A Killing at Cotton Hill Read online

  When we pull up in front, he tells me he’ll stay in the car, but I insist on him coming in. “It’s too hot out here. You’ll fry.”

  I walk ahead of him across the porch and in the front door, then turn to see his reaction when he walks in. At first, it doesn’t register, but then I see him freeze and slowly take in the art I have hung on my walls. Like he’s in a trance, he walks over to the little Bischoff figure drawing, then to the Thiebaud, which has pride of place above the fireplace. Then he moves on around the room. He takes a long time, like a parched man drinking water. He moves from one painting to another, not saying a word. When he turns to me, it’s like he’s seeing me with new eyes. “These are real, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  He takes another turn around the room. “Who would have known?” His voice is quiet, as if he’s talking to himself, but then his gaze comes back to me. “I hardly ever got to see anything like this except in books. My folks took me to Houston a few times to some museums, but that’s all. I didn’t think anybody around here knew anything about art.”

  “We’re a scarce breed; that’s a fact.” I tell him about Jeanne and how we got interested in art and started buying a painting here and there and having a fine time doing it. “Most people who walk in here don’t even see the paintings. Come on back here.”

  I show him the art in the bedroom and then the dining room, which I hardly ever use since Jeanne died. We put the few sculptures we bought there, one a Manuel Neri that we bought early on. There’s no way I could afford most of these things nowadays.

  “This art is from a good ways back. It must be worth a lot. Don’t you worry about somebody coming in here and stealing something?” he says.

  “Not too many people understand what’s here. And it’s well insured.” I leave him to soak it in while I go pack a few things. It makes me feel good to have someone in here who can appreciate the art. Anyone who notices it at all usually says some version of “I don’t get all these scribbles and shapes. I like things to look like what they are.” Every couple of years, we used to get a little herd of people from Houston who took a tour of private collections. But last year, with Jeanne not here to show them around, I begged off.

  On the way out to Dora Lee’s place, I ask Greg how he came to know he could be an artist. “My daddy liked to paint and he used to let me paint with him. I took to it right off, and he liked that. He’s the one who started bringing me art books.”

  I glance over at the boy and ask straight out. “He didn’t mind that you have more talent than he did?”

  “He said for him it was just a hobby, something he liked. He said I had a gift and not to let it get away from me.” He turns his face away to look out the side window.

  We’re quiet the rest of the way out to the farm. I’m thinking about the work I saw in his cabin, wondering how he learned as much as he has. We park at Dora Lee’s, neither of us is in a hurry to get out of the truck. It’s dusk and there’s already a look of gloom about Dora Lee’s farm. Her big vegetable garden looks dry and droopy, like it has been deserted for a lot longer than a day.

  We finally climb out of the pickup, and out of habit head around back to the kitchen door. We’re almost there before I realize it’s a mistake. Luckily, the door has been locked and Greg has to search out his keys. That way I make it to the door before he can open it. There are two reasons I don’t want him to go inside. One, they won’t have cleaned up after they took Dora Lee away, and I don’t want him to be faced with the aftermath. And two, I want to see the scene with fresh eyes. This morning I was so shocked, that I might have missed something. With so many people milling around in the kitchen, the crime scene won’t be worth much, but I want to get a better sense of it.

  I tell him to go on and get settled in his place. “I’ll call you when I have something fixed for us to eat.” He doesn’t need to be asked twice, just shoots off, itching to get to his cabin.

  I set my bag down inside the kitchen and stand looking around. The crime scene tape is wadded up and thrown on the floor. I see a bloody smear from a shoe that I’m sure wasn’t there this morning. I wonder if Rodell even tried to preserve the integrity of the scene.

  Most of Dora Lee’s blood was caught by her clothes, very little of it spilling onto the floor. Some is spattered on one cabinet, so I know her killer attacked while she stood with her back to the sink.

  The thing is, I see no sign that she might have known what was coming. If she’d been scared, there would likely be something out of place. She might have tried to run and maybe would have shoved a chair aside, or maybe would have thrown something at her killer and that would be lying on the floor. But there’s nothing like that. Of course somebody moved two kitchen chairs this morning to hold the crime scene tape, so I guess I’ll never know if they were out of place when the law got here.

  I also took note this morning that there weren’t any wounds on her hands from trying to fend off her attacker. Whoever did this was talking to her and he walked up and stuck the knife in before she had a chance to react. It wasn’t a stranger came in here. It was somebody she knew. I think about Greg. I don’t want my regard for his talent to blind me to reality. I have to consider the possibility that he had a problem with Dora Lee that he’s not talking about, that led him to simmer and then finally snap.

  I walk into the front room and pull the curtain aside. I can see the road from here. If a woman was afraid somebody was out there, she might come in here several times in an evening to look out. I bring a lamp closer to the curtains, and sure enough there are smudges where her hand moved the curtain aside.

  I wait for a car to pass to find out if I can hear it from where I’m standing. It’s about five minutes before someone passes, speeding fast down the road. Sound travels well over the bare field from the road to the house, and it’s easy to hear the car, even with the windows shut and the air-conditioning running. But how did Dora Lee know it was a “fancy car?” And then it strikes me. She didn’t say passing by, she said, “somebody out on the road.” I wonder if the car stopped out there and sat for a while and she saw it. The idea chills me.

