Death of a Prince

by Susan P. Baker

  “I thought you was closed.” He stood in the doorway and stared at her.

  Erma rounded her desk and showed him to a chair. “No. I apologize. I was in the ladies’ room.”

  “I musta rung the doorbell fifty times.” Bubba sat down in one of Erma’s leather chairs. He wore a T-shirt, shorts, and thongs. He removed his sunglasses and frowned at Erma.

  “Again. I’m sorry. We have lunch in the back sometimes and can’t hear the bell. Anyway, you’re here now. Was it a nice drive from down the island?”

  “Yeah, it was all right. Lots of tourists.”

  Erma nodded. “That’s to be expected in the summer. Did you take the seawall?”

  “Yeah. I guess it would be faster if I didn’t, but I ain’t in no hurry. You know what I mean?”

  Erma thought she did. He was still on Phillip’s payroll until she told him different. Besides, she could imagine him trying to use Phillip’s BMW to pick up girls on the beach. It might work if he wasn’t the one inside the car. “Yes. That’s something we’ll need to talk about, Bubba. How do you see your future now that Mr. Parker is dead? I mean, do you have any plans?”

  His eyes darted from left to right quickly, like he was watching a Ping-Pong match. “What do you mean?”

  Erma pulled her chair closer to her desk and sat taller. “You understand that you can’t stay out at the beach house forever, don’t you?”

  Bubba hit the back of the chair as if he’d been struck. “Oh.” He looked for a moment like he might cry. “What’s going to happen to the house, Missus Townley? Maybe whoever gets it will let me stay on. I mean, I guess Mr. Parker didn’t by any chance give me the house in his will?”

  The heirs and legatees of estates never ceased to amaze Erma. Bubba certainly was no exception. Greedy was the best way to describe them. She’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of his question if it hadn’t been so pathetic. Shaking her head, she said, “No. He did not leave you the house.”

  “So that’s what I’m here for, right? For what he left me? And now you’re telling me I have to get out? Am I understanding you right?”

  “More or less.”

  “But I’m getting something.”

  “Yes. The official reading of the will is tomorrow. Then I’ll file it for probate.”

  “I thought you said you was going to give me what I got today?”

  Erma cleared her throat. “Well, if I gave you that impression, I apologize again. Oh, I am doing a lot of apologizing to you, aren’t I, Bubba? By the way, would you like a cup of coffee or something else to drink?”

  Bubba glanced all around him. He looked over his shoulder across the hall through the open doorway to Sandra’s office. “Where’s Miss Sandra today?”

  Erma shrugged. “Probably at the courthouse. Is that a yes? You want coffee?”

  “I don’t want nothing except what’s coming to me, you hear?”

  Erma could feel his impatience growing. She needed to keep him there as long as possible but was running out of ideas. “I understand, Bubba. I did review the will before you came in this afternoon. Mr. Parker has left you a sum of money which I, as executrix of the estate, will be authorized to pay to you.”

  “So what’s stopping you, Miss Townley? Let me have it.”

  “Yes. Well. There are some conditions attached, Bubba.”

  “Is something going on here? Are you trying to trick me or something? Why don’t you just give me my money and I’m outta here?”

  Erma lectured him about his impatient behavior and then said, “I’m authorized to give you an advance today.”

  “An advance? Not all of it?”

  “No. There’s the reading of the will, as I mentioned.”

  “Okay, so I’m supposed to go there?”

  “Would you be available to go there tomorrow at Mr. Parker’s office?”

  “If I have to. How much can you let me have today?”

  “Well, Bubba, it’s not exactly kosher, but I can advance you the sum of five hundred dollars out of my own account. How would that work for you this afternoon?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by kosher, but I’ll take it.” He stood. “Right now, Missus Townley. And no, I don’t want nothing to drink or eat. Just give me my money. We can talk about everything else tomorrow at the will reading.” Erma looked up at the man. In spite of her decades of dealing with the worst sorts of people, he did seem a bit menacing. She glanced at the clock above the bookcase behind him. Sandra had better hurry. “Let me just get my checkbook,” she said. Pulling open the bottom desk drawer, Erma got out a binder of business checks. She made a production of cleaning her glasses before writing out the check.

