by Donis Casey
Her delicacy was unneeded, though. Lester was wide awake, propped up on pillows to a half-reclining position. Lu was sitting in the chair beside the bed, embroidering a pillowcase and determinedly not looking at her patient. Both of them turned toward the door when Alafair entered, and Lu stood up. As usual, they nodded at one another as the housekeeper slipped quietly out of the room. Alafair took her place beside Lester’s bed.
“I reckon you’ve got some bad news to tell me,” Lester said.
At first, Alafair took his statement to mean that Lu had spilled the beans, which surprised her a little. Alafair had seen her hovering about behind the dining room door when Chief Burns broke the news to Olivia earlier, but she had pegged Lu as a woman with a great deal of discretion. And this was news best delivered by a family member.
“Did Lu tell you?”
“Lu won’t tell me a thing. I heard the caterwauling all the way up here. I may be dying, but I ain’t deaf, you know.”
“Ah. Well, it’s true, Lester. I’ve got a piece of news to share that’s like to grieve you pretty bad, and I’m real sorry to disturb your last days with it, but it can’t be helped. I’m afraid Kenneth is dead. Seems he’s been dead for a spell. His body was found today, froze in one of the meat lockers down to the warehouse.”
She paused to let this sink in, and to determine by his reaction how much more to tell him about it. In her experience, some people wanted all the sad details right away, and some couldn’t stand to hear another word beyond “dead.”
They gazed at one another for a long moment. Lester appeared to have turned to stone, he was so still.
When he did speak, his voice was little more than a creak. “How’s Olivia?”
Alafair shook her head. “Pretty broke up. The preacher over to your church is here, and his wife. Doctor Lamerton offered to give her a sleeping draught, but she wasn’t interested. She’s calmed down a bunch, though, and her and Mr. Burns are wringing all the information they can get out of each other.”
“And Ruth Ann?”
“Still like to bust out weeping, but she’s plenty strong when she needs to be, Lester. She’ll do whatever she can to support Olivia.”
He nodded, and reassured that his loved ones were bearing up, he asked, “How did Kenneth come to be dead in a meat locker, do they know?”
“The doctor didn’t find any wounds. I reckon he’ll know more after the autopsy.”
“So Kenneth never did go to Guymon?”
“Looks like not. And Olivia didn’t know to look for him until he was overdue back.”
“How’d he get found?”
She hesitated before she answered. “It was just an accident that he got found, Lester. Somebody was bound to open that locker door eventually.”
Lester fell silent. He seemed to have shrunk down to nothing since she told him, and she impulsively reached out and squeezed his birdlike hand.
“Can I get you anything?”
“I sure would appreciate to see Ruth Ann if she can manage it, Alafair.”
“I’m so sorry, Lester.”
“Poor Kenneth,” he murmured. “Poor foolish Kenneth.”
***
When Alafair went back downstairs, she found Ruth Ann and Olivia were next to one another on the settee, holding hands and talking to Dr. Lamerton. Martha was in the dining room with a mewling Ron on her shoulder, patting his back and walking around the big table in slow circles with Grace at her heels. As Alafair sat down in one of the parlor chairs, she and Martha exchanged a glance.
Olivia was composed as she listened intently to the doctor. “So you still can’t tell for sure how Kenneth died,” she was saying.
Lamerton shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’ll not be doing the autopsy until tomorrow, and it will be several weeks after that before we know the full results of any chemical tests we may do. But I can tell you right now that there are no apparent signs of trauma. He wasn’t shot, stabbed, or beaten.”
“You don’t believe it was murder?” Alafair asked.
“I wouldn’t be willing to say one way or the other, at this point.”
“Well, he sure didn’t lock himself in that cold storage room,” Burns said.
Alafair shot a look at the man seated in the wingback chair opposite her. Chief of Police Burns was a man of about Alafair’s own age with a tan, rugged mien and a no-nonsense expression. As he listened to the doctor, he clutched his round-brimmed, tall-crowned Stetson in one hand and absently patted it against the other hand.
