Who Left That Body in the Rain?

by Patricia Sprinkle

I know Ben Franklin said, “God helps those who help themselves,” but I’ve found that God offers a lot more help when I can’t help myself. I locked my door to keep anybody from walking in and thinking I was crazier than I am, and I spoke out loud. “Okay, God, you know whether Humberto Garcia killed Skye MacDonald, but I don’t believe he did. I don’t want to think Skell did it, either, but you know I am terrified he may have. I’m not asking for more than I need here, but if there’s something I ought to be doing, I need a nudge in the right direction. Please.” It wasn’t as eloquent as a preacher in the pulpit, but God didn’t create me eloquent, just determined.

  Feeling better now that I’d shifted the burden to stronger shoulders, I started entering checks we’d written the past week and hadn’t yet put on the computer.

  God speaks in mysterious ways. Sometimes after I pray, I get a brilliant idea from somebody else who isn’t that smart. Occasionally I get a brilliant idea of my own—and I’m not that smart, either. Sometimes a new verse shows up in my Bible right in the middle of a passage I’ve read a hundred times. Sometimes I get a dream that contains the kernel of truth I need. And sometimes, something or somebody triggers a memory.

  That day, I was entering checks from Joe Riddley’s checkbook, including the one to help pay for Maynard’s car, when I remembered something Laura said Saturday afternoon about how furious Skell’s assistant manager was that he hadn’t showed up.

  That thought kept pestering me like a kitten at my knee. Finally I put down my pen and looked at it from all sides. I could see an employee getting annoyed if the owner didn’t come in when she or he was supposed to. But furious enough to complain to another member of the owner’s family? Either that employee was an old trusted friend of the family—and I didn’t think anybody stuck around Sky’s the Limit that long—or this was odd. At the least, it was a loose end.

  I picked up the phone and punched in Gwen Ellen’s number.

  “Hey, Tansy? How’re you doin’ today? And how’s Gwen Ellen?”

  “Hey, Miss MacLaren. We’re both keepin’ on keepin’ on, which is ’bout all we can do. Seems like the very skies are cryin’ for Mr. Skye, don’t it?”

  “It sure does. Listen, is Laura down there right now, or up in her own place?”

  “Sittin’ right here eatin’ cookies and drinkin’ coffee to work up her courage. Here.”

  “Hey, Mac.” Laura’s voice came over the line, deep and glum. But she hadn’t forgotten her manners, whatever might be the matter. “I sure appreciated your being with me yesterday. We all left in such a hurry, I didn’t tell you.”

  “Glad to be there. What are you working up your courage for?”

  She gave an embarrassed little laugh. “Nicole’s coming at twelve to cut my hair. Wish me luck. I am terrified.”

  “I told you, honey, if you don’t like it, it will grow. Listen, Saturday you said there was a salesman over at Sky’s the Limit who was mad at Skell for not coming in. Do you remember?”

  “Sure. Skell’s assistant manager, Jimmy Bratson. He was scheduled to work noon till six on Friday and have Saturday off. When he came in at noon, he found Skell had overslept and not gotten there until just before he did; then Skell left to see Daddy and never came back. Jimmy must have called five times between five and six, antsier than a bare-foot baby on a hot sidewalk, asking where Skell was and saying he couldn’t stay to close, he had important things to do. I had to tell him, of course, that he’d have to stay until Skell came. I couldn’t be in two places at once. When I had to call him again Saturday to come in, and had to tell him I still didn’t know where Skell was, he was fit to be tied.” She sighed. “Between you, me, and the kitchen table, Jimmy Bratson is not one of my favorite employees. He thinks a bit too highly of himself. But he and Skell get along, and that’s what counts.”

  Joe Riddley came in just then, bringing me a cup of coffee. I knew better than to say more about Jimmy Bratson right then. “Laura,” I mouthed so Joe Riddley would know who I was talking to, then asked her, “Have you heard from Skell again?”

  “Not a word. When I finally get my hands on that brother of mine—”

  I heard Tansy remonstrating with her in the background, so asked hastily, “How’s your mother doing today?”

  “As well as can be expected. She’s had so many people to bear up for, she’s not had much time to grieve yet.”

