I left, feeling like a fugitive from an old nursery rhyme about driving a pig to market.
The faint fog had lifted but the wind had increased. When I reached Edna’s house I was anxious to deliver the tape recorder and get to my office. I hate being outside on windy days.
Edna did not come to the door when I knocked. I tried again. I was scared silly. Then I heard a faint shuffling. I waited. The knob turned and she reached for the hook and loop catch on her screen door. She was dressed in a front-snapped, flowered, seersucker duster. She looked at me blankly. Her eyes were red.
Crying again. She was obviously depressed. I made a mental note to call her son.
“Lottie! What brings you here?”
“I’ve brought you a gift.” She stared. “It’s a tape recorder. It’s a present from Stuart. So you can go right on recording all your memories without having to find someone to drive you to the courthouse.” There was a spark of interest in her eyes. “Let me set it up and show you how to use it.”
She stepped aside. I walked over to the table at the end of her little dining room/living room combination that was typical of a 1920s house. Beyond was a galley kitchen with a single row of cabinets. A rose frieze sofa and large chair sporting intricately crocheted doilies took up most of the living room. I put the recorder next to her neatly arranged clutter: stacked newspapers, magazines, letters, and assorted appeals for money from charitable organizations.
I looked for an electrical outlet. Luckily there was one within reach of the plug. “Now don’t feel you must do this, Edna,” I said. “I don’t want you to feel pressured.”
“I don’t mind.” She stared at the machine. “In fact, I’ve thought of a lot of things since I started talking to you the other day. Things people should know about.”
“Great.” That was often the case. If I could just get people started, all kinds of memories started pouring out. And with some persons there was something easier about oral histories. Especially those struck by the English teacher syndrome when they picked up a pen or pencil. They started worrying about grammar and worst of all, about sounding smart.
The great diaries and journals were written by persons blithely unaware of the importance of their entries. But our society has changed. Now even written letters, let alone journals, are rare. Emails and texting has replaced neighboring and personal contact. Clearly, Edna was going to be the type of person who lost all trace of self-consciousness when she started talking.
“I want to be sure you know how to use this. Just talk. Never mind the order. You can either do it chronologically or by topic. It’s your choice. I’ll pull your family story out of it later. You can look it over before I finalize it for the family history book. But in the meantime, just talk.”
“Well land’s sake. It will be nice to have something to do on days when I can’t get outside.”
“It’s all important, Edna. Everything. All the details. What it was like to have women over to quilt. Barn raisings. Everything.”
“I didn’t get out much. Henry didn’t like it.”
“That’s all right. We’re interested in a lot longer stories than the ones in our books.”
“I wasn’t nobody important.”
I hugged her. “You’ve always been somebody. Now sit down and let’s have a go at working the buttons.”
She lowered herself into the chair and suspiciously eyed the recorder.
“Press here to start recording. Then just talk. When you’re done, press the red button to stop. You can do this as long or as little as you like. Anytime, day or night. And when the cassette won’t go anymore, just call me. Don’t try to do anything else. I don’t want you accidentally erasing anything.”
“What if I’ve still got something to say?”
“I’ll bring you more cassettes.” I patted her hand and headed toward the door. “Bye now. Don’t bother to get up. I’ve got to run. I’ve got Josie’s little dog in the car. And she’s not known for her patience.”
I left cheered, feeling like I had done a good deed. A lonely old woman who had gotten caught up in a bizarre and terrifying experience now had something else to think about.
Tosca eyed me with disapproval as I opened the door to the Tahoe. “Oh come on,” I said merrily. “I rolled the window down so you had fresh air. And you don’t need someone paying attention to you every minute of the day.” She yipped. I drove to the courthouse.
***
Margaret looked tired. It had been a long week for her because of the hours I was spending at the sheriff’s office.
She rose when I walked in. “Hello, my name is Margaret Atkinson, and you are?”
