Grave Undertaking

by Mark de Castrique

  The chilly breeze bore the pungent odor of livestock. Even my swollen nose caught a strong whiff. I heard more bleats and a chanting chorus of goats emerged from the depths to see what triggered the alarm. They crowded together, jostling their brown fur hides against each other and eyeing me suspiciously. Over their cries, I heard, “Let yourself in. They won’t hurt you.”

  I opened the gate just enough to squeeze through. My original greeter met me and immediately pressed his knobby head into my thigh. I scratched him behind the ears. He eased the pressure, content to be rubbed in a place he couldn’t reach. We walked in step in the direction of the voice, my guard nudging me forcefully each time I stopped petting him.

  Inside the first stall, I saw a tethered nanny goat standing broadside. Underneath her belly, hands rhythmically squeezed the dangling teats, sending short bursts of milk into a pail. A pair of brown scuffed brogans held the shiny aluminum receptacle in place.

  “Miss Nolan?” I asked, finding it hard to believe the owner of the hands and shoes could be my quarry.

  The milking stopped. Around the butt end of the goat appeared a smiling face whose youthful, blue eyes seemed out of place in the wind-burned features of an old woman. A black knit stocking hat almost covered wisps of gray hair, and the upturned collar of a Navy pea coat touched the lobes of her ears.

  If she startled me, I, at least, jarred her expectations. “Good gracious alive,” she exclaimed. “What did the other guy look like?”

  “A lot like Stony McBee. We had a little disagreement about the best place to carry a pocket watch.”

  “You must have argued for the owner’s pocket.”

  A hard push knocked me sideways.

  “Jasper,” yelled the woman. “Git!”

  The perfectly named creature snorted, and then bolted away to resume his station at the barn gate.

  “Sorry. Jasper’s prone to forget who runs this place. Now, I just need a few minutes more with Molly.”

  “That’s okay, Miss Nolan. I’m in no hurry.”

  “The name’s Annette. I haven’t been a Miss since three daughters and five grandchildren ago.”

  She returned to her milking. I stood there, not sure whether to talk to the side of a goat or not.

  “Melissa Bigham says you’re okay,” she said.

  “She’s a straight shooter.”

  “Surprised we haven’t met, Barry. I’ve known your dad and mom for years.”

  “I’ve only been back since my father’s illness got too bad.”

  The milking paused as she considered what to say. Evidently, nothing measured up.

  “I seem to have a knack for attracting trouble,” I said.

  “That’s what happens when you’re the clearing house for all the bodies. My cousin runs a funeral home in Brevard.”

  “Bryant and Son?” I asked. “They’ve been in business forever.”

  “My uncle founded it in 1928. Same year my father started the Vista.”

  “You own the newspaper?”

  “No. Dad sold it in 1955.”

  “And built Connemara the second,” I said.

  Annette Nolan stood up from behind the goat. Her surprise lasted only an instant. “Oh, you saw the plaque.” She bent over, lifted the pail, and unhooked Molly from her tether. “After I put this in the fridge, we’ll have a cup of hot tea.”

  As we left the barn, I asked, “What’s the connection to Sandburg’s Connemara?”

  “My father and Sandburg were friends. When he moved to Flat Rock in the late Forties, Sandburg gave my father an interview. He was an old newspaperman himself and they hit it off. He didn’t socialize much with the locals. Most people knew him as Sandburg the goatkeeper, not Sandburg the poet.”

  “Goatkeeper?”

  “Actually it was his wife. Mrs. Sandburg developed her own breed. You just met some descendants.”

  “And the house?”

  “My father admired Connemara. He knew the Smythe family who lived there before the Sandburgs. Our home isn’t a carbon copy, to use a word lost in today’s computer age, but the inside has the same feel. My father built it on land the family had owned since his grandfather ran the inn and tavern on the coach road from Shelby to Asheville. When Daddy sold the paper, he secured a lifelong position for me, built Connemara the second, and put the rest of his money in a company called International Business Machines.” She winked at me.

