Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man? (22 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

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“I can’t walk,” Joe Riddley told him grumpily. “You know that.”

Darren gently steered him toward the bars while Joe peered around the room from Joe Riddley’s cap. “Sure you can walk. Your legs weren’t shot, just your head. You’ll walk fine once your brain decides you can. The reason we do therapy is to train your brain.”

Darren might be right. I had noticed that if I said, “Right foot, left foot,” like he did, Joe Riddley walked on the walker with a lot more confidence. But he was a long way from taking a stroll downtown. His poor brain had its wiring mixed. Right then it was telling him to scratch his bottom in public. “Stop that.” I gave him a nudge. People with head injuries have no more inhibitions than tiny children.

Darren positioned him on the parallel bars and commanded, “Step with your right foot. Now your left. Right foot. Left foot.”

“Did you have a good run yesterday?” I asked as Joe Riddley snail-walked along the bars.

“We sure did. Alice is fast! Then we went up to Augusta and danced. She’s a great dancer, too. We’re going to play miniature golf tonight after supper.” He had a spring in his step as he went to nudge Joe Riddley along. Poor Kelly Keane.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the head of the physical therapy department heading our way. Quickly I went to intercept her. “We won’t bring the bird every day,” I assured her. “My husband was being obstreperous this morning, and I couldn’t make him go to the barn—” I stopped, flustered, hoping she knew it was the parrot and not my husband I wanted to make go to the barn. I was getting as bad as Joe Riddley. Sentences perfectly clear in my head got garbled on their way to my tongue.

She looked over to where Joe Riddley was actually cooperating with Darren for a change, and smiled. “The judge is like a different man. If the parrot doesn’t bother the others, you can bring him.”

Since Joe Riddley didn’t seem to need me right beside him, for a change, I headed to an empty seat next to a pretty young woman with a blond ponytail and a pink sweat suit. I’d have thought she’d wandered in looking for a gym except for the thick medical shoe on one foot. “That’s a fine scarlet macaw,” she said. “But why is he grieving? Has he lost his mate?”

I stared in surprise. “He lost his owner. How’d you know?”

“He’s blushing. Macaws are the only animals except humans who blush. For them, it is often a symptom of grief.” Seeing my surprise, she added, “I’m Marge Grafton, a veterinarian from Roanoke.” She held out her foot ruefully. “A clumsy veterinarian. I came down to visit my folks and fell off a chair cleaning off my mother’s closet shelf. Broke my foot in three places. But hopefully they’ll release me today and let me get back home. Oh, there’s my therapist.” She stood, then turned. “Don’t worry about your bird. Just give him a lot of love.”

There was one doctor’s order I couldn’t follow. But I could love Joe Riddley and tolerate the parrot for his sake. I hoped that would be enough.

By Monday afternoon, radio announcements and white notices around the county urged people to come forward with anything they saw in the region of Yarbrough Farm Road between seven and nine the previous Saturday morning. Two days later I was out at the nursery checking a delivery of roses when Clarinda called, her voice deep and troubled. “I hate to bother you—”

My heart thudded. “What’s the matter? He was fine when I left.”

“It’s not the Judge. He’s sleepin’. It’s that therapy feller. He called here looking for you. The sheriff’s taken him in for ques tionin’ about killin’ Mister Blaine.”

“Let me hang up and call the sheriff.”

His office said the sheriff wasn’t there, but about the time I got back to my desk, he pulled into a parking space outside my window.

Are you going to tell him about the gun now?
I’d have smacked that voice if I could.

“Afternoon, Judge.” Sheriff Gibbons came into the office turning his hat in his hand, a sure sign he was anxious. He’d stood turning his sack lunch just like that when he was ten, standing by to lend moral support while Joe Riddley asked me to go steady. I had no idea what “go steady” meant, but I’d have gone anywhere with Joe Riddley. When I said yes, Buster flung his sack into the air and yelled, “Whoopee!”

