When Will the Dead Lady Sing? (21 page)

“They were there. Do you know who she was going to meet?”

He shook his head. “No, ma’am, but she wrote them a letter.”

“How do you know?”

Suddenly he was busy examining the back of one hand.

“I need to know, Tad.”

He sighed. “When she got back yesterday morning, she asked if I had any paper. I told her I didn’t, but she kept saying, ‘A piece of paper. One little piece of paper.’ She kept looking all over the barn, too, like she thought Mr. Spence might have kept paper there. Finally, I told her I’d get her some. Seemed like I ought to do something for her, since she’d done stuff for me. She told me to get an envelope while I was at it, so we went down to Uncle Ridd’s—”

“Nobody saw you?” I knew the answer, of course, before he replied.

“Aunt Martha’s car was gone, so I guess she was working. Everybody else was at school. We didn’t take anything except a pen and some paper and an envelope from the desk in the den. And”—he turned pink and looked down at his hands—“and we made us some lunch. She washed everything real good, so nobody would know.”

“Ridd and Martha would never begrudge you something to eat,” I assured him. “But I wish you’d left a note saying you were okay. We’d have all slept easier.”

He scuffed his feet on the rug. “I was in a hurry, in case Aunt Martha had just gone to the store, or something.”

“When you got back to the barn, she wrote a letter?”

“Yes, ma’am. Then she said she had to go somewhere and went up the road.”

“Do you know whether she mailed it or delivered it?”

“She didn’t have a stamp.” His tone implied that I ought to have known that, since he’d already told me. Then his voice changed and became thoughtful. “But when she got back with supper and I asked if she’d delivered it, she laughed and said she’d given it to the mailman with the purple truck. I don’t know but one purple truck, Me-mama, do you? And it doesn’t belong to a mailman. It belongs to that stinking old nut who thinks somebody buried treasure on his farm.”

“Hector Blaine’s not that old,” I corrected him. He was a good bit younger than me. “But you’re right that he stinks, and he does think the Confederate treasury is buried on his property. That isn’t utterly far-fetched. A lot of folks think it’s buried around here somewhere. It got this far at the end of the War, and there’s no indication it ever left. Hector’s convinced it’s buried on his land. However,” I remembered to add, “I doubt your mama wants you calling any grown-up a stinking nut.”

Tad slewed his eyes my way. “That’s what Daddy calls him.”

“That’s not my fault. I did all I could to raise your daddy right. When you’re with me, I’d rather you called Mr. Blaine a confused man.”

“Yes, ma’am. Is he nuts—I mean, confused enough to kill somebody?”

I thought that over. “He’s devious and mean,” I said, feeling my way as I went, “and he’s done time for various things. But if Bertie called him a postman, it sounds like she didn’t write him the note. I wonder why she gave it to him to deliver?”

“She musta known him. He dropped her off after dark on Sunday.”

It wasn’t surprising that Bertie would meet up with Hector. He was one step up from homeless himself, an unsa vory old codger who never worked for a meal he could get for free. I filed that information for future reference and asked, “What happened after supper last night?”

“She said she had to go out again and it might be late before she got back, but I didn’t need to worry.” His eyes went blank. Was he thinking now that indeed, he had needed to worry? He must have worried as he waited in that dark barn alone all night.

“And you have no idea who she wrote?”

“No, ma’am. She went out under a tree to do it. But she put a picture in it,” he remembered. “She came back and got it out of her knapsack. When she finished, she licked the envelope and put it in her pocket.” Sadness slumped his thin shoulders. “Whoever she wrote is probably who killed her.” He was resigned now. His sadness trailed out in two sentences I wished we could put on her tombstone: “She never hurt a single soul. She just liked being free.”

“Did she tell you why she dressed like a man?”

“Yes, ma’am. She said it was so people would leave her alone. You know how people are, always saying you have to take care of girls—even if girls sometimes beat up their little brothers or play like they’re gonna drown their cousins.” He spoke darkly, from personal experience. Then he heaved a sigh from the toes of his heavy shoes. “I guess she didn’t want people taking care of her. Nobody should have killed her, either. She wasn’t hurting anybody.”

Seeking to distract him again, I said, “After she left, when you were by yourself at the barn, it must have been pretty lonely.”

