Christmas Mourning

from Wentworth?”

“Matt called him a little before nine Friday morning from his stepmother’s house and there were several calls from Faison. One on Thursday evening, and after that, Faison’s calls were sent right to voice mail, so I guess they were dead by then.”

“Faison say anything useful?”

“Just that he wanted his gun and stuff. And he was pissed that Jason wasn’t picking up the phone. Finally, on Sunday, he said that he was going to come over that night after he took his aunt to a movie.” She smiled and added parenthetically, “Faison’s lived with his aunt in Cotton Grove since he was twelve.”

“Hello?”

“Charlie Barefoot?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Major Dwight Bryant with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Department. I was wondering if you could stop by my office this afternoon? I’d like to clear up a few things and—Hello? Mr. Barefoot?”

Dwight realized that he was talking to dead air and pushed the redial button. After five rings, Charlie Barefoot’s voice said, “Here comes the beep. You know what to do.”

“We seem to have been disconnected,” Dwight said sternly. “Please call me.” He carefully enunciated his number, then hung up and sat back in his seat.

Now wasn’t that interesting?

Before he could decide what to make of the boy’s action, Deputy Sam Dalton, CCSD’s newest detective, rapped on the frame of his open door. Dalton had been put in charge of the patrol officers sent to canvass the Massengill Road area surrounding the Wentworth single-wide.

For a moment, Dwight was irresistibly reminded of Bandit when the terrier thought there was a big juicy bone in his immediate future. If Dalton had possessed a stubby little tail, it would be wagging in excitement.

“Sir,” he said, “I believe we’ve got us a witness in the Wentworth shootings.”

CHAPTER 20

An hour later, to the accompaniment of Bing’s voice singing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” McMurtrie rang the doorbell of No. 3. The door was opened finally by a white-faced woman with burning black eyes and raven hair.

—“Silent Night,” Baynard Kendrick

MAJOR DWIGHT BRYANT— MONDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 22

Mrs. Alma Higgins had short white hair that feathered softly around a heart-shaped face, bright china blue eyes, and very fair complexion that was now finely wrinkled with age. At first glance, she looked like an old- fashioned pink-and-white porcelain doll that someone had slipped inside a green velvet pouch and then pulled the drawstrings up tight around her neck. A second glance showed that the green velvet tunic that she wore over matching green slacks had a stand-up ruffled neckband of the same material and that the drawstring was actually a thick gold necklace. Either the holiday outfit was a hand-me-down from a heavier woman or she had lost weight since she first acquired it.

Someone had rolled an armchair in from the conference room and seated her beside Mayleen Richards’s desk. When Dwight joined them, he almost bumped into Raeford McLamb, who was on his way back from the break room with a cup of instant hot chocolate.

“Now isn’t that so sweet of you!” the elderly woman exclaimed in a soft voice halfway between a girlish flutter and the cooing of doves.

“Mrs. Higgins,” said Deputy Sam Dalton, “this is Major Bryant.”

Her blue eyes widened as she looked up. “Oh, my goodness! You must be Calvin Bryant’s son.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, trying to remember if he had ever met this woman before.

“Oh, honey,” she cooed. “You’re the spitting image of your daddy. He’s been gone—How long is it now? Almost forty years? But it’s like he just walked into the room. He and my second husband were in the Grange together, and I always notice the handsome men.” Her laughter was a cascade of soft flute notes. “Not that Harold wasn’t nice- looking, too, but nothing like your daddy. Or like my first husband either, for that matter. Or—oh, but you don’t want to hear about them. You want me to talk about Friday morning, don’t you?”

“If you would, ma’am.” He pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat down. “Do you mind if Deputy Denning records this?”

“Not a bit.” She watched with bright interest as that detective took up a position with his camera, and immediately began to fuss with her hair and to straighten her gold necklace. “I must look a sight.” She turned to Mayleen Richards. “Do I still have any lipstick on?”

That young woman gave an encouraging smile. “You look just beautiful, Mrs. Higgins. Why don’t you start by saying your name and where you live?”

Hesitantly at first, then with growing confidence, Mrs. Higgins repeated her full last name, which seemed to consist of several surnames, followed by an address out on Massengill Road. “After I divorced my second husband, I gave my daughter and her husband the farm and just kept an acre for myself in case I ever wanted to come back here to live.”

She mentioned her daughter’s name and it was vaguely familiar to Dwight. “Well, after James died—he was my fourth—I decided to move back up here from Florida to be near Mary and her children. We built me a little house on my acre even though Mary said there was plenty of room with her now that the children are grown, but I didn’t want to be a bother.”

She paused to lift the hot cocoa to her lips that were painted the same pale pink as her nails, and Dwight immediately said, “If you could tell us about yesterday morning, ma’am?”

“Oh, I am sorry. I do keep running on, don’t I?” She laughed again, the tinkling laugh