“Hickory, you look awful,” Magdalene Benson said as she poured him a cup of coffee at the diner that morning. Maggie was the only one who still called him Hickory, testament to an ancient intimacy.
He took a gulp and swallowed. “Just didn’t sleep well, that’s all.” Black circles ringed his eyes and his haggard appearance betrayed more than one restless night.
Placing the pot onto the warmer, she returned to the counter and lingered in front of him in spite of the Saturday morning rush. “Want to talk about it?”
What was there to talk about? The coroner’s inquest was just hours away and he felt cornered by Jake Prescott. “It’s just the infant,” he told her, lowering his voice. “I hoped we were all on the same page about this … that it was probably a stillborn. But I saw Doc this morning and he seems pretty convinced it was a homicide.”
The blood drained from Maggie’s face. “A homicide?” she whispered. “Someone murdered the child?”
Hick shrugged his shoulders and turned his eyes down toward his coffee cup.
“Who would have done something like that?” she asked. He glanced up and her face was pale.
“Could be the child was illegitimate and put into the slough by its mother.”
“Her own mother?”
Hick gulped his coffee. “There’s only so much the law can do. Personally, I’m ready to let the whole thing go and let the child rest in peace. No amount of detective work is going to bring her back.” He glanced up and saw her eyes harden, the familiar stark line of disapproval formed between her eyebrows. He shook his head. “Oh, great, not you, too.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t give me that, Mag, I know that look. Listen, what good is it going to do to track this woman down and lock her up? What’s that going to solve?”
“A murder, for one thing.”
“You and the doc.”
“Well?”
His hat lay on the counter beside the coffee cup and he picked at the lint. “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can find the person who did this.” He focused angry eyes on her. “Are you satisfied? Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Well, God almighty, I don’t know what everyone wants from me. Let’s say the baby was killed. It could be anyone in this town, or the next. The mother could be a gypsy or an itinerant worker. The only thing I can tell you, is the baby was white and female. That’s it. Period.” He put his elbow on the counter and covered his eyes. He hated this feeling of helplessness.
Maggie leaned over the counter, and without thinking, began stroking his arm with her fingertips. “Hickory, no one expects a miracle. But you are at least going to try, aren’t you?”
Her touch was comforting, and, like always, flooded him with memories—their first date, their first dance, their first kiss—and he felt himself wanting to respond. He wanted to squeeze the hand that caressed him, twine his fingers with hers, but instead, he withdrew. She straightened up and stepped backward.
Defensively, she pulled the pad out of her apron and suddenly seemed very far away. “What do you want for breakfast today?”
He couldn’t let himself look at her. “Just coffee,” he mumbled. And then she was gone.
After finishing another cup, he crossed the street and paused in front of the station. Each day he glanced at the sign hanging on the door that read “Sheriff A. J. Blackburn.” His friends had started calling him Hickory in grammar school when they learned that was Andrew Jackson’s nickname. It had been shortened in high school and now everyone but his mother and Magdalene called him Hick. A. J. Blackburn seemed like somebody else.
Adam sat with his feet propped up on his desk.
“Late night?” he asked. Adam had married Hick’s sister twelve years earlier, on Pam Blackburn’s eighteenth birthday. He was eighteen years older than Hick’s sister and had taken the role of older brother to Hick. Today, however, Hick wasn’t in the mood for any homespun advice.
“Late and lonely.”
Adam shook his head laughing. “Boy, you got to get out more.” Hick hated to be called “boy.” His hair still had cowlicks in it, his skin was smooth, and at times, blemished, but his eyes were stormy and tired.
“Where’d you eat breakfast?” Adam asked him.
“Diner.”
Adam sat forward in his chair and looked at Hick with a knowing expression. “She ain’t gonna wait forever.”
Hick looked away. There were times he genuinely hated living in a small town, where everything was known to everyone. This was not a conversation he was in the mood to have. He tried to go to his desk, but Adam put his legs on the trash can blocking his way.
“What’s eating you, boy?”
“Do you really have to ask? The baby we found in the slough. How in hell do you suppose we’re gonna find out who killed it? You got any ideas, ‘cause I’m open. I’ve got nothing.”
“Doc didn’t come up with anyone?”
“Not yet.”
Adam laughed. “Well, that would have made it just a little too easy, don’t you think?”
Hick envied Adam. With his easy manner and self-confidence he would have made the perfect sheriff. He had grown up in Cherokee Crossing, married, had children, was an upstanding citizen.
Hick hung his hat on the coat rack and sat down at his desk, putting his head in his hands.
“I thought we had come to the conclusion it was a stillborn and decided not to pursue it.”
“We did,” Hick agreed. “Apparently, Doc has different ideas. I saw him earlier and he started babbling about murder and infanticide. I know what he’s going to tell the coroner, and I can pretty much guess what the coroner will rule.”
“If they rule it a homicide, we investigate it as such,” Adam calmly reasoned.
Hick shook his head. “And how do you suppose we do that?”
“I’ll go back up to the slough and have a look around,” Adam replied rising from his desk and grabbing his hat. “Maybe there’s some clue we missed.”
“Thanks, Adam.”
Adam paused at the doorway. “You know, there’s only so much we can do. You’ve got nothing to prove.”
Unlike Adam, Hick felt he had plenty to prove. He turned his chair to look out the window at the people of Cherokee Crossing as they conducted their daily business. He never revealed the insecurities inside, but he felt the lack of confidence in the townsfolk everywhere he went.
The door opened and he looked up to see Dr. Prescott. Inwardly, he groaned. “Hey,” he said in a tired voice.
“Before we head over to the inquest, I’ve got something,” the doctor told him.
“What do you mean?”
“It might be nothing, but it could be a clue. While I was doing the postmortem on the baby, I jotted down a few notes. There was a particular anomaly … a syndactylism of the third and fourth finger on the left hand.”
Hick looked at him. “What?”
The doctor explained, “They were webbed. They were connected up above the first joint.”
Hick scratched the inside of his ear and looked at the doctor with an eye closed. “I don’t get it, Doc. How does that help me?”
“I’ve been reading up on syndactylism. Apparently, it can be genetic. It runs in families.”
Hick’s eyes lit with understanding. “You’re telling me the baby’s mama or daddy might have webbed fingers?”
The doctor shrugged. “At least it’s something.”
After a momentary silence, Hick leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. “Tell me. Why is this so important to you?”
The doctor crossed the room and stood in front of Hick’s desk. “Because the minute that child drew breath, she became the youngest citizen of this town. That entitles her to protection under the law.”
Hick looked up at the ceiling and exhaled loudly, a feeling of resignation sweeping over him. “I reckon it does,” he agreed.
He rose from his desk and reached for his hat. He paused, once more glancing out the window. The street was lined with cars, the sidewalk crowded with shoppers. This used to be Hick’s world, a place he had known intimately before going into the army. Now, it seemed strange and foreign. He felt a continuous need to question what he saw, as if he couldn’t trust his eyes or instincts. It no longer felt like home.
“Well, let’s get this over with.” They opened the door and went out into the June sunshine.