Unknown (29 page)

Sarah thanked him profusely and motioned for Becca to get ready to go. 'We don't want to take up any more of your time, Mr Weaver. We really do 'predate your help, 'predate you letting us come out here like this.'

'I'm just sorry we didn't find it', repeated the farmer.

'So am I', agreed Sarah sincerely.

'Sarah', said Becca, 'we got to get going, if we 're gone get to work on time. We got to go by the house and let you change them pants.'

Sarah nodded. The two women got into the car and drove off, Sarah and Becca both waving out the window to the farmer standing forlornly in his barnyard.

'What does it mean?' asked Becca: 'What does it mean that you couldn't find it?'

it means it's not there any more', said Sarah simply, it means it got somewhere else.'

'How?'

'I don't know. Mr Weaver would have said if there had been anybody else out here going through the pen. That man Mr Emmons may not have cared much for us yesterday afternoon, but I think he would have told us if he had got hold of it.'

'I bet if he found it, he'd keep it', said Becca. 'He looks like the type.'

'You think we ought to stop at his store and ask?' Emmons' store would be coming up on the left in just another mile or so.

Becca looked at her watch. 'We can stop and get a drink or something. Feels like it's noontime to me, I been up so long this— morning, and it's jus-: seven-thirty. But we got to hurry.'

They did step, and Mr Emmons behind the counter provided them with bottles of soda and the information that he had not found anything in the mud that afternoon before. 'I didn't step foot in there, and them boys didn't either. Didn't want to get all that mud and blood on my boots and cuffs. Don't like to go trampling on the scenes of murder anyway. Bad luck.'

Becca nodded her sympathy with this opinion.

Back in the car, headed for Pine Cone, Becca and Sarah agreed that they believed him. He might have picked up a double-barrelled shotgun if he had found it on the ground out at the Weavers', but what would he do with a piece of jewellery? Becca had noted that the man was not wearing a wedding ring, and he didn't even have a wife to give the thing to.

'So where is it?' said Becca. At last, she was convinced herself that there was something terribly strange about the amulet. Concrete information had been received, not through Sarah, but directly. Becca had heard Jack Weaver say that his wife had the amulet, that it fell into the mud, that no one had taken it out of the mud. But it wasn't there, and that was inexplicable. And Becca did not like to have the inexplicable so close at hand.

'I don't know who's got it', said Sarah. 'It's got beyond me, I think. I can't figure it out. And I don't know where to go from here.'

'I know what', said Becca, iet's you and me think about it on the Sine this morning, and see if we can't come up with something by dinnertime. Maybe by then we'll have thought of something.'

Sarah laughed, and Becca asked her why.

'Because', said Sarah, 'you said yesterday afternoon that you didn't believe in any of this.'

'Still don't', said Becca curtly, 'but I'll do anything that looks like it'll make Jo Howell mad.'

'That's not all though, is it?' said Sarah seriously.

Becca shook her head. 'No, it's not', said Becca. 'I listened to that poor man talk this morning, talking about Merle Weaver. Now I don't remember her too well, but she was always sweet to me, I do remember that. What happened ought not to have happened, and I'm just sick about it. That man went through what I hope I never have to go through in my life, and I don't want to hear of it happening again.'

Sarah said nothing, but she knew that now, in whatever she proposed, Becca Blair was sure to assist her.

All that morning, Sarah hardly saw the three screws before her. Her thoughts were confused and undirected. To begin with, she was upset because she had not been able to find the amulet. That meant either it was still in the mud, or else that it had already moved on to its next victim. There was no doubt that Merle Weaver had got hold of the amulet. Jack Weaver had described it roughly, but well enough for Sarah to equate it with the piece that she had passed from Jo Howell's hands into those of Larry Coppage. If only she could see the thing again! It was infuriating that she was always a step or two behind it. She dreaded finding out who had it now, dreaded stumbling over another corpse in Pine Cone.

