Still Life With Crows

the same report. He continued taking notes, just to be sure.

“I followed the bare footprints leading to and from the scene. The same corn row was used in both cases, leading away from, and then back to, Medicine Creek. Once in the creek, it was no longer possible to follow the tracks. So I spent the morning with Mrs. Tealander, the town administrator, acquainting myself with the local residents. I fear that this task will take much longer than I’d originally—”

A tremulous voice came from the rear of the house. “Mr. Pendergast?”

Pendergast held his finger to his lips. “Miss Kraus is out of bed,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t do for her to hear us talking this way.” He turned, and said in a louder tone, “Yes, Miss Kraus?”

Tad saw the figure of the old woman appear in the doorway, muffled despite the heat in a nightgown and robes. Tad quickly rose.

“Why, hello, Tad,” said the old lady. “I’ve been poorly, you know, and Mr. Pendergast has been kind enough to take care of me. Don’t stand on my account. Please, take your seat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Tad.

She sat down heavily in a chair at the table, her face careworn. “I have to tell you, I’m getting awfully tired of that bed. I don’t know how invalids do it. Mr. Pendergast, would you mind pouring me a cup of that green tea of yours? I find it settles my nerves.”

“Delighted.” Pendergast rose and moved toward the stove.

“It’s just terrible, isn’t it, Tad?” she said.

The deputy sheriff didn’t quite know how to respond.

“This killing. Who could have done it? Doesanyone know?”

“We’ve got some leads we’re following up,” Tad replied. It was the line the sheriff always used.

Miss Kraus drew the robe more tightly around her throat. “I feel dreadful, just dreadful, knowing someone like that’s on the loose. And maybe even one of our own, if the papers are to be believed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Pendergast served tea all around and the table fell silent. Through the gauze curtains Tad could see the great fields of corn stretching out toward the horizon, a monochromatic rusty yellow. It made the eyes tired just looking at it. For the first time, the idea occurred to him that working on this case—if it had a successful resolution—could be just the ticket out he’d been waiting for. All of a sudden, checking up on Pendergast didn’t seem like a chore. It seemed, instead, like something he should do regularly. But Miss Kraus was speaking again, and he politely turned to listen.

“I fear for our little town,” Winifred Kraus was saying. “With this murderer out there, I fear for it truly.”

Seventeen

 

Corrie Swanson brought the Gremlin to a shuddering halt, sending up a swirl of dust that spiraled slowly into the air. God, it was hot. She looked over at the passenger seat. Pendergast returned the glance, eyebrows slightly raised.

“This is the place,” she said. “You still haven’t told me why we’re here.”

“We’re going to pay a visit to one James Draper.”

“Why?”

“I understand he makes certain claims regarding the Medicine Creek Massacre. I think it’s time I learned more about them.”

“Brushy Jim makes a lot of claims.”

“You doubt him?”

Corrie laughed. “He can’t say hello without lying.”

“I have found that liars in the end communicate more truth than do truth tellers.”

“How’s that?”

“Because truth is the safest lie.”

Corrie eased the car forward, shaking her head. No question about it: weird, weird, weird.

Brushy Jim’s place was an eighth-section of land out on the Deeper Road, fenced in with barbed wire. The plankboard, two-room house stood well back from the highway, a lone cottonwood in front offering a semblance of privacy. The house was surrounded by a sea of junked cars, old trailers, rusted boilers, abandoned refrigerators, washing machines, old telephone poles, compressors, a couple of boat hulls, something that appeared to be a steam locomotive, and other things too sunken into decrepitude to be recognizable.

As Corrie rolled into the dirt driveway she gave the car just a bit too much gas, and the Gremlin shuddered, backfired thunderously, and died. For a moment all was still. Then the door of the house banged open and a man appeared in the shade of the porch. As they got out of the car, he advanced into the light. Like most people in Medicine Creek, Corrie went out of her way to avoid meeting Brushy Jim, yet he looked just the same as she remembered: a mass of pale red hair and beard that sprouted from his entire face, leaving nothing visible but two beady black eyes, a pair of lips, and a patch of forehead. He was dressed in thick denim jeans, big chocolate-colored roper boots, a blue shirt with fake pearl snaps, and a battered felt cowboy hat. A bolo tie with a chunk of turquoise big enough to split the skull of a mule hung around his thick neck, the knotted leather partially obscured by the heavy beard. He was well over fifty, but with all the hair managed to look a decade younger. He gripped the post and peered at them suspiciously.

Pendergast strode toward the porch, suit coat flapping.

“Just hold it right there,” Brushy Jim called out, “and state your business. Now.”