Cold Flat Junction

by Martha Grimes

  “You’re going back on our bargain?” said Will. “You swore you’d play a role in this production and we took Jane’s car and drove you to White’s Bridge. You promised.You gave your word.”

  Will liked to make it sound as if a person’s entire value in life was honor, was his word, when actually a person’s value was measured in how useful the person was to Will. If Will ever made a promise (which I can’t remember if he ever did), he would break it as fast as my mother breaks eggs if it served his purpose.

  “I said I’d play a role; I didn’t say I’d be willing to go up there in a swing.” I looked rafter-ward.

  “Hi, missus!” Paul called down again.

  “Okay, okay, we’ll show you how safe it is. Let the swing down, Mill.”

  At that, Mill whistled himself off to some sort of pulley he’d rigged up out of rope, rope cranked around what might have been an old car wheel, and in a minute the swing descended. With a disconcerting tilt and knock when it hit the stage.

  “See how simple it is?”

  “Sure, without me in it.”

  “Christ!” said Will, walking over to where Mill and the swing were. I could hear them talking about all of this in low voices. Will got on the swing, then. Mill started cranking away and Will and the swing swayed upward. He shouted to me, “I can’t believe you’re such a coward.”

  This insult was, of course, to appeal to my vanity. It didn’t. “Well, now you can!”

  I could have just turned around and left, but that would be a bad idea because I never knew when I would need their help, and if I didn’t do what I promised, they’d never do anything for me again.

  Will must have been telling Paul to start moving the clouds around, for as the swing descended, so did two of the clouds. For the clouds it was a much jerkier descent than the swing. The swing didn’t look all that dangerous, I told myself. But the idea that Paul—probably the most homicidal person I had ever come in contact with and one who’d grow up to be a serial killer if it was possible to serial-kill people by accident—was up there (tied on or not) manipulating the clouds or anything else having to do with my descent really made me nervous.

  The swing tilted when it hit the stage and Will got out. “You see! Would I do it if it wasn’t safe?”

  “You’d do anything. Both of you are like mad scientists. Paul’s one of your experiments.”

  A huge, dramatic sigh from Will, as he turned, hands on hips and paced back and forth shaking his head. He has always been so dramatic.

  “I’ll go up halfway to see how it feels,” I said.

  “Good, good!” said Will. “She’s going up!” he called over to Mill.

  “Good!” said Mill. They were always echoing each other.

  Gingerly, I sat myself on the swing, then told Mill to pull it up just clear of the stage, which he did. I bounced on it to see how sturdy, how firmly the plank fit into the rope that curved around it, and decided it was pretty good. Anyway, I guess if the plank fell off I could still cling to the ropes. “Okay,” I said. “Slow!” The swing started its ascent and I reminded him to stop in the middle to see how I felt. So he cranked and cranked and didn’t stop in the middle (why did I think my orders carried any weight?) although I yelled and yelled, Stop! No one paid any attention. I finally got all the way up to Paul and the clouds, which I think he was trying to slice the top off with a razor. Oh, that was wonderful! Paul was up here with a razor.

  “I want to go back down. Back down! Right now!”

  “Okay, okay!” called Will. “Paul, start lowering the clouds!”

  “Hello, missus!” he yelled, as if I were still thirty feet down.

  I looked to see if the rope was tight enough around his chest to keep him from leaning any closer to me. “Paul! Don’t you dare do that!” He was whittling at the rafter with the razor, or maybe it was a pocket knife; it was too green-dim up here to tell. Between his legs sat a brown grocery bag.

  “What’s he doing?” yelled Will.

  “Only cutting up the clouds with his razor!” I was happy to shout back.

  Mill yelled at Paul. “Any of those clouds damaged you won’t leave here alive, Paul!”

  Paul stopped and he laughed.

  “I’m lowering the swing, Paul. Understand? Understand?”

  I heard paper rustle. It must have been the grocery bag. Then as I slowly descended I felt something light falling on my head. I shook myself. Then it was falling all around me, falling thicker. I saw a flurry, what going through a cloud might actually look like.

