Hot Enough to Kill

by Paula Boyd

  Meaning from me, I had to presume, and it peeved me just a tad. I stepped back a little. "Just trying to be helpful."

  Ethel finished her please then grabbed onto Velma and they began trying to stand up. "We don't need your kind of help around here," Bony Butt said, scrambling and weaving with Velma. By the time they were steady on their feet, they both looked like red-faced plums, Bony Butt being the shriveled tough variety. I would have been glad to help them, but no, that would have been a sacrilege or something.

  Velma Bennett dusted off the front of her gray dress, and looked at me blandly, no scowling, no nothing, nor did she speak. Bony Butt, on the other hand, had gotten her nice brown slacks all covered with dirt and weeds, but keeping her scathing gaze solely on me was more important than cleaning up.

  I sighed rather heavily, having a pretty good idea what was coming next.

  "You, you, heathen!" she screeched, right on cue. Her face scrunched in indignation as she shook her fist at said heathen. "We knew you were up to something when you starting quizzing Jimmie Sue and then went right over and told Gifford you were going after poor old Dee-Wayne. And now just look what's happened!"

  Trying to make sense of Bony Butt gives me a headache, but best I could tell she was blaming me for "poor old Dee-Wayne's" death, not that I wasn't doing the same thing, but for less dubious reasons. "I don't know what you're trying to imply, Ethel, dear," which, of course, I did.

  She apparently doesn't much care for me calling her Ethel, or dear, since her eyes narrowed and blazed the impertinence. But, she would have liked the "narrow-minded, bony-butted bitch" option that was crossing my mind at the moment even less.

  Ethel edged closer and wagged her fist again. "Nothing good has happened since you set foot in this town." She looked at Velma, who gave a mechanical nod in confirmation and perhaps encouragement. "I just knew something bad was going to come of this. I just knew it."

  I could have asked her exactly how she "knew" these things, and stirred her up about her psychic abilities and/or Satan's charms, but I decided to pass. What I really wanted to know was exactly when Dewayne had done himself in. Or, more specifically, I wanted to know if he'd already killed himself before Susan showed up at my mother's. If so, that would at least lessen my guilt over going to the DQ instead of directly to his house--lessen it a little anyway. "So, you were the first ones here? You found Dewayne?"

  "Well, of course. We came right over after we heard you talking," Ethel snapped. "We knew he needed turned to the ways of the Lord and we came to witness to him."

  "But we were too late," Velma intoned matter-of-factly. "He was already dead. Nothing to be done for it."

  These two were taking this pretty well. If I'd been the one to find a dead guy, I don't think I'd be so nonchalant about it. Shouldn't they at least be a little traumatized by finding Dewayne dangling from a rope? And had even used a rope? Maybe it had been an electric cord, or some kind of construction material. And where did he do it? And did they cut him down or leave him hanging there? I had a ton of questions I wanted answered, none of which would probably lessen the guilt I felt.

  Velma clutched her hands and held them to her chest. "Deputy Harper, Larry Harper that is, called Redwater to request the ambulance," she volunteered evenly. "According to what was said, it should be here in twenty minutes, perhaps fifteen now."

  That seemed like a long time, even for a jaunt to outlying Kickapoo. Then again, I guess there was no need to rush. But if you aren't going to rush, why send an ambulance? Why a lot of things… From the corner of my eye, I saw Bony Butt start to twitch.

  She stepped toward me, waving her arms as if shooing flies. "This is none of your business. You get on out of here! We don't want the likes of you around here stirring up any more trouble. This is just one more awful thing that's happened since you showed up."

  I started to mention that the trouble had been stirred long before I arrived, but saw no need to waste my breath. "Okay, you're right, Miz Fossy. I should go back to Colorado and sanity. But since I can't, why don't you tell me what made you two sneak out of the DQ and scurry over here?"

  "I heard what you said to Mayor Geller, I knew something awful was bound to happen, and I asked the Lord what I should do. He told me you were up to something and I should get over here right away."

  "Followed the call," Velma said blandly.

  Bony Butt's face screwed up a little tighter. "And He was right. Just looked what happened."

  Velma nodded again, hands clutched.

