Who Let That Killer In The House? (25 page)

“Yeah. I wanted to talk to you, but right now we’re both having trouble getting our breath. Ride back into town with me.”

He cast a quick look toward the trailer. “I better stay here. We’re havin’ a meetin’.”

“You’re in a heap of trouble, and it’s getting deeper all the time. I need to ask you some questions, and I don’t want Smitty listening in. Come on. Ride back to town with me.”

“I can’t.” If ever a boy looked miserable, it was Tyrone. “He—he’ll—I just can’t. That’s all.”

I remembered what Joe Riddley said: Smitty might be threatening to hurt Tyrone’s mother. I took that a lot more seriously now than I had an hour ago. “Can you meet me somewhere later?”

He squirmed, shuffling those huge feet in the high grass. “I don’t know—”

“Tyrone, we’ve got to get you out of this mess. It’s getting worse than you know. Tell me when and where you can meet me. I’ll be there.”

“I can’t,” he said desperately. “I just can’t. I gotta go.” He lumbered toward the back.

I walked on spaghetti legs to my car and managed to drive back to the office, but I kept a close eye out for Charlie Muggins’s cruiser. I was shaking like somebody who’d been drinking steadily for a week.

23

I was real surprised around nine that night to answer the phone and hear a husky whisper. “Judge Yarbrough? It’s Tyrone. Listen, I’ll meet you, if you tell me where.”

“Where are you now?” Lightning flickered outside while I waited for his answer.

“At the pay phone at the Bi-Lo. I came to see if Mama wanted me to walk her home, but she already left.” A rumble of thunder followed the lightning. The storm was getting close.

“I’ll come get you. Are you hungry?” He grunted, which I took for a yes. “Let’s go out to Dad’s BarBeQue.” It was unlikely that Smitty or his friends would be there. Dad’s was several miles out of town, primarily a family place, and so isolated, you’d think nobody would ever find it. However, it had been going strong since 1937, started by the current owner’s granddaddy. In the winter, Dad’s closed at eight, but during the summertime it was open until well after ten to satisfy whatever cravings for barbeque might strike Hope County.

Dad (who had been called that so long most folks had forgotten his name was Raymond) was a burly Primitive Baptist with biceps like ham butts. His chief cook, Eddie, was a Pentecostal preacher cut from the same mold. Between them, they set straight any troublemaker who was unwise enough to stop in.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I told Tyrone. “If it starts raining, wait inside at the door and I’ll pull up. Okay?”

“No. I’ll start walking home. Pick me up on the road. Pretend you’re just drivin’ by.”

“It may be pouring by then.”

“That’s okay. I don’t mind getting wet.”

Joe Riddley was watching
Patton
in the den. I grabbed my pocketbook and stuck my head in the room. “I’m going out for a little while. Will you be okay?”

He pushed the mute button. “You going down to the jail?”

“No. Meeting somebody.”

“Not Martha. She’s working tonight.” He pulled the lever on his recliner and lowered his feet. “I’ll come with you.”

I stared in astonishment. “What about your program?” Joe Riddley thinks life isn’t complete without one World War II movie a month, even if he can repeat the lines by heart.

He pushed the power button and the screen flashed and went dark. “I’ve got other nights to watch movies. I’ve only got one wife.” I was so astonished, I stepped back without a word to let him pass. He took his cap from the hook and spoke over his shoulder. “I didn’t major in math like you did, Little Bit, but I can add four ones and come up with the right answer.” He held up fingers as he counted. “One, you went down to the jail this afternoon for a hearing and took twice as long as normal. Two, you came back shaking like Lulu when she knows she deserves a whipping. Three, a customer came in before you did and said somebody was shooting mighty close to the highway out on the Waynesboro Road. Four, Smitty Smith lives out on the Waynesboro Road.” He felt in his pockets to be sure his keys were still there, then reached out and grabbed me in a bear hug. “I know you think Smitty had something to do with DeWayne’s death. If you think I’m going to let you meet him alone at this hour—”

“It’s Tyrone, honey, not Smitty,” I said against his chest. “I hope I can get him to testify that Smitty helped paint the school. We’re going out to Dad’s.”

