“No way it could have flown up there and banged into the door? There are wild turkeys all up there in those woods.”
I looked at my daughter with my good right eye. “If that’s what happened, that particular turkey had the San Andreas fault right down his middle waiting to erupt. No, Haley, he was cut and put there as a warning for Ray that that’s what will happen to Sunshine if he gets too nosy or doesn’t follow instructions. Not that there have been any. Or to one of the other Turketts.” I paused. “I reckon.” I shifted the ice pack to my other hand. Damn, it was cold.
“That’s pretty much what happened to that dead Indian guy. Split down the middle.”
“He wasn’t an Indian,” Fred said.
“I know. He was Mexican or something.”
“His name was Dudley Cross and he lived in Bradford.” Fred seemed pleased with himself.
“How did you find that out?” Haley asked.
“It’s in tonight’s
Post-Herald
. Here.” Fred reached over and got the paper. “It’s on the second page. It says a body found stabbed in a mobile home in the Locust Fork community has been identified as Dudley Cross, fifty-three, of Bradford. Mr. Cross frequently worked at Crystal Caverns as an Indian chief, posing for photographs.”
“Dudley Cross,” Haley said. “You know, I’ll bet all his life people called him Double Cross.” She took the paper from Fred. “Does it say anything else? Anything about his family or about the Turketts?”
“Doesn’t even say he was killed in Meemaw’s trailer or that Sunshine’s missing.” Fred pointed out the article to her. “Is Ray calling the police about the turkey?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. Maybe. What he ought to do is call Sheriff Reuse. I’m sure he’ll do that. Or Sister will.”
“That ought to get some action.” Fred stood up. “I’ll go get the Advil. Where are they, honey?”
“In the corner by the coupon box. A little sample package.”
Haley handed me the paper, but I didn’t have my reading glasses. There was nothing new there, anyway, except the Indian’s name, and learning his name saddened me. Dudley Cross who lived in Bradford was a real person who had lived a life for fifty-three years. Damn.
“Is Ray okay?” Haley asked.
“You mean about Sunshine? He seems to be accepting her message that she’s all right.” I took the pills Fred handed me and washed them down with Coke. “He looks good. A big beard and about two hundred fifty pounds.”
Haley was surprised. “I can’t believe that. Ray’s always been skinny.”
“Not anymore. Not by a long shot. He looks good, though. And the guy who works with him, Buck Owens, weighs at least three fifty. He came home with Ray. He lives out in Nectar and said he needed to come see his mother and that maybe he could help Ray. Seems he knows the Turketts.”
“And he let Ray marry Sunshine?”
“She seems like a nice girl, Haley.”
“That’s true. I ought to be ashamed of myself. She just didn’t strike me as being authentic, somehow.” Haley shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe she was just nervous.”
“Having Mary Alice for a mother-in-law would do that,” Fred agreed.
“This morning up at the Compound someone said Sunshine had crawled out from under a rock.” I took another sip of Coke. “I didn’t see who it was.”
“Well, that’s interesting.” Haley stood up. “I hope they’re wrong, and I hope I’m wrong. I want Ray to be happy.” She leaned over and kissed the bump on my head. “You’ll feel better tomorrow, and don’t worry about how you look, Mama. Somebody, maybe Merle Norman, has some makeup with a greenish tint to it that’s supposed to cover up bruises. People use it after face-lifts and things.”
I’d rather not think about the “things.”
“I’ll check with you in the morning. Y’all get some sleep now.”
Fred locked the kitchen door after she left and came back into the den. “Think you can sleep?”
“Probably. It’s been a long day.”
But long after we were in bed and Fred’s breathing had become a light snore, events of the last several days played themselves over and over in my mind like one of those avant-garde films that skips from one scene to the next and they assume you figure out the relationship.
“
His name is Gabriel
,” Meemaw said.
“
Sunshine’s not here?
” Ray asked.
“
Hey, pretty lady
.”
“
Tell Ray I’m fine
.”
