Forty Dead Men

by Donis Casey

  Scott Tucker had been jotting the occasional note on a piece of foolscap while she was talking. He did not look up. He did not tell her that he was inclined to believe Dan was more interested in getting his hands on Harvey’s inheritance and escaping to nice warm Mexico than in starting anew, or even seeing his sick mother again. “Did you tell him that he had been found out and a U.S. marshal would be paying him a visit directly?”

  “No. He didn’t ask me how I found him and I didn’t say. I told him that I was glad he had seen the light. He offered me money.”

  “Did you take it?”

  She colored, but looked him in the eye. “I did. I suppose it really wasn’t his to give, was it?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think I’ll have to give it back? It isn’t enough to make up for what he did, but it’s enough to get me back to Maine.”

  “I expect Harvey won’t mind if you keep it,” Scott said, his tone ironic. “Now, where does Gee Dub show up in this story?”

  “After I left Dan, I went downtown to a cafe on Main Street. Gee Dub came in about ten or fifteen minutes later.”

  “How did he know where to find you?”

  “He said it wasn’t hard to figure out. Maybe after he got to Council Hill he saw me through the cafe window.”

  “Did he go to Johnson’s house?”

  Holly bit her lip. She had to tread carefully here. “I don’t see how. I didn’t see him while I was at Dan’s. After Gee Dub came into the cafe, we were together from then until he gave me a ride back to his parents’ farm.”

  Scott’s expression did not betray his opinion of Holly’s story. When she fell silent, he put the pencil down and clasped his hands together on the desktop. He studied her face for a moment before he spoke. “Miz Thornberry, what time of day did you get to Council Hill and when did you leave? According to Gee Dub’s folks, you lit out from their farm in the middle of the day and didn’t get back until nearly dawn the next morning. It’s only six miles from Boynton to Council Hill. That’s not the best road, but on a good day most folks can ride that far in less than an hour, either on horseback or in an auto. If you’d left Council Hill directly after your little adventure, you should have been back to the farm by suppertime. What were y’all doing all that time?”

  She looked away again. “We didn’t leave Council Hill right away. We sat in the cafe for a long time and ate and talked about what to do. There’s only one place to eat there. You can ask them. They’ll remember.”

  Scott was writing again. “This delivery man that you hitched a ride with, what was his name?”

  “He told me to call him Royce. He said he was hauling a load of screws and bolts from Muskogee to Henryetta.”

  “Was there a sign on the side of the truck?”

  “There was a name painted on the door. It said Ace Supply, Muskogee.”

  “It should be easy enough to check your story, Miz Thornberry. What time of day was it when this Royce picked you up?”

  “I’m not sure. Mid-afternoon? Gee Dub’s family was at the dinner table when I left the house and began walking toward the road. It must have taken me close to an hour to reach the main road. It felt like it, anyway. I don’t walk very fast these days. I sat down on a big rock not far from the junction of the two roads. It didn’t seem like I was there too long before the young man in the truck came by. He drove pretty fast most of the way, but there were parts of the road that were very bad. I could have walked the last few miles into Council Hill faster than Royce was able to drive. After I spoke to the man at the general store and post office, it took me maybe fifteen minutes to walk to the house where I found Dan.”

  While Holly was relating her tale, Scott was calculating. “Most folks generally have dinner around one, so if I figure right this meeting with Johnson ended around four, four-thirty. That fits in with when the neighbor lady heard a set-to over to Stump’s house. So after you leave Johnson’s house and go to the cafe, Gee Dub arrives and buys you dinner at the local eatery. Now, why didn’t y’all ride straight to the law with the news that Stump was really Johnson? You must have known that after he saw you, he was going to leg it out of town as fast as he could go. Or did y’all know that Johnson wasn’t going anywhere ever again?”

