Who Killed the Queen of Clubs?: A Thoroughly Southern Mystery

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Hello, yourself,” I greeted her. “You planning on serving that chair for dinner?”

  “No, Henry fixed it.” You’d have thought he’d solved the Mideast crisis, she sounded so impressed. “That thing’s been wobbling since I bought this set at an estate sale, but he just took some glue and a couple of screws—” She flicked one hand to complete the sentence. “He swears it will be good as new when the glue dries. Of course, he’s gonna have to sit in it first, to make sure it works.” Her voice was low and teasing.

  That’s when I noticed Henry’s orange coveralls, a splash of color on her white kitchen floor. He lay on his back with his head under her sink.

  He slid out enough to look up at me. “Afternoon, Miss Mac.”

  “Afternoon, Henry. Looks like Alex has you working.”

  His gray gaze slid her way. “That woman is high maintenance.”

  “I had a leak in the hot water pipe,” she explained. “Every morning I’ve been putting a bucket under it and every lunchtime I’ve had to hurry home to empty the bucket and put it back. I even had to set my clock to get up in the night to empty the thing. And my electric and water bills this month were out of sight. Henry said he had stuff in his truck that would fix it, but so far he’s just made a bigger mess.” She waved to plumbing parts lying around him.

  “You better hush, woman, or I’ll leave it like this and you’ll be taking cold baths.” But he reached for a tube of glue and slid back under the sink.

  Alex watched him with a happy glow I hadn’t seen on her in a while. I joined her at the table, and the three of us chatted about trivial things until Henry finally said, “Well, that’s fixed,” and slid out. He stood up and ran water. I looked at him and wished I didn’t keep wondering if he’d killed Edie Burkett.

  Alex bent to peer under the sink. “Looks like it. What do you like to drink?” She waved to a small bar in a corner of the dining room.

  He shook his head. “I can’t drink and drive with a judge sitting right here.”

  “Well, what about—?” She opened the refrigerator and pointed to an array of soft drinks and juices. Henry pointed to white grape juice.

  Alex turned to me. “Mac?”

  “Make that two,” I told her.

  “Juice! Juice!” two voices clamored, dashing in from the back. Poe Boy followed, his tail wagging with hope.

  “Who said anything about juice?” Alex demanded, hands on her hips. But her eyes were laughing. “Have you all ever noticed,” she asked us grown-ups, “how kids can hear a refrigerator door open half a mile away, but never hear you calling them to take their baths?”

  Natasha and Cricket giggled and accepted the plastic cups of juice she poured them. “Sit down to drink it,” she ordered, and they obediently went to a corner of the kitchen and plopped down on the floor. Poe Boy took a few laps from his water bowl, then flopped beside them.

  Henry had been returning his equipment to a big gray toolbox. “They obey real good,” he said with approval. “The way you carried on the other day, I expected you’d spoiled her rotten.”

  “Humph!” Alex snorted. “I got better sense than that. Here’s your juice. You can sit at the table if you don’t spill.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he said meekly.

  She pulled out a cheese ball from the refrigerator and got some crackers, and we sat and partied a while. I hated to think that by next week this time Henry could be behind bars. If only someone else could have gotten to that machete.

  That reminded me of another possible weapon. “Did either of you know we have a class in Japanese sword fighting in town? I’ve just come from a demonstration. Smitty Smith and Tyrone Noland are in the class. Isn’t that scary?”

  From the way Alex and Henry both grew still, I knew they had made the connection with Edie’s death.

  “I wanna study sword fighting,” Cricket informed me from his corner.

  “You’ll have to wait a few years,” I told him. Then I added, for the grown-ups, “You’ll never guess who teaches the class.”

  “Frank Sparks,” Henry said promptly. “He told me one day when I was working at the forge. Said he’d like to learn to make his own swords and asked if I’d teach him.”

  Alex no longer glowed. “Excuse me a minute. I need to collect Cricket’s things.” She hurried out of the room, calling, “Cricket? Natasha? Let’s find Cricket’s things.”

  “I wish I hadn’t said anything,” I muttered. “But while she’s gone, did you teach Frank what he wanted to know?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not skilled enough to make swords.”

