A Killing at Cotton Hill (11 page)

“You're looking pleased with yourself,” I say. “You glad to have your cousin Wayne to take over here?” I don't like the little jealous feeling that's snuck up on me.

“Wayne says he's going to help me find work. I'm thinking I might get a job in an art store in Houston. And maybe I can put by enough money to get some classes.”

“That would be fine, all right,” I say. But I suspect that Jackson and his daddy have cooked up plans to stick Greg out at Leslie Parjeter's farm.

 

On my way home, I worry about how I'm going to figure out who killed Dora Lee now that I don't have access to her affairs.

As I walk in the front door, the phone is ringing and it's my brother-in-law, DeWitt, returning my call.

“When are you going to come over to God's country and let me teach you how to play golf?” he says.

I've always liked Jeanne's brother, and I'm tickled that he has made such a fine retirement for himself. “You won't get me to use those snake-killing sticks,” I say, “But I'd like to walk around the course with you.”

He laughs his big, hearty laugh and asks how I'm getting on. I tell him I'm doing fine and then I get down to business. I tell him about Dora Lee's death, and about finding Clyde Underwood's letter offering to buy the farm. “There's something funny about that,” I say. “The man's already got a big spread that's just sitting there. So what would he want with another chunk of land that as far as I can tell doesn't recommend itself?”

“Have you walked the land?” He means have I gone over the property to see if there's any evidence that there might be oil or gas under the ground.

“No, I haven't, but I've never seen or heard of any land around there being good for much.”

“Could be it's got natural gas. You know, back when we were in the business, getting gas out of the land was more trouble and expense than it was worth. But with oil prices what they are, that's changed. And I know they found a fair-sized gas field not that far west of Jarrett County a few years ago.”

“Yeah, I heard about that, but I haven't heard that it extends this far.”

“You want me to drive over there and walk the land with you?”

He sounds hopeful, so I tell him that's exactly what I was hoping he'd say.

“What about tomorrow?” he says.

“You don't play golf on Sunday?”

“Hell, no! Never on Sunday. Around here, with the weekend people coming from Austin, it's too crowded on the course.” So we agree he'll come tomorrow.

I ask him to bring his wife, Lucille, but he says she's not going anywhere these days. I tell him I'm sorry to hear that, and to tell her hello for me. There's nothing wrong with Lucille physically, but she has spells when she gets anxious and can't leave the house. DeWitt has made his accommodation with that through the years.

I've been kicking around that business with the art teacher, Mr. Eubanks, wondering how I can find out a little more about him. Not having any kids of my own, I never knew the workings of the school system in Jarrett County, so I don't know who to call to find out any more about it. But it strikes me that Jenny Sandstone is from Bobtail, and maybe she can dig up something. It's a Saturday night, so she might be out, but I give her a try.

She does answer her phone, and I tell her what I want to know.

“That's a matter for my mother,” Jenny says. “She taught high school social studies in Bobtail for thirty years. She's retired now, but if she doesn't know anything about this Eubanks fellow, she'll know who to call to find out.”

While I wait for her to call back, I get busy. This is the first chance I've had to go through the paraphernalia I took from the shoeboxes at Dora Lee's. I get the duffle out and spill everything onto the dining room table.

By the time I'm done, I'm good and depressed. There's nothing like going through a woman's sentimental holdings to give you the blues. Dora Lee's life has been whittled down to a thin line, from being a little girl, to courting and being married, to having kids, then the one grandchild, and then beginning that final slide to becoming obsolete.

As is my way, I've sorted things into stacks. In a pile to itself are the wedding announcements for her daughter Julie and the one for Caroline. The one for Julie is accompanied by newspaper clippings about the wedding, shower announcements, and the like. The one for Caroline stands alone. But I'm glad Caroline at least sent her one.

There are bright spots in the mementos that have nothing to do with her family. I had forgotten that the quilt Dora Lee kept on her bed won a prize. She was puffed up about that for a month.

There are clippings about the accident that killed Dora Lee's daughter Julie and her husband, and one about Greg's graduation from high school in Bobtail. It would have been easier on Dora Lee if Greg had transferred to Jarrett Creek High School. Then the school bus would have picked him up. But Dora Lee wanted him to continue to go to the same school he was in when his folks died. The Bobtail school bus wouldn't go out to Cotton Hill to pick him up, so she drove him back and forth to Bobtail every single day for two years.

The valentines and birthday cards are in a stack to themselves, homemade cards made by the girls when they were little, going up until the cards are store bought and have awkward teenage sentiments scribbled above their names. I wonder if Caroline will want to see them and wonder if they mean anything to her. I notice there are no cards from Teague and that makes me think about how I used to make such a fuss for Jeanne over Valentine's Day and her birthday. I guess Teague was as stingy with affection as his brother Leslie is with money. Or maybe Dora Lee couldn't stand to keep things from Teague. The way he treated her would have outweighed any sentimental card he might have given her.

Another stack is for pictures, mostly school pictures of the girls, but also some of Dora Lee and Teague when they were young. I'd forgotten that Teague was quite the ladies' man. He was good-looking in an oily kind of way.