But she was also relieved by having Becca with her, backing her up. It made it much easier to deal with the whole situation now that there was someone who sympathised with her. Neither of them, when it came dowr. to it, could credit the amulet with the twelve Pine Cone deaths. There had to be some explanation behind it, some reason or sequence of events that they simply hadn't the imagination or brains to reason out for themselves. Maybe when they got hold of the thing themselves they would be able to make everything clear. But until that time, it was an enormous reassurance that Becca, at least, would not make fun of her, would take her part against Jo and Dean, and if necessary, against the rest of Pine Cone.

The two women smiled at one another many times over the partition, and were very anxious to talk with one another, though when the noon break came, both had to confess that they had no new ideas.

'I thought about it till my eyes rolled', said Becca, 'and I can't make heads or tails of it. What I did start to think about, though, was Jo Howell. I mean, you saw her give the thing to Larry Coppage, and we think that the thing had something to do with everybody dying. But what we don't know is how much Jo Howell knew. It's possible she didn't know anything about it; it's possible that she was just giving him a present like she said she was, and she just gave him a necklace that was unlucky,
real
unlucky. Or it could be she just wanted to get back at Larry Coppage, and wanted him to have a car wreck and get his arm broke or something, and wasn't even thinking about Rachel and the kids and all them other people. She may not have wanted all them people to die, but once she gave the thing away she couldn't control it any more.' Becca sighed in perplexity; she did not like to defend Josephine Howell, even by hypothesis.

Sarah considered this, and realised that Becca was right. It was possible that Jo Howell was not so culpable as she thought. But no matter the extent of the woman's guilt, it was still imperative that they get the amulet back and destroy it. ' 'Cause when she found out it was killing all these other people, she was surprised, I think. I would tell her about it, and it was like she didn't expect to hear it. And that means she can't control it. And that still means we got to get it back.'

'Maybe if we knew how it worked. Maybe if she toid you how-it worked, Sarah, we could find out how to find it and stop it. Maybe youcan talk Jo into telling you about it.'

'I'll try', said Sarah. 'I'll try anything, but I don't think she will. She won't admit anything about it, and keeps saying it was bumed up in the Coppage house. She won't admit it, 'cause if she did, then she would be responsible.'

'And where'd she
tell
you she got it?' asked Becca.

'Montgomery Ward catalogue', replied Sarah, 'but I just bet she made that up.'

'Well', said Becca, 'when you and I get home this evening, we ought to go through them catalogues - I never throw anything out like that - and see if we can find a picture of it. I don't know what good it'll do us even if we do find it, except to tell us how much she put out for it, 'cause it's doubtful if the catalogue is gone say something like: "Comes in black and gold only. Good for getting rid of people you don't like." '

Sarah laughed; both women laughed, and then spent the remainder of their lunch hour together carefully talking of things that weren't so unsettling.

The back room of Morris Emmons' country store on the Pine Cone road was large, squarish, and low-ceilinged. The wails were roughhewn wood, one with shelves attached at every height, another with hooks for the hanging of carcasses. MoTe hooks were set in the crossbeams of the ceiling. Now the room - chill but perhaps not so cold as it ought to be for the preserving of meat - was burdened with the slaughtered carcasses of Jack Weaver's hogs and sows. They hung from the back set of hooks in two rows against the back wall, stalagtites of livid pink flesh. The heads of the animals were stuck in a square pattern, four down and five across on hooks in a side wall; they were to be picked up soon by a black butcher whose clientele were much taken with head cheese and certain soups that were best made with the head of a pig.

Late in the morning, Morris Emmons entered this back room in the company of two farmers - hard, thi n men, poor and dirty, with evil smiles, and great curiosity to see the animals that had killed Merle Weaver. The two farmers, Jim Coltrane and Mai Homans, had married sisters and their farms were adjoining. They got drunk together, they played practical jokes together, and they banded together in general to protect themselves against the onslaught of their wives. Mai Homans was the senior of the two farmers, and though it is difficult to judge such things, was probably the sneakier of the two - though Jim Coltrane, from inclination and long practice, was acquiescent in anything that the other suggested or opined.