He let me go. “One more reason to go along. That little bit of supper you fixed isn’t going to hold me all night.” He settled his cap on his head. Bo flew down, of course—he loved to ride on that cap. Joe Riddley took him to the barn and settled him for the night, then met me at his car. Rain was already pattering down, but by the time I thought about going back for my raincoat, he was already starting the engine. The rain was streaming by the time we got to the Bi-Lo.

When I told Joe Riddley we were to drive by Tyrone and offer him a ride, he grunted. “You forgot your cloak and dagger.” But he drove slow until we saw the big dripping figure trudging down the road, then pulled to the side, rolled down his window and called real loud, “You need a ride, Tyrone? The judge and I are heading your way.” Joe Riddley always got a kick out of calling me “the judge,” since he’d been the judge for so many years.

Tyrone wasn’t a real great actor—nobody would have been fooled by his pretending to be surprised—but I didn’t see anybody standing around in the rain to watch our performance.

“Joe Riddley decided he’d like to come eat barbeque with us,” I said as Tyrone got in.

“That’s cool.” He smelled like wet boy, a scent like no other in the world. When he’d slammed the door behind him, he peered in all directions, tense and anxious. When you’re scared of somebody, you begin to think your enemies might have invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter’s.

The rain fell harder, but we were cozy inside with the swish of the wipers. Nobody spoke until we pulled into Dad’s parking lot, which was now a sea of red, sticky mud. Joe Riddley drove the Lincoln close to the door. “You all run for it. I’ll park.”

Tyrone and I climbed out into the fragrance of pork roasting in a pit out back, but we didn’t stop to appreciate it. We got soaked dashing five feet to the door—which was little more than a screen held together by weathered boards.

Dad’s had never wasted money on paint, polish, or air-conditioning. The floor was sawdust, dotted with heavy wooden picnic tables. Little plastic baskets lined with paper substituted for plates—red for beef, yellow for pork, blue for chicken. The eating area was more like a big screened porch, planked as high as my waist and screened to the bare rafters. As rain drummed on the tin roof, Dad was going around letting down big wooden flaps on the side where water was blowing in. I waved to a couple of people I knew and moseyed over to study the menu above the counter like I didn’t know it by heart. Rain seemed to make everything smell stronger—the sawdust, the cooking meat, the sweat of Eddie, who leaned on his elbow, white paper hat askew. “What you folks want tonight?”

“The usual,” I told him. “Small pork sandwich, cole slaw and corn on the cob with lots of butter.” I added to Tyrone, “Get whatever you want.”

Joe Riddley came in, shaking his wet cap at the door and pulling his shirt away from his body. “Always eat a lot when a woman’s paying,” he told Tyrone. “It happens so rarely. Anybody notice it’s started to rain?” Rain fell so loud on the roof, we could hardly hear him.

Joe Riddley decided on a plate of ribs with Brunswick stew and found it necessary to tell Eddie we’d already eaten supper but I hadn’t fed him enough to keep a man alive until morning.

I carried my plate to a table in the far corner and squirted Dad’s good honey sauce over the meat, pretending I was squirting it all over Joe Riddley’s head. If you haven’t eaten southern barbeque, you may not know it isn’t cooked in sauce. It’s slow cooked in a pit and laid on the bread. You add whatever sauces you want to. Dad’s offers honey, hot, spicy, or mustard.

The way Tyrone ordered, I might have to get a part-time job at the superstore to pay our Visa bill. When he spread his food out on the table, Joe Riddley and I barely had space for our own food. We all dug in and didn’t talk until we’d made a dent in our orders. Finally, I wiped the sauce off my chin and tried to think about what I wanted to ask first.

Joe Riddley beat me to it. “When’s your court date, son?”

“Next Monday at nine o’clock.” Tyrone finished his second sandwich and reached for his third. Since he was busy squirting it with sauce, he could be forgiven for not looking our way.

Joe Riddley leaned across the table like they were discussing the high school’s chances of winning a football game. “Did the judge tell you it would go easier for you if you told him who else was involved in painting the school?”

Tyrone nodded, his eyes still fixed on the sandwich clutched in his hand. His fingers were so dirty, I averted my eyes to his face, but it was so pink, plump, and miserable, I couldn’t help thinking of a pig awaiting slaughter.

“Are you going to tell him?” I demanded.

