The Unquiet Grave: A Novel

by Sharyn McCrumb

  Johnson took a step back and almost lost his hold on the door as a gust of wind hit him. “Why, Mary Jane, you must be frozen out here in this weather. Where’s Jacob? You didn’t walk here, did you?”

  I put my fingers over my lips and nodded. I had breathed in so much cold air that if I had tried to say any more, the sound would have come out in a fit of coughing.

  It hadn’t been a long walk to Johnson’s farm—at least, it wouldn’t have seemed so in any season except winter. Their white farmhouse was bigger than ours, but not any fancier. It had a wide one-story porch, but no elaborate Greek columns or painted shutters. Most people in Greenbrier County are content to be plain folk with simple ways, and the only sign of prosperity was the fact that the house was well cared for and encircled by fifty acres of rolling meadows. It was nestled amid a stand of hardwood trees, set on a little rise above the valley, so that the view of distant hills and patchwork fields was as perfect as an oil painting. I always found that house a reassuring sight, one that, except in the dead of winter, would make a visitor feel warm and safe and at peace with the world. My sorrow was too great and the weather too harsh for me to take solace in it then, but at least I was sure of a kinfolk’s welcome and a sympathetic listener to the tale I had not yet decided how to tell.

  I stood there on the porch, still bereft of speech, my breath coming in clouds and my hands so numb from cold that I had scarcely felt the surface of the door when I knocked. Johnson, spurred into motion by the cold, bundled me into the house, calling out to Abigail to let her know that company had arrived. Just inside the door, I pulled off my wet shoes, so as not to track clumps of mud on the polished oak floors of the parlor. My sister-in-law is a heavyset woman, mother of seven, and four years older than I. She was a winsome girl in her youth, not above putting lampblack on her eyelids and rice powder on her face, but now she has plain scrubbed cheeks and her eyes are sunk in the folds of fat surrounding them. Her hair, mostly gray and wispy now and pulled back into a tight bun on top of her head, does nothing to flatter that reddish moon face. Abigail may not be vain of her appearance, but she is house-proud to a fault, and not even her sympathy for my bereavement would save me from her wrath if I tracked mud onto her shiny polished floor. The parlor always smelled of beeswax, and no escaping bit of wood ash from the fireplace ever stayed put for long on any surface in the room. Abigail’s furniture was not store-bought, but it was walnut and cherry, made by local carpenters who were skilled woodworkers, whereas what we had at home was mostly handmade there on the farm out of oak and pine.

  Abigail had a mahogany table, instead of an oak one, and a gleaming bureau of imported rosewood—the one store-bought piece—stood against one wall. A Turkey carpet, which Johnson had bought at auction after the war, swirled with intricate designs in dark red and deep blue against a fawn-colored background. The rug in our parlor was an old braided one that I had made myself by twisting rags from old sheets and clothes, and while it was sturdy enough and colorful, Abigail’s fine Oriental carpet put it to shame. I couldn’t help but envy her the wine-colored draperies that hung at the windows, matching the deep red of the horsehair sofa. My greatest glory—indeed, my only one—was my children: three strapping boys who would be a credit to us one day, and a beautiful daughter who might have married a rich and prominent gentleman. I could scarcely bear to look at that beautifully appointed room now, for while it was too late for me to care about such splendor for myself, it reminded me of all that Zona might have had, if she had been wiser in her choice of a husband. Abigail still had her splendid parlor and her Turkey carpet, while Zona had only a box and a cotton shroud.

  None of that was the fault of Johnson and Abigail, though, and I didn’t begrudge them any of what they had. They had been friends and neighbors as well as kinfolk to Jacob and me, and we couldn’t have asked for better ones. They had known their share of sorrow, too. About ten years back, they had lost a child themselves, a summer baby who had barely lived to the beginning of autumn. Privately, I thought that the death of a three-month-old, the offspring of parents who had seven other children still alive, was not as tragic as losing a grown-up daughter, but that might have been only my selfishness, for my bereavement was new and it felt to me greater than anything anybody else could have suffered. Johnson and Abigail had shared our grief at Zona’s passing as if she had been one of their own, though I had not confided in them our disapproval of Zona’s choice of husband, nor my opinion about the cause of her death. Perhaps they sensed it, though, for they knew me better than anyone.

