Since Middle Georgia Kaolin was privately held, nobody had ever known exactly how much the Jensens were worth, but their primary clients were paper mills, which use kaolin to make paper smooth and shiny. Given how much paper is used, the Jensens had never lacked the simple necessities of life—a bed at night, running water, three square meals a day, ostentatious houses, expensive cars, and jaunts to various parts of the globe.
Soon after Horace and Nancy were married, they had built an enormous granite house out beside the country club golf course, surrounded by fifteen acres of woods. When MayBelle’s subdivisions started encroaching on their borders, Horace circled the entire property with a high stone wall and Hopemore’s first security gate. Nancy, who had expected to teach after she was married, found instead that Horace expected her to devote her time, as his mother and grandmother had, to committees and clubs. I’d served with her on several church committees and found her a thoughtful and creative member.
Right now, though, it looked like she’d been creative without being thoughtful.
Not that Horace had ever appreciated either her creativity or her intelligence. Nancy had confided to me once, “I would have preferred a light, airy, modern house surrounded by flower beds, but Horace wanted the fortress.” I guess if your business is taking things out of the earth, it makes sense to build your house of granite, but I’d been there a couple of times and it was too dark and gloomy for me. It was also a monument to the taste of a famous Atlanta decorator. As far as I could tell, neither Nancy nor Horace had impressed their personalities on the place. In Horace’s case that was a blessing, but it always made me mad to hear him say in public, with his braying laugh, “We had to hire a decorator. Nancy has no taste, you know.”
They must have hoped for lots of children, because the house had eight bedrooms, but only one son ever arrived: Horace Junior, known as Race. He was a good student, a good athlete, and looked like his mother. On a boy, though, the round face, wheat blond hair, eyes like chips of sapphire, and wide, engaging grin looked cute. He had Nancy’s personality, too — calm, thoughtful, helpful, and generous. The only thing Horace seemed to have contributed to his breeding were cowlicks. Race had a number of those, which may be why he generally kept his hair cut to less than an inch. Now a freshman in high school, he said he wanted to study business at the University of Georgia. He ought to be an asset to Middle Georgia Kaolin one day.
Unlike his father, who had matured into a stingy, crabby man who confused his ability to grab kaolin from the ground with a right to grab anything he wanted. If he had decided to run around on Nancy and replace her with a younger trophy wife, Nancy would have a hard time getting much recompense from those tight, furry fists.
Now you know as much as I did about Nancy Jensen’s married life the morning I visited her in jail.
“How could he?” she finally wailed, dabbing her nose with one of her well-used tissues. I handed over a couple more, reflecting that at this rate, the investment club had better buy stock in Scott paper or Kimberly-Clark. Nancy looked up at me through tear-drenched eyes. “Why would she do that to me?” she wailed. “And all this time I thought it was Willena. I thought Grover was camouflage.”
Shep grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t you say another word. I warn you, if we don’t end this conversation right now, you can find yourself another attorney.”
He obviously didn’t want Nancy saying outright that she’d killed Willena. He could defend her a lot easier if I hadn’t heard a confession of guilt.
Nancy sniffed and waved at him with one large hand. Her hair was damp and plastered to her forehead in front, but she didn’t seem to care. “Go on, leave. You’re Horace’s lawyer, anyway. You don’t care one bit what happens to me.”
“It’s your funeral.” Shep exuded relief as he shoved back his chair, strode out of the interview room, and slammed the door behind him.
11
Nancy dabbed her nose with a handful of used tissues. “Oh, great. Now I don’t have a husband and I don’t have a lawyer.”
I handed her another clean tissue. “Call Jed DuBose. He’s a better lawyer, anyway, and if you are thinking of divorce, the worst thing you can do in the world is be represented by somebody with Horace’s interests at heart.”
Both of her chins quivered. “I don’t want a divorce. Horace needs me!” She laid her head on her arms and sobbed some more.
I couldn’t sit there all morning watching her cry. Any minute a deputy would step in to tell us our time was up. I couldn’t in good conscience ask her if she’d killed Willena, either, but maybe I could ask it another way. “Why did you leave the meeting early Monday night? Wilma said you got sick?” I made it a question, hoping she’d elaborate.
She jerked erect, her face flushed. “I didn’t get sick, I got mad. I knew good and well Willena wasn’t gone all that time to wash off a little mascara. I figured she’d gone to meet Horace while I was talking to the others, so I went looking for them. I looked everywhere—on the porch, in the big ballroom and all the little rooms, even in the kitchen and the broom closet — but I didn’t see a soul.”
“You didn’t see Cindy outside?” I slid in the question like butter on a hot biscuit.
