Sentinels (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Noah returned two days later as instructed—relieved upon learning that nobody else had been murdered during his absence. His duties for the day included an event he dreaded to attend, but volunteered nonetheless. On behalf of the Sheriff's Office he would pay respects to Robert Culliver's family for failing to protect him.

Culliver's widow, Doreen, layered the dirt path leading to her house with hay to lessen the messy footsteps people would leave as they came to say a prayer before her husband's corpse.

Brady Young spent the morning embalming Culliver's body in Doreen's parlor. Her friends kept her out of the house while the undertaker labored over the remains. Young dressed Culliver in the only suit he wore when he was alive and displayed the body in the cheapest pine box that Henderson's carpenter could nail.

Doreen had returned to see her husband neatly presented, hands clasped above his waist, in the coffin placed before the home's fireplace. This required the small dining room table to be repositioned and serve as the coffin's platform, and to clear up space so people could maneuver. She spent the time leading up to the wake covering the windows, picture frames and mirrors with thick black blankets, and stopping the hands on the small clock atop the fireplace mantel. She felt superstitious as the rest of them—anyone who saw a dead body's reflection would be the next to die. She even covered the front doorknob with black felt on the offhand chance it would reflect the corpse's visage.

The smell of assorted baked goods filled every crevice of the house, as most mourners gave the gracious widow food to get her through the days ahead. The kitchen became crowded to the point where the she had to place platters of bread, cakes, even a roasted chicken, on her bed.

Many candles illuminated the dim room. She kept the front door ajar so people could easily funnel in and breathe fresh air.

I didn't know Culliver had this many friends,
Noah Chandler thought as Wilbur trotted over hay flattened into the ground by previous visitors. A line of people waited in their Sunday bests to enter the home. They exited through the rear of Doreen's house to keep a smooth procession.

Noah didn't think the widow would feel comfort from a well-wisher sent by the same department that failed to protect her dead husband. He reasoned his presence would show respect and express sorrow for allowing Robert Culliver's murder to occur right under his protectors' noses. That's the least he could do.

Word spread that the wake would end around six o'clock. Noah timed his appearance to coincide with its conclusion. He didn't want a line of Klansmen lingering behind him. He knew most if not all of the people in attendance viewed him as a scalawag—then again, so was everyone else in the Sheriff's Office.

Noah anxiously bobbed on his feet, hands stuffed in his pockets, waiting for this tediousness to end. The line crept along.

He didn't know Robert Culliver. They were roughly the same age and grew up in the same town. They never schooled together. Noah's parents paid for a tutor to educate him and his siblings. The modest house he prepared to enter seemed the same size as the one Noah and Natalie occupied. Big enough to raise a small family, although the Cullivers had no children.

She's young still, maybe she'll meet someone.
Noah removed his hat and held it against his belly as he entered.

Doreen Culliver, dressed in black, sat in a lone chair centered in the house's parlor, a large room serving as both the dining and sitting room, with a kitchen area off to its side.

Noah's eyes adjusted from the sunlight to the room's relative darkness. The candlelight helped him focus on the widow Culliver holding the hands offered to her, accepting the hugs and kisses, and reciting rote “thank yous”. She kept her black hair in a bun, exposing her alabaster skin and blue eyes, sunken from crying. She forced smiles as people offered condolences. Some kneeled to pray on the undertaker's portable padded bench before the coffin.

Doreen glanced at Noah's immense frame obscuring daylight. Rather than turn away in disgust or stand and scream for him to leave—scenarios Noah expected—she inquisitively tilted her head and then returned to her role as grieving widow.

That wasn't so bad,
Noah thought while shuffling forward and stopping in time with the five people ahead of him.

I'm deeply sorry for your loss.
And he was. However little regard he held for Robert Culliver, he took no pleasure in seeing his crestfallen widow.

