Crooked as a Dog's Hind Leg

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  "He didn't want to drag her down with him. He was trying to do the honorable thing."

  "Honor!" I snorted.

  "Since when is honor so distasteful? 'Mine honor is my life, both grow in one; take honor from me, and my life is done.' Richard II, Act I, scene 1."

  "And they did take Richard's life away from him, didn't they?" Before he could respond, I said, "Do you remember Robert E. Lee?"

  "The patron saint of the South?"

  "Not to me! You know he was against secession? He was even asked to head up the Union army before he took over the Confederate forces. The only reason he fought for the South was his honor."

  "This makes him a villain?"

  "In a way it does. You know that the Confederacy never had much of a chance. They just didn't have the infrastructure they needed. The war should have been over almost before it started. But Lee was a genius. With him in charge, the war dragged on and on. How many people died for Lee's honor?"

  "Aren't you simplifying it a bit?"

  I ignored him. "Then there's Reconstruction. If the war hadn't lasted so long, the North wouldn't have been so hard on the South. Lincoln would have been alive well into the process and made sure of it."

  "Unless Booth decided to attend an earlier show at Ford's Theater." I started to object, but Richard raised his hand. "All right, I'll concede that honor isn't always the best motive. But you can't play this kind of guessing game after the fact. Unless you're watching It's a Wonderful Life, that is." He looked at me suspiciously. "Which you watched last week, if I recall correctly."

  I had to grin. "Actually, I watched it twice."

  "Aha!"

  As usual, Richard had dispersed my foul mood. "Well, since we don't have an angel to call upon to go back, we'll just have to go forward."

  "Agreed, but first I want to remind you that I told you that this would happen."

  "You don't mind, do you? Spending your Christmas vacation tracking down a murderer?" I could easily have added, "again."

  "'At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May's new–fangled mirth; but like of each thing that in season grows.' Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, scene 1."

  It took me a minute to worry the meaning out of the quote. "Are you implying that murder and trips to Byerly go hand in hand?" He opened his mouth to speak and I could tell that another quote was coming. "All right, you have a point."

  "Then I think I'm entitled to one I–told–you–so."

  I sighed. "I suppose you're right. Go ahead."

  He shook his head. "No, I think I'll save it for later. When you're not expecting it."

  "That's mean."

  He grinned. "So now that you've bowed to the inevitable, what shall we do next?"

  I thought for a minute. "How many men did Wilkins say were on the baseball team?"

  He pulled out the list and counted. "'So Judas did to Christ: but he, in twelve, found truth in all but one.' King Richard II, Act IV, scene 1."

  "So we have twelve men to track down."

  "Actually only eleven. Wilkins himself is one of the twelve, but the quote was so obvious that I had to use it."

  "Of course," I said, though I couldn't imagine how it could have been that obvious. "Maybe we should talk to Chief Norton again and see if any of them had alibis. I'd hate having to do the groundwork again, especially after all this time. Eleven men are a lot. Although if they're still working at the mill, they should be pretty easy to find." So many members of my family worked at Walters Mill that it would just be a matter of picking one to ask for help. "As soon as we get back, we'll give Chief Norton a call."

  * * *

  We were nearly back to Byerly when I thought of something else. "Richard, are you hungry?"

  "Planning to tackle some of those pig rinds."

  "That's pork rinds. Or pork skins, if you prefer."

  "I don't prefer either."

  "Good. That leaves more for me. I wasn't suggesting them anyway. I was suggesting that we go to Pigwick's."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Pigwick's Barbeque. That's the name of Fannie Topper's old place. It might be helpful to scope the place out."

  "It's still open?"

  "Yes and no. They closed the bar after Fannie died, but her brother and sister–in–law kept the barbeque part going, just for take–out. Fannie's son Tim took over after a while, and I guess it was doing well enough that he decided to try it as a restaurant. So he opened Pigwick's a few years ago."

  "Do I dare ask about the name?"

  "From Dickens, of course."

