Peculiar Country

by Stuart R. West

  The doorknob twisted with ease and I entered. Can’t say what struck me first, not really. But having spent more time around dead bodies than any teenage girl should, I recognized the oppressive and still air, the unnatural, unseen character that seemed to physically accompany dead folk. Maybe it’s an acquired feeling or something I’d inherited from Dad, hard to say.

  But I knew, sure as shooting, what I’d find in Hettie’s bedroom.

  For the second time within hours, I emptied my stomach onto the late Hettie Williquette’s front porch.

  * * *

  Out of breath and wild as a hare, I pulled a Brody in the Hangwell Police and Fire Station driveway. My out-of-control skid nearly sent me face first into the gravel. I dropped my bike and ran into the front office. No one sat behind the desk, hardly a surprise. Only Sheriff Grigsby, Fire Chief Wakuna, and on occasion Mrs. Hemsworth (pulling double duty from the school office) hung their hats there, and that seemed to be a rare day indeed.

  “Hello?” I hammered my knuckles onto the front counter and called out louder. “Hello? Sheriff Grigsby? Chief Wakuna? Anybody? I got a real emergency here! Please, any—”

  “Land’s sake, Dibby, you’re liable to rouse the dead!” Sheriff Grigsby hurried out from a back door. Judging by the way his belt wasn’t completely looped, I figured I’d caught him during an afternoon constitutional. Sweat drops licked at his forehead. After he finished his belt work, he pointed a finger at me. “Why ain’t you in school, young lady?”

  “Dad gave me permission. I gotta report—”

  “Let’s just simmer down a spell and catch our breath.” Looked to me like he needed the breather more than I did. “Now, why don’t you calmly tell me what’s got your knickers in a bunch.”

  “I stopped by Miss Williquette’s house—Hettie Williquette—out offa Dead Man’s Slip and—”

  “I know where it is.”

  “…and I found her deader than a doornail! Just up and keeled over in—”

  “Whoa, Nelly!” Hands went up. “You’re telling me Hettie Williquette’s gone feet up?” I nodded. He reddened even more, wiped his hand across his forehead. I think I ruined his day, bothering him with a dead woman. Flustered, he turned, yelled, “John? John!”

  Fire Chief Wakuna stepped out from another door, looking like he’d just woken up from a nap. Then again, his sleepy, hooded eyes always gave him that appearance. At least his eyebrows rose in curiosity. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  The Sheriff jerked his chin toward me. “Lil’ Dibby here claims that ol’ Hettie’s taken a six feet under slumber. Lessen o’course she’s pulling my leg. You wouldn’t do a thing like that now, would ya’, Dibby?”

  “No, sir! I surely wouldn’t!”

  “We’d best check it out, Bill,” said Chief Wakuna.

  “I reckon you’re right. But something appears a mite odd. Dibby, tell me exactly what you saw.”

  “Well, Miss Williquette wouldn’t answer her door and her cats were up in a tizzy outside. I got worried. The door was unlocked. I went in and I found her in her bedroom. On her bed. White as a sheet and eyes fulla’ milk.”

  “And you’re sure she’s dead? Maybe just—”

  “I know what a dead body looks like, Sheriff!” I snapped.

  “Don’t you take that tone with me, missy,” he fired back, his finger loaded and ready to shoot. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Sorry… I’m sorry. I’m just shook up a bit, I guess. But I checked the pulse in her neck. Got nothing. Also held my hand over her mouth to see if I could catch a breath.”

  “You touched her body?”

  “Yes, sir. I considered it appropriate in case she was still hanging on. But she’s passed, no doubt about it.”

  Bent down, hands on knees, the Sheriff spoke to me with unnecessary kid gloves. “This is important, Dibby. Did you touch anything else? Anything at all? Try to remember.”

  Efficiently, I listed everything I’d committed to memory. “When I looked inside Miss Williquette’s house, I touched the front window. I banged on the door. I twisted the front door knob, pushed open her bedroom door, felt for a pulse in her neck as I said. That’s it. I looked around for a phone to call you, but couldn’t find one. And there wasn’t a speck of blood, not that I could see.”

