The Witch's Grave

by Phillip DePoy

  “Able was going to file charges.” She squinted. “Harding was a no-account, but he’s kin. I asked Able not to do it. Lordy, we fought. He’s a strong-willed man.”

  “The point is,” Skidmore said impatiently, “that you think Harding somehow knew you were the one who told Able.”

  “He knew.” She gave s single nod.

  “How did he find you over there by Dr. Devilin’s house last Thursday?”

  “I told him to meet me and Able at the new church hall that night,” she said, unable to fathom that we hadn’t known that fact. “That’s why we was waiting outside.”

  “For Harding.” I moved closer to her, sensing something in her voice.

  “But he never came before I got mad and run off. Or at least that’s what I thought.” She stared off again. “But he must have been standing by, and heard. I lit out; Harding came after me. Able not much later.”

  “We heard him say he wasn’t going to chase after you.” Andrews folded his arms, glaring down.

  “What accounts for your amazing powers of memory?” I asked him.

  “A background in theatre,” he shot back, “and single malt scotch.”

  “But he did,” Truevine managed to get in. “Able did come for me. Wish to God he hadn’t.”

  “Because you believe, now, that Able attacked Harding to keep him from killing you.” Skid was no more receptive to the idea than Andrews had been.

  “That’s what’s in my head.”

  “But you told us before that you had popped out of your body.” Andrews assumed the tone he’d used on May.

  “I did,” Truevine said, shifting uncomfortably.

  “And then yesterday you thought you’d killed Able.” Skid leaned closer to her. “Why are you coming up with this new mess now?”

  “Leave her alone!” May barked, sensing a growing tension in the room.

  Still a little thickheaded, I used the distraction of her voice to shoot my hand to Billy’s blanket, toss it back.

  Billy had on layers of clothes given him to keep him warm. The top layer consisted of a very fine tweed jacket; Marks and Spencers was my guess. The pants were gray wool, pleated, too large for Billy’s frame. It was the kind of outfit a young man in our town would wear to a church meeting.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Andrews stammered, stepping back from the body.

  It seemed to me he was just coming to grips with the notion that it was a corpse. After what we’d seen in the woods, Billy’s last remains were nothing.

  “I believe if you check you’ll find that coat and pants belonged to Harding,” I said to Skid. “That’s the only reason Harding was found naked. Someone wanted to keep Billy warm.”

  The boy was pencil thin, chalky white dry skin red in patches. It was possible he’d died from a simple combination of pneumonia and dehydration.

  Truevine had done her best, comforting him, giving him a salve for his itchy rash. He’d died without speaking. She told us she was happy for him; his suffering was done. That night he would walk in sweet fields arrayed in living green by rivers of delight.

  Skidmore’d been the one to put a hand inside the nice tweed coat and read the words handcrafted by Winton Pfife for Harding Pinhurst III.

  “Who gave Billy these clothes?” He looked around the room carefully, then addressed me.

  “Of course,” Andrews realized, “there’s no reason you would know that the scarecrow was Billy’s chum.”

  “Is that true?” Skid asked May. “He and this boy travel together?”

  She avoided his eyes.

  I rubbed my eyes, still a little weak. The light was dim, shadows amber and rust-colored. May sat by Billy’s feet, avoiding my stare.

  “Someone’s missing,” I began, “besides Rud—an old man, barely said anything, vacant stare.”

  “Left early this morning,” May muttered. “He didn’t talk much.”

  “Someone left?” Skid said, eyes on May. “How long ago?”

  “Sun came out today and it looked like good walking weather. He’ll make it to … what’s that town where they pan for gold still?”

  “Dahlonega.”

  “It is my belief,” May pronounced, “that’s where he’ll be.”

  “How was he dressed?” Skid sighed, taking out a small spiral pad and a pencil.

  “He had new sneakers.” May grinned.

  “I’ve noticed,” Skid said to her, “that everyone does.” He knew where they’d come from.

