Nobody Can Say It’s You: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery (10 page)

She jumped when the man spoke.

“Havin any luck today, little girl?” he asked,

Ocey looked up as his liver-colored tongue swept across dry lips. She was reminded of an adder. A smile broke the man’s face. His lips were thin and large. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a bright red paisley handkerchief.

“Looks like you struck the mother lode, little girl,” the man said. “I never seen such a basket full a berries. They all look as pretty as a picture. Cain’t see a rotten one in the bunch from up here.”

He got down from the mule, a towering figure in black.

“Yes, sir. I got me a right smart pretty blackberries, today,” Ocey replied. “Would you like some?”

Ocey extended her thin arm holding the basket full of ripe succulent berries for the man to take a few. A shadow crossed over the man’s face. Ocey saw the vein in his temple pulse with blood. His eyes darkened. His eyebrows creased down in an evil scowl. He suddenly looked like a black thundercloud ready to rain down on her.

As quickly as lightning strikes, he reached out and grabbed the little girl’s arm. She screamed and struggled, but he was too strong. The basket dropped to the ground, and blackberries cascaded all around them. They were crushed under the man’s boot, bleeding their purple juice along the dirt like blood from an opened wound.

His large, rough hand covered her mouth and stifled the little girl’s scream. Ocey struggled for another few seconds, her lungs bursting for air. Her eyes rolled back into her head. Everything went black. Her body went limp. She was gone.

Ocey felt her spirit float away from her body, and she watched the man from high above the trees.

“He worked quick,” Ocey said. “He didn’t waste a minute. He didn’t look sorry. He didn’t look anything. He took me ’n’ rolled me up in his bed roll. Just like that. And he was up in his saddle ’n’ gone like a jack rabbit.”

The bed roll was thick canvas. The little girl was like a small, limp rag doll. Her neck had snapped like a chicken’s. The act had been easy. Nothing to it. But now, he had a body to dispose of.

He stood in the path, contemplating his next move. Blackberry brambles and vines lined both sides of the road. There was no convenient place to hide the body.

His mind was clearing. After the fugue of his maddening fit had passed, it was easier to think. Easier to plan. These things had happened before, he told himself. Remain calm. You will think of something. You always do. And it will be fine. Just fine.

But his head hurt fiercely, and he knew from past experience that the headache would last a couple of days. It always did. Then, he would be free for a while. Free from the urges, the
fits
, he called them. It always worked that way.

He looked at the limp roll of canvas. He did not feel sorry for the little girl.

There was only one thought on his mind, one task that beat inside of his brain like a woodpecker. He had to get rid of her body. He knew that much.

No murder without a body
.

Easy in this wilderness to claim she’d been carried off by a wild animal, wandered off and fell down a ravine. Kids did unpredictable things. They got themselves into all kinds of awful fixes quicker than Jack could jump over the candle’s flame.

He fought to clear the fog in his brain, shaking his head briskly from left to right. He looked down at the canvas role that lay against the saddle’s pommel. Ocey’s little feet hung limply out from the hem of the canvas. Tiny little things. No bigger than smooth creek stones.

Ocey looked down on the man. She still watched from high above the trees. She was sad to be folded over the ghost-colored mule’s back. She was sad because she was going to be forced to go with the preacher and leave her berries. What would Mama say? Would she cry?

The white mule’s hoof beat the dirt. His skin twitched. His tail batted the flies that bit without mercy.

Her prized berries were spilled all over the dirt, stepped on, squished, and ruined.

That little basket and those ruined berries were the only trace the men who were looking for the little lost girl in the white flour sack dress ever found. Aurora had not known the full story when she told her father about the preacher man.

At the time of her beating, Aurora had only had a feeling of dread and a picture of the ghostly white mule with the tall, dark stranger straddling on its back. The wide-brimmed, black hat hid his face in dark shadow. To Aurora, his soul was the same color as his hat – black.

But there was only one man who rode a mule like that in the whole valley.

Only one man.

He claimed to be a preacher, but he was like no man of God Aurora had ever known.

“
W
ho gets Button’s land
?” Hadley asked Maury.

Maury had dropped by for some morning coffee and a homemade doughnut – an unbeatable combination in her book.

“I don’t know.” Maury said. “Bill confirmed what we thought that night at the cemetery. Button’s family is all dead. He outlived his last living relative by about 20 years. The will’s been read.”

“There was a will?” Hadley asked. “I’m surprised. I wouldn’t have thought old Button would have any dealings with a lawyer.”

“It’s a handwritten one, Bill said. In Button’s feathery scrawl. Signed and dated. Bill said it was like looking at the Declaration of Independence. Old-timey writing. But it’s legal. They found it at Button’s cabin. They call it a holographic will.”

“Do say.”

“Yep.”

“And who won the lottery?

