Death in Living Gray

by John Clayton

  ***

  “How’s my favorite citizen of Mason County?” No sexual innuendo. Just an oblique opening line from a short, trim figure leaning over the table. I glanced up at the man, who had a black pencil-thin mustache, a polka dot bow tie setting off a gray pinstripe suit, and polished black shoes matching the black hair slicked back over a perfectly oval skull. Clarence P. Yancy: real estate salesperson, insurance agent, mortgage broker, occasional purveyor of used cars—and the reason I was off extramarital affairs.

  Actually, he wasn’t all that bad, if you can stand a surfeit of prissiness. And he did work hard, what with all his various jobs. It’s just that Fanny started calling him Old Oilhead because of his hair styling, and then I started to call him that when Fanny was around. How can you sleep with a man if you can’t tell your best friend, and how can you tell your best friend that you’re sleeping with Old Oilhead? Even if it wasn’t much worse than his real name: Clarence P. Yancy. I couldn’t even use him to make Jack Senior jealous. All the guys thought he was a wimp, since he never swapped any womanizing stories when he had a beer with the gang up at the bar. So, about six months ago, I dropped him. Besides, the prissiness was really beginning to wear.

  Speaking of which, standing behind Old Oilhead was an actual Prissy: the chubby svelte Chair of the Mason County Board of Supervisors, Priscilla Lattimore Goodenough, the second-cousin-once-removed-in-law of the Episcopal minister. The reader may rightly complain that chubby svelte is a contradiction in terms, but that’s the only way to describe her. Almost as tubby as me, but with the lumps in all the right places, wearing a green dress with one of those grayish sheens that softly highlight every undulation. Blond hair, not a strand out of place, a pug nose, coral pumps, and a single strand coral necklace. Her husband, Jeff, was the only undertaker in Mason County, so she could afford to spend a bundle on clothes. But I must admit that I’d never seen anyone spend so much to cover so much with such a rewarding effect. Well, it got her elected and reelected. That, and the way she kowtowed to the commuters and the campaign for a Country Clean Way of Life.

  Old Oilhead was continuing his unctuous courtesies. “We saw your van in the parking lot and decided to stop and offer any help we could.” What he really meant was that he’d like the inside scoop about the body. But his sincerity was really sincere. I mean, he really did try to sell nice used cars, which had only been driven by little old ladies on Sundays. He must have been doing something right because he was making a decent living. In his capacity as real estate agent, he had been in charge of some modifications to the old Pickerill estate while J. Augustus and his bimbo bride were off cavorting on the Riviera last year. I’d been selected to redo the rec room in funky country modern: tractor parts. Old Oilhead and I used every bedroom in the house. He cleaned up each one immediately afterward, rather that waiting to do them all just before the Pickerills came home, like I would have done. I don’t know which came first: fear of losing Fanny’s approbation for having an affair with him, or irritation at watching him cheerfully tidy up any mess I made.

  “We were on our way to meet the representatives of the Martin Consortium,” Prissy said. “They’re thinking of locating a computer company in the county, and who is better to show them around than Clarence?” Old Oilhead took a polite little bow as Prissy continued,”High tech, you know. We’ve grown beyond the chicken plucking houses. This county needs white collar business and gentleman farmers to appeal to the commuters.”

  Old Oilhead nodded seriously again, and I tried my best to emulate him as Prissy ploughed on. “In fact, the Mason County Poultry Processing Plant is closing down. Since the commuters have given such a boost to the economy, local labor has become too expensive to chop off chicken heads. So MCPPP is moving to West Virginia, leaving the plant abandoned. I thought you might be interested in volunteering to help turn the old factory into an artist colony. It’s just the sort of white collar atmosphere that the county wants.”

  I didn’t try to explain that welding was a dirty art form, as I looked down at my own somewhat singed jeans with at least one burn hole. I did have a white-collar blouse, but that was more by chance than anything else. Prissy turned the plow at the end of the field and kept right on gee-hawing along.

