Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 06 - A Corpse Under the Christmas Tree (25 page)

“I told you Pa wants us home by six to eat leftovers before he goes over to Miss Lettie’s house.”

“Back to Miss Lettie’s?”

“Yep, back to Miss Lettie’s.”

“Frankie, that woman’s mentally disturbed, and I don’t understand how she got that way in these few days since her son’s death. I feel sorry for her, but Daddy doesn’t need to get mixed up with Miss Lettie.”

“Fine, you tell Pa that. He doesn’t listen to me or Mike.”

We both knew Daddy wouldn’t listen to me either.

“Speaking of getting involved, has Jane been seeing anyone since we broke up?” I’d known Frankie would ask me that sooner or later.

“It’s not fair for you to ask me that, and if she was, I don’t know that I’d tell you, but the answer is no. She hasn’t dated anyone since you moved out.” I faked a yawn to show him I wasn’t interested in pursuing that conversation.

“I didn’t move out. She threw me out.” He blinked several times. Good grief! Was my brother going to burst into tears?

“Same difference,” I said and yawned even bigger.

“Is she still working that phone job?” He faked a yawn back at me. I didn’t know what that was supposed to show, maybe to diminish how important that question was to him.

“She’s still Roxanne.” My big sister impulses took over even though I’m younger than Frankie, and I began to lecture. “You’re living with Daddy and you occasionally pick up day work here and there. Jane can’t do that. Don’t you remember all the times she tried to get work and no one would hire her because she’s blind? Don’t you remember the times she got jobs and lost them because she had problems getting to and from work? Roxanne pays the bills and keeps Jane in the apartment, safe and sound.”

“I worry that some kook she talks to will come looking for her.”

“She assures me that the Roxanne phone is in the name of the company she works for and can’t be traced to our building. If you’re serious about making up with her, you need to back off about Roxanne until you have a job that will support the two of you.”

“I understand a phone job has advantages for her, but I’d rather she do surveys or be a telemarketer, something like that.”

Uncontrollable laughter gushed out of me. “She
is
a telemarketer,” I protested. “You just don’t like what she’s selling.”

“Oh, I like what she’s selling all right. I just don’t want her selling what she gives me for free.”

I wanted to hit him, but he was driving and besides, I’m too old to keep swatting my brothers when they make me mad.

Instead I screamed, “How dare you insinuate that Jane does anything wrong! Roxanne talks on the telephone. That’s all. What people do while she talks to them is nobody’s business.”

I’d been so involved in our conversation that I hadn’t been paying a lot of attention to where Frankie had driven until he pulled into Dr. Kirk’s animal ER and let me out at the door.

“Thanks!” I gushed in a pseudo-Southern magnolia voice, hopped out of the van, and ran inside. There was no one behind the desk, but several people sat in the waiting room, including a man and a little girl with a gigantic, absolutely colossal, light brown dog with wide-set eyes and a wrinkled forehead. Long ropes of slobber dangled from its jowls. I’m nosier than I am shy, so I asked, “What kind of dog is that?”

“He’s an English Mastiff,” the man said and stroked the huge dog’s back. “He weighs over three hundred pounds and is far from the largest English Mastiff on record.”

“He’s my dog,” the child said. “His name is Duke. He likes to play. Watch.” She reached into a Dora the Explorer bag beside her and pulled out a fuzzy, stuffed Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. She held it out toward Duke, almost poked it at him. When she squeezed the toy’s sides, its nose blinked. Duke moved his head closer to her and licked the toy.

“Miss Parrish, good to see you,” the receptionist said when she came back to her desk. She took a large medicine container from the shelf and handed it to me. “This is an antibiotic the doctor wants you to give the dog one each morning and one at night.” I opened the cap and looked at the capsules. They were humongous.

“Excuse me,” Frankie said when he stepped inside, “may I use the restroom?”

“Certainly,” the receptionist said and pointed toward a door behind her desk. She turned back to me. “I’ll get your dog, be right back.”

