by Ann B. Ross
The Tillman brother looming behind had a full head of dark hair shot through with a sprinkle of silver and a vacant look on his face. A tuft of hair stood up from the back of his head, reminding me for a minute of Alfalfa. His lean frame seemed lost inside his overalls, although one hand kept slipping inside the bib to scratch something. His general appearance wasn’t helped by the way his tongue flicked in and out of his mouth, barely touching his bottom lip, then zipping back in again.
Mr. Pickens stuck his hand out to the shorter man, giving him a friendly smile “Name’s Pickens, and this is Mrs. Julia Murdoch. How’re you doing, sir?”
Eyeing me from around Mr. Pickens’s shoulder, the short man opened the screen door and shook the proffered hand. Then he said, “Murdoch, huh? Don’t ’spect y’all are selling something, are you?”
“Nope, not a thing,” Mr. Pickens assured him. “Just wanted to talk to you and your brother if you have a minute or two.”
“If it’s about that trouble Murdoch had, we ain’t got nothin’ to say. Have we, Teddy?”
Teddy said, “Uh-uh.”
“Well,” I said, stepping out from Mr. Pickens’s shadow, “it stems from that, but it’s not about that. You know me, Mr. Tillman. I’ve seen you and your brother many times on Main Street, and you’ve both been so very courteous. I just thought that you’d be kind enough to listen to Mr. Pickens for a few minutes because he understands the kind of stress you’re both under. He may be able to relieve some of it.” I motioned to the rocking chairs on the porch. “May we sit for a minute, Mr. Tillman? You’re Bob, aren’t you?”
Bob nodded. “Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. But then he took a seat himself and Ted followed suit. “But we got no stress and no problem, so don’t look like there’s much to talk about. ’Cept the weather an’ it’s been pretty much the same here lately.”
“Oh, I think you must have some worries,” I said, sitting in a rocker that tilted to one side. “Everybody else whom Sam interviewed is quite upset. I mean,” I went on, leaning toward him, “who knows who took those cassettes that had your interviews on them and, I remind you, your court records, too. Who knows what they intend to do with them? Tell him, Mr. Pickens.”
“It’s like this, Mr. Tillman,” Mr. Pickens said in his best professional manner. “I’m a private investigator, and Murdoch hired me to look after your interests and the interests of the others he interviewed. He doesn’t want any of that information to rebound on you, especially since you’d been so helpful to him. He was going to use that information in a way that would protect your privacy, maybe even your identity. But there’s no way to know what somebody else—whoever stole it—will do with it.”
Ted chimed in then, garbling his words so that I couldn’t understand a thing he said. Bob, though, apparently did.
“Ted says he don’t want nobody talkin’ about him. An’ I don’t neither. You got any idee who took ’em?”
Mr. Pickens shook his head. “No, we don’t. That’s why Murdoch is anxious to see if you could help us out. The sheriff is looking into it, but we’d rather solve the matter ourselves and not have it come out in the open. And I think you would, too. So here’s the question: Can you think of anybody who’d be interested enough in things that happened forty years ago to break in and steal that information?”
Ted spewed out something else, and Bob, smiling, said, “That’s right, Teddy, I’ll tell ’em. Sorry, folks, but we can’t he’p you. Tell you the truth, though, me’n Teddy’s just as happy to let them interviews an’ things git lost and stay lost. We talk too much when we git started, and Murdoch got us started. So I say let sleepin’ dogs lie.”
“Well,” I said, somewhat irritably, “let us hope they continue to sleep and don’t jump up and bite you when you least expect it. Sam is trying to do you a favor. He’s hired Mr. Pickens at his own expense, specifically to protect you, and you’re giving us no help at all. Now, Mr. Tillman, if you have any thoughts on the subject of who would’ve wanted to steal your brother’s records, you’d do well to speak up.”
