Dead On the Bayou

by June Shaw

“I don’t either.”

  “Let’s go somewhere so we can think.”

  She shook her head. “I’m going to the gym to work this body out so I don’t need to think.”

  “Good idea.” I gave her neck a quick hug and walked out. Taking a breath, I glanced toward Mrs. Wilburn’s. A squad car pulled up and parked out front. I drove off in the opposite way, not wanting to see her son’s face when he opened the front door and found officers who would tell him somebody murdered his mother.

  A murdered mother. A need struck to visit mine. I would stay around Mom and spend as much time as I could appreciating all of our time together. Another benefit to that plan—she had many cronies who heard lots of gossip about what went on in town. Maybe one of them would help us connect the dots from Eve’s neighbor to our mutual love interest.

  Chapter 4

  Sugar Ledge Manor welcomed me as it would everyone who drove up. The crepe myrtles lent clouds of soft pink, and numerous palm trees gave an air of a tropical island near the pale blue stucco two-story building. I rushed inside, past sweet-scented roses growing next to the archway, looking forward to seeing my mother, to enjoy her comforting arms around me while that could still happen.

  Instead of her sitting in the midst of her Chat and Nap Group, she and all the others were scattering from their normal places.

  “Hey, Mom.” I needed to walk faster before she and her buddies went off.

  My mother gave me a soft smile and quick hug. “It’s so nice to see you, Sunny.” She pecked a kiss on my lips. “Now I have to go.”

  Some of the other ladies turned their heads back to me and nodded.

  “What? Where? Is Bingo ready to start? I could play with y’all.”

  “No Bingo today. I’m getting my hair done,” Mom said.

  “And I’m going to the bathroom. My Metamucil started working,” one of her friends told me while she shoved her walker toward the hall.

  “Congratulations,” I called to her along with a big thumbs-up since I knew of her lingering problem.

  She didn’t look back. “Thank you.”

  “I’m hungry. I’m going to have a snack,” a gray-haired lady in a wheelchair said.

  “Wait a minute. Do any of you know Clara Wilburn?” I needed to lift my voice to ask it since they were all scooting like sprayed red ants.

  Two shook their heads as they moved off. The one using a three-pronged walker glanced back. “I might. I don’t remember.” Beyond her, two young women wearing the cotton navy pantsuits of many who worked here turned toward me. From their intense stares, I got the feeling they knew Mrs. Wilburn. Maybe they would come to ask what I wanted to know.

  I hadn’t thought about the consequences of having someone tell me they knew the deceased woman. What was I going to say—that someone murdered her? No, that wasn’t my place. I couldn’t announce Eve’s neighbor’s demise. Word would get out soon enough. By tomorrow, it would be in the local paper. Then I could come back and ask more questions.

  Uh-oh, I hoped the paper wouldn’t mention Dave’s camp as the murder scene or any of us being there.

  I would have offered to go upstairs with Mom to get her hair fixed, but at this point, didn’t want anyone asking why I had mentioned Eve’s neighbor. I called, “Bye,” to my mother and rushed out of the building, not asking why she was having this done so late in the day. Residents had their hair fixed whenever the kind volunteers could come over.

  In the parking lot, I sat in my truck, lowered the windows, and thought about Dave. What was his connection to Mrs. Wilburn? Why would anyone put her body inside his new place? He had probably seen her watching him through her window when he’d gone around Eve’s house taking measurements and recording windows for the alarm system his company installed. He may have noticed her there at other times when he’d gone to Eve’s—to carry out the work, to eat the rare meal she’d cooked so she could keep him there.

  He had seen or maybe met her when she came over to Eve’s front lawn to see the baby right before Noah’s parents took him away to Houston. Dave said he didn’t know her otherwise, and I believed him. There was no way I could imagine him killing anyone. But even if he had killed the dead woman in his new place, why would he keep her there?

  Unless he planned to dispose of her body later.

  I shook my head to push that thought out. What was I thinking? Dave couldn’t kill anyone. I was sure of it.

