by J. L. Salter
By Thursday, Kelly had spent numerous hours studying her copies over and over, making notes of all the events referred to, the words repeated, those recurring heart symbols, and any names present. She was pulling together a pretty good idea of what young Belva would have said in plain English if she hadn’t apparently been so deliberately cryptic. But Kelly still hadn’t figured out why Belva wrote so mysteriously in her own journal.
Plus, where was the rest of the diary? And why had those two leaves been torn out? Was it to hide two particular pages… or preserve them? Or neither. Maybe somebody else tore them out. But who? When? Why?
It was a wonderful stroke of… luck was the word Kelly began thinking, but she reconsidered. No, none of it was luck. Too many coincidences. She’d read Mary Butler’s letter on May third, the same day it was written 144 years earlier. Pop or his brother seemed to know Greg had something significant, even though they had no idea what it was. Now Kelly had Mary’s letter and two pages from Belva’s diary, both covering some of the same events. It was extremely rare to find corroborating, contemporaneous sources viewing the same basic scenes. It was a very unusual connection, but not luck. Kelly’s Aunt Mildred — while living — often had extra-sensory connections with her brother Edgar; after Mildred’s death, Kelly often sensed direct communication from her.
Since the day seven weeks before when Pop gave her the assignment, Kelly had felt as though she was inside Belva’s head. Kelly could see shadows and hear murmurs, but things were too fuzzy to definitely make them out. Then she got a glimpse at Mary’s thoughts, through her letter to sister Ethel. It was so sad. Mary probably learned her sister was dead while writing a letter to her.
Now Kelly had pages of Belva’s diary; she was in Belva’s head again and seeing Belva’s hand. A lot could be learned from these sources. But one had to get the sense of time and place, and Belva’s feelings. What was happening inside her heart 144 years ago?
Kelly’s phone rang. Mitch.
“You still riding around the lake, Mitch?”
“On the way back to my place. Just had a thought I wanted to run by you.”
Kelly waited.
“When you transcribed Mary Butler’s letter, did you write it letter for letter… bad spellings included?”
“I even broke the lines where they fell in the original. Every bit exactly as Mary had it.”
“Including the part… not sure how it went. I think it was ‘Hanks his name’.”
Kelly hugged the phone between cheek and shoulder while she checked her transcript. “Yeah, I noticed Mary had omitted the apostrophe, but she was pretty loose with punctuation. I didn’t change any of it. Why?”
“I was just thinking. We’ve both been assuming Mary omitted the apostrophe, even though we figured she meant to say Hank is his name. But what if his name was Hanks? His last name.”
“So Corporal Hank H. might actually be Corporal H. Hanks?”
“It’s at least as possible as the other way around. Maybe his first name was Howard, Hubert, or, um, Hezekiah.”
“Well, I’m glad you caught it, but it’s also a real bummer. We might’ve been able to narrow it down, with whatever unit rosters or lists we could find, to maybe a few dozen possibilities. But it only works if we know whether we’ve got his first name or last name. If it could be either, there might be hundreds of possibilities.”
“Better get your buddy Don to start searching.”
“Okay, bye. And thanks.”
Contemplating another coffee, Kelly headed toward the kitchen but stopped when she noticed the little terrier nosing around the rear deck again. “What new smells have you discovered, Perra?”
As Kelly opened the back door, Perra darted back and forth between the deck, flower bed, and edge of the woods. The terrier appropriately engrossed, Kelly examined the clutter, thinking it was high time to discard most of it, but also wondering if anything else was out of place.
She had returned the empty paint can to its original position the same day she’d found it near the window. Now it was right next to the doorframe. Taking a quick look toward the lush trees behind her cabin, Kelly picked up the can to move it once again. Below the empty container was a piece of paper. Figuring it was just another scrap of the plentiful clutter, she took it inside to toss it.
When the paper landed in her kitchen trash can, Kelly could see writing on one side and quickly retrieved it. The note said, need help pls — back later.
