by TM Simmons
Chapter 21
It was completely dark by the time my Jeep edged into the dirt drive and the headlights illuminated the log chain lying on the ground. I drove on across and stopped far enough down the drive for Granny and Twila to get their cars in. It was quiet — quiet and dark. No security lights. Private meant private. This end of the plantation marked the edge of deeded land. In years gone by, horse- and mule-drawn wagons traveled this way, hauling crops to market in Jefferson. The East Texas Piney Woods is sometimes referred to as The Thicket, and anyone who’s driven the county roads can see why. Without continued maintenance, briars, ferns, and yupon bushes with thorns and prickly leaves took over any open space. Around us, an impenetrable mass of underbrush was dotted with pines and trash trees. The waning moon highlighted the darkness beyond our headlights, and idling engines overrode night noises.
“We’ll go on as soon as I re-lock the chain,” I told Granny as I passed her Olds.
The T-bird’s headlights blinded me for a second, and I stumbled on a root protruding into the roadway, catching myself on the fender. Twila turned her lights off, and I trailed my hand on her car as I walked past, eyes adjusting to the dimness. The rattle of the chain caught me off guard. And the figure rattling it drew a shriek from my throat.
Twila swung her door open, and it scraped my hip. I grabbed at the pain with a different cry as she jumped out of the T-bird. The Olds’s door opened, also, and Granny tottered to her feet, armed and ready with her walking stick.
“What is it?” Twila whispered in a frantic voice, clutching my arm and trying to pull me into the car. Granny toddled toward us, echoing Twila but in a much louder voice. “I’ll bash your brains out!”
“Whassa matter?” the figure asked. I recognized Gabe’s voice and nearly collapsed in relief. “I’m just re-lockin’ the chain.”
“Oh, God,” I breathed. “I didn’t see you there, Gabe. How are you feeling?”
“Who’s Gabe?” Granny asked.
“Sue Ann’s husband. I thought he was still in the hospital.”
Granny lowered her walking stick. “Huh. He’s gonna end up back there, he don’t quit skulking 'round in the dark.”
“Huh,” Gabe said right back as he re-snapped the chain lock. “They said my belly needed a rest after that poison. Told 'em my belly needed something ‘sides runny hog slop." He reached behind a tree and came out with a double-barreled shotgun. “An’ I ketch anybody who ain’t supposed to be here ‘round here, they best be able to outrun double ought buck.”
Granny contemplated her walking stick, then tottered past me before I realized her intent. “That there looks like a mighty fine piece of fire power. Brownin’?”
“Yep. My daddy give it to me when I was five." In the age-old gesture of a man proudly showing off his weapon, Gabe flicked the barrel open and removed the two shotgun shells. He handed Granny the shotgun — she handed him her walking stick to hold.
“Turn your lights back on, Twila,” Granny ordered.
Twila agreeably complied. Gabe and Granny bent over in the red taillight gleam to examine the shotgun, murmuring as Gabe pointed out attributes. Twila and I waited. And waited. Finally Granny closed the barrel and hefted the gun to her shoulder. Even though I knew the shotgun was empty, I ducked. Twila stifled a chuckle as Granny’s tiny figure aimed the massive gun at a fence post and snuggled her wrinkled cheek against the stock. Satisfied, she handed the shotgun back to Gabe and retrieved her walking stick.
“Do you want a ride back?” I asked Gabe.
“Nah. I’ll walk.”
“The security guards — ”
“We done got to know each other. Y’all go on. Sue Ann’s got fried chicken for supper.”
“Hope she don’t fry it in that there veg’table oil,” Granny said. “Takes peanut oil to keep chicken from dryin’ out when you fry it.”
Oh, lord, I mused as Twila got back in the T-bird and I edged Granny into the Olds. Sue Ann and Granny both in the same kitchen. Wasn’t that going to be a lot of fun.
The Jeep led the parade, the sandy soil well-packed from recent vehicle traffic. We drove past the pool area, and I parked beside a THIBEDEAUX SECURITY van. On the other side of it was a beautiful Harley Davidson motorcycle. Granny and Twila pulled in beside me, and Granny toddled out with her walking stick and thump-limped over to the bike.
“Hmmm,” she said. “I’d sure like to get me a ride on this here purty hog.”
“We might be able to handle that,” Jack drawled from the front of the van. He strolled out wearing jeans and a faded black T-shirt with a skeleton grinning from the back of a speeding motorcycle, the words LIVE FREE OR DIE encapsulating the picture.
“Jack, Granny. Granny, Jack,” I introduced, since he already knew Twila.
“Howdy, Jack,” Granny said. “You best be serious about me gettin’ a ride. I’m gonna remember your promise.”
“Howdy, Granny,” Jack replied. “I won’t forget.”
“That’s your bike?” I asked. Jack had always been more of a Jaguar or Ferrari man.
“My second childhood. I was lookin’ for a birthday present for a friend one day at the Harley shop in Longview. Next thing I knew, I was test drivin’ that bike." He grinned and hugged Twila. “So, how’s everybody in Yankee land?”
“Fine, Jack. Jess and I’ve been talking about coming down for Mardi Gras this spring.”
“I’d like to see that old reprobate.”
“We’ll see what we can do. He finds out you’ve got your own hog, though, we’ll have to tow a trailer with his Indian on it.”
“I’ve got room in my garage,” Jack said with a chuckle. “Tell him to bring it on.”
Granny had wandered back to the bike, and I called, “Can I get your bags, Granny?”
“Iffen you would, I’d ‘preciate it. And don’t worry none 'bout your cats,” she went on as I opened the rear door on the Olds and pulled out a suitcase. “Maud’s gonna drop by.”
I carried the suitcase over beside her and said, “What on earth made you decide to drive to Esprit d’Chene?”
