Will O Wisp (22 page)

“
So what nationality makes
coffins that look like a woven basket?” Shana asked.

“
Sheriff, you got any
ideas?” Gracie asked.

“
Nope, not a clue. I'm
going to ease the top off the stick basket enough to look in. I
want to know for sure we have a body in there,” the sheriff
said.

Logan pulled back on the end of a
stick, and it snapped as it came loose from the side of the basket.
He did that several times. When he had a big enough hole, he peered
under the lid. “There's something in the basket, bundled in a white
shroud. Smells like decaying flesh. That does it for me right now.
I'm going on the assumption that it's a human body. No one would go
to that much trouble for an animal.” He stood up and dusted his
knees off. “I'm not going to take the lid off the coffin. I figure
what Mrs. Graves told me is so. Men, take turns carrying these two
coffins out of here. We have to get them to the undertaker. I want
him to go over the bodies and tell us all he can about them. Then I
got to figure out now why we have two dead babies instead of
one.”

When they reached the house, Sheriff
Logan said to Gracie, “I'll get back to you when we know
something.”

“
Sheriff, after the
undertaker is done, tell him I want both babies back here to bury
in my cemetery. We'll need two small headstones for them,” Gracie
said.

“
That's mighty nice of you,
Miss Gracie,” Logan said.

Gracie eyed the makeshift coffins in
the back of Orie's buckboard. “Them poor little souls don't deserve
to be put back in the ground in the timber and
forgotten.”

After the men left, Gracie said, “We
got a funeral to plan for them little babies. Each of us should
think of something to say over them. We need to ask Preacher
Whiteside to preach. If need be, I'll pay for it to get him out
here.”

That evening, Gracie and Melinda sit
in the swing, pushing it gently back and forth in what little warm
breeze there was. Shana sat on the porch steps with her elbows on
her knees and her hands holding her face up.

“
Girl, why don't you come
over here and squeeze in beside Melinda and me?” Gracie
invited.

Melinda said, “I think that would be
nice. You look awful lonesome over there.”

Shana scuffled over and eased down
between them.

“
What's bothering you?”
Gracie asked.

“
I'm thinking about the wee
babes. They didn't have a chance to live. How awful that is,” Shana
said with a sad sigh.

“
We know, but life works
that way sometimes,” Gracie said.

They swayed back and forth for a
while. Finally, Melinda broke the silence. “Gracie, Shana says you
gave her a thinking tree. Can I have one?”

Gracie shrugged. “Reckon that would
only be fair since me and Shana have one.” When Shana looked up at
her, Gracie winked. “So, Melinda, have you a tree in
mind?”

“
Yes, I want to pick this
tree the swing is attached to as my thinking tree,” Melinda
answered.

“
Why, Aunt
Melinda?”

“
Well, I did some thinking
while I've sat here,” she said.

Shana giggled.

“
No pun intended, you
understand,” Melinda said. “My thought was that I wouldn't have so
far to walk to get to my thinking tree since it's in the house
yard. I wouldn't have to stand with my back rubbing the rough bark
of this tree, I'd be able to sit on this swing to do my
thinking.”

“
Now why didn't I think of
all that?” Gracie asked dryly.

“
You can share my thinking
tree if you want,” Melinda said.

“
Nope, I cain't do that.
Only one person to a thinking tree, and I got my own out in my
timber where it's peaceful,” Gracie said. “It's all right with me
that you pick this tree if you think you're going to be able to use
it.”

“
Oh, I can use it,” Melinda
said with determination. “I love it out here, Gracie. I see why you
like to come back when you can. I want to come with you any time
you want to invite me. That way I can use my thinking
tree.”

“
Me, too,” Shana
agreed.

“
I didn't hear you
say.
Where is your thinking tree, dear?”
Melinda asked.

“
I just decided this
morning. I want the one at the end of the line of evergreens by
Aunt Gracie's cemetery. It's the closest one to where she will be
by her folks some day,” Shana said.

Tears formed in Gracie's eyes. She had
to clear her throat before she spoke. “Now why would you want to
pick that tree?”

“
I figure when I have a
problem I can come out here and talk to you about it any old time
if I had a thinking tree near you, Aunt Gracie,” Shana
reasoned.

“
I think that's a very good
idea, dear,” Melinda agreed.

Gracie cleared her throat before she
mumbled, “Reckon so.”

Sheriff Logan showed back up a couple
of mornings later. He came in when invited and sat at the kitchen
table. Melinda placed a cup of coffee in front of him.

“
Sheriff, the cook stove is
still hot. Would you like some breakfast?” Melinda
asked.

“
Much obliged, Miss
Melinda, but I stopped at Irene's Cafe in Van Horne on the way here
from the county seat this morning,” he shared.

“
Well, start talking about
what the undertaker said,” Gracie insisted, full of
curiosity.

“
We took in two baby boys.
The one in the wooden box had a dent in his head from something
Neff hit him with. The undertaker couldn't say what. Neff put him
in the coffin he made still dressed in his bloody baby
robe.”

“
And what about the baby in
the woven basket?” Melinda asked.

“
For a shroud, that baby
was wrapped in a white flour sack dish towel with Wednesday
embroidered on one end. No clothes on that little baby. Best the
undertaker could tell after he brought in the doctor to make sure,
he thinks the baby was stillborn. He wasn't washed off before he
was wrapped in the dish towel and buried.” Logan stopped to take a
sip of his hot coffee.

Gracie asked, “Could the undertaker
tell how long the baby in the basket was buried before the other
baby died?”

“
Maybe three months longer
is all,” Logan said.

“
So no chance that both
babies could belong to Lettie Graves when she just had the baby
Neff killed,” Gracie reasoned.

“
If that baby isn't
Lettie's then who does he belong to?” Melinda asked.

