Sweet and Deadly Read online

  The Gerrard family was well enough off, but only because a wise forebear had made it legally impossible to put family money into the paper. Several generations of Gerrards had gotten ulcers achieving solvency for the Gazette.

  One of the birthday stories for the upcoming issue was complete, with story written and picture attached. The other was written, but there was no picture. Catherine remembered as she read the first line of copy that this was Sally Barnes Boone’s baby’s party. It had been held at grandfather Martin Barnes’s house; and Catherine recalled that Mrs. Barnes had assured her that she would bring the picture in before Monday noon.

  Catherine glanced at the clock. Damn, she should call. But she felt awkward about phoning the Barnes home. They might resent her telling the sheriff about Martin’s proximity to Leona’s dumped body. Barnes’s wife Melba had a reputation for being unpredictable.

  I guess she’s one of those well-known Delta eccentrics that Sheriff Galton was so proud of, Catherine thought sourly. I’ll wait until tomorrow, she equivocated. Maybe someone’ll show up with the damn picture.

  She hadn’t had time to pay attention to what Tom was doing. Now she saw him through the picture window that made the reporters’ room a sunny fish-bowl. He was striding toward the courthouse, which sat in the center of the square, his camera in hand.

  That meant he had already turned in his Leona Gaites story to Jewel Crenna, the typesetter. Catherine wanted to read it, and she had to take her copy back to Production anyway. She gathered up a sheaf of yellow paper and went through the swinging door to the big production room.

  It was not exactly silence that met her as the back-room staff observed her entrance, but there was a definite, abrupt halt of activity. Catherine stopped right inside the door, surprised.

  They want to ask me all about it, she realized after a second. No people on earth were as curious as people working in any capacity for a newspaper, she had found after she had started work at the Gazette.

  Now Catherine straightened her shoulders, set her lips, and refused to meet the glances that sought to stop her.

  Garry, the foreman, and Sarah, the senior paste-up girl, wouldn’t have the face to accost her directly, Catherine figured rapidly, but she dreaded encountering Salton Sims, the pressman. He would ask anyone anything he wanted to know.

  Catherine nipped quickly into the typesetter’s cubicle. Jewel Crenna was hard at work and notoriously temperamental on Mondays and Tuesdays, so Catherine leaned against the wall behind her without speaking, and scanned Jewel’s In basket. It was full to the brim with additions to ads, and last-minute amendments to stories Jewel had set the previous week. Catherine added her own sheaf to the pile and began searching the hook that held processed galleys of type. Jewel would have set Tom’s story as soon as it came in, so the staff could read it.

  Jewel glanced up once to identify the intruder in her bailiwick, and then her eyes swiveled back to the typed page held by a clamp in front of her, her fingers moving surely and with a speed that Catherine envied.

  Jewel was a tall woman with suspiciously black hair and clear olive skin. She was a handsome woman with strong features and a tart tongue that knew no hesitation, a tongue that was widely supposed to be the cause of her two divorces.

  Catherine had always had a sneaking admiration for Jewel, well mixed with a healthy fear. Jewel was an uninhibited shouter when she was irritated, and shouting people had always cowed Catherine completely.

  Catherine skimmed through the justified type, getting the gist of Tom’s well-written account. She raised her eyebrows when she found herself quoted. She hadn’t said anything like what Tom had blithely invented. He must have felt free to take liberties since he was quoting a fellow reporter.

  Oh well, she shrugged. The quotes were undoubtedly better copy than anything she had actually said; and they were truthful in content, if not in source.

  She was so absorbed in reading that it was a while before she realized that Jewel’s fingers had stopped moving—an incredible event on a Monday. Catherine looked up to find Jewel facing her, broad hands fixed on her knees.

  “I hope I haven’t bothered you,” Catherine said instantly. She didn’t want Jewel to let loose with one of the pithy phrases she used to blast disturbers of her peace. Jewel was aware that she was indeed a gem to Randall and the Gazette.

