Long Upon the Land (16 page)

A classic dog in the manger, thought Dwight. But over a cat? A cat he didn’t even like?

“I’ll be in touch about the truck,” he said and headed back to his own truck.

By the time Dwight got out to the farm lane where they’d found Vick Earp’s body, Sam Dalton and Ray McLamb had already searched the area where the body had lain.

“No sign of the cat, Major, and I didn’t see any buzzards or crows fly off when I drove up,” Ray said. “You, Sam?”

The other deputy shook his head. “No, but the way coyotes are moving into the state, it could have been carried off deeper into the woods.”

Nevertheless, a careful search up and down the edge of the branch did not give them any black cat fur.

“Weird,” said Dalton. “Why dump it somewhere else?”

“For that matter, why kill it at all?” asked Ray.

Dwight told them what he’d learned from talking with Earp’s wife and brother. “Maybe it really was a spur-of-the-moment burst of anger. Somebody hurts the cat and he goes off on them and winds up getting the worst of it.”

They searched for another half hour before giving up and calling it a day.

I
stepped out of the cool courthouse that afternoon into such brutal August heat, I could feel myself melting inside my sleeveless blue linen dress. The turquoise and green beads of my chunky necklace lay on my neck like a hot mule collar. Worse, the air was so heavy with humidity that I wondered if those dark clouds building on the western horizon meant we were in for something more than a summer thunderstorm. Our local NPR hadn’t mentioned hurricanes in the morning report, but it sure felt like hurricane weather; and when Luther Parker stopped me on the sidewalk, all I wanted to do was keep walking to my car so I could crank up the AC and dry out.

Luther came to the bench a few months before me, our district’s first black judge. We faced each other in a runoff the first time we ran for judge and he won. Not surprising, considering that I had just shot and nearly killed one of Colleton County’s more prominent citizens, so I didn’t hold it against him. But we have adjoining offices upstairs.

Air-conditioned offices.

Why did we need to conference on a sidewalk hot enough to scramble eggs when we could have talked in comfort?

But then he said, “What can you tell me about Marcus Williams, Deborah?” and I stopped in dismay.

Marcus Williams is one of those kids who touch my heart. He’s seventeen and lives here in Dobbs with his grandmother and two younger sisters. He’s light-fingered and can’t resist stealing things for the girls, things that his grandmother can’t afford despite working two jobs, yet there’s an inner core of sweetness that reminds me of my favorite nephews and keeps me from throwing the book at him. I hadn’t seen him since he helped Aunt Zell and me break into an empty house back in May and I had hoped he was staying out of trouble.

“Please don’t tell me he was up before you today?”

“No, no,” said Luther, “but that has to be the luck of the draw considering how many times you’ve had him.”

“You looked up his record?”

“And asked your bailiff.”

“Why?”

He handed me a cheaply printed business card.
Williams is willing…
was printed at the top followed by Marcus’s full name and a telephone number. Across the bottom were small pictographs of basic maintenance equipment: stepladder, paintbrush, lawn mower, rake, clippers, and a bucket.

“He’s started a handyman service?”

“And my sister wants to hire him. Her husband has a heart condition and her son’s interning in Washington—did I tell you? Cyl DeGraffenreid had an opening in her firm up there.”

Cyl used to be an assistant DA here before she joined a prestigious black lobbyist firm in D.C. We keep up with each other through Facebook, but I hadn’t talked to her in a couple of months. Much as I’d have loved to hear more, it was too hot to linger out there in the sun.

“Marcus Williams,” I reminded Luther, returning the boy’s business card.

“Right. Anyhow, my sister needs someone dependable to do their yard work, which is why she asked me to check out his reference. Is he honest, hardworking, and worth fifteen dollars an hour?”

“I’m his reference?”

“Told my sister you knew he could be trusted to do the right thing.”

I had to laugh at that. But yes, he could have burned through the credit card he used after I’d tried (and failed) to jimmy that lock with it. I forgot to ask for it back and he could have gone on a shopping spree. Instead, he returned it the next day, along with Uncle Ash’s crowbar that Aunt Zell had brought with her as a backup to my credit card.

“He’s basically a good kid that’s been handed the short end of a stick,” I said. “If he can finish school and get a couple of breaks, he’s bright enough to do anything he sets his mind to. Your sister needs to be real specific about what she wants him to do, but if he says he’ll do it, I think he will.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Luther said and headed for his own car.

