Thistle and Twigg Page 8

  I stepped quickly to the curtain covering the back-door window.

  I saw nothing. No further movement was seen or heard. When I opened the door, all was still. The cardboard box I’d packed with tools lay spread about the porch as if someone had overturned it to find the proper one to use.

  I smiled as I went onto the porch, imagining a raccoon or rabbit selecting a trowel and planning his flower garden. But how could one have gotten in? The mesh screening all around the porch looked intact. I bent down to scoop everything up and noticed something reddish on the steps going down to the yard. I shoved the utensil box against the wall where it had been and stepped to the screen for a closer look.

  They were half footsteps. The imprints looked to have been made with fresh, red mud. I might have thought the movers had left them had I not hosed off the porches, front and back, after they left.

  I tried to remember if the police had walked behind my house. Perhaps they had done so while I was otherwise occupied. Or someone else was nearby now. The image of my grandmother’s table upstairs flashed through my mind.

  I latched the screen door as a precaution. Immediately I thought of Phoebe’s assertion that no one locks doors here in Tul-lulah and felt a slight twinge of guilt.

  No sooner had I turned to go back inside when something thumped under the floor very near my feet. All became clear. This time, I unlatched the door, marched down the steps, and opened the hinged piece of lattice that opened to the storage space under the porch.

  All was quiet and very dark under there. As my vision adjusted to the darkness, I saw first one set of eyes blink, then another set, lower and to the right of the first.

  I looked around me to be certain no one was watching. “All right, you two. You’d better come out quickly before anyone sees you.”

  One dog and one man carrying a sack crawled out from under the porch. Both looked apologetic and grateful for rescue. Before Cal could speak or Homer could bark, I said, “Not a word. Hurry now. Up with you. Quick as you can.”

  They did as they were asked with not a sound out of them. Both stayed on the porch close to the screen door after I shut it behind us. Cal’s face drooped as much as Homer’s jowls. Both looked embarrassed, standing there covered in mud.

  “I’m sorry, Jane. We’ve been pondering what to do, me and Homer. Seems like whichever way we go, it’s going to be a bad turn.”

  I hated to agree. “You must go and talk to the police, you know. It’s the only way.”

  “I didn’t do anything! They’ll lock me up without even caring. You wait and see if they don’t.”

  “If you are innocent, you have nothing to worry about if you call them before they find you.”

  He shook his head. His voice was light, weak. “I know that’s right. But I can’t die in jail, Jane. I just can’t.”

  I sighed as I took in the sight of them. “No more talking nonsense. Right now, you’re in need of a shower and something to eat. Both of you.”

  Homer licked his jaws. I instructed Cal to stay put while I led Homer off the porch. Minding we stayed well out of view of the road, I turned on the water spigot and gave him a good wash down, which he seemed to enjoy. I sent him up the steps and inside again. While the water was on, I sprayed the mud tracks off the steps. Feeling a bit criminal, I also sprayed away all foot and paw prints from the dirt around the lattice that covered the storage area under the house.

  Cal sat on a ladder-back chair on the porch and removed his shoes and socks. ‘That night, several hours after I left here, I heard a shot across the field. I walked toward the road. I stayed near the street lamp at the refuge entrance. Didn’t want to get accidentally shot myself. Didn’t see nothing. Figured it must’ve been a car backfiring, going around the refuge next to your place.” He pointed to the narrow road that turned right at the refuge entrance and divided my property and the refuge itself. “I waited awhile, still didn’t see nothing, so I went back home. I decided not to go to Florence, so me and Homer just made our regular rounds.”

  I rummaged through a box and found a few old towels I’d saved for rags. “Come here, Homer,” I said. He trotted over so I could dry him off. To Cal, I said, “And you didn’t go near the practicing range anytime yesterday morning?”

  “No.”

  “You know we found a body? I presume that’s why you’re here, correct?”

  Cal looked up and nodded slowly. “We seen the police. I started to walk up and see what the problem was until I seen that body bag. We decided to take the long way around the refuge and come here. You know, to give me some thinking time.”

