Guess Who's Coming to Die?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  I settled into one of the two recliners in the living room and sent up wordless prayers which, if translated, would have been something really profound like, Help! Help! Help!

  As I reached for the remote my finger caught in a small tear in the upholstery, reminding me that I needed to go up to Augusta soon and look for new recliners. Those had been all right in the big house, where we had both a living room and a casual den, but they looked tacky in our new living room. Joe Riddley had agreed I could get new ones if he didn’t have to help pick them out.

  Lulu scrambled up and settled on my lap. I don’t know how people survive problems without prayer and a lapful of dog.

  When I switched on the national television news, I saw a reporter in front of the Hope County Courthouse interviewing Chief Muggins. I’d never realized before how aptly Charlie was named until he mugged for the camera while assuring the world, “We got things under control down here. We are confident of making an arrest soon.”

  “She was killed by a corkscrew twisted through her throat — isn’t that right?” the reporter asked. Why are reporters so avid for bloody details? I touched my throat and closed my eyes, but that image of Willena was branded on the inside of my eyelids. I groaned. Lulu gave me a comforting lick.

  Chief Muggins touched the knot of his tie. “I cannot comment on that at this time, but it was a gruesome way to die.” He grinned like a polecat, but the camera shifted to the reporter’s bland face.

  “Chief Muggins indicates that the primary suspect at this moment is a member of the ladies’ investment club who had quarreled with the deceased over the use of club funds. He is not releasing the name at this time.”

  I knew full well that the only thing muzzling Charlie was his desire to be in the news again. He wouldn’t hesitate to reveal Cindy’s name if he could avoid a lawsuit and still get his pointy nose on television, but he’d drag the story out as long as he could.

  Cindy’s desperate eyes floated between me and the screen. I laid my head back and asked the Boss upstairs, “Please, is there something I can do?” This was the first time my daughter-in-law had ever needed my help. I didn’t want to let her down.

  A voice from heaven would have been good.

  I’d have settled for one good idea of how to proceed.

  Instead, my first impulse was, “Call Martha!” My other daughter-in-law, Ridd’s wife, is an emergency room nurse, Bible scholar, avid gardener who supplies us with canned goods each winter, and somebody I would unhesitatingly nominate for Wise Woman of the Year. She is my rock in times of storm. But she was not only in the middle of getting her daughter through her final weeks of high school and her little boy through his final weeks of pre-K, she was also “another person.” If I so much as hinted to Martha that Walker had taken Cindy out of state, I’d have to tell Charlie what I suspected. Reluctantly, I pushed the idea of Martha down where it belonged and tried to think of what else I could do.

  I wished I were smart like Sherlock Holmes, with all sorts of knowledge at my fingertips, so I could sweep into the community center ladies’ room, take one gander at the site, and say, “The murderer was XYZ. I once wrote a monograph on the subject.”

  Instead, I couldn’t even get into the community center, and wouldn’t if I could. I didn’t want another visit to the site. One look at Willena had been enough for my lifetime. The only other thing I could think to do was talk to the other members of the club. One of them might remember something that could clear Cindy. That’s all I asked. If they could also provide Charlie with another suspect, that would be a bonus, but I wasn’t asking for a major miracle, just a little one to demonstrate what I knew: Cindy never killed anybody.

  How long did I have before people began to wonder if the younger Yarbroughs were still in town? I didn’t dare let myself think about that for long, or I’d want to know for sure where they were. If I found out, I’d have to report them. Better to talk to people about the murder.

  I’d have to act casual, though, so Joe Riddley wouldn’t suspect. He pure-tee hates it when I get involved in asking questions about a murder case. Especially since I’ve gotten myself in sticky situations a time or two. And while he had almost fully recovered from the traumatic head injury he’d gotten when he was shot, his emotions were still a tad unpredictable. He snapped at me once in a while, which he never used to do. And he’d gotten more protective.