  With some bone-cracking effort, the Sheriff straightened. He shot Chief Wakuna a mighty serious look, one that made me feel like I’d just topped the FBI’s most wanted list.

  “We’d better look into it, Bill,” said Chief Wakuna. “You wanna take the fire truck or your car?”

  “I reckon my car’ll be good enough for Hettie now if what Dibby says is accurate.” I rolled my eyes. Neither man caught it. “Dibby…what in the world were you doing out at Hettie’s place anyway? That ain’t no place for a young girl.” He stuck out his lower lip, shook his head, another disappointed adult.

  He was about to get even more disappointed ‘cause I aimed to lie. “Miss Williquette had asked me to help with some chores out in her field. Cleaning up some of the brush and what-not. She was fixing to pay me.”

  “Hettie Williquette asked you to help her.” The Sheriff repeated it flatter than a pancake. “Ol’ Hettie asked you to do that, did she?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Huh.” He gave his jowls a good rub. “I find that highly unlikely.”

  “C’mon, Bill, time’s getting on,” said Chief Wakuna. “We’d best get on out there.”

  Exasperated—purt near the Sheriff’s one expression—he turned on the fire chief. “Hang on a minute, John. I ain’t done with Dibby here.” He plucked out a jangly tambourine of rings and flipped them to Wakuna. “Go bring my car around.”

  Chief Wakuna said nothing, not unusual, and left.

  “Dibby, something about this smells fishy. And I don’t like fishy smells, prefer to leave that to the Catholics on Fridays. Why do I get the feeling you ain’t telling me ever’thing?”

  “I’m not sure, Sheriff. Could be I’m still upset over the entire ordeal, me being a little girl and all.” I considered forcing crocodile tears, but honestly, I didn’t want to go to the effort. Besides, I’d pretty much drained my ducts earlier.

  “It’s fine, Dibby.” Unexpectedly, he turned fatherly, dropped a bear claw of a hand on my shoulder. Gave me a little condescending pat. “It’s fine. Everything’ll be fine, you just heed my words. Don’t you fret. I reckon it was just Hettie’s time, the way God planned it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  But I highly suspected God didn’t have anything to do with Hettie’s passing. For now, I decided to keep that information locked up tight. The Sheriff wouldn’t stand to listen anyway. If I thought he might, I would’ve been glad to share my other observations I took away from the crime scene.

  Hettie’d been fully dressed—not in her pajamas, not in a housedress—laying on top of her made bed. She hadn’t passed in her sleep. Besides, Hettie didn’t strike me as the kind of gal to just accept death at face value, and wait in bed for it to come snatch her away.

  But the thing that really got under my skin, the evidence that Hettie went out fighting, was the little lamp that lay smashed to pieces clear across the room from her body. The lamp I’d noticed on Hettie’s bedside table the night before.

  * * *

  By the time I finally reached school, I may as well not have bothered. With only an hour and some change to go, I couldn’t concentrate, my mind elsewhere. On James, among other things, natch.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stealing glances my way, trying his dangdest to snare my attention.

  And I enjoyed every second of it. I played like I didn’t notice him. Chin up, smile proud, I looked straight at Mrs. Hopkins blathering on about angles or some such geometrical nonsense as if it enthralled me.

  I couldn’t have James believing me to be an easy mark, just another notch, after all. Besides, the newspaper advice columns always instructed to make the boys give chase.r />
  The final bell rang. As I tucked my books beneath my dusk, preparing for another afternoon of torture with Suzette, James swept up behind me.

  “Um, Dibby?”

  I acted like he’d flown beneath my radar. “Oh, you gave me a fright.” Just like I’d seen the silly girls do, I fluttered a hand toward my chest, fanned my face. Something straight out of Gone With the Wind. Utterly preposterous.

  “Sorry ‘bout that. Hey, how come you didn’t show up earlier? How’d it go with your old man?”

  I lowered my voice. “I’m not sure how I feel about that, tell you the truth. We talked, but…”

  He grabbed my hands, pressed them together between his. “James! Not in public,” I hissed. I looked up at Mrs. Hopkins, mercifully lost spelunking inside her handbag.

  Before I could stop him, James tugged me outside the door and onto the front commons.

