Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 01 - Down Home Murder

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “He’d have to be crazy to pass that up,” Richard said admiringly, still watching them.

  Too admiringly, I thought, and I “accidentally” nudged him with my foot. Richard kept watching. I nudged him again, a little harder, and he finally looked back at me.

  “Not my type, of course,” he said, and offered me his arm as we left.

  Chapter 31

  My ears were still ringing from the music as we drove home, and I was content to lean back and stare idly out the window. I glanced once or twice in the side-view mirror, and flinched from the reflection of the headlights from a car traveling too closely behind us. After a few minutes, it sank in that those lights had been with us for a while. I looked behind us. It looked like a light-colored pickup truck, but it was too far away for me to see any details.

  “Richard, how long has that pickup been behind us?”

  He checked the rear-view mirror. “Since we left the club, I think. Why?”

  “Do you think he’s following us?”

  “Why would anyone be following us?”

  “I was thinking about what Aunt Nora said. If Burt Walters talked to Uncle Buddy, he probably talked to other people, too. Maybe the murderer has heard that we’re asking questions.” I looked around to get my bearings. “Get off at this exit.”

  Richard did so, but said, “He’s still with us.”

  “Damn!”

  “We’re probably all right as long as we keep going. I mean, he can’t be planning to ram us or anything like that.”

  “You’re probably right, but I don’t like it. Turn right at the end of the ramp. There’s a Hardee’s that stays open all night at this exit.”

  He followed my directions, and pulled into the parking lot. “Now what?”

  “Head for the drive-through.”

  “Why are we doing this?”

  “To make him think we got off at this exit to get something to eat. Otherwise he’ll know that we know he’s following us.”

  “Why do we care if he knows that we know?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’d rather he didn’t.”

  “Whatever you say.” We pulled up to the brightly lit menu board. “What should I order?”

  “Just a Coke. Actually, while we’re here, get me some french fries. And a chocolate milkshake.”

  He gave the order to the faceless voice warbling through the speaker, then pulled around to the window to pay for and accept our food.

  “Are you sure you didn’t just want an excuse to get food?” he asked as he handed me the cardboard tray.

  I stuffed a french fry in his mouth in answer, and we turned back onto the highway. Our tail appeared behind us on the access ramp, and stayed with us until a few blocks before we reached the house.

  We looked around cautiously before leaving the car, but everything seemed normal as we went inside.

  “Maybe he wasn’t following us after all,” Richard suggested.

  “Or maybe he knew where we were staying, and that we must be heading here.” The idea that a murderer was watching us wasn’t a comfortable one. Maybe it was that thought combined with the story Aunt Nora had told me about Paw that caused a dreadful suspicion to shake loose.

  As soon as we closed the bedroom door, I said, “Richard, I think I’ve come up with the reason why Paw didn’t go to the police, something that fits with his personality. It seems fairly obvious that Paw must have known the murderer.”

  “I brought that up earlier, but you said you didn’t think that would slow Paw down.”

  “I know, and after what Aunt Nora told me about Charlie Baxter, I’m even more convinced,” I said, and took a few minutes to slip out of my clothes and into a nightgown. I was stalling, and Richard knew it, but he let me get away with it until we were in bed and had the lights turned out. Finally I said, “What if the person who killed Melanie was family?”

  “That’s a possibility we have to consider,” he said quietly.

  “Good lord, Richard, how could it have been family? I mean, they aren’t all angels and maybe I haven’t gotten along with everyone all that well, but they are my family! Are you telling me that someone in my own family raped and killed Melanie, and then killed Paw to cover it up?” I knew I wasn’t being fair. He wasn’t telling me a thing—I was telling myself. It was the only explanation that fit.

  “Why me?” I demanded. “Why do I have to play Judas? Aunt Maggie said that only trash would turn in someone in their own family.”

  “Turning in a rapist and a murderer isn’t playing Judas!” Richard said. “Paw knew that. Whoever it was must have known that Paw wouldn’t keep quiet about it, no matter what speaking up cost him.”