  “But he was in your shed? He knew the machetes were there?”

  He nodded. “Sure.” He lowered his voice. “But if you’re thinking Frank might have killed Edie, the sheriff will have to figure out how he got back in the shed when it was locked.”

  I looked at him steadily. “You’d do well to call a lawyer, Henry. Just in case.”

  He set his glass on the table with a thump. “The sheriff’s got nothing on me.”

  “He might. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for your mother. Call a lawyer. You might be needing one.”

  He stood up and carried his glass to the sink. “Anybody who wants me knows where to find me. I’ve got a harvest to get in. Mr. Josiah needs the money, and I aim to make sure he gets all he can.” His voice was rough and angry. He strode out the door and slammed it behind him.

  Poe Boy came barking, with Alex right on his heels. “Where’s Henry?”

  “I made him mad,” I admitted. “But he’ll be back eventually. He forgot his tools.”

  18

  Late Sunday afternoon I called Martha and suggested we go down to Myrtle’s for a piece of pie. Myrtle makes the best chocolate pie in Georgia. It has three-inch meringue with little sugar beads on it, and it always gives my spirits a lift. So does Martha, who is one of my favorite people. Talking to Martha is one of the things that keeps me sane.

  “I’ll come, but I’ll have to bring Cricket,” she warned me. I assured her that was no hardship for his grandmother. He was good about coloring his place mat and letting us talk.

  We’d no sooner gotten seated in a booth than Alex and Natasha came in. Alex looked dashing in a tapestry jacket with her black slacks, and Natasha looked splendid in a red velvet dress edged with lace, sporting her golden tiara and carrying her wand.

  “Here we are!” Natasha exclaimed when she saw us. “We came for ice cream. We coulda come sooner, but Mama was talking to Henry.”

  Cricket climbed down from beside me, grabbed her around the neck, and they hugged and rocked like they hadn’t seen each other in months, until they fell on the floor giggling.

  “Get up off that floor!” Alex commanded. “You’ve got on your new Christmas dress.”

  Myrtle’s floor was no place for anybody. I kept telling her somebody was going to break their neck on her pitted old tiles and sue, but she kept sighing and telling me she couldn’t afford a new floor right yet. That was in a league with “I can’t afford to pay my help any better,” and would have been more believable if she didn’t manage a new car and a fancy cruise each year. Still, she did make the best pie in Hopemore.

  Natasha retrieved her fallen tiara and climbed to her feet. “You want ice cream?”

  Cricket nodded. “Chocolate!”

  Since Myrtle’s wasn’t real busy on that cold winter Sunday, I suggested, “Why don’t you join us, Alex, and we can let the children eat and color in the next booth?” In just a few minutes Myrtle had supplied them with place mats, crayons, and chocolate ice cream, and the ladies with pie and coffee. The kids sat behind Martha and Alex. I said I’d keep an eye on them.

  I ate the tip off my chocolate pie and gave Alex a considering look. “Now what was Natasha saying about Mama talking to Henry again today? You all sure were having a good old time yesterday before I drove him away.”

  A laugh rumbled low in her throat. “He came back for his tools and stayed a
round long enough to eat dinner with us.” Seeing my look, she added, a bit defensively, “I thought it was the least I could offer after he fixed my chair and that leaky sink.”

  I hated to let the air out of her tires, but she needed to know. “You do realize he’s the chief suspect for killing Edie, right?”

  “Henry never killed anybody!” She had spoken too loudly, and looked over her shoulder to be sure the children were still coloring.

  They weren’t paying any visible attention, but Cricket had big ears. I lowered my voice. “Maybe not, but you ought to go slow until the sheriff makes a decision about that.”

  She gave a sour little grunt and leaned across the table to say softly, “Girlfriend, I already made one mistake. I got Natasha out of it, which was a lot more than I deserved, but I don’t aim to go down that road a second time. I go so slow where men are concerned, snails leave me in the dust.” She sat back up and took a bite of her pecan pie. “Mmmm, this is good.” She grew serious again. “I wish I could do something to help find whoever it was. Don’t you? Seems like we ought to have seen or heard something that would help, but I don’t know when I’ve felt so useless.”

