Crooked as a Dog's Hind Leg

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  "Desperate times call for desperate measures."

  Clearly he thought this was important. I read the passage out loud. "'"The papers," said Fagin, drawing Oliver towards him, "are in a canvas bag, in a hole a little way up the chimney in the top front–room."' What papers?"

  "The papers that proved who Oliver's parents were. And I remembered a fireplace at Pigwick's. Of course in Fannie's case, I'll bet the papers are green with numbers and presidential portraits on them."

  "And maybe something that proves who Tim's father was?"

  "That's what I'm hoping." He looked toward me, obviously expecting expressions of delight.

  I didn't disappoint him. "Richard, you're brilliant!"

  He tried to assume a modest expression. "Well, we should probably wait until we find out if I'm right or not." Still, he broke into a huge grin, like a cat who had just swallowed a particularly plump canary.

  * * *

  It was almost two in the morning, so we weren't surprised that Pigwick's was dark when we drove into the parking lot.

  "Drive around back," I told Richard. "There must be a stairway up to Tim's place. I was right, and we climbed up to knock at the door. When that didn't work, we progressed to pounding with our fists.

  Finally Tim opened the door, wearing a pair of jeans he must have just pulled on and rubbing his eyes. "What's going on?"

  "Sorry to wake you up, Tim, but we think that Richard's figured out where your mother's money is.

  That woke him up. "Are you serious?"

  "Richard, read him that piece from Oliver Twist."

  Richard complied.

  I asked, "Is it possible?"

  "Well, we sure never looked in there," Tim said. "I know Mama had read Oliver Twist, but she was only halfway through reading it to me when she died. I never had the heart to finish it." He stepped back from the door. "Come on in, and we'll go look."

  Stopping only to put on a sweatshirt and pull a flashlight out of a drawer, Tim lead us through his apartment, down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the dining room. He flipped on the lights and said, "I'll turn the heat up."

  I guess it was cold in there, but I was too excited to notice. All I could do was stare at the brick fireplace that nearly filled one wall.

  "Well," Tim said, "let's see what we can see."

  All three of us started tugging on the bricks that made up the fireplace. We must have spent an hour, and I know that no brick escaped our attentions. Tim even pulled out a stepladder so he could get to the highest bricks.

  "Did y'all find anything?" Tim finally asked.

  I shook my head.

  Richard pulled out Oliver Twist again and said, "The book says the money was on the inside of the chimney."

  "Then let's try that." Tim got down on his hands and knees and hunted up inside, using the flashlight to light his way. Richard and I watched eagerly at first, but as the minutes passed, it was obvious that he wasn't finding anything. Finally he crawled back out. "Nothing!"

  "Let me try," I said, reaching for the flashlight. I was both shorter and smaller around than Tim, so I could get a little further in. Not that it did me any good. All I found was soot. I knew I was ruining my coat and my dress, but I just didn't care. Finally Richard tugged on my foot, and I gave up and came away from the fireplace.

  "I'm sorry, Tim," I said, feeling foolish. "We really thought this could be it. Here we got you out of bed and everything."

  "No, that's all right. It sounded like a good idea to me, too. I don't really need the money anyway. Pigwick's is doing fine. I just thought if I could find it, maybe I could go to college part–time, and get that degree Mama wanted me to have."

  Now I really felt awful for raising his hopes for nothing. "I'm sorry," I said again.

  Tim looked at the clock. It was almost four. "I may as well stay up and get the meat ready to cook. I'm supposed to cater a lunch in Hickory today. Your car's in back isn't it? Come on out to the kitchen, and I'll let you out that way."

  He didn't even wait for an answer before going into the kitchen.

  Richard looked even more forlorn than Tim had. "It was a good idea," I said, and rubbed his back.

  He said, "'The attempt and not the deed confounds us.' MacBeth, Act II, scene 2."

  It was when I heard Tim rattling around in the kitchen that something rattled loose in my brain. I pulled at Richard's sleeve. "Hold on just one minute! You may have solved it after all!"

