without his jaw. Asked why he done it. He didn’t know. Said they hadn’t been arguin’, and in fact, she was quite lovin’, and he really loved the baby, and the dog was second to none. But one mornin’ he got up and seen his wife bent over the stove, tryin’ to make his breakfast, and it just come on him. He took the stove wood and went to work. Said it seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Did they shoot him in the heart too?”
“Didn’t execute him. Was considered made mad by the gods, or some kind of Indian evil. He was set free. Besides, he had to live with that face of his, and the bullet had punched a hole in his head and hit his brain and he wasn’t good for nothin’ after that. Limped, drank liquor, shit on himself when he wasn’t falling down. Maybe he’d have been better with a shot through the heart.
“Just because he didn’t have no pattern, rhyme, or reason, don’t mean most of this murderin’ business don’t. It usually has. Money. Love. Or more often than not, just some kind of pride gone wild. Pride makes you want money, or lack of pride does, and it makes you want love and not want to take insults. Pride is at the bottom of everything, boy, except stone crazy.”
“Does the murder of Margret and Jewel have a pattern?”
“Can’t rightly say yet, but I figure it did. What we got to figure is are these two murders linked up, or did they happen separate-like. You know, a coincidence.
“If they’re tied together, there was some reason behind it. You can figure that, you can kind of work backwards, or forwards, dependin’ on the situation. You followin’ me, boy?”
“Sort of . . . Well, not completely.”
“You see, they got what they call a morgue at the newspaper, but not for dead folks. For dead papers. Things happened long ago. These start before the murder, and after the murder. This is just the first box. Juke’s gonna get me others. But this one, it’ll take some time to look through.”
“What are we lookin’ for?”
“There’s some things we know we’re lookin’ for, and some things we don’t know about yet.”
“How will we know the things we don’t know?”
“That depends on us.”
“What do we know we’re looking for?”
“We know we’re lookin’ for any mention of the Stilwind family and this Wood family that Margret belonged to. Don’t care if it’s just somethin’ about them goin’ some place, we want to study it.”
“Goin’ some place?”
“Stilwinds. They have money, boy. They did travelin’. Society section might have somethin’ on that.”
“Why do we care where they went?”
“Maybe we don’t. But we’re gonna look at it. Gonna look at anything has to do with them. We’re gonna look for any kind of crime resembles the crimes we’re interested in, before or after. Railway killin’s, people burned up in fires, even if it’s an accident. Then, we got maybe some police files to look at.”
“Really?”
“I’m gonna trust you, Stanley. You got to be quiet about that. And you don’t want to mention the papers either, hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find out I got Jukes takin’ out old police files, well, he’ll not only lose his job, he got a good chance of bein’ hurt. Or worse. I’m askin’ him a big thing just to figure on some dead white folks some years back just so you and me got somethin’ to do.”
“Why is Jukes doing it?”
“ ’Cause I once helped him out. In a big way.”
“What kind of way?”
“That’s between me and him.”
“Why are you doing it?”
“I’m bored. I wanted to keep bein’ a lawman, Stan. But after them old days, wasn’t no place for me as a colored to do nothin’ like that. I didn’t want to move up North where I might do it, ’cause it’s cold up there. Besides, they ain’t no better than here. Just say they are.”
“When do we get the police files?”
“When Jukes can nab ’em. They’re old enough, I don’t think they’re gonna be missed. Least not right away. We’ll put them back when we’re finished.”
“What if we do find out who did it?”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it.”
———
THERE WERE ALL MANNER of things about the Stilwinds in the papers. There were buildings they bought, weddings they attended, travels abroad, an announcement the older daughter had moved away to England, general society stuff, the charities they gave to.
But nothing jumped out at me and said murder.
Buster read carefully and wrote from time to time on a yellow pad with a fat pencil. I said, “You finding anything?”
“Don’t know. All has to come together like a puzzle. You get a piece here. You get one there. You find some things look like pieces and almost fit, but don’t, so you toss ’em. But you don’t toss ’em far. Sometimes you have to go back and get them. Most of the time, you solve business just by doin’ business. You chip here, you chip there. You think about it. You want to make a statue, you start with a block of stone. You get through chippin’ on it, you’ve cut away a lot of stone to make that statue.”
“But we’re not making a statue.”
“Stan, it’s what they call a comparison. It ain’t supposed to mean just how it is. It’s a metaphor.”
“The way you talk, kind of words you use, changes a lot, Buster.”
“It do, don’t it?” He grinned at me. “Thing is, when it starts to come together, it’s like tumblers in a safe. You know. Click, click, click. Now, tuck your head into them papers, boy, think about what you’re reading.”
———
A COUPLE HOURS LATER, Buster said, “I’m gonna take me a little break, take some of my medicine. Might be a good idea if you run along home.”
Buster went to the bookshelves, pulled back some paperback books, removed a small, flat bottle of liquor from behind them. “Keeps my heart pumpin’.”
“Is it okay to go back by myself?”
“You scared colored gonna get you?”
“A little.”
“At least you’re honest. They won’t bother you none. Just wave at them men on the porch. Besides, they’re probably havin’ their medicine ’bout now. Ain’t much else for them to do. All the doctorin’ jobs is filled up.”
I got up to leave.
He said, “Take this home and read it. It’ll get you thinkin’ way you need to be thinkin’.”
He handed me a paperback book with the title:
“Holmes, he had the mind for it, boy. He thought around corners and under rugs.”
“How’s that?”
“Read it. You’ll figure what I mean.”
I put the book in my back pocket, got my bicycle off the porch. The ride was rough along the busted brick streets. I came to the porch where the men had been, but they were gone.
I rode on until the trees spruced up and the bricks lay flat, on past the wrecked colored graveyard, on past the kept white graveyard, on into Dewmont, and from there I rode home.
11
NEXT FEW DAYS Buster brought the old newspapers to work. He arrived at least two hours before he needed to run the reels. Me and Nub spent time with him in the projection booth. We looked through the clippings. Well, Buster and I did. Nub lay on the floor on his back with his paws in the air. He was no help at all.
