Morgan James - Promise McNeal 01 - Quiet the Dead (11 page)

“Stella was a gifted dancer, you know. She could have been professional had it not been for Tournay. Anyway, she was high as a kite in a March sky so I knew there would probably be trouble later on. I remember I was glad Grandmother had little Becca over at her house. I couldn’t deal with Stella when she was like that. It was all too depressing. We exchanged a few words and I left. I went back over to Grandmother Bennett’s, where I was living at the time. When Tournay came for Becca, around ten o’clock, that night, he was distracted and anxious. He acted guilty as hell, in my opinion. At the time I thought his behavior was probably due to him being with another woman earlier in the evening. I deduced, at the time, he hadn’t shown for the intimate little dinner Stella planned, and knew Stella was going raise holy hell when he got home. Now I think I had it all wrong. I think he went home, killed Stella, and then came to Grandmother’s for Becca.”

“Umm. Sounds as though you have replayed what happened that evening many times over the years, Mr. Bennett. Do you remember anything Tournay said when he came for Becca?” Bennett uncrossed his arms and used both hands to stroke his mustache downward, over his upper lip. My psychologist’s mind told me he wanted to say something else. I waited. When he didn’t speak, I finally changed my question. “Mr. Bennett, you said when you saw Stella you thought there would be trouble later? Did you mean trouble between Stella and Paul?” That suggestion seemed to get his attention.

“Oh yes,” he answered, “Stella could be out of control, especially when she was drinking. She would have these periods of being wildly happy and then something could set her off and she would snap and try to scratch your eyes out. Screaming and hollering and fighting like a banshee. She was insanely jealous of every student who flirted with Tournay; and I believe he did more than flirt with some of the students. Theirs was what you might call a
tumultuous
relationship. More than once Tournay had to call her daddy over to the house to calm her down. Today, I’m sure someone would call in a specialist, get a fancy diagnosis, and put her on medication. But then… well then, her daddy was who you called.”

Bennett stared off across the lake for several seconds, looking away from me, and then continued softly. “I will tell you this. I do sincerely believe her daddy made her like that to begin with.” He stopped, stroked his mustache again, shrugged, and continued. “The truth is, Uncle had a way when we were children of touching and petting you a little too much in places a little too private. You know what I mean? And you’d have to stand there and take it because he was the grownup, and you were the little child. Stella would build up anger and then it would just spew over, like a shaken bottle of Coca-cola. She’d find some excuse to start a fight with Uncle, and they’d go at it, tooth and claw. He’d end up beating the devil out of her; discipline he said, and she’d be locked in her room for a time, until the whole saga would start again.”

Bennett crossed then uncrossed his long legs. “I never heard of Stella’s mother taking up for her, not even once, in all those years. That was so wrong. Finally I mustered my nerve and told Uncle I would tell my mamma on him if he didn’t leave me alone. Uncle called me a sissy mamma’s boy, but he stopped touching me. I think he believed I would tell, and he knew my mamma was not like Stella’s. My mother would have plucked his eyes out with a crochet hook. I should have told her anyway, should have never kept it a secret, but I was too ashamed. I don’t think he ever stopped with Stella. Years later he caught her naked in the pool house with two Georgia Tech boys, and beat her terribly. Her mother finally did something and gave her money to go to Europe, Chandless money, not Bennett money, I might add. A little late to rescue your child, don’t you think, Ms. McNeal?” Bennett’s shoulders sagged with a sigh. “I’ve never told anyone about Uncle. And now I’ve burdened a perfect stranger with my pain. Please forgive me.”

Bennett turned to face me, perhaps to see if I was shocked by this disclosure. As a counselor, I’d heard similar stories many times over the years. The hearing never gets any easier. My heart went out to Howell Bennett, and Stella. “Mr. Bennett,” I offered quietly, “There is nothing to forgive. I am so very sorry about what happen to you and Stella. I pray someday you will find some small peace with your pain.” I meant what I said. From my experience, the pain of being abused as a child never completely goes away.

Bennett tried to smile, but the effort seemed too much. “Peace, yes, peace would be nice.” In a spontaneous jerk, he brushed invisible dirt from his trouser leg. “Now, my dear lady,” he recovered, “direct me back to the subject at hand.”

“Yes, you were saying you believe Paul Tournay killed Stella. Although, didn’t the newspaper say he had an alibi?”

“Of course,” Bennett’s voice raised in sarcasm, “the same student Stella thought he was having an affair with, the same one who left town soon after the murder.”

