The Amulet

  Sarah started to weep with relief. It meant much—it meant everything in the world—to have some of this burden lifted from her. Now there was someone else fight­ing. For the second time that day, Becca placed a com­forting arm around her friend’s shoulders.

  The sheriff talked on, in a low, respectful voice. “It’s sort of a relief to hear it. All these people dying in the past two weeks got on my nerves, I tell you. It was bad to have to go out yesterday and look at Jim Coltrane and Morris Emmons, and then I come back into town, sitting down to supper, and I get this call that says that Audrey Washington done gone and stuck Graham Taylor’s little boy in the washing machine, and then has killed herself with a radio plug.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe all this that you’re telling me, but at least it’s something that I can go on, it’s something I can do.”

  Sarah nodded gratefully.

  “I’m gone go by and speak to Johnny Washington to­night, and I’ll talk to Washington Garver too, see if that girl had the thing on when they brought her in. We can find it,” he added reassuringly. “You call me up tomor­row morning, and I’ll probably be able to tell you that I’ve located the thing . . .”

  “Sheriff,” cried Sarah, “you find it, and you kill it.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” said Garrett. “Where’d Jo Howell get hold of a thing like that?”

  “It weren’t Montgomery Ward,” snapped Becca.

  Chapter 61

  When Sarah returned home after the small but infinitely reassuring talk with the sheriff, she was in a mood which, in comparison with what she had felt for the past ten days, might be considered exultant. She had wondered whether she should tell Jo the progress of the search for the amulet, but decided against this and the short term pleasure of what Becca had called “sticking it to the old witch.” There would be more to gain in keeping Jo in suspense. In any case, Jo wasn’t going to reveal anything, and Sarah didn’t want the woman to make any attempt to upset the sheriff’s investigations. In parting, Sarah had assured Garrett that there would be no use at all in talk­ing to Jo, that she apparently knew nothing about the amulet, and that she had given it to Larry Coppage be­cause Rachel had once admired it. This was not the truth, but Sarah was afraid that if the sheriff talked to Jo, the old woman would convince him that the whole business about the amulet was nonsense—and the sheriff’s belief, Sarah thought, was what had saved her life.

  “D’you hear about that little baby? D’you hear about the cotton baler?” cried Jo, as soon as Sarah stepped foot into Dean’s bedroom. Sarah was surprised by Jo’s nervous­ness. The other deaths had not affected her in this way.

  “I heard,” said Sarah cautiously. “They were talking about it at the plant. There was something about it in the paper this morning.”

  “D’you bring me a copy of that paper?”

  Sarah smiled briefly with wondering what was now pushing Jo. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know you wanted to see it. It didn’t tell much though.”

  “Well,” demanded Jo, “what’d you hear at the plant?”

  Briefly, Sarah told her what had happened at Mr. Crane’s farm and on Graham Taylor’s back porch the previous day. But she gave no indication that the amulet was present at both places, and did not even mention it as a possibility. She was careful to speak of the deaths as ac­cidents unrelated except in their barrenness of motive. Sarah watched Dean as she talked, and tried to detect motion in the figure on the bed, but could not.

  “What you think of all that?” said Jo hesitantly, and with averted eyes.

  “I don’t think anything about it,” said Sarah quietly. “I think it’s real bad what happened. Don’t like to hear of people killing, getting killed. Who does, Jo?”

  Jo leaned back in her chair, and said nothing else. Sarah noted with satisfaction that the woman seemed distraught, and puzzled. Sarah waited several moments for the woman to say something else, to give herself away further. But she said nothing. Sarah then wondered if she shouldn’t continue herself, perhaps just mention the amulet in passing, but decided against that too. It would be best to wait for what the sheriff had to say in the morn­ing. There would be time then to confront Jo, and maybe by then there would be hard evidence. Maybe if the amu­let were destroyed—and what happy news that would be—there would not be any need for a confrontation at all.

  Sarah slept soundly that night, and though there were nightmares that woke her soon after dawn, she could not remember them. She worked about the house, got Jo and Dean their breakfasts, and was just wondering how early she might telephone the sheriff, when Garrett him­self called. Sarah took the call in the kitchen, well away from Jo and Dean on the far side of the house.

