Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (9 page)

Not one thing happened in the Starr Knight case for another month.

Sheriff Gibbons called one Friday afternoon toward the end of October. “We’ve found the weapon. It
was
a bat!” He was crowing like he used to crow as a kid when he correctly identified a sneaker print on the playground.

“That’s great! Where was it?”

“In the kudzu, like Joe Riddley suggested.”

I considered pointing out it was me who had suggested the kudzu, but I let it pass. Like the Bible says, there are times to make war and times to make peace. Besides, Buster was still crowing. “I noticed this morning that the leaves were off, so I sent somebody out there with binoculars. It took him a couple of hours, but he found it, stuck in the vines. Getting to it was a trick, but we managed to lower a man on a rope to retrieve it. And I know you and Joe Riddley have been cursing the drought, but it has its uses. The bat still shows bloodstains and prints.”

“You are a painstaking and patient man. Do the prints match the others you found?”

“We’re working on that.”

“Did you ever talk to Missy?”

“Yeah, and to the DEA, too. Starr called them in early September from a throwaway cell phone and said she had information about drug dealing in middle Georgia, but she would need to meet them somewhere, because she was afraid for her child. They made an appointment with her for the following Monday evening in Augusta. That would have been four days before we found her. However, she never showed. They figured she’d gotten cold feet.”

“The coldest,” I said soberly.

After we hung up, I couldn’t sit still, so I headed out front to check our inventory. Lately I had been of two minds about buying products. On the one hand, it could be likened to pouring money down the drain. On the other hand, we had to have something on the shelves if we stayed open. The big question was, what could we buy that we wouldn’t eventually have to mark down below cost to get rid of?

Garden clogs—the plastic kind—had been real popular that year, and ours were superior in quality to those at the superstore and not much more expensive. I was behind a rack debating whether to order more when I heard Robin Parker greet Evelyn.

“Hey. We’ve come to get pansies for the girls to plant beside our front steps. I’m glad we got here before closing time.”

The older girl—I couldn’t remember their names—begged, “Can we buy a pot for Uncle Billy? Can we, Mama? He likes flowers.” Her high voice carried so well, they probably heard it across the street at the bank.

“I don’t know.” Robin sounded like a woman who was about to say no.

“You have family here?” Whatever her personal feelings toward Robin, Evelyn was, first and foremost, a merchandiser, and that friendly manner sold a lot of goods.

“Is Uncle Billy family? Is he, Mama?” the child demanded.

Robin answered in the resigned tone of a mother who spent her day answering questions. “Yes, honey, he’s my brother. That’s why he’s your uncle.” She added, to Evelyn, “He lives down near Tennille, but he gets up here every week or two.”

“He brings me candy, and they cook when we go to bed,” announced the older one importantly.

I was wondering whether Billy was indeed Robin’s brother, and whether “cook” was a euphemism for something else, but Robin said irritably, “You don’t like spicy food.”

“Yuck,” the child answered.

The little one asked in a soft voice, “Can I go home with you?”

I knew she was addressing Evelyn even before I heard Evelyn’s puzzled reply. “Not today. I’m not going home for a while yet.”

Robin had better break that child of the habit of asking to go home with strangers. Even in Hopemore, it could be dangerous.

“She asks everybody that,” said the older child in a voice full of scorn. “Can we buy him some flowers, Mama?”

“One pot from the two of you together.”

Almost any single mother’s finances are tight, and Robin was still paying off that truck. If I’d been at the register, I’d have given her that last pot for free. Evelyn could have, too, and she knew it. She didn’t offer.

“Come on, Anna Emily, let’s pick the very prettiest ones!” Two pairs of feet scampered toward the display at the front.

While they were occupied, Evelyn asked, “How’s Trevor doing?”

“Not good. I would have thought he’d get over Starr’s death by now, but he still hasn’t.”

“I doubt he ever will. That child was his life. Last time I saw him, he looked like he was being eaten up inside.”

“I know. I do what I can for him and Bradley, but—”

“Look, Mama!” The girls clattered back.

“I picked them, because I’m five,” the larger girl told Evelyn. “Anna Emily isn’t big enough to pick good yet. She’s just three.”

