Prayers of Agnes Sparrow (29 page)

“Who did it, Griselda?” Frank Sturgis called.

“Yeah, who's the son of a—” Fred Haskell hollered. He was leaning against his plumbing truck.

I shrugged. “They don’t know.”

I saw Ruth running down the street. “Griselda, Griselda, Zeb just told me.”

She ran into my arms and sobbed. “I just saw the ambulance pass by.”

“Come on, Ruth. Let's go home.” We pushed our way through the group.

A
gnes was on the phone. “The train is due in at 2:25 this afternoon,” she said, replacing the receiver.

“What train?” Ruth asked.

“Winifred's.”

“You mean Vidalia's daughter?” Ruth shook her head and continued crying. “This is the most terrible thing that ever happened—ever.”

“Winifred was coming for a visit,” I said. “And now—”

“Now she's coming to plan a funeral,” Agnes said.

“Does Mildred have any clue who did this?” Ruth asked.

I shook my head no.

“She’ll get him,” Ruth said. “Say what you will about Mildred but she’ll nab the killer. I mean even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”

T
he ride to Shoops was the longest of my life. Every bump and curve down the mountain stabbed and pulled at my heart. Even in Stu's Caddy, I felt every single one of them. My friend had been murdered, and now I was going to tell her child and grandchildren. It was the worst day of my life since my parents died.

The Shoops’ train station, located right within the city limits, was a large white house with a green, shingled roof and pillars out front. I found Winifred's train on the large schedule that hung over the ticket counter.

“On time,” it read. “Platform nine.”

I only waited ten minutes on the platform before the train pulled into the station. It was a silver and red Amtrak Night Coach. It screeched to a stop, and within minutes, the doors opened and people flowed out.

I searched the sea of faces and found Winifred. I hadn’t seen her in years but she looked just like Vidalia, except thinner and prettier. I moved closer to the woman who was holding fast to two little children while a third ran in circles around a pole.

“Winifred,” I called and waved. “Winifred.”

Our eyes met. “Griselda?” she called. “Where's Mama?” I stopped moving as the swarm of people circled around me in a blur. “Winifred, I … I came instead.”

“That's fine.” Then she looked into my eyes. “It's so good to see you, Griselda. I’d give you a big hug but I’m afraid to let go of these two. They’d be gone in a flash.”

Winifred looked good, happy, standing there with two little boys. She had shortened her hairstyle since I last saw her.

“Maybe we should get the suitcases. I’m so anxious to see Mama. Why didn’t she come for us?”

I ignored her question and bent down to introduce myself to her boys.

“This is Chester,” Winifred said, lifting her left arm. “And this is Drayton. The child climbing the railing is Tobias. He's six and never stops moving.”

“I’ll get him,” I said.

I pulled the child from the stair railing. He looked at me like I was trying to steal him until I pointed to his mother.

“Come on, Tobias,” Winifred called. “I want to get to Nana's.”

“Nana,” Tobias said, and he wrapped his arms around my legs.

“Oh, no—no honey. I’m Griselda, not … Nana.” I choked back an urge to cry or scream.

“Winnie,” I said, “let's get the bags. I took Studebaker's car.”

“Studebaker Kowalski? How is he?”

“Fine. Just fine.”

I felt a tear run down my cheek as I moved ahead of her. We retrieved their four suitcases and found the car. Everyone and everything fit nicely in Stu's Caddy. I looked at the boys in the rearview mirror, and all three looked like they could fall asleep any second.

“They had a long trip,” I said still looking.

“
They
had a long trip,” Winifred said, her voice raised an octave. “Ever travel with three little boys? Let me tell you, I thought I might lose my mind. Tobias disappeared somewhere between Detroit and Cincinnati. I thought I’d go out of my head until the conductor found him hiding in an overhead baggage rack. Said he was playing suitcase.”

I laughed.

“Then Chester threw up all over that nice Father Franklin, while Drayton ate a Band-Aid he found in my purse after he
emptied it onto the floor. My prescription bottle and two marbles rolled down the aisle.”

“Okay, okay, you all had a long trip.”

We drove ten minutes before I noticed the boys had finally nodded off.

