Snoop to Nuts (7 page)

Jessie stuck her head in the door of my office just a little after eight. She had two bottles of beer in one hand and rattled them at me as she walked in and pulled a metal chair over to my desk, where I had been sitting for about an hour with record books open and unseen in front of me.

We hugged, as usual, with me holding on to my friend a little longer than was usual. I was feeling sorry for myself. I didn’t usually indulge in self-pity, but tonight I was up to my ears in it with my work behind schedule; my grandma headed for prison—or worse, maybe to Huntsville, where they put bad folks to sleep; my love life over before it got a running start. All that and a few old and new complaints about me—too damned bullheaded; out to save the world when I couldn’t even protect my grandmother; too dumb to see the guy right in front of my nose. I would have come up with a much longer list if Jessie hadn’t shown up when she did.

“I stopped by your house but Miss Emma said Miss Amelia was in bed.”

“She’s been there since Ethelred left. I asked that woman not to come out but you know Ethelred. Takes a cannonball to stop her if she’s on a mission.”

“Been looking peaked lately. Ethelred, I mean. You notice? Maybe age catching up with her.”

I shrugged, thinking I had a lot more important things to mull over. I took a long swig of beer, then settled back to enjoy a few minutes with my friend.

“Kind of sad, when you think about it,” Jessie said. “For all that swagger of hers, she’s got nobody but your meemaw. The rest of the people here in town don’t care about her. All that ‘old family’ stuff, like it means a hill of beans when it comes down to getting through the day.”

“So she came out and dropped her troubles on Meemaw’s shoulders, like she always does. That woman doesn’t have one thought about anybody but herself.”

I pushed papers into their file folders, set them at the front edge of my desk, and finished off my beer in one long drink.

“What’s up?” Jessie asked. “See you’ve got a lot on your mind. Not that the family troubles wouldn’t be enough.”

“I guess I dumped Hunter.” I look up and felt the pain behind my eyes that comes before tears.

“Oh, no.” She leaned across the desk and put her hand on mine. “What happened?”

“Hunter’s coming in the morning to take Meemaw to the sheriff’s.”

Her dark eyes grew large. “Is he arresting her?”

“No. Just taking her in for questioning—again.”

“You took her last time. Why the formality?”

“Sheriff said it wouldn’t look good if they didn’t follow procedure and I guess his procedure is to send a deputy to bring in a suspect.”

“She’s a suspect?”

I nodded. “They found spotted water hemlock in the dish she brought out for the parson to taste.”

Jessie couldn’t find words for that bit of news.

“I know,” I said. “Me, too. I’ve been practically speechless since Hunter told me.”

“What was wrong with the first bowl? The judging bowl? If that one was poisoned, how come the judges didn’t all fall over right then?”

“First bowl had alum in it. That only makes you pucker up. But what the hell, Jessie? Both of the bowls were tampered with. Sure looks like Meemaw’s got an enemy.”

She raised her eyebrows at me. “What do you figure’s going on?”

“Maybe it’s all of us—the Blanchards—they’re after.”

“Are you working with Hunter on this like you did before?”

I shook my head a little too hard. “Not anymore. That’s for sure.”

“What’d he do?”

I sniffed and nodded and swallowed—all the while trying to hide a misery attack coming on me.

“What kind of a friend is he? He’s treating Meemaw like a criminal. For all I know, they’ll be throwing her in jail. I just can’t . . . I can’t forgive him for turning on us like this.”

“Not turning on you, Lindy. He’s doing his job.”

“But his job will destroy my family. I can’t have anything to do with him. Not anymore.” I took a swipe at my nose with the side of my hand.

Jessie leaned back in her chair and made a face at me. “Why don’t you just wait and see what happens before you go dumping him? He needs your help—you and Miss Amelia. And you need his.”

“Meemaw is not doing a single thing to help herself. All she’s doing is lying in bed. I’m getting mad at her, too. I can’t do anything all by myself.”

