by Behn, Noel;
Natalie glanced at Cub through crying eyes and said nothing. Ida managed a lost and weary nod.
“Sam was twenty-six and a native-born Prairie Portian,” Ned explained to Cub. “He worked for Missouri Power and Electric since dropping out of high school. Worked as an assistant lineman. Missouri Power and Electric says he’s a reliable employee and good electrician but lacking in formal education … had trouble filling out the written reports they require of the linemen. We show Sam clean as a whistle. Not as much as a parking ticket. They found him in the river at Cape Girardeau three weeks ago but didn’t ID him until now. Girardeau’s medical examiner attributes death to a concussion and drowning. He says Sam hit the water from a very high altitude, was probably knocked unconscious and drowned. Says there’s no indication if he slipped, jumped or was pushed.”
“He was pushed,” Natalie said. “T’was Bicki what pushed him.”
“We don’t know that, girl,” Sam’s mother said.
“I know, ma, I know! Sam wouldn’t go along with what Bicki wanted!” She turned to Cub. “Bicki’s responsible! Find Bicki!”
“Sam, my son, he got the sulks right often,” Ida told Cub. “Since he was a boy, he got them. Bad ones.”
“It weren’t no sulks, ma. It were your brother Bicki!”
“Meanness don’t help no one, girl,” Ida answered.
“He killed your son!” Natalie insisted. “Whether Sam was pushed or jumped, your brother Bicki done it!”
Ida turned away.
“Missouri Power and Electric says Sam got moody now and then, went into depression, but it never affected his work,” Ned informed Cub. “Sam’s superintendent describes him as a shy, nervous guy who’s slow to make up his mind, but once it’s made up, watch out, he’ll plow through walls doing what he’s decided. Company records show that on Monday, August ninth, Sam took a four-week leave of absence.”
“He was going to Florida for some fishing,” Ida explained.
“You didn’t say that earlier, Missus Hammond,” Ned Van Ornum told her.
“… I just remember. He was going for fishing.”
“Ma, he was going to rob! You said so yourself, right here.”
“I got confused. He was going for fishing.”
“He was not! He was going with Bicki and them men.”
Ned Van Ornum opened the door. “They know who did it and told us,” he said to Cub, “but I’ll be damned if I’ll help you out any more. Not even you and your strutting peacock pals will be able to blow this one. Then again, who knows?” he said, exiting the room. “You’ve surprised us before.”
“There was seven men who came with Bicki,” Natalie told Cub as the door banged shut. “I only seen three of ’em myself. That Mister Corkel and the one with the limp and Reverend Walt. Sam told me about the rest. The whole seven of ’em and Bicki. There was seven men and Bicki. Most was from Illinois, where Bicki is from, and I just wouldn’t let ’em in the house no more. Specially Mister Corkel. He’s from around Prairie Port, Mister Corkel is. I seen him in town lots. The limpy one with the game leg, I think he’s from Kentucky. The one they call the cowboy, he’s from here too, but I never met him or none of the others. They all come ’cause of Bicki, though. Don’t go thinking Bicki don’t have nice points,” Sam Hammond’s pregnant widow allowed. “Bicki never once was unpolite towards me, and he dressed good. When Sam’s daddy died, Sam was small when that happened, Bicki was like a second father for him till he got put back in jail. Bicki was always talking big and getting put back in jail. He didn’t talk nowhere’s big as Reverend Walt did. Reverend Walt, he was promising all kind of things to Sam. I never heard so personally, but Sam told me everything Reverend Walt promised. Reverend Walt and Mister Corkel was the ones I couldn’t stand. I put my foot down and said, ‘Sam, I don’t want them or none of ’em coming back to our house no more.’ And they didn’t. They stopped coming.”
“What was it Bicki and Reverend Walt wanted Sam to do?” Cub asked.
“Take off weeks from the electric company and get some old gen’rators working,” Natalie answered. “They had some big, old-fashioned gen’rators in a cave and knew Sam couldn’t resist fixing them. That’s what Sam liked best, fixing up old machines. That’s what Sam wanted most too, us moving to Nags Head and him opening up his own shop for fixing old electric machines and collecting them too. Nags Head is where my people is from. Nags Head, North Carolina. That’s the thing they promised Sam the most, his own shop.”
