Snoop to Nuts (13 page)

At The Squirrel, I had to stop again and again for friends and neighbors reaching out to grab my arm and express their outrage that Miss Amelia was under attack, the way she was, by the sheriff and Freda Cromwell.

“Crazy, him thinking your meemaw’d do a thing like that. What I’m hearing,” Elder Jameson, the florist in town, shook his head. “Everybody’s getting together and going over there to the Nut House and buying every jar of her Texas caviar we can get our hands on. Just to show her how much we believe in her. You tell yer grandma that, okay? We’re coming.”

I assured one after the other that Miss Amelia would be grateful for their support and pushed my way through the tables to the booth where Hunter sat, tall and neat in his well-pressed blue uniform with the gold badge on his chest. Even the stultifying heat didn’t seem to faze Hunter. He was a man on the job. Face serious. Posture serious. He gave a serious head nod as I slid in across from him.

“Geez,” I said, looking around at the people watching us. “Guess they won’t be getting out a lynch party. Everybody here seems to be in Meemaw’s corner.”

Hunter smiled and handed me the computer-generated menu with a snarling squirrel at the top and a balloon above his head proclaiming: NUTS!

Cecil Darling’s humor often went over the heads of his patrons though they came back anyway, figuring it was just English humor and they’d never understand. Rivervillians felt sorry for him. Poor man, never going to be a Texan like them.

“I’d say fish and chips,” Hunter suggested, voice low.

“Is that chips as in French fries or potato chips?”

“Better not to ask. Cecil’s in a tizzy today. Somebody suggested he had to bribe the judges to get his honorable mention and that set him off.”

“I just ate,” I leaned in to tell Hunter. “I stopped at Juanita’s.”

Hunter, having hung around Rancho en el Colorado since he was a child and a few cattle still roamed the fields, knew the scents and joys of Juanita Sanchez’s house, too.

When Cecil came over to our booth, pad and pencil in hand, nose in the air, ready to respond to insults hurled his way, Hunter ordered mystery fish and chips and I asked for a glass of sweet tea, which brought raised eyebrows and a sniff.

When our order was taken and Cecil out of earshot, Hunter leaned across the table. “Got quite a bit on Shorty.” He consulted a notebook he’d pulled from a back pocket. “His name’s really Allen Temple. It’s true; he’s out of prison and living back in Tupelo. Seems it’s also true, what Selma told you about Shorty getting religion. And not only religion, he got himself a new wife. Guess he met her through some prison program. She donated her time, teaching inmates how to use the Internet.”

“Any recent trouble with him?”

Hunter shook his head. “Not since a complaint, like Selma said, about him harassing Parson Jenkins. Set Shorty back. Did extra time. Then nothing. The officer in Tupelo told me he thinks we’re barking up the wrong tree, going after Shorty.” Hunter looked up to gauge what I was thinking.

“We can’t let it go. We don’t have much else and Selma was scared. I think she really believes Shorty came to town and poisoned the parson to prove out some Bible verse.”

“And that could be. What I can do is ask the officer in Tupelo to call on Shorty. Give me his opinion of the man.”

I waited until Cecil delivered my glass of tea and Hunter’s thick white plate filled with fried fish and fried potatoes before saying anything more.

When Cecil was busy with another customer, I looked hard at Hunter. “I’m going to Tupelo. We’re not finding anything else that even remotely connects anybody to wanting to see the parson dead. I need to talk to that man. My grandmother’s life and reputation are on the line here.”

“You’re not going near anybody who could be a killer.” The voice was trying to be stern, but he knew me too well.

“I’ll take Miss Amelia.”

“Now there’s a bodyguard for you.”

“Hunter. I don’t know where else to turn. Nobody wanted the parson dead. Nobody saw anything. I’m stymied. At least this guy had a reason to hurt Parson Jenkins. He blamed the parson for spiriting his wife out of Tupelo. Any man sitting in a prison, with lots of time on his hands to stew over past wrongs, is a suspect, you ask me.”

“Well, you’re not going alone. That’s a ten-hour trip. I’ll take you, and I’ll question the man so that anything he says is on the record.”

“Just as long as we don’t let a suspect get past us just because it’s a little inconvenient.” My comment came out as snide and judgmental. I didn’t mean it that way.

“That’s not what I was saying . . .” His voice went tight and official.

“I know.” I reached over and patted his hand. “I’m just so . . . mad, I guess.”

He gave me a bewildered look, as if he had no idea how to keep up with me.

“So? Are we going?” I asked.

