Snoop to Nuts (23 page)

Sunday morning dawned with a few white clouds high in the sky and nothing but sunshine on the horizon. The church grounds buzzed with activity. People milled around in groups or singly, searching out someone they’d agreed to meet. Cloth-covered tables were lined along the outer church walls, each holding a large urn filled with lovely flowers. Wrapped dishes of food waited for the first shovel of earth to be dug, and then the speeches, and all the congratulations that would follow.

Greeting us as we walked up from the parking lot was a huge easel holding a drawing of what the addition would look like. A monstrous building that would dwarf the old board-sided church. The drawing showed where the auditorium would be. First there were huge front doors, dwarfing the old entrance. A long stage dominated one end of the auditorium. There were offices behind the stage, dressing rooms, a conference room, enormous lavatories. It could have been a design for a concert hall.

There was a schematic graphic of all the lighting that would be hidden around the walls and ceiling. Enough to illuminate the scene for a TV show, if that was in the future.

People stopped on their way around the building to ooh and aaah over the plans, never having seen so complete a workup before this afternoon. And then, all of us dressed in our very finest, we made our way around to wait for the great moment with friends and townspeople, many not even members of the Rushing to Calvary Church, but there because of the excitement about the day and the future of Riverville.

Sid Johnson, from the
Riverville Courier
, made his way in and among the people, stopping to ask questions and writing down one-word responses or well-pondered answers. From time to time he pulled out his small digital camera and snapped pictures of people who’d given him particularly pointed remarks to print.

Shirley Craig, Riverville’s mayor, stood with a glass of sweet tea in her hands, talking to Tyler Perkins and Hawley Harvey, both men dressed to the nines in new white summer suits. Other members of the church board, dressed as splendidly, gathered with parishioners, all talking and laughing and praising the weather. The temperature for this very special day in Riverville, Texas, was down to the low nineties. The breeze was only strong enough to keep the ladies’ noses dry.

Shovels, which had been coated with gold paint, stood waiting while the builder, Russell Howe, moved things around, crawling up on the bulldozer he’d had brought in for the occasion, then down to talk to one of his men.

Ethelred Tomroy stationed herself at the head of the long food tables, shooing flies as they landed. She straightened napkins and paper plates as a tiny breeze ruffled them, then lifted lids on the drink urns, checking to see they stayed filled. Ethelred waved to us then fell into deep conversation with Miss Amelia.

After we’d made the expected rounds, all of us split up. Mama made for Ben Fordyce, our attorney, standing with Deputy Sam Cranston and Sheriff Higsby. Justin sauntered over to stand with other ranch owners. Bethany—not one to let grass grow under her feet—headed for Tyler Perkins’s good-looking son, Rick. Meemaw and I moved over the grass to talk to different groups of people, going from one to the other, wishing everybody a good day, remarking on the weather. Just passing time until the ceremony began.

I can’t say that any of us were there to celebrate. It didn’t really seem like a glorious day, not down inside me. I would just as soon have stayed home and skipped the whole thing, but that was just me wishing I could retire to my greenhouse and my gated grove of new saplings and not come out until I’d found my perfect tree and Meemaw was back to being hostess and chief cook at the Nut House—all cleared of suspicion, and Jeffrey Coulter was in jail, and Riverville was back to being the sleepy Texas town it had always been.

I moved over to check the covered dishes the churchwomen had prepared as treats for the big day. They looked much like the entries at the Ag Fair. I recognized Cecil’s spotted dick—done up in little paper cups. There was Suzy Queen’s Blessed Pecan Dip and so many others I knew by sight. I looked around for something Miss Amelia brought. I’d seen her put a dish in the ranch cooler and watched Justin set it in the back of his truck, but it hadn’t made it to the table yet. I thought how you just had to admire her courage—facing criticism from people like Freda Cromwell and fear of poisoning by others who, I’d heard, were whispering it wasn’t that Miss Amelia meant to poison anybody. Just that she was losing it. As if she happened to keep a bottle of ground spotted water hemlock around just in case she forgot to put the cinnamon in her cinnabuns.

But then, as I worked my way toward the mayor and the two church leaders, I reminded myself that just such a bottle had been found at the Nut House, with Treenie Menendez hospitalized for sticking her finger into it.

The mayor, a very pretty woman with long blond hair and bright round blue eyes, smiled ear to ear when she saw me. Shirley Craig and I had gone to Riverville High together. We hugged and held each other to stand back and admire how well we were looking—and all that stuff women do. I got through her business of “Aren’t you just so excited about what’s happening here in Riverville?” And on to “Don’t we owe a great debt to Hawley and Tyler for persevering in all of this?”

I knew to say a simple “yes” to everything Shirley said. But it had always been that way, ever since she’d been a cheerleader and was always asking, “Isn’t this just the best team ever?” with all those white teeth shining and those blue eyes shooting out sparks of happiness.

As I got close to Hawley Harvey, he rocked back and forth on shiny new high-heeled boots. A new, and bigger than ever, cowboy hat was clamped firmly to his head. He ignored me, turning to talk to someone behind him. The man was obviously in his element, glad-handing left and right and laughing up a storm at people’s congratulations and wonder at the size of the addition.

“We got plans,” he said again and again. “Big plans.”

I’d never seen a happier man, becoming nervous only when Meemaw walked over, big as day, and asked in a loud voice, “You really going ahead with this, Hawley?”

The talking and laughter around them died down. Hawley was nonplussed for only a minute before he nervously started laughing, looking around at people watching them, and putting his hands out to hold Meemaw by the shoulders. “Why, yes we are, Miss Amelia. Yes we are. Despite the awful things been done to try and stop us, we are triumphant today. Doin’ the Lord’s work gives us that cloak of righteousness, ya know. A giant cloak of righteousness.”

