arkansastraveler (10 page)

“Arnett? Did you marry Howard Arnett? You always despised him.” Howard was the mortician’s son, a skinny, anemic-looking boy a year younger than us. He would never come up in the tree house because he was afraid of heights. Shirley used to taunt him from the window of the tree house.

She pulled a knife out of a drawer and with practiced ease fixed the smashed side of a coconut layer cake. “Yes, but he turned out to be real cute once he grew up, filled out, took off his braces, and got contacts.”

“I heard you moved away to someplace. . . . Wasn’t it Atlanta or something?”

“Birmingham, Alabama, actually. Howard opened up an auto repair shop there. He works on foreign cars. Mercedes is his specialty.”

“So he didn’t go into his father’s business?”

“No, his brother, Alex, did. We moved back to Sugartree about three years ago, and Howard opened up a shop in Little Rock. After my daddy died, Mama was lonely, and since I’m an only child . . .” She left the obvious unsaid.

“Does Howard’s daddy still own the mortuary?”

“Yes, but Alex does most of the work these days. With a couple of assistants, of course.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping. “It’s also the official county morgue, seein’
as we don’t often need one here in Sugartree. You heard about Toby Hunter?”

I nodded, trying to think of something appropriate to say. “He was so young.”

“It’s always sad when someone young dies, but I heard that boy was a trial for Grady from the time his hormones kicked in at twelve. I guess losin’ his mama when he was so young probably didn’t help, but, honestly, we’ve all had our sad times. Isn’t no reason to turn mean on folks.”

“All I heard was he was beat to death.”

“That’s what they’re sayin’. They brought him in early this morning when I was over there doing some paperwork.” She looked at the coconut cake critically, gave it one last swipe, then moved on to a chocolate sheet cake whose top layer of icing had stuck to the lid of the cake carrier. “I work at the mortuary part-time when I’m not up here at the church.” She smiled at me, holding the icing-covered knife in front of her. “I teach the senior ladies’ Sunday school class, am in charge of the nursery, and was just elected president of the Women’s Missionary Union. And I have two kids in high school.”

“Wow, you do have a plateful,” I said appreciatively. “Do they have any idea who might have killed him?” I couldn’t help asking.

She shrugged and went back to scraping icing off the plastic lid and transferring it to the cake. “He was an ornery kid. Liked to drink too much and carry on. Been arrested more than a few times for driving drunk and doing things like putting cherry bombs in the mailboxes over in the black part of town. Heard rumors about him breaking into a few houses and stealing stuff, but if he did, it was hushed up. I don’t have to tell you Grady Hunter’s pretty important in town, has all manner of influential friends here and in Little Rock. Guess he should have spent less time with them and more watching his son.” She shook her head in disapproval. “I heard the police talking outside my office.
I guess they dragged his best friend, Eddie Johnston, out of bed to see what he knew. He said last time he saw Toby he was heading home after they’d had a burger at the Dairy Queen. Of course, how much of that is true remains to be seen. They could’ve just as easily and more’n likely been drinking beer at some roadhouse. Might’ve been a fight between him and Eddie or one of his other white trash friends, but there’s lots of people in this town who bear a grudge against Toby Hunter.”

“Like who?” I asked.

She shook her head, her ivory cheeks blushing pink. “Oh, I’ve said too much already. Howard’s always sayin’ I’m worse than a mockingbird.”

“How’s Grady taking it?” I asked, arranging some German chocolate cookie bars on a platter.

“Haven’t heard, but I imagine he’s real torn up, his only child and all. And the unexpectedness of it.” Her eyes widened slightly in curiosity. “But I guess you’d know about that. Heard about Jack when we were in Alabama. You doin’ okay?”

“Fine,” I said, wiping my fingers on a pink paper napkin. “It is hard when someone you love dies unexpectedly. You never. . .” I thought for a moment, searching for the right words. “You never quite stop believing they’ll walk through the door and life will pick up where you left off.”

Her smile was mischievous. “Guess that might cause a little excitement in your life now if
that
happened.”

