“He fell down some stairs. He was eighty-six. Spry and tough.”
“He was another good man. I have missed him so over the years. Was he on a case?”
“Yes, ma’am. Never really retired.”
“Arkansas: it produced some terrible men. It produced Jimmy Pye and Boss Harry Etheridge and his idiotic son, Hollis, who wanted to be President. Holly, isn’t that what they call him? I believe it’s a mistake to give a man a girl’s name, always. He certainly paid his share of girls back too, I’m told. But Arkansas also produced Earl Swagger and Sam Vincent.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Have I helped?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think you have. We’ll be moving along now.”
“Now I have a question for you.”
“Yes, Miss Connie.”
“I’m not sure I have the courage to ask it.”
“No one ever said Miss Connie didn’t have no courage. You got us through Daddy’s funeral.”
“All right, then. The child. What became of the child?”
“I’m sorry I don’t—” started Bob.
“She means Edie’s boy. Edie and Jimmy’s son.”
“Yes. Lord, I wanted to save that child. I tried to adopt him after Edie died. Sam argued the case for me. I cared for that child for three months. He was so strong, so alert, so bright. But no court in Arkansas in the fifties would let a northern widow take over a newborn child from an Arkansas mother if there was family around. I named him Stephen, after my own son. They made me give him to Jimmy’s people. It broke my heart. I never found out what happened to him.”
Her question was met with their silence.
“Oh,” she said finally. “He did not turn out well.”
“The Pyes didn’t care about him,” said Russ, “and they beat him and the more they beat him, the worse he got. Eventually, he went into the reform school system. By age twelve he was an incorrigible. They finally sent him off to live with Jimmy’s older brother in Oklahoma. He became …”
Russ paused.
“Go ahead, young man. I’ve buried enough good men so that I can take anything by now.”
“He became a violent felon. He killed many people and traumatized many, many more. He did time in the state penitentiary, where he became even more violent. A career criminal, the worst kind of bad news. Lamar Pye, that was his name. A policeman killed him in 1994.”
“Nothing good came from that day, did it?” said Miss Connie. “I hope there’s never another like it. An evil day.”
33
Niggers.
Niggers lived here and he lived in some trailer out beyond the interstate?
But he told himself to cool off, to dial it way down. He had to be smooth. That’s what Mr. Bama had said: You got to be smooth, Peck. You’re not going in there to kick ass and show them what a stud you are. You got to crawl and snivel. He quoted somebody called Neechee: That which does not kill you makes you strong, Peck.
So he took a deep breath, climbed out of the cruiser, tucked his hair up behind his Stetson, then walked up to the house. He took some pleasure in the fact that someone was nervously watching him from a window. They
He knocked on the door.
He waited. Seemed to be scraping and jostling inside.
Finally, the door opened and a young black woman peered out at him.
Her face was tight and she was scared.
Peck liked that a lot.
“Y-yes?” she said.
He smiled. “Ma’am?” he said as charmingly as he knew how, “ma’am, I’m Deputy Duane Peck of the County Sheriff’s Department. I’m here to talk to a Mrs. Lucille Parker.”
“That’s Mama. What is this in reference to, please?”
“Ma’am, I’m investigating the death of Sam Vincent, the former county prosecutor. He died night before last. That day, he came out here and talked to Mrs. Parker. I happened to see him out here. I’m just checking up to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up. I know she’s an elderly lady, ma’am, and I don’t mean her no bother. Just got a few questions is all. Be over and out of here in a jiff.”
“Just a minute,” the woman said stonily, shutting the door.
The anger rose in Duane, like smoke. A nigger gal treating him like that! He has to stand in the hot sun! But he quelled it, telling himself to be cool, for this here goddamned thing was going to lead to a bigger job working for Mr. Bama permanent, and no one would treat him like white trash ever again. Neechee said so!
The minutes passed and eventually the door opened.
“Mama will see you. She’s upset over the death of Mr. Sam. You go easy with her, you hear? She’s eighty-two years old.”
Duane walked into the house, astonished to find it so nice and whitelike. He’d always thought these people lived like pigs in a sty.
The woman—the daughter, he knew—led him through a living room to a back porch, where the old lady sat like a queen of the village, in regal splendor and glory.
“Ma’am, I’m Deputy Peck. Hope I’m not bothering you none, but we have to make inquiries. I’ll try and be out of here fast.”
She nodded.
“Ah, you know that poor Sam Vincent fell down the stairs of his office night before last and died?”
She nodded.
“Poor Sam,” Duane said. “Anyhow it looks like a straight accidental death, but I have to ask a question or so.”
“Go ahead, Deputy.”
“Ma’am, did he seem agitated about anything? Was he in control of hisself? What was he talking about?”
“My daughter was killed in this town forty-odd years ago,” said the proud old lady. “He prosecuted the boy they said did it. I had written him a letter about the crime some years back. He came by to talk about it, that’s all.”
“I see. But he was okay? I mean, he weren’t in no
“He was a good man. It seems like good people die around these parts and the bad ones just go on and on.”
“Yes, ma’am, it do seem that way sometime. But he was physically all right, wasn’t he? Is that what you’re telling me.”
“I don’t think Mr. Sam would fall down no stairs, no sir,” said the woman. “He was strong as a bull and very sharp and clear. I didn’t see any evidence of balance problems.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“His death is a terrible thing. He was a good man.”
“I agree, ma’am. Old Sam: he was like a daddy to me.”
“He was the only man in this state with the gumption to prosecute a white man for the murder of a black
