Stella placed a photo of the outside of the barn on the table. Next to it, she laid a picture of the barn’s interior—where Bud’s monster pickup was parked. It was partly covered by a tarpaulin. But the canvas had been cut for a much smaller vehicle, and Bud’s blue metal-flake paint job was all too identifiable on the exposed fenders.
Florence closed her eyes and shook her head, as though denying what she was seeing.
“I remember,” Stella continued, “when I visited with you those summers, sometimes we’d catch the bus there at that stop down the road a piece, and we’d go into Hooter Grove. We’d look at all the comic books and paper dolls there in the five-and-dime and buy a candy bar to bring home and split between us.”
“Those simple pleasures were the best,” Florence said, taking a tissue from her purse and blowing her nose.
“They were. Nothin’ ever tasted quite as good as that shared candy bar.”
Stella pulled the last picture from the envelope and laid it down beside the others. It was of the bus stop that was “down the road a piece.”
“I was kinda surprised to hear that bus is still runnin’,” Stella said. “Goes north to Hooter Grove, like it always did. Comes south all the way to Pine Hollow. It stops in McGill on the way, at that diner on the highway.”
Stella paused a moment, then added, “I called Mike Kenman today and asked if he ever picks folks up from the diner and takes ’em wherever they’ve a mind to go. Like home. He assured me that he does that exact thing from time to time. Has recently, in fact.”
Florence was shaking so hard that Stella could feel the vibration in the table they were both leaning on.
“Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, Stella,” Florence said.
“Most of it,” Stella replied. She rose from her chair and walked over to the kitchen window. Looking outside, she saw her oldest grandchild standing in the snow, watching the window with a deadly serious look on her face.
Stella reached up and adjusted the geranium plant that was blooming on the sill.
Instantly, Savannah headed across the yard to the back door. A moment later, the door opened, and the girl walked in, snow all over her new boots.
Florence jumped, startled by the sound, and looked surprised and confused when she saw Savannah.
“Why aren’t you in school today?” she asked the child.
“She’s helpin’ me today,” Stella said, quickly moving to stand between Florence and her granddaughter.
Stella led Savannah to the opposite side of the room and gave her a questioning look.
Savannah nodded.
“Are you sure?” Stella asked.
“Real sure,” was the reply. “The big flower bed next to the wishing well. Even with the snow on it, you can tell. Freshly dug.”
“Thank you, darlin’.” Stella returned to the table and began to pick up the photos, one by one, and put them back into the envelope.
Florence sat and silently watched, her face growing whiter by the moment.
“We don’t have it all figured out,” Stella told Florence. “For instance, I don’t know why. But you can tell the rest to the sheriff. It’s time somebody had a nice, long talk with him. Either you by yourself, or me and Savannah, or all three of us. Your choice.”
“Is that it?” Florence said. “Those are all the options I’ve got to pick from?”
“I’m afraid so.” Stella reached over, placed her hand on her friend’s, and gave it a squeeze. “It was just before dawn this mornin’ that I decided it wasn’t somethin’ I can live with. I’ve known you most of your life, Florence. I don’t think you can, either.”
Florence thought for a moment, then said, “You’re right. I’d pretty much decided that myself, and about the same time. Just before dawn.” She stood and picked her purse up from the table. “I’d like to go in alone. That’s my choice.”
Stella studied her, evaluating, deciding. “You’re going straight to the sheriff’s station from here right now?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll call the sheriff and tell him you’re on your way. I’ll tell him you’ll be there in about seven minutes.”
“Tell him six. I’ve always driven faster than you.”
Chapter 27
“This is nice,” Manny told Stella as they sat on her front porch swing, sipping coffee and watching the kids build snowmen in the yard.
“It sure is,” she replied. “Anything that keeps them busy and gives me a chance to sit down—that’s a fine thing in my book.”
Waycross had rolled the largest snowballs for the base, torso, and head of his snowman. They were so large that he was having difficulty lifting the middle one onto the bottom one.
“Should I go give him a hand with that?” Manny asked. “We don’t want him to be the only fourth grader in his class with a hernia.”
“Naw, he can do it. Just watch. He’s a lot stronger than he looks.”
Alma was smoothing the face of her snow-woman with her good hand as Savannah tied a colorful scarf around its neck for her.
Marietta was experimenting with pine needles, trying to create long eyelashes on her snow lady, who already sported pinecone earrings, an enormous rock of a ring, a big blue bow on her head, and bright red lips, cut from wrapping paper. The paper was getting wet from the snow and starting to bleed its redness into the white snow surrounding it.
“Your snow gal’s lips look like Widow Barker’s,” Vidalia shouted to her sister from where she was sitting in the red wagon she had received from “Santa” and supervising the snow people–building operation.
Cordelia was on her knees, trying to sculpt some sort of animal from a pile of snow. The species was yet to be determined. . . if ever. Waycross was known to possess most of the artistic talent in the family.
Stella turned and saw that Manny’s mug was nearly empty. “Looks like you’re ready for a refill.”
“Naw. I gotta get back to the office. I promised Flo I’d give her a ride home once her bail bondsman finishes her paperwork.”
