Looking in the mirror, Stella realized that no amount of moisturizer was going to perk up a face as tired as hers, but she found a degree of comfort in following her nightly routine. Even if it was in a hospital restroom.
The sink and some paper towels, applied in the toilet stall, were a far cry from her relaxing soak in her bathtub at home, but Savannah had thought to send her lilac soap along, tucked into a plastic sandwich bag, so she smelled nice once she was finished.
Having completed her toilette, Stella changed into her fresh clothes and felt like a new woman . . . as long as that new woman had been dragged backwards through a patch of scrub brush and left on the side of a dirt road.
She knew what was weighing her down so badly. It wasn’t the fact that she was in a hospital with a sick child. After the doctor’s good report and seeing Alma very nearly her feisty self again, that wasn’t what was making Stella sick at heart.
It was a task she had put off since the moment she had first arrived at the hospital and placed her beloved grandchild into the hospital staff’s care.
She had put it off as long as she could.
It was time.
She pulled her purse out of the bag and collected every coin she could find inside. There wasn’t much. Expendable income wasn’t a concept she was familiar with. At any moment, Stella knew almost to the penny how much money she had and where it was supposed to go.
But it wasn’t the expenditure that was bothering her.
No, her task was far more bitter, more hurtful than any issue having to do with money.
Long ago, she had heard a wise saying: “If you have a problem that money can solve, you don’t have a problem.”
This was a problem she’d had for years, and she knew of nothing, other than divine intervention, that could fix it.
With her fist full of coins and her bag of clothing and toiletries under her arm, she made her way out of the bathroom and walked back to the waiting room area and the phone booth she had used before to call home.
Fortunately, it was empty. Now that she’d made up her mind to do it, she wanted to get it over with.
As before, she was happy that the booth had a folding door for privacy and a seat for comfort. She sat down and dumped the change on the tiny shelf beneath the phone, making sure the coins didn’t roll off. Then she reached into the paper bag again.
Often, her granddaughter amazed her. Savannah was more thoughtful and showed more common sense than most adults Stella knew. The girl had put her little address book in with the rest of her necessities, anticipating she would need it.
She took it out, flipped to the “M” page, and looked at the lengthy list of telephone numbers she had written beneath the name “Macon.”
For the fourteen years that her son had been a long-distance truck driver, she had never known for certain, from moment to moment, where he was or how she could reach him.
During the first ten of those years, Stella had assumed it was just a part of the job, being unavailable to family and friends for most days of the year. But over time, Stella had spoken to other truckers, some of whom had the same routes as Macon’s, and somehow, they managed to be with their loved ones for most major holidays and make regular phone calls home.
Finally, Stella had stopped making excuses for her son. Macon preferred to be out of reach, unaccountable, with little or nothing expected of him.
She thought of how responsible her Art had been and what a great example he had set for his boys. She thought of their other son, who had laid down his life for his country.
For so many sleepless nights she had pondered the question, but she simply couldn’t figure out how she had gone wrong when raising Macon. Surely, when she was teaching him table manners, how to do his math lessons, and to be sure to wash behind his ears, she must have mentioned the importance of taking care of one’s family. Especially the innocent, dependent children you brought into the world.
Now he had another on the way and one in the hospital, and she had no idea if any of the numbers in her book would reach him.
She shoved coins into the phone, tried one entry after another, until on the seventh, a woman answered with a simple “Yeah?”
“Hello,” Stella said. “Is Macon Reid there?”
“Who’s this?”
Stella took a deep breath, tamping down her temper. It wouldn’t do to fly off the handle and say something like, “None of yer business, ya brazen hussy! Put ’im on the dadgum phone! Now!”
Instead, she managed to disguise her annoyance behind a syrupy sweet, “This is his mother, darlin’. Please ask him to come to the phone. There’s a family emergency.”
“Macon,” she heard the voice with soothing, dulcet tones bellow like a foghorn, “get off the john and come answer your damned phone. It’s your mother!”
Eventually, after Stella had deposited still more change into the phone, she heard her son pick up the receiver and say, “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“I’m calling you from the hospital. Alma just had surgery. I thought you should know.”
You coulda broke that to him a lot easier there, Stella, ol’ girl, she told herself. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re deliberately tryin’ to scare him plum to pieces.
“Oh,” he said, like a boxer who had just received a slug to the solar plexus.
“Yes. Oh.”
There was a long pause, then he said, “What happened?”
“Appendicitis.”
“Okay. Is that serious?”
“Can be. It was. But they took it out, and they expect she’ll be all right.”
“Oh, good.”
“Are you anywhere around here at the moment? I know it’d do her a world of good to see you. It’d be nice for all the kids. Waycross misses you somethin’ fierce.”
“I’m headin’ out to the West Coast tomorrow. Got a load of beef for a big restaurant chain out there.”
“Then maybe a phone call? Like I said, it would mean so much to her.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mom. I’ll be driving straight through. I have to. Don’t want all that beef to go off.”
He wouldn’t call. Stella knew it was pointless to nudge him. In fact, if anything, he would be less likely to cooperate if he thought it was expected of him.
