Guess Who's Coming to Die? (24 page)

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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

BOOK: Guess Who's Coming to Die?
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“She’s almost plain except for those eyes,” he said bluntly. “Besides, she’s from New York. Give me a soft Southern girl anytime.”
“Okay, I know she’s not your type. But there can be other relationships between a man and a woman than romance. She might become a friend. She is, after all, an intelligent woman with a number of interests. You’ve mentioned a time or two how few of them we seem to have around here.”
He put his fingers together in a way that made me wonder if he, too, had played “Here is the church, here is the steeple” when he was a kid. “My mama used to tell me, ‘Don’t put it on your plate if you have no intention of eating it. That’s a waste of good food.’ ”
“Well, my mama used to say, ‘You’ll never know if you like it until you try it.’ Is that why you called me in here, to ask about Rachel?”
“Heavens, no. I wanted to ask if you’ve heard that Charlie got the initial autopsy report on Willena Kenan.”
“Already?” Given the backload of cases, I was surprised they’d gotten to it so quickly. On the other hand, it wasn’t every day that a Kenan heir got murdered in our part of Georgia.
Slade knew I was dying to hear what they’d found, so he looked up at the ceiling and whistled a few notes like he had nothing on his mind.
I sat there and waited, refusing to ask.
Finally he grinned at me. “The corkscrew didn’t kill her, her heart just stopped.”
I stared. “I never heard she had heart problems. Did they check for poison?”
“I don’t know, but ‘natural causes’ is what the medical examiner is calling it. Chief Muggins will be announcing it on the six-o’clock news.”
“He didn’t say a thing about this when he called me not an hour ago.”
Slade looked smug. “Ah, but the report just came in. I went by his office to see if there was anything new on the case, and he was hanging up from talking to you as I got there. The autopsy report came in while I was there, and he was on the phone with the television networks when I left.”
“Telling them he’s solved the case, probably. How does he plan to explain a corkscrew through her throat — or has he overlooked that little detail?”
“I asked about that. He said he doesn’t plan to mention it. He figures that somebody found Willena dying and took perverse pleasure”—he caught my expression and held up both hands—“I swear, Mac, that’s what he said—somebody took perverse pleasure in settling a score.” Slade paused and touched his throat. “Macabre, isn’t it? Do you have any opinion about who might have done it?”
He was watching me closely, so I picked up a pencil and played with it as if I were thinking. MayBelle Brandison was my first choice. Even if she hadn’t killed Willena, she was irritated about the lawsuit and she had a coarse sense of humor. She might have felt the corkscrew delivered an appropriate message. But I knew Chief Muggins preferred Cindy. She and Willena had had a fight, and Cindy was strong. She worked out and played tennis several times a week.
I shook my head. “I’ve known some perverse people in my life, but nobody perverse enough to do that sort of thing. Where did the chief come up with that word?”
Slade grinned. “Where does he come up with any of them?”
“What about you? You got any suspects?”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.” He considered his fingernails, buffed them against his slacks, and asked without looking up, “Do you have any idea where Cindy might be? I understand the chief is looking for her, and I thought I’d like to get her story from the other night.”
I didn’t like his juxtaposition of
I’m working on it
and Cindy’s name.
“She could be anywhere,” I said truthfully. “As busy as folks are these days, we don’t try to keep up with our kids during the week. Weekends are mostly when we see them.”
He nodded. “Well, if you hear from her, tell her I’d like to talk with her.”
“I’ll do that.” I figured my chances of hearing from Cindy anytime soon were about the same as my chances of turning twenty-one my next birthday.
 
As soon as I got back to my office, I called Wilma. She ought to know if Willena had heart problems.
“Miss Kenan is not at home,” Linette informed me formally.
“Is not at home, or is not talking to people?” I asked, adding, “It’s Judge Yarbrough.”
“She isn’t with you? She hasn’t come back yet since she left with you this morning.”
