The Rivers Webb (15 page)

“I was…”

“How many siblings does your wife have, Stovall?”

Arthur looked as though he was about to ask a question, but an arched eyebrow from John was all he needed to be reminded of his earlier demand.

“Two. Oneida and Ophelia.”

“And where are they, currently?”

“Well, Oneida, she moved down to Florida about three years ago. Ophelia lives just the other side o' Atlanta.”

“Are those the only siblings Annie Ruth has ever had?”

“Well, no, actually. She had an older sister. But she died when Annie Ruth was real young. She don't really talk about her much.”

“But she does talk about her some,” John encouraged. He had started pacing by now. The culmination of this interrogation was fast approaching, and John was building up a great deal of nervous energy.

“Just once, really.”

John didn't even waste his voice. He sat across the table from Arthur and folded his arms. Waiting.

“I didn't pay it no mind. She got real sick after her last baby come, an' the doctor told me she was bound to start actin' strange…maybe even seein' things that weren't there…”

John slammed a fist down on the table. The act was so sudden it caused Arthur to jump.

“Dammit, Arthur, do I look like I care? Answer the question!”

Arthur swallowed hard as he tried desperately to settle his nerves. He was unaccustomed to being intimidated. But this was not a situation he had ever imagined himself in.

“She had a fever, is what I was sayin. She started tellin' me this crazy story about Emma Lou, and how she didn't die on account her mixin' up her medicine, the way ever'one thought she did. I jest thought she was riled up about her own young'un, 'cause it was such a hard birth, and I tried to stop 'er, quiet 'er down—but she weren't havin' it. She said that…that Emma Lou was killed on purpose.”

“By who?”

“I never believed 'er. It was just the fever talkin'!”

John got up from the table and walked to the door.

“We had a deal Arthur. I ask the questions, you answer them. I don't offer considerations for you being uncomfortable. You don't want to give me a name? I'm done, then.” John's hand got as far as the doorknob.

“Wilhelmina Rivers.”

He said it quietly, as though it physically hurt him to say it.

“Annie Ruth said that Wilhelmina hated Emma Lou. She told me that Wilhelmina plagued that girl night and day about how much an embarrassment she was, and when she couldn't harass her inta' leavin'…she found another way o' getting' rid of 'er.”

“Turpentine.”

Arthur looked up in shock. John's expression revealed nothing, however.

“Yeah,” Arthur continued. “Hardly anybody knew. The doc kept it hushed up real good, 'cause…'cause they thought Emma Lou took it herself. But Annie Ruth went up and sat with 'er for hours whilest she was dyin'. Apparently, Emma Lou told her diff'ernt.”

John still had his hand on the doorknob. Not because he was debating leaving, but because he couldn't seem to make himself move. It was the last piece of this particular puzzle, and he still couldn't completely see it.

“Do you believe her?” John asked.

“I already told you, I…”

“I didn't ask the question before. I'm asking it, now. Do you believe that your wife was telling you the truth?”

“We ain't never spoken of it since that day. I ain't never brought it up, and she ain't never mentioned it neither. I guess, when it come right down to it though, I suppose I kinda' do.”

“Thank you, Arthur,”

John leaned his head against the door and took a few moments to breathe, slowly, methodically. It was as much for Arthur's benefit as his own. John knew he needed to clear the air between them before he could move on.

“You thirsty, Arthur?”

“Nah.”

This surprised John. Not that Arthur wasn't thirsty, but that he took the question in such stride. There weren't any false niceties. Just a simple, quick negative. It was atypical behavior. It was also an indication that Arthur was focused on concluding this interrogation. John wasn't sure what that meant in the grand scheme of things. He walked back to his spot across the table.

“Alright, then. Let's push on. Where were you last night?”

Arthur slumped and rolled his eyes.

“I just told you that, back in my kitchen!”

“Just answer the question, Arthur.”

“I was fixin' a broken bit of tubin' on the still, alright? I accidentally broke it off the other day when…” Arthur lowered his voice unconsciously, “when I got startled.”

John nodded his understanding without comment. Arthur may not know that the sheriff was listening in, but John did—and had no desire to explain why he had failed to mention that their prime suspect was also the mysterious runner from Grandpappy Island.

