A Judgment of Whispers

by Sallie Bissell

  Mary put an arm around her shoulders. “They’re just gorgeous. Cherokee, but not totally Cherokee. Just like me.”

  Smiling, Grace turned to Anne and Ginger. “Did you all ever decide on a slogan? I had to leave the last campaign meeting early.”

  “Equal Justice for All,” said Ginger. “The main plank of her platform. Turpin’s way too lax on domestic violence. Did you know he doesn’t keep the sex offender register up to date? And he considers spousal abuse a victimless crime! It’s so unfair, it’s just … ”

  “Ginger.” Anne put a hand on the woman’s arm. “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  “Oh.” Ginger looked at them. “I guess I am.”

  “Listen,” Mary said. “I want to thank everybody for all their hard work. Grace, your posters are amazing; Ginger, your research is superb; Emily and Anne, you two have done an incredible job getting me started.”

  “It’s our pleasure, Mary,” said Emily. “You’ll make a wonderful DA.” Always the taskmaster of the group, she looked at the women gathered around her. “When shall we meet again? Monday night at Mary’s office, just like always?”

  “I’ll order pizza,” said Mary.

  “And I’ll bring the wine,” Anne volunteered.

  “Great. Then I’ll work out a campaign schedule and we’ll talk about that on Monday.” Emily smiled. “Thanks for coming, ladies. Mary, you were terrific!”

  Anne and Emily bustled off, politicos who had another candidate in neighboring Swain County. Mary and Ginger helped Grace pack up her artwork, then they all left the restaurant together.

  “Gosh, Mary,” Ginger said as they stepped out into the bright morning light. “How does it feel to be a real candidate?”

  She thought of Turpin and her old disappointment when he hadn’t hired her, and of his snide remarks today about catching and releasing criminals. She had hated him for an awfully long time. “It feels great,” she said. “Like I’m finally going back where I belong.”

  Three

  Jerry Cochran took a set of calipers and pulled the underpants to the top of the bag. “Are you kidding me? Teresa E. Cabin 8?”

  “Maybe she’d gone to summer camp,” Saunooke said, almost breathless. “Maybe she wore those there.”

  “A lifetime ago,” Cochran replied. He dropped the pants back inside the bag. “This sandwich bag doesn’t look like its been in the ground more than an hour or so.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Saunooke. “Makes you wonder if it didn’t get here, like, today.”

  “You get anything else?” asked Cochran.

  “A cigarette.” Saunooke held up the broken cigarette he’d placed in another evidence bag. “The dog might have shredded it, digging up the underpants.”

  Cochran turned to Wilkins, his eyes cold. “This one of your smokes, buddy?”

  Wilkins shook his head. “I quit years ago.”

  “Then tell me again who you are.”

  Saunooke said, “He says he … ”

  “Jack Wilkins, Pisgah County Sheriff Department, retired.” Jack handed the sheriff his wallet. It held all his IDs—driver’s license, Medicare card, an FOP membership card. “I worked this case when it was new.”

  “He claims he worked it with Whaley.” Saunooke sounded like a kid tattling to his teacher.

  Cochran looked up from the wallet. “That true?”

  Jack nodded. “Whaley had just been promoted from patrol. I already had fifteen years as a detective.”

  “So what brings you back here this morning? You come to check out the yard sale?”

  Jack felt his cheeks grow hot. What should he say? That his wife had gone to Minnesota and he didn’t know what else to do with himself? That this morning he woke up early because something evil was in the air? “I’ve never forgotten this case. I wanted to see the neighborhood one more time, before they built all these new houses.”

  “Go sit over there by the bulldozers,” said Cochran. “I’ll talk with you later.”

  “Yes sir.” Jack nodded, hiding a smile. This young police chief had mastered the command stare pretty well. His gaze was flinty, without a trace of humor. The patrol kid still had some work to do. He stood there sweating, obviously excited, still holding the dog by its collar. Jack turned to him. “Would you like me to get the dog out of your way?”

