A Bad Day for Scandal

by Sophie Littlefield

  The boxes of decorations hadn’t come down from the attic since Noelle had grown up and moved away, but folks in Prosper still talked about the Hardesty Easter display. Maybe it was time to stage a return. Stella hid a smile. She was liking the sounds of the upcoming holiday more and more. Waking up with a little one in the house again, experiencing the magic through his eyes—it had been a long time since Easter morning had been anything special. The last few years had been just plain lonely. “Now can I have my doughnut?”

  “Yes’m, I got you them ones with the crunchy shit on top like you like. Only hurry up, ’cause Irene says the sheriff told her he’ll be in by ten. I got her a couple a jelly and a couple a crème-filled ’cause I didn’t know what she liked.”

  On the way to the sheriff’s office, Stella got Chrissy caught up on the latest developments, including the reaction she got when she called Goat. When they pulled into the parking lot of the old Hardee’s restaurant that had been converted into the Prosper Municipal Annex, Stella was relieved to see no sign of Goat’s cruiser. Only Irene’s old boat of a Chevy Caprice station wagon was parked in what used to be the drive-through lane. Much of the parking lot had been given over to a prefab equipment shed, so staff and visitor parking was somewhat limited.

  Behind the glass double doors, Irene was squinting into a purse mirror and plucking her eyebrows. “Oh, goody,” she said when Stella and Chrissy came in. “Chrissy, darlin’, come on over here a sec. I know I got one a them strays down here somewhere, but I cain’t see it with my old eyes.”

  Chrissy winked in Stella’s direction. “Gimmee them tweezers and let me have a look,” she said. “You picked the right girl for the job—my mom’s always havin’ me go hunting.”

  “Oh sugar, what would us old birds do without you young ones,” Irene sighed contentedly as Chrissy located the offending stray chin hair and gave it a firm yank.

  Stella fetched paper plates and napkins from the break room and sliced the doughnuts into quarters and arranged them in an attractive circle on the department’s single chipped serving platter. She poured three cups of lukewarm coffee, and the ladies sat down at the Formica-topped conference table.

  “He’s in a foul mood today,” Irene confided. Stella was always a little nervous around Irene, whose loyalty belonged unquestionably to Goat, but Irene had warmed to Stella and in recent weeks had asked for her help with a little situation of her own.

  Stella gladly complied. The job involved corralling Irene’s favorite great-nephew, who’d left his freshman year at SMSU to go on an extended bender with a few fraternity brothers. Stella found the little band of good-timers drinking off a long weekend in an Arkansas State cheerleader’s parents’ rec room, and explained the costs and benefits of higher education to the entire group. Each and every one of them was now sending her a weekly update on their grades, and Irene was satisfied that her nephew was no longer failing all his classes.

  Now it was time to test the goodwill Stella had built up.

  “So, Irene,” she began as casually as she could, once Irene had polished off several doughnut sections and had a fetching little smear of strawberry jam at the corner of her mouth, “what did Goat and them find out at Porters’?”

  Irene fixed Stella with a stern gaze and tsked. “Is that why you two are over here bribin’ me with sweets? To git me talkin’?”

  “Of course not—it’s just, well, I’m concerned about Priss. You know, coming back to town after all these years—why, it’s just terrible that the welcome she’s getting is in the form of a heapin’ pile of trouble.”

  “How’d you even know the fellas got called out?” Irene demanded skeptically.

  “I was listening to the scanner,” Chrissy said. “I was stayin’ out at my folks’ place over the weekend and I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Oh, your dad surely is one for the scanner. We used to have us a time, your dad and me and Sheriff Knoll and those brothers of yours.” Irene’s expression softened. “Your brothers were a hoot, Chrissy girl, even if they were a bunch of untamed hell-raisers. Well, listen, I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you, since it’ll be all over town soon anyway, once folks see Ian and Mike’s car up there. What happened was, Liman called in a intruder.”

  “Liman?” So much for him being asleep, as Priss had suggested.

