Clay Hand (11 page)

A little noise escaped Mrs. O’Grady, drawing Phil’s as well as everyone else’s attention to her. The girl, Anna, could crouch no lower in her chair. Phil looked about for her father. He was not at the inquest. An exchange of glances between the sheriff and the coroner confirmed his suspicion that Lavery had just volunteered a bit of information Fields had not turned up in his preliminary questioning. The sheriff shook his head and then got up to send a deputy in search of Whelan. Meanwhile Lavery was excused and Donel McNamara summoned to the witness chair.

He told of the first time Coffee had come into the tavern. “We talked of this and that, the mines some, and the kind of employment there is for a man in Winston. I’d the notion then he was looking for a job. He asked me where I’d recommend him looking for a room, and where else would I send him but to the fairest of them all?”

The “fairest of them all” at that moment looked like a witch ready to spring upon him, for she was leaning far out of her chair, her weight on her cane. What strange attraction could the old woman have for this man, Phil wondered, that without embarrassment he could praise her in public, and in spite of the contempt in which she obviously held his praise?

Handy cleared his throat “You recommended Mrs. O’Grady’s?”

“Where else?”

“That was the first time you saw the deceased. When was the last?”

McNamara’s affability left him. “Friday last, about seven o’clock in the evening.”

“Will you tell us the circumstances?”

Phil glanced at the old magician. He bent his head, the folds of age gathering about his jowls.

“He came in the door with the black magician, and I invited him out the way he came.”

The observers murmured. Handy pounded on the table. “When this inquest wants an opinion, Mr. McNamara, we’ll ask for it. Give us the people’s names you talk about, and not your opinion of them till it’s asked for.”

McNamara’s eyes narrowed. “He came in with Clauson, and I told him to leave.”

“In all the time the deceased was in Winston, can you tell us approximately how many times he was in your tavern?”

“I’d say three or four nights a week.”

“Before Friday night, when was he there last?”

“Wednesday. There was services at the church.”

“And you served him then?”

“I did. And I gave him a piece of advice about the company he was keeping.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He says to me straight: ‘Mac, I’d keep company with the devil if there was something in hell I wanted.’”

McNamara was excused and the inquest adjourned for the dinner hour.

P
HIL LINGERED IN THE
room until it was cleared and the deputies were putting it in order. He could hear fragments of arguments between the sheriff and the coroner in the back room. “All right then, Maurice,” he heard Fields say. “Call this off till I have more time. I’m not the magician, remember.”

He moved to the window and saw the townspeople in little clusters outside. There, too, was argument, full of gesture and oratory. Far down the street the Clausons and Glasgow were walking across the town to take their noonday meal in peace. Whelan had brought the taxi for the widow. Phil remembered his bulbous face when he had first met him in Mrs. O’Grady’s kitchen, a slobbery man who tried to insinuate that she did not have a room for him. And he it was, Phil thought, who suggested that Dick go up to the churchyard and dig the grave for Kevin Laughlin.

Margaret called to him from the stairs, and he went up to her room. She scarcely waited for him to close the door. “Phil, tell me the truth. What do you think Dick was doing here?”

“I think he was working, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s exactly what I mean. I’ve made up my mind I’m not leaving until it’s settled. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, Phil, and forgetting how important Dick’s work was. Will you stay if I do?”

“I intended to stay in any event. No matter what the coroner’s verdict, I don’t think the sheriff will give up on it.”

“That’s what I thought. He’s a good man, isn’t he?”

“An honest man, at any rate.”

She smiled then, for the first time that day, he thought, and extended both hands to him. “If they think they’ll frighten us off, they’re wrong. Aren’t they?”

He took her hands although her exuberance left him untouched. Had her confidence in Dick fallen off so much that the mere suggestion of his work, in the morning proceedings, buoyed her up this way? In a way her own testimony had set the temper of it.

A knock at the door separated them, and Mrs. Krancow brought a tureen of stewed chicken—and two plates.

T
HE FIRST WITNESS CALLED WHEN
the inquest reconvened was Jerry Whelan. He slouched in the chair as he had over Mrs. O’Grady’s table.

