When Will the Dead Lady Sing? (16 page)

“Waiting for you.” I was getting tired of shouting and wanted to get down before he arrived to offer me a sweaty palm.

I hadn’t planned my descent, however, when I climbed up. The ledge was too narrow to kneel or turn around on. The only thing I could do was jump backwards. I leaped like a gazelle, landed like a hippopotamus, and was nursing my right ankle when Chief Muggins pushed his shoulders through the hedge.

“You hurt yourself?” He sounded like that was proof positive I’d killed the victim.

“A little.”

He lifted his hat, slicked back his yellow hair, and put the hat back on. Then he stuck his thumbs in his belt and rocked back and forth as he surveyed the scene. “So tell me what’s been going on here.”

Two other officers, Buck and Dan, followed him through what was becoming a sizeable hole in the hedge. Both were once kids I handed out suckers to down at the store.

Dan moseyed over to look at the body. Buck took out a little notebook. “For the record, I did not kill the man,” I said.

Buck wrote in big letters, saying the words aloud. “Judge Yarbrough reported she did not kill the man.” Dan snickered. Chief Muggins glowered.

“I was out walking Lulu here”—I nodded to where she sat on her haunches regarding Chief Muggins without enthusiasm—“and she wanted a run in the lot. She went nosing around in the bushes and started making such a racket that I came to see what she’d found. I saw—”

I’d been all right until then, but as I looked back toward the body, my legs gave way. I’d have been lying beside the dead man if Dan and Buck hadn’t dived in unison to catch me. Dan held me up while I caught my breath and hoped the world would stop spinning in a minute.

Chief Muggins scowled. “You ready to finish now?”

“Couldn’t she come down to the station and make a statement later?” Dan asked, still supporting most of my weight.

The chief didn’t like it, but he gave a short nod. “Okay, come give us a report later. Buck, go call the homicide team.” He was bent over, looking at Hubert’s matchbook.

“It wasn’t Hubert. You know it wasn’t,” I said. Chief Muggins ignored me.

I took a couple of experimental steps, but the pain was awful.

“You don’t have a car?” Dan asked. When I shook my head, he turned to Chief Muggins. “I’d like to run her home, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.” Chief Muggins waved, but anybody could tell he thought it was a waste of an officer’s time and the taxpayer’s gas. As I hobbled through the hedge, he called after me, “Don’t you let that dog leave a flea in the cruiser, now, and don’t you be leaving town.”

“I wish,” I muttered.

Dan and I didn’t talk on the way home. Even Lulu was quiet. My ankle throbbed, and I was thinking about that poor man and wondering if he’d left behind anybody who loved him. I got sad, remembering how cheerful he’d been Saturday. Tears dribbled down my cheeks, and I pulled a wadded tissue from my pocket to wipe them away.

Dan looked over. “Ankle hurting?”

It was easier to nod than explain.

As he helped me hop up the walk to our door a few minutes later, he urged, “Get that ankle seen to right away, now.”

Joe Riddley heard him through the open window. As I hobbled in, he looked up from his newspaper. “What’s the matter with you? Where have you been? And why the Sam Hill did you abandon my car last night?” Bo squawked his own protest.

The stuffing went out of me. I sank to the sofa and muttered, “You’re as nasty as Charlie Muggins, except you provide a seat. I left the car at Gusta’s because folks had blocked me in. As to where I’ve been, I took Lulu for a walk this morning—meaning to bring your car back when we came. Instead, I found a body, jumped off the water tank, and sprained my ankle.” I leaned back against the sofa cushions and closed my eyes. “Oh, God, please let this be a bad dream. Let me wake up to an ordinary beautiful day.”

“You got the beautiful day, but hell’s bells, woman, can’t you even go for a walk without getting in trouble? Come on, Lulu, looks like I’ll have to get your breakfast.”

Finding a body hadn’t ruined her appetite, but I felt so wretched I started to cry again.

Joe Riddley can’t stand a crying woman. He flung me a box of tissues, muttered, “I went ahead and made the coffee,” and headed to the kitchen. While he banged around finding mugs in Clarinda’s latest inspired location, he called, “Sounds to me like you women did more carousing last night than the men. I thought you said you jumped off the water tower and found a body. But I know you didn’t jump off the tank, because you’d be dead, and you didn’t find a body, because you promised me after the last time you took off after a killer that you wouldn’t meddle anymore in things that aren’t your business. So, trusting that you are a woman of your word, you must be hungover. Here’s your coffee. Get it inside you, then tell me what really happened.”

