Who Left That Body in the Rain?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “I’m sure Laura will take care of that. The car came from Florida originally, didn’t it?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

  That was a dumb thing to say. Any assistant manager worth his salt, particularly in a business being run by an inexperienced kid not long out of college, ought to keep track of which cars came from where, in case there were problems with any of them later. But I ordered my lips to smile and said, “Well, thank you.” I reached for my umbrella. “Shall I tell my friends you’d be willing for them to return the car?”

  He reached for a pad and a pencil. “If you’ll tell me where they are, I’ll call them and discuss the matter myself.” His smile was pleasant, but it is eyes that are windows of the soul. His were blank.

  “Sorry,” I said helplessly, “I don’t know where they are. They’re on their honeymoon. But if they call again, shall I tell them to call you?”

  “Please do.”

  “Okay.” I turned, then added, as if it were an afterthought, “Did you all have time to get the green Saturn trade-in washed and on the lot before you closed Saturday? My granddaughter likes it, and it might make a great birthday present.” Both of those were true. The fact that Bethany had just had her birthday was incidental.

  The young man raised his head. “Yeah, I cleaned it up. Had a lot of stuff written all over it from a wedding.” His snicker wasn’t any improvement over the rest of him.

  “Could I have a look at it?” I held my breath, hoping they’d send the youngest out into the misery of that awful day.

  Mr. Bratson and the pleasant man exchanged the look of men each waiting for the other to volunteer. Mr. Bratson gave the pimply youth a curt nod. “Show it to her, Whitman.”

  “It’s mighty wet out there for a test drive,” the other volunteered.

  “I don’t need to drive it. I’d just like to take a look at it. Thanks.”

  Whitman—now I remembered his name on his Bi-Lo badge—came out without raincoat or umbrella, his big shoes squishing in the water underfoot. I offered to let him share my umbrella, but he shook his head. To the Whitmans of the world, umbrellas aren’t for real men.

  I was delighted to find the Saturn at the far end of the second row of cars, out of sight of the office. “You didn’t need to wash it, given all the rain we’ve had,” I joked as we splashed toward it. My pocketbook thumped against my side like a lead weight.

  “Yeah,” he said lugubriously. I’d never known what “lugubrious” meant until I met Whitman. He certainly wasn’t getting any awards from me in the Most Charming, Most Communicative, or Quickest in Thought and Deed contests that morning. Nor for Best Looking, either, with his hair plastered to his forehead and water dripping from his long nose and pointed chin. He hunched his shoulders to keep the downpour from going farther down the collar of his plaid shirt. Poor thing. I felt guilty for dragging him out there to pump him for what he knew. I’d offer to run him home afterwards for dry clothes, to salve my conscience.

  Feeling virtuous after that decision, I opened the backseat door, got in, and slid over. “Come in where it’s dry while you tell me about the car.” When he hesitated, I repeated, “Come on. You aren’t dirty, just wet. The seats will soon dry.” I patted the seat beside me. He climbed in, but he left the door cracked for a quick getaway in case I had designs on his scrawny body.

  Rain was so loud on the roof, I raised my voice. “You know something about that BMW. I could tell from the way you acted.”

  “I detailed it,” he admitted.

  “Detailed it?”

  “Washed and polished it, cleaned the wheels, vacuumed it, did the windows and mirrors—you know, took care of all the details before it left the lot.”

  “You did a great job,” I bragged. He relaxed and permitted himself a flickering smile of pride. I shot out the question before he could pull his head back into his shell. “Was it Mr. Bratson who promised it to somebody?”

  He pressed himself against the car and nearly shook his head, but I’m not a mother and a judge for nothing. “Was it?” I held his eyes until he nodded.

  “Has he promised other cars to the same man?”

  “I don’t know.” His eyes slid toward the window, which answered my question after all.

  “Do you know the man’s name?” Just then my cell phone rang. When I answered, “Judge Yarbrough,” I saw Whitman’s eyes widen. I don’t think he’d known until then who I was. It was a deputy telling me he’d need me down at the courthouse in about thirty minutes. I said I’d be there, then hung up, and turned back to Whitman. “Do you know his name?”

