The Possum Hollow Hullabaloo (The Penelope Pembroke Cozy Mystery Series) (7 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sam didn’t come to breakfast, and Jake said he hadn’t seen him since the night before. “You two looked good dancing together,” he said, trying to lighten his daughter’s mood.

“Did we?”

“Your mother and I loved dancing.”

“I remember. You used to dance to the phonograph in the foyer sometimes.”

“Phonograph.
Been a while since I heard it called that.”

Penelope sighed. “There are too many new gadgets these days. Cassettes, CDs, iPods. Who knows what else will come along?”

“I should be saying that instead of you.”

“I don’t like things the way they are lately.”

“Things could change.”

“Pigs could fly, too. I’m going to Mary Lynn’s and see what the latest is with the girls. You know Bradley has to talk to them about their mother.”

“That’ll be hard on all of them.” Jake finished his coffee and got up. “I’ll go see what the Toneys are up to.” He leaned down and kissed Penelope’s cheek. “Smile, darlin’. It’s the only way to survive.”

****

Penelope peeked into the den where Ellie and Evie were sprawled on the floor watching cartoons. They wore matching pink flannel pajamas with multi-colored cats tumbling over the pants. “Have you managed to spoil them completely in two days?” she asked Mary Lynn as they sat in the kitchen.

“They were due, don’t you think?”

“Has Bradley called?”

Mary Lynn
teared up. “They’re so happy. It’s like they just chucked their whole miserable little lives and settled in here with Harry and me.”

“He has to do it, Mary Lynn.”

“I know. I called Tonya Cisneros. She says she wants to be here. Damage control, I guess. Then she’ll probably take them to a shelter or a foster home.”

“Why? I thought she was trying to get you and Harry recertified as foster parents. This is the perfect place for them, especially with Jeremiah…”

“Brad told me what happened last night. Having their father locked up indefinitely could make a difference, I guess.” Mary Lynn stirred her coffee, now grown cold. “But if the girls tell Brad that he killed their mother…”

Penelope poured out the cold coffee and refilled her friend’s cup. “It’ll work
out, I just feel it in my bones.”

“I never realized how empty this house was before.”

“I guess I never realized how much you and Harry missed having children.”

****

Penelope didn’t see Sam at all on Saturday or Sunday, although she knew he slept in his bed, and the meals she left for him disappeared regularly. Bradley and Rosabel didn’t come for lunch after Mass. Mary Lynn called to say that she and Harry still had the girls. “It’s a day-to-day thing, according to Tonya.”

“Well, at least you’re on a first-name basis with her.”

“She’s not actually Alana Mueller’s supervisor. She was just filling in that day. It seems the absent supervisor is now back and planning to be at the school on Monday. I don’t want to send Ellie back, and Tonya said she wouldn’t even ask if I kept her home. But she’ll have to go back sometime.”

“Did Bradley
come talk to the girls?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe Monday.”

“Maybe so.
I’m just trying to enjoy them while they’re here.”

George Harris called later in the evening. “The DA’s office got back to me. Technically, they can’t question the children without their parents’ permission, but they can investigate abuse. Will you be here on Monday? Not that I’d blame you if you stayed away.”

“I’ll be there.”

“It may get nasty. The children don’t talk to us as much as they should, and they’re not going to talk to strangers.”

“So what will Alana Mueller and company do? Round them up like cattle, herd them into trucks and take them off?”

“Who knows?”

“Well, I’ll be there, George, and so will Miss Maude, I’m sure. Mary Lynn’s keeping Ellie and Evie at home, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“I didn’t hear a thing.”

****

Sam showed up for breakfast on Monday morning and dropped his sheets off in the laundry room. “I guess you’re going to the school today.”

“I guess you’re leaving today.”

He nodded. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Jeremiah Hadden’s locked up, and I can’t let George Harris deal with Alana Mueller and her team of self-styled do-gooders by himself.”

“Just watch yourself, Nell.”

She wondered if he didn’t kiss her goodbye later because Jake was sitting there or because he didn’t want to.

