by Gayle Wilson
“I expect that’s ’cause you ain’t never been beaten.”
Delores was right. It was easy to make that kind of judgment when you didn’t know the situation. Or the pain.
“Is she still alive?”
“Miz Comstock? Lord, she died…What, Miz Ruth? Half a dozen years ago, I reckon. Flu or somethin’. Worked her to death more likely. Ain’t that right, Miz Ruth?”
“I don’t keep up with the likes of the Comstocks, Delores.”
In spite of her innate kindness, an occasional touch of the arrogance bred long ago among the plantation houses of St. Francisville came out of her grandmother’s mouth. Of course, Ruth Mitchell didn’t associate with people like the Comstocks. Either old woman would have felt justified in using the phrase poor, white trash to describe them. It was probably apt.
“He is, though,” Delores went on, ignoring her mistress’s correction. “Last time I heard.”
“Sarah’s father?”
“Still out in that same little old shacklety house.”
The Comstock place was separated from “downtown” Crenshaw by a deep woods and the stream that bisected Smoke Hollow. One of the theories Blythe had read was that Sarah’s killer had passed by the house on his way back to town. Perhaps he’d looked into the uncurtained windows, it had been speculated, and had seen the two little girls sleeping together. No one had been able to figure out how he’d gotten in and grabbed Sarah, however, without waking her sister.
“Did you know Sarah’s grandmother?”
“Eula Wright.” It was Ruth who answered this question. “A fine Christian woman. Younger than me, but I knew her.”
“Was she close to Sarah?”
Ruth shook her head. “Doubt it. Knowing her daddy. Eula didn’t want her daughter to marry him, of course, but she’d got in a family way. Didn’t have no choice. Not back then. Abel kept Audra away from her family as much as he could. I don’t know about the children. I expect they would have needed a grandmother’s love. Poor as church mice. The whole bunch of the Comstocks. Always was.”
“But there must be some connection to that house.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d given too much away. No matter their age, these two were too sharp not to pick up on the implications of that.
“Why would you say that, Miz Blythe?”
Because something—or someone—tapped on its windows late at night, demanding admittance. And because while we lived there, my daughter dreamed about things that made her scream in terror.
“I guess because I was so drawn to that little girl.”
“Any woman would be. Any mother, leastways,” Ruth said.
“I think it’s more than that.”
“You got you a little girl, Miz Blythe. You gotta feel for that other baby. And for her mama.”
“Is that why you’re planning to write a book about her murder?” her grandmother asked.
“What?”
“Ada said you were planning to write about Sarah’s murder.”
“Ada told you that? When?”
A more important question, Blythe realized belatedly, was where. If Ada had been telling that story all over town—
“Women’s Aid Society, I think. ’Course, my memory ain’t as good as it used to be.”
“I believe it was,” Delores said. “I’d cooked a roast for the night you came home and told me. That was on Tuesday.”
“And she said that in front of all those people?”
“Emma Spencer said you was going through all the official files on the murder. Said Cade had given you permission.”
Blythe didn’t believe Cade had shared that information, but he hadn’t been the only person in the office that day. “Is Emma Spencer’s son named Jerrod, by any chance?”
“That’s him. He works at the sheriff’s department. I don’t think he’s a deputy, but he’s in training or something.”
There had to be some link between these seemingly unrelated events. Between Sarah’s murder and their living in her grandmother’s house. Between the unexplained noises they’d heard there and Maddie’s night terrors. Between Ada’s gossip…
And the fire? My God, was it possible that—
“There was somebody out there tonight,” Blythe said softly.
She needed to talk to someone about what she was thinking. Whatever she said would sound insane. Of all the people in the world, these two would be the least likely to believe she was.
“Somebody?” her grandmother repeated sharply.
“Standing out at the edge of the woods. When I dropped Maddie off the roof, I sent her there to get her away from the fire. When I looked out there, I saw him.”
She had done it again. Called the figure she’d seen a “him.” Despite what she’d told Cade, there must be some subconscious justification for that. Size. Shape. Something.
“At the back of the property?” Delores asked.
Blythe nodded, turning to look at her.
“You got any idea who it was?”
“It was just…a figure. A shape. But…if Ada’s been telling people I’m going to write a book about the Comstock murder or suggesting that I’m trying to investigate it—”
She should have remembered how things worked here. Anything out of the ordinary in this sleepy little community occasioned excitement. And gossip.
“Isn’t that what you told her?” her grandmother asked.
“No. Of course not. I mentioned the previous articles I’d written. And that I’d like to do others.”
Ada was the one who had brought up Sarah’s murder. She was the one who had said how interested in cold cases people were and how much money Blythe could make. From there it had probably taken only a small leap of the imagination for Ada to decide that Blythe was going to write about it. And then she’d simply added fuel to the fire by her visit to the sheriff.
