“Morris Emmons,” said Mal Homans darkly, “couldn’t take a joke.”
Chapter 52
That afternoon, at the very moment that the coroner and the undertaker were wondering how on earth they were going to arrange the remains of Morris Emmons in a coffin, Sarah Howell was telling Becca Blair of her intention of badgering Jo Howell until she got at the truth about the amulet.
“Good luck,” said Becca significantly as they parted in the driveway. “You call me if you need any help, and I’ll come a’running. You and me—we’ll bolt her to the ’frigerator!”
Sarah smiled briefly, and then entered the house, determined to speak to Josephine Howell immediately about the amulet, and about the dozen deaths it had precipitated.
There was an unfamiliar noise in the house, a low-pitched, muffled hum. Sarah walked directly through, wondering what on earth it could be, and opened the closed door of Dean’s bedroom. She was met with a blast of frigid air, and saw immediately that an enormous air conditioner had been set in the back window. The machine operated at its maximum, very loudly blowing a gale of icy air into the interior of the room. Jo sat placidly in the plush chair at the foot of the bed; Dean lay beneath the covers, only his bandaged head and neck stuck out from under the blankets. It was an Alabama February in that room.
“Where’d that come from?” Sarah asked immediately, forgetting the amulet and her resolve in the surprise.
“I ordered it from Sears,” said Jo. “They brought it today, and the man put it in for us.”
“Well, that’s just real nice. It’s freezing in here, Jo. Who’s going to pay for it?” Sarah was tight-lipped, sarcastic, and very angry.
“It got put on Dean’s account,” smiled Jo smugly.
“Who’s going to pay for it?” demanded Sarah. “Dean can’t pay no monthly payments. Dean couldn’t stick a nickel in a parking meter if you gave him the nickel and tore the damn thing out of the curb and brought it in here to him!” Sarah was beside herself. There was no way in the world that they could afford an air conditioner. “Why’d you do it?” she demanded.
“ ’Cause Dean was suffering in here. Burning up all the time. Suffering. Uncomfortable. He might have died in this heat with them bandages making him suffer like they do.”
Sarah jerked back the covers on the bed. Dean’s naked arms and chest were covered with goose bumps. “Jo,” she cried, “he’s freezing to death in this room.”
“Well, cover him up. You shouldn’t ought to let him get cold like that. He wouldn’t be so cold if you hadn’t pulled the covers down off him.”
Sarah rolled her eyes, put the covers back up around Dean’s neck. She went to the closet and pulled down from the top shelf a large pink comforter which she tossed over her husband’s body.
“Jo,” she said, “why don’t you let me turn down this thing just a little bit?” She moved over toward the machine, which already had made her shiver, though she had only a minute before come in out of ninety-five-degree heat.
“No!” cried Jo. “You leave them controls alone! Dean’s got to keep himself cool!”
“Dean’s gone have ice in his veins you don’t let me turn this thing down a little.”
“Don’t you do it, Sarah,” her mother-in-law warned.
Sarah turned, and then said flatly, “You’re right. I don’t care if you both freeze to death in here. It’s not gone be in here that long, ’cause they’re gone come back and take it away, ’cause I’m not gone make the payments on it.” She stared at Jo, and was glad to see that this had some effect on the woman.
“You got to pay for it,” said Jo, with not so much strength as before, “it got bought in your name.”
“The account’s in Dean’s name,” said Sarah. “Dean’s gone have to pay for it. I’m not. I don’t have the money. If I had the money, I’d buy it for him. I’d buy him anything that he needed, or that I thought he wanted—but I don’t have the money, and I’m not gone pay for it.”
“Well,” said Jo, “what about when the money comes from the army? Then you can pay for it. Dean’s got to have it Sarah.”
“Dean hasn’t got to have it, Jo. They didn’t have the hospital at Rucca air-conditioned. He got along without it all these years, and he don’t have to have it now. And when the money comes from the army, then it goes to pay the doctors and for the medicine and for the therapy, whenever we can get him started on that. If there’s anything left over, then we can see about the air conditioner. We’re gone have to see about getting a car too, ’cause there’s gone be trips to the VA hospital in Pensacola. You can’t go through the Sears catalogue, picking out your heart’s desire, Jo, ’cause we just don’t have the money.”
