Who Killed the Queen of Clubs?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  I calmed down as soon as I stepped inside. The place looked real different full of tall shelves loaded with merchandise and with people moving up and down long aisles, pulling items off the shelves and putting them onto carts. An electric forklift purred its way down one aisle, and Tyrone Noland gave me a wave before deftly maneuvering a large box off the very top shelf. I gave him a thumbs-up, then turned to admire women filling boxes with Styrofoam peanuts from soft blue bins hanging from the ceiling.

  I was sorry when Meriwether hurried toward me. “Oh, Mac, I’m so glad you’ve come.”

  “Place looks great.” I’d rather look around than deal with a crisis any day.

  She must have read my mind. “I’ll show you around later.” She led the way to her office, where Valerie sat in a chair by the desk.

  Valerie and Meriwether might look a lot alike in certain lights. Both were blond, long, and slender. Both had large blue eyes that caught your attention. But Meriwether was beautiful, even nine months pregnant, and today Valerie looked a mess. Her nose and lips were red and swollen, her cheeks puffy from tears. She huddled in the chair, moaning, “I didn’t do it. I didn’t!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked briskly at the door, although any fool could see what was going on. Valerie was terrified. Fear hunched her shoulders and twisted her long legs around each other. Fear stood stark in her face as she looked back at me. “They think I killed Edie, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that! She was my friend!” She headed off into hysterics again.

  “Get me some water,” I told Meriwether. She went past me and fetched a cup from the water fountain. I crossed the office and emptied it over Valerie’s head.

  She spluttered and gasped. “What’d you do that for?” She wiped water from her forehead and looked in dismay at the widening stain on her jeans.

  “To hush you up. I can’t talk to you unless you calm down. I’m not sure I ought to be talking to you anyway.”

  “It’s okay. I told them to call you.”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. I hadn’t seen Sheriff Gibbons sitting in a chair behind the door. Even if he hadn’t been out of sight when I entered, I might not have noticed him. The sheriff is over six feet tall, but he has a way of blending into walls.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” I greeted him.

  “Afternoon, Judge.” He sat there in uniform, hat decorously on his lap, and gave me the formal nod of a colleague. Nobody would have suspected, listening to us, that he’d been best man in my wedding and would have become the guardian of our sons if Joe Riddley and I had died before they grew up.

  “What’s going on?” I figured he might give me an answer I could understand.

  He nodded toward Valerie. “I’m trying to get some information from Miss Allen here. Her car was seen pulling out of Whelans’ drive around seven last Thursday morning, not long before Mrs. Burkett was found.”

  The air left my body. Valerie? My mind went so blank, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “I didn’t kill her,” Valerie cried, turned sideways in the big chair and scrunched up into a smaller ball than I’d known a six-foot person could make. “I didn’t. I didn’t know she was dead. She was dead the whole time, and I didn’t know it.” She started whimpering.

  “Are you accusing her of the murder?” My voice wasn’t steady, and I was wildly wondering whether I was there as a magistrate or as Valerie’s friend.

  “No. I’m gathering information, and thought you might be able to—uh—” He gestured toward the mess that was Valerie. “She asked for you.”

  I went over and shook Valerie by one damp shoulder. She must have cried a river and a creek. “Just answer his questions. He won’t hurt you. I’ve known him all my life.” Thank goodness it wasn’t Police Chief Muggins. Charlie Muggins scares even me at times.

  She sniffed and nodded. “Okay. I’ll tell him. But you’ll stay with me, won’t you?”

  “Of course, if you want me to.”

  Sheriff Gibbons pushed a chair my way. “I informed her she could call a lawyer—”

  “A judge is better than a lawyer,” Valerie interrupted.

  “Honey, once I’ve heard your testimony, I can’t have anything to do with the case.” A magistrate doesn’t try murder cases, anyway. All we do is hold a probable-cause hearing. If there is enough evidence for arrest, we send the accused to jail without bond and mail a letter to the superior court asking for a judge to be sent to hear the case. I had no more standing than Meriwether in that room. Less, in fact. She owned the building.

