An Angel to Die For (23 page)

The old man didn’t say anything.

“So what stopped you?” the detective persisted. “Jasper?”

“No, we sent him on his way, but a car drove up just as we were about to—you know . . .”

“Put Colette’s body in the casket?” Sheriff Bonner helped himself to the water, sipped it slowly.

Mr. Griggs nodded. “It was down there on that back road just below the cemetery. Kids park there sometimes. We couldn’t take the chance.”

“So you stored her in the shed, meaning to come back and take care of that business later?” The sheriff tossed his cup at the wastebasket and missed.

Maynard Griggs looked at me as if he recognized me for the first time. “I had no idea you’d come home, that anybody was around after your mother left. We thought the place was deserted.”

“That still doesn’t explain why you murdered Colette Champion.” The Clouseau look-alike leaned against the wall, arms folded.

“I didn’t
murder
her! I told you. It was an accident.”

Colette Champion had been blackmailing him for
years, Maynard Griggs told us, until finally he’d had enough.

“So you decided to kill her. Is that why you went to that remote park and drove a rental car instead of your own?” Sheriff Bonner leaned back in his chair. It creaked.

“No! No, of course not! I drove a rental car because too many people might recognize mine, and I couldn’t afford to be seen with her. I went there to call her bluff, that’s all, to tell her she’d be getting no more money from me.”

Maynard Griggs slumped forward, twisted his diamond-studded wedding band. “Look, is there any way we can keep this quiet—at least until after the election? This is a god-awful thing to happen right now while Harold’s running for office!”

“A little late to think of that now,” the sheriff reminded him.

“The woman wouldn’t leave me alone! Just about drained me dry. Even threatened to tell Ernestine.” Maynard Griggs shook his head slowly. “I didn’t believe her. By God, she knew she’d never get another cent if she did that!”

He had picked up Colette Champion at the bus station in a rental car and the two drove to a small picnic area a few miles outside of town. “To talk,” he insisted. “Merely to talk; I didn’t want her making a scene in public.”

They got out of the car and sat at one of the picnic tables, he continued. “When I told her there’d be no
more money, she threw a fit. Screamed and struck at me, called me every name in the book.

“I was furious,” Maynard Griggs said. “I knew if I hit her—and believe me, I wanted to—I might do serious harm. I just wanted to get away—drive off and leave her there until we could both cool off some.” He looked at the three of us in turn. “I swear to you, I’m not a violent man. Anybody will tell you that, but that woman—well, she just about pushed me over the edge. I got in the car and started out of the park“—he closed his eyes—”but she came after me screaming, running, holding on to the driver’s door. I couldn’t shake her loose. The woman was crazy!”

Sheriff Bonner straightened suddenly. “So you ran over her?”

“She fell. I didn’t mean to, didn’t realize what had happened until I felt that sickening thump. By then it was too late. There was nothing I could do.” He covered his face with his hands. “Oh, God, all I wanted was to get away from her!”

The detective filled another cup with water and held it out to him. He spoke softly. “So you contacted Faris Haskell to help you get rid of the body?”

“Right. I hadn’t heard from Faris in years, but I knew where to find him. We paid Jasper to help us dig up the coffin, didn’t think he’d ask questions.” The old man sighed. “That’s where we were wrong. When news got out about your finding Colette’s body in the shed, Totherow put two and two together. The little weasel tried to blackmail us!”

“And did you pay him off?” the detective asked.

“Some, but he kept coming back for more. We knew he’d never be satisfied.”

“And so you planned to kill him as well?” the officer continued.

“Look . . . maybe we did talk about it, but it never came to that. I’ll swear it didn’t!” Maynard Griggs was close to tears. His hand trembled as he mopped his face.

“Looks like you were pretty serious about it to me,” the sheriff said, “since you’d already started digging a grave for the guy. That
was
meant for Jasper, wasn’t it—that makeshift trench back of the Dobson place?”

“That’s ridiculous! I had nothing to do with killing that man.” Maynard Griggs folded his arms, reminding me of an aging Buddha, except he wasn’t smiling.

