A Widow's Curse (10 page)

“He did die from what they call a
blunt trauma
to the head,” Melissa assured me at a whisper, her attempt to ease the tension. “It was stove in like a mush melon. His head.”

Huyne tilted his head sideways at me like a hunting dog.

“You don't talk like the rest of these locals much, do you?”

Andrews appeared from the kitchen. I knew the expression he was wearing: rugby-ready for kicking the vital organs out of anything that crossed his path.

“On the other hand,” Andrews said to me, voice knife-edged, “I was just thinking how your diction is much less pompous than it used to be. I think you're kind of settling in here at home.”

“I've only been home for a couple of years.” I smiled at Huyne. “I was gone from Blue Mountain a long while—teaching at a university in Atlanta.”

“We'll check out your alibi in—” He turned to his cohort. “Where was it?”

“Pine City.” The man didn't consult any notes; didn't look up.

He was a little older than Huyne and didn't bother to hide his exhaustion. It seemed a fatigue built into his bones and sinews over years of dull dangers and sharp knives.

“But it doesn't mean much to me either way.” Huyne nailed his eyes to mine. “Time of death is close enough to indicate the possibility that you were in Pine City, motored home, killed Shultz, and called the local law enforcement. We get this sort of thing more than you know: The killer calls the cops, thinking we'll never suspect him if he's the one who reports the crime. ‘Why would I call you if I did it, Officer?'”

“What about the man who broke in and threatened Shultz?” Andrews wasn't very good at disguising incredulity.

“Oh, jeez,” Huyne's voice mocked with every letter he pronounced. “The murderer was a mysterious stranger. We've never heard
that
one before.”

“And my companion/witness?” I indicated Andrews with my hand, as if I were asking him to take a bow. “The one who was with me all day and saw me
not
do it?”

“He's in on it.” Huyne never took his eyes from mine.

“Okay.” I couldn't prevent a slight smile from brightening my stare. “You've invented the opportunity. What's my motive?”

“A silver coin.” He tried to pierce my eyes through to the back of my skull with his gaze. “You don't know where it is, do you?”

I returned his stare with equal electricity.

“It wasn't in Mr. Shultz's pocket? Could we suppose that the murderer got it?”

Huyne turned to his assistant.

“Frisk him.”

The man moved instantly. Skid moved faster, coming between me and the man headed my way.

“Not in my jurisdiction,” Skid hissed. “Nobody gets a frisking tonight. Are we clear?”

Skid had his back to me, but I could recognize the threat in his voice.

Huyne's assistant looked out the kitchen window.

“What's so important about this coin?” Skidmore asked Huyne.

“It's valued at half a million dollars. Sounds like a motive for murder to me.”

 

Andrews and I sat in my kitchen with Melissa Mathews, trying to keep our voices down while Skid conferred, at a low boil, with the policemen from Atlanta.

“Where did he get that ‘half a million dollars' business?” Andrews leaned into the table, almost hovering over it, his voice hushed, face drained of color.

“How did he even know about the coin?” My arms were folded in front of my chest. I realized I was rocking back and forth just a little, and stopped myself.

The air had chilled considerably after the rain; it was in the lower fifties outside. The sky was made of slate, an ancient blackboard with dots of chalk for stars, not made of air at all—or light.

“That Detective Huyne man?” Melissa's clear tones were bells compared to my grumbling fog. “Or however you say his name—I believe he came into this house already believing you killed the man, the dead man.”

“What makes you say that?” I asked her.

“Demeanor.” She nodded once. “And another thing. I didn't ever reach any of Mr. Shultz's relatives or anything, just left an urgent message, you know, on the phone machine. And that man showed up, out for blood.”

“Well.” I shivered. “We've got to find out a whole lot more—”

But one of the local deputies, a man who had come in with Melissa, interrupted my sentence.

“Mel?” he said to Deputy Mathews. He sounded nervous, looked twelve.

