Tomorrow River (27 page)

“Well, I appreciate you coming by to tell us about Sam, but I don’t understand,” I say. “What do you care about him or my mama or . . . not to be rude or nothin’, but what does anything that’s goin’ on in our town have to do with you? You’re just passing through. You’re . . . well . . . a hobo.” But the second those words are out of my mouth, I remember how Curry never slurs his words and his teeth aren’t rotting like the other men at the camp. “Aren’t you?”

“Not exactly.” Curry reaches into his back pants pocket and takes out a black leather wallet. He flips it open and flashes a badge. It has DECATUR stamped in raised-up silver.

Oh, Lord. He’s not a writer. He’s not a soldier that has gone AWOL. He’s not a man of the rails. His name isn’t even Curry Weaver. It’s Anthony Joseph Sardino. And he’s a cop. A detective. Just like his brother—Johnny, Sam’s dead partner.

Curry says, “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you two sooner, but I’m working undercover.”

“Under what?” E. J. asks.

I’m sure he thinks that being “undercover” has something to do with pulling a quilt up over his head. “That means Curry has only been
pretendin’
to be a hobo, while he gathers important police facts of some kind.” I saw that happen on
Mannix
and that other show with Peggy Lipton called
The Mod Squad.
Those kids were undercover all the time.

I ask Detective Sardino, “
Why
are you undercover?”

“Sam’s been placed under arrest.”

Swallowing back the brown cow that’s come halfway up my throat, I ask, “For . . . for what?”

“First-degree murder.”

E. J. and I reach for one another.

The seed of what I used to worry about has blossomed. The Decatur police must have finally found some proof that Sam beat to death Stumpy or The Maggot, that man who killed his police partner. Curry has come to arrest our Sam for that lowlife’s murder.

I’m sure this cop doesn’t care about Sam beating to death that criminal who killed his brother. No. He must feel just fine about that. Lieutenant Sardino here must blame Sam for not keeping his brother Johnny safe the way a partner is supposed to. He’s come to settle the score. Curry is going to slap a pair of handcuffs on Sam and drag him back to Decatur to be put on trial. Sam could be found guilty and go to prison the same way his mother did after she killed her bad husband. I think that when I see the WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND sign painted in frosted letters on the front window.

I rush to tell Curry, “Just in case you don’t know, Sam is still so sad about not bein’ able to protect your brother from that bad man who shot him. I can’t even say
Johnny
or
arrividerci
. . . his Adam’s apple goes nuts.” I am horrified that I was stupid enough to talk to Curry or Anthony or whatever his name is over at the camp. I know better than to trust people like that. He asked me so many questions, and like an idiot, I answered them. I thought he was lonely or trying to garner some protection from a girl whose father is the most superior court judge in Rockbridge County. I even thought for a time that he would put me in his
Hobo Like Me
book that he was writing. But all he was doing was plying me for information in his investigation of Sam the same way he was doing to others. Vera told me he made phone calls in the booth outside the courthouse. And I bet Dagmar Epps told him a thing or two. They got very chummy around that campfire.

What about Woody? I’m going to have to go back to the fort and tell her that this man she likes so much is not a harmonica-playing hobo, but a badge-wielding cop. And that he’s about to take her new uncle Sam Moody away from her. I can’t let that happen. She just couldn’t take losing another person that she loves.

“Please,” I implore Curry, “please don’t take Sam away. As you already know, we’ve lost our mother.” I haven’t told him that she’s dead. That’s what I’ll do next if this doesn’t work. “Can’t you let bygones be bygones?” I know he must be a Catholic. He’s Italian like the pope. “Remember what Jesus said about forgivin’ your enemies?”

When I break into sniffles, Lieutenant Sardino reaches for a dish rag off the table he’s standing next to and sets it gently into my pleading hands. He’s got hair on his knuckles. “You’ve got this all wrong, Shenny,” he says. It’s not just Curry’s clothes, his personality seems different from when he was just a hobo. He’s still nice, but it’s a more take-the-bull-by-the-horns kind of nice. “I’m not here to arrest Sam for Buddy DeGrassi’s murder.”

“You’re not?” I say, blowing my nose.
Buddy?
That doesn’t sound like a mean-enough name for a man that killed Sam’s partner so cold-bloodedly. “Are you sure?”