  Johnson and Abigail were the people I trusted. Jacob might have let me down, hiding his pain under a show of indifference and refusing to countenance my suspicions for fear of looking foolish in front of the county gentry, but I was counting on his brother and sister-in-law to trust me, and to help me do what had to be done.

  At her husband’s hailing, Abigail came downstairs, broom in hand, for it seems that every waking moment she must be setting something to rights about her house. When she saw me, red-nosed and shivering by the fireplace, she professed to be equally horrified that I had walked all the way to their house in the fierce February wind.

  “You will catch your death, Mary Jane,” she declared. “It’s not that I’m not glad to see you, dear, but you’ve no call to go bringing more tragedy upon this family by courting pneumonia, no matter what the trouble may be. Now warm yourself before I send you upstairs to bed and call the doctor. Johnson, hang up her wet things, but mind they don’t drip on my clean floor.”

  They made me sit in the green chesterfield chair by the fire, while Johnson took my coat, and wrapped me up in a quilt that Abigail fetched from a cedar chest. He hung my scarf and gloves close to the fireplace so that they would dry—and so they’d drip only on the hearthstone—while Abigail fetched me coffee from the pot on the stove. Johnson didn’t ask me any more questions just then, but I could see that he was still worried. I was not fanciful nor given to displays of emotion. It wasn’t like me to walk all the way there alone in a fierce wind. I had tried not to make a show of my grief, but sorrow isn’t easy to hide, and I think the family was worried that I would waste away or take foolish chances—like walking abroad in foul weather—in hopes of shortening my life. I had no intention of dying, though, because if I were taken, there would be no one left to see that Edward Shue got what was coming to him.

  I sipped the hot coffee from one of Abigail’s flowered china cups, and stretched out my feet above the warm hearthstone until I could feel my toes again.

  When the coffee had warmed my throat enough for me to find my voice again, I tried to smile reassuringly at their looks of concern. Then I answered the unspoken question. “There is no fresh trouble at our place. The boys are fine, and I’m as well as can be expected.”

  Abigail, back from the kitchen with her own cup of coffee, sat down on the sofa nearest my chair and gave me an appraising stare. “You’re looking scrawnier than a March groundhog, Mary Jane. You ought to be drinking buttermilk instead of coffee.”

  I tried to smile. “The coffee is warming me up, though. I haven’t had much of an appetite. Haven’t slept much, either, lately. But if you’ll help me, I hope to get past it.”

  They glanced at each other, and Abigail said, “Where’s Jacob, hon?”

  “Jacob’s at home. He knew I was headed here, and I told him why, but he wouldn’t come with me. So I set off alone. Jacob will not help me. I was hoping you would.”

  Johnson took a long look at me, and I knew he was seeing how pale I was, and how thin I’d grown. The dark pouches under my eyes showed how many days now I had spent sleepless nights pacing and grieving. I expect he thought he was looking at a woman losing her hold on reason. “Are you sure you aren’t in need of a doctor, Mary Jane? We can keep you here and send for Dr. Lualzo so you won’t have to go out in the cold again.”

  “No. There’s nothing wrong with me that a doctor can fix. I’m looking for a lawyer.”

  Johnson
had pulled a ladder-back dining room chair over to the hearth, and now he sat down in it and stared at my face, not even venturing to guess where my grief had taken me. Abigail sighed. She brushed away a tear with the back of her hand, and got up from the sofa. She likes everything to be neat and peaceable, so I wasn’t surprised when she bustled off to the kitchen, muttering something about having washing up to do. That was fine. I didn’t need consolation; I needed practical help, and for that my business was with Johnson.

  After she left there was a long silence, and I didn’t say anything more because I knew that Johnson was mulling over what I had said. At last he rubbed his grizzled chin and murmured, “And you need a ride to town so you can find a lawyer? You’ll excuse my mentioning this, I hope, Mary Jane, but . . . lawyers . . . They don’t come cheap.”

