Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing (14 page)

“Shhh. Don’t. Besides, I’m sure Fletcher will tell us all for the next twenty years that he told me not to go up there, and I was too bullheaded to listen.”

There was enough moonlight to see Daniel’s face relaxing. “No way. Who in the world would ever say Promise McNeal is bullheaded?”

“Who indeed? You want me to get up and make some coffee?”

“No. I don’t want coffee.”

Was I hearing a slight hesitation in his voice? “Then what do you want, Mr. Allen? You know it’s the middle of the night, and you’re in a lady’s bedroom.”

“What I want is some of everything. But for tonight, how about I just lie down here beside you. Hold you while you get some rest? I’ll even sing you a lullaby.”

How did I get so lucky? I nestled down under the comforter with Daniel’s tall body cradling me, and his clean soap smell soothing me with every breath I took. His lips brushed against my ear as he sang, “…There’s a truth in your eyes saying’ you’ll never leave me.” That Alison Krauss song again.

What a coincidence. If you believe in coincidences.

13

The aroma of sizzling bacon brought me out of a light sleep and into the kitchen. Daniel was standing at the stove; his dark curls still damp from a shower, a day’s graying stubble on his face. Alfie was standing guard beside him. “It’s a good thing you got up. This dog of yours is begging all the bacon. Five more minutes and we’d be eating only toast with our eggs.”

I poured a cup of coffee and gave Alfie a rub behind his pendulous ears. Daniel turned. “Don’t I get a rub? I’m the one doing the cooking.”

“For you, a kiss.” I stretched up and kissed him lightly on his scratchy cheek.

“Not much of a kiss,” he grumbled.

“That’s the best I can do before I have my coffee. Susan gone?”

“Yeah. She went on in to open Granny’s. You all right this morning?”

I busied myself with pouring Purina Little Bites into Alfie’s bowl while deciding if I was indeed, all right. The hound turned up his nose and steadied his
position beside Daniel at the bacon service center. “I’m okay. Or I will be. Just need some time and distance from yesterday. Thanks for last night.” Daniel smiled. I smiled back, wondering at the mystery of how his eyes light up when he smiles. “One more piece, Alfie, and that’s it. The way you love bacon, Daniel needs to be raising pigs and not cows.”

Alfie responded with a bark and loped to the door to be let out. When I opened the door, the subject of his barking stood on the porch, right hand poised to knock, left hand holding his hat, and his always-running-for-office smile camera ready. “Hey Sheriff Mac. I didn’t hear you drive up. Come on in. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee.”

Daniel waved a spatula hello to his cousin and then took up the last of the bacon to drain. “No thanks, I already had me a free cup of your fancy Don Pablo’s Colombian down at Granny’s on my way out. Susan was looking extra chipper this morning.”

Daniel poured himself coffee. “Yeah, she’s on a roll with a lulu of an idea she’s trying to sell Promise on.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s really trying to sell me on the restaurant thing, but we did talk about the possibility.”

Daniel’s face clouded. “Doesn’t sound like you’re hot on the idea.”

“Well, maybe. Let’s talk about it later. I imagine Sheriff Mac came about other business this morning.”

The turkey-brown trooper’s hat, with the gold sheriff’s shield pinned up front like a warning headlight, went back on Mac’s head. He was converting to all business. “Fact is, I did. First off, bring your coffee
outside and tell me about that little fire you had. The one you failed to report to the proper authorities.”

Fletcher Enloe, wearing his familiar scowl, was letting himself out of the goat yard. Mac called to him. “Morning Fletcher. What you got there?”

Daniel and I rolled eyes at each other, knowing Mac’s question would no doubt be the perfect straight line for one of my neighbor’s caustic retorts.

Fletcher did not disappoint. “What the hell you think I got in a milk bucket, Mr. College Education, a pack of squirrels?”

Mac had experience with Fletcher. He volleyed back, “It was only a neighborly way to start a civil conversation with you, Fletcher. Should’ve known it wouldn’t work on the likes of you.”

“Save your conversations for when you’re pumping hands on the town square trying to get folks to let you keep our cushy job for another four years.”

“Fletcher, you got no respect for the law. You know that?”

“Course I do. I just knowed you since you was a boy, and that makes it hard to get all-upright about you being sheriff. There’s been better, and there’s been worse men stood for that job in Perry County.”

“Well, that’s one thing we agree on.”

That remark seemed to call a truce between the two men. Daniel extended his hand to Fletcher. “Good to see you Fletcher. I appreciate what you did yesterday.” Fletcher nodded, saying nothing. He likes Daniel.

Hoping the coast was clear; I stepped forward and spoke to Fletcher. “Thanks for milking Minnie. By the
weight of the bucket, you must have gotten over a gallon this morning.”

“I did. I’ll bring you some once I get it strained and cooled down.”

Mac unwisely engaged Fletcher again. “How come you milking Miz Promise’s goat?”

Fletcher gave me, and then Mac, a look that probably curdled the milk. “Cause she don’t know what the Sam Hill she’s doing. Can’t never get the milk to come down right. Makes Minnie nervous. You ask me, she’d be better off going on back down to ‘Lanta where she came from. If you ain’t got no more useless questions, I’m off to home.” He walked past us toward the pine thicket that separates our property, leaving behind the just washed smell and starchy sound of his tan, knife creased work pants and shirt. Just short of the pines, Fletcher turned back to us. “One more thing, city girl. I told you not to go up on that mountain by yourself, and you see now what happened. I’m telling you again. Stay off my mountain. You hear me girl?”

