Nate Rosen Investigates

by Ron Levitsky

  He jerked, startled.

  Ruth was shaking him gently. “You all right, Mr. Rosen?”

  He smiled weakly. “I’m fine. Call me Nate.”

  “All right, Nate. Looks like you could use a good meal. This way.”

  He’d never seen a cafeteria like the one they entered. No partitions separated the kitchen from the dining area. The cooks carried platters of sizzling fried chicken and potatoes from the stove to a long serving table, where the workers simply stepped up and helped themselves. They poured water or lemonade from large pitchers. No money was exchanged. The men sat on benches at long trestle tables, similar to the one in Claire Hobbes’s kitchen.

  Ruth led him to the serving table, “Help yourself. Don’t you be bashful.”

  “There’s no cashier,” Rosen said.

  “When my husband’s granddaddy built this factory, he wanted things to stay the same between him and his workers. You know, back then when a man worked for you, he ate at your table. That’s another part of the Hobbes tradition. You understand why lots of folk around here think this place’s kind of special and don’t want it to change. But here I am talking, while you must have a powerful appetite. Go ahead.”

  Surveying the table, Rosen shook his head. “Thanks, but I had breakfast at Claire Hobbes’s a little while ago. Sure looks good, though.” He half whispered, “No grits?”

  “Oh, you like grits?”

  “Well, I had my first taste this morning.”

  “Claire made ’em for you, did she? Bet you had some country ham.”

  He nodded.

  “With that good red-eye gravy?”

  “Well, no, she said . . .”

  “Shame on her. After Ben’s funeral tomorrow, you come over to the house. I’m fixin’ country ham, red-eye gravy, and cracklin’ bread.”

  Against his better judgment, Rosen asked, “What’s cracklin’ bread?”

  “You know that brown sticky mess left in the kettle after the hog’s butchered and the fat’s made into lard?”

  His throat began to tighten as he shook his head.

  “Well, that’s cracklin’. You cut it into small pieces and mix it with your cornbread. When Mama made it, one bite and no matter how bad the day was, your mouth started smiling.”

  Rosen felt like anything but smiling.

  She patted his arm. “You don’t look so good. Appears you don’t take to our kind of food. What in the world do you eat?”

  Pouring some lemonade, Rosen drank half a glass and felt much better. “Why, there’s nothing like going down to Lake Michigan and catching a bunch of gefilte fish. What a fight them little fellers’ll give ya. Cook that up with a mess of matzo balls—Lord, that’s what I call good eatin’.”

  Her brow crinkling, Ruth stared at him for a few seconds, then smiled. “Why, Nate, I do believe you’re teasing me a bit.”

  He smiled back. “Only a bit.”

  “That’s all right. I mean to get some red-eye gravy and cracklin’ bread down your throat yet. Well, here’s my boy! Whew, were you wrestling with the hogs?”

  Danny Hobbes had walked into the cafeteria. He slouched somewhat, ambling like a dog. Even though his shirt and jeans were covered with dirt, his mother hugged him tightly.

  She said, “All that working in the fields, I bet you got a powerful hunger. Made something special for you.” She called to one of the cooks, “Jenny, please fry up that piece a’ peach pie I brought over! How this boy loves his fried pie.”

  “Hello, Danny,” Rosen said.

  The young man narrowed his eyes but shook hands. “I know you?”

  “We met at your uncle’s home yesterday morning. I came with Jesse Compton.”

  “Just saw Jesse yonder in the fields.”

  “I noticed his car parked there on my way to the factory. What’s he doing?”

  The other man suddenly broke into a grin. “Says he was out on a picnic with some fine-looking woman. Too fine for the likes of him, if you ask me.”

  “What woman?”

  “That snake preacher’s daughter.”

  Ruth said, “You stay away from her. You know how your daddy feels about Reverend McCrae.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Now go wash up before you touch any of this good food. You look like my uncle Zeke coming out of the coal mine.”

  Drawing himself to his full height, he said, “I already put in a full day’s work. Probably more work than Daddy’s done in a week, sitting back in his easy chair, puffing on them cigars, shuffling—”

  “Hush now. Get along and clean yourself up. Don’t want your pie to get cold.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He left the room.

