Hot Enough to Kill (15 page)

"Just look at her," Lucille hissed, covering her mouth with her hand and leaning toward me. "Sitting up there like a queen in her plain old black dress and that silly-looking basket hat, acting like she cared about him. That woman never cared about anything but his money and his name. They never even really lived together and I think she was out doing more carousing than he was. I wonder if her lover's here."

Interesting thought. I scanned the crowd, looking for what, I'm not sure, but I looked. Getting worked up over religion was a little better than getting worked up over the be-flagged casket--and unresolved grief--but trying to guess which of the men lurking in the crowd was Velma Bennett's lover was almost amusing.

"Jolene," Lucille whispered, distracting me from my almost-fun. "Look over there. That's Dee-Wayne Schuman standing in the middle of that little group." She bobbed her head in the general direction of a cluster of men and I picked out the one who looked most like a gorilla. It wasn't as easy as it sounds. "That white-haired old man next to him is the mayor now, Gifford Geller," she added. "I didn't know he and Dee-Wayne were friends, but they sure are looking chummy today."

Yes, they surely were. Gifford was the acting mayor now and Dewayne was the one needing a certain city permit issue forgotten. "Is Gifford still making Dewayne change his carports to garages?" I whispered.

"Good question. Maybe you ought to go ask him."

"Maybe I will," I grumbled back. "Maybe I'll ask them both separately. You sure they don't know each other?"

"Well, I'm sure they know one another, Jolene. Everybody around here knows everybody else. But that doesn't mean they were friends or ought to be hanging around together."

Someone behind us cleared his throat, which I took that as a definite sign somebody actually wanted to hear what the preacher was saying--or at least not hear what we were. I mumbled my apologies at being raised in a barn and nudged my mother toward the edge of the tent where a little pocket of empty space waited. We didn't have as good a view of the pulpit, but I wasn't complaining.

"Look there," Mother said, nodding back at Dewayne and Giff. "They're laughing about something."

They were probably laughing at us looking at them, but I didn't say so. Finally getting my wits about me, sort of, it occurred to me that the white car that had been nothing but a blurry cloud in my bullet-sprayed vision might very well be parked here somewhere. Odds were if the killer was here, his car was too--maybe.

The cemetery was laid out in random-shaped patches of plots with circular loops of pavement leading from one to the other and around. Cars lined the snaking roads as far as I could see. And, at least half of the vehicles were white. White sedans, a few white compacts and plenty of white pickup trucks--all with gun racks. "What kind of vehicle does Dewayne drive?" I whispered to Mother.

"I think it's one of those pickups with the four doors and a big old toolbox in the back. I see him at the Dairy Queen sometimes."

"What color?"

"White."

A shot cracked out across the cemetery.

I jumped, snapped around toward the sound and managed to catch myself before I fell to my knees. Apparently while I'd been busy looking for my assailant's vehicle, the preacher had finished his sermon and the honor guard had been called to arms. I turned and watched the smartly dressed crew with shiny shoes and white gloves finish their snappy drill. Impressive, always. I made certain I didn't even flinch for the next two volleys.

Lucille looked a little shaken by the gunfire also, but she was doing a better job of not letting it show than I was. She straightened her lovely red suit, this way and that, smoothing it down over her shapely hips with great dignity, or at least as much dignity as she could with her arm in a sling and her nerves on edge.

A couple of old ladies in the seats next to where we stood were snickering behind their Bibles and I was highly tempted to tell them that they might be a little gun-shy themselves if they'd been shot at a time or two in the last few days. I mean really. My mother had stitches in her arm from a shot through her window and I'd had a bullet an inch from my nose, not to mention that I'd seen my oldest and dearest friend nearly killed in my mother's kitchen. It was a wonder we both hadn't hit the dirt instantly. And in truth, I'd been closer to doing just that than I wanted to admit. Deciding they needed a little lesson in manners, I took a step in their direction.

Lucille caught my arm. "Don't waste your breath, Jolene."