“Oh come on. It hasn’t been that bad.”
“Plenty bad enough. You’d better be glad it’s me instead of William here. He’s been on a real tear.”
I sighed. William Webster was my most irritating and reliable volunteer. With impeccable integrity as he frequently reminded me. Very frequently. As though I lacked this virtue. Totally.
We had to call on him often lately. Much too often. He and Margaret were unpaid volunteers and they both had had a fit when I began “sheriffing”.
I was the only person on God’s green earth who approved of my new job. Keith worried about it. Josie thought I was a certifiable lunatic for taking it. Even Sam Abbot would have preferred someone huskier with fewer brains.
“Well William can relax. My latest crisis is…” My voice trailed off before I said “over.” I couldn’t guarantee that. Besides, there was still a whole catalogue of unanswered questions. “My latest crisis,” I finished gamely, “will just have to wait until I’m caught up here.”
Margaret had enough sense not to reply, but rolled her eyes. She stared at Tosca who returned her gaze. I could swear the little dog sniffed. As though she were nobility confronting a commoner.
“And just what is that?”
I seethed. But actually Tosca had started it. “Oh this is Josie’s little dog, Tosca. I’m dog-sitting today.” I refrained from explaining that my sister was out running around with my husband collecting signatures to oust the sheriff in the neighboring county.
“I’m allergic to dogs,” Margaret said. She sneezed and her eyes began to water. “Did you know medical research has established the fact that even if a little animal runs through a room once it takes five months to get rid of the dander?”
I suspected that was a lie, but I couldn’t afford to rub Margaret the wrong way. “OK. I’ll call Sam and see if I can drop her off at the office.”
“And if there is an emergency?”
“He can lock her up in one of the cells.”
Chapter Twenty-One
By the time I collected Tosca and headed home, the wind had begun blowing in savage intermittent gusts that slammed the side of my Tahoe.
Keith and Josie were sitting at the kitchen table eating the casserole I’d left in the refrigerator with instructions for baking.
“See you found everything OK,” I said.
“Yes, and it’s a good thing,” Keith said. “No eating outside for this jolly little band of workers. Pull up a chair, honey. We’ve left plenty for you.”
“OK. I’m starved.” I put an ample serving of hamburger casserole on my plate, ladled green salad onto one side, and dipped up plenty of green beans. “Well, did you make any progress?”
Keith smiled. “That’s an understatement. I’ve never seen so many persons on such a rant. The majority hate Irwin Deal.”
“I got the same reaction,” Josie said. “Although mine was a little more complicated because I had to convince everyone I wasn’t you. But after they got started it was amazing. And some of their feelings go way back.”
“People don’t get over slights out here. In fact, some of these quarrels go back to the nineteenth century.”
“Wow. If ever a psychologist was needed.”
“Maybe. But they won’t go, I can assure you.”
<
br /> “I’m going to watch the Royals get smacked,” Keith said, “unless you have other plans for the TV.”
“Masochist,” Josie taunted.
I smiled. “We just need the DVD player. We’ll go upstairs to the sitting room. Josie brought some opera videos. Tosca,” I teased, knowing how much he disliked that one.
“Goodbye for sure then. See you much, much later.”
I ate quickly, rinsed the dishes, and put them in the dishwasher. Josie and I happily headed up the stairs and plopped down in recliners. Soon we were lost in the ultimate drama, our favorite opera, Tosca, the inspiration for her little dog’s name.
The powerful voices filled the room. We forwarded through the intermission and didn’t talk again until after the final scene, which always made me cry. Josie dabbed at her eyes and as usual, I bawled outright. Tosca had been betrayed. She trusted the wrong person and her mistake had caused her lover to be executed by a firing squad. Then she killed herself.
Betrayal, betrayal. Condemned by everyone since the beginning of time.
“Didn’t you bring anything a little happier?”
“No, come to think of it.”
