That Night at the Palace (8 page)

Jefferson turned to Murdock. The man’s face showed that he was angry, but for the first time since Jefferson had become chief, Murdock Rose looked as if he respected the badge.

“Cliff didn’t come home last night, and this morning we found his coupe crashed into Washington’s Feed Store,” Jefferson said, feeling a little empowered.

“Where’s Cliff? Is he okay?” Jesse asked, clearly worried about his friend.

“We don’t know. He wasn’t there.”

Outside, Shorty Newman pulled up to a stop in his black Dodge pickup behind the police prowler. Jefferson glanced out the screen door with some curiosity but turned his attention back to Jesse.

“What time did you get home?

“It was a little after one-thirty,” Murdock replied.

Jesse froze as he looked at his father.

Garvis looked at her husband, “You knew he was out?”

Murdock looked at Jesse, “I always hear you coming and going, son.”

As Shorty stepped up to the porch, Jesse felt a little cold chill, realizing that every time he had climbed out the window his father knew full well what he was doing.

“Chief, I need to talk to you,” Shorty said from outside.

“I’ll be out in a moment, Shorty.”

“I think you need to come right now, Jefferson,” Shorty replied with a shake in his voice.

Jefferson looked out at Shorty who was covered in mud from the knees down. “Good lord, Shorty, what did you get into?”

“You’ve got to come, Jefferson. Quick.”

Jefferson looked at Jesse and his parents, “It looks like they’ve found something. Jesse. I’ll call you when we find Cliff.”

“I’m coming,” Jesse said as he headed to the door.

“No.” Jefferson ordered just as he stepped out, stopping Jesse in his tracks. “I’ll call you.”

“Wait. What’s this about a shooting?” Murdock demanded as his patience ran out with Chief Thomas Jefferson Hightower.

Jefferson paused in the doorway, “Irwin Stoker came into the Palace last night with a shotgun and tried to shoot Cliff. He thinks Cliff got his daughter pregnant. Jesse here stopped him. He saved Cliff’s life.”

Murdock and Garvis were stunned as they watched Jefferson turn and walk out the door.

When they got about halfway to the prowler, Shorty started to speak, but the police officer halted him. When they were finally by the cars and out of earshot he nodded for Shorty to explain.

“The Lowery boys pulled up just as we were about to tow off Cliff’s coupe. They had been out huntin’ and, well, you just need to come down to the river.”

“What is it, Shorty?” Jefferson asked, a little annoyed.

“It’s Cliff, Jefferson. I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.”

Jefferson looked at the porch. Jesse and his parents were watching. He nodded in their direction, smiled, then turned to Shorty, “Lead the way.”

“One other thing, Jeff. The coupe. There was a bloody tire-iron under the seat.”

#

Jefferson parked right behind Shorty’s Dodge pickup. They’d just driven about a quarter mile alongside the railroad line to the trestle on a rutted road made by hunters and fishermen. Jefferson hated doing that to his brand new prowler. He felt sure that the springs wouldn’t take much of it, and he doubted that the town council had allotted much cash for repairs.

Toad Lowery came walking toward him and Shorty as they approached the trestle. Jefferson found Toad to be a bit amusing. He’d known Toad all of his life and had always thought that “Toad” was just a nickname because he actually looked like a toad. He was short and broad-chested with no visible neck at all. On top of his shoulders, Toad had a melon shaped head that looked as if it was two sizes too big for his body. Naturally, given his appearance, kids would nickname him “Toad”. Then one weekend a few years back he had to run Toad and his brother Hunker into his jail for getting drunk and driving their father’s flatbed Buick all through Mrs. Hollis Harrison’s prize winning azaleas. Two years earlier Mrs. Hollis Harrison had won second prize at the State Fair of Texas Floral Competition. Mrs. Hollis Harrison was convinced that she had not won first place because, as it was learned after the fair, one of the judges, an editor from the Dallas Morning News, was also a cousin of that Galveston woman who did win. Mrs. Hollis Harrison was bound and determined to go back to the State Fair and win first place, and might have had it in the bag had the Lowery brothers not driven through her garden. Apparently it takes two or three years for a “competition quality” azalea to blossom. Understandably, Mrs. Hollis Harrison was not happy with the Lowerys and wanted them to go to prison. She settled for them spending two weeks on the county road gang.

