by Teresa Trent
“Where are you going?” Maggie asked as I approached her on my way to get my purse.
“There’s nothing else I can do here, and I need to go pick up Coco.”
“You want me to get her for you?” Aunt Maggie offered.
“No. I can do it. Besides, you have to go get Danny soon.”
She nodded and then said, “Danny loves picking up Coco at Chickadee’s.”
“He just likes all the toys,” I answered, remembering the time I had to break it to him he couldn’t borrow a shiny red truck to take home for a few days.
“Betsy, before you go ...” My father beckoned from across the yard. “This fella lived a few blocks from here. Are you sure you don’t recognize him?”
“No. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the man before.”
“I was hoping maybe you knew his wife. I guess this is her picture.” He retrieved a photo from Mr. Atwood’s wallet and handed it to me. The victim was posed with his wife and little girl. My dirt-pile man had stunning light blue eyes, a dimple in his chin and black hair that was cut so it spiked slightly in the front. I glanced at the photo and zeroed in on the child. She also had a dimple in her chin and light blue eyes. I’d seen that kid before, very recently. She was at Chickadee’s with Coco. I checked out the woman in the photo, and I was sure of it. I had seen her dropping her little girl off almost every time I’d been there. She was a waitress, although I wasn’t sure where. I knew she didn’t work down at Birdie’s Diner, so I would have to guess she was at the Bluebonnet Truck Stop out on the highway. There was a possibility I would run into her when I went to pick up Coco.
“Uh, Dad. Maybe you should come with me to get your granddaughter.”
“Darlin’, I’d love to, but if you haven’t noticed, I’m in the middle of a crime scene here. My little june bug is going to have to wait for another day.”
“No, Dad. I really think you should.” I pointed to the photo he still held in his hand. “This little girl is in Coco’s class, and this lady is probably on her way to pick her up right now.”
Little Chickadee’s Learning Academy was housed in the building that used to be the home of the Giddyup and Go MiniMart in Pecan Bayou. Unfortunately, the owner did just that, leaving bills all over town. The new owner, Aileen Brock used to run a home daycare, but now that her children were grown, she had converted the Giddyup into a daycare facility. Every time I pulled in to park at the newly renovated childcare center, I found myself craving slushies and beef jerky.
It had been hard for me to put Coco at Chickadee’s, proven by the fact that I kept Coco home for the first year, not feeling a need for daycare. Let’s face it, the separation anxiety issue were mostly mine. It had been years since I had a small baby, and I’d never had a little girl. Somehow, I felt even more protective of her. I looked for a place for her to go to be around other children for a couple of hours a day during the week. I had neglected my job as the Happy Hinter, resubmitting old columns on occasion, but I was centered on the only child Leo and I shared together. I wanted to give her everything I hadn’t been able to give Zach as a working mother. Then after a while, I think she was bored. It was tough leaving her at Chickadee’s, looking at her as I pulled away in the parking lot of the former Giddyup, her big brown eyes ironically the color of beef jerky.
Even with Zach, I still felt a twinge of guilt now and again, and he was in middle school. The joy of motherhood. Guilt never goes away. It just remolds itself to your child’s next stage in life. I had this deep-down need to intercept anything difficult that placed itself in the way of my kids. Some parents, including my father, would tell you it’s not good to hover. You need to give them time and opportunity to make their own mistakes. It sounded good in theory, but it was much harder to do.
Aileen was glancing at her watch as we walked into the daycare. Luckily, we were not the last ones to straggle into the center. A little girl I now recognized as the daughter of Wade Atwood was sitting on her mat waiting for her mother.
“Cutting it awfully close, aren’t we, Betsy?” Aileen said.
“I’m so sorry, but I had something happen at my house, and I was delayed.” My father shuffled in behind me. Aileen stood a little straighter, acknowledging there was a policeman in the room, but he wrinkled his nose at her, giving her the international cop sign for “I’m not here to arrest you.”
Once she was assured of that, she continued her lecture. “If I had a nickel every time someone told me something delayed them, I wouldn’t have to run this daycare,” she snapped. I couldn’t exactly tell her I had just found the body of one of her parents in my dirt pile. Would it have made a difference? No. All that mattered to her was my punctuality.
“Excuse me, may I ask what that little girl’s last name is?” my father said, his hat in hand.
“Atwood. Mrs. Atwood is also perpetually late. For some reason, she can’t leave the diner on time to pick up her child.”
A battered station wagon pulled up in the parking lot. A woman in her thirties wearing a light-blue waitress uniform jumped out with her keys in her hand. Her long brown hair struggled out of a bun that had probably been set in place eight hours ago. She pulled open the door of the daycare.
“Sorry I’m late today. Things just got away from me. It’s always tough getting out of there on meatloaf day.” Once Aileen looked at her watch.
“You are five minutes late, and I will be adding that to your bill. The third time this month. I guess I’ll be getting a tip too.” Her eyes flashed. Wade Atwood’s wife stepped past Aileen and went to her little girl’s upraised arms.
“Hey, baby, Mommy’s sorry she’s late.” The little girl squealed with delight, happy to see her mother no matter what time it was.
