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A Summer Mystery
Shawn Thornburg
(Based upon "A Summer Tragedy" by Arna Bontemps)

The dim light bulb tried in vain to light the already-sunlit workspace of officer Hiery Grendelson, who casually flipped up the bottom right corner of the first page of an overly thorough two-page investigation report (it had been written by an irritatingly perky upstart named Jenson Bennet; "That kid would soon grow out of that follow-every-rule phase and start cutting corners," Hiery thought) and began reading what was under it. "What kin' of ah name is Jenson?" he murmured when he saw the word "wepon" on the second page. "Kid can' even spell 'weapon.' The academy must be fughettin' ta teach english dese days." His heavy southern drawl saturated every syllable of his speech: he had lived in Louisiana all of his life.

A soft tap sounded through the foggy-glass door, and when Hiery turned his head up and was about to say "Who is it?" he found a beautiful and familiar face staring at him from around the corner of the ajar door. From the familiar face came an equally familiar voice. "Hi, Hi." ("Hi" was what most people called him; his wife Ashton, who was now leaning over the desk for a quick smooch, liked calling him that because "[She] never [had] to say goodbye without saying Hi.")

"Hi, babe," he said with a slight chuckle. "You ah lookin' mighty fine tuhday."

"Well thank you. You don't look so bad yourself, hon. You sure don't look like you just turned the big four one." She didn't even have a hint of a drawl: she was from northeastern Kansas (originally Kansas City) and since she had only lived in Louisiana for five years (they had been married for four), she hadn't yet assimilated one. "How do you feel, old man?"

He didn't say anything, but rolled his eyes, ended the roll in an above-the-glasses-but-without-the-glasses stare from under the right corner of his brow (for he had propped his feet up on the desk and now had her to his right), and gave her a little sideways smirk; to her the look meant "You should know better than to ask that" without really meaning it, or at least not meaning it in a serious way. He lifted the report from his desk mat and after pretending to read it briefly he said,"Dis hea kid Jenson, uh, B-Ben-" he flipped to the first page of the report,"Bennet. Dat's the name. Anyway, he wrote dis report an' he can' even spell right. I reckon he come from one ah dem educated families, yeah-hea-hea? Hey," he sat up,"now you got me wondrin' how come you down hea anyway?"

Ashton wriggled free from her gray summer jacket without a word and hung it on the coat rack (where already hung Hiery's black suit jacket and matching cotton twill bucket hat; it wasn't a typical match of clothing, but then Hiery wasn't a typical police officer (really a detective-in-training). She produced from one of its pockets a small brown paper sack and sauntered to Hiery's side of the desk, plopping herself into his lap and delicately wrapping her arms around his neck. "I brought you a little something. Open it."

He accepted the bag from her hands and clumsily began unrolling the crumpled top; he swelled with anticipation and an anxious grin crept across his face as he removed a bundle of tissue wrap and tossed the empty bag over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"I can't tell you, hon. It's a surprise."

As he fumbled with the thin layer of tape-infested paper that separated him from his new gift, there resounded a disappointing noise that at any other time would have been welcome: the phone rang. He thought he'd just let it ring until he opened his gift. Then came the second ring and still no luck with the tissue wrap.

"Aren't you going to answer your phone, Hi?"

"Jus' a second, babe. I almos' got dis ting--"

The third ring finally forced him to remove the receiver from the base (he thought the call might be very important. "This is Grendelson, and dis betta be impo--oh hi, chief. Come again?" He listened intently for a bit. "Bennet's a'ready dere? Jenson Bennet? I reckon I betta get down dere, yeah? Thanks, chief." He hastily chucked the receiver onto the base (and it somehow stayed perfectly), flew to his coat rack (for Ashton had already stood up so Hiery could answer the phone) where he yanked his jacket and hat from their hooks, and turned his head only for a split second to say,"See you at da house, babe," before he vanished like a bullet from his wife's sight.

There in the silence stood Ashton Grendelson with her mouth hanging open as if she had been ready to say something but couldn't get it out in time for it to fall on any ears. She slowly glided over to the coat rack, slipped into her summer jacket (adjusting it with wrist turns at the neck as you might if your coat was uncomfortable at first), and pulled the door shut behind her as she left the office. On Hiery's desk, basking in the sunlight that streamed through the window, sat the still-unopened little bundle of half-torn tissue wrap.