  “Don’t try to involve Mac in any detecting,” Martha advised Alex. “Last time, she nearly got herself and Clarinda both killed. Pop’s made her promise on a stack of Bibles she won’t go looking for trouble again. But speaking of trouble, it just came in the door.”

  I turned and saw Olive Harrison. Nobody invited her over, or even looked her way after that one glance, but the next thing we knew she was sliding in beside me. Her mahogany hair clashed with the big red poinsettia she set on the table. It was wrapped in the green paper our new superstore must be buying by the truckload.

  “Isn’t that pretty? I thought I’d take it over to Adney and Genna.” She wriggled and settled herself in like she planned to stay a while. “Poor things, they didn’t deserve all this mess.”

  “They’re not poor,” Cricket said from the next booth. Olive looked startled, and no wonder. The children weren’t visible over the back of the booth.

  “It’s not goblins,” Alex told Olive. “It’s Cricket and Natasha, coloring.”

  “I’m making a monster,” Cricket called, “and it eats people, so you better watch out.”

  “You better watch out, too,” his mother warned. Cricket was prone to speak whatever he was thinking, and he had never liked Olive much.

  “It just eats people with green hair,” Cricket assured her.

  Olive gave a high little laugh. “Well, that’s the best news I’ve heard all week.” She leaned across the table and confided in an I’m-telling-tales-out-of-school voice, “Genna’s fit to be tied. Shep Faxon came over Thursday and told her Edie left her everything she owned except for a couple of little bequests to friends—”

  That made me choke on my coffee, remembering Edie’s cute sweater and how she’d joked that she’d will it to me. I wished she had—I’d wear it with joy. But that was just the way we teased back and forth with each other.

  Olive was rattling on, as usual. “. . . but Adney talked to him today, and Shep insists there isn’t any money—just the Saab—which Genna doesn’t need—and the snuffboxes and jewelry that got stolen. Genna knows good and well there’s money and investments somewhere. Edie sold the pharmacy plus her house after Wick died, and it didn’t cost her much to live with her daddy. So where’s the money? That’s what we all want to know.” She looked around to make sure Myrtle’s other patrons weren’t hanging on to her every word, but seemed disappointed none of them seemed to know we were there. “I’m still convinced Edie gave it to Valerie. Or maybe to Henry. He’s been mooching around her place a lot this fall, and he drives a sporty little Honda.”

  Alex was about to say something she might regret, so I hurried to remind Olive, “Henry works for Edie, and he used to work for a car dealer. That’s probably where he got his car.”

  “Whatever.” She shrugged. “He certainly didn’t need a key to her house to harvest nuts. Adney’s going to talk to him and make sure that key is returned, and he’s going to see if he can’t find out what happened to Wick’s money. Wick didn’t leave Genna a thing when he died. He left every penny to Edie.”

  The way Alex was clenching her fists, I suspected she was provoked enough to tell Olive exactly what Wick had left Edie, but I shook my head with a frown. If Edie hadn’t told her, Olive didn’t need to know.

  Thank goodness, she had already headed in another direction. “As if all that weren’t bad enough, I still haven’t gotten that couch mess straightened out, and I went over to the new store last Wednesday night to buy the paint for my dining room, and it’s way too dark—not the right color at all—but they won’t take it back.” She’d started out talking to me, but wound up looking at Martha.

  It was hard for me to visualize a scale of troubles long enough to contain Edie’s murder and Olive’s dining room paint, but Martha’s nicer than I am. She said, without a trace of sarcasm, “I’m so sorry. Could you add white to it or something?”

  “I doubt it.” Olive didn’t want solutions; she wanted sympathy and shared indignation. “It was supposed to be ivory, and it’s more like taupe. Even lighter, it wouldn’t be the right color. And I stood right there while the man mixed it, asking if he was sure he was putting in the right colors. I was practically dead on my feet, it was so late, and I might as well not have bothered. After work I’d rented a truck and gotten the two men next door to carry my couch out, and I drove it back to North Augusta myself, to show the store it wasn’t the one I’d ordered, but after all that trouble, they close at six on Wednesdays. It was past ten when I got back, and I wanted to run by Edie’s to see if she was all right before I went to the store for the paint—”

  “You went by Edie’s Wednesday night?” Alex asked fiercely.

