Unspoken Fear

by Hunter Morgan

  "Sounds OK to me, Sergeant," he answered, in an equally tempered tone.

  When they'd climbed into the patrol car that morning, Snowden supplying the coffee from the diner, neither had mentioned his visit Friday night. Delilah still didn't know what to make of it, though she'd stayed up half the night measuring possibilities, coming to no conclusions. But now it was time to set aside whatever was going on between them, if anything was going on between them, and concentrate on their jobs.

  Delilah entered the waiting room to find half a dozen patients waiting in upholstered chairs. She recognized most of them by their faces, even if she didn't know their names. She approached the receptionist's window as Snowden stopped to speak to an older woman.

  "Good morning," the receptionist said from behind the glass as she slid it aside. She was an attractive African American woman about the same age as Delilah.

  "Good morning. Sergeant Swift and Chief Calloway here to see Dr. Cary. I called earlier."

  "Yes, of course." Her gaze flitted to Snowden, and there was no doubt in Delilah's mind that she found him attractive. "Come on back. He's with a patient right now, but you can wait in his office. I'm sure he won't be long."

  "Thank you." Delilah glanced at her nametag on her bright pink smock covered with dancing toothbrushes. "Chandelle." She forced a smile and headed around the corner, through the open door. Snowden followed.

  "Right this way," Chandelle flashed bright white teeth at Snowden. "I'll let Dr. Cary know you're here." She opened a door with a name plaque that read Jeremy Cary D.D.S. and stepped back to let them pass. "Anything I can get for you, Chief Calloway? Coffee? A soda? Sergeant?"

  Extending the invitation to Delilah was obviously an afterthought.

  "No, thank you." Delilah looked at Snowden, raising her eyebrows, cutting her eyes in Chandelle's direction as she bounced back down the hall. "I think you have an admirer, Chief."

  He scowled. "You contacted Miss Watkins and the others?"

  "I called Miss Watkins and Mr. Troyer. Thought maybe our visit with Mrs. Gibson ought to be impromptu." She gazed at the diploma encased in a frame on the wall behind the large walnut desk and fancy black leather executive's chair.

  "Sorry to keep you waiting." Dr. Jeremy Cary entered the office, closing the door behind him.

  "Thanks for seeing us. We apologize for the inconvenience."

  "Not a problem. I'm always happy to assist our town's finest." He slipped into his chair. "Have a seat."

  "This will just take a minute." Delilah remained standing. She was so short that she never liked to sit when interviewing a man, for fear her size would put her at a disadvantage. "We're following up on leads on the recent murders, Dr. Cary, and one of our tasks is to account for every sharp instrument or tool purchased in the last month or so here in Stephen Kill." She removed her little notebook from her breast pocket under her brass nametag. "I understand you purchased a hatchet from Burton's Hardware in June of this year."

  "I don't remember the day," he said, at once sounding defensive. "But yes, I bought a hatchet." He scrutinized her. "Why, again, did you say you were asking?"

  She could almost see the man's hackles go up. "It's part of our ongoing investigation. A routine interview."

  "This doesn't have anything to do with my wife's death, does it? Because it was my understanding that the inquiry was closed almost a year ago."

  Delilah wanted to sneak a peek in Snowden's direction, but she didn't dare. She knew the dentist was single, but she hadn't known he was a widower and she certainly hadn't been aware his wife's death had been investigated by the police. Her screwup. She should have looked closer into these people's lives before she began her interviews.

  She paused for a moment, wondering if Snowden thought the doctor's response was as odd as she did. "No, sir. I don't know anything about an inquiry into your wife's death. As I said—"

  "Because it was ruled an accident," he interrupted. "The death certificate was issued." Though he remained seated, he pressed both large hands down on the ink blotter on the desk, his knuckles turning white. "I understood from the state of North Carolina that the matter was closed."

  "Could you tell me why you purchased the hatchet at Burton's Hardware, Dr. Cary?"

  He stared at her for a minute and then rose. "No, no, actually, I don't think I can. I believe I should speak with my lawyer first."

