Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 03 - Haunted (11 page)

Then I sorted through the mail, paid a couple of bills, and checked and deleted most of my e-mails. I got the exact same George Bush joke from three of my friends. It wasn’t even funny the first time I’d seen it two weeks ago. I had checked my e-mail yesterday from Stone’s computer at the inn, so I only had a half dozen other messages. I didn’t want to apply for a credit card, take advantage of free shipping at an online toy store, or order any pills from Canada, including one that would enlarge and enhance something I didn’t have to begin with.

I poured out a carton of spoiled milk, tossing the carton into the trash. I removed some unidentified green and furry object from the vegetable bin and placed it in the trashcan also. Then I tied up the trash bag and took it to the curb for a Tuesday morning pickup. With any luck at all, the neighborhood dogs wouldn’t rip it to shreds before then.

Before locking up the house, and arming the security system, I checked my landline phone for messages. Good. No messages, I thought. I then headed straight back to the Alexandria Inn. I’d most likely have an hour or two to relax, and get a few chores done around the inn, before Stone and Wyatt got back from their fishing trip.

It was getting dark earlier these days, and Stone and Wyatt would probably return before five. The class reunion didn’t start until six, according to the school janitor. I wanted to be out of the house by the time Stone and Wyatt came home, so I wouldn’t have to explain where I was going to either of the men. But I also wanted to arrive at the class reunion fashionably late.

Since I didn’t know anyone at the reunion and nobody there would know me, I hoped to arrive after the reunion was in full swing. I could sneak in, find Clarence Sneed, offer my condolences, ask him a few personal questions, and sneak out again without being noticed by any of his former classmates. I would try not to make eye contact with anyone so I wouldn’t be drawn into a conversation. I could find no apparent flaw with this plan.

I figured I’d have about an hour and a half to fill, so I wanted to make good use of the time and not just drive around town aimlessly. I’d found a Chuck Sneed in the phone book, living east of Rockdale, in Chillicothe, on an old gravel farm road off Thirty-Six Highway. I decided to drive past the house a couple of times while I came up with a viable reason to speak with Walter’s half-brother. I put on my blue skirt and matching cardigan, an easy outfit in which to maintain a low profile at a class reunion, and left the inn at four-thirty.

Using a city map I carried in my glove box, I found Chuck’s house with little problem. It was a double-wide mobile home surrounded by overgrown weeds, cigarette butts, and smashed beer cans. There was an old red Ford pickup in the driveway, with a shotgun hanging on a gun rack behind the bench seat. There was a bashed-in aluminum trashcan on the porch, and several rusty bikes propped up against the trailer.

I could hear kids playing inside as I walked up the crumbling concrete steps. The screen door was ripped and hanging from one hinge, so I reached through the mesh and knocked on the door. I didn’t think my knocking could be heard over the boisterous clatter inside the house, so I rapped louder the second time.

A prematurely balding man, about thirty years old, answered the door. The snap on his blue jeans was undone, and he wore a threadbare white undershirt. He had a cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other. He didn’t look too welcoming as he opened the front door.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Excuse me, sir,” I said, looking down at my trusty white notebook, which I held open in my hand. The page I had opened it up to was actually an old grocery list. I doubted Chuck was too literate, and he didn’t seem particularly interested in what was written in my notebook anyway. I put a check beside “horseradish” because I wanted to look as if I were there on official business and was checking off scheduled appointments. “Are you Chuck Sneed?”

“Yeah,” he said again. He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out over the top of my head. I noticed his cigarette was unfiltered. I notice things like that more now that I no longer smoke. I’m also annoyed by smokers a lot more now since I quit smoking myself. And I find hypocritical people like myself irritating sometimes, too.

“I’m from the floral shop in Rockdale,” I said to Chuck. “We’ve been hired to create a flower arrangement, and a casket spread for the Walter Sneed funeral service this week. There’s a question about the order and I found your name in the phone book, hoping you were related to the deceased.”