Curry gets a gleam in his eye. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Is this another one of his undercover lies? “Then—”

“Just a hanged minute,” E. J. says, showing off his mountain man moxie. “If you’re not here to arrest Sam, then why’s he been arrested, Curry? I mean, who’s he supposed to have committed first-degree murder on?”

I know. I have figured it out. And I can tell by the way he’s looking at me so pitiful that Curry knows that I know. He says softly, “Shenny’s mother.”

E. J. wheels towards me and shouts, “But you told me . . . you said the sheriff would need proof of wrongdoin’.”

Shakily, I ask Curry, “Doesn’t he?”

“Something incriminating was found at Sam’s place,” Curry says. “Something of your mother’s.”

“I don’t care what the sheriff found. That . . . that just means that Sam and Mama were friendly, not that he murdered her. E. J., we got to go get Sam out of that jail right this minute,” I say, stepping towards the back door with a full head of steam.

“Come back, Shenny. Sheriff Nash didn’t find the evidence,” Curry says. “A boy found it buried under a rock in Sam’s yard. He was searching for fishing worms and found something else instead.”

“What something?” E. J. and I say together.

“A woman’s blouse.”

Without even thinking, I ask the same way a defense attorney in my father’s courtroom would, “Which boy was this exactly that found this blouse?”

“The one I noticed you talking to over at the carnival grounds earlier,” Curry says, holding steady under my cross-examination. “Remington Hawkins.”

“That’s not real evidence!” I tell him with a stomp of my foot. “That’s . . . Remmy . . . He hates Sam, isn’t that right, E. J.?”

“A hundred percent!”

Curry replies even more delicately, “There’s blood on the blouse, Shenny. And the boy is the mayor’s grandson. That gives him some credibility.”

Needing to sit down, I boost myself up onto one of the card tables and pick up a mouth-eaten sweater to hold on to for comfort.

“But what does that have to do with Mama? Kids like to hang out at that part of the creek. Probably some girl drank too much beer and . . . and fell down and got a scrape. So she took off her bloody blouse and left it, that’s all that is,” I say. “The blouse is what my father would call circumstantial evidence.

Curry looks down at his feet and then back at us. I can tell he’s dreading what he has to tell us and is putting it off as long as he can. “Shen, I . . . your grandfather and father have identified the blouse as one belonging to your mother.”

I glance over to where Miss Artesia has tops hanging. I have searched and searched this shop for the one she was wearing at the carnival that night. “Is . . . is it white with red yarn trim?”

Curry doesn’t have to say, “It sure is.” The answer is in his I’m-sorry eyes. “And your mother’s diary states some pretty strong feelings.”

“Her diary?!” I remember how my hand rattled around in the empty stronghold. I thought Mama had moved it or given it to Woody. Could Remmy have broken into our home when we were asleep? Pried up the floorboards in the master bedroom and stolen it? “Remmy found Mama’s diary, too?”

Curry reluctantly says, “It wasn’t the Hawkins boy.”

“Then who?”

He’s stalling. Gazing around the shop like he’s come to pick up a few things.

“Curry?” I say. “Who found Mama’s diary?”

He looks at me with concern and says barely above a whisper, “Your father.”

“Papa found Mama’s diary and took it to the sheriff?” I ask, incredulous. “Are you sure?”

Was this recently or has my father had the diary the whole time that Mama’s been gone? Has he been lying in his bed at night reading it? Is that why he wails in the wee hours? I have no idea what Mama might’ve written about Sam in her most private way, but I know the words would have been glowing with gratitude for finding a friend who was so kind to her. A man who shared the same interests in foreign languages and poetry. Someone who had spent some time up North.

Curry answers me, “Some pages have been ripped out of the diary, but there are enough left for anybody to conclude that Sam and your mother had a relationship that would be considered improper to some people.”

The diplomas hanging on Papa’s study wall let you know that he graduated from law school at the top of his class. He is the smartest of the smart. He wouldn’t have given the sheriff Mama’s diary unless something in it put him in a good light and Sam in a bad one.

This couldn’t get much worse.

“Your father also brought in a watch as evidence,” Curry says. “The one that Sam gave your mother.”

