Who Let That Killer in the House?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  He was, at most, five feet nine, but he had the other boys so cowed, they’d look a judge in the eye and swear Smitty was with them when a deputy knew he’d been committing theft or bodily assault. Witnesses who agreed with the deputies changed their minds with frightening regularity. So far, nobody had been able to put Smitty away, but not for lack of trying.

  Smitty was not a young man whom parents wanted noticing their daughters. No wonder Buddy tensed when Smitty called, “Hey, Hollis? Terrible Ty was speaking to you.”

  Cricket looked up and giggled. “Terrible Ty?” He giggled again, but Garnet quickly distracted him. I appreciated that. I didn’t want Smitty’s eye on my grandson.

  Hollis didn’t need Smitty’s eye on her, either, but she handled it well. She just kept talking, pretending she hadn’t heard.

  Beside me, Bethany muttered, “Me-mama, can’t you put Smitty in jail for life?”

  “I would if I could, honey. Magistrates don’t deal with juveniles.”

  Smitty called louder. “Tyrone said, ‘Good game, Hollis.’ You got gum in your ears?” He added something else softly. From the way the others snickered, I knew it was vulgar.

  Hollis looked over her shoulder and smiled in her usual friendly way. “Thanks, Tyrone. I didn’t know you were at the game.”

  “Tyrone’s always there for you, baby,” Smitty replied. “Snap your fingers and he’ll come.”

  Hollis gave him what Bethany called a princess smile. They both practiced it in mirrors. “Why don’t you hold your breath ’til I do, Smitty? You’d look so good in blue.”

  One boy sniggered.

  “Hush your mouth, bitch,” Smitty snarled, “or I’ll hush it for you.”

  Buddy shoved back his chair and started that way. Ridd jumped up to follow him. Joe Riddley followed Ridd. That’s when I got real worried, because since Joe Riddley got shot, his temper has been a bit unpredictable.

  “Ignore them!” Hollis called, her freckles standing out like polka dots.

  Myrtle hurried that way, flapping both hands. “Don’t make trouble. Please, no trouble.”

  The place had grown real quiet. Slade’s camera was cocked and ready. Looked as though we’d get our names in the paper after all: “Massacre at Myrtle’s.”

  Buddy reached for Smitty’s arm, but Ridd grabbed his hand in midair. “You don’t want him accusing you of assault.”

  Joe Riddley bent toward Smitty and said in his usual mild voice, “Boys, we don’t want trouble here. Why don’t you all clear out?”

  Smitty flared his nostrils. “Buzz off, old man. We got as much right to be here as the rest of these—”

  Before his mouth got as filthy as his fingernails, Ridd pushed his daddy aside and rested his palms on the table. “Look, Smitty.” He bent to look into those cold gray eyes. “I know you’re supposed to be in summer school next week, but if you’d rather spend time in court instead, I can arrange that.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “One call, and it’s a done deal. I’ll charge you with hassling a young woman and threatening an elderly man, and we’ve got witnesses.”

  Smitty narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t threaten that old man. I got witnesses, too.” He looked around at the others. They nodded like he was jerking their strings.

  Ridd’s voice was still pleasant. “Even so, you’ll miss summer school while you’re going to court. You miss a single day of summer school, and you don’t get credit. You’ll have to repeat that class and graduate late. Is that what you want?”

  Smitty didn’t blink, but a twitch in one cheek showed he was thinking it over.

  Ridd pressed his advantage. “You can either clear out, or sit here and leave our table alone. It’s your decision.”

  Smitty sat so long without moving, I figured we’d all be dead and buried before he made up his mind. Finally he muttered something I didn’t hear. Ridd stood up straight.

  “All right. But you bother us one more time, and I make that call.” He took Joe Riddley’s elbow and led him back across the restaurant. Buddy threw Smitty a glare as he followed Ridd.

  Joe Riddley took his seat and considered Ridd for a very long minute. Finally he nodded. “Good work, boy. Just fine. But the next time you call me an elderly man, you better be prepared for some serious arm wrestling.”

  Ridd laughed. “I was afraid you’d give me a hiding then and there.”

