Murder Gets a Life

by Anne George

  I let myself into the kitchen and found a note from Fred on the counter. He had gone to help Haley and Philip lift weights? That couldn’t be right. Leap heights? After all those years of teaching school, I can read almost anything. But Fred’s handwriting defies translation at times. At any rate, he was helping the newlyweds, which was nice.

  There were two bills, an advertisement, a small manila envelope, and a Time magazine in the mailbox. The manila envelope was from our cousin Luke in Mississippi, Pukey Lukey, Mary Alice’s nemesis. In it were a bumper sticker and a note. Luke, Jr., who was in the House of Representatives, was going to run for the Senate this fall. Would I please put this on my car. Name recognition, etc. Bumper stickers are not high on my list of favorite things, but hey, Luke was family. And who knows. Mary Alice might get to dance at another inaugural ball, this time with Pukey Lukey, Jr.

  I put the bumper sticker on the coffee table, pulled off my shoes, and settled down on the sofa to read the Time. It was a special issue on the frontiers of medicine, and I made it through the first paragraph on how to keep senility at bay when the last twenty-four hours caught up with me, and I was sound asleep. No afternoon doze, but a middle-of-the-night zonk-out.

  The doorbell must have rung several times before I came awake enough to know what it was.

  “Damn,” I grumbled, and turned over. Maybe whoever it was would go away.

  But several rings later, when Muffin jumped up on me demanding that I do something, I got up and staggered to the door. I ached all over, still stiff from the fall over the damn turkey. My head ached from crying at the wedding; my feet ached from wearing heels. I was a mess when I opened the door and saw a smiling Kerrigan and Pawpaw. For a second I didn’t recognize Pawpaw. It was the first time I had ever seen him wearing anything but overalls. In khaki pants and a knit shirt, he was much thinner than I had thought. His old shapeless felt hat was clutched in his hand.

  “Hey, pretty lady,” he said.

  My face was black, blue, and green. My eyes were almost swollen shut, and my hair hadn’t seen a comb since morning. I had to smile. “Hey, Pawpaw. Kerrigan.”

  “You were asleep, weren’t you, Mrs. Hollowell. I’m sorry.” Kerrigan, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, looked anything but sorry. In fact, she was more glowing than ever. I could learn to hate this woman.

  I nodded. “Is Meemaw all right?”

  “She’s fine.” Kerrigan turned and looked at Pawpaw.

  “My granddaughter was here early this morning and left something we need to get,” he said.

  “Sunshine left something?”

  “A package, I suppose,” Kerrigan said.

  I shook my head. Granted, I’m not the best housekeeper in the world and the morning had been hectic, but I would have noticed a strange package.

  “It’s a little one,” Kerrigan assured me.

  “Haven’t seen anything,” I said.

  “Then you wouldn’t mind if we came in and looked.” Kerrigan pushed right by me, followed by Pawpaw. I was so startled by their nerve that by the time I could have said, “Yes, I do mind,” which I probably wouldn’t have, they were halfway down the hall.

  “She said she left it in the den,” Pawpaw said. “She didn’t say exactly where.”

  “You mean she wouldn’t say,” Kerrigan added.

  “True. You should have done a better job, Kerrigan.”

  “There’s nothing in the den,” I said.

  Pawpaw turned to me. “Sunshine said there was.”

  It suddenly dawned on me that he was hearing everything that was being said. “He can hear,” I said to Kerrigan. Smart.

  “He’s got on those big hearing aids. Show her, Papa.”

  He turned obligingly. The hearing aids were made like a Walkman radio, but instead of ending in the little earplugs, these ended in brown plastic disks, the size of pocket calculators, behind and slightly above each ear.

  “They work pretty good,” he said. “I can still wear my hat, too.”

  “They make them smaller all the time,” Kerrigan added.

  “The sound’s still tinny, though.” Pawpaw tapped a fingernail against one of the disks for verification and nodded. “Tinny.”

  By this time we were in the den. “Listen, y’all,” I said. “I haven’t seen any kind of a package here.”

  “It isn’t necessarily a package,” Kerrigan stated, running her hand along the mantel. If she looked at her fingers to see if they were dusty, I was going to belt her one. What the hell were they doing, anyway?