  “Come on. Come on,” Bubba said.

  “My, you are in a hurry,” Erma said and smiled. Carefully making the notation on the check stub, Erma looked up at him before writing out the check. “You understand that this amount will be deducted from the final sum that you are left in the will?”

  “Of which you still haven’t told me.”

  “Yes, well, I haven’t told anyone the contents. Tomorrow is soon enough, don’t you think?”

  Bubba snorted. “Just get on with it.”

  “And so I should make this out to you in your formal, birth name?”

  Bubba shrugged. “Make it out any way you want. I’m taking it to a bank to cash with my driver’s license right away.”

  Glad to hear that, Erma couldn’t think of any way of stalling longer. She wrote out the check as slowly as she thought she could get away with, tore it out, and handed it to Bubba. “You may take it to my bank for cashing if you like. It’s printed on the front.”

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll find a bank. I’ll see you at Mr. Parker’s office bright and early tomorrow morning, Missus Townley. I’m outta here.”

  As soon as the front door slammed shut, Patricia came into Erma’s office. “Think I should call and warn her?”

  “Yes. I think he suspects something. Tell her to get the hell out as fast as she can.”

  Patricia picked up Erma’s phone and punched in Sandra’s cell number. It rang and rang. “Voice mail, Erma.”

  “Hang up and try again.”

  Patricia hit end and talk. After several rings, voice mail came on again. And again. And again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Parking in the driveway at Phillip’s house, Sandra hopped out and hurried to Bubba’s apartment. The door was locked, but after a few tries, she found the correct key on the ring and threw open the door.

  She’d never been in Bubba’s apartment, a large one bedroom. Clearly Phillip had provided the furnishings, which ranged from a black leather sofa and solid wood coffee table to an iron queen-sized bed. The place resembled a pigsty and smelled like the inside of a septic tank.

  Dishes overflowed the sink. Several grocery bags of garbage sagged near the front door. Mold was growing on the outside of the refrigerator. Empty, smashed beer cans and cigarette butts decorated the tabletops. In the bedroom, layers of filthy clothing covered the chair and floor. The sink and tub hadn’t been scrubbed in a month. The toilet needed flushing in the worst way.

  Sandra searched the chest of drawers and the dresser first, fervently wishing she could open a window or put a clothespin on her nose. Nauseated, she knew if she had more time she could vomit her guts out.

  Although Bubba had plenty of space to store his meager belongings, most stood empty. It didn’t take long to find nothing in his drawers, except for a loaded .45 semi-automatic, some new pajamas still in their plastic wrapper, several unmatched socks, and a red, cowboy-type handkerchief.

  His closet was next. Sandra ran her hand along the top of the shelf and found a brittle roach body and dust. The pockets of the few articles of clothing on hangers gave up nothing but some matchbooks. The hems of the jackets and cuffs of the pants contained nothing. Same with the drapery hems. Nothing dropped out of his shoes when she held them upside down and shook. In a way, she was relieved.

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sp; Next, she searched the pockets of garments that carpeted the floor. Afterward, she searched the medicine cabinet. She tried to leave everything the way she found it so as not to arouse suspicion. It was difficult. She had an inclination to neaten up the place, the opposite of what usually happened when someone ransacked a joint.

  Finally, Sandra shook some men’s magazines, but nothing fell out except the earmarked centerfolds. She seconded her mother’s inclination that Bubba had stolen the watch and ring and felt sure they were in his apartment someplace. Glancing at her watch, she saw that her fifteen minutes had expired.

  Standing in the middle of the apartment, Sandra could see nowhere obvious. She had "searched the normal places like the ice trays, looked for canned goods with fake bottoms, and even taken a screwdriver to the switch plates to see if there was a hiding place behind them. Nothing.

  A folded slip of paper sat under a beer can on the coffee table. She pulled it out, not expecting to find anything and didn’t think she had. It was only a name. Jerry Fulshear. And a time. Noon. Both printed in blue ink, the lettering neat, like a teacher’s. It didn’t ring a bell with her, but she wrote it down and put the paper back under the can. Continuing her search in the kitchen, Sandra came across a blank note pad next to the phone. The paper was the same size as the piece under the can. Perhaps that was significant.