My toes curled in my L.L. Bean loafers. How dare that old man humiliate me like that, treat me like a child? With great effort, I breathed in and out, remembered yesterday afternoon, and answered, “Yes, I hear you, Mr. Enloe.”

The three of us stood silently until Fletcher was out of earshot. Mac was the first to speak. “Poor old sod, he probably woke up this morning realizing he’d had to kill a man yesterday. I been there. It ain’t an easy row to hoe.”

Mac’s sensitivity to Fletcher surprised me. I didn’t think he had it in him. Daniel was having a little trouble
connecting the dots. “So you’re thinking Fletcher is grumpy with Promise because he blames her for having to shoot that guy?”

“Well, something like that. Don’t you see how that could happen?”

Daniel laughed. “I can see it, except Fletcher usually treats Promise like that. Seems to like her and not like her at the same time.”

“I hear you.” Mac puckered his lips into a playful smirk. “Fletcher does tend to have a way with the women. You know, when Mrs. Enloe was still alive, bless her heart, I had to go over there more than once when she’d lock the surly bastard out of the house on account of his meanness. She loved the old man, that’s for sure, but it’s like she told me, even she had a boiling over point with Fletcher. And you probably remember Fletcher has a daughter about Promise’s age. Rosalie Snyder– lives over in Marshall. Remember she married that guy from Chicago who came down here with the power company. Boy, it got all over Fletcher—her marrying a man from away, and all. Anyway, Fletcher and Rosalie had a knock down drag out when Mrs. Enloe first took sick with cancer. I hear they haven’t spoke since, not even at the funeral.”

All of this was interesting gossip, but a bothersome memory was unfolding in the back of my mind. “Mac, what you said about Fletcher—poor old sod. That reminds me of a comment the Georgia convict made. Something about not seeing any hikers since the “peckerwood” he’d seen on the trail the day before. I think he was talking about finding Shane Long’s body.”

Mac cut his eyes at Daniel, and I noticed a look of familiarity pass between them. They were both thinking the same thing about me. I just didn’t know what that
thing
was. Daniel raked his hands through his hair and took a step closer to me. “All right now Promise, I can hear your mind churning. What are you getting at?”

“What’s bothering me is this: if the Georgia man killed Shane Long, why tell me about seeing him. Saying he’d seen a “peckerwood” on the trail seemed like a casual remark for him to make, as though Shane’s death wasn’t related to him. Like he thought Shane fell down, hit his head, and died. If you’d killed someone, I don’t think you’d refer to them as some peckerwood you’d found n the trail?”

Mac perked up, interested. “What do you mean,
if
he killed Long? My money’s on him sure enough. He walked off the prison work detail. They got witnesses down in Georgia say he killed the convenience store clerk. Kill once, kill twice. You don’t worry about all that. The state boys and my deputies are hunting all over the area where Shane was killed. We’ll find evidence to tie that Georgia man, or somebody, to the killing. I guarantee that. And in the meantime, I think Daniel would agree with me that you need to take it easy, what with that bump on your head, and let us professionals do our jobs.”

Mac was talking to me just like Fletcher Enloe. What is it with these Perry County men? “No offense, Sheriff Mac, but you professionals weren’t up on the mountain with the Georgia man.”

Both men grimaced. It was Daniel who tried to placate me. “I guess you got us there. We didn’t talk to him. And he didn’t threaten to kill us. But why are you so curious about the Shane Long business anyway?”

“Daniel, I met with Shane on the day he was killed. He left my house and rode his motorcycle over there to get his head bashed in by someone. I just want to know the whole story, that’s all.” I could hear my voice jumping up an octave. I was wound as tight as Mrs. Allen’s cuckoo clock. “And another thing that’s bugging me: what was so interesting that Shane Long took off on a work day to hike up Fire Mountain? He was a local boy. He must have roamed all over the county at one time or another. Why choose that day to hike? And with a back pack…why would he take a pack on a short hike?”

“A lot of people carry a backpack, even for a short hike. Don’t they Mac?”

Mac opened his mouth to agree with Daniel. I interrupted. “And what exactly was in his backpack?”

“Now Promise, you know I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation with you. Let’s get off this subject and you tell me about the hay barn fire.”

“The barn caught fire and burned. If it was vandals, I didn’t see them. End of story. Fletcher went through the backpack. I bet he remembers what was in there.”

Mac shuffled his right boot in the dirt a few times and looked at Daniel for help. Daniel threw up his hands. “I can’t help you cousin,” he said. “You might as well tell her, ‘cause I’m here to testify, she won’t give up.”

“Oh all right. But you have to swear you’ll stay out of my investigation. Agreed?”

“Agreed.” I think my fingers were crossed behind my back.

“Mac ticked off the items found in Shane’s pack: three granola bar wrappers, an empty water bottle, one heavy duty, long-neck flashlight, four D- size batteries, a torn piece of a topo map…”

“What’s a topo map?”

Mac frowned. Daniel answered. “It’s a map showing elevations. Instead of roads and highways, it shows where the ridges, flat spots, mountain slopes, and that kind of stuff are located. Also shows how high a piece of ground is located above sea level. You know, like Big Top Mountain is 3,200 feet above sea level.”