Murder Gets a Life (8 page)

I don’t know much about anatomy, but I figure Meemaw stepped right on Chief Joseph’s bladder as she came through the door with the pitcher. I motioned to Fred that I was going over to Howard’s trailer. He seemed to be happy with Tiffany and the Hawaiian Punch.

There is no one on earth with a laugh like Mary
Alice’s. It’s a bellow, I swear. And that’s what I heard when I got near Howard’s trailer. Henry saw me coming up the steps and opened the door. “Come in, Aunt Pat. Howard’s telling us a story you’re going to love.”

I smiled at Howard. He was the Turkett I had seen the least of. Probably under all that facial hair, I decided, was a handsome man.

“He’s telling us how Pawpaw lost his hearing,” Mary Alice said. She had made herself at home, I noticed. Boots off, she was leaning back in a recliner with the air-conditioning unit blowing right on her. “Start over, Howard. I don’t want Patricia Anne to miss any of this.”

Howard offered me the stool he was sitting on and leaned against the kitchen counter, grinning.

“Well, you know Papa worked for NASA. He was a rocket scientist, a damn good one, too, so I understand. One of Wernher von Braun’s right-hand men. When we were little, I remember he was gone all the time.

“Anyway, they all went to Cape Canaveral to see
Apollo 11
launched. I mean, this is what they had been working for years for, right? A man on the moon?”

We nodded.

“Well, they took the guys from Huntsville out to see their handiwork, got them front-row seats for the launch. I mean those guys were in rocket scientist heaven.

“The only problem was that Paw made one little mistake. He decided to use one of the Port-o-Johns out by the launchpad and he got locked in. Can you imagine? The man designs spaceships to go to the moon and he can’t get himself out of a Port-o-John. In all the excitement, nobody missed him, and he says he finally got so tired, he just propped his head
over on the toilet paper and went to sleep. And then the rocket launched.”

“One giant leap,” Mary Alice bellowed. Henry was laughing so hard, he was gasping. And, I’ll have to admit, I was laughing as hard as they were. I had this cartoon image of Pawpaw, hair on end, arms and legs stretched to the corners of the Port-o-John while man blasted to the moon.

“He came out of there a changed man,” Howard continued when we were quiet enough. “Said he wasn’t ever going to do anything again but fish. And that’s when we moved down here close to the river. Started out with two trailers.”

Howard was a good storyteller. He paused. “We ate a lot of catfish.”

Mary Alice and Henry continued to laugh, but there was a slight change of tone in Howard’s voice that, old schoolteacher that I am, I caught.

“What’s Pawpaw’s name, Howard?” I asked.

“Melvin. His name is Melvin.”

In a few minutes, I was back with Fred and Tiffany.

“Are you laughing, honey, or crying?” Fred asked.

“I’m not sure.” And that was the truth.

A
s we were leaving the Compound, Eddie Turkett came over to thank us for coming. One thing about these Turkett men—they could grow hair. Eddie was as fully bearded as Howard, and, like Howard, was probably a handsome man under that mop. Eddie’s beard, I noticed, was sprinkled with gray.

“You’re very welcome.” Fred shook Eddie’s hand. “Sunshine’s our family, too, now.”

What a nice man.

“Anything we can do to help, just call.” Tiffany reached over and put one of her Magic Maid business cards in Eddie’s shirt pocket. I frowned at her as he walked away.

“What?” she asked. “He’s the rich one, isn’t he?” The child had been around Mary Alice too long. I could just hear Sister saying, “
Smart move, Tiffany
.”

Which reminded me. “You’d better go tell Sister you’re going home with us.”

“Hey.” Tiffany reached out and grabbed Deputy Leroy’s arm as he walked by. “You know Mrs. Crane in the blue jumpsuit?”

He nodded.

“Tell her Tiffany’s gone home with her sister. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go,” Tiffany said to Fred and me.

There is nothing as hot as a car that’s been parked in an Alabama cotton patch in August. We opened the doors and turned on the air-conditioning, but the leather seats were still a danger to any exposed skin. Finally, we were able to get in and back over the rows.

Tiffany pointed toward the Turkett Compound. “That’s a strange place back there.”

“How so?” Fred asked. He was trying to drive without holding the hot steering wheel. Quite a feat.

“Tiffany, there’s a towel back there on the floor. Hand it to Fred.”

“Here.” She passed it over the seat. “I don’t know. Just sort of spooky. Out in the woods like that and nobody living in the same trailer.”

“They moved out here because Pawpaw lost his hearing. All he wanted to do after that was fish, so Howard said.”

“How did he lose his hearing?” Fred asked.

“Well…” I related the story just as Howard had told it. Fred and Tiffany were an appreciative audience.

“A Port-o-John? Oh, God.” Fred was laughing so hard I thought I was going to have to make him pull over so I could drive.