Still Tyrone stared at that sandwich. Maybe he hoped it would turn into a crystal ball and give him a magic answer.

I opened my mouth to urge him to tell everything he knew, but Joe Riddley put a hand on my arm. “Son, somebody is scaring you. I can see that real clear. Is Smitty threatening your mother?”

Tyrone shook his head.

“Who then?” Joe Riddley’s tone was so normal, you’d have thought people threatening each other was nothing unusual.

Tyrone swallowed a big bite. “Hollis.” It was little more than a hoarse whisper. “He says he’ll hurt her real bad. And he will, too.” The eyes that met ours were full of more anguish than anybody ought to know at that age.

“And Hollis is your friend.” I hoped my voice was as calm as Joe Riddley’s.

Tyrone nodded and gulped. “We’ve been friends since—well, practically forever. She’s not my girlfriend or anything”—he flushed beet red, so I knew he’d had a few thoughts in that direction—“but if something happened to her because of me—”

Maybe that was why she had been holed up in her house this past week. “Have you warned her?” I asked, testing that theory.

“Sorta. I told her to stay away from Smitty and watch out not to be by herself on the street or anything after last Saturday—when she made fun of him over at Myrtle’s.”

“If Smitty were in detention, he couldn’t hurt Hollis,” Joe Riddley pointed out, “but the only way he’ll go to detention is if somebody talks. Did Smitty help paint the school?”

It took Tyrone a few seconds to get used to the idea of telling what he knew, but once he started, a torrent of words nearly swept us away. “It was his idea. He says black folks are taking over the country and need to be stopped. He says they’ll get all the good jobs and elected to offices and even start marrying all the good women, if we don’t do something to stop them. You saw the way Hollis and the others were carrying on. It like to made me sick to my stomach. We gotta do something.” He looked up and met Joe Riddley’s gaze, but he found no sympathy there. Quickly he lowered his eyes and changed direction. “Smitty said writing on the school was one way to warn folks,” he muttered. “He did the words and stuff. I just painted the picture.”

“Did you help paint up Mr. Evans’s house Friday night?” I was too angry to even try to be subtle.

Tyrone shook his head. “No way. I’d just gotten out of juvey. If I’da done something like that, they’d send me away next Monday.” He seemed earnest enough, but I pressed him.

“Did Smitty? Could he have painted the house that night after, say, one?”

“I don’t know. Mama made me stay home that night. Smitty said he was over at Willie’s playing video games, but I don’t know for sure.”

“Could they have surfed the net, looking up things about Mr. Evans?”

“Not unless they went somewhere else. Willie doesn’t have an Internet connection. His mama stopped paying after we—well, she stopped it.” He added in righteous indignation, “They don’t even have cable. All we can do there now is play games and watch videos. And she’s told the video store he can’t rent R-rated ones, just PG-13.” You’d have thought they were restricted to
Cinderella
and
Snow White.

“Does Smitty have a computer at home?” Joe Riddley asked in the mild tone he used to use when our boys were getting a bit too het up about something.

Sure enough, Tyrone calmed down. “Not yet. He keeps saying he’s going to pick one up—”

“I hope he pays for it after he picks it up,” I snapped.

Joe Riddley gave me a warning pat under the table. Tyrone flushed and bent his head to suck his drink.

I thought of something else. “Was it you or Smitty who wrote notes to DeWayne and the newspaper?”

He shook his head without looking up. “I don’t know anything about no notes.”

“They were written on pages torn from the back of your notebook—the one with your drawings in it.”

His brains nearly rattled, he shook his head so hard. “I told you already, over at juvey—I lost it. Left it at Myrtle’s and it disappeared.”

“You all came back and got it.”

He gave a disgusted sigh.
“
We came back for it, yeah, and Smitty hit on Garnet so Willie and I could get it, but somebody else had already swiped it.”

“You didn’t toss it in a garbage can next to the school?”

The look he gave me convinced me even before he demanded, “Why would I toss it? It had all my drawings in it.”

I didn’t have an answer. That had been bothering me, too. But if he hadn’t tossed it, who did?

“Tell us about painting the school,” Joe Riddley suggested.

Tyrone shrugged his husky shoulders. “What’s to tell? We met over there a little after twelve—they’ve taken off night patrols, so we waited until the last cop went by—then we started.”