Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (15 page)

Joe Riddley and I heard nothing about the murder until Saturday morning. We’d scarcely opened up when the sheriff dropped by the office. We were in the middle of a friendly but heated bicker about how much we ought to invest in perennials for the spring market, so I was glad to stop and welcome him. That would give Joe Riddley time to decide I was right.

Sheriff Gibbons sank wearily into our wing chair, dropped his hat on the floor, and rubbed his hands to warm them. “Not much warmer today than yesterday.”

Lulu scooted across the floor on her belly so he could scratch behind her ears.

Bo flew down from the curtain rod and perched on his shoulder to give his ear a friendly nip. The sheriff flapped one hand. “Go away, bird.”

“Not to worry.” Bo flew once around the office and resumed his perch.

We swiveled our chairs to face the wing chair.

“You didn’t come over here to discuss the weather,” I remarked.

“And you look like something the cat dragged in and took back out,” Joe Riddley added with what passes for tact between men who have been friends for sixty years. “Didn’t you sleep good last night?”

“Didn’t sleep at all, but it’s on my to-do list.” The sheriff let out a deep breath that he seemed to have been holding for a very long time. “You got any coffee?”

I fetched his usual mug—one with dancing penguins on it that Walker had brought back from Las Vegas—and while I was at it, poured out two more. Fighting with Joe Riddley uses up a lot of energy.

I waited until the sheriff had taken a restorative sip before I asked, “Why were you up all night?”

Joe Riddley spoke before he could answer. “Was it about whatever was going on over at the motel? I saw your lights in the parking lot on our way home from dinner. Little Bit was dozing, having consumed half the dessert buffet, but I saw you had every cruiser in the county there. Later, I had to pull over to let an ambulance pass.”

I could have smacked him. “You never said a word to me about seeing the sheriff at the motel or pulling over for an ambulance.”

The sheriff took another fortifying sip before he enlightened us. “Robin Parker got murdered. Somebody broke her neck. Trevor and two of the folks from the taxidermists’ convention found her, around nine.”

“Poor Trevor!”

That popped out before I thought. I was also sorry for Robin and her girls, of course, but Trevor was the one I knew best. “He’s only begun to deal with Starr’s death, and now this. It’s enough to get his guardian angel fired.” I took a gulp of coffee and scalded my tongue. “Ow!”

The sheriff grunted. “Trevor finding her was only one bad part of a terrible situation.”

“What happened to the children?” Joe Riddley inquired.

“That was another bad part.”

I suspected what he wasn’t saying. “Were you the one who had to tell them?”

“Yeah.”

“That must have been rough.”

“About the roughest thing I ever had to face. I don’t like bringing that kind of news to anybody, but to two girls! Then I had to call social services to come get them. They were home all by themselves. Can you believe it?”

“Not hardly. Robin was always very protective of those kids. I can’t imagine her going off and leaving them alone.”

“Well, they were. Said they were sleeping in their mother’s bed. I think they had cried themselves to sleep. The older one, who can talk the ear off corn, said their uncle was supposed to come, but he never showed up.”

We shared a few moments of silence while we contemplated children being left alone in a house at night. I still had a hard time believing Robin would have done that.

The sheriff spoke first. “I wish I could have found a name and address for the uncle, so they could have gone to him. I hate to think of those kids stuck in a foster home. But they didn’t know his last name.”

“We met him over at Trevor’s after Starr was killed. What was his name?” I searched my mental Rolodex, but came up blank. “Do you remember, Joe Riddley? Robin introduced us.”

“I don’t remember that. Are you sure?”

Buster and I exchanged a look. Joe Riddley’s memory had been erratic ever since he got shot. I hurried to take our minds off that. “Robin was in the store one day and mentioned to Evelyn that her brother lived down near Tennille. Maybe Trevor would know.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Trevor claims he never heard of the man. Says Robin didn’t list a next of kin on her employment forms, and told him she was an orphan with no living relatives. That’s partly why he hired her, because he felt sorry for her.”

“Besides the fact that she’s a darned good taxidermist,” I added, “but it’s weird she didn’t mention her brother.”

“I’d sure like to locate him, for the kids’ sake.”