“Dr. Devilin, you know Crawdad, right?” She didn't seem to think there was anything out of the ordinary about the boy's name.

His hand shot out before I could say anything.

“It's a honor.” He made the word
honor
sound holy.

“I'm happy to meet you.” I took his hand; his grip was solid.

“My mama? She told a story into your tape machine once, and you put it in a book. We got the book. It's open in the living room so everybody can see.” He looked at Melissa. “They say that story's in the Library of Congress. In Washington, D.C.”

“Your mother is…” I'd collected so many stories over the years, it was impossible to remember them all.

“Dolly Pritchett. She was a Mathews, like Melissa. We're related some kind of way, but dang if I can suss it out.” He grinned.

“
You're
Crawdad Pritchett?”

“Yes, sir.” He seemed a bit nervous at my suddenly aggressive tone.

“I can't believe it. I haven't seen you in years.” I turned to Andrews. “This young man, when he was seven or eight, won a very important state fiddling contest. He used to jump up and down while he was playing, as if he were on a pogo stick. Great musician.” I turned back to Crawdad. “Are you still playing?”

He shrugged. “I was in a rock and roll band for a while, but the deputy work, it's hard and I'm kindly tired when I get home.”

Kindly, I thought, marking his mispronunciation. If he's anything like the rest of his family, that's probably the way he would do anything: kindly.

“Too bad.” I smiled. “How's your mother?”

“She passed.” He cleared his throat.

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“It was the lung cancer. Took awhile. We said our good-bye.”

“You came in here for a reason,” Melissa said softly to Crawdad.

“Oh. Right. Look: That beat-up old trunk in the back corner over there?” He shifted his eyes in the direction of Conner's trunk, then lowered his voice considerably. “I believe it's been tampered with. It's the only thing in the house we can find that seems, you know, out of the ordinary. I ain't told nobody else yet. I mean, it's
your
trunk.”

“This is why I brought old Crawdad with me,” Melissa said, voice hushed to match his, a smile crinkling her lips. “He's better than anyone I know at figuring out what's ‘out of the ordinary.' Got a real sixth sense about it—eerie.
That's
his genius. And he's using it to help you out.”

I understood. She was telling me not to bother him about his fiddle playing. He wasn't called to music; he was called to this unusual ability at police work, somehow. I accepted her evaluation.

“What's strange about the way the trunk looks?” I tried not to look in the direction of it.

“I got it figured like this: You had some things in that trunk, but they were things that nobody hadn't looked at in a while—until today. The dust patterns on the top and inside that trunk are different from any other ones in the whole house. They look just the littlest bit frantic, the patterns do. Like someone was looking for something in there. That's what I found strange.”

“Why?” Melissa was watching the men in the living room.

“Because there was all that activity in there recently,” Crawdad explained softly, “and there's nothing inside of that trunk. It's empty.”

 

By midnight, the detectives from Atlanta had created as much ill will as they were going to for one night's work. Huyne had insulted everything about Melissa's enterprise: the fingerprint expert from Pine City, the Polaroid snapshots of the scene, and her management of the first moments at the crime scene. He stopped short when Skid renewed an interest in arresting him and carting him off to a small-town jail on trumped-up charges that would keep him in hell for months. The rest of us knew Skid was bluffing, but Huyne seemed nervous enough about the prospect to shut down his worst ire.

After what Crawdad had told us, it was all I could do to keep myself from looking in my great-grandfather's trunk. The fact that it was empty did nothing to subdue my great desire to peer inside and see.

I was almost happy when Huyne made a point of saying goodbye to us in the kitchen.

“Dr. Devilin?” He stood in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, glaring down at me. “You don't leave town. You don't mess with anything. You don't look cross-eyed at anybody. And if I find out you have that silver coin, I'll beat you hard with a tire iron. I can see that you have friends here, people who prevent me from doing what I ought to do. That won't last. I'll be back, and you'll be screwed.”

