Murder & Mayhem in Goose Pimple Junction (43 page)

She
was nowhere to be found. He glanced into the den on his way back down the stairs and saw the trunk was missing.
Oh no. There’s no way she could move that herself.

Racing
back out the door, he yelled, “Ezzie, stay put. And don’t eat anything.”

He
checked the garage. “Damn. Still there. This isn’t good.”

After
a frantic drive through town, which yielded nothing suspicious, Jack stopped at the bookstore to talk to Lou. He’d called John Ed to report Tess missing, and John Ed promised to get the whole police force looking for her. Even the chief sounded alarmed.

Pickle
was outside the store sweeping the sidewalk as Jack stalked toward him. “You!” Jack said, grabbing his shirt and pulling him inside the store, “Get your butt in here.”

“
LOU! Lou where are you?”

She
came running from the back of the store.

“
Good Lord, Jack. You’re wound up like a cheap alarm clock. What in the world’s the matter with you?”

“
Lou. Let me ask the questions. This is serious. Tess is missing . . . “

“
Tess is missin’?”

“
Yes. Listen to me. She’s missin’ and so is the trunk. Tell me
somethin’. Nate Hunter. He have any kin around here?”

Pickle
knocked a stack of books off a table behind Jack.

“
Nate Hunter? Why?” Lou stammered.

“
Lou!”

“
Okay, okay, you’re askin’ the questions.” She looked at Pickle who just stood there, bug-eyed, with his mouth wide-open.

“
Lou!” Jack said again, louder than he’d intended.

She
put her attention back on him. “Well, yeah, hon. John Ed’s wife was Nate’s daughter. Why?”

A
crushing, cold feeling of panic rose up in Jack.

“
John Ed?” he repeated, in disbelief.

“
Wull . . . yeah . . . what’s all this about, Jack? You’re scarin’ me.”

Out
of the corner of his eye, he noticed Pickle quietly backing away. Jack stepped backward three steps and grabbed him by his t-shirt, stopping him. He spun Pickle around and glanced at his shirt, which said,
“I Make Stuff Up.”

Pointing
to Pickle’s chest, he said, “That certainly is appropriate for you, boy. Start talkin’.
NOW
.”

“
I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout John Ed.”

Jack
squinted at him. “What
do
you know about? Spill it.” He was inches from Pickle’s face.

The
kid started talking a blue streak, his sentences running together. “Okay I lied I’m so sorry but I was afraid of him you see nobody knows the real dude he's meaner than a sack of snakes he threatened me, and
I didn’t know what to do the whole thing started out ‘cause I wanted to get in good with him on a count a Charlotte and well . . . the pay was good but it got outta hand, and I didn’t know what to do and he—” He was talking a mile a minute, not even stopping to take a breath.

“
Pickle!” Jack interrupted. “Slow down. Slow down. We can’t understand a word you’re sayin’. Who are you talkin’ about? Are you sayin’
John Ed
hired you?”

Pickle
took a deep breath, pacing back and forth, holding his hands on the sides of his head, as if it was going to fall off. “No. Henry Clay.”

“
Henry Clay?” Jack’s knees felt wobbly.  

“
Yeah. At first he told me to spy on Mizz Tess, which seemed
harmless enough, on account of her workin’ here. It was easy for me to listen in on conversations and then just report back to HC.” He looked quickly at Lou and added, “He told me to call him HC. And now you know why my straw was always in your Kool-Aid. I ain’t naturally
nosey.”

“
Go on, Pickle,” Jack said impatiently.

“
Well, that’s all, until the thing with the brick. I didn’t want to do it, but that’s when he got mean. Said I’d do it, or he’d make it look like
I was the one who attacked y’all, and I promise, that wadn’t me!”

“
Okay, Pickle, I believe you, now go on.”

“
He told me to throw the brick. He said if I got caught I should tell ‘em it was Tank Marshall who hired me. Said if I didn’t, he’d see to it I’d never see his daughter again, plus he’d hang me out to dry to boot. Said I’d end up with jail time, or worse. Said he could make it happen on
account of John Ed bein’ his daddy. I didn’t know he was gonna kill
anybody. Then, after Tank died, HC said I’d end up as worm food alongside Tank if I squealed. So see? I had no choice but to do what he said! Oh Lord, I’m so sorry. But Jack, that’s what I was tryin’ to tell y’all when I said that ‘bout the well and the handle. He ain’t what he seems.”

“
Henry Clay. Unbelievable.” Jack shook his head, pacing back and forth. “Unbefreakinglievable.” He stopped in front of Pickle. “Who else is involved in this little scheme? Henry Clay isn’t the one who attacked us, is he?”

“
Naw, I don’t reckon. I don’t know who else, though. That’s all
I know.
I swear
.”

Lou
was white as a sheet as she listened to Pickle’s confession.
Suddenly, she blurted out, “Martha Maye. I gotta call and warn her.” She picked up the phone, started to dial, but hung up. Panicked, she said, “Oh no. I forgot the phones are dead.”

“
Cell phone?” Jack asked.

“
Neither of us is that fancy, Jack.” She stood up. “I gotta find her.”

She
stopped, turning to Jack. “Jackson, do you mean to tell me Nate Hunter killed my daddy, and Henry Clay killed Tank Marshall?”

