by Gayle Wilson
“And as soon as you do?”
“Then we’ll get right on it, Mr. Bedford,” Adams said, his eyes cold. “Until then, our hands are tied.”
“YOU WANT TO CALL it a day?” Jeb asked as soon as they were back in the Avalanche.
She didn’t, but she couldn’t be sure he hadn’t asked because he needed to. She was very much aware of what an imposition it was for him to have to drive her around, but things seemed to be happening so quickly that she felt she couldn’t quite keep up. At how much more of a disadvantage would she be without transportation.
If the medical examiner was right, then Richard had been murdered. That possibility seemed to make it even more urgent that she find out what had happened to Emma.
“We were on the way to the Caffreys’,” she reminded him.
She stole a look at Jeb’s face as he began to back the big truck up the slope to turn it to head away from the bridge. Judging by his expression, he wasn’t annoyed by her need to continue with their mission.
Their mission…At some point she realized that she had begun to think of Jeb Bedford as an ally. She couldn’t deny that she needed one.
“Adams is right, you know,” he said, meeting her eyes before he shifted into drive.
“About what?”
“Even if the fracture isn’t consistent with the accident as it was described to the M.E., his finding isn’t definitive. I know you said that your husband had cleaned out your bank accounts, but how would someone know he was carrying that much cash? It wouldn’t be something he’d want to broadcast.”
“Richard wasn’t stupid. And letting anyone know he had that much money would be. It wasn’t a huge sum, you understand. Like most people, we managed to spend most of what we made. There was only six thousand dollars between the two accounts.”
Enough to get someone killed. But Jeb was right. Why would Richard let anyone know he had that money on him?
“I don’t know what happened,” she went on, thinking out loud, “but the money would provide a motive. I can’t think of any other reason someone would hit a complete stranger over the head and push his car into the river.”
With the foreman’s description of the undamaged vehicle, that now seemed the most likely scenario. And the primary reason she wanted the experts from her insurance company to examine the SUV.
“But I still need to know if Emma was with him when that occurred. And if so, what happened to her. So if you don’t mind…”
She hesitated, again trying to gauge his tiredness and level of pain from his face. Having no success, she decided that he was perfectly capable of saying no. And until he did—
“I’d still like to talk to the Caffreys.”
“MR. CAFFREY?”
The old man would be in his seventies by now, Jeb realized. Until he’d come back to Linton and encountered the people who’d been a part of his childhood, they had all been frozen in time. The Caffreys had seemed old to him then, but he realized that they had probably only been in their fifties.
Just as he’d raised his fist to knock again, the door opened. Caught with his hand in midair, Jeb smiled in anticipation of the same kind of welcome he’d gotten from Doc. After all, like most of the kids who’d ridden their bikes around this community all summer, he had made almost daily visits to the Caffreys’ store.
“Who is it?” Ed Caffrey asked, peering out from the dimness of the small house’s interior.
The smell of stale cooking grease and an odor reminiscent of nursing homes seeped through the open door. Jeb couldn’t hear the familiar hum of air-conditioning, something that with the heat and humidity of the area wasn’t a luxury.
“It’s Jeb Bedford, Mr. Caffrey.”
The man at the door squinted as if to bring his features into focus. “Bedford?”
“Jubal’s boy.”
Caffrey nodded, but until he spoke, Jeb wasn’t sure the old man had made the connection. “How’s your aunt?”
With the appropriateness of the question, Jeb’s tension began to ease. Apparently there was nothing wrong with Ed Caffrey’s memory, which was why they were here.
“She’s fine. She asked me to say hello for her. And to tell you she’s sorry she hasn’t been out to see you folks in a while. She doesn’t drive anymore, you know.”
Caffrey nodded again, his expression expectant. And social niceties handled, Jeb acknowledged it was time to get on to what they’d come here to ask.
“This is Susan Chandler, Mr. Caffrey. She’s staying at my aunt’s house while…” He couldn’t think of an appropriate way to finish that sentence, so he started again. “It was Ms. Chandler’s husband whose body was pulled from the river last week. You may have heard about that.”
