by Ann B. Ross
“Oh, I’m scared to death, ain’t you, Roy? What do I care about ole man Connard?” Harley snatched at me so hard that I lost my grip on the back of the recliner, smacking my leg against the footrest.
“So you’re a Connard, huh?” He pulled me close enough to smell the motor oil and Brut cologne fighting with each other. “Well, the Connards ain’t done nothin’ for us but close the mill and watch us starve. I don’t give a flyin’ flip for none of ’em, and ole man Connard’s the worst of ’em.”
It shocked me to the bone to hear such a thing about Mr. Howard. Everybody respected him. Whether they liked him or not, they gave him respect, which was what I wanted some of.
“Get her on out,” Roy said, as he stepped out on my cement patio. The thought of Mr. Howard hadn’t even slowed him down.
Harley pulled me out the door, nearly breaking my hand as I tried to hold on to the frame. I was crying by that time, scared and without a weapon, now that I’d shot Mr. Howard’s name at them and it’d been a blank for all the good it’d done.
There was nothing else to protect me, and I could see myself in the back of their van, being driven all over town till I either told them where Skip was—which I really didn’t know—or until they got tired and stopped to dump me off somewhere. And no telling what they’d do before they dumped me. For all I knew, they’d take me to Gastonia and make me a white slave. The Pucketts had been known to do worse, and had served time for it, too.
I took a deep breath and screamed my lungs out. Harley clamped a smelly hand over my mouth, but I finally got a knee jammed into his private parts. Not hard enough to do any real damage, but enough to make him take his hand off my mouth and clutch himself.
“Dad blame the dad-blamed sorry luck,” he moaned, gasping for breath.
Then he pulled his arm back to hit me.
“Don’t you do it,” I said low and hard, with my teeth gritted together. “You hit me and Bobby Lee Moser’ll wipe the floor with you.”
Roy reached over and pulled Harley’s arm down. “Bobby Lee Moser? He still a deputy ’round here?”
“You bet your ass he is,” I said, “and you’re already in trouble for even touching me. He’ll kill you.”
“Turn her loose and let’s go.”
“The bitch kneed me, Roy.”
“Moser’ll do worse than that. Now turn her loose and let’s get out of here.”
Harley dropped me hard, making my head flop against the side of the trailer. I just sat there, my legs spraddled out and my head ringing. Roy and Harley turned to leave, trotting toward the shadows of the trees and bushes beyond my trailer.
I wasn’t knocked out. I could see and hear what was going on. I just couldn’t make myself get up and do anything. But I heard a crash of limbs and bushes beyond my line of sight that sounded like a herd of elephants breaking through. Roy juked to one side, while Harley crouched down, ready for what was coming at him.
Skip flew through the air toward Harley, yelling, “Hang on, Etta Mae, I’m a-comin’!” He landed hard on Harley and they went down together, rolling on the ground.
Chapter 27
Shaking my head to clear the ringing in it, I got to my hands and knees. Skip and Harley were flailing away at each other as first one then the other rolled on top. A swirl of dust covered them so I couldn’t see who was getting the worst of it. From the sounds of their grunts and curses, I figured they were pretty well matched. Skip was taller and probably heavier, but Harley was meaner.
I heard a van door slide open somewhere in the dark, and hoped that meant Roy was booking it. Between the two of us, Skip and I could handle Harley, if I could just get to my feet. I started crawling toward the trailer door, focusing on the telephone to call for help, but stopped when I heard Roy running back from the van.
“Turn him over, Harl,” Roy yelled. When I looked around, I saw Roy standing over the two grunting men with what looked like a spray can raised over his head. I heard the little marble in it rattle as he swung it back and forth, trying to get a bead on Skip.
“No!” I yelled. “Don’t hit him!” I reached the two steps to my trailer and pulled myself up on wobbly legs.
I heard a thump as the spray can came down on flesh. Harley let out a yell. “Ow! Goldang it, Roy, that was me!”
“Turn him over, then.”
