Murder Comes to Notchey Creek

by Liz S. Andrews

  She began boxing up the remaining bottles, resigned to guard her heart.

  There were far more critical things requiring her attention, the first being finding Patrick’s killer. It was time she was serious about the investigation. Her first stop the next day would be the Notchey Creek Public Library.

  38

  Of Mice and Men and Chickens

  “The best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry.”

  Harley thought of this paraphrased quote by Robert Burns on her way to the Notchey Creek Public Library the next morning. She had intended to spend the early hours in the microfiche room, poring over old newspapers, hoping she might locate the one Patrick Middleton had taken from Hazel Moses’s house. But it was not to be. As she pulled her truck into the library parking lot, her phone vibrated in her pocket. Realizing it was Tina, and knowing Tina would keep calling her until she answered, she picked up.

  “Good Morning, Tina.”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the library.”

  “Well, you better get over here to Opha Mae Shaw’s.”

  Opha Mae Shaw was Tina’s next-door neighbor.

  “Why?”

  “She wants her toilet.”

  “Her what?”

  “Her toilet. You know that great big one you’ve got in the back of your truck. You think you’d be wantin’ rid of it by now. Anyway, Opha Mae came across the yard a little while ago, bangin’ on my front door, askin’ me where her toilet was. She said you were supposed to bring it by here yesterday. Said yinz promised.”

  Realization at last dawned on Harley. “Oh, yes, that toilet. I’ll be right over.”

  * * *

  Opha Mae Shaw lived in a white clapboard house in a neighborhood of Notchey Creek known as Hogwash Alley, made locally famous during the Great Flood of 1964. According to local legend, the neighborhood’s numerous pigs were swept from their pens and carried two miles across town, finally ending up in downtown Notchey Creek, where they washed down Main Street, snorting at gawking pedestrians as they floated by.

  “Where would you like this, Opha Mae?” Harley asked as she and Tina lifted the antique toilet from the truck bed.

  Opha Mae pointed toward a patch of grass between a plastic birdbath and a pair of pink flamingos, a horde of twenty hens pecking at the ground beneath her feet. “Right over yonder if y’all don’t mind,” she said, a half-lit Virginia Slims cigarette dangling from her lower lip.

  In order to direct them better, Opha Mae headed in the bird bath’s direction, her Michelin Man figure wobbling in a chartreuse muumuu and white terrycloth house shoes. “Right cheer,” she said, standing by the bird bath. “At least ’til I can get cleaned up from the yard sale.”

  Tina groaned under the toilet’s weight. “All right, but you’re gonna have to do somethin’ about all these chickens. We can’t get through the yard.”

  Opha Mae grabbed a broom from her front porch and prodded the chickens’ rear ends with the straw bristles. “Come on now, sweet babies. You move for Mama, you hear?” As Opha Mae hobbled across the yard, one of her pink plastic curlers sprang from her shower cap, smacking against her cheek. She cocked the broom at the chickens. “Now y’all don’t be makin’ Mama mess up her hair, you hear? Y’all gonna get a great big old whoopin’ if you do that.”

  A giant red rooster, tightening its talons on top of the chainlink fence, crowed at them.

  “Crazy old bird,” Tina said. “I swear that thing cock-a-doodle-dos at all hours of the night and day, drivin’ me nuts. Its circadian rhythms is off or somethin’.”

  Opha Mae gunned her fist at the rooster. “You hush up now, Pecker. You’re gettin’ as bad as Sir Clucks-A-Lot about crowin’ at folks.”

  Hoisting the toilet by its sides, Harley and Tina lowered it to the ground and shuffled through the grass, dodging splatters of chicken poop like landmines.

  “I swear,” Tina said, “those things poop everywhere. You’d think with Fud bein’ a garbage man, they’d clean up all this chicken poop in their yard. And they’re projectile too, Harley. I swear they aim their cluckety old butts right at my yard and poop right through the fence.”

  Reaching the patch of grass next to the birdbath, they dropped the toilet at Opha Mae’s white terrycloth house shoes, nearly crushing the brown hen that stood at her feet.