“Did Sam tell you where these generators were?” Cub asked.
Natalie exchanged bitter stares with Ida. “Yes, he told.”
“Where?”
She was looking at Cub now. “Down inside Warbonnet Ridge.”
“Did you know, Missus Hammond,” Cub said gently to Natalie, “those generators have been linked to the Mormon State bank robbery?”
“Can’t you see, that’s why Sam couldn’t go along with them,” she stated. “They got Sam to take off from work and fix them gen’rators ’cause he likes doing it and because of the shop in Nags Head. Next thing he knows, them gen’rators is fixed and they got him doing other things. Got him putting underground water gates in working order. Sam still don’t know what for. Bicki asks him to build a clock machine to open and close them water gates when nobody’s around. That got to Sam ’cause he likes inventing machines. When he finished building the clock machine, he finds out what it’s for and he got depressed like I never seen.”
“What was it for?” Cub asked.
“… To rob a bank.”
“Mormon State bank?”
“Sam didn’t know which bank, only that it was a bank. They was going to dig up underneath it and get away by boats, by flooding the water sewers and going through ’em in boats. Sam came home when he found out and lay down on the sofa and started crying like a baby. Crying and shaking. He told me Bicki and the other men meant to rob the bank the next night, only plans had changed and they was gonna do it later that night. And they wanted Sam to come along and be part of it. Sam said they would kill him if he didn’t go along, but that he couldn’t go along … couldn’t do it. He cried and shaked, and I held him for hours and hours. When he wasn’t crying, we talked about other things maybe we could do. We didn’t have no money to run away with, and we didn’t have no place to go if we had money. We talked about seeing the police, but Sam was too afraid of Bicki for that.
“… Then he said he was gonna commit suicide. I said, ‘No, don’t you do that, Sam.’” Her voice cracked. “I said, ‘It’s better you go along and do what Bicki wants than kill yourself.’ I said, ‘What about me and Christopher’… that’s what we’re calling the baby in me, Christopher … ‘if you go and kill yourself? Do what they want, Sam. Do it!’” Sobbing resumed. “Only he didn’t go along with them.”
Cub Hennessy waited for her tears to subside before asking, “Missus Hammond, did Sam say what they wanted him to do if he joined them?”
“We talked about that, Sam and me did,” Natalie answered. “He had to pack a change of clothes and take them with him. They was gonna give Sam one of them frog suits you see in movies. Rubber suits for swimming in water. Sam was gonna put on the rubber suit and give Bicki his change of clothes for later. Sam was gonna go down into Warbonnet and disconnect the clock machine he built, the machine that was gonna open and close the water gates. They wanted Sam to control them gates himself, let the water in when they told him to. Keep it at the right level while they was robbing the bank. After the bank was robbed, Sam was suppose to let lots more water through the gates and get in a rubber boat and go down through the sewers and join up with Bicki and the other men under the bank. Bicki and the other men was gonna be in boats too, under the bank. All of ’em was gonna ride away in the sewers and come out into the river and get on the Treachery. That’s the part that frightened Sam most of all, riding on the Treachery. He almost drowned as a kid doing it. But that ain’t why he wanted to say no to Bicki. He wanted to say no ’
cause Sam ain’t no criminal. Robbing is a crime, and Sam couldn’t do it. You gotta believe, Sam didn’t do it!”
“What did he do?” asked Cub.
“Sam decided to go talk with Bicki and tell him he couldn’t go along. And that’s what Sam did, I know it. He didn’t take no change of clothes with him. I swear he didn’t.”
“If Sam had gone along, what would have happened after riding on the Treachery?”
“Sam and the Prairie Port men, I think that was Mister Corkel and the cowboy, they was suppose to turn their boats into Big Muddy and—”
“The Big Muddy River?”
