Murder Gets a Life (20 page)

The rest of the truth hit us about the same time. We were locked in an enclosed truck parked in a cotton field, therefore in the full sun, during an August heat wave. How diabolical. By ten o’clock the next morning, we would be dead.

“Someone will find us soon as it gets light,” I said.
But I knew better. No one would be looking for a white delivery truck. And even if they got a helicopter out to search, and they spotted the truck and sent someone to look into it, by that time it would be too late.

We talked about a lot of things that night, my sister and I. We talked about Mama and Papa and Grandmama Alice. We talked about old loves, old grievances, childhood trips and traumas. We didn’t talk about Fred or Haley, or Ray, or Debbie. We couldn’t. We didn’t talk about tomorrow, or about how we had ended up in this truck. We simply talked about a shared lifetime, swimming at Blue Sink, how I got caught on a tree root while I was sliding down the clay slide and ripped off my bathing suit. Trips with Pukey Lukey. Aunt Lottie’s peach cobbler.

And sometime during the night, we went to sleep and slept deeply on the hard floor of the truck. There was nothing else we could do.

I was dreaming I was jitterbugging with my high school friend Cynthia Collins. I could hear “In the Mood” plainly. “My turn to lead,” I said. Cynthia grabbbed my shoulder. “Mouse, wake up. We can see.”

“I’m not asleep,” I said.

“Then open your eyes. We can see.”

For a second I was confused, still dancing to “In the Mood,” and then I was back in the truck rubbing sleep out of my eyes and trying to sit up. Every bone in my body ached. “I don’t think I can move,” I groaned. “I need aspirin quick.”

But Sister was poking me. “Look, there’s a skylight.”

I looked up very carefully, having to move my
whole body since my neck seemed frozen in place. She was right. Light was pouring through a small skylight toward the cab end of the truck. “How come we didn’t see that last night?” I asked.

“We were under a ton of furniture.”

I looked around. Tables, chairs, hat racks. Toddy’s business must be doing well.

“You can climb through it and get us out,” Sister said.

“No, I can’t. I told you I can’t move. Try the door again.”

Mary Alice crawled by me. “We don’t have much time, Mouse. It’s already hot as a firecracker in here.”

She was right. The back of my neck was wet with sweat. I watched her jiggle the door handle, push against it, even kick it. She must be in better shape this morning than I was.

I looked back at the skylight. It wasn’t very large, but there was a possibility. “Didn’t some UPS guy win an award for coming up with the idea of skylights in their trucks?”

“What?” Mary Alice gave the door a final vicious kick.

“UPS or somebody had a contest to make delivery more efficient, and this guy came up with skylights so they could see what they were doing. They also have the locks fixed so you can’t be locked in.”

Sister was rubbing her foot. “Then tell me the secret, Miss Jeopardy.”

“Buck and Pawpaw rigged the lock. They’ve got it plugged up or something.”

“I figured that out.”

We sat on the floor and looked at each other. Then we looked at the skylight.

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” I asked.

“Not much time, either. It’s hot in here.”

“Well, let me study it a minute. I’m not even good and awake yet.”

“You can stand up on that table”—Sister pointed in the general direction of some jumbled antiques—“put a chair on top of it and go right out.”

“That skylight doesn’t let up and down. Besides, you broke my arm last year. I don’t think I can pull myself up.”

“We’ll bust the glass out.”

“Burst, not bust.”

“Like I said, we’ll bust the glass out and I’ll get up on the table and shove you. And how the hell was it I broke your arm? I wasn’t even there.”

“It was your fault.”

Mary Alice grabbed the arm I had broken and snatched me up off the floor. “Crybaby. Mama always said you were the crybaby. Now get up off your crybaby butt and let’s get out of here.”

“I’m up.”

We extricated the table from the pile of antiques and cleared a place for it under the skylight. It looked like a sturdy table. It would have to be. Mary Alice’s two hundred fifty pounds and my hundred six was a considerable amount of weight.