  “He had whiskers,” Andrews chimed in. “And if you tell your cohorts to look for a bearded zombie in new shoes I guarantee he’s the one they’ll pick up.”

  “He did bear a lifeless eye,” I agreed, getting to my feet.

  “Description,” Skid insisted, glaring at May.

  It occurred to me then that Skid was in his policeman’s mode and may have seen all the residents of Adele as potential problems, whereas I saw them more as members of a community. Theirs were cold relationships, borne of necessity, fear, privation, but something about the bond they forged—as much to the place as to one another—was meaningful.

  “Sorry I brought it up,” I said slowly, “about the old man. I think the scarecrow is a greater concern, don’t you? He just lit out of here.”

  “Damn it.” Skid moved quickly toward the entrance. He poked his head out, looked around, confirmed his suspicion.

  “There you are,” Andrews said plainly, “as I’ve said all along: the scarecrow did it.”

  “I’m not eliminating the old man!” Skid shot back.

  “That guy?” Andrews shook his head. “He couldn’t snap a twig; he’d never muscle an angry man fifty years his junior.”

  “Maybe,” Skid said, slowing, “but I got to have him picked up.”

  “It was the scarecrow,” Andrews said emphatically, “and he’s escaped!”

  “Stop calling him that,” May said softly.

  “We don’t know his name,” Andrews shot back. “You don’t give out names here.”

  “You don’t listen,” she mumbled, staring into the coals. “People don’t listen to us.”

  “Do you know his name, May?” Skid demanded.

  “Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” she said stubbornly, not looking up.

  “I don’t have time to argue with you now,” Skid said, shoving his pad and pencil back into a pocket. “He can’t have got far.” He took off for the door.

  “Do you have a motive in mind,” I began, “for his killing Harding?”

  “You don’t think Harding had a wallet in those nice wool pants Billy’s wearing?” Skid said from the entrance gate. “It’s gone. I checked every pocket.”

  “You did?” Andrews said, impressed. “What are you, like a magician? I never saw a thing.”

  “I have to go out there and find that man,” Skid said again, slower. “Maybe he didn’t mean to kill Harding. But the wallet, the money, that could be a motive.”

  “But you’re not running after him,” Andrews said.

  “I need more help,” he said, staring out over the graveyard. “Plus I have to take Truevine in, call an ambulance for Billy.”

  “Not sure about this robbery motive,” I ventured. “Does it sound all that plausible that the scarecrow was lurking in the woods at night on the off-chance someone might happen along with a wallet?”

  “I can’t make up my mind,” Skid said, embarrassed to admit it. “But I’m not going off half-cocked, chasing through the cemetery again. Not without I think it out a minute.”

  “‘Some sudden qualm hath struck you at the heart,’” Andrews quoted, “‘and dimmed your eyes, that you can read no further.’”

  “Hamlet,” I guessed. “It’s a play about a man who can’t make up his mind.”

  “Henry VI, Part II,” Andrews corrected. “You quoted it earlier.”

  “I did?”

  “Deputy Needle, here, is struck with a qualm,” Andrews repeated. “Now he doesn’t think the scarecrow did it.”
<
br />   Blue Mountain is a small town, not sophisticated. For example, its deputies are not issued personal body radios the way some servants of a larger municipality might be. We had to walk back to the mortuary where Skid’s car was parked. We had to call the hospital for Billy’s body, the state troopers for help in finding our suspect, and of course we needed the car to take Truevine to jail.

  She was in custody, though that word was too strong for her circumstance: no handcuffs, no harsh words. Skid simply asked her if she’d mind coming into town to visit Able. She came silently, Mona Lisa smile and all.

  Andrews wondered why we didn’t just go to Rud’s cabin, break in if he wasn’t there, and make calls. Skid told him that Rud had no phone, which Andrews found impossible to believe, twice asking me what century I thought it was. It made for an amusing walk back.

  I tried to engage Truevine in a more useful conversation.