****

George Harris squeezed the entire faculty into his office before the buses arrived and told them about the impending visit by the welfare officials. “Keep your cool with them,” he cautioned. “We’re not exactly according to Hoyle out here, and I’d as soon they not get any ideas about reporting us to the State Board of Education. And there’s one more thing. Most of you know about Yvonne Hadden. Well, Jeremiah came into town Friday night and ended up in the pokey, but he’s not the only Hadden in the Hollow. Brad Pembroke called me last night and suggested we keep the doors locked, fire code or not, and have recess in the gym until further notice.”

M
aude Pendleton spoke first. “Are we to understand that Sergeant Pembroke feels there is imminent danger to the students and faculty here?”             

“That’s what you should understand, Miss Maude.”

“I see. Then may I suggest also keeping the individual classroom doors locked?”

“I was about to suggest that, too,” Paul Hollis said.

“Good idea. Just tell our unwanted visitors that it’s from the PD and to take it up with them. Don’t offer any more information. Now, if there’s a problem, I’ll ring the bell one long ring and two short ones. That means stay put. No lunch, no bathroom breaks, nothing.”

“Do you really think there’ll be trouble?”
Lizette Foster asked. “I mean, if Ellie’s father is locked up, why would anybody else risk…”

“You all know how folks are out here. Somebody might take it into his head to come here looking,” George replied.
“Hollow honor and all that.”

Paul Hollis glanced around at his colleagues. “These kids know everything that goes on in the Hollow anyway, and they’ve had a whole weekend to find out about Ellie’s mother’s body being exhumed, her father being locked up, and maybe even the invasion of the social workers. They’ll know what we’re doing, even the younger ones.”

“I’m not really expecting a full house today,” George said. He looked up at the library clock. “But we need to go feed the ones who do show up. Just try to keep things on an even keel—and be careful.”

****

At mid-morning, Alana Mueller, looking smug, pounded on the locked door. A man in a suit jacket with no tie stood behind her. “Why are the doors locked?” she demanded of Penelope who got there first.

“You’ll have to take that up with the police department in town,” Penelope said, standing aside to let them in.

“This is my supervisor, Mr. Caldwell.”

Penelope acknowledged the introduction with a brief nod. “You know where the office is.” She lingered in the hall for a moment, but when George Harris signaled her with his eyes, she went back to the library.

For the rest of the morning, a steady stream of children entered the office—and left fairly quickly.
They won’t talk,
Penelope thought, feeling more and more satisfied. 
And those officious twits can’t beat it out of them.

Pam Hollis ducked into the library at noon. “It’s like the kids are pre-programmed for silence. They’re not even talking in
class, which is fine with me—at least for today. I’m reading aloud and giving seatwork and leaving them alone.”

“This too shall pass,” Penelope said, laughing at how philosophical she sounded. “I hope.”

“Paul managed a word with George, and he said those two outlanders are furious.”

“Outlanders!”

“Well, that’s what they are. We are, too, of course, but at least we understand the thinking out here in the Hollow and don’t try to butt in.”

“Wonder what they’ll do?”

“No telling.”

****

At two o’clock, Miss Maude poked her head into the library and informed Penelope that, as a special treat, the children were going to be allowed to watch a video in the gym. “Mr. Harris suggests
The Wind in the Willows.
”

“I’ll set it up then. Miss Maude, what do you think is going on?”

The woman put her lips together in a tight line, then relaxed them. “The children are silent as the grave, and Miss Mueller and Mr. Caldwell can’t get a word out of any one of them. I would think they’d have given up by now. Currently they’re in the outer office—with their heads together as you younger people say.”

“Plotting?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Penelope put her paperwork aside and went to the video cabinet. “The school day’s almost over, and so far nothing’s happened.”

“Let us pray it doesn’t.”

“I’ve been praying all day, Miss Maude.”

The older woman nodded. “As have I—in a Methodist sort of way.” Penelope thought the older woman winked as she withdrew and disappeared down the hall.

Penelope was pushing the television cart toward the door when she heard gunshots
followed by the sound of shattering glass. The bell rang—one long, two shorts. She left the card and opened the library door, which she hadn’t locked despite George’s edict, and stepped out into the hall.

