What Are You Wearing to Die? Page 12

  “He lied. We weren’t allowed to climb that tank as kids. The only time I know of that he went up that ladder was when he painted a big heart on the tank at the end of his and Joe Riddley’s senior year in high school, with ‘Joe Riddley loves MacLaren’ in the middle.”

  “Really?” Her eyes kindled with misplaced adoration.

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know it was Hubert until last year, or he wouldn’t have lived this long. Now, give me that prescription so I can send somebody back with pain pills. You look like you need them.” As I closed the curtain to the cubicle, I saw her watching Hubert with tenderness.

  I stopped by the nurses’ desk and asked if they could get her a milk shake and something to eat. “Put it on Hubert’s bill. She’s working on his campaign.”

  When I got back to where Joe Riddley was waiting, I said, “You know, Evelyn’s probably twenty years younger than Hubert, but both of them could do a whole lot worse. And if they got married, she could move in with Hubert and solve Otis’s problem.”

  Joe Riddley draped an arm around my shoulders. “I can’t see Evelyn taking care of Gusta, can you? So why don’t we let them recover from this present crisis before you precipitate another one.”

  13

  As soon as the Halloween festival weekend was over, all the downtown lampposts sprouted gold wreaths with red bows. The sheriff called me around ten on Monday morning.

  “I’ve got an important question, Judge. Is Joe Riddley gonna boycott the lighting ceremony tonight? I was at a breakfast meeting this morning, and folks were laying bets about when he’ll turn them on. I want to know how safe my money is.”

  At six p.m., Hopemore would have our traditional turning on of the lights, when downtown merchants flipped switches to outline all their roofs so the town looked like a toy village. For the past five years, however—since the chamber had voted to kick off Christmas right after Halloween instead of after Thanksgiving—Joe Riddley had refused to start the Christmas season that early, making our store stand out like a six-year-old’s missing tooth.

  “We’ll turn them on tonight. I’ve argued him down this year. I want to celebrate this Christmas as long as we can.”

  The sheriff had known me too long not to know what I was thinking. “You afraid it may be your last one in the store?”

  I had to swallow a lump in my throat before I could answer. “Four generations of Yarbroughs have managed to keep some sort of business going in this location, but we are speedily losing ground. I cannot bear to think of this old building turned into another dollar store, real estate office, or shop carrying antiques no older than we are.”

  He laughed. “Sounds like my money is safe, then. I knew you’d bring the old coot around. We could use some bright lights this winter. The place has been a bit gloomy.”

  “Folks who kill other folks with baseball bats have that effect on people.”

  The whole town was getting more and more nervous as the weeks dragged on and nobody was caught in the Starr Knight murder case. I’d started sticking closer to the office, took Lulu with me everywhere, and made sure my doors were locked before I started my car. When a friend tapped on my car window while I was stopped for the red light, I jumped halfway out of my skin.

  As far as I was concerned, one bright spot lit the dreariness, though. Hubert came out of the hospital Wednesday so embarrassed at what had happened that he decided to withdraw from the upcoming election.

  He also put a big banner over his store: GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE. EVERYTHING MUST GO. CLOSING CHRISTMAS EVE.

  Lulu and I popped over Thursday morning to see what all he had to sell. “Appliances, shelves, light fixtures. You all in the market for a new refrigerator?”

  “We got new appliances when we moved in, but we might be interested in a freezer. We left ours with Martha.” I moseyed over and checked out the one upright he had left. “What kind of price can you give me?”

  “Half off.” He trotted over and started extolling the features of that particular model as if he had several for me to choose from. I stepped back slightly and noticed the price on the side. It was a hundred dollars higher than it had been the last time I’d checked it.

  I wanted to grab him by the neck and throttle him, but restrained myself. “I’ll talk to Joe Riddley,” I said with admirable politeness.

  “You might want to take some of those lights up there. They’re better than the ones you all have.”

  “The ones we have are fine. What are you planning to do once you sell out?”

