Who Killed the Queen of Clubs? Read online

  “In a minute.” Alex bent to strain tea into two cups and brought one to me.

  Mama always said, “Eat and drink what you’re offered, even if it kills you.” She never imagined that one day it nearly would. However, I spooned in sugar, poured milk, and took a nervous sip. It tasted good, whether it killed me or not, and drinking from real china was a nice change on a workday morning.

  However, if I didn’t get back soon, our employees would begin to think I’d absconded to Brazil with their paychecks. I told Edie, “I understand something’s been bothering you.”

  Edie frowned at Alex. “Did Olive tell you that?”

  Alex sipped her tea and avoided Edie’s eyes. “She said something to make me think you’ve joined the hereafter club. You know”—she waved to show it wasn’t real important—“the one where you go into a room and ask, ‘What did I come in here after?’ ”

  Edie didn’t crack a smile. “I hope you didn’t drag Mac all the way over here to talk about something that stupid.” Her voice was cross.

  Alex sipped her tea before replying. “Isaac says Mac’s real good at puzzles.”

  Edie gave me a sour look. “Alex and Olive ought to mind their own business.”

  My employees didn’t talk to me like that, but then, none of them ever chaired my board.

  “Since I haven’t,” her boss replied, “why don’t you go ahead and tell us about it?”

  Edie heaved a sigh that came from the tips of her clogs. “It’s so silly. But since we’re here—I got in my car last Sunday and couldn’t reach the pedals. Since nobody ever drives the car but me, I must have put the seat back to get out and forgotten I did it.”

  “I put my seat back almost automatically,” I reassured her. “Don’t you wish somebody would make a car short people could drive without the dashboard bumping our knees and the steering wheel removing our digestive tract as we get out?”

  She nodded. “Or one where the seat belt didn’t cut off your windpipe?”

  Alex stretched long arms above her head and preened like a cat. “You all should have taken your vitamins. But Olive said something about a door.”

  Edie’s returning good humor evaporated in a huff of disgust. “I left it unlocked that same night. I’m usually careful about locking both the door and the dead bolt since Daddy left, but I guess I forgot the night before.”

  Her daddy, Josiah Whelan, hadn’t exactly “left.” Edie had put him in Golden Years Nursing Home up in Augusta the past September, after a massive stroke left him paralyzed on the left side and unable to speak.

  “What was most puzzling,” Edie continued, “was that the cat was inside. He’s an outdoor cat. He never comes inside.”

  No wonder she was troubled, if she was forgetting to lock her door. Hope County isn’t the crime capital of the South, but isolated women are vulnerable wherever they live. Still, there could be a rational explanation. I suggested one possibility. “Could Genna have used your car while you were asleep?”

  Like I said before, Genna was Edie’s stepdaughter—Wick’s child by a previous marriage. When her husband, Adney, was out of town on business, Genna often slept over with Edie. My daughter-in-law Cindy, who was Genna’s friend, said Adney was nervous about Genna sleeping in their house alone.

  “Genna wasn’t there that night.” Edie’s fingers twisted like mating worms. “Olive should never have mentioned this. Now you all are worried, and Genna and Adney will have one more reason why I ought to sell the grove and move into a nice little town house in town.” Her tone said exactly what she thought about a nice little town house in town and that she was quoting somebody—probably Genna. “Forget it, okay?”

  She rose, but before she could leave, Olive stepped into the office after the slightest of knocks. As a judge, I had no business convicting Olive of eavesdropping without evidence, but she convicted herself when she joined our conversation right away with no apology. “What about that girl who lives with you?”

  Edie gave her the impatient look she gave persons who attended board meetings uninvited and spoke out of turn. “Valerie is good about locking up. She also has a car.”

  Edie had been a lot more willing to consider Genna than Valerie, but she was irritated enough with Olive right then to reject anything she suggested. Olive must have understood that, for her pale, plain face flushed, and she said, in the same drab, uninflected voice that never held the children’s attention when she took over story hour for Donna, “I was just trying to help.”

