Delta Ridge

by Frances Downing Hunter

  Would he search for a light switch? To exit the living room the intruder would need to return to the entry hall centered with the round table holding Uncle Garland’s urn. It was the only place in house where the street light shown through the front door transom. If I don’t wish to die, I must act, I told myself, while moving silently away from Jigger’s chair toward the entryway and being careful not to bump the furniture, so as to remain in the darkness. I know this house. I have an advantage, I reasoned, and a rage so deep that I’m ready to kill somebody.

  Just as I moved, so did a dark figure captured by the entry light. There he is! I moved toward the entry table as he moved in the same direction from the opposing side in the opposite room. We were chess pieces in a game handicapped by darkness. I stood in silence waiting for a plan.

  From nowhere a horrid shriek ruptured the silent darkness. It took me a second to realize it had come from my mouth. My old rage had returned. I had let out my best Comanche war cry and grabbed for the heavy vase in the center of the table. At that moment my scream echoed from another mouth as Jigger brushed my leg on his way to the intruder’s. As the figure bent down to find his pain, I struggled to lift the heavy urn off the table and onto the invader’s head before it glanced back against my right shoulder.

  Newton’s law was working, and Uncle Garland was retaliating for the abrupt disturbance of his eternal sleep by propelling soot and ashes down onto my head as curses from the dead. I coughed as they cascaded down into my hair, onto my face and eyelashes, and into my mouth. I turned like a ninja, knees buckling from pain, and grabbed for the door handle, found it, and raced through the opening. I ran down the sidewalk, and caught a sprint as I hit the driveway, dashing madly away from two intruders: a dark male figure and a red, fiery pain shooting from my shoulder like a child’s sparkler shoved under my skin. With neither keys nor time to open a car door, I sailed down the hill until I hit the street with my hero and savior, an abruptly recovered dog panting hard beside me.

  We did not stop until we reached the police station four long blocks away. I assaulted the front door with my fists until someone opened it, then staggered into the stuffy reception room, where I was greeted by a female night clerk’s piercing scream. So… I know I look like a wild woman. A male desk clerk abruptly appeared, summoned an officer who subdued and hand cuffed me, took my finger prints, and snapped a booking shot as I kept trying to explain the circumstances of my bizarre appearance at the precinct. No one was the least bit inclined to listen to any explanation espoused by the strange creature I appeared to have become.

  Waking up horrified in a jail cell an hour later, I could hear myself screaming, “I know my rights, dammit! I want my phone call!” Felicia swore, when she arrived at 2 A.M. to bail me out, that she had requested a copy of my mug shot to use on her Christmas cards.

  “I wish to God I’d used my one phone call on somebody else.”

  “And who might that be? Looking like you do, you might not draw a large crowd of supporters. So what exactly are you doing here? Did you set somebody’s house on fire?”

  “Shut up, you stupid bitch! I am in mortal pain, and nobody in this rats-ass police station will listen to a thing I have to say. Nobody has had ever heard of me.” I calmed down more from disbelief than humility. “When you’re running for your life, you forget your ID.”

  Some fool kept asking, “Were any children present in the house when the meth lab blew up?”

  “When I asked to use the ladies room, the officer looked at me like he thought I planned to cook meth in there. Then I was booked and put in a friggin’ cell. No wonder people kill themselves in these places.”

  Even then my eyes kept darting toward the door to see if my personal hellhound was chasing me. The terror I had pushed away earlier had caught up with me. I was bone chilling cold and my right knee would not stop shaking.

  “For God’s sakes, let her go to the bathroom. You can send a police escort,” Felicia said with the first authority our side had summoned all night. “I’m calling Michael. Like it or not.” Those were the last words I heard as I was led down the hallway after my handcuffs were unlocked.

