“I am, aren’t I? The day they make me move the Sheriff’s Office to the county seat is the day I resign and let Hap Birdwell take over, like he wants to. No, no, it’s just a court hearing up to the City. Amounts to no more than paperwork, but there it is. And you know how Judge Cripps is… or no, I guess you don’t, being a law-abiding sort. He’s bad-tempered, and if a fellow isn’t on time, his temper gets worse. So even though it comes down to just saying so help me God and then signing my name to a bunch of legal folderol, I have to hurry right along with my business out here, don’t I? And hope my God damned Maxie doesn’t break down on the way back.”
I said nothing to this. He didn’t talk like a man who was in a hurry, but perhaps that was just his way.
He took his hat off and brushed his hair back some more, but this time he didn’t put the hat back on. He looked at me earnestly, then at Henry, then back at me again. “Guess you know I’m not out here on my own hook. I believe that doings between a man and his wife are their own business. It has to be that way, doesn’t it? Bible says the man is the head of a woman, and that if a woman should learn any thing, it should be taught by her husband at home. Book of Corinthians. If the Bible was my only boss, I’d do things the Bible’s way and life would be simpler.”
“I’m surprised Mr. Lester’s not out here with you,” I said.
“Oh, he wanted to come, but I put the kye-bosh on that. He also wanted me to get a search warrant, but I told him I didn’t need one. I said you’d either let me look around or you wouldn’t.” He shrugged. His face was placid, but the eyes were keen and always in motion: peeking and prying, prying and peeking.
When Henry asked me about the well, I’d said, We’ll watch him and decide how sharp he is. If he’s sharp, we’ll show him ourselves. We can’t look as if we have anything to hide. If you see me flick my thumb, that means I think we have to take the chance. But we have to agree, Hank. If I don’t see you flick yours back, I’ll keep my mouth shut.
I raised my glass and drank the last of my lemonade. When I saw Henry looking at me, I flicked my thumb. Just a little. It could have been a muscle twitch.
“What does that Lester think?” Henry asked, sounding indignant. “That we’ve got her tied up in the cellar?” His own hands stayed at his sides, not moving.
Sheriff Jones laughed heartily, his big belly shaking behind his belt. “I don’t know what he’s thinking, do I? I don’t care much, either. Lawyers are fleas on the hide of human nature. I can say that, because I’ve worked for ’em—and against ’em, that too—my whole adult life. But…” The keen eyes fastened on mine. “I wouldn’t mind a look, just because you wouldn’t let him look. He’s pretty hot under the collar about that.”
Henry scratched his arm. His thumb flicked twice as he did it.
“I didn’t let him in the house because I took against him,” I said. “Although to be fair, I guess I would have taken against John the Apostle if he came out here batting for Cole Farrington’s team.”
Sheriff Jones laughed big at that: Haw, haw, haw! But his eyes didn’t laugh.
I stood up. It was a relief to be on my feet. Standing, I had three or four inches on Jones. “You can look to your heart’s content.”
“I appreciate that. It’ll make my life a lot easier, won’t it? I’ve got Judge Cripps to deal with when I go back, and that’s enough. Don’t need to listen to one of Farrington’s legal beagles yapping at me, not if I can help it.”
We went into the house with me leading and Henry bringing up the rear. After a few complimentary remarks about how neat the sitting room was and how tidy the kitchen was, we walked down the hall. Sheriff Jones had a perfunctory peek into Henry’s room, and then we arrived at the main attraction. I pushed open the door to our bedroom with a queer sense of certainty: the blood would be back. It would be pooled on the floor, splashed on the walls, and soaking into the new mattress. Sheriff Jones would look. Then he would turn to me, remove the handcuffs that sat on his meaty hip across from his revolver, and say: I’m arresting you for the murder of Arlette James, aren’t I?
There was no blood and no smell of blood, because the room had had days to air out. The bed was made, although not the way Arlette made it; my way was more Army-style, although my feet had kept me out of the war that had taken the Sheriff’s son. Can’t go kill Krauts if you have flat feet. Men with flat feet can only kill wives.
“Lovely room,” Sheriff Jones remarked. “Gets the early light, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “And stays cool most afternoons, even in summer, because the sun’s over on the other side.” I went to the closet and opened it. That sense of certainty returned, stronger than ever. Where’s the quilt? he’d say. The one that belongs there in the middle of the top shelf?
He didn’t, of course, but he came forward with alacrity when I invited him to. His sharp eyes—bright green, almost feline—went here, there, and everywhere. “Lot o’ duds,” he said.
“Yes,” I admitted, “Arlette liked clothes and she liked the mail-order catalogues. But since she only took the one valise—we have two, and the other one’s still there, see it in the back corner?—I’d have to say she only took the ones she liked the best. And the ones that were practical, I suppose. She had two pairs of slacks and a pair of blue denims, and those are gone, even though she didn’t care for pants.”
“Pants’re good for traveling in, though, aren’t they? Man or woman, pants are good for traveling. And a woman might choose them. If she was in a hurry, that is.”
“I suppose.”
“She took her good jewelry and her picture of Nana and Pop-Pop,” Henry said from behind us. I jumped a little; I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“Did she, now? Well, I suppose she would.”
He took another flick through the clothes, then closed the closet door. “Nice room,” he said, trudging back toward the hall with his Stetson in his hands. “Nice house. Woman’d have to be crazy to leave a nice room and a nice house like this.”
“Mama talked about the city a lot,” Henry said, and sighed. “She had the idea of opening some kind of shop.”
“Did she?” Sheriff Jones regarded him brightly with his green cat’s eyes. “Well! But a thing like that takes money, doesn’t it?”
“She’s got those acres from her father,” I said.
“Yes, yes.” Smiling bashfully, as if he’d forgotten those acres. “And maybe it’s for the best. ‘Better to be living in a wasteland than with a bitter-tongued, angry woman.’ Book of Proverbs. Are you glad she’s gone, Son?”
“No,” Henry said, and tears overspilled his eyes. I blessed each one.
Sheriff Jones said, “There-there.” And after offering that perfunctory comfort, he bent down with his hands braced on his pudgy knees, and looked under the bed. “Appears to be a pair of woman’s shoes under there. Broke in, too. The kind that would be good for walking. Don’t suppose she ran away barefooty, do you?”
“She wore her canvas shoes,” I said. “Those are the ones that are gone.”
They were, too. The faded green ones she used to call her gardening shoes. I’d remembered them just before starting to fill in the well.
“Ah!” he said. “Another mystery solved.” He pulled a silver-plated watch from his vest pocket and consulted it. “Well, I’d better get on the roll. Tempus is fugiting right along.”
We went back through the house, Henry bringing up the rear, perhaps so he could swipe his eyes dry in privacy. We walked with the Sheriff toward his Maxwell sedan with the star on the door. I was about to ask him if he wanted to see the well—I even knew what I was going to call it—when he stopped and gave my son a look of frightening kindness.
“I stopped at the Cotteries’,” he said.
“Oh?” Henry said. “Did you?”
“Told you these days I have to water just about every bush, but I’ll use a privy anytime there’s one handy, always assuming folks keep it clean and I don’t have to worry about wasps while I’m waiting for my dingus to drip a little water. And the Cotteries are clean folks. Pretty daughter, too. Just about your age, isn’t she?”