  Flour. I looked back up at Paul just as he was dumping it and got a blast in my face. I was fuming, I was furious. I yelled down, “Damn it! You didn’t say anything about flour.”

  “Yes, I did,” Will yelled back. “We had to experiment to see if it added anything, what with the clouds, too.”

  “Experiment with yourselves!” I said this as the swing dumped me on the stage.

  “I don’t want to get flour all over me. Boy, do you look funny.”

  “What’s this stupid production about that you need to go to these lengths?” I wiped some of the flour from my face. The top of me was pretty much covered in it.

  Ordinarily, they wouldn’t have answered this question, but perhaps because they’d made a guinea pig of me, they felt they owed me something.

  Will said, “It a Greek story. It’s about Medea. She got jealous of Jason and killed their kids to get back at him. That’s just like the Greeks,” he added, with a sniff.

  “Well, if she murdered them, what’s the purpose of the Do-X—I mean deus ex machina?”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  Now I was really beside myself. “Think of something? You’re just going to tack it on at the end? It’s because you like it, that’s all, even though it serves no purpose. I just went through all of that for no reason at all.”

  Mill pushed his glasses up his nose with a fingertip. “The Greeks always had a Do-X-machine.”

  (I noticed he made no attempt whatsoever to pronounce it correctly.)

  “It wouldn’t be a true Greek tragedy without one. What we really wanted to do was that story about Agamemnon’s father and one of his enemies’ fathers. See, Agamemnon’s father did something, I forget what, so of course the friend’s father had to exact revenge. He killed his kids and served them up in a pie.”

  Will said, “That’s a great story. The Greeks were always killing off their kids right and left.”

  Mill said, “And other family members. They were a really bloodthirsty bunch.”

  They both sounded as if this was the best news they’d ever heard. I shook my head in disbelief. “So who’s playing Medea?”

  “June.”

  My mouth dropped open. “June Sikes? You know we’re neither of us to have anything to do with her! She’s worse than Toya Tidewater.”

  “No one will recognize her, not in the weird clothes and all that makeup. And the long hair. June’s pretty good, actually, the way she handles a knife.”

  Mill said, “She slits their throats. The kids’, I mean.”

  Will chewed his gum faster, as if the thought excited him. “We’ve got a lot of fake blood. A lot.”

  “Who plays the children? How many are there?”

  “Two. Paul plays one. But we’ve got to train him to stay still. We kicked his butt several times.”

  “Who else?”

  They both looked at me and slowly chewed their gum.

  My eyes widened and I stepped back. “Oh, no you don’t. If you think I’m going to appear on stage with June holding a knife and Paul with a razor—forget it!”

  As if I’d said nothing at all, Will said, “We got to double up some roles, actors have to be in more than one part. I’m playing Jason and also a Greek messenger.”

  “Well, you can play the other kid, too.” I turned and stomped out. It’s hard to look indignant when you’re covered with flour.

  “You musta been up in the Big Garage,” said Walter a
s I fumed into the kitchen.

  “How’d you know that? Is that towel clean?” I pointed to one in a pile Walter kept near the dishwasher.

  “Uh-huh. I know because they ax’d me to do it, come down in that swing thing.”

  I glared. So I wasn’t even the first choice. I rubbed the flour from my face.

  Walter went on: “They got Paul up there tied to the roof some way. I ain’t seen him for nearly three days and his ma come lookin’ for him, but I never said nothin’ about where he was.”

  “You think he’s been tied up for threedays?”

  Walter picked a big serving platter from the rinse rack and began drying. “They might of let him down nights. I seen a cot back in a comer I expect they got for Paul to sleep on. Maybe they lock him in.”

  I shook my head. “They wouldn’t do that. Not, mind you, because they’re so nice. It’s because they’d be afraid to have him around their scenery. He’d ransack the place. You know Paul. He’s like Wile E. Coyote only without the brains.”

  Walter placed the platter with the other dry dishes and said maybe I was right. I asked if I’d got all the flour off and Walter said yes, and I went to call a taxi.

  47

  Deputy Dawg

  With the evidence on the seat beside me in a gym bag, I leaned back and closed my eyes and hoped Delbert wouldn’t talk all the way into town.