  Even I knew International Business Machines became better known as IBM, Big Blue. I suspected Annette Nolan didn’t need to sell goat cheese and apples to supplement her social security check.

  We entered the house through the back porch, and she pointed me to a chair at her kitchen table. The cabinets and counters were white with red enamel trim, a color scheme shared with some cars of 1955. Mismatched appliances told me replacements had been made upon the death of the old ones and not before.

  Annette hung her pea coat and cap on the knob of the pantry door and revealed a pair of bib overalls and a red flannel shirt underneath. She wore her gray hair close cropped, and her short, wiry body moved around the room without signs of arthritis common to most of her generation. She set a pot of tea, two mugs, and a pitcher of goat’s milk between us.

  “Sugar?” she asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Then try this.” She pulled a mason jar from a cabinet and slid it over to me. The light golden color of its contents tipped me off.

  “Sourwood honey,” I said.

  “Make it myself. Or rather my bees do.” She shook her head. “Don’t know for how much longer. Something’s destroying them. Mites or pollution. There’s a reason we call sex the birds and the bees. That we’re killing off both of them doesn’t bode well for humanity’s future.”

  I stirred a thick teaspoon into my mug.

  Without missing a beat, Annette continued, “So, somebody killed off Sammy Calhoun and bunked him with Pearly Johnson.”

  “Shot him right between the eyes.” Annette was a woman for whom I didn’t feel I needed to sugarcoat, or rather honey-coat, anything.

  “Well, that makes me feel better.”

  She couldn’t help but see the shock in my blackened eyes. “I didn’t want him murdered. I’m just glad he didn’t cheat me.”

  “Cheat you?”

  She took a sip of tea. “I guess it’s about time we got down to it. I suppose Melissa told you she’s mad at me because I’m going to tell you things I wouldn’t share with her.”

  “She says you shut her out, but she’s negotiated for my exclusive story.”

  Annette chuckled. “Glad to know I trained her well. But I didn’t train her to take on a killer.” Her expression turned deadly serious. “This was nearly seven years ago. I was seventy-three and figuring to retire at seventy-five. Maybe just write a weekly column. My husband had died the year before and I was taking stock of life. As a reporter, I regretted that I’d never broken a major story. Those don’t come along in a small town like Gainesboro.”

  “That’s the trade-off for living in a place where you leave your doors unlocked.”

  “You’re right, and I had almost made peace with that. Then Sammy Calhoun came to me with a proposition. He claimed to have evidence of sexual misconduct in the justice system.”

  “In Laurel County?”

  “Why not? We have sex in Laurel County.”

  “But Tommy Lee is such—”

  She cut me off. “A straight arrow? Calhoun didn’t say it was in the Sheriff’s Department. Wouldn’t say much of anything other than the story was too hot and could be squelched. I was skeptical and he knew it.”

  “Did you turn him away?”

  “Sammy was a slick operator. Somehow he read me like a book, knew I wanted the story for my own ego.” She laughed. “Remember, I was young and foolish.”

  “A mere seventy-three.”

  “And there was something else. Calhoun told me he suspected some of the girls were underage, maybe acting out of fear. I thought
about my own granddaughters and the idea made me furious.”

  As a news story, sex in the justice system would raise a public outcry, but not nearly as loud as if juveniles were involved. I understood why Annette bit on Calhoun’s proposal.

  “Did he have proof?” I asked.

  “Claimed he was lubricating a source. Lubricating was his exact word. Said he’d have irrefutable evidence.”

  “How much did he want?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  “That seems like a steep price for the Vista.”

  “Any price was too steep for the paper. That money was coming out of my own pocket, and Sammy knew it. Was counting on it. And these past seven years I thought he’d played me for a sucker.”

  I studied the determined face across the table. I wouldn’t want Annette Nolan mad at me. Give me Stony McBee any day.

  “You gave him two grand?”

  “I gave him a thousand—cash. He said he’d collect the rest after the story broke, and if he didn’t deliver, he’d give me back the thousand minus the cost of his equipment.”

