Jed shook his head, and his lips twisted in a rueful smile. “Poor old Hiram. I wish he’d stayed in Atlanta. He was doing real well. Working regular, too, doing yard work and a little maintenance for a small apartment complex. He had a room on a bus line, and I could keep an eye on him. We’d have dinner from time to time, so I could make sure he was all right.”
Martha forked up the last of her pie crust. “Then why’d he come back?”
“Same old thing. He thought aliens were operating in those apartments. He found a stray pup wandering around and started feeding it, but one day the pup disappeared. Probably just moved on. But Hiram went all over the area looking for it. Even had me print signs to put on telephone poles. When he couldn’t find it, he swore aliens had taken it.”
His drumming was driving me crazy, so I put my hand over his. “Sorry,” he apologized, wrapping his hands around his cup.
“You mean Hiram came home because he lost a dog?” Martha asked.
Jed’s blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “Oh, that wasn’t all. If it had just been the dog, I don’t think he’d have given up his job. He really liked the work, felt important. The tenants counted on him to keep things running, and it was like he had finally found his niche. But a few weeks after the dog disappeared, one of the tenants died, and the family came to get the stuff at night after Hiram went home. When the furniture rental company arrived the next day, Hiram was sure the tenant had been beamed up to a spaceship. He explained to me that aliens put humans in big zoos on Venus. The last straw was when a car got stolen from the parking lot in the middle of the day, in the twenty minutes it took Hiram to walk down to the Seven-Eleven for some lunch. He passed it going out and it wasn’t there when he came back. At first he thought the guy who owned it had gone out for something—he worked nights. But in a little while the guy came out to get in the car, and they realized it had been taken. The police didn’t find it, either—which isn’t surprising. It had probably been chopped for parts before the police started looking. But Hiram was sure aliens had stolen it. He said they had a dog, a woman, and a car, so all they needed was a man to complete the exhibit. He was terrified he’d be next. In fact, he wanted me to come back home, too. Said aliens were less likely to invade a little place like Hopemore.”
“And then they did.” I didn’t know if I felt like laughing or crying. Poor Hiram, was there anything any of us could have done to make him feel safer on God’s green earth?
“So he said.” I saw in Jed’s eyes some of what I was feeling. “He was convinced that night when he called me that at least one alien was walking around the streets of Hopemore wearing somebody else’s skin. What they did with the skinless person, he wasn’t real clear on.”
“Stop it,” I told him, reaching for my pocketbook. “If I start picturing skinless humans wandering around the ether in a spaceship, I’m gonna wind up as crazy as Hiram.”
Jed got suddenly solemn. “I just hope nobody winds up that dead.”
25
Tuesday I went over to the bank for change. As I came out the door, Gusta’s black Cadillac pulled into the handicapped zone. Otis drove, Gusta rode beside him, and Meriwether sat sideways in the back. “Where’s Alice?” I asked as Otis hurried to open the door, leaving the keys in the car.
Gusta climbed out with a puff of disgust. “That aunt in Jacksonville is poorly again. She left early and won’t be back until late.” You’d have thought Alice had gone to Syria for a month.
“She does deserve a little time off,” I reminded my old friend and foe.
“She worked pretty hard yesterday,” she admitted, patting her purse. “She’s typed all my tenants’ names into the computer so we can enter their checks tomorrow. But she gallivanted all over town last weekend. Out with that therapist with the odd hair Saturday until all hours, then out with a girlfriend Sunday night.”
Meriwether’s eyes met mine. Her mouth twitched and I had to look away not to grin. Alice was pretty savvy if she’d already learned not to mention Jed Blaine to Gusta.
Meriwether looked especially pretty that morning, but I didn’t mention it. It might be pain that made her eyes bright and her cheeks pink.
Gusta was still ranting. “. . . don’t know what I pay her for. Back when Granddaddy was governor—”
“Forty hours a week,” I said.
That turned off her water. “What?”
“You pay her for forty hours a week. Any more and she deserves overtime.”
“Nonsense. She gets room and board, and the work is practically nonexistent. But I can’t stand here talking, I need to make this deposit and get Meriwether to the doctor. Claims she’s torn muscles in her leg.”
As Gusta stomped into the bank, I bent down to see how Meriwether was doing. She had her injured leg up on the seat. “It’s hurting a lot,” she admitted. “They immobilized it Sunday night and said to wait for the swelling to go down. Now I’ve got to see an orthopedist. Heaven knows what he’ll do to it. I called Otis to see if he could drive me, and found he was already scheduled to bring Nana to the bank. She insists on coming with me.”
“It’s her place to do that,” Otis reminded her.
“I can see why Gusta thought it was a bad time for Alice to go away, though,” I said.
“Don’t let Nana’s grumbling fool you. She brags all the time about Alice to me.”
“Letting you know you can be replaced.”
