arkansastraveler (29 page)

“It’s so sad,” I agreed, not needing her to elaborate and hoping, like her, that this mysterious criminal would be standing before the Almighty God sooner than later.

“How old was his daughter?” I asked flat out.

“About fifteen or sixteen, I think,” she said.

Though I hated it, I had to face the facts my prying had uncovered. It was entirely possible that Mr. Lovelis, after seeing Tara at the side of the road, could have, in a fit of rage—post-traumatic stress or something—confronted Toby and killed him. It was farfetched enough to almost seem credible. To me, anyway. The question was what should I do, if anything, with this information? As I contemplated my dilemma, the subject of my mental debate poked his head around the curtain again, startling me.

“Oh!” I said, jumping at the sight of his unsmiling face.

“Hot dog?” he asked, holding this time a tray of paper-wrapped buns.

Had he overheard my conversation with Mrs. Pitts? How long had he been gone? I looked over at her, wondering if she was worried. Her wrinkled face was benign and unconcerned. Then again,
she
didn’t have anything to feel guilty about. Aunt Garnet’s snippy voice admonishing me
about the evils of gossip zipped along the electrical circuits of my conscience.

“Thanks,” I said, taking one, sneaking a quick peek at his face. Still expressionless. No answer there.

Mrs. Pitts shook her head no. “Maybe later, Frank. Thank you.”

Without another word, he was gone. I slowly unwrapped my hot dog and took a bite. I truly wanted to help Quinton and Amen, but was pointing a suspicious finger at an innocent man really the way to do it?

If he is innocent, a more cynical voice argued. Just because you feel sorry for someone, doesn’t change the fact that he might possibly be a murderer. And if he was, he deserved to face the consequences of his crime.

But Mr. Lovelis was a good man, and Toby was a bad one. How was that fair?

True justice versus emotionally satisfying justice. Gabe and I had talked about those concepts often. Emotionally satisfying justice makes us happy someone like Toby was punished for his actions. Clean, simple,
done
. And what’s most appealing is it didn’t have to be done by
us
. True justice demands that even people like Toby get a fair hearing, a chance to give their side, their story. True justice would also demand that if Mr. Lovelis had killed Toby, that he be punished for his actions, too. Because Mr. Lovelis’s actions, if he was the killer, not only affected Toby, but so many other people, including Quinton, who might end up taking the blame for a crime he didn’t commit. Would Mr. Lovelis . . . or whoever killed Toby allow that?

I glanced at my watch. “It’s a quarter to twelve. The Ping-Pong drop will be happening soon.”

“That’s probably why we got so slow,” she said.

“I want to see it. Could we close up shop for a little while?”

“I can manage for a few minutes, dear. Go on and see if you can win something nice.”

“I’ll do my best.”

The sight was something I’ll never forget. Hundreds of people milling around the center of town clutching everything you could imagine to catch the Ping-Pong balls—leather baseball mitts, upside-down open umbrellas, cardboard boxes, plastic buckets, trashcans, laundry baskets. What was even funnier was the sight of that many people all staring up at the sky simultaneously every time someone thought they heard a plane. I scanned the crowds for Gabe or Elvia or Isaac—anyone I knew, but I couldn’t find one of them. But like everyone else, when I thought I heard the plane, I looked up and scanned the skies. So
expectant
were we, so
ready
, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of the ministers would take advantage of this ready-made metaphor and preach on the Second Coming at the Homecoming’s Sunday service.

Finally the plane arrived, its chattering engine sounding like a large mechanical insect above us. A collective groan rose up from the crowd when it flew over and nothing fell from the sky.

“What’s wrong?” I asked a large-bellied man wearing green army fatigue pants and a “Fish Tremble at the Sound of my Name” T-shirt. He held a huge black umbrella, open and ready. “Why didn’t he drop any balls?”

“Testing the wind drift,” he said. “Last year he was off about a quarter mile ’cause of the wind and about ten houses up yonder got their yards plumb trampled.” He pointed to the other side of the courthouse, behind the 3B Cafe. “Guess Mayor Hunter told him to be more careful this year. Cost the mayor some pretty money to fix up them people’s lawns. Gotta say this for him, though, Grady Hunter did it and didn’t make anyone else chip in.”

