He laughed. “We had a cook like that, once.” I heard cabinet doors bang, followed by a deafening crash of thunder. “That was a divine ‘Voila!’ I found them.” Ice tumbled into glasses; then I heard him open the refrigerator. “Lemon?”
“Please.”
He returned carrying two glasses of tea with a plate of peanut oatmeal cookies balanced on one. “I saw these in the jar, and they looked great.” He picked up three, took a bite, and said with his mouth full, “I love cookies. My wife used to bake, but nobody does since she left. Smack my hand, though, if I reach for more. I could easily eat them all.”
Clarinda’s peanut oatmeal cookies have broken more ice than was between Burlin and me at that point. After all, we never did have trouble finding things to talk about. Besides, I would have found even Chief Muggins a welcome visitor with the light and noise show outside and rain drumming away like a boy with nervous fingers.
I couldn’t believe it when Lulu started to bark and I heard the electric garage door going up. “It must be after five. Joe Riddley’s home.”
I was merely stating a fact, but he grinned. “Shall I run out the door, or hide in a closet?”
“That’s not funny, you know.”
He looked at his watch. “Actually, I do have to go. We’re supposed to be leaving for Augusta in ten minutes. I’m getting as bad as Renée—she has no sense of time.”
He was heading for the door when Bo called, “Hello, hello, hello,” and Joe Riddley greeted Lulu in the kitchen, “Hello, girl. I reckon we’ll have to fix supper. That no-count wife of mine has paid off a doctor to say she has to lie around for a week.”
“We’re in here,” I called. He could see me, but not Burlin.
When he did, he paused for a minute, then pulled off his red cap and shot out a hand. “Hello. What brings you to these parts?”
Burlin shook his hand and backed again toward the door. “I ran by to bring your wife some flowers from my sisters.” He nodded toward the bouquet, then said to me, “I need to get right back, because we’re due to leave for Augusta. I hope you feel better soon.”
“Thank Georgia and Binky for the flowers.”
“I will. Oh, good.” He peered at the sky. “The rain’s let up some.” He hurried out into a light drizzle.
Joe Riddley sank into the chair Burlin had vacated. “Whew. It’s been hectic down at the nursery. Everything was flooding.” He wrinkled his forehead. “This chair is warm.”
“Burlin stayed a few minutes.”
“Must have been more than a few minutes, to warm it up like this. You watch him, Little Bit. He’s nice enough, but those politicians like to get their names in the paper, and they don’t care whose name appears with them.” He looked at the flowers, then back at me. “You get all dressed up after he got here?”
“No, I put this on for a nap. It’s a muumuu Walker and Cindy brought from Hawaii. Or maybe it’s a caftan. I didn’t know he was coming.”
“Oh.” He sat and twiddled his hat between his hands. So far we hadn’t gotten around to putting up a hook by the kitchen door, like he’d had in the old house, and he never knew what to do with the cap when he got home. I kept losing my pocketbook, too. There wasn’t a handy regular spot for it on our new kitchen counters. Maybe I’d work on that this week. We’d feel more settled if we knew we had regular places for those two items. They are so much a part of us that our sons keep threatening to bury them with us.
“How’s Tad?” I asked.
“He’s back at Ridd’s, and Ridd called Walker and Cindy and told them to go ahead and stay in New York, since everything’s under control.”
“But Tad’s all right?”
“Hissing and spitting like a feral kitten. Keeps trying to explain what happened and whining that it wasn’t really his fault. He nearly bit Cricket’s head off for asking if he’d had fun camping without him.” Joe Riddley slapped his cap against his thigh. “He doesn’t have a clue how to own up to something, say ‘I’m sorry,’ and get on with his life.”
“It’s no wonder. Walker and Cindy spend more time explaining behavior and discussing it than correcting it. Which means that their kids don’t learn they can be wrong and still loved. We really do need to be more involved in those children’s lives, honey.”
He stood up and headed for the kitchen. Over his shoulder, he shot back, “That’s what I figured you’d say, so I told Ridd to pack up Tad’s things and bring him here for the next couple of days. Since you’re going to be laid up anyway, he can keep you company.”
It took me a minute to get my breath back to respond. “You have wished an angry ten-year-old on me the week I have taxes to do? Come back in here where I can throw something at you.”