  On the other hand, waiting for the police to find Walker and Cindy would nearly drive him crazy. It wasn’t good for him to get upset, and from the way he had slammed our back door when he went out, he’d be doing a lot of damage to the property if I didn’t do something.

  Having rationalized my determination to look into things, I fetched paper and a pen and jotted down ideas as they occurred to me.

  Did anybody else come in while we were there? Why was door unlocked?

  Nancy: What got her so upset?

  Grover: Did he see Cindy talking on her phone? (could provide alibi)

  Wilma: Would she have had time to kill Willena and still do refreshments? Why should she?

  Sadie Lowe: I got stuck at that point. I disliked Sadie Lowe, but I couldn’t imagine a single motive she could have for murdering Willena. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single motive anybody could have for murdering her. A lot of women had felt the rough side of her sweet-talking tongue and might want to smack her. But murder?

  Murder, I had heard, generally springs from three motives: love, lucre, and . . . what was the other one? I was having a middle-aged moment and couldn’t remember. But neither of the other two seemed applicable here. Willena and Grover, if they were in love, showed no signs of quarreling. They’d been laughing together over some private joke before the meeting started. And Wilma, her presumptive heir, was well fixed in her own right. I had no idea how the two fortunes compared, but doubted that Wilma would have killed Willena for money — especially at a public meeting. She had weed killer and other yard chemicals at home she could have used privately. Besides, for all I knew, Willena had left her money to the Sierra Club. There went Wilma’s only motive. But I reached for my pen and added two additional notes:6. Find out how Willena left her money.

  7. Figure out who had the corkscrew last. Who was sitting at the back? Where did they put the box after they looked at it?

  After Wilma presented it to Willena, we had passed the whole set around, admiring it. It was a pretty set, and the initials on the silver shot glass were a classy touch. I could picture the little wooden box lined with royal blue velvet going up and down the rows, then . . . what? Had Willena taken the set with her to the bathroom? Or had the corkscrew been filched by whoever admired it last? Who was that?

  I had no idea. Gusta had insisted that Cindy, Meriwether, and I sit with her in the third row. I hadn’t looked to see who was sitting behind us.

  I was cheered by having something to do besides sit and wait for Charlie to notice that Cindy was gone. I carefully put the list in my pocketbook where Joe Riddley wouldn’t see it and went to see what our cook, Clarinda, had left for supper. First thing tomorrow, I’d start working down my list. Surely I would find something to clear Cindy.

  10

  Mama used to say as we dressed for our annual trip to Atlanta’s smartest stores, “Gussy yourself up to intimidate them, honey, before they try to intimidate you.” So although I hadn’t slept at all well Wednesday night because of worrying about Walker and Cindy, I got up Thursday morning and dressed with Dexter Baxter in mind. Dexter was a snob. He strutted around Hopemore like cleaning toilets and mopping floors at the Hopemore Community Center elevated him far above folks who cleaned toilets and mopped floors in houses or offices, and he was never happier than when there was a formal do at the center and somebody rented him a tux to wear while helping the caterers.

  For talking to Dexter, therefore, I put on my most expensive cream-and-green linen two-piece dress with my priciest bone pumps. I changed from my big carryall pocketbook to a small bone clutch Cindy had
bought me for Christmas, because I’d heard that Dexter rated women by the maker of their shoes and purse. Halfway through breakfast Joe Riddley summoned the energy to lift his eyes from the newspaper. “You got a date for lunch? Ted Turner, maybe? Donald Trump?”

  That man can go three weeks without noticing what I’ve got on, and then the one morning I don’t want him to pay any attention, he does. I’d figured he might, so I had an answer ready.

  “I’m taking Wilma a casserole, so I want to look nice.” Please note that I told the absolute truth. I already had a frozen casserole in my car. If I also had a bag of frozen blueberry muffins to take to Dexter first, why mention it? Joe Riddley is all the time grumbling, “Tell it shorter, Little Bit. We don’t need every detail.”

