Leftover Dead (7 page)

“This is what they call Greek Revival, isn’t it?” Wanda Nell asked. “Like Miz. Culpepper’s house.”

“Yes,” Jack replied. “The Culpepper house is a lot bigger, but this one looks like a little jewel box on the outside. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed it before.”

“Me neither,” Wanda Nell said. “I’ve never had much call to drive down this street, but it sure is a nice one. All these old homes, and most of them look like they’ve been really taken care of.”

“How would you like to live in one of them?” Jack asked, and something in his tone made Wanda Nell look at him.

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

Jack shrugged. “Well, you never know. If one of my books took off and sold really well, who knows? I could quit teaching and actually write full-time. And maybe we could afford a house like this. Would you like that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never even really thought about something like that. I’ve never been able to look all that far ahead, past the next payment on the trailer.”

“I know, honey, but there are two of us now, and we can dream as big as we want, together.”

Wanda Nell smiled at him. “I’ll have to think about it. But to be honest, the first thing that occurs to me is, how the heck would I keep a house that size clean?”

Jack laughed. “We’d hire a maid, honey.”

“Me, with a maid? Are you serious?”

A bright red, late-model Jeep pulled up beside them, and the driver honked. Startled, Jack and Wanda Nell peered at the driver as the vehicle pulled into the driveway. It was Ernie.

Jack and Wanda Nell got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk to the front door. Ernie, dressed in a comfortable cotton dress and sensible, low-heeled shoes, met them at the door. At six feet, Ernie was only a bit shorter than Jack, and she had the bearing of a woman who never doubted that she was in command of any situation.

After a quick hug, Ernie pulled a key from her purse and unlocked the door. “Come on in. It probably smells a little musty in here, but there’s not much we can do about that. Too many old things.”

Wanda Nell’s nose wrinkled as she and Jack stepped into the front hall. Ernie was right, it did smell a bit funny. Ernie flipped a couple of light switches, and the shadowy hallway came into sharper focus.

“Looks like we’ve stepped right back into the Civil War era,” Jack said.

“As much as we’ve been able to, we’ve kept the house looking like it did back then,” Ernie said. “The elderly lady who left the house to the Historical Society fifty years ago was the daughter of a Confederate officer, and when she inherited the house, she kept it as much as possible in the state it had been in during her father’s time.”

“Remarkable,” Jack said. “Truly remarkable, and a little bit macabre.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Ernie said. “You ought to be here alone in the evening, working. I’ve seen some interesting things, let me tell you.”

Wanda Nell peered around her. One thing she didn’t like was ghost stories.

Seeing Wanda Nell’s reaction, Ernie chuckled. “Don’t worry. Miss Ina never comes out during the daytime.”

“About those newspapers?” Jack asked.

“Right,” Ernie replied. “I’ll show you where they are, and you can tell me what you’re looking for. Follow me.” She turned and headed down the hall to a room near the rear of the house.

“This is the library,” Ernie said, once they were all inside, “but of course you can see that, with all the bookshelves.” She waved a hand around. “The newspapers are in these cabinets, and I believe there are markers on the shelves to indicate the years, and so on.” She moved toward a series of metal file cabinets in one corner of the room. They were the only jarring, modern note in the room, as far as Wanda Nell could see.

Jack walked over to the cabinets and started peering at the labels. “Here’s the drawer,” he said, turning to Wanda Nell for a moment. She held up crossed fingers, and he grinned.

Jack pulled open the drawer and began examining the contents. Wanda Nell held her breath while Ernie watched, her eyes burning with curiosity.

Wanda Nell couldn’t stand it any longer. She moved beside Jack and peered into the drawer as he continued to examine its contents. As she watched, he pulled a handful of newspapers from the drawer.

“Here they are.” Jack’s shoulders relaxed.

“Thank goodness. I was afraid they’d be missing from here, too.” Wanda Nell heaved a sigh of relief.

“Okay, you two, You had better fill me in now.” Ernie said. “Why did you think the papers you wanted might be missing?”