  Once in the bathroom, I dreaded to face the mirror head on. Instead, I studied the reflection of the policewoman’s face covered in a now-I have-seen-it-all expression she made no attempt to conceal as she surveyed my torn sweater and erect hair that held a pound of Uncle Garland stuck to my head. I turned to look sideways at the wild eyes circled in black soot. I was wearing more kohl than Johnny Depp, and my own powdered, pirate face was colored gray dead. So what if I look more haint than human; I’m in too much pain to care. I have important business. “Do you suppose I could have a whisk broom and a large plastic bag?” I politely asked my attendant, whom I planned to fire with the rest of these nightshift incompetents as soon as I got some power back. My delusions of grandeur were the only thing separating me from my newly-found Comanche scream.

  21 Holly Gets A Shoulder X-Ray

  ON SUNDAY MORNING, I made an impromptu visit to the hospital emergency room to have my shoulder x-rayed by the relief radiologist, a young resident from Memphis who moonlighted at the Delta Ridge hospital on weekends. A broken clavicle explained the persistent pain that had consumed my upper body since I got out of jail in the middle of the night on Saturday morning. I prayed, at the same time, that no one else would explain my incident in quite that way. Saturday’s lone hydrocodone had masked the pain until I awoke at 6:00 A.M. with a shoulder that had burst into flames once more. Wanting to remain conscious and clear headed enough to work, I left the hospital quickly after acquiring a shot of Demerol and a shoulder harness. “A hairline fracture, due to the way you fell,” said the radiologist, carrying photographs, as he popped into my room to reveal his artwork. “You’ll be good as new in about six weeks.”

  “It happened when Uncle Garland fell on me,” I had responded to his earlier question.

  “Didn’t he just die?” he asked, revealing more knowledge of local affairs than his weekend work would have indicated.

  “Yes, he did, but I need to ask you a question. Would it be possible for a radiology technician to masquerade as a radiologist?”

  The young resident looked at me strangely, then said: “I’d like to say, ‘No.’ But, if he skimmed a few radiology texts and had experience working in a hospital radiology unit, probably—at least for a while.” I was not comforted.

  BY THE TIME I had driven myself slowly and wobbly over to the Hall, I was beginning to feel better. Everyone, including Ham, whom Lee had wheeled in from his downstairs bedroom, was sitting at the dining table passing Queen Esther’s hot biscuits.

  “Holly, honey, we thought you were still asleep. Where have you been?” Victoria demonstrated her motherly concern.

  “Out bar hopping,” I attempted a little jig to demonstrate my new neck wear.

  “Oh, baby, what’s happened to you?”

  The drugs did not help me tell the story coherently, but I got out a few key words like Demerol – it was my favorite – and collar bone and emergency room. They got the drift. Victoria left the table long enough to prop me up in Ham’s cozy club chair by the fire while Queen Esther brought me my own plate of hot biscuits, Muscatine jelly, honey and soft, sweet cream butter. And, coffee, of course. As much as I had wanted to hear every word, I drifted in and out of the breakfast table conversation.

  “I’m pretty unhappy with Friday night’s fiasco.” Ham continued the speech my ungainly entrance must have interrupted. “Holly could have been the next victim, yet the killer, obviously near death, is still running free.”

  Between his third person references and my latest drugs, I was feeling less present in the room despite the toasty fire and my trusty dog at my feet. My mind tried to focus on the implications of my new condition, but it kept drifting: How would I lug my files up those stairs every day? How would I lug myself? Sometimes my mental telepathy with my grandfather frightened me.

  “Holly, I’m
having Lee set you up an office in the library and bring in a hospital bed for you to sleep in. That room’s plenty big for you to live in twenty-four-seven. You’re not going anywhere for a while. You can’t climb steps, and my God, they’re everywhere – here at the Hall, at the office, and the Vine Street house. No way would I let you go back there anyway. What do you think?”

  That my worst nightmare has just taken over my daylight reality. What do I think? When the hell had that ever mattered? Did Ham think my attacker was coming back to get me? No, he wants me trapped with him at the house “twenty-four-seven” as he likes to say.

  Aunt Elizabeth was pouring white wine from the sideboard. I knew better than to ask, but it was mid-morning. I settled for Queen Esther’s country ham and gravy to sop my biscuits. “Could I have a piece of that egg custard?” was all I could think of to say.

  “Sure, honey,” Queen Esther responded, “but it’s quiche Lorraine.”