Lamerton, who had at least twenty years on anyone else in the room, addressed Burns patiently. “That’s for sure, Chief. However, he may very well have died from his own actions before he was assisted into the position in which we found him. His pupils were unnaturally constricted, which may indicate narcotic poisoning.” He turned back toward Olivia. “Mrs. Crawford, have you ever known your husband to use opium, or anything like it?”
Ruth Ann was indignant at the accusation. “Certainly not!”
But everyone else was watching Olivia as her face reddened and her gaze slid away from the doctor’s. Lamerton sat back in his chair and nodded.
Burns stood up. “Miz Crawford, perhaps you would be more comfortable if the doctor and I discussed this with you in private.”
Olivia stood as well, and the doctor did likewise. “Let’s go to my father’s study, gentlemen. Mama, y’all wait here, and I’ll be back in a bit.”
“But, honey, what…”
Alafair leaned over and grasped her sister’s hand. “It’s all right, Ruth Ann. Let these fellows do their work, now.”
Ruth Ann didn’t look at all pleased as her daughter led the men away to Lester’s study at the back of the house, but she kept quiet. Martha came into the parlor, sat down in Olivia’s vacated seat and arranged Ron on her lap, while Grace crawled up into Alafair’s.
“What could Doctor Lamerton possibly have to say to Olivia that she wouldn’t want her mother to hear?” Ruth Ann insisted.
“I’m guessing that Olivia fears the doctor will tell her something about the way Kenneth died that will diminish your opinion of him, Sister, and she doesn’t want that to happen.”
Ruth Ann was distressed. “You can’t believe that Kenneth would do anything as awful as use opium.”
Alafair glanced at Martha before she ventured a cautious reply. “Even good folks can have a weakness they keep from them they love. Or maybe just a single slip can lead to tragedy. It could be that Kenneth was persuaded by an unscrupulous acquaintance to try some dope—just once, mind you—and being unused to it, he succumbed. And then this acquaintance got scared and tried to get rid of the body quick.”
“That Ellery Collins!”
“Now, I’m not making any accusations. I’m just making up stories. Let’s wait to find out what really happened before we get all het up.”
“Or maybe poor Kenneth was poisoned!”
“That could be, too.”
“Well, that’s way more likely!” Despite Alafair’s cautions, Ruth Ann was indeed getting all het up.
“Ma, what’s ‘dope’?” Grace asked.
“Dope is a stupid thing,” Alafair told her without missing a beat.
Little Ron began to cry, and Martha lifted him back up onto her shoulder. “I think he needs his mama.”
“She’ll be out in a minute. There’s some bottles and nipples in the pantry, right in front. See if he’ll take a little water,” Ruth Ann told her.
“Go help Martha,” Alafair said to Grace, who slid off her lap and trotted after her sister through the dining room and into the kitchen.
“Oh, that Collins boy!” Ruth Ann returned to her rant as soon as the girls left the room. “I knew he wasn’t a fit companion for Kenneth. I’d bet money that he’s behind this one way or another. Look how he left town all of a sudden…”
“I hear he left a while before Kenneth disappeared,” Alafair interrupted her. “Try to calm yourself, Ruth Ann. Let’s just try to take this a
wful journey one step at a time. Rushing headlong is just like to lead us down the wrong path.”
Ruth Ann wasn’t inclined to follow that advice, but before she could comment, a pale Olivia emerged from the hallway, trailed by Burns and the doctor, who took their leave of the women with promises to return in the morning.
“Chief Burns says he’s put his best men to figuring out what happened, and he’ll come early tomorrow and try to have a word with anyone who calls on us,” Olivia said, then made a brave attempt to escape questioning. “I hear little Ron fussing.” She took a step toward the kitchen, but didn’t get far.
“He’ll keep a minute,” Ruth Ann informed her in no uncertain terms. “What was so all-fired secret that those men wanted to talk to you about?”
Alafair noted that Olivia’s shoulders sagged as she gave in to the inevitable. “Doctor Lamerton didn’t say much more than you heard, Ma. He just wanted to tell me that there’s a possibility that Kenneth’s death was an accident. Could be he went to the meat locker for some reason and lost consciousness, then either died of narcotic poisoning or froze.”