  “Are you okay?” A man outside my door leaned to my open window, startling me. “Do you need help starting your truck?”

  “No, I’m fine. And my truck works.” I shifted my shoulder away from the window and cranked the motor, telling myself this was not the place to sit in contemplation. “But thanks.” As he stepped away, I checked behind and around, ready to back up and go.

  “I heard you asking about Clara Wilburn,” he said.

  “Yes.” As much as I’d decided I wouldn’t speak about her until others in town knew she died, I cared and wanted to know all I could about her.

  “She’s my aunt.” He stood about five-foot-six and wore a button-down shirt and pinched expression. Either he knew about her demise, or he didn’t care for her.

  I didn’t back up. “She lives—uh, her house is next door to my sister’s,” I said, correcting myself but trying not to give away anything more.

  He nodded, his lips tightening in a grimace. “I came to visit my grandmother. That’s her stepmother, but she never comes here.”

  So he did not yet know Mrs. Wilburn died. I needed to find out more. “I really never got to know her very well.”

  “Hmp, and you don’t want to.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Nobody in our family likes her. I doubt if she has any friends either.” He pulled an electronic cigarette with a thick base from his shirt pocket, started it up, and sucked on the thing. Smoke swirled in the air.

  Who are some people in your family? I wanted to ask, but couldn’t think of an appropriate explanation for why I wanted to know. If I pried, he’d get suspicious and ask why I was inquiring so much about his aunt. If she upset him so, he would probably spout about disturbances with her.

  Instead, he shifted back from my truck, face muscles and shoulders relaxed now with his smoke.

  “What’s your grandmother’s name?” I tilted my head toward the manor.

  “Adrienne Viatar. Who do you have in there?”

  “My mom. It was good talking to you.” I took off before he could ask my name or hers. I wanted to know who might have a motive for killing Mrs. Wilburn, but didn’t want to let him know she was dead or where she’d been found. Or that I was the person who had discovered her body.

  I’d try to get more information about their family from Mrs. Wilburn’s stepmother once that elder had time to learn and digest the fact that she’d died.

  The phone in my purse rang. “Where are you?” Eve asked.

  “Leaving the manor.”

  “Come over. I’m back home.”

  “What’s up?”

  “We need to go next door and give Royce our condolences.”

  Doing that was not tempting, but given the circumstances, it was the right thing to do. “All right.”

  “Good. And while we’re there, we might be able to get some ideas about who could have wanted his mother gone.”

  My foot tapped my brake, an automatic reflex in response to what she was suggesting. “Don’t you think the police are checking into that with him?”

  “Absolutely, but when I’m questioned by police, I feel much more tense and concerned and don’t always get my thoughts straight.”

  “I’m the same. Okay, be there soon.” I’d wait to tell her what I learned here when we were face-to-face.

  * * * *

  As I pulled up to Eve’s, I spotted Mrs. Wilburn’s older model car parked in her driveway and realized I’d hoped it would be gone. That would mean Royce wasn’t home, and we would not have to
go over there yet. Guilt pinched my heart for my attitude, but I hated to face the bereaved child of a parent who just died, especially one who was murdered.

  My finger was going for Eve’s doorbell when she jerked her door open. “Let’s go.” She stepped outside. “This is a task I dread just like I’m sure you do, so let’s do it now.”

  “Front door or back?” I gripped her arm. We both glanced toward the front of the house. Even though darkness had set in, the place was visible. My gaze ran along all the windows. Sadness crimped inside me. I couldn’t believe we would never see her there.

  “If we go to the front, he might think it’s somebody trying to sell something or preach. In the back, he’ll figure it’s friends,” Eve said.

  I believed the same thing, so we walked past the large bushes that separated their backyard from Eve’s and across the grass to the storm door. Taking a breath, I exhaled as Eve rang the bell. Who would speak first, her or me? What would I say? Certainly Eve was wrong about thinking we might question him so soon about possible people who might have killed his mother. This was a time of grief, not a time for us to thrust questions at him.

