When Will the Dead Lady Sing?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  He stood abruptly and went to stand at the rail with his back to us. But although Annie Dale’s lawn was lovely, I doubted that he saw a single plant. His voice was distant, as if he were narrating a movie while the events of that night reeled by. “When nobody answered, I realized if anybody else heard me, they’d think I was nuts, so I shut up and kept walking. I didn’t know if she’d meant to meet in the parking lot or right under the tank—I wasn’t even sure you could get under the tank, with all those bushes around it. But I prowled around and found one place that looked like a way in, so I pushed through. It was dark in there, and my night vision isn’t real good, so I didn’t see anybody. It was when I was walking over to the tank that my foot hit something. I had some matches in my pocket. I lit one and saw—and saw—”

  “Did you recognize her?” I interrupted.

  He shook his head. “Oh, no. Renée had told me about the man’s suit and hat, but I forgot that right then. I thought it was some drunk who had crawled through the bushes to sleep it off—or die. He looked so still, I knew almost immediately he was dead. I wondered if Mother had seen him and run away—or even if he’d tried to bother her and she’d killed him. It sounds dumb now, but you get funny thoughts standing beside a body in the dark. Besides, I was still thinking about how I could find Mother.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?” I asked.

  “I was going to, but I figured I ought to be sure the fellow was dead. I didn’t want to be embarrassed by bringing them out for a sleeping drunk. When I reached for his wrist”—he paused for a deep breath—“when I felt for his pulse, my finger rubbed a little double mole. Mother had one exactly like that, in the same place. It crashed over me like an ocean wave that this was Mother, and she was dead again.” He kicked the banister with one toe. “After all those years, I got there late. If I hadn’t—” He paused to swallow convulsively. “She was still warm.”

  Nobody said anything for several minutes. Finally I felt compelled to point out, “But you didn’t call the police.”

  He shook his head. “I went a little crazy. If the police knew who she was, they’d be sure to think I—or one of us—killed her. Nobody knew she was here except Renée and me, and I hadn’t done it. I didn’t think Renée had, either—I mean, I was sure she hadn’t. Hell, I don’t know what I thought. Not much, to tell the truth. I just turned tail and ran. My mother was dead, and I ran!”

  He bent over the railing while sobs shook him. Renée hurried to stand behind him, and now it was she holding him like a grieving child. “How could I have missed her?” he cried. “How could I have come so close, and missed her?”

  He slumped with grief. Renée couldn’t support his weight much longer. Burlin left his chair and touched her arm. She stepped back to let him hold his son, but hovered nearby, as if protecting Lance still.

  Lance sobbed and sobbed. Burlin stroked his back. “Hush, son. Hush, now.” Finally Lance quieted down and stumbled toward his chair. He sprawled with his head on the table, his arms flung out beyond it. Renée took a napkin and gently lifted his head to wipe his flushed face. Then she and Burlin returned to their seats.

  I felt like a drill sergeant, expecting him to keep talking after that, but we needed to know. “Did you come straight back here after that?”

  He seemed to appreciate my matter-of-fact tone. “No, ma’am. I drove to Main Street—”

  “Oglethorpe,” I corrected him. He didn’t notice.

  “—and when I saw a sign to Waynesboro, I decided to go to Waynesboro. Don’t know a soul there, but it seemed as good a place to go as any. Then, just out of town here, I saw a filling station and noticed I was low on gas. So I stopped to fill up my tank and get something to drink. The man who took my money said, ‘You’re shaking like a leaf, buddy. What’s the matter?’ I came within a hair of telling him, but by then I had some sense, so I told him I was low on sugar and needed a Coke real fast. He’s bound to remember me. He had to pop the top on my can.”

  “Since you don’t really have a sugar imbalance, that could cause some problems in court.”

  He looked at me, surprised. “But I do. I’ve had diabetes since I was fourteen.”

  Edward figured it out as he went. “If you had driven straight out there after the meeting, it wouldn’t have taken you much less time than stopping by the water tank, right?”

