Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (18 page)

He came back to the kitchen. “They’re on their way. You ready?”

“Why aren’t we waiting for animal control?”

“Because the animal is starving. I’d rather we fed him before they arrived. Mind your feet.”

I pulled my feet up and sat cross-legged on the refrigerator, my back hunched to avoid the ceiling. “I’m gaining a new appreciation for what babies go through in the womb, but I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

He went over and opened the back door wide, then reached into his bag and pulled out ground meat, dripping red. “Watch the floor,” I rebuked him.

Instead, he deliberately squeezed the meat and dribbled red blots up and down the floor from the pantry door to the food and water bowls. Still carrying the glob of meat, he opened the pantry door, stepped inside, and leaned his shoulder against the basement door. It moved a few inches and I saw that the basement was bright with light. At least the dog wasn’t living in the dark. It wasn’t a happy beast, though. It hurled itself against the door with a snarl.

Joe Riddley leaned against the door again and pitched a small ball of meat through the crack down the stairs, then he shoved hard against the door. I heard the dog scrabbling for footing as he fell, and then I heard him snuffling up the meat. Joe Riddley flung the basement door wide open, heaved the glob of dripping meat in the direction of the two bowls, and hightailed it to the kitchen door. A black and brown streak snarled through the pantry after him.

“Run!” I screamed unnecessarily. Joe Riddley pulled the back door shut behind him a second before the dog reached it. My stomach ached at how close he had come to being grabbed by those powerful jaws.

The dog propped its front legs on the door and barked furiously. He was the biggest, meanest Rottweiler I had ever seen. His coat was sleek black and tan, his shoulders muscled and strong.

At last either he tired of fruitless barking or he scented blood, for he dropped to the ground and started licking up the drops, snuffling his way across the floor. He approached the meat warily, sniffed it, and gobbled it down. When he’d finished the meat, he ate Lulu’s food and slurped up all the water in the bowl. I had to feel sorry for the creature, hungry and alone for two days.

“Is it eating yet?” Joe Riddley called from outside the door.

“Just finishing,” I called back.

That was a mistake.

The dog’s big head whirled, his eyes red and malevolent, seeking the source of the voice. When he spotted me, he hurled himself toward my perch with a bay of fury. Saliva dripped from his jaws. His bared incisors were yellow and long.

Clear as anything, I heard my mama tell me, “Don’t ever let a vicious dog know you are afraid. Speak in a voice of authority.”

“Down!” I shouted. “Down, boy.”

He hesitated, but ultimately that had the same effect as shaking a warning finger at an approaching locomotive.

Again and again he leaped, trying to reach me. My world was reduced to his determined bays and the snap of his jaws. Every muscle in my body ached from terror. I drew myself into as small a space as possible, leaving no loose ends dangling in his reach.

It was worse when he stopped leaping. He gave me a calculating look and backed crookedly across the room, eyeing the countertop. His intentions were clear.

“Please, God, please, God,” I whispered. If he was able to reach the counter, I was finished.

He gathered his muscles in a crouch, ready to spring. Then, without warning, he keeled over and fell with a thud.

“Is he out?” Joe Riddley called through the door. “I can’t hear him. Is he out?”

I was shaking too hard to reply.

“Is he out, Little Bit? Are you okay?” I heard his hand on the knob.

I didn’t want him coming within range of the beast, so I rallied what energy I had left. “He’s snoring.”

While speaking, I eyed the dog warily. I expected him to rouse, shake himself, and stand for a second onslaught.

He did not move.

“Good.” Joe Riddley sounded like he was congratulating me on a job well done.

“You’d better call the fire department and tell them to bring the Jaws of Life. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get down from here without them.”

He cautiously opened the door. “You think it’s safe for me to come in there?”

“I wouldn’t trust it. If the dog doesn’t kill you, I might. Do you know how close that animal was to leaping up to the countertop and finishing me off?”

“I hoped he’d go out faster than that.” He tiptoed over and looked down. At the moment the Rottweiler looked like a wimp.

“What was in that meat?” I flexed my muscles, but they would not relax.

“The rest of those tranquilizers they gave you the last time you were in the hospital.”

“Those things may have expired by now.”

“Nope, the bottle said they were good for another month. They used to put you out for hours.”