  “Thank you for helping me the other night,” I opened. “And just now.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “You know the moss you used to help stanch my wound is something in which the medical community would be quite interested.”

  “No, they wouldn’t,” she said softly. “What’d make them listen to a dumb old country girl? Best just keep all that nonsense to myself. That’s what Able says.”

  “I see.”

  “He’s smart.”

  “Able’s concerned for your reputation,” I told her as gently as I could. “Isn’t that one of the things you were fighting about the other night?”

  “Shoot, Dr. Devilin,” she laughed, “you’re not so old you don’t know young’uns argue when they’re in love. Didn’t you ever fight with Lucinda? She’s real sweet. You know you ought to marry that’un.”

  “That’s the consensus,” I agreed, “but I’m more interested in you. Able doesn’t want you to make too many spells anymore. Wants to save your position in the community.”

  “Able wants a normal wife and family,” she said, swallowing, remembering a speech she’d heard, it seemed to me. “The things people say about my life’ll be forgot in time if I let go of the ways.”

  “The ways your mother taught you about plants and stones and animals in the woods, you mean.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Truevine.” I slowed a little. “It’s my opinion that if you forget those things, then something important will go out of the world. It would be a poorer place. I like you just fine the way you are.”

  “Well, thank you, Dr. Devilin,” she answered sweetly. “That’s a plenty coming from such as you. But I know why you say it.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “You’re just like me. You have ways too.”

  “Well, you’re right, in a way,” I said indulgently, an amused parent. “Although I take a somewhat more psychological approach. These things are more metaphorical than actual to me.”

  “Maybe.” She kicked up a trio of brown leaves; they whirled, settled back on the ground. “But I seen her too, you know.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Adele,” Truevine said. “Your great-grandmother. I seen her in there too, in the crypt amongst the others. You want me to keep my ways so you won’t be the only one of our kind left on Blue Mountain.”

  We walked the rest of the way in silence.

  The ride back into town was, to my relief, primarily consumed by a discussion of food. Skidmore insisted we all ride to town together, mostly, I thought, so he could keep track of us. Andrews sat in front with the deputy, I tried to relax sitting in back with Truevine. Andrews put in an enthusiastic bid for Etta’s. Skidmore didn’t have time to eat.

  “There’s a fugitive loose, Dr. Andrews.” Skid’s voice was clipped, his ears a little red.

  “Deputy Needle,” Andrews explained archly, leaning over the seat and speaking to Truevine, “is running for office. He’s more concerned with how things look than hospitality to a guest.”

  Nine times out of ten that sort of kidding would have provoked a smile from Skidmore. This, alas, proved the tenth time.

  Brakes squealed, pulling the squad car to the side of the road; Skid slammed the transmission into park.

  “You’re on vacation,” Skid said to Andrews, tightly coiled. “I understand that. But a man’s been murdered, Dev’s been shot, my wife’s brother got hung up by his neck, and there’s three hundred bodies in my backyard. If I’m short on manners, pick any one of those as my excuse. But if you bring up my election one more time, I’ll put you in the jailhouse and come up with a reason to keep you there. Are we clear?”

  “Absolutely,” Andrews sputtered, face drained of all color.

  The rest of the drive was dead quiet.

  In that stillness I took a moment to reflect. On many occasions I’d seen old Sheriff Maddox exhibit such angry behavior, but this eruption was something of a rarity for Skidmore. For the first time I worried that being sheriff would not be the best thing for my oldest friend.

  The deputy allowed Truevine to talk with Able while he tried to figure if he wanted to arrest her. Andrews and I slipped out for a bite at Etta’s. We were both as curious as we were hungry but reasoned that asking questions in front of Skidmore would only exacerbate the dark mood. Skid allowed us to leave only after we promised to return within half an hour’s time.