I laughed. “Yes, it definitely would. I’m going to pick up Gabe this afternoon.”

“Your aunt Garnet thinks the moon and stars of him. Talks about him all the time, what a handsome, well-mannered man he is.”

“He can be charming. Elderly ladies are his specialty.”

She nodded out toward the fellowship hall where the talking had risen at least three decibels. I hoped I wasn’t
the subject. “Then he ought to do fine this week.”

“No doubt,” I said.

We carried the cakes, pies, and cookies out to the big room and arranged them on the long paper-covered tables. The ladies, most of them Dove and Garnet’s age, made a last few stitches, then gradually, still talking, meandered over to the ladened table.

“The coffee’s almost done, ladies,” Shirley said, pointing to the fifty-cup stainless steel coffeemaker. “Hot water’s in the kitchen if you want tea. Let’s say the blessing, and then you can tear into it.”

After the fastest blessing in church history, the ladies crowded around the table. I smiled and chatted with them as I laid out plastic spoons, pink paper napkins, sugar cubes, and powdered cream.

“How come you don’t have no babies?” Mrs. Ryan, the organist said, her voice sharp enough to cut five-year-old fruitcake. Though she was completely deaf at ninety-two, she still played the organ for every Sunday service, wedding, and funeral at Sugartree Baptist. Today her platinum wig sat slightly askew on her dried-apple doll head.

I shrugged at the inevitable question and said, “Just not blessed yet, Mrs. Ryan.”

“You work outside the home?” Mrs. Versie Pitts, the head deacon’s wife asked. She was a mere sixty-two, a bit young for this group, and stout and solid as a tree stump. She was best known for her kind heart and her tendency to hiccup when she was nervous. She taught me and Emory three years in a row in Vacation Bible School when we were eleven, twelve, and thirteen. She spent a lot of time hiccuping.

“I work as a curator for a folk art museum,” I said. “It’s supposed to be part-time, but you know how that goes.”

She leaned over the table and said in a loud whisper, “Quit that job right now. Too much mental stimulation freezes up the uterus, and then the baby can’t stick. Trust
me, hon.” She patted my hand and took three lemon bars.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “Have you mentioned this theory to Duck Wakefield? I’m sure he has some doctor friends who’d love to study on it.”

She waved a plump hand at me, then added a chocolate-covered homemade doughnut to her plate. “Oh, those doctors think they know everything. I’m telling you, my granddaughter, Clarice, quit workin’ at the bank down to Little Rock and
kaboom
, it was not but three months later she was expectin’ twins.”

“Kaboom, huh?” I said.

“Just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”

Beulah, who’d been standing behind Mrs. Pitts for the whole exchange, rolled her eyes. “There’s one for your diary,” she said, taking an oatmeal cookie.

I watched Mrs. Pitts walk away, a bit irritated at her nerve and yet oddly amused, too. I knew she wasn’t a mean person and would give her last nickel to help someone in need. I remember as a child her telling us stories of taking people into their home who were just passing through Sugartree on their wanderings to find something. She’d give them a hot meal and wash their clothes or find them new ones in the missionary barrel. She and her husband, Joe, were the ones years ago who’d taken in Frank Lovelis when he was found wandering drunk in the streets of Sugartree. They got him the job as church janitor, and he’d lived in their garage apartment ever since. As kids, we’d never heard what his story had been, where he’d come from, how he’d ended up in Sugartree. It was a great source of speculation and tall tales among us in the late evenings spent up in Emory’s tree house.

“What was that old busybody telling you?” Dove asked, coming up behind the table and standing next to me.

“How to unfreeze my uterus so babies will stick,” I said. “Too much mental stimulation. That’s my problem.”

“Land’s sakes, Versie Pitts is as good and honest as they come, but sometimes that woman can be a chicken salad sandwich minus the chicken.”

I smiled. “It’ll give me something to amuse Gabe with when I see him this afternoon.”

“When is my boy due in?” Dove asked, surveying the spread and choosing a piece of red velvet cake. She stage-whispered to me, “Melba Rae Satterfield made this. Make a note. She’s got the cleanest kitchen in town.”