“Now, you gonna tell me why Mama couldn’t come? You’d think she’d want to greet her grandchildren, unless of course she's home baking up a storm. Um, um, um. I am so gonna eat all the sticky buns I can.”

“Winifred. I … I need to tell you something.”

I pulled off the road and stopped the car.

“Your mama—your mama died this morning.” I said it fast like it would somehow lessen the blow.

“What? I spoke to her yesterday. She sounded fine. She would have told me if she was sick. I don’t understand, Griselda?”

I grabbed both her hands. “Winifred, she wasn’t sick, she—she was killed.”

“What, a car wreck?”

“No. She was stabbed.” I hollered the words that time, hollered them loud. The boys woke up and called for their mother.

Winifred turned to them. “It's all right, boys. Go to sleep. We’ll be to Nan—we’ll be there soon.”

“Griselda,” she whispered, “what are you saying?”

It wasn’t sinking in. So I told her again. She buried her face in her hands and cried silently until we reached Bright's Pond.

R
uth greeted us on the porch and managed not to say a single word about Vidalia until Winifred and I snuggled all three boys into the extra bedroom upstairs.

“They’ll sleep for maybe an hour,” Winifred said. She lingered a moment at the bedroom door. “How do you tell three little boys their Nana is dead?” She closed her eyes and leaned against the doorjamb. “Oh, Griselda, I can’t believe this is happening. It's like my heart's been twisted and wrung like a rag.”

I pulled my friend close and let her cry into my shoulder. “I know. I keep thinking I’m about to wake up, but—”

“It's a shock. A shock, but stronger. Isn’t there a better word?”

Vidalia's death was a storm of lightning strikes that wouldn’t stop.

“Why my mother?” Winifred pulled away after a minute and went back to her boys. She double tucked them, kissed each one on the forehead, and pulled the door closed to a crack.

“Come on,” I said. “Let's go downstairs. Agnes is anxious to see you. It's been a lot of years.”

“I had a much different image in my mind about seeing you all again,” she said.

Agnes clicked off the television and stretched her arms to embrace Winifred. “I’m so sorry. I just don’t have words to say.”

Ruth, who had busied herself in the kitchen while we settled the boys, poured coffee in all our cups. Then she added cream to each. “It's terrible.” She blubbered louder with each cup. “Terrible. First Mabel Sewickey, then Cora, and now Vidalia. Of course it ain’t exactly the same seeing as how Cora died from a bad heart and your mama—”

“Ruth,” I said. “Mabel died ten years ago.”

“I know that, Griselda, but she was still my friend. You don’t forget friends just ’cause ten years slips by.”

Winifred sat near Arthur on the sofa. He curled close to her as she rubbed his neck. “Maybe if I never left town.”

“No, no, you can’t take any blame for this tragedy,” Agnes said. “This came right out of the blue.”

“But maybe if I came last week. Mama wanted us to come early, but I told her I had other plans.”

“Winifred,” Ruth said. “Don’t go stirring them waters, dear. No good can come of it. You decide right now that you had no control in what happened to your mama. You start thinking about what she would want you to do right now.”

Winifred sipped coffee. “This is good, thank you. That stuff they called coffee on the train was like dishwater.”

“Yuk,” Ruth said “You’ll always get an honest cup of coffee here.”

Ruth had a knack for saying just the right thing to lighten the mood even though I never believed she had any idea of what she was doing.

“Now I remember when my Bubba died,” Ruth said, “’course it wasn’t exactly the same, although if you ask me,
that nasty brain cancer is as much a murderer as the creep who did this.”

Winifred touched her stomach like a wave of nausea had rippled through. Funny how folks touched their stomachs when they felt sick. Maybe it reminds us of when our mamas would rub our tummies after we ate too much candy.

“We want you to stay right here with us,” Agnes said after a while. “It might be too hard to go home right now.”

“That's probably the best idea, Winnie,” I said. “They sealed off the place as a crime scene.”

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I better make plans and … should I talk to the police?”

“I imagine we should start at the funeral home,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you, Griselda.”

“I still have Stu's car. I’m sure he’ll let me keep it so we don’t have to take the truck into Shoops.”

“And the boys can stay with me,” Ruth said. “I’d love to have them.”

