“You was bein’ followed.”
She looked at me.
I confirmed. “Savannah cops had a tail on us. Our friend Ronnie Tibadeau was involved. I thought I saw somebody weird on the beach, but I was preoccupied.” She took a breath, but I wouldn’t let her get to her point. “And Detective Acree already made fun of me for missing the tail, so you can skip the wisecracks.”
She went back to Maytag. “So you saw a guy tailin’ us?”
“Uh-huh. We knew you was bein’ watched, so we had to get away where we could talk a little while. I was personally hopin’ it would be longer, but, like we say, the police come in on us.”
Dally squinted. “So how come the cops didn’t see you two cartin’ me an’ Flap out of The Hut?”
Maytag shrugged, very calm. “Like I said, we blend with the shadows.”
Very mysterious, if it’s possible to be mysterious and goofy at the same time.
Dally pressed. “You had more you wanted to tell Flap?”
“Maybe.”
“You want to talk now?”
I settled back in my seat. “You want to tell me exactly what happened the day of the murder?”
He nodded. Peachy looked around, once again checking to see that nobody was lurking outside.
Dally sat back. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”
Maytag began his story.
32 - Murder
The day of the murder was hot and bright. About ten in the morning the twins showed up at the bank, summoned by Lowe Acree. It was full of people. Maytag, because he was the older of the boys, had determined he would do all the talking.
They sidled up to the desk out front of Lowe’s office. Connie greeted them.
“Hey, boys. Mr. Acree is expecting you.” She lowered her voice. “He’s in a worse mood than usual. You all be careful what you say.”
Peachy couldn’t resist a few words. “Maytag’s gonna do all the talkin’.”
She smiled.
They went into Lowe’s office. Lowe was indeed in a rare mood.
“Well. The Ton of Twins.” He was simultaneously making fun of the way they pronounced their last name and their size. He thought he was very clever.
The boys smiled. Peachy waved.
Maytag talked. “We got your message.”
Lowe cracked his knuckles. “So. You know it won’t do any good to mess with me. I mean business. You sell me that land, I don’t cause you any trouble. I pay a fair price. Otherwise your daddy’s loans and mortgages and anything else I can scare up, they all be in a wad of trouble so thick he won’t be able to buy a peanut to boil. I can mess you all up so bad you won’t ever get out from under. Your great-great-grandbabies — if you all are capable of reproducing — will still be in complete financial ruin far past the next century.”
Maytag sat down in one of the chairs in front of Lowe’s desk and motioned Peachy to sit in the other. They sat in silence.
The silence made Lowe madder. “So what’s it going to be, boys? You jack-leg retards wanna ruin your family for the next two hundred years?”
Maytag appeared to think about it. “No. No, sir, I don’t believe we’d like to do that.”
“That’s right. So you sell me that land, and everything is fine. You get a little extra play money, and I get a piece of land you don’t use anyway. Everybody’s happy.”
Maytag tried to choose his words carefully. “That land — is made to grow pines and things, and keep deer on. And to produce blackberries. And to maybe clear one day and sell the timber and build a house for the grandbabies you expressed a concern for; which was nice of you. That land is not for a Dempster Dumpster. It ain’t no garbage can. I can’t live with the idea that you’d put poison down in it, just because you got nowhere else to get rid of it. Can you see the difference? One way the land is alive, and the other way the land is dead. And I can’t be responsible for killin’ it.” That was the end of his speech.
Lowe lurched forward. “You feeble dickweed retard. You got absolutely no idea what I want to use that land for.”
Maytag was calm. “Chemical dump.”
“Shut up. You’re too stupid to understand my business. All I have to do is put some kind of a lien on the property against whatever your daddy owes, or what I can make up, and I could get the land anyway. I’m trying to do you a favor.”
“We appreciate that.”
Lowe just got madder. He stood up. “I’m going to have that piece of crap acreage whether you sell it to me or not.”
