by Donis Casey
Dillon looked skeptical as he listened to the recounting of events. “Nobody drew a knife?”
There was an instant of silence as everyone at the table digested his question.
He has spoken to someone who has made out Matt Carrizal to be at fault, Alafair thought. She was unwilling to let that impression stand. “That was Mr. Gillander,” she offered. Both Cindy and Elizabeth gasped as Alafair continued. “Somebody made a joke that one of the Arruda boys took poorly, and I reckon the old man thought there might be an altercation. He reached for a boot knife. But he didn’t even get it all the way drawn before the whole business blew over.”
“Who made this joke?”
Alafair glanced at Elizabeth and said nothing.
“Who made this joke?” Dillon repeated.
“It was me,” Web admitted. His face was red with embarrassment
“If you were better acquainted with my husband, Marshal, you would not take any ill meaning from his poorly timed jest.” Elizabeth’s tone was more exasperated than reluctant.
Uncivil Words
Dillon gave them all an introspective once-over. “And nobody remembers seeing Matt Carrizal take Arruda aside and exchange uncivil words right before he left?”
“Who said he did such a thing?” Elizabeth demanded, but Dillon did not spare her a look.
Shaw straightened. “Matt Carrizal and the Arrudas did converse for a spell. I didn’t hear what was said but it all looked right civil to me. If you mean what I think you mean, somebody other than Matt Carrizal exchanged heated words with Arruda, and as far as scrapes go, it was not much of a one.”
“Tell me about it, Mr. Tucker.” Dillon was cool.
Shaw hesitated. “Well, I hate to say, but it was Geoff Stewart. He came late, as you know, so most folks were already here when he showed up. He seemed tired-like to me and not in the best mood, I figured from working late. But he did stop to talk a spell with Levi Gillander. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about but whatever it was like to put Stewart out, and he didn’t have much to say to anybody after that. He stayed maybe another half-hour before he decided he would leave. He passed right in front of the band on his way out, and I saw him exchange a word with one of the boys. I didn’t know one from the other so maybe it was Bernie he spoke to and maybe not, but from the way they were carrying on, the talk they were having was not a pleasant one. Didn’t last but a minute before Stewart stomped off. I thought he went home, ’cause he headed across toward his own back door. Nobody came to blows that I saw, though. Is that the scrape you are talking about?” Shaw was gazing narrowly at the marshal as though still not convinced this was the incident in question.
Dillon’s answer was a question. “That’s all you saw?”
As far as Alafair was concerned this put a whole new spin on the situation. “From what I’m hearing, you had best be looking at Mr. Gillander rather than Geoff. He sounds like a rabble-rouser. He was going on like ninety about how everybody of Mexican blood who lives in Arizona is going to revolt and they’re spies and all. More than likely it is that comment that put Bernie out of sorts rather than Webster’s poor joke or Geoff’s tempersome remarks.”
“Alafair!” Elizabeth sounded shocked.
Dillon was scratching away in his notebook. “I don’t know this Gillander. What is his first name?”
Elizabeth cast a worried glance toward Cindy before she said, “Duncan.”
“How do y’all know him, Miz Kemp? Is he one of your neighbors?”
This time it was Cindy who answered. “He is my father, Marshal.”
Alafair nearly fell out of her seat, but the marshal was not fazed. “Are you of the opinion that your father has a particular problem with Mexicans, Miz Stewart?”
“Now, wait just a blamed minute, Marshal.” Elizabeth’s tone was sharp. “I have known Mr. Gillander for years. I admit that Webster has been known to speak before he thinks, though he never means ill. Mr. Gillander is a blowhard, and Geoff has a big mouth—forgive me, Cindy, but it’s true—but that don’t mean any of them is a killer. ”
“I’m not calling anybody a killer.” Dillon’s tone was mild. “Miz Kemp, I’ll require that you relate to me when each of your guests left, to the best of your ability. Let’s start with Mr. Gillander.”
Elizabeth’s expression was mutinous. But she answered the question. “He left just about dark like most folks did. My Carrizal neighbors and Cindy’s brother Levi stayed on for an hour or so to help Shaw and Web tote chairs and tables back into the storage shed and clean up the yard.”
