“We both have husbands whose work intrudes directly into our home lives. Work that often demands discretion. So I know you will understand when I tell you privately that there is a young man jailed for murder in the cellblock next to my apartment as we speak.”
Minnie sometimes assisted her husband with autopsies and so Etha gambled there would be no ladylike gasps. There weren’t.
“But I know he didn’t do it. Yes, the—”
“How do you know?” Minnie interrupted.
Etha paused. “This sounds naive, but he told me he is innocent and I believe him.”
Minnie’s brows rose toward the marcelled waves that began at her part and continued down the side of her head like a corrugated metal roof. “Really?”
“Yes. I am telling you this confidentially, but I had already met the boy on Saturday when I took some food out to the hobo camp near the tracks.”
“On your own? You went to the jungle by yourself?”
“Yes. It was fine. That’s not the point. I know he’s not capable of murder.”
“Far be it for me to criticize anyone for naïveté when I eloped with a man who promised me that after five years doctoring here we’d be able to buy a ranch and live in style. Twenty years later, here we sit. Still, I don’t know how you can be so sure.”
Etha couldn’t explain it. “I’d bet my life on it. But I need to prove it. Temple says the evidence is solid. I understand what might be the murder weapon is here for Hinchie to examine. Some tool that the CCC camp stocks?”
“And you want to see it?”
“Yes!”
Minnie shrugged. “Fine by me.”
She led Etha into the hallway where a door connected directly with the examining room. When she and Minnie got together for coffee, more often than not the door was open and Hinchie had his ear to the chest of some weathered farmer. Today, however, the doctor was making house calls, Minnie explained, and the office was empty.
“Wilburn mentioned something about it, but I didn’t see it myself,” Minnie said, flinging open the doors on a white-enameled cabinet full of various medical instruments. “What are we hunting for?”
“Temple didn’t say exactly.”
The two women searched the exam room, careful to return everything as they had found it, although Minnie dryly observed, “He wouldn’t notice if we tipped the exam table on its head. Not a very observant man except where his patients are concerned. Then he doesn’t miss a pinprick.”
Beyond the exam room was a cramped waiting area and off that, an even smaller consultation office. Hinchie’s desk was awash with piles of papers that spilled over onto two chairs and from there onto the floor. Minnie pounced on a brown parcel atop one.
“This might be it,” she said.
The two women huddled over the desk as Minnie slowly unrolled the wrapping paper. Inside was a wooden shank with a square metal handle attached at one end and a ragged break, where the wood had been snapped off, at the other. The wood was pale yellow except on the jagged tip which was stippled dark brown. Both women recognized the stains. Dried blood. They observed the same whenever their monthlies came around.
“Is this from a hoe?” Minnie asked.
“I’m not sure. I’m going to make a sketch,” Etha said, removing a clean sheet of paper from Hinchie’s typewriter roll.
Through the open window came the sound of an auto drawing up to the curb. Both women froze.
“It’s Hinchie,” Minnie said.
The car door slammed.
Etha quickly drew a rough outline of the handle and stuffed the paper in her pocket. Minnie was rewrapping the parcel as footsteps crossed the porch. Her hands shook. But then Hinchie paused and a moment later the scent of pipe tobacco eddied through the window. Soundlessly, the conspirators hightailed it back through the exam room and into the house. Minnie closed the connecting door with a soft click. They leaned against the wall of the narrow hallway, catching their breath.
Etha said, “Close.”
“But what a thrill!” Minnie whispered.
Ten minutes later Etha started for home. Her face as innocent as a lamb’s, she waved to Hinchie, who was holding the office door open for an elderly patient.
Nearing the courthouse, Etha checked her watch and saw she had ten minutes before she needed to be home. Out front of Mitchem’s Hardware a rack of brooms, a line of galvanized watering cans, and two rolls of asphalt shingles were making a feeble appeal to attract nonexistent passersby in the noonday heat. Etha found Cy Mitchem at the back of the store, scooping nails into paper packets. Cy, at age thirty-one, was a man born into the wrong profession. He had inherited the business from his father, and while eager enough, Cy had no head for numbers. And his ineptitude with tools was common knowledge. The joke around town was that the chicken house he’d hammered together for his wife was so poorly constructed and lopsided that the eggs rolled around like ball bearings. Still, he was invariably cheerful, his favorite saying being, It don’t help none to squawk.
