The Darcy & Flora Boxed Set

by Blanche Day Manos

  “I guess it is a valuable antique,” Mom said, edging around his desk to gaze at the gun.

  Grant kept oiling and rubbing. “It sure is, Miss Flora. Soldiers in the War Between the States used guns like this. It’s a six-shooter, percussion with a walnut grip. Really a nice weapon. Where’d you say you got it?”

  I cleared my throat. “Well, um, that’s what’s strange about it, Grant. It was in an old dug well out at Granny’s Grace’s place. Cub Dabbins found it.”

  Grant’s blue eyes shifted from me to Mom. “Why would somebody throw a gun like this into a well? Or any gun for that matter? And how did Cub know it was in that well?”

  Mom concentrated on scooting her right foot around in a circle. “Well, um, we didn’t actually know what it was ’til we got it out of the well. But that’s not all we found.”

  I frowned at Mom and shook my head. We had decided to keep the message on the sheepskin a secret until we could learn just what the gun meant. To me, ‘secret’ meant not telling anyone, even Grant about that strange document that had shrouded the gun.

  My mother returned my frown. “Well, now, Darcy, if anybody would know how to keep his mouth shut, it’d be the sheriff. Grant, you’ll keep this under your hat, won’t you?”

  Grant laid the gun on his desk and ran his hand through his red hair, flecked with gray. He motioned for us to sit down as he dropped into his office chair, facing us across his desk. “Darcy, you aren’t going to tell me that you are in the middle of another murder, are you? What’s going on? What is so secretive about this old weapon that I’m supposed to keep under my hat?”

  I reached into my purse for the page I had copied. “It’s not just the gun, Grant. It’s this, too.”

  He unfolded the page. The crease between his eyebrows grew deeper as he read. At last, he looked up.

  “What’s this all about? Does this mean that your mother, Miss Flora, was married to this gentleman at one time?” he flicked the paper with his forefinger.

  Mom fidgeted and looked out the window. “Well, it kind of looks that way, doesn’t it?”

  “But you didn’t know about it until you found this record?” He included me in his question.

  “I’ll start at the beginning,” I said. I told him about Cub’s discovery and how we had worked to get the sheepskin bundle out of the well, how we had taken it back to the house and found the gun inside.

  “I think the lanolin in the skin just absorbed the page, leaving only the ink locked in the skin,” I said.

  Grant raised an eyebrow. “The lanolin is probably why this gun is in as good a shape as it is. The date on the Bible page is 1918 so we know they weren’t thrown away before then but this gun is a lot older than that. Probably 150 years old. Of course, they could have been thrown away any time after 1918 but since the paper had disintegrated, I would guess not.”

  He paused, staring at the gun and thoughtfully rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I would think it was somebody’s prized possession and it looks strange to me that it was thrown away like so much trash. The two things don’t jibe—throwing something away and carefully wrapping it first.” He shook his head. “Maybe it was stolen and somebody got cold feet and got rid of the evidence.”

  Mom drew a long, quavery breath. “Oh, I don’t understand any of it. I’m just sorry that nosy Cub found it and wouldn’t rest until we got it out of the well.”

  “It must have been a secret for a lot of years,” Grant said. “Sometimes it’s best not to probe too deeply into the past especially when it seems to present a mystery as dark as this one. I understand how you feel, Miss Flora.”

  He picked up the gun again and cautiously tugged at the cylinder. It slid out and Grant held it to the light. He squinted at it then pushed the cylinder in place and looked at us.

  “It is fully loaded except for one bullet. One round has been fired.”

  The three of us sat silently, staring at the gun and the copy of the marriage record as if they could suddenly answer our questions. A few pellets of sleet pinged against Grant’s window. I shivered. This day was cold and bleak inside and out. We were facing something unknown which made me feel as restless as the frozen limbs swaying on the maple outside Grant’s office window.

