Murder Gets a Life

by Anne George

  I barreled into the hardware store expecting to see Sunshine. Instead, all I saw was a middle-aged woman sitting on a stool at a cash register reading the same People I had just thrown down.

  “A girl in a pink sundress just came in here.” I was out of breath from my run. “Did you see which way she went?”

  The woman shrugged. “Didn’t notice.” She continued her reading.

  No help there. I scouted across the front of the store, looking down each aisle. No Sunshine. In fact, I didn’t see another woman. Several men were browsing through tools and strange-looking pipes and fittings. One man was counting nails into a small paper sack. “Excuse me,” I said. “Have you seen a girl in a pink dress go by here?”

  He frowned at me. “Sixty-seven, sixty-eight.”

  Well, okay. I hurried down the aisle toward the back of the store and realized to my dismay that there was a rear exit that led to a parking lot. There was also another checkout counter at the back entrance where a clerk and a customer were talking.

  “Y’all seen a girl in a pink dress?” I asked.

  The clerk pointed toward the back door with the fishing rod they were discussing.

  Damn. I ran outside just in time to see a pickup backing out of a parking space. The driver had blonde hair.

  “Wait,” I screeched. But the truck took off, easing into the traffic of Twentieth Street.

  “Where is she?” Mary Alice came rushing out of the hardware store.

  “She left in a pickup before I could catch her.”

  “You sure it was Sunshine?”

  I nodded. “She even had on that pink sundress.”

  “And you’re positive it was Sunshine?”

  “Damn it, Sister. It was Sunshine.” The asphalt of the parking lot was sticky it was so hot. My run hadn’t helped matters either. “Let’s get somewhere where it’s cool.”

  “I never did get to try my dress on,” Sister said.

  “Tough,” I grumbled. We walked back through the hardware store.

  “Assuming,” Sister said as we reached the sidewalk, “that it was Sunshine—”

  “Assume it, damn it.”

  “Which way was she coming from?”

  I pointed toward my left.

  “Then she was at”—Sister shaded her eyes—“a florist, an antique shop, a clothes consignment shop, or a drugstore.”

  “And she wasn’t gone long because somebody was waiting for her, and it’s too hot to wait long.”

  “Then while I’m trying on my dresses, why don’t you check in those stores and see if you can find out what she was doing?”

  I was about to say, “Do it yourself” when Sister added, “If you’re sure it was Sunshine.”

  “I’ve got to get a drink of water first,” I said.

  “Lord have mercy, Mrs. Hollowell. You’re red as a beet around that green knot on your head.”

  “Thank you, Katrinka.” I took the glass of icewater she was offering and gulped it down.

  “You shouldn’t drink it that fast when you’re hot. My granddaddy did that and dropped dead.”

  I took a piece of ice from the glass and held it against my forehead. “I’ll remember that.”

  “He came in from plowing and drank three glasses of icewater and fell over.” Katrinka listed to the side. “Just like that.” She listed some more; her voice lowered. “Dead. About your age, too.”

  “Katrinka. Come here, girl,” Bonnie Blue called, fortunately. “Bring me that green silk jacket. Twenty-four.”

  “Yes ma’am.” Katrinka gave me an appraising look, decided I wasn’t going to pull her grandfather’s stunt, at least not this moment, and went to get the jacket. Holding the ice against my forehead, I walked outside and looked at the shops across the street. Might as well start with the drugstore on the corner.

  This time I crossed at the light and, remembering Katrinka’s description of my face and her grandfather’s demise, walked slowly.

  “Nope,” said the cashier in the drugstore. “I’d have remembered somebody who looked like Barbie in a pink dress. Ask the pharmacist. Maybe she picked up a prescription.”

  “No ma’am. I’ve got some ice packs you put in the freezer, though. Fit right over your ears kind of like glasses. They’d do wonders for that bruise. How’d you do it, anyway?”

  I walked into the consignment shop carrying the ice pack.

  “Barbie?” The woman’s hair was so black you could hardly see it. It made her face look startlingly white. “You must be kidding. We tend to run low on Barbie sizes.”

