The Blood Ballad (11 page)

“Toot's wife. She's so old now. When she found out I was working on this book, she gave me all of the old recordings that she had. Boxes of them. I haven't even made it through all of them yet. As I come to them, I put them on CD. When Phoebe came to me with the letters, I didn't believe her at first. Then the more I listened to the recordings, and I started finding these songs by your grandpa, the more I started to believe her.”

“So what do you want from me? Obviously, you're not just giving me all of this information for the heck of it.”

“Well, you're the family historian. You should be the one to have the new information to hand down to the next generations. Aside from that, I want you to do a quote for the book. Not only are you descended from the subject in question but you're a leading authority.”

I thought about it a moment. I knew he was playing to my ego, that elusive little thing that doesn't really exist, when you think about it. It's more like personality or opinion. It wasn't something I could actually take out and club to death with a hammer but the tug of it was so real. I found myself saying, “Okay, here's what I want. I want those original recordings analyzed by a technician—one that I choose. If he says they're authentic and they've not been doctored, fine. But if he's not thoroughly convinced of their authenticity, then when your exposé comes out, I'll deny everything.”

“Fair enough.”

“And the letters from Phoebe, I want those, too. And I'll have them analyzed.”

“I only have copies, Phoebe has the originals.”

My eyes rolled in the back of my head. “Oh great,” I muttered. That meant I'd have to go visit Phoebe. And not only would I have to visit her; I'd have to convince her to give me the original copies of the letters long enough to have them tested. A task that seemed overwhelmingly daunting, considering Phoebe's disposition.

“I'll call you to bring me the tapes and I'll take them to the person I want to analyze them,” I said.

“This is great,” he said. He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet. “This is why I wanted you involved. I knew you'd help. I knew you wouldn't just blow me off or accept it at face value. This is what I was hoping for.”

“Mr. Morgan, are you sure this is what you want to do? I doubt your family will like the offspring of John Robert laying claim to your kingdom.”

“Oh, I know,” he said. “They'll be furious, I'm sure. But I can't help it. It's the right thing to do. And … well, some of them have already gotten a whiff of what I'm doing. And they aren't happy. That's why time is of the essence. I've got to prove or disprove this before the whole family is in an uproar.”

“And it will sell more books, I'm sure.”

“That doesn't hurt,” he said and smiled.

At least he was honest.

Ten

On Thursday, everybody overslept. I have no idea why, but every now and then the little motor that keeps the family functioning just burps or runs out of gas or something and the whole damn house falls apart. We oversleep, or forget lunches, or miss the bus, or, like this Thursday, all three. Why have one screwup for the day when you get three for the price of one?

“How do all of the alarms in the house stop working on the same day?” Rudy asked as he jumped out of bed.

“Well, it all starts with you. Your alarm goes off, which wakes me up, and then I get Matthew up. Rachel, on the other hand, has her own alarm, but if she doesn't hear you and me get up, she's convinced that her alarm is broken or set wrong and waits for us to wake her up. Mary? Well … Mary doesn't get up until somebody goes in her room and screams at the top of their lungs, so we can't exactly count on her as backup.”

Rudy stared at me with that frightened look he gets every now and then when he realizes that he's living with the most unusual family in the world. He says nothing, though, because he knows if he does, I'll remind him that they sprang from his loins.

As Rudy was pulling on his pants, I said, “Oh, by the way. I think we should let Mary be Santa Lucia this year.” In Scandanavian countries, Santa Lucia Day is celebrated by having a young teenage girl dress in white and wear a wreath of candles on her head while offering sweet rolls to her guests. Every year, we have a parade on or around Santa Lucia Day, and we have a young girl from town lead the procession as Santa Lucia. I thought it would help Mary feel like a part of what I did in our town. Maybe all that was wrong with Mary was just jealousy about Rachel getting to work with me. It was one more thing that I was proud of Rachel for. So why not give a chance to Mary?

