Thoroughly 10 - What Are You Wearing to Die? (21 page)

The Hopemore grapevine must have malfunctioned. Myrtle’s was packed and looked blessedly normal, and the main topic of conversation was a rising wind that was bringing frigid air from the north and supposed to swoop our temperatures into the teens that night. Nobody seemed to have the faintest idea that a madman with a Rottweiler could be loose in the county, hunting me down.

Maybe he wasn’t. Why should he hang around if he knew the meth lab had been discovered and Robin killed? Especially if he had killed Robin. If he was as smart as I thought he was, he had skedaddled out of the county and was halfway to somewhere else by now.

On the off chance that he wasn’t, I passed up the empty booth by the window, where I preferred to sit, and took the empty one along the side wall in the back corner. I slid across the shiny new black bench and sat facing the door. I understand Al Capone used to do that, for much the same reason: I didn’t want to be gunned down from behind.

Wylie Quarles was sitting at the table just beyond my booth. He looked happier than I’d seen him since Starr died. “Good to see you smiling this morning,” I said in greeting.

“It’s a great day, Judge. I just had a man come by and ask me to mount a boar’s head. Never did one of those before, and I’m looking forward to it.”

“You all are open today?” I was surprised.

“Heck, yeah. Trevor wanted to close down in memory of Robin, but I didn’t see any point in that. I told him I’ll hold the fort until he feels like coming back.”

He shoved back his chair, threw a dollar on the table, and swaggered to the register. I wondered where he’d been between eight and nine on Saturday evening.

“Clarinda sick?” Myrtle greeted me as she poured me a cup of coffee that cost a quarter more than it used to.

“Clarinda’s taking some time off.” I perused the new red menu. “How’s the country-fried steak today? Tender?”

“Tender as always.”

“I thought it might be tenderer, since it costs a dollar more. Bring me some of that with rice and gravy, fried apples, and collards. Vinegar, not pepper sauce, for the collards.”

“I know you want vinegar. Redecorating nearly drove me crazy, but it didn’t make me lose my memory. You eating by yourself? If you are, I’d rather you left the booth for a larger party and took that vacant table for two over by the restroom doors.”

“I’m expecting a larger party. Joe Riddley will be here in a minute. Hold his coffee and my dinner until he arrives. I’ll sit and sip until he gets here.”

“Okay, but you only get one refill nowadays. After that, you pay for another cup.”

“You’re going out of business,” I prophesied. “If folks can’t come in here to sit and drink coffee, they’ll find a place where they can.”

She tossed her head and stuck up her nose. “I’m ready to retire, anyway. I only fancied up the place up so it will sell faster. I’m ready to play, baby.” She flounced off to greet a new customer.

Hopemore without Myrtle’s? I couldn’t envision it. Her mother had owned and run the restaurant before her, and she had been a Myrtle, too.

I sat there thinking about all the changes in town, happening so fast they made me dizzy. Was this how my great-grandparents had felt after the War Between the States, with everything turning upside down? Were some generations destined to live in earthshaking upheaval while others simply moved ahead? In spite of the Depression and World War II, my folks had firmly believed that the world in the twentieth century was marching onward and upward, getting better and better. In the twenty-first, one upheaval after another seemed to constantly throw us on our backsides and send us tumbling. Hope County was just a microcosm of what was happening all over—superstores putting local merchants out of business and eroding local economies; normal-looking people creating hellish concoctions in basements that maimed and killed other human beings; people retiring early so they could play, rather than devoting their lives, money, and considerable abilities to making a better world; developers bulldozing forests and farmland to build subdivisions with no concern for what future generations would eat or where they’d get oxygen to breathe.

I remembered something a writer had said at a library talk once: “When things get dull in a book, I do something surprising. Keeps my characters and my readers on their toes.” Was that what God was doing in our generation? Had folks in the United States taken “better and better” too much for granted? Were all these challenges we faced simply another twist in the divine plot?

“I’ve been on my toes a while now,” I pointed out to the great author upstairs, “and my toes are getting tired. I could use some peace and calm about now.”

I did not consider the sight of Hubert coming in the door an answer to that prayer.