  I smiled. “I don’t reckon I’ll have to pay this one, Johnson. He’s hired out to the county government.”

  He had to think it over for a moment, and I could see him trying to hide the fact that he was relieved I hadn’t come to him for money. He knows that his brother and I have none to spare, though we have too much pride to act like poor relations, and to Johnson’s credit, he never boasts of his prosperity. He was doing all right for a mountain farmer, but there’s men at the other end of Greenbrier County who could buy and sell him for the price of one of their horses, so he wasn’t as high and mighty as all that. Finally he worked out what I had meant by a lawyer I wouldn’t have to pay. “The county prosecutor? What do you want him for?”

  “Why, I want him to do his job, of course—prosecute somebody.” I was tired from the long walk and lack of sleep, and I wished we could dispense with the explanations. But I was asking him for a favor, so I reckon he had a right to know. “That worthless hound Edward Shue murdered my Zona, and I mean to make him pay for it.”

  “You want Zona’s husband arrested.” Johnson was struggling to balance sympathy with common sense, but he had known me all my life, so he knew that I wasn’t a fanciful woman, just a stubborn one. “I’m not saying he didn’t do it, Mary Jane, because he acted mighty peculiar at the funeral, but it seems to me that if they could have charged Shue with killing Zona, they would have done so by now.”

  “They couldn’t charge him before now because they didn’t have any evidence, but I do.”

  “What evidence could you have? Zona has been in the churchyard for a couple of weeks now.”

  “Her body may be there, but the rest of her isn’t.”

  “Well, of course I know she’s in heaven, poor girl, but—”

  “No. She’s not in heaven. I reckon she’s earthbound, waiting for justice. And I know that her devil of a husband killed her because she told me so!”

  Despite her distaste for messes, physical or otherwise, Abigail had been lingering in the doorway, not sure whether or not she was supposed to hear what I’d come about, but when I said that Zona had told me she’d been murdered, she let out a little scream, and then clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at me, round-eyed with horror.

  Johnson looked grim. “Have you been having nightmares, Mary Jane?”

  “I haven’t been sleeping. And I haven’t taken leave of my senses, either.”

  “No one thinks you’ve lost your mind, but you have suffered a great loss, and such a blow might make anyone . . .” He hesitated, searching for a benevolent word. “. . . fanciful.”

  I shook my head. “Not I. I’ve never set any store by old wives’ tales—walking under ladders, black cats being bad luck, and such foolishness. And remember when we were young and people took to table tapping for a while, trying to contact the spirits for a lark. I never held with that, did I, Abigail?”

  Still in the doorway, she shook her head no, but her eyes were wide, and she looked as pale as a ghost herself.

  “This isn’t a tale about crystal balls or haint stories told by candlelight. It’s about the Lord answering a mother’s prayer.”

  Johnson was solemn, still worried but willing to hear me out. “What prayer was that, Mary Jane?”

  “When they told us Zona was dead, right off I said, That devil has killed her. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. But that husband of hers wouldn’t let anybody get near the body, and so they buried her without anybody asking him any questions. Did you know he had another wife who died the year before he married Zona?”

  “I hadn’t heard that, no.”

  “Well, she fell and hit her head and died in November ’96.”

  “You think he killed her, too?”

  “Like as not, but I doubt you could ever prove it. Still, it made my suspicions all the stronger. So I prayed about it. I asked God to give me to know what had really happened to my Zona. And a few days ago He did.” I saw a worried glance pass between Johnson and Abigail, and I willed myself to stay calm and dry-eyed, so they wouldn’t take me for a hysterical woman spinning moonshine out of sorrow.

  “What happened a few days ago, Mary Jane? Your answer to prayer—what was it?”

  “I had taken to passing the night in Zona’s old room so as not to disturb Jacob with my sleeplessness. I’d sit there hour after hour, staring out the window, praying every now and again, or just thinking back on all that had happened. And one night—I was wide-awake, I tell you—I looked up from my reverie, and I saw Zona standing there, right in front of me. Just standing there, looking mournful.”

  Johnson’s face was a careful blank, and I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not, but at least he was listening. After a moment he nodded. “Go on.”

