A Comedy of Heirs

by Rett MacPherson

  I didn’t dare interrupt her, she seemed to be in a trance of remembering.

  “Grandma had said to be back in time to milk the cows and get dinner going. So we came back around four or so. We noticed right away that something wasn’t right,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Well, Jed had gotten married in the spring, and they lived in town. Jed was the only person that could calm Grandpa Nate down, and make him hear sense. If Jed was there, Grandma and Grandpa had been fighting. That’s all there was to it.”

  “They fought a lot?”

  “Enough. And when they did it was a doozy,” she said. “So I headed into the house to put some clothes on and your dad went on to the barn to start milking the cows still in his swimming trunks. When I got inside, Mom took me aside and told me to go upstairs, that Della Ruth and Nate had been fighting something fierce and that Grandpa had threatened to kill Grandma.”

  Very interesting.

  “I wasn’t in the adventurous sort of mood, so I did what Mom said and went on upstairs. About ten minutes later I heard the gunshot.”

  Goosebumps danced down my spine and arms as I sat in the dark and listened to this fifty-year-old account of a tragedy.

  “Well, my heart went in my throat,” she said. “And it stayed there. I remember crouching down at the steps with my ear against the floor. Grandpa lay out there on the porch for hours. He was there at least three or four hours because it was dark before it stopped.”

  “Before what stopped?” I asked.

  “Him. He moaned and cried and begged for help,” she said, a sob tearing from her throat. Hands instinctively went to her face as she wiped at her eyes. I imagined that she was trying to wipe the vision of the memory away more than she was wiping at tears.

  My goosebumps got goosebumps. “What?” I whispered. “You mean … nobody … you mean he just lay out there and nobody went to help him?”

  “That’s right. I heard Grandma tell Aunt Ruth that if she went near that door she’d put her in her own grave. Nobody was to touch him,” she said. “And nobody did.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. She couldn’t be for real. Could she? My entire family sat inside the house waiting for the man to die? Was that possible?

  “I don’t understand,” I said and I didn’t. “How could Della Ruth keep grown people from going outside? Aunt Ruth was in her twenties!”

  “I only know what I was told,” Aunt Sissy said. “’Cause I never left my spot on the floor in the attic until he shut up. But I was told that Grandma sat at the front door with a shotgun across her lap and threatened anybody who went near the door with it. That’s just what I was told,” she said. “Like I said, I never left the floor.”

  Twenty

  I awoke the next morning wondering if my family were the models for the folks out of Deliverance. Rudy came in very late and slept on the couch, while I slept the rest of the night curled up next to Aunt Sissy upstairs on our bed. I used to sleep curled next to her a lot as a kid, and she still smelled like White Shoulders perfume. When you’re an only child and you go to stay at people’s houses for a week without your mother, well, you find mothering arms.

  I stumbled down the stairs to find Sheriff Brooke sitting at my kitchen table. A serious look pinched his features so that he looked like he was sitting on a sharp rock. I glanced down to see what I was wearing, and was relieved that it was the same purple and black velour outfit from last night.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “You look terrible,” he answered.

  “Same to you,” I said as I got the orange juice out of the refrigerator. “Is Mom up?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Rudy let me in.”

  I looked in the living room at Rudy sprawled on the couch. The green and brown afghan that my mother made about ten years ago was barely covering him, and his mouth was open as he snored to high heaven. “That’s the same position I saw him in last night.”

  “Well, I didn’t say he woke up, he just unlocked the door and lay right back down on the couch,” the sheriff said.

  “Hmm,” I said. I poured a big tall glass of orange juice and sat down at the table.

  “You always have eyes this puffy in the morning?” he asked.

  “You’re just a bright bearer of glad tidings, aren’t you?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just don’t think I’ve ever seen you look this … haggard.”

  “Wow, you just keep going.”

  “I don’t mean it bad … your mom told me you were, you know.”

  “Pregnant?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He shrugged his shoulders. “She called me late, about two in the morning.”

  I got it now. Some people think that once you’re pregnant that means you’re frail and you’re going to be sick and swoon and all that preconceived rhetoric. “I’m fine. I cried for about three hours last night. That goes a long way to making superpuffy eyes.”

  “Oh,” he said. “Well, I don’t want to make things worse…”

  “Oh, but you have just by being in my house before seven-thirty in the morning,” I said with a big fake plastered smile.

  He tried his best to ignore the insult. “We found this in your Uncle Jedidiah’s pocket,” the sheriff said and held up a clear baggie.

  I looked at him with venom. I wanted to be able to hurt him with just a look, but it never worked. I just came across looking like a hormone-driven housewife from hell. I took the baggie from him and looked at its contents. It was the piece of paper I had written Roger McCarthy H’s son on, on that day when the sheriff had called me to tell me that he had found the investigating officer, Hubert McCarthy. The same piece of paper that I turned my back on and when I turned back around it was gone. Uncle Jed had taken it after all.

  “Does this mean something?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” he said in a haughty tone.

  “Get out of my house,” I said.