“That night it was,” he admitted, “but today I was mostly hungry. And I wasn’t by myself very much. Mr. White showed a lady the house, then you and Aunt Martha came.” White’s Realty was handling Hubert’s property and the White family lived down the street from Walker and Cindy. “I nearly got caught, but I didn’t.” I was glad to see color returning to his face. “I had taken Starfire up to the pasture to eat, like I always did in the morning”—to hear him talk you’d think he’d lived in that barn for months—“and I was coming back to clean out his stall when they turned in. I shinnied up a tree so they wouldn’t see me, and it sure was good I wasn’t in the barn, because she wanted to see it. She said she wants to get a horse.” He looked anxious again. “Mr. Spence said Uncle Ridd can keep Starfire in his barn until they get theirs rebuilt, but you reckon he’ll be all right without me? ”

“He’ll adjust,” I promised, without a clue about whether horses adjusted or not. “Do you think the woman and Mr. White noticed you all had been there?”

“I don’t know. I’d buried our garbage from last night, but I hadn’t swept the manure out of Starfire’s stall.” Sounded like Tad had been learning new habits while he was away.

Lulu raised her head from down near my feet and uttered a sharp bark, then jumped from the couch and ran to welcome Joe Riddley. “Go help Pop carry the groceries in,” I told Tad. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t have some lime sherbet in his bag. But don’t you tell him what we’ve been discussing, now.”

“I won’t.” Tad jumped up to obey, looking a lot more his old self. He came back in a minute, carrying a bowl of green sherbet and a box. “This is for you. Pop’s getting ours now. But look what he bought me.” He held out a paint-by-number kit, showing a brown horse. “If I change the colors to black and gray, it will look just like Starfire.” As soon as I took my sherbet, he started tearing off the plastic wrap. “Mama will just love this picture.”

He carried the box to the dining room table. “Be sure you put newspaper under that,” I reminded him. “It didn’t matter down at the other place—that old kitchen table has been beat up and painted on for over a hundred years. But now that we’ve only got this new one, I want to keep it nice as long as possible.”

Tad spread out paper and started painting. His tongue stuck out of one corner of his mouth as he concentrated. His granddaddy leaned over his shoulder and said, “Why, you are a real good artist, son.” He set a bowl of sherbet down on the table where Tad could reach it.

“I like to paint.” Tad set down his brush and moved the sherbet bowl to the newspaper. “But don’t mess up this table, Pop. Me-mama will kill us both.”

How frequently do we say that when we don’t mean it? But somebody killed the homeless woman named Bertie. Was it Hubert? Hector? Another vagrant who had staked out the water tank as his own private patch?

First thing the next morning, as much as the prospect pained me, I needed to talk to Hector Blaine.

16

Hector Blaine was the last of a notorious family. His granddaddy made enough running a still during Prohibition to buy a little farm, but his daddy, deprived of the still by the federal government, refused to stoop to farming, so his family lived mostly on what his wife made teaching. After she died, nobody knew how they survived. Hector’s brother Hiram, a disciple of Amos Pickens, earned a stint in state prison for trying to add vinegar to the town water supply to repel aliens from Venus. Hector had done several stretches for assault and robbery. I didn’t want him coming to our house. He hadn’t bathed in recent memory, and took far too literally that what was mine was his. Anything he couldn’t wheedle out of you, he felt free to come back when you weren’t home to “borrow.”

But even if Hector wasn’t one of my favorite people, I felt sure I could get information from him one way or the other. So I asked Tad at breakfast Wednesday, “How about if you come to the office with me until its time to go to school?” I might need him to prime Hector’s memory.

He turned to his granddaddy. “You got games on your computer, Pop?”

“I don’t know, but I reckon you’ll know how to figure that out,” Joe Riddley told him.

“You and who else?” Bo demanded from his place mat.

I gave Tad what I hoped was a significant look. He handed Bo a piece of apple on one finger. “Bo wants some apple,” he said softly. “Bo wants some apple. Bo wants some apple.”

Bo flapped his wings and squawked. “Back off. Give me space!” Tad laughed and Joe Riddley and I exchanged a happy smile. We hadn’t heard that sound for a while.

As soon as Joe Riddley dropped us at the office, Tad slung himself into his granddaddy’s chair and started pounding the computer keyboard. I was afraid he was deleting our entire inventory, but in a few minutes he had a game up and running. “I don’t have this one,” he said with satisfaction.