  I thanked her and left. It had been cool in the consignment shop, but there had been a faint odor of cigarette smoke that made you realize that the sign ALL OUR CLOTHES HAVE BEEN CLEANED wasn’t true. Unless the woman was a nicotine fiend.

  The antique shop smelled of lemon furniture polish. I could have spent the day in here happily. A very handsome young man came forward to help me, asked if I would like to sit down, or if I would like something to drink. Some coffee? A Coke?

  A Coke would be lovely. We sat in two chairs that were marked $2,500 and which I thought was $25 until I finished my Coke without spilling it, thank God.

  “Priceless.” The nice young man rubbed his hands over the carved back of the chair as we got up. But they weren’t, of course. They were $2,500. Lord!

  And no, he hadn’t seen Sunshine.

  That left the florist. I thanked the man and told him I would recommend him to my sister. Actually, I wasn’t sure even Mary Alice would pay those prices.

  I was glad I had saved the florist for last. Cool, white, fragrant, it was a wonderful place to enter from a hot August sidewalk.

  No one was in the showroom. The sound of voices led me to a work area, though, at the back of the store where three women were working on flowers for a wedding. Independent Presbyterian, they explained, a big wedding. One of the women held up a small bouquet. “Fussy Mussies for the bridesmaids.”

  I caught my breath. For a few minutes I had repressed the thought that I was going to a wedding in the morning. Now it came back painfully. I should be doing something about flowers and all sorts of details. After all, I was the bride’s mother.

  “Would you like a Coke?” one of the women asked.

  “Some aspirin?”

  “Would you like to sit down a minute?”

  Lord, I must look awful.

  And no, they hadn’t seen a girl in a pink sundress.

  A bell over the door rang and Mary Alice walked in carrying a plastic hanger bag from the Big, Bold, and Beautiful Shoppe.

  “Have mercy,” she said, looking around. “We forgot about flowers for the wedding, didn’t we?”

  “What wedding?” the ladies wanted to know.

  “My daughter’s,” I said firmly. “Tomorrow morning at Trinity Methodist Chapel.”

  Three astonished faces confronted me. “And you don’t have any flowers?”

  “It was rather sudden,” I explained.

  The women looked at each other. Two of them shook their heads. The third one, probably the owner of the shop, said, “We could probably rustle you up some white glads and a couple of ferns.”

  “We’ll need a wedding bouquet, too,” Mary Alice said.

  “Don’t you think you ought to talk to the bride?” one of the ladies suggested.

  I shrugged. “She’s forgotten, too.”

  “We could probably rustle her up a Fussy Mussy in white,” the shop owner said. “I think we’ve got enough white roses. We might have to stick something else in.”

  So we rustled Haley up some flowers. It didn’t make me feel a bit better. A wedding should be planned and looked forward to, not rustled up.

  “What have you got in your sack?” Mary Alice asked as we left the florist.

  I showed her the ice pack. “And nobody had seen Sunshine in any of the shops.”

  Sister shrugged.

  “But I saw her.”

  “I believe you. You still want to go to Merle
Norman’s?”

  “I need all the help I can get.”

  We were quiet all the way to the nearest mall.

  Thirteen

  I could hear the phone ringing as I unlocked the kitchen door. I picked it up as the answering machine started its “We are unable to come to the phone” bit. I’m never quite sure how to handle this, usually ending up shouting “Hello” over the message so the caller won’t hang up.

  “Mama? I was just about to hang up.”

  Haley sounded tired. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “That’s what I called to ask you. How’s your head?”

  “Feels better and looks better. I’m just coming in from getting my makeup.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you at work?”

  “Just left. It made me sad.”

  “I’ll bet. Your Aunt Sister and I bought flowers for tomorrow, one arrangement for the chapel and a bouquet for you. Just a small one. White. You haven’t already gotten some, have you? Because we can cancel ours if you have.”

  “Thanks. I forgot about flowers.” Haley really sounded down.

  “We were in a flower shop and remembered. Sure you’re okay?”