  “Yup, he called Emergency, but he was so drunk, he couldn’t hardly get a word out. He kept sayin’ there was people in the house, and they was comin’ for him. He wouldn’t leave his room. He locked himself in there while he was talkin’ to Darja and told her if we didn’t get somebody out quick, he was gonna jump out the window. And you know maybe that’s what he done, ’cause when Goat got out there, wasn’t a soul on the property.”

  “Wait a minute,” Stella said, lowering her uneaten doughnut to the plate. “The house was empty when Goat got there?”

  “Yes’m. Lights all blazing and Priss’s car right out in front and nobody there, not Priss or Liman either.”

  “Then why’d they call out Mike and Ian?” Chrissy asked. “They figure to go lookin’ for ’em in the dark?”

  “Yes, they searched all the way back through the acreage and over to Monroe’s land. They’re back on it now it’s daylight, got some a the boys from over to Quail Valley in to help out.”

  She gave them a conspiratorial gaze, her drawn-on black eyebrows lifting into impressive arches.

  Stella took a deep and steadying breath. She was at a delicate juncture, and she had to proceed with great caution. There were things missing from Irene’s recounting, things that could make the difference between a smattering and a mountain of trouble. Like, for instance, if Priss had disposed of the dead body before disappearing. Or, for that matter, if her little envelope of pictures had turned up in all that searching.

  “What-all do you want to know?” Irene demanded, frowning.

  “Nothing much,” Stella assured her. “Just … what the sheriff found out there and maybe what else he’s looking for. And, uh, how hard they’re looking for whatever they’re looking for.”

  Irene sat back and gazed at Stella thoughtfully. “That’s kind of a lot of questions. Okay, but for that, I’m gonna want you to keep on Ricky all through the spring semester.”

  Stella thought about it for a moment. Being Ricky’s academic guardian wasn’t really taking up all that much time, especially since the boys had started sending their updates on a Twitter feed, which Chrissy had finally explained to her how to use.

  “I suppose I can do that.”

  “And anything dips below a C, you go and visit him.”

  “But—”

  “I will not have the first Dorsey to go to college flunk out on his first try!” Irene exclaimed. “You got to do this.”

  “All right,” Stella sighed. “It’s on my list.”

  “Well, all righty, then.” Irene took a sip of nearly cold coffee and swirled it around in her mouth before swallowing. “What the sheriff found was, there was a mess in that house. Above and beyond the normal-type mess Liman’s let build up over there. There was a lamp busted, a chair was turned over—and there was this big china beer mug or something broke on the floor, but it had blood on it and little hairs they think might be Liman’s, seein’ as it was short and brown, so they’re gonna have the folks up in Fayette take a look at it.”

  “They think someone used it to hit someone else?”

  “Well, you’re the smart one, what do you think?”

  “What about the door?” Stella asked, ignoring Irene’s comment. This was a startling development, indeed, if things were being busted on people’s heads—that kind of violence was generally a sign of reckless desperation. “Did someone break into Liman’s room?”

  “Sheriff didn’t say nothing about that.”

  So the door probably hadn’t been broken down, meaning Liman unlocked it on his own. Or maybe someone—Priss?—had a key. Only doors on the inside of houses rarely had keys anymore, did they?

  Stella exch
anged a glance with Chrissy, who was polishing off the last of the powdered sugar doughnuts and licking frosting off her fingers. Chrissy gave her a faint shrug.

  “Did they search Priss’s car?” Stella asked.

  “Not yet, I don’t think. I believe they’re having it towed up to impound in Fayette. They’ll probably take a look at it there.”

  There was simply no way to ask if they’d taken a gander in the trunk, not without raising Irene’s suspicions even further.

  “Well, I surely do appreciate it,” Stella said, producing a warm smile. She’d have to remember to swing by with a Big Pig sandwich from the Pokey Pot restaurant—Irene’s favorite—in the next few days to ceremonially mark the transfer of favors.

  “Whyever are you so curious about this particular case, anyway?” Irene demanded. “Somebody beatin’ on Priss? Wouldn’t surprise me, that gal been stuck up since she got born onto God’s earth. Why, I’d take her down a few notches myself, if I had the chance—though violence ain’t ever the answer to anything.”

