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

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “Do you know if Edie had anything we could use to tie her up until help arrives?”

  Genna stepped back, shocked. “Tie her up? Why? She wasn’t going to hurt you. She was just teasing. And I wasn’t running from her. I thought it was Adney.”

  I held out the gun. “She had this.”

  “Olive wouldn’t shoot anybody!” When I didn’t reply, she heaved a huge sigh. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  I sighed. “You don’t have to understand, but I do need something to tie Olive with until somebody comes.”

  She shrugged. “There’s a clothesline in the utility room.”

  “You take Smitty to fetch it. He won’t hurt you,” I repeated firmly. “I’ll stay here.”

  Me and the gun. I loathe and despise the things, but it felt solid in my hand as Olive began to moan and stir.

  “Ow! My arm!” She clutched her right hand. Then she struggled to sit up, but that’s hard with only one good arm. She peered up at me. “Mac? Where are we? What happened? What are you doing here?” She looked around at her damaged car, the sheltering trees, and pressed one hand to her cheek. “I think I went a little crazy back there.” She attempted a laugh. “I must have acted a little weird, huh? I was just trying to get some of my own back, for you chasing me up that tree.” She shook her head to clear it and looked down at her useless wrist. “That bastard broke my wrist! Who was he?”

  “The secret avenger,” I told her. “He appears out of nowhere to save the innocent. Just relax. The sheriff ought to be here any minute.”

  Her eyes widened in an attempt at innocence. “The sheriff? We don’t need the sheriff. It was a joke. You aren’t going to press charges for something that silly. You did the same thing to me this morning.”

  “We’ll sort it out when he gets here.” I leaned back against the tree. Shock from the chase and its aftermath was beginning to set in, and my knees were trembling.

  “At least help me up. I can’t make it with one arm.”

  “Just rest down there until help comes.”

  She gave me a furious glare, then wriggled around and propped herself on the elbow of her damaged arm, pushed with the other, and lurched to her feet.

  “I’ve got your gun.” I held it so she could see it. “And you need to know I was brought up shooting rats in my daddy’s chicken house. I can still hit a moving target.” I didn’t bother to tell her we used a twenty-two rifle for rats, or how hard it is to hit a moving target at any distance with a little handgun. What she didn’t know made life easier for me.

  She backed up so she could lean against her car, breathing heavily. “So help me, if you tell the sheriff I was chasing you through the grove, I’m going to tell him I was looking for Genna and you just got in the way. Adney sent me to find her. She ran off this evening—”

  “After he beat the living daylights out of her.”

  She shrugged. “That’s between the two of them. Besides, it was a misunderstanding. He got mad because he thought she was holding out on him, pretending Edie didn’t have any money when she did. But when I got there, I told him what you said about Wick losing all his money and Josiah still owning the grove, so he’s not mad at Genna now that he knows she wasn’t lying. Adney cannot stand people who lie.”

  How could a man who spent his life convincing people one brand of plastic pitchers was superior to another criticize anybody else for lying?

  I’d think about that later. Right now, I had other things to think about, and I desperately wanted my cell phone.

  I gestured with the gun. “Let’s go up to the house. Walk slowly, and don’t try to get away. I won’t kill you, but you might wish I had.”

  I felt almost sorry for her as I trudged behind her to the house. Plain, not rich, not attractive to men, not endowed with the gift of making friends. Her shoulders slumped, and her hair hung stringy and lifeless at the collar of her gray jacket. What could Olive have been with a little encouragement and better wardrobe advice?

  Smitty was coming down the steps with a clothesline. “After you tie her up, I’ve got an errand for you,” I told him.

  Smitty’s knots weren’t as expert as his fighting, but they would hold until a deputy arrived. When I explained to him privately what I needed, he gave me a quick nod. “I can do that.” He went to get his bike and pedaled away. I retrieved my pocketbook and my phone.

  Before I could push even the one button I needed, headlights came down the gravel drive. When I recognized Joe Riddley’s car, I thrust the gun at my startled daughter-in-law. “Here. Guard her until the emergency folks arrive. And call Walker and tell him to meet you at the emergency room.”