  Cal wasn’t telling me the truth, at least not all of it. His story had one large hole obvious to me already. The bag he carried suggested he had been home and also planned to stay away at least for a little while.

  “Do you have a clean change of clothes in there?” I asked and pointed to his bag. He nodded. I brought him inside and directed him to the downstairs bath where he could shower. Meanwhile, I cooked a quick meal of ham, eggs, and fried potatoes for the three of us.

  I wondered if Cal wasn’t planning to steal away from here as he had done from his own house. He may have intended to stay hidden until he could get the keys to my car and drive off, sometime late in the evening. I chided myself for having such a thought. It was an unlikely theory. With Cal’s outdoor skills and intimate knowledge of his land, he could easily evade detection under cover of the woods and stay hidden as long as he liked. Yet he had come here. Why?

  twelve

  Phoebe Gets Her

  Hair Fixed

  My phone nearly rang off the hook after we found that body so many people were calling me. I figured they would. Jane and I were the lead story on the five o’clock news. The news reporters from the paper and WTTV, the local station, came to the scene not long after the police did.

  The newspaper story showed us talking to Detective Waters. The headlines read, “Unidentified Man Found Dead. New Resident Questioned.” They had both our names in the caption. My hair looked awful but that was to be expected, considering.

  The next morning, Jack Blaylock’s gun-safety class was supposed to start at ten o’clock. Luckily, this would not interfere with my regular Saturday hair appointment at 8:45, so I had plenty of time to get beautiful before shooting the fire out of those paper targets.

  The Beauty Barn sits on an odd-shaped piece of land several blocks behind the main drag on the square. It’s more like a cabin than a barn. The logs aren’t like new fancy ones you see these days. They’re real old and black with age.

  The cabin sat empty a long time while the history nuts argued whether or not it was historical. Personally I saw nothing special about it just because it’s old. The town council thought the same. They saw no reason to preserve a former home for young ladies, especially when there’s a question as to whether they were actually ladies, if you know what I mean.

  After that, the cabin was a florist and gift shop for a while. It was pretty nice but the husband of the lady who ran it got transferred. That’s when Ray and Bonita Young bought it because her beauty business she did out of her house grew so much that she was out of space.

  Now she has plenty of room. She has expanded from two hairdryers to five, all lined up on the right wall. On the left is where they put the big mirrors and twirling chairs where Bonita and two other beauticians style hair. The big stone fireplace straight ahead hadn’t been lit yet for the cool weather, but it wouldn’t be long. I couldn’t wait.

  Every Saturday, the barn is pretty full when I get there. That day it was jam-packed. The high-pitched chatter of women yakking ninety miles an hour was so loud a bugler on a horse could’ve galloped in the door playing reveille and nobody would’ve heard or even noticed them. But when everybody saw me, the whole place went silent.

  Bonita was the first one to move. She finished rolling the last perm rod on top of Shirley Blevins’ head and whirled her around in the chair. She stretched a plastic cap on Shirley�
��s head, and then fastened it with a silver butterfly clip. “Now, you sit tight, Shirley. Here’s a towel. You’re set.”

  Bonita smiled and tiptoed over to me. “We’re ready for you Phoebe, hon. We’ve got a sink waiting on you.” She led me back to the sinks and whipped a towel around my neck herself. This was the royal treatment. Bonita hardly ever shampooed anybody herself anymore. One of her nieces or some of their high school friends usually did that and swept the floors now that the Barn was so popular. She flicked one of the new capes out and around my shoulders. With a quick snap at the neck, she wasted no time on small talk and got straight down to business.

  “Don’t keep us in suspense. We want to hear it all, Phoebe, don’t leave the least little bit out.” Every ear in the place was stuck way out to hear me. I had to holler over the noise of the spray when she rinsed and project my voice a little more since I was bent over backward with my head hanging in the sink.

