One

Summer in a Small Town

By

Linda Blackwell Simmons


One Summer in a Small Town

That summer was to be like all the others—lazy mornings reading mysteries
under the sprawling oak, afternoons spent with Isa over a Coke float at
Clary’s, and warm evenings lying on the front porch—star watching. But this
summer was not to be like the others.


Sunday, June 12

“Mama, can I have some pie now?” she asked as she placed the last bit of
cornbread into her mouth. “Maddie, wait until we’re all ready for pie. You
know we eat dessert together,” her mother tilted her head toward Maddie,
grinning as she replied. “You know, this is your first summer as a teenager. I
want you to use it wisely, read some books, and I don’t just mean those Nancy
Drew novels. Get prepared for eighth grade,” Edith continued.
Maddie Fry’s satin hair, the color of sand, was her most prominent feature.
On most days, a single plait flowed down the middle of her back, thus saving
her long curls for rare occasions. Her mother normally braided it, but Maddie
had finally mastered the process herself. A tall long-legged girl, slim at the
waist, with wide-set round eyes, she seemed older than her real age. Pretty--
but not quite beautiful—that’s what she saw when she looked in the mirror.
Her birthday was the day before, but Edith had not felt well. She spent the
evening in bed with a stomach bug, unusual for her mother. So—tonight was
the family birthday supper, Edith serving a feast, showcasing the vegetables
from her garden—just the three of them—and the cherry pie.
“Happy birthday again Maddie. We’re proud of you,” Edith smiled as she
cut Maddie the first piece of birthday cherry pie while her father, Louis,
waited for his.
“Ok, Mama, I’ll read some books.”
“You better be glad Mama just wants you to read and ind’t asking you to
join her sewing circle,” Lou added as Edith gave him a chiding glance.
Maddie didn’t laugh. Summertime was already boring. A sewing group would
only make it worse.
“Maddie, since you’re out ‘a school, I ‘pect you to help most days with the
five o’clock milkin’,” Louis spoke to his daughter. The Frys owned a thirty-
acre dairy farm with twenty-five milk cows. Dairying was a hard way to make
a living—milking had to be done twice a day—at five in the morning and five
in the evening. It was poor farmer’s work, but the Frys were anything but
poor. Their income was supplemented with a sizable inheritance from Edith’s
father a few years prior. There was never a worry about where their next meal
was coming from.
When she was smaller, Maddie petted the milk cows. She liked to be
around them. They were calm, docile and their size fascinated her, but she
hated it when a baby calf was taken from its mother at birth. The mamas
bellowed at departure—almost like a human mother would cry. But now, cow
smell sickened her and the odor seemed to fumigate the whole house at times,
including her clothes. Milking made her hands ache.
“Ok, Daddy,” Maddie answered although her heart was not in her reply.
Instead, she was thinking about the call she was about to make to her best
friend.
* * *

