Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead

by Morgan James

  He hugged Susan hello and introduced himself, being careful to look me sincerely in the eyes and shine a well-rehearsed smile on me. As we shook hands, I studied his face. There was a strong family resemblance between him and Susan’s dad; though to me the sculptured Allen face and dark eyes looked much more comfortable, more relaxed, on his cousin Daniel. I could imagine Mac preening before the mirror, practicing his politician’s smile and turning left, then right, to decide which would be the best camera angle. Re-election would be very important to this man. I doubt Daniel even looked in the mirror to comb his hair. In fact, I thought Daniel probably smoothed back his dark waves with his hands and not a comb. After the sheriff asked what time I’d heard the noises, and what I’d seen; he inspected the cut phone wires, and looked around the yard. Shortly, he was back on the porch, and Susan and I turned to face the front door, waiting patiently while he gave the snake a serious investigative look.

  “Well,” he began, stretching the well out to sound like a paragraph of professional conclusions, “looks to me like we could have us some local devil worshipers, what with that star symbol painted in red before they knifed the snake up there. Or more likely, no offense meant Miz McNeal, just a bunch of kids rushing up Halloween, and trying to scare a flatlander.”

  A voice bellowed from behind us. “They ain’t local, Mac. And they wasn’t kids. I can tell you that.”

  The three of us turned to see Fletcher Enloe standing in the yard, and Sheriff Mac stepped down to shake hands with my neighbor. “Well, hello there Fletcher. Real good to see you. Haven’t seen you in too many Sundays. You know something about this nonsense?”

  “Course I do,” he shot back. “You think I’d be a standing in somebody’s yard shooting my mouth off, if’n I didn’t?”

  In an effort to mollify Enloe’s irritable nature, or just to insure his vote at the next election, Sheriff Mac answered with excessive respect. “Of course you wouldn’t Fletcher. I know you to be a man of few, but valuable, words. Tell me, if you don’t mind to, what do you know about this trespassing incident.”

  “Mr. Enloe, “I interjected, “would you care to come up on the porch and have a cup of coffee?”

  “I’ll take coffee, if it’s fresh. Down here in the yard, thank you.”

  I didn’t blame him. I wanted to be as far away from the dead snake as I could get, too. “Certainly, “I replied. “Cream and sugar? How about you, Sheriff?”

  Both men nodded yes to cream and sugar and Susan volunteered to get mugs for all. Even though I’d had so much coffee already that I felt like Superman—able to leap tall buildings with a single bound—I didn’t reject Susan’s offer. I think I felt the need to hold something warm and comforting while studying an impaled snake on my door. “By the way Sheriff, what kind of snake is that?”

  Mac motioned back to the door with his thumb and replied. “That there is not a mountain snake. If I ain’t mistaken, it’s one of them Bald Python creatures folks with more money than sense buy in the pet stores. I’d say the snake was dead before they pinned it to the door. And all that red stuff, including the mess on the floor made to look like blood, is plain ole red barn paint. If you get close enough you can smell it. You can buy that paint anywhere, including the Ace hardware store in town. That knife though, now that I’ll want to do some checking on. It looks like a standard army knife, could be from a million second hand stores. We’ll see. Could be it was used for some other crime here abouts.”

  Susan brought coffee and Enloe and Mac sipped silently. I drank mine thinking that Perry County, North Carolina, does not have a pet store that sells reptiles; though there must be at least twenty that deal in exotic snakes in Atlanta. Enloe continued to stand alongside Sheriff Mac in the yard and drink his coffee with concentration. The sheriff was the first to speak. “Now then, Fletcher, what do you want to tell us?”

  Enloe cleared his throat and gave his account of the night before. “I was working late last night. Must have been nigh on three o’clock. As you know, most folks coming from town take the airport road out here and that brings them right past my front windows. That’s where I was, don’t you see, that’s how come I saw the vehicle coming down the road real slow like. I wondered who the hell’d be out that time of night, so I turned off the desk lamp and watched. They cut the headlights and pulled in my drive, and then I reckon they realized they had the wrong house, so they eased back out into the road. They didn’t cut the headlights back on until they was well down from my house. I could make out the lights go back on, and then they cut them again. I figured they pulled into Miz Promise’s drive. Knew that wasn’t right. They was up to no good. That’s when I got my rifle and cut through the pine thicket twixt our houses. By the time I got over here, I couldn’t see a lot cause it was still raining some.