Not even any in-laws to comfort her.
Nobody sat next to her. Surely Culliver's parents would be at their own son's wake, unless they were dead too. A couple of women—he assumed fellow widows who couldn't give their Klansmen open casket funerals—checked on Doreen during breaks between mourners.

“I'm fine,” she'd always say. A few of her lady friends eyed Noah with contempt, and he could do nothing but take it.

The line dwindled to just him as the viewing neared its end. Noah felt at ease when his turn came.

“I am sorry for what happened to your husband.” He pressed his Stetson to his belly while extending his hand.

She embraced it with both of hers—her slender fingers the length of a child's in his meaty palm—and noticed the deputy star pinned to his shirt.

“I don't hold you responsible, sir.” Her soft voice conveyed sincerity. She gently shook his hand and made a request.

“If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question or two after people leave. It won't take but a few minutes.”

“Sure, I can do that.” Noah could not refuse any widow's plea. She probably wanted to learn whatever she could about her husband's murder. Noah knew not whether Clement had told her anything. Truth was Noah didn't have the best handle on what happened either—he wasn't prepared to say that masked men somehow commandeered the weather to electrocute her husband when they couldn't break into the jail.

“Feel free to wander the kitchen and nibble. I got more food than I know what to do with. Some of it's bound to spoil.”

“I can't do that.”

“Why not?”

Noah thought she'd politely accept his refusal. It didn't seem proper to avail himself of the food brought by others.

“Well, I mean, I didn't even bake you anything.”

She smiled.

“You don't look like the cooking kind so it don't surprise me. Please, I can't possibly eat it all myself. Got no family left to share it with. Well, a brother in New York, but he and Robert hated each other.”

“All right.” Noah turned to Culliver's casket. He believed he'd crush the padded bench if he kneeled on it, so he hovered instead.

Noah jogged his mind for an appropriate prayer but couldn't conjure anything befitting a man who would've been a mass murderer if he'd gotten his way.

Noah bowed his head.
I pray your wife finds peace in your absence.
He made the sign of the cross and sought out what smelled tastiest.

Would it be indecent to slice the first piece of blueberry pie?
He counted two of them, and an apple pie, too, cooling on the kitchen table tucked in the far corner of the house. Bread loafs, burlap sacks of vegetables and fruits, and jars of preserves filled the gaps. He didn't mean any disrespect when he put his hat back on—he wanted to cut the pie and had no place else to put it. He checked to see if Doreen watched him, but she was focused on the last stragglers that entered to offer condolences.

He pulled a knife from drawer, carved out a piece as discreetly as he could, slid a big wedge into his hand and greedily chomped—without first realizing he had no idea where Doreen kept the plates.

He poked around the kitchen while munching, his lips sloppy with purple globs, desperately looking for a dish as the pie's sticky goo dripped through his fingers to the floor. Not only was he fast taking on the appearance of slob, but now he was messing up a stranger's home. He took another bite and gave more urgency to his search.

Come on, not even a napkin?

He opened a hutch to find four plates, topped with four saucers that were topped with four bowls. Noah gripped the rim of the topmost plate and tried jiggling it out but the tower of saucers and bowls seemed glued to it. He kept eating as his fidgeted with the plate, and the stacked tableware acquiesced.

Finally!

He slipped out the dish only to realize he'd finished eating the rest of the piece. He looked back and forth from the plate to his messy hand.

“Can I have a slice?”

Noah blushed when he saw Doreen Culliver standing next to him.

“Looks to me like you could eat another,” she said.

Noah hurriedly chewed and swallowed the crust that remained in his mouth.

“Absolutely,” he said.

“Absolutely what? Absolutely I can have a slice or absolutely you could eat another piece?”

“Both, I suppose.”

She smiled at him.

“It's all right, let's get you cleaned.” She dipped a cloth napkin into a pitcher of drinking water she'd set on the kitchen table.

“Gimme your plate, I'll cut you another piece while you wash up.”