He isn’t gonna yell “whoopee” today when he hears what you have to say.

I greeted him like a normal adult who doesn’t have voices in her head. “Good afternoon, Sheriff. I hear you’re interviewing Joe Riddley’s physical therapist about that shooting.”

He nodded, still turning his hat. He was also shifting from one leg to the other.

“Sit down. You’re making me antsy. And tell me what this is about.”

He perched on the edge of Joe Riddley’s leather chair at the desk, still turning his hat between his hands while he spoke in legalese. “He and the deceased had a major altercation Friday evening concerning the alleged perpetrator’s—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “We’re all alone here. Give it to me in everyday language.”

“Okay.” He laid the hat on the desk and propped one ankle on the other thigh. “This is from three witnesses. Friday night Hernandez was over at Hardee’s with the Keane woman from the paper, having a burger. Hiram went in with his parrot and started hitting on the girl. Hiram could be pretty offensive, you know.”

“We both know,” I agreed. “But Darren works with disturbed people all the time. He’s used to handling them.”

“He tried to handle Hiram, but Hiram wouldn’t be handled. Hernandez asked him to leave, very politely. Hiram said something else offensive. Hernandez started to get out of the booth. The witnesses say he wasn’t at all threatening, but Hiram shoved him before he could get out. Then Hiram spat in Hernandez’s face. As he turned to leave, he shouted so everybody could hear, ‘If that was vinegar, you’d be dissolved by now.’ ”

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Hiram came home crazier than he left.”

“Seems like it. Never used to be trouble, before he took up with old Amos out your way.”

“I refuse to take credit for Amos just because he lived on my road. But that’s not all, is it? You’ve got something to link Darren with Hiram Saturday morning.”

He shifted unhappily. “Afraid so. Several folks saw Hiram push his truck off the highway into the Bi-Lo lot and start down your road around seven-fifteen. Two testify that a yellow Beetle went down your road around eight-fifteen, and two others say it came back around eight-fifty. Hernandez presently owns the only yellow Beetle in Hope County.”

This did not sound good. But there was one possibility. “Are your witnesses reliable?”

“One of the ones who saw Hiram heading down your road is the Bi-Lo manager, who was checking his lot for trash just before opening. Miss Keane herself saw the Beetle turn into your road as she was going to the paper at eight-fifteen, and a bag boy at Bi-Lo noticed it because he’s saving for a red Beetle. He also noticed the time, because as he was heading back to the store, Pooh DuBose stopped him to ask what time it was.”

“Pooh?” Startled, I spoke without thinking.

“Yeah. She was apparently in the lot in her motorized wheelchair. I’m going to speak to Otis about that. She could get hit.”

“Otis will be delighted to know where she was. She sneaked out, and was gone quite a while that morning.” Had she been gone long enough to motor down to my house and shoot Hiram? Our road comes into the highway less than fifty yards from the Bi-Lo. “I take it you didn’t question Pooh?”

“We tried, but she isn’t exactly with it today. She told us Hiram Blaine is a dreadful man who ought to be banned from the streets, but she not only didn’t remember seeing a yellow Volkswagen at the Bi-Lo, she couldn’t remember what a Bi-Lo is. When I explained it’s the grocery store, she said her family shops at Tribbles’ market. How long since Tribbles’ closed?”

“It was right after Walker was born.” We shared the look of two people desperately unhappy about what was happening to one of their favorite people. Then I got back to business. “Does Darren admit he was down at our place?”

“Oh, yes. Says he had to go count tables. Claims he didn’t go in the house, though, and didn’t see Hiram Blaine. Counting tables sounded pretty thin to me, but he lives next to the florist who made centerpieces for your party, and he said she called saying she’d forgotten how many centerpieces she needed. He said they do each other favors from time to time.”

“You’ll talk to her, I suppose.”

