Death in Living Gray

by John Clayton

  “Is the car OK?” I was wondering how he’s managed to get it out of Baltimore Harbor.

  He didn’t volunteer that information. “They’re letting it dry out,” he said. “Had to give it a thorough pressure water wash-down.”

  “To get the mud out.” I said, not mentioning salt.

  And he didn’t, either. “Yes. A tune up and it’ll be drivable. It’s just that it’s going to cost a couple of hundred. You know we dropped the comprehensive insurance to save money a few years ago.”

  Ten years to be exact. I was trying to think up a noncommittal comment other than Whoopee when he continued, “Plus there may be a two-thousand-dollar fine for littering. They think I might have dumped it on purpose.”

  Abruptly the game broke down. “There isn’t any money,” I said. “You’ll have to get a job.”

  He gave me a quizzical look like he didn’t understand the words.

  I was about to explode, so I held in on my gut till it hurt. “Maybe waiting tables down at Jezebel’s. Fanny thinks you could swing it.”

  The disbarred UVA lawyer part of him fizzed, ready to let go, and then suddenly all the color drained from his face. He grabbed his plaid coat and jammed himself out the kitchen screen door, swinging around too late to grab it before it slammed.

  Two firsts, at least within recent memory. We discussed money and he let a door slam in anger. I could feel the bile bubble up from my tightened stomach, but my hands dropped limply. I couldn’t move.

  ***

  “I hate to bother you dear, but did you find out about that Confederate soldier?” After some indeterminate time Victoria had come into the kitchen.

  I moved numbly to the sink and started to wash the morning’s cups and saucers, while I tried to focus on what she was saying.

  “You know, the Confederate soldier that they found in the secret compartment,” she explained. “I declare, it was just so tacky to leave a dead man in the chimney. If Uncle George Ebenton hadn’t been off to war, it would never have happened. He’d have put gone to any damned Yankees who wanted to deface a proud soldier.”

  “We don’t know that’s what happened.” It came out like a hoarse growl. “I called Jack Junior yesterday and asked him to try one of those genealogical things on the Internet. I don’t have any idea how that stuff works.”

  “You should get a computer,” Victoria took the switch of subject in stride. “Ruby Dixon’s cousin has one of those things to sell the soap she makes in that old barn behind her house. I declare, you could use one to sell those contraptions you make for furniture. Well, let me know what Jack Junior finds out,” she said as she marched back toward the living room.

  As if I’d keep it a secret. And the reason I couldn’t afford a computer was that I had to put food in her mouth.

  Unfair. She’d done what she could. It was her son who was irresponsible. Which brought the bile up again. I’d thought about leaving several times over the last fifteen years, but I didn’t know any place I wanted to go—here I had my shop and my customers and Henry and Stuart and Fanny—and truth be told, Jack Senior was charming and sexy when he wanted to be. If I went someplace new, I’d just start making mistakes with men all over again—and I’d have to find a new profession. A rationalization, I suppose. I’d taken the easy way out. Complacency in a barely mediocre situation. But I was saved from dealing with my own lethargy because the sheriff said I couldn’t leave even if I’d wanted—which thought, when it burst into my consciousness, made my stomach screw into an even tighter knot.

  ***

  I was still washing the first cup about five minutes later when there was a faint knock at the door.

  “I’m sorry. I wanted to apologize.” Old Oilhead was standing on the other side of the screen, bouncing back and forth on his black brogans.

  I looked at him, still befuddled.

  He opened the door without being asked, which was against his general behavior. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Fine,” I managed, pointing to a kitchen chair. I poured him a cup of coffee while I struggled to find my brain. “They say J. Augustus bribed you,” I said as I put the sugar and two per cent milk down in front of him.

  He concentrated in mixing his coffee, two exactly level teaspoons of sugar followed by two exactly level teaspoons of milk.

  “Mr. Pickerill wants to buy the property next to that old pig farm he rents out to Sam Hill. If I can arrange the deal, I get a commission.”

  “In return for which you agreed to testify against me.”