  She knew she had to get out. She felt it in the pit of her stomach. She had stayed too long and risked getting caught. She couldn’t imagine what Bubba would do if he found her in his apartment. He wouldn’t call the police, that was for sure. What he would probably do was beat the holy crap out of her. He knew she wouldn’t call the police. She’d have to confess that she had burglarized his apartment. There was also the possibility that Bubba would kill her. She didn’t want to end up like Phillip, with her face smashed off.

  Sandra had gone outside and was locking the front door when she heard her cell phone. The ringing was not loud. She wondered how long it had been going on. She finished locking the door and ran to answer it.

  Patricia screamed, “Get out of there, now!”

  “Patricia?”

  “Now!” she hollered. “Back that son of a bitch up and get out while you can. Mr. Carruthers is on his way!”

  Sandra’s shaking hands found her keys and managed to insert the ignition key into the right hole and twist it. Slamming the car into reverse, she backed into the yard, over Phillip’s beautiful Bermuda grass, leaving tread marks for the yardman and Bubba to fret over. Patricia was still screaming into the phone, which Sandra held between her ear and the crook of her shoulder. Sandra could hear her, but there was no way at that time that she could have answered her.

  Patricia said, “He was furious when Erma told him that there would be no reading of the will until tomorrow. She tried to get him to sit down and have a cup of coffee, but he kept demanding to know what Mr. Parker left him.”

  Sandra threw the gear shift lever into first, gunned the engine, spun the tires, and tore back up the oyster shell driveway until the tires hit the pavement. She didn’t dare go back the way she’d come. If Bubba was on his way out, they’d pass each other. There was no way she wanted a confrontation with him either on foot or in a vehicle when she was alone, down the island where it was desolate, where no one could help her if she needed it. She might have agreed to burglarize his house, but she wasn’t completely crazy.

  Patricia said, “I’ve never seen someone so mad that your mother couldn’t calm them down with that sugar and spice way of hers. She started getting her back up. She told Mr. Carruthers that all the years she had known him, she had never seen him behave like that and what was his problem. I hope you’re getting out of there, Sandy. Sandy? Are you listening?”

  Sandra turned right. In her rearview mirror, she could see the dust from the shells she had run over, and a faint view of the front end of a car. A trickle of perspiration ran down her forehead. She pressed the accelerator to the floor. Whether it was Bubba behind her or not, she was getting the hell out of there. It looked like the front end of a BMW. Never was she so thankful that she had splurged and bought that five-speed turbocharged Volvo S60 than at that moment. As she peered behind her, she saw that the vision of the car had disappeared, but she didn’t slow down. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she kept driving until her hands quit shaking and her knees quit knocking.

  Sometime or another, the phone had tumbled from her shoulder into her lap and Sandra hadn’t noticed. Picking it up, she listened. Silence. She hit end, dropped it back into her lap, and continued driving toward the end of the island. No way was she going back by the turnoff to Phillip’s house. She paid the dollar toll on the San Luis Pass Bridge and kept going toward Freeport. It was the long way around, but she drove it. Through Surfside without getting a ticket, which is a feat unto itself, around on the farm-to-market roads, she arrived at Highway 6 on the way back to the island some hours later after she had stopped for gas and to pee—not necessarily in that order.

  Finally, she reached the office. Patricia yelled at her for not calling her back. Her mother was also quite put out. More aptly described as madder than hell. They thought that Bubba must have caught her and beaten her to a pulp. Erma had been heavily into the liquor cabinet. Sandra could tell.

  After she calmed her two mothers down, Sandra described the apartment to them. Erma was not a happy executrix. “Tomorrow afternoon, that son of a bitch will be out of there,” she said. “And a cleaning crew will be in on Monday. So did you find the jewelry?”

  Shaking her head, Sandra said, “I can’t think where he could have hidden them. I searched as well or better than an evidence cop. The only thing I found and I don’t know who it is, is this.” She pulled the crumpled piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Erma.

