The Rosewood Casket (22 page)

“But why would they do that to a family who has been here nigh on forever?”

Frank Whitescarver shook his head and sighed. “I gave up asking why when the government has a hand in things,” he said sadly. “I’m just trying to help you folks out of a mess here. But you sit down and talk it over with the family, then give me a call. I’ll work with you any way I can. That’s a promise.”

*   *   *

Spencer Arrowood had called his mother to see if she needed anything. If he had to go out on a non-urgent errand, he generally stopped by the market on his way back, and took her a loaf of bread or a quart of milk, in order to save her a trip. This time, though, instead of reciting a grocery order, Jane Arrowood had said, “Nora Bonesteel said to tell you she’s here.”

Spencer swore under his breath. He had the box on the desk in front of him, and he was getting ready to drive up Ashe Mountain to ask the old woman about it—and now, here she was, visiting his mother, and sending word to him about where he could find her, as if she’d been expecting him. “Tell her I’m on my way over,” he said.

Jane Arrowood replied, “Yes, dear. I’m fixing you some lunch. Got it on the stove.”

Spencer hung up the phone, and swore again—out loud this time.

“Something wrong?” asked Jennaleigh. She was new as a dispatcher, and she seemed to think that anytime anybody got angry, it was her fault.

Spencer managed to smile. “Just my mama, Jennaleigh,” he said. “You know how mothers are. And I was wishing Martha Ayers was back from Morristown, so I could stick her with the task of finding out about this box. You hire a female deputy to handle the sticky emotional situations, and where is she when you need her?”

“Getting trained at Walters State Community College,” said Jennaleigh, as if it had been a quiz. “You sent her there yourself.”

“I know. I just didn’t figure on needing her quite so soon.”

“Well, she can’t come back, can she? I think Deputy LeDonne said that if people who take the course miss any days of the course, they have to start all over again.”

“It’s all right. I want her to finish the training. I’m just grousing, that’s all.” Spencer Arrowood tucked the box under his arm. “I can handle this,” he told the dispatcher. “All I have to do is question an old lady I’ve known all my life. It’s not like the O.K. Corral, for god’s sake!”

“Bet you wish it was,” said Jennaleigh, but she took care to be out of earshot when she said it.

*   *   *

Charles Martin Stargill stood beside his father’s hospital bed, feeling an awkwardness that never came to him when he faced a thousand people from a dark stage. He had set the Martin guitar in a corner of the room, and he glanced at it now, as if it could tell him what to say. “Hello, Daddy,” he said softly.

The old man lay there, frowning slightly in his oblivion. Charles Martin wondered if pain could reach down into a coma and make itself felt, even through all the medication, or if bad dreams troubled even the deepest sleepers.

“Well, Daddy, I’m back,” said Charles Martin. “I swore I wouldn’t be, didn’t I? I guess I never did fit in around here, and I couldn’t wait to get gone. I was the big nobody at the high school—didn’t play sports, didn’t run with the popular kids, so-so grades. When I left, I sure as hell didn’t look back, but it always nagged me that nobody thought I’d amount to anything, and they cared less. Guess I thought that when I made it big in country music, folks around here would sit up and take notice. But you know what? It didn’t work like that. They just got to ignore me on a grander scale. Daddy, I’ve given interviews to the
New York Times,
the
Nashville Banner, Parade
magazine—hell, even the
Manchester Guardian
in England, one time—but you know who never asked me for an interview?
The Hamelin Record.
Didn’t even run my press release when I played Johnson City. My publicist marked it “local interest”—as if they gave a damn. Bet they looked at it and said, ‘Old Charlie Stargill is at ETSU this Friday, so what?’

“Daddy, I got a CMA nomination for hit single of the year last year. I’m on the charts in
Cashbox
and
Billboard.
But the radio station here doesn’t even play me. How do I know? Believe me, I know. Kathy Mattea asked me to do a duet with her on her next album—and I don’t reckon they’ll ever play that, either.”