  Grant shook his head. “If you can’t find anything strange to get involved in in the here and now, you’ll go back eighty or ninety years, I guess, Darcy. I don’t think you can help it. Trouble seems to follow you like that old coon dog of Jasper Harris’ follows a trail. Maybe there’s nothing dangerous about something that happened so long ago but you’ll have to admit when Cub found this gun and the page that went with it, he may have unearthed a few secrets that should stay buried. Just be careful, Darcy. You too, Miss Flora. Somebody, some unknown person, might not want any of this coming to light.”

  I swallowed a swift retort. The Bible says a soft answer turns away wrath. Grant didn’t look wrathful, however, just exasperated. Trouble might follow me but I hadn’t asked for any of the danger I had found myself in since returning to Levi from Dallas. Maybe investigative reporters have an aura that acts as a magnet for evil. Sobering thought, that.

  Grant wrapped the flannel around the gun and handed it to me, grip first. I gingerly took it from him, dropped it in a brown paper sack and tucked it away inside my purse.

  “Believe it or not, Grant, I wish I had never found this gun or the Bible record. It is very hard for me to believe my grandmother was ever married to anybody except Grandpa George. And I sure don’t want to find out my family was ever involved in anything as deadly as this gun and record seem to indicate. I’m perfectly willing to put it in our safety deposit box and let it stay there for another ninety years.”

  Turning to face me, Mom’s eyes looked as steely as the gun. “Maybe you are, Darcy,” she said, “but I’m not.”

  She opened the door to Grant’s outer office and I obediently followed her out.

  “Grant! Darling! How wonderful to see you.”

  Mom stopped so abruptly that I bumped into her. A vision in bright colors sprang up from the chair placed beside Grant’s receptionist, Doris Elroy. The woman was almost as tall as Grant. A yellow shirt and tight black jeans invited one and all to admire her obvious physical attributes. Long earrings dangled halfway to her shoulders. Her shiny black hair was piled in loose curls atop her head and she had the greenest eyes, rimmed with mascara and eyebrow pencil, that I had ever seen. She ran to Grant, amazingly acrobatic on three-inch heels, and threw her arms around him.

  Grant’s face turned an alarming shade of purple. Then he stepped back into his office, tall female attached, and closed the door.

  When my breath returned, I looked at Doris. She shrugged. “Her name is Eileen Simmons. That’s all I know, Darcy.

  Mom and I made a quick exit and headed for home.

  Chapter 5

  On Thursday morning Cub and his men finished the footings for the foundation of our new house and squared off the partial basement. To celebrate, Mom and I drove to Dilly’s Cafe for what we Oklahomans considered the best fried chicken in the USA.

  Stepping into Dilly’s was like stepping back to an earlier time. The ambience of the small café as well as its home-cooked food drew people inside its doors. In 1946 a World War II soldier returned to his home town of Levi, Oklahoma with the dream of starting his own restaurant. He did the cooking, using local fruits and vegetables. Dilly’s was an instant success. Yellow Formica-topped chrome tables, black and white checked tile floors replicated the eating place of the 1940s. With a little imagination, I could believe that going through Dilly’s doors was walking into a time warp of sixty years ago.

  The place was packed when Mom and I arrived shortly before noon. But, astonishingly, the hubbub of conversation quieted before we could even find a seat. It seemed as though the crowd had been waiting for our appearance. All talk of the weather, the price of beef, last night’s accident on Perry Road, and the prospect of a new tool and tractor supply business west of
town quieted. Bruce Dowell, the biggest and loudest citizen anywhere in three counties, pushed himself off his seat, headed straight for us, and rumbled, “Is it true, Miss Flora?”

  Mom frowned. “Whatever are you talking about, Bruce? Is what true?”

  His grin was sly. “Why, I’m purely certain you know that old Cub has told everybody in Ventris County about the metal box he found while he was digging the foundation for your new house.”

  Metal box? I remembered the childhood game of gossip. Facts were twisted and changed as they went from person to person. Mom’s frown deepened. “I don’t know anything about what Cub tells anybody, but if we did find something out there, it’s my property and nobody else’s business, and it’s not very professional of him to talk to anybody in town about what he finds on his jobs.”

  My mother stepped around Bruce and headed for the nearest empty booth, calling, “Tony, bring Darcy and me a plate of that fried chicken that smells so good.”