While we waited for the plane to return, I glanced around at the buildings surrounding the square. Two or three men were on the roofs of each, milling about, waiting.

“Why’re they up there?” I asked the man who seemed to be an expert on this ritual.

“They’s owners of the stores and such. Lots of the balls end up on the roofs so they toss ’em down to the people,” he said.

We waited a few moments, and the sound of the plane started coming back toward us, a soft buzz in the air that was accompanied by a louder buzz from the excited people. Finally the plane was almost directly above us, and I heard someone yell, “They’re a’comin’!”

Like everyone else, I gazed up at the sky, but I couldn’t see anything except the clear blue air. Then, vaguely, against the sky, small white balls started to descend, hitting the streets with the
tick-tick-tick
of feet softly tap dancing, and then soon they were hitting the ground like a huge, artificial snowfall. Both kids and adults ran and screamed and lunged for the high-bouncing Ping-Pong balls. I stood where I was, unable to move because I was laughing so uncontrollably. I stooped down once to pick up the few that dropped in my vicinity.

As the balls continued to drop, I dodged people who chased the wildly bouncing balls like they contained gold nuggets and decided, free prizes or not, this was way too dangerous for me. I took my two balls and started back for the carnival fishing booth. I couldn’t help wondering what kind of pictures Isaac took of this. It happened so fast that I couldn’t imagine he got very many. As I walked, I read the two balls I’d picked up.

One was printed with “25% discount on shotgun ammunition—Big Buck’s Guns & Ammo.” The other said, “Free Christmas ornament from Dandy’s Five & Dime.”

I chuckled and stuck the balls in my purse. As a souvenir, they were much more amusing than the actual gift or discount they offered. Behind the curtain at the fishing booth, Mrs. Pitts had been replaced by Elvia who was busy attaching a plastic dinosaur to a blue fishing pole.

“Hey, thought you were pushing the candy apples,” I said.

She gave the blue fishing pole a tug. “Mrs. Pitts needed to use the ladies’ room. She put up a closed sign, but a few kids showed up, and I could hear them complaining, so Dove sent me over here.” She nodded at a child’s yellow plastic sand bucket sitting in the corner of the booth. “You look like you did all right with the Ping-Pong ball drop.”

The bucket was full of marked Ping-Pong balls.

“Those aren’t mine,” I said, holding up my two white balls. “I captured these two babies then hightailed it out of the square. It was crazy out there.”

Another fishing line appeared over the sheet. She glanced up at the pink stick, then picked up a pink sparkly necklace. “It has your name on it, so I assumed they were yours.”

I went over to the bucket and picked it up. My name was written in felt pen in small, scrawling letters. The bucket looked like it held about twenty or thirty Ping-Pong balls.

“Maybe Gabe got them for me,” I said. “You didn’t see who put them here?”

“No, they were here when I got here. I just thought you were quick on your feet.”

I gazed down at the bucket of balls. “Not
that
quick,
amiga
.”

In the next half-hour, business picked back up, and Elvia stayed working with me, after assuring a returning Mrs. Pitts that she was indeed having fun.

“Oh, thank you, dear,” she said, patting Elvia’s shoulder. “I was thinking I’d like to take a lunch break.”

We worked until two o’clock when two teenage girls sent by Mrs. Pitts took over for us.

“Cool prizes,” one of them said, putting on a large, fake diamond ring. “I want this.”

“Save a few for the paying customers,” I said, laughing.

“We will,” the girls said, giggling and digging through the baskets of toys.

I took my bucket of balls and walked with Elvia around the carnival. If togetherness and racial harmony were the goals, today Zion Baptist and Sugartree Baptist had achieved it. Hopefully the laughter and camaraderie of the carnival would spill over to the rest of church life.

After watching the cakewalk through a few songs, Elvia and I decided, since our official shifts were over, to go back to Aunt Garnet’s house and take our time getting ready for the progressive dinner tonight.