She nodded. “Where Big Muddy goes into the Mississippi River they was suppose to land and a truck would be there. A truck belonging to Mister Corkel. They would get in and drive back to Prairie Port. I was suppose to say, if anybody asked, Sam was home with me all the while.”
“The rest of the men who stayed in the boats, where were they going?”
“Sam never said.”
“The money? When was the stolen money to be distributed?”
“I can’t speak for the rest of the men.”
“When was Sam to get his money?”
“Last weekend. Sam said he and me would have to make a trip to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, if he went along with them.”
“He was to be given his share of the money at Baton Rouge?”
“From Bicki. If Sam and me wanted, Bicki would arrange us going to South America. Get us the tickets and passports and all that.”
“Some of the robbers were going to South America?”
“Bicki told Sam some was.”
“If Sam had gone along with the robbery, how much money would his share have come to?”
“Bicki didn’t say exactly. Only that it would be high enough for a repair shop and a half.”
“Missus Hammond, you’re certain Sam didn’t go along with them?”
“I told you, Sam didn’t take no change of clothes with him. He walked out to go see Bicki and tell him no, that’s all!”
“… When did Sam come back?”
Her hand rose toward the casket. “Now.”
“What time did Sam leave the house to see Bicki?”
“About quarter of six, in the afternoon.”
“Do you recall the date?”
“Friday … August twentieth.”
“The night Mormon State was robbed?”
“I suppose, I don’t know …”
“Your husband never mentioned the name Mormon State?” Cub asked.
“All he said was ‘bank.’ That he found out they was gonna rob a bank and needed him there to help.”
“Is it possible, Missus Hammond, that Sam went to see Bicki and Bicki managed to change Sam’s mind for him? Convince Sam, at gunpoint, to do what they wanted?”
Natalie shook her head. “Sam went and seen Bicki. He told Bicki he couldn’t go along. Bicki said Sam couldn’t walk out on them now and had to go along. Sam walked out anyways. Sam run and hid.”
“How do you know that?”
“Sam called me.”
“When he was in hiding?”
“When he was coming out from hiding.”
“What did Sam say to you?”
“Pologized.”
“Apologized for what?”
“Having to do what he was gonna do.”
“What was that?”
“… Jumping off Warbonnet Ridge.”
“Commit suicide?”
She nodded.
“He told you that on the telephone? Said he was going to kill himself?”
“Jump off Warbonnet Ridge.” Her voice was barely audible. “He told me he was already at Warbonnet Ridge. He said even though he wasn’t going along with Bicki and the men, he was as much a criminal as anybody. He said he’d never be able to live with that on his mind. He said he was scared of jumping and scared of Bicki and the other men. He said he knew Bicki and the other men would be back after the robbery to kill him and that scared him most because it wasn’t only him they would be killing, they might be killing me and the baby too. He said one of the men with Bicki, Mister Corkel, liked killing women and children. Sam said … he told me the only thing to do was what he was gonna do and not to argue with him ’cause he felt bad enough as it was. He said he put his junior class ring in an envelope and mailed it to me for Christopher when he grows up. He said he was sorry for the sorrow he was causing me. Then he hung up.”
Cub Hennessy looked over at the open coffin again, again grew nauseated. Time and the river had left Sam hideous. “Did you receive the envelope with the ring?” he managed.
She withdrew a thin silver chain from her bodice. A ring dangled at its end.
“After the phone call from Sam, what did you do?”
“Waited.”
“For what?”
“For it not to be so, I guess.”
“Did you think of calling the police?”
She nodded.
“Did you call the police?”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want Sam to get arrested.”
“Arrested for attempted suicide?”
“For going along with Bicki. I was hoping Sam would change his mind and do what Bicki asked. If Sam went along, I wouldn’t want him arrested even if he broke the law.”
“Where did you think Sam might be, if he had gone along?”
“Down south meeting Bicki.”
“Getting his share of the money at Baton Rouge?”
She nodded.
“And you never let anyone know he was gone?”
“I told Ma here from the beginning,” she said. “Four days ago I let Sam’s supervisor at work know he was gone.”