“Tomorrow night let’s see what Keith ordered from Netflix. Likely old westerns or World War Two movies.”
“Have you stopped watching opera, Lottie?”
“Not exactly. But I can’t get Keith interested. I record some of them that are broadcast through PBS and then just watch them by myself.”
“We used to love to do that together.”
The phone rang. It was Sam. “Can you come in? A guy hit a deer with his pickup and I’m on my way over there.”
Damn, damn, damn. It served me right for firing Troy before we had a replacement.
“Of course. I’ll be right in.”
“Trouble?” Josie asked.
“Nothing major, but Sam has to inspect a wreck. So I have to man the phone, just in case.”
“OK. I’m about ready to turn in. Keith and I had a long day.”
“I did too. In fact, it feels like two days. I’ll be back as soon as Sam returns. You’ll probably be asleep so I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
I went upstairs to tell Keith I was leaving. I leaned over just as he leaped to his feet and cheered for a very rare Royals home run.
“You’re the only one I know of that thinks this team will improve.”
He dropped down and pulled me across his lap. “Take it back, witch, before you put a curse on them.” He lightly slapped my butt as I pretended to wriggle away.
“It’s true and you know it.” I sat up and kissed his cheek. “Let me go, brute. I’ve got to go to work.”
“Again? I thought Sam was on duty tonight.”
“He was. Is. He got called out and that leaves me.”
“Haven’t found anyone to take Troy’s place?”
“Nope. At least no one that’s worth a damn.”
He pressed his hands against my face and pulled me toward him. “Just be careful, sweetheart. You still don’t know what’s going on with all this craziness. And Mary’s being poisoned changes everything.”
“I know that. I’ll come straight home after Sam gets back.”
***
Clusters of millers circled and batted against the street lights lining main street. When I got out of the Tahoe, I held onto the door to keep it from being snatched forward by the wind. I closed it and went inside. Sometimes I liked being in the jail at night without Sam around. It gave me a chance to go through old files without arousing his curiosity.
Sam never said anything, but I could feel him watching my every move. I had the authority to look through them, but I would have been hard pressed to come up with a rational explanation for following up on my hunches.
Tonight however, I wanted to check specific information. I was puzzled by Keith’s reaction when he learned that our visiting bishop was a Deal. The family couldn’t be that bad and the Fienes were certainly not exempt from carrying ancient grudges.
I set to work. I was wrong. The Deals were that bad. When they came over to Carlton County at least. Then after Irwin was elected sheriff they seemed content to aggravate the citizens of Copeland County. Records and charges dried up like magic. Clearly they found Irwin much more accommodating than Sam Abbott. The files on the Deals had begun with Sheriff Melvin Dixon when jurisdiction among unorganized counties often overlapped. Then I realized the really old information would be back in my historical society records. Crimes would be listed on ruled pages.
Sam had an entire hanging folder just for this family. I skimmed Dixon’s neat handwriting. James Deal arrested for dragging a dog behind a car. Note at the bottom of the file that the charges had been dismissed because the plaintiff had explained that he was not being cruel.
In fact, just the opposite. He was breaking the dog of chasing cars and from getting killed. He did this by attaching a gunny sack to the bumper and the dog was supposed to attack the sack and be dragged a couple of feet and the dog would learn its lesson and never chase cars again. But dad gum it, in this case, he’d stopped and the dumb dog hadn’t learned a dad gum thing and when he started up again he just honest to god hadn’t noticed he was dragging the dog until Sheriff Dixon pulled him over.
But Sheriff Dixon had written “like hell” at the bottom of the file. Another note that Deal hadn’t even been fined.
Another charge; the local doctor reported the same Deal to the sheriff for spousal abuse. But old “dad-gum-it” had wriggled out of that one too. Another accusation six weeks later. This time the doctor had included pictures: broken ribs, old bruises-some yellowing, some fresh, a black eye, a broken nose, far too many to have come from a single incident.
