What Are You Wearing to Die? Page 11

  “I’ll bet she makes your breakfast, and dinner, too. But don’t tattle,” I told the older sister. “Anna Emily was making conversation. Now, show me what you can do with this sandbox.” I bent and dribbled sand between my fingers. “I don’t think I ever learned your name.”

  “I’m Natalie, and that’s Anna Emily, and that’s Bradley. I’ll make you some dinner.” Mollified by the attention, she proceeded to “cook” me a four-course meal of sand, which she identified as fried chicken, ice cream, noodle soup, and doughnuts. Bradley ran a small bulldozer up and down a miniature mountain. Anna Emily sat on her corner seat and worked one toe in the sand, never taking anxious eyes off me. I had the feeling she thought I might sneak off if she looked away.

  Robin came out, pulling a big purse onto her shoulder. “You all ready to go? I thought we’d stop by Hardee’s.”

  “Hardee’s! Hardee’s!” The older one jumped up and down. Bradley caught her excitement and joined in jumping.

  Anna Emily reached for my hand, and tears filled her eyes. “I want to go home with her.”

  “Anna Emily!” Her mother rebuked her.

  I knelt beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “I have to go back to work right now, honey. I took time out to bring Bradley back from playing at Cricket’s.”

  “Is Cricket your boy?” demanded Natalie.

  “I’m his grandmother.”

  She heaved a sigh bigger than she was. “We don’t have grandmothers. They all died.” The way she said it, you’d have thought she’d once had a dozen.

  I was picturing a field littered with dead grandmothers when Anna Emily said, “I want to go play at Cricket’s.” When I started to shake my head, her lower lip quivered and tears started down her cheeks.

  Robin grabbed her hand and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. We haven’t been here long enough for them to make many friends.”

  “I’m honored to be chosen as one of them.” I climbed to my feet, mindful of my creaking knees.

  I walked with Robin and the children toward a Honda Civic parked in the shade. The car didn’t look new, but it wasn’t real old, either.

  “I see you got transportation,” I said, congratulating her.

  Busy buckling Anna Emily into her car seat, Robin said over her shoulder, “Thanks to Trevor. He paid off the truck and gave me the down payment on this. He said since Starr was the one who wrecked mine, he owed it to me. I didn’t think that at all, but I was real grateful.”

  I figured Trevor was not simply being nice. He knew Robin couldn’t get to work if she didn’t have wheels. Taking care of employees, even when it seems expensive at the time, is good business practice in the end.

  Before he climbed in, Bradley turned and called, “Good-bye, Me-Mama.”

  Not to be outdone, the girls turned and waved. “Good-bye, Me-Mama!”

  As I watched Robin carefully pull onto the highway, it occurred to me that all three Parkers could use friends in Hopemore. I’d ask Martha if I could invite them down for hamburgers with our family one Saturday night.

  Joe Riddley claims I love to run other people’s lives, and that one of his primary jobs as a husband is to keep me running other people’s lives so I don’t have time to run his, but there are times when we have to step in and help other folks. That’s all I had in mind.

  First, I needed to check on my husband.

  I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called him.

  “Where the dickens are you?” he demanded. “I’m at Myrtle’s starving, and the game starts in an hour.”

  Each fall, Joe Riddley brought a television to our office on Saturdays so he could watch Georgia play ball while he pretended to work.

  “I’m over at Trevor’s. I brought Bradley home, but I ought to be back in town in fifteen minutes. Why don’t you go on and order me the meat loaf dinner?”

  “With green beans and mashed potatoes?”

  Oh, that man knows me well. For an instant I was tempted to order okra with macaroni and cheese, just to put him off his stride, but I’ve been eating meat loaf with green beans and mashed potatoes all my life. No need to get radical at the moment.

  As I headed back to say good-bye to Trevor, Wylie was pulling out of the yard in a black Ford Ranger. He didn’t see me as he peeled out of the drive.

  Back in the workroom, Trevor was delicately moving an airbrush over the fish. Looked like he’d decided to skip lunch since he didn’t have to feed Bradley.