  “What equipment?”

  “He didn’t say exactly. I assumed he would put a wire on someone or take those grainy black and white photos detectives were famous for. I took the chance.”

  “How much time elapsed from when you gave him the money and he disappeared?”

  “Week or two at most.”

  “When we dug up the skeleton, we found about four hundred dollars in cash in his wallet. He must have bought something.”

  “I have no idea what. I gave him the money and never saw him again. Like everyone else, I figured he skipped for Texas.”

  “Someone went to great lengths to create that story.”

  She drained her mug and set it on the table with a thud. “I know. That’s why I want Melissa safely on the sidelines.” Her sharp eyes bore in on me. “You, on the other hand, can’t seem to stay out of the line of fire.”

  “It’s a talent I’ve gone to great pains to cultivate.” I took another sip of tea and my mind started making connections. “You ever hear anything else about sexual misconduct, either in the juvenile or adult divisions?”

  “Not a word,” she said, “and I did some digging around. Talked to released inmates, women serving probation, anybody I thought could be pressured by those holding power over them, from guards to court officials. Nothing turned up.”

  Just like Cassie’s investigation in Buncombe County. Was it an identical scam Calhoun was playing on each of them? If so, a third person took it deadly serious.

  “Did Calhoun specifically tell you the scandal was in Laurel County?” I asked.

  “You found Calhoun buried in Walker County,” she said.

  I knew her mind raced step by step with mine. What if Calhoun had been protecting his story all along? He had first gone to Cassie Miller, but she blew him off and then had a reporter snoop around. Calhoun had played it smart, letting her think the story was based in Asheville, in Buncombe County. It made sense he would do the same to Annette Nolan so she couldn’t stiff him either. Not Buncombe, not Laurel, but Walker County.

  Sheriff Ewbanks and his department were investigating a crime that might have been committed by one of their own, and that someone had a very good reason to pin on Susan or her father.

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you,” Annette Nolan said.

  I had the eerie feeling she had read my mind.

  The Cardinal Café was crowded for a Saturday afternoon. The sun and thaw had lured cabin-fevered diners out in droves. I spotted Tommy Lee’s wave from the rear by the swinging kitchen door.

  “You boys having the usual?” Helen asked the question as I slid into the pink booth across from the sheriff.

  “Yes,” we answered in unison.

  She didn’t bother to pull the yellow pencil from the bun in her hair and deposited two glasses of sweetened iced tea on the table.

  “Nice shiners,” she said to me, as if discussing the weather, and then disappeared into the kitchen. Tommy Lee’s plate of tuna fish salad and my roast beef sandwich would be out in short order.

  “I told you Stony had magnetic fingers,” said Tommy Lee, after hearing about last night’s brawl. “Didn’t realize he had an iron fist.”

  “Lucky punch,” I muttered.

  “Right. So what’s up?” he asked and took a swallow of tea.

  I’d telephoned him en route from Annette Nolan’s asking for a cheap date. Cheap was our shorthand for the Cardinal Café.

  “I spent an interesting morning with Annette Nolan,” I said.

  He took his one eye off the glass and looked at me quizzically. “Annette. She’s a sharp old bird. How’s she play into this?”

  “Carefully. She’s scared for anyone getting involved because she thinks she knows what got Calhoun killed. I think she’s on to something.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  I gave Tommy Lee the details of our conversation and the background Cassie had shared on Calhoun.

  “How much cash was in his wallet?”

  “The crime lab tech said about four hundred. I didn’t hear an exact count.”

  “Let’s assume it’s the money from Annette Nolan. We can also assume Calhoun didn’t buy a gun since he borrowed Susan’s.”

  “And he wasn’t wearing a wire, unless they stripped him of it before burying him.”

  Tommy Lee made circle patterns on the Formica with the condensation from the bottom of his tea glass. “Where else would nearly six hundred dollars have gone?”

  “Maybe he just spent it on his rent or groceries,” I said.

  “But that doesn’t take us anywhere. I’d at least like a wild goose to chase.”

