Who Let That Killer In The House? (26 page)

Great. Criminals already knew we had no night patrols—it was just decent folks who didn’t know.

“Smitty brought the paint and I brought a ladder,” Tyrone finished. He sucked up the last of his Coke and gave us a worried look. “But I’m not going to tell all this to any judge. Who’d believe me with Willie saying Smitty was over at his place? Others’ll back Willie up, and all I’ll do is make Smitty mad.”

“Willie,” I said thoughtfully. Hadn’t I heard something recently . . .? I tried to remember while Joe Riddley asked Tyrone if he’d like another Coke and headed to the counter to fetch it. Like St. Augustine says, memory is a convoluted thing: You can remember you have forgotten something and can even remember what it was that you forgot, but you can’t remember the thing. What was it I had heard about Willie Keller? Suddenly I knew what it was and reached for my cell phone. “Let me see if Dad’s got a phone book.”

Chancey Carter answered the phone after the first ring, her voice breathless. “Oh, Mac, I’m so glad it’s you. I was scared it was the nursing home. Mama had another spell tonight, and I just ran home for a minute to get a few things so I can go over there to sleep.”

“I won’t keep you then, but I need to ask about something you told me yesterday. You said you were at the nursing home last Wednesday night?”

“Yes. That was when Mama had her last spell. She’s been having a lot of them lately. I’m so worried about her, but the doctor says it’s to be expected at her age.”

“And you couldn’t get the nurses’ aide because she was talking to her son about money?”

“They weren’t talking. They were fighting. We needed her because . . .” Off Chancey went into another description of her mother’s intestinal activities. I finally steered her back to the aide. “Yes, I rang and rang, but Linda didn’t come. Finally, I went to look for her, thinking she must be with another patient or talking to one of the nurses. Instead, she was with a real scruffy-looking boy down the hall. They weren’t talking loud, but the way they were waving their arms, I knew they were fighting. He looked so awful, he scared me to death, to tell the truth, so I went back and emptied the pan myself, which families are not supposed to have to do. That’s clearly stated in the papers I signed, that all personal needs will be taken care of.”

“How did you know he was her son?”

“She told me, when she finally came. Said her son had been there wanting money, as usual, and she wasn’t made of money, that he needed to get a job.”

“And you remember when this happened?”

“Sure. I wrote it on the pad I keep in my pocketbook, in case I ever have to report somebody. Mama’s bowels moved exactly at midnight—remember, I told you—but it was 12:30 before I got the aide to come. They were fighting all that time. But listen, Mac, I can’t go into all this. Mama’s real bad tonight and they may be trying to call me.”

“One more thing.” I tried not to sound miffed that she accused me of keeping her on the phone when she’d been the one going into such graphic detail. “What was the aide’s last name?”

“Keller. Linda Keller. It’s on her badge.” She sounded like I should have remembered from the few times I’d been to see her mother. “But I really do have to fly.”

“Go on. And thanks.” I hung up, picturing Chancey flying across the housetops toward her mother’s room. When I got back to the table, I informed Tyrone, “I can prove that Willie wasn’t home around twelve that night. He can’t alibi Smitty. Is that enough to make you testify?”

Tyrone shook his head. “Even if you can prove Willie’s lying, you can’t guarantee the same thing won’t happen to Smitty as happened to me—he’ll go to his detention hearing and get released to his mom. He’d have time to hurt Hollis before his trial.”

I appreciated that he seemed more worried about Hollis than about himself.

Joe Riddley sucked up the last of his own Coke and looked at the cup in disgust. “Dad puts too much ice in these things. Get me a refill, will you, Little Bit?” I knew he wanted me out of the way so he could talk man-to-man with Tyrone. As I headed to the counter, I heard him say, “Son, intimidation is an ancient art.”

There was a line at the counter. By the time I got back, Joe Riddley had gotten Tyrone to agree to testify by promising we’d ask Hollis to move in with us until Smitty went to detention. I sent Tyrone to the counter for three pieces of lemon icebox pie, which Dad bought from Myrtle. I had something important to say to my husband. Alone.

