Chapter 13
Lying in bed that night with the breeze fanning my face, I began to relax. The cool air felt as soothing as my mother’s hand when I was a child, sick with a fever. Sighing, I burrowed into my pillow. In younger years, I would repeat Bible verses before going to sleep. What had happened through the years that made me feel God was far away? When my dad died, it hurt terribly, but Mom was there as a buffer between me and death. When Jake died, there was no buffer and the finality hit me head on. Jake had been my rock and he was gone. Would I ever find the peace and trust that I once felt?
I would try, once again, to remember a favorite Scripture. Closing my eyes, I whispered the beginning of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”
Who, indeed, Lord? I thought drowsily, if You are with me?
Sleep vanished as a sound penetrated my consciousness. I sat bolt upright. What had awakened me? My bedroom curtain moved as a breeze blew through. Had the wind knocked something off my dresser?
Throwing back the sheets, I padded to the window. The full moon lit the front yard, making it almost as bright as day and throwing long shadows of trees and bushes across the grass. An owl disengaged itself from the moon-silvered oak and flew silently away. Owls are night birds, and sometimes they fly into yards, so there was nothing unusual about seeing it. Maybe it hooted and that was the sound that woke me.
Something, however, felt wrong. Could this be the same owl I heard before our near break-in? Had it adopted Mom and me and taken upon itself the job of guarding us?
As I gazed at the shadows in the yard, one of them moved. This shadow was large and upright. A man stepped out from behind the oak. As if I were watching an old, silent movie, a smaller figure appeared, walking toward the man, her housecoat flapping in the breeze. Mom! That was my mother, alone and unprotected in the middle of the night, closing in on a stalker who had trespassed into the yard!
Panic urged me down the stairs, shoe-less, with not even a robe around my pajamas. Yanking open the front door, I dashed toward those two moonlit figures.
“Mom!” I yelled. “Get away from him!”
My mother turned toward me and spoke in a quiet voice. “It’s all right, Darcy. This is Jasper Harris. I think he is hungry and needs to come inside for a sandwich.”
Five minutes later, I sat across from Jasper at the kitchen table, watching him wolf down bread and cheese, a slab of apple pie, and a glass of milk.
Mom put a cup of coffee in front of me before sitting down. We must have made a strange tableau: two silent women staring at this young giant, his elbows keeping his chin off the table. The only sounds in the kitchen were Jasper chewing and then his satisfied, “Ahh” as he drained the glass of milk and pushed back his plate.
He grinned. “Thanks, Miss Flora.”
Mom patted his hand. “I remember when I taught you in Bible School. You were always the best eater at refreshment time.”
I could stand the charade no longer. “Is it just me or does anyone consider this situation to be a tad odd? If it doesn’t hurt your feelings, Jasper, will you kindly tell me what you were doing skulking around our yard at one o’clock in the morning?”
Fear shone in Jasper’s eyes. He squirmed in his chair.
“Now, now, Darcy,” soothed Mom. “Did you know that everyone in town is worried about you, young man?” She smiled at our visitor. “Maybe you would like to tell us where you’ve been. If you are in trouble, Darcy and I will do our best to help you.”
I set my mug onto the table with a bang. “We will?”
To my dismay, Jasper’s mouth crumpled like a child’s. Tears ran down his face. “You was always nice to Ma and me, Miss Flora. You and Ben treated us real good. I ain’t never forgot that. Ben even brought us groceries once when Ma’s check was late. It hurt me that somebody killed good ol’ Ben and left him out there in that pile of sticks and rocks and even cut off his finger.”
The sound of the old wind-up clock over the sink seemed as loud as a snare drum. Outside the kitchen window, the wind made little skirling sounds as it blew around the corner. I opened my mouth but no words came out. Mom’s eyes sent me a message. She wanted me to let her ask the questions. We must not alarm our guest who, after delivering such astounding news, seemed poised to get up from his chair and disappear into the darkness.
Leaning toward Jasper, Mom said, matter-of-factly, “So you saw Ben in that pile of dirt and sticks at the cemetery. You saw that his finger was missing.”
Jasper nodded. “Ben had helped us and I wanted to help him. I couldn’t leave him out in the storm, now could I?”
Numbly, I shook my head.
Jasper nodded and looked down at his empty plate. “So, I took him off to a place where he can sleep and nobody will bother him.”
Faintly, Mom said, “You wanted to give him a decent burial. Of course you did.”
“I didn’t bury him exactly,” Jasper confided, “but Ben is where he’d want to be.”
Ignoring my mother’s warning look, I said, “What do you mean, you didn’t bury him exactly?”
Jasper’s face settled into stubborn lines. He scooted his chair away from the table. “I ain’t sayin’ anything more. Where Ben is, that’s my business. I know he’d want to be there and that’s all that matters. Nobody knows where he is except me. The owl and me. We’re the only two knowin’ Ben’s whereabouts and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
This thing about owls was beginning to get under my skin. “Do you mean that owl that was in the tree where you were hiding tonight, Jasper? Is he your pet?”
Jasper looked smug. “That’s for me to know,” he muttered.
Mom quickly rose and poured Jasper another glass of milk. “And what about Tom Bill? Do you know where he is?”
“Ol’ Tom Bill? Why, no. Is he gone somewhere?”
Mom shrugged. “He probably is just on a little trip,” she said. “Maybe he’ll turn up soon.”
I leaned toward Jasper and tried to speak as gently as Mom had. “Where were you Saturday night? Did you come to our house then?”
Jasper looked at me pityingly. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Then I go walking. I just walk, no place in particular. Saturday night I was in the woods behind your house and I saw somebody right up against your house. I was slipping up on him, keeping an eye on him. I couldn’t figure out why anybody would come around at that time of night. He snuck around and climbed up on your porch. I was just about to collar him when that ol’ donkey brayed! Ain’t never heard anything so awful in all my life. I guess it scared him ’cause he ran off. I watched for a while longer to make sure he wasn’t comin’ back.”
If Jasper could be believed, he wasn’t our intruder that night. Mom said the Lord kept us safe. Not only had He caused the donkey to bray, He had sent Jasper to guard us.
Shifting in my chair, I said, “Getting back to Ben, Jasper. It’s important that you tell Sheriff Hendley where you put him. Do you know anything about Skye Ventris? You know she’s dead too, don’t you?”
Jasper’s eyes widened. “No! No way am I goin’ to talk to the law. They’d think I killed Ben and Skye too. They’d lock me up. Uh-uh. Nobody’s going to lock me up and nobody’s going to find me or Ben neither!”
Jasper shoved back his chair and bolted out the back door.
I ran after him. “Wait! Wait! Jasper, you’ve got to tell us. You won’t have to talk to Grant.”
Mom shook her head. “He’s gone, Darcy.”
Locking the door, I returned to my chair. “Yes, he’s gone back to hiding. But Mom, at least now we know how Ben disappeared from the cemetery. And Jasper is big enough that he could have moved Ben by himself.”
I closed my eyes, trying to not see an image of a frightened boy who, in spite of the lightning and rain, cared enough about his friend to move him out of the storm. Jasper had meant to do a good thing, but he had only complicated this mystery and perhaps brought trouble upon himself.
Gazing at Mom, I asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get a full night’s sleep?
Sighing, Mom said, “I can only hope. Somehow, it’s reassuring to know that somewhere out there, Jasper is keeping an eye on things. We don’t need a security system, Darcy. We’ve got the Lord and Jasper Harris.”