When Jefferson booked the boys, he asked Toad for his real name. Obviously drunk, the boy kept telling him that his name was Toad. Finally, the next afternoon when their parents came and tried to bail them out, Jefferson finally realized that the boy was given the name “Toad” at birth and had somehow grown up to look like one.

“Chief,” an excited Toad began, “We been huntin’ on the other side of the river and came walkin’ across the bridge when Hunker seen a gator on the bank eatin’ somethin’. Well, he killed the gator with his first shot and then he climbed down the bank to get a look and seen that it was eatin’ some fella.”

Hunker walked up with a hunting rifle across his shoulders, holding it casually with both hands loosely hanging on it. “His head’s awful bloody, Jefferson, but I’m pretty sure it’s Cliff Tidwell.”

“Have you two told anyone else about this?”

“No, Chief,” Toad replied, “Just Shorty and Hobe. I seen Hobe tryin’ to tow that coupe; he said he’d get you, and we came back here.”

Jefferson walked out on the bridge and looked over at the body.

“Right by those trees,” Toad said as he pointed.

Jefferson took one good look and then turned away, feeling the scrambled eggs he had eaten for breakfast coming to his throat. The alligator was a big one, at least eight or nine feet. It lay dead with a leg in its mouth. The human was lying on his side, the leg almost ripped off.

“You boys stay here. I don’t want any more tracks down there.” Jefferson told the three as he made his way down the bank. When he got close enough, he swallowed hard and took a good look at the body. The head had been bashed in to the point that there was as a dent the size of a cantaloupe in the skull. Jefferson turned his head and began climbing back up the steep bank to the bridge. Out of sheer willpower, he kept himself from throwing up in front of those watching from above.

When he reached the top the boys met him.

“You ever seen anything like it, Chief?” Toad asked with a big smile, garnering a disgusted look from Shorty who was clearly close to losing his breakfast.

“No,” Jefferson said solemnly. “Toad, you and Hunker are now deputy police officers. You’ll get a day’s pay, just like Shorty. I’m going back to town to make a few calls. Shorty, you’re in charge. None of you are to go down to that body. And if anybody comes along, don’t let them near the bridge or down the hill. If anyone tries, arrest ‘em. This is a crime scene.”

“What about my gator?” Hunker asked.

“You can have it after the investigator gets here.”

“You gonna call Sheriff Cadwalder? You know Jonas Cadwalder don’t like us,” Toad said reminding Jefferson that the Sheriff did, in fact, dislike the two boys. When the two brothers were working on the county road-gang, they made an attempt to escape by driving away on a road grader. Unfortunately, the big machine had a maximum speed of about six miles per hour. When the Sheriff’s deputies caught up to them, they drove the grader into a creek. It took Sheriff Jonah Cadwalder nearly a month to find a tow truck large enough to pull it out of the ditch.

“No, Toad, I ain’t callin’ Cadwalder.”

Chapter 5

301 RED OAK AVENUE. ELZA, TEXAS

5:15 p.m. Sunday November 16, 1941

J
esse and Gemma sat quietly on the front steps of the house. Jesse had his arm around Gemma. It had been a long day for both. News of a death moves quickly in small towns, regardless of how hard the police chief tries to keep it quiet. Gemma first heard about it when she was walking out of church with her mom and sister, Jettie. It was obvious that something unusual was happening. There was a group of men gathered around Hobe Bethard who was sitting in the parking lot in his wrecker. Usually, after the service, there was a group of men gathered under the sycamore tree to smoke cigarettes and tell each other what a good sermon the preacher had given. It was considered impolite, if not an outright sin, to smoke too close to the church. It always seemed amusing to Gemma that the sycamore was somehow the appropriate distance from the building to allow one to smoke without bringing down the wrath of God Almighty. She also found it amusing that those men pretended to know if the preacher had given a good sermon, since most of them had been asleep.

