up at him and attempted a smile. “Yes, Mr. Archer, I am.”
“Well, okay.” He tacked on a relieved smile.
“I will ask that you wait until dark to come over. I…I don’t want my neighbors.…”
“I can come in through the back door, say around nine?”
“That would be fine. Thank you.”
He left her there and headed down to the street. Once his feet hit the pavement he looked around. His stomach was about as empty as it had ever been. The other fellows at the slaughterhouse had brought their lunches in little tins and were allowed exactly fifteen minutes to eat them. And not a one of them, Dill included, had seen fit to offer any to Archer.
He managed to earn fifty cents by helping an elderly man carry some crates up the stairs of his little shop and then swept the room and caulked a window and cleaned and reinstalled the spark plugs on the straight-6 engine of the man’s Ford delivery truck. This was another Army-inspired skill that had come in handy off the battlefield.
He used the money to buy a hunk of cheese and a couple rolls that barely dented his hunger. He gulped down two large glasses of water to rid him of the foul taste from the slaughterhouse.
He was walking down the street toward a bench he figured he would sit on until the time came for him to head to Ernestine’s. That was when he noticed the four-door, long-hooded burgundy Cadillac rolling slowly by. He had seen the vehicle before, in Tuttle’s barn. The driver was a man in his forties wearing a cap and buttoned black vest and pigskin gloves. In the back seat was Lucas Tuttle.
Tuttle must’ve seen him sitting there because the car came to a stop, the window rolled down, and Tuttle leaned out and waved him over.
Archer left his things on the bench and walked over to the car.
“Mr. Tuttle,” he said, eyeing the driver, who was watching him in the side mirror.
“Climb on in here, Archer, want to talk to you.”
Archer went around to the other side and got in.
“Damn, son, what have you been doing with yourself?” said Tuttle, holding his nose.
“Earning a living, the hard way.”
Tuttle nodded and then sat back against the seat. “Bobby?” he said to the driver. “Go get yourself a Coke. I have business with Archer here.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Tuttle.” The man got out and walked off, revealing black breeches covering his legs with dark gaiters below that. A formal chauffeur’s getup if ever there was one, thought Archer. It was like you saw at the pictures, where everybody was rich except the servants.
Tuttle was dressed in a worsted wool dark brown suit with a red bow tie and a matching pocket square, and polished brown-and-white shoes.
“You look like you’ve been to church, though it’s not the Sabbath,” said Archer.
Tuttle laughed. “Not much of a churchgoer, Archer. Like to rely on myself, not some deity that folks wrote about in a book. I had some business meetings out of town. And business is looking good.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“So, what’s the status of your business? You said you were working on it. Are you going to disappoint me, Archer? I will tell you right now I do not like to be disappointed.”
Archer scanned the Cadillac’s interior looking for the shotgun, but didn’t see it.
“Well, I hope not to disappoint you or me, sir.”
“So, then?”
“With Pittleman dead, it’s gotten a little complicated, so to speak.”
“Or perhaps it’s gotten easier.”
“I don’t know about that. I do know that you torched the Caddy.”
Tuttle didn’t seem fazed by this. “An unfortunate accident. They happen a lot on farms.”
“Is that right?” Archer wanted to ask him about Isabel’s accident, but decided now was not the right time.
“I want my daughter back home.”
“I’m trying, but it might be because her mother died there. She left about the same time. I wonder why.”
Tuttle’s face darkened. “Do you know how my wife died?”
Now that the man had brought up the subject himself, Archer said, “Just that it was an accident, but nobody told me the details.”
Tuttle glanced out the window. “Yes, they say it was an accident.”
“You saying it wasn’t?”
Tuttle stared back at him. “I…I don’t know, Archer. All I want is my daughter home. And if you can persuade her to do that, you will have earned your money.”
“Okay, but Jackie loved her mother and her mother loved her right back.”