Monday morning, June 13

The following day, like so many other summer days, Maddie left her
family’s farm on the north side of town and walked six blocks south to the
other side of Honey Grove’s downtown. Her best friend, Isadora Rynd, lived
in a little rundown trailer on 2nd Street, on an unpaved lane along with six
other little rundown trailers, no better nor worse than Isa’s. Isa’s sat at the end
of the lane under a grove of pecan trees. There was only one door into the
place and that door faced the trees at the back of the trailer. Maddie never
asked Isa why they had turned their door to the back, but after awhile, she
forgot that having no front door was odd.
Isa was Maddie’s opposite--her body fuller and her hair so silver it
glistened in the sunlight. And, unlike Maddie, Isa was not just pretty, she was
beautiful. She lived with her mother and father and her older brother, Tanner,
who was seventeen and about to enter the twelfth grade. Isa was on her own
most of the time. Her mother worked as a cook at the Blue Moon Diner down
in Cooper--the county seat over in Delta County, thirty something miles
southeast of Honey Grove. Maddie and her father had eaten there a couple of
times when he used to take her along on business. Isa’s father, Chester Rynd,
according to what Maddie had heard her mother say, was “stuck to the bottle”.
He was run off from his part-time job where he worked at a chicken factory
somewhere in Arkansas. Maddie’s mother heard rumor that he stole some
tools from the owner.
On this particular Monday morning, they were sitting in Isa’s room, a little
alcove off the kitchen where she slept. Maddie could hear Tanner in the back
yard. “He’s shootin’ his BB gun off again. I hate that sound,” Isa complained
about her brother. Maddie hated BB guns too. He was shooting cans today but
she’d once seen him take a shot at Isa’s neighbor’s cat. Lately Maddie felt his
glare each time she was around him – like a cat stalking his prey. She loathed
his long lanky body and slouched shoulders and the sharp curve of his
eyebrow—it gave him a sinister look. His left foot dragged when he walked.
Isa said he was just too lazy to pick up his feet.
“Maddie, let’s go walkin’ down in the woods today and maybe go down to
the creek and sit in the sun. Will your mama miss you if you don’t get home
till later? If we have time we can go ‘xploring down by that ol’ farmhouse.
I’ve always wanted to go there, but Mama always says no,” Isa continued
trying to plan their day.
Isa, unlike Maddie, was never afraid, was filled with confidence, her toned
shoulders giving her a strong and graceful appearance. Always ready to try
something new, she possessed a resourcefulness that encouraged others to
follow. Maddie assumed it was because Isa, for the most part, was parentless,
with only a brooding brother to watch over her. Isa’s dad was in his room
watching television, and likely drunk, as he always was when Maddie came
over. Somehow Isa had managed to maintain a classic look even though she
was surrounded by an absent father and useless brother.
Earlier that morning Isa had put on white socks that came to her knees,
protecting her legs, green pants that met her socks, and a pink top with little
lime greens flowers in the front. It looked to Maddie like Isa had made up her
mind to go to the woods long before Maddie arrived.
“I don’t know Isa, Mama ‘as sick this morning. She ‘as wearing that old rag
tight around her head like she does when she gets a headache. Plus I gotta be
back to help milk the stinkin’ cows. Plus Mama says those piney woods hold
secrets that probabl’ should stay that way. Daddy’s always said that old house
could have all kinds ‘a animals in it, and old stuff, weird stuff, maybe bats and
rats and stuff. It’s like about two miles back in the woods. That’s a long walk.
What if there’s snakes?” Maddie rambled with a concerned voice. But she
already knew she’d been talked into going.
“If we go, I’m gonna need some long socks like you have.”
Isa opened the top drawer of her dresser. “So, here you go,” Isa tossed a pair to
Maddie, assuming that would settle the matter.
“Yea, Mama said something happened a long time ago to the old couple
who lived there. Anyway, I wanna go see what’s in the place.” Isa continued
trying to talk Maddie into a Monday adventure. “Tanner said some sort of
woods people, piney woods folks live way back behind the old farmhouse.
Course, he’s probabl’ lyin’, but your daddy’s right, we’d better watch out for
the snakes,” Isa turned to see if Maddie was smiling at her comment. She
wasn’t. “Oh geez, Maddie, what else we got to do?”
The lemonade Isa had made earlier that morning tasted oily and a little too
sour but Maddie drank it anyway and said nothing to Isa about her kitchen
skills. “Ok, let’s go, but I gotta be back before Mama gets too worried.
Daddy’ll be mad if he finds out I went that far into the woods.” Maddie put
her glass on the counter, headed out the screen door and stepped down to the
one concrete block leading to the backyard. A morning mist had departed, and
the eastern sun shone through the pecan branches.
“They don’t have to know. Come on,” Isa said quietly so Tanner would not
hear. She followed Maddie down the step.
“Where you numbutts goin’?” Tanner smirked as he turned to look at them.
“Leave us alone Tanner. It’s non’a your business where I go,” Isa said with
a reply that caused her brother to turn back to his cans. Maddie noticed that he
had cut out the sleeves on his cotton shirt.
 The morning was still cool as they headed down to the creek and walked
along the water. It was rumored that southeast along the creek, there was a
remnant of a trail that weaved through the pines to the abandoned farmhouse.
Maddie had heard talk of this old place for a long time. Evidently a German
couple had lived there. They stopped being seen around town and folks finally
realized they had moved away. Not much fanfare was made of their departure
and it was thought the county now owned all that wooded land.
“We’ll walk the creek and look for the old trail as we go along. Hope it’s
not too grown over,” Isa turned to look at Maddie as she spoke. They walked
along in silence for what seemed like over an hour. Then Isa saw it, a narrow
opening in the trees, possibly where the foot trail once existed. “Maddie, here
it is, let’s head this way,” Isa said excitedly. Maddie followed without
speaking. Monday Monday was playing on her new transistor. “I’m glad you
brought your radio. I love that song. See Maddie, we were meant to go walkin’
on a Monday,” Isa continued. Maddie had not been without her radio since she
had gotten it for her birthday the previous Saturday. But she hated it when the
news broke in with “U.S. troops kill targets in Cambodia.” War news seemed
to be constant.
“Yea, even Mama likes The Mamas and the Papas, but she never lets on
when Daddy’s 'round,” Maddie said trying to keep her mind on the song. The
earlier rain had brought out the orange Indian Paintbrush but had also caused
the day to be balmy. Maddie started to sweat and her legs were itchy and she
was suddenly thirsty.
“You better turn it down now though, in case we hear something,” Isa
warned, although Maddie wondered what Isa thought they might hear.
It took the better part of another hour to finally wind through the tangled
brush, much of which was weeds and debris from fallen trees. Very little
sunlight shone through the thick canopy. But finally they rounded a turn in the
trail. There it was--so much smaller and insignificant than what they both had
imagined. In front of them was a broken down structure with a long
rectangular screened-in porch angled off to the side. The windows had no
glass, at least the ones they could see, and the porch screen was torn and
ragged. The old house was a disappointment, especially to Isa. She had
expected an adventure, something mysterious to put a little excitement into
their lazy summer day in Honey Grove.
“Let’s go in Maddie. Let’s see what inside. There might be somethin’ in
there those ol’ people left behind,” Isa turned to give Maddie an encouraging
look. Maddie followed Isa onto the screened-in porch and walked a few steps-
-but then she stopped.
“You go ahead, I’ll just look ‘round out here,” Maddie announced as she
carefully walked to the opposite side of the porch from where they had
entered, the side that faced what was the back of the cabin. She’d let Isa do
the inside exploring and she would do the outside, the safer of the two options
Maddie figured. The first step outside was onto a cracked concrete stoop
where her foot slipped on something slick, almost slimy. Bending over to wipe
some sort of unusual red purplish, oily stain from her shoes, she saw it was
paint or colored liquid from a can. The top had apparently cracked open,
perhaps from the heat, or opened when it fell from the porch ledge. She
couldn’t tell. Oh crap, what the heck is this stuff, paint or something--it’s
sticky. Maddie thought to herself as she stood back up and continued to head
outside to check out the back area.
Isa continued her route through the old porch, entering the first real room,
one that appeared to have been the kitchen, now barren of any appliances and
any semblance of long ago cooking. Not much was left of anything
memorable. An old dresser with three missing drawers sat in one of the back
rooms. An old mattress sat in the corner of that same room—with a red
blanket neatly folded on top--a blanket that seemed newer, cleaner, and
intentionally placed there, unlike the other items throughout the place. Isa
turned back toward the screened porch to head outside.
At first she didn’t recognize the sound—a deafening, startling scream—a
sound to set the woods ablaze had there been a match. Then abruptly the cries
stopped and she heard her name called in a voice that stopped her cold. “Isa,
Isa come out here, oh my God!” Isa ran back through the porch toward the
same exit Maddie had taken, almost slipping on something on the porch floor-
- slimy and reddish--she hadn’t noticed before. Oh shit my good shoes. Then
she saw where Maddie was looking. There at the bottom of a low rise, lay the
body of a woman, maybe just a girl, face down, head turned to the right, right
arm out to her side, the other under her body. Blood had dried stiff around the
gash in the back of her head.
They both stood there for what seemed like long minutes but was really on
seconds. Silent at first, they stared at the dead body. The sweet smell of the
wildflowers had disappeared and had been replaced with the putrid smell of a
decaying corpse. Flies buzzed around the girl’s face and other exposed parts of
her body.
“Oh my God, Isa, oh my God, oh my God, let’s go. We have to tell
Daddy.”
* * *
Sheriff Neil Barba and his deputy, Marcus Blankenship, were at the old
house by six o’clock that evening, shortly after Louis Paul Fry had informed
them of what his daughter and Isa had discovered. He called Lou as soon as he
and Marcus got back to the station.
“Lou, I wanna ask you to keep this to yourself ‘til we can get a handle on it
tomorrow morning. I don’t want some kids hiking in there messing up any
evidence. Can you keep Maddie quiet about it? First thing we need to do is
determine how long the body’s been there, how long she’s been dead I mean.”
Lou agreed. As he returned the phone to its cradle, he turned and saw Maddie
standing behind him, listening in the hallway.
“Maddie, I don’t know what’s wrong with you. I don’t ever want you
going back in those woods again. Do you hear me? And you stay away from
Isa for awhile,” Lou scolded Maddie as Edith stood looking on from the
kitchen door, trembling, her hands over her mouth, tears in her eyes, unable to
speak. He reminded Maddie she had been warned many times not to go down
along the creek too far and she was never to go onto the trails in the woods.
As important as a family supper was to her mother, Edith told Maddie she
needed to eat in her room that night. That was fine with Maddie, she wasn’t
hungry anyway, and she needed to be alone, to think. Had she seen what she
thought she’d seen? She’d stepped to the bathroom in the hallway just outside
her room trying to wash out the strange reddish rusty looking stain from her
shoes when she heard her father coming down the hallway. Maddie pushed the
door shut. He didn’t need to see that she had ruined her shoes.
Scrubbing away at the stain only made it worse. Finally giving up, she
tiptoed back to her room and tossed her shoes in the far left corner of her
closet and covered them with a sweatshirt she never wore. Her shoes were old,
her mother would not be mad, but she didn’t need any more troubles with
anyone right now, especially her parents. She’d worry about the stains later--or
maybe never.
After her father passed by headed to his and Edith’s bedroom, she thought
she heard her mother crying in the kitchen, a helpless cry, a soft cry, as though
she was trying to keep her tears to herself. It was a sound that broke Maddie’s
heart, and she wanted to go to her mother, but knew she couldn’t, at least not
tonight.
* * *