Hawley switched right back into his roundhouse grin and pumped a fist in the air, which brought cheers from people standing nearby. “This is the Lord’s day, Miss Amelia. We have faced down the devil of doubt and here we are.”

Meemaw looked down at the short man with his big hat and shook her head. She turned to walk away but Hawley, evidently sensing some kind of victory, held her in place. “I know you’ve been having a bad time of it lately, Miss Amelia. But it’ll pass. Let me tell you, you won’t always be going through things like this. Yer getting on in years but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a good long time ahead of you to enjoy those grandkids of yours.” He turned to the people ringing them. “Right, folks? Let’s give Miss Amelia a loud round of applause for all she’s done here in Riverville.”

With that, he let go of her arm. She stumbled back a step or two then got her balance and shook her head at Hawley. But he was already on to other triumphs, off toward the roped area where he and Tyler were going to dig the first shovelfuls of dirt to signify a new start, new growth, and the future of their beloved church.

When I turned to head toward the ground-breaking area, I looked at the happy faces around me and thought about all their work and their sacrifices, and their belief in goodness—putting money into a church-led investment club and expecting the rewards of their faith. It wasn’t just that my blood chilled for a minute, I was struck with an irrational thought: I could split Hawley Harvey’s head open with that gold-plated shovel and show people there were only dollar signs inside.

But that’s just me, I guess. A nonrepentant, angry woman who expected people to be who they pretended to be.

Hawley dug a shovelful of dirt first and dumped it over to one side. The crowd clapped appreciatively. Tyler went second and then the builder revved his bulldozer but only as a symbol of what was to come. The building would begin on Monday morning. All I could hope for was that the poor man was going to get his money.

Hunter came up behind me and tapped me lightly on the arm. I looked back and made a face at him.

“Got Jeffrey Coulter,” he leaned down to say, then he was off without a word, taking a place over to the side where he could keep an eye on the crowd.

When I checked behind me, I saw that Sheriff Higsby was near the line of tables. Around behind me Deputy Cranston stood with his hands crossed in front of him. I recognized a couple of other deputies and a few I didn’t know, probably brought in from other towns for crowd control.

If nothing else, I thought, those golden shovels were well protected.

Hawley held up his hands, stopping the loud applause. He gave a short speech about hard work and diligence and belief, which Tyler echoed in his speech that followed. “And now for the celebratory feast the ladies have provided.” Hawley rubbed his ample stomach. “I’m gonna be first in line folks. Better get yer runnin’ shoes on.”

To laughter, Hawley sprinted off toward the table where Ethelred and a couple of other church ladies stood waiting to scoop out treats the parishioners of Rushing to Calvary, like me, knew all too well.

Ethelred welcomed Hawley to the table, pointing out the bounty of foods and following him down the line of tables, scooping beans and rice on his plate and pushing one dish after another until the man’s plate was piled high.

I saw her leaning down close to whisper in his ear at one point. At first Hawley looked up at her, confused and ready to shake his head. Ethelred smiled—an unusual occurrence—at least that big a smile, and motioned, with one finger, for him to follow her to the end of the table. There, with a glance around behind her to see who was watching, she bent down, lifted the edge of the tablecloth, and pulled a small cooler out. She opened the cooler and took out an oblong platter, covered with plastic wrap. Hawley bent to look at what she had, then up into Ethelred’s face as she kept shaking her head, assuring him of something.

The man reached out and, with tentative fingers, plucked first one then another cracker with topping and set it on his plate. It seemed that wasn’t good enough for Ethelred. She obviously wanted him to taste her special treat, nodding and smiling and encouraging him.

Finally, with an indulgent smile, Hawley lifted the first of the crackers and popped it into his mouth. He crunched down hard and seemed to be about to congratulate Ethelred on her wondrous treat, when his eyes opened wide and he spit out what was left of the cracker in his mouth.

He looked up at Ethelred as he clutched at his throat. Everybody heard the choked words he screamed at her, “Miss Amelia? Caviar?”

He danced in circles, spitting and coughing and choking. “Poison,” he seemed to be trying to get out but with his lips puckered so tight the word barely formed.

Hawley grabbed on to Hunter’s arm and pointed to his throat. Since I’d moved in close, along with the rest of my family and every cop there, I heard him choke out the word “Ambulance!”

“Now, settle down here,” Sheriff Higsby, who ambled over, warned the man. “I can’t understand what your problem is if you keep choking like that.”

Hawley, face red, eyes running, bent over and lost most of his cracker in the grass.

Sheriff Higsby patted him on the back, sympathetic and concerned that he go sit himself down and rest awhile as town police and the sheriff’s deputies ringed the man, keeping the people away from the deacon.

The sheriff took the agitated man’s arm and pushed him into a folding chair. Hawley leaned out, trying to see around the bulky sheriff. His eyes pled from one side to the other, begging someone to listen to him but anyone who might have helped was blocked by Blanchards and police.

“You stay there ’til you get ahold of yourself, Hawley,” the sheriff cautioned in a loud voice, trying to hold him in the chair. Hawley Harvey popped up and tried to run, to get to the people rubbernecking around the wall we’d formed.

When the sheriff caught at his arm, he veered off and ran smack into Miss Amelia and me. We stood there with Justin and Bethany behind us, and then Mama and Ben Fordyce. Ethelred was somewhere in the middle of the tightening line of police.

“You need help, Hawley?” Miss Amelia leaned close to the terrified man.

He tried calling out around us. “She’s . . . getting . . . even. Help!”

“Getting even for what, Hawley?” Miss Amelia, her face wreathed with sympathy, asked.

He shook his head again and again then turned around, shaky voice calling out his wife’s name, “Eula? Eula? They’re trying to kill me?”