  Lance shook his head. “Five minutes, maybe, or even less.”

  “And you came right back?”

  “Yeah. I looked in on Abigail, who was working, and told her I was home.”

  Edward sat back in his chair and lifted his hands. “So what are we worried about? Everybody has an alibi. Lance won’t mention the tank detour, and the police will eventually find the killer—or not.” He gave a scornful laugh. “It was probably some tramp who’d staked out the tank as his private estate.”

  “Maybe so,” Burlin agreed, “but I think we all owe Mackie a round of thanks for helping us get the stories clear in our minds.” He gave me his famous lazy grin. “You’re as good as Abigail said you were. Thanks.”

  Georgia patted my hand. “I didn’t know you had this gift.”

  Edward stood and stretched. “Well, I haven’t had much sleep, and we’ve promised to hold a press conference at two.” He checked his watch. “Until then, I’m heading to my bed and recommend the rest of you do the same. We need to look our best.”

  In an instant, tensions around the table dissolved. Burlin reached for Georgia’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Renée patted Lance’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine,” she murmured. “Let’s get some rest.”

  I’d seen that phenomenon before—the relief when a group of people was finally persuaded none of them had committed some dreadful crime. They took deep breaths of Annie Dale’s new-mown grass and relaxed. I hated to spoil their new mood, but I held up one hand.

  “We haven’t heard from Binky yet. I think we’d better find out what she has to say.”

  Georgia frowned. “I hate to bother her right now. She’s sleeping.”

  “And nobody would suspect Abigail,” Edward agreed. “She’s too—too honest to kill somebody in that secret way.”

  Burlin shoved back his chair. “I agree, but like you’re always telling me, it’s good to anchor loose cannons. Until we hear what Binky has to say, she’s a loose cannon, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll get her.”

  Georgia got to her feet first. “No, I’ll get her. You know she doesn’t like men in her bedroom. Better still, I’ll send Annie Dale and ask her to bring us some more tea, too. My ice melted ages ago.”

  She swung up the walk like a woman whose future was brighter than the immediate past.

  We sat there enjoying the buzz of bees and the graceful ballet of butterflies on the goldenrod and buddleia. Then we heard a series of thuds, like somebody falling down the stairs. Burlin half rose in his chair, and poised, listening. We heard Annie Dale call out, and feet running quickly up the stairs.

  In another minute, Georgia ran onto the porch, clutching her chest with one hand. In the other, she waved a piece of white paper. Even at that distance, we could see that her eyes were huge. She stumbled across the grass and held on to the rail of the gazebo, gasping. “Abigail’s killed herself.” Her voice changed to a wail. “Oh, Burlin, Binky’s dead!”

  25

  I reached for my cell phone, but Georgia put out a hand to stop me. “Annie Dale’s calling the police. I told her I’d come tell everybody.” She pulled herself up the single step, stumbled toward her chair, and drained the inch of pale liquid in her glass. I had the feeling she wished it were something stronger. She crumpled the note she carried in one fist.

  “What happened?” Burlin demanded. “Should I go up?” He shoved back his chair.

  Georgia touched his arm. “Not until the police get here. She must have taken pills. You know, the ones she took sometimes to help her sleep? She’s cold. I shook her, and she’s cold! She must have done it before she went to bed this morn
ing. She left—this.” She handed him the page.

  He smoothed it and laid it on the table. Reading upside down, I made out the scrawled words, “I cannot stand this any longer.” That was all. No signature, no explanation.

  “You’re sure that’s her handwriting?” When I spoke, everybody looked at me like they wondered what I was doing there. I was wondering the same thing—particularly since any minute, Chief Muggins would be arriving. He was bound to come himself. The Bullocks were important. If he found me there, he’d be sure to imply I’d had something to do with Binky’s death. He’d also be sure of what I saw in everybody else’s eyes: that Binky killed Sperra and had been unable to face the consequences of what she had done.

