“I don’t have any idea who all was in there during the party.” What I did remember—a memory that was making me sick—was Darren leaning against the closet door Saturday night after everybody had gone, his hands behind him, asking about Alice. Was he leaving prints in case he’d left others there before, when he’d dropped the gun in Joe Riddley’s boot?
As if reading my thoughts, the sheriff asked, “By the way, I haven’t gotten by yet to check your kitchen closet. I presume you still have it locked?”
“I certainly do. But getting back to Darren, he seemed his normal perky self at the party.”
“You know you can’t go by that. Maybe shooting Hiram released his tensions.”
“I don’t want to believe Darren did it, Sheriff.”
“You prefer the alternative?”
“You don’t have any evidence linking Joe Riddley to this!” Terror spoke more hotly than I intended. “You might as well arrest me and get it over with.”
“Phyllis vouches for where you were.” My mouth dropped open. He settled his hat on his head. “Have to check on everybody, Judge. You, especially, with Chief Muggins assisting with this investigation. But the truth is, we don’t have one piece of hard evidence against anybody. Best way in the world to get rid of evidence is to have a party for two hundred people.”
“I didn’t do it deliberately,” I said grumpily.
“I never for an instant thought you did.” He stood. “I came by because I figured you’d kill me if you heard about Hernandez from anybody else.”
“You got that right.” I rose to see him out, almost deafened by an argument in my head.
Are you going to tell him about the gun?
No. He’d just think Darren got it and used it.
You could point out Darren had no way of knowing where the key is kept.
Not without saying Joe Riddley and I are the only ones who do.
Maybe Joe Riddley told Darren. These days he blabs secrets to whoever will listen.
He’s never alone with Darren. I’m right beside them all the time.
You’re just trying to protect Joe Riddley.
Durn tootin’ I am.
It made me shiver when Buster turned at the door and said, “I think we ought to protect Joe Riddley. We’re not making an arrest as of yet, so don’t mention this to him.”
That minute, I missed the old Joe Riddley more than ever. He’d never liked my looking into murders, but we’d talked about everything else. I needed to talk to him about Darren so bad I could taste it. Joe Riddley, however, had gone far, far away.
Wednesday’s weekly Statesman was lying on my desk, Slade’s most ambitious edition to date. He had devoted the entire front page to the murder. He’d interviewed Hector, written a piece about Hiram’s history of warning Hopemore about aliens, and dredged up a real good picture of Hiram with Joe on his head.
Slade himself had written the stories. I had to admit the man could write. I resented, however, a big picture of our house on page one labeled “The site of the crime,” followed by a boxed appeal from Sheriff Gibbons: Anybody knowing or seeing anything which might pertain to the murder of Hiram Blaine at the home of Judge MacLaren Yarbrough, please call the sheriff.
Slade had deemed Kelly’s article on Joe Riddley’s party important enough for half of the second page. Photos included not only a close-up of Joe Riddley and me while the tree was planted and several clever, amusing shots of our guests (including one of Slade and Meriwether), but one of the house with the yard full of people. Anybody would know it was the same house, and presume we’d gone ahead with our party even though Hiram got shot.
It was a good thing I was an appointed judge. With friends like Slade, I’d never win an election.
I generally took the paper home. Joe Riddley didn’t understand what he read, but he liked to look at pictures and have me explain certain stories. He had made me write “read paper” on every Wednesday page in his log. But I had no intention of dealing with his questions about the pictures in that particular paper. I threw it away.
After supper, Joe Riddley pointed angrily to his log. “It says right here, ‘read paper.’ ”
“I know, honey, but I didn’t bring it home. Maybe I’ll remember tomorrow.” By tomorrow he would have turned his page. He wouldn’t think about it again.
But by tomorrow, Darren could be in jail for murder.
19
Thursday, Lottie called right after I got to the office. “Miss Winifred is in a state and we can’t do nothin’ with her. Her bank statement just arrived, and she thinks they aren’t honoring her checks. Could you come over?”
I decided to walk from the store, but when I got onto the sidewalk, I was glad I’d worn a light jacket. Gray clouds banked overhead, and a stiff breeze came from the west. I eyed the clouds, hoping I wouldn’t get soaked walking back to the store. The television predicted rain, but we’d had such a long spell of nice weather I hadn’t believed it. Any more than you believe Joe Riddley may have shot Hiram. I held my head into the wind so I couldn’t hear.
Pooh was in her Cozy with a steaming drink beside her. “You want I should bring you a cup?” Lottie asked in her mournful way. She didn’t specify what would be in it.
“That would be wonderful,” I agreed, hoping I wasn’t accepting a cup of stewed grass some people call tea. I needed something more stimulating than that. I took a seat and asked Pooh, “What’s going on? I hear you’ve got some trouble with the bank?”
