Ruby punched Maggie Bassett squarely in the face, knocking her on her bottom in the middle of the hallway.
WHO ARE YOUR friends? Hackberry wondered. The ones who will lend you money in times of need? Pull you from a raging creek or a burning house? No, the real ones were the people who granted a favor simply because you asked it of them. There was no interrogation, no weighing of the scales, no equivocation. They backed your play. They were the kinds of friends you never let go of.
He called Beatrice DeMolay’s house in San Antonio and waited while the operator got her on the phone. “Miss B.?” he said.
“Mr. Holland?” she replied.
“I need some he’p.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I never learned how to drive, and I need to get to San Antonio. The sheriff, in spite of the good soul he is, has pulled my badge. My boy has been kidnapped, most likely by Arnold Beckman’s employees. Can I hire your man, what’s-his-name, the zombie, to drive me around?”
“His name is Andre, Mr. Holland.”
“Whatever. He looks like he could scare a corpse out of a graveyard. Can he come get me?”
“Yes, he can. I’m sorry to hear about your son. What does the sheriff’s office say?”
“Take a guess.”
“They’re not interested?
”
“They may have had a hand in it. The motorcar that took him away may have had a bell on it. Anyway, I don’t have any credibility in San Antonio. I shot and killed a Medal of Honor recipient, and last night I worked over three thugs who had Beckman’s business card in their wallets.”
“I didn’t get that last part.”
Through the window, he saw two motorcars come down the dirt road and turn under the archway onto Cod Bishop’s lane. One was the departmental car usually driven by Darl Pickins, and the other was the motorcar of Dr. Benbow, the part-time county coroner.
“Hello?” she said.
“Yes, ma’am. I know what Beckman wants. I’m not going to give it to him. There are many reasons why not, but the chief one is he will kill Ishmael as soon as he gets what he wants. Am I wrong?”
“That’s exactly what he’ll do.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Andre will be on his way in a few minutes.”
HACKBERRY CUT THROUGH pasture to the back of Cod Bishop’s property, walking through the scarred area where Bishop had been recovering scorched bricks from the soil and scraping them clean with a trowel and stacking them as though reconstructing the past and undoing the harm he had visited upon the black people who were his charges. As Hackberry neared the main house, he saw the two motorcars parked by the barn. The red gelding Bishop had ridden that morning was in the lot, favoring one foot, half of the loose iron shoe visible beneath the horn.
Both barn doors were open wide. The dirt floor was broom-sweep-clean, the stalls free of manure, the baled hay still green and stacked both in the loft and high against the back wall, enclosed by a chain-latched chest-high slatted partition. Cod Bishop had always run a tight ship.
Darl was standing in front of an unlatched stall. Dr. Benbow, the part-time county coroner, was squatting next to Bishop’s body, touching the neck, the ribs, and the throat. He stood up and put a notebook in his shirt pocket and inserted a pencil next to it. He was a gangly man with iron-colored hair that grew over his collar, and he was dressed in a black suit. He had hung his coat on the side of the stall and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. Even though the air was cool and a breeze was blowing through the shade, he had broken a sweat. He seemed to stare at Hackberry without seeing him. “What’s your opinion?”
“What’s my opinion?” Hackberry said.
“You knew him pretty well. Or at least you lived next door to him for a couple of decades. How he’d end up in this predicament?”
“The crack on his head would probably be enough to do him in,” Hackberry replied. “If that’s what you’re asking.”
“Any one of the blows would be enough. I think one of his ribs punctured his heart. His thorax is probably broken, too. Would you answer my question?”
“Cod wasn’t a careless man around horses. Also, he left them out most of the time. Sometimes in winter he’d put up the mares. I don’t know why he’d have the gelding in the stall.”
“Know anything about his state of mind? Has he been acting strange, behaving irrationally?”