I joined him on the landing before Hammet could offer to comply with the latter part of the suggestion. "Mason Dickerson," I said slowly. "You're Madam Celeste's brother, right? You're her business manager or something like that?"
"Something like that. If it's not too much trouble, she would like you to come over to our house. I'll be happy to drive you over."
"At six o'clock in the morning?" I shook my head, wondering if Hammet might be on the right track. "I have a personal policy of declining social engagements before sunrise. Unless this is an emergency involving official police business, tell Madam Celeste to call me in a couple of hours."
"Yeah," Hammet contributed from the doorway. "It's too fuckin' premature to be visitin' folks."
Mason shrugged helplessly. "You know that and I know that, but my sister refused to listen to any argument. Look, I'm sorry to disturb you. Please just go back to bed and forget about this, Miss Hanks."
"What's all this about?"
"I don't know. One of Celeste's crazy visions." He moved down a step. "Something about a dead woman. Celeste thinks she has information that'll be useful to you, but the whole thing's nonsense and I'm sorry I bothered you." He retreated another few steps.
"Wait a minute." I told Hammet to go to the kitchen and fix himself a bowl of cereal. Once he was gone, I studied Mason while I tried to jolt my brain into a functional state. "What are we talking about-a dead body or a vision of a dead body? And while we're on the subject, whose?"
"I really don't know any more than I've told you. Celeste wanted you to come by the house because she has something to tell you about some woman who may be dead. But Celeste has been kind of screwy since she was a child, and you don't have to listen to her if you don't want to. Please accept my apologies, and forget I was ever here." His face was red and his voice cracking with embarrassment. He kept looking at the top of his car as if he wished nothing more than to be in it and speeding down the highway.
I felt sorry for him, and I was also feeling a little bit curious about this peculiar invitation, especially since he seemed so eager to cancel it. "Why don't you come inside for a cup of coffee while I try to decide what to do? Now that I'm awake, I suppose it won't hurt anything to hear what your sister wants to tell me, although I am fairly skeptical about this sort of thing."
"So am I," he murmured. "But thank you for agreeing to come. Celeste can be difficult when she doesn't get her way."
He had come back up to the landing when a motorcycle roared around the corner. A figure in a helmet braked in a shower of gravel, then imperiously gestured for us to come downstairs. Telling myself this was a truly bizarre dream, I did as requested. As I reached the bottom step, I realized the figure was covered with mud and dripping like a faulty faucet. Ruby Bee's idle gossip came back to me. "Merle?" I said tentatively.
He pulled off his helmet. "Morning, Arly. How are ya?"
"Fine, thank you. What brings you here at this hour?" I fully expected him to pull a dormouse and a March hare out of his pocket and suggest a tea party. I wouldn't have raised so much as an eyebrow.
"I came by last night, but you was out," Merle said, forgiving me with a toothless smile. "Good thing I caught you this morning, 'cause I'm going to be right busy later today over at the creek. I built a ramp outta some scrap lumber, but I jest ain't having any luck so far. I believe I'm gonna have to recalculate my angles."
"Why did you come by last night and again this morning?" I asked, optimistically ignoring the reference to his daredevil antics.
"To tell you what I found yesterday evening just afore dark."
"And what did you find?"
"A dead body, Arly. I found me a dead body. I found some other bodies, too, but they was wanting privacy so's they could commence to court, so I don't reckon I ought to carry tales about 'em." Merle loosed an earshattering cackle. "No, sir, them two kids was sweaty when I happened across them, and real red-faced when they realized they'd been caught."
I looked back at Mason, who was white and clutching the railing for dear life. Taking a deep breath, I said, "The dead body, Merle-tell me about the body."
"Don't you want to hear about the two that was having themselves a fine old time in the front seat? They was doing it in a funny way, but these kids today have some newfangled notions on how to go about procreatin'. Mrs. Hardcock, bless her soul, would of been right scandalized. She always wore a flannel nightgown and covered the face of the alarm clock with a towel when I came a-sniffin' at her."
"Merle, I want to know about the body. Are you going to tell me, or do I have to drag it out of you word by word?"
I had to drag it out of him word by word. Once I learned that he had happened across a dead, bloodied body on the far side of Cotter's Ridge, I ordered him to wait for me at the PD. I told Mason, who was quivering like a molded salad, that I would get back to him later and sent him home. Then, bewildered and thoroughly apprehensive, I went upstairs and told Hammet the news. He shrugged and asked if were Her. I said I didn't know for sure, but that it was likely. He then wanted to know iffen she'd done been et by a bear, and if so, was the bear dead, too? And if that were the case, was they gonna skin the bear and who would get to keep the hide? All in all, he handled it with aplomb.
Aplombless, I dressed, gulped down coffee, called the sheriffs office to report a suspicious death and arrange for a backup, and somehow managed to function like the cop I was supposed to be, although my brain, like Merle's motorcycle, had not yet cleared the creek. I left Hammet in front of the television, enthralled equally by cartoons and commercials, and trotted across the deserted highway to the police department just as the sheriff's deputy drove up in a four-wheel wagon. I ordered Merle to get in the backseat, then climbed in next to the deputy and tried my darndest to explain something I didn't know anything about.
An hour later, after jolting up a wretched logging trail on the north side of Cotter's Ridge while Merle shouted directions in one of my ears and the deputy shouted questions in the other, we parked and got out of the vehicle. Merle led us to a clearing, then stopped and wordlessly pointed at a crumpled and very still figure on the far side. From where we stood, I could see it was what remained of Robin Buchanon. I wasn't totally surprised, but I had to battle the sudden explosion of icicles in my stomach and the flood of sourness in my mouth.
"Goddamn it," I muttered under my breath, thinking about her children. Hammet in particular, since I hadn't been fooled by his casual remarks earlier. A mother is a mother is a mother, even if she's a moonshining, whoring, abusive mountain woman. "What the hell happened to her?"
The deputy caught my arm as I started forward. "Booby traps," he said, pointing down at a thin wire almost lost in the leaves. "The trip wire's attached to some sort of detonation gizmo. The woman must have been in too much of a hurry to watch the ground."
I shook my head as I looked at the rows of fourfoot plants. "I'll bet she was. This must have been the family ginseng patch. She'd have been furious when she saw the marijuana plants, and rushed forward to rip them up." I eased around the perimeter of the clearing, keeping an eye out for wires, buried cans and buckets, dangling fish hooks, and other charming devices, most of which were brought home from the Vietnamese jungle, along with a fondness for marijuana. I won't say much about the odor, but it wasn't anything you could miss, not even from a good fifty feet away. Covering my mouth and nose with a handkerchief, I knelt down at a prudent distance and forced myself to examine the pitiful body. "Yeah, her foot's caught on a trip wire. There's the booby trap in that branch. I saw a diagram of one in a manual at the academy, but I don't guess I've ever seen a real one."