  “Dangit, James, you know I have detention to get to!” I felt my cheeks flush. A few lingering students gawped at us as James continued to hold one of my hands. Part of me—the old Dibby—felt mortified. But the Model ’65 Dibby thrilled at the notion of my very first romance, practically wanted to crow about it.

  “No sweat. Even Mrs. Hopkins knows you’ve got to use the john on occasion, right?”

  “Behave. Folks are looking.”

  “Let ‘em gander, I don’t care.” He swung my hand high, then low, smiling like nothing mattered, and in that moment, nothing else really did. “So what’d your ol’ man say about your mom flying the coop with your neighbor?”

  “She didn’t. I can’t get into it now… I’ll tell you later.” I broke contact, something I didn’t particularly want to do.

  “Wait! You gotta tell me more!”

  I ran up the steps, opened the front school door. Turned, said, “I will, promise. Oh, and I also found Hettie dead.” I knew it was a horrible way to leave James, but his befuddled, flabbergasted look could’ve made the cutest camera snapshot. I stashed it away in my mind’s darkroom, thinking of how things might develop between us.

  Grinning, I went back to class. Naturally, upon seeing Suzette, my grin struck downward.

  “You’re late.” Suzette didn’t look up from her fingernails.

  “I’m late? Seeing as how you kick your legs up for all the boys, I rightly imagine you’re the one who’s late.” I couldn’t believe I said it, a joke as off color as those shared on the Seed and Feed store’s front porch. But Suzette’s look of horror was beautiful, very much worth any price I’d have to pay. Her jaw hung down, her metal works shining like diamonds in the dirt.

  “I’m going to tell Mrs. Hopkins you said that, Dibby!”

  “Be my guest. I’m already in detention, can’t get much worse.”

  She harrumphed, folded alabaster arms.

  Her standoffishness didn’t last. As a person uncomfortable in her own company (couldn’t rightly blame her), Suzette always had to jabber away to someone. Even her enemy.

  “So. Where were you today?” she asked.

  “I had stuff to tend to. Is Mrs. Hopkins taking her cigarette break?”

  “I guess. We’re supposed to sweep up and straighten the room.”

  With Mrs. Hopkins notoriously long smoking breaks, we had all the time in the world. I sat down next to Suzette.

  “You know Hettie Williquette died,” I said.

  “She did not!”

  “Surely did. And I found her body.”

  “You’d better not be lying to me, Dibby Caldwell, and if you’re not, you’d better tell me everything.” She leaned toward me, cherubic chin resting on her palm.

  Seeing as how Suzette’d set me on the Hettie Williquette trail in the first place, I figured I owed her the story. Withholding certain details, of course.

  Not wanting to speak ill of the dead, I cleared up a few matters as well.

  “So ol’ Hettie didn’t eat any children, she didn’t eat Hedrick Saunders, and she didn’t eat Gordon Turndell. She had sex with him, maybe, but beyond that, I reckon she didn’t do him any harm.”

  Suzette sat aghast, mouth open. Then she stifled a giggle, hardly the reaction I’d expected. “Lordy, Dibby, you have the mouth of a sailor.”

  “I can chew tobacco like one, too.”

  She gasped. “Really?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You’re funny,” said Suzette in sorta the same way adults talked down to me. “I mean…other than the way you dress and act.”

  “And you’re about as mean as an ingrown toenail on a camel,” I tossed back.

  She laughed and so did I. Honestly, my mood soared, high on a cloud, particularly surprising given how poorly the first part of my day had fared. I wouldn’t let Suzette sour that mood, either.

  “Dibby, I swan—”

  “Oh, don’t go swanning, you’re liable to tear your purty lil’ clothes.”

  “…I swan I don’t know why in Heaven’s name you’re so fixed on this whole Thomas Saunders thing. I mean…you didn’t know him. We were just kids when he ran away.” She sat back, tugging a blonde braid, thinking. I feared she might hurt herself. “Unless, of course, you’re really a lil’ ol’ lady pretending to be young. Which is kinda how you look.”

  “Did you know your momma bought you out of the store? Just took the plastic off the box and set you on her mantle. That’s why your head’s hollow. Along with your heart.”