Mr. Pickens sat back and rolled his eyes at my tirade, and Ted Tillman’s tongue went in and out even faster. Bob Tillman, though, took no offense. He smiled vaguely in my direction and said, “Tell you what. You see if anybody else knows anything, an’ maybe we’ll go along.” His eyes, set deep in facial folds, seemed to twinkle. “An’ maybe we won’t. All depends on who an’ why an’ what for.”
“Well, of course it does,” I said. “That’s why we’re here and why we’re going to visit all the others. I don’t understand, Mr. Tillman, why you’re unwilling to help us when you would really be helping your brother. Now, I don’t have any idea in the world what was on those cassettes and neither does Mr. Pickens. All we know is what Sam told us. Namely, that he wants them back in order to protect the Tillman name and reputation. Do you think the thief is going to be concerned about you? I don’t, and neither does Sam. It would be to your benefit, Mr. Tillman, both Mr. Tillmans, to help us to the best of your ability.”
“Sorry,” Bob said, though he didn’t look it or sound it. In fact, he seemed rather complacent about the possibility of having his brother’s arrest record spread out for all to see.
Then, as a fresh spurt of unintelligible sounds issued from Ted, Bob went on. “Teddy says things is all up in the air an’ we better wait to see which way the wind blows.”
“Well,” I said, losing patience and showing it by standing up, “it’s unlikely to blow any good this way. Do you have any more questions, Mr. Pickens? I think these gentlemen have said all they intend to say, and we should take our leave. Thank you, Mr. Tillman.” Then with a nod in Teddy’s direction, “Mr. Tillman.”
And I stepped down the porch steps and headed for the car, just so put out that some people wouldn’t accept help when it was offered at no trouble or expense to them. Mr. Pickens stayed behind long enough to hand Bob a card and urge him to call if he thought of anything that would help.
“Well,” I said as Mr. Pickens took his place in the car and slammed the door, “that didn’t go so well. I declare, I don’t know why they wouldn’t cooperate. You’d think they’d see they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And speaking of that, Mr. Pickens, why did you leave everything to me? I thought you had all these questions to ask and I thought you knew how to get them to talk.”
“I hardly had a chance,” he said as he turned the car around before heading down the rutted driveway. As he turned onto the main road, which hardly amounted to more than a paved track, he went on. “I thought we’d agreed that I’d do the talking and you’d stay out of it.”
“I would’ve, if you’d ever gotten into it. But I couldn’t just sit there and watch Bob Tillman rock and Teddy Tillman lick his lips and you not getting anywhere. Somebody had to say something.”
He kept driving and after a few miles I realized that he wasn’t going to respond. I expect he was put out with me, but I couldn’t help that. It wasn’t in my nature to sit and wait for somebody to speak when a pointed question would do the trick.
After a while I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “What else did Sam tell you about the Tillmans? I know it was Teddy who got in trouble, but wasn’t Bob mixed up in it, too?”
“Just Teddy,” Mr. Pickens said, marking, I hoped, an end to the standoff. “It was Bob or their mother who kept getting him out of trouble, so he was involved that way. Sam represented Ted one time, or almost did. Said the mother and Bob came in to talk to him, but when Sam recommended pleading mental incompetence, the mother hit the roof. Stormed out, saying nothing was wrong with her boy that a leather strap wouldn’t cure, and Sam could go jump in the lake.” Mr. Pickens grinned. “Probably said it a little stronger than that. Anyway, the lawyer they ended up with did plead mental incompetence and Ted never served any time. He was never convicted of anything, either, but he sure was arrested time and again, usually with the goods in plain sight.”
“And thi
s was all years ago?”
“Yep. His last arrest was in the late sixties, I think. Nothing since then.”
“Hm-m,” I said, thinking it over. “Wonder why he stopped?”
“Maybe it was a phase and he grew out of it.”
I glanced sharply at Mr. Pickens to see if was making fun of me, but his face gave nothing away.
After a few miles, I ventured a change of subject. “Where’re we going now?”
“Cutting north toward Delmont, hoping you know where the Wootens live.”