  "Dr. Cary, I assure you this has nothing to do with your wife's death," Snowden said calmly, watching him.

  "Just the same, I'll have my attorney contact you." He walked around the desk, moving toward the door. "Is there anything else I can help you with, Chief, Sergeant?"

  "That'll be all," Delilah said. "Thank you for your time."

  She waited until he was out the door before she followed. "OK, that was weird," she whispered under her breath, turning her head so that only Snowden would hear her. "I think I just might be looking into Mrs. Cary's accidental death, soon as this is over."

  * * *

  Mrs. Troyer, dressed in a plain, shapeless blue cotton dress, knee-high white socks, brown orthopedic shoes, and a small white cap pinned on her head, directed Delilah and Snowden to the hog pen at the rear of the property. She continued to hang a stained men's white T-shirt with wooden clothespins as they headed off across the lawn. At the corner of the barn, Delilah glanced back, catching Mrs. Troyer watching them from behind a threadbare bed sheet. When she spotted Delilah, she dropped the sheet, disappearing from view.

  "Really, Snowden, you should have warned me this town was full of crazies before I signed a year lease on my townhouse," she murmured under her breath. "I'm beginning to think I walked into the Stepford Wives' hometown."

  Either he hadn't heard her or chose to ignore her. He led the way toward the hog pen. Back at the car, they had agreed it would be better for him to question Mr. Troyer because of Joshua's notorious fundamental disapproval of women in any occupation that didn't involve the home and hanging laundry on the line.

  They found Joshua Troyer standing at a three-foot-high fence, tossing heads of cabbage and assorted produce from a basket at his feet into a muddy pen. The stench from the mud and manure in the heat rose up in great waves. Hogs grunted, snorted, fighting for the tidbits of the not-so-fresh vegetables, sounding almost human in their antagonism or delight.

  "Mr. Troyer, thanks for letting us stop by." Snowden halted a couple of steps from the hog pen.

  Delilah stayed back, not because of the smell but because she harbored an immense dislike for hogs that bordered on fear. Growing up, her parents had raised them for market, as had her grandparents and most families in the county. It had been her experience that they were savage animals that would eat anything thrown in their path—stale donuts, box and all, from the local bakery; fish heads; dead chickens; each other; and, word had it, the occasional human who wandered into their path. When she was young, her brothers had always threatened to feed her to the hogs if she tattled on them for smoking or stealing Papa's rye whiskey, and she'd half believed them. Everyone she knew could tell the tale of some good-for-nothing who had disappeared in the night and was said to have been murdered and thrown in a hog pen. Hogs didn't leave much behind, not even bones if you gave them some time.

  "Eeh-ya," Mr. Troyer muttered, not looking up at Snowden.

  It was an odd response, in Delilah's book, but everything about this town, about the people who lived here, was getting odder by the day.

  "As I told your wife on the phone, we're working on an investigation and—-"

  "Tryin' to find who killed that boy, ain't ya?" Troyer interrupted.

  "We just have a few questions, Mr. Troyer, and then we'll let you get back to work," Snowden said.

  Troyer continued to toss vegetables over the crude board fence—half a head of lettuce, a soft tomato, some kind of greens. He had no intention of halting his work for police questioning.

  "We're tracking down all the farm implements bought in the last two months," Snowden
explained, "and we understand that you purchased an axe last—"

  "Got your work cut out for you, you do," Troyer continued in his slow, methodic cadence. "If yer looking for a man of flesh, though, not sure you're going to find one."

  Delilah listened carefully, fighting the urge to shrug off the weird feeling that kept nibbling at the base of her spine. It was a hot day, humid and growing hotter by the minute. The barnyard was surrounded by fields planted in feed corn, and though the crop was only knee high, she felt hemmed in, as if she couldn't breathe. She remembered a horror movie she'd once seen with her brothers, something about cornfields and creatures that lived within.

  "Wouldn't say this to many, but I known your mother's family a long time." Troyer spoke to Snowden, giving no indication he even knew Delilah was there. "Known they was good, God-fearing people. Bible talks about it, you know." He leaned over the fence to watch two black-and-white spotted hogs fight over half a head of cabbage. "Talks about the wrath of God. Of punishment."