Alafair couldn’t help herself. “Why would he go into an empty meat locker if he hated the cold so? Can drugs make you do something you never would do ordinarily?”
Olivia shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe some evil wag found him dead and thought it would be funny. Of course, it’s way more likely that Kenneth was murdered.”
“But who would want to murder Kenneth?” Ruth Ann said.
“Oh, Mama, I don’t know. But Kenneth wasn’t quite the paragon you make him out to be, I’m afraid. He had been doing some pretty risky speculating in the last few months, and if he got himself in with some bad folks, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“I think it was Ellery Collins led him astray.”
“Could be, Mama, or maybe even old Buck Collins himself.”
Ruth Ann stiffened. “Buck!”
“Or maybe somebody we don’t know a thing about. I don’t know. I can’t think about it anymore. I have to get to little Ron.”
Olivia swept out of the room, and Ruth Ann leaped to her feet and headed for the foyer.
“Where are you going?” Alafair asked, surprised.
Ruth Ann answered on the run. “I’m telephoning Russ Lawyer to get over here as fast as he can.”
***
Out of the corner of her eye, Alafair saw Lu come down the back stairs from Lester’s room, quietly pass through the hall, and disappear into the kitchen. Taking advantage of everyone’s preoccupation, Alafair slipped out of the room and made her own way to the kitchen. When she walked through the door, the tiny housekeeper looked up at her from her seat at the kitchen table. She may have been surprised to see an interloper. Alafair couldn’t really tell.
Lu stood up.
“I don’t mean to disturb you, Miz Lu, but I was wondering if I could talk to you for a spell?”
“Please no ‘Miz.’ Just Lu, please.”
This was the tenth time over the last fifteen years that Lu had asked her not to use an honorific, but since the woman looked to be at least as old as Noah’s wife, it was hard for Alafair to do. She felt she should be polite to her elders, after all, even if they were Chinese. She nodded. “May I sit down, Lu?”
“I get you something, Miz Tucker?”
Alafair settled herself in a chair across the table from Lu. “What is that you’re drinking? Is that hot tea? That would be nice.”
Without comment, Lu set a small china cup before her and filled it with tea from the teapot sitting on a trivet in the center of the table. The tea was a very pale greenish color, like nothing Alafair had ever seen before, and she picked up the cup and sniffed it with interest. It smelled like flowers. She took a sip and made an appreciative noise. It tasted like flowers, too.
“How I help you, Miz?”
Alafair set the cup down. “Well, Lu, what with all this bad business, Mr. Crawford dying, and all, I expect the house will be full of callers for the next few days. I don’t expect my sister will be up to helping you with the cooking and such, so I thought I’d ask if you could use another pair of hands. Seems you’ll have a lot to do, considering you’re nursing Mr. Yeager, as well. I’ve done plenty of cooking in my time, and nursing as well. I’ve asked my brother-in-law if he’d object to my helping to care for him, and he said that if Ruth Ann and you didn’t mind, he wouldn’t either. I’d feel a lot more useful if I had a task.”
Lu eyed her for a silent second. She wasn’t used to being asked. If Mrs. Yeager felt like cooking or nursing, she did it without consulting her housekeeper. “No, Miz Tucker, I manage, no trouble.”
Alafair nodded and stood up. “I understand. I don’t much like folks banging around my kitchen, either.” She stood to go, but before she reached the door, Lu called her name.
“Miz Tucker, how you know about Mr. Crawford in cold room?”
Alafair started to say something about a coincidence, or a hunch, but something about the exotic little woman looking at her so oddly made her reconsider. “It was a dream.”
Lu neither moved nor changed expression for a long moment and Alafair expected the conversation was over. Eventually, Lu nodded, apparently coming to some sort of decision. “You know chocolate pie?”
Alafair smiled at this. “Do I know how to make chocolate pie? Yes, I know the recipe. I only make it on special occasions. It’s one of Ruth Ann’s favorites, if I remember right.”
“Yes, Miz Yeager talk sometimes about how you make chocolate pie. I never learn to make. Maybe you teach me. We make her a pie.”
“My sister would like that.”
