A Comedy of Heirs

by Rett MacPherson

  RETURNED ON 4 AUG 1942

  WE LOVE YOU, DADDY

  “What am I looking at?” Damon asked.

  “A victim,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s one of Nathaniel Keith’s victims. For some unknown reason, Nate Keith had a way with the ladies. He either had an exceptional libido or he forced the women to have affairs with him. Which wouldn’t surprise me. He seemed like the type of person that gathered information on people to use later,” I said.

  “You mean, he blackmailed the women into sleeping with him?” Damon asked.

  “I can’t prove that. It’s just a theory I have. This theory is based solely on my own inability to believe that women could find him attractive and want him in any way. We don’t know what life was like in 1948 in the clearing farthest away from anything. Maybe the women around here were just bored and craved the excitement. Either way, Mrs. Clayton was one of those women.”

  “And?” Damon asked.

  “According to the investigating officer’s notes, Harlan Clayton hung himself when he found out that not only had his beloved wife had an affair with Nathaniel Keith, but their youngest son was actually Nate’s and not his. Of course, it didn’t help that Nate Keith announced it to all the neighbors at a meeting one night when he was drunk.”

  “Oh Jeez,” Damon said.

  “Yup,” I said. “Well, we should get going.”

  We turned around and had walked about three feet away from Harlan Clayton’s grave when I suddenly remembered something. I turned around and walked back.

  “What?” Damon asked. “What is it?”

  “The date he died,” I said.

  “What about it?”

  “It was August fourth.”

  “And that means what, Torie?” he asked.

  “The same day, six years later, that somebody put a chunk of metal into Nate Keith,” I said. “Six years to the day.”

  “Does that mean something?” he asked.

  “Either it means something or it’s one heck of a coincidence.”

  Thirty

  Damon and I said our goodbyes and I dropped him off at his hotel. We’d see each other tomorrow at the wake. I couldn’t believe how many trips I would have made to Pine Branch before this reunion was over. Normally, I go down two or three times a year. I’d already done that just this week.

  I entered my house and it was terribly quiet. More quiet than it needed to be. Like it was deliberately quiet. “Hello?” I asked.

  Nobody answered.

  I walked into the kitchen and I was immediately bombarded with, “Surprise!” There was my mother, her mother, the sheriff, Rudy, Rachel, Mary and my father.

  “What is this all about?” I asked.

  “Go out on the back porch and see,” my mother said.

  “Okay.” I was a little hesitant because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on. I headed in the direction of the door.

  “It’s not a surprise about the baby,” Mary said and smiled.

  “It’s not?” I asked. Which meant it was. “Okay.”

  I opened the back door on the porch and there was a baby bed with a gorgeous blue and pink quilt with appliquéd rocking horses, a matching dresser and chest that looked like antiques, and a hand-carved wooden cradle. I was speechless. My hand went to my mouth and I just stood there for at least a minute.

  “The baby bed is from us!” Mary announced, unable to hold her excitement any longer.

  “What do you mean?” I asked and turned around.

  “Colin and I got you the chest and dresser from his antique shop,” Mom explained. “Rudy and the girls got you the baby bed. Oh, and the quilt is from Mom, your grandma. And your father made the cradle,” she said.

  “You made the cradle?” I asked. “You just found out yesterday.”

  “I started making it when you had Mary, but I didn’t get it finished in time. Remember, you had her almost four weeks early. So I put it in my basement and forgot about it. I worked on it all night to get it sanded and stained,” he said.

  “Wow,” I said and turned back to the porch. “I don’t know what to say.” Tears welled up in my eyes and before I could stop them they spilled over and down my cheeks.

  “Oh Jeez, she’s crying,” Rudy said.

  “She’s pregnated,” Mary said. “She’s s’posed to cry.”

  “Who told you that?” my dad asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mary said.

  “You did a good job on that cradle,” my grandmother said.

  “You didn’t do too bad a job on that quilt for an old blind lady,” my father answered.