  The whine of the press, stopping and starting as Salton Sims overhauled it, made Jewel’s cubicle a little corner of isolation.

  “I hear you told the police you saw Martin close to where they found that Gaites woman,” Jewel said abruptly.

  “Yes,” Catherine admitted cautiously, wondering at Jewel’s interest.

  “Now Melba Barnes has got it in her head Martin was out at that shack meeting Leona Gaites for some fun, and found her dead,” Jewel said contemptuously. “As if Martin would have anything to do with a plucked chicken like Leona Gaites! That Melba hasn’t got the brains God gave a goat.” Jewel paused invitingly, but Catherine prudently kept her mouth shut. The light was dawning about Martin Barnes’s presence on that road Saturday morning. He hadn’t been riding his place at all: he had been at Jewel Crenna’s house by the highway.

  “Martin’s a little upset about your telling Jimmy Galton you saw him,” Jewel said amiably. “But he knows you had to do it; why the hell wouldn’t you? Course, he was out to my place, not riding his land. Melba still ain’t put two and two together—Martin and Leona, ha!—but she decided there was something fishy about Martin being out that morning. Up in the air she goes, stupid bitch! ‘Martin,’ I says, ‘just ignore her.’ When he comes home from church yesterday, she busts out crying and tells him now everybody’s gonna know that he’s cheatin’ on her, how can she hold her head up, what about the kids (and them all grown), and so on and so forth.”

  Jewel’s voice had risen in a whiny and accurate imitation of Melba Barnes. Now she resumed her normal robust tone. “But I told Martin that Catherine Linton, she was smarter than Melba, she might figure it out; though of course,” and Jewel raised an emphatic eyebrow, “she wouldn’t tell no one. ‘She’s a good girl,’ I said, ‘she’s always kept her mouth shut tighter than a clam.’”

  Jewel gave Catherine a firm nod of approval and dismissal, and Catherine silently replaced Tom’s story on its spike and sidled out of the cubicle. She walked through the swinging door back into her own domain, knowing she had gotten a direct and forceful order to keep her nose out of Jewel’s business.

  Really, I think she overestimated me, Catherine thought with wry amusement as she rolled more paper into her typewriter. I don’t think I ever would have thought of putting that particular “one and one” together. There’s a woman with nerve. She makes me feel like I just graduated from diapers.

  Then Catherine frowned and let her fingers rest idle on the keys. Would Martin Barnes have paid blackmail to keep his affair with Jewel a secret? Jewel would have said, in effect, “Publish and be damned,” but Martin Barnes was a different kettle of fish. Based on her limited knowledge of Melba Barnes, Catherine decided that if Melba had good grounds for divorce, she would take Martin for whatever she could get. And that would be a considerable sum.

  Maybe Martin had gotten sick of blackmail. The pressure of trying to have a surreptitious affair in little Lowfield, added to a bad relationship with a jealous wife, might have tipped Martin’s scales toward violence; especially with the additional squeeze of having to pay hush money.

  Sheriff Galton hadn’t mentioned how much cash he had found in Leona’s house. Had it all been blackmail money? How many people in Lowfield had secrets they would pay to keep hidden?

  A week ago Catherine would have said, “Not many.” But yesterday Tom had told her about Jimmy Galton Junior’s drug sales. Today Jewel Crenna had told her she was having an affair with a prominent planter.

  How many more people had mud tracking up their homes? And Sheriff Galton had hinted strongly at some other illegal activity the former nurse had engaged in.
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br />   It’s a comment on how I felt about Leona, that I can accept the fact that she was a blackmailer, without being awfully surprised, Catherine reflected.

  The swinging door rocked back and forth as Salton Sims, the Gazette’s press operator, came through. Salton approached everything at an angle, so until the moment he ended up at the side of her desk, Catherine had hopes she would be bypassed. Salton had appeared to be heading toward the filing cabinets.

  “I missed seeing you when you was in the back,” he said cheerfully.

  Catherine’s heart sank. No escape. Salton was known and dreaded throughout the county for his complete tactlessness and his equally complete determination to have his say.

