candlesticks and swung it at my head. I was a harder target than Beta Harcher. I ducked but felt the whoosh of air as the heavy brass passed near my hair. The second swing around, I grabbed the candlestick and wrestled it out of her hands, tossing it aside. I completely forgot all the gentlemanly manners that Mama and Daddy ever taught me, and I punched Tamma Hufnagel in the jaw. Hard. I got a grip on her shoulder and she was still conscious, adrenaline fueling her, spitting at me. I belted her again and her eyes rolled white. I let go of her and she crumpled to the floor. I staggered around for a second, breathing, glad to be alive. “Jordy!” It was Junebug and another officer, coming in with service revolvers drawn. “She did it. She killed Beta. She tried to kill us,” I managed to gasp, standing over Tamma and pointing at her.
“Would you please arrest her?” Junebug rushed over to Tamma, keeping the gun aimed at her, pulling out handcuffs. Mama lay sobbing on the floor, while Mark murmured in a broken voice for his mother. I stood.
Oh, God, oh my God! I stumbled past the couch and the coffee table, toward the busted door. Bob Don lay behind the couch, still, a red stain spreading across his shirt. “Oh, God!” I screamed, kneeling beside him. “Somebody call an ambulance!”
16
The next morning, Candace found me in the waiting room outside of the intensive care unit. I had abandoned conversation with a prim, elderly lady whose husband was undergoing arterial surgery. She’d asked who I was there for and I didn’t know what to say. A near stranger? My friend? My father? I fumbled on my own words so badly I’m sure she thought I had a speech impediment. I finally had mumbled something about a friend getting shot and she turned up her nose to me, probably thinking I frequented cheap honky-tonks with a dangerous crowd. I wasn’t drunk with liquor, but with exhaustion. I’d stayed up all night, pacing the waiting room, then talking on the phone with Junebug after Tamma’s confession, and then wearing out a new track of carpet while I waited for a doctor to tell me whether or not Bob Don would live or die. Candace sat by me on the couch, handing me a cup of coffee, winking and trying gentle teasing to raise my spirits. “You better look out, Jordy. You know us and couches. I may have to take you right here.” The prim lady gathered up her knitting and fled to a remote corner of the room, not wanting to hear about us and acrobatics on furniture. Candace gave me a timid kiss and I kissed back. “Hell of a night,” she said, rubbing my neck. “One way of putting it,” I agreed wearily. “I feel like I could sleep for a week. How are you?” “I’m fine. I was just down seeing Mark. Arlene’s with him still. She said Dr. Meyers said y’all can take him home today.” “Good,” I said. “I’m sure he can’t wait to tell all his friends how his Uncle Jordy nearly got him killed.” Candace ignored that jab of self-recrimination. “And they released Eula Mae last night, of course. She volunteered to stay with Anne this morning while we’re all down here. She said she can’t wait to talk to you.” “So she can pirate all this for her next novel,”
I guessed. Candace looked hard into my eyes. “You can quit with the jokes. You don’t fool me a bit. You going to stay here awhile?” “I can’t leave him, Candace. Not till I know he’s going to be okay. I mean, I don’t think of him as my father, but he got shot trying to help me.” “I know, babe,” she said, patting my hand. “You know, Bob Don’s pretty special. I know you already got a man in your heart that you think of as your daddy, but you got a big heart, Jordy. Could be room in there for two, y’know.” “Junebug told me they arrested Ruth and Matt,” I offered, changing the subject and getting myself in trouble. Candace’s eyes hardened. “They did. They found another videotape in Beta’s house, this one with footage of the pot crop. She must’ve taken that camcorder she stole from Hally and taped the field for evidence. I guess she planned on hitting them up for money, too.”
She coughed. “You know, I did not appreciate you running out on me like that.” “I didn’t want to involve you any more.” “Doofus. Could have gotten yourself killed.” She sniffed, and that was the extent of the fight. At least for the moment. She cleared her throat and continued: “I talked with Arlene. She said the police are talking to Hally, but they don’t think he had anything to do with killing Beta.
And I heard Billy Ray offered Adam Hufnagel a plea bargain to testify against Ruth and Matt. I imagine he’ll take it. He seems to be in deep shock that Tamma did all this.” “He should be. She very nearly got away with it.” “How, for God’s sake? And why resort to murder?”