“I’m glad you’re going,” I said, putting my arm through hers as we walked down the tree-canopied streets. “There’ll be lots of people there. You won’t have to say one word to Emory.” Though I was hoping that whatever plan Emory had cooking in his devious mind would happen tonight.

“Benni, I’m going to talk to Emory and part on amicable terms. Just because we can’t have a romantic relationship doesn’t mean we can’t be civil.”

I sneaked a glance over at her face. She wore that stoic, no-one-can-touch-me look that I knew so well. Except I knew it for what it was, a mask hiding real fear.

“Sounds entirely sensible to me,” I agreed, thinking, baby doll, you have no idea who you’re dealing with. He’s not going to let you go that easily.

At home she took charge of the shower first so I sat down at the kitchen table and started reading my Ping-Pong balls. There were two giving free donuts at Leon’s Donut Shop, a free manicure at Beulah’s, a free pie if I attended a Zion or Sugartree Baptist service, a roll of film from the drugstore, a six month’s subscription to
Sugartree Today
magazine . . . I set that one aside to offer, in jest, to Elvia . . . a free fried pie from Boone’s restaurant, three ten-percent discounts on my total purchases from the new Wal-Mart outside of town, one good for a free air freshener (my choice of ten scents!) with my next car wash at Bubba’s
Car Washateria in nearby Frog Holler. I was having a great time and said a silent thank-you to whomever generously left me that bucket of balls.

Until I came to the second to the last one.

“I’
VE BEEN KEEPING
an eye on you all day,” Gabe said, his voice exasperated. “And this happens.” He stared down at the Ping-Pong ball I held out to him. With black felt marker someone had drawn a small swastika.

“Where were you? I never even saw you!”

“That’s because I’m good at tracking people. I told you something like this was going to happen. When are you going to start listening to me?”

“It could have been anyone,” I said, ignoring his lecture. “That booth was right out there in the open and was obviously unoccupied long enough for this to be planted. But if I was a betting woman, I’d put my money on John Luther.”

He pulled me under his arm and rubbed his chin across the top of my head. “I hate this. I have no jurisdiction or power here. How can I protect you?”

I gave a hollow laugh. “At least we know I rattled
someone’s
cage.”

His face wasn’t amused. “Did something happen today that I don’t know about? Did you talk to anyone?”

“Only Mrs. Pitts, and I can’t imagine she’d do this.” I paused for a moment.

His eyes narrowed at the corners. “I know that look.
Something
happened. What?”

I told him of my conversation with Mrs. Pitts about Mr. Lovelis’s past and the possibility he might have overheard. “But, honestly, Gabe, I can’t see him doing something like this.”

“Unless he felt threatened.” He took the ball from my hands, studying it intensely as if the answer would slowly tap its way out like a chicken from an egg.

“If I suspected anyone, it would be John Luther. He’s the one who painted the swastikas on the church.”

“Allegedly,” Gabe corrected.

“I
know
he did it. He’s probably just being a jerk.”

“You will stop asking questions now.” It was a statement, not a question.

I sighed. “Yes, I probably will. What’s the point? We go back in two days, and it’s not doing any good anyway. You’re right. There’s too much history here, too many secrets. It would take someone a year to figure out who did what to who. I’ll just have to trust in Duck’s attorney. With his money, I’m sure he found Quinton a good one.”

“No doubt,” Gabe agreed.

As we got ready for the progressive dinner, we heard the rest of the household arrive and start their own preparations for the event. I slipped on a simple fitted skirt and a thin cashmere sweater in the same shade of mocha.

“You look real pretty,” Dove said when I went into her room on the pretext of looking for some jewelry to wear. I really just wanted the comfort of her steady presence. “You oughta wear a skirt more often.”

“Rancher calling the farmer a sheepman,” I said. “You’ve worn a dress exactly twice since we’ve been here. Have you got a necklace or something for me to wear? My neck feels kinda bare.”

She dug around in her luggage and found a delicate gold chain with a tiger’s-eye cross attached. “This’ll look good.”

Standing in front of the dresser mirror, I put the necklace on. “This has been fun, but I’m sure ready to go home.”

