Who Let That Killer In The House? (8 page)

She paused, then seemed to remember my first question. “I asked him why he came here to teach. He said it was a good job, and he figured it was time to forget the past and get on with his life. But you know what I think?”

She’d make a good lawyer. She went right on without waiting for my answer.

“I think he hoped coming back would get rid of his dreams. It hasn’t though—I heard him hollering and crying in his sleep last Friday night. He was nervous about the game, and that always makes him dream.” She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was bitter and sad. “The way DeWayne talked on Monday during that storm, you’d think we were the happiest and most respected family in Hopemore. While we were sitting around in candlelight waiting for the lights to come back on, he started going on about the good times our family had down here. He told me about a swimming hole where he used to swim, about his school, about his teachers—he really liked his third-grade teacher. Said she’s dead now, but it was because of her he became a teacher. When the storm stopped, he drove me over to see the house where we lived. There’s a big tree in the yard, and he said Daddy built us a sandbox under it and we used to play out there for hours.”

“You had a good family,” I agreed. “Your mama and daddy both had good jobs, and they loved you children. Kept you looking nice, too. And your mother worked at the school cafeteria so she could be home for DeWayne in the afternoons.”

Yasheika’s voice grew wistful. “I wish I could remember being a family. The only thing I remember that I think might have happened here is sitting on the floor across from a baby who had a red ball. I wanted that ball and was reaching out to grab it when he leaned over and just gave it to me with the happiest smile. I can still see that baby’s smile, clear as anything.” She looked toward the window. “I wonder if that happened here in Hopemore.”

I wasn’t going to win points with my answer, but I gave it anyway. “If it did, I know who the baby was. Clarinda’s daughter Janey kept you while your mother was at work because you and Ronnie were almost the same age. She brought you down to our house a few times when she came to see her mother.”

Astonishment spread across her face like sunrise, then crumpled into disgust. “Ronnie? That smiling baby was
Ronnie
?” She made a face like she’d seen something particularly nasty. “He hasn’t changed much, has he? Still the kind of guy who’d give up his ball without a fight.” She bit her lower lip and gave me a disgusted grin. “But you know something funny? The first time I met him, I said to DeWayne, ‘I don’t much like him, but I like his smile.’ ”

“He’s not smiling much lately.” I tried to make it sound like a joke. “You’re taking up so much of DeWayne’s time, Ronnie’s feeling a bit left out.”

She shrugged. “DeWayne can do whatever he wants to. I don’t have him tied to my belt. Besides, I’m gonna be real busy for a while, looking up all this stuff. If Ronnie and DeWayne want to go places, that’s fine by me.”

The chubby little doll in diapers, with colorful barrettes on ten tiny braids, had turned into a sophisticated young woman who still knew what she wanted and aimed to get it. I remembered something Janey used to say: “Elda’s baby is no trouble. She and Ronnie get along real good.” Janey was wrong. Elda’s baby might be a peck of trouble, both for Ronnie and for Hopemore.

Something Yasheika had said a couple of times finally got my attention. “Why did DeWayne tell you about Hopemore on Monday?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because it was raining and we didn’t have anything else to do.”

“Did he know Buddy gave Ronnie a job?”

Puzzled, she nodded. “Yeah, Ronnie came by to tell him, and I passed the message when DeWayne got home. DeWayne said it was time to forgive and forget. When I asked him what he meant, that’s when he told me that it was right here that Daddy was accused of murder.”

“But he didn’t say anything about Buddy?”

Her brows drew together in a frown. “What’s he got to do with it?”

I wanted to bite off my tongue and spit it a mile, but Yasheika sat there looking like she’d dig the truth out of me with those strong young fingers. “Buddy’s the one who found your daddy with the rock.”

“Buddy Tanner?” Her voice rose on the last word. “Hollis’s uncle? It was him who put Daddy in jail? How come DeWayne didn’t tell me that?”

“He had better sense. I wish I had. I’m real sorry.”

She stood abruptly. “You don’t need to be sorry. I’m glad I know. But Ronnie ought to have more pride than to take a job from a white man who’d put an innocent black man in jail.” She turned at the door and pointed to my filing cabinets. “I’d like to stand Mr. Buddy Tanner up against that wall and shoot him.”