As Etha approached the counter, Cy rapidly shoved the nails aside as if he couldn’t get shut of them fast enough. “Hot one,” he called out, a grin breaking out below his closely cropped mustache, skinned by a razor at one end.
“Sure enough.” Etha pulled off her hat and fanned herself.
Cy came around the counter. “Election’s almost on us.”
“That’s so.” Etha suddenly realized that in her preoccupation with Carmine, she’d forgotten all about the election. What if Doll won the primary before she had time to prove Carmine innocent? That would be a disaster. No longer was she ambivalent. Temple had to win.
Cy was saying, “You don’t have to worry none. Everybody’s voting for Temple. But you know that. So, I got a sale on today. Garden lime five cents a pound, if you’re interested.”
“I certainly would be. That truly sounds like a bargain but we live up on that third floor and don’t have a garden so . . .”
Cy bumped the heel of his palm against his forehead. “What was I thinking? Jeez. So, what’ll it be then?”
From her handbag, Etha pulled out the sketch she’d drawn at Hinchie’s. “I was wondering if you have anything that has a handle similar to this. Maybe a hoe or rake?”
Cy studied the drawing. “Could be,” he said finally. “Sort of seems familiar. Let’s go have a look-see.”
Etha followed him to the back of the store where a line of long-handled tools hung on a pegboard. Glancing at the sketch every couple of seconds, Cy slowly perused his stock.
“Just not seeing anything that . . .” he started to say, shaking his head.
Etha stooped to a lower shelf. “What about this?” she asked, pulling out a shovel.
Cy reared back. “Didn’t know I had those.”
“Sell a lot of them?” Etha asked.
“To be honest, I’m not sure what that particular scoop is for.”
Applying the voice she used to steer a lazy piano student into choosing the most difficult practice piece, Etha said, “Maybe Ruthie-Jo would know?”
Ruthie-Jo was Cy’s wife. She kept the books and tracked the inventory and everyone knew that if you needed help with getting the right-sized nail, she would be the one to ask. But the asking had to be done over the telephone and conveyed through Cy since Ruthie-Jo never left their house.
Cy snapped his fingers. “Yep. I bet she does. I’ll give her a ring.”
“And see if any have been sold recently,” Etha called out as Cy hurried to make the call. “Please,” she added, afraid she had been barking orders.
While she waited, Etha examined the square-handled shovels. There were three and all were dusty. She doubted that they were top sellers. But if even one had been sold, it would indicate that the murderer didn’t necessarily have to be a CCCer. Didn’t have to be Carmine.
After a few minutes Cy returned. “Ruthie-Jo says it’s an entrenching shovel. We got a few in as army surplus.”
“Did she remember how many
came in?”
“Yep. No one keeps a ledger as particular as my Ruthie-Jo. Got . . . let’s see,” Cy said, squinting at his notes on a scrap of wrapping paper. “Got five in a year ago. Sold one right off the bat and then not another until this past Friday.”
Etha’s heart lurched. Friday, the day before the murder! It could very well have been bought by the killer. A killer who had access to an army shovel that came from someplace other than Camp Briscoe.
“Who bought it?”
Cy frowned. “Ruthie-Jo didn’t made a note of that. ’Course, she doesn’t work the counter. I must have sold it but I can’t remember . . . No, wait. I wasn’t here Friday afternoon. It must have been then. Had a nasty toothache so I got the Clanton boy, you know the Clantons? Got him to watch the store.”
Shoot, Etha thought. No time left today to track Jimmy Clanton down. She had four piano pupils in a row starting, she glanced at her watch, in three minutes. Then she became aware of Cy’s eager eyes.
“So, did you want to buy one?”
“What? Oh, no,” she said. But then, touched with guilt, she added, “But I could use a couple dozen laundry pegs.”