My father stepped closer. “Are you Mrs. Atwood? Mrs. Wade Atwood?” The woman turned around with her child’s arms still wrapped around her neck.
“Yes.”
“Ma’am. I have some news to tell you. Maybe you’d better sit down.” He put his hand on her shoulder and guided her to a small red plastic chair that would have comfortably fit a three-year-old. Considering the news he was about to tell her, the backdrop of brightly colored bulletin boards filled with happy little faces was bordering on bizarre. The woman’s eyes widened as she took note of my father’s uniform. He glanced at Aileen. “Could we get some privacy here?”
“You are in my establishment, so I’ll decide whether I stay or go. I need to keep an eye on the parking lot for parents.” Aileen wasn’t going anywhere.
“What’s the matter? Has something happened?”
I pulled up a chair next to Mrs. Atwood. I felt the need to provide whatever comfort I could.
“It’s Wade, ma’am. We found him today. I’m sorry to have to tell you, he’s dead.”
She took in the news step-by-step. First registering horror then disbelief. The little girl continued to cling to her mother, seemingly unaware of the news of her father’s death.
Daisy Atwood placed a hand over her mouth as if to stop a scream. She took a breath and then began to question my father. “I don’t understand. My husband is only forty years old. He’s in perfect health. He never smokes or drinks. Wade’s a healthy guy. How could this have happened? Was it a car accident?”
Coco came over and crawled into my lap.
“No, ma’am. It wasn’t a car accident. Right now we’re not sure, but it may have been suicide.”
“Suicide? Wade would never commit suicide. He was the happiest man on the planet. He has absolutely no reason to commit suicide. How?”
“From what we can figure, he shot himself.”
“Where did they find him?”
It’s bad enough to hear that your husband committed suicide but to find out that when he died he was already half buried was just gruesome.
My father looked at the small child. “Are you sure you want to talk about this now? Why don’t you take the baby home?”
“No. I want to know. Anna doesn’t understand.�
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My father’s eyes met mine as if to confirm what she was saying. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t think Coco would understand much of it either.
“He fell into the back of a dump truck full of dirt. The sides of the truck were so high that the driver never saw him.”
“A dump truck? He died in his own dump truck?”
“What do you mean?”
“Wade drives a big truck. That’s his job. He delivers loads of dirt to all the local nurseries. He drives all over the tri-county area.”
“That sounds about right, then. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Mrs. Atwood looked down at her fingernails. Her shoulders started to shake. I put my arm around her and felt how thin her arm was under her uniform. “Wade would never take his own life. If it was a gunshot, then maybe one of the crazy customers he delivers to did it. It has to have been murder, but who would do this to him?”
“Do you want me to drive you home?” I asked.
She glanced at me as her blue eyes rimmed with tears. Her face was a pale reflection of what she had been when she came into Chickadee’s Learning Center. The owner stood behind us now, her arms crossed. If she started tapping her foot, I couldn’t be responsible for my actions.
The woman was silent for a moment, trying to make her erratic brain function through the grief. She shook her head. “No. I have to tell my mother. I’ll drive over to her house, first. Thank you.”
“Okay. I understand. How about if we drive behind you, just to make sure you’re all right?”
Her hands had begun to shake. Her ability to answer was becoming foggier.
“I think that would be a great idea, Betsy,” my father said.
As Coco and I followed Daisy Atwood and her daughter, I reached back and squeezed Coco’s foot. “Mommy! That tickles,” Coco laughed.
“I love you.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
An older woman was pulling a trash can back from the curb. As I pulled in front of the house, she looked up and then to Daisy’s car now resting in the driveway. I rolled down the window.
“What in the world is going on?” the woman asked.
“Something has happened to Wade, Mama,” Daisy exited her car and ran into the older woman’s arms. After a brief moment, Daisy looked up at us and then waved us off. She was in good hands.
The next day when I stopped at the Pecan Bayou Gazette, Rocky met me at the door. The Gazette office was divided into two sections. At the counter, you could place a classified ad or complain about the latest scathing editorial discussing the one stoplight in town, but the chosen few were allowed to go through the swinging half-door that was an entrance to the world of small-town journalism. Behind the counter, there were four desks topped with computers. Rocky’s workstation was always on the back wall in the corner. He liked that position in the room so he could observe the main street of Pecan Bayou and take a few notes.
His son, Nick, sat next to a small hallway that led back to what used to be private offices when the building was a real estate firm. The rooms in the back served as the Gazette distribution center. Nick was a handsome fellow and a younger version of Rocky. His rugged good looks had everything my boss had, but instead of Rocky’s silver hair, Nick’s was dark brown with just a hint of curl. You also couldn’t get past those blue eyes that he shared with his father.
“About time you got here,” Rocky snorted. Rocky had been texting, emailing, and calling nonstop since news got out that I had discovered Wade Atwood in my pile of dirt.
“I wasn’t scheduled to come in until today.”
