CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Early the next morning before church, I went to the jail and released Jesse Kemp and took him home. Near the edge of town he asked, “Why you turnin’ me loose, Sheriff Bo?”

“Willa confessed,” I said as gently as I could. “I know you didn’t kill Scott. She came to my house yesterday morning and told me the whole story about how you were waiting in the yard and took the pistol away from her.”

“I wish she hadn’t done that.”

“I know you do, but it’s over and done with now.”

“Did you take her to the jailhouse?”

I shook my head. “No, I took her home and told her to try to get some sleep. I was going to talk to the district attorney and to see what he said. Scott had killed at least four people, and he was going to make her take the last of her savings out of the bank. He’d broken into her house and he was going to rob her, so I don’t know that she was really guilty of anything.”

“Where’s she at?”

“She’s dead, Jesse. She took her own life.”

He blinked a couple of times and then leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. “What happened?”

“She took sleeping pills. I found her yesterday afternoon.”

I was surprised by what he said then, but shouldn’t have been. I think that with his strange notions and visions, what he called the “other side” was as real to him as the everyday world. “That’s good. That’s an easy passing.”

We rode along without either of us saying anything for at least five minutes. Then he broke the silence. “My momma was a spirit lady. She could read the signs. Pappy Clyde says she had the gift stronger than anybody he ever seen.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“That child, Scott, he was born when the stars was bad. My momma saw it, and she told me about it years ago, before she passed. They was ructions in the Pleiades the night he come in the world.”

I sighed. “Well, Jesse, I guess that’s about as good an explanation for a boy like him as anything the doctors can come up with.”

“What started all this killin’, Sheriff Bo?”

“Cocaine.”

“Say which?”

“You know Emmet Zorn, don’t you? The fellow who runs the Pak-a-Sak?”

“I don’t trade with him, but I know who he is.”

“Well, he stole a bunch of dope from a hoodlum in Houston, and then Scott stole it from him. Now nobody knows where it is.”

He tilted his head to one side and sat silently in thought for what must have been half a minute. Then he asked, “How big is this dope?”

“Twenty pounds or better.”

He nodded. “I wish you’d said something about it the other day when you were out at my place.”

“How come, Jesse?”

“I’ll show you when we get there.”

*   *   *

That afternoon I talked to Leonard Ott at the funeral home and made arrangements for both funerals. As Willa’s executor, it was my obligation. Monday morning I filed her will for probate, and in the late afternoon Sheila and I attended the short graveside service for her and Scott at Sycamore Ridge Cemetery. It seemed like half the town turned out. I’d never seen so many people in the old graveyard. I’d offered to come by and pick Jesse up, but he said he wanted to walk. Much to my surprise he appeared at the cemetery wearing a suit and tie. Both were thirty years out of date and smelled of mothballs, but he looked presentable. Nobel Dennard stood near him, his face ashen.

When the short service was over, most of the people headed back to their cars while Sheila and I drifted slowly toward our family plot in the oldest part of the cemetery near the edge of the bluff where the tall, serene monuments of our forbearers overlooked the town in quiet and timeless contemplation. She knelt for a moment and brushed some sand from the base of her father’s tombstone, then placed the small bouquet of silk flowers she’d brought with her in the marble vase at the head of the grave.

Twilight was near. I stood with my back to the west and watched the shadow of the ridge as it moved eastward with the setting sun. Then I looked back over my shoulder toward the fresh grave just as the men from the funeral home began to work the cranks on the catafalques. With hardly a sound, both caskets sank gently out of sight. Jesse stood nearby, his head bowed, looking old and frail.

I reached down and helped Sheila to her feet. “Are you ready to go?” I asked.

She nodded, and we walked silently back toward the car as the last thin crescent of the sun vanished in the west.