  “That’s okay.” Valerie sniffed. “I still want you here.”

  “Don’t you also want a lawyer?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.”

  Buster and I exchanged a look. He nodded at me, and I guess he wanted me to ask her some questions. I tried to figure out the right ones to ask. “Why were you down at Edie’s Thursday? I heard her say you moved out Tuesday morning.”

  Valerie gave me a miserable little nod and sniffed again. “Genna stayed over Monday night, and she—” Her voice trembled again, and she came to a full stop.

  “She said some things that made you feel like you didn’t want to live there,” I suggested.

  “Oh, I still wanted to live there, but Genna didn’t want me to. She said I was trying to make Edie do things she didn’t want to, and that Frank was staying overnight, and that I was . . . was . . . a tacky tramp.” Valerie swiped tears away with one arm, but those were angry tears, not brokenhearted ones.

  I reached out and patted her shoulder. “We both know that’s not so. But if you moved out Tuesday, why were you back there Wednesday night?”

  “I wasn’t.” The words were muffled. “Wednesday night Frank and I had a gig over near Louisville.” She didn’t mean the site of the Kentucky Derby, but Louisville, Georgia, with the “s” pronounced—seat of Jefferson County and not far down the road.

  “But somebody saw you coming out of Edie’s drive Thursday morning.” I didn’t bother to make that a question.

  She nodded. “I know. I went over real early, before it got light, because I wanted, I—I—” Once she got started, she said it all in a rush. “I wanted to make the bears’ Christmas outfits. As a surprise for Edie. I saw the Mama Bear you bought her. She brought it home Tuesday while I was taking out the last of my stuff, and she said, ‘But heaven only knows when I’ll get time to make it a Christmas dress.’ ” I could hear Edie saying it. “I’d been wondering what to give her for Christmas, and I’d already bought some material. You saw the bag, remember?”

  I nodded.

  “So Wednesday night, on the way back from Louisville, it came to me. I could make their outfits and surprise Edie. I couldn’t make anything fancy, of course,” she said earnestly, “but I could make Papa Bear pants and a little jacket like his Thanksgiving one, because Edie showed me how to make those. And I could make Mama Bear a jacket and a gathered skirt, sort of like my apron.” Her voice trailed off on the last word. She was probably seeing, as I was, the charred ruins of her first-ever garment.

  I touched her hair gently. “That was ambitious and kind. I’m proud of you.”

  She gave me a watery smile. Then she took a deep breath and shoved her hair back again—it had begun to creep over her shoulders. “I figured I could go in every morning for a couple of hours before class—my first one’s not until eight—and she’d never suspect. The sewing machine’s downstairs in what used to be her daddy’s bedroom, so she couldn’t hear it up where she sleeps. Slept.” She stumbled over that fence, got up, and galloped on. “I figured if I left before seven, she wouldn’t see me. So I went in Thursday morning and I got everything cut out and pinned, then I stuffed it all under the pillow on the bed. Genna always sleeps upstairs, so nobody ever uses that bed. I put the bears back exactly how she’d left them on the living room couch, and I even carried out all my threads and scraps in a plastic bag, in case she looked in the room. It was going to be a surpr
ise.” Her voice was bleak.

  I felt bleak, too, and Meriwether was blowing her nose. Edie should have lived to see those bears dressed in Valerie’s valiant efforts.

  I turned to Sheriff Gibbons. “Do you have any more questions?”

  He nodded. “Were you ever in Edith Burkett’s room at the top of the house?” I suspected he’d found a fingerprint or two, and held my breath as Valerie started to shake her head.

  She stopped, and nodded. “I took laundry up for her sometimes, and left it on her bed.” She made a fist and bit her thumb, then admitted, “And two or three times I took a bath in her bathtub, if she was away for the night. She has a big old tub up there, and the tub on the second floor is short, so I’d go up and take a long bubble bath. I cleaned up real good, though.” She needn’t sound so ashamed. We weren’t going to be telling Edie anytime soon.

  “Did Frank ever spend the night?” I asked. We might as well deal with that while we were at it.

