“Jet lag,” Gusta replied with dignity. “And all that gallivanting at MacLaren’s yesterday.”
“It was a great party,” Alice told me shyly.
“Thank you, honey. My husband’s physical therapist was certainly smitten with you. He asked me to find out if you get time off.”
“Of course she gets time off,” Gusta snapped. “She goes for a run every morning.”
“That doesn’t count,” I informed her. “Darren meant a day off, or an evening.”
“All she has to do is ask. But isn’t he the one with bright yellow hair?”
“This week. Sometimes it’s green, or purple. But he’s charming,” I told her firmly, “and very good at what he does.”
Alice looked at the porch floor, but she wore a secret little smile.
Gusta had bigger things on her mind than her companion’s love life. She glared at Meriwether, looking like thunderclouds had permanently settled on her forehead. “I see you are still serving in plastic cups. You know a lady does not serve guests in plastic.”
“This lady serves in plastic until I can get to Augusta in the morning.”
“Augusta? What do you need in Augusta?”
Slade threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, just furniture, dishes, a table and chairs, a sofa—a few necessities.”
Gusta’s old lips pinched together. I could almost hear the struggle going on inside her. Finally she clutched the arms of her rocker to sustain her, and demanded, “Why didn’t you ask? I probably have some old stuff lying around the attic you could use.”
It was a major concession. Maynard had been permitted one brief glimpse of Gusta’s attic and had been drooling ever since.
“Come over tomorrow,” she said with a grand wave. “Take what you want. It’ll all be yours one day, anyhow.” She gave Slade, not Meriwether, a frosty smile.
Meriwether’s eyes widened in astonishment, but she was smart enough to only say, “That would be wonderful. Thanks.”
If I was going to ask any questions about Hiram, it was time. “I’m surprised you sent poor Alice out so early yesterday,” I told Gusta. Seeing Alice’s equal surprise, I added, “I saw your car in the Bi-Lo parking lot around eight-thirty, when I was leaving the beauty parlor.”
“I didn’t hear you go out,” Gusta said severely.
Meriwether laughed. “When have you gotten up before nine? We could all go out and come in a hundred times, and you’d never know a thing.”
Alice flushed. “I had to—uh—get something personal from the store.” She shot Slade a quick, embarrassed look. He didn’t look up from his puzzle, but I regretted bringing it up. Trust me to call attention to a person’s private needs in public.
Gusta must have felt as sorry as I did about it, because she leaned over and gave Alice a pat. “Never mind. You have to get a breath of air from time to time.” Meriwether gave her a skep tical look. She’d been at her grandmother’s beck and call twenty-four hours a day.
“This girl has such a good head for business,” Gusta boasted. “She’s saving me time these days, and time is money. Have you ever used a stamp to sign checks you’re going to deposit, Mac?”
“All the time, Gusta.” I was wondering how to ask Meriwether and Slade whether they’d seen anybody or anything suspicious early Saturday. But Gusta wasn’t through with rubber stamps.
“I’d never thought of such a thing. But Alice ordered one before we left, and it was waiting when we got back. Now, instead of writing my name on every check, I just stamp ‘For deposit only to the account of Augusta Wainwright’ on everything.” She made a stamping motion with one hand. “It even has my account number on it, so they can’t make a mistake.”
“That’s a great idea,” I told her. “Next Alice will be suggesting you get a computer to keep your bank accounts straight.”
“Not just my bank accounts,” Gusta announced triumphantly, “but all my lists, too. Remember all those envelopes we used to have to hand address, Meriwether? Alice says we can put the lists on the computer, with phone numbers and addresses for everybody, then when we need to send out a mailing, we can print out just the labels we need. The computer will sort out who’s in hospital auxiliary, or the Garden Club, the D.A.R., the A.A.U.W.—”
“That’s great.” If I hadn’t interrupted, Gusta might have listed every organization in town, and it’s amazing how many groups a town as small as Hopemore can have.
“She even says we can put my rents ledger on the computer and know exactly who has paid and who hasn’t,” Gusta finished proudly.
“Fancy that,” I said, as if I hadn’t been using computers for the past umpteen years.
“Are you planning to buy a computer?” Meriwether didn’t believe it any more than I did.
“She brought one with her.” Gusta reached over and patted Alice on the knee.
“It was my sister’s.” Alice sounded apologetic for owning something so modern.
“If you can bring Nana into the computer age, I’ll buy you a dinner,” Meriwether offered. But I noticed her eyes had narrowed a bit while they were talking. Could Meriwether possibly be jealous? The little I’d seen of Alice, she wasn’t competing with anybody for anything.
Slade looked at his watch, and I knew I ought to go. But I hadn’t found out what I’d come for. Maybe the best thing to do was shake everybody up and watch for a guilty reaction. “Did you all hear Hiram Blaine got shot yesterday?”
Meriwether gasped. Alice froze. Slade asked, “Who?” Looked like perfectly normal responses to me.
