Will O Wisp (23 page)

“
Shhhh! The sheriff is here
to talk to us so everyone be quiet,” Lettie admonished.

Shana appeared with May Jean. She
stopped to lean up against the wall by the door while May Jean
joined the others. Now that all the Graves family was in the
parlor, Shana slipped out and went to the kitchen.

May Jean stood between her two older
sisters, Frieda and Joanne. She studied the floor so she didn't
have to look at any of them.

Gracie had a notion the young girl was
the one to watch for a reaction.

“
Mrs. Graves, your dead
baby was dug up yesterday and taken to the funeral parlor. The
undertaker has confirmed he was hit on the head by something. A
piece of the baby's skull caved in on his brain, causing his
death,” the sheriff explained.

Lettie put her hand over her mouth as
tears came to her eyes. The children, shaking their heads, looked
sorrowfully at the floor. They tried to imagine what the torture
was like for that little baby. So defenseless and tiny, the baby
didn't stand a chance against their monster father. At least, they
were always able to scatter out of his reach if he was in a mood to
beat up on them.

“
Now we can be pretty sure
from what you told me that your husband, Neff, built the wooden box
for the baby and buried him in Gracie Evans's cemetery,” the
sheriff said.

Lettie nodded.
“
Yes, that's right.”

“
So who dug the baby up,
took him out of Gracie's cemetery and reburied him in the Evan's
timber? Neff says he didn't do it,” the sheriff asked, taking his
cowboy hat off. He rested it on his lap.

Lettie shook her head slowly. “I
didn't know that happened. Why would anyone do such a thing, and
why was the baby buried in the timber?”

“
We'd like the answer to
the whys ourselves. I'm guessing someone was trying to protect Neff
and thought the baby needed to have a more secret burial place
quick. That being because Miss Gracie found the burial site in the
cemetery too soon. If the grass had grown back no one would have
known the baby was there.” Sheriff Logan scanned the children as he
talked.

“
Everyone would have knowed
sometime or other after I die,” Gracie barked. “That baby was
buried in the spot meant for me next to my baby brother. If he had
been put any other place in the cemetery I wouldn't have
cared.”

“
I'm so sorry, Gracie,”
Lettie said.

The sheriff went on, “Problem is, Mrs.
Graves, whoever did dig up the baby didn't fill in the hole. I
reckon that person got scared off before he or she had a chance to
finish the job.”

“
Oh dear,” Lettie
cried.

“
When Miss Gracie took me
to the cemetery to show me where the new grave was, the hole was
what we found,” the sheriff said. “Now as for where the baby was, I
took a search party over to Gracie Evans timber. Thanks to Miss
Gracie and Shana remembering a spot that looked like another grave
with wild flowers freshly planted on it when they were mushroom
hunting, we found your baby's grave.”

Shana slipped back in the room with a
flour sack dish towel in her hand. She laid it in the sheriff's lap
and whispered in his ear, “There be a drawer with six towels in it
like this one. Wednesday be missing.”

The sheriff took the dish
towel.
“
Much
obliged, Shana.” The girl left the room as the sheriff shook the
dish towel out. “Mrs. Graves, this is one of your dish towels I
take it?”

“
Yes, I have a set of them
I made for using if we had company. That's why it's new and white.
I never use that set for ever day,” Lettie said quietly.

“
Did you know one is
missing?” The sheriff asked.

“
May Jean stiffened and
took Frieda's hand. The sheriff noticed. He glanced at Gracie. She
acknowledged that she noticed the motion, too.

“
No, I haven't taken the
dish towels out of that drawer for a while. Ever little bit, I have
to wash them when a mouse has been in the drawer, but not lately,”
she said.

“
The towel that's missing
is the one with Wednesday on it to be exact,” the sheriff
said.

“
Why does that matter?”
Lettie asked.

“
I'm getting ready to tell
you that, Mrs Graves. When we went to the Evan's timber to dig up
your baby boy, we found another grave right beside his,” the
sheriff explained.

May Jean eased her free hand over and
took Joanne's hand. Now the three girls were standing locked
together in support of each other.

That was a puzzle to Gracie. Of
course, it did make sense that the girls would come to the aid of
each other, but now it was going to be harder to tell which one of
them was the mother and buried the baby unless they wanted to
confess.

“
What has that to do with
us?” Lettie asked.

“
Someone took your dish
towel to wrap the baby in. The best the undertaker can figure is
that the baby was born dead. That means the parents of that baby
aren't in any trouble. We're curious about what happened. We'd like
the real story told straight since I'll have to log why I was out
here questioning you,” the sheriff said, looking meaningfully at
the three girls behind Lettie.

“
I don't know about that
baby so I can't help you,” Lettie said sharply.

“
Not sure if that's the
truth or not but I figure at least one or as many as three of your
girls know the story about that baby,” the sheriff said,

Little Mattie came from behind the
chair and crawled up in her mother's lap. She stuck her thumb in
her mouth and leaned back on her mother as if she was trying to
protect her mother.

Shana came back into the room, holding
up a girl's white dress.

May Jean cried, “Shana, why are you
bringing that dress in here?”

Shana brought it to the sheriff to
inspect. The hem had grass stains and dirt on it.

“
Young lady, I take it you
recognize this dress?” He asked.

“
It's my dress,” May Jean
said.

“
What's the meaning of
this, Sheriff?” Lettie demanded. “Why is that girl going through
our things while you have us in here?”

“
We needed answers, and we
sure weren't getting them from you and your younguns. Don't take
your sass out on Shana. I asked her to help me find evidence,” the
sheriff growled, fingering the brim of his cowboy hat. For a
moment, he watched the Graves children. The three girls looked him
in the eyes for seconds then looked at the floor.