  "Of course."

  "The napkins even have 'Pigwick Papers' printed on them."

  "Of course." Richard was quiet for the rest of the drive, and I had a feeling that he was just glad that nobody had decided to honor Shakespeare in the way that Tim Topper had honored Charles Dickens.

  It was mid–afternoon when we pulled into the parking lot at Pigwick's, which explained why there weren't many other cars there.

  "Have you eaten here before?" Richard asked as we walked to the door.

  "I've eaten their food before, but only take–out."

  He raised one eyebrow. "Afraid of the ghost?"

  "Not hardly. At least four Burnettes have died in Aunt Maggie's house, and you know that never bothered me." The reason was a different specter, one that still haunted Byerly. Marley was the "black" part of town. Getting food to take home was one thing, but actually going there to eat was something else. I felt a rush of liberal smugness that I was going inside, admittedly tempered by knowing how long it had taken to get me there.

  The only other customers were a party of three men and a woman, all dressed in business suits. A big man with dark hair and caramel–colored skin was at the register by the door, and I recognized him as Tim Topper.

  "Two for dinner?" he asked, picking up two menus.

  "Yes, please," I said.

  "We must be early," Richard said as Tim took us to a table.

  "Just a bit," Tim said. "I expect the place will be filling up later." He handed me my menu, started to give Richard his, and then looked back at me. "Do I know you?"

  "I think we've met once or twice. I'm Laura Fleming."

  He shook his head, not recognizing the name.

  "Laurie Anne Burnette," I said in resignation.

  "That's right, now I remember. We talked at your cousin's victory party when he was elected to the town council."

  I nodded. "This is my husband, Richard."

  They shook hands and Richard said, "I take it you're an admirer of Dickens."

  Tim grinned and shook his head. "No, that was my mama. She used to read me stories from Dickens when I was little, and the names were so funny that I used to get them mixed up. I could have sworn that she was saying Pigwick, and I thought that it would be a good name for a barbeque house." He took our orders, managing to talk us into getting large plates of pulled pork barbeque instead of the small ones we originally asked for.

  As soon as he was out of earshot, Richard asked, "Aren't you going to ask about his mother's murder?"

  I wrinkled my nose. "I don't think so. He was only ten when it happened, and I'm sure that Chief Norton must have questioned him pretty thoroughly. Besides, I can't just ask him about something like that out of the blue."

  "You're not going to tell him that we're looking for the murderer?"

  "If we find him, we can tell Tim then. I don't want to go dredging up memories like that, especially not at Christmas. It must have been awful for him, finding his mother dead like that."

  "And this is where it happened?" Richard said, looking around the room.

  I nodded, reminding myself that I didn't believe in ghosts. "Of course it probably looked a lot different." From what Chief Norton had said about Fannie's Place, I don't think it would have had big picture windows and gingham curtains and tablecloths. The floor would probably have been wood or tile, not carpet. The fireplace looked old enough to be original, but there was no si

gn of where the bar had been.

  "And they never found Fannie's money?"

  I shook my head. "Every once in a while, some of the kids would plan to sneak over here at night to search for it, but I don't think anybody ever did. Either afraid of the ghost or afraid of Tim's Uncle Eb. They just talked about how great it would be to find the money. Hidden treasure holds a certain appeal, doesn't it?" I looked at him, and from the gleam in his eye, I could tell that it certainly held a lot of appeal for him. "Richard, don't tell me that you want to look for the money."

  "Just speculating."

  "A lot of people have looked for that money over the years."

  "True," he said.

  "Of course," I added, "none of them were as brilliant as you are."

  Richard grinned. "Is that so?"

  We were turning around in our chairs to look for likely hiding places when Tim came back with our order. "Don't tell me that you're looking for my mama's money?" he said.

  I didn't know what to say. It did seem pretty tacky. "I'm sorry––we didn't mean to be rude."

  He held up one hand. "Hey, don't apologize. If you can come up with a place I haven't already looked, I want to hear about it."

