Who Invited the Dead Man?

by Sprinkle, Patricia

He gave me a perfectly lucid frown. “My mind’s not what it used to be. You know that. You’ll have to ask Hiram.”

  Then his gaze slid toward the space under his bed and he started flapping his hand again. “Don’t worry about it!” he shouted. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it!” He pulled himself to his feet and balanced on the walker. “Come on, we’re going to church.” He moved faster than usual toward his door, barking orders over his shoulder. “Get a move on. Come on, now. Come on!”

  I’d seen that guilty look often enough to know there was something under the bed he didn’t want me to see. As soon as he was through the door, I knelt, hoping I’d be able to get back up without calling for help. My knees aren’t at their best in the morning. In the dimness near the wall, I saw something red.

  One of the handiest things they gave Joe Riddley in rehab was a reacher—a long stick with a handle on one end and a claw on the other. Short women ought to be issued one at birth. Fishing under Joe Riddley’s bed, I pulled out a filthy Yarbrough’s cap streaked with white bird doo.

  I knelt in that warm bedroom and shivered. My teeth chattered so hard I had to clench my jaw. My ears roared. With a hand shaking so hard I could hardly make the muscles obey orders, I picked up that unspeakable hat between two pinched fingers and carried it at arm’s length, hoping germs weren’t swarming up my hand. “Where did this come from?” I asked in a shaky voice.

  Joe Riddley hadn’t gotten far at the speed he traveled. He stopped, turned, looked at the cap, and glared at me. He spoke each word so carefully you’d have thought he was teaching me English. “That is not my hat.”

  “How did it get under your bed?”

  He gave a huff of impatience. “I don’t have time for whatchamacallits. We are going to be late.” He moved the walker a baby step ahead. “Are you coming or aren’t you?” As if he could get there without me.

  I shook his elbow fiercely. “I’m coming, but first you have to tell me. Was Hiram in your room? Or did you bring this hat back with you?”

  His answer, excruciatingly slow, lasted at least one lifetime. “I told you. He came to see me. It was his birthday. His hat was dirty. That’s not good for the store. It doesn’t matter. I can get a new hat.”

  “But why was this one under the bed?”

  His lips trembled and I knew he was close to tears. “Don’t fuss. I couldn’t get it off the floor. Scared you would fuss, so I kicked it. Now you’re fussing anyway. Don’t fuss. Let’s go to the ballgame.”

  I was ashamed of myself. Had I become such a tyrant that he was afraid of me? I reached around him from the back and held him close. “We’re going to church, honey, and I’m not fussing. I’m glad you gave Hiram a present. Let’s go to the car.”

  He resumed his turtle crawl toward the back door.

  As much as I hated to, though, I had to show that hat to Buster. I tossed it back into the bedroom and followed Joe Riddley out, but as soon as he was in the car, I told him I’d forgotten something and ran back in. I went to the dining room door and said formally, “Sheriff Gibbons? I have something you need to see.”

  I do not know how I forced my legs to walk down that hall. They certainly had other ideas. My mouth struggled to form the words, and they came out sounding like Joe Riddley. “That is Hiram’s cap. I found it under Joe Riddley’s bed. Hiram had on Joe Riddley’s when he died. Joe Riddley says this morning that he gave his hat to Hiram, but he can’t remember when—or how this cap came to be here.” I simply could not repeat Joe Riddley’s words about Hiram coming to see him. Not until I’d had time to question Joe Riddley more closely. The way his mind was working, he could be remembering some time four years ago. But if so, where did that hat come from?

  Buster took my elbow and escorted me to the back door. “We’ll check the room for prints while you’re at church. Don’t worry, Judge Yarbrough. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  That was easy for him to say. I’d seen Charlie Muggins at my dining room door. He’d heard every word I said. From the look on his chimpanzee face, if it was up to him, Joe Riddley and I wouldn’t be heading to church. We’d both be heading to jail.