When he looked around and saw me, he turned his head real quick, like he wanted to pretend I wasn’t there, but while I expected him to feel lower than a pregnant dachshund’s belly, he greeted everybody else like his normal perky self.

Unfortunately, Myrtle didn’t have any more empty tables. I slid out of my booth and headed toward him. “Hey, Hubert, we’ve got an extra seat. Come join me. Joe Riddley will be here in a minute.”

He sat down with obvious reluctance, but once seated, he adopted a hearty manner. “How you doing, Mac? Everybody treating you okay?” His ears were red. I didn’t know if that was from embarrassment or because he hadn’t worn a hat outside.

“Not particularly.” I referred to the general state of the world, but when I remembered Uncle Billy and his dog, I had to add, “Not as bad as they could be treating me, though. Oh, I need to tell you something. We had a problem down at Ridd’s and needed to put Cindy’s horse and our dogs in your barn for a night or two. Will that be all right?”

“Sure. It’s standing empty. I keep thinking I ought to sell the barn and the rest of the land, but I can’t seem to get around to it. Truth is, I hate to get rid of my garden acre and that watermelon patch. It grows the best watermelons in Georgia.”

“You got that right. I wonder if Ridd would like to buy it from you. You could put the right to all the watermelons you can eat in the purchase agreement.”

“Now there’s an idea. I’ll think about it when I get over my jet lag. Just got back from New Orleans this morning.”

“How was it?”

“Okay, I guess. I took in a couple of parades over the weekend, but I decided to come home early. You heard from Evelyn?” He wasn’t looking at me. He was watching his forefinger trace circles on the red Formica table.

“She came to work this morning.”

His head came up like a dog scenting game. “She did? When did she come back?”

“Yesterday, I understand. Wasn’t it as much fun as you’d hoped?”

“Is that what she said?”

“She didn’t say much of anything. I figured you all had a misunderstanding.”

His temper hit the flash point and his face turned as red as Myrtle’s Formica. “Misunderstanding, my foot!” He slammed the table with one fist. “That woman accused me of everything under the sun, then stormed out and never came back.”

“Gracious! What had you done?”

“Not a thing. We’d barely got there. I don’t know what her problem was. I got us a real nice room—it even had a view and a balcony. Cost a pretty penny, I can tell you that. But she left five minutes after we got there and I never saw her again.”

I raised my eyebrows. “
A
room? Not two rooms? I didn’t realize you folks were on that footing. Sounds like you were planning a racy time.”

“I wasn’t planning anything. I was being sensible. They stick you good down there during Mardi Gras. The room had two beds. Evelyn wasn’t in any danger.”

“Maybe that was the trouble. Maybe she’d have preferred that you get two rooms and then invite yourself into hers for a little danger.”

He stared. “Two rooms? What a stupid waste of money.”

“Nothing is stupid when you are trying to woo a lady, Hubert. If you like her, you need to let her know, and show her how special she is. What I’d suggest—”

Hubert pounded the table with both fists and shouted loud enough for everybody in the place to hear, “I don’t need a woman in my life! Myrtle? Can you find me another table?”

Myrtle waved her table-wiping cloth. “One coming up over here, Hubert. Just let me clear it off for you.” She threw me a smirk and started collecting dishes.

He stomped across the restaurant and didn’t look back.

I hadn’t noticed that Joe Riddley had arrived until he loomed up beside me, pulling off his cap and gloves. He wiggled out of his heavy jacket and piled his things in the other side of the booth before he took his seat. We get cold so seldom down here that none of the restaurants have coatracks.

“Were you proposing to Hubert, Little Bit? I heard him say he doesn’t need a woman in his life.”

I sighed. “I was proposing he learn how to treat women, but it didn’t penetrate his thick skull.”

“I presume it penetrated yours that he doesn’t want your advice?”

I ignored that. “You took longer to get here than I expected.”

“I stopped by the gas station to fill up a can and dropped it by the store. I called Evelyn about something and she said she was so upset when she got back from Atlanta yesterday, she forgot to watch her gauge. When she tried to go home for lunch, her tank was dry. I told her I’d bring her a few gallons on my way to dinner. She had walked down to Casa Mas Esperanza by the time I got there, but I left a can inside the back door. That ought to be enough to get her to a station on her way home.”