Hunter made a face. “Guess so. Be at least an overnight. Then we’ll have to see if the man will talk to us. I’ll have no official standing in Tupelo.”

“You could get help from the Tupelo police if we needed it, couldn’t you?”

“Suppose so.”

“Okay. In the morning?”

“Lindy. Think about it. People hear you and me went off on a trip together, there’ll be talk.”

I sank down into myself. “For Pete’s sakes. Who cares? We’ll each get our own room at a motel. Nobody’s business what we do anyway.”

“Just that I don’t want to harm your . . .”

“What? Reputation? Think about it, Hunter. I was away at college for six years. You think I led a lily-white life all that time?”

He hesitated, avoiding my eyes. “I never thought about it, to tell you the truth.”

“You never wondered if I was with some guy there?”

He slowly shook his head. “I had a girlfriend.”

“Ooh, I remember. Joslyn Pickett. Wasn’t that the one?”

His face was red. I could tell I was making him uncomfortable but didn’t care. He nodded.

“Joslyn Pickett. Didn’t they call her the town pump?”

“You cut that out, Lindy.”

“I’m just saying. We’re adults now. I want to help my grandmother. I’ll see if she’ll go with us, but if she can’t, I’m going to Tupelo anyway. With you or without you. I’ll find that Shorty Temple and I’ll ask him how good he is at grinding spotted water hemlock and feeding it to old enemies.”

“Keep your voice down.” He glowered at me. “I said I’d go.”

With that settled, I got up.

“I’ll see if I can round up a chaperone.” I bent toward him, mocking. “If I can’t, you’d just better learn to hold on to your virtue, because we’re going to Tupelo.”

*   *   *

I was still fuming when I got over to the Nut House, and fuming more when I saw Ethelred Tomroy ensconced in the rocking chair by the counter, rocking up a storm.

“Come here.” Ethelred crooked a finger at me as I tried to get past her, out to the kitchen, where Miss Amelia was probably baking more pies or mixing another batch of Heavenly Texas Pecan Caviar.

“Take a look at this.” Ethelred held up a new brochure. This one had a huge ocean liner on the cover with the words “Salamander Cruises” bannered across it. “I’m thinking of taking one of these boats.”

Miss Ethelred’s face was deadly serious. “You think I’d like Jamaica or the Bahamas? Or say, what about this one? Greek Isles.”

I was too astounded to answer. I stood still, looking down at Ethelred’s brochure as if I really were thinking over Miss Ethelred’s question.

Ethelred, when she looked at me, made her eyes into slits, and wrinkled her lips into a pursed “O.” “Got plenty of money soon. No use putting it in the bank for those bankers to steal. You never know how long you got in this world. You know that, Lindy? You’re young. You don’t think about such things. But I’m getting on. Almost seventy,” she lied then watched to see if I was buying it.

“Don’t think you’ve got a thing to worry about, Miss Ethelred.”

“You mean ’cause ‘only the good die young’?” Ethelred threw her head back and gave a mighty laugh.

Margaret Sanford, known throughout the town for her piety, sidled up to where the two of us were talking. “Couldn’t help overhearing, Ethelred,” she said, then looked around to see who else might be listening. “You been blessed, have you? Shame not everybody can be. You ask me, that’s an anti-Christian way to act toward folks.” She let her voice go up a few notches.

Ethelred’s face clouded over. She started to sputter but was stopped by Mrs. Sanford, now into full, red-faced, anger.

“Sure hope you rich people are ready to put your money where your mouth is and do things to help the people of this county. Tell you, Ethelred, too rich for a lot of us. We been talking about pulling out of Rushing to Calvary, finding a more Christian church.”

I stood back and listened.

“Shame on you, Margaret. ’Course I’m tithing more. Everybody is, what I’m told. That’s how we got the addition. Just what they promised, if we believed enough to stick with ’em.”

Margaret leaned down and stuck her face close to Ethelred’s. “Only for you people with money to hand over. I’m on social security. What am I supposed to do?” She nodded hard and fast.

Ethelred reached out to take Margaret’s bent hand in hers. “You don’t understand what I’m saying here. I’m getting out, Margaret. I’m taking my money back. Seems I got a thyroid problem. That’s what the doctor says. They’re taking tests tomorrow.”

Margaret put both hands to her face. “My Lord! I’m sorry I was mean about—”

“That’s why I’m taking a cruise. You never know how long you got left. It just hit me. I never did much of anything in this life. Time I did. Here, take a look at this.” She stuck the cruise brochure into Margaret Sanford’s hand. “I’m going and I’m not counting pennies. This one time I’m throwing caution to the winds, as they say.”

