The Old Buzzard Had It Coming (6 page)

“How is Sheriff Tucker’s investigation progressing, have you heard?” Alafair asked Mrs. Day.

“I haven’t heard nothing new from the sheriff,” Mrs. Day told her. “I was kind of hoping maybe you know something, being kin and all.”

Alafair smiled. “My husband’s cousin Scott may be a funny old bear in private life, but when he’s about an investigation, he’s the most conscientious, single-minded creature that ever sat in a chair. He’ll not go blabbing about, that’s for sure. And you can rest easy that if Scott Tucker has anything to say about it, justice will be done.”

Mrs. Day didn’t reply, but the look on her face told Alafair that she thought justice had already been served, and she feared that any more justice would just lead to tragedy.

“Has John Lee showed up, yet?” Alafair wondered.

“No,” Mrs. Day answered tersely. “But he will, and this foolishness will be cleared right up.”

Naomi, who had just finished gathering up the dishes, shooed some stray children out the kitchen door and disappeared into the parlor behind them.

Unexpectedly, Phoebe stood up. “Mama, I’m going to help Naomi with the kids,” she announced.

Alafair looked up at her, surprised, then nodded. She and the other adults took up their conversation after Phoebe had gone.

“Why do you think John Lee run off, Miz Day?” Alafair asked.

“I don’t think he did,” she assured Alafair. “I expect he went off on his own. Sometimes he does that. His timing is just bad this time, that’s all.”

“Well, who do you think put a bullet in your husband’s head?”

Mrs. Day straightened, and her eyes showed an unaccustomed spirit as she prepared to defend her offspring. “I don’t know, Miz Tucker,” she said. “But it weren’t John Lee, or anybody in this house. Doctor Addison said it was a .22 slug he dug out of Harley’s head, probably from a derringer. Well, we ain’t got a derringer, or any pistol of such small caliber on this farm. We just got Harley’s daddy’s old .45 Colt and a Winchester ’86 and an aught-twelve shotgun. I don’t think I ever even seen a lady’s gun.”

“Did you tell all this to Sheriff Tucker?” Zorah asked her.

“I did. He didn’t seem much impressed.”

“Well, I sure think John Lee is an unlikely killer,” J.D. stated, “even though nobody had as much grievance against Harley as him. I don’t think that boy has a mean bone in his body.”

“Is there anybody you suspect?” Alafair asked Mrs. Day.

“Lord Almighty, Miz Tucker, it could have been anybody,” the woman declared. “Harley had more enemies than you could shake a stick at. He was always getting into beefs with them lowlife scum he sold his home-brew to. Why, just a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Lang that we just mentioned was out here complaining that Harley hadn’t paid him for that last fifty bushels of corn that he bought. I never seen him so mad. He said Harley wasn’t getting another ear of corn from him if he didn’t pay for the last batch that was delivered. John Lee made a deal to meet with him and arrange a way to pay.”

“Harley bought the corn for his brew?”

A tiny smile, shy but defiant, appeared. “Didn’t used to. Used to use the corn we growed ourselves. But three years ago John Lee wouldn’t let him have none, and sold every bit of it before Harley could get his hands on it. He has done that ever since, and now Harley has to use the money from his moonshining to buy his corn.”

“I expect he had plenty,” J.D. commented. “I hear bootlegging is a going concern.”

Mrs. Day shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “We always figured that Harley has a cache of money hid around here somewhere, but none of us ever could find it, if he does.”

Alafair noticed that Mrs. Day was still using the present tense when referring to her husband, but didn’t correct her. “So John Lee really ran things around here.”

“He did and he does,” Zorah assured her. “Harley never bothered with the farm. So you see there wasn’t no reason for John Lee to kill him.”

No reason but rage, Alafair thought.

***

When Alafair was ready to leave, she realized that Phoebe had been gone for quite a while. She stood on the porch with Mrs. Day and the Millars, saying her good-byes in a vague quandary, when Phoebe came around the house with Naomi. Naomi walked up the porch steps to stand beside her mother, and Phoebe climbed into the shay. The girls did not take their leave of one another. They didn’t even look at one another. Naomi wished Alafair a solemn good day, and that was all.

Alafair didn’t speak to Phoebe until they were out the gate and back on the road toward home. “Where did you and Naomi get yourselves off to?” she finally asked.

Phoebe skewed her a glance. “She was showing me around the farm,” she said.

“That little old girl must be five years younger than you,” Alafair observed. “I wouldn’t think you’d have much to say to one another.”

Phoebe shrugged. “I wanted to ask her what she thought about John Lee,” she told Alafair. “Besides, Ma, you may have noticed that Naomi is older than her age.”

