Death Crashes the Party

by Vickie Fee

  The waitress refilled our iced teas, and Holly’s clunky bracelet clanked against the glass as she stirred in some Splenda.

  “Tea lights in the afternoon wouldn’t add much sparkle to an outdoor event,” Holly said absently.

  “Mason jars filled with crystals?” I offered. “No,” I added. “Too New Agey.”

  “I know,” Holly said with a pleased look. “We should go through Meemaw’s costume jewelry and scatter some on the table, among the flowers and china.”

  “That’s absolutely perfect,” I said. “It’s personal, and I bet Andrea even has memories of playing dress-up at Meemaw’s house with some of that jewelry when she was growing up.”

  Holly said she’d set up a time with Meemaw to rummage through her costume jewelry.

  The key to throwing a successful party—and keeping your sanity—is meticulous planning. Even more important than my glue gun and duct tape, which have helped me avert disaster on any number of occasions, are my checklist and timeline for every party. The checklist, which may start out sparse and grow exponentially, includes every single item needed for a particular event, along with every contact name and number. The timeline starts weeks or months before the event and then counts down to the days leading up to the party, with descriptions of what to do, and finally, it becomes a schedule for the day of the actual event, broken down into fifteen-minute increments.

  Holly and I fleshed out the remainder of our lists over a well-earned slice of peach pie.

  Despite having wasted a good chunk of my morning cutting and repairing an errant hole in the ceiling, it turned out to be a productive workday. I even managed to get caught up with some odds and ends that had been simmering on the back burner for a while.

  Chapter 8

  I had supper ready when Larry Joe made it home a little after six. He usually scarfs down second helpings of my meat loaf and mashed potatoes. When he didn’t clean his plate, I knew worries about the business and his dad were taking a toll on his appetite, despite the fact that he tried to be upbeat during dinner and convince me things were really okay.

  “Dad seemed in good spirits today. And our lawyer says all the company paperwork is in order. We shouldn’t have any problems with an audit.”

  “That’s great, honey,” I said, although neither of us seemed to believe a word we were saying.

  I tried to persuade Larry Joe to watch some television with me or go out to a movie. I really felt like he needed a break. But he holed up at the computer in the den after dinner, saying that he’d been so busy putting out fires, he was way behind with regular work stuff. After Larry Joe retreated to the den, I placed the dishes in the dishwasher and went upstairs to give Di a call.

  “Di, have you heard Dave mention anything about a guy named Bobo?”

  “Seriously?” she asked in a tone that peeved me.

  “Yes, seriously. He hangs around with Ray Franklin and apparently made several visits to the Farrell brothers’ apartment. And, according to Kenny, one of those times Bobo was real upset about something.”

  “You lost me. Who’s Kenny?”

  “He lives in the same apartment building as the Farrells did.”

  “And you questioned him?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Are you crazy? How do you know Kenny wasn’t involved with drugs or whatever the Farrell boys were into? And how do you know he isn’t involved with Bobo or even isn’t this guy Bobo, for that matter?”

  “Kenny is not Bobo,” I explained calmly. “Bobo is a heavyset white guy with a shaved head and no eyebrows to speak of. I wonder if he has a thyroid condition. Anyway, Kenny barely knew the Farrell brothers, and he is not a drug smuggler. Besides, he’s given his life to Jesus. And Winette knows him.”

  “Well, if Winette knows him, that does make me feel a little better,” Di said.

  “Forget about Kenny and Bobo for the moment. I’ve been wondering, why were the Farrell brothers’ bodies left in that garage?”

  “It was certainly out of sight,” Di said.

  “Yeah, but there are thousands of acres of woods all around here where someone could bury a body and it might never be discovered. And we’re not too far from the river. If you dumped a body in the river, it could get swept miles away by the current.”

  “So you’re saying the murderer wanted the bodies to be found?”

  “I don’t know about that. But maybe the murderer had to stash the bodies quickly for some reason. What it does tell us, I think, is that the house was convenient. It must be close to where the brothers were killed.”

