Who Let That Killer In The House? (33 page)

We were a miserable bunch of fans, though. As we waited for the game to begin, gnats swarmed like one of Moses’ plagues, biting us in places we’d forgotten we had. The sun beat down on our heads, burning any places where we’d forgotten to apply sunscreen. Under a red Yarbrough’s cap that I’d brought from the store to match Joe Riddley’s, I could feel my new hairdo, which Phyllis had fixed just that morning, getting as limp and dry as Spanish moss.

As much as we were sweating in the bleachers, the girls had it worse on the field. “I hope Ridd and Ronnie brought enough water and Gatorade,” I told Martha, beside me. Clarinda sat on my other side, with Cricket between her and Joe Riddley. The way Clarinda was handing Cricket juice boxes, he’d spend the game running up and down the bleachers to the bathroom.

Martha shaded her eyes under the straw brim of what Ridd called her “mule’s hat” and peered down at our team’s bench. “They did. Yasheika insisted on it. I sure was glad she flew back here after DeWayne’s funeral up north, to help coach. Ridd’s not real confident about the team, to tell the truth. They haven’t had a lot of time to practice.”

I tried not to notice how much better the other team was catching and hitting in their pregame warm-up.

“That girl is still determined to go to law school,” Clarinda said in disgust, “even if the governor pardons her daddy. Says she wants to major in sports law.”

I hadn’t thought Joe Riddley was listening until he chimed in. “Good for her! With the money professional athletes make, she can support us all in our old age.”

Martha waved back to Bethany, who had looked up to see where we were sitting. “You think those letters you all wrote the governor will get Gerrick pardoned?”

“I hope so.” I waved, too. “It wasn’t just us. Isaac James wrote, and several county commissioners.”

Joe Riddley reached for his third juice box. He’d be the one taking Cricket up and down. “Gusta told me she called the governor.” He thrust the straw through that little-bitty hole without having to wiggle it like I always did. “She says they used to play hide-and-seek together in the mansion, back when her granddaddy was governor and his was Speaker of the House.”

Martha chuckled. “We can all relax, then. If Augusta Wainwright was on the case, Gerrick will be out of prison by Labor Day. Anybody want a Coke while they’re still cold?”

Augusta Wainwright is past eighty, one of my oldest friends, and the closest thing we have to aristocracy in Hopemore. As I took a Coke, popped the top, and took a long swallow, I remembered a Sunday when she’d been the one to lead our Sunday school class in prayer. She was praying for the safety of missionaries in a war-torn region and ended with, “And, Lord, you know I am not accustomed to being denied in these matters.” Ever since, that had summed up Gusta for me.

“What’s Ronnie gonna do now that Buddy’s office is closed?” Martha leaned across me to hand a Coke to Clarinda. “You think he’s going to stick around here?”

Clarinda huffed. “Says he’s going up to New Haven to get a job there.” You’d have thought he planned to go to the top of a Himalayan peak and become a hermit.

“Clarinda doesn’t want him to leave,” I said, “but he could do worse. DeWayne once said that Ronnie and Yasheika were like magnets with the same pole, always repelling, but DeWayne’s death has changed them. I’m betting they’ll get married.”

Now it was Joe Riddley huffing. “Woman, let them decide that for themselves, in their own good time. We don’t want Ronnie rushing into things and winding up like I did, shackled for life.”

“Don’t want nobody rushing into things,” Clarinda seconded the motion.

“I wish the game would rush,” Cricket complained. “How many more minutes, Pop?”

He was distracted by a woman with a tin of oatmeal cookies, who was handing them up and down our row. I smiled my appreciation, and told Martha softly, “Seems like half the women of Hopemore brought cookies to share today. We’ll all go home five pounds heavier.”

“Don’t you think folks are looking for ways to make up for not noticing what was going on over at the Stantons’ and stopping it sooner? I’ve seen lots of positive changes in town since Buddy got arrested.”

I sighed. “I just wish people would stop talking about it. From the number of ‘eyewitness’ accounts going around about that night down on our road, you’d have thought we’d had a circus out there and sold tickets.”

“At least people have been kinder, even about Buddy, than I’d have expected them to be,” Martha pointed out.

