When Did We Lose Harriet? (24 page)

A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.
Proverbs 11:17

Josheba’s story continues…

I went home from the hospital after the five o’clock visit just long enough to shower again and get a bite to eat. It would be my second shower of the day, but I felt like I needed to wash the hospital smell out of my pores. Then I planned to go over to the police station and sign my statement.

When I got home, Morse’s red Grand Am was parked at my curb.

“Where you been?” he greeted me, rising from the porch chair. “I come home from two weeks out of town, and you aren’t even here to welcome me.” He grabbed me and pulled me close.

I pulled back. “Morse, we’ve got to talk.”

“Talk nothing, sweet thing. I didn’t drive all day to talk.”

“Well, we gotta talk anyway.” I spoke quickly, knowing I might never get up this much courage again. “While you were gone, I started thinking. I’m not sure we’re right for each other. I want—”

His jaw dropped. “You’re that mad I missed your dance?” He swore. After two weeks of not hearing them, his obscenities poured over me like filth. I tried to recall. Had I ever heard Lewis utter a single one?

You can’t spend your life comparing Morse to Lewis,
a voice whispered in my brain.

But I turned angrily away from Morse, “Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Like what, baby? Now I can’t even talk? Man, you are
mad!
Come on, give me a kiss and say you missed me.”

“I didn’t miss you,” I told him bluntly. “Not after a while. And I got someplace to go. Call me tomorrow.” I started for the door.

He grabbed my arm. “Don’t you walk out on me, sister! Nobody walks out on Morse.” I tried to pull away, but his fingers pressed hard into my arm. “I said nobody walks out on Morse. Did you hear me?”

I stood absolutely still. For the first time I was actually afraid of him. Physically afraid. “I heard you, Morse. I’m not going anywhere. Let go.”

“I’ll let go when I feel like it, baby, and not one minute before. Now let’s get one thing straight—”

I tensed. He’d never hit me, but I knew now it was only a matter of time. Then—

“Hiya doin’, Josheba? Everything all right?” That was Miss Sadie, my next-door neighbor. She’s older than God and twice as nosy, and I have to admit that in the past, I’ve said some pretty nasty things about her butting into other people’s business. That Sunday afternoon, I could have kissed her.

“Hiya, Miss Sadie!” While he was distracted, I gently pulled my arm away from Morse and took a couple of steps back. “You doin’ all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you very much. That your young man?” She stood right on the edge of her yard and peered nearsightedly across my lawn. “I thought he was taller and thinner, somehow.”

“Who’s she talking about?” Morse demanded. “Who’s taller and thinner?”

“She’s half blind, Morse,” I pointed out quietly. “Now, look, I’ve got to go down to the police station and sign some papers. I witnessed a crime this morning, and a friend got hurt, so I’ve got to go by the hospital on my way back. Call me tomorrow, all right?” I hurried inside and dead bolted my door.

Morse no doubt wanted to take me apart limb from limb, but with Miss Sadie perched on the grass like a little biddy nosy-bird, he decided to stomp to his car and roar away.

“Thank you, God, for nosy old women,” I breathed. Looked like I sure was getting back in the praying habit.

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but
with many advisers they succeed.
Proverbs 15:22

Mac wraps it up…

By Monday morning, there was again good news and bad news. The good news was, Jake was daily growing stronger, Ricky was maybe heading in some new directions, Z-dog was painfully recuperating under police guard and officially accused of stealing Jake’s car and using it in several burglaries, and Carter had agreed to talk with William Sykes about how he knew Myrna was a peroxide blonde if he hadn’t seen her for fifteen years.

The bad news was, Lewis was still unconscious, and Carter still insisted that Harriet’s case was closed. Have you ever seen two English bulldogs eye to eye? Glenna said that was the picture she got when Joe Riddley tried to convince Carter to reopen Harriet’s case.

It was now two weeks since I had come to Montgomery, and it looked like finding out how we lost Harriet
could take forever—except Joe Riddley wanted to go home now. I asked him for one more day, so I could think things over and talk to everybody one more time.