Robin spoke sharply. “That’s enough chatter.” I agreed that her daughter was a chatterbox, but I hated to hear a mother use that tone with a child.

Not that I hadn’t been overheard using it with my own a time or two…

Evelyn concluded the sale and wrapped each pot in brown paper to keep it from messing up Robin’s car. That’s one of the services smaller merchants offer that big ones don’t, but it doesn’t bring in customers in droves.

When the Parkers had gone, Evelyn called, “You can come out, Mac. They’ve gone.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” I informed her with dignity. “I was counting clogs.”

“Next time I’ll count clogs and you can wait on Miss Robin. Do you think she’s set her cap for Trevor?”

I had a chance to evaluate that possibility the following Saturday.

Bradley had spent the night with Cricket, and Ridd brought them Saturday morning to the Trick-or-Treat Morning thrown by the downtown merchants. Around eleven, Ridd mentioned to me that they needed to leave soon, because his family was going to the football game at Bethany’s college.

“Why don’t I take Bradley home, since Trevor lives in the opposite direction?”

Ridd gladly accepted.

On the way, the child grew quieter and quieter.

“You’re mighty silent back there,” I joked over my shoulder when we were about a mile from his place.

His voice was so soft I almost couldn’t hear it. “I wish I could go to your house. My house isn’t any fun.” In my rearview mirror I saw that his eyes were wide and anxious.

When we pulled in the drive, it looked like the yard hadn’t been mowed since Starr’s death. Oaks, poplars, and hickories had shed on the unkempt grass, while unopened newspapers lay on the leaves like discarded loaves of bread. I wondered why Trevor didn’t cancel his subscription, but figured he couldn’t even summon the will to do that.

“Will your granddaddy be here?” I asked as I pulled in the drive.

“He’ll be working.” Bradley struggled with his seat belt. “He’s always working. I’ll color at his desk.”

“Shall I walk you in?” I had no idea what I’d find in a taxidermist’s shop, or whether I’d have the stomach for it, but if Bradley could stand it, surely I could.

“Yes, please.” He tucked his hand into mine and we shuffled our feet in the leaves, making a satisfactory crunch and crinkle. It may be heresy for a woman in the lawn maintenance business to admit it, but I have a fondness for places where leaves have not been raked.

Bradley pushed open the door, setting a bell overhead to jingling. “T-daddy? I’m home. Me-Mama brought me.”

I followed him into a large room with a desk in the far corner and a number of what I presumed were samples of Trevor’s work and customer orders waiting to be picked up. Buck heads gazed down at me from all four walls. A largemouth bass affixed to a plaque was chasing realistic-looking minnows past water grasses. Turkey feathers hung in a fan over the front door. A member of the cat family lurked in the far corner. An elegant pheasant stood in tall grass under a glass case. On a low oak pedestal, a fox crouched in a circle of fake mud, contemplating a rabbit. The fake mud even had tiny paw prints, and not only did the fox look alive, but he had a grin and a gleam in his eye like he’d spotted dinner.

“Hey, Bradley.” Trevor came through a door in the back wall and ruffled Bradley’s hair. In spite of what Robin and Evelyn had said, I had not imagined such a change in the man.

His weight had melted off like chocolate in August. He wore a long-sleeved shirt open over a white T-shirt, and the outer shirt hung around him in folds. His jeans, cinched in by his belt, bunched around his body like a gathered skirt. His hair—once fluffy and electric—hung lank and untrimmed. His hair and beard had gone gray.

“I appreciate your bringing Bradley.” Even suffering, Trevor didn’t lose his old courtesy or fondness for the child. He pulled the boy close to him as if drawing life from the warm little body.

“No trouble at all.” I gestured toward the fox. “How do you get the eyes to look so real?”

“Buy best quality.” He nodded toward a buck head. “Cheap deer eyes, for instance, don’t have a white rim, so they don’t look realistic. The eyes need to match the live animal’s eyes.” He jutted his beard toward the fox. “But that’s Robin’s work. She’s real good.”