“All three of you need to find a way to get moving. You sure need Miss Amelia. That woman can figure out the answer to all this before the rest of you get your brains in gear. This is no time for her to be lying down on the job. And no time, either, for you to be dumping the man who’s been your friend for twenty-eight years.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore. I look one way—an old friend is trying to prove my grandmother’s a killer. I look the other way—people who’ve known the Blanchards for years are snubbing us and talking behind our backs. It makes me mad. It makes me sad.”

“Don’t you think Hunter understands what you’re going through? These aren’t normal times. You two will go back the way you were when this is over.”

“I don’t know. Like mountains growing up between us. You know, things get said and then something else happens and the things said get worse.”

“You want me to have a talk with Hunter?”

I gave her an exasperated look and shook my head. “It’s not like explaining me skipping school to Miss Archwood in the eighth grade, Jessie. You just can’t step in and make things right this time.”

“Why not? Hunter knows me. He knows I wouldn’t say a word about your business unless it was important. Lindy, you can’t just kiss trees for the rest of your life.”

I picked up a paper clip and flipped it at her.

“Okay, if I can’t play cupid with Hunter, how about helping out at the Nut House this weekend?”

“Bethany’s going to be there—like it or not. Too much time with Justin’s friend and none of us like him. I think even Justin’s getting tired of having him here. Justin’s getting quiet and you know what happens when he gets quiet like he is.”

She drained the last of her beer and stood up. “I’ve got to get on home but I’ll keep my ears open. All this gossip, maybe somebody will say something that helps.”

She came over and kissed me on the top of the head before leaving. “You let me know if I can do anything.”

She put a hand under my chin and forced my head up. “And you stop this moping and get going. You say Miss Amelia’s not trying to help herself, well, neither are you. Just think about what’s happened. Somebody tried to ruin Miss Amelia’s chances of winning that important blue ribbon. Well, I’d say nobody else would have put alum in her dish but Ethelred Tomroy. Better go have a heart-to-heart with her. Then think of this second dish—full of lethal poison. Could kill in . . . what? Half an hour? Nobody but the parson got it because it wasn’t put on the main table where the winning dishes went. That was because it wasn’t a winner—and who the heck could have predicted Miss Amelia’s dish wouldn’t win? Maybe the person who put the alum in the contest entry—so, Ethelred, but I don’t have her pegged as a mass poisoner, do you?”

I shook my head—a little reluctantly since I’d like to blame Ethelred for everything.

“So, maybe whoever put the poison in her dish for the Winners’ Supper had no idea she’d lose. Maybe they didn’t care who they poisoned. Or—as long as I’ve been going to these fair events—it’s always been a clergyman honored to be first in line at the buffet. Back to Reverend Jenkins as the target.”

She was telling me things I already knew but hadn’t put together due to my enormous case of feeling sorry for myself.

“Now get on back to the house. You’ve got a lot to do tomorrow. You ask me, Sheriff Higsby would be a lot better off setting Miss Amelia after the killer than taking up her time answering questions.”

Jessie, like any good friend would, was giving me a verbal slap on the head while opening a solid path for me to follow. I was more grateful to Jessie than I could ever tell her. But we’d known each other so long, I figured she already knew.

She wasn’t sleeping when I tiptoed into Meemaw’s prettily flowered, blue-and-white bedroom the next morning. I tapped her lightly on the shoulder and watched as a single tear crept from her tightly shut eyes, over the edge of her nose, to make a wet spot on her pillow.

“Meemaw.” I tapped her again.

She sighed and finally opened her blurred eyes, brought her legs over the side of the bed, and sat up to look straight at me.

“Hunter here to get me?” she asked in a deadened voice.

“He’s downstairs.”

“I figured he’d be coming for me. Poison in my caviar, right? Only thing Millroy ate different from everybody else. Hunter arresting me?”

“No! Just wants to talk to you again.”

She sighed and made a slow move to get up, searching over the side of the bed for her slippers and then waving me from the room. “Let me get dressed. Tell him I’ll be right out. Oh, and call Ben. Say I need him there this time.”