  “Went over to see Johnny Washington last night. He’s in bad shape, wasn’t that bad off when he knifed his brother-in-law. And I talked to him, and he said he did find that thing, and he brought it to Audrey not thirty minutes ’fore she went and stuck that poor little baby in the washing machine.”

  “Did she have it on her?”

  “Well, then I went over to see Washington Garver, and he said she didn’t have no kind of jewelry on her, except two cheap dime-store rings, and them he gave back to Johnny to keep ’em as souvenirs.”

  “So we still don’t know where it is?”

  “No,” said Garrett, “we don’t. You let me think about this awhile. You know, the girl had it when she killed that baby. And Morris Emmons had it when he shot Jim Coltrane. And that’s enough. That’s too much. We’ll find it, just in case. I don’t want to have to go find any more bodies.”

  “No . . .” agreed Sarah.

  “But listen,” said the sheriff sternly, “I don’t want you doing nothing else. You been chasing ’round this town, and you let me work on it for a little while. This thing could be dangerous, and you ought to let me handle it. You stay home, take it easy, keep company with Dean. He’ll appreciate it, and I’ll call you soon as I know any­thing.”

  Sarah thanked the sheriff and hung up. She was much disappointed that the amulet had not been found, but she was also very glad that she had been commanded to give over the search. She didn’t want to have to think of it any longer. She did not allow herself to imagine that there would be another death. Right now she had to rest, had to ease her mind of this great burden. Maybe if she just took this weekend and thought it all through again she could come up with an answer. Maybe Josephine Howell, overwhelmed with guilt, would give in to her and tell how to stop the devastation. Maybe, Sarah thought, Burnt Corn Creek would rise, and just wash them all away.

  Chapter 62

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning on a hot, dusty, still day in Pine Cone. The wind whipped clouds of red dust up from the parking lots and threw it in the faces of coun­trywomen who had just arrived in town for an afternoon of gossip and shopping. The hours were relaxed and lazy and passed with a frightening slowness. No matter how much food you had for breakfast, all you could think of was, how long is it before dinner? The drawing was three hours away, but already the town was packed.

  Shopkeepers were in an emotional quandary. No time is so sweet for fishing as Saturday morning, but they were behind their counters with ties and white shirts that were damp-stained across the shoulder blades. It would be an easy thing to be nasty to the customers for keeping them inside on such a hot day, when you just knew ex­actly where the fish would be, swimming slowly among the roots in a grove of cypress. But this was a day when all the county came to town, men and women whose dol­lar bills had been counted again and again, for whom a pair of socks was a major purchase, and a new dress was to be thought of only on Easter and birthdays. It was not possible to resent these good, hard men and women, with their dusty, barefooted children, whose lives were so dif­ficult. And so the shopkeepers sweated and smiled, and sighed at the end of the day, wondering if the receipts (which often totaled as much as the other five days put together) were worth having to watch the sun make its slow progress across the sky, and miss the b
est fishing of the week.

  School had let out on Friday, and students would re­turn on Monday for only a few hours, to turn in their books, and pick up their report cards. This was the sweet­est weekend of the year for them. Hot weather had started long before, of course, but this was the beginning of summer, and these two days, Saturday and Sunday, tasted most of freedom.

  Despite the heat and the dust, there was still a lush sweetness in the air, all that can really be called spring in the Deep South; that sweetness was loved the more for the knowledge that it would be soon burned away in the scorching days of June.

  The black part of town was very quiet at this time. All the children had run down to the creek, and were swim­ming in the shallow water or playing complicated games in the cool forest. Women were in their kitchens, prepar­ing the midday meals, and the men were either away working as gardeners (as supplement to a weekly pay­check at the factory), or were sitting on their front porches, silently rocking. Audrey’s funeral would be held late that afternoon.

  Ruby’s House of Beauty was actually a single room—low, narrow and long—that had been built onto the back of her parents’ house. It was dimly lit, in an attempt to keep a little of the heat out, and two great ceiling fans whirred quickly overhead. The room was crowded with chairs and sinks (Ruby sometimes had an assistant who specialized in permanent waves), and shelves built floor to ceiling at one end contained all of Ruby’s supplies.

