The Persian Pickle Club (12 page)

As I backed down the section road and pulled out onto the highway, heading toward the Judds’ place, I chatted about the weather and told Rita how nice she looked even in the heat, hoping I could get on her good side. Because I was so worried that Rita’s story would harm Ella, I hadn’t shown the proper enthusiasm for Rita’s newspaper work, and I wondered if she thought I had let her down. If so, she didn’t say anything. In fact, she didn’t pay any attention to me at all, just sat and stared out the window, biting her lip.

So I stopped talking and enjoyed the scenery myself, thinking how nice it would be to make a quilt that looked like Kansas fields. I’d pick striped fabrics and cut them into squares and rectangles, setting some in crossways so they’d look the way our fields did when Grover plowed them at angles. Even though most of the fields we passed were brown, I’d use green material. I’d call the quilt Better Times, and I was so pleased with the name, I thought I’d tell Mrs. Judd. I pulled into her barnyard and switched off the motor.

Prosper stood beside the smokehouse, watching us, and I could make out Mrs. Judd, who was just a shape behind the screen door. To show sympathy for Ella, the Judds had tied a purple mourning bow on the door. Black crepe streamers hung from it, but in the heat, they looked like limp rags. I figured Ella was somewhere in the kitchen, blocked by Mrs. Judd.

Rita waited for me to get out of the car, but I wasn’t in any hurry to face down Mrs. Judd, who’d be mad enough to chew my eyes out when she found out why we were there. So I fiddled with the key, pretending it wouldn’t come out of the igni-tition, then stared at the barn as if something over that way had caught my attention.

Rita got out and faced the Judds by herself. “Is Ella around?” she asked Prosper.

“She’s sleeping,” Mrs. Judd answered from inside the door. “How do, Queenie.” She didn’t sound friendly, and I slumped down a little in the seat.

“I want to talk to Ella,” Rita said.

“She’s had about all the condolence calls she can take today, but thank you just the same. I’ll tell her you stopped in. She’ll appreciate the thought.”

“Oh, I didn’t come to tell her I was sorry. I came to ask her some questions.” That didn’t sound right, even to Rita, who added, “I mean, of course I’m sorry.”

“What do you want to ask her questions for? Are you writing another one of those stories?” Mrs. Judd’s voice boomed out from the house like a radio that had been turned up too high.

“Rita thinks she’s going to find out who killed Ben,” I called out the window, and I could hear Mrs. Judd’s snort all the way to the car.

Rita turned and frowned at me as if I shouldn’t have told. Then she turned to Mrs. Judd with the same smile she’d given Hiawatha. “Of course, I can’t promise I’ll do it, but I’m going to try. It would be nice to know who the murderer is, don’t you think? I imagine everybody would feel better, especially Ella, if they knew who killed Mr. Crook.”

“Would they?” Mrs. Judd asked.

Prosper, who’d been staring at Rita, turned to look at his wife through the screen door.

“Of course they would. Everybody wants justice done, don’t they?” Rita sounded cheerful, but she didn’t cheer me up, and from the looks of the Judds, she didn’t cheer them, either.

“I don’t know about that. Around here, everybody wants to mind their own business. It seems to me, justice would be letting Ella alone. She doesn’t want you or anybody else prying,” Prosper told Rita. I’d never heard Prosper say that much at one time.

Rita had removed her pad and my pencil stub from her purse when she got out of the car, but she put them back and snapped shut the lock on the pocketbook. “What I don’t understand is why everybody wants to cover this up.”

Mrs. Judd came out from behind the screen, letting it slam behind her, making Rita jump. Before the door closed, I caught a glimpse of Ella sitting in a rocker in the kitchen. “What’s that you said?”

I had to admire Rita for being braver than I’d ever been. She didn’t flinch one bit under Mrs. Judd’s frown. “I said it seems to me that everybody wants to cover up this murder. Nobody wants to talk about it,” Rita replied.

Prosper took a step toward Rita and opened his mouth, but Mrs. Judd held up her hand. “Cover up!” she said, spit flying out of her mouth. “What’s there to cover up? Ben Crook’s death is none of your business. None of my business—or Queenie’s, over there, either. You’re trying to stir up trouble with your newspaper stories. I don’t know of anybody in Harveyville who wants their name in the newspapers.” Even though Mrs. Judd couldn’t see me, I blushed.