I climbed up on it and felt the skylight. “I think it’s that Plexiglas stuff. We’ll still have to hit it with something hard, though. And it’s going to fall back in here and cut us.”

“Wait a minute. I’ll find something.” In a moment Sister was back with a tin tray and a hat rack. “Hold this over your head and hit it with this.”

“Damn it, Mary Alice. This is a two-woman job.”

She climbed up on the table with an agility that surprised me. The table wobbled but held. “Okay,”
she said, “I’ll hold the tray over us. You jab the skylight.”

“I can’t see with the tray over me.”

“Dammit, Mouse. Just aim.” Which I did. The end of the hat rack went through the skylight with a loud popping sound. No Plexiglas rained down on us.

I looked up. There was, indeed, a hole in the skylight. The plastic had been pushed upward and out around the hole the hat rack had made. It took a lot more work and a lot of sweat to clear the whole opening.

We sat down on the table and rested a few minutes, but we knew we didn’t have much time to waste. I got a straight chair, placed it on the table, and put my hands on either side of the skylight. It should be big enough, I figured. But the metal was too hot for me to hold.

“Hand me your slip or something,” I said. “This is burning me.”

“It’s a new one. All silk. I paid a fortune for it.”

“Dammit.”

“Well, I did.” In a moment Sister handed me her panty hose. “These’ll work better, anyway. They’ve got two sides.”

I grasped the sides of the opening and pushed my head out. My shoulders made it okay. “Shove!” I told Sister.

I came out of that truck like a jack-in-the-box, slid down the windshield, bounced off the hood, and landed on a couple of cotton bushes which sound soft, but which are nothing but sticks and sharp bolls.

Dear Lord, I might never move again. I lay there with the bright Alabama sun shining down on me from the deep blue Alabama sky and thought, There
it is, Patricia Anne. You didn’t think you’d see it again.

“Mouse!” Sister beat on the side of the truck. “Are you okay? Come let me out!”

“I’m okay,” I yelled. I wasn’t, of course. I was burned, cut, bruised, dehydrated. You name it. But I was looking at the blue, blue sky.

Getting Sister out turned out to be a problem. I finally found a couple of rocks and was beating on the locks when I heard something click.

“It’s the safety button,” she yelled. “Move. I think I can open it now.”

And she did, crawling out into the cotton field. Hugging me. Wanting to know what I’d done with her good panty hose.

We stood in the shade of the truck for a few minutes, trying to decide which way to go.

“Maybe Buck left the keys in the truck,” Sister said. It was a great idea, but, of course, he hadn’t.

“Let’s follow the truck tracks,” I suggested. “He turned off a road not too far back.”

So that’s what we did. It hadn’t seemed far the night before in the truck. Walking in the sun was an all-new ball game. The field seemed to stretch forever.

“We’d have died just as well close to the road,” Sister grumbled.

But eventually we did come to a road, one of the farm-to-market roads that Alabama politicians are so fond of building. And whoever they are, they have my vote. I have never been so glad to see a strip of asphalt.

“Now what?” Sister asked as we sank down be
neath an oak tree. An acorn landed in my lap. The first sign that summer was ending.

“Wait, I reckon.”

“I’ll bet a car doesn’t come by here once a day. Maybe there’s a house nearby. I’ve just got to have a drink of water.”

“I’m going to wait,” I said. “Fred and the FBI will find us here.”

“Fred?”

“Fred.” Tears filled my eyes and rolled down my sunburned cheeks. “Fred will find me.”

“I’ll bet he
is
worried,” Sister said. “I’ll bet they all are.”

This just made me cry harder.

I was wiping my nose on the hem of my skirt when an old pickup came around the curve. A man and woman were in the front, the back was loaded with turnip greens. We waved frantically and they stopped.

“What are y’all doing out here?” the woman asked. “Did you have a wreck?”

“We got kidnapped,” Sister said. “And we need some help. Have y’all got any water?”

The woman looked sympathetic. “You poor things. There’s a watermelon or two in the back. If y’all don’t mind riding back there, you can bust one of them.”

“Who kidnapped you?” the man asked.

