Sharyn McCrumb - The Ballad of Frankie Silver

“It’s your move,” Alton Banner told his patient, tapping the chessboard with a black pawn.

Spencer blinked and the carved wooden pieces came back into focus, but he had forgotten now what maneuver he had been setting up. “Did we miss anything?” he asked his opponent.

The old doctor shrugged. “Are you referring to my designs on your king’s bishop, or are you over there wool-gathering again?”

“I was thinking about the night of the Trail Murders,” said Spencer. “When you and I were at the crime scene. Is there anything we overlooked? Anything you’d do differently now-with more experience, I mean.”

“Speak for yourself, boy. I was fifty-one back in those days, and I can’t say that experience has improved me much since then. As for technology, maybe there’s something we could have gained if we’d had Luminol and DNA testing, and all the rest of the new tools, but there’s no use worrying about that now. The evidence has long since degraded. It went into the trash the decade before last. What good will it do to dwell on that now?”

“I want to be sure. I’ve never had anybody executed before-and it’s on my say-so. The evidence was circumstantial.”

“Circumstantial. Would you listen to yourself? Most of the people in prison are there on circumstantial evidence, aren’t they? Even felons are smart enough not to commit the crime in front of a bunch of eyewitnesses. Excepting John Wilkes Booth, that is.”

Spencer smiled. “I know that. And most killers are not inclined to think that confession is good for the soul, either. We had a solid case. He had Emily Stanton’s jewelry in his possession and was attempting to sell it, which gave us a motive of robbery. His blood-type A-negative-was found at the crime scene. He had no alibi.”

“Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Because if you’re saying all this for my benefit, let me say now that I never had one moment’s doubt from that day until this that you had the killer. He had A-negative blood, Spencer. That’s rare enough so that if you walk into a blood bank and offer to give them some, they start dancing for joy and offering you refills on the orange juice.”

“I just wondered if there’s anything I’ve forgotten about that case.”

“My memory is long. I can still see those two young people crumpled on the ground in that clearing, looking as if they’d been caught in a threshing machine. No, I never will forget that. So don’t ask me to spare too much time helping you agonize over Fate Harkryder’s execution, because the night we found the bodies of his victims, I could have shot him myself without a flicker of hesitation. I swear I could’ve.”

Spencer pushed a rook forward. “My summons to the execution said that as sheriff of the prisoner’s home county, I could appoint another witness besides myself to attend as well. Would you like to go?”

Alton Banner sighed. “I would not,” he said. “I have spent a lifetime trying to keep people from dying, and I have no intention this late in the game of watching it happen on purpose. You go, if you feel it’s your duty, but my responsibilities in this case were all discharged twenty years ago. I’m done with it.”

The sheriff nodded. “I’ll tell them I relinquish my second witness, then. The forest ranger, Willis Blaine, is dead. I asked Martha to check on that a couple of days ago. Aside from him, I can’t think of anyone else who ought to be there.”

A few moments passed in silence while Spencer stared at the chessboard, but Alton Banner knew that chess wasn’t on his mind. “What about your other pet case?” he said loudly, hoping to distract him. “Was the evidence against Frankie Silver circumstantial?”

Spencer had finished reading all the material Martha had brought him about the 1830s murder case. So far he saw no reason to question the decision of his nineteenth-century counterpart. Given the circumstances, he could see no choice but to arrest Frankie Silver for murder. “She lied,” he said. “When Charlie Silver disappeared, Frankie went to her in-laws and said that he hadn’t come back to the cabin.”

“Whereas most of him had…” drawled Dr. Banner. “I know the story. Doesn’t prove she killed him. Maybe she was covering up for someone.”

“Then she’s not innocent,” said Spencer. “Accessories before the fact get hanged, too. There appears to be no evidence of anyone else involved, though. Frankie Silver was never accused of having a lover. And her father and older brother were on a long hunt in Kentucky when the crime was committed.”

“You sure about that?”

“All the storytellers say so, and I tend to believe it, because they were never arrested. If they’d been around, they would have been the constable’s first choice for suspects.”

“All right, she was guilty. I wonder what bothered Nelse Miller about the case then?”

“The fact that it doesn’t ring true,” said Spencer. “A little eighteen-year-old girl in a cabin with a year-old baby. A one-room cabin. Charlie Silver’s body was cut into little pieces and parts of it were burned in the fireplace. How long would that take, anyway?”

The doctor shrugged. “Depends. What do we have to work with?”

“It’s 1831. An ax, maybe. A hunting knife.”

“A couple of hours, easily. More if she isn’t used to butchering. If you don’t hit between the vertebrae just right, it could take you an hour just to get the head off. It would be messy work. I wonder she had the stomach for it. Him being her husband and all.”

“She was afraid of being caught,” said Spencer. “Fear can make you do extraordinary things.”

“Maybe so. But it’s not something you’d expect an eighteen-year-old girl to be capable of. I know of no precedent.”

“Frankie Silver was a pioneer. People were tougher in those days.” Spencer pushed a pawn toward the center of the board. “Your move.”

“Checkmate.”

Spencer managed to keep the Harkryder case at bay for two more games of chess, both of which he lost, because his mind kept straying to matters of greater consequence. At last he was alone again, having promised to make an early night of it in deference to his weakened condition. Instead he was sitting in his leather chair with the yellowed manila folder in his lap, sorting through the evidence one more time.

The physical evidence tied Fate Harkryder directly to the scene of the crime-no question about that.

That afternoon at the truck stop, Spencer had arrested Fate Harkryder on suspicion of murder. The jewelry was impounded as evidence of his guilt. The items tallied exactly with the list Spencer had written down during his phone call to Colonel Stanton: the woman’s UNC class ring containing the initials EAS, the silver and goldtone watch, and a gold chain.

Spencer took the prisoner back to the jail in Hamelin for questioning, and he notified the TBI that he had a suspect in custody. He’d also left word with Nelse Miller, wherever it was he’d gone. An arrest in a major murder investigation: that would bring the old fox home. Spencer was sure of it.

Deputy sheriff Spencer Arrowood read the suspect his rights. “Do you understand?” he said as he put the card away. “You can have a lawyer if you want one.”

The sullen young man sat with his feet wrapped around the legs of the chair, scowling up at the officer questioning him. His long hair was unkempt, and his baggy clothes were several days past needing a wash. Spencer had a good mind to hose him down before he put him in the jail cell.

The prisoner shrugged. “What do I need a lawyer for?”

It wasn’t the deputy’s job to tell him. He said, “I’m just telling you that if you do want one, you can call him now. And if you can’t afford to hire an attorney, we can have one appointed to represent you.”