  “Bet that ole Leona Gaites was a sight with her head bashed in,” Salton began. “Bloody, huh?”

  Catherine cast around for help, but Tom was still away at the courthouse.

  “Yes, Salton, she sure was, and I’d just as soon not discuss it, if you don’t mind,” Catherine said hopefully.

  Salton stuck his hands in the pockets of his grease-soaked jump suit and grinned at Catherine.

  “Well, you know what I say?” he asked her.

  “I’ll bet you’re going to tell me.”

  “Damn right! No one can call me two-faced.”

  Boy, that’s the truth, she thought.

  “I say,” he continued, “that it’s a good thing.”

  “Salton!” She shouldn’t have been shocked, but she was. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leila come into the room and begin filing at the bank of cabinets. Maybe Leila’s presence would inhibit Salton, who thought all females under twenty were sacred. But no such luck.

  “No, Catherine, you just think about it. It was a good thing. Leona was a godless woman.”

  “Godless?” repeated Catherine weakly. How long has it been since I heard anyone called that? She wondered. Only Salton would use that adjective.

  “Sure, sure. I know for a fact, from a lady I won’t name, that she killed babies.”

  Catherine finally understood what Leona had used some of Dr. Linton’s equipment for. She glanced at Leila desperately and saw that Leila was shaken to the bone, staring in horror at Salton’s broad face.

  “I guess you mean that she performed abortions,” Catherine said slowly.

  “That’s what a lady told me,” Salton said with satisfaction.

  “But they’re legal,” Catherine protested. “You can get them thirty miles away in Memphis.” Were they legal in Mississippi? She couldn’t remember.

  “Too many people from here go to Memphis every day,” Salton rebutted. “Any kid from here who went to Memphis for a thing like that would be caught in a minute. And what teenager could leave here for two days to go to Jackson, without their parents finding out what for and why?”

  “True,” Catherine admitted.

  “Well, back to that cursed old press,” Salton said happily, and wandered swiftly through the door, by some trick appearing until the last minute to be on a collision course with the wall.

  Abortions. Wonderful. Abortion and blackmail payments: what a legacy I’ve inherited! That’s where those medical instruments went: Leona was supplementing her Social Security.

  Catherine caught herself bundling all her hair together and holding it on top of her head, a nervous habit she thought she had discarded with college exams. But she remained like that, both elbows out in the air, until she caught sight of Leila, whom she had completely forgotten.

  Leila seemed equally oblivious of Catherine. She was still looking at the swinging door through which Salton had passed, her face so miserable that Catherine felt obliged to ask her if she was feeling sick.

  “Listen,” said Leila urgently, then stopped to look back through the archway that led into the reception area. There was no one there, but Leila came and sat close to Catherine’s desk. The girl was still clutching a handful of bills she had been filing.

  “Listen,” she said again, and hunched over until her face was five inches from Catherine’s. Catherine had to resist an urge to lean back.

  “I’m listening,” Catherine said sharply. She had an ominous feeling she was about to hear yet another secret.

  “She did,” Leila hissed dramatically.

  “Perform abortions?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Leila whispered. “Listen, I know you won’t tell on me…”

  Everyone certainly seems to be sure of that, Catherine thought fleetingly.

  “….but she ‘did’ me. It’s like Mr. Sims says, how could I just tell my parents I was going to be out of town for two days?”

  “When was this?”

  “Five months ago.”

  After Father died, Catherine realized with relief. Leona just kept some of the equipment when Jerry bought the rest. At least it wasn’t while her Father was alive.

  “I went up to Memphis and asked, but it was awful expensive.”

  “Leona was cheap?”

  “Oh, yeah, compared to Memphis. But I think she charged more later. I was one of her first.”

  Catherine felt sick.

  “I’m sorry, Leila.” It was all she knew to say.

  “Oh, well.” Leila waved a polished hand to dismiss her former predicament. “What I’m scared of,” she went on urgently, “is the sheriff will tell, if he finds out. My parents, you know. I mean, what if Miss Gaites kept records?”