But we were already heading for the back of the truck. And that’s how we arrived at the nearest gas station, surrounded by turnip greens, watermelon all over us.

“I
can’t believe it, I just can’t believe it,” Haley said.

I was lying on my den sofa with the heating pad on my back, an ice cap on my head, and various and sundry ointments smeared on my cuts and burns. Fred had pulled a kitchen chair in and was sitting beside me feeding me Jell-O which I was perfectly capable of feeding myself, but, hey, don’t knock a good thing. And it
was
a good thing.

Mary Alice and I had been checked out at the emergency room, declared fit but slightly dehydrated, and sent home to rest and drink fluids. She was getting the same attention I was; I had just talked to her.

“They won’t get far,” Fred said.

“But smuggling black pearls. That’s wild.” Haley held out a glass of iced tea. “Here, Mama. Take another sip of this.”

I sipped.

“Actually,” I said, “it all fit together. Pawpaw’s a scientist, albeit a rocket scientist, and when he went to work for the company that furnishes the seed material, he saw an opportunity.”

“Probably didn’t have any trouble talking Buck and Kerrigan into going along with him.”

“Probably not.”

Fred held out another spoonful of Jell-O. Bless his heart. I had slept some the night before; he hadn’t. And he looked it.

“I want you to go take a nap,” I said.

“I’ll sleep tonight.”

Stubborn man. Lovely man.

“And it was Kerrigan who murdered the Indian guy,” Haley said.

“Yes. Other than chiefing, Dudley Cross worked at Toddy’s Antiques. Which is how he learned about the pearls and decided to help himself.”

“But what about Sunshine? Was she involved?”

“Not with the murder. I don’t know about the pearls. I think the sheriff and the FBI will have some questions about that.” I looked over at Haley. She looked tired, too. Not surprising considering the last few days. “I’m sorry about your flight,” I said.

Haley shrugged. “Don’t worry about that one minute, Mama. We can go tomorrow just as well. We kept thinking of things we hadn’t done, anyway.”

Fred yawned.

“Sweetheart,” I said. “Why don’t you and I go lie down on the bed for a while. Haley needs to go see about Philip.”

“Do that, Papa. I’ll check on you later this afternoon.”

He agreed so quickly, Haley and I smiled at each other. And he was hardly on the bed before he was asleep.

I had thought I would sleep, too, but I lay there with a “busy mind” as Mama always said. I finally sneaked out of bed, got the phone, and went into the
bathroom so I wouldn’t wake Fred up. I sat on the toilet, feet propped on the tub, and dialed Mary Alice.

“You okay?” I asked when she answered.

“Feeling pretty good. I’m surprised. How about you?”

“Not too bad. How’s Debbie?”

“She’s okay. She spent the night in the hospital, so she didn’t know about our disappearing act.”

“Just as well. How about Ray?”

“He and Sunshine are closeted in his room. They’ve been there about an hour. The sheriff was here questioning her for a long time.”

“I figured as much. Did she have any interesting answers?”

“I don’t know. They were in the living room with the doors closed. Tacky.” The call-waiting beep sounded. “Wait a minute, Mouse,” Sister said.

The minute turned into five, but the bathroom was cool, and an emery board was on the counter. My fingernails needed work, Lord knows, from that Plexiglas skylight. So when Mary Alice said, “Mouse?” I jumped.

“That was Sheriff Reuse. Buck and Kerrigan were arrested while ago in Kentucky. Kerrigan’s being charged with murder.”

“And Meemaw and Pawpaw?”

“Weren’t with them.”

“Dear God,” I said and hung up. I shuffled over to the kitchen, got out a quart of Baskin-Robbins pralines and cream from the freezer, and tried to straighten things out in my mind. Ate almost the whole damned thing and still felt like I’d been hit over the head with a two-by-four.

“Sunshine came in that?” I pointed toward the old green car parked in Sister’s circular driveway. “That’s Dwayne’s car, isn’t it?”

Sister nodded. “She and Ray are still talking. Come on back to the sunroom.”