  “I’ll find something. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  That afternoon, Maynard dropped by my office, doing enough worrying for everybody. “If Daddy sits around, he’ll have another heart attack, but what else is there for him to do? I didn’t want him elected mayor, but at least he’d have had something to occupy his time and his mind.”

  I turned my chair to face him more comfortably. “Didn’t I hear you’re remodeling the upstairs of Gusta’s house into an apartment? Could Hubert live there and help you out with the business? He could wait on customers while you are out scouting for merchandise.”

  I thought that was brilliant. If I could only think of something to do with Gusta, Otis and Lottie’s problem would be solved.

  Maynard shook his head. “You know as well as I do that Daddy and I get along better if we aren’t under each other’s feet. Besides, he likes where he is and I like the fact that somebody’s looking after him.”

  Poor Otis and Lottie weren’t fine, stuck taking care of Hubert, but I couldn’t say that. In spite of what Joe Riddley might tell you, I do have a modicum of tact at times.

  A second bright spot lit my horizon the second Monday in November. Joe Riddley had gone into Augusta for a meeting, and I was working at my desk when the sheriff called. “Hey, Judge, you busy?”

  “Busy sitting here trying to think up some way to pay Joe Riddley back for that prank two months ago. I haven’t come up with the perfect revenge yet, but when I do, it is going to be terrible. You’re coming in for your share, too, don’t forget.”

  “I’m shaking in my boots. Will it lessen my punishment if I tell you I have some progress to report on the Starr Knight case? We got back lab reports on the bat, and I’ve sent a deputy up your way with a warrant for arrest. The blood on the bat was definitely hers, and they found a match for the prints.”

  “Was it the kid you’re already looking for?”

  “No. They belong to Slick Redmond, who has been up twice for battery—a real nasty customer. He’s currently on probation down in Laurens County, so they had his present address. The sheriff down there is standing by to pick him up as soon as I get a warrant.”

  “I have my pen in hand.”

  Buster called again later. “Doubleheader, Judge! When the Laurens County sheriff went looking for Redmond, he found Howell, too—the other one we’ve been looking for. They’ve been living together. The sheriff pulled them both in, and my man is on his way to pick them up. Will you stand by to come down when they get here, to hold a bond hearing?”

  “It will be my pleasure. I’m still trying to figure out, though, why Starr took Robin’s truck instead of Wylie’s for her trip. He says he offered to lend it to her, and Missy says Starr would never have taken a truck with an automatic transmission.”

  “You know Joe Riddley wants you to stay out of this.”

  “I am out of it. I’m just mulling it over. Haven’t even left my seat.”

  “Don’t, until I call you.”

  I didn’t need to leave my seat to find out how similar Robin’s truck had been to Wylie’s. A couple of well-placed phone calls elicited the information that Starr had moved out of her daddy’s house with a three-year-old Chevy truck, which she had sold for cash a few weeks later. That could have bought a lot of drugs. She’d gotten a decrepit Toyota pickup soon after she sold the Chevy, but after they found her body, the Toyota had been found in front of her apartment with two slashed tires. Apparently
Robin’s truck and Wylie’s were the same make, model, and color, but Wylie’s was three years older, with a standard transmission. Starr would never have mistaken one for the other. Women around here know trucks like New York women know Prada. So had she deliberately taken Robin’s as one more dig at a woman she disliked? Or had the two guys that Missy’s Uncle Jacob saw over there that day taken the truck? And how had they or Starr gotten the keys? Had Robin left them in the truck?

  I called her and asked.

  “Yeah,” she said in a puzzled tone, obviously wondering why I was asking. Since I hadn’t come up with a good excuse, I hadn’t bothered to use one. Instead, I’d asked her straight out. “We all leave our keys under the seat when we’re working. It makes it easier to move vehicles if somebody needs to bring in a large animal. Whoever is at the best stopping place goes out and moves them all. We’ve never had any problems except that one time.”