  Shock crossed his face. “I have the right—”

  “You don’t have the right to do anything!” I spat. Although he probably did have the right, I didn’t think so at the moment and it was my house. “My uncle died last night and it’s not even eight in the morning and I have a house full of grieving relatives. Sleeping grieving relatives, but grieving all the same. You just waltz in here to ask me about a stupid piece of paper … and you’re marrying my mother and you can just go right back to your stuffy little office, with its icky brown paneling and stupid NFL decorations, and do this by the book. You come back at a decent hour!”

  The look on his face was priceless. It was as if he’d never seen me before in his life. Which I didn’t exactly understand because I know I’ve been a bitch before. This wasn’t a new personality trait by any means.

  He stood up and took the baggie from me. The look on his face was completely unreadable. His law enforcement training was switched on full power, suddenly. “They are doing an autopsy today, about three. I’ll come by afterward.”

  “Good, you do that,” I said.

  I drank my orange juice as I heard the storm door shut after the front door. God, was my life ever going to be normal again? I wanted my life to be normal. I wanted Sylvia to yell at me. I wanted the mayor to threaten me. I was up to my neck with my family. I firmly believe that one can only take so much of one’s family before one has to be fitted for a white jacket.

  * * *

  Two hours later the telephone rang.

  “Hello, may I speak with Torie O’Shea,” a female voice said.

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “Hi, it’s Robin Keifer,” the voice said. Robin Keifer. Robin Keifer. Who? “From the library in Progress.”

  “Oh, gosh, I’m sorry. We sort of had a family incident last night and my mind just isn’t here with my body.”

  “That’s all right. You know what I always say. As long as nobody’s dead,” she said. I didn’t bother to tell her that somebody was dead. I just gave a nervous la
ugh and she got on with why she called. “I had a chance to look that stuff up for you. I found the articles on the swimming accident, found a little on the resorts you asked about and Naomi Cordieu just happened to come in to the library about an hour after you left yesterday.”

  Okay, Naomi was who again? Jeez, nothing like a family crisis to just blow the heck out of your short-term memory. Ms. Keifer took my silence to be exactly what it was, lack of memory, and filled in for me. “The historical society. You asked about her.”

  Oh yeah, the lady that wrote the article on Bradley Ferguson. “Oh, okay,” I said.

  “I told her that you’d asked about her and told her what I was looking up for you and she got real interested in you. I told her that I couldn’t give out your phone number, but she gave me hers and asked if I would give it to you. She said that she would very much like to speak with you.”

  Really. “Really?” I asked. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure why, she just said that she could help you out with your questions,” Robin said.

  “All right. Well, give me her phone number,” I said. She gave me the number, I wrote it down and then a silence hung in the air. I had promised her payment to look this stuff up and I didn’t want her to think that now I was going to try and skip out on paying her, or that I didn’t want the information. “Um, I’ll be down before noon,” I said. “To pick the stuff up and pay you.”

  “All right,” she said. “See you then.”

  I hung up the phone, still feeling kind of oogie from the night of shock and tears and from lack of sleep. When would I ever get enough sleep? I looked at the phone number I’d written down and decided I would go ahead and call it. What could it hurt?

  I dialed the number. A firm, resounding voice answered the phone. “Naomi.”

  “Hi, Naomi Cordieu? This is Torie O’Shea,” I said.

  “Oh, hello. I am so glad you called. I was hoping that you would. When can I meet with you?” she asked.

  “Uh … well…” I sputtered.

  “Are you John Robert’s relation? You are, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t know if I should answer her or not. This definitely was not what I was expecting. Even though, I couldn’t really tell you what it was that I was expecting. “Uh, who are you exactly?”

  “I am Bradley Ferguson’s widow. I remarried a man named Arthur Cordieu after Bradley died in Africa.”

  “You are Bradley F.’s widow? Bradley Ferguson?”

  “Yes.”

  I should have known that the glowing review of his life in the historical society paper was just slanted enough that she would be related in some way. I stood in the kitchen and scratched my head as Rudy came in and started rummaging around for something. He was making enough noise for ten people. I stuck my finger in my open ear and said, “I’m coming down to Progress to get some information.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said.

  “I’ll come by and we can talk then,” I said, straining to hear her and myself.

  “Just tell me, are you John Robert’s relation?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am his granddaughter.”

  “I knew it,” she said and sighed. She gave me directions to her house, which was right off the outer road. I had passed it a dozen times.

  “I’ll see you in about two hours,” I said and hung up.

  I stood there playing with my lower lip between my thumb and forefinger, staring at the kitchen floor.

  “Have you seen the yellow pages?” Rudy asked.

  “They are up there in that top cabinet,” I said. “Jeez, you know you could call information.”

  “I’ll call information when it’s free,” he declared. He pulled a chair over and opened the top cabinet.

  “Be careful of the deep fryer,” I said. “It likes to fall out and surprise people.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked from the chair.

