Murder in Her Stocking

by G. A. McKevett

  “What if he’s not and your chief of police friend can’t find him, either?”

  “Then I’m going to park outside your daughter-in-law’s place, just to make sure he doesn’t come anywhere near the house. I’ll sit there till I hear Hooter Grove’s got him behind bars.”

  “Even if it takes all night?”

  “It won’t, but yes, even if it does. Nothing’s going to happen to your family, Stella. Not on my watch.”

  She jumped to her feet and nearly burst into tears of relief. She moved toward him to hug him, and he met her halfway.

  For a few seconds, she allowed herself to lean against him, to feel the comfort of someone else’s strength buoying her up in her moment of weakness. To feel protected. Maybe even loved?

  When she pulled back and looked up at him, the expression on his face answered her question.

  Yes, Sheriff Manny Gilford loved her. Very much. There was no mistaking the look in those pale gray eyes.

  Stella might have had only one lover in her lifetime, but that was enough for her to know what that look meant.

  While they stood there for only a few moments, searching each other’s eyes, many questions were asked and answered without a word spoken.

  Stella knew that her relationship with Sheriff Manny Gilford would never be the same again. But with her grandchildren in jeopardy, there was no time to discuss it or even think about it.

  “We’ve gotta go,” he whispered, reaching up and brushing one of her dark curls away from her face.

  “Yes,” she replied a bit breathlessly. “Right now.”

  She threw the blanket off her shoulders and onto the sofa.

  He picked up his weapon and holster from the dining table and grabbed his coat.

  Together, they raced for the door.

  Chapter 15

  “Just have a seat over there by the desk, Shirley. If you’ll answer a few questions for me and do so truthfully, you’ll be back to your Bloody Mary in no time.”

  Stella wouldn’t recommend the ear-against-the-radiator method of eavesdropping to anyone, comfort-wise. But she had to admit that, even though it triggered a serious crick in the neck in less than a minute, it was most efficient. She could hear every word that Manny was saying. She even knew when Shirley tossed her heavy, fringed, and turquoise-spangled purse onto the front desk.

  Stella also heard the scraping of the metal folding chair when Shirley sat down on it.

  “You don’t care if I smoke in here, right?” Shirley asked.

  Stella grinned, knowing what the answer would be. As a former pack-and-a-half-a-day smoker who had suffered to give up his habit years ago, Sheriff Gilford was death on cigarettes.

  “You answer my questions quickly and honestly,” she heard him say as he settled into the squeaky desk chair, “you can return to your Bloody Mary and your smokes. Got it?”

  There was only a grumbled response.

  As Stella slid down to a sitting position on the floor, to relieve some of the strain on her neck, she heard the sheriff begin.

  “I need to know where you were three nights ago, between the hours of eight and ten.”

  It took Shirley a long time to answer. Stella wished she could see as well as hear what was going on in the other room. One facial expression told a lot, and she was dying to know what sort her daughter-in-law was wearing at that moment.

  Finally, she heard her say, “That was a long time ago. How am I supposed to remember that particular night?”

  “It’s the night Prissy Carr was murdered. Does that ring any bells?”

  “Oh, yeah. I was the same place I usually am. There in the Bulldog.”

  “Doing what?”

  “What do you suppose? Just what you do in a bar. Drinking and socializing.”

  “Who were you socializing with?”

  “Just the usual gang. Nobody in particular.”

  “You were there in the bar the whole time? You didn’t leave, even once, for any reason?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I understand you spent some time back there in the alley.”

  There was a long silence. Stella could feel her own heart pounding. She could only imagine how Shirley’s must be racing.

  “No,” Shirley finally answered. “I was inside the whole time.”

  Stella heard Manny sigh. She knew the exasperated look he must be giving Shirley at that moment.

  A lot of people gave Shirley Reid that look.

  “Your Bloody Mary is gonna go flat and warm, you keep this up, Shirl,” he told her. “At this rate, by the time I let you leave here, you’ll be having the nicotine fit to beat all.”