  Stella noted Irene’s pious tone, and wondered if working in such close proximity to the official nerve center of the law made a person cleave more closely to the party line. “Not that I know of.”

  “What about Liman? Is he knocking some gal around? Though I don’t believe that man’s had a date in years,” Irene interrupted herself. “Least not one that don’t take place at the Honey Club.”

  “No, Liman hasn’t done anything I know of,” Stella said. She knew the “club” Irene was referring to—it was a flat-roofed cinder block rectangle where a fellow could buy a young lady a drink for eight times what it ought to cost, as an entrée into an evening of delectable pleasures, or at least a quick hand job in a thin-walled cubicle.

  Not a very romantic setting, but Stella figured she didn’t have any business judging other folks’ pleasure seeking. As long as no one was hurting anyone else, and everyone was doing what they agreed to do for the price they agreed to do it for, and not being forced to do anything that wasn’t in the plan, she guessed she could respect folks’ rights to party as they saw fit.

  “Did they find anything else? Maybe something come through evidence?”

  An image of the offending scarf—one that Stella now realized she’d never much liked anyway, since it tended to pill and the little metallic bits scratched against her neck—came into her mind and complicated her efforts to look innocent.

  Irene narrowed her eyes and considered Stella craftily. She was no slouch; Goat had inherited her from Sheriff Knoll, who’d hired her as a fresh and dewy fifty-something divorcée a couple of decades back. Now she was plowing through her seventies with all her important faculties intact, and every apparent intention of turning back the hands of time with vigorous attention to her beauty regimen, failing sight be damned. As a result, her makeup often looked slightly askew and her jet-black hair sported a solid anchoring of silvery roots, but she hadn’t lost a bit of her hawkish attention to the details of running the sheriff’s office exactly as she pleased.

  Luckily, Goat had enough sense to back off and let the woman mind the shop.

  “Nothing I know of,” Irene said serenely, reaching into the top drawer of the desk. She took out a little plastic tote containing nail files and polish in several shades of hot pink. “But I’ll keep you posted, hear?”

  When Stella and Chrissy took their leave, after rinsing out the mugs and serving dish in the old industrial sink from the building’s fast-food days, Irene was well into giving herself an eye-popping fuchsia manicure. She wiggled her freshly painted nails in a good-bye wave.

  Chapter Eight

  Their second stop was a visit to the old Prosper library, which had been turned into a shop called the Den of Spirits a few years back. The Den of Spirits sold all manner of New Agey crystals and dream catchers and tarot cards and did, as far as Stella could tell, hardly a lick of business. It was a sturdy building constructed of massive blocks of limestone that had been brought in all the way from Cape Girardeau on the Missouri Pacific railroad a century ago. There was a handsome, broad set of stone steps leading up to the imposing entrance—which was now hung with feathery wind spinners and tinkling chimes—and it was up and down these steps that the Green Hat Ladies currently trudged.

  “Well, hi there, Stella! And Chrissy, where’s that little Tucker of yours?” Gracie Lewis practically bounded down the steps at a pace that was impressive for a gal in her late seventies. She was wearing a lime green track suit, and her matching sneakers were topped with hot pink laces. Her three elderly companions followed at a less enthusiastic pace.

  “My mama’s taking care of Tucker today, Mrs. Lewis,” Chrissy said politely. “Are you all having a nice weekend?”

  Shirlette Castro grimaced and clutched her stomach. “Yes, I suppose so, except we played cards last night, and Novella’s onion dip gave me gas,” she said. “That or them beets she puts in the Jell-O salad.”

  Novella Glazer glared at her friend as though she was considering shoving her down the rest of the steps. “I don’t guess anybody made you eat two helpings.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t good,” Shirlette said primly. “Only, I don’t suppose you need to be putting beets in everything when ain’t none of us can digest them anymore.”

  “Gerald likes the beets,” Novella said. “He’d just be devastated if I left them out. I’ve been making that recipe since 1956.”