We seemed to have exhausted that subject, so I asked, “Do you know what she was doing at the motel?”

“Meeting somebody, we presume. We found a note in her pocketbook from a man saying he was staying in room three-oh-seven and wanted to talk with her about a fox. We’re still looking for him. His bed wasn’t slept in last night.”

“Was she killed in his room?”

“No, she was killed where she was found, in the elevator. Like I said, Trevor and a couple from the convention discovered her. The couple had to be taken to emergency. He was the one who reached Robin first, and when he found out she was dead, he had a mild heart attack.” The sheriff shifted in his chair in a way that made me suspect he wasn’t telling us everything he knew about the man. “When he crumpled, his wife fainted, so Trevor called for help. He stayed to talk with us after they were taken to the hospital, but he was pretty shaken up, too.”

“I can imagine. I think Robin was becoming like a daughter to him.” I took another exploratory sip of coffee and found it was finally cool enough to drink.

Joe Riddley gave a derisive snort. “Daughter, my foot. She was a beautiful woman.”

I stared at him. “Beautiful? She was plainer than dishwater.”

“She had good bones and a good figure under those loose clothes she wore. She’d have been a looker if she’d fixed herself up a little.”

You live with a man for over forty years and know him for nearly sixty, so you think you know exactly how he thinks. Then he comes out with something like that.

Buster chuckled at the look on my face. “She was a looker, last night. She was all dolled up in a mink coat—”

“Mink?” I was flabbergasted. Surely he had that wrong.

“The real McCoy, or so I understand. Under it she had on a sexy red dress, high heels, makeup, the whole shebang. I think somebody mentioned she had even curled her hair.

And you’re right, old buddy, she was something else. Even Trevor didn’t recognize her at first.”

I cradled my mug to my chest. Except for my tingling tongue, I felt chilled. “That’s weird. I don’t recall ever seeing Robin in anything except jeans or a denim skirt. And that’s not how a woman would dress to go discuss the sale of a fox.”

Seeing their faces, I explained about the man at the taxidermy convention.

“Well, that’s what she had on,” Buster insisted. “We searched the place looking for her brother’s contact information and hoping to find some clue to what had happened, and you’re right that what she mostly had in her bedroom were jeans and T-shirts, but she had several fancy outfits, too. Her bedroom looked like a tornado had hit, or like she had tried on everything in her closet getting ready for a hot date. My hunch is that whoever he was got drunk and tried to get fresh, she pushed him away, and he reacted more violently than he intended. Maybe somebody will come in later today and confess.”

I was still baffled. “A hot date isn’t what I’d expect of Robin—any more than leaving her children alone. Are you positive it was her?”

Joe Riddley leaned over and grabbed my wrist. “Stay out of this. You hear me?”

Buster picked up his hat and stood. “You two can fight that out in private. I gotta get back to the office and fill out some paperwork. I just wanted to put you in the loop—and get some coffee. Sometime when you’re down at the detention center, Judge, teach them how to make it, will you?”

He knew that would get my goat. I glared. “Not in your lifetime. I have the dignity of my office to preserve. Now, would you tell this old codger to let go of me?”

Joe Riddley dropped my wrist, but warned, “If you get Little Bit het up about this case, Sheriff, I’m gonna give her to you on permanent loan.”

The sheriff settled his hat on his head. “Let’s not get carried away now.”

Joe Riddley reached for his cap as well. “I need to run down to the nursery. I’ll walk you out.”

At the door, the sheriff turned and gave me the look that always reminded me of a mournful bloodhound. “That littlest girl nearly broke my heart. She begged to go home with me. Can you believe that? Scared the socks off me. I thought I was gonna have me a daughter for a minute there.”

“She’d beg to go home with anybody. Don’t take it personally.”

“Oh, shucks. I thought she found me cute.”

For years it had been our custom to eat with Ridd’s family on Saturday nights. When we lived in the big house, they came to us. We’d eat supper and swim in the summer, and we’d play dominoes or a board game during cooler months. Walker’s family was invited, but seldom availed themselves of the invitation. Once Martha and Ridd moved to the big house and we moved into town, we reversed the process and Joe Riddley and I went down to eat with them. It wasn’t fancy—hamburgers on the grill or a big pot of soup with sandwiches—but it kept us in touch, as busy as we all usually were.

