The Rosewood Casket (16 page)

She came out from behind the big evergreen bush, and walked right up to the old woman. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Kayla. May I help you?”

“I’m Nora Bonesteel,” said the old woman. “I live over the ridge a ways. I am a friend of Randall Stargill. He wouldn’t be your granddaddy, would he?”

“No, ma’am,” said Kayla in her best company voice. “I’m just visiting. We are with Charles Martin Stargill.” The child said this with the air of someone who has produced the magic word. Mentioning Charles Martin’s name often did work wonders, in Kayla’s experience. It had got her and her mother better seats at concerts, permission to go backstage, and rich-folks service in restaurants and Nashville stores. This time, though, the name had failed to conjure gasps or respectful glances.

“A visitor,” said the old woman, nodding. “Yes. You don’t have the look of a Stargill. But you’re about six years old, aren’t you?”

Kayla nodded. “Six and three-quarters.”

“You’re not here by yourself?”

The girl pointed to the four vehicles parked at various angles on the driveway and in the grass. “I reckon they’re all around here somewhere, ’cause none of the cars is missing. I believe they were going to the hospital, though, later today.” She looked out at the road, puzzled to see no visitor’s car parked there. “Are you needing a ride?”

The old woman smiled. “Not just at present, thank you. I walk a fair bit. I have brought something for the family, you see. Do you think we could find someone bigger than you to give it to?”

Kayla was about to offer to lead the visitor to the barn where the menfolk were, when they heard a tapping on an upper window. They looked up at the dormer window of the attic, and saw Kelley’s face, grimacing behind the newly cleaned glass. She was pointing downward.

“That’s my mama,” Kayla said. “Guess they’re all upstairs. I didn’t think to look there. Look like she’s wanting us to go inside.”

“All right.”

Kayla was now at nose-level with the aluminum foil–covered plate atop the wooden box. She took a deep breath. “Did you bring cookies?”

Nora Bonesteel nodded. “I thought somebody might want some. Would you like to take one before we go in?”

Kayla hesitated. Not asking for food was one of her mama’s cardinal rules of little girl etiquette, but she hadn’t exactly
asked,
she told herself. She turned up a corner of the aluminum foil, and smelled warm chocolate from the fresh-baked cookies. “Can I have a couple?” she asked. “Not just for me,” she added quickly. “I saw a little girl playing way off in the woods a little while ago, and I was thinking if I could find her, she might like to have some, too.”

Nora Bonesteel stared at the child for a long moment. Finally she said, “I don’t think that little girl will be wanting a cookie. Why don’t you come inside with me?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Next to the law … the best branch of business in America is that of adventuring in lands, and procuring inhabitants to settle them.

—SILAS DEANE, colonial attorney

Frank Whitescarver drove up the ridge through winter woods, still an undifferentiated blur of brown that would attract no one’s attention. Impossible to tell yet which brown sticks would blaze with the purple flowers of redbud in early April, which twisted trees would light the hillsides with the cruciform petals of the dogwood. There was still time.

After his conversation with Lawyer Stuart in the courthouse, Frank had slipped into the tax office to have a few words with a clerk who had been accommodating in the past. Hadn’t the Stallard tax problem been left unattended for quite a long time? Could something be done to speed up the foreclosure process? The wheels had been set in motion.

By the time the forest was gaudy with white and purple blossoms, and gilded with forsythia, he would have prospective buyers in his Jeep Cherokee, and newly acquired mountain land with which to tempt them. The riot of color lasted a few weeks at best, but his anticipation of the coming spring had nothing to do with his own pleasure at the sight of the returning greenery. He had long since ceased to appreciate the splendor of a mountain April. It seemed to Frank that each flower had a secondhand, ticking away the opportunities for new transactions, better deals, a return on his investment. A year of planning could be blighted by one late frost. Oh, people still bought property throughout the late spring and even into the fall, when moist weather and a cold snap could give him rainbow ridges of autumn leaves, and a second chance at the impulse buyers. But at no other season were sales so easy as they were in those first glorious days of spring. He must prepare now, while the hillsides were still drab, before even the landowners themselves remembered what a treasure the mountains could become.