  “Can’t we just go home to Boston?” I asked in a small voice.

  “We’ll do whatever you want.”

  It would be so much easier to leave it alone. Of course, it would have been easier for Paw to let Charlie Baxter set off his bomb, too. I took a deep breath and said, “We’ll do what has to be done. For Paw.”

  Richard held me for a while, and then said, “I don’t know if now is a good time to mention this or not, but this puts a new light on what Roger said about Uncle Conrad.”

  “I suppose it does.” I tried to picture Uncle Conrad killing Paw, but I couldn’t. But then, who could I picture doing it. Uncle Buddy? Willis? Clifford? “I don’t want to think about this tonight.”

  “Of course not. We’ll talk tomorrow.” Richard kissed me good night, and was soon asleep.

  It wasn’t that easy for me. Paw had always taught me to do the right thing, but now I wasn’t sure what the right thing was. No, that wasn’t true. I knew what the right thing was, but I wasn’t sure I could do it.

  If I sent a Burnette to prison, would anyone ever speak to me again? For so long I had tried to convince myself that I didn’t care what the family thought of me. Now I was beginning to see that I cared a lot.

  Chapter 32

  I woke to a knock at the bedroom door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Laurie Anne?” Aunt Maggie said. “Nora’s on the phone.”

  I peered at the clock on the nightstand. It was six o’clock. What did Aunt Nora want at this hour of the morning?

  “I’ll be right there,” I said, and stumbled downstairs to the phone. “Hello?”

  “Good morning,” Aunt Nora said brightly. When I didn’t answer in kind, she asked, “Did you still want to come shopping with us today?”

  I had forgotten all about the shopping trip, and for a moment I considered telling my aunt that I was too tired. I changed my mind for two reasons. First, I wanted to make sure that all fences with Aunt Nora were mended from last night. And second, awful though it was, I needed to see if I could track down alibis for my family. “I’ve been looking forward to it,” I lied.

  “Good. Ruby Lee is going to drive her van so we can all ride together. We’ll be there to pick you up in about half an hour. Is that all right?”

  “Sounds fine. I’ll see you then.”

  I quickly took my shower, ran a brush through my hair, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt. Richard slept blissfully through it all.

  “Richard?” I said.

  “Hmmm…?” he mumbled, not quite waking up.

  “I’m going shopping with the aunts and Vasti. Is that all right?”

  “Sure. Anything you want.”

  “I probably won’t get back until this evening.”

  “Sure. Anything you want.”

  “I might get some new clothes.”

  “Sure. Anything you want.”

  This has possibilities, I said to myself as I bent to kiss him good-bye.

  Aunt Maggie was in the kitchen drinking a cup of coffee. “I was just on my way to the flea market,” she said. “Y’all must have been out late last night. What time did you get in?”

  “About four and a half hours ago.”

  “No wonder you look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet. Well, you can sleep in the car on
the way to Burlington.”

  “Good.”

  Aunt Ruby Lee picked me up a few minutes later, and drove me, the other four aunts, and Vasti to Hardee’s where I choked down a sausage biscuit and coffee. Then I crawled into the back of the van to grab the proverbial forty winks during the trip to Burlington. Unfortunately, I soon realized that Aunt Maggie had been hopelessly optimistic. I had more chance of sleeping in the middle of a hurricane than I did in a car with my five aunts talking a mile a minute. Not to mention Vasti. After ten minutes, I gave up.

  Aunt Nellie was in the middle of a story about Uncle Ruben. “Now he’s just spent twenty minutes on the phone, half an hour looking at a movie he said he wasn’t interested in, and fifteen minutes with his nose in the refrigerator looking for something to eat, and he says he doesn’t have time to mow the lawn.”

  “I think it’s all men,” I said with a yawn. “They have different priorities. Richard always has time to discuss Shakespeare, but never enough to pick up our clothes from the dry-cleaner.”