The next sound was different, as it clanged across Skip’s head. He slumped on Harley, and the fight was over. Harley pushed him off and struggled to his feet as Skip lay sprawled out on the ground. All I could think was, if the spray can was full, they’d likely killed him.
“Search him,” Roy said.
They both bent over Skip’s body, pulling papers, wallet, comb, Swiss Army knife, and a bunch of other things from his pockets.
“Stop lookin’ at everything,” Roy told Harley. “Just take it all. We’ll go through it later.”
They stuffed everything in their own pockets while I watched them pick over Skip like buzzards at a roadkill. Poor ole Skip, I thought, there goes the lottery ticket that had been his first stroke of good luck since high school. I could’ve cried for him. Instead, I slid to the edge of the patio, listing like I’d had one too many, and lifted my pot of geraniums.
Just then, Jennie’s outside light came on and Jennie’s husband walked out yelling, “What’s goin’ on over there?”
Roy and Harley worked faster, pulling Skip’s boots off and running their hands in them. Roy had Skip’s shirt unbuttoned, searching for anything taped to his chest or back.
“Etta Mae!” Mack called, as he walked to the edge of the light. “You all right over there?”
“Call the sheriff,” I yelled, running toward Harley, who was the nearest to me.
I raised the geranium pot and crashed it down on his head. The pot shattered, potting soil, roots, leaves, and flowers crumbling around his shoulders. He shook himself and stood to face me.
“Let it go,” Roy said, standing and pulling at Harley. “We got everything. Come on, let’s get goin’ before Moser gets here.”
Harley snarled and gave me a push that plopped me down on the ground. Then he stepped over Skip, and he and Roy disappeared into the dark, running through the bushes to their van.
As I heard the van motor start, I turned to poor old Skip, lying there dead to the world. Putting my hand to his neck, I felt a slow but strong pulse under my fingers.
“He dead?” Mack leaned over us, shining a flashlight on Skip’s scratched and dirt-covered face.
Jennie, breathing hard, ran up behind him. “I called 9-1-1,” she said. “They’ll be here in a minute. You all right, Etta Mae?”
“I guess so. I can still move, which is more than Skip can do.” I turned his head slightly to the side and saw a bleeding gash right behind his temple. “Skip? Skip, honey, wake up.”
His mouth fell open as a deep snore came from the back of his throat. Not a good sign. In the distance, we heard the EMS sirens and the whump-whump blare of cop cars. I laid my head on my knees, thinking that two million dollars was not worth losing your health over. Not even one million dollars.
• • •
“That makes two, Etta Mae,” Clyde Maybry said. He stood over me as I sat in a chair inside my trailer. His big gut strained his uniform, as well as his breathing. I could hear each breath wheezing in and out as he talked. “Seems like it’s kinda dangerous for anybody to come see you, don’t it? Word gets around, you’re not gonna be having so many visitors.”
“Clyde,” I said, carefully feeling the lump on the back of my head from hitting the side of the trailer, “if y’all would do more patrolling out here, you wouldn’t have things getting out of hand so bad.”
He gave me a hard look. Then, breathing heavily, he licked his mouth. “Sheriff’s gonna be lookin’ into this real careful. We’ve transported two head wounds to the hospital from your trailer, an
d he’s gonna want some answers. We may have to clean out this trailer park ’fore we’re through, and if I was you, I’d get myself straightened up.”
I jumped up, flaring with anger. Grasping Jennie’s arm to steady myself from the dizziness, I said, “Clyde Maybry, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened here. Either last night or this night. I can’t help it if there’re two Pucketts running around the county knocking people over the head and leaving them for dead, while you stand around accusing me of, of I-don’t-know-what.”
“Etta Mae,” Jennie said, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, honey, sit down. You ought not be jumping up like this. Let me take you to the hospital and get that knot on your head looked at.”
“In a minute, Jennie. Deputy Maybry here doesn’t think I need to go to the hospital. He’s already checked it himself and decided I need to answer his questions more than I need medical treatment. How’s that gonna look in The Delmont Weekly Press? Huh, Clyde, huh?”
