Precious Bones (25 page)

“Shhh, Bones, don’t talk like that. Don’t think like that. God is good. You have to trust that all this will work out.”

“But why did he take Mr. Speed?”

“I don’t know why, Bones. All I know is that sometimes God sends special people to the earth. They bring joy and happiness to everyone around them, and then God calls them back home.”

“You mean sort of like an angel?”

“I guess you could call it that.”

“Mama, do you think Mr. Speed was an angel here on earth?”

“I think Mr. Speed was a very special person. He made our world a happier place to live in.”

“I miss him. I wish God would have let him stay here with us.”

“I know you miss him. I wish he could have stayed here with us, too.”

Mama hugged me close to her warm body. She hummed a lullaby that she used to sing to me when I was a baby. I felt her breath going in and out; I listened to the soft, steady rhythm of her heart.

As we sat under the soothing shelter and breathed in the tree’s fragrant scent, its huge limbs creaked and moaned with a life all their own.

I looked up at Mama’s face. “Do you think I’ll see Mr. Speed again, up in heaven?”

“Yes, I do, Bones; I do believe you will see him again.”

“I hope so.”

Pearl got up and waddled over to my side. She stuck her snout close to my face and began to snort and snuffle. “Mama, you know what, it’s getting late. Maybe we should start heading back home. Pearl’s telling me she’s mighty hungry.”

“That sounds like a good idea, Bones. Your daddy and I would just be too lonesome without you. And my goodness, what would all these animals do if you left them?” I did not say a word, because there just wasn’t an answer to a question like that.

I was ready to go back home; I just wasn’t ready for our next visitor.

Me and Mama didn’t go to church on Sunday, and I sure was glad, because I didn’t want to go back there anytime soon. All day I kept wanting to go down to the Last Chance and sit with Mr. Speed so I could feel better. But I would never be able to do that again.

For the next couple of days, when me and Little Man rode the school bus, I looked out the window as we passed the Last Chance. Mr. Speed’s bench sat empty, like an abandoned island.

One afternoon on our ride back home, I looked out to see two men sitting on the bench. “Look, Little Man, someone’s sitting on Mr. Speed’s bench. They shouldn’t be doing that.”

“Bones, Mr. Speed ain’t here no more. Ain’t no reason why someone else can’t sit there. I don’t think he’d mind at all.”

“It just don’t seem right.”

“You know what? I think you and me should go sit there one day. I think Mr. Speed would like that.”

“You really think so?”

“Yep, I sure do.”

“I’ll have to think about that.”

Wednesday evening we were just sitting down for supper in a kitchen filled with flickering kerosene lights and the aroma of fried chicken, when the dogs began to bark. Two smoky headlight beams sliced through the night, coming up our driveway.

I got up from the table and said, “I’ll go see who it is.”

From our living room I peered out into the darkness, and what I saw sitting in our driveway nearly took my breath away. It wasn’t Ironhead or Mr. Cotton, it was Sheriff LeRoy in his patrol car. What was he doing here at this time of night? All I could think of was he was here to take Nolay away. I turned and ran back into the kitchen. I rushed up to Nolay and in a whisper said, “Nolay, it’s Sheriff LeRoy, you got to run away! Quick, you got to run out to the swamps and hide! I’ll go tell him you’re not here. You got—”

Nolay turned and placed both hands on my shoulders. “Bones, what are you talking about? Have you gone crazy?”

“Nolay, he’s come to get you! He’s going to take you away! He’s going to take you back to jail! He’s got evidence! He’s got—”

Nolay tightened his grip on my shoulders. “Bones, you get ahold of yourself. That’s foolish talk.” He pointed to my chair. “You get over there and sit down. I’ll go let LeRoy in. I ain’t running away from any man.”

Nolay got up and went outside. I sat down and looked at Mama. Her gaze stretched across the table and rested on me.

“I know you are scared, but you have to believe your daddy is innocent.”

“I’m trying. I just don’t want him to die, Mama. I just don’t want him to be gone forever, like Mr. Speed.”