“I did notice that,” Alafair admitted. “Sometimes that happens, when the parents aren’t very mature. The kids become older than their folks. Fortunately, you kids don’t have to worry about that,” she added dryly.

Phoebe’s mouth twisted up in the corner with the little ironic quirk of a smile that all of Shaw Tucker’s children had inherited. “I reckon not,” she replied in a toneless voice that implied that maybe she reckoned so.

Alafair stifled a chuckle. “Have you ever met John Lee’s aunt and uncle before?”

“No, I never met them, but John Lee did tell me not long ago that his uncle had come over and took his dad to task in an awful way for something Mr. Day did over at their farm. I guess Mr. Millar is the uncle he was talking about.”

“Really? Do you know what Harley did to the Millars that called for such a dressing down?”

“John Lee didn’t tell me. Maybe he didn’t know himself.”

“When did this happen?”

There was a pause while Phoebe figured. “Well, John Lee told me about it a couple of weeks ago.”

“It’s interesting that Mr. Millar didn’t get home when he was supposed to,” Alafair mused. She glanced at Phoebe, who was staring thoughtfully at the road. “So what did Naomi think about John Lee?”

“She thinks he didn’t do it,” Phoebe said, without looking at her.

“Does she have any thoughts on who did do it?”

“Not that she told me. And I certainly asked.”

They were practically home already. Alafair pulled up in front of their outer gate and Phoebe jumped down to pull it open. Alafair drove through, then stopped while Phoebe closed the gate. She climbed back up beside Alafair and they drove to the barn. Not another word was exchanged between them on the subject of John Lee Day.

Something was up. Alafair’s mother-sense was all aquiver. Phoebe was not acting strangely. She had not said anything suspicious or unusual under the circumstances. But something had changed in the ether that surrounded her daughter. Phoebe had found out something while they were at the Day place. Alafair considered how to proceed while she and Phoebe unhitched the horse from the shay. She was going to have to be careful. She decided to say nothing for the moment. Phoebe was preoccupied, and didn’t notice the increased intensity of her mother’s gaze.

The evening proceeded as usual; housework, animals, supper, cleanup, the ritual of going to bed. Phoebe made her pallet in the kitchen for another night.

“Aren’t you getting tired of sleeping out here in the middle of everything?” her mother asked her.

“I kind of like it, Ma, having the bed all to myself.”

“Suit yourself. But you’re feeling better, now?”

“Not quite tiptop, but a lot better.”

“Sleep well, then, honey.”

Chapter Six

There was no possibility that Alafair was going to fall asleep. She lay on her back next to Shaw, listening to his even breathing, and staring at the ceiling for close to an hour. She was practically in a state of super consciousness, her ears as sharp as any cat’s, hearing and classifying every sound in the house, and dismissing most as unimportant. The clock in the parlor ticked evenly. Charlie, full of little boy energy, even in his dreams, flopped on his cot in the parlor a few times before sinking into the catatonic sleep of the innocent. Blanche sighed in her sleep. One of the older girls in the next room shifted.

Alafair was drifting in that state between sleep and wake when she heard the brief click click click of Charlie-dog’s toenails on the kitchen floor. Her eyes flew open. There was one tiny rustle, another half-dozen clicks, then silence. The brief, almost imperceptible creak of the back door screen.

Alafair didn’t move, didn’t breathe for a minute, giving the night-mover a brief head start. The instant she heard the back door latch settle into place, she rolled out of the bed and grabbed her shoes. She didn’t worry about waking Shaw. She could have jumped on the bed without bothering him.

Alafair glided through the bedroom and the parlor into the kitchen. She was not surprised to see that Phoebe’s pallet was empty. She had been half expecting just such a move since Phoebe’s unusual behavior at the Days’. She snatched her coat off the coat tree by the door, and struggled into her shoes as she peered out the kitchen window into the yard. The moon was winter bright, illuminating the yard whiter than a torch. All was black shapes, except the few patches of unmelted snow, and the white quilt-wrapped shape of Phoebe floating quickly across the ground, past the outhouse, past the hen house, tool shed and barn, even past the stable at the top of the long rise behind the barn, accompanied by the yellow shepherd.

Alafair’s brow wrinkled. Where was she going? She would have thought the barn the logical place to hide someone, especially in the winter, up in the loft, with the hay for warmth.

Alafair wrapped a scarf around her head and slipped out the back door, walking hurriedly after the receding figure. The thought of hay had given her the answer. Phoebe was heading for the soddie, or course—the original dwelling Shaw had thrown up when they had first bought the land fourteen years earlier and needed a place to stay while the house was being built. It was used for storing baled hay, now.

It was small, snug, well-insulated with hay and earth and safe enough as long as the foolish youngster didn’t try to make a fire. Alafair puffed along in the cold and dark, keeping well back from Phoebe, who had the dog with her.