  Opha Mae screamed, grabbing the chicken just in time. “Lady McBawk! What do you think you’re doin’, sweet baby? You tryin’ to be Mama’s supper tonight? Mama’s gonna pen you up, that’s what Mama’s gonna do.” Opha Mae scuttled toward the backyard, making her way to the wire-mesh chicken coop.

  Harley turned to Tina. “Do all of the chickens have names?”

  “Oh, yeah. Let’s see, there’s Mrs. McNugget, Chick-or-Treat, Professor Puffy Pants, and General Tsao. Heck, I can’t even remember all of their names, there’s so many.”

  “What about the one that ruined your roses last year?”

  “Oh, I don’t know what her name is. I just call her Mother Clucker.”

  Opha Mae hobbled toward them, carrying two plastic containers of chrysanthemums. “I’m fixin’ to plant my flares, y’all.”

  “Here, Opha Mae,” Harley said, taking the flowers from her with care. “Let me help you.”

  She added three pints of fall flowers to the toilet bowl and filled in the remaining space with potting soil.

  “Them’s is gonna be so purdy,” Opha Mae said.

  “Yeah, they’re ready for the cover of House Beautiful,” Tina said.

  Opha Mae smiled with warmth. “Sure do appreciate y’all helpin’ me out.”

  Harley removed a green watering can from the front porch glider and poured a stream of water over the flowers, moistening the soil. As she reached down to pat the dirt, something fell from her shirt pocket and fluttered to the grass.

  It was the photo of the blond girl, the one that had been in Patrick Middleton’s jacket pocket. She had placed it in her pocket that morning, planning to take it to the library for identification purposes.

  “You dropped somethin’, Harley,” Opha Mae said, picking up the photo before Harley had the chance. “Well, I’ll be,” she said, staring at the photo. “That’s Susan, ain’t it?”

  39

  Susan

  “Who’s Susan?” Tina asked.

  “A girl—used to live in town here. One of the young’uns I had at the high school back when I was workin’ in the lunch room. Sweet girl, Susan was. Got killed in a car wreck some years back. Back before y’all was even born.”

  “A car wreck?” Harley said. “Do you remember when it was?”

  Opha Mae shook her head. “Oh, lordy, that’s been a mighty long time ago. Can’t remember the exact year. But I remember the day. Always will. It was Halloween night.” Opha Mae smiled, looking at the photo. “She sure was a purdy gal, weren’t she? That long blond hair. Looked like it was spun right out of gold. I remember she used to walk past the pharmacy there downtown and all the men on Main Street would just a swing around and watch her as she passed by. Those purdy dresses of hers and those long, long legs.”

  “What was Susan’s last name?” Harley asked.

  “Thompson, I believe. Susan Thompson. Her folks was Alan and Cynthia. Her daddy passed away some years back, but I reckon her mama still lives in town over yonder on Cypress.”

  Harley was about to ask whether Susan was seeing anyone before she died, when Opha Mae said, “Oh, and I got your costumes ready.”

  Harley stared at Opha Mae, a confused expression on her face. “Costumes?”

  “Yours and Matilda’s.”

  Opha Mae opened the screen door to her house and grabbed a black trash bag. “Wilma ordered ’em.”

  She removed two flour sack dresses: a long, slim one tailored for a woman and a short, wide one tailored, presumably, for a pig. The necklines were high enough for a Puritan church service, and the pea-green print, dappled with yellow, orange, and pink flowers, could best be described as The Br
ady Bunch meets The Swiss Family Robinson.

  “Oh, and there’s bonnets too.” Opha Mae held up two mustard yellow bonnets, one in each hand. “Now, what do you think about that, Harley? Ain’t that somethin’? Just finished ’em on the sewin’ machine.”

  Harley raised a brow and could hear Tina snickering beside her. “Wilma ordered those?”

  “She sure did. And ain’t you lucky she spoils you and Matilda like she does. Thought it’d be right cute y’all havin’ matchin’ outfits for the festival. Kind of like twins does when they’s growin’ up. And since you gotta dress up anyway, you might as well ‘up your cuteness factor,’ as they call it. Not that you need it, Harley. I hope you know I ain’t sayin’ that. I ain’t like some folks around town who talks about you.”