  “Come on, Leila,” Catherine said tartly. “She would hardly have a receipt file!”

  Leila pondered that.

  “I guess you’re right,” she said. “I mean, she was breaking the law. So she probably wouldn’t have written anything down. And you had to pay her cash.”

  Catherine imagined Leila trying to write a check for Leona’s services and winced.

  Leila, now that her immediate fear was banished, looked brighter by the second. She straightened her shoulders, leaned back in her chair, and gave her pink fingernails a once-over. Catherine was glancing at her notes surreptitiously, longing to return to something normal and humdrum, when the girl began to frown.

  “How did you know about Tom’s fiancée?” Leila asked abruptly.

  “What?” Catherine made herself pay attention.

  “Tom,” Leila prompted. “When did he tell you?”

  “That they broke up?” Catherine made an effort to remember. “I guess it was yesterday.”

  “He over at your place?” asked Leila, with badly feigned indifference.

  “Oh,” Catherine said, enlightened. “No, I went over to his house” (that just made it worse, she saw instantly) “and he happened to mention it in the course of the conversation.”

  And I was trying to do her a good turn, Catherine reflected gloomily, as Leila shot her a look and rose from her chair. Leila returned to her filing, back pointedly stiff, slamming home the drawers of the cabinets with all her strength.

  It seemed a good time to go to lunch.

  9

  C ATHERINE SPENT THE afternoon dodging conversations. She didn’t want to hear any more secrets or opinions.

  The entire staff was aware of her penchant for long silences, and when she gave minimal answers to direct questions she couldn’t avoid, they got the point.

  Finally Catherine caught up with her work. She had deposited with Jewel everything urgent she had pending, with the nagging exception of the Barnes’s grandchild’s birthday-party piece.

  She had seen a couple of stories by Randall on the “set” spike when she carried her own things back. In addition to turning out editorials, Randall had to report the occasional event, when Catherine and Tom were too busy to cover it. The Gazette simply couldn’t afford another reporter, even though another pair of hands at a typewriter would often have been welcome, particularly in the fall when high school sports started up.

  Catherine remembered the time she had had to cover a basketball game, during the hiatus between Tom’s predecessor’s departure and Tom’s arrival. It had been a fiasco, and she shuddered to recall it, eve
n months later.

  Mrs. Weilenmann, the head librarian, came in to give Catherine the schedule for the next month’s special library programs. Catherine thanked her wholeheartedly for the neatly typed listing. (All too often, people brought in scrawls that Catherine had to type up to decipher.) In a gush of gratitude, she promised to place it prominently in the next issue, with a border around it.

  “Catherine,” the tall middle-aged woman said slowly, after she had gathered up her paraphernalia to leave, “I’m worried about you and your situation.”

  Catherine stared blankly at Mrs. Weilenmann’s toffee-colored face. Mrs. Weilenmann was intelligent, ugly, and charming; and Catherine had grown fond of her. But they had never had a really personal conversation.

  “It occurred to me this morning,” Mrs. Weilenmann said hesitantly, “when I was getting the books out of the bookdrop (and someone’s hit it again; why can’t people control their cars?)—well, it occurred to me that you are a little isolated now.”

  Catherine couldn’t think of anything to say, so she waited.

  “Not—socially; I don’t know about that. But geographically.”

  “Oh?” murmured Catherine, mystified.

  “Well, dear, I don’t mean to make you nervous,” Mrs. Weilenmann said in her peculiarly formal diction, “but the Drummonds are gone, aren’t they? Having a great time, I hear, but they won’t be back for a couple of weeks. And the library is closed at night, in the summer, after six on weekdays; and for most of the weekend. So to one side of you and across from you, there’s no one. And on the other side of you, the street. But no one can see your yard from the street, because of the hedge. And behind you, there’s the hedge again, so the other reporter (he still rents from you, doesn’t he?) can’t see your back yard. And being single, I imagine Mr. Mascalco isn’t there often. At night.”