Death Crashes the Party

by Vickie Fee

  I woke up with a cotton mouth and a throbbing head. Di had left me half a pot of coffee and a note saying to help myself to toast or cereal. After sucking down enough coffee to clear the cobwebs, I drove home and took two aspirin and a long hot shower.

  I made it to my office a few minutes after nine and returned a couple of phone calls on my answering machine. Some fool had left a message asking if I knew of a deep freezer he could buy cheap.

  I called back one of the guests for the Erdmans’ party about scheduling a fitting for their costumes, which the Erdmans were picking up the tab for. Most of the women were renting Southern belle dresses and parasols and such. Although, one lady was planning to wear the bridesmaid’s dress she had worn for the Erdmans’ wedding forty years ago. I surmised she wanted to flaunt the fact that she could still fit into it. And some of the men were actually renting hillbilly outfits, instead of just buying a pair of overalls at the Tractor Supply Company, which seemed more practical to me. But, come to think of it, if the Erdmans’ friends were anything like Mrs. Erdman, practicality wouldn’t be a likely trait.

  As a professional party planner, it’s my job to indulge fantasies—to a point. I once backed out of a job that involved planning a bacchanalian orgy because the hosts wanted to get a little too literal with the theme for my comfort.

  After checking with the shopkeeper, I gave a call back to Mrs. Lockhart and offered a choice of three different times for fittings with the costume shop in Memphis. Most of the guests lived in the Memphis area, about forty-five miles from Dixie. But I also had to arrange for costumes and fittings for one couple in Little Rock and one in Nashville at costume shops close to them.

  Mrs. Lockhart expressed concern that the Erdmans might want to cancel or postpone the party on account of their “recent troubles.” I knew there was no way Mrs. Erdman was going to nix the party. I assured Mrs. Lockhart that the Erdmans wouldn’t want to disappoint their guests and that, since the party was still three weeks away, all the unpleasantness should be cleared up by then. I think I convinced her, but I was having trouble convincing myself.

  I thought about phoning Mrs. Erdman but couldn’t quite muster the courage. I had a feeling that she was still popping Valium at this point and that it might be wise to wait another day or two before risking a conversation.

  I tried to concentrate on work, but nothing could take my mind off the horrifying images of the Farrell brothers lying dead in the Erdmans’ garage. A little before noon, I finally decided to drive over to McKay Trucking and talk to Ralph Harvey. Maybe he could tell me something about them. After all, I was the one who had had the gruesome pleasure of discovering the bodies—and I figured that at least entitled me to a few answers. Besides, maybe there was something we could do to help their mom.

  I don’t know what his title is exactly, but basically Ralph Harvey oversees the diesel truck mechanics, along with the maintenance and janitorial staff. My father-in-law manages administrative, freight, and shipping matters. And Larry Joe, who co-owns the company with his dad, mostly handles sales and deals with clients.

  About a half mile out of town the pavement devolves into a minefield of potholes. I pulled up the gravel driveway, heading through the open gate in the chain-link fence and past the whitewashed concrete-block building that contains my husband’s and father-in-law’s offices. After circling around to the back, I parked beside the gray metal buildings that house the garage and warehouse.

  Ralph’s office is upstairs, along one side of the hangar-like building, with a wall of glass and a bird’s-eye view of everything going on down below. The din of motors and clanging wrenches, punctuated by staccato bursts of compressed air, was muffled as he closed the door behind us. Ralph Harvey is a barrel-chested man with a face as red as what little hair he has left on top of his head. I accepted Ralph’s offer to sit down but declined his offer of coffee after observing a pot that had probably never been washed.

  “I hate to bother you when I know you’re shorthanded. But with Larry Joe out of town, I just wanted to stop by and see how everyone’s holding up after yesterday’s tragedy. How are the guys in the shop taking it?”

  “It was a shock, ma’am, sure enough. Darrell had worked his way up to lead B mechanic in just a couple of years. The younger one wasn’t quite right, you know, a little slow. But he did good work. He was only twenty. . . .” Ralph’s voice trailed off.