“I guess we’d better start at the beginning.” Jack clutched the papers to his chest as he shut the file drawer with his other hand.

“Good idea,” Ernie replied. “Y’all come on over here, and let’s sit down and talk about it.” She motioned them toward a desk with some chairs in front of it. She pointed at the chair behind the desk for Jack, and she and Wanda Nell sat down across from him.

Stacking the newspapers neatly in front of him as he sat, Jack said, “It all started this morning when I was at the high school having my morning run. I saw old Gus, the custodian, and he got to telling me about how, thirty-one years ago, they found a dead girl on the football field one morning.”

“Oh, my goodness,” Ernie said. “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I’d been thinking about working on a new book, and as soon as Gus told me about this case, I was hooked. He said the case was never solved, and he thought it was hushed up.”

“From what I remember, there weren’t all that many details to go on,” Ernie said. “Or so everyone was led to believe. But that doesn’t mean somebody wasn’t pulling strings to make sure the investigation didn’t progress very far.”

“Somebody was obviously pulling strings,” Jack said. “We’ve already talked to Elmer Lee, and he checked their files. He found a file, all right, but there were only two sheets of paper in it. Very few details.”

“And when you went to the library to look for information in the newspaper, you found that the issues you wanted were missing,” Ernie said, her brow furrowing. “Somebody tried to remove as many traces of the case as they could.” She shook her head. “I suppose I shouldn’t really be that surprised. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened around here.”

“Probably not,” Jack said. “But it does tell me there’s bound to be at least
some
useful information in the newspaper.”

“You go on ahead and look.” Ernie rose from her chair. “I think one of the bits of information you’ll find is the name of a suspect who quickly disappeared, as I recall. His name escapes me just now. I’m going to check something in our records, and I’ll be back in a minute.”

Jack nodded before he began examining the small stack of newspapers in front of him. Wanda Nell got up from her chair and went to stand beside him at the desk.

There was an item about the body in the April twenty-fourth issue. It didn’t say much—just that the body of a young woman had been found on the football field at the high school. There was no mention of the person who found the body. The Sheriff’s Department was investigating, and that was about it.

Jack laid that issue aside and began looking through the one for April twenty-fifth. The case earned a little more coverage on this date. The Sheriff’s Department had thus far not been able to identify the young woman, estimated to be eighteen to twenty years old. No one in town had come forward with any information by press time, and anyone who might know something was asked to call the Sheriff’s Department.

The twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh were weekend days that year, and the local paper didn’t publish on the weekends. On the twenty-eighth, the paper stated that the Sheriff’s Department was questioning someone in connection with the case, but that was it.

Jack turned and looked up at Wanda Nell. “So far I sure don’t see anything worth stealing the microfilm over, do you?”

“No. It sure is strange.”

With a sigh, Jack picked up the next issue. The headline leaped out at them: “Tullahoma man questioned in murder.” Jack and Wanda Nell quickly scanned the item. According to the paper, the Sheriff’s Department had questioned one Roscoe Lee Bates extensively in the case, but no charges were pending against Mr. Bates, age nineteen.

“At least we have a name now,” Wanda Nell said, relieved. “That’s who Ernie was talking about. Didn’t she say he disappeared?”

Nodding, Jack laid the issue aside and unfolded the next one, April thirtieth. There was nothing about the murder on the front page, nor was there anything on the other pages. The May first issue was also devoid of any mention of the murder. Jack pushed the remaining few issues aside. There seemed little point in looking any further.

“I guess we know when the cover-up set in,” Wanda Nell said. She walked around the desk and sat back down in her chair.

“Find anything?” Ernie asked as she came back into the room. She was holding a file folder, her face alight with curiosity.

“We found one thing,” Jack said. “The name of a young man the Sheriff’s Department questioned in connection with the case. Then coverage of the murder stopped abruptly April twenty-ninth. We looked at April thirtieth and May first, and there was nothing.”