  “Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going down to Progress,” I said. “I’ll be back before three, because the sheriff is coming by. Take notes on any funeral arrangements or anything for Uncle Jed.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Twenty-one

  Before I left for Progress, I needed to go by and tell Sylvia that I would have to extend my vacation, probably to Monday or Tuesday, depending on funeral arrangements. I also wanted to check in and see if everything was all right. I mean, what if she liked Helen’s substitution of me better than me?

  I wore one of those big sloppy jean dresses with black tights under it, boots, and a red turtleneck. I pulled my station wagon off the main road and parallel parked it right in front of the Gaheimer House. Which, if Sylvia knew that I’d done it, she would have a fit and make me move.

  I opened the door to the Gaheimer House and instantly smelled a tantalizing mixture of caramel and popcorn. Wilma was making her world-famous popcorn balls. Well, at least eastern Missouri famous. “Hello?” I yelled out.

  I walked down the hall, passed my office on the right and went into the kitchen.

  “Torie!” Wilma said and walked over with her arms wide to embrace me in a very padded hug. She wore a big green kimono-looking thing and I noticed that her hair was still down. The first time was an accident. I would venture to say that if she was still wearing it down it because she’d found a way to irritate her sister. “We have missed you so much.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said. I wasn’t so sure that Sylvia had missed me, but I knew that Wilma had.

  “How have things been going?” I asked. “Helen doing okay?”

  “Oh sure, sure. She and Sylvia have a fight every single day over something,” she said.

  “We do not,” Sylvia said from the doorway. I turned around and was surprised to find myself happy to see Sylvia. My family definitely had to go.

  “Hi, Sylvia,” I said.

  “Victory,” she said and nodded. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing. Just came by to see how things were going. My uncle died and I’m going to have to extend my vacation until the funeral is over. They haven’t planned it yet, though, so I’m not sure when it will be.”

  “Jed, huh?” Sylvia asked.

  “Yes, you heard.”

  “How could you not hear? Sirens going everywhere…”

  “There was one siren,” I corrected her.

  “I think your father should host his own family reunions from now on,” Sylvia said, pointing her finger at me. “Our town can’t handle all of you Keiths at one time. Something bad always happens.”

  “Was he pushed?” Wilma asked. “We heard he was pushed. Murdered.”

  “No, Wilma,” I said. Where had she heard that from? “Well, actually we don’t know what happened just yet.”

  “So he could have been pushed,” Wilma said.

  “Could have, but unlikely,” I answered. I had no particular evidence to back that statement up, I was just hoping with all my might that it was true.

  “Wedding bells and pitter-patters,” Wilma said back to me. God, she made my head hurt.

  “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about, Wilma?”

  “Wedding bells—”

  “The sheriff and your mother,” Sylvia chimed in. “We are just completely appalled.”

  “Well, I’m not going to argue with you on that one, Sylvia. How did you guys find out so quick?” I asked, not sure I really even wanted to know.

  “And pitter-patter…” Wilma added.

  I know my jaw must have hung open to my chest. How did they know about this? What was up with this town, anyway? I know that small towns are like living in fishbowls, but Jeez, this was ridiculous.

  “Pitter-patter…” Wilma said, smiling from ear to ear. Sylvia stood with her arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.

  “All right, yes, I’m pregnant,” I said.

  “Goody, goody,” Wilma said and bounced up and down as much as a two-hundred-pound ninety-year-old could bounce.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Victory!! Have you no shame?” S
ylvia asked.

  “Shame?” I asked.

  “A woman your age…”

  “My age? Sylvia, I’m only thirty something. Early thirty something. What is wrong with that?” Sylvia just rolled her eyes skyward, as if I would just never understand. I felt rather odd, standing there in the kitchen with Wilma beaming at me and Sylvia scowling at me. I felt odd because they knew things about my life suddenly that I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how they knew. I could be really paranoid here and wonder if somebody had bugged my house or something.

  “How do you guys know all of this stuff?” I asked.

  “It’s not hard to figure out. Rudy told Chuck the other night when they were playing pool that you guys might be building a room addition. Chuck mentioned it to Elmer who mentioned it to Eleanore and everybody knows that a room addition means a room addition. Not to mention, you’ve looked really tired lately,” Sylvia explained.

  “I do not look tired,” I said. “Why does everybody keep telling me how tired I look? Did anybody ever think that maybe I look tired because I’m trying to juggle like fifty family members? No, everybody assumes it’s something else!”

  “And so far as your mother is concerned,” Sylvia said. “Sheriff Brooke told Elmer that he was going to be taking a vacation in the summer. Elmer asked what kind of vacation because everybody knows that the sheriff doesn’t take a vacation, and he said … the kind you take with the woman you love. Everybody knows what that means.”

  “Great Jehoshaphat,” I declared. “Since the sheriff is your great-stepnephew or something like that, does this mean we are going to be related?”

  “Absolutely not!” Sylvia stated.

  “Remind me never to tell Elmer anything,” I said and rubbed my head. I got what I wanted and that was for Sylvia to be yelling at me. God help me, I actually felt better.

  THE NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

  THE NEWS YOU MIGHT MISS

  by Eleanore Murdoch