“Dammit, I don’t like this at all,” Hick told Dr. Prescott as they rode together toward the Stanton farm.
“I don’t relish it, either.”
“Bill Stanton will have your head if you’re wrong.”
“I know that,” Jake replied. “But I need to look in that barn.”
“Why?”
“Iva Lee’s grown up on a farm. She’s seen babies born there all her life. Where else would she go if she were to have one?”
Hick said nothing in reply, but stared out the window at the rows of cotton growing in the sunshine, an uncomfortable feeling in his chest. A honeybee splattered against the windshield, leaving a yellow streak of pollen. In the distance, a tractor kicked up a cloud of dirt.
The car tires ground to a stop on the gravel driveway. Hick paused in front of the place. It was a tidy house, Bill and Rose had raised a good-sized family and Iva Lee, the youngest, was now the only child left at home. Hogs and chickens shared a large fenced yard with the remains of melons and eggshells scattered about. Several buildings were situated in the back, their darkened wood green from mold and moisture.
They climbed the porch and knocked. Rose Stanton came to the door with a smile. “Why Dr. Prescott, Sheriff Blackburn. What a surprise. Please, do come in. Can I get you some iced tea? Coffee?”
Hick removed his hat. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you, but the doctor and me wanted to know if we could just take a look at your barn.”
The smile faded. “What would you want to do that for?”
“Just routine. I’m in the middle of an investigation and there might be evidence there.”
She appeared to be shocked and uncertain. “Why, I don’t know … I guess it would be okay.”
“I ain’t got a warrant,” Hick told her. “If you don’t want us in there, you don’t have to let us.”
“Honestly, Sheriff,” she said in surprise. “I don’t know what you think you’ll find, but I got no reason to keep you out.”
“Thank you, ma’am. We won’t be but a minute.”
Hick and the doctor made their way across the dusty drive and into the barn. It was hot and dark, it smelled of hogs and mildewed hay, and wasps buzzed in the darkened corners by the rafters. The windows were dirty and smudged and let in little light, so Hick lit a lantern he found hanging on a hook. He turned to the doctor, but Jake was already gone, flashlight in hand, looking around in the back of the barn.
“Doc, you’re wrong about this,” Hick told him. “She’s just a child, she—”
“Bring that lantern over here,” the doctor said interrupting him.
Hick walked over and saw the doctor bending down and examining something. He held the lantern up, illuminating an old cow stall. It was spattered with dried, brown blood stains. There were two brown handprints on the wall, where evidently someone had used it for support in order to stand. The doctor pointed at a mass that almost looked like cow dung, dark and dried. “That is a human placenta,” he told Hick.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, it’s definitely human. Dammit,” he said wiping his neck with a handkerchief. “I was right and I wish to God I wasn’t.”
At that moment, Bill Stanton entered the barn. “Sheriff? Doc? Is there something I can help you with? My wife told me you were out here.”
Hick pinched the bridge of his nose, his head bent so low his chin almost touched his chest. He took a deep breath. “Bill, we’re gonna need to ask you a few questions.”
Bill’s face was puzzled. “Sure, Sheriff. What can I do for you?”
“Why don’t you sit down,” Hick said, indicating a hay bale.
The blood drained from Bill Stanton’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Bill, we believe Iva Lee had a baby in this barn a couple of months ago. Do you know anything about that?” Dr. Prescott asked.
Bill’s face paled, then grew red with anger. “What the hell are you saying? Iva Lee’s just a baby. You goddamned son of a bitch!” He rose angrily and Hick put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and pushed him back onto the hay bale.
“Stop it, Bill, and listen,” Hick ordered.
Bill breathed heavily, his face purple with rage, his eyes snapping with fury. “You’d better not come around here accusing my baby of something without proof. If she had one, where is it now? How could she have a baby and me and the wife not know it? Where’s she keeping it? Tell me!”
Hick and the doctor led Bill to the stall. His eyes grew round when he saw the blood and afterbirth. “I … I don’t clean back here anymore. We ain’t got cows, so I ain’t been back—” He was visibly shaken. “It’s not possible….”
“Bill, we need to talk to Iva Lee.”
Bill’s bewildered eyes met Hick’s. “Yes,” he said as if he were in a daze. “I’ll get her.”
Moments later Bill, Rose and Iva Lee came to the barn. Bill and his wife sat on a bale of hay and Hick gently took Iva Lee by the hand and led her to another hay bale. “Iva Lee, do you remember when I saw you at the slough a few days ago? Were you looking for someone … or something?”
Iva Lee’s face tightened. Her eyes narrowed and her lips were pursed. “I was looking for my baby.”
“Can you tell me where the baby came from?”
“She was mine.”
“Did you buy her at the store?”
“No, Sheriff, not that kind of baby. It was a real baby. I made her myself … here.” She pointed to her stomach and Mrs. Stanton gasped and bit her lower lip, tears forming in her eyes.
Hick’s hands shook. He rubbed his face with them. “Iva Lee, did you make that baby all by yourself?”
She smiled. “No. He helped me.”
“Who?”
She blushed. “My boyfriend.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
The smile faded and the pout returned. “I did have a boyfriend. He don’t come around no more.”
“What was his name?”
Iva Lee put her finger in her mouth. “I dunno.”
“You don’t know his name?”
“No.”
“What does he look like?”
“He is tall and handsome. I love him.”
Bill Stanton rose from the hay bale. “I’ll kill the bastard!”
