“You were at court with him Friday, weren’t you?” Surely she hadn’t missed that.
“Yeah. That was one of the worst ordeals I’ve faced since the night he was born. I never thought I’d see the day when my son would stand in front of a judge and admit he defaced a school. And did you see what he drew?” Her eyes were so pitiful, I hated that I had to nod. “He wasn’t brought up like that—you know it. We have all sorts here”—her eyes wandered to the registers, which were currently staffed by two African American women, a Mexican woman and a white woman—“and we get along just fine. I never taught Tyrone to think bad about anybody.” She sighed. “But now, everybody probably thinks I did.”
I patted her husky shoulder. “I’m sure everybody knows where you stand. We do the best we can, but none of us is responsible for the way our children turn out. Do you have any idea where I can find Tyrone?”
She dropped an apple. “Is he in more trouble?”
“Not that I know of. I talked to him Thursday and we didn’t finish our conversation.”
She bent to retrieve the fruit with obvious relief. “You might try Smitty’s. Tyrone’s been hanging out with him some lately, and to tell you the truth, it worries me to death. Something’s got to be done about Smitty, Judge, and that’s God’s own truth, or he’s going to take over this whole town.”
“I keep hearing that,” I told her. “You got any idea what anybody can do? He’s never been convicted on any charge.”
She shook her head. “He’s slippery like a water moccasin, and twice as bad.”
“Do you have any idea where he lives? I don’t.”
“Yeah, he ’n’ his mom live in that trailer out on the Waynesboro Road. The one that looks like it might fall down any minute, but somehow never does.”
That was as good a description as anybody could give. I recognized it as soon as I saw it sitting in what must have once been a small pasture surrounded by piney woods. This was definitely a trailer—far too old to have ever been called a mobile home, much less a modular home. It sagged in the middle. Its screens were torn and patched with duct tape. The steps were cement blocks and had been there so long that a determined yellow flower grew between them. The lawn was adorned by two rusting lawn mowers, an abandoned washing machine, and a pile of beer cans and bottles at exactly the right angle to have been tossed through the door.
I parked by the chain-link fence—which also sagged—and headed for the gate, listening to see if a dog would crash around the corner and make my life difficult. I heard nothing except a television turned up way too loud. I rattled the gate. Still nothing. I took a hesitant step inside.
That’s when it occurred to me to wish I’d brought somebody with me. I generally don’t walk into risky places alone, even in broad daylight, but I had been so focused on finding Tyrone that I hadn’t stopped to think that the most likely person I was going to find at Smitty’s was Smitty. Or Smitty’s mother—whose first language was profanity and her second, threats. I was fixing to go back to town and return with a deputy when I heard a shot.
I fell into the tall grass flatter than one of my infamous cakes. I lay belly to the ground, head down, and thought I remembered that if you hear a shot, you won’t get hit, because the bullet reaches you before its sound. That might not be true, though, and wasn’t particularly comforting anyway, since whoever shot once was probably reaching for the trigger again right that minute.
Besides, the way my ears were pounding, I could die of other causes. Fright, for instance.
“It’s Judge Yarbrough,” I called without raising my head. “Don’t fire. I’m looking for Tyrone.”
A bullet whizzed by to my left. It hit the ground with a thud, and I shook so hard, the grass above me must have waved like little flags. I strained to listen, but I heard nothing except the TV and a cardinal calling cheer! cheer! somewhere over in the woods. I am much older than you think, because I lay in that grass without moving for at least a hundred years.
Finally I heard a snicker. “You can get up. I ain’t shootin’ at you. Was shootin’ squirrels.”
I looked up cautiously. Smitty leaned against one corner of the trailer, a rifle resting across one arm. It was probably a .22. Lots of boys around Hope County owned them for hunting squirrels and rabbits or killing rats around their parents’ farms.
Three of his buddies stood off to one side, all grinning.
Smitty jerked his head down the yard. “Them squirrels been botherin’ our peaches.”
I raised my head and looked that way. At the far end of the yard stood a scrawny tree with small hard peaches clinging to the branches by sheer determination. They would never be any good, because that poor tree probably hadn’t been fertilized since Smitty was born.