She shook her head. “I didn’t see anybody. I thought he might have driven her off somewhere and that upset me so much, I got a migraine. I could hardly stand up.” Nancy rubbed one hand over her eyes at the memory. “I went back and told MayBelle I was leaving; then I went out to my car and started driving. I planned to drive around town looking for them, but next thing I knew, it was morning and I was in the parking lot of our condo down at Hilton Head. I guess I drove down there without thinking and slept in the car. As long as I was there, I figured I might as well stay a day or two to get my head together, but you know what I did instead?” She hung her head like a misbehaving child. “I drank a fifth of Horace’s scotch two days in a row. I never did that in my life. Last night I ran out of scotch, threw up a lot, and finally came to my senses. I decided I might as well come on back here and face the music.”
I wanted to ask, Music for what? but she didn’t pause for breath.
“I left at midnight and drove back. But then—” She stopped, quivering. I waited while she took a couple of deep breaths, then plunged on. “When I got home Horace wasn’t there, and I went crazy again. I got back in my car and drove all over, looking for him. And when I found him this morning”—she gasped for air—“with her”—she gasped again.
I considered carefully what to say next. “Not Willena . . .”
She shook her head again. “I thought the car was hers, but maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe it was then and isn’t now. He’s making me crazy, Mac! Plumb crazy. That’s why I fired the gun. To show Horace how crazy he’s making me. I wasn’t aiming at anybody, but the stupid maid who was cleaning the room next door called the police, and—”
A guard rapped at the door. “Time’s up, Judge.”
“—and now they say I have to stay here!” Nancy wailed desperately. “Do something, Mac. Get me out of here.” Her eyes were terrified.
I stood. “I wish I could, hon, but I can’t. I’m sorry. But you’ll be in good hands with Jed.”
She was sobbing when I left, and I was no more enlightened than when I’d come in.
I went to see Sheriff Gibbons again. “Would you mind telling me what Nancy Jensen is accused of doing? In words I can understand, without tears or sniffles?”
He grinned. “Same thing you’d do if you caught Joe Riddley cattin’ around. She saw Horace’s car at a motel, parked to block him in, and pounded on the door. When he opened it, she fired a pistol. Fortunately, she missed.”
“She says she fired at the ceiling.”
“That’s what she claims now, since the bullet hit the ceiling.”
I shook my head. I had remembered something else I knew about Nancy. “She’s one of the Three-Ds. She wouldn’t have missed.”
The Three-Ds — officially the Dangerous Dixie
Dames—were Hope County women who competed successfully in shooting events across the Southeast. Cindy, who grew up hunting, had joined them soon after she married Walker and moved to Hopemore. MayBelle was in the group, too. Cindy had urged me several times to join, but while I can shoot, I hate guns and don’t have time for another club.
It occurred to me now that if I had joined the Three-Ds, I could have spent time with Cindy without joining the investment club. Then I wouldn’t be involved with Willena’s murder.
Everything in life hinges on something else.
I pulled my thoughts back to the matter at hand and spoke slowly, feeling my way. “Nancy said she thought it was Willena with Horace. Something about cars.”
“A white Jag convertible like Willena’s was parked next to Horace’s car at the motel.”
“Oh. Nancy also says she’s been down at their beach place since Monday night. Do you reckon she doesn’t know Willena is dead?”
He rolled a pen between his palms. “That’s what she wants us to think.”
I mulled that over. “She could have killed Willena and driven down to her beach place afterwards. That would make sense of why she drank herself into a two-day stupor —to keep from thinking about it. But even if she did, that doesn’t answer the question I asked you first. Who did she shoot at this time? Do I know her?”
“Sadie Lowe Harnett.” He brushed back his hair with one hand.
“Sadie Lowe and Horace?” That took some getting used to. Beauty and the beast. “Why on earth, with all the men in town panting after her, would she choose Horace?”
“Not all the men,” he objected. “Not Joe Riddley and me.”
“Ha. Even you two can’t say her name without getting a silly grin on your faces, slicking back your hair, or fiddling with something.”
I said that because the sheriff was fiddling with his pen again. He dropped it into a lopsided blue clay mug Ridd had made for him in third grade. “I’d guess the reason she hangs out with Horace has to do with the color green, and I don’t mean jealousy.”
“I’d think she has enough of the green stuff already,” I said grumpily. Adultery is a sin that makes me sick to my stomach, since it killed a dear friend of mine. Before I left, I had one more question. “So is Nancy a serious suspect for Willena Kenan’s murder?”
“That’s for Chief Muggins to decide. He’s coming to talk to her.” He added, sliding a look my way, “Joe Riddley says you’ve joined that highfalutin investment club.”
“Joe Riddley got me into it,” I corrected him. “I never plan to let him forget it.”
12
On my way to the community center, I tried to get myself in a charitable frame of mind. As you may have guessed, I did not like Dexter. He was not only a snob, he was also a racist. He bowed and scraped to black doctors, lawyers, funeral directors, businessmen, and preachers if there were poorer black people present, but I had watched him steer a black surgeon to one side so a white one could get to the hors d’oeuvres first. That sort of thing sticks in my craw.