This time was different. The same men were gathered, but there was a considerable commotion. Pretty soon some of the men began walking off to talk to their wives, and an even bigger commotion seemed to stir. Though Jettie and her mother seemed oblivious, it was clear to Gemma that everyone kept looking their way as if whatever was happening had something to do with them.

After visiting with some of the ladies, Gemma and her mom and sister shook hands with Brother Bill and told him what a good sermon he had preached. That, of course, was a bold-faced lie, because Gemma hadn’t heard a word Brother Bill had preached. Her mind, and Jettie’s too, was on Cliff and what had happened at the Palace. What Cliff had done was unbelievable. The humiliation Jettie was feeling was more than Gemma could stand. She wanted to break down and cry. Everyone was looking at them as they walked into church, which she expected, but after the service, well, it was getting worse with everyone huddled in little groups gossiping and looking at them.

As Gemma and her mom and sister walked to their car, Gemma felt as if all eyes were on them. In fact, as it turned out, they were. Before they got to the car Mrs. Greer started toward them. Mrs. Bertha Greer had been the children’s Sunday School teacher since, well, no one could remember how long she had been teaching, but Gemma suspected that it was altogether possible that she also taught Mary Magdalene.

Mrs. Greer was as sweet a lady as there was in all of Elza, and no one would question that. Whenever someone died, she would be the first to bring a pot roast and a pound cake, and there was no doubt that she worked harder than anyone at First Baptist Church Elza when it was time to get ready for the annual spring revival. But there was equally as little doubt that there was anyone in all of Elza as accomplished at spreading gossip as Bertha Greer.

As the woman approached, Gemma prepared herself for a confrontation. Whatever Mrs. Greer wanted couldn’t be good, and Gemma was bound and determined to protect her little sister even if meant telling her former Sunday School teacher to go mind her own damn business.

Mrs. Greer walked over to Jettie and took the girl’s hand. Suddenly everyone outside the church was quiet.

“Mrs. Greer, what’s going on?” Gemma asked, knowing that at least forty people were straining to hear, and also knowing that one of the town’s most notorious gossips was about to say how sorry she was that Jettie’s boyfriend had gotten another girl pregnant.

Mrs. Greer, ignoring Gemma looked tenderly at Jettie, “Sweetheart, you may as well hear this from me. Cliff’s dead. He was in a terrible car accident last night.”

In moments half the women of First Baptist Church Elza were gathered around Jettie. Gemma held her sister as she went from shock to tears. Soon, Brother Bill was there. He took Jettie by the hand and quieted everybody down. He then led everyone in prayer, first for Jettie to get though this tragedy, secondly for Cliff’s family, and then finally for the community who has lost a beloved son. He then admonished the congregation to go home and try not to gossip or speculate. Rather, he asked that they all pray and wait for the police chief to do his job.

Of course, gossip and speculation were the two things that the people of Elza were best at. Before they got in the car to leave, Gemma had heard that Cliff had wrecked his car into the feed store. She also heard that he had somehow fallen off the railroad bridge and gotten eaten by an alligator. Both stories were a little unbelievable. First, the feed store was at least a hundred feet off the highway, and it seemed highly unlikely that he would accidently run into a building that far off the road. And, though she had heard all of her life that there were a few alligators in the Neches, she had never met anyone who could say that they had actually seen one. More importantly, what would he be doing in the river that late at night? All she knew was that apparently Cliff was dead, and she needed to get to Jesse as soon as she could get Jettie home and away from all these people.

On the way home, Jettie insisted that they stop at the police station to find out what had happened. Gemma didn’t like the idea of going there for fear of what they might find out, which quite honestly she couldn’t imagine. She would have preferred to drop her mom and Jettie off and then go find out for herself and report it to them later. That wasn’t going to happen. Jettie was determined to go to the police station, and that was that.