  I decided it was time to change the subject. “What’s that you’ve got around your neck, Bethany? I haven’t seen it before.”

  She held out a silver softball charm on a dainty chain. “Coach Evans gave them to us. Every member of the team got one.”

  “Don’t you just adore him?” Hollis looked around the table to take a vote. “He’s the best coach in the state—and the best looking, too. I just lo-o-ve him.”

  Everybody at that table knew she was baiting Buddy and could have predicted what would happen. He turned so red, the tops of his ears looked sunburned. “You can’t go around talking like that. People might get the wrong idea. I know how you mean it, but—”

  Garnet glared at her sister and clenched her fist so tight, her crayon broke.

  Even Hollis could tell she’d gone too far. She fingered her own charm. “Mine’s still got the tag on it. Buddy, could I borrow your knife?” Nobody could have asked in a sweeter tone of voice.

  “Of course.” He reached into his pocket and handed over a Swiss Army Knife. “I keep telling you girls to always carry one of these.” He kept it so sharp, it cut the plastic in one slice. Before Hollis could say anything else outrageous, our waiter, Art Franklin, arrived.

  I knew Art only by reputation. He was an artistic boy in a football town, with a mother who had been a cheerleader in Ridd’s class. Ridd claimed that her life stopped when the last game was over. She married the summer after graduation and had Art five months later. Her husband abandoned them both when the local meat-packing company went out of business a year after that, and from what I’d heard, she’d consoled herself since then with various married men. She was openly contemptuous of a son who preferred drama and poetry to sports. I’d seen Art in supporting roles in a few high-school plays and had read a couple of incomprehensible, gloomy poems he’d published in the Statesman, but mostly he drooped around town in a black trench coat, looking down his nose at us unpoetic types.

  I vaguely remembered Art as a gangly little boy with long bones, dark curls that flopped in his eyes, and big teeth. Now he was a lanky youth who tried to hide the curls by skinning his hair back in a ponytail.

  “Ah—are you ready to order, or do you need a menu?” He spoke directly to Garnet. As he waited for her answer, he swiped at a tendril that curled on a forehead dotted with pimples. His lips looked very red and wet, probably because he licked them so often. Maybe one day he’d be handsome, when his face cleared up and he filled out some. Right now he was mostly bones and big gray eyes.

  She looked up, then down again. “Just a scoop of vanilla ice cream, I guess.”

  “We got some fresh pecan pie. You want a piece with the ice cream? It’s warm.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t like nuts.”

  I don’t think she meant it as an insult, but he flushed to the roots of his hair. “Okay, one ice cream coming up.” He had turned toward the kitchen before he remembered to ask, “Oh, you all want something, too?”

  As he loped away with our orders, Hollis jeered, “He’s got a crush on Garnet.”

  Garnet glowered. “Don’t be silly.”

  “What’s a crush?” Cricket demanded.

  “He likes her,” Hollis explained. “He can’t even look at her without stuttering and turning red. He writes her poems, too.”

  Garnet pressed back in her chair like she’d been physically attacked. “How do you know?”

  “You left your backpack on the table.”

  “Stay out of my stuff!”

  Buddy looked like a thundercloud ready to burst. “Stop deviling her, Hollis.”

 
Hollis tossed her hair, setting it swinging on her shoulders. “Poor Art. It won’t do him any good, anyway. Garnet’s not interested in anything except piano and studying.”

  “It wouldn’t do you any harm to study,” Garnet snapped. “You’ll be lucky to get out of high school.”

  “Stop it. Both of you.” Buddy frowned, unconsciously arranging his silverware precisely. The girls hushed, but glared at each other. I felt real distressed, like I’d just cut into a lovely cantaloupe and discovered it was rotten in the middle.

  Joe Riddley turned to Bethany. “How’d you learn to bat like that, sugar pie?”

  “We’ve been practicing in the afternoons,” Ridd answered for her.

  “You did great.” Martha beamed.

  Bethany’s smile showed she knew they were all pretending nothing was happening. “I hope Hollis and I get picked for the county team.” She fingered her little charm again.

  “What did Coach Evans say before you went to bat?” Martha wondered.