  The Green Hat Ladies had been meeting for lunch most days for years, over at the Popeyes restaurant. Recently, though, Gracie Lewis’s doctor had warned her that if she didn’t trim down a bit, her chicken-and-biscuit days were over, and she’d convinced the rest of the gals to join her in a pre-lunch walk through town, starting with a few trips up and down the library stairs to get the blood flowing.

  “My heavens, Gracie, you’ve taken to this walking program like a duck to water,” Stella said warmly. It never hurt to butter up the ladies when she needed information. “Soon you’ll be running circles around me.”

  Stella herself got a great deal of exercise, owing to the demands of her profession. Daily workouts on her basement Bowflex combined with runs through town several days a week had helped her shed a fair amount of weight and given her a firm layer of muscle underneath her curves; after her recent hospitalization, she added some tai chi and yoga moves that the physical therapist had introduced. She’d never felt better, physically speaking, and she was glad to see the old gals taking care of themselves, too. Stella had a sneaking suspicion that if women kept themselves in fighting form, they’d be far less likely to let folks mistreat them.

  Gracie beamed. She loved being the center of attention. It was her husband who’d contributed the John Deere caps back when the friends had decided to form their own club, a considerable savings over the purple and red hats they were considering, since the Deere rep gave them away for free when he came to call on Ed Lewis’s feed store.

  “I’ve been thinking I ought to call them Biggest Loser folks,” Gracie confided. “Give Novella and Linda here a little bit of extra motivation, line ’em up on the scale in nothing but their underthings, on national television. Bet they’d take off all that lard then.”

  Novella’s jaw dropped and she raised a finger to point at Gracie. “I don’t know who appointed you May Queen,” she sputtered. “I’m large boned, is all. Always have been. Least I’ve still got a figure.”

  “I know you ladies are anxious to get back to your exercising,” Stella cut in hastily. “Chrissy and I just had a quick question for you.”

  “Oooh, a business visit,” Shirlette said, clapping her hands to her cheeks. “Why, you should of said so, Stella.”

  The rest of the ladies crowded closer. Above them, the wind chimes clanked mournfully in the paltry wind. Thick gray clouds obscured the sun, giving the day a downcast, pessimistic feel. On the streets below, few shoppers hurried by. They were all over in Fairfax, Stella would wager, where they’d built a mall a while back. Her own
shop was closed on Sundays and Tuesdays. Occasionally Stella considered staying open an extra day, but she doubted it would bring in any more customers. Which was unfortunate, given the state of her finances, and now that Priss’s money didn’t look like it would be coming through, she needed to be on the lookout for some other source of income.

  Meanwhile, she had some proactive ass-covering to get to. “I hear there was a little trouble out at the Porters’ place last night.”

  “Oh my yes,” Novella said. “Claire Binham saw all them cruisers over there this morning. She thought maybe Liman’d drunk himself into some sort of tragedy, like what Reverend Spokes done.”

  All the ladies bowed their heads at the mention of the reverend, letting a respectful moment of reflection pass. The reverend, whose cheerful if largely inebriated presence was a staple at all manner of community events, had been trying to park his enormous church-issued sedan at an unaccustomed angle at the far end of the Bethel Baptist parking lot late one summer evening when the Ladies’ Altar Society had called a meeting and taken up all the parking spaces. He’d run the sedan into the culvert directly behind the church and, tragically reckless about seat belt law, managed to get himself thrown out of the car and crushed beneath all those tons of Detroit steel, where he died a slow but, they all hoped, pleasantly inebriated death before he was discovered the following morning.

  “Well, I don’t think Liman got in any wrecks,” Stella allowed. Experience with the Green Hat Ladies had taught her that parceling out a bit of not-commonly-known facts generally stirred up plenty of enthusiasm for helping. Which was often fruitful, given that between them, the Ladies had about three hundred years of residence in Sawyer County, along with it knowledge of the undersides and underbellies of most of the local families.

  Stella had often reflected that if the nation’s top law enforcement agencies would each get themselves a flock of old biddies, they’d be able to crack every stubborn gang stronghold and drug epidemic and crime wave in the country. But it had been her experience that the wisdom of mature ladies was often tragically undervalued.