  “It’s hard enough to imagine one of them getting murdered, but why in the world would someone kill both of them?”

  “All I can say is where one of ’em was, the other one went along. They worked together and shared an apartment. And it seems they got killed together, too.”

  We both sat there for a moment, sharing an awkward silence.

  “Ralph, I know it’s none of my business, but had they gotten into any kind of trouble? You know, with drugs or some girl who had a protective daddy?”

  “No, ma’am. They never had any run-ins with the law that I know of. I’m pretty sure they smoked some weed. Most of the young guys here do. But it never interfered with their work, which is all I care about.”

  I was a bit taken aback by Ralph’s lax attitude toward drug use. It was not what I would have expected from him.

  “I thought random drug screenings were performed on the employees?”

  “Just the drivers,” he said. “If they all had to pass drug screens, especially the casual labor, I’d never be able to find enough hands to load the trucks.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you,” I said, grabbing my purse and rising from the chair. “Is there anything we can do for Mrs. Farrell? I don’t ever remember hearing of a Mr. Farrell.”

  “Their daddy died in the Iraq War, when they were just little kids. But if you don’t mind, you could do me a favor. I had Charlene cash out Darrell’s and Duane’s last checks. If you wouldn’t mind taking the envelope by to their mama. I figure she can use the money and . . . ,” Ralph said, stammering a bit. “Well, you could talk to her better, you being a lady.”

  Ralph obviously didn’t want to get stuck with Mrs. Farrell crying on his shoulder. But at least it gave me a legitimate reason to go by and talk to her.

  “Sure, Ralph. I’d be glad to.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Her address is on the envelope. And Mr. Wayne called the funeral director and told him if Mrs. Farrell needs help with expenses to let him know. He also said we could give the employees time off for the funeral, once the arrangements are made.”

  Larry Joe’s dad is a piece of work. But deep down he’s just an old softy.

  I headed out to see Tonya Farrell. I continued along a pothole-studded road for a bit before leaving the semi-paved roads of civilization and making a right turn onto a gravel road. I plunged into the recesses of Delbert County, where a soul can drive for miles without seeing a house or another car. Miles of woods and fields and ancient twisted oaks. And the occasional stray dog or chickens in the road.

  Spying a mailbox up ahead, I slowed down until I spotted a dirt driveway leading to the Farrell house. The old farmhouse had a broad porch fronted with a tangle of camellia bushes, which were badly in need of pruning. It could use a coat of paint, but the house looked sturdy.

  Tonya Farrell appeared on the porch as soon as I stepped out of the car. Whatever I had expected her to look like, she didn’t. She was tall, with shoulder-length bleached hair, and a sleeveless T-shirt revealed athletic arms.

  Before I could introduce myself, she said, “You’re Liv McKay, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I stammered, a little surprised. “Did Ralph Harvey call to tell you I was coming?”

  “Naw. I’ve seen your pictures in the paper. You have that party-planning business, right? I figured you must be related to the McKays at the trucking company. Come on in,” she said, propping open the screen door with her back and motioning for me to go through.

  At her invitation, I took a seat on a floral sofa that looked almost as old as the house. Tonya sat down in a chair
across from me. An air conditioner rattled and hissed from a window on the far side of the room. I scanned the walls and mantel, looking for childhood photos of her sons. But there were none.

  “I’m so very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you. I thought maybe my luck had turned. I won a few dollars down at the casino recently. Just goes to show, I guess.”

  “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you.”

  “It’s hard, of course, losing both my boys. But I tell myself Duane—that’s my youngest—would’ve been lost without Darrell. Duane was a sweet boy, but even I knew he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the porch. Darrell always looked out for him. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “It’s nice when brothers are close like that,” I said. “I understand, in addition to working together, they were both involved in those Civil War reenactments.”