“That’ll be a few hours yet. I heard his wife’s got him taking the Christmas lights off the roof. Some people just can’t abide past-its-prime holiday décor.”
“I guess she’s one of them that can’t.” He drained his mug. “I’m glad Florence decided to plead self-defense. I don’t think it’ll be hard for her to prove. After all, it’s Bud.”
Stella had been dying to ask him the particulars of his interview with Flo ever since he arrived half an hour before, but she had been reluctant to pry.
It didn’t take long for her curiosity to override her restraint.
“Can you tell me what she said?” she asked. “If it’s not confidential or an invasion of personal privacy, that is.”
He looked confused. “Personal privacy? There’s no such thing as personal privacy in McGill.”
Laughing, she said, “Of course. Silly me. So? Can you tell me?”
“I’ll tell you what’s going to come out in court, anyway, which is pretty much everything.”
“ ‘Everything’ would be nice.”
“Apparently, the night Priscilla was killed, Flo and Bud had a row over her not bringing home enough beer or some such nonsense. He hit her and stormed out of the house.”
“I know that much. He nearly ran me over when he was driving away,” Stella added.
“That’s what I heard. He went to Prissy for some, shall we say, recreational sex. Seems he’d been doing that off and on for quite a while. But apparently, Prissy had other ideas. She told him she was tired of having him show up only when he was ‘in the mood.’ She wanted more than a twenty-dollar bill shoved in her bra ‘after the lovin’.’”
“I can’t imagine a pretty young woman wanting more of Bud Bagley, but there’s no accountin’ for taste.”
“I don’t think it was so much Bud’s charming self she was after. She wanted him to get a divorce and put a ring on her finger. She wanted the fine brick house, the nic
e car, the grocery store, the gas station, the pool hall. She wanted to be Mrs. Bagley and have what Flo had.”
Stella thought of the misery she had seen her friend endure for so long and shook her head. “If she only knew what Flo had.”
“Seems she threatened to rat Bud out to Flo, ruin his marriage and his reputation around town. Bud didn’t take that well.”
“No, I reckon he didn’t.”
“That’s when he hit her with the mirror. They tussled across the room and out the door, and she fell down the stairs.”
“Fell? Or was pushed?”
He shrugged. “We’ll never know for sure. The only account we’ll ever hear is his, by way of Florence.”
“Okay. Go on. . . .”
“When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he could tell she was hurt bad, and figured he couldn’t take the risk of her telling on him.”
“So he strangled her.”
“He did.”
“How come nobody saw that big, nasty pickup of his in the alley?”
“He always parked around the corner, behind the hardware store, when he went calling on Prissy.”
“Oh. Then, after he killed her, he went straight home to Florence?”
“Apparently so.”
“How did Flo know all of this? He wasn’t fool enough to tell her, was he?”
“Guess he was drunk enough to. She said he came home and spilled his guts. When she heard it all, she told him she wanted a divorce. That’s when he attacked her again, worse than before, and said he was gonna kill her. She figured, if he’d just murdered another woman, he was likely to kill her, too. She grabbed a butcher knife and stabbed him once. Got him right in the heart.”
Stella felt her throat tighten and her eyes burn. “She was right. I don’t have to feel guilty for teaching her how to shoot.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“She dragged him out to the garden, which she says was no easy task. She dug a big hole there in the flower bed by the wishing well, the one your granddaughter with the keen eye found, and buried him. Then she piled some of his stuff in the foyer, where you’d see it when you dropped by.”
“The whole thing about him packing up and leaving was a lie.”
“It was. She loaded the stuff in his big pickup and drove to the old farm.”
“She was the one you saw, not Bud, driving on the river road that day.”
“Yes, but I’d never seen her drive his truck before, so I assumed it was him. Anyway, she took the stuff to the old farm and stashed it where you found it. She didn’t want it in the house in case I came by to check on his whereabouts, him having disappeared and all. She knew I’d never believe that he left without taking that precious coin collection of his and his guns. She figured she’d sell the stuff later, after the dust settled.”
“Then she caught the bus to the diner and a taxi home from there.”
“I already talked to Mike Kenman. He says he picked her up and dropped her off that night.”
Stella shook her head. “I wish she’d just called you after she stabbed him, told you all about it, and let you handle it.”
“I’m sure she does, too. But I think by the time I get done testifying about how many nights I was called out to the house to get him off her—”
“And I’ll testify about the incident with the frying pan.”
“Exactly. I think she’ll get off without serving a day.”
“Are y’all gonna give Bud a proper Christian burial or leave him there in the flower bed?”
“Oh, he’ll get dug up, autopsied, and planted in a cemetery. Though, if we left him where he is, he’d fertilize the flowers, and that’s more good than he ever accomplished aboveground.”
“That’s for sure.”
Manny looked out across the yard at Waycross, who was still struggling to lift the middle ball of his snowman into place. “Let me go help that child,” he said, rising and handing her his mug. “I can’t bear to watch him anymore.”
