Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (7 page)

“It’s not fair,” I complained.

“When has politics ever been fair?”

“It would be if you decided to run.” I couldn’t think of a better mayor for the town.

He reached for his cap. “Only running I’m gonna do is down to the nursery, to check on that new shipment of sod. Last batch we got was full of weeds.”

Before he reached the door, Evelyn came through it, pink-faced and breathless. “Isn’t it exciting? Mr. Spence says he’s gonna run for mayor!”

“So he says,” Joe Riddley agreed.

“Isn’t that amazing?” Her freckled face was lit up like somebody had turned on a bulb.

“Amazing.” I looked at my computer screen so I didn’t have to meet her eye. In all the years she had worked for us, Evelyn and I had never discussed politics. For all I knew, our old neighbor represented exactly what Evelyn wanted in a mayor. I wasn’t about to risk losing a good store manager over Hubert Spence.

Joe Riddley must have felt the same way, for Evelyn’s arrival accomplished what all my wishing had not. He got up, put on his cap, and said, “I’ll be back by dinnertime. You want to go to Myrtle’s?” I nodded. We always did on Saturdays.

As soon as he and Bo left, I motioned Evelyn to the wing chair. “I’ve been wondering about something. Do you know who Starr Knight’s friends were?”

Evelyn wrinkled her forehead. “You aren’t going to start poking around in that, are you? Because if you do, and if I help you, the boss—”

“I am the boss,” I interrupted. “At least, one of them. And no, I’m not going to start ‘poking around in that.’ I’ve merely been wondering why Starr was wearing those clothes, and whether somebody might know.”

That got Evelyn’s attention. “I’ve wondered that, too. I mean, they weren’t like anything she ever wore before. More like Missy than Starr.”

“Who’s Missy?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Missy Sanders, the youngest of the family that lives next to Trevor. She and Starr were best friends through middle school. I don’t know if they’ve been friendly lately, though.”

Now I remembered. Missy was the girl who had brought bubbles to the children the night before. “Does she live in the Volkswagen memorial trailer park?”

Evelyn laughed. “Don’t let her granddaddy hear you criticizing those cars. He came from Germany and he loves every one of them.”

“He must. Is he a mechanic?” You might think I ought to know everybody in Hope County, but thirteen thousand people is too many to know personally.

“No, they farm and board horses.”

“And buy cotton seed and animal feed from us.” The name was beginning to register, although I’d only seen it on invoices. I could probably have identified members of the family by sight, but their orders always came by phone and requested delivery.

“They have a couple of horses of their own, too,” Evelyn informed me. “Missy gives riding lessons to kids evenings and weekends. During the day, she works as an assistant to the vet where I take my dogs, and at work Missy always wears a white shirt and black pants.”

“Do you reckon she might know why Starr was dressed like that when she died?”

“The sheriff could ask her, I suppose.” Evelyn’s emphasis on the second word could not be missed. “But like I said, I don’t know how friendly she and Starr have been lately. They were inseparable before they went to high school. Starr used to help Missy groom and exercise the horses when owners couldn’t get out, and Missy used to come with Starr to church.”

“Maybe I’ll suggest that the
sheriff
talk with her, then.”

“Good idea. You wouldn’t want to go out there yourself. The family is funny about strangers. Only folks they allow on the property are those going up to the barn to take riding lessons or exercise their own horses, and riders have to stay in the big pasture or the adjoining wood. The rest of the farm is
verboten
.”

“You speak German?”

“Just that one word. I was following Trevor’s pup over there one afternoon and the old man yelled it at me. Trevor told me what it meant. He said the Sanders are real clannish and keep to themselves. Old man Sanders lives in the double-wide with the big porch, and his two sons and his daughter all live next to him, like bees in a hive.”

“None of them ever married?”

“All of them married, but I guess a condition of marrying into the family is that you have to live on the property—I don’t know. I do know that they don’t take kindly to people trespassing on their land. Another time when Trevor’s pup got loose and wandered over there, they took a shot at it. Said they thought it was a rabbit, when it was a half-grown Lab.”

“I’ll tell the sheriff to take his gun.”

When I passed through the store with my pocketbook half an hour later and said I was going to make a trip to the drugstore, I don’t think Evelyn believed me. I cannot imagine why. “They are having a two-for-one sale,” I told her, “and Bethany needs a few things.”