A large man, definitely a
Hadden, brandishing a sawed-off shotgun, lunged for George Harris who stood in the door of his office, then leveled the gun and fired. George went down. Penelope retreated, locking the door behind her, and ran for the phone in her small office.

Assured that help was on the way, she crawled across the library and hunkered down by the door to listen. The hall seemed eerily silent.
I’ve got to get to George. It’ll be at least fifteen minutes before the ambulance gets here. He could die if he’s gut-shot, and that’s what it looked like.  He might already be dead.
She reached for the doorknob, flipped the lock, and opened the door slightly.  Silence. Still on her knees, she inched out into the hall where she could see the principal lying in a pool of blood.

Oh, dear God, I’m too late. He’s dead. But I had to call for help, and that
Hadden would’ve shot me, too, if I’d gone to help George right off the bat.
Then she heard a moan and saw George’s foot twitch. Scrambling to her feet, she ran to where he lay. “The police and an ambulance are on the way, George. Hang on.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Trying to stanch the blood bubbling from George Harris’s lower chest, Penelope wasn’t aware of anyone else around until a shadow blocked her light. “Move,” she ordered in her ER voice. “I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“Get away from him!”

Penelope’s fingers kept working, though the fear coursing through the rest of her body froze her in place.

“I said get away!” Thick beefy fingers dug into her shoulder and pulled her away. She smelled stale perspiration and something she else couldn’t identify.

“I don’t mind
killin’ you, too.”

“Then do it.” The words reminded Penelope of the night in the Little Rock ER when she thought the bearded, knife-wielding man who forced his way into the treatment room where she was working on the girlfriend he’d nearly beaten to death, was going to try to dispatch her, too. She’d refused to give ground, and an intern and another nurse finally tackled him and took the knife.

“I want those kids,” the man snarled close to her ear.

“Good luck.” Penelope scrambled back checked the pulse in George’s neck and felt it grow stronger. The warmth of his body cavity, where she plunged her hand as a dam against the flow of blood, brought back other nights in the ER.
Where are the paramedics? Will this maniac shoot them, too, before they even get in here? Dear God, it’s so quiet. Please don’t let him go down the hall to the classrooms.

“Ellie and
Evie are gone,” she said through clenched teeth. “Gone where you’ll never get them, and the police are on the way. If this man dies, I’ll help send you to death row!”

He yanked her head back by the hair. “Shut up!”

The pain made her eyes water. “Who are you anyway? You better get out of here while you can.”

At the sound of sirens, growing louder every second, the man released her. She fought back nausea and tried to concentrate on what she was trying to do. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the assailant retreat toward the shattered front door. Then, somewhere, another door opened, and Penelope watched in horror as Miss Maude Pendleton emerged from the
kindergarten room and marched toward the grisly scene. “No, Miss Maude, go back!””

The man whirled around, dived past Penelope, and grabbed Miss Maude around the neck, almost taking her down.

“Let her go! Please, just let her go. She’s…”

He half-dragged the older woman back to the door as the ambulance gave its last whoop, and the tires of several vehicles squealed behind it. Penelope watched the woman’s feet scramble to stay on the floor.

“We’re going out, old woman,” the man said. “If they shoot me, they’ll have to shoot through you.” He shoved Miss Maude ahead of him.

Penelope heard the shattered glass crunch beneath their feet. She felt George’s pulse again.
Oh, God, get somebody in here fast. He’s bleeding out. I need help.

She was aware of loud voices in the parking lot and braced herself for the sound of guns firing, but none did. A door slammed—a pickup truck, she thought—and she heard gravel flying.

More footsteps over glass and then a voice in her ear. “What?”

“Shotgun right lower quadrant, pulse
thready.” She sat back on her heels, allowing the paramedics to take over, and pressed her bloody hands against her legs to stop their sudden tremor.

“Mother…”

“I’m all right, Bradley. The children are still in their classrooms, but he took Miss Maude.”

