Casket Case (17 page)

Daddy stepped up to Ms. Lucas. She gave him a look that showed how low she thought he was, and said, “Stay out of this. You people are nothing but trash.”

Now, I admit that Daddy and The Boys are rednecks, but
nobody
calls my daddy “trash.” Jane might not have been able to grasp exactly where Dorcas Lucas was, but I could see her, and I did something I should not have done. I, Calamine Lotion Parrish, am a calm, polite person (most of the time) and a former kindergarten teacher, trained to behave in a civilized manner. That didn’t stop me.

I slapped Dorcas Lucas smack across the face.

Instead of hitting me back, kicking me, or screaming like I expected her to, she burst into tears before shrieking, “How dare you?”

“It’s time for you to leave.” Me.

“I’ll stay if I want to.” Lucas.

“Oh, no, you won’t.” Otis, as he stepped into the fracas with Odell right behind him. “This is a private party in my place of business, and you’re not welcome.”

“How can it be private when it was announced on the radio?” Ms. Lucas still sounded belligerent.

“Stay out of this, Doofus,” Odell said to Otis before turning to Ms. Lucas. “Lady, this is a mortuary. Unless you want us to be measuring you for one of the caskets in the storage room, I suggest you get out of here. We don’t take kindly to prejudiced people picking on a handicapped person.”

I looked around for Jane. If she heard Odell call her “handicapped,” we’d have a bigger fight on our hands. I didn’t see her. Bill leaned over me. “Jane wanted to go home. Frank took her.”

After Ms. Lucas left, I was afraid the party would die, but we got back to music and dancing. I saw Levi refilling the beer tubs. My first-ever real birthday party lasted far past midnight before the crowd thinned out, and we were left to clean up.

As we packed up presents and leftover food, I realized that Frank hadn’t returned. He’d been my ride, so I’d have to ask another brother or Daddy to take me home.

“A little bit of a spitfire, aren’t you?” I looked up to see Levi putting empty food containers in a big black trash bag near me.

“Not all the time,” I mumbled and thrust several bare pizza boxes into my own trash bag.

“Might be a good thing the sheriff wasn’t here tonight. He could have arrested you for assault.” Those dark brown eyes twinkled at me.

“Don’t say that. Sheriff Harmon’s a friend of my family, and I don’t think he’d want to arrest me, but that Lucas woman might swear out a warrant, sure enough.”

“I was just teasing you.” He stopped working and looked me in the face with those deep, dark, sensuous eyes.
Whoa, Callie,
I thought. Don’t go thinking
sensuous
. “Could I take you home?” Levi asked.

“I can get a ride with . . .” I stopped midsentence. “Yes, yes, if you don’t mind, I’d like for you to give me a ride home. I came with Jane and Frank, but they left early. Where’s Denise?”

“Her brother has to go right by her house, so she left with him. You know her brother, the bearded guy with the Dobro. Mullet Man.” He grinned. “You didn’t think Denise and I came together as dates, did you?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” I fibbed.

“We work together, and I feel protective toward her, but I’m too old for her. I wouldn’t be dating Denise even if she didn’t have that big brother.”

“Dennis Sharpe with Carefree Pets is her brother?”

“That’s the one. Denise said everyone used to call him Mullet Man because he wore his hair like that years after it went out of style.”

“I don’t know that it’s any kind of style now,” I said. “Wonder what he looks like with his hat off and ponytail loose around his shoulders.”

“Don’t know. He’s always got some scheme how to make a fortune. Meanwhile, his sister waits tables to pay her bills instead of going to college.”

“Does she live with her brother?”

“No, she says she couldn’t stand to live out there with Dennis and all those animals. She lives in a rooming house.”

Levi turned back toward Daddy, Bill, and Mike. “Hey, nice party. I’m going to give Callie a ride home.”

“Fine, see you later,” Mike called.