Pooh’s blue eyes were wide with worry. “It’s dreadful, MacLaren. I try to pay my bills, but the bank won’t let me. They keep sending all the checks back.” She took an envelope from the table by her chair. “If my lights and water get cut off, I don’t know how we’ll live.”
Normally I’d no more look at another woman’s bank statement than read her diary, but Pooh looked so bewildered, I thumbed through the checks and perused the balance. “They honored all these.”
“They sent them back. Now I have to mail them all out again.”
I reached out and touched her arm, hoping to bring her a little closer to reality. “No, honey, these have all been used to pay your bills, then returned to the bank. The bank sent them back to you along with the statement saying how much money you have left.”
“I have enough for now. I call every little while to be sure I have enough to pay my bills.”
She had enough to buy a couple of small countries. I was surprised her financial advisor let her keep so much in her checking account. “Who helps you with your money, Pooh?”
“Fayette did all that.” She waved her plump hands as if her financial problems had been taken away by her husband when he died.
I had turned the checks over as I laid them in my lap, so now they rested back-side up. The one on top was endorsed with Gusta’s new red stamp, and her account had the same last three digits as my telephone number. That’s the kind of dumb fact that tends to stick in my brain. But I was puzzled about the check. “Why are you writing checks to Gusta?”
Pooh shrugged. “Maybe she needs money?” Like I needed another head.
“Let’s see. It was for a hundred dollars, written last Friday right after she came home. Did Gusta pay your way somewhere, maybe?”
Pooh looked bewildered.
Lottie came in with a steaming cup of coffee, strong and black, just the way I needed it, and overheard my question. “Remember, Miss Winifred? You forgot to take your pocketbook when you went to the Friends of the Library meeting, and they wanted donations for new computer equipment. Miss Augusta wrote her check to cover your share and stopped by here on her way home for you to write her a check. It was last week,” she added, as if that ought to make a difference to Pooh’s poor addled brain.
I waited until Lottie left, then turned to Pooh. “I want to talk to you about two things. Pay close attention, now.”
“Of course, dear.” Pooh leaned forward like she was memorizing every word.
“First, I want you to
give your lawyer the power to pay your bills. You don’t need to be worrying about this. Your lawyer needs to take this off your hands. May I call him and ask him to come see you? And will you sign the papers he gives you?”
She fluttered her hands. “Why, of course, dear. If you say so.” She’d have trusted anybody.
“Who’s your lawyer?”
“I don’t think I have one.”
Lottie would know who’d handled Fayette’s affairs. I moved to the next question. “Sheriff Gibbons says you were down at the Bi-Lo Saturday morning. What was it you wanted there that morning?”
She cocked her silver curls, listened carefully to be sure Otis and Lottie’s television was going in the kitchen, and leaned forward to whisper. “Twinkies. Lottie won’t buy Twinkies. That old doctor claims I have too much sugar in my blood.” With a wave, she consigned serious diabetes to the realm of a medical fairy tale. “I went down myself and bought a whole box. Then I brought them home and hid them.”
She was so proud of herself you’d have thought she’d won an Olympic medal. Come to think of it, it was no small feat to get herself into that chair and out of the house, travel nearly a mile each way by motorized chair, elude a determined pursuer, and remember what she went for and how to get home. Maybe they ought to make it an Olympic event for arthritic, forgetful octogenarians. But Twinkies could be dangerous for Pooh. “Where did you hide them?”
She hesitated, but couldn’t resist bragging. “In my high-heel shoes. I don’t wear them anymore, and they are too small for Lottie.” She held out a tiny foot complacently.
I managed not to gasp. “Have you hidden things in shoes before?”
“No, somebody—” That train of thought vanished into a mist. She looked down at her hands in distress.
I could have sworn. “Who told you to put Twinkies in the shoe?”
Pooh looked at me like I had said something particularly silly. I wanted to shake her. But you can’t shake a damaged mind any more than you can shake an open feather pillow. I leaned closer to her and asked, “Do you remember lending a gun to Gusta once?”
Pooh had no trouble remembering the distant past. It was just the present that gave her trouble. “A twenty-two,” she said promptly. “Faye bought it because he had to be out of town so much. Silly man,” she added. “I didn’t want a little old pistol. So I gave it to Gusta and got a dog. Remember Bowser?”
“Sure I do.” Bowser was a St. Bernard straight from Peter Pan. He was so huge and so tame that elementary school children used to stop by after school to ride on his back. “Was Bowser supposed to protect you? He was such a pussycat, I don’t think he could.”
Pooh put back her head and laughed merrily. “No, but if I left him in the yard at night, he’d bark if anyone came near our fence. What he wanted, of course, was for me to let him in so he could hide under my bed, but burglars wouldn’t know that.” She looked around uncertainly, but with a perfectly clear eye. “I had a box of old pictures—there. Hand them to me. You’re so much younger than I.”
