Who Let That Killer In The House? (16 page)

Fred painted the dining room buttercup yellow; Sara Meg hung white sheers and brought down a red and yellow rug from the attic. “It’s the color of mustard and ketchup,” she had joked. “Nothing the girls spill will show.”

Back in those days, Sara Meg’s life was her family, her house, and her community work. By far the youngest member of our Hopemore Garden Club, she had loved for us to meet at her place. She had always served cookies that she and the children had baked and told us with a laugh that in a year or two they’d redo the old-fashioned kitchen.

As soon as Fred died, Sara Meg dropped the Garden Club and started neglecting her yard. I doubted that she had ever redone her kitchen, and I wondered how long it had been since she’d had the time or energy to bake. The place was swept and dusted, but it had that neglected look that said nobody’s heart was in the house anymore. Fingerprints showed up on the cream newel post at the bottom of the stairs. Through an archway down the hall, I could see the den piled high with newspapers and sewing projects. To my left, the dining-room sheers were limp, and behind the glass doors of a mahogany sideboard, silver trays were black with tarnish. The once-vibrant rug was hidden beneath papers, and the table was covered with books, hinting that Garnet studied there.

In the living room, sunlight straggled through unwashed windows to rest on a baby grand piano and a stack of music in the overstuffed chair beside it. The piano had been polished until it shone, and the navy rug was striped where somebody had recently vacuumed, but the now-faded flowers on the slipcovers looked wilted and dying. A grubby afghan slung over the couch only partly covered a rip it was supposed to hide. It made me sad to see the place looking so unloved.

Hollis shifted the stack of music to the top of the piano. “Won’t you have a seat?” Generally, Hollis either loved or hated things. She was so apathetic today, I wondered if she’d already heard my news. If so, she was taking it mighty calmly.

I perched on the front of the chair and she sat at one end of the couch and drew her feet up on the cushion in front of her. Green shorts peeped from beneath her shirt. “Did Bethany send you?” Her toes wiggled, like they were wondering, too.

“Not exactly. But she’s been missing you.”

Hollis twisted a long strand of hair. “I—I’ve had some things to do.”

“You’re not mad at her for any reason, are you?” Grand-mothers stalk right in where others hesitate to tiptoe.

“Oh, no, ma’am. I’ve just been real busy. Stuff I left undone during the school year, you know? And Garnet’s been—uh—sick this week, so I’ve been staying with her.” She picked her way through that story like a child climbing barefoot through blackberry briers. I suspected she was making it up as she went along, especially when she gave me a real earnest look and added, “Mama couldn’t leave the store.”

“Garnet looked okay Thursday at Myrtle’s, and she said she’d been to class. Cricket even came here to play that afternoon.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Garnet’s real dedicated. She wouldn’t skip classes, no matter how she felt. Besides, she felt a lot better Thursday. And she’s not contagious or anything. You don’t have to worry about Cricket catching it.”

“I’m not worried about that. I came to tell you something important.”

“I’m going to call Bethany, honest. I’ve just been so busy—”

I held up a hand to stop the flow. “It’s not about Bethany. She’s over with the rest of the Honeybees—”

“I’m not on the new team. Like I said, I’m real busy, and—”

The only thing to do was shove my prow against her waves. “They called the team together to tell them that Coach Evans died this morning.” I steeled myself for a storm.

Instead, Hollis stiffened and turned so white I was afraid she’d gone into shock. I cursed myself for being too blunt while she sat examining her toenails like they were some new and fascinating appendage. When she clutched her calves in the circle of her arms and started rocking back and forth, she still hadn’t made a sound.

From rocking, she went to shaking, and she shook so hard, you’d have thought she had a bad case of malaria. I took the afghan and tucked it around her. I wanted to hold her, but people are funny about adults touching children these days—with good cause. Adults who touch inappropriately have defiled honest, caring hugs.

Hollis clutched her knees closer to her chest, like she was afraid she’d shake apart if she didn’t hold herself together. Finally she whispered, “How was he killed?”

I was so sorry I hadn’t been clearer. Children raised on television expect violence. “He wasn’t killed, honey. He hanged himself.”