  Richard said, "If you don't mind my asking, why did your mother keep her money here? Why not in a bank?"

  "For one, we didn't have a car so getting to the bank would have been a problem. For another, Big Bill Walters was still running the bank then and Mama just didn't trust him."

  I could believe that. I didn't think that Big Bill was actively dishonest, but he was smart enough to think up ways that he could be honest and still get his hands on other people's money.

  "She never told anybody where the money was?" I asked.

  Tim just shook his head again, like he had been asked the same questions many times before. "You've got to remember, I was only a kid then. If I had known where it was, I'd have been into it every time I wanted a new toy."

  "What about the people who worked for her?"

  "There wasn't nobody but her, my Uncle Eb, and Aunt Fezzy. She wouldn't tell Uncle Eb because he'd been known to drink more than he should, and she wouldn't tell Aunt Fezzy because she might have told Uncle Eb. I know it sounds funny now, but things were different then. Mama was alone, and she had to think about the future. She had her heart set on my going to college, so she wanted to be sure that the money would be there for me."

  For a minute he looked over toward the center of the room, and I hoped he was remembering his mother in life, not in death.

  "I'm sorry," I said again. "We are being rude."

  "Don't you worry about that. I imagine a lot of people have come in here because of curiosity. Maybe I should have called the place The Curiosity Shop." He grinned, and left us to our meal.

  "I wish he wasn't so nice," I said to Richard. "I feel like such a heel."

  "He said he didn't mind. And don't forget that we're doing this to find the person who killed his mother."

  I nodded in agreement, but I still felt like a heel. Tim must think that we were like those people who slow down on the highway when passing a wreck. My parents had died in a car accident, and I had always hated the idea of people staring at them.

  I didn't much feel like eating, but I took a bite of the barbeque anyway. And another. And another. "You know," I said to Richard, "people might come here because of curiosity, but they come back for the food."

  As Tim had predicted, the restaurant started to fill up soon after that, so we didn't have a chance to talk to him further other than to compliment the barbecue on our way out.

  * * *

  When we got back to Aunt Maggie's house, I headed straight for the telephone.

  "Hello?" Chief Norton said.

  "Hi, this is Laura Fleming."

  "I was hoping that you'd call. Did you go see Caleb Wilkins?"

  "Yes, sir. We sure did."

  "Did you find anything out?"

  "As a matter of fact, he told us what it was that he wouldn't tell you."

  "Is that so? Well don't leave me hanging."

  I explained about the baseball hat, and why Wilkins had never told him.

  "Well I'll be darned. It never occurred to me that it wasn't his hat. I appreciate his loyalty to the other fellows, but it sure would have helped if he had told me the truth."

  "I know. You don't happen to remember if any of the other ball players were missing alibis, do you?"

  "It just so happens I dug up my files after we talked yesterday. I had a hunch that I'd want them. Have you got a pencil?"

  I made gestures at Richard, and he handed me a pad and pen. "Go ahead."

  While I waited, Chief Norton looked up each of the other eleven members of the team to check their alibis. As it turned out, two of them had ended up at a different party, five had gone to work the late shift at the mill, and one was seen to arrive at his home by a nosy neighbor.

  "That leaves three," I said. "Joe Bowley, Pete Fredericks, and Bobby Plummer."

  "That's what it sounds like to me, too," Chief Norton said. "None of them have ever been in any serious trouble, but then again, neither had Caleb Wilkins."

  "They shouldn't be hard to track down."

  "I expect not, but you do realize that by rights we should hand this new evidence over to Junior and let her deal with it."

  "That's true." I should have been glad to let Junior take over. As long as it was solved, did it really matter who did the solving? But like I said, the Burnettes are stubborn. I was bound and determined to do this for Aunt Edna. Besides, Caleb Wilkins had trusted me. I wanted to finish it myself.

  "Of course," Chief Norton said, "Junior's awfully busy this time of year. I hear that she's had a lot of trouble with shoplifting."