“I see your point. What about the theory that a vagrant may have killed her?”

“Nonsense. You seem like a smart lady, Ms. McNeal, think about it. There was no sign of a struggle. Tests showed she had sex prior to her death, but no evidence of rape. Not even Stella would be apt to engage in sex with a stranger who just happened to knock on her door. And why would a random killer bother to strangle her and then take the time to hang her in an oak tree? No, the killer was someone she knew. The mystery to me has always been how Tournay carried her down to the creek, let alone without leaving footprints in the wet yard. Stella was at least five foot eight; Tournay was shorter, maybe five-five, and although I remember him as athletic, I still don’t know how he did it.”

Registering a piece of information I’d not heard before, my heart skipped a couple of beats. “Yes, it must have been difficult getting her out of the house and down to the creek, and then hoisting her up in the oak tree.” Unless, I thought to myself, Tournay had help. “Mr. Bennett, the newspapers said nothing about Stella having sex prior to her death.”

Bennett smirked at me with as much distain as a human face can portray. “Well of course they didn’t print that! Do you think Uncle would stand for Stella’s sexual activity being aired in the Atlanta Journal newspaper? That was the fifties, Ms. McNeal. Doris Day, Gary Cooper, babies came from storks, and old money still ruled Atlanta with a tight fist.”

“Of course,” I acknowledged. We sat silently, both probably thinking about Stella. I was narrowing the possibilities of who would help Tournay the night Stella died, and Bennett was no doubt still mourning the loss of a much loved, though troubled, cousin. Bennett rose and extended his hand. I took it, feeling his sad emptiness flow through me like icy winds piercing tattered window curtains.

“I really must go, Ms. McNeal. I am advising the Gainesville Players production of Hamlet and we have rehearsals at noon. Our conversation brings to mind a line from that very play; ‘…
all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity
.’ Do you believe in eternity, Ms. McNeal?”

“I believe the spirit does not die, if that is what you are asking.”

“Ah,” he replied, thoughtfully. “I am not sure whether to be grateful for that possibility, or not. I wish you well, Madame.” With that he released my hand and walked slowly away from me.

I gave the cat family water from a bottle I appropriated from Luke’s cabin, and took a healthy drink myself of what was advertised as ‘pure mountain spring water’. The water was good; however, my well water is just as good and I don’t pay a dollar twenty-nine for it every time I fill from the tap. I realized I was glad to be driving north and looked forward to being back in North Carolina in a couple of hours. Once I got through the minimal downtown traffic in Gainesville, and found my way north to the four lane, my mind went into overdrive and reviewed my conversation with Howell Bennett. I certainly knew better than to diagnose a person I’d never even met; however, Bennett painted a picture of a Stella struck by serious depression, or possibly even Bi Polar illness. Either of these emotional issues would account for her erratic behavior, and her self-medicating with alcohol. Add a father who, from Bennett’s recollections, sexually molested her for years; and the poor woman must have been tormented to the very pit of her soul. Even Stella’s acting out sexually with the two boys in the pool house was a classic reaction to childhood abuse.

I grieved for Stella, and Howell Bennett, and thought, not for the first time, human beings who sexually prey on children are not human at all. Oh, I know, I’m trained to help heal the most damaged of persons without being judgmental. You can’t judge and still be an effective counselor. That’s probably why I can’t work with sexual predators. My education may say set aside anger and judgment; my heart says sexual predators are missing a key piece of their soul that cannot be manufactured by therapy.

I recalled what I’d observed with a few clients expressing Stella’s erratic behavior: their intense drive to create life dramas, of which they themselves must be the central figure, all to manipulate and control their surroundings. Had Stella created such a drama around Tourney’s suspected infidelity the night she was killed? Had she gone so far over the edge that Paul Tournay followed her?

Still, if Bennett was right and Tournay killed Stella, why would he not just leave her in the house, come back later and feign surprise? One possible answer was because he would have Becca with him when he returned. He wouldn’t want his daughter to see her mother strangled on the floor. Maybe. Although, he could have found a reason to leave Becca with her grandmother, and not bring her to the house. Or, maybe he was trying to detour the police from the house as much as possible. I thought about the scene played out in my mind yesterday in the Tournay’s living room. I saw a man, his back towards me, discarding Stella’s ballet slippers and replacing them with tennis shoes. He doesn’t tie the shoes, so one falls off when she is moved. Clearly the man wanted to show Stella was dressed for outside walking when she was killed, and not for dancing around her own living room. Howell Bennett said he didn’t think Tournay could have moved Stella to the creek alone. So, who would have helped him move the body? Who would do what he asked without questions? And, how did they get Stella from the house to the creek without leaving footprints in the fresh mud? I knew I’d seen the answers to my questions at the Tournay house. I just had to relax and let the picture develop from cloudy to clear.