When you are over sixty and somebody tells you how young you are, you jump to do anything they ask. I brought her the old square box and set it in her lap. She opened it and rummaged through it. “Here he is. Remember?”
I smiled fondly at the familiar huge head and lolling tongue. Pooh rummaged in the box again and brought out a yellowed letter. Her lips trembled and her voice was odd as she said, “You are so kind, MacLaren. I want you to see this. I want you to know.”
I unfolded the letter. When I saw who it was from, I nearly dropped it. “Are you sure you want me to read it?”
Her face crumpled like a child’s before it cries. “I’d have told you before, but Fayette wouldn’t let me.”
I scanned the single sheet, written from Vietnam: Dear Mama,
Prepare yourself for a shock. I am married! She is a wonderful girl, and I know you will love her as I do, but Daddy will give us some problems. I wasn’t going to tell you until I got back, but I just found out we’re going to have a baby, and I have to tell somebody or burst! If it’s a girl, I will name her Winnie. You know I hate to write, so that’s all for now.
Love,
Zach
If my memory served me right, the letter was written just a week or two before Zach was killed.
“I would have had a grandbaby, but Zach died.” Tears rolled down Pooh’s cheeks. She brought a flowered handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her eyes.
I don’t know how Lottie knew she was needed, but I have seldom been as glad to see anybody coming through a door. “What you crying for?” she demanded.
“Bowser.” Pooh held up the photograph. “Bowser’s dead.”
“Sure he is. He’s up in heaven with Mr. Faye, running and playing like he used to down here. So what you crying for, when they’re so happy?”
“Is Zach there, too?”
“He sure is. He and Mr. Faye spent the whole morning throwing sticks to old Bowser.”
Pooh’s eyes were like a rain-washed sky. “Really?”
“Really. Why don’t you let me take you to lie down a little while before dinner? Miss MacLaren can come back another day.”
“Please,” Pooh said, holding out one hand like she was begging me not to forget her.
“Sometimes Pooh nearly breaks my heart,” I told Otis in the kitchen a minute later.
He nodded his grizzled head. “Might near breaks mine, too.”
I laid the letter on the table. “You know anything about this?”
He held it up, turned it around, and laid it back down. “You’ll need to read it to me. I don’t have my glasses about me right now.”
I looked at him sharply. “Otis, can you read?”
He shook his head and grinned sheepishly. “No’m, not to say—” He paused, then admitted, “No’m, I can’t.”
I am always astonished and filled with admiration when I find someone who maneuvers in this complicated society without being able to read. “How do you manage?”
“Lottie reads real good. Between us we make out all right.”
I picked up the letter and read it to him. “Did you know anything about this?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes’m, I knowed about it when it happened. We had a right smart dust-up ’round here the afternoon it came. Reason nobody heard about it is, Mr. Fayette told Miss Winifred not to mention it to nobody ’til he’d had time to check it out. Then, not much more’n a week later, the telegram came saying Zach was gone.” Otis’s voice faltered, and he had to clear his throat before going on. He had loved Zachary very much.
“War or no war, Miss Winifred wanted to call Vietnam itself to try and find that woman, but Mr. Faye said he wasn’t interested in findin’ a foreigner who’d tricked Zach into marrying her so’s she could get into this country. He wouldn’t even let Miss Winifred tell a soul. She might nigh went crazy, losing Zach plus knowing there was gonna be a baby in the world that belonged to her and she couldn’t look for it.”
“I’d never have thought Fayette could be so mean!” I remembered Hiram Blaine saying something like that.
Otis nodded soberly. “He could be a hard man at times.” Then he sighed. “To tell the truth, though, I think his grief was so big right then he didn’t want to share her with anything or anybody. And you know Miss Winifred and babies. If she’d had a baby around here, the rest of us could have packed our bags and left. She’d never have noticed.”
I handed him the letter. “Put it back in the box in her Cozy when she’s asleep. Did you ever hear from the girl?”
He shook his head. “Mr. Fayette tol’ me, ‘Just give her time, she’ll be writin’ for money soon enough.’ But we kep’ waitin’ and waitin’, and that letter never came.”
Our church is around the square from Pooh’s. I stopped by on my way back to the store and sat in the chapel alone. Soft light streamed through creamy stained-glass windows. The small room was dim, cool, and very quiet. I wasn’t so much praying a
s feeling the presence of God and admitting that no matter what I was bearing right then, there were others who were bearing things I never could. Was it Socrates who said if they put all the troubles in the world in one big pile and told us to pick some, we’d choose our own?
One by one I pictured my grandchildren, and gave thanks for them. What if I had never seen their dear faces, heard their baby laughs? No wonder Pooh’s mind had finally gone. I was surprised it stuck around as long as it did.
Who Invited the Dead Man? Page 18
