Alafair Tucker 01 - The Old Buzzard Had It Coming

J.D. was feuding, but I never realized how bad it was. Did you notice that Miz Millar said that the last time she saw Harley was a week before he was found?”
    “He showed up drunk,” Mary remembered.
    “A week before he was found is about the time he was shot, you know. Miz Millar did say her husband had threatened to kill Harley if he ever showed up at their place again.” She paused, thinking, then resumed. “If I remember right, her husband was supposed to be home from a business trip the next day, but never made it until a day later.”
    “Ma, it looks like Jim Leonard killed Mr. Day,” Mary pointed out. “Why is that not good enough for you?”
    “Something just ain’t right, honey. It just ain’t right.”
    “What did Miz Millar mean when she said she heard what happened to you at Harley’s still?” Mary asked, out of the blue. “Is there something you didn’t tell us about that shiner?”
    Caught. Alafair shot Mary a glance and sighed. “Well, I guess I’ve got to ’fess up,” she said. “Jim Leonard caught me snooping around the still and socked me in the jaw. I fell and bumped my head and Jim run off, probably scared, like you thought. But I didn’t want to scare you kids so I concocted a story. I’m sorry I lied to you, and I hope you won’t take my lapse as permission to do your own lying in the future.”
    Mary pondered this information for a moment before commenting. “Well, Ma, I don’t know whether to be amused or insulted, but I think I’m leaning toward insulted. Do you think we’re so tender we can’t be told the unpleasant truth?”
    “I’m well chastised,” Alafair admitted. “It’s not so much that I think you older kids need protecting, but I don’t want the young ones alarmed for no good reason. The ugliness of the world will make itself known to them soon enough.”
    “I’m glad Jim Leonard is in jail,” Mary observed.
    “You won’t tell the young’uns what happened?” Alafair hoped.
    Mary snapped the reins and gave an exasperated laugh. “No, Ma,” she said.
    ***
    Though her bumped head was mostly healed by now, Alafair used it as an excuse not to go with Mary to the Boynton Mercantile Company to shop for the few supplies that she needed. “Drop me off at Josie’s,” she instructed.
    Josie saw her coming and was standing in the open door when Alafair reached the bottom of the porch steps. “Come on in here, girl,” Josie invited. “You’re just in time. I just this minute took four loaves of bread out of the oven. I’ll make a pot of tea and we can test a loaf.”
    By the time she had hung up her coat and sat down at the kitchen table, Josie had sliced a still-steaming loaf and set out a slab of butter and a pot of sorghum.
    “I’ve got a jar of those pear preserves from last fall that I opened yesterday, if you’d like some of that,” Josie told her.
    Alafair considered this seriously. “I think I’m partial to the sorghum today, thank you,” she decided.
    Josie put the steeping teapot on the table and sat herself down opposite Alafair. “You’ve got a dandy bruise on your jaw, but it looks like your head is none the worse for wear,” she observed.
    Alafair sliced off a chunk of the pale winter butter and was pouring sorghum over it in her plate. “Oh, I got over that in a day,” she admitted. “I just enjoy letting the girls take care of me, though I’m getting a case of cabin fever.”
    “Scott says you found the gun that killed Harley Day.”
    Alafair looked up from dicing the cold butter into the sorghum with a table knife. “That I did.” She spooned the chunky butter and sorghum onto the hot bread and watched it melt into a glorious golden amalgam. “I had told Jim Leonard that I was looking for the gun by the creek, and he said something about a ‘little pop gun.’ I didn’t think anybody had told him that the gun was a derringer, and it made me suspicious.”
    Josie nodded. “Seems it made Scott pretty suspicious, too, because Hattie just told me this morning that he’s asked to press charges against Jim for killing Harley.”
    Alafair nearly choked on her bite of bread, which was too bad, because it was delicious. “You don’t say!” she managed, at length.
    “I do say,” Josie informed her. “Seems that Scott got Jim to admit that he had found the little gun in the woods back of Harley’s place and picked it up and hid it. Scott found it right where you said it would be. He told Hattie that it was a