  14

  I called our house as soon as church was over. Sheriff Gibbons said they had dusted Joe Riddley’s room for Hiram’s prints and found them on the ladder-back chair, on the nightstand, and on the doorknob. “Oh, Lord,” I breathed.

  Buster knew me well enough to know I was praying, not swearing. “We’re still looking for a weapon. Do you think it would do me any good to talk to Joe Riddley?”

  “He’s just finished telling Martha it was a shame she had to keep the nursery today, because Hiram staggered down the aisle in the middle of the sermon, confessed all his sins, and got baptized. Do you think it would do you any good to talk to him?”

  The way Buster sighed, I felt ice water creep through my veins. “Is he mobile at all on his own?” he asked. “Could he have gotten himself to the dining room without your help?”

  “Joe Riddley didn’t kill Hiram. He didn’t!”

  Buster was not given to raising false hopes. “We’ll know more after we find the weapon. Keep asking him about the missing gun. And do you have the key to your kitchen closet? It’s locked.”

  “I locked it for the party, and the key’s here in my pocketbook. Do you need it now? We were going to Ridd and Martha’s for dinner.”

  “Go ahead. We’ll check it later.”

  After dinner, little Cricket asked, “Pop, can you build a tower? I got new blocks.”

  “I’m the best tower builder in the world,” Joe Riddley informed him slowly. He looked at me anxiously. “Is ‘play with Cricket’ in my log?”

  Joe Riddley and Cricket had always been real close, but that fall they were getting along especially well. Joe Riddley was like a three-year-old in a lot of ways, and if Pop said or did something silly, Cricket didn’t get upset, he got tickled—so tickled he made Joe Riddley laugh, too. I reached out and gave Joe Riddley’s hand a squeeze. “ ‘Play with Cricket’ is in your heart, honey. You don’t need it in the log.” The two of them moved contentedly to Cricket’s room while we grownups went to the porch to let our dinner settle. While we rocked and enjoyed the breeze, I brought them up to date.

  “You mean Hiram’s hat was under Daddy’s bed but Daddy can’t remember when Hiram was there? And Daddy was out in the backyard shooting in the middle of the night, claiming he showed Hiram how well he can shoot? And one of his guns is missing?” Ridd’s voice rose in greater disbelief with each question.

  “Hush!” I looked toward the open windows. “I don’t want your daddy hearing this.”

  “My daddy is going to get arrested for murder, Mama. They are going to put him away for the rest of his natural life, and you want me to hush?”

  “I don’t suppose you can identify all his guns, can you?” I asked hopefully. “Maybe the one that’s missing is an entirely different kind than the one that killed Hiram.”

  “I might have recognized them back when I still lived there, but he’s added some and gotten rid of others.”

  “Well, last night he told Buster and Charlie this one isn’t really missing, it’s ‘mislaid’—whatever that means to his poor fuddled brain. He said it again today, about the cap. It’s not a word I’ve ever heard him use before.”

  “Oh, dear.” Martha bit her lip. “That’s my fault. Yesterday when I was helping him get dressed for the party, he wanted to wear a particular tie, but I couldn’t find it. He was getting so agitated that I told him it wasn’t really missing, it was only mislaid. Then I explained that ‘mislaid’ means it was put somewhere else, we just couldn’t remember where it was at that moment.”

  I gave a sigh from the bottom of my toes. “That man is a marvel. He can’t remember whether he’s had dinner half the time, then at the precisely wrong time he remembers something complicated like that.”

  Ridd glared. “Don’t make jokes. What if Daddy did it? What if he got mad at Hiram and shot hi
m? If he could get to the backyard by himself, he could get to the dining room.”

  “Your daddy is not a killer. Hang on to that thought, son. We are all going to need it.”

  Martha never could stand for Ridd and me to fuss. “Did you see Selena and Maynard this morning, coming out of the Episcopal church? They’re so cute. I don’t know why he doesn’t go ahead and ask her to marry him.”

