Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 01 - Down Home Murder

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  The old woman looked me up and down. “Laurie Anne?” It sounded more like an accusation than recognition.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned her gaze to Uncle Conrad. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Conrad Randolph,” he answered, stuttering a bit. “Ruby Lee’s husband.”

  “That’s right, I heard she got married again. You’re taking a chance, don’t you think? She’s been married three times already.”

  Uncle Conrad cleared his throat, and said, “Anybody can make a mistake.”

  Aunt Maggie snorted. Then she looked at Sally, whose smile had faded. “What do you want, Sally?”

  “Aunt Maggie,” Sally said in a concerned tone, “I thought you’d be at the hospital.”

  “Ellis is the one who’s hurt, not me.”

  “Of course, but I thought you’d want to be by Uncle Ellis’s side at a time like this.”

  “What did you come over for if you didn’t think there was anyone here?”

  “I just came by to see if I could help,” Sally said.

  “Help yourself, is more like it.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she answered stiffly. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

  Aunt Maggie clearly wasn’t enthusiastic, but she nodded. “All right, I suppose you can come inside.” She led the way into the living-room, and took Paw’s recliner while the three of us lined up on the couch. I hadn’t felt so guilty since the time Aunt Nora rounded up all of the cousins to find out who had stolen her fresh apple pie, and at least that time I had known what it was that I was accused of.

  “Is there any word about Uncle Ellis?” Sally asked.

  I shook my head. “We’ve just come from the hospital, but there’s been no change.”

  “Poor Uncle Ellis,” she said mournfully.

  Aunt Maggie snorted again. “You still haven’t told me why you’re here, Sally, so let me guess. Ellis promised you something from the house when you were just a little girl, right?”

  “That’s right,” Sally said with artful amazement. “He did. Laurie Anne, you used to live with Uncle Ellis, didn’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “Then Uncle Ellis must have told you about the figurines.” She pointed at the cherrywood china cabinet against the far wall.

  “I don’t think Paw ever mentioned them,” I said.

  “Did he not?” While Aunt Maggie watched through narrowed eyes, Sally pulled me over to the china cabinet. “These figurines right here.” I recognized them, of course. I had dusted them more times than I could count. There was a goose girl and boy holding hands, a delicately posed Japanese geisha, a Scottie dog with a cheerfully wagging tail, and several others.

  “These were my great-grandmother’s,” Sally said. “The cabinet, too. They’ve been in the family for years. Your grandfather told me a long time ago that he wanted me to have them, if anything ever happened to him.” She tried to turn the latch on the cabinet, but nothing happened.

  “It’s locked,” Aunt Maggie said smugly, twirling a key ring with a tiny brass key.

  “Do you mind, Aunt Maggie?” Sally asked pointedly.

  “You’re darned right I mind! Those things are going to stay locked up, where they belong.”

  “Really, Aunt Maggie. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were accusing me of… I just don’t know what you’re accusing me of.” Sally poked her hands into a tiny, pink handbag and pulled out a pale pink handkerchief which she lifted to her distinctly dry eyes.

  “Who do you think you’re fooling?” Aunt Maggie said with obvious disgust. Stepping past Sally, she unlocked the cabinet, pulled out the Scottie dog, and closed the cabinet again before Sally could reach inside.

  “Laurie Anne, look at the bottom of this statue,” Aunt Maggie said and thrust the figurine into my hands. “What does it say?”

  I inspected it. “‘Made in Occupied Japan.’“ I handed it back.

  “That’s right. Ellis always said you made good grades in school—how’s your history?”

  I shrugged, not sure where she was going. “Okay, I guess.”

  “When did the United States occupy Japan?”

  “Just after World War II ended in 1945.”

  Aunt Maggie nodded her approval. “Now our boys only occupied Japan for just a few years. Anything made there before or after that was only marked ‘Made in Japan.’ That makes Occupied Japan pieces rare and valuable.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sally asked.