  Abigail had crept a little nearer, wanting to hear my story in spite of her misgivings. “Weren’t you afraid, Mary Jane?”

  I shook my head. “Why should I be? It was only Zona. She was my daughter. Nine months under my heart I carried her. I reckon I knew her before she came into this world, so it seemed only right that I should keep on knowing her after she left it. No. I wasn’t afraid.”

  “Could you see through her, though? Did she speak?”

  “She did speak. She told me what happened to her. And she looked just the way she always did. She was wearing that bibbed satin dress we buried her in. There was one thing she did, though, that was different.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She turned her head all the way around to prove to me that her neck was broken.”

  There was a little moan from the doorway, and we turned in time to see Abigail slump to the floor in a dead faint.

  twelve

  WE DIDN’T TALK MUCH for most of the journey into town. The wild wind made me want to hunker down inside myself and keep as still as I could to hold onto what little warmth I had. We had to set Abigail to rights before we were able to hitch up the buggy and head to the county seat. We left her sitting in the kitchen drinking sugared coffee and dabbing at her forehead with a wet handkerchief. She had recovered, though I thought she might be beset with nightmares for the next couple of days. Johnson was holding up well enough. I should have told him in private, but then she might have got her feelings hurt by being excluded, so there was really no right way to have handled it, but I was sorry for upsetting her without warning.

  Johnson hadn’t asked me any more questions about seeing Zona after that. After we got Abigail into a chair, and I set about getting her coffee and a wet cloth, he stood there quietly for a bit, waiting to make sure that she was all right, and then, without looking at me, he said, “I’ll go and hitch up the buggy, Mary Jane. Whenever you’re ready.”

  He was going with me, and that was all I cared about. I figured I’d have to tell the whole story in even more detail to the prosecutor when we got to town, and Johnson could hear it all then. I was glad he wasn’t asking me any questions on the way, because I was sure that the lawyer would ask me a barrelful when we finally got to see him. Then I got to wondering who the prosecutor was and what kind of man he might be, so I broke the silence. “Johnson, what do you know about this fellow who is the county prosecutor?”

  After a mom
ent’s cogitation, for Johnson never made up his mind in a hurry, he said, “I’ve never had cause to cross paths with the gentleman, but his name is John Alfred Preston, and he’s a local man. He just took office a few weeks back, but he was practicing law here all along. Just changed sides of the table, I reckon.”

  “Have you heard anything about him?”

  “Not to his detriment. And whether he believes in ghosts—I guess you’ll have to find that out for yourself.”

  I had never been in the courthouse before. We had not been to Lewisburg many times in my life. It’s too far from our settlement in Little Sewell for us to travel there on a whim, and it’s not a very big town anyhow. If you wanted to make an excursion, and if you could afford to, you might take a train west to Charleston or east to Roanoke, or even all the way to Washington, but Lewisburg didn’t have much more to offer than a few stores, a couple of academies for educating the children of the well-to-do, and the county government. The lawmen came to us if we ever needed them, and the tax collectors came whether we needed them or not, so there was generally no cause to go to the county seat at all on government business. I had never set foot in the courthouse. I was not afraid, though. Talking to a small-town lawyer isn’t very daunting when you have been speaking with the dead.

  The courthouse was on North Court Street, appropriately enough, and it had been there for at least half a century. The war cut a swath of destruction across much of the South, especially in Virginia, but maybe because it didn’t amount to much, Lewisburg was spared. The courthouse, built of the red brick they make around here, stood three stories high, a simple and dignified building, which I thought was a fitten way for a little country courthouse to look, as if they dispensed justice in a businesslike way, without putting on all the airs and graces of big-city bureaucrats. The narrow front porch, level with the sidewalk, was held up by four white wooden pillars under a triangular roof that projected out from the main building. There was a cupola on top, with a dome above an open area enclosed by waist-high railings. I liked the look of that. The view from that cupola would be a fine sight in more clement weather. You’d be able to see past the storefronts of the town to the surrounding mountains in all their glory. Today, though, I could only shudder at the thought of being at the mercy of the fierce winds whipping across the valley.