Molly: House on Fire

by R. E. Bradshaw

  Randy slowed the truck, but had to have the last word. “Like I said, just adorable.”

  They pulled up to an old farmhouse, like so many found along these Carolina roads, white, two-stories, tin roof, and a wide front porch. Surrounded by ancient pecan trees, the house sat in a dirt yard swept clean of debris, the rake marks visible on the powder fine surface. Robbie stood on the front porch, waving. They piled out of the truck, and were met by Robbie’s excited greeting.

  She grabbed Molly by the shoulders, saying, “Momma is so excited to see you. I can’t wait to see her face.”

  Molly introduced Randy. Leslie and Robbie exchanged hugs and greetings, and then they were ushered into the house, down a narrow hallway, and into a tiny kitchen. A woman, an older, plumper version of Robbie sat at one end of the table with Clark Stovall, who stood as they entered. The woman looked up when Molly was pushed forward by Robbie’s hand in her back.

  She blinked, and said, “My God, if you ain’t the mirror image to ’er.”

  Robbie handled the introductions. “Momma, Mr. Stovall, this is Molly Kincaid, her friend Randy, and you know Leslie.”

  Randy and Leslie filed into the room. Olive Harris continued to stare. Molly decided to smile and say something. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Harris.”

  “Oh, honey, I changed your diapers. Call me Olive and come give me a hug.”

  Molly stepped to the woman’s side and was consumed by meaty arms, pulling her into Olive’s ample bosom. Olive twisted from the waist, rocking Molly back and forth.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry about your momma. I loved that girl.”

  “Thank you.” Molly returned Olive’s hug, and then took a step back.

  Molly wondered why she did not remember Olive, if she and her mother were close. She received her answer, when Mr. Stovall spoke up.

  “Olive and Sarah were inseparable growing up. If you saw one, the other wasn’t far behind. That was before Evan took Sarah away.”

  “Robbie, fix these folks some tea,” Olive said, then turned to Molly. “Y’all sit down. I’m so glad you’re helping Joey. Cheryl was a good woman.”

  Molly sat down. The others followed her lead.

  “Robbie told me Cheryl was afraid. Would you testify to what she told you? Did she say this in front of other people?”

  “Yes, I would testify and so would half the people on our shift. Everyone knew Joe was stirring up the past. That’s what you’re really here about. You want to hear about your momma. Robbie says you don’t know much.”

  Robbie served the tea, while Molly focused on Olive. “No, ma’am. I really don’t know much, and I’m finding that what I thought I knew may not have been true.”

  “Your momma had a rough home life. Her daddy was mean as they come. She stayed around us as much as she could, after her momma died. Momma took her in when her daddy run off, when she was sixteen. Me and Sarah was the same age, so naturally we stuck together.” Olive chuckled, causing her chest to bounce. “Lord, we had some times.” She slowly stopped laughing, and leveled her eyes on Molly. “But you didn’t come here to hear about that, did ya’? You want to know who killed her.”

  Molly swallowed hard. She felt Leslie place a hand on her thigh in support. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mr. Stovall peered over his coffee cup, his eyes dancing nervously between Molly and Olive.

  Olive sat back, lacing her fingers together under her sagging breast. “After your momma married Evan, I only seen her once while they was together. You was just a tiny thing, not more than a month or two old. He beat ’er and she left him. She told me what he was doing to her, puttin’ needles in her arm, treatin’ her like a dog. Momma told her she could stay with us, but he come and got you two. I heard how bad it got, but I married my husband and started a family out here on the farm.” She paused and shook her head. “I’m sorry Sarah felt like she had to walk that path alone.”

  Molly found herself explaining her mother’s side. “He cut her off from everyone. He convinced her she had no one but him. It didn’t help that she became an alcoholic and a drug abuser.”

  Mr. Stovall spoke up, “He did that to her. She wasn’t like that before Evan Branch got a hold of her.”