  Tim had pulled out a big pan, and was opening the walk–in refrigerator. The kitchen was all stainless steel and tile. There was an oven, but it looked brand–new. Besides, it wasn't big enough to cook a whole hog in.

  "Tim, you don't cook the barbeque in here, do you?"

  "No, I've got a stone oven out in a shed. Mama said she had to put it out there or it would have been too hot in here in the summer."

  "So it's the same one that your mother used?"

  "Of course." Then he caught onto what I was talking about. "You don't suppose...?"

  "Where's the shed?" Richard asked.

  Again Tim led the way as we went outside, cut across the parking lot, and into a wooden shed that held a few shelves and a huge oven. I looked up at the stone chimney rising up from the oven, and saw Richard and Tim doing the same.

  I asked, "Is it possible?"

  Tim said, "The only thing is that we keep it going most of the time." Even at this hour, I could feel low heat rising from the oven. "I don't see how Mama could have put anything inside without burning herself."

  I said, "What about on the outside?"

  Richard went to one side and Tim to the other, and started pushing on the stones at eye level. After a few minutes, they shook their heads.

  "Maybe it just needs to be pulled harder," Richard said. "It's been a long time."

  "Maybe," Tim said doubtfully.

  I said, "Tim, how tall was your mama?"

  "About your height, maybe an inch or two shorter." He smiled, catching on. "We were looking too high up."

  This time I squeezed in and started pushing and tugging. Long minutes went by, with Tim and Richard watching anxiously, and I think I would have given up if it hadn't been for the hopeful light in Tim's eyes. Even with that encouragement, I was just about ready to admit defeat when I felt a rock give a little. "That one moved," I said.

  "Can you pull it out?" Richard asked.

  I tried, but couldn't get a good grip.

  "Let me," Tim said, and reached around me. I guess cooking ribs is better hand exercise than punching keys at a computer all day, because he had it pulled out in a second. Or maybe he just had a stronger motive than I did.

  Once he had the rock out of the way, I stuck my hand into the hole and felt a piece of cloth. "There's something in here." I yanked and pulled out a canvas drawstring sack. It was about as big as my biggest pocketbook, and looked about half full. I was tempted to open it myself, but that wouldn't have been right. Instead I handed it to Tim.

  He swallowed visibly as he pulled the string. It came partway loose, then disintegrated. "Rotted through," he said, and pulled on the bag itself. The canvas held for a second longer, then came open and Tim looked inside. A yell burst out from him, and he grabbed an enormous stew pot from on top of the stove and spilled the contents of the bag out into it.

  Neatly banded parcels of bills poured into the pot.

  "It's Mama's money!" He reached his arms around both me and Richard and clutched us to him in a bear hug.

  The three of us danced around and did our best to recreate the lost Rebel Yell. Eventually I remembered the other reason for our treasure hunt, and pulled myself free. "Is there anything else in there?"

  Tim laughed, handed me a slotted spoon, and said, "Just stir it up and see!" Then he danced around some more with Richard.

  I used the spoon to rummage around the bills. A couple of stacks came loose because the rubber bands containing them had given up, so I didn't find it right off. Besides, I was looking for papers o

r an envelope. What I found was a badly tarnished box.

  "Tim, was this your mother's?" Not knowing how long fingerprints could last, I didn't touch it, just pointed with the spoon.

  Tim finally stopped dancing. "What is it?"

  "I think it's a cigarette case." I still had on my coat, so I reached into my pockets to find my gloves, and only picked it up after I had my hands covered.

  Tim took a look. "I don't think so. Mama didn't smoke. And that looks like silver."

  I flipped it open. It was filled with cigarettes, but they didn't look mass–produced. "I don't think these are tobacco."

  Richard and Tim nodded.

  "I know my Mama didn't smoke pot," Tim said firmly. "She didn't even like Uncle Eb drinking because she didn't want me picking it up."

  "Maybe this was the reason she was killed," I said slowly. Possession of marijuana might be a misdemeanor now, but twenty–five years ago, it could have led to a long jail sentence. "What if the murderer was looking for this, not for the money?"

