Who Invited the Dead Man?

by Sprinkle, Patricia

  I took a minute to pray for Pooh, that somebody would take care of her. “But not me,” I added in a whisper. “You know I’ve got my hands full with Joe Riddley right now.”

  I prayed for Darren, and that the real murderer would be found.

  I ambled back toward the store, thinking about Zach, Darren, and Pooh. Oh, if Joe Riddley were only well and could talk to me! I was so busy thinking I ran smack into Kelly Keane.

  “I’m so sorry,” I told her. “My head was somewhere else.”

  “Don’t apologize. I’ve been wanting to see you.” Her eyes were anxious behind her glasses. “Are they going to send Darren to jail?”

  “I hope not, honey. Sure he went down to my house Saturday morning, but he had a good reason for being there, and there’s no evidence yet to connect him to the murder.”

  “I feel so bad about saying I saw him.” She nibbled one thumbnail.

  “You did what you had to. And there were other witnesses. Besides, he isn’t arrested yet. So far the sheriff’s just asking him questions.”

  She shifted her shoulder bag from one shoulder to the other as if shifting her troubles. “I’d hate for him to suffer because of me.”

  I patted her arm. “Don’t worry yet. Oh, and thanks for the party article.”

  I hadn’t gone half a block when I heard somebody else call, “Judge Yarbrough?” I turned and saw Alice Fulton jogging toward me. Sweat beaded her upper lip, but otherwise she looked fresh and a lot livelier than usual. “I got the car put in my name,” she greeted me, jogging in place.

  “Good. That will save us sending you to jail,” I joked.

  She jogged slower, then stopped. “May I ask you something? Something real important? I don’t know who else to ask.”

  I expected it to be something to do with how many hours she worked, or benefits. I never expected her to blurt, “There used to be a gun in my room, and it’s gone.” I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because she put three fingers over her mouth like she was sorry she’d said anything, and backed away. “It may not be important.”

  “It could be real important. Whose gun was it, and what was it doing in your room?”

  “I don’t know whose it was. It was small and silver, and it was in a shoebox on the shelf in my closet. I found it when I put my suitcase up there. The suitcase wouldn’t go all the way to the back, so I climbed up on a chair to see why. That’s when I saw the box. I—maybe I shouldn’t have opened it, but I did, and all that was in it was a gun.”

  “Was it loaded?”

  She hitched up her shoulders in a shrug. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about guns, so I wouldn’t know how to tell, except by shooting it. I didn’t even pick it up. I didn’t want it to go off accidentally or anything.”

  “Did you ask Gusta about it?”

  “No, ma’am—I thought about it, but then I decided maybe that’s where they kept it and she might not have wanted me poking around.”

  “Florine should have cleaned off the shelf before they put you in that room.”

  “She’s not very tall, and the gun was back in the far corner of a real deep shelf.”

  “When did you notice it was gone?”

  “Last night. I wanted to get down some sweaters I’d left in my suitcase, and when I got up on a chair to get the suitcase, I saw the box was gone. Do you think I ought to tell Mrs. Wainwright?”

  “You need to tell the sheriff. They are looking for a small gun that killed Hiram Blaine.”

  She took a step back and covered her whole mouth with her hand. “Oh, no.”

  “I’m afraid so. Who has been in that room besides you?”

  She hesitated.

  “Florine, to clean,” I prompted. “Anybody else?” When she didn’t speak, I guessed. “Was Darren ever up there?”

  I couldn’t imagine how he could have been, given their short acquaintance and Gusta’s gimlet eyes, but she nodded and looked down like a confessing child. “He came by Monday evening to go play miniature golf. Mrs. Wainwright was at a meeting and Florine had gone to see her sister, so when he said what a neat house it was, I showed him around.”

  “But he wasn’t alone in your room, was he?”

  “No more than five minutes, while I went to the bathroom to brush my hair and put on lipstick.”

  “I don’t think he could have found that gun in five minutes.” Her dark eyes were full of misery. “I’d told him I’d found it, the afternoon before. I wanted to know if it could go off accidentally, and I didn’t know who else to ask.”

  A bird called from a nearby bush. Seemed to me we stood there long enough for the bird to mate and build a nest before I finally could speak. “You’re going to have to tell the sheriff, honey. And the sooner the better.”

  She nodded and turned to go, shoulders drooping and her head down.

  20

  I arrived at my office to find Hector Blaine propping up my filing cabinet, talking to Walker. “Here she is now,” Walker said with obvious relief. “Mama, I need to get back to my own office.” He practically bolted.

  I understood. The place reeked.

  Hector was taller than Hiram, and bigger, with a shaven red face and greasy grizzled hair cut just below his ears. As soon as I sat down at my desk, he reached up one hand to take off a gray felt hat like most men stopped wearing around 1970. If Hector got his then, he’d certainly not cleaned it since. He might have washed his hands a year or two later, but the pores were black and he had great half moons caked under each nail. “Got a minute, Judge?”

  “Sure, Hector. I’ve got a parrot, too, I’m still waiting for you to claim.”