Tiffany slapped the back of the seat. “I can just see him. I’ll bet he thought he’d died and gone to hell.”

I was giggling. “It’s not funny, y’all, and we ought to be ashamed. He can’t hear it thunder now.”

That set them off even more. “Oh, God, I’m going
to pee my pants,” Tiffany squealed. “Stop at the next gas station, Mr. Hollowell.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t far to the interstate and a huge Exxon station. Fred and Tiffany, still laughing, both rushed to the rest rooms. I fished change out of the bottom of my purse and headed for the Coke machine. A large round thermometer hanging where a flower had probably once hung and died from heatstroke stated that the temperature was 105 degrees. Subtract five for the heat of the pavement, hell, subtract ten, you still had an egg-frying day. We would have been dropping like flies tromping through those woods.

Clunk
. The Coke dropped down, wonderfully cold. I turned it up and chugalugged about half the can.

An old green car pulled up and Dwayne Parker got out. “I need one of those,” he said, pointing toward my Coke. “That sausage biscuit is still giving me trouble.” He fished around in his pocket for change. “You’re the aunt, aren’t you?”

“I’m the aunt. I’m Patricia Anne Hollowell.”

He put the money in the machine. “I’m Dwayne Parker. I’m the one who left the party the other night.”

“I know.” He was also the one who had nearly run us down the day before. I recognized the car.

“I guess I shouldn’t have left Mr. Lamont like that.” He took the Coke from the machine, opened it, and gulped it like I had mine.

“You were upset when you found out Sunshine was there. That’s understandable.”

“I guess so.” He studied the Coke can as if it held some great secret. “Well, I’ll see you, Mrs. Hollowell.”

“Okay. I’m glad we heard from Sunshine this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am. I am, too.” He turned toward his car. He had on an Atlanta Braves baseball cap which hid his crew cut, but his ears stuck out below it. Dwayne wasn’t going to have any trouble finding some girl who, like me, thought those ears were wonderful. Some girl who would be more than willing to pass them along in the gene pool. I hoped he realized that but knew he probably didn’t.

By the time we dropped Tiffany off and got home, it was almost eleven and had been a long time since the sausage biscuits. Fred took a shower while I fixed tuna-fish sandwiches. He took his with him, though, saying he needed to get to work. I took my sandwich into the den and turned on
Jeopardy!
. The answer to the final question was Madagascar which I knew. I always feel smart when I get the Final Jeopardy question. It’s even better when someone’s around who knows when I get it. Fred’s always pleased; Sister says it’s a rerun and I’ve already seen it.

I put my plate in the dishwasher and admired the cabinets I’d painted. A new floor would be nice, a white one. Maybe I should go look at samples. I tapped on the window for Woofer, but he stayed in his igloo. Just as well. On the corner of the TV screen the temperature was posted: 100 degrees.

Sunshine was okay, hopefully, and my Haley was marrying a man she loved. I should be happy. I should be ashamed not to be happy. But Haley wouldn’t be home for her birthday, or for Christmas, or maybe not even when Debbie’s baby was born. She wouldn’t be popping in to see what we were having for supper. I undressed and got in the shower
and bawled. My life was changing big-time here, and I don’t cope with change well.

By the time the water began to cool, though, I was beginning to pull myself together. Six months. It was only for six months. And we would go visit her. Warsaw must be a wonderful place to visit. We could do all kinds of sightseeing. The only other time I had been to Europe had been with Mary Alice, a trip to Scandinavia which happened to coincide with the explosion of Chernobyl. We saw one fjord before we were forced to stay inside the hotel while the radioactive cloud passed overhead. Everyone was furious because we had all had a good dose of radiation before the Russians admitted what was happening. Mary Alice kept telling the Swedes she thought it was downright tacky that they hadn’t been informed immediately. I think they translated “downright tacky” without any problems.

I got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around me, stepped into the bedroom, and screamed.

Mary Alice, sitting on my bed in a semi-yoga position, dropped the tuna-fish sandwich she was eating. “Shit! What’s wrong with you?”

“You just scared the hell out of me.” I sat on the end of the bed and burst into tears again.

“Well, my Lord!” Mary Alice handed me a paper napkin. “I thought you’d cried yourself out in there in the shower.”

I snatched the napkin from her and wiped my eyes. “How long have you been here?”

“About fifteen minutes.” She picked up the pieces of her sandwich and started putting them back together. “Is this bedspread washable?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“You just scared me to death instead.”

“Listen. A normal person would not be scared to death and yelling if they walked into their bedroom and saw their sister sitting there eating a tuna-fish sandwich.”

“What do you mean ‘a normal person’? I’m normal.” I thought for a moment. “Besides, it’s one person; you should have used ‘she.’ If ‘she’ walked into ‘her’ bedroom.”