  We drove into work together in my Nissan, but as soon as Joe Riddley took one of the company trucks and headed down to the nursery, I picked up my clutch purse and went out to tell Evelyn, “I’m running a casserole over to poor Wilma Kenan.”

  As I had hoped, Evelyn was so sympathetic she didn’t bother to ask when I’d return. But as I started out the door, the telephone rang and she called me back. “The sheriff for you.”

  Buster (christened Bailey) Gibbons and Joe Riddley had been best friends since kindergarten. He was best man at our wedding, and if anything had happened to Joe Riddley and me while our boys were minors, they’d have been raised by that sweet old bachelor. Still, when Buster and I spoke officially, we were formal.

  “Judge?”

  “Hello, Sheriff. How’re you doin’ this fine day?”

  “I’m doing tolerably well for an old geezer, but I thought you’d want to know that we’ve detained Nancy Jensen. Judge Stedley was on the premises and held the hearing, but Nancy’s asking to see you.”

  My heart fluttered with hope. Nancy is a sweet, competent woman whom I have enjoyed working with on several committees, but if she had been charged with Willena’s murder, then Cindy was no longer a suspect.

  “What’s the charge?” I asked.

  “Attempted murder.”

  Attempted?

  The only murder I knew about recently had succeeded.

  I decided to postpone my visits with Dexter and Wilma until after I had stopped by the detention center to find out what was what.

  Poor Nancy looked like a squash in the orange prison jumpsuit—an impression enhanced by her narrow shoulders and wide bottom and the green walls of the interview room. A new hairstyle she’d gotten while I was on vacation was an improvement over the lacquered bob she’d worn as long as I’d known her. I had always considered that style too severe for her broad, plain face. However, her hair was so yellow and fluffy now that it looked like a blossom on the end of the squash.

  As Nancy, her attorney, and I all took our places at the table — me across from them — I wondered why the county had decided to replace the dignified navy blue jumpsuits formerly worn by our inmates with these orange monstrosities. The only people who looked good in them were prisoners with dark brown skin. Then it occurred to me that the woman responsible for buying new jumpsuits also had dark brown skin. Maybe she hoped to give incarcerated folks a chance to feel good about themselves? If so, she had failed Nancy. I could not remember seeing a sadder, madder, drabber prisoner in my life.

  Beside her, Shep Faxon looked like a magazine ad in a gray silk suit. Each silver hair was in place, and he wore the complacent look of an attorney who is going to earn lots of money no matter what happens to his client. Shep was a longtime member of the old-boy network in Hope County and the attorney for most of our aristocrats.

  “Mornin’, Mac,” he said in his lazy drawl. Shep had never abided by the courtesy Joe Riddley established of calling law enforcement and court personnel by titles in public.

  “Good morning, Counselor,” I replied. “Good morning, Nancy. You wanted to see me?”

  She glared at me across the table, dabbing her nose with a soggy, used tissue. Her eyes were red and soaked with tears, and her mascara had run down her cheeks, leaving little runnels in the thick layer of makeup she wore to hide the pocks from teenage acne. “I want you to get me out of here.”

  Shep and I exchanged glances. “I’ve explained the procedure and instructed her to say nothing, but she won’t listen to me.”

  Nancy glowered at him. “Mac’s my friend.”

  “I understand you are being charged with attempted murder.” I figured we might as well get right down to business.

  She flared her nostrils and narrowed her eyes until they looked like a pig’s in her plump face. “I did not try to kill her. If I had, she’d be dead.”

  I sat there puzzled while she dabbed her nose again with a sodden tissue. Last I’d seen, Willena was dead. Very dead.

  Shep put a hand on her arm to restrain her, but Nancy was impossible to restrain. “I shot at the ceiling,” she said angrily, looking from him to me and back at him again. “Anybody can see that who bothers to look. I wanted to warn her, not kill her. How soon can you get me out of here, Mac? Shep is useless.” She shifted her chair an inch or two to distance herself from him.