  “I hate to be the one to point it out, but McKay Trucking is not too far from there.”

  “I know. That had already occurred to me.”

  “Unfortunately, you don’t really want to steer the investigation in that direction.”

  “No, Di. As much as I hate it, I can’t ignore the McKay connection. A lot of people work for the company—especially when you take into account all the part-time workers and casual labor and independent contractors. I plan to spend tomorrow afternoon seeing what I can find out about the Farrell brothers and the murders and the drugs on the truck. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  “I wouldn’t waste my time trying to talk you out of anything. But, honestly, what can you do that the police haven’t done already?” Di said.

  “I can avoid wasting time by looking at Larry Joe or Daddy Wayne as having any kind of involvement. I may not be objective, but I am certain of their complete innocence in all of this. Plus, I should be able to snoop a bit and wrangle any information that might be helpful from the trucking company without arousing too much suspicion. That’s as good a place to start as any.”

  “Oh, snooping around reminds me of something Dave said.”

  “Really?” I said with prurient interest.

  “Yeah, the cops are doing some kind of stakeout or special surveillance tonight. He wouldn’t tell me what it’s all about. But he acted like it was a big deal, so it’s probably related somehow to the murders. It’s not like we have that much big crime here in Dixie.”

  I let Di go hurriedly when I heard Larry Joe coming up the steps.

  “I just had a call from Ralph,” he said. “Seems one of our contractors has bailed on us. I’m going to have to drive to Huntsville tomorrow to pick up a load. I better try to get some sleep.”

  “Honey, I’m worried about you. You’re pushing yourself too hard. Can’t you hire someone else to drive to Huntsville?”

  “I’m afraid we’re already calling in favors just to cover orders, since the FBI has detained a couple of our regular drivers in Oklahoma.”

  Larry Joe stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed. I snuggled up next to him, nuzzling my face against his scratchy nine o’clock shadow. Staring straight up, he said, “There’s Spackle on the ceiling.”

  “I thought it might be nice to paint the ceiling in here a different color,” I said innocently.

  “Did you have that thought before or after you knocked a hole in the ceiling?”

  “I’ll plead the Fifth on that one.”

  “Look, Liv, I know I haven’t been spending much time with you lately,” he said, pulling me closer. “When all this is over, we’ll get away for the weekend—just the two of us. Promise.”

  “Mmm, that sounds good. But you’re still getting behind on your chores around here,” I teased. “You did promise me an upstairs shower—and a light fixture in the bathroom. Remember?”

  “I promise you shall have a working shower and a light by Thanksgiving. If I can’t finish it, I’ll hire somebody.”

  Larry Joe dozed off, and I knew he must be delirious, offering to pay someone to work on the house. I brushed my teeth, slipped on a nightshirt, and got back into bed beside my snoring husband. I was glad at least one of us could sleep.

  The next morning I offered to cook Larry Joe some breakfast, but he said he’d rather just have cold leftover meat loaf on toast. Not a first for him
, and at least he ate something, instead of just dashing out the door with a mug of coffee.

  Since it happened to be a rare Saturday that I didn’t have an event to work, I had called Winette to see if Residential Rehab was working on a project this weekend. They were. I had signed up for the morning work crew, and Di had volunteered to join me. Residential Rehab, chaired by Winette, collects donations of money and supplies and brings together volunteers to do home repairs for the elderly and disabled in our community—a cause I wholeheartedly support.

  Today’s work site was the home of Miss Lacey Canon, who, at eighty-five, was still as spry as a spring lamb. She had made enough homemade biscuits to feed a platoon and served them up with a choice of sausage or peach preserves. She kept coaxing the dozen or so volunteers working on the house to eat more.

  Miss Lacey brought a plate of hot biscuits out to the front porch, where Di and I were scraping wood, prepping for a fresh coat of primer and a buttery shade of yellow paint.