“Pull yourself in a piece, man,” the coroner said shortly.

“Excuse me, your honor. It’s all the driving doubles me up this way.”

“There isn’t driving enough in the county for that,” Handy said.

The spectators tittered, and Whelan looked deeply offended. He brushed the ashes from his coat front, and pulled his legs together. They sprawled apart again after a few seconds.

“Were you acquainted with the deceased, Mr. Whelan?”

“Not intimate,” Whelan said obsequiously. “I saw him in the lady’s house a few times when I brought her things up from the town—an awful nice man, you might say, and giving my Anna a dollar now and then to bring home to her da and the rest of the children.”

Her “da” had need of it, Phil thought—the lazy hulk of a man.

“Were you acquainted with Laughlin?”

“No more than the rest of youse here. I saw the poor soul now and then.”

“Where?”

“Passing the church when he’d be turning a bit of sod.”

“Why did you suggest to the deceased that he dig the grave for Laughlin?”

“Well, I tell you, your honor, it was something got into me when I heard about poor old Laughlin. I was thinking maybe if Coffee had minded his business instead of carrying on, he’d of saved the unfortunate man.”

There was a murmur of approval from the spectators, and Handy demanded silence. “That was a lot of thinking for you, Whelan,” he said acidly.

“You’re bullying me, your honor, and all I’m doing is sticking up for one of our own.”

Fields leaned across to the coroner, and then, bidden to, put the question himself. “Jerry, somebody didn’t put you up to telling Coffee he should dig the grave?”

“I don’t rightly understand your meaning, Sheriff.”

“My meaning is this: Did somebody pay you for taking that message to Coffee?”

Whelan scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know, unless it was the devil, and if it was, he pays awful little.”

Even the jurors were amused, and Whelan was dismissed.

“Mrs. Norah O’Grady.”

“It’s about time,” she said, getting to her feet. “You’re impoverishing me with the price of transportation to and fro.” She shook her cane at anyone who offered her help, and when she was in the witness chair, her eyes darted from one face to another in the room defiantly. Her turned-up nose was higher than ever, and her cheeks redder than ever a rose dared to be. She told her story with a fine restraint, however, and there was not a word mentioned of the wild nights she had described to Phil. She glanced at him for approval where he was standing at the door. The omission was as bad as the exaggeration, he thought, both showing a fine contempt for the truth.

Handy tapped a pencil on his hand a moment, and then said quietly: “Mrs. O’Grady, I think you’d better trust us with the facts. Now the truth is he came home drunk several nights, isn’t it?”

“A little unsteady maybe.”

“And there were some nights he did not come home at all?”

“He was terrible restless.”

“You were very fond of the deceased, weren’t you, Mrs. O’Grady?”

“I was.”

“And you felt that he had an affection for you?”

“He was awful good to me.”

“He must have told you many things about himself.”

Phil, watching Margaret, saw a little constriction about her mouth, and although her hands lay palm upward in her lap, every finger was stiffened with tension.

“Did he discuss his marriage with you?”

The widow looked at Margaret, and then twisted around in her chair to face the coroner. “He did.”

“You are under oath, Mrs. O’Grady,” he reminded her.

“I know what an oath is,” she snapped. “I’ve taken one or two in my life.”

The remark amused those who knew her vocabulary, and Handy had to pound for order. Someone else in the room was unusually alert to the widow’s testimony. Glasgow, although leaning back in his chair, was tense, and when his wife moved toward him to say something, he was startled out of his concentration. He snapped something at her that Phil took to be as rough as “Shut up,” for Mrs. Glasgow’s mouth tightened, and a little color rose to her face. Glasgow glanced up then and caught Phil’s eyes on them. He stretched his hand across to touch his wife’s, but her hands were locked together.

“Will you tell us, then, what he said, Mrs. O’Grady?”

The widow made a mouth at him. “He said she was the most beautiful woman he ever knew, and he worshipped her.”

Mrs. O’Grady was excused after being questioned about the last meal Coffee had taken in her house. Margaret’s tension slipped off gradually, but Phil could see the rise and fall of her breast from the quickened breathing. While the next witness was making his way to the table, Margaret took a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed the moisture from her upper lip.