  She groaned. “Why do you always do that?”

  “Cause you started it.”

  “Just tell me, dang it! Why does it matter to you what happened to the Saunders boy?”

  “Well… Unlike you, Suzette, I happen to care ‘bout folks other than myself. I think something rotten happened to Thomas Saunders. Something other than his running away. I know it for fact.”

  “You’re still not telling me how you know.”

  As much as I despised everything about Suzette, it seemed pretty much a given she’d believe me. She certainly had no problem buying into the child-eating tales of poor Hettie.

  “Fine then. Thomas’s ghost visits me.” I waited for the laughter to begin, her customary fingers-on-blackboard shrieks. When it didn’t happen, I finished my tale.

  “My gosh… So you believe someone killed Thomas?”

  “I suspect it was his daddy, Hedrick.”

  “And you think someone also murdered Hettie Williquette?”

  “I surely do.”

  “Oh…” I’d rendered her speechless. Something I thought I’d never see.

  “You believe me?” I asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I do. Unless you’re crazy, of course, and I’ve kinda’ thought that for a long time, but… I believe you. Could I… Could I come see the ghost?”

  An absolutely ridiculous request if I’d ever heard one. I wondered if she hadn’t suffered a chemical imbalance of her own. We weren’t friends. The thought of having Suzette sleep-over made my gut buck. And, of course, I couldn’t conjure Thomas up at will. Regardless, I jumped on that ol’ high road. “Not for a while, at least. My dad’s grounded me for a spell.”

  “Well…shoot.” The golden girl melted. Strange sadness clouded her fair-weathered nature. Call me foolish, but I felt a scratch of empathy for her.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Maybe if I talk to Dad, I can get him to go easy. Tell him you’re coming over to study or something. But first, I need to talk him into letting me go to the movies this weekend with James.” Rarely had I seized the opportunity to crow, so I flew with it.

  Suzette’s lower lip fell, trembled. She had something to say, hesitated. She’d never held back before. When her cold paw dropped on mine, I nearly jumped out of my seat. She followed it with a couple of lightweight pats.

  “But, Dibby,” she said, “James already asked me to the movies this weekend.”

  Now the crow had been served to me.

  Chapter Ten

  My stomach clenched tighter then the fist I reserved for James. In her defense, Suzette looked d
ownright sad, hardly gloating as was her wont to do.

  Over the past day, I’d thrown up more than I had since I’d been a toddler, and had no intention of stopping.

  I felt used, betrayed one more time. The final time.

  Somehow, I managed to stand. “Tell…tell Mrs. Hopkins I had to go home sick. Tell her…I dunno…tell her whatever you want...”

  I didn’t wait for a response. Frankly, I didn’t even remember leaving the room. Far away, a voice as meek as a little girl stuck down in a well, hollered, “I’m sorry, Dibby! Sooo sorry! I didn’t know! I really…”

  I’d left my books behind and didn’t give a tinker’s damn. Somehow I made it through the front doors. Fresh air slapped some sense into me, a renewed resolve to never be fooled again. To stop making myself vulnerable.

  Then I saw James in the courtyard, arms open. Waiting for me.

  Eyes straight-ahead, one scootch from brimming over, I hurried down the steps. I brushed right by him. My shoulder met his with heft. And I kept right on going.

  “Dibby?”

  I didn’t answer him. Wouldn’t—couldn’t—give in. I straddled my bike, wheeled it back. Behind me, I heard him panting, sneakers clodding down the drive.

  “Dibby! Wait a minute!”

  Hollering for his life’s worth (which, admittedly, didn’t amount to a hill of beans), he jumped into my path. He raised his hands like a frazzled crossing guard. I stood on the pedals, pumped them with all my weight. I envisioned running him over, watching his body go sky high, turning head over heel. Satisfied by my macabre daydream, I aimed to make it happen, and poured on the speed. His face swam up, the one I’d stupidly been so intrigued with. At the last moment, he dodged right, and twisted in a matador’s circle. His jean jacket flipped out and grazed my arm.

  “Dibby, what the hell’s the matter?” Huffing away, he ran alongside me.