  What an odd pair: Ethel the enraged zealot and Velma the walking sedative. And my mother was right. She was very plain looking, kind of a frumpy Aunt Bea with a really tight perm and zero personality. I was not impressed with either the woman or her choice in friends.

  Ethel turned and took Widow Bennett by the arm, her scowl lightening into a concerned frown. "Come on, Velma, honey," she cooed. "You haven't been yourself lately, and this is all just too much for you. Let's get you away from all this, this, commotion."

  Meaning me, I presumed, so I smiled.

  "You ought to be ashamed," Bony Butt hissed back, dragging Velma away toward their cars.

  "Yeah, Jolene," said another familiar and unpleasant voice. "You ought to be ashamed."

  I let out a long and weary sigh and turned to face my accuser. "Leroy. How not nice to see you again. How's the head?"

  Acting-sheriff Leroy automatically rubbed at the bandage, which was mostly hanging just below the band of his official brown deputy hat. "My brother says you took off from the house to go looking for Dee-Wayne, and the next thing he knows Ethel Fossy's calling saying Dee-Wayne's dead."

  There was no point in explaining anything, I'd at least learned that much, but I felt compelled to respond in hopes of circumventing at least one stupid question. "Apparently, Leroy, I was at the Dairy Queen while Dewayne was busy doing himself in, or maybe he'd already done the dirty deed before I left the house. I don't know. But you're not going to listen to a thing I say, so just move along to the next idiotic thought that leaps to your tongue."

  He frowned a little harder. "Just what did you say to old Dee-Wayne that made him want to kill his self?"

  Yes, I'd asked for an idiotic thought, I realize that. "Even you are smarter than that, Leroy. The pecan tree is smarter than that." I paused for a minute to let him catch up. "Nothing I've ever said has made you jump up and run off to kill yourself, now has it?"

  Leroy squinted his eyes real mean-like at me. "Just answer the question, Jolene. This here is yet another official investigation you've got yourself mixed up in and you better start talking or I'll haul you over to Bowman City and let you sit in the jail for awhile."

  Yeah right. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes. "Okay, Leroy, here's the deal. I've never spoken to Dewayne Schuman in my entire life. Not today, not yesterday, not the day before, not a year ago, not forty years ago."

  He adjusted his hat against the sun and wiped sweat from his eyes. "I ain't gonna listen to your smart-alecky talk, Jolene, just answer the damn questions like you're supposed to."

  I was grateful I had stayed in an errant patch of shade from the house, but I didn't move over and offer to share. "I answered the question, Leroy. I have never spoken with Dewayne Schuman in my whole entire life."

  "Then what were you doing coming over here out of the blue?"

  I debated how much I should tell, but Larry already knew Susan had been by Mother's so Leroy would also know it--eventually, maybe. "I was coming over here to check on him because his sister asked--"

  "Holy damn," he muttered, shaking his head. "She talked you into checking on him, didn't she?"

  I was getting just a little tired of these buffoons acting like I was an idiot for trying to be helpful. Furthermore, I didn't appreciate the insinuation that Susan had conned me into doing something I didn't really want to do, which, of course, was sort of true, but totally beside the point. The woman was worried about her brother, for godsakes, and I had tried to
help. Not exactly a crime, but if I thought about it very long, I sure felt pretty darned criminal about the whole thing, although not in Leroy's sense of the word. True, I didn't know Dewayne, or Susan, for that matter, but this was a very sad deal no matter how you looked at it. A man was dead because nobody wanted to listen to his sister's concerns.

  Growing up, I'd always wished for a brother of my very own, and my idealistic notion of what that meant pushed me to have more than one child so they wouldn't be alone. When the two little cherubs I thought would be so thrilled to have each other for playmates wound up fighting like crazed panthers, I had to reassess my notions. Now that they're older they really seem to like one another, and I'm glad for that. They'll always have each other to fall back on--something I never have had. Other than my mother and a few aunts, my kids were my only family now--a very short list. I didn't know what story Susan and Dewayne shared, but her family list had certainly gotten shorter too. It made me sad--and a little angry.

  "As it turned out, Leroy, Susan was right. And now her brother's dead because the people who are supposed to help, meaning you and your merry band, wouldn't. If I were her, I'd be thinking of what number I wanted to put before the word million in the lawsuit my attorneys were working on fast and furiously."

