Mourning Crisis

by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  BUFORD LESTER WAS MURDERED.

  And, though I wasn’t sure exactly how, I knew it wasn’t from the venom of a wasp sting, but whatever it was, was on that knitting needle, and that was what Tucker Hyut wanted from me.

  At seven o’clock the next morning I knocked on Alice Mableton’s trailer door. Boone answered. “What’re you doing here? It’s practically the middle of the night.”

  “Don’t you have a job at the moving company? And do you even have your own place to live?

  “I’m taking a little vacation from the moving company and stayin’ with Momma to help her.”

  “Well, good luck with that. I’m here for your mom. I need to see her.”

  “I’m up. God ain’t even up yet, but I sure am after you knocked loud enough to wake the dead. What’d you have to do that for?” She smelled like cheap beer and stale cigarette smoke. From the looks of her, she’d slept in the sweater and pants she’d worn the day before. I couldn’t fault her for that though. I imagined it was hard to find anything in that trailer. Anything other than garbage at least.

  I covered my nose by pretending it itched. I think she caught on because she gave me a sour look when she raised the right side of her upper lip.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  I pushed past Boone and into the small trailer, letting the door slam shut behind me. “I’d want to know why you refused an autopsy for Buford.”

  She blinked. “That ain’t none of your business.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m his fiancée.”

  Alice leaned toward me, and I smelled her rancid breath. I kept my mouth closed and did my best not to breathe in. “Like I said before, we don’t even know that for sure cause we ain’t never met you ‘til you come prancing into the funeral parlor all high and mighty actin’ like you owned the place, tellin’ us what to do with my beloved nephew. How do we know you ain’t just tryin’ to make a case for yourself for his estate?”

  I stood my ground. “His estate? What estate? Besides, you saw the letter from his momma.”

  She coughed and braced herself against the kitchen table. “His momma. Like she matters.” She cackled like an evil witch on a Halloween cartoon. “That woman’s been dead to me for thirty years. Why, if she showed up here today begging for a kidney to save her life, I’d slam the door in her face and never look back, that’s how dead she is to me. A letter from her don’t prove nothin’.”

  “Yet you were happy as a pig in mud to take her money to pay for Buford’s funeral though, weren’t you?”

  Alice’s jaw tightened, and she stood in front of me, staring me down like I was some kind of prey about to be eaten, but I didn’t move, I just waited. “I raised that boy of hers. I spent my hard-earned money on that boy, and I deserved that money to pay for his final resting place.” She pushed herself off the table and struggled to come toward me, but she had another coughing fit and could barely stand.

  “Momma, come on, this ain’t good for you. You need your rest.” Boone wrapped an orange and green afghan around his mother’s shoulders and guided her toward the rust-colored couch. “Why don’t you do one of them knitting crafts you used to like so much?”

  She threw a pillow at him. “I ain’t doing none of those crafts no more boy. I’m dying, and I got this good for nothing bloodsucker over here trying to steal my Buford’s money right out from under me, and you know I need that money for my medicine.” She coughed again. “Go on now, get her outta here and leave me be. Let me die in peace.”

  Boone blushed when he looked at me, but it didn’t faze me. He dodged years of junked piled around the small trailer and darted toward the door. “We ought to leave. Momma’s in a mood.”

  “I won’t let you sell that rig for anything less than seventy-five thousand,” I said. I pointed to Boone. “You got a license to drive that thing? Maybe that’s a better job for you?”

  He shook his head. “No, ma’am. Got me a bad back.” Interestingly, he crooked his back when he walked and made a wincing sound to exasperate the very likely imaginary pain. “Don’t much have the ability to sit like that all day, let alone move heavy furniture.” He opened the door to the trailer and motioned for me to exit first. “That’s why I do the filin’ and stuff at the moving office. It’s about the most I can do right now.”

  Before I left, I turned toward Alice and said, “Alice, I’m going to do right by my fiancé. I can promise you that.”