  “Now, precious, you better eat something,” Miss Lacey said. “I know you young folk rush out the door in the mornings with nothing ’cept a cup of coffee. That ain’t no good for a body. You need some real food.”

  “Miss Lacey, if I eat any more of your scrumptious biscuits, I’m going to pop,” I said.

  She turned her attention to Di, who was up on a ladder, scraping paint from above a double-hung window.

  “No, thank you, ma’am. I’ve had my fill for now, too.”

  “I’m keeping some warm in the oven if you change your mind, precious,” she said, giving Di’s calf a little love pat before she shuffled back into the house.

  “It’s sweet the way you’re spending your day off working on somebody else’s house, considering the shape yours is in,” Di said.

  “It’s honestly a relief to work on somebody else’s house for a change,” I said. “It’s especially nice to be able to see progress actually being made.”

  Earlier in the summer, the RR team had put a new roof on Miss Lacey’s house. Kenny Mitchell, the godsend who had speedily fixed the punctured ceiling at my house, was inside, working with another guy to repair a water-damaged ceiling in Miss Lacey’s living room and hallway. The rest of us were getting the exterior ready to paint.

  Kenny passed through the porch on his way out to a truck in the driveway to get some supplies. When he came back up the front steps, I introduced him to Di.

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Souther. Good to see you again, Ms. McKay,” he said. “Be sure to call me if you have anything that needs fixing.”

  “Will do,” I said.

  “Why don’t you take him up on his offer?” Di said after Kenny had disappeared into the house. “Next time Larry Joe’s out of town for a couple of days, why don’t you hire a plumber—or maybe a crew of plumbers—to get your upstairs bathroom working, and let Kenny patch up after them? Larry Joe might be miffed, but he’d get over it.”

  “I’ve certainly entertained the idea,” I said. “In fact, the thought of a working shower upstairs is a frequent subject of my fantasies.”

  “If you fantasize about plumbing, you have bigger problems than renovating your house. You should see a shrink.”

  “The thing is, Larry Joe really believes he can fix up the house himself, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And he does try. He puts in untold hours working on the place—albeit without much to show for it. If I gave up on him, I think it would break his heart.”

  “You’re more patient than most wives,” Di said. “Though, Lord knows, Larry Joe has his own cross to bear being married to you.”

  I dipped my paintbrush into a bucket of primer and flicked the brush in Di’s direction, spattering the back of her shirt.

  “Oh, you don’t want to go there,” Di said. She reached over and tried to wrest the paintbrush from my hand, and we both burst out laughing.

  Winette walked out, clapping her hands. “More painting and less playing, ladies.”

  With insincere looks of contrition, we straightened up and got back to work.

  “Winette’s a real taskmaster,” I said.

  “Yeah. I bet if she was supervising Larry Joe, he’d have that bathroom finished by now.”

  I plopped down on the porch and started scraping a badly peeling board near the porch floor.

  “You’ve gone all quiet. What’s wrong?” Di said after a short interlude of silence.

  “Nothing really. I just started thinking about the renovations on my house.”

  “That could be depressing if you think too much about it.”

  “It’s not the work that depresses me,” I said. “You know my business has definitely dropped off since the murders. And I don’t think Larry Joe’s having to turn away new customers at the moment, either. If this trend continues, we may have to tighten up the belt financially speaking. And since we like to eat, we’d probably have to put renovations on hold.”

  “Snap out of it,” Di said. She climbed down the ladder, knelt on the porch beside me, and began plucking off the paint chips stuck to her arms. “You know every business has its ups and downs. Liv 4 Fun and the trucking company will be fine. In fact, I predict such glowing recommendations from Mrs. Erdman after their anniversary party that you’ll have crackpots lined up around the block, waiting to book your services.”

  She turned to ascend the ladder, and I dipped my brush in the primer and smacked her on the butt with it.

  Di and I wrapped up our four-hour shift at about noon. I grabbed a couple of sausages and biscuits to go for my lunch and drove home to get cleaned up.