  Olive continued, “I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to keep in touch with her. I saw her around town, but didn’t to speak to her. She would duck and run if she saw me. This went on for sixteen years, but then she come to see me one day. Said she was clean and starting over, but she wanted to ask me something. I was so happy to see her healthy, I would have told her anything.”

  Mr. Stovall set his coffee cup down, and said in almost a whisper, “She should have left it alone.” He looked up from the tabletop, catching Molly’s eye. “And you should too.”

  Molly leaned forward, holding his stare. “I would think you would agree it’s time Jarvis Branch paid for his crimes.”

  Olive slapped the table with both hands. “It ain’t Jarvis Branch you should be worried about. It’s him.”

  “Who?”

  “Nobody knows,” Robbie answered for her mother.

  “You’re gettin’ ahead of the story,” Olive said, admonishing her daughter. “See, back when Sarah was seventeen —”

  Molly interrupted again. “I know she was beaten, raped, and left for dead. Joe found her and took her to the hospital.”

  Randy gasped. “Good Lord. This just keeps getting more like ‘Deliverance’ every minute.”

  Olive continued, “Joe Webb loved your momma. Loved her since the first time he saw her when we was kids. That’s why his wife left him. Said even dead, Sarah was a ghost she couldn’t fight no more. Anyway, Sarah was stayin’ with us back then, and when she didn’t come home that night, Momma called Joe. He looked for her till mornin’. Finally, found her down by the Branch Bridge. She had crawled up out of the river and was layin’ on the side of the road, half dead.”

  “I found her emergency room record, but nothing after that. Did she know what happened to her?” Molly asked.

  “No, Sarah never remembered a thing after the morning of the day it happened or most of the first days in the hospital. Momma brought her home after a week and nursed her back to health. Joe came by every day. She found out she was pregnant with you. Evan was the only man she’d ever been with, outside of that rape, so she just told herself it was his. He denied it for awhile, then had a change of heart.”

  Mr. Stovall harrumphed, and then added, “He got arrested and thought being a married man would keep him out of prison.”

  Randy perked up. “What was he arrested for?”

  “Sellin’ drugs to some boys at the base,” Olive answered. “Nothin’ ever come of it, though.”

  Randy and Molly exchanged looks. Those kinds of charges only go away if a deal is made, some of them more above board than others. Evan either gave up his supplier or turned informant. The informant angle would certainly explain why the law looked the other way during his continued drug use. It could also be as simple as the right palms received the right amount of greasing.

  Olive continued, “Sarah thought he really wanted to marry her. Thought she could tame him. Followed right in her momma’s footsteps on that one.”

  Molly refocused Olive. “What did she want to know, when she came to see you?”

  “She asked me if I remembered where she was going the day she disappeared. I told her Joe took her to town to apply for a job. She came out and told him she had a ride and he left her. He always hated himself for that.”

  “Where did he leave her?” Leslie asked, now sitting on the edge of her seat.

  “At the courthouse,” Olive said, nodding her head, as if they should all understand the implications.

  Molly sat back against her chair. Mr. Stovall sat up, leaning on his elbows, spinning his coffee cup between his thumbs, in a slow steady circle.

  He watched the coffee twirl in the cup as he spoke. “Molly, I know you want to even the score, but poking around in this is what got your momma
killed, and that’s the facts. It’s what got Amber killed, too. She went to see your momma in the hospital, two days before she died. Told me she had to tell Sarah something. She wanted to do right by her. Amber was an alcoholic and depressed. I reckon she and Sarah had more in common than just Evan Branch.”

  Molly leaned forward, too, her hands folded in front of her, almost touching Stovall’s on the small kitchen table. “Did Amber say what she needed to tell my mother?”

  Mr. Stovall glanced at Olive, who nodded that he should proceed. He cleared his throat.

  “Evan got drunk shortly before he died. He took too many drugs and started rambling about how you weren’t his kid, but he knew whose you were. Said he could do whatever he wanted to Sarah, but he couldn’t touch you ’cause it was part of the deal. She didn’t know anymore about the deal than that, but he did say that your momma had a key that he had to get back. Amber didn’t think nothin’ of it, till Jarvis come around asking if Evan gave her a key. She thought your momma ought to know.”

