“Mrs. Hale was his mother’s sister,” Stewart said. “He never said anything to me about her running off with anybody.”
FIVE
“Mrs. Hale was Haskell’s aunt?” I shook my head. “When I saw Haskell earlier, he didn’t mention any family connection with the Hales.”
“I don’t think it’s one his family is proud of,” Stewart said, his tone wry. “Old man Hale had a bad reputation as a nasty drunk for years, but at some point he must have seen a light on the road to Damascus, so to speak, because he gave up drinking and became holier-than-thou.” He grinned. “Every bit as obnoxious as he’d always been but without the cusswords.”
I couldn’t help smiling at Stewart’s insouciant description of Mr. Hale. “So, I take it Haskell’s mother knows what happened to her sister? Is she alive and well somewhere?”
“I’m not really sure,” Stewart said. “Haskell only mentioned her to me once, and that was a couple of years ago.” He shrugged. “He’s pretty buttoned up about anything to do with his family.”
“I know he’s not mentioned them often in my presence,” I said. “I thought it was simply his natural reticence.”
“Partly that, I suppose,” Stewart said. “But I know that his relationship with his parents and his brother and sister hasn’t been all that good since he came out to them when he was about twenty-five. He doesn’t even talk about it much to me.”
“Have you met any of his family?” This was rather nosy of me, but sometimes I couldn’t help myself. Haskell was such a good man, I hated the idea of his having strained relations with his family.
“Only briefly, and not very happily.” Stewart’s face darkened with what I presumed was anger.
I didn’t want to probe further, but I had to clamp down on my tongue to keep from asking him, What happened? Whatever had occurred at that meeting, it obviously hadn’t been pleasant.
I waited for Stewart’s emotions to level out again. Diesel meowed, aware that Stewart was upset. Ramses followed suit, always alert to whatever his big brother did. Stewart mustered a smile and rubbed the Maine Coon’s head. Ramses stood on his hind legs to butt his head against the hand, and Stewart laughed, his good humor now restored.
“Families can be horrible,” he said once he’d finished giving attention to the cats. “I suppose Haskell’s isn’t any worse than most. They’re plain folks, farmers, and nothing wrong with that, of course.” He shrugged. “Their worldview is rather limited, that’s all.”
“It’s too bad they can’t see Haskell for the good man he is,” I said.
“I think they’re proud of him, in their way.” Stewart laughed, a tinge of bitterness in the sound. “It’s me they have no use for, you see. I led him astray.”
“Their loss,” I said warmly, “and if they could only see how happy the two of you are together, they’d get over their prejudice . . .”
I trailed off because Stewart was shaking his head. “No point in discussing it further. I don’t think they’ll ever come around.” He pushed back from the table as Azalea entered the room. He thanked her for lunch. “I’d better get upstairs and take my little demon out for a walk before he chews up anything else expensive.”
His little demon, Dante the poodle, actually had a sweet and loving nature, but he did get bored up in Stewart’s suite on the third floor. I had urged Stewart to let him have the run of the house, or at least the third floor, but Stewart seemed reluctant to do so. I thought he feared the dog would tear things up. He might do that, I reasoned, but with Diesel and Ramses to play with most of the time, he should stay busy enough to keep out of the worst mischief.
Azalea began to clear away Stewart’s plate and utensils, after brushing off my offer to do it. Ramses meowed loudly. She glanced down at him and frowned. “Listen here, mister, you’re not getting anything more off this here plate. I know Mr. Stewart slipped you food. You’re getting fat.”
Ramses meowed in protest, and I had to smother a laugh. Azalea used to stare at me when I talked to Diesel, her expression plainly revealing she thought I had lost my mind. I forbore these days to return the favor, now that she exhibited the same behavior with Ramses. I simply enjoyed the irony. She occasionally spoke to Diesel, referring to him as Mr. Cat, but not as frequently as she chatted with Ramses.
Azalea ignored Ramses’s further attempts to cajole food out of her. I finished the last few bites of food on my plate. Before I could push back my chair to dispose of my plate and utensils, Azalea picked them up and carried them to the sink. I thanked her for clearing, and she nodded.
“Did you know that Mrs. Hale was Haskell’s aunt?” I asked. “Stewart told me that during lunch.”
“I knew that.” Azalea frowned. “Forgot to mention it to you. I reckon it doesn’t change anything else about what I told you.”
“Surely Haskell would have told Stewart that his aunt disappeared one day and was never seen again.”
Azalea shrugged. “Maybe they don’t like to talk about it, but it sure enough happened.”
Ordinarily, I would have said that Azalea’s word was utterly reliable, but unless Haskell had withheld the complete truth from Stewart, there was a big discrepancy here. I wondered whether I should bring up the subject with Haskell. He knew all too well that I was nosy when it came to suspicious deaths. Given that he had not talked much about his family to me before now, I decided that I had best leave well enough alone for once.
I wondered what Melba would have to say about all this. I debated calling her. She should be either at lunch or close to finishing it, so this would be as good a time as any to call her.
“I’ll be in the den if anyone needs me for anything,” I told Azalea. “Come along, boys, let’s get out of the way.”