  Larry Joe had said he would be on the road to Huntsville by noon at the latest. So a little before 1:00 p.m. I drove out to McKay’s to do some snooping. I hoped Ralph would be out to lunch. He wasn’t. I made some lame pretext of coming by to pick up some papers for Larry Joe. Ralph nodded and gave me a faint smile as he kept on walking. I was in luck. Ralph, and everyone else, for that matter, was too busy to pay any attention to me. Now, if I only knew what I was looking for.

  I knew better than to wander into the locker room. Some of the truckers might be changing clothes. Besides, I was certain the Farrells’ lockers had already been cleaned out by now. So, after I made sure Ralph wasn’t looking, I skulked just around the corner from the locker room to eavesdrop on the guys, hoping to pick up any useful tidbits of information. All I heard were a couple of off-color jokes, one of which I didn’t even understand.

  I decided to look around upstairs. I headed in the direction of the garage office where bills of lading and various other kinds of paperwork are dropped off temporarily before being delivered to the front office. It would be the most likely place for me to go if I actually was picking up something for Larry Joe. Directly across the hall from that office was the door to the security office, which, to my chagrin, was locked. I ambled up the hall and noted that Ralph was still out of his office. His top desk drawer was ajar, revealing an unattended key ring. I stood in the doorway to his office, stretching my arms and massaging my neck. With no one looking my way, I backed into the office, reached one hand behind my back, and scooped up the keys.

  Fortunately, there were only three keys on this ring, and even more fortuitously, the second one I tried fit the security office door. After a quick glance around, I slipped inside the office, closed the door behind me, and found myself standing in a dark, windowless room. After a moment of fumbling, I happened upon the light switch.

  The office was small, about nine by nine feet. I’ve measured enough rooms for party arrangements that I can usually size up a space pretty accurately by sight. There was a desk cluttered with papers, two cabinets along one wall, and a closed-circuit monitor facing the desk, with a live feed from the truck bays below. I watched the action for a moment, before taking a look in the cabinets. In the second cabinet, on the middle shelf, were two sets of videotapes, each numbered one through thirty-one. One set seemed to be for the garage; the other, for the warehouse. Apparently, security tapes we
re kept for a month before being taped over. I couldn’t believe the company hadn’t shifted to storing security footage digitally. But then my father-in-law is too much of a cheapskate to buy a new anything if the old one was still working, however inefficiently.

  I also couldn’t believe the FBI hadn’t already confiscated the tapes. I figured maybe they had reviewed the tapes and had found nothing of interest. At any rate, I wasn’t going to question my good luck. Unfortunately, four tapes were all I could possibly cram into my purse. Poor planning on my part—which was kind of embarrassing for a professional planner. I grabbed two tapes of garage footage and two tapes of warehouse footage covering the two days preceding the discovery of the bodies.

  I checked the monitor but couldn’t spot Ralph on the feed. I walked to the door, shut off the light, and eased the door open a crack. Not hearing anything, I stepped out and gently pulled the door shut, then checked the handle to make sure the door had locked behind me. I walked toward the stairs, anxious to make my escape, and ran smack into Ralph as he stepped out of his office.

  “’Scuse me, Mrs. McKay. Are you okay?”

  “Fine, fine. It was totally my fault. Should watch where I’m going.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  I paused, frozen for a moment, thinking I had been caught. Then I remembered I had said I was picking up something for Larry Joe.

  “Oh, yes, I did. Thanks,” I said, patting my purse.

  Although Ralph must have thought I’d been drinking by my goofy behavior, he was too polite to say so. As soon as the top of his head had disappeared from sight down the stairs, I stepped into his office, dropped the keys in the drawer, and left the building before anyone else had a chance to speak to me.

  Luckily, we still have an old VCR hooked up in the den for VHS tapes that Larry Joe can’t bear to part with—mostly of his high school football games. I poured a glass of iced tea, opened a bag of pretzels, and settled in for some serious reviewing of the days leading up to the murders.