2 Heroes & Hooligans in Goose Pimple Junction (39 page)

“Hey!” Slick protested from the window.

“Oh, that ain’t no state secret, bless your heart, and it ain’t nothing against your cooking, neither. I’m just talking ‘bout liver in general.” She looked back at Velveeta. “What I’m saying is, my belief in Martha Maye is that strong.”

Velveeta nodded and slowly chewed the last bite of donut.

“You know, I don’t mean to be telling you your bidness or anything,” Junebug said, still leaning on the counter and talking to Velveeta conspiratorially, “but I saw Martha Maye’s costume that night.” Velveeta’s eyebrows formed a V, and she listened intently to Junebug. “Now think about it. That dress talked as she walked. She couldn’t have sneaked up on anybody, and if Lenny knew she was there, there woulda been a struggle and she woulda gotten grass or dirt or hair or something on it. How in the world could she have killed Lenny while she wore that froufrou white dress?”

Velveeta’s eyes got big. “She couldn’t have,” then looked as if a light bulb had gone off in her head.

“Now let’s look at it with a different set of eyes.” Junebug came around the counter and sat on the stool next to the officer. The women faced each other. “Supposing she didn’t have the dress on. Could she have changed clothes, come upon Lenny, killed him, changed back into that white Southern belle dress, and gotten back to the Oktoberfest all in—how long was she gone?

“Thirty minutes.” Velveeta nodded. “You’re right. Thank you, Junebug. You’re the best.”

“If you ask me, this murder didn’t have anything to do with Goose Pimple Junction. Who here would know him enough to care if he were alive or dead? It don’t add up.”

“That’s why I keep coming back to the chief or Martha Maye.”

Junebug shook her head. “You gotta think outside the box, sugar.”

Velveeta cocked her head.

“Think about the man’s life before he got here. Have you looked into that at all?”

Velveeta downed her coffee, slapped a five on the counter, and hurried to the door.

“Hey! I said the donut’s on me!”

“Keep it! I owe you more than that for helping me get my head on straight.”

And she took off down the street like a lion charging toward its prey.

Big Darryl D stood when he saw Velveeta Witherspoon get out of her car and head for the showroom. He pasted on a smile as she pushed through the door.

“How do, Officer. What can I put you in today?”

“I’m not here to shop. I’m here to ask you some questions about Lenny Applewhite.”

Darryl D put on his hangdog face. “Yes, yes, such a shame, wasn’t it?”

“What kind of an employee was he?”

“The man was a born salesman. He sold a lot of cars in the brief time he was here, God rest his soul.”

“How did he come to work here?”

“He showed up one day outta the blue. Said I needed him. Like I said, he was a salesman, and I bought what he was selling and hired him that very day.”

“Anything you can remember that was strange or out of the ordinary concerning him?”

“Yes, actually there is. I got in a car one night to go home and he was sleeping in the backseat.”

“The backseat?”

“Yep. About scared the life outta me, let me tell you. I screamed like a girl.”

“Did he say why he was sleeping in the car when he had a hotel room?”

“All’s he would say is he was having ‘people problems.’“

“People problems?” Velveeta quirked her brow.

“Yep. As I pulled out of the lot that night, a big black SUV rolled up, two men inside. They looked real suspicious, but when I told them we was closed for the night, they just kinda looked around the parking lot and then drove off without a word.”

“And you think that was related to Lenny?”

“Yep. He saw them coming, took a dive in the backseat, and told me to drive.”

“But you have no idea what they wanted?”

“No earthly idea.”

“Can I have a look around his office?”

“Sure. It’s just as he left it. I haven’t touched a thing.”

Martha Maye stood in front of her mother’s refrigerator looking into the freezer. “There aren’t any waffles, Butterbean, and no cereal, either. How about I make you some eggs?”

Louetta walked into the kitchen dressed in a bright orange blouse and black pants, her hair coiffed nice and big, and her face made up for the day. “No cereal? That can’t be. I just bought some the other day.”

Ima Jean followed Lou into the room. “I go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.”

“Yeah, well, somebody else did, too, Aunt Imy. I’m telling you, we’re out.” Martha Maye opened the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs and a package of bacon.

Lou went to the pantry to look for herself. She stood in front of it, hands on her hips, shaking her head. “The peanut butter’s gone, too.” She moved a few things and said, “And my two cans of peaches and some granola bars. What in the land of cotton is going on?”

“I don’t know, Mama, but I don’t have time right now to figure it out. I gotta get Butterbean some breakfast and get us both to school.”

