by Jojo Moyes
Alice’s belly was tight with nerves. “If you know better, you want to head off on your own and let us know when you’re there?”
“No need to get ornery. You’re not from here is all. I just thought I—”
“Oh, and don’t I know it. Like the whole town hasn’t spent the last year reminding me.”
“No need to take it like that, Alice. Shoot. I just meant some of us might have more knowledge of the mountains than—”
“Shut up, Beth.” Even Izzy was irritated. “We wouldn’t even have got this far if it wasn’t for Alice.”
“Hold up,” said Kathleen. “Look.”
It was the smoke that alerted them, a thin apologetic whisper of gray that they might not have spotted had the trees nearby not lost their leaves from the crown, so that the wavering plume was briefly visible against the leaden sky. The women stopped in the clearing, just able to make out the shack squatting on the ridge, its shingle roof missing a couple of tiles, its yard unkempt. It was the only house for miles and everything about it spoke of neglect and an antipathy toward casual visitors. A mean-looking dog tethered to a chain set up a fierce, staccato bark, already aware of their presence through the trees.
“Think they’ll shoot at us?” said Beth, and spat noisily.
Fred had instructed Alice to bring his gun and it was slung over her shoulder by its strap. She couldn’t work out whether it was a good or a bad thing for the McCullough family to see she had it in her possession.
“Wonder how many of them are in there. Someone told my eldest brother that none of the out-of-town McCulloughs even came up this far.”
“Yeah. Like Mrs. Brady said, they most likely just came for the circus,” said Kathleen, squinting as she tried to see better.
“Ain’t like they were coming for the McCullough riches, is it? What did your mama say about you coming up here, anyway?” said Beth to Izzy. “I’m surprised she let you.”
Izzy pushed Patch forward over a small ditch, clearing it with a grunt.
“Izzy?”
“She doesn’t exactly know.”
“Izzy!” Alice turned in her saddle.
“Oh, hush, Alice. You know as well as I do that she would never have let me.” Izzy rubbed at her boot.
They all faced the house. Alice shivered.
“If anything happens to you, your mother is going to have me in that dock alongside Margery. Oh, Izzy. This is not safe. I would never have let you come had you told me.” Alice shook her head.
“So why did you come, Izzy?” said Beth.
“Because we are a team. And a team sticks together.” Izzy lifted her chin. “We are the Baileyville packhorse librarians and we stick together.”
Beth punched her lightly on the arm as her horse moved forward. “Well, goddamn to that.”
“Ugh. Will you ever stop cursing, Beth Pinker?”
And Izzy punched her back and squealed as the horses collided.
* * *
• • •
In the end it was Alice who went first. They walked up as far as the snarling dog on the chain would allow, and Alice dismounted, handing her reins to Kathleen. She took a few steps toward the door, staying wide of the dog, its teeth bared and its hackles lifted in little spikes. She eyed the chain nervously, hoping that the other end was pinned securely.
“Hello?”
Two windows at the front, thick with dirt, stared back blankly at them. If it hadn’t been for the trickle of smoke she might have been certain that nobody was home.
Alice took a step closer, her voice lifting. “Miss McCullough? You don’t know me, but I work at the Packhorse Library down in town. I know you didn’t want to talk to the sheriff’s men but I would very much appreciate it if you could help us at all.”
Her voice bounced off the mountainside. There was no movement from within the house.
Alice turned and looked at the others uncertainly. The horses stamped their feet impatiently, their nostrils flaring as they eyed the growling dog.
“It would really only take a minute!”
The dog turned its head and quieted briefly. For a moment the mountain was possessed of a dead silence. Nothing stirred, not the horses, the birds in the trees. Alice felt her skin prickle, as if this presaged something terrible. She thought of the description of McCullough’s body, his eyes pecked clean out of his head. Lying not too far from here, for months.
I don’t want to be here, she thought, and felt something visceral and fearful trickle down her spine. She looked up and saw Beth, who nodded at her, as if to say, Go on—try again.
“Hello? Miss McCullough? Anybody?”
Nothing stirred.
“Hello?”
A voice broke into the silence: “You all can git and leave us alone!”
Alice turned on her heel to find two barrels of a gun visible through the gap in the door.
She swallowed and was about to speak again, when Kathleen appeared on foot beside her. She put a hand on Alice’s arm. “Verna? Is that you? I don’t know if you remember me but it’s Kathleen Hannigan, now Bligh. I used to play with your sister down at Split Creek? We made corn dollies with my ma one harvest time and I think she made one for you. With a spotted ribbon? Would you remember that?”
The dog was eyeing Kathleen now, its lips pulled back over its teeth.
“We’re not here to cause no trouble,” she said, her palms up. “We’re just in something of a fix with our good friend and we’d be real grateful for the chance to speak with you for a moment or two about it.”
“We got nothing to say to any of youse!”
Nobody moved. The dog stopped growling briefly, its nose pointing toward the door. The two barrels didn’t budge.