  "Really?"

  "This being such an old case, she probably wouldn't have a chance to get to it for a while. Until after Christmas, at least. And she hates it when I stick my nose in, so I can't do a thing."

  "You're not suggesting that I withhold evidence, are you?" I said in mock surprise.

  "Of course not," he said, in equally mock reaction. "In fact, you can let me tell Junior, just as soon as I get a chance. You and your husband go ahead and do whatever you usually do on vacation. Now if you should happen to hear anything interesting, you be sure and let me know."

  "I certainly will."

  "Well?" Richard asked when I hung up.

  "He's going to let us take a crack at it," I said. "If we can't figure it out by Christmas, Junior can take over."

  "That gives us what? Three days?"

  "Three days, and three suspects."

  "But no motive other than this cache of money." Richard thought for a minute. "Laura, who was Tim's father?"

  "I don't think Fannie was married, but if she was, he wasn't around anymore. Why?"

  "It occurred to me that Tim has fairly light skin."

  "Are you thinking that his father was white?"

  "It's a possibility, isn't it?"

  "I suppose, but I don't know how dark Fannie was."

  "Wouldn't that have been a terrible thing to have happen in North Carolina? Didn’t people around here look down on mixed relationships?"

  "Mixed relationships were looked down on in most parts of the country!"

  "Sorry. You're right."

  I nodded, somewhat mollified.

  Richard said, "The point I was trying to make was that Fannie might have threatened to make the father's identity public."

  "Blackmail? I don't think she'd do that. Chief Norton seemed to think a lot of Fannie, and he's an awfully good judge of character."

  "But she did want to send Tim to college. Maybe she asked the father for money, and he refused. She could have gotten mad and made the threat, or maybe he misconstrued what she said as a threat. Remember, Chief Norton didn't think the murder was premeditated."

  "True. I suppose that one of our three suspects could be Tim's father." Then I thought of a complication. "So why the search for Fannie's money?"

  "Maybe he wanted it to look like a robbery. Or even better, maybe Fannie had some proof that he was the father, and he was looking for that."

  "It's possible," I admitted. "I was planning to talk to Aunt Nora to get some background on our three suspects, so I could ask her about that, too."

  "You mean you don't already know all of the suspects? Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

  "Cut that out! I don't know everybody in Byerly." I looked questioningly at him. "MacBeth?"

  "Hamlet. Act I, scene 4."

  "I was close." Before he could argue the point, I said, "Shall we go talk to Aunt Nora?"

  "We could, but if we go over there now, she's going to try to feed us and I'm still stuffed from the barbeque."

  "Me, too." I checked the clock. "They've probably already eaten, but I'll use the phone this time. Just in case she's got leftovers."

  After a few minutes of preliminaries, including my fending off an offer of Uncle Buddy coming by to deliver food, I said, "Aunt Nora, I need to pick your brain."

  "Still trying to come up with a gift for Edna?"

  I avoided answering directly by saying, "Richard and I went to Pigwick's Barbeque today, and we were wondering about Tim Topper. Who was his father?"

  There was a long pause. "Does this have something to do with Caleb Wilkins?"

  So much for my surprise. "Yes, ma'am." I explained what Richard and I were trying to do. "Do you think it's a good idea?"

  "Laurie Anne, that is the sweetest thing I've ever heard of." Darned if she didn't start sniffing.

  "Well, I don't know if it's going to work yet," I said, feeling embarrassed.

  "I know you'll do it, Laurie Anne. I just know it. Now what was it you wanted to know?"

  "Tim Topper's father?" I prompted her.

  "I'm sorry, Laurie Anne, but I don't have any idea."

  I was surprised. "There must have been talk at the time. I mean, her not being married and all."

  "Of course there was, but she never would say. I hear that when the doctor asked her what to put on the birth certificate, Fannie just said, 'His daddy doesn't want him, and I do, so you can put me down as mama and daddy, because that's how it's going to be.'"

  -->