by Donis Casey
There was no one. She heard nothing, saw nothing. Satisfied that no one lurked in the shadows, she retrieved her lantern and pushed open the barn door enough to let herself inside. Mary was sitting on a feed sack, just as Gee Dub had indicated, next to a lantern of her own which was hanging from a nail in a post. Charlie-dog was stretched out comfortably on the floor next to her, and his tail thumped out a languid welcome when Alafair entered. Mary was writing in her journal, which was perched on her knees, her free hand cuddling a gray barn kitten in her lap.
Alafair could hear her singing softly to herself.
“I took my dog Rover and looked the fields over
to see if my kitty was there.
No dog could be kinder but he couldn’t find her.
Oh, where can my poor kitty be?
Kitty, kitty, oh where are you hiding today?
Kitty, kitty, come forth and join in our play…”
She stopped singing and looked up when she heard her mother. “I hear y’all had an adventure.”
Alafair nodded. “It’s an alarming thing. This fellow seems determined to do away with someone else. Did Gee Dub tell you that he probably saved Laura’s life, and maybe the entire Ross family?”
Mary’s eyebrows elevated. “He told me that y’all saw the fire and that him and Daddy pulled the burning curtains down.”
“Well, it was Gee Dub that did both them things.”
Mary smiled a quirky Tucker smile. “He didn’t go into detail. Just like Gee Dub.” The kitten was in the mood to play, and Mary was having some trouble keeping it from pouncing onto her journal pages. She set the kitten on the floor. It took a couple of playful swipes at the patient dog before it bounced away to join its mother and litter mates behind a hay bale in the corner.
“Gray kitty, just like the song.” She nodded at the kitten. “Comforts me.” She looked up at Alafair. “I’m glad you’re here, Ma. I was hoping you’d get the idea and come to find me. I want to talk to you about what we found out at the funeral; compare, see if we come up with something useful.” She hesitated at the look on Alafair’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Have you heard anybody knocking around here since Gee Dub left?”
“No. He just left a minute ago. What do you mean?”
Alafair shook her head and sat down next to Mary on her own feed sack. “Oh, nothing. I declare, I’m so chary with all this business that I think I’m seeing things that aren’t there. I wish you wouldn’t wander off on your own, though, especially after what happened tonight. Not until this prowling murderer is caught.”
Mary was unmoved. She could see the concern on her mother’s face, and understood it well enough, especially considering the fire, but since Bill’s death she hadn’t been able to roust up any emotion stronger than a dull sadness. “I like it in here, Mama. It’s nice and quiet, and I can think. Nobody hovers around me asking me how I feel all the time.” It dawned on her how that might sound to Alafair, and she smiled sheepishly.
Alafair smiled back. “I can understand that. But you’ve got to be careful for awhile. At least keep one of the dogs with you.”
Mary laughed and looked down at the drowsing shepherd at her feet. “Charlie-dog would just lick the miscreant to death.”
“I doubt it. But keep one of Daddy’s hounds, Buttercup, or Crook, if you’d rather. I’m serious, now.”
“I know you are, Mama, but don’t worry. I’ll keep a better watch on myself from now on. I don’t want you fretting.”
“Thank you, sugar. Now let’s see if we come up with anything.” Alafair hung her lantern on a hook and leaned over to see what Mary was writing. Mary casually put her hand over the page.
“Of all the folks my age that we mentioned, I did talk with everybody but Art Turner and Shirley Kellerman, who didn’t come to the funeral. Art’s brother Johnny was there, though. I asked him why Art didn’t come, if they were such good friends of Bill’s, and he said that Art was down in Tishomingo with their grandma and couldn’t get back in time. He told me that Art left for Tishomingo the day Bill was shot, and they didn’t even think to let him know about it until yesterday, when Scott came to talk to them. Mr. Turner made a telephone call from the sheriff’s office in Boynton to the post office in Tishomingo and left Art a message.”
