When Will the Dead Lady Sing? (17 page)

I explained once more about taking Lulu for a walk, her wanting to run in the big lot, her barking, and my pushing through the bushes to see what she had found.

“Did you leave anything at the scene?”

“No. I took only a cell phone, a dog, and a leash, and I carried all of them out.”

“May I see your right shoe please?”

I indicated my cast. “I don’t have much use for it right now. I think it’s still in the back seat of Joe Riddley’s car, out in the parking lot. Why do you need it?”

“Where’s Joe Riddley?” He peered around the office like he thought I was hiding him in an oversized file drawer.

I sighed. This could be a very long interview if Chief Muggins started suspecting not only me, but Joe Riddley as well. “He’s gone to the nursery, but he takes one of our trucks down there because the trails stay muddy from irrigation and he doesn’t like to mess up his car. Why do you want my shoe?” I reckoned it was time to get back to the matter at hand.

“We found footprints from a woman and a man who had been walking around the place. I need to see if one of them’s yours.”

“It’s not. I saw them, too. But you can get my shoe if you like.”

“You got keys?” the deputy asked.

“The car’s not locked.”

His face made it clear what he thought of that, but almost everybody is casual about locking cars in Hopemore. Car theft is not one of our major industries.

The deputy headed out, but stuck his head back in almost at once. “Er—what kind of car?”

“Silver Town Car,” I told him. “In the spot by the back door marked ‘J. R. Yarbrough.’ ”

When the deputy brought back my shoe, it looked lost and a bit shabby dangling from his hand. I sat there feeling so sorry for the shoe, it took me a minute to realize Chief Muggins was speaking to me. He sounded more impatient than before. “Judge? I asked if this is your shoe.”

I had trouble connecting an answer to that question. Finally I said, “ ’Course it’s my shoe. What other woman would leave her shoe in my husband’s car?” It was when I started giggling that I realized the painkillers weren’t just making me forgiving, they were seriously impairing my ability to function. I felt so soft and cuddly, in another minute or two I’d be putting my head on Chief Muggins’s blue shoulder and snoring like one of Lulu’s pups.

That enlivened me enough to point to Joe Riddley’s bottom drawer. “Take a couple of quarters from the cup in there and bring me a Coke. Take more quarters and bring everybody one.” I laid my head on my desk and waited for somebody to obey.

A hand shook my shoulder. “Here’s your Coke.” It was the deputy, thank goodness. I’d hate for Charlie Muggins to lay a hand on me. Some kinds of slime are hard to wash off.

There’s nothing like a cold co-cola to wake you up for whatever you have to face next. But I miscalculated Chief Muggins’s ability to winkle information out of me. The only excuse I can give is that I was seriously T. U. I.—thinking under the influence.

“So what happened again after you got through the hedge?” he asked, signaling for the deputy to take notes.

“I saw the dead man—”

“Would you repeat that, please? Be sure you get this verbatim, Deputy.”

“I saw the dead man. He was lying on his stomach with one hand over his head and the other out to the side, and he had been hit hard on the back of the head. I could see that because his hat was lying off to one side. I also saw a long iron bar—a rusty bar—that looked to me like it could have been the weapon. I didn’t touch it.”

“Had you ever seen the victim before?”

I nodded, but it made me so woozy, I decided not to do that again. “Saturday afternoon. He was in our alley when Joe Riddley and I went—” I stopped. Chief Muggins hadn’t been at the party, and the way he sucked up to important people, if he’d had an invitation, he’d have gone. I was feeling muzzy enough not to want to hurt his feelings. “We were going to an affair.”

He snickered. “From Sunday’s paper, sounds like it wasn’t your first.”

I glared. “That was not funny.” I turned to the deputy. “Please write down his remark, verbatim, in case I sue for defa—defa—” Waving my hand didn’t clear my brain, and “defamation of character” was beyond my tongue at the moment. “Oh, you know.” I waited while he wrote something before I went on. “We were going to a party, and saw the man in our alley. Joe Riddley told him to go to Myrtle’s for some dinner.” That was so sad, I started to sniffle.

