Silent

“You have the right to remain silent…

Hey, y’all… I reckon you folks’r up from the State Crime Lab over there in Frankf’rt. Welcome ta Mon-roe, Kentucky. Bufort Smalley’s my name an’ I’m the Sheriff here ‘bouts. I sure am sorry ta have to bother all y’all, but we been havin’ some mighty strange goin’s on ‘round here an’ it seems ta be gettin’ out o’ hand lately, an’ that’s why I called you folks. I been sheriffin’ roun’ here for nigh onta thirty years now an’ I ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. Anyhow, I sure ‘preciate y’all rushin’ right over here the way ya did, an’ all.

Well, so’s not ta waste too much o’ y’all’s time I’ll get right to the point. This whole mess started way back in the summer of 1955 an’ it was as hot a August as I ever did see. Now  I don’t know’s all y’all can remember the case we had back then involvin’ ol’ Billie Jo Haggerty or even if you ever knew ‘bout her, but I can sure still remember her like it was just yesterday cause I’m the one th’t drug her in here on the day that ol’ Cyrus Everett went an’ got his self kilt… murdered he was an’ I blamed her for doin’ it right off. As nervous as she was I could tell that she was up ta no good, too. An’ ya know… lately there been some things happenin’ ‘roun’ here as put it all right back in my mind clear as day but it’s a long story, so let me start right back at the beginning so’s you’ll un’erstand a whole lot better what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.

Like I said, I drug her in here and I slammed her right down onta that there chair you’re a sittin’ on. “Congratulations, Billie Jo,” I tolt her and smiled right in her face as I said it. “You just won my ‘shit sack of the year’ award. This time I’m gonna see ya get what’s comin’ to ya, too.”
         Oh, that ol’ Billie Jo Haggerty… brassy as they come, she was “I ditn’t do nothin’ wrong,” she said in that there sullen hillbilly voice o’ hers.
         “What you mean ya ain’t never done nothin’ wrong, you sack o’ rat droppins ?” I grinned an’ I spat tuhbacca juice right on her as I said it, too. “Why I doubt you can even get up out’n the bed right in the mornin’. ‘Bout ever’thing you do’s dead wrong. I been tryin’ ta get you for a awful long time now an’ I never got nothin’ that I could make stick, but this time you gone too far an’ I got you real good. Ya shoultn’t never have gone an’ kilt him.”
         “Kilt who?” she shouted and then she started inta lookin’ real nervous. “I ain’t never kilt nobody in my life,” she said, an’ she was startin’ ta sweat. “Bein’ a Christian I woultn’t stoop that low an’ you know it. An’ I ain’t never said that I ditn’t never do nothin’ wrong, neither. The plain facts is I might’a done a whole heap o’ things in my life that ain’t what you might think is too God-awful good, but a body gotta do what a body gotta do ta survive.”
         “I don’t know nothin’ of the sort,” I said an’ I spat on her again. “You know there ain’t no such thing as no nigger Christian, an bein’ a half-breed nigger’s even worse so don’t give me none o’ your sauce. I’ll never understand how or where you ever got the gall to stand right here in your cast-off rags an’ yell in my face about how ya ain’t never kilt noone; all the whiles a blasphemin’ and a taking the Lord’s name in vain ta prove what I’m sayin’. Why, for all I know ya might o kilt a hundert people back there in the hills where you come from an stole them clothes you’re a wearin’. It’s plain ta see that they ain’t your’n. An if it ain’t so, then why ditn’t you never just cart your stinkin’ moo-latta ass right back up there where you b’long?”
