One Good Deed(69)

“I checked on your Army record. You were a brave man, Archer. Lots of medals and all. And you were a scout.”

“So what?”

“So maybe you can be a scout again. My scout. Go back to work at the slaughterhouse tomorrow, and keep your eyes and ears open.”

“Well, okay.”

“But don’t talk unnecessarily,” the lawman admonished. “You never know what people are gonna do with what you tell ’em.” Shaw opened his wallet and held out five dollars. “Here’s an advance. I hear tell you like advances.” He cracked a grin.

Archer took the money. “You sure this is kosher, Detective?”

“My job is to catch a killer, Archer. And I’ll do it any way I see fit.”

Shaw drove off and Archer hoofed it to Ernestine’s. However, she didn’t answer the door. He looked at his watch. She might be out. Maybe over at the Cat’s Meow. Or having a late dinner at the Checkered Past.

He tried the back door, but it was locked. He took the clasp knife from his pocket and worked the bolt back enough to free it from the doorjamb. He walked into the kitchen and saw pots and pans in the sink. He looked in the fridge and saw a plate wrapped over. The truth occurred to him.

She made me dinner and I never showed up.

Archer felt badly about that but couldn’t do anything about it right now.

Despite washing up in the Derby’s hall bath earlier, he still stank.

He decided another bath would not be a bad thing.

He went in search of the bathrobe that Ernestine had provided before and found it in her bedroom closet. As he was about to shut the door, he saw it: The scrapbook that had been under the pillow was now on the shelf in the closet.

He hauled it down and sat on the floor and turned the pages slowly past what he’d already seen, until he came to something interesting.

It was a news story about Jewell Crabtree, the widow of Carson and mother of Ernestine. She had climbed into her Chrysler one night, while it was in the garage, and after stuffing a sheet in the tailpipe, started it up and expired on the front seat, leaving behind a note that was addressed to her daughter. There was another picture of Ernestine along with this story, and she was no longer drab or dour. Several years had passed since her father’s execution, and her height and beauty had been realized, but her features were stoic—perhaps too stoic, thought Archer. This version of the woman he could reconcile with the parole officer as he had first met her.

The last thing in the scrapbook of interest was a letter. Perhaps it was the one mentioned in the news article. It was in a pink envelope with the name Ernestine scrawled in pen on the outside. Archer slipped out the note inside and unfolded it.

Dear Ernestine,

My lovely, lovely child. First and foremost, your father loved you very much. And please do not feel any other way with regard to that. What he did, he did out of his love for you and for no other reason. Any action taken in the past should not affect what you do with the rest of your life. Please live your life with that firmly in mind, and please have a happy life, my dear, dear child. Choices were made by many, Ernestine, and many of them were flawed choices. But choices have consequences, and we all must live with those consequences. But take that sad past and turn it into something positive, my dear child, and don’t look back, only forward. Love, your mother.

He sat back against the bed and contemplated all that he had just read. He had to confess that he couldn’t really make heads or tails of it, but his heart was mightily saddened by the abundance of tragedies in Ernestine Crabtree’s past.

He put the scrapbook back exactly where he had found it.

He went into the kitchen, all thoughts of a bath gone. He washed up the pots and pans and utensils in the sink and put them away. He sat down at the table and thought about last night here. He and Ernestine had been alone in the house. A bottle of bourbon had been at hand. He’d been cleaned up and all, smelling about as good as he was ever likely to. He had done his best to impress upon the woman that he was attracted to her. And she had chosen a book in her bed over him in her bed.

While thinking this, he went to the shelf and found an Agatha Christie novel. He walked back into the kitchen and stood at the sink looking out the little window into the darkness, the book still held unopened in his hand.

“How did you get in here?”

Archer spun around to see Ernestine standing there.

“Back door. It was unlocked.”

“No, I remember locking it.”

“Well, it must be broken, opened easy enough.”

She came forward and glanced at the empty sink. “You…you did the dishes?”

“It was the least I could do, considering that you made me a dinner I wasn’t here to eat. I’m sorry about that. But I did have the morning coffee and the lunch, and it was much appreciated, Ernestine.”

She set her purse down on the table and slipped off her dark blue pillbox hat and took off her black wrist-length gloves.

“Nothing special about feeding a hungry man. As for dinner, I’m sure you had other pressing matters.”

“Mr. Shaw met me at the truck, and we went out to the Pittlemans’ to talk with his widow.”

“Then you haven’t eaten dinner?”

“No, Mr. Shaw was good enough to buy me some before we headed out.”

She sat down at the table. He did likewise, putting the book in front of him.