Murder Takes to the Hills (28 page)

“Yeah. Good night.”

I walked slowly back up to the cabin, boiling. Smarmy jerk throws a curve and then drives away. I wasn’t being noble. I just felt probably one of them had saved my life and Cindy’s, and the other had been a good Samaritan with muddled results. I’d had some childish idea we’d all laugh about it someday, but, of course, that would never happen. Alan hit that one square and hard.

In a year’s time I’d bet one or the other of them would tell someone and that would open the floodgates. And if I had beat the murder charge, I’d be re-arrested for perjury.
 
And Cindy would hate me…but I would have acted nobly.

How could I ever explain why I ratted? Then a thought hit me: I’d send them both to Alan for priestly wisdom.
 
I was grinning as I crossed the deck.

Cindy was touching up the fire as I entered. “Well, welcome home, my dear. I was beginning to think you might have decided to make your annual appearance at church.”

“I needed some advice, and I got it—in spades. I felt like a fool. Except I still feel bad, no longer being the fool. I feel guilty as hell, but I’m relieved at knowing what I should do and why I didn’t. And I feel better about you.”

Leaning against the mantel, she nodded sagely. “That’s one of the things I love about you, Alex, you express your deepest feelings so clearly.”

“I’m glad you’re so calm about it all. I thought you might be pissed.”

She lifted the wine bottle from the ice bucket and filled our glasses. Handing me mine, she pointed toward the sofa and said, “Sit!”

Fargo and I both moved to the couch and sat. “Now,” Cindy ordered, “tell me what the hell you are talking about. I’ve heard people speaking Chinese that made as much sense.”

I told her.

When I finished, she shook her head in wonderment. “I told you when we first met: the thing that would always cause me the biggest problem with you was your damn masochistic sense of honor! You are a good person, Alex. There is no need intermittently to nail yourself to a cross to prove it!”

“I never thought it would go to trial,” I countered.

“You never thought. About me. About how things like that never stay a secret. About our families. About how much fun we’d have scrubbing floors, as that would be about the only job we could get! And where was your honor going to be when you lied in court?”

“That’s about what Alan said. But I wouldn’t have lied, I would just have stayed quiet.”

Cindy laughed. “You couldn’t stay quiet if you were gagged. Thank God for those three-name baritone Episcopal ministers!”

“For what kind of ministers?”

“Three-name. Haven’t you ever noticed? Episcopal ministers all have three names. Alan Reed Hampton. Ours at home was Robert Malcolm Seale. The one in
Ptown
is James Winston
Hockney
. And they always have these lovely well-modulated baritone voices.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Nothing, I just thought of it. Now, may I assume that since you have solved the McCurry Mystery, you will share it with our two relatives tomorrow, so they may tell
Jeffie
to buzz off?” She threw her wineglass into the fireplace with a crash.

“
Cindy!
”

“We’ll buy them a new set—now that we won’t have to do it by mail order through the Warden’s office.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood, took aim and added my shards to hers.
 
Then I pulled her onto the sofa beside me.

With Fargo still obediently sitting at one end, it was a bit crowded for what I had in mind. “Get down, Fargo.”

He gave me a dirty look that clearly said, “Nag, nag, nag!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“Let’s have breakfast at Gertrude’s,” Cindy suggested. “We have to get the papers anyway. And we can’t just hide. God knows how long we’ll be stuck here.”

“Hopefully about an hour after the troops arrive. Yeah, let’s go.”

The rain was long gone and the sun was a bright yellow towel, rapidly drying the freshly bathed trees and meadows. It seemed impossible to have troubles on a day like this.

We picked up the papers at the Grandma and Grandpa store and waited while they went out to the car to greet Fargo. He was the
spittin
’ image, we had been told several times, of a dog they had owned years ago. And a champion he had been!

At Gertrude’s the local regulars we had come to know by sight, mostly greeted us as usual. To a few, we had become invisible.
 
Gertrude was full of cheer. As she escorted us to a table, she advised us in a stentorian whisper, “Don’t worry about nothing! They’ll never find a jury in this county that would convict you!”

I gave her what felt like a sickly smile, and Cindy muttered something I didn’t catch. We didn’t have much left to say—to each other or anyone else. We mainly hid behind the Sunday
Times
—a day late but welcome. Fargo later received a generous doggie bag.

Shortly before one o’clock I was not surprised to see a car pull in with Ken sitting in the front passenger seat and two men—one in full State Patrol regalia—climbing out of the back.
 
I was, however, surprised and delighted to see my brother unfolding himself from the driver’s seat. How had they connected?

There were hugs and kisses all around from Ken and Sonny. We were introduced to a Dr.
Thalman
, a forensic specialist, who said to call him Ray. And to the State Patrol’s Captain
Vonley
, of the criminal investigation unit, who didn’t say what to call him—obviously “Captain” would suffice.

We learned that Cassie had indeed brought Sonny down, but could not stay due to a charter early Tuesday morning. She sent her love. Ken and his companions had flown in also, and the group had met at the car rental office in Elizabethton. They had stopped for an early lunch at a place Ken knew that had great ribs—which took me a moment to understand—so we needn’t worry about feeding them—which was fortunate.