“I appreciate it.” He took the napkin, cleaned his hand and wiped his mouth, and thanked Doreen when she handed him a plate of blueberry pie and a fork.

“Would you mind if we ate outside on the porch?” Doreen motioned that the house was empty of guests. “I been in here all day and could use some sunlight.”

“By all means.”

Noah followed her and noticed she ignored looking at her dead husband before leaving the house.

“Please sit.” Doreen gestured to the front porch's table and four chairs.

They took seats across from each other and Noah didn't eat until his host took her first bite.

“If you don't mind me saying, you seem to be handling what happened better than I imagined,” Noah said.

“Robert getting killed? It was bound to happen sooner or later, what with him talking about hating the freedmen, looking for revenge. It's hard to love someone who lives his life hating—especially when you don't hate the same people.”

She separated a morsel with her fork and ate. Noah dug in.

“You must've known what he and those boys were up to. Did you try to stop him?”

“I think that's what's called a fool's errand,” she said. “There was no stopping him. Even if I really tried I might've ended up with a black eye. Wouldn't be the first time.”

Noah calmly placed his fork next to his plate. Doreen continued eating as if nothing had happened.

“How long he hit you for?”

“It's been a while. Couple a months ago was the last time.”

“No, I mean, how long did that all go on? Since you got married?”

“I met him after the war. We got hitched in '67. He didn't take losing too well. It only got worse when he took the job with the railroad and saw some of the freedmen doing what he did, and getting paid better money for it.”

“He beat you on and off for five years?”

“Not the entire five years, like, not every day.” She smiled at him, conveying what she'd said scores of time inside:
I'm fine
.

“Months would go by sometimes,” she said. “He'd be all apologetic and things would be all right for a time. Then he'd get three sheets to the wind and, well, you know how these men are.”

Noah retrieved his fork but Doreen's revelation sapped his appetite. He picked and prodded the blueberries while thinking of what to say.

“Then why were you crying in there? If you don't mind me asking.”

“I guess it's what's expected of me. I did love him once. I thought about the good times we had, not the bad. Maybe I was thinking about what could've been. I also must admit to being moved by all those people bringing me a gigantic feast. I suppose being exposed to such decency in there is what did it.”

Noah forced himself to eat.

“You wanted to ask me something?” he said.

“No.”

Noah furrowed his brow and his eyes twitched back and forth.

“You said you did inside.”

“I wasn't being honest with you. I just want company for a bit. I ain't had a decent conversation with a man in ages. I have a hard time trusting men. If I can't trust you, Noah, then I give up.”

“How do you know my name? I never introduced myself.”

“Church. We went to the same church when we were kids.”

“That was
years
ago. And I didn't go that often.”

“Unfortunately, that's true.”

“I swear I'd have remembered you, really,” Noah said.

“Maybe you never saw me. But I saw you. We were, what, twelve or thirteen at the time? I was always shy, standing behind my mama, looking away from people. You always seemed so respectful of others. I know your daddy's a big shot around Henderson. Girls in my circle all thought you were finer than a frog's hair split four ways.”

Noah blushed and held up his hand to show her the ring.

“I'm sorry but I'm taken.”

“I know it.”

“With all due respect, if you're looking for companionship, my wife and I just had baby—I'm gonna be preoccupied for a while.”

The proud papa told her about Jake and how everyone was faring.

“And even if we didn't have a baby, I don't think Natalie would appreciate me wanting to visit you—by myself, anyway.”

“She the jealous type?”

“I don't know and I don't care to find out.”

“I get that.” Doreen finished her pie and laid the fork on the plate. “So, I reckon I do have a question to ask you: What do I do now?”

Noah mulled it. “I'm not sure what you mean.”

“Starting my life over. Robert goes to the marble orchard tomorrow and then my life with him ends. I ain't got no children to look after. I wanted them. He didn't. I wanted to work, but he insisted on supporting the both of us.”