The Rivers Webb (10 page)

Dan decided that this would be a good point to cut in, so he took a hearty gulp of his coffee, then asked, “Was that the last time you saw the reverend?”

“It was,” Sam replied. Dan nodded, then looked around the room as if he was just noticing the decor.

“I remember the reverend once told me you don't ever go to funerals. That true?”

“Oh, yessir. It is,” Sam replied, “All that raw anger and sadness. It gets a bit hard to sort it all out, and I get a bit out of sorts 'cause of it.” Dan nodded again, and finished hi visual cataloging of the kitchen, before snapping his eyes back at Sam Posey.

“But you decided to stop by Reverend Rivers' funeral, though. Albeit too late for the service, but you were there.” Dan's voice was flat and menacing. It probably didn't have to be, but he couldn't seem to help it. It did little good, since Sam Posey just smiled as though he had been waiting for this all along. Which, Dan realized, he probably had been.

“Yes, Deputy. I was there at the funeral, and I was talkin' with that Detective Webb.”

“My next obvious question is ‘why?'”

“I had spoken with him shortly—very shortly—that same mornin'. Annie Ruth, bless her heart, had tricked the poor man into seein' me. I didn't make a good impression, so he left in a hurry.”

“So, you came after him?”

“I felt bad. I didn't want him to think that I was tryin' to profit somehow from his family's pain.”

Dan was about to say something, but chose not to. Whatever Sam Posey was hiding, he wouldn't get it out by normal means. So far, Sam was pretty forthcoming, though at his own pace.

“Our young detective friend is wrestlin' with a whole lot o' demons. Some o' them he brought with him. Others…well, the others kinda' caught him off guard once he got here. I wanted to try an' help him understand just how much that kind of pain and anguish could cloud a fella's judgement.”

“Is that all?”

Sam laughed quietly, almost bitterly, at that.

“You make it seem like that isn't a lot…but I can tell you, Deputy, from experience. Those particular demons can really turn ya' around.”

Dan could tell that the man was serious, so he simply nodded.

“Truth is, I just wanted to help him. I wanted to show him that all that anger was in the wrong place…I didn't do a good job, I'm afraid.”

“How do you mean?” Dan asked.

“You get out to the movies much, Deputy? I like to, now and then. I 'specially like them detective stories. You always see some hard, determined types that just plain don't stop at nothin' to get the bad guy. Your Detective Webb reminds me a lot o' those movies. He's always lookin' at folks like they was suspects, on account o' he don't want to miss nothin'.”

“He definitely is determined, I'll give him that.”

“Oh, it's more than determined. That man is driven to see the very worst in people. It's what makes him a good detective, don't get me wrong. But it also makes him always assume the worst. When I tried to tell him what I had seen, he assumed I was tryin' to make a quick buck off o' his pain.”

There was a sadness in Sam Posey's eyes that he didn't try to conceal. Dan knew he should press him about the note he saw him hand John at the funeral, but for some strange reason, couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead, he simply looked down at the remaining coffee in his cup, and downed it in one gulp.

Sam seemed to recover himself a little, and got up from the table.

“I've enjoyed this visit, Deputy. I do hope you come again, but you've got to be goin' fairly quickly. You didn't bring a raincoat.”

Dan looked up at the man, confused.

“Raincoat?” he asked. Sam nodded solemnly.

“There's a storm comin' in, and fast, too. You should just beat it, if you leave now.”

Dan got up and started for the door, then turned.

“You saw a vision of rain?”

Sam tried to keep up the wizardly stoic face, but suddenly broke it with a wide, toothy grin.

“Naw. My shoulder hurts. Damned bursitis flares up when the weather changes.”

Dan grinned back as he walked out the door. He shook his head and walked to his car, then drove off.

He couldn't have seen the smile slip painfully from Doc Posey's face as he drove off. And he certainly couldn't have heard the old man's words as he watched the deputy drive away.

“God in heaven. What have I begun?”

Sam was true to his word about the storm. Dan barely made it back to Sales City as the first fat drops came down, followed by a torrent of their friends. As he drove down Main Street, he saw the Studebaker Webb was driving parked in front of the boarding house. Apparently whatever he had Gerald doing for him, he had finished by now. He had given some thought to straight out confronting Webb, but decided against it. It was getting dark, and he was tired. There would be time tomorrow. He drove on by, and headed home.

