Who Let That Killer in the House?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  I watched two clouds drift together to cover the sun. “Fred Stanton was killed because our fire equipment was substandard and the county commission had refused to authorize money to replace it.”

  Martha laid a plump hand over mine. “As that group of folks you and Pop took to the next meeting so eloquently pointed out.”

  The clouds were almost together now. Only a sliver of sun remained. “I just wish we’d spoken up earlier.”

  “Do you ever wonder, Mac, how many awful things happen around us because we don’t get involved? It’s a sobering thought.” She gave a puff of dismay. “Speaking of which, Shana forgot her bag.”

  I would have let that bag rot right there, but Martha picked it up and headed down the bleachers. I sat watching the sun come back from behind the clouds and remembered how glad most folks were when Sara Meg married Fred. Of course, there were a few who thought a Tanner ought to marry only a doctor, a lawyer, or a businessman, but most were tickled that she’d found that big gentle fireman with a face full of freckles and hair like a penny. With her splendid auburn hair, they made a striking couple. When the girls came along, everybody loved to see the Stantons, hair blazing in two shades of red, sharing ice cream downtown or walking down the aisle at church. For fourteen years they seemed a storybook family—until Fred was killed.

  The amazing thing was, all the while that trouble followed her up one year and down another, Sara Meg kept smiling. She had a drop-dead gorgeous smile with white, even teeth and a brave happy look in her dark eyes that made the whole town love her. Only Joe Riddley said there was something not quite natural about Sara Meg and her smile. “She doesn’t let things touch her,” he claimed. “Walks around with her eyes half-closed and doesn’t see a thing except what she wants to see.” Sara Meg had seen so much trouble, it seemed to me she had a right to shut out as much as she could.

  Speaking of trouble, who was that handsome blond man Bethany was all twined around down on the field? I asked as soon as Martha panted back up the bleachers, still carrying the bag and gasping, “I couldn’t catch her. But I saw Buddy and told him to meet us at Myrtle’s.”

  “That’s good. But who is that boy with Bethany?”

  Martha heaved a disgusted mother’s sigh. “Ridd calls him her latest mistake. His name is Todd Wylie. He’s nineteen, and he lives over in Louisville. They met at some party, and he’s been hanging around her for nearly a month. We think he’s too old for her, and too fast, but every time we say a word against him, she gets all stony-faced.”

  I could have said a few words against him myself. He was kissing my granddaughter down on the ball field in front of God and everybody, and she didn’t seem to mind a bit.

  Martha sighed again. “I’ve been wondering whether I ought to ask Hollis to caution Bethany a bit.”

  “Honey, I’m not sure right now Bethany would hear a word anybody said.”

  Martha looked down to where Buddy was shaking Garnet’s elbow to tell her it was time to leave. Garnet shut her book with obvious reluctance and rose to follow him. “Sometimes I wish Bethany were more like Garnet—interested in nothing except books and music.”

  I personally was glad Bethany was Bethany. She was a whole lot more alive than Garnet, who would look better if she’d stop hunching her shoulders and would wear something besides a shapeless maroon shirt and long black skirt. I couldn’t understand how a woman with Sara Meg’s artistic taste could let a daughter go around looking like she bought her wardrobe from passing bag ladies. Of course, Garnet was a musician. Maybe that’s what made her so peculiar.

  “I guess Garnet still takes piano lessons?” I asked Martha.

  “Oh, yes. Buddy drives her to Augusta every Friday afternoon.”

  “Why doesn’t she drive herself?”

  “Hollis says they won’t let her drive. Right after she got her license, she had a little fender bender and lost her confidence, so Sara Meg said she should wait a while and Buddy canceled her insurance.” Martha peered down at Bethany and Hollis, who were finally heading toward the locker room. “Those two have enough confidence for four. Has Bethany told you of their plan to drive from here to California as soon as they can convince their mothers to lend them a car?” We shared a laugh at the incredible assurance of high-school seniors, but our laughs were bittersweet. Those girls might jump up and down like preschoolers right now, but who knew to what distant places and dangers they’d be heading for in little more than a year?

  That reminded me of something I’d wanted to ask. “Why is Garnet still around? Wasn’t she accepted at a New York conservatory?”

