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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

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BOOK: Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man?
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He came into my office already talking. Joe Riddley always said Jed Blaine could talk ears off corn. “Meant to get down here sooner, but had to be in court all week until noon today.”
We hugged, he slung his coat across the extra chair, and we exchanged the kind of news people do when they are fond of one another and haven’t been together for a while. Then he leaned forward like we were fixing to do serious business, and started talking crazy.
“You aren’t gonna want to hear this, but I think Hiram was killed because he found an alien living in Hopemore.” Seeing my expression, he held up a hand. “Wait. Listen to what I have to say. He called me Friday evening, all excited. At first I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying. A lot of ‘They’re here! They’re here! I’ve seen one with my own two eyes!’ When I finally got him calmed down a bit, he said he’d seen an alien on Oglethorpe Street that very day, and we could prove it legally.”
Jed waited for me to say something, but my vocal chords were on strike. I was glad to be interrupted by a deputy, bringing in a warrant for me to sign. Jed waited until he’d gone, then shook his head. “It ought to seem funny seeing you do that, but it doesn’t. Now, to get back to this other thing—” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “I’m not saying you’ve got people from Venus.” He waved that idea away in the air. “But what Hiram said was, an alien is living in Hopemore disguised as somebody else, that there was absolutely no doubt, and he’d be wanting me to get legal documents to prove he was right. He wanted to watch the situation for a week or two, then he’d get back to me. Now I know and you know that most of the time Hiram was nuttier than pecan pie. But this time—I don’t know, something rang true. I haven’t the foggiest notion who he was talking about, or what kind of legal documents he wanted, but he truly believed somebody here isn’t who he seems to be.”
Jed waited for me to say or do something smart, but all my smarts seemed to be flitting somewhere out near Venus. I shoved my fingers through my hair, finishing the wreck Joe had made of Phyllis’s good work.
“He’d worked in Atlanta long enough to know there are illegal human aliens as well as extraterrestrial ones,” he pointed out when I didn’t speak.
“And you think whoever it is found out Hiram recognized him or her, and killed him?”
He shrugged. “Have you got a better idea?”
“Not at the moment. Have you talked to Hector?”
“No, I thought I’d stop by here first. Then I’m going over to Miss Hubbard’s Bed and Breakfast to get a room, so when I go by home I’ll already have a place to stay.”
I didn’t blame him one bit. “I’d ask you to stay with us, but—”
“Thanks. I really appreciate that, but you’ve got enough on your plate without having company. And I may be here a while. I’ve told my office I won’t be back until I scout around a bit. I owe it to Hiram. What were you going to say about Hector?”
“He thinks Hiram talked in jail about the Confederate treasury, and somebody—the criminal element, he called them . . .”
“That old jailbird?” Jed sounded both fond and disgusted.
“Yeah. He’s sure the criminal element is after the treasury and planning to kill him to get it. The reason I mention it is, if anything does happen to Hector, you’re next in line for the inheritance, so watch your back.”
“I’ll do that. Right now, I thought I’d run over and see Pooh. She doin’ okay?” His eyes were a bit anxious, like eyes always are when asking about an elderly friend we haven’t seen in a while.
From the time he was four or five, Jed and Pooh had been special buddies. He’d stop by her place for cookies after school and we’d see them chattering away like equals up on her big porch. He used to help Otis around the yard some, too, and after he went to college and law school, he used to write long funny letters Pooh would bring by for me to read. She confided once she had a special fondness for freckle-faced boys. Her hand touched the big silver locket with Zach’s picture she wore next to her heart.
“She’s gone down real bad this past year,” I warned him. “Her mind comes and goes.”
As he stood and reached for his coat, I hoped he’d ask about Meriwether, but he merely rolled his sleeves down and slipped on his jacket.
I never imagined I’d get to witness their meeting, but as I walked Jed out front, he nodded across the street and said, “Nice car. If I didn’t have a BMW, I’d like a Benz.”
