Sooner Dead

by David L Thornburg

  On the upper landing, she could see into several rooms, a library, a bedroom with pictures of Alphaus and his wife Beatrice – probably their bedroom – and another with leather chaps and boots on a chair, surely belonging to the son. She remembered his name was Lewis.

  There was one more room, its door closed. Christine’s? Sherry tried the door, but it was locked. On a hunch, she ran her fingers along the top of the door frame and was rewarded with an iron skeleton key. They weren’t trying too hard to keep people out, she reflected. More a symbolic gesture for the servants, perhaps.

  The lock groaned as she turned the key. The door opened to a feminine room, the moth-eaten drapes once white and graceful, the finely embroidered bed skirt and quilt now tattered.

  There was an armoire against a wall, since this was an era before closets were common. Next to it was a wooden chest. She recognized it as a hope chest, where young women put fabrics and items they might need upon their marriage. She herself had one, passed down from her grandmother, but her brothers always referred to her’s as a “hopeless” chest.

  Sherry lifted the lid. Inside were baby clothes that were old when Christine had them. There were many books as well, including two Bibles. Underneath those were layers of silk material that would have made fine dresses.

  Below those was a leather journal.

  She tucked it in her pack and went down the stairs. She didn’t want to press her luck, and anyway, the place made her uneasy.

  Chapter 12

  Sherry’s heart sank when she saw Lianne’s car in the driveway. She had the feeling she used to get when she’d been busted by her mom for sneaking out.

  She entered the house to find Lianne on the couch. There was no TV on, and she was dressed in jeans and a plain blouse. No uniform. She didn’t look up.

  “I thought you would be at work,” Sherry said, steeling herself for the reprimand.

  “Me too,” was all she got in return.

  Sherry placed her bag on the coffee table and sat down. “I have something you might be interested in.” She pulled the towel out and unwrapped the skull. She left the journal in her satchel. “I found this at the Stone mansion.”

  When Lianne didn’t respond, Sherry said, “Are you OK?”

  “Minco made it clear he didn’t want me working with him anymore.”

  “Oh. He’s cute and everything, but you know guys that age don’t think much about anything but themselves.”

  “He’s going to be chief now, so what he wants is how it will probably be.”

  “So, are you fired? Like, fired right now?”

  “No, but…”

  “I know something about surviving in a man’s world. Archeology at a major state university? Come on. Everyone thinks they’re Indiana Jones. Sometimes the battle is won by just showing up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if you’re not fired, keep going to work and doing your job. Force them to deal with you.”

  “Maybe you’re right.” Lianne picked up the skull. “What do you think this means?”

  “I think it means something very bad happened at Stone City.”

  On the morning of Harris’ funeral, Daniel was awakened by a knocking on his bedroom door.

  “Yeah?” he responded, his voice muffled by his pillow.

  “Danny, she is here for you,” he heard his mother say.

  “Who?”

  “Your pretty partner.”

  He grabbed the robe he rarely wore off its hangar and opened the door. Lianne stood in the living room, her police uniform pressed within an inch of its life, her jet-black hair pulled back into a bun visible under the back of her hat.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I hoped we could ride to the funeral together in the cruiser. Show a little solidarity to the town.”

  He stepped past her to the window. “Did you bring the cruiser?”

  He opened the curtain. It gleamed in the morning sun.

  He looked at her. “It looks great. Thanks. I really haven’t had the energy to, you know…”

  “I know. Now get ready. Meanwhile, your mother promised me pancakes.”

  After showering, shaving, and dressing he stepped back into the living room. Lianne looked at him from the kitchen table.

  “That’s better,” she said, her mouth full.

  His mother kissed him on the cheek. “You look so handsome, Danny. Such a sad day, though.”

  Daniel looked at his watch. “We should get going.”

  Looking out the window from his chair in the living room, his father said, “Cah.”

  Daniel saw the limousine parked at the curb, Jones Funeral Home on its side. He saw Francis get out.

  Daniel and Lianne met her on the porch. Francis looked over his shoulder and said, “Hello, Mrs. Minco. It’s good to see you.”

  “We are so sorry for your loss. I wish I could attend and pay my respects, but…” she glanced into the house.

  “I understand. Thank you for your kind words.”

  Daniel’s mother closed the door. Francis looked at Daniel. “My husband’s death was no accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was awake when someone came into our room. They talked, and the intruder said I didn’t have to get hurt. My husband pushed my back under the covers, warning me to stay still. I thought if I did maybe the man would leave, but he injected something. By the time he left, it was too late.”

  “Did you tell the OSBI?”

  “Of course I did, but they didn’t believe me. A big man who was already recovering from a heart attack, you know.”

  Lianne said, “Was there an autopsy?”

  “No, the undertaker had him embalmed and laid out in a suit in record time. The funeral director even pressured me to have the service so soon.”

  Daniel stuttered, “Do you know who it was?”

  “No. My husband won’t be up for sainthood, and he was mixed up with some questionable people, especially in the early days. I don’t know what’s going on in this town, but John and Dibble and the motel explosion must be connected.”