What I needed was Bette Midler. Trying to keep my eyes on the road, I fumbled in the driver’s side pocket for the CD I wanted. Shortly, I was singing along with Bette’s bittersweet lyrics…”
some say love is like a river that drowns the tender reed
…” By the time Bette and I’d finished singing about love and the rose, answers were gelling in my mind, along with a few new questions.

I found myself whispering aloud to Stella, “What are you trying to tell me? What possible good could come of the world knowing Paul killed you? You can’t punish a dead man.” Stella, thank goodness, didn’t answer. The irony of the situation occurred to me. If Stella had created dangerous dramas in life to manipulate those around her, was she still doing that in death? Was she manipulating me?

“The hearts that never lean must fall.”
…..Emily Dickinson

8.

There are two possible routes to my house. The most direct follows a gently climbing s-curved road lined with tomato, bean and pumpkin fields on one side and a county airport on the other, where an official looking yellow helicopter usually nests alongside a half-dozen or so small recreational planes. It is definitely not a Delta hub, but occasionally an upscale corporate-type aircraft will touch down, a reminder of affluent part-time residents who have weekend homes in nearby Highlands. For the most part, the airport is unobtrusive, with more neatly mowed green grass than tarmac, and creates little noise. Still, I don’t usually follow this road home, preferring instead the slightly longer, instinctively truer route, north beside the Little Tennessee River and then west, abruptly climbing the ridge by rounded switch backed curves to the high valley where Fells Creek, twisting forcefully, and as wide as a river in some places, spans the green floor like a determined outstretched hand. When I see the creek angle sharply to my left, cross the narrow two lane concrete bridge, and dip down onto my gravel drive, I know I’ve returned.

“Here we are, girls,” I announced to the cat family, “your new home. And see that little barn over there. I know for a fact there are mice aplenty hiding under all that old hay on the floor.” As I parked along the kitchen side of the house, the crunching sound of another vehicle on the drive prompted me to check the rear view mirror. The familiar black Fork pickup truck identified my visitor, Susan’s dad, Daniel. I continued my one-way conversation with the cats as I killed the engine. “Wonder what brings him out here at two o’clock in the afternoon? Too bad he’s not delivering lunch; I’m famished.” Once out of the car, I twisted left and right from the waist, stretching my stiff back to release three hours of driving tension, and waited for Daniel to park behind me.

“Afternoon Miz. McNeal,” he said with a raised fingertip to his worn Stetson hat.

I returned his greeting. His dark eyes caught a glint of afternoon sun.
Oh Lord
, I thought,
that man is way too good looking for my peace of mind.
I smiled politely, resolved to stay detached and neighbor-friendly.

“What brings you way out here this afternoon?” I asked. “And, it’s Promise. The Ms. McNeal makes me feel a hundred years old.”

“Yes Ma’am. Promise,” he replied, my name sticking in his throat like a dry soda cracker. Several seconds went by with him looking at me tentatively, favoring me with a small sideways smile.
Yes, he is too handsome.
I watched him shift his weight from one foot to the other, and adjust his hat. “Susan meant for me to ask after Fletcher Enloe for you. I did, and he’s t’home this afternoon, if you want me to take you round there.”

“Ah, yes. The goat situation,” I replied, somewhat puzzled at why I needed Daniel as an escort to call on my closest neighbor. On second thought, since I was still the outsider, I decided an introduction from Daniel would be helpful. My stomach growled to remind me the bagel I’d eaten seven hours ago was long gone. “Thank you, Daniel. I’d appreciate you introducing me. Do you have time for me to unload the cat family and eat a sandwich before we go over?”

“Yes Ma’am,” he answered obligingly, still smiling. “Susan told me you’d be coming home with some barn cats.”

I frowned. “Well, I’m not sure they are quite ready to be barn cats.” I opened the back of the car and Daniel bent over to survey the laundry basket, full of Mamma Cat and the two babies.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “You probably got mice in the barn bigger than them. No offense meant, but that’s the most poorly looking alive cat I ever saw.”