  “You all might want to take some time and get away after this is over.”

  “I guess we might.” Laura didn’t sound too enthusiastic.

  “My guess is you are itching to do what I’d want to do in your circumstances, honey—go back to your desk and work, work, work. Maybe Skell can take her somewhere, when he gets back.”

  A common thought seemed to hang between us on the wire—if Skell wasn’t in jail awaiting trial. I hurried to change the subject. “Good luck with your haircut. It may make a new woman out of you.”

  “Or something,” Laura agreed, glum again.

  “Let me talk to your mother, if she’s up to talking.”

  “Oh, she’s up to anything right now. It’s lunchtime I’m a bit worried about. Tansy has a doctor’s appointment she needs to keep—you know how hard they are to get. I’ll be having my hair cut, and all our relatives have left. It will be the first time Mama’s been alone in the house since Saturday.”

  I knew how big and empty a house can seem when its rooms are swelled by grief. “Let me talk to her for a minute.” When Gwen Ellen came to the phone, I suggested, “How about if I stop by Myrtle’s at twelve, get us both a chicken-salad plate, and bring it over there for lunch?”

  “You don’t need to bring food. People have been so nice; the kitchen is full. I’ll make a pot of tea.” She hadn’t said I didn’t need to come.

  17

  Gwen Ellen greeted me looking almost as dead as Skye. Crescents beneath her eyes were so dark they looked like bruises. Except for makeup, her face was pale. Her shoulders slumped in a tan wool dress Skye had helped her choose on a trip to New York a year before. “That dress makes you look slender as a teenager,” I greeted her, hoping to get a smile.

  Instead, she held up her right hand, on which she wore the big diamond Laura had found in the safe. “I’ve lost weight. Skye bought this just before he died.” Her voice quavered. She held the ring toward the kitchen window, but the day was too gray to make rainbows. “It’s gorgeous, but look how loose it is.” She moved it easily up and down her finger. “I’ll need to get it resized.”

  “Grief can do that to you. I lost a few pounds back in August, when Joe Riddley was so sick.” Looking for a cheerier topic, I added, “But that new haircut makes you look thirty-five.”

  She shook her head. “I feel three hundred and thirty-five. Come on into the dining room. Everything’s ready.”

  “The dining room? We’re mighty fancy.” Generally we ate on their sunporch.

  “I cannot bear to look at what all this water is doing to my yard.”

  Tansy had set the dining-room table with soft yellow place mats, matching napkins, and china I hadn’t seen before—white porcelain covered with pastel butterflies. “More dishes? Is this your sixth or seventh set?” I teased. Gwen Ellen liked china better than anybody I knew.

  She picked up a cup and examined the pattern listlessly. “We got them last fall when Skye had to go to Germany for some meeting. I went along, and we stopped in France for a few days.” Her finger traced a blue and yellow butterfly on her cup. “We went to see the china factories in Limoges, and I got them because they were cheerful.” Her voice trailed off into a realm where nothing would ever be cheerful again.

  “I brought you something that smells good.” I reached into a carrier and brought out a delft pot of blue and white hyacinths.

  “Aren’t you sweet?” She removed a silk floral arrangement from the middle of the table and set the hyacinths in its place. Their fragrance floated through the room.

  As we took our places, she at one end and me beside
her, I saw her look at the big armchair at the far end where Skye used to sit. Her eyes teared up, and she pressed her napkin to her lips. “Would you say the blessing, please, MacLaren?”

  As soon as I’d finished, I asked about what I knew was on her mind. “Any news from Skell?”

  She clenched her left fist beside her plate until her knuckles turned white. “Not a word since he called on his cell phone Saturday night. The call was dropped, and Laura can’t get him to answer since—except once when she thought he picked up, but then he hung up immediately. That wasn’t Skell, MacLaren. He’d never do that if he saw our number on his screen. I think somebody has him and won’t let him come home. I’ve called the police at least twice each day, but they keep saying they can’t even start to look for him until after two today—forty-eight hours since he was last seen.” She brushed her hair back from her cheek. “I truly think if I don’t hear something soon, I will go stark raving mad.”