  “Maybe,” Daniel said tentatively.

  She took a step closer. “Danny Minco, I’ve known you since your mama brought you home from the hospital. I expect you to find whoever did this and make them pay. Use every resource you have.”

  Daniel broke eye contact and glanced at Lianne, who nodded at him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chapter 13

  At Lianne’s house, Sherry Threefeathers took the leather journal out of her bag and sat on the couch.

  September 3, 1926. It was the first day of school for the Indian children. Ages 6 to 12 were in the big room at the schoolhouse, and the ones over 12 fit into the smaller meeting room. The older ones were mostly girls, as many of the boys were working alongside their fathers dredging the new pond in front of the house. I pleaded with many of the families personally to allow their boys to continue in school, but to no avail.

  Johnny Crumpo returned from Chilocco Indian School up close to Kansas. Since he obtained his degree, he will teach the older children. It is my hope that having a fine learned man who also played football will make it more desirable for the young men to return to school.

  My father insists on using the Indians for labor, and he doesn’t know why they chafe under the burden after all we have done for them. He doesn’t seem to realize he has more money coming up out of the ground than he, or I, or my children when they are born, will ever be able to spend. He also says the Indians are doing work that the white men in the town have no desire to do. Perhaps that is true, but surely the Indians must feel some resentment to doing the dangerous, dirty work of the wildcatter while receiving so little of the reward.

  It is my Christian duty to continue to teach them the Holy Bible and the ways of our church. They seem receptive, and I know that this provides some comfort to them after the hardships their people hav
e endured. I shared this conjecture with Mr. Crumpo at the reception given for his return, and he mentioned that his studies have convinced him that oppressed peoples will always strive toward freedom, perhaps before their oppressors or even themselves are prepared for the upheaval. He indicated that he considers me naïve for wishing otherwise.

  I told him I considered his attitude to be one of ingratitude and that he was more than welcome to seek his fortune elsewhere if he felt oppressed.

  Yet I find myself hoping that he stays.

  Chapter 14

  Bronson Blake swept past his receptionist and into his office, the whir of the helicopter rotors still humming in his ears. He’d no sooner sat behind his desk when the intercom beeped.

  “Yes?”

  His perturbed receptionist said, “Your father asked for you to find him when you arrived.”

  Behind her he heard some commotion, and his father’s unmistakable baritone say, “Never mind. I’ll go on in.”

  “Never mind, sir,” the receptionist’s voice sounded smug, as his father blew in. Tall and trim, Frank Bronson was dressed in a tailored grey pinstriped suit that exuded success. Which was the point, after all.

  “I always forget how small this office is,” Frank said. He stopped short of saying that any given high school football team in the state could hold a scrimmage in his. “Listen, son, the day will come when you won’t be able to disappear on a whim. Nobody knew where you were until you called for the copter. We’ll talk about your whereabouts later, but surely you remember this is filming day.”

  Bronson didn’t need reminding. The thousands of parked cars around the stadium in the center of the Oklahoma City compound were a clue.

  “That’s why I’m back, Dad. I’ve never missed yet, have I?”

  “Your tone makes me think you’ve forgotten it’s a privilege to serve those people out there.”

  “I’ll be there on time, I promise. Just let me get ready.”

  Frank paused. “OK, you get ready. I’ve got to get on over there. I’ll tell a production assistant to stand by with a golf cart.”

  “You do that.”

  After his father left, Bronson went into the closet connected to his washroom. Several suits were hanging there still in their cleaner’s bags. He selected a conservative Navy blue and a muted maroon tie, a far cry from the florid purple one his father was wearing. He felt a little strange putting a pristine suit on over his sweaty, wind-blown body, but the television audience wouldn’t be able to smell him.

  He got in the front seat of the golf cart, and the young woman driving took off with such force Bronson was pinned back in his seat. “We’re on the move, and coming in hot,” she said into her headset.

  They zipped into the loading zone that merged with the backstage area. The driver stopped abruptly and pointed Bronson to the makeup chair. His father’s makeup lady was tapping her foot impatiently.

  Bronson sat in the chair and looked at himself in the light mirror, then he was looking at the ceiling as the chair was forcefully reclined. She ran gel through his hair and whipped it into shape with a comb. “You’re lucky you live in a time when men your age don’t even have to shave to look stylish,” she said with a little contempt.

  “Believe me, I know how lucky I am.” Bronson heard up-tempo gospel music kick in from the stage. “Got to go.”

  He followed the music to stairs that a flashlight wielding assistant helped him climb. The audience was clapping in time as he found his seat on the stage. He stood next to his mother, beautiful as always, resplendent in a cream-colored dress and seemingly ageless. She smiled at him as he took his place.

  The vocal group led the vast audience in several songs, each more joyful than the last, the words projected on three huge jumbotrons angled to serve every section of the former professional basketball arena.

  After about twenty minutes, the music shifted to a much slower, more worshipful song. People were raising their hands, eyes closed, and swaying.

