He and I had danced once, Branch said and then, since the waiters were backed up with orders, went into the bar for a drink. I blessed him silently for being gentleman enough not to mention how and how long we danced, and then I confirmed what I could of his phone call from Mildred.
I added that Branch was badly shaken to learn that instead of being with her at the Dew Drop Inn or the No-Tel Motel—I didn’t know its proper name—Mickey had belted Mildred, been bounced from the Dew Drop and disappeared. Branch left the Bromfield right away to go look for him.
When asked what he had been wearing he immediately said, “Gray. Pants and blazer…gray.”
“What kind of shoes?” I appended.
He stuck a foot out from under the coffee table. “These.”
They were Champion sneakers, would have fit me and had a worn spot on the right sole. So much for my footprint, Jeffie, old boy!
Until now, Branch had been quite calm, but now that he had left the Bromfield in his narrative, his nerves began to show. He began to shift the dishes around on the coffee table. He pulled out cigarettes and dropped the lighter, finally recovered it and began to speak again.
“I knew he wasn’t at the Dew Drop. I hoped he had gone back to his room at the No-Tel and passed out, but he wasn’t there. So I tried Clay’s and one of his men, toting a shotgun, told me Clay was in Kingsport for a few days and that he had not seen Mickey all evening. That left my sister and Tommy, and Cindy and Alex.”
“You knew where they all were, safe at the dance,” Sonny put in.
“Yes, but I didn’t know for how long. I knew Sara and Tommy and his girl wouldn’t stay late. Horses and a couple of cows get you up early. And I wasn’t sure how good the two guards Clay had hired for their place were. I wasn’t sure about the two ladies, either. I thought if they were home, maybe I’d convince them to spend the night at Clay’s. I knew his men were good and had no use for Mickey.”
“So you went next to Ken’s?” Lewis asked.
“In a way. I meant to go first to Sara’s and then check Ken’s on the way back down. But when I got to the turnoff, Mickey’s car was parked on the side of the road. That about worried me to pieces. He could be at either place. I cut my lights and went on down the road a couple of hundred yards and parked.”
Branch looked longingly at my highball and I pushed it over to him, ignoring Sonny’s and Lewis’s scowls.
“Thanks, Alex.” He sent me one of those winning smiles and I wondered for the thousandth time how we had all gotten mixed up in this. “Anyway, I walked back and started up the dirt road. I noticed lights on in the cabin, but Alex’s car wasn’t there, so I moved on, going to go first to the farm. Then, a movement caught my eye. It was Mickey, on the back porch of the cabin.”
“Did he see you?” Lewis asked.
“He would have, so I called out and asked him what he was doing here. He said…he told me…do I have to say this here?” His hands gripped the edge of the coffee table until his knuckles whitened.
“Come on, Branch, we haven’t got all night.” Sonny sounded irritable.
Branch spoke very quickly. “He said he was going to show those two dykes what a real man was like and then he would kill them. I’m sorry Alex, but that’s what he said.”
I couldn’t answer. I felt my face go white, I felt dizzy, I reached for what had been my drink and couldn’t quite make it. Sonny was swearing and beating the coffee table. I was vaguely aware of his wishing he had Mickey alive right now. Then Lewis had his arm around me and was holding the communal drink to my lips. I got down a swallow and nodded. I was back among the living.
“Tell me Cindy didn’t hear this,” I whispered.
“No, she’s in the kitchen,” Sonny replied. “Are you okay?”
“I guess, but I’d like a drink of my own.”
“I’ll get it, Cindy won’t know it’s for you.” He stood and headed for the kitchen.
“All right, Branch. Keep going.” Lewis sounded angry.
“Uh, yeah. Well, Mickey started laughing about what a party they would have, and he dropped the screwdriver he was using to try to jimmy the door. He was bent over, feeling around in the dark for it. I thought I saw a gun stuck in his back pants pocket. If he had a gun…and if the women came home now… not even the three of us would have much of a chance against him! I looked around and saw some river rocks lined up. I didn’t even think. I just grabbed one and hit him in the back of the head with it, just as he found the screwdriver and stood up. I only meant to stun him and call Jeffie…surely even he would come out now!”