         “I’d go back there in a minute,” she said and leapt right out’n the chair an’ stood up straight in front o’ me and if you’ll believe it, she done looked right directly into my eyes. Give me the chills it did. “West Virginia’s God’s country, but you know danged good an’ well there ain’t ‘nuff money back there ta keep body an’ soul together since the mines up there at Kempton an’ Cassity was shut down. Why, when the mine there at Hickory Lick was closed about everyone that was there either moved right down here into the flat lands or tried their luck down around Baltimore way an’ you know it’s so.”
         “That might be so,” I tolt her, “but what I also know good and well is that you’re a lyin’ through your teeth when you stand there tellin’ me that you ditn’t go and kill that there Cyrus Everett. Done him up right good and proper with that there little kitchen knife of yours, and I found it still a stickin’ right there in the hole in his chest, too. Everybody in this here town knows that you never cottoned to ‘im and now you gone and done the unspeakable.”
         “I don’t know what you’re a talkin’ ‘bout. You sure are right, though. I never did like that there Everett boy… nor none the rest o’ his fambly neither. A bunch o’ inbred no ‘count white trash they are.” Ain’t nary a one of ‘em got the brains God give a wooden goose, nor the decency to admit it, an’ ever since the good Reverent Mr. Blake stopped him an’ his two brothers from tryin’ ta rape me I ain’t never had no truck with the whole lot of’ em. Good man, that is. He gone an’ wailed the tar out of ‘em for tryin to harm me.”
         Well, Sir, when she said that I reached right out and slapped her right smack dab on her face… left behind an real big red welt, too. I reckon that there’s what started things to goin’ the way they did. Not that I regret it, mind ya.
“Don’t you never speak bad of the Everett family again,” I warned her. “Why them boys is the apples of their momma’s eye, every one of ‘em, and she’d take on so to hear you a talkin’ about ‘em that way. I won’t have it, neither. Raised them all by herself, after their poor daddy went an’ died the way he did an’ all. That there nigger preacher got his comeuppance fer what he done, too; a beating on them poor fellas like that. Yep… that boy never was worth a lick anyhow and by the time ol’ Junior Cumine got done a whuppin’ on ‘im there was hardly nothin’ left o’ him to speak of. Landed him slap in the hospital up there in Polk county, he did. Served that there nigger right, too. Stayed there a good long time from what I hear, an’ then for some reason he come just a tearin’ out o’ the place and he kept right on runnin’ til he hit that big ol’ swamp that sits in back o’ there. ‘Bout ever’body knows it’s just chock-full o’ them there Cotton Mouth snakes, too, so ain’t no tellin’ what ‘come o’ him. Probly nothin’ good, I’d imagine.