“Go put her in my car,” Clyde said to Jennie. “I’ll take her to the emergency room.”
“The hell you will,” I said, and sat back down as another wave of dizziness hit me. “I wouldn’t get in a car with you again if I had to walk to the hospital. Now go do your job, Clyde, and pick up Roy and Harley Puckett. They’re who you ought to be after, not me.”
“Calm down, Etta Mae. I got to investigate the scene.”
“Investigate the scene, my foot. You’ve got a victim and an eyewitness. What else you need before you go after them? A Seeing Eye dog?”
He stared at me with pretty much the same look Harley had given me. “You got a smart mouth on you, Etta Mae, and you oughta keep it closed. You’re mixed up in two crimes here, and you’re right before gettin’ yourself charged with ’em.”
I sprang up again and got right in his face, mad enough to clear my head. “Let me remind you of something, you fat tub of lard. Remember what you did right after I broke up with Bobby Lee the first time? Remember how you used to come by here in your patrol car, tapping on my door after midnight? Remember how you begged to get in? Remember that? And remember how I promised not to tell Billie Jo if you’d just leave me alone? Well, let me tell you I am going to tell Billie Jo. I’m going to tell her what you do when you’re supposed to be patrolling. And I’m going to tell her mother and your preacher and the sheriff and whoever else will listen. You come in here, throwing your weight around, because I wouldn’t let you in my bed. Well, let me tell you, you’re not ever getting in it. I don’t take in married men and I don’t take in cheating men. Or fat, ugly men, either!”
Clyde’s face had gone slack when I mentioned his wife and mother-in-law. He swallowed hard and said, “We can talk about this later. After I make my report and everything.” Then, turning to Jennie, he said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d drive her to the hospital.”
Chapter 28
They’d put Skip in a room down the hall from Junior Connard’s, so if I’d wanted to, all I had to do was walk from one to the other to get a firsthand view of the Pucketts’ handiwork. I didn’t want to, though. I sat in Skip’s dark room, listening to him snore.
A doctor in the emergency room had looked at the bump on my head, checked my vision and blood pressure, and told me to take it easy for a while. I felt all right, except when I leaned my head back against the chair. It would be sore for a few days, but I could live with it. Skip, on the other hand, was being kept overnight for observation, and since I’d not been able to talk to his doctor, I didn’t know how bad hurt he was. So I sat by his bed, or rather slept in a chair by his bed, and worried about him. It was the least I could do.
The hospital was still and quiet, except for the occasional rattle of carts on the waxed floor out in the hall. I dozed off and on in the chair, waking now and then when a nurse came in every hour or so to check Skip’s vital signs.
I’d spent the previous night in the sheriff’s office, and this night in the hospital, and the only thought getting me through it all was that the next night would be spent in Mr. Howard’s bed. I’d read in Bride magazine that a bride-to-be should get a lot of rest before her wedding day, long nights of sleep and nutritious meals and all that, so she’d be fresh and lovely for the big day. So much for that recommendation as far as I was concerned.
• • •
I was fully awake by seven o’clock, what with the clatter of breakfast trays and the change of shifts out in the hall. I washed my face in the sink in Skip’s room and rinsed out my mouth, trying not to look in the mirror over the basin. I was a wreck, with only what was in my handbag to make repairs with. My pretty dress, the one I’d hoped to be married in, was dirty, torn under the arm, and, even though I always used a feminine-type deodorant, pretty much sweat-stained. Wrinkled by now, too, in spite of its rayon content.
Skip groaned and mumbled as I was getting ready to leave. I went over to his bed and smoothed his hair back, looking closely at his swollen eye and split lip.
“How’re you feeling?” I whispered.
“Etta Mae, is that you? What happened?”
“Roy Puckett brained you with a spray can—a full one, I think—and you’re in the hospital.”
“I am? I thought it was Harley.”