Tuesday morning, June 14

At eleven o’clock the next morning, the Frys’ phone was ringing.
“Lou, I thought you should know. Marcus and me went up there again early
this morning. It’s a girl body like we said, looks like she ‘as in her early
twenties or thereabouts. The back of her head ‘as bashed in. We’re headed up
there with Doc Stehorn this afternoon. Looks to me like she’s only been dead
two, three, maybe four days, ah damn, maybe a week, I don’t know. I’m not
one to judge that, it’s hard to tell. Did you wanna come since Maddie ‘as the
one to find her?” Sheriff Barba thought he would pass the offer on.
“No, Neil, no. I don’t wanna get involved ‘cause I don’t want Maddie
more involved than she already is. Just keep us informed, but no, I know Edith
wants us to stay out of it, and I mean out of it.”
“Ok, Lou, ok, but no surprise, the whole town already knows. I guess Isa
Rynd told her mother and her brother, and word got out faster than I wanted.
Oh well, we’ll handle it. Don’t worry. I’m calling the Delta County authorities
this morning. I know the sheriff over in Cooper. This is bigger than us. First
thing we need to do is figure out who she is...well, I guess I should say was,”
Sheriff Barba corrected himself. “You know, Lou, I really need to talk to
Maddie directly to see if she forgot something, something that might be
important. You can keep me away from her, but you not be able to keep those
government people away from her, if we can’t solve this thing ourselves.”
“No, Neil, she’s upset enough. I asked her to go over it again with me, and
she has nothing else to say. I don’t know, maybe Isa Rynd ’ll talk to you.”
Neil Barba had been Honey Grove’s sheriff and the chief law enforcement
officer for fifteen years. Other than his cobra skin boots and Stetson hat, he
didn’t fit the description of a town authority with his small frame, and carved
facial features. But the scar that ran from his right ear down the side of his
cheek indicated he had seen some action in is day. He was respected. He got
the job done.
* * *
Her name was Juniper Post. She was from Pecan Gap, a little stop between
Cooper and Honey Grove. The town got its name because it was founded
between two pecan trees, half the town sat in Fannin County, the other half in
Delta County.
She was a twenty-one year old who had recently taken a job at a beauty
parlor in Pecan Gap--cleaning up, washing customers’ hair, and any other odd
job that the owner, a middle-aged woman named Vera Dell Brewster, required.
The girl had recently lost her mother, her only known relative. Her neighbor
down the dirt lane where she rented a house had tried knocking on her door all
day Sunday and Monday. When she spotted the dog sitting on the porch for
two days in a row with no food or water, she knew something was wrong. The
woman alerted Vera Dell Brewster who called Sheriff Barba the morning after
Maddie and Isa found the body. Vera Dell Brewster was accustomed to the girl
showing up late for work or sometimes not showing up at all, so she hadn’t
thought much of it until the neighbor called her about the dog.
No one knew much about Juniper Post, having only recently moved to
Pecan Gap. Vera Dell Brewster thought she came from down around Carthage
in East Texas, but she wasn’t sure.
* * *

Wednesday afternoon, June 15

On Wednesday afternoon about three-thirty, when Lou was bringing the
cows into the barn, Maddie was on her bed trying to finish her latest Nancy
Drew mystery--trying to focus on anything but the dead body--when the phone
rang. She got up and started toward the bedroom door to the hallway phone.
Edith had been in bed most of the day with a headache, and Maddie was
afraid the phone would wake her. But as she walked across her room to get to
the phone, Maddie glanced out her window and noticed that her mother was
bent over in their side garden, probably searching for a couple of tomatoes and
maybe some onions for their dinner. Good, maybe that means she’s feeling
better. She answered the phone on its third ring.
“Maddie, can you talk, oh I’m so glad to hear your voice. Your line’s been
busy for an hour.’”
 “Yea, it’s that ol’ lady Baker, she’s on our line. She talks all the time. She’s
probably listening right now,” Maddie realized as soon as she said it she
shouldn’t have. The phone cord was just long enough to allow Maddie to step
inside the bathroom and pull the door shut, leaving just enough space for the
cord. She wanted privacy.
“Oh gosh, Mama got so mad at me, and even Daddy sobered up enough to
be mad. I‘m grounded for a while. They say you and I should’a never have
been the ones to find a dead body,” Isa spoke softly to Maddie.
“Yea, Isa, I know. I’m not supposed to be talkin to you, but maybe I can
convince Mama into letting me walk down to Clary’s one day to get a Coke,
and we can talk. I need to talk to you so bad. I’ll try to call you before then,
ok?” Maddie asked.
* * *

Friday midday, June 17

Rain pelted the front window as Feddie cleaned for Edith, four days after
the body was discovered.
“You know Miz Ed, you know how it is, they always look at us down on
‘da hill when someem’ like this happens. I’s scared and so‘s Hamm. We scared
for Acey. He not scared though. He be seventeen now and he thinks he ‘an get
away with anythin’ with all them white folks in town. I knowed he ‘as
nowhere near that ole’ house. He ain’t scared ‘a white folks, but he sure scared
‘a dead people and dead people’s houses.”
“He used to go down to ‘da creek fishin’, but lately he been helpin’ Hamm
with fixin’ cars down on ‘da hill. Hamm tryin’ to teach him someem’ he can
do. Sheriff Barba came down to ‘da house yesterday askin’ all kinds ‘a
questions.”
Maddie overheard Feddie talking to her mother. Feddie had come every
week for as long as she could remember to help her mother with housework.
To Feddie, her mother was Miz Ed and her father Mister Lou. But Maddie was
always just Maddie, the way they both liked it.
“You hear what they do to that po’ woman on ‘dat bus down there
somewhere, the one that would’n move from white people’s seats? Oh gosh,
she ‘as stupid. They took ‘dat woman to jail. What’d she think ‘as goin’
happen?” Feddie continued with her anguish.
Feddie was fifty-three years old but still cleaned for several women around
town. She’d become especially comfortable with Edith and Edith enjoyed her
stories about all the saucy happenings down on “da hill”, Feddie’s term for
what white folks called “nigger town.”
“Feddie, Feddie, I know you’re worried, but you’ve got to stop fretting so.
First of all, that bus thing happened in Alabama a long time ago a long way
from here. I talked to Mr. Lou about Acey and he said he’s not heard anything
about them looking toward Acey. We all know Acey’s a good boy. We all
know that,” Edith tried her best to soothe over Feddie’s worries.
 Maddie was standing in the dining room listening to the conversation. She
knew different. She had heard her father talking to the sheriff over the phone.
The townspeople were ready to find a murderer. And Acey was in the running.
* * *