Ya know somethin’? I sure hope it don’t offend ya none ‘cause I sure don’t mean nothin’ by it an’ maybe it’s just a trick o’ the light in here ‘cause it’s startin’ ta get a bit dark out, but now that I’m thinkin’ ‘bout it, you sort o’ favor that boy…

Well, anyhow… I reckon what you’re wonderin’ is if I really think that she  kilt that there Everett boy. Well, accordin’ to the records she did. Fact is, it was all wrote down right in this here ol’ filin’ cabinet. Had ol’ Widda Hotchkins write down the entire conversation for me like she did every other interrogatin’ cause I can’t hartly spell nothin’. All the evidence we had includin’ the knife was tucked right in there with it, too, but ‘tween you an’ me an’ the fence post, I know for a fact that she ditn’t do it an’ try as we might we couldn’t get her to confess to it, neither. She must have taken that there little speech we have ta tell everybody about keepin’ quiet ta heart, cause she never did admit to no wrong doin’ the whole time we was interrogatin’ her. That was strange, too, cause I’d never seen nobody who woultn’t admit to doing just about anything weather er not they done it once I had ol’ Junior start in to workin’ on ‘em. I mean, shit-fire… most folks’d start ta confessin’ soon as they saw ‘im walk in through the door. If’n they ditn’t start ta talkin’ when he come in, soon as he commenced ta whuppin’ on ‘em they’d become a right fountain o’ information. Just couldn’t get ‘em to shut up most times. Why shoot… they’d even start to confessin’ ta things we ditn’t even know about just ta get ‘im ta stop. Not ol’ Billie Jo, though. She was a tough one, she was. It was about like she’d rather bite out her own tongue than to give me the satisfaction of admittin’ to killin’ that there boy. All she kept doin’ the whole time was prayin’. Fact is, she commenced ta prayin’ soon as she saw Junior come in an ditn’t stop til the last breath left her body. Ditn’t even scream like ever’body else always did. Died right there while we was askin’ her questions without even answerin’ a one of ‘em, she did. It sure surprised us, I can tell ya cause we hatn’t never had that happen before an’ ol’ Junior ditn’t even have time to knock her around a awful lot. Only got to hit her, oh… maybe five or six      times ‘for she give out. I guess all that prayin’ was just too much for her heart, an’ ol’ Doc Waverley agreed. Said her heart must a give out from prayin’ too hard and ruled her death ta be o’ natural causes. I reckon it was about the only decent thing she ever done, too. Saved the good people of this here county all the expense of payin’ for her havin’ a lawyer an’ havin’ the circuit court judge come in ‘an give her a trial and all.
As things worked out all it cost was a ten dollar wood box and a hole in the ground up there in the pore folks cemetery nearby where that ol’ nigger church use ta set. To my recollection they ditn’t even give her no marker to show where they dumped her, neither, and now that the church’s gone and got itself burnt down an all I doubt you’ll be able ta find anybody who’ll be able to tell ya even where to start in to lookin’ for her. Course, I don’t know why you’d really want ta know. No offence, though, but bein’s you’re a darkie too, then maybe somebody up that way’ll tell ya. All I know’s they don’t hartly never even talk ta me none.
