The graveside service was short, with the Baptist minister reading only the Twenty-third Psalm, and one more passage, from First Corinthians:
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed.
Jerry held his grandmother’s hand, and with a silver ladle, they tossed clotted earth onto the coffin that rested on canvas straps above the deep-dug grave.
With one motion, the crowd turned its face away from the dead; and none of the mourners watched the coffin lowered into the silty earth of the Babylon cemetery.
Chapter 17
The intense heat of that Monday morning broke as a surprise on Evelyn and Jerry Larkin as they drove from the cemetery back to the blueberry farm. Well before noon, the temperature was above ninety; thick clouds hung oppressively just above the pine trees. The Styx, seemed barely to move, and vapor rose steaming along its entire course.
On the way home, Evelyn and Jerry spoke not of Margaret, but of the half dozen Boy Scouts who were expected at noon. “I hope those boys like cake,” sighed Evelyn, “because we’ve sure got enough of it! People brought out enough food to raise Cleopatra’s army.”
“They were just, doing it because they were sorry about what happened,” said Jerry cautiously. He hoped his grandmother had begun to view Margaret’s death with the right and necessary acceptance.
“If they wanted to do what was right, they’d drag Nathan Redfield out of the bank and nail him to a tree.”
Jerry was glad that there was work to do that day, for his grandmother’s sake and his own. All afternoon Evelyn would sit at the rough deal table on the shaded back porch, keep count of the number of boxes each boy brought in, and put a cellophane wrapper around the top with a rubber band.
“We won’t have enough to fill the car until Wednesday, I don’t imagine,” said Jerry, “so I won’t have to make the trip into Pensacola before then.”
“It’s all right,” said Evelyn, divining his meaning. “I’ll be all right out here by myself.”
At first, Jerry couldn’t make out his grandmother’s ease. She hadn’t taken a tranquilizer at all that morning, and had wept hardly at all during either service.
He sat on the front porch, awaiting the arrival of the Boy Scouts. He read the accounts in the Mobile and Pensacola papers of Margaret’s death. The Mobile paper said only that the body of a teenaged girl had been found in the Styx River only a few dozen yards from her home; homicide was suspected. The Pensacola paper, however, related many details of the wounds on Margaret’s body, and the peculiar manner in which it had been discovered. Since it also mentioned Ed Geiger by name, Jerry suspected that it was the fisherman who had provided the information. The Mobile paper had probably called up Hale, who had told as little as possible.
The phone rang inside. Jerry wanted to run and answer it, but he decided he had better first hide the newspapers so that his grandmother would not be upset by the articles. When he reached the parlor, Evelyn had already hung up. “That was Jay Neal. He says the sheriff is on his way out here to talk to you.”
“What about?” said Jerry.
“About Margaret,” said Evelyn with small surprise: “What else would he want to talk to us about? Now Jerry, I want you to tell him about Nathan, that is, if he hasn’t already figured it out for himself. He’ll listen to you, he won’t listen to me. He may be on his way out here to tell us that he’s arrested Nathan already, maybe that’s why he’s coming.”
Jerry suddenly understood why his grandmother had remained so calm: She had convinced herself that Nathan Redfield was guilty of murdering Margaret, and all her anxiety had been subsumed in the desire to be avenged on the man. Margaret would never return, Margaret was dead, and the only satisfaction that was left Evelyn in this world was to see Nathan Redfield punished for his crime.
“Grandma,” said Jerry sadly, “I don’t want you there. You stay in the kitchen, and see what you can do about putting up some food. We’ll never eat all of it. We might as well throw half of it to the fish right now.”
Their attention was drawn to the police car turning into the driveway from the Babylon road.
Evelyn nodded to Jerry significantly: “You remember what I told you,” she said softly, and went towards the kitchen.
Jerry went out onto the porch, and sat in the swing, glancing over his shoulder at the police car that pulled up just beside the house. Hale had come alone.