Had he decided to stop in, he might have learned some very interesting things. John Webb had indeed finished his little sojourn into Pelham, and had returned to the boarding house…but he was not done for the day.

The building that housed the Sales City boarding house was old-fashioned, even by Sales City standards. In its heyday, it had been an honest-to-God saloon, with all the unsavory characters and stories that you would expect from such a place. When Prohibition hit, the proprietor knew that it would never work out as a passable speakeasy, so he just outfitted the upstairs into bedrooms, and the boarding house was born. The building still had the rough-cut planks, and the floor was still the same grey, untreated timber. But most important, the downstairs still looked like an old western saloon. And in a town where there was little else for young men to do, it performed roughly the same function.

You could get a fair meal at the boarding house, and at a price that was reasonable enough for an honest workingman to enjoy it. Men like Arthur Stovall, who liked to spend an occasional evening away from the noise of family, would sometimes swing by after a hard days work to spend some time “with the boys.”

As luck would have it, tonight was just such a night. John Webb listened to the rain outside as it mingled with the conversations buzzing around the room. He didn't exactly blend in. Everyone there knew who he was and why he was there, and nobody seemed to appreciate either.

As he sat down heavily at the long bar beside Arthur, he slapped a few quarters on the table, and was rewarded in short order with a steaming plate of baked chicken and dumplings, with fresh peas on the side. It smelled terrific, and John set to it quickly and without mercy.

After finishing half the plate, he paused long enough to raise one eyebrow to Arthur, sitting next to him. The man sat stiffly, and did not try to hide the ugly scratches that surrounded the upper left side of his face.

“How's your eye?” John asked, simply.

Arthur reacted like he had been shot. He returned John's look abruptly, then appeared to settle down a little.

“Looks worse than it feels. How's your leg?”

“Feels worse than it looks. Thanks for asking.”

The two faced forward into the big wide mirror that lined the back of the room.

“I suppose now would be a good time to ask you a few questions, Arthur.”

“I suppose it would, at that,” Arthur responded carefully. There was a pause as John tried to decide on the most advantageous way of proceeding.

“What the hell were you doing at Grandpappy Island, today?!”

Arthur looked down at his own plate, without answering.

“Do you know how close I came to actually killing you?” John continued, “If you hadn't turned to look right at me…it's bad enough, but Dan almost saw you, too.”

Arthur looked a little confused.

“You didn't tell Deputy Merrill that it was me?”

“No. I didn't. I'm trying to keep this investigation going smoothly. I can't do that with a town full of people who've just been handed a perfectly good suspect to lynch.”

“How do you know I didn't do it?”

“Technically speaking, I don't. But I don't think you did it. My gut tells me that—and it's a pretty smart gut. But I still have to know what you were doing there.”

Arthur looked incredibly guilty for a moment, then, with a heavy sigh, slumped his shoulders and began to speak.

“You might not realize this, Mr. Webb, but there just ain't a whole lotta opportunities to get ahead in this town. Just scrapin' enough money together to live off of is hard enough to do.”

John didn't move.

“Uh, huh. I'm listening.”

“My father, God rest his soul, figured that anyway you could make a few extra pennies and still be honest about it weren't too bad, so he started up a ‘personal financial concern' here in Sales City, Georgia, where he could meet a ready need of good citizens at a fair price.”

“What, exactly, was this ready need that he met?”

Arthur looked down at his plate again.

“Moonshine,” Arthur said, finally.

John's shoulders slumped, as the ridiculous reality of it all slowly crept in.

“Oh, for the love of…don't you dare tell me you were out there guarding a still!”

“I'll have you know that the Stovall recipe has been highly praised over the years. And I wasn't guardin' it. I was checkin' on the upcomin' batch when I heard y'all out there. I thought maybe you were one o' them treasury agents ya' hear about.”

John rubbed his hand over his eyes.

“Arthur, do you know how much trouble you could get in if you get caught?”

“Well, o' course I do. But, damnit, that's about the only thing in this town left for a fella' whose last name ain't Rivers! No offense.”

“Right.”

“You're a decent fella'. I can see that,” Arthur said, “but let's face it…when you look at me, you just see a farmer with a 4th grade education and dirt on his clothes. Your Aunt Wilhelmina and the rest o' them Rivers, they see even less.”

“Arthur, I…”

Arthur Stovall put a hand to stop him.