  Cochran turned his attention to the animal, which was wagging his tail, as if he were part of the team as well. “Why have you got a dog here anyway, Saunooke?”

  “I got a 10-91,” he replied. “I was taking him to the pound when Gahagen said somebody was trying to hotwire a bulldozer over here.”

  Cochran turned back to Wilkins. “That wouldn’t have been you, would it?”

  “No sir,” said Jack. “I’m way too old to drive a bulldozer.”

  Again, Cochran gave him the cop stare, but then he nodded at the dog. “Then take Rover over there and wait for us.”

  “Yes sir.” Jack took the dog by the collar and walked over to the huge vehicle. The dog trotted beside him, lying down by the front tire while he sat down on the running board. Jack, even more than Saunooke and the chief, was dumbfounded. This dog had dug up a pair of Teresa Ewing’s underpants! How had they gotten there? Could they be evidence they hadn’t found?

  “Good boy,” he said softly. He rubbed the dog between his ears, then settled down to watch. Over the hill, shoppers were haggling over vinyl record albums and old water skis; here, a murder investigation had sprung back to life.

  At first Cochran and the patrol officer stood talking outside the plastic fence that surrounded the tree, Saunooke pointing at various spots while the chief’s gaze intermittently returned to him. Then a green Mustang pulled up beside the officer’s squad car. A muscular, dark-haired young man dressed in dark trousers and a white shirt got out of the car. He carried a large, aluminum briefcase. CSI, decided Jack. Maybe SBI.

  “This better be good,” the young man called as he hurried over to Cochran. “You pulled me out of a speech by Prentiss Herbert.”

  The sheriff laughed. “Then you owe me a beer, Victor. Maybe a six pack.”

  Jack crept closer, eavesdropping. His hearing was still good, and this Victor sounded interesting.

  “Mary made her first speech this morning,” the young man went on. “At the Chat N Chew.”

  “How’d she do?” asked Cochran.

  “Great,” said Victor. “Laid Prentiss Herbert low.” He pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket. “So what have we got here?”

  “A case so cold it was frozen,” said Cochran. “Until Saunooke’s dog came on the scene.”

  Victor glanced over his shoulder at him and the dog, then back at short, broad Saunooke. “Who’s that holding the dog now?”

  “An old guy who was just up here,” said Saunooke. “Claims he worked this case years ago.”

  Victor looked at Cochran. “Seriously?”

  “His IDs check out,” said Cochran, “though I’ve never heard of him.”

  Victor shrugged. “Whatever. Tell me what’s up.”

  Cochran turned his back and brought Victor up to speed. Jack caught the words “a nine year old white female … casserole to a neighbor. Found her … under that tree.”

  “Her name was Teresa Ewing. She died of blunt force trauma to the left frontal squama,” called Jack, suddenly wanting to prove that he was not just some old fart revisiting his glory days. He wasn’t stupid. He was just retired. “Her jeans were unzipped, and she didn’t have on any underpants, but there was no evidence of sexual assault. No semen, and her hymen was intact.”

  The three younger men gaped at him. He kept going, repeating details only an investigator would know. “Logan had just gotten his first DNA kit. He thought it was total bullshit, but he knew we’d be in trouble if he didn’t at least make a stab at usin
g it. But the scene was polluted before he even opened the kit. Everybody in the neighborhood ran over to peer at the dead girl under the Spanish Oak.”

  “Did you have any suspects?” called the sheriff.

  “We questioned plenty of people, took blood and hair from six. But Logan had messed up the DNA sampling so badly that they couldn’t come up with any matches. It wasn’t like it is now.”

  The one named Victor frowned at the sheriff, as if wondering if he should really be talking to him. Jack was thinking now would probably be a good time for him to shut up when a second car pulled up. A heavy, red-faced man pulled himself out of a white Crown Vic and waddled toward the group under the tree. Jack chuckled. He would recognize that slew-footed walk anywhere.

  “Hello, Whaley.”

  The man stopped, stared, blinked. “Hamburger Jack?”