Tuesday early evening, June 21

“Tanner, get in here, what ‘re you always doin’ out there anyways? Your
daddy and me wanna talk to you,” Isa stood in the kitchen and heard her
mother call to Tanner in the backyard. Chester Rynd was in the kitchen sitting
at the table straddling a chair backwards staring at Tanner. He was surprisingly
sober at the moment.
“Oh fuck, what’d ya want Mama?” Tanner murmured to himself as he
turned and lumbered up the concrete block into the kitchen.
Vivian Rynd was not to be put off. The family breadwinner for most of
Tanner and Isa’s lives, she knew how to grab the attention of her family. She
was a big woman, tall, broad shouldered, with a narrow oblong face that gave
her a presence and commanded that others listen to what she had to say.
As Tanner came in the doorway, Chester Rynd stood up and started toward
his son. Vivian stopped him short. “Just hold on Ches, I’ll ask the questions,
sit down,” she demanded. He’d been out of it for the better part of five days.
He was not going to lead this inquest.
“Tanner, you need to tell us what you know or have heard ‘bout that girl’s
killing. This town is startin’ to get hot. I even heard things down at work.
That’s the next county you know. They mentioned your name to me Tanner,
your name! I hear they got three counties involved in this now. They’re saying
they may call in some government people.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about no girl and no dead body and no fuckin’
killing. Fuck, you accusing me of somethin’?” Tanner answered harshly.
“No, Tanner, I’m not, and don’t talk to me that way! But if you know
somethin’, anything, if you’ve heard any of your friends say anything, you
better tell me. Tanner, I don’t know how long that girl’s been dead but I know
you’ve been gone a lot lately. I’ve given up on trying to keep up with your
comings and goings and God knows your father doesn’t keep up with nothin’.
It doesn’t look good,” Vivian tried to rationalize with her son, trying her best
to ignore the tone he was using with her. Suddenly the raw ache between her
eyes returned.
“Shit, what friends, he ain’t got no friends, you know that Viv,” Chester
Rynd managed to squeeze in a comment.
Vivian, Tanner and Isa watched as Chester Rynd got up, pushed back his
chair so hard it fell on its side, and shuffled back to the bedroom, where Isa
was sure he had his bottle stored. His interest in his son had disappeared as
suddenly as it had appeared.
* * *

Monday late morning, June 27

Clary’s Diner, just across the street from the A&P, was a popular spot in
Honey Grove, with its black and white tile floor, red plastic booths with
yellow Formica and chrome tables, just the right place to have a cup of
morning coffee. A jukebox sat on each booth. Two weeks after the body was
found, Lou Fry made a late morning visit to Honey Grove’s downtown to buy
some fencing material at McCormick’s Hardware and Lumber Store. Sheriff
Barba was just about to enter Clary’s when he caught sight of Lou two doors
down, on the other side of Baty’s Washateria.
“Lou, where ya been? Come on and buy me a cup ‘a coffee. I hadn’t talked
to you in a week. I’ll fill you in on what’s going on with that girl’s murder,”
Sheriff Barba encouraged Lou to join him. Lou, with some reluctance, nodded
in agreement and walked into Clary’s with the sheriff.
“Ok, but I can’t stay long. Our cows been gettin’ out ‘a broken fence up on
the north side of our place.”
“Hey Ina Bell, bring us two coffees, strong ‘nes, ok,” Sheriff Barba called
to the long-time waitress behind the counter. Taking a seat at one of the booths
toward the front, the sheriff asked Lou if he had heard the news they’d
discovered earlier in the week.
“It turns out Juniper Post worked for the American Milk Producers in the
little Pecan Gap administrative office up until a couple months ago. She
answered the phone and did some traveling around the county to deliver
paperwork and payroll checks to some of the workers. She’d been in Pecan
Gap a little over a year. She only took the job at the Do-U Parlor in early May.
But that fact complicates matters a little bit more,” Sheriff Barba almost
seemed to be enjoying the sharing of the details.
“What’d you mean? Why does that complicate matters?” Lou asked as he
began to flip through the songs on the jukebox with no intention of playing
any of them.
“Well, just means she knew more people than we originally thought. She
got ‘round if you get what I mean,” Sheriff Barba tilted his head toward Lou
as he replied. “But,” Sheriff Barba continued, “that’s not all we found out.
That part-time volunteer deputy down in Pecan Gap, hicky as that little
dickhead shit is, discovered there’s an old road, so old it’s unknown to most
folks, leadin’ to that farmhouse from a little dirt trail off Old Harlow Road.
It’s a long abandoned lane but one that somebody could ‘a drove a car down
for a half mile or so, hid the car, and then walked to the farmhouse. It turns out
it’s an easier route than the ones the girls took the day they found the body.
And Lou, me and that deputy over in Pecan Gap--well--we keeping this to
ourselves for a few days, but we did find the girl’s old red Chevy pickup. It ‘as
parked just a short ways off Old Harlow hidden under a deep canopy off the
old trail.”
“Yea, so what’d that mean, you’re saying she drove there, parked the truck,
and then walked to the old house from that direction?”
 “Don’t know Lou, don’t know, but we’re gonna figure it out,” Sheriff Barba
shrugged. “I just know I want my county to solve this crime before any of the
other counties or God forbid, those God-damned government people. It’s been
three weeks. People are gettin’ antsy, there’s just ain’t many clues to follow so
far.”
* * *