“Ain't askin' for no kinda' apology, least of all from you. But ya' ought to know how things work around here, 'cause sooner or later, they's gonna be findin' ways to make you just one more thing they own. And when that happens, you might just start to understand why somethin' as unimportant as an old still might actually be worth protectin'…just 'cause it's YOURS.”

“I suppose so,” John offered.

“And you didn't have to shoot me,” Arthur said, tentatively touching his face.

John eyed the man with something close to a lopsided grin.

“I didn't shoot you, I shot AT you. There's a difference.”

“Not from where I stood, there weren't.”

“Hey, you would have been fine if you hadn't tried to duck behind that tree. It isn't my fault that my bullet splintered the bark like that. And it never would have happened at all if you would have just told me who you were in the first place!”

The two men were silent for a few moments, then John produced a few more quarters, and motioned to the man behind the counter. Within moments, he produced two bottles of beer and slipped back to his duties. Arthur looked up from his plate at the beer, then looked over at John.

“It's the least I could do,” John said, “I shot you.”

Arthur reached for the bottle and took a thoughtful swig.

“You shot AT me. There's a difference.”

Chapter 5

Thursday, May 26th, 1942

Everyone was moving at a quarter the normal speed. That was John's first clue that he was dreaming. For some bizarre reason, he seemed to always dream in slow motion. The sky was an odd, and unnatural, shade of bright green, as well—which was also a really big hint.

John was standing on Broadway, back in New York, amidst the usual throng of tourists and hopeful actors and actresses. All equally wide-eyed and naive. This was a strange dream for John, because he never went to Broadway. It was outside his precinct, so work never sent him there, and the whole “happy, glittery lights” thing never seemed to sit right with him…

And then, of course, there were all the damned peacocks.

In exasperation, Dream-John forced out a calming breath, slid his hands through his hair and waited for something to happen. It always did. Being aware that he was dreaming, he knew the fastest way to wake up from it was to allow it to generate whatever imagery his mind had cooked up. Sometimes it was an amusingly bad put-together monster from the latest horror movie, or it was a knight on horseback to challenge him to a duel—of knitting. One time it was a chorus line of all the cases he'd been working lately. It was always something.

It was while he was waiting that he happened to glance at the Marquee to his left. When he saw it, he couldn't help but stare, just as slack-jawed and gaping as the tourists around him. There, in bright brilliant illumination, were the letters:

E L P.

From somewhere in the crowd, he heard a child screaming. He tore his gaze away to scan the crowd, but couldn't find the source. He heard it again, but it didn't seem to come from any actual direction. That was when he started to suspect that it wasn't part of the dream.

John woke up with a start, and was out the door, gun in hand, before he was finished blinking the sleep from his eyes. Rushing down the hallway, John was greeted by a small group of men who either had not heard the scream, or didn't much care. The stares his entrance solicited ranged from amused to concerned…not surprising, since he was still in his skivvies and undershirt.

The scream came out again, even louder this time. As John tried to find the source of it, everyone in the room started laughing. Mr. Ellswhite, who ran the boarding house, smiled broadly and set a cup of coffee in front of the gentleman at the counter.

“Mr. Webb,” he said, “Why don't you go put some clothes on, and when you get back, I'll have a nice hot breakfast waitin' for ya', and I'll explain all about the very interestin' cry of our local peacocks.”

It was not a good start to the day, but with a shower, shave, and the promised breakfast, John Webb managed to endure the good-natured smiles and slaps on the back that his fool-hearted rush had earned him. He even managed to smile politely when Deputy Dan stopped in and they recounted the whole thing to him. To Dan's credit, he just nodded and let it go. John wished he could say that he would have done the same, but truth be known, he thought otherwise.

“I'm headin' up to have me a little talk with Hank Groves,” Dan said, “Sheriff thought you might want to come along; said I should have you listen to what he has to say.”

Dan said this all without the slightest hint of rancor or sarcasm, but John knew full well that Dan wanted him in on that interview about as much as he wanted a rash. It was just fine with John, anyway. He had already dismissed Groves, who owned the local liquor store, as a possible suspect.

“Actually, I've got a couple of things I want to check up on here in town. I'll keep you posted on everything. Would you mind writing notes for me?” John replied.

Dan got the hint, and had no problem complying. With a quick nod to everyone, he left the boarding house and got into his squad car. John finished off one more cup of coffee then headed for the door.

