Up Jumps the Devil

12

« ^ » I venture this brief account under the eye of the public and as it may be supported by the concurring testimony of many gentlemen of repute and credit who have been among our settlers in North Carolina...“Scotus Americanus,” 1773

Dwight Bryant hung around our house so much when he was growing up, he could have been another of my brothers, fitting in somewhere between Will and the little twins. He has a football build now, but back then it’d been one-on-one basketball down at the barn and baseball out in the pasture. Whatever ball was in season, he’d be out there with the boys when they were free to play even if it meant he first had to help with their chores after he’d finished his own chores at home. Dwight’s father was killed in a tractor accident when he was young and his strong-minded mother never remarried, so I guess Daddy is the closest thing he has to a father figure; and Daddy’s always been partial to him, too.

That doesn’t mean though that Dwight didn’t cross-question us three ways to Sunday after the crime scene unit got there and he could give us his full attention. As Detective Chief of the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department, he would never stint his duty; but at least he didn’t start right in lecturing me for getting myself mixed up in another murder, not with Daddy sitting there on the tailgate of his old pickup.

Adam said he hadn’t seen anyone while he was burning trash back near the creek. Nor had he noticed the sound of a truck or car passing on the far side. Both of us had forgotten to wear a watch, so we didn’t know when it was that Dick Sutterly drove off toward Mr. Jap’s place, but Adam said they’d been talking about ten minutes when I got there. We both agreed that it was probably close to twenty minutes from the time he left till the time Daddy arrived.

“According to my piece, when I got back in my truck after finding Jap, it was exactly twenty-two minutes after one.”

Daddy pulled on the slender gold chain that was linked to a belt loop and his pocket watch slid into view. He flipped back the lid and compared the old-fashioned dial with Dwight’s digital wristwatch. They were less than a minute apart.

“And no,” he said, before Dwight could ask him, “I didn’t see Sutterly nor his truck neither when I turned in here.” He paused, remembering. “Did see Dallas’s wife when I passed. Least I reckon it was her, raking up leaves in her backyard. She might’ve noticed something.”

There were too many trees between the two houses for a clean view even if all the leaves had fallen, but it was true that she might have noticed if someone left by the far drive or if someone circled around by the back lanes.

Dwight made a note of it. “Now, you say you saw him at the flea market this morning. Did he seem any different?”

Daddy shook his head. “Nope. He was just Jap. This close to Thanksgiving, he reckoned it was the last time he could put out his corn and pumpkins before folks started wanting holly and mistletoe. He was thinking of shooting some down for next week. I thought it was a little early myself, but then I seen Christmas trees shining in some windows already, so maybe he was right.”

Mistletoe is an evergreen parasite on hardwoods. The seeds ripen inside waxy white berries and many cling to a bird’s beak while it’s eating. When the bird next lands in an oak or pecan tree, it cleans its beak on the nearest twig and the sticky seeds are glued to the spot. If conditions are just right, the seeds will sprout and send feeder roots down through the bark and soon there’s a bushy green ball of mistletoe putting out more white berries. Since the bird usually does its beak cleaning out on the tips of a tree’s branches, twenty or thirty feet off the ground, this does not make for simple gathering. Nevertheless, with a .22 rifle, a good marksman can prune you off enough mistletoe to kiss half the county.

“Jap did say he needed to come on back before dinner,” Daddy told Dwight. “Said he was expecting somebody.”

“He didn’t say who?”

Daddy shook his head. I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t speculate about the Wall boy. He wouldn’t put suspicion on somebody unless he knew it was true.

“What about Allen Stancil?” asked Dwight. “Any of y’all see him today?”

We told him no.

Even though Dwight had met Allen back when he and my brothers were messing around with their first cars, he was in the army and stationed in Germany at the time Mother died and I started college. There was no reason for him to’ve heard about my running off to Martinsville with Allen and I didn’t see any point in bringing him up to speed on it at this late date. I just hoped nobody else would either.

J.V. Pruitt, who’s acted as the county’s coroner most of my lifetime, stepped out of the garage. He’s an undertaker, not a doctor, but he’s seldom second-guessed by the ME over in Chapel Hill.

I have never seen Pruitt when he wasn’t dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt and dark tie, and a plain felt hat—tan in the summertime, dark gray in the winter. He tipped his winter hat to me and nodded to Daddy, who always contributes to his campaign and hangs his poster in the crossroads store.

“Just what it looks like, Dwight,” he said now. “A single blow to the back of his head with that tire iron. Wouldn’t take much strength, just determination.”

“When?” asked Dwight.

“Now, Dwight, you been doing this long enough to know we can only approximate. When was he last seen?”

Dwight glanced at Daddy, who said, “Well, I seen him down at the crossroads around ten-thirty and I found him at one twenty-two.”

“Well, there you are,” said Pruitt, straightening his already straight tie. “Death occurred sometime between ten-thirty and one twenty-two. Chapel Hill won’t get it any tighter than that.”

