Snoop to Nuts (14 page)

“You won’t see me in the morning. We’re leaving early.”

“Yes,” Miss Amelia said absently, as if she’d forgotten she was sending me off into moral turpitude. “Hope I hear back from Pastor Albertson. I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t take him by surprise, calling like that.”

Happy to be let off without another warning about separate rooms and keeping my knees together, I hung up and headed back home to pack.

Grandma had done her job. For the first three hours of the trip to Tupelo, Mississippi, I sat up straight in the front seat of Hunter’s Ford Escape with my knees tight together and my hands clutched in my lap.

Finally I saw what I was doing and got mad at myself and then mad at Miss Amelia. I relaxed, slid down in the seat, and made conversation that didn’t begin with “Well . . . if you think so . . .”

“Lunch in Beaumont?” I asked, feeling my stomach growl and remembering I had forgotten to eat breakfast.

“Yeah, let’s just get past Houston. Sure thing on Beaumont. Get some barbecue.”

“We’re doing this Dutch. Understood?”

He looked over at me, smiled, then nodded. “Sure thing. I’m not spending good money feeding you. You eat too much.”

“I’m just making the rules clear. You don’t need to be disagreeable about it.”

“And you don’t need to act like I’m going to bite you. Nothing to fear from me, Lindy. I still see you as that short kid with gaps where teeth should be.” He chuckled. “Not that I don’t remember the time you showed me your underwear . . .”

I sputtered and made a face at him.

His voice turned from teasing to serious. “I’m not saying I haven’t thought about you and me.” His look, when he turned those laser eyes at me, was deadly serious. “But now’s not the time. You agree? I’ll be back in night school this fall on top of working my regular shifts. You’re tied up in your trees.”

I was going to protest until I realized how right he was. There was something between us, always had been. Probably always would be. But not now. Not yet.

Without knowing why, I touched his arm, bare in his crisp beige short-sleeved shirt. No uniform today.

My touch was light. I thought I saw a hint of major regret in Hunter’s eyes. I knew there was in mine, but for now we would have to live on “someday.”

We drove in silence through the flat open land of Southeast Texas, with its estuaries and curving river coming in from the south. Together we pointed at a road sign advertising Bubba’s Rib Shack. Ribs and fries and pickles with fried bread on the side. I could almost taste it.

Lunch was good. Sauce ran down my arm. Meat fell off the bones. Hot enough to leave my mouth tingling. A pickle that snapped. Fried bread that didn’t drip grease but was hot and brown with just enough salt to satisfy every taste bud in my mouth. There was nothing like great home cooking that was never just food, but food that set off memories—the Texas State Fair with my daddy and mama; afternoons in Meemaw’s kitchen with smells like something floating down from heaven filling me with anticipation; barbecue sauce dripping on my prom gown.

When we were ready to back out of the dirt parking lot into the weight of thick sun, Hunter claimed he needed a nap and threw the keys at me, which made me happy because I didn’t like being at the mercy of somebody else’s driving. I drove the rest of the way, passing the welcome to Louisiana sign later that afternoon. “Hey.” I reached over after a while and punched Hunter’s shoulder.

He sat up, bleary-eyed.

“Are we stopping in New Orleans or driving through?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t give it any thought.”

“If you want to drive straight on through to Tupelo, that’s fine. We’ll take turns driving. If you’re planning on stopping the night, then this is as good a place as any.”

He nodded after deep thought. “Get us some beignets.”

“Could go to Preservation Hall.”

“Buy you a bourbon on Bourbon Street.”

“Maybe we could stop at a nursery, see what kind of trees they’re selling. Sometimes I miss something new on the market that could be just what I’m looking for.”

“This isn’t supposed to be fun, Lindy.” He gave me a serious look.

“I’m talking about work, not fun. But I’ll tell you what. I promise not to smile the whole time so we know it’s not fun. That work for you?”

“Deal. Not going to make much difference anyway, whether we stop here or farther on.”

“So where do you want to stay?”

“Let’s look for a motel. Clean and cheap.”

“No bedbugs.”

“Something not much more than fifty bucks a night.”