  Leroy snorted. "That dyke won't be suing nobody, not if she knows what's good for her."

  The wail of sirens kept me from asking him for an explanation, not that he would have given me one--or said anything worth hearing anyway. The siren got louder, and I knew the ambulance would arrive in seconds, which meant it was time for me to make a discreet and rapid exit. I did not need to witness what was about to transpire.

  I nodded to Leroy. "If you had any sense whatsoever, you'd get these people out of here before the paramedics come in, which by the way seems like a bad plan anyway since this is a crime scene not an urgent medical emergency situation."

  He scowled, eyes blinking, indicating the possibility of some kind of thought processes going on behind the scenes.

  "Furthermore, Mr. Acting Sheriff, keeping anyone else from disturbing the crime scene before the forensics people get here--assuming you've called them--would seem prudent. Dewayne was involved in an ongoing murder investigation, not to mention the pesky detail that he's an illegal arms dealer. You might also want to consider sharing this little development with the other eighty departments who have an interest here."

  Leroy looked a little taken aback, and I was sure if he had a deputy's handbook he'd have been rabidly flipping through it to see if I was right. But since he didn't, he was forced to wing it and pretend he knew what he was doing. "This here ain't a murder, Jolene, and you don't know what you're talking about. Larry said it was plain as day that DeWayne hung himself and that's that. Besides, Ethel Fossy said the same thing. No need in dragging out the Redwater boys for something cut and dried like this and I sure ain't calling nobody at the ATF about nothing. I don't go around making up trouble where there ain't none."

  I just nodded, thinking of how Jerry was going to hit the roof when he heard about this little breach of protocol--or maybe, he'd just hit Leroy. "I'm going back to my mother's now, and you're going to cease and desist with badgering me about any of this, got it?" He didn't look like he was getting much of anything except maybe heat stroke, so I added, "Are you going to call Jerry and tell him what you've done or shall I?"

  I didn't wait for Leroy to answer, just marched myself to the Tahoe and headed toward Mother's house. I was in the driveway before the air conditioner had even started cooling the baked interior, but the few short, sweltering minutes in the car had given me plenty of time to come to a variety of conclusions. The main one being that I'd had enough of this place and wanted out--now. I left the car running--and the blessed air conditioner on high--and ran into the house. I gave Mother a brief synopsis of Dewayne's supposed suicide and Leroy's crime scene contamination, causing her to shake her head and cluck her tongue. But when I told her to grab her purse, she didn't leap to her feet and race through the house. In fact, she just sat there, staring at me.

  "Well, Jolene, what you said about Dee-Wayne is just awful, but why does that mean we have to run off right now? It'll be getting dark before long."

  I had about a thousand reasons, but at least half of them concerned being fed up with the present locale and its residents, so I decided to skip those. I relayed my concerns, sticking to the basic fact that people were dropping like flies for one reason or another, and bullets were buzzing faster than that, and well, I'd just had enough of all of it.

  She didn't look ready to chime in and agree with me so I tried another tack. "Right now, we don't have a guard in the yard. Let's get out of here while we can."

  She reached for her purse, opened it and dug through, checking to see that she had whatever it was she deemed essential. "I certainly wouldn't mind another break. It was certainly refreshing to go to the mall. How long do you think we'll be gone?"

  "A month at the most."

  Mother's perfectly drawn eyebrows shot up. "Now, Jolene..."

  The more I talked, the better it sounded, and the more eager I got to hit the road. I could almost smell the pine trees, not to mention the freedom. "After I stop by to see Jerry, I'm packing up and heading back to Colorado and you're going with me."

  Lucille turned toward me and narrowed her eyes. "I most certainly am not. This is my home and nobody's going to run me off from it. Besides, I don't take that mountain altitude well at all, and you know it."

  "Well, it's a hell of a lot easier to take than obtuse rednecks on power trips and homicidal maniacs with guns. People are dropping like flies, Mother."

  "I don't know why this thing with Dee-Wayne has gotten you so stirred up. It's not like somebody shot him. You said he killed himself."

