Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing (31 page)

Mac took charge. “I take it this is the little girl in question, Mr. Jest?”

Jest replied that she was and Mac continued. “All right folks, let’s all sit down and sort this thing out. Mr. Jest drove over from Hiawassee to tell us what
he knows. Seems he got information that Missy was in Perry County, and he was concerned for the child’s well-being.”

Mac turned his attention to the deputy taking Mrs. Allen’s statement. “If you’re done, I need you to go on back to the office. Those sorry Goddard twins will need processing in at the jail. We’ll be holding them for the murder of Shane Long. Call me if we get anything on the van or the man and woman. Mr. Jest confirmed we are probably looking for a couple by the name of Fantell. They may be driving a rented cargo van. That should help narrow the search.” The deputy replied with a, yes sir, closed the laptop, and rose to leave.

When Mrs. Allen thanked her for being so kind, the deputy smiled. “No problem, ma’am. We’re grateful you and the child are safe. You take care now, and when you get a chance, call me and tell me where you bought that overly stout broom. I need to get me one.”

Once the deputy closed the kitchen door and the room was silent, we waited for Mac to say something. He sat at the table tapping his pen on a note pad he’d taken from his coat pocket. I suppose he was thinking. Mrs. Allen looked from Dick Jest to Mac, to Missy, and then to Jest again. If I read her narrowed eyes and pursed mouth correctly, she had questions she wanted to ask about the Fantells, and suspicions that Jest was here to take Missy away from her. When Mac failed to volunteer any information, she slowly lifted herself out of the chair and announced, “I’ll put water on for tea and make a fresh pot of coffee.”

Susan intersected her MaMa after a single step. “No you won’t,” she told her, and eased her back down
onto the chair. “I’ll do it. And soon as we’re done here, you’re going to the hospital to be checked out.”

“Hospital?” barked Mrs. Allen. “Only way that’ll happen is I’ll be dead as a opossum done run over by a tractor-trailer truck. You can make the tea, but you hush up about hospitals. I got poultices and herbs to take care of myself.”

Susan made coffee and tea in silence. Mrs. Allen kept her seat at the oak table and held Missy in her lap. Jest sat to her right. Mac to her left. Susan and Daniel across from them. Being technically the outsider, and since Missy had burned the sixth chair anyway, I propped on a wooden stool by the woodstove.

Mac finally convened the round table meeting. I hoped his long silence was because he was considering the best way to soothe Mrs. Allen’s fears. “Well now, MaMa, there’s some things we know already, some we just think we know, some we don’t know, and some Mr. Jest can probably help us with knowing.”
What in the world was Mac saying? He sounded like an Abbot and Costello comedy routine?
He cleared his throat and continued, “I’ll ask Mr. Jest a few questions, and we’ll all be real quiet and let him answer. That sound reasonable to everyone?”

Heads nodded all around. Tea and coffee cups were filled. Dick Jest extracted a slim cigar from his suit coat breast pocket. He carefully removed the outer cellophane wrapper, slid the gold foil ring from the cigar, and gifted it to Missy. Mrs. Allen flared, “I hope you don’t think you’re gonna light that nasty thing in my kitchen.”

Missy smiled, holding up her ring for Mrs. Allen to see. Daniel sat up straighter in his chair, his boots scuffing on the worn wood floor. Mac was poised with his pen and pad—a schoolboy ready for Thursday’s spelling test—but unwilling to proceed until Mrs. Allen’s temper blast was spent.

Jest replied with an almost imperceptible twinge of sarcasm, “No ma’am. I wouldn’t even think of it.” The peaty aroma of fine tobacco wafted my way as he stroked the unlit cigar, put it in his mouth, and bit down on the tip. Outside, the wind had quieted. Sand dollar sized snowflakes parachuted from the late afternoon sky like billions of fairies sailing home.

Dick Jest willingly answered questions about Missy. Several he said he couldn’t answer, that he didn’t know, and he seemed to be telling the truth. For instance, he knew her name was Alba, not Missy. He was pretty sure she came from Hungary because the Fantells had taken the circus there this past summer to pair resources and performers with a struggling circus from Budapest. It was there he first met Alba. Nan introduced her as their daughter; no one questioned the statement. When they left Europe, Alba sailed with them. He had no idea if the Fantells adopted the child in Hungary. He had not seen a passport for the child, nor did he know her exact age.

“Wait a second,” Susan broke in, “your son told me he didn’t meet Alba until Knoxville. He didn’t say anything about last summer—or Hungary.”

Dick Jest gave Susan a defiant glare and quipped back, “That’s because the little shit was in jail most of
last summer. Didn’t I tell you his mother was Basque? Liars, every one of them.”

I had the feeling Susan was about to ask what being Basque had to do with Tempi’s character, when Mac commented that getting copies of international adoption records would be difficult but not impossible. He made a few notes on his pad and then faced the child who’d stared wide-eyed at Jest since he began his story. “Little Missy, look over here at me,” Mac said gently. She kept her eyes on Dick Jest. “It’s okay. You’re safe here with us. No more reason to run off and hide.” Jest nodded to her and she slowly turned her eyes to Sheriff Mac. “Is your name Alba?” Mac asked.

“Da,” she answered. Then she said it again. “Da. Alba.”

