by Anne George
The two men stepped into the living room.
“Y’all want some coffee?” I asked.
Timmy ducked his head. “No, ma’am. Mrs. Hollowell, I hate like hell to tell you this, excuse the language, but we’ve come to arrest you.”
Detective Blankenship pulled some handcuffs from his pocket. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney—”
“Oh, shut up, Jasper. She doesn’t need that crap.” Timmy turned to me. “Mrs. Hollowell, we’ve got to take you in.”
“For what, Timmy? Are you serious?”
“Suspicion of murder, Mrs. Hollowell. Seems they found a murder weapon in your handbag.”
“I found it myself. It just showed up there.”
“I know. It’s just something we’ve got to do. They want to ask you some questions.”
I looked down at my pink chenille robe. “Do I have time to get dressed?” I was feeling remarkably calm.
“Of course you do.” Tim Hawkins gave his partner a look that dared him to stop me.
“And may I call my niece? She’s my lawyer.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, y’all have a seat. There’s coffee in the kitchen. Make yourselves at home.”
The machine picked up at both Debbie’s office and at her home. I left messages at both places that I was being arrested. I took a quick shower and put on my navy blue suit and heels. I might be under arrest, I might feel like hell, but I was going to be a neat criminal. I started to put on eyeliner but realized that my hands were shaking so much that I might blind myself. I guess I wasn’t as calm as I thought.
Timmy and Detective Blankenship were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee.
“I like your bay windows,” Timmy said.
I looked out and saw Woofer marking his tree. “I need to call my neighbor,” I said. “She’ll be worried about me.”
Mitzi’s machine answered. I left word that I had gone to the police station. I didn’t add that I was under arrest. I considered calling Fred, but surely I would be home in a little while.
“You ready?” Jasper Blankenship stood up. There was a tinge of sarcasm in his voice.
Timmy pointed to the table. “Rinse out your cup and saucer.”
We went out and Timmy held open the front door of a Buick LeSabre for me. There was nothing to identify it as a police car, unlike Bo Mitchell’s car that has “City of Birmingham” on the side. Jasper got in the back, and while Timmy was walking around the car, he reminded me that he had read me my rights.
I agreed that he had.
“Just wanted it clear.”
“Exactly why am I under arrest, Timmy?” I asked when he got in the car. “And why couldn’t you question me at home?”
“You were at the scene of the crime, Mrs. Hollowell, and the murder weapon was in your purse. So you’re considered a murder suspect. Procedure says we have to hold you. And what they’ll do at the station is give you a voice-stress analyzer test.”
“A polygraph?”
“Not exactly.” Timmy waited until a pickup had passed and then pulled out into the street. “Works sort of the same way, though. When they ask you a question that shakes you up, it’ll show up on the machine.”
“Timmy,” I said. “I didn’t know this Mooncloth man from Adam’s house cat. We were sitting in the front row at the Alabama, and he fell over into the orchestra pit.”
“I believe you, Mrs. Hollowell. What we’re most interested in is the switchblade and how it ended up in your purse.”
I considered this. “Have they had time to do a DNA test? Are they sure it’s the murder weapon?”
Timmy shook his head. “The DNA won’t be back for a few days, but the guy had B negative blood, which is fairly rare, and that’s what’s on the knife. And it fit the entry wound. Perfectly. It’s the weapon, all right.”
I was just grasping at straws. I had known it was the murder weapon when I pulled it from my purse and fainted.
“How long does it take? This voice-stress analyzer test.” I asked. “And will the two of you be asking the questions?”
Timmy ran his hand through his white hair. Imagine. One of my students with white hair. “Depends. And no ma’am. There’s a technician who does it. We’ll talk to you afterward, though.”
“Well, if it depends on how much I know, it won’t take long.”
Jasper leaned across the seat. “You probably know more than you think you do.”
I could learn to dislike this Ron Howard look-alike. I turned and looked out of the window.
It was so eerie riding down the familiar streets knowing I was under arrest as a murder suspect. Knowing that the two men in the car with me were detectives with the Birmingham Police Department, men who were going to ask me questions about the murder of a man I had never met in my life. A Russian dancer. Weird. It would make more sense if they were arresting me for the murder of a fisherman on the Warrior River. At least I had known a few of them. Then a terrible thought occurred to me.
“Will I be able to post bail?” I asked Timmy. “My daughter’s been in Warsaw, Poland, since last August, and she’s coming home in a few days, and there are all sorts of things we need to do for her. She’s four months pregnant.”
“Can’t see any reason why not. I expect all they’ll do is question you and let you go home, anyway.” Timmy said. He nodded his head toward Jasper. “His wife’s four months pregnant, too.”
Jasper leaned forward again. “We’re having a girl. Going to name her Emily Claire.”
“That’s a beautiful name. Ours is Joanna. I don’t think they’ve decided on a middle name yet. Is your wife showing?”
“Looks like she swallowed an eggplant.”
“That’s exciting.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed. I had begun to like him a little. But not for long. As we pulled up to the downtown police station, he informed me that he was going to have to put the handcuffs on. Policy.
I looked at Timmy. He seemed embarrassed, but he nodded his head.