“Wait here while I get the car,” Levi said when we got to the side door. He drove a dark blue PT Cruiser, which he pulled up under the awning, close to the door. Rain still poured, and thunder rumbled as lightning streaked across the sky. We rode silently to my apartment, and Levi parked off the drive so that my car door was close to the porch steps. I started to open the door, and he said, “No, no. I’m old-fashioned. Let me get that for you.”

He ran around to the passenger side, held the car door for me, and helped me up the steps. When I found my house key, he took it from me and opened the door.

“Umm,” I said, “I hope I didn’t mislead you. I accepted your ride, but I’m not sure I want you to come in.”

“You don’t like me?”

“I might like you just a little too much for you to come in,” I said, expecting him to plead his case or even get huffy about it. Instead, he leaned over and said, “I understand, but can I please give you a birthday kiss?”

Not a word came from my mouth, but my eyes and expression must have said yes, because he gave me a gentle kiss. He had the softest lips I’d ever felt. The kiss deepened and my weakness heightened. I was considering telling him he could come in for one cup of coffee when he broke the kiss and whispered, “Happy birthday, Callie.”

I closed the door as he said, “Lock everything,” from the other side of the door. I don’t know why every man I know thinks he has to tell me to lock my doors. What kind of stupid do they think I am? Besides, as soon as he left, I had to try to make Big Boy go outside and tinkle before the poor dog exploded.

Rays
of sunshine slanting through the window blinds woke me. Big Boy sat by the bed with his leash in his mouth. I pulled on a pair of Keds and khaki shorts with the tee I’d slept in and took him outside. When he finished, he ran up to me with what I swear was a big grin on his face. Water still stood in the yard, but the sky was clear. We walked about a mile, then turned back.

In the apartment, I poured Big Boy a bowl of Kibbles ’n Bits, started a pot of coffee, and called Jane.

“Hello-o-o-o-o-o,” Jane answered in her sexy Roxanne voice.

“Hey, Jane. Wrong phone. This is Callie,” I said.

“Oh, you woke me up.”

“How long did my brother Frank stay?” I questioned.

“Don’t ask,” Jane said.

“I’m treating myself to breakfast at the Pancake House, and I want you to come with me. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“How do you know the Pancake House is open?”

“If it’s not, we’ll drive on to Beaufort and eat there.”

“I thought I’d sleep in today. I drank a lot of beer last night.”

“Come on. The sun is out. The Boys will probably want to move you today, and Daddy’s started going to early church service. They’ll be over there and underfoot all day. I want to talk.”

“I’m not answering questions. I told you that.”

“Well, after the two of you left without me, Levi Pinckney brought me home.”

“Oh. Okay, but I’ll treat since I didn’t have a present for you at the party.”

“You gave me the garnet before we went.”

“I’ll treat anyway. See you soon.”

I play-wrestled with Big Boy for a few minutes, got a quick shower, and headed over to Jane’s.

When I turned into her driveway, I noticed that she still had more puddles in her yard than I did. I pulled up close to the steps so Jane wouldn’t have to walk through all that water and mud. My first thought was that someone had splashed mud all up on the stairway. Then I saw what looked like a pile of rags at the bottom.

I promise, I had no idea that I was screaming. The sound escaped my mouth with no conscious thought. I was vaguely aware of the sound of the door opening and Jane calling from the top of the stairs, “What’s wrong, Callie?”

“Stop!” I screamed at her. “Stay at the top and call 911.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“There’s blood all over down here and about halfway up the steps. Don’t try to come down. You’ll step in it.”

“Blood?”

“Yes, I think it’s blood and the pile of clothes here might be a body.”

“You’re kidding. You haven’t found
another
corpse have you, Callie?”

“I’m afraid so.”

