by Donis Casey
“I’ll declare, Aunt Sally, Alafair. What brings y’all in to town so early?”
“Morning, Hattie,” Sally greeted. “Me and Alafair are on a sneaky errand.”
“This sounds interesting,” Hattie said. “There is something I can do to help, I’m guessing.”
“There is,” Alafair admitted. “You know how I’ve been worried because Alice is interested in that barber Walter Kelley whose wife got killed…”
A look of understanding came into Hattie’s eye as she peered up at Alafair. “…whose accused killers are just now lying in Scott’s jailhouse.”
Alafair nodded. “So they are.”
“I’m taking breakfast to those men this very minute.”
“We figured you might be,” Sally said.
A momentary silence fell as the three women gazed at each other. It was unnecessary for Hattie to ask why Alafair and Sally had intercepted her. The hopeful look on their faces told her everything. She gave Alafair a conspiratorial smile and handed the food up to her without a word.
Alafair reached down to relieve Hattie of the pail. “Thank you so much, girl.”
“Don’t mention it. I really do need to get on over to the store. But you have to promise to tell me everything.”
“We will. And thanks again.”
Alafair and Sally sat for a minute watching Hattie walk toward Main Street and the store before Sally took up the reins and headed for the jailhouse. “Do you expect that this is how she learns everything about everybody?” Sally wondered.
***
The sheriff was finishing up his last cup of mud-black jailhouse coffee before starting out on his morning rounds when Alafair and Sally came into the office with the breakfast pail. Scott Tucker was stocky, balding, middle aged, and easygoing, all of which combined to make him appear quite harmless. However, in Scott’s case, appearances were deceiving. He was reaching for his hat on the coat tree, and his hand paused in midair when he saw who had come in. His deputy, a long, slim youth with red hair, stood up at his desk when the women entered.
“Well, well,” Scott said. “If it ain’t Aunt Sally and Alafair. What a coincidence that y’all should show up on the morning after I got those boys who might have killed Louise Kelley here in my jail.”
“Now, Scott,” Sally scolded, “don’t be smart. We are just delivering the breakfast from Hattie to whoever you got here in jail this morning. She said she feared that she would be late getting the store open.”
“That sure is lucky,” Scott observed dryly. He plopped his hat on his head and retrieved his gun belt from his desk drawer. “Ladies, I’m afraid I’ve got to go right now. Trent here can take the prisoners their food.” He nodded toward his deputy. “Now, Trent, my aunt and cousin, here, have got it in their heads that they want to talk to those boys, I’m thinking. But I’m counting on you to keep these ladies away from them, you understand? I wouldn’t be happy if something happened to my relations.”
“Yes, sir, Sheriff,” Trent assured him.
“Scott, I’m not going to…” Alafair began, but Scott cut her off.
“No, I’m sorry, Alafair,” he interrupted. “I can’t have you in there grilling my prisoners. I’m afraid you’d scare the pants right off ’em.” He smiled. “They got their rights, you know.”
A momentary silence fell after Scott left, then the two women’s gazes shifted from the door to the hapless deputy, still standing deferentially behind his desk. He extended his hand.
“Miz McBride,” he said hopefully, “I’ll take that pail now.”
“Trenton Calder,” Sally responded, making no move to give it to him. “How’s your mother?”
Trent tried not to smile. “She’s fine, Miz McBride. Thank you kindly for asking. But I still ain’t going to let you go back there.”
Alafair almost laughed. Trent was brave. “It’s all right, Ma,” she said to her mother-in-law. “Let the poor boy do his job. I don’t know what those men back there would tell us, anyway.”
Sally shrugged philosophically. “I doubt if they’d confess to us,” she agreed.
“I expect not. I doubt if they’d speak to us at all. We’d probably just set that pail down on the floor and skedaddle right out of there without anybody saying a word. I don’t see no use to both of us going back there, anyway.”
“It ain’t going to work, Miz Tucker,” Trent warned, “so you might as well just give me that pail before the prisoners starve clean to death. Why would you want to talk to them two snakes, anyway?”