  Poor Olive was less like an olive than anything I could imagine. A woman named Olive ought to be sophisticated and interesting, with sleek dark hair worn in a knot at the nape of her neck, slim little black dresses that cost a fortune, and a face you could put on a magazine cover. This Olive had a square jaw and eyes like unpolished pewter, and she invariably wore a black skirt, a light gray sweater with long sleeves and a V-neck, a single gold chain, and small gold balls in her ears. For winter she added black blazers. For summer she substituted short-sleeved gray cotton sweaters with scoop necks. For dress-up she wore gray silk blouses. For golfing she changed the skirt for black pants and the V-neck for a gray polo shirt or sweatshirt.

  She even drove a gray car, a Nissan SUV exactly like her brother’s, suitable for rough-track adventures, although I doubted Olive ever took hers anywhere more adventurous than the Bi-Lo. Cindy said Adney bought her the car soon after he bought his own. Apparently they were the only two left of their family, and very close. She had certainly moved to Hopemore not long after Adney and Genna.

  Joe Riddley claimed Olive had a secret desire to be a nun. I suspected she had drawers full of red bikini underwear and a closet full of slinky negligees. However, I was unlikely to ever know. Olive never invited anybody to her apartment except Adney, Genna, and Edie. She didn’t seem to have any other friends. It wasn’t just that she was a newcomer. She made it clear she preferred books to people. She also apparently preferred solitary rounds on the golf course to foursomes, if the gossip was right down at Phyllis’s Beauty Parlor.

  “She’s real good at golf,” I’d heard one woman say, “but when people ask her to play with them, she says she prefers to play alone. Can you imagine?”

  “She plays bridge like that, too,” said another. “Makes it clear it’s cards she likes, not the company.”

  “Poor honey, can’t you do something about her hair?” a third asked Phyllis. “I mean, that short straight look doesn’t do a thing for her, thin as she is, and that color of red—Well, all I can say is, if you and she are trying to match Genna’s color, one of you is color-blind.”

  Phyllis frowned over the head of a permanent she was rolling. “They don’t use the same color at all. And I give people what they ask for. You know that.” Her critic was a woman well past fifty who kept her own hair an improbable shade of yellow, too long for her age, and teased to look like Texas. “Olive favors a French waif look, and she brings her color with her.”

  As soon as Phyllis stepped into the dryer room to check on another customer, the last woman snorted. “French waif, my foot. That chopped-off crop makes Olive look like she’s trying out for the fire scene in Joan of Arc.”

  “With her head already ablaze,” said the first. They all laughed. They didn’t so much dislike Olive as resent that she wouldn’t let them get to know her.

  All that went through my head in Alex’s office, until I suddenly realized Olive was staring at me. Had I quoted some of that out loud? Probably not. She looked more like we were teammates on Jeopardy! and she was willing me to ask the winning question. I gave it a try. “Could Valerie have let anybody else drive your car?”

  Edie gave an impatient huff and stomped to the door. “She wouldn’t. And I can’t see that this is anybody’s business but mine. Is that all?” she asked Alex. “I need to get back to the desk.”

  I was sorry we’d upset her. Edie had been deluged with despair that year, between Wick’s death and Josiah’s stroke. “None of this sounds like muc
h to worry about,” I said. “Stress makes all of us forgetful, and you have every reason to be worn out, with all you’ve been through. Are you still driving back and forth every evening to see your daddy?”

  “Yes.” One short, abrupt syllable.

  I was ready to end the conversation and head back to the store, but Alex must have wanted me to have the full picture. “You’re still president of the literacy council, right?”

  “Just until June.”

  “And tutoring every week?”

  “Just one student right now.”

  “And playing bridge?”

  Olive put in her oar. “She doesn’t have to run the tournament. I told her I’d be glad to—”

  “You don’t know all that’s involved,” Edie said impatiently. “It would take longer to explain it than to do it myself.”

  How many times have I heard that from women who claim they are doing too much, but never let go of anything because they don’t really believe anybody else can do it as well as they can? It’s such a small step from knowing you are competent to believing you are indispensable.