“If you keep on asking fool questions like you’ve been doing, people’ll get suspicious of their neighbors and say things they don’t mean. There’re already kids out there digging up Ella’s field, looking for buried treasure, because somebody said Ben was killed for money. Ben never had any money. Why, do you think he’d have let Ella live like they did with no electricity or running water if he’d had money? He thought the sun rose and set—”

Rita cut her off. “Well, somebody must have had a reason for killing him. And what if the murderer is living right here in Harveyville? Do you want to live with a killer? What if he goes after Mr. Judd? Or Ella? Or Queenie?” I shivered, even though it was so hot, I was sweating.

Mrs. Judd put her hands on her hips, stretched her neck, and puffed out her chest like a hen who’s just laid an egg. “There isn’t anybody going after a one of us that I know of.”

“Tima,” Prosper said. Mrs. Judd turned her eyes to Prosper without turning her face. The two of them looked at each other a long time, Mrs. Judd staring through her thick spectacles and Prosper looking right back with his beady pig eyes. I guess he was telling her something, the way married people do without talking, but I didn’t know what it was.

After a minute, Mrs. Judd turned her eyes back to Rita. “If I let you talk to Ella, will you promise you’ll never ask her another thing about Ben Crook? Ben’s dead, and he’s been dead over a year. It doesn’t do her any good to dig up his memory, the way Hiawatha dug up his body. Ella’s none too strong, and all these questions don’t help her one bit. You promise you’ll let her be?”

Rita nodded. “All right.”

Rita started toward the door, but Mrs. Judd held up her hand. “I’ll bring her out.” She called inside in the sweet voice you’d use for a little child, “Ella, sweetheart, come out here, please, if you would. You’ve got you a visitor from Pickle.”

The rocker scraped in the kitchen, and Ella, wearing her carpet slippers, shuffled out the screen door. She seemed smaller than ever since the funeral, and older, too. I jumped out of the car and ran to her and took her hand. “Why, Ella, you come and sit beside me on the swing. It’s such a nice day. The fresh air will do you good. If I’d known we’d be stopping by, I’d have brought a kuchen. I make it just like my mother did. She said you were the only one who could make it better, and she always meant to ask you for your recipe.” I chattered away as I led Ella to the swing, thinking Mrs. Judd would tell me to be still, but she didn’t. Rita sat down in a chair next to us, and Mrs. Judd hefted her weight onto one of the porch steps. She motioned for Prosper, who came over and leaned against a porch post.

Rita slipped off her hat and laid it on the floor, running her hand through her damp curls, which were as springy as Shirley Temple’s. I thought she’d take out her pad of paper again, but she didn’t. Maybe it was because the pencil I’d given her was two inches long and had been sharpened with a knife. It was all right for putting down what you needed on a grocery list, but you wouldn’t want to write a newspaper story with it.

“I don’t want this to be painful, Ella. I’m just thinking that you might remember something that will help me find the man who killed your husband.” Rita talked in the same little-girl voice Mrs. Judd had used.

“She already told everything to Sheriff Eagles,” Mrs. Judd butted in.

Rita pretended she hadn’t heard Mrs. Judd and kept on. “Maybe someone in Topeka will read the article and know who did it. Or perhaps something you say will give somebody an idea. Even the itty-bittiest thing could help.”

“Why would anybody in Topeka kill Ben Crook?” Mrs. Judd asked. That wasn’t what Rita meant, but Rita didn’t answer her.

Ella looked at Rita for a long time. Then she gave her a sorrowful little smile and said, “Okay.” Rita smiled back at her.

“When was the last time you saw your husband?” Rita asked.

“June twentieth of last year. Everybody knows that,” Mrs. Judd answered for Ella. Rita raised her shoulders and sighed to show she was peeved at Mrs. Judd, but she kept looking at Ella. It became clear to me that Mrs. Judd’s plan was to let Rita ask Ella questions, but Mrs. Judd would answer them. After all, Mrs. Judd had promised that Rita could talk to Ella. She hadn’t said anything about Ella talking back.

“That was the day he disappeared. I asked when was the last time Ella saw him?”

“Are you asking Ella if she saw him after he disappeared?” Prosper butted in before Mrs. Judd could answer. Rita would have done a whole lot better if she’d gotten the Judds on her side in the first place instead of going against them.

