The Heavenly Table(107)
“He a music man, too?” Ellsworth asked, taking another look at the man in the backseat.
“No, I caught him in Warren Gaston’s lumberyard after closing. Had the gall to tell me he was just following a bird that flew through there, but I figure it was more like he was snoopin’ around for something to stick in his pocket. Can’t hardly blame him, though. If I was in his shape, I’d probably take up stealing, too. Hell, he don’t even own a pair of shoes.”
“A bird?” Ellsworth said. He stepped a little closer, saw that the old man was clothed in what appeared to be a robe. He had a far-off look in his eyes, and was picking something out of his beard.
“Yep. That’s what he pointed to when I came up behind him, anyway. I called his bluff, though.”
“What’d ye mean?”
“I shot that thing so full of holes there weren’t enough feathers left to fill a thimble.”
“What kind of bird?”
“Oh, it was just a little white one. I got to say I never saw one like it before.”
“You mean like that one there?” Ellsworth said, nodding at a small ivory-colored bird that had just landed on the hood of the automobile.
Sykes sat silent for a minute, chewing his bottom lip, watching the bird preen itself. “That sure looks like it, but…but there’s no way in hell that’s the same one. Can’t be.” He mumbled something else that Ellsworth couldn’t hear, then pulled his service revolver from his holster and leaned out over the car door. He squinted and aimed carefully, his mouth shut tight in a determined grimace, then popped off two rounds fast. The bird burst into nothingness, leaving only a tiny splatter of shit on the hood ornament, and a single feather floating through the air. Sykes looked back at his prisoner and grinned. “I hope that wasn’t another one of your buddies,” he said, but the old man just kept on calmly combing his fingers through his beard.
Right after that, the constable left, and Ellsworth walked back to the porch, sat down heavily in his rocker. Eula, who had heard the car pull up and was standing inside the parlor watching, came out and said, “What in the world was that all about?”
“He stopped to tell me they caught the man who stole our money.”
“Did he give you any of it back?”
“Nope. It’s gone for good.”
“I figured as much. Why’d he shoot that bird?”
“I don’t know,” Ellsworth said, shaking his head. “Crazy, I guess. Claimed it and that ol’ boy in the backseat were going around stealing stuff. Something like that anyway.”
“That don’t make no sense. A bird?”
“Like I said, I think he’s crazy.”
“So that’s all he had to say?”
“That was it,” Ellsworth said, and she turned and went back into the house. Jesus, he didn’t know how much longer he could hide the truth about their son, or even why he still felt the need to do it. Each lie begat another, and the only purpose they served was to postpone the inevitable, because sooner or later it was all going to come out. He should have been straight with her from the beginning, told her that Eddie wasn’t in the military the same day he’d found out himself. Now, however, thanks to Sykes, telling her would be twice as hard. A public nuisance dumped out along the Ohio River with some old drunk who sounded a lot like Uncle Peanut! No, he couldn’t do it, not today anyway. Maybe tomorrow, he told himself, after breakfast. But then, just as Eula stepped out on the porch and handed him a piece of pie on a plate, he looked up to see a bird, the color of new snow, fly from one of the oak trees in the front yard. He watched in amazement as it headed east along the road toward Meade, the same route the constable had taken, and suddenly, for a short time anyway, all the little worries and doubts and fears that ruled his life melted away, seemed to take flight along with the bird. “Sit down,” he said to Eula. “There’s something I need to tell ye.”
65
WHEN LESTER WALLINGFORD explained to his father why they had Sugar locked up, the police chief made a sour face and said, “How much shit we talkin’ about?” His nervous system was giving him fits, as it always was immediately after returning from a trip to see his mistress in Washington Court House, a former queen of the Highland County Bell Festival who seemed determined to suck the very lifeblood out of him with her demands. Neither of his sons nor his wife knew about the affair, but he was finding it harder and harder to keep it that way.
Lester held his hand in the air. “Maybe yay high, that much around.”
“He from around here?”
“No, he claims he’s from Detroit, but I’d say he’s just a tramp from the looks of him.”
“No money then?”
“Only thing he had in his pockets was a razor and a couple of walnuts.”
“Mrs. Grady’s, huh?”
The son nodded. “She’s already called three times this morning. Wants him and Pollard both put in prison. She’s recommending five-year sentences, says she’ll get her brother-in-law to fix it up.” Mrs. Grady’s niece was married to a judge in Pickaway County, and she had used his influence several times to get her way when the law in Ross County seemed a bit reluctant to grant her wishes. Egbert Sterling, an amateur horticulturist who had beaten her out of first place for two consecutive years in the local flower show, was the latest victim of her wrath, and was now serving a six-month sentence for assault on a Pickaway County law clerk, even though the man had several witnesses testify at the trial that he was spreading lime in his garden at the time of the alleged attack. “She also told me to let you know that, from what she hears, Washington Court House is a regular Sodom and Gomorrah these days,” he said. “I think maybe she’s gone a little simple.”