The Sky Took Him - An Alafair Tucker Mystery

by Donis Casey

  “You’re right, of course.” Martha had to raise her voice to be heard over Ron’s vigorous and noisy fist-sucking. “Funny, Ma, I’ve never talked about this to anybody before. When I say it all out loud it sounds kind of ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it doesn’t. I had the same kind of feelings about my folks when I was young. Your Grandma Gunn was always kind of frail, and Grandpa didn’t look to me like he particularly noticed that she might need some help. I spent a lot of time worried that something might happen to her, and planning how I was going to look after my daddy and my brothers and sisters. I’m wondering why I never saw your plight, sugar, considering that I was the same way, and probably had a lot less reason to be than you do. All I can say is that sometimes grown-ups don’t realize how much the things they do affect their children, sometimes forever. I did wrong by expecting too much of you when you were just a little girl. It was so easy and natural, since you were always right there without my having to ask you.”

  She put her hand on Martha’s cheek. “I’ll tell you this, Martha, my darlin’, darlin’ girl, my beloved. That was a long time ago. You’re not a child anymore. No, you’re not, not by a long shot. Believe me, we are always going to want you around. But if you give up having a life of your own for us, especially since there’s no reason in the world for you to, your dad and I are going to be mighty unhappy about it. So you’ve got to let it go, Martha. Just drop it like a hot rock, simple as that. It’s time for you to leave your mama and daddy and go make your own life, just like your brothers and sisters are going to do. That’s how Daddy and me will know we’ve done our job.”

  Sometime in the middle of her mother’s discourse, Martha began to notice a strange sensation growing in the center of her chest. A lifelong weight that she hadn’t even known was there had begun dissipating into the ether, and a glorious feeling of lightness was filling her body. For a minute or two, she sat still and enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling before she said, “Maybe I will go to the train station with Streeter tomorrow.”

  Alafair didn’t notice that Martha was a new woman. She opened the screen and stood back. “Good. Now, let’s go inside and you can take care of the kids for me. It’s about time for me to go up and sit with Lester a bit.”

  ***

  “Did Ruth Ann tell you that she got a wire from Fort Smith a little while ago?” Alafair asked as she settled herself in the chair beside Lester’s bed. “Looks like our folks are on their way. They ought to be here by tomorrow morning.”

  “She told me. That’ll be good for Ruth Ann,” Lester said. “Kenneth’s funeral was hard on her. She’s been wanting her mama.”

  “I’m glad they’ll get to see you again, Lester.”

  “Well, me too.” He fell silent for a moment and his eyes drooped. He seemed to be struggling this afternoon, and Alafair felt a pang of grief. His end couldn’t be far.

  As she thought it, though, his eyes opened and he looked at her, his gaze sharp and clear. “I’m glad this murder business is solved before your folks have to be troubled with it.”

  Alafair turned her head and looked out the window. The sky was clear and brilliant blue. It was much warmer again, but the oppressive heat of the summer had been broken. It felt like fall.

  She looked back at Lester. “To tell you the truth, I’m surprised that it really was Collins who was behind Kenneth’s death.”

  He smiled at her. “Why? It was plain as day to me.”

  Alafair shrugged. “I know. Everybody—the police chief, the sheriff, and certainly you Yeagers—believed right from the get-go that Collins was the culprit. Nobody else was even considered. Well, in my experience, things aren’t usually that straightforward.”

  “Alafair, sometimes things really are exactly what they seem to be.”

  “I reckon.” A hint of a smile appeared on her face and she shook her head. “Still, if all Collins was after was that ledger, then why would he have one of his thugs kill the one person who knew where it was before figuring out some way to make him give it up?”

  Lester was growing impatient with her refusal to be convinced. “A snake don’t have to have a reason to kill. He kills because it’s his nature. Maybe they were feeding Kenneth dope to get him to talk, went too far, and he died before they got the information. Then it occurs to Buck that since I have one foot in the grave, this might be just the opportunity to get control of everything I love, all I’ve built.”

