What Are You Wearing to Die?

by Patricia Sprinkle

Martha made a shooing motion with her hands. “Cricket, take Bradley and the girls up to your room and let Me-Mama and me cook. We’ll call you when supper’s ready.”

  The smell of vegetable soup wafting across the big kitchen from a stockpot on the stove made my stomach rumble. Makings for grilled cheese sandwiches stood ready for assembly. I headed to the counter to begin putting the sandwiches together, for Martha and I had cooked together so often we didn’t need to discuss what had to be done.

  As soon as the children’s feet could be heard in the upstairs hall, I said, “Buster told me DFCS had taken them to an emergency shelter, but I didn’t know they came to you.”

  She gave a short, not-funny laugh. “Poor Ridd has had the weekend from hell. I had offered to keep Bradley all weekend so Trevor could attend the convention and go out with his buddies during the evenings, but the supervisor at the hospital who was supposed to fly in yesterday and be on duty last night got stuck in the Philadelphia airport because of that snowstorm up north, so I had to go in at seven. Robin was supposed to bring Bradley by six, but they didn’t get back from Atlanta until I’d already had to leave, so Ridd had to feed both boys. They watched a video and he put them to bed, thinking he was done for the night. Instead, Trevor showed up at ten thirty wanting Bradley. Ridd said Trevor was shaking so badly he could hardly talk, and his voice woke Bradley, who heard him telling Ridd that Robin was dead. Bradley had hysterics in the upstairs hall, which woke Cricket. Trevor took Bradley home and Ridd spent nearly an hour trying to calm Cricket down. He finally rocked him until he fell asleep. All these mothers getting killed is really getting to Crick. He has scarcely let me out of his sight since I woke up this afternoon.”

  Martha shoved back her hair with both hands, then automatically moved to wash her hands with soap—the “nurse’s reflex.”

  “Ridd finally got Cricket to bed about twelve, and at two o’clock the social worker called to ask if we could take the girls. Poor Ridd had to get up and dress to welcome two sad girls in their nightgowns. Since they are terrified of dogs, he had to put Cricket Dog in the pen with the yard dogs, which didn’t thrill him, as you can imagine. He barked all night long—an accompaniment to Natalie, who cried all night.”

  “Oh, dear. We brought Lulu, so I guess she’ll have to go in the pen, too. Good thing you don’t have any close neighbors. We’re likely to have an evening serenade.”

  Martha heaved an enormous sigh. “They assure us this is only a temporary placement, but I’m not sure I can stand listening to dogs barking and Natalie talking for another twenty-four hours. She goes on and on without stopping. Meanwhile, Anna Emily informs me at least five times an hour that she wants to live with us forever and ever, but you heard her when you came in. She’d go with anybody.”

  “I know. She even asked Buster if she could go live with him. Flustered him to death. So when did you get Bradley back?”

  “Trevor brought him this morning on his way to the convention. I asked if he felt like going and he said he didn’t, but he was supposed to lead a workshop and hated to let them down. Poor guy. Bradley said he heard his T-daddy crying all night long.”

  “You reckon he was falling in love with Robin?”

  “Could be. But even if he just liked her as a friend, I don’t know how he’ll stand to lose her so soon after Starr.”

  I moved closer and spoke softly. “Do you know anything about the murder that I don’t?”

  “What do you already know?”

  “Not much. Joe Riddley’s got me on a leash so short I’m about to strangle. If he wasn’t interested in Ridd’s new pig, he’d probably be standing at my shoulder right this minute. Quick, tell all. I know the couple who found her came to the emergency room.”

  “Let’s sit down a minute. I don’t want to talk too loud, in case little pitchers with big ears are hovering in the upstairs hall.” She fetched two glasses of tea and we pulled up adjoining chairs to the big round table that had served generations of Yarbroughs.

  “Remind me of the couple’s names,” I said to prime her pump.

  “Dan and Kaye Poynter, from Virginia. He had to be admitted, and I got the story from Kaye while we were waiting to find him a room. She claims that Robin is their daughter.”

  Martha stopped to enjoy my reaction. She had sure let the steam out of my engine. I couldn’t say a word.

