Dangerous Undertaking Read online

  “I’ll get you a glass of water,” Pace said. He sought out the kitchen and returned with an iceless glass.

  Harriet took a sip and held it in her mouth a few seconds before swallowing. Then she gulped more rapidly until the glass was drained.

  “Another?” asked Pace.

  “No, thank you.” She set the glass on the floor beside her. “You missed my husband. He won’t be back from work till four.”

  “You can help us, Mrs. Coleman,” said Pace. “There’re some things we know aren’t right. You’re better to confide in me and Barry, and that way maybe we can keep anyone from getting in trouble.”

  “You’d best talk to Luke,” she answered, and set her lips in a tight line.

  Pace crouched down by the chair and took her hand. “Mrs. Coleman, your son was bit by a snake on a day too cold for it to be out on a rock ledge. We suspect snakes are used in your church service, and that snake was one of them. We’re not claiming it was anything more than an accident, but we are going to notify the sheriff, and he will have to investigate. Barry and I wanted to speak with you first. Barry’s been around enough deaths to know Jimmy’s doesn’t make sense the way we’ve been told it happened. I know men-folk can be hardheaded at times, and your husband and the others may not see things the way you and I do. I don’t want Jimmy to be disturbed if we can avoid it.”

  “Disturbed?” she asked. “What do you mean disturbed?”

  Pace looked to me to deliver the news. “He means a judge may order his body exhumed,” I said.

  “Dig up my Jimmy’s body?”

  “Yes. If they think something is being hidden from them.”

  “Body or soul,” the woman whispered. “Body or soul.” She started to cry softly.

  “We should never be afraid of the truth,” said Pace. “Jesus says, ‘The truth shall make you free.’ The loss of your son is burden enough, Mrs. Coleman. At least free yourself of any other burden.”

  “Leroy Jackson said it was God’s will. That’s why Jimmy died.”

  “Your heart will tell you God’s will,” said Pace. “I don’t claim to understand the mysteries of Life and Death, but I cannot and do not believe God wanted your boy to die. There are tragedies that happen. God’s will is to bring Good out of Evil, and to bring you peace. Jimmy is in His care now. You are the one we are concerned about.”

  “It was God’s will,” she said. “If Luke and I told what happened, God’s punishment would be on Jimmy. I couldn’t endanger my boy’s soul.”

  “So that’s what Leroy Jackson said. And what does your heart say?” asked Pace.

  “I’ve been listenin’ to my heart since we buried Jimmy. Jesus says, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ I know my Jimmy is with Jesus.”

  “Then you have nothing to fear for his soul, my dear,” counseled Pace.

  “There were no rocks, no snake on a ledge,” began Harriet Coleman slowly. “That was what Odell told us to say. Otherwise, he said we would get everyone in trouble.”

  “Where was Jimmy bitten?” asked Pace.

  “Under Leroy’s house. In the crawl way. It was early Friday morning.”

  “Friday?”

  “Yes. Luke had to work Thursday night. Some of the men were helping Odell Taylor at Broad Creek. Jimmy and I woke up Friday morning and found Luke still gone. That day was a teacher workday to get report cards ready. Jimmy didn’t have no school. I let him walk up the ridge to Leroy’s and wait for his daddy. Sometimes the men share rides. Luke had ridden in Leroy’s truck. ’Bout an hour after Jimmy left, Luke and Leroy come running up. Luke was carrying Jimmy. Leroy said they’d found Jimmy lying underneath the house by the pit where they keep the snakes. The slat cover was off.”

  “Why didn’t they take him to the hospital?” asked Pace.

  “I pleaded with them. Luke did too, but he was so scared. Leroy said them was anointed serpents. God would cure Jimmy if we had the faith. Leroy stayed right with us at the bedside, but it weren’t no good. My boy just slipped away before my eyes. Saturday morning he was gone.”

  “And where was Odell Taylor?” I asked.

  “He’d gone back to work Friday. Didn’t know about the accident till that evening when he came to see why Luke didn’t return to the job. The men who worked Thursday night were supposed to get a few hours sleep, and Odell cleared it so they could punch in late.”