The Mercedes was Meriwether’s silver convertible, parking in front of the bank. The day was chilly enough that she had the top up, which meant Jed and I couldn’t see who was in it. First Slade swung out of the passenger seat, looking especially nice in a light tan suit with his dark hair ruffled by the wind.
“That’s the new editor of the
Statesman,
” I told Jed, since he hadn’t asked.
Was it coincidence, or something stronger, that made Meriwether glance across the street as she opened her door? As far as anybody in Hopemore knew—and what we don’t know in Hopemore is generally not worth knowing—that was the first time those two had laid eyes on each other in twelve years.
Oglethorpe Street has only two lanes plus parking on each side, so the two of them weren’t very far apart when their eyes met. Meriwether climbed out of her car, showing more knee and leg than was absolutely necessary, and stood as haughty as a Viking princess in a navy skirt and brightly embroidered sweater. “What are you doing here?” she called coldly.
“My family lives here,” he called back, “in case you hadn’t noticed. And my uncle got murdered, so I came home for the funeral.
You
certainly know how important family can be.”
Meriwether lifted her chin and slammed her door so hard I fully expected the window to break. “Come on, Slade.” She marched toward the bank.
Jed threw back his head and laughed.
21
I didn’t have time to stand around watching those two put on a performance. I had to decide what to do about the gun in my kitchen closet and talk to Sheriff Gibbons about the one missing from Alice’s shelf. Which should I do first?
When things are in a real muddle and I don’t have an earthly idea what to do about them, I do what Joe Riddley calls “real straight talking with the Boss.” I went to my office, told my workers I did not want to be disturbed, and sat at my desk. “Things are in a real mess right now,” I said out loud. “I don’t know if the gun in my closet is Joe Riddley’s or Pooh’s, and I don’t know a good way to find out. If I ask him and it’s his, that probably means he shot Hiram. I’ll have to tell Buster. And Joe Riddley’s gonna want to put the gun back in his cabinet, and I don’t want him having a gun in the house right now. Even if I ask him and it isn’t his, he’ll be reminded of his and want me to start looking for it. And if it’s not Joe Riddley’s, chances are real good it’s Pooh’s, and Darren put it there. I can’t believe he shot Hiram, either, because he’s a nice kid, in spite of his hair. . . .” I stopped. I was heading off track, fast. “Anyway, what I need to know is, how do I go about this? What should I do first? Any help will be greatly appreciated, and I’m open to suggestion. Thank you. Amen.” Having delegated responsibility, I turned on my computer to start working on accounts.
Answers to prayers come in many forms. Mine came in a very small package that bounded into the office, flung its arms around my neck, and squeezed so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Not so tight, Crick,” Ridd admonished. “We want to keep Me-mama around for a few years.”
“What’s he doing here?” I reached in my bottom drawer for the lemon sucker Cricket knew was there.
“I told him I was going to use the forklift, and he wants to drive. Did you check on the Christmas trees?”
“Yeah, they’ll be here in three weeks. Say, could I borrow Cricket for a little while?”
“Sure. For what?”
“It’s a secret.” I couldn’t think of a single explanation Ridd would accept for why I’d hidden a gun in my closet for nearly a week without telling the sheriff. I couldn’t think of an explanation the sheriff would accept, either.
Cricket chattered happily as we headed to the house, and he let Lulu give his face a good washing when we got there. “Where’s Pop?” he demanded.
“Pop has occupational therapy Thursday afternoons.”
“What’s pational therpy?”
“He’s learning to scramble eggs, cook bacon, and wash dishes.”
Cricket chortled at the silliness of grownups. “Dat’s not pational therpy, Me-mama. Dat’s cookin’.”
“Yeah, but you have to do one thing at a time, in order, and Pop’s not real good at that right now.” I felt a sudden surge of anger that Cricket wasn’t getting to know the same granddad the other grandchildren had. No point thinking about that right now.
I got the boot from the closet and put a dishtowel on the table. “I want to show you something and I want you to tell me if you ever saw it before.”
