Chapter 8

9:05 AM Friday: The phone rang twice before I got an answer.

"Good morning."

"Argh!"

"Oh, good morning, Sherlock. What’s the matter, don’t you like our sunshine as much as you like our moonshine?"

"What a grapevine!"

"You bet. According to reports, the jug you carried out was light. You either had a few before you left the store, or you got took. I bet you don’t get took easy. Incidentally, you wouldn’t care to let me know what hubby was over there for, would you? He doesn’t drink very often."

"What’d he tell you?"

"I asked first! Oh, forget it, I couldn’t trust you anyhow. I got another bone to pick. I don’t appreciate your settling our bet like that. I wasn’t able to say I told you so."

"Oh, that. Don’t spend that money yet. That was just a stunt. In fact, I may not even live out the week."

"Oh. You haven’t found out anything, have you?"

"No, no, nothing like that. I may starve to death. I had to eat the cornflakes I was saving for breakfast last night."

"Well, you do know the way to the general store."

"Very funny. I want farm-fresh food. I can get homogenized, sanitized, sterilized food anywhere. However, I don’t know anyone. Could you give me a hand? It might be a good way to meet people too."

"Oh, I see ---okay, have you got a piece of paper?"
**
8:40 PM Friday: I was sitting on the couch in the house when I heard a knock on the door. I couldn’t see any cars other than my own from the picture window.

"Who is it?" I called from the far side of the room.

"It’s us!" Cheri’s voice called back.

"Who’s us?"

"It’s us, damn it. Will you let us in?" bellowed her husband. I went and turned the lock, and opened wide.

"Sorry, I must have caught it somewhere," I said.

Cheri dropped herself into the nearest armchair with a sigh. "Caught what?"

"That method of answering doors. Enough people around here use it. "Have a seat." I said to Hubby, who stood leaning against the door jamb. He didn’t look like he wanted to, but he loped over to the other chair.

"Bob was coming over, and I decided I needed a walk. Besides, I needed to see if you were still alive," Cheri said with a smile.

"If you mean my hangover, that was gone by noon: if you mean my hunger, it was gone by one."

"I never could eat on a hangover," grumbled Bob.

I shrugged. "It lets you get sick if you’re going to, and settles your stomach if you’re not."

Cheri tried to be sly. "So you got… everything?"

"Cheri, if I didn’t know your mind, I’d think you meant the groceries, and I’d say yes, I got peaches from … What’s her name, Mrs. Evans, and had to put a deposit on her jars, and meat from Mr. Lawson, and bread from someone else, … but I do know you, at least a little, and you mean 'did anyone say anything about that Mary Cole girl'. Don’t you?"

Cheri put her hands flat on the arms of her chair and sat up straighter. She tossed a quick glace at her husband before she spoke. "Yes, as a matter of fact. That’s just what I mean." She lifted one hand to wiggle a finger at me. "Everybody I talked to told me the same thing. You brought that girl into every conversation.

"Did everybody also tell you that everyone claimed to know absolutely nothing?"

Cheri was practically breathless. "Then you are investigating!"

I hesitated a minute before I could make up my mind. "No," I answered at last, reluctantly. "But, damn it, all this secrecy is making me damn curious. Mention one two-bit hooker that died almost a month ago, and everybody in the county clams up tight. One old man ran me off with a pitch fork, and a couple of others practically challenged me to a fist-fight. I got to wonder why."

By the time I finished, nobody was paying me any attention. Cheri’s face had fallen when I told her no, and from then on, she paid me no attention. Bob had been in another world for the whole time.

Cheri got out of the chair and headed for the door. She was just sort of shuffling along. She looked over her shoulder when she reached the door. "Aren’t you coming, Bob?"

"I’ll be home in a little bit," he said, rousing himself.

She looked at me. "You could have trusted me," she said in an accusing tone, and let it go at that. She turned and walked out, shutting the door behind her.