That Saturday night it was too cold for Cricket to be playing outside like he often was when we arrived. Instead he was entertaining Bradley Knight and Robin’s two girls in the kitchen. Natalie was paler than usual, her thin face pinched. Anna Emily walked around behind Martha holding on to the tail of her apron. As soon as she saw me, she let go of Martha and came over to cling to my pants. She peered up at me with those big chocolate eyes and asked the predictable question: “Can I come live with you?”

Natalie spoke sharply to her. “We have to live with Cricket now, because our mama has gone to heaven.” She turned to me, her lower lip quivering. “I told them and told them to call Uncle Billy, but they don’t know where he is, and I don’t know how to find him, so we’re gonna stay here until they can, but as soon as he comes, we’ll go stay with him.” She managed to say all that without pausing for breath. She took one quick gasp, as if afraid somebody else might get a word in, and added, “We were by ourselves, but Daddy angel kept us safe.”

Martha made a shooing motion with her hands. “Cricket, take Bradley and the girls up to your room and let Me-Mama and me cook. We’ll call you when supper’s ready.”

The smell of vegetable soup wafting across the big kitchen from a stockpot on the stove made my stomach rumble. Makings for grilled cheese sandwiches stood ready for assembly. I headed to the counter to begin putting the sandwiches together, for Martha and I had cooked together so often we didn’t need to discuss what had to be done.

As soon as the children’s feet could be heard in the upstairs hall, I said, “Buster told me DFCS had taken them to an emergency shelter, but I didn’t know they came to you.”

She gave a short, not-funny laugh. “Poor Ridd has had the weekend from hell. I had offered to keep Bradley all weekend so Trevor could attend the convention and go out with his buddies during the evenings, but the supervisor at the hospital who was supposed to fly in yesterday and be on duty last night got stuck in the Philadelphia airport because of that snowstorm up north, so I had to go in at seven. Robin was supposed to bring Bradley by six, but they didn’t get back from Atlanta until I’d already had to leave, so Ridd had to feed both boys. They watched a video and he put them to bed, thinking he was done for the night. Instead, Trevor showed up at ten thirty wanting Bradley. Ridd said Trevor was shaking so badly he could hardly talk, and his voice woke Bradley, who heard him telling Ridd that Robin was dead. Bradley had hysterics in the upstairs hall, which woke Cricket. Trevor took Bradley home and Ridd spent nearly an hour trying to calm Cricket down. He finally rocked him until he fell asleep. All these mothers getting killed is really getting to Crick. He has scarcely let me out of his sight since I woke up this afternoon.”

Martha shoved back her hair with both hands, then automatically moved to wash her hands with soap—the “nurse’s reflex.”

“Ridd finally got Cricket to bed about twelve, and at two o’clock the social worker called to ask if we could take the girls. Poor Ridd had to get up and dress to welcome two sad girls in their nightgowns. Since they are terrified of dogs, he had to put Cricket Dog in the pen with the yard dogs, which didn’t thrill
him
, as you can imagine. He barked all night long—an accompaniment to Natalie, who cried all night.”

“Oh, dear. We brought Lulu, so I guess she’ll have to go in the pen, too. Good thing you don’t have any close neighbors. We’re likely to have an evening serenade.”

Martha heaved an enormous sigh. “They assure us this is only a temporary placement, but I’m not sure I can stand listening to dogs barking and Natalie talking for another twenty-four hours. She goes on and on without stopping. Meanwhile, Anna Emily informs me at least five times an hour that she wants to live with us forever and ever, but you heard her when you came in. She’d go with anybody.”

“I know. She even asked Buster if she could go live with him. Flustered him to death. So when did you get Bradley back?”

“Trevor brought him this morning on his way to the convention. I asked if he felt like going and he said he didn’t, but he was supposed to lead a workshop and hated to let them down. Poor guy. Bradley said he heard his T-daddy crying all night long.”

“You reckon he was falling in love with Robin?”