Why was I worrying about peaches at a time like that? To avoid worrying about Smitty with a lethal weapon, in easy killing distance.
I climbed slowly to my feet, aware that his dead gray eyes were watching my every move. His friends looked edgy and excited, waiting to see what he’d do. At my age, getting up off the ground is an accomplishment. Getting up gracefully is practically impossible. I heard another snicker, but it stopped when Smitty snarled something over his shoulder.
Shaking like I was, I was amazed I could stand at all. “I’m looking for Tyrone.” A car passed behind me. The driver probably thought we were having a neighborly visit.
Smitty sighted and fired a couple of yards to my right. “Squirrels are real bad this year.” He was having himself a fine old time.
“Stop that!” I yelled. “You could hit somebody on the road.” One of the boys drew back a little, so I must have sounded right fierce, but I was no Genghis Khan. My hands trembled so badly, I had to clutch my pocketbook to my chest to keep from dropping it, and my knees were about to drop me.
Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. We’d just studied that part of Isaiah in Sunday school. It came to me like a prayer. I tacked on a verse of my own: Help!
No angels descended to take away Smitty’s gun. I did hear that voice that lurks in my head, though: He wouldn’t kill you on his own property with three witnesses.
How reliable do you think those witnesses would be in court? I demanded. Anybody can have a hunting accident. I sure hated to go to my grave murdered, labeled an accidental death.
He won’t have a hunting license, the voice insisted. Face him down. Don’t drop or run.
He’s on his own property, I pointed out. You know any officers of the law zealous enough to arrest somebody this far outside the city limits for scaring squirrels away from his peaches? They’d have to arrest half of Hope County.
Don’t let him know you’re afraid.
With that last piece of advice, the voice disappeared. I felt unexpectedly bereft, considering that it and I seldom agree on anything. Still, I didn’t have any better advice to offer myself, so I straightened my shoulders, lifted my chin, and repeated, “I came looking for Tyrone.”
“He ain’t here.” Smitty fished in his pocket for more shells and reloaded. He glanced up and down the road, sighted along the barrel, and aimed straight at me.
I’d learn some time later that Smitty considered me a gutsy lady, that he told folks, “She faces a gun cooler than any woman I ever saw.” I would preen a little at that accolade. And I wish I could tell you I stood there calmly because I was ready to receive my heavenly reward. I’ll never get it, however, by lying, and the truth is, I wanted to run, even if that meant getting shot in the back. The trouble was, my body had petrified. Even my head had petrified. I didn’t feel a thing while Smitty fired off another shot over me, grinning all the while.
Help came from an unexpected source. “Stop that!” Tyrone clomped down the trailer steps, clutching his pants in front of him. “Stop it! She’s a judge!” He reached Smitty faster than either Smitty or I knew he could run and wrested the gun from Smitty’s hands. The others watched in astonishment as he yelled, “You stupid, dumb—” I won’t re
peat the rest of what he said. It’s not language I generally use, but it was certainly language Smitty understood.
To give him credit, though, he didn’t cower, just snickered up at Tyrone. “I wasn’t hurtin’ her—just shooting squirrels.” Several of his henchmen guffawed. Tyrone stomped away from him and glared, his big face flushed and furious. He still held the gun in one hand and clutched his pants with the other.
Smitty turned and swaggered toward the backyard. With a jerk of his head he drew those puppets after him. “She came to see you, anyway,” he informed Tyrone over one shoulder.
Tyrone laid the gun on the steps and lumbered over to where I was firmly planted in the soil and sending down roots for support. “You okay?” He peered down at me between two ripples of long black hair. His worried face looked very like his mother’s.
“A little shook up,” I admitted. “I was afraid he might miss a squirrel and hit me.”
“Oh, no, he’s a real good shot.” Pride flickered in his eyes, which was then chased away by shame. “He shouldn’t have scared you like that, though. I was in the bathroom and the TV’s on. I didn’t know the shots were real at first.” He looked down and saw he was still clutching his unzipped pants. He turned bright red, showed me his back, and zipped up. “Excuse me.”