Alafair sat down in one of the straight-backed chairs under the window. “We were curious, Trent,” she began, “as to whether Walter Kelley himself was involved in any way with his wife’s death.”
Trent grunted and dropped his hand to his side. There was no need for Mrs. Tucker to explain any more to him. It was a small town. Everyone was quite aware that Alice Tucker and Walter Kelley were interested in one another. “Have a seat, Miz McBride,” Trent invited, nodding toward a second chair next to Alafair.
“These biscuits and gravy are liable to get cold pretty quick,” Sally warned.
“I expect we can warm them up on the stove, there,” Trent said. Sally took mercy on the deputy, who wouldn’t sit until she did, and took a chair. Trent finally sat down.
“I know there’s been rumors, ma’am,” Trent began, addressing himself to his audience in general, “that Mr. Kelley might have hired some bad sorts to help him get out of an unhappy marriage, but neither Sheriff Tucker, nor the U.S. Marshall, nor the county sheriff over to Muskogee has found the slightest evidence of that. I know Mr. Kelley myself, and I’d be right surprised if such an evil thought ever occurred to him in his life.”
“If nobody has ever found the slightest evidence that Mr. Kelley had something to do with it, then do you think that one of them boys in there just killed Louise all on his own for no reason?” Alafair wondered.
“Oh, there was a reason, though not much of one. The prosecutor thinks that Miz Kelley and one or both of those two in there were partying and things got out of hand.”
“What things?” Alafair asked. “What do you mean by ‘out of hand’?”
Trent blushed to the roots of his hair, which turned his entire head several startling shades of red. “I don’t think I should be discussing such sordid things with you ladies. I apologize, Miz McBride, Miz Tucker. It ain’t my job to have opinions, anyway. Those men are innocent until proven guilty, and I shouldn’t be saying otherwise.”
“It’s all right, Trent,” Alafair soothed the embarrassed young man. “You were just trying to set our minds at ease.” She regretted his sudden change of heart, since it was now going to be more difficult to pry information out of him, but she appreciated his delicacy toward them. Why couldn’t Alice want someone like Trenton Calder?
Grandma Sally, however, wasn’t so easily deterred. “So who was it pointed the finger at these men?” she asked.
“Mr. Dills who owns the road house down south of town, where Miz Kelley was last seen alive. Him and a couple other people there seen her leave with one of them late that night.”
“So has the murderer confessed?” Sally persisted.
“No, ma’am. He says he left her alive and well right in front of her own house right at about eight o’clock that night. We talked to all the Kelleys’ neighbors. The Grants heard a horse and rig later that night, but nobody saw or heard anything else. The other miscreant says he never clapped eyes on Miz Kelley, but Sheriff Tucker found two sets of boot prints down by the creek where she was found.” He paused as if pondering his own statement. “Of course, they would say that they didn’t do it,” he appended.
“So you expect it probably was them,” Alafair said.
Trent shrugged. “At least one of them did the deed, and the other helped him dump the body. It’s the most likely explanation.”
“Who are these desperadoes, anyway?” Alafair asked. “You know, I don’t believe I’ve heard anyone say their names. Are
they from around here?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the deputy told her. “They’re a couple’a old boys from down around Council Hill, Billy Bond and his cousin Jeff Stubblefield.”
Alafair slid forward on her chair, suddenly very interested. “Billy Bond? The same Billy Bond that intends to marry Peggy Crocker from Okmulgee?”
Trent eyed her for a moment before he shook his head. “I don’t know about Peggy Crocker’s marrying plans, Miz Tucker. But there’s a passel of Bonds and Crockers both around Council Hill.”
Alafair stood up quickly, causing Trent to scramble to his feet. “Well, I think we’ve wasted enough of the deputy’s time, Grandma,” she said. “Why don’t we leave that breakfast pail with him and get on back home?”
***
“Well, that’s a handy coincidence,” Sally said, as they walked back down Main Street to the Mercantile.
“It’s a connection that makes you pause,” Alafair agreed.
Hattie came out from behind the counter when they entered the store, her thin freckled face glowing with anticipation. “How’d it go?” she opened.