  Martha made a face. “Yeah. But also according to Hollis, it was Garnet’s piano teacher who helped her apply. Sara Meg felt she was too young to go to New York City, so she talked Garnet into deferring her admission and doing her first two years at Hope Community College.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I think a child develops wings by practicing flying.”

  “I agree. However, nobody asked us.”

  I hadn’t noticed Brandi’s mother returning until she demanded, “Who is that girl? She looks way too young for him.” She was watching Buddy help Garnet down the bleachers.

  Martha handed her the bag. “That’s Hollis’s big sister. Isn’t she gorgeous?”

  The woman flared her nostrils. “Pretty is as pretty does, my mother always said. She scarcely paid the game any attention. You wonder why she came.”

  I much preferred Hollis, friendly as a Labrador puppy and open as a sunflower, with flyaway curls, freckles, and honest blue eyes. Garnet was as distant as the far horizon. But I wasn’t going to let a newcomer disparage a local child. Especially since Garnet was undeniably gorgeous. Her hair was the same rich red as her mother’s, and she also had Sara Meg’s clear white skin, perfect teeth, deep brown eyes, and delicate black brows. The only difference between them was that Sara Meg was tall and thin, while Garnet was curved and petite under those baggy clothes. It would be hard to find a prettier eighteen-year-old.

  I stood and gave Shana Wethers what my boys always called “Mama’s Killer Glare.” “My mama used to say, ‘Pretty is pretty, no matter what it does.’ And you’ll need to take that trash with you. We clean our own bleachers in Hopemore. Are you ready to go, Martha?” I picked up my pocketbook and headed down the bleachers. “I’ll wait for you by the gate.” I’d had all of Shana I could take for one day.

  “I doubt if Shana’s going to buy her bedding plants from you,” Martha warned as she joined me.

  “We’ll survive. She probably doesn’t know how to grow anything, anyway, except deadly nightshade.”

  3

  Just as we got to our car, I got a call on my cell phone from a deputy wanting me down at the jail for a hearing. Putting him off for an hour delayed us a bit, so Myrtle’s parking lot was crowded by the time Joe Riddley pulled in under the big sign: COOKING AS GOOD AS MAMA USED TO DO.

  I grabbed his arm. “Don’t say it again,” I warned.

  “But it’s true, Little Bit. She ought to take down that sign. It’s false advertising. She cooks like a Yankee now. The food just doesn’t taste the same at all.”

  After Myrtle’s husband had bypass surgery, she started broiling her meat and simmering her vegetables without bacon grease. “Okay. You’re right and you’ve said it. But we came for pie, remember, and she’s still got the best pie in town.”

  Myrtle also still had the chrome tables and chairs with green plastic seats that were in the place when she bought it, back when Ridd was in high school. The old tan linoleum was pitted with holes. I’d been warning Myrtle for years that her floor was a disaster waiting to happen, but she kept saying she just didn’t have the money to remodel. She never would, so long as she kept driving expensive cars and taking a fancy cruise each year.

  The place was nearly full, mostly families of Honeybees. Slade Rutherford, editor of the weekly Hopemore Statesman, occupied one booth with his camera handy. A town like Hopemore relies on city papers for wo
rld and state news. What we expect the Statesman to give us is the straight story on local affairs, especially anything our local grapevine has distorted, and stories about people we know—the more pictures, the better. Slade was an excellent editor for a small-town paper. He had an instinct for news people wanted to read.

  Ridd and Martha had claimed a big round table in the middle of the room, and Buddy and Garnet were with them. Cricket and Garnet were both coloring place mats, but I suspected that Cricket would spend as much time instructing Garnet about her mat as he did coloring his own.

  Close up, Garnet looked more like a ghost than a live person. It wasn’t that she was pale—not with that hair and those dark brown eyes—but she gave the impression that she existed on a remote and different plane. Maybe that’s what made us adults so determined to draw her into our conversation. We wanted to connect her to earth.

  Martha began by telling the rest of us, “Garnet helped me with the four-year-olds at Bible school last week, and the kids adored her. I really appreciated your help, Garnet.”

