When Did We Lose Harriet? Page 15

  I lightly rattled his IV tube. “With Glenna on the other end of your leash? How’re you feeling?”

  “Fine. Doc says I can go home in a few days if I’m good.”

  “How soon does he expect you to be back to normal?”

  He was already slipping back into sleep. “When’s the first Auburn game?”

  “I’m glad you’ve got your priorities straight, Bubba.” He was already snoring.

  I opened a book. He moaned in his sleep, and I gently touched his arm. Suddenly I remembered the first time I ever touched him. He was all red and wrinkly, wrapped in a soft white blanket. Daddy laid him in my lap, and I felt like I was holding the universe. Gracious! Was that really fifty-five years ago?

  I blinked back tears. “I sure do love you, Bubba,” I murmured.

  “Hmmm,” he said drowsily.

  Did he hear? It didn’t matter. Everybody ought to say it now and then.

  About four-thirty, Lou Ella and Nora Sykes tiptoed in. Lou Ella wore a simple gray linen dress. Nora wore camel slacks with a thick and silky cream top and heavy gold jewelry. She also carried a lovely basket of fruit with a big red bow. “We didn’t know if Jake was on oxygen, so Leila got something you all can nibble on, instead of flowers. How’s he doing?”

  Jake opened one eye. “Well enough to hear every word you’re saying, so you’d better be careful.”

  Nora bent over to kiss his cheek. “If you’re getting sassy, you must be almost well. Glad to see it, Jake.”

  “Me, too,” he agreed weakly.

  They stayed just a few minutes, then started to leave.

  “If you’re taking Lou Ella, could you run MacLaren home, too?” Jake asked Nora.

  “Glenna will be back right after supper,” I objected.

  He glared. “I really don’t need you both riding herd on me day and night. I’d like a few minutes to moan and groan all by myself.”

  If I were him, that’s what I’d be wanting, too, and Nora assured me that Glenna’s was “Just a hop, skip, and jump from Leila’s.”

  “I’ve had Irmalene make a chicken casserole for you folks,” Lou Ella added as further incentive. “If you take me home first, Nora, Jake’s sister could take it with her. And drive through downtown so she can see it.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d been coming to Montgomery for forty years. As if it were my first time in town, she pointed out the state Capitol, the White House of the Confederacy, the church where Martin Luther King preached, and the new high rises built with state pension funds.

  “I’m sure she knows all that,” Nora told her impatiently.

  “She might not know about the pension funds,” Lou Ella insisted. “Man came down from the North—the North, mind you!—and got the bright idea of investing all the state pension funds in office buildings downtown. Prettied up the downtown and made a good investment at the same time. Pretty smart for a Yankee, don’t you think?”

  “Very smart,” I agreed. “You really love Montgomery, don’t you?”

  “I do! It’s a city, but retains the flavor of a little Southern country town. Not real sophisticated, but very charming. It’s also a political town—always has been—and I love politics. My husband was a state legislator, you know, and so was my son. And oh, we used to be so active! Football games, mystic society balls—in the season we went to a ball almost every weekend. We all loved to dance in those days. Today nobody knows how to dance, and the balls have become just huge cocktail parties.” She stopped again, then said wistfully, “I live very quietly now, of course, but sometimes I miss it all.”

  Nora passed the governor’s mansion. A few doors down, she turned into the drive of a big white house sheltered by deep porches, wide old oaks, and magnolias. When I admired it, Lou Ella sighed. “I probably ought to sell and move into something smaller, but I just hate to give up my flowers and trees. This house was built in the eighteen nineties, and those oaks were here before the War Between the States. I planted that castor”—she pointed to a plant towering at the corner of the house near the drive—“the year we moved in.” She stopped and flapped one hand. “Oh, you don’t want to know all that. I’m just an old woman who lives alone and has to talk to anybody about everything. Come in while Nora gets the casserole.”

  We went in the back door. Her kitchen was big and comfortable, with avocado green appliances. She probably hadn’t modernized since the sixties. I felt right at home and said so.