Mr. Sunday - I couldn’t tell if it was Bob or Hubby - sprang up and crossed to the window. I joined him and we watched together as Cheri had made her slow way down the road, into the dark, until she was too far off to be seen. Sunday then turned away and lowered himself back into his seat. I stayed where I was. He looked up, toward me but not at me.

"It’s one month today."

It took me a second. "Mary Cole?" I asked.

His eyes focused on me, and he nodded. "Exactly one month, not nearly." He looked at his hands. "Yesterday, you said I could ask a favor."

"What I said was, that you were choosing the wrong way to ask a favor, but that’s all right, go ahead and ask. Never hurt anyone."

"You can’t tell Cheri," he said. "See, we’ve been having some trouble…"

I stopped him. "Let me spare you. This is how it lays, according to the neighbors: tell me where I’m wrong." He frowned so hard his eyes disappeared. "Hey, I told you I'd ask questions."

I took a seat and a breath. "You and the missus, you live over there at the other house. That one’s yours. I mean you inherited it. It’s kinda small, and it’s a lot overworked; the soil I mean. The ground’s so poor, even the people that bought up all the bottom land north of here won’t touch yours with a ten foot pole. That’s a shame, cause you’d sell like nobody’s business, if you have half a chance, and move to a city, God knows why.
"No problem so far, at least nothing that can be helped. Then you marry your neighbor’s niece just after he died, leaving her the next door farm, this farm, with a nice new house on it and all, but no money. Only the land’s not worn out on this farm. Apparently, your neighbor heard about scientific farming before your papa did.

"Anyhow, there’s the problem. You want to sell this place, get some money, and move away, but the deed’s in Cheri’s name, and she wants to stay here. In fact, she wants you to move with her into this house and take up farming, which you obviously have not done. How was that?"

He hung his head. "That’s it. I guess you think I’m wrong."

I shook my head. "Dear Abby I’m not. What has this got to do with me?"

Bob stood up and started pacing. "Cheri and me… it ain’t been right between us for a long time. It don’t bother her much, I guess, but me… I guess I’m different, that’s all I can figure. It got worse about a month ago…"

I stopped him again. "About a month?"

I could barely hear his answer. "Exactly a month." He sat down again. "I was in the general store, around noon. They’d let us off work early; too cold to work outside. I was just wasting some time when in blows that Mary, don’t say nothing. – to nobody, just walks the way she used to back to the back." He slammed a fist into a palm. "Course I looked!"

He looked up at me, as if daring me to deny it. When he was satisfied I wasn’t going to, he leaned back. "I’d never been one of her customers, but I knew her. She had been over to our house before. Don’t let that get out, but she had. Cheri had asked her over a couple of times and she was pretty funny."

Then a look of something, maybe pain, twisted his features. "She came back toward me again, in the store, and when she saw me she stopped right in front of me. Everybody in the place stopped talking to look at us. She smiled real big at me. ‘How’s your wife?’ she says, not like ‘How’s she doing,’ or ‘How’s she feelin’,’ but like ‘Is she as good as me?". People started sniggering: this is a small town, people know what’s going on. I turned red, I could feel it, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then she said, ‘She’s not so good, huh?’ and ran her hand down the side of my face. ‘I’m very, very sorry for you.’ She said, then laughed, turned and left."

He leaned forward, his arms propped on his knees, and his hands hanging between them, writhed. "I couldn’t even look around me, I was so ashamed. It was probably five minutes before I could make myself walk out the door." He looked up. "She made me feel naked." He bowed his head again. "I meant to go home," he said softly. "I meant to go home, but I went to her house." His voice broke. "I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself." He bent nearly double, his head between his knees. "God! If Cheri knew!"

I waited until he got control of himself, and considered it. I always hated to call a man a liar or a fool, but surely this guy knew the men around here, the women around here, and especially his own wife. The chances of her not knowing… it was just impossible to imagine. After a minute he seemed to get a handle on it, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"And the favor?" I asked.

