Signs in the Blood (18 page)

“Oh, sweetie, Wednesday is Cletus's funeral. I don't think I can handle a funeral
and
a revival in the same day. But, listen, Birdie's cousin told me that this John the Baptizer was going to speak at the graveside—why don't you come with me to the service? It's at two. And Birdie would really appreciate it,” Elizabeth added shamelessly.

“Well,” said Laurel slowly, “I guess I should. For Birdie and for Cletus. But then you come with me to the revival on Thursday—no, Friday. I have to work Thursday night.” There was a pause and she added in a serious tone, “Maybe I'll get saved,” and waited a beat for Elizabeth's reaction. When there was none, she tried again, “Or maybe you will. Like it used to say on that barn
—‘Get Right with God.'
”

The rest of the day was spent in pleasant garden tasks—a little light weeding, deadheading spent daffodils, setting out annuals. Elizabeth planted a lavish display of crimson, coral, and shell-pink impatiens among a lush swath of soft green ferns that stretched out under an old pear tree.
Instant gratification,
she thought, and after watering the plants well, hauled the hose down to her herb garden. Here she tucked in bright yellow and orange marigolds next to purple basil, standing back to admire the gaudy effect. Between the gray-green shapes of the budding lavender, self-sown raspberry-tinted foxgloves were already throwing up their elegant spires.

She always kept the Sabbath in this way—no loud weed-eater or mower, only those bits of gardening that allowed her plenty of time to pause and appreciate the beauty of her surroundings. Sitting on the east-facing slope that was part of her front yard, she imagined, as she had often before, that she could feel the world turning—that she was sitting in the front car of some immense roller coaster whose tracks ran along the earth's latitudes. She closed her eyes and felt herself rushing eastward in a precipitous descent. Then she concentrated on the warm ground beneath her, feeling that invisible roots were holding her in place against the dizzying spin and that she was drawing up strength through those same roots.

“And if you don't sound as New Age as the worst of them,” she said aloud, emerging from her reverie and getting slowly to her feet. “You'll be journeying in your astral body if you don't watch it, Elizabeth Goodweather.”

It was after nine when Phillip Hawkins called. He spoke with ill-contained excitement as he apologized for calling so late. “I just now heard from R.L.—you remember, my buddy the medical examiner in Chapel Hill? Looks like your Miss Birdie may be right. They took another look at the lung tissue and . . . are you ready for this? There's a lot of pathology jargon, but what it boils down to is that the water in the lungs is not entirely consistent with the residual water in the mouth and ears. In other words, maybe Cletus didn't drown in the river.”

CHAPTER 14

W
HISTLING IN THE
D
ARK
 (
S
UNDAY AND
T
HEN
W
EDNESDAY)

S
O THE SHERIFF
'
LL HAVE TO START INVESTIGATING,
” Elizabeth exclaimed. “If this proves that he didn't drown in the river—” “Hold on,” Hawkins interrupted. “R.L. was very careful to say that this didn't
prove
anything. It was—how'd the report go? Anomalous something or other . . . borderline findings well within certain parameters. Anyway, the sheriff's office already has the information and it's up to them how or even
if
they want to act on it. What R.L. said comes down to this: there isn't definite proof that Cletus drowned somewhere else, but it isn't totally impossible. And by the way, they'll be taking a look at that other guy who was just pulled out of the river, what was his name, Dewey something? If his case shows the same anomalies, Blaine'll have to get his ass in gear.”

Elizabeth chewed on this information for several days. A phone conversation with the sheriff was as frustrating as her visit to his office. Yes, he was aware of the findings of the medical examiner. Was Mrs. Goodweather aware that medical examiners weren't always the wonder-workers portrayed in certain popular detective fiction? And how, by the way, did Mrs. Goodweather come to be so familiar with the medical examiner's report?

As she was unwilling to explain about Hawkins and his buddy R.L., Elizabeth thanked Sheriff Blaine for his time and hung up. She pondered her next move—Should she tell Birdie about this and get her to demand a more thorough autopsy?
No, Miss Birdie's had to wait long enough for the funeral. The facts, such as they are, are there; if I can find Cletus's shotgun and it's not in the river, maybe that'll convince Blaine to take this seriously.

A line from a Dorothy L. Sayers book came to mind: “When you know how, you know who.”
Okay,
if
Cletus was drowned somewhere else, where might that have been? Most of the branches in the mountains are way too shallow to drown a man in, and little pools like that one at Walter and Ollie's are uncommon. I wonder if there's water on the militia place?
Suddenly she pictured the flumes and pond of the trout farm in Little Man Holler and again saw the wild figure of old man Tyler bursting out of his door with his shotgun, calling out the name of the now deceased Dewey Shotwell.