  “Maynard says he can’t leave Hubert.” I sketched out what Maynard had said the night before.

  Martha thought that over. “Why don’t they take Hubert with them?”

  “Maynard doesn’t think he’d go. Old men get real set in their ways.”

  Ridd gave me a surprised frown. “I thought Hubert was the same age as Daddy.”

  “Old is a state of mind, honey. Hubert was born with it. Heck, it’s hard enough to get him to change his underwear, much less his ways.”

  “Well,” Martha said with determination, “I think we need to work on Maynard. If he and Selena move into Marybelle’s house, there’s plenty of space downstairs to fix Hubert up an apartment. We’ll have to put our minds to it.”

  “I’m not going to put my mind to it until somebody buys the Pickens place,” I told her. “I don’t want to be down that road without a single neighbor.”

  “Have you and Pop ever thought about moving?” She asked the question idly, but from the quick look Ridd gave her, I knew they had already talked about it.

  “Not yet.” I wasn’t any readier to think about that than Hubert.

  Martha stood. “Didn’t you tell me you needed to go back to the store for an hour or two? Go ahead, and leave Pop here. You can come get him when you’re done.”

  I kept my windows down as I drove toward the square. The courthouse clock chimed two, its voice deep and quiet as befitted an autumn Sunday. The air was tinged with that certain smell that says the earth is gently decaying and getting ready for winter. Birds celebrated their homecoming from northern summer vacations with excited chirps and whistles.

  On a whim, I decided to run by to see Meriwether’s new house. I hadn’t had a reason to drive down Liberty Street lately, and I was dying to see how it had turned out.

  Liberty Street isn’t as fancy as Oglethorpe, but is lovely in its own way. Most of the houses were built in the eighteen hundreds, and many have recently been bought by couples with growing families. Unlike on Oglethorpe, children on Liberty Street played ball, rode bikes, and skated while parents read papers or chatted on their porches.

  I pulled up to the curb and stopped to look. Meriwether’s house had always been pretty—a white one-story Victorian with gingerbread trim at the eaves. But her choice of soft cream paint with subtle accents in slate blue and dark burgundy had transformed it into a beauty. Just at the gable of the roof I saw the touch of dark green Phyllis had mentioned.

  Two huge white-and-gold ceramic planters decorated with dark green Chinese characters flanked the steps. “Burgundy mums sure would look gorgeous in those pots,” I called as Meriwether waved from the swing where she’d been studying an enormous piece of paper.

  “Come in and take the tour,” she invited.

  Slade was reading a paper in one of three porch rockers, long legs stretched in front of him like he owned the place. He was stunning in tan slacks and a dark brown sweater. Meriwether was gorgeous as usual, even in jeans and a plain white shirt. She lay down her paper and met me on the steps. “I’m real proud of it,” she said happily.

  I admired lace curtains in the front windows and a shining brass new mail slot, then followed Meriwether from room to room, cooing like a demented creature over oak kitchen cabinets, Italian bathroom tiles, newly refinished heart pine floors, and restored high ceilings.

  “You’re a tad short on furniture,” I pointed out. The rooms were almost bare.

  “Candi took almost everything. I’m going to Augusta tomorrow for some basics.”

  “You could always shove a few boxes together for sofas and tables,” I suggested, peering into the back bedroom. “You’ve got enough of them.” The room was littered with cardboard cartons stamped with Chinese characters.

  “Those are my secret,” Meriwether said conspiratorially. “But before I tell you about it, let me get you some tea. Grab yourself a rocker and I’ll be right out.”

  While I waited, I peered at the paper she’d been reading, an architect’s rendering. “Is she planning to build another house?” I asked Slade, who was working a crossword.

  He answered without looking up. “No, she’s got a bee in her bonnet. She’ll have to tell you about it. Do you know the French word for summer?”