Monday morning, July 4

The 4th of July parade and the park picnic that followed was the highlight
of Honey Grove’s summer. The flags, the high school band in their orange and
white uniforms, the volunteer firemen, Sheriff Barba and Deputy Blankenship
riding in the cruiser--all participated. The band didn’t let the summer heat
prevent them from marching a half mile down Main Street, passing Haggard’s
Hotel, Ward’s Drug, and the A&P, and on down to Rudd Electric, and then
circling the outskirts of town. The crowd seemed to put the month long cloud
aside at least for a few hours. Everyone except Lou, Edith, Maddie--and Isa.
A light mist had fallen earlier in the day, but the sun appeared shortly
before the start of the festivities. Maddie thought that they would all walk
downtown together like they did every summer, but Lou said he had to do
some fence work. And Edith had a stomachache, something she had eaten the
night before she said.
That was fine with Maddie. She left the house about a quarter to nine and
began walking. Edith and Lou didn’t know but she had talked to Isa the
afternoon before and they planned to meet in front of Clary’s Diner at the start
of the parade.
“Maddie, Maddie,” Isa called out from the east side of Main. She came
across and stepped upon the sidewalk and hugged Maddie. “Oh, Maddie, I’m
so glad to see you. Our whole summer ’s goin’ by so fast. Do you even
remember that day? It‘s like it ‘as so long ago. Nobody ‘ll talk to me ‘bout it.
‘cept I know they’re all thinkin‘ about it.”
“Yea, I know,” Maddie answered and then continued. “Isa, is it true, is the
sheriff looking at Tanner? You don’t think your own brother would kill that
girl, do you?” The instant Maddie spoke the words she regretted it. “Oh, Isa,
it’s just so awful. They even got Feddie worried about Acey. There’s all kind
‘a talk Acey was seen down by the creek that day.”
“I don’t know, Maddie. I don’t know ‘bout Tanner. He doesn’t talk to me
and Mama no more, he just hangs out. I think Mama’s ‘bout to give up talkin’
to him. But, no, I don’t think my brother would kill nobody. I don’t know
nothing ‘bout that Acey boy.”
* * *

Wednesday evening, July 13

A thunderous storm raged outside. Edith had fried chicken, a special treat
for a Wednesday supper. Her mood seemed to have brightened somewhat.
“Ok, this is going to be a meal where we sit and have gratitude in our
hearts for what we have, and we’re not gonna dwell on what’s going on in this
town,” Edith tried her best to steer her family from the gloom and even more
the fear that seemed to have settled over them the last month. “Maddie, I want
you to snap out of it--you’re bringing the whole family down.” Maddie didn’t
say so, but she thought it was her mother and father who were bringing the
family down.
Lou glanced up at her as he reached for his first piece of chicken and said
nothing but gave Edith a nod of agreement.
Maddie got tears in her eyes as she got up from her chair and went to give
her mother a hug. Perhaps tonight’s supper at the Frys’ could be the beginning
of normalcy.
Edith heard it first, a hard thump on the back porch.
“Mister Lou, Mister Lou, please come out! They done let the dogs on him. I
know’d it!” Edith could see through the kitchen to the back door window
from where they sat in the small dining room. She turned and looked to her
husband, “Louis,” she never called him by his full name, “that sounds like
Feddie at the back door. Hurry! She’s screamin’.” The banging on the door
along with Feddie’s piercing screams only got louder. Lou pushed back his
chair, stepped around the stool where Maddie sat and hurried through the
kitchen to the back door.
Edith and Maddie watched from just inside the kitchen door. Feddie
weighed no more than a hundred pounds, but she fell to Lou’s feet with a hard
thud and sobs she could not control. She was soaking wet from the rain.
Finally calming her voice, she managed “Mister Lou, what I goin’ do?”
“Feddie, what in the world, is it Hamm? Is he sick?” Lou asked as he
turned back to Edith. “Stay inside,” he commanded.
“No, no it ain’t Hamm. It Acey, they came down to ‘da hill and got him
right at suppertime. They got him and took him down toward ‘dat creek. I
knowed they put the dogs on him! They say he killed that girl Mr. Lou, what I
gonna’ do? He scared ‘a water and he scared ‘a dogs.”
“Feddie, stand up and stop your crying and hollering. Let me go down
there, I think I know who might ‘a gotten him. I’ll call Sheriff Barba. Go back
home now and I promise I’ll bring Acey home to you tonight,” Lou promised.
“Mister Lou, you know Acey a good boy,” Feddie stood there dependent on
the only person she knew who could help her son.
* * *
Rocky and Ricky Baxter were twin brothers, twenty years old. They lived
with their father in a shotgun house east of town. Max Baxter, their father, was
a weather beaten stooped-shoulder man, middle-aged, but he appeared on the
verge of old. He had followed his own father into share cropping another
man’s land for years, down around Greenville. No one knew anything about
the twins’ mother. A few years back, Max Baxter had opened a welding shop
in the back of his lot under a screened-in room where he somehow had
managed to run electricity. His sharecropping days were behind him, but he
was no less mad at the world because of it.
Although the Baxters’ family had lived in Honey Grove for almost ten
years, no one knew much about them. No one seemed to recall the boys in
school after about tenth grade. But what they did remember is that they had
been in and out of the Honey Grove’s jail for petty theft around town. And
Ricky, short, barrel-chested with a head that seemed too small for his body,
was twice easily recognized as the “peeping tom” in an old neighbor woman’s
window after dark.
“Neil, we got a problem down by the creek. Feddie came by and said
somebody had taken Acey. They’re accusin’ him ‘a killin’ that girl. I know
where they took him, down by that clearing at the creek. Can you meet me
there now?” Lou Fry had called the sheriff as soon as Feddie left. “And you
and I both know who’s doing this.”
“Oh God, not them again. Yea, let me get dressed. I’ll call Marcus to meet
us there. Those two boys been problems for years now.”
* * *

Thursday morning, July 14

“I’m gonna release ‘em, Max, but your boys are trouble and they been
trouble for a long time. You know that,” Sheriff Barba spoke the next morning
to Max Baxter. “They almost killed that nigger boy last night. You take ‘em
home and tell ‘em how it is. They can’t keep gettin into trouble without me
doing somethin’ ‘bout it, Max. They may find themselves in the county jail
over in Bonham next time. This place is like a park compared to that hellhole.
And keep those Goddamn mongrel dogs on your own property. Either keep
‘em in your house or tie ‘em up.”
“Ah shit, Barba, you know as well as I do that nigger did it, and why not let
my boys take care ‘a it, if you won’t,” Max’s cigarette ashes dropped to the
floor as he spoke.
The sheriff glared back at Max Baxter and hesitated before he answered,
“Max, take ‘em home now. And if this happens again, you’ll find ‘em over
there, and they won’t get released this easy. And keep your God-damned ashes
off my floor.”
* * *