  Olive’s eyes narrowed into dime-sized slits. “But with that new committee you agreed to serve on at your church—”

  Edie’s color flared high. “That’s just for a year, while we raise money for repairs.”

  “Honey!” I exclaimed in dismay. “Between ‘just this’ and ‘just that,’ it’s a wonder you aren’t plumb nuts. You can’t do all you used to do and work. And you don’t need to see Josiah every day. That’s two hours round-trip, plus time to visit. Your daddy doesn’t want you killing yourself coming to see him.”

  Edie sighed. “I keep hoping one day he’ll talk a little, or move his hand. I don’t want to miss being there that day.” Her voice trembled, and she took deep breaths to steady herself.

  Olive made a movement with one hand like she wished she could help but didn’t know how. “I’d better get back to the desk. I came in to see if I could take an early lunch.” Nobody believed that, but when Alex approved the request, she backed out of the room.

  I couldn’t offer Edie much hope that her daddy would get better. Instead, I asked, “Speaking of nuts, are you going to be able to get in this year’s crop without Pete?”

  Josiah Whelan owned a thousand acres of pecan trees that had to be harvested between October and February if he was to have any income for the year. Harvest required at least thirty workers to bring in the crop, run the cleaning and sorting operation, and keep the machinery going, and Pete Joyner, Josiah’s harvest foreman, had suffered a fatal heart attack the same morning Josiah had his stroke. Nobody knew exactly what had gone on out at the grove that day, but something terrible had blown up between them after a lifetime of working together.

  In addition to my concern for Edie, I had a personal interest in her answer. Yarbrough’s might weather the superstore, but if Whelan Grove went under, we’d have a hole in our bottom line. A thousand acres of pecans need a lot of herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizer in a year, and Josiah purchased them all from us.

  “This year’s crop will be okay if the rain lets up. Henry came home for his daddy’s funeral, and he said he’ll stay to get the harvest in.”

  Henry was Pete’s son, and he must be about thirty now. Pete used to bring him to the store when he was a toddler, and I don’t think I ever saw a prettier child, with his daddy’s big gray eyes and long, curling lashes in a face the color of coffee laced with pure cream. As soon as he could push a wheel-barrow, Henry started helping in the grove. Our older son, Ridd, who taught at the high school, had expected him to go to college, study horticulture, and maybe one day buy a grove of his own. Instead, right after graduation, Henry got married and moved over to South Carolina. By Christmas, Pete was flashing pictures of a new granddaughter.

  I hadn’t heard anything about Henry since then, but I did remember that he used to be a real tease. When Pete brought him down to the store, we’d find smiley faces drawn in the zeros on sale signs, or signs that belonged to big potted plants stuck in front of seed packets, jacking up their price considerably. “Henry sneaked a plastic ice cube in my cup once, with a fly in it, to be funny. Could he have altered your car seat and let the cat in for a joke?”

  Edie shook her head. “Henry doesn’t joke since he came back. Maybe it’s losing his daddy, but it’s all I can do to get him to say good morning.”

  Alex set her cup down in the saucer with a click. “Weren’t you saying you all had a fight this morning before you came in?”

  “Do you mind keeping my business private?” Edie blazed. “Henry and I had a little disagreement, that’s all.” She gave another irritated huff and a flap of a wave. “Forget this. It’s not worth making a fuss over, and I need to get back to the desk. Donna’s got story hour.”

  “If you want an office in the hereafter club, let me know,” I offered. “I’m running for president, but you can be secretary.”

  The way she slammed the door behind her, I got the notion she didn’t find that funny.

  3

  Alex drummed her nails on a stack of papers on her desk. “So. What do you think?”

  What I really thought was that Alex and Olive were antsy because of all the wet, soggy weather we’d been having. When folks can’t get out to exercise their bodies, their imaginations work overtime. What I said, though, was, “I don’t think there’s anything to be worried about, but Edie’s under a lot of pressure with Josiah right now. Maybe she shouldn’t be working.”