It’s a awful funny thing ‘bout all that evidence we had again’ her, too… some things happent as made me go in there an’ look at it a while back an there ain’t nothin’ much left of it. All that writin’ that Widda Hotchkins done was plumb ruin’t by what looked ta be ‘bout a gallon o’ blood bein’ dumped over it and you know that kitchen knife I tolt you ‘bout? Well, it was gone. Strange thing is the drawer was still locked up tighter’n your Aunt Fanny’s girdle an’ I had to pry the lock off’n it ‘cause it was all rusted shut so I know dang good an’ well ain’t nobody been in there. It got me ta thinkin’ on things real hard, though, an’ now I ain’t even so sure nomore that what she was doin’ was prayin’ at all. I think that maybe what she was doin’ was performin’ some sort o’ that there voo-doo or somethin’ like that. I ain’t too certain ‘bout how none o’ that stuff works, but don’t they use some kind o’ blood in doin’ that sort o’ thing?

Anyhow, it wasn’t long after that that ol’ Junior had that accident with his pulp truck. He was a comin’ down off’n the mountain full o’ logs an’ either he somehow got distracted an’ got to goin’ too fast or the brakes failed and he drove it right off’n the loggin’ road up there and smack into a big ol’ pile o’ rocks. Somebody said that maybe he had a wheel fire or somethin’ like that, but I never seen no smoke up there to speak of. One way or ‘nother, though, ol’ Junior ain’t never gonna tell us much about it ‘cause it kilt him deader’n a doornail. 
Ya know… it sure seems funny how’s right after that the Doc seemed to take a turn. Seemed as he changed over night, it did. Always was a right friendly sort o’ guy an’ a real good frien’ o’ mine, but all of a sudden he ‘came over real quiet like and ditn’t hardly never talk to nobody nomore. Even stopped droppin’ ‘round over at the Town Diner fer lunch like he always had done. Reckon that’s how it begun, anyhow. Soon after that he took to drinkin’ shine. Never was no drinkin’ man ‘fore that, neither. I saw him on the street one day and ast him ‘bout it an’ he just tolt me to mind my own dad-gum business and he pushed right past me an’ took off like his britches was all afire. Some time after that he showed up at the church come a Sunday mornin’ during services. Drunk as the Lord he was, too. Walked right up front o’ the congregation and shoved the good preacher out’n his way an’ he commenced ta shoutin’ ‘bout it bein’ such a sin as ta how the folks o’ this here town tolerate so much bigotry an how the law allows real murderers ta walk around free as a bird an’ then they go ‘bout killin’ innocent folks for things as they ditn’t do an’ then how one’ll lie ‘bout it and another’ll come right along an’ swear to it.
Well, sir, ain’t hartly nobody in that there church could understand ezackly what in thunder he was goin’ on ‘bout, but that ditn’t seem ta bother him none. He went on an’ said it anyway, an’ then tolt ever’body ‘bout how’s he was right sick of it and just couldn’t live like that no more, then he pulled a knife out’n his coat pocket and shoved it right into his own heart. Him bein’ a doctor ‘an all I reckon he knew right where ta strike, too, cause he just stoot right there in front o’ ever’body in the church a bleedin’ like a stuck pig and then just fell down dead.
‘Course they shooed all the women an’ kids out’n the place and then they called me ta come ‘round an look at the body an’ all that, an’ believe it ‘r not, the knife he used was the same one as was used ta kill that there Everett boy an’ had gone missin’ from the drawer down there at the station house. It all struck me as bein’ kind o’ peculiar at the time, but I took it an’ locked it up all over again only this time with the file on ol’ Doc an after that things seemed to quiet down ‘round here a good bit an’ stayt that way for a good long while so I guess I sort o’ forgot about it.