  Etta’s place was unusually slow. We walked past her into the kitchen. Her white eyebrows fluttered. I found fresh yellow wax beans, bright cold beets, country fried steak, just enough to tide me over. Andrews on the other hand heaped his plate: fried chicken, chicken and dumplings, stewed apples, black-eyed peas, buttered grits, chopped greens, a dab of sweet potato casserole on top. He was barely able to manage his iced tea glass.

  We took a table by the window. He somehow managed to eat a million miles an hour and still talk.

  “I’ve had it,” he fumed. “There we are, the murderer in our grasp, and we trek back to town so Deputy Dawg can validate his own gestalt. Meanwhile, the scarecrow is halfway to Donegal or whatever the gold town is called.”

  “Dahlonega.”

  “Either we chuck it,” he went on, “or we get back up there as soon as I’m done eating and catch the bastard ourselves so I can have some peace in my vacation!”

  “I guess it is a little disconcerting to think about all those people roaming the hills around my house,” I said calmly, forkful of wax beans in hand, “while we’re watching old movies on television and drinking illegal liquor.”

  “Damn right,” he affirmed, biting into his chicken leg. “Creeps me out. Like maggots crawling on those dead bodies.”

  “All right, first,” I stopped him, putting down my fork, “I’m eating. And second, those people who live in the cemetery are hardly maggots.”

  “They don’t live there,” he shot back, in a clearly derisive imitation of the scarecrow. “They only stay a month or so.”

  “My point is—”

  “Why isn’t your point,” he interrupted, “to finish your meal and go get the scarecrow?”

  “Because he didn’t do it,” I said simply.

  “Of course he did it.” Andrews shook his head. “You’re the one who came up with the genius idea that Billy was wearing Harding’s clothes, and Billy certainly didn’t get up and take them off Harding himself. Scarecrow is the big brother figure; he’s the one who did it.”

  “He’s the one who took the clothes,” I agreed, “but he’s not the one who killed Harding.”

  “You’re not back to Able or Truevine?” He looked wildly out the window. “I’m really tired of this. And, incidentally, how are you going to have a happy ending if the young lovers did it?”

  “It’s not a play, Winton.”

  Startled by the uncharacteristic use of his first name, he stopped eating. “Well, of course it’s a play. It’s a perfect Shakespearean construct: the old lovers, Hek and June; mythic lovers, Davy and Eloise; broken lovers, your great-grandparents; false love, Rud; righteous young love: Truevin
e and Able.”

  “Nicely worked out,” I sighed, “and I’m impressed you remember all the names and relationships, but you’re making a perfect phenomenological mistake.”

  “Oh, here we go,” he groused, shoving his nearly empty plate away from him.

  “Seriously,” I went on, “you’re ordering events and relationships according to your own perspective. You’re making them fit your preconceived notions rather than letting them be what they are.”

  “And what are they?”

  “They are what they are,” I assured him. “I’m not making the same mistake as you.”

  “And how does this Let-It-Be attitude get us any answers or any action?”

  “If you’re finished eating,” I said, taking a final swig of iced tea and standing, “I’ll show you.”

  “Christ.” He shoveled in the last large forkful of chicken and dumplings, chased it with a loud gulp of iced tea, and shot out of his chair. “You know who killed Harding once and for all. You’re positive.”

  “I’m pretty sure.” I dropped a twenty onto the table. “Luncheon is on me.”

  “You’re damned right it is, Sherlock.”

  The afternoon wasn’t exactly warm, but the sun had done its best to heat the asphalt; the air didn’t bite. The sky was pale, dotted here and there with black birds, dark pinches of night, reminders of the sky’s true color.

  “Damn it.” Andrews stopped short. “Your truck is still at the mortuary.”

  “It is.”

  “So where are we going?”

  “We have to get Skid,” I said, heading for the storefront station. “We promised.”

  “Do we have to?” Andrews fell in beside me. “He was mean to me.”

  Skidmore was still at his desk, head in hands, exactly as we’d left him, staring at blank paperwork.

  He lifted his face at the sound of the door.

  “Eat?” he said.

  “Did,” I answered.

  “Good?”

  “Mm.”