A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) (23 page)

Mama headed back out to the ranch. Her plate was full,
with nobody overseeing the work there, and at such a critical time. I could well understand the big smile she gave us when she got in her car. First about Justin, but then about the ranch being taken care of again when he got home.

“I’m coming back for Justin in an hour,” Mama called out her open window. “Big supper tonight, I hope. You cooking, Mama?”

Miss Amelia nodded and waved her off.

I dropped Meemaw at the Nut House but didn’t go in. I had a couple of things to do before getting the trees home so I stopped at Pecan Park, in the center of Riverville, where the town’s streets of houses and rows of shops converged, where the school buses lined up along one side during the school months, and where the town’s elderly ranchers met on benches in the shade of live oaks to talk politics and gossip. I parked near the town fountain and ran over to fill a large Coke bottle the sheriff had given me—again and again. I watered those trees lovingly. Touching their leaves. Patting their pots. Poor trees. They’d been through a lot. Then I thought of what we humans had been through, too, and felt a little less sorry for my pampered progeny.

With the trees watered, I figured I had time to stop by the library and see Jessie, long as I parked in the shade. For just a minute I worried about leaving my babies in the back of the pickup. Then I thought how Riverville hadn’t been a raging den of thieves in the past and probably wasn’t now. I’d have to start trusting my neighbors sometime. Now was as good a time as any.

I drove around the park and up the Camino Real to the library, turning into the parking lot and into a shady spot. The heat should have been lessening by this time of afternoon, the sun not so fierce, but these were unusual times. Just walking over to the library caused prickles of sweat to run down my back, under my T-shirt. I felt the beginnings of a heat rash on the insides of my thighs.

The long stone building was cool inside. Felt good. I let myself dream, for just a minute, about what it would be like to sit there and read a book and not have another thing to think about.

Jessie, behind the main desk, had a look on her face somewhere between tears and exasperation when she saw me. There was no pleasure there, not with those dark circles under her eyes and her hair tossed up into some kind of messy knot on top of her head.

“Any change?” I asked right away after taking her hands and squeezing them.

She shrugged. “The doctor says the swelling is starting to go down. Could be soon. I just want to see . . .”

She choked on her words.

“I can only imagine,” I said.

She nodded. “Just to see him smile at me. Mama hugs him and talks to him—for hours. She reminds him of his mother and father and his brothers and sisters back in Mexico. She talks about coming to this country for a better life, about the Blanchards and what you’ve done for us. She just talks. And talks. And every once in a while she puts her head back and stares off at nothing. I have to leave the room at those times. It’s breaking my heart.”

Pain was like a mask somebody’d slapped on her face.

“Why are you here, working? Can’t somebody fill in?”

She shook her head. “Sophia left town.” She stopped, even smiled a little. “It’s what’s keeping me sane right now. I don’t have to think so much when I’m talking to people about books.”

“Is there anything I can do? Pick up things at the house for you?”

“No, I go get clothes for both of us when I can. Mostly I go right to the hospital.”

“Oh, Jessie.” I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t. There were ladies in line behind me waiting to pick up ordered books. They were already making noises. “If you need me to spell you or your mama, give me a call.”

“People showing up every day now. Good people. They’ve offered help if we need them. Just a few hours here and there. Then I take over later.”

“Good to hear. Everybody’s concerned. Gotta be somebody with him at all times,” I said. “You understand what I’m talking about, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Don’t you worry, Lindy. Not a minute alone. Sheriff’s hoping to call in a deputy from the next county. ’Til then we got Harry and Chastity Conway. They come by every day, just to visit with my mama. They stay when Mama needs to do a little shopping for herself. The Chaunceys came this morning. Ben Fordyce stopped by, offered whatever we needed. Perks Mama up, that people care so much. You don’t know what a town thinks of you until something awful like this happens.”

For a minute, I wasn’t comfortable hearing Ben was there. I told myself that was ridiculous. It couldn’t be Ben. He was like a member of our family. He never would have hurt my daddy.

Unless, of course, he was hiding something even worse than that land deal with Amos.

