She followed him from the barn to the house. Junior was sitting in his wooden rocker in the living room, but he did not look at them when they walked past him. They removed their hard-soled shoes—she her brogans, he his black cowboy boots—to creep up the stairs and into his room. He lit a lantern, gestured for her to sit. From his top drawer he brought two books, one of which she recognized from their days in the mow acting out scenes, the other looked like every other one of its kind, black leather cover with gilded letters.
“Put your right hand on this Bible. We’ll do the Bible first.”
She did as he asked, mostly because she had no idea what it was he was really asking.
“Now promise.”
“Promise what.”
“Promise me no matter what happens, you will never speak a word of this to anyone. No one in the world—I mean no one—can know about Flora and me. If I die or leave town or get elected president, still no one can know. Can I trust you?”
“But Junior already knows.”
“Can I trust you or can’t I?”
He was begging her to do it more than he was making her do it, and so she did it. They did the Bible first, then the Shakespeare, to make sure the promise stuck.
She hadn’t wanted to do it, she really hadn’t. She knew now that even on that night, when he was asking for her trust that he was already keeping another secret from her. He’d said right to her, if I “leave town,” but she hadn’t had any idea what that meant. If she had, she never would have done it; she would have done something to stop him, told someone. She sure as hell wouldn’t have let him run off in the middle of a tornado, of all times to run off. She hadn’t wanted to do it. She shouldn’t have done it, goddamnit-all, but she did it, and now Tommy’s gone.
16.
Sterno had been put into a car once before, in Memphis, twelve or so years back. After what followed, after he had been found in a corn crib in Arkansas the next morning, he had had to spend three days in a scrubbed and polished house that served as a Negro hospital before he could even sit up long enough to be driven in a wagon to his own car. Today was no repeat of Memphis, not exactly. Today he was driven directly to the mayor's house, no stops along the way.
The car turned from the highroad onto a cobblestoned lane, rolled through the shade of the tall oaks that lined the road to the mansion. The house was huge, with fresh white paint, ink black shutters, and many rooms. A small barn for Shetlands stood some distance away. A chicken coop further out. A large, functional, standard barn further out than that. As the car rounded the house to the garage, Sterno saw tables set up on the lawn on the sunny side of the house. White tablecloths covered the tables. Women old and young and girls in a range of ages were busy setting the table with white plates and silverware. The food was coming out of the house on big platters piled high. A half dozen men sat in wooden chairs under shade trees, hats resting on their knees, beer bottles in hand, talking amongst themselves until the mayor and his party were noticed; then they watched silently, a few nodding, as the mayor led Sterno past them.
"'On the seventh day He did rest,'" said the mayor. He opened his palm to present to Sterno the feast being prepared. "This is how we rest in Hope County."
The men had already welcomed Sterno to Price, but the mayor called the women over for introductions. They lined up shoulder to shoulder like it was reveille. They stood waiting, smoothing loose locks of hair behind their ears and pressing down their aprons in the wind. Mayor Greentree stood with Jonas Neuwald on one side and Sterno on the other side, the three men facing the row of women.
"Ladies, meet Charlie Sterno of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. You might of heard he was in town. He's going to join us for supper tonight." That was that. They were then shooed away. The only person-to-person introductions were made to Greentree's mother, Velma, who had had the same red hair as her son once and was no more than five feet tall and must have been the toughest woman on earth to have sprung from her womb something as big as baby Abner; to his wife, Gerdie, a short, ballooney woman with her hair piled up on her head like a hoary blonde pumpkin; and finally to Jonas Neuwald's wife, Ada. Looking at her, Sterno saw little of her sons save the birdlike shoulder bones and general slight build. Each of the women made Sterno feel genuinely welcomed and comfortable to be there, and two of them did well not to comment on his jaw, though he could see them eyeballing it as though it were his open trousers. One of them, however, didn't mind making comments. "You free tomorrow to come back and crack pecans for my pie?" said Velma Greentree, and Sterno could not tell in the least if she were joking or serious.
The mayor shooed them away too, grinning hugely. He then turned to Sterno and said, "Well, Mr. Sterno. You know already I like to give tours, so what say...?"