  She hesitated again, looking at her lap. “Once.” Her voice was low. Then she looked up quickly, defiant and indignant. “It’s not what it sounds like, though. Not what Genna and Olive said. We’d ridden his motorcycle to practice, and on the way home it started to pour down rain.” She lifted her chin. “We both got soaked, and I didn’t want him to drive home in all that. Edie had already gone to bed, so I told him he could sleep in her daddy’s bed if he’d leave first thing in the morning. He was gone before I got up, and I skipped classes that morning and washed the sheets while Edie was at work. But I never told her.” Her voice was ashamed and forlorn.

  “Did either of you ever drive Edie’s car?” I persisted.

  She nodded again, like a compliant child. “I did. She had parked in the middle of the carport, and Frank needed to get his bike out of the rain, so I backed her car out and pulled over to one side. The next morning I moved it back to where she’d left it. But I had to move her seat. I couldn’t get in with it where she’d left it. I was in such a hurry, I forgot to move the seat back or lock the back door when I came in after moving the car.”

  “When she asked about it, you lied to her,” I pointed out.

  She looked at her lap again. “I know. I didn’t think she’d like it that I’d let Frank sleep in her daddy’s bed. But I couldn’t send him back out in the rain, and I couldn’t tell her about the car without saying why I’d moved it.”

  Somebody sharper could have come up with all sorts of stories about why she’d driven the car, but I was coming to appreciate the limitations of Valerie’s intellect.

  She reached out and clutched my arm. “Did she die because I lied to her? Was that to punish me?”

  “Heavens, no! God doesn’t kill somebody to punish somebody else.”

  She didn’t look real convinced. She might prefer a judge to a lawyer when she was in trouble, but when it came to interpreting God, I suspected she’d prefer a preacher.

  I still had one question. “Does Frank have a key to Edie’s house?”

  She nodded without hesitation. “He was working on some things for her, so she gave him one so he could get in when she wasn’t there.”

  “Did he give it back to her when you moved out?”

  She looked baffled. “Edie didn’t ask . . .” Her voice dwindled off. Even Valerie was smart enough to figure out the position that put them both in.

  The sheriff had a question. “Did you go upstairs at any time yesterday when you were in the house?”

  “Oh, no! I tiptoed into the downstairs bedroom and closed the door. When it was time to leave, I listened to make sure she wasn’t up—”

  That was as far as she got before she broke down again. I couldn’t blame her. I’d seen a lot more death in my lifetime than she had, but I couldn’t imagine knowing I’d spent two hours in the house with Edie lying dead upstairs. The very thought made tears sting my eyes again.

  Sheriff Gibbons has a tender heart, and I think he was having some of the same thoughts. He picked up his hat and stood. “I guess that covers it for now. Please don’t leave town in the next few days, Miss Allen.”

  She looked up at him, startled. “But we have wedding gigs this weekend in Dublin and Augusta. They’re counting on us.”

  Meriwether spoke quickly. “Why don’t you let Valerie make you a list of places they’re booked to sing these next two weeks? They just go out to perform and come right back each evening, right?” The last was for Valerie.

  “Oh, yeah.” Valerie’s hair swung as she nodded. “We don’t stay overnight or anything. Frank’s mama would have a fit.”

  I told myself again that she was one woman I’d like to meet.

  Meriwether handed Valerie a pen and a sheet of paper, and she started to write. After four lines, she shook her head. “That’s as far as I can remember. Frank will know the rest.”

  “Frank will know the rest of what?”

  We all turned, startled. Frank Sparks stood in the door, feet apart as if braced for a fight. Once again he was dressed all in black, from his boots and gloves to his leather jacket. A silver helmet dangled from one hand. “I heard you were over here, Sheriff, and thought I’d better mosey down. I don’t know what you’ve told him, Valerie, but—”

  Valerie started explaining. Frank listened in exasperation for only a couple of seconds, then commanded, “Hush! Don’t you say another word without a lawyer.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer,” Valerie protested. “The judge is right here, and I haven’t done anything except go down to Edie’s the morning she was killed, to—”

  He caught her and clapped one hand over her mouth. “Hush!”