“She asked me to drop her off at Willena’s — something about taking an inventory with Jed DuBose. But that was right after two.”
“She did mention something about goin’ over there this afternoon to look around, and she hadn’t come back yet.”
I wondered whether Linette knew that Wilma didn’t trust Willena’s servants, and how Linette felt about that. It would make me mad enough to spit, if I were her. However, that wasn’t why I’d called. It occurred to me that if I asked the right questions, I might not need Wilma after all. “Speaking of Willena, did you ever hear that she had a bad heart?”
“No’m, but it’s funny, you asking that. Not two weeks ago Miss Wilma was after her to go get it checked. She was supposed to be leavin’ next month for a cruise up the Amazon or some such, looking at rainy forests — seemed like a funny way to spend a vacation to me, but Miss Willena was always crazy about stuff like that, like her daddy.”
“And Wilma was telling her to get her heart checked before she went? Her heart, specifically?”
“Yes’m. Miss Wilma was worried because her daddy—Miss Willena’s, I mean, not Miss Wilma’s, hers was strong as a horse — but Miss Willena’s daddy dropped dead on one of them picture-taking trips he took to Africa. Miss Wilma didn’t want the same thing happening to Miss Willena. Mr. Kenan wasn’t but thirty-six at the time.”
I had forgotten how Willena’s daddy died. Now I remembered that he’d had a heart attack during a photo safari that coincided with one of the African coups. At first people thought he had been murdered. Even after they knew the real cause of death, the family had had a difficult time getting his body released and shipped back home. I suppressed the question of whether Wilma had been more worried about Willena’s heart or the trouble of shipping her body.
Linette was still talking. “. . . laughed and said her daddy’s heart problems came from rheumatic fever he had as a boy, and she ain’t never had rheumatic fever, so her heart was fine. Miss Wilma got real upset with her and called to mind that Miss Willena’s mama wasn’t real strong, neither — she died before she made sixty, if you remember. But you know what Miss Willena was like — as soon as you told her to go right, she’d go left. She told Miss Wilma to mind her own business, she was in perfect health.”
“I didn’t know her real well . . .” I let my voice trail off.
As I’d hoped, Linette was bored with being home and out of the excitement, so she was eager to talk. “She could be real ornery when she wanted to. Miss Wilma likes things done right, you know?”
For
right
I substituted
her way
and kept listening.
“But no matter how much Miss Wilma told her the right way to do things, Miss Willena did the opposite. As a girl she’d come over here strewing her things every which away. Miss Wilma told her and told her to hang her sweater in the closet, but Miss Willena would laugh and drape it over the sofa. If Miss Wilma told her to put her schoolbooks on the table in the back room, she’d leave them on the floor for folks to trip over. No matter how many times Miss Wilma told her not to eat in the living room, I had to vacuum after every time she was here. Crumbs all over the place. And she was the same way after she grew up. If they had something to do for one of their clubs, Miss Willena would rush through her part so slapdash and sloppy that Miss Wilma had to do it over, to be sure it got done right. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Miss Willena was spoiled by her parents, so she could be real headstrong at times. It doesn’t surprise me that somebody finally killed her.”
In Linette’s book, apparently, leaving books and crumbs on the floor were capital offenses.
I hung up and thought about what I’d learned. If Wilma had been concerned about Willena’s heart, and bad hearts ran in her genes — but Willena hadn’t simply had a heart attack and died. Whatever had killed her had given somebody time to twist a corkscrew through her throat before she actually died, because she’d been clutching it and the wound had bled. Chief Muggins wasn’t going to be able to ignore that for long. Then, Cindy would be his favorite suspect again.
What could I do?
22
I slept better Friday night, which was a good thing. Saturday would turn out to be one of the longest days of my life.
I woke at seven, because we allow ourselves an extra hour’s sleep on Saturdays and don’t open until nine. My first thought was,
I still haven’t interviewed Gusta or Meriwether.
