“Wasn’t just Larry Coppage,” said Jo slowly, “it’s the whole damn town—layabouts and whores—the draft board, and the factory, and—”
“You talking crazy, Jo! You talking crazy!” cried Sarah, and fled the room. It was only Dean who heard the list of those responsible for his injury—if he could hear anything at all.
Chapter 14
The following morning, the Coppage house was a low pile of moldering cinders, black and wet, stinking of fire and waste. The carefully tended lawn had been torn up by vehicles, which left deep tracks in the turf. A few of the neighbors stood about in robes and pajamas, and others came by for a quick look before going off to work. A woman in a housecoat knelt in one of the flower beds next to the street, digging up bulbs and dropping them one by one into a paper sack. The Coppages were dead and would not miss the plants. No one tried to stop her.
On the official side of things, two men in shirtsleeves were picking carefully through the wreckage. They avoided going near the few timbers that were still upright, though heavily charred. Officer James Shirley, in uniform, stood on the brick steps that now led nowhere, as if he were guarding the soggy refuse behind him. He was talking to Sarah Howell and Becca Blair, who had dropped by before work to get the latest news on what had happened.
A small girl, about nine years old and possessing a thin face with features too sharp to be entirely pleasant, was moving round the edges of the burnt house, gingerly touching pieces of charred wood here and there, wondering perhaps if the pieces were still hot, hoping more likely to find something of value.
“James Shirley,” said Becca Blair, interrupting him, “your little girl’s gone get a splinter if she don’t watch what she’s doing!”
The policeman turned, and saw the little girl. He called out to her, “Mary, you be careful! They’s still nails in them things! Mary, you get away from there! I don’t want you touching any part of that house!” He shook his head, and turned back to Sarah and Becca. “Don’t know what might not fall down, fall through. They didn’t have no basement, that I know of, but if they had a cesspool or something, why little Mary could drop right through and drown ’fore I could get to her, and Thelma would beat my head if anything happened to little Mary.”
Thelma was James Shirley’s wife, and not known in town for her generous disposition or the control of her temper.
“Gosh-damn,” he sighed. “It was terrible what happened here last night. Five children, two grownups!”
“Not much left,” commented Becca, without sarcasm.
“Don’t really matter much,” replied the officer, “they’s all dead. The family’ll get the insurance money, and they don’t need it.”
“Four of them five kids was walking,” said Sarah, “and not one of ’em got out—”
“The oldest boy . . .” Becca reminded her.
“He was bad burned already, though,” said Officer Shirley, “might not have survived anyway.”
“They was all walking,” Sarah repeated, “so why didn’t none of ’em get out? And I can’t understand what happened to Larry and Rachel.”
“Maybe,” said Becca, “they was trying to protect the kids, maybe they was asleep . . .”
“Too early to be asleep,” argued James Shirley.
Becca shrugged. “Well, something happened, even if we can’t guess what it was.”
“They have plots, Mr. Shirley?” Sarah asked.
“Don’t know, Sarah, don’t know. Probably had family plots, since they got such family, but I don’t know which cemetery. Ya’ll ’scuse me.” The two men in shirtsleeves had beckoned the policeman over to where they were standing.
Becca and Sarah glanced at one another, sadly, and then walked together back to the purple Pontiac.
“What time that fire start?” asked Sarah, when they drove off toward the plant. Sarah stared out the window, at the now-empty corner lot, and thought how desolate a place that whole section of town appeared now.
“Don’t know. Why? About eight o’clock, eight-thirty, I guess,” she added after a moment. “Why?”
“I was just thinking about Larry coming over last night,” Sarah said in a low voice.
Becca nodded, and whistled. “That’s right. You was probably the last one to see him alive . . .” she intoned with melodramatic emphasis.
Sarah nodded.
“I meant to ask you all about that,” Becca said, “but I didn’t want to say anything in front of Margaret. Margaret’s got a bigger mouth than the Mississippi River. Say the fire started at eight-thirty—what time was Larry over to see Dean?”