“Sure do got those!”
* * *
Hurrying to the courthouse with her superfluous purchase, Etha knew she didn’t have enough evidence to present to Temple yet. But it was a start. The rest of the day whizzed by and she didn’t have a chance to update Carmine on her progress with anything more than a whispered, “I’m working on it,” as she passed him a dinner of navy bean soup, cornbread, milk, and two slices of pie.
That night, after washing up the dishes, she and Temple settled into the living room. During the New York Symphony Hour, Etha planned her next moves. Talk to the Clanton kid for sure. Maybe call on Mr. Hodge to see if, by chance, he was home and not at the office during the storm. Then her mind turned to Carmine, who was surely feeling blue, what with being on his lonesome over in the cellblock.
Abruptly, Etha said, “I think I’ll bring Carmine that book I got from the library. It might take his mind off things.” She shoved the yarn back into her work basket.
Temple uncrossed his legs. “Hold your horses. That’s not a good idea. These young fellows riding the boxcars, joining up in the CCC, idling around city street corners—some have come up rough.”
“But Carmine’s not like—”
“Let me finish,” Temple said. “They’re unemployed and hungry. They learn to sweet talk to get what they want. Don’t you remember that rash of scams over in Enid with that slick salesman peddling monthly sheet-music subscriptions door to door?”
“I’m not stupid, you know.”
Temple held up his hands. “Didn’t say that. But all those women got for their dime was a single piece of music as ancient as the hills. I’m just making sure you don’t get suckered in by this kid who, I will remind you again, killed a man.” Putting the newspaper aside, he clicked off the radio.
“I disagree,” Etha said. Her chin rose.
“I know. But the price might be high if you’re wrong on this one.”
Temple passed down the hall and into the bathroom from where, in short order, came the brisk burr of his toothbrush. Etha wanted to tell him how certain she was Carmine didn’t kill anyone, but that would mean revealing she’d met the boy at the hobo camp. So, instead, she clicked off the living room lamps. A wave of fatigue spread across her shoulders. In bed, she sank gratefully into the mattress. But despite exhaustion, sleep wouldn’t come. Beside her, Temple seemed restless too.
She said, “It would be a help if you could move him into the kitchen cell.”
His response was a grunt.
“My arms are sore from carrying those trays.”
A deep sigh. “Then I’ll have Ed carry them. I’m not moving the prisoner. Now get some sleep.”
He kissed her gently on the cheek, then rolled onto his side and within minutes was snoring gently—his breath rising and falling in small chuffs. If only it would rain, Etha thought. She longed for the comforting splatter against the bedroom windows, the steady thrum on the gabled roof. In the streets beyond, the dust lay silent, but Etha, her ears as wide as funnels, listened and prayed.
Chapter fifteen
“Grazing on dirt,” McGreevy the auctioneer announced, clucking his tongue as he pried open the mouth of Jess Fuller’s best heifer. The animal tossed her head in protest, but McGreevy managed to prize her mouth open enough to reveal teeth ground down to the gums. “Bet her stomach’s full of it too.” He pressed his hands against the heifer’s slack hide.
“What’d you expect?” asked Jess, who was holding the guide rope. “Every cow left standing in the county is just as pitiful. Where have you been, man?”
The foreclosure auction on the Fullers’ farm, cancelled once because of the Brown Blizzard, as it was now being called in newspapers across the country, and again because of some bungled paperwork, had been rescheduled for this day, Thursday, at noon. And Jess was prickly as hell.
McGreevy shrugged. “Maybe get twenty dollars for her.”
Jess wouldn’t be seeing any of the profit. Why did he care what the heifer sold for? Still, he was deeply insulted. He’d birthed this heifer and five others. When they’d gotten scrapes from barbed wire, he’d rubbed ointment on the cuts. He’d trimmed and scrubbed their hooves. And since the dusters started blowing in, he’d applied wet rags to their lashes when dust and tears glued their eyes shut. A low bid would be a slap in the face. It was the same as saying, You don’t know your stuff, when none of this had anything to do with animal husbandry and everything to do with the drought. With the rainmaker’s death, Jess’s last hope had been killed off too. Only anger was left.
