After supper I go to my room and google Benjie’s number. There’re only three Dalberts in the area, and the other two are in town. I make the call.
“I told you not to ask Cody about the murder,” Benjie says.
“No, you didn’t. All you said was, ‘Don’t tell him there wasn’t one.’”
“Oh. Right. I should have been clearer.”
“Ya think?”
“Sorry,” Benjie says.
“Anyway, I acted like it was true. And now I’m beat up and suspended, and Mom cries when she looks at me. So what’s the deal?”
“Well, first thing you should know: Cody’s great-grandma is ninety and deranged. A total whack job.”
“How do you know?”
“This isn’t the city. Everybody knows about everybody. And everybody knows Mrs. Murphy drove her car into the Presbyterian church. Well, not into the church, but into the front steps. That’s when she lost her license, two years ago. Mom says it was about time—Mrs. Murphy had been parking her car in the middle of the highway and walking off, totally lost.”
“No kidding.”
“Wait, it gets better. Last year she tried to burn the house down.”
“What?”
“Okay, so maybe she didn’t try. But Cody’s grandparents woke up from an afternoon nap and there was a huge fire in the kitchen. His great-grandma had decided to fry something and then wandered out to the barn. There were fire trucks and everything. That’s when she got put in the nursing home. She’s down the hall from my grandpa. I see her every Sunday and after school on Wednesdays when my folks take me to visit him.”
“What’s any of this got to do with a murder on my farm?”
“Oh. Yeah. The murder thing.” Benjie’s so thick they should use his head to stuff pillows. “Okay. So everything I told you about Cody’s great-grandma? Kids laughed about it. Cody got into a lot of fights. See, she’s the only one in his family who can stand him.”
“I get the picture, Benjie. Focus.”
“Okay. So anyway, just as Cody’s grandparents were getting her into the home, she went mental. Like, swinging-her-cane mental. She screamed they all wanted to lock her up because she knew too much about this murder. Mom told me that, back in the sixties, Mrs. Murphy had accused the man who owned your farm of killing some people.”
“You mean the crazy guy who bought the dogs?”
“Right. Only the police investigated and it turned out that nobody killed anybody. It was all in her head. She went quiet for years. Only now she’s old and demento, so nothing stops her from saying anything.”
“She still talks about the murder?”
“Who knows? I steer clear. I’ve seen her in the social room sometimes. Her lips move a lot.”
My mind whirs: The police investigated. Nobody killed anybody. Repeat that. Believe it. But I need to know one last thing. “Benjie, do you remember who she thought the crazy guy murdered?”
“Let’s see. His wife and her friend, I think.”
“Anyone else?”
“Oh. Yeah,” Benjie says. “His son.”