  “Didn’t he think Jimmy should go to a hospital?”

  “Odell agreed with Leroy. And he told Luke there would be a lot of questions. That Luke was in it as much as any of them. He wouldn’t want someone else to get hurt. That’s when he told us to tell the story about the snake being on a ledge.”

  “Do you know what he meant about someone else getting hurt?”

  “I guess about the snakes.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Coleman,” said Pace. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

  “I swear it’s the truth. They won’t bother Jimmy, will they? Luke and I don’t care what happens to us, as long as they don’t bother Jimmy?”

  “No, Mrs. Coleman,” I said. “I can’t think of why the sheriff would want to do that when I tell him what you’ve told me. And for right now, I’d advise you not to say anything to your husband. No sense involving him unless there’s a reason. Are you comfortable with that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’d never lie to him, understand, but I’d rather he didn’t know I talked to you unless something’s going to come from it.” She turned to Pace. “You would tell me that, wouldn’t you? So as I could speak to him myself.”

  “You have my word on it,” he promised. “And I’ll be glad to talk to Luke with you, if that time comes.”

  As Pace steered his car onto the highway, I said, “We’d better get straight back to Tommy Lee. That was pretty damning testimony.”

  “Do you think they’ll be prosecuted for not taking the boy to a doctor? It’s sensitive where religious beliefs and medical treatments cross paths.”

  “I was thinking of what she said about Odell Taylor’s Thursday night work party. That’s the night before Dallas Willard’s truck appeared. Taylor and the men lied about where they had been. And then Harriet Coleman said Taylor told her husband there would be questions and ‘he was in it as much as any of them.’ He may have been talking about more than snake-handling.”

  “Murder?” asked Pace.

  “What do you think?”

  The old reverend shook his head. “I don’t know, but if there is a hell of fire and brimstone, the majority of its population must consist of preachers who have bent the simple faith of good folks like Luke and Harriet Coleman to their own purposes. And Leroy Jackson has got to be earning a place for himself on those fiery sulfur shores.”

  “I think I ought to bring Luke Coleman in for questioning.” Tommy Lee made the matter-of-fact statement in the confines of his office. Reverend Pace and I sat across the desk from him. The sheriff had listened silently as we related our interview with Harriet Coleman, and he pronounced this judgment without hesitation.

  “I don’t agree with you,” I said and looked to Pace for support.

  He nodded his approval. “You know I’m as mad as you are about Jimmy Coleman being denied medical treatment, but Barry is right. The boy’s death will get into a freedom of religion issue, and if Luke witnessed, or worse, participated in the murder of Dallas Willard, he’s not likely to admit it. And it sounds like Taylor has coached his story.”

  “A story we now know is a lie,” protested Tommy Lee.

  “Exactly,” I said. “I suspect they killed one of the rattlers right after the boy died on Saturday so it would be fresh in the truck. It was a conspiracy held together by fear. We know what happened, but they don’t know we know. Why give up that advantage?”

  Tommy Lee conceded the point. “Yeah, when someone thinks he’s in the clear, he’s more likely to screw up. Looks like we move straight for Odell Taylor then.”

  “
Is he your main suspect?” asked Pace.

  “Well,” said Tommy Lee, “he had his men on the job the night Dallas died. Then he didn’t want Jimmy Coleman to go to a doctor because of the questions that would raise. I think Taylor feared questions concerning Thursday night, not the snakebite on Friday morning. Luke would be asked why he wasn’t home. Taylor couldn’t trust that Luke or his wife would hold up under examination.”

  I jumped in to state the obvious. “By then, Leroy Jackson had scared the Colemans into relying on faith healing, and that served Taylor’s own interest. Why risk going to a doctor? If the boy survived, everyone would be in the clear. When the boy died, it was just a tragic accident. God’s will. Neither the chemical dump nor Dallas’ body had been discovered, and no one had any reason to doubt the events the Colemans described. After all, the boy had died on Saturday, but we now know it was the day after he was bitten.”