“Well, that’s not J.D., for sure.” She went back to the deck and checked for any other sign of the prowler/peeper/note writer. Nothing, though Perra was still occupied in the woods. Kelly went back inside, latched the rear door, and called Mitch with a rather breathless report.
“So who needs your help?” he asked.
“Can’t imagine anybody.” Kelly closed her eyes. “Maybe they think somebody else lives here.”
“Who else could anybody think was living in Pop’s rental cabin?”
“Only one I can think of is Fred Lee. He once told me he and his wife had asked about renting this place, before Pop offered it to me.”
“Trooper Means keeps popping up in the strangest situations and conversations.”
“You asked.”
“I know.” Mitch’s voice sounded like a groan.
“Well, whoever this prowler is trying to find, they won’t get much help from me. I’ve barely got my nose above water as it is.”
Mitch was silent.
“Any thoughts what I should do about this note?”
“I wouldn’t do anything, Kelly.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, bolt the doors and be sure your buckshot is handy.”
Kelly gulped. “Seems kind of extreme.”
“There’s something mighty suspicious about this prowler or peeper, or whoever. I don’t think we can take the note at face value. If somebody really wanted help, why wouldn’t they just knock on your front door?”
“Good point, Mitch. So you think it’s a trick or something?”
“Not necessarily a trick, but something’s not right.”
“For sure.” She had almost said goodbye when she remembered something else. “Hey, Pop’s coming over later for a briefing. Why don’t you swing by too?”
“Okay.” He paused. “Should I bring a bedroll and plan on staying over?”
“Nice try.” She chuckled. “No, just for the briefing and to read over some new notes I’ve made.”
“And supper later?”
“Maybe.”
They set the time and ended their call.
After pouring the coffee she’d started for much earlier, Kelly sat on the front porch and phoned Trooper Means. She read him the note and asked if anybody might have assumed he was living there.
“Nobody would be aware of that possibility except Pop, my wife, me, and you… who I told. Besides, if anybody wanted my help with anything, they know where and how to reach me.”
“Right. So do you know if the sheriff ever authorized additional patrols around Possum Knoll? I haven’t seen any cruisers go by.”
“Dispatcher said she would see to it, so I figure she did.”
“Okay, thanks, Fred Lee.”
“Bye.”
Kelly peered out the rear window toward the woods, wondered who was possibly out there… and when they’d be back.
But she had other things on her mind, because Pop was coming over later so the two of them could speak briefly about her research so far. Kelly would show Pop the transcript of Mary’s letter and the summarized contents of Belva’s diary pages. With his eye problems, Pop wouldn’t likely read them. He’d probably just listen closely and nod occasionally. Even if he was excited about what she’d found so far, it wouldn’t be like Pop to show it.
Chapter Nineteen
Later, after the hot part of the day, but before it cooled into the mid-seventies, Kelly watched Pop drive up in his bouncing truck. It was a mild surprise to see Ellie Graye, Pop’s very frequ
ent companion, had not accompanied him. The old man sat out on the cabin porch while Kelly briefed him on what she’d found so far, including the mysterious note on her back stoop.
When Mitch joined them about fifteen minutes later, he glanced around for a seat, then leaned against the rail.
“There’s a canvas chair just inside the door.” Kelly pointed.
As Mitch went to get it, Pop watched him limp. “His hip still hurting?”
“As long as I’ve known him.”
Mitch returned with the folded chair and split apart the legs which slid along the upper braces. He sat but seemed distinctly uncomfortable.
Sighing loudly, Kelly got up, pointed to the rocker, and — when Mitch moved — she sat in the canvas chair. “Everybody settled?”
Pop monitored their exchange with a trace of a smile on his face.
“Pop, you ever hear of a place called Tater Cave?” Kelly squirmed to get comfortable in the canvas chair.
“Why are ya askin’?” It wasn’t like him to answer until he’d learned the reason for the question.