  “He told me everybody gets a few chances in life to make a difference for other people, and we don’t only get points for succeeding—we get points for how hard we try—so he said for me to just do my best, for the whole team.”

  “What did Yasheika say?” I wanted to know. “She sure had you grinning.”

  Bethany smiled again at the memory. “She said if I pretended the ball was Brandi’s daddy’s head, who but me would know?” We laughed, but I remembered how he sneered just before she swung and how hard she’d hit that ball.

  Although Hollis was now chattering normally across the table, I was still bothered by their fuss. “Do they fight like that a lot?” I asked Martha, too soft for anybody else to hear.

  “Don’t get upset—it’s nothing,” she whispered. “But I wish Hollis wouldn’t tease her.”

  Bethany leaned over me and hissed, “You always take Garnet’s side, but she’s mean as the dickens when nobody else is around, to Hollis and their mother both. Some of the things she says to them would make you cry.” Bethany did, in fact, look close to tears.

  I put my hand over hers and whispered, “Your mother doesn’t think Garnet ever got over her daddy’s death.”

  Bethany shook her head and whispered back, “But she seemed fine right after it happened. Sad, but—you know—like always. It was later that she got so mean and went into her shell.”

  That’s exactly how Garnet looked—like a princess in a shell. All I knew to say was, “Death affects people differently, sweetheart. I’m grateful you’ve never had to learn that firsthand.” I was also grateful that Art arrived just then with our desserts.

  I was taking my first bite of chocolate pie with three-inch meringue when DeWayne and Yasheika Evans arrived. Ronnie was with them, and anybody could see he and Yasheika each wished the other gone. When Hollis and Bethany jumped up and threw their arms around DeWayne’s neck, Ronnie and Yasheika moved in opposite directions.

  “We did it! We did it!” the girls squealed. A flash went off.

  As they turned to hug Yasheika, other teammates ran to join them.

  DeWayne looked around the restaurant and said so everybody could hear, “That was the best game I can remember, and I’ve seen a few. You’ve got some fine ballplayers here. Don’t ever forget this day.” He led us in another round of applause for the team.

  His sister nudged him. “Stop showing off and find us a table.”

  Bethany grabbed Yasheika’s hand and Hollis grabbed DeWayne’s, and they started pulling them our way. “Come join us.”

  Bethany called over her shoulder to Ronnie, “You come, too.”

  Yasheika curled her lip like she’d rather sit at any table except where Ronnie was, but DeWayne was already taking a vacant chair and Ridd was dragging up more. Myrtle came bustling over to get their order.

  Joe Riddley asked DeWayne, “Have you met Buddy Tanner, Hollis’s uncle?”

  DeWayne hesitated, then stuck out his hand. “Hi, Buddy. You got two mighty fine nieces.” He beamed across at Garnet, who had looked up and was giving him a quiet smile. “Garnet was the best lab assistant I’ve ever had. If she weren’t set on music, she’d make a good chemist. You taking chemistry in college?” he asked her.

  She nodded, her eyes happier than I’d seen them all day. “I had it last year, but my prof wasn’t as good as you.”

  His big laugh rumbled through the restaurant. “We can’t all be great, now, can we?” To my astonishment, she laughed. She could use some practice, but it had a pleasant sound.

  As Hollis narrowed her eyes at Garnet, Bethany asked quickly, “Did you all know Yasheika’s going to Yale Law School in the fall?”

  “Whoa!” Ridd exclaimed. “I’m impressed.”

  “Next thing we know you’ll be running for president,” I teased.

  Yasheika shook her head. “All I want to do is get one innocent man out of jail.”

  Ronnie gave a little puff of disgust. In the privacy of our kitchen he’d used words like “bossy,” “pushy,” and even “uppity” to describe DeWayne’s little sister. It was easy to see he didn’t think she had a chicken’s chance in a foxhole of getting anybody out of jail.

  Joe Riddley clapped him on the back. “Speaking of degrees, Ronnie just got his, too. In accounting.”

  Buddy looked up. “You lookin’ for a job? I got a man leavin’ next week.” Buddy’s racism excepted people he knew. When Ronnie nodded, he said, “Come by Monday at one. We’ll talk.”