  “Why would Taylor kill Dallas Willard?” asked Pace.

  “Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I said. “Let’s assume the grading or tunneling at the Broad Creek Project uncovered the cache of containers buried by Pisgah Paper Mill. If only a few people knew about it, Fred Pryor had three options. He could immediately report the discovery to the EPA and make arrangements for a proper examination and disposal, he could check the contents himself, weigh the toxic risk, and then notify the EPA, or he could sneak them off the premises without alerting the EPA.”

  “That all makes sense,” Tommy Lee said. “If Pryor indeed found them, we know he didn’t notify the EPA. I don’t think he even bothered to check the containers because it didn’t matter what they held. He didn’t want his construction schedule buried by a costly and time-consuming site reevaluation. Even if the material was relatively harmless, the EPA would be alarmed that waste had been disposed of in such a manner. It was just the kind of development Pryor was anxious to avoid.”

  “So he entrusted the problem to Odell Taylor,” I said.

  “Odell Taylor,” agreed Tommy Lee, “and maybe Bob Cain. One of Taylor’s crew probably unearthed the drums in the first place. Taylor knows the area. He has access to a rail spur and a work engine. Taylor and his men load the stuff on a rail car, sneak out to the main line and travel to the abandoned spur where they can transport the drums to the quarry and dump them in the water.”

  “He and his crew would never have to go out on a highway,” I said.

  “Right. Fred Pryor may not have known the exact solution to the problem, and probably didn’t want to know. He kept his hands clean and paid off his security chief Bob Cain to ignore whatever Taylor devised. I’ll bet a guard wasn’t even assigned that night. It was perfect.”

  “It was perfect until Dallas Willard showed up on the same stretch of track,” said Reverend Pace. “A terrible coincidence.”

  Tommy Lee shook his head. “I don’t know about that. I keep saying I don’t like coincidences. And we don’t know why Fats was killed with Dallas Willard’s shotgun unless that was the whole point. The killer made sure the shell was left in the bathroom because Dallas provided the answer to who-dun-it. Mystery solved. A convenient way to murder Fats for whatever reason. It might not tie into Dallas Willard in any other way.”

  “Whoever killed Fats had to know it was Dallas’ shotgun,” I said. “He probably took it from him.”

  “Yes, and he felt confident enough to stand close to a homicidal maniac and stab him. I don’t buy a coincidence that Dallas just appeared on the tracks. I think he was taken there alive. He had to hole up somewhere for a week. He might not have been alone.”

  “Who would help him?” asked Pace.

  Tommy Lee leaned across his desk. “Someone who wanted a three million dollar tract of land. Someone who turned Dallas against the migrants to spoil the Waylon Hestor deal, and then against his own brother and sister when he discovered Dallas couldn’t stop Lee and Norman Jean from selling to Hestor.”

  “The power company,” I said.

  “No, I’m beginning to think Fred Pryor kept the power company in the dark. I think he was setting up a way for New Shores to control the property.”

  “Dallas would never talk to a man like Pryor,” said Pace.

  “Dallas probably didn’t even know Pryor existed. But Odell Taylor is another story. Taylor is a worker, a regular guy. He and the Kentucky group wouldn’t be a threat to Dallas. Taylor could ingratiate himself on Pryor’s behalf. Maybe even incite Dallas to murder his brother and sister while all the while Fred Pryor pulled the strings.”

  “And now Dallas is a dead witness,” I said.

  “Convenient isn’t it. Get rid of him after he’s served his purpose.”

  “How can you prove it?” asked Pace.

  I looked at Tommy Lee. “You’ve already laid the groundwork, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, and I want you to get his permission. I’ve got to set up a surveillance plan.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Pace.

  “The best evidence is to catch someone in the act of committing a crime,” said Tommy Lee. “I’m going to give Pryor a new problem. Someone who will be just as stubborn as Dallas about selling the property. The newly discovered legal heir, Talmadge Watson.”

  I heard the dull thuds of an axe on seasoned wood. Turning the corner of the cabin, I saw Talmadge Watson by a pile of cordwood. His back was to me, his concentration directed on the log standing end-up on the chopping stump.