She didn’t lie. She returned in no time with Big Boy on a leash. He looked at me and I swear, he grinned. I know some people don’t believe dogs have facial expressions, but mine does. Sometimes he even rolls his eyes.

Just then, Big Boy saw Duke. He stiffened and barked angrily. If I hadn’t been holding the leash tight enough to restrain him, he would have attacked the larger dog. As I apologized, Big Boy snarled and pulled against the leash, trying to get to Duke. I looked around for Frankie. I wanted to get out of there, but I didn’t know where he’d parked the van.

“You can bring Duke back now,” the receptionist told the man.

“I don’t want to see the doctor give Duke a shot,” the little girl said.

“You can wait for me here then,” the man told her and took the dog through the door.

I restrained Big Boy close to me and sat down waiting for Frankie to come out of the restroom.

“I’m sorry my dog acted like that,” I told the child.

The little girl brought the toy Rudolph around and thrust it at Big Boy just the way she had pushed it toward her own dog.

Big Boy went bonkers. He screamed. Yes, he did. It wasn’t a bark nor a howl. It was a terrified yelp as my dog tried desperately to climb into my lap. Frankie hooted a long, loud, snorting guffaw. I hadn’t even noticed his return from the restroom. The little girl snickered a high-pitched, joyful giggle. I yanked as much of Big Boy as possible up onto my lap and rubbed his head. The child put the stuffed animal back into her Dora the Explorer bag, but she still laughed softly. Frankie gently lowered Big Boy from my lap and led him outdoors by the leash.

The past few minutes must have really upset Big Boy because the minute we cleared out of the vet’s office, he squatted like he always did to relieve himself. My dog was over a year old and had never lifted his leg. He
always
hunkered down like a girl dog.

I can’t say Big Boy stopped mid-stream because he hadn’t begun yet, just assumed his usual position. He crouched there a moment, then stood, legs fully extended.

“What’s he doing now?” Frankie demanded.

I couldn’t answer because it was my turn to laugh, and I couldn’t stop. Big Boy hiked his leg like a boy dog and shot a sizable stream directly onto my brother’s leg.

Frankie didn’t say a word to me or Big Boy all the way back to St. Mary. He let us out at my apartment without asking to go in or inviting us to eat leftovers at Daddy’s. My brother was not just pissed on, he was pissed off.

• • •

Big Boy had learned to lift his leg like a male dog, but other than that, he was back to normal. He brought his leash to me from the front door knob where I’d put it and nudged his nose into the book I was reading.

“Want a walk?” I asked and clipped the leash to his collar.

The sky had clouded over between the time we reached home and went for the walk. I’m not much on meteorology and couldn’t tell what kind of clouds they were. I wondered if we were going to get a little more snow or rain. I hoped not. Especially not the following day—the day of Patsy Corley’s funeral. Sure, there’s rain on lots of funerals, and Middleton’s provides big, expensive umbrellas when that happens, but I really hoped the day would be bright and sunny for the services of the girl I now felt guilty for thinking of as Fatsy Patsy a few years back.

I was hoping we’d be back from our jaunt around the block before the rain or snow began when a tall man approached me. His pulled-up hoodie shadowed his face, and I didn’t recognize him at first.

“Excuse me,” he said in a low voice, “can you tell me if this is Oak Street?”

“Yes, I can, and it is.” Big Boy and I continued walking, and the man fell into step with us.

“Looks like rain.” The man looked up at the sky, and his face became more visible. He was the fellow I’d seen in Gee Three the day before, the one who’d said he was working for a pig farmer whom I’d assumed was Pork Chop.

“Sure does. Hope it’s not snow again. This whole town grinds to a screeching halt when it snows.” Big Boy had decided to trot, and the man and I began jogging to keep up with the dog.

“Won’t matter to me. I’m headed out of town anyway, but before I go, I wanted to see where they found that Buchanan woman on Christmas Day. I read about it in the newspaper and want to see where it happened. Do you know which house it is?”