  I ran to the car and pounded on the driver’s window before he could open the door. “Slide over and let me drive. We’ve got to go somewhere, quick!”

  On the way, I handed him my phone and explained what had happened. He made a couple of calls, then laid his head back and shut his eyes. “How can you sleep?” I demanded.

  “I’m not,” he replied. “I’m praying and trying not to see the speedometer.”

  Everything was closed when we squealed into the parking lot, but a familiar car sat near the front door. We jumped out and rang the bell. We were met by a slight man in a gray uniform, who held the door wide. “They’re here. Just down to the left.”

  We hurried as silently as possible down the hall. As we reached the door, we heard a voice within shout, “Freeze!”

  We ran in to find a police officer standing in the closet door holding a revolver. Across the room, Adney Harrison stood beside Josiah Whelan, holding a pillow over his face.

  28

  “I was just fluffing his pillows,” Adney protested as the officer handcuffed him. “I was on my way home and stopped by to see him. I knew it was late, but thought I’d run in to say hello. He wasn’t comfortable, so I was rearranging his pillows. Isn’t that right, Granddaddy Jo?”

  Josiah lifted his head from the pillow and shouted hoarse sounds nobody understood.

  “If he could talk, he’d tell you,” Adney insisted.

  Josiah’s eyes told us all we needed to know.

  Sheriff Gibbons stepped into the room. “I hope we weren’t too late?”

  “Augusta’s finest were on time,” Joe Riddley told him and introduced the young officer who had been on watch. After the tedious procedures all arrests take these days, custody was transferred to our sheriff so he could take Adney home.

  “You ride back with the sheriff and leave me the car,” Joe Riddley told me. “I don’t want to leave Josiah alone tonight.”

  I gave him a kiss. “I’m proud to know you,” I whispered. “I can’t imagine how terrified he must have been.”

  The sheriff told Adney he could call Shep to meet him at the sheriff’s detention center. We could hear Shep clear up front. “Tarnation, son, three arrests in two days are downright tacky. I don’t do tacky.” After that, Adney leaned back in the corner of his seat and didn’t ask to call either his wife or his sister.

  After we’d ridden a few miles in silence, the sheriff looked my way and asked, “Tell me what happened tonight, and how you figured he’d be up there at Josiah’s.”

  “I was with Olive and Genna out at Edie’s, and Olive said Adney had sent her to find Genna. But if Adney sent Olive after Genna, that meant nobody was watching him. Genna had fled her home after a domestic dispute. She told Cindy and me that Adney hit her because he thought she was lying about Edie not having left her any money—he apparently thought she was hiding it from him.”

  Adney gave a snort of derision from the back. I ignored him and went on.

  “We found Genna frantically searching Edie’s house for stocks, money, or a key to a safe-deposit box. But when Olive arrived, she said Adney wasn’t mad at Genna any longer, because she—Olive—had gone over and told him the truth: that Edie really didn’t inherit any money from Wick—”

  “You sure about that?” The sheriff doesn’t like to be interrupted, but he�
�s never minded interrupting me. “I always thought Wick was pretty well fixed.”

  “He was, until he became a drug addict who spent everything he had, and more, feeding his habit. If you don’t believe that, you can check with Alexandra James at the library. She heard it from Edie herself, and says she’d already recognized the symptoms, because one of her brothers—well, never mind. What worried me more was when Olive said she’d told Adney that Josiah still owns the house and grove. I suddenly got very scared for Josiah.” I hesitated, then admitted, “Tonight’s mess is partly my fault. I was the one who told Olive this morning that Edie didn’t have any money or own the grove.”

  The sheriff gave a grunt. “That thing about the grove is all over town. I’m surprised Adney hadn’t already heard it.”

  “Would it surprise you to hear I think Adney killed Edie?”