  “It isn’t that way. There’s no quid quo pro. It’s just that he thinks you stole the jewelry. He’s the one that made the sheriff ask a lot of questions.”

  “And you’re going to get rich selling him more property.”

  “Not rich. Selling farms is one of the things I do for a living. The land isn’t really for sale but I’ll try to get in touch with the owner in Florida and see if I can get it for Mr. Pickerill.”

  “So he can raise more pigs?”

  “He doesn’t raise the pigs himself. He’ll just rent it out like the one he rents to Sam Hill.” He sipped his coffee and replaced the cup neatly in its saucer. “It’s just that everybody knows you were up at Pickerill’s alone a lot of the time.”

  “With you a lot of the time,” I said.

  “They don’t know that,” he said. “No sense in telling everything.”

  The jerk wanted to get the commission and to keep our little affair a secret. “Don’t worry,” I semi-snarled. “I don’t kiss and tell. Just like you shouldn’t go around saying that I stole the jewels.”

  “I didn’t say that. Look, I know you’re innocent. Everything I said has been nothing but the truth. Except about us.”

  He clutched his coffee cup in both hands and looked at a spot on the far side of the table. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled almost inaudibly, and the looked straight back at me. “And I can help now. Look how I helped with the Duggetts. I know a lot about Mason County. Why don’t we get together and plan out what to do next.”

  “Now?” I sat down at the table.

  He pulled a small appointment calendar from the breast pocket of his gray pinstripe suit. “Not today. I’m selling insurance to Margerie Black. No, that’s wrong—it’s Margerie Jenkins. She’s on her second husband and wants to upgrade his insurance.” He flipped a page. “And tonight I’m out late over at the Bottom’s Ford Elks Lodge. All day tomorrow I’m showing property down in south county.” He snapped the book shut. “Tomorrow afternoon, late?”

  “Your place?” I laughed at his blatant come-on.

  “Well, it’s that or Jezebel’s, and your husband will probably be at Jezebel’s.” There’re lots of places between here and Washington, DC, that would fit the need, but he’d managed to get in a not-so-spurious reference to my wayward husband.

  “I’ll have some white wine and cheese,” he added. “How about six?”

  In fact, I was feeling pretty much alone. And help was where you could find it. I acquiesced. “OK, tomorrow night. Around six.”

  He stood, carefully put his cup and saucer in the sink, and was out the door before I could reconsider.

  ***

  Arranging to meet Old Oilhead was a definite action, and I supposed any action was better than none. At least I was able to work on finishing the cups and saucers in the sink until there was another knock on the screen door. Sheriff Overhouse, his hat already off and twisting in his hand. “May I ask you a few more questions, Ma’am?”

  I invited him in to sit at the kitchen table and stuck one of the clean cups filled with some coffee into his hand, if for no other reason than to stop the hat twisting.

  “Did you take anything away from Mr. Pickerill’s?”

  I sat down on the other side of the table and fixed him with a stare.

  “Mr. Yancy said you had this big old box that you carried from the house every day.”

  Damn Old Oilhead. “Yeah. I only got one set of welding to
ols and I had to bring them home to work on stuff here. Mr. Pickerill wasn’t the only job I had.” I waited a second. “Is that a crime?”

  “Not if that’s all you took.” He sipped his coffee and turned his hat from facing one way on the table around so it faced the other way. “It’s just that you had the means, what with bringing a box out each day. And you had the motive. Everybody in the county knows that the Abernathys are broke. And Mr. Yancy says you had the opportunity since you were alone there all day, with him only checking up once in a while. Plus one of the pieces was found in your chimney.”

  “Why would I report a dead body in my chimney if I’d put the bracelet there?”

  “Probably forgot in the excitement.” He switched the hat round again.

  “You know it could have been anybody,” I said. “The house is always open.”

  “I know, but you’re the only one with all the elements. Mr. Pickerill is pressing with the state police. I’m afraid I’m going to ask you to come down to the department.”

  “What for?”

  “Make a statement and some paperwork.”

