Tallgrass (10 page)

“Now, Mother,” Dad said, but he and I both knew she really wasn’t blaming Sheriff Watrous. She was just blowing off steam. She’d been so busy fixing food that she’d hadn’t thought to call, either, but I didn’t mention that.

“Oh, I know, Loyal. I can’t recall but a single murder he’s had to deal with, and that was a Jack, the one who was killed in a fight at Jay Dee’s. I don’t suppose this is easy for him, either. He’s more at ease with cattle rustlers than child killers. Still and all, it wouldn’t hurt for him to have a little compassion.”

As Dad drove to the back door of the house, I glanced around for the haystack where Susan had died, turning to look out the back window of the truck. Mom frowned and shook her head, and Dad told me, “I believe they found her out beyond the barn. There wouldn’t be anything you’d want to see.”

“No, sir,” I said, embarrassed that they’d caught me, but I was still disappointed that I couldn’t see the murder scene.

“Don’t ask any questions. Just act as natural as you can, whatever that is,” Mom said. “It might do them good to know one of Susan’s friends is grieving for her.”

Dad parked beside the house, and by the time we got the food hamper out of the bed of Red Boy, Sheriff Watrous had opened the back door. The snow on the stoop was muddy, and spikes of dried grass stuck up next to the cement. “Folks, you home? I brung company. Strouds is here,” the sheriff called.

“Well, of course they’re home. Did he think they’d gone to the picture show?” Mom muttered. She walked past him, with me behind her, and set the food on the table. In a minute, Mrs. Reddick, a small woman with a lined face and hands covered with liver spots, stood in the kitchen doorway, her hand clutching the frame, and said, “Mary.”

“Opal,” Mom replied, with as much emotion as I’d ever heard anyone put into a single word. But she didn’t need to say more. Mom put her arms around Mrs. Reddick and led her into the parlor, where the two of them sat down on a horsehair sofa. Mrs. Reddick began crying softly, her hands over her eyes, tears seeping

out from between her fingers. Her long hair, which she usually pinned on top of her head in a bun, hung loose down her back.

I sat down on the other side of her, sliding a little on the slick horsehair, which poked my legs. “I’ll miss Susan. I liked her a lot.” I thought that was a pretty stupid thing to say, and I wished I’d come up with something better, but Mom nodded her approval, and Mrs. Reddick reached down with a wet hand and clutched my arm.

“She liked it when you came to play. Not many girls visited,” Mrs. Reddick said, making me feel even worse that I hadn’t returned to help Susan with the puzzle.

Mr. Reddick came in then and said, “It’s the first time the woman’s cried. She’s in need of it.” He broke into great sobs. Mr. Reddick always reminded me of a rooster, strutting around with his neck stretched out and his chin raised. Now he was just a small, fat, bedraggled man who hadn’t shaved. “Oh Lord! Oh Lord! You took both my daughters. What have I done to deserve this?” he cried. Dad put his arm around Mr. Reddick and took him outside, and through the doorway, I could see Susan’s father on his knees in the snow, wailing, the weak sun glinting off his bald head. In a minute, he began cursing God.

“He ought not to do that,” Mrs. Reddick said, sniffing back tears.

“I think the Lord will forgive him. He’s placed a heavy burden on you,” Mom said.

I’d begun to shiver. There was no heat in the parlor, but more than that, Susan’s death and her parents’ grief made me cold all over. The only people I’d known who’d died had been old, and they’d just gone to sleep. Mom told me to go into the kitchen and build up the fire in the cookstove, then boil water for tea. “Tea will keep your strength up, Opal. The worst isn’t over,” Mom said.

I got kindling out of the wood box and blew on the coals until the wood caught, then went to the pump in the kitchen sink and moved the handle up and down until the kettle was full of water. The sink had black spots where the porcelain had been chipped, and the varnish on the tongue-and-groove wall in back of the sink was stained and warped where water had splashed on it. The kitchen was ugly, cold and brown. Susan must have been lonely living in that house after her sister moved out. I should have been a better friend. I looked over at the little table under the kitchen window where we’d worked the puzzle. The table was there, but the puzzle pieces were spread all over the floor, as if Susan had gotten mad and brushed the puzzle off the table. But Susan never got mad, and she’d loved that puzzle. She wouldn’t have destroyed it. I raised my eyes to the ceiling and whispered, I’m sorry, Susan. If I’d known, I’d have come over.” That was a dumb thing to say. If I’d known, I’d have told the sheriff, and Susan wouldn’t have gotten killed.

