Carved in Bone

chair’s rockers were worn in exactly the opposite pattern, ground nearly flat in their central region.
    The screen door was slightly ajar, having sagged enough over the years to drag across the floor, etching a pale, paintless quarter-circle to mark decades of comings and goings. I imagined some of them: The family headed to church every Sunday, Tom and Orbin first as toddlers, then as rambunctious boys, then as sullen teenagers. A procession of troubled parishioners—philandering spouses and injured parties, problem drinkers, delinquent youths. A movable feast of roasts, stews, casseroles, cakes, and pies, tasty enough to offset the long hours and low pay that define a country parson’s life.
    I tugged open the screen door, adding my own modest mark to the history etched on the floor. The door’s rusty spring screeched at exactly the same hair-raising pitch my grandmother’s screen door spring once wailed. My knock on the front door rattled the pane of glass, whose glazing putty was shrunken and cracked with age.
    There was no response, so I knocked again, then closed the screen door so as not to seem too pushy. After a pause, I heard slow, creaking footsteps. A lace curtain was pulled back a fraction of an inch, then released, and I heard the click of an old-fashioned lock being opened. An elderly woman frowned at me through the dusty screen.
    “Yes?”
    “Are you Mrs. Kitchings?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am, but I was hoping I might talk to you for a few minutes. My name is Dr. Bill Brockton, and I’m up here helping your son Tom with a case.”
    “What kind of case?”
    “Well, it’s an old case that’s just now come to light. The death—the murder—of a young woman I’m told was your niece.”
    “Oh, yes—Evelina. Tommy told me Leena had been found. Strangled. After all these years. What a shame.”
    “Yes, ma’am. Would you mind if I come in and talk to you about it?”
    “Well, I’d have to think about that. Tommy’s the sheriff, and I done told him everthing I know. She just run off one day. We never did know why at the time. Tommy says you figgered out she was expectin’. I reckon that explains it. We never did see her again. That’s all I can tell you.”
    “Mrs. Kitchings, I know it’s been a long time, and it might be hard to remember details, but if you wouldn’t mind a few questions, you might just remember something that will help us.” The flimsy screen door was like an impenetrable force field between us.
    “Would you mind if I come in for just a few minutes?”
    She shook her head. “Not meaning any disrespect, Doctor, but my husband ain’t home, and I don’t let strange men in my house when I’m alone.”
    “I’m not quite as strange as I look, and I promise I don’t bite.” She was not amused. “Tell you what—it’s a nice day; how about if we sit out here on the porch in these rocking chairs?”
    She frowned, but she pushed open the screen and stepped onto the porch. I headed for the ladderback chair, to leave the smaller one for her, but she reached out a bony hand and stopped me. “That-un’s mine,” she said. “You can sit in Thomas’s there.” She settled into the big chair and launched a series of huge, swooping arcs.
    “You sure do get the good out of those rockers,” I said.
    She never wavered. “Rock your troubles away, that’s what my mama always told me.”
    “Does it work?”
    “Don’t know. Ain’t never tried not rocking. Gives you something to do while you worry, leastwise. Keeps you legs strong, too.”
    I laughed. “Reckon I better buy me a rocker when I get back to Knoxville.” I tried to find a rhythm in the spindle-backed chair, but I’d no sooner get some momentum in one direction than I’d hit the flat spot heading back the other way and grind to a halt. “I think maybe this one needs a tune-up. I can’t seem to get up a head of steam.”
    “Thomas, he ain’t much for rockin’. He kindly goes through the motions, but his heart ain’t in it.”
    “What’s he do with his troubles?”
    “Prays ’em away. Preaches ’em away. Coon hunts ’em away. Everbody’s got their own ways.”
    “Tell me about Leena.”
    Her white hair bobbed up and down with her arcs. “Leena was my sister Sophie’s girl. Leena was a Bonds, not a Kitchings, but she was still my blood kin. Her daddy was one of them Bondses over to Claiborne County.” She seemed almost entranced by the rhythm of the chair.