Diesel chirped as I pushed back my chair, and Ramses meowed. While Diesel followed me readily, Ramses looked back and forth between me and Azalea, no doubt hoping for more treats from his willing acolyte.
“You get on out of here,” she told Ramses. “You ought to be ashamed, begging like you do. I declare you’re more than a body can handle sometimes.” She flashed a brief smile after she scolded the cat, and Ramses responded with a plaintive mew. Azalea flapped her apron at him, and he ran out of the room ahead of Diesel and me.
In the den I made myself comfortable in my recliner, and Ramses immediately hopped up into my lap, circled around several times, and then settled down for a nap. Diesel stretched out on the floor by the chair.
Melba answered after a couple of rings. “Hi, Charlie. How are you enjoying your day off?”
“It’s an interesting day so far,” I replied. “Do you have time to talk?”
“I do. Finished lunch a few minutes ago, and I don’t have to be back at my desk for a bit. What’s up?”
I gave her a quick rundown on my unexpected inheritance, and she was surprised and curious.
“I thought your daddy or your granddaddy had sold that house to old man Hale,” she said. “I’m glad he didn’t. Place like that ought to be in your family where it belongs.”
“It’s a bit of a shock, really. Not something I ever expected. I haven’t given much thought to the place in years. I have to say that Mr. Hale kept the house in good condition.” I paused. “But I did find something totally unexpected when I went through it this morning. Or, I should say, Diesel found it. In the attic, of all places.”
“If you tell me you found a dead body in that house, I’m not going to believe you.” Melba hooted with laughter. “Even you don’t have that kind of bad luck.”
“Well, you’d be wrong, then.” My tart tone stopped the laughter.
“You found a dead body?” Melba fairly shrieked the words, and I jerked the phone briefly away from my ear. “You have got to be kidding me, Charlie. Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m definitely not kidding you. All we found were bones. They
were in an old wardrobe in the attic. Diesel was nosing around and knocked the skull out onto the floor.”
“Just bones? That’s interesting,” Melba replied after a brief silence. “There wasn’t anything with them?”
“I didn’t go through them,” I said. “We went back downstairs and found that Sean had arrived. He called the sheriff’s department. I wasn’t about to go messing around with anything. Kanesha would have had my head off if I’d disturbed anything.”
“True,” Melba said. “I wonder who it could be.”
“Azalea thinks it’s Mr. Hale’s wife. She thinks Hale killed her and told everybody she ran off with another man. Apparently, at the time Hale was a mean, abusive drunk.”
“He was, but after his wife was gone, he eventually got sober and got religion.” Melba’s tone evinced her disgust. “From one extreme to the other. He was an unpleasant man.”
“When did all this happen?” I asked.
“Twenty-five years ago, maybe,” Melba said, some uncertainty in her tone. “After you moved away, anyway. It’s true about Mrs. Hale, that she sorta disappeared, that is. Nobody really knows what happened, except maybe her family, but they don’t talk about it.”
“Whatever happened, Kanesha and her team will eventually get to the bottom of it,” I said. “They’re going to call in Dewey Seton. He has a cadaver dog, and maybe the dog can find where the bones were originally. I suspect they were buried somewhere on the farm.”
“What if the bones are older than that?” Melba asked. “What if they were buried while your grandfather was still alive?”
That was the question that had been haunting me ever since I first saw the skull on the attic floor.
SIX
“I’ll have to face that if it turns out to be what happened,” I said after a long pause. “I didn’t know my grandfather well. I was so young when he died, and my father didn’t talk a lot about him, either, after his death. I don’t know what kind of man he was, not the least whether he was actually capable of murder.”
“I don’t remember him, either,” Melba said slowly. “I don’t remember my mama or daddy talking about him much, other than him running for sheriff and not winning. Guess maybe they didn’t really know him, although they knew your mama and daddy.”
“A lot, at least in my mind, depends on where the body was buried,” I said. “If they can find the burial site, maybe that will tell them something about the who and the when, if not the why.”
“That’s a good point,” Melba said in an encouraging tone. “Old man Hale could have dug up those bones anywhere, anytime, and brought them home as a curiosity or some kind of weird souvenir. He was more than a little loopy, if you ask me.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said, a bit dryly. A beep from my phone interrupted my train of thought. “Hang on a moment. I’ve got another call coming in.” I checked the phone. Sean was calling, and I answered quickly. “On another call with Melba. Let me tell her I’ll call her back.”
Moments later I was back on the line with my son. “Any news?”
“A bit,” Sean replied. “They got further into the root cellar. Still no sign of digging in there so far, but it’s full of all kinds of junk. It’s going to take a while to clear it before they can check the floor. It’s hard-packed earth.”
That accorded with my own dim memory of the place.
“The good news is that Kanesha has spoken with that guy at the college, Dewey Seton,” Sean continued. “He’s going over with that dog of his right away to see whether she can pick up any kind of trail.”
“That would be interesting to watch,” I said.
“As the property owner, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to,” Sean said. “If you like, I’ll call Kanesha and ask about it.”