“Then who did?” the sheriff asked. “Ralphine claims he went into hiding, says he was terrified of somebody. And
somebody
had to have killed him. Faris Haskell says it wasn’t him.”

“Maybe you’d better ask Zorah,” the older man said. “Last time I saw that Totherow fellow, the two of them were going at it tooth and nail.”

Get real! I was tempted to say. My aunt Zorah wouldn’t get within hair-pulling distance of Jasper Totherow.

Sheriff Bonner smiled. “Come now, Mr. Griggs, surely you can do better than that.”

“Joke if you like, but it’s true. I heard them arguing—shouting
really. Zorah was furious about something, picked up a shovel. I saw her.”

“And where was this?” The detective with the mustache barely looked up, as if he wasn’t even interested, but I could tell he was.

“At the Dobson place—out there in the barn, and it was right around the time you say he was killed. Find that shovel and you’ll see I’m telling the truth. Her prints must be all over it.”

“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” the sheriff asked. “And just what were you doing out there when all this was going on?”

“I was supposed to give him money. Wanted a hundred dollars more to keep quiet about Colette—and that was to be the end of it. I’d already told him that.”

“And did you?” the detective asked.

“Did I what?” Mr. Griggs looked up under half-closed lids.

“Did you pay Jasper the hundred bucks?”

“Look, when I saw what was going on with those two, I didn’t hang around. I was kinda hoping Zorah would scare the little bastard off, but I didn’t think she’d actually kill him!

“Besides, I was in a hurry. My son wanted me to ride with him to Montgomery to pick up a body. Man who used to live here and wanted to be buried with his family. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to worry about the likes of Jasper Totherow!”

“Seems an upright, law-abiding fellow like yourself
would’ve gone to the police about all this when Jasper turned up dead.” The sheriff spoke with a straight face. I don’t know how.

“What good would it have done? He was already dead, wasn’t he? And certainly no great loss. For all I knew, it might’ve been Faris who killed him.”

“Killed who?” The younger Griggs stood in the doorway looking more grim-faced than usual. “What’s going on here?”

The sheriff told him.

“Dad, you don’t have to answer their questions. I can’t believe this!” Griggs the younger reached for the telephone. “I’ll have the lot of you up on harassment charges. My father’s not well. Been under a doctor’s care for several weeks now.” He fumbled through the phone book, then threw it down and rubbed his face with his hands. “Damn! I can’t even find the blasted lawyer’s number!”

“Let it go, son.” Maynard patted Harold’s arm. “The truth will out, and the sooner the better. This has gone on long enough. Frankly I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

“Dad! Surely you aren’t saying you had anything to do with what happened to Jasper Totherow?”

“Not Jasper, but it was my indiscretion that started it all. I’m sorry, son.” And Maynard Griggs put his head in his hands and wept.

“Do I have news for you!” I told Mom when I phoned her later. Our telephone bill was going to be out of sight. “Maybe you’d better sit down first, mix a strong drink.”

“Prentice, don’t do this to me!”

“Okay, to start with, Uncle Faris isn’t even dead.” I told her about the rigged-up car “accident” and faked death certificate. “Seems Maynard Griggs had an affair with some woman around here and got her pregnant . . .”

“Colette Champion,” my mother said.

“Uh—right.”

“I remember Colette. No better than she should be, but then neither was Maynard. Everybody sort of suspected something was going on, and then she left town and that was that.”

“Well, she had an abortion I guess,” I told her. “Maynard says he paid her off big-time, but she kept coming back for more.”

“What did Faris Haskell have to do with this?” Mom asked.

“Faris gave him the money to pay her. Money he’d embezzled, I guess, but Maynard wasn’t in a position to be picky. Of course he had to pay him back in the long run by helping to fake Faris’s death.”

“This is almost too much to take in, but then it’s like something Faris would do, and he and Maynard used to be thick as thieves—pardon the expression. But how did the woman end up in our barn?”

“Long story,” I said, and told her.

I could hear my mother breathing in the silence that followed. “Mom, are you okay?”

“I’m all right, Prentice, but I’m not so sure about your aunt Zorah. Dear God, what will she do? Have they arrested anybody?”

