“This is getting complicated.” Was now the time to confess my sins? Should I tell Connie about the crystal ball and the tarot cards?
“I love it, I do.” I wasn’t convincing myself. “It’ll make a nice conversation piece.”
The ivory hand reminded me of a printed Chinese restaurant place mat with the animal symbols according to the year of your birth. I’m a Rat. Fits me to a T. I’m skinny, ugly, hairy in all the wrong places and liable to chew your arm off while you sleep, if you get on my wrong side. All ratty sides of me are wrong, so nobody would win.
Don’t blab about the other things people have been giving you, she’s a dear, but she loves gossip as much as you do.
I set the hand on its companion book. “I’ll read it later. Right now, I gotta learn to crochet.”
“Oh, you are not! That’s funny.” Connie giggled, climbing from the bench. She had me figured out, I won’t crochet well, and she knows it.
Chapter Fourteen
Comedians and Clowns
I arrived home just in time to save Philly from withering away. Bob’s Burgers saved us both, me from cooking and him from starving. We’re yin and yang together, without the other neither of us are any good.
I had just taken my last bite of burger when Wayne stomped up the carport. “Hey y’all. Sorry I was out of pocket.”
“Heck, I hadn’t missed you yet.” I wadded my burger wrapper and put it in the greasy sack.
Philly got a beer from the cooler and passed it over the railing to Wayne.
Wayne didn’t say no thanks, but took the beer like it was the last one available in the Oasis, maybe in Tucson. He swilled a long draw and wiped his mouth on his arm. Wayne’s redneck with a capital R and N, wearing his cowboy boots, cargo shorts and a flannel plaid shirt with cut out sleeves. The fabric stretched over his big belly, showing his hairy bellybutton. If he wasn’t so pitiful, I would’ve laughed.
“I realize who you remind me of,” I said, grinning. He’s gonna love this.
“Don’t tell me. Kenny Rogers?” Wayne already knew he resembled the singer who hadn’t aged well.
“This evening I’m dreaming of Larry the Cable Guy. I adore his comedy routine.” I clapped a little like I was watching a live performance.
Wayne belched. “Get’er done.”
“See, I’m right. Where’s your bride?” I hadn’t seen Alice in at least twenty-four hours.
“Home. Pouting.”
“Guess you’re acting like a spoiled brat again?”
“Naw, I was at the dentist all day. Getting a crown. Jaw’s still numb.”
“But you can drink beer?”
He took another big swig of beer. “Prolly two. See my lip’s numb.” He let a dribble of beer squirt out between his lips.
“Did Philly tell you about Poochy?”
She had become the apple of my eye in the blink of an eyelash. Maybe I should send out adoption notifications, but technically, she’s a foundling. Oh, I know! I can send out Poochy’s photograph with Look What the Cat Drug Up written on the card underneath her cute face.
They’ll be darlin’. I’ll start a new Oasis trend sending out new pet announcements. Groovy.
“Ah, she’ll get over it.” Philly added to the conversation sliding his thumb down my thigh.
“Stop it. Don’t touch me.” I knew he meant I had gotten over my pouting attack over the car. I’m smarter than he is, I wasn’t the one who got their panties in a wad and puffed up like a dried puffer fish.
“Are you talking about Hunny Bunny or Alice?”
“Both.” Philly toasted with his beer bottle.
“I can’t sit out here and jaw with you two schoolchildren. I gotta get the laundry put away.”
I’ll use any excuse to get away from Wayne when he’s loopy from Novocain. “Later gators.”
Inside, I tackled the laundry. It was nice to have clean linens. We don’t exactly have linens, our sheets are more like my threadbare nightie, comfortably used but without holes. They still have life in them.
If Wayne hadn’t been yammering on the veranda—through the dismantled trailer walls I can hear every syllable they make, but I tried not to listen—I’d ask Philly to come help me with the sheets.
Putting away our clean clothes, I sort of sorted them into neater piles. As soon as they finish the Arizona room, I plan to buy a bureau to use as a TV stand. Everything I do depends on when they finish the room. My Sleep Number bed will go against one wall, the bureau and a new 50-inch Smart TV Philly’s been shopping for online would set against the other. Two new recliners regular size, not minis, and not pink will fit nicely on each side of the bed.