“
That's what I'd like to
know out of curiosity, but it's not a crime to have a stillborn
baby. No law again where it's buried. Someone around here hid the
grave in that timber so no one would know about the baby, thinking
the flowers would grow over it fast,” Logan said.

“
You're right. There wasn't
a cross on it when we saw the grave the first time, was there,
Shana?” Gracie asked.

“
No, and we would have
noticed such as that since we were lookin' at the flowers,” Shana
said.

“
But the crosses looked
alike. The same person made both of them recently. If the babies
aren't brothers, how is it that someone knew to bury the wooden box
next to the wicker basket?” Melinda puzzled.

“
I wondered that myself,
Miss Melinda. I stopped at the jail on the way out here,” Sheriff
Logan said. “I asked Neff if he moved the wooden box out of Miss
Gracie's cemetery, before we could dig it up. He said he didn't
know what I was talking about.

I told him to stop playing innocent.
Lettie told us he killed his baby son and buried him in Miss
Gracie's cemetery. Caught dead to rights, he admitted he did that,
but he didn't dig the body back up.

I asked what he knew about the woven
basket buried in the Evans timber with a dead baby in it. I told
him his baby was buried right beside that one. He said he didn't
know a thing.”

“
You believe a drunken bum
that lies like him?” Gracie barked.

“
Might not if Neff was two
sheets to the wind, but he is sober now. The surprise look on his
face made me think he really didn't know about his baby getting dug
up or the grave with the basket in it,” the sheriff
defended.

“
Maybe we should go ask
Lettie if she knows more than she's telling?” Gracie
suggested.

“
That was where I was
headed next,” the sheriff said.

“
As long as we're talking
to Lettie, we need to know her baby's name for the marker,” Melinda
said.

“
What about the other
babe?” Shana said.

“
Reckon that marker will be
blank until we find out who the baby belongs to if we ever do,”
Gracie said. “When will the bodies be released,
Sheriff?”

“
They can be brought out
when you're ready for them, Miss Gracie,” Sheriff Logan
confirmed.

“
We have to talk to
Preacher Whiteside about the graveside service. We'll have the
funeral the day he can come,” Melinda said.

“
Better have another plan
instead,” Logan said. “Preacher Whiteside moved out of town at the
first of the week.”

“
Mercy Sakes! We didn't
know he was leaving,” Melinda said with a gasp.

“
Neither did anyone else if
I got my information right from Earl. The preacher and his wife was
packing their belongings into a wagon when one of the neighbors
came out to ask what was going on,” the sheriff said. “The preacher
said he had accepted a new calling.”

“
Maybe he's close enough we
could get him to come back for this one quick funeral,” Gracie
said.

“
Doubt it. The preacher
said he was headed to Oregon.”

“
Guess the service is all
up to us, Gracie,” Melinda said.

“
Reckon so. Give us until
Monday, Sheriff. That will give us time to get Orie and Millard to
dig two small graves. This time the holes are going to be dug
deeper than that lazy Neff dug his,” Gracie said.

“
Y
ou ladies wanting to ride over to Neff's place to talk to his
wife with me?” Logan asked before he drained his cup.

“
We are,” Gracie said.
“Shana, while we have the family in the parlor, I have work for
you. Slip into the kitchen and take a peek in the dish towel
drawer.”

“
What be I lookin' for?”
Shana asked.

“
See if the dish towels
have a week day embroidered on them. Then look to see if Wednesday
is missing,” Gracie said.

“
Sounds like a plan to me,”
the sheriff said.

“
But ….,” Shana began and
paused when they all looked at her.

“
Spit it out, girl,” Gracie
ordered.

“
What about the will o
wisp? Is that spirit goin' to show up at the cemetery now that the
babes will be there?”

“
I think a youngun dressed
as a spirit was to scare us away from the timber until the grave
was hidden by the wild flower growth. While you're snooping for us,
you just might do some more looking,” Gracie said.

“
Where?” Shana
asked.

“
Go upstairs and look in
the closets. If Lettie had a fancy white dress and hat, one of the
girls in her family may have a white outfit, too. It might be you
would find it in May Jean's closet?”

Shana's face scrunched up. “You think?
They don't have closets. Just pegs on the wall.” She paused a
minute then she shared, “When me and her were in the timber, May
Jean did seem nervous when we were close to where we found the
graves. She didn't want to spend any time there.”

“
Gracie, what would May
Jean have to do with the dead babies. She's too young to have had
the stillborn baby,” Melinda said.

“
Watch the faces of
Lettie's older girls when the sheriff is talking to them. May Jean
might just be protecting one of them,” Gracie said with confidence
that she was right.

Chapter Seventeen

The sheriff knocked forcefully on the
front door of the Graves house and opened the door. When the
sheriff led the ladies and Shana inside, Lettie rushed to meet
them. He said brusquely, “Ma'am, it's time we had another talk. I
want you to get your younguns together and bring them into the
parlor. Miss Gracie and Miss Melinda will be waiting there with
me.”

Shana noticed May Jean was missing.
She rushed past Lettie as the woman clapped her hands and called,
“Everyone to the parlor right now.”

That was all it took to get the
children assembled.

Gracie said to Lettie, “Your younguns
sure mind good.”

Lettie said sadly, “They know the
drill, having heard it so much from Neff. Only when Neff yelled at
the younguns, he was drunk and waving a gun at them. They did as
they were told since they had plenty to fear. They didn't know if
their daddy was going to kill all of them as he threatened or not.
Especially after he killed the baby.” Lettie sat down in a broken
down, faded overstuffed chair. A spring popped up beside her hip,
causing her to scoot over. Her three boys and four girl lined up
behind her. They whispered among themselves and shuffled their feet
nervously.