  “Well, now, I can’t rightly claim that parrot. It hates me, and I hate it. Just wring its neck. That’s the best thing. I don’t think you can eat ’em—never heard of anybody doing such—but if you fling him in your pasture, the buzzards’ll take care of him.”

  The thought of all that glory, those incredible feathers, lying on the grass waiting for buzzards made me cringe. “You didn’t come to talk about the parrot, I guess. So what did you want?” The office was getting riper by the minute. He shifted from one foot to the other. Although it went against my better judgment, I invited, “Why don’t you sit down?” But I pointed him to Joe Riddley’s desk chair instead of my slip-covered red one. Leather is easier to clean.

  He hitched up his crusted denim pants on the chair and chewed his lower lip. From a rim of scabs on it, I suspected he chewed it pretty often.

  “It’s about Hiram.” For one heart-leaping second I thought he’d come to confess. But as he went on, my heart plopped back into the cold waters of reality. “I think he was killed on account of—you know what I mean.” He gave me a knowing little nod and looked anxiously toward the closed door between us and the store.

  “The Confederate treasury?” The Blaine brothers were tediously consistent.

  “That’d be it. I think he told somebody where it is, and they done for him. They’ll be after me, next. I need protection, Judge, in the worst way.” He hooked one bare ankle around the shaft of the chair and leaned so close I nearly gagged at his rancid breath. “It’s not anybody local, you know. It’s that criminal element he got mixed up with.”

  “Criminal element?”

  “Yeah, you know. Folks he met in jail.”

  If I didn’t immediately respond, it was because I was remembering that Hiram had been in jail only once, while Hector had served three long sentences for various offenses. “Who, exactly?”

  “Oh, I don’t know their names, but I know they’re out to get me. Want to drive me off my land so’s they can take it over. I saw a man with binniculers walking through my watermelon patch not two weeks ago.”

  “Could have been a bird watcher. They carry binoculars.”

  “Naah. He was looking for the treasury. Just pretended to look at birds now and then. What I think is this. While he was in the pen, Hiram musta told somebody about it. Now they’re out, and they want it. You got
ta help me, Judge. You gotta.”

  I could tell he was scared. His right cheek twitched, and his hands couldn’t be still. But neither Bailey Gibbons nor Charlie Muggins was going to spare anybody to baby-sit Hector through this fantasy. “I’m not sure what we can do, exactly. You know our police force is pretty small. But so is the town. If there were strangers here, we’d know it.”

  “They’s lots of people I don’t know.”

  “Sure, but you know their faces, don’t you? Somebody new stands out a mile. If you see somebody you don’t know following you, make a note what they look like and go tell Chief Muggins.” I felt like a snake, but a happy snake. That ought to fix Charlie for suspecting Joe Riddley of killing Hiram.

  So long as Joe Riddley didn’t do it.

  I ignored that dratted voice and made another suggestion. “Maybe you ought to take the parrot after all. He could warn you if somebody tries to break in at night.”

  “Too much trouble, Judge. Birds are dirty,” he said, virtuous as Mr. Clean.

  “Well, you tell Chief Muggins if you notice anybody hanging around your place. That’s the best I can suggest.”

  I expected him to stand up, but he hunched forward a little and said in a soft voice, “I don’t suppose you and t’other judge could see fit to help me with the funeral, could you? Seein’ how’s he died at your place ’n’ all? I’d like to lay him out real nice, but I can’t rightly come up with the money to do it. They’ll bury him like a pauper lest somebody kin he’p out. . . .” He trailed off and wiped a tear from his eye. Hector could cry at the drop of a pin. As a child, it had been his most outstanding accomplishment.

  It made me mad that he thought we owed him a funeral. Seemed to me the Yarbroughs had done our share by providing a handy spot for the murder and a foster home for the parrot.

  “Jed will take care of that. Let’s wait until he gets here,” I stalled.

  “Could you just give me twenty dollars or so, to get a tie to wear to the funeral?”

  “No, but I’ll call Taylor’s Department store and tell them to charge one to me.”

  “Don’t bother.” We both knew he hadn’t been planning to buy a tie. “I sure hope nobody does to me what they done to Hiram. You’ll feel real bad, not helping me ’n’ all.”

  “I sure will,” I agreed, showing him to the door. I hurried to open the window and spray some air neutralizer, thinking, That has to be the craziest man in town.

  Then Jed Blaine arrived, sounding as crazy as his uncles. He claimed Hopemore might actually have aliens.

  Jed didn’t look crazy. In a three-piece charcoal suit, pale gray shirt, gray-and-blue tie, gold tie tack, and highly polished black shoes, he looked like a prosperous young lawyer. To my surprise, I saw he’d filled out into a mighty handsome man. As fair as his uncles were dark (his mother had brown hair and blue eyes), he’d been an adorable but gawky child with a face full of freckles, light blue eyes framed by white lashes, and a shock of snow-white hair. Now the freckles were almost gone, and he wore his thick sandy hair parted precisely on the left side. He still had that engaging grin full of strong white teeth and a chuckle that made you want to chuckle along. If he stuck around a while, the single women and their mamas would be holding another series of parties. Meriwether might even reconsider her earlier decision.