  “You fixin’ to see Sam?”

  I had told him to drop me at the courthouse. “Yes.”

  “I think maybe he ain’t there.”

  I didn’t comment.

  “Thing is, he got his hands tied with all that’s been happening. That murder you know.”

  I clinched my eyes shut. “I know. Well, if he’s not there, I’ll wait.”

  “ ’Course he might just’ve stepped across to the Rainbow, him and Donny. Donny loves Shirl’s doughnuts.”

  I sat silently, willing him to shut up.

  “On the other hand, Donny’d more’n likely know where Sam’s at.”

  Sliding down in my seat, I plugged my ears with my fingers. I wondered if there was ever a cab driver in any Greek tragic play. Probably not, but there must have been an equivalent. If it were China, it might have been a rickshaw operator. I could hear Delbert even over my stopped-up ears.

  “There’s the Teets’s place, so we’re almost there.” He nodded toward a big yellow house behind us now. What was he saying all this for, talking as if I were a stranger to La Porte? Finally, finally, he pulled up in front of our grand white courthouse and I gave him the fare, hauled myself out of the cab, and fled. He was still talking.

  Donny sat at the Sheriff’s desk, leaning back in the creaking, leather-cushioned swivel chair. He always did this when the Sheriff wasn’t around, as if he, Donny, were the law in La Porte. “Sam ain’t here, he’s out at Lake Noir. He pronounced it ‘Nor,’ as did most people. Having myself learned deus ex machina, I could certainly “N’wah.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “For God’s sake, girl, he could be out there for hours.”

  “Then I’ll wait for hours.” It was now a point of pride that I not move from this chair. I knew it would be really hard not to go across to the Rainbow for some chili. It was way after lunchtime and I didn’t know how long I could hold out. I had never been tested in this way, what with my mother’s cooking always available. That made me wonder if they had started back from Florida. Which day was it? I hoped I could get to the Pink Elephant in time to say good-bye to my dancing partner and the staff of the Rony Plaza. These thoughts held me for a while—dreaming on palm trees—and I didn’t bother commenting when Donny said, “Suit yourself.”

  He didn’t want me waiting because he didn’t want me to know how little there was for him to do. For a while he stayed in the swivel chair, opening and closing drawers with a yank and a shove, as if whatever he was looking for better give itself up. Then he got up and swaggered around, his thumbs hooked into his Sam Brown belt, one close to his holster to impress on me how dangerous he could be. This all went on for a good ten minutes.

  It’s best, I’ve found, to remain silent with someone you can’t stand so that they just fizzle out or give up. But it’s so hard to follow my own advice. “Don’t you have anything to do?” I just couldn’t resist it.

  At that he swung around from where he’d been messing with Maureen’s In and Out boxes. “I got puh-lenty I ought to be doing but Sam wants somebody here, in the office, case he needs backup.” He adjusted the holster looped over his belt, adjusted his gun, adjusted his height. He managed to stretch himself an inch taller by leaning over slightly backwards.

  “Backup for what? Has he gone after the killer?”

  Donny paused. “Could be.” He narrowed his eyes in a threatening manner, or at least what he thought was such a manner.

  “No, it couldn’t. He doesn’t know who killed her. Fern Queen,” I added, as if he might have forgotten.

  His eyes got even more squinty looking. “And just how do you know that?”

  “I know.”

  Donny half sat his butt on the Sheriff’s desk and fake-laughed. “You know somethin’, Emma, you always have been too big for your britches. Think you know everything. Hell, you’re but twelve years old, chrissakes.”

  Maybe I’d tell the Sheriff Donny worked the Devil and Jesus Christ into the same sentence that he said to a twelve-year-old. I stuck my tongue in my cheek.

  “You don’t know nothin’!” he said.

  It all sounded so much like Ree-Jane, just the kind of thing she’d say. How pathetic that an officer of the law couldn’t come up with better put-downs. “Well, I know more than you do.”

  Now he was up and stalking about, as if that would give his reply more weight. Only, he couldn’t think of anything to say. He sat down again and pushed a few of the items on the desk around and started talking about their search for Ben Queen.

