Rock-a-Bye Bones by Carolyn Haines Page B

wasn’t oblivious to the situation.
    â€œMrs. Uxall, I’m sorry for your loss.” I started to introduce myself.
    â€œGet off our land,” she said. “You got no call snoopin’ here. Rudy was a good boy, and today I got to make arrangements to put him in the ground. I don’t need nothin’ you’re wantin’ to say unless it’s to tell me who murdered my boy.”
    â€œI don’t know who stabbed Rudy, but I’m looking into it. He’s very much a part of my case, which involves a young woman whose life hangs in the balance.” I explained the situation to her.
    She shook her head. “Rudy wasn’t always smart, but he was never mean. He couldn’t hurt anything. He couldn’t chop off a chicken’s head if he was starvin’ to death, so don’t go tryin’ to say he hurt a girl and took her baby.”
    Mrs. Uxall wouldn’t be the first mother who had blind spots for the criminal inclinations of her son. “I’m not saying anything about Rudy. Don’t forget your son was stabbed, and maybe by the same people who took Pleasant. I’d think you’d want justice.”
    â€œYou think that missing girl was the reason someone killed my boy?”
    â€œIt’s possible. He may have been trying to help her. Look, I need to find Pleasant. If she just had the baby, she may need medical attention. Time is critical. Don’t you think she should be reunited with her child?”
    She thought a minute, and her face softened. “If Rudy took that baby, he had a good reason to do it. He didn’t confide in me, but he set a store by that girl. He was a friend to Pleasant, and he told me she could sing like an angel. He said she was gonna be famous, and when she was, she’d hire him to be her security. If he was fighting about Pleasant, it was because he thought someone meant her harm.”
    â€œBack when she disappeared, do you remember anything Rudy might have said? Maybe he was trying to help her. Maybe he said something that would help us locate her.”
    The others had slowly drawn closer to us as we talked. They were big people—tall and broad shouldered. If Rudy took after them, he would have been a good bodyguard for Pleasant. If he had been trying to help her, then he had been stabbed for his efforts.
    â€œI didn’t see Rudy much after Pleasant disappeared.” Mrs. Uxall pondered that statement for a moment. “He said he was movin’ in with friends, but he didn’t give no details.”
    â€œYour other son,” I indicated the man I’d talked with, “saw her broken down on the road.”
    She whirled on Alfred with a speed that astounded me. The next thing I knew she was beating him on the head with her purse. “You passed a pregnant girl on the road and didn’t help her. What did I teach you?”
    He ran through his excuses about picking up a tire, but she was having none of that. “I’ll deal with you when we get back from the funeral home.” She faced me again. “That’s all I know. If I think of anything, I’ll call. Rudy wouldn’t hurt Pleasant or her baby. If he had the infant, it was because she gave her to him. That much you can take to the bank. Now I gotta go.” She brushed past me and went to the car, her other sons following.
    While I was in the area, I decided to stop by Cotton Gin High School. I wanted to talk to the band director and some of Pleasant’s friends. If she’d run away, surely a classmate would know. If she hadn’t gone of her own free will, maybe some of her friends could tell me who had shown an interest in her in the last few months.
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    Built in the 1960s, the high school followed the architectural design of a chicken hatchery—a long, low, flat building with windows that could be pushed out at an angle. The school had been built in the days before central air,