Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

Jim Leonard over the last batch of ’shine he sold him. Seems Mr. Leonard didn’t think highly of the quality of the batch and didn’t want to pay. I heard them going at it down here a couple of weeks ago, while I was at the pond, them a’yelling and all. They took a couple of swings at one another. Daddy had a scrape on his cheek that evening, anyway. Daddy always met his customers down here on the creek, at the place where that willow hangs over the water and the bank is undercut. Lots of roots there for stashing quart jars.”
    “You said you thought your daddy was headed for the still on that last night you saw him alive,” Alafair remembered.
    “Yes, ma’am, the still or the willow root stash, though I don’t know it for sure. It’s just that his stash in the barn was low, and that’s his usual way of doing things.”
    They were walking along the creek bank, now, their feet squishing and sliding along the wet, half-decomposed brown leaves that lay thick next to the water. A coating of very black mud was clinging to the bottoms of Alafair’s shoes, which didn’t help her footing any. The creek was running, but a thin skin of ice had formed up next to the bank. Alafair reached out and grabbed the back of John Lee’s coat in her fist to steady herself as they picked their way along.
    “So you’re considering old Jim Leonard,” Alafair observed. “Take a look at how black this mud is. You father’s body was covered in black mud just like this. Maybe him and Leonard met that night and got into it again, and maybe old Jim followed him back to the house, all stealthy, and saw him lay down drunk beside the house.”
    “Then finished him where he lay with the gun he ran across in the woods. Yes, ma’am. It’s worth finding out.”
    Alafair cocked her head as she thought about it. Stranger things had happened. Jim Leonard was a nondescript enough person when he was sober, but he was a pretty unpleasant drunk. “You said you had two or three prospects,” Alafair reminded John Lee.
    She saw his head nod. “Yes, ma’am. I was also thinking about Mr. Lang, the grain merchant. He was supposed to come out to the farm Wednesday afternoon and give Daddy what for, but he never made it. I expect he got busy that day. It was a real sloppy, dreary day, I remember. Daddy didn’t have no love for Mr. Lang, I’ll tell you. He sort of had it in for anybody with money, anybody respectable, don’t you know. He always went out of his way to provoke Mr. Lang, and as nice as Mr. Lang has always been to me, I think he has something of a temper. Once or twice I thought he’d have a hissy fit while trying to deal with Daddy. There was that business with Dan, too. Mr. Lang was mighty put out with Daddy for the way he treated Dan.”
    “You know, I considered Mr. Lang myself,” Alafair admitted. “Your mama mentioned that he was supposed to come by and never made it. I even went by the office and spoke to him. He says he started out to see you, but his buggy skidded into a ditch at the crossroads.”
    “Really?” John Lee exclaimed, interested. “It could be he went ahead and walked on out here, since he was nearer here than to town. It would be right on his way to cut across the back there where I dropped that gun. He’d have been a lot later than he expected to be, and probably in a pretty bad mood. And then after all that to find the no-good crook passed out all stinking drunk and revolting….”
    “That’s the story I concocted, more or less,” Alafair told him. “And it’s one story would be easy enough to check, when he left town to come out here on Wednesday, whether he came back late and disheveled. Somebody would have seen.”
    “Mr. Turner would know the when and wherefores of the horse and buggy,” John Lee noted.
    “I’ll ask him when next I have the chance.”
    John Lee turned and took Alafair’s mittened hand in his own in order to help her over a slim fallen tree. “I’ll be in town this evening,” he said. “I’ll ask him.”
    Alafair gathered her skirt in her free hand to keep it from snagging on stray branches and stepped over the log. “Perhaps that’s best,” she acknowledged. “I’d just as soon my husband didn’t know how deep I am involved in this.”
    “Not to mention Phoebe,” John Lee agreed.
    “Not to mention.”
    John Lee turned to take the lead down the path, and Alafair fell into step behind him. “You know,” she said to his back, “speaking of Dan