  Shep looked at his fingernails. I stared at Nancy.

  Shot? At the ceiling?

  I wriggled in my chair, trying to get comfortable, but the seat was too high for anything but my toes to reach the floor. Before I asked any questions, I had to make one thing clear. “I can’t get you out, honey. A charge of attempted murder means you have to go before a superior court judge. The magistrate who heard your case will send a letter to superior court, and they’ll send a judge to hear the case. He ought to be here Monday or Tuesday afternoon.”

  “The DAR meets Tuesday morning. I have to preside.”

  “Somebody else may need to preside for you this month.”

  Every line of her face, from the drawn-together eyebrows down to the taut set of her chin, proclaimed that she thought I wasn’t really trying; that if I wanted to, I could pull strings and get her out. Nancy had lived too long in a world where strings dangle for the pulling. Now she was up against the neat package of Georgia legal procedure. When it works right, there are no strings to pull.

  Maybe something in my face convinced her I was telling the truth, because her eyes filled with a new cloud of tears that spilled out and ran down her cheeks. “It’s all his fault. Why did he do this to me?” She flung herself on the table, head cradled on one arm, and sobbed. Her shoulders shook, and she boo-hooed loud enough to be heard uptown. The small hill of tissues she had dropped onto the table didn’t have much use in them. She dragged a couple more from her pocket, but they were equally soggy. For a woman with money in the bank, she seemed remarkably short on fresh tissues.

  I found a pack in my clutch and handed her a couple. “Do you want to tell me what this is about? You don’t have to, but I don’t have a clue.”

  Nancy blew her nose and wadded the tissue like she’d rather be wadding somebody’s head. “Horace,” she blurted. “He’s having an affair.” She flung that tissue on the hill, like she wished it were a grenade she was lobbing somewhere in Horace’s vicinity.

  Shep looked out the shatterproof window at a flock of robins that had landed on the lawn and were looking for worms the week’s storm had brought to the surface. He seemed unusually embarrassed for a man known for coarse language and ribald humor in the country club locker room. I didn’t know whether a crying woman made him nervous or if he’d known about the affair for a while and was embarrassed at having such a naïve client.

  I did know this must be a tremendous blow for Nancy. When she’d met Horace fifteen years before, she had been a stocky high school chemistry teacher from down in Way-cross who had driven up to Middle Georgia Kaolin to see if her students could visit the mine on a field trip. Meeting the heir to the company and marrying him must have seemed like a fairy tale come true, even if he did look more frog than prince. Now she stood to lose both Horace and all he represented.

  For those who don’t know, kaolin is a chalky sub
stance used in a lot of products from cosmetics to the nose cones of rockets, and a good percentage of the entire world’s kaolin supply is mined in central Georgia. I’ve never figured out what’s so secret about the process, but even fifteen years ago, security was tight at Middle Georgia Kaolin. Nancy couldn’t get past the receptionist. She created a ruckus, demanding to at least see somebody higher up, and Horace, who had recently graduated from college and joined his daddy’s business, was sent out to deal with the trouble-maker. He couldn’t take her on a tour, but he took her out to dinner. Even though she was five years older than he and equally plain, they were married six months later.

  When I first heard that story, I wondered if it was Nancy’s spunk that had attracted him, for spunk was never Horace’s strong suit. He was a big, bumbling man with thick glasses, a large nose, and a mat of dark hair with so many cowlicks that no matter who cut it, he looked like he was wearing a wig made of guinea pig fur. I don’t know whom he would have married or what he would have done with his life if his family hadn’t owned a company and taught him to run it, because with that abrupt, abrasive personality, he would never have found a wife or risen through the ranks of business on his charm. Even Joe Riddley, who sees the good in most folks, never found anything better to say about Horace than, “At least he has the common sense not to run his business into the ground.”