The Queen of the Cicadas Read online

  “I’m sorry to disturb you so early, but we need to call the sheriff straight away. There’s been a murder on your property.”

  She looked right through him, like she was part of a conversation in her mind, ignoring them both and the tragic news he had just imparted to her.

  “Betty? May we come in? It’s urgent.” Pastor Rich didn’t want to sound gruff, but he questioned her reaction.

  “I’m sorry, yes, please. A murder? That’s awful! Who is it? Hope no one we know. Call straight away!”

  She turned her attention to the young woman. “You poor thing. How did this involve you? Let me give you some breakfast and a drink. Coffee, preacher?”

  Betty was known as a perfect host, and even in the midst of this dire situation, she took on that role. Rich felt uncomfortable around Betty but didn’t know why. “I don’t think I can stomach coffee right now. Just the phone.”

  She guided the young woman and Pastor Rich to the kitchen, where the phone was located, then took food out of the fridge. A pie, juice, butter, jam, bacon and eggs. Then she moved to the cabinets for mugs and glasses. If the sheriff and his boys were coming, they would want coffee. Breakfast. She turned the heat high on the cast-iron skillet to fry the bacon quickly. The sound of sizzling meat began as a low hiss until the cracking and popping of blistering flesh filled the entire kitchen. When the edges began to curl, she tossed the slabs to the other side. Betty glanced back at Rich to see if he watched her. What did he know? What would they find? The sting of grease hitting her hand broke her growing anxiety. Just cook, Betty, she told herself. The bacon seemed done enough. She placed it on a plate. Two eggs cracked to cook in the fat. She glanced back again, but this time to the first witness of the crime. Betty wasn’t worried about her. They knew better than to bite the hand that feeds them.

  The young woman sat at the table with silent tears in her eyes, spilling over her round brown cheeks. Not a sound. Betty turned back to the eggs to scramble them quickly. A dash of salt and pepper. Large glass of juice as a nice gesture. That would do. She placed the plate of hot food and juice in front of the young woman.

  “Go on and eat up. You’ll feel better. Most probably better than that camp food.” Guadalupe looked at the plate, gulping the saliva in her mouth, then glanced at Pastor Rich, who was still on the phone.

  Betty folded her arms. “Now, don’t be ungrateful, girl. Eat.” The young woman looked at Betty, then the plate. With all her strength within her stony hands, she grabbed the fork. Slow bite by slow bite, she chewed and swallowed as Betty watched on.

  “Good girl. See, not so difficult.”

  Pastor Rich hung up the phone. “Sheriff and the boys are on their way. Suppose they’ll contact Jim, the coroner. I told them to send an ambulance for this young lady. Her name is Guadalupe. I want to make sure she’s okay. She looks really shaken up. Reminds me of my uncle when he got back from the war, after seeing his friends die like that…. I think maybe Guadalupe knew the woman on the tree. I’ll do my best to translate.”

  Betty made no expression. “I think that is unnecessary. Look at her eating just fine.”

  Pastor Rich looked at Guadalupe, eating tear-sodden eggs and bacon, struggling to swallow. Just the smell of the food and coffee was making his stomach turn after the sight of the body. “Well it’s done. We’ll wait on the porch. Shouldn’t be long.”

  Betty had already returned to her duty to prepare to entertain the gang of law that would soon take over her home. Ray would be down any minute and want his breakfast, too. In the end, Guadalupe finished every bite and drank every drop before leaving the kitchen with Pastor Rich. Betty cleared the plate and looked at the counter, dissatisfied with the amount of pie that she had. Maybe there was time for a quick batch of biscuits.

  * * *

  On the porch, Pastor Rich watched Guadalupe closely. She looked like she wanted to vomit the breakfast, but knew she couldn’t. The young woman, who wasn’t more than twenty, would probably swallow the vomit before letting it spill from her lips. What made him sick was Betty’s behavior, so cold and odd. But maybe because he had seen the victim, he was more affected. His body shook with adrenaline pumping hard through his veins. There were sirens approaching. Finally, help.

