An Owl's Whisper (44 page)

“Off the hook.” Eva closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “It sounds so free. So good.” She turned them back toward home, and pulling his arm close, she nestled his shoulder.

White and Red

The snowfall had just ended the afternoon of January 21, 1957 when the call came in. “Sheriff Jess, it’s Eva. I have awful news. Crickette—” There was a quiet moment and then a stifled sob. “—Crickette is shot, poor thing. She’s dead, Jess. How could it happen?”

Jess felt gut-punched. “Oh my Jesus. Crickette? Eva, you sure she’s dead?”

“I’m sure. I felt no pulse. She was pale, Jess. I saw a terrible wounding on the chest.”

“You OK, Eva?”

“Yes, OK…just so cold.”

“You’re doin’ fine.” He gave her a moment. “Just a couple more things. What about Max?”

“Max told me she was missing. We searched. Found her nearby the road. She was pale. I’m with him now. In his house.”

“Near what road, Eva?”

“At the top of her drive, near the mailbox. We shouldn’t move her, right? I covered her with a GI blanket—” Eva broke into sobs.

“Take your time….Breathe.”

She inhaled deeply. Twice. “—Covered her with a blanket Stanley keeps in the truck. Oh Jess, I’ll never forget her face as I laid the blanket down. Those eyes looking at me.”

“You said shot. What about a weapon?”

“A little shotsgun. Short. Max called it his gun for snakes. It was under some snow. Hidden. I stepped on it. But I left it there.”

“Good girl, Eva. Leave the firearm to me. You’ll stay with Max till I get there, won’t you? Doc Fletcher’s the M.E., so I’ll have to haul him out there to get a look at things and take care of the body. She’s lyin’ where?”

“On the edge of the ditch, behind the mailbox. Toward the drive. I can show you.”

“No, you stick by Max—I bet he’s needin’ a shoulder to lean on. Any questions that hatch can wait. We’ll do our look-see then hustle down to the house. You did fine, Eva.”

“I only tried to be a true friend.” She cried again.

“Why don’t you telephone Stan. Reckon you’re needin’ a shoulder about now, too.”

Jess called Doc and was dashing to the door when Stan phoned. “Eva just called. Can’t believe it about Crickette. Eva’s pretty shook up, Jess. Think I could bum a ride out there?”

“Hustle on over. We’ll pick up Doc and hightail it down to the Conroy’s. As much hightailin’ as the snow allows.”

It was mid-afternoon when they pulled up to the Conroy’s mailbox. Stan set off for the house on foot. Jess and Doc found Crickette where Eva said, covered with the blanket and an inch of snow. Her arms were thrown up, over her head, and she was lying on her back.

“Have a look-see around, Garrity,” Doc said, “while I get my paperwork started in the car.”

The snake gun was five feet from the body. Jess put on gloves and picked it up. It was a twenty gauge. Breach. Sawed-off double barrel, eighteen inch. Jess pulled the shells out. Both spent. Green paper hulls, deer-shot load. He put the weapon in the patrol car trunk and got his camera. He was preparing to photograph the body when he noticed something clutched in Crickette’s left hand. He pried open the fingers. It was a slip of pink paper rolled around a stubby pencil. Jess unrolled the paper and read the scribbled words on it:
It was Eva.
He took a step back and glanced at Doc, busy writing away in the patrol car. Jess stuffed the paper in his pocket.

Jess was stepping away from the body to take a flash picture when he kicked something. It was a yard-long piece of unfinished wood molding. Like the shotgun, it had been covered only by the afternoon’s dusting of snow. Jess was putting the stick of molding and the camera in the trunk when Doc got out of the car to begin his investigation.

They walked together back to the body. Doc sighed. “Guess we better get started.” He undid Crickette’s slacks. He and Jess rolled her over, and he inserted a rectal thermometer. He placed another thermometer on the snow under her and they moved her back like they found her.

While Doc conducted the rest of his in-place examination, Jess shivered in the patrol car, thinking about that slip of paper in his pocket.

Doc tromped back to the car and jumped in the front seat. “This all the heat this crate’ll make, Garrity?” He rubbed his hands and blew on them. “Well, shotgun blast all right. Close range. Force musta threw her back across the ditch where we found her.”

“Self-inflicted, eh?” Jess asked tentatively.

“Hmmm.”

Jess turned and stared at Doc. “That a yes?

“Have to get a look at that runty shotgun and ammo. Probably need a test firing.”

Jess swallowed. “Shouldn’t be a problem. Time of death?”

“Have to consult my temperature loss tables. Based on rigor, I’m thinking noon or so.”

The funeral car pulled up, and Wiedermeier, the undertaker, shuffled over, shaking his head. “Howdy, gents. This is a shocker, for sure.”

“Maybe a suicide, Hank,” Jess said, glancing at Doc. “Figure on a
post mortem
.”

“I have one more temp check, then you can take her, Hank,” Doc said. “I’ll do the P.M. in the morning.”

Five minutes later, Doc checked his pocket watch and went out to take another set of temperature readings. He was back in a few minutes. He swung into the front seat and said, “Let’s get over to the house, Garrity.”

Jess first noticed the tingling feebleness in his shoulder as they pulled up to the Conroy house. Doc went inside to see to Max. Jess walked to Eva’s pickup and spent a moment massaging his shoulder. Then he put on his gloves and looked over the truckbed. He glanced at the house to be sure no one was watching and opened the door and looked around the cab. He felt under the seat. He was glad not to have found anything. Glad to think he was acting stupid.
It was Eva
could mean anything. This was a sick woman’s suicide. Nothing more.