I bought toothpaste and shampoo to send with Ridd and Martha the next time they went to visit, because college girls don’t need to be wasting their money on toothpaste and they can never have too much shampoo. I also bought her a couple of perky lipsticks, to spruce up the mundane gifts, and four candy bars. At the last minute, I added Hershey bars for myself to the pile.

After that, since it was a nice day and our store was in good hands, I took a short ride to enjoy the weather while I munched my chocolate. I did not deliberately set out to visit Missy until I looked up and found myself near Trevor’s place. That’s what I told Joe Riddley, and I’m sticking to it.

A well-graded driveway led past the trailer enclave toward the barn at the back, while a rutted, uninviting driveway, best suited to trucks, led toward the trailers themselves. The only person I saw, however, was a man working on a VW Beetle that had started out life green, so I turned my wheels into the ruts and jounced up the track with some trepidation. The trepidation deepened as the man stood up, looked my way, and started wiping his hands on a dirty orange rag. He was as wide as a bull on hind legs, his arms as thick as my thighs. I got a good look at them, because he wore his stained overalls without a shirt. Sweat shone on his face and dampened his grizzled mane.

I seldom feel nervous anywhere in the county. Not only am I a magistrate, but Joe Riddley was a judge for thirty years before I became one, so most folks in town recognize us even if we don’t know them. And since I was six years old, folks have known that if they harmed a hair on my head, they’d have Joe Riddley and Buster to deal with. You can get accustomed to taking that kind of protection for granted.

That morning, I remembered there were a few pockets of folks in the county who had managed to never deal with the law, seldom came to town, and who neither knew who I was nor cared. From the look on that hefty red face, I realized I had slid into one of those pockets.

Unblinking blue eyes stared at me as I climbed from my poor jolted car. “I’m MacLaren Yarbrough, from Yarbrough Feed, Seed, and Nursery.” It did not seem the place or time to mention that I was a judge. “I’m looking for Missy Sanders.”

“Whut fer?” This was obviously not the old man. His drawl was pure Georgia cracker. He continued to wipe his hands on the dirty rag as if cleaning them for his own brand of surgery.

“I need to talk to her. My older grandson likes to ride.” If he chose to connect those two truths, that was his business. I saw no reason to add that Tad’s mother, Cindy, owned one of the finest horses in the county and let him ride whenever he wanted to.

He took his time assessing my statement, then jerked his head toward the smoother road. “Up at the barn.”

“Thanks. I’ll look for her there.” I saw no place to turn around, so I backed up. The only thing that kept it from being one of the crookedest backing jobs ever performed by woman was the fact that my wheels couldn’t leave the ruts. My whitewalls would never be the same.

Finally I reached the graded drive. No horse ever headed for a barn with greater relief.

The structure, big enough to house ten horses and their feed, sat near the edge of the thin pine forest that separated the Sanders property from Trevor’s workshop. Through the pines I had a clear view of the back of the workshop, which included wide double doors through which, presumably, he took animals to be worked on.

Near the barn were a parking area, a makeshift training ring, and a small feedlot. The feedlot’s ground had been churned by hooves into an even brown. Beyond that, a large green pasture stretched to distant trees. A white SUV and a silver BMW were parked in the lot. Three riders cantered across the pasture, while a tiny figure perched on a tall gray horse was being led around the ring by a woman I recognized by her flyaway black hair and the glint of sun on her glasses.

I pulled to a stop beside the BMW and lowered my windows to be comfortable while I waited for the woman and child to complete their lesson.

“She’s doing well, isn’t she?” asked a voice from the BMW.

A mother with anxious eyes watched the little girl on the big horse.

“Seems to be doing fine,” I replied.

The woman lowered her voice, even though nobody could hear us. “The rest of the family may be trash, but Missy is good with children. Dana was terrified the first time, but this is only her second lesson, and already she doesn’t seem afraid, does she?”

Not half as afraid as her mother. I wondered if the mother was afraid the child would fall, fail, or be contaminated by Missy’s “trashiness.”

“She’s doing beautifully. Next thing you know she’ll be out there riding with the best of them.” I pointed toward the riders in the pasture.

The mother nodded. “It’s so important for a child to be exposed to a variety of experiences, don’t you think? Things like horseback riding, ballet, soccer, and violin. Of course, they all take up a good bit of time. We have a soccer game at one.” She looked at her watch and I did the same. It was half past eleven. We let the conversation die from lack of interest.

“Oh, gross!” she exclaimed a few minutes later.