She grew serious and stared at me solemnly, her blue eyes filled with worry. “I got a TV, you know." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You seen another ghost here yet?”
I said softly, “That’s why I called Twila.”
Twila joined us and reached for Granny’s suitcase. “I’ll take this on in. Jack says he needs to talk to you for a minute, Alice.”
Jack was leaning against the back of the van, thumbs hooked in his belt and a boot heel propped on the bumper. He straightened and motioned for me to follow him toward the pool area. He halted at the edge of the deep end, and I resolutely kept my eyes on him.
“Katy asked if she could drain the pool, and I told her to go ahead,” Jack said, correctly interpreting my reluctance to look at the scene where the body had been found.
I glanced beyond him, but the empty, blue-painted space wasn’t any more reassuring than a pond of pink-tinged water would have been. I shivered involuntarily.
“He wasn’t killed in the pool,” Jack said. “It happened over there, near the shallow end. Someone came out of those ferns there. Probably surprised him, accordin’ to how we interpret it. He fell in the pool afterwards.”
“His body, not his head.”
“If the head went in, someone pulled it out.”
“Do you have any suspects yet?”
Jack studied the toes of his western boots. “We got prelim blood types back from the samples on the sword. Most of it’s Bucky’s.”
“Most?”
“There’s a small spot of a different type blood on the handle. Could be, the killer nicked his hand when he was handlin’ the sword.”
The atmosphere around the pool was dark and threatening, despite the security lights gleaming. Clamminess weighted me at times when I hunted ghosts in places where someone had died violently. My psychic senses even experienced the same pain and emotions the person went throu
gh at the time of his or her death. That’s one reason I’d stayed away from the pool since I arrived. I didn’t feel like experiencing Bucky’s death, even in a second-hand way. My hand was at my neck, rubbing it gently, and I jerked it away. “I need to get out of here.”
He started to say something else, but I whirled and hurried back to the parking area. I leaned against the Jeep’s front fender, breathing in deeply and blowing out through my mouth. The stress-relieving technique didn’t help. Dark atmosphere pushed on my shoulders like an unwanted lover.
Jack was still back at the pool. He walked to the shallow end and studied the massive bank of ferns. Finally he jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and strolled towards me. “Katy told me a while ago that she’d talked to Tyler Jeeves,” he said, carefully studying me.
“I know,” I replied. “Well, not that she’d already talked to him, but I know she asked Uncle Clarence to have Mr. Jeeves contact her.”
“You heard of a place ‘round here called the Holey Bucket?”
“I — not until this morning,” I answered honestly. “Do you know where it’s at?”
“Down a dirt road out near Caddo Lake. The sheriff tells me it’s a swamp rat and biker hangout.”
Dejected but not surprised that Jack had learned about Katy’s assignation with Bucky, I stared at the manor house, the grounds, the meticulously cared-for flowerbeds, footpaths, and neatly-trimmed hedges. Katy loved the plantation and the life she was building here. What would she do if it all collapsed around her?
“I know my cousin,” I said firmly. “There’s no way in hell Katy could kill someone. If she had a problem with Bucky, she’d come to me.”
He jammed his hands deeper into his pockets and kicked a large piece of oyster shell beside his boot. “Those answering machine tapes had several messages on them that hadn’t been erased. And we checked with the doctor Katy’s been using since she moved here. Her blood type’s the same as that stray spot we found on the sword. DNA’ll take a while.”
My mind skittered frantically down one path, doubled back, and headed down another, like a frightened mouse trying to outsmart a determined cat in a warren of false trails and dead ends. I wished like hell I’d gone on in to talk to Katy. Then I realized the foolishness of my thoughts and faced Jack without evasion. A murder investigation wasn’t a situation in which to be hiding information from a homicide detective.
“Katy didn’t kill Bucky! I don’t care what evidence you have. I know Katy as well as Twila. Like a sister. Katy pricked her finger trying to sew the cord on Grandmere Alicia’s portrait back together. Probably before she put Grandpere Jean’s sword back over the mantle.”
“After a ghost took it down and cut the cord.”
“Yes! Damn it, Jack — ”
“You think a grand jury’s gonna believe a ghost killed Bucky Wilson-Jones?”
I gaped at him. “A grand jury?”
“There’ll be one. If nothing else, to review the autopsy findings and confirm the cause of death. Decide whether to issue a warrant for a John Doe murderer.”
“Can’t you — ?" I bit back the rest of the words before they could tumble past my barely-formed thoughts. No, Jack couldn’t — wouldn’t — shouldn’t even suffer me asking him to sidetrack suspicion from Katy.
“I couldn’t,” Jack agreed, even though I hadn’t asked the question. He kicked the oyster shell into the shrubbery and stared after it. “You got any worn-out jeans with you?”
“Of course!” I said, understanding dawning. “What time do you want me to be ready?”
“Thought you had a book to write.”
“Are you rescinding the invitation?”
He chuckled. “Guess that’s what comes of knowing a person as well as we do each other. Besides, it’ll make me less conspicuous if I walk in with my own babe on my arm.”
“We’ll look just like an old set of used-to-be’s revisiting our days gone by.”
As we walked toward the manor house, I slipped my arm through Jack’s, just like in our days gone by, but clung tightly. “Jack,” I said as we climbed the steps, “nothing will ever make me believe Katy killed Bucky.”
“Not even if what you and Katy aren’t tellin’ me comes to light?”
I paused and looked into his face. “I want some time to talk to Katy alone before we leave. Okay?" He nodded and reached for the doorknob, but I pulled his hand back as I recalled what he’d said a minute ago. “What was on the answering machine tapes?”
He gently disengaged my grasp and reached for the door again. “We’ll talk about that later, too, Chére. Be ready to go about nine.”