  “I don’t mean to bother you—just want to say good-bye and thanks for the tour,” I said.

  He left his work to walk me to my car.

  “It’s hard to work with little people to look after,” I said sympathically.

  “Yeah, but it’s easier now that we have all three kids in the same day-care home down the road. Bradley went there from the time he was a baby—until Starr pulled him out last spring, when she moved. But he loves Marianne, so I’ve put him back with her, since—” He broke off, and a frown creased his forehead. “I sure hope his being there is going to help Anna Emily settle down. She’s already been kicked out of two day-care centers. I suggested to Robin that she try Marianne’s when Bradley started back, but Marianne says she’s nearly at her wits’ end.”

  I was surprised. “I’d have thought it would be Natalie who would give trouble. Anna Emily seems so quiet.”

  “Yeah, but she keeps getting out the door and wandering off, or asking delivery people if she can go home with them. It’s a real problem. Still, the girls like Bradley and he likes them, so I hope his being there will make a difference.”

  Trevor swiped one hand over the lower part of his face. “Starr would have a fit about my putting Bradley in with the girls. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but she had a conniption when I hired Robin, and she didn’t want Bradley to have a thing to do with those girls.” His mouth curved in the ghost of a grin. “I think she was jealous, dumb as that sounds. Starr was used to being the only female on the premises, and used to running my life. To tell the truth, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of hiring a woman, either, but Robin was too good to pass up.”

  “Is Wylie equally good?”

  “No, but he’s not bad if he could learn to stitch a straight seam.”

  “He seems real cut up about Starr.”

  “They’d been dating some. I wish…”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, or need to. I was sure he had a number of regrets. Anybody who has lost a loved one does.

  I laid a hand on his arm. “The sheriff is going to find the perpetrator, Trevor. I know it’s been a long time from your perspective, but he’s going to get him.”

  In the distance, we heard a flock of geese. We both craned our necks and watched until they appeared. They flew directly overhead, startling a flock of birds that burst into the sky like confetti.

  “Good-bye.” I started my engine. He didn’t say a word.

  As I pulled away, Trevor was still watching the geese—mere specks by then—with a look of longing on his face.

  12

  Martha claims that what happened next was an act of God. If so, it only goes to show that God can use anything, even greed and pride, to accomplish good.

  All I had on my mind was getting to Myrtle’s Restaurant before Joe Riddley ate my meat loaf. There were two ways to Myrtle’s from Trevor’s, but downtown would still be full of people from the Halloween revelry. I chose the back way, down by the railroad tracks, to avoid what my eleven-year-old grandson calls “Hopemore’s rush minute.”

  As I approached the water tank down near the tracks, I slowed to admire it. It was freshly painted white, with HOPEMORE stenciled on it in big red letters. Privately, I took credit for the improvement.

  The water tank stands in the middle of an asphalt parking lot that used to serve several businesses down by the tracks. As the businesses closed, the tank and its lot were ignored, until the tank, which had gradually faded to soft blue, sat surrounded by an out-of-control privet hedge,
broken asphalt, and high weeds. A year before, Lulu and I had found the body of a homeless person under that tank,6 and for a brief time the Hopemore water tank dominated national news. After city leaders noticed how pathetic that tank looked, they authorized funds to paint it and replace the hedge with a chain-link fence and a padlocked gate. In the unlikely event that the water tank ever got its picture on national news again, it would accurately represent our fine town.

  I drove along with my windows down to enjoy the cooler October air and the sight of the spruced-up tank. In spite of the padlock and fence, however, somebody had gotten inside the gate and littered. A heap of white lay crumpled at the base of the ladder.

  As I got nearer, I heard shouting.

  “Help! Please! Somebody, help!” That’s when I noticed Evelyn, halfway up the narrow ladder leading to the base of the tank. She stood with both arms extended, leaning far back. Between her and the ladder was something I took for a full feed sack. Not until I drove as close as I could get did I realize the sack was Hubert.