  “We catch him and put him away, you got a dead man walking.” Donny looked at me, looked pleased with himself that he’d come up with something that might scare me.

  I made my face expressionless and didn’t comment.

  “You know what that means, I guess. Dead man walking?”

  I could tell he was irritated I didn’t ask.

  “Means when a killer’s going to his execution,” he said. “When he’s walking that last mile, so to speak. Guards call out ‘Dead man walking!’ Yep, that’s what’s comin’ down the pike for ol’ Ben Queen!” He smiled, showing a bottom row of crooked teeth.

  He had sensed something—I guess the word is “intuited” something—of the way I felt about Ben Queen. It was then I realized that Donny was like Ree-Jane in this respect: he had a way of ferreting out the beliefs that kept a person going—like Ree-Jane knew I did not want to know the report in the newspaper about the death of Fern Queen, and so proceeded to read it to me. It was this uncanny grasp of what was important to me that had her figuring out ways to get at me; it had nothing to do with being clever. No, it was like they’d both received the same blessing from hell.

  Had this been Ree-Jane talking, I would have thought up rejoinders that would really get her goat. But Donny wasn’t worth the thinking up. Donny was not a constant thorn in my side; he was by way of being an occasional mosquito bite. Still, he got to me. It was important not to let it show in my face or voice, but I felt I had at least to stick up for Ben Queen. “How do you know he did it?”

  Donny had risen again to go to Maureen’s desk for nothing in particular and now he swaggered back to the Sheriff’s swivel chair and resat himself, fake-laughing as he did this. “How do I know? Plain as the nose on your face. Right after he gets free of prison, another family member gets murdered, which is exactly what got him twenty years in jail. That time it was the wife he murdered. Now, don’t that strike you as just too much of a coincidence?”

  “No. It’s a coincidence, but not too much of one. You think maybe it’s just a habit Ben Queen got into—killing off family?”


  This irritated Donny no end. “What’re you talkin’ about? You don’t know one damn thing about it.”

  “Sure I do.” I still kept my face and voice expressionless. Your expression and your voice, those are the dead giveaways to a person who’s trying to undermine you. I’d had lots of practice at this sort of thing; I pretty much had to know it to survive.

  Well, Donny just didn’t know how to handle my being so cocksure. He stared at me, then he pointed his finger at me. “I can’t hardly wait to tell Sam he’s been barking up the wrong tree.”

  “What tree’s that?”

  Donny snatched up this question, which betrayed my ignorance, finding in it an opportunity for sarcasm: “With you and him being such friends and all? You don’t know what Sam thinks about all this?”

  Again, it was the brand of sarcasm Ree-Jane stooped to. Then it suddenly struck me—it was the strangest sensation—that Donny was jealous of my friendship with the Sheriff. So I said that: “You’re jealous.”

  Well, at that he looked like he’d turned to wax (his natural coloring, only not usually hardened into immobility). He couldn’t think of a response weighted enough to do justice to what I’d said. Finally, after a few moments of pursed-mouthed movements, he blurted out, “Of you? I’m jealous of you?”

  He made sounds, blubbered his lips, shook his head. Finally, he came up with, “Okay, you just take care of things here while I go across the street and get me a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Anyone stumbles in here bleeding or shot, you just take care of him. If the mayor calls about the budget, you can fill him in, too.” Donny grabbed up his black-visored cap and snapped it on his head.

  “Sure,” I said. “If the Sheriff comes back I’ll just tell him you left me in charge while you went for coffee.”

  For a flicker of time he looked frightened, his water-colored irises freezing up, congealing. But all he did was give me a flip of the hand, as if he were done with answering fools. He walked out.

  I moved over to one of the windows that looked out on the street and across to the Rainbow Café and watched. Donny was in the middle of the street stopping the one approaching car. He just thrust his arm out, palm flat against space, as if he were a comic-strip hero like Superman. He strutted on. There was only this single car, and he couldn’t even wait for it to go by. Why did the Sheriff keep him on? Maybe because no one wanted the job of “deputy.” Was he good at anything? Paperwork? Organizing?