Jo was silent, and Sarah knew that this once she had got the better of her mother-in-law, and she knew that she had won because she hadn’t given in when Jo pricked at her about “not taking care of Dean like he should be.” Sarah knew that she was doing all that she possibly could for Dean, that in fact, she was running herself into the ground for him. She would never allow Jo to goad her in that way again.
Sarah also realized that now was the best time to pursue her attack on the amulet. Without a pause, without even a heavy breath to betray her excitement, Sarah said, “Becca and I went out to the Weaver place this morning, went all through the pigpen looking for that amulet. Didn’t find it.”
“Why’d you think you would?” said Jo maliciously.
“Because,” said Sarah, “that’s where Miz Weaver dropped it. It fell out of her pocket. Mr. Weaver says that’s why she got killed, went in the pen after it and the hogs attacked her. That’s why he blames it on the amulet. He saw it happen.”
“Looks to me like he ought to blame them hogs. They’re the ones that did it. Killed her.”
“Killed her and eleven other people, you mean.”
“That’s not what I mean,” said Jo. “That’s not what I said at all . . .”
“Now, listen to me, Jo Howell. There’s twelve people dead in this town since yesterday was a week ago. That thing was there in every one of the cases—every single one. I know that for a fact.”
“You cain’t know,” protested Jo.
“I do know. I saw you give it to Larry Coppage. Gussie found it under the bed the morning after Thelma killed James Shirley. I saw it round Dorothy Sims’s neck ’fore she went and killed her husband. Jack Weaver saw his wife pick it up off the ground ten minutes ’fore she got done to death by them hogs. Twelve people’s dead, and I just want to make sure that there’s not any more. You understand? I don’t want you and Dean to be responsible for no more bodies in Pine Cone.”
“Why you think we’re responsible for houses burning down, and wives killing their husbands and all, and pigs going on the rampage?”
“Because you gave Larry Coppage that thing, and that started it all off. And I got to know how it works. I got to know how it works, so I can stop it from doing any more damage.”
“A amulet don’t work, Sarah, it just sits there. It’s got no moving parts, it’s not like a watch. What can it do? You saw the thing. It was just a piece of metal with a chain on it. Got it from Montgomery Ward.”
“I thought you said your cousin Bama gave it to you, back when you were little.”
Jo hesitated, then replied, “I was thinking of something else. I got it out of the Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogue.”
“Show me the catalogue, Jo. Show me where you ordered it, and I’ll believe you.”
“It was years ago. I don’t keep catalogues.”
“Well,” said Sarah, “Becca does. I’m going over there tonight and look through the Montgomery Ward catalogues and find where you bought it.”
Jo stared hard at her daughter-in-law.
“I’m not gone find it, am I? It’s not gone be in that catalogue, is it?”
“Well,” said Jo, “I ordered it out of a Montgomery Ward catalogue—I think it was a Montgomery Ward catalogue—or it might have been
one of them jewelry catalogues that we get from Mobile, maybe it was one of them. It was so long ago, I don’t hardly remember which.” She looked about the room uneasily.
“When did you order it?”
“I don’t know,” she said vaguely, “sometime ’fore you married Dean. I don’t know exactly when.”
“How much did you pay for it?”
“Four ninety-eight.”
“That all?”
“I couldn’t afford no more.”
“Why’d you want it?”
Jo twisted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t see why I’m supposed to answer all these fool questions. I didn’t have nothing to do with them people dying. I gave Larry Coppage this piece of jewelry that I didn’t have no use for no more.” She paused, then added suddenly, “I gave it to him, ’cause one time Rachel Coppage was over here, and I was wearing it, and she said she liked it. So when Larry Coppage come over here, I thought I’d give it to him, ’cause I didn’t wear it no more, and Rachel had said she wanted one like it. What she did with it after I give it to her is no business of mine. If she wanted to run right out and give it to Thelma Shirley that’s all right with me. I give it to her, and she could do with it whatever she wanted to.”