“Now, see ... that’s just the problem, Mr. Acree. You think of it as a piece of crap, and we think of it —”
“Shut up! You’re too stupid to think of it as anything! I’ll mess you all up so bad, you won’t be able to sleep at night.”
“I never yet had any trouble sleepin’ —”
“I said to shut up! You got no idea what trouble is. I got money. I got reputation. I got the law in my pocket. You got dick!”
Without any kind of warning Lydia Habersham Acree slipped into the room. She’d apparently been in Lowe’s private bathroom. She’d been crying, and one side of her face looked bright red, like it was sunburned or sore.
“Lowe, sit down.”
He whipped around to face her. “I’m not finished with you either. You just go back in there and wait till I’m done with my business.”
“No, Lowe. I’m not staying.”
He got from around his desk and started for her. “Oh, yes you are.”
Maytag was up in a flash, bumped him like a football player blocking. Lowe took a tumble against his back wall. Peachy was up on the other side of him, and the twins gently locked his arms at his side. Just as Lowe started to holler, Maytag got him in a kind of choke hold, and Lowe couldn’t even breathe. Yelling was out of the question.
They wrestled him back to his seat.
Peachy whispered into Maytag’s ear. “I know I ain’t supposed to talk here, but if you don’t let go of this man’s throat, he’ll pass out.”
Maytag whispered back. “That’s what I want him to do. Then he’ll be quiet. Besides, it ain’t his throat, it’s his jugulars that counts.”
Peachy made a face. “Don’t do it too long.”
He didn’t. Lydia was helping them get Lowe to his chair. She leaned over to Lowe and whispered in his ear.
All they could hear was the first part: “You’ve struck me for the third and final time.”
And then Lowe fell forward onto the desk, and his forehead hit with a very loud whack.
Lydia was crying, and the boys saw blood trickling out from underneath Lowe’s head. Maytag pointed Lydia back into the bathroom. She went. Peachy leaned over to check Lowe’s breathing. It was shallow, but there.
He hollered out, “Connie, come in here quick. Somethin’s the matter with Lowe.”
She came in, panicked, called the ambulance, the police, and the fire department. Everybody in the bank was at the door. Maytag checked the bathroom, but Lydia had somehow vanished.
With a glance the twins saw a chance to leave quietly, too, while all the attention was on Lowe. They left, went by Lydia’s house. Her car was gone. They went home, told their father what had happened. He tried to get them to stay and find out what had happened to Lowe, but they were worried about Lydia, and took off.
They found out on the radio news, later that evening on their drive south, that Lowe was dead; they were wanted. They’d been looking for Lydia ever since. When they couldn’t find her, they’d called their father, and he’d told them about me.
That’s when they came to me for help.
33 - Lydia in Autumn
That was the story.
Dally was straight. “So maybe you did kill him.”
Maytag laughed out loud. “Shoot. I squeezed Ida harder than that, and she’s a old woman.”
Peachy wasn’t laughing. “Lydia whispered a thing into him, like in the story. That’s what made him die.”
Maytag hushed his brother.
> We sat for a minute, but it got to Dally. “Story? Sounds like the one Sally told me.”
Peachy looked at Maytag. Maytag nodded. Peachy looked back at Dally. “See, we given her a book for Christmas. It was just after that Thanksgivin’ pageant.”
Maytag couldn’t help himself. He had to tell me. “We taken first prize in the giant pumpkin.”
Peachy was sidetracked. “Big as a Ford truck engine.”
Maytag nodded. “Maybe bigger.”
Peachy was lost in reminiscence. “And we took to Lydia right away. She stood in front of that pumpkin just a-starin’ at it and sayin’ how that big round face reminded her of a harvest moon.”
Maytag smiled, remembering too. “We carved a human face out of it the second day after we won the prize.”
Peachy went on. “Anyways, we got to talkin’ in the cool autumn air — I love the fall. She was so sweet, and that pretty hair — I tell you what’s the truth, I had me a crush on ’er right then and there.”
