“Odd that you found that and Dr. Lyman didn’t.”
“It was pretty well hidden beneath all that hair and beard. And, don’t forget, the scene looked like a suicide. I know from experience that people find what they expect to find. He already had a preconceived idea that Skaggs hung himself, so he wouldn’t have been looking for another cause of death.”
“Should we tell him? Ask him to look at the body again and change the cause of death?”
Hick took another swig of beer. “I don’t know.” He looked at Carol. “Do you trust him?”
“He seems like a decent guy.”
“So what happened tonight? Usually staying up late and drinking means it didn’t go well.”
“After I identified Ernest’s body Dr. Lyman asked me to dinner. Told me all about his daughter and how he lost his wife when the baby was only two. Asked me about myself and how long I’d been a lawyer. He told me I was strong and intelligent. Said he admired women who knew how to think for themselves. We talked about everything. He asked about our work together in Broken Creek. How long I’d been a lawyer. What my struggles in my profession have been like. He was a perfect gentleman.”
“Sounds like a real bastard.”
Carol glanced at him. “You’re making fun of me.”
Hick smiled. “Maybe.”
She took a long drink. “I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I just have a very complicated relationship with men.”
“How so?”
“If a man flatters me, I’m always trying to figure out his angle. I just don’t trust most men.”
Hick raised an eyebrow. “Do you trust me?”
“Nothing in your behavior, past or present, could be construed as flattery, so I’ve never had that problem with you. Oddly enough, your dislike of me helped me to trust you.”
“We didn’t get off to a great start,” Hick admitted. He recalled their first heated exchange at the station in Cherokee Crossing. Something tells me that you, with your high northern ideals and your shiny black car, have no idea what it feels like to feel true pain. He had leveled an unfair accusation at her, and it created a pang of guilt.
Carol waved him aside. “That’s all in the past,” she said in that unguarded voice of one who has had a few drinks.
“So, tell me, Miss Quinn …”
“Carol,” she corrected.
“Okay. Carol. Why wouldn’t you trust someone like Dr. Lyman who recognizes your qualities and tells you so?”
She was quiet a moment, staring at the beer bottle in her hand. She seemed to be trying to decide whether or not to answer. After a brief hesitation, she said, “When I began law school, every man in my class hated my guts.” She glanced up. “And I mean every single one. They wanted me to quit and did their damndest to get rid of me. An upper classman took me under his wing. He was the only person at that school who treated me with any kindness. He liked to point out that the others were just intimidated by me. That the fact that I performed better and got better marks made them jealous.” She put the empty bottle in the carton and pulled out a third.
“I think you should stop,” Hick said. “You’ll feel like hell in the morning.”
She popped off the top. “I feel like hell now.”
She took a drink and continued. “This man became my lifeline. I confided in him. Told him all my problems, revealed my insecurities. Asked him all my questions. He was unfailingly gracious and kind.” Shrugging, she said, “Sure, I can say it. I loved him. I thought he loved me.”
“But …”
“But, one morning he accidentally left his composition book on top of mine. I opened it by mistake.” She stared off into the fog and then turned to Hick. “They called it ‘Operation Taming of the Shrew.’ You can guess who the shrew was. The whole student body was in on it. His job was to get me to fall in love, distract me from my studies, and get me thrown out of law school. Lucky for me, I’ve got a good poker face.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “He never knew how close he was to success.”
Carol looked fragile and Hick was annoyed with himself for being surprised. She was tough, but she was also human, after all. “I’m sorry,” he managed. Maggie would have known what to say, but Hick was never good with words.
“Don’t worry about it, Hillbilly. We’ve all been kicked in the teeth by life now and then. I never said a word to him about finding the notebook. I pretended nothing ever happened. But if they wanted me to fail in my studies, their efforts had quite the opposite effect. I worked my ass off. I out-argued them all. Hell, I did so well even my knight in shining armor asked me to write a legal brief for him.” She finished the beer. “I sabotaged that son of a bitch. He never saw it coming. And I’m not ashamed of it either.” She reached for another bottle.
Hick looked at her with surprise, and Carol glanced at the beer and then put it back. “You’re right.” She turned to him. “But why did they hate me? What did I ever do to them to make them want me to fail like that? They didn’t even know me as a person.”
Hick finished his beer. “If they knew you, they wouldn’t have hated you. It’s easier to hate what you don’t know.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Hillbilly. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Glancing at his watch, Hick said, “We best get some shut eye. We’ve got a funeral to attend in the morning.”
“Skaggs?”
“Yeah. I’m kind of curious to see if anyone of interest shows up.”
Carol held up the last two beers. “You want these? Seems a shame to waste them.”
“They’ll keep.” He rose and stretched. “Anyway,” he said, looking down. “If you like him, you ought to give Dr. Lyman another chance if only to prove to yourself that he’s a decent guy. It could be he doesn’t have an angle. We’re not all bastards, you know.”
She thought it over. “We’ll see.”
He noticed she wasn’t rising. “Aren’t you going in?”
“In a minute.”
“Okay, then.” He opened the door and paused. “Good night, Miss Quinn.”