She contemplated me a moment, her blue eyes turning sad. “No wonder you’re exhausted. You’ve been runnin’ around tryin’ to get this relationship with Emory and Elvia all sewed up and tryin’ to help Amen and Quinton. Sometimes, honeybun, things just have to run their course. Most of life is like a river—the water’s goin’ to flow where it will. Sometimes we just have to stand far back on the bank and let it wash by.”

I sat down on the pink chenille bedspread. “I know. I shouldn’t have interfered in either situation, but I just like seeing everything, you know, fit.”

She sat down next to me and hugged me to her. Her comforting touch, the familiar smell of her sweet talcum powder and almond-scented hair, was so calming. The balm of Gilead, my aunt Kate, Dove’s oldest daughter, always called it.

“Don’t forget,” she said. “The Lord God is with you, and He is mighty to save.”

“I’ve always loved the way that sounds.”

“That old prophet Zephaniah knew what he was talkin’ about. Don’t forget it.”

“No, ma’am,” I said, kissing her soft, powdery cheek.

I went back to my room to fetch my purse. It was sitting on the nightstand. Next to it was the Ping-Pong ball with the swastika drawn on it. For some reason, I picked up the ball and stuck it in my purse. Downstairs Elvia was waiting for us on the porch. She was dressed in a turquoise-and-black sheath dress. She wore simple Native American silver and turquoise earrings and black leather sandals. Everything on her was perfect, except her eyes, which were smudged and sad.

“Hold still,” I said, rubbing at an errant mascara spot under her left eye. “Now you look great.”

She shrugged, uncaring for once.

“Ready to go?” Gabe said, appearing in the doorway.

“Our first stop is appetizers at Emory’s,” I said, reading the list of addresses and directions provided by Aunt Garnet. I glanced at Elvia in question. “We could always skip that and go on to salad at Brother Johnson’s. He’s one of Zion Baptist’s deacons.”

“I’m fine,” Elvia said, standing up, her face empty of expression. “Let’s not miss any of the dinner on my account.”

“Okay, then it’s soup and bread at the Watkins’s, the main dish at Miss DeLora’s, ending with coffee and dessert at Grady Hunter’s.”

At Emory’s I stole glances at both him and Elvia, hoping something would happen. They were both seemingly relaxed and unaware of each other.

“They’re crazy,” I finally said, taking my plate of crab puffs and deviled eggs and sitting next to Gabe on the patio. “They’re acting like they don’t even know each other. Apparently my talk with both of them did no good whatsoever.”

“Let it go,
chica
,” he advised, taking one of my deviled eggs.

At Brother Johnson’s house, a large wooden farmhouse with a garden full of hollyhocks, pansies, and a very pampered bird of paradise, I found myself in line next to John Luther. After nodding quickly at each other without speaking, we both acted incredibly interested in the large variety of salads—Caesar, garden variety green, potato, coleslaw, and Gabe’s favorite, ambrosia.

We started to walk away from each other, then Dove’s “forgive your neighbor” training kicked in. I turned and followed him out the front door.

“This is silly, John Luther,” I said. “I don’t want to leave Sugartree with us mad at each other.”

“I’m not mad,” he said, going out on the wide porch and sitting down on one of the steps.

Tugging at my skirt, I joined him, balancing my plate on my lap. “Then let’s talk about what happened between us.”

“What happened between us is you were snooping where you shouldn’t have been, and that could get you in a lot of trouble.”

I studied the untouched salad on my plate. “I agree that my snooping was despicable. But so was what I found, wouldn’t you agree?”

He shoved a whole cracker in his mouth and chewed hard and fast, spewing bits of cracker back into his plate. “You’re just like that gramma of yours, coming here tryin’ to tell us folks who’ve lived here our whole life how we should act and be. Lady, you don’t know all there is to know. There’s a reason God made the races a different color, and they’re just as happy to be apart from us as we are from them. You bleeding hearts from California who come pushin’ your ideas on people who’re perfectly happy with how things are make me sick.”

I stood up, not willing to listen to any more of his rhetoric. Shock and disgust were just the tip of the iceberg of feelings pushing up through me just then. “You know,” I said, keeping my voice cool, “it just occurred to me that perhaps the paint on the church and the paint that ruined so many of Amen’s signs might have the same source.”