Caffrey nodded, his eyes considering Susan briefly before they came back to Jeb’s. “I heard. Maybe now they’ll do something about that bridge. I been saying that for years.”
“Yes, sir. It’s a danger, especially for someone, like Ms. Chandler’s husband, who doesn’t know the roads.”
The rheumy eyes again surveyed Susan, but the old man didn’t reply.
“We’re trying to figure out what he was doing in Linton that night,” Jeb went on. “I wonder if we could come in and talk to you about that.”
“Talk to me? What for?”
“We were thinking maybe he stopped by the store on the way into town. Maybe he needed something he couldn’t get at the truck stop.”
“We ain’t had that store in more’n six years. Had to close up ’cause of my wife being sick.”
“This would have happened before then,” Jeb explained.
“Who is it, Ed?”
The quavering voice came from the room behind the old man. He turned, throwing words over his shoulder. “Ain’t nothing for you to worry about, Mother.”
Mother? Obviously not Caffrey’s mother. Not at his age. Which meant the voice must belong to Mrs. Caffrey, who side by side with her husband had run the general store. A lot of older couples still referred to one another by the names their children had called them.
“Is that Mrs. Caffrey?” Jeb asked. “We’d like to speak to her, too, if you don’t mind.”
“She ain’t up to company.” There was a definite movement of the door, so that the opening began to narrow.
“We won’t take five minutes of your time, Mr. Caffrey,” Susan interrupted. “We wouldn’t bother you, but it’s very important. My little girl was with my husband when he left home. I’m trying to find out if anyone in town saw her.”
“They didn’t say nothing about a girl in the paper.”
“No one knew then she was with him. I just need to know if you or your wife saw them. Could we come in, please?”
“Who is it, Ed?”
Again the old man turned, speaking into the dimness behind him. “Somebody looking for somebody. Ain’t nothing for you to worry about.” Each word was distinctly enunciated.
“Please,” Susan said again as soon as he turned back to the door. “It’s very important.”
Jeb couldn’t tell from Caffrey’s face whether her plea had any effect. The question became moot, however, as Gladys Caffrey stepped by him and into the opening.
She was wearing a starched and ironed cotton house-dress of a kind that even Lorena had stopped wearing twenty years ago. Her smile was bright, and her eyes flicked quickly from one of them to the other.
“I like company,” she said. “Y’all come on in and get out of this heat. I’ll fix us some iced tea.”
Since it appeared to be much hotter inside the Caffrey home than out here, her comment should have been their first clue that she might not be the most reliable source of information. Susan apparently had no such qualms, quickly taking advantage of the opportunity Mrs. Caffrey offered.
“Thank you,” she said, pushing by Jeb and through the doorway. “Tea would be very nice.”
Almost reluctantly Jeb followed her. The smells he’d been aware of on the porch were much stronger inside the sma
ll, dark room. He was immediately conscious of those and of the heat. The drapes had been pulled across the windows, so it took longer for his eyes to adjust enough to take in the rest.
Judging from both its style and fabric, the furniture had all been purchased as a suite sometime in the fifties. The tops and the arms of the upholstered pieces were covered with crocheted doilies.
Figurines cluttered every available surface. He remembered these same kinds of gewgaws lining the shelves behind the front counter of the Caffreys’ store, each bearing a neatly printed yellow price tag on the bottom. As a child, he had once bought one for Lorena for her birthday.
Despite her promise of tea, Gladys Caffrey sat down in an oversized upholstered rocker. Her feet, adorned in white socks and tennis shoes, barely reached the floor, but with her toes she set the chair into motion, rocking back and forth.
Mr. Caffrey seemed at a loss as to what to do with them. Susan walked across to the sofa opposite Gladys’ chair. Unsure where the old man had been sitting, Jeb waited for him to indicate a preference. He stood instead, rawboned hands twisting as he watched Susan and his wife.