“How long were you there, Arthur?”

“Well, I started out perty late…about 10 o'clock. And it takes a while to work in the dark, so it was around 1, maybe even 2, when I finally got ta' home.”

“Out until past 2 a.m., then up at sunrise to a hard day's work. That's got to take a toll on you,” John observed. Arthur let a little bit of a mischievous grin slip out.

“Well, I'll be all right, jest so's I can catch up later tonight.”

“Yeah, I know that routine,” John said, seemingly slipping into a more conversational mode. “Actually, it seems as though a lot of people were having a sleepless night last night. According to Dan, he's talked to a whole lot of people who reported hearing an odd sound. They said it sounded something like thunder, but a little different. Did…you happen to hear anything like that, Arthur?”

Arthur paused for about a half a second.

“Well, come to think of it, I did—I jest figgered it was thunder. I heard it as I was headin' home.”

“On your way home, huh? That would be about right. Everyone Dan talked to said they heard that sound right around 2 a.m.. Hey, was Annie Ruth awake when you got home?”

“Yeah, she was. She didn't act like it, but I could tell she was. She always has this weird, funny little look on 'er face when she's sleepin'. Well, she had a look on 'er face when I walked into the room, and I recognized it—you can be damn sure o' that—but it weren't the one she has when she's sleepin'. That were the look I git when I done made her good an' mad.”

“She was angry?”

“Yeah. So I let her pretend to be asleep. By mornin', she was jest fine. Women are like that sometimes, ya' know: mad as hell one second, sweet as molasses the next.”

“Yeah,” John chuckled.

“I know I ain't s'posed to ask questions, or nothin'…but what does any o' this have to do with Rev'rend Rivers?”

John paused for a moment, looked back over to the door. In all honesty, he was surprised Dan and Roy hadn't burst through already. It had taken a lot of convincing for them to let him do this interrogation, and he didn't want to push his luck by playing things out too far. It might just be time to wrap things up.

He got up and walked back to the door, opened it, and ushered Roy, Dan and Fred into the room.

“This isn't about Reverend Rivers' death, Arthur, or about George's, either.”

“Then, what?” Arthur asked, his earlier feeling of intimidation coming back sharply with everyone in the small room.

“We're talking about Opal Rivers. The fact that she was brutally murdered at 2 a.m. last night.”

“What!?”

“That big boom ever'body heard last night—that was the sound of a grain silo explodin',” Dan announced. “Opal's body was stuffed inside it at the time.”

“Well, you can't think I had anythin' to do with that!”

“Hard not to, considerin' how the starter for that partic'lar explosion was none other than Stovall's finest.”

“Moonshine?”

“Ya' know, when your pa started that little sideline durin' the Prohibition days, nobody said nothin',” Roy said. “Hell, it's a damn good product. I 'specially like them fancy bottles ya' put it in. Makes it seem like drinkin' some'in real special. Ever'body knows those bottles. Them's Stovall bottles.”

“We found the broken remains of nearly three dozen of those Stovall bottles among the wreckage of that silo,” Dan finished.

John could still see the look on Arthur's face as Fred shut the door to the small jail cell. It was the look of an innocent man who knew that his fair trial would never come. As John pulled his car back out onto the road, he couldn't help but wonder if there was some other tact he could have taken to help the man. He had been convinced that scaring and bullying the man would show the sheriff and Dan alike that he wasn't holding back. He just couldn't possibly have known how damning Arthur's own words would be.

Emma Lou Posey—Annie Ruth's sister. Possibly killed by the Rivers family forty years earlier, possibly a suicide, possibly dead by accidentally drinking from the wrong bottle…whatever the cause, her death was at the heart of this whole mess, and John was still entirely too far away from the answers he needed.

Dan watched from the window as John drove off. Dan had questions too, but his were more focused on John Webb than anything else. There was something about the man that just didn't sit right with the young deputy.

The truth was, Dan didn't think Arthur was guilty, either. None of the murders seemed to fit with the man. Reverend Rivers' murder was entirely too straightforward for a crime of passion, like revenge. If Arthur Stovall had really wanted to kill the man out of some sense of outrage for what had been done to his wife's family, Dan felt certain that they would have found the good reverend beaten to death—not shot. And certainly not with a pistol.