I headed for the door but she stopped me.

“Hunter tell you what kind of poison it was? You know I never bought a poison in my life. Not to kill ants or fleas or anything. So they sure can’t blame me if it was arsenic or anything like that.”

“Spotted water hemlock,” I said.

“You mean that stuff we’ve got along the river? Well . . .”

I closed the door behind me.

When Miss Amelia came from her apartment into the kitchen, she was straightening the collar of her flowered blouse. She’d put on blue slacks and white huaraches. Her hair was neatly combed back from her face and her signature pink lipstick was drawn precisely over her lips. As pretty as she looked, her face was pale, her eyes sunken. I thought I’d never seen a woman quite so ready to walk her last mile.

Hunter got up quietly from his seat at the long table, stiff hat turning in his hands. He bowed his head as he wished her “Good morning.”

Justin was leaning back against one of the tile counters, both hands behind him holding on tight. He glowered at Hunter. I knew my usually calm brother was having a hard time with this. Hunter was his lifelong friend, but none of this was about friendship anymore. It was about Blanchards fighting for Blanchards. I knew too well, in this kind of fight, we won or died like my uncle Amos did.

Bethany and Mama sat on the edge of their chairs. Their faces were stiff with worry. It looked and felt like the morning of a hanging.

Jeffrey Coulter stood off to one side, watching. When I glanced at him, wishing he’d go away, he gave me an unpleasant smile.

“Are you really going to pull my grandmother back into the station, Hunter?” Justin’s voice was strained. He pulled away from the sink to stand as tall as his five feet ten would let him.

Mama piped up. “I called Ben, Mama. He’ll meet you there. He said to promise you won’t be there long. Said if the sheriff’s not charging you, you’re not staying.”

“Why in hell are you doing this to her, Hunter?” Justin took a step toward his old friend. “You know this woman here never hurt a soul in her life.”

“Wouldn’t if I didn’t have to, Justin.” Hunter looked a little like the one in danger of being hung.

“Swear to God, Hunter. I never thought I’d want to kill you like I do right now.” Justin made a move that died quickly, just fizzled out as his hands fell to his sides.

Jeffrey Coulter made a noise and shook his head.

“Please, Jeffrey,” my soft-spoken sister said, her round blue eyes wide. “Don’t you get involved.”

Coulter shrugged his shoulders and stepped way back from the rest of us.

“Hunter’s doing his job,” Miss Amelia said. “You let him be.”

She might have been sticking up for him, but when she turned, her eyes were defiant. “I know I’m the one with means and motive, Hunter. That’s what people always say. Even my good friends will start to wonder:
Miss Amelia got mad over losing out to Ethelred Tomroy. Went ahead and diced up a good dose of hemlock and gave it to the parson ’cause he passed up her dish.
That’s what they’ll all be thinking after a while. Doesn’t make it true.”

She turned to me. “You coming with us, Lindy? No use keeping Ben and the sheriff waiting.”

After hugging Justin and Bethany and Mama, and ignoring Jeffrey Coulter, we got out of the house.

None of what was happening seemed real, not Hunter’s hand on top of Miss Amelia’s head as she got into the back of his patrol car, and not joining her on the other side of the tight backseat with a metal grate between us and Hunter.

He sat in the front, not looking back. It was like one of those dreams where things are going wrong but your brain warns you how much worse it could still get.

At the sheriff’s office, I wasn’t allowed in the back with Meemaw. All I could do was sit in the outer room and wait for Ben, who came rushing in about ten minutes after we got there. “She in back?” he asked hurriedly.

I nodded.

“Hope she’s not answering any questions. I’m getting her right out of here.”

The hurried man in his rumpled tan suit, overstuffed briefcase at his side, went through the swinging gate and around to the back.

*   *   *

Ben was an old friend of Daddy’s from the time when Ben first came to town. That was a few years before Daddy was murdered out in the pecan grove. Now Ben seemed like one of the family.