  The sheriff turned to him. “Where were you the night Ms. Burkett was killed?”

  “Ask my lawyer.” He tugged Valerie’s hand. “Come on. We’re out of here.”

  On their way to the door, Valerie’s foot caught on the leg of a chair and she went sprawling. He helped her up and led her out. In a minute or two his Harley roared away.

  Meriwether chuckled. “That child can’t walk across a room without running into something or tripping over something else. She stays black and blue.”

  “You don’t think he hits her?” I asked.

  “Heavens, no. He adores her. She adores him, too. She just hasn’t figured that out yet. She thinks she ought to be loyal to some sailor who got a crush on her right before he shipped out, and then proposed by mail. I’m working on helping her see she isn’t bound by that. And while most women’s bruises may be caused by beatings, Valerie’s are all her own.”

  Mama always said nobody really knows what goes on inside a love affair except the two people involved, and most of the time even they aren’t real sure.

  We all jumped when Meriwether’s security alarm started to clang. Buster rose to his feet, but she waved him back. “It does this all the time. There’s a short or something.” She hurried out.

  “Don’t turn it off permanently,” I called after her. “It could be somebody wanting you to do exactly that.” I didn’t know if she’d heard me or not.

  The sheriff walked me to my car. He was holding the door when his cell phone rang. “Yeah?” He listened only a second, then held the phone away from his ear.

  In spite of the clanging alarm, I could hear a tinny voice coming through the phone. Somebody had sure lit Shep Faxon’s cauldron.

  “Sheriff, I got Genna Harrison in my office pitchin’ a fit, and I can’t do a thing with her. The way she’s carrying on, I’m scared she’s gonna hurt somebody. Get over here and calm her down, you hear me? She came over here wantin’ to know why Edie hadn’t left her all that money they got from selling her daddy’s pharmacy and their big house, and she won’t believe me that Edie didn’t say a thing about any money or investments. Genna claims I’ve stolen her inheritance, and she’s scaring the living daylights out of us. My secretary is in with her now, while I stepped into the bathroom to call you on my cell phone. Come quick.”

  Sheriff Gibbons laughed. “Surely you can handle a little
lady, Shep. An old hand like you?”

  “It’s not the little lady I’m scared of, Sheriff. It’s that gun she’s waving all over the place.”

  20

  I arrived back at the office in time to take a call from Clarinda. “Where you been? I been callin’ and callin’ you.”

  “I had to go out a minute. What did you want?”

  “I wanted you. Daisy’s down here pitching a fit. It wasn’t bad enough they asked her to clean up Miss Edie’s room this morning, with all that blood in it. Then the sheriff’s men came back down here nosing around, acting like it’s only a matter of time until Henry’s in jail. And now Henry’s run off like a wild man. Daisy’ plumb frantic with worry.”

  “Where’d Henry go?”

  “How do I know? Daisy showed him some paper from his grandmama’s Bible, and next thing we know, he’s grabbed it and hightailed it out of here. That’s when Daisy went crazy. She says that paper kills people. Can you come down here? I don’t know how to handle her.”

  Handling frantic mothers is not on my résumé, but keeping Clarinda happy means I frequently develop new skills. “I’m coming,” I said, trying not to think about all the work piling up on my desk. “If Henry comes home—”

  “We’ll sit on him ’til you get here if we have to,” she promised.

  When I drove out Oglethorpe Street toward Whelan Grove Road, the new superstore had so many cars in its parking lot, I wondered who was back running the town.

  The Joyners lived in a brick ranch house beyond the grove, across the road and down a bit from Josiah’s, built on a two-acre lot Josiah’s daddy had given Pete’s mother, Mary. The little white house he’d built for her was now a toolshed and garage to one side.

  Pete loved plants and specialized in daylilies, so his yard was a thing of beauty in summer. Today it all looked cold and dead, just like Pete. I decided to offer Daisy a magnolia and a holly to plant in the yard, if she’d have them. They’d make the place more colorful in winter. I mentally added a few camellias to the truck. Camellias are evergreen, they bloom all winter, and their blossoms are prettier to me than rubies, garnets, and amethysts.