Morgan James - Promise McNeal 02 - Quiet Killing (4 page)

I wondered the same thing. The bath helped, but he still smelled like wet garbage. “I don’t know. But he’s obviously homeless, and I owe him a better life for waking me up. I hate to think how bad it could have been if I’d slept through the fire. I mean I could have been sleeping for eternity.”

His patience exhausted, the coon dog jumped out of the tub and onto the tile floor, shaking water from his back as he landed. Susan and I both got a face slapping of dirty bath water and she grabbed two more towels for us. We followed him out into the great room where he plopped down on the rug in front of the fire. Smart dog. Best spot in the house.

“Okay, I’m having a little trouble switching gears from watching my barn burn before the crack of dawn
this morning. Tell me again why you want me to go snooping around over at your MaMa Allen’s.”

Susan made one last swipe at her wet face and hair and threw the towel into the utility room, landing a perfect shot into the open washer. “It’s like I said, before Daddy left for the Cattlemen’s Association meeting in Raleigh, he went over to MaMa Allen’s house to see if she needed anything. He said when he drove up, she was outside, hanging up wet laundry. He noticed there was a small pair of pink corduroy jeans and a Hello Kitty sweatshirt on the line. When he pointed to the clothes and asked her if she was taking in wash for the neighbors, she laughed and said something like, ‘Now, Daniel, you know I done told you one of my Tennessee cousins sent her granddaughter over here till she gets feeling better.’

“Daddy swears she’s never sad a word about a Tennessee cousin left alive enough to send a child over here, and she sure didn’t tell him the girl was here. And another thing, except for the clothes on the line and some coloring books on the kitchen table, Daddy didn’t see any sign a child was around. MaMa Allen said the girl was off playing, but he stayed about an hour and she didn’t show up. Now don’t you think that’s weird? Daddy’s afraid MaMa is so lonely over there she’s got herself a make believe child to keep her company. With you being a psychologist and all, we thought maybe you could go for a visit and see if you think poor old MaMa has come down with dementia, or something horrible like that.”

“And your MaMa Allen is what, eighty-three or -four?”

“That’s right.” Susan took my damp towel and made another perfect shot into the washer. This time, Cat was eating tuna kibbles from her bowl on the floor beside the washer. She jumped about a foot when the damp wad hit the metal tub with a thud. “Oh crap, sorry Cat,” Susan called out. Cat glared at her and assumed the classic feline—you will pay for that—look.

“I have a hard time keeping the family time frame straight. Mrs. Allen married your dad’s grandfather when Daniel’s dad was about sixteen, right? And she was just a few years older than Daniel’s dad? Young enough to be her new husband’s daughter. Did I get that right?”

“That’s right. Back then nobody cared about stuff like that. I think he and MaMa were happy together, but it was sad because he only lived about another five years after they married. His tractor turned over on him when he was plowing up a steep slope. Poor guy died trying to grow a few rows of corn. Both Mac and Daddy were babies when it happened, so they don’t remember him at all.”

“Mac being your dad’s first cousin, the Perry County Sheriff. I saw him yesterday, by the way. Is it my imagination, or is he so vain he gets his hair permed? If he’s trying to look as good as your dad, it isn’t working.”

Susan grimaced and put her head face down on the table. “Yuck. I don’t want to know, but I think you’re right about the permanent wave. Whatever. Perry County folks like him, and he does a pretty good job.”

“I’m sure he does. Your dad thinks so, anyway,” I said, and retrieved two Diet Cokes from the fridge.
We sat at the kitchen table in silence while I thought about Mrs. Allen and how devastating dementia can be for the person who suffers from it, and for the family who watches the disease erode the person they love.

“If your dad wanted me to go over to Mrs. Allen’s house, why didn’t he call and ask me?” Susan twisted her mouth left and right. I was sure she was thinking up a plausible story. “Come on Susan, tell the truth.”

“Oh, all right. Daddy actually told me not to ask you to go over there. He said he didn’t want to impose on you. But I know you won’t mind. Will you?”

I could believe that was true. Daniel and I were walking a tenuous line between being involved and not being involved, which meant he was angry with me at the moment because I’d sidestepped his marriage proposal the night before he left on his trip. He told me he would wait a month, and if at the end of that time I didn’t come back to him with an answer, he wouldn’t ask again. His attitude struck me as manipulative, like he was trying to back me into a corner to get the answer he wanted. One thing led to another. I shot off my big mouth, and he huffed out of the house. I wanted very much to repair the damage to our relationship, but I wouldn’t jump into marriage to say I’m sorry.

“Umm. Well, actually it isn’t an imposition because I wanted to talk to Mrs. Allen about something I found at the Perry County library.”

Susan lifted her eyebrows with interest. Some time ago, Fletcher Enloe dropped the bomb that he was sure my great-grandfather, January McNeal, had lived in Perry County in the early 1900s. At first, I resisted the allegation, sure that my intuition, of which I was overly proud, would alert me if I bought property in the same area that kin had once lived and died. My intuition suffered a major setback when I made several trips to the library genealogy room and learned Enloe was probably correct. I’d been procrastinating tracking down the facts until recently, when dreams of January McNeal began to play, and replay, through my already fitful sleep.