“He got there about a quarter of six, I think, didn’t stay more than twenty minutes. He was in and out,” said Sarah. She wrinkled her brow, and said, more to herself than to her friend, “It almost seemed like there was some sort of connection . . .”
“What do you mean?” demanded Becca. “Some sort of connection between his coming to see Dean and then his house burning down two hours later?”
Sarah nodded. “That’s crazy, isn’t it?” She wanted reassurance.
“Sure is,” Becca replied. “D’you say anything to him?” she asked doubtfully. “I mean, were you ugly to him or something? I thought you liked Larry.”
“I do like Larry,” Sarah protested. “I liked him a lot,” she said more softly, recalling that the man was dead. “But Jo was being Jo. She didn’t say anything to him direct—and I’m real glad that she didn’t—but she was real mad at Larry for not giving Dean a job back ’fore he went in the army.” She paused, and then added, “She thinks it was Larry’s fault that Dean was—” She stopped, and tried to think of a way to complete the sentence. “Larry’s fault that Dean was covered up in white like he is.”
Becca’s eyes widened. “Well,” she said, “it’s Jo that’s gone have to live with herself for talking mean to the man two hours ’fore he went up in smoke.”
“You know what she said to me last night when we got back from the fire, and I told her what happened?”
“What?” said Becca, and it was obvious she was expecting, and probably would relish, the worst.
“Jo said she wished she could have got her licks in on him ’fore he died.”
Becca whistled again. “That woman sure knows how to be mean. She must take a correspondence course, filling out all them forms, and answering all them questions on how to be ugly to people, doing it all while you’re away at work, and practicing on ever’body that comes to see her.” Becca Blair experienced a sudden wave of pity for her friend, a sudden blast of revulsion against the lazy fat woman who was making Sarah’s life miserable.
Becca Blair said the things about Jo Howell that the woman’s daughter-in-law could not allow herself to speak. Sarah Howell knew that she would have no peace at all in her life if she permitted her animosities against her husband’s mother to become a common part of her speech, or even her thoughts. It was because of this cautious resolve on her part that Becca’s periodic flare-ups against Jo—periodic being almost any time that the woman’s name was mentioned in her presence—were a source of comfort and relief to Sarah. To these scathing speeches of Becca’s, Sarah would sometimes add a tag of defense for the woman. That became Sarah as a daughter-in-law, but it did not go far to mitigate the accusations that Becca had put forth. This strange, but genuinely kind collaboration was one of the more subtle ways in which Becca Blair showed her great affection for Sarah Howell.
Sarah felt better after Becca’s little blowup about Jo Howell, and when they reached the great asphalt-and-packed-red-dirt parking lot of the Pine Cone Munitions Factory, Sarah held her friend back for a few moments, and told her about Jo’s gift of the amulet to Larry Coppage.
Becca listened thoughtfully, and with some puzzlement. “That’s real peculiar . . .” she said, when some comment seem to be required of her.
Sarah nodded.
“Why does it bother you?” asked Becca: “I mean, do you think it was worth something, an
d now it’s burned up? Or you think Jo’s been out spending money that ought to go to buy Dean’s medicine, or what?”
“No,” said Sarah, “None of that. I don’t know what bothers me about it . . .” She paused, and then added, “You don’t think that there’s any connection, do you, between Jo giving him that thing, and then the house burning up . . . ?”
“You mean you think it was a bomb or something?” cried Becca. “You said it was just a necklace!”
“Oh!” Sarah replied quickly. “It was . . . just a necklace. I saw it close up. I don’t know, it’s crazy. I just couldn’t figure it out . . . those peculiar things happening. The house burning down, everybody trapped inside when they shouldn’t have been . . . and then just two hours before, Jo giving Larry that necklace. She called it a amulet.”
Becca shrugged. “What connection can there be, Sarah? I cain’t see none. D’you ask her about it?”
Sarah nodded. “She doesn’t answer me. But then she doesn’t ever really tell me what I want to get out of her.”
