Death's Half Acre

by Margaret Maron

  “It really was all legal, wadn’ it, Kezzie?”

  “He look to you like a man with a knife to his throat?”

  “Naw, can’t say he did. In fact, best I remember, he was real cheerful.”

  “Well, there you go, then. A willing seller taking what a buyer was willing to pay.”

  “So, which one were you, Kezzie?”

  The old man smiled and shook his head. “Hard to say, ain’t it?”

  James Ennis pulled his small black truck in behind a late-model SUV that was parked on the shoulder of woodlands that were back in his family again, only this time it was his mother’s name on the deed and not his grandmother’s, despite the older woman’s self-pitying indignation that she no longer had a say in how the land was to be used or dispersed. She trotted out the Biblical commandment to honor thy father and thy mother, “and this does me dishonor,” she told her daughter.

  “Sorry, Mama,” Mary Pritchard Ennis had said. “You gave our land away once. You don’t get a chance to do it twice. After I’m gone, it’s going to my boys.”

  Before he got out of the truck, Ennis made a note of the SUV’s license plate. One bumper sticker read JESUS LOVES YOU; the other THIS CAR HAS GPS—GOD’S PROTECTIVE SALVATION.

  He lifted his .22 rifle from the gun rack across the rear window, stepped onto the pavement, and studied the ditch bank until he saw where someone had gone into the woods. The trail was easy to follow. A hippopotamus could not have trampled down a wider swath of weeds and briars, and dead limbs had been knocked off some of the pines to make for easier passage.

  A wren scolded from its perch on a wild cherry branch in lacy white bloom and a brown thrasher flew up from a clump of dried broom sedge still standing from last fall.

  About fifty feet into the woods, where the land began to slope down to a stream, he saw an oak that had come down in one of the hurricanes to create a rough clearing beyond the pines. A chunky-looking white man labored there with a shovel. He wore dark blue slacks, a blue-and-white striped open-necked polo shirt, and shiny polished town shoes that had probably started off a lot shinier than they were right now. As Ennis watched, he saw the man wipe his face with a large white handkerchief that he stuffed back into his pocket before climbing down into the hole he had dug. It was waist-deep on the man and as damp dirt flew up from the hole, Ennis could hear him puffing with the unaccustomed effort of digging through rocks and roots.

  He moved out of shadows into the sunlight, the rifle held loosely in the crook of his arm, and looked down on the man. “Mind telling me what you’re doing, mister?”

  Startled, the man stepped back with the shovel across his chest as if for protection, slipped, and went down heavily on his rump. Sweat poured from his soft face and his eyes widened as he looked up and saw the rifle.

  “This is private property, mister, and you’re trespassing,” James Ennis said, standing over the trench the man had dug. “How come you’re out here digging?”

  “This your land?” The voice changed to warm molasses. “Then you must be one of Sister Frances’s grandsons, right?”

  Ennis gave a tight nod.

  “I’m—”

  “I know who you are, Preacher, and you don’t own one square inch out here any more, so I ask you for the last time”—he shifted the rifle significantly in his hands—“what are you digging for?”

  Faison McKinney pulled out his handkerchief again and looked at it distastefully. It had begun the day ironed and neatly folded just as he liked his handkerchiefs, but now it was so streaked with dirt and sweat stains Marian might never get it clean. Nevertheless he wiped his face, then used the shovel to hoist himself to his feet. There was only wet sandy clay beneath his shoes. No parachute, no bones, no sign that this soil had ever been disturbed.

  “You ever get left all night at the end of a long dirty ditch holding a bag?”

  “No, sir, can’t say as I have.”

  “Well, this here’s the ditch and I’m the fool that thought it was full of snipe.”

  G. Hooks Talbert finished ordering and handed the elaborate menu back to the waiter. Located off Glenwood Avenue, this was one of Raleigh’s best restaurants, the food adventurous, the service impeccable. Tonight, the tables would be filled. Here at lunchtime, however, he and the plainly dressed woman seated across the table from him had a corner of the room to themselves, which was precisely why he had chosen it.

  Talbert considered himself a connoisseur of beautiful women and this woman would never be beautiful, but with better clothes, an expert hairstylist, and proper makeup, she could be striking.

  She looked like hell, he thought, but his words were kindly when he said, “I wish you didn’t have to dress like one of those born-again cult women.”

  “I am born again, but our church is no cult.”

  “Then why dress like it? There are lots of good religious women who don’t consider it a sin to wear nice things. You don’t have to look like all your clothes came from a Goodwill store.”

  “If you’ll recall, Hooks, I didn’t grow up with silks and satins. After the divorce, Mother was lucky if she could keep me in denim and cotton.” She was not complaining, merely stating the facts.

  “You may not have had it so plush as a kid, but you got a generous inheritance. Don’t tell me it’s all gone?”

  The younger woman shrugged and Talbert shook his head in disbelief.

  “But I offered to invest it for you, to give you security.”

  “I invested it in my marriage.” She smiled serenely as he gave an involuntary scornful humph. “How many wives have you gone through now, Hooks? Three?”

  When he didn’t answer, she said, “Our father had four.”

