“Well,” the older one said, “you know that assume makes an ass of ‘u’ and me.”
I burst out laughing and stuck out my hand. “Della Kincaid. Sorry to be such a smartass, but I have a friend with a strong theory about these murders, and I’d love for you to meet him.” I figured I owed it to Abit—and any potential victims—to strike while I could.
“Thanks, but we’re on this,” he said. He did shake my hand but didn’t give me his name. I couldn’t let that go, either.
“Okay, got it. But I gave you my name. How about yours?” They mumbled Ezra Stoltz (older) and Curtis Maynard (younger), more out of innate politeness than any professional obligation. I made their change and thanked them. “Oh, and I may have something else to run by you.”
“Trouble in paradise?” Stoltz said, with a rather adorable smirk that brought out his dimples.
“Oh, yeah. Looks are deceiving. And good luck with the case. People around here are scared.”
They did what those guys do best—nodded—and left. As I saw their black SUV turn into the road, I wondered why the FBI was getting involved in what appeared to be a state investigation.
Chapter 43: Abit
“My da is sick. I need to go see him.”
Fiona had just come out to my workshop. Shiloh was there too, and he looked genuinely sad for her. Truth be known, I reckon he liked Fiona a lot more than me.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“What do you think? His liver.”
I flashed on our wedding party, where he drank a bottle of Jameson and sang the IRA fight song. I figured he hadn’t stopped doing either one. But when he was sober, he was a jolly sort, and I was sorry he was doing poorly.
“And you know, not a day before the call I got a shiver, like a goose just walked over my grave.” She shivered again.
“Shug, don’t go thinking the worst, goose or no goose. Your dad will be fine, especially oncet he sees you.”
“You mean us.”
“I wish I could take off but ...” I looked over to Shiloh for support, but he had a funny look on his face. I realized he’d gotten her meaning before me. “Us?”
“Well, yeah. Conor’s going with me. The school has an autumn break in a week, and he can catch up when we get home. I want him to see where I grew up and meet his other family.”
“What about Vern?”
“He has his own da and a babysitter. They can manage for a couple of weeks—just like they did before we started having him over.” She stamped her foot. “My da needs me.”
“But they have good insurance over there.”
“That they do. A lot better than here, but still, I’m family, and I’m trained to help.”
“That you are—but I still wish you wouldn’t go.”
“Why are you acting thisaway?” We just looked at each other for what felt like forever, then her face softened. “Aw, Rabbit, sure, I know you’re gonna miss us.”
I couldn’t say a word. It felt like if I spoke, a dam would break and I’d make a fool of myself. Instead, I managed a weak smile. I always gave in to that lass. Besides, who was I to keep her from helping her daddy? I had trouble understanding feelings like that toward a father, but I knew people had them.
Fiona came over, nudged me toward a chair, and sat on my lap, putting her arms round me. Shiloh had the good sense to go back to work in the other room. We sat like that for some time. Then she got up to pack.
I drove them to Asheville a couple of days later. That dam feeling came back when I hugged Conor goodbye, like my words were caught in my throat. “Don’t worry, Daddy, we’ll come home soon,” he whispered before letting go.
I didn’t want to ruin his fun, so I pulled myself together and smiled. As they made their way through the security line, he waved at me as long as he could see me. Then Fiona held him up one last time before they disappeared through a coupla doors that went only one way.
When I’d finished my work for the day, I didn’t want to spend the evening in an empty house. I called Mollie, and we hopped into the truck and headed to Coburn’s. Della had a half hour before she could close up, but she welcomed us with a beer and a biscuit. She brought down that little fiest, Rascal, to play with Mollie. Everything had been so crazy, the two dogs hadn’t met yet.
While they got acquainted, Della told me about her white-shirt-and-tie visitors. And what she’d said to them.
“You want me to talk to the FBI?” I asked, my voice cracking like a teenage boy.
“Abit, this isn’t about you. It’s about your having a terrific—in all senses of that word—theory. You’ll know that you did all you could.”
“You wouldn’t be encouraging me if you knew what a bad job I did with Airhorn.” Her eyebrow went up. I sipped my beer and went on. “Okay, he made me mad. Calling me Sherlock and making bunny ears. And smirking.”
She kinda chuckled. “So what did you say?”
“I told him Wallis and I were trying to save lives, which was more than he’d done when it came to Kona and Ferguson.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so?”
“So what? Okay, it would have been helpful to have Horne on your side, but he’s small potatoes. He’s only the sheriff in Avery County, and there hasn’t been a murder in our county.”
“Oh, believe me, he made that perfectly clear.” I looked away and took another swig.
“And now you’re giving up? What happened to your high-and-mighty proclamation of saving lives? If I’d given up every time I made an ass of myself, you and I would never have met. I’d still be living in D.C., only I’d be writing for the free shopper news. You’ve got to keep at this, Abit.”
We went on like that for a time, but she finally wore me down. Besides, with Fiona and Conor away, I didn’t have any excuses. “Will you come with me? To talk with the FBI? I mean they’d recognize you and all.”