Not knowing what to say, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Buddy was only ten, remember, and Anne was his best friend. He had to tell what he saw. But it was real hard on him. Buddy’s had a lot of bad dreams, too.”

“Maybe so, but he’s got a good job, his family, and he can come and go when he pleases. He took all that away from Daddy. I aim to get it back.” She jerked open the door. “So if you could tell me where to find those records . . .”

She thanked me politely for the information and left. Afterwards, I sat there with summer sunlight streaming into my office, but all I saw was the darkness that had covered our town twenty years before.

7

Hopemore seldom knew so grim a time. Sara Meg and Fred were on their honeymoon but hurried home as soon as Fred’s mother—who had come up from Swainsboro to stay with Buddy—called them. She was one of the prosecution witnesses at the trial. She testified that Buddy and Anne spent the morning playing—as they often did—in the Confederate Memorial Cemetery that backed up to many big houses on Oglethorpe. At noon, he came to ask for a picnic, and she gave him banana sandwiches, cookies, and a thermos of lemonade. She figured he was home around half an hour while she fixed the lunch. Not more than three or four minutes after he left with the food, he ran back, hysterical.

Sara Meg told me later that Buddy woke up screaming every night for months. She had to sleep in the extra bed in his room. He’d become terrified of black men, too, even those he knew. After all, he had known and liked Gerrick all his life. Sara Meg tried to keep him from having to testify, but except for Fred’s mother and somebody who overheard Gerrick’s argument with Anne’s daddy, Buddy was the only witness the prosecutor had.

Buddy looked little and lost in the witness chair, legs dangling, but he told exactly what he had seen. He hadn’t tried to add anything and he hadn’t cried until he left the chair. Then he buried his face in Sara Meg’s lap and sobbed.

Sitting in my office twenty years later, tears stung my eyes as I thought of the children whose lives were shattered that day: Anne, Buddy, DeWayne, and Yasheika. As I reached for a tissue to blow my nose, Bethany peered through my window and opened the door a crack. “You all right?”

“Yeah, but you’ve got to start knocking, honey. You’re an employee now.”

“Sorry. But can I use your phone? I’m meeting Hollis for lunch, and I don’t know where.”

“Be my guest.”

I needed to make up payroll, so I wasn’t paying much attention until she said into the phone, “What about?” She stopped. “Why can’t you tell me?” She listened again. “Look, you’ve been acting weird since Monday. You could at least talk to me.” She waited. “But why? Did I do something?” Silence. “I don’t think this is any way to treat a friend.” She slammed down the phone and slumped into her grandfather’s big leather desk chair like she planned to stay awhile.

“Problems?” I swivelled my chair to face hers. She sighed, fiddled with a strand of hair, and crossed and uncrossed her feet. “Stop fidgeting and tell me what’s the matter,” I demanded.

“Hollis. She’s going to talk to Coach Evans and can’t meet me for lunch. It’s too late to call Todd to come eat with me.”

“I’d invite you home with us, but Clarinda said she was making pork chops, and there wouldn’t be enough. Why don’t you run home for lunch?”

“Nobody’s there. Daddy’s plowing, Mama’s talking to some old college class, and Cricket went to day care.” She pouted a minute, then asked, “Do you reckon Hollis got on the team and I didn’t? And she doesn’t want to tell me?” Her eyes pleaded for reassurance.

“I hope not, honey, but that’s up to Coach Evans. He’s got to pick girls from all the county teams, remember.”

“Yeah, but . . .” I read in her face what she didn’t want to say. She and Hollis had done everything together since they were eight. They used to fight and make up on a regular basis, but lately they’d been as close as bread and peanut butter. “She’s been acting weird all week.”

“Did you have a fuss?”

“No. Everything was all right Sunday. Then Monday—remember I wanted to go see her because she’s scared of lightning, and you wouldn’t take me?”

“I told you to call her.” I refused to bear the guilt for whatever was the matter.

“I tried, but she didn’t answer until late. Then she sounded funny, and said she couldn’t talk.” Bethany sniffed. “She didn’t go to work yesterday, either. I went by the pool on my way home, and they said she’d called in sick. I went by her house, but she wouldn’t let me in. Said she’d call me, but she didn’t.” Bethany’s eyes flashed with indignation. “Now she says she can’t meet me for lunch, like we always do on Wednesday, because she has to talk to Coach Evans. I may never speak to her again.” She flounced back to work, swinging her ponytail.