  “But I won’t ask right now, since I’m sure you’ll be busy explaining dead bodies and missing jewels. I do really hope that these little incidents won’t give the county a bad name after all our work to publicize that it’s such a safe place to raise kids.” She ignored Hank Cooper, who was sticking a hand in the side window, trying to get a beer from the cooler behind the bar. He was rewarded by having it whacked pretty hard with a stick of one-by-one inch lumber that Jezebel kept for that purpose. Hank went jumping out into the parking lot, screaming and waving his arm over his head.

  Old Oilhead, also ignoring Hank, leaned close over the table. “I hear you lost your tenants. I’ve got several prospects who might be interested. Let me know when I can show the place.”

  Well, I’d have taken a tenant from the Devil if necessary, so I accepted the offer. “It’ll take about two weeks to repair all the physical damage. But forgetting the corpse might take a little longer.”

  “There’s no requirement to say anything about that—unless, of course, the place is haunted. That’s not the case, is it?”

  I allowed as I didn’t think so, as he slid his hand down from the chain and grasped mine, “Deal, then. I’ve missed seeing you around. Maybe we could get together and just yack sometimes.” With an almost imperceptible and very proper wink, he turned to escort Prissy toward the front door, stopping to speak to Jack Senior, who glad-handed Priscilla and put a familiar arm around Old Oilhead’s shoulder. I felt pretty much like throwing up. Damn Fanny’s perpetual lateness, leaving me to deal with them alone! I had to go to the ladies’ room, among other things to check out my face—which must have been by now, if my mother’s early admonitions were correct, frozen permanently into a grimace.

  ***

  I always took off my belt, tied it around the door handle, and hung onto the other end when I used the john in the ladies’ room. The original restrooms hung out over the river, for obvious reasons. Even with the advent of indoor plumbing, nobody thought to move the toilets. The gradual erosion of the riverbank had left the structure in a precarious position: gently at first, and then more acutely, sloping down at the back. The floor had failed to the point where there were large stress cracks in the wall. It was almost like being in the great outdoors.

  Looking out through one of the cracks, I could see Henry Adams and Stuart welding a brace between the floor under the sunroom and the riverbed—which was mostly dry brown rocks except when the river was at flood stage. They probably needed a brace under the toilets too, but money was tight. And besides, you couldn’t modernize too aggressively in Virginia because of the great respect for tradition.

  Just then, into my cramped view bounced Fanny, dressed in khaki Bermuda shorts and a white semi-military shirt with epaulets. From her shoulder hung a large tan leather bag that served as purse, briefcase, and general catchall. She strode across the dried mud, and, waving at Henry, pointed to the sunroom. Henry nodded his head, indicating the current weld and apparently agreeing to come in as soon as it was done. Hank Cooper, who was by now down in the middle of the creek, standing precariously on two semi-wet rocks, taking a leak, waved as Fanny passed going up the bank. And Fanny imperturbably waved back.

  I pulled my way hand over hand back up my belt, wedged a leg behind the sink, leaned back, and took a good look at my face. Most of the grimace was gone. I was feeling more relaxed now that Fanny was here. She was good at getting action started. Doing anything was better than waiting for the slow wheels of the local justice to turn. It cheered me up, until I remembered that the reason we had to do something was that we, the Abernathy clan, had been in possession of an unidentified corpse and some stolen jewelry, and if possession is nine-tenths of the law, then we must, in the eyes of the law, most p
robably be the people who put them in our possession.

  ***

  Henry and Stuart were coming in the front door as I headed back from the ladies’ room. Fanny was sitting so she could write on the table that was the center of the conversation. Jack Senior was looking attentive from his perch on a swing to one side. Fanny took a swig from her double bourbon, drew a line across a page, and announced, “We’ll list everything we know, then everything that’s a question, and then assign a person to investigate each unknown. The sheriff, bless him, will need some help on this one.” Organizing was Fanny’s forte. Her husband had been one of the contractors selling authentic country tract houses to the commuters in the northern part of Mason County, and after he died of a heart attack, Fanny ran the company with the help of his old staff. Or rather, they ran it and she oversaw. But she was used to getting her way. Jack Senior had wheezed at the condescending reference to his old buddy, Lou Overhouse, but it was pretty close to the truth and he knew it.

