When Did We Lose Harriet?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Sure aren’t any living people around,” I commented as he arrived, waving away his own mosquito escort.

  “Too hot. Nobody up here at this time of day but us bugs.” Carter pointed down the hill. “She was found in that patch of kudzu.”

  Involuntarily, I shivered. The mound of pesky, rapid-growing vine with its large dull leaves was a perfect hiding place. Even if people came to wander among graves, they wouldn’t poke around in kudzu. I once heard James Dickey read a poem about the stuff. Only James Dickey could find meaning in kudzu. He said snakes thrive underneath it, and if I were a snake, I’d crawl under there, too, out of the sun and away from mowers. Somebody must keep this kudzu cut back, though. Unchecked it would have covered the entire cemetery in a month, the city of Montgomery in three, and the state of Alabama in six.

  I meandered downhill, feeling soft grass brush the tops of my feet and the sun beat down on my head. At the edge of the gully, I peered in. At the moment the bottom was only a trickle of water and a bed of beautiful sculpted sand. Imagine taking that much trouble with a stream bottom! Then I looked at the gully walls. The watermark was ten feet above the bottom. Beyond the gully was a single railroad track.

  “That’s where she lay,” Carter repeated from behind me. He went right up to the kudzu and knelt in the grass. I looked around for a stick in case I needed to defend him from copperheads. “The police and medical examiner checked everything at the time, of course, in case it was a homicide, but by now there’s nothing left. Not with all the insects and the rain we’ve had this summer.”

  “And she had no pocketbook or anything?”

  He shook his head. “I checked again. They found a couple of packs of cigarettes underneath her and one in her pocket, but that’s all she had except a couple of dollars.”

  “Cigarettes?” I was puzzled. “She didn’t smoke, Carter. Ricky and Lewis said Harriet had a fit if anybody smoked around her.”

  He swatted a mosquito. “I’m just telling you what they found. Maybe the cigarettes were there when she lay down, and she felt too bad to move them.”

  I felt faintly sick as I looked at Harriet’s last bed. Why wasn’t that child alive to enjoy this wonderful day? “She must have been utterly exhausted to lie down there. Could she have been bitten by a copperhead?”

  He smacked a persistent mosquito. “Nope. Copperhead bites are seldom fatal—she’d have been in pain, but she could have gotten to help. And if she hadn’t, she’d have had enough swelling so that forensics would have spotted it right away.”

  He stood and brushed grass off his knees. “You’ve been reading too many mystery novels, Miss MacLaren. These days they look for everything. She wasn’t bitten by a snake, poisoned, shot, strangled, or beaten to death. She just got sick and died.”

  I stood looking at that mound of kudzu, trying to picture the brown-haired girl with golden eyes feeling weak, staggering downhill, and lying under the vine where it was cool. “She’d have gone across the bridge,” I objected, pointing. “The police station is right over there. If she’d gotten sick she’d have gone there, Carter. She wouldn’t have lain down in a patch of kudzu, for heaven’s sake. You know that as well as I do.”

  I turned and laboriously climbed toward my car up a short spur of unpaved road—no more than wheel ruts and big gravel, really—that humped up from the lawn toward the pavement and made walking easier. That was good, because I couldn’t see very well. Tears blurred my vision.

  Carter took my elbow the last few steps. “You had enough?”

  “More than enough. I’ll let you solve the murder. All I wanted to do was find the child.” I felt a hundred years old.

  He spoke slowly like he was feeling for the right words. “Miss MacLaren, I know how you feel, but you just have to accept something: there wasn’t any murder. There was no evidence whatsoever of foul play. None. We had the wrong girl, sure, so we’ll let the other family know, but after that, the case is closed. I really appreciate your nosing around and finding out who she was, though.” He chuckled. “Jake’s always said you have the instincts of a first-rate bird dog.”

  I had to turn away so he couldn’t see my face. “You won’t be talking to people who knew her or anything?”

  “It’s a mystery, ma’am, not a homicide. Well, I’d better get back to work. You know, from the station, I couldn’t even see your car. It’s a good thing you went for a little walk.”