“O’ course I saw dat before. Dat’s de boot Pop wears to mow de lawn and clean de dog pen.”
“Yeah, but there’s something in it.” I gently turned the boot upside down and the gun fell onto the dishcloth.
“Don’t touch,” I warned, afraid he’d mess up prints.
Cricket shook his head. “I doesn’t touch guns ’less
Pop
says so.”
I took a deep breath to steady my voice so I could ask, “Is this the gun Pop lost?”
“Pop didn’t lose any guns. You gibbed dem to Maynard.”
“But what about the little missing one? Is this it?”
He looked at me, obviously baffled. If he’d already forgotten the small gun, I had little hope he’d be able to identify it, but I made one more try. “You told us there was a little gun that went up in the top of Pop’s cabinet. Is this it? Can you tell?”
He gave a big sigh of disgust. “O’ course dat’s not it. Pop gibbed dat little gun to Maynard, to put in the me-see-um. It’s weal old.”
I stared. “Are you sure?”
“O’ course I’m sure.” His brown eyes flashed with indignation. “I went wif him. Pop tole Maynard he can hab it now, but if I wants it when he’s dead, Maynard must gib it back.”
I sent Cricket and Lulu to the backyard and called Maynard. Waiting for the ring, I remembered something he’d said as we loaded the guns in the car late that night:
Any more antiques among them?
“Hello, Maynard, it’s Mac. I need to ask you a real funny question. Did Joe Riddley give you a gun for the museum recently?”
“Not real recently. It was before he got shot—about a week before. Why?”
I sank into a chair in relief. “What kind was it?”
“A silber derringer twenty-two,” Cricket told me at the kitchen screen, still indignant.
“A silver derringer twenty-two,” Maynard echoed. “Joe Riddley said his great-grandpa carried it in the War. Is there a problem? He was fine when he signed the donation papers.”
“No problem. I had just missed it, and Cricket said Joe Riddley gave it to you.”
Maynard chuckled. “Gave it to me with the written stipulation that if Cricket wants it when he grows up, he gets it back.”
“That’s what Cricket said, too. Thanks a lot. Oh, any more news on your house?”
“They’re working on it. It’s going to be real pretty.” Poor Maynard. Who wouldn’t sound discouraged to know the house of your dreams would soon be ready for you, and you couldn’t live in it with your sweetheart?
I gave Cricket a cookie, locked the gun back in the closet in the boot, left Lulu in the pen, and drove to the store feeling about fifty pounds lighter. Ridd was driving the forklift, loading sod into a waiting pickup. He, like Joe Riddley, really enjoyed the hands-on part of the business. Walker and I preferred the clean-hands part in the back office. I didn’t know if the boys would run the store when we were gone, but it was nice to know they would make a good team.
“You said I could do dat!” Cricket clamored even before I let him out. Ridd stopped and took him onto his lap.
“One mystery solved,” I informed him before he restarted the motor. “I found a gun in your daddy’s yard boots, and thought it was the one we were missing, but Cricket says that’s not ours. He even told me where the missing one went. Tell Daddy, honey.”
“Pop gibbed it to Maynard for his me-see-um.” Cricket was far more interested in the forklift levers.
Ridd held his hands away from them. “Why didn’t you tell us that before?”
“You didn’t ask.” Cricket pushed his hand away so he could play with the levers.
I mentally ran over the conversation we’d all had by the gun cabinet. “We didn’t. We asked if he knew which gun went there, but we didn’t tell him it was missing.”
“Dey were all missing,” Cricket reminded me. “Now Maynard has dem all.”
He happily helped Ridd restart the forklift. I went back to my office, walking very slowly. Maynard didn’t have quite all the guns. I still had one in a boot in my closet.
I dialed the sheriff’s number, wishing I was calling to make an appointment for a root canal. “Hey. It’s Judge Yarbrough. Have you talked to Alice Fulton this week?”
BOOK: Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man?
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