The garage was a good hundred feet off the road, but a hundred feet back wasn’t enough to deter the curious. Cars were starting to clog up both lanes as people slowed to a crawl and craned their necks to see what had brought the blue-lights out to Jap Stancil’s. A highway patrolman arrived and began directing traffic in an effort to keep things moving.

As we stood out there talking, the crime scene unit had strung yellow tape across the drive to preserve the tracks. Their photographer finished up inside and came out to take close-ups of the separate tread marks, carefully laying a foot rule beside each one so as to have an accurate scale if and when the tires were found.

Unfortunately, that yellow tape only covered the entrance to the drive. Before anyone realized what was happening, a white Subaru sedan circled around behind Jap Stancil’s house and came jouncing down the lane toward the photographer, who hastily stood and tried to wave it back.

Merrilee Grimes ignored him till she was less than four feet from hitting him where he stood. Then she slammed on the brakes, slipped out from behind the wheel, and came running toward us. “What happened? Where’s Uncle Jap?”

Slender and small-boned, Merrilee probably gets all her clothes from the Petite Lady, while her husband Pete is limited to Big ’n Tall. It’s not that he’s fat, just really, really solid with lots of shaggy brown hair on his head and hairy arms and legs. He pried himself loose from the passenger side and lumbered after her. “Now, Merrilee, honey—”

I couldn’t help noticing Merrilee’s dainty black velvet slippers. They were almost instantly caked in damp sand. Not many women would wear velvet shoes outdoors in the country, but maybe she hadn’t planned on taking a hike. Pete was marginally better in his suede ripple treads. Both wore black slacks and casual white windbreakers over oxford shirts. Merrilee had knotted a silk scarf around her neck and its gold and orange design was flecked with reddish brown rings that echoed her auburn hair and her close-set brown eyes. Papa Bear and Mama Bear off on a Saturday afternoon outing, but from the way they were dressed, their original destination had probably been Crabtree or North Hills Mall, not Possum Creek.

Merrilee didn’t seem to recognize Dwight or Adam. Instead, she looked from me to Daddy. “What’s happened to Uncle Jap, Mr. Kezzie? That yellow ribbon says crime scene. Did somebody try to rob him? Is he hurt? Did they take him to a hospital?”

Daddy stood up awkwardly. “I’m real sorry, Merrilee, but somebody seems to’ve hit him purty hard. Mr. Pruitt here don’t think he ever knowed what happened, it was probably so quick.”

Tears filled her eyes as his words sank in. “He’s gone? Just like that? Who hit him? Deborah?”

“We don’t know yet,” I said and put out my arms to her just as Pete caught up and engulfed the two of us.

We stood in that unwieldy bear hug until I managed to detach myself, still patting her slender back and murmuring sympathetic noises.

For a moment, there were only the sounds of traffic and her muffled sobs on the mild November air, then she sniffled and her hand groped for Pete’s pants pocket. Without asking what she wanted, Pete automatically pulled out a large white handkerchief. Even after she blew her nose, tears continued to spill from her eyes. She remained in the protective circle of Pete’s arms, but we could almost see her spine stiffen.

“Where is he?” she said. “I want to see him.”

“Now, Miz Grimes,” said Dwight.

“Aw, now, honey,” said her husband, “you don’t want to go in there and remember him like that.”

She pulled away and headed toward the open side door.

Young Jack Jamison, one of the sheriff’s deputies, looked inquiringly at Dwight, who shrugged and followed.

Jamison stepped aside and Merrilee and Pete entered with the rest of us close behind.

“Poor Uncle Jap,” she whispered and knelt on the dirty concrete floor to hold his hand for a moment as her eyes closed in silent prayer.

When she opened them again, Pete held out his big hairy paw to her and she came to her feet as gracefully as swansdown.

“You could look that delicate and graceful, too, if you always had a two-ton Mack truck around to hoist you up,” the pragmatist whispered snidely into my ear.

“For shame!” scolded the preacher.

Merrilee’s eyes fell on the wrecked safe. “So he was robbed! Did they take all his money?”

“We didn’t find any cash,” said Dwight. “Did he keep much on hand?”

“Just what he got from Social Security and from selling vegetables at the flea market.”

“If that’s the only money he had, it doesn’t seem worth going to all that trouble cutting the safe open with the torch,” said Dwight. “What about papers? Could you tell if anything’s missing?”

She shook her head. “He never opened it for me. I’d forgotten it was even out here. Dallas may’ve kept his deeds in it, but except for that, I never knew him to have anything worth taking.” She looked around the shabby garage hopelessly and her eyes came sadly back to the body still sprawled on the concrete floor.

“When did you last talk to your uncle?” asked Dwight.

“Wednesday night,” she answered promptly. “Pete and I come by every Sunday morning and I call him every Wednesday night to see if he’s all right. We live just below where Forty-Eight and Old Forty-Eight join up, and sometimes we drop by on our way in and out from work, but Sunday and Wednesday, regular as church bells, he knows—knew—he could count on me.”

“Did he sound normal Wednesday night?”

“Well, actually—” After all that bragging, she seemed a shade embarrassed to admit that maybe it was Pete that talked to Mr. Jap that night, not her. “I got home late and then had to get ready for prayer meeting.”