Sheriff Logan said, “Mrs. Graves, why
don't you take all your children except the three older girls and
leave the room. I want to talk to the girls alone.”

“
I don't see how that's
necessary. If you want to question my girls, I should be here with
them,” Lettie demanded.

“
Girls, you want your
mother in the room while I ask you some very powerful questions?”
The sheriff said.

Joanne and May Jean nodded yes, but
Frieda nodded no.

“
Looks like you got
outvoted, young lady,” the sheriff said to her. “Ma'am, send the
boys out of the room. One of you take that little girl on your
mother's lap as you leave.”

After the room was emptied, the
sheriff said, “You girls want to sit down on the floor by your
mother instead of standing behind her. I figure by now you might be
getting weak kneed.”

Gracie thought Sheriff Logan might
have that about right. It was easy to see how pale the girls were,
and they gripped their hands so tight their fingers had white
knuckles.

“
The surprise baby boy we
found dead had been buried about two months longer than your baby,
Mrs. Graves. Someone made a woven basket out of sticks with a lid
made the same way. The baby was wrapped in your dish towel and laid
in the basket. That's what gave us the idea a girl in this house
had that baby.

When the wild flowers popped up in the
spring, some well meaning person transplanted flowers on the bare
spot to hide the grave. Maybe the mother. When Miss Gracie and
Shana went mushroom hunting, the flowers had been fresh planted.
They were wilted and hadn't taken root yet. That was how Miss
Gracie noticed the spot right off,” the sheriff explained. “Any of
you girls want to say anything yet?”

“
They sat in silence,
looking at the floor.

“
The reason Shana looked
for this dress, May Jean, is Gracie and Shana saw someone your size
running through the timber. That shook Shana up a mite. She thought
you were one of her Irish will o wisps. I figure you didn't know
about any will o wisps. Your idea was to make them think the timber
was haunted. You didn't want them near the grave where the baby in
the woven basket was buried. Seeing the dress is proof to Shana
that there aren't ghosts or will o wisps in the timber.

What it does tell me, without you
saying a word, May Jean, is you know what happened to that baby in
the basket. You knew it was buried in the timber. You're protecting
someone, and I'm thinking it's one of your two sisters here.” Logan
waved his finger back and forth between the two older
girls.

May Jean bit her bottom lip with her
teeth and stared at her lap.

“
Girls, the fact is, the
only one in trouble is your father. He murdered your baby brother,
and he'll have to stand trial and pay for that with a long
sentence,” the sheriff said. “None of you has done anything wrong
in the eyes of the law.”

“
That isn't whose eyes the
girls are worried about,” Melinda said softly. “I think Lettie
actually didn't know about the baby. The fact that she had a
grandson was keep from her.”

Gracie said gruffly, “Not too easy to
be born a Graves. Not good at all to be a Graves girl and have a
baby without being married. Yip, we get it, girls.”

“
Seems to me, we might as
well keep what happened between us in this room,” the sheriff said.
“Like I said I need to know for my records since I had to
investigate. All I want to know is who was that baby's mother and
father?”

The girls broke down. Logan had to
wait for them to stop crying. He looked uncomfortable and very
sorry to have to put all three girls on the spot.

Lettie stared down at her daughters'
heads. “How was all this going on, and I didn't know about it? You
would have thought I of all women would have recognized one of my
girls was expecting a baby.”

“
If this had been a normal
family, you might have real quick like, Lettie. Fact is, you had
your hands full, trying to protect your children and staying out of
the way of Neff's shotgun,” Gracie said.

“
Reckon that is right,”
Lettie agreed.

Gracie turned her attention to the
girls. “One of the reasons, we want to know about the baby is I'm
consenting to have both babies buried in my family cemetery. Maybe
the mother would like to tell us a name to put on the baby's stone.
We don't know your baby's name, either, Lettie.”

“
Jackson George,” Lettie
said. “You sure you want to do this, Miss Gracie? After all, you've
been through a lot of trouble because of this family.”

“
I don't mind as long as I
can pick the plots for the babies. I want the one next to my baby
brother for myself. I don't have any other kin so there is plenty
of room for two babies over by Uncle Hiram,” Gracie
said.

“
Isn't your uncle's wife
buried next to him?” Melinda asked.

“
Nope, she ran off with a
drummer, selling from his wagon, after she found out what kind of a
prevaricator Uncle Hiram was. It wasn't long after that Uncle Hiram
was struck by lightening.” Gracie turned to Lettie. “I figured we
might as well leave the babies in the box and basket they have been
using. Less expense that way. Lettie if you had another baby gown
maybe Sheriff Logan could take it by the undertakers. The one on
your baby was in sad shape.

Funeral can be Monday if you and the
younguns want to be there. Melinda and I are working on the
service. The preacher in Locked Rock just took off for some other
church so we don't have a preacher. I figure the babies ain't going
to care about what kind of service we have. It's more for all of us
so you want to come?”

“
We do, don't we girls?”
Lettie said.

The girls shook their heads
yes.

“
Now how about telling us
what happened to the baby in the basket? Which one of you is the
mother?” The sheriff asked.

The girls looked at Lettie with
pleading eyes.

“
Go ahead and tell the
sheriff. He said you weren't in trouble, and I trust him,” Lettie
encouraged.

In a trembling voice, Frieda said,
“The baby is mine. I was almost full term if I was right in my
count. Mama, you didn't noticed I was expecting, but Papa did. He
caught me out by the barn and beat me to get me to tell him who the
baby's daddy is. I wouldn't do it. By the time Papa was done with
me, I was having belly pains. My water broke, and I knew I was
going to have the baby soon.”