On Emma's Bluff by Sara Elizabeth Rice, edited by davebccanada (audio ebook reader txt) 📕

this very Friday night. It could be a lot of fun. The murderer has been caught so what have we got to lose?"

"Our minds," Cindy said under her breath.

Lacking the elasticity of the young who were at that time upstairs in his house planning a gay old séance, Roy's mind was not so easily put to rest.   Barbara Lee was still dead and Liz just wasn't the same woman any more. He spent the day waiting at the police station for a chance to speak with Harvey Johnson. He wanted to believe that Lacey really was the murderer but there were so many doubts still lingering. He was not alone in his vigil. Earl Slater, Sammy Slater's father had come down to wait for Harvey too. Roy had not seen much of Earl since his own son's death and he took in the man's haggard drawn expression. "My gawd, I wonder if I look that bad," he thought.

"How's your wife, Roy?" Earl asked after a long uncomfortable silence.

"Liz? Oh she's holding up." Roy pursed his lips and nodded in a serious manner. "And uh, Marie? She doing okay?"

"Want to know something," Earl said without bothering to answer the question. "You know you can get your life back in order and you can even be happy again, but the pain of it, the pain of it never goes away." This was not said with any bitterness only with studied certainty.

"I guess you're right there," Roy said remembering his own somersault of emotions.

"You reckon he really did it?"   Earl asked.

"They say Harvey caught him almost red handed. They found the body of a colored boy stuffed in his closet."

"He must be one crazy mother fucker." Earl cringed.

"I heard they got him under psychiatric observation. Said he really is crazy. He doesn't even know what he has done."

"I tell you one thing," Earl raised his voice, "If they let that son-of-a-bitch go just because he be playing crazy..."

"Whoa, Earl, calm down. Nobody is talking about letting that boy go." Roy did his best the calm the man. "They ain’t even set a trail date yet or nothing. Everything is just getting started. Now, that's why I am down here, just want to keep good and posted on what the law is doing with that bastard."

"Yep, me too. That's why I came down here too, Roy." Earl lowered his voice and moved closer to Roy in a conspirator manner. "I tell you one thing I will not rest until I see that boy in the gas chamber. He deserves killing if I have to do it myself."

"Yeah," Roy agreed.

Liz heard the kids upstairs in Emma's room when she got home. Unlike her husband she was not so interested in the accused murderer. She had spent the day quietly shopping alone in Jackson. She had wandered through the racks at Gayfers and McReas, her eyes immediately picking out colors and styles that Barbara Lee would have loved. "How about this one," she found herself whispering. She could not escape the feeling that Barbara was with her.

Often she experienced the eerie awareness of a shape just out of her line of vision. It was as if her daughter were just barely below the surface reaching for her. Liz would strain to hear the voice of her only child in the murmur of a crowd, in the low rumble of a fan. "I know you are here baby," she said once so loudly that other shoppers turned to see to whom she was speaking.

She had picked their mail up on the way in and now it lay out on the kitchen table. There was the Sears bill, an insurance notice, two flyers addressed to occupant and one long personal letter addressed to Emma from a P.O. Box in St. Louis. Liz started to take the letter right up to Emma but she heard the teenager's laughter and decided to wait.

She held the envelope in her hand and something about the letter really bothered her. "I don't know why anyone in St. Louis would want to write that child," she thought. Out of the blue a flooding anger scurried through her. "I don't think that she should be given this letter at all." Liz held up the letter to the kitchen light as if the contents of it would filter through to her.

"She's got no right to be carrying on correspondence with anyone in St. Louis when Barbara Lee is dead and will never get another letter from a friend. Besides who could she possibly know in St. Louis?" The irrational anger that Liz felt made her light headed and warm. She carried the letter to the sink and began looking for matches. She was going to burn the offensive piece of mail.

"Mrs. Wilson?" The voice caught her in a flurry of motions as she dropped the box of matches and tried to hide the letter.

"What?" she yelped.

"Is it all right if I fix us all some cola?" Cindy asked slowly. She could see clearly that Liz was distraught and wanted to be alone in the kitchen.   What was that she had been holding over the sink?

"Well, certainly, Cindy." A sweet smile replaced her earlier sneer. She looked at the envelope she held crumpled in her hand and laughed nervously.   Then with no real explanation she opened one of the kitchen drawers as if looking for something. Cindy could see the paper bags and aluminum foil that were in the drawer and then she watched as Liz placed the letter carefully on top of a bag in the back.

"I was so glad to hear about them catching that Lacey Caine," Cindy ventured unsurely.