“I think everybody feels like we share a little bit of blame for not noticing what was happening to him when he was little.” I would have said more, but Clarinda shouted.

“Look! There’s the banner!”

Four Hope County team members carried out a long white banner with a red heart in each corner and WE LOVE YOU, DEWAYNE printed in big blue letters. They tied the banner to the fence where they could see it both from the field and while batting. Then, without worrying or caring whether he’d be hauled before the Supreme Court, Ridd gathered his team together and they bowed their heads.

Those Hope County girls played their hearts out. Every time one of our girls came to bat, she looked at the banner. I saw a lot of them wipe away tears before they swung. Every time Bethany wound up for a pitch, she looked at it, too. She pitched three no-hit innings.

Cookies kept passing up and down the rows, and I saw several old codgers Joe Riddley’s age give theirs to children. Of course, they made sure the kids’ parents agreed. During one time-out, Shana Wethers made a point of coming over to tell Martha and me, “I sure was sorry to hear about Hollis’s sister. She’s so lovely.”

You may be thinking that with so much goodwill flowing, we easily won the game. We didn’t. This time we were the families trickling down the bleachers in a stream of disappointment while another bunch of girls jumped and squealed over by home plate.

Hollis and Bethany had ridden with Ridd, and Ronnie and Yasheika had come together, so Clarinda, Martha and Cricket had come with us. Cricket elected to stay and ride back with his daddy, so the four of us got in the car and headed home, hoping we wouldn’t collapse from heat exhaustion before the air conditioner kicked in.

“It seems like a lot longer than a month since the last game,” Martha said from the backseat as Joe Riddley started the engine.

“Seems like a year, at least,” I agreed. “It’s no wonder that other team beat us, with everything that’s been going on. I’ll bet their catcher hasn’t had a family crisis and their coach hasn’t buried her brother in the past two weeks.”

“Face it, Little Bit”—Joe Riddley pulled into the stream of traffic with the caution I use separating eggs—“Washington County has a better team. They’re more experienced. And don’t poke your lip out like that. It makes you look just like Cricket.”

I gave him a little swat. “What you mean is, our winning before was a fluke.”

“Bethany and Hollis aren’t ever going to be good hitters,” Martha admitted.

“Oh,
they
played real good,” Clarinda insisted stoutly. “It was the rest of the team that wasn’t up to snuff. If it had just been the Honeybees . . .”

“They all played fine,” Joe Riddley said firmly. “We sponsor summer sports to give kids something fun to do, and the way those girls played today, you could tell they were having fun.”

“I hope that Franklin boy gives them a good write-up,” Clarinda worried. “Looks like, for such an important game, Mr. Rutherford would have come himself.”

“Art will do okay,” Martha promised. “He used to write for his high-school paper.”

I added my bit. “Slade told me this week he’s decided to work with Art. He thinks he could go on to journalism school if he wants to, so he said he wanted to give Art a chance today to show what he can do. He said Art has been reading up on fast-pitch softball all week to get the terms right, and he has the makings of a good writer, but he needs some grounding before he can fly—whatever that means.”

“Whatever it means, a lot of grown-ups in this town are taking more interest in our young people,” Martha said with satisfaction. “Speaking of which, Hollis has asked if she can live with us next year. Garnet’s going out of state to college, and Hollis thinks Sara Meg will probably leave, too. We don’t have space for Hollis, but I was wondering if you all might.”

Joe Riddley and I exchanged a look. I nodded, and he cleared his throat. “We hadn’t meant to say anything to you and Ridd until this ball game was over, but Little Bit here and I did some talking and decided we need a smaller place.” He ignored Clarinda’s gasp in the backseat. “We want you all to move down into our place so Cricket can swim, Ridd can farm, and you can take in all the children you want.”

“But—” Martha started to protest.

I interrupted her. “Don’t object, honey. We’ve known for nearly a year that this was coming sooner or later. It’s finally time. We looked at several houses, and just yesterday, we signed a contract to buy one over on Honeysuckle Way. It’s got only two steps up, for the days when we are older and infirm, and there’s two bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a nice screened porch to one side. Just our size.”

“And it’s brick, with no eaves, so it won’t need much painting,” Joe Riddley added. “And it’s got a yard I can mow in half an hour.”

