In Broad Daylight (20 page)

Lois decided to take a look at the two younger girls so she would recognize them if they ever returned to the store. She stepped outside and saw the three girls sitting in a green pickup just north of the store. Tammy was at the wheel. Lois stepped back into the store, and within moments, all three girls tromped back in, Tammy in the lead.

"Is there something else you want?" Tammy demanded, standing a few feet inside the door, glaring at Lois.

"No," replied Lois evenly, "I just wanted to see the other two girls, so if they come in here again, I will know them."

By this time, Evelyn had calmed down a little and, hearing the commotion, returned to the front of the store. When she saw the teenager she had waited on earlier, Evelyn said, "Debbie, you know I didn't accuse your little sister of raiding the store."

"Yes, you did!" said Debbie defiantly.

The three girls flounced out the front door, and the two women retreated to the back of the store to sort things out and regain their composure. About twenty minutes later, Evelyn heard the bells jingle and looked up to see a hulking figure striding down the cookie aisle toward them. "Batten down the hatches," she told Lois, "you're about to meet Ken McElroy."

Well that's fine, thought Lois, I don't know the man, haven't seen him for years, and I know Bo has never seen him. She stood up and walked around the table to meet him. Bo came out from behind the meat counter to back her up. McElroy's huge shoulders spanned the aisle, and in his hand he cradled a large pocket knife, holding it about chest high with the blade open.

"You can put that knife away," said Bo. "There's no need for that in here."

"Nobody tells me what to do," McElroy said, then smiled slightly. Almost chuckling, he said, "I have a right to stand here and clean my fingernails, don't I?" He fiddled with the knife, running the blade along the tips of his fingers.

A woman Lois didn't recognize burst out from behind him and stopped a foot or two from Lois and Evelyn. According to Lois, Evelyn and Bo, she opened up with a string of profanities that left both women speechless.

VI wanna know," the woman yelled in a rising falsetto, jabbing the air in front of the two women, "which one of you fuckin' bitches accused my fuckin' kid of comin' in this fuckin' store and raidin' it!"

Lois and Evelyn stood mute, in a state of shock. The woman, her face reddening and her blue eyes flashing, continued to spew forth, teetering on the edge of hysteria.

"I'm gonna take one or both of you fuckin' bitches out here in the fuckin' street and whip your fuckin' asses off!"

Still, neither Lois nor Evelyn could react. The language was horrible, but they had heard it all before; what stunned them was the viciousness of the attack and the fact that it came from a woman. Lois knew that there was an elderly woman at the front of the store, and she had seen the milkman come in a few minutes earlier. (The milkman, upon seeing McElroy with a knife, hid in the cooler.)

My God, thought Evelyn, suddenly recognizing the woman hurling abuse at them. This raving woman is Trena McCloud, that shy little blond girl. She noted a slurring lisp in Trena's voice, something she had never heard before, and wondered whether it was permanent or simply a result of her excited state. Recovering enough to respond, Evelyn said, "I waited on the girl."

But Trena was out of control.

"Which one of you bitches is the fuckin' boss around here?" she screeched.

Lois came to and puffed up a little. "I'm the boss around here and she works for me."

"If you'll just shut up a minute," Evelyn said to Trena, "I can explain to you what happened, but you'll have to come up front to the register."

Trena began yelling again. Finally McElroy, who had said nothing so far, told her to be quiet and let the woman explain. Trena shut up immediately.

At the register, Evelyn reenacted the entire incident. Trena paid attention and seemed to understand. McElroy appeared almost nonchalant, asking no questions and making no comments. When Evelyn had finished, Trena said, "Why would Debbie lie to me? She had no reason."

"I don't know, Trena," Evelyn responded, "I really don't know." Maybe, thought Evelyn, Debbie didn't want to bring the little girl to town in the first place, or maybe she just had to have some explanation for why the little girl was crying when the two of them left the store.

At that point, McElroy, who had been watching Lois replace the roll of tape in the register, turned to her and said he wanted a pack of Camels. Pride and pugnaciousness rising within her, Lois looked Ken McElroy in the eye and said in an accusatory singsong, "Sir, I understand that nobody in your family wishes to do business in this store anymore."

"That's right," McElroy responded.

"So be it," said Lois, closing the conversation.

McElroy and Trena walked out, saying nothing.

After the door shut behind the McElroys, Bo doubted he would ever see them again. Evelyn, who had been terrified from the moment McElroy walked in the door, felt sure she and the Bowenkamps hadn't heard the last of it. Lois was nervous but she had no regrets over her behavior. McElroy had tried to threaten them with a knife, his wife had cursed them, and his kids had called them liars. She would hold them to their word: Neither he nor any member of his family was welcome in her store.

McElroy told various versions of what had happened that afternoon. To one friend, he said that Bo had thrown the girls out of the store, accusing them of stealing and yelling at them that they were all a bunch of thieving McElroys and not to come back. To another friend, he said that the little girl had her own allowance with her that day, but that when she put a jawbreaker in her mouth, Lois started raising hell. When Debbie tried to pay for the candy, Lois told her and the child to leave. McElroy apologized, but Lois told him to "Get out. We don't need your type of people in here, and we don't want your business." Ken also told Alice Wood that Evelyn Sumy called him one night and told him that he and Trena weren't raising their kids right.

Marshal David Dunbar had his first encounter with Ken McElroy that same pleasant spring afternoon. Dunbar was passing time in Larry Rowlett's liquor store when a couple of kids came in and said that McElroy had been sitting in his car just a few feet south of the B & B Grocery for a while. The kids were afraid he was going to rob the bank on the corner. Dunbar did nothing, but about ten minutes later McElroy parked in front of the liquor store, with Trena beside him. Dunbar and Rowlett watched them sitting there and wondered what was going on. Suddenly, McElroy opened his door, got out of the car, and came into the store.