  “Kaye said they both recognized her, although they haven’t seen her for seven years. Dan is a taxidermist in Virginia, and Robin—or Bobbie, as her mother calls her, because her real name was Roberta—used to work with her dad. Won blue ribbons from the time she was fourteen, her mother claims.” Martha sighed. “That woman can talk your ear off—just like Natalie.”

  “Maybe it’s hereditary.”

  “That’s as good an explanation as any. Come to think of it, if they can prove they are related to Robin, they’ll be her next of kin and the ones who ought to have the girls. But they’re both so fragile, I don’t see how they could handle those two. They’re a handful.” Her forehead creased with worry.

  “You were telling me about Robin leaving home,” I reminded her.

  “Oh, yeah. Kaye said Robin had never had much in the way of emotions. She was cold to her parents all her life, and real headstrong. If they told her no, she’d keep arguing until she wore them down. If she couldn’t wear them down, she’d sneak. Her senior year, she started going around with a man her parents despised. He was four or five years older than Robin and ‘smarmy,’ according to Kaye. Dan suspected he was dealing drugs, so they put their united foot down and told her to stop seeing him or they wouldn’t send her to college. That week, Robin forged a check on her parents’ money market account while they were at a church retreat. She emptied the account—which was supposed to be her college fund—and ran off with the man. She wrote a note so they wouldn’t think she’d been abducted, but she stole her mother’s mink coat and a lot of her daddy’s taxidermy equipment, presumably so she’d have a way to support herself and her boyfriend. Dan called the police, but since the girl was eighteen, the police said she had a right to leave home. Unless they pressed charges for the coat, the tools, and the money, the police couldn’t do anything. Dan refused, because he hoped Bobbie would contact them soon and he didn’t want to utterly estrange her. However, they never heard from her again.”

  “And they just happened to run into her on the day she died?” That stretched the web of coincidence pretty thin.

  “No, they’ve been looking for her ever since she disappeared. Because she took the tools, they figured she’d do taxidermy somewhere, so they have spent the past seven years visiting taxidermy conventions, hoping to find her or her work. Isn’t that sad?”

  “Very, but it doesn’t prove Robin was their daughter. People change a lot in seven years. Maybe Robin simply resembled their daughter and they wanted to find their daughter so badly that they concluded Robin was her.”

  “No, they said she was wearing Kaye’s mink coat. Dan had prepared the hides himself and ordered it made, so it’s very distinctive. Besides, Robin—Bobbie—had a pattern of moles on her neck that formed a C. Kaye recognized it. They had already spotted a fox yesterday afternoon that they were sure she had done. Something about the expression on its face and a seam she’d sewn—I didn’t understand all that. But they were absolutely positive it was her work.”

  “I met them! I sent them to talk to Trevor.” The anxious woman and the gaunt, gray man.

  “How odd. They said they’d already met him, which is why they recognized each other in the motel parking lot and walked in together. They didn’t tell him why they wanted to talk to her, though. They merely told him they were interested in buying the fox and would like to talk to the person who had—what? Stuffed it? Mounted it?”

  “Whatever. But they hadn’t talked to Robin?”

  “Kaye said Trevor gave them her address and her phone number, and they went by her house and called her a couple of times, but she never answered and her c
ar wasn’t there. They didn’t like to leave a note, in case she ran away again, so they decided they’d go to dinner, run by the motel to brush their teeth, and try once more, hoping she’d be home by then. When they got to the motel parking lot, Trevor was getting out of his car, so they walked to the elevator with him. He stepped back to let them enter—‘Such a gentleman,’ Kaye said—so they saw Robin first. According to Kaye”—Martha sketched quotes with her fingers—“‘she was lying on the floor looking like she was asleep, with her hair curling all over her face.’”

  “Can you believe Robin had curled her hair? Buster said she had on a lot of makeup, too, and a sexy red dress and heels. I find that hard to believe.”

  “Me, too. She usually looked like plain Jane personified.”

  “You reckon that was her disguise?”

