Guess Who's Coming to Die? (20 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

BOOK: Guess Who's Coming to Die?
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I tried another tack. “Like you said, I know more about trees than you do, and trees don’t merely shade porches, they cool the whole atmosphere. They also produce oxygen from the carbon dioxide we breathe out. What do you reckon we’ll breathe when you developers have cut them all down?”
“Whoever’s around then will figure that out. People are amazingly adaptable.”
I pointed to a hickory with a trunk at least sixteen inches in diameter. “That tree’s roots hold and build the soil. Have you ever seen pictures of mud slides in Latin America, whole bunches of houses sliding down a mountain? We’re gonna have scenes like that in Georgia, if you developers don’t stop cutting down big trees and putting in little ones with shallow roots. Without trees, soil is like snow, sitting on top of whatever’s under it. Slides real easy. You really ought to leave the big trees. Think how classy they would make the place.”
She narrowed her eyes and looked at the hickory. “There won’t be any hills in this subdivision. And those big roots get in the way of sewers and underground power lines.”
“Couldn’t you put the clubhouse where the old house used to stand, with the pool where the azaleas were? It would look real pretty from the road, all surrounded with tall trees.”
“It makes more sense to clear-cut and replant when we are done.” Her tone chilled me. She had no appreciation whatsoever for the fact that that tree had been on earth longer than I had. All she saw was an obstacle to her plans. It took all my willpower not to jump out, dash across the muddy field, and fling myself between the tree and the dozer.
“I take it you’re naming this place Oak Hills in memory of the trees you’re killing?” If I sounded snide, I didn’t care.
Her eyes grew stormy, but she didn’t pucker her forehead like I expected. Then I remembered that at the beauty parlor, somebody had mentioned that MayBelle had gone to Atlanta for minor surgery while I was out of town. Must have been plastic surgery. Maybe that’s why her eyes looked bigger, her crow’s-feet were gone, and her face wore that flat, blank look.
She pulled to a stop again and got out. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She slammed the door real hard that time, and I could tell she was mad by the way she strode over to talk to another clump of workers. They could, too, from the way they edged closer to one another.
I figured I might as well swing down and take a last look at those trees. I couldn’t ever recall having hugged a tree, but that afternoon I felt like hugging several. When I thought of the oxygen and coolness those trees would not contribute to the air, the birds and squirrels those limbs would never shelter, the soil those roots would not hold and those leaves would not enrich, I could have sat down and howled. All those years of growing, only to be pushed over in their prime for nothing but greed and one woman’s convenience.
The bulldozer roared like a huge, hungry monster with an insatiable maw.
I walked toward an oak and stroked its rough bark. It trembled beneath my hand. Were the ancients right about trees having dryads inside them? Did this tree sense its end was near?
Then I realized that the trembling I felt was the earth around me. I looked up and saw, on the other side of the tree, the bulldozer bearing down on me. It had selected my oak as its next victim, and the driver couldn’t see me behind the thick trunk.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been approached by a bulldozer, but I can tell you that my thought processes went into hibernation. I stood there watching that thing come my way, and my feet wouldn’t jump to either side. Somebody yelled. That energized me, but instead of going sideways, my legs backed up. Next thing I knew, I had tumbled down a bank and was sitting on sharp rocks in twelve inches of muddy creek water with the most expensive skirt I owned hiked up around me. Red-orange water flowed across my legs and shoes and made the thick bandage on my left hand look like a repellent ketchup-soaked hot-dog bun. My expensive leather clutch purse floated out of reach while I waited for the tree to crash down on my head.
17
The air grew still. MayBelle yelled something to the driver and pelted toward me. Hands on hips, she glared from the high bank of the creek. “I thought you were in the Land Rover.” I couldn’t see her face for the sun in my eyes, but although it lit up her hair like a halo, she was no saint. I could tell by the way she stood that she’d like to throttle me.
I moved my arms and legs to be sure they were still intact. “I got out to say good-bye to the trees.” How could I have been so stupid?