"Well I was too, dear." Liz refilled the ice trays as Cindy emptied them.   There was nothing in her manner to indicate the anxiety that Cindy had witnessed when she had first entered the kitchen.

"Yep that poor Lacey Caine," Liz said, clicking her tongue as if to go "Tsk, tsk."

"Honey, you have to have something to eat." Mrs. Hutchinson pleaded from outside of Joy's room. "Please come out and just sit with us at the table at least. It is not good for you to lock yourself away like this."

No answer was heard from the other side of the door.

"Joy," a wedge of anger was growing in her voice, "Joy, this is your mother, now I said open this door."

"Mamma, please just leave me alone," came the garbled reply.

"Open the door first."

A small slot opened into the dainty bedroom. Joy's hand appeared upon the doorframe and a sliver of Joy's face, bloated with tears, peered out.

"Please, mamma, I just can't right now."

"Honey, this is no way to behave. What ever happened between you and Bill can't be as bad as you are making it." Concern had returned and Mrs. Hutchinson groped for a way to lighten the pain she saw on her girl's face.

"I'll be okay, really. Just leave me be for now." Joy asked.

"Okay. I'll save your supper for you, baby." She stretched to place a kiss on the partially revealed forehead. The face immediately retreated and Mrs. Hutchinson was once again left facing a closed door.

Inside Joy slumped back to her disheveled bed and buried her face in a pillow to muffle her sobs.

"If I could I would kill him. I would kill him with my bare hands," she blubbered.

A cold snap had settled over the delta during the week. It was a harsh dry cold with still no frost. The ground crunched from the cover of countless leaves. The sky had already turned to twilight as Emma lay on her stomach in a field down from her home. She was only slightly chilled under her heavy sweater and jacket.

Her mind was caught up in the millions of stars that spread above her.   Her aunt and uncle thought she was still up in her room getting ready for Bill to pick her up. They had her alone pretty much lately. Liz, quiet and polite in her own little world and Roy, bustling about trying to re-animate his lost wife.   They grew aloof from Emma.

The Bluff was no longer frozen under a blanket of fear. The murderer had been caught. Lacey Caine was securely under lock and key in a maximum security cell in Yazoo. His apprehension had kept the local newspapers hopping that past week. In hind sight everyone could see that Lacey was a psychopathic killer. Rumors ran wild about his spree of senseless killing.   Most ignored the fact that he had an airtight alibi for the night that Sheriff Red Humphries had been murdered.

It was decided even by the police force that he had somehow cleverly staged it to look like he never left town while he was actually back at is own house butchering the sheriff. People were too hungry for a conviction to let little discrepancies get in their way. Looking back on his record folks could easily image him capable of the multi-murders. "Well you know he shot his own daddy in cold blood," old timers could be heard saying on the street. "You know he always was a loner, kept to himself like he had something to hide," they would all agree.

The small black child found dead in the spare room closet had clenched the case. How could he still be feigning innocence even ignorance of his crimes, people wondered. Emma stood only slightly confused on the issue. She was more than eager to have Lacey be the monster. It was only occasional snatches of memory from her dream and that strange time right after Barbara Lee's death that periodically haunted her.

She rolled over onto her back and placed her hands folded across her rib cage. She glanced up to see a tall form loom over her. From behind her head two powerful legs stepped to either side of her shoulders, straddling her. She reached upward and ran an open palm down the inside of his thighs.

"I was wandering when you would get here." She rolled up on her knees.   "I've been about to freeze my ass off."

"Oh no, not this sweet little ass." He knelt down in front of her and wrapped an arm around her to grab one firm cheek.

"Ummm," she breathed, "You looking for trouble, buddy?" She squirmed not too successfully from his grasp.

"Uh- huh," he said mere inches from her face.

Emma pressed herself into his wide expanse of chest and rubbed her breasts into him. "Oh Bill, we have to behave."

He stroked her gently and asked, "What kind of monster have I created?" While tilting her chin toward him, he raised his eyebrow in mock reproach.

"I don't know." She ran her hand under his jacket and shirt and rested it against flesh.

"Emma, it drives me wild when you do that." His hand was searching for a way under her sweater.

"Don't."

"Ohh, why not?" he whined. "You let me do more than this last night."

"I know, but don't."

"You keep putting me off like this. It is not fair."

" I am sorry, Bill. I am just not ready yet."

"I can make you ready." He rubbed one pert nipple.

"No."

"Jesus, Emma, you're killing me."

"Let's go. They are waiting for us." She stood up and brushed the leaves from her pants.

 

 

Chapter 23

Cindy and Jimmy were