George, Anne (13 page)

But so far, so good. The lights flickered several times, but stayed on while we ate supper. I told Fred about Georgiana Peach and that Trinity had left for home. I also told him about the fond farewell party, which I thought was a great idea.

"Funerals are too sad," I said.

Fred crunched into his third taco. "They're supposed to be."

"They don't have to be," I insisted.

"Of course they do. They're funerals."

I thought about how little sense this made, but chose not to point it out. Sometimes, and he would die if he knew this, Fred reminds me of Mary Alice.

By the time we went to bed, the storm had passed and a light, steady rain was falling on the skylights. Good spring rain.

* * *

The next morning, when I took Woofer for his walk, it was considerably cooler, and an occasional dark puffy cloud would skim the sun for a moment. The sidewalk was covered with cherry and pear blossoms. The dogwoods, however, had benefited from the storm. They seemed to have opened more, becoming whiter overnight.

"It's a good morning," I said to Woofer who agreed. It was such a nice morning, we took a longer walk than usual. By the time we got home, both Woofer and I knew we had been exercising. He went straight to his water bowl and I went for the coffee pot. The message light was flashing on the telephone and I checked it. It was Mary Alice saying to call her immediately. I took a long hot shower and curled up on the den sofa before I called her.

"It's me," I said when she answered.

"This is just boggling my mind, Mouse. Scary as hell. When I heard about it I said to myself 'Whoa, wait up here. What's going on?' Didn't you? Say 'Whoa, wait up here. What's going on?' "

I ran my fingers through my wet hair. "What are you talking about?"

"Judge Raskins's murder, Mouse. What else would I be talking about?"

For a moment I was speechless. I clutched the phone to my ear while Sister said, "Mouse? You okay? Mouse?"

I finally stammered, "Judge Haskins was murdered?"

"You didn't know? It was all over the TV this morning." Sister sounded delighted at my ignorance. "I'm coming right over." She hung up before I had a chance to ask her any details.

I reached for the still unopened morning paper, re-

moved the rubber band from it, and stared at a picture of Judge Haskins that had been made at least twenty years earlier. The headline read
judge robert haskins victim of violence.
The accompanying story that had obviously been written just in time to make it into the paper gave very few details. The judge had been found shot to death in his home late last night. A friend had made the discovery and called the police. The rest of the article detailed the judge's career, using the word "prominent" at least four times.

"He was naked," Mary Alice told me a few minutes later. "He was in the living room without a stitch on. And the person who found him is named Jenny Louise."

We were sitting at the table in the bay window with the newspaper picture of Judge Haskins staring at us.

"Jenny Louise what?" I asked.

"That's her stage name. Louise. She's a stripper at Gigi's Go Go.
He
was shot in the forehead. Right here." Sister pointed to the middle of her forehead. "One shot."

I looked at her in amazement. "Where did you get all this? All it says in the paper is that he was a victim of violence and was found by a friend."

"Buddy told me."

"Buddy Johnson? Father Time? The jet man? How did he know?"

"This is a small town, Patricia Anne. Buddy has connections. He called me this morning and said, 'Mary Alice, you were talking about Bobby Haskins the other night and I know you'd enjoy hearing some details.' Just like that."

"He already knows what a fun person you are, doesn't he?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he does, Miss Smarty Pants. Now, do you want to hear the rest?"

I had to admit that I did.

"Well, it seems that Judge Haskins and his wife had been separated for about a year mainly because little Bobby was dinging Jenny Louise."

"Dinging her?"

"Buddy Johnson is a gentleman, Mouse. It's as good a word as any."

"I'll try and remember that."

Mary Alice frowned at me. I smiled.

"So," she continued, "when Jenny Louise got in last night, I guess after work, there was the judge, lying in the living room, naked as a jaybird. She said at first she thought he was waiting for her, and then she noticed the hole in his head." Sister looked thoughtfully into her coffee cup. "I guess a little rigor mortis could have set in. You know?"

I said that, indeed, I knew. "Did Buddy tell you all this?"

"Not about the rigor mortis, Mouse."

"He's a gentleman."

"Well, he is. But on the way over here, you know what I was thinking?"

"What?"

"That I'm glad Trinity is in Fairhope. With her barging in the house and claiming Judge Haskins killed her sister, she'd be a prime suspect."

"I thought of that, too."

"We probably ought to call her and tell her about the judge. I'm sure she'd want to know."

I got up and went into the den. "I've got the number here somewhere." I looked into the drawer of the end table. "Here it is." I handed the phone and number to Mary Alice. "You tell her. Just tell her he's dead, though. Don't get into his dinging Jenny Louise."

Sister gave me a hard look and dialed the number.

"Trinity?" she said in a moment. "Oh? Jo? You sound just like Trinity. This is Mary Alice Crane in Birmingham. May I speak to Trinity, please?"

I watched the expression on Sister's face change as she listened intently.

"She's not?" Pause. "No. I'm sure we misunderstood." Long pause. "I'm sure she's all right." Fingernail chewed. "No. Don't worry." Pause again. "Yes, I'll call you if I see her. And you tell her to call me if she comes in today. Thanks."

Mary Alice hung up and looked at me. "She didn't go home yesterday."

I had already figured that out, and my stomach was tightening up. "You left her at the garage, didn't you?"

"No. I waited until they brought her car. She was headed for the interstate going up Twentieth last time I saw her."

We were both quiet for a moment, thinking. Then I said, "This doesn't mean she had anything to do with the judge's death."

