Lovely in Her Bones (16 page)

The old woman pressed her gnarled brown arm against Elizabeth’s white one. “They called us people of color, and said we didn’t have no rights. Got a law passed at the state capitol saying we couldn’t vote nor hold office. Hell, we couldn’t even testify in a court of law.” She closed her eyes. “Then they started in with their lawyers and their judges, and they stole all the farmland away from our people—till all we got left is the ridges and the hollers. Now I reckon they want that, too!”

“Well, they won’t get it!” said Elizabeth hotly.
“Er … that law
has
been repealed, hasn’t it?” She twisted the snap bean between her wet fingers, feeling its wetness on her hands like blood.

“The law is gone, but the feelings stayed here right on.” Amelanchier’s eyes were dull pebbles, like uncut garnets in a creekbed.

Elizabeth shivered. Even in August it was not really warm on the mountain. The wind under the oaks bore the chill of autumn. Amelanchier sat still in her faded sundress, staring out at the mountains. After a while, she continued.

“No, the feelings ain’t gone. When my young’uns were little, we’d go into town and I could buy them a sody pop at the grill, but they’d have to stand outside to drink it.” She turned a level gaze on Elizabeth’s reddened face. “Why do you think I’m a root doctor?”

Elizabeth swallowed the facile answers, woven around Amelanchier’s Indian legend and a vague impression of her as a rustic version of a garden club lady. “Tell me.”

“The Cullowhees always had a root doctor because no town doctor would see our people. It was passed down from my gran’daddy to me, because I was the seventh child of his seventh child. Some things we can’t cure, and folks dies, but we did what we could, which is more than the white folks would.”

“But surely …”

Amelanchier gave her a tight smile. “I didn’t mean Dr. Putnam. He treats us like regular folks. But back before him, people died just because they … just because they …”

“I guess this is the other side of the Moonshine Massacre,” Elizabeth put in quickly. “No wonder y’all resented the law up here.”

The old woman waved her hand as if she were brushing away the thought. “That didn’t have much to do with it. That moonshine business was them
spitting Harknesses, Bevel’s kin. They’re even worse than the blacksnake Harknesses.”

From her folklore course, Elizabeth understood that mountain families with the same last name were often distinguished by a descriptive prefix. “Why blacksnake?” she asked.

Amelanchier snorted. “On account of Varner Harkness—he must be my age if he’s a day. He used to chase girls through the briar patch waving a black snake over his head like a bullwhip.”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “What a charming family.”

“I wouldn’t give you one red cent for the whole lot of them.”

“I know Bevel Harkness wants the strip miners to come in. Do the others agree with him?”

“I reckon they ought to, seeing as how their land is part of what the mining company wants. They’d get the money, and the rest of us would get the run-off down the creek.”

“How can those people get away with it?” demanded Elizabeth. “Can’t you turn them in for killing the sheriff’s nephew?”

Amelanchier appeared not to have heard. “I think I’ll pick ramps to go with my beans,” she announced, hoisting an ark-shaped woven basket. Fashioned of blue and lavender reeds with a handle of twisted wood, the basket seemed as much a work of art as a utensil.

“How lovely!” breathed Elizabeth. “What’s it made of?”

Amelanchier cradled the basket on her arm. “This here’s grapevine, and that’s wisteria, but—see this handle?” She pointed to the twisted branch. “That’s the best part. It’s kudzu.”

“Kudzu? Ugh!” Elizabeth displayed the Southerner’s dislike for that nuisance plant, imported to stop erosion, which strangled all the vegetation in its path. Kudzu even covered abandoned barns and
houses with its jungle growth. People said that the only way to get rid of it was to burn it, roots and all.

“Yep. Kudzu is the ugliest, most trifling plant alive—but it makes a right nice basket handle, don’t it?”

Elizabeth smiled. “And the Harknesses? Do they make right nice basket handles too?”

“I reckon they’re good for something,” said Amelanchier, pleased that Elizabeth had seen the parallel.

“I don’t suppose anything could be done without the murder victim’s body anyway,” Elizabeth decided. “It was never found, was it?”

Amelanchier gripped the porch railing and crept down the steps. “You could lose something a lot bigger than a man in these hills,” she said. “You ever pick ramps? It stinks like two days past judgment, but it sure does perk up beans. Come on.”

Elizabeth watched the old woman stooping at the edge of the yard to uproot the wild onionlike plants. The smell from the broken stems was a mixture of garlic and onion, so strong that the tongue felt the heaviness of the odor. Amelanchier brushed the dirt from the white bulb roots and dropped them in the basket.

“Would you like me to do that?” asked Elizabeth, suddenly aware of how frail she looked.

Amelanchier smiled; her copper face shone with sweat. “Thank you, no. I like to keep my hand in. But I am taking it easier than what I used to.” She nodded toward the cabin. “Comfrey rigged me up a generator powered by the creek water, so I don’t have to fool with oil lamps. And I got a microwave that’s real good to dry herbs in.” Seeing Elizabeth’s look of disbelief, she added, “I keep it hid when the tourists are about. They like to think I still live on poke salad and corn pone.”

Elizabeth blinked. “But you do! I mean, what about the raccoon?”

“I love the old food when I’m up to fixing it, and I usually cook if Comfrey’s coming by, but I’m like as not to have canned spaghetti and packaged cupcakes any other time.” She shook her head. “It just don’t do to let the tourists know. They like to think that time has passed us by up here on the ridge, just like the four-lane did. They need to believe the old ways are still around as much as they need the root medicine. So I keep my store food in the root cellar.”

“But—tonight you’re having beans and ramps?”

“Yep,” said Amelanchier, winking. “And frozen pizza!”

