On Harrow Hill

Morgan motioned to Gurney to come along. The path through the trees brought them to a narrow lawn that separated the house from the woods around it. It was full of crabgrass, dandelions, and wandering, clucking, pecking chickens.

The house, a smallish clapboard colonial whose white paint needed refreshing, would have been unremarkable in virtually any other upstate locality. On Larchfield’s Waterview Drive, however, its mild shabbiness was startling. The unkempt land on which it sat might have been considered pleasantly natural elsewhere, but here, adjacent to the genteel grounds of its neighbors, it seemed to radiate aggression.

The woman waiting for them in the doorway was wearing a shapeless dress. Her straight gray hair covered her forehead and ears like a loose hat. Her dark eyes peered first at Gurney, then at Morgan.

“You’re the one took Tucker to the hospital. You’re the one I want to talk to.” She pointed at Gurney without looking at him. “Who’s that?”

“The best detective I know,” said Morgan with an awkward smile.

“Which of you is the boss?”

“He is,” said Gurney.

“That’s all right, then. He took Tucker to the hospital. I don’t ever forget a kindness.”

“Tucker . . . ?” said Morgan.

“When he got passed out in the pansies with the heatstroke.”

“Yes!” said Morgan with obvious relief. “In the village square.”

“Hottest day of the summer it was.”

“I remember.” His moment of relief gave way to his perennial unease. “You wanted to talk to me?”

“Better we talk inside.” She stepped back and gestured them into an unfurnished hallway. On the right side of it there was a door to a small dining room and a stairway up to the second floor. On the left side there was a wide opening into a living room.

“You go right on in. Don’t pay no mind to Vaughn,” she said, tilting her head toward a man in full hunting camos sitting in a wheelchair in front of a picture window at the far end of the room, “and he won’t pay no mind to you.” The window provided a panoramic view of the lake.

“Vaughn,” she added, “is a lifelong duck hunter.”

She led them to the other end of the room, where four armchairs formed a loose semicircle in front of a three-cushion couch. The center cushion was occupied by a sleeping gray dog whose little legs seemed inadequate for his large body. Ruby-June sat next to him and rested her arm on him as if he were part of the couch.

Morgan took the chair farthest from her, Gurney the one closest.

“So.” Morgan put on a smile. “What did you want to tell me?”

“I spoke to a man the other night, a man who I’ve since been told is dead. Not just dead now, but dead when I spoke to him.”

“Do you know who this man was?”

“Course I do. Otherwise, how would I know he was dead?”

“Can you give me his name?”

“That’s what I’m wanting to tell you. It was Billy Tate.”

“And when exactly did you see him?”

“It was just about twenty-four hours after he fell off Hilda’s roof and died. Course, I didn’t know that when I spoke to him, or I can’t think that I would have done so.”

“What time was it? Do you recall?”

“I’d say two in the morning.”

“Where was this?”

“Out on the road. Tucker here wanted to take care of business.” She scratched the head of the dog on the cushion next to her. “We were on our side of the road, but Tucker can be particular, and he wanted to go to the other side. We was making our way across—Tucker’s not so quick on his feet these days—when Billy come driving along. He slowed way down, letting us pass.”

“You say you spoke to him?”

“I did. I said, ‘Good morning, Billy.’ ’Cause it was rightly morning, being after midnight. He passed by real slow, almost stopped. ‘Ruby-June,’ he said, kinda hoarse like. Something wrong with his throat, like he was sick.”

“And then, after he said your name . . . ?”

“He drove on down the road.”

Morgan looked at Gurney.

Gurney asked, “What direction was he going?”

“Toward Harrow Hill.”

“What kind of car was he driving?”

“I don’t know cars. Kind of square like. Some kind of Jeep, I think? Used to drive around town in it. Orange color.”

“Billy’s window was open?”

“Course it was. We wasn’t shouting at each other through the glass.”

Gurney smiled. “Sounds like you’ve known him a long time.”

“Since he was being raised up. Crazy boy from the beginning, which you can’t blame him for being. You’d be plenty crazy, too, if your stepmama was Darlene Tate.”

“What was the problem with Darlene?”

“I’d rather not say. To talk about it, I’d have to think about it, wouldn’t I? And thinking about it would dirty my mind.”

“Fair enough. You said that Billy sounded hoarse. Do you remember how he looked?”

“Same as always. Wearing that thing on his head. Like he’d been wearing it for years. I venture he did it because it made him look like, you know what I’m saying, like a bad boy. Which most folks hereabouts would say he was. But maybe he was just hiding, you know what I mean?”

“Tell me.”

“Hiding from the prying eyes of the world. Hiding from the judgment of them that’s always judging. Hiding what he done with Darlene.”