by Vickie Fee
Caught up on local gossip and having gone through a big chunk of Mama’s magazine pile as well as a chocolate chip muffin, I said I’d better get going and told her I’d give some thought to the bouquets.
* * *
I went home, browned a roast in the skillet, and threw it in the Crock-Pot, along with some carrots and onions. I could toss a salad to serve alongside it. With Mama tended to and supper taken care of, I intended to turn the remainder of my Sunday into a day of rest. I stretched out on the sofa in the den with the newspaper crossword puzzle.
At some point I nodded off, but awakened to the sound of the back door slamming, immediately followed by stamping feet and muttered curses. I got up and went through to check on my husband and found him with the fridge door open, twisting the cap off a beer bottle.
“What’s wrong, honey?”
“My dad is what’s wrong. I would have killed him right there on the golf course if it hadn’t been for thinking how much it would upset my mama.”
“What happened?”
“You know how I told you Daddy was up to something, sneaking off and making secretive phone calls? Then you mentioned he could be trying to hide a health problem from us. I couldn’t bear the thought of my mama having to go through the stress of another health crisis, if he was putting off something that could be easily treated if he addressed it right away.”
“Honey, sit down,” I said, sitting down at the kitchen table, while he took a seat across from me. “Go on.”
“I’d been looking for the right time to bring it up with him. You know how defensive Dad can be when he feels like you’re questioning his motives or his good sense. So we were out on the course and he seemed to be in a good mood, laughing and joking with Earl and me. And I thought he might behave a little better with Earl being there. He’s always had a lot of respect for Earl, I believe, don’t you think so?”
“Yeah, I think your daddy has a fond admiration for Earl.” I watched as Larry Joe absently peeled the label off his beer bottle.
“Anyway I told him I’d noticed him taking off now and then lately on his own without telling anybody and I was a little concerned. I said I’d appreciate him sharing with me what was going on, especially if it had a bearing on his health. That old man went ballistic. You would have thought I’d tinkled in his shoe and asked him to drink it.”
Larry Joe paused, pursing his lips and shaking his head in disbelief. He took a big swig of beer and swallowed hard.
“He started out yelling he was a grown man who didn’t need people keeping tabs on every move he made. Then he moved on to how his wife and his son look on him as some kind of invalid who needs an attendant ever since he had that one heart attack—as if the first one doesn’t count. Then he grabbed his golf bag and stomped off the course without finishing our round.”
“I encouraged Earl to finish the course, if he liked, but told him I thought I should go check on my dad. Earl said he shared my concern and finishing the game didn’t matter. We followed Daddy to the country club, joined him at the bar and ordered some beers.
“After a few minutes of silently sipping our beers and staring at each other in the mirror behind the bar, Daddy said, ‘Since it’s obvious you’re not going to let this go, let’s get a table.’
“We sat down at a table in the back corner. He told me that he had intended to tell me about his plans as soon as he had things sorted out. He said he’d just been to the doc for a checkup a couple of weeks ago and everything was fine, adding that I could ask Mama if I didn’t believe him.
“Then he said with mom and me pushing him to cut back on hours and move toward retirement, he’d decided to look into some semiretirement options and thought he’d found something,” Larry Joe said. “You’ll never guess what that old geezer’s idea of semiretirement is.”
He threw his hands up in the air and shook his head before getting up and retrieving another beer from the fridge.
“Are you ready for this? He’s planning to buy a vending machine route. Can you believe it?”
I shook my head slightly. Obviously Larry Joe wasn’t pleased with the idea, but I didn’t know enough about it to have an informed opinion.
“Right now he spends most of his time sitting on his butt in the office, talking on the phone, and occasionally walking back to the garage or warehouse to talk to the supervisor or the truckers, and having dinner with clients. So his plan for semiretirement is to drive a truck through heavy traffic in Memphis, carry heavy cartons of snacks around to stock the machines, and haul them off to be repaired when they break down. That’s his idea of taking it easy! Not to mention he’d have to dip into his retirement savings to buy these machines.”
“Is that what you told your dad?”
“Yeah, that’s what I told him, as well as the fact that he’s being stubborn and selfish and not even thinking about what Mama might want. I suggested she might like it if they traveled a little. And that maybe instead of buying junk food machines, he might spend a little of their savings and take his wife on a cruise.”
“How did he react to that?”
“Not well,” Larry Joe said, getting up from the chair. “I’m going upstairs to work on the house. Mama and Daddy may have to move in with us if he runs through their life savings with his harebrained retirement scheme. You know he’d never be happy with just a few machines; he’d have to keep expanding until he’d taken over the vending machine market for all of west Tennessee.”
In his current state of mind, I knew there was no point in trying to talk to Larry Joe about making nice with his dad.
I’d decided to curl up on the sofa with a book and wait for the thunder between Larry Joe and his dad to die down before I tried to orchestrate a truce.
About five minutes later the phone rang.
Chapter 17
I answered the phone and heard my mother-in-law crying.