I spoke on impulse. “If it’s not off-limits, could I see what you all do? I’ve never been in a taxidermy shop.”

He stepped aside and waved. “Sure, come on back. We knock off at one most Saturdays, anyway. Just let me get the boy settled first. Children are not allowed in the workroom. Too many chemicals and sharp objects.”

He pulled open a drawer of the desk and took out a bedraggled coloring book and some well-used crayons. Bradley moved over to stroke the ratty-looking member of the cat family that had been banished to the darkest corner. “This is my favorite. I call him Bucky.”

Trevor grimaced in embarrassment. “Poor Bucky came in for some restoration work, but his owner died.”

“Pooh DuBose?”

He nodded. “She was a fine shot. Got that lynx out west somewhere years and years ago. He’s past repair, and I’d throw him out, but Bradley loves that beast.” He tousled the child’s hair. “Okay, Bradley, I’m going to show the judge what T-daddy does, and then we’ll go get us some lunch.”

I steeled myself for the sight and stench of blood, but what I noticed first was the scent of salt. Next, I noticed the cleanliness of the room. The concrete floor was as clean as any kitchen, and I did not see blood anywhere except on a large white table at the back of the room, where Robin, wearing rubber gloves, was skinning something on a sheet of plastic. To one side of her work space were the double doors I had seen from outside while I was at Missy’s.

Trevor gestured toward what looked like a pile of stiff rugs in the middle of the floor. “Those are hides that have already been salted and dried to kill all the bacteria, and then rehydrated in a saltwater bath and air-dried in front of that fan to make them pliable. We use a wet tanning process, because we want the skin to draw up tight and show every muscle detail.”

From the size of the pile, it looked like he wasn’t going to run out of work anytime soon.

From the back, his two helpers looked exactly alike, for they were about the same size and both wore long-sleeved shirts with the tail hanging down over jeans. The main difference was that Robin wore her brown ponytail higher than Wylie wore his.

Wylie sat at a high bench on one side of the workroom, plying a strange S-curved needle threaded with what looked like dental floss. He chewed on his tongue as he sewed something that looked like a piece of suede with a short hairy mane, like a zebra’s. His eyes smoldered as they looked up and met mine briefly. I wondered what I’d done to anger him, but then I remembered he was probably still grieving for Starr, too, in his own volatile way.

“He’s stitching up an elk someone got in Idaho back in September,” Trevor explained when Wylie didn’t speak.

That must be the animal Missy and I had seen them unloading. I didn’t see any reason to mention that fact.

“The needle has three sharp edges and the nylon thread is waxed, so they go through the hide more easily.” Trevor leaned over and murmured something too soft for me to hear. Wylie swore and started taking out some stitches. I saw then that the elk hide was wrong side out. What I had taken for a mane was simply the hair on the other side.

“Do you cut the animal up the stomach?” I asked, ambling closer.

“Along the back.” Wylie spoke curtly, annoyed at having to correct whatever Trevor had mentioned.

“Robin is skinning a bobcat.” Trevor led me toward the back of the room, where she was meticulously pulling skin off a carcass, using a knife to cut the tissue that connected them. It was a homely, rather than gruesome, process, not unlike a cook skinning a chicken breast. As I watched, she carefully pulled one paw free. “The tail’s the hardest part,” she informed me.

I saw Wylie give her a burning, angry look. Could he possibly be jealous of Robin’s skill? The telephone rang, and he answered it above his table. “It’s for you, Trevor. The sheriff.”

If Buster was just getting around to telling him about the bat, I hated for Trevor to have to hear it.

Trevor excused himself and went to the front room.

I moved closer to Wylie and spoke softly. “I’m real sorry about Starr. Evelyn told me you all had been dating.”

He gave a short, rude laugh. “Not lately.”

I would have stopped right there, except there was something that had been bothering me. “What did you mean at Trevor’s that night, about offering to lend her your truck? When was that?”

“The Monday before they found her. She called here that morning saying she wanted to go up to Augusta, but she wasn’t sure the pile of junk she was driving would make it. I told her to come on by and borrow my truck. Trevor would have run me home.” He inched up one shoulder in a slight shrug. “Guess it’s a good thing for me she took the wrong one, huh? But not so good for Miss Robin over there. Not so good at all.” He snickered as he bent over his work. Our chat was over.