Ernie resumed her seat, brandishing the folder. “That fits with the information I have here.” She glanced from Jack to Wanda Nell. “This is a file of some of the records we keep on the provenance of donations to the Historical Society. I wanted to check the records for the copies of the paper we’ve received. I thought I remembered something odd.”

“Like what?” Wanda Nell asked.

“I was pretty sure I remembered that when we received the papers from the library, there were some gaps in what they had.” Ernie held up her file folder again. “And, sure enough, I remembered correctly. The issues you just looked at were missing, along with a few others here and there over the years.”

“So where did these come from then?” Jack asked.

“From the father of one of the Historical Society members,” Ernie said with a brief smile. “A real pack rat. He had every issue of the paper going back to when it was founded, in 1903.”

“Thank the Lord someone had kept them,” Wanda Nell said.

“Exactly. The fact that those issues”—Ernie pointed toward the stack of newspapers on the desk in front of Jack—“were missing from the library’s set makes it pretty obvious someone really wanted to try to erase as many traces of the murder as possible.”

“Thanks to an elderly pack rat, they didn’t quite succeed,” Jack said.

Ernie smiled. “Even pack rats have their uses.” She waved a hand around. “Otherwise this house would hold a lot less local history than it does.”

Wanda Nell grinned. “Then the next time I clean out my house, I’ll know where to send the stuff I want to get rid of.”

“You never know what we might want,” Ernie said. “Now, what was the name of the young man the Sheriff’s Department was questioning? I still can’t quite dredge it up.”

Jack glanced down at the issue of the newspaper with the information. “Roscoe Lee Bates, age nineteen.” He looked up again. “Did you know him? You said something about a suspect disappearing.”

Ernie leaned back in her chair. “Roscoe Lee Bates. So that’s who it was.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I couldn’t remember his name. Yes, I knew him. At least briefly, I should say. He was in one of my classes at the high school for about three months, and then he dropped out of school.”

“When was that?” Wanda Nell asked. “Was it when the murder happened?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I think it was probably the year before that. The boy was average, but he never applied himself all that much. He could have graduated if he’d put a little effort into it, but he just gave up partway through his senior year.”

“Can you think of any reason the police might consider him a suspect?” Jack asked. “I mean, was he known to be a troublemaker, or anything?”

“Not really. Now that we’re talking about him, I’m remembering more and more. No, he was basically a good boy, just lazy. He also had difficulty making good decisions, so he occasionally got in trouble—nothing really serious, though.” She cocked her head to one side and stared into space. “He was a very handsome boy, and so he always had plenty of girls buzzing around him even though he was pretty quiet most of the time. He certainly liked girls, so I can easily imagine his chatting up a stranger in town, especially if she was pretty.”

“There must have been some kind of connection, then, between him and the dead girl,” Wanda Nell said. “You don’t think the Sheriff’s Department would have picked somebody at random, do you?”

“I’d sure hate to think they’d stoop that low,” Ernie said. “But if somebody in town with a lot of money and influence was willing to pay, the sheriff at that time might have been bought off.”

“Who was the sheriff back then?” Wanda Nell asked. “I was only about ten or eleven, and I sure don’t remember.”

Ernie’s mouth twisted in distaste. “I hate to say it, but he was a distant cousin of mine. Claude Carpenter. He had the morals of an alley cat, and was as venal as they come. It was a shameful day for this county when he was elected sheriff, let me tell you.”

“Was he in office very long?” Jack asked.

“A couple of terms,” Ernie replied. “Then he had a heart attack and died, just when he was about to run for a third time.”

“So we can’t question him,” Jack said, sighing.

“No, but one of his deputies might still be around. I’m sure Elmer Lee can check on that. One of them might be able to tell you something. If they weren’t paid off, too, that is.”

“Let’s get back to Roscoe Lee Bates,” Wanda Nell said. “About his disappearing. What do you think happened?”

“Do you think he could have been murdered, too?” Jack asked.

“I suppose it’s possible. But I think it’s just as likely that he ran off because he was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. He came from a poor family, and I seem to recall that his father wasn’t around, just his mother and a younger sister.”