“Ohhhh!” breathed Becca in disgust. “It’s a good thing that you cain’t order a bomb out of the Montgomery Ward catalog, ’cause Jo Howell would have a standing order. I wouldn’t trust Jo Howell, even though she is Dean’s mama, I wouldn’t trust her with enough powder to blow her out of town.”
Chapter 15
The child Mary Shirley was ignoring her father’s injunction, and still moving carefully around the edges of the destroyed house, kicking over boards with her shoes, pressing her heel against pieces of broken glass so that they cracked or disappeared into the damp earth.
Her father was in close conversation with the two men from the insurance company, and all three stood in the center of the ruins. Mary could hear what they were saying.
“Corner lot,” said the taller of the two insurance men. “The Coppages, them that are left, will make money on it, like they do on ever’thing else. They could sell it for another house, or the city might even buy it, for a supplementary power station.”
“I hate to think, though,” said the second insurance man, “what it’s gone cost for seven coffins and seven graves. They’ll have to sell the lot just to pay for the funerals.”
“Not much was left,” said Officer Shirley sadly, “they could put everything we got out of there in one medium-sized job.”
“The family’ll never take to that,” said the first man, “they’ll want it done right. And they’ve got the money to do it right. What kind of policy did they have, Fred?”
“Theft, life, flood, and fire.”
“Don’t do ’em no good now,” the insurance man said, “we’s all could have gone to Atlanta for a week on them premiums.”
Mary Shirley was tiptoeing around behind her father, making quite a show to herself of her silence and her care-taking, stepping very high, with her finger to her lips, when she stumbled on a half-brick from a broken foundation. She struggled to keep her balance, and not fall among the cinders, but she came down hard with both feet on a long board, the end of which was about half a foot off the ground. This board was fulcrumed on a small pile of black, wet rubble, and consequently the other end flew up into the air. An object that had been caught, invisible, on the other end was tossed high, and fell directly at Mary’s feet.
Mary clapped her hands together in excitement. She had actually found something in the wreckage, something that had not been destroyed by the fire. It was a piece of jewelry, a necklace with a gold and black disc attached to it. The child picked the thing up quickly, examined it, and then called her father.
He turned at the sound of her voice. “Mary,” he cried, “I told you to get away from here!”
She did not heed him at all, but skipped through the piles of debris over to his side, and held out the amulet to him. Puzzled, Officer Shirley took it up, and the two insurance men leaned over to examine it.
“Where’d you get this, hon?”
“Right there.” She pointed vaguely behind her. It was not clear at all where she had found the thing.
The second, shorter insurance man said, “Was it in the house, girl?”
Mary shrugged and pouted. But then she asked, “How come it didn’t burn, Daddy?”
James Shirley did not answer. “You take it home, James,” said the first insurance man. “It can’t be worth accounting for. It can’t be worth nothing, anyway.”
The second insurance man added, “There ain’t much point in burying it with ’em, cause we don’t know which of ’em it belonged to, though it was probably Rachel’s, and the way they was fried, it’s gone be closed coffins all the way. You take it home, girl, and put it aside for your wedding!” The two insurance men laughed, but Mary was taking the whole episode seriously.
“Daddy,” Mary whined, “can’t I go back and hunt for more stuff?” She looked all round her, and thought of what might lie hidden beneath every board. “Mama says,” she added cannily, “that you can’t burn a diamond ring.”
Chapter 16
A little later that morning, Thelma Shirley sat in her kitchen reading the first edition of the Montgomery Advertiser. She was a woman in her mid-thirties, handsome but harsh, of strong will and infinite purpose. She did much good among the poor in the community through her work as president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Union at the First Baptist Church, but she was not an easy woman to get along with.
Gussie Ralph was the Shirleys’ maid, a middle-aged black woman, thin and sullen. She had worked for the Shirleys since their marriage a dozen years before, and prior to that time, she had been employed by James’ father. It was thought in the black community that Gussie had turned sour after so many years in the employ of Thelma Shirley, and it was universally wondered that she had remained on so long, when it was apparent that the black woman and the white woman had no great liking for one another.