“Could be. But even if he just liked her as a friend, I don’t know how he’ll stand to lose her so soon after Starr.”

I moved closer and spoke softly. “Do you know anything about the murder that I don’t?”

“What do you already know?”

“Not much. Joe Riddley’s got me on a leash so short I’m about to strangle. If he wasn’t interested in Ridd’s new pig, he’d probably be standing at my shoulder right this minute. Quick, tell all. I know the couple who found her came to the emergency room.”

“Let’s sit down a minute. I don’t want to talk too loud, in case little pitchers with big ears are hovering in the upstairs hall.” She fetched two glasses of tea and we pulled up adjoining chairs to the big round table that had served generations of Yarbroughs.

“Remind me of the couple’s names,” I said to prime her pump.

“Dan and Kaye Poynter, from Virginia. He had to be admitted, and I got the story from Kaye while we were waiting to find him a room. She claims that Robin is their daughter.”

Martha stopped to enjoy my reaction. She had sure let the steam out of my engine. I couldn’t say a word.

“Kaye said they both recognized her, although they haven’t seen her for seven years. Dan is a taxidermist in Virginia, and Robin—or Bobbie, as her mother calls her, because her real name was Roberta—used to work with her dad. Won blue ribbons from the time she was fourteen, her mother claims.” Martha sighed. “That woman can talk your ear off—just like Natalie.”

“Maybe it’s hereditary.”

“That’s as good an explanation as any. Come to think of it, if they can prove they are related to Robin, they’ll be her next of kin and the ones who ought to have the girls. But they’re both so fragile, I don’t see how they could handle those two. They’re a handful.” Her forehead creased with worry.

“You were telling me about Robin leaving home,” I reminded her.

“Oh, yeah. Kaye said Robin had never had much in the way of emotions. She was cold to her parents all her life, and real headstrong. If they told her no, she’d keep arguing until she wore them down. If she couldn’t wear them down, she’d sneak. Her senior year, she started going around with a man her parents despised. He was four or five years older than Robin and ‘smarmy,’ according to Kaye. Dan suspected he was dealing drugs, so they put their united foot down and told her to stop seeing him or they wouldn’t send her to college. That week, Robin forged a check on her parents’ money market account while they were at a church retreat. She emptied the account—which was supposed to be her college fund—and ran off with the man. She wrote a note so they wouldn’t think she’d been abducted, but she stole her mother’s mink coat and a lot of her daddy’s taxidermy equipment, presumably so she’d have a way to support herself and her boyfriend. Dan called the police, but since the girl was eighteen, the police said she had a right to leave home. Unless they pressed charges for the coat, the tools, and the money, the police couldn’t do anything. Dan refused, because he hoped Bobbie would contact them soon and he didn’t want to utterly estrange her. However, they never heard from her again.”

“And they just happened to run into her on the day she died?” That stretched the web of coincidence pretty thin.

“No, they’ve been looking for her ever since she disappeared. Because she took the tools, they figured she’d do taxidermy somewhere, so they have spent the past seven years visiting taxidermy conventions, hoping to find her or her work. Isn’t that sad?”

“Very, but it doesn’t prove Robin was their daughter. People change a lot in seven years. Maybe Robin simply resembled their daughter and they wanted to find their daughter so badly that they concluded Robin was her.”

“No, they said she was wearing Kaye’s mink coat. Dan had prepared the hides himself and ordered it made, so it’s very distinctive. Besides, Robin—Bobbie—had a pattern of moles on her neck that formed a C. Kaye recognized it. They had already spotted a fox yesterday afternoon that they were sure she had done. Something about the expression on its face and a seam she’d sewn—I didn’t understand all that. But they were absolutely positive it was her work.”

“I met them! I sent them to talk to Trevor.” The anxious woman and the gaunt, gray man.

“How odd. They said they’d already met him, which is why they recognized each other in the motel parking lot and walked in together. They didn’t tell him why they wanted to talk to her, though. They merely told him they were interested in buying the fox and would like to talk to the person who had—what? Stuffed it? Mounted it?”

“Whatever. But they hadn’t talked to Robin?”