  “Conrad is the same way,” Aunt Ruby Lee said. “He bought the lumber to add a deck onto the house three months ago. He finally got around to starting on it last Sunday, but the second I turned around, he was halfway out the door to go somewhere with Loman. I put my foot down, let me tell you! I told him, ‘I know he’s your cousin, but you’re at work with him five days a week and spend at least one night a week with him at the lodge, and today you’re staying home with us.’ He was so put out, but he called Loman back and told him he couldn’t go. I made sure he didn’t step one foot out of our yard all day long.”

  “Where in the world did they want to go?” Vasti asked.

  “He never did say. Did Loman tell you, Edna?”

  “No,” Aunt Edna answered shortly, and there was a painful silence in the car. From what I had heard of their marriage, Aunt Edna was the last person Uncle Loman would tell of his plans.

  At least this took Uncle Conrad off of my list of suspects. He couldn’t have attacked Paw if Aunt Ruby Lee kept him at home Sunday. Besides, Aunt Ruby Lee had said that Uncle Conrad was at the lodge when Melanie’s car was found.

  I decided I was fairly safe in ignoring all of my female relatives. Melanie had been raped, after all. That left Uncle Buddy, Uncle Ruben, Uncle Loman, Thaddeous, Augustus, Willis, Vasti’s husband Arthur, Linwood, Earl, and Clifford. Of course Paw had had a number of more distant male relatives. I considered the vultures Aunt Maggie chased off from Paw’s house, but decided that Paw wouldn’t have been so reluctant to turn in someone from that crew.

  There were a few more I could cross off of the list right away. Aunt Ruby Lee had mentioned that Uncle Loman was also at the lodge Friday night. Augustus was in Germany, and Aunt Nora said Willis had been working the late shift for several months, so he would have been at work when Melanie was killed. Earl was only fifteen, and since he couldn’t very well have carried off Melanie on his bicycle, he was off the hook as well.

  What about Thaddeous? The way he had reacted to news of Melanie’s death and spent so much time helping to search for her, surely he wasn’t the murderer himself. But then again, hadn’t I heard about men who would set fires and then come running to play hero? I couldn’t eliminate him yet, much as I wanted to.

  At least I had most of the Burnette women in one place and with a little prodding, I should be able to learn enough to take a few more off of the list. Unless, of course, one of my aunts knew about the murders. No, even if I could swallow the notion that one of the sisters had condoned rape and murder, I refused to believe that any of them would have had anything to do with killing Paw.

  We reached Burlington a few minutes after ten, and parked at the outlet mall to begin shopping with a vengeance. While trying on silk-look blouses with Aunt Ruby Lee, I found out that Clifford had been at a guitar lesson on Friday night and that he had helped Uncle Conrad work on the deck on Sunday.

  As Aunt Nora and I went through endless racks of dresses on clearance, she complained that Uncle Buddy spent more time asleep in front of the TV than watching it. One of the times he had dozed off was during a movie Aunt Nora wanted to watch last Friday night, and she couldn’t even hear it for his snoring.

  Aunt Edna verified that Uncle Loman had gone to the lodge meeting, but had no idea of how Linwood spent his time. Fortunately, in bemoaning her son’s lack of religious fervor as we browsed through artificial flower arrangements, she mentioned that she had given him a stern talking to last Sunday afternoon.

  By the time we reached the Western Sizzlin’ Steak House for dinner, I had two blisters on my right foot and one on my left, stiff shoulders from lugging bags around, and a pocketbook full of sales receipts, including one for a violet silk-look blouse. Filene’s Basement in Boston had nothing on this place.

  More importantly, I had crossed off all but three of my relatives from the list of suspects: Arthur, Uncle Ruben, and Thaddeous. Vasti had talked a lot, of course, but gave me no useful information. According to Aunt Nellie, Uncle Ruben had been out trying to sell floor polish every night last week, but she didn’t know exactly where. Thaddeous was the most worrisome, because Aunt Nora said he had been gone several times during the past week, and that she didn’t know where he had been. He said he had been out searching for Melanie part of the time, but that would have been easy to fake.

  Working at it from the other direction, no one knew where Paw had been Friday night. Aunt Daphine had called his house and received no answer, which confirmed the fact that he had gone somewhere, but that didn’t help much.

