The Bottoms

21

Daddy was true to his word. I never seen nor heard of him taking a drink again. He went back to work in the fields and back to work at the barbershop. And in short time his spirit filled up the house again.

But on this very day I’m telling you about, he heated up water and took a bath on the back porch in a number ten tub.

Rest of us waited in the kitchen. You’d have thought we was waiting for Lazarus to rise, and I suppose in one sense we were. Because when the back door opened and he come into the house, it was as if he was a man reborn.

He stood tall. His face was shaved close. His skin looked clean and pink. His hair was slicked back and he had on a fresh suit of clothes and held his best tan hat in his hand.

He took Mama in his arms and kissed her, hard, right in front of us. Mama and Daddy were always affectionate, but you didn’t see anything like that right in front of us, not the way that kiss was.

When Daddy and Mama separated, smiling, he put on his hat, looked at me, said, “Harry, I need you to come with me.”

“Me too,” Tom said.

“No, baby girl. Just Harry. He’s near a man, and I might need him.”

I can’t tell you what that meant to me. I climbed in the car with him and we drove over to Mrs. Canerton’s.

The doors to Mrs. Canerton’s house were unlocked, but that wasn’t so strange back then. People didn’t lock their doors like now, there wasn’t a need.

Daddy looked through the rooms while I stood in the parlor looking at the books in the shelves, thinking about how enthusiastic Mrs. Canerton had always been about them. I saw a number that I had read. I felt worse by the moment.

When Daddy came back from looking, he shook his head. “Ain’t no sign of a struggle nowhere. She’s just gone. She could have been out and was nabbed by this fella, or maybe she know’d him and went with him without no trouble. And if that’s the case, it could be a number of folks, ’cause she know’d everyone and was kind to everyone.”

We went out back where she kept her car. It was missing.

“Well now, that’s somethin’,” Daddy said. “Means she went off in her car and either picked this fella up, or he was with her.”

“Cecil might know,” I said. “He was seein’ her some.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

We went over to the barbershop. It was empty except for Cecil. He was sittin’ in Daddy’s barber chair reading a detective magazine.

Cecil seemed surprised to see Daddy all spiffed up and neatly dressed. “How about givin’ me a haircut, Cecil?” Daddy asked, removing his hat.

Cecil got out of the chair and flipped the magazine on the table with the others. “Certainly. You’re lookin’ good, Jacob.”

Daddy climbed in the chair. Cecil pulled a sheet over Daddy to catch the hair, and went to work. “Did you know about Louise?” Daddy asked.

“Well, me and her ain’t exactly visitin’ these days. What about her?”

“She’s dead, Cecil.”

The scissors quit snipping. Cecil came around to the front of the chair and looked at Daddy. “No?”

Daddy shook his head. “Afraid so. I didn’t mean to drop it on you so blunt, but there ain’t no other way to tell it. Found her body in the river. She was got by that maniac.”

“It wasn’t Mose,” Cecil said. “You said it wasn’t Mose.”

Cecil went over and sat in one of the customer’s chairs, absently clicked the scissors a few times.

“I thought me and her might be together, you know. But it didn’t work. She didn’t want to get serious. She quit seein’ me. I still thought about her. I think I might have been in love with her. Good God. How’n hell could that happen? She wasn’t a river whore.”

“I thought maybe you might have heard of someone was seein’ her might not have been on the up and up. Maybe you knew or suspected somethin’ suspicious goin’ on.”

“No. Jacob, would it be all right I didn’t cut your hair? I don’t feel so good.”

Daddy nodded. “That’s all right, Cecil. I got things to do. I just thought you might could help us and I could get a haircut in the meantime. I’m cleaning myself up. I’ll be comin’ in more regular. I know that affects your money, but I wanted you to know.”

“I’m glad for you,” Cecil said, snapping the scissors. “Jesus. Louise.”

“You rest a bit,” Daddy said, flicking off the sheet and rising. “Not like there’s a rush on customers. You don’t feel up to it, go home a while.”

“I’m all right. I’ll just sit a moment.”

Daddy put on his hat, said, “All right then.”

Me and Daddy went outside. When we were out to the car, Daddy said, “Run back in there and get a bottle of that coconut hair oil, will you, son? I’m gonna clean myself up, I might as well smell good all around.”

I went back for the hair oil. Cecil was in the barber chair with a magazine.

He lowered the magazine when I came in. He said, “It’s a hell of a thing, ain’t it?”

“Daddy wants some hair oil,” I said.

“Sure. He uses that coconut kind. It’s on the end of the shelf there.”

I got it, said goodbye, and went out.

I felt horrible about Mrs. Canerton, but I felt good that Daddy was doing so much better. I liked the idea of him smelling good for Mama.