“I’m trying to find someone who remembers seeing my husband while he was in town. It was seven years ago,” Susan said, speaking directly to the woman in the rocker. “He was driving a black SUV. It was probably at night. He might have come into your store for diapers or medicine for the baby.”
“Pretty little thing,” Gladys said.
For a long moment everything seemed to stop except for the back-and-forth movement of the rocker. Susan’s mouth had still been open from what she had just been saying. She closed it, pressing her lips together as she swallowed.
“The baby?” she asked softly. “Do you remember the baby?”
“You. You’re a pretty little thing.”
“Thank you,” Susan said, forcing a smile. “My daughter was with him that night. She was fourteen months old. A little blue-eyed blonde. I have a picture if you’d like to see it.”
The vacant eyes brightened. The old woman held out her hands as if she’d been promised a treat. Susan hurriedly took the photograph from her purse and held it out to her.
“That’s Emma. That’s the little girl I’m trying to find.”
“Did she get lost?”
Susan nodded. “She was with my husband. Seven years ago. I thought maybe you saw them. Maybe they came into your store.”
“They can get away from you before you know it,” Mrs. Caffrey said, looking down on the picture. “They’ll be right there one minute. You turn around and they’re gone. Happened to me more times than I can count. Their daddy would have to whup ’em for running away. They’d be good for a while, and then they’d be up to their old tricks again.”
Her laughter was loud and inappropriately prolonged. Susan turned, looking at Jeb as if asking for advice. He shook his head slightly, knowing she would undoubtedly have come to the same conclusion he had.
“She don’t remember so good anymore,” Caffrey said, confirming what they were both thinking. “She’ll tell you stuff, but it may be something that happened fifty years ago. Something that ain’t got nothing to do with what you’re asking her about now.”
“Do you remember them, Mr. Caffrey?” Susan asked. “I have a picture of my husband, too. It was taken for the papers a few months before his death to announce a promotion he’d received.”
She stood, walking back across the room to hand the black-and-white photograph of Richard to him. He studied it for a long time before he shook his head.
“Running a store, you see lots of people. Not so many from out of town though. Not after that stretch of highway opened.”
“He was driving a black SUV.”
“I read that in the paper, but…I’m purely sorry, ma’am. I just plain don’t remember him.”
“Or the baby,” Susan said. It was not a question.
“Wish I could help you. Sure do.”
“I appreciate your talking to us,” Susan said, taking the picture from his hands.
She turned to glance back at Gladys, who was still looking down at the one of Emma. A knotted, arthritic finger stroked the paper as if she were touching the baby’s fair hair.
Susan crossed the room again, kneeling down beside the rocker. Mrs. Caffrey’s eyes remained on the photograph.
“I need my picture back so I can show it to other people.”
The old woman’s eyes came up at that. She looked at Susan as if she had no idea who she was or why she was by her chair.
“May I have it back, please?” Susan reached for the photo.
Gladys Caffrey clasped it to her bosom, crossing her thin arms over it protectively. She shook her head sharply once and then resumed the steady rocking.
Almost helplessly Susan turned to Mr. Caffrey. “It’s the only one I have. I can send her another…”
“It don’t matter. She’ll make a fuss, but five minutes from now, she won’t remember a thing about it. Here, Mother. You give this lady her baby’s picture back now, you hear?”
As he approached the rocker, Mrs. Caffrey looked up at him with fear in her eyes, but she clutched the photograph more tightly to her chest. Again she shook her head.
“Give it back now, or I’ll whup you just like I used to them kids.”
As he made the demand, Caffrey began to pry at her crossed arms. The old woman began to cry, slapping at him with one hand as she continued to hold the picture against her body with the other.
“It’s all right, Mr. Caffrey,” Susan began, but by then Caffrey had retrieved Emma’s picture, holding it high above his head as Gladys reached for it.
“I don’t really whup her, you know, but she’s like a little kid. You gotta make her think you will.”
