Do Unto Others (14 page)

She was still as pretty as she’d been in school, with brown hair and pert features. She looked strained, though, around her eyes and mouth. I think it was all that perkiness. She was always the happiest, smilingest person you ever saw. God, she was annoying. Civilization could be falling around your head and Janice’d just giggle and say we could have a bake sale to help the survivors. Where Beta had been dour about folks’ relationships to their Maker, Janice was sure that God really did love everybody and that he’d give those extra bad sinners a pat on the head and forgive them right away, so they wouldn’t even get their toes warm before they strapped on their angel’s wings. She sided with me against Beta in the censorship fight, to my surprise. But I felt that Janice had stuck by me because her God liked Mark Twain and Maya Angelou and Jay McInerney and
all those other folks Beta objected to. Her God liked everyone, even me.

“I just can’t tell you how devastated we all are,” Janice sniffed as she dumped a chunk of sugar in her coffee. I didn’t think she could get any sweeter, but I refrained from comment.

“I saw Hally the other day. He said that Beta baby-sat for y’all sometimes.”

Janice nodded, looking desolate. She caught herself, though, and perked right up. “Yes, Miz Harcher was real sweet to our Josh. I know that might be hard for you to believe, Jordy, but she truly was fond of Josh. I think she sometimes wished she had children of her own.”

“I must’ve missed her maternal streak.”

“Oh, it was there,” Janice assured me. “But, you know, living alone in that old house, with no real involvement in her life but church—” Janice faded off, shaking her head.

“We all make our choices,” I answered.

“Yes,” Janice agreed. “But I tried to help her. Before all that to-do over the library, I even tried to set her up on a date.”

“Date?” My throat caught. A date. With Beta Harcher. One could only imagine the possibilities, since none of them would ever take place.

“Yes,” Janice smiled, remembering, “but her reputation preceded her. I couldn’t find a willing widower in all of Bonaparte County.”

That seemed to me the saddest part of all. I felt bad for Beta all of a sudden, despite everything. No matter how much trouble she’d caused folks, each day she had to wake up and live the hell of a life she’d created for herself. Alone and unloved, and now cold in the morgue with hardly a person to mourn her.

I got up from the couch and walked into the warming sunlight streaming through the sliding-glass window that led to the Schneiders’ porch. I felt Janice’s eyes follow me.

“You were working with her on the Vacation Bible School plans, weren’t you?” I could almost hear her relax behind me.

“Yes, I was. I have to admit, I think both Tamma and I were dreading it after her getting kicked off the library board. But she was easy to work with, undemanding and even calm.”

“Did you know that she was planning on moving to Houston and opening a fundamentalist church there?” I asked, turning back to her.

Janice obviously didn’t. Her perky face tightened in surprise. “Beta? Her own church? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it. She told her niece all about it and stashed away a little money as her start-up funds.”

“How … surprising. I’m sure folks at church didn’t know anything about this.” She paused. “If it’s true, maybe that’s why she’d gotten even more involved in the administrative side of the church lately. The youth trips, the rummage sale, the school. Maybe she wanted to learn how to run such things.”

I nodded my agreement.

Janice cleared her throat and tried to change the subject. “How is Anne doing? Are you and Arlene holding up?”

“Fine, thank you for asking,” I answered, keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. I wanted to say: come down and see her for yourself—it’s not catching; but I refrained. I walked back to Janice, sitting perfectly on her perfect little couch in her perfect little house. I pressed onward.

“You know that when I found Beta, there was a list of names in her pocket. With Bible quotes next to them.”

Janice set her coffee cup back in its saucer with a rattle. “Yes, I know. Junebug Moncrief told us when he came to ask Hally some questions.”

“Then you know that Hally’s name was on that list.”

She nodded. “The whole thing’s silly. Hally had nothing to do with Beta.”

“Except that she went to his church, he headed up a youth group that she chaperoned, and she baby-sat for his brother.”

Janice took refuge in silence. She sipped at her empty coffee cup.

“Most of the other names of people on that list are library board members. There are a few, though, that aren’t. Hally made it onto Beta’s list, and you didn’t. I’m curious as to why.”

“To know that, I’d have to know why she made that list,” Janice countered. “I don’t. Do you?”

“I have my suspicions,” I answered airily. Suspicions and no proof. “The quote next to Hally’s name was ‘Fools make a mock of sin.’ Do you have any idea what that means?”

“None whatsoever. Hally is beyond reproach,” she snapped. I must’ve hit a nerve; she’d stopped smiling.

