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Authors: Patricia Sprinkle

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BOOK: Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man?
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Buster put a hand on my shoulder to stop my tongue. “It’s probably my fault Hiram didn’t come. I pulled him over yesterday morning down near your turnoff for an expired sticker on his truck. After I pointed that out to him, we talked a little. He told me it was a real shame about Hizzoner getting shot, and he was on his way to your place to show Hizzoner and Mizzoner he still bore no malice about the warrant.”
“Warrant?” Charlie’s eyes positively glittered.
Buster stroked one jowl. “You don’t know about that, Charlie? I guess it was before your time.” Charlie had only been hired three years ago, a major mistake on the part of our town leaders. Buster said briefly, “An officer caught Hiram trying to pour vinegar in the town water to protect us from aliens. Joe Riddley signed the warrant for his arrest.” He turned to me. “Didn’t I hear that Hiram went up to Atlanta to be near Jed after he got out?”
“Drat!” I started to my feet. “We need to call Jed—and Hector, too.”
“Calm down.” Buster caught my arm. “We’ll notify Hector and ask somebody from Atlanta to notify Jed.”
“Ask if he owns a gun.” That was another of Charlie’s asinine suggestions. Jed couldn’t come to town and kill Hiram without being recognized. But the word
gun
sent a cold poker up my spine. Joe Riddley had a case of guns in the back room. It was always locked, but what if somebody broke into it? As soon as I got everybody out of the house, I’d go check.
“What was this feller doing in Atlanta?” Charlie asked Buster.
“He told me yesterday he’d been doing yard work and maintenance for an apartment complex. Jed knew the manager and got him the job. But Hiram said the alien situation got so bad up there that he decided to come on home.”
“Poor Hiram.” I had to swallow tears. “He should have stayed in Atlanta.”
Maybe Buster could tell I was about to bawl, because he gave a little chuckle. “Apparently the aliens followed him back. Hiram swore he saw one on Oglethorpe Street Thursday. He was so riled up about it, I had a time steering him back to his expired tag. But finally he promised, ‘I’ll see about that right away, Sheriff.’ He turned the truck then and there and headed for the tag agency. Sorry, Mac. My guess is that he was so rattled about getting stopped he plumb forgot your mowing.”
Charlie moved closer to my chair. “Thereby inciting Judge Yarbrough here to anger. . . .”
“I didn’t kill him!” My voice was a hoarse, desperate whisper. I raised my eyes to Buster, stricken by a sudden thought. “I didn’t even invite him to the party!”
“Somebody did.” Buster’s eyes roamed the crowded rooms.
“It’s time to send everybody
home,
Judge.” Charlie positively gloated at spoiling my party. “Get their names and addresses and tell them to go.”
“I have their names and addresses,” I said hotly. “But you don’t think anybody killed Hiram since this party started, do you? This house has been fuller than a well-fed pup since before noon.”
“So who was around earlier?” He waited for me to tell him who killed Hiram.
“Clarinda came at nine-thirty to get started in the kitchen. Walker and his kids came soon after to set up the tables and chairs he and Ridd brought from the church last night. We stored them in the barn in case there was a heavy dew. The florist came at ten to decorate the tables, and Ridd and Bethany followed her in with corn they picked real early. The kitchen crew came soon after that to start shucking. A lot of other people started coming around eleven, to set up the music system and televisions and to mark off the parking lots. Dad’s BarBeQue brought the food at eleven-thirty, and the place has been a madhouse since.”
“But until ten it was just you, Joe Riddley, Clarinda, and Walker.”
I didn’t remind him about Walker’s two kids. Charlie was using the fingers of one hand to count on the other, and he doesn’t have six fingers on either hand. But I wanted to smack him. “When the Sam Hill do you think any of us would have had time to kill Hiram? Besides, nobody was even
in
the dining room until the florist brought flowers for the table.” I nodded toward them, a larger, nicer arrangement than I’d ordered, which she’d said was a gift.
“What about Joe Riddley? And what were you and he doing before Clarinda arrived?” Charlie’s eyes drilled me like I was soft wood.
