Junebug asked. “She’s still Miz Harcher to me. I must not have your charm.” “We all have our small burdens to bear. You going to be there or not?” “I’ll be there,” he huffed. “See you shortly.” I replaced the phone in the hook. The bad people indeed, Josh, I thought. From the mouths of babes.
11
I knew something was wrong the moment I saw the door of Beta’s house. It stood ajar. Shannon might be visiting a small town but she was a big-city girl and didn’t strike me as the type to leave front doors open. I jogged up the path to the porch. It creaked when I stepped on it. “Shannon?” I called. No answer. The second step creaked louder than the first and I paused again. “Shannon? It’s Jordy Poteet.” The wind answered me, brushing across my face and bringing me the scent of honeysuckle from a neighbor’s bush. I pushed the door open, calling Shannon’s name again into the dimness of the entry hall.
I walked into the living room. The curtains were still drawn as Beta probably left them, but in the light of the doorway I could see the whole room had been trashed. Chairs were knocked over, books spilled down from the high-standing bookshelf, drawers from a desk lay yanked free of their snug home. I had taken four steps into the room when I heard and saw Shannon. She lay crumpled by the sofa, and the cushions were stained with the blood from her face. Her arms were flung outward, as though ready to give a hug, but not a kiss. Her lovely face was a wet mass, stained with blood and hair and what looked like bone. Her citified black T-shirt was ripped at the collar and I could see her bra strap and a white expanse of shoulder. The acrid smell of bullet fire pervaded the air, in contrast to the sweet honeysuckle on the porch. I crouched by her, hearing her wet intake of breath before I tried to find a pulse. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her neck; I found a pulse in her wrist. The beat had almost faded, but it was still there, like a last echo on a stage. I stumbled through the mess to the phone, hearing the porch boards creak under weight. Junebug’s shadow fell into the hallway. “Call an ambulance!” I hollered. “She’s been shot!” The next few minutes were a daze. Junebug bolted back to his car and radioed for help. I held Shannon’s cooling hand, telling her that help was on its way, for her to hold on. I don’t know if she heard me; there was no replying grasp on my fingers, and the only noise she made was her breathing. I held each breath of mine until she drew another one. The ambulance came, along with two of Junebug’s officers. Someone pulled Shannon’s fingers from mine and I watched them take her off in the ambulance. Wordlessly I turned back and walked into the house that still smelled of gunfire. I stood by the gore-stained couch and suddenly needed to sit down, but not there. I sagged and a strong arm, one that felt familiar, caught me. “Here, Jordy,” Junebug said gently. “Sit here.” He steered me to an easy chair in the corner under a lamp. I trod right over the books and smashed bric-a-brac that littered the floor. I sank into the chair.
Junebug squatted by me, and over his shoulder I saw a wall of crosses.
They were of every size and shape, some of metal and some of wood, and right away I saw they formed a larger cross that stood well over seven feet tall. Home decor a la Harcher, I thought crazily. It made the scene even more unreal. I sunk my face into my hands. “Listen, Jordy,”
Junebug said. “Tell me what happened.” I told him, remembering that it was only two mornings ago I’d had to relate a somewhat similar story.
If I kept finding bodies, I wasn’t going to get invited anywhere.
Shannon wasn’t a body, I reminded myself. She was alive. For now. I felt cold, despite the spring warmth outside. Junebug squeezed my shoulder when I was done. “You okay?” For the first time in all this he sounded like my old friend and rival. I looked up at him with gratitude (not a common occurrence with me) and he smiled grimly. “I just can’t believe this, Junebug. What the hell is going on here?” One of Junebug’s officers, the nervous one with the cropped hair that’d been at the library, stuck his head around the corner. “Busted window in the back bedroom, Chief,” he reported crisply. “Looks like the pane was smashed and the window forced up from outside.” “Thanks. Keep checking around; let me know what you find.” Junebug shook his head, surveying the wrecked room. He walked through the mess, and I followed him. The destruction wasn’t quite complete. One shelf of cheap glass over a secretary-style bureau glittered intact, and another row of Bibles stood on the top-most shelf, probably out of the attacker’s reach. Pictures on one wall, of a younger Beta, a far primmer-looking Shannon in her Baylor graduation gown, and of a nearsighted-looking couple from the Forties peered back at us, still hanging straight from the wall. Shards from a china collection that had seen far better days crunched under my feet. Junebug glanced back at me. “Maybe you were right, Jordy. Beta must’ve been hidin’ somethin’ in here. This ain’t from any struggle Shannon had with her attacker. Somebody was either looking for something or being a vandal.” “If someone broke in, Shannon must’ve walked in on them,” I guessed. “She told me she had an appointment with Reverend Hufnagel before she was meeting us back here. She must’ve surprised the intruder.” “Is that the story you’re peddling now, Poteet?” a nasal voice behind me demanded. Billy Ray Bummel sauntered in like he owned the place. He sniffed the air, like a wine connoisseur inhaling tenderly over a glass of vintage red.