  I grabbed my cell phone and dialed 911. “Send somebody to the water tank, pronto,” I told the emergency operator. “Somebody’s climbed up the ladder and gotten into difficulties.”

  “Right away, Judge. We’ll get you down. Don’t worry.”

  I didn’t notice until after I hung up what she had said. Not only did she think it was me up that tank, but she hadn’t sounded the least bit surprised.

  The gate stood open. I hurried through it and called up to Evelyn, “Help’s on the way. Has he fainted?”

  “Of course I ain’t fainted,” Hubert raged. “I’m just a mite dizzy, that’s all. Can’t seem to make my feet and hands work right.”

  “I’ve called for help,” I yelled. “What were you doing up there?”

  “None of your dadgum bidness.”

  “Please, help me.” Evelyn sounded like she was at the end of her tether—or the end of her arms. I saw now that the reason she was leaning out so far was that she was pinning Hubert to the ladder so he wouldn’t fall.

  “Hubert,” I called sternly, “can you come down one rung?”

  “I can’t move at all,” he bawled. “Everything is going round and round.”

  “It may be his heart,” Evelyn cried.

  “Or a wide streak of yellow up his spine. Hubert Spence, you listen to me. Evelyn’s about to fall off that ladder holding on to you, and she’s running out of strength. You’ve got to help her. You hear me? Now, Evelyn, I want you to ease down one step. Hubert, when she starts to move, you ease with her. Can you do that?”

  “Mac’s down there if we fall,” Evelyn added.

  I backed away. I had no intention of getting squashed. Besides, I felt dizzy myself, craning my neck like that.

  Evelyn’s foot felt for a lower rung. As she started to descend, Hubert whimpered, but I saw his foot leave the safety of its rung and begin to feel for the one below.

  One foot, one hand, at an excruciatingly slow pace, the two of them descended. I could hear Hubert’s labored breathing and worried about his heart in spite of what I’d said. He had no business being up that ladder.

  They were halfway down when we heard a siren approaching.

  “What’s that?” Hubert’s voice was full of panic.

  “They are coming to help,” I called up. “But you all are doing fine.”

  “I’m gonna fall,” he cried.

  I got an inspiration.

  “Hang on one minute more, and they’ll be here with a net. You can jump. It can’t be more than fifteen feet now. Maybe ten.”

  “I ain’t jumping into any net. Get out of my way, Evelyn. I can come down by myself.”

  Evelyn climbed the rest of the way down, keeping a careful watch on Hubert. With renewed vigor he made his way down the last few feet. By the time the rescue crew pulled to a stop at the fence, they were both back to earth, but they were trembling and his face was a terrible shade of gray. I wasn’t sure how long he could stand.

  “You okay, Judge?” called one of the crew members, hurrying my way with a stretcher. “We got word you were up the water tank.”

  “Not me. Hubert. I think he could use a check-over at the hospital. Evelyn, too.”

  “I’m okay,” Hubert insisted, but he could hardly breathe. Within seconds, the techs had him safely in the back of their vehicle.

  I put one arm around Evelyn to steady her. “What on earth made Hubert climb that tank?”

  She bent and picked up one end of the dropped cloth. “This.” She shook it out and I saw it was a long banner, designed to hang from the top of the ladder and cascade down like a waterfall. At the top, Hubert’s face would have beamed over the town while large red letters proclaimed,

  SPENCE MAKES SENSE.

  Evelyn rode with Hubert to the hospital. I called Maynard. He and Selena were at an antique show down in Dublin, but he said they’d come to the hospital as fast as they could. Given how long it would take to process Hubert and Evelyn in the emergency room, I figured I might as well go eat my dinner.

  When I walked in, folks started laughing, clapping, and shouting, “What-a-go, Mac! You go, Judge!”

  When I slid into the booth across from Joe Riddley, he asked, “What were you doing up that tank? You said you were coming straight here.”

  “Who told everybody I was up that tank?” I took an angry swallow of tea and glared around at the other patrons.

  One of the deputies raised a sheepish hand. “That would be me. I was near the operator’s desk when you called.”

