The house was filled nearly to the bursting point with aunts, uncles, and cousins, and it took me a few minutes to spot Aunt Nora. I called her name, and she bustled over to me.
"Is he here?" she whispered.
"He's outside. Where's Aunt Edna?"
"Ruby Lee took her to freshen up. Here they come now."
I looked up that way, meaning to wish them a merry Christmas, but I never did get the words out.
Aunt Edna was wearing a dark red dress that flattered her slim figure, and matching pumps. Her hair had been released from its bun, and trimmed and curled around her face. She had on a pearl necklace and earrings, and even eye shadow and lipstick.
"Merry Christmas, Laurie Anne," she said, smiling shyly.
I looked at Aunt Nora, and she grinned. She and the other aunts must have spent the past two days re–making Aunt Edna.
Before I could say anything else, the doorbell rang. Aunt Nora must have prompted everybody, because even though there were several people near the door, nobody moved.
"Edna, would you get that?" Aunt Nora asked innocently.
Aunt Edna looked curious, but went to the door and opened it.
From over her shoulder, I could see Caleb holding a bouquet of roses and a wrapped box. "Hello, Edna," he said.
I held my breath for her answer.
"Caleb Wilkins," she said. "I was wondering if you'd ever show up again. What do you want?"
My heart went right through the floor. She didn't want to see him.
"I'm sorry, Edna," he said. "I've regretted leaving you like I did every day for the past twenty–five years."
"I hope you don't think I've been sitting around waiting for you to come back!"
"No, I didn't think that. I just hope you'll let me come back now."
"For how long this time?"
"Edna, I swear that the only way I'll leave again is if you want me to." He paused. "Are you telling me to go?"
They stood there for what seemed like an eternity, both so filled with pride that it hurt to watch them. Aunt Edna's head was held high in a way I had never seen before, and I finally understood why Aunt Nora had called her the one with spirit.
Finally Aunt Edna said, "No, I'm not telling to you to go, Caleb. I'm asking you to stay." She reached out a hand, and Caleb took it. Then suddenly she was out on the porch with him and they were in each others arms, kissing with twenty–five years' worth of passion.
After a few stunned seconds, Aunt Nora closed the door behind them and wiped her eyes.
Richard put his arms around me, and we kissed, too.
"Merry Christmas, Richard."
"Merry Christmas, Laura." Then in a voice loud enough for everybody to hear, he added, "God bless us every one!"
THE DEATH OF ERIK THE REDNECK
This story features Junior Norton, the police chief in Byerly.
I'd known Erik Husey ever since we were in grammar school, but when I looked at the smoking mess that had been Erik and his dog, Lucky, all I could think of was that I never thought he'd be that dumb. To go out in a rowboat and set yourself on fire with a cigarette when you're so drunk that you don't even think to jump into the water, is just out–and–out stupid.
"Who found him?" I asked Mark Pope, my deputy. We were both standing on the floating platform that served as a dock for Walters Lake, looking down at Erik's body in his boat.
"Wade Spivey. You want to talk to him, or shall I give you the high points?"
"I may as well talk to him myself." I didn't doubt that Mark had all the facts, but sometimes it helps to get the story from the horse's mouth. Before I went over there, I asked, "Did you call the medical examiner?"
"Right after I called you."
"How about Erik's wife?"
He shook his head.
Mark just can't stand breaking the news to the next of kin. It's a good thing it doesn't bother me so much. As the chief of police of Byerly, North Carolina, I can't avoid it. "I'll talk to her later."
I walked down the dock to where Wade was staying out of our way. "Hey, Wade. How're your folks doing?"
"They're fine, Junior."
"Glad to hear it."
"And your folks? How's your daddy liking retirement?"
My daddy was police chief before me, like his daddy had been before him. Which is why I'm named Junior, instead of the kind of name you'd expect for a woman. "He likes it pretty well." With manners attended to, I said, "Mark tells me it was you who found Erik Husey."
"That's right."