Dwight’s truck was parked by the back door when I got home, but there was no sign of him nor of Cal. A slight breeze stirred the tiny graceful limbs of a young willow near the garage. Not enough to cool, yet enough to bring me the smell of coming rain, along with the faint rumble of distant thunder.

Inside, I changed into cutoffs and a tank top, kicked off my blue slingback heels for slip-on straw sandals, then went looking for my menfolks.

They were nowhere in the house, but by the time I stepped outside, the wind had strengthened and I heard voices coming from the pond. I walked down the slope to see Cal out in the rowboat with Haywood and Robert, a few hundred feet from the pier where Dwight stood. Robert was bareheaded as usual, but Haywood had his porkpie hat pushed down on his forehead as he rowed for the pier.

“Hurry!” Dwight called and pointed to the thunderheads, which were picking up speed. I watched as they blotted out the sun, making everything suddenly darker.

As lightning flashed across the sky, Haywood picked up his own pace with the oars.

The wind was gusting strongly now and there was less and less time between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder. I ran down to the pier, ready to help them out of the boat. As soon as they got close enough, Robert threw the rope to Dwight, who tied it around a post.

Robert handed me the fishing poles and climbed up the ladder while Dwight reached down for Cal’s hands and swung him onto the pier just as the rain reached us. This was no soft, gentle rain. The drops were fat and heavy and hit my face and arms as if I were being pelted with small water balloons. With Haywood lumbering along behind, we ran for the house, but all five of us were drenched before we made it through the open garage door.

Safely under shelter now, we looked out and watched thick sheets of rain sweep across the yard. Thunder crashed all around us as lightning forked from the black sky and we all jumped when it struck a tall pine at the edge of the field on the far side of the pond. Cal immediately tucked himself under Dwight’s arm in mingled fear and excitement. A moment later, hail began to bounce on the concrete apron outside the garage. Haywood would later swear the marble-sized hailstones were big as golf balls.

The worst of the storm passed as quickly as it had come. The hail stopped, but rain continued to pour down, sluicing off the eaves. We’ve never bothered with gutters because water seldom stands long in our sandy soil, so curtains of rainwater fell from the roof and the wind blew some of it in on us until Dwight lowered the doors. We went through the kitchen to chairs on the back porch, away from the wind, and I fetched towels to dry our hair. Thin clouds of steam rose in the fields beyond our yard as cool rain met with hot dirt and the temperature had dropped several degrees. I was even thinking about a sweater when Cal said, “My fish! Did anybody bring the bucket up?”

“Don’t worry about ’em, son,” Robert said. “They’ll just keep swimming around in the bucket, although with this much rain, the bucket might overflow and they’re liable to jump back in the pond.”

“But we were going to have them for supper.”

“Supper?” said Haywood, looking hopeful.

He and Robert had parked at the far end of the pond and I could hardly throw them out in such heavy rain.

“Call Isabel and Doris and tell them that you’ll eat with us,” I said.

I rummaged in the pantry and in less than thirty minutes, we sat down to tuna salad and sliced tomatoes with hot crispy rounds of cornbread on the side. Dwight drew four glasses of his homemade ale for us and poured milk for Cal.

The rain began to slack off as we finished eating, but it was still heavy enough that no one was anxious to retrieve a truck.

“A million-dollar rain,” my brothers said, referring to all the crops that had been close to drying up in the field.

“Saved our garden,” Dwight agreed, “although I hate to think what that wind may’ve done to the corn.”

As we drifted back out to the porch rockers for coffee, Robert said, “Guess y’all still don’t know who killed Vick Earp, do you?”

Haywood scowled at him. “We don’t need to be talking about that.”

Cal looked from one to the other, then said, “You gonna ask ’em about their alibis, Dad?”

“Huh?” said Haywood, easing his bulk into one of the rocking chairs.

From the next chair, Robert said, “Alibi for what?”

Dwight frowned at Cal. “Do you remember what I said about not repeating things to do with my work?”

Abashed, Cal dropped his head. “Sorry, Dad.”

“I think you should go clean up the kitchen,” he said mildly.

Grateful to escape so lightly, Cal disappeared inside.

“Alibis for what?” Robert’s voice was more belligerent this time.

“Cal heard us talking about Daddy and what the
Clarion
’s been printing about Dwight not questioning him hard enough,” I said, trying to pour oil on their troubled waters.