They started in the house. There was a marble-floored foyer, a large dining room so clean and perfectly set up with China and white lace it made Sterno feel greasy just walking through it, a formal sitting room centered around a piano, upon which rested an ornate, gilt-trimmed Bible, the biggest Sterno had ever seen, a kitchen the size of the house Sterno grew up in, with a black and white checkered floor the way he used to see in New Orleans, a sun room with many plants and vegetable pots, an effeminate looking "tea room," as the mayor called it, and finally a library which opened up into the mayor's oaken study, complete with a desk the size of Sterno’s bed at the hotel and the latest model stock ticker. The upstairs bedrooms were indicated then forgotten with a sweep of the mayor's big hand on the way back to the front entrance, itself a heavy, two-door job fit for a state capital. In Abner Greentree's estimation, everything about and within this estate was fit for the state capital—though he never did mention his own forfeited run.
They quit the house for a tour of the mayor's "tree garden." Jonas's sons had been waiting at the front door to join them. Sterno could hear the gimpy one, Gomer, dragging his foot on the gravel of the groomed path that wended through his yard and he could feel Geshen's gaze boring into the back of his head. Their father, Jonas, had lost some of his good nature in the last twenty-four hours—no longer the prideful shotgun seat to Greentree, but the quiet lackey, awaiting orders. His eyes no longer sparkled, as they had yesterday, but moved back and forth under his lids in a way that made him seem sneaky or lazy or smart, or maybe all three. Sterno assumed it was his unannounced visit to the boys’ house that morning that brought about the change in demeanor.
The mayor, however, was his usual jovial self, and already a couple drinks in.
"Any rate, here we are, lookit these. Summer Red maples, nice aint they? Ash over there, Royal Empress—pretty purple trees when they're in color—some kind of Japanese cherry trees over there, and of course those big old willows. These here are poplars, which I put in a nice, neat little row along there, see? Pines, firs, a row of red apple trees over there, as you can see. And this one here is the good old cottonwood tree, the state tree of Kansas. Nice, aint it? Useless as tits on a bullfrog, ketch’m? unless you need shade or a little windbreak. More maples over here, sugar maples—I love the maples, in the fall, especially. Some fruit trees along that side there, apples. Then we have some pecans over there. It’s a struggle to keep ‘em going in this climate, but we’re doing okay with them. My little princess loves pecans..."
"That's your wife? Your 'little princess?'"
Greentree laughed as though this were the funniest remark ever made, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "Well, she might’ve been once, but, Gerdie aint so little anymore, ketch’m? No sir, I’m talking about my little girl, Florella May. Here." He pulled a broad billfold from his breast pocket as he walked. From it came a photo with gilded edges, which he offered Sterno. The portrait was of a young woman with fair hair like her mother had had once. Her eyes pleaded outward in a way that would affect all men differently from the way it affected her father. She had high cheekbones and a sharply tapered chin that framed a beestung bottom lip. Not too many women were so beautiful to Sterno from a photograph only;
this was one of them.
He handed the photograph back. It was only then that he realized he had seen that face before. It was the same girl in the picture with Geshen Neuwald, the one on the shelf in his kitchen.
A girl, Sterno thought, thinking back to the Neuwald boys’ kitchen, and the lies told to him by Geshen.
"I don't remember meeting her," Sterno said, looking back to the tables, the working women.
Mayor Greentree said, "Yeah well, she's back at Fairmont College—that’s over in Wichita—furthering her education. Looka here at that lemon tree off by itself there...see...right there. I love that tree. Some aspen along the outside—another pretty tree, and of course oaks all over.”
"I'd love to meet her," Sterno said. "Florella May."
The mayor hadn't heard him, or pretended he hadn't heard him. "The trees take a good piece of work to keep standing, and a lot of water, but I tell you what, Mr. Sterno, too bad you have to leave so fast, 'cause around this time a year, and into October, the foilage is something special. The apple pies aren't so bad, either," he added with an elbow into Sterno's shoulder.