Naturally, the police chief wasn’t there, and against Gemma’s pleading, Jettie and her mother insisted that they go to see Cliff’s mother. Even if she didn’t know what had happened, she certainly needed to be consoled. Of course, when they got to the house there were eight or ten cars parked all around it, one being the police chief’s new prowl car.

Their mother led the way as they approached the porch where Chief Hightower stood with a glass of tea, fuming because one of his deputies was running around town telling anyone he could find that the Tidwell boy was laying dead next to the river. When he saw Jettie he stepped off the porch and met the ladies.

“I’m so sorry, girls. I had planned to stop by your house after I came here.”

“What happened, Chief?” Gemma’s mother, Anna-Ruth demanded, somewhat impatiently. She had no love for the chief. She had long held the suspicion that he was the reason that they never knew exactly how her husband ended up dead on a railroad track.

“Ma’am, we really don’t know yet. Some boys found him by the river. His head was cracked open. He may have just fallen off the bridge. I just don’t know yet. I called down to Austin and they’re sending out a Texas Ranger to investigate. He’ll be here this afternoon.”

“Thank you, Chief,” Anna-Ruth said sharply, showing her impatience with the man. She walked up the steps and into the house, followed by Jettie. Gemma stayed.

“Have you seen Jesse, Chief? He and his parents weren’t at church.”

“I stopped by to see him earlier, but that was before we found Cliff.”

“Why before?” Gemma asked, sensing something.

“We found Clifford’s car down by the feed store, but no one was around. I was hopin’ he was with Jesse.”

“Oh,” Gemma replied, understanding that there was more that she wasn’t being told. “Thank you, Chief.”

As she began up the steps and into the house, Jefferson took her arm to help her. He always liked Gemma. She was smart as a whip, and he knew full well that she was aware he’d not told her the entire story. He also knew that she was smart enough to know not to ask. There were times like this that Jefferson Hightower hated his job. By being vague he was doing the same as lying, and he didn’t like lying to this girl. But the fact was that he didn’t know what had happened, and he couldn’t tell her that Cliff was half eaten by an alligator. There were few people in Elza whom Jefferson had as much respect for as Gemma Crawford. When her father was killed, Gemma, even though she was a little girl, took on the weight of handling the funeral arrangements because her mom was too distraught. She even ran her mother’s store for a time. It occurred to the Chief that Gemma didn’t buy the story that her dad had gotten drunk and was hit by a train either. She accepted it like they all did, but she didn’t believe it.

When Gemma walked in, the house was already crowded with friends and relatives. Most of the women were huddled around Mrs. Tidwell, who had her arms around Jettie. Most of the men were on the porch where Chief Hightower continued trying to calm speculation.

After about an hour Gemma began persuading her mother and Jettie to get out of the house as more and more people began showing up, most with dishes of collard greens, black-eyed peas, turnips, and almost every casserole imaginable. Just as Anna-Ruth was finally ready to go, Jesse walked through the door. Gemma immediately met him and hugged him tenderly. Then, without saying a word, he walked toward Cliff’s mother who was sitting on a couch with her sister and a cousin. Before Jesse got close she stood to her feet and rushed to the boy, throwing her arms around him. For the first time through this, tears swelled in Gemma’s eyes.

Jesse just stood there hugging Mrs. Tidwell without saying a word. Finally, he lost all control and tears began streaming down his face. Gemma, now crying, was holding tightly to Jettie as they watched Jesse sobbing. He and Mrs. Tidwell sat down on the couch. With her arms around him, Susie Tidwell tried to console him as all of his emotions poured out. Everyone in the room was silent as they watched her holding him, stroking his head. It occurred to Gemma that she was probably the only one in the room who knew the real source of this breakdown. Cliff was more than a friend. Cliff was a brother.