I decided to begin with Julie and Dee. I called to see if they were home, and Dee said Julie had spent the night with Rachel and they’d probably be around the pool all morning. A pool seemed like a nice place to start. I wouldn’t mind spending the morning in one, myself.

Rachel’s mother came to the door with a portable phone to her ear. When I introduced myself as a friend of Dee looking for Julie, she immediately said, “Julie went somewhere this morning with some other girls, but Rachel’s out by the pool.” She waved her hand toward the gate in the back fence. “Do you mind if I don’t come with you? I’m on long distance.”

Rachel was indeed by the pool, listening to rock music and improving her tan. Not that a tan would improve her much, poor dear. She was a large lumpy girl with small dark eyes too close together. Apparently Princess Julie preferred less attractive ladies-in-waiting.

When I told Rachel I’d hoped to find Julie, she got a sulky look. “She’s gone shopping with some of the other
cheerleaders.”
Clearly Rachel had not been invited.

“I’m sorry. I’m investigating Harriet Lawson’s death, and I had a few questions to ask her.” I waited a minute, hoping she’d fall for the bait.

Rachel tugged her bathing suit down over her large backside and swung around to sit up on her towel. “That was really awful, wasn’t it? I mean, you don’t think something like that could happen to anybody you know.”

“You knew Harriet, too?” I sat in one of the white plastic chairs that circled the pool.

Rachel brushed back a strand of long lank hair and said doubtfully, “Sort of. I mean, she was a year younger than us, and she hadn’t been at Julie’s long, but sometimes when we were listening to music, or going to the mall or something, she’d like, you know, be with us.”

I nodded. “I understand. She wasn’t exactly a friend, but you knew her.”

Rachel nodded earnestly.

“Well, I’m trying to get a picture of the last day anybody saw Harriet. Tuesday, June fourth. Was Julie with you that day?”

Rachel’s eyes flickered, then she lowered them and reached for a tube of sunscreen. Slowly she started rubbing it into her thick calves.

“Was she?” I prodded.

“That’s a long time ago,” Rachel muttered without looking up. “I don’t know if I can remember that far back.”

“It was the first week school was out,” I prompted. “That first Tuesday.”

Rachel shrugged. “I really can’t remember. We probably hung out together.”

“Up at the lake,” I said, as if reminding her.

“How’d you know?” she demanded. “Who saw us?”

I’d been guessing, but I know guilt when I see it. “Never mind that. Were there boys with you?”

Rachel jumped, then nodded reluctantly. “A couple. From school. Just friends, like.”

“Did you go to Julie’s grandmother’s house?”

“No.” Rachel sounded glad to change the subject. “We go up there all the time, but not that day. Have you been there?”

I shook my head. “Just to drive by. Now, Rachel, I have a very serious question.”

She went pale and swallowed. Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t tell. I promised! Okay? I can’t tell!” She leaped to her feet and dove into the pool.

I went to the poolside and knelt to meet her when she surfaced. “Rachel, listen. I—”

She submerged and swam to the deep end with long, sure strokes. I started to head around the poolside to meet her when she needed air, but we could play that game all day.

I cast a quick look at the house. Her mother was not in view. Quickly I kicked off my shoes, knelt on the side of the pool, and toppled in. The water felt so good I could have stayed all day, but I wasn’t there for fun. I started toward her with long sure strokes. Rachel watched me with astonishment. I guess it never occurred to her that grandmothers can swim.

As I got closer, she opened her mouth. “Don’t you shriek,” I told her grimly. “I don’t give a darn where you and Julie were that day—although it sounds like it’s something you’re pretty ashamed of. What I want to know is, did either of you see Harriet that Tuesday?”

“Harriet?” It wasn’t at all what she expected. “No, ma’am! I didn’t see Harriet after school was out. And I know Julie didn’t see her that day. She was with me the whole time.”