  And then I realized. Sunshine had told them she had left some pearls here. That had to be it. Some pearls that they didn’t know I knew about. Some pearls that I’d better not know about from the intense looks on Kerrigan and Pawpaw’s faces.

  But that didn’t make sense. Why would Sunshine have stashed pearls in my den? In fact, none of it made sense. How on God’s earth had I, Patricia Anne Hollowell, a retired schoolteacher living a quiet life in Birmingham, Alabama, managed to find a body in a trailer at Locust Fork, fall over a turkey and nearly kill myself, and get mixed up with a bunch of folks who were smuggling black pearls in from Bora Bora?

  The answer came in the back door—my sister Mary Alice carrying a large freezer bag. “I tried to catch you but you were already out of the driveway. Here’s the cake. You forgot it and I don’t have room in my freezer.” She saw me standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the den, saw what must have been a strange expression on my face.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, putting the cake on the counter.

  I shrugged. “Kerrigan and Pawpaw are here.”

  “Oh?” She walked to the door. “Well, hey, you two. What are you up to?”

  “Sunshine told them she left a package here last night.” I gave her what I hoped was a sufficiently warning glance. Subtlety is lost on Sister, though.

  “What kind of package?” she asked.

  “A small one,” Kerrigan said.

  “You mean she might have left some of the pearls here?” Sister asked.

  Kerrigan and Pawpaw both paused. I closed my eyes and heard the sound of silence. Simon and Garfunkel had known what they were talking about.

  “Could be, little lady,” Pawpaw said.

  “But why would she do that?” Sister was digging the hole deeper. Didn’t she realize that Kerrigan and Pawpaw were in on the smuggling or they wouldn’t be here looking for the pearls?

  “Shut up,” I muttered to no avail.

  “I mean Patricia Anne’s bound to find them eventually and turn them over to the FBI.”

  I have an iron skillet I use for making corn bread. It was on the stove. I could get it and hit Sister over the head with it. That might shut her up.

  Kerrigan was pulling the sofa cushions off. Good Lord, the junk. Change. A squashed magazine. How long since I’d dust-busted back there? “Here, Papa,” she said, holding up a little drawstring bag. “Here they are.”

  Mary Alice turned and looked at me as the light dawned.

  I nodded. “Deep doo-doo.”

  Pawpaw took the bag, loosened the drawstring, and shook the contents onto the coffee table. About a dozen black pearls rolled out. “Think that’s it?” he asked Kerrigan.

  “It better be.”

  “Well,” Mary Alice said, “how nice. I’m glad you found them. Would you like a Coke or something before you go? Maybe a beer?”

  “Pawpaw can hear you,” I said just as enthusiastically. “Show her your hearing aid, Pawpaw.”

  He turned and showed her the plastic disks. Sister was thrilled, just thrilled.

  “We have wedding cake, too,” I said, starting into the kitchen. “Atomic bomb wedding cake.” How to reach the phone and dial 911 without them hearing?

  Kerrigan never gave me a chance. She was on her knees examining the pearls one by one, but she looked up and said quietly, “Sit down, Mrs. Hollowell. You, too, Mrs. Crane. Papa and I’ll decide about you in a few minutes.”

  “I thin
k I’ll get a Coke,” Mary Alice said.

  But Pawpaw was behind her. “I think you’ll sit down. And your sister, too.” The two of us obeyed immediately.

  Kerrigan raked the pearls back into the sack, stuck them in her purse, and stood up.

  “What do you think, Kerrigan?” Pawpaw asked.

  “Don’t know, Papa. I guess they’ll have to go with us while we decide.”

  “I’m sorry but I have a dinner date tonight,” Mary Alice said.

  Pawpaw grinned. “Well, pretty lady, I guess some man’s just gonna be stood up. We got some planning to do.”

  “I can’t go anywhere,” I said. “My husband will be back any minute.”

  “Then we’d better hurry. I guess you’d better show them some encouragement, Kerrigan.”

  “Let’s go,” Kerrigan said, pulling what looked like the biggest pistol in the world from her purse.

  “Is that a real gun or a play gun?” Mary Alice asked.