  Sorrow shot through me when the wooden door inside opened. Royce stepped closer to the outer storm door that was glass with the bottom half screened, and I waited for him to open it. We could just stay in the doorway to express our sympathy unless he invited us inside.

  “You!” Beyond the glass, he thrust a finger at me. “I can’t believe you would come to this house!” His reddening face looked like it might burst into flames.

  “Why not?” Eve asked, as I’d thought of doing, although I couldn’t get words to shake out of my mouth.

  “Or you either!” He aimed his finger at her.

  “Royce, we are so sorry about your mother. She was a kind woman,” I said, although I actually had seen no evidence of her kindness. And I didn’t understand his fury although he was probably experiencing mixed emotions, sadness, and anger. “We wanted to pay our respects.”

  “Yes, and ask if there’s anything we can do,” Eve said.

  His chest rose. “You’ve done enough. You helped.” He thrust his finger back at me like a weapon. “But you’re the one who killed her!”

  Chapter 5

  I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around Royce’s accusation. “What are you talking about?”

  “We didn’t do anything,” Eve said.

  He thrust his finger at one, then the other of us. “You are both horrible people. Don’t ever set foot on this property again and don’t speak to me.” He leaned close to the glass. His stare speared my eyes. “I hope they give you the death penalty!”

  As I muttered incoherent words, he slammed the wooden door. I stood in place trembling. Eve and I gripped each other’s hands as we had done when we were young children, and stepped across the lawns, not saying a word until we entered Eve’s house.

  She got us cans of Diet Coke and Sprite, and we sat in her kitchen. “So the police told him we found his mother. Surely he might think we could have killed her,” she said.

  I took a big swallow of my soft drink, determined to shake off inner discomfort from the accusation. “Okay, here’s what I’ve got. I went to see Mom, but she and her buddies were all going off in different directions so she didn’t have time to visit with me. Right before they scattered, I asked whether any of them knew Mrs. Wilburn. None did, although I don’t think they all paid attention to my question. But once I got in my truck, a guy came up and said he’d heard me asking about her, and she’s his aunt, and nobody in their family likes her. I’m sure he hadn’t heard that she’d died.”

  Eve leaned forward, eyes wider with interest. “So who in their family doesn’t like her? Maybe there’s someone with a motive to kill her.”

  “He didn’t say.” My words made her lean back. “But he’d gone there to visit his grandmother, and I found out her name.”

  “Maybe we can get information from her,” Eve suggested the same thing I’d considered.

  “It shouldn’t be hard to find her in there. First we’ll have to give her time to learn about the death and start to process her grief.”

  Eve’s phone rang. She looked at the caller’s name and didn’t change expressions to show whether she was pleased or dissatisfied. “Hello.”

  “Isn’t this Twin Sisters?” The man spoke loud enough to be heard in the next town.

  “Yes, it is. And I’m Eve Vaughn. May I help you?” A smile came to Eve’s voice.

  “Do both of you use sledgehammers and things to knock down walls?” The tone intensified.

  Eve and I grinned at each other. “We do,” she said.

  “Great. I need y’all to do that by Thursday.”

  “Thursday.” She lifted an eyebrow at me, asking if I thought that might be possible.

  I answered with a one-shouldered shrug. Maybe my doctor would give me permission to start working again by then, but with the numbness remaining in my shoulder, I doubted whether I could wield a sledgehammer so soon.

  Eve opened the door to the cabinet where she kept writing supplies. She took out an order pad and pen. “Would you want to give me your name and the location of the building you’d want work done on? My sister and I can go and check it out.”

  “And y’all can start now?”

  “We can.” Eve and I shared a look of relief. “We can’t do the actual work with the sledgehammers ourselves right now, but we can use subcontractors who will do that.” She pressed the tip of her pen down, ready to write.

  “Wait.” The word spewed through Eve’s phone slammed across the room, making me draw back my head. “You’ve seen that show on TV where that little woman has a work crew, but she rams those big sledgehammers through people’s walls herself?”

