture. I watched the two women walk towa
rd the house, arm in arm, with their sewing baskets in their hands. They came inside, letting in the smell of the earth that Grover had just turned for the kitchen garden, and went to the cradle to peep at the baby.
“He grows every time I see him. He’ll be as big as Grover if you don’t watch out,” Nettie said. She patted the scarf around her neck, but these days, the gesture was only habit. Dr. Sipes had removed her goiter, probably for free, just to please Forest Ann. Nettie had gotten her hair marcelled, too, but she’d had to pay for that herself. Tyrone must have been doing some better in the gambling business.
“Him never fusses one bit. Him takes after Grover,” Forest Ann said, smoothing Grover junior’s hair.
The other members of the Persian Pickle Club arrived a few minutes later, talking softly so they wouldn’t wake the baby. I told them they could speak up. “Grover junior could sleep through a thunderstorm.”
“How would you know? We haven’t had a thunderstorm since he was born—hardly since I was born,” Agnes T. Ritter said. She and I had become closer, not best friends exactly, but good friends.
She’d stopped by right after that quilting at Mrs. Judd’s in the fall to say we shouldn’t blame Rita for trying so hard to leave Harveyville. Agnes T. Ritter confessed she’d wanted to get away every bit as much as Rita. She’d hoped to leave right after high school, but somebody had to stay on to take care of Howard and Sabra Ritter. So after finishing college, she’d come back home instead of looking for a job in Lawrence or Topeka. Her folks had hoped Tom would be the one to stay. They needed a man to help with the farming, and, well, Agnes T. Ritter sniffed, they thought Tom was smarter and better-looking and more fun to be around than she was, so who wouldn’t rather have Tom? Even in her own home, Agnes T. Ritter wasn’t anybody’s first choice. Still, she knew Tom never would come back for good. So her folks were her responsibility. I came to understand Agnes T. Ritter after that talk, and I admired her for her sacrifice.
Rita had done just what she’d promised that day at Mrs. Judd’s. She’d written one more article for the Topeka Enterprise about Ben Crook’s murder, warning people to be careful of drifters, especially one named “Frying Pan.”
The Persian Pickle Club Page 20