I followed her down the hall. “I’m stiff as a board. How about you?”

“I’m feeling pretty good. I’m surprised Fred let you out, though.”

“He doesn’t know I’m gone,” I admitted. “He had to go over to the plant to check on some things and I took off.” I sat down in a wicker chair. “Actually, I don’t feel as bad as I look.”

“Good,” Sister said, looking me over.

“And no Meemaw and Pawpaw?”

“That’s what the sheriff said.”

“I was afraid of something like that.”

Mary Alice stood up. “You want some Coke?”

I followed her into the kitchen and patted Bubba Cat, who was asleep on his heating pad. He stretched and yawned. “What about the pearls?” I asked.

“I didn’t know what they were,” Sunshine said. She and Ray had walked into the kitchen so quietly we hadn’t heard them. Sunshine looked as if she had been crying. “Dwayne had to tell me. He’d just seen an article about black pearls in
National Geographic
while he was waiting for the dentist.”

Sister handed me my Coke and offered one to Sunshine and Ray. They both said no.

“Here, Aunt Pat.” Ray pulled out a chair for me. “You look like you need to sit down.”

“I feel better than I look,” I said again. But I sat down at the kitchen table. Sunshine and Ray pulled out chairs and sat, too.

“Sunny’s been telling me what happened,” Ray said. “How she got involved in the murder.”

“I wasn’t involved in the murder, Ray.” Sunshine frowned at him. “I told you that.”

“Well, I’d like to hear about it.” Mary Alice sat down with a Coke. “The whole time we were locked up in that truck I kept telling myself there was a logical explanation for how I got there. But I couldn’t figure out what the hell it was. One minute I was delivering an atomic bomb wedding cake and the next minute I was halfway through the pearly gates.”

“I’m sorry.” Sunshine took a paper napkin from a holder and began to pleat it like a fan. “I’m sorry about hiding the pearls at your house, Mrs. Hollowell. It just suddenly seemed like a good safe place for them while we tried to figure things out.”

“Not safe for us,” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, wiping her eyes with the corner of the napkin.

I wasn’t letting her off that easy. “Kerrigan and Pawpaw said you told them where you’d hidden them.”

“I had to. They found me at Dwayne’s and said they would do something to Ray if I didn’t.” Tears overflowed Sunshine’s eyes.

“What I want to know,” Mary Alice said, “is how long this pearl thing’s been going on.”

“I don’t know.” Sunshine began to cry in earnest. Ray, who hadn’t said a word, handed her another paper napkin. “I should have known I hadn’t won a free trip to Bora Bora, though. And now everything’s all messed up.”

I looked over at Ray. There was a deep sadness in his face I had never seen before. Whether his golden
girl was telling the truth or not, and I seriously doubted it, things would never be the same.

“Start at the beginning, Sunny,” he said.

“You mean winning the trip?”

Ray nodded.

“Well, I got this letter from the
Wheel of Fortune
people that I’d won a trip to Bora Bora. Meemaw and I had entered one of their viewer games and I just thought now that’s good luck, things evening out because I’d just lost the Miss Alabama contest and was down in the dumps.” She glanced at Ray. “And I really believed it. The letter was registered and everything. I had to sign for it, and it said
Wheel of Fortune
.” Sunshine took another napkin and began pleating it. “It was the grand prize and all I had to do was call a 1-800 number and claim it. So I did, and the tickets and all came in the mail with a certified check for $2,500 for expenses.”

“And you didn’t question any of this?” Sister asked.

“No, ma’am. Everything was registered and certified so I just went on the trip. I had a great time and I met Ray and fell in love, hook, line, and sinker.” Again she looked at Ray, but he was picking at some invisible spot on the table.

“Anyway, after we’d been out a couple of days, Buck came up and asked if by any chance I was kin to Kerrigan Dabbs. He said he saw on the roster that I was from Locust Fork and he used to be in love with a girl from there named Kerrigan Turkett and he thought she was married to a man named Dabbs for a while.