Iva Lee’s eyes widened as she looked at her father. “But I love him, Daddy.”
“Love him. When I find him—” His wife touched his arm gently and he sank back down.
“Iva Lee, when did you first see your boyfriend?”
Her eyes grew blank, a particularly disagreeable sight and she seemed to be trying to pull the shreds of her mind together. She sucked on her finger and finally, a light seemed to come on. “The first time I seen my sweetheart, I was walking by the train tracks.”
“She’s always sneaking off, Sheriff,” Mrs. Stanton apologized. “I don’t know what to do.”
Hick nodded to her and turned his attention back to Iva Lee. She told him, “It was nighttime and it was hot. I had just took a swim and was walking home. He was driving and asked me if I was supposed to be out all alone at night. I told him I was swimming and he brought me almost all the way home.”
Hick shuddered. “And did he, did he touch you … on your body?”
“No, Sheriff. He just give me a ride.”
“But you saw him again.”
“I seen him a lot after that. He was always bringing me candy and such. We’d just talk or laugh. We’d go for rides in his car. He was right nice.”
Hick wrote, the words barely legible from the shaking of his hands. His stomach flopped, listening to Iva Lee talk about this man. He had to know what she was … he had to know her brain wasn’t right.
She picked at a thread that hung from the loose work dress she was wearing. It came off and she wrapped it around the tip of her finger tightly, making it turn red and then purple. Then, she chewed on the swollen end. “Do you know what happened to him, Sheriff?”
“No, Iva Lee,” Hick answered unable to keep his voice from shaking. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”
She frowned. “I miss him. I could talk to him real easy. He laughed at me ‘cause he said I didn’t have a care in the world. It’s nice … I never worry about anything.” She bit one of her fingernails and spit it across the barn.
“And when did you—” Hick closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “When did you and him make your baby.”
“I don’t know. We did that—” she smiled a small smile “—you know, a lot of times. Not at first and he didn’t want to. But, Sheriff, I am a woman. I know my brain ain’t right, I know everyone treats me like a child, but he treated me like a woman. He didn’t want to, but I—” Her eyes turned downward. “I made him.”
“Made him,” her father repeated angrily beginning to rise again.
Hick glanced at him and then back to Iva Lee. “Did he take the baby?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “No, Sheriff. He didn’t take her.” In frustration, she put her hair in her mouth and Hick watched in horror as she ripped a large chunk of it off. She spit it out and her eyes narrowed and an expression of dark anger, much like her father’s, crossed her face. “She took the baby.”
“Who?”
“A lousy woman.”
“A woman came and took your baby?”
The tears in Iva Lee’s eyes began spilling down her cheeks. “She said she’d bring her back, but she never did.” Iva Lee’s hands were clenched in fists.
“You’re sure you didn’t take the baby somewhere and leave it … on accident? Maybe you were going to show it to someone?”
Iva Lee’s lower lip stuck out. “No, I didn’t take the baby no place. She did.”
“But Iva Lee, you were at the slough. Maybe you took her there and forgot her.”
Iva Lee’s eyes were distant, as if trying to remember. “I don’t recollect leavin’ her at the slough, Sheriff. Wouldn’t I recollect that?”
Hick hesitated, not wanting to put any more notions into the girl’s head. “I don’t know, Iva Lee. Do you know why you thought your baby would be there?”
Iva Lee’s finger went back into her mouth and she shook her head. Her face grew agitated.
“When’s the last time you saw your boyfriend?” Hick asked, changing the subject.
“Right before I got the baby. He said he was gonna take me away and marry me. But he didn’t come back, just that bad lady.”
Hick drug his hand across his mouth. “Are you sure there was a lady, Iva Lee? Are you positive some stranger took your baby?”
“Yes … no,” she said hitting her head with her fists.
Rose moved to her. “Stop that, Iva Lee.”
Iva Lee clenched her eyes tightly, and stuck her lip out. She stopped hitting herself, but she wouldn’t look at her mother.
Hick saw the girl retreat back into her mind, her head dropped and she began to hum. With that, he closed his pad and stood. Rose took Iva Lee inside and Bill followed Hick and the doctor to the car. He was shaking and visibly upset. “How could this happen? How could we have not noticed?”
“She’s small, Bill. The baby was tiny. The way she wears her clothes … it’s not as uncommon as you think,” the doctor said, trying to soothe him.
Bill looked at Hick with the most desperate, saddened eyes Hick had ever seen. “It was the baby in the slough?”
Hick nodded.
Bill’s eyes teared. “It was my granddaughter dumped in there?”
“Yes.”
Bill glanced at the house. “You think Iva Lee….”
Hick shook his head. “Bill, I don’t know. If you just look at motive and opportunity … a strange woman showing up for no reason simply makes no sense. I’ll talk to her again, but I’ll wait a few days.”
“Who else could it be?” Bill asked his voice cracking. “I remember Iva Lee before … before the accident. I could have had some of that back. Why would she throw her own baby in the slough? You think he…?”
“I don’t know, Bill. I promise I’ll try to find out.”
Bill’s face was stricken. “I want you to find that son of a bitch, you hear? I want you to find the coward that slept with my baby. If you don’t, by God, I will.”
Hick rested his hand on the door handle of his car. He sighed heavily. “I’ll try, Bill. I promise.”
The next day Hick learned that Bill Stanton had been to the undertakers. He had ordered a small stone for the grave that contained the remains of the baby. It read Birdie Lee Stanton, born and died 1948.