It was a twenty-minute walk to the soddie in the dark, long enough for Alafair to brood on every aspect of Phoebe’s uncharacteristic behavior. Just how deep did this secret friendship with the Day boy go? Was it only a friendship, or something more? They were both just children, after all, not at an age known for levelheaded and thoughtful behavior. Oh, Lord, had sweet innocent Phoebe fallen for a murderer? Worse than a murderer, a parricide? Tears of anxiety stung Alafair’s eyes. She’d wring that silly girl’s neck. Look at her, so intent on meeting her sweetheart that she didn’t even know she was being followed, traipsing around in the freezing cold wrapped in a quilt. She’d catch pneumonia. Alafair made a mental note to force hot rose hip tea down her and wrap her feet over a hot water bottle. To wet a strip of flannel with camphor and bind it around Phoebe’s throat. She inventoried her fever medicines in her mind. Did she have enough onion and garlic in the house?

She shook herself back to the task at hand. She could see the soddie in the middle of the stubble-field, now, and Phoebe and the dog’s ghostly forms making a beeline for it. Phoebe stopped in front of the doorless door and stooped to say something to the old yellow shepherd. Alafair quickly squatted down herself, to avoid being seen. Phoebe ducked into the soddie, leaving the dog sitting beside the door gazing after her. Alafair counted to sixty, then moved up to the shack as stealthily as she could.

The dog saw her, of course, but knew who she was long before she drew very near. He made no noise other than a few dull thumps as his tail hit the ground when he wagged his greeting. Alafair put her hand on the dog’s head and urged him to accompany her around the side of the soddie, where one high window, unstuffed with hay, might enable her to hear what was happening inside.

She could hear them, all right, two young voices, one female, one male, speaking softly to one another in a murmur, just below Alafair’s ability to comprehend. She anxiously pressed herself up to the wall near the window, her ears strained to the limit.

She listened, frustrated, as the young people talked for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and then fell silent. Alafair sank down next to the house and draped her arm over the dog, feeling like she might explode. She desperately wanted to burst into the soddie, fling the two apart, and dash the boy’s brains out against the wall.

If he cared for Phoebe, even if he only felt himself to be her friend, how dare he involve her in this nasty business? She indulged herself in her fury at John Lee for a minute, even as she was perfectly aware that there was enough guilt to go around.

She only had to restrain herself for a couple of minutes before she heard Phoebe step out the door again and whistle softly for the dog. Alafair pushed the dog away from her before Phoebe could come around the side of the shack to look for him. The dog shook himself and walked calmly around the corner to Phoebe, with a single backward glance at Alafair, unsurprised by the inexplicable vagaries of human behavior. Alafair squeezed herself into the littlest package she could.

“There you are, you old Charlie-dog,” Phoebe said, very plainly. “Let’s get on back.”

When Alafair heard Phoebe’s footsteps recede, her breath escaped in one huge whoosh of relief, and not simply because she had not been discovered. Phoebe had not been alone with her fugitive friend long enough for anything untoward to have happened.

Alafair sat still for a minute, pondering. As she saw it, she had two long-range problems. First, she had to find out what there was between Phoebe and John Lee. Second, she had to know if this boy had killed his father, and if he had, were there mitigating circumstances? Her two long-range problems were momentarily precluded by two more immediate questions. Namely, was she going to rush into the soddie and demand that the boy tell her what he thought he was up to? And if she was not going to do that, how was she going to get back into the house without alerting Phoebe?

How long had she been away from the house? Forty-five minutes, probably. What if one of the kids had awakened and wanted her? Well, it would be a disaster, that’s all. But it was unlikely.

Alafair rubbed her cold hands together and blew into them. She knew she wasn’t going to confront John Lee, not right now. He wasn’t going anywhere in the short run, and if she kept her counsel for a little while, she might learn something. She would have to be subtle as a summer breeze, she knew, since dealing with a wary teenager is more difficult than approaching a scared deer. And that included not just Phoebe, but all of Alafair’s older kids, as well. They might not know everything about the situation, but as sure as the sun rises, they knew more about Phoebe and John Lee than she did.

She settled back against the grassy wall to wait a while, until Phoebe was settled back on her pallet and dozing, and Alafair could slip back through the front door.

A shuffle from the entrance froze Alafair as still as a rabbit. She held her breath as she listened to footsteps move away from the door of the soddie and the figure of John Lee appear just within her line of vision at the corner of the soddie. Alafair didn’t panic. She knew if she stayed still, he probably wouldn’t see her in the dark shadows. He walked out into the field about twenty paces and proceeded to relieve himself.

Alafair studied his compact figure with interest as he did his business. It didn’t occur to her to be embarrassed. She had lived her life too close to nature to be bothered by a little pee.