  There was a single customer in Ruby’s House of Beauty, a young black woman about nineteen. Her name was Martha-Ann and she had been a friend of Ruby’s for many, many years. Ruby didn’t like to take customers on Saturday morning, but this was a favor, since Martha-Ann was going out on a date, just as soon as she could get changed after the funeral.

  “. . . and Roosevelt,” Ruby was saying, as she sham­pooed Martha-Ann’s hair, “he say he gone take me down to Apalachicola just as soon as he gives that hearse an­other coat of gloss black, and we are gone go to the Dew Drop Inn, and just injure that floor with our feet . . .”

  Ruby and Martha-Ann played out a little rivalry with one another about their respective boyfriends, as to which girl was promised more, which was given more, which was treated with greater deference.

  “Well,” said Martha-Ann, “George, he say he gone take me ’cross the line tonight!” Ruby paused momentarily; she had been topped. Martha-Ann was talking about the Florida state line, above seventy miles to the south. There were dance halls just over the border where liquor was served to anyone who could pay for it and those dance halls, at least to the people who had never been in them, were wild, mythic places, where people gathered who were very wicked, and got their money in ways it wouldn’t do to tell.

  Martha-Ann could see that she had gotten the better of her rival, and continued: “And George, he say he not gone promise nothing to me, girl, so I want you be sure to get all them kinks out of my unruly hair, you hear me?”

  “I hear you, but I tell you something, girl . . .” began Ruby. She had moved away, and climbed the little step-ladder. From behind two bottles of liquid concentrate shampoo, where she had carefully hidden it, Ruby fished out the amulet. She knew it wouldn’t do to show the thing to Martha-Ann, who would be sure to ask questions and spread the tidings, and there just might be talk of a miss­ing necklace at Audrey’s funeral. No, Martha-Ann couldn’t see it for at least a month, by which time every­one would have forgotten about Audrey and the washing machine, but it would make Ruby feel a lot better just to have it around her neck, out of sight under her dress. Martha-Ann’s boyfriend had given her a rhinestone clip six months ago, but that was Christmas and birthday combined, and Ruby knew that Martha-Ann hadn’t got a thing out of him since then. But this thing that Roosevelt had given her looked like it was worth something, and not the least attractive part was that it had belonged to a mur­deress.

  Ruby grimaced when she saw that the chain had broken in half, and she couldn’t imagine how it had hap­pened. It was a shame, because now she couldn’t wear it, and because it hadn’t really been Roosevelt’s to give her, she couldn’t take it to the jewelry store in town to get it mended either. Damn, she thought to herself, and with some exasperation she held the two ends of the chain around her neck, and let the amulet fall over her breast. It would have looked good, she nodded to herself rue­fully. But then she found, to her surprise, that the chain had somehow hooked itself back together. It had not broken at all. Maybe it was one of those invisible catches that was advertised on television commercials.

  Ruby nodded with satisfaction, dropped the amulet be­neath her blouse, and descended the ladder, bringing a couple of bottles with her.

  “What’s that, Ruby?” said Martha-Ann, who had been buried in a movie magazine, “what you got to say to me?”

  “I say,” said Ruby, “you want to get rid of them kinks for good, Martha-Ann, then you gone have to get me to shave your head . . .”

  “Ohhh!” cried Martha-Ann, “don’t you say nothing like that to me, Ruby, ’cause I am paying you.”

  Martha-Ann made a little pretend pout, which Ruby took great exception to. She couldn’t understand why her friend was always so nasty, why she was always making snide remarks about Roosevelt’s profession, and what was it gone be like when he and Ruby got married. “I tell you,” Martha-Ann would say at least once a week, “I don’t think I’d want a man to put his hands on me, right after he’s had ’em all over a corpse. I don’t know how you put up with it, smelling them dead people on the tips of his fingers . . .” Well, Martha-Ann’s boyfriend was no good, couldn’t hold down his job at the munitions factory cause he was always damaging the vehicles there, run­ning ’em into telephone poles and fence posts, and Martha-Ann had no business saying the things she did about Roosevelt, just because of what he did for a living. It didn’t make no difference to Martha-Ann that Roosevelt was doing it because his daddy did it, didn’t make no dif­ference to her that there was a good living to be made in a funeral parlor, didn’t make no difference to her that Roosevelt looked more like a football player than a mor­tician.

