The Turkey Tussle

Chapter 2

Chapter 2––––––––

Hannah tipped her head toward the counter and the kitchen area beyond it. I nodded and clammed up but Selma either completely missed the exchange or she chose to ignore it.

“It happened in the early seventies,” She began, “before Melissa and Karissa were born.”

I winced at the sound of Mel’s proper name being used.

“It was ’72,” Lucy said. “Even before Faye and Jesse were married. They were courting back then but they were both still in high school. Faye’s six or seven years younger than me and I’d been out of school a couple of years by the time it happened so I know it was ‘72.”

I smiled. The old woman was sharp. “They got married in ’76, a couple of years after they both graduated,” I said. “We had a little 40th anniversary dinner for them this year.”

Selma leaned back and crossed her arms. “So ’72 then; that means Faye was about 16 when it happened.”

“That sounds about right,” Lucy said.

My curiosity got the better of me. Disregarding Hannah’s unspoken warning, I plunged in. “So what happened?”

Bridget rested her forearms on the table and leaned across it, toward me. “It was at Thanksgiving, like Lucy said. They were having a big gathering with a lot of family from all over the area in and several local people too. One of the locals, a man named Tanner Mathis, was killed that day...stabbed to death, as I recall.”

“Mathis? That name doesn’t ring a bell to me.” I rubbed at the back of my head as I wracked my brain over the name.

“It wouldn’t,” Lucy said. “He wasn’t family to them; just a family friend.”

“He was stabbed inside their little water closet,” Bridget said. “A small powder room that was under the stairs,” she clarified, at my puzzled look.

I knew what a water closet was; I just didn’t know where it was. There’s no bathroom under the stairs in the house Kris lives in that used to be her grandparents place and that still, technically, belonged to her grandmother, Eunice Lafferty, who was in a nursing home. If there ever had been, it wasn’t apparent to me.

Lucy picked up the thread of the story before I could even ask about the bathroom. “It was a real whodunit at the time with multiple suspects but it was never solved.”

“Were any of the Faye’s family suspected?”

There were nods around the table.

“Things were dying down around here by then,” Marsha said. “Most of the Laffertys had already moved from the area and were just in for the holiday. They didn’t go real far away, mind you but, really, only Faye’s immediate family stayed on here in the village. Her parents, her and her sister and her brother were all that were left living here in town.”

I shook my head hard. “Sister? I didn’t know Faye has a sister.”

Selma patted my hand. “She’s long gone, dear. She was older than Faye; born mentally disabled and she died fairly young.”

“In her late teens,” Bridget said in a low voice. “She lived in a state home during the last few years of her life because the family couldn’t really control her and care for her.” She pursed her lips and shook her head slowly.

“So back to my question, then; were any Laffertys suspected?”

Hannah, still standing by holding Jef, offered, “More coffee anyone? Can I get anyone anything else?”

I could hear the desperation in her voice but the ladies around the table were oblivious. They were off and running.

“Drew was, at least at first, I think,” Marsha said. “I don’t know about Owen, his brother.”

“Him too,” Bridget put in. “All the men there that day were suspects...or questioned, at least. Mathis was a good for nothing that wasn’t well liked,” she added. “Any number of people that day could have done the deed.”

The other women nodded except for Lucy. “I’m a little younger than these fine ladies, she said. “I didn’t pay a whole lot of mind to him back then, but someone sure had a problem with him.”

“What do you suppose it was about him that would push someone to murder him?”

All eyes turned to Marsha.

“He was a poker player,” she said. “Seemed to make his living at it. Most of the men around town farmed or worked the oil fields or both. The oil workers would play cards when they got paid in backrooms in illegal gin joints that dotted this village and the surrounding area. He did too and he seemed to win more than his fair share of the games. Took my own husband, God rest his soul, for a penny or two.”

“Illegal places?”

“Yup,” Selma said. “The village went dry during prohibition and it stayed dry, aside from moonshine, for a good 15 years after the murder until some of the younger folks pushed for beer carryout at the gas station.”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “Now they have beer at that pizza shop. It’s turned into a pub and a hangout for all the backwoods oil men that don’t want to clean up to go up to the Boar’s Head.”

I chuckled out loud at the notion of The Boar’s Head being a higher class place they had to clean up for.

They diverged from the subject at hand to rail about the pizza shop turned bar for a minute and I watched as Hannah breathed a sigh of obvious relief. It was to be short lived.