He peered around the door. “Which is more important, Tad or taxes? I can’t talk anymore, I need to feed Bo.”
“Title that picture ‘Cowardly Rat Feeding Bird.’ ”
15
“When does our guest arrive?” I demanded when he’d finally stopped making an unnecessary racket in the kitchen. “And who is going to make his bed? Or even find the bed? The guest room is full of boxes.”
“He can climb over them.” Joe Riddley slammed a cupboard door and opened the refrigerator. “And he can make his own bed. Ridd said he’d bring him after supper. Now stop bothering me, so I can fix ours.”
Mama said a wife should always teach her husband to cook so he doesn’t have to stop on his way home from your funeral to get himself another wife. Joe Riddley did a real good job with grilled-cheese sandwiches that night. He was trying to avoid talking to me, so he paid close attention to the griddle and didn’t burn either side.
Ridd brought Tad by around seven thirty. The boy came in with the enthusiasm of General Lee on his way to Appo mattox to surrender. He dragged his heavy athletic shoes so badly that Joe Riddley told him, “Pick up your feet. We don’t want a rut in the rug.” He put an arm around Tad’s shoulders to let him know he was kidding, but Tad pulled away.
Ridd set down a small canvas bag. “We didn’t bring all his stuff, just enough for a couple of nights. When he’s ready to come on back down to our place, call and we’ll come get him.”
From the look Tad slid in his direction, we would wait for that moment a long time. Ridd clapped him gently on the arm. “Have fun.” Anybody could see that Tad expected to spend the next two days on bread and water.
After Ridd left, Joe Riddley pointed to me on the couch. “Your me-mama is laid up with a sprained ankle, so it’s up to us to make your bed. Come on.” The two of them headed down the hall. Cricket and his Pop would have laughed and cut up until Cricket collapsed with a fit of the giggles. I did-n’t hear a sound until Joe Riddley came back, looking disgusted. “He says he’ll watch television in his room.”
“Tell him I need him to keep me company. Then you go down to the Bi-Lo and get us some lime sherbet. That’s his favorite.”
He shrugged. “There are better ways to waste money, but I’ll go.”
Tad sidled in and sat uneasily on the chair that had already held Burlin and Joe Riddley. I could get used to reclining like Cleopatra and letting menfolk pay me court. “Pop’s gone to the store a minute. Before he gets back, I want to talk to you, because I need you to do a couple of things for me without telling Pop or Uncle Ridd.” I’ve found that two ways to get somebody out of a shell is to ask them to do you a favor or let them in on a secret.
Tad gave me a listless one-shoulder shrug. “What do you need?”
“You’re pretty good with animals, right?”
Interest flickered behind his dark eyes, but his voice was uncertain. “Yes, ma’am. Maybe. A little.”
“I want you to teach Bo some new words. He is driving me up a wall. Most of what Hiram Blaine taught him to say is rude, and I’m sick of having him squawk ‘sic ’em’ or ‘back off and give me space’ all day. He could use a bigger vocabulary.”
A little smile flitted across Tad’s face. “He says ‘Little Bit!’ just like Pop.”
I nodded. “Yeah, like he’s fussing at me. But I wish he could say something like ‘How’re you doing, MacLaren?’ or ‘Here comes Joe Riddley’ or even ‘Bo wants a cracker.’ ”
“He doesn’t eat crackers.”
“ ‘Bo wants peanuts,’ then—I don’t care what. The point is, will you try to teach him?”
One slender shoulder rose in a shrug. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll try.”
“Good, but don’t tell Pop. It will be our secret.”
He turned his head and looked at me from the corners of his eyes. “What was the other thing?” He obviously thought I had a list of dreadful chores on the tip of my tongue, like Cinderella’s wicked stepmother.
“I want you to tell me about the person who was staying in the barn with you.”
He pressed back into his chair and didn’t say a word. I gave him a sharp look. “Did you promise not to say anybody was there?”
He didn’t move a muscle.
“Did you know it was a woman?”
He shifted slightly in his chair. I hated to be the one to tell him, but he’d find out eventually. “You don’t have to keep her secret anymore, honey. Lulu and I found her down at the water tank this morning. She’s dead.”
His face turned so white his eyes looked black. “She can’t be dead! She wasn’t sick.”
I might as well give him the whole story. “Somebody hit her on the head with a pipe.”