“Here, honey, I’ll make my special ghostie eggs for both of you. You have to have ghostie eggs on Halloween morning, for Pete’s sake. You go finish readying yourself while I fix breakfast.”

Martha Maye gave the carton of eggs to her mother, who took over breakfast preparations.

The bacon was almost done, and Lou was cracking an egg into a ghost-shaped hole she’d cut in the bread in the pan when a knock sounded on the back door. When Lou looked up, she saw T. Harry looking through one of the panes of glass that covered the top half of the door. He had his hands cupped around his face to shade the light from his eyes as he peered into the kitchen.

“Oh, for crying out catfish. That man’s about as sharp as a mashed potato. I’m gonna nip this in the bud right quick.” Louetta stomped to the door and pulled it open, nearly knocking T. Harry off balance.

“Good morning, Ms. Louetta. I was in the neighborhood and thought maybe I’d walk the girls to school.” He craned his neck around her to see if Martha Maye was in the room. Lou blocked the doorway and kept him from entering. She had a look on her face that could wilt a daisy.

“Listen up, T. Harry. I want you to stop all this foolishness. I mean it. You’ve taken real good care of our girls, and I know they ‘preshade it, but it’s time for you to get in your car and drive on back home.”

T. Harry sniffed the air. “Say, is that bacon I smell? And coffee?”

From behind Louetta, Ima Jean said, “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

“T. Harry.” Louetta glared at him. “I want you to read my lips and mind my words. Go home. The girls are fine now. We’re all watching out for them, and we’ll take real good care of them.” She propped her hands on her ample hips. “Get in your car and go home.
Now
.”

“Have you driven a Ford lately?” Ima Jean piped up again, peering over Louetta’s shoulder.

“Ms. Louetta, you ain’t got no call to talk to me like that. Butterbean’s my niece, and if I want to spend time with her, I can—”

Once again, Lou didn’t let him finish.

“Act like you got some raising, boy. I only met your mama once, God rest her soul, but I think she’da raised sand if she ever saw you carrying on this way.”

That did it. T. Harry let out a big sigh and held up his hands in surrender. “All right. All right. I’ll go. May I please say good-bye to Martha Maye and Butterbean?”

“Make it snappy.” Lou reluctantly stood aside so he could come into the kitchen.

Ima Jean handed him a glass of orange juice. “A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.”

“Bernadette, do you have the dispatch log from the night of October twenty-second?” Velveeta pulled her jacket off as she approached the desk.

Bernadette, at her computer, hit a few keys and said, “Yep. I’ll shoot it over to you.”

Velveeta sat at her desk and pulled up her email. The log showed Johnny had talked to Bernadette at 7:55, 8:28, and 8:42. She sat back in her chair and tapped a pencil on the desk. Then she went into the break room, where she found Hank Beanblossom.

“Hank, I got a hypothetical for you. Let’s suppose I liked a person for a murder—”

“Okay, who?”

“We’re just supposing.
Hypothetical
like. Suppose this person talked to someone off and on for about two hours at intervals no more than thirty or so minutes.”

“Okay . . .”

“Do you see any way this person could have lost his mind and killed someone with a knife and then gotten back to his normal self, normal voice, normal demeanor, talking that frequently to someone else?”

Hank thought about it for a minute, biting his lip in concentration. “I reckon it’d be awful hard to do, especially since I talked to the
hypothetical person
a couple times myself during that window.”

“I think it’d be impossible, too, and I don’t see how Martha Maye woulda had time to do it, either. She was only gone thirty minutes, tops, from the Oktoberfest, and she had that costume on. There wasn’t any blood at the scene, but still, you’d think the killer would have gotten something on his or her clothes.”

“Well, the blade killed him instantly, so there really wasn’t a lot of blood. And we know the killer snuck up on him, on account he had to have been urinating in the bushes, what with his ding-a-ling sticking out of his zipper and all, so there probably wasn’t much of a struggle. Even so, it would be practically impossible for Martha Maye to do it in such a short time, especially given her getup.”

“Have you ever worn one of them hoop skirts and a long frilly dress like that?”

“Nope, can’t say that I have.”

“To tell you the truth, I haven’t either, but thinking about it, I just don’t see how it would be at all possible. Not to mention it would have been next to impossible to sneak up on him in that dress that went
swish swish
with every move she made.”

“So you’ve crossed the chief and Martha Maye off the list.”

“You knew I was talking about the chief from the get-go. How’d you know that all along?”

“I’m not as dumb as I look,” Hank said.

“That would be impossible,” Velveeta said over her shoulder on her way to find the chief. “Bless your heart.”