For another hour, he led McGreevy around the homestead as the auctioneer made notes on a clipboard. In the machine shed, Jess confessed that the patch he’d applied to the wagon hitch hadn’t held so good. And after he mended the tractor’s crankcase it still leaked some. Might as well bend over and show everyone the hole in the crotch of my overalls, he thought.
Finally, Darnell the banker pulled up the drive in his Ford and McGreevy trotted off to report on the auction’s sorry forecast. Jess hunkered down on the splitting block, casting his eyes over the barn and house with their cluster of outbuildings. Above him, the windmill’s blades turned sluggishly.
His brooding was broken by a rise of dust delineating the road. A stretch of trucks came into view. Farmers from the surrounding homesteads, some who Jess knew, were arriving to pick over the Fullers’ meager belongings. A few would hang their heads, embarrassed, as he had done himself not so long ago. But others would be as bold as brass, as if they, too, weren’t a step away—a failed well or another dry month—from the same. Jess stood, stretched his legs, and walked toward the gathering crowd.
Behind him, a screen door slapped. Two women from First Methodist, with pitchers, bedding, and bookends clutched to their bosoms, advanced across the lawn with Hazel. They kneeled under the cottonwood, adding their burdens to the household goods already spread on display. Earlier, Hazel had painfully culled the can-do-withouts from the necessities. The essentials—mattresses, cookpots, and Gram’s hope chest—were already strapped to the swayback truck. After the auction, they’d squeeze in and drive east to her folks.
“Now Hazel, you gotta keep your washboard,” Mrs. Rayburn said.
“Mother’s got a wringer washer. Electric.”
“Well then.”
Hazel smiled inwardly. Oh, happy day to be shut of this place. She’d been counting down the hours since last week. No more sweat poured into cleaning the house, feeding the hogs, tilling the fields, all to have it blow back in her face. She surveyed the hodgepodge of bedsheets, horsehair chairs, and young Fred’s iron bedstead, laid out in the open air.
Mrs. Rayburn pulled a hankie from her sleeve and handed it to Hazel. “But surely not your oak sideboard! You saved up egg money for a year to buy it. It’s your pride and joy.”
�
��It’s hard to part with, I’ll admit, but it will bring a good price and we get to keep the money from the household goods. It’s the first thing people notice when they visit. Everyone comments on it. I figure maybe eighty dollars.”
The farmyard was filling up with bidders and lookie-loos—farmers in mended overalls and wives in sagging sweaters. A stranger stopped to scrutinize the dishes. The ones with the daisy pattern. Hazel had fed her family three times a day on that china, had memorized every petal on every flower as she washed, dried, and stacked. And now they were nothing more than secondhand plates to some stranger, wiped clean of meaning.
Hazel’s eyes welled again and she pushed past the church women. Leaning against the back porch railing, she had a good cry. After a while she gathered herself and blew her nose into Mrs. Rayburn’s hankie. There was the muffled crunch of boots on gravel. The sheriff strode toward her from the direction of the barn. Hazel’s spirits lifted. She trusted Temple, no matter what Jess said. She knew it wasn’t his fault they were losing the farm. He was a fair man caught up, as they all were, in the swirling haboob that was the Depression and the drought.
Temple pulled off his hat. “Afternoon.”
Smiling, Hazel dabbed at her nose. “It’s a warm one. Can I get you some water? I think I’ve packed all the glasses, but I’m sure I could scare up a canning jar.”
Temple chuckled. “Naw, but thanks. Sorry about this.” He glanced over his shoulder at twenty or so farmers who had convened around one of their number, listening intently as the man spoke.
Hazel shrugged. “You know how I feel, but it’s still upsetting. All we worked for . . .” A pained expression crossed Temple’s face. Hazel saw she was making him uncomfortable. “But I can’t tell you how much I need to set my feet on the homeplace back east.”
Death of a Rainmaker Page 16