Candace asked. I leaned back on the couch. “She was a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for. When Beta found out that Tamma and Hally were lovers-and how she did, who knows, but she did and she found that tape of them-Beta made Tamma start giving her more control over church functions. And therefore church money. Tamma couldn’t do a thing out of fear that Beta would show the tape. So she had to agree to whatever Beta suggested.” “So,” Candace pursed her lips, “the afternoon that Bob Don saw Tamma leaving Beta’s looking so scared and upset-” “Beta had given her the penance to get the tape back. Burning down the library that night. And that’s when Tamma decided to put a stop to the threats. She realized that if it looked as though Beta planned to burn down the library but was killed before she could light the matches, so to speak, I’d be a real big suspect. She decided to frame me for Beta’s murder.” “Bitch,” Candace said tonelessly. She hugged me hard.
“She put out the bat on the path to the library, already wiped clean of prints. She watched and made sure that I’d picked up the bat and then took it inside with me. Perhaps Beta had told her already about threatening me with closing the library, and Tamma made sure she was there to see Beta assault me. She was the one who told Junebug and Billy Ray that I’d said, in anger, that I could’ve killed Beta.” “You do have a mouth on you,” Candace agreed. “So Tamma met Beta at the library and killed her.” “Yeah. According to Tamma’s confession, Beta wanted to pray before they torched it, like the library was going to be some burnt offering before God. Tamma said she put on her gloves and hit Beta halfway through the Lord’s Prayer.” I shivered. “Then she planted the key on Beta’s body. That I don’t get,” Candace said. “She wanted it to look like Beta had managed to get her own key somehow. If she had a key, she didn’t need anyone on the library board to let her in. The story about Beta swiping Adam’s key was pure fluff.” “Beta’s little list, though, put attention on other people besides you.”
“That’s right, sugar. Tamma didn’t know about that list. She did tell Junebug though, that Beta had bragged to her that when her church was built, she was going to have pews in it with contributors’ names plaqued on them, along with an appropriate Bible verse. Sick, isn’t it?” “But how did Tamma know you’d be at the library around the time of the murder?” Candace asked. “She didn’t. That was bad luck on my part. Tamma told Junebug that I’d scared the hell out of her; she had just killed Beta not a minute before I walked in. After I left, Tamma went home and got there before Adam got back from having his therapeutic joint with Matt Blalock. When the police started asking for alibis, Adam made up the story that they’d both been home watching an old John Wayne movie. He never dreamed his wife needed an alibi worse than he did. He was only worried about someone finding out about his smoking dope.” “Tamma must’ve been searching for that videotape when Shannon surprised her,” Candace said. “Tamma claims they fought for the gun and it went off by accident. Of course, it went off in a closed room and nearly deafened Tamma. When I called the Hufnagels to tell them about Shannon being shot, I thought Tamma sounded funny, like she had a cold, and I had to repeat myself for her to hear me. It was from the shock of the gunshot.” “How’s Shannon doing?” Candace asked. She’d gotten out of surgery an hour or so before Bob Don was rushed in. “They’re very hopeful. God, that poor girl.” Candace snuggled next to me. It felt great. “Lord, all this suffering that Beta and Tamma caused.” I grunted in agreement and hugged her close.
Candace murmured, “One of Junebug’s deputies went by the Goertzes’, to see about getting Gretchen to come to the hospital. They found her passed out in bed. She won’t be coming down today, at least.” “I’m not sure Gretchen would come anyway, Candace. I think she hates him now.
Maybe it’s for the best, ’cause I don’t think he ever loved her.” A runty figure lounged in the doorway, watching me. I let Candace go.
“Sugar, would you excuse me? I’d like to talk to Uncle Bid in private, please.” Candace rose and left, murmuring a hello to Bid. He didn’t answer, he just kept staring those glassy dark eyes at me. He lit up a cigarillo. The knitting lady, fuming worse than the smoke, gathered up her yarn and fled. “I see you survived the night,” Bid drawled at me.
“From all accounts, that’s something of a miracle. Perhaps Six Flags Over Texas will design a stunt show after your adventures.” He snickered. I stood and smiled down at him. “Cut the crap with me, Bid.
I know what you are, and although I didn’t think it possible, I dislike you more than ever.” He squinted through smoke with his intimidate-the-prosecution eyes. “Whatever do you mean?” “That extra $25,000 in Beta’s savings account, that I thought for a while either Ruth Wills or Bob Don had paid off Beta with. That’s your money.” “I don’t know what you mean, Jordy.” I pulled the photo and letter I’d found at the back of the Bible in Beta’s house