  “Am I being charged?”

  “I’m afraid so.” His hat was spinning. “You better tell Miz Abernathy or Jack where you’re going.” He was standing up, looking vaguely through the kitchen window out at the barn. I followed his gaze and could see Jack Senior out there futzing around just inside the big barn door, so I gave my erstwhile husband a call in a firmer voice than I felt.

  ***

  “Charged with what?” Jack Senior thundered.

  “Stealing one and a half million dollars’ worth of jewelry.” The sheriff said it firmly, his hat had stopped spinning and was being slowly crushed.

  Jack Senior didn’t say anything, but he dropped a hand on the sheriff’s shoulder and guided him across the kitchen.

  I could hear, “…down by one point against Valley High…the bad snap and I had to run…you did that chop block on the defensive end to spring me loose.”

  “Yeah,” said a low voice.

  “…the same thing now. I…We need you to run…interference like back then. Give us some time.” Jack Senior gestured in my direction. “Do you think she did it?” he asked.

  The sheriff’s hat was in a tight little roll by now. “I can’t think. There’s the law and the evidence.”

  “And Pickerill,” Jack huffed as he walked back across the floor.

  The sheriff started to follow and then stopped, his dander breaking out. “OK, then you tell me.” He growled in my direction. “Did Jack ever come up to Pickerill’s while you were working there?”

  I had to admit that Old Oilhead had been the only visitor, except for Victoria who had wanted a personal tour of the house one day. The sheriff gave a self-satisfied grunt. “Then that lets Jack out. And you don’t expect me to believe that Miz Victoria cut that hole in the safe and hid the jewels. You three are the only people who had regular access to your secret compartment, and of the three, you’re the only one who was alone up at Pickerill’s.”

  “Doesn’t it count for anything that we’re one of the oldest families in Mason County?” Victoria was calmly walking into the kitchen. “I’ve personally voted for your family since your granddaddy was sheriff. Doesn’t that mean anything against the word of a newcomer like Mr. Pickerill?

  “It counts a lot. That why I’m not going to put Miz Abernathy in cuffs and I’m going to let her call her lawyer before we go down to the station.

  “I’m her lawyer,” Jack said quietly.

  “A disbarred lawyer. Plus you’re too close. Let her get a real one.” The sheriff said, turning from Victoria back in my direction.

  “I can handle this,” Jack Senior said, without letting me answer on my own. But the truth was that we hadn’t had much need for another lawyer, except for selling the property. I didn’t know who was good in burglary cases. So I didn’t say anything.

  “OK, then. Let’s go,” the sheriff said, indicating the kitchen door—which Jack Senior held open as we went down to the police cruiser.

  ***

  There’s nothing like seeing a familiar scene from an unusual perspective to make you notice things. The back of a police cruiser made the difference as we drove into Mason City on the way to the Sheriff’s Department. The town had gotten a little rundown since I arrived here thirty years ago. In the previous couple of years, the commuters had been trying to restore its old image—without, of course, the odor of the hog slaughtering plant at the head of the main business street, George Mason Boulevard. The plant had closed down about twenty years before and the building had been turned into an antique mall with untended individual booths. That meant that the retailers stocked the booths but the sales were made by a central staff. It was largely yard sale stuff put there by commuters who did it as a form of recreation. Most of the real antiques were still sold by full-time shopkeepers who made a living at it.

  Beyond the antique mall, the business district stretched out for about four blocks along George Mason Boulevard and then petered out into a scattering of houses. The one and two story brick stores had housed all that was necessary to support a farming community in 1920. But, one by one, they had closed—replaced by the mall about five miles northeast of town, out off the highway bypass—leaving many of the buildings empty, boarded up, waiting for the influx of antique shops and chic restaurants that had overtaken the older parts of many small towns in the Washington area. Normally, I didn’t bother to notice how depressing the broken buildings were. But today they reflected my mood—truly forlorn.