  “They left the car up yonder at the head of her drive, pointed out towards the main road. Guess they thought that was pretty smart. I seen there was two of them. The driver, a kinda short feller, went around to the back door; and the other, a pretty tall drink of water, wearing a long rain slicker with a hood, went to the front. They didn’t seem to be trying to break into the house, so I didn’t see no need then to shoot’em. But I watched them real good. Directly, they got back into the vehicle and eased real slow up the drive with the lights off. About that time, all the floodlights on the outside of the house went on. I heard the vehicle head back east towards my house and town; didn’t see nothing else about them from where I stood.” Enloe pointed to the cluster of white pines separating his house from mine. “I hunkered down over there for a spell to see if they was coming back. They didn’t. The outside lights stayed on, so I figured Miz Promise was awake and no harm was done. I never saw the fools hang that ugly snake on the door. I’d probably taken a shot at them, if I’d seen that thing hanging up there. The tall one in the slicker must’ a had it hid in a sack on my blind side whilst he went up to the door.”

  Sheriff Mac listened to the story; then walked over to the wooded area where Enloe had said he watched the house. “Well, hell, Fletcher, from where you was hiding, it’s a wonder you saw as much as you did. I see you did have a clear rifle shot at the one messing around at the back door, though.”

  Enloe looked disgusted. “Of course I did, Sheriff Mac,” he called out in the sheriff’s direction. “You think I didn’t learn nothing in Korea about choosing my target? The shorter one headed for the back door was carrying a big set of bolt cutters. Did I mention that? If he’d touched that back door, he’d be singing at the pearly gates by now.”

  “I believe that, Fletcher,” Sheriff Mac said. “I know you’re a cracker-jack shot.” He scratched his neck lightly and thought for a minute. Finally he asked, “So, Fletcher, how come you know they wasn’t local?”

  Fletcher Enloe looked at Sheriff Mac as though he had less brains than a piece of saltwater taffy. “Well, I can tell a North Carolina truck tag, even if it is dark. And that one wasn’t. It was Georgia. I couldn’t cite you the county, but I saw that big old orangey Georgia peach stamped on it.”

  “Could you tell the color and make of the vehicle, Fletcher?”

  “Only that it was a light colored SUV, white maybe, maybe Chevy, Ford, Jeep, They all look alike to me. Couldn’t make out the tag number, excepting the first two letters, YU, I think. Blame fool cataracts make it hard to see as good as I used to.” With the last remark, Fletcher Enloe handed his coffee mug to Susan and nodded a thank you. “Well, that’s it Sheriff. I don’t know nothing else. I’ll be getting back on home now. You know where I am, if you need me.” He looked in my direction, avoiding eye contact. “Mostly relieved you wasn’t hurt, girl,” he said to me as he turned to walk away.

  Fletcher was several feet away before I found my tongue. “Mr. Enloe,” I called out, “thank you. Thank you for coming over here to see about me. Thank you.” I waved him goodbye. He pretended not to hear me, then waved back, before he disappeared into the pine thicket.

  Sheriff Mac made a pret
ense of looking for the prowler’s tire tracks in the drive and shook his head with discouragement. Even I could see the gravel masked any tire patterns or footprints. After going through the community servant speech about how the department would do the best they could, he admitted it would be almost impossible to catch the prowlers, unless they returned. Sheriff Mac reminded me to call 911 if I needed assistance and promised to check with the closest neighbors beyond Enloe’s house to see if they heard or saw anything unusual. He also reminded me to call the phone company to have the wires repaired. I thought it odd he didn’t ask any questions about who might want to frighten me. He probably thought the incident was as random as Garland’s description of Becca’s drive-by shooting.