  “You do whatever you need to girl, and I’ll do the same.”

  Outside, Boone gave me a stern warning. “Momma ain’t one you ought to mess with.”

  I smiled. “I’m not afraid of your mother. I’ve been dealing with one a lot scarier than yours since the day I was born.”

  “Ain’t nobody scarier than Momma.” He pulled his pants up to his belly button. I wondered if he’d ever heard of a belt. “I know that for a fact, and more now than ever.”

  “Why more now than ever?

  His voice, monotone but sullen, reduced to a whisper. “The cancer’s all over her body now. We just found out a week ago. Don’t got no health insurance or nothing to treat it except that Medicaid which don't do nothing. All we got is meds to ease the pain, but they're expensive, and we can't afford 'em. Doc says it won’t be long, so there ain’t much holdin’ her back from doing what she pleases, you know?” He shuffled his feet as he walked toward my car, which wasn’t more than ten steps from the trailer door. I knew he’d done it to purposefully to take his time.

  “I’m sorry Boone, I had no idea.”

  He shrugged.

  I unlocked my car. “So, that why she wants to sell Buford’s truck to Tucker?”

  “That wasn’t her idea. That was Atticus. He says the quicker it sells, the quicker we can get Momma medicine to help her. That Medicaid don’t do much for her no more. They want to put her in one of those places that just let her die, and she ain’t ready for that. She won’t do it.”

  “You mean hospice?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  If they wanted to put her in hospice, she was a lot worse than he said. I regretted being argumentative with Alice. Had I known she was that ill, I wouldn’t have been so direct. “I don’t know anything about insurance, but I would think that kind of thing is covered.”

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know nothing about any of that stuff. Atticus, he’s the one that handles all that.”

  We stood and talked more about his mother’s illness until Billy John Jefferson wandered up all crazy-like with his head ready to explode. “Boone Mableton, I told your brother that rig needed to be outta here ‘fore the end of the day yesterday. What in God’s creation is it still doin’ there now? I meant what I said. I’ll get that thing towed. Don’t think I won’t.”

  Boone raised his hands. “I don’t know what’s going on. All I know is Tucker’s buying it, but I don’t know when. He’s working out the details. You know it’s happening, can’t you just cool your britches, and give us a break?”

  “Mr. Jefferson, a family member just died. Can’t you have a little compassion?”

  He moved toward me and shook his fist. “Listen, honey—”

  Before he had a chance to finish that sentence, Boone Mableton stepped between us and shoved the man back with his fingertips. “Now, Billy John, that ain’t no way to treat a lady.”

  I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but part of me wanted to applaud Boone for stepping up and being a man like that. Plus, Billy John scared me.

  “You assaulted me,” Billy John screamed. “You won’t get away with this. I’m reporting you.”

  “Go ahead,” Boone said. “You’ve been harassing my family for years. I’m tired of it. ‘Bout time I did something about it.”

  “He’s right.” I dug my feet into the ground. From what I’ve seen over the past few days, you haven’t been nice to anyone in this family, and you just practically assaulted me, so go ahead and call the police. You’ve put me in harm’s way at least twice since
we’ve met. I’m afraid of you. Go on.” I grabbed my cell phone from my purse. “Here, call the police. Ask them to come now. I’ll tell them what you’ve done to me, too.” I shoved my phone toward him, but he didn’t take it. He just shook his fist at us.

  “I want that filthy eyesore outta here by tomorrow, or I’m having it towed, you can tell your brother that, you hear?”

  “Noted,” I said.

  He shook his head and walked away.

  I ended up back at the French Broad River Park with a strong coffee and a cinnamon scone from a local café. I meandered over to the same place I’d been the last few times, and popped a squat, only it felt different than before because I couldn’t forget the last time I’d been there, and how that one intimate act with Christopher did something to my insides. Something I couldn’t define and didn’t want to think about.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax. My lack of sleep catching up with me, I laid back on my blanket and felt that euphoric dizzying state of sweet slumber kidnap my mind as my senses floated off down the river with the dying leaves, wandering slowly away without a care in the world.

