by Jeremy Tyler
“I suppose so.”
“Then you can rest easy, ’cause we got the right man for that.”
“You sure about that?”
Sam smiled and allowed himself a little chuckle.
“Ain’t your shift jest about done?” Sam asked.
“About ten minutes ago, actually.”
“Good. Over there in Roy’s old desk, if you look in the second drawer…”
Dan reached down into the top drawer of his own desk and pulled out a bottle of Stovall’s Finest.
“Already found it.”
* * *
John Webb was enjoying the day. Mind you, there was plenty on his mind, and there were a hundred nagging questions left floating around in his head, but he sought to look past all that, to the simple pleasure of a nice day.
As he walked up to the front door of the Rivers Home, he breathed in the air around him and was struck, once more, by that nagging aroma that had haunted him throughout his stay here.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Webb,” Annabelle said as he walked through the door.
“Good afternoon. Any change?”
Annabelle just shook her head sadly. Wilhelmina had been unresponsive since they had broken the news to her about Roy. The doctor said it was a stroke. She knew what was happening around her, but she was unable to respond to it in any way. He had little hope of her recovery.
John contemplated this as he climbed the stairs to her room. He had been debating about this for some time, but he knew that he had to speak with her.
Reaching her room, he opened the door and peeked his head inside. The nurse that had been assigned to her was sitting by her bedside, reading aloud from the Bible.
“Hi,” John said, smiling. “Could I have a moment alone with her?”
The lady smiled and put the Bible aside.
“Of course. I’ll be in the kitchen. It’s nearly time for her supper, anyway.”
“Excellent,” John said, “and could you see to it that no one comes in? This is kind of private.”
She smiled, nodded, then walked out, closing the door behind her.
John stared at the door for a moment, then walked to the now vacant seat and settled in.
“Hi, Aunt Wilhelmina. I wanted to say goodbye before I go. I’ll be catching the next train shortly, but, uh…” John took a moment, then laughed softly, “you know, I thought I’d know how to say all this. I’ve been thinking about it and planning for it, and here we are, and I can’t think of how to start.”
He laughed again.
“How about this,” John said, as he leaned in to whisper in Wilhelmina’s ear.
“Roy didn’t kill anyone.”
He couldn’t swear to it, but John imagined that her eyes widened just a little bit. He backed up a little bit and sighed deeply.
“You can imagine how surprised I was when I came down here to find out who killed Uncle Carl, only to discover…that he killed himself. And, to top it off, my big lead to this discovery was that half-baked psychic, Sam Posey. God, when I think back to that moment at the funeral when he handed me that note that said I would find the gun in the river, just below the bridge…and the capper—that if I looked under the trellis, I’d find his suicide note. It just boggles the imagination, you know?”
John sat back and stared at the ceiling, then dug out a worn slip of paper from his pocket.
“This is powerful stuff, too. I think you’ll get a kick out of it: ‘My life is a lie,’ he starts out. ‘I have lived with the guilt of silence for too long. I have put forth an image of a Man of God, but I carry with me a burden—the burden of the part I played in the murder of a young woman, whose only crime was trust. Her name is too painful for me to utter, even to write. I will only mention her by the initials, ELP.”
John stopped for a moment.
“ELP—remember that? He goes on, of course. ‘That my family is so steeped in self-righteousness and cruelty that we could perpetrate this crime, and then work so hard to cover it up all these years, sickens me. And I am no better than any, for I have worked harder than any to hide it. I have conspired with Wilhelmina, I have assisted Opal, and I have encouraged Roy to keep silent with the rest of us. And, possibly worst of all, I would keep my secret even now, if recent events had not served to utterly convict me. Our one bright hope, that I believed to be protected from our sin, I fear is now just as tainted and broken as the rest of us. The seeds of evil will ever bear fruit.”
John looked down at the letter for a little, then put it away.
“Uncle Carl sure could turn a phrase, huh? When I read this, I felt such a blinding rage. That…that someone who meant so much to me should be taken away, and all because of some crime that happened years ago. I just had to take it out on someone.”
John took a moment to collect himself, as if he were still undecided whether he wanted to continue or not.
“The problem was, I just couldn’t figure out who! I drove around for a while, sorting it through, and then it hit me.”
At this, he stood and walked around for a bit, as if the sheer energy of his confession was overcoming him.
“I blamed you, Wilhelmina. After all, I had already learned from everyone in town that, when it came to the Rivers family, you pulled all the strings. Plus, he did mention you in his suicide note, before anyone else…so I drove over here. I had it my mind that I would sneak up to your room and smother you in your sleep.”
“But poor George, he had to be the first one to cross my path. He must’ve heard something outside and came out to take a look. Isn’t that something, Aunt Wilhelmina? As little as you thought of your son, he died trying to protect you!”
John sat back in his seat, forcing himself to calm down.
“It wasn’t until after I had finished taking the axe to George that it occurred to me that killing you just wasn’t enough. I figured that, since you took someone away from me, then I could take someone away from you. I could make you suffer; I could see you in the kind of pain that I was feeling.”
“Of course, if I had known you a little better, then I would have realized that I killed the wrong family member. George was always a disappointment. Be honest, you were a little bit relieved when you heard that George was dead, weren’t you?”
John took a deep breath to steady himself. He felt like he ought to be enjoying this moment more. After all the planning, all the machinations set into play to bring him to her bedside to deliver this message…but all he really felt was tired. He was almost tempted to just walk away, forget about this place, and try and put his life back together. But he had come this far, and in an odd sort of way, it seemed wrong not to finish this out. It was the difference between revenge and justice: revenge was based on whether or not you felt like getting even. Justice was meted out whether you wanted to or not.
He looked down at Wilhelmina and continued.