"You're the new marshal," McElroy said, his eyes boring in on Dunbar. "What would you do if my wife got in a fight with Lois Bowenkamp?"

Dunbar, who had been on the job less than two weeks, paused for a moment to consider the possible implications of this question. McElroy continued: "I just wanted to know what you'd do if it happened."

"Well," Dunbar replied, "if both of them agreed to it, I'd referee the damn thing. If that's all it amounts to," he said, "it can't hurt too much."

Having taken the new marshal's measure, McElroy got back into his car, drove across the intersection, and parked in front of the B & B. That evening, Bo and Lois had just finished supper when Lois looked out the window and noticed a caravan driving slowly past the house. Spaced about ten feet apart were three trucks, each carrying a rifle or shotgun in its rear window rack. Ken McElroy drove the lead truck, a green Dodge. Trena came next, driving a green Chevy, and Tammy followed in a red Chevy. Once, they turned around at the end of the block and came back. Another time, they circled the block. For a while, Bo and Lois simply stayed inside the house and went about their business. Finally, Lois, unable to repress herself any longer, stepped out on the porch just as Trena drove by. Trena looked at her and did a double take.

Well, thought Lois, if they weren't sure where we lived before, they are now. We are marked and located.

Lois retreated inside the house and telephoned Russ Johnson, the newly defeated town marshal but still deputy sheriff, and told him the story. Russ's response was typical and prophetic:

"Now, don't worry about it," said Russ. "He won't do nothing. Oh, he may harass you a little bit, but he won't do nothing serious."

Bo and Lois heard and saw nothing of Ken McElroy for four days. Then, on Tuesday, April 29, they noticed McElroy's Buick parked in front of the tavern most of the afternoon. The car was still there when Evelyn Sumy left the store at five o'clock, an hour before closing time. When Lois walked out the front door at six, she noticed McElroy sitting in his car a little way down the street, watching the front of the store. Seeing Lois, he backed out and began easing up the street toward her. Lois got in the Bowenkamp station wagon on the passenger's side and waited for Bo, who was locking up. Just as he finished, an elderly lady approached him and insisted that she needed a ham for dinner. Bo unlocked the door and went back inside with the woman. At that moment, the Buick pulled in beside the station wagon on the driver's side. Lois stared straight ahead, but in her peripheral vision she could see that McElroy was staring at her.

They sat like that, without speaking, for nearly five minutes. Bo finally appeared in the front door and bid good night to his customer, who hurried away with her wrapped ham. Bo walked between the two vehicles and started to open the driver's door of the station wagon.

McElroy leaned over and said in a low, clear voice, "Hey, is she still the boss in the store?"

"Well, yeah, she is," replied Bo.

"Is she the boss on the street?" said McElroy.

Bo didn't answer, just slid behind the steering wheel and closed the door. Lois, however, jumped out of the station wagon and marched over to the passenger side of the Buick. She leaned against the door and stuck her face in the window.

"Mr. McElroy," she said, punching each syllable, "as far as I know, there is no boss on the streets."

"Yeah," said McElroy. "Well, you accused my kids of raiding your store, didn't you?"

Lois stood her ground. "Nobody ever accused your kids of stealing in my store."

McElroy glared at her.

"You know," she said, softening a bit, "it took me quite a while to figure out who your wife was, but I'm more or less related to you. My mother was a Johnson, a sister to Russ Johnson and Sue McNeely, Trena's step-grandmother."

"I don't give a damn who you're related to," McElroy spat out. "Russ Johnson is nothing but an asshole and a coward, and I could whip his fuckin' ass with both hands tied behind me." He leaned over closer to Lois. "Russ Johnson is the biggest chicken shit in town."

McElroy stopped suddenly, and his face relaxed.

"I'll tell you what," he said calmly, "I'll give you a hundred dollar bill if you'll try and whip my old lady's ass, right here on the street."

"What purpose would that serve?" Lois asked. Nothing, she answered herself. I'm not a brawler, I'm a businesswoman.

McElroy reached in the back pocket of his knit slacks and pulled out his wallet. Fishing through it, he pulled out a $100 bill, leaned over, and held the bill in Lois's face. Lois pulled back a little.

"It's yours," he said, "if you'll do it. All you gotta do is try and whip my old lady's ass. You just wait right here, while I go get her."

"I don't want your money," Lois responded, "and I'm not going to fight with Trena in the middle of the street!" She hammered the words, drawing out the last few syllables for finality.

"I'll pay the fine," McElroy said. "I'll pay the fine."

"What fine?" Lois asked.

"Don't worry about it," he repeated. "I'll pay the fine."

"If you will tell me what fine you're talking about, then maybe I can understand you," she said, her irritation growing.

"I'll pay the fine," he said again.

Lois finally had had enough of the whole situation-the money, the fighting, his obnoxious repetition about the fine. Turning on her heel, she summed up her feelings in one word. "Bullshit!"

She marched defiantly back to her car and got in, slamming the door. Bo started the engine, and the station wagon pulled away and rounded the corner down the main street. McElroy remained sitting in the Buick in front of the B & B Grocery.

As soon as she and Bo got home, Lois immediately crossed the street to tell the Sumys what had happened. As she was explaining about the $100 bill, Evelyn, who was looking over Lois's shoulder, said, "Oh my God!"

"What's the matter?" Lois asked, knowing the answer from the tone in Evelyn's voice and the look on her face.

"Look who is parked just south of your drive," said Evelyn.