Smoke (13 page)

Ralph and Immy exchanged looks.

“Mother,” said Immy. “Ralph and I are going for walk. Little pitchers.”

“Why do you always says ‘little pitchers’ when you go for a walk, Mommy?”

* * *

“She was moved?” asked Immy as they were nearing the intersection. She was limping a bit from her fall.

“Seems like it,” said Ralph. He’d brought his beer can and he took a sip now and then as they strolled the dark road. The sound of small firecrackers popped from a few blocks away. Ralph turned in the other direction. “I don’t want to see who’s lighting Black Cats inside Saltlick. I’d have to at least say something to ’em.”

Ralph could be so sweet sometimes.

“I guess that means she didn’t off herself. Or she did and then someone moved her? Did she die at the motel?”

“Probably not. And not recently, either.”

Immy thought for a moment that some of the maggots from Poppy’s eyes were crawling up her spine. She tasted the bitterness of bile, but didn’t throw up again. “Can I have a swig of that?”

Ralph handed her his can. “I thought you didn’t like beer.”

“Just a swallow. Thanks.” She handed the can back. “I guess the forensics people from Wymee Falls can tell where she died?”

“How would they do that?”

“Can’t they find fibers and hairs and DNA on her?”

“I’m sure they can. But what would they match them to?”

“Did Vern kill her?”

“Why would you think that?” Even in the dark, Immy could see his puzzled look. “Oh, because of the drugs?”

“Drugs?”

“Vet drugs were found in her body, the stuff you give horses to calm them down.”

“Just like Rusty.” And drugs had been reported stolen from the vet. “So she was killed by drugs?”

“No, the doc said he didn’t want to make a report yet, but he thinks, yeah, it’s like Rusty. She was drugged to begin with. She took a blow to her cheek.”

“That’s that white spot. Dr. Fox is missing some drugs, so do you think they came from there?”

“They probably did, but we don’t know that yet. We questioned Dr. Fox today, and—”

“You questioned the vet?” Immy raised her gaze to the stars, thinking. “So you don’t believe the drugs were really stolen?”

“We don’t believe or disbelieve anything, Immy. You know that. We have to nail down facts and give them to the DA. There might be some sort of problem with accounting for drugs at the vet’s clinic. Dr. Fox, Betsy Wiggins, and Vern Linder all had easy access to those drugs. We’re going to question all three of them. At least.”

“But Vern has to be the most likely.”

“Why? Because Dr. Fox fired him?”

“No, because he and Poppy signed in together. Don’t tell me you don’t think Lernon Vinder isn’t Vernon Linder.”

“Lernon Who? What are you talking about?”

“It’s on the computer. Wanda looked it up for me when I went there to find Poppy. She said Poppy was the only woman who checked in lately and she checked in with that Vinder character.”

“I wonder why she didn’t say anything to us. She wouldn’t say when Poppy got there or who with. To tell you the truth, I think she was shocky. She might remember more tomorrow.” Ralph studied the top of the massive live oak in the Yarborough twin’s yard. A light night breeze rustled the small, tough leaves. “So Wanda saw Poppy check in?”

“Didn’t exactly see her. Poppy was in the car. They checked in a couple days ago, Wanda said.”

Ralph almost lost a mouthful of beer. “That body’s been dead a lot more than a couple days. Chief noticed some bruises on her neck. Said he thinks she was strangled by hand, maybe a week ago, then hung up there more recent.”

“Vernon checked in with her two days ago, though.”

“If it was Vernon. Someone else might be trying to implicate him. Whoever it was, Lernon Vinder or Bucky Rustet, must have checked in with another woman. Or a dead one.”

* * *

Hortense led the way down the aisle of Holiness Baptist Church at precisely two-thirty Tuesday afternoon. Immy, Drew, and Zack followed, like ducks in a row. They were early enough to get a seat within three rows of the front, but not so early they were the only ones there. Mother, Immy thought, knew just how to time a funeral entrance.

The Widow Untermeyer coaxed a series of wheezy hymns out of the elderly organ as the citizens of Saltlick, Cowtail, and neighboring ranches gathered to give Rusty Bucket a sendoff.