  I drove home slower than usual. Once again I’d forgotten to tell Carter about Sunday’s early meeting, but I scarcely cared. I didn’t really think Ricky Dodd had killed Myrna, so I didn’t care if Carter found him again or not. What mattered to me was Harriet. I knew in my bones she didn’t just up and die on that hillside. Somebody helped her. And I wouldn’t sleep well until I found out who.

  I felt like I ought to go see Eunice again. If I didn’t tell her about Harriet, who would? She might be back at work, of course, but from the way she’d carried on, I didn’t think she’d return until after Myrna was buried.

  The crime tape had been removed, and the little green house dozed in the sun. As I approached, Eunice’s old Persian leaped onto the steps from beneath the porch and sashayed up ahead of me.

  Eunice came to the door in saggy blue Bermuda shorts and a white T-shirt from the Atlanta Olympics. She seemed delighted to have company. “Hello! Come on in.”

  Wisps of hair had escaped from a careless ponytail, which she swiped at as she led the way into the living room. Once again it was as cold as an Arctic afternoon. “Stay a while,” she invited. “Can I get you some tea?”

  Today the room was not all white. I sat gingerly on a dark blue chair that had been set where the sofa used to be. Had the sofa been sent out to be recovered, or sent to a dump? I tried not to picture it as I had last seen it, covered with Myrna.

  On the coffee table was another spot of color—a bowl of pink and yellow daisies in front of a framed photograph of a mother and child with the same dark hair and tawny eyes. I picked up the picture and looked at it. The child’s chubby features were vaguely familiar. “Myrna, with Harriet?”

  Eunice nodded. “That’s the only picture I have of her. Seemed fittin’ to put it out.”

  I took a deep breath. “I came by to tell you something about Harriet.” There was no way to soften it. “She was found dead last month in Oakwood Cemetery. They have just identified her.”

  Eunice leaned forward and scratched an itch behind one ear. “Dead? Harriet’s dead? Who killed her?” She seemed far more interested in that than in the fact itself. I couldn’t help wondering if she was already imagining herself back on the ten o’clock news.

  “They don’t think anybody killed her. They think she died of natural causes.”

  “Natural causes? You mean like drugs?”

  “More like a heart attack or something. Do you know if she had a bad heart?”

  “Could have. It runs in our family.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “Last month the doctor told me I’m heading for a stroke if I don’t get my pressure down. But with Myrna getting shot, it’s probably sky-high. And now, Harriet.” She stopped and shook her head gloomily. “The Good Book says God won’t give you more than you can bear, but seems lately like he’s overestimating my abilities.”

  “God didn’t shoot Myrna nor kill Harriet,” I told her sharply. I managed to refrain from adding that overeating probably had something to do with her blood pressure. “There’s one thing I don’t understand, though. An artist’s drawing was in the papers for several days after she was found. Didn’t you see the picture? Didn’t it occur to you then that it looked an awful lot like Harriet?”

  “I might have seen it, but I hadn’t seen Harriet since not long after that picture there was taken.” She pointed to the coffee table. “Harriet wasn’t hardly walking good. After Myrna left, there wasn’t no reason for me to bother with her baby. Frank was taking care of it, and his mother.”

  “I thought you told me you saw her at her granny’s funera
l.”

  “I told you I hadn’t seen her since the funeral, which was the honest-to-God truth.” Eunice said that without a trace of a blush, although she and I both knew she’d also told me Harriet was in and out of her house all the time. Of course, that’s what she’d said about me, too…

  “What family did Harriet have besides the Sykeses?” I asked.

  “Nobody but Myrna ‘n’ me. Dixie and I are the onliest ones left, now.” She seemed struck by a sudden thought. “If Harriet died before Myrna, then wouldn’t Myrna have inherited anything she had to leave? You reckon it comes to me now? Dixie won’t like that.”

  Eunice didn’t act like that bothered her one little bit.