"Why don't you tell me about it?"
"Well, I saw his boat on the lake with smoke coming from it this morning."
"What time was that?"
He thought about it. "I slept late this morning so it must have been after ten before I came outside to get the paper."
Knowing Wade, that meant he had been out drinking the night before, but unlike Erik, he had had enough sense to stay off the lake. "And then you saw the smoke?"
"Well, it wasn't much smoke. Just a little curl coming up, like he was having a cigarette. Only I couldn't see him over there. I called out a couple of times, and when nobody answered, I got to thinking that something might be wrong, so I went to take a look."
"Was your boat handy?"
"Tied up at the dock like always. It didn't take me no time to go over there, and that's when I saw him."
"Not a pretty sight."
"It sure wasn't," he said, shaking his head. "Anyway, I tied a line to the bow and towed it in. Then I called you folks."
"Any idea of how long he'd been out there?"
"He wasn't there when I left for town yesterday evening, but I don't know about when I got back. It was dark last night, and I don't think I even looked in that direction."
"Didn't hear anything?"
Wade shook his head.
"Good enough. I appreciate you letting us know right away."
"No problem. Y’all want some coffee? I put a pot on right after I called."
"I sure would. Thank you."
Wade went into his trailer, and I went back over to Mark.
"Good thing his boat's aluminum," Mark said. "If it was wood, it would have burnt right through and sunk. There's no telling when we'd have found him."
I nodded, looking inside the boat again. Like I had said to Wade, it wasn't a pretty sight, and it didn't smell too good, either. Erik was lying flat on his back, with a bottle in his right hand. The label had been burned off, but the bottle looked like Rebel Yell whiskey, the cheapest brand I knew of. On his left side was what was left of Lucky, a brown and white mutt who had wagged his tail at everybody he met.
"Lucky must have passed out first," I said, "or he'd have tried to wake up Erik."
"Lucky was probably drunk, too," Mark said.
"Erik gave whiskey to his dog?"
Mark nodded.
"That man was dumber than—" A station wagon drove up before I could finish the insult. "Dr. Connelly's here. Why don't you get the Polaroid from my trunk and take a few pictures before he gets started?" I handed him the keys.
While he left, I took another look at Erik and Lucky. I've seen people dead from gun shots, blunt instruments, and way too many car wrecks. I was pretty sure that this was the first man I had seen die from stupidity.
Which is how I ended the story when I was telling it to my parents that afternoon over Sunday dinner. I suppose most people wouldn't have thought it a fit subject to speak about at the dinner table, but after all the years Daddy was a cop, he and Mama had heard it all.
"That must have been awful for you," Mama said.
"I've seen worse." Smelled worse, too, but not many times.
"But this time it was somebody you knew."
"Mama, I know most of the people who end up dead in Byerly." Byerly isn't that big.
"But Erik was your age. In your grade at school, wasn't he?"
I nodded.
"Doesn't that bother you?"
"It always bothers me when so
"That's not what I mean. Andy, you know what I mean, don't you?"
"What your mama means, Junior, is that she's surprised that you're not taking it more personal this time."
I took one last bite of pecan pie. "Can't say as I am, Daddy. I didn't know Erik that well, and I didn't like him much. About the only time he ever spoke to me was to make fun of my name or to complain about speeding tickets."
Mama just sighed and tapped the maple dining room table. "Junior, I swear you haven't got a bit more feeling than this table here. What about Rinda? How did she take it?"
Rinda was Erik's wife. "About as well as you'd expect. She cried a little at first, but then wanted to know what happened. She hadn't been up long enough to worry about where Erik was. Said he'd gone out drinking the night before, and she figured he'd fallen asleep at somebody's house."
"Erik always did drink too much," Daddy said. Despite retirement, he kept up with most people in Byerly. "But I thought he drank at home. Cheaper that way."
"Rinda said he usually did, but they had had a fight."
Mama said, "That's terrible! The last words they spoke were in anger."
"Kind of suspicious, too," I said.