“Hmmm.” Sister examined her sandwich and took a bite.

“What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were going to stay out at the Turketts’ for a while, talk to the sheriff.”

“They all got in a fight.” She drank some tea and put the glass back on the nightstand.

“Put something under that. It’ll circle. Get a coaster out of the drawer.”

“Anything else interesting in there?”

“I’m sure you know. You’ve been here fifteen minutes.”

“Testy, testy.” But she got the coaster.

“Who got in a fight?” I asked.

“Howard and Eddie mainly. Howard told Eddie he had peanut
cojones
and Eddie took it personally. Men are so fixated on their balls. You know?”

“How come he told him that?”

“Best I could tell—I wasn’t paying much attention until Eddie hit him—Howard thinks Eddie ought to expand his business and Eddie doesn’t want to chance it.”

“He hit him?”

“Knock-down, drag-out, much as you can have in a trailer. Meemaw came in yelling like a banshee and broke them up. I swear, Patricia Anne, I half expected
that woman to turn them over her knee and spank them.”

“Where were the sheriff and Kerrigan? Still in her trailer?”

“I don’t know where she was. He was talking on the phone in his car and I told him Henry and I were leaving.” Sister took another bite of her sandwich. “That is one more dysfunctional family out there, Mouse.”

“Did you see Pawpaw any more?”

“We saw him hightailing it across the cotton patch as we were leaving. Probably heading toward the river fishing.”

I got up and got underwear, khaki shorts, and a white tee shirt from the chest of drawers. The mirror above it showed a face that had been crying for a long time.

“You need to put some ice on your eyes,” Sister said. “Did I tell you I checked on flights to Warsaw?”

I shook my head no.

“We could fly the Concorde to Paris and be in Warsaw in five hours. Just about as long as it takes to get to Pensacola. Think about that. You wouldn’t bat an eye if she was going to Pensacola for six months, now would you?”

“I can’t afford the Concorde,” I said.

“I can. Besides, it’s the idea of the thing. Just knowing the possibility. True?”

“True.” And I did feel better. I turned and gave Sister a grateful smile.

“The seats are kind of little on the Concorde but Fred’s not big, and you’re not big as a flea. The three of us will do fine.”

Fred, Sister, and me, halfway across the Atlantic,
the point of no return, squashed together in three little seats. My smile faded.

“Anyway, I came by to tell you that Gabriel says Sunshine’s in a dark place but okay.”

“You talked to Meemaw’s channeler?” I began to dress.

“Of course not. Meemaw talked to him.” Sister leaned back against the headboard. “How much do you weigh?”

“Enough. What did Gabriel say?”

“He told Meemaw that Sunshine’s in a dark place. I just said that, Mouse.”

I zipped up my shorts. “Did he give any details?”

“I have no idea. I told Meemaw that Henry and I were leaving and to call if she needed us, and she said she had just been communing with Gabriel and Sunshine was okay in a dark place.” Sister took the last bite of her sandwich. “I hope it’s not a cave. Remember those snakes in
Raiders of the Lost Ark?
”

“Lord, yes.” I sat on the bed and looked at Mary Alice. We’ve been sisters for sixty-one years. She had no more stopped by to tell me Gabriel said Sunshine was in a dark place than she could fly. “Want to tell me why you’re really here?”

“I knew you were upset at Haley leaving so suddenly.”

“And?”

“And I found something in my pocket I don’t know what to do with.” She handed me a lined index card, the kind you write recipes on, that had been folded in half. On the top was a cartoon turkey saying
From the kitchen of Mary Louise Turkett
. Below that, someone had printed in pencil,
Chief Joseph sends his regards to your son
.

I studied the card, turned it over to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

“It’s a threat, isn’t it?” Sister reached over and took the card back. “They’re saying Ray’s in danger, aren’t they? That the same thing could happen to him.” She shivered. “It’s cold in here.”

“No, it’s not. And I don’t know what it means.” Of course it was a threat, but I didn’t want to upset Sister more. “It just showed up in your pocket?”

“When Henry and I got in the car, I felt the corner of it sticking me, but I just thought it was the tag on my new underpants.”

Made sense to me.

“But when I let Henry out at his house, I went in to see about Debbie and reached in my pocket and found it.” Sister studied the card. “Reckon I ought to call the sheriff?”

“Probably. But let’s think about it a minute. The first thing he’s going to ask you is if you have any idea how it got in your pocket.”

Sister looked at me as if I didn’t have walking-around sense. “Somebody put it there, Mouse.”

“But who?” I took the card back. The printing, though done in pencil, was very neat and precise.

“Well, it’s Meemaw’s recipe card.”

“Did she have a chance to put it in your pocket?”

“I don’t think so. We sort of kept our distance from each other.”