  I could tell by the way he leaned toward the door that he felt he was in the grip of the law and heading off to life imprisonment at any minute. I didn’t say a word to relieve his fears.

  “Raymond,” he blurted. “That’s all I know. Honest. No last name.”

  “How does he decide which ones to buy?”

  He shifted toward the door. Maybe he was weighing what the law might do to him against what Raymond and Jimmy might do. “Comes in and picks them out, I guess.”

  “Do you have any personal knowledge whatsoever, Whitman, that this Raymond ever reserves a car before it gets here?”

  He took his time about answering, scratching one thin thigh with a dirty fingernail. “I don’t know if he does all the time, but one time I took a call when the others were at lunch. He told me to tell Jimmy to hold a little white Acura for him that was coming up from Florida the next day.” He peered over his shoulder. “They’re gonna wonder what we’re doing out here.”

  “I’m asking you about this car. What year is it? What make? How many miles does it have on it? You don’t have to answer, but at least you can tell him that I asked an awful lot of questions. Would you know this Raymond if you saw him again?”

  He squirmed in his seat. “Look, I could get in a lot of trouble, and I need this job. I’m getting married next month.”

  Wonders will never cease.

  I stopped myself before I said that aloud. “Congratulations. We can go now. Tell Mr. Bratson I’ll think about the car and come back on a sunny day to drive it.” I had a suspicion I’d need to help Ridd buy the darned car, to square my conscience.

  We splashed back toward the office. Whitman tromped inside, and I got into the Nissan, hoping Mr. Bratson hadn’t put a bomb under my hood while I was talking in the Saturn. He wasn’t somebody I would trust to manage my office. I wondered why Skye or Laura hired him.

  I was halfway to the sheriff’s detention center when I remembered I’d planned to offer to run Whitman home. Oh, well, maybe he could call his fiancée and she’d bring him a change of clothes. That would put an unexpected pleasure in his dreary day.

  My business with the deputy was simple—setting bond for a man who had forged his employer’s name to a check to pay his child support. “I ain’t got support money,” he whined.

  If he hadn’t been brought before me on a drunk and disorderly two weeks before, I might have gone easier on him. “Stop drinking, and feed those kids,” I told him sternly.

  Joe Riddley was at his desk when I got back. He wasn’t working; he was holding a long white envelope by the edges and staring at it like only he could read the secret writing on the back. When I came in, he looked up, glowering—and if you don’t know what a glower looks like, you haven’t seen my husband displeased. His eyebrows pull down toward the middle of his nose, his eyes get hard like black marbles, and his mouth purses up like an old-fashioned marble bag. Did I mention he has steam coming out both ears?

  Joe squawked and flapped his wings. “Bug off. Bug off.”

  Even that cold welcome was a lot friendlier than Joe Riddley’s. “Where the dickens have you been?”

  “The sheriff’s detention center for a hearing.” I tucked my pocketbook under my desk and slipped my feet out of my soaked shoes. “Before that, down at Sky’s the Limit. I left you a message. Didn’t you get it? Ridd said Bethany may be interes
ted in Maynard’s Saturn.”

  “Ridd never sent you looking for a car for Bethany.” I didn’t answer that. After all, it was nothing but the truth. “You were nosing around down there hoping somebody would confess he put drugs in Maynard’s new car.”

  “Sic ’em. Sic ’em,” Joe egged him on.

  “If I was, I got mightily disappointed.” I flopped into my chair. “It’s as dead down there as it is here—deader, in fact. At least we’ve got a few folks wandering around remembering God gave Noah a rainbow and figuring out what they’ll plant once the deluge is over. Skell’s got three bored salesmen cleaning their nails and picking their pimples.”

  “Pimples?” I had counted on that diverting him, and it did. He dropped the envelope and turned his chair with a creak to face mine.

  “Yeah. One of them looks like he finished middle school a year ago, but he informed me he’s getting married next month. He may have to get his parents’ written permission.”