“That’s interesting. I spoke with Scott, and he mentioned that telephone call his own self. The postmaster said he did see Art on the day after Bill was shot, though. Art said he figured he’d stay on with his grandfolks a day or two more. So, if he was out of town…”
“Trent Calder told me the same tale,” Mary interrupted her, “and he said that Cousin Scott was sending him down to Tishomingo on the train this very afternoon after the funeral, to talk to Art and check his story.”
“So Scott has some reason to suspect Art ain’t telling the whole truth?”
Mary shrugged. “He must, or he wouldn’t send his deputy all the way down to the Texas border. Trent didn’t tell me straight out what’s making Scott suspicious, but from things he said, as well as something Johnny said, I’m guessing that Art and Bill had some kind of disagreement the morning of the day Bill died.”
“A fight?”
“Something near enough to it to get Scott sniffing around.”
“Scott didn’t mention anything about it. What did Johnny say?”
“Well, he said he expected Art probably felt mighty bad about Bill getting shot, since the last words they had were bitter ones. I tried to get him to tell me what they fought about, but he didn’t want to rake it over.”
Alafair crossed her arms over her chest and pondered this. “I’d love to know,” she mused, then snapped to attention. “What else did you find out?”
Mary studied her journal for a moment, then dropped it flat in her lap and lifted her gaze to middle space. “Shirley Kellerman’s friend Annie Dunn told me Shirley was awful upset. I think she loved Uncle Bill, and was hurt bad when he fell for Laura.”
“Shirley’s mama said there was never any formal understanding between them.”
“No, I’m sure there wasn’t,” Mary agreed. “Bill and Shirley had known each other since they were kids, used to play together and all. But since they grew up, I don’t think they ever did more than talk sweet to one another at church, or maybe banter a little if they met in town. But that doesn’t keep a girl from giving her heart unasked. Even so, Ma, I can’t imagine that she could have done anything to hurt Bill. And if she has bad feelings toward Laura, she’s kept them to herself.”
“She didn’t keep them from her ma, though. Miz Kellerman and I talked for quite awhile at your grandma’s house after the service. Miz Kellerman is right worried about Shirley. She said she had been afraid that the girl would go completely around the bend when she heard that Bill McBride was going to marry Laura Ross. When Bill got killed, Miz Kellerman worried that Shirley might ‘do herself an injury,’ is exactly what she said to me. I figured she was afraid that Shirley would make a scene at the funeral, so she sent her on the train to stay with her aunt in Oklahoma City for a spell. That’s why she wasn’t there today.”
“My goodness!” Mary exclaimed. “Could it be that some plot of hers, maybe to get Laura out of the way, didn’t go exactly as planned, and Bill got killed by accident? But Shirley is such a silly creature. Does she have enough wit to plan and carry out a devious plot?”
Alafair laughed a humorless laugh. “Nothing would surprise me about anybody, honey. Maybe it wasn’t her planned it. Maybe she asked someone else to do it, or mentioned it to somebody who took it upon himself.”
“Well, what do we do now, Ma?”
“I think we made some progress. Last week, I couldn’t think of one person in the world who might have a reason, however weak, to kill Bill. Now there are two. Seems Scott is trailing Art Turner, so I don’t think there’s any need for us to do anything there. But Shirley Kellerman…Let’s think on it tonight, and try to come up with someone else we can talk to about her, someone w
ho might know something helpful.” She took Mary’s journal from her and closed it, then gently smoothed a stray tress from Mary’s forehead. “Now, let’s go back up to the house before your daddy sends a posse after us. How are you feeling, sugar pie? You’re looking pretty wore out. How’s your head?”
“I’m all right, Ma,” Mary assured her patiently. “I’m tired and sad, it’s true, and I have this dull headache that won’t go away. I think it’s getting better, though.”
Alafair reached for the bandage on Mary’s temple, but Mary caught her hand and lowered it into her lap as tactfully as she could. “I forgot to tell you about Phoebe,” she said, and was satisfied to see Alafair’s face change as she introduced a new subject of concern. “She was restless as a cat in a box tonight. The heat is bothering her something awful. She kept complaining about her back hurting. Poor old John Lee was hopping, bringing her pillows and ice tea and all.”
