Mother Finds a Body (22 page)

The sheriff removed his hat as we walked into the doctor's house. He held it tightly with both hands. He tiptoed to a door and tapped lightly.

“Come in,” Mother sang out.

The sheriff crooked a finger in my direction and stood aside so I could enter.

I don't know what I expected to see when I walked into the doctor's office. I'm sure I didn't expect the scene that greeted me. The books on shelves from the floor to the high ceiling, the dark, real leather chairs, the graceful draperies, the subdued light filtering through the Venetian blinds, and Mother, my poor little mother who mustn't be upset, sitting with an afghan robe around her feet, at a card table.

The doctor and several men I had never seen before sat opposite her. The doctor shuffled the cards. His dark hands moved quickly and expertly as the cards fell into place. He wore a black alpaca coat with a white shirt showing at the neck. The whiteness accentuated his swarthiness. When he smiled at Mother his teeth gleamed; he didn't smile at Biff or me, he greeted us professionally.

“Bedside manner,” Biff whispered to me, “Ysleta style.”

Mother smiled wanly at me from over a pile of poker chips. “Louise dear,” she said. She held out her arms, and I walked over to her.

“Are you feeling alright mother?'

‘Oh yes. These men have been so kind.”

That was an understatement if I ever heard one. They weren't only kind, they were groveling.

“They've been teaching me how to play poker,” Mother said innocently. “My, it
is
a complicated game. I told them I would rather play pachisi, but they told me if I was going to stay in Texas for any time at all I had to learn poker.” Mother laughed gaily and went on, “I'm such a dummy, though. I guess I never will learn.”

Her slender hand touched the pile of chips lovingly.

Biff and I gulped. Mother was the champion poker player of the troupe.

“And Biff,” Mother said maternally, “my son.” She held out a hand for him, too.

The sheriff pushed Biff toward her.

“Go to her,” he whispered.

The note of reverence was almost too thick now. I couldn't blame Biff for thinking twice before he threw his arms around Mother's shoulders. The “my son” sounded mighty funny from where I stood. But not to the men who were listening. They glanced at each other with an “I'd-die-for-her” expression on their faces. They dropped their eyes and clenched their teeth when Mother said: “Thank heavens, my children are with me again.” A big round tear fell down Mother's cheek, and she looked up at the sheriff without brushing it away.

“Is it—all over now?” she asked falteringly.

“You bet it is,” the sheriff said.

“And can I go home?” Mother's face was radiant. She let her eyes rest on one man after the other until they had all seen the love light in them. Then she held out her hand to the sheriff.

“My friend,” she said.

I had been looking at the same act all my life, but it was still good. Mother was a born actress, I thought. Then I wondered, wondered if it was
all
an act. If so, Mother had improved.

“I took the liberty of having one of my boys bring your own car around,” the sheriff said. “The truck, I mean. I thought you folks might want to be alone for a little while.”

Biff said, “That's mighty fine of you, Hank.” Then he helped Mother to her feet.

The men jumped up and began digging in their pockets. They counted out bills and change while one of them counted Mother's chips. When they handed the money to Mother, she looked at them with wide eyes.

“What's this for?” she asked.

“Why, that's your winnings,” one of the men said.

“You mean, we were playing for
keeps
?”

The men laughed sheepishly. I swallowed my gum.

“Who were those men?” I asked when we were seated in the truck. Mother was too busy counting her winnings to answer me immediately. She looked up for a second. Her forehead was creased from thinking so deeply, and she began counting on her fingers again.

“I think one of those men cheated me,” she said.

“Who were they?” I asked, trying to keep my temper under control.

“Oh, they were just newspapermen,” Mother said. “They wanted an inside story about the murders.”

“You, uh, gave it to them?” Biff asked. He stared straight ahead as he spoke.

“Why, of course I did. I told them you were a big lumberman from Oregon. I didn't think it would sound good if they found out you were a burlesque comic. I told them everything. They
wanted pictures, and the only one I had was that baby picture of you, Louise, so I gave it to one of the men. Let's see now, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine . . . Yes, I really do think they cheated me.”

“A lumberman,” Biff said incredulously. “From Oregon, yet.”

“Is that the picture of me lying on my stomach on the white rug?” I asked.

“Now you made me lose count,” Mother said pettishly. “I have to start all over again.”

Mother counted and counted. The motor knocked. The radiator boiled. The windshield clacked.

“Lumberman,” Biff repeated over and over. “Lumberman.” He was still mumbling when we drove into camp.

Gee Gee had let out a yelp as the truck stopped, actors and animals piled out of the trailer like an old two-reel comedy.

“My goodness,” Mother exclaimed. “You'd think I'd been to Europe or Siam or something.”

“Evangie's back!” Dimples shouted.

Trailerites began gathering around the lean-to tent to add their congratulations. The attention put Mother in a special sort of heaven. She hugged and kissed Mamie and even blew a kiss to Corny. The dogs were whining and jumping up and down. Rufus Veronica, the monkey, squealed to be petted, and the guinea pig looked on with his little beadlike eyes glittering.

Mamie had just set her hair. It was plastered down flat against her small head, and she wore a pale-lavender rayon mesh cap to hold it. Between that and her old gingham dress flapping around her thin hips, she looked more and more like a real native of Oologah, or whatever the name of that place was. I was afraid she was going to cry, and I was right.

“Oh, I thought they'd never let you out,” she sobbed, clinging to Mother's neck. She stood back and looked at Mother. Then she threw herself in a camp chair and cried even louder. “It would have been all my fault, too,” she said between bellows. “I always bring nothing but bad luck to people and here I am doing it again . . .”