But Margaret Sanford’s face was stricken. “Oh dear, Ethelred. I’m truly sorry for taking it out on you. When will you know what’s going on with the thyroid?”

Ethelred paused, knowing what they both feared most at their age. “Hope tomorrow. That’s why I’m getting fat, the doctor says. ’Cause it’s my thyroid.”

Margaret’s face went through a series of changes, from being perplexed to something else. “Hope you got somebody going with you,” she said. “You’re gonna need somebody there. Can’t always fight people off the way you do when it’s this serious. Why, I heard thyroid could sure be more than worry over getting a little fat. Lots of cancers found there. You best get it done fast as you can.”

A startled frown crumpled Ethelred’s face. “Doctor didn’t say nothing about cancer. Just getting fat.”

“Well, bless yer heart, he wouldn’t now, would he? As I say, if you need a ride, just give me a call.”

“Amelia’s taking me,” Ethelred, still frowning, grumbled. She nodded as Miss Amelia came through the kitchen doors with a large baking sheet filled with pies for the front cooler.

“Glad you’ll have a good friend there.” Margaret looked over at Miss Amelia, smiling a sanctimonious smile.

“Good for you, Amelia,” Margaret Sanford called out to Meemaw. “All the troubles you got about poisoning people and not too upset to take on one more problem.”

“Didn’t poison a single person . . . yet.” Miss Amelia smiled that stiff smile I knew so well.

“You want a pie?” Miss Amelia thrust her pan of pies at Margaret Sanford.

The woman turned and hurried away.

I swear I could gain five pounds just by walking into the Nut House kitchen and inhaling. I followed Miss Amelia back into the huge room with granite counters and floor-to-ceiling coolers and wall ranges, and into air that was as thick and sweet as a sugar factory. Trays of cooling Classy Tassies were set along one of the long counters. Trays of melt-in-your-mouth Outhouse Moons took up another table. Treenie Menendez was packing pecan sandies into the one-pound boxes. She greeted me, hurrying over to give me a hug as she asked how I was holding up under all the family travail.

“Bien, gracias.” I looked down into liquid warm eyes.
“Y usted?”

“
Tenga cuidado de su abuela
.” Treenie, face angry now, was telling me to look after my grandmother and I agreed.

Knowing the two of us probably needed a private place to talk, Treenie grabbed up a huge wicker basket filled with bags of nuts and headed out to the store to fill counters that were getting low, rotate the stock, and then take day-old packages away to the mission in town, where the churches took turns feeding the homeless and the lonely and the elderly.

Nothing from Miss Amelia’s kitchen ever went to waste. She often said she’d rather give it all away than throw her baked goods in a Dumpster.

I leaned against a table next to where Miss Amelia was folding pie boxes.

Meemaw glanced over at me, frowned, and asked, “Are you an ornament, young lady? You see very well I’m working my head off here. Start folding and boxing.”

She pushed a stack of boxes at me.

Since I’d worked in one capacity or another in the kitchen since I was little, I fell easily into the routine of folding the cardboard oblongs into pie boxes, then slipping a pie into the box, closing it, sealing the box with a Blanchard crest sticker, and setting it on the rolling cart to take over to the refrigerator or out to the cooler in the store.

We fell into our old routine easily as I caught Miss Amelia up on what was happening and where Hunter and I were going.

“The two of you—alone?” Miss Amelia stepped back and frowned for a minute.

“Meemaw, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

“Humph.” She flipped box tops up, creased them, then set her pies down faster and harder. “It’s not you I’m worried about. I don’t think you should be pushing poor Hunter any farther than you’ve been pushing him.”

“Meemaw, this is for you. This man could have been getting even with the pastor for religious reasons.”

“No such thing as a religious reason to kill. That’s man-directed stuff. That’s power-hungry stuff.”

“Still, that’s why we’re going.”

“How long’s the drive?”

“About ten and a half hours.”

“Ten and a half hours! Alone all that time. I repeat, poor Hunter. You don’t know about men, Lindy. A woman shouldn’t push a man too far. Trouble comes out of—”

“Is this our sex talk, Meemaw?” I interrupted. “Don’t you think it’s a little late?”

“Lindy Blanchard!” Miss Amelia reared back on the heels of her sneakers and fixed me with a shocked look. “I wasn’t talking about any such thing.”

“You were, too. Anyway, I came over here to ask you to go with us. That way you can be our chaperone and talk to Shorty Temple yourself.”