I thought about it for a moment, rather tempted to be involved, but I decided against it. The less I forced my presence into this investigation, the better my relationship with Kanesha would remain. She had learned to tolerate my involvement in cases, but I suspected that her toleration frequently involved the gritting of teeth.
“Thanks, but I’ll wait to hear officially from Kanesha what’s going on,” I said.
Sean chuckled. “Discretion being the better part of valor in this case.”
“Now, don’t you start quoting Shakespeare, too,” I said, half-jokingly. My daughter, Laura, a trained actress, often shared apposite lines from the Bard of Avon in conversation.
“Talk to you later, Dad.” Sean still sounded amused.
I put down the phone. Now I began to regret passing up the chance to witness the cadaver dog in action. I felt restless sitting at home with the cats and doing nothing constructive.
Helen Louise was in New Orleans for several days with two of her best friends from law school. She had invited me to come with her, but neither of her friends, both women, were bringing their partners. I declined with a smile, knowing that she would enjoy herself more without having to include me in conversations and other activities. I could call her, I knew, but I didn’t want to interrupt whatever the trio was doing. We would talk tonight, and I’d bring her up to date on my most unusual discovery.
I wasn’t in the mood to read, though I had several good books waiting, including newly reprinted Golden Age detective stories by E. C. R. Lorac, Anthony Gilbert, and George Bellairs. When I didn’t feel like reading, I knew I was too restive to accomplish much.
Abruptly I decided that I would get on the computer and dig around to try to find information about the late Martin Hale and his family. I gently removed Ramses from my lap, held him to my chest until I was out of the chair, and deposited him in the vacated spot. Diesel raised his head to look an inquiry at me, while Ramses simply yawned and rubbed a paw over his nose before going back to sleep.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I told Diesel in a low tone. I pulled out my desk chair and got comfortable. After waking my computer, I opened the browser to my favorite search engine and typed in Martin Hale’s name along with the words Mississippi and obituary. I figured that, even though he had died in California, the local paper would have run a notice of his death.
Bingo. I clicked on the link to the recent obituary in our local paper. There was no picture of Martin Hale, but the obituary itself consisted of several paragraphs. I skimmed them rapidly, looking primarily for a mention of his wife. There was none that I found on this first perusal, so I went back through again, slowly this time.
No mention of his wife. That truly was strange, but I figured someone in his family had probably written the account or had at least given the salient facts to the newspaper’s obit writer. There was obviously a mystery surrounding Mrs. Hale, and the Hales, whatever their reasons might be, had excluded her.
The obituary mentioned that Hale had lived on the old Harris farm, once owned by the late Robert Charles Harris of Athena County. Hale had retired from farming some ten years ago, but there was no mention of what became of the farm after his retirement. I would have to check with Sean about that. I assumed that Hale had rented the land to other farmers. Surely he hadn’t let it all lie fallow. Small farmers probably didn’t make a lot of money, and I figured Hale would have needed the income from rented land.
I realized that I had no idea how large the farm was. I knew my grandfather hadn’t been wealthy, but I couldn’t recall any signs of poverty in my memories of my grandparents. My father had never spoken to me of growing up poor, though I knew the Great Depression had not been easy for his family. My mother’s family, on the other hand, had been below the poverty line thanks to her ne’er-do-well father.
I decided I needed to sit down with Sean and go over all the particulars he might have about the farm and its history since my grandfather’s death. I thought about calling him right then but decided that conversation could wait. There were more pressing matters.
I searched the news
paper archives for any other mentions of Martin Hale or members of his family. Other than the occasional mention of a graduation of one of his grandchildren, there was nothing substantial except for the obituary of his son killed in the farm accident. Certainly nothing that could help a nosey parker like me dig more deeply into his life.
Another perusal of the obituary, however, revealed a few items of potential interest. Among them were the names of his son, Martin Horace Hale Jr., and his grandson, Martin Hale III. There was also a granddaughter, Alissa. The deceased’s wife was named Suzanne, but as she had remarried and moved to California, I didn’t think there was much point in trying to find out more about her. Sean might have contact information for the grandson, however. Martin Horace Hale III.
What reason would I have for getting in touch with the grandson? I supposed I could offer condolences on the death of his grandfather, if nothing else. For the first time, however, I thought about what the grandson could be feeling about the loss of a property he might naturally have thought he was due to inherit. As I recalled, I hadn’t thought to ask Sean about the grandson’s reaction to the news that the property hadn’t belonged to his grandfather.
Might as well call Sean and ask, I decided. I pulled out my phone and speed-dialed my son. I hoped he wouldn’t be too busy to talk to me. For some reason I felt a sense of urgency about the issue.
Sean answered quickly. “What’s up, Dad?”
“I didn’t think about it this morning when you told me about my grandfather’s house,” I said. “How did young Martin Hale, the grandson, feel about the fact that he didn’t inherit the property?”
Sean expelled a breath into the phone. “I was hoping you’d forget to ask me anything like that.”
My intuition had been correct. “He wasn’t happy.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Sean said in a flat tone. “He’s threatening to sue for ownership of the house and all the farmland.”
What the Cat Dragged In Page 4