  Tim looked confused, but then, he didn't know what Richard and I had been up to. "Caleb Wilkins was a junkie?"

  "I don't think it was Caleb Wilkins," I said. "I'll explain it all later, but right now I think we ought to call the police. Maybe they can still find fingerprints on this, and figure out who it belonged to."

  "We won't need fingerprints," Richard said. "Hold the case up to the light again."

  I closed the case, and took a closer look at the front. The inscription was obscured by the tarnish, but after a minute I read the initials out loud. "JB."

  * * *

  "Well, Joe," Andy Norton said. "Do you want to tell us what happened?" He hefted the cigarette case, now encased in a plastic bag.

  Joe Bowley wasn't smiling now. His chubby face had gone slack, and he wasn't meeting Chief Norton's eyes.

  It was around nine o'clock in the morning by then. Neither Richard or I had gone to bed after finding Fannie's cache. Instead we had called Junior Norton and her father to come take charge of the cigarette case, and told them all we knew. After that, we had all gone to the police station to wait until it was late enough that Junior could go get Joe Bowley.

  Junior even deputized her father so he could lead the questioning, since it had been his case originally. "It's an early Christmas present," she had said with a grin. An odd present, maybe, but no more odd than what Richard and I were trying to give Aunt Edna.

  Now Richard, Junior, Tim, and I were waiting for Joe's answer. He had already waived his right to have a lawyer present, and even agreed to let Tim, Richard, and me listen in.

  Joe took a long, ragged breath, and started to speak. "I didn't even like pot much at first—that's the crazy thing. I only started smoking because some of the guys liked it, and I always carried it around in case somebody wanted to smoke with me. Nobody did at the party, but I went around back of the shed to smoke one anyway. To celebrate winning. That's where Fannie found me. Lord, she was mad. Said she didn't need drugs around her bar.

  "I probably shouldn't have offered her one, because that just made her madder, and she snatched the case away from me. She said she wouldn't call the police, but I was going to have to tell my daddy or she would. She said she'd give him the case back when he came to talk to her.

  "I was going to tell him, I was going to tell him that night. Only when I got home, he kept saying how proud he was of me for playing such a good game. I couldn't tell him then.

  "So I went back to Fannie's late that night, after everybody else had gone home. I just wanted more time, but she said I had to tell Daddy right away. I offered her money to keep quiet, but she said that she was going to call Daddy the first thing in the morning." He shook his head, not so much in regret as in complete lack of understanding. "She just wouldn't listen to me."

  "Is that when you hit her?" Chief Norton asked.

  Joe looked shocked. "You make it sound like I meant to hurt her. What happened is that she wanted me to leave, and I wouldn't go without my case. She said she was going to get her shotgun, was even heading for the bar to go get it. I just wanted to stop her, so I tried to catch her arm. She wriggled away, so I had to grab her. She kept moving, trying to get away, and she pushed herself away from me and lost her balance. That's when she hit her head. It was an accident."

  "If it was an accident," Chief Norton said quietly, "why didn't you call for help?"

  "I didn't think she was dead––I thought she had just knocked herself out. I had to find my case. I knew it was there somewhere, and I didn't want anybody else to find it."

  I wasn't supposed to talk, but I couldn't help asking. "What about the blood? Didn't you even check for a pulse?"

  He didn't really answer me, just said, "I would have called for help once I found the case."

  Chief Norton said, "Didn't you stop to think that if Fannie had been alive, she could have called your father when she woke up? Maybe even the police?"

  "She wouldn't have done that, not without the case as proof. It would have been her word against mine, and Daddy wouldn't have believed a ni––" He looked at Tim and stopped. "She knew that."

  "But you didn't find the case."

  I pictured him ripping up the bar while Fannie lay there bleeding, and shivered. Richard took my hand.

  Joe shook his head. "I looked everywhere, and then I heard a car drive up. I didn't know it was Caleb. I thought it was Fannie's brother, and he might have been drinking. He'd have killed me if he had found me in there with her like that. So I went out the back door and drove away."

  "You must have thought that I'd come looking for you pretty soon," Chief Norton said. "Why didn't you try to run?"

