Thistle and Twigg (7 page)

“Oh, I’d love to! Count me in!” I said. “But what?”

“It’s strictly for handguns. So you’d need to get you a small one. And the class is tomorrow.”

I thought about it a second and realized there was no law against me having more than one gun. I could get me a big one some other time. But I wasn’t going to miss out on special attention from Mr. Jack Blaylock, local celebrity and handsome stud.

“In that case, y’all fix me up. I’ll do it.”

Jack helped me pick out one that fit my hand just right called a CZ-75. It was fairly hefty and the first thing I’ve ever owned that was made in Czechoslovakia. He told me a few more specifics about the all-day class and gave me directions to the shooting range.

When Jack left, the little bell on the door jingled again. He touched the front of his hat and smiled at me.

As soon as the door closed, I said, “Is he married?”

“I believe he is,” Alton said.

“He wasn’t wearing a ring.”

“And I hear she’s real mean. Watch yourself.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. I’m just curious,” I said, although the truth was I was already flipping through my closet in my mind to pick out the prettiest outfit to wear the next day.

A
fter we found the body, Phoebe and I waited at my house until the police returned to ask us a few more questions. Most were the same ones they’d asked before but we both obliged. Once done, Phoebe had errands to run, so I was alone with my thoughts.

What a morning it had been. I gathered clean clothes and headed to the bath for a nice shower. I bent to pick up my house slippers from the closet floor, and when I stood again, I noticed my grandmother’s table was not where I put it.

It was all I had of hers, a spindly, lightweight thing with one pedestal leg and a top that could be folded flat against the wall. I’d positioned the table carefully to hide a small area of torn wallpaper that at the moment I could see clearly. Curious, I thought, that the table now stood several inches farther along the wall.

The floors here are old, I said to myself, and uneven. Of course such a light object might not stay put in certain spots, particularly one with an old, worn handmade base. The path between the table and my bed was narrow, and most likely I brushed the table when I passed causing it to jiggle out of place.

There was one problem with that theory I didn’t remember walking past it, not since I first set it there. And if I had done, going from bed to closet, the table would have moved in the opposite direction and closer to the wall, not farther from it. I carried on to the bathroom with only a brief hesitance and the smallest backward glance.

The rest of the day was uneventful, other than the continuation of my unpacking into the night. I went to bed worried as there had been no word from Cal.

Next morning, I went through my rituals of stretches, ventured a bit farther on my walk, and came home again for a calming set of Tai Chi. I was quite pleased with myself for I’d incorporated a bit of running into my walk that came much easier than the day before.

Once clean and refreshed, I sat on the porch looking out over the meadow. I suppose I was looking for Cal. I couldn’t believe he had murdered that young man then left him to lie in the dirt. But guilty or not, he must return and talk to the police soon. I tried to keep another worry at bay, that Cal had also been shot and lay somewhere undiscovered.

I had no choice but to tell the police about Cal agreeing to sell me his land. I wasn’t keen on it, as I considered it no one’s business but ours. Also, I feared it might implicate Cal further, perhaps making the police think he had fled since he would soon have no land ties here.

This was preposterous, of course. Cal would never leave his land. That was the whole point of our arrangement. He wanted to die there. Running away did not fit into his plan.

Until more evidence surfaced to clear him, I found myself wishing he might stay hidden for a few days. If not, I prayed he would come to me. I couldn’t do much for him except be a friend. That was something he seemed in short supply of here. A poor man with a criminal record and a bad reputation makes an easy target for false accusations, particularly in a small town. This accusation could prove too much for poor Cal in light of his bad health.

I returned inside but left the door open and the screen locked to keep an eye and an ear out for police activity should Cal return.

I began to mull over the possibilities of our proposed land deal as I fussed with rearranging the living room furniture. I was of two minds about it all. For a while, I told myself nothing had changed. The police might find evidence very soon that exonerated Cal. Then I convinced myself he was guilty, would be convicted, and the land would be tied up until his death in prison. What would happen then? With no heirs, the land might be sold by the state and developed, and I would have new neighbors. Many, many new neighbors. Worse, it would mean the death of a beautiful tract of nature, an irretrievable loss.