“The state police are setting up roadblocks. Parnell, you and
Rosabel go check all the classrooms, and get Carol Harris down here.”

The hall came alive with uniformed troopers. Penelope tried to concentrate on what the paramedics were saying. When she saw Carol Harris coming on the run, she staggered to her feet. “Carol, let them work.”

Carol’s eyes, too black in her suddenly colorless face, searched Penelope’s. “Is he dead?”

“No, but I’ll be honest with you, it doesn’t look real good.
Just let them work.”

“You’re hurt, too!”

Penelope shook her head. “No, it’s…Carol, just move over there by that wall, out of the way. That’s the best thing you can do for George right now.”

It seemed like an eternity before the paramedics loaded George into the ambulance. “We’ll get him to the life-flight pad if we can,” one of the young men said to no one in particular.

“I’ll drive you to the hospital in Little Rock, Mrs. Harris,” Rosabel said.

Carol frowned. “The children. George would make sure the children got on the buses.”

“We’ll take care of that,” Penelope said. The blood, already beginning to dry on her hands and forearms, was making her nauseous. She glanced at the clock above the office door. “It’s only ten minutes until the buses come. You go on.”

Brad and Parnell, guns holstered now, strode toward the main hall. “Officer Deane will take you to the hospital, Mrs. Harris,” Bradley said.

“I already told her,” Rosabel murmured. “Little Rock.”

“That bad?”
Bradley mouthed.

Rosabel
nodded.

“The children shouldn’t come this way to load the buses,” Penelope said. “Someone needs to direct the drivers around to the back, and I’ll tell the teachers to use the cafeteria entrance.”

Bradley nodded. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He signaled Rosabel with his eyes, and she led Carol Harris out. Parnell moved closer to Penelope. “Mrs. Pembroke, I’ll go tell the teachers what to do. You look…the kids are already scared enough.”

She looked down at her denim jumper where a large amount of George Harris’s blood had mottled the skirt until it looked almost black. “Yeah, I guess I’m kind of a mess.”

“When we get the kids out, we’ll clear everyone else out, too, and tape the place off.”

“I’ll just go clean up a little.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

“He’s got Miss Maude, Parnell.”
             

“I know it.”

“He’ll kill her just for meanness.”

“I know that, too.” He turned around and went back down the hall to the classrooms.

****

When Penelope emerged from the faculty washroom where she’d tried without much success to clean herself up, she remembered Alana Mueller and her supervisor. Stepping around the blood and glass, she went into the attendance office and found them still there, sitting motionless in apparent shock.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.
I don’t really care. You put yourselves in this situation.

Alana Mueller lifted her head and shook it slightly.

“The police will probably want to talk to both of you.”

“We didn’t see anything,”
Caldwell said.

I’ll just bet you were both down on the floor saving
your own skins while Miss Maude.
“They’ll probably want to talk to you anyway.”

She walked out and straight into Sam.  Too wrung-out to cry, she leaned her head against his warm, solid chest and felt his hands stroking her hair.
“You all right?”

“
Sure, I’m okay, but Miss Maude doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in July, and George Harris doesn’t have much more.”

“I’ll take you home.”

She retrieved her purse and half-eaten lunch from the library and followed Sam out the cafeteria entrance just as the last bus roared away. “Please tell me the news media aren’t all over this already,” she murmured, turning her face away as a camera flashed.

“Mrs. Pembroke, we understand you…” A young reporter, followed by a camcorder, pushed in across the yellow tape.

Sam’s hand shot out to grab the microphone. “Get out of here.”

Undaunted, another reporter, a woman, stuck her microphone across the tape. “Can you tell us what happened?”

Penelope hid her face against Sam’s arm.

“I can tell you what’s going to happen if you don’t get the hell out of here,” Sam said in a voice dripping with menace. He opened the car door and shoved Penelope inside, but she could still hear the cacophony of voices shouting questions directed to her by name.

“Just get me home,” she said as Sam slid behind the wheel.

“We’re gone. Hang on.”

Troopers waved them past two checkpoints, and Sam slid through three red lights, not stopping until he’d parked in the garage behind the B&B. “They know who I am. They’ll show up here before too long.”

