Рита Браун: Homeward Hound

“He thought he could buy Beveridge Hundred, I’m sure,” Yvonne posited. “He certainly cultivated the Van Dorns.”

“And he liked them,” Sister said. “Knew them and hunted with them near the end of their hunting days. He also figured he could buy all that land from the New Yorkers. Conservatively he might wind up with about a thousand acres. All the work that Crawford and Kasmir have done benefiting him.”

“He just lost it at Christmas Hunt?” Betty wondered. “The boom gets lowered and he loses it?”

“His debts pressed and now his future looked uncertain. All that work, all the preparation, the research, the schmoozing with landowners who would be adversely affected by the pipeline. He would offer them a way out. They wouldn’t realize the profits they might realize if the pipeline wasn’t tearing up their land, but Dewey could sweeten it. They wouldn’t lose but so much. Land appreciates. This would drop the value but it would still be more than when they bought it. It’s a good argument.” Sister filled in.

“So do you think he’s insane?” Yvonne wondered.

“I don’t know,” Sister quickly replied. “We hear about people, people the neighbors liked, their friends liked, who locked up young women in their basements molesting them for years. No one had a clue. I just don’t know. I guess people are capable of anything. We see what we want to see.”

Aunt Daniella nodded. “And some people are highly intelligent. They fool us because they know we see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. Politics is founded on that.”

No one said anything. It was too true and too depressing.

Yvonne spoke up. “I will buy Beveridge Hundred. I’ve spoken to the Van Dorns. They can live there as long as they wish, leave when they wish. Naturally, Dewey’s arrest and confession, if you call it that, has disturbed them because over the years he told them not to worry. Then the pipeline route would cut off a corner of their land and they did worry.”

“Have they accepted?” Gray looked at his brother, who he suspected knew the answer.

“They have.” Yvonne smiled broadly. “I’m the first to admit, I never thought I’d be a country girl and in the South no less, but here I am.” She smiled at the small group. “I never expected to like any of you either. You all have treated me with respect, you’ve helped me with Tootie and, how to put it, I’m happy here.”

“Good news. Three cheers.” Betty held up her glass.

They chatted, congratulated Yvonne on buying Beveridge Hundred. Then the conversation drifted back to the murders and Dewey.

“Did Dewey say how he did it?” Betty couldn’t help herself.

Gray shifted in his chair. He’d been with Sister when Ben came by to inform her of events. “Pretty much like our conclusions. He rode alongside Gregory as they approached the crossroads, hit him hard in the head with the butt end of his gun—a gun we never saw under his coat—pulled him off. The snowstorm gave him his chance. He drove out of Tattenhall Station going the wrong way. Most of us were gone, not staff or Sam but most of the field had made it out. He stopped, retrieved the body, drove to Beveridge Hundred, where he turned the trailer around.”

“How did he kill Rory? Actually we know how, why?” Betty asked.

“He says he didn’t kill Rory,” Gray replied. “Of course he did and of course Rory had to have gotten in the way, but better to be charged with one murder than two.”

“He had to have killed him.” Sam’s jaw clenched. “Rory must have seen him kill Luckham, so Dewey had to silence him.”

“Yes. But how can that be proven?” Sister realistically looked at him. “He’ll hire the best defense lawyer he can. That lawyer will line up psychiatrists, psychologists, you name it, and the insanity plea will stick. He’ll be deemed guilty. He’ll go behind bars, but I doubt it will be too awful. He’ll be in a place where they think he can be stabilized. Isn’t that the word now?”

“What about the cutting off of the hands, the hanging, the boots up to Middleburg, his crop? Stupid stuff.” Betty hated the idea that Dewey would be in a country club prison, more or less.

“Well thought out.” Aunt Daniella could smell the aroma of great bourbon. “We’d all think this was the work of a crazy person. He thought he could get away with it. I do believe that, but now that he didn’t, look at the trail of craziness, if you will. Sending boots to Middleburg Tack Exchange is as nuts as cutting off hands and the rest of it.”

“But there are clues. People can’t quite cover it all,” Yvonne said. “Hands are cut off of thieves. This was about money. And the hands were put where they would divert our attention.”

“The crop, the cigarette case.” Betty ran her fingers through her sleek hair. “He couldn’t bear to part with expensive things, elegant things. Did he say anything about the crop? I mean, here on the farm? The ring? All this stuff.”

“The ring he knows nothing about, so it probably was ripped off by an animal enjoying the hand.” Gray grimaced. “The crop he said he grabbed, forgetting it was in his trailer. I don’t know how true that is, but it does support the insanity plea. Wouldn’t a normal person attempt to clean out anything of the victim’s?”

“You bet,” Aunt Daniella swiftly responded.

“So he realized he had the crop as he came down from the ridge, tossed it aside. He was the last one down of all the field.” Gray shrugged. “That’s his story. He also told Ben stringing up Gregory in the middle of the night worked up a sweat but cutting his hands off was hard work, too. He relished the gory details. Said he wrapped the victim in large garbage bags, put him in his huge freezer, which he locked. Ben searched the freezers too late. He’d moved Gregory, getting ready to string him up. Said he had him in his car in a sleeping bag. He’s a large man, a strong man. He could do these things alone. But he actually was proud of them.”

“Sick. Even if he isn’t insane, it’s sick,” Yvonne pronounced.

“Cigarette case?” Sister wondered. She hadn’t asked Ben about these items, sticking to the bigger story.

“Ronnie says Dewey couldn’t bear to part with it. Twenty-four-carat gold, a sapphire clasp. Ronnie came by my house to visit and to catch up,” Aunt Daniella replied. “Dewey had put it in his pocket and I guess it was sort of like the whip: He realized he had to part with it, tossed it during a hunt, I think the one where Dragon found the hand. He said they’d covered a lot of territory, he fell back and pitched it, he thought, under the little stable. Ronnie doesn’t know whether to believe him or not, but he knows he came back for it. Odd. Again, we get back to insanity.”

“How did Ronnie know?” Betty would never forget that hunt that nearly proved fatal.

“When he looked at the initials on the cigarette case,” Aunt Daniella filled her in, “Dewey had hung back supposedly to go to the bathroom. Ronnie said he doesn’t know why but he was beginning to have doubts about Dewey, little things, and he decided to look around that stable. A hunch. How many times have you had a hunch that proved correct?”

“They were hunting buddies. Ronnie knew him fairly well.” Sam thought we often know things in the back of our mind before they come to the front of our mind.

“We don’t know how this will turn out in court, but at least we are safe. I hope we are safe.” Betty smiled then added, “Sister, what are you doing with this lad’s cap on the coffee table?”

“I owe Weevil a new one.”

“You washed the one you used to cover the crop,” Betty said.

“Shrunk.”

The back door opened. Two pair of footsteps could be heard.