Elizabeth, Ben, and Laurel sat in a pew toward the back of the funeral home's chapel. Miss Birdie's friends and relations from all over the county as well as a few from out of state had filled the room to overflowing. At the front of the room, surrounded by what the florist had called “floral tributes,” was the metallic bronze casket containing the mortal remains of Cletus Gentry. The grim gray profile of his head was just visible, surrounded by silky white padding. A somber melody wafted from a hidden organ, and out of an adjoining room came a dark-suited, sleek-haired man who could have been nothing but a funeral director. He was ushering Miss Birdie, supported on her other side by Dorothy, to her seat in the front pew.

Miss Birdie, in a dark blue dress, was trembling and dabbing at her eyes with a crumpled pink tissue. All the matter-of-fact acceptance of her son's death that she had previously exhibited was gone.
It's almost as if a show of grief is part of the ritual,
Elizabeth thought.
Not like the funerals back home; a stiff upper lip, that's the formula that I grew up with.
Elizabeth had allowed herself no public tears at Sam's memorial service, only a lump in her throat that had made speech almost impossible.
And at least there was just the plain wooden box with his ashes—not a body.

Elizabeth had carefully avoided “viewing the body” on the previous night. After a quick word with Miss Birdie and Dorothy, she had signed the visitation book and made her escape. But most of the friends and neighbors who were there had gathered in convivial little groups around the casket, gazing at Cletus and chatting with one another. The comment “Don't he look natural?” had been heard over and over. Elizabeth had doubted that he looked anything of the sort.

“Mum,” Laurel murmured now in her ear, “is that him . . . on the far right?” Four solemn-faced men had taken their seats in the chairs on the raised platform. One was very young and wore cowboy boots with his ill-fitting new blue suit. Two were men in their late seventies; one had on an aged black suit that had been fashionable when Eisenhower was President; the other wore black trousers and a long-sleeved white shirt. After a moment Elizabeth recognized him as Pastor Briggs.

The fourth man, the one on the far right, was the man she had last seen at the foot of Walter and Ollie Johnson's road, the evangelist who called himself John the Baptizer. He, too, wore black trousers and a white shirt.

“That's the one,” Elizabeth whispered to her daughter.

One by one, the first three preachers gave their “messages.” It was always the same. Believe, and you go to heaven; doubt, and you go to hell. Each assured the congregation that Cletus was in heaven and warned their listeners that “we know not when we too may be called.” Behind the pulpit, a man and a woman harmonized in a song that told of golden streets in glory.

Finally the funeral director came forward and signaled for the congregation to rise. Laurel tugged at her mother's sleeve and whispered urgently, “Mum, John the Baptizer hasn't spoken! I thought you said—”

“At the graveside,” hissed Elizabeth. Pew by pew, the congregation was being directed to file to the front and past the open casket. She noted that the four preachers had lined up just beyond the casket, in a kind of receiving line, and were shaking hands with the mourners as they passed by on their way back to their pews.
When in Rome . . .
thought Elizabeth and filed up to the front, following Ben and Laurel.

Cletus was dressed in a white shirt and new overalls and his hands were folded over a Bible. His face was a waxen mask. Elizabeth tried to think of the living Cletus, whose shy smile and twinkling eyes had delighted her and her family for so many years. Then she was past the casket, and shaking hands with the preachers. “Thank you for the message,” she could hear an elderly woman ahead of them saying, and “Thank you for the message,” Laurel was saying to the young preacher. Elizabeth contented herself with a nod and a soft thank-you and followed the others back to the pew.

Now that the congregation was seated again, the funeral director moved to the pew where Birdie and Dorothy were sitting with Birdie's two ancient sisters-in-law. The two old ladies, Cletus's maiden aunts, painfully made their way to the casket, supported by the funeral director. As they stood looking down on their nephew's corpse, one of them uttered a low wail, a kind of whooping sound. The other joined in on a higher note and then both turned away, wiping their eyes and keening softly.

And then the sleek funeral director was bending over Miss Birdie, offering her his arm. She got up slowly and, with Dorothy at her side, was escorted to the open casket. She stood there quietly for a moment, then reached out a trembling hand and cried, “Oh, Cletus, I should of gone first! Hit weren't right!” She began to make the same whooping sound her sisters-in-law had and continued to call out, “Cletus, Cletus, I can't go on without you!”

Birdie sagged against her cousin; only Dorothy's stout arm held her up. The oldest preacher stepped up, laid a hand on Birdie's shoulder, and said, “Now, Sister Gentry, hit'll not be long till you're with your boy again,” and at that it seemed to Elizabeth that Birdie's whoops grew louder.

“I thought you said Miss Birdie wasn't taking Cletus's death that hard,” commented Ben as he turned their car to join the motor procession to the little cemetery on a hill overlooking the river. “Didn't you say she had been worried about what would happen to him if she died first?”

Elizabeth was jolted out of her reverie. The chant, “When you know how, you know who,” had been running nonstop in her mind. She considered briefly, then said, “Birdie was upset at the thought that his death might not have been an accident, but, yes, she did say that it might have been best that he went first.” She thought a moment and added, “I know Birdie misses Cletus and I guess she feels that this is the time and place for her to show it.”