Gussie stood at the sink, breaking up ice cubes with an ice pick. Thelma Shirley insisted on having cracked ice in her tea, midmorning. Without looking up from her paper, Thelma said in a low, bored, unfriendly voice, “You still got to shell them peas for dinner, Gussie. And you don’t finish them peas, you not gone have time for the pecans. ’Cause just as soon as you serve dinner, I want you to start on that pie. There’s gone be a meeting of the ladies at the church at three o’clock to talk about the Coppages, ’cept I don’t know what we’re gone say about ’em, ’cept that they’re all dead. If there was even one of ’em left alive, why then we could bring him food, or give him a place to sleep, or something, but all their people lived out of town, over there in Brundidge, and wouldn’t have nothing to do with us anyway. I said it was a useless meeting, but they want to have it anyway, kind of a pot-luck preparation for the funeral.”
Gussie replied sullenly, “Where they gone find a church big enough, Miz Thelma, for all them coffins?”
“Well,” her mistress replied, “they talking about the Presbyterian church, which has got removable pews for the first three rows, but I don’t know, ’cause they weren’t Presbyterian, they were of course Baptist.”
“Bad thing, real bad,” commented Gussie, but her voice didn’t hold much sympathy. It was actually that her animosity was directed toward Thelma, and not at the luckless Coppages.
“And, Gussie, while that pie’s in the oven, I want you to run up the street to the church, and make sure that everything’s set up right for the women this afternoon. I don’t want to show up there and have to go hunting for tablecloths and the like, you hear me?”
“I hear you, Miz Thelma,” replied Gussie, and came down so hard with the ice pick, that she chipped a piece of enamel off the bottom of the sink.
“And listen, you’d better check—”
Thelma’s next command, whatever it was going to be, was interrupted by the slamming of the screen door. Immediately, little Mary appeared in the doorway, excited, and holding her hands behind her back. A moment afterward James Shirley, still in uniform, entered directly b
ehind his daughter.
Mary’s eyes flashed. “Look what I brought you, Mama!” She ran forward.
Thelma looked up at her husband accusingly. “Where you been with this girl, James? Why isn’t she in school?”
Mary pulled the amulet from behind her back, and shyly put it into her mother’s hand. Thelma glanced at it briefly, puzzled, and then stared hard into her daughter’s eyes. “Where’d you get this, girl?”
Mary’s lip trembled, and she looked down at the floor, deeply disappointed that her mother seemed displeased with her find.
“Found it at the Coppage place,” said James Shirley. “Nothing left there.”
“Child,” said Gussie, from the sink, “you ought not be picking up things what belongs to dead folks.”
Thelma took her daughter by the shoulders, and asked, pointedly, “You didn’t see anything, did you, girl?” Mary’s eyes widened. She had seen so much, and yet she had seen nothing, for nothing was left at the place. She didn’t know what her mother meant. Thelma looked up at her husband. “You didn’t let her see anything she shouldn’t see, did you, James? Dead folks ought to be seen in their coffins, and not strewed out all over the garden. Children ought not see dead people in the grass.”
Mary trembled. She didn’t want to see anybody that was dead, and became suddenly fearful that she might not have been so lucky. What if she had tripped over one of the bodies, and actually fallen on top of it? Mary thought she was about to cry.
“She didn’t see nothing, Thelma. There wasn’t nothing to see, by the time we got there. She couldn’t have seen nothing at all.”
Mary was relieved to hear this; there had been, according to her father, no danger at all of tripping over dead bodies that morning. She became excited again. “Oh, Mama, you should have seen that place! It was all black, and it was wet where they put out the fire, and there wasn’t nothing left in the whole place except what I just brought you.” Thelma fingered the amulet thoughtfully. “Mama,” whispered Mary, “you think it’s made of diamonds? ’Cause you know, you told me that you can’t burn diamonds . . .”
The Amulet Page 8