“Button left everything to Estill Orner.”

“Estill!” said Hadley. “Button must have been under some kind of spell. Maybe Button held a torch for Estill all these years. She’s still a mighty attractive woman and, in her day, she was a total knockout. I remember we used to joke that she should try to get discovered. You know, for the movies, like Ava Gardener. Estill Orner was that pretty! I’m sure she would have made it big on looks alone, even if she couldn’t act her way out of a paper poke.”

“Yeah,” Maury said, “Estill was very pretty. How do you get these things to come out so good every time, Sis. You never seem to make a bad batch.”

Maury chewed on a big bite of doughnut.

“Practice makes perfect, I guess,” said Hadley. “I’ve certainly had a lot of practice in my lifetime. But I would have never picked Estill to be in the will. I don’t know a lot about Button Dudley, but I have heard he didn’t like her son. No, was no love lost there.”

“He hated Dougal Orner,” Maury said, “and he made no bones about it. Thought that boy was the devil’s spawn.”

“I’d heard something like that a long time ago,” said Hadley. “Dougal Orner was always such a rambunctious little cuss.”

“I know,” said Maury. “I remember visiting Granny Dilcie, back years ago. Dougal was just a little thing then. Granny Dilcie was mad as an old wet hen.

“Dougal had let loose all her chickens. Granny had about 40 at the time.

“She knew it was Dougal. Mean little devil left his name scrawled in the dirt in the chicken coop.
I done it – D.O
.”

“Proud of his handiwork, I guess,” said Hadley. “Didn’t mind signing that note because he knew Estill would not suffer anybody to punish him.”

“Huh,” said Maury. “That little booger needed his tater patch plowed, but Estill wouldn’t hear of it. Nobody ever laid a hand on Dougal to even try to discipline that little monster. I recollect Dilcie sayin’ he’d done the same to Button’s half-dozen calves a few weeks before. Dilcie fumed that Dougal would grow up to be the next Billy the Kidd or Jessie James”

“He is meaner than a two-headed rattler,” said Hadley. “Wasn’t he sweet on one of the Elandor twins? Dara Elandor or Chandra Elandor?”

“I think so,” said Maury, “but don’t ask me which one.”

“I know,” said Hadley. “I wonder how Dougal knew he was dating the right twin?”

“Beats me,” said Maury. “I have never seen two people who looked so much like each other.”

“I guess you could tell them apart if you spent time around them,” said Hadley.

“Granny’s had her hands full,” said Maury. “Alswyth’s death was terrible. And you know Granny had her late in life. She was no spring chicken when she took on the responsibility of raisin’ them twins.”

“Umm,” said Hadley. “I really don’t know much about them. They were such an oddity, already. I mean both of them looking exactly alike. Dara’s always been the shyer one, and Chandra is a hand full from what I heard on the grapevine.”

“I know,” said Maury. “She does like the boys. But maybe she’s just angry at losing her mother the way they did. I mean, that was an impressionable age and the accident was just horrible.”

“Yeah,” said Hadley. “What are you cooking for supper?”

“I really hadn’t given it much thought,” said Maury. “I found a couple of recipes in a new magazine I ordered. But some of the ingredients are really out there. I think you’d need to live in a big city with specialty stores to find them.”

“Forget the magazine recipes, Maury,” Hadley said. “For Bill’s sake, why don’t you two just drop by later for supper. I’ll make soup beans and hoe cake and fried apples and pork chops and mash potatoes. There’s half a marble pound cake on the counter. Ya’ll come by and help me eat all this up.”

“Honey,” Maury said, “my mouth’s waterin’ just thinkin’ about all that.”

T
he moon was
new on the night Button Dudley’s shimmering form appeared to Aurora. Darkness wrapped itself about the old cabin like swaddling clothes. Aurora had been sitting on the porch, slowly rocking back and forth, back and forth. In her trancelike state, she waited. She sensed something was coming – a person, an event, or a sign. Whatever it was, it was going to happen soon. The minutes ticked by; the hours were lost in time. Still, she watched. The darkness seemed especially thick tonight. The silence seemed alive with promise.

Back and forth, back and forth, she rocked. Slow. Slowly. Slower. Slower still, until the rocking ceased. She knew that it was time.

From the corner of her eye, Aurora saw the first flicker of light break through the blackness. Whatever it was, it was nearby. She could feel its presence. Someone who had departed this world had made the transition to the next world and returned.

She waited. She watched.

Her breaths came in calm, smooth rhythms.

There was nothing to fear. Nothing to get excited about.

Aurora welcomed these visitors from the netherworld, inviting them to reveal their secrets to her. The dead, in turn, came. They sensed whatever they shared with her was safe.

She saw the faint glow in the woods. It was coming nearer. His body formed in the mist, and she recognized him.

“Hello, Button,” she said.