Father Joyce testified next. He had met Coffee three or four times. On their first meeting they had discussed the people of Winston, especially the miners and their families. He could recall no specific questions except on health.

Their second meeting was the night of the parish dance. The priest’s testimony was interrupted at that point, while the coroner inquired generally if anyone had invited Coffee to that dance. He received no answer. Coffee had apparently gone there on his own.

Father Joyce resumed his testimony. They had met again on the day Coffee came to the parish house and volunteered to dig Laughlin’s grave. “I suggested then that he might like to take over Laughlin’s work about the church grounds.”

“He wasn’t exactly the kind of man to do odd jobs,” Handy said uneasily, “if you see what I’m getting at, Father.”

“I see exactly what you’re getting at. But there are times when hard, physical work is good for a man if you can see what I’m getting at.”

Handy looked at the floor. The weary flesh does not yield easily to its temptations, Phil thought. He wondered how many among these people had been so advised. “How did Coffee take your suggestion, Father?”

“He laughed, and said that if ever he needed the consolation of work he would take it. I did not take his laughter lightly, and told him so. He sobered immediately, and agreed that there was no humor in it.”

The full surge of color had risen to Rebecca Glasgow’s face. She swallowed hard. Her husband, no longer interested in the witnesses, was giving her his full attention, the trace of a malicious smile on his lips.

“I saw him two or three times after Laughlin’s death,” the priest continued. “But I could not help him at all. He was a very troubled man.”

“How do you mean, troubled?”

“He was in despair at Laughlin’s death, blaming himself for it. I loaned him the car a couple of times when he asked it to take Mrs. O’Grady for a drive, and the last time I saw him, he said: ‘You know, Father, there’s one wrong precept in the Bible.’

“‘It depends on who’s doing the interpreting,’ I said. ‘Which one is troubling you?’

“‘Charity does not cover a multitude of sins, Father,’ he said. ‘It does not even cover one.’

“I reminded him that if the sin was despair, he was certainly right.” The priest opened his hands. “That was the extent of our acquaintance.”

The jurors were offered the opportunity of questions, but they sat in pious apathy. If they were to sit facing the priest a hundred days, Phil thought, they would ask him no more than the time of day.

Father Joyce was excused, and he left the room immediately. It was hushed until after his departure, and even then there was no more sound than little moaning noises from the women. The priest had refused Dick absolution before them, Phil thought, and they were grieving after a lost soul.

Nat Watkins was called back before the coroner. He came up timidly and sat on the edge of the witness chair. His feet not quite reaching the floor, he tucked them far under the chair and clung to it with his hands, too, as though he were sitting on a fence.

“How old are you, Nat?” Handy began.

“Twelve.”

“You spend a lot of time out there east of town, don’t you?”

“Some.”

Phil followed his eyes as they darted furtively at his father. Watkins was a burly man, standing at the rear of the room frowning, his arms folded, his legs spread apart. Remembering the accumulation of cigaret butts in the hollow of the cliff, Phil thought this was, to date, probably the most miserable moment in the boy’s life.

“What do you do out there, Nat?”

“Hang around just.”

Handy picked up the envelope from the table. It was the one containing the cigaret butts. He handed it to the boy. “Would this be the reason, Nat?”

The youngster went pale. He nodded that it was. The spectators strained to see the envelope.

“Well,” Handy said with exaggerated casualness, “I guess most of us tried a cigaret at your age, back of the barn or some place like that. I had a weakness for pipes, myself. I used to burn clover in them. Horrible mixture. Now when you were on your walks out there, Nat, did you ever meet Mr. Coffee?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did you ever talk to him?”

“I used to hide so he wouldn’t see me.”

“Why?”

“A game I was playing with myself. I was practicing.”

“I see. But you could see him, couldn’t you?”

“Most of the times. Sometimes I’d follow him.”

“Was he doing anything out of the ordinary?” The boy did not understand. Handy added: “Was he just walking, or did he seem to be going some place or looking for something?”