  “What we know is…” It was Fanny’s way of asking a question, directed at me.

  I guess I looked a little nonplussed at the abruptness of it all, so Jack Senior filled in. “While Prudence and Henry were installing a tractor sofa in the living room of the manor house, the floor gave way, dropping the tractor and Prudence into the basement. The force of the fall must have shaken loose the front of the fireplace, exposing a skeletal corpse, in a Confederate lieutenant’s uniform, and a diamond bracelet. The bracelet was part of a larger cache reported missing by Mr. J. Augustus Pickerill last year. Sheriff Overhouse is investigating with the aid of the state police. He has asked us for a list of relatives who might have known about the secret compartment. I drew up the list last night. We’re still waiting for the results of the autopsy.” Six sentences. Would that he had been so concise and thorough about trust funds! Jack Senior laid a neatly hand-written list of relatives on the table, next to Fanny’s pad.

  Fanny took it as her due, adjusted her glasses, and looked back at me. “What else do we know?”

  I blinked, so she looked at Henry, and then around at Stuart. No response. So she looked back to Jack Senior, who said, “The Abernathys are a little financially strapped. We may, for that reason, be prime suspects.” He didn’t look at me. “That’s why you’re here asking questions and we’re not waiting for Sheriff Overhouse to do his job.”

  Fanny took another shot of bourbon and said, “Then, what is it we don’t know and need to find out?”

  “Who knew about the hiding place in the fireplace?” I asked, trying to appear as more than an appendage to the conference.

  Fanny looked again at Jack Senior, who answered, “Nobody to my knowledge. Except for Mother and me.” He apparently never looked at his brandy level. Of course, I never took much and I never bothered to enlighten him. “We have this list of relatives that I made for the sheriff,” he added, patting the paper on the desk. “I’ll start calling this afternoon to see if anyone is missing a relative or whether they know of anyone who remembers the secret compartment. I may have to visit a few of the older ones to see if I can jog a memory.” Another expense, damn it. But he was right.

  “So Jack Senior has his assignment. What else don’t we know?” Fanny was looking at me once more.

  “Who knew about the jewelry and who knew about Pickerill’s safe under the bedside table?” I duly asked.

  “An outsider wouldn’t have known about them or the hiding place,” Jack Senior said. “So at least one of the burglars had to be a local person.”

  “I’ll ask around the country club and the church,” Fanny offered. She smiled at Jack Senior. “Please ask Victoria to check out the DAR—discreetly, of course.”

  Although she was from one of the oldest families in the area, Fanny hadn’t much use for tradition. She’d even gone so far as to marry into a family that had been transplanted from South Carolina only five generations back. They used to be Beauchamp before they changed the spelling to Beecham—the way it sounded. “And Henry, can you ask around the black community?” Henry nodded his head as she twisted round to face him. “Also ask if anyone saw anything unusual anywhere in Mason County about the time of the burglary. And, by the way, you might ask if anybody remembers about the secret compartment.” She carefully didn’t mention the condition of servitude that might have allowed them to know. But Henry’s wasn’t a slave family anymore. In fact, just ten years before, he had bought over one hundred acres of the old Ebenton holding from Victoria to add to the eighty-odd his family already owned. Farmed it when he wasn’t shoeing horses or welding. He grinned and said “Yes’m.”

  Fanny grinned back at Henry before turning to the group and asking, “And what else is important?”

  “Why did the thief leave the body in the fireplace to begin with?” Henry, now that the ice was broken, felt obligated to participate. “And why did he leave one bracelet that was worth almost one hundred thousand?”

  “Maybe,” John Senior answered, “they had a falling out, and one thief shot the other, and the wounded thief managed to hide in the secret compartment with the one piece he got away with.”