“So you actually spoke to the victim. Interesting.” Charlie Muggins has a polecat’s sharp nose and bright, suspicious eyes and a chimpanzee’s flat face and wiry limbs. Right then the polecat was in the ascendency. His eyes almost glittered. “Did the two of you meet or speak before or after that?” He leaned forward like he was about to pounce.

I started to shake my head again—which was not a good idea—then I remembered. “Yes, he came by Gusta’s during the party. I was on the porch and waved.”

“Anybody with you? Burlin Bullock, for instance?”

“I’d throw something at you, but I wasn’t raised in a barn. The people with me were Lance Bullock and Hubert Spence.”

“Hubert, eh? Did he talk to the man?”

I swear, it was the painkiller that made me say, “He yelled at him and chased him down the block. But when the buffalo ran into a car, the tramp disappeared.” Seeing that Chief Muggins looked confused, I hurried to add, “It was because the man was sleeping in Hubert’s barn, and Hubert couldn’t sell his house.”

Chief Muggins leaned closer. “And Hubert was pretty anxious to get the man out of his barn?”

“Sure. It’s hard to sell a house with a tenant in the barn.”

“And Hubert threatened the victim.”

“Sort of.”

“Did he or didn’t he?” In another minute, if he kept leaning forward, that chair was going to pitch him. I could hardly wait.

“Not exactly threatened. Just waved his arms and yelled. You know.” I demonstrated.

To my disappointment, Chief Muggins leaned back and clasped his hands on his round little stomach. “I don’t know what you know, Judge. That’s why we’re having this little chat.”

“I know you found a matchbook from Hubert’s store at the scene, but he’ll have an explanation for that.”

“He’d better.” Chief Muggins’s voice had an edge to it. “He’s not giving those matchbooks to anybody, not even his old poker buddies, until his anniversary celebration next month. Which means he was at the scene of the crime. What did he say to you privately last night? And before you answer, you need to know I have two reliable witnesses who will testify that Hubert came to your table and said something about that man. What was it?”

Chief Muggins had the gleam in his eye of a polecat about to make a terrific stink. The deputy sat with pen poised, waiting for my answer. As an officer of the court, I was bound to tell the truth. “He said for me not to worry about the bum in his barn—those were his words—”

“Why were you supposed to be worrying about the bum in his barn?” Chief Muggins interrupted.

“Because Hubert asked me Saturday to see if I could find the man and convince him to leave town. But I’d been too busy, with the fire and Tad disappearing.”

He snickered. “And being in the paper? So what did Hubert say Monday night?”

I sighed. “He said he was taking care of the situation.”

Chief Muggins slapped both hands on his thighs and stood. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Somebody else thought that’s what he said, but wasn’t quite sure. Thank you, Judge. I suspect I’ll be needing you down at the sheriff’s detention center sometime today for a probable-cause hearing. I hate to ask you to sit when the defendant is a close friend and former neighbor, but the other two magistrates are both out of town.”

“I’m not supposed to put any weight on this foot for at least a week,” I informed him. “You can slow down a bit and think things through before you rush into this.”

“I’ve done all the thinking I need to do. But I’ll leave you with something to think about until I see you again. That dead man you found and say you talked to? He was a woman.”

13

After Charlie left, I tried to concentrate on the numbers on my computer screen. Instead, I kept seeing a person face-down under the water tank. My mind’s eye roved over the long gray ponytail, the stocky body in the old gray suit. A woman? No wonder she had such small feet. What brought her to our town to die?

When the phone rang, I hoped it would be Charlie saying he’d found another suspect. Instead, it was Martha. “Have you heard from Tad?” I asked at once.

“Not a word. Ridd’s coming home at lunchtime and we’re going to call Walker and Cindy. But what’s that I hear about you spraining an ankle? That’s a pretty drastic way to get out of walking.”

“I was desperate. How on earth did you hear that all the way down there?”

“Ridd sent me to the nursery this morning for chrysanthemums, and I saw Pop. He told me about it and said you are ensconced in your office like a queen, eating bonbons.”

“Stuck here helpless as a baby is more like it, without a single bonbon in sight. I can’t even get to the bathroom, and that’s gonna be a problem in a little while.”

“Didn’t they give you crutches?”

“I can’t get the hang of them. Besides, my left leg isn’t used to carrying all my weight, and I’m not real good at hopping.”

