The Unquiet Grave by Sharyn McCrumb

Author:Sharyn McCrumb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

thirteen

LAKIN, WEST VIRGINIA

1930

DR. BOOZER BLEW ON HIS HANDS and moved his chair closer to the fire. “This cold is a miserable thing for the old folks in here. Makes their bones ache.”

Mr. Gardner smiled. “It may not be good for live folks, Doctor, but it’s certainly useful for preserving dead ones.”

Boozer looked up in surprise. “What put that into your mind?”

“Oh, don’t worry. I wasn’t thinking of killing myself. It just brought back memories, that’s all.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. Aside from this foul weather, how are you faring?”

“Tolerably well, I suppose. I’ve been passing some of the time chatting with Miss Kathleen Davies in the parlor. We found common ground in the works of Mr. Shakespeare.”

“I’m glad you found congenial company to pass the time, if not a clement temperature to do it in. Now, what were you saying about this weather? Something about preserving dead bodies?”

“Oh, that. This cold snap reminds me of a murder case back in my salad days, in Greenbrier County. My part in it came during the trial in high summer, but the tale itself began in a week colder than this. In fact, if it hadn’t been so infernally cold, there might not have been a case at all. And the particulars of it would give anybody chills.”

The dinner hour was over, and they had the dayroom to themselves, but there was no sunset to watch that evening. The pewter sky seemed to hover just above the treetops across the road, and it had been spitting rain all afternoon. Since their previous session three days earlier, the weather had turned cold, and Boozer had found Mr. Gardner huddled in the chair by the window, clasping his arms against his body in an effort to keep warm. When he saw the old man shivering in a moth-eaten cardigan over his cotton patient’s uniform, he retrieved a thin woolen blanket from the linen storage closet and draped it over the sweater. He even managed to sweet-talk one of the kitchen helpers into giving them a pot of coffee and a pair of white china mugs.

Once he had wrapped the blanket securely over Mr. Gardner’s thin shoulders and placed the mug of coffee in his hands, he closed the curtains to shut out the darkness. “That’s more like it,” he said with forced cheerfulness.

“Better anyhow,” the old man conceded. He stifled a cough. “Let me warm my throat a bit before you get me ruminating about the past.”

“Take your time,” said Boozer, sipping his own coffee. “Quiet is at a premium in this place.”

A few minutes passed in companionable silence before Boozer spoke again. “So you were about to tell me about a murder case?”

“That’s right. I’ll never forget it. You don’t get too awful many murder cases as a country lawyer. This one happened back in Greenbrier in 1897.”

“Early in your career, then?”

“I was nearly thirty, but perhaps it took me longer to qualify for my profession than it took you.”

“About the same, Mr. Gardner. I just turned thirty myself.

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