“You don’t know if Hollis will want to stay with us, and you don’t know Smitty will get a sentence. It’s a first offense, remember? And how are we going to explain why we’ve practically adopted Hollis for who knows how long without scaring Sara Meg to death? Besides, we aren’t at home much of the time, and Clarinda leaves at two. How is Hollis going to be safer down at our place than at her own?”

He scratched his chin. “We could see if Ridd and his family might like a week at the beach, taking Hollis along.”

I sighed. Joe Riddley is the kindest man in the world, but he doesn’t always think things through. “A week wouldn’t be anywhere near long enough. Besides, Ridd and the girls have ball practice, and you know they won’t give that up.”

“We’ll have to think of something. Unless he knows Hollis is safe, Tyrone won’t testify. He says Smitty is holding something like this over almost everybody in the gang—a sister, a girlfriend, somebody who will get hurt if they don’t do things his way. That boy’s got to be stopped, Little Bit.”

“So I keep hearing. I just haven’t been told why I’m the one who’s supposed to entertain a teenager for an indefinite period of time so it can happen.”

“Because these are lost children, honey. The other day when Cricket got lost, it scared me to death. Afterwards, I got to thinking. We got all het up about one little boy riding a mile on his bicycle—”

“He could have been killed!”

“He could have been, but he wasn’t. And he’s got folks who care about what happens to him. What about kids whose parents don’t or can’t take care of them? They’re lost a lot of the time. Somebody needs to be as concerned about them as we were about Crick. If we aren’t, who will be?”

I heaved a sigh and gave him a sour look. “You know what makes me mad? You’re right, dang it. And I can’t stand it when you’re nicer than me.”

He grinned. “Happens all the time.”

Tyrone carefully set three pieces of pie on the table, and I tried to ignore the black thumbprint on my Styrofoam plate. He and Joe Riddley talked about football while we ate. Tyrone seemed a lot happier since he’d shared his burden with us.

When they’d settled the upcoming football season between them, I told Joe Riddley that Tyrone was a good artist who might get to go to art school if he got his grades up and got a job to help pay for it. Joe Riddley said he sure could use a strong back to help down at the nursery between then and the Fourth of July sale. Next thing we all knew, Tyrone was joining the payroll. We all got up from the table in lighter spirits.

“Don’t worry, Little Bit,” Joe Riddley told me as we were pulling back onto Oglethorpe after dropping Tyrone off. “Things are going to work out. Just wait and see.”

I looked down that gloomy damp street, lit only by street-lights, and thought it looked a lot like life in Hopemore right then: long dark stretches illuminated by patches of caring. “Things don’t work out, honey—people have to work them out. You know that.”

He frowned in the dim light and slowed the car. “From some of the things you were saying to Tyrone, you’ve been working more out than you ought to. How’d you know about Tyrone’s notebook, that there’s anything on the Internet about DeWayne Evans, or that somebody sent notes to DeWayne and the newspaper?” When I didn’t answer, he put a big, warm hand on my leg. “I’ve told you already, Little Bit, I don’t want you messing around in this. I nearly lost you back in February. I can’t go through that again. You hear me?”

I understood. I’d nearly lost him the previous summer. So I was glad to reassure him with a squeeze on his arm. “I won’t do anything dangerous. I promise.”

I really meant it, at the time.

24

Joe Riddley slammed on the brakes and I nearly lost half my bosom to the seat belt. “Sara Meg’s lights are on,” he said with satisfaction. “Let’s talk to her about Hollis now, before we forget.”

Hollis herself answered the door and said they were all in the den watching television. When we got back there, we found Buddy, too.

Joe Riddley told them what Tyrone had said—how Smitty was threatening Hollis and some other girls to keep his troops in line—and invited Hollis “or both girls” to move down to our place for a while. I tried not to let them see that his inviting Garnet was as much a surprise to me as the whole idea was to the rest of them.

Hollis shook her head vehemently. “No, thanks. I mean, it’s real nice of you and everything”—her blue eyes looked as earnest as Tyrone’s had a little while before—“but I’d feel safer here. Nobody can get in. We have good locks.”

Sara Meg sat looking at us like she didn’t believe anything dangerous could really be threatening her daughters.

