“You ready for Christmas?” he finally asked.
“I got a stack of crocheted caps, mittens, and house shoes put away. And some candy canes for ’em.”
“They’ll like that.”
“I got hold of an old swing set and painted it up. Turned out nice.”
“I’ll bet it did, if you did it, Mama.”
There it was—an affectionate tone in his voice that told her all wasn’t lost between them. She had to fight to keep from bursting into tears.
“Thanks for all you do for the young’uns,” he added. “Wish I could’ve sent some money, but times are tough.”
“Yes, they are. For everybody, son.”
“I send Shirley what I can, but I reckon she just drinks it away there at the Bulldog.”
“She won’t be darkenin’ the Bulldog’s doors anytime soon. Sheriff Gilford arrested her for drunk drivin’—that’s her fourth one now—and endangering a minor. Seven of ’em, in fact. She’ll be doin’ some serious time.”
“Reckon I’m not surprised.”
“No. We’ve seen this one afar off.” She paused and decided to broach a sensitive topic. “Reckon you’ll be callin’ the kids Christmas Day? They’ll be here at my house. That’s where they’re stayin’ now.”
She heard him clear his throat and shuffle around a bit before he replied. “Um, I’ll try to. But I’ll be on a stretch of road that don’t have a lot of truck stops with phones.”
Stella cringed. He trotted that one out at least once a month for holidays and birthdays. She wished he’d come up with a new one, if for no other reason than that it angered her that he thought she was dumb enough to believe it every time.
“Your kids would love to hear from you, son,” she said. “Especially Waycross. He misses you somethin’ fierce. So, if you do happen to run across a telephone anytime in the next forty-eight hours or so, you’d make your young’uns happy by lettin’ them hear your voice. They’ve been through a lot lately.”
“Haven’t we all, Mama? Haven’t we all?” He coughed, then took a deep breath and said, “I’m gonna have to get to bed now. Gotta head out at first light tomorrow mornin’. Merry Christmas, Mama.”
“Merry Christmas, Macon. I love you, son.”
“You too, Mama. Tell the kids I say hey.”
“Okay.”
“Bye.”
Stella stood, walked to the wall, and replaced the phone in its cradle. Then she returned to the table and sat down. She picked up her buttermilk and drank it down without stopping to catch a breath.
“I tried, honey,” she whispered to her husband, just in case he might be listening. “Maybe not hard enough. Maybe too hard. I never know with that boy.”
Then she propped her elbows on the table, buried her face in her hands, and cried.
She wept for the son who slipped farther and farther away from her with every passing year.
She wept for the daughter-in-law who was now behind bars and would be for heaven only knew how long.
She wept tears of relief that she wouldn’t have to worry anymore about that daughter-in-law hurting or killing her grandchildren with her foolishness.
She wept tears of happiness just to know that they would all be under her roof, at least for a season, and she could make sure that they had warm, nutritious meals on time every day, that they would dress in clothing that was appropriate for the weather, that they would be told good things about themselves rather than what a nuisance they were.
By the time Stella finished crying and headed off to bed to end this terrible, wonderful day, she had decided that she might have her trials, but all in all, she had been blessed beyond belief.
Her heart was overflowing with gratitude and joy.
Chapter 22
Stella stood at the stove, stirring a pot of her famous fudge. She had beaten it until her arm was aching, waiting for it to lose some of its glossy look. It had only been minutes, but her wrist was complaining that it had been hours.
“Aren’t you about done with that fudge, Granny?” Savannah asked as she sat at the table, shelling pecans and keeping an eye peeled for any progress on the fudge front.
“I wish I was,” Stella replied. “My arm’s about to fall off.”
“Then why don’t we call it good and eat it?”
“Because this is one of the most important steps. If I beat it too much, it’ll get all hard and sugary. If I get lazy and don’t beat it enough, we’ll have chocolate syrup instead of fudge.”