  “Lord, yes. They’d been playing soldier since they were old enough to walk. Mind you, that wasn’t my doing. After their dad died in the Iraq War, I didn’t want to think about anything like that. But their pawpaw, my granddaddy, told them all these stories about the Civil War and took them on trips to Shiloh, helped them stage battles with toy soldiers.

  “Duane wasn’t as athletic as his brother, but he liked to draw and write stuff. My grandma gave Duane the journal of a Civil War soldier, which, she said, had belonged to her grandfather. Duane was fascinated with it and started keeping a journal of his own, still does, er . . . did, anyway.”

  I noticed she was fidgeting with a teardrop diamond necklace. The sunlight reflecting off it confirmed it was the real thing, not cubic zirconia. I conjectured that it might have been a gift to herself from her casino winnings.

  After a pause, she looked at me and said, “I heard you’re the one that found them.”

  I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so I finally just said, “Yes.”

  She stood and continued talking with her back to me. “I guess I wish you could tell me that they looked peaceful or that they didn’t suffer, but . . . maybe the medical examiner can say when he’s done.”

  I laid the envelope on the coffee table and told her it contained her sons’ pay.

  “We all get what’s coming to us, one way or another,” she said. “I plan to move away after all this is settled. There’s not much keeping me here now.”

  “Ralph Harvey tells me your boys were well liked at McKay’s. Please call us if you need any help with the arrangements.”

  As I stood to leave, my cell phone rang. Caller ID popped up on the screen, indicating it was Larry Joe.

  “I should take this,” I said apologetically. I stepped out onto the front porch as I answered. I heard some static before the phone went dead.

  “That’s odd,” I said.

  “Cell phone reception is pretty spotty out here,” Tonya said, standing in the doorway behind me. “You might try calling back once you get over that big hill up on the main road.”

  On the drive home, I couldn’t help thinking about the fact there were no family photos in Tonya’s living room. I reasoned that she could have slipped pictures of her sons into a drawer after learning about their deaths. Maybe it was just too painful to look at them. Besides, I thought, I still have a box full of honeymoon photos in the closet I’ve been meaning to frame for years.

  I walked into the kitchen from the garage to find Larry Joe twisting the cap off a beer bottle. He hopped on his soapbox without even bothering to say hello.

  “I’ve been home an hour, and I already know you’ve been snooping around at the company garage, asking questions about the Farrells. And I know you didn’t come home last night but slipped in this morning, looking like something the cat dragged in.”

  “That’s because Mrs. Cleats across the street is a dang busybody who thinks it’s her calling to keep her neighbors under surveillance. And Ralph Harvey has a big mouth.”

  “It’s because we live in a small town,” Larry Joe said as he sidled up to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s going on, Liv? You know I’m bound to hear about it, anyway.”

  I looked up at my husband’s cleft chin, dimples, and smiling brown eyes and fought the urge to kiss him. He’s not quite George Clooney handsome, but he’ll do.

  “So are you worried about where I spent the night?” I said, breaking free from his embrace. I backed up to the counter and hoisted myself onto the granite top. From this vantage point, I could look Larry Joe squarely in the eye.

  “Not particularly. I told Mrs. Cleats you spent the night at your mama’s house after all the excitement yesterday.”

  “Well, you lied,” I said, stretching out the word lied as if it had three or four i’s. “I spent the night at Di’s place after I got stinking drunk and passed out on her sofa.”

  “See there,” he said with a wicked grin. “Doesn’t being honest make you feel better?” He walked to the counter, positioned himself between my dangling legs, and began taking liberties—which was exactly what I wanted him to do.

  I had planned to cook supper, but after we got sidetracked for a while, we just called and had pizza delivered. Unlikely as it may sound, pizza is actually a romantic meal for us. We had it on our wedding night. A pizza parlor that delivered was the only place we could find open after we stopped for the night outside Hattiesburg on our way to New Orleans.

  Larry Joe was already gone by the time I woke up on Wednesday. He and his dad were meeting with Ralph first thing this morning to address the sudden staff shortage and to make sure freight would get out on time.