  “I have seen it.” Eve spoke with a nod. “So your address? And your name?”

  Only a second passed. “Lady, I love that show and to see that tiny woman ripping out walls. I wanted to see you and your sister do that.”

  Eve and I shared a huff. “I can slam through a wall for you,” Eve said. “But my sister had a little injury. She wouldn’t be able to use both arms, but—”

  “Oh, never mind. That was a stupid idea we came up with. We’ll just go on to the Netherlands Friday and leave that wall the way it is.”

  Silence when the man hung up spread like a salve to my wounded eardrums and certainly to Eve’s. She put her pen and pad away and sat at the table with me, my expression surely as gloomy as hers. I was to blame for us being unable to take on most jobs at this time. Thinking of that made my shoulders droop. Until I remembered I didn’t cause any of that problem. The person who shot me did.

  My mind raced to someone else. “I’d like to know what’s happening with Dave.”

  “I know. I wish he’d call and tell me how he is.”

  Having her voice the same interest I had in him dulled my spirit, making me determine I needed to pull back from showing how much I cared about him since right now, having him free and not behind bars was our shared concern. We needed to keep the police assured that we weren’t involved in that death either.

  Eve checked the clock on her wall. “I sure wish it wasn’t so late. I want to call Nicole and see how the baby is.” Her sad eyes turned to mine. “I want to talk to him.”

  “And hold him.” I stood and gathered her in my arms. “I’m holding you.”

  She pressed her head against mine, arms staying at her side. A minute later, they came up around me. We held onto each other, sharing inner pain that came from the same source and different sources. Everyone needs at least four hugs a day, I had once heard an expert on behavior say on a talk show. If each person received four hugs, the world would be a much happier place.

  “I’m going home to eat,” I said, letting her go.

  “I didn’t realize it was so late. You could eat here.”

  I grinned at that suggestion. She did the same. She wasn’t
the person who cooked in this family. I didn’t fix big meals often since I lived alone and didn’t eat too much, but my fridge always held more choices than Eve’s did with her diet food. In my head, radishes and lettuce did not constitute food. This was the Deep South, by gosh, and I adored all of our southern dishes. Maybe that’s why Eve stayed a bit slimmer than I did. She loved them, too, but didn’t eat rich food as often as I did.

  Suddenly ravenously hungry, I considered the small packs of leftover red beans and rice and sausage, a normal Monday meal down here, in my freezer. I would defrost packs of them in my microwave.

  Promising to get to bed early so we might focus better in the morning about who might have really killed Mrs. Wilburn, we agreed to get together then, and I drove home. My thoughts swirled to baby Noah, Dave, and a dead person. They brought me back to that most horrible time in my life when my singing disorder began. I gripped my steering wheel and nodded, aware that I had held onto my sister really tight. I was fairly sure she also realized why. Soft words from a soothing Christmas carol came from my mouth and carried me back to the moment I was a child shooting hoops in our driveway near our older sister I adored when the unthinkable happened.

  Reaching my street, I belted out a different song about what I wanted for Christmas, and changed it to my sister Crystal. Tears I wouldn’t allow back then spilled onto my cheeks. I wiped at them, using the back of my arm and spreading warmth across my face like a rain-slick highway in summer.

  Yes, I felt finally ready for a romantic relationship and really cared about being close to Dave. How much more did I want to stay close to my one remaining sister?

  But would I really need to choose?

  Chapter 6

  Feeling my stomach empty once I rose after tossing in bed for hours, I dragged myself to my kitchen and remembered I hadn’t eaten when I got back from Eve’s last night but recalled what I’d wanted. I yanked the freezer door open and stared inside. Lots of quart-size zippered bags I could see through held shrimp and fish or crabmeat and oysters. Others held sliced okra, strawberries, and eggplant. I placed my hand on a frigid pack of rice, one of red beans, and another on smoked sausage. For breakfast?