“I went to the beauty parlor at seven-thirty. Phyllis opened early especially for me. I got home a little before nine. Joe Riddley was still asleep, so I woke him and helped him dress. Then we ate breakfast. We were finishing when Clarinda got here.” And fussed about us messing up her clean kitchen. I didn’t mention that. I also didn’t mention that I’d locked our kitchen closet. Mama always locked closets before a party, so folks wouldn’t snoop. I didn’t lock most of ours, but I didn’t want folks seeing the ratty clothes we kept there for working in the yard.
“What did Joe Riddley do while you all were working so hard?”
Oh, he nipped in here on his walker and shot Hiram Blaine.
I didn’t say it, but I came within a hair. “He sat out on the porch and watched everybody work.” And barked orders that didn’t make sense, nearly driving us crazy. I didn’t say that, either. I saw no point in clouding either Charlie’s or Buster’s mind with details that didn’t have a thing to do with Hiram.
“So Joe Riddley was here alone the whole time you were gone, apparently sleeping.”
“Not apparently sleeping, he
was
sleeping. I had the dickens of a time waking him up.”
Buster spoke mildly. “We don’t need to worry about who was where until we know when Hiram died. It’s highly unlikely he died after eleven. It could even have been last night.”
“No, it couldn’t.” I hated to correct him and help Charlie build a case against the rest of us, but I owed it to Hiram to be as helpful as I could. “I didn’t set that screen up until just before I left for the beauty parlor at seven. Its paper was torn, so I glued it last night. Whoever killed Hiram had to do it while I was at the beauty parlor and Joe Riddley was asleep. He sleeps now in the den in back of the living room, with the blinds shut and an old wall-unit air conditioner on. It makes such a racket, he wouldn’t have heard a thing.
“Two more things,” I added. “I didn’t lock the back door when I went to get my hair fixed, in case Ridd brought the corn or Clarinda got here early. And I left Lulu in the kitchen, but when I got home, she was out in the bird dog pen. I didn’t think much about it at the time. It was just one less thing I had to do. But somebody
was
here while I was gone.”
“Or the judge got up.” Charlie was like a tenor who only knows one aria.
“The judge can’t walk.” I felt my blood pressure rising. “He could no more get that dog across the backyard and inside the pen than he could fly.”
Buster looked at the press of people milling around the room. A few gave us curious glances, but at a party that size nobody cares who the hostess is talking to, so long as there’s food on the plates and drink in the cups. “I’m sorry, but these rooms do need to be cleared, to—”
I’ve been around police work long enough to know what he needed to do. I even appreciated that we couldn’t wait for my guests to decide to go home. But I couldn’t help saying sadly, “It’s been a
nice
party until now.” I felt sorry for myself and a whole lot sorrier for Hiram.
Buster’s hand was warm on my shoulder. “It’s your best party yet, and Joe Riddley’s had a great time. Can you tell folks he’s getting tired, and ease them out?”
I had a spurt of hope. “If I get them outside, do we have to send them
home
yet? I wanted to plant a tree in Joe Riddley’s honor.”
“Where did you have in mind to plant it?”
“Down the drive where that poplar blew down last spring. And we haven’t had cake and ice cream yet, either. Clarinda’s been baking all week.”
Charlie scowled. “We can’t delay a murder investigation for cake and ice cream.”
Buster, however, understood how important this party was. “Any outside evidence is wiped out already. Can you keep everybody out there so we can work in here? And will you head them home right after the cake?”
“Sure. Lock the front door and close off the front of the house. We’ll serve cake and ice cream outside and steer folks needing a bathroom through the kitchen. With everybody who’s been in that kitchen, it’s unlikely you’d find any evidence in there, either. Fair enough?”
He nodded. I headed toward a brass gong next to the dining room door, feeling a hundred and five. I hit the gong with all the anger inside me. But when people looked in astonishment, I smiled brightly. I didn’t feel any livelier than Hiram; I was just in better shape to pretend.
“Would everybody please come help plant Joe Riddley’s birthday tree?”
When I heard the sheriff lock the door behind us, I shivered in spite of the sunshine.
10
I couldn’t help looking suspiciously at our guests as I worked my way toward Joe Riddley. None of them looked like a murderer, but the last murderer I’d met was charming.
