“Then it’s a good thing your brother-in-law got a good look at what happened.”
“Yeah. They took him over to Dobbs so he could help some artist draw one of them—” He hesitated, not quite sure of the term. “Like when they don’t have a real picture?”
“A composite drawing?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“But he’s been gone ever since eleven-thirty this morning,” Ashley burst out. “What you reckon’s taking so long?”
“Ashley, honey,” said her mother, “I believe I could eat a little piece of white meat if there’s any left. And a glass of tea? How about you, Deb’rah? Tea? Something to eat?”
“Tea would be great,” I said. And in truth, I needed cool liquid to my throat because all three of them had lit up again and the air around us was turning blue.
As Ashley reached into the cupboard to get me a glass, her hand slipped and the glass crashed to the floor in a zillion shards.
Her brother started yelling because he was barefooted. She yelled back that he hadn’t got up off his fat butt all evening so he could just sit there a little longer till she got the broom. Cherry Lou yelled at both of them to hush up before they woke the baby.
Too late.
Above the din came a child’s fretful wail and a sleepy-eyed little girl in Mickey Mouse pajamas stumbled down the hallway, squinting against the light.
“Now see what you did!” said Ashley.
“
While they bickered, Cherry Lou darted across the room and snatched up the child before she could get near the glass and cut her feet.
“I’ll get her back to sleep,” she told us and carried her granddaughter down the hall, crooning soothing noises to the child as they went
I held the dustpan while Ashley swept up the glass. She kept glancing anxiously at the clock above the kitchen sink.
“I just don’t know why they don’t let Tig come home,” she said again. “I called over to Dobbs about an hour ago and they wouldn’t even let him talk to me. Said they still had things to ask him about. That don’t mean they think
“Of course not,” I assured her. “They always question the family first. Doesn’t mean a thing. They’ve probably got him looking at mug shots.”
Uneasily, I remembered that I’d been in the sheriff’s office an hour or so ago and neither the sheriff nor Dwight Bryant had been there.
“You sure they took him to Dobbs and not just up the road to Cotton Grove?”
She was positive.
“Well, you did say your husband was the only one to see the actual shooting, right?”
Brother and sister nodded vigorously and both seemed anxious to go over the whole incident again, explaining why neither had happened to be looking out the window at the time. Curious, I asked them every question about those hunters I could think of, yet they couldn’t seem to come up with a single new detail. They were just two big black men in a red pickup. A full-size Ford.
“Ma keeps getting it mixed up, but it was a Ford alright. About three years old.”
Cherry Lou returned to report that she’d finally gotten her granddaughter back to sleep. “Poor little thing. Keeps asking me where’s her Paw-Daddy. That’s what she calls Dallas. And he was just as foolish about her. Brought her a stuffed animal every time he come home from one of his long hauls. You can’t hardly get into her room over yonder at their trailer for all the rabbits and teddy bears. Some of them’s bigger’n she is, aren’t they, Ashley?”
She suddenly noticed my empty hands. “Didn’t you get you any tea yet? Ashley, where on earth’s your manners, girl?”
Dry as my throat was, I declined politely, expressed my condolences, promised to attend the funeral, and got out of there as quickly as I could because I’d suddenly remembered where I’d seen Fred Greene before.
When I pulled up at Jasper Stancil’s back door, that black-and-silver Jeep Cherokee was parked alongside the other vehicles.
Surprise, surprise.
I slammed my car door and stomped into the kitchen without knocking and there were the “Greenes” with Sheriff Bo Poole, Dwight Bryant, and SBI Agent Terry Wilson, all with big gotcha grins on their faces. The only person not there was Jap Stancil and I later heard that Daddy’d taken him over to his niece’s house.
In the middle of Mr. Jap’s eating table was a radio receiver and a tape recorder and I could hear Ashley’s voice wailing, “They know Tig did it, they
“They don’t know shit,” her brother said. “You keep your mouth shut and Tig stays cool, we’ll all be back in Florida before Christmas.”
“No thanks to you two,” came Cherry Lou’s voice. “Won’t for me getting the gun and Tig pulling the trigger, we’d all be out on our tails without a dime.”
“Bingo!” said “Wilma.”
“Fred and Wilma
