Smoke (8 page)

“She sure does love those pigs,” said Immy. She thought it would be a nice thing to throw a party for Amy JoBeth.

“So you’ll do it?”

Had she said that out loud? “Um, do what?”

“I’ll help. I can do invites and cooking and all, if you’ll just be the official shower thrower.” She leaned close and Immy caught a whiff of her lilac eau de toilet. “It doesn’t look good if her relatives throw the shindig, y’know?”

Louise winked and raised her elbow. Immy was pretty sure Louise was going to poke her in the ribs, so she took a step back.

“Imogene, that would be such a Christian act,” said Hortense. “I’m proud of you for offering.”

“Well….” said Immy.

“Either me or Vern’ll bring over a list later. Y’all busy today?”

“Today would be fine, Louise,” said Hortense.

“Well….” said Immy.

“See ya then.” Louise strode up the aisle, slipped past the line for Rev. Klinger, and was gone.

“So,” said Immy, “do we have it at our place?”

“I believe that is customary,” said Hortense.

“Do we invite Vern, too?”

“We’ll leave that to the discretion of Louise. I believe he’ll be expected to make a brief appearance.”

“I’ll warn him not to bring any jerky.”

“Any porcine products at all would be regrettable.”

Chapter 6

The next week flew by, although most of it was spent not working. When Immy first started the job, Mike Mallett had given her quite a free rein as to hours. He said he was mainly concerned with getting the filing and billing done, as well as typing up his occasional reports. Immy got behind in her filing during the week, what with planning Amy JoBeth’s party and trying to track down Gretchen’s killer, but knew she’d be able to catch up the next week. Her Poison Jerky Eaters Case seemed to be solved. Immy wasn’t sure if she’d solved it or if it had just solved itself. The police were working on the case of Rusty’s murder. But the pig killing wasn’t going to be solved if she didn’t do it. It was all hers. Besides, she thought it might be the key to solving Rusty’s murder.

Monday morning, it seemed the same pile of filing greeted her that had been there last week. Mike got out the same files over and over, week after week. At least they all looked the same. Why couldn’t she just leave them out? But she dutifully tried to put most of them back into the drawers. Sometimes she peeked inside, but they were mostly just boring notes about what people did every minute of the day. Lots of jealous spouses and suspicious employers in the world.

Immy took off early Monday because Louise was coming over to discuss party plans. Amy JoBeth was still spending most of her time in the storm shelter. Louise spent hours trying to persuade her out of it, but Louise had been to their trailer once when she wasn’t busy guarding the tornado shelter door and helping with the pigs.

Driving past the pig breeding place a couple times, Immy noticed that Amy JoBeth’s truck had been gone. The woman must have been making forays from her fortress. That was good, thought Immy. She was getting some fresh air anyway.

It was remarkable how much had to be decided for a simple wedding shower. Immy thought she could send out invitations, clean the trailer, make some cookies and punch, and that would be it.

But Louise thought they needed a theme.

“Without a theme,” she said, “we won’t know what kinda paper plates to buy and what color the food should be. They haven’t set a date yet, so it’s technically an Engagement Party. She never had one, so she won’t think it’s strange we’re doing this.”

Ha. Immy thought Amy JoBeth would know immediately what they were up to, trying to take her mind off Gretchen. If only Immy could track down the pig killer. That would cheer Amy JoBeth up.

“I found a list of themes in this magazine at Cathy’s Kut and Kurl.”

“Does Cathy know you took it?” asked Immy.

Louise frowned, but didn’t answer.

The squeals of Drew, Zack, and Marshmallow came from the back yard. Louise gave a fond smile in the direction of the piggy noises. “Look here. There’s your Alphabet Shower, but ya gotta have twenty-six guests for that one. Then there’s your Makeover Shower. Maybe Cathy would like to do that.”

If she’s not mad at you for stealing her magazine, thought Immy. It was a new one, too, not one of the curled ones that had been there for years.

“And there’s your Lingerie Shower. That sounds like fun. I guess it’s too early for the Stock-the-Bar Shower. The stuff’d all be drunk by the time they get married, whenever that’s gonna be.”

Immy was beginning to think Stock-the-Bar would be the best idea. They could all finish off the presents at the party.

