Lisa Atkinson - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 5. Whole No. 801, May 2008

Two things happened that day that changed everything. The first being Loreen at the funeral. She looked as if she’d woken up from a coma, like a big weight had been lifted off her. She had healed from her latest sickness, and glued on a shiny black dress to attend her only child’s funeral. She almost looked high society, hat and all. Now I fully expected Loreen to play it up, throw herself on the casket like my cousin June did when her husband, Buddy, got run over by a train, but it didn’t happen. I didn’t see her shed a tear.

The other thing was Pearl. She comforted me, held my hand at the funeral, even gave me a hug at the cemetery and said she was sorry.

As we got in the car to go home, Pearl said, “There’s something about this that’s just not right, Dad. And Lehigh Bowman could care less.”

I nodded.

“That’ll be enough of that kind of talk, Pearl, you hear me?”

“Yes, Daddy, but...”

“No buts. Let the boy rest in peace.”

Now Pearl and I, we put our heads together, and figured there was a murder to solve, with at least three suspects: Big Mike, Lehigh, or a madman loose at the quarry. Pearl put her nose to the grindstone and found out pretty quick that Big Mike had been hanging out at the gas station with a couple of his friends, smoking cigarettes and tinkering with an old Ford, so that pretty much ruled him out. That left the bogeyman at the quarry and Lehigh.

The bogeyman theory didn’t hold a lot of mustard from the start; we’d have heard about it from somewhere else if an escaped prisoner was living in the woods, or a Gypsy had taken up residence in one of the old shacks out there. We hadn’t heard anything of the like. I was suspicious of Loreen, but Pearl wore me down on that one; she just couldn’t believe a mother of any kind would kill her only son.

That left Lehigh. Tracking him down was like tracking a snake in water, if he wasn’t napping in his usual places.

We had just about given up until, as fate would have it, Mother came home one day all up in the air. Loreen Bowman had been getting her hair done at the same time Mother was. And Loreen had been talking about Teg, about how hard to control he’d been, how Lehigh had to threaten him just to mind. Mother told Dad that Loreen said, “If I wasn’t so weak I’d a given him a good spanking and shaped him up, but I left that to Lehigh. Some days it’s a blessing he’s with the Lord now.”

I had told Mother that Teg was exiled to the basement, and I think she was putting two and two together. Somebody had hit Teg too hard and then dumped his body in the quarry. Add in what Teg had said to Pearl — “Lehigh never hits anyone, at least not where it can be seen by the light of day” — and you pretty much came to the same conclusion. Somehow, Lehigh had killed Teg.

Proving it was another matter. And once again, Dad wouldn’t hear of making a fuss. He told me years later that he regretted not doing so, but back then, he wasn’t up to facing down the Bowmans. The whole family had a way of making it tough on someone if they put their minds to it. Big Mike had learned his bully lessons well. I never could tell Dad what Pearl and I knew, and that galls me to this day.

But we did prove Teg was murdered. At least to ourselves. Knowing the truth came with a huge price, though.

One day, about a week after the hairdresser incident, Pearl told Mother she’d heard that Loreen had taken sick again.

“Let her rot,” were Mother’s first words. And then she shrugged, her shoulders sagged with defeat, and finally said we’d have to make her a basket come Sunday. Mother wasn’t the kind to carry a grudge, you know, but I really think she could’ve hated Loreen Bowman if she’d let herself.

Pearl drew the short stick this time. We figured she would. Mother had forbidden me from ever stepping foot on Bowman property or going near the quarry. But I rode out with Pearl because she helped me with my route so we’d have time to find out what we could about Lehigh.

Once we got to the road that led to the big house, I broke off, hid my bike in the woods, and made my way toward Teg’s transom window. Pearl and I had the whole thing worked out. We figured if we got caught, we’d be in trouble until the time we left home, but it was worth the risk, finding out who killed Teg and bringing them to justice if the grownups weren’t going to do anything about it.

What happened between Pearl and Loreen before I came into the picture was told to me by Pearl, so I’ll tell you the best I can.

Pearl had to damn near push her way inside the house. Loreen was drunk. The house was a wreck, and Lehigh was nowhere to be seen. Pearl knew he was behind the post office, fast asleep.

So Pearl said, “I’m sure sorry about Teg, Mrs. Bowman.”

Loreen barely answered, took the basket, and told Pearl to leave.

“Oh, I will, Mrs. Bowman. But I heard Daddy talking to another doctor the other night and they were talking about Teg. I thought you’d want to know.”

Loreen dropped the basket. “What’d they say.”

“Well, I didn’t hear it all, but it had something to do with the bruises they found.”

“They ought to just leave well enough alone.”

“I think they said something about digging him up.”

Loreen was teetering with rage. Pearl said the stench of alcohol was so thick she almost felt drunk herself.

“Get out of my house...” Loreen screamed.

By this time I was halfway through the transom window, and the important part of our plan was about to come into play. I slammed the transom window closed, just the way Teg used to do when he was angry.

Pearl said Loreen froze like a coon in a flashlight.

“Somebody’s in here.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Pearl said.

“Goddamn it, somebody’s in the basement.” Loreen went to the door that led down into Teg’s bedroom. “Who’s there?”

I had crawled into Teg’s bed, pulled the covers over my head. “Me, Momma. Why’d you let Lehigh kill me?” I whispered loud enough for her to hear.

“Lehigh didn’t kill you! I didn’t mean to hit you so hard...” Loreen screamed. And then she realized that Pearl was standing behind her, that she was, to all intents and purposes, talking to a ghost.

Loreen collapsed.

I swear on Pearl’s grave that she reached out for Loreen, tried to catch her, tried to break the fall down the stairs, but she wasn’t quick enough. Loreen flipped head-over-heels until she landed on the hard cement floor with a bone-cracking thud.

The fall didn’t kill Loreen Bowman. But she was paralyzed from the neck down. Pearl lied to Dad, and to everybody, about how it happened. She never told a soul that I was in that house and we caused Loreen to fall. We never told anybody about what she said, either, that she admitted to killing Teg. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe it wasn’t. Nobody’ll ever know, because Loreen wasn’t able to talk, either. She lived four more years, all of it in that house, in the bedroom above the basement where Teg Saidlow dreamed of slaying dragons instead of windmills.

I’ve lived with the guilt all my life, knowing we hurt Loreen Bowman like we did. But I hope there’s some redemption in our finding out the truth, and finally telling it.

Teg Saidlow was my best friend.

I hope I get to see him when I fall asleep for the last time.

© 2008 by Larry D. Sweazy

Another faculty party. The usual suspects were there:

disgruntled profs from assistant to full and the clown hired as their Chair.

He’d arrived from a distant department lit by his references’ glow,

science talents touted in phrases so grand, you’d wonder why he was let go.