Jess knocked and entered the house. Stan and Eva sat on the sofa. Her head rested on his chest. Stan’s arm cradled her and his hand stroked her neck below the ear. Doc leaned over his medical bag on the dining room table. Max sat in the parlor, bent over with elbows on knees, hands folded. To Jess, the bald spot atop his head was his vulnerability, and the empty glass on the table next to him, his future.

Jess knew nothing he could do would change things. That spiritual feebleness echoed, mimicked, the numbness in his arm as if they were paired. Reinforcing each other. When he clicked the door shut, Eva looked up at him. Her eyes went to Max and back to him. Jess felt strength flow from her glance. The strength to approach Max. His soul’s weariness drained away as he walked over and placed a hand on Max’s shoulder.

The big man’s head startled up. His expression was gray and heavy as lead.

“Max, I’m sure sorry about Crickette. She was a fine woman. Got through a lot.”

Max nodded and dipped his head again.

Doc left sleeping pills for Max. He and Jess followed Stan and Eva back toward town. Jess dropped Doc and then headed home. The house was dark. Carrie was still over at the Chandler’s, watching the girls. She spoke to him on the phone. “Eva and Stan just got here. She’s pretty well spooked, poor thing, but Stan’s taking good care of her, warming a brandy. The girls are asleep. I’ll be home in a while.”

Jess poured himself a rye whiskey, a large one, and turned off the lights. He eased into his rocker next to the wood stove. He swallowed a slug of rye and savored its sting. Then he sat rocking, slowly rocking, waiting for the pain to seep away.

White and Black

The next morning, Jess sat hunched over his desk, trying to push his mind off the notion of a woman desperate enough to end her own life and pretty well her husband’s too. He pulled down Hans Gross’ criminal investigations bible and put on his reading specs. He turned to the chapter on suicide. Gross said that women almost always leave a note. He’d have to ask Max about that. Gross claimed women rarely use guns. When they do, they usually lie down before pulling the trigger—the weapon is typically found next to the body.
Course, usually ain’t always.
He was still reading when Doc called.

“Garrity, I just finished the P.M. Think you may have a homicide on your hands.”

Jess’s chest tightened. “Jesus! What makes you say that, Doc?”

“Well, last night I was wondering about that wound—seemed big. But it was dark and the trauma site was pretty messy. Didn’t want to say nothing till I got a better look. Got me a fifty-five mm entry. Even with that stubby gun, I’d figure self-inflicted at twenty-five or so.”

“You sayin’ the muzzle was too far away for self-inflicted?”

“Right. I’m thinking at least a couple of feet from the entry. And one more thing, Jess. There were powder burns on her left coat sleeve and some pellet wounds in her left forearm. Like she was begging for mercy when she was shot.”

“God almighty.” Jess pictured Crickette pleading as he rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Sounds like I should talk to Max. This afternoon. Damn. I’ll do a test firing.”

“Temperature drop points to a time of death around 11:30,” Doc said. “With the cold, that’s pretty iffy. Oh, and that cancer—it was eatin’ on her pretty good. She’d have been hurting. Least with the blast she took, it would’ve been over quick.”

Jess called the state police to say he was investigating a suspicious death. He dusted the shotgun and spent shells for prints. None.

Jess drove to the Conroy place. He’d managed to convince himself that the slip of paper meant nothing, but now he had a new worry. In
Hans Gross
, he’d read,
Wife killed, suspect husband first. Suspect the person who finds the body.
Max fits both bills. Jess decided not to let on he was thinking foul play. Not just yet. He rubbed his shoulder, battling the numbness seeping down his arm like mist descending a mountainside.

When he let Jess in, Max looked washed out but eager to talk.
He’s reachin’ to savvy what happened,
Jess worried.
What he did.
Max poured coffee and they sat at the kitchen table.

Jess stirred sugar into his coffee, trying to look calm. “Did Crickette leave a note, Max?”

Max looked confused. “Thought she had. But I couldn’t find it. I even wrote her one back after she left—stuck it in the bristles of her hair brush.”

“You wrote a note? What are you talkin’ about, Max?”

“We used to write notes, hide ’em around for each other to find. Love notes. Goofy stuff.”

Jess felt like a voyeur. “I meant, did she leave a suicide note?” He saw Max cringe at the word
suicide
. “Or maybe a diary? Anything to tell us what happened?”

Max shook his head. “Naw, nothing like that. Nothing I found.”

“OK. Just keep your eyes open and give me a jingle if you find anything.” Jess shifted in his seat—the questions would get tougher to ask. “Where’d you keep that snake gun?”

“In my tool shed. Ammo was there, too.” Max looked at the floor. “Should’ve hid the ammo, shouldn’t I? If only I’d hid it.”

Jess didn’t touch that one. “What about Crickette’s mental state?”

“She had pain all right, but her medicine helped. In fact, Eva came over Saturday morning with hot lunch and more medicine, so she was pretty good there. Came Sunday morning, too. Crickette
was
upset, but she said it wasn’t the cancer. Wouldn’t tell me what—only wanted to talk to Eva. She was always there for us, bless her heart.” Max pursed his lips, fighting back sobs. “I’ll tell ya, no way we’d have made it through those first days if it weren’t for Eva. I ’member riding back from the hospital, the gals sat in the back seat together. Eva said, ‘When you feel better, Crickette, you and I are going out to buy you a new dress.’”

Max needed a deep breath before going on. “When I heard that, Jess, I was thinking just what Crickette said. ‘A new dress? To die and be buried in?’ I glanced at Eva in the rear view mirror. Saw her take Crickette’s hands and say, ‘Look at me, Crickette. We’ll buy you a new dress for living in, not for dying. I’m not saying you’ll have a miracle cure. I only say that living is its own miracle. Sure, you don’t know the time you have left, but whatever it is, spend it living, not dying.’ I think Crickette took that to heart.”