Jesse was an only child, and he had a distant relationship to his parents, to say the least. He had told Gemma on a number of occasions that Susie Tidwell was much more a mom to him than his own mother had ever been. He felt the same way about Ned, Cliff’s father. It was Ned Tidwell who taught him to fish and hunt. Murdock was never around for such things. In fact, he had once confided that he couldn’t remember his father ever so much as tossing a ball with him. Worse still was that he couldn’t recall his mother ever giving him a hug. Most people in town held a little envy for the Roses. They thought of Jesse as the kid who had everything. Only Gemma knew that he would much rather have grown up on the east end of town with the Tidwells than in that big brick house on Elm.

After a few minutes Ned Tidwell walked in from the back porch where he had been with his two brothers. Ned was a stern, proud man who didn’t want to be seen sobbing in front of half the town, but when he approached the couch, tears began pouring down the man’s face. Jesse stood, and Ned wrapped him up in a big bear hug, both sobbing openly. Finally they sat on the couch where the large man held his wife and his adopted son.

A half-hour later Gemma was in the kitchen with her mother and several of the other ladies, washing dishes and taking care of the other needs as at least half of Elza came through to spend a few minutes with the Tidwells. It would seem natural that the food would disappear with as many people as were showing up, but instead, the number of casseroles only increased.

Gemma had just finished drying what must have been the hundredth tea glass when she noticed that the living room become eerily silent. When she looked through the door, she saw Jewel Stoker had just walked in. By now everyone in town had heard about what happened at the Palace the night before, which meant that everyone in town knew that Jewel was pregnant and that Cliff was most likely the father. Most of the people there were, no doubt, thinking that the Stoker girl had a lot of nerve to show up at such a time. Gemma though, couldn’t help but admire the courage it took.

Jewel was accustomed to stares and whispers. She was tall with a head full of long blonde hair and was, in Gemma’s opinion, the most beautiful girl to ever grow up in Elza. But the stares and whispers had nothing to do with how she looked. It seemed to Gemma that almost any time the subject of Jewel Stoker came up, it immediately transitioned to gossip about her mother. Most of the time there would be comments like, “That girl will turn out just like her mother,” or “She’ll probably run off and leave her kid and husband, just like her mother.”

There had been rumors around town about Mrs. Stoker for as long as Gemma could recall. Some claimed that she ran off with one of the carnival workers. Others said that she just ran off. And still others suggested that Irwin Stoker ran her off. That part had seemed the most likely to Gemma since he didn’t seem to miss her at all. Some claimed that the reason Irwin didn’t try to find her was that she was once a prostitute. Gemma remembered that her own father claimed he’d heard that Irwin met her when she worked a whorehouse over by Maydelle. Until Jesse had revealed the truth to her, Gemma had believed some of the rumors could have been true.

Amazingly, Jewel never let on that she was aware of such talk. She just went on about her business as if the whispers and condescending glares didn’t exist. Only Gemma knew better. The two had a quiet, unspoken kinship that only they could understand. It was partly because one had lost a mother and the other had lost a father only a few weeks apart. It was also partly because they were both in love with Jesse Rose. It was mostly, though, because of something that happened the night of the carnival, the night Jewel’s mother disappeared. Gemma had found Jewel kneeling down behind one of the tents crying. That night Gemma learned that Jesse loved Gemma. She also learned that Jewel didn’t miss a thing. She knew about every rumor and whisper.

Gemma watched as Jesse stood and went to Jewel and wrapped his arms around her. The two stood for a few minutes until Susie Tidwell came and took Jewel in her arms. If Mrs. Tidwell had any ill thoughts about Jewel or Sarah Stoker, she never let them show. Gemma and Jesse had enjoyed many a Saturday dinner at the Tidwell’s table over the years, as did Jewel. Where most of the ladies in Elza gossiped behind Jewel’s back, Susie Tidwell treated the girl like a daughter. Susie didn’t seem to care why Sarah left, all she cared about was a poor girl was without a mother that was being raised by an old farmer who drank and didn’t know the first thing about raising a daughter.