  Aunt Maggie went on as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “Now I remember Ellis telling me how he regretted that our mother Molly never got to see her first grandchild. Molly was your great-grandmother, Sally. Now by the time World War II started, Ellis already had two children, which is why he didn’t volunteer.”

  “Wait a minute!” I said as it dawned on me. “If Molly died before World War II started, how could she have owned anything marked ‘Occupied Japan’?”

  Aunt Maggie grinned. “She couldn’t have.”

  Sally jammed her handkerchief back into her handbag. “I was told they were hers,” she said angrily.

  “Then I guess you were told wrong. Now if you don’t mind, we have some business we need to tend to.” Aunt Maggie walked to the front door and opened it wide.

  “What about the cabinet?” Sally asked.

  Aunt Maggie didn’t answer, Sally flounced out, and Aunt Maggie bolted the door behind her.

  “Aunt Maggie, that was wonderful!” I said.

  “Just looking after Ellis’s interests,” she said mildly, but she was grinning as she replaced the figurine in the cabinet. “I take it you two didn’t come with her.”

  “No, ma’am. Aunt Nora sent us to get some of Paw’s things.”

  Aunt Maggie’s eyes narrowed again. “What kind of things are you talking about?”

  “A pair of pajamas, some underwear, maybe a robe.”

  “No furniture?”

  “No ma’am,” I answered firmly. After what I had just seen and heard, I could see why she asked.

  She nodded, apparently satisfied, and led the way down the hall. “Come on into the kitchen and have a Coca-Cola. What have you been up to, Laurie Anne? I haven’t seen you in I don’t know how long.”

  “I’m still living in Boston. I flew in this morning after Aunt Nora called.”

  Aunt Maggie pulled three bottles of Coke from the refrigerator, popped the caps one by one using the handle of the silverware drawer, and handed one to me and another to Uncle Conrad. Then she gestured for us to have a seat around the kitchen table.

  “Edna called last night and told me about Ellis,” Aunt Maggie said. “I know how fast news travels around here, so I came right over. Sure enough, the first batch of vultures showed up at eight o’clock this morning. Conrad? Is that your name?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “While you’re here, why don’t you take out the garbage? I’ve been afraid to leave the house for fear someone would sneak in behind my back.”

  Uncle Conrad complied meekly.

  “Aunt Maggie,” I asked, “What’s going on? Have other people been trying to take Paw’s things?”

  “Lord, yes. Something like this always brings them out of the woodwork. My brother Coulson’s boy Herman showed up first thing this morning.”

  “Herman? He’s my third cousin, I think.”

  “You don’t want to claim him as family. That boy would steal your toilet seat right out from under you if he thought he could get away with it. He told me that Ellis had promised him that bedroom set in the spare bedroom. He probably thought I didn’t know what it’s worth, but I wouldn’t have been dealing at flea markets all these years if I couldn’t tell good pieces from junk.”

  “He thought you were going to let him take stuff out of Paw’s house?” I said.

  Aunt Maggie shrugged. “Most likely he thought there wouldn’t be anyone here, just like Sally did, and he could come on in and take that an
d anything else he could lay his hands on.”

  “That’s stealing!”

  “Of course it’s stealing! The trouble is, once he got stuff out of the house, we wouldn’t be able to do a thing about it.”

  “What about the policer

  “He knows darned well that none of us would call the police. Only trash would put their own flesh and blood in jail. Anyway, as long as I’m here, nobody is taking anything out of this house.” She took another swallow. “A death in the family does bring out the worst in folks.”

  “Paw’s not dead!”

  Aunt Maggie looked at me sharply. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just I can’t believe anyone acting that way.”

  “When you get to be my age, Laurie Anne, you’ll come to expect it and a sight more besides. Ellis and I are all that’s left of our generation, and I saw the same thing when Mama and Daddy died, and when our sisters and brothers died. If your granddaddy makes it out of the hospital, I mean to make sure he’s still got a house to come back to. If not, I’ll make sure his stuff goes where he wants it.”

  I drank down the last of my Coke. “Aunt Maggie, I don’t mean to sound ugly, but have you seen Paw’s will?”

