Murder in Mayberry. Jack Branson
with Jack’s family in Texas while he attended college. Jack’s mom was a schoolteacher, so Earl took Jack to school on his first day of first grade. When I’d planned a party for Jack’s fiftieth birthday three years earlier, Earl drove down to Georgia to be part of the surprise. They didn’t see enough of each other and I knew they wanted, for a few moments tonight, to forget about the nightmare that had brought them together.
They denied the occasion as long as they could. But eventually the conversation turned to the murder.
“The police asked me to find out who’d seen Ann at church Sunday night,” Earl offered.
“So what’d you find out?” asked Jack.
“Lots of people remembered seeing her.”
“What was she wearing?” asked Jack. Earl shrugged his shoulders.
“Mother,” asked Jack. “Do you know what Anna Mae was wearing?”
“No,” said Iva Ray, “but I know who sat behind her.”
“Do you have their number?” asked Jack as he reached for the phone.
After a short conversation, Jack told us: “She wore a black cape with a leopard skin collar and a black pantsuit under it.”
“The cape we gave her for Christmas,” I gasped. Then, unexpectedly, I began to cry. I’m still not certain why this news upset me so much.
Iva Ray moved closer to me. “She loved that cape,” she told me softly. “I saw her in it a lot the past few weeks.”
“Ann sat alone in church,” Jack filled us in on more of his phone conversation. “Close to the back. The family sat behind her but didn’t notice anything unusual. Church let out about seven and she walked back across the street.”
“Do you think she’d just gotten home when she was murdered? Could the killer have been waiting for her inside the house?” I asked.
“Nah,” said Earl. “She was wearing some old clothes when she was killed. A pair of stretch pants and a sweater. She wouldn’t have worn them to church.”
No use arguing with Earl, I thought, but I knew Ann might have worn the old clothes. In fact, she’d have enjoyed throwing the glamorous full-length cape over comfy clothes, putting on one of her many wigs, loading her hands with diamonds, slipping into dress shoes, and walking confidently into the church, with only Ann herself knowing that the cape was a facade.
We’d once sat with Ann at church on a Sunday evening when she was elegantly dressed. She opened her expensive handbag to show me her secret. It was empty. Just a matching prop.
“Was she wearing a wig when she was killed?” I asked Earl.
“Yeah,” said Earl. “She had a wig on.”
If she’d had time to change clothes, she would have taken her wig off, too. And that late at night, she would have changed into sleep attire instead of pants and a sweater.
It was our opinion Ann hadn’t been home long before she was murdered.
Midmorning Thursday, we drove Iva Ray to Ann’s house. By now, the snowstorm had arrived, blanketing the little town like a fresh coat of white paint and making it appear momentarily storybook exquisite.
“They’re releasing the body today,” said Iva Ray as we pulled into Ann’s driveway. “It looks like we’ll have the viewing tomorrow and the funeral Saturday.”
“Penny and Dave won’t be able to drive up now,” Jack told his mom. “Georgia and Tennessee have an ice storm, and it’s going to take a while to clear. They can’t even make it to the airport. Better not plan on Dave being a pallbearer.”
“Janet and David’s sons are flying in tomorrow, and we can use them,” continued Iva Ray. “Russell can serve, and maybe his sister’s boyfriend. Then you and Brenda’s brother.”
A marked car had stayed in the driveway all night, but the investigating police had not yet arrived. We pulled far back in the driveway to make room for the other cars.
Soon an unmarked police car pulled into the driveway. Out stepped four police detectives, all in black suits, all carrying black briefcases. Three men and one woman.
We followed the officers, the family and Judy into the house. But just after stepping inside, Jack leaned down and whispered to me, “I can’t do this. Let’s get out of here till the police leave.”
I understood Jack’s frustration. He knew how an investigation should be handled, and it was torture for him to be left out of this one.
We slipped outside and waited an hour and a half in the sub-freezing car. Then the police left, officially turning the house over to the family.
Entering Ann’s house was surreal. Everything was just as she’d left it. A magazine rested on the den sofa, half read. To-do lists and reminders were scattered on the desk where she conducted rent business. A hand towel in the bathroom outside the kitchen was comfortably crinkled where Ann had dried her hands for the last time. It was as though she’d stepped out to buy some milk and we were waiting for her return.
I felt that all these relatives were intruding on Ann’s privacy, picking up magazines, leafing through letters, opening drawers. I knew Jack was having the same reaction. We walked gingerly from room to room, respectfully refusing to touch the antiques and furnishings.
The police had taken all of Ann’s kitchen knives from the drawers, and they were laid in a row beside the sink. Ann’s purse was on the kitchen table.
“The police said her purse was stolen,” Judy told Jack. “They said they searched the house twice and couldn’t find it. I walked right into the kitchen, and there it was, on the same chair where she left it every night.”
Judy continued. “Whenever Miz Ann came back from church or a bridge party or from out shopping, she’d put her purse on the table, and she’d take all her rings off and dump them on the table. Then, when I come in, I’d separate the good jewelry from the cheap stuff. I’d put the cheap stuff in a cup in the kitchen cabinet, and I’d take the good stuff up to her dressing room.”
“Was there any jewelry on the table after Ann was murdered?” asked Jack.
“No,” replied Judy. “She must have still had her rings on.”
“I was upstairs when they was searching Miz Ann’s things,” Judy continued. “You should have seen them. They couldn’t have found anything the way they was searching. It was like they was afraid Miz Ann would come running in the room and tell them to stop messing up her things.
“They’d pull a drawer out just a tiny bit and barely raise up something and peek under it. I watch enough television to know the police are supposed to pull things out of drawers to search.”
“A good search can be done without messing up drawers,” smiled Jack.
Jack and I walked into the dining room. The black cape with the leopard skin collar was lying across a chair. Directly outside the dining room was a foyer, then the stairs leading to the second level of the house. Ann’s hunter green heels were on the bottom step, where she’d slipped them off Sunday night.
We pictured Ann’s last moments. She’d come in the front door, which was closest to the church. She’d taken off her shoes, then her cape. She’d walked into the kitchen and put her purse on the chair. Sometime after that, she’d been interrupted.
Jack and I stood motionless at the bottom of the staircase, dreading the climb. The upstairs was Ann’s inner sanctum, her personal space. We’d climbed the stairs many times, and we’d slept in Ann’s bedroom countless nights.