He looked down at the still form, shrunken under bright lights and crisp sheets. “Did you ever ask them to, Daddy? Did you ever call the bastards up and say, ‘My boy is somebody! Now play his goddamn record.’ Or did you agree with them? Did you think that I must be exaggerating my own importance because I boasted about it. Hell, Daddy, I was driven to bragging. People just pretended I didn’t exist. I might as well be managing a Burger King in Nashville, it seemed like. Y’all don’t know how hard I worked, Daddy. How many nights I slept on the tour bus, and ate Rolaids for dessert. How many times my fingers bled from the Martin’s steel strings after eight-hour sessions. I worked harder than any dairy farmer, Daddy, and all the while I knew that my very best might not be enough. Wanting it isn’t enough. It’ll get you to Nashville, all right, but it isn’t enough to make the magic happen. Who the hell knows why people pick some ordinary folks to be stars, and leave the rest in the dust?

“I wouldn’t take no for an answer, though. I just kept showing up. Writing songs. Hanging out. Talking to the men in suits. And I made it happen. By god, I did, Daddy. I
willed
myself right onto the charts, and I’ve never looked back.” His voice quavered. “I wish to god somebody besides me gave a damn that I made it.”

Charles Martin sat down in the straight chair beside the bed. He could feel his teeth clenching and his hands had curled into fists. He took a couple of deep breaths, letting the last one out in a long sigh. “Seems like I’ve been talking a lot about me, and forgetting what bad shape you’re in,” he told the sleeping man. “I hope you pull out of this, Daddy. Of course, we both know I wouldn’t be talking to you like this if you were awake.”

He waited, but there was no sign from Randall Stargill, not even the flicker of an eyelid to tell him anyone was listening.

“Wish I knew if you could hear me, Daddy. So you’d know I came to see you. I did care. I came, didn’t I? There’s a girl I’d kinda like you to meet. Her name is Kelley. I’ve been seeing her for a couple of months now, hoping I could make it work this time. Make it stick. She’s had it rough before me, Daddy, and she has a smart little girl. Hell, I’d hate to let her down, but it’s so hard for a celebrity to walk that line. I just—”

He ran out of words then, reddening with the effort of talking about anything more personal than his public life on a stage. He retrieved his guitar from the corner by the window. “Maybe you don’t even know I’m here, Daddy,” he said. “But in case you do, I thought I’d help you pass the time. We used to do a lot of singing on the back porch in the long twilights with this old guitar—before it got to be worth a New York fortune. This might bring back some happy memories for you.”

He strummed the guitar and leaned his head down until it almost touched the neck of the instrument, and he began to sing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?” in a clear baritone that wavered with unshed tears.

*   *   *

Deputy Joe LeDonne spent his lunch break in the patrol car, trying to write to Martha Ayers. There wasn’t much to talk about, except to say that he missed her, and that he cared about her, but LeDonne wasn’t much for putting feelings on paper. Surely she would realize that he wouldn’t write to her unless he cared.

They had been together for several years now, first a tentative alliance between two lonely, wary people, and then with more resolve, as a troubled couple trying to make this last chance work.

She had been the office dispatcher when they first began seeing each other. It was only recently that she had been given the job of deputy. That change in their relationship had been harder on his ego than he cared to admit, and he had almost screwed up the relationship by getting involved with another woman. He had been trying to hurt Martha, and he had succeeded much too well.

They were still together, but there was a look in her eyes sometimes that made him ashamed. She looked like a whipped hound who is taking care never to get beaten again. He wondered how long it would take to make her trust him again, and if she ever would completely.

But he could say none of that in a letter to a fellow officer. He could say none of that, ever. LeDonne straightened the piece of paper, and began:
Dear Martha, Hope all is well with you in the training program. I’ll try to call you soon. Things are as slow as ever around here. The only interesting thing is that spring seems to be on the way, which is good news to me because the heater in my patrol car is on the fritz. Of course, good weather will mean more tourists to contend with. Oh, well …

I miss you. Speeders are getting an easy time of it in Wake County with only two of us doing the patrols …

He thought he might sign the letter “Love, Joe,” though he wondered what would be harder: his saying it or her believing it.