  As to the snake, Sheriff Mac extracted the knife from my door with his handkerchief wrapped around the handle and let both snake and knife fall into a black plastic bag that he deposited in the trunk of his cruiser. “Well,” I said to Susan, as we waved goodbye to the Sheriff, “I think I’ll go ahead and paint the whole door red. They say a red door keeps out the evil spirits. What do you think?”

  “I think you are much too cheerful for someone who had a dead snake on her door not two minutes ago.”

  I rubbed my hands together. “Ah, my dear, the plot thickens,” I said as I headed back into the house.

  “What does that mean, Miz P? You know something. Come on, you have to tell me,” Susan pleaded as she followed.

  Once back in the kitchen, I checked Mamma Cat’s food bowl and stroked her skinny furry head. “You, my pet, are the best watch cat in the county! I love you, I love you.” She was very appreciative and purred in return. Suddenly I was very hungry. “Let’s have cinnamon toast. How many pieces can you eat?”

  “Two, and tell me why you are smiling.”

  I waved the butter knife triumphantly. “Because, I think I know at least one of the prowlers.”

  “No way! Who?” She exclaimed, and retrieved the bread from the pantry.

  “Mitchell Sanders.”

  “The lover guy Paul Tournay sacked? Make mine heavy on the cinnamon.”

  “Sure, lots of cinnamon. Mitchell Sanders’ white Ford Explorer was parked at Paul’s when I got there. A Georgia tag, I might add. And I bet he doesn’t want Paul to give Becca control of the trust, because he still thinks he can scam some for himself.”

  “No offense, Miz P. but that is pretty thin. There are about a million light colored SUV’s with Georgia tags. And besides, how would Mitchell Sanders know where you lived?”

  “How? I’ll tell you how. When I left Paul’s house yesterday and got back into my Subaru, I had to move papers from the driver’s side seat. Bills I needed to mail. I thought maybe I’d not tucked them under the visor well enough and they’d fallen on the seat. Now I realize Mitchell had rummaged around in my car before he left, probably trying to figure out who I was. He found the bills, bills with my return address on them.”

  “So, you think Mitchell Sanders is behind the doll thing, the snake, and shooting at Becca Tournay?”

  I nodded my head. “Could be. He might profit if Paul keeps control of the trust, and he had plenty of time to shoot at Becca in Atlanta and make it up here by three am. My guess is that Mitchell Sanders thinks I would stay in North Carolina and busy myself with finding out who nailed a snake to my door, and that wouldn’t leave me time to interfere with his plans for Paul and the trust. Course, Fletcher Enloe said there were two of them. The question is: who is the second person, and why is that person so invested in keeping my nose out of the Tournay trust? Mitchell must be just a part of the equation. The tall person in the rain slicker is the other part. I feel it in my bones.” Susan looked interested, though skeptical, and rightly so. There were a lot of questions and not a lot of answers. Two things I did know: Mitchell Sanders would lead us to the tall person wearing the long rain slicker, and somehow Stella Tournay’s murder was part of the picture.

  “I’m with you, Miz P. You see, I told you. This really is a mystery. What are we going to do next?”

  “Get your pad, Susan. Let’s make a plan. The first thing is for me to make an appointment go over the trust records at Garland’s office. Tomorrow, if possible. And, I’ll call Paul Tournay to ask if he has talked to Mitchell Sanders again. Who knows? The two lovers may have kissed and made up. Later today we need to go through Paul Tournay, Sr.’s book. There is a clue there somewhere, and I need your help to find it. We also need to compare notes again on Boo Turner.”

  Susan’s hands went up to slap the sides of her head. “Crap,” she shrieked.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “It’s the Turner’s. I forgot to tell you about this.” She reached inside her manila folder and handed me a single sheet of paper.

  Slanting the paper towards the light, I squinted to make out the face on the page. “Who is this? The copy is pretty washed out.”

  Taking a deep breath, Susan continued her story. “Well, I went back on line and looked up Angel Turner through a couple of advanced search engines.” Whatever an advanced search engine was—I nodded my head feigning understanding, and tried to hide the computer knowledge gap between our generations. “Yeah, isn’t that way cool?” I nodded more vigorously, pretending I not only knew what she was talking about; but was thrilled with it. “Under one of the periodical searches I came up with this article in the South Carolina Islander—it’s one of those upscale Chamber of Commerce slicks that promotes local business and culture.”