“But you had no idea how well they’d work on a dog.”

“No, but he looks like he’s out cold.”

The dog twitched and moved a paw.

My muscles contracted again. “I’d feel better if you went outside to watch for animal control. I’ll keep watch here.”

I sounded brave, but when he left, even though the dog continued to snore and snuffle, I didn’t budge from my throne. I couldn’t have. My limbs were shaking like a paint-stirring machine.

I had never considered kissing animal control officers before, but if the two who came for the dog had been close enough, I’d have given them each a buss to remember. The beast was sleeping so deeply that he didn’t stir as they lifted him into a cage and carried him out.

The deputy sauntered in as they left. “What’s been going on?”

“We’ve been feeding a dog.” Joe Riddley was rinsing out the food and water bowls.

“You’ve forgotten something,” I informed him with as much dignity as I could muster.

“What’s that?” He grinned up at me.

“Get me down from here!”

I wish I could say I descended with grace, but by then I was so stiff that it took Joe Riddley and the deputy together to pull me off that fridge. I tumbled down on top of them, nearly taking them to the ground with me. Since I could not stand, Joe Riddley picked me up and carried me to the living room, where he deposited me on an antique sofa designed more for looks than comfort.

Gradually, feeling crept back into my feet, legs, and shoulders. Once the initial needles wore off, I was racked again by shakes. I kept seeing the beast leaping, leaping, toward me. I shook so hard that the couch shook with me.

Joe Riddley gathered me into his arms and held me until my body stilled. “You were very brave, Little Bit,” he whispered.

“I’m gonna be sore tomorrow—not only from being all curled up, but from getting so tense while the dog was attacking. That booger nearly got me, you know.”

“He was bigger and meaner than I expected. Do you feel up to going to church?”

“An hour in church is exactly what I need, but we’re gonna have to go home and change first. The top of that refrigerator was filthy, and you’ve got hamburger blood down your leg.”

“Hey!” the deputy called, his voice sounding far away. “Come see what I’ve found!”

Joe Riddley hurried toward the kitchen. I tottered after him and arrived in time to see him disappearing down the stairs.

I decided I’d might as well go for the whole nine yards. I descended on trembling legs.

The basement did not extend under the entire house, but only under the back half. The room was painted white and lit by long fluorescent bulbs hanging from the rafters. It contained a hot-water heater, a long table with cupboards hanging over it, an upright freezer, and a stove.

“Another kitchen?” I asked, bewildered. “Why would a house this size need two kitchens?”

The officer was looking inside the cupboards, using a handkerchief to protect the doors from his prints. “By golly!” he kept saying over and over. “By golly!”

“What?” I felt ignorant, which always annoys me.

I staggered over and looked. I saw some muriatic acid like we used in the pool. I saw Red Devil Lye like Daddy used to put in Coke bottles with water—then he’d shake them and use the gas that was produced to inflate balloons for us kids to shoot with a .22 rifle. I saw gallons of distilled water and some engine starter fluid. “Looks like that stuff ought to be out in the garage, not in a kitchen. And what are those inhalers doing down here? They should be in the medicine cabinet.”

The deputy moved to the next cupboard. At least its contents were more appropriate for a kitchen: small glass bottles, Pyrex meat loaf dishes, quart jars, a box of coffee filters, another of rubber gloves.

“I still think it’s odd to have a second kitchen.” I started over toward a tall metal cabinet, but Joe Riddley put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“It’s not a second kitchen, Little Bit. It’s a lab where they make methamphetamine. Don’t put your prints on those doors. That cabinet may have drugs in it, and I don’t want you spending your old age in federal prison. Let’s get out of here so we don’t mess up evidence.”

“Woo-ee!” The deputy had just opened the freezer and found it filled with stacks of bills, fastened with rubber bands. “Looks like somebody made more money than they wanted to deposit in the bank.”

He clattered up the stairs after us, as excited as if he’d won the lottery. “We’ve been looking for this place all over the county, and here it was, literally under the sheriff’s nose when he was searching the house Friday night.” He pulled out his phone.

I mulled things over as we headed back to the car. Natalie had told me, plain as day, that Robin and Billy cooked together at night after the girls were asleep. No wonder Robin kept such an eagle eye on her kids. It hadn’t been overprotection. It was self-preservation.