“There's that language issue again.” I stood. “I'm letting it go because I've determined you actually
can't
think of anything better to say. As to where I go and what I do with my time, you have less chance of keeping me in one place than does Deputy Mathews.
She
has a tranquilizer dart.”

She looked up at Huyne.

“It's true.” She smiled sweetly. “Out in the squad car.”

Huyne looked at his nameless companion.

“I can't tell if they're really like this,” he said, throat dry, “or they're putting me on.”

The man nodded, avoiding all eye contact.

“Where are we staying?” he asked the man.

“Mountain Vista Hotel,” the man answered, “in Pine City.”

“I'm making calls,” Huyne assured me.

I had no idea what he meant.

Without another word, Huyne vanished into the night.

Or at least he made it out my front door before stumbling down the front steps, offering us his loudest, most vile curse yet, plunging into his car, and tearing up the gravel in the road as he tore away.

“I thought he'd
never
leave.” Andrews yawned. “I'm checking your trunk.”

Skid ambled into the kitchen.

“Don't bother. Crawdad told me about it; I looked. Everything's gone. Sorry, Fever—all those stories and papers about your great-grandfather.”

Skidmore had seen me at that trunk a dozen times; heard me tell stories about Conner for most of my life. Andrews accepted Skid's assessment of the situation and kept his seat at the kitchen table.

“Why would the killer take that stuff, those dusty old stories?” Andrews looked at Skidmore. “And nothing else in the house?”

“I'm afraid that's what Fever is going to try and find out.” Skidmore sighed.

He was too tired to say more on the subject. He knew it was useless to talk me out of doing anything, and that knowledge, apparently, took a lot of wind out of his sails.

“Well.” I stood. “Do you want some coffee?”

“Not the crankcase oil you make in that thing.” He glared at my espresso machine, then sat.

“No hard caffeine for the sheriff.” I went to the cupboard and fetched the French press. “How about this?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“How was Alabama?”

“Hot. Look, Fever, we have to get some things straight here. My investigation will assume that the intruder is the murderer. That's what we'll pursue. But this guy Huyne? He's not going away. He thinks you killed a man, and he's really hammering me. He's letting me handle the investigation for the time being because he
has
to. It's my jurisdiction. Only, I predict that Huyne will be trouble. For both of us.”

“What exactly is his damage?” Andrews rubbed his eyes.

“He told me that Mr. Shultz's father,” Skid began, failing to prevent his distaste for the subject from filling his words, “is a very wealthy man in Atlanta. He knows people who know people, and he's set Huyne on this like a pit bull on a rabbit. Huyne resents doing it, so he's taking it out on everyone else. Mostly you, but also me. He wants me to arrest you, hold you as a suspect until the evidence can be examined by someone he trusts, which would
not
be Chester and Mrs. Tomlinson. He sent them home.”

“Fine by me.” I wrestled with the cord to the coffee-bean grinder. “The so-called evidence is on my side.”

“Not really.” Skid let go a sigh made entirely of lead.

“What?” I stopped what I was doing.

“Huyne also told me that the Shultz family really has valued this coin thing at half a million dollars—very recently. And of course we know that the victim brought the coin to you.”

“I said that—”

“I'm not finished.” Skidmore looked out the kitchen window at the moonlight. “At the moment, I'm not going to ask you where the coin is, or if you have it here, because I don't want to know. But if it comes to be important, I'll have to hear what you have to say about it. Am I clear on this?

“What would be my reason—”

“Huyne knows that the coin used to belong to your family.”

“What?” I froze. “How could he possibly—”

“I have no idea.” Skid interrupted a third time, “but this Detective Huyne has no difficulty believing you're guilty—seems to have some kind of
Deliverance
nightmare playing in their heads: mountain-folk revenge and greed rampant—”

“Inbred flesh-eating hillbillies,” Andrews interrupted sagely, barely able to keep his head up. “I can understand that.”

I wasn't the only one glaring at Andrews, just the only one who spoke to him.