Coincidence or did this man know I lived where the body had been found? The sheriff tells me that he doesn’t believe in coincidence. I decided to ask a few questions of my own.

“Yes, it’s in the block behind us, the building with the big Christmas tree on the porch.”

“Are you going back that way?”

“We’ll pass it again. I usually walk Big Boy around the block a few times.”

“Mind if I walk with you?”

I wanted to say, “Yes, I mind. I don’t like a stranger walking with me uninvited and if Pork Chop hired you and was going to start feeding you today, why aren’t you at work?” That’s what I wanted to say, but the curious part of me thought I might get better answers by not asking those questions directly.

Catch more flies with honey than a fly swatter.
My daddy used to say that, and I guess the bottom line is that I tend to believe the things Daddy told me when I was a little girl.

“My name’s Callie—Callie Parrish.” I transferred the leash from my right hand to my left and reached out for a handshake.

“Ned—Ned Shives.” His handshake was firm, too firm, and the squeeze was tight enough to hurt my fingers.

“Good-looking dog you’ve got.” Ned attempted a smile, but it was more of a smirk, the self-satisfied sneer of a liar. I learned that from watching a body language expert on HLN television. Sometimes liars have a slight leer when they lie. What had the man lied about? Big Boy is not just a good-looking dog. He’s a
beautiful
animal.

Before I’d had time to think that through, Big Boy slowed down and stepped off the sidewalk to a grassy area. He squatted.
Dalmation! He’s going to tee tee like a girl again.
I was wrong. As my students used to say, he had to poop, make a doo-doo. I waited for Big Boy to finish his business, and Ned stopped beside me. As we stood there, Wayne Harmon drove by in a squad car and waved. I raised my hand in reply. Ned turned his head toward me and began talking animatedly about dogs, describing some hound he’d had when he was a boy. As soon as the sheriff had passed, he finished the story and asked, “Did you know that Buchanan woman?”

“No. I’d never met her, but my brother went to school with her.”

“Got any idea why someone would want to kill her?”

“No. I heard she’d had an argument with someone not long before Christmas, but I don’t know any details.” I used my plastic bag to pick up Big Boy’s deposit and drop it into another bag.

“I understand they’re looking to talk to that man. I believe his name is Norman Spires.” Ned said. “But I don’t see why they assume someone would kill a woman just because he shoved her.”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to confirm or deny anything the man said. Big Boy bounded back to the sidewalk and took off at a brisk pace. We followed him.

“That’s the problem,” Ned continued. “Any time somebody gets into trouble for one thing, the law wants to blame everything on them.”

I didn’t answer, which was just as well because the man began whistling. He whistled an intricate, beautiful version of “Winter Wonderland,” as we walked on around the block and arrived in front of my apartment. Something about his whistle nudged my mind, but I didn’t have a real thought about it. It bothered me, but I wasn’t sure why. The man didn’t seem threatening in any way, but a spine-chilling eerie feeling crept over me. It certainly wasn’t caused by his whistling. It was exquisite.

What should I do? I didn’t want to continue walking with Ned Shives, but I didn’t want him to see me go into the place where a body had been found on the porch. Some people are creepy. Otis and Odell have told me about disturbed people who have bizarre attraction to the deceased, and I’ve read enough mysteries and watched enough on television to know that some weirdos have peculiar interests in crimes and death, even collect mementos associated with them.

As I considered how to get myself away from the man without letting him know my connection with where Amber Buchanan’s body was found, Wayne’s Jade County Sheriff’s Department cruiser drove past us in the opposite direction and pulled over to a stop. The sheriff stepped out of his car and walked toward us. Ned said, “Nice to meet you, Callie. I’ll see you later,” and continued walking. Big Boy lay down and rolled over for Wayne to scratch his belly. I noticed that smudges of blood had seeped through the dog’s bandage.

“Who’s your friend?” Wayne asked as he gently rubbed Big Boy’s abdomen, making it a point to avoid the bandaged area.

“Some character who wanted to know if I could tell him where Amber Buchanan’s body was found.”