“Absolutely.” Meriwether’s eyes twinkled. “And Alice has done marvelous things. She’s persuaded Nana to put all her databases onto the computer. That’s practically every organization in town, you know. And they started inputting her financial accounts yesterday. Alice even convinced Nana she ought to put me on her bank account, so I can sign checks in case anything happens to her. Daddy and I tried for years to get her to have him on the accounts, but Nana always hemmed and hawed and accused us of expecting her to get mentally incompetent.”
“How did Alice convince her, then?”
“She told her Bitsy broke her hand once, and if her son hadn’t been on the account, she wouldn’t have had a way to sign checks. Nana’s arthritis is already so bad she can scarcely hold a pen, so she finally saw the sense of it. She’s getting a signature card for me this morning.”
“Very wise.” As I stood up to head back to the office, Otis spoke from the front seat.
“I wish Miss Winifred would put you on her account, too. It plumb worries us, Judge. We never know from one day to the next whether she’s gonna be thinking clearly enough to sign her name.” Appalled, I remembered I’d promised to call Pooh’s lawyer, but it kept slipping my mind. But Otis and Lottie would be up a creek without a paddle if Pooh couldn’t sign checks. They couldn’t buy groceries or get their own paychecks, and Pooh’s fears that her lights and water could be cut off might come true. He asked anxiously, “Could you talk to her about that?”
“I’ll call her lawyer this morning,” I promised. “Joe Riddley and I ought to put one of our boys on our account, too. He’s not always reliable right now, and I could break a hand as easily as Gusta. Listen, Meriwether, do you need anything? Meals brought in, or somebody to stay with you at night? I’m sure Ridd’s Bethany would be glad to move in with you for a few days.”
“I’m fine, but thanks.”
Seeing Gusta heading out the bank door, I said loud enough for her to hear me, “Still, that child does deserve some time off. Gusta can’t expect her to work twenty-four hours a day seven days a week.”
Gusta, making tracks for her car pretty fast for a woman on a cane, ignored me.
Vern, irate, hobbled three steps behind. He must have missed her arrival and was making up for lost time. As Gusta lowered herself into her seat, he bent down with a very red face and shook a finger at her. “I’m gonna have the judge here put you in jail for a hundred years.”
She slammed the door and spoke through her lowered window. “I can’t talk to you now. We’re late for the doctor.”
“You g
et him to give you a handicapped sticker.”
“Age is its own handicap,” she called as they rolled away.
Gusta wasn’t the only person disgruntled with Alice. I got home after work that evening to find Darren helping Joe Riddley down the driveway on the walker. They were halfway to the road when I got there, and Darren looked as blue as his hair.
“Who ate your brownie?” I greeted him. “You were smiling big enough on Saturday, racing Miss Alice around the courthouse. You’d even gotten her to let down her hair.”
“That was before that lawyer cut me out. I can’t compete with BMW convertibles.”
“I doubt you’ll have to. Jed’s old girlfriend fell right next to their table at Myrtle’s, and he was on his knees helping her in a flash. Miss Alice was not impressed. Walked home, in fact.”
That, finally, got a grin. “Great! I’ll give her a call. And do you think I could have a few days off around Thanksgiving to go home? I want to ask Alice to come, too. She likes Florida.”
“You can have time off as far as I’m concerned, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to ask Alice. She’s down in Jacksonville visiting her aunt again today.”
“I hope she’s okay. She seems to be pretty sickly.”
“Since she’s Alice’s only relative, I expect Alice worries more than she would if she had a slew of aunts and cousins.”
“You all planning on talking all day?” Joe Riddley demanded loudly. “I need to get down to the field to check Ridd’s corn.”
“Sic ’em!” Joe urged from the top of his cap.
“The corn is finished,” I informed him. “It’s November. Why don’t you and Darren head back up the drive and I’ll fix us some hot chocolate?” The breeze was brisk.
“Why don’t you try a few steps without the walker?” Darren added. “Let Mac bring it, and I’ll walk right beside you to spot you. You aren’t going to fall.”
“I fall easier than you know. Fell down the steps at church Sunday and it took four men to get me up.”
As I shook my head to tell Darren that was another of Joe Riddley’s tall tales, he told a taller one. “And last week I was helping Ridd pitch hay from our barn loft, and I fell all the way from the barn. Good thing I landed on the hay, or I coulda got hurt bad.”
“And next week we’re going to the Empire State Building and you can fall off there,” I told him. “Let me take the walker, hon. Try taking a few steps without it.”
“I can’t walk.” He clutched the walker defiantly. “Anybody can see I can’t walk. My legs got hurt.”
“Your legs are fine,” Darren reminded him. “It was your head that got hurt.”
“My head doesn’t hurt a bit.” Joe Riddley knocked on the side of it to show us how solid it was. Startled, Joe spread his wings and flew to the lowest branch of Joe Riddley’s little birthday oak. He perched there swaying on the frail branches.
“Come here, bird.” Joe Riddley held out his arm.
Joe didn’t budge.
“Come here, I said,” Joe Riddley demanded.
Joe didn’t budge.
“I’m coming after you,” Joe Riddley warned.
Still Joe didn’t budge.