  She smiled a thank-you to the waiter who set butter and a woven silver basket of freshly baked yeast rolls before them, then turned back to her older half brother. “I’m still married to the only man I ever gave myself to.” She took one of the warm rolls, breathed in its fragrance, and reached for the butter.

  “And what kind of marriage is it, Marian?” he asked, unable to control his dismay. “You drink his spit. Do you eat his shit, too?”

  “If he asked me to.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “You will not take the Lord’s name in vain,” she said, speaking sharply for the first time. “My husband’s a righteous man, Hooks, and he has it in him to do good work. If he gets a little zealous at times—”

  “Your husband’s a fool who fell for one of the oldest scams in the book if what you’ve told me are the facts. Traded all your assets for a bag of fake jewelry because a bootlegger with a grade school education conned him into thinking they were real? He spent half of your inheritance when you two went off to—where was it? Patagonia? Syria?”

  “Lebanon,” she murmured, buttering another piece of her roll.

  “To Lebanon to convert the Muslims. Then he takes the rest of your money to build this church, bankrupts it, and now you come asking me to bail him out?”

  He heard the anger in his voice and realized this was not the way to move her. “Even if he does mean well, haven’t you had enough, honey? You deserve so much better than this. Hasn’t he embarrassed you enough? No wonder he’s ashamed to say what happened to the money. I can understand that he’d rather people think he’s a crook than think him a fool, but that’s what he is and he’s pulling you down with him. Just say the word and I’ll get you the best and most discreet attorney in the country. I’ll even give him a settlement to let him get a fresh start somewhere else. Please, Marian.”

  The waiter returned with the bisque they had ordered and Talbert was so distraught that he was almost oblivious to the appetizing aroma of lobster and well-seasoned cream. He gave it a ritual taste and then accepted a light sprinkle of pepper from the waiter’s grinder, but it was only a formality.

  Marian McKinney shook her head when it was offered to her.

  “I can’t leave him, Hooks. I love him and I believe in what he’s doing.
This whole experience has humbled him and he needs me now more than ever. Yes, he was prideful before. And yes, maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly when he used me to make a point about following God’s commandments. He thought he didn’t care for worldly glory. But when temptation came, he was weak and he yielded. He really did think of all the good he could do if those jewels had been real. But he knows now that he was also thinking about the glory to himself, not to God. I’m glad this has happened!”

  Her eyes sparkled with the intensity of her emotions. “I’m glad because now that he’s stumbled, now that he’s admitted his weakness to me and to God, he understands how frail we all are when we don’t trust God to give us the strength to resist the worst in our own natures. He’s changed, Hooks, and he can lead others to change. That’s why I’m pleading with you to help me help him save our church.”

  He looked at her in sorrow that was tinged with exasperation. In his world, he was used to giving orders and having them followed—his wives, his sons, his employees, the associates who were bound to him with golden chains. But this sister!

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “You’d pay for the best attorney in the country to get me a divorce but you won’t pay a dime to save my marriage?”

  “Please. Eat your soup while it’s still hot.”

  Obediently, she dipped her spoon into the thick creamy bisque and ate quietly for a few minutes.

  He had finished his soup and sat silently stewing in his own thoughts until the waiter removed their bowls and brought them salad.

  “Did I get a fair inheritance, Hooks?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Did I get a fair share of our father’s estate?”

  He shrugged. “How should I know? He told his attorney what to write and he signed the will while ‘of sound and disposing mind.’ Considering that your mother didn’t like to let you visit us, I’m sure he thought it was commensurate with the circumstances.”

  “Circumstances he created when he kicked her out after five years of marriage for a little whore half his age.”

  “Granted Cheryl was a whore,” he agreed mildly, “but as I recall, your own mother was only half his age herself.”

  “Stop evading the question. Did I get a fair share?”

  “Even if you had, it would be gone now, too.”

  “Then you admit that Father’s will was unfair?”

  “I don’t admit a damn thing except that you’re married to a bastard who humiliates you in front of a whole congregation and you don’t have enough backbone to tell him to go fuck himself!”

  She leaned back in her chair and gave him a long level look.

  He held her gaze for a moment, then gave a resigned sigh and apologized.

  “I’m sorry, Marian. There’s no excuse for that kind of language.”

  She continued to look at him without speaking.

  “What?” he said irritably.

  “It’s not me that’s been humiliated, is it, Hooks? It’s you.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Whoever told you about what happened Easter Sunday knows that I’m your sister. You’re the one it humiliated when you heard it.” Her quiet voice taunted him. “The great G. Hooks Talbert, the millionaire who tells governors and senators what to do, and his sister drank the spit water of a man he himself wouldn’t spit on.”

  He glared at her with clenched jaws.

  “A hundred thousand will save the church, Hooks.”

  “What?”

  “Or maybe I’ll write a magazine article, give a few interviews.”

  “Are you blackmailing me?”

  “A hundred thousand.”

  Her eyes did not drop beneath his glare and he could see her resolve growing firmer until it hardened into marble.

  “A hundred thousand, Hooks. You can take it out of petty cash.”

