The Ballad of Frankie Silver (8 page)

With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, the sheriff stopped Alton Banner from interrupting.

“Anyhow, Frankie Silvers snuck up on Charlie, brandishing that ax, but he was holding the baby, and he rolled over and smiled the sweetest smile in his sleep. And she looked down at her handsome young husband, sleeping there so peaceful-like with their little daughter snuggled against him, and she just couldn’t do it. She backed away. Three times Frankie crept up close to him, and three times he smiled like an angel and caused her to put down the ax and back away again, but the fourth time, he was sleeping sound, and the baby crawled out of her father’s arms, and Frankie brought the ax down—whop!—and she near ’bout cut his head off. Charlie opened his eyes, and he said, ‘God bless the child!’ And then he was gone.”

The first page of Spencer’s notepad was full. He flipped to a new page and scribbled on.

Martha Ayers looked at the expression on his face and wished she’d waited for a book.

Helen Honeycutt smiled at the sheriff’s diligence, pleased at being given such rapt attention. She picked up the tale again with more enthusiasm in her voice. “So Charlie Silvers was dead, laying there by the fireplace in their little cabin. Then Frankie had to figure out what to do with that body. So she cut him up like a deer, and she put his body into the fire, but she didn’t have enough firewood to finish the job, so she took the pieces that were left over and she hid them out in the woods. Her daddy took the ax and threw it in the river on his way home, so they never did find it.

“Well, the next morning Frankie went over to her in-laws’ house, and she told them she was worried about Charlie. She said he had gone hunting, and he hadn’t come home last night. Every day for three days she went to Charlie’s parents’ house and said, ‘No, he’s not back yet.’ And his folks were getting frantic with worry, because it was winter and all. They rounded up most of the neighbors and started hunting the woods, looking for tracks or some sign of Charlie. They didn’t find him.

“Then one of Charlie’s old hunting buddies got suspicious, and he went into the cabin after Frankie left, and he found ax marks on the log walls, and blood all over the floor. Then they started hunting the woods up close around the cabin, and they found Charlie’s body parts scattered around, some in tree stumps and over by the creek. So they arrested Frankie and took her on horseback down to the jail in Morganton.” She paused for breath, smiling expectantly at her audience.

Spencer reminded himself that he wasn’t interrogating a suspect. He managed a polite smile. “Can I ask questions now?”

“Yes, if you’d like.”

Spencer glanced down at the scrawled notes. “I appreciate your coming and telling me this story,” he said gently. “And I know that folktales are supposed to be heard and not dissected, but this is a true story, which is why I’m interested in it. You see, I have the mind of a policeman, even when I’m not on duty, and so I’m going to ask you some questions about what you told me, just as if I were the investigating officer.”

Mrs. Honeycutt looked wary. “Well, I can’t promise I’ll know the answers, but you can try.”

“All right. First of all, where did your grandmother hear this story? Was she kin to any of the principals in the case?”

“Well, everybody’s kin to everybody in Mitchell County if you go back far enough, but I don’t think we were more than distant cousins by marriage to anybody. I don’t know where Nana got the story, though. A lot of people tell it.”

Spencer made a note. “Were there any witnesses to the crime?”

“Some say that Frankie’s father was there. I told that part, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but how do they know?”

Helen Honeycutt looked puzzled. “It’s what people say,” she told him, as if that settled it.

“Yes, ma’am, but how do we
know
that Frankie Silver’s father was present at the time of the murder? You said there were no witnesses. Was he charged as an accessory?”

“No. I believe the mother was, though.”

“The
mother
was charged?”

“I think so.”

“Not the father?”

“No.”

With a weary sigh, Spencer sat back and began scribbling in the margins of his notes. “Why?”

“Why wasn’t he charged? I don’t know, Sheriff, but it didn’t matter anyway. Nobody was tried for the murder except Frankie Silvers herself.”

Alton Banner cleared his throat. “About that name, ma’am. I’m acquainted with some of the Silvers from over there in Mitchell. I don’t believe they have a final
s
on their name. I believe it’s Silver. Singular.”

“I always heard it
Silvers
.” Mrs. Honeycutt’s face had taken on a sullen expression, and no doubt she was regretting her impulse to do good deeds for invalids.