"Junior! It was an accident."
"Probably," I agreed. "She said they weren't fighting about anything important anyway, only about him not taking care of the house when she was out of town last week. She just got back from going to her father's funeral in Tennessee."
Mama said, "I heard about that. She hopped right onto a bus when she heard how bad off he was, but missed being able to say goodbye to him by an hour. It really hit her hard." She shook her head. "First her daddy, and now her husband. Junior, I've got a big dish of chicken and dumplings that I was going to freeze for later this week, but I want you to take it over to Rinda."
"Mama, I'm the police chief. I can't be taking food over every time somebody gets killed in an accident."
"I don't see why not. Especially when it's somebody you've known your whole life."
I looked at Daddy, hoping he'd be on my side, but he said, "I don't think it would hurt anything, Junior." Then he winked. "Besides, she might confess."
"Andy!"
So later Sunday afternoon, when I should have been cleaning up my apartment or doing nothing at all, I drove back to the lake and Rinda Husey's house. There were extra cars in the driveway, meaning that Rinda had company, so I wouldn't have to stay any longer than it would take to drop off the chicken and dumplings. At least, that's what I thought.
It wasn't Rinda who came to the door, it was Erik's aunt Mavis.
"Afternoon Miz Dermott. My mama wanted me to bring this over for Rinda." I held out the dish, but she didn't take it from me.
Instead she called out, "Mary Maude, did you call Junior?"
My mama tells me that Mavis Dermott and Mary Maude Foy had always had dark hair, but now they dye it solid black, without the first highlight to make it look real. Both wear face makeup so thick that it could be a mask, especially the way it ends right under their chins. Mavis is a widow, and since Mary Maude's husband is an invalid who never leaves the house, she might as well be one, too.
"No, I didn't call her, but I'm glad she's here," Mary Maude said. "Junior, I want you tell Rinda that it's not legal for her keep things that Erik inherited from his mama. Those things ought to come to me and Mavis."
Now I had to go inside. "Hello, Rinda," I said, ignoring Mary Maude for the time being. "My mama sent this for you."
Rinda looked a lot more tired than she had before, but with Mary Maude and Mavis pestering her, I wasn't surprised. She had been blonde and vaguely pretty when she and Erik started dating in high school, but between the marriage, a few extra pounds, and what she had been through, she didn't look pretty anymore. Even her blonde hair had grown out so that the dark roots were showing.
"Thank you, Junior." She took the dish from me and went out into the kitchen.
"Miz Foy, did Erik have a will?" I said.
"Of course not, him being so young. But I know he'd have wanted those things to come to me and Mavis."
"With no will, his property belongs to Rinda, and she can do with it as she sees fit."
"But it's not right," Mary Maude insisted.
"That's the law."
She muttered under her breath about law and police.
Mavis said, "Didn't I tell you that, sister?" To me, she added, "She didn't pay a bit more mind than the man in the moon. It's just a shame, that's all. Those things have been in our family for three generations."
I wanted to ask what things they were so worried about, but it didn't really matter and Rinda came back in then.
"Junior, do you know when I'll be able to claim Erik's body?" she asked.
"Dr. Connelly said he'd get to it just as quick as he could."
Mary Maude said, "That's another thing. Why can't we bring Erik home now? You've got no business cutting into him."
I guess Rinda had heard it before, because she didn't even wince. I said, "I'm sorry Miz Foy, but when a man is found dead under—" I started to say "suspicious," but changed it to keep from riling her up further. "Under unusual circumstances, there has to be an autopsy."
This gave Mary Maude a chance to mutter some more, and Mavis a chance to say, "Didn't I tell you that, sister? They'll fix him up for the funeral. Isn't that right, Junior?"
I hesitated. Usually Connelly does keep an autopsy as neat as he can, but in this case, the body had been pretty messy to start with.
Rinda came to my rescue. "He was burned to death. There's nothing an undertaker can do with that."