  Alex stopped drumming and started rubbing a bare spot on her desk with one finger. Afraid I’d offended her, I added quickly, “You were brilliant, though, to get her working so soon after Wick died. Fifty is young to be a widow. She needed a new interest.”

  Alex hesitated, then said bluntly, “She needed the money.” She held up a hand to forestall my protest. “Everybody thinks Edie sold her nice house and moved out with her daddy so neither would be lonesome. They think she got a fat stock portfolio from the sale of the house and the pharmacy, and works to take her mind off things. I wouldn’t tell you if I weren’t so worried, but Edie’s broke. Wick Burkett was a drug addict who spent every penny they had—and borrowed a good many dollars they didn’t—to feed his habit.”

  That sure took the starch out of my britches. “Why would you think that? Wick Burkett was a fine man.” There’s no higher accolade in Georgia.

  Alex chewed her lower lip. “How much has Isaac told you about me?”

  “That you’re his first cousin and were in the army before you came here.”

  “That’s true, but it’s not the whole truth. I grew up in a Chicago housing project. Mama, who was Isaac’s daddy’s sister, was a drop-dead drunk, and I was the oldest of five kids she got from five different men who supplied her with liquor. I joined the army as soon as they’d take me and was lucky enough to get a sergeant who kicked some sense into the only part of me that knew how to listen back then. He convinced me I could handle college, and that got me so hooked on learning, I finished my master’s before I got out. But I know drugs. One of my brothers is in jail for dealing. Another died of an overdose when he was twenty. I recognized Wick’s symptoms several months before he died, I just didn’t realize how far he had gone down that road until I went over to Edie’s a week after his funeral, with some library business. Since we worked pretty closely on the library board, I took a risk and mentioned I’d lost a brother to drugs. She started pouring her heart out. Said a doctor prescribed pills several years ago for a ski injury, and Wick got hooked. First he took them to get relief. Eventually he took them because he liked how they made him feel. Then he started mixing his own prescription cocktails. Even getting drugs wholesale, it eventually took every penny he made and then some to support his habit. The last year of his life, Edie was frantic—both because of the money and because she was terrified he’d make a mistake on somebody else’s prescription. After he died, she discovered his debts would take every penny she got for selling
the business, her house, and most of her furniture. All she took away from that marriage was some collection or other his mother had. According to his will, she can’t sell them—they’re to go to Genna upon her death.”

  “Eighteenth-century American snuffboxes,” I contributed. “But I’m surprised Wick didn’t sell them, too.”

  “He would have if Edie hadn’t hidden them, along with some jewelry her mother left her. She said he was furious, but she told him they ought to go to Genna one day, and she was determined to see that they did.” Alex’s face was grave. “Another month or so, and he’d have been bankrupt. I guess he tried to do the honorable thing by killing himself before things went that far.” She bit her lower lip again. “She’s never told another soul, and I wouldn’t have told you, except it may be related to all this. She could be still worried about money.”

  I hardly heard her. I was thinking of all the times I’d been with Wick and Edie during his last two years and never guessed a thing was wrong. Do we ever really know what lies behind another human face? “Does Genna know all this?”

  “I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know about the drugs. I don’t know if Edie told her there wasn’t any money or not.”

  I doubted it. Edie was a private person. I’d also recalled how angry my daughter-in-law had been on Genna’s behalf after Wick died. “He made a new will just a week before he died,” Cindy had said, “and he didn’t leave her a blessed thing. Can you believe that? His entire estate went to Edie. He even left her Genna’s grandmother’s snuffboxes, after promising them to Genna all her life.”

  Drugs change people. Had Wick, in his last desperate week, taken petty revenge on Edie for hiding the boxes, saying, in effect, “Since you hung on to the danged things in my lifetime, you can jolly well keep them until you die—and put up with Genna grousing about it”?

  Alex was still talking. “I think Genna’s still under the misapprehension that Edie’s rich, because I overheard Edie on the phone a few weeks back refusing to give her a loan. It wouldn’t occur to Genna to get a job. Can you imagine two women more dissimilar than those two?”