“How’d he sound to you?” Dwight asked her husband.

“Same as ever,” said Pete. “Allen answered the phone and put Uncle Jap on and—”

“Allen!” shrieked Merrilee. “That’s what’s missing— Allen Stancil!”

Dwight looked around at the rest of us, but no one had seen Allen that day.

Daddy didn’t remember seeing Allen’s pickup when he came through the lane on his way to the crossroads. “ ’Course, I won’t looking for it, but I believe I’d’ve noticed if it was there.”

Adam said he hadn’t seen anyone except Dick Sutterly come through the back lanes while he was out by the creek, and I’d come Old Forty-Eight by way of Cotton Grove from the north, which meant I hadn’t passed the Stancil place on the way to Daddy’s.

“I’ll bet he did this,” Merrilee insisted. “I bet he and Uncle Jap had a falling-out and he hit Uncle Jap and took his corn money and ran.”

“Corn money?” asked Dwight.

“He raises ornamental corn,” said Merrilee.

It was clear that Dwight didn’t think this amounted to much, so I briefly described my encounter with Mr. Jap and Billy Wall a few weeks ago. “The Wall boy was supposed to sell the last of it this past week. I think they expected to net about ten or twelve thousand.”

Merrilee was sure this was all the motive a user and taker like Allen Stancil needed and she insisted that Dwight put out an arrest call on him.

Dwight doesn’t jump to conclusions, but he agreed that it probably wouldn’t hurt to have a talk with Allen.

“Prob’ly wouldn’t hurt neither to find out if Billy Wall ever actually paid Jap,” Daddy told Dwight reluctantly.

As we walked back outside, we saw Blue and Ladybelle trotting down the lane toward us.

Daddy seldom gets as flustered as he was at that moment. He hollered at the dogs, gave a sweeping motion of his hand, and they instantly veered off and went and jumped up in the bed of his pickup.

“Dwight, I’m plumb ashamed of them,” he apologized.

Dwight gave a rueful laugh. “Don’t worry about it, sir. Everybody else has been up and down this lane. Couple of dogs can’t do much more damage.”

“Wonder what they did with Hambone?” I said. Aunt Zell wasn’t going to be too happy with me if I lost her beagle pup. “If you’re finished with me for right now, Dwight, maybe I’ll walk back and see if I can find him.”

“Just try to walk in the middle of the lane and stay off any tire tracks,” he said.

He had a few more questions for Daddy, so Adam said he’d wait and ride back in the truck.

I gave Merrilee my condolences again, then skirted the yellow tape and struck off down the lane. Almost immediately, I noticed something that I hoped Dwight wouldn’t: the dogs had been around the garage sometime after the rain stopped last night and when they arrived just now.

They could have wandered over in the early morning hours, of course. Blue and Ladybelle are never chained up at night. On the other hand, at their age, they don’t usually roam far from the house unless they’re with one of the family. I thought back to my earlier conversation with Adam. He never actually said that he only briefly crossed the creek to talk to Dick Sutterly. I kept looking for boot tracks, but if he’d walked this far, his tracks could have been covered up by those laid down by Sutterly and Daddy.

Daddy’s zigzag treads were the only ones I could recognize and they overlay most of the marks. Occasionally, though, different drivers had veered from his straight path and I saw a crisp wide diamond tread, an equally crisp hexagonal pattern that reminded me of chicken wire, and one tire that must have been completely bald since the tread mark was smooth and patternless.

The lane soon entered the first patch of trees, then crossed alongside Mr. Jap’s pumpkin patch. The vines were browning off after all the rain and a wonderful funky smell rose up from the earth itself—damp sand, dead weeds and grass, decaying leaves. Every gust of the wind winnowed down more leaves from the trees around me.

For that matter, the wind was out of the north and had picked up enough to blow my hair, push away the gray clouds above, and open up large patches of blue that let the sun shine through. Despite the sun, though, the temperature was dropping perceptively minute by minute. For the first time since last March I thought seriously of sweaters and jackets and wool skirts. Maybe we were finally going to get some colder weather for Thanksgiving.

As I stepped from bright sunlight into the last stretch of thick woods before the creek, I heard the scuffle of leaves, as if a larger animal were passing somewhere to my left. I quickly slipped behind a large oak tree and waited.

Deer have been coming back into these woods, working their way west along the Neuse and then down along Possum Creek. Andrew’s son A.K. had taken a nice little six-point stag last year and most of his male cousins, especially Reese, were determined to best him before the season ended in January. I’ve seen lots of tracks these past few years, but only twice have I seen the deer themselves.

The woods had gone suddenly silent. Uneasily, I noted that even the mindless chirp of sparrows and chickadees was missing and the busy scratching of towhees had stopped as well. My flesh crawled as I sensed that someone else was there in the woods, watching.

Behind me?

I whirled and saw nothing at first. Then there was movement and a young man in full camouflage materialized in the underbrush. He held a .22 rifle loosely in his hands.

The barrel was pointed just as loosely in the direction of my heart.

Behind me, from the other side of the lane, a cold hard voice said, “I do believe you’re trespassing, Judge Knott.”