“They’ve arrested Maynard Griggs for the murder of Colette Champion, and they’re still holding Un—uh—Faris, but neither will admit to killing Jasper. You’re not going to believe this, Mom, but Maynard Griggs is trying to blame it on Aunt Zorah!”

“Zorah! Prentice, that’s not funny.”

“Not meant to be.” I told Mom about the shovel.

“Surely the police aren’t taking him seriously. I always thought Maynard Griggs was more than a little peculiar. Whole family’s nutty! They said his mama bathed with her clothes on.

“They haven’t arrested Zorah, have they?” My mother sounded close to tears. “Prentice, this is a nightmare! I’d better come home.”

“Not yet. What could you do? Let me worry about things on this end. If anything develops, I’ll let you know.”

“I’ll feel better when you can join us down here.”

“You know I’ll come as soon as I can, but since things are in such a stew here, it’s going to be a little later than we’d planned. If it’s okay with you and Ola, Dottie said she’d be glad to drop off the things you need. She has a niece who lives at Hilton Head and she’s been looking for an excuse to go and visit.” I had
spoken with Dottie earlier and she’d said she was more than ready for a break.

“Dottie Ives? Well, of course I’d love to see her. When can we look for her?”

“Sometime tomorrow. I’m leaving for her place in a little while and I’ll stay with Dottie tonight in Atlanta, then drive back to Liberty Bend in the morning.”

Frankly I was glad for an excuse to spend the night away from Smokerise. Even knowing it was Uncle Faris and company who dug up his own “grave” and left a corpse in our shed, we still weren’t sure who killed Jasper Totherow, and I had an uneasy feeling Pershing Gaines and his gang were regrouping for an attack.

“Maybe Dottie will stay long enough for me to show off Joey,” Mom said. “He’s the sweetest baby, Prentice. I think he looks a lot like your dad, but I’d forgotten how demanding it was to look after one that age. By bedtime I’m worn out!”

“Doesn’t Ola help?”

“Some. She gets up with him at night. I don’t think she sleeps much anyway. The woman cleans house in the middle of the night, then claims she didn’t do it.”

“Really?”

“Can you believe it? I shouldn’t complain; the place stays spotless, and once in a while she’ll even bake something for the next day. Why, yesterday we had a loaf of dilly bread that was out of this world. Ola’s a marvelous cook—of course she puts the pots and pans back in the wrong places.”

“No kidding?” I smiled. “And she denies doing it?”

“Says she doesn’t remember a thing about it. Claims it’s an angel.” My mother sighed. “I really do think the poor soul’s slipping.”

“I checked with your lawyer’s office in Atlanta, Mom. Your friend Wally is due home sometime next week. Maybe we can work this out soon and Ola can get her own life back.

“By the way,” I said, “a man called here yesterday and left a message, wants to lease the farm for a nursery. Thought we might ask your friend about that as well.”

“What man?” Mom asked.

“Said his name was Whisonant. Peter Whisonant. Has a garden center in Cartersville. He left a number.”

“Peter Whisonant . . . I’ve heard of his place. It’s a huge operation. They have just about everything there. Hollis Prater gets all her day lilies from them. You remember Hollis? Used to be in my bridge club? Has about an acre of day lilies right behind her house.”

“You think I should call him back?”

“If you think you’d be interested, and if he’s really who he says he is,” she added.

But how was I to know?

Sit down and think
, a calming voice said. And so I did. I phoned for directory assistance and asked for the number of the nursery in Cartersville. It was the same one I’d written down the day before.

I was returning Mr. Whisonant’s call, I told the clerk who answered, and would like to talk with him about the property near Liberty Bend. But talk was all I
meant to do. Even after the trauma of the last few months, Smokerise, and the land surrounding it, was my home, just as it had been home to generations before me. I didn’t know how I would manage to keep it up, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. The house, the red soil, the huge old oaks, and the rolling hills were all a part of me, just as I was a part of them. The thought of this land belonging to someone else caused an ache so deep inside me it almost hurt to breathe. And I came close to calling the man back to tell him I’d changed my mind.