“We didn’t come to talk about that,” Starnes said.
“How’s school?” I said.
Starnes turned abruptly and frowned at me. I could read her mind.
“Fine,” Lou Ann said.
“Your sister doing okay in school?” I continued.
Starnes didn’t turn this time. She kept her eyes on Lou Ann.
“She’s having some problems. She’ll be okay. We talk.”
“Glad you’re around to help her,” I said.
“Yeah,” Lou Ann said.
Margaret returned with a silver tray full of glasses and what I guessed to be sweet ice tea. More than a guess on my part. The beverage of choice in the South when one wants to be sociable. Or just polite.
Margaret served Starnes, then me, and then turned to offer a glass to Lou Ann. The teenager shook her. Margaret turned and placed the tray on the coffee table in front of Starnes and me, took a glass of tea, then sat down in the deep red French chair adjacent to Lou Ann’s pink one.
“Now, have you three been getting acquainted?” Margaret said.
“I told them I don’t know anything about my mother’s death,” Lou Ann said.
Margaret looked at Lou Ann, but addressed us, “You asked her about that?”
“No, they didn’t ask. They asked about school and how Beca was doin’,” she said.
Margaret turned back to us and smiled.
“So, what do you ladies really want to know?” Margaret said to us.
“We want to know what Lou Ann can tell us about Betty Jo’s friend Lucinda Bradshaw,” I said.
Margaret appeared puzzled. Probably not the question she thought we might ask. She turned to look at Lou Ann. Lou Ann shrugged. Teenage response to many questions.
“They were good friends,” Margaret answered.
“Anything to add to that, Lou Ann?” Starnes said.
Lou Ann was still sitting awkwardly in her pink chair. She was now staring at the hardwood floor in front of her feet. Margaret took a sip of her tea while we all waited to see if Lou Ann might enlighten us about that relationship.
“Well, Lou Ann?” Margaret said to her granddaughter.
“They were close,” Lou Ann said as she bit her lower lip with her front teeth.
“Lucinda’s girls and my granddaughters are close friends,” Margaret said.
“That true?” Starnes said to Lou Ann.
“Mostly,” she said without raising her eyes.
“Mostly? What on earth? You and Beca do everything with Bonnie and Rachel,” Grandmother Margaret said almost as if it were a question.
“We used to,” Lou Ann said. She looked up quickly and then shifted her eyes once more to the floor.
“What on earth happened?” Margaret said.
I decided to let the grandmother interrogate. She was doing so well. Evidently, Starnes agreed with my assessment. She kept quiet and listened as well.
“Mom and Mrs. Bradshaw had a disagreement or fight or something,” Lou Ann said. “I don’t know what it was about, but it was bad and … it affected both our families.”
“This was something that happened recently?” I interjected. Margaret was dumbfounded at the moment. I wanted the conversation to continue its flow.
“And you don’t know what it was about?” I said.
Lou Ann was silent and focused on the floor.
“Lou Ann,” Margaret said, “if you know something, tell them.”
“I saw Mrs. Bradshaw and my mother kissing once,” she said.
Margaret looked confused.
“What do you mean, kissing?” Margaret said to her granddaughter.
“On the mouth, passion, lots of passion.”
“What are you telling here, child?” Margaret said.
Lou Ann was hesitant, that much was easy to discern at this point. I knew she had something to say and I figured I knew what it was. She didn’t want to say the words, to actually say it out loud. Perhaps it was because her sixty-something year old grandmother was present with us. I could’ve been wrong. I doubt it.
“I think Mama and Mrs. Bradshaw were lesbians,” she said.
Margaret dropped her glass of tea and our conversation with Lou Ann Gentry was finished.
We drove across the mountain in silence until we crossed the McAdams County line. Confusion sometimes creates the need for silence. It’s often best to stay quiet when chaos is running amuck inside one’s head.
“Well, so much for the secret life of Lucinda and Betty Jo,” Starnes said.
“Hard to hide stuff from teenagers, unless they spend all of their waking hours sitting in front of a computer,” I said.
“Yeah. Girls are generally more observant than boys.”
“We were,” I said.
“How do you know I was observant?” Starnes asked.
“You’re riding in this Jeep with me and we’re investigating two murders. And if that’s not enough to answer you, how about the fact that you’re the best crime scene analyst I’ve ever known?” I said.
“Wow. A compliment from a super sleuth. Suspect truth, but, nice of you to say.”
“At least the part of my theory regarding the relationship of the two women is supported by a suspicious daughter of one of the women,” I said.
“And so much for your theory regarding who shot whom … if this gun is not the murder weapon,” Starnes said as she studied the weapon in the plastic bag in her lap.
“It was only a theory.”
“You’re supposed to be the brilliant and uncanny detective.”
“Brilliance seems to be dimming some. The uncanny trait remains intact.”
“Your reputation may be in question.”
“Never was one to put my attributes on a business card.”
“So, if she is telling the truth and this gun is not a match with for the evidence we have, then where are we?”