As for George…Dan had a hard time believing any human being could be capable of that level of brutality, but Arthur? It just wasn't in the man's nature. Whoever had taken the axe to poor George had enjoyed what he was doing. That man, whoever he might be, had felt a kind of release with every bloody swing. Dan had hunted with Arthur, and had witnessed the man's compassion as he quickly finished off a deer. He didn't enjoy killing.

That brought Dan to Opal's death. He still didn't know if Opal was still alive when the silo exploded, but a sinking, sick feeling in his gut told him she probably was. Either way, her death combined both the elements of a cold, methodical planner and a hot-blooded murderer who was looking for his next thrill. The man who would go to those lengths to end Opal Rivers' life would not have just set the bomb in place then walked away to get home before it went off.

In fact, this last murder was the only one that Dan had any kind of real experience with. He remembered a lecture back at the Academy, where a fire marshal was explaining the mindset of an arsonist. He had told them that an arsonist was usually close by, and would actually be likely to be amongst the gathering crowd gawking at the flames as the building or house went up. According to the fire marshal, there was a need to see the fire that went above and beyond his need to avoid getting caught.

Whoever killed Opal had watched as the silo blew up.

Chapter 7

There was a quiet, still peace about the Rivers home. But it wasn't the sort of peace that you would find in a house filled with contentment. It was more like the peace of the grave. No one spoke, and there was little movement beyond what was absolutely necessary. Wilhelmina Rivers lay very still on the antique settee in the parlor, eyes fixed, unmoving and hard, upon the grandfather clock against the wall.

Arnold Rivers stood at the parlor entrance, unsure what to do. She had finally stopped crying only an hour ago, and was now completely unresponsive to anyone—himself included.

He looked to the four men, hand-selected by his brother, who stood vigil by the windows. There were men at every window and doorway, and even more making rounds around the house, all to ensure their safety. Arnold knew that the prime suspect for the murders was behind bars, but he couldn't seem to let himself take comfort in that.

“Mr. Rivers?” came the timid voice of Annabelle, the upstairs maid. “There's a gentleman on the phone askin' for you. He said he was with the Imperial Steel Company.”

Arnold nodded and sent her off. He felt sorry for the poor girl. She had volunteered to stay at the house when most of the servants had been sent away. He also felt guilty for accepting the offer and possibly placing the girl in danger, but he couldn't even begin to sort through all the day-to-day details of maintaining the Rivers home, and he needed someone for that, especially with Wilhelmina in her present state.

Arnold looked over to his sister once more. The doctor had called it a shock, similar to what soldiers experienced when they saw something in the war they couldn't handle—they just shut down and blocked everything out while their mind tried to sort through it. He was confident she would come out of it when she was ready. Arnold wasn't so certain. Facing reality had never been Wilhelmina's strong suit.

With a sigh, he left the parlor and walked to the living room phone, where the receiver had been carefully laid on a doily, lest it scratch up the polish on the mahogany end table. Little details of a well-to-do Georgia household. They seemed so pointless right now, and yet so very comforting.

“This is Arnold Rivers,” he said as he picked up the receiver. Then, after a moment, “Yes, I am very aware o' the importance o' that meetin', and I've no intention of missin' it, so don't you give it a second thought.”

The person on the other end of the line was quite agitated, but Arnold did not have the patience, and he did not rank sufficient importance for Arnold to bother with placating him.

“I am currently attending to very important matters here at home, but I will be finished in sufficient time to make the appointment.” Another pause, as Arnold listened half-heartedly. “As a matter of fact, it IS more important than your meeting. Nonetheless, I will be done in sufficient time to get back to Atlanta. If my word is not enough reassurance for you…well, I just don't care. If your boss requires further reassurance, then you can have him call me directly. And, while you are at it, let him know, as well, that the next time he sends some flunky lawyer to inquire about my schedule, it will be the last time he and I do business in any fashion, whatsoever.”

Slamming the receiver down felt good, but it didn't quite relieve the tension that had been mounting since he had returned home. He realized that it would only be so long before the business here in Coweta was made publicly known. With that kind of thing in the wind, he might have difficulty getting certain parties to do business with him. His business associates were often very skittish when it came to publicity.