Before they’d left home, Hortense had explained to Zack that his paternal parent was deceased (Immy told him his dad was dead) and that they would be in attendance for his memorial service, taking place at the habitual house of worship (Immy said they would go to the funeral at the church). Zack had nodded solemnly. Immy wondered if he’d already suspected his daddy was dead. She had wanted his mother to be the person to tell him, but they still hadn’t been able to contact Tinnie.

Tinnie must have claimed Rusty’s body after all, though, since she was sitting on the front row, flanked by her mother and father, Sally and Sonny Squire. They had been divorced long enough that they could sit a few feet from each other. Zack and Drew were busy scribbling pictures of pigs on the offering envelopes, so Zack hadn’t spotted his mother yet. He was too short to see her without sitting on his legs in the pew. When he tucked them under him and lifted his head from his task, though, he caught sight of her.

“Mommy!” the boy screeched, and shot out of the pew, up the aisle, and onto her lap.

Drew stared after him, looking sad, as well as startled.

Immy leaned over to her daughter. “Zack’s been missing his mommy, sugar. He needs to sit with her for awhile.”

Drew nodded. “And his daddy is dead,” she said. She returned to her scribbles.

Tinnie’s head shook emphatically with her whispers to Zack. She wrapped her arms around him, but he squirmed out of them and ran up the chancel steps to the side of the coffin, which was balanced on sawhorses draped with white cloth.

“Zack!” Tinnie shouted and started after him, but she was too late.

“I wanna see Daddy.” Zack grabbed the edge of the casket to pull himself up. Tinnie was in time to snatch Zack away so the casket didn’t land on him as it seemed to dismount from its perch in slow motion. It wobbled, wobbled again, then rolled.

Zack and Tinnie tumbled down the carpeted steps. The casket landed on its side at the top of the stairs. The exposed top half of Rusty’s body flopped forward in a grotesque bow to his family.

At least the cold, dead body hadn’t touched the boy. That, Immy thought, was a blessing.

Until Zack again evaded his mother’s grasp, scrambled up the steps, and started pulling Rusty out.

Most of the congregants were on their feet by now. The hush that had accompanied the scene of horror erupted into babbling and movement. Zack’s shrieks of “Daddy! Daddy!” rose above the tumult.

Sonny, being in the front row, got there first. He squatted next to his grandson and spoke to him quietly. He was able to calm Zack and convince him to lightly touch his father’s face. Zack’s hand drew back as if stung from the feel of the cold, embalmed flesh and a sober little boy returned to the pew and sat with his family.

Several burly ushers stuffed Rusty into his resting place and hoisted the whole thing onto the sawhorses. In the process, the cloth was dislodged and one paint-spattered sawhorse leg showed for the rest of the service. Immy couldn’t keep from staring at it.

Somewhat after three, the scheduled time for the funeral, the Reverend Klinger entered the sanctuary, robed and miked. He was, apparently, oblivious to the recent drama.

“Dearly beloved, brothers and sisters in Christ,” intoned Rev. Klinger, “we are gathered together today to witness to the life of Beryl Isaiah Bucket, known to us all as Rusty.”

Beryl
Isaiah
? You sure found out things at funerals, Immy thought. The Yarborough twins, Rusty’s third cousins twice removed, sat in the second row, nodding at the preacher’s words. They were cleaner than usual, but Immy wondered what occasion would be solemn enough for them to forego their Carhartt coveralls. Rusty didn’t have any other relatives that Immy knew of. No brothers or sisters in these parts. His daddy had been a bad one and was generally thought to be in prison, and his mama was long gone to her maker.

The minister made it sound like Rusty had died a peaceful death at home in his bed. He reviewed the decedent’s life just like he always did at a funeral, saying what a good provider, good husband, good father he’d been.

Immy wondered if Rev. Klinger knew anything about Rusty. The biddies behind her, led by Mrs. Wilson, the lead gossip of Saltlick, murmured their rebuttals.

“If he was such a good provider, why was old Sonny Squire about to take the shop away from him?”

“That’s not what I heard. I heard the bank would get it.”

“You know Tinnie left him.”

“That was because of all those women.”

“I’ll bet she was heartbroken, the poor thing.”

“She left him, and she left the little boy, too. Does that sound heartbroken?”

Hortense finally turned and skewered them with the librarian glare that made the bravest people shut up.

After everyone rose and recited the Twenty-Third Psalm, the casket was lifted onto a gurney and wheeled out, followed by Tinnie and Zack, then Sally and Sonny Squire, walking stiffly beside each other.

