The sheriff stepped into the hall. “One of them came back for the body.” He pointed toward the back stairs. “She must have been carried out that way. By the time I got here, those steps had been wiped clean, and the hall carpet was damp between this room and the back stairs, like somebody’d scrubbed it. Odd thing, isn’t it? One staircase full of blood, and the other one tidied up.”
In silence, they walked down the main staircase and left the house. The sheriff was standing by the open door of his car when the dog came back to the front yard.
“I couldn’t stop what was done to the mother, but no one will get to the kid. I guarantee that. I’ll get her back and she’ll stay in jail until she talks to me. And remember, Mr. Butler, word about the jailbreak will be out soon enough. Don’t speed it up, all right?”
The dog came slow and growling. His teeth were bared, and they seemed longer. He looked larger, too, as he headed for the sheriff, eyes glowing red in a trick of the light. He snarled and snapped at the air, biting a path to the man. The old dog was possessed by a completely different animal, younger, with purpose and teeth. There was a deadly occupation in the stalking stride.
Jessop never moved. He showed no fear of the dog, as though he and the animal had been through this before. The sheriff only waited patiently until the growling subsided.
The dog stopped ten feet from the man. He raised his muzzle and sniffed at the air. Then the old Lab lost his footing in a sorry confusion of missteps and nearly fell. In that moment, he was made old again, gray and slow. He turned and walked away, moving with a pitiful drag of the hind leg.
Charles watched the sheriff’s car drive off, soiling the air with clouds of fine brown dust.
A dark figure stood in the shadows at the far side of the house. The man walked slowly into the light, which dappled his golden skin. Henry Roth’s smile was dazzling today. Absent was the suspicion of yesterday morning, which had probably been reinforced when Mallory told him to send Charles away.
Something had changed.
Charles walked up to the man and shook his hand. In the clearing behind Henry, the black Lab had settled down near a pan of water and a half-finished bowl of food. The animal was sleeping now, and caught up in some chase of an old dog’s dreams, one hind leg stirring into movement as he slept.
The sculptor’s hands moved into language. He pointed at the sleeping Lab. “He was near death when Augusta found him. That was the morning after Cass’s murder.”
“They stoned the dog?”
Henry nodded. “Augusta did what she could, but he was so badly broken, she had to call in a vet. The doctor offered to put him down for free. The sheriff would not allow it. He paid a staggering amount of money to keep the dog alive. It was months before the animal could even walk.”
“The dog doesn’t seem to like the sheriff.”
“The car confused him. He hates the sight of it. Tom usually parks it down the road.”
The dog rolled in the dirt and moaned. This animal should have died long ago. What kept him alive?
Charles rejected the idea that the dog was waiting for Mallory. Still, the thought kept creeping back to him.
“Why wouldn’t the sheriff let the animal die?”
Henry shrugged. More specific with his hands, he said, “I don’t think there was any one reason. It was Kathy’s dog, and Tom loved Kathy. But later, he realized the dog was a way to add to his list.”
“List?”
“A list of people who were in the mob – like Travis.”
“Travis? The deputy who had the heart attack?”
“The same. The sheriff suspected Travis the first time the dog attacked him. Tom only kept the man on the job so he could torture him. It was Travis’s job to take the dog to the vet. The dog lost one of its teeth smashing into the glass window of the car door. In his younger days, he nearly took a leg off the deputy. Travis screamed like a woman until I pulled the dog off him.”
“Is it possible that the dog caused the deputy’s heart attack?”
“No. Travis wouldn’t go near the dog unless I was with him. I was late the day he had his heart attack. He probably just turned around and drove back to town. I always helped him load the dog into the car, and then I’d ride along to the vet’s, so I could walk the dog home. The vet says he needs the exercise. Over seventeen years of walking the dog, I’ve added a few people to my own list.”
In answer to Charles’s silent query, he added, “We never speak of lists, but Tom and I both keep them.”
“So the sheriff figured the dog recognized Travis.”
Henry nodded. “Tom also used the dog to torture Alma Furgueson. She was the purple-haired woman you saw running through the square yesterday. Alma was a creature of habit. Every Saturday when she did her grocery shopping at the Levee Market, the sheriff and the dog would be there waiting for her.”
“The dog recognized her?”
“No. Alma recognized the dog, and she was afraid. Tom and the dog would stare at her for a while and then walk away. Finally, she went to pieces. She was always a little crazy, but then she got worse. Talks to herself now – cries all the time. The sheriff did that to her. Don’t make an enemy of that man.”
“You think he’s dangerous?”
“One day, he caught Fred Laurie shooting at the dog. The fool missed the dog three times. The sheriff beat the living hell out of that man.”
“And you added Fred Laurie to the list.”
“That day, two of the Laurie brothers made my list. They were tight – Fred and Ray. And violent. Maybe that’s why Malcolm never gave them any money – easier to keep them reined in. But anyone could have bought the pair of them for fifty dollars, and it would not be the first time they did rough work for money.”
“And what about Babe?”
“I suppose I never gave much thought to Babe on any account.”
Henry picked up the sack of dog food and carried it in his arms.
Charles followed him to the back of the house, where he stored the sack in a garden shed. When his hands were free again, Henry asked, “Have you seen enough of the house?”
Charles nodded. Henry was so much more talkative today, more forthcoming. The radical change in the man’s attitude nagged at him.
“Mallory wants you to go. I think that might be a good idea. This place seems tranquil, but now you understand it can be very dangerous.”
“I won’t go.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“You’ve seen Mallory today, haven’t you?”
Henry ignored the question, as they walked by the side of the house. “It’s important that you know what you’re dealing with.” He stopped to look down at the ground. “This is where Cass was stoned. By the tracks in the wet ground, the sheriff figured around thirty people turned out for this murder.”
Charles was thinking of the six-year-old child, locked in a closet while a mob killed her mother.
“When 1 arrived that next morning, I could hear the music inside the house. It was an old record player. The needle was stuck. It played the same five notes over and over.”
“The sheriff believes the stoning was done in silence.”
“Yes, it was very strange.”
“Henry, there’s a problem with the logic. The sheriff said it was a silent kill. He reasoned that if Kathy had heard screams or shouting, she would have called out to her mother. They would have found the child and killed her, too.”