  “Look, Sheriff! I was at the Bulldog between eight and ten, and I stayed there, didn’t go anyplace else. That’s all I got to say to you. What’s all this about?”

  “It’s about a young woman losing her life. About somebody deciding that they could kill her and get away with it.”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s a bummer.”

  Shirley didn’t sound all that bummed to Stella.

  Apparently, Gilford didn’t think so, either, because his voice was raised and harsh when he said, “It’s more than a bummer. A person getting murdered is a downright tragedy.”

  “Well, with some more than others.”

  “No! With anyone! Prissy Carr did some rotten stuff. She ruined families, hurt a lot of people. She deserved to get told off, loud and clear, by some angry wives. If some of them decided to box her jaws for her, I’d say she had it coming. But nobody, nobody, gets to strangle the life out of anybody in this town without me seeing to it that they pay for it.”

  Stella heard him slap his hand down hard on the desk’s surface. “Now, you think very seriously about how you’re going to answer this next question, Shirley Reid, because if you don’t tell the truth, you’ll be in deep trouble with me. Years-in-jail kinda trouble. Now . . . how do you know that Priscilla Carr was strangled?”

  Stella didn’t dare to breathe as she waited. Waited for Shirley to do the right thing.

  Finally, she heard an indignant Shirley blurt out, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sheriff Gilford. What makes you think I know anything about anything?”

  “You were overheard telling some people that she was strangled to death. That’s not something you’d know unless you’d been there and seen it happen. You were outside in the alley when she was killed.”

  “I was not!”

  “You were. How else would you know her cause of death? Nobody knows that but me.”

  “Ohhh! I see now. That bitch of a mother-in-law of mine’s been talking to you, hasn’t she? She’d say anything at all to get me in trouble. She hates me. Always has. You can’t believe a word that comes out of her lyin’ mouth! Specially about me!”

  “What makes you think it was your mother-in-law?”

  “’Cause I never told nobody else. Just her. She was the only one, so it has to be her who—”

  Stella nearly yelped with glee. Shirley had been so busy condemning Stella that she had put her own foot into the sheriff’s trap.

  They could all practically hear it snap around her scrawny ankle.

  “As a matter of fact, it was your mother-in-law who brought this information to me,” he said, “as she should have. Everyone should be doing all they can to help me solve this murder.”

  In a much louder voice, he called out, “Mrs. Reid, would you please join us in here?”

  Stella scrambled to her feet, smoothed her skirt and, with mixed emotions, hurried out of the office. As she exited, she saw the sheriff and Shirley sitting at the front desk, just as she’d pictured them.

  Manny’s elbows were propped on its surface; his fingers laced together in a pseudo-casual pose.

  Shirley was leaning back in the folding chair—so far back that Stella predicted she would topple over backward at any minute. Her arms were crossed over the front of her denim jacket, and a scowl was on her gaunt gray face.

  The instant
Shirley saw Stella, she sprang to her feet and charged across the room toward her. “You bitch!” she screamed. “You’re just trying to get me in trouble ’cause you—”

  But she didn’t finish her attack or her insult, because Gilford had reached her, grabbed her, and twisted her arms behind her back.

  She struggled only a moment, until it was obvious that fighting would cause her only more discomfort.

  “Get back in your chair,” Gilford told her in his best sheriff voice.

  When she didn’t move quickly enough to suit him, he said, “Go back to your chair, Shirley, sit down, and calm yourself, or I’m gonna handcuff you.”

  She didn’t take her eyes off Stella, but she did as he said, glaring at her mother-in-law with undiluted hatred as she obeyed.

  The sheriff grabbed another chair and placed it on the opposite side of the desk from Shirley’s. “Have a seat, Mrs. Reid, and let’s get back to business here. I’m in the middle of a murder investigation, and daylight’s burnin’.”

  Shirley jabbed an accusing finger at Stella with all the ferocity of an attacker stabbing someone with a knife. “I told her that in confidence!” she shouted. “She had no right to repeat it to nobody.”