I figgered as how things must be gettin’ back ta normal and then here, oh… ‘bout a month or so back things took a strange turn again an’ that’s why I calt askin’ y’all ta come on up here to help me sort it all out.
Ya see, like I was sayin’ things stayt real quiet fer… oh, seven or eight years an’ then one day about a month ago ol’ Widda Everett come tearin’ in here  carryin’ on ‘bout how somebody’d gone an kilt her oldest boy, Caleb. He’d been workin’ on a electric wirin’ job over there at the old Barlow farm an’ ‘cordin’ ta her, somebody’d gone an’ fixed things up so’s that he’d ‘lectrocute his self. Well, sir, course I ran out with her an done my duty and looked at the body an’ all, but there wasn’t much o’ nuthin’ I could do ‘bout it.
Now… you see, old Caleb there… well, he never was what you’d think of as bein’ the sharpest fork on the dinner table an’ I never could understand just why anybody’d go on an’ let ‘im do anything more dangerous than, oh… maybe tie his shoes, but here somebody’d gone an’ let him get to foolin’ around with that there ‘lectricity an from lookin’ at things I reckoned that maybe he’d got hisself tangled up in one o’ them there short circuits an all an’ it just knocked him flatter’n a puddle o’ pee.
Well now… that ol’ widda wouldn’t have none o’ that an’ she got ta talkin to just ‘bout anybody’d listen to ‘er an’ now she’s gone an’ got ‘bout half the danged town convinced that he’d been murdered like her other son was a few years back an’ they was all a wonderin’ ezackly what I was gonna do ‘bout it when another of her bunch, ol’ Fat Cecil, went an got his self ran over by a truck out there on old State Route 105. Course ‘bout ever’body in this here town’s getting all nervous now an’ demandin’ that I find out who’s killin’ folks off an’ never mind that the driver o’ that there truck an’ two other eye witnesses includin’ a State Highway Patrol officer’ll come right out an’ tell ya that the boy was staggerin’ down the middle o’ the road drunker’n a hoot owl an’ that there trucker come over the rise with the sun shinin’ in his eyes an’ never even saw him til it was too late ta do much o’ anything about it ‘cept stop an’ scrape ‘im off’n the headlights.
Course the Widda Everett don’t believe none o’ that neither an’ is insistin’ that ever’body’s lyin’ an’ that none o’ her boys never been drunk in their lives an’ that he must o’ been murdered just like her other two sons was an’ that I’d better get off’n my fat backside an’ find out who done it if’n I know what’s good for me.
Now, let me ask y’all. What am I supposed ta do? Here one guy drives his own dad-gum pulp truck slap in to a big ol’ pile o’ rocks and another one shoves a knife into his own chest right there in front of a whole danged churchfull o’ folks, then another one goes on an’ kills his self while he’s messin’ around where he shouldn’t ought ta be a messin’. Then yet another fool gets all drunked up an’ goes out on the highway an’ gets a danged GMC hood ornament tattooed right smack in the middle o’ his big ol’ forehead.
Well sir, it’s like I said a while ago, the strangeness of it all’s gone an’ brought that there ol’ Billie Jo Haggerty back ta mind for me. Then the other day ol’ Bob Gannett, the barber, come in here all a pale an’ shakin’ and said he was lookin’ out his front winda an’ saw ol’ Parson Blake stroll past his shop an’ that it sure ditn’t seem right with ever’body figurin’ him for dead an’ all. Then yesterday evenin’ ‘bout twilight I’d swear I saw ol, Billie Jo walkin’ ‘round the corner over there by the post office as clear as day, but I know that don’t seem real likely cause I know for a fact that she’s dead, an’ when I run up an looked ‘round the corner to see who it was there wasn’t nobody there at all.
It almost seems as if’n she’s somehow hangin’ around here an’ makin’ just about anybody in this here town who ever done her wrong pay the cost of it now, don’t it? Lookie here… First off there was Cyrus Everett. He’s the one who went an’ tried to rape her that time. Then there was Junior and after that come ol’ Doc Waverley. After him was the last two Everett boys that tried to hold on to her so’s ol’ Cyrus could have his way her.
Now I reckon as I’m ‘bout the only one left an’ that brings us to the point. You remember that ol’ kitchen knife I was talkin’ ‘bout? Well, like I said, I’m maybe the last one on the list an’ it’s got me ta feelin’ a mite nervous ‘bout things so I went in an’ looked for it in the evidence locker, an’ you know what I found out? It up and disappeared again right out’n the cabinet where I had it all locked up with the information on ol’ Doc Waverly killin’ his self with it an’ you’ll never guess where I found it again. Last night I woke up at around two o’clock in the mornin’ for some reason an’ since I was awake anyway I got up an went out to the kitchen get me a big ol’ dipper o’ water an’ there it was layin’ right slap in the middle o’ my kitchen table. Now, I don’t have no notion t’all as ta how it got there, neither. I know I never put it there an I checked all the doors an’ windas an’ they’s all locked up tight so nobody else could o’ got in and put it there. Well, what I done right then an’ there was ta put it in this here envelope an’ seal it up tight an’ then I brought it ‘round ta give ta y’all so’s you can check it over good an’ proper like an’ I don’t know, maybe find some finger prints on it or somethin’ ta find out how it got there.