  The key was in Molly’s pocket. She had it with her since leaving Durham. She weighed her options carefully. If the key was what Jarvis was looking for, she could certainly draw him out by showing her hand. Alternately, she had no idea which one of the three men, working in the courthouse in 1972, was pulling his strings. Molly decided to keep it to herself, for the time being. She had no idea what the key unlocked. Maybe it was where the gold was kept, or maybe the key identified her mother’s attacker. Somehow, she had to find out.

  Molly played a different card. “I’m going to have my mother exhumed. I believe there is forensic evidence that proves she was murdered.”

  Robbie, leaning against the stove, said, “Well, that’ll stir the hive.”

  Olive jumped in. “She sure as hell didn’t get drunk and hang herself on a fence. That woman had not had a drink since the last time she was checked into the hospital. It had been more than three years.”

  “So, you saw her regularly, after she was released from the hospital?”

  Olive nodded. “Yes, I saw her ’bout every Sunday at church. She wasn’t drinking. I know that.”

  Molly asked the question and she hoped Olive knew the answer. “Why would someone kill her?”

  Olive hesitated, as if she should not reveal what she knew.

  Molly fixed her with her eyes. “I’m not leaving Dobbs County until I know who did it and why.”

  Olive smiled. “Your momma used to get that look when she’d had enough.”

  Molly never saw that look on Sarah Harris. All she ever saw was compliance and defeat. Molly was beginning to think she never knew her mother at all.

  Olive drew Molly back to the conversation. “I think she figured out who it was that raped her. I think she was going to tell you when you turned eighteen. She said she owed you the truth.”

  Molly turned to Mr. Stovall. “When I exhume my mother, the person that killed her is going to get very nervous. I think we both know who that is. If you agree to have Amber exhumed, as well, I think he may come unhinged.”

  Mr. Stovall sat back suddenly. “Don’t back that snake in a corner, Molly. He’ll strike back.”

  Molly smiled. “That’s what I’m counting on. I’m filing the order of exhumation with the court on Monday. If you want to add Amber to the order, please just let me know. I’ll cover all the expenses and the examinations will be done in Raleigh, by the Chief Medical Examiner’s office. Whoever is protecting Jarvis won’t be able to reach that far.”

  Mr. Stovall considered Molly’s offer. “I’ll have to talk to my other daughter.”

  “Just call Robbie. She knows how to reach me. Thank you both for talking with me.” Molly stood, signaling the meeting was over. She hugged Olive. “Thank you for being her friend. I know she didn’t have many.”

  A tear rolled down Olive’s cheek, as she looked at Molly. “Sarah was just like you once, strong and independent. She was never the same after that attack. I think it just broke her heart and she gave up. But she fought her way back and I know it’s because she loved you so much. She would have been so proud of you, today.”

  Molly smiled at Olive. “Yes, ma’am. I think she would.”

  #

  Molly was quiet on the way to the path behind Joe’s house. She was putting the pieces of the puzzle together. How did a one hundred and fifty year old gold legend tie into her mother’s rape, and the subsequent murder of both of Evan Branch’s wives? What did Joe stumble on that caused Cheryl’s murder? How was that murder tied into the serial crimes? What did the key open and how did her mother acquire it?

  Randy turned the truck down the path at Leslie’s instructions, creeping through the deep mud filled holes. No car could traverse this path. It would bottom out or be stuck up to its axels in muck. The path was not overgrown. Leslie explained hunters used it, but it was best known as four-wheeling route, as evidenced by the many narrow tracks baked into the mud. Leslie directed Randy to pull over near a bend in the road. They exited the truck and walked to where Leslie guided them.

  She pointed through the trees at the back of a brick home. “That’s Joey’s house.”

  Randy looked around. “You could definitely sneak up from back here and never be seen.”

  “That narrows our search down to people with access to four-wheel-drive trucks,” Molly added.

  “Who doesn’t have access to a truck like that?” Leslie said, sarcastically.