Miss Amelia made a sound that seemed to be a bunch of words backed up and stoppered in her throat. “I can’t,” she finally said.

“Why not? Treenie can run the store.”

“You know darned well, young lady.”

“Ethelred again. Right?”

Miss Amelia hesitated, as if not willing to share something with me. Finally, after storing more pies, she said, “She’s got nobody else and I’m worried.”

“I know you’ve known her a long time, but she’s not exactly your best friend.”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s what I’m going to do.”

“You applying for sainthood? All that time in the car with Ethelred? Can’t be much—the tests for thyroid trouble, if she’s planning a cruise.”

She shrugged. “Planning and doing are two different things.”

After a long sigh, she added, “That Margaret Sanford’s got a big mouth. I was at the doctor’s when Ethelred learned about having the tests. He mentioned cancer right there and then but Ethelred’s ignored the whole thing. She thinks she’s going because of the pounds she’s been putting on. No such thing.”

I swallowed hard, thinking how I’d scoffed at Ethelred throughout my life. Ethelred really sick was a very different human being than the usual Ethelred—pain in the neck. “When will she know for sure?”

“That’s what the tests are for. Could mean surgery. Maybe chemotherapy.”

“Oh, no . . . Then these big new cars she’s been talking about . . . and this cruise . . .”

“All just hoping, Lindy. Something you don’t want to take away from anybody.”

“And this money she’s talking about?”

Miss Amelia shrugged. “Well, that. Swears she found the mother lode. There’s some investment club at the church. They asked me to join but I’d rather see to my money myself, thank you.”

She looked over toward the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “But you don’t have to worry about Ethelred going to the poorhouse if her investments don’t pan out. Her daddy left her very well off. And she’s been sitting on that nest egg like one of those pterodactyls. Just hope she didn’t invest it all with that group, is what I’m thinking. And now, with this thing she won’t admit to . . . well, Ethelred’s planning the life she never let herself live, and I say, you go for it.”

We hurried out into the store when the bell above the door rang and a busload of tourists, along with Deacon Hawley Harvey, walked in.

“Here for my special pecan pie.” The man swaggered down an aisle, watching to see who looked his way. “Wouldn’t miss it, Miss Amelia.”

“Well, Hawley.” Miss Amelia walked up the aisle toward him, putting out her hand to shake his. “Glad to see you’re a man of courage.”

“No such thing.” He shook his head hard. “I know good people when I see ’em. Well, the whole thing’s been so awful . . . you understand. But you’re a fine upright Christian woman. None the like of. Sure hope you’re doing pies for the ground-breaking ceremony next Sunday. Wouldn’t be the same Riverville event without ’em.”

“Tell somebody to ask,” she said, giving him a skeptical look. “Not everybody in town thinks I’m above a little murder. Could be your event committee doesn’t want ’em.”

“Don’t talk like that, Miss Amelia. Of course we want your pies.” He leaned in close to smirk. “And your money, too, if you’d still like to invest with all the others.”

She only smiled at the man. “Now, you just shop around to your heart’s content, Hawley. Lindy and I’ll go box up a very special pie out in the kitchen.” She canted her head for me to follow.

Getting by Ethelred, rocking at a great pace as she reread her brochure, wasn’t easy. Ethelred waved the brochure in my face, more frantic since her talk with Margaret Sanford. “You think the Bahamas, Lindy? I’m thinking the Bahamas. No native people there, are there? I don’t want to end up in somebody’s soup pot.”

“Nope.” I patted the woman’s hand. “No cannibals in the Bahamas, Miss Ethelred. Leastwise, not yet.”

Back in the kitchen, Miss Amelia had something on her mind and needed to share it. She pulled a boxed-up pecan pie from one of the coolers and tied it with string. “What was going on with Margaret Sanford? Sounds like jealousy, doesn’t it? I haven’t been paying much attention. Never do to gossip. Still, I’m just wondering . . .”

“That’s why I don’t bother going to church. So many little tempests in tiny teapots.” I leaned back and folded my arms.

“Well, not so little to those people. You can’t judge the importance of things until you know the confines of a life.”

“Right, Meemaw. Chastised again. Still, you think it’s anything?”

“I called Pastor Albertson. So much swirling around the church. Then one day he was there, the next he was gone. All we were told was that he retired. I got a card from him at Christmas. His news was sad. His wife, Sally, died. I sent him a condolence card and put his address in my regular daily book. He was surprised to hear from me.”

“What’d he say?”

