Murder Gets a Life

by Anne George

  “Right here.”

  “Well, let her in.”

  “How do we know it’s safe?”

  “Sunshine? You think Sunshine might be dangerous?” I looked through the peephole. Bedraggled, still dressed in the same pink dress, Sunshine still managed to look beautiful. And innocent. “Don’t be ridiculous. She was almost in the Miss Alabama finals.” I opened the door.

  “Oh, Mrs. Hollowell, Mr. Hollowell.” She began to cry. “I’m so sorry to bother you in the middle of the night, but I’ve got to find out about Meemaw. I just heard she had a stroke and is in intensive care.”

  “You heard it at three o’clock in the morning?” Fred asked.

  “I know it sounds crazy, and I shouldn’t be here. I apologize. But I couldn’t go to Mother Crane’s. Ray’s there. And I didn’t even know which hospital to call.”

  I gave Fred a hard look. “Come on in, Sunshine. Your grandmother is in intensive care at University, but it’s a heatstroke, not a stroke stroke. They think she’s going to be okay.”

  Sunshine leaned her head against the doorjamb and cried harder.

  “Come on in, honey,” I repeated. “I’ll get us some coffee.”

  “It’s just all so terrible.” Sunshine stepped inside, mopping at her face with her palms.

  “I’ll get you a Kleenex,” Fred offered. As we got to the den, he came in with a whole box. “Here.”

  Sunshine took a couple, sank down on the sofa, and held them to her face. “I really should go. You’re sure Meemaw’s going to be all right?”

  “She’s pretty sick or she wouldn’t be in intensive care, but she’s not paralyzed or anything like that. It’s a matter of getting her stabilized.”

  “Making sure she doesn’t have brain damage,” Fred added. I gave him another dirty look for that happy information.

  “It’s true,” he insisted. “The body’s cooling system shuts down, you quit sweating, and your temperature goes sky-high.”

  “Well, when she was here, she said she was sweating like a whore in church, so she couldn’t have been shut down long.”

  Sunshine looked up with a slight smile. “That sounds like Meemaw.”

  “She’s going to be fine,” I said. “Now how about I fix you some coffee?”

  Sunshine sank into the sofa. “That would be wonderful.”

  “I’m going back to bed,” Fred said and left.

  I got the coffee going and came back into the den. I thought Sunshine was asleep, but she opened her eyes as I sat down.

  “Mrs. Hollowell, is Ray all right?”

  “Fine. Missing you.”

  “I’m sorry to do him this way.”

  “Then why don’t you call him?”

  “I can’t. I really can’t.”

  We were silent for a few minutes. Muffin came in to see what was going on and hopped up on the sofa beside Sunshine. Sunshine rubbed the cat with one hand and mopped tears with the other.

  “You’re staying with Dwayne, aren’t you?” It was a guess, but a good one.

  “I’m staying with a friend of his. He came and got me, though. At the trailer.” Her voice lowered. “I called him.”

  “And he nearly ran us down as we were coming into the highway in Sister’s Jaguar.”

  “Yes, ma’am. It scared him real bad.”

  “Us, too.” Again there was a pause. The smell of coffee began to waft into the room. “Want to tell me why you ran?”

  “I was so scared. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” Sunshine shivered; obviously she was telling the truth.

  “But what happened?”

  She shivered harder. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  “Down the hall. First door on the left. I’ll get our coffee.”

  By the time she got back, I had fixed a tray with coffee and the rest of the Girl Scout cookies. Sunshine looked like she needed some sugar; I knew I did.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Hollowell.” She put sugar in her coffee, stirred it, and turned to me. It must have been the first time she had really looked at me because she said, “My Lord, what happened to you?”

  “I fell over a turkey somebody left on my sister’s front porch.” I emphasized “somebody.”

  But it apparently struck no guilt chord. “How could you fall over a turkey?” Sunshine asked, her eyes wide.

  “Easy. It was a dead feathered one, split down the middle and right in the front door.” I picked up my coffee, keeping an eye on Sunshine. Old schoolteachers can spot in a minute when somebody’s lying. “We figured it was a warning of some kind.”

