A Killing at Cotton Hill (9 page)

Saturday morning, Loretta comes back out and has to get caught up on every detail of the funeral arrangements. I ask her if she would mind figuring out what clothes to put Dora Lee in for her final resting. She tells me she'll be proud to do it. “But you know Ida Ruth was Dora Lee's best friend and she got back last night from Waco. I better call her to come out here and help me, or she'll get her feelings hurt.”

“I'm glad you thought of it. And that reminds me of something else. You remember Dora Lee had a daughter that moved out to California? Well, I'm having trouble locating her. You reckon Ida would know anything about that?”

“You can ask her when she gets here.”

I get on back to Dora Lee's office. I didn't get through all the papers yesterday, and it's time to tackle that. It takes me twenty minutes to figure out what happened to Dora Lee's money. Apparently, the reason Teague took out a big mortgage on the house before he died was to cover his medical expenses. I'd known Teague had diabetes, but I didn't know how it ravaged his body and that he didn't have any health insurance. Although Dora Lee had some money left over after he died, and she was frugal, keeping up mortgage payments had slowly leeched away her funds.

By the time I hear Ida Ruth come in the back door, I'm feeling mighty low, thinking how worried Dora Lee must have been in her last year.

I greet Ida Ruth and ask her if I can talk to her after they've picked out the burial clothes for Dora Lee.

She and Loretta make a tour of the house, exclaiming over the quilts, wondering what's to be done with them. They finally disappear into Dora Lee's room, and I go back to my sad work. I make a list of Dora Lee's outstanding bills, among which is a loan she took out from her brother-in-law, Leslie. I can imagine the blow it must have been to her pride to have to go to him for help. That explains why he was interested in her will; he wants to be sure he gets paid back.

The women take their sweet time, and by the time they're done it's almost noon. Loretta heats up a tuna casserole and the three of us sit down to eat.

“Ida, how long did you and Dora Lee know each other?”

Ida Ruth is a large, unattractive woman with big teeth and a burn scar along her left ear where a kerosene stove exploded next to her when she was a girl. She has a habit of listening with her head cocked, as if she's got trouble with her hearing. “How long? Forty years we've known each other. Ever since Earl and I moved here and joined the Baptist Church. Dora Lee and I quilted together and raised our kids together.” She stops to take off her glasses and wipe her eyes. “Lord, I'm going to miss her. How could that boy have done such a thing?”

“Ida Ruth, it's time to put a stop to this. I don't know who's been pumping up the rumor that her grandson killed her, but there's not a shred of evidence that he did any such thing.”

“They say he wanted the money from the farm. That he's going to up and sell it and go off somewhere.”

“I don't know who
they
are, but
they
don't know what they're talking about,” I say.

She sniffs and exchanges a glance with Loretta, who looks nervous. Ida Ruth has a reputation for being scrappy if she's crossed. Loretta won't want to get into it with her, but there's nothing to stop me from wading in.

“It's up to you to stop rumors like this, so I'm going to tell you the truth. The truth is, Dora Lee didn't have a dime. The property is mortgaged and even if it's sold, there won't be much left over.”

Loretta claps her hand over her mouth and Ida Ruth falls back in her seat as if I've struck her. Loretta has told me in the past that every old woman's worst fear is being left destitute.

“Didn't have a dime? She never let on,” Ida Ruth says.

“We were all fooled,” I say.

“Then the boy probably didn't know either,” Ida says, tapping the table firmly. “Young boys don't know a thing about finances. He probably thought she was rich.”

“He knew she had no money. Dora Lee wanted to send him off to art school, but he said she couldn't afford it.”

“Big ideas,” Ida Ruth says. “What did he need to go to art school for anyway? He had lessons from one of his teachers. And Dora Lee told me she paid a pretty penny for it.”

“I'm not arguing that he should go to art school. I'm just saying Greg knew she didn't have money, so there's no motive to kill her.”

“Then who did kill her?”

“We'll have to see about that,” I say. “Did Dora Lee tell you she was scared somebody was spying on her?”

“Spying on her? Who would do such of a thing?”

“She didn't tell you she'd seen somebody driving by that didn't belong out here?”

Her mouth is full of tuna casserole, so she nods her head until she swallows. “Oh, you mean that kind of spying. She did mention that to me. You think it was somebody biding their time before they killed her?”

“It seems strange, that's all,” I say. “One more thing. You know anything about a trip she took to Houston a couple of weeks ago?

“Houston? Yes, I believe she said she had to go get a few things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Samuel, I'm not Mrs. Nosy. I didn't ask her. We all have to run over there time to time, isn't that right, Loretta?”

“You can't buy a thing around here. Even in Bobtail, there's only a couple of dress stores and their prices are sky high, unless you want to go to the Walmart.”

“Can you imagine Dora Lee dressing herself from the Walmart?” The women exchange raised eyebrows. “She may not have had much, but she knew how to find good clothes on sale.”

“Did Dora Lee say anything about her daughter Caroline moving to Houston?”

Ida Ruth's mouth drops open and little spots of red come up in her cheeks. “Caroline was moving to Houston? Dora Lee never said a word about it. Why would she keep something like that from me?”

Loretta heaps another helping of casserole onto Ida's plate. “Now Ida Ruth, I didn't know Dora Lee the way you did, but wouldn't you think that if Caroline moved back Dora Lee might want to see how it worked out between them before she started in talking about it?”

“That's probably exactly right,” Ida Ruth says. “How'd you know Caroline was coming back?” she says to me.