I heard a sliding door open. “I was on the side of the pool talking to Rachel, and fell in,” I explained sheepishly to Rachel’s mother as I pulled myself up a ladder. I accepted her offer of a towel, refused an offer of dry clothes, and drove thoughtfully home. On June fourth, Harriet hadn’t been the only missing child whom nobody knew was gone.

On my way home, I thought over everything I knew. As I put things in order, I saw I might have had something backwards all along. If I turned it around, one thing was frighteningly clear. I knew who could most likely have killed Harriet. And if I was right, given the way she’d been found, I knew how.

“What on earth happened to you?” Glenna exclaimed when I dripped in through the back door.

Joe Riddley heard, and left Jake and ESPN in the den to join us. “Looks like she decided to swim and couldn’t wait for her suit. That right, honey?”

I glared at him. “I was talking to a child who kept insisting on swimming away from me. There was nothing to do but follow her. And you had the motel key, so I couldn’t get in our room for dry clothes.” I held out my palm. He fumbled in his pocket and handed it over.

Glenna fetched me a dry towel. “At least take this. Oh—Carter called. They talked to William, and now they’ve taken him downtown for questioning.”

“What did you find out about Julie?” Jake called as his game broke for a commercial.

“Rachel says they didn’t see Harriet all day, and I believe her. The two of them were up at the lake that day with some boys from school, doing something they don’t want their parents to know about. From the looks of poor Rachel, it was more likely drugs than sex.”

“So that’s one down and how many to go?” Joe Riddley inquired. “Or have you decided who killed Harriet yet, Little Bit?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m not absolutely positive, however, so I won’t tell you yet. And I don’t know how to prove it if I’m right. I just have one idea. Let me see what you all think about it, then I’ll go change my clothes.”

Glenna pulled up another chair, Jake turned off the television, and I told them.

“It might work,” Joe Riddley admitted when I was done. “If Carter cooperates.”

“Leave Carter to me,” Glenna said, a look in her eye I had never seen before.

“We’ll tackle Lou Ella, too,” Jake offered. “Glenna can call and tell her to get herself over here to see me.”

“Do that,” I told them. “Meanwhile, I’ll go see Eunice, Dee, and Claire Scott.”

“I’m going with you,” Joe Riddley heaved himself up from the couch. “I don’t want you driving my car again. You must’ve already soaked the driver’s seat.”

“We haven’t even
seen
mine yet,” Jake grumbled. “First it was getting Clara’s dents out, then it was hauled down to the police station. Next thing we know they’ll be putting it in the Smithsonian.”

“You should be honored,” I told him. “It’s not everybody whose car is chosen for
three
burglaries.”

Eunice Crawley was at work, scowling at a computer screen. “Good afternoon,” she greeted us. “I got so far behind being out so much last week, I’ll never get caught up. What can I do for you?”

I introduced her to Joe Riddley, then said, “I just wanted to give you the latest news on Harriet.”

Eunice sighed. “Seems like I can’t stop thinking about her and poor Myrna. Hadn’t seen neither one of them for years, then suddenly they’re all I think about. It’s no wonder I don’t get my work done.”

“Well, there may be something happening about Harriet this evening or tomorrow. A Biloxi man has come forward who says he was in town and up in the cemetery when Harriet was—and he saw something!” I waited for her to react.

“Do tell,” she breathed. “What was it?”

“I don’t know, but he’s coming back up to Montgomery this evening, and hell talk to the police tomorrow. Maybe we’ll know something after that.”

She leaned forward eagerly. “He saw it? Why didn’t he say anything ‘til now?”

“Maybe he didn’t realize what was happening, or maybe finding the body didn’t make the Biloxi papers. Anyway, he’s coming in late tonight and going straight to the Marriott, but he’ll talk with the police in the morning.”

I’d told myself and told myself I was making up a story, not lying, but my voice still shook. My son, Walker, who took a lot of drama in high school and college, swears
lying is just like pretending you are in a play. Given some of his shenanigans growing up, he ought to know. However, I never was in a play, so I added, “I’m sorry to sound so wobbly this morning, but a good friend of ours went to the hospital yesterday, and he’s still unconscious.” Forgive me, Lewis, for using you like that.