Sarah knew that Jo had made this story up on the spur of the moment, and she knew too that if she continued to question the woman about it, Jo would only make the lie more elaborate. She wanted to cut through all that.
“I don’t care about that. I still got to know how it works, what makes people die that get hold of it. Why didn’t you die, for instance?”
Jo shrugged.“I think all this is crazy. I don’t know why you so worried about that thing. It’s got no moving parts. It just hangs there. Even if you got it back, you couldn’t get your money back for it. Those places in Mobile don’t give refunds, you know.”
Sarah shook her head in frustration and walked out of the room. She hadn’t found out what she wanted to know, but she had made progress. Jo was on the defensive, and she had admitted that it was the same amulet that had appeared in all the deaths and no longer maintained that there was more than one. Sarah only hoped she found out the rest before someone else died. She dared not trust that the thing was buried forever in the mud of Jack Weaver’s pigpen.
Chapter 53
It was almost six o’clock on Thursday afternoon. The undertaker and the coroner were drunk, and still had not decided what to do about Morris Emmons’ fragmented body. Sarah Howell had begun to fix Dean’s supper. She was still angry about the air conditioner and hadn’t decided yet whether to make anything for Jo or not. On the other side of Commercial Boulevard, a fifteen-year-old black girl sat in the kitchen of the house belonging to Mildred and Graham Taylor, watching after the two Taylor children, little Graham, about three, and his brother Ralph, who had just passed his first year. Audrey Washington was a skinny, slightly haughty girl, but extremely good with children. She came over to the Taylor house each afternoon after school, and kept the boys so that Mildred could go out and run the day’s errands. This afternoon Audrey was anxious, for Miz Taylor had promised her that she would be able to leave by five-forty-five, but the woman had not yet returned from shopping.
Nervously glancing at the clock above the stove, Audrey crooned to the infant in her arms, who dozed peacefully. Little Graham was playing quietly beneath the table with a set of square wooden blocks.
Audrey was surprised by a knock at the back door. She rose slowly, trying not to disturb the baby, and stepped onto the latticed back porch. Out here, a radio played country music softly and the washing machine had just begun its second washing cycle. Audrey rocked the child in her arms, and continued to sing as she kicked the back door open. She was very much surprised to see that it was her father on the back steps. She glanced at him with annoyance, and peered down the driveway to make sure that Mrs. Taylor was not in sight.
“Daddy,” Audrey said, “what you doing here? You know Miz Taylor don’t like to find you here . . .”
Audrey’s father, Johnny Washington, was a good man, but he had been involved in a fight two years back in which another man had been killed—the victim was Johnny’s brother-in-law. Johnny stood trial and was acquitted, but Mrs. Taylor still didn’t like to have the man around her house, even though it had been her husband Graham who had defended him.
“Audrey,” her father said, “they was a accident out at the farm, Mr. Crane’s place . . .”
“What happened?” cried Audrey, “was you hurt?” Then she glanced at her father sternly. “D’you hurt anybody?” Her father, even though let off, had been guilty of the crime two years before. Audrey continued to rock the baby slowly in her arms.
Johnny Washington shook his head meaningfully. “No, sir, I sure didn’t. But you should have seen it, Audrey! Mr. Emmons what owns the store where we buys drinks at dinnertime, Mr. Emmons done went right out of his head, start chasing round this bird dog right through the peanuts waving a gun all ’round him, and then jumped right in the baler! Come right in the barn and jumped in the baler, and is got parts of his head and his shirt spread out over all creation out there! You never saw nothing like it in your life! I was up top in the barn, scared for the life of me he was gone take me for that bird dog and shoot my legs off!”
“Ohhhh!” cried Audrey, “but he didn’t get you, did he? He didn’t aim at you or nothing did he?”
“Nope!” her father exclaimed. “Didn’t see me, didn’t let him see me! Nearly got hit with flying teeth and things though—nearly got hit . . .” he repeated.
Audrey sighed dramatically, in relief for her father’s safety, but then she quickly cautioned him, “Daddy, Miz Taylor’s right now on her way back here, and you know she don’t want to find you here.”