Dillon nodded and wrote, then handed Elizabeth his notebook. “Now, Miz Kemp, take a minute and write down a list of everybody you can remember who was here that night.” He turned to Cindy. “While she is doing that, do you mind if I have a peek inside your house, Miz Stewart?”
Cindy looked as though she was going to faint. Her mouth worked but no words came out.
Elizabeth took Cindy’s hand. “Wait, Cindy. Geoff is a lawyer, Marshal. I do not expect he would much appreciate you rummaging through his house without his permission, especially if you do not have a warrant.”
“I know Geoff well enough to second my wife’s opinion,” Web added. “I expect a warrant is necessary in any event, Marshal.”
Alafair and Shaw followed the exchange, heads swiveling as though they were at a tennis match.
“Miz Stewart’s permission is all I need.”
Cindy’s words finally burst forth. “Oh, I cannot, Marshal, not without Geoff says it’s all right. You will have to ask Geoff.”
Dillon’s glare suggested that he would happily throttle both Elizabeth and Webster, but he maintained his professional civility. “All right, then, I will be back later with a warrant. While I’m at it, Miz Kemp, I will have the judge issue a search warrant for your house as well.”
Elizabeth did not look up from the list she was making. “Be my guest. I have nothing to hide.”
Web had been listening with calm interest, his hands folded comfortably over his stomach. “Marshal, I have a question. I’ve been wondering why a marshal is investigating this murder and not a sheriff’s deputy. Is there some reason the federal government should be involved in a local case?”
Dillon’s reply was mild. “I’m just helping out. Sheriff Adams has had his hands full lately.” Without further elaboration, he stood and put his hat on. “I will wish y’all a good day.”
“Hang on, Marshal.” Dillon paused when Shaw spoke. “Can you tell us at least if Dr. Moeur has given his opinion on what sort of instrument was used to do murder?”
“I can tell you the doc thinks that it was something broad and smooth. Not uneven like a rock, nor narrow, like a fireplace poker or cane.”
Shaw nodded. “Metal, does he think, or wood? Maybe a brick?”
The marshal’s cheek twitched, whether in amusement or annoyance was hard to tell. “I reckon that’s all I aim to tell you right now.”
After Dillon’s broad back disappeared around the corner of the house, Elizabeth gave Shaw a curious look. “You have an idea what he may be looking for, murder-weapon-wise?”
“Sounds like Bernie’s head was stove in by something like a club.” Shaw leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Or a baseball bat.”
“Oh, mercy,” Alafair groaned. “There were bats galore abroad that night.”
Baseball
Someone had brought out a baseball bat as the evening progressed, which prompted a neighbor to produce a baseball. A rock, a burlap bag, a palm leaf served as bases one, two and three, while squarely in the middle of Willow Street a newspaper held down by a handful of pebbles served as home base. Elizabeth found a couple more bats in her storage shed and Cindy sent Artie Carrizal to her house to retrieve Geoff’s bat and glove from a bedroom closet. A few more balls of various sizes and conditions eventually appeared. Team makeup was fluid. Groups of players coalesced, dissolved, reformed. At one point there were nine people in the ou
tfield and two shortstops, but no one seemed to mind. At first, most of the players were boys, but that did not last long. Cap Irish joined in as catcher almost immediately, followed shortly by several other men, then a number of girls. Blanche begged to be allowed to play, but Alafair’s refusal was adamant, so Blanche ended up as the equipment manager and sometime umpire for the evening.
A few women took their turns at bat, including Alafair, who hit a double when her ball got lost for a time in a honeysuckle hedge in right field. She was put out at third, but Shaw managed a home run during one of his at-bats. He scooped up Chase on third as he went around and carried him across home base under his arm for a score of two.
Alafair was mildly concerned that runners had to leap a narrow irrigation ditch to get from second to third, but even the smallest players were unhindered by the jump. In fact, it seemed to add an extra degree of interest to the game.
Levi Gillander had a particularly colorful style at home plate which involved three taps on the base, several hip rotations leading to an aggressive crouch, followed by a couple of whiffs and a high choke on the bat.