  She studied me. “Why do you ask?”

  “Reverend Glass was at the hospital today, and he said Paw had left the house to the church.”

  “Like they say, that’s his tale, but I’m sitting on mine. Ellis would sooner let this place rot as to give it to that hypocritical so-and-so. Don’t you remember the fight they had when Glass tried to give himself a raise without telling the congregation anything about it?”

  I remembered the incident well. It had been one of the few times I had seen Paw lose his temper, as well as one of the few times I had heard him swear. “So why does Glass think he’s getting the house?”

  Aunt Maggie ran her fingers through her shock of white hair and shook her head ruefully. “You have your Aunt Edna to thank for that. You know how Glass is always talking about building a new church, and how they need more land?”

  I nodded. The church had staged its first fund-raising drive the month Glass came to Byerly, and as soon as one ended, another started. At first Paw and I had dutifully bought the doughnuts and candy bars, but when nothing ever seemed to come of these efforts, we lost our enthusiasm.

  Aunt Maggie went on. “He’s had his eye on this place for a long time, since we’re right next door and all.” She glanced out the back window, and I knew she was looking at the back of the church.

  “Glass tried to sweet-talk Ellis for the longest time, saying how badly the church needed the land and how little money there was. Ellis might have believed him if it hadn’t been for that stunt with Glass’s salary. He figured that if there was enough money to pay Glass that much, there was enough to buy land.

  “Glass finally took the hint and started trying to get to the house through Edna. I don’t know if Edna volunteered to try to talk Ellis into leaving the house to the church or if Glass convinced her to try, but I do know that she talked to Ellis about it more than once.”

  “Why didn’t Paw just tell her ‘no’?”

  Aunt Maggie shrugged. “You know Ellis. He hates to hurt anyone’s feelings. He said he did tell her straight out once, but she didn’t pay him any mind. She just kept saying how nice it would be to have a bigger church. Sometimes I think your aunt is a few bricks shy of a load.” She took a final drink from the Coke, and placed the empty bottle in the carton next to the refrigerator.

  “Let me go see if I can find those things you wanted for Ellis.” She started up the stairs just as Uncle Conrad came back inside. “I’ll be right back,” Aunt Maggie said, eyeing him suspiciously.

  Uncle Conrad walked back and forth from the kitchen to the living-room, looking a bit uncomfortable, I thought. “Uncle Conrad? Is there anything wrong?”

  “Huh? No, it’s just strange being here with Ellis in the hospital and all.”

  I nodded in agreement, and let him continue his pacing.

  It was stuffy in the kitchen. I stood and stretched, and went down the stairs into the basement where Paw spent most of his time. It was just an old root cellar that resisted the summer’s heat by virtue of being halfway underground. Paw and my father had tacked up the wood paneling and laid the carpeting themselves. The furniture was cast-offs from the rest of the house, but Paw always was more interested in comfort than looks.

  The brown corduroy-covered recliner, its arms covered with tiny burn holes from when Paw had still smoked cigarettes, was in front of the small black-and-white television set. Next to the recliner was the couch, its vivid red and orange floral pattern only slightly dimmed by the years. My grandmother Emma, a cheerful bird of a woman I barely remembered, had made the slipcovers herself out of material purchased from the odd lots sale at the mill, and no one had ever had the heart to tell her that they weren’t the most beautiful things they had ever seen. She had finished them just before her death, and I had a hunch Paw kept them to remember her by.

  I noticed a newspaper on the couch, and reached for it absently, meaning to put it into the magazine rack. Paw never could abide papers strewn about. Then the lead story caught my eye. The paper was the Sunday edition of the Byerly Gazette, and most of the front page was devoted to Melanie Wilson’s disappearance. I sat on the arm of the couch to read it.

  The facts were pretty much the same as what Aunt Nora and Vasti had told me. The article included a picture of Melanie and a description of what she had been wearing when last seen, and asked for anyone who had seen her to come forward. The paper noted that racial tensions had been high ever since the anonymous phone call, which was no big surprise.