  “Lubricating his source. That was the quote Annette gave me from Calhoun.”

  “I wonder,” said Tommy Lee, and his voice trailed off as he kept a thought to himself.

  “Wonder what?”

  “His source. His snitch. Is that where the money went? I wonder if there’s another extra body in Eagle Creek cemetery.”

  “We can’t go digging up every grave.”

  Tommy Lee shook his head. “No, and a re-dug grave would have been noticed. On the off chance, check with Reverend Pace to make sure no one else was buried in that cemetery at the same time as Pearly Johnson.”

  “If not, then the source might still be around. Maybe he killed or betrayed Calhoun.”

  “And left four hundred dollars in the wallet? Somebody selling out the story would’ve been greedy enough to have looked for more.”

  “Greedy,” I repeated, pausing as the idea took form.

  “What?” Tommy Lee prompted.

  “It may be your wild goose,” I warned. “Cassie told me Calhoun had fled New York because he tried to blackmail a mobster with information he’d uncovered for a client. What if he tried that double play again, only this time he got nailed.”

  “You’re saying he carried Susan’s gun to the meeting because he was going face-to-face, not with his snitch, but with the target of his investigation?”

  “And he got popped with Susan’s gun,” I said. “A service revolver would have left an identifiable slug, traced back to an issued weapon. Walt got stung because he’d registered his gun.”

  “It’s hard for me to believe this could happen in Ewbanks’ department,” said Tommy Lee. “But, I know you have to go where the evidence leads you.”

  “When did your man Bridges start with Ewbanks?”

  Tommy Lee jumped in his seat. “God damn it, Barry,” he whispered harshly. “Where’d his name come from?”

  I’d forgotten Tommy Lee hadn’t shared his own source with me. “I met him at Walt’s with Ewbanks. He said some things about you being a good sheriff and I figured he was your contact. No one else would brag on you.”

  “Well, keep your figuring to yourself,” he ordered.

  “Can you answer my question? Bridges told me his wife died ten years ago and you got him hired in the Wa
lker County department. Was that right after his wife’s death?”

  “Within a couple years I guess. Hated to lose him but he felt strongly about his family responsibilities. You can understand that.”

  Helen appeared beside us, her arms loaded with two plates and a pitcher of iced tea. “I’ll let you keep your own glasses filled,” she said, and set everything in the middle of the table. “Need anything else, just holler.” She turned to go, and then looked back. “Oh, and I had them leave off the horseradish, Barry. Don’t think your nose can take any more abuse.”

  Tommy Lee laughed. We sorted out the food, and I picked up my sandwich and the conversation.

  “Did you get to tell Bridges that Sammy Calhoun went into that grave before he could testify against the contractors?”

  “He said Ewbanks is already on it. Talked to the state boys and the lead prosecutor. They agree it’s a possibility, but none of the men had a history of violence or known connections to hit men.”

  “Cassie said Sammy’s disappearance didn’t affect the verdict.”

  Tommy Lee nodded. “That’s what makes this line of inquiry low priority. Ewbanks doesn’t have the manpower to mount a broad investigation.”

  “Did Bridges say they know Walt Miller was Duncan Atkins’ accountant?”

  My question surprised him. “No, he didn’t. But sharing that information might have crossed the line, if Ewbanks is quietly trying to make it into something.”

  “Walt Miller didn’t kill Sammy Calhoun.”

  Tommy Lee reared back. “Hey, you don’t have to convince me. But there’s the problem of the damn gun. It’s Walt’s and it’s the murder weapon.”

  I didn’t have an answer for that fact and took a big bite of my sandwich. We ate quietly for a few minutes, and then my mind returned to the conversation with Annette Nolan.

  “So, Bridges was in Ewbanks’ department when Calhoun was killed, when Sammy told Annette Nolan about a scandal.”

  “Not in his current capacity. The only opening at the time was as a juvenile probation officer. He spent a few years there before Ewbanks moved him back into active investigative duty.”

  “He worked with juvenile offenders?”