Rudy got two legs in one hole of his pants and flopped on the bed. “Wait, you're suggesting we let our darling, though clumsy, daughter put candles on her head?” he asked. He yanked the pants off, and they were inside out. He took the time to turn them right side out and then very carefully put a leg in each hole. “Her head will go up in flames, and you know it.”

“That's not necessarily true,” I said. I went to our bedroom door and yelled down the hall, “Girls, get out of bed. You're oversleeping!”

Rudy pulled his socks on, then his T-shirt, then his button-down shirt. He was getting that middle-aged paunch, not a lot, just enough to separate him from the boys. Which was fine by me. I like my men with meat on their bones. “You're crazy,” he said. “She doesn't know if she's coming or going half the time, Torie.”

“Well, we have to start somewhere. We have to let her think we have confidence in her.”

“Okay, but do we have to start with fire?”

“Rudy…”

“What?” he said. “We're talking about fire!”

“Your socks are mismatched and your T-shirt is on inside out.”

He glanced down at his feet, one sporting a black sock to match his pants and the other one a tan sock that didn't match anything. “I hate it when I oversleep.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm letting her be Santa Lucia.”

“What, I get no say-so?” he said.

As I walked out of the room, I heard him say, “Fine, I'll call and take out extra insurance coverage on her today!”

When we were all finally ready to leave, Mary stood by the corral, looking at the horses, while I shoved Matthew in the car. “Hey, Mary, let's go!”

She offered her hand up to Cutter, and he nuzzled it. Then she turned toward the car. “I still can't believe nobody's come for the other horse,” she said.

“I know.”

“If nobody comes, can we keep her?”

“I don't know the first thing about Percherons,” I said.

“Well, you didn't know anything about quarter horses, either, until you bought them.”

“This is true, but I don't know. I just hate to say the horse is ours and then a year from now some family comes to our door and says she's theirs, you know?”

She shrugged.

“We'll see. Let me talk to your dad about it.”

Mary got into the front seat. She rode shotgun because she quite often got sick in the backseat. Rachel used to claim that Mary was just faking it to get to sit up front, until Mary threw up a few times; then Rachel conceded. I suppose a vomit-free ride was worth giving up the front seat for.

“I wanted to ask you if you'd be Santa Lucia this year?” I said.

“Who do you want for Santa Lucia?” Rachel asked from the backseat.

“Mary.”

“What about me? I never got to be Santa Lucia!” Rachel said.

“Not everything's about you!” Mary shouted back.

“Whoa, wait, this is not intended to be a fight. I just want to know if you'll do it.”

Mary shrugged.

“Well, I need to know, because otherwise I'm going to ask Charity's niece.”

“Wendy?” she said, incredulous. “She doesn't need a bigger head than she's already got. I'll do it.”

“Great,” I said. “It's Saturday during the procession.”

“Okay,” she said.

I dropped all of them off at school, and for the first time in a while I felt as though I'd accomplished something, even if they were over an hour late. Since Geena Campbell was covering the Kendall House and my sister was covering the Gaheimer House, I decided to go to Fräulein Krista's Speishaus for breakfast. It's my favorite place to eat in New Kassel. I even have my own booth. Of course, I've never had to remove anybody from my booth; it just always seems to be empty when I go there. Thursday morning was no different.

I was about to tear into my waffle and hash browns, when Sheriff Mort and Colin stepped inside. It wasn't unusual for them to be seen together. They were friends, after all. Colin was the one who'd endorsed Mort for sheriff, but when they turned and walked toward me, an uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. The sheriff and mayor appeared to have business on their minds.

“Hey, Torie,” Colin said. “Can we sit down?”

“Depends,” I said. “What's up?”

“Your mom said you've discovered some old recordings of your grandpa's?” Colin said.

“Well, I didn't discover them. In fact, I've got a friend in Wisteria who's supposed to be listening to them today to authenticate them for me. It's going to take him awhile, I'm sure.”

“Who is it?” Colin asked.