  “It’s a lot of house to keep,” Nora pointed out while Lou Ella took a casserole from the refrigerator and tied it into a quilted carrier.

  “But I’m fortunate to have good help,” Lou Ella replied. She explained to me, “Irmalene has been with me for nearly fifty years. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  “I don’t either,” Nora said, “and when Irmalene is gone, I don’t know what you’re going to do. You know it’s almost impossible to get servants these days.”

  I could tell they’d had this conversation before, especially when Lou Ella replied shortly, “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  Nora picked up the carrier. “Well, let’s be off. The only thing I ask, MacLaren, is that you don’t mention that wretched Harriet. She brought William and Dee more than enough grief to last a lifetime. I hate to say it, but they are better off without her.”

  Lou Ella gave a little grunt of disapproval, but said nothing.

  Eighteen

  Death and Destruction are

  never satisfied. Proverbs 27:20

  On Saturday, Jake hit the traditional third-day-after-surgery low.

  Sunday he got what Glenna called “the male grumpies.”

  In addition, his recovery was being celebrated by half of Montgomery. Between answering all the calls from well-wishers, accepting food and flower gifts, and spelling Glenna at the hospital, I didn’t have a minute to even think about Harriet the entire weekend.

  Monday I was sitting with Jake when Glenna called about half past one. “You just had a phone call from a woman named Myrna Lawson. Do you know who she is?”

  “Myrna Lawson? Harriet’s mother? Where is she? Is Harriet with her?”

  “I don’t know all that. She just said to call her, and left a number.” I guessed Glenna had been woken from a nap, poor dear. She sounded a bit cross.

  Myrna sounded like a Kewpie doll who’d had too many drinks and too few grammar lessons. “Hey! I’m glad you called back. I’m up at Eunice’s. She said you might have a clue where Harriet could be. I been lookin’ for her. Called down to that teen center Eunice said she used to go to, but they ain’t seen her. Listen, I got somebody coming, and I think they’re at the door, but I sure do want to talk to you.”

  “How about if I come up? It’ll take me about an hour to get there.” I’d have to see how fast Glenna could get to the hospital.

  It was more like forty-five minutes after the call when I pulled up in front of Eunice’s house and climbed out into the still, dead heat of early afternoon. The street was bright and deserted. The day was so still I could hear the buzz of bees and the thrum of the air conditioner, but Eunice’s front door stood open behind the screen.

  My heels sounded loud on the cracked walk. Inside, I heard a slight sound of alarm. Then I heard running feet, and a door slam at the back of the house.

  Startled, I watched someone dash across the side yard, hurl himself over a neighbor’s fence, and disappear behind that house. Ricky Dodd.

  Had he been the visitor Myrna mentioned? If so, what was his hurry now?

  I walked thoughtfully up the steps and across the porch toward the open door. It was hotter than blazes. Why should Myrna leave the front door open?

  I rang the bell. Nobody answered. I knocked. Still nobody. Finally I leaned toward the screened door and called, “Hello? Myrna? It’s MacLaren Yarbrough.”

  Still no answer. Only the buzzing of bees and flies.

  I pulled the screen open and took one hesitant step into the living room. “Myrna
? Myrna Lawson? Are you here?”

  Myrna didn’t—couldn’t—answer. She lay on the couch like Sleeping Beauty. Except this Sleeping Beauty had a small bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

  Nineteen

  Her house leads down to death and

  her paths to the spirits of the dead.

  Proverbs 2:18

  It was hard to tell what the woman really looked like, because her hair was bottle blonde, her eyelashes fake, her mouth a pout of dark red lipstick, and her cheeks a brighter purply-pink than any God ever made. Her eyes were amber, like her daughter’s, and they stared like she was thinking about something very serious. Maybe she was, but not in Alabama.

  On the floor beside her, the Polar Bear pillow lay shredded.

  Do you know what finally got me moving again? Flies. Great big bluebottles that gorged themselves on her forehead, then circled the room. Getting their exercise, I guess, but they made me sick. I couldn’t bear the thought of one of them touching me.