He held the photograph out to Susan, who took it almost reluctantly. The old woman made keening noises, but there were no tears.
“You be good now, and you can have some ice cream. You’ll like that,” Caffrey promised, soothing his big hand over the disordered white hair.
“I’m sorry we bothered you,” Susan said. “I thought it was worth a chance.”
“Wish I could help, but I don’t remember nobody like that coming in. Been a long time, ’a course. Truth be told, my memory ain’t what it was. Still, I’d remember that baby, I think.”
“Thank you,” Susan said. She had already turned, making eye contact with Jeb, when the old woman spoke again.
“I can tell you she wasn’t wearing that. What she’s got on in that picture. She was wearing pink that night. Them kind of overalls babies wear. He had her all wrapped up in a quilt so she was snug as a bug in a rug.” Again the cackle of inappropriate laughter rang out. “Yes, sir, snug as a little old ladybug in her daddy’s arms.”
CHAPTER TEN
MOVING ALMOST in slow motion, Susan turned back to the old woman. Jeb could hardly bear to watch the hope in her face as she stooped, putting her hand on Gladys’s arm in an attempt to bring her attention to bear on the questions she needed to ask.
“You remember them, Mrs. Caffrey? The man and the little girl? Do you remember why they came into the store?”
“Mother, don’t you go making stuff up now,” Caffrey said, his tone hard. “You know you don’t remember that baby.”
“Do too remember her. You wasn’t there that night. It was just me and Travis.”
Travis was the Caffreys’ youngest son, who had helped out at the store. He would be in his forties by now, Jeb realized, but he hadn’t seen him during these months he’d spent in Linton.
Of course, his social contacts since he’d been back had, by his own choice, been limited. Besides, he and Travis had never moved in the same circles. The youngest Caffrey had been taciturn, almost surly, even in the days when he’d waited on his parents’ customers.
“Don’t you go getting your hopes up based on what she’s saying to you,” Ed warned Susan. “Just ’cause she’s telling you something don’t mean it happened.”
“Is Travis here, Mr. Caffrey?” Jeb asked. “Maybe we could talk to him. Even if Mrs. Caffrey’s memory is failing, there may be some shred of truth in what she’s saying.”
“Travis don’t live with us no more.”
“Still, I’d like to talk to him,” Susan said. “Can you tell us how to contact him?”
“He moved away. He don’t keep in touch like he ought.”
“Blue and pink. Squares, I think it was,” Gladys Caffrey said, “but it’s been so long. Not a full-size quilt, mind you, but one of them little-bitty things people piece just for babies. He had it wrapped around her like she was a papoose. Those big blue eyes peeking out over the top of it.”
“Don’t you go telling no more lies, Mother. You’ve caused enough trouble. I’ve told you what happens to liars.”
“Liar, liar, pants on fire.” The motion of her rocker kept rhythm with the chanted words. “Hellfire and brimstone.”
“But if there’s a chance your son could provide corroboration—”
“Miz Chandler, you can’t pay no mind to what Gladys says. She don’t remember your baby any more than she remembers her own name. She just says what she thinks you want to hear. You made it mighty plain you wanted to hear something about your baby.”
“Even so, we need to talk to Travis,” Jeb insisted. “If we have to, we can get Sheriff Adams to ask you for his address. There may have been foul play involved in the disappearance of Mrs. Chandler’s husband and daughter. I’m sure you and Mrs. Caffrey don’t want any trouble with the law.”
“Don’t you come in my house threatening me, Jeb Bedford,” Caffrey said, bristling with indignation. “I don’t care who your folks are or how high and mighty. Neither you or Wayne Adams scare me. I done told y’all all I know.”
“Except your son’s address,” Jeb remianded him.
“I told you. That’s all I know,” the old man repeated, emphasizing each of the last three words.
“Are you saying you don’t know where your son is?”
“I told you. He don’t keep in touch like he should.”
“But he was here seven years ago,” Jeb prodded. “And he was working at the store.”