The Rosewood Casket (21 page)

The young woman looked at Garrett’s stern face, then at the box. She seemed to think better of questioning him herself. “Wait here. I’ll get Sheriff Arrowood.” She tapped on a door at the back of the reception room, and disappeared inside.

Garrett set the box down on a straight-backed chair, but he felt no inclination to be seated. He paced the pine floor, and studied the notices posted on the bulletin board. There were a couple of federal wanted posters, some legal notices headed “State of Tennessee,” and a typewritten document entitled “Tax Auction,” which he had been about to read when the sheriff appeared.

“Spencer Arrowood. What can I do for you?”

Garrett turned, speechless for a moment, at the sight of a blond man of about medium height, about his own age. He was wearing a badge on his khaki uniform, and a 9mm Glock holstered on his hip. It was several seconds before Garrett remembered to extend his hand. “Sorry to act so startled,” he said. “I’m Garrett Stargill, Warrant Officer, U.S. Army. Pleased to meet you, Sheriff. You kind of caught me off guard there for an instant. It’s stupid, I know, but—I was expecting Nelse Miller.”

The sheriff nodded. “Nelse passed away quite a few years back, Mr. Stargill. He’s still missed, though. Not least by me. He was sheriff a good many years here. I take it you’re from around here originally?”

“Randall Stargill is my daddy. You probably know our farm.”

“I believe I know your brother, too,” said Spencer Arrowood. “Charles Martin Stargill, the country singer? I went to school with him. How is he these days?”

Garrett grunted. “He drives a silver Lexus.”

“I hear him on the radio every now and then.” Spencer Arrowood studied his visitor carefully. His glance took in the wooden box resting on the chair by the door. He waited politely.

A few seconds of silence passed before Garrett realized that the sheriff was waiting for an explanation. He picked up the box. “This is what I came about. Can we go into your office?”

The box sat in the middle of the sheriff’s desk. Spencer Arrowood heard him out, without any sign of impatience, while he explained about the visit from Nora Bonesteel and her instruction that the box and its contents be laid to rest with Randall Stargill. “My daddy’s dying, you see,” said Garrett. “At least we think he is. He’s in a coma, anyhow, over in the hospital in Johnson City, so we can’t ask him about this. She just ups and brings it. As if we didn’t have enough on our minds, worrying about him, and the expense and all the rest of it. Anyhow, we thought this had best be brought to you.”

“All right.” Spencer Arrowood pulled the box toward him. “I know Miz Bonesteel, and she is a rare individual, I’ll grant you that. Let’s see what she has brought you.” He undid the latch, and opened the box. Garrett thought he saw a flicker of surprise on the sheriff’s face, but it vanished quickly. “A skeleton. Young child. Old bones, from the look of them. That root has been there for years. And you say she brought this to you with no explanation?”

“That’s right,” said Garrett. “It’s no use asking any of us about this, Sheriff, because we don’t know what’s going on or who that is. We didn’t have any brothers or sisters who died as children.”

“You did right to bring this to me,” the sheriff told him. “I’ll see what Miz Bonesteel can tell me about this.”

“This doesn’t have to be made public, does it?” asked Garrett. “The family doesn’t want any kind of scandal. And it doesn’t seem fair, with Dad in a coma, unable to tell his side of it. Whatever happened, I mean.”

Spencer Arrowood was still examining the bones, fingering them carefully for signs of breaks, or other abnormalities. “Public?” he said. “I don’t think so. At this time we have no evidence of foul play, and no answers about who this is, and why the bones were brought to you. If that changes, I’ll be in touch.”

“We appreciate that. Charles Martin was concerned. You know how the tabloids like to hound people in the entertainment business.”

“So I’m told. But your family honestly has no idea who these bones belong to, or why you were given them?”

Garrett shook his head. “My sister-in-law thinks it’s my father’s child by that Bonesteel woman. Claims they used to be lovers before Dad married my mother. I think she’s just speculating, though. I never heard anything about any such incident.”

Spencer closed the lid of the box. “Neither have I, Mr. Stargill,” he said. “And I think I might have heard before you did.”