  Ray Perkins and his nephew Billy clamored down the stairs to all the noise. “What’s going on, Betty?” Ray asked in an irritated tone, in jeans and an undershirt sloppily thrown on. Billy was already fully dressed with boots in hand.

  Betty didn’t bother to look up from her busy work. “There was some accident on the farm, I mean…murder. I’m fixin’ food but you should go on out to the porch and talk to the preacher.”

  The entire farm was disturbed with the sound of barking dogs and raised voices, people not knowing where to go or what to do. Billy went straight to the fields, trying to get the workers to keep moving along as if they were blind cattle. If anyone stopped to gossip or try to sneak away, they would be let go immediately without pay. They needed to know this wasn’t no charity, this was work. There were plenty of ’em waitin’ too. Nothing was happening that was any of their concern. Terrible things happened in life and that was the way of it. He wanted the entire situation under control and over with so it could blow over without it leaking to the surrounding towns. This farm was his ticket to all his hopes and dreams, and he would be damned if one woman who didn’t mean much to anyone took that away.

  Two police cars arrived at the Perkins house, with Betty already setting up a spread fit for a post-church luncheon. Ray stood on the porch with his arms folded across his large belly, still disheveled from sleep. The pastor and Guadalupe stood next to him, pale and vacant-eyed. Both Pastor Rich and Guadalupe refused to go back to the crime scene and opted to recount events on the porch. After, Guadalupe was taken to the hospital to be treated for shock. It was time for Sheriff Don and another officer to see the victim as they waited for the coroner to finish his breakfast. Alice, Texas was not used to this kind of fuss.

  “Well ain’t she ugly,” said Grady, a young officer. He kept his distance, hoping he wouldn’t be the one to untie the body.

  Sheriff Don already knew this would have to be kept as quiet as possible. The victim wasn’t one of their own, but it could cause a lot of noise for their community. “Let’s just get this done and over before word gets out. You hear? Grab the boys and look for anything that might tell us who did this. Grass is tall so look close.”

  There wasn’t a shred of evidence around or on the body to even know where to begin looking for the perpetrator of this crime. Different-size footprints scattered in every direction because this was an open space free for anyone to walk through. No murder weapon could be found once they set up a perimeter. She was fully clothed, which was a relief. There was nothing to say this woman didn’t die from some sort of natural causes by the look of her after being tied up. Stroke? Heart attack? No gunshot wound. No knife wound. The only obvious wounds appeared to be some sort of insect bites that covered her exposed skin. By the look of the texture of the dirt on the body, the sheriff guessed ants.

  Someone might have done this as a cruel prank, not knowing she would die. Cicada shells covered the crown of her head and cascaded from a jaw that hung loose.

  Sheriff Don had been on the police force for most of his adult life and never did he see a crime scene like this. Even if it did begin as a prank, it ended in death. If only she was just alive, they could have come to some sort of agreement. Now he had to put the time in an investigation and keeping it quiet. The farms relied on these workers. The sounds of the insects buzzed and rang in his ears, making it difficult to concentrate. He swatted away the gathering flies attracted to the decomposing meat. This happened in the other parts of the South, not here. He’d never met a Klan member in his life. That kind of nonsense would never be tolerated. Alice was a quiet, wholesome place with folks being here for generations. These families were tied to the
land; it was theirs. No, whoever did this could not possibly be local. They brought this here. What else could explain it? Must have been one of their own men mad at having his advances ignored. Probably moved on by now. His sister-in-law was living out there in California and told them about a Mexican field worker trying to unionize these people. Making a lot of unwanted noise. Demanding things. What a joke. They weren’t even American. How could he do that? Who did he think he was? Don didn’t want any trouble like the far south and he definitely didn’t want any trouble for the farms around here, with the workers getting big ideas. He knew all the farm families, broke bread with them in their homes. Nope. Neither he nor his men would stand for trouble coming from outsiders. They would keep an eye on anyone who didn’t belong. Everyone had a place. They weren’t here to breed or put down roots, just work. True, this was a heinous crime, but terrible things happened every day. Yes, it was wrong, but by the looks of it there wasn’t much they could do without evidence. It would have to be just one of those cases that went nowhere. A car approached in the distance. Maybe the coroner, who was taking his sweet time. Sheriff Don knew that car. Fucking Henry from the paper. Who in the hell told him already? Probably someone at the hospital.