I stepped over to the front windows. A single police cruiser remained, parked in the shade of the pines that line the entrance to the refuge. Of course, they would be watching for Cal. Perhaps they were also watching me. Dismissing the thought as melodramatic, I continued straightening and unpacking with the uneasy feeling of being in a cage.

Many more questions surfaced concerning wills and land. I considered calling the lawyer who had helped in settling the sale of my house. His office was located on the square downtown. He was such a nice fellow, I was sure he’d be happy to answer any questions about state laws and the like. However, inquiries to a native Tullulian might not be wise at this stage, I thought.

A sudden loud noise at the back porch startled me. It sounded like a box fell over and hit the back wall. My first thought was of the squirrel visitor that had left me acorns in the night. My second thought was of the huge snake. I found that my eyes went immediately to the floor where it had slithered its way across the threshold.

I stepped quickly to the curtain covering the back-door window.

I saw nothing. No further movement was seen or heard. When I opened the door, all was still. The cardboard box I’d packed with tools lay spread about the porch as if someone had overturned it to find the proper one to use.

I smiled as I went onto the porch, imagining a raccoon or rabbit selecting a trowel and planning his flower garden. But how could one have gotten in? The mesh screening all around the porch looked intact. I bent down to scoop everything up and noticed something reddish on the steps going down to the yard. I shoved the utensil box against the wall where it had been and stepped to the screen for a closer look.

They were half footsteps. The imprints looked to have been made with fresh, red mud. I might have thought the movers had left them had I not hosed off the porches, front and back, after they left.

I tried to remember if the police had walked behind my house. Perhaps they had done so while I was otherwise occupied. Or someone else was nearby now. The image of my grandmother’s table upstairs flashed through my mind.

I latched the screen door as a precaution. Immediately I thought of Phoebe’s assertion that no one locks doors here in Tul-lulah and felt a slight twinge of guilt.

No sooner had I turned to go back inside when something thumped under the floor very near my feet. All became clear. This time, I unlatched the door, marched down the steps, and opened the hinged piece of lattice that opened to the storage space under the porch.

All was quiet and very dark under there. As my vision adjusted to the darkness, I saw first one set of eyes blink, then another set, lower and to the right of the first.

I looked around me to be certain no one was watching. “All right, you two. You’d better come out quickly before anyone sees you.”

One dog and one man carrying a sack crawled out from under the porch. Both looked apologetic and grateful for rescue. Before Cal could speak or Homer could bark, I said, “Not a word. Hurry now. Up with you. Quick as you can.”

They did as they were asked with not a sound out of them. Both stayed on the porch close to the screen door after I shut it behind us. Cal’s face drooped as much as Homer’s jowls. Both looked embarrassed, standing there covered in mud.

“I’m sorry, Jane. We’ve been pondering what to do, me and Homer. Seems like whichever way we go, it’s going to be a bad turn.”

I hated to agree. “You must go and talk to the police, you know. It’s the only way.”

“I didn’t do anything! They’ll lock me up without even caring. You wait and see if they don’t.”

“If you are innocent, you have nothing to worry about if you call them before they find you.”

He shook his head. His voice was light, weak. “I know that’s right. But I can’t die in jail, Jane. I just can’t.”

I sighed as I took in the sight of them. “No more talking nonsense. Right now, you’re in need of a shower and something to eat. Both of you.”

Homer licked his jaws. I instructed Cal to stay put while I led Homer off the porch. Minding we stayed well out of view of the road, I turned on the water spigot and gave him a good wash down, which he seemed to enjoy. I sent him up the steps and inside again. While the water was on, I sprayed the mud tracks off the steps. Feeling a bit criminal, I also sprayed away all foot and paw prints from the dirt around the lattice that covered the storage area under the house.

Cal sat on a ladder-back chair on the porch and removed his shoes and socks. ‘That night, several hours after I left here, I heard a shot across the field. I walked toward the road. I stayed near the street lamp at the refuge entrance. Didn’t want to get accidentally shot myself. Didn’t see nothing. Figured it must’ve been a car backfiring, going around the refuge next to your place.” He pointed to the narrow road that turned right at the refuge entrance and divided my property and the refuge itself. “I waited awhile, still didn’t see nothing, so I went back home. I decided not to go to Florence, so me and Homer just made our regular rounds.”