  “Where do I begin?” I said, looking up at the ceiling. “Let’s see. It all started Wednesday morning when I went to Wriggle’s Sporting Goods.”

  I got up to the part about giving Jane a blanket when Bonita told me to sit up. She wrapped a towel around my hair and patted my back so I’d go on to her styling chair. She jacked it up high after I sat down and rubbed the towel all over my head. While she trimmed my hair a little bit and put it up in rollers, I told the rest of the story up to the part where the newsmen left.

  Treenie Dodd, a stout girl with kinky blonde hair who is my cousin Annette’s great niece (not blood niece, by second marriage), sat directly behind me in the waiting area straight across the room. I could see her in the mirror. She quit flipping through a magazine and said, “So you don’t think this Jane woman was mixed up with that young guy that got killed, do you?”

  “Of course not. For heaven’s sake, she just got here. And before you ask, no, she didn’t shoot that poor boy either. He was already dead when we found him. He was done cold as a Popsicle.”

  “You touched him?” Bonita said. Her hands stopped in mid-roll.

  I swiped my hair out of my eyes. “New-hoo, new, new. No, ma’am, not me. I just took Jane’s word for it. I wasn’t about to touch that thing.”

  Treenie edged forward on her seat. Her voice was low and husky like a man’s. I think she does it on purpose. “Well, she could’ve been lying. For all you know, she could’ve done it herself earlier that morning or even the night before. Was she up and dressed when you got there?”

  “Yes,” I said, as I thought back.

  “Could she possibly have led you over to those rocks, making it look like y’all just happened on them?”

  “No, of course not. She told me she already knew they were there. She’d been the day before.” That didn’t sound good. “She only wanted to go because of me, because I got the idea I wanted to buy my own bullets at Wriggle’s.”

  Treenie’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you thought it was your idea but she really suggested it. You know, subliminal. Put it in your mind.”

  “Oh, hush that ignert geechie, Treenie Renee Dodd. You’re talking plain crazy.”

  “I’m just making conversation.” For as long as I’ve known Treenie, she’s been a hard head. Contrary from day one. Whatever I told her and the other kids at the library not to do, she’d do it. If little girls were supposed to be quiet and play with dolls and wear dresses, she’d play with guns and trucks.

  It was no surprise to me when she joined the army She tried to get on with the police when she got out but she tested positive for marijuana during the interviews. At least that’s what I heard. Now, she works for a construction company. No, not answering the phones or doing the payroll like a respectable lady She runs heavy equipment like bulldozers and bush hogs. They say she’s good at it. I say there’s something mighty peculiar about that girl. I think she just likes to hang around old men who cuss and spit. They say she laughs and jokes with them that she’s got a girlfriend just like them. If you ask me, that’s taking the whole “bonding with the guys” thing a little too far.

  I decided it was best just to ignore her. I finished telling my story. I wasn’t about to let her think I didn’t know exactly what happened, so I said, “We saw all kinds of strange things on that property.” I looked all around at everybody and then directly at Treenie and said, “Stuff you ain’t got no idea about. Stuff you wouldn’t even believe.”

  “Like what?” she asked, leaning toward me.

  I shrugged and looked away, real nonchalant. “Well, I wouldn’t want to scare you too bad. I’ll say this—there’s more in those woods than just a bunch of trees and squirrel poop. Jane and I pretty much figured everything out about that poor boy’s murder. But I’ve probably already said too much. The police wouldn’t appreciate me blabbing out things that might be pertinent to their investigation, now would they?”

  She looked impressed. That’ll teach her to be nosy. I smiled and changed the subject. Everybody was real interested in Jane’s house so I told them all about her furniture and how she was decorating. When it was time to get under the hair dryer, I could finally relax. I closed my eyes and tried to think if I was sure my turquoise outfit was good enough for my gun class or if I needed to stop around the corner at Franny’s Boutique to buy something new.

  thirteen

  Jane Hears Cal’s Side

  of the Story

  When he reappeared from his shower, dressed in his clean clothes, Cal reached in the bag he brought with him and took out an old notebook. “After we talked the other night,” he said, “I went ahead and wrote out a few things about our deal.” I took the notebook proffered and skimmed it. In rough language, he had made a bill of sale, according to our agreement.