Alafair shook her head. “Scott was on to us,” she said. “He told Trent not to let us back there where the cells are, and Trent obeyed.”
Hattie’s face fell. “Now, that’s too bad.”
“What about you, Hattie?” Sally wondered. “Have you learned anything of late about Louise Kelley’s murder?”
“Not from Scott, that’s sure,” Hattie puffed. “He’s no good for information at all. It’s downright frustrating that he won’t tell me anything interesting. His own wife!”
Alafair smiled. Scott knew his own wife too well.
“However,” Hattie continued, perking up, “the other day Nadine Fluke let me in on a piece of news that might interest y’all. Susan Grant came into the Post Office…”
Everyone in town knew Mrs. Fluke the postmistress, but it took a moment for Sally to remember who Susan Grant was. “You mean the girl who lives next door to Walter Kelley and keeps house for him?” she asked.
“She’s the one,” Hattie affirmed. “Seems that Scott questioned Susan again, without her mother. Susan said her mother and Louise Kelley didn’t like one another at all.”
“Walter said much the same thing when me and Shaw were over at his place a while ago,” Alafair told them. “Miz Grant likes Walter well enough, though. I think she’d like to see Susan and Walter end up together.”
One of Hattie’s eyebrows quirked. “Nadine seems to think Miz Grant likes Walter even more than that.”
“You mean…?”
“If only she could.”
“Her husband is gone a lot,” Sally observed.
“Miz Grant and Walter? Mercy, she’s fifteen years older than him!” A bilious feeling rose in Alafair’s throat. This again. Surely no man was that charming.
“That’s why Scott thinks it’s all palaver and puts no stock in the idea at all,” Hattie admitted.
Alafair nodded and looked at the floor, feeling a little bit ashamed for listening so avidly to gossip. It was something to consider, though. She looked up. “What else did Susan say to Nadine?”
Hattie’s eyes were agleam. She didn’t seem to have Alafair’s scruples about passing on secondhand tales. “Susan thinks Walter is a nice man, but has no interest in marrying him. She thinks he’s too old for her. And here’s something interesting. Susan hinted to Nadine that her daddy takes Louise’s part, and thinks Walter treated her bad. So Miz Grant begrudged Louise, and Mr. Grant begrudged Walter.”
“I heard that Mr. Grant was mighty sad when Louise died,” Alafair said, remembering her wash day conversation with Georgie Welsh.
“What a can of worms!” Sally exclaimed.
Hattie laughed. “Nadine thought Scott gave Susan quite a scare with his questions. Susan told Scott that she never saw a brown stain like the one on that rag rug anywhere else in the house—not on any floor or wall or furniture or bedclothes.”
“That rug,” Alafair mused. “If this Bond boy killed Louise at the road house and stuffed her body in the creek, how did she manage to bleed on a rug that ended up hidden under a sideboard in her own parlor?”
“Maybe he killed her at her house. He says he brought her home.”
Sally shot Alafair a glance. “It seems to me,” she said, “that all that blood couldn’t get on the rug and not get on the floor as well.”
Alafair nodded. “Then Louise may have bled on the rug when she got stabbed, but she may not have been in her house at the time, after all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Once out on the sidewalk, Sally slipped her arm through Alafair’s and leaned against her confidentially as they walked toward the buggy. “This is quite the mystery, ain’t it?” Sally asked cheerfully.
Alafair shook her head, hardly as entertained by the puzzle as her mother-in-law was. “Walter Kelley gets Peggy Crocker in trouble, and then her intended, Billy Bond, threatens to kill Kelley. Then lo and behold, a while later, Kelley’s wife ends up murdered by none other than Billy Bond his own self. But why would Billy kill Miz Kelley instead of Walter? She’s as much a victim of Walter’s bad behavior as Peggy is. He sure wouldn’t have wanted to clear the way for Walter to marry again, not with the way his girl felt about him. And if Billy was in the mood to kill somebody, Miz Kelley wouldn’t have objected if it was her husband. She’d have probably helped him.”