“Did he mention he was seeing anybody?” Rita asked, and Ella shook her head. She made little bird scratches on her lap with her hands, then put them into her apron pockets. They wouldn’t stay still, however, and in a minute, they were out of her pockets again. It was the first time I’d seen Ella sitting down without quilting or fancywork to occupy her hands. She played with a spot on the hem of her apron where the stitches holding the bias tape trim had come out. I wondered how she could have such dainty hands with all the heavy farmwork she’d done in her life.

“Did he ever have any fights with other men? Or did anybody owe him money or threaten him? Or did you ever see someone sneaking around your farm?” With the first question Rita asked, Ella shook her head no and kept on shaking it long after Rita finished. Mrs. Judd didn’t have to stop Ella from talking, because Ella didn’t have anything to say.

Rita realized that, too, and gave a sigh and was quiet. Then, to my surprise, she turned to Prosper. “I’d like to talk to you, Mr. Judd. Alone, if I may.”

Mrs. Judd protested that anything Rita had to say to Prosper could be said in front of her, but Prosper put up a little pink hand. “It’s all right, Mother.” He and Rita walked over to the horse trough, which was iron and had green slime on the edges. Prosper stood with his back to the sun, and Rita squinted to see him. From what I could tell, she did most of the talking, while Prosper looked into the horse trough and ran his hand along the cool rim. His little eyes squinted until they were all but closed.

All of a sudden, Prosper gave a sharp sound. It wasn’t a word really, just a sound that was like “huh” or “ha.” I wasn’t sure what it meant. He turned without so much as a glance at us and walked quickly into the barn, closing the door behind him. The barn was old, and long cracks had opened up between the wall-boards when the big building shifted. I knew Prosper was standing in the gloom inside, watching us through one of those openings. Mrs. Judd stared at the closed door. Then she put a large hand on Ella’s shoulder, and Ella’s hands stopped scratching and lay still in her lap.

Rita called, “Thanks just the same, Mr. Judd.” Instead of coming back to the porch, she took jerky high-heeled steps to the car and waited for me.

I stood and reached for Rita’s hat, which she’d left behind on the porch, but before I could pick it up, Ella’s hand shot out and grabbed it. She stroked the soft navy blue felt, then carefully brushed the dust off the feather.

Rita opened the car door and put a foot inside, but Ella was still playing with the hat, and I was no longer in a hurry to leave. Rita got tired of waiting and came back to the porch. “You think it’ll rain?” Rita asked like some old farmer.

Mrs. Judd blinked at her without answering. Ella handed Rita her hat and said, “Pretty.”

Rita put it on, fastening it with the hat pin, then took Ella’s hand. “I don’t want to hurt you, Ella. Honest I don’t. It’s just that I’ve got a job to do, and wouldn’t you rather talk to me than some reporter you don’t even know?”

That sounded like a threat, and Mrs. Judd pinched in her mouth while she thought it over. “Do you mean, if you weren’t to write this up, somebody else would?”

“They’d send out a reporter from Topeka, probably one of those men who get people to confess to all kinds of things. They know how to do it,” Rita told her.

Mrs. Judd mulled that over. “I don’t want outsiders bothering Ella.”

“That’s why I’m helping Rita. She’ll be nicer to Ella than somebody from Topeka,” I put in.

Instead of looking at me, Mrs. Judd put up her hand to tell me to be still. She told Rita, “If they send one of those men reporters out, you let me know.”

Rita and I went to the car, and I started the engine. Before I could put the Studebaker into reverse and back out onto the road, however, Mrs. Judd waved her arm and started toward us, calling my name. I stuck my head out of the window, waiting for her to reach us while I wondered if she’d scold me for my part in Rita’s newspaper work.

“Queenie,” Mrs. Judd said, puffing a little. “Queenie, I’d be obliged to you for a scrap of that nice red you have with the white stars—that is, if it wouldn’t rob you. I’m making me a Dresden Plate, and the red’ll look awful good in it.”

I’d been holding my breath ever since Mrs. Judd called my name, and I was so relieved that I let it out in a rush. Asking for a piece of yard goods was Mrs. Judd’s way of telling me she didn’t blame me for Rita’s prying, that everything between us was normal. “I’d be proud to see it in your quilt,” I said. “I’ll drop it off the next time I come this way.”

When we were out on the road, Rita took her lip between her teeth and fanned herself with her hat. Then she asked what Mrs. Judd had meant by asking for a piece of my fabric.