The sun was hot on Hiery's black hat as he stepped out of his car (which was covered with dust from the drive out to a steep portion of shore along the Calcasieu River) and he wondered what on earth he was thinking when he decided to buy a black suit for summer work. He removed his hat and began fanning himself with it. Jenson Bennet's voice erupted from within the small maze of cars that crowded the shore of the river. "Mr. Grendelson!" (He called Hiery "Mr. Grendelson" because he said he couldn't handle being on a first-name basis with a man fifteen years his elder. Hiery hated being called that because it made him feel his age.) "Here's the situation, sir. A Ms. Delia Moore came into the office today stating that she found a car in this here river. She says she thinks she knows whose car it is, but she ain't going to say 'til she sees the whole thing. We can't get far enough under to tell if anyone is still in it. We're getting ready to pull it out right now. Please follow me, sir." Jenson only had a little bit of a drawl, which was more southwestern than southern: his parents had moved into Louisiana from Texas about 4 years before he was born.

Hiery followed Jenson down the steep slope to where they could see three police cars lined up with their backs to the river. Tied under their long, curved, chrome back bumpers were three ropes that ran into the water and seemed to converge near an old car tire that looked at first (to Hiery at least) like a tombstone. His heart fell when he saw this unpromising sight. The sound of the police engines suddenly grew louder as all three cars leapt forward and earth spewed from behind them. The ropes tensed up and within a few seconds the dead Tire began inching forward--slowly at first, and then, as the pulling loosed it from the river bed, it sped up steadily until it a whole car emerged, was beached, and met with the clay-shower greeting of the police tires. "Wow." The childish enthusiasm in Jenson's voice made Hiery want to slap him for again pointing out who was older. Instead, he began trudging toward the surfaced T-model Ford, with Jenson close behind, so he could get a better look.

The smell was the first thing they noticed and it stopped them both; it was a putrid, rotted, decomposed (and slightly fishy) stench that no man should ever have to smell in his lifetime. Jenson gagged and hunched over, but composed himself when he caught Hiery's eyes, hardened from years of police work and worse smells than this, gazing at him from within a disgusted glare.

"What's that smell, sir?"

"You'll see, Jenson. You'll see."

Presently there was much commotion as many police and medical officers, with handkerchiefs or hats or arms over their mouths and noses, converged on the old Ford (which was sitting half-crushed on its right door and covered with inches of mud) and quickly went to work: Hiery saw them group on the roof-side of the Car and at once (despite much slipping of foot) tip it upright; he saw a pry bar being tossed from hand to hand within the small crowd of professionals--he lost sight of it for a moment but found it again in the hands of an officer who (with a nauseated grimace on his face) was thrusting it under the edge of the door; once the door had been forced open (by no small work of the pry bar), he watched everyone dodge a large rush of a murky liquid that surged from the opening like water from a coffin that's been pulled from a sub-marine grave.

"Lo'd Ahmighty. That beh not be my Jeff sittin' in there." Hiery turned his head slowly toward the source of the new voice. There beside him with thin, raised eyebrows and hands resting high on her chest as if they had just been covering an unplanned look of surprise stood a short, thin black woman who couldn't have been any older than sixty.

Jenson introduced them. "Sir, this is Ms. Delia Moore. Ms. Moore, this is officer Hiery Grendelson."

"Please ta makin' yo acquaintance, officah Grendelson."

"Call me Hiery. Please. Ms. Moore, you were sayin' you might know who dis hea car belongs to. (Get dis down, Jenson.) You think you can identify it?"

"Call me Delia, Hiery. Please. An' as sho as the sun shines, that's old Jeff Patton's piece uh junk. Ah saw it drivin' on pas' ma house woulda been Sunday, both of the Pattons, Jeff an' Jennie (O, that po' blind Jennie), all dress' up in they nice Sunday bes'. Ah wondered where on Earth are them two goin' seein' as how church was already over and done. Then tuhday ah come down this road jus' like ah always do fo' a little Thursday morning walk, when ah saw somethin' peculiah in the river--somethin' that ain't nevah been there when ah been walkin' befo'. That's when ah realized what it was and ah walked straight back ta ma car an' drove ta the station." She had the heaviest, most southern drawl of them all: most of her ancestors, right up to the African immigrants, were slaves or citizens in the South, especially Louisiana.

Hiery glanced at the car and through the bustling crowd he could see two extraordinarily skinny human figures in the front seat. He gave a nod to the figure in the driver's seat. "An' you think Jeff Patton's da man sittin' in dat dere car right now?"

"Like ah said, Hiery, as sho as the sun shines. That's my Jeff an' that's his po' blind Jennie."

"Thank you, Delia. I think dat's all I need to know for right now. (Jenson, get her phone numba an' address an' anyting else you think we'll need.)"

"Okay, sir."