Tuesday late morning, July 26

It was late morning in the middle of summer, but an earlier downpour had
kept the temperature comfortable. Maddie met Isa in Old Sycamore Park on
the west side of town, a park filled with pine trees, a few live oaks and three
picnic tables, but no sycamore trees. Maddie was wondering how the park got
its name when she spotted Isa coming toward her. They avoided the tables and
instead sat under one of the sprawling oak branches.
“Isa, I don’t know why they can’t find that girl’s killer. I can’t seem to get
that morning out ‘a my mind. How could someone do that and just leave ‘em
dead like that? I think Mama ‘a Daddy are worried ‘bout me. I think they’re
scared somebody’s gonna come and kill me. They won’t let me talk ‘bout it to
‘em,” Maddie said as she shifted positions to get away from the westward
moving sun. “Mama’s losing weight, I’ve never seen her so thin. It’s scary,
Isa.”
“Maddie, oh geez, Maddie, I don’t know, you just gotta not think ‘bout it so
much. I wish we’d never gone on that stupid walk.”
* * *

Tuesday morning, August 9

Rain fell on Northeast Texas early this morning. More rain had come this
summer than most town folks could remember, but the rain had not made the
temperatures less severe.
Sheriff Barba told Marcus to hold down the fort, that he had an errand that
might take much of the day. After grabbing a cup of coffee at Clary’s, he got
in his cruiser and started down toward Pecan Gap. Vera Dell Brewster had
called late the day before and asked him to drive down to “The Gap” as she
called it. She had some information he needed to hear directly from her --
about that girl’s murder. Her call had caused him to lose sleep the night before,
resulting in an unpleasant looming in his chest.
Shortly before the opening hour of “Do-Up”, the blinds on the back of the
front entrance clanged as Neil Barba opened the parlor door. An hour had
passed since he departed Honey Grove. He had driven slowly, needing the
time to think.
Vera was in the back room making herself her first and only cup of coffee
when she heard the sound and came through the curtain in the doorway to her
office and break room.
“Sheriff Barba, morning, can I get you a new cup or fill up the one you got
there?”
“No, I’m fine Ms. Brewster, just anxious to find out what new information
you got.”
“Well, I don’t know if it’s gonna’ help but there’s this lady, an older woman
shall we say, and I do her hair every Friday. She doesn’t want me to tell you
her name right yet. She was in here last week, and we got to talkin’ about Juni-
-oh sorry, Juniper, we all called her Juni here. Seems kinda disrespectful to call
her that now, don’t it?” The sheriff nodded, less in agreement with the
disrespect part, but more to get the information flowing.
“Anyway, this person, this lady, lives just beyond the old trail that goes to
that old shack in the woods where Juni’s body was found. Remember I told
you I thought there was another way in from this side of that wild forestry
area,” Vera Dell began to speak more softly. He knew this was where the
Chevy truck had been found. Sheriff Barba removed his hat and was running
his right hand down the back of his head as he listened. His stomach suddenly
tightened on him, and the coffee he had drunk earlier seemed to come back up
in little drops.
“Anyway, this woman, this neighbor at the beginning of that old trail, said
she’d seen Juni’s old truck, that ol’ red piece a junk Chevy, start down that trail
several times over the last few months, the one that shoots off Old Harlow
Road. She didn’t always see it come out, but she knew it must ‘a cause she’d
see it go back in a few days later. I don’t know, maybe it’s nothing, but it
looks like maybe Juni would go in there alone most of the time, but twice,
Sheriff Barba,” Vera Dell Brewster lowered her voice even more, “well, she
saw a man riding in the truck with her, only twice she said though. I’m sorry
I’m just now telling you this, but this person, this lady, just told me. It may not
mean nothin’,” Vera Dell continued a little embarrassed.
“But Sheriff, I got to thinking, maybe it’s somebody local. So I got some
pictures out from old newspapers around the counties, I keep almost all papers
you know. I take the Greenville Herald Banner, the Honey Grove Weekly
Gazette, and the Pecan Gap Weekly. I don’t know why I keep taking the Gap
‘ne, ain’t ever much in it. But you never know when you’re gonna need old
papers, especially when you got two dogs at home,” Vera Dell Brewster
managed to smile through her entire explanation.
“Mrs. Brewster, can you tell me what you know, just tell me the bottom
line,” the sheriff tried not to appear too anxious, so not to scare her off.
“Well, we sat on her porch last Friday afternoon, after I closed the shop,
and I showed her every newspaper I had and she looked at all the -- well, the
men. Sheriff, here are two pictures of the same man, the one she swears she
saw twice in the truck with Juni going into the woods.”
Sheriff Barba stared at the two pictures for what seemed to Vera Dell
Brewster a very long time. “Is she sure? I mean real sure?”
Mrs. Brewster nodded. “She said ‘absolutely sure’ when I asked her.”
* * *

Wednesday late afternoon, August 17

It was a cloudless day, hot and dry. Edith had told Maddie she should start
thinking about school and getting school supplies for eighth grade. She still
had the list the school had provided at the end of the prior year. Lou had given
Maddie some money earlier that afternoon and told her he would do all the
milking that afternoon. He’d hired some help from Hamm and his brother,
Timo. They were doing most of the farm work now anyway, at least it seemed
to Maddie. Her father stayed around the house more and more these days, she
thought maybe to protect her mother and her--from what she wasn’t sure.
So Maddie was glad when her mother suggested she walk downtown and
do a little shopping. Around three-thirty, she left the house and began going
toward Cotton’s, a five-and-dime, to get notebooks and some pencils and some
other odds and ends. She thought about calling Isa to meet her at Clary’s, but
she let the idea drop.
Choosing the Pine Street path, she began strolling southward on the west
side of the street. Pine Street was a greener route with a strong oak canopy
and was much cooler than Main Street, a busier route and the street Maddie
usually walked. Her thoughts were on the start of school and how the summer
was almost over when suddenly she heard the holler, a coarse sound coming
from behind her on her left.
“Hey, how ‘bout getting in here with us? We’ll take you where you wanna
go. Huh?” the car horn sounded, but a soft sound. Maddie thought whoever it
was did not want to attract attention.
She turned and saw it was Tanner in the passenger seat, but it was whom he
was with that surprised her--Ricky Baxter. She had never seen them together
before. The two of them together could only mean trouble. Starting to walk at
a faster pace, now only three blocks from downtown, she noticed there was no
one else around, no other cars and no people. “Get in,” Ricky leaned across
the front seat and yelled out the window. “We just wanna take you where you
goin’. We wanna hear all about that old daddy o’ yours.” He had never said a
word to her before.
“Tanner, leave me alone. Leave me alone, I mean it,” Maddie angrily
replied just as she saw Mr. Honeycutt, the lumber yard man, driving from the
other direction, going north on Pine. Although Mr. Honeycutt didn’t stop, he
slowed. The boys took off. Shaken, she continued on her errand. When did
those two start hanging out together? Mrs. Honeycutt was manning the
lumber office and she let Maddie use the office phone to call her mother to
come pick her up. Her reason--Cotton’s didn’t have the right school supplies
in yet and she would need a little more money anyway. She wasn’t feeling
well and didn’t feel like walking home. She spoke nothing of the encounter to
either of her parents. She went to her room as soon as she and her mother
arrived home and remained there until suppertime. She felt dizzy. A distant
fear engulfed her entire body as she remembered the final words Ricky Baxter
had spoken.
* * *