Branch swished the ice around in the glass and drained the watery drink. “Mickey fell over. I took the gun and found the screwdriver where he had dropped it again, and put them in my pocket. He hadn’t moved, and when I tried to wake him up, I couldn’t. He didn’t seem to be breathing and I couldn’t feel a pulse, either, although I’m never sure what part of the neck to push.”
He looked up hopefully as Sonny returned with my drink, but this time I didn’t share. “It was funny.” Branch shrugged and continued. “Ideas just seemed to come to me. I didn’t want to leave him parked on Ken’s porch with a hole in his head. I got him under the shoulders and managed to drag him up near that little footbridge across the creek. The creek was up a few inches from the runoff of the rain and the end of the bridge was under water. I laid him down like he had slipped on the wet wood or in the mud and hit his head. Remembering what he was supposed to have hit his head on, I went back and got the rock and put it beside his head. I tossed the gun and screwdriver, along with my bloody jacket, into the creek. You can probably find them.”
He put his hands over his face and squinted his eyes tightly closed, like a child denying he has swiped the cookies. “Honest! I only meant to stun him, I really never meant to kill him!”
“That’s good,” a voice boomed from the front door, “because you didn’t.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“What do you mean?” I think everyone in the house asked that question at the same time.
Doctor Ray Thalman completed his entrance and leaned, grinning, against the fireplace. “Just what I said. Mickey McCurry was alive, if not well, when Mr. Redford left him lying by the bubbling mountain brook.” Ray was obviously enjoying himself.
Lewis made a come-on gesture with his hands. “Stop teasing us, Ray, this is not the time for a joke.”
“I never thought it was.” He smiled. “I just thought this man you’ve got here might be glad to know he is not a murderer.”
He pointed at Branch, who looked up at him with adoration fit to bestow on angels. Ray made a sign of sipping a drink with his hand. “I’ll make the drink,” Sonny volunteered. “Talk loud.”
“It’s been a long day,” Ray explained. “Butch and I just finished the autopsy, I’ll give you the short version. Time of death? Hard to guess in a guy who spent considerable time lying in cold mud, spattered with cold rain and sprayed by a cold creek. We know he was alive about midnight…so, any time between then and five a.m.”
Ray nodded toward the front door. “I stood outside a few minutes and listened to Redford’s confession. I can tell you it is essentially true. The rock is definitely the weapon. It’s Mickey’s blood and hair caught in it. The tops of his boot toes are caked in mud where he was dragged up the path, and the backs of his clothes are muddy from lying down.”
“But he was alive all this time?” Sonny asked on his return.
This was the weirdest criminal interrogation I had ever witnessed or even heard of! I had thought Sonny was sometimes rather informal, but he had never served drinks and dinner while he questioned a—I guess—prisoner. Nor had the forensic specialist made his report in the presence of that prisoner and various other interested parties.
It reminded me of a situation I had stumbled upon a couple of years ago while looking for a woman who had inherited from her uncle in Ptown. The heiress and her lover had “buried” her sister in a Louisiana bayou.
After turning themselves in, they were sentenced to provide a new air conditioner to the sheriff’s office and put new paint on the juvenile detention quarters...and told to go and sin no more.
“He was alive all this time,” Ray agreed. “The blow was somewhat of a sideswipe. I judge Branch may have been off balance already or slipped on the wet step as he wielded the rock. There was a hairline fracture, Mickey was concussed and, of course, there was an open wound which bled fairly freely. It did not, however, bleed into the brain in any large amount to cause swelling of the brain. That’s what is usually fatal. It was a serious wound, he should have had immediate medical attention. But even when he was ultimately found, he probably would have been alive—and possibly able to be saved—had it not been for other factors.”
“What other factors?” Cindy called from the dining room where, as she so often did, was making order out of chaos.