  I tried to put the rest of Starr’s afternoon in some kind of order, but couldn’t—not so it made sense. If she was going to Augusta, she didn’t need to head back to town or use the bypass. There was a shorter way to I-20 from Trevor’s house. So when and where did she meet up with the men who killed her? Was it the afternoon she took the truck? If not, why hadn’t she gone to her meeting? Where was she from Monday until she was killed? Had she been down in Dublin, where Redmond and Howell lived? Or were those guys dealing drugs somewhere in Hope County? Why did they dispose of her over the side of our bypass?

  When I saw Joe Riddley’s shape looming outside our door, I quickly turned back to my computer screen. I wasn’t investigating, I reminded myself. I was simply mulling things over.

  Buster called around eight, and I went to the detention center to confront two of the sorriest specimens of humanity it has ever been my misfortune to meet. To look at them, you’d have thought Georgia’s water shortage was desperate. Their nails were rimmed in black. Their hands were grimy. The parts of their faces not covered in pimples were dingy with a greasy sheen. The odor rising from their clothes was so pungent I almost suggested we move the hearing outdoors. Slick was twenty and Roddy nineteen. I grieved to think how few years it had been since each had left the hospital as a clean pink baby.

  Detention center hearings were held behind a U-shaped counter in the foyer of the building. After I was appointed magistrate, the county had ordered a box for me to stand on when I had a hearing down at the detention center because that counter had been built to accommodate Joe Riddley, who was over six feet, and our chief magistrate, who was six-three. Often, though, I dispensed with the box and came out from behind the bench. Most times I didn’t even bother to put on my robe. I am pretty informal as judges go.

  That evening I put on my robes, climbed up on my box, and peered down at the defendants. “Stand and state your full names for the record, please.”

  They slouched to their feet, the crotches of their jeans hanging to their knees. “Pull up your pants,” I snapped, “and stand erect in this courtroom.” I didn’t feel the least bit lenient. I kept seeing those two swinging a baseball bat hard enough to break a young woman’s bones and kill her.

  Slick sniggered, probably having only one context for the term erect.

  Roddy looked around, puzzled. With the bench in the middle of the front hall, he apparently hadn’t realized he was in court, or that court, like church, is not so much a matter of place as a state of mind and the right personnel.

  I glared down at Slick. “If you laugh again, you will be in contempt of court. Do you understand me?”

  He sobered up enough to give me a sullen nod. The deputy blinked. The sheriff coughed to cover his smile at how tough the magistrate had gotten all of a sudden.

  Roddy looked at the floor while Sheriff Gibbons advised them of their rights and read the charges against them. Slick looked straight ahead without a flicker of emotion on his face. I thought that odd, since the evidence was stronger against him. Roddy had left his prints on Starr’s body and shoes, but Slick had left the prints on the bat.

  Because this was a murder charge, I couldn’t have set bond if I had wanted to. I advised them that a letter would be sent to the superior court and a judge would come down to hold a bond hearing at a later date. Everybody in that courtroom knew the superior court would deny it. There was no way a judge was going to let those two loose on the world. Even if they didn’t manage to beat up somebody else before they came to trial, they might meet up with Wylie or Trevor and get themselves killed.

  Slick gave me a contemptuous look as I sent them back to the cells, but Roddy looked at the ground as he shuffled after the deputy. “Be sure they bathe before bed,” I called after them. Roddy’s head jerked around. Slick gave no sign he heard.

  After I took off my robe, I borrowed the sheriff’s private restroom to wash my hands. “I feel like we ought to disinfect the whole place,” I said with a shudder when I returned to his office.

  “Scum,” he replied. “Absolute scum.”

  “Have they given any reason for what they are alleged to have done?”

  “Slick denies it completely. Roddy won’t say a word, not even to his lawyer.”

  “Slick seemed amazingly cool. Did you tell them what evidence you have against them?”

  “Not yet. They got here right before you did, and I decided to leave that up to their attorneys. I frankly don’t want to have more to do with either one of them than I have to.”

  I sighed. “I hope Trevor doesn’t attend the trial. The sight of those two could break his heart again.”