I slowed down, thinking over my reply, before I turned to Rita. “She meant she wanted a scrap of my red with the stars in it for her Dresden Plate,” I said. “That’s all.”

W
hen we left the Judds’, I hoped Rita was ready to give up and go home. I was tired of being a reporter’s helper and didn’t like people frowning at me, but she insisted we had to talk to the sheriff, so I drove us into Harveyville.

It was a Friday. No old bachelors leaned against the Flint Hills Home & Feed. Socializing was Saturday work, and the few people in town that day were hurrying to finish errands so they could go home and get their chores done and be back in town by dark. A sign on the door of the Home & Feed read:
MOVIE TONIGHT, SUNDOWN.
On Friday nights, the Home & Feed set up a big projector outside and beamed a motion picture on the side of the building. People brought their chairs from home so they could sit in the street and watch it. Tonight’s picture was
Murders in the Rue Morgue.
I thought I’d had enough of murder that day, so I wouldn’t ask Grover to take me.

Harveyville wasn’t any “Gasoline Alley.” Only one car was parked on the street, and it was in front of the sheriff’s office— a Hudson Super Six with last year’s license plate on it. The car had been there more than a year, ever since Pap Logan parked it in that spot, then walked into the street without looking and was hit by a farm kid in an old Willys Overland. Pap was laid up in bed for six months, and even today, he couldn’t walk without crutches, so he never went back for the Hudson. He wouldn’t let anyone else drive it, either. So it just stayed there. The tires were flat.

When I pulled in next to the Super Six, Sheriff Eagles was sitting on the running board on the car’s shady side, whittling a stick with his pocketknife. I turned off the engine, and Rita and I got out.

“This is better than a front-porch swing,” Sheriff Eagles said, not getting up, although he touched the brim of his hat to us.

“You know Rita Ritter?” I asked while the sheriff nodded how-do at Rita. “She’s Tom’s wife. She wants to talk to you.”

He squinted at Rita. “You writing up another article about Ben Crook?”

“Did you read the first one?” Rita asked, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt. She liked it when people told her they’d read her newspaper stories.

“I guess everybody in Harveyville’s read it,” he said, and turned away to spit. “As least, everybody in Harveyville’s told me you didn’t spell my name right. It’s Eagles with an s on the end of it, not Eagle. You know, not just one bird, a whole flock of ‘em.” Rita looked embarrassed and turned red, and Sheriff Eagles told her, “Oh, heck. That’s all right, sis. Everybody spells it wrong.”

“It doesn’t matter what you say, just spell my name right,” Rita muttered.

The sheriff looked at me, and I shrugged because I didn’t know what Rita meant any more than he did. He asked, “How’s that?”

“It’s just an old newspaper saying,” Rita explained. She put her elbow on the Hudson so she could get closer to the sheriff, but it slipped, and Rita nearly fell. She straightened up, then leaned over to Sheriff Eagles. “You don’t mind being in the newspaper, do you, Sheriff Eagles?” She pronounced Eagles as if it ended in a whole string of s’s.

“Can’t say it’s any worse than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”

Rita laughed hard, although I’d heard that expression a thousand times and didn’t see why she thought it was so funny. She started to reply, then noticed that several people on the sidewalk had stopped to listen. So she said, “Why don’t we go inside to talk.”

“Suit yourself.” Sheriff Eagles took his time, however, as he carefully folded the knife and put it into his pocket, then slowly got to his feet. He brushed the dirt off the seat of his pants but not off the back of his shirt, which was dusty from leaning against the car.

Rita and I followed him into the office, Rita whispering to me, “Where’s his gun?”

Sheriff Eagles put his fists on his waist and turned to Rita. “What do I need a gun for?”

“I thought lawmen always carried guns,” Rita said.

“This is Harveyville, Kansas, not Dodge City, Kansas,” he said. “It ain’t Abilene, Kansas, either,” he added, but I think Rita had already gotten the point. “It’s not…” He couldn’t think of another Wild West place in Kansas and shook his head. “You don’t need a gun to sit on the running board of a Super Six in Harveyville.” Sheriff Eagles winked at me. I winked back, then decided he might think I was siding with him against Rita, so I reached up and rubbed my eye as if I’d gotten a cinder in it.