  Erma studied it. “What’s it say?”

  “Jerry Fulshear. Put your glasses on,” Sandra said.

  “The fence?” Pulling her glasses up by the chain that hung around her neck, Erma held them in front of the piece of paper. “Jerry Fulshear. Noon. What do you know about that? I thought Fulshear was history.”

  “So he’s a fence?” Sandra asked.

  “Was, back in the old days,” Erma said. “Was a client of mine. Must be seventy years old by now. Represented him in, let’s see, the sixties or seventies. Patricia, look in that old card file.” Erma smiled at Sandra, quite pleased with herself, while they waited for Patricia to return.

  Sandra smiled back. So Bubba had met with, or was going to meet with, a fence. My, my, my.

  Patricia returned with a five-by-seven card. “You first represented him in 1964, receiving stolen property.”

  Erma said, “I knew it. Let me see that.”

  Patricia handed the card to her. Sandra could see it from where she sat, and it was covered with entries. He’d been an active client. That meant that Erma had known him well.

  Erma turned the card over and looked at it. “Last time was in 1989. Looky here, the son of a bitch still owes me two thousand dollars. I wondered what ever happened to him. Humph.”

  “Looks like we’re going to have to find out,” Sandra answered. “And soon.”

  “Now that you’re back, I’m out of here,” Patricia said. “You two may not have a life outside of this office, but I sure do.”

  Sandra wanted to say, “Sure,” but didn’t. She and Erma both wished Patricia goodnight and remained silent until she’d gathered up her purse and jacket and fled out the back door, locking it behind her.

  “In the meantime,” Erma said, breaking the silence, “what do you propose to do about Kitty’s bail?”

  “She can’t make the cash,” Sandra said and shrugged. Erma had obviously been at the bottle for the few hours she had been driving around two counties. “Why don’t you let me take you home and put you to bed? Tomorrow will be an eventful day for you.”

  “And you don’t think I can handle it?” Erma asked, her words slurred.

  “Well, no�
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  “I want to hear what you intend to do about Kitty.” Sandra rolled her eyes. “What’s this about?”

  Erma smiled. She looked like the Walt Disney version of Dopey of the seven dwarfs. “I already did it, that’s why.”

  “You already did what?” Sandra was worried that Erma was going to wobble right off that barstool in the kitchen, but she kept right on sitting on the opposite side so she could see Erma. Sandra hated talking to people next to her. It was one of her pet peeves. How could anyone communicate with anyone when they couldn’t look him or her in the eye?

  “While you were out gallivanting all over the island, I was busy making Kitty’s bail.”

  “I thought you were talking to Bubba.”

  “After Bubba.”

  “I thought you were busy being worried about me. I could have had the snot kicked out of me. You didn’t go over to the jail drunk, did you? God, what would that do to our reputation?”

  “You must think I’m crazy, Sandra,” Erma said.

  “You have your moments. Now what are you talking about?”

  “I called the sheriff. I told him I’d make the bail. As we speak, Raymond has taken her home, poor girl.”

  “No shit? You really made her bond?” Sandra was truly surprised. “Sheriff Johnson took your word for it?”

  “No, silly. That would be illegal. Had property posted for years. Used to make bonds all the time when you were little. Just used that. Besides, she’s good for it. After Bubba left, and after Patricia got you on the phone, I went over there and got her out. I called Raymond to take her home. Then I came back here and had a few drinks. Ha ha ha.”

  “Yeah. You trust Raymond?”

  Erma grasped the edge of the bar and reached toward the cabinet where Sandra had put the bourbon bottle when she had returned from Bubba’s. Erma had a bad habit of finishing off opened bottles. She and Sandra had discussed that propensity, but Erma didn’t care. She used to like vodka and rum as much as bourbon, but not anymore. Bourbon made her feel the best so bourbon was what she drank most of the time. “Much as I trust anyone else. Seems like a good boy.” She stretched her arm out but couldn’t reach. She’d have to get up or ask for help. Sandra doubted that Erma would do the latter.