“Oh, my! Sounds like her time is near. I wish I had thought to have one of you kids spend the night over there.”
“I’ll go back,” Mary volunteered.
“No, no, it’s too late, now.” Alafair shook her head. “I reckon if they need us tonight, John Lee can be here in five minutes. The first one always takes a long time, anyway. You can go over first thing in the morning, if you want. Maybe Daddy will spare one of the hired boys to go with you and stand lookout. I’ll send Charlie, too, to fetch and run if need be.”
“And miss church?”
“I doubt if Phoebe will feel up to going. And I expect the Lord can find y’all at Phoebe’s as well as at church.” She and Mary gazed at one another for a second. Alafair knew perfectly well that the idea of facing every solicitous soul at church in the morning didn’t fill Mary with joy. Mary, on the other hand, was struggling with her guilt at being so happy to get out of going.
“Of course, I could send one of the other kids,” Alafair said, breaking the silence.
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” Mary answered so quickly that Alafair couldn’t help sputtering a laugh.
***
The two women left the barn, lamps in hand, and, bolting the barn door behind them, made their way back to the house with the dog trailing behind them. A faint glow lit the front windows, and Alafair could see one figure on the porch, rocking back and forth languidly in the swing. The iron bedstead that sat at the corner of the porch in summer was made up, and Alafair knew within reason that the two dark, motionless lumps thereon were Blanche and Sophronia. Mary went up the steps ahead of her, and Alafair heard Mary and a male voice murmur an exchange before the girl went into the house. Charlie-dog padded across the porch and flopped himself down under the little girls’ bed.
The long-legged form in the porch swing was holding the baby in his arms. Alafair raised her lantern to see the pair better in the dark. She had been so convinced that it was Shaw holding Grace that when the light fell on Gee Dub with his sister in his arms, Alafair could hardly credit her eyes. The lantern light accentuated the planes of Gee Dub’s face, making him look more gaunt than he was—making him look startlingly like his father, like a grown man.
“I thought you were Daddy,” Alafair managed.
Gee Dub raised his eyebrows. “Daddy’s run out to the stable for a bit. You know how he has to make sure us fellows took care of the stock so as to meet his particular requirements.”
Alafair hung her lantern on a nail and sat down on the swing next to her son. Suddenly she was feeling old, and melancholy. “From what Mary tells me, Phoebe will be having her baby right soon.”
“I guess I’ll be an uncle.”
“And I guess I’ll be a grandma.”
“I didn’t like to mention it.”
“I appreciate it.” Alafair leaned back into the swing, picking up Gee Dub’s rocking rhythm. “You know what’s in just two weeks,” she said, after a brief silence.
“I do. That would be my birthday.”
“Your eighteenth birthday, if I figure right.”
“You do.”
“You’d better start thinking about what you want for your birthday dinner.”
“I’m pondering on it.”
“You weren’t even as old as Grace when your daddy finished building this house,” Alafair told him. “And now you’re practically a man.”
For a moment, Alafair thought he had nothing to say about this. He shifted the toddler on his shoulder. “Daddy would more than likely disagree with you,” he said finally.
In the darkness, Gee Dub couldn’t see the smile that crossed Alafair’s face. “You’d be surprised what Daddy thinks.” She stood up. “Bring her inside when you get your fill of toting her. I’m going to bed.”
As she closed the screen behind her, she slipped her hand into her skirt pocket and fingered Mary’s journal. Mary must be distracted indeed, Alafair thought, to allow her closely guarded musings to fall into her mother’s hands.
She sat down in a parlor chair and pulled the table lamp a little closer. Alafair hoped Mary was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that when she found the journal in its place tomorrow, she wouldn’t remember that she hadn’t put it there herself. But even the threat of being caught red-handed didn’t deter Alafair from settling in for a long read.