“Is your grandmama inside?” the sheriff asked in a low voice as he approached the porch.
Jerry nodded, but said nothing.
“Nice service this morning,” remarked Hale with tentative cheer, as he mounted the steps. “Your grandma seemed to take it not so bad.”
Jerry paused before answering, but then plunged: “She wasn't feeling too bad because she thinks this afternoon you’re going back into Babylon and arrest the man that killed Margaret Jury’s gone declare him guilty in two days, and she’ll pull the switch on the chair. That’s why she’s not feeling too bad right now, when she’s got all that excitement to look forward to.”
“Well,” said the sheriff with consternation: “Who does she think I’m gone arrest? Has she got anybody particular in mind?”
“Nathan Redfield.”
Hale whistled.
Jerry recounted his grandmother’s reasoning that led to so unexpected a conclusion, but he said nothing of her dreams.
“D’you try to talk her out of that? 'Cause that's just crazy, you know that, don’t you, Jerry?”
“I know it, but that’s what, she believes, and right now, that’s what’s keeping her going. Now, I promised her that I would tell you that, and I did, but I don’t know what I’m gone say to her when I have to go back in there and tell her that you are not gone go back into town and stick Nathan Redfield in the jail.”
“You want me to talk to her?” Hale offered reluctantly.
Jerry shook his head. “No point in that. I’ll tell her later. Why’d you want to talk to me?”
“I guess I just wanted to ask you if you had any ideas— any other ideas, I guess—about who would want to go and throw Margaret off the bridge with a bicycle tied to her feet?”
“I don't know,” said Jerry simply. “I don’t have any idea why anybody would want to kill Margaret.”
Hale, who had seated himself beside Jerry on the swing, leaned forward and whispered: “Jerry, did you know that Margaret was pregnant?”
“No!” he cried aloud: “Margaret—” He lowered his voice abruptly: “No, I— How do you know that? Margaret was only fourteen!”
“Raymond Everage and the man from Pensacola, the county coroner, they found out when they examined her on Saturday night. It’s in their report. She was in her fourth month.”
Jerry shook his head: “Good Lord, just don’t tell Grandma...”
“I've got to,” said Hale, “or else you’ve got to, because there’s going to be the inquest tomorrow, and it’ll come out then.”
“Does it have to? I mean, what does that have to do with Margaret getting killed?” Jerry shook in the swing; he had begun to perspire heavily.
“Maybe nothing, but Jerry, Margaret was only fourteen, like you say, and whoever got her pregnant was gone be in a lot of trouble. And since Margaret didn’t have any enemies that anybody knew about, it seems like it might have been the father that did it.”
Jerry shook his head in anguish.
“Listen Jerry, don’t let your grandma come to the inquest tomorrow. You come. You have to testify that Margaret left home on Thursday, that she didn’t come home, and then you have to tell about... finding the body, and bringing it across the river. Your grandma doesn’t have to be there. But I still think it’s gone come out about Margaret’s being pregnant, and if you don’t tell her, somebody else will and it’s probably better if it comes from you.”
br /> Jerry nodded dismally. “Okay, I’ll tell her later. Not now. Later. Maybe I’ll tell her tonight.”
“Who do you think the father was?”
Jerry opened his eyes wide. “I don’t know!” he said, as if the question had not occurred to him before. “I don’t know who it could have been. Margaret wasn’t even dating yet! But maybe you’re right; and it was the father who did it. But that's just horrible, for whoever it was to kill Margaret and the baby too.”
“I was sorry to have to tell you this, I was hoping that you already knew about it. You may be surprised: Maybe your grandma already knows. Maybe Margaret confided in her. Maybe Margaret told her who the father was,” said Hale hopefully.
“I doubt it,” said Jerry, “I really just doubt it.” He paused. “What are you going to do now?”
Hale shrugged: “Start the investigation, I guess. Maybe something will turn up. Maybe somebody'll confess.”