“That can be checked fairly easily,” said Spencer, unwilling to quibble about minor points. “Let’s go back to the story of the murder itself. Did Frankie Silver leave a written confession?”

“Not that I ever heard of. The books don’t mention one.”

“I’d be astonished to hear that she could write,” muttered Dr. Banner. “Consider the time and place.”

Spencer nodded. “I was just wondering how we knew the circumstances of Charlie’s death so exactly. Where he was lying when the attack came. How many times she attempted to kill him. Especially his last words.
God bless the child.
It sounds like something out of a play.”

Alton Banner chuckled. “
Porgy and Bess
, to be exact.”

Mrs. Honeycutt’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the way I heard the story, Sheriff.”

“Speaking of songs, ma’am,” the doctor continued. “I noticed you quoted from another one in your recounting of the story. You said, ‘He was her man, and he was doing her wrong,’ which is from ‘Frankie and Johnny.’”

“Oh, yes. That’s where that old song came from. It was inspired by this murder case.”

Spencer shot a quick glance at Alton Banner.
Later
, his look said. “This is extremely helpful,” he said to Mrs. Honeycutt. “Now, tell me, was the murder weapon ever found?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

“Then how do they know it was thrown in the river?” Spencer consulted his notes. “You said,
maybe the father
—who was not definitely there—
threw it into the river on his way home.
Witnesses?”

“No. It’s what people said.” She glanced at her watch and then at Martha.

“Okay,” said Spencer. “Then she was arrested.…”

“I really have to be going,” said Mrs. Honeycutt with a plaster smile. “Good luck with your research, Sheriff.”

Martha stood up, too, gave him a look, and said, “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

Spencer saw the visitors to the door with fulsome thanks and offers of coffee, but his peace overtures were coldly received. When he saw the taillights on Martha’s car disappear around the curve of the driveway, he sank back on the couch with a weary sigh.

“I don’t blame you,” said Alton Banner. “That much pleasant hypocrisy would wear out even a well man.”

“No, it was kind of her to come and tell me the story,” said Spencer. “I really did appreciate it. She probably told it just the way she heard it. It wasn’t her fault that—that—”

“It was piffle.”

“I think so. Most of it.”

The doctor squinted at him. “What do you want to know about this for, anyhow? Long time ago, not your jurisdiction. You writing a book?”

“No. I’m not planning to. I guess it’s just something to keep my mind occupied while I’m home.” Spencer tried to make his interest seem desultory. “It’s an old story, and I always wondered about it. Heard it from Nelse Miller.”

“I hope he had more sense than to tell you that this story inspired the song ‘Frankie and Johnny.’”

“He didn’t say that. No.”

“You don’t believe it, either, do you?”

Spencer shook his head. “Stranger things have happened, I guess, but it doesn’t seem likely. ‘Frankie and Johnny’ is an urban song. The woman goes to a bar, finds out that her lover is unfaithful to her, and kills him with a pistol, which she fires through the door of an apartment or a hotel room. Except for the name ‘Frankie,’ I see no similarities between the two incidents.”

“It’s like confusing Barbara Bush with Barbara Mandrell,” Banner grunted. “A mere coincidence of names. I hear nothing of our mountains in either the tune or the story of ‘Frankie and Johnny.’”

“No. I wonder if there is a song about Frankie Silver.”

“Bound to be, if anybody remembers it. So, tell me, as a lawman, how do you see the rest of it?” The doctor smiled. “In your professional opinion?”

“I don’t have enough information yet. Just offhand, though, I’d say that all that business about her sneaking up on him three times and backing away again is the embellishment of a storyteller.”

Alton Banner hummed a snatch of an old tune. “
Three times he kissed her lily-white hands … three times he kissed her cheek
.”

“Yes, exactly,” said Spencer. “It sounds like a ballad-in-the-making. And I don’t think her father was there, either.”

“Why not?”

The sheriff shrugged. “Just a hunch—and a lot of experience with rural justice. If there was a man around, they sure as hell would have put him on trial for the crime. Charging a little eighteen-year-old girl with an ax murder had to be a last resort for the sheriff of Burke County.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, son,” said the old doctor. “I’ll check back on you toward the end of the week. See how you and Frankie are getting along.”

The sheriff smiled. “You do that. One more thing, though. Can I drive yet?”

“To Nashville in six weeks? You still thinking about that?”

“No. I meant around the county here—soon.”