  Garnet looked up and said in a voice we could scarcely hear, “I enjoyed it. The kids were fun.” She made it sound like as much fun as going for a mammogram.

  As she bent back to her coloring, I noticed an unusual pendant she wore, a dainty silver spiral wound around a tiger’s eye. “What a lovely necklace!” I figured any girl likes to be complimented on her jewelry.

  Hollis would have devoted half an hour to telling who gave it to her, when, and for what. Garnet just said, “Thanks,” and shoved it down her shirt. She twisted a few strands of hair with her left hand while she colored with her right.

  Myrtle arrived to serve iced tea. “You all want to wait to order until your star players arrive? I heard it was a great game.” We assured her it was fantastic.

  As she left, Ridd said, “It is entirely due to DeWayne that those girls have come so far. He’s an amazing coach.”

  Garnet surprised me. She looked up and volunteered, “He’s a good teacher, too.”

  “You had him for chemistry?” Ridd is a farmer at heart—every year he grows corn and cotton on thirty acres adjoining our homeplace and grows a big vegetable garden and flowers that Joe Riddley calls “Yarbrough’s Best Advertisement”—but he also teaches high-school math nine months of the year.

  Garnet bent back to her crayons, her face a rosy pink. “Yessir.”

  Buddy frowned. “Was DeWayne Evans the teacher you worked for your senior year?”

  “Yeah.” Garnet tugged her hair so hard, it went straight and taut. That must have hurt, but her eyes stayed on her work. “I was his lab assistant.”

  “You didn’t tell me he was—uh—” He didn’t need to finish. We all knew what he meant. Buddy had a scary experience with a black man as a little boy, and he’d had a nasty racist streak in his nature ever since. It always jarred me like a crack in a nice vase.

  Joe Riddley stepped in to change the subject. “What are you reading, Garnet? Must be fascinating to hold your attention during the game.”

  She leaned down and held up a psychology textbook. “Summer classes start Monday. I wanted to get a head start.”

  “She finished last year with a 4.0,” Buddy bragged.

  Garnet shoved the book under the table and didn’t indicate by a blink that she cared.

  “I’m talking to a psych class next Wednesday,” Martha informed us all. “How about that? Martha Yarbrough, college professor. They wanted me later in the semester, but this was the only time I could come.” Martha works extra shifts in the summer while folks are on vacation. She also knows a lot about different types of trauma. None of us were surprised she’d been invited to lecture. We were surprised it had taken them so long to ask her. She took a long drink of tea, then added, “You have a gift for working with children, Garnet. Do you know that? You could be a great teacher. Or maybe a children’s counselor.”

  That finally spooked the ghost. “Oh, no, ma’am, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.” She stood abruptly. “Excuse me. I need to wash my hands.” She hurried to the ladies’ room.

  “I need to go, too,” Cricket announced. When Joe Riddley rose to take him, though, he frowned. “I like the wimmen’s room better.”

  “Not this time, honey,” his mother told him. When they’d gone, she warned, “You’d better watch out, Buddy. Cricket’s got his eye on Garnet.”

  Buddy chuckled. “That’s the kind of suitor I approve.”

  He and Ridd started rehashing the game again. I leaned toward Martha’s ear and said softly, “Garnet worries me. Do you reckon she could still be grieving Fred?”

  I hadn’t spoken softly enough. Buddy had heard. “She always was a daddy’s girl,” he said across the table. “Skipped everywhere beside him, holding his hand, talking a blue streak.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I remembered that, but I had to drag the picture from behind Garnet’s present shadow. She’d been all knees and elbows then, her hair pulled back in pig-tails, and she never met a stranger. If she knew you, she greeted you by name. If she didn’t, she asked your name. As hard as it was to believe, Hollis was the shy one in those days—a freckled cherub with copper curls, hiding behind her big sister and letting her do the talking for both.

  Martha rested her elbows on the table with a serious face. “She’s changed a lot, Buddy. Do you think Sara Meg has noticed? She’s so busy and all—”

  Buddy reached for the pitcher and poured himself some tea. I hoped he wasn’t upset with Martha for being concerned. He sounded defensive when he said, “Sara Meg’s had to depend on her a lot.”