  Lunch didn’t get much cheerier than that. We ate thick slices of honey-baked ham, potato salad, squares of cranberry congealed salad with a sour cream topping, and an asparagus and artichoke casserole, but every one of those cooks had wasted her efforts, for all either one of us tasted. They could have brought cardboard and Styrofoam.

  All during the meal the rain fell in sheets. While we couldn’t see it through the thick sheers at her long windows, we could hear it like a regular drumbeat. So, as we drank our tea in butterfly cups, we talked about what all that wetness was doing to the azalea and dogwood buds, whether we were getting too much or just enough rain for the spring bulbs, and how soon it was likely the ground would be ready to work again. “I hate not getting outside a little bit each day. My garden is going to be so late,” she lamented.

  “Marilee Muller needs to find us some sunshine,” I joked. “It’s too bad she can’t get some out of the same bottle she uses on her hair.”

  I’ll never know what Gwen Ellen was going to say, because she swallowed a bite of biscuit wrong and choked. By the time I’d pounded her on the back and she’d run to the kitchen for a drink of water, we were both tired of talking weather, so we discussed her new haircut and her new hairdresser—the same one Cindy had recommended to me.

  “I hate to admit it,” I said, glimpsing my same old hairdo in the mirror over the mahogany buffet, “but I may want to try her myself. You and Cindy both look more like New York than Hopemore.”

  Gwen Ellen shoved back her hair and gave me a faint smile. “I wonder what Laura’s hair is going to look like. That little girl from the office says she has a cosmetology degree, but she doesn’t look old enough to be out of high school.”

  “Isn’t it awful how young people are getting? I went to the doctor last week, and they gave me his new assistant, Dr. Jorgensen. She looks younger than Bethany, and it felt real funny taking off my clothes in front of a child.”

  I’d hoped that would make Gwen Ellen at least smile, and maybe laugh. Instead, she clouded up again. “We never got to Norway. We were planning to go this spring. Oh, MacLaren, I never imagined having to live without him. The rest of my life seems so long.”

  I reached for her hand. Its chill made me realize how much effort she was putting into acting halfway normal.

  “We loved each other so much,” she whispered. “It was so special, while it lasted.”

  “We who have loved and been loved are very fortunate in this world,” I agreed. But the MacDonald house seemed much bigger and chillier without Skye’s booming laugh and wide, happy smile. The idea flitted through my mind that I’d like to get into a smaller place before Joe Riddley or I lost the other. I loved our house, but I wouldn’t want to live in it without him.

  Gwen Ellen put down her fork and stared toward the window sheers as if she had x-ray vision and could see gray dismals outside. “Can I tell you something, MacLaren? I don’t think I can get through the viewing. Having to stand beside Skye while people talk about him, looking down and seeing him lying there—” Her voice broke. “And I know my stomach is going to act up. I’ll probably vomit all over everybody.”

  “Viewings are a barbarous custom, sweetheart, but if our mothers got through them, we can, too. You’re gonna do fine.”

  “I doubt it. And to make it worse, his mother insists on an open casket before the service. They’ve got out-of-town friends who can’t come for the viewing and stay overnight, and she wants them to be able to say good-bye.” She pressed her napkin to her mouth and spoke through tears. “Oh, MacLaren, I don’t want to have to look at Skye in front of everybody, or watch them shut him up and put him in a hole in the ground. I’ll scream and wail and make a fool of myself. And if Skell isn’t here, I simply won’t hold the service. We can’t bury his daddy until he gets home.”

  I could not tell her that Skell would endanger his freedom by coming home, so I said, instead, “You are not going to make a fool of yourself. You just cry and wail all you like—anything you do will be fine, unless you fling yourself on Skye and have a screaming hissie fit, and I cannot imagine you doing such a thing. Dreading it is probably worse than the thing itself will be.”

  I sure hoped I was right. It seemed to comfort Gwen Ellen, because she took a few deep breaths and went back to talking about her plants and all that rain.

  “We’ve been promised sunshine for tomorrow,” I told her. “If we don’t get it, we can kill Marilee Muller.” Now why did I say that? Was it any way to talk to a woman whose husband just got murdered? Gwen Ellen turned so white I thought she’d faint, and rose to take our plates to the kitchen.