“I heard about the baby.” She was surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth. She’d decided she wouldn’t say anything about the pregnancy to him, for fear she might lose control and give him a much bigger piece of her mind than he could handle.
Maybe the stress of the day had clogged some of her mental filters that kept those sorts of words from pouring forth.
Maybe she’d finally reached a point of no return with her son and no longer cared if she offended him or not.
To her shock and relief, she heard herself saying, “Did you give it one single thought before you started bangin’ that hair-brained wife of yours like a screen door in a windstorm there in the jail and makin’ another baby that neither one of you wants or can take care of? She’s locked up now for mistreating these I’m raisin’. But you and her get two minutes together alone in a cell and what do you do? You jump on each other without any protection and come up with another one. Did you think I don’t have enough on my hands, raisin’ these ones I got already, without you two adding a tiny, helpless infant to the picture?”
There was dead silence on the other end. She thought he might have hung up on her, and she wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. But the words, so long held back, were gushing from deep inside her, from a place of great pain, frustration, and exhaustion. She couldn’t stop them.
“Let me tell you somethin’, Macon Reid. Your sweet little Alma is layin’ in a bed upstairs with her belly cut up, hurtin’ bad. She’s in room number fifteen, and there’s a phone right next to her bed. If you don’t call her sometime in the next twenty-four hours and tell her you love her and wish her a decent ‘get well’ then don’t bother to contact me again. Not for nothin�
��. Do you hear? I mean it, Macon. I’ve had enough of this crap. Your children deserve better, and you start givin’ them some. Now!”
When she slammed down the phone, her hand was shaking so badly that she missed and had to try twice more before she had the receiver cradled.
Her pulse was racing, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
She waited for it to hit her—the wave of guilt that would overwhelm and suffocate her.
She waited for the lightning bolt from heaven that would zap her, punish her for not being “nice” enough to her own son.
She, who had always prided herself on not being judgmental, for showing kindness when provoked, love when being mistreated, and patience when being tried.
Ah, to hell with it, she thought, as she gathered up her leftover coins and tossed them into the bag with her dirty clothes. He deserved ever’ bit of that and more. “Nice” is overrated.
Chapter 24
Of course, Stella had seen her little granddaughter happy many times. Alma was a child who just naturally chose joy over sadness in all circumstances, even trying ones. She had been cheerful since the day she was born.
But Stella couldn’t ever recall seeing her sweet face shining quite so brightly as it was two days later, when Stella stepped into the girl’s hospital room to tell her that she had been cleared to go home.
The drab room looked as though a wonderful party had been thrown inside its jail-cell gray walls.
On the nightstand next to her bed was a spring bouquet of daisies, carnations, tulips, and a couple of Stargazer lilies, whose spicy fragrance chased away all the medicinal odors in the room.
To her delight and astonishment, Stella had seen the flowers delivered the very next morning after her talk with Macon. The deliveryman had handed them to Alma with much pomp and circumstance, along with a card that told her they were from her daddy and that he loved her very much.
Alma had been thrilled beyond words.
That afternoon, Stella had overheard Alma’s end of the telephone call that Macon had placed to his daughter. The call was fairly short, but Stella could tell by the smile on her granddaughter’s face that Macon was saying the things the child so desperately needed to hear: He loved her dearly, and he wanted her to get well right away, if not sooner.
Alma had been positively overwhelmed by the attention and told Stella, “Daddy said I was his princess, Granny. That’s why he sent me the flowers, because princesses should have flowers in their room, he said, especially ones who just had an operation.”
Witnessing this overnight change in her son’s behavior, Stella told herself, Just think of all the times you forced yourself to be kind to him, when you felt like clobbering him upside the head with a rolling pin. All the nights you laid awake prayin’ for wisdom about how to deal with him. Who’d have thought all you had to do was get real tired, real mad, real sick of the whole thing, and just tell him off? Remember this, girl. It’s a Life Lesson!
Before the day had passed, even more presents arrived. Dolly Browning popped into the room, carrying an orange Care Bear with a couple of smiling flowers on its tummy. She gave it to her “special patient,” as she called Alma, when she placed the toy in her hands and a kiss on each of her now rosy cheeks.
Then a dozen balloons arrived. One of each color of the rainbow and more besides. They floated at the top of the ceiling with curly ribbons streaming down. One was a silver and pink heart with a message that encouraged her to “Get Well!”
They were from Manny.
Stella wasn’t surprised. Manny loved her grandchildren. She had no doubt of that. Which made it particularly difficult for her not to love him.
“Can I really go home now?” Alma asked as Stella scurried around the room, gathering up their personal items. “Can I take my flowers and my balloons and my Care Bear with me?”
“Of course you can, sugar,” she replied. But even as she spoke the words, she wondered how Manny was going to get two extra people, a stuffed bear, a large bouquet of flowers, and especially the dozen balloons he had sent, all inside the cruiser.
Oh well, she thought. He sent ’em to her, and he knew he’d be bringin’ her home. He must’ve had a plan.
If there was anything Sheriff Manny Gilford was good at, it was thinking ahead.
