“No. Not really.”
“Niggers.” I knew that voice. Old Man Nation. He showed up wherever there was food and possibly liquor, and he never brought a covered dish or liquor. “Niggers find a white woman down there in the bottoms, they’ll get her.”
“Yeah,” I heard a voice say. “And what would a white woman be doin’ wanderin’ around down there?”
“Maybe he brought her there,” Mr. Nation said. “A nigger’ll take a white woman he gets a chance. Hell, wouldn’t you if you was a nigger? Think about what you’d be gettin’ at home. Some nigger. A white woman, that’s prime business to ‘em. Then, if you’re a nigger and you’ve done it to her, you got to kill her so no one knows. Not that any self-respectin’ white woman would want to live after somethin’ like that.”
“That’s enough of that,” Daddy said.
“You threatenin’ me?” Mr. Nation said.
“I’m sayin’ we don’t need that kind of talk,” Daddy said. “The murderer could have been white or black.”
“It’ll turn out to be a nigger,” Mr. Nation said. “Mark my words.”
“I heard you had a suspect,” Cecil said.
“Not really,” Daddy said.
“Some colored fella, I heard,” Cecil said.
“I knew it,” Nation said. “Some goddamn nigger.”
“I picked a man up for questioning, that’s all.”
“Where is he?” Nation asked.
“You know,” Daddy said, “I think I’m gonna have me a piece of that pie.”
The porch creaked, the screen door opened, and we heard boot steps entering into the house.
“Nigger lover,” Nation said.
“That’s enough of that,” Cecil said.
“You talkin’ to me, fella?” Mr. Nation said.
“I am, and I said that’s enough.”
There was some scuttling movement on the porch, and suddenly there was a smacking sound and Mr. Nation hit the ground in front of us. We could see him through the steps. His face turned in our direction, but I don’t think he saw us. It was dark under the house, and he had his mind on other things. He got up quick like, leaving his hat on the ground, then we heard movement on the porch and Daddy’s voice. “Ethan, don’t come back on the porch. Go on home.”
“Who do you think you are to tell me anything?” Mr. Nation said.
“Right now, I’m the constable, and you come up on this porch, you do one little thing that annoys me, I will arrest you.”
“You and who else?”
“Just me.”
“What about him? He hit me. You’re on his side because he took up for you.”
“I’m on his side because you’re a loudmouth spoiling everyone else’s good time. You been drinkin’ too much. Go on home and sleep it off, Ethan. Let’s don’t let this get out of hand.”
Mr. Nation’s hand dropped down and picked up his hat. He said, “You’re awfully high and mighty, aren’t you?”
“There’s just no use fighting over something silly,” Daddy said.
“You watch yourself, nigger lover,” Mr. Nation said.
“Don’t come by the barbershop no more,” Daddy said.
“Wouldn’t think of it, nigger lover.”
Then Mr. Nation turned and we saw him walking away.
Daddy said, “Cecil. You talk too much.”
“Yeah, I know,” Cecil said.
“Now, I was gonna get some pie,” Daddy said. “I’m gonna go back inside and try it again. When I come back out, how’s about we talk about somethin’ altogether different?”
“Suits me,” someone said, and I heard the screen door open again. For a moment I thought they were all inside, then I realized Daddy and Cecil were still on the porch, and Daddy was talking to Cecil.
“I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that,” Daddy said.
“It’s all right. You’re right. I talk too much.”
“Let’s forget it.”
“Sure… Jacob, this suspect. You think he did it?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Is he safe?”
“For now. I may just let him go and never let it be known who he is. Bill Smoote is helping me out with him right now.”
“Again, I’m sorry, Jacob.”
“No problem. Let’s get some of that pie.”
On the way home in the car our bellies were full of apples, pie, and lemonade. The windows were rolled down and the October wind was fresh and ripe with the smell of the woods. As we wound through those woods along the dirt road that led to our house, I began to feel sleepy.
Tom had already nodded off. I leaned against the side of the car and began to halfway doze. In time, I realized Mama and Daddy were talking.
“He had her purse?” Mama said.
“Yeah.” Daddy said. “He had it, and he’d taken money from it.”
“Could it be him?”
“He says he was fishing, saw the purse and her dress floating, snagged the purse with his fishing line. He saw there was money inside, and he took it. He said he figured a purse in the river wasn’t something anyone was going to find, and there wasn’t any name in it, and it was just five dollars going to waste. He said he didn’t even consider that someone had been murdered. It could have happened that way. Personally, I believe him. I’ve known old Mose all my life. He taught me how to fish. He practically lives on that river in that boat of his. He wouldn’t harm a fly. Besides, the man’s seventy years old and not in the best of health. He’s had a hell of a life. His wife ran off forty years ago and he’s never gotten over it. His son disappeared when he was a youngster. Whoever raped this woman had to be pretty strong. She was young enough, and from the way her body looked, she put up a pretty good fight. Man did this had to be strong enough to… Well, she was cut up pretty bad. Same as the other women. Slashes along the breasts. Her hand hacked off at the wrist. We didn’t find it.”
“Oh dear.”
“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“How did you come by the purse?”
“I went by to see Mose. Like I always do when I’m down on the river. It was layin’ on the table in his shack. I had to arrest him. I don’t know I should have now. Maybe I should have just taken the purse and said I found it. I mean, I believe him. But I don’t have evidence one way or the other.”
“Hon, didn’t Mose have some trouble before?”
“When his wife ran off some thought he’d killed her. She was fairly loose. That was the rumor. Nothing ever came of it.”
“But he could have done it?”
“I suppose.”
“And wasn’t there something about his boy?”
“Telly was the boy’s name. He was addleheaded. Mose claimed that’s why his wife run off. She was embarrassed by that addleheaded boy. Kid disappeared four or five years later and Mose never talked about it. Some thought he killed him too. But that’s just rumor. White folks talkin’ about colored folks like they do. I believe his wife ran off. The boy wasn’t much of a thinker, and he may have run off too. He liked to roam the woods and river. He might have drowned, fallen in some hole somewhere and never got out.”
“But none of that makes it look good for Mose, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“What are you gonna do, Jacob?”