  “None other.” Wilkins got up, started to walk over to Whaley, then remembered he was a quasi-suspect. He looked at the sheriff. “May I go greet the detective?”

  Cochran nodded. Jack went over, gave Whaley a brusque, masculine hug. He saw immediately the toll that years of law enforcement had taken on the man. He was thirty pounds overweight, with bloodshot eyes and a network of red capillaries on his nose that screamed I drink way too much. I’ve drunk way too much for years. Still, Jack was glad to see him. Though their partnership had been like a bottle of oil and water, he was glad that Whaley was still upright and breathing.

  “How you been, old buddy?” Whaley clapped him on the back. “Still chomping the burgers?”

  “I’m doing okay. Got four grandkids and a little mini-farm out Azalea Road.”

  “How’s your wife?”

  “Fine.”

  “Still playing golf?”

  “Shooting in the low eighties.”

  “That’s great.” Whaley frowned over at Cochran. “So how come you’re out here with these jokers?”

  “Like I told them—I wanted to see this neighborhood one last time. You know, before they bulldozed it into something new.”

  “You may be too late,” said Whaley. “Most of the houses are already gone.”

  “The Shaw and the Russell places are still here. And you can tell where the Ewing house was.”

  Whaley’s eyes narrowed, making him look even more porcine. “Still got a jones for Teresa, don’t you?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Not me, brother.” Whaley laughed. “I know who did it.”

  “Collier?”

  Whaley shrugged. “He still can’t look at me without shitting his pants.”

  “So why don’t you charge him?” Jack spoke sharply, feeling as if he’d rejoined an argument they’d debated twenty years ago.

  “You know why as well as I do.”

  Jack nodded toward the tree. “Well, I think you just got some new evidence. Maybe you can make your case this time.”

  Whaley started to say something else, then stopped. “So are you just going to sit on that bulldozer? With that dog?”

  “I am until your boss says I can go. I think I’m being politely detained.”

  “Well,” said Whaley. “I’ll go see what I can do.” They shook hands. “Nice seeing you again, Jack. Give my best to Jan.”

  “Will do.”

  Jack sat back down on the bulldozer, patting the dog but still shamelessly eavesdropping. He was curious to see what Whaley would add to the investigation. So far not much, beyond watching the young patrolman put up a wider perimeter of crime scene tape while the one named Victor rummaged in his briefcase. It was only when the sheriff pulled Whaley aside that he knew they were talking about him. He imagined the conversation as the two conferred, casting sly, over-the-shoulder glances back at him.

  “This guy for real?” the sheriff would ask.

  Whaley would nod. “He used to be our best detective, but this case pushed him over the edge.”

  “How far over the edge?” Cochran would ask, meaning Is he loco? Do I need to worry about him?

  “Not crazy far.” Whaley would start out generous, then turn nasty. “But you never know about these old guys. You know—most of ’em are on a lot of meds.”

  “You think he could have planted these underpants?”

  Whaley would damn him with a shrug. “Who knows? Like I said, you never know what’s going on inside an old head.”

  The one named Victor ended their private conversation. He pulled a camera from his briefcase and asked for the exact location of the underpants. For the next hour, the four of them worked like bees around a hive, Cochran directing them like a field marshal. He sent Saunooke to canvass the yard sale people, to ask if anyone had seen anyone around that tree. “Tell them we’re investigating some vandalism.” Whaley was to go back to the office and get a list of everyone who’d worked on this construction—from the architect to the crew bosses. “Get me the names of anybody who’s got more than a traffic citation.”

  Saunooke headed for the yard sale, then caught sight of him sitting on the bulldozer, the dog now flopped across his feet.

  “What about him?” he asked Cochran. “And the dog?”

  “The what?” Cochran turned, irritated.

  “Mr. Wilkins and the dog I’m supposed to take to the pound.”

  For a moment Jack thought Cochran might tell Saunooke to take them both to the pound, but instead Cochran relented.

  “Detective, you’re free to go. Whaley, you take the dog to Animal Control on your way to the office.”