I tell her about the letter I found. “Caroline should be contacted and told what happened. But I can't find how to reach her. Do you know if Caroline has kept up with anybody in town? Maybe somebody she went to school with?”

Ida Ruth takes a bite and chews slowly while she thinks. “Well, there's Maddie Hicks. You remember her; she was the Dobbs's girl. Since her husband cleared out, she makes a living doing people's hair in her house. She's pretty good at it, too. Even if Maddie hasn't kept up with Caroline, she might know who has. Let me get you that phone number.” She pulls out a little address book that is the twin of Dora Lee's and gives me the number.

Before Ida Ruth leaves, she and Loretta insist that I pass judgment on the clothes they've picked out for Dora Lee to wear. I go out and get Greg to put in his two cents' worth, and it turns out I'm glad I did. When he sees the handsome blue outfit they've arranged on the bed, he reaches his hand out and touches it, gently, for just the barest moment. But it's enough. A boy who has killed his grandmother is not going to want to touch the clothes she's being laid to rest in. Ida Ruth has to turn away and blow her nose.

 

I call Maddie Hicks and she says she can see me at one thirty, but that she has a lady coming at two o'clock for a permanent, so not to be late. I set Greg to watering Dora Lee's garden and take off.

Maddie's house is a doublewide set up on blocks. She's losing a war with weeds in the yard. Out front a hand-painted sign says,
Maddie's Beauty Shop
. No fancy name, and my guess is the beauty school she went to is called Learn-As-You-Go.

When she finally comes to the door, Maddie is carrying a cigarette and a lighter. “Let's sit outside in the back,” she says. “I can't even smoke in my own house. My daughter lives here with me with her two kids, and she won't have me smoking. I don't know where she gets those ideas.” She's a heavy-stacked woman with a bad complexion and her hair done in a fluffy style better suited for somebody twenty years younger.

We go around back where the weeds have been beaten down in spots. Next to a rusted-out barbecue cooker a couple of lawn chairs are set up under a big old pecan tree. We sit down and Maddie lights up. It doesn't take me more than a couple minutes to find out that she likes to talk. That suits me fine—if she knows anything I need to hear.

She rattles on about how afraid everybody in town is that whoever killed Dora Lee is coming to get them next. She says she and her daughter are thinking about putting in a deadbolt lock.

As soon as I can get a word in, I ask if she has kept up with Caroline Parjeter.

“Caroline was a wild thing when she was a girl. Me and her had some good old times. We used to go out to the roadhouse—remember that place out near Cotton Hill?—and we'd dance our butts off. That's where I met my husband, which doesn't speak highly for it. I guess that old place is fallen down now, though I heard somebody is thinking about restoring it. I don't know who they think would come, though. Kids these days want to go to San Antonio or Austin. They tear up the road between here and there. I don't see how they can have any better times than we used to have right here.”

“When was the last time you heard from Caroline?”

“Let me think,” she says. “You know how it is, you think it's only been a couple months since you talked to somebody and come to find out it's been five years.”

She talks on like that and I wonder how she can think and talk at the same time, but all of a sudden she says, “I guess it was a couple of years ago now, when she got married.”

“She never!” I say.

“Yes, she did. Married some old boy from Beaumont.”

“Did her mamma know?”

Maddie sighs. “Mr. Craddock,” she says, “I didn't like the way she treated her mamma, and I told her so more than once. But she told me she had her reasons, and I figured she had her own life to live and it wasn't much of my business.”

“So she didn't tell Dora Lee she got married.”

Maddie squints from smoke as she exhales. “I don't know the answer to that. But I'll tell you the honest truth, I thought there was something funny about her getting married so late. It wasn't like she wanted kids or anything. I asked her why was she getting married and she said she'd found a man who could take care of her.”

“And that's the last you heard?”

“It is.”

“Did she write you or call you?”

“She sent me an announcement. I thought about calling her, but I didn't know what I'd say to her. You know some people you can talk to after ten years and it's like you just saw them last week and you have plenty to say. It wasn't like that with Caroline. We just have different lives, I guess.”

“Would you happen to have the announcement? I need to get in touch with her and let her know her mamma died.”

“I'll see if I can find it.” She looks at her watch. “I don't know if I can lay hands on it before my two o'clock comes, but I'll go see.”

While she's gone, I think about how maybe not having kids wasn't the worst thing that could have happened to Jeanne and me. If we'd had a daughter who left us like Caroline did, it would have been terrible. I wouldn't have wanted to see Jeanne sad like Dora Lee was.

Maddie hollers from around front of the trailer. I get up, unkink my knee and walk to the front steps.

She's holding an envelope out to me. “This is your lucky day,” she says. “It's not often I can put my hands on anything I'm looking for.”

“Just in time, too,” I say. A car has stopped in front and a lady I have a nodding acquaintance with is easing herself out. I go over and hold the door and we exchange a few words.

“I'll get this back to you,” I say, waving the envelope at Maddie.

In my truck I take a look at the announcement. It's on standard white stock, nothing fancy, saying she's married a man named Martin Wells.

I stop by my place to use my phone to try to find Caroline under her new name. It's not easy, because there are lots of Wells in the Houston area. I'm grateful she didn't marry a Smith. Most of the people I talk to answer right off that they don't know any Dora Lee Parjeter. But after a while, I reach a woman named Caroline Wells who pauses when I ask if she's related to Dora Lee. Finally she says, “Yes.”

Not, yes she's my mamma, or yes, is something wrong . . . just “yes.”

I tell her who I am. “I've had the devil of a time trying to find you. I thought you should know your Mamma was found dead Thursday.”