  Halfway down the four blocks and running crosswise to the main street was George III Avenue, named before the revolution and never changed, mostly because nobody ever got around to it. At the corner of George III Avenue and George Mason Boulevard was the old county courthouse and office building. Most of the county offices had been moved to a new building facing out on the parallel street to the rear of the courthouse, but the sheriff’s office had remained in the basement of the old building. We parked in the side lot and Jack Senior and I preceded the sheriff down a half flight of stairs. The wall coloring had been renovated from the old institutional green to mauve and blue with an occasional Chinese red accent several years before, but the colors had faded to washed-out gray and milky orange.

  We trooped through the deserted squad room and settled into the sheriff’s private office amid the piles of folders and award plaques. He read me my rights and again suggested calling a lawyer. I looked at Jack Senior, who shook his head in refusal, his lips thin in some abstract Southern resolve.

  Then we went over the whole thing one more time with the part-time dispatcher, Benny Jane Alcott, taking notes. Benny Jane was named after her father Benjamin, but her family thought that Benjamina was too uppity for Mason County, so they’d improvised. Sheriff Overhouse scanned what she had written, made a few changes, and sent Benny Jane out to type it up on what the sheriff called the county’s year 1000 noncompliant computer. He tried to laugh as he took me across the squad room to be fingerprinted. As I came out of the ladies’ room after cleaning the ink off my fingers, I could see Jack Senior and the sheriff sitting in the sheriff’s office, not saying a word.

  I signed the statement and we filed up the narrow stairs to the main floor of the building to meet with the justice of the peace/magistrate for the county to formalize the charges.

  Sitting in his little office right beside the courtroom was the truly obese figure of the magistrate, Justin Lattimore, brother to the chair of our board of supervisors, Priscilla Lattimore Goodenough. He had all her girth, unmitigated by any shred of taste. In fact, the word was that he was too lazy to work, so his sister had set him up with this job out of sheer desperation in order to keep their mutual mother quiet.

  As we waited, I couldn’t help but hear what was happening with the person ahead of us. Luke Hodson was standing in front of the magistrate, being held up on one side by a sheriff’s deputy and on the other by his wife, Bitsy. The
charge was apparently DWI and he was being let out on his own recognizance until his trial in three weeks. Justin added that it wouldn’t be wise for Luke to drive in the next few hours.

  Good. Not for the DWI part, but maybe Justin was in a mood to be lenient.

  Except that after the sheriff gave him the charge against me, Justin snarled, “Bond is set at fifty thousand.”

  “What?” was all I could say.

  “My sister says you’re the biggest crook in the county. Giving the place a bad name and scaring away the commuters—fifty thousand or jail,” he said as he raised a half-eaten jelly donut toward his mandibles.

  Even if I went to a bail bondsman, I would have had to come up with 10 percent of the fifty thousand. That would be five thousand. And besides, the only bail bondsman in Mason City was Old Oilhead. Damned if I’d get the money from him.

  “Jail,” I said.

  Jack Senior pushed into the center of the room and pointed out in his courtroom voice, “If we come up with that kind of money, you’ll know we stole the jewels. That’s why crooks always have the best lawyers. This is ridiculous.” He was looking at Lou Overhouse, rather than Justin.

  The sheriff leaned over and said quietly to the magistrate, “I think we can reduce the bond a bit. It’s not like Mrs. Abernathy is a stranger here.”

  “I can’t,” came the reply. “The charge requires a big bond.”

  “Then, I’ll reduce the charge to possessing stolen goods. Here, Benny Jane, go retype this,” he said as he took the sheet with the charge on it from Justin and pushed it at the dispatcher who had just come up to stand in the door.

  “You can’t do that either. It’s already on the books,” Justin grunted, waving his old-fashioned fountain pen.

  Benny Jane interrupted. “I just came up to ask if I can leave early today. Little Benjamin III is sick at kindergarten and I have to go get him.”

  “Retype this first—as soon as Mr. Lattimore takes the charge off his books. Then you can go.”

  “I’m not taking it off the books until I think on it some more. It’s a very serious charge. That’ll take a few hours.” What he meant was that he’d probably consult with his sister.