“
That’s what I’m saying, Lou. And now Tess and the proof is missing. We found a letter from your daddy in the trunk last night. It’s pretty much proof of Hunter bein’ the killer. Of course it was written before the fact, but your daddy was afraid, and he’d spelled it out for your
mama. I’ll bet if we were to go over to the bank and look in one of the floorboards in his old office, we’d find confirmation, but I’ll tell you about that later. We gotta find Henry Clay . . . and Tess, first.” He ran his hands through his hair and walked to the window, as if the answer was out on the sidewalk.

Lou
followed him, wringing her hands. “But why would the detective say we didn’t want to know what happened to Daddy, if it was Nate who killed him?”

“
Lou, I suspect the private detective was paid off. Nate probably spread the gossip about your daddy bein’ involved in the bank heist, too.”

“
Well I’ll be battered and fried,” Lou said, staring into space.

gotcherself
: verb \gotch-yohr-self\  got yourself

You gotcherself in a heap a trouble.

[  July
2010  ]

The truck slowed and came to a stop. Tess heard the hum of a small motor and gears working somewhere. The truck moved forward, then stopped, and the engine died. She heard the sound of the motor again and a
clunk
that sounded like a garage door hitting the ground. The trunk rocked as the two men got out of the vehicle and slammed the doors shut. Tess heard Willy barking orders.

“
Cut the ‘lectricity on them doors, Joe Bob, while I call the boss. We don’t want nobody comin’ along and tryin’ to get in.”

“
Yeah, Boss—calm down,” Willy said. “I know that wadn’t part of the plan—”

Silence.

“
We couldn’t hep it—”

Silence.

“
What choice did we have?” His voice grew more faint until a door slammed shut, and the only thing Tess could hear was a sniffling sound beside her, and Joe Bob whistling “When The Saints Go Marching In.”

She
waited until she heard Joe Bob’s footsteps disappear too, and then putting her mouth as close to the crack in the trunk as she could, she said, “Martha Maye? Is that you?” She heard a gasp.

“
Tessie? Oh my gosh! It
is
you in that trunk,” Martha Maye
whispered. “I tried to tell myself it wasn’t you I heard in your driveway, but it sounded like you, and—
”

“
Yes, it’s me,” Tess interrupted. “Are you okay?” She strained to talk through the crack in the wood.

“
I’m okay, but that trunk ain’t big enough to cuss the cat in. How’d they get you in there? You do still got all your body parts, don’t ya?”

“
Of course I do, but it’s a tight squeeze. I can’t feel my left foot, and my neck’s killing me, but I’m all in one piece…Martha Maye, I can’t see anything. Where are we? What’s happening?”

“
I don’t know what’s goin’ on. One minute I was talkin’ to Willy in your driveway, the next I was trussed up like a chicken and thrown into the truck bed. They put a big blue tarp over us and now, goin’ by the smells, and the sound of that garage door, I’d say we’re in old man Crowley’s fillin’ station, which is not indicative of anything good, ‘cause I heard he closed it down and went on vacation for the week.” She stopped talking for a moment, and Tess heard a rustling sound. Martha Maye said, “Yep. I just peeked out of the tarp. We’re in one of the bays. What do you think they’re gonna do with us?”

“
I don’t know, Martha Maye.”

“
Tess . . . “

“
Yes?”

“
I’m scareder than a porcupine in a nudist colony.”

“
Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here. Somehow.”

Tess
heard more rustling and felt movement in the truck bed, and then she heard a scratching sound on the trunk.

“
What are you doing?” Tess asked.

“
Tryin’ to pick the lock with my bobby pin. Fortunately, I decided to wear my hair up today. Just hold on, I’ll get you out in a jiffy.”

“
Where are they? They won’t see you, will they?”

“
Naw, I think they’re in the office, and there’s a car in between us and them.”

It
took a few minutes, but she managed to pick the lock and open the trunk lid.

“
Martha Maye—I thought they tied you up,” Tess said, sitting up and rubbing her neck.

“
They did.” Martha Maye helped Tess out of the trunk. “But
apparently neither one of ‘em was a boy scout. They can’t tie knots worth a lick. I got outta them in no time. But I didn’t want them to see me movin’ back here, so I stayed still.”

“
That was good thinking.”

As
Tess looked around at the surroundings, she sat in the truck bed stretching her legs and feet, rotating her head in a circle to work the pain out of her neck, and shaking her arms to get the blood circulating. A car was up on hydraulics between them and the door to the office, where she figured the men were. The garage doors had windows, but there was nothing and nobody outside.

“
What in the world is goin’ on, Tessie? Why did they grab you and put you in the trunk?”

“
Martha Maye, do you know that co-worker of your grandfather’s? Nate Hunter?”

“
Yeah, sure . . . “

“
Does he have any family still living in Goose Pimple Junction?”

“
Wull, a course he does. Nate Hunter was a friend of my grandfather’s. He was so nice to us after the murder; he kinda took us under his wing—”

“
Martha Maye!” Tess interrupted impatiently. “Are any of his relatives still living here?”

“
Well, yeah, you see John Ed married Medora, Nate’s daughter.
John Ed, Medora, and Mama grew up together, just as Henry Clay and
I did . . . “

Tess
couldn’t believe her ears. She felt like someone had
punched her in the stomach.
“You’re kidding . . . J . . . John Ed?” Tess stammered.

“
. . . was Nate’s son-in-law. Yeah. Tessie, what’s goin’ on?”

“
John Ed? I knew he was a good for nothing so-and-so, but I didn’t think he was capable of all this . . . “

“
What are you talkin’ about, sugar?”

“
Well, the short version is Jack and I found a letter in the old trunk last night. It’s from your grandfather, written right before he was killed, and he points the finger at Nate Hunter.”