Johnny’s wife had died five years before and Audrey had been their only child. Audrey, though young, had stood valiantly by her father during the time of his incarceration and trial, and he knew that Graham Taylor would never have defended him at all—much less for a fee of only fifty dollars—if Audrey hadn’t begged the man (her employer then too) to help her father. In that difficult time Audrey had cared for her father, and gained some ascendancy over him. They both had come to believe that it was only because of Audrey’s constant watchfulness that Johnny was kept out of trouble. Johnny was very thankful for what Audrey did for him, seeing that he got employment in the fields, seeing that he didn’t spend all of his paycheck on whiskey, seeing that income tax and welfare forms got filled out and filed properly, seeing that the house was kept in good order. Every night Johnny asked his daughter if she was planning on leaving home, because maybe she found him just too much trouble to bother with, and every night Audrey replied, “When you get to be too much trouble for me, Daddy, you’ll know it, ’cause I won’t be here no more.” And that satisfied the man until the next evening.
“I brought you this,” Johnny Washington said, and fished the amulet out of his pants pocket. He dangled it before her a moment; Audrey stared at it, and then reached out and took it from him.
“What is it?” she demanded.
“You s’posed to put it on your neck, I s’pose,” he replied.
Audrey swung it before little Ralph’s face. The baby reached for the piece. Thoughtfully the black girl said, “That’s real sweet, Daddy, but where’d you get hold of this? I was in Woolworth’s yesterday, and I didn’t see nothing like it. And I know that jewelry counter!”
Her father did not answer her.
“All right if people see me wearing it, Daddy?” she inquired suspiciously. “I don’t want to get in no trouble ’cause of a little necklace, and I got no kind of sales slip for it . . .”
“It’s all right, Audrey, it’s all right, I think.”
Audrey pulled the amulet out of the reach of little Ralph.
“Put it under your dress for the next couple of weeks or so, that’s all,” her father cautioned, as an afterthought.
Audrey smiled know
ingly. “Thanks a lot, Daddy,” she said. “Now, you better go on home, and I’ll be there ’fore long. Miz Taylor don’t want to find you here, and I want her to be back here any minute now.”
Audrey’s father nodded, and turned to go. Audrey let the door slam shut behind him, and latched it. Then she moved down to the end of the latticed porch to the washing machine. She opened the top and made sure that the clothes were being agitated properly and that the water level was correct. Miz Taylor had had trouble with the appliance in the last month and had asked Audrey to keep a sharp eye on it. Audrey sang a little formless tune with incomprehensible words to the infant in her arms, and stared at sheets and pillowcases being sloshed around at a furious rate.
Audrey set the baby carefully down in a pile of folded laundry in a great wicker basket set beside the washing machine, and then examined the amulet for a moment. In the dim light of the back porch she could not see the catch, but she figured she must have pressed it, for the chain came apart in her hands. She held it around her neck and pressed the ends of the chain together and they caught—though she still could feel nothing but the two unbroken links at either end. She stared down at the amulet, wishing she had a mirror handy; well, she could go look in the mirror that was in the dining room.
She reached down to pick up the baby, and found to her acute dismay that little Ralph had wet not only himself but also the freshly washed blouse of Miz Taylor’s directly beneath him. This infuriated Audrey, for she knew that Miz Taylor would jump down her throat for it. That stupid baby couldn’t hold himself for twenty seconds, that stupid baby wasn’t any better than his fool brother had been. She’d like to take that baby home for a month, and then she’d whack it into some kind of shape. White people didn’t know what to do with a baby. They thought you ought to stop it from crying, no matter what you had to do for it, but Audrey figured that the best thing was to make it remember for a long, long time when it had done something bad. Well, this baby had just done something terrible. Audrey reached down and snatched the blouse out from underneath the baby, who tumbled over in the basket, gasping in surprise. She plunged the article into the washing machine, even though it was the wrong cycle for such clothing—and told herself she didn’t care if the thing was torn to shreds. Little Ralph had banged his head against the side of the basket, and set up a dismal howl. That noise drove through Audrey’s skull, and she cried, “Damn you, baby! Damn you to hell for that!” She picked the infant up and shook it, so that its head rattled on top of its pudgy shoulders.