Who Let That Killer in the House?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  “I wish they could,” I agreed, “but they can’t even accuse him of helping Tyrone paint the school, because Willie Keller says Smitty was at his place all that night.”

  “Wet Willie would say anything!” She glared at me, and a silent challenge was flung across that room: I can’t believe you grown-ups are dumb enough to believe him.

  The weight of adult impotence sat heavy on my shoulders. I wanted to explain that adults can’t do everything we hoped to when we were young, that years of accumulated evil and human folly make a very thick hedge that hems us in on every side. I wanted to plead that all any generation could do was chop through in little places, as God gave us grace and strength. But Hollis wouldn’t understand. I wouldn’t have, either, at her age. Youth is what God gives humanity to remind grown-ups they should try harder.

  But how much harder could I try? I had been so busy since we found DeWayne, I hadn’t even had time to grieve. I yearned to go home, float in my pool, and cry. But I couldn’t go home. The place was swarming with girls. Instead, once I finished here, I had to go feed Cricket his supper, read him a story, and hope my tears would wait until I had a minute to myself.

  In the middle of my pity party, I remembered I was there to comfort Hollis, persuade her to join the Honeybees at my house, and find out if she suspected DeWayne had messed with any of the girls. I might as well get on with it. “When you saw Coach Evans Wednesday—”

  Her eyes widened. Shock? Guilt? Fear? “How’d you know I saw him?”

  “Bethany said you couldn’t eat lunch with her because you were meeting Coach Evans.”

  “Oh.” She lowered her head and fiddled with the edge of her shorts.

  “Is there anything somebody should know about that conversation?”

  Now she was edgy again. She nibbled the end of one grubby thumb. “No, it was private.” Her eyes searched mine. “Are they positive he did it himself?”

  I nodded and reached for my pocketbook. Whatever Hollis was worried about, she wasn’t going to discuss it with me. I might as well get on with my program. “The team is spending the night together down at our place. They want you to come, if you will. If you’ll grab your bathing suit and toothbrush, I’ll drive you down.”

  “I can’t leave Garnet.” Her voice was wistful.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Garnet stood in the doorway, hands on her slender hips, looking like a dancer in a black cotton T-shirt and black pants. Her skin was so pale, she seemed more like a wraith than ever. A furious wraith. “Go on. I can take care of myself. You don’t have to hang around all the time.” She gave Hollis a glare that would have felled a lesser woman, then noticed her sister’s spiky lashes and tear-washed eyes. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

  Before either Hollis or I could answer, somebody pounded on the back door. The girls jumped and exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret, but it was certainly a blend of fear mixed with uncertainty and a grim determination.

  The pounding continued.

  I looked from one to the other. “Don’t you think you should see who it is?”

  “It’s nobody. Don’t worry.” Hollis flapped a hand at me. Garnet stood, clutching her shirt with one hand.

  Whoever it was pounded again. I got up. “I’ll go.”

  A crash in the kitchen was followed by the tinkle of falling glass.

  16

  I grabbed my cell phone to call 911. “Quick—out the front door!”

  We heard a furious roar. “Why is this door bolted? Let me in!” With relief I recognized Buddy and that tone of voice. My boys still get irritated like that if we lock a lock to which they don’t have a key. What is it about young males that makes them expect to walk right into their old homeplace whenever they like?

  Hollis looked sheepishly from Garnet to me, then jumped up and headed down the hall. “All right, already,” she yelled. “You don’t have to take the house down. I’m coming.” Garnet followed, so I joined the party. Hollis fetched a key from the top of the refrigerator and turned the lock.

  “Why did you bolt that door?” Buddy demanded when Hollis swung it open. “And why aren’t you at work?”

  “We forgot to unlock it,” Garnet explained.

  “I wasn’t feeling so good,” Hollis replied. She ignored my look saying she ought to get her stories straight about who was sick around there and added virtuously, “It’s dangerous not to bolt doors. You don’t know who might come in. Mrs. Yarbrough—I mean Judge Yarbrough—is here.”