  “Tired. Can I bring Muffin over after while? The packing and confusion are making her nervous.”

  “Sure.” We talked for a few more minutes, mostly about the cat’s likes and dislikes. Muffin had never struck me as being a strange cat, but after listening to Haley I wasn’t sure. I had hung up before I realized I hadn’t told Haley about Sunshine.

  Mary Alice had wanted to stop somewhere and have lunch, but I had declined. What I wanted, needed, was something light. Something to fortify me.

  I peeled what was probably the last Alabama peach of the season and sliced it into the blender. A cup of peach yogurt and a few ice cubes (Henry adds whipping cream), a few seconds on blend, and I had a wonderful fruit shake. I poured it into a large glass, went into the den, and turned on Jeopardy!. It was over and I was greeted with Men Who Sleep with Their Stepdaughters Or Some Other Family Member They Shouldn’t Be Messing With. I changed quickly to an episode of M*A*S*H that I knew by heart, the one where Colonel Potter arrives. The Korean War was more soothing than the Men Who Sleep with Their Stepdaughters, Etc. Fred says the people on those shows are paid and make it all up. I haven’t figured out if this makes me feel better or worse.

  The doorbell’s ring made me jump so hard, I realized I must have been on the verge of dozing. I glanced at my watch and went to the door expecting the postlady. She’s a cute brunette who wears shorts that I’m sure aren’t regulation length. But when I opened the door, there stood Meemaw Turkett. The Chevy Bel Air’s fins flared defiantly in my driveway.

  “Well?” she asked. Not even a hello.

  “Well what?”

  “Don’t you have something to tell me?”

  I had no idea what the woman was talking about, but I tried to be helpful. “I saw Sunshine this morning. She was across the street from me, but she looked fine.”

  “That’s all? You saw her across the street?”

  I opened the door farther. “Why don’t you come in where it’s cool?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” Meemaw stepped inside. “I could use a glass of water.”

  “Sure. Come on back to the den.” I started down the hall with Meemaw behind me.

  “You look like you got hit by a Mack truck,” she said. “What happened to your head?”

  “I had a fall last night.” No use going into the details. “Have a seat. Would you rather have some tea?”

  Meemaw sank onto the sofa. “Water’s fine.”

  “Say Sunshine looked okay?” she called while I was getting the ice from the refrigerator.

  “Sure. She had on her pink sundress.”

  “She looks pretty in that.”

  I came back into the den. “She looks pretty in everything.”

  Meemaw took the water and drank about half of it. “She does,” she agreed. I had noticed when I opened the door that Meemaw wasn’t wearing her usual housedress. Instead she had on cream-colored polyester knit pants, too long to be shorts, just below her knees, and not full enough to be culottes. Now she said, “Lord, it’s hot today,” and unstuck the polyester knit from her ample thigh. Then she ran her fingers under the elastic waistband. “I’d like to just dump this ice right down me. I’m sweating like a whore in church.”

  To hide my grin, I glanced at the outside thermometer. “It’s sitting right on a hundred.”

  “Maybe it’ll rain after while.” Meemaw drank the rest of the water.

  “Did you see Ray this morning?” I asked.

  Meemaw looked puzzled.

  “Ray Crane. Sunshine’s husband. He was going out to Locust Fork.”

  Meemaw shook her head no. “Kerrigan’s there, though. And Pawpaw and Howard. I told them I had to come in to see you.”

  The light dawned. “Let me guess. Gabriel sent you?”

  “Said you had something to tell me. Very specific about it. More specific than usual. In fact, lot of the time he’s downright vague.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Meemaw looked up sharply.

  I felt a twinge of guilt. “I mean he’s got to be vague, considering the territory he’s covering.”

  The Cabbage Patch eyes nailed me. “What do you know about Gabriel’s territory, missy?”

  “Not much,” I said sheepishly. “Would you like some more water?”

  Meemaw held out her glass. I escaped to the kitchen.

  “I just want to know what it is you’ve got to tell me,” she said as I handed her the refilled glass.