I rummaged through a box and found a few old towels I’d saved for rags. “Come here, Homer,” I said. He trotted over so I could dry him off. To Cal, I said, “And you didn’t go near the practicing range anytime yesterday morning?”

“No.”

“You know we found a body? I presume that’s why you’re here, correct?”

Cal looked up and nodded slowly. “We seen the police. I started to walk up and see what the problem was until I seen that body bag. We decided to take the long way around the refuge and come here. You know, to give me some thinking time.”

Cal wasn’t telling me the truth, at least not all of it. His story had one large hole obvious to me already. The bag he carried suggested he had been home and also planned to stay away at least for a little while.

“Do you have a clean change of clothes in there?” I asked and pointed to his bag. He nodded. I brought him inside and directed him to the downstairs bath where he could shower. Meanwhile, I cooked a quick meal of ham, eggs, and fried potatoes for the three of us.

I wondered if Cal wasn’t planning to steal away from here as he had done from his own house. He may have intended to stay hidden until he could get the keys to my car and drive off, sometime late in the evening. I chided myself for having such a thought. It was an unlikely theory. With Cal’s outdoor skills and intimate knowledge of his land, he could easily evade detection under cover of the woods and stay hidden as long as he liked. Yet he had come here. Why?

M
y phone nearly rang off the hook after we found that body so many people were calling me. I figured they would. Jane and I were the lead story on the five o’clock news. The news reporters from the paper and WTTV, the local station, came to the scene not long after the police did.

The newspaper story showed us talking to Detective Waters. The headlines read, “Unidentified Man Found Dead. New Resident Questioned.” They had both our names in the caption. My hair looked awful but that was to be expected, considering.

The next morning, Jack Blaylock’s gun-safety class was supposed to start at ten o’clock. Luckily, this would not interfere with my regular Saturday hair appointment at 8:45, so I had plenty of time to get beautiful before shooting the fire out of those paper targets.

The Beauty Barn sits on an odd-shaped piece of land several blocks behind the main drag on the square. It’s more like a cabin than a barn. The logs aren’t like new fancy ones you see these days. They’re real old and black with age.

The cabin sat empty a long time while the history nuts argued whether or not it was historical. Personally I saw nothing special about it just because it’s old. The town council thought the same. They saw no reason to preserve a former home for young ladies, especially when there’s a question as to whether they were actually ladies, if you know what I mean.

After that, the cabin was a florist and gift shop for a while. It was pretty nice but the husband of the lady who ran it got transferred. That’s when Ray and Bonita Young bought it because her beauty business she did out of her house grew so much that she was out of space.

Now she has plenty of room. She has expanded from two hairdryers to five, all lined up on the right wall. On the left is where they put the big mirrors and twirling chairs where Bonita and two other beauticians style hair. The big stone fireplace straight ahead hadn’t been lit yet for the cool weather, but it wouldn’t be long. I couldn’t wait.

Every Saturday, the barn is pretty full when I get there. That day it was jam-packed. The high-pitched chatter of women yakking ninety miles an hour was so loud a bugler on a horse could’ve galloped in the door playing reveille and nobody would’ve heard or even noticed them. But when everybody saw me, the whole place went silent.

Bonita was the first one to move. She finished rolling the last perm rod on top of Shirley Blevins’ head and whirled her around in the chair. She stretched a plastic cap on Shirley’s head, and then fastened it with a silver butterfly clip. “Now, you sit tight, Shirley. Here’s a towel. You’re set.”

Bonita smiled and tiptoed over to me. “We’re ready for you Phoebe, hon. We’ve got a sink waiting on you.” She led me back to the sinks and whipped a towel around my neck herself. This was the royal treatment. Bonita hardly ever shampooed anybody herself anymore. One of her nieces or some of their high school friends usually did that and swept the floors now that the Barn was so popular. She flicked one of the new capes out and around my shoulders. With a quick snap at the neck, she wasted no time on small talk and got straight down to business.