Della thought about that. I was sure she was fixing to say no, but then she took mercy on me. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 44: Abit
A coupla days later, Della invited me to midday dinner on her day off. Mollie raced up the apartment steps ahead of me to see Rascal; they’d really taken to one anothern.
After a while, we sat down to some homemade vegetable soup, fresh bread, and a coupla cheeses. I’d learned that I liked some of the stinkier ones she carried and noticed she’d remembered which ones.
When I’d finished my soup, I kept whittling on a cheese called raclette. It spread on the French bread as good as soft butter. After a couple more of those, I mentioned something I’d been stewing on. “I don’t know how you do it—saying goodbye to Alex all the time. Fiona and Conor being gone made a big hole in my life. Is that what you feel when Alex goes away?”
She gave me the saddest look. “No, honey, it’s not.”
“But you love him.”
“I do. And I miss him when he leaves, but we’ve spent too much time apart to feel the rift you’re feeling now. And the damage that was done when we divorced took something out of me. I don’t know if this makes sense to you, but some sorrows just don’t go away. Not fully. We learn to live with them, we even have days we forget all about them, but they’re still there, like someone living in the basement who keeps to himself, though you always know he’s there.”
I assured Della I knew exactly what she was talking about. In fact, I had enough men in my basement for a bluegrass jam session. But I went on to explain I was also missing the smaller things. Like when I’d catch a glimpse of Fiona rustling through her special Irish box and sneaking a wheatmeal biscuit when she thought no one was round, enjoying it and a good memory from back home. Or seeing her leaf through a catalog, looking for something pretty to wear. “Those times are so tender, Della, they’re hard to describe.”
“No need to, honey. I get it. Like when you see someone hungry eating a meal or smiling when offered a kindness they’re not accustomed to. Times like that remind us we’re all one, not separat
e.”
After that we didn’t say much as we worked together on the dishes. When she put her towel down, she asked, “Have you ever noticed the way a lot of old people seem so world-weary, dragged down by life?” I nodded; my parents sure did, though they didn’t wait ‘til they were old to get thataway. “Now that I’m catching up with their age, I’ve been asking myself what causes that. All I can figure is each of life’s heartaches takes a piece out of us, and something hard and dark can slip in to fill that hole. After five or six decades, the dark places begin to outweigh the good.”
She paused. I was about to say some stupid thing to cheer her up, but she beat me to it. “One way I’ve found to overcome the darkness, to not let it slip in and petrify my heart, is to make new experiences. Like you just said, they don’t have to be big—just small things. Being kind to a stranger, trying a new café, driving somewhere you’ve never been before. They often lead to something fresh, filling those holes with light.”
“Not much new round here.”
“You haven’t been looking hard enough. Let’s take Mollie and Rascal for a walk somewhere new—like Stone Mountain State Park. A couple of tourists stopped by the store for drinks on their way home and said it was amazing. Afterwards, we can get supper at a place we’ve never been before. My treat.”
I liked her plan, but I should have known she was cooking up more than a walk in the park.
Chapter 45: Abit
For some reason, Della took small, windy roads to get to the park. “They’re prettier,” was all she said when I asked why. Okay, I gave her that. Goldenrod and purple asters hugged the roadside while red-leafed dogwoods and witch hazels, blooming yellow now, hovered over them like protective parents.
The trip gave us time to talk, and we managed to get in a few laughs. I started to feel so good I sang “On and On,” a lively tune I loved, even if the lyrics were kinda sad about his darling leaving him. But that was okay; I knew my family would be coming back to me.
With a sudden jerk of the steering wheel, Della turned off the main highway on to a gravel road, like she knew just where she was going. She pulled into a field where black SUVs, cars, and a van were parked willy-nilly.
That’s when it hit me. Della’d driven us to Ferguson. Where Tom Dooley murdered Laura Foster in 1866 and some monster axed a woman two month ago. The same place I’d swung by on my trip home from Greensboro.
She found a shady place to park for the dogs, lowered the windows, and put a bowl of water in the back. Then she smiled at me. “Come on, Abit, let’s go meet these bottles and stoppers.”
By the time I’d straightened myself out after slouching in the Jeep for over an hour, Della was already chatting with some guy who looked official. Her reporter skills hadn’t left her.
“Listen, you can’t just walk up here like that. Who let you in?”
“More like who was there to stop us? Security is pretty lax around here.” Man, she had some nerve.
“Ms. Kincaid, please step away from the scene.”
In spite of my nerves—or maybe because of them—I had to work hard at not laughing. That guy sounded right out of a TV show. He stood a little taller than Della, about her age and looked good for his age. His short hair had turned salt and pepper, and his eyes were so dark brown they looked almost black. The only color was his face—an angry red.
“Okay, okay, Agent Stoltz. But I want you to meet my friend, Abit Bradshaw.” She did her arm like a game show host in my direction. Stoltz’s eyes followed, and his frown deepened.
“What is going on here? What are you playing at?”
“Playing at? Really, Agent Stoltz? Like I mentioned at the store, we’re here about finding this damn serial killer before he kills again. We’re here about saving lives.”
I guess what I’d told Airhorn might’ve done some good, after all, since Della nearabout quoted me. What I’d told her the other day had made an impression.
