Hung Out to Die

by Sharon Short

  I gasped. “Oh, Lord. Don’t tell me she and Uncle Fenwick . . .”

  Mamaw shook her head. “It never came to that. But for a time both Fenwick and May let everyone think that they had . . . been a couple. To hurt Henry.”

  “How could Uncle Fenwick do that to Aunt Nora?” I didn’t like that my mama had done that to Daddy, but given the circumstances, her motives were understandable, even if her actions were not morally acceptable.

  Mamaw shook her head. “His competition with his brother meant more to him than his affection for his wife. It really tore up the family. And of course, the easiest thing to do was blame May, hate her for it.”

  “It’s always the women who get blamed,” I said stiffly, “when it takes two. It’s not like she forced Uncle Fenwick to go along with this terrible lie.”

  “I know that. But I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe,” Mamaw said. “As you get older, though, it gets harder to keep up delusions like that. Anyway, for a time, we all thought when May was pregnant the second time, that it was by Fenwick.”

  “When she was pregnant with me?”

  Mamaw nodded. “That’s what both of them wanted Henry to believe. To hurt him. But then Nora surprised everyone and showed some backbone. She left Fenwick. He was brokenhearted and begged her back and made sure everyone knew he had never really slept with May. Nora took Fenwick back. Not long after that, they discovered they couldn’t have kids because Fenwick was sterile. Then Henry and May got back together—again. You know, I don’t think even they know how many times they’ve broken up and gotten back together.”

  Mamaw put her hand to my face. “You’re Henry’s all right. I can see him—and May—in you.”

  “So Mama had me, and?”

  Mamaw dropped her hand. “And she and Henry tried again, but it just didn’t work. Henry disappeared all of a sudden. I blamed May. When May took off, she wasn’t around for me to blame for the problems between my sons. So I took it out on you.”

  Mamaw’s jaw trembled. I didn’t want to feel a bit sorry for her. I made my voice stiff as I asked, “So what changed your mind all of a sudden?”

  “The phone call from Henry that he and May were coming back to town and wanted to join us for Thanksgiving. It was so casual. Like no one had missed them or worried about them all these years.”

  “You hadn’t been in touch with Daddy after he left?”

  Mamaw shook her head. “Nope. And after I got off the phone with him, I suddenly realized I’ve been an ass, too.” She smiled at my expression. “I’m just quoting what I was thinking.”

  “You wanted to blame everyone but your son for his actions.”

  She sighed. “That’s right. And I wanted to tell you this and . . . and apologize. And I thought you should see your parents again, and they should see you, and maybe understand how selfish they’ve been . . .”

  I laughed, but not bitterly. My parents were a reality I had to finally deal with, but in the most important sense, they hadn’t been my parents. Uncle and Aunt Foersthoefel had been.

  “I don’t think they’ve figured that out.”

  Mamaw put her face to her hands. “If I had known what would happen, I’d have never let them come back—”

  I sighed. I’d never be close to this woman as my grandmother. The time for that had come and gone. But, as a human being, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “They’d have come back, anyway. They had something to prove.”

  “With FleaMart,” she said, dropping her hands, and leaning into me.

  “Exactly.”

  We sat quietly for a few minutes. Then Mamaw said, “You should know that Sally’s been nagging me for years to get in touch with you. She’s told me all along I’ve been an ass.”

  “Another direct quote?”

  Mamaw nodded. I laughed. “That sounds like Sally.”

  Mamaw got another tissue and blew her nose. “She’s the only one I’d take that from, you know.”

  “She’s a good person,” I said. “Straight shooter.”

  Mamaw patted the quilt on her lap. “I wanted to tell you all this before your parents got here. That was the secret—about your parents’ past—I thought you should know. And I wanted to give you this quilt. Can I give it to you now?”

  I stared at the quilt in her lap. Did I want it? I had a quilt that Mamaw’s mama had made for me when I was born. It had been a baby gift. Aunt Clara had told me that my paternal great-grandmother had made quilts for all her grandchildren and great-grandchildren as baby gifts. And I cherished that quilt, given as it was with a pure heart.