“You mean Mamma Cat? Yes, I know. She’s so thin you can just about see through her. But look at the babies. They are small, but she’s managed to feed them pretty well. I think regular meals will fatten her up.” With hat in hand, Daniel bent in for a closer look. Mamma hissed at him and he jerked his head back, banging it on the Subaru’s hatchback. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? That must have hurt like holy hell.”

Daniel rubbed the top of his skull, raking his hand through his curly black hair. Not a gray hair in sight. Getting older is so much more unfair to women than to men. “Holy hell is right,” he winced, “I reckon you better take the basket inside. She doesn’t like me one little bit. I’ll carry the food and litter box for you.”

Presently, Mamma and babies were settled into the utility room off the kitchen. Mamma left the basket briefly to eat some canned tuna I’d spooned into her bowl and to jump up on the dryer to survey the backyard from the window. Her skinny gray tail switched back and forth as she cataloged edible birds at the feeder suspended from the porch beam; I made a mental note to move the feeder to a higher tree limb in the yard, and hoped she would soon realize hunting was no longer necessary. When I turned from the utility room, I saw Daniel had remained standing by the back door, hat still in his hand. As stiff as he stood, you’d think he was holding up the doorframe, glass and all. I tried to offer a smile of ease, though actually, Daniel was making
me
a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if it was the seemingly bottomless depth to his brown eyes, or the sideways smile. Or maybe I was just remembering Susan’s remark about her dad being sweet on me. Get over it, I told myself. He’s just a man trying to be neighborly. Nothing more. I decided food was always a neutral subject between a man and a woman. “How about a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich?”

“Oh, no thank you. I had dinner earlier with Susan down at Granny’s.”

That reminded me I needed to check in with Susan later to get the rest of the information she’d uncovered on Boo and Angel Turner. “Can you at least sit down over here at the table and have a glass of tea while I eat?”

It seemed to me Daniel hesitated, just for a second. Was he that uncomfortable? He finally sat down and I poured two glasses of iced tea from the fridge. “Sorry. The tea is not sweetened. Can I get you some sugar?”

“No Ma’am. I drink it straight up, just like my coffee.”

“Is that a fact?” I said, “I thought I was the only Southerner who didn’t drink sweet tea.” I handed Daniel his glass and began to assemble my sandwich. The photograph of Stella, Paul, and Boo Turner, three friends seemingly relaxing at the beach, streaked through my mind. Was I just assuming they were friends, as I’d assumed that I was alone in preferring my tea unsweetened? “How am I going to find the truth?” I said aloud, then embarrassed, glanced at Daniel, hoping he’d not heard me. No such luck. He looked perplexed, and seemed to be giving my stream of consciousness question serious thought.

After he took a couple of deep swallows of his tea, he answered, “Well, I expect you are like most of us. We already know the truth well enough. Sometimes we just wish it weren’t so.”

What an interesting observation. For a brief second I considered telling Daniel about the Tournay case, to get his perspective; then I dismissed the idea. Too much risk in him thinking I operated in the Twilight Zone. Better to change the subject. “I’m sure you’re right,” I agreed. “So Daniel, do you like delivering the mail?”

Looking bemused at the abrupt change in subject matter, he leaned back in his chair to casually stroke his hat with his left hand, turning it gingerly a half turn around on the table. “I like it well enough. It’s steady and before long I’ll have a small retirement. Like most things in life, it’s a compromise. When I was young I went two years to community college. Learned tool and dye making. Did that for a while. Hated being inside all day. I wanted to farm like my daddy in the daytime, and spend my nights playing music. Course, my daddy thought I was wasting my time learning to fiddle; but I don’t think so. Too bad there’s no real money in Bluegrass music, or in farming now days. Unless you’re part of the mega farms, then your soul belongs to the corporation. Later, when I needed to be home more with Susan, I quit the manufacturing job. That same week a vacancy came up at the post office. They hired me, so I reckon I did fair enough on the test. Pretty soon I quit raising tobacco and vegetables, and got into raising cows and sheep instead. More money in beef than tomatoes.”

I nodded my understanding and slowly chewed my sandwich; amused that Daniel was providing so much information.

“Susan showed her sheep at the fairs when she was in grammar school. Won a passel of prizes, and got her picture in the paper most every year. She tell you that?” I shook my head no, and he forged ahead. “Now we play music together. She’s the best picker in the state. I reckon you do know that, since I saw you a couple of times in the crowd last summer when we played on the square in town.” Daniel paused, probably to take a breath. The man had volunteered a book of information about himself in one long string of sentences. And I had thought he was the silent type! “Yes, Ma’am, it’s a good life, between the income off the cows and the mail carrying, we do fine. We got out of the sheep business, though.”