  It was nearly suppertime, but instead of heading home I drove on west out Fairview, toward the bus company headquarters I’d found listed in the telephone book. I had only a faint hope that I’d be able to get the name of the driver on the route near Oakwood Cemetery the week Harriet disappeared, and it was getting so late, he or she might have ended the day’s schedule. I had no idea what hours bus drivers worked. “Carter ought to be doing this,” I fumed aloud.

  I sat in the parking lot and watched several buses pull into the lot. I was right, it was about time for the day schedules to get over. Hesitantly I climbed from my car and looked uncertainly toward the office.

  “May I help you, ma’am?” A gentle giant of a man towered over me, the setting sun behind him obliterating the features of his dark face.

  “I…I don’t know quite what I’m looking for,” I admitted. “I am wanting to find out who was driving a bus up near Oakwood Cemetery the first week of June. I’m trying to find out if they remember taking a child—” I fumbled in my purse for the copy of Harriet’s picture I’d begun to carry.

  He studied the picture, then looked at me inquiringly. “I remember this girl very well, ma’am. I’m Jerry Banks, and I carried her to a stop about two blocks from the cemetery. Is something the matter?” His face was bony, the eyes deep-set and kind.

  It must have been the sun in my eyes. Suddenly I felt too dizzy to stand. “Come with me,” Jerry Banks told me. “Here. This way. Lean on my arm.”

  He led me to what I assumed was a driver’s lounge—vending machines and scattered tables. “Drink this,” he urged, handing me a cold canned Coke and showing me to a table. He sat down across from me and waited.

  I sipped the drink gratefully and tried to laugh, but it came out more of a splutter. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t believe I’d found you right away.”

  “It was odd, wasn’t it?” he agreed genially. “I’m not normally around at this time, but I forgot my lunchbox. Halfway home I suddenly remembered. Now what is it you want to know about that girl?” He clasped huge hands in front of him on the table.

  “For one thing, do you remember when exactly you took her to the cemetery?”

  He started to shake his head, considered, then nodded. “In fact, I do. It was a Tuesday. I don’t know the exact date—”

  “The fourth. I know that much. But you’re sure it was Tuesday?”

  “Absolutely. The reason is, the next day I woke up with a stomach virus and was out the rest of the week. Oo-ee, I was sick! I wasn’t on that route again until the next Monday.”

  “Do you remember what time you dropped her off?”

  “Round ‘bout noontime. She complained that it was a far piece to walk in that heat, and she was right. After I drove off, I wondered if she was going up to Hank Williams’s grave, on account of, it would have been nearer for her to ride a little farther to another stop.” He looked at me curiously. “Do you mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “The girl was found a week later, dead under a bush in the cemetery.”

  “Dear God a’mercy!” He rubbed one hand up and down one side of his face.

  “Her picture was in the papers,” I pointed out. “You didn’t see it?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t read papers. Ought to, but never seem to have the time. But you say this girl died up there that day?”

  “They don’t know when she died. Not many people even remember when they saw her last.”

  He sighed. “I knew I ought to take her home to my Netty. Netty knows what to do with strays. She feeds ‘em, loves ‘em, and tells them about the blessed love of Jesus. That girl should have gone home to my Netty.”

  I felt as sad as he looked. “She sure should have gone home to someone. Could we find out if anybody picked her up on the way back?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll ask around, but most times we don’t remember people. I just happen to remember her in particular because she was as feisty as a tiger kitten, and seemed bound and determined to get up to that cemetery no matter how hot or far it was.”

  Going to meet her mother, I thought sadly. “Mr. Banks, if you think of anything more about that day—anything at all—or find somebody who picked her up on the way back, would you call me?” I handed him Jake’s number and opened my purse. “I owe you for a Coke.”

  “Don’t mention it, ma’am. I’m just glad I forgot my lunchbox and came back for it. Looks like the good Lord wanted us to have this conversation, don’t it?”

  My eyes were so full of tears that all I could do was smile, nod, and reach out to clasp his big hand tightly.

