“I make it with a wild root that grows in the meadow behind my house. I don’t know the name, but it makes a fine tea that cleanses the mind and enhances the thinking. I guess I could call it clarity. Be a good name for it, don’t you think?”
“I’ll get back to you on that,” I said.
“Well said, child. I like your straightforwardness. And your diversions. Nothing seems to shake you. You’re a clever woman, Clancy Evans. You’ve been like that most all of your life.”
I smiled without comment. Aunt Jo definitely had an unusual talent. What she actually had going for her remained in doubt to me. She knew things she should not know unless she had done in-depth research on me using a network of computers or spies for her knowledge. I doubted she had used either. I was intrigued.
“Aunt Jo, Clancy and I need some help from you,” Starnes said.
“Oh yes. It’s about your investigation into the murders of late. How can I help you?”
Starnes took out the Luger that Lucinda had handed over to us earlier in the day. She gave it to Aunt Jo who was sitting in the green cushioned chair on the opposite side of the couch from my position. Jo held the gun in her right hand with her palm opened. She then put her left hand on top of the gun and pressed down on it. She closed her eyes and whispered something. The words were sufficiently muted so that there was no way I could tell what she was saying. At any rate, the words she uttered softly were not for my benefit. After a minute or two, she opened her eyes and laid the gun down on the small round table at the end of the couch closest to her.
“Is that the murder weapon?” Starnes asked.
“This gun has killed several people,” she said. “But no one on this continent and no one recently. It has known years of violence, but that violence was far away from here. Still, the gun is writhing in guilty pain from shedding innocent blood from years ago. It is a damnable thing.”
Her words seemed strange to me. Never thought of a weapon writhing in guilty pain on any account. Several questions came to mind as she talked about the Luger.
“Was it used to kill Abel Gosnell or Betty Jo Gentry?” Starnes asked more specifically. She moved away from whatever questions I wanted to ask. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe Starnes knew what I was thinking.
“No,” Aunt Jo said. “The last person to die from that gun was named Louis, a Frenchman from a small village near Paris. It was 1915. He died in the early afternoon on a cold, rainy day in some woods a long way from his home. Does that help you?”
“Well, if all that you say is true, then of course it helps us. But how is it that you could know this?” I said.
“I can’t answer that. I just know. You can have it tested, as you do so many guns that come along in your investigations. But you will find this gun innocent of any shed blood in this country.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
We were indulging ourselves in our third cup of Aunt Jo’s root tea when the lights went out in her house. Literally. The blackness of the Ivy Gap valley suddenly became darker than a hundred midnights down in a cypress swamp, to steal a line from Poet Johnson. At any rate, that line from the poem came to me as I moved my hand directly within a few inches of my eyes, waving it back and forth in vain to see it. I could feel the slight breeze I created. There was no visual confirmation. Darkness pervaded.
I glanced at the front window to check on the candle that had been lit. It was out as well.
“Too dark to see your hand,” Aunt Jo said.
“What?” Starnes asked.
“Clancy is moving her hand back and forth in front of her eyes. Too dark now to see anything,” Aunt Jo said.
“How did you know … and how could you …?” I decided not to finish either question.
“Children,” Aunt Jo said to both of us, “just be still, and feel the darkness around you. It will bring comfort if you do not fight it.”
“Light brings me comfort,” I said.
“Give it time,” Aunt Jo said.
“In the meantime, may we talk about the murders?” Starnes asked.
“It’s why you came,” Aunt Jo replied.
“We’re at the end of our rope, so to speak. Every time we believe we have a viable suspect, the evidence either disappears or exonerates the one suspected. This one is hard to figure. It’s like trying to eat the vegetables forced upon me by my mother when I was a child. The more I would chew, the larger the bite would become in my mouth and the more difficult to swallow,” Starnes said.
“Yet, there was a trial, a man found guilty, and he is sentenced to die,” Aunt Jo said.
“Clancy and I have some doubts concerning his guilt despite the evidence.”
“Relax, Starnes. The answer you seek will come, but you cannot force it,” Aunt Jo said.
“Do you know who killed Abel and Betty Jo?” Starnes asked.
“I know many things, but as to the one who killed Abel Gosnell and Betty Jo Gentry, well, that is best left for trained investigators like you to discover.”
“Can you help us?” Starnes said.
“Yes.”
A shroud of silence fell on our little trio of women sitting in the darkness in this far away valley. I heard Sam move and then he laid his head in my lap. I patted him softly. Several minutes elapsed before anyone spoke. During this silent interval, I actually thought that the darkness was helping me. I still couldn’t see a thing, but it seemed to be clearer.
“Well then,” I said, “will you help us?”
“That’s a different question. I will ponder that one. I can perhaps provide some guidance, if you trust me. You will, of course, have to ask the right questions.”
“Is this a game?” I said. I was growing annoyed with her manner.
“No. It’s just the way it is for the sight.”
“Like chess moves?”
“Perhaps, but I understand that the game of chess is rather complicated. I would think it is more like the game of checkers.”