Her feet flew off the couch and hit the floor with a thump. “He killed himself? For real?”

I nodded.

“Oh.” What an odd little puff of relief and dismay.

She grew still again, but it was a different stillness. Before, she’d seemed frightened. Now she seemed to be letting it sink in. In a minute or two she unwrapped the afghan and flung it to the floor. “That’s too hot.” She spoke angrily, and when she looked across at me, her eyes were full of furious tears. “He shouldn’t have done that. We loved him. We loved him so much.”

The last two words were a loud wail. Her face crumbled and she fell forward, face buried in her hands, boohooing like a small child.

Once Hollis let herself go, she cried a river and a stream. She got up and paced the room, dripping tears on the carpet. She belly flopped onto the sofa, buried her face in her hands, and wailed some more. I handed her every tissue in my pocketbook, and they weren’t enough. Finally, I went to the powder room under the stairs and brought back the whole roll of toilet paper.

She cried so long and hard, I was afraid she’d make herself sick, but whenever I tried to calm her, she waved me away. How the dickens had I let Martha talk me into this? And what had scared Hollis when she first heard DeWayne was dead?

She finally stood up and roamed the room again, touching things lightly. I’d done that myself. It was a kind of reassurance—if they were still there, you must be, too. Finally, she asked, “You don’t reckon he did it because of what they wrote on the school, do you? Under the picture?” She plopped back into the chair across from me, her freckled hands clenching and unclenching on her bare thighs.

Something clicked for me. Tyrone drew that picture and he obviously liked Hollis. Did she like him back? Bethany had never mentioned them in one breath, and I couldn’t imagine why Hollis would favor a big, beefy fellow who hung out with Smitty Smith, but stranger things have happened. I watched her closely as I asked, “Do you think Tyrone Noland drew it?”

Before that afternoon, I would never have believed Hollis had such a talent for stillness. She clenched her fists tight and didn’t answer. Stubborn. That was the word that came to mind. Or my mama’s favorite, “bullheaded.”

“I saw a notebook of his drawings, and they looked a lot like that one,” I prompted.

Nothing.

“Tyrone seemed to like you last Saturday.”

That jump-started her engine. “Oh, no, ma’am! We just used to be friends, until he started hanging out with Smitty. Tyrone lives down the road, so we walked to school together before I started driving or riding with Bethany.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t stand Smitty Smith.”

Were they friends until he started hanging out with Smitty, or did he start hanging out with Smitty after she found another way to get to school? Losing a friend like Hollis could take a sizeable chunk out of a young man’s life.

She added in a rush, “Tyrone wouldn’t do bad things unless Smitty made him. Somebody ought to lock Smitty up for the next
millennium
.” She glowered at me as if I were personally refusing to put Smitty behind bars.

“I wish they could,” I agreed, “but they can’t even accuse him of helping Tyrone paint the school, because Willie Keller says Smitty was at his place all that night.”

“Wet Willie would say
anything!
” She glared at me, and a silent challenge was flung across that room:
I can’t believe you grown-ups are dumb enough to believe him.

The weight of adult impotence sat heavy on my shoulders. I wanted to explain that adults can’t do everything we hoped to when we were young, that years of accumulated evil and human folly make a very thick hedge that hems us in on every side. I wanted to plead that all any generation could do was chop through in little places, as God gave us grace and strength. But Hollis wouldn’t understand. I wouldn’t have, either, at her age. Youth is what God gives humanity to remind grown-ups they should try harder.

But how much harder could I try? I had been so busy since we found DeWayne, I hadn’t even had time to grieve. I yearned to go home, float in my pool, and cry. But I couldn’t go home. The place was swarming with girls. Instead, once I finished here, I had to go feed Cricket his supper, read him a story, and hope my tears would wait until I had a minute to myself.

In the middle of my pity party, I remembered I was there to comfort Hollis, persuade her to join the Honeybees at my house, and find out if she suspected DeWayne had messed with any of the girls. I might as well get on with it. “When you saw Coach Evans Wednesday—”

Her eyes widened. Shock? Guilt? Fear? “How’d you know I saw him?”

“Bethany said you couldn’t eat lunch with her because you were meeting Coach Evans.”