  “Must have been. Anyway, Kaye said Dan has had some Red Cross training, so he knelt down to see if the woman was okay. He figured out she was dead, and was just wondering why that coat looked so familiar when Kaye, claiming a mother’s instinct, bent down and pushed the hair off her face and neck. When she saw the moles on the side of her throat, she knew it was their daughter. She told Dan, he had a mild myocardial infarction, and she fainted.”

  “Even if Robin was their daughter, doesn’t a heart attack seem like a drastic reaction?”

  “He’s got a bad heart. He was fortunate the attack wasn’t worse. Kaye wasn’t much better, though. When they came in, she was so hysterical that we had to sedate her. Thank goodness Trevor was with them when they found her. As hard on him as it must have been, he was able to call EMS and the police, and he stuck around to talk to the sheriff while the Poynters were brought in to us.”

  I rested my chin on one palm. “I cannot imagine locating your daughter after all those years and finding her dead. Can you?”

  “I can imagine it, but I hope I’ll never have to experience it.” Martha shoved back her chair and went to stir the soup. Her back was to me, but I had seen tears fill her eyes.

  My own were stinging, even though Bethany had never given us a speck of trouble and was unlikely to turn up dead in an elevator wearing a red cocktail dress. I got up and started buttering more bread for the sandwiches.

  Martha cleared her throat. “There’s one good thing about having the girls here. Ridd hasn’t mentioned Bethany all day. Anna Emily and Natalie seem to adore him, and he really is an old softie where little girls are concerned.”

  She reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I feel so sorry for Kaye and Dan, and sorry for Trevor, but Ridd and I are both worried about those girls. I don’t think Kaye, Dan, or Trevor could raise them. Trevor’s got his plate full with Bradley, and Kaye and Dan aren’t strong enough. Those girls need lots of attention and security. Anna Emily could be seriously troubled.”

  “Maybe their uncle will come get them.”

  “Kaye said they had only one child.”

  “But I met their uncle at Trevor’s the night we went over after Starr’s death!”

  Martha shook her head. “Whoever he was, he wasn’t Robin’s brother.”

  We reached the obvious conclusion at the same time.

  Martha voiced it. “Do you suppose he’s the boyfriend Robin ran away with?”

  “That could explain why Natalie looks so much like him. But Anna Emily doesn’t look like either one of them.”

  Martha had seen so much, she immediately jumped to the darkest conclusion. “You don’t reckon they kidnapped her, do you? Or inherited her from a friend who was doing drugs and went to prison?”

  “That could explain why she never bonded with Robin.”

  “But why weren’t Robin and Billy living together? Why lie about their relationship?”

  “Heaven knows—but I don’t. Maybe he’s got a wife somewhere else. I think we ought to tell Buster what we suspect, don’t you?”

  The sheriff didn’t go so far as to congratulate us when I phoned him, but he admitted we could be right where Billy was concerned. “I’ll see if the Poynters can recall the name of the man she ran away with.”

  “If she really was their daughter,” I added.

  “There’s no doubt of that. We’ve sent for her high school dental records to confirm it, but the Poynters had her high school graduation picture, and it looked very like Robin as we found her.”

  “You knew that when you were talking to us this morning, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell us?”

  He chuckled. “Have to keep some things to myself. Thanks for the tip. I’ll talk to the Poynters again tomorrow.”

  “Do you have any leads to the killer?”

  “Not yet, except it was somebody strong. Whoever killed her broke her neck with his bare hands. We ought to be able to get prints from her skin, unless he wore gloves.”

  “Which almost everybody has been doing this weekend. Do you reckon—”

  “No more questions. Joe Riddley made it very clear this morning that you are not to get involved with this case.”

  “All I was going to ask—”

  Before I could finish, Martha spoke at my shoulder. “Let me talk to him a minute.”

  I handed over the receiver and stood there fuming. So help me, I was going to think of something dreadful to do to Joe Riddley in the next few days. He talked about me meddling, when all he seemed to do anymore was meddle in my life. I scarcely listened as Martha asked, “Is there any way I could go to the Parker house and get these girls some clothes? They arrived in nothing but their nightgowns. I’ve scrounged up some pants and sweatshirts of Cricket’s for today, but they need something to wear to church tomorrow, and the social worker didn’t bring any underwear.”