We drove out to Mr. Sumption’s. When we pulled up in his yard, he came out of his house and walked out to the car. Daddy got out and stood by it. Mr. Sumption said, “You didn’t kill him?”

“No,” Daddy said. “But it wasn’t from want of tryin’.”

“I can’t think of a sorrier sonofabitch than Nation. Doin’ what he done to that old colored man, and bein’ proud of it. Hard to figure on a man like that.”

“And we won’t waste time doin’ it. I want to apologize just leavin’ you in the yard like that.”

“It was a short walk, Jacob.”

“We want to look around some, Clem. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not at all.”

I think Mr. Sumption thought he’d go with us, but Daddy, without really saying it, made it clear he meant just the two of us.

As we walked down to the outhouse and the river, Daddy said, “We washed her off, Harry, but that was most likely a mistake. There were probably things could have been learned from the body. If I had any education, I’d have thought of that. All I was thinking was here was this nice lady in all that mess. Unclothed. Cut up. Tossed out like garbage.”

We climbed down the bank and stood near the mound of waste. It stunk something terrible. Flies rose up in a blue-black cloud. The water, though no longer high, was still tumbling along at a rapid brown clip.

“It’s funny the good stuff goes in a belly, sure comes out rotten,” Daddy said.

“He dump her here, Daddy?”

“I don’t think so. This is just where she ended up. Body ain’t that long dead. Few days.”

“Maybe about the same time Miss Maggie was killed?”

“Could be.”

“That night, I went by Mrs. Canerton’s. Tryin’ to return a book. She wasn’t home. You think she could have been dead then?”

“It’s possible, Harry. Way the river looks, she could have been dumped down a spell, and with all that floodin’, carried up to here. I doubt the killer come through Clem’s yard and dumped her. It’s possible, but it seems more risky than he’d have to be. So far, he’s been dumpin’ down deep in the bottoms.”

“You know what I was thinkin’?” I asked.

“That Miss Maggie and Mrs. Canerton were killed about the same time. And you seen that car of Red’s, and we found his car and he’s missin’. You’re thinkin’ he could have done it. That right?”

“Yes sir.”

Daddy took his pipe out of his shirt pocket, stuffed it and lit it. “I guess Red could have killed Miss Maggie ’cause she told him the truth and he didn’t like it, but that don’t mean he killed Louise. ’Course, it’s quite a coincidence, ain’t it?”

“Red could have left his car and took a boat downriver, Daddy.”

Daddy nodded, lifted a leg, thumped his pipe against the bottom of his shoe. “He could have at that. Thing is, I can’t imagine Red doin’ this kind of thing. I’ve known him a long time. He might have killed Miss Maggie, and that’s hard enough to believe… Jesus, I can’t believe he was actually colored. Way he looked.”

“It’s what Doc Tinn told us.”

Daddy tucked his pipe into his pocket, looked out at the river. “Doc Tinn seems like a fella not prone to gossip. Now I think on it, things kinda fit. And the way Red felt about colored, and findin’ out he was colored, he could have lost it. He could have found out some time ago in fact, and this led to the rage of him killin’ them colored women.”

“Not all of them were colored,” I said.

“Yeah. But I’m thinkin’ it set him off.”

I told him then what Doc Tinn had told us about these kinds of killers, his thoughts on them.

Daddy listened carefully, bent, picked up a stone and tossed it into the river. “Why don’t you and me walk the trail yonder.”

We climbed the bank and took the trail along the river. It was narrow and we had to push limbs and brush out of our way. The trees were thick and dark and held water from the rains; they leaked it as if they were rain clouds.

I watched Daddy out of the corner of my eye. His tan hat was damp with the water drops and they had fallen on the shoulders of his shirt, creating a dark wet mantle. He looked big again to me, as if he had gained three inches in height from just a short time ago.

It wasn’t easy to see the river, and yet we could hear it rumbling like a contented lion a few feet away, behind and below the thick growth of trees and brush. It gave off a smell of decayed fish, wet dirt, and aromas unidentified, mixed with the sweetness of the pines.

“What are we lookin’ for, Daddy?”

“I don’t know.”

We walked along the river for an hour or two, shoving our way through the brush from time to time, looking at the river, trying to find I didn’t know what.

As we walked, Daddy said, “Doc Tinn said somethin’ to me about when a body gets dragged in the river, it gets scratched up along the belly, ’cause that’s how it flows in the water. Louise, she wasn’t cut up like that. Just the knife work of that nut. All along in front of Clem’s house, and for a couple miles along here, ain’t nothin’ but sand. All this stormin’, water must have carried gravel with it, but if she ain’t cut up bad, that means she might not have been thrown in the river before the sand bottom. There ain’t but one other area that’s that smooth with sand, it’s miles up, and there’s plenty of gravel in between.”

“I don’t get it, Daddy.”

