A Killing at Cotton Hill (13 page)

Loretta not only brings a coffee cake, but she offers to stay and scramble up some eggs when Caroline gets up. I jump on the offer, not only thinking of my stomach, but of the advantage of having Loretta around to ask a few pertinent questions. We drink a pot of coffee and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to have to roust out Caroline so we have time to eat before we get ready for the funeral.

When Caroline comes in, she is already dressed, in the same thing she wore last night. In the light of day, it's not so fine as it seemed. The collar is worn, and the skirt is a lighter color of black than the jacket, as if it has been washed more often. I'm of two minds about Caroline. I'm mad at her for leaving Dora Lee and not coming back even when her sister, Julie, died. But Caroline has not fared so well herself, and my thinking is that for someone to pull away so sharply, she must have reasons I don't know a thing about.

Loretta bustles around scrambling eggs while I sit with Caroline. I try to think of a neutral question, so I ask her how she likes Houston after being in California so long.

“It's not so bad, but I got used to the weather in California. Houston's hot.” You can't get much more neutral than that.

“That's a fact.”

Loretta has her back to us at the stove. “Samuel says you got married a while back. You still working?”

Caroline has been stirring her coffee for a full minute now, and it ought to be pretty stirred up. She stops and takes a sip, closing her eyes. “Yes, I'm working.”

Loretta scrapes eggs into a bowl and sets them on the table. She unties her apron and hangs it up before she sits down.

“This is real nice. Thank you, Loretta.” I pass the bowl to Caroline. “Eggs?”

Caroline takes the bowl, but looks at the eggs with narrowed eyes, as if they might be a trick. “Thank you. I really appreciate your going to the trouble.” I notice that her voice is crisper when she says something to Loretta than it is when she talks to me. She takes about a tablespoon of eggs before passing them back.

In normal circumstances Loretta would insist that Caroline help herself to more eggs, but she pretends not to notice and slices the coffee cake. “Hand me your plate, and I'll give you a piece,” she says.

Caroline hands her plate over, and when it arrives back, eyes the big slice of coffeecake with the same suspicion she did the eggs. I want to say, “It isn't going to bite you,” but I take a cue from Loretta and keep my mouth shut.

“It was a nice turn-out for the visitation last night,” Loretta says.

Going from there, we make the smallest possible talk, ending up with not a damn thing being said that puts me any closer to knowing what Caroline Parjeter Wells is up to.

 

Caroline says she'd prefer to drive herself to the funeral and I tell Loretta I'll pick her up at ten thirty. I'm ready by nine thirty so that I can take a quick side trip to find out the answer to something that has been bothering me.

Our local veterinarian, Doc England, has his business on the same property as his house, south of town. As soon as I stop my truck outside the plain, square clinic, I hear dogs barking inside. The doc is in the pen to one side of the building, bent over feeling a horse's leg. I walk over and stand while he and the horse's owner confer. When they're done, Doc England comes over and greets me. “Let's go inside out of this heat. You're going to drop dead in that suit.”

Inside I tell him what I'm after.

“Yeah, that was a shame. Dora Lee brought that dog in here last week in bad shape. Not a thing I could do.”

“What was wrong with the dog?”

“I didn't do an autopsy, but I'm pretty sure somebody poisoned it. She said it was sort of a barking dog, and some people just won't put up with that.”

“Anything else could have killed it? Maybe got into something?”

“I asked her if she had any antifreeze around or any snail bait, or rat poison, something like that. But she said no. Poison's the only thing that made sense.”

I thank him and get on my way, thinking on my way home about the kind of person who would deprive poor Dora Lee of her dog before he killed her.

 

Loretta surprises me by being right on time. She wants to get a look at the strangers coming for the funeral. And there are enough to keep everybody busy with the greetings. I shake hands with various first and second cousins. When Greg's Aunt Patsy arrives with her posse, she stops the show. To make sure everybody knows how religious she is, Patsy marches right up to the coffin and in a loud voice says, “Oh, Jesus, take your loyal servant, Dora Lee Parjeter. We are just sheep in your flock.” She goes on in that vein for some minutes, while everybody freezes, wondering if they should be bowing their heads or pretending not to listen. Her husband, a skinny man with a thin head of hair, keeps up a steady stream of “amens” as she goes on. After she's done with her conversation with the Lord, she gathers her family around with her and they all bow their heads over Dora Lee. She has five kids, ranging in age from four to twelve, and every one of them stiff as boards and looking like they're scared to death they're going to make a mistake.

After that display, I'm relieved at the low-key service the Reverend Harold Duckworth gives Dora Lee. Although I hear “hmphs” a time or two, I hear a lot more “amens,” and by and large everyone seems satisfied that he gets it mostly right in giving Dora Lee a proper Baptist send-off.

In the interest of not inducing heat stroke in the attendees, most of the service takes place inside, leaving just a few words to be spoken at the graveside. Harold Duckworth has sense enough to go along with that, and by twelve thirty we are all back in the Baptist Church fellowship room, where the Baptist ladies have put out a spread so people can eat and talk.