  “Mayme.”

  Mrs. Bakerfield, my fifth-grade teacher, must have had a terribly sore throat because she sounded hilarious as she called on me to answer her questions, “Who began the most famous bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, and when did it happen?”

  “Mayme?” Hoarse Mrs. Bakerfield shook my arm.

  “What?” I jerked almost awake.

  Crouched down close to me, the hoarse Mrs. Bakerfield said, “It’s not safe to fall asleep in the middle of the park like this.” Only it wasn’t my fifth-grade teacher. It was Christopher Lacy.

  Jarred more awake but still in a sleepy fog, I wrapped my arms around him. “Hey, I’m so sorry for being a jerk the other night.” I held him tight, and in the process, woke myself completely up and realized what I’d done. I released my choke hold, and embarrassed, watched the river flow because it flowed the direction opposite of Christopher Lacy.

  He smiled. “No, I should apologize.”

  That gave me the nerve to glance his direction.

  He shifted his position and straightened his legs out in front of him, crossing his left over his right. “I spent a little time on the internet.”

  “Okay?”

  “Was it really called, If You’ve Got it, Flaunt it?”

  When he said he’d spent a little time on the internet, I didn’t think he’d meant searching me. “You searched me?”

  “I’m a detective, Mayme. I wanted to understand what makes you do the things you do, why you’re doing this…this acting job as you call it.”

  I wanted to bury my head in my hands, or better yet, jump in the river and let the current take me out to sea, only there wasn’t an actual current, and it really didn’t go far enough away anyway. “Did you?”

  “Find out? Not entirely, no, but I do have a better understanding of who you are.” He moved closer to me.

  I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe. “And what did you find out?”

  “That you’re a smart, caring woman. You volunteered at an animal shelter. You delivered groceries for a charity helping women getting chemo for breast cancer.”

  “You saw all that on the internet?” I’d forgotten that was there. I’d forgotten anything positive about me still existed online. I thought it was all just about my bottom falling through to the fires of the devil’s home, and the ruin of my Off-Broadway and likely any future, acting career.

  He nodded. “And there’s more.”

  A slow, albeit shy, smile crept across my face. “There is?”

  He nodded and hooked his hand around mine. “No matter what that damaging article said, you definitely have it to flaunt, at least to this North Carolina boy, that is.”

  My heart melted into a puddle of red-beating mush.

  I didn’t know if he’d planned to kiss me at that moment, but I prayed he wouldn’t. I said a quick apology to high school Mayme Buckley for that, too. I knew she’d be upset for missing the probable once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I’d had two cups of coffee and an entire cinnamon scone, plus, I’d fallen asleep. My breath could kill an ant farm, and everyone knew that was virtually impossible. I didn’t want to scare away the boy I’d crushed on for years because of a severe bout of circumstantial halitosis.

  Thankfully, I’d worried over nothing. He didn’t try to kiss me. He just smiled and leaned his forehead into mine. I kept my mouth closed and held my breath just in case something foul snuck out.

  When I needed to breathe, I turned away, and that’s when I decided to drop the bomb.

  “I think Buford Lester was murdered, and I think I have the murder weapon.”

  8

  “Let me get this straight.” Christopher read through my pages of notes. “You think he was murdered, and you think it was a knitting needle, that you have. At your house?”

  “Yes.”

  He placed the notes on his lap. “Why haven’t you given me the knitting needle?”

  “I was planning to, but I had some questions I wanted to get answered first. I didn’t want to come to you and say all of this without some more facts. Because telling you I think someone rubbed wasp venom all over the needle sounds a little strange, don’t you think?”

  “Okay, yeah, I’ll give you that, but we can test it and find out.”