  "I didn't have anywhere to go. This is my home, my family is here."

  Byerly had been Caleb's home, too, I thought.

  Joe went on. "The next day I heard about Fannie being dead and Caleb being arrested, but nobody mentioned my cigarette case. I was sure that Caleb would get out of it. He was innocent, after all."

  I didn't find his trust in our legal system very touching.

  Chief Norton said, "What about your hat?"

  Joe looked surprised that he knew that part, but answered anyway. "I saw I didn't have mine a couple of days later, and that's when I thought about getting the team to burn them all as a protest. Like burning flags and bras the way people did then."

  I didn't think that anybody had ever burned a bra to hide evidence of a murder.

  Finally Joe met Chief Norton's eyes. "I did what I could for Caleb. We paid for his bail and his lawyer, never asked for a penny of it back. Walters would have hired him back eventually. He didn't have to leave town like that."

  Easy for him to say when he hadn't been the outcast.

  He looked down at his hands. "I tried to make up for it."

  I remembered what Aunt Nora had said about Joe's charity work, and wondered how much of his life had been spent trying to make up for Fannie Topper. He had done everything but the right thing.

  * * *

  "So Joe murdered Fannie," Aunt Nora said after Richard and I had told her about it.

  "It wasn't murder after all," Richard said. "Joe told us it was an accident, and I believe him. Even Tim said he couldn't hate him."

  I wasn't quite so forgiving as Richard and Tim, but I had to admit that Joe had looked right pitiful sitting there, knowing that he was finally going to have to tell his father the truth.

  "Did Junior put him in jail?"

  I shook my head. "She let him go home for now. She's not sure what the district attorney is going to want to do."

  "Have you called Caleb?"

  "First thing. I had to get Andy Norton on the line to convince him that it was true, but he said he's going to meet me and Richard at Aunt Maggie's on Christmas morning. Then we'll bring him over here." The Burnettes always gathered together on Christmas morning, and this year Aunt Nora was the hostess. "I can't wait to see Aunt Edna's face."

  Then I thought of something. "Aunt Nora, do you suppose you could throw some hints around that Aunt Edna might want to dress up a bit?" After all this, I didn't want Caleb to be shocked by her appearance.

  "I think I can handle that. Why don't you two go get yourselves some sleep. You look like you've been ridden hard and put away wet."

  "That sounds like an excellent suggestion," Richard said, and pulled me out of the chair before I could fall asleep right where I was.

  We slept most of that day to catch up, and since the next day was Christmas Eve, we stayed busy wrapping gifts and visiting. Chief Norton brought over a platter of Christmas cookies, and Tim Topper delivered enough sealed bags of barbeque to feed my habit for a year.

  * * *

  Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. Richard and I were up early to exchange gifts before joining in on the official Burnette celebration. Then we ate breakfast with Aunt Maggie and sent her along to Aunt Nora's house so we could wait.

  Caleb showed up right on time, dressed in what had to be a new suit, and grinning from ear to ear. He kept trying to thank us, but I finally got him into his car by telling him that we were going to be late.

  The plan was for him to follow us, and let us go inside first. After a few minutes, he would ring the bell and we'd make sure that Aunt Edna answered.

  Caleb looked nervous, but no more than I was. As we drove to Aunt Nora's, all of a sudden I was wondering if this had been a good idea. What right did I have to meddle this way? Aunt Nora had said that Aunt Edna had been furious at Caleb when he left. What if she didn't want to speak to him?

  "It's going to be fine," Richard said. "Even if they don't get together again, I'm sure they'll enjoy seeing each other."

  "What if they don't get along anymore? Aunt Edna has changed an awful lot." I kept remembering the picture of how she used to be. If that was the woman Caleb was expecting to see, he was going to be disappointed.

  "It's going to be fine," Richard repeated. "Don't get your shorts in a bunch."

  I had to giggle. "Where did you hear that?"

  "Aunt Nora, of course. You didn't think that was Shakespeare, did you?"

  Finally we were there. Richard and I parked on the street, and I made sure Caleb had parked behind us before we went inside.

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