“Honey, I’ll excuse you anything. I expect you just saved my life.”
“He wouldn’t have hurt you. He was just foolin’ around.”
My laugh was pretty shaky. “He sure fooled me.”
“Were you really lookin’ for me?” His breath came in short, anxious gasps. I wondered how he could breathe at all with those tight leather strings and beads around his thick neck.
“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you, but right now we’re both having trouble getting our breath. Ride back into town with me.”
He cast a quick look toward the trailer. “I better stay here. We’re havin’ a meetin’.”
“You’re in a heap of trouble, and it’s getting deeper all the time. I need to ask you some questions, and I don’t want Smitty listening in. Come on. Ride back to town with me.”
“I can’t.” If ever a boy looked miserable, it was Tyrone. “He—he’ll—I just can’t. That’s all.”
I remembered what Joe Riddley said: Smitty might be threatening to hurt Tyrone’s mother. I took that a lot more seriously now than I had an hour ago. “Can you meet me somewhere later?”
He squirmed, shuffling those huge feet in the high grass. “I don’t know—”
“Tyrone, we’ve got to get you out of this mess. It’s getting worse than you know. Tell me when and where you can meet me. I’ll be there.”
“I can’t,” he said desperately. “I just can’t. I gotta go.” He lumbered toward the back.
I walked on spaghetti legs to my car and managed to drive back to the office, but I kept a close eye out for Charlie Muggins’s cruiser. I was shaking like somebody who’d been drinking steadily for a week.
23
I was real surprised around nine that night to answer the phone and hear a husky whisper. “Judge Yarbrough? It’s Tyrone. Listen, I’ll meet you, if you tell me where.”
“Where are you now?” Lightning flickered outside while I waited for his answer.
“At the pay phone at the Bi-Lo. I came to see if Mama wanted me to walk her home, but she already left.” A rumble of thunder followed the lightning. The storm was getting close.
“I’ll come get you. Are you hungry?” He grunted, which I took for a yes. “Let’s go out to Dad’s BarBeQue.” It was unlikely that Smitty or his friends would be there. Dad’s was several miles out of town, primarily a family place, and so isolated, you’d think nobody would ever find it. However, it had been going strong since 1937, started by the current owner’s granddaddy. In the winter, Dad’s closed at eight, but during the summertime it was open until well after ten to satisfy whatever cravings for barbeque might strike Hope County.
Dad (who had been called that so long most folks had forgotten his name was Raymond) was a burly Primitive Baptist with biceps like ham butts. His chief cook, Eddie, was a Pentecostal preacher cut from the same mold. Between them, they set straight any troublemaker who was unwise enough to stop in.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I told Tyrone. “If it starts raining, wait inside at the door and I’ll pull up. Okay?”
“No. I’ll start walking home. Pick me up on the road. Pretend you’re just drivin’ by.”
“It may be pouring by then.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind getting wet.”
Joe Riddley was watching Patton in the den. I grabbed my pocketbook and stuck my head in the room. “I’m going out for a little while. Will you be okay?”
He pushed the mute button. “You going down to the jail?”
“No. Meeting somebody.”
“Not Martha. She’s working tonight.” He pulled the lever on his recliner and lowered his feet. “I’ll come with you.”
I stared in astonishment. “What about your program?” Joe Riddley thinks life isn’t complete without one World War II movie a month, even if he can repeat the lines by heart.
He pushed the power button and the screen flashed and went dark. “I’ve got other nights to watch movies. I’ve only got one wife.” I was so astonished, I stepped back without a word to let him pass. He took his cap from the hook and spoke over his shoulder. “I didn’t major in math like you did, Little Bit, but I can add four ones and come up with the right answer.” He held up fingers as he counted. “One, you went down to the jail this afternoon for a hearing and took twice as long as normal. Two, you came back shaking like Lulu when she knows she deserves a whipping. Three, a customer came in before you did and said somebody was shooting mighty close to the highway out on the Waynesboro Road. Four, Smitty Smith lives out on the Waynesboro Road.” He felt in his pockets to be sure his keys were still there, then reached out and grabbed me in a bear hug. “I know you think Smitty had something to do with DeWayne’s death. If you think I’m going to let you meet him alone at this hour—”
“It’s Tyrone, honey, not Smitty,” I said against his chest. “I hope I can get him to testify that Smitty helped paint the school. We’re going out to Dad’s.”