“Leo King,” I said. “His band, the Granite County Fire Pickers, always plays at our music festivals. He told me if I ever needed anything to give him a call. So I did. Why?”

Colin shrugged. “Just curious. Just makin' conversation.”

“Why are you two really here?” I asked. I took a bite of hash browns and swallowed.

“We found blood and a bullet where I thought we'd find them,” Mort said. “Up on the ridge, but farther south. The bullet matches the one that came out of the tree Eleanore was sitting in.”

“And the blood?”

“We're still waiting on that. Ballistics happened to be free and clear when I sent off the bullets, so they got it done quickly. DNA lab is a bit more backed up. I should find out tomorrow or Saturday. But I'll bet next month's salary it's a match to our victim.”

I sighed heavily. “So most likely it wasn't hunters who shot at us.”

Mort shook his head in the negative. “Though it seems like you've gotten over being shot at fairly quickly,” he said.

“She's been shot at before,” Colin chimed in.

“It's not like I can identify the shooters,” I said. “They have to know that.”

“
They
are cold-blooded killers. They don't have to know anything,” Mort said.

A chill danced down my spine. “Well, it was so far away. There's no way they identified us, but I have a feeling this isn't all you wanted to tell me.”

Both of them shifted in their seats and finally Colin spoke. “Well, I thought it would be a good idea if Mort brought you in on this one, officially.”

“Officially” meant that Mort would consult me. I was a special consultant to the sheriff's office now. Mort had arranged that, not Colin. What I didn't understand was why Colin had to be the one to make this call.

“What's going on?” I asked, and shoved my perfectly good waffle to the side. It would get soggy now, so I figured I might as well just accept the fact that breakfast was ruined and that I'd just have to come back for lunch.

“Nothing,” Colin said. “Other than Clifton Weaver is from Progress, and you've got connections down there. So Mort would like you to go down to Progress and poke around.”

I looked at Mort. “Why didn't you just ask me? Why bring him into it?”

“Because I want to send Colin with you,” Mort said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean this was a very brutal attack and murder on a Granite County resident, and as far as I can tell, there was no reason for it. So far, everybody I've interviewed had no reason to hurt Weaver, no beef with him … and all have alibis. I would just feel better if you had somebody with you when you go poking your nose around in Progress.”

“Then why don't you go with me? Or send one of the deputies?”

“I've got one deputy out on sick leave and another on vacation, and there's just too much for me to do here. I can't leave,” Mort said.

“So, you came with Colin to smooth things over, thinking I would just agree to whatever you said.”

They exchanged nervous glances and then gave me sheepish grins. “Well, yeah,” Mort said. “But, Torie, I'm gonna say this in front of Colin. You call the shots. He's just there as muscle.”

“Wait. Don't you have some sort of mayoral duties to do or something?” I asked Colin.

“Golf game at noon and a small business matter at four that I can postpone until tomorrow.”

“Is he going to carry a gun?” I asked. “Brawn doesn't get you everywhere, you know.”

“Yes,” Colin said. “I have a permit. I'll bring it as backup only. I'll leave it in the car.”

Mort said nothing, just glanced at me to see if this would pass my approval.

“Because I've had to rescue him a few times even when he
was
armed,” I said.

“So I've heard,” Mort said.

“All right,” I said. “Let's do it today, while I've got coverage on both museums.”

Mort gave me notes on his investigation, including the names and addresses of Clifton Weaver's living relatives in Progress, Missouri. I paid for my breakfast and then Colin and I headed out of town.

Progress is one of those towns that—excuse me for saying so—progress has sort of passed by. It is about an hour due south of New Kassel. My dad grew up in the country surrounding Progress, but when he would talk of “going to town,” Progress was the town he was speaking of. It has a population of about twenty thousand now, but when my dad was a kid, it was probably about eight thousand. It boasts several fast-food restaurants, a school, a teeny tiny library, and—what else?—a Wal-Mart.