MayBelle obviously wondered the same thing.
She turned and spoke curtly over her shoulder to some of the workmen. “Help her out.” Two men with thick, straight black hair, swarthy skin, and dark brown eyes slid down the muddy bank and put out caramel brown hands. “You’re not hurt, are you, Judge?” MayBelle finally thought to ask.
“Judge?” they repeated. Their eyes flickered in fear, then both whirled and scrambled back up the bank. I heard the thud of their feet pounding across the field.
I turned over on all fours and clambered to my feet, holding on to a couple of saplings for support. Good thing I hadn’t fallen in a few days later. MayBelle would have probably flattened the saplings by then, as well. As it was, she didn’t so much as lift a finger to help me.
I limped, wet and muddy, toward a place where the bank wasn’t so steep, and accepted the bulldozer man’s grubby hand to pull me up. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I never seed you a-tall.”
I exhaled a sigh of relief and frustration. “It’s okay.”
I lied. Nothing was okay. My shoes were ruined. My outfit was soaked and covered in wet leaves. My hair was full of who knew what. I had skinned my good palm and banged my sore hand, and both hips ached from landing on sharp rocks. That was definitely not one of my best public moments.
As I squished back toward the Land Rover through the muddy field, MayBelle spoke behind me. “I’ve got your purse. But are you finished with what you came to talk about? I’m fixing to head out to another site.”
“We’re finished for now.” I climbed in and settled myself on the seat of the Land Rover, glad we weren’t in her Mercedes. My skirt was clammy under me and streaked with mud. I accepted my poor, ruined clutch and gave MayBelle a sideways glance. “But seriously, can you think of anybody who might have a reason to want to kill Willena?”
MayBelle barked a short laugh. “Besides almost everybody?” She slammed my door, went around to her own side, and climbed in. As she started the engine, she asked more seriously, “You don’t think it was somebody from outside who found the door unlocked?”
“It’s hard to believe a stranger would happen to come to the community center in the pouring rain on the off chance they’d find a door open, then go to the ladies’ room on the off chance they’d find somebody there to kill, and win on every count.”
“Perverts do exist.”
“What pervert would have had access to Willena’s corkscrew?”
She steered over the field and headed toward our cars without saying a word.
I tried again. “You have to admit that getting permission from the commission to build on the wetlands will be a whole lot easier without Willena showing up at meetings to talk about squirrels and raccoons. And without Willena bugging them, it’s not likely that the EPA is going to care what happens to fifteen piddly acres in Hope County.”
“Darned tooting,” MayBelle agreed cheerfully. She pulled to a stop next to my car and cut her engine. “I need to get on to another project, Judge, but if you’re looking for a bigger house, you couldn’t do better than Oak Hills. It’s going to be gorgeous when it’s done.”
I was tempted to retort,
It’s going to look exactly like thousands of other subdivisions all over America
, but I didn’t. I was too wet and grubby to think of much else.
As I opened the door to my car, MayBelle called, “Keep an eye on Nancy. She’s not the goody-goody she likes to appear.”
 
I drove home muddy and miserable, wishing I’d gotten the leather seat covers Joe Riddley had recommended. Would I ever get that red mud out of gray plush?
Clarinda was gathering up her pocketbook, fixing to leave, when I arrived home. When she saw me she put down the pocketbook, propped both fists on her ample hips, and demanded, “You been swimmin’ in a mud hole? Don’t you recall you put in a perfectly good swimming pool down at the big house that Ridd and Martha said you and the judge could still come down and use anytime you want?” Joe Riddley would always be “the judge” to Clarinda.
She went on without taking a breath. “And look at that outfit! If the cleaners can get them stains out, it’ll be a miracle. And you might as well drop them shoes in the garbage right now and be done with it. You ain’t never gonna get no use out of them again. What you been up to?”
I sighed. “You don’t want to know and I don’t want to tell you. Would you call Phyllis and see if she can work me in for a shampoo this afternoon?”