This buy-out of Imperial Steel was a perfect example. Rivers, Incorporated, would be a “paper owner” of the new holding company. The original owners would enjoy full control and 60% of the net profits, while Arnold would maintain a nice, pristine image that would attract a wider customer base than the previous owners could have managed with their “colorful” history. And if, on occasion, one or two of those “new customers” never actually picked up the product they had paid for, Arnold would certainly not feel obligated to mention it, and he felt confident that the controlling parties would handle the situation. His company profited, and that is all he cared about.

But if the current owners were to find out that his entire family was the focus of a multiple murder investigation, then this whole deal would fall through. Arnold had to play down the situation without drawing any extra attention.

Picking up the receiver once more, he dialed a familiar number and waited until the party picked up.

“Gerald, I am sorry to bother you, but I have a favor I need from you…”

*

At an unmarked stretch of Georgia highway known to county road workers as Mile Marker 43, an off-duty New York detective was conferring with a Georgia sheriff's deputy. Actually, John and Dan weren't exactly putting their heads together. John stood with his back to the deputy, leaned over the hood of his car. He was staring at a topographical map of the county.

He would have preferred a street map, but none such existed. When he had asked, he only got stifled laughs from Dan. It seemed that the need for a street map had never come up, since few visitors came and no one who lived here had any need. However, a college professor from Emory university had come through several years before and had conducted a survey for something called a seismographic study of Coweta County, and had created the topographical map as a result. With Dan's help, John had been able to draw in the various roads that led here and there across the county.

They made no sense, and followed no order—at least, none that John could follow. He was used to New York, where roadways were designed purposefully to get you from one place to the other as quickly and efficiently as possible. According to Dan, roads in Georgia were laid out according to what homesteads were in place at the time they were laid out.

“Now this road, here,” Dan said, indicating the stretch of red clay they were currently occupying, “this road was laid out so's to connect the Hamilton home with the Starkey home, then on over to the Wilber's farm, then cut over to the Posey house, then back to town. Now, accordin' to your reasonin', they shoulda' jest made four differ'nt straight roads to town, then make one big one all the way 'round, so's ever'body could git where they needed right quick. Or, jest make roads so that the important folks could git ta' town easy. Fact is, though, when they laid out these dirt roads, they weren't so heartless as ta' leave nobody without a ways inta' town, but they didn't have the means to spend labor on all ‘ose roads. So, they made one big road that meandered around 'till it hit ever'body someways. And, maybe it might take a little longer ta' git where ya' want, but nobody around here is ever in that big of a hurry, so who cares?”

John half heard him as he studied the points he had marked on the map. He didn't like having the deputy around, and he knew well enough that Dan would prefer to be somewhere else. But the sheriff had been insistent that Dan follow him around, whether he liked it or not. And the truth was, it was John's own fault. He had raised enough questions about Arthur's guilt that the sheriff had taken extra precautions to keep his family safe, in case the real killer was still out there. And, as the sheriff had pointed out, whether or not John considered himself family, he was still Roy Rivers' son.

So, there he was, his efforts at defending Arthur Stovall against a premature lynching having earned him a babysitter.

It's true what they say. No good deed goes unpunished.

“Can I ask you a question, Dan?”

“Unless you can find someone else ta' talk to, I guess so,” Dan responded, absently.

“I've heard some rumors…about some of Arnold Rivers' newfound business associates.”

Dan smiled, “Yeah, I heard them rumors, too. I wouldn't worry too much about it, though. Folks 'round here don't trust anyone who don't get nostalgic at the sight o' a confederate flag. So, o' course, when Arnold goes and throws the Rivers' money in with a bunch o' Italians from Florida…well, imaginations do wander.”

“Still…”

“John, this ain't New York. We don't got a mafia. The closest we got to organized crime is when the Turlinger boys get together for a few rounds and end up peein' on the courthouse lawn.”

“How would that be organized?”

“They pee in shifts.”

John waited for just a moment to let that sink in.

“This town is weird.”

“Seriously, though. You don't really think that any o' this had anything to do with Arnold's business partners, do ya'?” Dan asked.

“No, not really. I just don't want to leave anything to chance. But the fact is, none of these murders fit a professional.”