I’d never been in the sheriff’s office before, and I was as disappointed with it as Rita was with Sheriff Eagles not carrying a gun. It was just a dusty room with an old wooden desk and a chair with an Indian blanket folded up for a cushion. Against the wall stood a rusty wood stove with dirty coffee cups on it. A row of upright bars like an iron fence marked off the jail end of the room, and you could see right through it to the two bunks and a slop jar. I wondered how anybody who was locked up in there had the privacy to go to the bathroom. I wished Rita would ask Sheriff Eagles about that!

The sheriff sat down behind the desk and leaned forward on his elbows, squinting at us. He didn’t invite us to sit down, but Rita pulled up a chair, and I found one for myself.

“Rita—” I started to tell the sheriff, but she cut me off with a sharp look. I should have learned by now that she wanted to ask the questions.

Rita leaned forward and smiled at the sheriff. “I’m writing a follow-up to that story you read, and I’ll make sure I spell your name right this time.”

“You do that.”

“You wouldn’t have a pencil, would you?” Rita asked, and the sheriff rummaged around in the drawer and found a tiny pencil with a broken lead.

“You got a penknife so’s I can sharpen it?” he asked.

I was about to ask what was wrong with the one in his pocket, but Rita said, “Never mind.” She opened her pocket-book and took out my pencil stub and poised it over her pad of paper. The smile disappeared from her face, and she narrowed her eyes at the sheriff and asked, “Who killed Ben Crook?”

Sheriff Eagles looked at her as if she’d just asked him what day of the year we would get the next hard rain. “How the hell do I know, sis?” he replied. “Begging your pardon, ma’am.” He said that to me.

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m working on it. Ben Crook died more than a year ago. There ain’t a lot of evidence left around. I didn’t find anybody’s name and address written down and stuck inside Ben’s overalls pocket.”

“Did you find any weapons?”

“Naw. Ben was killed someplace else and hauled there in an automobile. The man who done it most likely used a two-by-four or maybe a piece of cordwood to kill him. He did a right smart job of it, judging from the way Ben’s skull was bashed in. It was a doozy.”

Rita gave me an “I told you so” look before she licked the end of her pencil with her tongue, but she didn’t write down anything. “What leads do you have?”

“Why would I tell you? You’d put it in the newspaper, wouldn’t you, and the fellow who done it would run off. Ain’t that about right?” Sheriff Eagles leaned back in his chair, looking pleased with himself. He glanced at me, but even though I thought he’d been pretty quick, I frowned. After all, I was on Rita’s side.

“I’m betting you don’t have any idea at all.” Rita put the pencil down and stared at the sheriff. In a minute, he looked away. “Am I right?” Rita asked.

“No, you are not right,” the sheriff mimicked, his chair squeaking as he leaned forward, his elbows on the desk.

“Then who killed him?”

“Sis, I’m not telling you anything. If you ask me, it ain’t your business.”

“It’s my business if there’s a killer loose in Wabaunsee County. After all, I live here, too. It’s as much my business as it is yours—or Queenie’s. I’m going to write that you don’t know who killed Mr. Crook.”

“That so? Well, I guess if you want to write lies, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

The two of them looked at each other for a full minute without saying a word, while I thought Rita would be better off if she knew that she could catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. She should have learned that from talking to the Judds.

“What about Hiawatha?” she asked, yanking off her earrings and dropping them into her pocketbook.

“Hiawatha Jackson?”

“How many Hiawathas are there in Harveyville?” She’d picked up that line from Nettie, the day she’d called Lizzy Olive, and I wanted to laugh, but I kept my mouth shut because the sheriff didn’t think Rita was funny.

“What about him? Nice fellow, ain’t he, and he don’t fight like some of your coloreds.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“Why would Hiawatha Jackson kill Ben? Was they acquainted? Hiawatha came down from Blue Hill after Ben disappeared.”

“How did you know that?” Rita asked, but the sheriff only looked smug. I could have told Rita why the sheriff knew, but she’d made it clear that she didn’t want my interference, so I didn’t speak up.

The two of them kept at it like that, each trying to trip the other one up but not getting anywhere, and I stopped listening to look out the window. Being a newspaper reporter was a boring way to earn your living, not interesting like farming. I wondered if I should tell the sheriff about Velma’s married boyfriend Charley having a run-in with Ben Crook. After all, I hadn’t promised Velma I wouldn’t let the sheriff know Charley had threatened Ben. Still, if I told, I’d have to explain how I knew about him, and that would make things even worse for Velma. I kept Charley to myself.