  Jack looked down at the dog, lying next to his feet. He hadn’t misbehaved, not once. He’d stayed right beside him, watching the activity and snapping at an occasional fly. He reminded him of himself—old, but not washed up. Still with something to contribute. “Could I take the dog?” Jack asked the sheriff.

  “To the pound?” Saunooke looked surprised.

  “No. Home, with me.”

  Saunooke turned to Cochran. “That okay, sheriff? He’s just a stray.”

  Cochran shrugged. “Leave your phone number and address with Saunooke, and the dog is yours.”

  “Thanks,” said Jack, again taking the dog by the collar. “And good luck with your investigation.” You’re going to need it, he thought. You’re going to need a whole lot more than a pair of underpants to put this case to bed.

  Four

  “Where have you been, Mama?” Zack Collier paced up and down the living room, shaking his hands as if they were covered in spiderwebs. Grace recognized the nervous, agitated signs of an impending meltdown; she only hoped she’d gotten home in time to stop it.

  “I’m sorry, Zack. I had to go to a meeting, then I had to get some gas.” She looked up into her son’s gray eyes. His pupils still looked normal—they hadn’t dilated into the black orbs that usually presaged his fits. “Cars won’t run without gas, you know.”

  “But it’s one thirty. Clara left at one. You’re always back by one fifteen. Now we’ll be late!”

  “The yard sale goes on for three more hours, Zack. We’ll get some tapes today.”

  “Promise?” He looked at her, his hands stopping in mid-shake.

  “Yes. Take a bathroom break and we’ll go.”

  “Awwriiight!” Zack lifted a triumphant fist. “New videos today.”

  Grace watched as her two-hundred-pound son ran to the bathroom. She knew he would strip naked before he used the toilet, then wash his hands ten times before he dressed himself again. His ablutions would cost them far more time than her stop at the gas station, but Zack couldn’t see it that way. His clock ran differently than everybody else’s.

  Still, she guessed she should feel lucky. She’d averted a meltdown that could have left a new set of bruises down her arm. Earlier she’d noticed Emily and Ginger looking at her oddly, no doubt wondering why someone would wear a long-sleeved shirt in August. “They probably th
ink my husband beats me,” Grace whispered, holding up her arm to examine the splotchy purple marks. “Wonder what they would have said if I’d told them my son put those there?”

  She pulled her shirtsleeves back down and walked out to the mailbox. People could think whatever they wanted. Like most everything else in her life, it was out of her control. She opened the mailbox, flipped through the mail. Two bills, a flyer from the hardware store, and a political ad from DA George Turpin, grinning smugly as he stirred a vat of his barbeque sauce. Nothing for Zack, nothing from Mike, nothing from Hillview Haven, the communal living home for autistic adults. She’d taken Zack for his entrance interview weeks ago; now she was waiting to hear if he’d made the cut. She closed her eyes, offering a small, guilty prayer that Dr. Keyser and his crew would take him. Zack would need a place to live when she got older and could no longer manage him. Better to get him accustomed to that place now, while she could visit regularly.

  “Mama!”

  She looked up from the mailbox. Zack stood on the front porch, fully dressed and smiling. He looks so normal, Grace thought. Handsome even, with my dark hair and Mike’s eyes. Until you tried to talk to him, you’d never guess anything was wrong.

  “Did I get any tapes?”

  “Not today, sweetheart. But we’ll get some at the yard sale. Have you got your money?”

  From his pocket he pulled the money she’d given him for mowing their grass. “Fifteen dollars.”

  “Then we’re ready.” She walked toward the house. “Where shall we go for lunch?”

  He thought a moment. “McDonald’s. They’ve got robots in the Happy Meals.”

  The rainy morning turned sunny as they ate in the far corner of McDonald’s parking lot, Grace ordering two Happy Meals for Zack and a salad for herself. As Zack played with his robots, Grace wondered if she could distract him away from the Salola Street yard sale. Though it might be a good place to find tapes, Salola Street was the last place she wanted to go. They’d lived there when Teresa Ewing was murdered. Her death had cast a shadow on their lives that lingered to this day.