  “It’s okay,” Harley said. “I understand.”

  “Anyway,” Opha Mae said, “Wilma thought it might help Matilda win that prize pig contest. And Wilma says it’d be good for you to stand outside the store yonder and wave at folks as they go by. Might get ’em to come inside.”

  Or scare them away.

  Dread crept over Harley, and as if Tina were reading her mind, she said, “Oh, I hope you don’t have to wear that thing, Harley. You couldn’t pay me.”

  As Harley worked to construct an excuse why she couldn’t wear the costume, her cell phone vibrated, and Wilma, in her Oompa Loompa wig, appeared on the screen.

  “Hi, Aunt Wilma.”

  “You get your costume yet?”

  Harley looked up at Opha Mae, who still eyed her with excitement as she held the flour sack dresses. There wasn’t a productive way to avoid this without injuring both women’s pride. “Yes, I got it. And the one for Matilda, too. Thank you and Opha Mae for thinking of us.”

  “Have you tried it on yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Well, you’ll need to be wearin’ it down at the store today. Festival’s already started.”

  “Aunt Wilma, I don’t know if …”

  Wilma disappeared from the screen, and the line grew quiet. Harley knew beyond the silence, a disappointed Wilma was trying to hide her hurt feelings. “I was just tryin’ to do somethin’ nice for you,” she said, still missing from the screen. “Don’t seem like you ever let me do nothin’ for you. Not even when you was a young’un.”

  Harley couldn’t take the guilt trip, and as was always the case with Aunt Wilma, she conceded. “Of course, I’ll wear it. And Matilda will wear hers, too. The dresses are perfect for us.”

  Wilma reappeared on screen, her wig tilted to one side of her head. “Oh, I can’t wait to see you, Harley, and wait till you get a load of my costume.”

  A prick of dread crept up Harley’s back. “I’m sure it’s lovely.”

  “No peekin’ now.” Wilma giggled, holding up the phone to her chin. “I’ll see you at the store directly.”

  The call ended, and Harley returned her phone to her pocket. She stared at the flour sack dress and bonnet and decided that if she was going to do this for Aunt Wilma and Opha Mae, she might as well do it right. She took the dress from Opha Mae and slipped it over her shoulders.

  40

  A Pig in a Bonnet

  “A pig in a bonnet?”

  The festival livestock manager stared at Harley, trying to gauge the seriousness of her request. He wore overalls and a camouflage hat, a toothpick bobbing up and down on his bottom lip. They stood between two rows of hog pens in the back corner of the festival grounds. Inside one of those pens, Matilda lay snoring across a bed of hay.

  “Yes, sir.” Harley’s voice adopted a conciliatory tone. “I know it’s not exactly conventional, but it’d really mean a lot to my great-aunt. You see, she had these costumes specially made for us.”

  The man examined her, raising a brow as he perused the flour sack dress and yellow bonnet. “You mean to tell me you and that pig’s got matchin’ outfits?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  He chewed on his toothpick in thought, then checked his clipboard, as if there might be a special stipulation allotted for pigs to wear period clothing. “Hmm … well, I reckon I don’t see why it’d hurt. There ain’t nothin’ here that says you can, and there ain’t nothin’ here that says you can’t. So until I hear somethin’ different, she can wear that there dress.”

  “And the bonnet?”

  The toothpick danced. “And the bonnet, too.”

  “Thank you!”

  Matilda had woken from her nap and joined them at the edge of her pen.

  “But you’re the one whose gonna be puttin’ ’em on ’er. I ain’t gettin’ near that pig. She’s feisty.”

  “I can certainly do that, sir. Thank you.”

  As she placed the dress and bonnet on Matilda, securing the Velcro fasteners, the man watched with glee. “She kinda looks like that pig on TV. The one all the young’uns likes. Penny Lope, or somethin’ or another.”

  “Penelope?” Harley secured Matilda’s bonnet. “Yes, I suppose she does.”

  “And I reckon you kinda look like that one on that other show. The one back in the ‘60s. The Beverly Hillbillies.”

  “Elly May Clampett?” Harley said with some hopefulness.