The coffee was black and steaming, just the way I like it. “I was fixing to scramble me some eggs,” he added. “You want some?” He headed back to the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Joe Riddley is a lot like Lulu in two ways: His bark is worse than his bite, and he ignores anything he doesn’t want to hear.

While he was cooking, I called, “What did you mean about carousing last night?” I was surprised, because Joe Riddley has never gone out much with other men, except to business and church events. I couldn’t remember a time when he’d done what most folks call “carousing.”

He didn’t answer until he set a plate in front of me on the coffee table. “Eggs just the way you like them,” he said, “toast the perfect shade of brown, butter and jelly on the side, and orange juice. What more could any woman ask for?” He set his own plate at the table and took his seat.

“An answer to my question. What did you mean about carousing? I left you at a respectable business meeting. What happened after that? And why are you sitting with your back to me?”

“This is my usual seat at the table.”

“Yeah, but with me over here—” I sighed. “Who else went carousing?”

He named six other men, then added, “And Hubert and Burlin Bullock.”

I was glad he wasn’t looking my way. I dropped a fork ful of eggs in my lap. While Lulu consumed the evidence, I asked casually as I could, “Not Lance and Edward?”

“No, Lance was tired and Edward had to run up to Augusta for a meeting. But Burlin said he’d like to see some of the nightlife around here, so we went looking for some.”

“Where’d you go, the country club?” Except at the club, the liveliest nightlife in Hopemore is cockroaches.

“No, we went to that beer joint out on the Dublin road. Burlin and I wanted to show Hubert that Georgia men hold their liquor better than Tech ones.”

“You never drank enough at one time in your life to call it ‘holding your liquor.’ How much did you drink?”

He hunched over his plate. “I didn’t. I was a designated driver. But Burlin beat Hubert so bad, it wasn’t funny.”

“How could you be a designated driver? I had your car.”

“I remembered that about the time Hubert started getting too drunk to drive, so I confiscated his keys. By the time we left, he didn’t know whose car I was driving.” He chortled.

“Otis is going to find some peculiar footprints in Pooh’s flower beds. Hubert couldn’t stay on that three-foot walk to save his life. Burlin did real well until Hubert swayed up the walk, then he passed out like a light. Three of us had to carry him to his room and put him to bed. Annie Dale’s done the place up real nice, by the way. You might ask her who helped her decorate it.”

I ignored his slur on my own decorating skills, because he’d said something that relieved me considerably. “So Hubert was with you the whole time from the end of the meeting until you took him home too drunk to walk straight?”

He shrugged. “Mostly. He dropped Burlin by Annie Dale’s while he went back to lock up. Then he picked Burlin up and they joined us about an hour after we got there.”

Like I’ve said before, Hopemore is small. It doesn’t take an hour to make a round-trip to Annie Dale’s from the community center, turn off lights and lock up the building, return to Annie Dale’s, and drive out to the roadhouse.

Joe Riddley didn’t notice that he’d frozen me to the sofa. He swiped up the last of his eggs with his toast and added, “Burlin’s as nice in person as he is on television, but after that sorry speech Lance made last night, I don’t think he expects his boy to win any elections. Burlin was drinking last night like a man drowning his sorrows.”

12

I spent the rest of the morning in miscalculation.

First, I miscalculated how busy Phyllis would be on a Tuesday. With celebrities in town, women were getting their hair done twice that week. I told her I’d come as early as she liked, but she informed me that she had two of the Bullock women to do that morning and couldn’t possibly work me in until after four.

I also miscalculated the medical profession’s reaction to a sprain. Because Joe Riddley insisted, I allowed him to carry me to “Doc in a Box”—a minor injury center—but I knew what a doctor would do: wrap the ankle in an elastic bandage, tell me to keep my foot up all day, and prescribe something for pain. But if it would make Joe Riddley happier to pay for that advice than to let me doctor myself, I was willing to go. I was hurting so bad, I’d have agreed to anything.

All the way there, Bo perched on Joe Riddley’s shoulder and assured me, “Not to worry. Not to worry.”