  “But would you? I mean, if I came to you and told you all that, would you have tested it or would you have told me I was ridiculous? Tell the truth?”

  “Okay, granted, it does sound a little strange.”

  “See? I fully intended to tell you. I just needed more facts before I did.”

  “But Mayme, not only have you put yourself in danger, you may have compromised an investigation, and you’ve compromised a crime scene.”

  “What crime scene? What investigation? There isn’t either. His death was ruled medical or whatever you call it, right?” Any shot of a bad-breath kiss had disappeared entirely. I dragged my tongue across my teeth anyway and apologized to my inner high school Mayme for not just grabbing the chance of her lifetime.

  “Right, but if he didn’t die from a wasp sting and you’re right, he was murdered, then yes, you’ve compromised it all.”

  “By finding out the truth?”

  “The partial truth.”

  “Well, at least someone found out something.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you know anything else?”

  “I know there are at least three people who could have done it like it says in my notes.”

  “Yes, Alice Mableton, Tucker Hyut and Billy John Jefferson.”

  “Not everything is in the notes though.”

  “What’s missing?” He pulled a pen from his jacket pocket and readied himself to jot things down.

  “Okay, first of all, did you know Alice has cancer? I guess the only coverage she has is Medicaid, and they want to put her in hospice, but she doesn’t want to go. So she must be close to dying, which, from the looks of her, seems about right. They can’t afford the medicine to ease the pain, I guess unless she’s in hospice, but I don’t know how all that works. That’s why they’re selling the truck for less than it’s worth, because they need the cash for her meds, and Tucker’s taking advantage of that. And Tucker, he’s been bugging me about there being something in the rig that he needs, but I don’t know what, unless it’s the knitting needle because he killed his friend. And then there’s Billy John Jefferson who has a big grudge against Buford. And just recently he was all up in arms about getting that rig out of the trailer park’s way, and if Boone didn’t make sure it was gone, he would have it towed. Why would he want it out that bad if he didn’t have something to hide? Like, say, a knitting needle?”

  I sat a moment and just collected my thoughts. “Oh, and did I mention that it wasn’t Alice’s idea to sell the rig to Tucker? Atticus was the one that came up with that? That disappoints me because he seems like such a nice guy.
”

  “What makes you think he isn’t?”

  “Why wouldn’t he tell me that? He’s acting like it’s his momma that wants to sell the truck. And he even said Tucker’s buying it and then brokering it out to sell it for more and then splitting the money with his momma.”

  He tilted his head. “What? Why?”

  I wiggled my finger. “That’s what I wanted to know. None of it makes sense, but something funny is going on, don’t you think?”

  Christopher nodded. “You might be onto something here, Mayme.”

  I smiled a healthy and confident smile. It was the first time I’d done that since falling through the floor that horrible night. “I’m definitely onto something here.” I stood and walked around in a short, tight circle.

  “A boy will do anything for his momma, so you’ve got two, no, actually, three possible suspects there, Mayme, maybe four, if you include Boone. Think about it. Both Mableton boys want to help their momma and Billy John Jefferson? He’s upset about his momma, too. I’m not saying his issue is a motive for murder, but I’ve seen men kill for less, so it can be.”

  “I wouldn’t include Boone. That boy’s dumber than a box of rocks.”

  Christopher laughed. “I can’t argue with you on that one.”

  “So, you believe me? You think Buford wasn’t stung by a wasp?”

  “I’m not saying that exactly. I’m saying something’s not right, and there are four possible people that could be involved in this if it turns out Buford didn’t die from a wasp sting.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “We don’t know that, but I do know I need to get that needle from you. How about now?”

  “No, not now. My parents are home, and it’s getting late. Can I get it to you in the morning? I promise, I will.”

  “Okay. Only if you promise.”

  I nodded. “I do. You believe me, don’t you? You believe that Buford didn’t die from a wasp sting?”

  “I’m not saying you’re wrong. Let me do some asking around, see what I can find out, okay?”