  Olive nodded. “I hadn’t seen her since”—she looked over her shoulder toward the children—“you know, what happened Tuesday. I wanted to make sure she was all right. I’d hoped to go in for a minute. It wasn’t but ten thirty when I got there, but all her lights were out and her car was there, so I figured she’d already gone to bed. I saw Genna leaving as I pulled in. I didn’t stop to talk, though, because I still had to get that paint, and the store closes at eleven. Can you believe I stood right there while the man mixed all three gallons, and he still didn’t get it right?”

  What I couldn’t believe was that she’d had the gall to show up at a store just before closing time expecting somebody to mix three gallons of paint. What I wanted confirmed was, “But you were at Edie’s on Wednesday night?”

  “Around ten thirty.” She clutched her throat. “If I’d been a couple of hours later, you might have found me lying on the bed beside her.”

  Myrtle cruised by just then to refill our coffee cups and asked Olive what she’d like to order. Olive looked at her watch. “Heavens, I didn’t mean to stay. I need to get on over to Adney’s. I just wanted to run in and say hello. Good-bye, everybody.” She gave us all a bright smile, picked up her poinsettia, and hurried out with a clatter of heels.

  “My monster is eating a woman,” Cricket announced to the world in general. “He changed his mind. He likes womens with red hair.”

  19

  Monday noon we went home to dinner and found Clarinda having a conniption. “I got a call from Daisy, and that sheriff was down at her place this morning axin’ more questions about Henry. She said the way he acted, he’ll arrest Henry any minute. We gotta do something!”

  “He can’t arrest Henry without evidence,” I pointed out, “and he said the crime lab won’t be done until at least the end of this week.”

  Joe Riddley looked steadily at me without changing the speed of his chewing.

  “You might do something,” I added, “but I made a promise to my husband. Why don’t you take the afternoon off and go on down to Daisy’s?”

  When I got back to work, I pulled up a file of past-due accounts. Dealing with deadbea
ts suited my mood. One invoice, though, caught my attention: a bill for a big delivery of herbicide out to Josiah’s grove the morning he had his stroke. I hadn’t liked to send it to Edie in October or November—I’d thought I’d give her time to adjust to her daddy’s situation and get some of her harvest in. Who the dickens would pay it now? Josiah wasn’t signing any checks.

  I was mulling that over, and waiting to hear from Clarinda, when the phone rang around one thirty. Instead of Clarinda, it was Meriwether DuBose.

  “Did you have that baby?” I asked, all excited.

  “Not yet. Two more weeks, the doctor says. But listen, I called to ask if you could come over here right now. To the warehouse. We’ve got a small crisis. Please?”

  Meriwether was thirty-four. In the past fourteen months she had started up a new catalogue company, restored an old house, found love, been married, and gotten pregnant. Not to mention dealing with her autocratic old grandmother, Augusta Wainwright, and helping Augusta move out of the house where she’d lived all her life and settle somewhere else. Just dealing with Augusta would send most of us to the funny farm. But at no time in the past had I known Meriwether to sound so frazzled.

  “What’s the problem?” I flapped one hand at a deputy who had come in, motioning for her to set the warrant she’d brought down on my desk so I could read it while Meriwether answered. Multitasking is simply a fancy new name for what women have always done.

  I perused the warrant, signed it, and handed it back while Meriwether explained, “Valerie Allen. She’s terrified, and I can’t calm her down. Can’t you hear her?”

  “I thought you had a yowling cat somewhere.” I waved good-bye to the deputy as she left.

  “No, a hysterical woman. And she’s asking for you. Please, Mac? Can you come?”

  Of course I agreed.

  This was the second pretty day since Saturday’s downpour, with a good wind. The nuts ought to be ready for the harvesters soon, but what if Henry wasn’t there to oversee them?