  That horror was clearly mixed with their grief. Lance had turned pale and was staring into space like he was trying to fit the word “murderer” to the aunt who’d replaced his mother. Burlin’s eyes were dripping tears he kept swiping away with the back of one hand, but the other was clasped over his mouth. Renée had turned her back and was gazing out toward the garden. Georgia wasn’t crying, but she trembled all over and, for once, looked her age.

  Even Edward, while obviously calculating the damage done to the upcoming election by this latest development, had an unexpected glimmer of grief in his eyes.

  I pushed back my chair. “You don’t need an outsider around right now. If somebody could push me across the grass and help me get the chair in my trunk, I’d be grateful.”

  Edward stood. “I’ll do it.” I didn’t flatter myself that he wanted to. His tone made it clear he was willing to do the dirty work to spare the others.

  Burlin waved him back to his chair. “I brought her. I’ll see her on her way.” He offered me a tear-damp hand to help me down the step. As he pushed me toward Annie Dale’s gate, he murmured over my shoulder, “I feel like I’ve just been poleaxed.”

  “I could not be sorrier for you,” I told him. “I liked Binky a lot. But you’d better be ready to face the police. That’s Chief Muggins’s car parking beside mine right this minute.”

  Chief Muggins stepped back to let us out the gate, wearing a smile that strengthened my conviction that some of his ancestors were chimpanzees. “Joe Riddley better put a leash on you.”

  “She is, unfortunately, devoted to the old geezer,” Burlin told him, wheeling me toward my car. “I can’t make a dent in her affections, no matter how hard I try. She just dropped by to visit the family and offer her condolences. I’m seeing her off.”

  I gave him a startled smile of thanks as he held my door.

  As he pushed my chair to the trunk, he told Chief Muggins in a low voice, “I appreciate your coming so quick. Or haven’t you heard that we’ve had another tragedy?”

  Chief Muggins grunted. “I heard on my way over here. That sort of thing tends to happen when the judge is around.” It took every charitable cell in my body not to drive over him on my way out.

  I pulled into my parking space at the store and used my cell phone to ask for an employee to fetch the chair and wheel me in. Joe Riddley came himself. “You’re gonna be thinking you’re the Queen of Sheba by the time you get that cast off,” he warned as I opened my door, “but don’t expect this royal treatment to continue.” Then he saw my face and squatted down so his head was level with mine. “What’s the matter?”

  “Binky Bullock. She—she died.” I laid my face against his broad chest and sobbed.

  He held me until I felt able to face the world again. Then his hand touched the top of my head like a benediction. “We’re unloading cattle feed in the back. I’ll take you to the office, but I’ll come back in a little while to take you home for dinner.”

  I couldn’t concentrate on taxes. I kept getting swamped by wave after wave of sadness. For Sperra, I had grieved only for a stranger who died too soon. Now I grieved for a fierce, earnest little girl whose dreams got overshadowed by life and for the woman who, in my office four days before, had been so alive and happy, Hubert’s name warm on her tongue.

  I could shake Hubert for hurting her. Once he and Georgia went for a walk, he never looked back. How dreadful was that for Binky? As hard as it was for me to cast Hubert as the male lead in a romantic tragedy, she may have viewed him as her last hope. She could even have come to care desperately for him in their two days together.

  Hubert? demanded that voice that lurks somewhere in my head. Rubbish. It’s a lot more likely that Binky left Annie Dale’s Monday night and killed Sperra, and that she was filled with remorse.

  Nonsense, I disagreed. Binky would never have crept up behind somebody with a rusty pipe. She’d have shot them down in the street. Besides, she wrote me a note asking me to help find the killer. She didn’t kill Sperra, even if she did kill herself.

  Then who did it? You don’t think it was Lance.

  “That’s Charlie’s problem,” I muttered, startling a poor deputy as he walked in.