“Well-l-l, there was a great deal of alcohol in his blood, plus signs of steroids and cocaine—can’t have helped his general health or his attitude. And…and, there was a minor amount of pink froth in his lungs and mouth.” The good doctor should have been on stage.
“You mean he drowned?” Lewis was on his feet now and looking incredulous. He glared at Branch. “How in God’s name did he drown?”
Branch glared right back. “How the hell do you think I know? I certainly didn’t drown him!”
“Well, neither did I!” cried a strained voice from the dining room. I think he died when he fell in the bush.”
“And just who the hell are you?”
“I’m Tommy.”
The Blackstones had arrived via the kitchen door.
If Ken was bewildered at this influx of loud people to his quiet mountain retreat, you’d never know it. He swept Sara and Tommy into a double embrace with a kiss for Sara.
“Well, look who’s here! Two of my favorite people…and just in time for a drink and maybe a little snack from the buffet table. What will you have?”
Sara was obviously no stranger to the cabin. “Ken, I think I am a prime candidate for a snifter of that lovely brandy you hide in the highboy. We’ve had dinner, thanks.”
As the older pair walked into the dining room, I turned to Tommy. At my invitation he looked in the refrigerator and chose a Mountain Dew…I thought it apt. He looked toward his mother, as if he would join her and Ken, but there was something I wanted to know from him before we got all bogged down on who was alive and when.
“Say, Tommy, what on earth were you doing running around soaking wet in a rainstorm Saturday night? You trying to catch pneumonia so we’ll all come and bring you cookies?” I smiled, casually, I hoped.
He grinned back. “It was some rain wasn’t it? You see, when we left the Bromfield Inn, Mom dropped Cissy and me off at her folks’ house. We had some coffee and cake, and talked awhile. Then Cissy was going to run me home in her dad’s car. But when we got just above your—Ken’s place and the road wasn’t gravel anymore, it was just awful.
“I knew Mom would have been okay in the Hummer, but I was afraid Cissy’s little Hyundai would never make it through all the mud and might even skid off into the creek. So I had her pull into your parking area. We sat in the car for a while…uh, you know. After a bit, she went home and I started walking.”
He laughed and took a swig of his soda. “Usually it’s an easy little hike, but that night man, it was wet! The mud was really deep and I was super glad Cissy hadn’t tried to drive in it.”
Well, that took care of my question.
Deputy Spitz slid into a seat at the kitchen table and patted a chair near him. “Hiya, Tommy, have a seat.”
I took one, too. Why not? This was definitely a communal affair.
“Now, Tommy,” Dave asked quietly, “when did you first run into Mickey McCurry? On Saturday night after you started walking home.”
“Not sure, Dave, maybe twelve or after. He was up where the trail and the creek take a left bend. He was kind of trying to get up, resting on one knee and hangin’ on to a tree. When he saw me, he asked me to help him up and get him back to his car. He was talking funny, like he was drunk, and I didn’t want to make him mad, especially when he said Jake had sold him bad hooch and he had a mother of a headache. He might have really got mean, you know?”
“You bet. So what did you do?” I prompted.
“I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to get home—I knew Mom would be getting worried and might even come looking. And, then too, I didn’t think Mickey oughta drive. But he started muttering and kind of growling and I was scared not to help him. I got his arm around my shoulder and pulled him up and noticed blood. Then I saw his head and it made me kind of sick. I thought maybe when we got to his car he would let me drive him to the clinic…he looked awful bad, Dave.”
“I’ll bet he did. But he managed to walk—with your help?”
Dave smiled and nodded toward Cindy, who had put mugs of coffee in front of us. I patted the one remaining chair and she sank tiredly into it. I wanted her out of here and far away as soon as we could possibly manage it. She’d been playing kitchen maid long enough.
Tommy continued. “Yeah. He took a step or two and tripped on a rock. We both looked down and saw this bloody river rock. Mickey started cussin’ and saying somebody hit him with it and he’d get them yet, and somethin’ about somebody named Mildred and I don’t know what all. I just wanted him down that hill and in his car. In the hospital, really, so I could leave him and not feel guilty.”
