Daddy steps up behind Annie and squats. He groans on the way down. With one hand, he pats the ground and riffles through the dirt. “You sure it was cigarettes?”
“Positive,” Annie says, and all those good feelings Daddy stirred up when he hauled off that rocker are gone as quick as they came because Daddy doesn’t believe her and he’s saying so right in front of Sheriff Fulkerson. “One was still lit even. At first, I thought they was yours. I thought they meant you was out here too, that Mama sent you. I looked for you in the barn.”
Annie says these things even though she knows they’ll hurt Daddy. Mama did send him, but he and Abraham had been drinking their whiskey. They’d been doing it more and more lately because Abraham would be getting married soon. Fun’s over once you say I do, Daddy was all the time saying and then he’d wrap Mama up in a hug and rub his stubble against the underside of her chin. Mama would swat Daddy away, but he’d keep at it until she closed her eyes and leaned into him instead of pulling away. Daddy sleeping when he should have been watching over Annie was probably why Mama burned the toast this morning. Grandma is always saying a cook who burns the biscuits is an angry cook, indeed. The same must be true for a cook who burns the toast.
“Yep,” Daddy says. “I should have been here. But wasn’t me. Wasn’t my cigarettes. Maybe you was mistaken.”
Sheriff Fulkerson joins them but doesn’t try to squat. “Probably mistaken,” he says, repeating Daddy.
“But one was orange-tipped,” Annie says, digging two hands into the dirt, gathering it in her palms and letting it filter through her fingers. She stares up at both men, looking them in the eyes so they’ll know she’s telling the truth. “It was still burning. I’m certain. Certain as can be. I snubbed it out. Daddy’s always saying we have to be careful. But I thought they was Daddy’s. I was sure.”
“There anything else, Annie?” the sheriff asks, planting the sole of his black boot right where Annie had been rummaging in the dirt. “Anything you ought tell me?”
Annie can’t tell him about the spark that’s been in the air or the trouble that’s been lurking. Folks, regular folks, don’t like to hear about things like that. But for a week, Annie’s known it was coming, and here it is, and now folks think she killed Mrs. Baine.
“No, sir,” she says. “Nothing more to tell. But I seen those cigarettes, and if they ain’t here, that means someone took them.” Annie was wrong. Aunt Juna isn’t coming home. She’s already here. “I think they were Juna’s cigarettes. My Aunt Juna’s.”
Sheriff Fulkerson starts shaking his head again, and it’s surely disappointment making him do that and not the splendor of Annie.
“Think we’ve seen all we need to,” he says and looks off toward the house. “I see my deputy’s here.”
On the drive below, a dark-blue sedan has parked behind Daddy’s truck.
“Thought he could stay close to you folks,” the sheriff says, “for the next few days.”
“Why do we need someone staying close?” Annie asks, shielding her eyes and looking down on the parked car.
When no one answers, she drops her hand and turns to the sheriff. He’s looking at Daddy as if wondering what should and should not be said.
“You think Aunt Juna’s come home, don’t you? You think it too.”
Daddy lets out a long breath. He’s not so good at politicking. The sheriff, however, opens up a big smile and wraps an arm around Annie’s shoulders. It almost makes Annie forget he most certainly thinks she had something to do with Mrs. Baine dying. Grandma is right. He is awful good at politicking.
“Come on down and meet him,” the sheriff says. “You’ll probably remember him. Jacob. He’s a year or so older than Ryce.”
“Jacob Riddle?” Annie says a little too quickly.
“You do recall, huh?” The sheriff gives her a wink and squeezes her so tight she feels his damp underarms on the side of her face. “Been helping me out since he got back in town. Maybe he’s the fellow you seen down in that well? I’ll be sure to tell Ryce he’s got himself some competition. What do you think of that, John? Think you’d have Jacob Riddle for a son-in-law?”
Stretching one hand overhead, the sheriff waves it side to side so Jacob will see them. The driver’s side door of the sedan swings open, and Jacob Riddle steps out. No mistaking it. That’s Jacob Riddle all right. He waves back in the sheriff’s direction, but it isn’t a wave to say hello. It’s a wave to say hurry on up. There’s something bad going on down here.