  Ruth turned to Rosen. “Danny ain’t had much luck with work. His daddy’s been a might hard on him. You have children?”

  “A daughter.”

  “Girls is different. After our older boy died, Simon expected a lot from Danny, maybe too much. The boy never did like working in the factory during summers. When Simon tried teaching him the money end of the business, it didn’t do too good. God didn’t give the boy no mind for figures. But, bless him, Danny kept trying. Got his daddy and uncle to let him use some of the land by the factory. Land never was much use to anybody. Simon’s granddaddy grazed cattle. During the Second World War, army tried growing plants to make rope. Before he died, my older boy, Skip, thought of raising Tennessee Walkers. Course, that never did happen.”

  “But Danny’s making a go of it?”

  “He’s been farming for the past few months, working by the sweat of his brow, as the Good Book says. Won’t let any of us help him. Wants to make it on his own. Wants his daddy to be proud of him.”

  Rosen smiled. “I can see you already are.”

  Ruth began to blush and quickly took the plate of fried pie from the cook’s hands. When she cut into the crust with a fork, the air filled with the warm heavy sweetness of peaches.

  Holding a forkful of pie in front of him, she said, “I don’t care what kind of food you’re used to, I reckon you’re gonna like this. Now open that lawyer mouth a’ yours.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rosen said, and he did.

  Chapter Nine

  wednesday morning

  Jesse let his alarm clock run down before opening his eyes. He was trying desperately to remember a dream—a beautiful woman lying in his arms and moving under him. Realizing it hadn’t been a dream, he grinned and stretched broadly, running his hands over the blanket as he had over Bathsheba’s smooth skin. She had been with him yesterday afternoon, more beautiful than he could’ve imagined, and more exciting. He didn’t know what those few hours had meant to her, but they had changed his life forever. The file lying on the floor beside his bed proved it.

  He had set the alarm for eight-thirty; Ben Hobbes’s funeral service began at ten. Walking down the hallway, he noticed that Rosen’s room was empty. He hadn’t seen his friend last night, but the bed had been slept in and the window shade was raised. Rosen was probably already downstairs having breakfast. Stepping into the bathroom, Jesse turned on the shower full blast and began singing:

  Who’ll take a thread of sunlight

  And weave it for my glove;

  Who’ll bring a rose in winter

  And be my own true love?

  After shaving and splashing on his good French cologne, Jesse returned to his bedroom and put on his double-breasted gray suit, the one he’d worn to his father’s funeral. Looking at the mirror on the door, he knotted his tie in a double Windsor. It was paisley and, like all his ties, patterned in shades of muted blues and grays. Winter colors, dead colors. He would buy a new tie today—something forest green or, even better, red. Picking up the folder near his bed, Jesse walked downstairs while humming “Rose in Winter.” After all, it was their song.

  Rosen sat at the kitchen table, the Tennessean spread before him. Sipping a cup of tea, he idly turned the pages. He wore a navy blue blazer, a gray button-down shirt, and a blue knit tie. The outfit w
ould do equally well for a funeral or faculty meeting.

  “Good morning, Jesse. I didn’t hear you come in last night.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.” Jesse lay the folder on the table. “I had my Tuesday night seminar. Right afterward I consulted with some students about their independent projects, then went for a walk. It was a beautiful night with one of the constellations—Orion, I believe—shining so close, reaching up a man’d be afraid of burning his fingers. Didn’t get home till almost midnight.”

  Rosen turned to the sports page. “I understand you and young Miss McCrae frolicked in the field yesterday afternoon.”

  Jesse’s cheeks began to burn. “Where did you hear that?”

  “Damn. Cubs lost in the ninth. Can’t get any relief pitching. I’m sorry—you were saying?”

  “We went on a little picnic. I wanted to tell her that charges against her daddy were dropped.”

  “Sure.” Rosen scanned the baseball story. “I met Danny Hobbes yesterday at the factory. Says he saw you two and that your body language was more than lawyer to client.”

  What had Danny Hobbes seen? What had he told people? If Bathsheba’s father found out, what would he do to her . . . to him?