“What happened to your cell phone? Did you drop it in the mud hole, too?”
“No, it’s still in the car. But everything else I own is ruined.” I opened my new little clutch purse over the sink and water streamed out. Clarinda took charge of the purse. “I’ll turn the oven on real low and see can we dry out the money and your pictures and such. You get in a hot bath before you catch your death of cold.”
I didn’t figure I was likely to catch my death of cold in May, but I was too bedraggled to argue. “Phone Phyllis!” I called back as I headed to the tub. “Tell her it’s an emergency.”
I cannot remember when a shower ever felt so good — or necessary. I went ahead and shampooed my hair. If Phyllis couldn’t see me, I’d have to stay home the rest of the day.
I stayed under the hot water so long, Clarinda finally banged on the door. “You okay in there? Phyllis says she can work you in if you’ll go right on down. I’m takin’ this here outfit to the cleaners on my way home, and I’ll take the shoes and purse to Guy, but I doubt he’s gonna be able to do a thing with them.” Guy ran the local shoe repair shop.
“Tell him to do his best. And thanks. I’ll be a new woman.”
“You gonna be something new, all right, if the judge ever finds out you’re meddling in this here murder,” she prophesied darkly.
 
By the time Phyllis had finished with me, I looked better but felt stiff and achy, I was limping from my sore hips, and the day was basically shot. It didn’t help to get a call from Isaac James, our assistant police chief, later that afternoon.
While Chief Muggins is one of my least favorite officers of the law, Isaac is one of my
most
favorite. Six feet tall and built to carry his height, Isaac has skin the color of polished mahogany and one of the finest minds I’ve ever known. I sometimes wonder if I would dislike Chief Muggins so much if I didn’t feel so strongly that Isaac should have been given the position back when our city fathers decided to import Charlie from Tennessee.
“I understand you called in a report on some feral dogs over in Pleasantville this morning and were sighted at Mad Mooney’s bar this afternoon. Are you starting a campaign to clean up that neighborhood?”
“It could use it. I was over on Good Hope Lane and saw a rat and all kinds of junk lying around in those yards, with little kids out playing in it. I asked Chief Muggins to send some deputies to check it out, but I don’t know if he will.”
“We can make a sweep.” I heard him writing and knew he was jotting a note on his desk calendar. “But you know as well as I do that as soon as we pick up one truckload of trash and haul one set of owners into court, the rest of the folks out there will be dumping another truckload on the yards.”
“We still have to try. Now, who told you anything about Mad Mooney’s?”
“A little jailbird. I had to book Stack Rogers again this afternoon for theft by taking and he mentioned he saw you drinking down at Mad Mooney’s right after lunch.”
“I was drinking a Co-Cola. Did Sheriff Gibbons hear him?”
If Buster knew I’d been spotted at Mad Mooney’s, there was no doubt whatsoever that he’d be teasing Joe Riddley about it before suppertime.
“No, he was out. But seriously, Judge, if you want to tipple after lunch, you can find a more congenial place than Mad Mooney’s.”
“A more sanitary one, too, I hope.”
“Clarence runs a pretty clean joint, all things considered. We’ve never cited him for a code violation yet.”
“Well, the rest of the neighborhood could use an inspection. And Ike? If you see Joe Riddley, don’t mention Mad Mooney’s, okay?”
“He won’t hear it from me, but you know you can’t keep a secret in this town. I don’t guess you want to tell me what you were doing there, do you?”
Isaac and I have cooperated on other cases, so I might as well tell him. “I was talking to Dexter, the custodian over at the community center. I’m puzzled about how the front door got unlocked while we were meeting Monday night. Dexter swears he locked it before he went back to his room, but when Cindy went out at the beginning of our break, it was unlocked.”
When Isaac didn’t say anything for a very long minute, I added, “Do you know if the forensics team has been alerted that Willena may have been poisoned? She was pretty sick in the ladies’ room just before she died.”

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