I turned back to Rita and Sheriff Eagles when he yanked at a desk drawer that was stuck and wiggled it open. He removed a sheet of paper and handed it to Rita, who turned it around and read it.

She cocked her pretty head and smiled at the sheriff. “You went over that site quite thoroughly, it seems to me. This list looks like it’s got everything on it. It’s as good a murder report as I ever read.”

That didn’t mean anything, because Rita had told me this was the first crime she’d ever written about, but the sheriff didn’t know that. He looked pleased with himself and said, “I know a thing or two, I guess.”

“I can see that all right.” Maybe Rita knew about flies and honey, after all.

“How about tramps? Grover said back-door moochers started showing up about the time Ben was killed. Do you think one of them did it?” I asked, avoiding Rita’s eyes just in case she was mad that I’d butted in.

Sheriff Eagles nodded his head up and down, which meant he was thinking, not agreeing with me. “Grover ain’t as dumb as he looks, is he, Queenie? The fact is, Ella said there was a tramp who went through her place the day Ben disappeared. She thought it was odd, the way he showed up in the middle of the morning instead of at mealtime, when most of those fellows come looking for handouts.”

Rita’s eyes lit up, and I guess she was glad I’d asked, because she said, “Do you think he did it?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Ella said he had one leg gone and a hand that was all drawed up, so he couldn’t have been the responsible party. It took a strong man to kill Ben, to bash him in the head like that, then haul him over to that grave. Ben was a big man.”

“Big like Skillet,” I said.

The sheriff looked up at me quickly, then rubbed his chin with his hand. There were stubble patches on his face where the razor had missed his whiskers. “I already thought of that,” he said.

“Who’s Skillet?” Rita asked.

The sheriff and I looked at each other. Then he nodded at me to answer, and I replied, “Ben’s hired man.”

“Skillet who?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I never knew his last name. Did you, Sheriff?”

“Nope. Ella never asked. A man who goes by one name don’t want you to know the other one. If Ella’d pressed him for it, he’d have made one up. I’ll bet you a nickel his first name wasn’t Skillet, either.” The sheriff stuck out his chin as if he was waiting for one of us to tell him how smart he was.

“Do you think Skillet did it?” Rita asked.

Sheriff Eagles leaned back in his chair and put his fingers together. Then he stuck out his lower lip as if he was thinking. Rita fidgeted, which seem to tickle the sheriff, and he looked around the room, dragging out his answer. “Maybe so. Skillet was strong. I know he had a hot temper, ‘cause he worked for a farmer over to Snokomo until a pig riled him and he killed it with a pitchfork. Skillet hightailed it over here and hired on with Ben. The farmer wanted me to get Skillet to pay for the pig, but I told him if Skillet had that kind of money, he wouldn’t be a hired hand for Ben Crook. Hell, I wouldn’t want to tangle with Skillet any more than I would with Ben. Each one of ‘em was nastier than the other. All you had to do was look at Skillet to know you’d best keep your distance. He had a face ugly enough to clabber milk.”

“Well, did he do it?” Rita asked one more time.

“Clabber milk?” The sheriff was enjoying himself.

Rita wasn’t, however. She stared flint-eyed at the sheriff, waiting for him to answer.

“Probably not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he took off before Ben disappeared, is how I know for sure.”

“Where did he go?”

“Now, how would I know that? I got better things to do than stop every drifter that goes through Harveyville and ask for his traveling plans.” The sheriff stood up. “1 guess that’s about all I’ve got to say. I don’t get paid for talking.”

“Can I say Skillet is a suspect?” Rita asked as she and I stood up.

“You can say everybody in Wabaunsee County’s a suspect— including Queenie.” He sent me a sideways look and rolled his tongue under his upper lip to show he was joking.

Rita and I went back to the car and got in. When I glanced over at Rita, she had a smug expression on her face. “You think Skillet did it, don’t you?” I asked. I hoped if she put Skillet into her story, Rita would remember he was my idea.

But Rita shook her head, catching the feather of her hat on the car roof. She removed the hat to examine the feather, which was broken in half. “He just threw in that Skillet person to fool me, but I’m too smart to fall for it.”

I was confused. “You mean you don’t think Skillet did it?”