“Somebody who gets a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant and then throws her in the river doesn’t seem much like the type to get a guilty conscience all of a sudden,” said Jerry ruefully.
Chapter 18
On Sunday, Ted Hale had begun his investigation into the murder of Margaret Larkin. He requestioned Geiger and Annie-Leigh, who had discovered nothing new in the meantime; he talked once more to Warren Perry, who declared himself mystified and sorrowful; he called up Ginny Darrish, who had no more ideas on the matter. He filled out reports to be sent to the county sheriff’s office, and another to be filed with the state, in Tallahassee. But beyond this, he wasn’t sure how to proceed.
Hale was certain that Margaret Larkin’s death was connected with her pregnancy. He had thought that possibly Margaret had been raped, then killed; but the two coroners said that there had been no sexual molestation, and Hale could see that her clothing had been ripped toward some other purpose.
Identifying the father was going to be a problem. Under the circumstances, the man was unlikely to step forward voluntarily. It was even possible that Margaret had told no one—or even did not know herself—that she was carrying a child.
The first new information concerning Margaret came on Sunday, the night before her funeral, by way of Belinda. “Daddy,” the cheerleader said when they were halfway through supper, lightly, as if what she had to say was of no consequence: “You know what?”
“What, honey?”
“I was over at the Redfields’ today, talking to Nina about poor old Margaret Larkin, and Nina said she saw Margaret Larkin that afternoon not five minutes ’fore the rain started.”
“What!”
“That’s right, Daddy! Nina was checking to see if the Mobile paper had got put in her mailbox yet, and up sails Margaret Larkin on her Schwinn, and she stops and talks to Nina for a couple of minutes, just chatting away. “How’s Miz Larkin?” Nina says, and all that—”
“Was Margaret upset? Did she act scared? What did Nina say, honey?”
“She said Margaret was just the same as she ever was, didn’t even seem nervous about the rain, said she’d be home in five minutes. I guess she was wrong,” added Belinda with raised eyebrows.
“Why the hell didn’t Nina say anything about this to anybody?”
“Daddy, she didn’t think it was important, or had anything to do with Margaret getting killed. It just came up in the conversation when I was over there, and I said, ‘Nina, why didn’t you tell my daddy this?’ And she said she would have, if she had run into you on the street or something. But it’s not important, is it? I mean, Margaret didn’t talk about dying at the hands of a psychopath or anything, they just talked about the rain, and old Miz Larkin, and Nina didn’t remember what all else.”
“Well, honey, it is important though,” said the sheriff, “I mean, now we know that Margaret was killed out there by the bridge. Before, all we knew was that she got thrown off the bridge there when she was probably unconscious, and drowned in the river. So far as I knew somebody could have knocked her out on the other side of town, and then thrown her in the trunk, already tied to the bicycle, and then chucked her off the bridge in two seconds flat. But now we know it came as a surprise, because if Margaret stopped to talk to Nina for a few minutes, then she didn’t think that anybody was after her. I mean, she wasn’t being chased. Did Nina say anything else?” begged Hale. “Did she see anything else that day?”
“No,” said Belinda. “The only thing she said she saw was about ten minutes later, when she was standing out on her front porch, looking at the lightning, and she saw this hearse come barreling down the road with fishing poles stuck out the back.”
“From the direction of the river?”
Belinda nodded: It came from the other direction just when she was standing there talking to Margaret. She didn’t know whose it was. She figured the man was going out fishing but changed his mind when the rain started.” “Did she see the tag?”
“I don't know. You'll have to ask her.”
The sheriff did just that. Directly after dinner, he drove out to Nina s place, and talked with her at length. To his satisfaction Belinda had related the details correctly. Nina had not seen the tag, but knew that she had never seen that particular hearse pass the house before. It seemed possible, considering the timing of the vehicle's appearances, that the driver—if he was not the murderer himself —had seen or heard something near the Styx River bridge.
“So it wasn’t the one that belongs to Mr. Cowles? His is painted green though. You sure this hearse wasn’t green?”