“Maybe he wanted to hurt Walter as bad as Walter had hurt him,” Sally speculated. “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a murder. Maybe things got out of hand, like Trenton said.”
“Maybe,” Alafair said, but she didn’t sound happy about it. “I sure would like to talk to that Billy Bond and hear what his story is.”
“I’m sure it’ll all come out at the trial.”
“By that time, it may be too late for Alice,” Alafair protested. “She’s determined to have that man, no matter what I say.”
Sally nodded. “Let’s just think for a minute.” She stared off into the middle distance for a long moment, then looked back at Alafair. “Have you ever been back there where the cells are?”
“Yes, once,” Alafair told her. “Last year, when John Lee was in jail.”
“Do you remember if there were any windows in the cells that look out onto that stable area in the back of the building?”
Alafair tried to conjure the picture in her mind. “If I remember right, there weren’t any windows in the cells along the back wall, but there was one window with bars at the end of the hall, off to the side. That would face the alley between the jailhouse and Mr. Spradling’s furniture store next door. What are you thinking, Ma? I don’t fancy staging a jailbreak.”
Sally laughed. “I was more thinking about having a talk with Billy and Jeff through the window.”
Alafair was taken aback at first, but it didn’t take her long to warm to the idea. “That’s a good thought,” she admitted. “Let’s have a look and see what we’re dealing with.”
The two women reversed course and casually strolled back past the sheriff’s office. They slowed to a dawdle as they crossed the mouth of the narrow alley that opened onto the street between the jailhouse and the furniture store. At first, Alafair could see no window at all. The morning sun illuminated a bright right triangle on the packed earth at the head of the alley, between the brick walls of the two buildings, but sun had yet to penetrate further back, and the nether regions of the alley were vague and shadowy.
“Where is this window?” Sally asked her, echoing Alafair’s own thoughts. “I can’t hardly see anything back there at all.”
“It’s about half way down, I think.” She squinted into the darkness. “Well, shoot, it must be there. I know I didn’t dream it.”
“Maybe Scott had it bricked up,” Sally offered.
“Maybe,” Alafair replied. “Though I don’t know why he would.” She cast a surreptitious glance down the street and saw no one close enough to be of concern. “Stand guard,
Ma. I’ll mosey on down there real casual and have a look.”
Alafair strolled into the alley while Sally feigned an interest in the maple-wood pie keep in Spradling’s shop window. As soon as Alafair stepped out of the sun’s glare, her eyes adjusted to the dusky light and the detail of the alley became visible as if by magic. And there it was—a window, in the jailhouse wall—and she wondered how it was that she hadn’t seen it all along. The window was rather tall and high off the ground. The bottom of the sill was just above her head. All she could see of the inside from where she stood was a section of the white, stamped-tin ceiling through the stripes of iron bars on the other side of the glass. The window was closed. She reached up with both hands and tried to raise the sash, but it wouldn’t budge. The window was probably locked from the inside, but Alafair was unable to get a good purchase on the sash, so she couldn’t be sure. She backed off and stood with her hands on her hips for a moment, thoughtfully surveying the problem aperture.
She turned her head to look toward the street. Sally was standing in the brilliant slot of light that framed the entrance to the alley, gazing in Alafair’s general direction with a troubled look on her face. It occurred to Alafair that while she could see her mother-in-law in pristine detail, Sally could barely see her standing in the shadows. Useful knowledge for a woman planning clandestine activities.
“Psst, Ma,” she hissed. “Come on in here, if there’s nobody looking at you.”
Sally apparently could hear her with no trouble. She glanced up and down the street, then walked into the alley. She took two or three steps, stopped, and blinked, her pupils dilating. A look of revelation, then amusement came over her face as her eyes adjusted to the low light. “I’ll swan,” she said. “I didn’t see a thing from the street.”
Alafair pointed up. “There’s the window. Ain’t going to do us much good unless you want to sit on my shoulders and shout at them loud enough to be heard through the glass.”
Sally’s dark almond eyes critically surveyed the offending window. “Is it locked?” she wondered.