Artie Carrizal had been the pitcher for the evening. He had a good arm, Alafair thought, able to deliver a scorcher across the plate for a grown-up, or toss a softy to a six-year-old that seemed to float in the air until the youngster figured out how to lay his bat on it.
The game went on until it was too dark to see the ball, and families began to take their leave. Levi Gillander, Matt Carrizal, and several of the children went around to pick up balls, bats, and bases and either return them to their owners or stow them in the Kemps’ shed to be claimed later. Web and Shaw went to the front of the house to bid farewell to the guests and see that everyone got to their vehicles. Artie Carrizal and his father began gathering up chairs and tables while Elizabeth and Cindy were having a quiet word with the musicians as they packed up their instruments. Alafair saw Web, Matt, and two or three other people hand one of the players coins or small envelopes. The evening’s gratuity, she expected. Alafair and the Carrizal women began to help clear the leftovers and bedraggled decorations from the makeshift buffet under the grape arbor, and eventually Elizabeth joined them. As they walked past on their way to their horse-drawn cart, Alafair noticed that there were only two Arruda brothers now instead of three. It had not meant much to her at the time.
She Has Her Rights
“I could bite my tongue off, Cindy! If I had known Mr. Gillander was your daddy, I would have never opened my big mouth.” Alafair gripped Cindy’s hands in her own as she apologized. “My aim was to get the marshal to consider that there are others besides Geoff who bear looking at.”
“Oh, it’s all right, Miz Tucker. How could you know? Elizabeth is right. Father is a blowhard and always getting himself into trouble with his injudicious remarks. Even so, Geoff is going to kill me when he finds out the marshal is getting a warrant to search the house.”
“It’s not your fault, Cindy,” Web told her. “Dillon will end up getting warrants to search the houses of nigh to everybody who was here that night anyway.”
“Now, you look just about done in,” Elizabeth interjected. “Why don’t you go home and have a lie-down? I’ll come over later and see how you’re doing.”
Web stood and offered Cindy his arm. “I’ll escort you.”
Cindy was relieved to be dismissed. Elizabeth, Alafair, and Shaw watched in silence until she and Web crossed through the back gate. The second they were out of earshot Alafair rounded on her sister.“Why did you tell her not to let Dillon search her house?”
Elizabeth crossed her arms and settled back in her seat. “I was trying to save her some trouble, sister. I know Geoff. If she had allowed Dillon to poke through the house without him knowing about it beforehand there would have been the devil to pay. Besides, I don’t like to see Dillon taking advantage of her like that. She has her rights, even if she is too innocent to know it.”
“Now he’s likely suspicious that she is hiding something,” Shaw observed.
“I doubt it.” Elizabeth shook her head. “Now he likely thinks Cindy is weak as dishwater and I’m a big old interferer. And you know what? If he had hunted though her house without a warrant and found something that incriminated Geoff, he would not have been able to use it as evidence in a court of law anyway. This way anything he finds is fair game for the prosecution. Dillon knows it, too. You notice how he was interested in Matt Carrizal, who may have a Spanish name but is the most unlikely person in the world to kill somebody. Dillon just don’t want a prominent white lawyer to be the killer.”
Shaw was surprised. “You think Geoff did it.”
A rueful smile passed over Elizabeth’s face. “No, I don’t, really. More’s the pity.”
“You really do not care for Geoff Stewart.” Alafair stated the obvious.
Elizabeth neither confirmed or denied. “We had better fetch the children back and get this food cleared away before we draw flies.”
The Search
Early the next morning, Dillon showed up at Elizabeth’s door with a search warrant and three deputies.
Shaw had gone into town, but Cindy had returned to Elizabeth’s house not long after sunup, dressed in a voluminous smock, rumpled and floury after making cookies to bring for a morning snack. Artie Carrizal was there, as well, having obtained his mother’s permission to skip school this once and spend the day with his ailing new friend. When Dillon’s crew showed up, Elizabeth and Alafair calmly ushered Cindy and the children onto the front porch. The females sat sipping tea while the boys pressed their noses against the outside of the windows, watching enthralled as the lawmen methodically opened every drawer and cabinet and poked into every corner of the house.
