When Will the Dead Lady Sing? Read online

  Still, I wasn’t nervous. Lulu is a fierce bodyguard, and every criminal and drunk in town knows who I am—and that if he or she harms a hair of my head, they’ll have Joe Riddley to deal with. Besides, with the whole town asleep, that area looked no more deserted than the rest. I could easily imagine that in a couple of hours the cotton gin would crank up, laborers would stack merchandise for shipping, and old men would start to congregate on the station porch.

  “We’ll go to the water tank and turn around,” I told Lulu. The tank sat at the end of the buildings lining the tracks, in the middle of a large parking lot. Some towns, of course, surround their tanks with a chain-link fence, three strands of barbed wire, and a padlocked gate. Hopemore had simply planted a privet hedge around the base. After all, the ladder was too high to reach without another ladder and nobody had designs on our water. For years the tank had performed its invaluable function without anybody giving it a thought unless some intrepid high schooler scaled the ladder to blazon a message above the town.

  What people neglect, however, nature takes back. The tank had originally been painted to blend with the sky. Now, as the sun rose and changed the sky to a light, clear blue, I was appalled at how faded and tired the poor tank looked. I couldn’t remember the last time it had been painted. Recent crops of teenagers must have been too busy with video games and television to mess it up.

  The once-trim hedge around its base had sent up shoots that sprawled high and unkempt. Outside the hedge, the asphalt was pitted with holes where the pavement had cracked and broken, and the whole lot was littered with flattened cans and the glint of broken bottles, dotted with clumps of high grass and small bushes.

  Where I saw desolation, though, Lulu saw ecstasy. She took one whiff and strained on her leash. “You want to run?” I bent and released her. “Watch out for broken glass.”

  She dashed here and there, sniffing bushes and grass, then headed for the tank itself. “Five more minutes,” I called as she wriggled under the hedge.

  She raised a storm of what I thought was protest. I let her bark for a minute, then called, “Okay, come!”

  She continued to bark.

  “Lulu! Come!” That tone generally gets instant obedience, but she kept barking. I looked up and saw that the buzzards were directly overhead and descending. I didn’t want them to mistake her—or me—for breakfast. I waved my arms. “Lulu, do I have to come get you?”

  She set up a howl they could hear in Augusta.

  I picked my way gingerly across the lot, watching for potholes, snakes, and buzzards. “You’re fixing to get a switching,” I warned, although I had never hit that dog in my life. Lulu shoved her way through a gap in the hedge and danced, still yapping. When I stopped, she bounded out of reach, awkward but still agile on her three legs. “What have you found?” I demanded. “I’ll come, because you don’t usually get into fidgets over nothing, but I don’t like the looks of that hedge.” She turned and wriggled back under.

  I looked for the best place to push through. Because they had been planted to deter kids from the tower, the bushes were real close together, their branches as sharp as the switches Mama used on our legs when my brother, Jake, and I were little.

  “If you’ve just waked up a snake,” I warned, shoving through the only hole I saw, “or are making all this racket over a dead possum, we’re gonna both be sorry.”

  I cut both arms and got several rips in my shirt, and my hair didn’t bear thinking about. I hoped Phyllis could work me in as soon as she got to the beauty parlor. “When I get to work,” I informed Lulu, who was sticking so close to my feet, I was in danger of tripping over her, “I’m going to call the city and tell them to send somebody down to clip these bushes.” She whined her disagreement.

  It wasn’t a snake or a possum she had found. It was the man in the gray suit.

  He lay sprawled on his face beside one leg of the tank. His gray ponytail was slung across one shoulder. A knapsack lay several feet away, spilling clothing and a hairbrush onto the ground. A battered guitar lay as if it had been tossed aside.

  He wouldn’t be needing it anymore. Not with that hole in the back of his head.

  11

  I have no idea how long I stood there. Long enough to think that nobody born of woman through labor and pain should wind up dead on a deserted asphalt lot. Long enough to say a prayer for whoever he was, confident that a God mindful of sparrows would know his name. Long enough to notice a lot of things I’d rather not have seen.

  Flies crawled around his gray hair, feasting on dark dried blood. The stench that always accompanies death polluted the soft fall air. His hat lay beyond his head. A length of rusted galvanized pipe lay beyond it, with ominous stains at one end. A soft muddy spot several yards from the body, where the pavement had sunk and gradually filled with dirt, showed the clear print of a woman’s shoe. A man’s print lay in a similar depression—but he had worn pointed shoes, not the unexpectedly small sneakers with round toes worn by the victim.