It was spoiling Mother's homecoming. Not because Mother
doesn't like to see people enjoy a good cry, as she puts it, but because Mamie and her hysterics were taking the center of the stage. I knew that by the time I had counted a slow ten, Mother would have a fainting spell or she would feel an asthma attack coming on.

It was an asthma attack, and she had it before I counted past six.

“Will you get my Life Everlasting please?” she asked Biff.

Mamie jumped up and wiped away a tear. “Let me get it. You just sit there and rest now.”

In a minute she was back with the powder and had sprinkled some in a saucer. She touched a match to the mound and helped Mother cover her head with the Turkish towel. While Mother inhaled and wheezed, Mamie clucked in sympathy.

Mandy emerged from the trailer wearing his bathrobe and carrying a half-empty bottle of rye. His eyes looked sleepy and his hair was mussed. One side of his face was creased from lying on it.

“Why doesn't someone let me in on the news?” he said. He patted Mother's head gently. “Welcome home, baby,” he said softly. Then to Biff, “How's it?”

Biff eyed the bottle. “Tough, Mandy boy, very tough. What I need is a little drink.”

“Me, too,” Mandy said as though it were a brand-new idea. Corny got the glasses.

“. . . now all we've got to do is find out where she gets the dope,” Biff finished his story and the bottle at the same time.

For privacy we had gathered at the office. The sheriff had told Biff to keep the inside story of the confession from Mother, and that meant keeping it from Mamie, too. Biff didn't think that Mamie would deliberately tell Mother anything that wasn't good for her to know, but she was too emotional to trust, especially where Mother was concerned.

Dimples drained the last drop from her glass and eyed the empty bottle morosely. “Well, I guess it's up to me to fill it,” she said tonelessly. “I'll go if somebody'll drive me.”

“No,” Corny said. “I'll go. You stay here.”

He took the five-dollar bill from Dimples and left.

“He must be damned thirsty,” Dimples remarked as the door slammed.

“Or curious,” Biff added under his breath.

Gee Gee looked sharply at Biff as he spoke. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “It's none of my business, I guess,” she said, “but I'll be damned if I trust that guy. From what you say about Evangie being on that stuff since San Diego . . .”

“I didn't say San Diego exactly,” Biff said quickly. “I only said that she started acting funny about that time.”

“Well, it's the same thing, ain't it?” Gee Gee said petulantly. “Always shooting off your big mouth. You never give anybody else a chance to talk. What I wanted to say was this: if Evangie started acting funny since San Diego, then she couldn't be getting the stuff from here. She either has it with her or—well, some one of us is giving it to her.”

Biff searched her face for a moment.

Gee Gee's eyes met him and she said, “Look, just because I mentioned it don't go getting ideas that it's me.”

“I wasn't,” Biff said quietly. “I was thinking about something else.”

He jumped up and started for the door. “Come on, Gyp,” he said from over his shoulder, “I want to examine that pantry again.”

I thought he had gone a little insane but I followed him. I was getting used to insanity by then. But I did venture a question.

“And what pantry are you referring to?”

“That pantry that had its door open the night you thought someone was in the trailer,” Biff said in the same well-spaced, precise tone.

“Oh
that
pantry! The only pantry we ever had . . .”

Then I realized that he was being serious.

“Do you think the dope is in there? Do you think it was the murderer who was in the trailer with me? Oh, Biff, wait a minute. Don't leave me alone. Oh. I'm . . .”

Biff grabbed my arm and dragged me along. He was taking such big steps. I couldn't keep up with him. Suddenly he slowed down. As we approached the trailer he whistled a little tune. I recognized it as Mother's four-leaf-clover song:

“I know a place where the sun never shines . . .”

“No sense in getting them excited,” he said between notes. “After all, the stuff can't walk away.”

He was right about that, of course, but he forgot that it could be
carried
away.

19
MOTHER AND MAMIE HAD LEFT THE TRAILER
. The burned-out powder was in the saucer and the towel was folded neatly beside it. A note written on brown wrapping paper was propped against the lamp: Have gone calling. Love, Mother.

“Probably telling the folks about me being a lumberman,” Biff said. He rolled up the paper and carelessly shoved it into his pocket.

The screen door was closed but unfastened. Biff let the dogs out. Then he hooked the monkey to a chain on the hitch and entered the trailer. I followed him. The sun was sinking and it left shadows on the enamel top of the stove. There was a whiskey glass upturned near the coffeepot. A drop of liquor spilled over the shiny surface.

Biff wiped it up with his finger and smelled it.

“Looks like Mamie had herself a nip before they went calling,” he said.

He opened the pantry door and looked inside. Everything was arranged neatly. The salt and pepper and things we used frequently were toward the right. In the back were the bulky supplies like flour and coffee.

Biff began piling the groceries on the stove. When the pantry was empty he lifted up the shelf paper and looked under that. Then he examined each package and jar before he put it back where it belonged. He emptied the coffee tin into a piece of
paper. He went through everything just as carefully. A half loaf of bread caught his attention. He took a knife and removed the soft inside part, then he broke it up into small crumbs.

“They must have been frightened into hiding the stuff some other place,” I said as Biff closed the pantry door.

“It certainly wasn't in any of those boxes or anything. Or it was such a little bit that it couldn't count.”

“It only takes a little bit,” Biff replied. He gave the guinea pig the bread crumbs, the crust he wrapped in paper and threw into the wastebasket.