I wished I could have talked to Jessie in private. There was our trip to the Barking Coyote to tell her about. No baby. Never was. And Amos’s letter to Mama. I knew Jessie pretty well. Despite what Amos had done to her, I knew she’d be happy to hear he’d cleaned himself up and was trying to help us. If he’d lived, I would have bet anything she’d be the next one getting an apology. But still—there was that “Virginia.” That he’d moved on to another woman wasn’t exactly the kind of news I wanted to bring her.

At a complaint from an old classmate of mine, standing behind me in line and tapping the face of her watch to show she had someplace she had to get to, I moved away, promising to drop by later if I could. I meant to ask if I could pick up the mail or water their plants when I went by their house, but I didn’t. Angry ladies behind me, holding large and heavy books and telling me to move on, weren’t a group I wanted to stress any more than I already had.

• • •

When Miss Amelia called and said she was tired, that she
wanted to go home and make something special for Justin’s homecoming, I forgot everything else I wanted to take care of that day and went back to the Nut House to get her.

I should’ve known not to expect anything about that place to be easy.

Ethelred Tomroy was there again. I could see from the way Ethelred and Miss Amelia stood, like two hens about to peck each other, that trouble was brewing.

“What I understood,” Miss Ethelred was saying, “was when I agreed to take over the pie making from you, it was only because you didn’t want to be making them anymore.”

“Never said a thing like that in my life, Ethelred.” Miss Amelia reared back on her heels. Her arms were crossed in front of her, face as blank as she could make it. I knew the signs and wished I could go right back out the door and return a whole lot later.

“Why, you did, too, Amelia Hastings. Put that sign right up on your door for people wanting pies to give me a call.”

“That didn’t mean I was going out of the pie-making business forever. Just for a decent mourning period, is all. Don’t know where you ever got the idea I wouldn’t be back in here doing my job.”

“Why, everybody’s been saying it was because you don’t feel so good anymore. Too much work for you.”

“Really?” Miss Amelia’s eyes were almost black. “And who’s saying that, I’d like to know? Might be a case of slander, you ask me.”

“Wasn’t me.” Ethelred shook her hands in the air. “I’d never say a thing like that. Heard it from Freda Cromwell. You know Freda. Picks up every piece of news in town. All she does all day, walk up and down Carya talking to this one and that one.”

“So just which one of the ‘thises’ or ‘thats’ did she get it from?”

“No idea. Just what I was told. I started taking those orders thinking I was helping you out, and now I’m getting cancellations. Treenie’s taking orders here, is what people been telling me.”

“True.” Miss Amelia nodded. “I’ve been away from my job long enough. Pie dough’s already mixed. It’s in the cooler.”

“Then where does that leave me, I’d like to know—holding the nuts? I bought a big load of pecans, anticipating I’d need them for my pies.”

“Where’d you buy them?”

“Over to the Conways’. Got the best price going. Cheaper than anybody.”

“Conways? Well, guess you better go talk to Chastity ’bout buying them back.”

“Humph. Doubt she’d take ’em. You know Chastity. Deals a deal. People around town saying she’s getting a little full of herself. Talking about a store out there by the road. Got that new pavilion. You better tell Bethany to watch herself. Wouldn’t put it past Chastity to try stealing events you got planned.”

Miss Amelia shrugged and looked over at me. “What do you say, Lindy? Should I go out of the pie-making business?”

I shook my head hard and stepped up next to Miss Ethelred. “Wouldn’t give up making the best pies in Riverville if I was you, Grandma. Why, Riverville’s known for your pecan pies. Nobody comes close.”

Ethelred reared back and gave me a shocked, wide-eyed stare. “For goodness’ sakes, Lindy Blanchard. What a thing to say. You know I make a pie just as—”

I shook my head at her. “Not like Miss Amelia’s. It was the people coming in and begging got her back at it.”

“Begging? Not people who tasted my pies.”

“Somebody came in to say the pie they got—I don’t know whose pie they were talking about—just wasn’t what they were used to.”

“For goodness’ sakes! That’s a hurtful thing to say.” Miss Ethelred looked sad and I was sorry I’d taken it just that one step too far. Ethelred Tomroy wasn’t a bad person, just one who needed a lot of teasing along to keep her from going off on one of her rants. I was completely out of friendly teasing. Very little left in me that was even very nice.

