Killing Cousins

One

The town of Quivera, in spite of its intrusion upon a legend, is not an exceptional town, and Ouichita Road, which is a street in Quivera, is not an exceptional street. There was a time, however, when it tried to be, and the signs of the attempt are still apparent. It is eight winding blocks of black macadam, narrow and tree-lined, in an area that achieves an atmosphere of indigenous rusticity. This atmosphere, not really so much achieved as retained, is due to a lack of artificial landscaping and a vague agreement among Ouichita property owners to preserve as much as possible the natural growth of the area. Oaks and maples and sycamores and elms and dogwood and redbud are thick on the deep lawns that slope rather steeply to the street on both sides, and the houses appear to have been dropped down among them casually. The rusticity thus preserved somehow manages, ironically, to seem more artificial than any amount of designing and planting would have made it.

There are a few very expensive houses on Ouichita Road, but most of them are not. Most of them are only moderately pretentious, and were built by people in the upper-middle-income bracket who were willing to risk a bigger mortgage than they could comfortably carry. The same people drive a somewhat bigger car than they ought to drive. Or, if they do not, drive two smaller ones, one of which is usually a Renault or a Volkswagon or an MG or something else of foreign extraction. They operate shops, work in banks, sell insurance and real estate, practice professions. They usually belong to the Country Club, and occasionally become delinquent in the payment of their dues. They think of themselves as rather more sophisticated than the average run of Quiverans, and perhaps they are. On Ouichita Road there is a high incidence of marginal promiscuity, a lower incidence of adultery.

Several Ouichita Road residents have achieved fame. One, a lawyer by the name of Chalmers, is remembered as the only Republican candidate for governor to be defeated in a period of thirty years. Another, the daughter of a certified public accountant, went to Hollywood and appeared briefly in two adult westerns, in one of which she was photographed in the proximity of John Wayne. Still another, the nephew of the gubernatorial candidate and eventually the husband of the actress, was an All-American tackle at the state university, and played two seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers before coming home to sell insurance for his mother’s cousin.

But the most famous by far of all Ouichita Road residents, or all Quiverans together, was Mrs. Willie Hogan.

Willie committed murder.