Laurel stretched restlessly and began to fiddle with the black scarf that confined her coppery bright dreadlocks into a semidiscreet ponytail. “Doesn't John the Baptizer have mysterious eyes?” she said dreamily. “I can't wait to hear him speak.”

The pallbearers inched their way up the hill to the open grave, followed by the mourners in straggling twos and threes. Miss Birdie and her family members took their places on the chairs under the dark green canopy at the graveside, and John the Baptizer began reciting the Twenty-third Psalm in a low voice. The familiar words washed over them and Elizabeth felt the answering prickle of tears.

When he came to the end, “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” John the Baptizer studied the casket, now mercifully closed, and repeated the words, “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” His pale gaze swept the crowd and his voice grew louder as he began to speak in the hypnotic preacher's chant with the catch of breath at the end of each phrase.
“And Cletus walked beside the living water and it was the water of life . . . He went down to death but he will rise again . . . will rise to glory incorruptible. Yea, I say unto you that every valley shall be filled . . . and every mountain and hill shall be brought low . . . yea, all flesh shall see the salvation of God. And all by the grace of the living God and the living water. . . .”

The heads of the assembled people were beginning to nod in unison, and the pale-eyed preacher continued, mesmerizing them all with his eerily compelling gaze.
“And I saw an angel with great wings of mother-of-pearl . . . and the feathers of the wings were tipped with the deep blue of the sea and the fiery golden red of the sun. . . .And the angel came down and lifted up the soul and carried it away like a tiny sleeping child . . . And the mother shall weep for her child. . . .”

And Miss Birdie
was
weeping, but the cleansing tears rolled down a face that was lifted up and shining with a transcendent peace. John the Baptizer approached her and, laying his strong hands on her shoulders, said,
“The revelator tells us ‘They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore . . . for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them . . . and shall lead them unto living fountains of water . . . and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'. . . Bless His powerful, wonderful, lovely Name.”

“That was some funeral!” exclaimed Ben as he and Elizabeth and Laurel sat down to an early supper of bread and soup back at Full Circle Farm. “Did you see how Miss Birdie looked, there at the end of the graveside service? She was joyful, almost . . .” he sought for the word, “. . . almost exuberant.”

Elizabeth was thinking of the dull pain that she had nursed since Sam's death, but she smiled and said, “There's something to be said for an unquestioning, simple faith, I guess.”

Laurel cut another slice of bread and buttered it lavishly. “So according to them, Cletus is in heaven because he was baptized. Not because he was a good person but just because of being baptized, right?”

“I think that's the belief,” said Elizabeth, “but—”

“But Cletus wasn't baptized,” objected Laurel. “He told me so a long time ago. One of my friends at school had gotten baptized and I was asking him and Miss Birdie about it. He said he was scared to go under the water and Birdie told him that he didn't have to because he was one of God's innocents, or something like that.”

“Poor guy,” said Ben. “He
was
that. But what I want to know, Aunt E, is who would have wanted Cletus dead? I mean, if Miss Birdie's right and that medical examiner's results are right, someone must have drowned him somewhere else and thrown his body in the river. Who would have anything against Cletus? Unless . . .” he put down his soup spoon with a splash, “. . . unless it
was
an accident and somebody got scared—”

“Or Cletus saw something he shouldn't have,” Laurel chimed in enthusiastically. “Like maybe at that militia place.”

“Oh, yeah.” Ben nodded. “There're lots of stories floating around about those guys. I've been asking different people, Aunt E, and I found out that they're supposed to have something they call ‘night games.' Something like hide-and-seek but the one who's It is . . . ah . . . expendable. Probably that's just a rumor, though,” he added, seeing Elizabeth's horrified expression.

“Or maybe Miss Birdie did it,” said Laurel quietly.

“Laurel!” snapped Elizabeth. “How can you say—”

“Oh, Mum, I'm not really serious. But look at it this way. Miss Birdie was worried about what would happen to Cletus when she was gone. And now, by her beliefs anyway, he's gone to the best place there is.”

“Give me a break, Laur,” groaned Ben. “Even if she
would
do something like that, do you think she's physically capable of hauling a body to the bridge and dumping it? No, what I think is that he saw something he shouldn't have while he was roaming around. And what about this Dewey Shotwell that was found dead? Wasn't he the one that ginseng-growing guy was threatening to shoot?”

The speculations continued noisily, growing ever more far-fetched. Finally Elizabeth said sharply, “You know, you two, this isn't a joke.” She rose, wondering if it had been a mistake to tell them about her so-called investigations. She had been caught off-guard by the emotions roused during the service and, while riding home, had found herself telling her daughter and her nephew all she knew or surmised of Cletus's travels in the days before his death.

Laurel and Ben, subdued now, came into the kitchen with the dirty dishes.

“Mum, we know it's serious. I guess we're just being silly in reaction to all the seriousness of the funeral.”