He had intended to pay a premature condolence call on the Stargills, but that could wait. By the road from Hamelin, he would reach the Stallard farm first, and his business there was more pressing.

The Stallard place was old: a two-story white frame house with a covered porch, and old maple trees shading the front yard. The house was set near the creek, at nearly the lowest point on the property, while on a distant treeless hill, the ruins of the burned barn dominated the landscape. “One thing I could never figure out,” he would tell his clients, “is why the old-timers who built these farms always gave the cows the best view.” It probably had to do with sheltering the main dwelling from the elements, and with the proximity of roads and a water supply, but it did look strange to modern eyes to see that the building with the commanding view was the cow barn, set up in solitary splendor, overlooking all creation.

The house looked as if it could last another century, although it could use a coat of paint and a new roof, but Frank Whitescarver was not concerned about that. The house would have to go. Perhaps three more modest-sized units could be fitted into its two-acre grounds. He might be able to save the maple trees.

He turned off the main road, and into the winding dirt track that ended at the Stallard homeplace. As the Jeep crested a small rise in the road, he saw a dark-haired woman kneeling in the grass near one of the unpainted outbuildings. Thinking at first that she was injured, Frank stopped in the middle of the dirt track, and ran to her side. “Miss Stallard, is it?” he said. “What’s happened?”

Dovey Stallard, her jeans and flannel shirt streaked with blood, held up a handful of iridescent feathers. “The bastards!” she said, wiping her eyes against the sleeve of her shirt. Her hair was bunched into a knot at the nape of her neck, and rivulets of tear-streaked dirt creased each cheek. Frank thought she might clean up right pretty, but it was hard to tell in her current state of dishevelment. She held the bunch of feathers practically under his nose and shook them.

“Are you all right?” asked Frank, still unable to make sense of the scene.

She stood up, still holding the blood-stained clump of feathers. “That,” she said, “is all that is left of a prize Majorca rooster.”

Frank blinked. “Well … that is a pitiful shame,” he said at last. “He must have been a beauty in life, with that colorful hank of plumage. Did somebody shoot him by mistake?”

“He wasn’t shot. Look at him. There’s nothing left but a few bones and feathers.” Her voice was still shaky, but her cheeks were dry.

“A fox, then? Or a coyote? I’ve heard there’s been some seen around these parts lately.”

Dovey Stallard shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Or it could have been a hawk. I don’t know. I ought to ask Clayt. He may not know much else, but he’s an expert on wild things.” She glanced back at the chicken run where chickens of all sizes and colors milled around, pecking desultorily in the dirt, oblivious to the death in their midst.

“It’s a terrible shame, a pretty rooster like that,” said Frank, shaking his head. He wondered who Clayt was. “Sometimes I think the job of farming would try the patience of Job. So many things can go wrong.”

Dovey set the feathers down, and looked closely at the stranger in the business suit and tasseled loafers. Her eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry to be taking on so,” she said. “Was there something you wanted?”

Frank Whitescarver tried his self-deprecating smile. “You’d be J. Z.’s daughter, wouldn’t you? Is it Miss Stallard, still?” She was thirty-five if she was a day, and not all that bad to look at. Stubborn streak, though. He could tell by the set of her jaw. Still, a young man besotted by a girl like her might overlook that telltale sign of temper, and marry her. He’d live to regret it, though.

“That’s right,” she said evenly. “I’m Dovey Stallard. And this is my dad’s place. Just who are you?”

He reached into his coat pocket and fished out an embossed business card. “Frank Whitescarver. Realty and Construction. I know your daddy, of course. Fine member of the community.” He probably did know J. Z. Stallard from somewhere: Ruritans, civic meetings, American Legion functions. Surely in a county as small as Wake their paths had crossed.

“Uh-huh.” Dovey studied the card and offered to hand it back, leaving a thumbprint of dirt and rooster blood just over the word
Realty
, beneath Frank’s name.

“No, you hang on to that one,” said Frank, backing away. Nothing would induce him to put that gore-streaked card into his dry-clean–only pocket. “I was hoping I might see your dad. Is he around?”

“Somewheres,” said Dovey indifferently. “If you’ve come about the barn, you’re wasting your time, ’cause we’re not taking bids on rebuilding that yet.”