He didn't quite make it.

“Mr. Webb?” Mr. Ellswhite called. John turned, hand still on the doorknob. “You got a call here from a Nez Callahan. Says it's important.”

John crossed back over past the counter to where the gentleman stood with the phone. He took the receiver from him, as Ellswhite gave him a look that suggested he not take too long.

“Hello?”

“Detective Webb, thank the good Lord I caught you!” Nez Callahan's voice was just as loud over the phone as it was in person, making John ask himself, once again, how this person could possibly be a librarian.

“Nez? Do you have anything more for me?”

“Well, yes, I sure do. I don't know why it took so long for it to sink in, but there it was, just starin' me in the face this mornin' like a big ol' sack o' potatoes!”

“What, Nez?” John tried to keep his voice from showing how annoyed he was.

“The girl's name, o' course! I was sittin' here, right at my breakfast table, and it just sort o' hit me!”

“What hit you?”

There was a pause on the phone. Long enough for John to wonder if maybe he had said this last bit a little too harshly. Nez might be annoying, but if she had information…

“Emma Lou,” Nez said, finally. “The girl just had to be Emma Lou Posey.”

John's breath stopped for just a moment. He allowed his mind to run through about a dozen different thoughts before he responded.

“Emma Lou Posey. You're sure about that?”

“Absolutely. It was the biggest thing to happen in Sales City. The poor young thing died o' accidental poisonin'. Killed her, and the little baby she was carryin'.”

“Accidental? You're certain of that part?”

“Well, I wasn't there! But I remember the story well enough. Emma Lou mistook a bottle o' turpentine for the medicinal her doctor give her. Horrible way to die. She went hard, they say.”

“Thank you, Nez. That helps a lot.”

“I'm just sorry it took me so long to remember…it's just that the name threw me.”

“The name?”

“Posey. See, that wasn't her name.”

For the second time in this conversation, John had to take a moment.

“What, precisely, do you mean by that, Miss Callahan?”

“Emma Lou. Her name weren't Posey…leastways, not when she died. Posey was her maiden name.”

John felt the sudden need to sit down, but kept to his feet anyway. He was feeling a sense of urgency that he was struggling to contain.

“Okay, Nez. So, what was her married name?”

“Rivers,” she said, “She was Mrs. Roy Rivers.”

John's head was swimming, but he managed to keep himself together enough to listen to the rest of Nez's story.

“Her and Roy Rivers had just been married a few months—married young too, seventeen. Too young if you asked me, but I'm pretty sure there were what they called ‘special circumstance' around it, if you know what I mean.” When John didn't respond, Nez assumed that he didn't, so she expounded. “Course, I'm just speculatin' here, but when you got two young kids gettin' married that young, and then they's expectin' right off—especially when one comes from the richest family in three counties, and the other's a dirt farmer's daughter…”

“Yeah, I got it, Nez. Thank you,” John said, afraid Nez would just keep going unless he cut her off.

“Right. Well, anyway, the paper prob'ly got the name wrong on account that she and Roy was just married that little bit o' time, so ever'one still thought o' her as a Posey. It wouldn't be the first time.”

“I suppose not,” John said quietly.

“Well, that's it. I hope it helps.”

“It does, Nez. Thank you.”

John hung up the phone and started out again, but he had a different destination in mind, now.

If he were still in New York, he would have no idea how to figure out which church one Emma Lou Posey might have attended. He wouldn't have even considered it a given that she attended anywhere. But this was not New York. It was Sales City, Georgia, where everybody went to either the Methodist Church on Chelsea Avenue, or the Baptist Church on West Street. Nez had mentioned that the girl came from a poor family, so she went to the Baptist church. He knew this, because his family went to the Methodist Church. Rich and poor…they may worship the same God, but in a town like this, never in the same place.

As he sped down the dirt road, John couldn't help but think about all those detective novels he liked to read in his off-hours. The heroes in those books were always finding themselves in situations that would unravel into something far more exotic and exciting than they anticipated.

John passed by an old man shooing a peacock off the hood of his truck.

“There's definitely a reason you never see one of those books set in Coweta County,” John muttered to himself.