A few minutes later, Nolay and Sheriff LeRoy strolled into the kitchen. The sheriff took his oversized Stetson off and held it in both hands. “Evening, Miss Lori.”

“Good evening, LeRoy. We were just sitting down for supper. Come join us.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I ain’t hungry, but I would appreciate a glass of that sweet tea, if it ain’t a bother.”

“No bother at all, LeRoy. Sit down and make yourself comfortable.”

Sheriff LeRoy eased his bulky frame into one of the chairs at the end of the table. His massive body nearly filled the entire back wall of our kitchen. Carefully he placed his Stetson on the floor. Like an old dog looking for a comfortable spot, he twisted and turned until his body finally settled into the too-small chair.

Mama placed a big glass of honey-colored tea in front of him and asked, “So, what brings you out here this evening?”

Slowly and deliberately, LeRoy crossed his huge arms, took a deep breath, and said, “Well, ma’am, like I said before, I had some ideas, and I wanted to do some investigatin’, so I took a little trip down to Dade County.” LeRoy stopped and took a sip of tea. He looked at the glass, and a wide smile broke out on his face. “That sure is good tea, Miss Lori.”

“Thank you, LeRoy.” Mama picked up her fork and poked at a piece of chicken.
“Now, when I first got down there, them city po-lease didn’t want to give me the time of day, treated me like I was dumb as a stick. But me being a sheriff and all, they couldn’t refuse to hep with my investigation.” LeRoy eyed the pile of golden fried chicken sitting in the middle of the table. “That chicken sure does smell good, Miss Lori.”

“Let me fix you a plate, LeRoy.” Mama put several pieces of chicken on a plate. “Would you like some mashed potatoes?”

“Well, yes, ma’am, I wouldn’t mind a little bit.”

“And how about some butter beans and a biscuit to go with that?”

“Well, if it ain’t too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” Mama placed the heaping plate of food in front of LeRoy and sat back down.

Silently, LeRoy munched on a drumstick. The room filled with the clinking of LeRoy’s fork scraping across his plate. Nolay’s and Mama’s forks were hanging in midair.

Nolay cleared his throat and asked, “So, LeRoy, how did that investigation of yours go?”

LeRoy put his drumstick down, slowly wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said, “Well, like I said, them city boys treated me like a dumb kid, but they had to hep me. So first off, I wanted to know a little more about that fella Fowler they found up here dead. Him and that other fella, Decker, were partners, and I wanted to know what they were up to.”

Sheriff LeRoy picked up the drumstick and gnawed it clean to the bone. He finished his mashed potatoes and butter beans, wiped his plate with the biscuit, and contentedly
leaned back in the small chair. “That sure was good, Miss Lori. I ain’t had home-cooked food like that since my mama passed away.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it, LeRoy.” Patiently, Mama pushed a butter bean around in circles on her plate. “Do continue with your story.”

“Yes, ma’am. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, it turns out that Fowler and Decker were in cahoots with each other, buying and selling land. They’d buy up a piece real cheap, then run a advertisement in a paper up north somewhere, saying it was waterfront property or some such nonsense. Had ’em quite a business going on.” LeRoy stopped and took a long swig of his tea. He smacked his lips together and slowly continued his story.

“Well, sir, after a little investigatin’ on my part, I come to find out that Fowler—that’s the dead guy—that his wife had took out a fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on her husband not two weeks before he went missin’. Now, that struck me as peculiar. When I told one of those city detectives about it, he felt the same way.”

Nolay and Mama both put their forks down and leaned in toward Sheriff LeRoy.

Nolay said, “So then what happened?”

LeRoy drained his glass and set it down. Mama picked up the pitcher of tea and refilled his glass.

“Thank you, Miss Lori. Well, after what me and this detective found out, seemed like the attention of the rest of those city po-lease perked up.” He stared at the plate mounded
with brown-topped biscuits. “Miss Lori, if it ain’t a bother, I sure would like another one a them biscuits. Besides my mama’s, that is about the softest biscuit I have ever had.”