“I sent a deputy while I finished interviewing Hernandez, to be sure he didn’t get to her before we did. She corroborates his story. Says she had worked all night and around eight she realized she couldn’t remember whether the thirty-five you ordered included the one for the dining room table. She called Darren and asked if he’d run down to count the round tables.”

I nodded. “We had thirty-five round tables. She brought a gorgeous arrangement for the dining room.”

He chuckled. “She gave you something she’d made for a hotel up on I-20, and went back after she finished decorating at your place to make them another.” He picked up his hat and turned it again. “But she said she had to do that because Hernandez took his own sweet time getting back to her. She’d figured on it taking him no more than fifteen minutes to get to your place, count the tables, and call on his cell phone. It took him more than thirty.”

“What did he say to that?”

“Says he found Lulu out in your road and your car gone, so he chased her and put her in the pen.” He grinned. “Says he never imagined a three-legged beagle could run that fast.”

I didn’t feel like smiling. “I told you I found the dog in the pen when I got home, and I’d left her in the house. Darren didn’t say he saw Hiram at our place?”

“Says he didn’t. Says he didn’t go inside, either.”

“Maybe somebody came after Darren left.”

“The schedule’s too tight. Besides, Maynard took his pup out just as Darren went by, and he saw you come in less than ten minutes later. Between the two of you, nobody went up or down the road.”

“I saw Maynard playing with his dog.” I was jotting down notes, trying to fit all the pieces together. “Let’s see. Just after seven, I left home. Around seven-fifteen, Hiram started walking to our house. That would take—what? Fifteen minutes?”

“More like twenty, I figure. He wasn’t what you’d call a real dedicated walker.”

“Okay, he gets there around seven thirty-five. Around eight-seventeen Darren gets to our house, counts tables, chases Lulu, pens her, and leaves around eight-fifty. Nine o’clock I get home. And nobody went down the road between Darren and me. Sounds like Hiram had to be killed before Darren got there. There’s plenty of time.”

The sheriff’s bloodhound face looked sadder than ever. I knew he was thinking what I was: The only suspect we had for that time slot was Joe Riddley.

“Hernandez must have done it,” he said, almost hopefully. He wasn’t a friend of Darren’s like I was. “Your dining room screen didn’t have any prints except smudged ones of yours and Clarinda’s, but we’ll check his prints against others from the dining room. I don’t suppose you remember whether he was in the dining room during the party, do you?”

“I don’t have any idea who all was in there during the party.” What I did remember—a memory that was making me sick—was Darren leaning against the closet door Saturday night after everybody had gone, his hands behind him, asking about Alice. Was he leaving prints in case he’d left others there before, when he’d dropped the gun in Joe Riddley’s boot?

As if reading my thoughts, the sheriff asked, “By the way, I haven’t gotten by yet to check your kitchen closet. I presume you still have it locked?”

“I certainly do. But getting back to Darren, he seemed his normal perky self at the party.”

“You know you can’t go by that. Maybe shooting Hiram released his tensions.”

“I don’t want to believe Darren did it, Sheriff.”

“You prefer the alternative?”

“You don’t have any evidence linking Joe Riddley to this!” Terror spoke more hotly than I intended. “You might as well arrest
me
and get it over with.”

“Phyllis vouches for where you were.” My mouth dropped open. He settled his hat on his head. “Have to check on everybody, Judge. You, especially, with Chief Muggins assisting with this investigation. But the truth is, we don’t have one piece of hard evidence against anybody. Best way in the world to get rid of evidence is to have a party for two hundred people.”

“I didn’t do it deliberately,” I said grumpily.

“I never for an instant thought you did.” He stood. “I came by because I figured you’d kill me if you heard about Hernandez from anybody else.”

“You got that right.” I rose to see him out, almost deafened by an argument in my head.

Are you going to tell him about the gun?

No. He’d just think Darren got it and used it.

You could point out Darren had no way of knowing where the key is kept.

Not without saying Joe Riddley and I are the only ones who do.