However, Mama used to say, “When you need something from somebody, you don’t start out by kicking them in the knee,” so as I turned into the community center drive, I took a so-help-me-God breath and put on a be-sweet-now face.
I could have spared myself the effort. The center was still a crime scene, with yellow tape blocking entry and nobody there. I parked by the front steps and prowled around in the bushes looking for cigarette butts, but didn’t find any. In the best-case scenario, Charlie had them in a little plastic evidence bag. I figured the odds on that were about a thousand to one. If Sadie Lowe hadn’t been smoking, where had she been?
I drove around back, but Dexter’s old black Ford wasn’t in the parking lot. I would need to drive over to his house if I wanted to talk with him. The problem was, I had no idea where Dexter lived.
That may seem strange to you, since greater metropolitan Hopemore contains only thirteen thousand people. However, like you, I tend to spend most of my time with a fairly limited circle of friends. Dexter and I had never been friends.
The best place to get information in the South is a convenience store, if you have the patience and know the rules. I stopped at the Handi-Stop down the street from the center and went in. The girl at the counter had long stringy hair, eyes lined to make her look like a raccoon, and skin the color and texture of dough that’s been kneaded too long. Still, she had made an effort. Her nails were painted bright purple to match the skintight magenta top she wore with her jeans.
“Kin I hep you?” she asked in a high, nasal whine.
“I hope so. I’m trying to find out where Dexter Baxter lives. The custodian down at the community center?”
“I know Dexter,” she allowed. “He comes in here all the time to buy stuff. But I don’t know where he lives.” She turned and started putting cigarettes on the shelves.
Rule One: Don’t give up yet.
“Anybody here who might know?” I inquired.
“Purvy might. Hey, Purvy?” She raised her voice from where she stood and called to somebody in the back. “You know where Dexter Baxter lives?” The last word was drawn out to two syllables.
“Who wants to know?” Purvy Wilson came to the door of the stockroom, a burly man with skin like burnished walnut. I’d had to fine him a couple of times for dumping litter instead of paying to have his Dumpster emptied properly, but he seemed to bear me no malice, for he greeted me amiably enough. “Oh, hey, Judge. You needin’ Dexter?”
Rule Two: Act casual. Don’t let anybody know it matters.
“Needin’ to talk to him,” I agreed, dropping my own Gs and leaning up against the counter like I wasn’t in any particular hurry.
His eyes were watchful. “What’s he done?”
Rule Three: Expect resistance. Be reassuring.
“Nothin’. I need to ask him if I left somethin’ at the center Monday night at a meetin’, and the place is still shut up until the police are finished with it.” I don’t normally use phrases like shut up for closed, but I have them in my repertoire if I need them.
“Understand they had a little trouble over there. You know anything about it?”
Rule Four: If you want information, you’d better give information.
“Willena Kenan got murdered, is all I know. We were meeting there at the time, but we didn’t see anybody. Now the police have the center closed, but I want to find Dexter and see if he saw my notebook. It’s not valuable, but it’s something I’m needin’ to get on with my day’s business.” I stopped short of pronouncing the word bidness, like my daddy used to. I also stopped short of saying I left the notebook at the center, since it was locked in my trunk.
Purvy scratched one cheek with his fingernail. “I understand he stays over in Pleasantville ’bout the middle of Good Hope Lane. Ask somebody there. They can point you to the house.”
Rule Five: A crooked statement will get you farther than a straight question.
I wrinkled my forehead like I was trying to figure that out. “Good Hope Lane runs off Adams Street, right?”
“No, it’s off South Jefferson, but you have to use Wilford to get there from here. You know Wilford?”
“Slightly.” I seldom drove it, but a lot of the men I met through drunk-and-disorderly charges gave addresses on Wilford Road.
Purvy went to the door to point, the better to direct me. As he talked, he gestured with each hand, so he looked like he was swimming in air. “Go down to the red light and make a right. Then you go three-four blocks to Wilford. They’s a blue house on the corner. You can’t miss it. Turn left on Wilford, follow it two or three blocks, and make a right at Mad Mooney’s Bar. That’s South Jefferson. Go on to the Good Hope Church of God Appearing and turn left just past the church. That’s Good Hope Lane. Dexter lives about halfway down.”
At that point a Yankee might have thanked Purvy and gone on her way. They don’t know Rule Six: Why are you in such a hurry?
I stayed a fe
w minutes more, thanking him and chatting about car races over in Dublin. I don’t know much about car races, but any woman worth her salt can discuss car races in the South. All you have to do is keep nodding and agree with whatever a man says.
As I headed back to my car, I wondered why directions in the South invariably include “go to the red light.” You’d think our stoplights never turn green.
At a house that was more green than blue, I turned onto what I presumed was Wilford Road, although the sign was missing. It led me straight into one of the sorriest parts of our little town.
Guess Who's Coming to Die? Page 10