They walked in near silence. Gomer's foot scraped the ground behind them with the rhythm of an oar in the water. Greentree's long strides put some distance between him and the others, leaving Sterno to look at the back of the man's jacket, upon which his thoughts played like a picture show. The starlet of this picture had a pouty bottom lip and come hither eyes. At last, they reached a gazebo where a decanter and some glasses waited for them.
"You fancy a drink, there, Mr. Sterno?"
"I do, in fact."
Greentree motioned to a seat. Jonas Neuwald sat in one too, then his son Geshen. Gomer stood outside the gazebo, leaned on the railing to rest his chin on the tops of his hands. He put a wad of snuff in his cheek, went right to work on it. The gimpy one's nervous about something, Sterno thought.
"Carn-yac," Greentree said, holding the bottle up to his nose. "All the way from France."
As he poured, a triangle rang out from the house. Sterno looked up to see Mrs. Greentree waving the brass clapper over her head.
"A couple minutes there, Gerdie!" Greentree called. "We just sat down."
Squinting towards the house and Greentree's wife, Sterno noticed a figure in a derby standing behind her. Sheriff Jake Neuwald. He was leaning against the house scooping snuff out of his lip with his finger. Only now did he make his way to the gazebo. Sterno did not think about it until after the sheriff had crossed the lawn, mounted the gazebo and was standing among them that not one of these men had acknowledged the sheriff's arrival. From this Sterno got the feeling the sheriff had been there all along, watching, or that every man here save Sterno had known the sheriff would be coming. Still, even if one or both of these were the case, the silence brought a different feeling to the gathering. It was as if they were actors on a stage, waiting for the sheriff to say his lines.
Finally it came. He accepted a tumbler, he sipped from it once, then knocked it back. His nephew Gomer removed the glass from his hand as the sheriff put some chewing tobacco back into his lip. This entire time he kept his eyes on Sterno.
"Can't help noticing that piece-of-shit Ford a yours around town still," he said. He picked tobacco from his lip. "I have to admit, I wasn't planning on seeing that car no more. Kind of hoping I wouldn’t, anyhow."
Sterno said, "You weren't expecting me to leave until I finished my investigation, were you?"
"I just figured if you were a detective worth his salt, you'd've figured out by now what we already told you happened. Boy got thrown. Hit his head. Got drug home. It aint pretty, Mr. Sterno. It aint murder, either."
Sterno felt the eyes of the men on him. They were waiting. If this were a random and natural conversation, Sterno expected the mayor would have intervened on the part of good grace, diffused the tension and redirected the talk into lighter territory. He did nothing. Like the rest of them, he waited for Sterno's answer.
He’d been set up. They’d brought him here for a grill job.
Sterno had been run out of these small towns before—St. Joseph, Johnston City—and he recognized this as the first step in the process, the polite but meaningful inquiry into his investigation.
Depending on how he handled it, it might stay polite.
"Let me be frank and honest with you, Sheriff," Sterno said. He placed his glass on the table and pushed it away. "Nobody wanted this to be an accident more than I did, but I just can't chew it like that."
"Well, if it wasn't an accident, then what was it."
Sterno kept his mouth shut.
The sheriff took this as his answer. He leaned back in his chair, spat over his shoulder. His eyes settled on Sterno. When he spoke again, his voice was low and steady. The script was set aside now, and the sheriff was finally talking man-to-man.
"In that case, you best tell me what you were doing out at the boys' house this morning."
Sterno weighed his options. "If a name comes up, I check into it. This is my investigation, Sheriff, I'll remind you. I am working independently of local law enforcement agencies. I'm protected by law in such matters. If I do perchance need any more of your help, I will be sure to call on you."
"This is my town, I'll remind you."
"I understand."
"These are my people."
"Yep."
"You come in here, big-shot detective. Thinking you know better than me. Calling me a liar, about something that happened in my own town. Is that what you're doing, you calling me a liar?"
"It's my business to know a lie when I hear one. And I'll tell you this, Constable, someone in this town—your town—is lying to me. That Donnan boy was killed—murdered—in this town. Your town. Maybe by highwaymen, maybe strangers, maybe not. If that doesn't make you angry, Constable, then that makes you the lowest kind of lawman I've ever come across, or the stupidest. And yeah, maybe a liar too."