  Even on a fuzzy printout from the computer, the young woman shown was quite striking. “Wow, so this is Angel Turner? She looks like an African princess or maybe even….”

  Susan finished my sentence. “A fashion model. Is that what you were going to say?” Actually I was going to say actress, model was close enough. “Well, she was a fashion model. Scan down the article to about the middle. You’ll see she was with some high class agency in New York for several years, before going home to St. Helena to open her antiques business.”

  I read through the article and studied her photograph again. The woman was elegant, long graceful neck, chiseled cheeks, and judging by comparing her to the others pictured, she was tall. “Well, well, isn’t this interesting? She must be Boo Turner’s granddaughter.”

  “Yeah, and Angel seems to be quite the entrepreneur,” Susan commented. “Boy, I envy her hair. Look at all that long gorgeous stuff. If I spent a week in the beauty salon, they couldn’t get mine to do that. What do they call that style? I forget.”

  “That style, my dear,” I replied, remembering Paul Tournay’s description of the woman with Mitchell at the restaurant, “is called corn rows. Takes hours and hours to do, and costs as much as my Subaru.”

  Susan narrowed her eyes with disbelief.

  “Well, maybe not quite as much as my Subaru, but a lot more than I spend for haircuts in a year. Course that isn’t saying much.”

  Susan was definitely excited by her discovery. “I can tell this little old magazine article is more important than I originally thought, Miz P. What does it mean?”

  “Paul Tournay tells me Sanders is an antiques dealer, and your article says Angel Turner has antique shops in Beaufort and in Atlanta. Paul also says he caught Mitchell in an intimate little scene with a beautiful, tall, black woman. I want you to call the number for Boo Turner down in South Carolina. Call from Granny’s because that phone has a block on it to keep it from being traced—thanks to the Goddard twins. Just see who answers the phone at Turner’s house. Let’s see if Angel is there. Wouldn’t it be interesting if she weren’t there; and we could link Mitchell Sanders with Angel Turner?

  Susan frowned. “I’ll call. But I have no idea what it would mean if the two know each other.”

  “I ‘m not sure either. Let’s do it anyway. Call it fishing.”

  “Read the directions and directly you will be directed in the

  right direction…” ……The Doorknob, Alice’s Adventures in

  Wonderland by L
ewis Carroll.

  10.

  Graduate school taught me that the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the word “synchronicity” to explain events we might view as ordinary coincidence, except the occurring events seem to have extraordinary personal meaning. Jung taught that these events could connect with unresolved emotion and bring that emotion closer to the surface, and perhaps even engender resolution. For instance, after my divorce my sales job sent me to Savannah for a meeting. I hated my job and loathed sales meetings. To delay the unpleasant I took a train from Atlanta to Savannah, meeting a pleasant woman from Iowa. We shared experiences of being single moms as we passed the miles of flat middle Georgia landscape. I learned she was an emergency room nurse who hated to fly, also headed to Savannah for a meeting. I confided I wanted to go back to school to become a counselor, but couldn’t manage the tuition, not with a son to raise and an ex-husband who considered his child support less important than his sailboat payments. As it turned out, her meeting was for a foundation that awarded scholarships to single moms. With her sponsorship I received a scholarship, and coupled with student loans, found myself sitting in a classroom learning about Carl Jung.

  Coincidence was both of us being single moms traveling to Savannah for a meeting. Synchronicity was meeting her at a critical time in my life. I believe what we call good luck, or even bad luck, or intuition, as well as psychic knowledge, and my sometimes-disturbing dreams, are all rooted in the universe’s rules of synchronicity. How these rules operate is a mystery to me, I just know the rules are at work, continuously. During my early years as a counselor, I found accompanying a client on a journey to recognize those patterns of synchronicity immensely gratifying. I came to believe when we pay close attention to the significance of what that synchronicity could mean to our own inner journey, and then participate in the event with purpose, we ride the miraculous oneness of our universe.