The moon was bright and she could make out considerable detail about the boy, even if it was too dark to see his features. He was not a tall youngster, maybe five feet eight, but at nineteen, likely to add an inch before he was done. He was pretty broad in the back already, and narrow hipped, with lanky limbs and an untrimmed shag of hair. Years ago, he had been just one of the flocks of kids who had hung around when all the offspring were little. He hadn’t been a brat, she remembered that. He said, “Yes, ma’am,” and all. Usually barefoot, even when Alafair thought it too cold.

John Lee finished his task and put himself back together, then stood for a few minutes gazing up at the full moon before he visibly shuddered with the cold and turned with some reluctance and returned to his den in the hay bales.

Alafair felt a twinge of compassion for the fugitive. Maybe he was guilty and maybe not, but he was young, probably scared, and definitely cold, dressed as he was in nothing but a long-sleeved shirt and overalls. At least he was shod. She hoped Phoebe would have the sense to smuggle some old quilts or blankets to him.

She thought about Phoebe disappearing with Naomi earlier that day, and wondered if Phoebe was telling Naomi about John Lee’s hiding place, or if it had been the other way around.

She could hear him scuffling around inside the soddie as he resettled into his lair. He emitted a sigh loud enough for Alafair to hear, and then silence. Alafair glanced at the moon. She stood up slowly, stiff and frozen-toed, and made her way home.

***

Alafair figured that the longer she waited to make her move, the more likelihood there was that John Lee would escape or be caught. She decided to do it early, while Shaw was taking the kids to their various pursuits and she was alone on the farm for an hour or so. The idea that she might be in danger from John Lee never occurred to her.

It was a miserable morning, still dark long after it should have been because of the heavy overcast. The wind was like a knife, freezing cold and full of little stinging bits of sleet. Alafair wrapped herself up like a mummy and filled a lard pail with some biscuits and bacon and hot coffee in a jar. She practically ran the quarter-mile to the soddie, partially because she was in a hurry and partly because it was so cold she feared that if she slowed down she would freeze solid in her tracks. She slowed a little as she neared the shack, and approached warily, not wanting to startle John Lee if he was watching. She stood before the door for a couple of seconds, took a deep breath, and ducked inside.

She saw nothing, except the u-shaped wall of hay bales that Shaw and the boys had piled floor to ceiling. Alafair stood still and studied the wall, her gaze sweeping slowly from side to side, top to bottom, trying to find the hay equivalent of a secret panel. She knew that in the fall, Shaw and his hired day-laborers had packed the soddie cram-full of baled hay, and as winter progressed, he had pulled out bales by the half-dozens, through windows and doors, until little packets of emptiness existed around the shack, like the anteroom she was standing in.

She was reasonably certain that the boy didn’t have to remove a bale to reach his hiding place, since a bale of hay is heavy, and Phoebe certainly wouldn’t be able to maneuver one with any ease. The bales were stacked in a flat, straight wall to within six inches of the ceiling. Climbing over would be so difficult that it was practically impossible.

Her eye followed the six-inch opening along the top. The bales were flush with the east wall, but stood out from the west wall about eight inches. Not enough to allow a human body to pass through. Not at first sight, anyway. Alafair stepped up and examined the opening, passing her hand around the hay wall. Only the front bales stood close to the wall. The bales behind were set back a good eighteen inches. She took a deep breath, blew it out, and making herself as skinny as she could, squeezed between the hard, scratchy hay and the soddie wall. For half an instant, she thought she wasn’t going to make it, and an image of herself permanently wedged solid, waiting for rescue by some unsympathetic and highly amused offspring, popped into her mind. The very thought caused her to shrink another couple of inches and pop through into the corridor formed by the bales and the outside wall. She blew out a relieved breath, then paused a moment to pick hay out of her clothes and hair. The little hallway she found herself in was only about six feet long, and turned at an abrupt right angle at the back wall of the soddie. Alafair tiptoed forward and hesitated at the corner. For the first time she felt apprehension. She expected it might not be wise to startle a well-grown young fugitive in his hiding place. It was much warmer inside the soddie, with its tons of hay insulation, but she could still see her breath in the air. She held her breath and inched her eyes around the corner.

He was there, all right, sleeping like a baby, curled up in one of her better down comforters on a bed of loose hay and rough blankets. His nest was in an opening not six feet by six feet, as cozy and padded as a vixen’s den. Alafair stood and looked at the sleeping boy for a long time. He was lying curled up on his side, swathed in blankets up to his eyes, so that all she could make out was a shock of black hair and two long fringes of black eyelashes. Light, such as it was, and air, were coming in from the high, narrow window just under the roof. The sun was fairly up by now, but it was still very dim, and chilly. A bucket of water sitting next to the wall was covered with a dark skin of ice.