  Frank Alphaus Blake stepped forward. His hidden microphone carried his voice to the farthest reaches of the cavernous room. “Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.” He prayed for people affected by the floods in Houston after catastrophic rains there. Bronson knew that the church had already secretly sent tens of thousands of dollars in relief and would soon send more.

  Frank then welcomed the audience, and the viewers at home, and told them he was convinced that their attendance was a part of God’s plan for their lives, plans to bless them mightily. He mentioned that gratitude for those blessings was a key to them continuing. “Every day I thank Him for his greatest blessings to me, my beautiful wife Darla and my fine son, Bronson, who will one day lead this ministry.”

  Bronson and his mother both smiled into the camera as it panned across their faces.

  Lianne stirred from her fitful sleep in the chair in her living room. Sherry had long since gone to bed. She looked at the TV, then sat up straight. She reached for her phone without taking her eyes off the screen. She pressed speed dial #3.

  “Daniel? Sorry it’s so late. Turn on channel 43. I’ve found our mysterious caretaker from the Stone Mansion.”

  Chapter 15

  The sunlight bounced off the Dallas skyscrapers below the windows of the conference room at Stone Energy headquarters. Sonia Stone Hale was listening to her husband Rudy drone his litany of gloom and doom. He had been a puzzling choice for her among her class of debutantes, too boring and staid for a wild child like Sonia. But he proved to be a capable if uninspiring workhorse, and no one doubted he took his job as Chief Financial Officer seriously.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the business suits and dresses of the board of directors taking dutiful notes in their leather folios, bottles of artesian water safe distances from their laptops. For all their impressions of busyness, the board wasn’t responsible for one creative idea since she started attending these meetings on her father’s knee.

  Old man Alphaus didn’t have these chains to drag around, she thought. No, Great-Grandpa could do as he pleased and devil take the rest. All of the risk, all of the reward.

  “Sonia, did you hear me?” Rudy said. “With the price of crude falling and our fields in the Gulf almost tapped out, we need to develop more drilling rights or face some serious austerity measures.”

  “A little austerity might not be so bad,” she said, stirred from her complacency and resenting it. “Surely half the people around this table are redundant, maybe even you, darling.”

  Rudy winced, but continued on. “It goes beyond management payroll. I think we need to look at some of our secondary expenditures.”

  “Like what?” she said, ice in her voice.

  “Perhaps this road in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma. I know the family home was there, but we can’t afford to be sentimental.”

  “My family home is there. We are not touching the budget for the Stone City development.”

  “You know that there is a cease and desist order against us.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. You know how to make that go away. Surely there’s something else like, I don’t know, that ridiculous preacher out of Oklahoma City.” She looked straight at her brother Murray.

  Murray responded. “Dear sister, you know that the Stone-Bronson connection goes back to the middle of the last century. The endowment that subsidizes that donation was in Great-Grandfather’s will. It can’t be touched. Any of the lawyers around this table will tell you the same thing.”

  Sonia began to gather her things. “Rudy, you wanted this job. It’s time to earn the paycheck. Cash flow and operations issues are things you need to fix, not keep expecting the family to bail you out.”

  She made her exit, grateful as always to be leaving that room. Perhaps some shopping was in order.

  Bronson went to his father’s office this time. It was indeed bigger than his, by a long shot. As always, Frank was on the phone. He motioned for his son to sit down. Bronson looked around the ro
om, though he knew every detail. The hardwood floor was interrupted by hand-woven carpets that separated the room into various spaces: tables and chairs for meetings, reading areas with oak bookcases, and a desk big enough to house a family of three. The walls were segregated by function, too. Opposite Frank’s desk was a bank of television monitors tuned to various stations with the sound muted – most of the ESPN stations were represented.

  Perpendicular to that was a gallery of pictures of the forebears, or “forebores” as Bronson called them. The first was his great-grandfather, the Boy Preacher himself, standing outside a tent he claimed was the largest in America and used solely by him to spread God’s word and heal the sick immediately after WWII. Two more followed that, one of him with Eisenhower and one with Truman. Then his son, Bronson’s grandfather, behind a radio microphone. He’d run the biggest privately held radio network in the world.

  Then there were the pictures of his dad in exotic places around the world, sometimes next to helicopters, sometimes next to private planes. There was one of him preaching in the Sanctuary – his word for the arena – taken from the opposite end of the auditorium. He appeared as a tiny figure on a distant stage on front of a crowd of 60,000. This was very familiar to Bronson, because it happened every week, early enough on Saturday afternoons to beam the edited telecast to syndicated TV markets all over the world.

  All the men were men of God, Bronson supposed, if you put stock in that sort of thing. They certainly had integrity – nary a whiff of impropriety or scandal among the bunch of them. And even though his dad faced some criticism for his lavish lifestyle – which he ignored – Bronson knew that the money his father spent was a mere drop in the bucket considering the enormous charitable outlay discreetly dispersed by the ministry.

  At 29, Bronson knew he had big shoes to fill. If he ever did assume leadership of the ministry, he thought he might keep the TVs in the office.