Sam hurried her up the flagstone walk and used his key on the backdoor. “I’ll deal with them.”

“Where’s Daddy? I don’t want him to see me like this.”

“I’ll deal with him, too. Go get cleaned up.”

Showered and shampooed, Penelope felt better, but when she put her dress in to soak, the water in the tub turned crimson, making her feel sick and dizzy all over again. Leaving it, she slipped into her standard jeans and t-shirt and went downstairs. Jake and Sam sat at the kitchen table eating pizza.

“I found this in the freezer,” Sam said. “Yours is keeping warm in the oven. I was filling Jake in on what happened this afternoon.”

“You did good, darlin’, but you always do.”

Penelope silently blessed his calm flowing into her.

“I don’t know, Daddy. I don’t think George is going to make it, and Miss Maude…” She leaned against the cabinet and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, Daddy, he’s probably already killed her. She deserved better than that.”

“Maude Pendleton is a tough old gal,” Jake said with what Penelope knew was forced bravado.

“The Haddens are all mean as mad dogs.”

Jake shook his head. “Nellie, they’ll get him.”

“I called the Hargroves,” Sam said. “A state trooper had already been there to tell them what happened. He’ll hang around a while. By the way, Brad talked to Ellie today. She mentioned a name—Archie Hadden.”

“I know that name,” Jake said, sitting forward. “He’s not Jeremiah’s brother, but he might be a cousin or something. It
seems to me he got sent to prison for something a few years ago. Not from here though, from some place up in northeast Arkansas. It didn’t make much of a ripple here, but I remember the name because it was a Hadden from Possum Hollow.”

Penelope put a single piece of pizza on her plate and sat down, then startled at the knock on the back door. Sam lifted the curtain. “It’s
Rosabel.” He unlocked the door.

Rosabel
went straight to Penelope and put her arms around her mother-in-law. “Mr. Harris made it through surgery. He’s got a fighting chance.”

The breath went out of Penelope. “Thank you, God,” she whispered.

“I made some calls for Mrs. Harris, and as soon as her sister got there, I came back to Amaryllis.”

“Have some pizza, Rosie,” Jake said. “I bet you haven’t eaten.”

“I’ll take a piece with me, Pawpaw. I’ve got to get back to the station. I talked to Brad on my way back, and he said it was crazy down there.”

“Did he mention Miss Maude?” Penelope asked.

“The roadblocks haven’t turned up anything, but he might’ve taken her into the Hollow. They’ve got a team of officers with dogs out there now.”

“In the dark?”
Jake asked.

“I don’t know, Pawpaw. But Bradley said for you and Penelope to stay put and keep the doors locked.” She glanced at Sam. “Are you staying?”

“I wasn’t planning to, but I’ll see if I can work it out.”

“That’s good.”
Rosabel wrapped two pieces of pizza in a paper towel. “I’ll take one to Brad, and we’ll call you later.” She kissed Penelope, then Jake. “We’ll get him.”

****

Jake put his arms around Penelope and squeezed her before he went out to his room. “I’ll clean up,” Sam said.

“There’s not much to clean up, and I need to do something besides sit and think.”

Sam carried the plates to the sink and turned on the tap. “I was about thirty miles out when I heard what happened.”

“How?”

“Scanner.”

“You have one of those.”

“Comes in handy sometimes.”

“So y
ou turned around and came back.”

He turned around from the sink. “I had to know you were all right, Nell.”

“It stinks. The whole thing stinks—Yvonne Hadden, George Harris, Miss Maude.” Penelope brought her fist down on the edge of the sink. “I hate it. I hate it.”

Sam’s arms went around her. “I do, too, Nell, but bad things happen in life.”

“They shouldn’t. Not to children. Not to people like George and Miss Maude.”

“Why? You think good people should be immune from trouble?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You inferred it. Nell, it’s a big bad world out there. For most of your life, you’ve been sheltered here in Amaryllis, but it was inevitable that real life would creep in here eventually.”

“I worked in an emergency room for twelve years. I know about the big bad world.”