  The rest of the crowd had forgotten I was in the room and returned to talking at once, the female custom in my household when I had had one. Like me, Ham was taking a quick doze on his meds intermittently. Sitting in his power chair at the head of the table, he occasionally interrupted the others abruptly, as the hard of hearing often do, but that was not his reason. He came to with a start and resumed his monologue as if he had only stopped to draw breath.

  I was amused to be ignored, so I could observe quietly from my cozy fireplace chair. Ham’s dour expression surveyed them all, including Aunt Elizabeth and Charlotte, who had remained silent.

  “What’s your scenario, Ham?” Aunt Elizabeth intervened, apparently realizing he would allow no other topic of conversation until he exhausted this one and got it off his mind. Better that he vents his frustration now than to have it be the cause of another coronary later. I tried to be concerned with their new parlor game.

  “You mean what do I think happened? Our killer, whoever the hell he is, met someone else, killed him, and disposed of the body before he went to get Holly. He probably thought that he’d eliminate a little blackmail first.”

  “Ham, are you saying that Charley Carpenter drove to Delta Ridge, met Billy Ball secretly, killed him, and then walked to my house? What did he do with his car?” I was roused abruptly from my stupor. Ham’s logic had fallen off a cliff. “And why was Billy Ball blackmailing Charley Carpenter? Unless he had evidence that could send Charley to prison, what could Billy know about Charley that was any worse than what everybody in the Mid-south already knows, including the Memphis police?”

  From somewhere Michael appeared, filled his plate on the sideboard, and completed my attempt to pin Ham to the wall. “One question at a time, ladies and gentlemen. Why does Charley Carpenter appear in every scenario?” Uh, oh. Michael had obviously not been privy to Ham’s let’s-blame-Charley-for-everything obsession.

  “How much of all this is true and how much have you made up?” Victoria raised her eyebrows as she rescued the unsuspecting Michael from Ham’s coming attack.

  “Sister, I’ve told you, if you want me to finish, you need to quit interrupting. Besides, a little embellishment never hurts a good story. I know nobody else in this room has ever stretched one, but listen closely, learn from the master, and you can improve on your technique.”

  I looked over at Mother and Aunt Elizabeth as they tried to mask their smiles from Ham.

  “When Billy told Charley the corporation didn’t have the money to pay him, Charley told Billy he’d take payment in drugs. Billy knew he’d lose his license over that, maybe go to prison, so the Saturday that Charley came over to collect, Billy went to Little Rock never dreaming that Charley would go to the house and demand the pharmacy key from Bootsy. She didn’t have it. Billy told me that he took the key with him, but Charley thought she had it and killed her in a fit of temper. Hitting her with the blackjack men in his profession often carry, he carried her into the bedroom, displayed her on the bed like the murderer had displayed Avon, and stabbed her with the butcher knife from her own kitchen. In other words, Bootsy’s was a copycat murder, as we suspected – but we had the wrong suspect: it wasn’t Billy. When Billy came home Sunday night, he knew who had killed Bootsy. That’s why he blamed himself for leaving her.”

  I didn’t know if it was because we were taking the same drugs, but I was beginning to understand Ham’s convoluted logic. I also understood my grandfather’s desire to pin Bootsy’s murder on Charley Carpenter. What connection could Jack Wallace have to her? Unless he too went to the pharmacist’s house to force him to open the drug store and Billy was not there, and Bootsy had no key. Farfetched.

  ON MONDAY, MICHAEL began his interrogations in my new bedroom with Ham and his walker present and accompanied by Simon. “May we have a seat?” Michael asked. Ham motioned to the two wingbacks by the fireplace.

  “Simon, would you share with Ham and Holly the information you gave Chief Collins and me last night?”

  Simon looked puzzled. “You mean about Jack Wallace?” Michael nodded. “Avon’s my cousin. Nobody knew or needed to, but I’ve known Jack since they first married. He came back to Delta Ridge about six months ago down on his luck and asked me if I would give him a job cleaning up the shop?”

  “Simon, is it possible Jack Wallace saw Mildred Tice at your salon?” Michael’s first question jarred me back to reality.