“Oh.” She lowered her head and fiddled with the edge of her shorts.

“Is there anything somebody should know about that conversation?”

Now she was edgy again. She nibbled the end of one grubby thumb. “No, it was private.” Her eyes searched mine. “Are they positive he did it himself?”

I nodded and reached for my pocketbook. Whatever Hollis was worried about, she wasn’t going to discuss it with me. I might as well get on with my program. “The team is spending the night together down at our place. They want you to come, if you will. If you’ll grab your bathing suit and toothbrush, I’ll drive you down.”

“I can’t leave Garnet.” Her voice was wistful.

“Don’t be stupid.” Garnet stood in the doorway, hands on her slender hips, looking like a dancer in a black cotton T-shirt and black pants. Her skin was so pale, she seemed more like a wraith than ever. A furious wraith. “Go on. I can take care of myself. You don’t have to hang around all the time.” She gave Hollis a glare that would have felled a lesser woman, then noticed her sister’s spiky lashes and tear-washed eyes. “What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”

Before either Hollis or I could answer, somebody pounded on the back door. The girls jumped and exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret, but it was certainly a blend of fear mixed with uncertainty and a grim determination.

The pounding continued.

I looked from one to the other. “Don’t you think you should see who it is?”

“It’s nobody. Don’t worry.” Hollis flapped a hand at me. Garnet stood, clutching her shirt with one hand.

Whoever it was pounded again. I got up. “I’ll go.”

A crash in the kitchen was followed by the tinkle of falling glass.

16

I grabbed my cell phone to call 911. “Quick—out the front door!”

We heard a furious roar. “Why is this door bolted? Let me in!” With relief I recognized Buddy and that tone of voice. My boys still get irritated like that if we lock a lock to which they don’t have a key. What is it about young males that makes them expect to walk right into their old homeplace whenever they like?

Hollis looked sheepishly from Garnet to me, then jumped up and headed down the hall. “All right, already,” she yelled. “You don’t have to take the house down. I’m coming.” Garnet followed, so I joined the party. Hollis fetched a key from the top of the refrigerator and turned the lock.

“Why did you bolt that door?” Buddy demanded when Hollis swung it open. “And why aren’t you at work?”

“We forgot to unlock it,” Garnet explained.

“I wasn’t feeling so good,” Hollis replied. She ignored my look saying she ought to get her stories straight about who was sick around there and added virtuously, “It’s dangerous not to bolt doors. You don’t know who might come in. Mrs. Yarbrough—I mean Judge Yarbrough—is here.”

Buddy and I both noticed that unfortunate juxtaposition. He gave me a grin. Then he lifted one loafer to examine slivers of glass stuck to his sole, and his smile became rueful. “Sara Meg will kill me, but I was afraid something had happened. Not that anybody would notice a little glass underfoot, with all this mess. Get a broom, Garnet.”

Now that he mentioned it, the kitchen was worse than the rest of the house put together. Dirty dishes filled the sink and countertops, and clean ones filled the drainer and sat among the dirty ones, like somebody found it too much trouble to put them away. Remains of cereal, sugar, milk, and orange juice littered the table, and an archeologist could probably reconstruct their past week’s menus from scraps on the kitchen floor. Buddy looked very out of place, fresh from a shower, smelling of aftershave, and wearing clean white jeans and an olive polo shirt.

I was surprised to notice, though, that Sara Meg
had
redone her kitchen, and not long ago. The walls were creamy and bright, the floor covered in rust and cream vinyl squares, and the stove, refrigerator, microwave, and dishwasher were new. They all looked more expensive than I’d have expected her to buy, given that she still had two girls to put through college.

“It’s Hollis’s week to clean in here.” Garnet yanked the broom from beside the refrigerator. “She always puts it off as long as she can, and I refuse to do her work.” She skillfully avoided a piece of lettuce and a crust of bread, sweeping up only glass.

“I’m going to do it. I just haven’t had time,” Hollis grumbled.

“Get the dustpan,” Buddy told her curtly. From the look he gave me, I knew he was embarrassed I’d seen the place looking like that, but what he said was, “You know your mother doesn’t like to see it looking like this.”