Mama jumped like she had just been stung by a bee. “Of course, LeRoy, have all you want.” She pushed the plate in front of him. “And here, have some more tea.” She grabbed the pitcher and poured tea into LeRoy’s nearly full glass. The golden liquid flowed over the top, ran down the sides, and sent little rivulets across the table and over the side. “Oh, my goodness, I am so sorry, LeRoy.”

Me and Nolay sat there as still as stones.

Mama shot a glance in our direction, snatched a dish towel, and began wiping up the tea. “LeRoy, I’m not sure I understand exactly what you just said. Does this mean the Dade County police suspect the wife of killing her husband?”

“Not exactly. Being that she wadn’t up here to actually commit the crime, she would have had to have someone else do it for her. Now, I don’t think she knew anybody in these parts well enough to ask ’em to do something like that. About the closest person to her husband would have been his partner, Mister Decker.”

LeRoy picked up a biscuit and stared at it as though he had been hypnotized by a carnival magician.

I sneaked a quick look at Nolay. He spread both hands on the table and said, “LeRoy, exactly what does all this mean? Do they suspect the wife or the partner, whatever his name is?”

LeRoy took his eyes off the biscuit long enough to say, “Decker, his name is Decker.” Then he cleared his throat and
continued. “Well, I ain’t sure if the wife or Decker is considered a suspect, but it does mean that they will be investigatin’ that possibility.”

LeRoy chomped that biscuit in half. “Now, we all know that them two Yankees were here on your land and out back by the swamp with the Reems brothers. What I need is some solid evidence that links them together where that body was found. That is what I need, some solid evidence.”

The sheriff consumed the rest of the biscuit and leaned back in his chair. “And Nolay, I want to make one thing crystal clear: that you are still the number-one prime suspect. Ain’t nothing been cleared up. So you stick close by.” The words “You are the number-one prime suspect” fell out of Sheriff LeRoy’s mouth, dropped down on top of our kitchen table, and lay there like a dead fish.

Sheriff LeRoy got up from his chair, then sat back down. “There is one more thing. About that situation with Peckerhead Willy. First off, that occurred in my jurisdiction, so it don’t concern them Dade County po-lease. I have come up with some evidence. There were footprints left at the scene. Appears there was some sort of commotion went on. One of ’em was barefoot. I have a pretty good idea where that barefoot one come from and where it went back to.”

A thick silence filled the room. I watched as Nolay cocked his chin and said, “LeRoy, I know you take your work seriously, but I’m gonna ask you to leave that ol’ boy alone. Charlie ain’t capable of hurtin’ nobody.”

“I know what you’re saying, but I got my job to do. I need
to ask a few questions is all. I have come up with some evidence, and there was more than one person involved.”

“You think Charlie saw something or was involved in some way?”

“Not sure which, but I aim to find out. And Nolay, while we’re on the subject, where were you the night that incident happened?”

“Out fishing.”

“You can confirm that?”

“If need be.”

Me and Mama exchanged a quick glance.

Nolay continued, “Could you tell me when you think you might be goin’ over there to talk to Charlie?”

LeRoy closed his eyes, as if the answer were written on the inside of his eyelids. “I got some po-lease work to do. I ain’t gonna be back for a couple of days. I’ll be stopping by then. I can let you know beforehand if you want. You sure you want to be there?”

“I’m sure, LeRoy. And thanks again for all you’re doin’.”

“Just doin’ my job.” LeRoy picked up his Stetson and placed it squarely on his thick head. “I best be getting on my way now.” His massive body squeaked and jingled as he twisted out of the small chair. “Miss Lori, I sure do thank you for the food. Y’all have a good night.”

“You’re welcome, LeRoy, and you have a good night, too.”

Nolay got up and walked LeRoy out to his car.

I looked at Mama. “I reckon it’s a good thing he wasn’t hungry.”

“Don’t be rude, Bones.” Then she shook her head and began to laugh. “My goodness, if he had been hungry he might have taken the food right off our plates! I must admit, LeRoy is an interesting man.”