“I ain’t coming to town,” said the voice from inside. “I . . . I’m not coming. I told the sheriff what day our pa disappeared and that’s that. You ain’t getting nothing else.”
Kathleen took a step closer. “We understand, Verna. We would just really welcome a couple minutes of your time to talk. Just to help our friend. Please?”
There was a long silence.
“What happened to her?”
They looked at each other.
“You don’t know?” said Kathleen.
“Sheriff just said they found my pa’s body. And the murderer to go with it.”
Alice spoke up. “That’s pretty much it. Except, Miss Verna, it’s our friend who is standing trial and we would swear on the Bible that she is not a murderer.”
“Miss Verna, you may know of Margery O’Hare. You know her daddy’s name travels before her.” Kathleen’s voice had lowered, as if they were in some casual conversation. “But she’s a good woman, a little . . . unconventional, but not a cold-blooded killer. And her baby faces growing up without a mother because of gossip and rumor.”
“Margery O’Hare had a baby?” The gun lowered an inch. “Who’d she marry?”
They exchanged awkward glances.
“Well, she ain’t exactly married.”
“But that doesn’t mean nothing,” Izzy called hurriedly. “Doesn’t mean she isn’t a good person.”
Beth brought her horse a few steps closer toward the house, and held up a saddlebag. “You want some books, Miss McCullough? For you or your sister? We got recipe books, storybooks, all kinds of books. Lots of families up in the mountains happy to take them. You don’t have to pay, and we’ll bring you new ones when you like.”
Kathleen shook her head at Beth and mouthed, I don’t think she can read.
Alice, anxious, tried to talk over them: “Miss McCullough, we’re truly, truly sorry about your father. You must have loved him very much. And we’re really sorry to trouble you with this matter. We wouldn’t be here unless we were desperate to help our friend—”
“I ain’t sorry,” the girl said.
Alice swallowed the rest of her sentence. Her shoulders slumped a little. Beth’s mouth closed in dismay.
“Well, I appreciate it’s natural you would harbor ill-feelings toward Margery but I would beg you just to hear—”
“Not her.” Verna’s voice hardened. “I ain’t sorry about what happened to my pa.”
The women looked at each other, confused. The gun lowered slowly another inch, and then disappeared.
“You the Kathleen used to have braids pinned upside your head?”
“That’s me.”
“You rode all the way up here from Baileyville?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Kathleen.
There was a brief pause.
“Then you’d best come in.”
As the librarians watched, the rough wooden door slid open a fraction, and then, after a moment, opened a little wider, creaking on its hinges. And there, for the first time, in the gloom, they saw the twenty-year-old figure of Verna McCullough, dressed in a faded blue dress with patches on the pockets and a headscarf knotted over her hair, her sister moving in the shadows behind her.
There was a short silence while they all took in what was in front of them.
“Well, shit,” said Izzy, under her breath.
TWENTY-SIX
Alice was first in the queue for the courthouse on Monday morning. She had barely slept and her eyes were sore and gritty. She had brought fresh-baked cornbread to the jail earlier in the morning, but Officer Dulles glanced down at the tin and observed apologetically that Margery wasn’t eating. “Barely touched a thing over the weekend.” He looked genuinely concerned.
“You take it anyway. Just in case you can get her to eat something later.”
“You didn’t come yesterday.”
“I was busy.”
He frowned at the abruptness of her answer, but plainly decided that things were off-kilter enough in the town that week without him questioning it further, and headed back down to his cells.
Alice took her place at the front of the public gallery and regarded the crowd. No Kathleen, no Fred. Izzy slid in beside her, then Beth, smoking the tail end of a cigarette that she stubbed out under her feet.
“Heard anything?”
“Not yet,” said Alice.
And then she startled. There, two rows back, sat Sven, his face somber, and his eyes shadowed, as if he hadn’t slept for weeks. He kept his eyes to the front and his hands on his knees. There was something in the rigidity of his bearing that suggested a man working hard to keep himself contained, and the sight of him made her swallow painfully. She flinched as Izzy’s hand reached across and squeezed her own, and she returned the pressure, trying to keep her breath steady in her chest.
A minute later Margery was led in, her head down, and her gait slow. She stood, her expression unreadable, no longer even bothering to meet anybody else’s eye. “C’mon, Marge,” she heard Beth mutter beside her.
And then Judge Arthurs entered the courtroom and everybody rose.
* * *
• • •
Miss Margery O’Hare here is a victim of unhappy circumstance. She was, if you like, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now only God will ever know the truth of what happened on the top of that mountain, but we do know that it is only the flimsiest of evidence that takes a library book, one which by all accounts may have traveled halfway across Lee County, and places it near a body that may have come to rest some six months earlier.” The defense counsel looked up as the doors at the back opened and everyone swiveled in their seats to see Kathleen Bligh march in, sweaty and a little breathless.
“Excuse me. I’m very sorry. Excuse me.” She ran to the front of the court where she stooped to speak to Mr. Turner. He glanced behind him and then stood, one hand on his tie, as the people in the court murmured their surprise.