“Wits end.”
“Where do we go from here?”
“Don’t know. You’re the lab tech, you have any ideas?”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Whatcha got?”
“You remember the old lady who came up and spoke to me on the day of my mother’s funeral?”
“You’re kidding, right? I saw you speak to lots of old people that day.”
“Jo Starling. I call her Aunt Jo.”
“Sorry, I have no recollection of this woman. Why?”
“We’ll go see her.”
“You have any particular reason for going to visit your Aunt Jo?”
“She’s not my aunt.”
“Well, that settles it.”
“She might be able to help us.”
“With what?”
“With solving our crime.”
“She a former detective?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Police?”
“Nope.”
“F.B.I., C.I.A., N.S.A., or Secret Service?”
“No, and she’s not even associated with Homeland Security. She’s an old mountain woman who can see things, hear things, and definitely know things few others could even imagine.”
“We’re resorting to clairvoyance to solve our crimes?”
“I don’t think the folks who know about her gift call it clairvoyance,” Starnes said.
“What do they call it?”
“The sight.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
That night after supper the three of us rode to the honest-to-goodness edge of the world, parked Starnes’ truck, and then walked what I thought to be a mile or two upward into a valley just north of the jumping off place. It was more remote than where Adam & Evelyn Gosnell lived. I insisted that Sam come along with us. My reasons were simple – it was dark, I had never been there before, and he had been alone all day in Starnes’ house while we were gallivanting around east Tennessee. He needed socialization. I needed him.
It was the night of a new moon, so black was the resident color. This w
as especially true in the valley Starnes called Ivy Gap where Josephine Starling lived. En route to our remote location, Starnes informed me regarding the remainder of the little she knew about this woman.
“She’s been around forever,” she said.
“That’s a long time.”
“She was an old woman when I was a little girl. All the church kids were afraid of her. Except me.”
“Naturally. Brassy little youngin’, you were.”
“And I remain steadfast,” Starnes said.
“I have no trouble with this assessment so far.”
“My momma told me that I should both fear and respect her. I guess it was Momma who first told me about Jo’s gift.”
“The sight,” I said.
“You have no idea what that means, do you?”
She recognized the tone of my voice. Ignorance with a tad of incredulity.
“I do not.”
“Well, it’s complicated. Mysterious. Unusual to say the least. She can see things, sometimes. She can hear things … again, sometimes. And upon occasion, she has been known to read people’s minds. She knows things she’s not supposed to know.”
“Sounds like …,” I stopped short. I was going to say Rogers, my computer. I caught myself in time. “Me.”
“You?”
“Yeah, I get that line a lot from some of the wondrous folk I encounter in my work.”
“About knowing stuff.”
“Yeah.”
We walked slowly along in the dark in silence. I was thinking.
“A gift,” I said.
“Yeah. Momma said it was from God.”
“Verification?”
“You mean like a scientific experiment?”
“Well, that might prove difficult. How about any substantive reason for this positive slant on her talent?”
“Been told that all of my life,” Starnes sounded convinced of this.
“And you believe it,” I said.
“Her reputation is untarnished.”
“So is my skepticism.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“You insisted.”
“I wanted you to experience something outside the parameters of science.”
“And you a scientist. So, tell me again how her sight-gift is going to help us with our dilemma.”
“Remains to be seen. Looking for another lead.”
“Yeah, to say the least, we could use a solid lead.”
“Yeah, I sort of forgot to tell you that I went to the Ivy Gap Baptist Church last Sunday to see Aunt Jo.”
“And what did she tell you?” I said.
“Well, she allowed that I should follow the rings.”
“Allowed?”
“Old mountain usage. As in said, believed, told me, etc.”
“I get the gist. Interesting usage … tell me about the rings.”
“You already know about the rings.”
“You’re referring to the rings that old man found in his field and delivered to me that same Sunday?”
“I am.”
“She knew something about the rings.”
“Initials, interlocking, and the number 5,000. She saw it all.”
“You’re not making this up, are you?”
“Not a whit.”
“She usually carry her crystal ball to the church house? Bet the preacher loves that.”
“No crystal ball, just her sight.”
“And she’s absolutely no kin to you.”
“Not even a trace of blood, as far as I know.”
“Yet you refer to her as Aunt Jo.”
“So does most of the county.”
“Begs the question,” I said.
“Don’t know the answer. Momma told me I should call her that.”
“You always do everything your momma told you?”
“When it came to Aunt Jo, you bet your last farthing I did. Something about this mysterious woman who knew things she had no way of knowing. We kids were afraid not to behave ourselves when it came to dealing with her.”
“Something like the fear of God in other quarters,” I said.
“Something like that.”
“So here we are,” I said as we approached a small hovel of a home at the end of what seemed like a two mile hike up the black valley. “This must be the place.”
“And just how is it you know that this is her house?”
“I’m tired of hiking through this dark valley. We’ve seen no other houses for the last twenty minutes or so. And Sam here thinks this is the place to stop.”
