The Blood Ballad (20 page)

Eighteen

Snow had begun to fall on the crime scene by the time Colin and I left. Sheriff Marceau didn't really have anything earth-shattering to ask me. Just the usual questions somebody would ask a person who'd led them to a dead body. I stared at the bridge as the heavy wet snow began to accumulate on the edges of it. How many snows had those remains witnessed, how many scorching days? How many times had people passed right over her, none the wiser that she lay below?

It made me want to cry.

“So,” Colin said as we got in the car. “What have we got here, exactly?”

“Providing the body is Isabelle Mercer's?” I put the car in drive.

“Yeah,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “I think it's a pretty good bet.”

“What we have is a woman who disappeared from New Kassel, only to show up sometime after that in Progress. She married Eddie Morgan and joined the family band, which really came into its own about two or three years after that. Then one day, she packed her bags, but she left without them and was never seen again. Her husband said he thought she left to be with her lover. She turns up seventy-something years later, buried under a bridge.”

“And how did you know she was there?”

“I received a letter and a recording of a song. I call it ‘The Blood Ballad.' In the song, a woman confesses to murdering Belle because Belle was having an affair with this woman's husband or lover. ‘The beautiful Belle, well, she's going straight to hell for doin' to me what she did that day.…'”

Colin made some disgruntled noise and crossed his arms. “Are you okay to drive in this mess?”

“I've driven in snow before.”

“Yes, but maybe not quite so distractedly,” he said.

“I'm fine.”

“Okay,” he said and held up his hands in surrender. “So, who did the recording come from?”

“It came from a dead man. Clifton Weaver. Who just happened to be the nephew of Eddie Morgan, Belle's husband.”

“So, Clifton came upon this recording and, like you, thought it solved the long-lost mystery of what happened to his aunt Belle.”

I nodded. “I'm hungry.”

“Me, too,” he said. Like I thought he would argue. One thing is for certain, Colin has a healthy appetite. “But right after he gets the recording to you, he ends up dead.”

“Right.”

“So somebody else knew about the recording. And they either didn't like what it implied or … what?”

“Or he or she wanted to be the one to unveil it to the world.”

“Right, they wanted credit for it. They wanted to blow the lid off of the mysterious disappearance of Belle Morgan. Who would want that?”

“Right now, the only person I can think of would be Glen Morgan.”

“Maybe we should go see him,” Colin said.

I glanced over at him. He thought he'd slipped that “we” in there much more casually than he actually had. I smiled. “No, I'm going to see Johnny Morgan.”

“Who is that?”

“Belle's son. He lives in Imperial.”

“He's still alive?”

I shrugged. “He'd be about seventy-five. It's a chance I'm willing to take. His address is right there on that sticky note. If he doesn't live there anymore, all it will have cost me is a trip in the snow.”

*   *   *

Colin and I got off of Highway 55 at the Imperial exit and made a left back across the highway. Imperial is just south of Arnold, which is just south of St. Louis County. It's one of those places that has really built up in recent years, but when I was a kid, it was just a main street with a few houses and businesses scattered along it. It butted up to Barnhart. Both were home to some pretty rolling hills and brand-new subdivisions. Johnny Morgan did not live in one of the new subdivisions. Instead, he lived in an older ranch-style home, sitting on a slight hill. Behind the house were lots of empty trellises, which would have been covered with flowers were it not for the fact that it was December.

“So, you got your Christmas shopping done?” Colin asked.

I rolled my eyes. “No. I've got two Bionicles for Matthew and a padlock for Rachel.”

“Padlock?”

“Something to keep Mary out of her room. Believe me, she'll be thrilled with it. Otherwise, I've gotten nothing done. What's on your list?” I asked.

“What I want for Christmas, nobody can buy,” he said.

Melancholy
is not a word I would usually associate with Colin, but he did seem to be a bit more … introspective than usual. He really was very unhappy as mayor. “Well, I've got ideas for everybody else,” I said as I pulled into Johnny Morgan's driveway. “Just haven't been able to go out and actually get any of it. My sister's, I'm going to have to make.”