He frowned up at me, his angry face looking so unlike the John Luther I’d seen the first day I came to Sugartree. Then again, a sudden memory of this same face going out to confront Toby was eerily similar to his expression now. Could he have killed Toby and somehow framed Quinton? Figuratively killing two birds with one stone—avenging his
daughter and making sure that a white stayed in power in the mayor’s office.

“And what about this?” I said, setting my plate down and opening my purse. I pulled out the Ping-Pong ball marked with the swastika and tossed it to him. He dropped his fork, trying to catch it. We watched it fall on the ground in front of him. Before anyone could see, he snatched it up and stuck it in his pocket. “What did you think this would accomplish? Pretty pathetic little act of cowardice, John Luther.”

The high color in his temples told me I was accurate in my guess. He glanced around, then said in a low voice, “You’d best be gettin’ home to California real quick before you regret comin’ back to Sugartree.”

I gripped my plate, tempted to throw my salad all over him, and looked him straight in the eye. “Your threats don’t scare me.”

“It’s not you who’d get hurt,” he said, his round face grim.

His words caused my heart to pound. What was I thinking, sparring with someone with his beliefs? My foolish interfering could put Aunt Garnet and Uncle WW in real danger. I started walking away, then turned back, determined not to let him have the last word.

I bent down so no one else on the porch could hear my words. “John Luther Billings, hear me good. If you or any of whatever lame-ass, red-necked, shotgun-toting goons you hang out with ever harms even one leaf on my aunt and uncle’s property or one hair on their heads, I’ll hunt you down and cut off your balls myself. And you know I can do it.” I stood up and walked away without looking back.

“You okay?” Emory asked me when I went back into the house and put my still-full plate of salad on the table where dirty dishes were stacked. “You look a little flushed.”

“I’m fine,” I said, tightening my lips. “Just not very hungry.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “I’m the one who’s lost the love of his life.”

“So cry me the Mississippi River. That’s your own dang fault.”

He held up his hands in defense. “Hey, quit showing your canines. I’m working on it.”

“Work harder,” I snapped.

The next course, soup and bread, was at a large blue and white Victorian house three blocks from the Dairy Queen. We had to park across the street and down one block because some of the guests were swifter than we were.

“This is the Watkins’s house,” I read off Aunt Garnet’s list. “He’s apparently a lifelong member of Sugartree Baptist and owns the Dairy Queen. He should have asked to do dessert, don’t you think?”

Inside the lavishly decorated country-style house, heavy on ruffled curtains and maple furniture, we lined up for a choice of tomato bisque soup, chili, chicken noodle, or twelve-bean. The choices for bread were, naturally, baking powder biscuits or corn bread. I passed on the soup and moved down the line to the bread. Behind the stacks of biscuits and yellow corn bread stood Ricky Don Stevens, Tara’s jealous boyfriend. He wore a white full-length chef’s apron and held silver tongs.

“Which would you like?” he asked, his tongs poised between the platters of bread.

I pointed to the biscuits, and he put two on a small stoneware plate.

“How’d they rope you into this?” I asked, giving him a friendly smile.

He nodded over at the host and hostess who wore matching western-style shirts in a bright aqua with white piping. “My mom and dad.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Watkins are your parents?” I asked.

His young face grimaced just briefly. “Well, she is.”

I nodded in understanding. Blended families. Even in a small town like Sugartree, they were probably more common than not.

From the kitchen door, a redheaded woman in a bright pink pantsuit called out, “Ricky Don, there’s a fresh batch out of the oven here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he called back and handed his tongs to a teenage girl standing next to him. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched him go into the kitchen and idly wondered again if this young, sweet-faced boy could possibly have worked up a temper enough to beat Toby Hunter to death. The detective said that it was obviously someone who was very angry. That was an understatement. Someone who hit Toby that many times, making mincemeat of the back of his head, was beyond very angry into crazy angry. Maybe an anger that had been simmering away, unrelieved, for a long time. My thoughts went back to my encounter with John Luther. He was still a top suspect in my book—not that my opinion mattered to anyone.