“There’s been a crime here, I do believe.” I was ready to tell him the only crime was his continued employment by Bonaparte County, but Junebug had his own ax to grind. “Lay off Jordy, Billy Ray. He didn’t have anything to do with this.” Billy Ray whirled on the law like it was a misbehaving dog. “And how are you so sure about that, Chief? Let me remind you that Mr. Poteet here has found both members of the Harcher family dead in the past two days.” “Shannon’s not dead,” I argued. He waved off that technicality and tried to get as close to my face as his stunted height would allow. “Not yet. And why not? Because you’re a lousy shot, probably. Because Chief Moncrief here caught you before you could snuff out that poor young thing’s life. What is it that spawns your violence against women-folk, Poteet?” He was about to see what spawned my violence toward balding, onion-breathed lawyers.
Junebug intervened. “Stop it, Billy Ray. Jordy, you take two steps back and don’t pay him heed.” There was a snapping noise and I saw Junebug pulling on plastic gloves. “Billy Ray, Jordy was on the phone with me immediately before all this happened. He wouldn’t have had time to get over here, trash this room, and shoot Shannon.” “We are not talking about running across Houston here, Junebug. We are talking about being three streets over. He would have had plenty of time.”
Billy Ray fumed, the struggle of doing such calculations draining his energy. Junebug began picking through the debris of Beta Harcher’s den carefully, not looking at Billy Ray. “Nonsense.” He told Billy Ray about me finding out what Beta had told Josh, bolstering the theory that Beta was using blackmail to build funds for her proposed church.
Billy Ray didn’t care for that theory. He turned back on me. “You’ve spun a might tricky web here, Poteet,” he sneered. “I guess you think havin’ lived in the big city, you’re going to outfox us reg’lar folk.
Let me just divest you of that notion, mister. You’re going to have a lethal injection pumped into you if Shannon Harcher dies, and even if you don’t, you’re gonna have one for killing Beta.” “I bet my uncle Bid could sue you for saying something like that to me,” I said hopefully. My temper was in full force now. I’d seen a lovely young woman lying near death and now this little minnow of a barracuda had the audacity to accuse me, with no proof. “Of course I wouldn’t sue you as an officer of the court. The people of Bonaparte County suffer enough every time you open your mouth as their representative of law and order. I’d see about suing you just as you. Of course, what could I ask for as restitution? I have no burning need for cheap suits, and I just don’t think that I want a cardboard diploma from a mail-order law school with a post-office address.” Billy Ray showed he had some hot blood by having it all rush right to his face. One big vein popped up on his forehead and I wished for a shrimp deveiner. The little lunk might have actually tried to hit me. Our arguing had brought the pale-faced young deputy back into the room, but Junebug kept shuffling through the dross of Beta’s den. The young deputy stepped between Billy Ray and me, but it was hardly necessary. I wasn’t going to stoop to hitting the worm and he wasn’t about to strike me and get a rep for slapping around taxpayers and fellow civil servants. “Jordy,” Junebug said in his regular, polite, slow drawl, “what was the name of Eula Mae’s first book?” The question was so unexpected Billy Ray and I quit glaring at each other and turned to him. Junebug stood, setting an open Bible on a table. A yellowed piece of stationery was in his hand, and he peered at it like it held the wisdom of the ages. I had to think over Eula Mae’s impressive publishing credentials. “ The Rose of San Jacinto,” I finally said. “And she published it, right?” Junebug said. “Not a vanity press if that’s what you mean,” I answered, misunderstanding. “It was published by one of the big New York houses.” Junebug chewed his lip. “Y’all better look at this.” I nudged in front of Billy Ray and scanned the aged letter Junebug held in his hand. My breath caught at the end: 411 Blossom Street Mirabeau, Texas 78957 January 12, 1975 Ms. Eleanora Parkinson Parkinson Literary Agency 200 East 52nd Street New York, New York 10022 Dear Ms. Parkinson: I’ve written a romance novel, set during the Texas Revolution. The working title is The Rose of San Jacinto. It’s the story of a young woman who is torn between her arranged marriage to a Mexican officer and the gallant rebel that she loves. The book is in finished form and is around 100,000 words. I haven’t been published before, but my sister thinks it’s good. Please let me know if you would be interested in representing this novel to publishers. Sincerely, Patty Quiff “Patty? Who the hell’s Patty?” Billy Ray muttered. I found my voice. “Eula Mae’s sister. Her older sister. She died in, oh, about 1976. Cancer.” Billy Ray drew in a long breath, like a bloodhound scenting a deer. “Well, well, well. Isn’t this interesting?” Junebug pulled a plastic bag from his back pocket and eased the document inside. “Doesn’t prove anything yet, Billy Ray.”