  “Of what?” She looked sufficiently bewildered. Maybe she hadn’t known about the turkey.

  “We don’t know,” I admitted. “You got any ideas?”

  She shook her head slightly. “Doesn’t make sense. Are you okay?”

  “Just bunged up.” I sipped my coffee; Sunshine sipped hers. I ate a cookie; Sunshine ate one. The deep silence of 3 A.M. begged not to be disturbed, but there were questions that needed answering. I put my cup down. “You were going to tell me why you ran.”

  Sunshine put her cup down, too. “I was so scared. The man who killed the other man saw me. I was asleep and I heard all this commotion and opened the bedroom door and there he was. The man was on the floor with the knife in him”—Sunshine shuddered—“and this guy was looking right at me. I figured I was dead. I could hear him at the door when I crawled out of the window and ran toward the woods.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Close as I am to you.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No idea who he is. I don’t think he followed me, though. I hid and called Dwayne.”

  “You grabbed your cell phone on the way out of the window?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And this one dress.” Sunshine plucked at the material as if she were sick of it.

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I was too scared. I just knew I had to get out of there and quick. I’m going to Sheriff Reuse tomorrow—today, I mean. I’d already decided that when Dwayne came in and said Meemaw was sick. He works at a bar on Southside part-time and doesn’t get off work until two.”

  “What was the man like, or do you mind answering these questions?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. I don’t mind.” Sunshine picked up her mug and held it with both hands as if trying to warm them. “He was in his fifties, partly bald. Had a big stomach, but he wasn’t really fat. You know how men do sometimes. Get a beer belly.” She bit her lower lip, thinking. “Probably almost six feet tall, and he had great big hands with the veins sticking out on them like he’d been working real hard.”

  “He had,” I said. “He’d been sticking a hog-butchering knife through a man.”

  Coffee sloshed from Sunshine’s cup onto her pink dress. She grabbed a Kleenex from the box Fred had left. “I’m still scared to death,” she said.

  That part I believed. The mystery-man story was so full of holes you could use it for a colander.

  “Anyway,” she said, mopping at her skirt, “I probably shouldn’t have, but I ran.”

  “Sometimes it’s the wisest thing to do.” I got up and took her cup. “Here, let me get you some fresh coffee.”

  “I really need to go.”

  “Well, I was going to tell you some more about Meemaw.”

  “What about her?” She held out the cup. I went into the kitchen to refill it. “I was at the hospital this afternoon,” I called. I came back into the den. Sunshine was stroking Muffin and crying again. “Your Aunt Nora was with her. Your mother and Uncle Howard were in the waiting room. And my sister. But your Aunt Nora was with Meemaw.”

  Sunshine nodded. “That’s good. Aunt Nora’s the best one of the whole bunch. I’m glad she was with her.”

  “But she and your Uncle Eddie are separated?” I was trying to be subtle and find out more about the family relationships. Sunshine was obliging.

  “He works all the time. All the time. They’ve got that gorgeous house an
d if I hadn’t been there with her most of the time since the boys left for college, Aunt Nora would have been rattling around up there by herself. The man’s crazy. All he thinks about is money.”

  I took another cookie and sat down. “What about your Uncle Howard?”

  “You mean does he have a wife? He’s had six. Pawpaw says you’ve got to give Howard credit, he believes in the institution of marriage.” Sunshine reached for a cookie. “Now Mama, on the other hand—” She didn’t finish the thought, just sat back and nibbled on the cookie.

  “But Meemaw raised you, didn’t she?”

  “Meemaw and Pawpaw.” Her expression softened. “I guess my first memory is Pawpaw taking me fishing on the Tennessee River when we lived in Muscle Shoals.”

  “That’s a nice memory,” I said. “I remember my grandfather taking me fishing, too. He only took Mary Alice once, though. He told my grandmother that Mary Alice needed the gulf to fish in.”

  Sunshine smiled. “She’s an interesting lady, isn’t she?”

  “As long as she has the whole gulf to fish in.” I stretched. My body was beginning to say 4 A.M.