  There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Laurie Anne?” Uncle Conrad said. “What are you doing down there?”

  “Nothing,” I said, and put the newspaper in the rack. Then, noticing a carton of pulled socks next to the couch, I said, “Somebody needs to take those back to the mill.”

  He nodded, and wandered through the room, picking up the book Paw had left on the coffee-table, flipping through the pad next to the phone, peering into the box of socks. I was starting to get annoyed. Was he another vulture, looking to see if there was anything of value to be had? Finally he shuffled back upstairs.

  I went to where a large photo of Paw, Maw, and all six of their girls hung on the wall. Next to it was a later photo, this one of Paw and the six girls, plus assorted husbands and grandchildren, including a pig-tailed and snaggle-toothed version of me. Finally, in a third photo, Paw had his arm around me as a teenager, with the five remaining daughters and their husbands and children. My throat tightened. Please, I prayed silently, don’t take Paw away from me, too.

  “Laurie Anne? Are you down there?” Aunt Maggie came into the room. “I haven’t been in here since I came. It just seems so funny for Ellis not to be here.”

  Aunt Maggie joined me by the pictures, and, to my surprise, put an arm around my shoulder. We stood there a moment, and then Aunt Maggie sniffed loudly. “That’s enough of that,” she said. “Come on out of here.”

  She led the way back to the kitchen. “I found some underwear and a robe, but the only pajamas I could find aren’t fitting to wear.” She reached into an immense, black pocketbook, and squirmed her hand around for a full minute before bringing forth a tight roll of bills. Then she took my hand, and pressed the money into my palm. “Now you take this and buy your grandfather a decent pair of pajamas.”

  “I don’t need any money,” I protested.

  “Never mind that. You just take it. Conrad, have you got time to run Laurie Anne up to the K mart?”

  He looked at the clock on the stove, and shook his head. “No ma’am, I need to be getting back to the mill.” When Aunt Maggie fixed him with her sternest look, he sputtered a few seconds, blurted, “Bye now,” and exited quickly.

  Aunt Maggie sniffed after him and said, “Why don’t you take Ellis’s station wagon, Laur
ie Anne? It’s just sitting there, so you may as well use it while you’re in town.”

  I started to ask if that meant that I wasn’t a vulture, but decided not to push my luck. Instead I just said, “Thank you, Aunt Maggie.”

  “You’re planning to stay here at the house, aren’t your?”

  “If that’s all right. And Richard, too.”

  “I suppose that’s all right. Ellis probably wouldn’t mind. I have to warn you that I don’t have any idea of what shape your room is in. You’ll probably need to change the sheets.”

  “That’s fine. By the way, Aunt Nora invited both of us to her house for dinner.”

  “You go ahead, but I’ve got an auction to go to. I better give you the number over there, just in case.” She scribbled down a name and phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me, and I stuck it in my pocketbook.

  After fending off an offer of gas money, I left for K mart.

  Chapter 4

  It was still awfully hot, and as soon as I started up the station wagon, I flipped the air-conditioner switch. The only result was a mechanical sigh and a small cloud of dust from the vents. I rolled down the window in resignation and consoled myself with the fact that it would not take long to get to K mart.

  At least the radio worked. As I turned the knob I heard the last few bars of an Alabama song followed by the staccato teletype theme they used to announce the news.

  “As the heatwave continues, Hickory police are still searching for a local co-ed, missing since Friday evening. Melanie Wilson, a resident of Byerly and a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was reported missing Friday night when her car was found abandoned on Johnston Road. Her parents, who were expecting the college senior for the weekend, have heard nothing from their daughter since she called to let them know she was leaving Chapel Hill.”

  The announcer continued, “The police received an anonymous phone call reporting that Miss Wilson was seen in the company of several black males in the Marley area late Friday night. Though the police have been unable to confirm this report and cite the danger of placing too much trust in anonymous phone calls, they are reportedly focusing attention on the streets of Marley.