“Why the supervisor?”
“Sam’s leave of absence with the electric company was over. He had four weeks coming, and he’d used it all. If Sam got paid by Bicki, it woulda happened last weekend. They was suppose to meet and get paid last weekend. Sam woulda called me once that happened. Only he didn’t. I knew his electric company supervisor would be wondering where he was. I called the supervisor and said I was worried ’cause Sam was gone. I guess the supervisor told the police. Early this evening Ma and me got called and told Sam was here …”
“Do you have any idea where Bicki is?” Cub asked.
“That’s what I want you to find out! I want you to get him and all the others!”
“Do you know the names of the others?”
“I told you … there’s Mister Corkel and Reverend Walt and Bicki. Bicki Hale.”
“Do you know Mister Corkel’s first name? Reverend Walt’s last name?”
She shook her head. “Ma does. Ma knows all of ’em.”
“That’s a lie,” Ida protested.
“They was around your farm,” Natalie said. “When I kicked Bicki out, he brought them around to your place. Seven of them, Sam told me, especially that last week.”
“If Bicki did, I disremember,” insisted Ida.
“Ma, you ain’t never forgot nothing in your life! Sam said they was at your place and even got some mail there. Tell the man who they are. Please tell him!”
“I won’t hear no more of this!” Ida went to the coffin and stared in. “He didn’t do nothing, my boy! My brother, he didn’t do nothing neither!” She strode from the room.
“You’re sure she isn’t right?” Cub asked Natalie.
The house was small and clapboard and in excellent repair. The tiny lawn and sparse shrubbery had been well attended to. Natalie had Cub drive around to the back, pull into a prefabricated, metal garage. The workbench and machines and tools at the rear were the kind of mundane standard equipment to be found in any home workshop. Cub, an amateur carpenter himself, noticed this, wouldn’t have expected a wizard to create his wizardry here.
Natalie stepped to several large cardboard cartons piled in the corner, removed them, pulled up a trapdoor in the cement floor. Cub lifted out with difficulty a ve
ry large metal workbox.
“Everything doin’ with the Bonnet he kept in there,” she said, opening the top. “I was suppose to get rid of all of it, but I didn’t. Sam told me to get rid of it in that last phone call of his. Get rid of it so no shame would fall to me and our baby.”
Cub went through the contents, phoned Yates and Jez back at the office about what to bring along and where to meet him.
Ida sat rocking in a rocking chair on the sloping porch of her dilapidated three-story farmhouse. Beside her rested a suitcase. Beside the suitcase were Jez and Yates.
“She was out near the road when we got here,” Jez called as Cub walked from his car with Natalie. “Says she didn’t have any particular destination in mind, only that she was leaving so you’d stop pestering her.”
“Got the gizmo?” Cub asked.
“Sure do,” Jez answered.
“I don’t mean to pester you, Missus Hammond.” Cub spoke gently, came and sat on the edge of the porch in front of Ida’s rocking chair. “Don’t mean to malign your son or your brother either. Don’t intend to arrest you or search your house or do anything like that. You want to get up and go where you were going, that’s fine with me. I won’t interfere, I won’t follow. What I’m asking you to do is listen … and if you’ve a mind to, help. I need your help, Missus Hammond. We all do. A crime has been committed. And that’s against the law. You’re not lawless, Missus Hammond, I know that. You don’t have to like the FBI. Just do what you can to protect the law … if you’re inclined.”
She said nothing, went on rocking.
“See that object Mister Jessup is holding up, Missus Hammond?”
Ida impassively looked at the handcrafted fuse Jessup was displaying.
“That was found at the place the robbers used to flood the tunnels, Missus Hammond,” Cub said. “It’s a wonderful job of craftsmanship, that fuse. We’ve searched all over trying to find the person who made it. But you know that from the media, don’t you, Missus Hammond?”
Ida rocked in silence.
“You’ve been following what television and the papers are saying about the robbery, haven’t you, Missus Hammond?”
“She don’t have the TV or read papers,” Natalie told him. “Neither do I.”