Rocky heaved a sigh and threw back his head. “I can’t believe you just said that. Here you are an eyewitness to the biggest story in town, and you choose to come to work at the normal time? Girl, I wanted you in here that night giving me a tell-all interview.” Doing an interview was something I avoided. Rocky didn’t mind splashing even his best friends on the cover of the Gazette in the name of a story. Leo and I had discussed it and decided for the sake of Daisy and her little girl not to let Rocky sensationalize the story.
“There isn’t anything to say, Rocky. I ordered a bed full of dirt ...”
“A bed full? What were you doing, putting in a new foundation?” Rocky asked. Oh great, even Rocky knew what a bed full meant.
“I have ten brand-new planter boxes. I wanted to make sure there would be enough dirt.”
“I think you could fill up the tunnels of hell with all that dirt.”
“Nevertheless,” I said, trying to get back on topic, “the soil was delivered, and sadly Mr. Atwood was in it. We discovered it and called the police. End of story.”
Rocky stood still as a statue. His eyes widened, and there was a slight gulping sound in his throat. Did he have a heart attack? Nick rose from his chair, putting a hand on his father’s shoulder.
“Dad? Are you okay?”
I took the other side. “Maybe we should sit you down.”
Rocky was frozen like a cardboard cutout. Before we could put him in his well-worn chair, he stopped us. His voice sounded unnatural, but he finally eked out, “What do you mean that is all you have to say on it?”
Rocky was an expert at procuring statements from people. Over the years, he had tracked down every story from the reason why Mrs. Green’s septic tank smelled so bad to the political scandals of our somewhat shaky city government. No one ever said no to the man. He turned around, now in full control of himself. “Are you trying to tell me you have no comment?” Nobody got away with “no comment” on his watch.
I faced him, resolute, my jaw firm. “No comment. We have to think about that little girl. Can you imagine what this will do to this family if you start speculating in the paper?”
“That little girl is three years old. The only thing she cares about in the newspaper is the coloring page.”
“Fine. Then what about her poor mother?”
Rocky cast a suspicious glance my way. “I can’t believe this is coming from you, the woman who has personally helped solve so many crimes here in our fair city. Where is your sleuth mojo, girl?”
How could I explain to Rocky that my mother mojo had overruled my sleuth mojo? I felt an intense need to protect Daisy Atwood. A few years ago, I was in the same position when I found myself suddenly a single mom to through no fault of my own. I felt the need to look after her. That meant saying no comment to Rocky.
“We just need to think of the family, Rocky.”
Rocky went to his desk and took out a yellow legal pad. He also grabbed his Pecan Bayou Daily Gazette ball cap and positioned himself in front of me. My employer squinted. He was playing hardball now. I’d seen him take this pose several times with hostile witnesses.
“So, you say you had the dirt delivered, and Mr. Atwood was sticking out of the pile?”
“No comment.”
“And the police established that Mr. Atwood committed suicide?”
“No comment.”
“And that the police are sure that Mrs. Atwood was guilty of driving him to his death?” Now that was crossing a line. I hoped he was kidding, but with Rocky you never knew.
“That’s not true. His wife said he was an incredibly happy guy. There’s no way Wade Atwood would commit suicide.”
Rocky wrote with the speed of a Zephyr. “So you’re saying Wade Atwood was murdered.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Nick leaned over. “I would say that you did.”
“No. You cannot print that, Rocky. I forbid you to print that.”
“Are you denying me my first amendment rights?” Rocky looked shocked.
“I don’t care about your first amendment rights.”
Rocky turned his head slightly to face his son. “Get that down. Suppressor of the Constitution.”
“Rocky! Nick, don’t write that down. Stop! Fine. I’ll give you an interview, but only if you promise not to cause any more grief to Daisy Atwood or her family.”
“Well, of cour
se,” said the spider to the fly.
My cell phone rang, and I scrambled for it.
“Betsy?” I instantly recognized the crisp, clear tones of Aileen Brock from Chickadee’s Learning Center. I tried not to panic.
“Is everything okay?”
“Not exactly,” Aileen said. “There has been an incident here.”
My mind raced as millions of possibilities popped up in my imagination. Had the building caught fire? Had they suddenly realized my daughter was allergic to peanuts? Had Coco flat out refused to take a nap and instead took the rest of the children hostage? It could be anything.
“What happened?” My simple question didn’t even come close to relaying the state of panic rolling around inside of me.
“Biting will not be tolerated here at Chickadee’s Learning Academy.” Another child had bitten Coco? I bet it was that kid who wore overalls all the time. I can clock a biter from a mile away. Nobody in their right mind gets teeth that early.
“Is she all right?” I could only hope that Aileen wasn’t calling me from the back of an ambulance that was speeding to the Pecan Bayou hospital.
“Coco is fine. The little girl she bit is not.” My whirling dervish of maternal thoughts came to a screeching halt. Was she implying that Coco had done the biting? She had to be wrong. Not my Coco.
“I don’t think I understand.”
“You need to come and pick up your daughter. I feel that when a child starts biting, it’s best to remove them from the situation as quickly as possible. This will give you time to retrain your student before returning her to the learning environment. I’m sure you can understand that.” Translation: biters get bounced.
I looked up at Rocky, who was anxiously waiting for me to answer his questions. I clicked off the phone and gave him a conciliatory smile.