  I wish I could report that Nancy Jensen got elected mayor the following day. Instead, a man who had declared at the last minute, the manager of a video store down near the Bi-Lo, beat her by a narrow margin—primarily because he was a man.

  Without the election to talk about, Hubert stopped coming over. For two weeks, Evelyn drooped around the store like wash that’s been left in the rain. She didn’t even color her hair. Gradually it began to turn the color of a rusted tin roof—gray with streaks of muddy brown.

  “You’re gonna scare off what few customers we have if you don’t perk up a bit,” I told her the Monday before Thanksgiving. “Call Phyllis and see if she can take you this afternoon. Tell her I said to make you beautiful. Get your nails done while you’re at it, then call Hubert and invite him to dinner tonight. He loves home-cooked meals.”

  She cut her eyes my way and turned bright pink. “I couldn’t! What if he wouldn’t come? I’d feel like a fool.”

  “Make beef stew and I promise you he’ll come. Now go call Phyllis, and if she has an opening, take the rest of the afternoon off. If we get a sudden throng, I’ll draft Joe Riddley to work the register.”

  The next day Evelyn came in with a really nice haircut, her hair the color of autumn leaves, perky polish on her nails, and a glow on her face.

  “I take it Hubert came to dinner.” I was dying for details, but determined not to beg. “How did it go?”

  She gave a shrug and turned away. “Okay.”

  “I see that blush. Did he invite you to eat Thanksgiving dinner with him and Gusta?”

  “No.” She let my heart go down a few notches before she added, “I’m going to eat with some folks from my church, Hubert is eating with Selena and Maynard, and Miss Gusta is going over to Meriwether and Jed’s. Friday evening, though, he’s bringing barbecue over and we’re gonna watch the game.”

  I trotted back to my office, planning what I’d get them for a wedding present.

  14

  Martha called to say she had invited Trevor and Bradley and Robin Parker and her girls to share Thanksgiving dinner with us.

  “Would you consider inviting the Spences, too? I’ve been wanting Robin to meet some people her own age, and Maynard and Selena are close.”

  Thanksgiving in our family has always been a holiday when we put all the leaves in the table and invite anybody we think would enjoy coming.

  “That would be good. Selena already knows Bradley.
He was in the hospital last summer with a broken arm, and she took care of him.”

  That must explain why she and Maynard had gone to Trevor’s after Starr died.

  Martha was still talking. “…not sure how I’m going to do the tables this year. You heard, didn’t you, that Walker and Cindy are going up to her parents’ for dinner? That means we won’t have their big kids to ride herd on the little ones, and with Robin and Trevor, that will make four kids under five. I can’t let them eat in the kitchen by themselves.”

  “And Ridd would have a fit if you suggested that Bethany eat out there.”

  “You got that right. He’s already complaining that she’ll only be home four days. Besides, she’s bringing a friend with her.”

  “I’ll make the supreme sacrifice. I’ll send Joe Riddley to eat with the kids.”

  I could hear Martha counting. “That works. We can fit ten at the table if folks get close.”

  We drifted into a discussion of Bethany’s friend and from there to a discussion of food. As I hung up, I couldn’t help thinking how nice it was that my children had gotten to be the grown-ups and all I had to do was show up with a few dishes.

  Thanksgiving Day the temperature soared to seventy-two and the sky was a clear, deep blue that seemed to go all the way to heaven. I was delighted. That meant we could sit out on the porch after dinner.

  We arrived, later than we had planned, to discover a minor problem. Bethany had showed up with two friends, having found somebody else who wasn’t going anywhere for the holiday and continued the family tradition of inviting her along. “I’ll need one more grown-up to eat with the children,” Martha told me, thinking we were speaking privately.

  There is no such thing as privacy with four small people around. I had opened my mouth to unwillingly volunteer when Bradley announced, “I want Miss Selena at my table.”

  “Miss Selena! Miss Selena!” Natalie chanted, jumping up and down.