I moved down toward Robin, who had been working steadily and ignoring the rest of us. “Looks like you’re working on a freezer in somebody’s kitchen.” I nodded at the white chest she was using for a table. “We used to have a freezer that looked a lot like that down at our big house, except yours is about three times its size.”

“It is a freezer.” She started cutting the tissue around one eye socket. “We freeze the animals until we’re ready to put them in the salt water.”

I gestured toward the pile of dry hides Trevor had already shown me. “Are they ready now to…” I stopped. I didn’t know what the next word was.

Robin gave them a cursory glance, then resumed her work. “Next they go into an acid bath. After that, they’re neutralized with baking soda, and when that’s done, we use the fleshing machine over there”—she jerked her head in the direction of a big piece of equipment like a meat slicer—“to remove any membranes, fat, and muscle that remain, and to thin down the skin a bit—but not too thin. Finally, we put each hide in a tanning bath for twenty-four hours. When it’s done, we put it back in the freezer again until we’re ready to work it.”

Robin was a natural teacher, and she knew her business. I remembered Trevor saying she had been experienced before he hired her. “Where did you learn all that?”

She shrugged. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

Considering that she wasn’t twenty-five yet, how long could it have been?

Wylie shot her another angry look.

Robin didn’t seem to notice. She picked up the bobcat again. It hung limp and glistening from her hand.

“What do you do with the carcass?”

She nodded toward a box of garbage bags. “Put it in the Dumpster to go to the landfill.”

It wasn’t illegal, but I wondered if it ought to be. On the other hand, carcasses would decay. Not like plastic bags, which would be around for my great-great-great-grandchildren.

“Now you know everything we know,” Trevor joked, coming back into the workroom. “You ready to come work for me, Judge?” In spite of his jovial words, his face was ashen. I wondered how soon this nightmare of getting information in dribbles would end.

I tried to echo his words rather than his face. “Must be nice to work in jeans all day.” I moseyed over to peer up at some large white shapes hanging from the ceiling. Most were labeled with a number. A couple had names on them. “What are those?”

“Forms. Each animal is unique, just like people. Take deer, for instance. Some have long snouts and some short, some have big heads, some small. We measure each one and order a form most like it in size and shape, but even then we have to work on the form to get the shape right—muscle it up a little, or take a bit off the snout—before we can mount the skin.”

Wylie gave a bitter laugh. “They bring in Bambi and want it to look like Conan.”

I was startled. “So you don’t actually stuff them? My granddaddy had a deer head on his wall that used to ooze something I presume was sawdust.”

Trevor shook his head. “Nowadays we use foam, and glue the hide to the form.”

I would have liked to ask about the pruning shears hanging on a Peg-Board at the back of the room along with a hair dryer and some wire cutters, but we heard a horn toot outside. When the doorbell jangled, Robin looked toward the front with a frown. “Is it already noon? I thought I’d be done with this before they got here.”

“Mama? Mama!” That was the piercing voice of her older daughter. “We made dough and I made a long worm. Look!”

She and her sister toed the sill of the doorway, obeying with obvious reluctance Trevor’s dictum that children were not allowed in the workroom. The big one held up a long piece of green dough that, with a good bit of imagination, might resemble an overfed snake.

The little one edged a tentative toe over the sill, but at a frown from Trevor she drew it back. “I made a turtle.” She held out a green blob with five blobs attached at random.

When I bent down to admire it, she said softly, “Can I go home with you?”

Robin didn’t look up from where she was gently cutting the skin from around the bobcat’s second eye. “We’re going home in a little while, as soon as I finish this,” she said. “Go color with Bradley until I’m done.” They obeyed, obviously unhappy. As Robin bent back to her work, she asked Trevor over her shoulder, “You want me to take Bradley for a few hours? They can watch TV.”

Maybe Evelyn was right. Was Robin taking care of Bradley, hoping to eventually take care of his grandfather?