Most of the Christmas cards are from family. But a few, yellowed with age, are from people I never heard of, and sound like they were written by youngsters. For a couple of years when Dora Lee was a teenager, her daddy took his family off to Austin to live while he worked on a construction job there. As soon as the job ended, they high-tailed it back here. But for a few years Dora Lee must have kept up with girls she met in school in Austin.

There's one clipping that I don't know what to make of. It's an obituary of an artist named William Kern who I never heard of; he died a few years ago. He lived around Fredericksburg. I wonder if Dora Lee knew him. I conjure up an old romance from when she lived in Austin that made her doubly happy when she found out her grandson was inclined to art.

Dora Lee kept all the school pictures of the girls. Caroline had a way of looking at the camera as if challenging the photographer to see her sexy side. By contrast, Julie was a wholesome girl, not as pretty, but with a cheerful smile. I put rubber bands around the stacks and stuff them back into the duffle. I'll give it to Caroline to dispense with as she pleases.

It's an hour later, and getting on for dusk, when Jenny gets back to me. “Sorry it took so long. Mother tends to be long-winded. I expect that's why I'm not partial to small talk.”

“She able to tell you anything?”

“Alex Eubanks is a peacock. Apparently he's won a couple of awards in some art shows, and if he offers to give somebody lessons, he thinks he's doing them a big favor. He got riled up when Dora Lee wouldn't pay for lessons anymore.” In other words, no new information, but at least it confirms what I know about him.

After I hang up, I walk around the house feeling restless. I'm stirred up with the idea of investigating Dora Lee's murder, but I feel off my game, not sure I can trust my instincts. It won't be any good if I chase off after everybody who looked cross-eyed at Dora Lee. But I also need to be careful to not dismiss a suspect too easily. I'm going to have to look into this Eubanks fellow.

When I phone Wayne Jackson early next morning he says it's fine with him if DeWitt and I walk the property. In fact, he says he's grateful to me, in case there's more to the land than meets the eye.

DeWitt arrives around nine o'clock and I'm glad to see him. He reminds me of Jeanne. She was a thin little whip of a woman and DeWitt has that same body type, although he's a good deal taller. He has her same bright bird eyes that seem to dart around and see everything. And when they light on you, they're full of mischief and warmth. “Well, you haven't let everything go to hell too much,” he says, surveying my living room.

“Jeanne trained me well.”

He laughs. “Those pictures make me think of Jeanne. I never saw anybody who loved art the way she and our mamma did. Never took with me, but she and mamma wore a path to the museum.”

We drink a cup of coffee. I answer a phone call from Loretta, who saw DeWitt's Lincoln parked in front of my place and has to know who's visiting me. I tell her what it is we're up to and tease her by asking if she wants to go out and walk with us for a couple of hours. She acts all ruffled, and asks me how I can even think such a thing, but then she catches on and laughs.

On the way out to Dora Lee's, I fill DeWitt in on the situation.

“I made a couple phone calls yesterday,” DeWitt says. “Nobody knows of any project going on out here, but they'll check it out and get back to me.”

Even his voice reminds me of Jeanne, and I smile to myself as he talks.

As soon as we pull in, I see that the garden is drooping. You have to water every morning in this heat. When I check in with Jackson, I mention the garden. He says he doesn't know anything about gardens, but I don't know how that can be true since he was raised on a farm. From what little I know about Leslie Parjeter, I suspect he worked his stepson to within an inch of his life, and when Jackson managed to get off the farm, he vowed to never have another thing to do with farm work.

Jackson disappears inside, and DeWitt and I get started off to examine the land. It's hot as blazes, but in our time we've done this in all kinds of weather. We're both as eager to be back on the job as if we were still in our prime. Our job is made a good bit easier because her land has no trees to speak of. If you're trying to assess land through stands of post oak, you've got your work cut out. But this is pastureland, spreading out in undulating hillocks.

What we do when we walk the land is look for traces of shale and smell for gas. Pure natural gas doesn't have an odor, but often gas deposits have sour portions that smell of rotten eggs. And you sometimes don't see the shale, but it usually noses out at the surface somewhere on a property. Between looking and smelling, you can generally spot the signs. But even if we don't see or smell signs of gas, we'll take some soil samples here and there and have them tested.

DeWitt and I spread out to within hollering distance of each other and walk parallel. The property is about twenty acres and takes us the best part of two hours. Down at the back there is a boggy area, which surprises me. It has a scraggly stand of trees around it, and if you were selling mosquitoes by the pound, you'd have a bumper crop. By the time we start back, both drenched in sweat and thirsty, we have to admit we've seen and smelled nothing that would warrant further investigation. DeWitt says he'll run the soil samples over to Austin tomorrow, but neither of us thinks anything will come of it.

When we get back to the house, a rusted out old hulk of a Ford Fairlane is sitting in the driveway. It would be a classic if it was fixed up. A pinch-faced old man is just climbing out of it. DeWitt and I walk over to greet him.

“I bet you're Leslie Parjeter,” I say.

The old man admits that he is. He reaches into the back seat and takes out a faded cardboard suitcase that has to be as old as he is.