“Sure. He uses that coconut kind. It’s on the end of the shelf there.”
I got it, said goodbye, and went out.
I felt horrible about Mrs. Canerton, but I felt good that Daddy was doing so much better. I liked the idea of him smelling good for Mama.
We drove out to Mr. Sumption’s. When we pulled up in his yard, he came out of his house and walked out to the car. Daddy got out and stood by it. Mr. Sumption said, “You didn’t kill him?”
“No,” Daddy said. “But it wasn’t from want of tryin’.”
“I can’t think of a sorrier sonofabitch than Nation. Doin’ what he done to that old colored man, and bein’ proud of it. Hard to figure on a man like that.”
“And we won’t waste time doin’ it. I want to apologize just leavin’ you in the yard like that.”
“It was a short walk, Jacob.”
“We want to look around some, Clem. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all.”
I think Mr. Sumption thought he’d go with us, but Daddy, without really saying it, made it clear he meant just the two of us.
As we walked down to the outhouse and the river, Daddy said, “We washed her off, Harry, but that was most likely a mistake. There were probably things could have been learned from the body. If I had any education, I’d have thought of that. All I was thinking was here was this nice lady in all that mess. Unclothed. Cut up. Tossed out like garbage.”
We climbed down the bank and stood near the mound of waste. It stunk something terrible. Flies rose up in a blue-black cloud. The water, though no longer high, was still tumbling along at a rapid brown clip.
“It’s funny the good stuff goes in a belly, sure comes out rotten,” Daddy said.
“He dump her here, Daddy?”
“I don’t think so. This is just where she ended up. Body ain’t that long dead. Few days.”
“Maybe about the same time Miss Maggie was killed?”
“Could be.”
“That night, I went by Mrs. Canerton’s. Tryin’ to return a book. She wasn’t home. You think she could have been dead then?”
“It’s possible, Harry. Way the river looks, she could have been dumped down a spell, and with all that floodin’, carried up to here. I doubt the killer come through Clem’s yard and dumped her. It’s possible, but it seems more risky than he’d have to be. So far, he’s been dumpin’ down deep in the bottoms.”
“You know what I was thinkin’?” I asked.
“That Miss Maggie and Mrs. Canerton were killed about the same time. And you seen that car of Red’s, and we found his car and he’s missin’. You’re thinkin’ he could have done it. That right?”
“Yes sir.”
Daddy took his pipe out of his shirt pocket, stuffed it and lit it. “I guess Red could have killed Miss Maggie ’cause she told him the truth and he didn’t like it, but that don’t mean he killed Louise. ’Course, it’s quite a coincidence, ain’t it?”
“Red could have left his car and took a boat downriver, Daddy.”
Daddy nodded, lifted a leg, thumped his pipe against the bottom of his shoe. “He could have at that. Thing is, I can’t imagine Red doin’ this kind of thing. I’ve known him a long time. He might have killed Miss Maggie, and that’s hard enough to believe… Jesus, I can’t believe he was actually colored. Way he looked.”
“It’s what Doc Tinn told us.”
Daddy tucked his pipe into his pocket, looked out at the river. “Doc Tinn seems like a fella not prone to gossip. Now I think on it, things kinda fit. And the way Red felt about colored, and findin’ out he was colored, he could have lost it. He could have found out some time ago in fact, and this led to the rage of him killin’ them colored women.”
“Not all of them were colored,” I said.
“Yeah. But I’m thinkin’ it set him off.”
I told him then what Doc Tinn had told us about these kinds of killers, his thoughts on them.
Daddy listened carefully, bent, picked up a stone and tossed it into the river. “Why don’t you and me walk the trail yonder.”
We climbed the bank and took the trail along the river. It was narrow and we had to push limbs and brush out of our way. The trees were thick and dark and held water from the rains; they leaked it as if they were rain clouds.
I watched Daddy out of the corner of my eye. His tan hat was damp with the water drops and they had fallen on the shoulders of his shirt, creating a dark wet mantle. He looked big again to me, as if he had gained three inches in height from just a short time ago.
It wasn’t easy to see the river, and yet we could hear it rumbling like a contented lion a few feet away, behind and below the thick growth of trees and brush. It gave off a smell of decayed fish, wet dirt, and aromas unidentified, mixed with the sweetness of the pines.
“What are we lookin’ for, Daddy?”
“I don’t know.”
We walked along the river for an hour or two, shoving our way through the brush from time to time, looking at the river, trying to find I didn’t know what.
As we walked, Daddy said, “Doc Tinn said somethin’ to me about when a body gets dragged in the river, it gets scratched up along the belly, ’cause that’s how it flows in the water. Louise, she wasn’t cut up like that. Just the knife work of that nut. All along in front of Clem’s house, and for a couple miles along here, ain’t nothin’ but sand. All this stormin’, water must have carried gravel with it, but if she ain’t cut up bad, that means she might not have been thrown in the river before the sand bottom. There ain’t but one other area that’s that smooth with sand, it’s miles up, and there’s plenty of gravel in between.”
“I don’t get it, Daddy.”
“She had to have been chunked in the water along the sandy bottom, or, with all this flooding, and the river pushin’ on her, she’d have had gravel marks.”
“For sure?”
“Well, no, but I figure it’s a logical stretch.”
“So this here is the sandy section?”
“Yep. I’m bettin’ she didn’t go any farther than that. Another thing, there ain’t but two or three good spots she could have been dumped. Rest of it’s just like we’re goin’ through now, all that thick brush and trees on either side of us. A man was determined enough, he could have done it by fightin’ these bushes. But if it’s like I suspect, someone knows the river, I figure he picked one of the good spots.”
The sunlight was weak in the thickness of the woods, and as we walked, and it grew later, it became weaker yet. Where the forest broke above and the limbs didn’t wind, it fell through in gold red globs like busted apples dipped in honey.
The trail finally thickened and the trees gave way to a wide swath that wound down to the river in a sandy sink that disappeared in the water.
“Normally, this here is so clear, you can see bottom.”
You couldn’t see bottom now. The water was filthy and foamy, carrying tree limbs and hunks of bark down it lickity-split.
“I don’t know what there would be to see,” I said.
Daddy grinned. “Me neither. But I got me a hunch that our killer not only took Louise’s car, but he got rid of it. He took enough of a chance drivin’ it with her in it, or makin’ her drive. But he killed her, he got rid of it. I wouldn’t be surprised he done it one of them spots I’m tellin’ you about. You could drive a car through that wide trail over there, right up to the bank. Ain’t but two or three more spots on this sandy stretch you could do that.”
“He got rid of the car, how’d he get home?”
“I ain’t got that all figured out, son. But I figure him for one that plans. In the past, he ain’t taken the victim’s car. Fact is, them others didn’t have any. This time looks as if he did. Well, he comes down here, kills poor Louise, dumps her in the river, tied up like he likes, then he had to get rid of the car. He could have run it off in the river, or