Why anyone would feel guilty leaving Mickey any place at any time in any shape was beyond me. I’d have left him dangling over the Grand Canyon on a clothesline without a murmur.
Tommy finished his soda, flipped the can into the garbage and took a deep breath.
“We made it almost to the foot of the trail. At least the rain had quit, although everything was still dripping. All of a sudden Mickey groaned and kind of collapsed. He pulled me off balance, and the two of us fell into this soaking wet shrub. He wouldn’t answer me and I couldn’t get him to sit up. I felt his neck like they do on TV and didn’t feel anything. I sat for a minute. I figured he was maybe dead, and I didn’t want to touch him. But I couldn’t leave him sprawled in that bush. He was heavy but I managed to get him over my shoulder and carried him on down to the little clearing and laid him down. At least it had been downhill! I put his head near the creek in case he woke up and was thirsty—Lord knows I was—but I did not drown him! Why would I after I had gone to all that trouble?”
“Right you are, Tommy, why would you, indeed? I’m sure you had simply—and very bravely—just tried to help him.” Ken agreed. He and Sara had been standing in the dining room doorway, watching Tommy and listening carefully to his every word.
“Satisfied?” Sara asked Dave. “You have a Good Samaritan here, not a killer.”
“We were pretty sure of that all along, ma’am,” Dave replied. “Just two quick questions, Tommy and we’re finished. What did you do with the rock you tripped over?”
“Oh, I wasn’t sure what to do. But I finally decided: if somebody had hit him with it, the police should see it. And then I thought, but they shouldn’t see my fingerprints on it, since I didn’t do it. So I went back up the trail, took my scaling glove out and carried the rock back to where he was.”
“I see,” Dave looked serious. “What were you doing with a scaling glove at a dance, Tommy. We found it alongside the trail, near Mickey’s body.”
“If the rain had stopped earlier, Cissy and I were going to try a little night fishing to see if we could nab a couple of catfish for her old man. He likes ’em, who knows why? I had the glove in my jacket pocket and my knife folded up in my pants pocket. I guess the glove fell out when I thought I put it back.” For the first time, he looked guilty as he looked at his mother.
“Where is that jacket, Tommy, come to think of it?” Sara was aiming stern irritated-mother looks at her son.
“Well, uh, well, it had a couple of tears fro
m when we fell in the bush, and it had some blood on the shoulder and it was awful muddy and wet—you could wring it out. So I…I didn’t know what to do with it, and I hid it under an old rotten pine on the way home. I’m sorry, Mom.”
She sighed and then flashed a radiant smile and rumpled his hair. “I suppose if a blazer is the only casualty this family suffers from this chaos we should thank our blessings. I take it Tommy is clear?”
“Absolutely.” Dave grinned. “Go in peace. Tommy, you are a good man.” Tommy blushed a vivid red.
Sara turned to Ken. “If there is anything we can do for Branch, please let us know. He’s family, and I’ve always had a soft spot for him. And thank you, my dear, for your generosity and support and especially the brandy…it works wonders, doesn’t it?” She gave me a sly wink, and I matched Tommy’s color scheme.
By the time I thought of a reply, they had gone.
Apparently things were calming down in the living room. There was a low murmur of voices, but no more yelling. Sonny came in the kitchen bearing a mug and asking where the tea was kept. “My stomach is revolting at the thought of coffee.”
I pointed at a cabinet. He studied the selection kept there. “Can you have English Breakfast tea at eight p.m.?”
“Yes. And you can tell us how Mickey drowned while you make it.” I reached over and turned the burner on under the teakettle.
“He didn’t.” Sonny gave his shark grin. “He had a heart attack.”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “And then he up and died of an infected toenail.”
“Honest.” He put a teabag and two sugars in his mug and stood by the stove. “Ray said Mickey had a very minor bit of pink foam in one lung and in his throat. Not nearly enough to indicate drowning. Just that he probably inhaled a little water and then coughed it up.”
“So he was still alive when Tommy laid him by the creek,” Cindy remarked.
Murder Takes to the Hill Page 20