“Good night, Hillbilly.”
Hick hung his trousers over the chair and climbed back into bed. He found himself listening for Carol’s door to open and close. He lay there another half hour and finally heard her go inside. His mind raced, though he could not form a thought, and he tossed and turned for an hour. He sat up and rubbed his face, then grabbed his watch off the nightstand. Two o’clock in the morning. He stumbled into the bathroom and then lay back down, staring at the ceiling. It was late and he had plenty to do in the morning. He needed to get some sleep. The struggle was brief. He reached for the bottle on the nightstand and swallowed the pill without water.
11
Thursday, September 8, 1955
“I’ve been banging for over fifteen minutes. Couldn’t you hear me knocking?”
Hick felt the force of waking. The grogginess. The pain of morning’s brightness stabbing his eyes and slicing into his brain. The fog of trying to pull his mind up from the murky blackness where it slept, and into the reality of consciousness. He opened one eye and Carol was standing in his room, hands on hips, shaking her head.
He threw his arm over his eyes. “Christ. How did you get in here?”
“I can pick a lock, remember? It’s already nine o’clock. We have someplace to be.” She rubbed her forehead. “And I have the headache from hell. Do you have any aspirin?” He heard her walk to the nightstand and her steps paused.
“Hillbilly?”
“What?”
“Is this why you’re such a pain in the ass in the morning?” He opened his eyes and saw her holding his bottle of Phenobarbital. “You take this every night?”
“No, and put that down.”
She looked unconvinced. “You know you can get hooked on these, right?”
He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. “Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Then shut up.”
She put
the bottle back and held up her hands. “Fine. What about the aspirin?”
“I think there’s a bottle in my shaving kit. Look in the bathroom,” he said, swinging his legs around and sitting up in bed. He heard the sink run and then Carol returned.
“So what’s the story with the pills? How long have you been taking them?”
“Doc prescribed them after Maggie died. I wasn’t sleeping. They’re just temporary.”
“Until?”
He glanced into her face with one eye closed. “Until I’m through.”
She did not appear to be satisfied by this answer, but merely said, “Well, you need to get dressed. I’ll be waiting outside. I’d like to get some coffee before the funeral.”
“I’ll just be a second.”
Hick went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, then glared at his reflection. He should have never taken the pill so late. He knew how long it took for the effects to wear off and how hard it was to hide his weariness. And now Carol knew about the pills and the last thing he wanted was yet another person watching him, criticizing him. He was tired, even his bones felt heavy and tired and he couldn’t manage to find the energy to deal with the questions, the scrutiny, and the concern. All he wanted was to be left alone.
Minutes later he emerged from his motel room and climbed into the car without a word. Carol stomped on her cigarette and joined him and they drove in a tense silence to the drugstore where they picked up two paper cups of coffee.
Hick cradled both the coffee cup and a cigarette in his left hand while driving and prayed that between the caffeine and the nicotine, by the time they arrived at the funeral home his mind would be less groggy.
They pulled into an almost empty parking lot right at ten o’clock and slipped into the last row of the parlor. Hick noted that Sheriff Lowell and his deputy, Archie, were seated toward the front behind an older couple and Lavenia. Beside her sat a group of scraggly looking youngsters that Hick assumed were the rest of Skaggs’s offspring. As he was observing the room, he felt Carol scoot closer to make room for someone and he glanced up, and then nodded good morning to Dr. Lyman.
Brother Ulredge Mallon rose and moved to the front of the room and cleared his throat. Before he began speaking, the door opened and Mallon’s face brightened. Hick turned and saw a tall, thin, young man standing in the doorway, his face defiant and his eyes reddened. He looked uncomfortable in a tattered, faded suit coat of indiscriminate color, far too large and fraying at the sleeves. He scowled before walking toward the front of the room and slouching in a chair, his arms crossed and his legs sprawled before him.
Brother Mallon stared at the young man and, again, cleared his throat. “We be here today to say good-bye to one Nicodemus Skaggs. Nicodemus believed strongly in the word of God.” The young man shifted in his chair and coughed loudly and Brother Mallon flinched. He fixed his eyes on the young man and continued, “Ain’t no one gonna pretend Nicodemus was perfect, what he done was sin, plain and simple. When the devil gets in a man he won’t turn him loose, and Nicodemus had the devil in him deep. But ain’t no man perfect. I don’t aim to judge and revile him in front of his kin, no matter what he done. Nicodemus is gone and I ain’t here to condemn. That be up to God. I’m here to console them what’s left behind.”
His glance rested on the group of orphaned children in the front row. “We all make mistakes in this life, and Nicodemus is gonna have to answer to the Lord His God and ain’t no one gonna deny it. But, we all got things we done, things we regret. We can’t change who we are or what we done, we can’t change them that hurt us and we can’t help them we hurt.” Mallon’s voice softened. “But we can stop the hatin’. It’s time we forgive them that don’t deserve forgiveness and live our own lives and try to put all the meanness and sorrow behind.”
The young man rose suddenly and his chair fell backward. “I done paid my respects like I was told to do, but I can’t sit and listen to no talk on forgiveness. I ain’t gonna pretend that everything’s alright.”