  Adney laughed in the backseat. “You seem to have forgotten, Judge. I was in Birmingham. Left a meeting at eight Wednesday night, and I can produce witnesses. I also got a wake-up call at eight the next morning and was in the lobby twenty minutes later. I might conceivably have driven six hours here and six back, but when did I have time to kill Edie? Especially the way she was killed. Whoever did that had to have been a bloody mess afterwards.” His voice grew faint. “I get sick just thinking about it. Poor Edie. I loved her, Mac. I did.”

  The sheriff looked over at me. “Well?”

  “It’s not a six-hour drive, it’s a five-hour drive. It seems like six coming this way because of the time change, but that makes it only four going back. At night, when there’s no traffic in Atlanta, it’s more like four and a half hours each way. If he left at eight, he could get here by twelve thirty their time, one thirty ours. We know he called Edie at twelve thirty, but do we know where he was then? I don’t think he was calling to see if she was all right. I think he was calling to make sure she was there and alone. He’d have an hour to kill her, clean himself up, and get out, and he could still get back to Birmingham by seven and have an hour’s sleep before his wake-up call. I figured all that out while we were driving to Augusta tonight.”

  Sheriff Gibbons gave me a swift look. “While driving like a maniac? Next time concentrate on the road.”

  I ignored him. “Adney looked absolutely exhausted when he got here the day Edie died.”

  The sheriff thought that over. “His odometer checked out. He didn’t drive that far.”

  “He could have rented a car.”

  “We could ask the Birmingham police to show his picture around some car rental agencies,” he murmured to himself. “Somebody might remember him.”

  “They will if they’re female. He’s a handsome cuss. Aren’t you, Adney?”

  “Handsome or not, they already ran a check on my credit card. I did not rent a car in Birmingham. Why are you doing this, Mac? I always thought you and I were friends.”

  I bit my tongue and refused to be baited. Instead, I watched the silver landscape flash by in the moonlight. Finally I spoke to the sheriff. “He could have a credit card in the name of a business he was pestering Walker to give him insurance quotes on over Thanksgiving. Some kind of sports complex. He said he was asking for a friend, but I didn’t believe that—especially after Edie told me Genna had been asking for her ‘inheritance’ to help Adney start a business.”

  That got a little rise from the backseat. “What Genna asked Edie was between them. I didn’t ask Genna or Edie either one for money.”

  “But you beat Genna when she told you Edie didn’t leave any. If Edie had told Genna she didn’t have money left after she paid Wick’s debts, would she be alive today?”

  “Don’t soil a beautiful lady’s memory,” he replied. “I did not love Edie for her money.”

  The sheriff told me, “We checked out those keys you found on the nail with the plastic bags. They must be Josiah’s keys to all the outbuildings. One of them fits Henry’s shed. I guess that’s how he got Henry’s machete and coveralls. But how do you reckon he knew about those keys?”

  “Beats me. I guess you’ll have to leave something for the prosecutor to figure out. The coveralls were decoys, anyway. Adney wouldn’t need to wear them. He sells supplies to surgeons who mess around in blood all day long, then go home clean as a whistle. In a pair of scrubs, booties, a cap and mask—how many traces would he leave? I’ll bet he dumped those things at the hospital he visited the next morning, but you might find traces of blood in the rental car, when you find it. Can you imagine anything more low-down than smearing Henry’s coveralls in the blood afterwards to implicate him? Unless it’s calling Edie to make sure she was home so he could come in and kill her. That was downright—” I stopped. I didn’t want to say the kind of words I was thinking right then.

  “You listening, Adney?” the sheriff called to the backseat. “She’s building up a pretty good case against you, don’t you think?”

  “I think she’s got a vivid imagination.” Adney leaned back and started to whistle.

  “I imagine you’ll look at Adney’s cell phone records again,” I replied. “I imagine that they, plus a conversation with the motel desk clerk in Birmingham, might elicit the information that Adney’s request for a wake-up call came not from his room phone but from his cell phone. While he was driving to Hopemore, in fact. His cell phone records might also show that he talked to Olive after she was at Edie’s Wednesday night. Olive could have told him Genna had left Whelan Grove.”

  “She could have,” Adney agreed blandly, “but she didn’t.”