*   *   *

Frank Whitescarver counted the vehicles as he pulled in to the driveway of the Stargill farm. He was a little later in arriving than he had planned on, and some of the brothers were obviously elsewhere, but at least there wasn’t a passel of visiting neighbors to contend with. In the old days, there would have been. People came and sat with the about-to-be-bereaved, brought food, helped sew the grave clothes—did whatever needed doing—but Frank doubted that many people would be visiting the Stargills. The boys had left long ago to pursue careers in the big cities. They were strangers now. Seems like most of the younger generation ended up leaving these days—college or the army or just the need to get a job that paid enough to support a family. When the old people died off—as Mr. Stargill was in the process of doing now—the strangers came in. No use wishing for the old days to come back, though, Frank thought. That way of life was as dead as the passenger pigeons, and perhaps it was a good thing: not much money in real estate when the land stayed in the family.

He parked his Jeep Cherokee, noting the old truck and the other late-model car, and hoping the latter wasn’t paid for. He helloed the house. He probably didn’t need to, with a younger generation of town boys in residence, but it was a habit worth keeping in the wilder parts of the mountains. People didn’t like you to sneak up on them. A holdover from who knew what terrible times in the past. Revenue men, armed for a raid, perhaps, in the early part of the century. Or Civil War guerrillas who turned the war in the southern mountains into a house-to-house feud, stealing livestock and ambushing the householders. You might even trace their wariness of strangers back to Scotland, the Rising of 1745, when the Duke of Cumberland sent his soldiers into the Highlands to kill the Jacobites—that is, anyone they could find. Many of the ones who hid—who distrusted strangers, and therefore survived—ended up here. The lessons of the past would not desert them easily. They distrusted trespassers instinctively. Frank didn’t blame them. Even today, a trespasser might be a hunter who would shoot your cow by mistake, or a tourist who figured that the whole state was a theme park, open to the public. He had learned to smile broadly, and to use the front path.

Still, he thought the Stargills would be glad enough to see him when they heard what he’d come for. He went back to the Jeep, and reached into his glove compartment for a handful of Whitescarver Realty key chains and ballpoint pens. It always helped if you gave folks something at the outset. They seemed to feel obliged to be polite to you, if they took your trinkets.

A heavyset man appeared on the front porch, squinting out at the visitor with a look of apprehension. Frank waved and grinned. This Stargill was fiftyish, with polyester trousers and a seersucker sport shirt. Frank loosened his tie, and hurried forward, assuming the look of neighborly concern.

“Mr. Stargill,” he said in hushed, but cordial, tones. “I came to pay my respects. How is your father doing?”

“Well, we think we’re going to lose him.” Robert Lee contrived to look appropriately solemn. He sensed that this was not a social call, but he extended his hand in a cautious welcome.

“Would you mind telling me which Stargill boy you are?” said the stranger. “I’m Frank Whitescarver, by the way.” He deposited a keychain and a refrigerator magnet in his host’s outstretched hand.

“Robert Lee. I’m the oldest.”

“Knew you weren’t the singer. I’m glad to know you, Mr. Stargill. Reckon you’re the head of the family now.”

Robert Lee was pleased at this assumption of his importance, although he was by no means sure that he could exert any authority over his brothers. They were a stubborn lot, reckless with their lives and their money, and none of them had ever listened to good advice.

Frank Whitescarver looked admiringly at the white house and plantings of daffodils in the flowerbeds, Clarsie’s legacy to the land. “This is a real nice place you’ve got, Mr. Stargill,” he said, smiling. “We’ll be right glad to welcome you back to the community.”

“Welcome me back?”

“Why, sure. With your dad’s passing, you’ll be coming home to take over the farm, surely? I hear good things about sheep raising in these hills—good pastures, lots of clean water. Of course, wool prices are down, and we’ve got coyotes coming into the area. But maybe you know more about the farm business than I do.”

Robert shook his head. “I have a life in Cincinnati,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to leave it, and take on a farm. It takes capital to get a livestock business going, and it’s backbreaking work, even for a young man, which I’m not.”

“Backbreaking work. It is that,” said Frank, strolling around the yard, admiring the forsythia and the redbud. “Makes you respect those pioneers who carved these farms out of the wilderness, doesn’t it?”

“Reckon they were young men, too,” said Robert Lee.

Frank nodded. “Right nice flowers there. I’m partial to daffodils myself. Bet your mother was a gardener.”