“Bunch of bullshit. Excuse the language, Mrs. Hollowell, but we’ve got to do it.”
I held out my hands.
“We have to do them in the back,” Jasper said. “It’s too easy to get your hands out in front. Folks used to get loose that way all the time.”
The click of the handcuffs around my wrists scared me. Until now, the whole thing had been unreal. I had a fever, I had a headache, one of my former students was arresting me for the murder of a man I had never seen in my life until he fell over dead in the orchestra pit at the Alabama. But the handcuffs holding my arms behind my back were real. And uncomfortable. Why on God’s earth would I want to escape? I hadn’t done anything.
I had been in the Birmingham Police Headquarters only once in my life, and that had been to pick up Henry Lamont’s cousin, Trinity Buckalew, who had been charged with a misdemeanor. When we arrived, she had been playing cards with a man she had introduced as a narc who hung out under interstates, and she had been winning. I remembered the place as light and airy. Today, walking down the same hall between Tim Hawkins and Jasper Blankenship, it was much more grim. I was also very conscious of how uncomfortable it is to have your hands handcuffed behind you. It does something to your center of gravity and forces you to walk carefully.
We came to a window like the windows in a doctor’s reception area that you can’t see through. A sign-in sheet was on the counter in front of the window, and both Timmy and Jasper signed in. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the window had opened and a receptionist had demanded my medical insurance card. But nothing happened.
“This way, Mrs. Hollowell,” Timmy said, pointing toward a door that had a red light above it and a code box on the side. He punched in several numbers, there was a grinding noise, a green light came on, and he opened the door into a narrow hall. “On the left,” he said.
We turned into a very pleasant room. There were two desks and a round table with chairs
around it. A long counter ran down one wall with bookcases above it. In one bookcase, African violets flourished under fluorescent grow-lights. In a corner was a corn plant, tall, healthy, reaching toward the fluorescent bulbs in the ceiling. Bulbs that gave off a familiar slight buzzing sound, familiar because Robert Anderson High was one of the experimental schools built in the late sixties without windows. For thirty years that buzz had been part of my life.
A pretty young woman sitting at the front desk looked up. I thought for a moment that she had very short blond hair, but when she turned slightly, I saw that it was pulled back into one long plait. She said, “Hey, Tim. Hey, Jasper,” and looked at me curiously.
“Charity, this is Mrs. Hollowell. She was my English teacher at Robert Anderson.”
“Wow.”
Wow, indeed. The lovely Charity wouldn’t have even been a gleam in her father’s eye at that point in time.
“We’re booking her for suspicion of murder,” Jasper added.
“Wow.” Charity’s eyes widened. “And she looks like a nice lady.”
The three of them looked at me. I said, “I am a nice lady,” and they all nodded.
“Well, I am,” I insisted.
“She really is,” Tim said, a little late, I thought. I frowned at him.
Charity reached into her desk and pulled out some forms. “Well, y’all fill these out.” She leaned over and touched an intercom button.
“What?” an irritated loud voice answered.
“Need some fingerprints here, Jean.”
“Snowed under back here. I’ll get to you soon as I can.”
“She’ll get to us soon as she can,” Charity announced as if we were deaf.
“I have to go to the ladies’ room,” I said. “Right now.”
Charity stood up. “I’ll walk you down there. It’s right down the hall.”
“There’s a problem with the handcuffs.”
Tim, on his way over to the table with the forms, said, “Jasper, get those damn handcuffs off. Excuse the language, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“Who do they think you murdered, Mrs. Hollowell?” the lovely Charity asked as we walked down the hall.
“A Russian guy at the Alabama Theater.”
“Oh, I heard about that. Somebody stabbed him on the stage while he was doing an Elvis dance.”
“And I was in the audience.” I pointed to the door with WOMEN on it. “Do you have to come in with me?”
“Oh, no, ma’am. There’s no way to get out of there. I’ll just wait here.”
I thanked her and walked into the restroom to be confronted with the witch from hell. It took me a few seconds to realize that what I was facing was a full-length mirror.
Good Lord have mercy. The only thing I recognized was the navy suit. I was pale as a ghost except for my eyes, which looked like black holes. A sinus infection and getting arrested did not improve one’s appearance. Or one’s frame of mind. In my whole life I had gotten one speeding ticket, and here I was in the Birmingham jail under suspicion for murder of a Russian Elvis impersonator. Now what were the odds of that?
My head was pounding. When I came out of the stall, I wet a paper towel and held it against my face. Then I fished around in my purse (not the same one I had found the switchblade in) and located a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol. I cupped my hand under the faucet and managed to get enough water to wash them down. I should have brought my antibiotic, I realized. I was supposed to take it four times a day. Damn. I held the paper towel to my eyes.
“Mrs. Hollowell, you okay?” Charity called through the door.
“I’m coming,” I said, throwing the towel in the wastebasket.
“We’re going on down to the voice analyzer,” she said as I came out. “She’s not busy right now.”
“How long does it take? I’ve got a splitting headache.”
“Depends. You can wait on your lawyer if you want to.”