Maytag patted his brother’s arm. “It happened thataway with Momma and Daddy: met at a fair, liked each other right away.”
Peachy shook his head. “We got to know her. Lots of people was scared of her, how strange she was. But we ...”
Maytag helped. “We never had no little sister. That’s what it was.”
Peachy grinned right at me. “Crush wore off. She’s just too crazy for a girlfriend.”
Maytag agreed. “But, with everything about our family, you know, we thought she’d fit right in as a member. We got us a whole buncha crazy kin. And when you meet her, you can tell ... there’s somethin’ not right about her.”
Peachy muscled in. “Anyway, she was always talkin’ about how much she loved bein’ out on the sea. She said it was clean and the waves made her forget. Didn’t never say what there was to forget. So, but — we got her a book of stories about it.”
Maytag detailed. “Folktales of the Southern Sea Islands.”
Peachy was proud. “She loved it. Read it over and over.”
Maytag nodded. “Seemed to have a right strong effect on her.”
Peachy turned to me again. “Because, like we said, she ain’t ...” But he couldn’t find the words exactly.
I explained it to Dally. “The boys think Lydia’s not human.”
Dally was very dry. “Maybe she’s not.”
I had to toss her a look. “What would you know about it, missy?”
“Missy?”
“You heard me.”
She looked away. “Save it.”
That was it. She knew something about Lydia that she wasn’t telling me, but I wouldn’t get another peep out of her on the subject. I knew better. So I went back to the twins. “How’d you get off the island? There were guards at the boats. I saw them when Taylor, the viola-boy, took me home.”
“We had a boat on the other end under some bushes.”
Peachy finished. “Just in case.”
I summed up. “You guys heard the cops coming from half a mile off, sneaked out unseen in the last of daylight, made it to the other end of the island where you had stashed an extra boat for just such an emergency, got back to Savannah, figured I’d go to the Old Old Baptist, and found me there.”
They nodded their famous unison nod.
Dally shoved a look my way. “Why would they figure that?”
I raised my eyebrows. “They know I like a good story.”
Maytag nodded. “Yep.”
I looked at Dally. “That’s where the angel is — the angel that took Ida’s voice away. They had to know that’s where I’d go. That statue marks a pivotal point in their lives even long before they were born. That’s the place that altered their mother and their aunt. Visiting it’s like a pilgrimage. They had to go there. They had to know I’d be curious enough to go there myself. It’s too big a deal.”
Dally nodded, but I wasn’t certain she understood.
I looked back at the boys. “You’re not stupid. But you could be guilty. It’s good guilty murder-planning stealth you all exhibited.”
Peachy shrugged. “Or we could just know how the police are.”
Maytag continued. “Especially Tommy Acree.”
Peachy: “He don’t like us.”
Maytag: “For some reason.”
They sat like bumps on a log, and I use the phrase advisedly. I began to think; always a danger sign. Either they were the simplest boys in town, or they were nothing like what they seemed, and very devious — and very dangerous. One way they were clever, cold killers. The other way they were the lilies of the field. It was a wide berth, and I’d been fooled before by people who seemed sweet and simpleminded and had turned out to be very, very wrong. It’s a great cover for a murderer.
Dally caught me. “Hey, Flap. You’re thinkin’.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”
“Try not to let it happen again.”
The boys giggled like little kids.
Dally gave them the eye stronger than usual. “You boys don’t look that much alike — for twins.”
They both sobered up quick. Maytag looked at Peachy. “Should we tell ’em?”
Long pause.
Peachy squinted. “I dunno. Maybe not.”
Maytag nodded. “Still — it’s a good story. Might be useful some kinda way for Mr. Tucker.”
Peachy considered. “And Ms. Oglethorpe like her a story.”
Maytag nodded. “It’s a good story.” He looked at me. “Wanna hear how come we don’t look much like twins?”