“Please, Janice,” I smiled. “He’s a teenager. Teenagers do dumb things sometimes. It doesn’t mean he’s not a good kid.” I glanced around at the ideally pristine room and wondered if anything less than perfection was acceptable in Janice’s eyes.

“I don’t know of anything that Hally has done that Beta could find fault with,” Janice asserted.

“Beta found fault with things most people would consider faultless. Like D. H. Lawrence and Nathaniel
Hawthorne,” I reminded her. “I had a talk with Hally yesterday. At the very mention of Beta Harcher and her death he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I’m just wondering why.”

“How dare you!” she sputtered, jumping to her feet. “How dare you come into my home and suggest that my son had anything remotely to do with a murder.”

I crossed my arms. “Spare me the histrionics, Janice. I’d never have suggested it if Beta hadn’t had his name on that list and if he hadn’t acted so skittish.”

“Of course he was skittish. He knew her. She was murdered. That’s upsetting to people!” It certainly seemed to upset her.

“Remorseful, maybe. Saddened, maybe. But not skittish. Hally acts like he has something to hide, Janice.”

The very suggestion enraged her. Her arms, hanging at her side, cocked into L’s, and her fingers jerked with anger. If I’d been within reach, she would have slapped me.

“Get out. Get out of my house,” she whispered.

I obviously hadn’t handled this well. My approach of forthrightness with Hally hadn’t worked on his mother. I set my coffee cup down on her table and I raised palms in supplication. “Okay, Janice, okay. Don’t bust an artery or anything, I’m going.”

She stood there, trembling, watching me leave. I felt like I’d smeared something nasty across her spotless white interiors.

Hally was pulling up in his little Mustang when I walked out onto the yard. He smiled uncertainly when he saw me.

“Hey, Jordy,” he called as he unfolded himself from the car.

“Hi, Hally,” I said, deciding to take the offensive
again. “Look, I’ve upset your mother. We were discussing Beta Harcher.”

Hally’s blue eyes flashed. “What is it with you, Jordy? Why don’t you just let the police do their job and leave everyone else alone?” He was mad at me, but he was more scared. I could see the fear in his face, lurking behind the braggadocio he wore like a mask.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to rattle your mother.”

Hally ignored me and stormed toward the house. I couldn’t resist.

“Oh, Hally, I did see Chelsea Hart this morning. Charming girl. She sends you her best.” He tottered, torn between the idea of coming back across the yard and dealing with me and going in the house to either see Janice or possibly hide under his bed. Mom won. The door slammed hard behind him, rattling the bay windows Janice had added to give her house extra class.

I exhaled slowly, not feeling proud of myself. Well, I’d stirred up the hornet’s nest at the Schneiders. I retraced my conversation with Janice in my head. I could have been a lot more diplomatic, I supposed. I turned and headed down the street, walking along the line where grass met road and balancing on it like a high-wire walker.

Josh Schneider nearly ran me down before I saw him. He came pedaling down the road, carefully perched on his little shiny blue bicycle. He stopped about three feet dead from me, the tires pealing pleasantly as he halted.

“Josh. Hi, how are you?” Even as I asked, I glanced back at the Schneiders’. We were in front of my house, so I didn’t think Hally or Janice could see. I’m sure if they could have, Josh would’ve been snapped up quick. “Got a second to talk?”

“Sure,” he sniffed. Where Hally was a younger version of his father (my cousin Harold), Josh was a petite
Janice. He resembled her, with his fine looks and brownish hair, but more than that, he acted like her. I’d never smiled so much as a child. I don’t think I’d seen Josh without a grin before, cheering up the other kids. He wasn’t smiling now, looking a sad figure in dusty jeans, a cartooned T-shirt, and neon-lined tennis shoes.

“Hey, buddy, you doing okay?” I squatted down next to him.

He shrugged. “I guess so.”

“You sad about something?”

Josh nodded. “I miss Miz Harcher. I loved her.”

My throat tightened. Someone did actually care about the old battle-ax. I chastened myself for thinking that. Beta’s parents must have loved her, surely. Perhaps some young man once considered her pretty and smart and fascinating. But that was all long ago. Maybe Josh’s love was the only love Beta knew. My jaw felt tight as I looked into Josh’s dark, unhappy eyes.

“I know you did, buddy. She loved you, too.” I said it with no knowledge of its truth, but it sounded fair. If she could have loved anyone, maybe it was this little boy who was so unsullied by the sin she saw in everyone else.

“Then why’d she have to die, Jordy?” Josh asked, his face frowning into tears he was repressing.

God, how do you explain death to a five-year-old? I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have a clue. I took one of Josh’s hands in mine. “Someone took her away, Josh.” I fumbled for an explanation to help, but Josh didn’t need my words. He had his own.