“First, I told him about Pastor Jenkins dying. He was deeply shocked. Said he hadn’t heard a word, been on a fishing trip. I asked him if he knew any reason somebody would want to kill the poor man and he said he couldn’t think of a thing.”

“Nothing? Why’d he leave so fast? You ask him that?”

“Tried but he had to go. Said he’ll call me back. Didn’t have time to talk right them.”

“So not to depend on that angle. Still, maybe he’ll come up with something.”

“He sounded real concerned. He’ll help out all right, if he’s got anything.”

Before she would let me go, she had a few more questions about my trip to Tupelo with Hunter. There was an admonition to call her every couple of hours.

“Even overnight?” I teased.

“Especially overnight, young lady. I don’t want you losing your virtue trying to help me out.”

“Meemaw.” I launched myself away from the counter, planning a fast getaway. “Remember Humpty Dumpty? ‘All the king’s horses and all the king’s men . . .’”

“Why . . . I can’t believe . . .”

I left my sputtering grandmother behind as I hurried over to see Jessie at the library.

*   *   *

Jessie was shelving books in the children’s section. Her pretty, small face surrounded by a halo of black curls lit with a broad smile when she saw me coming down the aisle toward her.

We hugged as we always did—sometimes a tight hug when either one of us was miserable about something. We’d been friends long enough to have shared trouble like the loss of my father and Jessie’s disappointment in my uncle Amos when he broke her heart. The kind of stuff that brings friends together.

“Let’s go outside,” Jessie said, giving me a meaningful look. Too many people in the library and we shouldn’t be talking in there anyway.

Jessie stopped at the front desk to tell Miss Jenny Hopkins that she was taking a break. We went off to sit in one of my favorite spots in Riverville, a little garden that ran along one side of the low brick library surrounded by tall live oaks. We sat atop a low wall that curved around the flowerbeds, using the first minutes to catch up on how Miss Amelia was doing and how I was doing, how Jessie was doing.

“I stopped by your house this morning. Your mom said you wanted to see me,” I said.

“I could’ve called but I never know who’s around and I don’t want to cause anybody trouble. I don’t gossip. Lord’s sakes, I’ve been hurt enough by gossip myself.”

I knew what she was talking about. Especially all that Uncle Amos trouble. After he had an affair with Finula Prentiss, she declared she was pregnant. Jessie’s world blew up and some people weren’t kind. Uncle Amos left town though no baby ever appeared. Later the family learned he’d gone to a rehab facility in Houston. The gossips had a field day with Jessie’s heartbreak.

“Maybe this is nothing, but I was putting up posters inside the windows and couldn’t help overhearing a couple of ladies talking in the vestibule. Something’s got them stirred up. What I understood was that they belonged to your grandmother’s church. The ladies were whispering but what I got was that there’s something going on with the board. At first I thought it was that business of finding a new pastor. But that didn’t seem to be it. Or at least not all they were worried about. One of the ladies said she was asking for “hers” back, and she wasn’t taking any more stalling. I’m not sure I got it right, but since it was about the church, I thought I’d better tell you. Something about the tone of voice they were using. Pretty determined about something or other.”

I frowned. “Asking for what back?”

“No clue. That’s all I heard. I wouldn’t have said a word except I figured anything to do with the church could be important to Miss Amelia right now. I think almost everybody in town is looking for answers and wanting to help her.”

I called Meemaw from the truck on the way back to my apartment. “Jessie wanted to see me about something she overheard,” I said.

I’d caught Miss Amelia on her way out. She sounded tired. “What a day, Lindy. Ethelred’s going to sit there in that rocker ’til hell freezes over, I guess. Appointed herself my guardian. Anybody opens their mouth to mention that poor pastor, she jumps right in and causes a ruckus. I’m almost glad I’m taking her to Columbus in the morning. Anything to get her out of the Nut House.

“So what’d Jessie overhear?” she went on after a long yawn.

“Stuff about the church. Women whispering by the library doors about getting something of their own back or getting something back—I don’t remember exactly what Jessie said.”

“Hmm. Could be anything, Lindy. Most times they’re accusing each other of stealing recipes. Important as state secrets, those recipes. At least to the women who worked on them so long. Maybe something their mother left ’em. Still, I’ll start talking to folks that come into the store. Only takes a couple of days and I’ll see just about everybody from the church. Except maybe Freda Cromwell. Still won’t come in, though she’s taken to sitting in one of the rockers on the porch since I took her that pie. Poor thing. So lonely without King Charles snarling beside her.”