“
A Port-o-John
.”
“
Stress-free turkeys
.”
The last thing I remember before sleep finally claimed me was an image of Sunshine climbing out from under a big, big rock.
F
red woke me up the next morning to make sure I was all right before he went to work.
“More aspirin,” I groaned. While he went to get them, I got up and went to the bathroom. The mirror over the medicine cabinet gave me bad news. “Damn,” I murmured.
Fred came back with the aspirin. “Maybe you can sleep some more. If you want me, I’ll be close to the office.”
“Okay.” I took the aspirin and promptly went back to sleep.
“Psst.”
I opened my green bloodshot eyes and stared into Mary Alice’s brown ones which were about two inches away.
“Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
I rolled over and pushed my face into the pillow. “Go away.”
“What?”
“I said go away. What time is it anyway?”
“It’s about nine-fifteen. The sheriff’s here to talk to you. I told him you weren’t very pleasant in the
morning, but he said it would save him another trip to town.”
“Sheriff Reuse is here in my house?”
“In the kitchen drinking coffee. It was the last cup, but I’ve made some more. Are there any sweet rolls in the freezer?”
I slapped the air where I thought Sister was. Pain arced through my stiff shoulder.
“I’ll look and see,” she said. “You can come out when you’re ready.”
I lay there for a few minutes hoping that, by some miracle, Sister’s appearance had been a bad dream. The smell of coffee and sweet rolls put an end to that illusion, though. Plus, the coffee smelled wonderful. I finally got up, combed my hair, brushed my teeth, and went into the den.
“Here’s Miss Slugabed,” Mary Alice said cheerfully. She and the sheriff were sitting at my kitchen table in my bay window drinking my coffee and eating my sweet rolls.
“Morning, Mrs. Hollowell. That’s some bruise you’ve got there. Mrs. Crane didn’t do it justice.”
“I’m getting some green makeup today,” I said. I headed for the coffeepot with as much dignity as a knot on my head and a bathrobe that needed hemming would allow.
“What kind of green makeup?” Sister asked.
“Some Haley told me about. It has a greenish base that hides bruises. She thinks Merle Norman has it.”
“If they don’t, I’ll bet you could get some at an undertaker’s.” The sheriff reached for another sweet roll.
I looked at him. He was serious, unfortunately. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I put sugar and cream
in my coffee and sat down at the table between them. “Okay. What can I do for you?”
The sheriff stuffed a whole sweet roll in his mouth, wiped his sticky fingers on a paper napkin, and whipped out a notepad. “Just need to clear up a few things. Mrs. Crane said you wouldn’t mind if we came over.”
This was the reason children are taught not to talk with food in their mouths. “There’s icing on your chin,” I said.
He swiped at it with the back of his hand. “Thanks. Okay, tell me about finding Dudley Cross’s body, Mrs. Hollowell. Just free-associate here. You may remember something that surprises you. I may ask a few questions, but mainly I want you to just talk.”
“Has Mary Alice done this?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t remember a whole lot,” Sister said.
“Well”—I took a sip of coffee—”Meemaw fell over him and we fell over her and didn’t even know there was a body there for a minute. It was just a bunch of confusion. Then Meemaw started screeching about her hog-butchering knife and we saw the body.” I looked over at Sister. “Mary Alice got sick. She didn’t throw up or anything. She just rooted up against the sofa.”
“And Mr. Cross?”
“Had on a gray wool suit, jacket and all, and it was burning-up hot. He had on a red tie, maybe striped, and a white dress shirt that looked like it had been done at a laundry. There wasn’t much blood on it.” I stopped. “But you already know this.”
“What was Meemaw doing?”
“Sitting there. Sort of moaning. Then she started
looking for Sunshine.” I waited for another question but the sheriff was quiet. “The dogs were there,” I added. “If a stranger had come up or someone who didn’t know about the sticks, they’d have eaten them alive.” I paused, trying to remember the details of the scene.
“Anything else?”