“That would be helpful. I could use the afternoon to work.” He gestured with his head toward a bench where a drab fish lay. “I promised Farrell I’d have that bass ready early next week, and I haven’t started painting it yet.” He added, to me, “I guess I’m getting old. Things seem to take longer than they used to.”

“You paint it?” I peered down at the dried brown fish.

“Have to, to make it look natural.” He waved toward a piece of cardboard attached to the wall where somebody had been practicing color combinations. “For hogs and bears, the paint hides the white where the form shows through, but we airbrush all the animals, to even out the color and make them more vibrant.”

To keep them from looking dead
was what he meant, but nobody in that room had mentioned death in my hearing. Apparently taxidermists treated death with as much respect—and avoidance—as undertakers did.

Bradley appeared in the door, the girls in tow. “Can we go play in the sandbox?”

“Yay!” The larger girl clapped her hands, flattening her snake. “Can we, Mama?”

“I’m only going to be a minute,” Robin objected. “No point in dragging off the cover.”

“Let them go.” Trevor waved one hand. “I’ll put the cover back on when you’ve gone.”

Before Robin nodded, her older child was halfway to the front door, dropping her snake on the floor without a thought. The little one put her hand out to me. “Come see the sandbox.” She’d left her turtle somewhere, but her palm was still sticky from the dough.

Robin looked up and frowned at the child. “Don’t bother the judge, Anna Emily. I won’t be more than a few minutes.”

“It’s okay.” I didn’t want to disappoint the tug of that little hand. “I’m a big fan of sandboxes. I’ll inspect this one until you’re ready to go. Thanks for the tour of the business.”

The two older children were already hauling a plywood cover off a big wooden sandbox made from railroad crossties. It looked old. I wondered if it used to be Starr’s. If so, Bradley and Robin’s older girl had inherited it with gusto.

As we walked across the leaf-strewn yard toward it, Anna Emily said with a shy smile, “I like you. Can I go home with you?”

“You have to go to your house,” I reminded her. “Your mother is cooking lunch.”

“Mama doesn’t cook,” she said in a mournful voice. “Just with Uncle Billy. After we go to bed.”

I had learned years before to take anything children say about their parents with a grain of salt. At eight, our son Walker told his Sunday school teacher with an earnest face that his mama whaled the life out of him if he didn’t do his homework. I had not paddled that child since he was five.

Anna Emily’s older sister, however, was not so tolerant. “Anna Emily!” She propped both fists on her skinny hips. “I’m gonna tell. You aren’t supposed to say that. You know good and well Mama cooks. She fixes applesauce and peanut butter.” I could hear Robin’s exasperated voice in the child’s.

Having never been fond of cooking, I could appreciate that Robin probably made simple meals after a day at work, but neither of her girls looked like they were being raised on peanut butter and applesauce. Anna Emily had bright pink cheeks beneath her freckles.

“I’ll bet she makes your breakfast, and dinner, too. But don’t tattle,” I told the older sister. “Anna Emily was making conversation. Now, show me what you can do with this sandbox.” I bent and dribbled sand between my fingers. “I don’t think I ever learned your name.”

“I’m Natalie, and that’s Anna Emily, and that’s Bradley. I’ll make you some dinner.” Mollified by the attention, she proceeded to “cook” me a four-course meal of sand, which she identified as fried chicken, ice cream, noodle soup, and doughnuts. Bradley ran a small bulldozer up and down a miniature mountain. Anna Emily sat on her corner seat and worked one toe in the sand, never taking anxious eyes off me. I had the feeling she thought I might sneak off if she looked away.

Robin came out, pulling a big purse onto her shoulder. “You all ready to go? I thought we’d stop by Hardee’s.”

“Hardee’s! Hardee’s!” The older one jumped up and down. Bradley caught her excitement and joined in jumping.

Anna Emily reached for my hand, and tears filled her eyes. “I want to go home with her.”

“Anna Emily!” Her mother rebuked her.

I knelt beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “I have to go back to work right now, honey. I took time out to bring Bradley back from playing at Cricket’s.”

“Is Cricket your boy?” demanded Natalie.

