The door opened, but there was no one there. Jessica looked down. There, standing in front of them, was a boy of five. He had light blond hair shorn so close to his head that there were red, abraded patches on his scalp. He wore dirty jeans, at least two sizes too large. They were rolled up almost to his scabby knees. He was barefoot, even though the temperature had to be hovering around twenty degrees.
‘Hi,’ Jessica said.
Instead of answering, the boy barked. Loudly. At first, Jessica thought the boy might have yelled for an adult to come to the door, but when he did it a second time, there could be no doubt in her mind. The boy was imitating a dog. At least she hoped it was an imitation.
There was no dog. The sound they heard had been the boy.
‘Is your mom or dad home?’ Jessica asked.
The boy studied them for a moment, then turned and ran. He disappeared out the back door. A few seconds later they heard: ‘Well, come if you’re comin’. Stove’s alight. Shake off the chill.’
Jessica and Byrne stepped inside. The main room was relatively uncluttered and organized, considering the home’s exterior. To the right was a long table, along with a wood-burning stove. Next to that was a sewing machine.
As they stepped further into the room, Jessica saw the woman sitting in a rocking chair. She was somewhere between thirty and fifty, had graying hair pulled back into a ponytail, held an embroidery hoop in her hands. Her right foot was in a cast.
‘Are you Ida-Rae Munson?’ Jessica asked.
‘I am in fact.’
Jessica produced her ID. ‘My name is Jessica Balzano. I’m with the Philadelphia Police Department.’
‘Philadelphia?’
Jessica heard a sound behind her. She turned to see the dog-boy crouched in the corner watching them, little terrier eyes studying them from the midday shadow. When had he come back inside? Jessica turned her attention back to the woman. ‘We had quite a hard time finding your place.’
‘House ain’t moved in thirty years,’ the woman said.
‘I guess what I meant is that it’s a bit sparsely populated in this area,’ Jessica said, for some reason feeling the need to explain herself, and do so with proper grammar, which was far from one of her strengths.
The woman shrugged, ran a hand across her chin. ‘There just ain’t no more jobs, that’s the simple answer. Not in the mines, not loggin’, not pulpwoodin’. Nothin’, nowhere. Everwho had some sense packed and gone.’
Jessica and Byrne just listened. Jessica figured everwho meant whoever.
The woman waved a hand absently at the area behind the house. ‘We used to grow everything we needed, ’cept the ground got used up. All’s we used to go into town for was boots and nails. Coffee, some. Still ain’t no public water out here. When I heard y’all pull up I figured you was with the county, out to give me another shuffle.’
‘We just need to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right?’ Jessica said.
‘I ain’t expected. Ask what y’got.’
Jessica took out her notebook and pen. ‘Ma’am, do you know a man named Elijah Longstreet?’
The woman recoiled as if she had bitten into spoiled fruit. ‘Elijah?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Do you know him?’
The woman looked out the window, and back again. In this light Jessica could see the woman had once been pretty. She had high cheekbones, silver-blue eyes.
‘Weren’t none of them Longstreets no good,’ she said. ‘They say we’re kin way back, imagine. But I don’t believe it. Not a word.’
The woman rocked back and forth.
‘Ma’am? Elijah Longstreet?’ Byrne asked. ‘Do you know where we could find him?’
The woman snorted. ‘I’d look to Hell. Shouldn’t take too long.’
Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance.
‘Are you saying Mr Longstreet is deceased?’ Byrne asked.
‘God-fearin’ people get deceased. Elijah Longstreet just dead.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
The woman looked at Byrne as if she were talking to a mule. ‘He died. That’s what bein’ dead means.’
Byrne took a deep breath. ‘Ma’am, what I’m asking is, do you know how he died?’
‘They say it was the lung got him, but it was the drink. It was always the drink with them Longstreets.’
‘How long ago did he pass?’
The woman looked skyward, perhaps doing the math. ‘Gotta be twenty year now. More, some.’
Twenty years, Jessica thought. Then why was his fingerprint in a missal found in the hands of a dead man in Philadelphia this week?
‘Do you know if Mr Longstreet ever got up to Philadelphia?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know nothing about Elijah Longstreet’s comin’ or goin’.’
Jessica took out a photograph of a cleaned-up edition of the My Missal found in Martin Allsop’s hands. ‘Do you recognize this book?’
The woman squinted at the picture, focused. ‘Oh, Lord. Haven’t seen one of them in years.’
‘Do you own one of these?’ Jessica asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s a book for children.’
At the mention of the word children, Jessica looked around the room. Somehow the barking boy had moved again without her seeing it. She wondered where he was. Had they locked the car?
A knot in one of the logs in the stove popped. Jessica nearly jumped at the sound.
‘Elijah had a girl called Ruby,’ the woman said, resuming her rocking. Perhaps this was her storytelling mode. ‘Redheaded one. Funny girl. Touched some say. Too quiet, y’ask.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Word was she had a devil-child.’
Jessica looked at Byrne, back at the woman.
‘Lots of stories come out ’round that girl,’ the woman continued. ‘I know she took up with that preacher.’
‘What preacher would that be?’
The woman laughed. ‘You got a nickel? You do, I’ll give ya five preachers and change. Ain’t never been a shortage a preachers in West Virginia.’ She tapped the photograph of the book, handed it back to Jessica ‘He used to hand them missals out like candy. Used to hand out a lot more than that, if you was young and fair.’
‘Do you recall the man’s name?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t know nothin’ ’bout his name. But I know that Longstreet young ’un Ruby run off slap-quick with him and his church caravan.’ She rocked back and forth, just once, stopped. ‘And her boy like to be the devil.’
‘Not sure what you mean by that.’
The woman reached down next to her, picked up a rusted coffee can, spit into it. Jessica did her best not to look at Byrne.
‘Said the boy was a bad seed. Said the father had the devil in him and the boy come out evil.’
Jessica put her notebook away. Even if she found something useful in this woman’s words, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to read her notes on the subject, or make it part of the permanent case file. What she was sure of was that she was good for about two more seconds of being in this house.
‘Where would we find this Ruby Longstreet?’ Byrne asked.
Another shrug, another spit. ‘Longstreet name’s tainted. She woulda changed it anyways, even if she ain’t got married. I know I woulda.’
‘Are you saying there are no longer any of the Longstreets living around here?’
‘Long gone from here. Anyone with sense long gone from here. Her momma is up to the state nursing home in Weirton. Their house, what’s left of it, is five mile up the road. More, a piece.’
‘We went by there, but we didn’t see anything,’ Byrne said.
‘Oh, it’s still there. You gotta ride that ridge for a spell. Pon m’onor it’s there. Nothin’ but spiders and whistle pigs though.’
At first Jessica didn’t know what the woman had said. Then she worked it out. Pon m’onor was upon my honor. She thanked the woman for her time. The woman didn’t get up, didn’t show them to the door.