The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock Lady

Buddy looked at the house for a moment, wondering who was in there and whether whoever-it-was was likely to give him any trouble. He considered leaving his gun in the car, on the theory that, if he wasn’t armed, he’d be less likely to shoot somebody with it, and maybe less likely to be shot. Young Beau had a short fuse, and the three other male Pyles—Bodeen; his older brother, Rankin; and old man Pyle (who right now was serving a five-year prison sentence in Wetumpka State Penitentiary for killing a man in a fight over in Monroeville)—were known to be easily riled. Buddy had had no dealings with the female Pyles, but guessed that they wouldn’t win a be-nice contest, either.

He gave up trying to decide about his gun and left it where it was, holstered on his right hip. With a sigh, he got out of the car and made his way across the dirt yard to climb the step and rap on the screen door, scattering a half-dozen squawking red hens as he went. The exterior of the house had once been painted white but was now beaten by the weather into a subdued gray. The front step was a wide board propped on a couple of large rocks, and the porch sagged despairingly, as if it were anxious to separate itself from the house. The screen door had a big hole in the bottom panel where a dog had gone through it once and then kept right on using it as his own personal door. The dog in question, a mournful looking coonhound, came around the corner of the porch and stood watching him, head and tail down, too dispirited to bark.

A woman in her sixties answered Buddy’s knock. Standing on the other side of the screen door, she wore a blue cotton housedress that hung loosely from her shoulders, a feed sack apron, rayon stockings that had slipped down around her ankles, and felt house slippers. Her gray hair was piled in a loose bun on top of her head, and the tendrils straggled down over her neck. She was missing several front teeth.

Her eyes went to the star pinned to Buddy’s khaki shirt pocket, down to the holster on her hip, back up to his face. “He ain’t here,” she said, in a thin, querulous voice. “Nobody home but me.”

Buddy took off his fedora and pretended she hadn’t spoken. “I’m Sheriff Norris, Miz Pyle,” he said politely. “I need to talk to your boy Beau. It’s important.”

“Beau ain’t here,” the woman said, pointedly hooking the screen door. “No point in you lookin’. Him and Bodeen went down to Mobile and won’t be back till—”

A male voice came from somewhere inside. “Ma, if that’s Tubbs, tell him I’ll meet him at the pool parlor in half an hour.”

“It’s not Tubbs, Beau,” Buddy said loudly. “It’s Sheriff Norris. I need to see you. Now.”

“Aw, hell,” Beau said disgustedly. Something slammed, hard. Not a door, a boot, maybe, against a wall.

Buddy waited. When nothing else happened, he raised his voice but kept it even, easy. “No foolin’, Beau. You come on out now. We need to talk.”

“Got nothin’ to say, Sheriff. Nothin’ to do with it, neither.”

So he knew that Rona Jean was dead. “I hear you,” Buddy said. “Need to talk to you anyway. And I don’t think your mother wants me to come in and get you.”

The woman straightened her shoulders. “Beau,” she said sharply. “You, Beau! You get out here, right now. I ain’t havin’ no trouble in this here house, you hear?”

If Beau Pyle was afraid of anybody in this world, Buddy thought, it must be his mother, since he was out on the porch a moment later, pulling on a boot. He was a handsome kid, with a shock of black hair that fell across a broad forehead, a dark complexion and high cheekbones, a hard jaw, and a don’t-give-a-damn air. He got his boot on, then lit a Camel with a match flicked against his thumbnail and propped one shoulder against a porch post, mouth pulled down and petulant, a dangerously seductive bad boy.