  Pawpaw came over and took her gently by the hand. “You know, pretty lady, you hadn’t got biddy brains. Now get up off your fat ass before you find out whether that pistol’s real or not.”

  Sister turned around, looked at me, and actually said, “Now look what you’ve done, Patricia Anne.”

  The old Chevy Bel Air was sitting on the street. We marched toward it in single file, Pawpaw leading and Kerrigan following with her purse. If I broke and ran, would she shoot?

  “Don’t be a fool and try anything,” she cautioned, reading my thoughts.

  “You’re not going to get away with this,” Sister said. “Tell them, Mouse. Tell them the FBI already knows about them.”

  “The FBI already knows about you.”

  Pawpaw and Kerrigan both laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kerrigan said. “It’s Saturday. You couldn’t get hold of an FBI agent if your life depended on it.” She paused. “Which it does.” They seemed to find this amusing and laughed some more.

  Pawpaw opened the back door of the car. “You ladies get in. Kerrigan’ll drive and I’ll ride shotgun.” They found this amusing, too.

  “There’s dog hair back here,” Mary Alice said. “Bunches of it. And I’ve got on a new dress.”

  “Slip me the encouragement, Kerrigan.”

  Kerrigan handed Pawpaw the pistol. I looked toward Mitzi’s house, praying that she might glance out of her window and somehow notice. The whole street seemed deserted, though. The thunderstorm had driven everyone in to TV screens.

  “Just get in,” Pawpaw said.

  We did. Kerrigan got in the driver’s seat and Pawpaw got in the front seat beside her. But he turned, facing us.

  “There aren’t any seat belts,” Sister said, feeling around behind her, scattering dog hair.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you,” Pawpaw said.

  “Well, where are you taking us?” she asked.

  Pawpaw turned slightly toward Kerrigan. “Where are we taking them, Kerrigan?”

  “We’d better decide.”

  “How much time do we need?”

  “Not much. I’m ready. If the fools have really called the FBI, I guess we’d better hurry.”

  “Take your time,” I said. Pawpaw grinned at me. He looked like nothing so much as a friendly, pleasant fellow.

  “Tell you what,” he said to Kerrigan. “Let’s go on out to Locust Fork. Buck can collect Meemaw for us.”

  “So you are all in on it, stealing the pearls,” I said.

  “Mama doesn’t know a thing about any pearls.” Kerrigan turned onto the interstate ramp. “And Sunshine didn’t until that damn fool broke into the trailer.”

  “Damn fool in there after our pearls,” Pawpaw said.

  “And you stabbed him?” I asked.

  “Now, missy, there’s no way I’m going to tell you I did or I didn’t. Somebody sure did, though.”

  “How did he know about the pearls?” Mary Alice asked.

  Kerrigan swung the car skillfully into the traffic. “What are we going to do with them, Papa?”

  “Get rid of them, I reckon. It won’t hurt to go on and tell them.”

  “Well, it’s kind of a long story.” Kerrigan passed an eighteen-wheeler and waved; the driver blew his horn happily. “Pawpaw and Buck worked this thing up years ago. When Pawpaw lost his hearing, he worked for a while for a company in Muscle Shoals that ships the nacre to the South Pacific. That’s what they call the stuff they seed the pearls with, nacre. Buck worked for them, too.”

  “We decided to go into business for ourselves,” Pawpaw added.

  “Buck had made a couple of trips to Bora Bora by that time,” Kerrigan said.

  Mary Alice poked me and whispered, “I told you it was Buck and Kerrigan.”

  I poked her back. Hard. Here we were, kidnapped and being taken God knows where, and all she could think about was being right.

  “We even bought a boat,” Pawpaw said. “We were going to grow the things. But we found out how long it took.”

  “And anyway, there were thousands of them already there just waiting to be harvested. That’s why Buck sold Ray the boat, so he’d have more time.” Kerrigan changed lanes and turned to Pawpaw. “I’m going up Old Highway 31, okay? These old fools just might have somebody looking for them.”

  Old fool was right.

  “Listen, Kerrigan,” I said. “Sheriff Reuse knows about the pearls and he’s called the FBI. Why don’t you let us out? You’re just asking for more trouble.”