  “No.” He scratched his chin. “I was thinkin’ Granny.”

  41

  Secrets, Lies, & Sins

  Seated in the Notchey Creek Public Library, Harley thought about death and about ghosts, two phenomena she hadn’t given much consideration until recently. Beyond the quiet warmth of the library, the autumn wind howled through the trees, smacking their limbs against the window panes, the leaves clawing at small cracks in the sills. She sat at a long mahogany table and, the microfiche being out of operation, she was reduced to combing through a disorganized mess of newspapers, written accounts, and diary entries dating back more than a century.

  Over the last two hours, she had managed to litter the table with swaths of archaic texts, some handwritten in the embellished style of old, and some typed on old-fashioned typewriters with a letter or two of text missing.

  Those documents were part of Notchey Creek’s oral history, having been spun for generations by the region’s old timers before being put to paper. Those old timers must have taken great delight in rehashing the town’s many tragic events from the comfort of their rocking chairs, their stories embellished with each curl of wood that fell from their whittled cedar sticks. Harley imagined their wives, seated in straight chairs beneath neighboring shade trees, smiling into their needlework as their husbands, once again, recounted those stories to anyone who cared to listen.

  And when the old timers were done with their part, the stories rose with the smoke of campfires on dark, sprawling farms, igniting the imaginations of teenagers, who years later would tell the stories to their own children, tucked into beds on screened-in back porches, the crickets humming moonlit symphonies among tall strands of Johnson grass, the fireflies floating in dappled sparks among garden hedges.

  Nonetheless, for Harley’s purposes, it was hard to separate the weeds from the chaff in the paper melee.

  With a yawn, she pulled her long dark hair into a loose ponytail and massaged the back of her neck, sore from the hours of crouching and reading. At twenty-six it seemed as if she had been reading longer than she had been walking, but her body still ached from hours of research underneath the library’s bright fluorescent lights. But she loved the comfort of the library, its familiar aromas, its polished wood tables, its worn leather chairs, the endless rows of dusty hardbacks. They brought back lingering spells of childhood nostalgia, of when she would make daily pilgrimages to the library after school.

  In neighboring chairs, senior patrons staved off post-breakfast naps with steaming mugs of coffee and large-print editions of commercial spy thrillers. Mornings in the library were generally quiet, the peacefulness permeated only by the snores from her neighboring patrons or from the sound of Hettie Winecoop’s wayward library cart as it groaned its way dow
n the aisles.

  Hettie rolled the rusty book cart past numerous tables, collecting stacks of old books and returning them to even older shelves. Everything in the library was old, it seemed. A century ago, the red brick structure was the philanthropic dream of Augustus Sutcliffe, a timber baron whose name was forged on most of the town’s important buildings.

  Architecturally inspired by a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Augustus Sutcliffe had commissioned a domed skylight for the library, one that afforded a beautiful view of the morning sun, sending prisms of light through the overarching maples.

  Hettie Winecoop leaned past Harley and removed a stack of books from the table. Though Harley had added to the librarian’s workload significantly that morning, Hettie was always pleasant, even eager to inquire about how she was doing.

  “How’s the research going, sweetie?” she asked.

  Harley rested her glasses on the table, the rims spread across the pages of an open book. “It seems like I’m finding everything but what I’m looking for. And I’ve certainly read enough tales about all the people who’ve died in the creek over the years. Goodness. I didn’t realize there were so many.”

  “It’s true.” Hettie gave half a laugh, but there was no humor behind it. “I guess there have been an awful lot over the years. Of course, there’s tragedy in any town’s history, but it’s been a bit heavy-handed in Notchey Creek. But that creek’s awfully old, Harley. Older than the dinosaurs. As old as the Smokies themselves.”

  And from the Smoky Mountains the creek had been born, flowing from a vein of the Tennessee River, furrowing through the verdant fields of Knox County, and treading south for ten miles into the rolling pastures of the Tennessee Valley. When Notchey Creek, at last, reached the small town bearing its name, it dwindled to a five-mile stretch of babbling stream rich with crawfish and minnows, framed by overhangs of weeping willows and pebble-laden banks.