“I love the old food when I’m up to fixing it, and I usually cook if Comfrey’s coming by, but I’m like as not to have canned spaghetti and packaged cupcakes any other time.” She shook her head. “It just don’t do to let the tourists know. They like to think that time has passed us by up here on the ridge, just like the four-lane did. They need to believe the old ways are still around as much as they need the root medicine. So I keep my store food in the root cellar.”
“But-tonight you’re having beans and ramps?”
“Yep,” said Amelanchier, winking. “And frozen pizza!”
Dear Bill,
I know you’re going to find this out from the campus newspapers, but I thought I’d better give you more details than that. Alex Lerche has been murdered. I’m pretty sure he was killed by someone up here who wants the strip miners to get the Indians’ land; probably the same person who trashed our computer. I don’t want to go into all that right now. I just wanted you to know that I’m all right, that we’re continuing the dig, and that I’m not coming home.
It isn’t that I’m being ghoulish about wanting to stay and see who did it-which would be why
I’m not giving up, though. By all means, write to me if you think you could be of any help, but don’t come up here. I don’t think Milo could take an amateur detective playing around with this case. We should be home in a week or so. You can be vague and reassuring with Mother and Dad for that long, can’t you? Thanks!
Love,
Elizabeth
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PILOT BARNES seldom agreed with his brother-in-law about anything, be it fertilizer or Carolina basketball strategy. Watching Warren straddle a chair backwards and pontificate on every subject that came up set Pilot’s teeth on edge. This murder case was no exception; Warren had a layman’s compulsion to second-guess the police, as if his hours of viewing “Dragnet” and “Barnaby Jones” counted toward a degree in police science. He had heard about the case from Marcia, when Pilot was late coming home, and had called the next morning to pronounce the case a lucky break for Pilot career-wise. Having a big-time murder case to solve, without Duncan Johnson around to take credit for it, could be parlayed into a bid for the sheriff’s job, according to Warren. Pilot didn’t believe it. He saw it as an unlimited opportunity to screw up in Duncan Johnson’s absence.
“Morning, Pilot,” said Hamp McKenna, easing his way past the floorboard that creaked if you stepped on it. “I came to do a little paperwork, so if you need to go anywhere, I’ll be here about an hour. I’d stay longer, but I’ve got a sick calf up home.” He looked at Pilot appraisingly. “She looks better than you do, though.”
Pilot squinted up at him with a sour smile. “I’ll live.”
“Lord, so will she, I hope! She’s a purebred Charolais-cost me more than two car payments. You heard from Duncan yet?”
“No. He’s still on the boat.”
“Well, I hope he’s catching more than we are. You solved the case yet?”
Pilot studied the geological survey map of the county, staring at it as if the lines would re-form to a profile of the murderer. He sighed. “I guess we just keep asking questions.”
Hamp walked over to the map. “Pilot,” he said slowly, “there’s something you may not have thought of. Where did the murder take place?”
Pilot Barnes scowled at him. “You were right there with me when we went into the tent. You took the pictures yourself! Now what the hell do you mean asking me-”
Hamp shook his head impatiently. “No. I know what the death scene looked like. What I meant was: whose land is it on?”
Pilot’s mouth hung open, frozen in midsyllable by this new possibility. “Why-church land.” But he didn’t sound sure about it.
“It’s a good little ways from the church,” Hamp reminded him.
“I didn’t notice any fences around, either,” Pilot grunted. “So you’re saying-”
“Not for sure. But it is a possibility. The forest service land goes into that section of the county, but we don’t know where the cutoff point is. Can you tell from the map?”
“Not for sure. But I don’t have to be positive. Reasonable certainty ought to be enough!”
Hamp relaxed. “Yeah, I thought it would be. So, you gonna do it?”
Pilot set his jaw. “Absolutely. Screw Duncan Johnson. I’m calling in the FBI.”
The phrase “calling in the FBI” had a magic ring to it that brightened their spirits at once. It summoned visions of television actors in business suits driving up in dark green LTDs and solving the case fifty-one minutes, with the trial thrown in as afterthought before the closing credits. Pilot did suppose that it would be like that in real life, be nevertheless it was reassuring to know that a phone call to the number labeled “FBI” on Duncan Johnson’s desk would bring to bear the power of the federal government in their backcountry murder case. This authority could be invoked because Hamp McKenna had thought of the one loophole that would involve them: reasonable certainty that the crime had occurred on federal land. Pilot dialed the number with a feeling of pleasant expectation.
It rang eight times.
Pilot pictured a suspect holding the entire FBI office at gunpoint. Lantern-jawed agents and their beautiful blond secretary staring courageously at the barrel of a.44 Magnum while the phone pealed away, unanswered. Pilot wondered who you called to rescue the FBI. Unable to think of an answer to that one, he kept sitting there letting the phone ring. Finally someone picked it up.
“Hello?” said a thin, piping voice.
Pilot took the receiver away from his ear and looked at it. “Is this the FBI?” he asked uncertainly.
“Yes, it is,” the little voice assured him. “Just a minute.” He heard the clunk of the phone being set down, and the voice yelling: “Daddy! Telephone!”
Pilot closed his eyes. To paraphrase his favorite beer commercial, it didn’t get any worse than this. After several minutes’ wait, the phone was picked up and a grown-up voice said: “Yello, FBI. This is Garrett.”
Pilot hadn’t planned out what he was going to say. In a halting voice he managed to explain about his murder case and the possibility of its having occurred on federal land. Agent Garrett listened to the deputy’s entire explanation in an unhurried evidence. Finally he said: “I’ll come over and check it. Give me directions.”
In the background, Pilot could hear little voices sanding lemonade. He could stand it no longer. In this FBI headquarters?”
Agent Garrett laughed. “In a manner of speaking. He regional office is in Asheville, but since I’m assigned to this rural area, I just work out of my house. I go in twice a month to do the paperwork. Don’t worry about the informality, Deputy. I get the job done.”
Pilot hung up the phone. If it weren’t for the unquestionably dead body on the slab, he could swear that Duncan Johnson had staged all this before he left.
Ron Garrett frowned speculatively as he peered at Pilot Barnes’ map of the county. He ran his finger along a boundary line and then stopped, his finger poised above a smaller map he’d brought with him, but he couldn’t seem to find the corresponding lines.
“What do you think?” asked the deputy anxiously. “Is that within federal land?”
Garrett shrugged. “It’s close. I’d rather let my office have the final say-so on it, and even then there might have to be a survey. I guess we could check old courthouse records. But don’t worry about it. You called me out to have a look, so the least I can do is view the site. You want to show me the way?”