  She stiffened and blurted, “Do you think I wanted anybody to know I’m even more of a fool than I look?” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I swear Dan was alive when I left his house. I begged Gee Dub not to tell anyone what I’d done. I must have looked a mess, sitting in that restaurant and sobbing like a baby. He was so kind I could hardly stand it.”

  “So you sat in the eatery all night long? That was mighty generous of the proprietor to let y’all sit there till dawn.”

  Holly’s heart picked up speed. She could tell by the look on Scott Tucker’s face that he was not buying it. She couldn’t blame him. “If I tell you, will you promise not to spread it about?”

  “Well, now, honey, you know I can’t do that.” Scott had already spoken the words when it dawned on him what she was probably going to say. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I’ll tell you what, Miz Thornberry. Depending on what you say to me, I’ll try to tell as few folks as possible, if I can manage it. Believe me, darlin’, you won’t shock me. There is nothing new under the sun. But if you can give me something to help clear Gee Dub, you must do it.”

  Her face was red with embarrassment, now. “I think perhaps you have already figured it out, sir. After I left Dan, I went into the cafe to ask about the next train north. The waitress was alarmed at my state, so I told her a friend had died. She said I should sit for a bit and pull myself together. Gee Dub came in. We drank some tea. We ate something. Afterwards we rode double to Boynton. Back to the farm. Back to his room. It was after dark when we got in. He said I should clean up before I went back to the house. But…the next thing I knew, it was nearly dawn.”

  She was relieved that Scott did not look scandalized. He nodded. “That explains where you two were all night and that’s helpful. Still, we don’t know when Gee Dub got to Council Hill. Maybe he followed you and was lurking about outside Stump’s house the whole time you were there. Did Gee Dub tell you where he was between the time you left Johnson and before he came into the cafe?”

  “He did not.”

  Something about the way her eyes skittered when she said it gave Scott pause. “He didn’t?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me anything.” Her firm tone let him know that she was not going to say any more than that.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Phoebe Day was on a mission. The Tucker siblings had divvied up their investigative tasks and her assignment was to go through Gee Dub’s room, ostensibly to pack a few things for his comfort into the empty gunny sack she was carrying. A change of shirt, some extra drawers and undershirts, socks. Phoebe’s real task was to look for anything in that room that could be used in Gee Dub’s defense.

  Phoebe’s husband, John Lee Day, was in charge of both the Tucker farm and the Day farm this week, since Shaw was meeting with Abner Meriwether in Muskogee and Alafair had gone to Okmulgee to attend Dan Johnson’s funeral. Sophronia and Grace were desolate at being excluded from ransacking Gee Dub’s room, but Alafair and Shaw had let Blanche stay home from school to help Phoebe. It would not have done if all three of the Tucker schoolchildren had played hooky. Mary Lucas was watching Phoebe’s three little children while her sisters conducted their search.

  As Phoebe walked from the back door of her parents’ house to the bunk room behind the barn, she set such a pace that her assistant searcher Blanche had trouble keeping up with her. Even their volunteer companion Charlie Dog had to break into a trot in order not to be left behind. Blanche squeaked with alarm when the hunting party was strafed by the mother mockingbird, but Phoebe was too intent on the task at hand to spare more than an impatient wave at the bird as
she opened the door to the toolshed and marched back to the bunk room.

  Blanche began her search by looking under the pillows on both cots. She had already heard about the cartridge boxes, both empty now. She placed them carefully on the crate that Gee Dub had been using for a bedside table before stripping back the covers. “Phoebe, why do you suppose Mama made up both beds, if only Gee is staying here for now?”

  Phoebe didn’t look up from rifling through the drawers in the chest by the back wall. “I don’t know. She probably thought it looks better, more lived-in, don’t you know.” She removed a couple of neatly folded long-sleeved shirts and laid them atop the chest. She paused when she saw a velvet-covered box pushed back into the corner of the drawer. She opened it to find three pendants suspended from colored ribbons; a cross with eagle on it, a star, and a purple heart with a cameo of George Washington in the middle.