Joe Riddley pivoted away from his walker and walked five normal steps to the tree. “Get on that arm,” he ordered, holding it out.
Joe hopped the short distance to his arm. “Good boy. Good boy,” he squawked.
Darren and I hugged in pure joy.
Joe Riddley looked around and saw us. “Boy, let go of my wife. Little Bit, bring me my walker. Why’d you take it way over there? You know I can’t walk a step without it.”
26
Clarinda had baked a big chocolate cake, so that evening while Darren was settling Joe Riddley for the night, I decided to run part of it over to Meriwether with a package of stew and some of Ridd’s garden vegetables from my freezer.
Jed’s car sat in the driveway. I would have driven back home and gone another time, but I might be needed to sign a warrant after one of them killed the other.
Almost as soon as I rang the bell, Jed opened the door. “Hello! Come to see the wounded? She had a fight with the doctor and lost.” He padded to the living room in his sock feet, apparently making himself right at home.
Poor Meriwether lay on the couch with her leg encased in an elaborate contraption of nylon and straps that started at her ankle and disappeared up her khaki skirt. She greeted me with a sour grimace. “The doctor says I have to wear this four weeks, maybe six. And I’m not to put weight on the leg that whole time.”
“I’m so sorry. Will this put a crimp in starting your business?”
“I’d already had a crimp. The workmen have another job to finish, so they’re taking a week off from my warehouse. They promise it’ll be ready to receive shipments by our agreed-on date, though.” She waved me to a chair. “At least I can offer you a seat.”
The living room had blossomed in peach, blue, and green with touches of burgundy. A new couch and two new chairs were augmented by lamps and tables I recognized from Gusta’s. Several of her paintings hung on the walls and one of her Chinese carpets softened the wooden floor.
The large blue chair had Jed’s loafers beside it, so I took the smaller peach one. “It’s lovely, honey. Has Gusta come to see all this?”
“She sure did, and deigned to say the place looks charming for such a little house.”
“Good for Gusta. She may mellow before she gets old.”
Jed leaned over from his chair and took one of Meriwether’s hands. “She’s not the only one doing some mellowing. Meriwether and I have declared a truce.”
I looked at them and ached for what could have been. Maybe it was because Joe Riddley and I met when we were so young, but I’d always had an extra soft spot for those two. They’d met at our church preschool, when she was a curly-headed four and he a towheaded five. Her family’s donations paid his full scholarship, but neither of them knew that. Through their school years they were always together. A friend from India said about her happy marriage, arranged at birth to a boy she grew up with, “You treat somebody differently when you know all your life you are going to marry him.” I knew what she meant. I’d gone through it with Joe Riddley and watched it between Meriwether and Jed.
However, Meriwether had a fortune and Jed was a Blaine. Somewhere around fourth grade, that fact reared its ugly head. It wasn’t poverty, and it wasn’t dirt. Helena kept her child scrubbed within an inch of his life, and I made sure he wore decent clothes, passing down all Walker outgrew, and Walker was a fussy dresser. It was little things—birthday parties to which he wasn’t invited, social events he didn’t know had happened until they were over.
The year she was nine, he asked what she wanted for Christmas and she said, “A gold locket with your picture,” with the blissful ignorance of a child who’d always gotten anything she wanted. He came into my office that afternoon asking if I had any work he could do to earn money to buy a gold locket. I knew he’d never earn enough to buy the kind of locket her family and friends would admire. Worried about that, I confided in Pooh.
As I had hoped, she found a solution. “I’ve got a child’s locket that belonged to my little sister. Let me see if Lottie can find it.” We agreed Jed would rake her leaves for two weeks to earn it, and he was glad to do it. Meriwether loved the locket, wore it everywhere. But Pooh and I knew we couldn’t always rescue him.
Through high school, though, Meriwether continued to have a mind of her own. She defied both Gusta and Garlon to go with Jed to every dance, every football game, and every party. She was perfectly happy sipping milkshakes with him at Hardee’s while her friends danced at the country club. Jed was her escort when she was homecoming queen, and she went to Georgia Wesleyan because he was at Mercer.
During their college years, even Joe Riddley started to worry about how Jed could support Meriwether in the style she was used to, but at spring break of her junior year they came by the store, glowing. “Je
d’s been accepted to Mercer Law School next fall,” she told us proudly.
“And we’re getting married the next summer,” he added. “We’ll be poor at first, but one day I can give her anything.” At that point all he could give her was a diamond so tiny it looked like the head of a pin.
“I don’t want anything except him,” she assured us.
They planned an August wedding. Then, right before her graduation, we heard the wedding was off. Meriwether came home and turned to Georgia granite if anyone so much as mentioned his name. The closest she’d come to saying what happened was once when she told me, “You’re lucky all your family likes each other.”
That all ran through my head in far less time than it takes to tell it, while they sat and smiled at one another. Finally he asked her a silent question and she nodded with a smile. “We’re getting married the week before Christmas,” he informed me. “You’re the first to know.”
Who Invited the Dead Man? Page 23
