If Fried Chicken Could Fly (12 page)

I made a hasty departure from the library, steering Gram’s Volvo down the winding drive and out through the open gates. Sarabeth had managed to downplay Gram’s arrest, and the read-a-thon event hadn’t missed a beat. By the evening, word would spread that the arrest had been real, not an act for the event or the quickly approaching beginning of the tourist season. Missouri Anna was in real trouble and that would be something everyone would want to talk about.

The trip back to town was quick. I parked in front of Jake’s office, noticing that my parents’ car was parked across the street at the jail. I didn’t see my brother’s or Verna’s cars, but I couldn’t worry about that now. My parents would take care of whatever Gram needed for the time being.

I hurried over the wooden boardwalk and knocked on the old double door. Jake would be keeping the doors locked to ensure that everything was neat and tidy for our visitors. His bike was chained to a hitching post, so I knew he was either inside or close by. He’d be working on his poems or cleaning or working in the back of the building amid the town’s historical archives. I spent plenty of time in the front part of his office, but the archive area was foreign to me—documents back there were yellowish and smelled old or of dust, though it was unwise to mention the word
dust
to Jake. He took it personally.

“Betts,” someone said from my right. I turned to see the last person I ever wanted to see. Ophelia Buford was marching toward me, her high shoes clomping loudly on the wooden walkway.

“Opie,” I said in greeting. It was her nickname, and much to my constant surprise, she didn’t find it insulting. She was wearing something from the same era of Jerome Cowbender’s
living days, but hers was scant on material covering her chest. Her waist was cinched so tightly that I wondered how she could breathe.

Every year Ophelia played a different town character. She had the time. She was my age, and her family was rich—rich in ways like buying new cars every six months and traveling so much that it seemed they were away more than they were home. They lived in a big house on lots of land in the country, about ten minutes away from the cooking school. They called the property Tara. Every year we had to convince Ophelia that Scarlett O’Hara’s story had nothing to do with Broken Rope, and we just didn’t need her to dress up as her favorite character.

It looked like we weren’t going to have that problem this year. Ophelia’s wig was big and blond, not brunet, and her less-than-conservative dress was bright yellow, not the green of the ill-fated draperies she tried so frequently to duplicate.

“I heard about your gram, Betts,” she said as most of her came to a stop. Some things still jiggled, and it was difficult not to look at them.

“I’m sure it’ll all get figured out, Ophelia,” I said with a sigh. Conversations with Ophelia were full of passive-aggressive undertones, probably on both our parts, and it was required that I be at the top of my game to banter effectively. At the moment, I didn’t have it in me.

“Well, they found fingerprints I heard. Such a shame, such a shame. Your gram always has had something of a temper, you know.”

I didn’t know they’d found fingerprints. How did she know? But I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t going to let her bait me, not today, not right now.

The door swung open, and as Jake took in the sight of me and my rival, a big smile lit his face.

“Ophelia Buford, as I live and breathe, you are something to behold,” he said, thickening his southern drawl and winking. “Who are you?”

Ophelia had always liked Jake, and Jake had always tried to see the world from Opie’s eyes—eyes that had been tainted by too much money, not enough parental attention, and lots of rejection, including a heavy dose of it from my old boyfriend, Cliff Sebastian. If Opie’s and my relationship hadn’t been doomed from the first day of kindergarten when she bit me and I slapped her, we were certainly going to go down the wrong path when we were sixteen and Cliff dumped her for me.

“This year I’m Sally Swarthmore,” she said proudly, things still jiggling.

“Really?” Jake said. “The ax murderer?”

“Perhaps she was just misunderstood,” I said quietly, and raised an eyebrow at Jake.

“No, as a matter of fact, she wasn’t misunderstood in the least. She was a killer and she offed her family in a fit of rage that is legendary. If you’d pay attention to the history lessons, you’d know,” Jake said, raising his own eyebrow.

“Yes, the ax murderer,” Ophelia said proudly. “I just need to find the ax, which is where I’m headed now. I’m getting a real one at the hardware store. I got it approved—if I keep a safe distance from tourists. Although I wonder now, with the recent murder and everything, if they’ll take away my ax rights.”

I ignored her.

“Well, you look fabulous,” Jake said sincerely.

“Thank you,” she said to Jake. She turned to me. “Betts, I’m also sorry about Cliff’s return to Broken Rope. I know it has to be difficult for you. I had coffee with him yesterday and told him he should have let you know before he just showed up in that handsome uniform. He must not have thought it necessary.” She didn’t make the tsk-tsk noise, but I heard it in my head nonetheless.

I looked at her but still didn’t say anything. Jake touched my arm lightly to remind me of something I’d asked him to do years earlier. Whenever Opie was in the vicinity, I had an almost undeniable urge to beat her senseless. I’d come too close a couple times; in unladylike thuggish moments, I’d even pulled my fist back once or twice. Fortunately, either I’d stopped myself, or Jake had stopped me from finishing the punch. I’d asked him to pinch me lightly whenever she was around, so I would remember to remain nonviolent. It had worked pretty well, but at that moment I felt my fingers begin to curl into a fist.

“Well, TTFN,” Opie said with a wicked smile before she pushed past me and continued clumping and jiggling down the boardwalk.

“Ugh,” I said.

“Relax,” Jake said. “She does and says all that stuff just to get you fired up. You buy into it too easily. If you just didn’t act as though it bothered you, I’m sure she’d stop.”

“You really think that?”

Jake shrugged. “You took her boyfriend, Betts. That’s a pretty good reason to hold a grudge.”

“We were in high school.”

Jake shrugged again.

“And what was Cliff doing having coffee with her yesterday?”

Jake sighed. “Well, I suppose you won’t be able to act as though she doesn’t bug you until she really doesn’t.”