“I wonder who’s helping with the sandwiches,” Hortense said.

Mrs. Wilson said she and the Ladies’ Circle were making them.

It was such a lovely day, Immy wanted to go to the graveside service, but Hortense decided to wait at the church for the mourners to return to eat. She would be nice and close to the food.

“Do you want to go to the cemetery, Drew?” Immy asked.

“Is Zack going?” That decided it. Immy left Hortense to help in the kitchen and she took Drew and lined her van up behind the short row of pickups following the hearse out of the church parking lot.

The Saltlick Cemetery was at the edge of town, next to the Emersen Memorial Park, named for Chief Emersen’s great-grandfather. Carolina jasmine on the fence washed the gathering in sweetness. The wind blew from the north, which was lucky. If it shifted and came from the south, the stench from the dump, on the other side of the cemetery, would have overpowered the flowery smell. As it was, a hint of rotted garbage underlay the delicate scent.

Ralph Sandoval, in uniform, had been in the back of the church for the funeral, but wasn’t at the graveyard. Immy wondered if he had been there to spot the villain. Would the villain be more likely to give himself away at the cemetery than in the church? Immy had better sharply observe everyone here.

She tried to stand close to Tinnie, but Betsy Wiggins elbowed her way to the front. From what Immy could tell, she just wanted to be there to smirk at Tinnie. And to put on a boo-hoo display when the short service ended. Betsy seemed oblivious to the oh-please looks she was getting.

Was it strange for the widow of the deceased to put on a stone face and for the mistress to display so much grief that it looked fake? Sonny Squire was too liquored up to express much emotion at all and his ex-wife tried to stay at least two or three people away from him. The Yarborough twins hadn’t made it to the cemetery.

Tinnie and her family left quickly after the short service. Immy wondered if they left so soon to get away from Betsy. The others started to follow. Drew stood rooted beside Betsy, fascinated by her continuing display. Zack watched his mother leave with a solemn expression on his young face.

By the time Immy, lost in musings on relationships, realized they were the only three there, besides the funeral workers who were waiting for them to leave so they could lower the casket, Betsy was beginning to wind down.

“Oh, Immy,” she said, hugging Immy as if they were friends. “I’m going to miss Rusty SO much.” Betsy released Immy and caught her hands. Immy felt that one of Betsy’s hands held a damp tissue. “WHY did he have to DIE? Why? Why?”

Immy wanted to slap her and say, “That’s enough, Betsy. Your audience is all gone.” Instead she pulled her hands out of Betsy’s and dug in her purse for her Purell.

“C’mon, Drew, let’s get back to the church.”

“Aren’t you working for a PI, Immy?”

She turned to Betsy. “Yes. Mike Mallett.”

“He any good?”

“I… I think so. Why?”

“Could he find Rusty’s killer? Could I hire him?”

“He doesn’t really do that kind of thing. He’s more of a PI for people getting divorced and hired and stuff like that. The police will find out who killed him.”

“What makes you think that? They think I killed him, for godsake.”

“At this point, they’re questioning everyone, not just you.” At least that’s what Ralph had said. She had reached her van and boosted Drew into the car seat in the back.

“The cops asked ME if I stole drugs from Dr. Fox. I’M the one who told Dr. Fox that VERN stole them. So, what the hell?”

“They questioned Dr. Fox, too, you know.”

“So they think we’re all lying?”

Immy smiled. “The cops always think everyone is lying.” Ralph often told her that.

As Immy drove back to the church she wondered who the hell
was
lying. Someone used drugs on Rusty
and
Poppy. Someone stole those drugs. If she could believe Betsy, it was Vern. Unless Betsy stole them and led people to believe Vern did it. Unless the vet used his own drugs and reported them stolen. Rusty had been banging Betsy and Poppy. Poppy and Rusty were dead. Should Betsy be worried?

Chapter 11

Drew and Zack, who had come home with them from the funeral, were playing Barbies on the living room floor. Drew had been ecstatic to find out he loved them as much as she did. The other Barbies were having a funeral, complete with a dead Barbie laid out on a napkin. Immy worried about the future of this whole generation of four year olds.

After supper, her thoughts were still a tangled mess and she decided to tackle her case folders again. After all, she had new information. She pulled them out of the carryall she had used to bring them home from the office and spread them on the coffee table.