They had gotten back from the beach the night before. I hadn’t talked to Rachel or Sadie Lowe, either. Running into Sadie Lowe with Grover didn’t count.
At breakfast I told Joe Riddley, “I’ll be late getting to the store.”
“So what’s new?” He slathered so much butter on his toast that we’d be smart to buy a cow. “You haven’t done enough work this week to justify your salary.”
“Not to worry. Not to worry,” Bo told him, mincing around his own place mat picking up bits of grain and fruit in his beak. Beneath the table Lulu lay curled at my feet, hoping somebody would drop something.
“I’m recovering from my vacation,” I informed him, moving the butter dish to the other side of the table, out of his reach. “Jet lag and all that. Takes some getting used to at my age.” I pushed down a guilty thought that he was right. We both work hard at the business, so we don’t generally mind if one or the other slacks off a little, but if I didn’t spend more hours in the office pretty soon, our employees would be welcoming me at the door like a stranger: “Can we help you, ma’am?”
He got up, walked around the table, picked up the butter, returned to his chair, and added another layer to his toast, simply to prove that he could. Then he munched a few bites while he considered me thoughtfully.
I expected great wisdom after all that, but what he said was, “You never mention your age unless you are about to do something you shouldn’t. Got any plans to go drinking in Pleasantville again, or will you be sitting down in another creek?”
I was so startled, my jaw dropped. He waved away a question I hadn’t gotten around to formulating. “You know good and well you can’t have any secrets in this town. You might as well tell me what you’re up to and get it over with. Otherwise, I might have to lock you down in the cellar and throw away the key.”
“Sic ’em, sic ’em,” Bo advised. I wasn’t sure which one of us he was addressing.
“We don’t have a cellar,” I reminded Joe Riddley. “That was in the old house.”
“I know a man who can dig me one mighty quick, if I need it. And it looks like I might. You’ve been investigating Willena’s murder, haven’t you? In spite of Isaac warning you, Buster warning you, and me warning you. Probably poor Charlie, too.”
“Poor Charlie? Pooh! He’s the problem. He’s got me so worried about Cindy and Walker that yes, I have been asking a few questions. But that’s all. Actually there wasn’t a murder. Haven’t you heard? Willena died of a heart attack. So that means that what I’ve been doing is mostly what you told me to — getting to know the movers and shakers in the investment club. If I’m going to hang out with the hoitytoity set, I need to get better acquainted.”
He lifted his cup and drained his last inch of coffee, then got up and refilled both our mugs. “I understand you were down at the jail getting better acquainted with Nancy. Did you know she’s already out?”
I was so astonished, I spilled my coffee.
“How?” I asked as I went to fetch a dish cloth to wipe up the coffee. Clarinda would have a fit at having to bleach that cloth again, but I keep telling her that coffee in our house has unreliable habits.
As I sat back down, I added, “She can’t be. The charge was attempted murder.”
Joe Riddley shook his head. “Not anymore. She hired Jed, he talked to Horace, and with Buster’s support they talked to Judge Stedley and got the charge reduced to disturbing the peace. Buster gave you most of the credit. He told Judge Stedley you had reminded him that Nancy is one of the Three-Ds, so if she’d really wanted to shoot Horace or Sadie Lowe, she’d have made a better job of it.”
“Darn tooting. But poor Nancy. Imagine that . . . that pig of a husband running around with Sadie Lowe. I hope Nancy didn’t go home to him after she got out.” I reached for the strawberry jam. “Tell me this: Why would anybody with Sadie Lowe’s various assets bother with somebody who looks like Horace?” I spread jam on my toast and thought how much it looked like blood. I’d buy grape next time.
Joe Riddley placed one hand on his heart. “High school sweethearts, honey chile. Just like us.” He leaned over to give me a kiss, but I backed away. He had jam on his chin.
“Back off,” Bo warned. “Give me space.”
Joe Riddley laughed and fed him some peach. Then he looked over Bo’s flaming head at me. “Don’t you remember why we sent Sadie Lowe away?”

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