  Delilah rested her hands on her hips, her handcuffs clanking as she took a step closer. "You think whoever killed these people is punishing them, Mr. Troyer? What makes you say that?"

  "Eeh-ya. Bible talks about it," he repeated. "Talks about how he'll send an agent, an angel. We pay for our sins. We all pay for them someday."

  She knew the Bible pretty well, and she had no clue what he was referring to. Something in Revelation, no doubt. People were always misinterpreting, misquoting the book of Revelation. "Did you purchase an axe, Mr. Troyer?"

  "Lester Burton says I did, reckon I did." He lifted up the half-bushel basket, scattering the last leaves and a carrot butt over the side of the fence. One of the hogs hit the fence in its keenness to snatch up the last tidbits, and the old boards bowed out, then popped in. Troyer turned away and started across the grass, carrying the basket.

  "Can I ask you what you purchased the axe for, Mr. Troyer?" Snowden followed him.

  "You can ask. No law says I have to tell you. Man's got a right to buy an axe if he needs one."

  Delilah took up the rear, sidestepping a pile of chicken crap in the grass. Mrs. Troyer's laying hens were apparently left free during the day and only penned up at night. "We'd appreciate any help you can give us, sir. We're simply doing our jobs. It's only fair that we question everyone."

  "No need to 'mister' or 'sir' me. We don't believe in putting on airs. Joshua will do." He stopped and looked back at Delilah. "Bought it to chop wood. Old axe, my daddy's, finally met its maker." He entered an open lean-to shed and deposited the basket upside down over a stack of identical baskets. A red and white chicken scratched in the dirt, making clucking sounds. "Take it if you want."

  He pointed and Delilah spotted a shiny new axe hanging on two old nails banged into the decaying wood wall of the shed. "Eeh-ya. Take it if you want." He turned to face Snowden, removing his hat, then a white handkerchief from his back pocket. "Run your fancy tests." He took his time, mopping his brow. "I didn't kill that bad seed, any of the three, but if God had sent me, I'd done it." He looked to Snowden and pointed again, almost as if daring him. "Take it."

  "That won't be necessary, Mr. Troyer. As I said, we're only following every lead. Thank you for your time." Snowden glanced at her. "Anything else, Sergeant?"

  She grimaced. Anything else? The man had practically offered to kill the next person caught slipping a candy bar into his pocket at the drugstore or not claiming tips on her tax return. "I think that's all we need, Chief," she answered, managing to sound the way a cop ought to sound.

  Snowden tipped his hat the way Delilah saw men do in the old black-and-white movies. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Troyer. We'll see ourselves off."

  Delilah walked a step behind Snowden, following him to the cruiser parked under an elm tree in front of the house. As they crossed the lawn, she gazed back in the direction of the clothesline. The laundry basket, still half full of wet clothes, was still in the grass. She didn't see Mrs. Troyer, but she could feel her watching them. "What if it's a community thing, Chief?" she said quietly.

  "What?"

  She took one last look at the clothesline flapping with wet clothes, and the rippling cornfields that surrounded them. She waited until she climbed into the passenger seat to speak again. "A community thing. You know, like in Murder on the Orient Express. What if they all did it?"

  "All who?" He started the car, turned it around in the dirt driveway, and pointed it toward the blacktop county road.

  "I don't know! A whole group of them. The dentist, the ex-priest, the Amish guy."

  "He's not Amish. He's Mennonite. Big difference."

  "Whatever!" She turned to him in the seat. "Snowden, I'm serious. What if they're in on it together?"

  "Pretty unlikely group."

  "Maybe, but not if they have similar motives."

  "Such as?"

  "Sin, of course. Mr. Troyer's religious, obviously the priest is—"

  "And the dentist whose wife drowned in an accident in Myrtle Beach?"

  "An accident? So why the investigation?"

  He shrugged. She tried not to take notice of what fine shoulders he had to shrug.