  Henry Doyle parked his car behind the police vehicles, then approached the sheriff with his Brownie Hawkeye in hand but did not look at him. His eyes were fixed on the body.

  “Holy God, Sheriff. What happened here?”

  “Morning, Henry. My guess is this young lady didn’t like the attention of another worker and he didn’t like that one bit. He made her pay in the worst way. Probably gone by now.”

  “Is that what the evidence suggests?” Henry walked closer to the stiffening corpse. This was the first murder he’d ever encountered. Chicago, Memphis, New York had all this, not Alice, Texas. This was a story. The biggest story he would cover to date.

  “Henry, if I allow you to print anything or take a photo for your paper, that is what you will say. You hear me?” Sheriff Don gave him a stern look to enforce his point.

  Henry understood all too well. At least it was something he could send off to a bigger paper, not that anyone would care, but maybe they would. This was a story he couldn’t wait to print.

  “Understood, Sheriff.” Henry licked his dry lips and approached the tree, focusing on the body. “Smile,” he whispered with a snicker.

  * * *

  A distant voice. “Belinda, should we head back?”

  I turned to Hector, who was speaking to me. “Her grave. Where is her grave?”

  “That’s at the Baptist church I’m surprised is still standing. The real estate agent showed me photos and it looked like it was ready to be bulldozed or abandoned.” Hector paused and furrowed his brow. “Come to think of it, I’ve never been there…to her grave.” He turned to the setting sun, which bled into the horizon with the darkness hovering above. The moon was just coming into view as a half circle.

  “But it’s going to be dark soon. You want to go to a graveyard at night? There are no streetlights around. The church has been there as long as this house.”

  If we were going to see Milagros, I wanted to pay my respects properly.

  “You mind if I crash another night? Just tell me what I owe you.”

  He waved his hand for me to follow. “Your friend Veronica left a few bottles of Bordeaux that I wouldn’t mind trying, and catering left my fridge full of food that I don’t want to eat on my own. Of course, you can stay. This was my last wedding of the season before it gets too hot.”

  I canceled my flight, which I could easily rebook for the day after next. After, Hector and I settled in for life stories, two bottles of wine and leftover wedding food. When he stumbled upstairs, I could hear a doorknob twist and rattle. It sounded like he was ensuring the bathroom was locked.

  The church was a short drive past a strip mall with a Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree, down a two-lane road. Unlike those monstrous, shiny megachurches with big, flashing signage, this was a small wooden building with faded paint curling and flaking away. The roof needed repair, the shingles looking like a smoker’s teeth.

  We entered the graveyard. It was filled with grandiose oaks that shaded most of the graves. It was a relief from the sun, which felt like a fireball about to plummet to the earth. There was an elderly man with a faded trucker hat on his head and a white bandana secured beneath it, covering the back of his neck. He kneeled on a rolled-up towel, pulling weeds from around the graves with a small spade. It was so quiet you would have never known there would be a service later that morning.

  He stopped his work as we approached. “Can I help you?” His eyes and eyebrows were almost a matching silver, both having lost their color with time. His crepe-paper skin looked like he had spent too much time in the sun in his long life.

  “We’ve just come to see the grave of Milagros.”

  There was not a cloud in the sky, yet a shadow crossed his face. “Oh. That was a terrible, terrible thing. No one’s been here for her. I’ll show you myself. Just finished weeding that patch, so she’s looking tidy.”

  The cicadas’ song grew louder as we approached her grave. “You know anything about her?” I asked.

  Shadow fled and memory took its place as he faced the sun. If only deep creases of time on one’s face could predict the future like the lines of a hand. “I guess I can talk about it now. It was that young woman, Tanya, who did this. She and her friends who died. And the friends all died terrible deaths. One was pregnant.” I saw a flash of shame in his eyes that he tried to disguise with this last piece of information.