“Well, of course, I was tickled to think what a small world it was, and when I left, after the wedding, Buck gave me a present to take to Mama, a
box about the size that thank-you notes come in, all wrapped up pretty. He said it was a necklace for her to remember him and the good times. And he said it was right nice, so I should put it in my carryon bag.”

I looked over at Ray to see how he was taking this story; he had his arms folded and was drumming the fingers of each hand on the opposite arm.

“Is that what you did?” Sister asked.

“Yes, ma’am. It was wrapped like a present. Had a pink ribbon on it.”

“Which you unwrapped,” I guessed. Actually, it wasn’t much of a guess.

“I did. When I got home.” Sunshine fanned herself with the pleated napkin. “I just wanted to see the necklace and, instead, it was all these old pebbles. I thought Buck was being ugly to Mama because maybe she’d ditched him. I showed them to Meemaw and she thought so, too. So I just put them back in the box, most of them. Meemaw kept several of them to glue on a lamp. She makes real pretty lamps, you know. Gets them at garage sales and dresses them up.”

Ray got up and got a can of beer out of the refrigerator. “Tell them about the murder, Sunny.”

“I was there.” Sunshine pulled her hair back as if she were going to put it in a ponytail. “Dwayne and I was there.”

For a moment there was silence. Then, “Dwayne? Is that why you sent Meemaw for the soup? Because Dwayne was coming?” Mary Alice asked.

Sunshine’s grip tightened on her hair. It gave her a defiant look. “Well, he called that morning so sad about the party the night before and me marrying Ray and I said come over and we’d talk. But I knew
Meemaw wouldn’t like it. So Dwayne parked in the woods and came in as soon as Meemaw left.” Sunshine let go of her hair. It fell around her shoulders as blonde and shiny as a Nice ’n’ Easy ad. I wondered what color it was.

“And there we were just talking when we heard a car drive up. I thought it was Meemaw, that she’d forgotten something, but it was Mama’s car. She and a man got out and went to her trailer. Dwayne said he’d better go, but I said she didn’t know we were there and wouldn’t come in Meemaw’s trailer anyway. So we kept on talking.” Sunshine paused. “He was real upset.”

Ray turned up his beer and drained it. “I think they can figure out the rest, Sunny.”

“I can’t.” Mary Alice leaned forward. “How did the man get killed in Meemaw’s trailer instead of Kerrigan’s? And what were they doing there together?”

“Well, Dwayne and I were in the bedroom because I wasn’t feeling well, you know. And I was showing him the pebbles and he was saying ‘God, Sunny, these are black pearls!’ when we heard Mama and the man coming across the yard and up the steps. The man was yelling that Mama was holding out on him and she was yelling that she was sick and tired of being blackmailed by a pissant fake Indian.”

Sunshine paused. “And then we heard a whump and someone running down the steps and Mama’s car starting. When we looked around the curtain, we saw the man. That Dudley Cross.”

“And you ran,” I added.

“We didn’t know what else to do. We were so shocked, we couldn’t think.”

“And you took the pearls.”

“Well, the box was still in my purse.”

“And, of course, you remembered to get your purse,” I wanted to say. “And did Dwayne know you borrowed someone’s pickup to come see what Toddy would give you for them?” But the look on Ray’s face stopped me. Right now he didn’t need anything else. It would all come out in time. Instead I asked, “And the dead turkey and the note threatening Ray?”

“Dwayne’s idea. We were hoping y’all would be scared away while we were trying to decide what to do.” Sunshine wiped her eyes again. “We didn’t want anything else to happen.”

A call to the sheriff would have sufficed, I thought. I also thought, very generously, that those two kids in that trailer would have been scared to death, and that, given the circumstances, running like hell must have seemed the only thing to do.

The kitchen was quiet. Bubba Cat hopped down from his heating pad and got in Sister’s lap, purring loudly. Down the valley we heard the first rumble of late afternoon thunder. The four of us were caught in a moment of waiting.

And then Sister said, “Sunshine, Meemaw said to tell you ‘a bushel and a peck.’”

Sunshine held out her hands, looked at them, and then brought them to her face.