  “I think you’d better leave well enough alone, Bruce,” I told him, following my mother.

  But Bruce Dowell wasn’t smart enough to know when it was time to shut up. He trailed behind us all the way to our seats, leaned over, and put both hands on our table.

  “That might be the thing to do, unless what old Cub found was a box of stolen gold from those bank robberies of the thirties. Why, everybody in the country knows those stories and some of them are bound to be true. You’ve heard about how banks were robbed and money buried in the Cookson Hills. Cherokee County, Ventris County, plenty of good hiding places. Your place out there on the river has lots of places to stash stolen loot.” His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t try to keep something like that a secret, would you Miss Flora?”

  “Is that your yellow truck parked out front, Bruce?”

  We all looked up as a dark, small man stopped at our booth.

  Bruce’s squinted at the newcomer. “Yep. That would be mine.”

  “Maybe you didn’t pull the emergency brake. Looked to me like it is rolling off down the hill.”

  Bruce yelped and dashed for the door.

  “That fellow been bothering you, Flora?”

  “He’s a pest but he’s gone now. Sit down, Mr. Hopkins. You came at a mighty good time,” Mom said, scooting over to make room.

  Burke Hopkins slid in beside her. Tony appeared immediately and set three cups of steaming black coffee in front of us.

  For as long as I could remember, Burke Hopkins had been a fixture in Levi and Ventris County. He was Cherokee and he lived on a farm just beyond town. If Levi could be thought of as a tapestry, Burke Hopkins would be a colorful thread, appearing and then disappearing in the pattern, lending richness and depth to the fabric of life here in this small town. Mr. Hopkins was the sort of character that locals liked to point out to visitors. He preferred living alone in his small house with his two dogs and a flock of laying hens to the company of townsfolk. Maybe it was because he was a rich store of Cherokee lore that he occupied a special niche in long-time Levi residents. He had the reputation for knowing about the healing powers of herbs, and some said he still believed in many of the ways of his ancestors. I knew a couple of people who claimed Burke had cured them from an illness that stumped the doctors.

  Anyone Burke counted as a friend felt blessed. My mother and I were two of those fortunate people.

  Mom smiled at him. “I’ve been meaning to call you and ask if your hens are laying. I’ll need a dozen of those brown eggs as soon as you have them.”

  Burke took a sip of coffee and sighed appreciatively. “Nothing beats a hot cup of coffee on a cold day. The hens are picking up again, Flora. I’ll bring your eggs along in a day or two.”

  I had been only half listening to Mom and Burke’s conversation. Somehow, I had to ask Burke Hopkins about that name on the Bible record. The preacher who had supposedly married Granny Grace and Markham Cauldfell was Hopkins, a pretty common name and the marriage took place in Siloam Springs, not Levi. How could I find out if Burke was related to the preacher listed on that record without telling him more than I wanted known?

  “Actually, Mr. Hopkins, I ran across a name the other day and I wondered at the time if you were kin to a Reverend Monroe Hopkins.”

  Burke’s dark eyes crinkled. “That brown line around the top of your cup ought to be polished by now, Darcy. You’ve been rubbing it ever since I sat down.”

  My face grew warm.

  “What I’m wondering is, why was it so hard for you to ask that? And where did you run across my father’s name?” Burke asked, smiling.

  “Your father?” Mom and I blurted at the same time. Several heads in near-by booths turned to look at us. “I don’t remember ever seeing your father,” Mom added.

  “No, you wouldn’t have. He was a circuit-riding preacher. He was way before your time, Darcy. I was just a lad when Father passed away, but Mother and I managed to take care of ourselves and lived on in the house that he built. You didn’t answer my question. Where did you see his name?”

  Help, Lord, this astute old man had eyes that seemed to see through me. How much should I tell him?

  Mom came to my rescue. “You know how Darcy is, Mr. Hopkins. She likes to delve into the past. She may have seen his name on an old document that she unearthed somewhere or other.”

  My mother, who began and ended each day talking with her Heavenly Father, sometimes came up with the truth in a most interesting fashion.