Gusta got pink and her gray eyes glared at me. I knew she was mad because I hadn’t told her first. To pay me back, she said, “I don’t suppose Walker Crane Yarbrough had anything to do with it, did he? He’s got a whale of a temper.”
I opened my mouth to speak more hotly than I should to an elderly woman, but Alice jerked her foot and kicked over my tea.
“Sorry! I dropped my paper,” Slade apologized, retrieving it from Alice’s lap. “Do you want another glass, MacLaren?”
I drew my feet away from the running tea. “I’ve already drunk enough, but we ought to get some water and wash this up, or you’ll have ants.”
Slade caused the accident, but Alice went for the water. As soon as she’d gone, Slade griped, “I don’t know why they haven’t informed me about his death. We’ll need to cover it in the Statesman. Our lines of communication with law enforcement agencies leave a great deal—”
I didn’t want to listen to a diatribe about the informal way our former editor gathered news, so I interrupted. “Be sure to interview folks about Hiram, to get his whole story. He lived here most of his life, even if he’s been away a few years.” I paused, then added, “He told me he went by the paper and offered to write a weekly column, but you turned him down.”
I watched closely for his response. He looked merely puzzled until I prodded, “A filthy man in a red Yarbrough’s hat, with a big red parrot?”
“The one who thought aliens were heading for Hopemore any minute?” When I nodded, he slapped his paper against his leg. “Yeah, he came in. Offered me a column a week about aliens—how to prepare for invasion, how to tell them from other people, things like that. When I told him we weren’t interested, he stomped out furious. At the door he warned me I’d be sorry when they landed.”
“Poor Hiram,” Meriwether said softly. “He told great knock-knock jokes.”
Slade transformed himself before our eyes from a Sunday porch potato to a working man. “Honey, do you mind if I go over to the police station?”
“Go ahead.” Meriwether looked like she minded being called “honey” in front of her relatives and friends a whole lot more.
He headed down the walk.
“You’d do better to go to the sheriff’s,” I called after him. “The crime was committed in his jurisdiction.”
He turned. “You know where he was killed?”
“In my dining room, yesterday morning. Police Chief Muggins found h
im behind one of my screens in the middle of the party.”
“Oh, no!” Meriwether gasped. Alice, who was coming out the screened door, stayed inside. Maybe she was worried she might be in danger just being around me.
“I’ll want to interview you later.” Slade pulled keys from his pocket. “But I want to talk with the sheriff first.”
“Anytime.” I waved him on his way.
Nobody on that porch had a thing to hide that I could see. I stood. “I need to be going, too. I’m supposed to be down at the store while Cricket babysits Joe Riddley. Your house is beautiful, Meriwether. Southern Living ought to be around any day with cameras.”
“The loony bin will be around any day with their truck,” her grandmother replied testily, “unless we can get her to give up this catalogue business notion.”
I left them to their wrangling. On the way back to the store, though, I tried to figure out what made Slade drop that paper. He looked to me like he’d seen a ghost.
15
Since I had to pass Pooh’s house on the way to the store, I decided to stop and tell her about Hiram. I hated for Gusta to know more than Pooh.
“She’s in her Cozy,” Lottie informed me, leading me to a back room with ruffled curtains, flowered fabrics, and a small desk with inviting pigeonholes overflowing with envelopes. Photographs filled every surface—a diminutive blond bride and groom beaming at one another, the same couple holding an infant, Zachary at seven or eight with a hose pouring water over his freckled face and into his wide-open mouth, Zachary in his graduation tuxedo with his hair slicked back with so much water it looked dark, Zachary in his Air Force uniform looking far too young to die. Pooh sat in an electrically powered chair that tilted to help her stand, situated next to the back window where she could look out and see birds. A good reading lamp stood behind it and a little mahogany table beside her held a glass of tea and a plate of Toll House cookies. She’d been reading the Bible and listening to Chopin etudes, but her face brightened when I came in. “MacLaren! How nice to see you! Lottie, bring her some tea, please.”
Lottie trudged back to the kitchen with such a worried look that an uninformed guest might have wondered if there was enough in the larder to feed us. But Lottie wasn’t worried about that any more than she was worried we’d tell Pooh the cookies and tea were made without sugar. Pooh lived in blissful ignorance of most things Lottie did to control her diabetes.
Lottie looked worried because she’d looked worried all her life. Joe Riddley claimed she took one look at her no-good mama, knew she’d have a lot to worry about in life, and decided to get on with it. As a child she’d had a small worried face that gradually settled into permanent worry wrinkles. Worry in no way soured her disposition or her cookies.
I settled on the love seat across from Pooh. “You had such a nice party yesterday.” Pooh leaned forward and beamed. “I doubt anybody ever did a nicer thing for Bud.”
“For Joe Riddley,” I reminded her. “Bud’s been gone twenty years.”