Frank bit back the words,
“I don’t do barns.”
He was nettled that she had not heard of him, but years of experience in dealing with surly mountain folk kept him calm and smiling. “Why don’t we go look for him?” he suggested. “Maybe he saw what killed your chicken there.”

“Suit yourself,” said Dovey. “I have to go get cleaned up, and make a phone call. You’re wasting your time, though.”

She hurried toward the back door without a backward glance, and Frank waved her away, still smiling, and went off in search of her father. In truth, he was in no hurry to discover the whereabouts of J. Z. Stallard, because looking for him was the perfect excuse to look over the land. He wished he hadn’t worn his good clothes for a tramp through the pastures, but it couldn’t be helped. Time was short.

Good trees. Nice slopes. Decent soil. With a practiced eye, Frank Whitescarver gauged the steepness of the hills in the pastures, the winter flood plain of the creek, and the views from each prospective home site. He liked what he saw. As a dirt farm in the Tennessee mountains, this place was a ticket to starvation, but as a retirement community for the Knoxville country club set, it was a gold mine.

He had climbed the hill to the charred remains of the barn, and was admiring the view across a band of blue misted hills, when a quiet voice from behind him said, “Was there something you wanted?”

Frank turned, knowing that he had a split second to figure out what tack to take with his opponent, and to assume the expression that best fit the part. He saw a lean, silver-haired man wearing khaki work pants and a canvas vest over a sweatshirt. The man wasn’t armed, but he was watching Frank with a wary expression that was more fear than anger at a trespasser. Frank decided that the poor fellow needed an ally, someone to listen to his troubles.

“Frank Whitescarver,” he said, sticking out his hand, and shaking Stallard’s vigorously. “Beautiful place up here.” He nodded toward the ruins of the barn, and said, “I hate to see a fine old building go like that. They just don’t build them like that anymore.”

“They probably could if you could afford to pay the price,” said Stallard. “Which I can’t, right now.”

“No, farming sure isn’t cheap, is it? No wonder we have all these fellows with day jobs in Johnson City farming on weekends. It’s the only hedge against the bad luck that Mother Nature seems to dish out pretty regularly. If it’s not a May frost or a forest fire, it’s a spring flood or a cattle virus, isn’t it?”

“Seems that way,” said Stallard. “You do any farming yourself?”

Frank shook his head, hoping to imply regret rather than relief. “Me? No-oo. Never had the knack for it, I guess. A couple of rows of tomato plants is about all I run to, and I’m lucky to get my money back in tomatoes, even then. What about you? You ever want to do anything else?”

Stallard considered it. “Maybe when I was young,” he said. “Used to think about being a pilot. All little boys are the same, I guess.”

“What about now? Ever wish you could just walk away, and not have to worry about another flood or frost, a gypsy moth swarm. Long as you live?”

J. Z. Stallard studied the man carefully. “Why do you ask?” he said. “You working up to trying to buy this farm?”

“Well, the fact is that I am, Mr. Stallard. And I hope you’ll take it in the spirit it’s intended, as one neighbor trying to do a good turn to another.” He rummaged in his coat pocket for another business card. “Frank Whitescarver. Realty and Construction.”

Stallard stared at the card without commenting, so Frank went on talking. “
Realty.
The printers over in Johnson City made a mistake once and did me a thousand cards that said
Reality.
They replaced them at no charge, of course, but that error of theirs set me to thinking. Maybe
reality
is a good name for the land business. I try to find honest solutions for people needing a place to call home—and for people needing to get out from under a hundred or so acres that’s burying them while they’re still alive. Land can be a burden as well as a blessing, Mr. Stallard. That’s reality.”

“Stallards have always farmed this place.”

Frank Whitescarver shook his head, smiling gently. “Oh, don’t you believe it, J. Z. That’s how you get a hundred acres on your back, weighing you down to where you can’t stand up. Your family may have been here five, six generations, but before that they were in Ireland somewhere, likely as not, and probably thought their little piece of land back there was the center of the world, too. We’re newcomers here by historical standards. The Indians had these mountains before we did, and they sold them to us, so don’t feel that you owe your ancestors anything by staying on a dying farm that’s taking you with it. Times change, J. Z.”