The Delaney house resembled a wood pile with a rusty red roof. The whole place was set up on cinder blocks from the days when the Little River flooded. The steps to the front porch were treacherous and busted and the porch itself was teetering precariously on one end. There was an old tub with a washboard sitting inside of it and nearby an icebox that couldn’t afford ice and was used, instead, to store potatoes. The pickup truck the Delaney brothers drove stood in the yard, looking more like a pile of rust than a working vehicle. The front door was without a screen and stood open to let in daylight, air, and mosquitoes. Hornets buzzed from a nest underneath a dilapidated porch roof from which several cats peered down. The whole place smelled of decay.
“Miss Delaney?” Hick called into the dark house.
A young girl appeared in the doorway, barefoot with a faded print dress. Thirteen-year-old Mourning Delaney and her twin brother Job had been born the year their father was executed in the penitentiary. She had little hope for an easy life. She was poor, she was ignorant, and she worked hard all summer chopping cotton to help put food on the table. In spite of these hardships, there was a simple charm about her that was hard to resist.
“Howdy Sheriff,” she said with a smile showing a wide gap between her front teeth. She tugged at a blonde braid while balancing on one foot and scratching a mosquito bite with the other.
“Hey Mourning,” Hick answered. “Eben and Jed at home?”
“No, sir,” she answered.
Mourning’s twin, Job, seemed to materialize from somewhere within the dark shack. “Hey, Sheriff,” he said. He lacked his sister’s charm and there was surliness to his face that was not so much meanness as just habitual.
“You seen Eben or Jed?” Hick asked the boy.
“Yeah,” he answered. “They come home a couple of hours ago and Ma got on ’em right smart. Said to get their things together ’cause Smitty was gettin’ a truck up to go on to Illinois for the strawberry pickin’. It’s been warm up that way and Smitty said the berries was ready.”
Hick frowned. This was not an expected development.
“Sheriff?” a weak voice called from inside the darkened shack.
Mourning turned and seeing something said, “Come in. Ma wants to see you.”
Hick entered the house. The furnishings were sparse but the cabin itself was clean and tidy. Mrs. Pearl Delaney sat in a rocker near the stove in which a fire was burning despite of the mild June weather. She had a blanket over her knees and two thin gnarled hands rested on it. She was not as old as she appeared but hard work and sorrow had taken their toll. “What’s this about, Sheriff?” she asked. “Why you need my boys?”
“They found a body yesterday morning while they were fishing, and I need to ask them a few more questions,” Hick replied.
Pearl stopped rocking and sat forward. “Sheriff, you know I got little trust in the law after the way they did my Abner. Them boys didn’t do no wrong and they’s gone now for a week or two.”
Hick shuffled uncomfortably. “Ma’am, I might need to bring them back. This is important. The woman they found had been murdered.”
Pearl’s eyes widened. “Just like Abner,” she said breathlessly. “My boys is gonna get blamed just like Abner.” Her eyes stared in front of her as if they were seeing a catastrophe unfold. “God’s judgment,” she muttered to herself.
“Ma’am,” Hick tried to reassure her, “we ain’t planning on charging your boys with any wrongdoing. We just gotta ask them some questions since they found the body.”
Pearl fixed her faded blue eyes on Hick. “My Abner was walkin’ in the woods and come upon a body and the next thing I knowed he was electrocuted. Iffen you take my boys in, they don’t stand a chance. They’s poor and uneducated and their daddy was a con. Don’t you see? It don’t matter iffen they did it or not. The decks already stacked against ’em.”
Hick understood Pearl Delaney’s fear. Abner’s guilt would bleed onto his sons. Justice often eluded the poor. In spite of this, Jed and Eben had to be brought in. Hick believed the boys were at the wrong place at the wrong time, but with Reverend Wheeler’s vitriol filling the minds of the townsfolk, they needed to be questioned to put the gossips to rest.
Hick knelt before the old woman in the rocker. He placed his hand upon hers and looked deeply into her eyes. “Miss Delaney, I need to talk to your boys. I need them to tell me some things to help me catch someone who killed an innocent woman. You understand that, don’t you?”
She stared ahead and refused to meet his glance. “Nobody cared when my innocent man was kilt in jail. Nobody questioned the fool lawyer who was so drunk he could hardly stand at the trial. Nobody questioned the girl’s daddy or the girl’s feller ’cause they all had money and standin’. Nobody’s gonna care when my boys get dragged to trial for somethin’ they didn’t do and when they get kilt nobody’s gonna care. Nobody … but me. And nobody cares about me.”
Hick sighed. She was right and there was no way he could deny it. He rose. “I’ll do my best by your boys,” he promised. “I got cause to bring ’em in and I got to do it. But I’ll do my best to be sure to bring ’em home if they’re innocent.”
Hick rose and turned to leave only to be met by the wide stare of Mourning and the scowl of Job. He walked outside, the bright sunshine stabbing his eyes as he made his way to the squad car.
“Sheriff,” a voice called. Hick turned to see Mourning running toward him, her bare feet flying over the dust.
She approached with a handful of grimy envelopes. She held them up. “Here. Ma wants you to look at these.”
“What are they?”
“They’s letters and notes sent to us from the prison. Ma don’t even know what they say ’cause we never had none could read ’em to us, and Ma was too ashamed to ast anybody. Says maybe you can look at ’em and tell us what they say.”
Hick took the stack of envelopes and noticed the neat handwriting. “Who wrote these?”
“They’s a man at the prison who tried to help Pa. He wrote us them letters.”
“Who?”
“Mourning? Get in here!” called Job from the house.
“Don’t know,” she answered and added, with embarrassment, “I reckon he thought one of us could read or he wouldn’t have bothered.”
“Mourning!”
She glanced at the house and then turned back to Hick. “I sure enough would like to know what Pa said,” she said with a wistful note in her voice. It might comfort Ma some, too.” Then she quickly turned and ran back inside.