“One of the bad people did it,” he said, folding thin arms over his stomach. The little Martian man from the Looney Tunes cartoons peered at me from Josh’s T-shirt, his head peeking above Josh’s crossed arms and daring me to contradict the boy.

I didn’t know what defined a
bad person
, but Josh was correct to a degree. “Yes, a bad person killed her.”

“She said they were here,” Josh added mournfully, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“Bad people were here?” I asked, trying not to sound too stupid in front of this bright little boy. This was no news to me, though. I was stupid much of the time, it seemed, and Beta thought just about everyone was pretty bad.

“Yeah, she said they were.” Josh blinked at me, then glanced around, as though bad people might creep up right behind us.

I tented my cheek with my tongue, thinking. “What did she say about the bad people, Josh? Who were they? You can tell me.” I just hoped I wasn’t on the dishonor roll.

Josh shrugged with the same I-don’t-know attitude I’d experienced far too much lately. He must be learning it from all the adults around him. “She just said all the bad people were going to pay.”

“Pay? For what?”

“They were going to pay her. So she could build this place to talk to God,” he said, glancing toward his house. My eyes followed his, relieved to see his front yard empty.

The church. They were going to pay her for the church. I took Josh’s shoulders and made him look into my eyes. “Josh, listen to me. What you just said to me is very important. Could you tell someone else about it? Would you tell Chief Moncrief?”

Josh considered his civic duty. “Would he give me a ride in the patrol car and lemme run the siren?” he asked seriously.

“Yes, he will. And I’ll call you every time we get a new children’s book at the library,” I offered. This literary
bribe didn’t have the glamour of the patrol car, but it was enough. Josh took my hand and followed me into the house.

A glass of milk, two slightly stale cookies, and a phone conversation with Junebug later, I dispatched Josh home. Junebug was still on the line when I came back in.

“So now do you believe my blackmail theory?” I demanded.

“It gives us something to work on, which is only a shade better than nothing. We need some solid proof, Jordy,” Junebug opined.

“So let’s go over to Beta’s and get it,” I insisted. “Look, it’s coming up on three. I told Shannon we’d meet her there around then and she’d help us look around.”

“Shannon, eh?” Junebug asked. “She’s still Miz Harcher to me. I must not have your charm.”

“We all have our small burdens to bear. You going to be there or not?”

“I’ll be there,” he huffed. “See you shortly.”

I replaced the phone in the hook. The bad people indeed, Josh, I thought. From the mouths of babes.

I KNEW SOMETHING WAS WRONG THE MOMENT I saw the door of Beta’s house. It stood ajar. Shannon might be visiting a small town but she was a big-city girl and didn’t strike me as the type to leave front doors open. I jogged up the path to the porch. It creaked when I stepped on it.

“Shannon?” I called.

No answer. The second step creaked louder than the first and I paused again. “Shannon? It’s Jordy Poteet.”

The wind answered me, brushing across my face and bringing me the scent of honeysuckle from a neighbor’s bush. I pushed the door open, calling Shannon’s name again into the dimness of the entry hall.

I walked into the living room. The curtains were still drawn as Beta probably left them, but in the light of the doorway I could see the whole room had been trashed. Chairs were knocked over, books spilled down from the high-standing bookshelf, drawers from a desk lay yanked free of their snug home. I had taken four steps into the room when I heard and saw Shannon.

She lay crumpled by the sofa, and the cushions were stained with the blood from her face. Her arms were flung outward, as though ready to give a hug, but not a kiss. Her lovely face was a wet mass, stained with blood and hair and what looked like bone. Her citified
black T-shirt was ripped at the collar and I could see her bra strap and a white expanse of shoulder. The acrid smell of bullet fire pervaded the air, in contrast to the sweet honeysuckle on the porch.

I crouched by her, hearing her wet intake of breath before I tried to find a pulse. I couldn’t bring myself to touch her neck; I found a pulse in her wrist. The beat had almost faded, but it was still there, like a last echo on a stage.

I stumbled through the mess to the phone, hearing the porch boards creak under weight. Junebug’s shadow fell into the hallway.

“Call an ambulance!” I hollered. “She’s been shot!”

The next few minutes were a daze. Junebug bolted back to his car and radioed for help. I held Shannon’s cooling hand, telling her that help was on its way, for her to hold on. I don’t know if she heard me; there was no replying grasp on my fingers, and the only noise she made was her breathing. I held each breath of mine until she drew another one.

The ambulance came, along with two of Junebug’s officers. Someone pulled Shannon’s fingers from mine and I watched them take her off in the ambulance. Wordlessly I turned back and walked into the house that still smelled of gunfire. I stood by the gore-stained couch and suddenly needed to sit down, but not there. I sagged and a strong arm, one that felt familiar, caught me.