  Buddy and I both noticed that unfortunate juxtaposition. He gave me a grin. Then he lifted one loafer to examine slivers of glass stuck to his sole, and his smile became rueful. “Sara Meg will kill me, but I was afraid something had happened. Not that anybody would notice a little glass underfoot, with all this mess. Get a broom, Garnet.”

  Now that he mentioned it, the kitchen was worse than the rest of the house put together. Dirty dishes filled the sink and countertops, and clean ones filled the drainer and sat among the dirty ones, like somebody found it too much trouble to put them away. Remains of cereal, sugar, milk, and orange juice littered the table, and an archeologist could probably reconstruct their past week’s menus from scraps on the kitchen floor. Buddy looked very out of place, fresh from a shower, smelling of aftershave, and wearing clean white jeans and an olive polo shirt.

  I was surprised to notice, though, that Sara Meg had redone her kitchen, and not long ago. The walls were creamy and bright, the floor covered in rust and cream vinyl squares, and the stove, refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher were new. They all looked more expensive than I’d have expected her to buy, given that she still had two girls to put through college.

  “It’s Hollis’s week to clean in here.” Garnet yanked the broom from beside the refrigerator. “She always puts it off as long as she can, and I refuse to do her work.” She skillfully avoided a piece of lettuce and a crust of bread, sweeping up only glass.

  “I’m going to do it. I just haven’t had time,” Hollis grumbled.

  “Get the dustpan,” Buddy told her curtly. From the look he gave me, I knew he was embarrassed I’d seen the place looking like that, but what he said was, “You know your mother doesn’t like to see it looking like this.”

  “It’s not Mama; it’s you,” muttered Hollis, heading for the dustpan.

  At the same time Garnet demanded, “When is she ever in the kitchen?” She jerked back a chair to reach a piece of glass under the table with her broom.

  Buddy didn’t answer either of them, but when Hollis banged the dustpan down on the table, he ordered, “Do those dishes right now. Your mother can’t keep up with all this. She has to count on you.”

  She and Garnet both looked at the floor, united in shame. Then Hollis moved to the counter and started putting clean dishes away in a manner that suggested that at least one plate or glass wouldn’t survive the experience.

  Buddy asked Garnet again, “Why did you bolt that door?”

  She shrugged. “I told you—we forgot to unlock it. We hadn’t gone out it all day.”

  Remembering the chain on the front door, I knew she was lying, but I had no idea why. Whatever those girls were afraid of, they didn’t want their uncle to know.

  Having deployed the troops, he turned to me. “Did you need the girls for something, Mac, or was this just a friendly visit?”

  Before I could answer, Hollis muttered over one shoulder, “She came to tell me Coach Evans”—she paused, and her voice grew thick—“he—he killed himself.”

  “What happened?” Buddy demanded. “I just talked to him this morning!”

  Before I could ask when and why, Garnet’s broom clattered to the floor. Her dark eyes moved from Hollis to me. “How? When? Where?” The questions came out in little puffs of air, leaving no space between for me to answer. “Are you sure?”

  “He hanged himself early this morning over at the school. That’s all I know so far,” I said.

  Garnet’s shell cracked and crashed aroun
d her. With a shriek, she whirled and dashed down the hall, whimpering, “No! Oh, no, no, no!” We heard her burst into tears just before the powder-room door slammed.

  Hollis started slinging dishes into the dishwasher, then stopped with that job half-done, turned the water on full force and squirted too much detergent into the dishpan.

  As she plopped in a couple of pots with burned bits stuck on them, Buddy said, “Man, just when I was looking forward to getting to know DeWayne again. I called this morning to invite him to play golf and he said he’d get back to me.”

  “When was that?”

  He thought and shrugged. “Sometime around eight, maybe? He was on his cell phone going to school.”

  Hollis finally deigned to look around. “Where’d you know him from before?”

  “He used to live in Hopemore when he was little. He and I played together until—”

  “—he moved away.” I shot Buddy a warning look. We didn’t need to be rehashing DeWayne’s past right then.