I took a deep, cleansing breath. I had a plateful of things to worry about already. I didn’t need to let Opie get under my skin.

“Jake, Gram’s been arrested. I need some history lessons.”

“Really? Oh, I’m so sorry. What did they find, and how are history lessons going to help?”

“I think they found her fingerprints on the bag over Everett’s head. It’ll make a pretty good circumstantial argument, but now I need to know more. Remember that gold piece you found on Jerome Cowbender’s grave?”

“The ‘doubloon’? Sure.”

“Jerome supposedly buried a gold treasure. I need to know as much as I possibly can about him and the treasure. I think it might have something to do with Everett’s death.”

Jake’s head tilted to the side and his eyebrows came together. “I don’t understand, Betts. What’s going on? Does an old buried treasure really have something to do with all of this?”

I hadn’t had time to think about it much, but I’d decided I was going to have to tell Jake about my close encounter with the dead kind. He was someone I could trust implicitly. If I didn’t tell him, I would have to operate in half-truths and elusiveness. I didn’t want to do that with my oldest, best, and most loyal friend. I needed for him to know. I needed his help. Even if he didn’t believe my story, he’d give me the benefit of the doubt no matter what.

“Jake, I need you to bear with me no matter what I tell you next, okay?”

“Always.”

“Jerome Cowbender is most definitely dead, but he and I have had some…contact recently. In fact, he, well, his ghost, and Gram have known each other for almost all her life.” I paused for Jake’s reaction. He was looking at me intensely, but I didn’t see any doubt. “He told me that Everett Morningside—and maybe Gram—was probably looking into the treasure, which might be why Everett was killed and why Gram’s life might be in danger. I need to try to find that treasure, or information about the treasure, or information about Jerome.” I sighed. “I guess I just need to know what there is to know. Maybe we’ll be able to find the right killer. Maybe we’ll find a treasure, but I highly doubt it. It’s all I’ve got—the gold piece on the tombstone and the ghost of Jerome Cowbender. It’s all pretty flimsy. I need more and I think you can help.”

Jake blinked, tilted his head again, and then blinked again. He opened his mouth and then shut it. He bit at his bottom lip and then stretched his neck.

“Come on in, Betts. Let’s see what we can figure out,” he finally said as he held the door wide open.

Once I was inside, Jake peered both directions down Main Street and then closed the door and locked it.

“I’ve always wondered about the ghosts of Broken Rope,” he said. “Oh, I’ve never seen one, but I presumed they were around. Come on, let’s see what we can find.”

I smiled, but I was also so relieved that I wanted to cry a little. Telling him had been the right thing to do. We’d figure this out together, no matter what grave we had to rattle.

Jake had organized Broken Rope’s archives in a way that was both neat and precise as well as mysterious. He claimed that he knew where everything was and that there was an alphabetical and by-date reference system, sort of. All I could see was a tall-ceilinged room that was full of stuff—neatly organized stuff but stuff nonetheless.

The room was bathed in a yellowish light, which was soothing and, he once told me, kind and gentle to old things. The chandelier that gave off the light was in itself a part of Broken Rope’s history. At one time it had hung in the saloon (back in the liquor-only days, no ice cream). Its big white glass dome had once covered a candle that didn’t illuminate much but made a great fire hazard. Somehow a bullet ricocheted off a piece of the chandelier and killed the saloon owner who was, at the time, a woman named Retta O’Brien.
She’d come to town, running from some bad choices, and hadn’t wanted to join the ranks of prostitution so she’d disguised herself as a man. She bought the saloon with a bank loan she wouldn’t have been given as a woman and ran the place as Rhett O’Brien. No one knew her secret until she was killed, and the coroner shared the surprise news. The chandelier was immediately looked upon as bad luck, so the next owner took it down and threw it away. Someone, with a vision for history, retrieved it and saved it in the back of a store. It had been discovered and given to the society about ten years ago. Jake wired it for electricity and now it hung with a sign attached: 1889—a ricochet off this chandelier killed Retta (Rhett) O’Brien in a gunfight over some no-good cheating fools playing a card game. card game unknown.

The room had other lighting, too; fluorescent lights hung from the high ceiling, but they weren’t as noticeable as the large chandelier in the middle.

A large table took up most of the spacious room. Jake called it his worktable. He had it constructed by a local woodworker and it was the biggest, smoothest table I’d ever seen. Jake said it cost him a fortune, but he wouldn’t tell exactly how much. It was surrounded by stools that fit comfortably underneath it when they weren’t in use. As particular as he was, if you didn’t push in your stool when you were done at the table, he’d scold you and make you turn around and take care of your mistake.

There were a couple of smallish windows high up on the back wall, but they were always closed. Jake said the windows caused him worry because of possible pollutants or whatever they might let into the room. They weren’t big enough
for an adult to fit through, but if a small child were brave or stupid enough to climb a ladder up the outside wall, they might be able to fit and make their way inside. But once inside, they would be greeted by packed shelves and file cabinets as the only methods of making it to the ground. The climb down would be precarious at best and result in a certain broken bone or two at worst. There was also a back door—a steel security door with three deadbolts. Fire code dictated that he had to have the door, but Jake wasn’t going to make it easy for anyone to get through it.

Between Verna’s genealogy work and Jake’s innate curiosity, the two of them had become good friends, sharing things about dead people that had never tripped my trigger. Verna had spent many hours with Jake in the archive room as they pored over things that were hard to decipher or understand. But I’d never spent a lot of time in the room or listened closely when Jake spoke about what was on the shelves or in the file cabinets. I’d never had much interest in the history of Broken Rope. Our history was so much a part of our present day that once I listened to the stories we shared with the tourists, I didn’t have much desire to pay attention to something new.