Thursday, early evening, August 18

Maddie heard the boots pound the wooden porch a split second before the
knock came. And at just that moment, a sick feeling of gloom filled her body.
Two of the dairy cows had again gotten loose earlier that afternoon, and that
caused the last milking to be a little later than normal. She had dried the last
supper dish and had just leaned her head back on the couch with her radio
listening to Summer in the City, the sound turned low as Lou said he didn’t
feel well. He had eaten little and was now in the bedroom resting. Edith was
finishing up in the kitchen and heard the knock. Wiping her hands on her
apron, she walked through the living room, briefly glanced over at Maddie on
the couch, and caught sight of Neil through the screen door.
“Neil, what in the world? You still out patrolin’?” Edith asked with a
subdued tone, a voice that indicated she knew why the sheriff was here
without having to ask.
“Where is he Edith? I think you know why I’m here,” Maddie heard Sheriff
Barba speak in a tone she had not heard before—a distance in his voice. She
stayed motionless, out of eyeshot of the sheriff, a distinct chill overcoming
her.
“Step inside Neil. Why do bad things always happen at supper time?” Edith
murmured more to herself than to the sheriff. Maddie thought it the strangest
comment. “He’s sick, but I’ll get him,” she said as she opened the door for
Neil to step in.
A low summer sun was still streaming from the bedroom window reaching
through the hallway. Lou’s shadow preceded him. His shirt was out and he
wore socks but no shoes. He stopped just inside the living room, running his
hand through his hair. “I knew you’d be here, I’ll get my things,” Lou said.
Maddie had never seen her father greet company in such disarray.
They watched from the front porch as Lou looked back at Edith and Neil
Barba opened the back passenger door to his cruiser. Both Edith and Maddie
stood motionless, without words, for what seemed like several long minutes,
but really it was only a moment. Finally Maddie turned to her mother.
“Mama, tell me what’s happening. Why did the sheriff take Daddy? Mama,
tell me!” Maddie’s screams became hysterical. But Edith offered no sympathy,
she couldn’t, at least not yet. She had to come to terms with what was
happening before she could comfort Maddie.
“Maddie, I want you to go to your room now. Will you just trust me
tonight and do that for me? I’ll explain to you in the morning why your father
was taken to jail,” Edith urged Maddie.
Tears streaming down her face, Maddie knew she would learn nothing
tonight.
* * *

Friday morning, August 19

She’d finally fallen asleep by the middle of the night, and she awoke
abruptly to her mother’s touch on her forehead.
“Maddie, I have a lot to tell you. And I don’t even know where to start,
except just to well—start. You have to hear this from me and no one else,”
Edith began. “Your father and--and that woman, the woman whose body you
and Isa found--well, your father--your father was seeing her. And he had been
seeing her for about six months. They would meet at the old house where her
body was found. They say your father killed her. Maddie, they were having an
affair, he was in love with her,” Edith continued with tears welling in her eyes.
“He finally told me several weeks ago. That’s why I been so sick this
summer. He knew he should ‘a gone to Neil, to the sheriff, immediately, when
you and Isa found the body, but he waited too long. Well, you finding the
body, that about killed him,” Edith continued.
“A woman down in Pecan Gap, a woman who lives close by, saw your
father in the girl’s truck starting down the dirt road with--with her. The woman
identified a picture of your father--two different pictures. Your father finally
told me he would meet her and leave his car in the back of a parking lot in
Pecan Gap and then ride with her to the beginning of the old abandoned road
and park off the trail where no one could see the girl’s car. Then they would
walk to the cabin--and well I think you are old enough to understand the rest
of it,” Edith was crying more than Maddie at this point. “Oh Maddie, how
does a mother tell her daughter something like this? I don’t know the right
way.”
“Mama, don’t say stuff like this. I don’t understand, Daddy loves us.”
“Sheriff Barba has asked Delta County over in Cooper to convene a grand
jury. They want another county to do the grand jury work. Your father has to
stay in jail until then. It could be a week. They won’t let him out on bail, not
when somebody’s killed. Oh Maddie, I’m so sorry to have to tell you all this.
I loved your father so much, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Edith
nestled down and cuddled Maddie next to her as she spoke these final words.
Maddie noticed her mother had used the word “loved” not “love.”
* * *

Friday, August 26

A week went by. Sheriff Barba was having a hard time getting Delta
County to seat a grand jury. He told Lou and Edith that it was to happen at the
county seat on the following Friday. Edith went to visit Lou each morning in
the jail. She wouldn’t let Maddie go even though she begged each time.
“Maddie, school starts in two weeks. I want you to try to focus on school.
I’ll let you go see your father after Friday. I want to wait ‘til then, ok? Try to
understand why,” Edith urged her daughter.
Maddie couldn’t think of anything other than wanting her father to come
home. Her only consolation was calling Isa each afternoon. Her mother had
hired some more help from down on the hill to milk the cows in the morning
and to help in the afternoon as well. Hamm was helping with the odd chores.
She and her mother were doing none of the dairy work now. Even the
housework was slipping. Edith had lost more weight, and she seemed older,
worn, grayer, more distant.
“Maddie, I just don’t understand why they think your daddy killed that girl.
How could they believe that?” Isa would comment each afternoon, and linger
on the words. But Maddie felt an edge to Isa’s tone, like she was just mouthing
the words, like she knew more but couldn’t say.
“Cause they showed an ol’ women down in Pecan Gap his pictures, and she
said it was him for sure that went down that road in that woman’s red truck.
The sheriff went down and talked to her too. They showed her pictures of
those Baxter boys--and Isa--you know Tanner was looked at too. But that
woman said it was an older man. She was sure, Isa, she was sure,” Maddie
finally was able to speak through her tears. “Oh, Isa, Mama’s actin’ so
different, it’s like she’s maybe trying to protect me, she doesn’t want to talk
‘bout it. But it’s worse that way. I can’t tell if she still loves Daddy. She might
even hate him Isa. Maybe she hates me too.”
* * *
Monday morning, August 29

