the sheriff never spoke to McCullough’s daughters. They wouldn’t open the door. They shouted to his men they had nothing to say on the matter and they wouldn’t be talking to nobody. He says they’re both crazy, like the rest of the family. Says the state’s case is strong enough not to need them anyway.” He looked at her intently.
“Why are you telling me this?”
He chewed at his lip. “Figured . . . I figured . . . it might help you.”
She stared at him then, at his handsome, slightly unformed face, and his baby-soft hands, his anxious eyes. And briefly she felt her own face fall a little.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry too, Bennett.”
He took a step back, ran a hand down his face.
They stood for a moment longer, shifting a little on their feet.
“Well,” he said eventually. “If I don’t see you before you leave . . . safe travels.”
She nodded. He headed for the door. As he reached it he turned, his voice lifting a little to be heard. “Oh. Thought you’d like to know I’m fixing to get the slurry dams made up. With proper housing and a cement base. So they can’t burst again.”
“Your father agreed to that?”
“He will.” The smallest smile, a flash of someone she had once known.
“That’s good news, Bennett. Really good news.”
“Yeah. Well.” He looked down. “It’s a start.”
With that her husband tipped his hat, opened the door, and was swallowed by the crowds still milling around outside.
* * *
• • •
The sheriff didn’t speak to his daughters? Why not?” Sophia shook her head. “It doesn’t make no sense to me.”
“Makes perfect sense to me,” said Kathleen, from the corner, where she was stitching a broken stirrup leather, grimacing as she forced the huge needle through the leather. “They got all the way up to Arnott’s Ridge, to a family they was expecting trouble from. They figure the girls wouldn’t know nothing about their daddy’s movements, given he was a known drunk who used to disappear for days on end. So they knock a few times, get told to git, then give up and come back down, and it takes them half a day each way to do it.”
“McCullough was a sundowner and a mean one at that,” said Beth. “Might be the sheriff didn’t want to push them too hard in case they told him something he didn’t want to hear. They need him to sound like a good man to make Marge seem bad.”
“But surely our lawyer should have gone asking questions?”
“Mr. Fancy Pants out of Lexington? You think he’s going to ride a mule half a day up to Arnott’s Ridge to speak with a bunch of angry hillbillies?”
“I don’t see how this is going to help us none,” said Beth. “If they won’t talk to the sheriff’s men they ain’t hardly going to talk to us.”
“That may be exactly why they would talk to us,” said Kathleen.
Izzy pointed at the wall. “Margery put the McCullough house on the list of places not to go to. On no account. Look, it says so right here.”
“Well, maybe she was just doing what everyone’s done to her,” said Alice. “Going on gossip without actually looking at the facts.”
“Those girls haven’t been seen in town for nigh on ten years,” Kathleen murmured. “Word is their daddy wouldn’t let them leave the house after their mama disappeared. One of those families that just stays in the shadows.”
Alice thought of Margery’s words, words that had rung through her head for days: There is always a way out of a situation. Might be ugly. Might leave you feeling like the earth has gone and shifted under your feet. But there is always a way around.
“I’m going to ride up there,” said Alice. “I can’t see what we have to lose.”
“Your head?” said Sophia.
“Right now, the way my head is, it wouldn’t make that much difference.”
“You know the stories come out of that family? And you know how much they hate us right now? You just fixing to get yourself killed?”
“You want to tell me what other chance Margery has right now?” Alice said. Sophia gave Alice a hard look but didn’t answer. “Right. Does anyone have the map for that route?” For a moment Sophia didn’t move. Then she opened the drawer wordlessly and flicked through the assembled papers until she found it and handed it over.
“Thank you, Sophia.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Beth.
“Then I’m coming, too,” said Izzy.
Kathleen reached for her hat.