Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

don’t know nothing about them things.”
    Mrs. Day had finished washing the entire front of the body while Alafair was still working on the filthy hair and grimy face. “How’d Harley get this black eye and bruised jaw, here?” Alafair wondered. It hadn’t been apparent under all the dirt.
    “Oh, he was always getting in some scrape,” Mrs. Day told her dismissively. “Him and Jim Leonard from up the road a piece just had a set-to the other day.”
    Alafair pushed the head to the side so she could get to the back of the neck. She scrubbed a bit of black crud under the left ear, perplexed at its hardness. Her hand barely hesitated when she saw the dirt take on a rusty hue as it came off on the cloth. She stopped washing and straightened.
    “Are your husband’s good clothes ready, Miz Day?” she asked.
    “Oh, yes. I’ll get his clean shirt.”
    Alafair stood still until the woman had bustled out of the kitchen, then bent down close to examine the mysterious clot under Harley’s ear. She soaked her cloth and scrubbed vigorously. She stood up quickly when Mrs. Day came back into the kitchen.
    “He ain’t got no regular pants,” Mrs. Day said. “Overalls will have to do, though I don’t expect Harley would care.”
    Alafair dropped the cloth back into the bucket and rolled down her sleeves. “I’ll leave you to dress him. Do you need some help drawing them clothes on?”
    “No, I’m plenty strong.”
    Alafair nodded. “I’ll be right out on the porch with my husband when you’re done.”
    Alafair left her and walked quickly through the house to the porch. Shaw was sitting in a cane-bottomed chair with one foot propped on the rail, playing cat’s cradle with a piece of string, to the vast amusement of the two little Day girls. He looked over at his wife when he heard the screen door, and assessed her expression at a glance. He leaned forward and eased the cat’s cradle over the pudgy fingers of the eldest girl. “You girls go on out in the yard and practice for a spell,” he instructed, and they scampered away. Shaw stood up. “What is it?” he asked Alafair.
    “Where’s Scott?” she asked.
    “He’s around to the side of the house looking the place over. For some reason he’s got his suspicions up. He can’t tell me why. I figure he’s been doing this depressing business too long.”
    “I’d say he’s got the second sight.”
    Shaw’s eyebrows went up. “Did the wife tell you something?”
    “No. She’s so glad to be shet of the old sot that she doesn’t know if it’s day or night. But I think I found something that shows that he was helped out of this world.”
    Shaw regarded her skeptically. “What?”
    “There’s a bullet hole behind his ear.”
    “A bullet hole!” Shaw echoed, loudly enough that Alafair shushed him. “I didn’t see no bullet hole in his head when he was laying out in the yard,” he added, more discreetly.
    “It’s behind his ear, I told you, and it was all caked with blood and dirt. I didn’t see it either, at first.”
    “Why wasn’t his head blowed off?” he insisted, unable to accept that a bullet hole in somebody’s head could get past him.
    Alafair’s amusement at his attitude momentarily overcame her horror at her discovery. “Well, it would have to be a pretty small caliber bullet, wouldn’t it? I didn’t have time to check for powder burns around the wound. Go look for yourself if you don’t believe me.”
    “Oh, I believe you know a gunshot wound when you see one,” Shaw conceded. “What I can’t believe is that me and Scott missed it.”
    “You weren’t looking. The point is that Harley Day didn’t just freeze to death.”
    “Which ear was this wound behind?”
    “Left.”
    Shaw’s gaze wandered into space as he visualized how the body had lain. “Well, he was on his right side. Could it be that somebody shot him while he was lying there drunk? He couldn’t have bled much.”
    “It would have killed him instantly. And it was cold.”
    Shaw nodded. “What does she have to say about it?”
    “I didn’t say anything to her, though she may have seen the wound by now.”
    “You expect she done him in?”
    “No,” Alafair assured him firmly. “I don’t think she’s sorry he’s dead, that’s for sure. But she doesn’t act like somebody who just did an act of murder.”
    “Well, now. If she was scared of him, and driven to desperation, I can see her doing it like this,” Shaw speculated thoughtfully.