A Sad Song Singing by Thomas B. Dewey

Author:Thomas B. Dewey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mac series, mystery, detective, private eye, sleuth
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2018-02-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

In a service-station washroom I cleaned myself up while they took care of the car. When I got to the café Cress and the proprietress, a large woman with fluffy gray hair and a well-creased face, were sitting at the table with their heads together over a piece of paper. Cress was doing the writing. The woman started to get up when I came in, but Cress put out a hand.

“Wait a minute,” she said, “I don’t have that last line yet.”

“Well, I have to get back to my chores—”

“Just do it once more, the last three lines.”

With a shy glance at me the woman sang, in a light, breathy voice. I couldn’t make it out and waited near the counter, while she sang and Cress wrote busily.

“Now,” she said, “let’s see if I got the whole thing.”

She sang, reading from the paper, a mournful, dirge-like song about a girl who dreamed all her life about owning a rare white horse and finally she got the horse and the horse threw her and killed her.

“Yes,” the woman said, “that’s the way I remember it. Don’t know what you want with an old song like that.”

“It’s beautiful!” Cress said.

The woman laughed and headed for the kitchen. Cress was on her feet, waving the paper. She kissed it and held out her arms wide, ecstatically.

“My own song!” she said. “It’s one her grandmother used to sing to her…”

“That’s fine,” I said.

She stopped in the middle of the room and sang it again, while the woman looked out over the service bar from the kitchen. When she finished, we both applauded.

“Guess what?” Cress said.

“What?”

“There’s going to be a hoot tomorrow at—” She called toward the kitchen, “What was the name of that town?”

The woman mentioned a college town farther south.

“Over by Danville,” she said.

“And guess what again?” Cress said. “Reuben will be there.”

“Well,” I said, “then we’d better get started.”

“All right. Thanks for the song!” Cress called.

The woman laughed heartily.

“Sure, honey. Let me know when it goes on the radio.”

Cress ran ahead of me to the car, waving the paper in the air.

“Need my guitar,” she said.

I got it out of the trunk and she climbed into the back seat with it. We started down the highway and she was at work, looking for the music on the strings and singing the sad song under her breath.

I kept looking for the big car with the two slugs in it, but there was a truckload of hay behind us and I couldn’t see what was behind that, and we led that load of hay all the way to the county seat, where I pulled up at the sheriff’s office.

“What for?” Cress said vaguely.

“Want to check on something,” I said. “You like to come along?”

“No, I’m busy,” she said.

I left her with her song and went into the station. It took me a few minutes to get onto a responsible officer, a middle-aged man with deep pouches under his eyes and gnarled, arthritic hands.

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