She was right. There was no point. No matter what I said to the self-righteous biddies, it wouldn't change a thing. I turned back toward the front of the tent to see the honor guard present the flag and bullets to the official widow.

I was trying to peer over and see if she'd mustered up a tear or two when, off to my right, I noticed Dewayne Schuman edging away from main attraction and toward the back of the crowd. Then I realized there was someone in front of him, a woman, with her back to me. The dark curly-haired woman had Dewayne's full and undivided attention, and he was shaking his head "no" and backing up quicker by the second, so quick in fact that he looked in danger of tripping over himself. She wasn't a physically large woman but she was sure putting the fear into Dewayne. Interesting.

I started to get Mother's attention and tell her we should go check it out when I saw a flutter of ebony bobbing through the crowd. When it finally broke out into the open, I could see that it was a little gray-haired woman dressed all in black, scurrying from the funeral like a cockroach fleeing light. She had a dogged brisk step that rang a familiar bell, but not loudly enough for me to put a name to it. I made a quick look back for Dewayne and couldn't find him, which was curious. There'd be time to ask about that one later, so I nudged Mother and nodded in the direction of the black apparition hustling herself away. "Who's that?"

Lucille glanced at the woman and said, "Oh, that's just old Bony Butt. Good Lord, I bet she's hot in that get up. Wonder why she's running off before it's over? That's rather rude, even for her."

Yes, why? And what was going on with Dewayne Schuman? Where did his pal Gifford go, and how did any of it relate to the shootings?

I watched Ethel Fossy, aka Bony Butt, double time it across the freshly cut grass and flat headstones, not bothering to see who she was stepping on. For an old lady, she was really moving fast, faster than I could have in this heat, that was for sure. Bony Butt kept up her brisk pace until she reached the driver's side of an old Chevrolet Caprice four door, late seventies model, but still in decent shape, and yes, it was white.

Ethel tried to kill me? It made perfect sense, and it didn't. Even considering Bony Butt's fanatical bent, she wouldn't have shot me for what I'd said at the Dairy Queen, would she? Lucille, sure, but probably not me, and definitely not BigJohn. Bony Butt was his biggest fan, and she was also bosom buddy to wife Velma . Still it seemed like there was a link to something there that I couldn't quite grasp. Just for curiosity's sake, I turned back to Mother. "What kind of car does Velma Bennett drive?"

S

95

he bristled at the name, but answered anyway. "The old goat bought her a brand new Lincoln Town Car not two weeks ago--as a coming home gift, I guess. Or maybe as a bribe for putting up with his sorry self."

Before I could ask, Lucille said, "Yes, Jolene, it's white."

Well, now, weren't they all.

Chapter
10

The rest of the funeral had been fairly routine, which was plenty fine with me. I'd had enough excitement to keep my unruly emotions in check, although I did get a little teary on the way out when we passed near my father's plot with the tasteful bronze marker and military emblem. Naturally, I did my best to make certain no one noticed my traitorous leaking eyes. Naturally, I failed.

Mother had very kindly asked if I wanted to stop, and I'd very kindly said my usual "no." She'd just shaken her head and lectured me on denial and growing up and being mature. All in all, it was about the same speech she had used on me when I was an obnoxious fifteen-year-old. It was no more effective on the obnoxious forty-three-year-old, but I nodded and made sincere statements about doing better next time. We both knew I was lying. Some things never changed.

One thing that did change, however, was the identity of the deputy sentenced to watch us on the way home. They all seemed to like the job just about as much as we liked having them there, which was not at all.

Mother and I were pretty worn out from the funeral so neither of us had felt like harassing the night crew. I did get a little snippy when they told me I could not go to see Jerry nor could I call to check on him because nobody was going to tell me a single solitary thing. I went to bed early and fell asleep trying to make sense of the bits of weirdness I'd experienced.

When morning rolled around I was no clearer on much of anything, but I was wishing for another distraction--as long as it wasn't a funeral. As it turned out, there were several other things I could have omitted from my wish list, the first being the delivery of the daily newspaper.