  I sink into my familiar chair across from the one Dora Lee always sat in to work. Her sewing bag is next to her chair with a quilted square she was stitching laid carefully across the top. For months after Jeanne died, I used to come out here often and sit with Dora Lee. She was always working on a quilt and I’d watch her, not really seeing her, just numb, glad to be with someone who was familiar with every phase of Jeanne’s decline. Sometimes we’d have the TV on, but often Dora Lee would sing while she worked. She had a sweet, clear singing voice and seemed to know the words to every song, from show tunes to old-time hymns. And sometimes she just talked about everyday things, and I’d let her words bind themselves around me.

  As I sit here I’m remembering Dora Lee telling me something about an art teacher Greg had in high school, but the details escape me. I feel like rusty parts of my brain are trying to fire up, like a jalopy that’s been sitting in the elements and needs some grease. I wish I’d paid more attention.

  Back in the kitchen, I get to the task of cleaning up the blood. The kitchen floor is linoleum, so it cleans up pretty easy. The cabinets are a little more problematic, but elbow grease prevails. While I clean, my memory comes clearer in fits and starts. There was an art teacher at the high school in Bobtail who took an interest in Greg and gave him lessons after school. Dora Lee complained because she thought the teacher had meant he would teach Greg for free and came to find out he wanted to be paid more than she thought it was worth. “He’s got mighty big ideas for a small-town teacher,” she said. Even after Greg got out of high school the lessons continued, but a few months ago there was a falling out of some kind, and the lessons stopped. Dora Lee said she never liked the man.

  I rummage around in the refrigerator and find some leftover chicken that smells all right, and I open a can of peas. I figure that will be enough for tonight. It occu
rs to me we could have eaten in town, but I don’t feel like going back in. One thing for sure, we’re not going to eat in the kitchen.

  When Greg comes in for dinner, his eyes go straight to the place where his grandmother was lying. He crosses his arms across his chest, shoving his hands into his armpits as if he’s cold. “I just can’t believe she’s gone.”

  “You’ve lost too many for as young as you are,” I say. “You’ll just have to take it slow. Come on in here and eat.”

  He looks surprised, but follows me into the living room, where the dining table is pushed up against the wall. I’ve cleared off the lace cloth and the bric-a-brac and set us a couple of plates. He nods, understanding that I decided we didn’t need to eat in the room where Dora Lee died.

  “It’s not much of a meal, but it’ll do,” I say.

  He has the appetite of youth, and digs in. I wait until we’ve eaten a little before I ask him my question about the dishes.

  “It was my job to wash, and she’d dry them and put them away.”

  “Did she usually wait to do that?”

  “No, she’d dry while I washed. She said it was a good way to end the day, doing a task together like that.” He puts his fork down and pushes his plate away.

  “So why didn’t she dry them last night?”

  His eyes stray to the front window. “I had just started washing the dishes when she came out here into the front room. I asked her where she was going, and she said she wanted to check and make sure nobody was outside.” He looks back at me.

  “Did you think that was odd?”

  He shakes his head. “I didn’t think much about it either way. I was in hurry to get back out to my place, so I just told her I was done with the dishes, and I was going back.” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. “I guess I should have paid more attention, though.”

  “We’ve all got our burden about that,” I say. And then I confess to him about his grandma’s phone call to me last night. I hadn’t planned on telling him, but I want him to understand he’s not the only one to dismiss her fears. “My question to you is, can you think of anything unusual that happened in the last couple of weeks? Anybody call, or come by here? Or did she go somewhere she usually didn’t go?”

  His mouth drops open. “She did go somewhere! She went to Houston!”

  “When was this?”

  “Two, three weeks ago, I don’t remember exactly.”

  “But it couldn’t have been all that unusual for her to go to Houston.”

  He scowls. “That’s true. The difference was, usually she took me with her, ’cause she was worried about driving that far alone. But this time she just asked me if she could bring me anything from the art supply store.”

  “Did you ask her if you could go?”

  He blinks at me a couple of times, thinking. “I did, but she said she needed to go by herself. The thing is, she seemed kind of excited, like she had a secret mission. I was pretty annoyed because I would like to have gone with her to pick out some supplies.” He shakes his head, his mouth grim. “And to top it off, she forgot to get the stuff I asked her to bring.”

  “She forgot? That doesn’t sound like Dora Lee.”

  “I couldn’t believe it! I asked her why she’d bothered to ask me for a list if she wasn’t going to get it for me.”

  “What did she have to say about that?”

  “She said she was sorry, that she had something on her mind.” He frowns. “And I didn’t ask her what it was because I was so mad.” His leg is jittering and he’s frowning so hard that I figure he’s holding something back.

  “I expect the argument didn’t end there.”

  He shakes his head. “We had words. I said I was ready to move out right away, that I was sick and tired of having to depend on her.”

  “She probably got upset about that.”

  His face is bright red and his eyes snap fire at me. “I had been telling her I needed to move on. Her forgetting my supplies was kind of the last straw.”