“You had to have mentioned that murder, Blythe Mitchell. I’ve known Ada Pringle all her life. She has characteristics I can’t admire, bless her heart, but she’s not a liar.”
“She mentioned it. She took those volumes of the Herald off the shelf and found the articles about Sarah. I admit I read them, but…” Blythe shook her head at how out of control this had gotten. “How that ever came to this…”
“Are you suggesting that what Ada’s been saying has a connection to what happened tonight? To the fire? That’s…Lord, I don’t know what it is. Pure craziness, honey. This isn’t New York or Boston or Atlanta. Things like that don’t happen here.”
“Sarah Comstock’s murder happened here. And her murderer has never been caught. If he were told I intend to write a book about the case—”
“He must have thought you were gonna solve it and send him to jail? Is that it?” Her grandmother seldom resorted to sarcasm, but that comment had been heavy with it.
Given the constraints placed on her generation, the idea of a woman pursuing a murderer probably was ridiculous. In all honesty, it had never crossed Blythe’s mind. The murderer—thanks to town gossip—would have had no way of knowing that.
“If he thought my writing about it would attract attention to the case, he might. Cade Jackson strikes me as someone who would be interested in any unsolved case in his jurisdiction.”
That was fact, not supposition. Cade himself had told her he’d read the files of all the unsolved cases.
“And just how were you gonna find any new information on that little girl’s murder? Thumbing through some old issues of the Herald? Or reading stuff in a twenty-five-year-old file the best sheriff this county ever had couldn’t use to catch Sarah’s killer?”
Blythe took a breath, acknowledging how far afield from the reality of what she’d set out to do this had come. “I wasn’t trying to discover new information. I was simply following Ada’s suggestion and reading about a crime I barely remembered.” There was no point in mentioning her fascination with what she had read that day.
“Then why in the wor
ld would you think Ada running her mouth would incite somebody to burn down your house?”
“’Cause Miz Ada let on there was more to it than that, didn’t she?” Delores’s quiet question made Ruth’s head swing toward her. “It ain’t important what Miz Blythe meant to do. What’s important is what somebody thought she was doing.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Ruth said again, “That’s pure craziness.”
“So is somebody standing in the woods watching my house burn. Even Cade said that didn’t make sense. Not around here.”
“Cade Jackson’s opinion notwithstanding,” her grandmother said, “we got plenty of folks around here with that much meanness in ’em.”
“Miz Ruth, do you mean to say that you think there’s somebody in this town wicked enough to set a house on fire with a woman and a baby inside and then stand there an’ watch it burn?” Delores demanded.
With the time of night at which the fire occurred and the distance of the house from the volunteer fire department’s nearest station, there could have been only one intent for such an action.
“We already know that there’s someone in this town wicked enough to brutalize and kill a child,” Blythe reminded them softly. “And as far as anyone knows, that person is still living right here among us.”
9
B lythe had been surprised to learn from her grandmother that Dr. Etheridge was still practicing. He’d seemed old to her when she was a child. Of course, almost everyone had back then.
At least he hadn’t moved his office, she thought as she pulled into the tree-shaded drive. Dwight Etheridge had always seen patients in the same office where his father and his grandfather had seen theirs—inside the family home.
She got out of the car and slammed the door, the sound echoing along the quiet residential street. An elderly couple, bundled up against the cold, sat in the porch swing of the house across the street. Although she couldn’t come up with the name that went with their almost-recognizable faces, she lifted her hand to wave at them. Both waved back.
“Glad you’re home,” the woman called.
“Thank you.” Blythe almost added, as she had so many times in the last two months, that she was glad to be back. After last night, she was no longer sure that was the case.
Keeping her hand on the car for support, she limped up the drive. Her ankle seemed to have stiffened again, but that was hardly unusual for any injury, even a minor one.
Just don’t let it be broken. Please don’t let it be broken.
For some reason, the dread of wearing a cast while dealing with salvaging things from the house, talking to her landlord’s insurance agent, and with the responsibility of replacing the items of daily living she and Maddie would have to have seemed overwhelming. Rationally, she knew her anxiety was not so much about the injury, but the result of an accumulation of stresses from the last few days.
Still, she felt that if Doc told her the ankle was broken, it would be the last straw. She would find a hole to crawl into and pull it in over her head.
She rang the bell next to the door on what had always been the “professional” side of the huge Victorian and waited. After more than a minute, she rang it again.
“You got to go to the other door, dear.”
Blythe turned to find the female half of the couple across the street at the end of the Etheridge driveway. “I’m sorry?”
“Dwight don’t keep office hours. You have to call ahead. Or ring the other bell. The one on the house side.”
“My grandmother told me he was still practicing.” Blythe limped to the edge of the porch to lessen the need to shout.
“He is. He’ll see you. Just ring the other bell.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, dear. Give Ruth my best now, you hear.”
Blythe nodded and waved again. The woman turned, hurrying across the street to rejoin her husband. When she had, both of them resumed watching Blythe’s every move.
