“Hadn’t ever met him.”
“You weren’t mad about your wife getting a ticket?”
“If you park seven inches from the curb, you gotta take what’s coming to you.”
Padgett Lanier’s pale face had a tendency to flush easily. We watched now with some trepidation as he turned a tomato red. The sheriff dismissed us curtly, and turned his attention to the search his men were making in our yard. I wanted to beg them not to trample my poor little just-plowed garden: but I decided that would be unfeeling.
With the passage of a couple of hours, supper had become just possible. I called the Youngbloods’ apartment to ask Shelby and Angel if they wanted to share our meal, but Angel said she’d rather lie down than eat, and Shelby didn’t want to leave her.
Martin and I had pork chops, fried green tomatoes (a rare indulgence), Waldorf salad, and I’d made some biscuits. But we were just picking at the food. Martin had been quiet throughout the meal, which was unusual. Normally, we talked to each other at the table, before we went about our separate pursuits in the evening. (Sometimes they were mutual pursuits, but that usually came later. About bedtime.)
Our house felt very quiet after the onslaught of county and city police. We hadn’t had that many people around since the last year’s Christmas party.
“Roe, I’m worried about this,” Martin said finally. His pale brown eyes focused on me; Martin looks into the eyes of the people he’s talking to. That can be intimidating, or exciting.
“I know. I am, too, of course.”
“Not just Jack Burns being killed, but him being dumped here.”
“Of course,” I said again, not understanding what Martin was getting at.
“As Sheriff Lanier pointed out, people know that you and he didn’t get along.”
“But I was absolutely, provably on the ground when he landed. So I couldn’t have done it,” I said dismissively. “Besides which, I can’t fly a plane.”
“There’s something wrong about it.” Martin was having some problem formulating his thoughts, unusual for him. He’s used to expressing himself quickly and decisively in front of a lot of people.
I didn’t want to say “Of course,” again, but that was what I was thinking.
“How long has it been since you talked to him?” Martin asked.
“The sheriff asked me that this afternoon. The best I can recall, I haven’t seen Jack to speak to since… two and a half years ago at the Anderton house. Same as you.” The day Martin and I had met. He smiled at me now, warmly but briefly, to show me he, too, remembered that day very well.
“Did you think Angel reacted normally today?” Martin said suddenly.
“No, I don’t think so at all,” I said, glad he’d said it instead of me. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. Angel’s not one to flinch away from anything unpleasant, and she has the strongest stomach of anyone I know. For some reason, this just threw her for a loop.” And I remembered Jack Burns rotating in the air, and was sorry I’d used that expression. I put my napkin by my plate and pushed the plate away.
“Something’s up with her,” Martin said. “I could tell Shelby was worried, too. And I could swear he’d never heard this story about the ticket.”
“Would you mind doing the dishes tonight?”
“No.” Martin seemed glad to shake off whatever dark thoughts he’d been having. “Are you going out? Is it Friends of the Library night, or some church meeting?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve got to go pay my condolences to Bess Burns.”
“Roe, do you think that’s wise?”
“I’ve always liked her, even if I didn’t like him. I’ve gotten to know her at Friends meetings.”
Since I’d resumed working at the library on a part-time basis, I’d met everyone who worked there as a volunteer. And Bess Burns, since she’d retired from teaching was one of our best workers.
Martin continued to look at me in a troubled way, but he nodded. “I don’t mind doing the dishes,” he said. “Have you fed that cat yet?”
“I’ll do it before I go,” I promised. Martin and Madeleine, the fat old cat I inherited from a friend, have a touchy relationship at best. Madeleine’s favorite perch is the hood of Martin’s Mercedes-Benz, and Martin is very proud of that car. We even got doors installed on the garage and we check to be sure they’re closed every night, but we have to search for Madeleine before we do.
I went up the stairs in a hurry, mentally selecting my visit-to-the-widow outfit. Not black, I wasn’t a member of the family… navy. My new navy blue dress with the white trim. I’d just bought it at Short ‘N Sweet in Atlanta-a petite shop, I’m four eleven-and I glanced at the label, gloating over the smaller size I’d been buying lately, before I pulled it over my head.
Living with a health- and exercise-conscious man like Martin, and having the athletic Angel as a companion, had had a happy result as far as my figure was concerned. I’d even gone to the beauty shop my mother patronizes, Clip Casa, and gotten Benita to streak my hair. It took hours, since it’s thick, tightly wavy, and halfway down my back. But the result was worth it. Overall, what with being happy with Martin and secure financially, I looked and felt better than I had at any time in my life.
After wiggling into pantyhose-a process I wouldn’t let Martin watch-I slid my feet into pumps and pulled my frivolous streaky hair back with a barrette. I fed Madeleine hastily, grabbed my food offering from the refrigerator, and backed out my old Chevette, a car Martin detests almost as much as he detests Madeleine’s paw prints.
Though we live a mile out of town, I can almost see the back of my mother’s house from my own backyard, and the Burns home was only one street south of hers. But it was a street that made a lot of difference; Mother’s home on Plantation was a roomy two-story with a large lot, and Bess and Jack owned a fairly modest three-bedroom ranch.
There were two cars parked in front of the Burns home, one of them a familiar blue Lincoln Continental. It would have taken Mother five minutes to walk, but she would never willingly arrive anywhere flushed with exertion. Mother was actually coming toward me with a bowl in her hand as I got out of my old car, clutching my own dish.
“What you got there?” I asked.
“A cold pasta salad. It’s all I had in the house to make.”
My mother, Aida Brattle Teagarden Queensland, is a slim, husky-voiced Lauren Bacall look-alike. She is also a very successful realtor, and a few short years ago she married John Queensland, a retired businessman. Since then, she’s become a stepgrandmother a couple of times. Once the shock wore off, she’s enjoyed it.
I peered through the plastic wrap. “Looks good.”
“Thanks. I see you brought your Waldorf salad. Well, are you going to ring the doorbell?”
I did so, and the door swung open after the correct interval. The Burns’s neighbor to the right, Marva Clerrick, had on her formal smile. It changed into a less strained one when she recognized us.
“Am I glad to see you!” she exclaimed in a violent whisper. “The strangest people are here talking to Bess! I have no idea what’s going on!”
Marva, an athletic extrovert and the wife of my sometime boss, Sam Clerrick, was one of the most popular teachers at Lawrenceton High School and a good friend of the recently retired Bess Burns. Marva had been aptly named by parents who must have had some premonition that Marva would be able to cook, teach English during the week and Sunday School at Western Hill Baptist Church, bring up two very good girls, and cope with the moody Sam. In the summer, her off-season, Marva taught swimming at the local pool and led rug-hooking classes at Peachtree Leisure Apartments.
For Marva to be confounded by a situation, it must be strange indeed. Of course, we were agog.
“What’s going on?” I asked in a stage whisper.
“There are two men here I’ve never seen before in this town,” Marva hissed back. “And to fall out of a plane! How could that happen by accident? What was Jack doing up in a plane?”
“I hate to bring this up, but I think Jack was already dead when he came out of the plane,” I said hesitantly. No one had asked me not to tell, and if Mother found out from another source she’d never forgive me.
“Already dead?” my mother said. She and Marva stared at me with twin expressions of distaste, fascination, and horror.
“He sure looked like it,” I said, involuntarily seeing the body turning in the air. “Of course, someone else was