  “It lit a fire under your tail.”

  “That’s right! I’d figured out that if I was going to ever get out of here, it might as well be sooner rather than later.”

  “You think Dora Lee had the money to send you to school, but she held out because she didn’t want you to leave?”

  Greg is suddenly still, as if he understands the drift of my questions, that I’m trying to find out just how desperate he was to get to art school. “Sometimes I thought so, but if you think I killed my grandma so I could get her money, you’re wrong.”

  He gets up and starts stacking the dishes, clattering them in his anger.

  “Sit down, son. I’m not accusing you of anything, but I need to know exactly what went on between the two of you. Some folks will be quick to accuse you, and the best way I can help you is if I know all the facts.”

  He eases back down, but keeps a wary eye out. “What else do you want to know?”

  “Dora Lee paid for lessons for you a while back.”

  He sneers. “For what they were worth.”

  “You didn’t think much of your teacher?”

  He shrugs. “He thought he was a lot better painter than he was. He bragged that one day he would make it big time as an artist. Any fool could see he didn’t do anything but paint pictures of cactus and bluebonnets.”

  “He taught you some things though. You have some basics under your belt.”

  “Sure he taught me some basics. But I outgrew him.”

  I’d met a few artists over the years when Jeanne and I were buying art, and I had seen Greg’s arrogance before. I wonder if a person has to have a bit of that cocksure streak to get anywhere as an artist. But it had to be hard on a teacher who nurtured a kid, when he turned his back on you.

  Greg stands up again and picks up a handful of dishes. “Besides, Grandma said he charged too much.”

  I help him carry the things into the kitchen. “Do you think that’s why she wanted you to stop taking lessons?” I say to his back.

  He puts the dishes in the sink and turns, cocking an eyebrow. “She never liked Mr. Eubanks. She thought he put ideas into my head. I told her I had enough ideas on my own and didn’t need somebody like him to tell me what I could do.”

  “If she had been able to continue paying for lessons, would you have wanted to keep on?”

  He shrugs. “I guess, but it didn’t matter much to me. It was a big deal to him, though. He came out here and pitched a fit with her.” He hooks his thumbs in his pants and looks down at the floor, shaking his head. “She didn’t take a thing off of him. He left with his tail between his legs.”

  He looks up, his eyes wet with the memory and we smile at each other, remembering how Dora Lee could get her feathers ruffled.

  I’ve still got work to do this evening, so I send Greg to his cabin, telling him that I’ll wash up tonight, but that after this it’s his job again.

  The whole time while I wash the dishes, I’m trying to think what Dora Lee was up to in Houston. Naturally, my thoughts go to M. D. Anderson, the big cancer hospital where Jeanne and I spent too much of our time the last year of her life. I wonder if Dora Lee had something wrong, and she wasn’t telling anyone. But Greg said she seemed excited, which doesn’t sound like somebody facing bad health.

  Which brings me to what I’ve got to do tonight. I’m awfully tired, but I know tomorrow is going to be full of chaos. People will be calling and bringing food and dropping by to nose around. There will be funeral arrangements to make and people to contact. So if I’m going to have a quiet time to poke around for clues as to what might have happened to Dora Lee, it will have to be tonight.

  My knee is throbbing from a day of unaccustomed activity, so I swallow a couple of Tylenol, make myself a cup of coffee, and tackle Dora Lee’s spare room. She kept her business correspondence in a massive rolltop desk that’s so battered it looks like someone used a baseball bat on it. Her laptop computer is shoved to the back of the desk. I expe
ct she used it about as much as I do mine, which is hardly at all, so I’ll look at it later. I feel funny messing with her papers, but I finally settle in and get down to work.

  I sort the papers into a pile for bills, another for business correspondence, one for personal letters, and still another for ads and notices. I suppose I could throw the last pile away, but for now it’s best to keep it all. I learned that the hard way after Jeanne died, when I threw away something that looked like an ad but turned out to be a stock certificate. You haven’t lived until you go through a week’s worth of garbage looking for one thin piece of paper.

  Another stack is for business cards, which Dora Lee collected in abundance, and another for bank statements. I have resolved not to read the contents of any of the pieces of paper. It’s better to get it all sorted first. But on a bank statement from last month, my eye falls on the balance, $2,600. I have a couple different accounts myself, keeping only a small balance in the one for everyday expenses. I replenish it when it gets low. I expect Dora Lee did the same thing.

  It takes me until almost eleven o’clock before I’ve emptied the drawers, an accordion file, and all the little cubbyholes of the desk. It pleases me that I don’t find any bills or correspondence from M. D. Anderson. So she didn’t have cancer. Then I realize how silly it is to think that. Either way, she’s gone.

  I expected to find three things that are nowhere to be seen. I haven’t located a will. And I haven’t seen the letter Greg said came from Dora Lee’s daughter Caroline. But the most worrisome is that I haven’t found statements from any other bank, nor evidence that she had any other funds. No stocks or bonds, no savings accounts, and no CDs. It makes my blood run cold to think that Dora Lee was down to $2,600.