Buddy offered to move into their place for the time being, and Garnet and Hollis said “No!” at the same time. Then they glared at each other as if they couldn’t stand to agree on anything.

Sara Meg gazed at them in bewilderment. “If it’s true, wouldn’t you feel a lot safer with a man in the house?”

“It might be for only a short time,” I told them. “We’re hoping Smitty will get arrested in the next day or so, and we’ll use any influence we have to get him kept in juvenile detention until his trial comes up.”

“But you can’t guarantee that he won’t get probation, can you?” Buddy demanded. “He could be back on the streets in a couple of weeks.”

Hollis was adamant. “I’m not scared of Smitty. I’ll stay in the house except when I have to go to work or practice. I’ll be fine. We don’t need you here, Buddy.”

“I can at least start driving Garnet again.” Buddy spoke not to Hollis but to Sara Meg. “That way Hollis won’t be driving all the way out to the school and coming back alone.”

Sara Meg nodded. “That would be helpful. This seems so unreal.”

I didn’t look at Joe Riddley, because I knew he’d be sending me looks that said
She’s not facing up to things again.

That’s how we left it: Hollis would be careful and drive their car to the pool, and Buddy would take Garnet to and from class. Even that didn’t please Hollis. “I can drive Garnet.”

“What does it matter who’s driving?” Garnet swept scornfully up the stairs. I figured she was annoyed that her sister was getting so much attention.

 

Late afternoon the following Tuesday, Ike called to say Smitty had been arrested on charges of painting the school. It had taken that long for the gears of justice to work after Tyrone testified Monday morning at his own trial. They had to substantiate Chancey’s report about Willie being with his mother while he claimed to be at his house with Smitty, and they had to get a warrant to search Smitty’s mother’s house, which yielded absolutely nothing. As Ike had said, Smitty was smart—too smart to leave incriminating evidence at home. It was Willie’s evasiveness that finally steered them to the Kellers’ garage, where they found partially used cans of blue, red and white spray paint hidden up in the rafters with Smitty’s prints on the cans. Smitty’s reaction was to hurl a stream of invective toward Willie for not throwing out the paint.

“Poor Willie,” Ike said with a chuckle. “The whole time Smitty was yelling at him, he was cowering against the wall, sniffling and protesting over and over, ‘But there’s still good paint in there, and Mama won’t give me money for no more.’ ”

“That’s a relief,” I told him. “Maybe our graffiti days are over.”

“Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray,” Ike replied.

At Smitty’s detention hearing the next morning, though, the out-of-town judge standing in for Judge Roland decided that the charges were not serious enough to warrant detention until trial, and released Smitty to his mother. I saw Smitty on the street that afternoon, and the venom in his eyes made me shiver. I immediately called Hollis and warned her to stay real close to home unless she traveled in a group.

“I will,” she assured me. “Don’t worry.”

When the paper came out Wednesday afternoon, I grabbed it and hurried to my office, actually afraid to see what Slade had written about DeWayne’s death. He’d remained true to his editorial roots in the news article—included every one of the gory facts: graffiti on the school and DeWayne’s house, all that was in the clippings sent to the newspaper “and possibly to Evans himself,” and the gruesome discovery of DeWayne’s body in the locker room. He didn’t mention that it was murder, so I figured the police were holding that information back for some reason. Slade did leave my name out of the article, as I had requested, and told the whole truth about DeWayne’s college episode.

Bethany filled me in on the Stantons that week. I was glad to hear that Hollis was taking serious safety precautions. She stayed at the pool all day instead of popping out to meet friends for lunch. She drove straight to ball practice after work, and called to be sure Garnet or Sara Meg was at home before she left the other girls. Bethany followed her home.

I was surprised to learn Friday that Garnet had started driving again, too. Bethany said that when Laura MacDonald got wind that Hollis was in danger, she concluded Garnet might be, as well. So Laura offered Garnet a loaner company car and persuaded her to resume driving while she still lived in a small, familiar town. Garnet phoned the insurance company to see how much it would cost her to get insured again and discovered that although Buddy had said he’d canceled her policy after her little accident, he’d never actually gotten around to doing it. She was now driving Laura’s car to school and work.

“We’re being really careful,” Hollis promised with her saucy grin at church on Sunday.