“I do, I think. But coming at it from this direction may put me off. It’ll depend on where we hit the Delmont Highway. May I see the list that Sam gave you?”
He drew it out of the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to me. “There’re more notes in my briefcase on the back seat.”
“Cassie Wooten,” I said, studying the list of names and the few notes beside each one. “I know her, but not well. Just to speak to in the Winn-Dixie occasionally. The only time we ever really had a conversation was at a Church Women United meeting a few years back. She seemed ill at ease, uncomfortable in a crowd, and grateful when I took the time to chat with her. Talked a blue streak for several minutes about nothing in particular, then we got separated during lunch and never got back together. I don’t expect we’ll have any trouble getting her to talk, if that was any indication.”
“Delmont Highway coming up,” Mr. Pickens said. “Which way do I turn?”
I looked up and around, trying to determine where we were. “Left, I think. Then left again on Staton Bridge Road. We’ll be going back the way we came, but on a different road. The Wootens live in a little crossroads community near where Hazel Marie grew up.”
He had no response to that, so I said, “I said, near where Hazel Marie grew up.”
“I heard you.”
“I thought you might be interested, but be that as it may. William, Cassie’s husband, and it’s not Will or Bill, used to drive a postal route in this part of the county. I expect he’s retired now. I don’t know him at all.”
I declare, I couldn’t get anything satisfactory out of Mr. Pickens, so I just looked out at the scenery, such as it was, as he drove the way I directed.
“This is it coming up,” I said as we approached Staton Crossroads. “Nothing but a gas station and a couple of empty buildings. There used to be a little grocery store, but I guess it’s gone out of business. Drive on past, Mr. Pickens, I think their house is a ways down, but go slow so I can read the mail boxes.”
Studying the names on the mailboxes as we passed three or four houses set back from the road, I pointed at one. “There it is. That little white house. Pull in the driveway.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said and did so.
We sat for a few minutes looking at the neat, well-kept house and lawn. There wasn’t a leaf on the grass nor a weed sticking up anywhere. The house itself, white clapboard with a small front porch, looked as prim and square as the yard. It sat in the exact center of the lot with a straight-as-an-arrow walkway leading to the porch, where two porch chairs sat squarely on each side of the door. A pot of red geraniums was on each side of the steps.
“Looks quite military, doesn’t it?” I murmured, wondering at the amount of work it would take to keep the place in such pristine condition. “Do they know we’re coming?”
“Sam called, but didn’t say exactly when we’d be here. Let’s go in, and, Miss Julia, let me handle it this time.”
“With pleasure,” I said crisply, then under my breath, “Just see that you do.”
But as we approached the porch, Mr. Pickens said, “If Mrs. Wooten answers the door, I want you to play on the fact that you know her socially. Introduce us and get us inside, then I’ll take it from there.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and almost saluted. He ignored me, reaching around to ring the bell. He stepped back so that whoever opened the door would see me first.
Cassie Wooten, plain and stiff in a blue housedress, her thick, iron gray hair pulled back in a bun, opened the door. She stood there for a minute, looking blank. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Wooten?” I said. “Cassie? I’m Julia Murdoch, formerly Julia Springer, remember? This is Mr. J.D. Pickens, and we’re wondering if we might come in and talk with you a minute.”
A brief smile of recognition flickered across her face, but her head turned quickly toward a man’s voice asking who it was. She hesitated, then nodded and stepped back. “Come in,” she said and led us into a small living room that was as neat and unlived in as the front lawn. There wasn’t a book or a magazine or a plant in the entire room, nor any family photographs. The only jarring note to the sterile decor was the television set that was on a table right in front of the fireplace—a big no-no in home decor shows according to Hazel Marie who jotted down such decorating pearls in her scrapbook.
A slim man in gray trousers and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up stood as we entered. His face was creased, but not by smile lines. Rather, he looked grim, almost aggressive, the overall impression emphasized by the brush cut of his reddish-gray hair.
“Who is it?” he demanded.
