The Killing Room (Richard Montanari) - By Richard Montanari Page 0,86
Jessica said.
‘I ain’t expected. Ask what y’got.’
Jessica took out her notebook and pen. ‘Ma’am, do you know a man named Elijah Longstreet?’
The woman recoiled as if she had bitten into spoiled fruit. ‘Elijah?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Do you know him?’
The woman looked out the window, and back again. In this light Jessica could see the woman had once been pretty. She had high cheekbones, silver-blue eyes.
‘Weren’t none of them Longstreets no good,’ she said. ‘They say we’re kin way back, imagine. But I don’t believe it. Not a word.’
The woman rocked back and forth.
‘Ma’am? Elijah Longstreet?’ Byrne asked. ‘Do you know where we could find him?’
The woman snorted. ‘I’d look to Hell. Shouldn’t take too long.’
Jessica and Byrne exchanged a glance.
‘Are you saying Mr Longstreet is deceased?’ Byrne asked.
‘God-fearin’ people get deceased. Elijah Longstreet just dead.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
The woman looked at Byrne as if she were talking to a mule. ‘He died. That’s what bein’ dead means.’
Byrne took a deep breath. ‘Ma’am, what I’m asking is, do you know how he died?’
‘They say it was the lung got him, but it was the drink. It was always the drink with them Longstreets.’
‘How long ago did he pass?’
The woman looked skyward, perhaps doing the math. ‘Gotta be twenty year now. More, some.’
Twenty years, Jessica thought. Then why was his fingerprint in a missal found in the hands of a dead man in Philadelphia this week?
‘Do you know if Mr Longstreet ever got up to Philadelphia?’ she asked.
‘Don’t know nothing about Elijah Longstreet’s comin’ or goin’.’
Jessica took out a photograph of a cleaned-up edition of the My Missal found in Martin Allsop’s hands. ‘Do you recognize this book?’
The woman squinted at the picture, focused. ‘Oh, Lord. Haven’t seen one of them in years.’
‘Do you own one of these?’ Jessica asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s a book for children.’
At the mention of the word children, Jessica looked around the room. Somehow the barking boy had moved again without her seeing it. She wondered where he was. Had they locked the car?
A knot in one of the logs in the stove popped. Jessica nearly jumped at the sound.
‘Elijah had a girl called Ruby,’ the woman said, resuming her rocking. Perhaps this was her storytelling mode. ‘Redheaded one. Funny girl. Touched some say. Too quiet, y’ask.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Word was she had a devil-child.’
Jessica looked at Byrne, back at the woman.
‘Lots of stories come out ’round that girl,’ the woman continued. ‘I know she took up with that preacher.’
‘What preacher would that be?’
The woman laughed. ‘You got a nickel? You do, I’ll give ya five preachers and change. Ain’t never been a shortage a preachers in West Virginia.’ She tapped the photograph of the book, handed it back to Jessica ‘He used to hand them missals out like candy. Used to hand out a lot more than that, if you was young and fair.’
‘Do you recall the man’s name?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t know nothin’ ’bout his name. But I know that Longstreet young ’un Ruby run off slap-quick with him and his church caravan.’ She rocked back and forth, just once, stopped. ‘And her boy like to be the devil.’
‘Not sure what you mean by that.’
The woman reached down next to her, picked up a rusted coffee can, spit into it. Jessica did her best not to look at Byrne.
‘Said the boy was a bad seed. Said the father had the devil in him and the boy come out evil.’
Jessica put her notebook away. Even if she found something useful in this woman’s words, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to read her notes on the subject, or make it part of the permanent case file. What she was sure of was that she was good for about two more seconds of being in this house.
‘Where would we find this Ruby Longstreet?’ Byrne asked.
Another shrug, another spit. ‘Longstreet name’s tainted. She woulda changed it anyways, even if she ain’t got married. I know I woulda.’
‘Are you saying there are no longer any of the Longstreets living around here?’
‘Long gone from here. Anyone with sense long gone from here. Her momma is up to the state nursing home in Weirton. Their house, what’s left of it, is five mile up the road. More, a piece.’
‘We went by there, but we didn’t see anything,’ Byrne said.
‘Oh, it’s still there. You gotta ride that ridge for a spell. Pon m’onor it’s there. Nothin’ but spiders and whistle pigs though.’
At first Jessica didn’t know what the woman had said. Then she