“Kitchen Shower. That sounds boring. Shower Shower? Oh, bathroom stuff. Kind of limited, I’d think. Recipe Shower?” Louise finally looked up from the magazine. “What do y’all think?”

Hortense cleared her throat to speak, but Immy jumped in first. “The Stock-Your-Bar sounds good.”

Her mother ignored her. “I’m of the opinion that, Louise, in light of your offer yesterday, you should manage the celebration. What theme appeals to you?”

“I should take charge, huh? Lemme ask Cathy how she feels about doing a Makeover Shower. You think she’d do it for free?”

Immy and her mother answered together. “No.”

“It would not be reasonable to expect that of her, Louise,” said Hortense. “The woman makes her living as a beautician, applying makeup and coiffing hair.”

“She usually just cuts and perms mine.”

“Cathy would expect remuneration and she would be entitled to it.”

“Should we pay her, though?” asked Louise.

Hortense rose and went into the kitchen.

“Yes,” said Immy. “We should pay her.”

“Oh good. You’ll chip in?”

Hortense was back in a flash. “If you decide on this theme,
you
will pay her. We are opening our home for this and will put in our time planning, and don’t mind minor expenditures, but you should bear the majority of the expense.”

In case that was too complicated for Louise, Immy translated. “You really should pay for all the major stuff.”

“Well, I’ll see what Cathy says. We can always go with a Lingerie Party.”

* * *

It was obvious the police weren’t going to treat Gretchen’s slaying as a murder, so Immy returned to the scene of the crime late Monday night, after Louise left. At least to the scene where she had discovered the bodies. She equipped herself with what she thought she’d need and told her mother she was going for a drive to clear her head. Hortense wondered what was preventing its clarity, but Immy turned and walked out the door. The children were already in bed with the pig curled up on the floor beside Drew’s cot.

Zack was still staying with them and Tinnie was still at her mother’s in Fort Worth, so no one was at Jerry’s Jerky or the Bucket house. Or the smokehouse. As Immy had suspected, Gretchen’s poor body still lay in the smokehouse with the two bullet holes in her head. Things were happening to the pig that Immy did not want to think about. The dead body wasn’t being preserved by being in the smokehouse. Probably because there wasn’t any smoke left.

Immy stuck her head out the door and took a gulp of fresh air, then aimed her flashlight at Gretchen’s head, took out the kitchen paring knife she’d brought, and dug the two bullets out. As the knife carved into the soft flesh, she swallowed down some bile, but didn’t throw up. She was proud of that. She folded them into a paper napkin, having read in her Compleat book that plastic bags were not that good at preserving evidence, and stuck that into a paper lunch bag.

She would see if Ralph or the chief could at least get Gretchen buried.

After she got home, she wondered what she could compare the bullets to, but didn’t come up with an answer. She would save them in her top dresser drawer and maybe they could be used in the future.

* * *

Ralph came over Tuesday night to tell Immy the vet had taken Gretchen’s corpse. That was a relief. Dr. Fox had a small burial plot for pets behind his office.

He also said the autopsy was done and Rusty had died of smoke inhalation and hyperthermia (which, if Immy had hyper and hypo straight, meant a high temperature, which made sense, him dying in a hot place). But, Ralph said, Rusty also had enough drugs in his system to knock him out.

“So, he was drugged before he died?” Immy asked.

They sat on the sagging green plaid couch in the singlewide’s living room, sipping iced tea Hortense had brought them.

“The killer,” said Hortense, “rendered him unconscious in order to transport his inert form into the smokehouse?”

“Looks that way,” said Ralph.

“Should you be disclosing these autopsy conclusions, Ralph?” asked Hortense.

“This is all gonna be in the paper tomorrow, and probably on the news tonight, so I reckon it’s all right.”

“He could have ODed. What were the drugs? Did he use a lot of them?” asked Immy.

“He didn’t take this drug,” said Ralph. “It was animal tranquillizer. The stuff they use on horses.”

“From a vet’s clinic?”

Ralph shook his head. “You can’t tell where it came from. But probably the vet clinic.”

The
vet clinic, Ralph said. There was only one in these parts.

“Are there any findings on Gretchen?” asked Immy.

“Uh, they don’t do autopsies on pigs, Immy.”