  The diversion had been fleeting. “You’re gonna need your parents’ written permission to walk out of this office if you don’t stop sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Leave this to Charlie.” Seeing that I was about to say something, he added, “And if you don’t trust Charlie, at least leave it to Isaac.”

  “That’s exactly what I plan to do,” I informed him with dignity. Seeing that he was about to speak again, I decided a counter-attack was called for. “What did Pete Schuster want to talk about?”

  To my surprise, Joe Riddley turned all the way around, so his back was to me and he was looking out the window. Since nothing was happening out there except more rain falling on the almost empty parking lot, it was easy to deduce he was avoiding looking at me. “Skye’s estate.” He reached up a finger and traced the path of a raindrop on the window. “He left me something.” The raindrop kept going toward the ground, but Joe Riddley’s voice stopped.

  “That was real sweet of him.” I reached for a tissue and blew my nose. “What was it?”

  He heaved a sigh like the air in his lungs weighed too much for him to carry it. His chair creaked again as he turned back to his desk.

  “I wish you’d oil that chair,” I told him impatiently. “What did Skye leave you?” I figured it might be his Ford tie tack collection, or even an old Model T he’d kept in a shed out behind his house. He and Joe Riddley spent occasional afternoons out there fiddling with that car.

  Joe Riddley picked up the envelope and stared at its blank back. “He made me the beneficiary of a life-insurance policy.”

  Why, he wasn’t avoiding me; he was hurting. I got up and went over to lay both hands on his slumped shoulders and squeezed them. “That was real sweet of him, hon. Did he say why?”

  He shoved the envelope into his shirt pocket. “Yeah. He left instructions about what he wants me to do with it.” He reached for his cap. “There’s a delivery coming in, so I’m gonna mosey back down to the nursery until dinnertime.” I backed away, frustrated that he was so curt. He stood up and started out without even saying good-bye. I was too hurt to remind him, as I sometimes did, that men who kiss their wives good-bye live five years longer.

  At the door, he turned. “Don’t you be goin’ off again—you hear me?”

  “Of course not. I’ll see you at home for dinner.”

  When he left, I returned to my own desk, puzzled. Seemed to me like he wasn’t real jubilant about whatever Skye had asked him to do—which wasn’t strange, now that I thought about it. The most likely explanation was that Skye wanted to buy the land for Hands Up Together all by himself, and had left money to do that. Was Joe Riddley disappointed they wouldn’t be partners in that, that Skye would get all the privilege—and maybe all the glory? No, my husband had never been one to toot his horn with public giving. If he didn’t get to help buy the land, he could contribute to the project some other way. He’d get over his disappointment.

  But getting a legacy from Skye must make it very real to Joe Riddley that his friend was really truly gone. I’d cried with and held Gwen Ellen. He’d stomped around as usual, not talking about it much. I didn’t know how to best help him.

  If our church offered that course on grief again, I was definitely going to take it. The age we were getting to be, chances were we’d be doing a good bit of grieving in the coming years.

  Meanwhile, I wanted to call Isaac James. As I reached for the phone, I played over in my mind what I’d tell him: “Listen, I got word that there’s a man named Raymond who reserves cars coming up from Florida with Jimmy Bratson, the assistant manager down at Sky’s the Limit. One of them was Maynard’s car, which got picked up in Orlando full of drugs. I think you ought to check this out.”

  Then I imagined Isaac asking me Raymond’s last name, and how I’d gotten the information, and why I had any reason to believe it was true. Finally, I imagined Isaac saying, “Butt out, Judge. Joe Riddley ought to put a leash on you.”

  No, he wouldn’t say anything that crude. I was getting Isaac mixed up with Charlie. Still, I’d feel a lot better giving Isaac information I’d seen with my own two eyes, not hearsay from a kid who could barely vote. I wouldn’t call Ike quite yet. First I’d call Laura. She had said she’s be back at MacDonald Motors this morning.

  19

  After Laura and I exchanged greetings, I asked about Skell and Gwen Ellen.