"Didn’t you hear? I was with her till around two that afternoon, near as I can figure it. She was killed around dusk, maybe earlier. I might have been the last one to see her alive, except the killer! You can’t investigate without bringing that out, and you can’t bring that out!" He popped to his feet again, and stood over me. "You’ve got to quit!"

I edged over on the couch, out of his shadow, and got to my feet. I got a good distance between us.

"Okay," I said, "now it’s my turn. I’m not going to quit investigating. There’s something rotten here in Testament, and I’m going to find out what. I’ll admit to you that I’m working here, because if you let on, you’ll be reading your story in the headlines out of Knoxville. Let me finish. This is a murder case, not a game: don’t try to hold me to any silly rules, like ‘I Promise’, which I didn’t, anyway. All right, you don’t want anyone to know, that’s fine with me. I don’t want to hurt anyone that I can avoid hurting. I’ll just have to solve this some other way, and for that, I’ll need help. Your help. You give me some answers, and you’ll be helping yourself, too."

I stopped, and he nodded slowly. "Okay, then sit down over there." He sat.

"I want you to keep your answers as objective as possible, all right?" He nodded. "What do you know about her background?"

He didn’t hesitate a second. "Nothing."

"You mean no one you know ever asked her where she was from?"

"Sure they did. ‘Where’d you come from?’ ‘An egg,’ she’d say."

"She thought she was a bird?"

"Snakes come from eggs too."

"Who has gone to her?"

"Once? Nearly every man in town, I’d say. Steady? I don’t know. She is kind of set off, back in the woods like that. It’d be easier to name the ones who never."

"Okay, who never?"

He though a second, "The reverend. And Gas, the sheriff."

"Why not Gas?"

Sunday smiled. "He wouldn’t know now."

"Who hated her?"

He thought again, but longer this time. "The Reverend South."

"Not Gas?"

"Never heard him speak of it."

I stopped to think. "Damn it, I just don’t know enough! Tell me anything, her favorite color, her type of music. Did she have any other friends?"

"I reckon her favorite color was red," he said, and I looked to see if he was joking. He looked perfectly serious. "As to music," he continued, "I never heard her sing anything, or listen to anything special… except once. She was humming, when she was over to the house, and Cheri was on the phone and I was just out of the can. She didn’t see me, I came up behind, and she started singing, ‘Mary El…’ which is as far as she got before she saw me, and broke off. I figure it was ‘Mary Ellen’ or some such word, but I couldn’t place the song. Now about friends…", he looked me straight in the eyes so I wouldn’t miss the point, "I don’t suppose they’d want to be known as such any more than we do. I don’t know of any."

I looked at my wrist watch. It was already near one in the morning. "I’ll need to ask you some other questions later, when I can think some up. All right?" He nodded. "Then let’s get some sleep." I got up and walked him to the door, when I suddenly remembered.

"Just a second, Bob. Do you know a Mr. Lawson?"

"Old Man Lawson? Sure, why?"

"I thought about going to see him. I hear he knows more about everyone around here than anyone else."

Bob snorted, "I reckon that’s true enough, but that don’t mean you’ll find anything out from him. He’s a mean, smart old cuss. You’d have to make it worth his while before he'd tell you anything, and I bet he’s out of your price range." He stopped and gave me a tired smile. "In a way, you’ve already met him."

"Oh? How’s that?"

"He’s probably the biggest moonshiner in Tennessee, and the only one around here."

I had to stifle a yawn. "I’d better see him. Where does he live?" Just then the phone rang. "Hang on, it may be your wife," I said to him, and walked to the phone stand. The conversation was brief, but to the point.

"Was it?" asked Bob. I nodded, but my mind was too busy to worry about making words. "Well, what did she want?" he asked.

"That was Cheri," I said slowly.

"Hell, I know that!"

"She had some news." I looked Bob over carefully. "She says Old Man Lawson was found dead in his front yard, not ten minutes ago."

Bob’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. He rubbed his face with his hands, and looked at me again, but he didn’t shut his mouth.

"I don’t believe it," was all he said.