“I’m real sorry to hear it.” Eunice rested on her forearms. “What about Myrna—did this man who’s coming kill her, too?”

“He didn’t kill anybody,” I explained again, exasperated at having to lie some more. “I think he just saw something.” I took a scrap of paper out of my pocket and laid it down on Eunice’s desk so I could see it without my reading glasses. “All I know about him is his name, Thomas Wilson, and that he’ll be staying in room 214 at the Marriott.”

Eunice looked at Joe Riddley and said in a voice that, in other circumstances, would have made me proud, “Your wife sure does beat all. Where does she get the energy to run around in all this heat? It’s not like Harriet was her kin or anything.” She turned back to me. “But I know how you feel. I keep thinking I ought to be doing something, too, but I wouldn’t know where to start.”

I stood up. “Well, maybe we’ll know something after they’ve talked to this man.”

We conveniently forgot the paper on her desk.

Next we drove up to Claire Scott’s. “I don’t have to actually see Claire,” I told Joe Riddley. “I just need to leave the paper for her.”

Claire’s mother was watering her black-eyed Susans, wearing the same pink print dress she’d worn the first time I saw her. “Looks like a feed-sack dress,” Joe Riddley said out of one side of his mouth as he pulled close to the curb, “just like our mamas wore.”

“My mama never wore dresses made from feed sacks,” I protested.

“Your mama’s husband didn’t own a feed store. Howdy, ma’am.” He raised his hat. “I’m Mr. Yarbrough, and this is my wife. We came—” He stopped and let me take over.

“We’ve come about Harriet again.”

The old woman tucked a wisp of white hair into her straw hat and contemplated us with her light blue eyes. “I heard she was dead. Will they be having a memorial service, do you know? I feel I kinda owe it to Bertha Lawson to go, being as she left Harriet in Claire’s care, so to speak.”

“I haven’t heard about a memorial service,” I told her, “but I did hear that the police have a good lead on the person who killed her.”

The woman flung her head up, surprised. “Killed her? I thought she caught flu or something, sleeping out. Ran away from Dixie, I heard.”

“Yes, she did run away from home, but we’re pretty sure she was killed on purpose.”

“Lordy, who’d do a thing like that?”

I shook my head. “The police aren’t sure, but they think they have someone who can help them, a witness who was up at the cemetery that afternoon.” I fished in my purse for a second scrap of paper and held it out far enough to read. “Here’s his name, Thomas Wilson, from Biloxi. I think he actually saw or heard something. He’s staying at the Marriott tonight in”—I peered at the paper—“room 214, and he’ll talk to the police in the morning. I thought Claire might like to know. Would you give her the message?”

“A man’s coming up from Biloxi to talk to the police. I surely will. And I hope they catch whoever it was.” She splashed water angrily onto a bed of begonias near the walk. “It ain’t right to take the life of a child.”

As I headed back to the car, I accidentally dropped the paper on the grass.

“She picked it up and put it in her pocket,” Joe Riddley informed me as he got in. “But stick to the nursery business, Little Bit. You’d never make it on Broadway. Where next?”

When we parked on Dee’s driveway and crossed William’s soft lawn, a curtain moved slightly at the living room window. Dee came to the door as pretty as ever in a blue flowered skirt and white top with a long string of gold add-a-beads around her neck. Her lipstick was blurred, though, and her mascara had run when she cried.

She stood back to let us in without even asking who Joe Riddley was, then quickly shut the door behind us. “Laura, you just won’t believe the terrible thing that’s happened. They’ve taken William down to the police station for questioning! They think he’s been in touch with Myrna sometime recently, and I’m terrified they…” Her voice broke. She was obviously frantic. Poor William wasn’t pretty, and he might not always be strictly honest, but his wife loved him. “And then reporters started calling—even the television people. I’m so glad you’re here!” She collapsed on my shoulder.