Murder Takes to the Hills (30 page)

Lewis was using the living room as his “office.” So we set out Ken’s buffet dinner in the dining room. It gave Lewis and anyone with him the illusion of privacy, although the sound of normal conversation carried into the dining room quite clearly.

Lewis had provided Branch with some food and a mug of coffee, which seemed to restore him—if not to sobriety—at least to coherence. They spoke of
inconsequentials
while he ate and then turned to serious interrogation.

Branch succinctly went over the Advantage plans for a mountaintop development,
 
his difficulties in obtaining easements for even one road to reach it, McCurry’s appointment as closer and his deliberate misunderstanding of how he was to approach prospects. Branch had not seen McCurry commit any of the vandalism that accompanied his arrival, but strongly suggested he was guilty. McCurry was drinking heavily and Branch was almost certain he was on steroids or some other drug.

Branch had several times asked the sheriff to arrest McCurry for disturbing the peace or some equivalent minor infraction of the law and “let him cool off” until Branch could get help from Advantage, but Johnson said he had no cause. Advantage finally recalled McCurry and Branch, when they received the letter from Clay’s attorney, and Branch was trying desperately to keep McCurry under control until their ordered return to Knoxville on Monday. Branch smiled ruefully and added, “It was like telling a six-year-old to put a runaway Newfoundland on leash.”

I was called in when they began to speak of Saturday night and Branch’s time at the Bromfield Inn. He had known that Clay, Sara, Tommy, Cindy and I would be there where he could, for a time, keep an eye on us. We were his main worries. Clay and Sara for retaining Attorney Minot. Cindy and me for giving them the idea to get a lawyer and for giving his macho ego a bad bruise in the
Delly
.
 
Tommy as a sort of hostage for Clay and Sara.

He and I had danced once, Branch said and then, since the waiters were backed up with orders, went into the bar for a drink. I blessed him silently for being gentleman enough not to mention how and how long we danced, and then I confirmed what I could of his phone call from Mildred.

I added that Branch was badly shaken to learn that instead of being with her at the Dew Drop Inn or the No-Tel Motel—I didn’t know its proper name—Mickey had belted Mildred, been bounced from the Dew Drop and disappeared. Branch left the Bromfield right away to go look for him.

When asked what he had been wearing he immediately said, “Gray. Pants and blazer…gray.”

“What kind of shoes?”
 
I appended.

He stuck a foot out from under the coffee table. “These.”

They were Champion sneakers, would have fit me and had a worn spot on the right sole. So much for my footprint,
Jeffie
, old boy!

Until now, Branch had been quite calm, but now that he had left the Bromfield in his narrative, his nerves began to show. He began to shift the dishes around on the coffee table. He pulled out cigarettes and dropped the lighter, finally recovered it and began to speak again.

“I knew he wasn’t at the Dew Drop. I hoped he had gone back to his room at the No-Tel and passed out, but he wasn’t there. So I tried Clay’s and one of his men, toting a shotgun, told me Clay was in Kingsport for a few days and that he had not seen Mickey all evening. That left my sister and Tommy, and Cindy and Alex.”

“You knew where they all were, safe at the dance,” Sonny put in.

“Yes, but I didn’t know for how long. I knew Sara and Tommy and his girl wouldn’t stay late. Horses and a couple of cows get you up early. And I wasn’t sure how good the two guards Clay had hired for their place were. I wasn’t sure about the two ladies, either. I thought if they were home, maybe I’d convince them to spend the night at Clay’s. I knew his men were good and had no use for Mickey.”

“So you went next to Ken’s?” Lewis asked.

“In a way. I
meant
to go first to Sara’s and then check Ken’s on the way back down. But when I got to the turnoff, Mickey’s car was parked on the side of the road. That about worried me to pieces. He could be at either place. I cut my lights and went on down the road a couple of hundred yards and parked.”

Branch looked longingly at my highball and I pushed it over to him, ignoring Sonny’s and Lewis’s scowls.

“Thanks, Alex.” He sent me one of those winning smiles and I wondered for the thousandth time how we had all gotten mixed up in this. “Anyway, I walked back and started up the dirt road. I noticed lights on in the cabin, but Alex’s car wasn’t there, so I moved on, going to go first to the farm. Then, a movement caught my eye. It was Mickey, on the back porch of the cabin.”

“Did he see you?” Lewis asked.

“He would have, so I called out and asked him what he was doing here. He said…he told me…do I have to say this here?” His hands gripped the edge of the coffee table until his knuckles whitened.

“Come on, Branch, we haven’t got all night.” Sonny sounded irritable.

Branch spoke very quickly. “He said he was going to show those two dykes what a real man was like and then he would kill them. I’m sorry Alex, but that’s what he said.”

I couldn’t answer. I felt my face go white, I felt dizzy, I reached for what had been my drink and couldn’t quite make it. Sonny was swearing and beating the coffee table. I was vaguely aware of his wishing he had Mickey alive right now. Then Lewis had his arm around me and was holding the communal drink to my lips. I got down a swallow and nodded. I was back among the living.

“Tell me Cindy didn’t hear this,” I whispered.

“No, she’s in the kitchen,” Sonny replied. “Are you okay?”

“I guess, but I’d like a drink of my own.”

“I’ll get it, Cindy won’t know it’s for you.” He stood and headed for the kitchen.