He chuckled.

“What?”

“You? Make something?”

“Hey, you know, I'm not as useless as you think,” I said. “I can make stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like,
things,
” I said. I turned off the car. “Let me do the talking.”

“Right,” he said. We got out of the car and I took a deep breath, drinking in the smell of snow. I really wished I could bottle that smell to save for hot humid days. Looking out at the big flakes falling lazily on the house and trees in front of me, a hot humid day was a faded memory. If I hadn't known better, I'd have sworn those days would never come again. But they would.

I knocked on the door, and an elderly woman answered. “Hello, I hate to bother you,” I said. “My name is Torie O'Shea, and I'm a historian. I live just down in New Kassel. I was wondering if I could speak with Johnny Morgan.”

She gave me a quizzical look. “Why?”

I gave a heavy sigh and glanced at Colin. “I'd like to ask him some questions about his mother.”

“He doesn't really remember her,” the woman said.

She'd started to shut the door, but I thought to play my only trick that might actually get me in the door. I had a feeling that Johnny Morgan had been named after my grandfather, John Robert Keith. Quickly, I said, “I'm the granddaughter of Johnny Keith.”

Then I heard a voice from somewhere in the house say, “Let her in.”

The old woman fixed a serious stare on me. “He's not well. Do not upset him.”

“I'll try not to,” I said. “This is Colin Brooke. He's the former sheriff of Granite County and now he's the mayor of New Kassel.”

“How do you do,” Colin said, and nodded his head at her. At one time, he would have tipped his sheriff's hat, and unless I was imagining things, it seemed as though he almost reached up to tip it now. Colin was giving me room to lead without any fuss, though. Guess he was just happy to ride along.

Johnny Morgan, I must admit, looked a lot like his grandfather Scott Morgan and held himself with a certain authority. He might not have been well, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at him. His shoulders were wide and straight, no humps anywhere, and he didn't shuffle when he walked. He was tan and blue-eyed, and he looked as if he'd just come in off the golf course.

As we entered his living room, Johnny Morgan gave a winning smile and gestured toward his wife. “You have to excuse my wife,” he said as she walked into the other room to leave us alone. “She's a bit protective. What can I do for you? You're Johnny Keith's granddaughter?”

“Yes,” I said. “I am so sorry, but there doesn't appear to be any easy way to tell you this. Your cousin Clifton Weaver sent me a recording just before he died.”

Johnny was stoic, never moved. I saw no emotion, no indication of any hidden thoughts or feelings. It was as if he'd just braced himself for whatever it was I was about to tell him. “I'm so very sorry to tell you this, but it appears that the recording contains a woman singing a song that seems to be a confession to your mother's murder. I am sorry, Mr. Morgan. At any rate, I turned the recording over to the authorities, and with the clues in the song, we were able to conclude that someone had been buried under Hahn's Bridge.”

“And?” he said, his hands in his pockets.

“We're not sure on identification as of yet. But there was a body of what appeared to be an adult female. I suppose there is a chance that it's not her, but I'm fairly certain it is. Please accept my condolences.”

He sat down then and stared for the longest moment at some invisible object on his coffee table. “What is it you want?”

“Well, sir, here's the tricky part. It does appear that your mother, Belle Morgan, was the same woman as Isabelle Mercer, who used to live in New Kassel. She disappeared from New Kassel shortly before Belle Morgan appeared in Progress. Buried with the body we found a piece of jewelry that was made by a Granite County jeweler, to further connect the two women. I suppose my question to you, sir, is this. Did your father ever talk about your mother's past? Where she came from? And, of course, do you have any idea who may have wanted to harm your mother?”

“Why are you interested?”

“Well, I got interested at first because your cousin Glen had come to me with proof that some of the Morgan family songs were actually written by my grandpa. And he also had this preposterous notion that my grandpa was the illegitimate son of Scott Morgan. That's how I got involved. I suppose I'm wanting to know if my grandpa has any connection to any of this, and I'd like to solve the mystery of what happened to New Kassel resident Isabelle Mercer.”