When guests come over, we can entertain them easily in the spacious room.
Of course, I’ll be laying in my Sleep Number while guests worship the unofficial Queen of the Oasis.
Stop it! You’re a crazy woman.
I walked around the bed struggling to fit the fitted sheet when I noticed the crystal ball. I had almost, but not quite, forgotten about the wicked orb. As I walked around, a ray of white shot right into my eye.
“What the!” Stunned, I blinked, backing out of the ray before it did permanent damage to my delicate retina.
Overhead, the ceiling light had a cover and the dim bulbs weren’t bright enough to spark. Earlier, I had rolled the mini-blinds on the bedroom window shut tight. At this time of the evening there wasn’t enough light in the room to reflect from the globe.
“You better shut up, I ain’t listening to nothing you have to say.”
I grabbed my clean, threadbare nightie and tossed it over the orb, silencing any future sparkling sparks. “Sit in the dark, that’ll teach you.”
With the bed ready, I smoothed the bedspread and fluffed the pillows one more time. Back when, Mama ironed our sheets like she didn’t have enough to do. Nothing smells better than cool crisp ironed cotton when you climb into bed. Back when, 100% cotton sheets were all we had, not the nicely woven high thread sheets available now. I don’t even own an iron. Philly doesn’t need ironed sheets, he’s already spoiled enough.
A Queen of the Oasis would hire someone to iron her sheets.
I shook off the thought and ventured into our mini-living room. My jug of fresh sweet iced tea sat on the kitchen counter and I hadn’t even noticed it, but it didn’t take me long to make myself a glass. Those boys can keep their beer, sweet iced tea is a queen’s drink.
I settled into Wanda’s recliner for some crossword puzzle action, but before I got comfortable, Philly opened the door and peeked in. “Sugar, you… ah… ah better come out here.”
I didn’t respond, but hearing him use sugar as an address wasn’t normal. He only uses the word when someone has died.
Then I responded. “Did the vet call and say Poochy died?” My heart pitter-pattered rapidly, my regular irregular arrhythmia, so I wasn’t having a heart attack. When I do have a heart attack, it’ll be swift, I’ll drop like a stone into a pond. No residual suffering required.
“Ah… noo… somethin’ else.” He jiggled the doorknob. “There’s a big problem. Where have you been today besides the laundromat?”
I put down my crossword puzzle book. “Nowhere.”
Philly’s expression was unreadable. “Did Wayne leave?” I wasn’t sitting with him on the veranda if Wayne was still sulking outside.
“Ah… there’s somebody who wants to talk to you.” This time he stepped into the trailer, straightening up tall and handsome, but his beauty didn’t keep my hackles from shimmying.
“Who?” My hands landed on my hips as I started for the door. I didn’t have to go far since it was just a few inches from the chair. I jerked the door open wider and Philly stepped out of my way saying, “Be nice, would’ya?”
I cut Philly a be quiet look before I turned to find Security Chief standing at attention on the carport. Dang it! Somebody ratted me out. I was driving without a license.
Busted. I clinched my molars so hard my jaw squea
ked.
Chapter Fifteen
True Confession
Once Mama gave me a nice Timex watch with a stretchy band and it kept good time, but decades ago, I stopped wearing my wristwatch.
Wish I still wore it.
I’m guessing twenty minutes had passed since they—to be clear in this case, they be the cops—deposited me into this horrid gray concrete block room… jail cell… I don’t know what kind of room it is. All I know is Mack Rigg’s face told me what dire straits were ahead for me. He did not allow me to go to the bathroom, I might’ve been too much of a flight risk, before he walked me to his Oasis security vehicle.
Unlike on television cop shows, there was no ticking clock tacked to the wall counting off the seconds. That’s the worst kind of torture, not knowing how much time has passed. On the other hand, a ticking clock would’ve gotten on my nerves too much.
Twenty minutes was an infinity for an old woman’s bladder to wait. Two glasses of sweet ice tea made me squirm on the metal straight-back chair. Either I’m sweating or I sprouted a leak, because the metal seat feels damp.