“But aren’t the cops concerned about her? Are you going to make any effort at all to find her killer?”

“We’ll be lucky if we can find Rusty’s killer.”

“No leads?”

“No one has confessed, if that’s what you mean. Or blamed anyone else. Not even hardly any clues. The scene didn’t give us much.”

“So maybe someone who frequents the smokehouse?” said Hortense.

“Way to go, Mother. Good thought. If someone killed him, someone who goes there all the time, you wouldn’t be able to get any useful clues.”

“Smokehouses aren’t good places to find clues, to begin with,” said Ralph. “The Wymee Falls CSI did collect some prints, but I could tell there weren’t many. They’d be pretty easy to see on those smoky walls. I bet people try to avoid touching those black walls when they’re in there.”

“How soon before you get the results from CSI?”

“No telling. They have to collect a bunch of prints from people, you know. The people that work there and stuff.”

“For elimination, right? Do you know if there were any fingerprints on Gretchen’s body?” said Immy.

Ralph puffed out his cheeks and blew. “Immy, for the last time, we didn’t process the pig at all. We’re not trying to track down Gretchen’s killer.”

“But what if the same person killed both of them? Have you thought about that?”

“No, we think Rusty probably killed the pig. Looked like he was gonna make it into pork jerky.”

It all finally got to her. Immy ran to the bathroom to throw up.

* * *

Wednesday Immy left work early again. As she was lifting her purse out of the file drawer, Mike walked into the front room. Immy thought of it as her office, but it was, she had to admit, the reception area.

“Leaving, kiddo?”

“I have some things to do. That shower this weekend, and we’re running low on Cheerios. I swear that’s all Zack eats.”

“You get those bills sent out for the background checks?”

“I’ll do them first thing tomorrow.” She hiked the purse to her shoulder and shut the drawer. Standing, she stood eye to eye to the little man.

“And the filing for those child custody surveillance jobs?”

“I did most of them.” She shifted to stand in front of the pile of folders awaiting a home in the gray metal file drawers behind her. She’d spruced the place up considerably since she started work in the spring. The bare walls now held travel posters from the agency next door. Her gray metal desk was adorned with a pretty, floral desk clock that matched the pen cup and blotter she’d found at WellMart. Several cinnamon candles scented the room while she worked. They helped to combat the walnut scented ones Mike always burned in his office, and of which Immy had gotten tired by her second week. Mike never seemed to notice her efforts, though. He seemed focused only on her filing and billing.

Mike peeked around her, at the pile of folders, and raised the eyebrows on his narrow, weaselly face. “Okay, kid, stay late tomorrow and you’ll get caught up. See ya.”

Immy let out a breath of relief. If she lost this job, she didn’t know what she’d do. She might join Amy JoBeth in her depression, but not in that dark and dreary tornado shelter. She adored this job. She hadn’t gotten into the good stuff yet, but she knew it was just a matter of time before Mike would trust her with some real jobs, not just typing and filing.

The van was parked two blocks away. Parking was a problem in Wymee Falls, at least right around here. If she got to work really early, within ten minutes of her start time, she could sometimes park right in front, but she was usually a block or two away. This seemed to be one of the few areas of town with full occupancy. Maybe the rent was cheap here.

As she passed the windows of the travel agency, Immy waved to the nice agent that had loaded her up with the posters for her office walls. The hamburger shop tempted her as she passed, as always, but she hurried to the van so she could pick up the groceries on the way home. Louise had given her a list for WellMart, too. The theme had finally been decided. They were doing a Makeover Party. Immy didn’t want to be Madeover, but Louise was so excited that Cathy had said she’d do everyone for half price, that Immy didn’t want to spoil her joy. Louise had an insidious way of getting people to go along with her. Well, maybe not insidious. Insistent. She kept after you and kept after you until you broke down and gave in.

Immy had forgotten why she was buying the paper products and not Louise. Something about hurting her foot. Or her hand. Or something.

She grocery shopped for Zack’s Cheerios and some store-bought jerky for her mother. Hortense was missing Jerry’s Jerky shop already. It was Wednesday and the shop had only been closed since Saturday. Immy hadn’t had so many dreams of Rusty’s swinging body last night. Maybe they would go away completely someday.