After the men finished with the house they moved on to the yard and the outbuildings. As one of the deputies walked toward the hen house, Elizabeth called to him. “While you’re searching the nest boxes, Mister, be a dear and gather today’s eggs for me, would you?”
The fellow tipped his hat, amused at her brass, before he disappeared around the corner. Artie and Chase trotted after the deputy, barely acknowledging Alafair’s warning to stay out of the searchers’ way. Blanche followed the boys at a more demure pace.
Cindy was hardly as sanguine about the turn of events as her friend. “Aren’t you afraid that they will find something incriminating, Elizabeth? If Dillon takes a notion, he could make something out of nothing and you’d be in a world of trouble.”
Elizabeth pooh-poohed the idea. “There is nothing to find, Cindy, as Dillon well knows.”
Alafair wondered at Elizabeth’s untroubled demeanor. “I hope you’re right.”
Elizabeth’s eyes crinkled mischievously, which made Alafair’s widen with amazement. Elizabeth was enjoying herself!
As the thought crossed her mind, a deputy walked across the yard with a baseball bat in either hand, and Cindy emitted a squeak of dismay. “Oh, Elizabeth!”
Elizabeth shared an exasperated glance with Alafair. “Cindy, for goodness sake. Those are the bats we always keep in the shed. Everybody in town owns bats. Before they’re through hunting for the murder weapon, they’ll confiscate a dozen bats and clubs and chair legs from every house and shed they search.”
“I expect they’ll look at them all for traces of blood or hair,” Alafair explained.
“What if one of those bats is the one? What if the killer stashed it in your shed!”
Elizabeth laughed. “Ooh. What if Web did it? Wouldn’t that be something?”
“Now, Elizabeth,” Alafair scolded, “there’s no need to be so flip. A life has ended, after all.”
Elizabeth sat back in her chair. “You are right, sister. I regret teasing you so, Cindy, but your imagination is overwrought. They will not find the murder weapon, not here, probably not anywhere. Dillon has been dithering about, threatening all and sundry with search warrants. Unless the killer is stupid beyond human understanding, he got rid of the weapon long ago.”
/> Elizabeth’s logic seemed to calm Cindy, and she even smiled. Dillon came back into the front yard trailing the children a few yards behind him, and stopped at the foot of the porch.
“I assume you have what you came for,” Elizabeth said.
Dillon took a folded paper out of his coat pocket. “Here’s a receipt for everything we confiscated for testing, Miz Kemp. I’ll let you know when and if you can reclaim your property.” Elizabeth leaned forward and reached across the porch wall to take the list out of the marshal’s hand. Dillon withdrew a second paper and turned to Cindy. “And now, Miz Stewart, we are ready to move on to your property.”
Seated on either side of her, Alafair and Elizabeth each grabbed one of Cindy’s arms to keep her from falling out of her chair. Her reaction seemed to give Dillon some satisfaction.
“We’ll just stay right here, Marshal.” Elizabeth’s tone was brittle. “You let us know when you’re done so we can clean up the mess.”
Dillon turned on his heel and was just walking through the front gate when Elizabeth said, “I’d like to smack that smirk right off his face.”
“What shall I do?” Cindy managed. Her voice shook.
“You shall do nothing,” Elizabeth informed her. “You have nothing to feel guilty about.”
They were distracted by the appearance of Dillon’s deputy coming around the side of the house holding his hat in both hands. “Here you go, Miz Kemp.” He held the hat out so the women could see the half-dozen eggs cradled in the crown of his fedora.
“Well, now,” Alafair said. “I reckon we should bake a cake.”
***
The house was in surprisingly good shape, Alafair thought, considering that several men had been rearranging things. Alafair and Elizabeth, with the help of the children, cleaned and mopped and put furniture and clothing back in order. Since she was already flour-dusted, Cindy set to baking a cake and preparing dinner, a task labor-intensive enough to keep her mind occupied while Dillon’s troops pawed through her belongings.