It was the ghost of an old mountain sin eater.

“Hello, child,” Button said to her.

He had kept to himself all his life. The Ancients knew what Button did. Eating the sins of others had made him an outcast among them. Occasionally, he had found it necessary to make his way into town. Those folks there did not know his secret. Still, he walked among them like a stranger.

“I was ensnared,” Button said. “Entangled. I could not escape.”

This was all that the apparition said to Aurora. Just as quickly as he had appeared, he dissolved into the mist.

How strange, she thought. How very strange. What was the old man trying to tell her? Had a lifetime of allowing other peoples’ transgressions to blacken his soul damned him forever?

Aurora did not know.

She began to rock in the slow rhythmic way that brought on a trance. She rocked until well past midnight, but Button Dudley did not appear to her anymore.

T
he old ways
.

Three little words described the customs and practices, the omens and cures, the curses and superstitions, the mystery and the magic of all that was her mountain heritage.

Dara Elanor looked at her sister, Chandra Elanor, as she combed her hair and got ready for her date. Berth Carlisle was going to pick Chandra up at four.

“Where ya’ goin’, Chandra,” Dara asked. “Is Berth takin’ you any place special?”

“We’re going to his uncle’s,” Chandra said. “They’re havin’ a pig-pickin’ for Berth’s grandpap’s 77th birthday. Berth says they’ll be music ’n’ lots a beer. I cain’t wait.”

“Sounds like you’ll have a lot of fun,” said Dara.

“What you gonna do, tonight?” Chandra asked. “You ’n’ Granny gonna go stew up some bats heads ’n’ lizard guts ’n’ cats claws?”

“Chandra,” Dara said, “you know Granny’s not into that.”

“I wouldn’t know what that old witch is into,” Chandra said. “And I don’t want to. I’ll leave all that kind of healing hocus-pocus to you. Though for the life of me, I don’t know why you don’t find some nice boy and have some fun.

“It kills me, Dara, that you’re gonna end up a hermit in these backwoods, diggin’ roots ’n’ dryin’ herbs until you die. What kinda life is that? I’d die of boredom in less time than it takes an ant to crawl across the end of a pin.”

“Don’t be silly, Chandra,” Dara said. “The old ways are nothing to scoff at. I only wish you were half as interested in what Granny could teach you as you are in the fellahs. And what does Dougal think about Berth taking you to this cookout?”

“Who cares what he thinks,” Chandra said. “Dougal’s yesterday’s news. And as for the old ways, Dara, I’d rather learn about the real deal, not some stupid superstitions hatched by a bunch of ignorant hillbillies.”

“The real deal,” Dara said. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Chandra said.

“I can’t believe you’re dumpin’ Dougal,” said Dara. “He’s not good.”

“I am dumping him,” Chandra said, “because I’m tired of being taken for granted. Sometimes, the only reason Dougal had me around was so that I could be his gopher-maid.”

“His what?” Dara said.

“Chan, he’d say, go get me a beer. The truck’s gettin’ low on gas,” Chandra said. “Can you go ’n’ fill ’er up at Brinkley’s? Run into town ’n’ get me a burger, will you? Extra cheese and pickles. Lots of mayonnaise. And no ketchup. While you’re there, get me an order of fries, will you, hon?

“A gopher-maid.

“Pick up his room when Estill is on the war path that he never picks up after himself. Fix him a ham sandwich. All I do is work my butt off while he sits and fiddles with his banjo. When he’s not pickin’, he’s off in them woods huntin’ or doin’ who knows what.

“He scares me sometimes, Dara. He gets so mad. He wants to hit me, I know. But I have ways to keep him at bay. Still, who wants to always be wary of a werewolf like Dougal Orner. He’s so stuck on himself. It makes me sick.”

“You’re better off without him,” said Dara. “I never liked Dougal. He does have a mean streak. He’s disrespectful to Granny. Forget that. Dougal’s disrespectful to everybody! He makes my skin crawl. What you ever saw in him, I never could figure out.”

“He’s a great lover, though” Chandra said, giggling and spreading her hands wide to describe Dougal’s greatest feature. “It’s the only reason I hung around him for so long.”

“Estill’s a black witch,” Dara said.

“She is not,” Chandra said. “That’s just a rumor she let’s go ’round to keep people from meddlin’ in her and Dougal’s business. Estill’s really smart. She’s got a really good head on her shoulders. Too bad Dougal’s not more like her.”

“Whatever,” said Dara. “I really do hope you and Berth have a swell time.”

“I’d like to stay and chew the fat, Sis,” Chandra said, “but I gotta run. Berth’s pickin’ me up at the end of the dirt road.”

Chandra left the room with the grace and quickness of a young deer.

Dara wanted to yell to her sister to behave, but she knew that where Chandra was concerned, she’d be wasting her breath.