“Your Honor? We have a witness who would very much like to say something before the court.”
“Can it wait?”
“Your Honor, this has a material bearing on the case.”
The judge sighed. “Approach the bench please, Counsels.”
The two men stood at the front. Neither attempted to lower their voices much, one from urgency and the other from frustration, so the court got to hear pretty much everything that was said.
“It’s the daughter,” said Mr. Turner.
“What daughter?” said the judge.
“McCullough’s daughter. Verna.”
The prosecution counsel glanced behind him and shook his head. “Your Honor, we have had no prior notice of such a witness and I object in the strongest terms to the introduction of such at so late—”
The judge chewed ruminatively. “Did the sheriff’s men not go up to Arnott’s Ridge to try to talk to the girl?”
The prosecution counsel stammered, “Well, y-yes. But she wouldn’t come down. She hasn’t left that house in several years, according to those familiar with the family.”
The judge leaned back in his chair. “Then I would say if this is the victim’s daughter, possibly the last witness to see him alive, and she is now content to make her way down into the town to answer questions about his last day, then she may well have information pertinent to the case, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Howard?”
The prosecution counsel glanced behind him again. Van Cleve was straining forward in his seat, his mouth compressed with displeasure.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Good. I will hear the witness.” He waved a finger.
Kathleen and the lawyer spoke for a minute in hushed voices, and then she ran to the back of the court.
“When you’re ready, Mr. Turner.”
“Your Honor, the defense calls Miss Verna McCullough, daughter of Clem McCullough. Miss McCullough? If you could make your way to the witness box? I would be much obliged.”
There was a hum of interest. People strained in their seats. The door opened at the back of the court, revealing Kathleen, her arm through that of a younger woman, who walked a little behind her. And as the court watched in silence, Verna McCullough made her way slowly and deliberately to the front of the courtroom, every stride an apparent effort. Her hand rested on the small of her back and her belly sat low and huge in front of her.
A murmur of shock, and a second wave of exclamation as the same thought occurred to each person, went up around the room.
* * *
• • •
You live at Arnott’s Ridge?”
Verna had held her hair back with a bobby pin and now fiddled with it, as if it were out of place. Her voice emerged as a hoarse whisper. “Yes, sir. With my sister. And before that our father.”
“Can you speak up, please?” said the judge.
The lawyer continued. “And it’s just the three of you?”
She held on to the lip of the witness box and gazed around her, as if she had only just noticed how many people were in the room. Her voice faltered for a moment.
“Miss McCullough?”
“Uh . . . Yes. Our mama went when I was eight and it’s been us three since then.”
“Your mama died?”
“I don’t know, sir. We woke up one morning and my daddy said she was gone. And that was it.”
“I see. So you are unsure as to her fate?”
“Oh, I believe her to be dead. Because she always said my daddy would kill her one day.”
“Objection!” said the state prosecutor.
“Strike that from the record, please. We will leave it on file that Miss McCullough’s mother’s whereabouts are unknown.”
“Thank you, Miss McCullough. And when did you last see your father?”
“That would be five days before Christmas.”
“And have you seen him since?”
“No, sir.”
“Did you lo
ok for him?”
“No, sir.”
“You . . . weren’t troubled? When he didn’t come home for Christmas?”
“It was not . . . unusual behavior for our daddy. I think it may be no secret that he liked a drink. I believe he is—was—known to the sheriff.” The sheriff nodded, almost reluctantly.
“Sir, would it be possible for me to sit down? I’m feeling a little faint.”
The judge motioned to the clerk to bring her a chair and the court waited while it was positioned and she was able to sit. Someone brought her a glass of water. Her face was only just visible above the witness box and most in the public gallery leaned forward to try to see her better.
“So when he didn’t come home on the . . . twentieth of December, Miss McCullough, you didn’t see anything particularly untoward in that behavior?”
“No, sir.”
“And when he left, did he tell you where he was going? To a bar?”
For the first time, Verna hesitated a good while before she spoke. She glanced at Margery, who was looking at the floor.
“No, sir. He said . . .” She swallowed, and then turned toward the judge. “He said he was going to return his library book.”
There was an outburst from the public gallery, a sound that might have been shock or a burst of laughter, or a mixture of both; it was hard to tell. Margery, in the dock, lifted her head for the first time. Alice looked down to find that Izzy was gripping her hand, her knuckles white.
The defense lawyer turned to face the jury. “Can I check that I heard that correctly, Miss McCullough? You said your father set out to return a library book?”
“Yes, sir. He had recently been receiving books from the WPA Packhorse Library and he believed it was a great thing. He had just read a fine book and said it was his civic duty to return it as soon as possible so that some other person could have the benefit of reading it.”
The heads of Mr. Howard, the state prosecutor and his second were pressed together in urgent conversation. He raised his hand but the judge dismissed him with a wave. “Go on, Miss McCullough.”