Less than hour later, a doctor who looked like a tenth grader had encased my foot and leg in a cast to the knee, told me not to put weight on the foot for a week, given me a pain shot and a prescription, and handed me crutches that, within minutes, did more injury to my armpits than jumping off the water tower had done to my ankle. When Bo saw Joe Riddley wheeling me back to the car, he flapped his wings and squawked, “Sic ’em, boy! Sic ’em!” I wished I could.

Joe Riddley wanted to take me home and dump me on the sofa for Clarinda to take care of. I pointed out that I could sit at my desk and prop my foot up, and if somebody didn’t finish our taxes, Uncle Sam would get downright nasty. I was getting a bit foggy by then, but figured I could function so long as Joe Riddley kept bringing me cold co colas. If I went home, Clarinda was sure to make more noises about those boxes stacked in the guest room. I’d rather work.

At the store, I couldn’t climb the four steps from the parking lot to our office, so Joe Riddley drove along the old-fashioned double sidewalk to our front door, letting the whole town know something was the matter. I hopped in like some show-off kid while behind me, Bo perched on Joe Riddley’s cap flapping his wings and yelling, “Little Bit! Little Bit!” He sounded so much like Joe Riddley that everybody laughed—everybody except me. My left leg wasn’t used to hopping, or to supporting my whole weight. Sweat ran into my eyes and down under my arms, and I felt like I’d hopped a mile when, halfway through the store, my left leg started trembling, then gave out. I’d have fallen if a quick clerk hadn’t grabbed a plastic lawn chair and shoved it behind me. I was so grateful, I forgave her for saying, “Oopsy daisy” in that silly tone grown-ups use when toddlers are learning to walk.

Joe Riddley and another clerk carried me the rest of the way in that dratted chair. They banged my other knee on the doorjamb going in, but I forgave them, too. They didn’t do it on purpose. I refused to think about having to be carried back out at the end of the day. Or to the bathroom in an hour or so.

But I had miscalculated Joe Riddley’s devotion. He fetched a five-gallon bucket for my bum foot, padded it with a small bag of potting soil, and informed me he had urgent work to do down at the nursery. “I’ll walk over to Pooh’s and fetch my car first.” He took Bo and left me steaming. I looked at my poor bare toes sticking out of the cast and promised them I’d have Phyllis’s manicurist put on a lick of polish. But how could I get to Phyllis?

I also miscalculated Chief Muggins’s devotion to solving the murder of a homeless man. The chief gets right there when a wealthy person is robbed, but normally he could have found a hundred things to do before he bothered to investigate the death of a tramp. That week, however, with crime slow and the Bullocks in town, he called me before I’d booted up my computer. “I thought I told you to run by here to make a statement.” Chief Muggins seldom employs those gentle introductory phrases with which most Southerners wade gently into conversation—how are you? how’s your mother? how’s your first cousin twice removed?

“I’m not running anywhere,” I said, forgiving myself for a trace of smugness. “My ankle’s in a cast to the knee. If you want a statement, you’ll have to take it over the phone.” I reflected that I was sure forgiving a lot of folks that morning. Painkillers seemed to be good for the soul. I thought I’d discuss that with Martha later—which reminded me of the single silver lining in my cloud: at least I wouldn’t have to walk around the track for a while.

I’d forgotten that Chief Muggins was on the other end of the phone until he snapped, “I’ll come over there.” As I hung up, I looked down at my jeans and wished I’d changed more than my torn shirt before we went to the doctor. I like to look nice at the office. Still, Chief Muggins had already seen me that morning, and Mama used to say a true lady can entertain anybody, no matter how she’s dressed, and make them feel that what she’s wearing is the correct attire. This was as good a time as any to test that theory. I gave my hair a quick combing, added some lipstick, and greeted Chief Muggins like I lived in jeans every day—so why ever didn’t he?

He brought a deputy I didn’t know very well, who hovered in the doorway and waited for me to invite him in while Chief Muggins took Joe Riddley’s leather desk chair. Then the deputy settled on the edge of the wing chair like he didn’t plan to stay very long.

Our office is large enough for two big desks, several filing cabinets, and the wing chair, but it always feels small when Chief Muggins and I are both in it. He may have felt the same way, because he dangled his cap between his knees and got right to the point. “How did you come to find that body, again? Take notes, Jack.”