I called Phyllis to make sure I could get my hair fixed at ten, then sat at my desk wondering how to find Hector when I couldn’t drive down to his place. Tad finished his game and turned. “I won. Why aren’t you working?”

“I’m trying to figure out how to get Hector Blaine over here.”

“Call and tell him to come. I mean, you’re a judge and everything.”

I didn’t want to lower Tad’s opinion of judges. “He doesn’t have a phone.”

“He must be plumb poor, then.” Was that sympathy I heard in his voice? Two nights in a barn with a homeless woman might have been good for the child, but I didn’t want him wasting newfound compassion on Hector.

“Plumb no-count,” I answered bluntly. “He had a phone, but the company turned it off when they found out Hector had wired three other houses into his line and was charging them so he’d have money to buy liquor. Hector’s smart, but dishonest as they come. He’s probably hanging out down at Hardee’s right now, trying to wheedle breakfast out of some gullible tourist.”

“Want me to go look?”

“You are my pride and joy. If he’s there, tell him the Judge wants to see him today.”

While Tad was gone, I decided to make my maiden voyage to the bathroom in the wheelchair. Thank goodness, Joe Riddley’s parents had made all the doors in the place wheelchair accessible years ago. They’d done it from compassion, not compulsion, but it turned out a blessing for themselves after J.R.’s accident.

“You think you’re doing this for somebody else,” he’d told us the first day he wheeled himself in in his chair. “You never imagine you’re doing it for yourself. But accidents happen to anybody.”

As I wheeled myself through our office door and back to the ladies’ room, I reflected that if builders remembered that, there wouldn’t be a narrow door in the world.

Coming back, I smelled Hector before I saw him. The air outside my office reeked of stale clothes, an unwashed body, cheap wine, and chewing tobacco.

He lounged in the wing chair, turning a filthy felt hat around and around in hands so grimy, I declined to shake. Tad perched unhappily on his grandfather’s desk chair. When he saw me, he turned so Hector couldn’t see him and screwed up his face in a
yuck
position.

“Tad, why don’t you swap chairs with Mr. Blaine?” I suggested. “Pop’s chair is bigger, and Mr. Blaine would be more comfortable in it.” He’d also be less likely to leave permanent stains and odors on leather than on my new slip-cover. And being nearer the air-conditioning vent, Tad could resume breathing.

I got myself into my own chair while they were making the change. Tad bent to help lift my cast onto its potting-soil cushion on top of the upturned bucket.

“What happened to you?” Hector wiped a dribble from the corner of his mouth, and I saw a suspect lump in one cheek.

“I sprained my ankle. You’d better not spit on my floor.”

“Wouldn’t think of it.” He pulled a can from his jacket pocket and spat in that. Then he jerked his head toward Tad. “That youngun said you wanted to see me.” He sounded surprised. Generally I tried to avoid him.

“I do. Would you like a co-cola?”

He narrowed his eyes and peered at me like he thought somebody had abducted the real Judge Yarbrough and left a nicer changeling in her place. “Reckon I do,” he finally allowed, “ ’Less’n you got somethin’ stronger.” He spat again.

“Coke’s all I’ve got. Tad?”

Tad stirred, but before he could start for the cup in Joe Riddley’s bottom drawer, I reached for my pocketbook and pulled out a dollar. “Go ask one of the clerks for change, and bring Mr. Blaine a Coke.” I didn’t want Hector knowing where we keep spare change. Between Joe Riddley going back and forth to the nursery and me popping down to the jail, our office is often empty.

I wanted to be fair to Tad, so I didn’t ask any important questions before he got back. Instead I asked, “How are repairs coming along on your house?”

A young lawyer in town, Jed DuBose, was underwriting the process of bringing the old Blaine place up to code in memory of Hector’s sister, Helena, who had raised him. The original plan was for Jed and Hector to work together evenings and weekends, but the last I saw Jed, he’d complained, “I’d like to see at least the roof finished in my lifetime, but it never will be at the rate Hector works.” I’d suggested that Jed spend what free time he had with his pregnant wife and use the money he made as a lawyer to pay other people to fix up the house. Joe Riddley and I have always believed one of the best things any of us can do with our money is hire other people who also need to earn.