“I’ll eat it with a spoon,” Savannah offered. “I’d suck it through a straw, if need be, and enjoy every sip.”
Stella laughed. “I know you would, darlin’. You were born with a sweet tooth, just like your granny. No denying it. Would you butter that pan over there, the one lined with foil? When I’m done, I’ll let you lick the spoon for your troubles.”
Savannah shot up off her chair and headed straight for the refrigerator.
Stella wondered, not for the first time, at the power of chocolate to motivate a female to action.
“Oh, that fudge smells good, Granny,” Savannah said as she carefully smeared butter over every square inch of the foil lining the pan.
“It sure does, darlin’. I can hardly hold back myself.”
“I love Christmas,” Savannah said dreamily. “I love it so much that I don’t know which part I love the most. The pretty lights, the music that you get to hear only one time a year, the food—especially the candy—Santa and, of course, the story of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. It’s the only time when magic seems real.”
“Now you’re sounding like Alma,” Stella said as she grabbed the buttered, foiled pan and began to scoop the heavenly concoction into it.
“Yeah,” Savannah replied. “I can’t imagine where we got such fancy notions. Wouldn’t have been handed down from you, would they?”
Stella thought of Shirley, who, to her knowledge, had never once played Santa to her children or bought a tree or cooked a Christmas dish of any kind.
She did sing carols if she was drunk enough, but it took a lot of whiskey to get her in the Christmas spirit.
She thought of Macon, whom she hadn’t seen at her holiday table for more than ten years. The father who couldn’t pull over to the side of the road and use a pay phone to call his children to wish them a Merry Christmas.
But all the Reid kids loved the season and savored every moment of it every year.
Perhaps curly dark hair and bright blue eyes weren’t the only things she’d passed down to her descendants.
She finished spreading the fudge in the pan, making sure not to remove too much from the wooden spoon in the process.
“There ya go, puddin’,” she said, handing the spoon to Savannah. “Take a taste and tell me if I got it right.”
Savannah licked the spoon, rolled her eyes ecstatically, and proclaimed, “It’s plumb fit to eat!”
“Then let’s cut it up, so’s we can give it to them scalawags in the front room. Have they got the icicles on the tree yet?”
“They’re on the second boxful. Waycross says you like a lot on there.”
“I like ’em hangin’ down straight like the real ones do. So no just standin’ back and hurlin’ ’em willy-nilly at the tree.”
“They know that, too, Granny. We’re all well acquainted with your icicle-hanging standards.”
“Most things that are worth doin’ at all are worth doin’ well.”
Savannah paused in her fudge cutting and looked at Stella, confused. “I thought the first part of the saying was ‘Anything that’s worth doing at all.’”
“That’s for overly persnickety folks. The truth is, there’s a lot that’s not worth doing at all, let alone worth doing well.”
Stella set the empty fudge pan in the sink and ran hot water in it. “Wouldn’t you rather be in there with your brother and your sisters, decorating the tree, than hanging around in the kitchen with an old lady?”
“You’re not old.
You’re Granny.”
“Why, thank you, sugar.”
“You’re welcome. Can I ask you for a favor?”
Stella smiled, thinking that it was nice that the child was highly intelligent but not overly cunning. At least not yet. She was still delightfully transparent.
“Butterin’ me up first, huh? Okay, what’s this favor of yours?”
“I heard you talking on the phone this morning to Sheriff Gilford about the box of jewelry that you took from Miss Carr’s apartment.”
“Oh, you did, huh?”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard you say something about picking something out for her to be buried in.”
“That’s right. Is there anything you didn’t hear me say?”
Savannah grinned. “I didn’t hear you say it’d be something that goes good with pink, since her dress is pink.”
“What’s your point, kiddo?”
“I was wondering if I could take a stab at picking something outta there. If you don’t think I did a good job, then you could choose something else. But I’d like to give it a try.”
Stella studied the sweet little face, thinking it over. “Can I ask why you wanna do it?”