  By that time, I was convinced that whoever Harriet met on that hilltop on Tuesday afternoon was the last person to see her alive. Where she was from Tuesday until she died I did not know, but I wanted to know where everybody who knew Harriet was around noon on June fourth. Kateisha had said Lewis was forming a volleyball team that afternoon. She would have noticed if he’d left, I was sure. Claire, Harriet’s trustee, had said she’d had meetings all day. That left Eunice, Ricky, and the Sykes family. Glenna suggested she could talk to the Sykeses easier than I could. I could read between the lines. She wanted to prove to me that nobody she knew had murdered a child in cold blood and left her under a bush.

  Saturday morning, she sat right down and made the calls. First she thanked them for all they had done while Jake was in the hospital, and reported he was almost back to his old ornery self. (Actually, she said it nicer than that.) Then she told them how sorry she was to learn that Harriet was dead, and asked if there was anything she could do. In the middle of all that she managed to find out the following:

  Lou Ella and William had lunch together that day, after he got his loan.

  Dee bought a dress and had her nails done (which I already knew).

  Nora was at her lake house all week. (I already knew that, too.)

  Julie and Rachel “hung out” all day, whatever that meant.

  “So none of them could have done it,” she said, utterly satisfied. But the truth was, there wasn’t one soul, including Lewis and Claire, who couldn’t have slipped up to the cemetery and met Harriet. If I’d been heading up a police investigation, I’d have sent people out checking with William’s sales clerks and Dee’s manicurist, Julie’s friend and Nora’s lake neighbors, probably even interviewing Lou Ella’s maid. All I knew to do was call Eunice.

  “Why, that was the day I went to the doctor,” she said when she checked her calendar. “Remember? I told you, he said my blood pressure is mortal high. Like to worried me sick. It’s come down some now—although I don’t understand how it can, with all that’s been going on.” I didn’t, either. My own was probably sky-high, too.

  Especially since there wasn’t one more thing I knew to do except get my clothes together for leaving the next day, then go for a ride with Glenna and Jake.

  Saturday afternoon we drove up to Lake Jordan and enjoyed sunlight glinting on water. I asked Glenna to point out Nora’s house—a nice cedar home set back from the road right on the water. It told me nothing except what I already knew: Nora had both taste and money. Glenna also pointed out a place she and Jake had their eye on if the owner ever decided to sell. We stopped for ice cream on the way back and got home in time for all of us to take a long nap. None of us are a
s young as we used to be.

  Twenty-Eight

  Bloodthirsty men hate a man

  of integrity and seek to kill

  the upright. Proverbs 29:10

  While Mac and her family were enjoying a lazy weekend, I—Josheba—was getting madder and madder. Morse hadn’t gotten back, and my big dance was Saturday night.

  I spent Saturday morning getting my hair freshened up, and the afternoon fetching my dress from the cleaners and buying a new pair of shoes. I called the rental place to see if Morse had picked up his tux. He hadn’t. I dropped by the house several times to see if he’d left a message on my machine. He hadn’t. He finally called about five.

  I had come a long way that past week. Formerly I would have fallen all over him, glad to hear his voice. I guess I’d been that needy for love right after Mama died. Now I was annoyed and didn’t mind if he knew it. “When did you get back?” I demanded.

  “Uh, baby, I’m not back yet. We—”

  “How far away are you? We’ve been invited to join some people for dinner—” I stopped, a sinking feeling in my stomach. “You are coming, aren’t you? You promised.”

  “I know I did, baby, but you just wouldn’t believe how great the river is right now. Why don’t you drive up tomorrow and spend a day or two?” His voice was as coaxing as if inviting me to join him was his sole purpose for calling.

  “You mean you aren’t coming? Why didn’t you call sooner?”

  “Now don’t whine, baby. You know I hate whiners.”

  “Don’t keep calling me ‘baby,’ Morse. It’s not making me any less mad. And I’m not whining, I’m asking for information. If you’d called yesterday, I could have asked my cousin to take me. I don’t know if he can go this late.”

  “You mean to tell me you’d go out dancing with somebody else, sweet thing?” His voice was still jovial, but with an edge I’d learned to dread.