Maddie got up about nine, although she had awoken an hour earlier. She
was waiting for her mother to leave for the jail. Edith had convinced her to
begin thinking about school and about her courses. She told Maddie not to
think about buying new clothes just yet--until her father came home. That was
the first time since her father was arrested that Edith had shown hope.
She began looking through her closet to see what she could wear that would
be nice for the first day of school. She’d barely been out of her nightclothes
the last week--her only contact had been with Isa by telephone.
Remembering a pink blouse with ruffles that she had only worn a couple of
times in the spring, she rummaged through her rack, thinking that would work
for the first day. She recalled her mother had borrowed it at the beginning of
the summer to attend a Honey Grove library event after her sewing circle met.
Her parents’ bedroom door was open. Maddie entered and walked over to
Edith’s closet and began scouting through the hanging clothes. She saw the
blouse but it fell to the floor when she pulled on it. Bending over to retrieve it,
her heart stopped cold, her body froze. There on the floor in the front corner,
partially covered by a dress box, was a pair of Edith’s shoes, the old white
canvas shoes she wore to garden. A dark red purplish color stained both--the
same stain Maddie had gotten the day she found the girl’s body at the cabin,
the stain that would remain on both pair of shoes forever. Maddie recognized
the color immediately. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t take her eyes off those
shoes.
Standing, alone, scared, her mind spinning out of control, she thought she
heard the front door open and someone start down the hallway. Her mother?
But it was not her mother. It was her father. He had on different clothes
than the ones he left in the week before. Maddie stood there by her mother’s
closet, her father a few feet away in the bedroom door, saying nothing at first--
just gently moving his head side to side.
“Maddie, I want you to come into the living room and sit with me. We have
a lot of talkin’ to do, and I am going to talk until you are sick of me talkin’. I
need to tell you what happened this summer. You deserve the truth and
nothing else.”
* * *
He sat next to Maddie on the living room couch, not too close, not too far
away and turned his face to hers. She only listened at first, not ready to look
into her father’s eyes.
 “I met her about six months ago, Maddie, at that little American Milk
Producers office down in Pecan Gap. I took some paperwork in there, some
legal stuff I have to furnish to the AMP once a year. I’m not going to go into
any great detail Maddie, but we got together. She flattered me every time I saw
her. I don’t know what happened to me. What happened just happened. I
won’t make excuses to you cause I don’t have any,” Lou continued.
“I knew about that old cabin back in those woods and one day we went
there. The Saturday before you found the body, we met there again. She said
she loved me. She had brought some kind of stupid paint to cover the wall
over-- one of the walls that could be part of us she said,” Lou was having a
hard time finding his words.
Maddie suddenly looked up at her father, “Oh, Daddy, I know, over the
mattress with the pretty red blanket where you were...with her. Isa told me all
about the pretty red blanket in the corner,” Maddie’s spoke with contempt.
“She got crazy that day, that Saturday, she wanted to tell the world about
us. She said she loved me, she wanted this to be our little corner of the world
until we--until we could, well, until I could tell everybody about her, until,
until me and your mama could get a divorce.”
“She got crazy that day. I told her she was crazy. There was no us--and that
I never gave her that impression. When I saw that paint I saw how ridiculous
this whole thing was, and how stupid I’d been. It was like I woke up. I know
you don’t understand this, Maddie.”
“She was furious. She ran toward the porch door, picked up the paint, and
tried to sling it toward me, but I turned it in time, and it spilled on the porch,
and then she dropped the bucket. I told her I had to get out of there, and I left,
with her screaming words I wouldn’t repeat--even down in Negro town. I told
her I was walking back to my car and it took awhile until I rounded a corner in
those deep woods and it was quiet again—until I could no longer hear her
voice. That was the last time I saw her. Then I walked to my car in Pecan Gap
about noon. I was through. I thought I could forget the whole thing, no one
would ever know,” Lou lowered his head and stopped talking.
“Oh Maddie, I don’t want to tell you this, but I want you to hear the truth
from me. It’s about time I was honest.”
“So you’re trying to tell me you didn’t kill her?” Maddie asked angrily as
she got up and started toward her room.
“No, Maddie, I didn’t kill her,” Lou replied.
“I don’t care if you didn’t kill her, I still hate you, I hate you, I hate you.
Poor Mama,” Maddie turned to face her father before she continued down the
hallway.
* * *

Monday afternoon, August 29

They had been on the couch for hours now—the last few just sitting—with
few words spoken between them.
 “Maddie, the Monday you and Isa found the body was two days after I was
with her. I was so scared when you told us, I didn’t know who could have
done such a thing or who in the world knew she was there besides me. I was
scared and only after it was too late did I realize I should’a gone straight to
Sheriff Barba. But I didn’t.”
“Maddie, a week went by, your mother and I were both sick, I thought I
wouldn’t live through that week. I carried the burden that I had been with her
before she died.”
“I came in the house one morning after the milking. I could tell Edith knew
something, something was wrong. You weren’t in the house. I don’t remember
where you were. Maddie, your mother knew, she knew all along that I had
been seeing that woman.”
“We fought that morning like we’d never fought before. I told her I was
going back down to the barn just to get away from her screaming. I told her
how messed up everything had gotten, how I would try to make things right by
going to the sheriff right then and telling him everything, but she stopped me,
just before I went out the door.” Lou recalled the words Edith spoke that day
but he didn’t relay them to Maddie.
“I killed her Lou. I killed the fucking whore. You didn’t think ole Edith had
much spunk left in her did you? I knew you were meetin’ her that day. You
must ‘a thought I ‘as so stupid. I knew exactly where you ‘as going. I left the
house and took that same old route Maddie took to the cabin. I was so hoping
to find you two together, to confront you, to let you look me in the eye with her
next to you. But you weren’t there. I got there just before she—Juni—as I hear
you called her, started to leave. Is that what you called Lou, Juni, when you
kissed the bitch?”
“Hello whore, where is he, where in the fuck is my husband? I know you’re
not here by yourself? Do you know who I am?” Lou continued to recall what
Edith had told him she said to the girl the Saturday that changed so many
lives.
“Your mother went to the cabin that Saturday. Somehow she knew we were
going to be there. But I’d already left. Your mother confronted her. She told
me that Juniper--yes, I might as well use her name with you—just smirked at
your mother and then she started walking back to her car. She was simply
ignoring your mother, like she was nobody. That’s when your mother picked
up the brick and ran toward her. She was aiming at her back just trying to
knock her down. Maybe that was true at first, but after she was down, well--I
don’t know the details, Maddie.”
“Oh Maddie, I’m so sorry. But I don’t know how else to tell you about what
happened. I don’t have excuses for what I’ve done. I’m so sorry. I begged your
mother to let me take the blame and at first she was gonna let me, but then—
but then—she changed her mind. We both knew the truth ‘ould come out in
the end.”
* * *
 Maddie got up from the couch and walked to her room—her mind numb
but without tears. She lay there for what seemed like an hour. Returning to the
living room, she saw her father still sitting there, same spot, head in his hands
—sad, pitiful, broken, only a piece of the man she’d known.
She sat down next to him. Her tears long dried and after awhile, Lou turned
and glanced into Maddie’s face. He took her hand, and this time, she didn’t
pull away.
“Maddie, let’s go see your mama. Let’s go now. That’s all we can do right
now. Let’s start with that.”

* * *

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