Hiery covered his face with his hat and approached the dead Vehicle to begin his investigation: he examined all of the bumpers and sides for signs of extravehicular contact (non-black paint scrapes, bumper-height dents, etc.)--he found none (or at least none on the uncrushed portions of the car); he checked the tires to make sure there had been no blowouts (which could have forced the car into the river)--they were all exceptionally fine despite their stint under the water and mud; he pried open the hood to check for signs of overheating or leakage (which could have produced smoke or steam and blocked the driver's view)--there were some slightly darker spots over the radiator, but nothing more than could be expected from an old Model T, and certainly not enough to indicate danger; he investigated everything he could think of investigating until he finally had to work up the courage to examine inside the car around the dead people (who still sat in the front seat because they had somehow stayed upright through all of the submerging and surfacing and tilting).

They looked absolutely grotesque--worse than they smelled; in fact, Hiery thought their stench was pleasant compared to their appearance. Their skin was almost a grayish black and flaking off here and there from water saturation, giving them the look of two dead lepers. They wore, as Delia said, their Sunday best: the man wore a top hat and tuxedo (which was riddled with small holes, and had an oddly tied bow tie) and the woman wore a black silk dress (though it didn't really look like silk at this point); but the nice garments didn't make them look any more pleasant. Hiery didn't want to spend any more time here than he absolutely had to; he leaned inside the cab for a second but immediately withdrew: the smell inside was worse than outside (and he almost gagged). He didn't think he saw anything other than the bodies inside, but he thought he should check again later, after the bodies had been removed. He scanned the ground for the Ford's tire tracks, and though much of them had been wiped away by the commotion, he managed to find the set that, if not muffed, would have continued into the water; he walked along these through the chaos of police tracks to the top of the steep slope, where they continued onto the pencil-mark road. He noticed a deeper spot within the tracks where he thought the car would have stopped for a moment before it tore off down the slope; he also noticed that the path that led from where he stood to where the tracks entered the water was as straight as a bee-line, as if there had been no attempt to correct the path of the car. A thought struck him that made his mouth fall open, and as he gazed at the T-Model Ford and its passengers and listened to the soft thunder of the stream, it swam around in his head: suicide.

"Delia," said Hiery when he rejoined her and Jenson,"can you show me whea Mr. and Mrs. Patton lived?"

"Why ce'tainly, Hiery. What on earth fo'?"

"I need more information. You said Mrs. Patton was blind?"

"As a bat."

"Please tell me more."

During the drive down the tiny thread of road to the Pattons' home, Delia told Hiery everything she knew about their lives: how they had lost five grown children in two years (because, she said, "Jennie's who' fam'y was jus' weak like that"); how Jeff was a share farmer and worked the cotton fields that extended from their house to the river (because "Jennie held him back"); how old man Stevenson, the landlord, never gave Jeff more than one mule at a time (because "Jennie never let him ask for more"); how Jeff's hands always hurt and kept him from doing much of anything (because "Jennie worked him too hard"). Though he was picking up useful clues from Delia's information, he was glad when they pulled into the small clearing in front of the Pattons' tiny log house and were able to begin surveying the area.

Hiery stood in front of the car, fanned himself with his hat, and examined the yard around the house: he saw two frizzly chickens bobbing around aimlessly and a third one in a dead heap by the side of the house; he saw a shaggy, grass-roofed car shed, under which stood a cow staring in dumb puzzlement. Other than these things, there was nothing worth noticing, so he began walking closer to the house, with Jenson and Delia following closely. When he reached the front door, he tried the handle, and it opened right up; someone had forgotten (or not cared) to lock it when they left. When he entered and had snooped around a bit, he found the most revealing clue of all, the one whose absence helped formulate his jaw-dropping thought: blind Jennie's feeling stick, what she would have used to tap her way around unknown places--what she wouldn't have gone anywhere unfamiliar without--what she would have left at home only if she knew she wasn't going to get out of the car--was more than two miles away from her, leaning against a door frame in her house. At that moment, officer Hiery Grendelson knew that Jeff and Jennie Patton, the two passengers in that old, dead T-Model Ford, that black share farmer and his wife, had never planned to make it back from that Sunday drive through the country.

A billion thoughts swam through his mind: thoughts about mortality; thoughts about love and relationships; thoughts about his wife and future children; thoughts about human nature; thoughts about thoughts about thoughts. They kept him company all the way back to his office, where he snagged the little bundle of tissue wrap from his desk, and, pushing off the investigation report until tomorrow, returned home to greet his wife with countless kisses and affectionate hugs. Together they tore off the tormenting tissue paper and revealed a miniature golden cup trophy; around its base were engraved the words: To Hiery and Ashton, the Happiest Couple in the World: Wishing You a World of Joy Through all of Your Days. -Jenson B.

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