Just for a second, the aunts were struck silent. Then Mavis said, "Lord all mighty, Rinda, I didn't know you were so hard. Don't you have any feelings?"
That sounded darned close to what my mother had said to me, so I felt like I should defend Rinda. "She's right, ma'am. You wouldn't want to see him the way he is."
Both Mary Maude and Mavis started bawling, and I was impressed by the way their makeup repelled the tears. Rinda tossed a box of tissues at them, then walked me to the door. "Thank your mama for me, Junior."
"I will. Are you going to be all right with them two?"
"They'll quit as soon as they realize they don't have an audience." She didn't sound hard to me, just realistic.
I was getting into the car when Mark called me on the radio. "This is Junior."
"Junior, Dr. Connelly wants you to call him."
"Let me get to a phone." Mark gave me the number, and I started up the car. I could have gone back inside to use Rinda's phone, but I wanted to stay as far away from that house as I could. Besides, the only case Connelly was looking at was Erik's, and I wasn't about to discuss it in front of his family.
There was a filling station with a pay phone a mile down the road, so I pulled in there to call. "Dr. Connelly? This is Junior."
"Junior, I found something that might interest you."
"What's that?"
"When I examined Lucky's body—"
"Don't you mean Erik's body?"
"No, I mean Lucky's."
"You autopsied the dog?"
"I thought it would be interesting. I dissected cats and pigs in school, but never performed a post–mortem on a dog. That was all right, wasn't it?"
Different strokes for different folks, as Daddy says. "I don't see why not. What did you find?"
"A couple of things. First off, that dog's lungs were clear as a bell."
"Meaning what?" I asked, though I thought I knew the answer.
"Meaning that that dog never inhaled smoke from any fire."
"Which means that Lucky was dead before the fire started?"
"That would be my opinion."
"Then what killed him?"
"There's some fluid in the stomach, and it looks like antifreeze. You know dogs love the taste of antifreeze, even if it is toxic."
I ran through a few possibilities in my head. First, maybe Erik accidentally left antifreeze out where Lucky could get it, and burned himself to death in a fit of remorse. Or maybe it was some sort of dog murder/suicide pact. Or maybe it was just plain old everyday murder. It seemed to me that the last idea was the most likely.
"You said a couple of things?"
"This may not be important, but Lucky had been operated on in the past few weeks. He had a scar in the stomach area, healing nicely. Clearly done by a professional."
I didn't see how that mattered, but you never know. "What about Erik? How did he die?"
"I was just getting ready to start on him, but I thought you'd want to hear about the dog immediately."
"You thought right. Let me know what you find out about Erik." I hung up the phone, and got back in the car to radio Mark and tell him what Dr. Connelly had told me. "I guess you know what I want you to do."
He's not got much imagination, so he had to think about it. "Go talk to everybody living near the lake and see if they saw anything?"
"That's right."
"I'm on the way. How about you?"
"I'm going to see Wade Spivey again."
Actually, it wasn't Wade I wanted to see so much as it was his boat, but I thought I better check with him before I went sniffing around. He was watching a football game when I knocked, but invited me in anyway.
"Hey, Junior. Anything wrong?"
"A couple of odd things have shown up in the Husey case. You mind if I ask a couple more questions?"
"Not at all. You want a Coca-Cola?"
"No, thank you." Drinking coffee with someone who found an accident victim was one thing. Drinking a Coke with the first man on the scene of a murder was something else. "Did you know Erik well?"
"Just enough to speak to."
"But he docked his boat right next to yours."
"Only because he bought the boat from Ralph Stewart. Ralph had always kept it there, so I said Erik could just keep on leaving it there."
"So y'all never went fishing together?"
"Erik wasn't a real fisherman. He'd throw out a few lines, but mainly he just went out there to be by himself."
"Did you ever know anybody to go out on the lake with him?"
"Just his dog. I shouldn't say this after what happened to him, but I used to think Erik would only bring Lucky because of him being so tight-fisted. He'd have had to share his Rebel Yell with a human being."
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