“Yeah, he’s my half-brother. Got hisself kilt a couple days ago, I heared.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “At least he’s in a better place now.”

“Yeah, whatever. Don’t know nothing about no flowers, though. Try my sister, Sheila Talley. She lives there in Rockdale with her boyfriend,” Chuck said, closing the door as he spoke.

I managed to squeeze my foot in the door before it shut completely. “Listen, Chuck, while I’m here, I was wondering if you could tell me a little about your brother. It helps us arrange the flowers better if we’re more familiar with the person whose funeral we are preparing the flowers for. We can match the arrangements to their personality, you see. It makes for a much more personalized and aesthetic-looking arrangement.”

What a bunch of hogwash I was spouting. I was pushing my luck with such a flimsy story, but I didn’t think Chuck was the type of person to have ever bought a flower in his entire life. He appeared to buy in to my excuse to ask him questions, or, more likely, he just really didn’t give a rat’s ass why I was standing on his doorstep.

“Yeah? Whatcha want to know?” Chuck took a drink of his beer and belched loudly.

“Was Walter well-liked around town?”

“I dunno. Guess so,” he said. He took another long swallow.

“Were you and your brother close?” I asked, as if this would determine whether we used roses or orchids in the casket spread.

“Nah. I was a lot older than Walter, so we barely knew each other. I had moved out ‘fore he moved in with my pa and my step-ma.” Chuck finished off his beer and placed it between the palms of his hands, smashed it, and flung the empty can out into the yard. He reached over to his right inside the trailer and came back with a fresh beer. He pulled back the flip-top on top of the can with one of the three teeth I could count in his mouth.

“How did you find out Walter had been kilt, er, killed?” I asked. He was hard to hear above the yelling and shouting going on inside the trailer. It sounded like a good old-fashioned free-for-all was taking place behind Chuck. He must have a whole pack of wild kids, I decided.

“Bubba told me.”

“Bubba?”

“Neighbor down the road a spell,” he said. “He told me ‘bout the funeral and all. Then some damn cop showed up to ask me questions, but I didn’t know nothing to tell him.”

“Are you and your family planning to attend the funeral services?” Gee, if you are, maybe we can include your favorite ferns in the arrangement, I wanted to add. How do you feel about baby’s breath?

“Nah, can’t go to the wake ‘cause I got a hog-tying contest I wanna go to. Don’t got no suit neither,” he explained. “Besides, I never really liked the whiny brat much anyways, so don’t give no never mind that he’s done gone and got hisself kilt.”

With that final gem, Chuck must have felt I had enough insight now to prepare the perfect arrangement for the funeral, because he shut the door in my face before screaming at his children to shut the hell up and go to their rooms.

I backed away from the door with my mouth hanging open. I don’t know exactly what I had expected of Chuck, but I hadn’t expected a redneck with such a callous attitude about Walter’s death. I wondered if he cared more for Sheila than he did Walter. I actually wondered if he cared much for anything other than smoking and drinking.

I looked at my watch. If I stopped at McDonalds for a cup of coffee and drank it slowly, I could arrive at the Rockdale Community Center around six-thirty. By then, most of the reunion attendees should already be there. I felt confident everything would go smoothly. I expected to have all the information I needed from Clarence and be back home by seven-thirty. The best laid plans of mice and men…

* * *

“Marian! Come on in!” I heard as I walked quietly in the opened front door of the community center. I noticed the woman who’d spoken was looking directly at me. I tried to walk the other way, to no avail, as she rushed up to greet me.

“I’d know you anywhere,” she said. “You haven’t changed a bit in the last thirty years, since you got married and moved out to Montana.”

“Uh, you haven’t changed either,” I said, quickly walking away from the woman as I spoke. “It’s wonderful to see you again. I’ll catch up with you a little later so we can visit.”

I walked over toward a table of refreshments while I tried to determine the best way to figure out which man in the room was Clarence Sneed, if he had indeed attended the reunion. A gentleman walking on the other side of the table looked up with a questioning expression on his face. He stared at me from behind the punch bowl before speaking.