“No,” said Nina, “it was black. Half a dozen poles sticking out the back end.”
Hale thought out the implication of this as he drove slowly around Babylon’s dark streets—dark now as ever, beneath the new moon. His first conjecture was that a stranger in a fishing hearse, out by the Styx, had been in some way annoyed by Margaret to such a degree that he had killed her, secreted her body, and then driven like hell away from the place. Or perhaps he had seen something, and not wanted to get involved. But the sheriff concluded that it was most likely that the driver of the hearse had had nothing at all to do with Margaret’s death. He had doubled back hastily on the Styx River road for some reason the sheriff would never learn.
In any case, since he had no other leads, the sheriff determined to find the driver of that fishing hearse, and in pursuance of that resolve, telephoned Ed Geiger. Geiger did not know who owned such a vehicle. The sheriff was discouraged, for if Geiger in his double capacity as town gossip and owner of the sporting goods store didn’t know, then Hale doubted that the Bureau of Motor Vehicles could assist him.
For the time being then, Hale dismissed the hearse, and concentrated on Margaret’s pregnancy. It was significant that Dr. Everage had known nothing of it until the body had been examined; either Margaret had gone out of town to a doctor, or she had simply handled the matter herself. Possibly she had been planning an abortion, though in that case it ought already to have been performed. She might have approached Jerry with her problem—for she’d have needed money—but she did not. But perhaps like most girls her age she was ignorant of these things, and imagined that abortions could be performed at any time up until the hour that labor commenced.
Jerry had told Hale that Margaret in the last month had seemed preoccupied, but that he and his grandmother had set this down to some adolescent trauma that all young girls went through. Hale could imagine that it was rather the monumental problem of her pregnancy that disturbed her. It was just possible that Margaret had intended running away, to give birth in some out-of-the-way place like Atlanta or Miami, and then return after she had given up the child for adoption, with some strained tale of six months spent waitressing in a chromium diner. Margaret was not the type to have critically distressed her grandmother with an unmarried pregnancy.
But simply the fact that Margaret had been killed pointed to the most likely sequence of events. The girl had found herself pregnant, had wondered for a time what to do, and had at last determined on confron
ting the father and demanding that he marry her, or pay for the abortion, or follow some strange alternative course her adolescent mind suggested. The man had been stunned, he had balked because he was afraid to have it known that he was the father—perhaps he had a reputation to uphold, or was already married. Perhaps he was himself only fourteen years old.
The likeliest in a townful of very unlikely suspects was Warren Perry. Hale had discovered from Annie-Leigh Hooker that Margaret Larkin had spent any number of afternoons in the schoolroom with Warren Ferry, helping him to record grades and check homework and compile alternative seating arrangements for his classes. She had obviously had a crush on him, and he had done little to discourage her—if only because he did not realize that she was smitten. So far as Annie-Leigh knew, however, they had never seen one another outside of school.
Hale imagined that something like this had occurred: On Thursday afternoon, when they were alone in the school room together, Margaret had told Warren of her pregnancy. Warren had been upset, but at last had agreed to marry Margaret or take care of the abortion or whatever, and she left in relieved spirits. That explained the nonchalant way in which she had talked to Nina at her mailbox. But Warren Perry had then panicked. It would have been impossible for a high school teacher to marry a girl who hadn’t yet entered the ninth grade. He would surely have lost his job, even though he was a favorite with Ginny Darrish, and would get another only with great difficulty and far away from Babylon. No one had sympathy for a man who seduced a fourteen-year-old girl.
He had driven out toward the farm, caught up with Margaret by the bridge, and then knocked her unconscious. He tied her to her bicycle, threw her off the bridge, and drove back into town. Maybe Nina had gone inside off her front porch for a few minutes, or she might simply not have noticed Perry’s undistinguished automobile. Certainly it was easier to remember a fishing hearse than a beat-up ten-year-old Rambler.