‘Find out what it is,’ Ben said quickly, ‘and let me know as soon as you can.’
Susan Breedlove answered the door almost immediately. She was a small, but slightly overweight woman, with reddish hair and pale complexion. Her son stood at her side, staring silently into Ben’s eyes.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Breedlove,’ Ben said as he took off his hat.
‘Who are you?’
Ben took out his identification. ‘Ben Wellman,’ he said.
Mrs Breedlove stared at him suspiciously. ‘Did you know Charlie?’
‘Yes.’
‘I never seen you with him.’
‘We weren’t exactly friends,’ Ben said. ‘Not like Daniels.’
The woman’s eyes continued to watch Ben apprehensively. ‘Well, thank you for coming,’ she said at last. Then she stepped back and began to close the door.
Ben caught it in his hand. ‘I’d like to talk to you for a minute.’
‘What about?’
‘I understand that Charlie’s wedding ring was missing.’
Mrs Breedlove’s body grew taut. ‘Somebody stole it.’
‘It might have fallen off.’
She scowled bitterly. ‘They stole it. The people that killed him.’ She shook her head resentfully. ‘There’s no way that ring fell off. It was too tight for that. Somebody pulled it off Charlie, that’s what happened.’
‘He had twenty dollars in his wallet,’ Ben said, ‘nobody took that.’
For a moment Mrs Breedlove considered Ben’s remark. ‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ she said finally. ‘I just know that it didn’t fall off my Charlie’s finger. Somebody pulled it off.’ She glanced down at her son, then ran her short fingers through his light-brown hair. ‘Go on out in the back, Billy,’ she said.
The child backed away reluctantly, his eyes still on Ben.
Mrs Breedlove waited until he had disappeared into the back of the house. ‘Are you looking into all this?’ she asked, once the screen door had sounded and she knew the boy had made it to the backyard.
‘Yes.’
‘How come it ain’t Harry?’
‘They figure he’s too close to it, I guess,’ Ben told her.
She looked at him quizzically. ‘Wouldn’t that be a good thing, though?’
‘It might be,’ Ben said.
She opened the door slightly. ‘Well, come on in, anyway,’ she said with a small shrug.
Ben followed her into the small living room. There was a short square television in the corner and a brown, hooked rug on the plain wooden floor.
‘The ring, it looked just like this,’ Mrs Breedlove said as she placed her hand flat beneath a table lamp. ‘It had one of them little blue stones, just like this.’ She smiled to herself, her voice softening as she spoke. ‘Sapphire they call it. Pretty. It stays that same blue forever. At least that’s what the man at the jewelry store said.’
Ben stared at the ring. ‘Did it have anything written on it?’
‘“For Charlie. Love Susan,”’ Mrs Breedlove said. She shrugged. ‘That’s all.’ Her eyes swept the empty house. ‘I don’t have no family,’ she said as she lowered herself into a small, plastic-covered chair. ‘Charlie didn’t have none either. That’s why it’s like this, empty. Nobody to come and comfort us like family people do.’ She shook her head. ‘Course, there’s been a few dropped by. Harry come over, that was one. And the Chief come. And Mr Starnes. Some of the neighbors come over for a few minutes this morning. But that ain’t the same. Besides them, it’s just been me and Billy setting around the house.’
Ben took a seat on a small green sofa. ‘I’m real sorry about Charlie,’ he said. He waited a moment, watching her face, trying to determine what to ask next. ‘May I ask you, ma’am, if you knew what Charlie was doing?’
‘What do you mean, “doing”?’
‘What he was investigating.’
‘No, he didn’t never talk about it.’
‘And last night,’ Ben continued gently. ‘You were away.’
‘Charlie told us to leave for the night,’ Mrs Breedlove said.
‘Why did he want you to do that?’
‘Said it was the colored people,’ Mrs Breedlove told him. ‘Said it was because of all the trouble.’
‘That’s all he said?’
‘He didn’t give no other reason,’ Mrs Breedlove said. ‘He just came home, said he had to take us to the bus station early, picked up our old garden shovel and took us to the station.’
‘He picked up a shovel?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘No. He just put it in the backseat of the car and off we went.’
‘To the bus station?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘And he said he was taking you early because he had someplace he needed to go.’
‘Someplace to go, right, and that he had to get on over to wherever it was.’
‘Did he mention where he was going?’
‘No,’ Mrs Breedlove said. ‘But he never mentioned things like that. He always kept me in the dark about what he was up to. Charlie was like that. Maybe I knew him a little, but I don’t think nobody else did.’
‘What time did he leave that afternoon?’
‘He took us to the bus station at around six, I reckon,’ Mrs Breedlove said. ‘He told me to call him from Hunts-ville when I got there.’
‘To call him at home?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which meant that he expected to be back at around eight?’
Mrs Breedlove nodded. ‘It’s about two hours to Huntsville.’
‘When did you call him?’