I found a teapot in the cupboard and poured tea leaves into it. Then, as I waited for the water to boil, I stood in the doorway of Susan’s bedroom, staring at the rumpled quilt covered with Sun-bonnet Sues that Mrs. Reddick had pieced. The Jolly Stitchers had quilted it. They’d worked on it at our house, because the quilt was a birthday present for Susan, and Mrs. Reddick wanted it to be a surprise. She’d given it to Susan at a birthday party, then taken a Kodak of all Susan’s friends standing around it. Susan had asked me to pose in front of the quilt with her. Now the quilt was lying on the bare board floor, as if it had been torn from the bed, and peeking from beneath it was Susan’s nightgown with blood on it. I’d cleaned enough chickens to know what blood looked like. How could the sheriff have missed it? I wondered. Maybe, since he’d thought Susan had been murdered on her way to the outhouse, he’d never gone into her bedroom.

I stared at the quilt, imaging the bad man coming through the back door and grabbing Susan out of bed. She would have been terrified, waking up to find a stranger in her bedroom— that is, if he was a stranger. She might have awakened when he tore off her nightgown. Or maybe he knocked her out while she was asleep, and she never knew what happened. I stepped around the quilt on the floor and sat down on the edge of Susan’s bed, put my head in my hands, and cried. Life had been so unfair for Susan: She was crippled, her sister had left, and now she’d been raped and murdered.

The Reddicks didn’t need somebody else crying, and I got up and wiped the tears from my face with the backs of my hands. I went to the cookstove, poured the boiling water into the teapot, and let the tea steep. As I was getting out the cups, the sheriff came into the kitchen, and I whispered that Susan’s nightgown was under the quilt. I pointed out the puzzle pieces lying on the floor, too. “Well, I’m damned,” he said.

Dad came in with Mr. Reddick, who smelled like whiskey, and the sheriff told Dad, “You’ve got an awful smart young lady here, Mr. Stroud.”

“Oh, not so smart,” Dad said, smiling at me for the first time since the sheriff had arrived at our house. I tried not to feel important. After all, my friend had been murdered. Rut I couldn’t help being glad I had noticed things the sheriff had overlooked. It made me feel as if I’d made it up a little to Susan for being such a crummy friend.

Mom led Mrs. Reddick into the kitchen then, and while the sheriff searched Susan’s room, the rest of us sat at the table, drinking tea and eating Mom’s cake. Mr. Reddick mashed his down, while his wife took small bites and chewed and chewed, but she couldn’t seem to swallow. Mom told them she’d brought a chicken and not to worry about meals because she’d take care of them. She’d left enough for the next couple of days, she said, and as soon as we got home, she would call the Jolly Stitchers and arrange for them to bring more food.

The sheriff came out of the bedroom, eyeing the cake, and Mom cut him a piece. “You hear anything in the night?” he asked the Reddicks.

The couple looked at each other. Then Mrs. Reddick shook her head, while Mr. Reddick replied, “Only the wind. It was fierce. We didn’t hear Susan go out, but you already asked us that.”

“I’ve been thinking somebody must have came in after her. Is this her nightdress?” He laid the nightgown on the table, then put his hands into his pants pockets, jingling coins. With its dark red stains, the nightgown was spooky.

Mrs. Reddick’s hands trembled and she sagged in her chair. Mom, who was sitting beside her, reached over and took her hands, stilling them.

“You sure about that, her being killed right inside the house?” Mr. Reddick asked the sheriff.

“I don’t know anything for sure, only what looks likely. The Stroud girl here saw Susan’s nightdress. And I was wondering about that puzzle that got knocked all over the floor.”

Mr. Reddick turned his head aside and slammed his fist on the table. “I should have heard him. I hear good, you know. I can hear a calf bawling all the way from the barn. I should have heard my own girl call out.”

“That is if she did call, Elmo,” Dad said. “This could have happened while she was asleep.”

“Besides, if somebody came in, he’d have been real quiet. You couldn’t have heard him, especially with the storm and all,” the sheriff added.

“But I should have. Oh Lord, did my girl cry out for me and I didn’t hear?” Mr. Reddick scrunched up his face, but he didn’t cry. “I’ve been a sinner, broke one of His commandments, and the Lord, for a fact, is punishing me.”

I leaned forward to hear which commandment Mr. Reddick had broken. My bet was on coveting his neighbor’s property, because the Reddicks didn’t have much. But before Mr. Reddick could confess, Dad said sharply, “Now we’ll have no more talk like that. I don’t know any Lord who plays tit for tat.” I wasn’t aware that Dad knew any Lord at all, because he never went to church.