  “I need to go,” Sunshine said. “I shouldn’t have come here in the middle of the night, but I panicked when Dwayne came in telling me about Meemaw.”

  “It’s going to be awfully hard for you to leave her to go to Bora Bora, isn’t it?”

  “It’s going to break my heart.” The words were simple and heartfelt.

  “Listen,” I said. “Why don’t you just lie down here on the sofa and sleep for a few hours. Call Dwayne if you think he might be worried. Incidentally, does Dwayne have a redheaded girlfriend?”

  Sunshine looked startled. “An ex-girlfriend named Leeann Skinner. Real redheaded. Why? How did you know?”

  “I think she was in the crowd looking for you. Made a couple of remarks.”

  Sunshine managed a smile. “That would have been Leeann, all right. I’m glad she didn’t find me. She thinks I beat her out for Miss Locust Fork, too.”

  “I think it’s just as well, too.” I smiled, too, thinking of the menace I had attributed to the “crawled from under a rock” whisper. “Why don’t you curl up and let me spread the afghan over you. You look worn out.”

  “I am. You sure it’s all right?”

  “I’ll get you a pillow. Or you can use the guest bedroom.”

  “Here’s fine. Can the cat stay with me?”

  “If she wants to. She decides.”

  By the time I got back, Sunshine was almost asleep.

  “One more thing,” I said. “This morning I saw you on Twentieth Street. I tried to catch you, but you went out the back door of the hardware store.”

  “Wasn’t me,” Sunshine said. She took the pillow. “Thank you.”

  “Have a good nap.” I covered her and she sighed.

  Sixteen

  Sunshine was gone when we got up the next morning which didn’t surprise me. I wondered if she would go to the sheriff with the tale of the man who had killed Dudley Cross. I hoped if she did, that she would tell him about the man trying to come in the door of the bedroom as she went out the window. Not only did the “door” of the bedroom consist of blue-and-white-striped fabric, the windows were small and high. Sunshine, while not large, would have had a hell of a time getting out of one of those windows with a murderer chasing her.

  But why had she lied about it?

  I put on a fresh pot of coffee, poured myself a glass of cranberry juice, and went out to see about Woofer. He was so far back in his igloo that I had to kneel down to reach in and wake him up.

  “Listen,” I said when he ambled out, “Haley’s getting married today. I think you ought to get a bath and put on your diamond collar.”

  He wagged his tail in agreement.

  Woofer’s diamond collar is a family joke. A distant cousin of mine died without a will and with no direct heirs. So one day, out of the blue, a check arrived for me, my part of his estate, for $257. This is mine, I thought, a gift to buy anything I want. A new dress, shoes, books.

  I spent a whole day trying to spend that money. Every time I’d see something I wanted, I’d think that if I spent the money then, I’d see something I wanted more later. What I finally bought was the rhinestone collar for Woofer. That was all. $20. Mary Alice bought a beautiful birdbath with her $257, St. Francis of Assisi blessing the birds with an outstretched hand that Sister swears stays full of bird crap. But it still looks good in the flower bed under her dining room window. I wish that was what I had bought. I don’t know what happened to my money except for Woofer’s diamond necklace.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” I said. “Let me go get some hot water.” We bathe Woofer in a child’s wading pool, and I like to have the water slightly warm. Well, he is an old dog.

  “What are you doing?” Fred asked. He was pouring himself a cup of coffee.

  “Fixing to put on my Woofer-washing shorts. He’s dressing up because it’s Haley’s wedding day.”

  Fred squinted at the outside thermometer. “Another hot one, too.”

  “You got that right.” I finished my cranberry juice which was still on the counter.

  “What time did Sunshine leave?”

  “Don’t know. She slept for a while on the sofa but was gone when I got up. Told me a cock-and-bull story about the murderer trying to break down the bedroom door of the trailer and her having to climb out of the window.”

  “Sounds smart to me. I’d run like hell, too.”

  I put my glass into the dishwasher. “No door.”

  Fred looked up from pouring milk into his coffee. “No door?”