* * *
“What the heck was I thinking, sending her a zillion balloons like that?” Manny whispered to Stella as they rode down the highway, surrounded by the colorful orbs floating eerily around their heads. “If I saw anybody driving down the road with their vision obstructed like this, I’d pull them over in a heartbeat and write them a ticket for being stupid.”
“Good thing you’re the sheriff then.” Stella laughed at him as he swatted away a red one that was drifting in front of his face. “You’re generous to a fault, Manny Gilford. That’s your problem. Always has been.”
He sniffed. “I know a few miscreants in our town who would beg to differ with you there.”
“They don’t know you as well as I do.”
“I’ll give you that.”
Stella grabbed the offending balloon that was tormenting him more than the others and tried to tuck it under her knees, along with four of its siblings. It wouldn’t stay, she knew, but she was trying.
She glanced over her shoulder to the rear seat of the cruiser, where Alma was sleeping, Manny’s jacket thrown over her. Her bear was hugged tightly to her chest, her flowers on the seat beside her, and she was surrounded by as many balloons as the area would hold.
She looked every bit the princess that she was.
Turning to Manny, Stella said, “I’ve been dying to hear where you’re at now, with the investigation that is, since I’ve been out of commission. She’s asleep back there, so tell me everything. Don’t hold back.”
Manny laughed. “Like I could withhold anything at all from you. You’d wring it outta me if I even tried.”
“That’s true, so let ’er rip.”
“I’m flattered that you’d think I’ve wrapped this case up by myself in forty-eight hours. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’ve got as many, or more, questions than I had the last time we discussed it.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I figured you’d have it all solved and somebody behind bars by now.”
“I wish. No such luck. But I did hear from the lab in Atlanta.”
Stella perked up. “Great! What did they say?”
“I actually got some interesting information. Made me glad I sent it off to them.”
“That threatening letter that Dolly got?”
“No fingerprints on it but hers, a partial of mine, and the mailman’s. The sender must have used gloves.”
“Okay, then that rules out Deacon or Earle. They ain’t got the good sense God gave a sock full of rocks.
He cut her a funny sideways look. “A sock full of rocks? Where do you come up with these, girl?”
“Make ’em up as I go along. Just part of the wonder that is me.”
“That’s what I figured. Anyway, the lab says the fibers are just what Savannah said. They’re from an angora rabbit.”
“A blue rabbit. That shouldn’t be too hard to find. Can’t be a lot of blue bunnies hoppin’ around town.”
“It was dyed blue, Stella. Most likely from a ball of fancy knitting yarn, they said.”
“I figured. Duh, Manny. Don’t you know when your leg’s gettin’ tugged?”
He rolled his eyes and batted a balloon away from his face. “Then there’s the bodily fluids and tissue samples that Herb collected. Those are the most interesting of all.”
“How so?”
“At least we know the cause of death now. A toxic chemical called hydrogen cyanide. They found it in that discharge around his mouth and also from the tissue samples Herb took from his mouth, nose, and throat.”
“Nose? Then it’s not somethin’ he drank. It must’ve been somethin’ he breathed in.”
“That’s right. Now we know the reason for th
e duct tape. They didn’t put it there to keep him in. It was to seal off the room.”
“But we didn’t find any sort of chemicals inside there. Not even down the drains when you snaked them.”
“I know. I went back, checked everything again—the toilet, the sink, the showerhead. I didn’t find a single thing out of the ordinary.”
“The killer couldn’t have removed the toxin after Billy Ray expired, or the tape would’ve been torn off.”
“It’s a stumper. That’s for sure.”
“I never heard of that hydrogen cyanide before. What is it? Where would you get such a thing.”
“I checked around and found out that it’s a pesticide. It’s been used to delouse places and to kill other insects. Farmers used it quite a lot, but not so much now because it’s so toxic and dangerous to handle.”
“Farmers, huh?” Stella didn’t want to hear that. Instantly, she thought of Raul and his calloused hands.
“Yeah. I know,” Manny replied. “It got me to wondering if maybe Raul went to the funeral home for a different reason.”
“To try to find out how much Herb had or hadn’t figured out?”
“Something like that.”
“It weren’t him. I just don’t believe it of him. He’d already beat Billy Ray up. I think he’d got it outta his system already.”
“I expect so, too.”
“But even if Raul wasn’t satisfied and wanted more, he would’ve just given Billy Ray another poundin’, not rigged up a fancy poisonin’ like that.”
“We can’t discount anybody, Stella. No matter how much we might like them. People are people, and there’s just no telling what they’ll do at any given time.”
“That’s true. Folks surprise you. Good ones go bad and once in a blue moon, bad ones do somethin’ good.”
Manny chuckled. “Don’t see the latter as often as the former though.”
“That’s for sure.”
Suddenly, she recalled something she had intended to tell him. “By the way, when I was filling out the papers to get Alma discharged, I saw Franklin Tucker leaving. He had his gang with him, and they were handling him like he was the King of Siam when they put him in and outta that wheelchair.”
Murder at Mabel's Motel Page 19