P
ILOT
B
ARNES
seldom agreed with his brother-in-law about anything, be it fertilizer or Carolina basketball strategy. Watching Warren straddle a chair backwards and pontificate on every subject that came up set Pilot’s teeth on edge. This murder case was no exception; Warren had a layman’s compulsion to second-guess the police, as if his hours of viewing “Dragnet” and “Barnaby Jones” counted toward a degree in police science. He had heard about the case from Marcia, when Pilot was late coming home, and had called the next morning to pronounce the case a lucky break for Pilot career-wise. Having a big-time murder case to solve, without Duncan Johnson around to take credit for it, could be parlayed into a bid for the sheriff’s job, according to Warren. Pilot didn’t believe it. He saw it as an unlimited opportunity to screw up in Duncan Johnson’s absence.

“Morning, Pilot,” said Hamp McKenna, easing his way past the floorboard that creaked if you stepped on it. “I came to do a little paperwork, so if you need to go anywhere, I’ll be here about an hour. I’d stay longer, but I’ve got a sick calf up home.” He looked at Pilot appraisingly. “She looks better than you do, though.”

Pilot squinted up at him with a sour smile. “I’ll live.”

“Lord, so will she, I hope! She’s a purebred Charolais—cost me more than two car payments. You heard from Duncan yet?”

“No. He’s still on the boat.”

“Well, I hope he’s catching more than we are. You solved the case yet?”

Pilot studied the geological survey map of the county, staring at it as if the lines would re-form to a profile of the murderer. He sighed. “I guess we just keep asking questions.”

Hamp walked over to the map. “Pilot,” he said slowly, “there’s something you may not have thought of. Where did the murder take place?”

Pilot Barnes scowled at him. “You were right there with me when we went into the tent. You took the pictures yourself! Now what the hell do you mean asking me—”

Hamp shook his head impatiently. “No. I know what the death scene looked like. What I meant was: whose land is it on?”

Pilot’s mouth hung open, frozen in midsyllable by this new possibility. “Why—church land.” But he didn’t sound sure about it.

“It’s a good little ways from the church,” Hamp reminded him.

“I didn’t notice any fences around, either,” Pilot grunted. “So you’re saying—”

“Not for sure. But it is a possibility. The forest service land goes into that section of the county, but we don’t know where the cutoff point is. Can you tell from the map?”

“Not for sure. But I don’t have to be positive. Reasonable certainty ought to be enough!”

Hamp relaxed. “Yeah, I thought it would be. So, you gonna do it?”

Pilot set his jaw. “Absolutely. Screw Duncan Johnson. I’m calling in the FBI.”

    The phrase “calling in the FBI” had a magic ring to it that brightened their spirits at once. It summoned visions of television actors in business suits
driving up in dark green LTDs and solving the case fifty-one minutes, with the trial thrown in as afterthought before the closing credits. Pilot did suppose that it would be like that in real life, be nevertheless it was reassuring to know that a phone call to the number labeled “FBI” on Duncan Johnson’s desk would bring to bear the power of the federal government in their backcountry murder case. This authority could be invoked because Hamp McKenna had thought of the one loophole that would involve them: reasonable certainty that the crime had occurred on federal land. Pilot dialed the number with a feeling of pleasant expectation.

It rang eight times.

Pilot pictured a suspect holding the entire FBI office at gunpoint. Lantern-jawed agents and their beautiful blond secretary staring courageously at the barrel of a .44 Magnum while the phone pealed away, unanswered. Pilot wondered who you called to rescue the FBI. Unable to think of an answer to that one, he kept sitting there letting the phone ring. Finally someone picked it up.

“Hello?” said a thin, piping voice.

Pilot took the receiver away from his ear and looked at it. “Is this the FBI?” he asked uncertainly.

“Yes, it is,” the little voice assured him. “Just a minute.” He heard the clunk of the phone being set down, and the voice yelling: “Daddy! Telephone!”

Pilot closed his eyes. To paraphrase his favorite beer commercial, it didn’t get any worse than this. After several minutes’ wait, the phone was picked up and a grown-up voice said: “Yello, FBI. This is Garrett.”

Pilot hadn’t planned out what he was going to say. In a halting voice he managed to explain about his murder case and the possibility of its having occurred on federal land. Agent Garrett listened to the deputy’s entire explanation in an unhurried
evidence. Finally he said: “I’ll come over and check it. Give me directions.”

In the background, Pilot could hear little voices sanding lemonade. He could stand it no longer. In this FBI headquarters?”

Agent Garrett laughed. “In a manner of speaking. He regional office is in Asheville, but since I’m assigned to this rural area, I just work out of my house. I go in twice a month to do the paperwork. Don’t worry about the informality, Deputy. I get the job done.”

Pilot hung up the phone. If it weren’t for the unquestionably dead body on the slab, he could swear that Duncan Johnson had staged all this before he left.

    Ron Garrett frowned speculatively as he peered at Pilot Barnes’ map of the county. He ran his finger along a boundary line and then stopped, his finger poised above a smaller map he’d brought with him, but he couldn’t seem to find the corresponding lines.

“What do you think?” asked the deputy anxiously. “Is that within federal land?”

Garrett shrugged. “It’s close. I’d rather let my office have the final say-so on it, and even then there might have to be a survey. I guess we could check old courthouse records. But don’t worry about it. You called me out to have a look, so the least I can do is view the site. You want to show me the way?”

“I can take you in the patrol car,” Pilot offered.

“Nah. You ride with me. I have my kit in the trunk. Never know what we might need in the way of equipment.” He turned to Hamp McKenna. “You’re welcome to ride along too. Just watch where you sit in the back seat.”

Hamp blinked. “Why? Evidence?”