  “Get away! Get away!” I shooed them and headed for the kitchen phone to call 911. When I told them there’d been a shooting, I also asked them to tell Carter Duggins that MacLaren Yarbrough was on the scene. I had no idea if the dispatcher got all that, but by then, I needed to hang up and go hang over the toilet.

  I waited in a porch rocker. The old gray Persian leaped onto the porch and settled on my lap, as welcome as a hot water bottle in that heat. I let him stay. I had no energy to push him off. I also kept my feet firmly planted on the floor and didn’t rock. Between the heat, my memory of Myrna, and the sound of the flies, my stomach was awfully queasy.

  It seemed like hours, but was probably less than five minutes before a squad car screamed to a stop at the curb. Two officers dashed to the house, a man and a woman. I couldn’t tell if the man was Carter or not. He didn’t look the least bit like Glenna.

  They looked at me curiously. “Are you the one who called?” the woman asked.

  “Yes. She’s in there.” The man hurried inside. The woman stayed with me. She had tightly permed blonde hair, a dusting of freckles, and light but very bushy eyebrows.

  “You live here?” she asked.

  “No, Eunice Crawley does. That’s Myrna Lawson inside, her sister. I just found her. Was that Carter Duggins?”

  “No. You know him?”

  “I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple of times. I asked for him to come.”

  “We didn’t get that. Just got word of a shooting. You actually heard the shot?”

  “No, I found the body. She was dead when I arrived.”

  She looked puzzled. “And you are?” She poised a pen over her report pad.

  I gave her my name, Jake’s address and phone number, and said I had come by the house on business. That seemed simplest. “You might want to call her sister,” I suggested. “Eunice Crawley, the one who lives here. A neighbor might have her work phone number.”

  “We’ll find her.” She wiped sweat from her brow with one forearm and went inside.

  Another squad car pulled to the curb, and a man got out. He was as tall and lean as Glenna, less than thirty, and had a lopsided grin that probably broke hearts on a regular basis. I greeted him from my rocker. “Carter? I’m MacLaren, Jake’s sister.”

  He gave me a little wave and loped up the steps. “Hey, Miss MacLaren. What’s happenin’?” When I told him briefly, he headed for the door. “I’ll get right back to you.”

  He didn’t, but I didn’t mind waiting. I figured after a while I’d get popular. Meanwhile, I watched the comings and goings of a slew of people whose business it is to investigate a homicide. I thought about going to ask one of the neighbors how to call Eunice, but as hot as that old Persian felt across my legs, I hated to move him. I hated to move, period. If I weren’t there, the police would get Eunice’s number. They didn’t need me to do it for them. I stroked the cat and waited for Carter.

  I found I didn’t have the least bit of curiosity about what was going on inside. I had no interest in butting in, either. Do you know what I kept thinking? I kept looking at those daisies across the street and thinking it wasn’t fair that Myrna wouldn’t see them again.

  Finally Carter came out on the porch, slumped into the other rocker, and stretched out his long legs. “Please tell me what happened and what you’re doing here, Miss MacLaren.”

  I told him about the call from Myrna, and about coming to the house.

  “You didn’t know her at all?”

  “No. She called and said she was Harriet’s mother—”

  He stared at me like I’d gone stark raving crazy. “Harriet’s mother? You mean the one you asked me to look for, Miss MacLaren?”

  “I think so. I know it sounds like a coincidence, but—”

  His voice was full of disbelief and more than a little peeved. “That makes no sense at all! Did you see that woman in there?” He jerked his thumb toward the door.

  “More of her than I’ll ever be able to forget.”

  “How old would you say she is?”

  I tried to work it out. “Her sister said she got married before she finished high school, so by now I’d guess she’d be—what? Thirty-one or -two?”

  “How can a woman in her early thirties be the mother of somebody who’s fifty?”

  Our trains were traveling down two different tracks. “Fifty?”

  “You said a fifty-year-old female.”

  Silently I tried out the two words. “I guess over the phone fifteen could sound like fifty, Carter, but Harriet’s fifteen. A child. How old was the woman you showed William?”