Before Joe Riddley saw me, I headed for Martha. Every family needs at least one calm, practical member, and Martha is also wise, funny, short, and comfortably round, with dark brown hair and eyes like a cocker spaniel’s. There’s not a mean or pretentious bone in her body, and when she walked into our house the first time, I felt like she’d been part of our family forever.
That afternoon I spoke to her low and fast. “Hiram Blaine’s lying dead behind my dining room screen. Buster says we don’t have to send people home until we’ve planted the tree and eaten cake and ice cream, but we need to move all the tables off the porches down to the grass and serve the cake outside. Will you tell Clarinda? She knows about Hiram—she’ll understand.”
Martha blinked a couple of times, but she’s an emergency-room supervisor. She knows how to act now and ask questions later. Being a nurse, though, she had to ask one question. “You’re sure he’s dead?”
“Positive.”
She hurried toward the kitchen.
I planted a kiss on Joe Riddley’s head, glad somebody had managed to get him to leave off his cap. Probably Martha—she’d helped him get ready for the party. Joe Riddley has nice hair—thick and straight, another legacy from his Cherokee grandmother—and people were taking pictures.
He reached up to touch my cheek with one finger. “Hey, Little Bit,” he said in his new deliberate way. “Doin’ all right? Look a little peaky.”
I was touched that he could still notice, but I would not worry him. “I’m fine, honey. Just a bit winded with all this.”
“It’s a fine party. I went over to the field and ran a race with the kids. Beat ’em, too. Not bad for an old man, eh?”
People with severe head injuries make up stories like preschoolers, based on whatever they happen to have seen recently. But I wouldn’t nag him with reality on his special day. “I’m proud to know you, honey.” I rumpled his hair fondly. Then I hailed Ridd and waved him over. “Ready to plant a tree, son?”
Joe Riddley frowned anxiously at me. “Is ‘plant a tree’ in my log?”
“I wrote it, remember? ‘Have party, plant a tree, be nice.’ ”
“I been nice,” he said proudly.
“You’ve been a sweetheart this whole blessed day.” I bent to give his neck a hug.
Ridd came from behind a big oak-leaf hydrangea, carrying a shovel. “I’m ready, Mama. Round up Walker and the kids, and I’ll fetch the tree in my truck.” Ridd’s a math teacher by profession but a farmer at heart. Joe Riddley always claims Ridd’s yard and fields are our nursery’s best advertisement.
Walker isn’t a farmer, but he’s a great public speaker with a loud voice. His brief speech about his daddy made his mama’s eyes smart, and eased all thoughts of Hiram from my mind for a little while. After Ridd hefted the sturdy little oak from his truck and set it next to a hole he’d dug earlier that morning, Walker’s Tad and Jessica poured in peat moss, Ridd’s three-year-old, Cricket, poured in bone meal, and his big sister, Bethany, turned on the hose to fill the hole with water. Ridd stood the oak in the hole, then all the guests emptied small white paper bags of potting soil around it until the hole was full. Finally I unveiled a brass plaque mounted on a granite stone I’d had made for the occasion: THIS TREE PLANTED IN HONOR OF JOE RIDDLEY YARBROUGH’S SIXTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY BY HIS FAMILY AND FRIENDS, followed by the date.
Joe Riddley glared at it. “Is that my tombstone?”
“No, honey, it’s a sign saying this is your tree.”
“They’re all my trees.”
“But this one is very special. It’s your birthday present.”
“Oh.” He subsided as Ridd tamped down the dirt. I stood holding Joe Riddley’s hand and tried not to think about the party we could have had if he hadn’t gotten shot. He was right. It was a fine party, anyway.
Or it was until a sheriff’s cruiser barreled up our road and coasted to a stop beside me. “Afternoon, Judge Yarbrough.” The driver lifted his hat and settled it again. “Understand you’ve got yourself a murder.”
The crowd hushed like they’d all seen their fourth-grade teachers walk in. Joe Riddley held his hand to one ear like he couldn’t hear. “Whad’y say, son? Murder? We got no murder here. We’re havin’ a party!” He was getting excited, which was very bad for him.
BOOK: Thoroughly 03 - Who Invited the Dead Man?
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