  She considered this a moment, then nodded. “Sounds reasonable. Me and Martha and Streeter were talking about this earlier on, trying to figure out who would benefit the most from Kenneth’s death. You know, we got to thinking that it would be Olivia.”

  Lester snorted. “How does it benefit Olivia to be a widow?”

  “It sure doesn’t benefit her heart. But it does make her rich in her own right.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Olivia would never even think of such a thing.”

  “I agree. There’s not a mean or deceitful bone in that girl’s body. But someone else might have thought to remove Kenneth on Olivia’s behalf.”

  Lester turned his head on the pillow to look at her.

  “But who would do such a thing?” Alafair continued. “Ruth Ann sure loves that girl enough to do murder for her. But you said yourself that Ruth Ann is just too blamed good. Besides, she loved Kenneth, and didn’t see his weaknesses. So, who else, I wonder? Who would do anything to protect Olivia and keep her out of the clutches of Buck Collins? Who’d have the power—and the will—to do it? I can only think of one person who fits that description, Lester.”

  Lester said nothing. They gazed at one another for some moments.

  It was Alafair who broke the silence. “But what I want to know is how you did it? How could you do it, laying there in that bed, weak as a kitten?”

  He actually grinned, an awful rictus that made him look like a death’s-head, which gave Alafair a start.

  “That’s the interesting part, Alafair. I just set things up, and Kenneth did himself in.” Lester nodded toward the dressing nook. “Laudanum. Every time he came to visit me, he took a swig of that laudanum. I put raw opium in it. I had a little ball of the black tar that I bought on my last trip to San Francisco, early this year. Opium is easy to come by up there. Lamerton had just told me I was sick. I’d heard this ain’t an easy way to die, so I figured to keep the dope hid until I couldn’t take the pain anymore and then end it quick. But I found another use for it. I put so much of it in the laudanum that one good swig is all it took to kill him. He’d come over late in the evening two or three times a week after I got down. He told Ruth Ann he wanted to visit me, bring me up to speed on the warehouse or the shipping. I can’t see that dresser direct from here in this bed, and he knew it. But look yonder at the dressing table.”

  Alafair looked toward the small table next to the wall. All she noticed at first were the bottles and knickknacks, the lacy crocheted runner, the silver comb and brush set. She turned back to Lester, perplexed.

  “The mirror.”

  She swiveled in her chair and saw instantly that the large mirror on the wall over the table was angled perfectly to see into the alcove, with a full view of the tall dresser with the brown glass bottle of laudanum on top of it.

  “As soon as we were alone, he’d get up to leave me something on the dresser. Some contract or report or some such. Just an excuse to put something on the dresser. He’d lay it down, grab up that bottle, pull out the cork and take a swig. Then he’d come back in here and sit down in that chair and visit for a half hour or so, getting happier and sleepier all the while. So I sent him a message to come up to see me Sunday morning, between Sunday school and church, so I could tell him about this trip I wanted him to take to Guymon. There wasn’t anyone else in the house at the time, just as I knew there wouldn’t be. He made his usual detour for a snort, then sat down to give me some cock-and-bull story. I kept him talking long enough that he fell into a stupor and died right in that chair. I told Ol
ivia and Ruth Ann that he left from the house to go to Guymon.”

  Alafair listened calmly, fascinated by the idea that he had managed to pull it off, and more than a little worried that she wasn’t more horrified by Lester’s tale of cold-blooded murder. She shook herself.

  Lester turned his head to stare out the window again. “I was disappointed in Kenneth from the beginning. I was mighty disappointed that Olivia chose him in the first place. He wasn’t near good enough for her.”

  Alafair straightened, but said nothing.