  “There was nothin’ confidential in nature about you tellin’ me that,” Stella returned, settling onto the chair. “You just opened your blabberin’ mouth, and it fell out. Like right now.”

  “I don’t care. You still should’ve kept it to yourself. You would have, too, if you didn’t hate me. If you weren’t just tryin’ to get me in trouble.”

  “That’s enough!” Gilford roared, his deep voice filling the room. “Shirley, it doesn’t matter if she swore to you on a stack of Bibles not to tell a soul. Stella coming to the law with information about a homicide case is praiseworthy, not a felony, like obstructing justice or committing murder. If you don’t start talking some truth to me in the next five minutes, I’m going to arrest you on one of those charges. Maybe both! You hear me, woman?”

  Shirley seemed to have gotten the message. She all but melted into her chair, her body sagging, like someone about to surrender during a long, hard battle.

  Stella could have sworn that she even saw some tears brimming in her daughter-in-law’s eyes.

  In all their years of knowing each other, Stella couldn’t remember ever seeing Miss Tough Cookie Shirley cry over anything. Scream, yes. Cry, no.

  “Okay, Sheriff,” she said. “You don’t have to charge me with murder. Or anything else. I’ll tell you what you wanna hear. But you have to promise to keep me safe.”

  Stella couldn’t help noticing that Shirley had said, “Me,” not “Us,” as though her children hadn’t been threatened at the same time.

  “I’ll keep you safe,” Gilford assured her. “You help me solve this case, I’ll make sure you don’t pay a price for it.”

  Shirley gave him a suspicious, doubtful look. “Even if I did somethin’, um, kinda against the law?”

  “Did you kill her?”

  “No!”

  “Did you tell somebody else to or pay them or talk them into it?”

  “No!”

  “Did you hold her down while somebody else did?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then you’re in the clear. Tell me whatcha got.”

  Shirley drew a deep breath, threw another hateful look Stella’s way, then plunged in. “I did step outside, out back, for a few minutes that night.”

  “Okay. Good. Go on.”

  “I went out there to, well, to talk to a friend about somethin’.”

  “Who?”

  “Just this guy I know.”

  “And his name is . . . ?”

  “Leland.”

  “Leland Corder?”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  Gilford smirked. “I know only two Lelands in the county, and the other one’s a preacher. He wouldn’t be hanging out with a woman who ain’t his wife behind a tavern.” He hesitated. “I don’t think he would, leastways.”

  He reached for his notebook and pen and started scribbling. “So, you and Leland Corder were in the alley behind the bar about what time?”

  “Around ten, more or less.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “I was sorta, like, paying him some money I owed him.”

  The sheriff looked up from his scribbling and gave her a piercing look. “You weren’t gonna lie to me about anything at all, remember? Otherwise, we might add some drug charges along with obstructing justice. That’d get your kids taken away from you, wouldn’t it?”

  Shirley shot another look in Stella’s direction, only this time there was fear in her eyes.

  Ah, Stella thought. The thought’s occurred to her that the state might take the kids away from her and give ’em to me.

  The thought pleased Stella. Enormously. Let Shirley worry about losing the kids to her. If she didn’t love her children enough to take care of them, maybe she hated Stella enough to do the right thing by them, if it meant keeping them out of her hated mother-in-law’s hands.

  “I know Leland Corder,” Gilford continued, addressing Shirley. “I know what he does for a living. Let’s just state for the record that you and he were back there doing a drug deal in the alley that night. Shall we?”

  Shirley didn’t reply. She just nodded slightly.

  “Like I told you,” Gilford said, raising his voice, “this is for the record. Answer me out loud. You and Leland Corder were doing a drug deal back there in the alley about ten o’clock?”

  “Yeah. You got me. Happy now?”