I'm hungry, and the ladies like to see people appreciate what they've taken trouble to provide, so I pile my plate high with pimiento cheese and bologna sandwich triangles, potato salad, coleslaw, and olives. I'm partial to lime Jell-O salad and put a little of that on my plate, too.

The first person to zero in on me is Jenny Sandstone. With that flame-colored hair, she looks good in dark slacks and a white blouse. “You gotten anywhere figuring out what happened to Dora Lee?” I didn't know she was capable of speaking quietly.

I tell her I've come up with nothing concrete, but I'm working on a couple of things. I agree to stop by her place this evening to fill her in.

I then have a chance to agree with all and sundry that the service was very fine, that Dora Lee looked completely natural, and that this is the hottest day so far. Today I don't rush to rescue Caroline, having realized that she needs a little wearing down by people who won't cut her as much slack as I do. Then maybe she'll be a little more forthcoming.

Greg is the object of a lot of attention, Ida Ruth having done an expert job of tipping opinion in his favor. I go over and say hello. Up close, he's a little wild-eyed and he tells me he'll be glad when this is over. “But Grandma would have liked to see all these people turn out,” he says. I expect he's heard so many people say that by now that he's adopted it for his own thought, and being able to parrot it keeps him from bolting out of here.

Finally I see who I'm really looking for, Wayne Jackson and his stepdaddy. They have aligned themselves with Patsy and her bunch. I get rid of my empty paper plate, take a deep breath, and prepare to wade in.

Today I notice that although Wayne Jackson and Leslie Parjeter aren't blood-related, they both wear the same discontented expression. I shake their hands, and then do the same with Patsy and her husband. The little ones surprise me by sticking out their hands to shake as well, glancing to their mamma for approval.

Patsy assures me that Dora Lee is with the Lord, using a lot more words than seem necessary. Her husband and kids slip in the occasional “amen.” After Patsy winds down, I tell Leslie Parjeter that I appreciate his sending his stepson to get me out from under the burden of dealing with Dora Lee's affairs. “Dora Lee was a long-time friend to me, but it seemed right that family should be there.”

“It wasn't me that had that idea. It was Wayne, here.”

“Now Daddy, you're the one who called me,” Jackson says.

“And I'm sure it was your idea.”

Patsy makes her mouth into a smile, but her eyes are uncharitable. I'm wondering if she thinks these two are going to get their hands on something they aren't entitled to. None of these folks stand to inherit a dime, but families are peculiar about guarding rights they don't even have.

“Your folks couldn't come?” I say to Patsy.

“Poor things,” Patsy says. “They wanted to come so bad, but they're just too old. It would like to have killed them.”

“It's nice that you made the trip,” I say to Parjeter.

“Cost me a good bit in gasoline,” he says, “But I thought I ought to spare that for Dora Lee.”

“Have you met Dora Lee's grandson, Greg?” I say to Parjeter.

He says he has. At the mention of Greg, Patsy purses her lips in that way religious people have of showing disapproval.

“Patsy, you all ought to go out to Dora Lee's after this and get him to show you some of his paintings,” I say. “He's got some talent. Have you seen them?” I ask Jackson and Parjeter.

“No, I can't say as I have,” the old man says. “I'm sure doing them paintings is fine for them that has rich relatives, but with Dora Lee gone, that boy's going to have to get them ideas out of his head and find some kind of work. His making pictures ain't going to put bread on the table.”

“It's true, most artists never make much of a living,” I say. “But I know a little about art, and he might be one of those who does all right.”

When I say I know something about art, all of them look at me like I had just admitted I keep goats in my living room. A wondrous thing to behold, but of a different order of human.

Jackson says, “How do you come to know anything about art?” Me being a hick small-town old boy.

I tell him that my wife taught me an appreciation for it. “That's why I took note of Greg. You know anything about art yourself?” I say.

He shakes his head. “Not a thing.”

Patsy can't keep her judgment to herself any longer. “The Ten Commandments tell us not to have any graven image,” she says. “And that means it's an idle pastime to be painting pictures. An abomination to the Lord.”

That's the first I've heard of such an interpretation and I don't quite know what to say. More than ever, I'm glad Greg didn't go and live with his daddy's sister. “Was your brother as religious as you are?” I ask.

“No, it's only since Ken and I married that we've seen the light,” she says. “I'm afraid my brother was lost to me even before the Lord took him. I wish my nephew had lived with us instead of Dora Lee. We could have set him on the path to righteousness.”

After that, as quick as I can I excuse myself and step away from them. I feel a release in my neck muscles. Across the room Rodell is making some middle-aged women giggle. I go over and stand by until he runs out of steam, and then tell him I need to talk to him. The shit-eating grin he's been using on the ladies vanishes. We walk off a little ways, and he squares up facing me with his hands on his hips and his legs planted wide.

“What is it I can do for you?” he says.

I ask him if he's had time to find out if any of his men had word of a strange car out by Dora Lee's.

“I don't understand why this information would concern you,” he says.

“It concerns me because I want to see whoever killed Dora Lee brought to justice, and I don't perceive a lot of activity in that direction.” I put a little steel in my voice.

“Well,
Chief
, just because you don't
perceive
what's going on don't mean nothing is. Since you was Chief, we've got more technical ways of looking into things.”