“Roy came up behind you, else you’d’ve beat the tar out of Harley.”
He grinned, then put his hand up to feel his head. “How bad did I mess him up?”
“Oh, real bad. He wasn’t walking too good, and Roy had to drag him to the van.”
“I wadn’t gonna let ’em hurt you, Etta Mae,” he said, with that satisfied smile on his face. I don’t know why beating somebody into the ground gives so much pleasure to some people. Of course, some people need to be beat into the ground, so if you can do it, I guess it’s worth being proud of. Even if you put yourself in the hospital doing it. I didn’t want to point that out to Skip, though. When somebody’s recuperating, their spirits need to be kept up.
“Etta Mae?”
“What?”
“You gettin’ married today?”
“Come hell or high water.”
Skip sat up in bed and swung his legs over the side. “l’m going with you. Where’s my clothes?”
“You can’t leave here! Lay back down. I swear, Skip, you know better.”
“Shoot, hon, I’m all right. See?” He slid off the bed and stood up without a quiver or a sway.
“But you might have a concussion. You better get back in that bed. I’m gonna tell the nurse on you.”
“l’m goin’ with you, so just hush up about it. Roy didn’t even break the skin, just dinged me a little.”
“Dinged you, my foot,” I said. “He put your lights out.”
“Naw, I been hit worse than that by a two-hunnerd-pound defensive lineman. Where’s my britches?”
I pointed to the closet and tried to fix my face with what I had, while he went into the bathroom to put on his clothes. I didn’t know what to do with him, afraid he’d keel over on me if he went with me, but not sure how I could keep him here if he wanted to go.
“I could use a shave,” he said, coming out of the bathroom, drying his face. “Bath, too, I reckon.”
“We both could,” I said, meaning a bath. “I’ve been thinking, Skip. You really want to go with me to my wedding?”
“Yeah, I got to get my bike, an’ you’re gonna need some help with that ole man, gettin’ him in and out. And you’ll need a witness, won’t you?”
“I thought the preacher could scare somebody up, maybe his secretary or something. But why? Why do you want to be a part of this? Lurline thinks I’ve lost my mind.”
“But it’s what you want, Etta Mae. And if it makes you happy to have that old man, why, then, I want you to have him.”
“That’s just so sweet, Skip,” I said, having to wipe my eyes, thank goodness, before I’d put on my mascara.
“Here you are, right after losing your two-million-dollar ticket to that Puckett riffraff, and all you’re doing is thinking about me. I swear, Skip, I don’t think I could do it, if I was you.”
“I ain’t worried about that two-million-dollar ticket. All it did was bring trouble down on me, make me lose my friends, and get you mixed up in it. Easy come, easy go, I always say.”
He was right. That’s what he’d always said, and it was the way he lived. Still, he was a bigger person than I’d given him credit for.
I wet the end of a towel and rubbed at the dirt on my dress, most of it from the times I’d been thrown to the ground. There wasn’t much I could do about the rip under my arm, except not raise my hand. I hated having to get married in such a sorry state, but by this time, it was catch-as-catch-can. I couldn’t risk going home, since we were on such a tight schedule that would, I hoped, keep us out of Valerie’s way. Besides, I’d wanted to be married in the dress I had on, so that’s what I’d be doing, regardless of how it looked.
“Okay, then. Here’s what we have to do,” I said, and told him that Valerie was the big stumbling block, and that I planned to pick up Mr. Howard when she left the house to come to the hospital to see Junior. “So we don’t want to run into her on our way out.”
“I got it,” he said, although there was always some doubt as to what Skip ever got.
Chapter 29
After checking the hall for any sign of Valerie, like smoke or brimstone, and sneaking down three flights of stairs to the basement level, we came out into the hospital parking lot.
“I think my car’s over this way,” I said, heading for the visitors’ lot. “Jennie drove me here last night, and Mack followed in my car so I’d have it this morning. There it is.” I pointed toward it, sitting between a BMW and a new Toyota.