Monday I felt like I was on a seesaw going up and down, except sometimes while I was up, the person on the other end got off.

We arrived at the store that morning to find Evelyn fitting the cash drawer into the register. Joe Riddley took Bo and Lulu back to the office and left me to ask questions.

“What are you doing here? Mardi Gras isn’t until tomorrow.”

“I decided to come home early.” Her tone didn’t invite curiosity.

I tried the oblique approach. “I’ve heard Mardi Gras is pretty wild down there.”

She fiddled with stuff on the counter, acting like I wasn’t present. Normally I would have gone on back to the office. Like I said earlier, Evelyn and I didn’t talk much about our personal lives. In past years we had been too busy, and relating like that gets to be a habit. But something about the way she was standing made me ask, “Honey, is there something wrong?”

Like a stream dammed by twigs and branches until a spring flood comes downhill, Evelyn gave way and told all.

“Mardi Gras wasn’t half as wild as Hubert’s ideas were. The deal was, we each bought our own plane ticket, I was to pay for our meals, and he was to reserve and pay for our lodging. We would split entertainment costs.”

“He wasn’t paying for everything?” I was disgusted. Hubert had a lot more money than Evelyn.

“No, I insisted that I pay my share. That’s what women do nowadays, you know?”

I’d been a girl in the days when a smile and fluttering lashes were enough to get you a good dinner and a movie. However, having raised sons who’d sweated prom costs, I could approve the fairness of sharing if the partners had roughly the same amount to spend. In this case, it sounded to me like cheap old Hubert had gotten a good deal.

“So did he eat you out of house and home? Did you run out of money and have to come home early? Will you have to take out a loan to pay your credit card bills?”

I hoped for a smile.

She glowered.

“No, because we didn’t eat but one meal before we got to the hotel. I was excited, it was so fancy, but do you know what he did? Reserved only one room. Can you believe it? He said it had two beds, it would save money, and we are both grown-ups.”

That sounded exactly like the Hubert I knew. He pinched pennies until they squealed. Had Evelyn imagined she had been abducted by a Lothario? Apparently so.

“I knew what he was after, and I wasn’t having any. I told him if that was the kind of woman he wanted around, he could find one out on the street.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He got all red in the face and said he could be trusted, that—that”—her voice wobbled—“that he didn’t think of me that way!”

She tried to smile, but pain was sharp in her eyes. I could have gladly slugged Hubert at that moment.

She cleared her throat, and I knew it was to get rid of a lump. “So I asked, ‘If you don’t think of me that way, why did you invite me to New Orleans?’ And he looked like he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Can you believe it? I bought all those clothes, got my hair cut, even got a manicure….” She spread her hands and looked at her nails, which were beginning to chip.

Her disappointment was so keen, I would have hugged her if we’d been hugging friends. “So what did you do?”

“I picked up my suitcase and walked out—and slammed the door behind me. It felt good, but it was really dumb. New Orleans was crammed with people. The only vacant room the hotel had was a suite. I tried to find another place, but there weren’t any vacancies in nearby hotels and I didn’t know the city, so I didn’t know where else to try. Finally I plunked down what I’d planned to spend on food all week and spent one night in the suite. It was snazzy—I had a Jacuzzi in my room, and I ate breakfast on my balcony, not wanting to run into Hubert downstairs—but I couldn’t afford to stay any longer. Friday morning I tried to find another place, but everybody was full and the streets were clogged. I got so tired of dragging my suitcase around—I know, I could have left it at the hotel, but like I said, I didn’t want to run into Hubert, so I took it with me. I finally got so exhausted that I hailed a cab and said, ‘Take me to the airport.’ I figured I’d pay the premium and fly home.”

“You’ve been back since Friday?” I wondered if she’d been holed up at home all that time, licking her wounds and replaying “What Might Have Been.”

“Don’t I wish. A big storm up north was grounding flights all over the country, so nothing went out the whole day.”

Where had I heard about that storm before? Oh, yes. Martha had to work Friday night because the other supervisor got stranded in Philadelphia. It was tendrils of that storm that had given middle Georgia such a chill for the weekend.

“Then you didn’t get out until Saturday?”

