Huckleberry Fiend by Julie Smith Read Free Book Online

feed Spot as well; I could call from the airport. I stuck the key under the mat and hit the road.
    What with dropping by Booker’s, I walked on the plane with about thirty seconds to spare. So I didn’t call till we touched down in Memphis and by then the ungrateful wench had stepped out on some selfish errand of her own. Too bad she’d have to hear my newly acquired accent secondhand. “This is your Huckleberry free-and,” I told her machine, “calling from Mimphis, on my way to Foo-all-ton, Miss’ippi. I’m trackin’ down the provenance of a l’il ol’ manuscript.” Sardis herself was from Mississippi and I knew she’d be pleased I’d learned her language.

CHAPTER 5
    Fulton was just out of Tupelo, birthplace of a great American hero, and such a thriving metropolis I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find Elvis Presley Park to pay my respects. But that was one thing I vowed to do before I left town.
    First I found the Natchez Trace Inn, checked in, and pored over the phone book for awhile. There weren’t any Edwin Lemons, but there were five others. Two never heard of Edwin, the third was out, and the fourth thought Edwin might be related to her husband’s third cousin once removed, Veerelle Lemon, over in Ballardsville. Veerelle was the fifth. Her voice was listless. “Edwin? Edwin hasn’t lived here in ten years. Since ’77, I b’leeve. Or was ’78 the year he left? I declare, I can hardly remember any more.”
    If, in sizzling Itawamba County, anyone’s blood has ever run cold, mine did at that moment. “He was your husband?”
    “My son. Best boy there ever was too. Wadn’t anything he wouldn’t do for me.”
    “And where is he now?”
    “Haven’t heard from him in ten years, just about.”
    “Mrs. Lemon, I’m a private investigator from California. I wonder if I could see you for a few minutes?”
    “You know somethin’ about Edwin?”
    “Maybe. I’m trying to find out, anyway.”
    “I wish you’d come on over, then. First thing in the mornin’, you hear?”
    Going to Ballardsville was like going back in time, almost to Huck and Tom’s day. There were no sidewalks and no street lights. The roads were paved and there were plenty of cars on them, and tractors in the fields, but you could tune that part out. The farmhouses had wide front porches with swings on them. Some had ponds that had really been dug to be stocked with catfish, but that looked like good swimming holes. Sharecroppers’ children played barefoot, brown legs covered with red dust.
    Instead of one of the charming old ones, Veerelle’s house was a low-ceilinged and badly built modern one. She’d apparently furnished it with the hand-me-downs of a dozen Lemon families whose taste ran to early American, with plenty of Naugahyde recliners thrown in. Somewhere in the family tree were a knitter of afghans and a crocheter of antimacassars.
    As for Veerelle, she was as nice a lady as you’d ever want to meet. Primly permed salt-and-pepper hair, pleasant summer dress, bucket of beans in lap. (“You don’t mind if I string my beans for supper, do you?”) She seemed very much like someone’s mother.
    “I can’t tell you who my client is,” I began, “but I’ve been asked to look into a matter that may concern your son.”
    Her eyes brimmed. “You’re not gon’ tell me there’s a chance he might be alive?” They overflowed.
    “I’m sorry to upset you, ma’am. But, honestly, I haven’t any idea. I was given his name at a university library where he’d made some inquiries.”
    “A library? Why, Edwin worked in a library. Over at Itawamba Junior College.”
    “He was a college librarian?”
    “Sure was. Ole Miss graduate, but he came home to work. Built me this house, too, after his daddy died. ’Course, he lived over in Fulton himself. In a tiny little place.”
    “Was he married?”
    “No. Always said wives were too expensive. Didn’t like to spend money— except on me. Didn’t want a thing for