“Well, you probably noticed a couple of Belva’s diary entries referred to a cave. One time she specified Tater Cave. It suggests Belva told the wounded Reb to stay in Tater Cave for a few nights, until the Union troops cleared town.”
Pop rocked slowly and gazed toward the northeast. “When I was growing up, we called the caves by whose land they was on. So, the cave on old man Gordon’s land was Gordon’s Cave.”
“What happened if Gordon sold his land to John Smith?” Mitch increased his own rocking speed as he asked.
“Still Gordon’s Cave, ‘cause everybody knew it that way.”
“Was there a family around here named Tater?” Mitch’s was the only chuckle.
Pop was silent for a minute. Kelly also remained quiet while Pop was thinking that hard, because one never knew when he’d resume speaking.
“If a man owned a good-sized parcel, he might have more than one cave on his farm. So those in his own family might call them for what they was used for.”
Kelly perked up. “Pop, did the Butler family store some of their vegetable crops in the caves around here?”
A slender smile slowly played out on Pop’s lips.
Kelly leaned forward in the canvas chair, the front rim cutting into the bottoms of her thighs. “Pop, did your Butler ancestors raise potatoes during the Civil War?”
“I guess.” Pop’s face had the third biggest smile Kelly had ever seen on him.
“Could you show us where the Butlers might’ve kept their taters?”
“Thought ya’d never ask.”
Later, after Pop had struggled to read the transcript of Mary’s letter and the photocopies of Belva’s diary, he mentioned two nearby caves. One was suited for storing things because it was more easily accessible, but the other was hazardous to enter and difficult to traverse. “Ya wouldn’t use that one ta store things, but ya might want it ta hide in.”
“Then it’s the one we need to see.” Kelly was confident.
Pop left around 7:30 p.m., about an hour before it got dark, grumbling that Ellie would be fussy.
Mitch was reading over some of the research Kelly handed him. “Isn’t a cave typically too wet to keep veggies?”
“Well, some caves are dry. But I figure they used caves to keep the veggies cooler, maybe like you’d use a cellar. Or maybe also to hide their food stores from the soldiers of whichever army happened to be around.”
“In April weather, would they need to keep things any colder than they’d already be if they were just outside on the porch?” He pointed vaguely to the pages he held.
“Good point. Well, maybe this particular cave’s name has nothing to do with its, um, function.”
“Or maybe Belva was just using some additional misdirection.”
“Huh?” Kelly’s forehead wrinkled.
“Her diary language is so brief, so vague. What if she deliberately used the name of a different cave, just in case anyone sniffed out her diary? You know, at the time the Reb was still here.”
“Hadn’t thought of that. Maybe so.” She mulled it over. “If so, we might have to go poking through several caves.”
“Sorry I mentioned it.”
After supper of lasagna leftovers, they sat in her living room area. Some light remained outside, since the sun hardly set until after eight-thirty, but it was rather warm and mosquitoes were about. Mitch had a folder in his lap.
Kelly pointed to it and arched her eyebrows.
“Remember when we were batting around the info I had on the man murdered at the local church?”
“Um, yeah.” Kelly shifted slightly in her seat. “About a month ago I guess.”
“More like six weeks. But anyway, I got stuck so I sort of dropped it. Only I really just slid it over to a back burner, so to speak.”
“So it’s been simmering?” She rocked slowly. “As I recall, you didn’t have much to go on. Remind me of the core components.”
Mitch closed his eyes briefly, as if actually remembering the original event. “On Sunday evening, a stranger arrives at the church while numerous congregation members are present. He comes from nobody-knows-where, presumably has a reason for being there, and somebody objects to his presence enough to murder him. Nobody knows who killed him or why. But he’s properly buried by folks from the church where he last encountered his fellow man.”
“Yeah. But I wonder how friendly those church folks were. One of them might’ve been his killer.” She shuddered.
Both were silent for a moment.