“Should I test Sam’s thinking about this house?”
“Be my guest.”
“Sam,” she began. “Is this ….”
He barked once before she finished her question.
“That means yes,” I said.
“I know what you think it means.”
The only reason I could tell we had reached a house was that there was a candle burning in the front window on the left side of the door. The small, singular candle amid all of the deep shadows lit up the entire front porch and gave us sufficient light to see our way along the rocky path to the two, short steps for her porch. I was tired of hiking in the dark night and was more than ready to stop whether this was the right place or not. Lucky guess on my part.
Starnes approached the door with her normal lack of caution. I was ready to cower in the corner and draw my weapon. Sam sat down beside me and waited to see what would happen next. Me too.
No answer to Starnes’ knocking.
We waited a few minutes. Starnes knocked again, this time a little louder.
No answer again.
“She’s probably not home. We should go,” I said and turned to walk back down the rocky path to the little gate we had just come through. Sam was more than willing to go with me.
“Wait a minute,” Starnes said. “She takes her time getting to the door. She’s got some years behind her, okay?”
“Makes me sound old,” a voice spoke from the shadows to our right.
Despite the candlelight casting beams across the porch and all the way to the fence gate, I couldn’t see anyone in the shadows on the porch. I could only hear the soothing voice.
“Meant no disrespect, Aunt Jo,” Starnes said.
There was silence again. The next thing I knew, an old woman was standing next to us. She moved about in complete silence. Josephine Starling simply appeared in front of us without making a smidgen of a sound. Talk about quiet movements.
“None taken,” she said. “Come on in the house. I have some tea ready. Help warm the chill of the night air.”
She opened the door and we followed her inside. Sam remained on the porch. I started to close the door on him against my wishes.
“The dog can come too. Kind animals are always welcomed here,” she said.
I opened the door and let Sam pass into the small living room that was full of shelves with what appeared to be collectibles or what my mother called whatnots, wildflowers in vases of all sizes and shapes, some bookcases filled with scores of books, a tiny organ, a comfortable-looking couch, three unmatched cushioned chairs, and a round table with a large box in the middle of it. Everything was well placed and seemed to fit perfectly where it was. In most houses with this much stuff you might have said the place was crowded. Here it appeared that everything had a place and everything was in its proper place. It fit. It was perfect. There was plenty of room for the three adults and one dog to move. Homey.
“Have a seat and I’ll bring the tea,” Aunt Jo said.
Sam sat down next to me after I moved to the red cushioned chair to the left of the couch. Starnes sat on the couch. In a few minutes, Aunt Jo brought us some tea on a decorative plate that was full of red, orange, green, and yellow flowers drawn as a pattern. The floral design appeared to be three dimensional on the plate. I stared at it figuring that my eyes would eventually adapt to the design and flatten the corners and angles of the design. It remained three
dimensional despite my concerted focus.
A tea pot rested in the center of the plate surrounded by three tea cups. She also had a dog biscuit, presumably for Sam.
“Forgive me, Aunt Jo, I didn’t introduce my friend to you,” Starnes said.
“Don’t need an introduction. I know who she is.”
“Yeah, word travels fast in the county,” Starnes said.
“Haven’t heard anyone speak of her that I recall,” Aunt Jo said. “She’s Clancy Evans from Clancyville, Virginia by way of Norfolk. Glad to meet you finally, Clancy.”
“Pleasure is all mine,” I answered.
“And Sam, here. What a beautiful animal! He must be a real joy to have come into your life so suddenly.”
“Beg your pardon,” I said.
“Sam, a real serendipity for you. Just showed up out of nowhere. Isn’t that the way of it?”
To say I was shocked would have been a mildly exaggerated understatement. Few people knew that Sam was a stray who simply showed up at my apartment several years back and became my personal protector almost overnight. With little or no training, he knew things that some trained dogs did not know. A rare combination of intellect, cunning, and humor made him the perfect companion for me. His canine detective skills were inborn. I did have to teach him some etiquette. While I made no secret of Sam’s arrival in my life, I certainly didn’t go around telling the story to everyone. A select few knew of his entrance into my world.
“You seem shocked that I know such a thing. Don’t be. I could tell you a great deal about you, your life, and your friends. I know things few others are aware. But it would be sort of like bragging, in a way. Don’t be alarmed at my ability to see things, Clancy. I can’t explain it, I just accept it and use it in the best ways I can.”
“This tea is delicious. What kind is it?” I said in an effort to divert the conversation away from me to her. She knew more than I was comfortable admitting. I wondered about her knowledge of Rogers.
“I make it with a wild root that grows in the meadow behind my house. I don’t know the name, but it makes a fine tea that cleanses the mind and enhances the thinking. I guess I could call it clarity. Be a good name for it, don’t you think?”
“I’ll get back to you on that,” I said.
“Well said, child. I like your straightforwardness. And your diversions. Nothing seems to shake you. You’re a clever woman, Clancy Evans. You’ve been like that most all of your life.”
When Blood Cries Page 18