“And we can walk to work and church. It’s even a nice walk over to Walker’s,” I finished up. Joe Riddley and I had listed all the things we wanted to brag about as soon as we’d decided to get the house, so Martha and Ridd wouldn’t know how hard this change was going to be.

“Do you think your parents hated leaving as much as I do?” I had asked Joe Riddley wistfully.

He had thought, then nodded. “I saw Mama cry for the only time in my life when they shut the door on the moving van,” he admitted. “But she told me she just had an allergy to all the dust that got stirred up moving stuff out.”

“If you’re sure . . .” Martha said doubtfully.

“We’d better be sure. We gave them our earnest money,” Joe Riddley told her.

“I bet it’s got a little-bitty kitchen you can’t even turn around in,” Clarinda grumbled. I hadn’t realized that this might be as hard on her as it was on us—or that she’d need reassurance we’d still want her in the new house.

“You’ll be able to turn around just fine,” I told her, “if you lose a couple of pounds. And you can organize it any way you like.” That satisfied her. Next thing we heard, she was gently snoring. That sounded like such a good idea, I propped my pocketbook against the window and dozed the rest of the way home, too.

 

Three weeks later, Ridd, Martha, Joe Riddley, and I sat through Buddy’s trial to give Sara Meg and her girls some support. After heart-wrenching testimony, though, when Buddy was convicted of molesting Garnet, Sara Meg told us coldly, “I don’t care what they say. I won’t believe it.”

She never has.

She left that courtroom, looked at the shambles of her family and the superstore rising on her economic horizon, and had herself a nervous breakdown. Hollis tells us she’s in a place with good food and a lovely garden. At first, Sara Meg alternated between wanting to kill Buddy for “dragging our family through the dirt” and wanting to kill herself. Then she got involved with art therapy and started to paint again.

Her pictures all look like they’re crying. Daisies in the rain. Gladioli with huge tears dripping from gigantic cups. I have one of a small white snowdrop with a bent head and one drop of dew in its cup. Hollis says that since her mother started painting again, she doesn’t want to kill anybody. That’s a definite improvement.

Another improvement is that Sara Meg has another man who loves her, a salesman who used to call on her selling toys. Harvey Wiseman is his name, and he lives in Macon. He came through town the day Buddy’s trial began, and when he heard what was going on, he stayed and sat with Sara Meg through the whole thing. Now he goes to see her every weekend. He came to town recently, took Hollis to lunch, and asked permission to marry her mother as soon as Sara Meg gets well. I think Hollis described him best when she said, “He’s not pretty, but he’s patient, and he loves my mama to death. He’ll be good to her.”

Garnet left Hopemore as soon as the trial ended. She went first to stay with my brother, Jake, and his wife, Glenna, over in Montgomery. Glenna helped her apply to the University of Washington in Seattle—about as far from Hopemore as she could get. She’s planning to get a doctorate in counseling so she can help other girls like herself. Martha thinks she’ll make it. She says Garnet is strong enough to be a thriver, not merely a survivor.

When they accepted we really were going to move, Ridd and Martha asked for all the bedroom furniture we didn’t need. They’re already taking classes to become foster parents, so they can take in more kids. Tyrone spends so much time over at their place, he might as well live there.

When I culled out the stuff we wanted, what Martha and Ridd wanted, and a few things Walker and Cindy wanted, there was still a lot left. In forty years, you carry in a lot of stuff you never carry back out. Hubert’s son, Maynard, who’s been clearing out their place, took a lot of stuff I considered junk for the Hope County Historical Museum. Then Maynard suggested that we go in together and hold what he advertised as Hopemore’s Biggest Garage Sale Ever. It was so successful, I’ve convinced Joe Riddley we can afford to go to Europe next spring.

Meanwhile, Joe Riddley and I are making adjustments in the way we spend our time. We’re volunteering more, now that we know we’re responsible for all the children in the world, not just those in our family. As Joe Riddley puts it,“I used to be concerned for the kids in my wallet. Now I’m concerned for those in God’s wallet.”

I thought he took that a bit far, though, when he brought home Smitty.

Smitty had been in detention for a nice long vacation. After Tyrone decided to testify, some of the other boys got braver, too. I even told the judge how he shot at me that day.