He let me go. “One more reason to go along. That little bit of supper you fixed isn’t going to hold me all night.” He settled his cap on his head. Bo flew down, of course—he loved to ride on that cap. Joe Riddley took him to the barn and settled him for the night, then met me at his car. Rain was already pattering down, but by the time I thought about going back for my raincoat, he was already starting the engine. The rain was streaming by the time we got to the Bi-Lo.
When I told Joe Riddley we were to drive by Tyrone and offer him a ride, he grunted. “You forgot your cloak and dagger.” But he drove slow until we saw the big dripping figure trudging down the road, then pulled to the side, rolled down his window and called real loud, “You need a ride, Tyrone? The judge and I are heading your way.” Joe Riddley always got a kick out of calling me “the judge,” since he’d been the judge for so many years.
Tyrone wasn’t a real great actor—nobody would have been fooled by his pretending to be surprised—but I didn’t see anybody standing around in the rain to watch our performance.
“Joe Riddley decided he’d like to come eat barbeque with us,” I said as Tyrone got in.
“That’s cool.” He smelled like wet boy, a scent like no other in the world. When he’d slammed the door behind him, he peered in all directions, tense and anxious. When you’re scared of somebody, you begin to think your enemies might have invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter’s.
The rain fell harder, but we were cozy inside with the swish of the wipers. Nobody spoke until we pulled into Dad’s parking lot, which was now a sea of red, sticky mud. Joe Riddley drove the Lincoln close to the door. “You all run for it. I’ll park.”
Tyrone and I climbed out into the fragrance of pork roasting in a pit out back, but we didn�
��t stop to appreciate it. We got soaked dashing five feet to the door—which was little more than a screen held together by weathered boards.
Dad’s had never wasted money on paint, polish, or air-conditioning. The floor was sawdust, dotted with heavy wooden picnic tables. Little plastic baskets lined with paper substituted for plates—red for beef, yellow for pork, blue for chicken. The eating area was more like a big screened porch, planked as high as my waist and screened to the bare rafters. As rain drummed on the tin roof, Dad was going around letting down big wooden flaps on the side where water was blowing in. I waved to a couple of people I knew and moseyed over to study the menu above the counter like I didn’t know it by heart. Rain seemed to make everything smell stronger—the sawdust, the cooking meat, the sweat of Eddie, who leaned on his elbow, white paper hat askew. “What you folks want tonight?”
“The usual,” I told him. “Small pork sandwich, cole slaw and corn on the cob with lots of butter.” I added to Tyrone, “Get whatever you want.”
Joe Riddley came in, shaking his wet cap at the door and pulling his shirt away from his body. “Always eat a lot when a woman’s paying,” he told Tyrone. “It happens so rarely. Anybody notice it’s started to rain?” Rain fell so loud on the roof, we could hardly hear him.
Joe Riddley decided on a plate of ribs with Brunswick stew and found it necessary to tell Eddie we’d already eaten supper but I hadn’t fed him enough to keep a man alive until morning.
I carried my plate to a table in the far corner and squirted Dad’s good honey sauce over the meat, pretending I was squirting it all over Joe Riddley’s head. If you haven’t eaten southern barbeque, you may not know it isn’t cooked in sauce. It’s slow cooked in a pit and laid on the bread. You add whatever sauces you want to. Dad’s offers honey, hot, spicy, or mustard.
The way Tyrone ordered, I might have to get a part-time job at the superstore to pay our Visa bill. When he spread his food out on the table, Joe Riddley and I barely had space for our own food. We all dug in and didn’t talk until we’d made a dent in our orders. Finally, I wiped the sauce off my chin and tried to think about what I wanted to ask first.
Who Let That Killer in the House? Page 19