  Lester continued. “If I’d have let him, Kenneth would have run the business into the ground. I should have given up trying to teach him a long time ago. I sure never should have put his name on the property title. But it’s easy to say you shouldn’t have after it’s too late. If he hadn’t been Olivia’s husband, I’d have kicked his behind across the Kansas line back in ’13, after the first time he let down a solid customer for a crackbrained scheme that lost us near to $500. I never let him negotiate or fulfill a contract on his own after that. And he wasn’t just a bad businessman. He was a dope addict. He got worse and worse over the years. Olivia kept it a secret as long as she could, but I found out soon enough.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “Neither did most folks. Ruth Ann didn’t, for sure. Mike Ed knew what he was like, and Olivia, too, of course. It’s been her good sense that has pulled his fat out of the fire more times than I could count. She’d have never left him. She’s too honorable. But she’ll be much better off with him gone. What else could I do? I couldn’t let my daughter go down to ruin with that pea-brain, or Ron, my only grandchild.”

  “Did you really leave part of the shipping business to George?”

  “I did in an earlier will. After Kenneth met his end, I changed it so that Olivia gets everything.”

  “So you planned to get rid of Kenneth for a long time?”

  Lester didn’t even bat an eye. “Since I found out I was going to die. Then, once I heard he was going around with Buck Collins’ son, I knew Buck would figure out some way to use my knuckleheaded son-in-law to get to me some way or another. Of course, I hatched the plan before I knew that Kenneth had already mortgaged Olivia’s future to my worst enemy.”

  “Did you mean to pin it on Collins?”

  “I figured the police would find a connection between them, and they did. And like you said, everybody’s plenty willing to believe he did it.”

  “You sure hate him, don’t you, Lester? Even if he got his hands on everything you own, you know he’d never do anything that would hurt Olivia.”

  He took a breath to speak, stopped to consider the implication of what she had said, and swallowed his comment. “You been talking to Ruth Ann?”

  “No. Not about Buck Collins and Olivia.”

  “Then who told you?”

  “I figured it out myself, Lester. I saw Ellery Collins at the hospital. There’s a family resemblance.”

  “Olivia is the light of my life.”

  “No one will ever find out anything from me,” she swore.

  “It’s justice, Alafair, that he should pay for what he did to Ruth Ann, the finest, purest woman ever born.”

  “Ruth Ann has a wonderful life, thanks to you. She’s loved and cared for beyond most women’s wildest dreams. Olivia, too. I know you hate the man, but Buck Collins is like to hang for a murder he didn’t commit,” she pointed out. “That isn’t justice.”

  Lester shrugged. “He won’t hang. He’s got too many lawyers for that. But he’ll go to jail for sure. And maybe he didn’t kill Kenneth, but he’s still a murderer. He was responsible for doing in those fellows out to the oil field, and there’s half a dozen others met an early end thanks to Buck Collins.”

  “Why the meat locker?”

  “So he’d get found eventually. I didn’t want anyone to think he had just run off and was still alive. I didn’t expect it’d take so long, though. I didn’t know the man who rents that particular locker was out of town.”

  “How did you get him out of here and over to the warehouse? You had to have help. Was it Mike Ed, or Doctor Lamerton? Not Olivia or Ruth Ann, surely! It couldn’t have been little old Lu. I’ve seen Ruth Ann dose you out of that bottle a score of times. Why don’t it kill you? Are there two bottles?”

  “Let that rest, Alafair. Some things I ain’t telling. It was my idea to get shet of Kenneth, and I did it all by myself. Doesn’t matter anymore. There isn’t anything they can do to me now.”

  “But murder, Lester,” she said. “That poor boy was foolish, but he didn’t deserve to be murdered. Aren’t you afraid to stand before God?”

  Lester smiled at the thought. “I’ve made hard, bad choices all my life, Alafair. I’ve chosen my family over God every time, and would again. Besides, God has already seen to my punishment by keeping me alive for so long. And I’ve done my penance as best I could, too. There’s nothing in that bottle on the dresser but colored water. I got rid of the poisoned bottle. There’s a bottle of the real stuff here in the bedside table. I only take it when I have to, when I need to be clear in the head to help my family.”

  “Lester, for heaven’s sake!”

  “There’s no reason for you to tell Chief Burns, Alafair. It won’t help Collins much, and it’d just cause trouble and heartache for Ruth Ann and Olivia.”

  She had no idea what to say. She shook her head, which Lester took as agreement.

