The Blood Ballad (12 page)

Several of my aunts and uncles still lived down there, including Uncle Ike and his daughter Phoebe.

Colin was unusually quiet as he sat next to me in the front seat. About ten minutes from Progress, he finally began to speak. “Do you ever look back and wonder what you should have done differently in your life?”

“Please tell me you're not divorcing my mother,” I said.

“God no. Jalena is the greatest thing that ever happened to me. The only good thing that ever happened to me,” he said.

“You know, good things don't just happen to people, Colin. You have to help them along sometimes. Which you did. If I remember correctly, you pursued my mother.”

“True,” he said.

“So what gives?” I asked, but I already had a pretty good idea what he was going to say.

“It's this blasted job,” he said. “I hate it.”

“I know that. Everybody knows that. So when your term is up, do something else.”

I glanced over and saw him look off at the rolling countryside and farmland. “It's not that simple,” he said. “The job I really want is taken.”

“Sheriff.”

“Yeah, and Mort's good at what he does,” he said. “I don't want to horn in on that.”

“Well, not to burst your bubble, but the townspeople like Mort, too. I'm not saying they didn't like you as sheriff, because they did, but Mort has endeared himself to us.”

“I know that,” he said. “So, even if I ran for the job, you're saying I might not win?”

“That's exactly what I'm saying.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“Why did you do it? Why did you run for mayor if you loved your job as sheriff?”

“I don't know,” he said. “That's what I've been trying to figure out. I think part of it was that Bill was such a lousy mayor for such a long time that I wanted to make a difference. Part of it was, maybe I just wanted to try something new. And maybe I was getting a little bored.”

“Bored?” I asked. I put on my blinker and got in the turn lane as my exit came up.

“Not bored as in there was nothing to do, just bored with it being the same old stuff to do,” he said.

“Well, you've made your bed now.”

“I know. I know. That's why I was asking the question about looking back on your life and doing things differently. Do you think this is normal? Do people second-guess their decisions all the time?”

“I think people second-guess their decisions some of the time. I think the people who second-guess themselves the most are either paranoid—”

“I'm not what you call paranoid,” he interjected.

I held my finger up. “Or they're the ones who know they either compromised what they believe in or made a decision based on the path of least resistance. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because those rarely ever work out.”

“You think that's what I did?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “In your case, I think you took a chance and it turned out poorly. So here's the real question. What do you do about it now?”

“Yeah,” he said, watching the cows in the fields go by.

*   *   *

Our first stop was the high school. It was a newer building sitting in a big meadow just on the outskirts of town. Their school colors were red and blue, which were represented in the banners hanging on all the light poles in the parking lot. “What are we doing here?” Colin asked.

“Yearbooks.”

He gave me a questioning glance.

“I just want to see who his classmates were. You know, sometimes those relationships last a lifetime. In a small town like theirs and ours, it's almost a given. I've spoken to a lot of people who haven't talked to their former classmates in years. But in smaller towns, it's more likely they will stay in touch and it's more likely they'll marry somebody from their school.”

“I didn't.”

“I know that. And I didn't, either. But unless somebody moves away and stays away from their small-town roots, the chances are more likely that they will keep their old acquaintances,” I said.

“You really do think of everything as one big genealogical chart, don't you?” he said.

“Yup,” I replied.

As soon as we entered the school, I was overwhelmed with that school smell. It was a completely unique and completely indescribable smell. I think that's because it was a combination of many things. “The thing with Clifton is that he didn't graduate from Progress High. According to Mort, his parents moved to New Kassel when Mort was about seventeen. So what is that, his junior year? I just want to check out who was in his class before he moved.”

The school secretary gave us guest passes and sent us on our way to the library. The only problem was, I couldn't remember what year Clifton Weaver was born. “Call Mort and ask him what year Clifton graduated from high school,” I said to Colin.

“My, aren't we bossy.”

I glanced through some of the yearbooks and found photographs of my dad and Aunt Sissy before Colin finally told me what year we were looking for. “Class of '52.” He hung up the phone and frowned. “Will they have the yearbooks back that far?”

“They should. The historical society has the yearbooks for all of the one-room schoolhouses, one of which my dad attended until eighth grade, and some of the smaller schools on the outskirts of the county. Around 1949, all the smaller schools within a twenty-mile radius consolidated into this one big school.”

“How do you know this stuff? I swear, you're just like this walking encyclopedia of completely useless information,” Colin said.

“My dad's family have lived in and around Progress for at least a hundred and fifty years. You get to know these things. Besides, I wouldn't exactly say it's useless information.”

I pulled out the yearbook for 1951, when Clifton would have been a junior. I made a photocopy of all the pages of Clifton's fellow classmates, then made copies of all the freshmen, sophomores, and seniors, too. In 1951, that totaled fifteen pages. “If it comes in handy, it's not useless knowledge.”

“Show-off,” he said.

Colin and I spent most of the remaining day in Progress, tracing down people who had died, moved, or were not at home. We got lucky on the second-to-last name on the list that Sheriff Mort had given us. A woman named Etta Chapin lived in a small white house, which I would almost have bet was built by the original owners, not by a construction company. It just had that handmade look to it—the same look that my grandparents' house had. The largest mimosa tree I'd ever seen grew right next to the house. I could just imagine how pretty it must be in June or July, when it bloomed. Right now, it was bare, save for the small seed pods that the wind hadn't jarred loose yet.

We knocked on the door and a woman around sixty years old answered. “Hi,” I said. “You don't know me, but I'm an acquaintance of your…” I looked at the paper. “Cousin. Clifton Weaver.”

“Yes?” she said.

“Are you Etta Chapin?”