Chapter Nine
That was it, Mama. That’s what I was thinking about when I first opened my eyes in the field. Not that somebody had been shooting at us, or that Bill was hit in the leg and Laura was off her horse. Not even that I had no idea what had just happened to me, or why I was lying on my back in the grass staring up at the sky. I was thinking about that time we were all sitting around the bandstand telling stories about crimes we’d seen with our own eyes. At first the tales were funny, then the boys got to trying to scare us all. Then Bill started to tell about the trip he took down to Waco a few years ago, when he’d seen a murder…
***
It was a miserable night. Every one of the kids except Grace had found him or herself a place to sleep outdoors, leaving the parents practically alone inside. Alafair’s bedroom was situated at the corner of the house in such a way that the open windows caught whatever breeze arose and funneled it over the bed. Alafair and Shaw clung to the edges of the bed, as far away from each other’s body heat as they could manage, and Grace preferred a quilt on the relatively cool floor under the window to her little cot.
Alafair was drifting in and out of a heat-soaked fog, and at first she wasn’t sure whether the activity she was hearing in the yard was real or a dream. But when Shaw sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, Alafair dragged herself up into consciousness.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“I hear voices in the front. I think it’s John Lee.”
Alafair was wide awake instantly. She picked up the sleeping baby and made her way through the parlor, and found herself standing on the porch in her nightshift before she had entirely thought about it.
Charlie met her at the screen door. “John Lee just rode up. Phoebe’s asking for you, Ma.”
“Is the baby on the way?” She walked past him toward the edge of the porch. She could see John Lee’s form on his big gelding, leaning down to speak to a knot of kids over the fence. He straightened when he recognized Alafair.
“It’s Phoebe, Ma,” he called. “She thinks it’s her time.” Alafair couldn’t see his face in the dark, but his voice sounded just the littlest bit hysterical.
“How far apart are the pains, John Lee?” Alafair asked.
“Every ten minutes or so.”
Shaw, standing at Alafair’s elbow, put his hand on her shoulder. “You go on home, boy,” he called back to his son-in-law. “Gee Dub will go get Doctor Ann. Tell Phoebe her mama and me will be there directly.”
John Lee was gone before Shaw finished talking, loping across the barnyard on the most direct route back to his bride.
The children crowded around their parents, excited and all talking at once. The three dogs, Charlie’s yellow shepherd and
Shaw’s two hounds, milled around among the humans, wagging happily. Gee Dub crashed into the house to pull on his pants and boots, and Charlie tugged at his father’s nightshirt sleeve. “Can I go with Gee?”
Grace, finally disturbed by the noise, shifted on Alafair’s shoulder and lifted her head, curious.
“Calm down, now.” Shaw raised his voice to be heard over the din. “We can’t all go. Phoebe’s house ain’t big enough to hold all of us. Charlie, you can go with Gee Dub. Go put your clothes on. Mama, you need any of these girls to go with you?”
“I might could use Mary to fetch and tote. The rest of you girls need to get in bed and try to get back to sleep. Church in the morning. Now, now,” she warned, over the chorus of moans, “it’s like to be way into tomorrow before this little baby comes on into the world. I doubt if you’ll be missing anything. Ruth, take Grace and put her down with you on the back porch. Rest of you, back to bed. And Martha’s in charge now, so mind her.”
Gee Dub came back out. Alafair noted that he was carrying a rifle, and she wondered what Shaw had been saying to him since the fire. Whatever it was, she knew Gee Dub was a good hand with a gun, and she approved of the precaution, especially under the circumstances. He was followed by Charlie, who was still tucking his shirt into his knickers. “Should we stop by and let Alice know?” Gee Dub asked.
“No,” Shaw told him emphatically. “I don’t want you traipsing all over creation in the middle of the night. There’ll be plenty of time to tell Alice in the morning. Just go directly to the Addisons’ and let Doctor Ann know what’s happening, then come straight home.”