Mom did, however, and I wanted to ask her if God punished people for being bad. But it didn’t make sense to me. If God punished bad people, he’d have to reward the good ones. Mrs. Reddick was as good a woman as Mom, and Susan’s death wasn’t any reward to her. It seemed to me like God wasn’t paying much attention.

“I have committed adultery,” Mr. Reddick said, clicking his false teeth. That’s the last commandment I would have chosen for him to break, because he was about as good-looking as a gopher, and he smelled like rotten hay. I glanced at his wife, but Mom was talking to her, so Mrs. Reddick hadn’t heard her husband. Maybe she already knew. Mom gave me a hard look, as if to tell me I wasn’t to repeat anything I heard in that kitchen. I already knew that. But Lord, I wanted to tell Betty Joyce!

“Hush,” Dad told Mr. Reddick harshly.

I hoped he wouldn’t, because it wasn’t every day that somebody confessed in my presence that he had lain down in sin, but just then, there was a knock at the back door, and before anyone could open it, Mrs. Gardner pushed her head inside and said, “Yoo-hoo.” She stood in the open doorway a moment, and we heard the creak of chains as the wind blew the porch swing against the house. Mrs. Gardner shut the door and went over to Mrs. Reddick and put her arms around her. “I came as soon as I heard about Susan.” I wondered how she’d found out, but I wasn’t really surprised. The Stitchers always seemed to know about problems. “I just put together a few things from the cupboard that’ll do you if you’re hungry.” She waved her hand dismissively at the basket she’d set on the floor, but I could see a bread pudding sitting on top of a stewpot and knew she must have brought her own family’s dinner. “Hello, Mary, I should have known you’d be the first out in time of need.”

“Hello, Afton.” Mom gave up her chair to Mrs. Gardner. Mrs. Reddick didn’t seem to notice the change, nor that the rest of us stood up then. Mom said she’d stop by in the morning, and Dad and the sheriff asked the Reddicks if they needed any help with the chores. They didn’t answer or even look up.

“My boy will be by to do the milking,” Mrs. Gardner called as we opened the door.

“No need,” Mr. Reddick said, pulling himself together. “If I don’t do chores, I can’t know what to do with myself.”

Mom and I got into the truck, while Dad went to the sheriff’s car with Mr. Watrous so that the two of them could drive together to the Tallgrass camp. Mom started the motor, but before she put in the clutch, she locked her door, then reached over and locked mine. On the way home, I asked if Susan’s dying meant that the Reddicks would be kinder to Helen, maybe ask her to move back in with them. That would be a nice thing for God to do for Mrs. Reddick, I thought.

“Her mother will want her to come home, but Mr. Reddick’s a stubborn man. You wouldn’t think it, but sorrow just makes some people harder, and my guess is, he’s one of them.”

DAD AND THE SHERIFF
didn’t stay long at the camp. As Dad said, “There isn’t the slightest bit of proof one of those jaspers is guilty.”

“There’s plenty of folks who think so,” Mom said. She’d just called the last of the Jolly Stitchers, arranging for them to take food to the Reddicks. Every one of the women had asked if a man from the camp had murdered Susan.

“Maybe you ought to have called the missionary circle instead,” Dad said.

“Oh, they’d be just as bad. Besides, they’d pray for Susan’s soul instead of fixing covered dishes. Prayer’s not going to do the Reddicks any good if they starve to death.”

“Might not do them any good if they don’t, either.” Dad slid his eyes over to me, then looked back at Mom and asked, “Have you seen any signs around here—” But Mom cut him off with a shake of her head.

“It’s best to keep a look out. Maybe you better talk to Squirt,” Dad said, biting his lip. Mom told him she already had.

She hadn’t said much, however, only that bad men sometimes lurked around the barn or peeked in windows, and I had to be ever vigilant. I pointed out that I slept upstairs, and that anybody who came into the house would have to pass her and Dad’s bedroom on the first floor to get to me. Mom told me men sometimes tricked little girls in other ways. “Don’t ever let anybody pull up your dress . . . .” She paused, embarrassed, but I had a good idea of what she was talking about. Like all farm kids, I’d seen bulls mount cows, and I thought it was something like that with men and women, although I couldn’t understand why anybody would do that with a little girl like Susan. I wished I could talk to Marthalice, but since I let Mom read all of my sister’s letters, I didn’t dare ask her to write to me about that.