  We chatted a few more minutes, until I noticed that my watch said four o’clock. “I came to invite Hollis to spend the night down at our place with the rest of the Honeybees,” I told Buddy, “so they can grieve together. They’re having a sleepover, with Martha and Ridd to chaperone. I know Hollis doesn’t like to leave Garnet when she’s sick, but—”

  “I’m not sick.” Garnet stood in the doorway, looking exactly like a ghost with the flu. Her eyes were still wet with tears, but the shell was around her again. Buddy reached out and felt her forehead. “What’s the matter with you?”

  She backed away. “Nothing. Really. I was feeling yucky a few days ago, but I’m okay.”

  “I sure hope so. I heard this morning that we can play in the doubles tennis tournament down in Savannah next month. That’s what I came over to tell you. If we’re gonna knock their socks off, we’ll need to practice a lot.”

  Garnet bent for the dustpan full of glass, looking about as thrilled as if he’d asked her to swallow it. “I don’t know. I’ve got lots of studying to do.”

  At the sink, Hollis muttered, “I’m not leaving you here.”

  Garnet glared at her, then turned to me. “Could you drop me at the store when you take Hollis? I can help Mama close up.”

  “If you’re sick—” Buddy dropped a hand to her shoulder. “I feel fine.” She backed away again, looking as fine as a ghost ever looks—wan and not quite present.

  He frowned down at her. “You aren’t being bothered by anybody, are you? Has that Franklin fellow been over here?”

  Hollis gave a snort that might have meant anything. But the way Garnet pressed herself against the refrigerator as she exclaimed, “Oh, no!” and the way she stared at the floor after that made me wonder if Art had been bothering her. Maybe Hollis had decided to guard her.

  Buddy looked from one to the other uncertainly. “If he bothers you, you let me know, okay? Don’t worry your mother. I’ll deal with him.” When she didn’t reply, he repeated, “Don’t worry your mother, now.”

  Garnet turned away to get a glass of water. “I won’t.”

  Hollis turned from the sink, her face red and blotchy. “We never bother our mother.”

  At the rate Hollis was doing the dishes, we’d never get away. I told her, “I need to get going, or Joe Riddley’s going to wonder what’s happened to me.”

  “Get your things,” Buddy told her. “I’ll do the dishes after I fix the glass.”

  “Great!” Hollis scampered up the stairs like she’d been let out of jail.

  He looked ruefully at the broken pane. “I’d better go get some glass and putty to fix this, or Sara Meg will be air-conditioning the whole outdoors. Good to see you, Mac.”

  I gave him a hug. “Good to see you, too. And Garnet and I’ll finish the dishes.” Garnet wasn’t excited by that prospect, but after he left, she scrubbed pots while I loaded the dishwasher.

  When the phone rang, Garnet reached for it like she was afraid to answer. When she heard who was on the other end, her relief was obvoius. “Oh, hi, Martha. You did?” She listened, then sat down in a nearby chair. “Oh, no.”

  I wouldn’t have believed Garnet could have gotten paler than she already was, but she did. Tears welled in her eyes and she turned her head so I couldn’t see them. For several seconds she sat, listening. Finally, she sighed. “I guess you’re right. But I’m sure gonna miss her.” She listened again, then said, “Yeah, she’s right here. We’re waiting for Hollis to pack. Okay. And—thanks.” She said the last word reluctantly, then handed me the phone.

  “Everything going all right over there?” Martha asked.

  “As well as can be expected. We’re about to head out. I’m dropping Garnet off at Children’s World, then I’ll bring Hollis down.”

  “That’s good. And listen, Mac, be extra nice to Garnet. I just gave her some real sad news. Last week after my lecture to her psych class, she told me she wondered if one of her piano students was being molested. The child seemed to know more about sex than a child that age should, and that’s one of the symptoms I mentioned in my lecture. I had the situation checked out, and Garnet was right. The child’s mother’s boyfriend was molesting her. She’s been sent to live with an aunt.”

  Just the piece of news I needed to round out a perfect day.

  While I was talking to Martha, Garnet finished the dishes like an efficient ghost. As I hung up, before I could say a word, she silently led the way back to the living room. We sat in awkward silence, her in the chair and me on the sofa. I watched dust motes dance in the sunlight and wondered what I could say to bring Garnet the most comfort.