  “No further word from Skell, so I told Mama he’ll probably get here sometime this afternoon. She had an appointment with the lawyer this morning. Oh—and the funeral home called. The police are going to release Daddy’s body this afternoon, so the funeral is definitely set for Saturday. We want Joe Riddley to be a pallbearer.”

  “I’ll tell him. I know he’ll be honored.” I tried to figure out a graceful bridge between that and what I wanted to ask and couldn’t find any, so I let the silence suffice. “Listen, I have one question. Where do you file sales records for Sky’s the Limit? Paper files, not computer ones.”

  “Current records back to six months, we keep down there. The rest are in our file room here. Why?”

  “I’d like to go through the records for the past six months. Would that be possible?”

  If she’d been asking to go through my records, she’d have had to give me a real good reason, but Laura has always been easy for her friends to get along with. “Sure. You want to tell me why?”

  “Not until I see you in person.”

  “When do you want to go down there? I’m pretty swamped today, but maybe tomorrow morning . . .”

  “How about after you all close this evening?”

  “What’s Joe Riddley gonna say?”

  “Joe Riddley has a meeting at the church. The missions committee got postponed because of Presidents’ Day.”

  “Did we have Presidents’ Day?” She sounded surprised.

  “I’ll call you tonight when Joe Riddley leaves,” I suggested, “and we can go down then, if that’s all right with you.”

  “No problem. I’ll be ready.”

  She was wrong, unfortunately. There were a number of problems. First, Joe Riddley almost decided to stay home that evening and let the other members run the missions committee. “I hate to leave you,” he told me, standing by the kitchen door and regarding me with a frown.

  “Go ahead.” I waved toward town to encourage him to start moving in that direction. “I’m going to have a quiet evening. Besides, without you they might forget to talk about Hands Up Together. You need to get working on that. We owe it to Skye.”

  “Yeah, I ought to at least go and talk about that. I went by to look at that land this afternoon after the skies cleared a little, and I think Skye was right—it’s what we want. Money coming in for his memorials ought to go a good piece toward buying it.”

  “Is it on the same road where he died?”

  “Right beside it. If I had to guess, I’d say he went out there to have one more look at it, and somebody ran over him. It could have been an accident.”

  “Don’t be silly.
He was hit with his own car,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah. It could have popped out of gear if he left it running.”

  “And found its way to the church parking lot?”

  He scratched his jaw with one long finger. “That’s a problem I haven’t quite solved.” He took his cap and settled it on his head. “I’ll be home early.”

  “Don’t hurry on my account. Lulu and I will be fine.” I bent to give her a pat so he couldn’t see my face. We would be fine; we just wouldn’t be fine together.

  You’d have thought Joe was reading my thoughts, for he burst into a cackle of laughter on the curtain rod. I frowned up at him. I didn’t want him putting ideas in Joe Riddley’s head.

  Joe Riddley ambled to his car at the speed of a slow snail. I watched his taillights disappear from sight, to be sure he didn’t come back for something, then gave him time to get up to the end of our road before I called Laura. “I’m on my way. Is Skell there yet?”

  “Not yet. Mama’s climbing walls. Shall I pick you up, or meet you there?”

  “Meet me there. There’s no reason for you to come this far out of your way. I’ll put my dishes in the sink and be there in fifteen minutes.” I hadn’t reckoned on a timber truck that had broken an axle near the railroad. It lay crookedly in my lane, long pine logs hanging off its tail like droopy feathers. Three trucks that had come to help were blocking the rest of the road, so I had to turn and use another route. I didn’t have Laura’s cell phone number to warn her I’d be late, and when I broke my own rule about not calling while driving to call the operator, I discovered that nobody keeps a record of cell phone numbers. You’d think a society smart enough to develop cell phones in the first place could develop a way to share the numbers, but smart isn’t synonymous with intelligent.

  By the time I got to Sky’s the Limit, Laura must have been waiting a good ten minutes.

  She stood leaning against her rear fender taking deep breaths of cool clean air, and acted like I was right on time. “Hey, Big Mac. You doin’ all right?”