“Not entirely,” Virgil drawled. Creed felt his eyes go wide. Virgil winked again. “He found the body, though, and if he has a motive, I can’t think what it’d be.”
“I, on the other hand, have a plausible motive. If I am indeed wrangling to either keep my land or sell it for a higher price, those government men might have gotten in my way.”
“I was thinking something like that,” Virgil said.
“When was he shot?”
“Yesterday—probably around noon.”
Hadden stood and dusted his hands. “Well and good. I was in Elkins, meeting with the engineer about the new airport.” He raised his eyebrows. “Can I show you gentlemen the door?”
Virgil let one side of his mouth tip up. “Sure. You mind if we poke around the crime scene one more time?”
“Not at all, although I suppose since it’s a crime scene it wouldn’t matter if I did mind.”
Virgil shook Hadden’s hand, and there seemed to be a moment when each man was trying to best the other. Virgil let go first and gave his hand a shake. “You’ve still got it, Hadden. Guess being a man of business hasn’t made you go soft.”
“That it has not,” Hadden said as he opened the front door.
six
Virgil parked as close as he could to the spot along the river where Eddie Minks breathed his last. Creed got out of the car and followed the sheriff along a path near the water’s edge. Humidity hung heavy in the summer air, and he felt sweat prickle under his arms, even though it was an easy walk. The only sound was the rush of water to his left and their footsteps. No birds sang, and the air was as still as a tomb.
As they approached the place where river grasses were mashed down, Creed saw that the earth had already absorbed the worst of the bloodstains. Nature was like that. Quick to reclaim anything man tried to change. He crouched down and examined the place where the body had lain.
“Did you see footprints or anything like that when you first got here?” Virgil asked.
“Sure. Deer tracks, turkey, grown men, kids, probably a raccoon or possum. This trail is used by all sorts of warm-blooded critters. Killer’s tracks could easily have been here, but I don’t know how you’d tell ’em apart.”
Virgil grunted and circled the area looking high and low. He finally stopped near a small stand of river oaks. “Remind me which way the body was laying.” Creed closed his eyes to picture it and pointed.
“So, the killer was probably standing opposite this spot if Eddie fell when he was hit.” The sheriff scratched under the edge of his hat where beads of sweat had formed. He let his gaze swing around. “Or Eddie might have staggered a few steps . . . Here we are!” He flipped open a pocketknife and jabbed the blade in a tree trunk. “Slug. Probably the one that winged Eddie in the arm.”
Creed stepped closer to see what Virgil had found. “Could be. Or it might be an old slug from a hunter.”
“This looks fresh. Not many folks hunting in July.”
Creed nodded. It was too hot for deer hunting, and the game wasn’t good this time of year. “If it is the bullet, what good does that do you? Lots of folks around here have a gun that caliber.”
Virgil worked the slug out and dropped it into his breast pocket. “There’s this new science called ‘ballistics.’ They say they can look at a slug under a microscope and match it to the gun that fired it. We already got the bullet that was lodged against Eddie’s spine, so we can test ’em both.” He shrugged. “If nothing else, I’d like to see how it’s done.”
Loyal sat between his parents in church the next morning. It was boring, like always, but he didn’t mind as much when Mother and Father were with him. It made him feel like part of a regular family. He leaned against Mother as they stood to sing so he could feel her voice.
After Reverend Harriman finally raised, then lowered his hands at the end, they all filtered out into the airless day. Men clustered under a tree, smoking cigarettes and tapping their toes. Loyal knew they wished their wives would stop talking and go home to get dinner on the table, and he sympathized with the women. If he could talk freely like that, he’d do plenty of it.
Across the yard, he saw Rebecca standing near her father. He noticed that she had her hair pulled back with mismatched combs. They were both the mottled brown, but one was plain and the other carved like the comb in his drawer at home. So it really was Rebecca’s. He frowned, considering what that—along with her earlier comments—meant. She and Michael must have found the body before he did. But why had she asked if he would tell on them? His eyes widened. What if they had killed the man? Michael had brought one of his father’s pistols to the Fourth of July picnic. Loyal had seen him showing it to some older boys. Why would kids shoot a grown man they didn’t even know? It was the kind of notion Mother would tell him was the result of an overactive imagination.
Loyal stared at his shoes, so deep in thought he didn’t sense someone approaching from behind. Suddenly he felt something cold and wet slither down the collar of his Sunday shirt. He arched his back and jerked the tail of his shirt out, shaking it and high-stepping until he was sure whatever it was had fallen out. He turned to see Father holding a crawdad that must have come from the creek below the church. Loyal realized everyone in the churchyard was staring at him—including Michael and his buddies, who were bent over laughing.
He felt his face go hot as he tucked his shirt back in. Father walked over, and together they strode down to the creek where they put the crawdad back in the water. Father kept his hand on Loyal’s shoulder the whole time. When they got to the creek, backs to the crowd, Father looked earnestly into his eyes. “Any fool can play a trick. Courage is holding your head high when they do.” Loyal nodded, fighting a prickling of tears. “Show me how to shape courage.”
Loyal looked to his father. Was he asking for the sign? He lifted his hands to his shoulders and made a motion as if he were plucking something from his shirt and holding it tight in his fists. Father imitated him. “That’s you,” he said, pointing at Loyal. “Courageous. Brave.” He made the sign again.
Loyal still wanted to cry, only now it was a different kind of feeling.
Delphy tried to slow the whirl of her mind as she ladled stewed chicken into a tureen. Even when it was just her and Loyal, she liked to serve a proper Sunday dinner. And this morning Creed had offered to wring the neck of the old rooster that had taken to crowing well before dawn. She’d been meaning to do it herself but was grateful to let someone else put an end to the old fellow. A secret smile quirked her lips. She’d save her neck wringing for Creed Raines. He’d spent a second night so they could go to church together, and her conflicting emotions were keeping her up at night. While she was grateful to see Creed taking more of an interest in Loyal, she was afraid he was setting the boy up for disappointment.
She settled the stew on the table next to a pea salad and angel biscuits. Creed spoke even before she could sit. “I need to get back up the mountain.” She felt every muscle in her body tense and darted a look at Loyal. The boy was perched on the edge of his seat, watching them intently. Oh, but he could see so much more than people with two good ears.