“We have to do something to help patch things up between Larry Joe and his dad. Wayne is fit to be tied. He’s even talking about not going to the office tomorrow, saying since Larry Joe knows everything he should just run the business by himself. The only times Wayne has ever missed going to the office was when he was too sick to drag himself out of bed. Liv, he’s so worked up I’m worried he might have another heart attack.”
I could hear her blowing her nose. I gave her a moment.
“Miss Betty, didn’t Daddy Wayne just go for a checkup recently? And the doctor said everything looked fine, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop worrying yourself that he’s going to have a heart attack every time he gets mad. Did Daddy Wayne tell you about his plans for what he calls semiretirement?”
“A little. I gathered Larry Joe pooh-poohed it as a foolish idea. He hurt his dad’s feelings—and stepped on his pride.”
“I know. But Larry Joe believes that instead of tapering off toward retirement and taking care of his health, his dad is planning to take on a job that’s more physically demanding. His heart’s in the right place but his mouth was on the wrong side of town when he heard about his daddy’s vending machine plan.”
“He gets that from his father, the shooting-off-his-mouth part. Liv, I know it’s too soon to sit Wayne and Larry Joe down to talk to each other. But would you come over and talk to the old fool? He’s always liked you and respects that you’ve built a business of your own. I think you could calm him down. I’d worry less about him having a heart attack if the veins in his temples weren’t bulging.”
This wasn’t an errand I wanted to take on, but I could hardly refuse.
I texted Larry Joe to tell him I was going out for a bit, then drove to my in-laws’ house.
On the way over I tried to work out a plan in my head for how to soothe Daddy Wayne. It seemed to me that the first issue I’d have to address was his wounded pride. He had put a lot of time and effort into researching the vending machine business and Larry Joe had just dismissed the idea. I decided to ask him to tell me all a
bout it, without offering criticism. Honestly, I didn’t know if it was a terrible idea or not and I wasn’t sure that Larry Joe got all the facts before he jumped to that conclusion.
I parked in the driveway and entered through the kitchen door after tapping lightly. Miss Betty was standing by the sink when I came in.
“Thanks for coming over, hon,” she said, giving me a shoulder hug.
“Don’t thank me just yet. Is the bear in his den?”
“Yeah, he’s in his recliner clicking the remote control, scrolling through the same half-dozen channels over and over. I’ve got some peach cobbler. I thought I’d heat up some in a bowl and take it in to him as you go in, you know, help sweeten his disposition.”
“Good idea. I’ll take all the help I can get. My plan is to get him talking about the vending machine business, his retirement plans, whatever, while I just listen. I think part of the problem is Larry Joe didn’t hear him out. In my experience most people calm down if you just let them speak their piece.”
“Sounds like a good plan. I’ll just sit on the loveseat and work on my knitting. Wayne either forgets I’m there or thinks I’m not listening when I knit. I’ll just be around to back you up if need be.”
I declined my mother-in-law’s offer of peach cobbler and followed her as she took a bowl into the den.
“Look who dropped by,” she said as she handed him the dessert.
He gave me a sullen look before saying, “Hi, Liv. If you’ve come to tell me to make nice with that husband of yours, you can save your breath.”
“Nope, I wouldn’t ask you to apologize.”
This was true. Strictly speaking, I would leave any admonishment for him to apologize up to my mother-in-law, while I encouraged Larry Joe to tell his dad he was sorry.
Miss Betty took up her knitting and I turned slightly to face my father-in-law.
“I gathered that you and Larry Joe had a falling-out, but I couldn’t make much sense out of what little he told me. Why don’t you tell me about this vending machine business venture you’re thinking about?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“Because I’m asking you. And obviously you know more about it. I like to get information straight from the horse’s mouth—cuts down on any confusion.”
I fell silent and hoped he’d fill the void. After a moment, he did.
He started slowly, with a just-the-facts kind of approach, but became more animated as he went along. I nodded and mmm-hmm’d as he spoke.
As a party planner, I’d garnered a lot of experience arbitrating disputes between people, usually spouses, who had differing visions for an event. I’d learned if I let them talk long enough and listened closely I could usually discern the crux of the matter, what was really important to each of them. Then I could devise a plan that would include what was most important to each of them, or at least close enough to appease them.
As I listened to Daddy Wayne it became clear to me he was worried that as he cut back more and more on his hours at McKay Trucking, he’d by necessity have to turn over the reins on most matters to Larry Joe. This could lead to the awkward situation where, at least in a de facto way, his son would become his boss. I knew that would be an untenable situation for either man.
He also wasn’t ready to give up what he saw as productive work for puttering around in his workshop and tending to Miss Betty’s honey-do list. He needed to feel he was doing something important.
I didn’t necessarily think the vending machine route was as horrible an idea as my husband did. But I also thought we could come up with something that wouldn’t involve him driving into Memphis.
When he came back around to saying how Larry Joe expected him to give up real work and keep busy doing arts and crafts projects in his workshop, I seized my opportunity.