I first thought she was staring at me with that sick look on her face, then realized she was looking at something on the far side of my car. From where we were parked, through the thin forest separating the Sanders property from Trevor’s business, we watched as Trevor and one of his assistants wrestled an enormous head from a garbage bag in the back of a tan pickup. “Looks good,” Trevor boomed. He held the head up for his assistant to admire. I couldn’t tell at that distance whether his helper was Wylie or Robin. A short, thick man standing to one side talked excitedly, speaking so loudly that some of his words wafted our way. “…all day to get him…straight through a marsh.” I wondered where he’d been. Hunting season didn’t start for several weeks.

Shrieks from the other side of our cars distracted us. The child had finished her lesson and was running toward the car, calling, “I did it, Mommy. Did you see me? I did it!”

In record speed the mother gathered the little girl into the protective cocoon of the car, shielding her from the sights next door, and hustled her off to their next activity. I hoped the child would get lunch on the way.

I climbed out and went toward Missy, who was already wiping down the horse. Close up, the beast looked as old as me. Dana had little to fear from that animal.

“Missy Sanders?”

She gave me the courtesy to pause in her grooming. “Yes, ma’am. You wanting riding lessons?” Her voice was high and nasal, unexpected in a woman that thick and strong, but her tone made me want to climb up on that horse and gallop across the pasture to show her I could—if the old horse still could.

However, Mama raised me to be polite. “No, hon. I started riding before I could walk, on my daddy’s farm horse.” We exchanged the smiles of women who learned to ride because it was necessary. “I’m MacLaren Yarbrough, from Yarbrough Feed, Seed, and Nursery.”

Magnified by their lenses, her eyes flickered. “The judge. I know. Didn’t Daddy send the check for our last feed bill?”

“This isn’t about money. It’s about Starr Knight. Evelyn Finch, who works with me, said you were a friend of hers.”

She turned back to the horse and started rubbing him down double-time.

“I’m not here with questions about her death. I want to ask about something that puzzles me: the way Starr was dressed when she died.”

Missy finished wiping down the horse’s forelegs before she spoke. I got the feeling she’d been planning her answer. “Starr ain’t been out this way for months. Not since she got a place of her own in town.”

I’d walked close to the edge of truth in my lifetime. I knew how to read between her lines. “But you
had
been seeing her somewhere else, right? At her apartment?”

“She never let me go to her place. Said it was real trashy.”

Trash is relative. Dana’s mother considered Missy’s family trash, but that woman must have led a sheltered life. There were hovels in Hope County that made the Sanders clan look downright middle class. Most of our slum housing had been built—thrown together, to be more exact—by Gusta’s husband and passed on, unimproved, to his widow. Gusta considered herself a benefactress of the poor because she charged so little rent. She neither knew nor cared that the low rent attracted mostly the desperate—those who scraped together all the pennies they could find to buy drugs.

I pressed Missy again for the truth. “So where
did
you meet her?”

With a huff of defeat, she capitulated. “Hardee’s. We’d go get a burger and talk. She was real sick lately.”

If Missy suspected the truth about Starr’s “illness,” I respected her desire to protect her friend. If she didn’t, I wasn’t about to enlighten her.

“Was she going to see a doctor? Was that why she left town last week?”

When Missy didn’t answer my question, I tried another. “Do you know why she was dressed like she was?”

When she still didn’t answer, I warned, “You don’t have to tell me, Missy, but you will have to tell the sheriff. I’ll have to report that you know something and are holding back. He is determined to find whoever killed Starr.”

She jerked back a step and blazed back at me. “Do you know what happened to her?” She barely gave me time to nod. “Leave them alone!” she shouted. “You’d do better to put your hand in a nest of rattlers. You ain’t got a notion who you’re meddling with!”

Her use of Joe Riddley’s favorite word stung me into also speaking louder than I intended. “I’ve got only one notion: locking up whoever killed her and throwing away the key. You’d do well to have the same notion yourself.”

Her jaw clenched. “You have to catch them first. And you heard what they done to Starr. That’s what they’re like!”

I lowered my voice. “Do you know who they are?”

She shook her head and followed my lead. I had to step closer to hear. “If I did, I’d tell. I swear I would. But I don’t know. And I’m scared they might think I do.” Her eyes, magnified by the thick lenses, were huge and scared. She licked her lips and her gaze flickered to the right and left, as if she feared that a horde of Starr’s enemies might be lurking behind a fence post or over behind the truck at Trevor’s back door. Trevor and his helper were still talking to the hunter beside his truck.