Pooh smacked one cheek with her small palm. “How could I forget that? He had the loveliest funeral.” She lowered her voice. “Sometimes I get the tiniest bit confused. Otis gets very angry with me, but I tell him by the time he gets to be my age, he’ll know so much he’ll have to forget some of it, too.” I pictured Pooh’s mind as a small computer—pink, of course—so full that programs couldn’t move. She wasn’t forgetting, her hard drive was just freezing up.
“Otis doesn’t get mad at you very often, does he?” I reached for one of Lottie’s good cookies. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn they were full of sugar and calories.
Pooh sighed and shook her gray curls. “He got very angry one day. I went for a little walk, and he thought I was lost.” Her eyes snapped with indignation. “Looks like a person could have some time alone once in a while without everybody havin’ a fit.”
“It certainly does.” I stood up. “Excuse me a minute. I need the powder room.”
“Of course, dear. You know where it is.”
Otis must have still been at church, but Lottie sat at the kitchen table watching a nature program on television. “When did Pooh get lost?” I demanded, propping against a cabinet.
Lottie slewed her eyes my way. “Who’s been telling tales out of school?”
“Pooh herself. She said she got lost and Otis got angry with her. When was that?”
She scratched a scab on her arm. “Yesterday, real early. When I went to help her get up, she was gone, power chair and all. She mostly uses the power chair in the house and yard, because Otis can’t be liftin’ it in and out of the car. Once in a while I take her for what we call ‘a little walk’ down the block and back, but she never took it off the property alone before.” Lottie made little clicking noises with her tongue and echoed my worry about Joe Riddley. “If she can get out of the house by herself, there’s no tellin’ where she might end up.”
“Where did she end up yesterday?”
She shook her head. “We don’t rightly know. Otis drove up and down every street in town lookin’ for her, thinkin’ she couldn’t have got far. But we didn’t know when she left, see. And the way that chair can go, she could have gone clean out to your place.”
Fear clutched my heart, but I forced myself to stay practical. “Not down the gravel road.”
“Oh, she could make the chair go on that road, all right, as good as you keep it. I’m not saying she didn’t, either. Her chair was pretty dusty when she got back.”
I had to pull out a chair and sit down. “Where and when did you find her?”
“We didn’t. Sometime past nine-thirty she showed up back here at the house, on her own. Otis had been out combin’ those streets for nigh on two hours, checkin’ by here every now and then. I was gettin’ real worried, because she was past time for her shot. He came back to report to me that he couldn’t find her, and there sat Miss Winifred pert as anything, right here in her own backyard like she hadn’t ever left the place. Her face was red and hot, and she was sweatin’ some, but she wouldn’t say a word about where she’d been or what she’d done. Said ’twas none of our business.” She twisted her mouth in what passed for her smile. “She said maybe she’d been courtin’.”
“This could be very serious, Lottie. Otis told you we took all the guns out of the house, didn’t he? But there was one missing.”
“That little bitty one? I think Miss Gusta’s still got it.”
“Gusta said she might have it.” I sighed. “Which means she might have given it back to Pooh. I want you to search this house again, as carefully as you know how—the downstairs, at least. Hiram Blaine was shot yesterday morning early down at our place, with a little gun.”
Lottie pressed a thin hand to her equally thin chest. “Miss Winifred never!”
“I hope not, but he’d been deviling Pooh earlier in the week, and if you think she could navigate our road, we need to be absolutely sure. You look for that gun, all right?”
“I’ll look,” Lottie agreed. “I haven’t seen that little gun around here for some time, but if Miss Winifred wanted to keep it from me, she’s got her ways.”
“Let me know if you find out anything,” I said as I left her.
I went back into the Cozy and sat down on the love seat before I remembered I’d passed up my chance to visit the powder room. Pooh looked up and offered, “Would you like another cookie, dear?”
“No, I don’t want any more cookies. But I want to know where you were yesterday morning. Lottie says you went out for awhile all by yourself.”
Her eyes slid from one side to the other, then she looked down as if fascinated by her enormous engagement diamond. “I went out to get fresh air.”
“But why didn’t Otis see you? He drove up and down all the streets.”
She giggled like a little girl. “I hid. I watched very carefully, and when I saw him, I pulled behind a bush. He passed me several times, but he never knew I was there.”
Poor Otis
. Poor all of us, if this got any worse. But I simply had to know where she had been. “He said maybe you’d been down to my house. I was over at Phyllis’s getting my hair fixed. Did I miss you?”
Her lips closed up as tight as a drawstring bag. “I’m not going to tell you, so you needn’t ask.” Pooh waved me away. “Can I have Lottie bring you some more tea?” A doubtful expression began to gather on her face. I could tell she wasn’t quite sure now how long I’d been there or how much tea I’d had. In another second her eyes took on the blank look we had all come to know and dread.
As I left, she leaned forward and gave me her hand. “Thank you so much for coming.” She might not be real sure at that moment who I was or why I was there, but courtesy would be the last part of Pooh’s mind to go.
Who Invited the Dead Man? Page 15