Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale

Author:Joe R. Lansdale
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Race relations, East, Depressions, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Fiction, General, Mystery fiction, Policewomen, Historical fiction, Land tenure, Suspense, Widows, Texas, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9780375719226
Publisher: Vintage Books
Published: 2005-01-04T07:27:33.150669+00:00

19

The woods were stuffy with heat and dense with mosquitoes and the sunlight was split by trees. The light hit the cross on the grave and made a shadow and speckled out on the leaf-covered mound on the ground.

Clyde and Hillbilly leaned on their shovels and looked to Sunset for instructions. Hillbilly and Clyde weren’t talking to each other any more than they had to.

Sunset noted that though Hillbilly was not drunk, he had buzzed himself this morning with the hair of the dog, and it made her mad. He had a job and she was his boss and she thought she ought to say something, but decided to let it go.

She wasn’t sure why she let it go, but she had some idea. And she didn’t like that idea. That wasn’t the way to do things. If it had been Clyde she would have said something to him. But it wouldn’t be Clyde. Clyde would show up ready to go and on time. That’s the way Clyde did things.

And today, this morning, she actually decided there was something to do. Thought of it shortly after she drove the car home.

“Y’all just gonna lean on them things?” Sunset said.

“You ain’t got a shovel,” Hillbilly said.

“I’m the boss, so I’ll just fight mosquitoes.”

“I don’t get it,” Clyde said. “What we doing this for? I don’t want to look at no dead babies. Besides, won’t be nothing left but a bone or two if there’s that. And what’s it gonna prove anyhow?”

Sunset slapped at a mosquito, turned it into a little dark wad on her cheek. “I got to know there’s a baby here.”

“Zendo saw it,” Clyde said.

“I know,” Sunset said. “I believe him. But I want to see if the baby ended up here.”

“Why wouldn’t it?” Hillbilly said.

“I don’t know,” Sunset said. “I guess it would. But what I’m wondering is why was Jimmie Jo and the baby killed?”

“Pete could have done it,” Clyde said. “Got pissed off at the woman over most anything, and done it, just the way he might have done it to you, you hadn’t killed him first.”

“That’s been considered,” Sunset said. “He was mean and capable of killing, but I don’t think he’d have done it like this. He would have just raped her and shot her in the head and been done with it.”

“Someone did shoot her in the head,” Clyde said. “And with Pete’s caliber of gun. One you’re wearing. Way I see it, you just solved who killed who, and that’s what I’d tell that damn council. Pete got mad at his girlfriend, killed her and her baby, and if he was drunk enough to rape and kill that woman, like he might have done you, I think he was drunk enough to cut a baby out of her. After he done it, he got drunk or drunker and got to thinking on it, took it out on you and damn near killed you. End of story. Let’s go to the house. It’s too damn hot to dig.

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