Murder on a Girls' Night Out (21 page)

“Ha! Millie was tickled to death. She had him coming and going on this one. Richard was about to divorce her because she couldn’t have any more children, couldn’t give him that son to carry on the sacred Hannah name. And now he’d been screwing around with a sixteen-year-old whose baby just might be a boy. Anyway, she did a great job of planning it, told everybody she was pregnant, and when I began to get a little plump, she and I went to Tennessee to see the fall leaves, and oh, my, she almost had a miscarriage. No traveling. Bed rest.
Quiet, which meant no company. I was stuck up there with that woman for months. Richard came up to visit, but we couldn’t go anywhere. No TV and it snowed. The plan worked, though. Everybody was amazed at how quick Millie got her figure back. And Richard had his son.”

“What did you do? Go back to school?”

“Went to Europe. Bummed around. Met Fly. Didn’t come back here until Dickie was a teenager. Not that I didn’t want to, God knows. But it was best. By that time Richard was governor and Millie was Mrs. Society. They didn’t care how much I saw Dickie, long as he thought I was just his cousin.”

“And you and Richard got together again.”

“What do you mean, got together again? There’s always been Richard and me. And Dickie.”

Coming from this family, I thought, Richard Hannah, Jr., was born to be a politician. His mother wasn’t who he thought she was, his real mother was a murderer and a nut case, and he wasn’t even married to his wife. To say nothing of his father, who was guilty of statutory rape and paying blackmail money, and who had probably hired a couple of thugs to do Ed Meadows in. And his uncle Jackson, who had done God knows what.

“Where did you meet Fly?” I asked.

“In Stockholm, on this youth-hostel boat. I bought him a coat ’cause he was freezing. The Alabama weather suits him better. The curb market was his idea, you know? A good one, too. Long as we never had to make a living with it.” Katie paused. “And we didn’t, of course.”

“That’s nice,” Doris said.

I looked at her.

“Next exit’s the Skoot,” Katie said.

“Oh, God.” Doris buried her face in the flowers again.

I looked at the clock. It was only 12:45. Fred and the sheriff wouldn’t worry about us being late for a half hour or more. Anyone going by the Skoot ’n’ Boot wouldn’t think anything was unusual if he saw a car there. I needed to attract attention out here on the interstate, but I couldn’t think of a way. Flashing the lights wouldn’t help. Anyone who saw them would think I was signalling that the highway patrol had its radar gun aimed down the road. Besides, Katie would see the lights flashing inside. All I could do was exit and head for the Skoot.

The sky was a brilliant blue. The storm had washed all the haze from the air and left everything shining. “It’s a beautiful day,” I said.

“Yes,” Katie agreed. “Hurry up. I’ll bet Fly’s tired of waiting for us.”

“Fly’s there?”

“He didn’t know you were coming, Patricia Anne. He’s going to be upset. He likes you.”

A twinge of hope fluttered in my chest for a moment. But only for a moment. Fly would do whatever Katie wanted him to. And that included killing me along with Doris.

The old truck with the butterfly painted on it was parked on the side of the building, just as it had been the first time I saw it. Fly got out and shuffled toward us, grinning, the most genial aging hippie one could ever hope to meet.

“What are you doing here, Patricia Anne?” he asked.

Katie answered for me. “She brought Doris home.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Fly looked very sad.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said. “Doris and I won’t say a word about anything. We’ll
sign an oath in blood. I swear. Here.” I held out my finger.

“Don’t grovel, Patricia Anne,” Katie said.

“I wasn’t groveling,” I said. “I just happen not to want to die today.”

“You were groveling,” Fly said. “Be like Doris.”

Doris’s body might be there, but her mind was in never-never land. She clutched the flowers stiffly in hands held away from her body, and her eyes were blank.

“She’s in shock,” I said. “That’s dangerous.”

Katie and Fly both laughed appreciatively.

“Okay,” he said. “What we’re going to do is play a little game of hide-and-seek. Now, what you and Doris are seeking, Patricia Anne, is hidden right under here.” He pointed toward the collapsed part of the Skoot. “Go ahead, crawl under there. I’ll come behind you part of the way.”

I looked around at the fall trees, at the sky and the sun. I took a deep breath of the clean, crisp air. Katie and Fly were right. I’d been groveling. I got down on my hands and knees and started crawling.

“Go right behind her, Doris,” Fly said.

There were bands of sun shining through the broken slats of the roof.

“Wait a minute.” Fly said. He came around me and crawled toward a support beam that was still intact and holding up a contiguous part of the roof. “Right here,” he said. He backed away and I crawled over to the beam. I saw immediately what he was going to do. A rope was tied around the beam; the other end was probably tied to his pickup.

“Don’t be thinking you’ll have time to get out of the way,” he said. “The whole roof’s coming in. But just in case you do—” He picked up a board which I hadn’t
noticed before and hit Doris a hard blow on the side of the head. She fell across me without a sound.