“She was that.” Robert Lee was inspecting the Whitescarver Realty trinkets that Frank had given him.

“Well,” said Frank. “Flowers don’t get you through the winter, do they? I can see how a man might be loath to give up Cincinnati for a lonesome farm in the middle of nowhere. Don’t suppose your famous brother would want to keep this place as a summer home away from Nashville?”

“Charles Martin couldn’t get away from here fast enough,” said Robert Lee.

“Guess it’s just a case of the grass being greener,” said the realtor, smiling. “Seems like all the young folks from around here can’t wait to hightail it out of here, and all the people from somewhere’s else are standing in line, trying to buy a place up here in the mountains, because it’s so beautiful. Seems downright peculiar, when you think about it.”

“I suppose so.”

“Makes my job easier,” said Frank, wandering into the backyard. He wanted to continue the uphill work of this conversation without going inside the house, if he could manage it. He had seen a curtain twitch at the front window, and he was afraid that the interview would not go quite so smoothly if Robert Lee Stargill’s relatives were allowed to participate. “Yessir, I sure do have a pleasant job sometimes. Almost like being a fairy godfather, you might say.”

Robert Lee glanced again at the refrigerator magnet business card. “Real estate?”

“That’s right. Land is dreams, Mr. Stargill. Every day I get to grant wishes. Folks come to me, and say, ‘Mr. Whitescarver, please find us a little piece of land with a view so we can retire to these beautiful mountains, and call them home.’ And other folks call me up, and say, ‘Frank, you know Mama has passed away, and left us the farm, but we have good jobs in the big city. We can’t come home and pour our savings down the drain, trying to keep up an unmechanized dirt farm. And they’re wanting the taxes paid. What can we do?’—And I can help. It makes me happy to be helping folks in their hour of need.”

Robert Lee nodded. “You buy farms, and sell the land to rich people for vacation homes.”

“Everybody’s happy, Mr. Stargill. People who want to move here get their dream home, and folks who left for the big city, and want to stay there, don’t have to be dragged home by family circumstances. They get some extra money to pay off their bills, or maybe get a new car. And both sets of folks are grateful to me, buyer and seller.” He tapped his chest. “Isn’t that better than driving an ice cream truck? I ask you.”

“What kind of money are we talking here, Mr. Whitescarver?”

The magic words. Frank Whitescarver suppressed a grin. “Well, we’d have to sit down and talk about it. I thought I’d broach the subject with you first—in case your brothers needed some advice from the new head of the family.”

Robert Lee shook his head. “I’m not sure that I could persuade the rest of them to sell. They’re every one contrary.”

“Have you talked about it at all? This is a big place, you know. You couldn’t just let it fall to ruin while you all went back to your lives outside.”

“I know. It’s so hard, with Daddy taken so sudden—”

Frank saw his exit cue. Now was the time to leave the owner with the thought of money dancing in his head. “And Lord knows I’m not pressuring you,” he said, patting Robert Lee’s arm. “But I wouldn’t feel that I had been a good neighbor to you if I didn’t warn you that the taxes on this place are likely to go up.”

“They generally do,” said Robert Lee.

“More than you think, though. By the time the next tax bill comes due, they’ll probably double. And that assessment will probably cost you a bundle in inheritance tax for Uncle Sam.”

“Why?”

“Because the tax assessors will value this land at an outlandish rate. More than you could sell it for. You see, this mountain is fixing to be rezoned—residential instead of agricultural. So they’ll figure its worth as if you had two houses per acre, which you don’t—and won’t, because some of your acreage here is pretty near vertical. Doesn’t seem fair, but that’s the government for you.” Frank endeavored to look sympathetic. Robert Lee Stargill was of the generation that believed you can’t fight city hall; they even felt it was mildly unpatriotic to try.

Robert Lee blinked. “But that doesn’t seem right. Why would they—”

“I can tell you in confidence,” said Frank, dropping his voice to a church murmur. “The Stallards farm is about to be sold—not for much money, I’m afraid—but it’s going to a developer. Now those fellas are looking to put a whole community of fancy new houses on that property—paved streets, water and sewer—the works. When they do that, it will up the tax value of your place here, because the government will say you could be making a lot of money off your land. Never mind that you aren’t.”