“Here, Jordy,” Junebug said gently. “Sit here.” He steered me to an easy chair in the corner under a lamp. I trod right over the books and smashed bric-a-brac that littered the floor. I sank into the chair.

Junebug squatted by me, and over his shoulder I saw a wall of crosses. They were of every size and shape, some of metal and some of wood, and right away I saw they formed a larger cross that stood well over seven feet tall.
Home decor à la Harcher, I thought crazily. It made the scene even more unreal. I sunk my face into my hands.

“Listen, Jordy,” Junebug said. “Tell me what happened.”

I told him, remembering that it was only two mornings ago I’d had to relate a somewhat similar story. If I kept finding bodies, I wasn’t going to get invited anywhere. Shannon wasn’t a body, I reminded myself. She was alive. For now. I felt cold, despite the spring warmth outside.

Junebug squeezed my shoulder when I was done. “You okay?”

For the first time in all this he sounded like my old friend and rival. I looked up at him with gratitude (not a common occurrence with me) and he smiled grimly.

“I just can’t believe this, Junebug. What the hell is going on here?”

One of Junebug’s officers, the nervous one with the cropped hair that’d been at the library, stuck his head around the corner. “Busted window in the back bedroom, Chief,” he reported crisply. “Looks like the pane was smashed and the window forced up from outside.”

“Thanks. Keep checking around; let me know what you find.” Junebug shook his head, surveying the wrecked room. He walked through the mess, and I followed him. The destruction wasn’t quite complete. One shelf of cheap glass over a secretary-style bureau glittered intact, and another row of Bibles stood on the top-most shelf, probably out of the attacker’s reach. Pictures on one wall, of a younger Beta, a far primmer-looking Shannon in her Baylor graduation gown, and of a nearsighted-looking couple from the Forties peered back at us, still hanging straight from the wall. Shards from a china collection that had seen far better days crunched under my feet. Junebug glanced back at me.

“Maybe you were right, Jordy. Beta must’ve been
hidin’ somethin’ in here. This ain’t from any struggle Shannon had with her attacker. Somebody was either looking for something or being a vandal.”

“If someone broke in, Shannon must’ve walked in on them,” I guessed. “She told me she had an appointment with Reverend Hufnagel before she was meeting us back here. She must’ve surprised the intruder.”

“Is that the story you’re peddling now, Poteet?” a nasal voice behind me demanded. Billy Ray Bummel sauntered in like he owned the place. He sniffed the air, like a wine connoisseur inhaling tenderly over a glass of vintage red. “There’s been a crime here, I do believe.”

I was ready to tell him the only crime was his continued employment by Bonaparte County, but Junebug had his own ax to grind. “Lay off Jordy, Billy Ray. He didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Billy Ray whirled on the law like it was a misbehaving dog. “And how are you so sure about that, Chief? Let me remind you that Mr. Poteet here has found both members of the Harcher family dead in the past two days.”

“Shannon’s not dead,” I argued.

He waved off that technicality and tried to get as close to my face as his stunted height would allow. “Not yet. And why not? Because you’re a lousy shot, probably. Because Chief Moncrief here caught you before you could snuff out that poor young thing’s life. What is it that spawns your violence against women-folk, Poteet?”

He was about to see what spawned my violence toward balding, onion-breathed lawyers. Junebug intervened.

“Stop it, Billy Ray. Jordy, you take two steps back and don’t pay him heed.” There was a snapping noise and I saw Junebug pulling on plastic gloves. “Billy Ray, Jordy was on the phone with me immediately before all
this happened. He wouldn’t have had time to get over here, trash this room, and shoot Shannon.”

“We are not talking about running across Houston here, Junebug. We are talking about being three streets over. He would have had plenty of time.” Billy Ray fumed, the struggle of doing such calculations draining his energy.

Junebug began picking through the debris of Beta Harcher’s den carefully, not looking at Billy Ray. “Nonsense.” He told Billy Ray about me finding out what Beta had told Josh, bolstering the theory that Beta was using blackmail to build funds for her proposed church. Billy Ray didn’t care for that theory. He turned back on me.

“You’ve spun a might tricky web here, Poteet,” he sneered. “I guess you think havin’ lived in the big city, you’re going to outfox us reg’lar folk. Let me just divest you of that notion, mister. You’re going to have a lethal injection pumped into you if Shannon Harcher dies, and even if you don’t, you’re gonna have one for killing Beta.”