  I was ravenous and decided cereal just wouldn’t cut it. So I dressed and drove to Town Square Diner for a ham-and-eggs-and-biscuits breakfast. Just as I finished giving the waitress my order, Sheriff Dave slid into the booth across from me and said, “I’ll have the same.”

  “So you’re having a bit of a late breakfast this morning, too,” I said. The clock on the wall indicated it was 8:45 a.m.

  “I don’t know if this is breakfast or lunch. I’ve been at it since before five this morning,” he said, taking off his hat and raking his fingers through a crop of dark, wavy hair.

  “If you’re going to ask me to go through the whole discovering-the-bodies story again, you’ll have to wait until I’ve had something to eat. I just don’t have the energy for it.”

  “We can skip that for now. I’m more interested in the fact that you seem to be trailing along behind me, talking to witnesses, and yakking to just about everybody else in town on the phone.”

  “I haven’t followed you anywhere, Sheriff Davidson,” I said, feeling pretty put out by his insinuation, especially after the grilling he had put me through on Monday at the Erdmans’. “I went by to see Mrs. Farrell to give her Darrell’s and Duane’s last paychecks, which I picked up from Ralph Harvey. And I haven’t called anyone in the past two days, except Larry Joe. My phone’s been ringing off the hook.”

  “That so?” Dave said, his scowl softening into a smile around the edges.

  “Yeah, that’s so. A double murder is pretty big excitement for a small town. I can’t believe you’re surprised it’s got everybody talking.”

  “I just wish all the gabbing I’ve listened to added up to one solid lead on this case,” Dave said, rubbing his eyes. He looked as wrung out as a dishrag. As sheriff of Delbert County, he was responsible for all the unincorporated areas of the county, along with contract coverage of the municipalities that were too small to have their own police department. Since there are only three towns in the county, and Hartville is the only one with its own police force, Dave and his small band of deputies have a lot of ground to cover.

  The waitress brought our orders, and we both nearly cleaned our plates before another word was spoken.

  I brushed a napkin across my lips. “Dave, the only thing I’ve heard about the Farrell boys that might have something to do with their deaths is that they apparently liked to smoke marijuana. Maybe they got on the wrong
side of their dealer.”

  “Naw, I’m afraid that’s a dead end. The Farrells bought their weed from a kid at the high school who I’ve had a ‘Come to Jesus’ talk with on more than one occasion. And I’m pretty sure his grandma is growing the stuff he sells,” he sighed and shook his head. “They’re a family of morons, but they’re not dangerous.”

  Dave grabbed the check the waitress had left on the table. “I’ll take care of this,” he said, scooting out of the booth. “You can feel obligated to pass on to me any tidbits of information you pick up that might be pertinent.”

  I left a couple of dollars on the table, not knowing how much of a tip Dave had included with the bill. I spoke to my mom’s next-door neighbor, Bubba Rowland, who was sitting at the counter, then walked across the street and past the courthouse to my office on the other side of the square.

  Dixie has a town square like the ones that were once pretty typical in small towns, with a courthouse in the middle, surrounded by businesses and one-way streets on three sides. Our square has fared better than many since the sprawl of suburbia and the advent of big-box stores. We have only one vacant building at the moment. Of course, the theater next door to Sweet Deal Realty used to be a grand movie palace once upon a time. These days its grandeur is a little shabby around the edges, and it’s used by the town’s community theater group and for local dance recitals and gospel singings. But at least it hasn’t been torn down.

  What was formerly a good-sized furniture center on the other side of the square is now a storefront church, and the fancy hat shop I remember from my childhood is now a thrift shop. But we still have a diner and a bakery and a drugstore and a beauty salon and other businesses that keep our little downtown area teeming with people during the day, until they roll up the sidewalks at about 6:00 p.m.

  I went upstairs and sat down at my desk in the 1950s-era building, with its green-tiled floor and paneled walls, which are painted white. After going over my notes for the Erdmans’ party, I phoned the band and the caterer to confirm the date and time and to go over details.