“Why Marian, I thought your RSVP stated you’d be unable to attend due to the failing health of your mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. I didn’t expect to see you here. Is your mother still hanging in there?” he asked.

Whoever this Marian was, I must really resemble her. According to her RSVP, she wasn’t going to be there, and most likely none of the classmates had seen her recently, so I decided maybe I could use this resemblance to my advantage. Fortunately, I’d only met a handful of people in Rockdale and I wasn’t likely to run into any of them at this reunion.

“No, she fought valiantly, but finally passed,” I said. Sorry about that, “Mom,” but I needed to be able to explain my ability to attend the reunion after sending back an RSVP stating I couldn’t. Besides, both of my parents were deceased, so I didn’t feel like my answer was a complete lie.

“Oh, please accept my condolences. I’m so sorry to hear about your loss.”

“Thank you, Mister, uh—” I said, followed by the standard line, “but at least she’s in a better place now.”

“Yes, that’s for sure. Say, a lot of people here will be happy to see you again after all these years,” he said. “I don’t recall seeing you at any of our previous reunions.”

“No, it seemed like something always interfered with my plans to attend, Mister, um, uh, I’m so sorry, but I don’t recognize you,” I said.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Pete Franken. I guess I did have a lot more hair and a lot less gut back then,” Mr. Franken said. “Since we dated for over a year, I thought you’d recognize me, even without the hair. I flew in from south Texas for the reunion.”

“Oh, but of course. I should have recognized you, Pete, but we’ve all changed so much over the years,” I said, moving on down the table toward some deviled eggs and petit fours. Then, after a thought occurred to me, I moved back down to where Pete Franken was now filling his cup with punch.

“Excuse me, Pete. Have you seen Clarence Sneed? Speaking of losing a loved one, he just lost his son recently, and I wanted to offer my condolences.”

“Well, yes, Marian. He’s standing right behind you. I’m surprised you didn’t see him. I guess maybe he’s changed a lot too,” Pete concluded. “It has been thirty years since you’ve seen any of us, I reckon. I’m sorry to hear about his son. No wonder he’s got such a crowd around him.”

“Oh, yes, there he is. Silly me. I never was any good with faces. Thanks Pete.”

With the news of Walter Sneed’s death all over the news, Clarence was understandably surrounded by a bevy of classmates, no doubt offering up words of compassion and comfort. Many of the classmates probably still lived in the area and had seen the news about Walter’s death on television and in the papers. I moved over to the corner of the room where I could keep an eye on Clarence, while hiding behind my plate of refreshments. I would wait to move in until after the crowd had thinned out.

After about five minutes of nibbling on the same sugar cookie, I noticed several ladies walking my way. I glanced around quickly, but I could see no way to escape, especially after one of them called out my new name.

“Marian, how are you? We’re all so thrilled to see you. You missed our last three reunions, and we didn’t expect to see you at this one either. How have you been getting along? I don’t imagine Rayburn is still alive?” One of the ladies asked me. I assumed Rayburn was Marian’s husband, and he must have been afflicted with some serious health problem. I didn’t have the heart to kill him off too, after just killing off Marian’s mother.

“Yes, actually he’s doing fine. He’s recovered remarkably well,” I said. “I was going to bring him along, but he was scheduled to have some medical tests performed this week. Just a routine checkup, you see.”

Suddenly, all three women looked at me as if I’d said my husband was busy shooting a porn film, or if I had grown my very own Chia Pet on the side of my chin.

“You were going to bring a champion quarter horse to the reunion?” One lady asked, astounded. “Why in the world would you bring a horse to a class reunion?”

“A very, very old one, I might add,” another lady said. “After all, you won the county championship with Rayburn over thirty years ago. Isn’t that at the high end of a quarter horse’s average life span?”

The third lady just stood there with her mouth gaping open. Crap. I knew I should have just killed him off too. Now I had to wiggle my way out of my ridiculous remark.