“Why no more sheep?”

“Cause they are dumber than rocks, and cause Susan never could get the point sheep are for lamb chops, and not just grooming up in pretty ribbons for the county fair.”

Peanut butter stuck in my throat. I could feel a young Susan’s aching heart as she said goodbye to a much-loved sheep, knowing it was destined to be Sunday lunch served with mint jelly. Washing the last of the sandwich down with iced tea, I went to the sink and rinsed my glass. “I see your point. I’d have to pass on the sheep, too. Just the thought of it makes me consider being vegetarian. Are you ready to call on Mr. Enloe?”

Daniel rose, and settled his hat on his head. I was realizing he and that Stetson hat were old and close friends. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” he replied.

With an offering of a jar of my homemade fig jam in hand, we followed a foot worn path from my side yard through a heavy stand of white pines laced with leggy young hemlocks, leading us to Fletcher Enloe’s property. Since my five acres had been carved from his eighty-plus, we shared a rear fence of open welded wire and wood posts. A two-foot wide rut showed in the dirt long the fence, the result of the offending male goat patrolling up and down the line, munching my blueberry bushes through the wire as he walked. Thus, I was on a mission to ask Mr. Enloe to move his goat somewhere else, anywhere else, away from the fence.

It felt good to be walking in the open air of early fall, the warm sun on my face, and needing only a light sweater. This would be my first autumn in the North Carolina Mountains, and I was looking forward to a leaf explosion of reds and yellows, and the heady smell of wood smoke in the air. We ambled silently through the thickest part of the trees, the floor a dense cushion of fallen brown pine straw and feathery ferns. I was grateful Daniel had talked himself out and didn’t feel the need to fill every second with conversation. When we were almost to Enloe’s property, I spoke. “Daniel, how long do you suppose these white pines have been here?”

Daniel stopped and thoughtfully touched one of the tender pine fronds. “These whites haven’t been here all that long. Just like most everything else you see around here, they’re not old forest because of the logging done up here.”

I thought about the thick clumps of laurels, native holly, and gangly oaks growing in front of my house along the banks of Fells Creek, and wondered what had grown there two hundred years ago when the Cherokee watched the same creek. “So logging used to be big business in this part of the county?”

“Lord, yes,” he answered. “When my Daddy was young this part of Perry County was pretty much bald. He used to say come rain the mountain slopes cried red muddy tears. I think the federal government knew all of us stubborn Scot-Irish would never listen to anybody telling us we were shooting ourselves in the foot by cutting so many of our trees to sell. Course, when a man is just trying to feed his family, he doesn’t want to hear
no
to the only thing he thinks will keep’em going another winter. No ma’am, you can’t tell a Scot what to do; he’ll do the opposite just to cross you. Leastwise, the government put what they could into National Forests, and that’s a good thing. We finally figured out they were right about the strip logging. Timber folks are a lot more careful now days.” Daniel turned and pointed beyond the far side of my pasture. “You see that overgrown spit of a road over there? Can you can make out it climbs up the saddle of the ridge to Fire Mountain? That’s one of the abandoned logging roads used back during the early nineteen hundreds. I believe it was used pretty regularly until the late thirties. Least, that’s what my daddy always said. I don’t go quite that far back myself.”

I knew exactly what road Daniel was talking about. I’d already seen the shadows of the brush-covered roadbed from my bedroom window, and heard wagon wheels grinding with the effort of climbing the road in the predawn quiet. “When you say abandoned, do you mean no one ever uses the road now?”

“No, nobody much goes up there any more. They’d probably be trespassing if they did, because except for the little bit on National Forest land, all of it is on Fletcher’s property. Nantahala National Forest begins somewhere along the ridge and stretches all the way to Wayah Bald, but I don’t know exactly where it starts. Fletcher knows, I’m sure; we can ask him, if you’re curious.”

As if on cue, we reached Enloe’s property and a wiry man of about my height came out of the house to stand on the front porch. I surmised he must be in his late seventies or eighties, though he was certainly not a feeble old man. Dressed in creased chino work pants and a freshly ironed shirt of the same dark cream color, Fletcher Enloe looked active and healthy; from his pink flushed light complexion to his neatly parted thick gray hair, this was a man who prided himself on holding the years at bay. He would probably tell us he still split his own wood and mended his own fences.