  “Meemaw’s trailer is one of those old ones that just has curtains between the bedroom and the other areas. And those windows are so little, Sunshine couldn’t even get her boobs through them.” I poured myself a cup of coffee. “You ask me, that girl’s got more than a passing acquaintance with a plastic surgeon.”

  “Probably the same one her mother’s acquainted with.”

  “Touché.” I grinned at Fred. Sometimes the old fellow still surprises me.

  “You want me to help you with the dog?” he asked, looking pleased with himself.

  “No. Just read the paper. If Mary Alice calls, tell her Sunshine was here last night and I’ll call her when I finish bathing Woofer.”

  “You don’t think Sunshine went over to Mary Alice’s house?”

  “No. She’s with that Dwayne Parker boy. She said she was staying with a friend of his, but I don’t buy that. She also said she wasn’t on Twentieth Street yesterday, and she’s lying about that.”

  “Why, the shameless hussy.” Fred sat down at the kitchen table with the paper. I stuck my tongue out at him and went to get on my old shorts.

  There’s something so very nice about bathing a dog—the feel of warm water running over your hand and his fur, the way he looks at you as if to say, Are you sure this is necessary?

  I squirted Palmolive on Woofer and lathered him. He sat in the wading pool, compliant, sweet, looking half the size he does when he’s not wet.

  “We had a visitor at three o’clock this morning,” I told him. “You didn’t bark. Are you all right?”

  Woofer held up his chin so I could wash his neck. Three o’clock in the morning? Decent dogs are asleep in their beds then.

  “True. And you are a decent, good dog.” I finished lathering him and rinsed him with one of the pitchers of warm water.

  “The water in the hose will be warm,” Fred said. He had come out on the deck and was watching us. “I’ll get it.”

  “That cat was on the kitchen table again,” he said as we finished rinsing Woofer. He picked him up and handed him to me to towel dry. “Is there anything we can do about it? I was reading the damn paper and he jumped up there big as life.”

  “Not a thing.” I rubbed Woofer’s head, the gray hair between his ears. “And the cat’s a she.”

  “Well, she needs to learn to behave.” Fred dumped over the
wading pool, let the water splash out. The August grass would appreciate it, even with the Palmolive. “Mary Alice called.”

  “Did you tell her about Sunshine?” I gave Woofer a kiss on his nose and let him go to shake little rainbows into the air and to wallow in any dirt he could find.

  “Didn’t have a chance. She was wound up about Haley going to the cemetery this morning.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I told her you’d call her.”

  “And you didn’t ask her what she was talking about?”

  “Honey, you know I don’t get much sense out of your sister.”

  “Lord, Fred, she’s not that bad.” I dried my hands down the side of my shorts and headed for the phone. Haley going to the cemetery?

  “God’s truth,” Sister said when I got her. “She and Nephew are going out to Tom’s grave before they come to the church. They’re taking flowers, and they’re going to have a conversation with him.” Sister paused. “A real one-sided one if you ask me.”

  “A conversation?”

  “I don’t know, Mouse. That’s just what Nephew said. I guess he’s going to tell Tom he’ll take good care of Haley or something like that. You really need to call her, and tell her not to do it.”

  “But I think it’s sort of sweet. Letting Tom know he’s not left out.”

  “Listen, Mouse. Tom is left out. The minute that eighteen-wheeler hit him, he was left out.”

  “No, he wasn’t. He’ll never be left out of Haley’s heart. Or ours either.”

  “Well, be that as it may, I’m telling you you ought to call and tell her not to go.”

  “Why? Just because you don’t go out and visit your dead husbands doesn’t mean Haley shouldn’t.”

  “I visit them on all of their birthdays, Miss Smarty-pants. Take flowers to every one of them. That’s not the point. What time is the wedding?”

  I was slightly confused. “Eleven.”

  “And how hot is it?”

  “Very hot.”

  “And they’re going to the cemetery before the wedding? They’ll be sweaty and wilted. Haley’s hair will be frizzed to hell and back in the wedding pictures. Incidentally, I hired a photographer. And what’s more, she’ll probably cry and her face will be all red and puffy.” Sister paused for breath. “You really ought to call them, Patricia Anne.”