“It didn’t look like there had been a struggle in there. The Chinese checker game Meemaw and Sunshine had been playing was still on the table, not even bumped. And everything looked tidy, except for the Indian, of course. Mr. Cross.”
“What do you know about him?” Mary Alice asked the sheriff.
“Nothing much. He’d been in a few minor scrapes. Caught for speeding once and they found a little marijuana, not enough to be peddling it. Couple of shoplifting charges. None stuck. A man at the caverns swore he took his wallet, but they never could prove anything.” The sheriff shrugged. “Just piddling stuff. In the army a while, in Vietnam. Rented a garage apartment from a man out in Bradford said Cross didn’t have any family he knew of.” The sheriff picked up his notepad. “Sorry. Go on, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“Well, Pawpaw showed up and started flirting with my sister here.”
“He’s pretty good at it, too,” Mary Alice said.
I gave her a hard look. “Anyway, it made Meemaw mad and she said Mary Alice had been coming on to him.”
Sister grinned. “Old coot.”
“And then you said leave and we left. Nearly got ourselves killed when we got to the road. This car came over the rise going about a hundred. It was
that Dwayne Parker kid. I saw his car at the Exxon station yesterday and recognized it.”
The sheriff wrote the name down. “Who’s Dwayne Parker?”
“One of Sunshine’s old swains, best we can make out. I think he lives out there somewhere. Drives like greased lightning, too. He was out there with the search party yesterday.”
“I’ll check it out.” The sheriff made a note and studied it as if he had just written something important.
“I know. I know what happened.” Sister put her sweet roll down and clasped her hands together. “Sunshine was in the trailer and the man came in and attacked her. She grabbed Meemaw’s hog-butchering knife to protect herself and hit him a little too hard.” Sister paused. “Well, a lot too hard. She panicked and called Dwayne to come rescue her. Which he did. But being madly in love with her, he’s holding her captive. Sunshine”—she opened her arms expansively—” is a prisoner of love.”
The sheriff looked amazed.
“She’s been taking creative writing classes at UAB,” I explained. “She’s doing pretty good with them, too.”
“I can tell.” The sheriff pointed his pencil at Sister. “A few loose ends here, though. For instance, what happened to Mr. Cross’s car?”
“Sunshine drove it somewhere and Dwayne met her. She was in his car when they nearly hit us.”
“Did you see her?”
“She was hiding on the floor.”
“Her bloody nightgown was found in the woods. How do you account for that?”
“I thought it was by the body.”
Lord, it was too early to be sitting here listening to this. I got up stiffly and poured another cup of coffee. The thermometer on the back porch already read ninety-four degrees and there was no sign of Woofer. I knew he was in his igloo, perfectly fine, but I needed to check on him anyway. An old animal becomes more precious each day.
“I’m going to go see about my dog,” I said and stuck a couple of dog biscuits in my pocket. The two at the table paid no attention. They were having a good time.
“It’s like a great puzzle each time,” the sheriff was saying as I opened the door and stepped out into what felt like a blast furnace.
Woofer condescended to come out for the treats. He was as stiff as I was.
“Let’s walk around a minute,” I said. So we strolled around the yard examining the shrubs and flowers. Only the hardier flowers make it through the summer heat in Birmingham. By August the petunias and impatiens have had it. But begonias, geraniums, periwinkles, and the tall purple coneflowers have staked their claim to be around until frost. In this morning’s heat, though, even the coneflowers were drooping. I turned on the hose and laid it on the ground so it would water the roots but not the foliage. Tonight, I promised myself, I would turn on the sprinkler if we didn’t get an afternoon shower.
“Haley’s getting married tomorrow,” I informed Woofer who had just marked his territory on the apple tree. He turned and went back into his igloo.
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I may go back to bed, too.”
“But it had to be Eddie Turkett,” Mary Alice was saying as I went back into the kitchen. “Who else
could find a whole turkey, feathers and all? Everybody else would have a frozen Butterball one with the gizzards in a plastic bag.”
