“Sir, I said OK.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
That shut Edgren up but not Jill. She raved on and on, damning me, damning Bledsoe, saying over and over what she’d said before. In the middle of her show I was startled to see my mother, standing out on the edges, halfway back of Mantle, as though she’d been there some time. She looked perfectly beautiful, pale in the sunlight, a red ribbon on her hair, a short dress showing her legs, the mink coat carelessly thrown over her shoulder. Edgren saw her about the time I did and wasn’t nice about it. “Madam,” he said, “this is a sheriff’s investigation. If you don’t mind, we’d prefer not having a gallery.”
But at that I broke, perhaps from the strain I’d been under, and blew my top. “Sergeant,” I bellowed, “this is my place, and I’ll say who stays and who doesn’t. This lady’s my mother. She stays.”
“Not if I say she doesn’t.”
“Goddamn it, I say she does!”
“Howell, I warn you that use of such language to an officer of the law is a misdemeanor in this state, and—”
“For Jesus Christ’s sake, how often do I have to say it?”
“You know who has that money?” she asked Edgren, as he was drawing breath to speak.
“What’s it to you what I know?”
“I do know, that’s what.”
The change in Edgren’s expression, in Jill’s expression, in everyone’s expression, was funny to see, or would have been if anything could have been then. She looked calmly from one to the other and finally wound up studying Jill. “Well, Jill?” she asked. “What do you say to that?”
“I don’t really know.”
“Makes a difference, doesn’t it? A moment back, you were telling the world, at the top of your lungs, and your lungs have quite a top. Now you don’t know what to say. I know, I think I know, who took your money last night. It wasn’t Dave. You knew that, didn’t you? Knew it all along?”
“I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Answer me. You knew it wasn’t Dave, didn’t you?”
“OK, then, I did.”
“But you had to blame someone—?”
“Maybe.”
“But now that you think I know where your money is, who took it last night, you’re willing to calm down—?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I just wanted to know.”
And then, to Edgren: “Sergeant, I know, I have to admit, Mrs. Howell took that money, my cousin, my son Dave’s stepmother. I don’t think she has it now. I told Dave yesterday, there’s something very peculiar about her disappearance that complicates things for you, yet perhaps, in a way simplifies them for me. Sergeant, I think my cousin is dead. She hasn’t turned up in Flint, the coal camp that was her home, and I simply can’t imagine her driving off without taking that money. Someone took it last night, that much I know, but I don’t think she was the one. OK, I’m going to assume she is dead. That’ll cut me loose from all duty to stand by my kin and leave me free to help you — if you want my help.”
It was Knight who walked over and took her hand with quite a courtly bow. Everyone was standing around wondering what to do next. The firemen were in their boat watching Edgren, maybe for some kind of sign, what he wanted of them next.
And then, all of a sudden Rufe opened his mouth and let go right in the river, a gush of yellow vomit splashing down. Everyone stared at him, and then a sickening smell floated in. Then Jill screamed and we saw this horrible thing, with a belly big as a barrel, arms sticking up, and eyes popping out of its head. I knew it was Mom, just from the glimpse I got, before turning away and swallowing hard to keep my stomach down.
I could hear Rufe telling Knight: “I know what the answer is: she’s the one that took out the boat, that last time we were here, and capsized it on that tree — when Mr. Howell thought, and we supposed that the boat had floated off on a rise of the river, and hung up on the tree, just by its own self.”
Just then Rufe gave a yelclass="underline" “It’s broke loose, it’s going downstream — that corpse I’m talking about!”
Sure enough, out of the corner of my eye I could see it, spinning around in the current, down past the roots of the tree. Now it was no longer tangled up in the branches. Rufe started his engine again and Ed picked up a boat hook. Rufe steered around the snag, cut sharp to pass the island, and then shot downriver fast. Ed jabbed two or three times with the hook, and finally caught it in something. I couldn’t see what. He had to work the hook around the bow while Rufe let the motor idle. Then Rufe brought the boat into the bank, and Mantle yanked out the corpse, letting go real quick and stumbling off to the bushes. “You know who it is, Howell?” Edgren asked, turning to me.
“My stepmother,” I said.
“Then, if you’ll look at her, you can identify her, and we’ll take it from there.”
“I can’t look at her!”
“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to.”
“I can’t, I won’t.”
“I’ll identify,” said my mother.
“I’m sorry, madam, it has to be done by a relative.”
“I am a relative, closer than he is. She was my second cousin. He was her nephew twice removed, though she raised him as his stepmother. I said I’d identify.”
The way she said it meant business and Knight motioned to Edgren. My back was to her and the corpse but I heard her recite: “This was Mrs. Myra Giles Howell, widow of Jody Howell, age about 38, no close kin except for her stepson, my son, David Howell, and a brother, Sidney Giles, address Flint, West Virginia. Her address this property here, highway 60, Marietta, Ohio.”
“That covers it, thank you, ma’am.”
Edgren was most respectful. “Now,” she went on, stepping off to one side, her handkerchief to her nose, “I think we should go to the ranchhouse, that place you see up there, the original one she lived in, and see if her car is there — my son’s car, actually. Apparently, as this gentleman” — nodding toward Rufe — “has kindly figured it, she drowned when the boat capsized after she took it out, we would assume to pick up the money, where she’d hid it in that tree. But she left home in the car, and if we find it, that will explain, I think, most of what happened that night.”
By that time, after a whispered conversation with Edgren, Mantle had left, I supposed to phone in from his car, for the undertaker to be called, and maybe the coroner notified. He was now trotting up the path, and Edgren, after a glance in his direction, told my mother: “OK, soon as Officer Mantle gets back. Someone must stay with this body, and—”
“Can do, can do,” Rufe chirped up, very friendly. “We’ll stand by, if you want. You don’t mind if we move upwind a little way? Like to the island, maybe.”
“Of course not,” said Edgren. “Thanks.” Then: “OK,” he told my mother.
So we all headed for the ranchhouse, he and my mother leading, Bledsoe and Knight following along behind, and York following them, with me. And sure enough, soon as we passed the kitchen there was my car, parked between it and the house. When I opened the door, Mom’s bag was on the seat, and her keys were in the ignition. Edgren had me open the house, and then open the kitchen, so he could search, as he did once before. I think he hoped he might find the money. When he came out my mother told him: “Now, if you want my help, I have to tell you I could do without yours for a while. There are people I have to see, to find out what they know, and they’re the kind of people who won’t come in to talk if police cars are parked outside.”
“You want us to leave?”
“If it’s not asking too much.”
Knight nodded. “OK,” said Edgren. “We’ll clear out soon as we’ve cleared the undertaker, when he comes for that corpse. By now, Officer Mantle has put in the call.”