Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

Lee, he’ll turn him in. And once Cousin Scott has him, it’ll just be too tempting to say that he’s surely the one who did it, and leave off looking for the truth.”
    Alafair had not missed Phoebe’s assertion that we could clear John Lee, and she smiled. The girl might have a grown-up life of her own, now, but she still depended on her mother with unconscious ease. I should encourage her to talk the boy into giving himself up right now, she thought. Then he’d be safe and warm and well fed while they went about the business of clearing him. If, in fact, he could be cleared. Alafair wasn’t as sure of John Lee’s innocence as Phoebe seemed to be. The way things now stood, Phoebe was implicated, perhaps as an accessory to murder. Right and proper behavior and legalities now all stood a distant second to Alafair’s need to protect her daughter. There was no way in the world she was going to turn that boy in until she had unshakable proof that Phoebe was not involved in any way with the murder.
    “All right,” she said briskly. “But I think we need to find someplace to hide John Lee other than in that soddie. Your daddy goes out that way too often, and you can never tell when one of the other kids might get a notion to play there. Besides, Scott and Trent will get to searching the vicinity pretty quick now, and that hay store is just too obvious. Let me ponder on it tonight.”
    Phoebe nearly swooned with relief. “Oh, Mama, thank you,” she sighed.
    “Don’t thank me yet,” Alafair warned her. “If I find out that John Lee did it, I have no intention of helping him escape punishment.”
    “No, no,” Phoebe gushed. “You won’t have to worry about that, Ma. Oh, thank you, thank you.”
    Phoebe’s total belief in John Lee’s innocence made Alafair feel a little better. “Get a hold of yourself, now. Tell you what. You make up a sandwich with that leftover roast pork and you and me can take it out there to him in a bit, while everybody’s getting ready for bed.” Phoebe’s head was nodding wildly. “Right now we’ve got to get back in there before they come looking for us,” Alafair continued. “But before we’re done with this, you have to promise me that you will not go out there to see that boy without me along. Otherwise, I’m telling your daddy this minute.”
    Phoebe promised on her life.
    ***
    Alafair had a side word with Shaw as the children were readying for bed. What she told him was the truth, though not the whole truth. She implied to the bewildered father that she was offering counsel and comfort to a girl teetering on the edge of heartbreak, and that mother and daughter intended to step outside for a little walk and a heart to heart before sleeping. Shaw had no reason to find this suspicious, having lived through several girlish traumas in the twenty years he had had daughters. He did offer the opinion that it was too dang cold to go traipsing around outside in the dark, but after Alafair pointed out to him with some asperity that there was not a corner of the house that was beyond eight sets of prying ears, he admitted that she was correct. She comforted him by promising that they would go to the barn for a bit.
    When Alafair and Phoebe finally left the house, bundled to the eyes and clutching food and drink under their coats, it was pitch dark and bitingly cold. They made their way to the soddie with a detour through the barn, because Alafair had said they were going to the barn, and she did what she said. When they reached the soddie, Alafair paused by the door and drew Phoebe over to her.
    “I don’t want you telling him anything about what Doctor Addison found, Phoebe,” she warned the girl. “In fact, don’t be talking to him about his father’s murder at all, or about what’s going to happen. You leave that to me.”
    “But I can talk to him?” Phoebe asked anxiously.
    “Sure you can. I’ll even let you two alone for a few minutes before we go back to the house, if you promise to do as I ask.”
    “You know I’ll do whatever you say, Mama,” Phoebe assured her.
    John Lee was sitting on a bale of hay in his little cubicle, obviously waiting for them. He stood when Alafair squeezed herself through the opening in the bales. “Hello, son,” she greeted. She reached back through to relieve Phoebe of the lantern, and was holding the light high when Phoebe popped into view, so she had a clear and unobstructed view of John Lee’s face.
    The greeting he was