  But did I want this other quilt? This quilt made with a sentimentality I could never share, given with guilt? I wasn’t sure. It seemed rude to say no. But it didn’t seem quite right to say yes, either.

  “I’m not . . . can I think about . . .” I started, and Mamaw said at the same time, “If the time’s ever right for you to want it . . .”

  I stopped, and let her finish.

  “Just let me know if you’re ever ready for it,” she said. “I’ll keep it here for you.”

  She stood up, crossed to the closet with the quilt, and tried to put it on the top shelf, which was too high for her. I stood up and helped her get it on the shelf.

  Then I tried to think about what to say to fill the suddenly awkward silence, and was saved from having to say anything by a knock on the bedroom door.

  Mamaw rushed to the door and opened it, obviously also relieved to have the awkward moment broken.

  In the doorway stood Aunt Nora. She looked past Mamaw to me. “I heard you were here. I’d like to talk with you, Josie.”

  15

  “This was Fenwick’s favorite shirt,” Aunt Nora said, sniffling. “I know he’d want to be buried in it. But the cranberry stain . . .”

  “I got the stain on the shirt,” I said. “I can get it out. Do you have any white vinegar?”

  We were standing at the sink in her and Uncle Fenwick’s kitchen. Their trailer was a thing of beauty. Top-of-the-line cabinets and counters and appliances in the kitchenette, stainless-steel fixtures, real wood paneling polished to a high sheen, leather upholstered seats and chairs. This was no run-of-the-mill trailer you’d find parked on any old Kampgrounds of America. Why, this beauty would be envied by some of the finest country and western bands.

  “Vinegar?” Aunt Nora asked.

  “I usually do a column about recent stains I’ve helped customers with,” I said. “But I thought I’d try something different. This time, my column is on all the uses of white vinegar. Two-thirds water, one-third vinegar, applied to the cranberry stain with a spray bottle or eyedropper . . . let it soak ten minutes, and then spritz with your favorite laundry enzymatic pretreatment, and the shirt should be fine.”

  Aunt Nora looked skeptical, but found a small bottle of white vinegar in the kitchenette cabinet and an eyedropper in the bathroom. I treated Uncle Fenwick’s shirt over the kitchen sink, and Aunt Nora watched in amazement as the stain started to disappear.

  “There,” I said. “I can take it to my laundromat, wash it for you—”

  Aunt Nora waved her hand toward the back of the trailer. “We have a custom-made, built-in mini washer and dryer in a special cabinet next to the bathroom. I’ll just wash it here.” Her eyes teared up again. “Thank you so much for helping me. It may seem silly, but he really liked that shirt. I want him to be buried in it. If there’s anything I can do to repay you . . .”

  Suddenly, she sat down on the leather built-in couch, and put her hands to her face. I sat down next to her. She looked so pathetically tiny, in her dark brown pants and sweater, which was appliquéd, again, with turkeys. But these didn’t flash. I guessed she’d picked more demure seasonal wear out of respect for Uncle Fenwick. Somehow, the lack of flash in these appliquéd turkeys made me sad.

  There was something she could do to repay me—answer some questions. But I thought I should try to be more subtle than just start peppering her with questions. S
o I sat down next to her and said, “This is so lovely. Uncle Fenwick spared no expense.”

  At that, Aunt Nora looked up and beamed. “Fenwick was so good to me. Top-of-the-line everything. He knew how much I loved camping.”

  I’ve been camping. Camping is a tent, raccoons getting into your food, a sleepless night brought on by needing to pee but refusing to leave the tent to take care of business out of fear of rabid raccoons and because the storm of the century just decided to pitch a fit right where you pitched camp, and your limbs being used as an all-you-can-eat buffet by mosquitos. This trailer was more like a luxury suite on wheels.

  “Well, he must have been quite successful in his plumbing business to afford something this nice,” I said. “Even though he didn’t like plumbing.”

  Aunt Nora’s face suddenly became guarded. “He liked it well enough.”