  “I can’t believe she was never punished,” I spat.

  His eyes met mine. “You don’t think lying in a hospital bed watching the world turn isn’t punishment? She’s still there. All her people dead, too. She’s been moved to a home that isn’t in the best condition. I go about once a month to pray with her. I need to believe she asked for forgiveness. I know it’s selfish of me, but when you know the end is close…. Anyway, I don’t know anything personally about Milagros, but I do have some boxes. I thought someone would claim them. Before Mrs. Perkins committed suicide, she brought over a ton of boxes for storage. You see, they were losing the farm and didn’t know where they were going. She said it was personal records for when the time was right. She was on edge, seeing things. I did what I could for her, but it wasn’t enough. She confided in me about the murder. I told her my conscience wouldn’t allow me to know that information without taking action. I made it clear – she either told the police or I would. They were being pretty hard on the Mexicans and Black folks. May God forgive me. She killed herself not a day later. It was her letter of confession that revealed the truth about the murder, but it was too late for the police to do anything because they were all dead, except for Tanya. At the very same time I was at the police station, Tanya was on her way to the hospital. After that it all fell apart. The farm foreclosed and Ray moved to California to be with family with only the clothes on his back. No one wanted to touch the place, until this young man here decided to put all that money into it. Looks better than ever. Sometimes things just need a little love. Anyway, I’m not getting any younger and someone will have to clear this church out. Happy for you to look.”

  My interest was piqued. I wanted to know more about Mrs. Perkins and what she was experiencing. This part of the tale was not online. And I couldn’t help but think about my dream. “What do you mean she was experiencing visions? Did she say anything specific?”

  The old man lowered his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll try to remember. Didn’t make sense then and it still doesn’t now. I honestly thought it was a dose of old-fashioned guilt.”

  Chapter Five

  Alice Baptist Church, 1952

  “Preacher, I need you to hear me. Please pray for me. Ask God for forgiveness on my behalf. I think the Devil is in my house and his demons are in my mind. They
’re creeping and crawling at all hours of the night! I can’t sleep! Please, Preacher!”

  “Okay, now, slow down. I know this is a hard time. That farm has been in your family for generations. They were some of the first to settle here, I understand. But God is with you. Keep your faith.”

  Betty and Pastor Rich held hands to pray in the front pew of the church. Betty resisted the urge to scratch her already torn, raw flesh, hoping some mighty power would fight the demons taking control of her life. She wished she had never heard Tanya and her nephew talking that night. Tanya came in later than usual, slamming the door behind her like it was her own home. The young woman always made it a point to go out with her friends on the days Billy wanted to be alone to enjoy watching his games with his Uncle Ray, but tonight Ray turned in early. Tanya giggled while rifling through the cupboards. Betty looked to see if Ray was going to be the one to tell her to keep it down; however, he remained asleep.

  Betty threw the comforter across Ray’s back and squirmed out of bed in a huff. She grabbed her bathrobe from the hook behind the door before making her way down the stairs to tell Tanya to shush and not leave a big mess for her to clean up in the morning.

  One step lingered over the next when she heard the two talking. There was a strange excitement in Tanya’s voice. The last words past Tanya’s lips were, “She better be dead.”

  Billy told her to shut her mouth and not speak of this, then: “She better not be dead!” There was a pause before moans could be heard.

  Betty returned to her room, not wanting to believe the conversation. Maybe it was a joke. She lay in bed with the stiffness of a mummy, eyes wide, with the comforter pulled to her chin as she stared at the ceiling fan. The following morning when the preacher showed up at the door with terror on his face, she knew it wasn’t just talk. Why did she have to carry this burden? Betty chose not to tell the police Tanya was responsible for the murder. Why should everything they had worked so hard for be put in jeopardy? Why should a nice girl suffer for a stupid schoolgirl mistake? Betty had gone to school with Tanya’s mother. They were decent folks. Betty had to believe it was all one big mistake. Tanya would never mean to do something so horrible.