A sharp gust of wind rushed through the yard, sending a small shower of leaves to the ground from the tallest trees. In the seconds of silence that replaced Sterno's voice one of these leaves came spinning downward to the wooden floor of the gazebo. The men around that table heard it land.
"You stand up." This was Sheriff Jake. He said it as he himself stood.
Sterno stood. He couldn't take back what he had just said, dumb as it was. It wasn't too late, however, to—
Sheriff Jake had one hell of a punch, a bullwhip action with tow-chain knuckles. It caught Sterno on the side of the jaw, sending sparks of light through his head emanating from where the contact had come. He felt something in his face pop, saw the world reel around him. He was aware of the white picket railing of the mayor's gazebo racing up to him, then a loud nothingness.
For several seconds he lay focusing at a swath of evening sky cut off by the ceiling of the gazebo. There were voices, around him; one of them said, "All right, Jonas. Get him up." Sterno felt himself coming off the floor. He wanted to sit, but was not allowed. His hat was plunked onto his head. With his free hand he felt at the blood coming from his mouth. Though blurred, a figure could be seen walking toward the house.
"He's gone," came the mayor's voice. "I told him to go cool off."
"You're safe now," Gomer Neuwald said, one side of his catfish mouth pulled up in a grin.
"That's enough of that," said the mayor. "Get on to the house, both of you. Leave the man alone." Both brothers followed after the constable. Their laughter followed after them. "Never mind the boys," the mayor said. Jonas Neuwald was leading Sterno across the grass. The mayor walked beside them. "Ol' Sheriff Jake, he's not so eliquent with words. Let me try and speak for him, though. Seems to me what he's trying to say is that this thing that happened with Tommy Donnan was one of those country accidents, ketch’m? One of those small town problems, nothing more. You know how these lawmen in little places can get, I'm sure, with their big hats and their big pistols."
Sterno was getting his feet under him again. He looked up to see
the mayor smiling down. The mayor raised his eyebrows as if to ask Sterno, Do you get it now? Sterno answered both the mayor's words and his look. "I get it, Mayor," he said. He wasn't angry about the sheriff punching him—that he deserved. It wasn't until the mayor opened his mouth and confirmed that this was all staged that Sterno got hot. "And if this really were a 'country accident,' like you say, then it would surely be a job for small town lawmen and small town politicians. But even in hayseed towns in the middle of hay fields murder is a serious crime—so I thank you for letting me conduct the rest of my investigation in peace."
With this he disengaged from Jonas Neuwald to make his own way across the lawn, though the trail of shoe-flattened grass he left was not as straight as the ones before him.
17.
So after Valentine’s Day there had been no more midnight meetings in the woods. As far as Millie knew, her lovey-dovers hadn’t been seeing each other at all. She remembered now how this had had an effect on Tommy: morose is the word he would want her to use. The whistling and dancing stopped. He stopped acting out the Shakespeare in the mow with Millie. He went to the stables in town every day still, but it was no longer him riding off on Sonnet at a gallop, more like a pot salesman on a tired old mule, hunched over and sad looking. She tried to bring him out of it, but nothing worked. “Just keep your nose out of my business, you little snoop,” he’d said to her through his bedroom door (this from someone who had just made her promise to keep his secret for life). It was a new side to this disease love—you’re sick when you’re together, you’re even sicker when you’re not.
She could see from the letters how desperate they’d been becoming.
Darling, Feb. 20, 1922
Now that Junior knows, I cannot get away from the house, not even to get the letters you’ve left at the cabin and leave you mine. Flora, he won’t acknowledge me when I’m home, talk to me or even look at me, but he sits up all night in his rocking chair, staring through the window, making sure I don’t leave. I feel horrible, just horrible about it, but what can I do? I’m helpless against the love I feel for you—so much I will even hurt my big brother. I don’t know what will become of him and me; I hope he will forgive me someday.
Beast of the Field Page 13