“You’ve done your good deed for the day and deserve your dinner.” I passed him the menu. “I’ve ordered country-fried steak.”

Myrtle waltzed over and proceeded to flirt with my husband while she poured his coffee.

“Let me know when you need a refill,” she cooed.

“But you only get one,” I warned. “After that, you pay extra.”

“For Joe Riddley I might make an exception.” She batted her artificial lashes at him and wiggled away.

“Cow,” I muttered.

Joe Riddley grinned. “Some of us have what it takes. Admit it.”

He didn’t seem real worried about Billy and his dog. I wished I could convince myself to follow his example, but my worrier was still in high gear.

Joe Riddley exchanged greetings with folks at nearby tables like it was a perfectly normal workday, but I soon discovered his cavalier attitude was all a big act. He motioned to Myrtle, she arrived within two seconds flat, and he announced, “I’ll have whatever MacLaren’s having.”

He hadn’t opened the menu, and he hated country-fried steak. He was more worried than he was letting on.

“Except he wants ham with sweet potatoes, and pepper sauce for his collards,” I called after her twitching skirt.

“That’s what I said,” he said.

“Got it,” she called back.

“The sheriff is really worried about that character and his dog.” Joe Riddley rubbed the side of his cheek, another sign that he was disturbed.

“I know. I spoke to him right before I left Martha’s. Billy stole somebody else’s license tag up near I-20 and left his on their car. I’m hoping he’s heading toward Atlanta about now. Or maybe Charleston.”

“Buster seems to think he’s still in the area, and he could be right.” It was another sign how disturbed Joe Riddley was that he called the sheriff by his boyhood nickname right there in public. He added, “I want you to leave town for a few days—maybe go to the beach or something.”

“It’s February and freezing outside, in case you haven’t noticed. Why would I go to the beach? And what would I do once I got there?”

“Then pick someplace else. Go up to Atlanta and shop or visit museums. You’re always talking about how you want to go places.”

“I’m always talking about how I want
us
to go places, preferably overseas. But we can’t run from this thing, honey. Who knows when we’d feel safe to come back? The rest of our lives we’d be looking over one shoulder in case Uncle Billy showed up. Besides, who knows what he might do to our family or employees if he thought we’d left town to avoid him?”

“I wasn’t talking about us leaving town, Little Bit, just you. If something happened to you, Buster would never forgive me.” He reached for his coffee and accidentally spilled it.

I handed him a wad of paper napkins from the dispenser. Myrtle doesn’t run to cloth napkins or even the expensive paper ones, but as soon as she saw who it was who’d had the accident, she was there with a terry-cloth towel, a fresh cup, and a coffeepot. I didn’t say a word until she was gone. Then I demanded, “
Buster
would never forgive you? The line is supposed to be ‘I would never forgive myself.’”

He glowered like I’d said something stupid. “That, too, of course, but right now Buster’s on my case. Back in sixth grade we had a little dustup over you. He felt I wasn’t taking good enough care of you, and he said if I wouldn’t, he’d be glad to take on the responsibility.” Joe Riddley didn’t even notice my jaw drop, he was so far back in memory. “I blacked his eye and he split my lip. Or maybe it was the other way around. In any case, I finally pinned him to the ground and he agreed he’d back off and let me have you, on condition that I kept you safe. But he’s making noises these past couple of days like he thinks I’m falling down on my job. He may have a point.”

I was incensed. “You two lugs thought a fight would decide who would ‘have’ me, like I was property you had a right to dispose of? I suppose you think if Buster had won back then, I’d be the sheriff’s wife about now. Do you?”

He didn’t say a word.

“I’ll tell you something, Joe Riddley Yarbrough, and don’t you forget it. I decided to marry you my first day of school, when you gave me the brownie from your lunchbox. Buster never had a chance after that. So you needn’t worry about what Buster thinks or doesn’t think about how safe you are keeping me. Besides, I can take care of myself. I’ve told the sheriff that I propose to go back to work this afternoon, but I’ll hire an off-duty deputy to guard the store. If Uncle Billy is in the county, the deputy can deal with him. Meanwhile, I want to find out where Wylie Quarles was Saturday night. I think I’ve figured out Grady Handley’s alibi. He was—”