  She sat down heavily on the end of one of the cots with the box in her lap.

  “What did you find?” Blanche said.

  “Medals. Blanche, did Gee Dub ever say anything about being wounded while he was overseas?”

  “Wounded? No, not that I ever heard. He doesn’t have any scars that I can see, nor is he missing any limbs. Why do you think he was wounded?”

  “See this?” She held up the purple heart. “A soldier only gets this if he’s wounded in combat.”

  “Well, he never said.”

  Phoebe put the medal back into the box with the others. “No, he wouldn’t. He never was much of a ‘sayer’.”

  Blanche sat down next to her. “What are those other ones?”

  “I don’t know what they are for. But it looks like our brother may be some kind of war hero. That’s good! We’ll give these to Mr. Meriwether. Nobody is going to want to put a war hero in jail.” She stood and placed the medals on top of the pile of clothing. “I’m going to pack up these clothes and the rest. You look in that bottom drawer and see if you can find anything else that might be useful.”

  Blanche was eager to comply, and for a few moments there was silence as the sisters concentrated on their tasks. Half of the bottom drawer contained half-a-dozen jars of preserved fruits and vegetables that Gee Dub must have liberated from Alafair’s pantry. “Why do you suppose Gee has a stash of food from Mama’s pantry? Looks like he’s been eating watermelon rind preserves directly out of the jar.”

  “Watermelon rind preserves was always one of his favorites,” Phoebe answered absently.

  “Why keep a cache, when he could just eat as much as he wants up to the house?” Blanche didn’t wait for an answer. She held up a packet of letters. “Lookie here, Phoebe. Do you think we ought to read them?”

  Phoebe’s brow knit. She took the letters from Blanche and shuffled through them. “I hate to. These are Gee Dub’s private letters. I see several from Mama, and from the rest of us, too. Here are some that look official, from the Army and all. We ought to give these to Mr. Meriwether, as well as the medals. He can ask Gee about them. Maybe there is something in one of these letters that he can use.”

  “Here’s a pair of backpacks under this blanket,” Blanche said.

  Phoebe began stuffing clothing and the found items into the gunny sack. “What’s in them?”

  “This one is empty. It has ‘Tucker, Lt. George W’ stenciled on the flap. This other one…It’s got one of them Army caps in it. Leggings. Couple other things of the like. Here’s a canteen.”

  There was a pause, and Phoebe looked up from her folding. “What is it?”

  Blanche was gazing at the name on the flap. “Phoebe, who is Private R.J. Moretti?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Alafair and Lavinia mingled with the crowd outside the First Methodist Episcopal Church until the pallbearers came out with the casket containing the earthly remains of Daniel Johnson and slid it into the hearse. They stood discreetly in a corner beside the church door until all the mourners had gotten into their conveyances—a horse-drawn buggy, a couple of automobiles, and two men riding horseback. The widow and her parents briskly departed the church, but the deceased’s mother could hardly keep her feet. The father practically had to carry her down the steps and lift her into the brougham following the hearse. The young man who had sat with the family at the funeral gave Alafair and Lavinia a narrow look as he rode by on a blaze-faced quarter horse and fell into line behind the last auto. As the procession pulled out of the dirt lot next to the church, the young fellow turned in the saddle to shoot one last curious glance at the strangers. Once the cortege rounded the corner, Alafair and Lavinia walked over to Charles, who was still sitting in his town car parked across the street from the church, trying to look inconspicuous. They climbed into the backseat and Charles pulled out to follow the procession at a distance.

  The internment was already underway by the time Charles parked behind some cedars at the top of a knoll overlooking the graveyard, an unobtrusive spot from which to watch the proceedings. There were fewer people at the burial than had attended the funeral. Alafair had a perfect view of the family gathered around the open grave.

  The three Tuckers stood for a long moment, observing.