  "Mitigating circumstances. Big, ugly fight in a restaurant the night before. Threats were made—getting full custody of the children, ruining his reputation, taking him for everything he had in the divorce settlement. Then she drowns the next night, and his alibi is perfect, almost too perfect. In the end, there wasn't enough evidence for a prelim hearing so the case was closed; her death was ruled an accident, and he walked away with the kids, the money, and the reputation, for the most part intact, and he looks like the poor grieving widower."

  "Think he killed her?" Delilah asked.

  "If you'd known her, there'd be no doubt in your mind." He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance her way, an uncharacteristic half grin on his face. "Half this town probably would have held her under for him."

  She laughed, not completely sure he was kidding. This was a different side of the straight-laced, trying to be better than everyone else, Snowden Calloway she knew, and darned if she didn't like it.

  "Next stop, Miss Cora Watkins' place." She pointed back in the direction of town. "Zucchini bread central."

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, imitating her southern drawl.

  Chapter 24

  Miss Cora Watkins, age fifty-nine and never married, was waiting for Delilah and the chief of police. Probably been waiting all morning. The moment they pulled up to the curb in front of the modest, two-story home that Cora and her sister Clara's parents had left to them, someone was at the door.

  The house, built in the forties, was square with a four-sided pyramid roof, faded green asbestos siding, and striped green and white canvas awnings over each window. The lady of the house stood on the front porch, sporting a flowered, full apron and a smug smile of self-importance.

  "I don't know what it is about this woman," Delilah said as she logged onto the computer mounted on the dash, noting the time of the interview. "But she bugs me. Something about her bugs me. I've never liked a gossip."

  "I've known her my whole life; she's harmless." Snowden rested his hand on his nightstick to keep it from catching on the car seat and unfolded his tall frame, stepping out the door.

  Delilah climbed the painted white porch steps ahead of him, knowing they must have made quite a sight for the Stephen Kill born and bred old-maid Watkins sisters—she a petite blond packing a .38 automatic and an attitude, him a six-four black man with blue eyes, on a mission, once again, to prove he was as good as his white counterparts.

  "Clara," Cora sang through the porch screen door. "Our guests are here. Have Alice bring out the tea." She turned back to Delilah. "I thought we'd take refreshments on the front porch while we chat. It's going to be such a hot day." She patted one plump cheek, then the other with an open palm.

  Cora sounded to Delilah as if she thought the little house were Tara and she the southern belle of the ball.
r />   "That won't be necessary," Delilah said. "We won't take up more than a few minutes of your time, Miss Watkins."

  "Nonsense." She hustled to the side of the porch, where four aluminum porch chairs, old but in good condition, looked to have been arranged specifically for their visit. "You must sit and have a tall glass of my tea. Tell her, Snowden." She took the closest chair, rearranging her apron over her lap as she sat. "This may not be the deep south from where you came, but we still have our manners." She lifted her chin almost haughtily. "It's how we do things here in Stephen Kill."

  Delilah was about to refuse the offer again when Snowden walked past her, taking the far chair. The look he gave her as he passed told her to take the chair and drink the darned tea. Anything to get the information they needed and get out of there.

  Reluctantly, Delilah sat down across from Cora. The screen door opened and the sister, Clara, also in a flowered apron, walked onto the porch. Like her sister, Clara was short, with the lumpy, bumpy figure of a middle-aged woman, round faced and wearing her gray hair in a tightly permed helmet. "Chief Calloway, how nice of you to call."

  "I told you, Clara, the chief and his little deputy are here on official business." Cora tapped the chair beside her. "Have a seat, dear. Isn't Alice coming with the iced tea? Alice!"

  "Actually, it's Sergeant Swift, Miss Watkins." Delilah tried to keep the annoyance out of her voice as she produced her notepad. "We don't have deputies on the force."

  "We just have a few quick questions, ladies, and then we'll be on our way," Snowden said, sounding as if he was trying to smooth things over.

  Delilah didn't need him smoothing anything. This was her investigation; she could run the interview the way she wanted and she didn't have to like this woman, didn't have to drink her damned sweet tea if she didn't want to. "As I'm sure you know, we're investigating the Newton homicide in which—"