Within fifteen minutes they were all back out in the lobby.

“You through grilling Miss Amelia, Sheriff?” I shot an angry look at the man standing behind her.

“Not ‘grilling’ anybody, Lindy. You been watching too many cop shows.”

“I’m just glad she didn’t come out in stripes,” I, still fuming at the sheriff and at Hunter, said between clenched lips.

Sheriff Higsby ignored my snit. “Need to talk to you, too, Lindy. Want to hear if you’ve got any ideas about all of this. All I’m doing is looking for help here. You got anything . . .”

I looked around the nearly empty room and thought fast. Was there any way I could swing suspicion away from Meemaw? The kick in the butt I got from Jessie had already started my brain.

“What about that prize hog?” I asked. “Find out who let him loose to send everybody running out to watch him go.”

He frowned at me, thinking hard.

“And there’s talking to the deacons at the church. What about any problems the parson was having with anybody? You do that yet?”

He shook his head, beginning to look sheepish.

“I’d say it’s somebody local—because of the spotted water hemlock—except it grows straight across the South.”

The sheriff listened and I felt good. It was like doing something positive at last. The feeling even got to Miss Amelia, who put a finger in the air at one point, but I was on a roll.

“All the ladies brought in two bowls of their entries. One for judging. One for the Winners’ Supper—in case they won a ribbon. So how would anyone know which one was going to the judges and which one was for later, for the supper?” I asked everyone in general.

“I can answer that one,” Miss Amelia perked up.

“You’re not supposed to say a word, Meemaw,” I cautioned her.

“You be quiet, young lady. I’ll take care of myself.” She turned to the sheriff. “The judging dish was already out on the table by the time the hog got loose. The other one was all that was left in the cooler.”

The sheriff thought awhile. “Then tell me this, how’d he know you weren’t going to win and be serving that other bowl to everybody?”

Miss Amelia snapped her mouth shut. We all knew what he was saying but it was too awful to think about: Maybe the killer didn’t care.

The sheriff turned to Ben. “I talked to Dora. Asked if she knew what happened when Miss Amelia heaped that caviar on to her husband’s plate and she said she doubted he even wanted any more since he didn’t like it to begin with. Seemed odd to her, and Selma, too. That’s what they told me. Figured I should tell you.”

At that bit of treachery, I fell silent, until a new thought struck me.

“What about them? They were sitting on either side of the parson, only ones close enough to dose his plate. Why don’t you change your questions, Sheriff? Ask them if they killed Millroy, then ask them what they’ve got against my grandmother.”

The sheriff took too long to think. Miss Amelia lifted her head toward the door. She wanted out of there.

To our backs, the sheriff called out, “And about the Nut House, Miss Amelia. You’d better stay away from there for a while. Not that I’m scared you’d do something, mind you. Just that we don’t know what’s going on around here yet. I been kind of thinkin’, maybe you’re the target. Somebody doing this to scare folks away from your store and your baked goods. Seen worse things done when people got to be rivals.”

She turned slowly, at her most regal now. “Just who do you imagine has got a store to rival the Nut House? I, for one, can’t think of a single place.” Miss Amelia moved out through the door. “You think of one, Sheriff?” she asked over her shoulder. “How about you, Hunter?”

Hunter, framed in the doorway behind us, shook his head.

“You’re not thinking of Ethelred, are you? Woman’s not as bad as people think. Just wanting a little glory. That’s all.” Out on the porch, she put a hand up, shielding her eyes from the sun.

“Hunter, you call Lindy you got any news, you hear me? Sooner rather than later. I get the feeling you two aren’t talking much and that’s just plain stupid at a time like this.”

“Yes, ma’am,” was all he said.

Since I was mad at her for interfering, I got a rough grip on Meemaw’s arm, then let up as I felt a tremor go through her body. She promised Ben she’d be home that night if he wanted to come over and talk. I led her carefully down to the truck parked at the curb, and said nothing more until we were on our way out of town.