When the deadbolt turned, I stood and squeezed my knees together.
“I gotta pee. Real bad.” The man who opened the door stopped, spoke to someone outside the room and said. “The matron is coming to assist you.”
“Don’t need no help. I gotta go.”
The guy in the door stepped back, allowing my ladylike escape from the terrible gray room. I hustled along the hallway, barely making it to the toilet and not peeing my pants. The finger-printer gal was on my tail following me into the bathroom—guess there’s not much difference in her job description—finger-printer or toilet matron, neither weren’t worth much on a résumé.
“Didn’t do a thing.” I wasn’t even embarrassed to have her watch me pee.
“That’s what they all say.” She stood in the open stall door.
“I’ll take that water now,” I said, drying my hands.
Earlier after the fingerprinting process of which I did not thoroughly cooperate with, she offered me a bottle of water, but I declined as she put me away in the cold room.
She handed me a warmish bottle of water. “Can I get a copy of my fingerprints? I have someone I want to share them with.”
Jason, the kid from Oasis Insurance would be happy to have them, since I’m such a criminal, driving illegally and taking my alpaca wool to be spun.
A slouchy dressed dude, I couldn’t say he was a gentleman, leaned against the wall. The fingerprint gal smirked opening the door to the gray room. I entered the blast freezer and unfortunately, he followed me into the room.
“Mrs. Winters, I’m Ned Newly,” he said. “Your appointed attorney.”
What I needed was a cigarette, not this joker. “Yeah. That right? I can afford my representation, thank you very much.” I glared at the joker, measuring him for worth.
“It’s not for me to decide your guilt or innocence.”
Yep, he’s totally worthless.
Appointed attorneys aren’t partial toward the defendant. They are working for peanuts and the people, not the person.
“I’m sure you won’t.” I swilled water only to have it steam in my overcharged guts. “Get on with it. What am I charged with?”
Ned was a bald sweater, angst poured from his shaved head like drops of acid. One drop hit the tabletop between us and I watched hoping it’d bubble the grease off the dirty table. He probably does not have much hair. Nowadays when a man goes bald instead of a comb-over, he completes what nature started by shaving his head.
With this jimmy-walker in charge, I’m headed for the electric chair.
“Then why am I here. Handcuffed like a criminal?”
“You aren’t handcuffed.”
I spewed a raspberry. “It’s only a matter of time, I’m a menace to society.”
“They found Sissy Watkins stabbed to death with knitting needles this afternoon.”
Mack Riggs hadn’t informed me of anything, only saying the police wanted to question me. Ned’s statement took me aback. It registered he meant our Oasis Sissy, but it hadn’t been long since we chatted in the knitting classroom. She couldn’t be dead. Death by knitting needles would be harsh and near about impossible, knitting needles have rounded tips.
“Hmm. I don’t know Sissy Watkins.” I played this public defender testing his abilities.
“Sorry!” He fumbled with his paperwork. “I meant Sissy Armstrong.”
I smirked, as he hedged, scrubbing his shoes on the dirty floor underneath the table.
“Yes, I know that Sissy… knew her. She wanted to teach me how to crochet. Not knit.”
Fidgety, I focused, trying to keep calm. Falling apart wouldn’t make my situation any better.
The small knitters’ group were a tight-knit bunch—no pun intended—and I wasn’t giving up like Ned thought I might. I turned the tables and questioned him. “Where was she killed?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Trudi did it.” I’m a lousy knitting club member, I squawked what I knew before Ned turned the screws on me. “She’s the only one with a motive. She bought an afghan on Etsy. That’s a big no-no in the Oasis.” I clucked showing my disgust.
After her epic meltdown, how could she not be the culprit? My squirmy earthworm wiggled at my brainstem did a quick calculation. It should’ve been Trudi murdering Betty for winning the grand knitters’ prize, not me murdering Sissy because she said my alpaca wool was stinky.
“They found you on the security system coming and going from the knitting club about 1:45 this afternoon. Did you go there?”
“Yes’ sir. I took alpaca wool to get washed and spun. I gave it to Sissy.”
Ned reached into his briefcase setting at his feet and slid a blank sheet of paper across the desk and sat a pen on top.