Savannah shrugged and blushed. “Miss Carr was nice to me one time. I’d like to do something nice for her. This’ll be the last chance I’ll ever have.”
“What did she do for you?”
“I was in the drugstore, looking at the paper dolls. They had some real pretty Barbie ones, but I didn’t have enough birthday money to buy them, so I was gonna buy the cheap ones that looked like Barbie but ’tweren’t.”
“I see.”
“Miss Carr was standing nearby, holding a red lipstick that she’d just picked out and was fixin’ to buy. It was like she read my mind about the paper dolls. She said to me, ‘You’d rather buy the Barbie ones, wouldn’t you?’ So, I said, ‘Yes, ma’am. I would.’ And she says, ‘How much more do you need to buy the good ones?’ I said, ‘Forty-nine cents.’ That’s when she looked in her purse, counted her money, and gave me two quarters. She put the lipstick back on the shelf and told me, ‘Enjoy your paper dolls, dumplin’.’ Then she walked out and didn’t buy her lipstick. I don’t think she had enough money after giving me her quarters.”
Stella felt a lump in her throat as she thought of the beautiful young woman who had been kind enough to give a poor child a gift of paper dolls, when she couldn’t afford a tube of lipstick for herself. She thought of how her corpse had been mistreated the night before by angry women. Women who had good reason to be angry. But it still didn’t sit well with Stella, the way it had all happened.
“I think that’s a fine idea,” Stella told the girl. “I think Miss Carr would’ve liked to have you pick out her last jewelry for her. Earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet. Maybe two, if you think they go together nice.”
“Guess she don’t need a watch anymore.”
“No. Reckon not.”
Stella walked to the refrigerator and opened the cupboard above it. Carefully, she took down the jewelry box that she had stashed there last night.
As she placed it on the kitchen table, she said, “There’s just two things, Savannah, and they’re both very important. You can take every piece of jewelry that’s in the box out and look at it all you want, if you need to, so’s you can make your decision. But you’re responsible for seeing to it that every bit of it goes back inside when you’re done, other than what you pick out for her. Is that understood?”
“I promise I’ll take good care of it.”
“Good, because it’s going to Miss Prissy’s little girl, for her to remember her mama by. And the other thing is important, too. Nobody will ever know that you saw what was in that box, and you don’t need to tell anybody that you did.”
“How come? Is it some kind of secret?”
“It is, kinda. And I’m sorry I can’t explain it all to you, but it’s a grown-up thing. A worrisome thing that kids shouldn’t have to know about or be concerned with. You’ll just have to take my word for it, okay?”
“Okay. I won’t tell anybody. It’ll just be our own deep, dark secret.”
“You’ve been reading too many of those mystery books.” Stella laughed and slid the box in front of her. “I’ll go help the kids with the icicles and keep ’em all outta your hair while you conduct your mysterious business in here.”
* * *
No sooner had Stella joined the rest of the children in the living room than she saw Florence driving up. Normally, Florence stopped in front of the house and knocked on the front door. But this time she continued on until she was near the back door.
Stella walked over to the side window and saw her friend getting out of the car with a box in her hand. Smiling, Stella thought it kind of Florence to come bearing a gift of some sort, considering all the troubles she had on her mind lately.
“How are we gonna get the star on top, Gran?” Waycross asked. “The tree’s too big. We’re gonna need a step stool to reach that far up.”
Stella glanced out the front window and saw yet another car turn off the highway and head down the dirt road in their direction. “Lordy,” she said, “it’s Grand Central Station round here all of a sudden.”
“It’s Sheriff Gilford!” Waycross said, terribly excited. “He’s real tall. He can stick the star on the tree for us.”
Stella turned and saw Savannah standing behind her, an enormous smile on her face. “Miss Flo brought us something,” she said breathlessly. “Something really special. But it’s got a little something wrong with it, and she has to fix it before she brings it out here. She wants everybody to sit down and close their eyes.”