  The sheriff looked over at me as we reached the city limits. “You want me to drop you off at your house?”

  Not yet. I’d begun to realize there were holes in the story. I thought I knew how to patch them. “Can Adney call Genna, to see if she got home safely?”

  The sheriff gave permission, and Adney punched the number. “No answer. Let me try her cell.” He punched another number and we heard his side of the conversation. He started out nice as pie. “Hello, honey. You doin’ all right? . . . I’m so sorry about that. I’ll make it up to you. Listen, I went out after Olive left, and I ran into a little trouble, so I may not get home tonight. You’re where? What are you doing there? What happened to her? She what?”

  I wished I could hear Genna’s side of the conversation. Was she telling him Olive was sitting beside a deputy, waiting to get a broken wrist set so she could meet him down at the jail? Or was she soft-pedaling the news, as he had soft-pedaled his own?

  “Well, you all take care. Maybe she ought to go home with you tonight.”

  He wished. If I had anything to do with it, he and Olive would be sleeping under the same roof. Nobody attempted to kill me in my own county and went home to sleep.

  He hung up. “You’ve been so busy making up stories, Judge, you somehow forgot to tell me my sister ran her car into a tree and broke her wrist. Genna said they have sat in the emergency room for nearly three hours, and Olive just went in to get it set. Oh, God, why am I here when I need to be there?”

  I doubted very much that was a prayer.

  “Cindy’s probably with them,” I said brightly. “Take me by there, too, Sheriff. Cindy can run me home.”

  As I got out of the car at the emergency room door, I turned and said to Adney, “By the way, did you play golf today?”

  “No,” he said curtly. “I was down in Savannah until nearly suppertime.”

  “Then you missed the excitement. Shep Faxon told the fellows that Josiah signed a new will last Tuesday, leaving everything he has to Henry Joyner. Henry’s daddy, Pete, was Josiah’s nephew. Walker said it made a real sensation at the club.”

  Nothing that day had been as sweet as seeing Adney’s face.

  29

  The waiting room was almost empty. Walker, Cindy, and Genna were sitting in the far corner when I arrived, but Walker was halfway across the waiting room the second he saw me come through the door, and towering over me two seconds after that.

  “What did you mean, shovin
g a gun into Cindy’s hand and haring off like that? She’s sitting over there”—he lowered his voice and got so close I could smell coffee on his breath as he hissed—“she’s sitting over there with an illegal handgun in her purse!”

  “Don’t tell me about it, son. I’m an officer of the law.”

  “You’re the one who gave it to her!”

  “She was supposed to turn it over to the deputy as soon as he arrived and tell him we’d taken it from Olive. I guess I forgot to give her that part of the instructions.”

  “Mama! My wife doesn’t know a thing about handguns. It’s a miracle she didn’t kill somebody.”

  I could see she hadn’t shot herself or Genna. At the moment, feeling like a weary dog dragging its tail in the dust, I didn’t much care if she’d shot Olive. Still, I figured I ought to ask.

  Walker huffed out a stream of exasperated air. “Of course she didn’t shoot Olive. But this is the limit, Mama. I’ve put up with you all my life, but you can’t go on doing things like this.”

  “I never did anything like that before, and I wouldn’t have then if it hadn’t been absolutely necessary. Can we sit down before we continue this conversation? If I don’t sit, I’m likely to fall. I am dead on my feet.”

  I tottered over and plopped down beside Cindy. She and Genna had obviously spent time in the ladies’ room with those pounds of cosmetics they both carried around. Cindy looked as fresh and pretty as if she’d just come from a salon. Genna had managed to cover her purple eye and fluff up her hair. She’d even gotten a fresh shirt and shoes from somewhere.

  I felt like something the cat had played with half an hour before dragging it in. “How’s Olive?” I asked.

  Genna leaned across Cindy to answer. “After making us wait three hours, they just took her back a few minutes ago.” Her jaw moved funny.

  “Did you ask them to look at that jaw?” She dropped her eyes, and I decided not to pursue it just then. “Did the deputy go in with Olive?”