  “You’re suggesting that there were two thieves in cahoots” I pushed the idea along. “That means a local who knew about the jewelry brought in an accomplice to do the actual burglary, decided to bump him off, and then took all the loot afterwards. That’s why no locals are missing and one dead Confederate soldier was in the secret compartment.” I was looking around for agreement when Fanny’s next double bourbon arrived, along with a beer for Henry, a soda for Stuart, another white wine for me, and a Perrier for Jack Senior. Jezebel stocked it special for him. The tray also contained several sandwiches cut up in quarters. Hot pastrami, BLT, and tuna salad were guided into the middle of the table. My husband made a big show of getting his wallet out to pay, but Jezebel waved her hand, “Celebrating getting new braces under the sunroom!” She bowed toward Henry and smiled at Jack Senior. Maybe her secret was free lunches. Jack Senior’s allowance from my tractor furniture business certainly wasn’t big enough to live very well and he hadn’t worked any little deals in the recent past. That was probably why he wanted a trip to visit relatives—some spending money in his pocket.

  But he took the gracious gift as his due, the same way he gave things, and continued the conversation. “The corpse was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. If he didn’t know that nobody wears a lieutenant’s uniform to a Confederate Ball, he must be from somewhere else. On the other hand, people would have noticed the odd uniform.”

  Fanny laughed. “Can you recognize the difference between a Confederate lieutenant’s uniform and a major’s right off? You wouldn’t even notice.”

  And Jack Senior had to acknowledge that this was true.

  I took my turn. “If he was from someplace else, there must be some record of him staying here, or eating here, or getting gas here. That means that we check every motel, hotel, restaurant, and service station in the surrounding area. And that might not be much help, because it’s an easy drive from Washington.”

  Fanny grimaced. “It’s all we can do, though—unless we can bypass some of the process and find out what the sheriff finds out. He’ll have a couple of deputies do it, but he won’t know what to do with the results when he gets them.” She took a swig of bourbon and looked at Jack Senior.

  “I’m not going to put Lou Overhouse in an awkward situation. We know he won’t discuss an ongoing investigation, especially where there’s a possibility of local involvement. I won’t do it.” And Jack Senior got up, saying he had to go home to use the phone to call relatives while his mother was playing golf with Reverend Goodenough over at the Mason County Public Course. We couldn’t afford the Country Club anymore. As he left, Jack Senior waved at Jezebel standing behind the bar.

  Fanny turned to me. “We could try Weevil Tuttle. He’s loyal to Sheriff Overhouse, but he’s also loyal to his aunts, what are their names, ah…Tillie and Tattie, who live over by Ornery Springs. You‘re
friends with them, aren’t you?”

  “Well, I did buy on old Ford 8N tractor from Tillie and Tattie last year, and they’re trying to sell me an old combine. I can go out to look at it. Maybe let it be known that Weevil’s opinion on the body and the jewels would be very helpful in proving that the Abernathys are innocent.”

  “Then do it. That’s your assignment for the rest of the day. Get them to put in a word with Weevil and then get him to keep you informed of what the deputies find out.” Fanny was getting up from her swing, putting her legal pad in her purse, when Stuart moved up to stand in front of the table. “Yes, you’ll be helpful later when things are sorted out better,” she said, as Henry added, “Come on Stuart, “let’s see if we can finish the welding before it gets dark.”

  And we all headed toward the front door.

  Chapter 3

  Henry and Stuart were going back to their riverbed. Fanny was hurrying to inspect some construction in northern Mason County so she could spend the rest of the afternoon at the club interviewing people. I was lagging behind, watching Jezebel rolling a beer keg into place. She was pretty strong for such a trim woman. Face could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty. Might have been called stringy, except that below her shorts you could see well-defined calves and thighs from hefting all the barrels of beer. She looked at me looking at her and nodded toward the walnut bar—like she wanted me to stay. Maybe she wanted to dump Jack Senior and didn’t know how. Ask the expert with the inside track, I thought.