Ken and Sonny asked for a beer. The Captain nobly requested coffee. I took a beer. Cindy poured two coffees. We retired to the living room, where Ken looked with dismay at his carpet.

“Damn fool
Jeffie
! Did he really think you’d be dumb enough to burn a bunch of clothes in the house you were living in?”

“People under great stress are not always logical,”
Vonley
pontificated. “But personally,” he said with a grin. “I’d send him the cleaning bill.” I liked him a little better.

“Well.”
Vonley
set his cup on the coffee table. “Cindy, Alex, I got a tale from Ken that sounded absolutely lunatic. Please tell me what actually happened.”

“Well, first, I think you should know the story you will get from the sheriff,” Cindy began. “He thinks we returned from the Bromfield Inn around midnight and discovered McCurry lurking in a bush. He and Alex grappled, he hit her in the face and she went down. He was off-balance for a moment, with his back to me. I grabbed one of the river rocks we were going to take home for bookends and hit him in the back of the head to stun him. But he didn’t move and I couldn’t feel a pulse. So we figured I had killed him.”

I lit a cigarette. Everyone looked pained but Sonny, who reached for my pack.

Ray reached for the door to the deck.

I took up the tale. “I managed to get up and dragged the presumed corpse up the trail to the creek. I laid him down near the water where it was exceptionally muddy, as if he had slipped, fallen and hit his head. I went back to the house, got the rock and placed it by his head. I then took off the gray blazer they insist I was wearing and hid it somewhere. They have not found it
yet
, Johnson says.”

Taking a sip of beer, I continued. “There are numerous shrubs and some blackberry bushes along the way. Johnson says his deputies found fibers on them that will match McCurry’s chino shirt and pants plus some gray ones that will match my blazer. I do own such a jacket, but it’s in Massachusetts. I had just arrived back at the cabin
 
from wherever I went to hide the blazer, when Mickey staggered down the path, muttering to himself.”
  

“Ever helpful,” Cindy said with a
 
smile, “I ripped off a big old green coat I had found in the mudroom and had worn as I policed the area for blood or anything. I gave it to Alex to keep blood from his head wound off her clothes, and she began to support Mickey as they went
down
the path toward where the creek goes under the main road.”

“I don’t remember any green coat in there,” Ken interrupted.

“There wasn’t one in the cabin, that part was all
Jeffie
, I’ll explain later,” I answered. “Anyway partway down the trail there’s a crushed bush which tells
Jeffie
that Mickey fell into it, and from here on, I carried the hundred-and-eighty-pound babbling corpse down the hill and placed him by the creek.
Jeffie
says either I put him where he would breathe some water, or he moved. Anyway, I then remembered the bloody rock with hair stuck in it, went
up
the trail, got it, came
down
the trail and put it beside him and went
up
the trail past the house.
 
Nearly at Blackstone Farm, I shoved the green coat under a rotting log, where it was found, covered in leaves, dirt, etc—plus a splotch of blood. They also found a footprint they say matches my sneakers near the first place Mickey was laid out.”

“As
Jeffie
then said: Case closed.” Cindy gave a little bow from the sofa.

“Funny, Alex,”
Vonley
said, “you don’t look like an Olympic wrestler.”

Ray laughed. “I’m not sure even one of them could have done all that. You say he weighed one-eighty, Alex?”

“Close to it. He was almost exactly my height, but square-built and very muscular. I imagine he worked out a lot.”

We gravitated toward the deck. Ken went to the kitchen and came back with crackers and a slab of Stilton we had bought. We all refreshed our drinks. Swallowing a sizable bite,
Vonley
muttered, “Okay, ladies what really happened?”

I began.“We were at the Bromfield with two friends we had made here in town. Later I ran into Branch Redford and had a drink with him in the bar. He had had a few, but wasn’t really drunk. He was upset about Mickey’s actions and obviously afraid of what else he might do. Mickey was particularly, Branch told me, angry at Clay and Sara and us for putting a wrench in his works. Branch got a phone call from a woman called Mildred at the Dew Drop Inn. He had hired her to ‘be nice’ to Mickey, hoping that would keep him entertained overnight. I judged from the call she was refusing to go to a motel with him; he had already slapped her around and got bounced out of the Dew Drop, and she was scared of him.”

I grabbed the last morsel of Stilton and talked around it. “Branch said Mickey was a loose cannon, and he was the only man left holding a rope. He wished for Marines. He had begged
Jeffie
to arrest Mickey on any kind of charge and hold him till this morning, but
Jeffie
said he had no reason to. Then Branch squared his shoulders and said something like, ‘Here goes St. George to find the dragon. Wish me luck.’ Well, when St. George found the dragon, he killed him.”

“That’s not proof of anything!”
Vonley
exploded.

“I know, but it’s indicative of how he saw himself: he had to save Mickey’s would-be victims. Also add this—two things I finally remembered. Branch was wearing a gray blazer and, I think, gray pants. He also had on sneakers of the same brand and design as mine. I had noticed them once before. And that night, dancing with him, I noticed them again. What particularly got my attention was how small his hands and feet were—almost delicate. He’s about Cindy’s height, but his hands and feet are small, even for a short man. And if you find the sneakers, I think one of them will have a worn spot on the edge of the sole.”

“Now there, my good Captain, you have something!” Ken sounded very relieved.