  The waitress came over with our food, and I looked at my steak greedily. I cut a generous piece, and had it halfway to my mouth when Aunt Edna asked, “Aren’t we going to give the blessing?”

  The rest of us looked startled, but Aunt Daphine said smoothly, “Edna, would you do the honors?”

  I put my fork back down and bowed my head obediently, if unwillingly.

  Aunt Edna hesitated a moment, then said solemnly, “Good bread. Good meat. Good God, let’s eat.”

  She broke into helpless giggles, and after a moment of astonishment, the rest of us joined in and laughed until tears ran down our faces. Aunt Edna had made a joke!

  The light-hearted feeling lasted all through the meal. As we lingered over coffee and cigarettes, Aunt Nora smiled and said, “This has really been nice, us spending the day together. We ought to do this more often.”

  There were nods and murmurs of assent, but Vasti said, “I wish we could, Aunt Nora, but you know I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off all the time. What with the Garden Club and the Junior Women’s League and the Country Club, I don’t have time to catch my breath, but if Arthur wants to run for City Council, I have to get to know the right people.” She sighed, as if exhausted just from thinking about it all, then looked sideways at me. “Besides, Laurie Anne’s never home anymore.”

  Why couldn’t Vasti have bragged some more instead of bringing me into this? Now I had to say something.

  “It’s so hard to get away,” I said, knowing how lame that sounded. “Plane fares are just outrageous, and it is an eighteen-hour drive.”

  “Boston’s an awful long way,” Aunt Daphine agreed.

  I added, “I’d love to have any of y’all come up to see me so I could show you around Boston. It’s a beautiful city, and I know you’d enjoy it.”

  “Do you like it better up there than down here?” Aunt Nellie asked.

  Ouch! That was a sticky one. If I said yes, I’d be insulting their home. If I said no, they’d want to know why I didn’t move back.

  “It’s not that I like it more,“ I said cautiously, “but I do like it.” I tried to think of a way to tell them how it felt to live in a city where so much history had been made; where the computer industry was growing and changing every day; where I could go to a circus one night, a Pops concert the next, and a Bullwinkle and Rocky cartoon festival the third. Finally, all I said was, “Besides it’s where my job is, an
d Richard’s.”

  This seemed to satisfy them, and Aunt Daphine promptly steered the conversation toward Sue’s new baby. Why was it always like this? Why did people think my decision to leave North Carolina had been a rejection? Granted, I had been eager to move, but I didn’t hate my home. There were parts of life here I didn’t like—the Klan, for instance—but there were also a lot of things I didn’t like about Boston. The traffic was horrendous, the weather atrocious, and there was just as much prejudice in the North. I still loved living there, just like I still loved North Carolina.

  Paw had understood, I thought sadly.

  The drive back to Byerly was relatively quiet, interrupted only by Vasti adding up the money she had spent and anticipating Arthur’s reaction when he found out. I slept most of the way.

  Aunt Maggie was snoring softly in front of the television when Aunt Ruby Lee dropped me off at the house, and there was a note from Richard waiting for me.

  Dear Laura,

  Roger called to invite us to a pig picking (or is that pickin’?) where he’s playing tonight. Apparently our fancy footwork on the dance floor last night impressed him. Since I had nothing better to do (having been abandoned by my wife), I accepted. I also thought I should try to find out more about what Paw had told him about Uncle Conrad. Given our current suspicions, it might be important. I didn’t think he would tell me with you there, but as the Bard said, “‘Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are from home.” King Henry V, I, ii. Don’t wait up—I expect the revelry will last for some time.

  Love,

  Richard

  It serves me right, I thought philosophically. I woke up Aunt Maggie and sent her to bed, and spent what was left of the evening letting what I had learned about Paw’s murder slosh around in my head, interrupted only by a phone call from Aunt Nora inviting me and Richard to Sunday dinner after church. Despite Richard’s warning that I shouldn’t wait up for him, I fiddled around until after midnight before I went to bed.

  Chapter 33