  “Could have been a four wheeler,” Randy said, pointing at more tracks.

  Leslie objected. “No. Joey said it was a truck. He would have known the difference.”

  Molly walked a little closer to the old railroad spur that lay between the path and Joe’s backyard.

  Randy followed. “What are you thinking, Molly?”

  Molly stared through the trees. “The murderer waited until almost time for Joey to return home. He had to know he was cutting it close. The evidence shows he continued to search frantically even after he stabbed her nineteen times.” She turned to face Randy. “I think we’re dealing with desperate men. I’m about to make them much more desperate.”

  She reached in her pocket, retrieving the key. She held it up for them to see. Leslie stepped closer.

  Randy pointed at Molly’s hand. “The old man said something about a key and your mother. Is that what people are looking for and you’ve had it all along?”

  “I didn’t know what I had, until today. I had no idea this was anything but a cheap token my mother gave me. It’s the only thing I have left from that life.”

  Leslie looked at the key closely. “Molly, that’s a safe deposit box key, an old one. My dad has one that belonged to his father. It looks like that.”

  “As a kid, I had no way of knowing that. She just told me to keep it and I did. I haven’t touched it since I was eighteen. Safe deposit box keys don’t look like this now, but I think you might be right.”

  Randy dealt with estate law at the office. He added his expertise. “You have to prove you legally possess that key. You also need to know the name of the person holding the lease on the box.”

  Molly turned the key between her fingers, letting the sun glint off the tarnished brass. “I think this key identifies the man who raped my mother. This is about more than a gold legend. This is a cover up and my mother finally figured it out. That’s why she was killed. Joe was about to figure it out too. That’s why Cheryl was killed.”

  Leslie looked puzzled. “Why did she give you the key?”

  Molly knew the answer to that. “I was leaving and she knew it. The safest place to put that key was in my hands. Maybe at the time, she didn’t know what it meant, but she knew it was important. That last time, when Evan was beating her, he kept asking her where something was. It had to be this key.”

  Randy had a question. “Why wouldn’t she just go to the bank and see what was in the box?”

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. There had to be a reason. We were sure broke enough. If she coul
d have opened that box, she would have. Something kept her from doing that. We find what this key opens and I’ll bet we find out what that was.”

  Leslie looked worried. “Who knows you have that key?”

  “Rainey and you two, but I think that’s going to change rather quickly. The moment I walk in the bank and ask to see the manager, things will become more intense, I would imagine.”

  “How are you going to know which bank, which box?” Randy asked.

  “It’s here. I know it, and I think it’s probably in the oldest bank in town.”

  Leslie nodded and smiled. “Dobbs County’s oldest, your hometown bank.”

  Molly chuckled. “Are they still using that slogan?”

  Randy, feeling left out of the loop, said, “Okay, townies, give.”

  Leslie and Molly turned toward him at the same time, saying, “Waitesville Savings and Loan, where your friends are.”

  #

  They took pictures of the path and headed back to Brad and Tammy’s. They had just pulled onto the pavement, when a city police car’s blue lights lit them up. The car pulled in behind them, siren blaring.

  Leslie looked in the rear view mirror, from her vantage point in the middle of the seat. “Well, this completes the triangle. You’re about to meet Chief Bass himself.”

  Molly said calmly, “Randy, just do what he says, no matter what. I’ll take care of it.”

  Randy flashed her a smile. “Honey, Randy is not going to jail in Podunk, USA.”

  Bass did not go to Randy’s side of the truck. He came to the passenger window, reaching up to rap on it with the knuckles of his left hand. He stepped back from the truck, calling up to Molly.

  “Ma’am, would you mind stepping out of the vehicle?”

  Molly complied, using the step to climb down from the cab. She left the door open, smiling at Leslie and Randy as she stepped down, trying to ease the worry on their faces. She turned to face Wayne Bass. He was in his early sixties, more gray than blond, and was probably good looking once. He focused on Molly behind dark sunglasses, matching his black official uniform.