Alton Banner shook his head. “Ask me next time.”

*   *   *

In the sheriff’s office Jeff McCullough, editor of the county’s weekly newspaper, the
Hamelin Record
, sat in the straight chair beside Joe LeDonne’s desk, scanning the prepared statement that he had been given.

“So I can use everything in here without compromising the investigation?”

“Of course,” said the deputy. “We don’t have the forensic evidence back from the lab anyhow. I hope we have an arrest by then.”

“You were the investigating officer?”

“I took the call when the bodies were found. Martha came out shortly thereafter to help with the crime scene.”

McCullough tilted his glasses to the end of his nose and looked again at the press release. “It’s eerie, isn’t it?” he said. “I just finished doing a story about Fate Harkryder’s upcoming execution, so I had to go back and read the old stories on the Trail Murders. I could just about run them again for this new case with no rewrite.”

“There are some similarities,” LeDonne conceded.

“Well, we know it isn’t Fate Harkryder this time,” said McCullough. “Do you have any suspects?”

“Nothing to speak of.”

Jeff McCullough smiled. “You wouldn’t speak of it, anyhow, would you? But that’s okay. I don’t want to hinder the investigation. I think my angle for this week is the irony of these murders happening so close to Fate Harkryder’s execution date, and bearing such a resemblance to his own crime. What does the sheriff think about it?”

“He’s still recovering from his wounds. He’s not part of this investigation.”

“But I just read those old Harkryder articles. Spencer Arrowood was the arresting officer in that case. What does he think about this one?”

“We haven’t told him about this one. He’s still weak from surgery, and he’s not up to anymore strain right now. Martha thinks he’s better off not being told.”

“So I can’t interview him about the new case, and whether he thinks they’re related?”

“No. He knows nothing about it. Martha and I will keep you posted on what’s happening in this case. And the old one is closed—or it will be in a few weeks, when Fate Harkryder goes to the chair.”

Jeff McCullough frowned. “When is the sheriff due back on the job?”

“Couple of weeks. We’ll have an arrest by then.”

*   *   *

Fate Harkryder was thirty-seven years old and looked fifty. His hair was shot with iron gray. A lifetime of smoking and hard times had etched deep creases between his nose and chin, and had stitched a chain of fine lines around the hollows of his eyes. He had not run to fat, though, as so many of the prisoners did, partly because Harkryder men were built short and wiry, and partly because Fate Harkryder stopped eating when he felt his body thicken. Fat was weakness, and in prison it did not do to give the appearance of weakness. Fate Harkryder liked to be left alone. He was soft-spoken and courteous to those he encountered, but people who mistook his remoteness for weakness did so only once. He had learned long ago that if you are polite and distant, people will leave you alone. He could fight if he had to, but he avoided it if he could do so without backing down. Shouting and striking people is a form of intimacy, and for that reason alone Fate Harkryder avoided confrontations.

His lawyer had just left. This one was an earnest kid out of Nashville who was working pro bono because he claimed to hate the death penalty. He had offered his services when the state announced its intention of executing Fate Harkryder in six weeks’ time. Maybe he was a do-gooder, or maybe he wanted to get his name in the paper by representing an infamous man. It was all the same, though. Fate didn’t think there was much the kid could do, but for zero legal fees, he was welcome to try. What the hell.

Fate had lost count of the lawyers he’d gone through in twenty years. Some of them had only been voices on the phone, staying on the case just long enough to find some other sucker to take it off their hands. None of them stayed long. Fate wasn’t notorious enough to make a name for an ambitious litigator, and his family was too poor to make it worth anybody’s while to defend him. That had been the trouble to begin with. The court-appointed lawyer at his original trial went through the motions of defending him, but his efforts had been all but useless.

He sat on a concrete bench outside Pod Five and looked up at the hill beyond the river. The sun was warm against his skin, and he yawned and stretched, savoring the smell and feel of early summer. If he kept his eyes closed, he could picture the homestead back in east Tennessee. He wondered if it had changed much in the decades that he’d been gone. Probably not. The land had been farmed out two generations before he was born. Who’d want it now? He hadn’t even seen any pictures of the home place since he left, and what little news he had from the relatives at home never touched on the farm or the changing seasons, which they all took for granted, while he, deprived of it forever, would have traded them all for a hill and a meadow.