  She listened while he talked, then said, “Great, but I’ll probably bring Mac instead. Ridd and Pop like their Saturday-night television. Thanks.”

  She was about to hang up when one of those flukes of memory occurred. I grabbed the phone. “Baxter. Robin introduced her brother as Billy Baxter. See if you can find him somewhere down near Tennille.”

  20

  After supper, Cricket insisted that we all play a game of Go Fish, which was his current passion, and it was nearly eight when we finished. I offered to take the kids upstairs and put them to bed while Martha loaded the dishwasher. The men offered to retire to the den to watch television.

  I supervised while the children put on pajamas (the boys) and nightgowns (the girls) and brushed their teeth; then we all gathered in Cricket’s room—which had been his daddy’s, when Ridd was small—for a story and prayers. The four of them perched on Cricket’s bed and I sat on a chair beside the bed. I told the story of the three little pigs, which was all I could think of at the moment, and Bradley and Cricket said prayers. Natalie and Anna Emily seemed baffled by that process.

  Cricket concluded his, “And dear God, let Me-Mama find the bad man who killed Natalie and Anna Emily’s mama. Amen.”

  He opened his eyes and cut them my way. “You are looking for him, aren’t you?”

  I shook my head. “Not this time, honey. Pop has told me not to do that anymore.”

  “You have to! I promised you’d find him. I told them you’re the best detective in the whole world, and that you find bad guys fast.”

  “The man who killed my mommy was real bad,” Natalie assured me.

  “Just like the one who killed my mommy,” Bradley said soberly.

  Cricket bounced on the bed for emphasis. “There’s lots and lots of bad guys. They could huff and puff and blow this house down and kill us all!”

  The four of them huddled together. Four sets of eyes regarded me with terror and expectation.

  “You could look a little,” Cricket wheedled. “Before everybody’s mama gets killed.”

  What grandmother could deny that plea?

  “I’ll look a little,” I agreed. “But don’t you tell Pop, or he’ll skin me alive.”

  “If he does, T-daddy will mount you so Cricket can keep you,” Bradley promised.

  On t
hat cheerful note I kissed them all, tucked Cricket and Bradley into the bunk beds in Cricket’s room, and accompanied the two girls to the guest room across the hall. When I had tucked them into the big double bed, Natalie held one finger to her lips. “Shhh. Do you hear that?”

  I listened, but didn’t hear anything unusual. “What?”

  “Those dogs. If they get out, they could come in this house and eat us.” She burrowed down in the covers and pulled them over her head.

  I pulled the covers back and stroked her wispy hair. “Those dogs are my friends, and they don’t eat people. They eat dog food. Besides, they live in that pen. They don’t want to come in the house. They are singing you a lullaby. Hear them? The one with the real high voice is my dog, Lulu, and the one that goes ooooh is Cricket Dog. They’ll sing you to sleep if you’ll let them.” I hoped that was so.

  Anna Emily held out her arms and squeezed me tight around the neck. “I want to go home with you,” she whispered.

  “Not tonight, honey. Go to sleep.”

  I tiptoed down the stairs, hoping Martha and Ridd would get some rest. Barking dogs and grieving children can be hard on a good night’s sleep.

  When I got to the kitchen, I asked, “You got any more of that tea?”

  Martha looked at the clock. “We don’t have time. Buster said he’d meet us at Robin’s house at eight thirty. Do you have your car? Mine’s out of gas and I was too tired this morning to fill it up on my way home.”

  The air was still crisp and frosty, the sky full of a billion stars. The sheriff was sitting in the drive when we arrived, sipping a drink and eating a hamburger. “Have you been home to bed yet?” I greeted him.

  “No, but I’m working up to it. Just had to wait for two women to come by the house, but you know how women are. Always late.”

  His breath rose like smoke as he climbed out of the cruiser, ambled up the steps to the door, and let us in with a key. “Don’t take anything except the kids’ clothes,” he warned.

  “Stuffed animals, books, and toys?” I bargained. “To make them feel more at home?”