  They all went about their own conversations while I stood there and cried. I couldn’t believe they had all gone to this much trouble so early in the pregnancy. I know part of it was because I’d been feeling so tired and stressed out from this whole family reunion and Uncle Jed. They wanted to make me feel better. It was also because they were excited about the baby and happy to have a new addition. And so was I.

  I felt Rudy’s hand on my shoulder and he turned me around to face him. His eyes were still purply underneath, but the bruises were starting to turn greenish. They were healing and he did look better, even though every time I looked at him I grimaced. “We love you,” he said.

  “Sometimes I forget that,” I said, with tears still running down my face.

  “We all do,” he said. “We all think from time to time that nobody really loves us or pays attention to us.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Behind all the bruises were still those brown eyes that I loved so much. They still spoke to me without saying a word. “Are we going to leave the furniture out here on the porch?” I asked.

  “No,” Rudy said. “We’re going to put it in the basement until your mother’s wedding.”

  I came back into the kitchen and my grandmother walked over and pinched my cheek as hard as she could. “Still frisky, eh?”

  “Yeah, Gert. Still frisky,” I answered, rubbing my cheek. Gosh, that smarted.

  Her face wrinkled up as she smiled from ear to ear. Her eyes seemed to disappear behind her wide cheekbones and heavy brow. “Spice of life, kiddo. It’s the spice of life,” she said. Then she patted my stomach. “It’s gonna be a boy.”

  “Rudy will be happy to hear that,” I said.

  My father came over to me and messed up my hair. God! Pinched cheeks and ruffled hair. Nobody ever takes me seriously. “I think that you should invite Aunt Ruth out to lunch tomorrow. Before the wake,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Just her. Nobody else. She might talk to you, if you ask nicely,” he said. “And … beg, plead, bribe…”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said.

  “No, seriously,” he said. “I told her that you know. I told her that I told you.”

  So, he took responsibility for telling me, even though he didn’t actually tell me. I think he’d just admitted to me that he should have done it in the first place, so he was doing it now. “Okay,” I said. “I will.”

  “Sheriff,” I said. He dropped my mother’s hand and looked at me. He didn’t say anything. He just sort of stood at attention, waiting for whatever it was I wanted. “Thank you very much for the furniture,” I said. “That was a very nice gesture.”

  I couldn’t believe I’d actually just said that. Even though he deserved it. It irked me that he deserved it. That he’d actually done something that was nice to me. It’s harder to hold a grudge this way, darn it.

  “You’re welcome,” he said and smiled.

  “Real quick, before I forget,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Harlan Clayton, the one that hung himself,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “He hung himself on August fourth,” I said. “Now it could just be a coincidence that Nate Keith was shot on the exact same date, six years later. Then again, it might not be. Clayton had sixteen children. I’m thinking maybe one of them migh
t have killed Nate Keith on the anniversary of their father’s suicide.”

  “It’s a possibility,” he said.

  “I’m going to check it out later,” I said. “The whole McCarthy connection makes me uncomfortable, too. Have you checked on Bradley Ferguson.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Your hunches may have been right. I don’t see how the gun could have misfired.”

  “Why?”

  “If it had misfired while he was shooting game the fatal wounds would have been to his face and neck area. You know, because he’s holding the gun up to aim. It wasn’t, though. The undertaker made extensive notes that the wounds were in the gut area. Other than that, I haven’t found anything else on it,” he said.

  “Wow,” I said. Sounded familiar. It was interesting information, but just what did it mean?

  “Are you ever going to stop? I mean, is there ever going to come a point when you just say, ‘oh, who cares?’ and quit looking?” he asked.

  “When I’ve covered every angle. Then if it can’t come out in the wash, then it can’t come out. After all, it is a fifty-year-old stain.”