“Not even then. Once planes started going out, they were full. For two solid days, I lived and slept at that airport, hoping to get on the next flight to Atlanta. Eventually, I flew via Dallas and Cincinnati—anything to get home. And then, since we had taken Hubert’s car to the Atlanta airport, I had to take a bus to Hopemore. Don’t ask how my vacation was. Okay?”

“Sounds pretty grim.”

“It was. Anything happen around here while I was gone?”

“We’ve had some grim times, too.” I fetched coffee for us both and filled her in on the weekend.

It wasn’t the murder she found most shocking. “Robin was making drugs in her basement? With those two girls right there?”

“Upstairs asleep, presumably. But yes.”

“What on earth was she thinking?”

Evelyn has always loved children. If her life had turned out differently, she’d have been a great mother. I wasn’t surprised it was Natalie and Anna Emily she thought of first—and last. “What will the girls do now?”

“The sheriff is looking for relatives.” I didn’t think I ought to mention Grady, or that he could be their father. Where small children are concerned, a father in jail isn’t much better than no father at all.

“The sheriff is sure Robin was murdered?”

“What do you think? She was found with a broken neck in the motel elevator, wearing a red cocktail dress, red high-heel sandals, and a mink coat.”

“Mink? Real mink?”

Mink coats weren’t thick on the ground around Hopemore. Winters were too mild for anybody to invest in one of those unless they had money to burn, traveled up north a lot, and specialized in ostentation. Even Gusta hadn’t worn one since her brother left the Senate.

“That’s what the sheriff said. And speaking of the devil…”

The sheriff strode in.

Wouldn’t you have expected him to be overjoyed to see me? After all, we had found that lab he’d been looking for. I didn’t want a medal, but gratitude was certainly in order.

Instead, his face looked like he had breakfasted on fire and brimstone. He grabbed me by one elbow and said between clenched teeth, “I want to talk to you and that dang fool husband of yours.” He more dragged than led me back to the office.

At my last glimpse of Evelyn, she looked like she was watching something better than a Mardi Gras parade.

Joe Riddley was sitting with his feet propped on his desk, cleaning his nails with his letter opener. Buster slammed the door behind us and glowered down at him.

“Of all the stupid things to do. You’re the one always complaining that Little Bit here”—he shook my arm so hard it nearly fell off—“gets herself in trouble, then you go and take her to feed a vicious dog and leave her in there with him while you skedaddle. I cannot believe you could be so infernally pea-brained—or that my deputy would let you. He won’t again, I can promise you that. She could have been torn apart! Did you even think of that?”

“Back off! Give me space!” yelled Bo from the curtain rod. Lulu, unused to her friend the sheriff yelling at us, began to whine. Buster, who adored animals, ignored them both.

Joe Riddley lowered his feet and looked wary. The sheriff was generally an even-tempered man. “She didn’t get hurt. She was way up on top of the refrigerator. I wish you could have seen her, all curled in a ball. I could never have fit. It had to be her.”

“It did not have to be her. That dog is a trained killer.”

“You’ve seen him?”

“No, but animal control said it was the meanest beast they ever took in. Yet you left Little Bit in there with that animal while you ran away!”

The last time I’d seen Buster so het up, I was in fourth grade and they were in sixth. We three had been assigned to pick peaches for a cobbler, and instead of using a ladder, Joe Riddley suggested I shinny up and pick them, since I was lighter. I went too high, fell out, and broke my arm. Buster had been furious with Joe Riddley. Right in front of my daddy he stormed at his best friend, “How could you make her do a stupid, dang fool thing like that?”

I had been shocked. Around our house, words like “dang fool” got our mouths washed out with soap. To my confusion, Daddy—who had gotten the whole story from me—put his arm around Buster’s shoulder and said in a mild voice, “I agree with you, son, but she agreed to climb that tree, and she’s not mortally wounded. She’ll survive.”

What almost didn’t survive was the friendship between the two boys. The next day Joe Riddley came to my house with a split lip and a black eye.

“What happened?” I asked.

He looked sheepish and embarrassed. “Buster and me had a fight. It’s okay, now, though. I’m sorry I told you to climb that tree. Will you be my girlfriend?”

