The Cottoncrest Curse: A Novel

Chapter 22

74 1893 Chapter 22 “I don’t understand why we just couldn’t get them darkies to do this!” Bucky was on his hands and knees, examining every square foot of the vast hallway that ran through the center of Cottoncrest, dividing the house in half. “Because I told you to do it. That’s why.” Raifer was concentrating on the staircase, step by step. He was now halfway up and still had not found any signs of a bullet. They had thrown open both doors and all the windows to let as much light in as possible. They had worked their way around the walls of the hall, looking for a hole in the heavily patterned wallpaper or in the dark frames of the portraits that hung on long wires from the wide crown molding. That had taken them more than half an hour. Now they were doing the floor and stairs. “I’m doin’ it, ain’t I?” Bucky responded. “But what’s a bullet gonna prove anyway? Dead is dead. He shot himself. He had the gun in his hand.” “Bucky, you keep flapping your mouth, it’s just likely to flap so much that we could use it to mill rice. Think about what you saw when we got here, and tell me exactly and without drama.” “Okay. She was dead. Face down on the stairs. Head almost cut off. His head was on her back. Gun in his hand. He had shot himself. Blood was everywhere. What could be clearer?” Raifer had now reached the red-stained stairs. Despite all the wiping and washing that Marcus and Cubit and Jordan had done yesterday, the distinct odor of blood mingled with the smells of the wood and the damp cloying mustiness of mildew from the wallpaper. “Good. Now where had the bullet entered?” “His temple. You saw that, Raifer. His temple.” Bucky’s knees were beginning to hurt, but he inched his way to the next section of floor. 75 “Think, Bucky. Which temple? Which way was his head lying on her back?” Bucky paused a moment and sat with his back against the wall, to give his knees a rest. “His head was lyin’ with his right ear down on her back, so that means he shot himself in the left temple.” Raifer looked out over the banister and saw Bucky sitting on the floor. “You can’t think and work and talk at the same time?” Bucky took the hint and started crawling again, pulling up the narrow oriental carpets and running his hands over the wood floor beneath , feeling for any holes. At each knot in the wood he paused, but the knots were shallow, filled with nothing but lint and dust. “He slits her throat, she dies. He drops his knife, and then he shoots himself in the left temple. We’ve been all over this. This is what I told you and Dr. Cailleteau yesterday. I seen it all and figured it out.” Raifer was now at the landing on his hands and knees. “Bucky, if you’ve figured this all out, then tell me how a man who is right-handed shoots himself straight through his head by putting the barrel to his left temple?” Bucky called up, “Raifer, it’s easy. Look.” Raifer stood up and looked down at his deputy in the hallway below. Bucky, on his knees, straightened his back and took his right hand, and pointing his index finger like a gun, lifted it slowly to the side of his head. It was so obvious. “No, Bucky. Remember. He shot himself in the left temple.” Bucky took his right hand and brought it around to the other side of his head. But now he had to twist his arm and wrist painfully to make the index finger point straight through. A puzzled look came over his face. “I don’t understand. This don’t make no sense.” “I agree. That’s why I need you to keep looking.” Bucky bent over again, trying to figure it out. It must be all part of the curse. That’s it. The curse explains everything because when you got a curse on a place, like Cottoncrest, anything is possible. Raifer, crawling around the second-floor landing, had not gone but a few feet from the staircase when his hand felt a depression in the floor, something that could well have been just another deep knot in the wood. Up...