Well, sir, you folks don’t talk a awful lot, but you sure listen real good. Now I done give you a whole lot o’ information in a short time so I reckon I’ll just leave you good folks alone now to see what y’all can make o’ it an we can talk about it again tomorra… if’n we’re all still alive, that is.
Now if’n you’re ‘bout ready ta call it a day I’ll walk y’all out an’ point ya to’rd the roomin’ house. Ya know… It don’t seem hardly safe to be out alone round here no more.

Monroe Daily Record
July 19, 1962

Funeral services are being held for Sheriff Bufort Smalley tomorrow morning at 10:00 o’clock at the Monroe 1st Baptist Church on the corner of Main St. and Sycamore.

The sheriff died last night when he was struck by the 9:00 P.M. Greyhound Bus from Roanoke, Va. Eye witnesses have told us that the sheriff exited his office moments before and appeared to be involved in a conversation with a person or persons that they couldn’t see. After a brief exchange on the curbside during which he appeared to be giving directions to somebody Sheriff Smalley staggered as he turned away and fell in front of the passing bus and was crushed beneath the wheels.

***

Why, hey there, Bobby Lee! How ya doin’ on this fine sunny mornin’?

Just fine an’ dandy, Luke. Thank ya. How’s your momma keepin’?

Oh, she’s doin’ just fine now that they took that danged cast off’n her leg, an’ so am I. She done nothin’ but complain ‘bout it for the whole dad-gum time it was on ‘er. Tell the truth, I got a might tired o’ hearin’ her harp on it.

Yeah, that was a nasty tumble she took, wasn’t it?

Uh-huh, but she’s a tough one, she is. Say, Bobby Lee; all y’all goin’ to the funeral tomorra mornin’?

Yep… reckon the whole danged town’ll turn out ta send ol’ Bufort off ta meet his maker.

Yeah, whoever that was. That ol’ boy sure was a piece o’ work.

Wasn’t he though. I reckon the Baptist church’ll be plumb full o’ folks that turn out ta see for themselves when they dump ‘im in the groun’… an’ those that ditn’t like him doubly so.

Yeah… I reckon well better’n half the danged town’ll be a wantin’ to watch ta make sure he’s covered up right so’s he won’t come a crawlin’ back out again. Which side o’ the isle y’all gonna be sittin’ on?

What do ya mean?

You gonna be sittin’ on the side as liked him, or the side as ditn’t?

Well, I reckon it don’t make much difference to him, bein’ dead an’ all but I figured I’d sit over there nearby his mom. She always treats ever’body pretty decent, an somebody gotta keep ‘er company ‘cause at her age she shoultn’t ought ta be left all alone ta weather the storm an’ she ain’t hartly got nobody else now. ‘Sides that, I imagine there’ll be a whole lot more room ta spread out over there; if’n ya know what I mean.

Yeah, I reckon you’re right.

Say, d’ya hear how he died?

Well, Bobby Lee… I hear tell he stepped off’n the sidewalk in front o’ his office an’ got his self run over by the 9:30 Greyhoun’ comin’ down outta Roanoke. That’s what they said in the Record ‘bout it, anyhow.

Yeah… I hear tell it looked like somebody pushed ‘im.

Yeah, I heard that, too… heard it looked like he was standin’ there talkin’ ta somebody as wasn’t even there an’ when he turned ta walk away he was pushed off’n the curb. That wouldn’t explain the knife, though.

What knife’s that?

Well, from what ol’ ‘Deputy Dog’ was sayin’ there was a rusty ol’ kitchen knife a stickin’ right in the middle o’ Bufort’s back when they pult him out from un’er the bus.

Shoot! That ol’ thing again? Ol’ Bufort been a goin’ on about that knife’s long as I can remember. I heard ‘im tellin’ somebody over at the diner one day it’d gone missin’ an’ then somehow turned up again the day ol’ Doc Waverly kilt hisself with it over there at the church. After that it went ta missin’ again an’ now it’s supposed to have turned up stickin’ in the middle o’ his back. ‘Tween Me an’ you I ain’t even sure it ever did exist. Least wise I sure never seen it.

Maybe it’s like that ol’ Parson Blake.

Who’s that?

Oh, ditn’t you hear? Ol’ man Gannett’s telling ‘bout anybody who’ll listen that he saw that colored Preacher ol’ Junior landed in the hospital some years back come a strollin’ by his barbershop winda the other day. I reckon that’d be a trick seein’s how he’s probly dead an’ all.

Well, ya know what my momma always said, don’t you?

Uh-uh, what’s that?

She always said, “Y’all oughtn’t b’lieve anything ya hear an only ‘bout half o’ what ya see.”

Damn… ain’t that the truth. Well, I reckon I better shake a leg. The corn ain’t getting cut with me standin’ here chewin’ the fat with you. Nice seein’ ya, though.

Yeah, I know what you mean, Luke. I got me a big ol’ hog that needs dressin’ out up there an’ I reckon it ain’t gonna get no deader with me standin’ here. See ya at the funeral tomorrow.

Yeah… if’n we’re all still alive, that is.