It took a few moments to get everyone seated, as Vidalia had her hurt leg elevated on one of the extra chairs. But finally, they were all in position, with closed eyes, when Stella heard Florence say in a bright, cheery voice, “Open your eyes! Merry Christmas!”
They did, and what a wonder they beheld.
Florence stood in the middle of the living room, holding a beautiful white coconut cake decorated with gumdrops. It looked just like the one Mr. Anderson had given them, only larger and fluffier. Stella would have recognized the baker’s handiwork anywhere.
“It’s one of Elsie’s!” she shouted without thinking.
Florence’s lower lip shot out in a pout. “Well, yes, but I bought it from her. Um, actually, I didn’t wind up paying her for it, ’cause she wouldn’t take my money once she knew I was giving it to you, but it was my idea!”
“And a fine idea it was, too.” Stella grabbed the cake from Florence before one of the children, who were now on their feet and were jumping up and down for joy, knocked it out of her hands.
“Be careful there,” Florence told her. “The gumdrops keep slippin’. They were all down on the plate by the time I got it in here. I had to reposition ’em before you saw it.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Stella told her. “This cake isn’t long for this world. I guarantee you, nobody’s gonna care where the gumdrops are ten minutes from now.”
A hearty knock at the front door told them that Sheriff Gilford had arrived.
“Savannah, would you let the sheriff in? I’m gonna take this back to the kitchen and—”
“But . . . but I . . . ,” Savannah stammered. “I got to finish something I started back there in the kitchen.”
“Oh, right.” Stella handed her the cake. “You take this back there and put it on the counter. Then finish what you were doing. Flo, sit yerself down and take a load off. I’ll put on a pot of coffee, and in a few minutes, we’ll cut the cake.”
“No, no. I wasn’t intending to stay. I’ve got things to do, it being Christmas Eve and all. I just wanted to get the cake to you while it’s fresh. You visit with the sheriff and tell him Merry Christmas for me.”
A second later, she was heading toward the back of the house and Manny Gilford was coming in the front.
He was wearing a broad smile and was carrying a paper bag
in one hand and two bright yellow roses in the other.
For a moment, Stella thought the roses were for her, and the idea that they might be didn’t sit well with her.
But he quickly put her mind at ease when he handed one to Vidalia and the other to Alma. “Those are for our two ladies who got the worst end of the deal last night. And there’s one of these for everybody.”
He reached into the bag and began to produce one Rubik’s Cube after another, which he pressed into each eager hand in turn.
The toys were an instant hit. The kids squealed and jumped around like wild jackrabbits on a date, until Jesup got too close to Vidalia’s wounded leg.
“Okay! That’s enough!” Stella told them. “Everybody thank Sheriff Gilford, sit down, and play with your new toys.”
Within seconds, the sheriff had been thanked, they had all found a seat, and they were as entranced by the complexities of the cube as the rest of the nation.
“Listen to that,” Stella said, hardly believing it.
“Listen to what?” Manny asked.
“Exactly. They aren’t even that quiet when they’re asleep.” She looked up at him, gratitude shining in her eyes. “Thank you, Manny.”
“You’re most welcome.”
“Would you like to come into the kitchen with me for a moment?” she asked. Looking around at the children, she added, “I’m pretty sure they won’t even miss us.”
When they entered the room, she saw Savannah frantically toss a dish towel over some items on the table.
“That’s okay,” Stella told her. “We can let the sheriff in on what we’re doing. He won’t mind.”
“Oh, all right.” Savannah removed the towel, exposing at least twenty items of jewelry, which she had placed in neat lines, divided into categories. Necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets. There was even a brooch or two.
“Wow, that’s some haul,” Manny said. “It’s a good thing we didn’t let the public see that stuff. It would’ve caused—” He glanced over at Savannah and cleared his throat. “Um, problems.”
Murder in Her Stocking Page 23