“Is that the no bedbug range?”

He laughed as I drove off the I-10 toward New Orleans.

The motel we decided on cost each of us fifty-nine dollars including a continental breakfast. Our rooms were next to each other but had no connecting door. We were in those rooms and back out—like two kids, excited about hitting Bourbon Street and talking about going to the casino, just to walk through. And so eager to find Preservation Hall.

My dad had taken me to Preservation Hall to hear what he called “real jazz” when I was fourteen.

Hunter and I found the nondescript place and then, for going on forty-five minutes, we stood in the low-ceilinged, bare-walled room on the creaking wooden floor and listened to three elderly men and one chunky young guy grind out some of the most heartbreaking jazz we ever hoped to hear.

We bought beignets on Bourbon Street and ate them as we walked up and down through the French Quarter, pointing out the wrought-iron railings on the buildings, stopping to watch a silver mime. Then over to Jackson Square to sit on a bench in the late-day sunshine, listening as a large black woman played the best clarinet either one of us had ever heard.

In the midst of a crawfish étouffée-to-die-for dinner at a backstreet café, my cell rang.

“I’m fine, Meemaw,” I said then rolled my eyes at Hunter.

“Glad to hear it,” Miss Amelia said in my ear. “Not calling about that, though I’m pleased to hear you’re fine.” She hesitated a minute. “I’ve been thinking, Lindy. Maybe this is all about something we don’t even know to worry about. Maybe somebody hoping to make our church look bad for their own twisted reason. Maybe I’m reaching far afield here, but I’ve been racking my brains and coming up empty.”

“That’s a sad state of affairs.”

“Now, Lindy. Let’s keep our minds on what has to be done.”

“Which is?”

“I called Pastor Albertson again. He told me before he was going to think on it a while, and I figured that was long enough. He’s out in La Jolla, California, now. I got the impression not too many people from here in Riverville are in touch with him. It was kind of funny, the way he left. One Sunday up there preaching and the next just gone.”

“So? What’d he say?”

“Couldn’t talk. He’s going to call me back later. Don’t know why he keeps putting me off, but I sure hope he calls back. I told him it was really important. If he could come up with anything.”

She hesitated. “You two in Tupelo yet? Make sure and visit Elvis Presley’s house while you’re there. Your mama will be mad if you go through and don’t stop to pay your respects. Elvis always meant a lot to Emma.”

“I don’t think so. This isn’t a fun trip, you know.” I grinned at Hunter, just stuffing a bit of crawfish in his mouth.

“Where are you now?” Meemaw asked.

“We’ve having dinner in New Orleans.”

“New Orleans? That as far as you got?”

“We’ll get an early start in the morning.”

“You have your rooms yet?”

“Yes, Meemaw. We got our ‘rooms.’”

“That’s good. You sleep well, you hear? And give my best to Hunter. You tell him I think of him like he was my own son and trust him . . .”

“I’m not saying that, Meemaw. You are embarrassing yourself.”

“Well . . . Good night then.”

Just the sweet face of Miss Amelia hovering in the air above our heads dampened the evening enough to send us back to our motel, to our separate rooms, and into a fine sleep that got us up early and back on the road.

It was good to see the green hills of Tupelo, and the trees, and the slow unfolding of the town ahead. Hunter went straight to Front Street and the Tupelo police. I sat in the car while he conferred with the police chief inside. The two of them came out together.

Hunter leaned in the window and introduced the chief, a tall, thin man with a large black mustache and a deadly serious face. “Chief Belmont’s coming with us. Since I don’t have any authority here in Mississippi, he thinks maybe we shouldn’t be going out to Shorty Temple’s place alone . . .”

The chief leaned in the window. “Might be better if you went on in the station here and waited ’til we get back,” he said, giving me one of those patronizing smiles that boiled my blood.

“Thanks for your hospitality, Chief. Think I’ll just tag along.”

“Could be trouble, ma’am.”

What I wanted to say was that I would just fold my hoop skirt up around my head and hide, but I only smiled. “Seen trouble before, Chief.”

He wasn’t happy about getting into the backseat, pushing a suitcase and carrying bag aside, while I held on to my seat in the front.