  Rather than rise to her bait, Gilford continued in a calmer tone. “Tell me everything that happened from the moment you walked out into that alley until you left. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “Okay.” Shirley drew a deep breath. She began to run her trembling fingers through the fringe on her purse. “We walked out the back door together. He pulled out his cigarettes, I bummed one off him, and we lit up. Then I paid him the money. He gave me, you know, the stuff.”

  “Cocaine?” Gilford asked.

  “No. Just some pot.”

  The sheriff brought his hand down on the desk again. The sound reverberated off the walls. Shirley jumped like she had been poked with a cattle prod.

  “I told you that I know Leland Corder. I know him well. He ain’t a pot dealer. If you exchanged money with him for drugs, it was cocaine, maybe heroin.”

  “Okay, okay. It was coke. Just a little. A tiny Baggie.”

  Gilford rose to his feet and leaned over the desk until he was nearly face-to-face with Shirley. “Leland Corder doesn’t mess with one Baggie. If you lie to me one more time, this interview is over, and your butt is gonna be upstairs in one of my cells. I guarantee you, it won’t be for your usual one-nighter, either.”

  “Three Baggies.”

  Shirley looked genuinely afraid. While Stella would have felt a bit of pity for almost anyone else in her situation, all she had to do was remember the look on Shirley’s face when she threw her children out of the truck onto the ground. And the expressions on theirs.

  No, Stella told herself. If I have any sympathy to spare, I’ll spend it on the grandkids. They deserve it.

  “All right, you and Leland lit up smokes,” Gilford continued. “You bought three Baggies of cocaine from him, and then what?”

  “That’s when we saw him.”

  Stella sat upright in her chair. She noticed that Manny did the same.

  “You saw who?” Gilford wanted to know.

  “Elmer Yonce.”

  “What was he doing?”

  “Just walking around back there, like he does sometimes. But he was moving kinda sneaky.”

  “Elmer limps,” Gilford said.

  “I know. But this was different, even for him. Like maybe somebody was after him. Or he didn’t wanna be seen. Like he was hiding or whatever.”

  “How does somebody move sneaky? Or like they don’t want to be seen?”

 
Shirley threw up her hands. “I don’t know, Sheriff. You asked me what I saw, what he was doing. That’s it. It’s really dark back there, since the lightbulb went out. You can’t see much.”

  “How long’s the bulb been out?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. A month, maybe more.”

  “Where was Elmer, exactly?” Gilford asked.

  “Over by the foot of the stairs. The ones leading up to Prissy’s apartment.” She gave an ugly little snicker and added, “Them stairs got a lot a use while she lived up there. Grand Central Station, in fact.”

  “What was Elmer doing, besides acting sneaky?”

  Shirley gave a shrug and a dismissive wave. “I don’t know. We didn’t pay him much mind. We got our, you know, business done. We put out our cigarettes there on the ground. We went back in. We were still standing there, just inside the door, when we heard it.”

  “Heard what?” Stella exclaimed without thinking.

  She knew she really should keep her mouth closed during the sheriff’s interrogation. But while Stella Reid was good at many things, maintaining tightly closed lips for any length of time wasn’t one of them.

  “We heard a yell,” Shirley said, “like somebody had got hurt real bad. Then there was a racket—someone or something tumbling down the stairs. I thought about it later, and I’m sure that’s what it was. Prissy Carr was taking a header down those mighty popular steps of hers. Yep, that’s what it was, all right.”

  “But you didn’t see who pushed her?” Gilford sounded disappointed.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know about the strangling part?”

  “I was curious, so I opened the door back up, just a crack. I peeped out, and that’s when I saw him.”

  “Who?”

  She shrugged. “Don’t know. He had his face turned away, and all I saw was his back. I could tell he was making a strangling motion. Had somebody by the neck and was bearing down on them, you know, like they do in the movies.”

  “Was it Elmer?”

  “Can’t say one way or the other. It was really dark out there.”

  Manny sighed. “So you’ve mentioned. You keep saying ‘him.’ Are you sure it was a man?”

  “Not really. Reckon, now that I think about it, it could’ve been a woman.”