“She had to have been chunked in the water along the sandy bottom, or, with all this flooding, and the river pushin’ on her, she’d have had gravel marks.”

“For sure?”

“Well, no, but I figure it’s a logical stretch.”

“So this here is the sandy section?”

“Yep. I’m bettin’ she didn’t go any farther than that. Another thing, there ain’t but two or three good spots she could have been dumped. Rest of it’s just like we’re goin’ through now, all that thick brush and trees on either side of us. A man was determined enough, he could have done it by fightin’ these bushes. But if it’s like I suspect, someone knows the river, I figure he picked one of the good spots.”

The sunlight was weak in the thickness of the woods, and as we walked, and it grew later, it became weaker yet. Where the forest broke above and the limbs didn’t wind, it fell through in gold red globs like busted apples dipped in honey.

The trail finally thickened and the trees gave way to a wide swath that wound down to the river in a sandy sink that disappeared in the water.

“Normally, this here is so clear, you can see bottom.”

You couldn’t see bottom now. The water was filthy and foamy, carrying tree limbs and hunks of bark down it lickity-split.

“I don’t know what there would be to see,” I said.

Daddy grinned. “Me neither. But I got me a hunch that our killer not only took Louise’s car, but he got rid of it. He took enough of a chance drivin’ it with her in it, or makin’ her drive. But he killed her, he got rid of it. I wouldn’t be surprised he done it one of them spots I’m tellin’ you about. You could drive a car through that wide trail over there, right up to the bank. Ain’t but two or three more spots on this sandy stretch you could do that.”

“He got rid of the car, how’d he get home?”

“I ain’t got that all figured out, son. But I figure him for one that plans. In the past, he ain’t taken the victim’s car. Fact is, them others didn’t have any. This time looks as if he did. Well, he comes down here, kills poor Louise, dumps her in the river, tied up like he likes, then he had to get rid of the car. He could have run it off in the river, or just left it.”

“Red’s car was just left.”

“That’s right,” Daddy said. “I tell you what, son. Comin’ out of that bottle, I’m feelin’ like I can truly think a little again. You don’t hate me, do you boy?”

“No sir,” I said. “Not even a little bit.”

“Good. Then everything’s all right.”

We walked down the wider trail a piece. Come back to the river, got on the narrow trail alongside it again. It wasn’t long before we come to the next spot in the river. It was kind of like the other sandy slide, but here you could see where brush had been broken down, washed over by the water. The sun shining on the broken brush made the bits of sand caught up in it twinkle like grit-ground diamonds.

Down in the river you could see the roof of a car. It was, of course, Mrs. Canerton’s.

“You was right, Daddy.”

“Reckon so,” he said. “It’s probably the first piece of truly successful detective work I’ve ever done.”

It was the next day before Daddy had some men help him pull the car from the water. Inside they found two water-soaked books, The Time Machine and White Fang. They also found a metal flask containing a partial of whiskey, and a bottle of headache pills that the label said was prescribed by Doc Stephenson.

Daddy’s theory was Mrs. Canerton was bringing me out two new books to read, and that whoever killed her had followed in his car, and either coaxed or ran her off the road. It could have been someone she knew. Someone she would easily stop for.

From there, whoever it was killed her and dumped her and her car. Most likely his own car was nearby, and it was easy enough then for him to return home in his own car.

It seemed logical, and it made me ill.

If Mrs. Canerton had been bringing books out to me, then I felt partially responsible. Everything seemed to be coming down on me like an anvil.

Just a short time before I had been a happy kid with no worries. I didn’t even know it was the Depression, let alone there were murderers outside of the magazines I read down at the barbershop, and none of the magazines I read had to do with killers who did this kind of thing. And Daddy, though a good man, sincere and true, if briefly distracted, was no Doc Savage.

In the detective magazines the cops and private eyes saw a clue or two, they put it together. Cracked the whole case wide open. In real life, there were clues a plenty, but instead of cracking the case open, they just made it all the more confusing.

Bottom line was, no one really knew any more than they did the night I found that poor woman bound to a tree with barbed wire.

I had learned too that the people I knew, or thought I knew, had problems and lives. Mama and Daddy had a past. I had seen Daddy fall off the wagon, and suspected at one time Mama had fallen off as well, only it was a different wagon; the fall from it recorded by a tattoo on the missing Red Woodrow’s forearm.

I found out my Daddy had a terrible temper. I found out Mr. Nation could beg and cry and his boys could run fast.

Miss Maggie was Red’s mother and Red might be a killer. But had he killed Miss Maggie and Mrs. Canerton? And if so, why? And where was he now?

People I knew had turned out to be strange and savage. They had hung Mose and kicked and hit me and my father.

I wouldn’t have been surprised right then to discover the moon could be reached by climbing to the top of the highest tree, and with a good pair of scissors you could snip it in half.