  Jesse spoke very slowly, as if each word were a bullet being loaded into a gun. “What did Danny say?”

  “Hmm . . . oh nothing. Just that he saw you two with a picnic basket. What did go on between you two?”

  Swallowing hard, Jesse fumbled for his cigarettes. “I . . .” He waited to light up. Then he didn’t know what to say.

  Rosen put down the newspaper. “This is a small town. If there is anything between you and the McCrae girl, it won’t take long for your family and friends to find out. Have you thought of that?”

  Jesse leaned against the counter. “I don’t want to think about that now. I’m happy, Nate, for the first time in a long while.”

  “I’m just worried. . . .”

  “Don’t. Thanks, but don’t. I called you because you wouldn’t laugh. That doesn’t mean you can’t be happy for me. All right?”

  Rosen stared at him for a long time, then smiled. “Say, that bread on the counter’s awfully good. Did you get it from a bakery?”

  “Uh, no. Miss Wilona Applebee left it on the porch yesterday. She’s a cousin on my mother’s side. Bakes every Monday. What that woman can do with a piece of dough. And you should taste her fried pies.”

  “Are you going to have breakfast? The service starts in forty-five minutes.”

  Jesse thought about the spread Ruth Hobbes would surely serve after the funeral. “I’ll just have some bread and tea. There’ll be plenty later.”

  “I’ll bet. Ruth Hobbes threatened to inflict something called ‘cracklin’ bread’ on me.”

  “Umm. S’good.”

  “What did you do after your date—I mean, appointment—with Ms. McCrae?”

  Buttering a piece of bread, Jesse sat across the table. “I stopped to see my cousin at the county building. You know, Cousin Bobby Simmons, who works part-time as police photographer—you met him at—”

  “Sure. I remember.”

  “Then I visited my mother in the hospital. Afterward I had a graduate class to teach. When I returned home, you were already in your room, and the light was off. I didn’t want to disturb your sleep. Glad you’re comfortable here.”

  Rosen poured Jesse more tea, then refilled his own cup. “It’s all this fresh air and country living. Early to bed and early to rise.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask what I saw Cousin Bobby about?”

  “A new recipe for red-eye grits?”

  “That’s gravy. No.” He handed the folder to Rosen. “I thought this might be of some help to our case.”

  Rosen opened the folder and immediately leaned over it, pushing the newspaper off the table. After flipping through the pages, he stared at Jesse. “How’d you get a copy of the D.A.’s file on Ben Hobbes’s murder?”

  “Cousin Bobby’s wife’s sister works in the D.A.’s office. I asked Bobby to do me a favor. I did have to push him a little, but after all, I helped to get his little brother a scholarship to the college. You see, when their father died . . .”

  “Hold on, I can’t keep up with your family. Is there anyone in town you’re not related to?”

  “Black folk . . . well, some of them.”

  Studying the file, Rosen muttered, “Mr. Compton, such tenacity on your part. I’m impressed. You never were this ambitious in law school. What’s gotten into you, or do I already know?”

  But Rosen didn’t wait for an answer; he was already deep into the file, removing the papers, then jotting notes on the inside of the folder. And if he had waited—what would Jesse have said? Something cornpone like “Love has made me strong”? Was that what’d happened? He’d read old Indian legends about eating the heart of one’s enemy to gain his courage. Lying in the green field with Bathsheba, what had he drawn from her?

  Watching his friend busily taking notes, Jesse closed his eyes and remembered their days together in law school. The others arguing a point of law, the debate growing louder, while Rosen silently flipped pages and scribbled notes. When he spoke, his voice was the softest of all, yet always silenced the others. Sometimes he didn’t convince everyone, but how they listened, like children around their teacher. Jesse had been right to call him.

  The scribbling stopped, and Jesse opened his eyes. One side of the open folder was covered with notes, the other had been organized into several short sections—he counted six.

  “This the case against Claire Hobbes?”

  Nodding, Rosen leaned back and nudged the folder across the table. “As they say in poker, read ’em and weep.”