“But how did he get . . . ?” Blackie. After he took it off Lou in the storm that night, he must’ve gone up to the house and shown the watch to Papa, who told his big brother that he wasn’t the one who give it to Mama. They must’ve gone over to Elmer Haskall’s jewelry store to find out exactly who did. Mr. Haskall would’ve put on his half-glasses, and said, “You know, this timepiece looks a lot like the one that Sam Moody bought a while ago. Let me turn it over to be sure.” He would’ve seen the word
Speranza
that he’d inscribed on the back. “Yup, that’s the one I sold Sam,” is what Mr. Haskall would’ve said. “Told me he was buyin’ it as a gift for a dear friend.”

I feel horrible. I should’ve given Sam the watch back when he asked for it. How could I be so selfish? Even
I
have to admit that the overwhelming evidence makes him look guilty. But if you could have seen him look at Mama with such tenderness the way I did. It was not the way a man looks at a woman he’s wanting to kill. I’m familiar with that look. I’ve seen it on Papa’s face. “What does the sheriff say is Sam’s motive for killin’ my mother? I mean. . . . why would he think that he’d want to do her harm?”

Curry says, “Your father told Sheriff Nash that he believes your mother’s murder was a crime of passion. He knew that Evie . . . your mother . . . was spending time at Sam’s place trying to help an alcoholic Negro get back on his feet. He insists that Sam misinterpreted your mother’s kindness. When she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, he murdered her in a drunken rage.”

“That’s not true,” E. J. shouts. “Sam hasn’t had a drink of hard liquor in over two years!”

I say, really worked up, too, “And Papa did
not
know that they were spending time together. He’s . . . he’s makin’ it sound like he was proud that Mama was doing Christian deeds of mercy. He
never
would have allowed her to go over to the Triple S. My father . . . I know I told you up at the hobo camp that he was so wonderful and the best father, but . . . he’s not what you think . . . he’s not what anybody . . . you don’t understand.”

“I understand more than you realize,” Curry says with a curious little smile. Is he ridiculing me?

“I’m sure I don’t know what you understand and what you don’t. But I can tell you this much—Sam
did
love Mama, but it wasn’t in that crime of passion way,” I say, even though doubt has popped into my mind again. They could have started out as friends and then on one of those Tuesday afternoons realized that they were feeling something stronger. I look over at homely E. J. Could I wake up one morning and feel about him the same way I do Bootie Young? Could Cupid be that careless? Aimlessly shooting arrows at people, not thinking who could get hurt? Maybe that
is
what happened between Mama and Sam. Their love of words turned into a love of each other. I have never seen a white woman and a high yellow Negro or any shade of Negro be in love. It was unusual enough that the two of them were friends. No, that’s not right. Mama had to know all along what I just found out. That Sam is my father’s half-brother. Family. She wouldn’t have allowed herself to fall in love with him no matter how many arrows she had sticking out of her heart.

“Sam and Mama are related. Did you know that, Curry?” I ask, trying to gain back some of his respect. For once in this conversation maybe
I
can tell
him
something.

“I know that Sam is your half-uncle, Shen.”

“You do not.” I wish I’d never come into this dumb shop. I should’ve gone straight back home to Woody with her egg salad sandwich.

“What about the sheriff?” E. J. asks. I thought all this was going over his head, but he’s keeping right up. “Does he
believe
what His Honor is tellin’ him?”

“Of course, he does. I know Sam likes him and all. You seem pretty chummy with him as well,” I tell Curry’s surprised face. “But you two don’t know . . . the sheriff is so crooked you can’t tell from his tracks if he’s comin’ or goin’. My father gave him a big check for his Be-Handy-Vote-Andy campaign.”

All of that said, the three of us just stand there looking at one another. Finally Curry breaks the ice. “We know that Sam didn’t hurt your mother, Shen, but you’ve got to admit it sure looks like he did.”

Suddenly, a wonderful feeling comes over me. The kind I get when I find my sister after chasing around all afternoon for her. It doesn’t matter what my father or the sheriff has to say. Woody
knows
what happened to our mother. Papa told me she does. I don’t know if she knows if somebody ended Mama’s life or if she just had a bad accident, but Woody definitely knows that it wasn’t Sam Moody who caused it. I might not be the best judge of people, but my sister is. If Sam had done something wrong to our mother, Woody would’ve let me know to keep away from him. She would’ve made a drawing with a skull-and-cross bones or a big red STOP sign over a picture of the Triple S if Sam wasn’t safe. I may not have been paying close enough attention to her drawings the way I should have, but I’m sure I would’ve noticed that one.