Not one to be intimidated by a former clerk, I immediately held out my hand and said, “Julia Murdoch, Mr. Wooten. And this is Mr. J.D. Pickens. We’re here on behalf of my husband, Sam Murdoch. Actually, though, on behalf of Cassie when you get down to it. I’m sure you’ve heard of the break-in at Sam’s house and we’re anxious to get to the bottom of it, as I expect you are, too.”
William Wooten quickly changed his tune, asking us to have a seat and ordering Cassie to the kitchen for iced tea, which both Mr. Pickens and I refused. The two of us sat on the sofa in front of a window, Cassie took a straight chair, and William resumed his seat in a Barcalounger.
“I wondered when you’d get around to it,” William Wooten said expansively. “Soon as I heard about that break-in, I told Cassie that Murdoch would be sniffing around again. Didn’t I, Cassie?”
Cassie nodded, I thought somewhat hesitantly. I also noted that she kept looking at her husband, waiting to follow his lead, which he seemed to think his right.
Mr. Pickens jumped in. “Murdoch wants to know if you have any thoughts on who might have stolen the cassettes and the records of the people he interviewed. You might also be interested to know that the original records are missing from the courthouse. He’s anxious that they not be in the wrong hands, as you must be, too.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” William said, “all that stuff would be better off at the bottom of the river. Murdoch came in here when I was gone and, I’ll tell you the truth, Cassie don’t know what she’s sayin’ half the time.” He glared at his wife. “Told him all kinds of things better left unsaid and forgotten. She knows better now.”
Cassie’s face reddened as she looked at her hands knotted in her lap.
“Oh,” I said, wanting to reassure her, “but you know that Sam would respect anything that shouldn’t have been said. The problem now is that we don’t know if the person who has them will do the same.”
Mr. Pickens frowned at me and said, “I assure you, Mr. Wooten, that we’re not here to go over the past. We’re here only to see if you have any idea of who might have that information now.”
Mr. Wooten snapped up his recliner. “I’m gonna tell you something,” he said in a belligerent tone, “and you can take it straight back to Sam Murdoch. I don’t appreciate him coming in here to talk to my wife when I’m not here, and frankly I don’t care if he never finds ’em. Cassie doesn’t have the sense she was born with, and he took advantage of her.” He raised a finger, then pointed it at Mr. Pickens. “And furthermore, you got no right to come in here, upsettin’ her and wantin’ to dig into things that’re none of your business. Cassie’s a different woman now.” He leaned back. “Tell ’em, Cassie.”
Shocked, I glanced uncomfortably at Cassie, embarrassed for her and angered by her husband’s outburst. Her hands were twisting in her lap, splotches
of red on her cheeks, as she murmured a few words.
“Speak up,” William Wooten demanded. “You got nothing to be ashamed of.”
She looked up, but not at us. Her eyes gazed at something in the distance. “I found the Lord,” she said.
“That’s right,” her husband said, nodding with approval. “I led her to the Lord, and now she’s a born-again, church-goin’ woman. Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Except,” he said with a glare at me, “when somebody like Sam Murdoch wants to rake it all up again. But Cassie knows better now, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she murmured, looking at her hands again. “I won’t talk about it any more, William.”
“Well,” Mr. Pickens repeated, “we’re not here to go over anything again. We just want to know if you have any ideas about who could’ve stolen the records and interviews, that’s all.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree then,” Mr. Wooten told him. “Cassie and me got nothing to say about any of it. Cassie’s learned her lesson, haven’t you, girl?”
“Praise God, I have,” Cassie said, her voice gaining in strength. “I haven’t put a foot wrong in forty years, have I, William?”
“Not if you don’t count yappin’ off to Murdoch,” he said with a tight-lipped grimace that seemed to pass for a smile. “And not if you don’t count that meatloaf you fed me last night.”
Lord, I’d had enough of him. I stood, thanked them for their time and walked out. Mr. Pickens had no recourse but to follow.