  “I think it’s e-t-e.”

  “That’s right. You’d think, after all the times I’ve been there—” He penciled it in as Meriwether brought iced tea in enormous plastic cups. “Sorry about the size.” She set them down on a glass-topped table. “The Bi-Lo was out of smaller ones.”

  “They sold them all to me.” The tea was cold and sweet, but weak. Meriwether hadn’t mastered good tea yet. “What’s that big paper you were so interested in when I got here?”

  That was the only nickel her jukebox needed. “The plan of Granddaddy’s warehouse, down by the railroad. I’m going to have it fixed up for my business.”

  “What kind of business?” I asked encouragingly.

  “A pot business. On our trip, I started noticing different kinds of pots. Flowerpots, yard pots, kitchen pots, bathroom pots—” She turned a delicate pink and gave an embarrassed laugh. “I mean the kind you can put cotton balls in, or pretty soaps. I started buying some for my house, like those planters by the steps, then I thought, why not get some to sell when we get home? Every woman in the world needs pots.”

  “You think you can sell enough in Hopemore to make it worth your while?”

  Her laugh pealed over her yard. “Heavens, no. I’ll have a small store here, but mostly I’ll sell by catalogue and on the Internet.” She couldn’t have looked any prouder if she’d been Columbus sighting land. “I’m going to call it Pots of Luck, and offer pots from all over the world. Pretty pots for scrubbers by the sink. Pots to hold finger towels in your bathroom.”

  “Not to mention flowerpots,” I agreed. “I’ve been wishing we could get rid of the pottery side of our business. You are welcome to it, if you like.”

  “Thanks. The only thing I’d worried about was competing with you all.”

  If she thought that was her only worry, she had a lot to learn. But she was prattling on. “The ones in the back are just what I could send or bring back with me. I have several more shipments coming. I’m going to renovate Granddaddy’s warehouse to hold the stock, and I’ve got a consultant coming next week to talk about how to get started. I think it will be fantastic. I’ll have things for every pocketbook, from almost every country in the world. I figure I’ll hire at least twenty people eventually.” Meriwether’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling. Slade seemed a bit sour on the idea—possibly because pots had given her an animation his own company hadn’t yet achieved.

  “Hopemore can certainly use that,” I admitted. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a catalogue just for pots, either, and if I don’t get it, it doesn’t exist.”

  I was just about to mention Hiram when Gusta’s Cadillac purred to a stop out front. “Don’t talk about pots now,” Meriwether warned. “Nana’s not real happy about the idea.”

  “You still talking pots?” Gusta demanded, pushing her walker up the front walk. Even though she hadn’t been at church, she had dressed up for dinner in a gold silk blouse and her black Sunday suit. Alice looked like a quiet mole behind her in a dark brown skirt and sweater. She offered Gusta an arm to help her ascend the front steps. Gusta clutched her hard, but Alice didn’t flinch. I might have to join the town betting pool and place my nickel on Alice staying. Most folks thought she’d hightail it back to Macon by Christmas.

  Gusta took the rocker Slade offered and said icily, “My granddaughter can’t eve
n boil water, yet she fancies herself the queen of pots. If my brother the senator had known our family would one day be selling pots—”

  I winked at Meriwether. “Pot wasn’t his problem.” Gusta gave me a frosty gray glare. Meriwether managed not to laugh, but barely. Alice and Slade were the only people there who didn’t know that Gusta’s brother was such a drunk his aides had to hold him up when he went to the Senate to vote. Why he served three terms had always been another mystery of the universe. But at least that shut Gusta up about pots.

  Alice took the rocker beside mine. When Meriwether didn’t move over to make room on the swing, Slade leaned against the porch rail, still clutching his puzzle.

  “Were you all right this morning, Augusta? We missed you at church, and I hoped you weren’t ill.” He beamed his lovely smile straight at her. Gusta thawed. That man could charm cats down from trees.