“I’m not really sure what inspired me to write the initials. Maybe I hoped that you or Roy would recognize them. But it wasn’t to be. Nobody gave it a second thought. So, I had to find out about your dirty little secret myself. And the more I learned, the more I hated you, and the more I wanted to take away from you. Opal was a simple matter—although I didn’t expect the granary to explode. I didn’t know they did that. I just thought she’d burn up.”
John got up and walked over to the window. He looked over the treetops and paused for a moment.
“I had to get a little creative with Arnold. Fortunately, he loves to talk about work. That’s all he did at the funeral. I learned all kinds of details about his new business partners, and about the big business meeting on Saturday. It’s amazing how you can push a man to do almost anything if you just know the right words to say. And there are so many things you can do to disguise your voice over the phone. Apparently, though, I need to work on my southern accent… No matter. It worked well enough. And it couldn’t have worked out better to frame dear old Dad.”
He went back to the side of the bed, but did
n’t sit down.
“He was a lot smarter than any of us gave him credit for, you know. I thought he was just avoiding everyone at the end. In fact, it wasn’t until I was standing there, facing him, that I realized what he was really doing. He must have realized that there was only one way to catch the killer. And that was to make himself the target. He probably figured that the killer would eventually come looking for him…and I did. I guess that was too much for him to take, huh?”
John leaned over her and, with great care, kissed her on the forehead.
“Don’t worry,” he whispered, “I’m not going to kill you.”
Straightening up, he smiled a sad smile, then walked to the door and left the room. He never saw the tear that rolled down Wilhelmina’s cheek.
Outside, he started down the stairs, but was assailed by that all-too-familiar smell once again. Looking around, he finally saw its source. A vase filled with small flowers, some purple and some white. While he was still staring at it, Annie Ruth crept up behind him.
“You weren’t thinkin’ about leavin’ without sayin’ goodbye, were ya’?”
John turned quickly, to hide being startled, and smiled.
“Not at all. In fact, that’s why I’m here.”
Annie Ruth smiled and nodded.
“Arthur wants to say goodbye, too. He’s gonna be headin’ over to the Boardin’ House to have a beer with ya’—’Course, I’m not s’pposed to know about the beer part.”
They both laughed a little at that, then John nodded toward the vase.
“Could you do me a favor? I have been smelling this all over the place, and it’s been driving me crazy. It seems familiar, but I don’t know where from.”
Annie Ruth looked over to the vase.
“That’s Quisquallis. It grows wild all over Coweta County, so I’m not surprised you were smellin’ it. As fer it bein’ familiar…well, y’er mother might’a had some. I recall I gave her a nice cuttin’ of it when the two o’ you left, on a count o’ she liked it so much.”
Suddenly, a memory came to John that filled in that last gap.
“It didn’t last too long,” John said, “She worked at it for a full year, but the weather just wouldn’t let it thrive.”
He smiled, as a man does who has suddenly been relieved of a burden.
“That has been bugging me since I got here.”
“I got some news…” Annie Ruth said with a sly grin.
“Oh?”
“I been suspectin’ fer a while, but I just got word from the doctor this mornin’.
“The doctor?”
“Me an’ Arthur are havin’ us another baby,” she announced, “an’ I was thinkin’…”
She looked down at the floor for a moment.
“If it’s alright with you, Arthur an’ I agreed that—if it’s a girl—we wanna name it Linda Sue, after your mama.”
John didn’t quite know what to say. He stammered for a moment like an idiot, then finally smiled.
“Of course, I’d be honored.”
Annie Ruth beamed widely at that. She grabbed his arm and led him out.
“Things’r gonna be real diff’rent in Coweta County, now. They’s just so much that’s changin’ I can hardly take it all in!” she said, shaking her head. John understood. The Rivers family had been at the center of everything that had happened in the county—and beyond. With them gone, people would have to figure out how to adjust.
“I’m not worried in the least. I think that the new sheriff will do a fine job, and the family business is in the very best hands I could hope for.”
Annie Ruth shook her head again, as she thought about that.
“There is definitely gonna be some talk about that, I can assure you!”
“You don’t think I got the right man for the job?” John asked idly.
“Oh, certainly, he is the fella’ for the job. I cain’t think o’ anybody who knows more about the workin’s o’ the Rivers’ comp’ny, but…”
“But what?” John asked innocently.
“Oh, stop it, John. You know as well as I do that Gerald’s gonna be havin’ a time an’ a half convincin’ folks ’round here ta’ do business with a black man!”
John smiled dismissively.
“Gerald will do just fine.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to stay around fer a while? I mean, ya’ got ever’thing a man could want here…”
“It’s just not my life, Annie Ruth.”
“I know…” she said, with a sad smile. “It just don’t seem fair, somehow. All this, by rights, is yours. Y’er the last o’ the Rivers, really.”
“I’m not a Rivers, Annie Ruth.”
“I know that. I s’pose that’s why it don’t seem right, you leavin’ all this behind like y’er doin’. More ’an anybody, you deserve it.”
They walked toward the door, and John looked over his shoulder at the wall, now vacant, that once held a tapestry.
“I want ta’ thank you again fer lettin’ us move in here, John. ’Specially now, with the new one on the way,” Annie Ruth announced, breaking the momentary silence.
“Thank me? I should be thanking you. I can rest easy knowing that Annie Ruth Stovall is taking good care of Aunt Wilhelmina.”
“Well, you can rest easy, then. I’ll watch over her night an’ day. I know that sounds odd, with what happened to Emma Lou, but it seems ta’ me that it’s time ta’ let that whole business go. An’ this is a good way to do that.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” John said, an oddly restful look on his face, “because I want Wilhelmina to live a very, very long time.”