“Even in the coldest cold cases, investigators usually know something about the victim — if not a name, then at least physical characteristics. I’ve got neither on this stranger.” Mitch referred to a sheet in his folder. “I also don’t have any suspects, so there aren’t any motives to sift through. I’ve got no clue why this man went to the church. All I know is his arrival was seemingly the trigger for his murder. So the only starting place is the church.”
“Unless his murderer followed him from wherever he’d been.” Kelly tried to conceal a yawn; she was tired. “Maybe the rider’s stop at the church was what allowed the pursuer to catch up with him. In which case it wouldn’t have had anything to do with the church itself — as a cause, I mean — but the church was just the spot on the road where it happened.”
“Could be.” Mitch shook his head. “But I don’t think so. I believe the church is an important key to the case.”
“So none of Pop’s ancestors had any other clues at all?”
“Oh, glad you reminded me.” Mitch flipped to a page farther down in the folder. “Being a naturally curious boy, little Chet asked his relatives about the odd, spooky grave — all alone, way back from the church. None of his aunts and uncles ever said anything useful. His grandmother, Naomi Butler Fulton, never talked about it at all, evidently. Only Pop’s mother ever gave him any kind of reply.”
“What did she say?”
“Pop’s mother told him ‘It’s nothin’ of our family’s’.”
“That’s it? All the mystery with a murdered stranger at the church her extended family had attended for generations, and that’s her entire response?”
Mitch checked his notes again then nodded. “That’s all Pop remembered.”
Something piqued Kelly’s detecting sensors. “Taken at face value, she could’ve meant ‘Nobody in our family knows anything about it, period’. But the way she phrased it seems to leave a tantalizing loophole — possibly she did know something. I can think of several interpretations. ‘It wasn’t any of our business,’ or ‘It wasn’t any of our doings,’ or ‘It didn’t involve our immediate family’.”
“Let’s focus on the third possibility.” Mitch found the list of names Pop had given him during a previous visit. “Yeah, it’s a big difference. Pop’s mother may have been stating — very cryptically — her suspicion, or possibly even knowledge, that other relatives outside the immediate l
ine of Naomi Butler were involved. Or could’ve been.”
“Well, maybe involved isn’t the word.” Kelly narrowed her eyes. “Could be she meant some other relative knew something about the murder.”
“Right. But either way, it could shift the entire matter back to the families of Jonathan Butler’s other sons — besides William, or someone with the surnames of Jonathan’s married daughters.” Mitch held up a page and pointed to a group of names. “Or even Naomi’s step-family, those half brothers and half sisters from William’s first wife. Plus any of the in-laws to that bunch.”
Kelly whistled softly. “Did Pop give you his entire genealogy?”
Mitch slightly shook his head, as if clearing cobwebs. “No, just the Butlers who attended that church in the late 1860s really. In any case, there obviously aren’t any living family from the generation when the murder happened, or from the next generation either. The only living descendants of any of those family lines are quite old, like Pop, and they’re three generations removed from immediate knowledge or exposure to the mysterious murder.”
Kelly padded to the kitchen and returned with two lite beers. “Legally speaking, it would be only hearsay evidence if obtained even from those living at the time, unless they directly witnessed something themselves. By the time you spread hearsay evidence over three generations, contaminate it with nuances or even biases, and sift it with memory losses — all you have is a confusing legend.”
“Well, Pop is the unofficial family historian of the Walter line descendents, but also his mother was a Fulton and directly descended from the 1860s Butler household. Their line has always been associated with the church where the incident happened. Pop’s ancestors knew everybody in the little community of Possum Knoll, which was way outside of Somerset as the small town existed then.”
“Afraid you’re losing me, Mitch.”
“All I’m saying is, there’s a lower probability of distortion to these few facts from this Walter lineage than from John Doe who’d heard his paw say he once had a neighbor with a great uncle who’d repeated the legend of the stranger shot dead at the church house.”