  “Beg your pardon?” he asked. “I have this search warrant—”

  He and I both knew a search warrant wasn’t Chief Muggins’s problem. “I was talking to myself,” I said crossly. “A person has to have an intelligent conversation sometimes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He shuffled his feet and didn’t quite meet my eye.

  “Let me see what you’ve got.” I held out my hand.

  What he had was a warrant to search the home of a young man, just eighteen, suspected of possessing the computer, television, and brand-new stereo system removed from his classmate’s home the previous weekend. “I figure he wanted the stuff for himself, rather than to sell,” the deputy said as I scrawled my signature. “I think we’re gonna find every bit of it in his room.”

  I wished Sperra’s murder were that easy to solve.

  Chief Muggins thinks he’s got it all wrapped up, the voice reminded me. He thinks Lance did it. He isn’t going to be out looking for other suspects.

  I sighed. Even Charlie isn’t dumb enough to think he can arrest Lance on Hector Blaine’s word. Anybody knows Hector would lie like a rug to get his hands on a reward.

  He’ll verify Hector’s testimony by talking to Annie Dale, to confirm she found the letter where Hector said he left it and that it was addressed to Lance. You said yourself that it’s a direct chain of evidence.

  He’ll still need evidence that Lance was at the water tank the night of the murder.

  There’s bound to be some. After all, he was there.

  I hate that voice. I never know if it’s my conscience or what Martha, with all her psychology training, calls my shadow. It certainly seems to shadow me at inconvenient times.

  My head was beginning to ache with all its chatter, and I’d had enough coffee and iced tea that morning to need a visit to the ladies’ room.

  As I maneuvered myself into my wheelchair, the voice had one more question. So if Lance is innocent but Charlie’s convinced he did it, who’s gonna look for the real killer?

  “I need a mental-health break,” I told Joe Riddley as he drove me home.

  “You stayed home the whole afternoon you sprained your ankle,” he pointed out.

  “That doesn’t count. I want to pile up on the couch and read that mystery I bought a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t even started it yet.”

  Clarinda, of course, had other ideas. “You can finally get to those boxes in the guest room.” Before I knew it, she’d settled me in a chair with five boxes in easy reach and a sharp knife for cutting tape, then returned to the kitchen. I tediously sorted through junk I’d thought I couldn’t live without a month before. Now I wondered whether anybody but me would ever want Ridd’s first bib, yellow with drool, or the fuzzy wool letter from Joe Riddley’s high-school baseball sweater, and where could I put them in the meantime?

  Clarinda looked in from time to time, hands on her hips, to make disgusted noises. “This room looks worse than when you started.”

  “I’m getting there,” I insisted. “You have to make a mess to create order.”

  “
Well, I’m not goin’ home until we get this mess cleaned up, so you keep working.”

  Figuring out who killed Sperra Bullock turned out to be a whole lot easier.

  As I disengaged my brain and filled my hands with busywork, pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place. By the time I’d unpacked the last box and decided where to put the various pieces it had held, I knew who the murderer was. I just didn’t know what I could do about it. I looked at the clock beside the bed. Two thirty. I hopped to our bedroom and the bedside phone.

  “Isaac,” I said when the assistant police chief came on the phone, “let me tell you a story. See what you think.”

  “What I think,” he said when I finished, “is that you better sit tight and not let anybody in until I’ve had time to sort this out. And keep Clarinda there until Joe Riddley comes home.”

  I wasn’t sure what he thought Clarinda could do to protect me, but I promised him on both counts. I even had to admit I felt safer with Clarinda around.

  I hopped toward the couch with my mystery. “I’m finished,” I called. “I’ve made a list of where everything goes. Now I’m going to sit down with a good book, and I don’t want to be interrupted. But can you stay until Joe Riddley gets home? I’m feeling a little jumpy today.”

  “I’ll be here,” Clarinda rumbled. “I’ll be lucky to get home by midnight, with all this to clear up. You made a bigger mess than the one you started with. Who ever taught you to unpack, I don’t know . . .”