*   *   *

Spencer Arrowood parked his patrol car in his mother’s driveway, and sat for a moment looking up at the white house, trying to decide how to handle the coming interview. He supposed that his mother would be hovering in the background, ready to side with her old friend against the prying questions of the law, and he had to admit to himself that he didn’t want to ask the questions any more than she might want to answer them. If the bones had belonged to an infant, he might have assumed a stillbirth, and then he would have done his best to forget that he ever saw them. But this child had lived. And no matter how long ago it had stopped living, he had to try to find out what happened to it. Justice, he supposed. Even if the execution of justice disrupted the living and gave no comfort to the one he was trying to avenge, it was still his duty.

He walked toward the house, wondering if Nora Bonesteel had a better idea than he did about how the interview would go.

As he started up the front steps, his mother came out on the porch to meet him. “I’m glad you’ve come, Spencer,” she said quietly. “Miz Bonesteel is sitting in there leafing through the Bible, and she’s looking troubled. Has she had a vision about something?”

The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t know yet. I’ll have to talk to her. And I have to take the position that the state of Tennessee does not believe in visions, whatever you ladies here in the mountains aver to be true.” He smiled at her, and edged past. “Now can I do this interview without having you for a deputy, please, ma’am?”

“You could tell me what it’s about!” Jane Arrowood whispered as he opened the door.

Spencer glanced toward the living room, and then back at his mother. He signaled her not to follow him. “She may not want you to know.”

Nora Bonesteel did not look up from the scripture when he came in and sat on the sofa next to the Queen Anne chair. Spencer watched her turn the pages of the Bible with a practiced touch that knew the verses as they came to hand. It seemed to him that she had hardly changed since he was a boy. He had thought her old even then, as he had most grown-ups, but there was a timeless quality about her that still held. Her hair was still dark, though streaked with silver, and her face was calm and smooth, with none of the helplessness he often saw in the faces of the elderly. He hoped that he could account as well for himself three decades hence.

“Miz Bonesteel,” he said, gently touching her arm. “I believe you were expecting me.”

She let the page fall back into place. “Good afternoon, Sheriff Arrowood,” she said. She said “Arwood,” giving his name the traditional mountain pronunciation. Only outlanders used all three syllables ar-row-wood, but he was used to it, and he answered to that, too. At least they knew how to spell it, he figured.

“I hear you’ve been having an eventful day,” he remarked, keeping his voice genial. He didn’t think it was in his power to frighten this old woman, but all the same he didn’t want to risk it. Badges do funny things to people’s perceptions of old acquaintances. He thought he stood a better chance of learning something if he kept the conversation friendly.

“I thought you might want to see me,” said Nora Bonesteel. She looked at him steadily, solemnly. He could see no trace of uneasiness in her. Spencer relaxed a bit. Guilty people tensed up; looked away.

He said, “One of the Stargills from up the mountain came in to see me a little while ago. Said you’d visited their farm this morning, asking about Mr. Randall Stargill, and that you left them a carved wooden box. He said you asked that it be buried with Mr. Stargill, if he passes on from this illness.”

Nora Bonesteel nodded. “It’s his time, rest him. I don’t believe he’s sorry to go.”

Spencer let that pass. He didn’t want to get into what she knew before anybody ought to be able to know it. She scared some folks. He’d always found it easier not to believe such things and to tune out when his mother tried to discuss it with him. He leaned forward now, serious, but not angry, and said softly, “Now, ma’am, about that carved box that you took to the Stargills this morning. Did you know what was in it?”

“Bones.”

“That’s right.” Spencer felt his chest tighten. “They were human bones. Not an infant, either. Looks to be a young child, though I reckon the lab will have to say for sure. Now where did you get that box?”

She sighed. “Randall made it himself, a long time ago.”

“He gave it to you—with these bones in it?”

“No. Empty. It was to be a little hope chest, for fine needlework, jewelry, and such.” She looked away. “We were fond of one another many years back.”

There seemed to be a lot unsaid beneath her simple statement, but Spencer figured that lost loves were none of his business. He returned to the matter at hand. “But when you brought the box back to the Stargills today, it didn’t contain needlework and jewelry, Miz Bonesteel,” the sheriff said. He kept his voice quiet and soothing, hoping to coax the truth out of her while she was lost in the past. “Did you put those bones in there?”