The chief pointed the way off Front Street. “We’re heading toward Elvis Presley Lake,” he directed. “Not to the lake, just in that general direction.”

He turned his long face toward me, pasting on a smile. “You been to the Elvis Presley house yet?”

I said my meemaw told me not to miss it and he seemed happier with me, as if having relatives meant I wasn’t some stray cat he could get saddled with eventually.

At the end of a dirt road a few miles out of town, the chief pointed to a low, white house, checked the address he’d written on a pad of paper, and indicated that Hunter park the car on the road.

“We’ll walk on up to the house. I don’t know Shorty, but I heard tell he got in a lot of trouble some years back. Tell the truth, I didn’t even know he was out of prison. Probably should’ve known. Thing is, the man’s caused no trouble at all since coming back here.”

The front yard was nothing but dirt, stomped on, flattened, bare dirt. An ancient pickup, looking like it was painted with pure rust, was parked up beside the house, under a falling-in carport.

Chief Belmont knocked hard at a screened door with a flap of loose screen shivering at being moved. It took a while but eventually the inside door opened and a small woman in a long, washed-out dress, with brown hair hanging to her shoulders and a worried face stood there, just looking us over—one after the other.

“Shorty Temple live here?” the chief demanded.

She nodded.

“He home?”

She nodded again.

“Could we come in and talk to him?”

She said nothing, only stepped back to make room for a very tall, very skinny, very stooped man to step up to the door. I got the irony of calling him Shorty. He was one of the tallest, skinniest men I’d ever seen. Like a long, colored-in shadow.

“Officer.” Shorty nodded to the chief, then slowly moved his eyes, cold blue and lost in a map of wrinkles, over Hunter and me.

He pushed the door open and stepped out onto the small wooden porch, forcing us backward, down the steps into the dusty yard.

The chief took over as the four of us stood in heat that was ramping up over one hundred. “You hear about Parson Jenkins over in Riverville?”

Shorty said nothing, only looked from face to face.

“Used to be your brother-in-law. Imagine you’d recognize the name.”

Finally Shorty shook his head. “What about him?”

“Dead.”

Shorty made a sorrowful face. “Sorry to hear it. Good man.”

Chief nodded slowly in return. “Thing is, Shorty, Hunter here is a deputy with the Riverville, Texas, sheriff’s department. He’s come all this way to talk to you about the pastor.”

“Where’s that? Riverville?” Shorty squinted down at Hunter, who was taller than most men ever reach.

“About halfway between Houston and San Antonio.” Hunter tried hard to look official.

“Don’t think I know it.” The man scratched behind his left ear and looked off into the distance. He turned some pretty fierce eyes on me. “Who’re you?”

I gave my name and held out my hand, which the man ignored.

“Anyway, I’ll let Deputy Austen finish telling you why we’re here.” The chief swept his hand out toward Hunter, whose face was growing red from the sun.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not standing here melting,” Hunter said and moved back, into the elongated shade of a tall black gum tree. The only tree in the sorry yard.

“What I’m here for, Shorty, is because the parson was murdered,” Hunter explained when we were all shaded and somewhat cooler.

The man took a step back, as if almost bowled over. “Murdered? Why would anybody do that to Millroy? When I said he was a good man, I meant it. I got no problem with him. To tell the truth, I’m happy that Selma had people like Millroy and Dora to take her in. I wasn’t a fit husband for ’er. Not a fit man until I found the Lord in prison.”

Hunter nodded. “Good to hear. But about Millroy—we don’t know why anybody wanted to kill him. That’s what we’re here for.”

“You don’t think I’d do something like that, do you? Maybe, back when I was drinkin’. I was crazy back then. How’d he die?”

“He was shot,” Hunter lied, then watched Shorty’s face closely. “You pretty good with a gun?”

“Fer the Lord’s sakes.” Shorty shook his head again and again. I could swear he had tears in his eyes. “I won’t even have a gun in my house, knowing how a human being can be drug in by evil. Must’ve been a robbery or something, eh? That Riverville a rough place? I hear Texas got plenty of criminals.”