  “Cal, considering the circumstances, perhaps we should let this go for a while. After all, much more important things occupy our minds at the moment.”

  “No.” He shook his head adamantly. “There ain’t nothing more important than this. This here,” he said tapping the notebook heavily with a tobacco-stained finger, “is the only important thing there is. I want it to be a done deal.”

  “Of course I want the same but there’s no need to hurry. Right now; we need to call a lawyer for you.” Since I knew only my own, I was about to ring him to see if he could refer us to a criminal lawyer.

  “Wait.” He sat very still. Indecision and pain lined his face. “I got my own.” He took his wallet out of his back pants pocket, fingered through a number of cards, and pulled one out. It was yellowed and quite wrinkled, as if he’d been carrying it a long time.

  “Come sit down at the table and eat a bite. You look famished. I’ll call him for you.”

  He handed the card to me. I called and asked for the lawyer but was told he was out of town. The secretary said his junior associate agreed to come straightaway.

  “Cal,” I said when I hung up, “you must be completely honest with the police. If you are innocent but lie to them about something trivial, you will discredit yourself needlessly. You understand that already, I’m sure. Just remember to choose your words carefully.”

  He nodded. “I know you’re right. I’ve been there before.”

  I hoped he would also keep jail in mind. He’d been there before as well.

  “You didn’t have to fix this,” he said of the plate of food I sat before him. “You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”

  “You need your strength. It’s no trouble at all.” I’d scrambled a few more eggs and a bit of ham for Homer, still on the back porch. I set the bowl down next to him and by the time I brought him another bowl of water he’d cleaned his plate.

  “Here is what I’ve been thinking,” I said. I sat down next to him with a glass of tea. “When the lawyer comes, we’ll talk about the bill of sale, if it will ease your mind. Then, in a day or two, we’ll see where we need to go from there.”

  “I’ll be in jail by then, I reckon.”

  “You mustn’t think that. They will ask you questions. A murder
was committed on your property. It’s inevitable. They’ll have no evidence against you.”

  A derisive smile curled his lips. “Evidence or no, they’ll lock me up. He was on my property And yes, I’ve been known to shoot at people. But I never hit anybody. Could have if I wanted to. Ain’t nothing wrong with my aim.”

  “It makes no difference. They must prove you shot this time. The past doesn’t matter.”

  For the first time, Cal lifted his eyes to mine. They were full of disbelief but he said nothing.

  Not long after, the front doorbell rang. I looked through the window beside the door. I expected to see Cal’s lawyer, certainly, but was not prepared to see the lawyer was a she, a young and beautiful lady Her straight red hair hung to her shoulders with short bangs on top. Her summer-weight suit was pale yellow, the skirt of which just touched her knees.

  “Mrs. Thistle? I’m Shelley Barnette from Hannigan and Wade.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said, as her small hand shook mine. I noted her control as she saw Cal. Only a flicker sped across her eyes before we stepped through to the kitchen. Curiosity? Compassion? I couldn’t tell.

  “Hello, Mr. Prewitt. Shelley Barnette. Pleased to meet you,” she said, as she put her hand out. Cal took it and gave a tentative shake. “Ma’am,” he said.

  Shelley smiled. “Mr. Wade is out of town. I hope you don’t mind that I’m his replacement.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. His face looked transformed and obviously pleased with his new counsel. He pulled a chair out for her to sit, then returned to his own. She set her briefcase on the table, and we got right down to business.

  While we explained Cal’s situation, she jotted a few notes in a leather organizer. She didn’t interrupt either of us. When we’d finished, she sat without speaking for a few moments, then said, “Mr. Prewitt, first, we need to call the police right away. I’ll be happy to do that, but I believe it would look better if you did so yourself.”