“No!” He leaped from his chair, fists clenched. “Nobody would do that. She didn’t hurt anybody.”
“I don’t think she hurt anybody, either,” I reassured him. “I met her only once, but she seemed friendly and happy. Did she help you hide out?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“How did she help?” It was like picking meat out of black walnuts, one chunk at a time.
“She gave me some food. And she shared hay to sleep on. Mr. Spence left just two bales. I needed one for Starfire.” He sounded resentful. Hubert had obviously failed to do his duty by the vagrants of the world. “And she kept a lookout while I moved Starfire to the pasture to eat, and she helped me rub him down. She said she used to have a horse.” He stopped, then burst out, “She can’t be dead. She can’t!” He pounded his thigh with one fist.
I spoke as cautiously as I’d approach butterflies on a buddleia. “I’m glad it makes you sad, hon. It makes me sad, too. And mad. I want to try and find out who killed her. Will you help me?”
He kicked the rug. “I can’t help. I’m just a kid. Besides, Daddy and Pop don’t like you messing with stuff like that. Uncle Ridd, neither.”
I gave an impatient huff. “I can’t do much messing stuck on this couch. All I can do is think. But to even do that, I need your help. You’re a smart kid. And you knew her—maybe better than anybody in town. I want you to tell me what she was like—things she said, anything you can remember about her.”
“Did Mr. Spence kill her?”
It chilled me to hear him ask the question that matter-of- factly. Has our world so exposed children to violence that they take it for granted people they know can kill? “Why would you think that?”
“He didn’t want her there. She wasn’t hurting anything, but he—he—” He lifted his dark eyes to mine and stammered with indignation. “He—he came down yesterday morning and caught her carrying our garbage to the woods to bury it. She buried the
garbage
, Me-mama. She didn’t mess his place up! But he yelled at her—real loud. Told her to ‘Git!’ and ‘Git off my propity’ ”—Tad’s accent was a fair imitation of Hubert’s—“until she ran away.”
I felt real discouraged. If Tad hadn’t seen her since Monday morning, we were at a dead end. “So she never came back?” I prompted, when he didn’t say anything more.
“Oh, yes, ma’am, she came back. She just went over to the pond and waited for him to leave. She liked the pond. She stayed over there with Starfire a lot. She said it was a real peaceful place.” He sat back down and sighed. “Nobody ought to have killed her.”
“Did she tell you her name, where she was from?”
“She said to call her Bertie, but the way she said it, I don’t think it was her name. And she said she’d call me Son, so if the police came looking for me, she could say she didn’t know anybody by that name.” He sighed. “She talked funny sometimes and didn’t make sense, and she muttered a lot, but she liked whistling at birds and talking to squirrels, and she hummed a lot. She didn’t hurt anybody. If I’d had a barn, she could have lived there forever and ever!” Tears filled his eyes and spilled out onto his cheeks. He swiped at them angrily.
“Here.” I held out a box of tissues I keep by the couch. He snatched the whole box, then clutched it to him and backed into his chair again like it was the only safe haven in the world.
My own eyes stung. “If I’d had a barn, she could have lived there, too,” I said softly. “Bring me a tissue, too, please.” We sat and cried together, but I didn’t know if I was crying because Bertie had died or because Tad defended her so valiantly.
He sat with his head bowed, tears dripping onto the box, for several minutes. Then he gave a big sniff, blew his nose, wadded his tissue, and left it carelessly on the table beside his chair.
“There’s a perfectly good wastebasket at your feet,” I pointed out. “When was the last time you saw her?”
He dropped in the tissue and muttered, “After supper last night. She went to Myrtle’s and brought us something back. Just cold meatloaf and green beans”—his face twisted in distaste—“but she said beggars can’t be choosers. Then she told me she had to go meet somebody, and she’d be back. But she never came.” His voice dwindled, and his eyes looked far away. Was he remembering sitting in the dark with his horse, waiting for a companion who never returned?
He scrubbed one cheek with his fist, and his voice was angry. “She should have known better than to go wandering around town alone at night. Did somebody rob her?”
“What could they have robbed her of?”
He shrugged. “Not much. She just had an old knapsack with some stuff in it—a dirty hairbrush, a few clothes, a couple of pictures, stuff like that. And a battered guitar. Didn’t you see them?”