“You’re all being so wonderful.” Winifred dabbed away tears. “I better call Toby before I do anything else. He must be worried because I was supposed to call the minute I arrived. He might have even called Mama's house five or six times by now.”

We finished our coffee, and Winifred bundled the boys up for the drive to Ruth's. The children were skittish at first, but the second Tobias laid eyes on Russell, Ruth's blue and white parakeet, he was fine, and Chester and Drayton followed right behind.

“Don’t you worry a minute, Winnie,” Ruth said. “They’ll be fine, just fine.”

“I’ll need to tell them soon,” she said.

“Later,” I said. “Maybe we should see if Mildred's heard anything before we head into Shoops. Agnes is going to call the funeral home and let them know we’re coming.”

“Thank you, Griselda. I’m so glad you’re here.”

She kissed each boy on the nose. “Now you all be good for Ruth, and I mean it Tobias. That bird better be alive when I get back.”

Ruth cringed but covered it nicely. She didn’t know the first thing about children. She and Bubba never had any.

Mildred had a little office in the town hall. It was really little more than a desk and a telephone. She had WANTED posters hung on a bulletin board on one wall and a portrait of Richard Nixon on the other. She had her head buried in
True Crime
magazine when we interrupted.

“Excuse us, Mildred,” I said. “But this is Winifred, Vidalia's daughter.”

Mildred shoved the magazine into a drawer and stood up. “I was just taking a quick break from the investigation.” She reached out her hand. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

“We came by on our way down to Shoops,” I said. “Have you heard anything new?”

“Only this, Griselda, and you aren’t going to like it.”

“Me? Why?”

“I just got a call from the lead detective in Shoops. He said they’re combing the streets for that handyman of yours.”

“Hezekiah? Why?”

“He's the prime suspect. No one's seen hide nor hair of him since last night when he and Olivia left Personal's.”

I couldn’t breathe. “Hezekiah? A suspect?”

“Mama told me about him,” Winifred said. “According to her he was a nice fellow—very helpful.”

“That's what we thought,” I said, “but now … now I don’t know what to think. Wait till Agnes hears this. She's really going to be upset.”

“Why would Agnes be so upset?” Winifred asked.

“It was her idea that Hezekiah move in with your Mama and stay in town while he waited for his miracle,” I said.

“Miracle? You mean the man who killed my Mama came to town so Agnes could pray for a miracle?”

“Now hold on,” Mildred said. “He hasn’t been convicted. They just want to talk to him.”

“That's right. We need to wait this out.” I said.

T
he Digman Funeral Home was located on a dead-end street near the Shoops Drive-in Theater. The mortuary was a large white building that looked like it would be better suited for a plantation in South Carolina. Barry Digman, a tall, huge man with bad breath and blonde hair, met us in the lobby dressed in a black suit.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said. Then he led us into a small consultation room.

“Mama said she wanted to be cremated, like my father,” Winifred said. “I’ve been hanging onto his ashes for years now. We’ll bury them both together back in Detroit.”

For a second I felt like Winifred was taking Vidalia away from me and I hated myself for feeling such a thing. After all, Vidalia wasn’t my mother. It just felt that way sometimes.

“That's fine,” said Mr. Digman. “We are the only mortuary in the three county district who has their own crematory.”

Winifred rolled her eyes at the sales pitch. “When can I get her ashes?”

The funeral director's eyes grew wide. “We have to get her here first. I—I understand this was a—murder.”

Winifred shot me and Digman a look. I grabbed her hand. “Agnes—remember? She was going to call.”

“Yes,” Digman said. “Agnes Sparrow, that miracle-worker woman called.”

I fake coughed and the man caught on. “Right, right.” He took on a solemn look. “We’ll bring your mother here once the police release her. And you can pick up the ashes the next day as long as she gets here early enough.”

The man's casket-side manner was irritating as he tried to talk Winifred into purchasing an expensive bronze urn with cherubim and ivy inlay.

“Now why am I going to spend all that money on a jar that I’m just going to bury in the ground? Most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. Let me see what else you’ve got.”

She selected a cheaper model while Mr. Digman apologized.

It wasn’t until we were about halfway back to Bright's Pond when it struck me that Winifred had grown quiet. That wouldn’t be unusual under the circumstances, but she also had a look on her face that I couldn’t decipher—almost like she was angry.