“Duly noted. And three o’clock.” I leaned closer to her. “Uncle WW told us about Toby this morning. How’s everyone taking it?”

Her pale eyes grew watery. “That poor man. We took some food over to Grady’s house before we got here. His housekeeper said he wasn’t even there, was down at the police station. Lord, that is the hardest thing for a parent to experience, havin’ one of their children pass on before they do.”

“I met Grady Hunter yesterday. He seemed pretty nice.”

She nodded and looked down at the piece of cake in her hand. “He is, from what Garnet says.”

When a couple of women walked over to greet her, I took a molasses cookie and wandered over to study the quilts in progress. Walking across the long fellowship room was like time-traveling back into my childhood. The walls reflected the different Sunday school classes with primary grades’ hand-colored pictures of Noah’s Ark and some interestingly conceived purple and blue zebras and red elephants to the Bible verse memory contests of the older children (at the top of everyone’s list and still a perennial favorite—John 11:35—“Jesus wept”) to the teenagers’ brightly colored “What Would Jesus Do?” posters.

The quilts, though they wouldn’t win any awards in today’s quilt world with its emphasis on original design and nontraditional patterns, were also timeless favorites. One was a signature quilt, obviously meant for the former
pastor, Brother Cooke and his wife. It was a nine-patch set-on point using fall colors in a mixture of solid color fabric and conversation prints of pumpkins, maple leaves, and tiny acorns. The colors were soothing to the eye with its blend of topaz, crimson, rust, coffee brown, and tan. Touches of orange, an unexpected and often misused color, gave it interesting spots of color and kept it from being boring. These ladies might not know all the avant-garde designs, but they knew the colors of their land, and their stitching was something younger quilters could and should admire.

I leaned over it, holding my cookie away so it wouldn’t scatter crumbs. In the middle of every other square was an embroidered name. In the quilt’s center, a topaz square, larger than the others, stated in cursive stitching that I recognized as Aunt Garnet’s handwriting: “Honoring Brother Edwin Cooke and his wife, Martha—A Good Name Is More Desirable Than Great Riches.”

“Huh,” Dove said behind me. “That’s ’cause they’re feelin’ guilty for how little they paid him over the years. Garnet and WW used to have to stand on their heads and whistle Dixie backwards to get the church to vote them even the tiniest raise. She said those poor folks weren’t paid enough to choke a gnat. Garnet might be a lot of things, but she ain’t cheap.”

“Why, Dove Ramsey,” I said, turning to face her. “I can’t believe you’re actually saying something nice about Aunt Garnet.”

Her face went rigid, then she narrowed one pale blue eye at me. “That’s between you and me, missy. I mean it, I’ll wear you out if you tell Garnet I said that.”

I held up my hands. “Your secret’s safe with me. Far be it for me to spread gossip that actually says something nice about someone.”

“You’ve got a smart mouth,” she said, smacking my shoulder.

“Wow,” I said, going over to the other quilt, the one
they were auctioning off this Sunday afternoon to raise money to help cover the expenses of the possible church merger. It was a Crown of Thorns, a difficult pattern that reminded me a lot of Double Wedding Ring. The background was off-white with the circles of the crown made of red, brown, gold, and off-white. It was bordered in gold fabric, and the stitching on it had to be sixteen or seventeen stitches to the inch, each one as even and neat as if one person had stitched the whole quilt. It was obvious this group of women had quilted together for many, many years.

“These are beautiful,” I said to Aunt Garnet when she walked up next to us. She and Dove eyed each other but didn’t speak.

“Yes, well, the signature quilt for Brother Cooke was a last minute thing,” she said. “Actually we made them a presentation quilt before they left a few years ago that was much prettier. It was an appliquéd album quilt with scenes from the Bible. My square showed Paul and the burning bush.”

Dove opened her mouth to correct her, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her away before she could.

“I’ll see you tonight, Aunt Garnet,” I said. “Gabe will be with me.”

She beamed at his name. “He’s such a dear man. You are so lucky he married you. Especially at your age.”