Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

swallow. “Poor Maggie Ellen. I hope she’s happy,” he murmured. “I think about her some. I’m always thinking that I see her here and there, in town sometimes, or even across the field when the sun’s going down. My aunt told me once that she heard Maggie Ellen was living with a bricklayer in Sand Springs. I was surprised she’d run off and not say anything. At least to Naomi. Her and Naomi was always close. Daddy didn’t seem to notice when she ran away. Ma cried a bit. She told me a while ago that she was hoping Maggie Ellen would come home now that Daddy wasn’t here to torment her.”
    He blinked, then looked at Alafair again, coming back into the present. “But, Miz Tucker, I still can’t see how it could be Ma. When could she have done it? By the time I got back from your place, Daddy and the mule were gone. We all went about our business the rest of that evening, and I guarantee Daddy wasn’t curled up next to the house having no nap, not before we all went in for the night. We all slept in the parlor by the stove that night. Nobody went out that I saw. When we got up at cockcrow, there was six inches of snow, and still snowing. Daddy must have been laying there dead for hours.”
    “The ground under the body was wet, according to my husband,” Alafair remembered. “Harley must have lain down there some little while after it started snowing. Now here’s the question, John Lee, that hasn’t been answered. Where did your daddy go when he got on that mule, drunk as a skunk, on Wednesday afternoon?”
    “I figured he was making a run to the still. When I went out to the barn that night I noticed that his stash was low.”
    Alafair’s eyebrows peaked with interest. “And where is this still?”
    “He moves it around to fool the sheriff. It’s usually right near the creek, though. It’s pretty overgrowed down there.”
    “Suppose we could find it later?”
    “I expect. I never had no trouble finding it before. What do you think we might find, Miz Tucker? Something that could help us?”
    “I don’t know, son. But we can’t account for the last eight or so hours of your father’s life, and I’m thinking that if there’s a chance of clearing your mother, and you, too, by the way, we’d better figure out what happened from the time you noticed him gone ’til the time your sister found him dead.”
    They fell silent again, pondering the possibilities. Alafair clucked to the horse to hurry her up, excited about having a new tack to pursue.

Chapter Eleven
    Naomi thought long and hard when Alafair invited her and her charges to take supper with them, but finally acquiesced. Not that she didn’t feel herself perfectly capable of handling the task, but she knew that the family would doubtlessly eat better at the Tuckers’.
    Shaw didn’t bat an eye when Alafair showed up with seven extra mouths to feed. Martha, efficient as always, had already begun firing up the stove before Alafair had unloaded all the kids and gotten them inside. Mary and Alice jumped into the fray and helped part strange children from their winter wear. Alafair was pleased to see the ever-charming Gee Dub try to engage Naomi in the bantering excuse for conversation used by fifteen-year-old boys with thirteen-year-old girls. Naomi’s response was desultory at best, but such a thing had never been known to deter Gee Dub. Ruth did her gentle best to help her brother entertain the shy guests, showing them the upright piano in the corner and how to pick out some simple tunes. Blanche and Sophronia flitted around like excited birds, sharing dolls and toys, beside themselves with the new playmate potential.
    “Where’s Phoebe?” Alafair asked Shaw.
    “Charlie and her are milking tonight,” Shaw told her. “They’ll be in directly. Now, you want to tell me what’s going on, here?”
    She drew him into the relative privacy of their bedroom and explained the situation to him as quickly as she could.
    “I’m glad it wasn’t him,” Shaw confessed, “but the boy’s still got a pretty rough row to hoe, sounds to me.”
    “He does, and he’s proud and slow to take help. So is Naomi. But I’m hoping we can be there if they need us.”
    “I’ll offer to take him back into town this evening,” Shaw assured her, “see if I can get him to tell me if he’s made any plans yet, tell him we’ll do what we can to help.”
    Shaw’s concern for the boy touched Alafair, and affection for him welled up in her. “I