  He came into my office already talking. Joe Riddley always said Jed Blaine could talk ears off corn. “Meant to get down here sooner, but had to be in court all week until noon today.”

  We hugged, he slung his coat across the extra chair, and we exchanged the kind of news people do when they are fond of one another and haven’t been together for a while. Then he leaned forward like we were fixing to do serious business, and started talking crazy.

  “You aren’t gonna want to hear this, but I think Hiram was killed because he found an alien living in Hopemore.” Seeing my expression, he held up a hand. “Wait. Listen to what I have to say. He called me Friday evening, all excited. At first I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying. A lot of ‘They’re here! They’re here! I’ve seen one with my own two eyes!’ When I finally got him calmed down a bit, he said he’d seen an alien on Oglethorpe Street that very day, and we could prove it legally.”

  Jed waited for me to say something, but my vocal chords were on strike. I was glad to be interrupted by a deputy, bringing in a warrant for me to sign. Jed waited until he’d gone, then shook his head. “It ought to seem funny seeing you do that, but it doesn’t. Now, to get back to this other thing—” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “I’m not saying you’ve got people from Venus.” He waved that idea away in the air. “But what Hiram said was, an alien is living in Hopemore disguised as somebody else, that there was absolutely no doubt, and he’d be wanting me to get legal documents to prove he was right. He wanted to watch the situation for a week or two, then he’d get back to me. Now I know and you know that most of the time Hiram was nuttier than pecan pie. But this time—I don’t know, something rang true. I haven’t the foggiest notion who he was talking about, or what kind of legal documents he wanted, but he truly believed somebody here isn’t who he seems to be.”

  Jed waited for me to say or do something smart, but all my smarts seemed to be flitting somewhere out near Venus. I shoved my fingers through my hair, finishing the wreck Joe had made of Phyllis’s good work.

  “He’d worked in Atlanta long enough to know there are illegal human aliens as well as extraterrestrial ones,” he pointed out when I didn’t speak.

  “And you think whoever it is found out Hiram recognized him or her, and killed him?”

  He shrugged. “Have you got a better idea?”

  “Not at the moment. Have you talked to Hector?”

  “No, I thought I’d stop by here first. Then I’m going over to Miss Hubbard’s Bed and Breakfast to get a room, so when I go by home I’ll already have a place to stay.”

  I didn’t blame him one bit. “I’d ask you to stay with us, but—”

  “Thanks. I really appreciate that, but you’ve got enough on your plate without having company. And I may be here a while. I’ve told my office I won’t be back until I scout around a bit. I owe it to Hiram. What were you going to say about Hector?”

  “He thinks Hiram talked in jail about the Confederate treasury, and somebody—the criminal element, he called them . . .”

  “That old jailbird?” Jed sounded both fond and disgusted.

  “Yeah. He’s sure the criminal element is after the treasury and planning to kill him to get it. The reason I mention it is, if anything does happen to Hector, you’re next in line for the inheritance, so watch your back.”

  “I’ll do that. Right now, I thought I’d run over and see Pooh. She doin’ okay?” His eyes were a bit anxious, like eyes always are when asking about an elderly friend we haven’t seen in a while.

  From the time he was four or five, Jed and Pooh had been special buddies. He’d stop by her place for cookies after school and we’d see them chattering away like equals up on her big porch. He used to help Otis around the yard some, too, and after he went to college and law school, he used to write long funny letters Pooh would bring by for me to read. She confided once she had a special fondness for freckle-faced boys. Her hand touched the big silver locket with Zach’s picture she wore next to her heart.

  “She’s gone down real bad this past year,” I warned him. “Her mind comes and goes.”

  As he stood and reached for his coat, I hoped he’d ask about Meriwether, but he merely rolled his sleeves down and slipped on his jacket.

  I never imagined I’d get to witness their meeting, but as I walked Jed out front, he nodded across the street and said, “Nice car. If I didn’t have a BMW, I’d like a Benz.”

  The Mercedes was Meriwether’s silver convertible, parking in front of the bank. The day was chilly enough that she had the top up, which meant Jed and I couldn’t see who was in it. First Slade swung out of the passenger seat, look
ing especially nice in a light tan suit with his dark hair ruffled by the wind.

  “That’s the new editor of the Statesman,” I told Jed, since he hadn’t asked.

  Was it coincidence, or something stronger, that made Meriwether glance across the street as she opened her door? As far as anybody in Hopemore knew—and what we don’t know in Hopemore is generally not worth knowing—that was the first time those two had laid eyes on each other in twelve years.

  Oglethorpe Street has only two lanes plus parking on each side, so the two of them weren’t very far apart when their eyes met. Meriwether climbed out of her car, showing more knee and leg than was absolutely necessary, and stood as haughty as a Viking princess in a navy skirt and brightly embroidered sweater. “What are you doing here?” she called coldly.