“Kaye said Trevor gave them her address and her phone number, and they went by her house and called her a couple of times, but she never answered and her car wasn’t there. They didn’t like to leave a note, in case she ran away again, so they decided they’d go to dinner, run by the motel to brush their teeth, and try once more, hoping she’d be home by then. When they got to the motel parking lot, Trevor was getting out of his car, so they walked to the elevator with him. He stepped back to let them enter—‘Such a gentleman,’ Kaye said—so they saw Robin first. According to Kaye”—Martha sketched quotes with her fingers—“‘she was lying on the floor looking like she was asleep, with her hair curling all over her face.’”

“Can you believe Robin had curled her hair? Buster said she had on a lot of makeup, too, and a sexy red dress and heels. I find that hard to believe.”

“Me, too. She usually looked like plain Jane personified.”

“You reckon that was her disguise?”

“Must have been. Anyway, Kaye said Dan has had some Red Cross training, so he knelt down to see if the woman was okay. He figured out she was dead, and was just wondering why that coat looked so familiar when Kaye, claiming a mother’s instinct, bent down and pushed the hair off her face and neck. When she saw the moles on the side of her throat, she knew it was their daughter. She told Dan, he had a mild myocardial infarction, and she fainted.”

“Even if Robin was their daughter, doesn’t a heart attack seem like a drastic reaction?”

“He’s got a bad heart. He was fortunate the attack wasn’t worse. Kaye wasn’t much better, though. When they came in, she was so hysterical that we had to sedate her. Thank goodness Trevor was with them when they found her. As hard on him as it must have been, he was able to call EMS and the police, and he stuck around to talk to the sheriff while the Poynters were brought in to us.”

I rested my chin on one palm. “I cannot imagine locating your daughter after all those years and finding her dead. Can you?”

“I can imagine it, but I hope I’ll never have to experience it.” Martha shoved back her chair and went to stir the soup. Her back was to me, but I had seen tears fill her eyes.

My own were stinging, even though Bethany had never given us a speck of trouble and was unlikely to turn up dead in an elevator wearing a red cocktail dress. I got up and started buttering more bread for the sandwiches.

Martha cleared her throat. “There’s one good thing about having the girls here. Ridd hasn’t mentioned Bethany all day. Anna Emily and Natalie seem to adore him, and he really is an old softie where little girls are concerned.”

She reached for a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I feel so sorry for Kaye and Dan, and sorry for Trevor, but Ridd and I are both worried about those girls. I don’t think Kaye, Dan, or Trevor could raise them. Trevor’s got his plate full with Bradley, and Kaye and Dan aren’t strong enough. Those girls need lots of attention and security. Anna Emily could be seriously troubled.”

“Maybe their uncle will come get them.”

“Kaye said they had only one child.”

“But I met their uncle at Trevor’s the night we went over after Starr’s death!”

Martha shook her head. “Whoever he was, he wasn’t Robin’s brother.”

We reached the obvious conclusion at the same time.

Martha voiced it. “Do you suppose he’s the boyfriend Robin ran away with?”

“That could explain why Natalie looks so much like him. But Anna Emily doesn’t look like either one of them.”

Martha had seen so much, she immediately jumped to the darkest conclusion. “You don’t reckon they kidnapped her, do you? Or inherited her from a friend who was doing drugs and went to prison?”

“That could explain why she never bonded with Robin.”

“But why weren’t Robin and Billy living together? Why lie about their relationship?”

“Heaven knows—but I don’t. Maybe he’s got a wife somewhere else. I think we ought to tell Buster what we suspect, don’t you?”

The sheriff didn’t go so far as to congratulate us when I phoned him, but he admitted we could be right where Billy was concerned. “I’ll see if the Poynters can recall the name of the man she ran away with.”

“If she really was their daughter,” I added.

“There’s no doubt of that. We’ve sent for her high school dental records to confirm it, but the Poynters had her high school graduation picture, and it looked very like Robin as we found her.”

“You knew that when you were talking to us this morning, didn’t you? Why didn’t you tell us?”

He chuckled. “Have to keep some things to myself. Thanks for the tip. I’ll talk to the Poynters again tomorrow.”

“Do you have any leads to the killer?”