Nobody Knows Your Secret

58

Bill was about as frustrated as a beaver looking out over a hundred acres of logged land. He was getting nowhere fast with this case. 

It wasn't like they had murders and gangland shootings every day. But the area was no longer the safe, idyllic place it used to be. 

This isn't Shangri-la anymore, Bill brooded.

He'd grown up in these mountains and hollows. He'd been dirt poor but happy. Bill wondered if Skippy hadn't fallen prey to those drug suckers who'd invaded his little patch of paradise.

Skip just wasn't the same kid he used to be. He'd grown secretive and distant. Could be alcohol. Heaven only knows, Bill thought. 

Too many bear traps for young kids, nowadays. Still, he hoped he was wrong. He hoped his son was just gnawing on some problem as insignificant as whether to go steady with Katie or drop her and ask Nadine out.

Life should be so easy, he thought.

The phone rang. It was Virgie Winthrop.

"No, Virgie," Bill said. 

There was a tiredness in his voice. He really would have liked to have given the woman some good news for a change. Heaven knew, she deserved it. But there was none. 

"Naw, Virgie. Nothing's changed. I'll call you if we find out more."

There was nothing more to say. Bill knew in his heart that Kyle's killer might go free. There was so little evidence to go on. Practically zilch at the scene. Nobody had come forward with any leads. And in a community the size of Hope Rock, that was unusual. Everybody in this small burg knew everybody else's business.

Or so it seemed.

Bill remembered when Pearlie Corinne was making watermelon wine in her kitchen. All the neighbors knew it, but Pearlie Corinne's husband, Billy Jewell, who just happened to be a prominent deacon in the First Baptist Church of Hope Rock County. had yet to figure out his wife's latest enterprise because he drove a semi on long hauls across the country. 

Pearlie Corinne wanted some sippin' wine to get her through those long, lonely nights without Billy Jewell.

"Just a little nippin' juice," Pearlie Corinne would say, "to take the edge off my nerves."

Bill would never forget the look of shock on Billy Jewell's face when he came in after a long run to find the ceiling of his kitchen dripping pink. Pearlie Corinne's 30-odd gallon plastic jugs had exploded. Billy Jewell swore to this day that his kitchen smelled like the butt-end of a brewery, albeit, a watermelon one.

Then there was the time Savannah Dorsey disappeared for two days. Her folks swore she'd been kidnapped. Savannah was 17 years old and in the ninth grade. She wasn't the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, but she was a good girl. At least, all her family said so.

It was two weeks before the May Queen pageant. Savannah had been nominated a half-dozen times. She'd never won, but she had come in a close fifth or sixth a couple of times.

Oswold Tennie was as sweet on Savannah as a honey bun. He'd known her since grade school. Oswold was 13, pimply, and red-headed. He had one thing in his favor. He was smart as a whip and had skipped two grades.

He sat beside Savannah every day for a whole year. Oswold was intent that this year his beautiful Savannah would win the coveted prize of May Queen.

Because he was so smart, Oswold knew he could never win Savannah on his good looks and charm alone. The fact that he was so much younger than her was a problem, too, but it was one that Oswold felt he could overcome.