Another agent walked up while she was talking; I assumed he was the younger one Della’d met at the store. That made two FBI agents too many, and I turned to leave.
Not Della.
She started in on how she knew from her crime-writing days in D.C. that the FBI didn’t just show up on cases like this. Local lawmen had to have asked for help from the FBI. “So here’s some help for you,” she said, again pointing my way.
Stoltz looked at me like I was dog dirt on his shoe. “Oh, please. Enlighten us. Then maybe this crazy woman will drive off and leave us to do our work.”
I had trouble finding my words, but after a time, they tumbled out. I managed to make my case and give credit to Wallis Harding, who I explained was an expert. I gave them all the details we’d come up with, including seventy-three days—now with only twelve to go. I was extra polite and yes sirred; no sirred; you’re right, sirred whenever Stoltz asked me something. I told them everything—except the one thing they were looking for.
“So how will all this help us stop the next killing, God help us if there is one?”
I felt the color rise up my neck. I couldn’t answer.
When we got back into the Jeep, we rode along forever without saying a word. Della was lost in thought, and I felt like a fool. Stoltz had practically patted me on the head and sent me home. And the other guy, Agent Maynard, just stood there, studying the ground.
But after a while, I let all that go. I reminded myself that I was on a road trip with Della, like the ones we’d taken so many year ago. The weather was still sunny and warm, and we were headed to a park I’d never been to before. We rode along quiet-like until I asked, “You know how Fiona and I decided to have only one child?”
Della clenched the steering wheel so tight the Jeep swerved a little. She righted it and nodded. I’d noticed she tensed up whenever I brought up the subject of kids. I reckon that was somehow a heartache in her life too.
“Well, it wasn’t just because of my genes.” I waited a beat, but she kept staring straight ahead. “When I was little, I used to say to myself that I couldn’t wait to have my own kids so I could push them around, you know, like I was.”
Della looked over and let out a big sigh. “Oh, honey, everyone’s had thoughts like that. That doesn’t mean anything in the long run. How old were you?”
“About 8 year old or so.”
“I rest my case. I’d hate to think of what all went through my mind when I was that age. Don’t beat yourself up. When we’re young, we think all kinds of crazy things. That’s why they call it growing up.”
“So why didn’t you ever have kids?”
She took her time answering. “Oh, lots of reasons. I couldn’t see bringing a child into this crazy world, but you’ve changed my thinking on that.” She looked over my way. “When I see children like Conor, I know the world will go on in spite of mean-spirited politicians and crazy serial killers.” She gave me the saddest smile and turned back to watch the road. After a mile or so she added, “And besides, I didn’t trust Alex to stick around.”
“But he’s great.”
“Yeah, in lots of ways. And to be fair, it wasn’t just that. I loved my job. It was dangerous and time-consuming. I couldn’t see chasing a story about a mob gangster and going home to make pablum.”
“You’d’ve been a great mother.”
“That’s easy to say now, Abit. Maybe I would now. But not back then.” She looked at me again. “You’ll just have to be my kid, okay?”
“Fine by me.”
Stone Mountain turned out to be a giant rock sticking outta the earth, big and smooth and hard to fathom. A sign explained that over time, all the softer layers of rock washed away, leaving it to stand proud, six-hundred feet in the air.
The dogs were excited, and I was glad to get outta of the Jeep. I’d started having a delayed reaction to that damn FBI agent. “You oversold me, Della.”
That came outta nowhere, but she knew exactly what I was talking about. “Hold your horses, buster. I got you an audience with the chief honc
ho, and he’s not likely to forget you or what you’re trying to do. You know how men like that are—ego all caught up with being first, being the best. He knows you now, and I believe I saw some respect for your ideas.”
“You were seeing things.”
“No, honey, I wasn’t. He nodded a time or two. Coming from an FBI agent, that’s tantamount to a papal blessing.”
We took care of Mollie’s and Rascal’s needs before we settled into a quiet walk, only saying stuff about the wildflowers or birdsong. A hawk shrieked off in the distance. I never liked that sound, a cry of loneliness.
Walking in the woods made me think of church, in a good way. The trees rose up toward the heavens while protecting us here on Earth. We walked on a path made soft with pine needles and leaves, hugging a stream where frogs carried on in harmony with a chorus of chittering birds. Everything felt right.
Until a big tattooed guy came up behind us with a blaring radio. Some kind of mishmash country music—nothing like the good stuff the Rollin’ Ramblers played. I made a face at Della, but she just shrugged her shoulders. Rascal took my side and gave a low growl, though that guy never heard him over his noisy radio. We slowed down and mercifully the brute moved on. The music drifted behind him for a while, but soon joined him round the bend.
The trail led us to the middle falls and later the lower falls along Big Sandy Creek. It was pretty, but I liked Laurel Falls better. I thought to myself, that sounds just like Mama, but it was the truth. Whatever, the walk did all four of us good.
We found a nice little café for supper. After we gave the dogs some fried chicken scraps, they slept most of the way home, and I almost did. I made myself stay awake to keep Della company, but she was lost in thought again. After a while, she broke the silence.
Murder Ballad Blues Page 14