“Simplicity, yet it takes practice in order to win the game,” I said.
“It takes practice in asking the right question,” Aunt Jo said. “I can only imagine that in your professional life you have had much practice in asking questions. Asking the correct question is a developed skill.”
“Sometimes I just aggravate the people I question and their response very often suggests a direction for me.”
“Maybe you are simply intensifying something already there, inside the person, and you cause it to surface. It becomes too much for them to hold inside.”
“Never thought of it that way. Sounds a little like some ancient eastern philosophy,” I said.
“Don’t know about that,” Jo answered. “It is old, though. My grandmother had it as well. She knew things that the folks here in the mountains said she should not know. How can you know something and yet folks say you should not know that? Does that actually make any kind of sense? You know what you know no matter how it comes to you.”
I had no response for that. It made sense. Maybe I was beginning to see the correctness of her philosophy or insight or whatever you choose to call what you had. If you know something, then you know something. Or maybe you happen to be the world’s best guesser.
“So, back to the question we need answered,” Starnes said. “Do you have any idea who might have killed Abel and Betty Jo?”
“You believe the same person killed both,” Jo said.
“That’s our assumption at the moment.”
“You are correct,” she said.
“So how is it that you can know that, and yet not know who committed the murders?” I asked.
“I can’t question what I know or do not know. I only know what I know. If my knowledge increases, then I will tell you so. For the moment, I can only say that you are correct in pursing the one-person belief.”
“Does your knowledge lead you to any other tidbit that might aid us?” I asked.
“There seems to be a closeness connected to these slayings.”
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“A closeness?” Starnes said.
“Intimacy is a powerful presence. It creates ambience unlike casual relations. If you please, there exists sacredness around these slayings. I sense someone connected to both of the victims.”
“Sacredness as in a religious ritual?” I said.
“I don’t think so, but it is a possibility. I rather suspect that it is sacredness of promises made. The bond secured by words given and exchanged.”
“Anything else?” Starnes said.
The lights of the house immediately returned and I squinted even though Josephine Starling’s lights were all rather dim. The blackness had been so thorough for us that I honestly believe that the lighting of a mere candle would have caused us to cower from its illumination. I glanced at the front window over Aunt Jo’s shoulder and noted that the darkness outside seemed blacker. While I took comfort in the light, I could not help but feel that the metaphorical darkness of our murder investigation was still present.
Some moments passed in silence. I finished my tea. It was still warm and good. Despite the many unanswered questions regarding our two murders, I felt as if my mind was clear. Could it have been the tea she served us?
“Yes,” Aunt Jo said breaking our quiet moments.
“Yes what?” Starnes said.
“You need to think,” Jo said.
“We’re trying to think here,” Starnes replied.
“What is missing besides the who of the crimes?” Jo asked.
“Ah, the weapon, if you are correct in your belief that the Luger we brought to you this evening is not the murder weapon,” I said.
“It is not,” she said as she shook her head. “This gun alone,” she touched it gently as it lay on the table, “will not help you get to where you want to be.”
“So where is the murder weapon?” I said.
“I see it in the water, near the edge of the creek,” Jo said.
“There are lots of creeks in this county,” Starnes replied.
“The blood of Abel is crying out from the ground,” she said. “Just like in the Holy Bible. God is not the only one who hears the blood crying out.”
“And this means?” Starnes said.
“That’s all I have,” she said. “I am tired. It takes much of my energy to share what I know. Seeing and perceiving are often laborious. I need to rest now.”
“Thank you, Aunt Jo. You have been most helpful,” Starnes said as she stood up and moved toward the front door. I followed her. Sam followed me.
“Thanks for the clarity and the delicious tea,” I said. “It was gracious of you to meet with us.”
“Pleasure to meet you finally, Clancy Evans. Starnes, child, always good to have you come around. And Sam, good to make your acquaintance.”
Sam barked once and I could see Aunt Jo smiling in the shadows in her doorway.
“You will come again,” she said. It was more of a statement than an invitation.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I was shivering in the cold morning despite the blessed hot cup of coffee I was holding in both hands to keep them warm. Starnes was walking along the creek bank near the Break Rock Fork. She was staring at the water’s edge along the creek where the white truck had cleared the road and landed in the stream. I was standing, still shivering, waiting for some heat to come along and motivate me to help. My hands were warm but the rest of me was stone cold. Sam was still in the warm Jeep staring out the front passenger’s window at his fool of a master.
I could see ice along the edges of the creek. Yikes.
“You know it’s cold out here,” I said.
“Yeah.”
“Are you not cold?”
“I’m freezing, but I want to find that damn gun.”
“She didn’t say it was here.”
“Not in so many words, but I trust Aunt Jo that it’s here in this vicinity,” Starnes said.
I sipped the hot coffee and waited for the heat that did not come. I heard Sam growl from inside the Jeep, so I opened the door and let him out.
“Go find the gun,” I said to him as I remained firm in my unmoving position of watchfulness. “I’m freezing so be quick.”
“You could help,” Starnes added.