  Charles finally broke the silence. “I know that man holding the widow’s arm. That’s Bertram Evans. Suppose he’s her father? He’s a local builder and a good customer. Buys a lot of finished board from the sawmill. He’s well-off, to say the least. I reckon any man would consider his daughter a good catch.”

  “That widow is one pretty gal,” Lavinia noted.

  Alafair nodded. The widow was very pretty indeed. She was clinging to her father’s arm, and making a point of leaning for support on any man who offered his condolences. Perhaps shedding a tear on his sleeve. She’s just the kind of woman certain men like, all weak and helpless. Alafair scolded herself for the uncharitable thought. After all, she didn’t know the slightest thing about the woman.

  “Charles,” she said, “do you know that young fellow there who has been hovering around the widow since the funeral? He was sitting in the family pew.”

  Charles squinted at the dark-haired man with his hands in his pockets who was standing slightly behind young Mrs. Johnson. “I can’t see him too well from here, but I don’t recognize him right off.”

  Lavinia shaded her eyes with her hand for a better view. “He is friends with the widow’s daddy, for sure. Look how he leans in to talk with him. Maybe he works for her daddy and is looking to get on his good side by cosseting the daughter. Or maybe he’s her brother or some other kin.”

  Alafair shook her head. “That was my first thought, too, until I got a good look at him at the church. He’s no brother, unless her folks found him under a cabbage leaf. He don’t favor that family one whit. Last week, when Scott came over here with Miz Thornberry to talk to Dan’s parents, Johnson Senior told him that the widow was aiming to remarry. I’ll bet money that is the prospective groom.”

  Lavinia eagerly latched on to this information. “Remarry! Alafair, that’s a motive for murder right there. The young gal figures she’s moving on with her life, got her a fine new fellow who never killed anybody or deserted the Army or married an extra wife, and what does she find out but that she’s still shackled to the man who left her high and dry.”

  Charles agreed with his wife’s assessment. “And what about her betrothed, if that’s who he is? Here he’s found himself a beautiful, wealthy woman to marry and before he can say ‘I do’, her late husband pops up from the grave.”

  “I think that is Dan’s mother, the one who can hardly stand on her own.” Alafair pointed her out. “Either her son’s passing has like to killed her or she’s ailing something awful.”

  “Well, this speculation is fine and good, but I reckon we’d find out a lot more if we could actually ask them,” Lavinia said.

  “I sure would like a chance to have a word with some of those folks,” Alafair admit
ted. “We ought to go to the reception.”

  Charles snorted. “What could you say to the family aside from ‘I’m sorry for your loss’?”

  Alafair pondered a moment before she turned and gave Lavinia a conspiratorial look. “What say you and me invite ourselves over to express our condolences to the family this evening, after the reception is done with and everybody has left? Here’s what we’ll say—we’re both mothers of war veterans. That’s no lie. We’ll tell them that we’ve been attending as many funerals of veterans as we can so as to show support to the families.”

  “And that is a lie,” Lavinia said.

  “Well, it is true that I haven’t heard of any other veteran funerals over the past year, so none is as many as I could have attended. How about you?”

  “Just the son of one of Charles’ customers, but he was buried in France and they only had a memorial for him at the Catholic Church.”

  “Did you go?”

  “We did. Neither of us had ever been inside a Catholic Church before.”

  “Well, then, there you go. It’s no lie that we have attended as many veterans’ memorials as we were able.”

  “If you present yourselves at the reception, I’m coming with you,” Charles informed them. “Y’all girls don’t need to be going into the lion’s den on your own.”

  Perhaps Charles really was concerned for their safety, but Alafair suspected that he simply didn’t want to be left out again. “Come along, then. If you are acquainted with Mr. Evans, maybe he’ll take a notion to tell you something about his late son-in-law that will help our case.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Abner Meriwether, Attorney at Law, settled himself across the table from his client. “I’ve been doing some research on you, Gee Dub.”