 
“She’s upset. Can’t
I go up and sit with her?” I pleaded with Sheriff Harmon. The cloth at the foot of the stairs had been Dorcas Lucas’s raincoat, and now the whole yard was crawling with forensics technicians, sheriff’s deputies, and state police officers. The coroner had given me a strange look when he arrived and saw me there. I would imagine he’s drawn a few strange looks himself with his tall, skinny body and an Adam’s apple that beats any other I’ve ever seen.

“No, Callie,” the sheriff said, “for the last time, Jane can’t come down those steps and you can’t go up them until we’ve finished here.” They’d already shot about a million photographs. Well, it seemed like a million, probably not more than a thousand. Maybe only a few hundred. I’m inclined toward hyperbolism. They’d measured distances and marked distances, and they’d finally moved the raincoat and turned the body. Her head was broken. I know that’s not a medical term, but I’m not a medical person.

The back of the woman’s head exhibited more than a fractured skull. Her skull was shattered, with bits of bone showing in the bloody brain matter exposed by the hole in her head. I hate, positively hate, the fact that when a body is exposed for a while, whether undiscovered or while waiting for the authorities to complete their tasks, flies can’t stay away. The sun shining on the wings of flies around the body made them look iridescent, a spot of beauty in the otherwise ugliness of insects swarming over a corpse. The coppery smell of blood made me feel nauseous.

“I asked you a question.” Sheriff Harmon said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”

“A deputy took a report from you about Dorcas Lucas harassing Jane. I’ve been told they had words at your party last night also.” A flash of embarrassment crossed his face. “By the way, I’d planned to be at your party, but we’ve had more than our share of traffic accidents with all this rain. Matter of fact, Cousin Roger had been announcing for people to stay off the roads at the same time he was inviting them to your party.”

“I still haven’t heard your question,” I said in an almost, but not quite, smart-alecky tone. I’ve known Sheriff Harmon my whole life and sometimes I treat him like one of my brothers.

“I want to know if Jane called you to come over here to try to get her out of this mess after she shoved Ms. Lucas down the steps.”

“Did Jane call you over here this morning?”

“No, I called her and told her I’d pick her up to go to the Pancake House.”

“They’re closed. Still no power.”

“I didn’t know that. When we got there and they weren’t open, we would have driven on to Beaufort. Their power’s been restored, hasn’t it?”

“So far as I know, Beaufort didn’t have any long-term outages.”

“Sheriff Harmon,” one of the state officers called.

“I’ll get Jane out of there as soon as I can,” Harmon said as he turned away from me and headed toward the officer.

“Can’t I just go up and sit with her?” I called.

“No, but you can call her on the cell and talk to her.” He shook his head and looked disgusted. “What am I thinking? You’re both persons of interest. I can’t let you talk to her until we get a statement from each of you.”

He turned toward a deputy and said, “We’re going to need a search warrant for Miss Baker’s apartment.”

“Everything in there is boxed up,” I said. “My brothers are moving Jane today.”

“Not until my men have been through everything, including looking in packed boxes. I want to see if Jane has bloody clothes hidden before we release her belongings.”

“Do you think we can move her this afternoon?”

Harmon didn’t bother to answer. He just gave me an official reprimand look and left me standing while he went to talk to the state officials.

I sat in the Mustang and pulled out my cell phone. I don’t know why I hadn’t made my first call before, probably too surprised and upset to think. I flipped the phone open and hit the automatic dial for “Daddy.”

The hello that answered was too low and sleepy for me to tell which Parrish man it was. “I need to talk to Frank,” I said.

“This
is
Frank,” the voice responded.

“I’m at Jane’s.”

“Yeah, we’ll be over there, but not yet, Callie. It’s too early to start moving her.”

“That’s not why I called. Ms. Lucas is lying at the foot of Jane’s steps.”

“Then call an ambulance, not me.”

“She’s dead, and Jane’s upstairs, and Harmon won’t let Jane come down or me go up. He seems to think Jane pushed her down the steps, and he’s getting a search warrant for Jane’s apartment. He’s sure to want to talk to you, too.”