I smiled. “I think it’s got something to do with Aunt Ida.”
Dally wanted to get it. “How in the world would you know a thing like that?”
I kept staring at Maytag. “Because it’s one of my theories about something Aunt Ida was trying to tell me when I left her porch, right?”
He smiled right back. “You surely are a smart man.” He looked at his brother. “Peach? You wanna tell it?”
Peachy took up the mantle.
34 - Sisters and Mothers
As was widely known, Ida and Mavis Habersham of Savannah, Georgia, were as close as sisters can get. What one had, the other wanted. What one wanted, the other tried to get. They were like one person. They did all their work together, wore the same clothes, and shared secrets far into the night.
As they grew, they were quite popular, and boys dated both girls all through high school. One autumn they went with a big church group to the county fair inland.
At the fair J. D. Tucker saw Mavis — just once, walking down the path to the livestock area — and he decided then and there that she was the one for him. He was instantly struck with permanent love. Sometimes it happens. He vowed to his friends that the only work he would do from that moment on would be to court that girl until she married him. The farm could go to weed, the plow could rust, the tractor could just fall apart. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was marrying Mavis.
They were wed the next spring. Ida was the maid of honor, and was just as happy as Mavis.
The next autumn, a year to the day since J.D. had first seen Mavis, they discovered she was pregnant. Ida was just as happy as Mavis.
As Mavis got closer to the time of delivering her firstborn, Ida came to stay with her and J.D. to help out around the house and to share the experience with her sister. They were like one person again. They did all their work together, wore the same clothes, and shared secrets far into the night.
J.D. was worried about his wife, and worked all the time, partly so they’d have enough money for the baby, and partly to keep himself occupied so he wouldn’t sit around thinking about what might go wrong. He worked all day on the farm, all evening at a Feed and Seed, and all night as a watchman for a bank over in Tifton. He only slept five hours out of twenty-four, and even then it was a restless sleep.
One night in May there came up a thunderstorm that people still talk about to this day: hail the size of house bricks, constant lightning searing the sky as bright as noon, roa
ring thunder that made it impossible to hear anything else.
J.D. was at the bank when the storm began, and all the power in town went out. He tried to make some phone calls, but the phone lines were out too. He was impossibly torn between the awful worry about his wife and the imperative of staying at his job in such an emergency. He stayed at the bank, because he thought it was the right thing to do, but the bank owners didn’t know that. They always thought, from that night on, that J.D. had deserted his post and gone home to his wife and sister-in-law, leaving their money unprotected. Some time after his long hours were done, and he’d headed home to his wife, the power came back on and the alarms sounded. When everybody got to the bank, of course J.D. had gone. It was nearly two hours past his quitting time. He never bothered to protest against the accusations, even when the bankers fired him. J.D. knew what he’d done, and he knew he’d done right. That was the start of a feud between the two families that has lasted into the present day.
On the night of the storm in Beautiful the sisters were scared to death. Lightning was popping the ground all around their little house, and thunder continuously rattled the windows and shook the walls. Hail broke through weak places in the roof and pounded craters in the truck outside. The kitchen garden was destroyed in the first half hour. Lightning struck the feed corn in the second hour and set it on fire, but the rain and hail were so furious that they put out the fire before it could completely burn down the crib.
Mavis was so terrified, huddled in the middle of the kitchen, that she was thrown into labor.
But so was Ida. That’s the secret of the story. Ida was just as pregnant as Mavis. What one sister had, the other one always wanted.
This was the secret of all secrets the sisters had shared. When Mavis had told her sister all about the glories of married life, Ida had been jealous and wanted the same love that Mavis had. She’d found it in the arms of someone remarkable, but she never revealed the identity of her paramour. She’d become increased with child as she’d lived with her sister, but they’d kept to themselves. No one but J.D. saw them, and even though he’d had suspicions, he’d never voiced them.
Too Easy (A Flap Tucker Mystery Book 2) Page 15