A few moments later, Stella was standing at the stove, pouring her own blend of steaming, fragrant coffee spiked with chicory into their mugs, when she turned to see Manny standing behind her, watching her, with a strange expression on his face.
“Did you get Waycross and his snowman settled?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s nice. I’m sure he appreciated the help.”
In seconds, he crossed the floor, took the mugs from her, set them on the table, and pulled her into his arms, all in one quick, smooth movement.
Wow! Sheriff Gilford’s mighty fast on his feet, was the thought that went through her mind, right before her mind went blank.
It went blank because he was kissing her. Slowly at first, softly, tenderly, sweetly. Her knees went weak, and she sagged against him. He put his right arm around her waist and pulled her even closer, until she could feel the heat of his body through their clothes. His hard muscles pressed against her softness.
The difference was delicious.
So was the taste of him. The smell of him.
His fingers, running through the curls at the nape of her neck, sent lovely shivers throughout her body, as did the sound of his deep voice murmuring her name when he deepened the kiss.
This was exactly what she had decided she didn’t want. Exactly the sort of complication that her family didn’t need right now.
But it was impossible to convince herself of that when something that she had fantasized about countless times was happening, and it was far, far better than anything she had imagined.
Finally, he pulled away, leaving them both breathless and shaken.
She leaned back against the counter for support and stared down at the floor, trying to collect her thoughts, to quiet the feelings burning inside her. He waited silently, until she finally looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, Stella,” he said, “but I had to do that. Once. I know you’re still in love with Art, and I don’t blame you. He was a wonderful man, and you two were soul mates. I know you’ve got the world on your shoulders right now and don’t have the time or energy for anything or anyone extra. Like me. But I’ve been wanting to do that since third grade, and I couldn’t put it off any longer.”
She didn’t reply. She couldn’t. Her mouth wasn’t working. Her lips were still feeling the warm fullness of his.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t ever do it again.”
I’m not worried, she thought. “Worried” is definitely not the word for what I am.
“But there’s one more thing I have to do,” he was saying. “I have to do it right now. Just once.” He paused to draw a deep breath, then said, “I have to tell you I love you, Stella. I’ve loved you for years. I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”
She still couldn’t speak, but he didn’t seem to mind.
He smiled and said, “Okay, I’ve got my kiss and said my piece, so I’m gonna go. I’ll see you later.”
With that, he was gone, leaving an enormous, aching emptiness in her kitchen and in her heart.
Her knees still shaky, Stella sank onto a chair and leaned her elbows on the table. “Lord have mercy, but that man can kiss,” she whispered. “I’m glad I didn’t know that years ago. I’d have been in deep trouble.”
She sat there a long time and was only vaguely aware of the front door opening and closing and of hurried footsteps coming in her direction.
“Granny?” an excited voice said. “Granny, look! Look what Sheriff Gilford gave me!”
Stella turned and saw Savannah standing in the doorway, a big smile on her face and something that looked like a clear ball in her hand.
“It’s a Christmas ornament! ‘A day late,’ the sheriff said.” She held it out for Stella to see. “It’s a special one that he made just for me.”
Finally, Stella was able to concentrate on what she was seeing. It looked like a clear plastic ball, approximately three inches across. A red bow was tied on top a
nd a small wire to hang it by. Inside dangled a silver object.
“It’s a handcuff key, Granny! A real one! He gave it to me because I said I want to be a policewoman when I grow up. He said every cop needs a handcuff key. He put it inside a Christmas ornament, Granny, so I can hang it on my tree every year and remember the first time I helped solve a real, honest-to-goodness case! Is that awesome or what?”
“It’s awesome, Savannah girl. Better than awesome!”
Savannah hugged her prize to her heart. “Sheriff Gilford is awesome, isn’t he, Granny?”
Stella smiled. “He is, honey. Indeed, he is.”
“And this was the best Christmas ever, in the history of the whole world. Well, since the first one, anyway.”
Stella thought of all that had happened in the past few days, the light and the dark, the bitter and the sweet, the pain and the joy. The sweet, joyful light had definitely triumphed over the bitter, painful darkness.
“Yes, child,” she told her happy granddaughter, “this was the best Christmas ever!”
Epilogue
Sitting before the Christmas tree, her great-granddaughter cuddled in her lap, Stella gazed at the round, clear ornament with its red ribbon on the top and silver key inside. She reached out, touched it with her fingertip . . . and remembered.
She didn’t realize that her oldest grandchild was watching her until Savannah reached over and stroked her hair. “It wouldn’t be my Christmas tree without that particular ornament on it,” Savannah said. “I love hanging it every year and thinking of him, and what he did for us.”
“He was special.” Stella tried to keep her voice even, strong. “He sure was.”
Savannah reached over and, as her grandmother had done, touched the ball, setting the key inside it to swinging. “Every year when I was growing up, I looked at that and thought, Don’t give up on your dream! Don’t let go!”
Stella decided not to say what she had thought each year when she looked at that ornament.
“But mostly,” Savannah said, “I remember how much that Christmas meant, because that’s when we came to live in your house, surrounded by your protection and your love.”
Murder in Her Stocking Page 27