"Of course it doesn't." Mary Alice was studying the arm of her navy turtleneck T-shirt. ' T need some Scotch tape. Bubba Cat's shedding like crazy."

I opened the kitchen junk drawer and handed her a roll of tape. "The police will be looking for her, though, for questioning."

"Maybe she got lost." Mary Alice pulled off a piece of tape and stuck it to her shirt. "She struck me as being a little dingy."

"Bad choice of adjective."

"Well, you know what I mean. Wanting me to help her find her way around and then disappearing the way she did. Wanting to know how tall everybody is."

"Maybe all her sisters are short and this is her way of adapting to the existential stress."

Mary Alice looked up from her chest. "Lord! And me without a shovel right here in the middle of the pasture."

"Trinity wanting to know how tall people are is just an idiosyncrasy, Sister. We all have them."

"I don't." Sister pulled a piece of tape from the roll.

I let that one pass. "Well, there's no way she can be lost. You can't get lost on 1-65."

"Sure you can. Remember that man last year who was going to the dentist in Pell City and got on the interstate going north instead of south and ended up in Cincinnati or somewhere? The dentist treated him for free when they found him. I thought that was nice." She held up the tape for me to see. "I think Bubba may need some hormones. What do you think?"

I shook my head. "He's just getting rid of his winter coat. And Trinity isn't wandering around up in Ohio." I sat down in the chair across from Sister. "You know, there's a possibility the police may question us, too."

"Us? Don't be ridiculous."

"Well, we were the ones who got Trinity out of jail."

"Not me." Mary Alice quit ripping tape from her shirt. "You."

"But they're not stupid. They know Meg Bryan was Judge Haskins's ex-wife. And she was your house guest."

Mary Alice looked me straight in the eyes and, so help me, had the nerve to say, "What have you gotten us into now, Patricia Anne?"

I chose to ignore her. It seems I make this choice a lot. Actually, I had just had a thought that took precedence over one of our sisterly spats. What if Trinity was the third death?

"Surely not!" Sister said when I voiced the possibility.

"Why not? They all three could have known something or had something that the murderer wanted."

"For God's sake, Mouse! You're letting your imagination go wild. Meg committed suicide, the judge's wife shot him because of Jenny Louise, and Trinity's lost."

"Too many coincidences. I'm going to get a piece of paper."

"What for?"

"To write down what we know."

"I don't know anything." Sister stuck a piece of tape to her ample bosom.

"Don't be silly." I came back with a yellow legal pad and a pencil and sat on the sofa beside her. "Here," I said. "Look." I drew three stick figures and under them printed Meg, Judge, and Trinity. Maybe it's the old schoolteacher in me, but putting things down on paper helps me think.

"Why is the judge one in the middle?'' Mary Alice asked.

"Because that's where I put him. Now, pay attention." I drew a line from Trinity to Meg and wrote "sister" on it. Then I drew a line from Judge to Meg and wrote "married."

"Add 'a long time ago.' "

"I don't have room." I looked at my drawing.

"Now we start thinking about any other connections. Free associating."

Sister reached over and pointed to the space between the Trinity and Judge stick figures. "Draw a line there and put 'pissed.' "

I drew the line but said, "She was pissed because she thought he killed Meg. And she thought he killed Meg because of the bastardy papers." I wrote "bastard" on the line.

"But he was into genealogy, too, so he would already have known about the papers. He wouldn't have worried about being blackmailed with them."

"Genealogy," I wrote. Which reminded me. "Did you find Meg's computer?"

"No. It's not in that house. I swear, Mouse, I've turned the place upside down. I even had Tiffany help me."

Sister is the only person I know who has a maid named Tiffany. The Magic Maid. She makes a lot more money than I ever did teaching. Plus, she looks like a Tiffany, with blond-streaked hair and a fantastic shape that she keeps toned with house cleaning, so she says. I'd rather not believe it. She's also great at her job, so if she couldn't find the computer, it wasn't there.

"That's got to be important." I wrote "computer," and drew a line to it from both Meg and the judge. "Could Judge Haskins's security system have been so similar to yours that he could have worked it? Bypassed it somehow?"

"I don't see how. I have my own code."

"The first six numbers of your Social Security card!"

"No one knows that but you and Debbie."

"It's the second most common code. Right after birthdays."

Mary Alice sat forward. "He could have gotten the number off any document of mine at the courthouse, couldn't he have?"

"Sure. Even jury records."

We grinned at each other.

"But he didn't have anything to do with Meg's death," I said.

"How do you know?"

"Because he said so when he brought Meg's ashes. He said to tell Trinity." I shrugged. "You could tell he wasn't lying."

"Okay," Sister accepted this. "Let's get back to the list."

But we were stuck. If Judge Haskins had managed to get into Sister's house, which was possible, and take the computer and the other files, we were still left with a big question. Why? Neither of us knew enough about genealogical research to imagine what could be in the files that would make someone want to steal them. Or commit murder.

The phone rang, and I left Mary Alice studying the stick figures and went to answer it.

"Carl and Malcolm are in Augusta playing golf," Fred said. "Carl checked his answering machine and got the message I left last night."

"So early retirement hasn't devastated them?"

"Hell no. They said for me to come join them."

"You want to?" I thought his voice sounded a little wistful.

"I told them it was too late for me to retire early."

"Sixty-three isn't too late. We could see the world."

"Dream on. We'd do good to get to a state park occasionally."

"Alabama has wonderful state parks."

"True." We were both quiet for a moment, doing a little wishful thinking, when I heard Mary Alice screech.