  Thirty-one

  On one of the bookshelves in my office at the Gaheimer House was a publication that I needed. Even though there was a tour going on, in which Helen was doing a fine and respectable job—except I think I talk a lot louder—I snuck into the office. I walked down the hall just as she took the tour up the steps.

  I scanned the bookshelves in my office. Land records, census index, mortality schedule and so forth. There on the second shelf was the book I was looking for: Partut County Marriages 1880–1940. I had compiled this book myself, from hours and hours in the courthouse. I compiled one for 1800–1880 as well which the Partut County Historical Society also published.

  There was the marriage record for Harlan Clayton and his wife, Elizabeth. I checked the index for all the Claytons. There were quite a few. I went to every one, then flipped back to the index and got the page number for the next. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I was just hoping that something would pop out at me and scream “Hey, I’m peculiar! Take note.”

  That’s exactly what I got. It was as if as soon as I saw it, that was exactly what I was looking for. In 1937 one Sarah Clayton married one Hubert McCarthy. Hubert married one of the children of Harlan Clayton, who later hung himself on August 4. Then, six years later, Nate Keith is murdered on the same day and who is the investigating officer? Hubert McCarthy. And who does he happen to be best friends with? The victim’s son. And what case is the only one he never solved? This one.

  Was it just me or did this just not jibe? Well, actually, it jibed too well. This was just too perfect. I sat on the edge of my desk and sighed a big sigh. I looked at my watch. I had scheduled lunch with Aunt Ruth in thirty minutes at Fräulein Krista’s.

  Just how was I going to confront Mr. McCarthy about this? I couldn’t just call him up and say, Hey, I think your wife did it. Or could I? If his wife had done it, and if I had proof, would I turn it over? The woman was dead, right? She’d been seeking revenge for her father’s death even though that by no means made it right. What would happen? Hubert McCarthy might be made to answer for his coverup, so to speak, and it would go in the solved file.

  This just didn’t feel like I thought it would.

  Besides, I didn’t know that she did it. And might never know. I took the book with me as I turned the lights off in my office and headed over to Fräulein Krista’s.

  Aunt Ruth, early as always, was already seated. I watched her from a distance as she absently rubbed the rim on her water glass. What must it be like to live a complete and total fabrication? She lived in a make-believe perfect world. Either because she couldn’t face reality or she’d faced it and decided that she didn’t want the rest of the world to know what her life really was.

  I walked over and sat down opposite her. “Hello, Aunt Ruth. It is good of you to come,” I said.

  “Torie,” she said. “Your father explained to me what has happened.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what he’d told her, so I had to ask. “What did he say?”

  She pushed her glasses up a little farther, but they just slipped back down. Her lipstick was an orange cakelike substance that I couldn’t help but stare at. “He’s told you the truth about Nathaniel Keith,” she said. “I’ll have you know, he had no right to do it.”

  “Well, I am his daughter. Maybe he wanted me to know. I haven’t told anybody else,” I said, and then remembered that I had told Damon. He was the most trustworthy cousin I had, though, so I dismissed it.

  “And now you can’t rest until you know the truth,” she said in a haughty tone.

  “I don’t mean for it to come across in a bad way, Aunt Ruth. It’s not like I’m going to shout it from the rooftops. I just have to know. Would you please tell me what you know? Or what you saw?” I asked. I was amazed at how I had managed to keep my voice calm and actually sound sincere when asking her politely for information.

  “I don’t see what it will hurt, now,” she said. “Except of course I should just say no because you have always been such a wretched little girl.”

  “I know you’re not real fond of me, Aunt Ruth. I know that I was a brat as a child, but I’ve done nothing to you as an adult, nothing that didn’t stem from the fact that you and I are on opposite sides of the fence. Is that a crime, Aunt Ruth?” I asked. “Is it a crime to be different and to think differently?”

  She said nothing.

  “Please, just tell me what you saw that day,” I said. “I will never ask you for another thing and I will walk a wide path around you.”