“Sit down,” he said. “I got a story for you. You may not want to hear it.”

I sat down on a fluffy beige couch and wondered if I should just cut and run right then.

“My grandpa was what you guys today would call ‘a player,'” he said. “I know of at least three illegitimate children he had.”

“Rufus Kiefer?” I asked.

“You know your stuff,” he said and nodded at me. “Rufus was my half-uncle as sure as the sun comes up tomorrow.”

Colin was, of course, lost, and gave me a questioning look.

“Your great-grandma did have an affair with my grandpa. No proof to it, other than talk amongst the family. And my grandfather's own admissions.”

My mouth went dry, and I blinked. He had to be mistaken.

“Nobody blamed her. Nate Keith was a son of a bitch and nobody within a hundred miles would have blamed your great-grandma for finding comfort with another man. My grandma knew about it. Knew about all the affairs. She just kept quiet. However, your grandpa is not Scott Morgan's son. It was your grandpa's sister, Rena, who was Scott Morgan's offspring. She's long dead now. Her people may not want to know this, since there's no real proof other than what we all just knew.”

Colin reached over and patted my knee. “You all right?”

The tears were spilling over my lower lids. My whole world spun. My heritage was still the same, but if this story was true, how could any of us ever really know if our ancestors were who the documents said they were? The foundation that I'd stood on for twenty years just cracked wide open. Not to mention that my hatred for Nate Keith just grew another degree. My poor great-grandmother! How lonely she must have been and how afraid that Nate would find out. Because if he had, he would've killed her for certain.

“I have a half-uncle who lives in Tennesee, too. Or used to. He's dead now. That's the three I know of,” said Johnny.

“How do you know for sure?” I managed to say.

“Well, I guess I don't. Those are the three that my grandpa admitted to and my father told me about. Sorry to upset you,” he said. “You know, my grandpa was a great man. He really was. He was larger than life and people were just drawn to him. I guess the temptation was too much for him. He ate a lot, drank a lot, spent a lot of money, and had a lot of fun with women. But you couldn't help but like him anyway.”

I swiped at the tears. “Here I thought you'd be the one who'd be upset by my news.”

“Not at all. It makes me feel better.”

“That your mother was murdered?”

“That she didn't abandon us. Don't you see? This is what I always suspected. That somebody killed her. Not that she left,” he said, shaking his head.

“But her bags were packed.”

“Yes,” he said. “Dad said that Mom was seeing somebody. She said she needed a break, to sort things out. She was leaving, but she was coming back.”

“Then why did your father tell the authorities that she'd run off with a lover?”

“I guess by reason of deduction. He knew she had a lover, so I guess he thought she just decided against the ‘time out' and just left. Not to mention that everybody loved my mother, so I don't hardly think murder would have been his first thought. When she didn't come home within a week, he assumed she'd just abandoned us all—but I knew better.”

If Eddie Morgan knew about her past as Isabelle Mercer, then he knew it wasn't past her just to take off. He must have thought she was doing to him what she'd done before. It made sense that he wouldn't have been suspicious of anything else.

“How so?” I asked.

“I was four when she left. In every memory I have of her, she was singing to me and my sister or playing with us. I have not one memory that was negative. I just had a feeling of being loved by her. It's hard to forget that,” he said.

I glanced around his living room. There were at least six houseplants sitting in pots and hanging from the ceiling. On the television was a photograph of his mother and father. “May I?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I took the photograph down and studied it. It was a family picture, not a publicity shot. And after looking at it for about a minute, I was completely convinced that Belle Morgan was Isabelle Mercer. “Did your father say anything at all about her past?”

He rubbed his chin absentmindedly. “He didn't talk about her much. Only when I asked. One time, I did ask him why I didn't have grandparents or aunts and uncles on my mom's side. He said she'd left them a long time ago. Left that life and never wanted to return. That's all he said.”