“Daddy Wayne, you really are a skilled woodworker. You’ve made beautiful shelves for Miss Betty’s collection of salt and pepper shakers and you made that new hymnal board for the church. I think it would be wonderful if you could use those skills for important projects here in the community.
“You know what, Winette was telling me just recently how she could use a skilled craftsman to oversee some of the projects Residential Rehab takes on. Kenny Mitchell is a good carpenter, but he’s generally working paying jobs on the weekends—often for me, in fact, for various events. You might want to talk to her about that. You could at least try it out and see if you think it’s something you’d want to take on. The RR volunteers are enthusiastic, but most of them aren’t skilled. They need a leader. And there’s no end to the projects that need doing, repairs and maintenance for the elderly and disabled. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, Winette called Kenny and another man for an emergency situation. A lady in a wheelchair was basically homebound because her wheelchair ramp had collapsed and she couldn’t get in or out of her house on her own. Kenny worked until well after dark finishing up the ramp. Someone who’s retired or even semiretired would be a big help in situations like that.”
He seemed to be mulling over my suggestion.
“Of course the work with RR doesn’t pay anything, at least not in this life,” I said, hoping to appeal to his sense of Christian charity.
“Betty and I aren’t exactly hurting for the money,” he said, taking the bait. “It’s not like I’d be making that much from the vending machines anyway, unless I expanded the route in a big way. I can’t take on being a regular supervisor at RR projects, just yet. I’m planning on just slowly cutting back my hours over the next couple of years. But that’s something to consider.”
I looked over at Miss Betty, who gave me a discreet, knowing smile. I felt my work here was done. So we chitchatted a few minutes about other things and I said I’d best be going.
I’d have a little talk with Larry Joe, and with any luck he and his dad would shake hands and make up by tomorrow afternoon.
Chapter 18
Monday was a scorcher. The relatively mild—for July—mid- to upper–80s temperatures we’d been enjoying most of the month spiked to the upper 90s and were forecast to touch a hundred degrees by Tuesday. Even with the air-conditioning cranked up, my blouse was clinging to my back. I stood up and stretched, pulled a bottled water out of the dorm refrigerator, and walked over to my office window.
I was gazing mindlessly across the town square below when the patrol car pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office. Ted got out, opened the rear door, and helped Webster Flack, whose hands were cuffed behind his back, get out of the car.
After standing with my mouth agape for a moment, I rushed over to my desk, grabbed my phone, and punched in the number for the sheriff’s office. As expected, Terry, the dispatcher, answered.
“Terry, this is Liv. Is Webster under arrest for arson or murder—or both?”
“You know very well I can’t talk about that, so just—”
I cut her off.
“I guess I could come over and pester you in person. I’ve been meaning to lodge a complaint against my neighbor for public nuisance.”
There was a brief pause.
“I haven’t heard anybody mention the word murder this morning,” she said before hanging up.
So Webster Flack has been arrested for arson.
I texted the news to Di. It’s rare for her to talk on the phone when she’s at work, but in just a minute my phone buzzed.
“He may not have been charged with murder yet, but there’s good reason to believe the murder and the arson are connected. I mean, it was Bubba Rowland’s office that was torched,” she said without a perfunctory “hello.”
“I hope so.”
“I can’t talk. Why don’t you come over tonight after you feed Larry Joe, or you can call me.”
“Will do.”
Click.
Holly arrived at the office about nine. I told her about Mama’s ideas for her bridal bouquet and asked her to come up with some ideas for making weeds and cotton bolls look pretty.
“I’l
l give it some thought,” she said without even laughing.
I also asked her to include in her deliberation what would be the appropriate-size bouquet for someone of Mama’s proportions.
I had a meeting scheduled at 2:00 PM. Holly and I were going to work up some notes, based on what little they had told me on the phone, for prospective clients who wanted to talk to me about a high school reunion.
Before we got down to business, I decided to ask Holly what she remembered about the day of the festival.
“Holly, has Dave questioned you about the day of the festival?”
“No, but that nice young deputy came by and talked to me.”
“Would you mind telling me what you told Ted? I’m still trying to get a handle on what happened that day in my feeble attempts to help Earl out.”
“Of course not, darlin’. Although I doubt I can be much help. I barely saw Bubba all day.”
Holly had spent a good deal more time in the information booth near the entrance on the day of the festival than I had. It had an awning, giving shade, and a battery-operated fan stirring a breeze. Plus it had a couple of chairs that allowed Holly and the volunteers manning the booth to sit down. Holly’s in good health, but she’s almost my mama’s age and I didn’t really want her running around in the hot sun all day, not to mention she and the two other older ladies helping out were gracious greeters. They were cute Southern belles, who shared in common a molasses drawl.
“Just try to tell me everything you remember. You might even recall something that didn’t occur to you when you talked to Ted.”
“Awlright. You and I were manning the booth together early that morning when so many people were arriving. You left a few times to deal with vendor issues, like when the electricity wasn’t working at a couple of the food booths.”