“There is a 1900 census report listing January McNeal, a farmer, living with his wife, Reba, and one child, on land he owned. I also found a sale in the land records showing January bought the land from Joab Sorley. It’s hard to tell, but it looks like Mrs. Allen’s property is old Sorley land. I wanted to talk to her about the Sorley/McNeal connection.”

Susan took a sip of her diet Coke. “She probably knows something about the land. But remember she came over here from Tennessee to marry Daddy’s granddad. She wasn’t born or raised up here.”

“How did they meet?”

Susan thought for a moment. “I think she told me they met at one of those revivals they used to have out at Foster Creek Camp. You know, people would come from all over to camp out in tents, meet old friends, and get salvation in between the pot luck suppers.”

“So that’s why they call it Foster Creek Camp. I thought maybe there was an old army or WPA camp out there. Sounds like you’re making fun of the old time revivals.”

“No, not really. I’d probably love going to one to hear the old music. Probably some of the best pickin’ around. It’s just that I like my religion a little more personal. No advertising. Shouting about Jesus isn’t my thing.”

My red coon dog visitor raised himself lazily from the rug with a yawn and stretched long and low. We looked his way. He shook his head; ears flapping like the sound of a leather belt being cracked. “So what are you going to name him? You have to do better than you did with the cat and her kittens. I can’t believe you still call her Cat, and him Junior. Good thing I took the little girl and gave her a proper name.”

I smiled at Susan’s chiding. “You call Mo-Jo a proper name?”

“It’s better than Junior.”

“So it is. I don’t know what to name him. Who knows if he’ll even stay around long enough to learn his name?” The dog lumbered over to where we sat and nudged my knee. I gave him the leftover slice of bacon from breakfast.

“Are you kidding? For bacon, he’ll stay. The big guy knows a sucker when he sees one.”

I stroked the soft fur between his eyes; he closed them in ecstasy. “Maybe something elegant, like Prince.”

“No offence, Miz P. but that dog is truly not elegant. You remember that old TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies? Didn’t they have a dog sort of like him?”

“Maybe. No, I think that dog was a bloodhound. Loved that show. Remember when Jethro signed up to take a correspondence course to become a brain
surgeon? Lord that was funny.” We both laughed and the coon dog eyed us suspiciously. “I still say he looks elegant. Sort of.”

“I told you, you have sucker written across your forehead. He’s not a Prince. Looks more like an Alfie to me.”

“Alfie?” The dog’s ears perked up. “Where did that come from?”

Susan shook her head and stood up to leave. “No idea. Sometimes the universe just speaks. Gotta go, or I’ll be late for class.”

As the door closed behind Susan, Alfie yawned again and resumed his position in front of the fire.

4

After three back-to-back sessions at the women’s shelter, I was ready to talk about something other than family violence. Mrs. Allen’s property was about a mile down the two lane road from mine, though probably less, if you went as the crow flies, up and over the laurel and oak knob that caused the paved road to curve sharply like an inch worm in motion. Her small, weathered green, frame house faced Fells Creek, just like mine, but it sat some two hundred feet uphill. A ribbon of smoke trailed upward from the red brick chimney breaking the rusted metal ridgeline. With its narrow front stoop tucked under an aged roof overhang, the house seemed more indigenous to the Western North Carolina Mountains than my newly built large cabin, with its extravagant wrap around porches and stone fireplaces.

A wind chime of worn silver spoons and chunks of colored glass clinked to life above the back door when I knocked. No answer. I knocked again, and called out, “Hello?”

“Hello yourself. Come round to the side. I’m aback here.”

I retreated from the back porch and followed the voice. Mrs. Allen was leaning uphill into the slope of the back yard, hoeing furiously at a circular burned out patch of grass. A single charred ladder-back chair lay upended in the middle of the circle like a burnt offering.

“Mrs. Allen, what in the world are you doing? Can I help you?”

“Why, Lordy no. I’m done here.” She straightened up to her full height of about my own five foot four and wiped soot from her forehead with her apron. “You can take this here hoe for me, if you would, whilst I put this old chair in the pump house.”

I took the proffered hoe and looked for somewhere to lean it against the house. “That’s fine. Just prop it any old place where I won’t step on it and knock a knot on my old head. It sure is good to see you, Miz Promise. Come on in and I’ll make us a cup of tea.” She shoved the burned chair through the door of the concrete well house and ushered me to the back door. “You know, I believe I can find a slice or two of pound cake left in the pantry. Let’s have us some with our tea. There ain’t anything better than a little sweet treat of an afternoon. Don’t you agree?”

Having survived raising a teenaged son, I knew that a constant patter of talk usually serves as a sleight of hand to distract. Mrs. Allen obviously didn’t want me asking about her burned chair or the odd coincidence that both of us had fires on the same day. I’d play nice and have tea, then ask questions.

With a wave of her hand, Mrs. Allen directed me to one of five kitchen chairs—all identical to the burned carcass now in the well house— grouped around a big oak table. I sat. She washed her hands at the kitchen sink, poured water from a simmering kettle on the stove into two mugs, and moved a bulbous brown squirrel cookie jar from the counter to face me at the table.

“Here you go. Just take that lid off and choose a tea flavor to suit you,” she said, and pulled out another chair, which was already occupied by a fluffy, neon blue, stuffed elephant. “Well, would you look-a- there, that girl’s done gone out to play without her elephant. She don’t hardly ever do that.”