When I saw Buster a day later, he had a knot on his forehead and a bruise on his cheek. He didn’t meet my eyes as he stood a couple of steps behind Joe Riddley, who asked if I’d like to go to the movies with the two of them. That was our official first date. During the movie, Joe Riddley held my hand in his sweaty one. Buster pretended not to notice. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of our lives.

Until now.

Buster stood glaring down at Joe Riddley like any second he might grab him by the collar, jerk him up from his chair, and pound the tar out of him.

Joe Riddley looked edgy, like he expected the same.

Since Daddy wasn’t around to cool things down, I did what I could. “I didn’t get hurt,” I pointed out, “and maybe we’ve solved the murder. If Billy was making methamphetamine with Robin, isn’t it likely they had a falling-out and he killed her? Why don’t we let Grady out on bond? And why don’t you let go of my arm?”

I tugged, and he relaxed his grip. I slumped into my own chair, but he wasn’t in a sitting mood. He bent over me and pontificated.

“Because it’s equally likely that her ex-husband found out what she was up to with his kids in the house, and he killed her. Or, like I thought before, that he got drunk, was mad because she’d run out on him, started to shake her, and ended up by throttling her, like he was taught in the army. The main point here is, that dog could have killed you by jumping as high as the fridge.”

“What does Grady say?”

“That’s none of your business, if you’ll pardon my French. I came about the dog.”

“Come on, Sheriff. You owe us that much. We did find the lab, after all.”

He still glowered, but my use of his title may have reminded him we were colleagues as well as friends. “Grady doesn’t say a dad-blamed thing. Not about where he was between seven thirty, when he left a restaurant up at the I-20 exit, and midnight. He admits to coming by the motel then, seeing us there, and taking off again.”

“But he won’t say where he was?”

“Says he doesn’t have an alibi we could check out. He does insist that he did not kill his wife, but without an alibi he can’t prove it.”

I figured that wasn’t the time to argue Grady’s case.

You may have noticed that Joe Riddley was laying low and letting me carry the conversational ball. I looked his way, giving him a chance to speak, but he was again cleaning his nails.

“Any word on the dog this morning?” I asked. “Has his owner come to claim him?”

That was a mistake. It stoked Buster’s fires again. He took a breath so hard and angry I was surprised it didn’t split his windpipe. “If that deputy I had on duty out at the house had had a lick of sense, he’d have called animal control as soon as he found that meth lab in the basement and he’d have told them to hold anybody who came asking for the dog. Instead, he got so excited about what you all had found, he got my whole weekend crew down there working on it. The dog’s owner showed up at animal control yesterday afternoon. I figure he cruised by the house to scout out the situation, saw my folks carrying out the evidence, and went looking for his dog. He called first—asked if they had seen a Rottweiler that his sister had locked in her basement, keeping the animal for him, said it had gotten out by accident. When they said yes, he came in so fast they figure he called from the parking lot. He identified the dog. It responded to its name and obeyed his commands, so the weekend worker let him pay the fine, sign the papers, and go.”

“At least they got his name and address, right?”

“Right, except the name was an illegible scrawl and the address doesn’t exist.”

“You poor dear!”

I merely said what I was thinking, but it did the trick. He exhaled, and I could see the anger leaving him. He spoke for the first time that morning in a reasonable voice. “What frustrates me most is that if you all had called my office to deal with the dog in the first place, we could have staked out the house and maybe caught the owner. Instead, by barging in to…”

He stopped like he couldn’t think of a way to describe what we’d done.

“To do a good deed?” I suggested. “To save a starving animal and keep two children from worrying? We did call your office first, by the way. Your folks were stretched real thin by the earlier events of the weekend, and very willing to let us take on responsibility for the dog.” I saw no reason to mention Grumpy. I would deal with him later, on my own.

I went on in what I hoped was a reasonable tone. “None of us knew what that animal was guarding. Or that he was such a vicious beast. Now sit down like a sensible person, stop puffing smoke from your nostrils, and let’s think if there’s any other way to trap that fellow.”

He slapped his hat against his thigh again and exhaled more frustration. “I can’t stay. I’ve got more stuff to do today than I’ll get done all week. But would you all please stay out of this? Judge, you run the store. Joe Riddley, take care of Little Bit. That’s your job.”