“I bet my uncle Bid could sue you for saying something like that to me,” I said hopefully. My temper was in full force now. I’d seen a lovely young woman lying near death and now this little minnow of a barracuda had the audacity to accuse me, with no proof. “Of course I wouldn’t sue you as an officer of the court. The people of Bonaparte County suffer enough every time you open your mouth as their representative of law and order. I’d see about suing you just as you. Of course, what could I ask for as restitution? I have no burning need for cheap suits, and I just don’t think that I want a cardboard diploma from a mail-order law school with a post-office address.”

Billy Ray showed he had some hot blood by having it all rush right to his face. One big vein popped up on his forehead and I wished for a shrimp deveiner. The
little lunk might have actually tried to hit me. Our arguing had brought the pale-faced young deputy back into the room, but Junebug kept shuffling through the dross of Beta’s den. The young deputy stepped between Billy Ray and me, but it was hardly necessary. I wasn’t going to stoop to hitting the worm and he wasn’t about to strike me and get a rep for slapping around taxpayers and fellow civil servants.

“Jordy,” Junebug said in his regular, polite, slow drawl, “what was the name of Eula Mae’s first book?”

The question was so unexpected Billy Ray and I quit glaring at each other and turned to him. Junebug stood, setting an open Bible on a table. A yellowed piece of stationery was in his hand, and he peered at it like it held the wisdom of the ages.

I had to think over Eula Mae’s impressive publishing credentials. “
The Rose of San Jacinto
,” I finally said.

“And she published it, right?” Junebug said.

“Not a vanity press if that’s what you mean,” I answered, misunderstanding. “It was published by one of the big New York houses.”

Junebug chewed his lip. “Y’all better look at this.”

I nudged in front of Billy Ray and scanned the aged letter Junebug held in his hand. My breath caught at the end:

“Patty? Who the hell’s Patty?” Billy Ray muttered.

I found my voice. “Eula Mae’s sister. Her older sister. She died in, oh, about 1976. Cancer.”

Billy Ray drew in a long breath, like a bloodhound scenting a deer. “Well, well, well. Isn’t this interesting?”

Junebug pulled a plastic bag from his back pocket and eased the document inside. “Doesn’t prove anything yet, Billy Ray.”

Billy Ray coughed. “Kind of indicates to me ol’ Eula Mae’s been pulling the wool over the literary eyes of not just Mirabeau, but New Yawk as well.”

She was working on her latest book when we got there. Billy Ray had tried to send me home, but Junebug said I could stay. He told Billy Ray that Eula Mae was a friend of mine and I could talk to her perhaps a bit easier than either of them.

Eula Mae greeted us with her usual civility and charm. Today she wore some long dashiki-type of robe, speckled with bright purples, oranges, and blacks like the plumage of a tropical bird. Her eyes darted from face to face, as though we were predators of the rainforest.

She bade us sit down in her living room, for which the operative word was
wicker.
I hadn’t seen so many
swirls since my teenage job in an ice cream shop. Junebug and I settled on a couch with a back of dizzying arabesques, and Billy Ray perched next to us on a straight-back chair.

“Y’all wait just one second and I’ll get us some tea,” she trilled, heading into the kitchen.

“You ought to have someone watching the back door,” Billy Ray hissed at Junebug. “She might try and go over that rose hedge in the back.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Billy Ray,” Junebug said mildly.

The cat I hadn’t befriended the other day wandered in and eyed our merry band. He regarded me with disdain, Junebug with curiosity, and—perceptively—Billy Ray with contempt. He hissed at the assistant D.A., arching his back (probably the only time Billy Ray has seen a back arch in his presence), and scurried from the room. I liked cats better all of a sudden.

Eula Mae returned with a tray of iced-tea glasses, each topped with a sprig of mint from her garden. We made momentary small talk as she served us. Nervousness hit me like a rock and I sipped at my tea, for once not wanting to say anything. Finding Shannon wounded had dulled me; reading the letter by Eula Mae’s sister had stunned me; and now I sat in my friend’s parlor, with Law and Order on each side, to debate fraud and murder. God, I wanted a cigarette.

Eula Mae sat in a comfortable chair next to the wicker sofa, across the coffee table from Billy Ray. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”

Junebug raised a warning hand to Billy Ray, and for once Billy Ray leashed his tongue.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard that Miz Harcher’s niece was shot today at her house,” Junebug said.

Eula Mae’s face crumpled. “Oh, my Lord! No, I
hadn’t heard.” She paused. “I didn’t even know Beta had kinfolks still around here.”

“Girl’s from Houston,” Junebug replied. “Someone shot her in the face. Don’t know yet if she’ll live or not. Young girl, too, early twenties.”