I wish I could report that the day got better, but it didn’t. I got home at dinnertime to find our riding mower sitting smack in the middle of the yard with the yard half-mowed and a note from Clarinda on the kitchen table:
Yasheika came by and yelled at Ronnie. He got so mad he tore out after her, leaving the mower where it is. I’ve gone to be sure he’s okay. Your dinner’s in the oven.

The pork chops were so dry that I gave them to Lulu, our three-legged beagle, and carried sandwich makings out to the porch. As Joe Riddley and I ate, I admired the bed of coral and pink Gerbera daisies I’d planted out by the old well and watched scarlet cardinals at the bird feeder. A rabbit we called Peter Yarbrough explored our dandelions. Lulu would have liked to join him, but Joe Riddley warned her if she didn’t stop begging, she’d have to go inside. She settled herself at our feet and snoozed. Bo marched silently around his own place mat, pecking up seeds and bites of vegetable.

At first, I didn’t notice Joe Riddley wasn’t talking much. I was going back over the conversations I’d had that morning, thinking of things I wished I’d said.

Only when Joe Riddley grunted did I realize he’d been worrying something around in his mind and had failed to come up with a single way to keep from telling me bad news. I reached for a handful of grape tomatoes. “You might as well spit it out and get it over with.”

He spread mayonnaise on his bread with the care Michelangelo devoted to the Sistine Chapel. Only when each swirl was perfect did he finally say, “I ran into Hubert this morning.”

“That shouldn’t have ruined your day.” Until Hubert Spence had moved to town the previous winter, he’d been our nearest neighbor, across a watermelon patch and a pasture with a cattle pond. We lived half a mile down a gravel road, and Hubert’s was the only other house on the road, except for the Pickens place up near the highway. Joe Riddley and Hubert never agreed on religion, politics, or whether Georgia or Georgia Tech was the better school, but they were friends. “What did he say?”

Joe Riddley slapped three pieces of ham on his sandwich. “He said that the superstore that folks have been talking about is really coming. They’re bringing in bulldozers tomorrow. Hubert’s worried sick they’ll close him down.”

I stared. I’d been so busy Saturday celebrating the Honeybees’ victory, I’d plumb forgotten to tell him what Brandi’s mother had said. Joe Riddley knew I was shocked, but misunderstood why. He laid his hand on mine. “We’ll be all right, honey. They won’t carry cotton seed. And their roses won’t be as nice as ours. Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

“Hubert may be fine, too. They won’t carry big appliances. But we’ll both have to let people go. And what about folks like Sara Meg?”

He took a big gulp of tea as though he were washing a bitter taste out of his mouth. “As a boy, I heard about tidal waves and lay awake for a lot of nights wondering how it felt to see something huge coming right at you and know you couldn’t get out of its way. Now I know.” He set his glass down with a thump. “I don’t mind telling you, Little Bit, I’m worried about this town.”

We should have
all
been worried. But the new superstore was a speck on the windshield of the wreck heading our way.

 

When DeWayne Evans made an unprecedented visit to my office late that afternoon, I figured somebody must have added a bit to my JUDGE YARBROUGH sign: PALMS READ AND PROBLEMS SOLVED. He filled my door with his sturdy body and wide shoulders. Seeing him with a bare head, wearing khaki slacks, a yellow shirt, and loafers, took some getting used to. I usually saw him on the ball field in his coach’s white and red uniform and cap.

“I hate to barge in on you like this, Judge, but I’ve got a little problem. I understand you’ve been talking to Yasheika.” My wing chair creaked as he lowered himself into it.

I swivelled my desk chair to face him. “And I’ve got a bone to pick with you. She said you’re Little Gerrick Lawton, and you never told me.”

“You remember me?” The man’s face lit up just like the child’s had when he was unexpectedly pleased.

“Of course I remember. I used to give you suckers when your mama came in to buy hen bran and tomato plants. You liked red ones.” Now that I knew to look, I could see the resemblance. That stocky little boy had grown into a man with the same big round head, high forehead, friendly eyes that met yours with a trace of shyness, and the same wide mouth that curved easily into a bashful smile.