The Blood Ballad (22 page)

“Oh, sure, Mom. Think about yourself, why don't you?” she said with her hand on her hip.

“Well, clearly, nobody else is going to,” I said and walked out of her room. Then without having eaten breakfast, I pulled on my sweats and my boots and went outside to play in the snow. I was entertaining the idea of just locking the two of them up in the basement and letting them duke it out. There might be some bloodshed, but at least the fighting would be over and life could resume its natural course.

I knew Rachel would move out sooner or later, but that was no consolation, since by that point, Matthew would be prepubescent and all of this would start all over again, only with him and Mary. I suppose knowing this ahead of time was the only thing that kept me from being really stupid, throwing caution to the wind, and actually being optimistic.

I wondered if they let women be monks?

I threw a few snowballs at Matthew and hauled the sled out for him. Then I went to the stables and made sure the water for the horses wasn't frozen. Rudy had already fed them, as I could see the oat bucket sitting next to one of the stalls.

I thought about everything that I'd learned the day before. As is the case most of the time, everything I had learned only brought new questions to mind. I kept hearing Colin's words echo in my head. He'd said that the person who killed Belle Morgan had had access to my grandpa's tools, and I remembered how Johnny Morgan had said that I was looking for a scorned woman. So how many women who'd had access to my grandpa's tools and the Morgans' music equipment would want Belle Morgan dead?

I mentally made a list of the obvious. There was Toot's wife, Nancy. George's wife and my grandma's cousin, Ava. Roscoe's wife, Hattie; Cletis Morgan's wife, Rosa, and Miriam Morgan Weaver—Clifton's mother. There was also Scott Morgan's wife.… I think her name was Florence. She was sort of the one overlooked in all of this. She was the mother to the children in the Morgan Family Players and the wife of the very philandering Scott Morgan.

So, these Morgan family women: Nancy, Ava, Hattie, Rosa, Florence, and Miriam, all would have had access to the Morgan music equipment, and since they were neighbors of my grandpa, I suppose they could have had access to his tools.

Oh, and I almost forgot about Emma Morgan, the daughter of Scott and Florence who was “touched.” I wasn't exactly sure how mentally ill Emma was. I didn't know if she was capable of playing the guitar as beautifully as it had been played on that recording, but I supposed I couldn't leave her off the list.

Now, I thought, if I just knew what mystery man was involved, I might get a better idea of who the killer was. Not that it mattered, since they were all long dead, with the exception of Nancy. It wasn't as if this was a case that could be prosecuted.

I walked out to the corral and spooked Cutter. I didn't mean to, but he wasn't expecting me to come around the corner. I held my hand out and said, “Come here, boy. Didn't mean to scare you.” He eventually did come, since I was usually the one with an apple or carrots for him. I rubbed his nose and listened to him breathe, watching as the warm, moist air billowed out of his nostrils. Pretty soon, the Percheron became jealous and wandered over. I petted her, too, although it was a higher stretch for me to reach her nose.

Okay, but what if the killer wasn't any of the Morgan family women at all? I asked myself. What if it was somebody in
my
family? My grandmother would have had access to those tools, as would my great-grandma. My grandpa's three sisters would have had access, too. The thought made me a tad bit sick to my stomach.

As would have twenty other women within a five-mile radius. Anybody visiting my grandparents could have picked up that ax and taken it along to use later, but how many women in my family had played the guitar? My grandma and great-grandma hadn't. Plus, I would have recognized my grandma's voice on that recording. It wasn't her. Two of my grandpa's sisters had played the guitar. I had pictures of them sitting in the front yard, strumming away while my grandpa played the fiddle.

I had to face the fact that without a confession, I would probably never know who had killed Belle Morgan. I didn't think the Progress police or sheriff would be reopening that investigation, either, considering all of the prosecutable suspects would be long dead. Even if I did figure out who it was, the woman—whoever she was—had gotten away with it.

I went inside and made a few phone calls. I made them as casually as I could, since it would be very startling to have a second or third cousin call you up and start inquiring about your mother's whereabouts in October 1936. And that was the great thing about being a genealogist or a historian. I could always use my occupation as an excuse for asking these types of questions, but I still had to be casual about it and try to work it into the conversation as though it was the natural thing to ask next.

Three hours later, I had learned that one of my grandpa's sisters was in Oklahoma during the fall of 1936. She'd lived there for three years before returning to Missouri. Another one had been about eight months pregnant. I could have figured that out myself if I'd gotten out my family charts and looked. I doubted that a woman in her third trimester would be wielding an ax and digging a very deep hole, one big enough to hold the body of Belle Morgan. In addition to that, she would have had to drag or somehow lift Belle's dead and limp body onto a wagon. The other sister was the one who did not play the guitar, so I just ruled out all three of my grandpa's sisters. Unless it was my great-grandma, it was nobody from my grandpa's family.

Which meant it either had to be somebody from the Morgan family or a neighbor. If it was a neighbor, I'd never figure it out. It could have been any number of women.

My phone rang. It was Glen Morgan. He wanted answers. Well, I didn't feel like talking to him just then, so I didn't even bother answering the phone.

THE NEW KASSEL GAZETTE

The News You Might Miss

by Eleanore Murdoch

 

“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?” Well, those cash registers are ringing as much as those sleigh bells, that's for sure. Bonnie at the Christmas All Year shop said she's had a record-breaking season so far, and we still have more shopping days left to go! I want everybody to take part in the Trim a Tree program. Even if you don't normally attend church, I want you to stop by one of the churches in town and leave a gift for a needy family. Father Bingham said it will do you good and he might forgive some of you your gambling debts that you owe him. Okay, he didn't say that, but I thought it would be good to throw that part in.