Dwight was more forthright. “Saturday, when I asked if any of y’all recognized Vick Earp, nobody said anything. We could’ve started questioning people and trying to find witnesses twenty-four hours earlier if you or Mr. Kezzie had said something right then, Haywood.”

Haywood humphed and stared out into the rain, silent for once.

“Vick Earp’s brother—Tyler Earp? He says y’all used to fight a lot when they lived out here and that there was bad blood between the Earps and the Knotts. I asked Mr. Kezzie about it and he admitted there had been run-ins between him and Joby Earp and that you boys used to get into it, too.”

“Well, yeah,” said Robert. “No secret about that.” He gave Haywood a puzzled look. “Why didn’t you speak up?”

“Won’t my place,” he said with a mulish look on his face. “Daddy didn’t say nothing, so I didn’t either.”

“See, Dwight, the Earps always acted like there was something crooked about the way Daddy got their land,” Robert said. “I was real little but I remember Mr. Sammy. He used to make whiskey for Daddy, back when Daddy was still into it real big. Before Mama Sue made him quit.” He grinned. “Or Mama Sue
thought
he’d quit. Remember, Dwight?”

That got an answering grin from my husband. “Don’t remember Sammy Earp or Joby either, but I do remember cutting firewood with you boys till Miss Sue caught on that we weren’t doing it for people to heat their houses with.”

“Well, Mr. Sammy was right good-natured but he’d start drinking on a Friday night and stay drunk till Monday. He used to run a tab at the store for months at a time, then he’d cut off a piece of his land to settle up till there were just a little scrap of it left for Joby when he died. Joby was mean as a snake, though. He and Miss Earla took in Vick and Tyler but that was her, not him. Did you know he shot at Daddy one time and almost hit Mama Sue?”

“Huh?” said Haywood. “When did that happen?”

I was equally surprised. “You knew about that? How come I never did?”

He gave a sheepish smile. “I guess it was like Cal just now. I heard some men at the store talking about how they had to pull Daddy offen Joby before he killed him. I spoke out of turn, just like Cal did and Daddy said I’d get a licking if I talked about it again, especially in front of Mama Sue. That was right around the time they got married and he didn’t want her to know, so I never did. It happened so long ago, I pretty much forgot about it till Vick went and got hisself killed.”

“So when’s the last time you saw him?” Dwight asked.

“Last fall maybe. October or November. Remember, Haywood? We was hunting rabbits out where Black Gum Branch runs into Possum Creek and Vick was there. Just setting on the tailgate of his truck looking out toward the creek and— Wait a minute! Won’t that where Daddy found him?”

Dwight nodded.

“Haywood asked him what he was doing there and he said it was none of our damn business and you said you’d make it our business, right, Haywood? For a minute, I thought he was gonna take us both on, but he just let loose with more cussing, got in his truck, and drove away.”

“Spit at us first, though, and give us the finger,” said Haywood. “He was always touchy as a hornet and after they moved off to town, it was tail up, stinger out every time he saw us.”

“Anyhow,” said Robert, “if you asked Daddy, you might as well ask us. Doris can tell you I was with her all that weekend and I reckon Bel can say the same for Haywood.”

Haywood gave a short nod and stood up. “Rain’s slacked off enough that I reckon we won’t wash away if one of y’all’ll run us over to our trucks.”

Normally, he’s the last one to mention leaving.

We all stood, but when Dwight pulled out his keys, I plucked them from his hand. “I’ll take them,” I said. “Why don’t you go talk to Cal?”

“We’ll come back tomorrow to get the boat,” Robert told him.

I kicked off my sandals and splashed barefoot across the yard to Dwight’s truck where I maneuvered them so that Haywood wound up sitting between us on the bench seat. When I got to the end of the Long Pond where their pickups were, Robert headed straight to his, gave a wave of his hand, and headed down a lane to his house. Before Haywood could follow, I put a hand on his arm.

“What?” he said.

“When did you last see Vick Earp?” I asked.

“Whatcha talkin’ about, Deb’rah?” he blustered. “You heard Robert.”

“Yeah, I heard Robert. I didn’t hear you.”

“And you think that makes me a killer? Thank you very much, little sister.” And with that, he levered his bulk out into the rain, pulled his porkpie hat down firmly on his big square head, and stomped off to his truck.

Did I really think Haywood could kill? No.

Did I think he could do something stupid that would give people—people being Dwight—the wrong idea?

Oh yes.