  Talmadge lifted the axe even with his shoulder, gave a half swing, snapping his wrists with precision born of practice, and cleanly split the wood in two. He tossed the pieces into the growing stack, positioned another log and swung again. His fluid motion never faltered as he worked like some mechanical man in a hardware display.

  I watched for a few minutes until Talmadge leaned the axe handle against his leg and mopped his brow with the hip-pocket red bandanna.

  “Wood for the stove, or wood for the still?” I asked.

  Talmadge looked over his shoulder. “Little of each. They both keep me warm. You come for some?”

  “Thanks, but no. Came to talk, if you got the time.”

  Talmadge embedded the axe head in the stump. “It’ll wait on me. Let’s go inside.”

  I followed the old man across the threshold into the front room. In the funeral business, I’d been on enough house calls that the sparseness of the mountaineers’ living conditions no longer surprised me. I expected the wood-burning cooking stove and the wellspring right in the middle of the kitchen with the heavy metal dipper hanging above it. What I didn’t expect was the neatness of a man who lived alone. The cabin’s plank floor was swept clean and a braided throw-rug lay in the middle. A few odd chairs and a sofa flanked off the fireplace. Every arm was covered with a doily. Lace curtains framed in the two front windows, and a white tassel hung from the center of each pulldown shade.

  Shelves lined the walls. A few held cooking utensils, but most were filled with birds, birds perched on branches or mounted in flight—birds hand-carved from solid wood and painted in realistic detail. I could not take my eyes off them. My hands went behind my back with the reflex of a kid whose momma had trained him in the shops where the breakable merchandise was more than we could afford.

  “You can touch ’em,” said Talmadge. “This ain’t no museum.”

  “These are fantastic. You carve them?”

  “For my wife Lottie. She loved her birds. Guess they were her children. Many a winter evening’s up on these shelves. The carving part was easy. I always whittled, ever since I was a kid. Lottie did the paintin’. She had the eye for it. Her Cherokee grandmother taught her to make the dyes. Showed her the roots and berries.”

  “She made her own paints?”

  “Indians been making paints for hundreds of years. Lottie took to it like a duck to water.” Talmadge chuckled. “And my moonshine made a thinner much better than store-bought. Lottie was agin my distillin’, but she had to confess it put life in them colors. N
ever seen a bird’s markings she couldn’t match.” He looked around the room as if appreciating the collection for the first time. “I sure do miss her.”

  I picked up a big blue jay with his head cocked to one side and a tuft of feathers cresting his head. The bird eyed a wood beetle carved atop the branch near his talons. It was a frozen moment capturing the split-second before Nature’s food chain offered one less wood beetle.

  “You’re too modest, Talmadge. If I had this talent, I’d have my birds in galleries all over the country.”

  “Why? We made ’em for our enjoyment. Why trade that for money?”

  I didn’t have an answer. I set the blue jay up on the shelf.

  “You come to talk birds?” Talmadge pointed me to the sofa and eased himself into a cane-bottom chair.

  “No. I guess you could say I’m on official business. We think we’re closing in on who murdered Dallas. That may lead us to who killed Fats McCauley.”

  “How do I figure in?”

  “There’s a possibility the deaths are related to the Willard land, who will be able to buy it.”

  “Sheriff said it was coming to me.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “But nobody knows that yet. The assumption is the land will be auctioned.”

  “Cause Martha and I disowned each other,” he said. “Only a few of the old timers remember we was kin.” He thought for a moment. “So, I’m the meat in the snare.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s as good a way of putting it as any.”

  “When is this snare gonna be set?”

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “If we have your permission.”

  “Well, I guess a man can’t let another man kill his family no matter how distant and then go on as if nothin’ happened. What do I need to do?”

  “Sit tight. The sheriff will assign a deputy to watch you.”

  “Watch me do what?” Talmadge Watson chuckled softly at the thought of having a guard. “Well, tell him to send a young one who don’t know me. The old deputies will just keep pesterin’ me for a swallow.”