  Jesse read each section carefully:

  1. Motive—Ben Hobbes threatened Rev. McCrae at Friday’s service; Claire threatened her husband at same service (did she really love McCrae?); Simon’s family said Ben was thinking of changing his will, with Claire (and McCrae’s church?) the big loser.

  2. When did Claire arrive home?

  a. Claire says after her husband.

  b. Celia Duncan (neighbor) says Claire arrived before.

  3. Problem—only Claire’s prints (+ delivery boy’s) on the milk carton—how could this be if she’s innocent???

  delivery boy dropped milk off with a few groceries at 4:30 in afternoon—no one home (Duncan sisters had key to let him in).

  4. Murderer knew Ben Hobbes’s habits (Claire?).

  a. two cartons of milk; only acidophilus milk (Ben’s milk) poisoned; Claire’s milk o.k.

  b. only bedroom phone line cut, probably to stop a poisoned Hobbes from calling for help; killer knew Hobbes would go into bedroom to drink milk.

  5 Poison used to kill Ben was strychnine.

  a. type of poison used in McCrae’s serpent-handling services.

  b. open box of rat poison (strychnine) found in garage of Hobbes’s home.

  6. Break-in clumsy attempt to conceal “inside job”—sign of an amateur and someone under emotional stress (Claire?).

  Jesse reread the reasons several times. He felt their weight like six great stones around his neck, yet Rosen had seen them so clearly and, seeing them, would know what to do. Just as in their law school days, he would make it all right. Jesse began to smile, but the smile froze on his face as he remembered that Rosen might soon be leaving. Then the case would be his responsibility—his alone.

  “Nate, about the case. Is it possible you could stay a while longer to work on it with me? Maybe your organization would let you—”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. My boss called last night. I hadn’t told him the charges against McCrae had been dropped, but he already knew. Seems he received a call from a Mr. James Johnston.”

  “Popper, Reverend McCrae’s cousin?”

  “The very same. Mr. Johnston explained everything about McCrae, the subsequent murder of Ben Hobbes, and the arrest of his wife. He argued very persuasively that Claire’s arrest migh
t, in part, be linked to her membership in McCrae’s church—the freedom of religion angle. My boss agreed to let me stay on the case.”

  Jesse said, “That’s wonderful! Popper must be some salesman.”

  “Of course, he had a little help. McCrae’s church made a five-thousand-dollar donation to the Committee to Defend the Constitution, to help defray my expenses.”

  “Five thousand dollars? Where did their church get that kind of money?”

  “You can’t guess?”

  Jesse thought for a moment. “The only person who’d have that large a sum would be Claire Hobbes, if she had access to her husband’s money. They did have that joint account, the one she used to make bail. You think the donation was Popper’s idea?” Rosen only stared at him, and Jesse said, “Of course.”

  “I don’t like it. Once the D.A. finds out, and he will, he’ll use the donation to link Claire and McCrae’s church even more closely. That only strengthens her motive to kill Ben. The state already has your tape to prove Claire put the church’s welfare ahead of her husband. Simon Hobbes and his family are ready to testify that Ben was thinking of changing his will at the expense of his wife and, one could argue, her church as well.” He nodded at the folder in front of Jesse. “What do you think of our chances?”

  Again Jesse scanned the outline. “Doesn’t look good, does it? How can Claire’s fingerprints be the only ones on the milk carton, besides the delivery boy’s, if her husband poured his own glass of milk that night, like she said?”

  “Claire told me that she touched the carton, saw it had been opened, and assumed her husband had already poured his own milk.”

  “Then why weren’t his prints on the carton?”

  Rosen shook his head. “That’s pretty impressive physical evidence. The milk was delivered with a bag of groceries about four-thirty that afternoon. No one was home, but a neighbor let the delivery boy in. The boy put the groceries away—he did that whenever no one was home. Something else bothers me even more.” He pointed to number two on the folder. “This discrepancy over when Claire came home. If she’s innocent, why would she lie about the time? Her next-door neighbor puts Claire’s arrival about a half hour before Ben’s. What can you tell me about her neighbor, this . . . Celia Duncan? She’s the same woman who let the delivery boy in.”