“I could … if I could move anything but my hands.”
“And your mouth,” she said.
“I’m waiting on some warmth.”
“It’s March in the mountains. Heat will be here in June.”
“I’ll wait.”
“You’re some detective, that’s all I’ve got to say.”
“I choose my moments.”
Sam barked some distance down stream from where Starnes was searching and from where I was standing like an ice sculpture. We walked down the dirt road towards him. We passed the spot where Abel Gosnell’s body was lodged in the branches of the tree. Sam was heading towards the spot where Seymour Walker had found Betty Jo Gentry’s body floating upside down along the water’s edge. Sam paused and stared down the embankment into the creek. The yellow crime scene tape was still attached to several of the trees surrounding the ridge along the creek. Sam slid down the short hill to the water and barked again.
Starnes approached first because she had more heat in her body than I. She was also first because I absolutely refused to go near that water. The coffee was in fact helping me but not yet providing the kind of fuel I required on a cold mountain morning in March. I gladly let her go in front. I was now standing on the side of the bank where Betty Jo’s body had been extracted. Starnes leaned over, put her hand in the icy water, and pulled out what appeared from my vantage point to be a Luger. I shivered as I watched the river-water drip from her hand and the gun.
“She’s good,” Starnes said.
“Aunt Jo and Sam make a solid team,” I said.
We walked back to the Jeep and climbed inside. What was left of my coffee was cold. I opened the door a smidgen, threw out the now useless coffee, shut the door quickly, and then shivered.
“Let’s go,” Starnes said. “I need to get this to the lab.”
“I’ll thaw in a minute. Hold your horses.”
“So whattaya think now?”
“About what? The case?”
“The case and Aunt Jo.”
“I don’t know what I think about Jo Starling except to say that she’s a kind old lady who makes some great hot tea … and I surely wish I had some of it right this moment.”
“You know she’s likely to be correct about the gun we found in the creek,” Starnes said.
“Spoken like a true scientist,” I said. “I thought verification was your mantra.”
“I’ve known Aunt Jo and her reputation for many years, long before my scientific side kicked in and took over.”
“So, you throw it all away because of a strange old lady with something called the sight?”
“Not throwing anything away. Just keepin’ my options open. You should do the same.”
“Josephine said something intriguing near the end of our little tea session with her,” I said.
“She said a lot of intriguing things for my money. What are you referencing?”
“She was talking about the Luger we took to show her, the one you handed her and she touched and did her sight thingy.”
“What did you hear her say?”
“It was afterward, well after the lights came back on. She said that the Luger we brought to show her would not alone help us.”
“Alone? That’s what you heard?”
“It’s what I heard her say … which seems to suggest that Aunt Jo believes that the Luger which did not kill anyone on this continent, to quote her, is still a viable part of our search for answers.”
“Do tell.”
Two weeks later we had the ballistics report back from both guns. Lucinda’s gun was cleared of all suspected charges. It had not been fired anytime recently. The slugs had not matched. On the other hand, the gun Starnes pulled from creek was a spot-on match for the slug
s. We had our murder weapon. Now all we had to do was to find the owner.
Whoever had used the gun was not clever enough to file off the serial number from the 9mm Luger. We easily traced the number to the owner. It didn’t help us. The owner was one Abelard Justin Gosnell. Great. He was killed with a gun that he owned.
I called Rogers and told her of the events of late. She was more intrigued by Josephine Starling than the fact that we had finally found the murder weapon.
“Are you sure she is not a computer with intelligence like mine?” Rogers asked.
“Pretty sure,” I said.
“She knows things.”
“She does.”
“But how? I do research. I can deduce. How does she do it?”
“I guess you could say she does research as well. Her research happens to be ethereal.”
“You know that is not rational.”
“Yeah, and I know the fact that you can think, process, explain, ask, and argue with me is not rational either. Yet, here we are,” I said.
“Point taken. So what do you want from me?” she asked.
“Trace that serial number through some back channels. See what you can find. Just in case, let me give you the serial numbers for the other guns involved.”
I gave her the numbers that I kept from Cain’s gun, Lucinda’s gun and now Abel’s gun.
“Okay, let me get this straight. Two of three handguns have been cleared by ballistics,” she said.
“They were.”
“So why give me these serial numbers?”
“Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“You might need them in your search for their history.”
“And these other two handguns are important how?” Rogers said.
“I have no idea.”
“Give me a few hours.”
“One more thing to research,” I said.
“Give it to me.”
“Everything you can find on Josephine Starling of McAdams County, North Carolina.”
“I had planned to do that whether you asked me or not,” she said.
The afternoon of the day we received the ballistics report from Raleigh about Abel’s gun was as cold as that morning we had found the weapon in the water. Thankfully we were inside Starnes’ office. She was filling out some forms concerning the weapon of note while I was sipping hot coffee and still waiting on heat to transform the entire region. It was still March. June was a distance away. I was seated across from Starnes who was behind her desk working feverously. My feet were propped on Starnes’ desk and I was relaxed.
When Blood Cries: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 6) Page 19