  “Because you’re lying. Jed Reuse wouldn’t know a black pearl from a sheep pill. And we’re not going to hurt you, for goodness sakes. We just need some time.”

  “Where are you going?” Sister asked.

  Pawpaw shook his head. “Hadn’t got biddy brains.”

  Sister’s eyes narrowed. “I do so have biddy brains.”

  “Just shut up,” I whispered. And to Kerrigan, “How did you get the pearls back here?”

  “You mean into the United States? I made a couple of trips to Bora Bora, and Buck came home a couple of times. I swear you can just walk in with them in your purse.”

  You probably could if you looked like Kerrigan, I thought.

  “But what about when you got them here? What did you do with them?”

  “Simple. Toddy Monroe handled them for us. He’s Buck’s half-brother.”

  The guy in the antique store. I knew it before she said, “He runs an antique store. That damn fool Dudley Cross worked for him part-time. The only thing we can figure is he heard Toddy and me talking about Sunshine bringing some pearls back.”

  “Or that Toddy Monroe fellow sent him out,” Pawpaw said. “Squinty eyes.” He looked disgusted. “Never have trusted that guy.”

  “Don’t say that in front of Buck, Papa,” Kerrigan warned.

  “Is this Toddy Monroe taking off tonight, too?” I asked.

  “I guess he’ll have to now.” Kerrigan turned onto an exit ramp.

  Mary Alice grabbed my arm and motioned toward the traffic light at the top of the ramp. “If it’s red, jump,” she mouthed.

  Jump? Ignore old bones, traffic, and a gun aimed at us?

  But Pawpaw had also noticed the light. He turned and said, “Kerrigan was lying when she said we wouldn’t hurt you. Try anything and you’re dead meat.”

  Neither of us had a hankering to be dead meat.

  At some point on the trip to the Turkett Compound, I realized why Dudley Cross had been so well dressed. He’d worked next door to a consignment shop. I don’t know why that struck me as being very sad.

  Nineteen

  As we pulled into the circle of trailers, the dogs came up, wagging their tails at the sight of the familiar car.

  “I swear I hate to leave the dogs,” Pawpaw said.

  “Shoot them,” Kerrigan said. What a doll she was.

  “No way. I’ll leave them some extra food and water. Eddie’ll be out here looking for us. He’ll see about them.”

  “Probably shoot them,” Kerrigan sai
d, getting out of the car.

  Pawpaw opened the back door for us. “Y’all come on in my trailer. Kerrigan, come help me put some duct tape around their hands and feet. I don’t want to be worrying about these two for a while.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

  “Well, I’ve got one right in my trailer you’re welcome to use.”

  “And I’m thirsty, too.”

  “Well, missy, we’re not mean folks. We’ll give you a glass of water, too.”

  A light fog had crept up from the river. The sun was low in the sky, a murky glow. Because of the thunderstorm, it would be cooler tonight, but as those of us who have lived here all our lives know, when the sky looks like this, the heat will build up again the next day. This had been an afternoon-heat type storm, not a front moving in.

  Mary Alice was being very calm. She stepped from the car and walked into Pawpaw’s trailer without protest. Like me, she took advantage of Pawpaw’s bathroom, drank the glass of water he offered, held out her wrists for the duct tape. Her only comment when I asked her if she was all right was a whispered “I’m thinking.”

  “What are you thinking about?” I asked her as soon as Pawpaw and Kerrigan left. For some reason, I thought she might have figured out a way for us to get out of this mess.

  “I’m thinking about having a child.”

  “What?” I practically screeched it. “Listen, Sister, you’ve lost your mind. They did all kinds of things to that sixty-two-year-old woman who had a baby, all sorts of hormones and stuff. And I know good and well she had to lose weight and quit eating things like boiled peanuts that would make her blood pressure go up. And now she’s got to go to the PTA all over again.”

  Sister was looking at me as if I were crazy. “I didn’t mean give birth to a baby, Mouse. Lord! How could you even think that? Been there, done that, thank you, ma’am. Three times.”

  “Well, that’s what you said.”

  “I meant I was thinking about the last few days. Who have we been worried about?”