  My thoughts were whirling. Could it be that Burke’s dad was the man who officiated at my grandmother’s first wedding? How much did he know about Markham Cauldfell and how could I find out if the information had been passed to Monroe’s son?

  Bruce Dowell stomped back into Dilly’s and stood glaring down at Burke. “My truck wasn’t rolling down the hill! You lied to me, you old buzzard! You just wanted to get me out of here!”

  Burke gazed silently at the table. Several people around us laughed as Bruce snorted then stalked out of Dilly’s.

  “I think you just made an enemy,” I said.

  Burke shook his head. “Dowell hasn’t liked me for a long time, Darcy. Not since I complained to him about one of his dogs that liked to come around and catch some of my laying hens. When that old dog turned up dead, Dowell thought I had killed it but I sure didn’t. I never would poison anything; certainly not a dog.”

  Burke Hopkins rose to his feet and looked down at us for a few seconds.

  “Sometimes it’s best to let what’s past stay buried, Darcy,” he said. “Don’t go digging around too much.”

  Then he turned and silently left the café

  Chapter 6

  Mom paused in her biscuit making and frowned at me. “Oh, Darcy, honey, I wish you wouldn’t go to Siloam Springs this morning. The weatherman is predicting snow flurries and it’s awfully cold. Besides, I don’t see what you think you can find out. Maybe we’re just stirring up a hornet’s nest by trying to get some answers to the gun and marriage. Even if there was a wedding that nobody ever knew about, it was probably never recorded like it should have been. I think you’ll just be making a wasted trip.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “You may be right. But there are other things that turn up in old records. For instance, even if there was no record of the wedding, there might be a death certificate that will let us know what happened or some kind of real estate documents that show where this Markham Cauldfell came from and where he lived. After what Grant told us about the gun, we have to assume that it’s connected to the marriage certificate.”

  Besides, although I didn’t tell Mom, I was still so steamed up about Eileen Simmons bursting into Grant’s office and hugging him like he was her own personal teddy bear that I felt I had to do something today. Although there were no official ties between Grant and me as of yet, such as an engagement ring, there was no denying the growing attraction we had for each other, an awareness that had begun when we were in high school and never really disappeared. Even though I knew there were boun
d to have been other women in my high school sweetheart’s life, Eileen Simmons did not seem to be the type to fit the quiet, handsome, intelligent man who had impressed everybody enough to become a highly respected law enforcement officer.

  Then another thought came to me. Mom and I were relying heavily on Grant because we thought we knew him well, but maybe neither of us knew him like we thought we did. After all, until I moved back home, there had been no close contact with him for quite some time. I thought I trusted Grant but that shapely woman who seemed to know the sheriff very well indeed was a wild card. I hadn’t talked to Grant since discovering Eileen Simmons perched in his office like some bird of prey. Why hadn’t he called me with an explanation? It wasn’t my place to pry into Grant’s personal affairs, but shouldn’t he want me to know about Eileen?

  “Anyhow, it’s something I feel like I’ve got to do. Mom closed the oven door. “Well, okay” she pronounced, “you can do your own research and I’ll do mine.”

  I thumped my coffee mug down. “Research? What on earth are you talking about?”

  She shrugged. “You can hunt through old newspaper files and your computers and maybe, just maybe, you’ll find out something. But I can usually learn a lot by simply listening to people. I’m going over to talk to the Jenkins sisters first thing this morning.”

  Mom was probably right. The Jenkins sisters were 95 years old, more or less, twins who had lived in the same house in Levi all their lives. They knew a lot about the past—if they could remember it.

  So, leaving Mom to pursue her own method of fact-finding, I put on my coat and gloves, poured a thermos of coffee, grabbed my laptop and headed for the back door. As I backed out of the garage, a gritty spit of snow rattled against my car. Only the streak of orange in the east showing me that the sun was up there somewhere urged me onward.

  Sleet pinged against the windshield as I turned my car toward Siloam Springs. My car thermometer showed the outside temperature was thirty-nine degrees. Since it wasn’t down to freezing, I should be able to search through any records that were available and get back home before the roads became treacherous.