  “You know, Alafair, I never was much of a deep thinker. I was too busy making a living to be a philosopher. But for the last while, since I’ve been lying here helpless as a babe, I’ve had a lot of time to ponder on things I never cared to think of before. Like dying, for one. The oddest thing is that it’s a relief, in a way, to know that there’s nothing more you can do. All them burdens you’ve borne all your life are taken from you, and you’ve got nothing to say about it. It’s funny.” He sighed. “I hate to boot you out, but I’m not feeling so well right now. Hurting pretty bad.”

  She stood and made a move to retrieve his medicine from the drawer in the bedside table.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, please, Alafair,” Lester said.

  It seemed to Alafair that she stood and gazed at Lester’s drawn gray face for a long time, but it was probably only a few seconds. She felt a strange sense of dislocation, as though she was watching herself watching Lester.

  He smiled at her. “Thank you, Alafair, and good night.”

  She turned and left without another word.

  ***

  Alafair walked down the stairs, numb. How could she complicate her sister’s already sad situation by volunteering the truth to the law? She knew that she couldn’t possibly let Collins die for killing Kenneth, yet he should go to prison for his involvement in the deaths of Zip Kolocek and Deo Juarez. Unless she had to save Collins from the noose, or unless she was asked point-blank if she knew who killed Kenneth Crawford, she knew she would keep silent.

  She paused on the next-to-last step. Martha and the kids were nowhere to be seen, but Ike the cat was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at her. Was that accusation she saw in his yellow eyes, or sympathy?

  “What else can I do?” she asked him. “Only God can punish Lester now, and we have to protect Ruth Ann and Olivia, if we can.”

  The cat’s tail swished across the floor.

  “Wish I knew how he managed it, though.”

  Ike got up and trotted into the parlor. Alafair followed absently and made her way toward the settee, but the cat turned around and wove himself around her ankles, nearly tripping her. She huffed and moved him out of her way with her foot. He took a couple of steps and looked back at her before he jogged off toward the kitchen.

  Alafair had no idea why she followed him.

  The cat got right up to the kitchen door before he slewed off down the hall, and Alafair was about to go after him when she heard the sound of laughter behind the closed door. Curious, she pushed it open enough to peek in.

&n
bsp; Lu was standing at the stove, stirring some wonderfully aromatic concoction in a big pot on the stove. Her son, the laconic Arnold, clad as before in his Birk Equipment Company uniform, leaned up against the cabinet with his arms crossed over his chest. The laughter stopped abruptly as they turned to see who had interrupted.

  “Oh, sorry,” Alafair said, startled. “Hello, Arnold.”

  “Mr. Yeager all right?” Lu asked.

  “He’s resting.”

  The housekeeper turned away from the stove and wiped her hands on the tail of her apron. “Oh, Miz Tucker, glad to see you. Come in, please. Don’t mind Arnold.”

  Arnold had already picked up his cap and was heading for the back door. “I’m just leaving, Miz Tucker. Got deliveries to make. Nice to see you.”

  “Don’t let me…” she began, but he was gone before she could finish the sentence.

  “Come in, come in,” Lu repeated. “I make a chocolate pie for Miz Yeager, like your recipe. Come taste.”

  “Chocolate pie? Oh, yes, I gave you my recipe. I forgot about that. Ruth Ann will be so pleased.” She stepped up to the stove, took the proffered spoon, and dipped it into the filling that had just come to a languid boil in the pot. It was as black and thick and smooth as Arkansas River mud. The smell was mouthwatering. She closed her eyes and took a taste, and grew faint with ecstasy.

  The taste was so familiar, so like home, so reminiscent of the special, rainy Sunday afternoons with her children, when she would let them help her make their favorite treat.

  “Miz Tucker, what’s wrong?”

  Lu’s anxious voice brought Alafair back to the present, to her sister’s kitchen. She realized that tears were running down her cheeks, and she brushed them away with the back of her hand, embarrassed.

  “Oh, nothing, Lu, don’t fret yourself. This is so wonderful, just like home. I reckon I’m wearing my feelings on my sleeve because of poor Lester.”