  Uh huh, I thought. Uncle Fenwick had said the afternoon before, at the disastrous Toadfern Thanksgiving dinner, that he’d hated plumbing. True, plumbing business owners could make a nice profit. But most entrepreneurs don’t make a lot of money unless they like the trade they’re in. And even if he had made a lot of money, this decked-out trailer probably cost more than a lot of the stationary homes in Paradise. Certainly more than double wides permanently double parked in the Happy Trails Motor Home Park, just outside Paradise. Definitely more than my laundromat/apartment combo.

  How, I wondered, had Uncle Fenwick afforded this?

  It was just one of several things that didn’t make sense to me about the Toadfern family. But I couldn’t ask about Uncle Fenwick’s fortune directly. Aunt Nora’s expression told me she’d just shut down. And although I was curious about his fortune, there was no real reason to think it pertained to his murder.

  I decided to try a different approach. “You know, Aunt Nora, there are so many secrets in this family. I just found out today that my parents had a child before they had me.”

  Aunt Nora startled. “Who told you about that?”

  “A friend here in Paradise. And Mamaw Toadfern. She told me also about how wild my parents were. That they hurt a lot of people. Including you,” I said as gently as possible.

  Aunt Nora looked away. “Yes. Your mother and Fenwick hurt me. I admit I wasn’t sorry to see Henry leave town, or your mother’s pain after that.” She looked back at me, anger flashing in her eyes. “Does that make me awful?”

  “I think it makes you human,” I said.

  “Well, I wasn’t sorry to see your mother go, either. All I know is that after they left, Fenwick seemed happier. Freer. He started making a lot more money.”

  “In his plumbing business, of course?”

  Aunt Nora looked away again. “Of course.”

  She was hiding something.

  “You’re good at keeping secrets,” I said. “Like your cranberry sauce recipe.”

  She whipped her head back around and glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your husband’s been murdered. My daddy’s been accused. Maybe it really was something as simple and awful as sibling rivalry. But I don’t know. It doesn’t quite feel right to me. After all, Daddy wanted to show his brother that he could be just as successful. Kind of hard to do, with Uncle Fenwick dead.”

  Aunt Nora gasped, realizing the truth of what I said. And the minute I said it, I realized it, too. Daddy hadn’t killed Uncle Fenwick. Maybe he was capable of it. Sure, I could see him reacting in anger to Uncle Fenwick, and maybe hitting him hard enough to kill him. But only after FleaMart was a big success and Fenwick had finally—grudgingly—given him the recognition he wanted.

  “If not your daddy, then . . . who?” Aunt Nora’s question was nearly a whisper.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. Maybe you? I thought. Jealousy over Mama? I eyed the trailer door. I was just a few feet away in case I needed to make a dash for it. “But anything you can tell me about their quarrel yesterday might help. Daddy was only gone an hour. Mamaw said Uncle Fenwick never came back to the house. Did he come back here? Talk with you?”

  “He came here to take off his shirt before going on the walk with your daddy. Didn’t want the cranberry sauce to get into the inside of his jacket, plus he didn’t want to wear a messy shirt.” She half smiled. “He was always like that after plumbing jobs. Wanting to clean up as soon as possible. Didn’t like being messy. But he seemed in a hurry to go on the walk, so he just put his jacket back on. I worried he’d be too cold, and he told me not to be silly.”

  “So then he went on a walk with Daddy. And didn’t come back. And you didn’t miss him or worry about him?”

  Aunt Nora cut her eyes away from me. “I found the argument at supper yesterday afternoon to be emotionally exhausting. I came back here and took a nap.”

  I considered the timing. I’d left Mamaw Toadfern’s at about 2:30. Shortly after that, by all accounts, Aunt Nora had come back to the trailer. Uncle Fenwick had come back long enough to change shirts, then went on a walk with Daddy. Mama had left for a drive. Daddy came back at 3:00. Mama came back at 4:00. About a half hour later, I arrived at the Burkettes’. An hour or so later, Rachel and I discovered Uncle Fenwick’s body, stabbed and hung from the telegraph pole. By the time the police came and Chief Worthy and I came to Mamaw Toadfern’s, it was nearly 7:00.