“I’m his grandmother.”

She heaved a sigh bigger than she was. “We don’t have grandmothers. They all died.” The way she said it, you’d have thought she’d once had a dozen.

I was picturing a field littered with dead grandmothers when Anna Emily said, “I want to go play at Cricket’s.” When I started to shake my head, her lower lip quivered and tears started down her cheeks.

Robin grabbed her hand and gave me a rueful smile. “I’m sorry. We haven’t been here long enough for them to make many friends.”

“I’m honored to be chosen as one of them.” I climbed to my feet, mindful of my creaking knees.

I walked with Robin and the children toward a Honda Civic parked in the shade. The car didn’t look new, but it wasn’t real old, either.

“I see you got transportation,” I said, congratulating her.

Busy buckling Anna Emily into her car seat, Robin said over her shoulder, “Thanks to Trevor. He paid off the truck and gave me the down payment on this. He said since Starr was the one who wrecked mine, he owed it to me. I didn’t think that at all, but I was real grateful.”

I figured Trevor was not simply being nice. He knew Robin couldn’t get to work if she didn’t have wheels. Taking care of employees, even when it seems expensive at the time, is good business practice in the end.

Before he climbed in, Bradley turned and called, “Good-bye, Me-Mama.”

Not to be outdone, the girls turned and waved. “Good-bye, Me-Mama!”

As I watched Robin carefully pull onto the highway, it occurred to me that all three Parkers could use friends in Hopemore. I’d ask Martha if I could invite them down for hamburgers with our family one Saturday night.

Joe Riddley claims I love to run other people’s lives, and that one of his primary jobs as a husband is to keep me running other people’s lives so I don’t have time to run his, but there are times when we have to step in and help other folks. That’s all I had in mind.

First, I needed to check on my husband.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called him.

“Where the dickens are you?” he demanded. “I’m at Myrtle’s starving, and the game starts in an hour.”

Each fall, Joe Riddley brought a television to our office on Saturdays so he could watch Georgia play ball while he pretended to work.

“I’m over at Trevor’s. I brought Bradley home, but I ought to be back in town in fifteen minutes. Why don’t you go on and order me the meat loaf dinner?”

“With green beans and mashed potatoes?”

Oh, that man knows me well. For an instant I was tempted to order okra with macaroni and cheese, just to put him off his stride, but I’ve been eating meat loaf with green beans and mashed potatoes all my life. No need to get radical at the moment.

As I headed back to say good-bye to Trevor, Wylie was pulling out of the yard in a black Ford Ranger. He didn’t see me as he peeled out of the drive.

Back in the workroom, Trevor was delicately moving an airbrush over the fish. Looked like he’d decided to skip lunch since he didn’t have to feed Bradley.

“I don’t mean to bother you—just want to say good-bye and thanks for the tour,” I said.

He left his work to walk me to my car.

“It’s hard to work with little people to look after,” I said sympathically.

“Yeah, but it’s easier now that we have all three kids in the same day-care home down the road. Bradley went there from the time he was a baby—until Starr pulled him out last spring, when she moved. But he loves Marianne, so I’ve put him back with her, since—” He broke off, and a frown creased his forehead. “I sure hope his being there is going to help Anna Emily settle down. She’s already been kicked out of two day-care centers. I suggested to Robin that she try Marianne’s when Bradley started back, but Marianne says she’s nearly at her wits’ end.”

I was surprised. “I’d have thought it would be Natalie who would give trouble. Anna Emily seems so quiet.”

“Yeah, but she keeps getting out the door and wandering off, or asking delivery people if she can go home with them. It’s a real problem. Still, the girls like Bradley and he likes them, so I hope his being there will make a difference.”

Trevor swiped one hand over the lower part of his face. “Starr would have a fit about my putting Bradley in with the girls. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but she had a conniption when I hired Robin, and she didn’t want Bradley to have a thing to do with those girls.” His mouth curved in the ghost of a grin. “I think she was jealous, dumb as that sounds. Starr was used to being the only female on the premises, and used to running my life. To tell the truth, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of hiring a woman, either, but Robin was too good to pass up.”