Jimmy claimed the little woman was getting careless. Going through the change. She backed him up. Saying she found it hard to concentrate sometimes. Hormones.
Classic case of an abused wife too frightened to defend herself. In this case Dixon had written “evil bastard” at the bottom of the file.
Then a bigger folder on when the woman had died. She’d been six months pregnant. So much for going through the change, I thought, glancing at the previous entry. Then she’d had a miscarriage and simply bled to death.
It happened far too often in the 1920s. Wintertime. No way to get to town. Phones only worked about half the time. But this time, the doctor had accused him of murder. The sheriff’s report was handwritten and the crossed-out replaced words were a story in themselves. They were heavy, jagged. The hand of an angry man. Dixon wanted a record of all this. Wanted people to know what was going on in the neighboring county.
Charges dismissed for lack of evidence.
This time Sheriff Dixon’s notes were lengthy.
“I tried to tell the judge that the doctor said this woman had been beaten. She’d been pregnant all right. I’ve no doubt she bled to death. When I went out to the house, I asked him where the baby was. He said there wasn’t a baby. Just a blob. And he’d buried it. He ‘didn’t exactly remember where.’”
Just a blob. It probably was, considering the abuse suffered by its mother. And of course he’d just dug a hole and buried it. That’s what people did back in those days. A small farm out in the country. Wasn’t like there was a bevy of nurses in a fancy hospital with a tradition of grieving rituals. No different than women on the trail who had to abandon small babies.
But who was this judge that would ignore such a clear pattern of evil? Sheriff Dixon’s narrative continued.
“Naturally, his cousin, Christopher Deal, decided to drop the case for lack of evidence.”
His cousin! I was beginning to understand Keith’s explosion and his saying I didn’t understand who I was challenging.
There were more folders in the Deal family file and other ones I was curious about. I glanced at the clock. 10:30. Past time for Sam to be back. I rose, paced back and forth, then went to the broom closet and grabbed a dusting cloth an
d a can of Lemon Pledge and started spraying our desks. A little cleaning would give me something to think about besides crooked judges and a family who seemed to be as populous as tumbleweeds.
I wanted Josie to go home. Where she was safe. I scolded myself for being more like my husband every day. Wanting everyone where I could control what happened to them.
A thunk outside. I peered out the glass in the front door. A wood planter had blown over. The shallow-rooted dried little fir pointed due north like the needle on a compass. Nothing loose left for the wind to blow away, I decided. But perhaps a storm was brewing.
Maybe. Even though I’d lived in Western Kansas for eight years I still couldn’t tell the difference between signs of sure enough storms and clouds that were just kidding.
But clouds could be motionless, as innocent as a bowl of marshmellows, and there would be an ominous feel to the air. When this occurred I was jumpy and couldn’t concentrate. I started at sounds. Snapped at Keith if he was unfortunate enough to be working inside and just generally acted like a first-class bitch.
I stood by the window and saw headlights approach. A rack of lights on top. Sam. I put up the Pledge and made sure the file was closed and peered out the glass pane of the front door.
Then a car sped up the side street and made a right turn toward the jail. A man leaned out and I dove for the floor. Gunshots shattered the front window. Too stunned to move, I stared at the shards of glass lying all around.
The driver raced away. I got to my feet and went to the door and waved at Sam to let him know I was all right. Sam accelerated right after the car. But I could have told him that his old pickup was no match for whatever the men were driving. He might as well have given chase in a horse and buggy.
About five minutes later Sam came back. He rushed through the door, where I waited, my gun drawn and both a shotgun and rifle leaning against the desk.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. He just shot out the window. Who were they?”
“Don’t know. I was coming from the east and the driver blew right past me at the intersection going north. Then I saw the other man leaning out the window and realized he’d taken a shot at you. Saw you wave so I knew he’d missed. I didn’t even manage to get a license plate.”
Lethal Lineage Page 11