“Yeah, well, they just plain don't make sense any way around.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean they really don't make any sense. I been tryin' to wrap my head around this for a while now, but its just getting' more and more confusin'.”

“What are you talking about?” John asked.

“You said it yourself. Carl Rivers was killed face to face. Cold-blooded. Simple.”

“Yeah.”

“But when poor George was killed, that was a whole other story. There wasn't nothin' cold-blooded about it. The way he cut inta' him—it was pure…”

“Rage,” John finished the thought.

“In a word, yeah. And then there's Opal. She gets blown up. Blown Up, in a granary. That's…That's…Hell I don't know what that is!”

John remained quiet for a moment. He just stared down at the earth, as if deep in thought, until Dan assumed he was completely lost in thought.

“A warning,” John finally said, then looked up from the ground to stare Dan straight in the eye. “When I look at Opal's murder, separate from everything else, it feels like somebody is trying to send someone a warning.”

“What do you really expect ta' find in that map, anyways?” Dan asked finally-if, for no other reason, to change a suddenly uncomfortable subject. He had been waiting patiently for over an hour while John thoroughly traced through and pored over the incomplete map without saying much of anything about it, but his patience was limited.

“I don't know, about as much as I would expect to find by looking over Grandpappy Island a week after Uncle Carl's death. But we did that anyway, didn't we?” John said, looking over his shoulder to the deputy.

“I should point out, we did find somethin' now, didn't we?” Dan said in defense.

“Exactly. Sometimes, even a dumb idea will turn something up. We tried yours, and it worked out. Now we'll try mine.”

“Alright then,” Dan said as he walked over to the car. “Would ya' mind at least tellin' me what exactly your ‘dumb idea' is?”

John pointed down to the marks on the map.

“I'm looking at the spots where the murders were performed, trying to see if there is a connection, geographically.”

“And you needed a map for that? Hell, ever'body knows where they all happened. This is a small town in a small county. There ain't no kinda myst'ry there.”

John sighed in exasperation. He was getting tired of explaining himself.

“Things look a lot different on a map. Sometimes, when you get a ‘God's-eye view,' you can see things that you'd never notice.”

“Like what?”

Pointing to the first mark on the map, John began his explanation, “This is where Carl died. At the Parrott River bridge. It is exactly seven miles, as the crow flies, from the Rivers home, where George was killed, which is about 7 miles from the silo, where Opal was killed.”

Dan looked at him with an odd look on his face.

“That's what you come up with? Seven miles to seven miles to seven miles?”

“It's a pattern…maybe. It might also be a coincidence. But if it's not, it could help us track where the next target is.”

“Alright. Fair enough. What else ya' got?”

“Well, this a topographical map, so I'm having to guess at roads and modern landmarks. But it does show where the natural ridges and hills form in this area, and that led me to this:”

John flipped the map upside-down and started tracing out several lines across the maps.

“Driving a car across the county at night might draw attention—especially in a small town in a small county, where everybody knows everybody's business. So it only makes sense that our killer would be traveling on foot whenever possible. I found these sections of naturally occurring ridges and ditches that connect our murder sites, combined with areas here and here,” he gestured on the map, “where heavy wooded areas would cover passage.”

John looked up at Dan. He breathed in the air around him, and was struck once again by that naggingly familiar scent. What was it about that peculiar smell that he found so distracting?

“We cover those areas,” John said simply, “and we might just get the jump on our killer.”

*

Lots of things can happen in a small town, especially when you're not looking. The truth is, there really are very few actually quiet places. But the sounds, sights, smells, and feelings of everyday life tend to get lost in the great background noise of existence, and before you know it, you are standing there, oblivious to everything around you—even yourself.

But sometimes, when it seems really quiet, when you've been cut off from the bulk of the cosmic white noise, a person might find themselves face to face with their own consciousness.

Just like Arthur Stovall. He had been locked up for five hours now, with absolutely no one to talk to. Fred wouldn't even look at him, and Arthur's futile attempts at conversation early on had proven to be a waste of time. In the eyes of Deputy Flandon, Arthur was a murderer of the worst kind. At the moment, the poor deputy couldn't make up his mind whether he was more angry or frightened of the man in the cell.