“Wait,” I said. But the swish of the board was the last thing I heard.

T
he light was there at the end of the tunnel, just like I had known it would be. “It’s okay,” I heard a familiar, loving voice say. “It’s okay, Patricia Anne. You’re safe, darling.”

Fred’s voice. Fred had beaten me into heaven? How had he done that?

“Oh, Mouse, I love you so much. Don’t be dead. It’s all my fault.”

Mary Alice was in heaven, too? And taking the blame for something? How about that! Heaven was going to be okay.

The light began to swing back and forth.

“Hold it still,” I said.

“Open your eyes again, Mrs. Hollowell,” a woman’s voice said.

“Not unless you hold that light still.”

“I promise.”

I opened my eyes. Two Freds leaned over me. Two Mary Alices, two doctors with two lights. “I’m not dead, am I?”

Fred was squeezing my hand. “No, darling.”

“We’re putting in an IV, Mrs. Hollowell,” the doctor said.

“Am I in the hospital?”

“Not yet, Mouse. You’re still at the Skoot.” Mary Alice’s voice was shaky.

I thought for a moment. There was something I needed to know. Finally it came to me. “Is Doris dead?”

“No, darling. We got here just before they collapsed the roof. You’re both going to be okay.” Fred squeezed my hand.

“I hurt everywhere,” I said.

“This will help.” The doctor stuck a needle into my arm, and I didn’t know anything else for a long time.

When I awoke, Mary Alice was sitting beside me working a crossword puzzle.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She put the puzzle down. “You want anything?

“Some water?”

“Sure.” She picked up a glass and held the straw to my lips. The water tasted wonderful.

“Fred’s gone home to get some sleep,” she said. “He was here all night.”

“Is it the next day?”

“Yep, and I’m supposed to ask you how many fingers I’m holding up.” Mary Alice shot me a bird. I was too groggy for anything but a smile.

“Is Doris okay?”

“You both are. Thank God.”

“But how did you know we were there?”

“I was behind you on the interstate. I saw you coming down the ramp and wondered who the third person was in your car, and I got close enough to see it was Katie. Then I called the sheriff. Told him I was following you, that you were in trouble.”

“You were following me all the time? I didn’t see you.”

“You’re not a good defensive driver.”

“Did they get Katie and Fly?”

“Red-handed.”

I shuddered. The answer was a little too apropos.

“They’re in jail and charged with all sorts of stuff,” Sister said.

“Who killed Ed?”

“The sheriff thinks Fly and a couple of the elder Richard’s thugs. Pretty much like we figured. Ed had been blackmailing Sara for some time. She couldn’t handle it anymore and told Daddy Dick the truth. I think he figured Ed would never let go, especially if Richard, Junior, got elected to the Senate. So he put a stop to it.”

“It was Fly called us, wasn’t it?” I asked sleepily.

“Yesterday?”

“No. From Debbie’s. A long time ago, I think. And played the tape saying I was going to kill you.”

“He was trying to scare us, let us know we were vulnerable. He was in my house and yours, too, at least once, trying to find out about us, if we knew anything.”

“In my house?”

Sister nodded. “So much for my alarm system.”

I shivered. “Bulldoze the Skoot, Sister. Flatten it.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

Richard Hannah, Junior, didn’t win the election, though I voted for him and so did the rest of my family.
What happened wasn’t his fault, and I think he would have made a good senator. But by then he had had too much descend on him. He and Sara had a quiet wedding at City Hall and left with the children for Europe. Sheriff Reuse says they are living in France, in Provence. Maybe, someday, they’ll be healed enough to come home.

Richard, Senior, was not charged with anything. According to his testimony, he knew nothing. Jackson had been responsible for planning Ed’s murder and for carrying it out. There was no evidence to the contrary, and Fly McCorkle refused to talk. The McCorkles’ trials are set for next spring.

As for Fred and me, well, Mary Alice gave us a fortieth anniversary party, not at the Skoot, of course (though she still hasn’t bulldozed it), but at her house, which is almost as large. It was a mild November, the kind we have in the South sometimes that confuses dogwood trees so much, they bloom. French doors were opened to the terrace and we could see the lights of the city below us, planes landing and taking off. The furniture was pushed against the walls, and the Swamp Creatures (without Kenny) made the hills come alive.

Henry and Debbie showed up, one carrying Fay, the other May. But the surprise of the evening was Haley arriving with Sheriff Reuse, who actually laughed several times.

We learned the Tush Push and the Achy Breaky, and the skirt of my red dress swirled like I knew it would.

“Hey,” Fred said. “Hey.” And we held each other tight and danced right on out the door, right into the warm, starry night.

“My Fred,” I murmured.

“My Ginger.”

I’ll take forty more years with this man.