  “I told your father I would tell you. Only because he is my baby brother and I love him,” she declared. Whatever the reason, I didn’t really care. And I hated catering to her. “I forgive him for telling you,” she said. “Although, of all people, why he had to tell you, I’ll never know.”

  Because he knew if he told me, I’d do something about it.

  “It was a blistering hot day,” she began. “I was engaged at the time, but wasn’t married yet, so I would still go with Mom and Dad for family outings and such.”

  Just then the waitress came up to take our order. Aargh! Just as she was getting comfortable. “I’ll have the hot turkey on sourdough,” I said, hurriedly. “Extra pickles, Dr Pepper and bring me a big order of those seasoned fries.”

  Aunt Ruth stopped and looked at the menu, stroking her chin, then finally ordered her lunch. “I want the quiche, with a salad and tea. No lemon,” she said.

  I waited patiently as she commented on the outfit that the waitress wore and the lack of speed with which she took our order. Nothing like this occurs in her home town … and, okay, she was ready to get back to the subject of Nate Keith.

  “So I went with Mom and Dad to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Your daddy and Aunt Sissy went to the creek to swim. The day seemed like any other day. Uncle Granville was there talking about his sick horse and how he and Aunt Lizzie were finally going to take a real vacation to California, just as soon as he sold off those extra fifty acres that he didn’t need anymore,” she said.

  The waitress was at the table with our drinks but Aunt Ruth kept right on talking. “I noticed that Grandma wasn’t acting right,” she stated.

  “Wait,” I said. “Della Ruth was acting strange—how?”

  “Nervous,” she said. “I asked her about it and she said she had a bad feeling. Bad feeling that something was going to happen. Well, we all just figured that was just her acting spooky.”

  “Acting spooky? What do you mean by that?”

  “She’d do that, every now and then. Say she had a bad feeling and a day or two would go by and if somebody in the next county died, she’d say, See? Told ya. I think she just wanted attention,” Aunt Ruth said and stirred her tea.

  “Except this time, she was right,” I said.

  Aunt Ruth ignored that statement and went on where she’d left off. “Then she and Gr
andpa started fighting. I’ve never been able to figure out just what they were arguing about. Grandpa would say something like, ‘I don’t believe you. You’re a lying bitch.’ Which he said a lot. I mean, this wasn’t new behavior.”

  “But you don’t know what the subject matter was?” I asked.

  “No. Before you knew it, though, he was throwing things at her and so forth. Jed showed up and took him outside to calm down,” she said.

  I can’t tell you how afraid I was that she was going to tell me that Uncle Jed had shot him. Please, don’t let that be it.

  “Sissy and your daddy came back and Mom sent Sissy upstairs. Your daddy went outside,” she said. She took a drink of her tea and began to twist the fake strand of pearls around her neck. “I heard some commotion going on and I went into the living room and looked out the window.”

  “Which window?”

  “The one on the side of the house, not the one that looked out onto the porch,” she said. “I heard Grandpa say something along the lines of ‘Go on back to where you came from,’ that whoever it was wasn’t wanted around here and so forth. I think he said a few profanities and insulted the person and then I heard ‘Move, I said!’ in this hateful voice and then the gunshot.”

  I sat there for a moment taking everything she said and storing it in my mental filing cabinet. I didn’t want to rush her, yet I didn’t want her to think I wasn’t interested, either. I’d considered taking notes on the napkins, except they were cloth.

  “Who was it?” I asked. Please don’t let it be Uncle Jed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Aargh! That’s not possible,” I said. My voice actually cracked from the stress. I shoved my hands through my short hair and then took a deep breath. “You saw them.”

  “I saw somebody. I can’t say who.”

  “You can’t or you won’t.”

  “I can’t because I didn’t get a good enough look to exactly say,” she said back to me.

  “What was he wearing? Was it farmer’s clothes or a wealthy man’s clothes?”

  She watched her glass intently for half a minute and then she looked me square in the eyes. “It was a dress. She was wearing a dress.”