  Martha chuckled. “To hear Hollis tell it, she’s the one who does all the work while Garnet sits around reading. She says Garnet gives orders like she was her mother, not her sister.”

  Buddy chuckled. “Good old Hollis the Martyr. She doesn’t kill herself around the house, believe me. Garnet does most of what gets done, plus goes to school full-time.”

  “She doesn’t work?” I asked, surprised. A lot of teenagers in town had jobs to help out, and it seemed to me if anybody needed help, it was Sara Meg.

  Buddy squeezed some lemon in his tea. “She teaches piano students on Saturday mornings. And she’s talked about getting another job, but Sara Meg and I want her to concentrate on her studies while she’s in college.”

  “Does she still play tennis?” Ridd asked. I’d forgotten that Garnet used to be real good at tennis, back when Fred was alive. She used to play in tournaments all over the state.

  Buddy shook his head. “She hasn’t played competitively in years, but we play at the country club a couple of times a week. She beats me sometimes, too.” None of us had noticed Garnet arrive until she slid into her seat. She didn’t say a word, but she gave him a look that made him admit ruefully, “Okay, she always beats me. But I taught her everything she knows.”

  Cricket climbed back up on his chair. “I taught her to color.”

  Garnet’s smile flickered. “I do that best,” she assured him softly. She set her pocketbook on the table and reached for the crayons. Buddy moved her purse to the floor. He was one of the most persnickety men I knew about keeping things tidy. I often thought the reason he hadn’t married yet was that he hadn’t found a woman who was neat enough.

  Hollis and Bethany arrived just then, glowing with excitement. They’d changed out of their uniforms into jeans. Hollis had on a soft yellow shirt that made her hair look like autumn leaves, while Bethany wore pink, which matched her cheeks. They looked as cute as they used to back in third grade, when they’d announced they were “real best friends forever.”

  I was glad to see that Todd Wylie wasn’t with them. Hollis had driven them in her mother’s car, an almost-new silver SUV. I wondered where Sara Meg had found money for that car with all the other demands she had on her checkbook, but I had learned long ago that how other people spend their money is not my business.

  As usual, Hollis came in talking a mile a minute. “Were we, like, great, or what?
” she called from the door, addressing the room at large and pumping her fists in the air.

  All over the room, tables of Honeybees’ families burst into applause. Then a husky voice shouted from the large, round corner booth, “Good hit, Hollis. You were great.”

  That’s when the afternoon started falling apart.

  4

  Hollis must have heard, but she took a chair without looking that way, still talking. I turned in my seat to see if I was right about that voice, and sure enough, it belonged to Tyrone Noland, a tall, beefy teenager whose mother had raised him alone after her husband left. She didn’t deserve a son who dyed his blond hair black and wore baggy jeans slung low to show his boxers. She didn’t deserve a son who hung out with Smitty Smith, either.

  Smitty Smith—his legal name—was born to a mother short on imagination and shorter on morals. Under her influence and neglect, Smitty had grown into a strutting banty rooster who headed the gang of young thugs currently filling Myrtle’s corner booth. They were a tougher, grungier crowd than previous rough elements at Hopemore High. Their clothes, hair, and nails would make you think Hope County had no running water. Their bodies were mutilated with piercings and tattoos. Whenever I see kids like that, one part of me wants to isolate them from other kids so they can’t do any harm. Another part wants to feed them, pay them attention, and see if I can’t kindle a spark of promise that I hope is still buried in there somewhere. They were all sweet babies once. When infants turn into these kids by sixteen or seventeen, society has failed them in some dreadful ways.

  That doesn’t mean those boys made me feel soft and cuddly. Most were regulars in juvenile court, and I dreaded the day they turned eighteen and started appearing before me. Smitty himself was mean enough to curdle milk. He shaved his head except for one long strand of greasy bleached hair that dangled from his crown. His face was long and cruel, with eyes the color of cold dishwater. Silver earrings bristled from his ears, nostrils, eyebrows, and lower lip. His sleeveless black T-shirt displayed dragon tattoos on bulging biceps. Beneath black cutoff jeans, he wore lace-up shoes strong enough to maim anybody he chose to kick.