“Not necessarily,” the sheriff countered. “There are places all over Blount County where you can buy chickens and turkeys straight out of the yard. Some folks think they’re better, but they’re crazy. Most of them are stringy as all get-out when you cook them. Just like wild turkeys. No ma’am. Give me a store-bought freezer one anytime.”
I had obviously not been missed. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m going to go get dressed.” Neither of them looked my way.
“Maybe it was Meemaw left the turkey. Trying to scare me away from Pawpaw.”
It seemed to me that this murder investigation was being conducted very casually, to say the least. What had happened to DNA and fingerprints? And that stuff you sprayed around for hidden blood? When I left the kitchen, the sheriff and Mary Alice were laughing cozily over Meemaw’s jealousy.
I slipped on a loose knit dress I had ordered from Lands’ End and a pair of sandals. I brushed my hair, penciled on some eyebrows, and applied an apricot-colored lipstick. By the time I got back to the two chums in the kitchen, I didn’t look much better, but I felt better.
Their conversation seemed to have wandered to Ray’s dive ship.
“I don’t know how big it is,” Sister was saying. “But they take as many as ten people out for a week. So it must be pretty big.”
“What kind of a crew would you have to have for a trip like that?”
“Three or four. A cook, of course, and a dive mas
ter. Ray says you have to have a top-notch dive master, because the safety of the divers depends on him knowing the waters.”
“I’d love to make a trip like that,” the sheriff said. “I’ve just started taking diving lessons in the Homewood pool. It would cost a bundle, though.”
“Ray’ll give you a discount.”
I started loading the dishwasher. I hoped the sheriff didn’t show up a year from now demanding his discount from Ray.
Sister licked her finger and stuck it into the crumbs on the sweet roll plate. “You may know his dive master. His name is Buck Owens and he lives out at Nectar. He owned the boat Ray bought and he stayed on as a crew member.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Well, he came in last night with Ray. I thought that was real nice. He said he’d check on his family and be available if Ray needed him.”
“He’s huge,” I said. “Looks like he’d sink to the bottom.”
Both of them looked up in surprise. I was right; they’d forgotten I was there.
Sheriff Reuse glanced at his watch. “Good Lord. I’ve got to go. I’ve got an appointment with Eddie Turkett in fifteen minutes.”
“You ask him about that turkey,” Sister said. “I’m still trying to figure out what it meant.”
The sheriff pushed his chair back and stood up. “It meant you need to stay away from Locust Fork until we get this thing cleared up.”
“We won’t have a problem doing that,” I assured him.
Mary Alice walked with him to the front door and came back to inform me that she was going to the
Big, Bold, and Beautiful Shoppe to get something to wear to the wedding.
“What are you wearing?” she asked me.
I hadn’t thought about it. Other than green makeup. “I’ve got lots of stuff,” I said. I put the last cup and saucer in the dishwasher and closed the door. “I’ll go with you if you’ll stop by Merle Norman’s, though. I haven’t seen Bonnie Blue in ages.” Bonnie Blue Butler’s becoming a friend of ours is the only good thing that came from Mary Alice’s losing her mind and buying the Skoot ’n’ Boot, a country-western bar out on Highway 78.
“Okay. Maybe she’ll have lunch with us.”
Lord. The woman was stuffed with sweet rolls and already thinking about lunch.
“How was Ray this morning?” I asked as I got in Sister’s Jaguar and the seat belt grabbed me. When the car was brand-new, I made the mistake of getting in with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in my hand. Sister swears the car still smells like Folgers.
“He was still asleep when I left.” Sister backed out of the driveway. “He called the police last night about the turkey. A man came by and looked and said it was probably kids.”
“Sheriff Reuse seemed to be taking it a little more seriously.”
“He is. I gave him that note somebody put in my pocket, the one that said Chief Joseph sent his regards to my son, and he thinks somebody’s trying to scare us off. Now if we could just figure out what they’re trying to scare us off of.”
“And still no word from Sunshine?”