  “You owe me an apology and my dinner. I called to say that somebody else was up the tank.” I spoke loudly enough to be heard by everybody there. “It wasn’t me.”

  I could tell from the way folks bent over their plates that they didn’t believe me. I would never get that story straight in some people’s minds.

  “Here’s your dinner.” Myrtle slid a plate in front of me. “Joe Riddley asked me to keep it warm. We figured you’d need something hot in your stomach after the shock.”

  I was torn between being grateful for their thoughtfulness and mad that they thought I was dumb enough to climb the tank. I was so hungry, I decided to go with grateful.

  Martha was down visiting Bethany with Ridd and Cricket, but when we went by the hospital after lunch, we spoke to an emergency room nurse named Kate. She told us, “Hubert’s heart is fine. He simply had a panic attack, but the doctor wants to keep him overnight for observation. It’s Evelyn who is in pain. She sprained both arms somehow.”

  When I explained what Evelyn had done, Kate stared. “She held him up all that time? No wonder she’s sore! The doctor told her to go home, take painkillers, and rest, but she insists on staying with Hubert until Maynard gets here, and she says she has to work this afternoon.” That nurse had known us all her life, but she looked at Joe Riddley and me like we were monsters who kept employees locked in a windowless sweatshop and let them out only at night.

  “When will Maynard get here?” Joe Riddley asked.

  Kate checked her watch. “He ought to be here in another half hour at the most.”

  “Tell Evelyn I said she’s to take today and Monday off, and see how she feels then. We’ll manage without her. She did a very brave thing.”

  I asked permission to go back and see Evelyn briefly in the cubicle where Hubert was waiting for a room. He was snoring. She was sitting in a straight chair with both arms in slings, propped on pillows on her lap. Her face was so pale that her freckles stood out like constellations. Sweat beaded her upper lip.

  When she saw me, her eyes filled with tears. “It was all my fault!”

  I laid a hand on one shoulder, but took it off when she winced. “You weren’t the one starting up that ladder with a banner.”

  “No, but I suggested that a banner hanging from the water tank would get a lot of attention. I even called my sister and got permission to hang it.”

  Evelyn’s sister was somebody important down at the water company.<
br />
  “She told me that Hubert could put up a banner, but that if other candidates requested equal time, we’d have to work out a schedule. And she gave me the key to the gate.” She started to put one hand up to rake it through her hair, then winced again and dropped her arm.

  “Have you taken anything for pain?”

  “No. They gave me a prescription, but I wouldn’t let them give me a shot. I can’t drive all woozy. I’ll get the prescription filled later, after Hubert’s son comes. I don’t like to leave him alone. I sure would like some water, though.”

  I went and fetched her some, then held the cup while she drank. “Hubert is feeling no pain. He won’t care whether somebody is here or not.”

  “I don’t like to leave him. He might wake up and not remember where he is.”

  Never try to discourage martyrs. It makes them more adamant. “Have you had lunch?”

  “I’m not hungry.” It was a lie. We could both hear her stomach growling.

  “How do you plan to get home when you can leave?” If she and Hubert had walked down to the water tank from our store, her car must still be in our parking lot.

  “I’ll walk to the store and get my car.”

  “No way you are going to walk nearly a mile with those sore arms. Give me your keys and call when you’re ready to leave. I’ll send somebody over to get you, and if you’ll give me the prescription, I’ll get it filled. You stay home until you are no longer in pain. You hear me?”

  “But we’d planned to put up yard signs this evening.” She cast Hubert an anguished glance. “Do you think he’ll be up to running after this?”

  I reached over to catch one of her hands and squeeze it, but had second thoughts and stroked Hubert’s sheet instead. “I don’t know, but he’s a tough old bird. We’ll have to see how he feels when he’s had time to recover. He never should have gone up that water tank.”

  She sniffed and grabbed a tissue from a box on Hubert’s nightstand. “I know. I told him I’d do it, but he said he’d climbed that tank a hundred times as a kid.”