  Defeated, he shook his head and, with a wry smile, reached for the checkbook in the breast pocket of his jacket. “If I give you a hundred and ten, will you put some windows in that damn church? And a decent lighting system?”

  Her answering smile was serene. “I’ll ask,” she promised.

  CHAPTER 28

  There are two conversations.

  The other one is the other one.

  —Paul’s Hill, by Shelby Stephenson

  Hey,” Dwight said when I got home a little before six that Thursday evening. He was frying chicken strips to top a green-beans-and-rice dish he had invented.

  Before he could say anything else, Cal piped up. “Blue’s dead, Deborah. We found him in the lane when we came home.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” said Dwight, turning the chicken strips to brown them evenly. “I don’t know if he was hit by a car first or just died of old age.”

  “Does Daddy know?”

  He nodded. “We took him over to the house and I dug the grave.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “Okay, I guess. After all, it’s not the first dog he’s had die.”

  True. Nonetheless, when I went to change clothes and he said that supper would be ready in about ten minutes, I told them to go ahead without me. “I think I’ll run over there for a little while.”

  Five minutes later, I was driving through the rutted lanes to the homeplace, absently scratching at the bandage on my arm. Despite all the blood, it had only been a flesh wound and was healing very nicely. I would have a scar, but the doctor assured me it wouldn’t be too noticeable.

  I seemed to have lucked out all around. Ten days now since Candace Bradshaw’s flash drive had been found and the contents transcribed, and it would appear that there was absolutely nothing about Talbert, Daddy, or me on it. Nothing that wasn’t already public knowledge anyhow.

  (“The wicked flee when no man pursueth,” the preacher murmured.)

  If I had thought it through a little more carefully, I probably could have handed it over to Dwight as soon as I found it and saved myself a lot of grief. Daddy was not going to talk about it, Talbert had no reason to, and I’d certainly never told a soul nor written anything down for Candace to find when she rifled the law firm’s records. Besides, if what I’d heard about her the last few weeks was true, she wasn’t all that clever about extrapolating from incomplete data.

  I was trying not to extrapolate too much myself, but I had put in a few hours at the computer that week and I had questions for Daddy that had nothing to do with Blue’s death.

  He was sitting on the porch swing when I got there and Ladybelle was sprawled on the wooden floor nearby. She stood up as I approached. I know we give human attributes to our animals much too easily, but I swear it seemed to me that her tail did not wag as vigorously as usual.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I said, shaking my head in sympathy. “I was real sorry to hear about Blue.”

  “Yeah, I reckon his heart just wore out. Twelve years old last Thanksgiving.”

  He sighed and moved over so I could sit down beside him on the swing, but I took the top step instead so I could pet Ladybelle, who put her nose under my hand to get me to scratch her ears.

  There were almost two hours of daylight left and we could easily see the graveyard down the slope from the porch, where family members have been getting buried for over a hundred years. My mother’s there and so is the mother of the older boys. Inside the fence there are formal stones, stones with proper names and dates, but outside the fence is a long row of rough stones, some no bigger than a football, others big enough to sit on. None of them are chiseled, but there are names in black paint and every spring, when my brothers and I get together to clean off the weeds and trim back the rosebushes, someone will get out the can of black paint to touch up the letters, and we’ll start remembering the various animals that have shared our lives.

  “I guess you put him down there?”

  “Yeah. Dwight dug the grave hole and Andrew fetched a rock from the creek.”

  I remember when Blue arrived. He was a Christmas presen
t from Andrew, who traded two of his rabbit dogs to a breeder down in South Carolina for the little blue-speckled puppy. Daddy swore he was never going to have another house dog after the redtick he’d had for eight years was bitten by a cottonmouth, but it had been six months and Andrew rightly figured he was ready.

  When Andrew handed him that puppy on Christmas morning, Daddy handed it right back.

  “Didn’t I say I won’t gonna have another house dog?”

  But by the time the fruitcake and coffee went around for the last time that night, the pup was sound asleep in his lap and when Andrew said, “You want me to take him on home with me?” Daddy said, “Naw, ain’t no need to wake him up.”

  I should have realized that he would take Blue’s death in stride. When you’ve seen that many well-loved dogs arrive as puppies, live a dog’s long life, then die, I guess it gives you perspective.

  I was pretty sure that there would be another new puppy to keep Ladybelle company before the year was out, and that the cycle would continue.

  I leaned back against the rail post to face Daddy and said, “Guess you heard about your friend losing all the assets of his church.”

  He gave me a wary look. “My friend?”

  “McKinney. The preacher at the Church of Jesus Christ Eternal.”

  “He ain’t my friend.”

  “He was calling you Brother Kezzie when you introduced us the other day at the courthouse.”

  “That was just preacher talk.” His voice turned stern. “You trying to tend to my business, Deb’rah?”

  “No, sir, but did you know that most of the documents that pass through the register of deeds office are online?”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Means that I can sit at my computer at my house and look up the deed holders of every piece of property in the county.”

  He frowned. “Anybody can do that or just judges?”

  “Anybody,” I said.

  He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one. The swing rocked gently back and forth, making a small squeak.