'Which one of 'em was it got Miz Weaver, Morris?' said Mai, with a wicked smile. Peculiar delight flashed in his eyes. His brother-in-law laughed conspiratorially.

Morris pointed vaguely towards the heads on the wall; they looked like the trophies of a cowardly hunter. 'That one right there', he said, 'the mean-looking one.'

"They all look alike to me', said Jim, 'which one you talking about? All hogs look mean to me. You know what I mean, Mai?'

Morris walked over to the wall and pointed to the head in the lower left comer, it was this one', he said, and nodded significantly.

Mai had moved over behind him, and he placed his hand over the snout of another glassy-eyed pig. 'You sure it wasn't this one, Morris?' Mai and Jim laughed boisterously at this, which they considered to be a fine joke. 'Sure looks meaner to me...' added Mai, and the two fanners erupted into more unpleasant laughter.

'Naaaah', said Jim, i think it was
this one
!' And he stuck his finger right into the eye of yet another pig's head. The eye burst and fluid poured down the snout and over Jim's hand. He wiped his fingers off on his trousers, but did not stop laughing.

'Yep', said Mai, 'I think Jim's right, this one looks the meanest to me, it must have been this one that done away with poor Miz Weaver.'

Morris Emmons was patient through this teasing, and when the two brothers-in-law had -quit their snickering, he said, 'That's not the one This is the one, and I tell you how I know. 'Cause Jack Weaver shot the sow that got his wife, and this is the only one that was already dead when we got out there.' Again he pointed to the sow's head in the lower left-hand corner.

The two farmers shook their heads seriously, and disputed.

With a little anger, Morris Emmons then said, 'Look here, you two, you can still see the woman's blood on the snout here!' He pointed to the two little streams of dried blood that could be discerned through the bristles round the snout of the animal.

That's hog blood, Morris, you can't fool us!' cried Mai.

'Hog blood! Hog blood!' Jim echoed, with choking laughter.

'No, it ain't!' shouted Morris Emmons, in indignant reply. These two men were getting on his nerves. They would talk this kind of nonsense throughout the day; they could maintain a falsehood through months of ribbing, just for the hell of it - and Morris Emmons didn't like to be made a fool of. 'Damn it!' he cried, 'you just put your hand up there, and look at it, you touch it, that's real human blood.'

'Women's blood', snickered Jim.

Morris Emmons reached out and touched the snout of Louise, the hog that had killed Merle Weaver.

'You don't believe me', he said, 'so I'm gone open her snout, and I bet you she's still got part of Merle Weaver's throat in there. And I'm gone give it to you, and you can take it to the funeral, and lay it in the coffin with the rest of her body! You can take her throat away with you, you hear me, Mai Homans!' Mai and Jim laughed again, uproariously, at Morris Ernmons' excitement and anger.

Morris Emmons pried open the mouth of the decapitated sow; ligaments in the jaw were torn apart, and the mouth fell suddenly open. A piece of jewellery on a chain fell out into Morris Emmons' hands.

The two farmers drew back in surprise, and both cried, 'Heeeey!'

'Morris, you son-of-a-bitch!' cried Mai Homans, very much rattled by the effect, at once bizarre, surprising, and uncanny, of the amulet dropping out of the pig's mouth. 'Morris, you put that thing in there!'

Morris was as amazed as the two farmers. He turned the amulet over in his hand. 'No, I didn't', he protested. 'I didn't know it was in there!'

The three men stared a few moments at the piece of jewellery.

'Miz Weaver must have had that thing 'round her neck, and the hog just tore it off', said Jim.

Mai Homans shivered a little to let off superstitious steam, and then jocularly remarked, 'Hog must've liked jewellery.'

Jim and Morris Emmons laughed a little nervously, but were obviously glad that the incident was going to be taken lightly.