With that the young man stomped out of the funeral parlor, the door slamming in his wake. Silence followed this abrupt departure and Brother Mallon stood before the small group with closed eyes. After a moment he finally spoke. “I said my piece.” With that he walked down the aisle and out the door.
Silence filled the room after the door closed and then an embarrassed-looking funeral director moved forward and closed the casket. Without a sound, he and another man lifted the coffin and walked it down the aisle and the family of Nicodemus Skaggs followed behind. Hick and Carol exchanged a glance. It was not like any funeral Hick had ever attended.
A wagon and four mules stood waiting outside and the coffin was loaded onto it while the family milled about. Standing beside the car, Hick observed the wagon and the passel of children that Nicodemus left behind, undefended and unprovided for. His mind traveled to his boys and he couldn’t remember what, if any, comfort he had been able to offer them at Maggie’s funeral. That uncomfortable, sinking feeling he got when he thought of his sons engulfed him. He was failing.
“Do you have any idea what that was all about?” Carol said to Dr. Lyman, waking Hick from his unpleasant reverie.
“None whatsoever,” Lyman replied.
Sheriff Lowell joined them and said, “I can fill ya’ll in on that spectacle. That young man was Nicdoemus Skaggs’s woods-colt.”
“His what?” Carol asked.
“Woods-colt,” Hick said. “His bastard.”
“Ah,” Carol said.
“I told ya’ll Nicodemus was a wild one before he found religion. Matt was borned to Ginny Noble eighteen years ago. Poor ol’ gal died of shame, but by that time Deem had found God and was engaged to be married to Miss Aleta Lynch, a good gal from a good family. He didn’t want no woods-colt hanging around so Matt was raised by Ginny’s people.”
“How much contact did Skaggs have with him?” Hick asked.
“He acted like that boy didn’t exist,” Lowell said. “But what with how he neglected them under his own roof I wouldn’t expect anything more.”
“It’s pretty clear Brother Mallon wasn’t too keen on Skaggs. Did anyone actually like him? Did the man have any friends?” Carol asked.
Lowell scratched his forehead and frowned. “Men like Deem Skaggs don’t have friends. They have confederates, associates, but no, not friends. Deem liked to think he was a godly sort, but the truth of the matter is he thought the world was against him and never could understand his problems were from his own hand. He blamed everyone and everything for all the bad that happened to him.” Lowell shook his head in disgust. “Deem was good at seeing the bad in others but never could see it in himself. If he thought someone else was doing wrong, he’d be the first to point it out, not for their own good, but because it somehow offended his own sensibilities of how he thought the world ought to be. Deem passed judgement on everyone but his own self. He thought he had some special sense that entitled him to do what he thought needed done.”
“Like killing a Catholic priest?” asked Hick, his eye catching that of Dr. Lyman.
Lowell considered and nodded. “I don’t see why not. Deem’s one of them that can rationalize anything to make it seem he’s doing right in his own eyes.”
The driver of the wagon cracked a whip and the mules began to pull their burden to the graveyard, followed by Skaggs’s orphaned children.
“I don’t reckon now we’ll ever know what put the fool notion in his head about Lavenia,” Lowell said, his gaze following the wagon up around a bend in the road.
This was met with silence and finally Carol said, “Well, I need to get back to the hotel and phone my office to make arrangements to get back to Washington.”
“May I drive you?” Dr. Lyman asked.
Hick, anxious to be relieved of Carol’s questioning about his state of mind and his pills, jumped at this. “Why don’t you go on. I’d like to pay a visit to the Catholic Church and see if the new priest has h
eard anything about Grant.”
Carol squinted and gave Hick a hard look. “You sure you’re up to it?”
Hick didn’t like the question. “I’m fine,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Fine,” Carol replied in a voice like a thunderclap. She turned to Lyman. “Let’s go.”
Dr. Lyman’s glance went from Hick to Carol, but he shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Hick watched as they drove off, and then pulled his car onto the road. He didn’t know what he expected to find at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, but he knew he needed some time alone.
12
Thursday, September 8, 1955
“May I help you?” a woman asked as Hick entered the vestibule of the church. Her dark hair was tied up in a bun and she was dusting a small table that held church bulletins, spare Bibles, and assorted pamphlets and reading material.
“My name is Sheriff Hick Blackburn. Is the new priest in?”
A hand holding a towel went to her hip and she cocked her head. “Sheriff? Well, you ain’t Bob Lowell, so what are you sheriff of?”
“Cherokee Crossing. I’m a friend of Father Grant’s.”
At the mention of his name, her suspicions melted. She shook her head. “He ain’t doin’ well. Father Glennon visited a while with him yesterday.” She smiled and smoothed her hair with an embarrassed smile. “I’m Jeanine, the church secretary. I don’t usually clean, but Lavenia’s got so much going on with her daddy dying and the funeral that I’m helping her out.”
“Tell me,” Hick began, “Do you know of anything that Father Grant had been working—”
“Who is it, Jeanine?” a voice called from deep inside the church and then an older man appeared from around a corner and approached them. “May I help you?”
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