"That idiotic little twit," Lucille spat, shoving the newspaper across the kitchen table. "Never in my life have I heard of such a thing. It's not like BigJohn was the King of England or anything. Why on earth would they put his funeral on the front page of the paper? And why would anybody in their right mind spend their time watching every move we made and then writing it down for the whole world to see?"

I peered over Mother's shoulder at the article, and my blood pressure thumped higher with every word. "Whispering and pointing throughout the service!" I read on,
blah, blah, blah
…
There was some speculation as to who and what they were discussing during the service as neither appeared interested in the memorial for the deceased.
"I can't believe she wrote that…about us…in this so-called news story!"

"This is just not right," Mother said, snarling and glaring at me as if I had either a clue or control over any of it. "How is she getting away with this, Jolene?"

My stock response to this sort of thing is usually "Welcome to the Bubble City," meaning Redwater Falls. I've had various theories about the mentality of the place, which ranged from "it's something they put in the water," to suspecting the city fathers (there are no city mothers) of a Stepford wives kind of thing, to a plain old "we do what we want around here" attitude. To my credit, I again kept my traitorous thoughts to myself.

The truth was, Redwater was a generally friendly and down-to-earth kind of place, but the world here worked in a predetermined manner, and nothing was going to change that--most especially not me. Nevertheless, I was obligated to try to rein in the loose cannon I'd lit a fire under. Kimberlee Fletcher needed her unprofessional little fuse dipped in a bucket of cold water--and fast.

Obviously, there was no point in complaining to a higher-up, either in the cosmos or at the newspaper, since somebody had to approve the printing of the trash. Maybe a Dallas paper would be interested in the situation. Yeah, and maybe they already knew--and were laughing their big city heads off. Redwater has a rather dubious reputation in the state, so I'm not the only one who picks on them. Fresh out of ideas on how to fix anything, I moved on to more pleasing options. "Well, Mother, I'm just about starved for one of those tasty chicken baskets. How about we go make a run up the street?"

Lucille glanced around to where our personal deputy sat in the living room, reading a NRA magazine with a look that could only be described as lust. "What about him?"

"What's he going to do, pull a gun on us? If he's a good boy I'll buy him an early lunch too. Otherwise, I'll leave him here. Either way, I'm getting out of this house."

As it turned out, the deputy didn't take too much coaxing, and we loaded up in the patrol car and took the three-minute, non-scenic drive to the one and only eating establishment.

There was a merry little throng at the DQ, at least until we three waltzed in and the world stopped turning. A quick study in the Lucille Jackson school of nonchalance, I pretended not to notice the wide-eyed stares or the reverberating silence and sauntered up to the counter to place our order.

The deputy, who was now looking like he regretted his decision to spring us, was scanning the room for either a killer or a place to hide. I suspected the latter. Lucky for him there was a booth open in the corner. He ushered Mother over to have a seat. She went, but very slowly, stopping at each and every table to speak and nod to those in her favor. The queen and her court. That makes me, what, the jester? Well, yes, and I take my position seriously.

When Mother finally settled herself at the royal table, I paid the tab, collected the drinks and paper tag number and wandered back to the assigned seat. Maybe I'd been cooped up too long, or maybe it is just inherent in my personality, but I was possessed to say something to these people, particularly since the only sound in the place was the deep fryer crackling behind the counter.

"Ya'll having a nice day?" I said, smiling stupidly as I sat the tray on the table. "We are too. Just hope we don't get shot at again. I'm getting a little annoyed with this guns and bullets stuff."

"I am too," said a thick gravelly voice. Leroy Harper stood up.

How had I missed seeing him?

Leroy had a big thick bandage taped across his forehead and a patch over one eye. The uncovered eye was red and puffy. He wasn't acting all that mad though, relatively speaking. Maybe he was going to express his gratitude for me heroically plucking the brick from his face.

"How's the head?" I asked, mostly sincerely.

He frowned and reached up to his brow. "Took them about two hours to dig out all the chips of brick. I've got eight stitches under here, Jolene," he said, pointing to the bandage and implying that this was somehow my fault. "Eight."