She glanced at Colin nervously and then back at me. “Why?” Which meant yes.

“Have you been contacted about his death?”

The expression on her face changed, softened, and then morphed into curiosity. “Yes, another cousin of ours just called to tell me yesterday.”

“Well, I live in the same town as he did,” I said. “And I've been asked by the sheriff's department to ask his family some questions.” I reached in my purse and got out the formal letter from Mort saying that I was a consultant to his office.

“Questions about what?” she asked.

It was cold on her front porch. I stamped my feet together and said, “May we come in?”

“All right,” she said, although her eyes said no. “Can I get you something?”

“No, thank you, ma'am,” Colin said. “This will just take a few minutes of your time.”

“When was the last time you heard from Clifton?” I asked. Once we were standing inside, Colin flipped open a notebook and wrote down Etta's answers.

“Oh, Uncle George's funeral. Two years ago. That man lived to be ninety-seven. Oldest man in our family, Uncle George was,” she said.

“Two years ago,” I said, deflated. Chances were that anything Clifton had been involved in to get him killed had come about more recently. She most likely couldn't help us.

“How exactly are you related?” I asked.

“His mother and my father were brother and sister,” she said.

I asked a few more questions and really felt like I was wasting this lady's time, so I asked my last question. “Can you think of any reason why anybody would want to hurt Clifton?”

“No,” she said. “I was just tellin' that to my husband last night. How I couldn't understand how this could happen to Clif, of all people.”

“All right,” I said. “We won't bother you anymore.” But just as I turned to leave, I saw one of those embroidered samplers hanging on her wall—the type that give the names of both the husband and wife and the date they were married, and which are usually surrounded by lots of flowers and a set of wedding bells. The sampler read
MARTIN CHAPIN AND ETTA MORGAN, 25 JANUARY 1963.

Etta
Morgan
? “Mrs. Chapin,” I said, “your maiden name was Morgan?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“Are you by chance related to Scott Morgan?”

Colin gave me a quizzical look, but I ignored him.

“Why, yes,” she said and smiled. Clearly, she was proud of her connection. “He was my grandpa.”

“So … Clifton Weaver was the grandson of Scott Morgan, as well?”

“Yes, he was Miriam's son. Miriam married Clifton Adam Weaver.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said, a feeling of dread spreading throughout my chest. “Clifton Weaver was the son of Miriam Morgan, one of the fiddle players for the Morgan Family Players. Is that correct?”

She nodded her head. “Why, is there something wrong?”

“And which one was your father?”

“Cletis,” she said. “He never got into music much.”

“Ma'am, do you know a man named Glen Morgan?”

“Well, of course, he's Uncle Roscoe's son. Roscoe was on the young end. I think he was second to the youngest. At any rate, little Glen was born just a few years after I got married. Even though we're first cousins, we're a generation apart.”

The room spun. This had to mean something. This couldn't just be a coincidence.

“He's a talented one. Inherited all of our grandpa's musical ability. I hear he's writing a book on the family,” she said.

“Mrs. Chapin, do you know the name John Robert Keith?” I asked.

She glanced from me to Colin and back to me. She fiddled with her necklace and said, “Yes.”

“How do you know him?” I asked.

“Well, he was a neighbor to my grandparents. What has this got to do with poor Clifton?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “What do you remember about John Robert?”

“I remember my dad telling me that Johnny Keith was the best fiddle player west of the Mississippi. That's what. I've heard Johnny Keith play. I was just a kid. He was playing at the church for some dance fund-raiser. I just remember my dad leaning over and saying that he was the premier fiddle player of the valley, not Scott Morgan. He was adamant about that.”

I'm not sure why I reacted to this news the way I did, but tears rose to my eyes. I swallowed and fought them back. This all had to mean something. This could not be a coincidence, I thought again.

“Ma'am?” she said. “Are you all right?”

“John Robert Keith—Johnny Keith—was my grandpa,” I said.

Her hand covered her mouth, and after a long moment of watching me for some reaction or some hint of an unnamed emotion, she said, “You're that historian who lives up in New Kassel.”

“Yes,” I said and glanced at Colin. “This is—it's a small world.”

“It sure is,” she replied, but that was all she said. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. I couldn't help but feel that she was either hiding something or was keeping something to herself.

“Well, we won't bother you anymore,” I said. With that, Colin and I walked out to the car, just as a cold gust of wind stirred up the leaves in her front yard and flung them all about.

Once in the car, I sat there, numb.

“You want to explain to me what just happened?” Colin said.

I filled him in on what I could. Glen Morgan coming to me with the recording—which Colin already knew about—and my cousin Phoebe's discovery. And how I'd just met with Glen Morgan a few days ago and he never once mentioned that a cousin of his had just been brutally murdered. Why wouldn't he have at least mentioned it to me? Is that why he'd been acting so nervous when I first met him?

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“Maybe nothing,” I said. “But it certainly makes me question Glen's motives.”

“Why?”

“Well, isn't it strange that the very day he contacts me with this earthshaking discovery, his first cousin is horribly beaten and shot to death? I mean, so far as coincidences go, this has to be astronomical. Do the math. What are the odds? Like a bazillion to one.”

“Nothing is ever easy with you,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. “I didn't
do
anything!”

“Let's get back to New Kassel and discuss this with Mort,” he said.

“Right.” I just sat there looking at the small white cottage in front of us.

“What's wrong?”

“I don't think I can drive,” I said. “I'm pretty wigged.”

“Okay, I'll drive.” When Colin got where I'd been sitting, he got wedged between the steering wheel and the seat. “God, I hate midgets,” he said, reaching beneath his leg to release the seat and readjust it.

“No, you don't. My mother's shorter than I am,” I said.