Sheriff Mac asked Alba if she knew how she got to MaMa Allen’s house. When she answered,
car
, and was quiet again, Dick Jest rolled his cigar between his thumb and forefinger several times, then spoke up. “Fantell’s daughter took Alba after the Knoxville fire. Came over to Hiawassee and told me about it. She’s a good girl, tried to do the right thing by Alba. Knew firsthand Nan and Pokey are lousy parents. They got no right to knock a kid around like that. Daughter’s old enough now to make it on her own, and says she’s done with them. No reason for her to take their crap any longer. I gave her some cash and she’s headed west.”

Mac looked up from his note taking. “I heard what you said about the Fantell’s daughter telling you she’d left the child with Mrs. Allen, but what made you think Alba was in danger.”

Jest twisted around in his chair, maybe trying to get more comfortable on the hard oak bottom. As I watched him, I was struck by how well such a small man accommodated himself to a world built for taller humans. His clothes were expertly tailored. He obviously drove his own vehicle, was about to take on a new business, and had the guts to show up at the Perry County Sheriff’s Department when he knew a child was in danger. Good for him.

The Shoulda-Woulda-Coulda Committee chimed in:
Hello, hello, Dr. McNeal. Well duh…none of that depends on a person’s height. Now does it?
For once, they were right. I shushed them so I could hear Jest’s answer.

“Well Sheriff, I’m ashamed to say that my son was arrested for possession of drugs again. I knew he didn’t have any money, so when I went to the jail to talk to him about making his bail, I grilled him on where he got the cash to buy drugs. He wanted out, so he told me about selling information to that young lady over there.” Jest used his cigar to point at Susan. “He also told me he’d called Pokey Fantell and sold him information that the young lady was curious about Alba. When I traced her cell phone number to Perry County, I figured she wasn’t with the insurance company. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but knowing Pokey Fantell, I knew there would be trouble.”

Susan confirmed. “Yeah, we paid Tempi Jest a hundred dollars to tell us what he knew. I guess his bail was more than that?”

Jest didn’t bat an eye. “Don’t know. I refused to clean up his mess this time. Not after what he did.” He
paused, and then said sadly, “The boy has no honor. He’s a great disappointment.”

I was thinking: a broken nose from Susan, thinks drugs are the answers to life’s hard questions, sitting in a Georgia jail, your own father believes you have no honor, and your mother was a Basque—whatever that means. Almost made me feel sorry for the punk. Then I remembered his predatory smile when he thought he had Susan trapped. Never mind. No sympathy.

After asking Dick Jest a couple of questions about where the Fantells might be, Mac adjourned the meeting. The decision was made for Missy/Alba and Mrs. Allen to stay temporarily at Mac’s house. Mac said it was because of the bad weather, but I think he wanted them safe with him, just in case the Fantells decided to return.

The plan was for Mac to take them with him in his Bronco along with Daniel and Jest, whose car was back at the Perry County Sheriff’s Department. He’d drop Daniel at my house where his truck was parked, and Daniel would drive back to Mrs. Allen’s for Susan and me. A little complicated, but logical considering the snow.

After gathering a few things in a bag for herself and the child, Mrs. Allen kissed Susan goodbye and gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder. Daniel told us he’d be back in twenty minutes or less. “Be careful,” I told him. “We’ll watch for you. If the drive is too slippery, blow the horn; we’ll hike down to the truck.” Once the words left my mouth, I realized I’d spoken to him just as I would have spoken to my son at age fourteen. Sorry, a mother will always be a mother.

Daniel didn’t seem aggravated by my giving him directions. “Don’t worry about me, Babe,” he quipped
back. “I’m mountain bred, remember? Got me a four-wheel drive Ford truck; snow chains in the back, and Redman chewing tobacco on the dash.”

Humor: the great stress reliever.

Susan and I shivered on Mrs. Allen’s back porch and waved goodbye. Mac’s Bronco slid sideways as he turned around in the new snow, but he soon righted the vehicle and drove slowly down the hill. We were alone for the first time since we entered the cave up on Fire Mountain.

“How do you suppose those Fantell people found MaMa so quickly?”

I was wondering the same thing. “I’m guessing once they had your cell number they used a cross directory to get your address. Then they followed you around. You’ve probably been over here a lot in the past two days, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true. But I sure didn’t notice a van following me.”

“The other possibility is that the daughter told them where she dropped Missy, I mean Alba. Though from what Jest said, that is unlikely. No, I’d go with them following you and maybe seeing Missy out in the yard.”

“Okay miss person-with-all-the-answers, there is
one
thing I have to know.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Up there in the Cave. I’m pretty sure I smelled sulfur just before Missy threw the fire. Did she have a box of kitchen matches? If so, it must have been the biggest box on record to make that much fire. Or did she have something else, something really flammable hidden in her pockets?”

“She’s wearing pajamas, remember. No pockets”

“Then how did she make the fire?”

“I have no idea,” I answered, and that was the truth.

28

It was bone-chilling cold for the last days of March, nine inches of snow at higher elevations, and six down where I lived on Fells Creek. Not a lot by New Hampshire standards, but for us the world played in slow motion until the snow plows worked their way around the county to the side roads.

Granny’s Store remained closed. Daniel and Susan were busy at home ushering cows in and out of the barn to keep them from freezing to death in the fields. Daniel swore he was selling every cow he owned at the April auction. Too much work, he said, especially for a man about to be a restaurant owner. After sundown on that first day of the snow, I saw Mac pull into Fletcher’s drive and lure Hubert into his barn with a bunch of carrots. With the long day he’d had, I was proud of him for venturing out again to do a neighbor a favor.