Inside of two minutes, John was parked in front of the Sales City Baptist Church. It was exactly as John had pictured, oddly enough. From the whitewashed wood siding to the tin roof and tiny bell tower, it was like one of those cheesy, Norman Rockwell calendar prints. In a bizarrely giddy mood for just a moment, John was inspired to put his hands together, with fingers entwined, and say in a sing-songy, childish voice:

“Here's the church, here's the steeple, look inside…”

From some unknown reserve of sanity, John felt himself being dragged back to the job.

“And see all the people standing around sad at a young woman's funeral.” John took a lungful of that dusty Georgia air and got out of the car. He walked around to the side of the small, one-room church and plodded along the short path to the parsonage.

It was a far cry from the cozy brick cottage that his uncle enjoyed while he lived. It was painfully obvious that this particular building was constructed with faith—and not much else. And yet, there was something comfortable and reassuring about the little cabin. John couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he was drawn to it in a strange way. He was still trying to wrap his brain around it, standing at the foot of the small porch, when the door opened.

“Well, hi there,” the woman said. If she was concerned that a stranger was standing at her door with a stupefied expression on his face, she hid it incredibly well.

“I'm sorry,” John said, “I was hoping to speak with the pastor…”

“Of course, of course. He's right in the livin' room. C'mon inside, Mr. Webb.”

Once again, somebody automatically knew who he was. It was creepy, and it didn't matter one little bit that he was the only visitor in a town that knew itself in and out.

“I'm just not going to get used to that.”

“Beg pardon?”

“The way everyone around here knows everybody else. It's like there are no secrets. I've lived in the same apartment in New York for six years, and I still don't know any of my neighbors.”

The woman raised an eyebrow in mock astonishment.

“Then, however do you borrow sugar?”

John couldn't help but laugh. And, at that, the pastor's wife smiled, knowing that she had broken through. She was a kind-looking woman and, while the lines on her face betrayed that more years lay behind her then before, she had a vaguely ageless quality.

“You're wrong about one thing, though…” she confided, “People around here gots plenty o' secrets.”

John followed her inside, and was somewhat surprised to find a neat, tidy, and very welcoming little home inside the unhandsome little shack.

“Albert, we've got us some comp'ny.”

“Good,” remarked the pastor from a wood rocker, “I been waitin' all day for a decent conversation.” The smile and quick wink were enough to earn him a playful swat from his wife as she passed into the kitchen. “Beatrice, be a dear and fix us some iced tea, please?”

The Baptist minister was a big man, and it was plain that he enjoyed a good sense of humor and a wellspring of kindness in equal measure. John wasn't quite certain what specifically it was about the man that assured him of this, but it was somehow obvious, nevertheless.

“I don't want to be a bother…” John said.

“Nonsense!” Beatrice replied from the kitchen, as she poured out three glasses. “We enjoy havin' people stop by.”

“Mr. Webb, if ya' don't mind my askin', how is your family doin'?” the reverend asked.

“About as well as…well, to tell you truth, Reverend, I couldn't tell you. I haven't really talked to them very much since I've arrived.”

“Doesn't sound like an effective way to handle a family reunion,” Beatrice quipped.

“Or a murder investigation,” the good reverend finished.

John tried to think of something to say in response…and came up with nothing.

“Oh, don't pay us any mind, John. Us old folks just gotta be nosin' into everything, whether we got a right to, or not,” the kind old pastor assured.

“Besides, from what Gerald's told me, you're doin' a fine job.”

That got John's attention.

“Gerald? Gerald Peachtree?”

Reverend Albert Edwards smiled broadly.

“Gerald and I had a good talk last night. He comes by now and again to make sure we got everythin' we need.”

“I didn't know that Gerald attended your church,” John said, as Beatrice handed him the tall glass of iced tea.

“Well, he doesn't. That is, he doesn't attend this church, here. He's a member up there at Ebenezer Baptist—the colored church. They don't have enough to hire on a permanent pastor, so once a month, I head up there after services on Sunday and preach for 'em. There's three other pastors from other counties that do the same, so they always get a sermon.”

“That's very kind of you to do that.”

“Well, a preacher preaches. I suppose that, as long as God sees fit to put people in pews, I can see fit to preach His word to 'em.”

“To tell ya' the truth, Mr. Webb,” Beatrice added, “If it weren't for dear old Gerald, Albert would'a had to give up preachin' up there a long time ago. We just don't have the gumption to travel like that anymore. But Gerald comes, just as faithful as God's own angels, to pick us up in that nice car the Wilhelmina let him use.”