  I looked at Aunt Nora. “You took a five-hour nap?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, I was emotionally exhausted from the scene at dinner. I told Chief Worthy that yesterday. He didn’t question it.”

  That, I thought, was because Chief Worthy was more than happy to pin this murder on my daddy—both because of our rocky past and maybe because my mama and John Worthy’s daddy had flirted with one another, at the very best.

  In any case, I knew Aunt Nora was lying. She was a little, high-strung bird of a woman. A scene like that would have had her too keyed up to sleep. She would have paced the floor, fuming, turning the events over in her mind, wondering if Fenwick maybe really had had feelings for Mama all those years, after all.

  “Aunt Nora,” I said gently, “you said you appreciated how I’d helped with Uncle Fenwick’s shirt, and that you would like to repay me. Well, someone murdered Uncle Fenwick. And I think you know something that could help us figure out who. I wish you’d tell me—or the police.”

  Suddenly Aunt Nora stood up. “Look out that window, Josie.”

  I stood, looked, gazed across the yard in the space between two trees.

  “What do you see?” she demanded.

  “Uh . . . a yard?”

  “What’s missing?” she asked.

  I stared and pondered. And then it hit me. The clothesline that had been strung between the two trees was missing.

  I looked at her. “Clothesline,” I whispered.

  “That’s right,” she said. “And I know who took it. Fenwick. He came back. Got it. I asked him why? And he just snapped at me. Said he had to check on his treasure. But I didn’t tell John Worthy that. Worthy didn’t say how Fenwick died, just that he was murdered. But every now and then, Fenwick would threaten to kill himself. ‘Just go hang myself from some tree,’ he’d say. ‘I’d be worth more dead to you than alive—if the insurance would pay.’ I thought maybe somehow Fenwick had killed himself and tried to make it look like he’d been murdered. I didn’t want Worthy to know that.”

  “Because of the insurance.”

  “Yes, but also, I didn’t want him to not investigate Fenwick’s death. And if he thought Fenwick had a hand in his own death, he might not.”

  “Aunt Nora,” I said, “were you the one who called the police, left the anonymous message about Daddy and Fenwick’s fight?”

  Aunt Nora looked away. “That’s one nice thing about a behind-the-times-town like Paradise,” she said. “It’s not hard to find a pay phone.”

  I imagined her wrestling that RV down the road to the pay phone outside Elroy’s gas station, making the call, driving back in the previous night’s snow. She was tougher than I though
t.

  Tough enough to take the news that, even if he had threatened suicide in the past, he had actually been stabbed?

  I decided I’d let the police tell her that.

  “Aunt Nora, when Uncle Fenwick came back here to change out of his dinner shirt before his walk with Daddy,” I said. “Did he say anything then, about how he felt about Daddy and Mama coming back?”

  “Just that he had some old business to settle with Henry and he hoped they could work it out on the walk,” Aunt Nora said. “Then he left. And I took a nap. A long nap, until he came back and took down the clothesline. He seemed excited, more than depressed, so I didn’t worry.”

  She dropped her head. “I guess I should have. Are you going to tell the police?”

  “I think you should,” I said. “This information will help the investigation, not stop it.”

  She nodded. “All right Josie. I’ll call.”

  16

  “What you got there, good-lookin’? A laundry list?”

  I clapped my hand over the paper that was, in fact, a list of questions based on what I’d learned so far about the circumstances surrounding Uncle Fenwick’s murder.

  Then I looked up at the source of the question—and it was one of the hunkiest, dreamiest men I’d ever set eyes on. He had just enough wrinkles to save his blond crew cut, baby face, blue eyes, and deep dimples from being overly cute. The dimples punctuated perfectly kissable lips, which were arced in a smile that revealed straight, white teeth. The blue eyes were focused on me, but I was having a hard time focusing on the blue eyes, considering that this gorgeous face was just the icing on the beefcake, so to speak. I didn’t even mind the muscle shirt or tight jeans, accentuating as they did a perfectly muscled and fit body. Even the damned boots looked good on this guy.

  I made myself focus on the blue eyes. I made myself remember Owen. I made myself say: “That has to be the cheesiest pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”