  I sat glued to my chair by mortification. “I’m so sorry, honey,” I called after her, but that wasn’t anywhere near enough.

  While she was getting our dessert, I thought of several new topics to discuss. She must have been doing the same thing, because we didn’t mention Skye again.

  We were finishing slices of pecan pie when we heard feet clomping down the garage stairs. “Mama? Mama. Skell called. He left a message on my cell phone this morning around ten. I just found it when I turned on the phone.” Laura came to a dead stop in the kitchen just out of our range of view.

  I was so busy trying to slow down my heartbeat I nearly didn’t recognize Nicole’s voice.

  “Go on,” she commanded. “Go show them.”

  Laura entered the dining room and stood, pink and shy, waiting to see what we would say.

  I’m not sure I’d have recognized her if I’d met her on the street. Nicole had cut her hair very short and layered it to fall in shining natural waves to the nape of her neck. Bangs softened her high forehead, and the way the hairline followed her ears, I saw for the first time how lovely they were. Her neck was a surprise, too—it rose long and graceful from her navy turtleneck sweater. She looked downright pretty and even sophisticated. Pounds lighter, too.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Nicole asked with a grand wave of one hand and a jig that one shouldn’t do in mixed company in a skirt that short.

  “Gorgeous,” I agreed at once.

  Gwen Ellen had laid down her fork and pushed back her chair. “What did Skell say?” That was one of few times in her life that I could have gladly shaken her.

  The light went out of Laura’s face. “He said he’s fine, he’ll be home tomorrow, and he”—she paused—“he hopes you aren’t mad at him.”

  “But where is he?” Maybe Gwen Ellen didn’t mean to accuse Laura of keeping that to herself, but it came out that way.

  Laura pinched her lips together. Anybody could tell she was trying to decide what to say.

  “Call him back,” Gwen Ellen commanded. “All you have to do is push redial.”

  She didn’t mean to insult her, but Laura’s generation was the one who taught the rest of us how to use things like cell phones and computers. When Skell went to college, Skye used to grumble, “Nobody should let both their children go away from home at once. Who’s going to show us how to make all these gadgets work?” No wonder Laura forgot her manners enough to sna
p out the truth. “I did that, Mama. He called from a public phone at Disney World. He’s not there now.”

  “Disney World? With his daddy dead?” Gwen Ellen pressed her hand to her mouth and tried to absorb the shock.

  Seeing the distress on Laura’s face, I reminded Gwen Ellen, “He doesn’t know Skye’s dead.” I pushed back my chair. “Come to the kitchen a minute, Laura.” When we got there, I asked quietly, “What exactly did Skell say?”

  She kept her voice low, too. “He said he forgot and left his cell phone in the rest stop bathroom Saturday night after our call was dropped—that’s the third one he’s lost this year—”

  “You can deal with that later. What else did he say?”

  She heaved a big sigh, fished in her pocket, and held out a phone so small I couldn’t find anyplace to speak or listen. She flipped it open and pushed buttons. “Here. Listen for yourself. Then tell me if you think we need to page him to come straight home.”

  Skell sounded as cocky and irresponsible as ever. “Hi, Sissy. I’m in Orlando. Sorry not to call sooner, but I forgot my cell phone in the men’s room at an interstate rest stop.” He gave a snort of laughter. “You’re gonna have to dock my pay again. But listen, I didn’t just hare down here for the fun of it. I had something to take care of, and it was real important. I’ll tell you about it when I get home. Since I’m here, I might as well see Disney World. I’d call you at the dealership, but I don’t want Daddy to know where I am yet. Is he furious I took the money? I’ll explain when I get there. Calm him down for me, okay?”

  I handed her the phone to turn off. “That explains who robbed the safe.”

  “And he doesn’t even know Daddy is dead.” I saw relief in her eyes, then embarrassment that she’d felt relieved. “You never really thought he killed Daddy, did you?”

  She had me between a cocklebur and thistle. I couldn’t tell her a lie, and I couldn’t tell her the truth. I settled for, “The police have arrested Mr. Garcia, but their case against him doesn’t look real strong to me. If they’re smart, they’re going to be looking for other suspects, as well.”