  When Myrtle set DeWayne’s pie before him, we heard a scuffle of shoes and the corner booth emptied. As they approached our table, Tyrone said gruffly, “Like I said, Hollis, good game.” His plump face was pink and flustered.

  Smitty looked deliberately from Coach Evans to Yasheika to Ronnie, but he waited until he was past us before he muttered, “Didn’t use to let trash into decent eating places.”

  “Folks had more sense back then,” agreed a kid whose grandmother wasn’t born when the Civil Rights Act was passed. How did a person get so tough in so few years?

  Joe Riddley called after them, “The judge here would love to drive any of you down to the jail who’d like a ride.”

  Smitty swaggered out the door without a word, looking like he owned a sizeable chunk of the world and had his eye on the rest. Tyrone, however, stuffed his hands into the pockets of a big khaki jacket he wore winter and summer and gave our table an embarrassed look over one shoulder. Maybe he was remembering how Ridd used to stay after school to help him with geometry, or how Joe Riddley let him sweep our office and storeroom to earn spending money back when he was in elementary school.

  Tyrone had been an insecure, fat little boy, but he’d been sweet and honest. I wondered how far you’d have to dig to find that child again. Certainly past the dyed black hair parted in the middle and hanging below his round chin. Past the rings of cheap beads worn close to his thick neck and past the silver rings on almost every finger. The only thing I could find in his favor right then was that he hadn’t gone as far as a piercing or a visible tattoo. Yet.

  I also noticed that he stopped by the register and handed Myrtle a bill, unlike his pals.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I apologized to DeWayne, “except that anybody can see they are pure white trash.”

  DeWayne shook his head. “Don’t pay them any mind. They’re little kids trying to act big.”

  “Not Smitty,” Ridd disagreed. “He’s dangerous.”

  “Smitty, yeah. He’s one you gotta watch.”

  “Mean as a snake, and no more sense,” I contributed. “I wish he’d get on his horse and ride out of town.”

  None of us suspected that one of the people at Myrtle’s that day was going to ride out of town real soon. Not on a horse, but in a hearse. And it wouldn’t be Smitty Smith.

  5

  A deluge descended Monday about three o’clock, accompanied by lightning that scissored across the sky and thunder like somebody rolling barrels down a bowling alley. Joe Riddley was at our n
ursery on the edge of town, unloading sod. I was alone in the office with the scarlet macaw we inherited after a dead man turned up at Joe Riddley’s last birthday party.2 The bird was christened Joe by his former owner, who’d been put out with Joe Riddley for sending him to jail, but we’d recently decided to prevent confusion by renaming him. Cricket chose Rainbow, for the cascade of blue, yellow, purple, white, and red feathers down his back. We’d shortened it to Bo, and I put up with the danged thing because Joe Riddley doted on him. Besides, the bird had been real helpful in making Joe Riddley walk again. Bo slept in our barn and came to work with Joe Riddley every day. He’d been left with me that afternoon because Joe Riddley had a couple of errands to run before he went to the nursery, and Bo was unreliable in nice offices. He tended to leave calling cards on people’s carpets.

  Bo hated storms. As the rain thundered on our store’s tin roof, he paced the curtain rod and muttered, “Not to worry. Not to worry.” After a particularly loud crack of thunder, he flew off his perch near the window and marched up and down the floor at my feet, examining cracks for crumbs and bugs that might be hiding there.

  I turned off both computers and made sure there was oil in the antique lamp on top of my desk, then sat enjoying the light and music show.

  Joe Riddley and I share the same office at the back of our store that his parents and grandparents did. We use their oak rolltop desks, desk chairs, and filing cabinets, but have added computers, a fax machine, and other technology over the years. I also replaced the shade they had on the tall, thin window with a colorful valance and nice oak blinds, but we’d never felt a need to put a rug over the uneven old floor-boards or plaster over the beaded board walls. It was real homey anytime and particularly cozy that afternoon.

  Bo squawked his disagreement as wind whipped the crepe myrtles beside our parking lot into a crazy dance. When we heard a crash that probably meant another brittle pine had gone to meet its Maker, he flew to my shoulder and hung on tight. Fire engines wailed in the distance. I hoped nobody’s house had been hit.