  She broke the silence. “Did Martha tell you what she told me?” I nodded. She murmured, more to herself than to me, “She was only nine. Nine years old.” She reached up and brushed away a tear that had started down her cheek, but it was followed by another.

  “You saved her, honey. If you hadn’t said something, it could have gone on and on.”

  She bent her head. “I know. But I’ll miss her. I hope they have a piano wherever she’s gone.” Her shoulders shook with sobs. This time I didn’t hesitate. I went to sit on the arm of her chair and held her head tight against my shoulder.

  Gradually her sobs stopped. I felt her shoulders tense, and she looked up with a new hardness in her face. “I need a job,” she said fiercely. Seeing that she had startled me, she added, “I don’t make enough money teaching, and now I don’t have enough pupils. It doesn’t take enough time, either. I only have morning classes. Do you all need anybody?”

  Regretfully, I shook my head. “I’m afraid not. Things are slow with us, like they are with everybody. Couldn’t your mother use you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’ve asked her several times, but she says she just doesn’t have the money to hire anybody right now.”

  Seemed to me like Sara Meg had her priorities wrong, putting so much money into a kitchen she seldom used, but that wasn’t the time or place to say so. “What can you do?”

  She sighed. “Not much, really. I’m pretty good with computers, but I’ve never worked except to help Mama sometimes.”

  “Well, if I think of anything, I’ll let you know.” If the new superstore was built, she could probably work there. But where else? The answer came like an answer to an unvoiced prayer. “I’ve got one idea. Can I use your phone?”

  “It’s in the den.” She rose and led the way. Walking behind her, I wasn’t surprised Art Franklin was attracted to her. She was grace in motion, and her hair was spectacular. Unlike Hollis’s, it was clean and shining, lying in a heavy mass against her back.

  I dialed the number for MacDonald Motors, which was owned by a good friend of mine. If anybody could bring Garnet Stanton to life, it would be Laura MacDonald. And if Garnet was still grieving her daddy, Laura would understand that, too. Both her parents had died in February.3 Her deep voice sounded delighted to hear from me. “Hey, Mac, what’s up?”

  “Garnet Stanton wants a
job, and I wondered if you needed somebody to help you in the office. Did you ever replace Nicole out front?”

  “Not yet. Can she answer the phone, type letters, and do data entry?”

  “Sounds right up her alley. Can I bring her by your place in a few minutes to discuss it?” “No time like the present.”

  Bless Laura MacDonald’s big heart.

  Garnet hurried upstairs and came back wearing a dark green skirt and a white blouse. She had caught her hair at the nape of her neck with a green ribbon. “You clean up real good,” I complimented her. I expected a smile. I got a shrug.

  Hollis clattered down the stairs out of breath, wearing jeans and a cute purple top, carrying two stuffed bags. “You moving in with us?” I asked.

  “It’s just clothes and stuff,” she assured me.

  “Mostly stuff,” said Garnet with disdain.

  We let Garnet off at Laura’s, and she said she’d walk from there to Children’s World. I dropped Hollis off at my house into a swarm of red-eyed, red-nosed Honeybees who poured from the house to engulf her. At last I took time to stop by the church chapel for a private half hour to myself, to pray for DeWayne and all who loved him. Then, feeling better, I stopped by Myrtle’s for a quick piece of pie, since I hadn’t eaten much lunch.

  Art Franklin waited on me, and it didn’t take a genius to see that he was excited. “Did you hear that Coach Evans—the chemistry teacher over at the high school—hung himself this morning in the boys’ locker room?” he asked as he brought my coffee.

  The way he looked, he’d be willing to sit right down and discuss it if I invited him. “Sure did,” I said shortly. “You got any chocolate pie?” If I sounded callous, I didn’t care. I hate it when people get excited over other people’s tragedies.

  When Art brought my pie, he licked his wet lips a couple of times and said, “Did you hear how he did it? I mean, did he stand on a sink and jump, or what?”

  I stared at him. “I haven’t the foggiest.” It was a good question, though. As far as I could remember, there wasn’t a thing to stand on where DeWayne was found.

  Getting no satisfaction from me, Art dashed over to another new customer with his coffeepot. I heard him ask, “Did you hear that Coach Evans . . .?”