  “Sure, she came every week.”

  “What about Avon Wallace?” I chimed in.

  “Not necessarily. She came in once a month for a haircut. He might have, but I doubt it. She usually stopped by in the morning on her way to work. He only worked in the afternoons and at night. I tried to keep him out of the customers’ sight as much as possible, and I knew I’d be in trouble with Avon if she saw him there. He swept hair, cleaned the toilets and mirrors, that kind of thing.”

  “Where does he live?” Michael asked.

  “In Jericho, I believe. That old hotel on Kitchen Street.”

  “Before you leave, Simon,” Ham asked, “Would you look at this photograph we just received on the fax from the GBI in Atlanta? Is this the man?”

  Simon studied the murky picture. Its inky splotches looked more like a Rorschach test than a person, I thought.

  “That’s him,” Simon said without hesitation.

  “I think we’d better have Chief Collins check the Tices’ neighborhood, also Dr. Wallace’s. Show their neighbors the picture. Ask if they remember seeing him in a jogging suit, probably light blue.” Ham relaxed in his chair.

  IN MAY, VICTORIA moved back to the Vine Street house with Jigger and me. Felicia also returned to her old room, deciding that the lovers and soon-to-be-newlyweds needed time alone to adjust to each other, and that Robert needed time to establish his new relationship with Elizabeth without having Felicia compete with him for her attention. Due to the painters’ and decorators’ daily invasion of Uncle Garland’s house, Felicia thought her move to Vine Street more selfish than sacrifice.

  If Charlotte had decided whether to move to Vine Street, Ridgecrest Hall, or remain at the farm, she had told no one, but Ham remained hopeful and on his best behavior as she continued to occupy a guest room at the Hall where she and Lee were spending their time restoring the gardens in preparation for two June wedding receptions which Felicia planned to cater. Holding Sara Lee and J.D.’s on Saturday afternoon and Aunt Elizabeth and Michael’s on Sunday allowed the sharing of a tent rented in Memphis and a string quartet coming for the weekend from Little Rock.

  Family life was back to normal, not that my family life is ever normal. Jack Wallace, the serial killer, was picked up at the old hotel in Jericho in the middle of the night, in the aftermath of a cocaine-high, followed by Marijuana and Valium – docile as a sleeping kitten. After confessing to twenty-four murders in six states including my dad’s, the Tices’ and Avon’s, he was extradited to Virginia on an outstanding warrant. His time in Delta Ridge ended as quietly as it began.

  Charley Carpenter’s body was located by a fisherma
n near the creek bank down behind the Vine Street house. It was difficult to determine if he had died from a hard blow to his head or from exposure. The only real evidence was a message later discovered on my home answering machine: “I’ll get you for this. You’ll be as full of holes as a fucking sieve. Deader than Billy’s wife, you stupid bitch!” Ham confiscated the tape to use as evidence, but no one was prosecuted. Charley Carpenter’s body was returned to Memphis, then brought back to Jericho to be buried beside his brother Randy and his parents, so there was no need. The last I heard of Jack Walker, he was reuniting with his ex-wife in California.

  As for me, I guess I’ll never really know if I’m a murderess, even though many in town seem to think so. It’s been reported that I’m a gun toting shoo-in to win the prosecutor’s race on a law and order platform. People turn and stare when I walk down the street even though my name never made the newspapers. Like Althea, my reputation precedes me. “Boy, can that girl swing a vase!” Marshall Brooks was overheard telling a group of cronies in the country club bar. I’ll run for D.A. with my Annie Oakley image intact, but if they only knew the truth. I’m a left leaning gunfighter who would ban them all and capital punishment as well.

  Because of what’s happened since I came home last February over a year ago, I think I’m a different person. I feel like I’ve caught and held on to every bad pass that fate has sent my way. It’s like I’m born again, not in some narrow religious sense, but in some wider universal way. I hope to God my universe has expanded beyond myself. That I am finally connected to the cosmos and with that comes different feelings – more tolerance, more compassion, and sympathy for the downtrodden, for humanity, and even for my aunt. It is something new that I have not felt before.