“All right, Branch. Keep going.” Lewis sounded angry.

“Uh, yeah. Well, Mickey started laughing about what a party they would have, and he dropped the screwdriver he was using to try to jimmy the door.
 
He was bent over, feeling around in the dark for it. I thought I saw a gun stuck in his back pants pocket. If he had a gun…and if the women came home now… not even the three of us would have much of a chance against him! I looked around and saw some river rocks lined up. I didn’t even think. I just grabbed one and hit him in the back of the head with it, just as he found the screwdriver and stood up. I only meant to stun him and call
Jeffie
…surely even he would come out now!”

Branch swished the ice around in the glass and drained the watery drink. “Mickey fell over. I took the gun and found the screwdriver where he had dropped it again, and put them in my pocket. He hadn’t moved, and when I tried to wake him up, I couldn’t. He didn’t seem to be breathing and I couldn’t feel a pulse, either, although I’m never sure what part of the neck to push.”

He looked up hopefully as Sonny returned with my drink, but this time I didn’t share. “It was funny.” Branch shrugged and continued. “Ideas just seemed to come to me. I didn’t want to leave him parked on Ken’s porch with a hole in his head. I got him under the shoulders and managed to drag him up near that little footbridge across the creek. The creek was up a few inches from the runoff of the rain and the end of the bridge was under water. I laid him down like he had slipped on the wet wood or in the mud and hit his head. Remembering what he was supposed to have hit his head
on
, I went back and got the rock and put it beside his head. I tossed the gun and screwdriver, along with my bloody jacket, into the creek. You can probably find them.”

He put his hands over his face and squinted his eyes tightly closed, like a child denying he has swiped the cookies. “Honest! I only meant to stun him, I really
never
meant to
kill
him!”

“That’s good,” a voice boomed from the front door, “because you didn’t.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“What do you mean?” I think everyone in the house asked that question at the same time.

Doctor Ray
Thalman
completed his entrance and leaned, grinning, against the fireplace. “Just what I said. Mickey McCurry was alive, if not well, when Mr. Redford left him lying by the bubbling mountain brook.” Ray was obviously enjoying himself.

Lewis made a come-on gesture with his hands. “Stop teasing us, Ray, this is not the time for a joke.”

“I never thought it was.” He smiled. “I just thought this man you’ve got here might be glad to know he is not a murderer.”

He pointed at Branch, who looked up at him with adoration fit to bestow on angels. Ray made a sign of sipping a drink with his hand. “I’ll make the drink,” Sonny volunteered. “Talk loud.”

“It’s been a long day,” Ray explained. “Butch and I just finished the autopsy, I’ll give you the short version. Time of death? Hard to guess in a guy who spent considerable time lying in cold mud, spattered with cold rain and sprayed by a cold creek. We know he was alive about midnight…so, any time between then and five a.m.”

Ray nodded toward the front door. “I stood outside a few minutes and listened to Redford’s confession. I can tell you it is essentially true. The rock is definitely the weapon. It’s Mickey’s blood and hair caught in it. The tops of his boot toes are caked in mud where he was dragged up the path, and the backs of his clothes are muddy from lying down.”

“But he was alive all this time?” Sonny asked on his return.

This was the weirdest criminal interrogation I had ever witnessed or even heard of! I had thought Sonny was sometimes rather informal, but he had never served drinks and dinner while he questioned a—I guess—prisoner. Nor had the forensic specialist made his report in the presence of that prisoner and various other interested parties.

It reminded me of a situation I had stumbled upon a couple of years ago while looking for a woman who had inherited from her uncle in
Ptown
. The heiress and her lover had “buried” her sister in a Louisiana bayou. After turning themselves in, they were sentenced to provide a new air conditioner to the sheriff’s office and put new paint on the juvenile detention quarters...and told to go and sin no more.

“He was alive all this time,” Ray agreed. “The blow was somewhat of a sideswipe. I judge Branch may have been off balance already or slipped on the wet step as he wielded the rock. There was a hairline fracture, Mickey was concussed and, of course, there was an open wound which bled fairly freely. It did not, however, bleed into the brain in any large amount to cause swelling of the brain. That’s what is usually fatal.
 
It was a serious wound, he should have had immediate medical attention. But even when he was ultimately found, he probably would have been alive—and possibly able to be saved—had it not been for other factors.”

“What
other
factors?” Cindy called from the dining room where, as she so often did, was making order out of chaos.

“Well-l-l, there was a great deal of alcohol in his blood, plus signs of steroids and cocaine—can’t have helped his general health or his attitude. And…and, there was a minor amount of pink froth in his lungs and mouth.” The good doctor should have been on stage.

“You mean he
drowned?
” Lewis was on his feet now and looking incredulous. He glared at Branch. “How in God’s name did he drown?”

Branch glared right back. “How the hell do you think I know? I certainly didn’t drown him!”

“Well, neither did I!” cried a strained voice from the dining room. I think he died when he fell in the bush.”

“And just who the hell are you?”

“I’m Tommy.”

The
Blackstones
had arrived via the kitchen door.

If Ken was bewildered at this influx of loud people to his quiet mountain retreat, you’d never know it. He swept Sara and Tommy into a double embrace with a kiss for Sara.

“Well, look who’s here! Two of my favorite people…and just in time for a drink and maybe a little snack from the buffet table. What will you have?”