  Ruby stared at her friend in the swiveling chair, and wondered why, if Martha-Ann was going to insult her all the time, she had allowed herself to be roped into doing the girl’s hair at all, much less on a Saturday morning. Ruby had much rather have been downtown in all the crowds. Everybody else was downtown, and would stay there till after the drawing. Then everybody was coming home to get ready to go to Audrey’s funeral. Ruby had tickets in that drum, and this new necklace around her neck made her feel lucky. It was just possible that she’d win today—if she was there. But if Martha-Ann didn’t hurry up and stop her chattering and get her nose out of that magazine, Ruby would never get there in time. They’d call out her name and she wouldn’t be there and all that money would go to somebody else, somebody who didn’t need it the way Ruby did.

  Martha-Ann was doing it on purpose, Ruby decided, because she was really jealous of Ruby for having snagged Roosevelt Garver, because in ten years Roosevelt Garver, if his father died like he should, was going to be the rich­est black man in Pine Cone, and he would be married to Ruby.

  Martha-Ann, without looking up from her book, said, “Ruby, you didn’t do your best on me last time, and I was walking around with a tin bucket on my head, ’cause I didn’t want people to see what I let you do to my hair. I want you to be real careful today, you hear me?”

  “Oh,” said Ruby, “I’m gone take real good care of you today, Martha-Ann. I’m gone massage your scalp.”

  “Oh,” cried Martha-Ann, “that sounds real good. Good for the roots, good for ever’thing.”

  Ruby laughed softly, and reached down below one of the sinks, and brought out a bottle of thick green liquid. She poured a little out into the palm of her rubber-gloved hand, and then began to rub it into Martha-Ann’s scalp.

  “That feels just real good,” said Martha-Ann with sat­isfaction. “I ought to get you to . . .” Martha-Ann stopped suddenly, rea
lizing that something was wrong with the way that the scalp treatment felt. “Ruby—” she protested, but Ruby did not answer, and continued to rub her fingers into Martha-Ann’s hair. Martha-Ann squirmed; it felt as if her hair were being pulled out of her head entirely.

  “Ruby!” she cried, and tried to twist around to get a look in the mirror at what was happening. “What’s that stuff you putting on me? What you putting in my hair now?”

  “Gone take the kinks right out,” said Ruby softly.

  “Feels like you gone take my whole head off, Ruby, that’s what it feels like!”

  Martha-Ann got one foot on the floor, and with hysteri­cal strength pushed the chair around. She stared in the mirror and screamed. Her hair was almost gone, and Ruby continued to pull handfuls of it out. The scalp itself was bloody. Martha-Ann threw her hands over her face and tried to stand up out of the chair, but Ruby pushed her down and continued to massage. Martha-Ann moaned and writhed, but she felt herself growing weaker; she could not even stop to think why there was so little pain. She opened her eyes and stared into the mirror, just as Ruby carefully peeled away her scalp.

  Martha-Ann screamed faintly, and rushed out of the chair, eyes closed with the horror of the sight. She ran in the direction of the back door, but tripped over the cor­ner of the carpet and fell against the window. Martha-Ann broke through the glass, and fell down into the flower bed below, moaning and screaming. But in only a few moments, her scream was cut by a rattle in her throat and she was dead.

  Amid the screams of her friend, Ruby took the bloody scalp and carefully arranged it atop the white Styrofoam head of a wig dummy, and then went over to the step-ladder again, and mounted it, reaching upward to replace the two bottles on the top shelf. But one spilled on her and she pulled back instinctively to avoid the liquid. She lost her balance and caught at the shelving to keep from falling. But the shelving was not support enough, and it pulled away from the wall. Ruby fell backward in the air, directly against the rapidly spinning blades of the ceiling fan. In a moment, cleanly, her neck was severed. Body and head fell to the floor separately, blood gushing from both.