  “Fifty-four. We’ve identified her, by the way. She was from Huntsville.”

  “Why on earth would William have identified her, then? You said he did, didn’t you?”

  “Positively, at first. He changed his mind later, but there’s no way he could have mistaken her for fifteen, no matter how upset he was. I’ll want to talk to Mr. Sykes again.”

  In the next few minutes, I told him about coming up the steps, hearing a noise inside, and seeing Ricky Dodd run away—and that Ricky was the person I thought had tried to break into Glenna’s. “Did you ever compare his blood with that on the glass?”

  He looked embarrassed. “No ma’am, not yet. Since you all were okay and nothing was taken, I put that on a back burner, I’m afraid. We’re pretty busy. But you know him?”

  “I’ve met him, looking for Harriet. He lived as a foster child with Harriet and her grandmother for a while, and a couple of times she ran away and went to his place. He hadn’t seen her this time, though.”

  “Did you see if he carried a weapon today?”

  “No, and I saw him pretty clearly. Besides, if he’d had a gun and had already killed one person, why would he have run away instead of coming after me?” Until I said that, I hadn’t given a second’s thought to the fact that I could have been in danger myself. It was a good thing I was already sitting down.

  “You never know what people will do in a panic.” Carter hadn’t lived long enough to know as much about that as he sounded like he had.

  The woman officer came out. “Thought I’d look around outside for a possible weapon.” Given that Eunice only had two bushes, her search was as complicated as a two-year-olds’ egg hunt. She reached into the hydrangea just to the left of the steps and pulled out a pistol. “The murder weapon,” she crowed to Carter. “I’ll bet you a steak dinner on it.”

  That rooster wouldn’t fly. “No wager, no dinner,” Carter told her.

  She looked disappointed, but brightened when he added, “But we’ve got a suspect.” He gave her everything I’d told him, then turned back to me. “We’ll bring him in. He’ll swear he didn’t do it, of course, but since you found him standing over her…”

  I’ve been a magistrate’s wife long enough to know the importance of precise evidence. “I didn’t even see him in the house. I heard a slamming door and saw him running away.”

  “That’s close enough to start.
Let me send somebody out to pick him up.” He went to his car without suggesting that I leave. I didn’t think I could summon the energy, anyway.

  After a while he came back and went inside. I heard him tell the others, “We’ve got an ID on the gun. Belongs to a Beverly White.”

  “Carter,” I called through the open door, “I think she’s the girl Ricky lives with.”

  Carter slapped his thigh. “Hot diggety! One we can solve in time for supper!”

  He wasn’t so cocky when he arrived at Jake’s room a little past five. After hugging Glenna and teasing Jake about getting a vacation the hard way, he asked, “Hey, Jake, can I borrow your sister for a cup of coffee?”

  “She’s a little old for you, isn’t she, son?” Jake inquired mildly.

  “No pretty woman ever gets old, Jake. You know that.”

  “Well, watch your step. She’s got a lean, mean husband.”

  “This is a weird case, Miss MacLaren,” Carter said a few minutes later, stirring enough sugar into his coffee to ice a cake and giving a girl at the next table a smile that would keep her happy for days. “You know you called 911 and asked for me?” I nodded. “Well, I wasn’t far away, but the reason that other car arrived first was, there’d already been a 911 for the same address, a few minutes before.”

  “Who on earth—?”

  “It gets weirder. The caller spoke in a loud whisper and claimed to have heard a shot. And, like yours, that call came from inside the house. What do you think of that?”

  “Ricky?”

  Carter shrugged. “He swears he wasn’t there but a second when he heard a noise and ran. But it’s his gun, all right—or his girlfriend’s. He’s on probation and not allowed to have a gun. But given that the gun was there and he was there—”

  “Why would Ricky go out front to throw the gun away, then go back into the room?”

  Carter shrugged again. “Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe he was planning to rob the place, but you disturbed him. All he says is, he was there, heard the noise, and, with his record, was scared he’d be blamed, so he ran.”