The Fabric of Life is sponsoring a program for children. Make a blanket, a quilt, or a pillow for a child and drop it off, and they'll give you one free yard of the fabric of your choice!

The Smells Good Café says for you all to come by and try their new gumbo recipe.

Anybody who heard the scuffle the other night behind the Knights of Columbus hall, not to worry. It was just Elmer finally getting his hands on the raccoon that nested under his porch. I think the raccoon won, but Elmer is happy to report that the raccoon has moved on to greener porches.

Oh, and Tobias is in need of new knickers, if anybody wants to volunteer to make those.

Until next time,

Eleanore

Twenty

A few days later, Sheriff Mort cornered me in the Kendall home while I was giving a tour. When giving tours of the Kendall House, I wore reproduction dresses in styles that ranged from about 1900 to 1930. The purple flapper-style dress was a lot of fun, since it had a matching hat that nearly covered one of my eyes and came with lots of jewelry. The earlier, World War I–era dresses were my favorites, though, because I could wear the special patchwork aprons that Geena Campbell had made for all of us. I also had, just for fun, a long dress made entirely out of crazy patchwork. So it was like I was wearing a crazy quilt. That was the dress I was wearing when Mort arrived. It was long-sleeved and warm and embellished with lots of buttons, lace, and fancy stitchery. Geena had also made this dress.

Really, what other job in the world could I have possibly worn this dress to? That's what was so great about New Kassel.

At any rate, Mort did a double take and stopped me in the hall after the museum patrons had moved to the upstairs. I said to the guests, “Please wait for me at the top of the stairs. I have to explain the mural in one of the bedrooms before we go in.” Then I turned to Mort. “What's up?”

“You're wearing a quilt,” he said with a frightened expression on his face.

“So? How's this any different from a guy wearing camouflage? Huh?”

“Yours is girlie; camo is not.”

“Your opinion,” I said. “What is it you want?”

“You get right to the point, huh?” He handed me a file. “Here's the police report back from when Belle disappeared. There's a note at the bottom of the third page as to what was in her bags. Aside from that, the remains are Belle Morgan's for sure.”

I leaned back on the doorjamb. I had known they were hers, but it was still sad to actually hear the words. I looked down at the report. “All right, can I keep this?”

“No.”

“Well, can you wait for me to complete this tour? I've got people waiting upstairs.”

“All right,” he said.

It took about twenty minutes for me to finish the tour. As usual, I had been very touched to see a few of the patrons overcome with emotion when they saw the World War I mural, drawn by the hand of a very disturbed veteran, Rupert Kendall. In every group, there was usually at least one person who swiped at tears. I had one historian who came to visit the mural once a month. As if it were going to change or something. When the Girl Scout troop had come last summer, they'd left flowers and a candle in front of it. It was truly amazing how much this had touched everybody, and it was even more amazing how it had almost been lost forever. It had been on these walls for over eighty years, telling Rupert's story, and nobody even realized it.

“Thank you all for coming,” I said as the guests stepped out onto the porch.

Mort met me in the sitting room. “That's a nice quilt,” he said, pointing toward a Mariner's Compass done in red and white. It was a hundred-year-old quilt, donated by a woman who lived in Farmington. The Mariner's Compass pattern is a circle made up of very narrow triangles of alternating colors, so it appears like a compass. This one had been done without the technique known as paper piecing, so I couldn't even imagine how the quilter had gotten all those points to meet. I smiled at the quilt. “Yes, it's pretty amazing.”

He handed me the file and I flipped through it, opening to the page with the contents of Belle's bags. There had been nothing in the two bags except clothing, a hairbrush, hair pins, that type of thing. This was a dead end. I glanced at some of the other pages and learned that the authorities at the time had questioned everybody in the family. Even Emma, the disturbed sister, had been questioned. The report of her interview read like this:

“
Miss Emma, do you know where your sister-in-law went?
”

“
No.
”

“
Did she talk to you before she left?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
What did she say?
”

“
Daddy gonna be mad.
”

“
Why?
”

“
Chickens ain't been fed.
”

“
Did Belle tell you to feed the chickens?
”

“
That rooster, he's a something. Think he owns the whole roost.
”

“
Miss Emma, about Belle. When did you see her last?
”

“
Daddy gonna be mad.
”

The officer doing the interview made a note that they could not get anything out of Emma Morgan that made any sense whatsoever. The interview with Florence Morgan was just as one-sided, although not as cryptic:

“
Mrs. Morgan, were you aware that your daughter-in-law was leaving?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
Do you know where she was going?
”

“
No, said she needed to think.
”

“
Was she upset the day she went to the mill?
”

“
No.
”

“
Do you go on tour with the family?
”

“
No.
”

“
So you wouldn't know if something or someone was bothering Belle on the road?
”

“
No.
”

“
Do you think something bad has happened to her?
”

“
I don't know.
”

“
Do you think she just left for good without saying good-bye?
”

“
I really can't say.
”

Wow, you had to love those talkative women. I glanced through an interview with Roscoe, who was a bit more open, though not by much.

“
Roscoe Morgan, was your sister-in-law unhappy?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
What about?
”

“
Her marriage.
”

“
There were problems between her and Eddie?
”

“
No. Her and Eddie got along fine. My brother bent over backward for her.
”

“
Then what was the problem?
”

“
She was in love with another man.
”

“
Did she tell you this, or did Eddie?
”

“
I asked Eddie, and he told me. Then I asked Belle. She admitted it.
”

“
Did she say who it was?
”