  Why was I looking at the dead man’s shoes instead of calling the police? Because I didn’t want to think about a red matchbook from Spence’s Appliances that lay three feet from the victim’s hand. It was too clean and fresh to have lain there long.

  Hubert had a temper when riled, and he’d been threatening this man in public for several days. Even though he had promised to blast him with a shotgun, might he have been willing to use a handier weapon if it presented itself?

  Lulu pressed against my calf and whimpered, to remind me we had a problem here. I reached for my cell phone.

  Royce Wharton was on duty again, at the end of his shift. As soon as he heard my voice, he chuckled. “Calling the police station early is getting to be a habit, isn’t it, Judge? You got another buffalo?”

  Royce wasn’t a bad officer, just a mischievous one. When I said, “No, I’ve got a body,” he sobered immediately.

  After he’d taken the particulars about where I was and who I’d found, he said, “I’ll send somebody right away. Go back to the street and find someplace to sit down until we get there.”

  “Seats are in short supply in this part of town,” I informed him, “and I’ve got six hungry buzzards circling above. I’ll just prop myself against the tank.”

  “Don’t topple it,” he warned. “We don’t want you destroying evidence.”

  “If you see a deluge coming down Second Street, don’t bother to come.”

  I’d scarcely hung up when Lulu started whining. I looked where she was looking and saw that one buzzard now perched on a support halfway up the tank, watching me with a calculating eye. “Shoo!” I called. “Shoo!” He didn’t budge, just crooked his head this way and that to see if the bigger predator would steal his meal.

  “Scat!” I yelled, waving my arms to assure him I was alive. “Scat!”

  Lulu added her voice to mine, a long mournful howl that sent chills up my spine.

  The disappointed scavenger stayed just long enough to let us know he was leaving of his own free will, not because he’d been coerced. As he flapped away, the others—who had been circling lower and lower—followed. I watched them go, thinking that buzzards may be ugly close up, but they are beautiful in flight. Again I wondered how they find their prey.

  Thinking about buzzards isn’t my favorite way to spend an early morning, but it sure beats looking at a dead body and wondering who hit it over the head.

  “Over here,” I called to Lulu, who was sniffing toward the man. I snapped on her leash and kept her near me. “We don’t want to mess up any more evidence,” I explained. “Chief Muggins is coming. Hear his siren?” Not that a siren is necessary, going to a crime scene where the victim isn’t going anywhere, but the chief had a new cruiser with a lot of fancy equipment, and he took every opportunity to share its glories with the taxpayers who bought it.

  Charlie Muggins is in a class of his own in my book, at the top of a page headed “People I couldn’t like if I tried.” He struts around crime
scenes like God’s gift to detection, although his dignity is somewhat impaired by a constant need to hitch up his pants to keep from losing them to the weight of his belt. I don’t dislike him for swaggering, or even because he treats women like we all secretly hope he’ll make advances. I dislike him because he has never learned to shut his mouth or open his mind. The chief is bad about jumping to conclusions, then shaping facts to suit them. Only once, to my knowledge, has he picked the right murderer, and that was a lucky guess.

  That morning, I heard his car stop and the door slam; then I heard nothing. The base of each leg of the water tank was set into a concrete support two feet high, so I managed to climb up on one, clung to the leg for support, and called over the hedge, “Chief? Over here. By the tank.” Joe Riddley established a precedent I have continued. No matter how well we know officers of the law, we refer to them by their titles in public. They do the same.

  “That you, Judge?” He shaded his eyes, since he had to look directly into the rising sun. “I was heading in when Royce called that you’d found a body.” He still stood on the curb.

  “Right here,” I shouted back, “through the hedge. I came in about there”—I pointed to the spot—“and he’s lying down here.” I pointed again.

  Another cruiser pulled to the curb behind his. As the officers got out, the chief hitched up his pants and started strolling my way. “What are you doing in there?” he yelled. It didn’t bother me that he sounded like he was accusing me of murder. Ever since Chief Muggins moved to Hopemore, he has lived in daily anticipation of catching me committing a felony. I’m not on the Favorite People page in his book, either.

  “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?”
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br />   “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.