“You’ll get used to them.” That was the nurse speaking, not my sweet daughter-in-law. “Don’t you put weight on that ankle, now.”

“I won’t, but I just thought of something. Back in the storeroom behind the utility room, there’s a wheelchair J.R. used until he got his prosthesis.” An accident crushed Joe Riddley’s father’s right leg below the knee a few years after we got married. He’d had a wheelchair especially fitted up to support his stump while he waited for it to heal, and one of the advantages of living in the same house generation after generation is that you tend to hang on to things because somebody is likely to need them again. Joe Riddley’s parents hadn’t bothered to clean out the attic or store room when they left the house, and neither had we.

“Will you find it for me?” I asked Martha. “Then, can you come take me somewhere?”

“You don’t need a wheelchair. You can get used to the crutches.”

“I could probably get used to Chinese water torture, but what’s the point? It’s just a week, and hopping is a skill I don’t plan to need again. Will you look for that chair and come get me?”

I have often said Martha was God’s best gift to this family. She proved it half an hour later when she showed up with a newly dusted wheelchair and asked, “Where to, madame?”

When she heard where I wanted to go, and why, her eyes widened. “Chief Muggins is gonna nail both our hides to his office wall.”

“Maybe so,” I admitted, “but I’m not going to touch anything, just look. Come on.”

We headed back to Hubert’s place. I pointed to a tractor track leading to the back of his barn. “There’s a little side door down there. Pull as close to it as you can get.”

As she came around the car to get me, I heard a scrambling inside.

“There’s somebody in there,” I whispered. “It’s not Charlie, because his car’s not here.”

Her face brightened with hope. “You think it’s Tad?”

“Could be. The little dickens, he could have been in this barn the whole time. Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Ridd searched the place Sunday night and Buster’s folks looked once, too. I guess he hid in the woods while they were here. Let me go in first.” Martha abandoned me and went to the door. As she opened it to poke her head in, I heard a whinny. “Hello, Starfire,” she said. “Tad? It’s Aunt Martha. Where are you?” She listened, then repeated, “Tad? I know you’re here.” She stepped inside.

I waited for what seemed an eternity before Martha came back through the door holding Tad, defiant and filthy, by one elbow. His hair was littered with straw.

“Hey, Me-mama.” His tone was sullen, and he was more interested in the tops of his shoes than in looking me in the eye.

“Hey, yourself,” I told him. “Looks like you could do with a bath and a good meal.”

He shuffled his feet. Before we could say anything else, we heard a car barreling down the road. Since it dead-ends into fields, it doesn’t get much traffic. “I’m afraid I know who that is,” Martha murmured.

Chief Muggins’s cruiser roared up the drive and turned to block her car. He pulled off his sunglasses as he climbed out. “Well, well, well. What have we here?” Thumbs in his belt, he swaggered over to look Tad up and down. “I heard you were missing, boy. You been sleeping in this barn?”

“Yessir.” Tad still hung his head. “A couple of nights.”

“You have company?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “My mama’s horse. He’s still in there.”

“That all?”

He jerked his head toward the door. “You can look.” He still didn’t look him in the eye.

Chief Muggins gave him a sharp look. “Well, it’s a clear case of trespassing. We’ll need to run you in and call Mr. Spence.”

“Wait!” Martha and I said in unison.

“This isn’t your jurisdiction,” I added quickly.

Charlie had already turned to the deputy who came with him. “Cuff him, Jack, and call a sheriff’s deputy to come pick him up. No need to bother Sheriff Gibbons.”

He knew as well as the rest of us that Buster would never arrest Joe Riddley’s grandson for sleeping in a neighbor’s barn.

The deputy left off the cuffs and shoved Tad gently toward the car. Tad threw me a terrified look over his shoulder. “Don’t say a word until we get a lawyer there,” I called to him. “Not one word except your name.”

He nodded as the car door closed behind him.

Charlie turned to me. “Now, what was it you wanted down here, Judge?”

“My grandson. He ran away after the fire, and we learned he was here.” That was true—I merely neglected to mention that we’d learned it after we arrived. “My daughter-in-law’s horse is still inside. May we take it on down to Ridd’s?”