“Don’t keep us in suspense. We want to hear it all, Phoebe, don’t leave the least little bit out.” Every ear in the place was stuck way out to hear me. I had to holler over the noise of the spray when she rinsed and project my voice a little more since I was bent over backward with my head hanging in the sink.

“Where do I begin?” I said, looking up at the ceiling. “Let’s see. It all started Wednesday morning when I went to Wriggle’s Sporting Goods.”

I got up to the part about giving Jane a blanket when Bonita told me to sit up. She wrapped a towel around my hair and patted my back so I’d go on to her styling chair. She jacked it up high after I sat down and rubbed the towel all over my head. While she trimmed my hair a little bit and put it up in rollers, I told the rest of the story up to the part where the newsmen left.

Treenie Dodd, a stout girl with kinky blonde hair who is my cousin Annette’s great niece (not blood niece, by second marriage), sat directly behind me in the waiting area straight across the room. I could see her in the mirror. She quit flipping through a magazine and said, “So you don’t think this Jane woman was mixed up with that young guy that got killed, do you?”

“Of course not. For heaven’s sake, she just got here. And before you ask, no, she didn’t shoot that poor boy either. He was already dead when we found him. He was done cold as a Popsicle.”

“You touched him?” Bonita said. Her hands stopped in mid-roll.

I swiped my hair out of my eyes. “New-hoo, new, new. No, ma’am, not me. I just took Jane’s word for it. I wasn’t about to touch that thing.”

Treenie edged forward on her seat. Her voice was low and husky like a man’s. I think she does it on purpose. “Well, she could’ve been lying. For all you know, she could’ve done it herself earlier that morning or even the night before. Was she up and dressed when you got there?”

“Yes,” I said, as I thought back.

“Could she possibly have led you over to those rocks, making it look like y’all just happened on them?”

“No, of course not. She told me she already knew they were there. She’d been the day before.” That didn’t sound good. “She only wanted to go because of me, because I got the idea I wanted to buy my own bullets at Wriggle’s.”

Treenie’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you thought it was your idea but she really suggested it. You know, subliminal. Put it in your mind.”

“Oh, hush that ignert geechie, Treenie Renee Dodd. You’re talking plain crazy.”

“I’m just making conversation.” For as long as I’ve known Treenie, she’s been a hard head. Contrary from day one. Whatever I told her and the other kids at the library not to do, she’d do it. If little girls were supposed to be quiet and play with dolls and wear dresses, she’d play with guns and trucks.

It was no surprise to me when she joined the army She tried to get on with the police when she got out but she tested positive for marijuana during the interviews. At least that’s what I heard. Now, she works for a construction company. No, not answering the phones or doing the payroll like a respectable lady She runs heavy equipment like bulldozers and bush hogs. They say she’s good at it. I say there’s something mighty peculiar about that girl. I think she just likes to hang around old men who cuss and spit. They say she laughs and jokes with them that she’s got a girlfriend just like them. If you ask me, that’s taking the whole “bonding with the guys” thing a little too far.

I decided it was best just to ignore her. I finished telling my story. I wasn’t about to let her think I didn’t know exactly what happened, so I said, “We saw all kinds of strange things on that property.” I looked all around at everybody and then directly at Treenie and said, “Stuff you ain’t got no idea about. Stuff you wouldn’t even believe.”

“Like what?” she asked, leaning toward me.

I shrugged and looked away, real nonchalant. “Well, I wouldn’t want to scare you too bad. I’ll say this—there’s more in those woods than just a bunch of trees and squirrel poop. Jane and I pretty much figured everything out about that poor boy’s murder. But I’ve probably already said too much. The police wouldn’t appreciate me blabbing out things that might be pertinent to their investigation, now would they?”

She looked impressed. That’ll teach her to be nosy. I smiled and changed the subject. Everybody was real interested in Jane’s house so I told them all about her furniture and how she was decorating. When it was time to get under the hair dryer, I could finally relax. I closed my eyes and tried to think if I was sure my turquoise outfit was good enough for my gun class or if I needed to stop around the corner at Franny’s Boutique to buy something new.