Friday, September 17, 1915
Pee Wee Nickolls was not at all happy about having to take time from his work to call upon the grieving widow of his late oil field partner, Kenneth Crawford. The rainy weather had finally cleared up, and it was a perfect day to bring out a charge of nitro and do some blasting. But he supposed it had to be done, under the circumstances, especially since the widow was now his business partner whether he liked it or not.
Pee Wee wasn’t particularly surprised that Crawford had come to a bad end, not when he thought about the company the man kept. He hadn’t respected Crawford all that much. He was rash and not overly scrupulous, certainly not the kind of man that Pee Wee relished partnering with.
Pee Wee had been on a job in a field over in Osage County when Crawford approached him about going in on an exploratory site in the Cherokee Strip.
“I’ve heard you’re a good oil man,” Crawford had told him. “I need a partner who knows what he’s doing, and I’ll sell you fifty percent interest in the land and mineral rights.”
Pee Wee had always thought of himself as a good judge of folks, and at first he rejected the offer out of hand. But Crawford was nothing if not persistent, and as he kept repeating and even sweetening the deal, Pee Wee had found his resolve weakening. Not that his opinion of Crawford improved. But he was damn tired of being a shooter, no matter that his skill and reputation, not to mention the gigantic hazard premium he received on every job, had given him a bigger bank account than he ever in his life imagined.
After all, what else did he have to spend the money on? Ever since he had left Tennessee when he was a shirttail lad of twelve, after his ma died, he had lived in tents and bunkhouses on oil fields throughout Oklahoma and Texas and Louisiana. He had started out as a novice—a “boweevil,” in oil field parlance—doing any odd job he was given, eventually becoming a roustabout, then a driller. In fact, there wasn’t an oil field job in existence that he hadn’t done, and he’d even done some that don’t exist.
By the time Kenneth Crawford started pestering him back in Osage County, Pee Wee was getting close to twenty-five years old. He had been a shooter for several years, having learned the craft of blasting oil sands and well obstructions with nitroglycerin from a man in Louisiana who looked to be about fifty, but was probably not much older than Pee Wee was now. At first, Pee Wee had bee
n fascinated by the science of it all, by the care and delicacy it took to create and handle and use the stuff, as well as the precision of sending the torpedo down the well to blast it open. And he had been young, after all, and enjoyed blowing the hell out of things. He hadn’t even been too bothered when an ill-considered move with a “dud” torpedo had cost him a couple of fingers and the sight in one eye. He had felt that his scars were his badge of honor, and the ordinary twisters looked at him with respect.
But when Crawford had showed up, Pee Wee was ready for a change. He had been around oil fields for half his life, and had developed almost a sixth sense about the black gold. He could eyeball a piece of land and know instantly if it was a likely prospect. He couldn’t explain his talent himself. He just knew that when it came to oil, he could almost smell it.
So, when Crawford wouldn’t leave him alone, Pee Wee let himself be persuaded to look at the site. What was the loss, after all? He could always get another job if it didn’t pan out. Besides, there was an outside chance that the field in Garfield County was a likely prospect, and Pee Wee Nickolls could run his own show at last.
Crawford had driven him from the train station in Garber out to the property two days later, and the instant he had seen it, he knew that his fortune was about to be made. He sunk every penny he had into the project.
Since then, he had been single-minded. He had thrown up a couple of small buildings on the property, hired as big a crew as he could afford, rented equipment from over in Tulsa, and started drilling his wildcat well in the spot his special sense told him was the most likely to strike.
He never left the field if he didn’t have to, and Pee Wee reckoned that this was one occasion when he had to.
The square was still blocked off for the Founders’ fete, so Pee Wee had to take an annoyingly roundabout route to reach the Yeager house, where the family was holding Kenneth’s visitation. He shifted his truck down into second as he rounded the corner onto Washington and cast a glance at his passenger, a big kid from Waukomis by the name of Zip Kolocek, who as usual was gawking about as though he had never been to a town before. Ol’ Zip was about seventeen, Pee Wee figured, and had been eager to learn the oil business when he came to Pee Wee looking for a job. So Pee Wee had his own boweevil, now, to run and tote for him and the crew.
