that A.K. and Ruth had a half-sister none of them had ever seen. Hell, I wasn’t even sure A.K. and Ruth knew.
And to learn that she existed in one breath and then hear in the next that it was her son who’d been murdered last night?
One thing was certain. I couldn’t tell any of them till I’d talked to Daddy.
As I stood up to go, Tally said, “You sure it’s going to be cool with your dad if we put Braz there?”
“I’m sure. We’ll have to tell the others, though. And as soon as they hear, they’re all going to want to meet you.”
“Do you have to do that right now?”
I couldn’t blame her for hesitating. It’s one thing to spend an hour or two in the courthouse uncovering paper facts about a grandfather, father, stepmother, half siblings, ten uncles, one aunt, and a yardful of first cousins who are no more than names in a database. It was quite another to think of meeting that many kinfolks in the flesh.
“How about we start with Daddy, Andrew, and April?” I said.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve handled drunks and crazies, even talked a cokehead out of trying to rape me after Hartley died, but I gotta tell you, Deborah, this scares me more than anything else.”
“You’ll be fine,” I said. “Any thoughts of when you want the funeral?”
“Well, we’re booked here through next Saturday night and it’d cost us a bunch to breach the contract. We were planning to tear down that night and lay over at the farm a couple of days, then jump to Kinston. We don’t open till five on weeknights, so maybe one day this week, okay?” Tally looked suddenly bereft. “Only I don’t know when they’ll let us have him—his body back.”
I told her the name of Duck Aldcroft, the funeral director in Cotton Grove. “And I’ll call him, too, if you like. He’ll tell you what to expect.”
“We’re not religious,” she warned. “Arn and Val and me, all we want’s a graveside service, okay?”
“Duck’ll do whatever you want,” I assured her. I gave her my phone numbers. “Call me anytime. I’ll be in court here Monday. And what about you? Is there a number where I can reach you?”
She gestured to the cell phone plugged into its charger on the shelf behind me, and while she was writing down the number for me in my address book, there was a tap at the door.
It was the man who ran the duck pond next to their Dozer, the guy who’d found the carnival’s patch for her last night. Shorter than me, he was one of those wiry little white men who reach a certain age and then time stops. They look the same at eighty as they did at forty: wispy gray hair, weather-beaten face with deep lines around the eyes. Although his arms were free of tattoos except for a band of small red spiders around his scrawny wrist, the head of a bright green dragon peeked up past the neckline of his dark blue T-shirt. He wore dirty jeans and even dirtier white sneakers and carried a cardboard tray that held hamburgers and two capped drink cups.
“Arnie asked me to bring you something to eat, Tal,” he said, proffering the tray. “He said he’d be along in a few minutes. You heard any word yet on how it’s going? If they caught the guy who did it?”
His eyes were bright with curiosity.
“Hey, you’re the lady found Braz, right?”
“Right,” I said.
I knew Dwight or some of his people had probably already talked to him and it really wasn’t my place to ask, but I couldn’t resist.
“You worked next to Braz all evening, didn’t you?”
The man looked from me to Tally.
“It’s okay,” she told him. “Deborah, this is Skee Matusik. He’s known Braz since before he was crawling. His wife Irene’s the friend I told you about that used to babysit for me. Deborah and me, we’re kin to each other, Skee.”
“Yeah?” His face cleared but his eyes were still wary. “Yeah, I was there all evening, but there’s canvas between my store and the Dozer, and I was pretty busy till about nine.”
“Polly told Arn that he and some black guy were mixing it up. Braz wasn’t a fighter. What happened, Skee?”
“It was over before I knew it was happening,” he said with a shrug. “All I saw was some black and white kids pulling another black kid away. I looked around the corner of the tent and saw Braz sitting on the step of the Dozer with his nose all bloody, so I wet a towel in my pond and gave it to him. Polly came over, too. We asked him if he was all right and he said he was. Next time I looked around the corner, I didn’t see him. Figured he was taking a break.”
“No loud voices? Nobody running away?”
“Lady, this is a carnival. It was Friday night. Loud voices? Running? Who’d notice?”
“Who’s Polly?” I asked.
“Runs the plate pitch across the way from the Dozer.”
Through the open door, I saw Tally’s husband heading toward us.
I patted her shoulder and told her I’d be in touch soon.
As I threaded my way across power lines and cables that snaked through the grass, past the trailers and back to the midway, Dwight fell into step beside me.
“Buy you a chili dog?” he offered.