  "So said Ethel Fossy. Do you believe anything she says? She's the one who found him. How do you know she didn't make Dewayne shoot the mayor, shoot at us, and then make him hang himself for his sinfulness? Or maybe she hung him herself. Or maybe he was dead before she strung him up. Shit, I don't know!" I knew I'd gone a little overboard, but if you'd been in my shoes, you'd have been diving pretty deep, too. The fact of the matter was that this was getting to me. I just couldn't help it. And the thought of fleeing the place made me just a tad hyper, if I were to be objective about the situation, which I saw no need to be.

  Lucille stood, grabbed her purse, clutched her bandaged arm and started walking toward the door. "Well, Jolene, I think you had one good idea mixed in there somewhere. Let's drive on in to town to the hospital." She clicked her sandals haughtily across the linoleum toward the back door. "I'm sure they've got some kind of medication that'll settle you down."

  "Is that so?" I clopped along right behind her. "Well, then, Mother, since we're going that way anyway, maybe we should stop by and check out that nice new nursing home out on the highway, hmmm?

  "Just get in the car, Jolene."

  "Just get in the car, Jolene," I mimicked childishly, snagging a Dr Pepper from the fridge as I hurried by.

  Chapter 15

  We drove in silence toward Redwater Falls, both stewing for different reasons. I do not enjoy fighting with my mother, but I'm also not real fond of having to muddle my way through this alternate universe that she calls home.

  We arrived at the hospital without saying a single word to one another, but we did arrive safely. I made several passes through the parking lot until I spied one slot that had a sliver of shade from a gangly tree in the median. I squeezed the Tahoe between two compacts, shifted into park, but left the car running. "Look, Mother, I'm sorry about being cranky. This hasn't been the most pleasant of situations to deal with, and you know how I get sometimes."

  "I know exactly," she said rather tartly. "I've lived with you for forty-three years."

  I was compelled to mention that I'd lived with her for an equal amount of time, but gritted a little enamel off my teeth instead. "So, are you going in with me to see Jerry?"
<
br />   She shook her head and patted her hair with her good hand. "No, I'll just sit here for a few minutes. If you're not back shortly I'll turn off the car and sit in the lobby where it's cool."

  I nodded and opened the door. "There are some CDs in the console if you want to listen to any."

  "Zoloft."

  I leaned back inside. "Who?"

  "Zoloft. It's not a who, it's a what. Little tiny blue things. I think it takes a while to build up in your system, so the sooner you get started on it the better."

  It dawned on me what she was talking about and I was not amused. "Sure, Mom, and while I'm inside getting all anti-depressed, you can skim through my latest copy of Kevorkian Quarterly. It's in the backseat there."

  "That's not the least bit funny, Jolene," she said, tipping up her chin.

  "I'm not laughing," I said, closing the driver's side door. I marched around the back of the Tahoe, opened the cargo doors, and fished out a bottle. I held it up over the seat and rattled it. "St. John's wort, Mother, will that do?" She didn't answer. I unscrewed the bottled and poured myself some. "I'm taking three of them. Are you happy now?"

  Lucille did not turn around. "I will be if they work. You're just entirely too wound up."

  Wound up? Okay, maybe a little. And truth be told, I kind of hoped they'd work, too, but I didn't tell her that. Maybe things would appear rosier through wort-colored eyeballs and my deteriorating attitude would improve as well. Maybe I'd even start thinking dodging bullets and guessing who was going to wind up dead next was great fun. Or maybe I wouldn't just rip the throat out of the next person who looked at me crossways.

  I said an overly sweet bye-bye to mommy dearest and hustled myself into the hospital. After a quick stop by the water fountain in the lobby, I was herbed-up and ready to go. If I was lucky, I might have calm and peaceful thoughts in less than half an hour.

  I headed up the elevator to the fourth floor and made my way to Jerry's room. The door was propped open, so I peaked inside before barging in. It took me a couple of blinks to realize that not only was the bed empty, the room was empty as well. No flowers, plants, balloons or IV rack. Panic grabbed me by the throat. He wasn't well enough to leave the hospital. He'd just gotten out of intensive care. What was going on? I checked the room number again, twice. There was no mistake. Jerry Don Parker was gone.