I had no idea how long it would take Debbie to get my messages, and I couldn’t think of any way that I could incriminate myself by answering some questions, so I said, “Let’s get it over with.”
Charity led me into a small but very pleasant office. A very pregnant woman in her early thirties stood and introduced herself as Margaret Sayres. Charity said she had to get back to work. Margaret invited me to sit down, which she and I both did. She reached in her desk drawer, pulled out a huge bottle of Maalox, and took a swig.
“You remember what the last month is like?” she asked.
I nodded. “I have three children.”
“This will be my third.” She turned a picture on her desk so I could see it. Two blond little girls in front of a Christmas tree.
“They’re beautiful.”
She studied the picture. “Yes, they are. We’re having a boy this time.” She placed it back on the desk and said, “Ready to get down to business?”
“How does the test work?”
“Nothing to it. We just talk. I ask you a few questions, and you answer. Give me a yes or no or say anything you want.” She pointed to what I had thought was a small radio on her desk. “This picks up our voices, measures the amount of stress. Actually”—she reached over and patted the box—“this is better than a polygraph, believe it or not. They’ve found out that every person’s voice is as distinctive as their finger-print or their handwriting. You can take a tranquilizer or some other drug and fool a polygraph but not this baby.” She leaned back. “Now I want you just to relax, Mrs. Hollowell.”
Fat chance in hell. And I decided not to correct her grammar, too.
“Your name is Patricia Anne Tate Hollowell?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you, Mrs. Hollowell?”
“Sixty-one.”
“How long have you lived in Birmingham?”
“All my life.” I began to relax a little.
“Have you taken any drugs today?”
“An antibiotic and two Extra Strength Tylenol. I’ve got a sinus infection. Splitting headache.”
“But no narcotics? No cough syrup with codeine?”
I shook my head. “Makes me sick.”
“Did you know Griffin Mooncloth?”
“No. I was sitting in the front row of the Alabama when he was stabbed. He came right toward us and fell into the orchestra pit. It upset my husband and me both so much that we left immediately.”
Margaret leaned forward to adjust a knob on the voice analyzer, not an easy thing to do at eight months pregnant.
“Where are you having your baby?” I asked.
“Brookwood. I like their birthing room.”
“My niece just had a baby there. She’s a lawyer. Debbie Nachman. You may know her.”
“Oh, sure, I know Debbie. She had a little boy, didn’t she?”
I nodded. “David Anthony. They’re calling him Brother.”
Margaret patted her stomach. “I’ll bet that’s what happens to this one, too.” How’s Debbie doing? Is she back at work?”
“Part-time. I hope she’ll be down here to get me out in a little while.”
“Mrs. Hollowell, do you have any idea how the switchblade knife got in your purse?”
“I’ve narrowed down the number of people who could have done it to four.”
“And you didn’t kill Griffin Mooncloth?”
“Of course not. The extent of my killing is putting out Combat bait for roaches.”
Margaret reached in her desk drawer and pulled out the Maalox bottle again. “I’ve got a little refrigerator. You want a Coke? Caffeine-free?”
“I’d love one.” I pointed to the voice analyzer. “Are we through?”
“Oh, sure.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “This whole thing is ridiculous. They brought me in in handcuffs.”
“Tacky. It’s policy, though.”
“So I’ve heard. Where’s the refrigerator? I’ll get the Cokes.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Hollowell. It’s over in the corner under that table.”<
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I got the cans of Coke and handed one to Margaret. “My daughter’s pregnant, too.”
“When is she due?”
I felt better than I had all day. The Tylenol was taking effect, and I had obviously passed the voice-stress analyzer test. Or so I assumed. We had finished the pregnancy conversation, and I was listening to Margaret tell about her daredevil daughter Rosie’s exploits when the phone rang.
“Debbie’s here,” she said when she hung up.
Twelve
It took Debbie more than an hour to get me out of the police station. I think she talked to everyone there before she came back to Margaret’s office and told me I was free to leave. By that time, Margaret and I had gotten to be good friends.
“Your aunt’s innocent as a baby,” Margaret told Debbie when she finally showed up.
“Of course she is.” Debbie eyed Margaret’s girth. “Speaking of babies, are you going to make it through the day?”
Margaret sighed and reached for the Maalox. “Lord knows. I hear you had a boy this time. Me, too. Are they very different?”
“You have to be a lot more careful changing their diapers.”
Margaret smiled, swigged the antacid, and tapped her chest with her fist. “I just want him out. We’re running out of room here.”
We all knew the feeling. During the last month of pregnancy you get scared that nature has played a trick on you, that you will always be pregnant.
“Hang in there,” Debbie said.
Margaret stuck out a white-coated tongue at her.
“Am I really free?” I asked Debbie as we went down the hall.
“They agreed that suspicion of murder was pretty far-fetched since half of Birmingham saw you were sitting in the front row when the Mooncloth guy was killed.”
“Good.”
“They still have some questions about the knife, though, Aunt Pat. About how it could have gotten in your purse. Tim Hawkins said he would be over this afternoon to talk to you. He said he knew you didn’t feel like staying around here.”
“They arrested me, Debbie. Read me my rights, handcuffed me.”