“All I know is I bought alpaca wool at the secondhand store in town. Huey’s, I believe.”
“I know Huey. Nice guy.” Ned nodded, but fiddled with the sheet of paper. His distraction told me he did not have my best interests in mind. The State paid him, and probably not well, and he or they didn’t care about my outcome.
“That’s all I know.”
“The security tapes are damning. You looked—”
“You might know.” I tsked, shaking my head.
After Dan’s swimming pool demise, there wasn’t a millisecond of evidence on the Oasis’ security video to prove who killed the philanderer.
Just my luck! Now they have security video evidence!
“No matter what I looked like.” I was frazzled and discombobulated as usual.
“Where were you in the hours between six and eleven-thirty a.m.?”
“I thought you said you were my attorney?”
“I am. But they’ll ask. The prosecutor and the detectives. I’m establishing a timeline I can verify. You don’t want me to sound like an—”
“An idiot?”
A drop of sweat rolled along Ned’s chin and he caught it, then wiped it on his pants. “My wife says I’m an idiot, too.”
I didn’t giggle like he wanted. “That makes two of us. I’m not entertained. Murder is a serious business. Sissy was a nice woman.”
She hadn’t insulted me when she said I should start with something simple. For once, I had agreed with a person, and now she’s dead.
They should interrogate the whole knitting club. Anyone of them could’ve killed Sissy. “If I establish where I went all day, can I go?”
“You’re only wanted for questioning.”
“Seems like my civil rights are being violated.”
Lawyers hate hearing civil rights and violate in the same sentence.
I poked my tongue in my cheek. “Gimme a piece of paper, I’ll write down my known whereabouts.”
Ned laid a pen on the table and pushed the paper, but it clung to the table. His drippy sweat dampened the paper. The pen rolled toward me and I grabbed it before it fell on the floor. Liftin
g the damp paper, I laid it in front of me and waved my hand over it.
Ned stood. “I’ll be back in ten.”
“Take your time. I want to be thorough.”
I filled in the details, including sitting on the veranda in my threadbare nightie entertaining the menfolk with my sexy bod.
Dawn: Got up. Drank coffee on the veranda.
8 am: Went on a yarn crawl. Looked at banana cozies. Went to the knitting show. Saw a bunch of knitting. Ate cookies. Drank terrible coffee. Wrong, that was the day before during the yarn crawl fiasco.
Today: Philly came home with needs that Poochy was a puppy mill puppy. That’s a crime someone should investigate instead of interrogating me—an innocent party.
1 o’clock or thereabouts: Philly loaded the cart with dirty laundry. I hate carrying around my dirty laundry, but he’s too lazy and stupid to put soap in a washer and add quarters. It’s my burden as a true and loyal wife to wash both mine and my husband’s dirty laundry.
1: 10ish: Went to the filthy laundromat. I’ve got a few choice words about the joint, but this confession is not the place to air dirty laundry. Decided to take my alpaca wool to the knitting club room.
1:30ish: Chatted with Sissy about my alpaca wool. She was real nice. She suggested I start with something simple like a granny square afghan. Mind you, I don’t like granny square afghans but I agreed with her wholeheartedly since I’m a newbie knitter and Oasis resident. Two weeks hasn’t given me enough time to hate someone enough much less murder them. Take Philly for example, I wouldn’t have to think twice about how I’d kill him—getting rid of his big dead body keeps me from killing him after an eternity of marriage.
From there: I ordered burgers from Connie at Bob’s Burgers. She asked me to have a psychic booth at the next Texas two-step dance and I politely declined. I AM NOT psychic so don’t ask me to read your palm.
Came home: Fed Philly. Talked to him and Larry the Cable Guy, Wayne our Texan neighbor dude. They had nothing of interest to say—like always—went inside to put away the laundry. Put clean sheets on the bed. Folded our clean clothes and stacked them neatly in the corner because we don’t have a bureau yet. If I wasn’t at the police station, my husband and Wayne—I can hear them two old geezers talking in the hall—would be working on the Arizona room and I’d have a bureau in which to store my CLEAN laundry.
Wool Over Your Eyes Page 8