  I could at least be truthful this time. “I don’t know anything except I saw Sunshine this morning. Don’t you expect that’s the message?”

  “No. There’s more.”

  “She got in a pickup and drove off.”

  “What kind of pickup?”

  “An old red one.” I hate to admit I can’t tell one vehicle from another. “She’d been to a drugstore, a consignment shop, an antique dealer’s, or a florist. I asked in all of them, though, and none of them had seen her.”

  Meemaw looked interested. “A clothes consignment shop?”

  “Yes. The lady who runs it looks like she dyes her hair with tar. Does that ring a bell?”

  “Nope. I just like consignment shops. I got these pants at one in Oneonta.”

  “This one’s called Play It Again.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  Okay. A deep silence settled between us. I thought I heard the last of the peach shake hit my stomach.

  “I could go to sleep here,” Meemaw said finally. “I haven’t been sleeping worth a damn since all the commotion.”

  “I didn’t get much sleep last night myself.” I touched the knot on my head which felt huge. I’d forgotten about the ice pack I’d bought at the drugstore. I’d put it on as soon as Meemaw left.

  Silence stretched out again. This time I broke it. “I guess you heard they found out the dead Indian’s name. Dudley Cross from Bradford.”

  “The sheriff told us. I don’t know the man from Adam’s house cat.” Meemaw put her empty glass on the coffee table. “I think if I’d known him, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

  “I think I’d rather find the body of somebody I don’t know.”

  “Not stuck to your own linoleum with your own hog-butchering knife.”

  “Especially stuck to my linoleum.”

  “Well—” Meemaw fanned herself with the damp paper napkin that had been around the water.

  I got up and turned on the ceiling fan. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, sure. I’m just heated up. I’m easy to heat up.”

  But she didn’t look okay. She looked like an old lady packing too much weight and stress on the hottest day of the year. If the enlarged varicose veins coursing up to the polyester shorts were any indication, I’d best keep my finger on the 911 button.

  “Let me get you a co
ld washrag,” I offered. “You could hold it against your forehead.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll just suck on some ice.” She fingered a cube from her water glass.

  “Don’t chew it,” I said out of habit.

  Meemaw and I smiled at each other at this mothers’ refrain which, so to speak, broke the ice between us at this point.

  “Do you have any inkling why Gabriel sent you to me?”

  Meemaw sucked the ice thoughtfully. “Said you had something to tell me.”

  “Well, how about I just say things. Like my daughter Haley’s getting married tomorrow.”

  “That’s not it.”

  “I know.” I gave her my schoolteacher look. “Just listen and you might catch the message.”

  Meemaw was quiet so I continued. “She’s marrying an ear, nose, and throat doctor named Philip Nachman who’s the nephew of my sister Mary Alice’s second husband. His name was Philip Nachman, too, which confuses people sometimes, but Mary Alice calls him Nephew so we can usually keep it straight. The nephew, not the uncle-husband who was the father of Debbie, Henry’s wife who’s pregnant. You met Henry the other night. He cooked the supper.

  “They’re going to go live in Warsaw, Poland, for several months, Haley and Nephew are, and it’s the most jumped-up wedding I’ve ever been involved in. They didn’t even have any flowers. We bought an arrangement of glads and one of those little bouquets that you hold in your hand. They call them Fussy Mussies. Did you know that?”

  Meemaw shook her head no.

  “We were at the Big, Bold, and Beautiful Shoppe this morning buying Mary Alice a dress for the wedding when I saw Sunshine, and I went running out and nearly got myself killed on Twentieth Street, but she went out the back door of a hardware store. Then we went to Merle Norman’s and bought me some makeup for this horn on my head. It helped, but I’m still going to look horrible at the wedding. My grandchildren are going to look at the pictures and say, ‘What’s wrong with Grandmama?’ and everybody’s going to laugh and say, ‘She fell over a turkey.’ Even my unborn grandchildren will know.” I paused. “Dear Lord, I’ll bet they don’t have anybody to take pictures either. I’d better check into it.”