So much for HIPAA, she thought as she turned and limped over to the other door. She rang its bell, listening to the melodic chime echo inside. She hadn’t had time to turn to politely contemplate the street before the door was opened. She stepped back to allow the screen to be pushed outward by the man who had tended every bump and bruise and fever she’d experienced throughout her childhood and adolescence.
“Blythe? Blythe Mitchell? As I live and breathe. Heard you were home, but I never expected you to come visiting.”
“Hello, Dr. Etheridge. I’m home.”
“Well, don’t stand out there in the cold, girl. We’ll both catch our deaths.”
As he stepped aside to let her pass, he, too, waved to the couple across the street. Once Blythe was inside, he closed the door, shutting off what little light there’d been in the foyer.
“Can’t say the cold hurts them none,” the old man said, turning to walk toward the formal room on the left of the hallway. “Those old bats are determined to live forever just so’s they don’t miss nobody coming or going on the street.”
“They told me you still see patients.”
He turned at that, looking her up and down. “They were right, but you don’t look sick to me. You look just fine, if you’ll pardon an old man’s admiration.”
“I sprained my ankle. At least I think it’s a sprain. I don’t believe anything’s broken.”
“You got a broken bone, Blythe, you need to go to County.”
There was only one hospital in the area, which served all of Davis County and much of the populace of the surrounding counties. There had been quite a controversy when it had been built in the nearby community of Dawsonville, rather than here in the county seat.
“It’s not broken,” Blythe said. “I know it isn’t. But I promised the paramedic I’d have it checked out.”
“Paramedic?”
“It was an accident.”
“You didn’t have a wreck, did you?”
“Not that kind of accident”
The shrewd brown eyes held on hers for several seconds. When she didn’t elaborate, the old man nodded. “Let’s go see what we got.”
He headed toward the other side of the house, an area Blythe had visited dozens of times during her childhood. When he opened the door to the examination room, everything was exactly the same as it had been then. Even the prints on the wall were unchanged.
“You know the drill. Get up on the table so I can look at it.” The old man walked over to the sink to scrub his hands.
Blythe pulled out the metal step, settling on the end of the paper-covered examination table. Her eyes drifted around the room, taking in the objects she’d always used to distract herself from whatever unpleasant procedure she was here for.
“Let’s see what we got,” Doc said again. He bent, picking up her foot to remove her shoe and sock.
The ankle he revealed was swollen and slightly discolored on one side, but Blythe still couldn’t believe it was broken. Surely she would be unable to walk on it if it were.
“What kind of accident?”
The doctor didn’t look at her this time. His hands, their fingers gnarled by arthritis, gently manipulated her foot, taking the joint through its full range of motion. When he turned it to the right, she sucked in a breath at the jolt of pain.
His eyes lifted, examining her face. “You fall?”
“Actually…I jumped off the roof.”
“Bored?” Although he was again working the joint, the teasing note was clear.
She laughed. “Not at the time. My house was on fire.”
His eyes came up again, quickly this time. “You don’t say? Leave the stove on?”
“No.”
“Your girl?”
“She’s four. She’s precocious, but she doesn’t cook.”
“She okay?”
“She’s fine,” Blythe said, and then wondered if that were the truth. “She’s with my grandmother.”
“How bad?”
“I�
�m sorry?”
“The fire. How bad?”
“I haven’t been out there this morning. I was on my way, but I’d promised the paramedic to have this checked.” She kept saying that. As if it had been some kind of sacred vow. “I’m going over as soon as I’m done here.”
“Fire trucks get out there pretty fast though?”
“Not fast enough,” she admitted softly.
“I figured you wouldn’t be jumping if they had.”
“I think everything’s gone.” The words were easier to say than they had been last night.
“Need X-rays to be sure about this. I can call and tell ’em over at County that you’re coming.”
“How much is that going to cost?”
There was a small silence, as the dark eyes once more focused on her face. “E.R. charges. X-rays. Probably a couple hundred. Could be more, depending on what they have to do.”
“Like putting it in a cast?”
“Calling in a specialist. Lots of variables.”
None of them good. Or cheap.
“I don’t have insurance, Doc. And frankly…”
“I expect your grandmother would be good for it,” Etheridge said with a smile.
“We’re going to have to move in with her. At least until I decide what to do next. Maddie and I will need to replace some necessities that burned. If there’s anything you could do…”
She let the sentence trail, wondering belatedly what she thought he could do. He didn’t have the equipment to take the X-rays he’d said she needed. He probably thought she was asking for a loan or something. Or to get the hospital to discount the bill, neither of which had been her intent.
“I mean if it’s possible that it’s not broken—” she started to clarify.
“I know what you mean. You think after all the times you come in here I don’t know you well enough to read between the lines? You got no insurance and money’s tight. And you don’t want to burden your grandmother any more than you have to. You willing to trust an old country doctor’s gut?”
“About my ankle?”