“Think we better have a talk with Miss Cromwell, Grandma.” I turned to Miss Amelia. “Seems she’s the one spreading gossip about you.”

“Well, for the Lord’s sakes, don’t tell her I told you where I heard it,” Ethelred sputtered. “Woman’s got a tongue sharper than an ax. Next thing she’ll be after me. Last year she told the Mission Committee I didn’t make that pecan butter for the Christmas sale myself. Bought it, she said. Maybe it was the truth, but she didn’t have to go telling on me.”

Miss Amelia put her arm around the woman, who was blinking away and looking miserable. “Why, bless yer heart, Ethelred,” she said. “You look to me like you better run on home and take a rest. People our age—you know, we gotta watch ourselves.”

Ethelred nodded and thanked my grandmother for her concern.

“You sure? No more pie orders?” Ethelred called on her way out the front door.

“Sorry, Ethelred. Pies are something I got to see to myself.”

Ethelred was gone. Miss Amelia didn’t look a bit chastened.

And not a bit tired.

We didn’t go looking for Freda Cromwell. She was coming
down the walk looking for us, shading her eyes from the afternoon sun with one hand while waving and yoo-hooing from a couple hundred feet away.

Funny how fast a person can turn deaf. It hit me and Miss Amelia at the same moment. I felt her tugging at my arm as we headed over to my truck, but it was too late. The elderly woman came flying down the street at us, one hand to her chest like a heart attack could be imminent if we didn’t stop. Miss Amelia muttered under her breath then put on a big smile, turned, and greeted Freda.

“Look at you, Freda Cromwell. Gonna give yourself a stroke, running like that at your age.”

Freda grabbed on hard to Miss Amelia’s arm as if to hold her right there in place until she had her say.

She pounded at her chest with her other hand. I didn’t know if she was getting her heart started or waking up her voice box.

“Calm down,” Miss Amelia ordered and gave me a look that told me I wouldn’t want to be Freda Cromwell at that moment.

The woman was dressed in a shapeless outfit that kind of skimmed over her body. There were huge sweat circles under her arms and down her sides. She wasn’t a big woman but she gave off that kind of feel; as if she needed more space than other women, more air, more words, more time. Something about Freda Cromwell was needy and overbearing at the same time.

“Heard about Justin gettin’ out. Hope he doesn’t land back in there. Somebody said they got a lot of proof he did that terrible thing to Amos. Not that anybody’s blaming him . . .”

“Why, bless your heart for worrying about my grandson, Freda. Sure do appreciate it.” Miss Amelia smiled a lip-widening smile, kind of like an ice-carved smile.

She leaned back, looking away from Freda. I could feel the good stuff coming. “But you tell all those nice people to get something else to worry about, would you? Blanchards are doing just fine, thank you.”

She turned away from the startled woman. Then she turned back. “And by the way, Freda, care to tell me why you’re spreading stories about me going into Columbus to see a doctor?”

Freda smacked her lips a couple of times as if trying to beat words into shape. Nothing came out.

“Now don’t tell me it wasn’t you spreading the stories. People who care about me said it was.”

Freda glowered and swallowed hard a time or two. “Well, now, Amelia Hastings. You believe what people say?”

“Seems you do, Freda.”

She nervously scratched at the back of her head. “Let me just tell you who said those things . . .”

We waited while the woman scrunched her face into what looked like thought.

“Well, now . . . She told me not to go passing it around. Said she wouldn’t like it if I told people. Knew I was trustworthy, that’s what she said. Awful worried about you, Amelia.”

“Who, Freda? Who’s this ‘she’ you’re talking about?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I can’t say. Just can’t say. This isn’t somebody you want mad at you. Leastwise not me. All I’ll say is she just couldn’t see you working the way you do, not with that disease she said you got.”

“Was it Ethelred Tomroy?”

“Ethelred? Why would she be worried? Worries her most is never winning that county fair prize for her pecan pies. That’s the only thing worries Ethelred.”

“Are you going to tell me who said those things about me, Freda?”

She shook her head. “Don’t think so. Said maybe I’d have a job in that new—”

She threw a hand over her mouth.

I looked at my grandmother and she looked hard back at me.

“Nope.” Freda shook her head. “Can’t tell. Need that job.”

“Well, well, well . . .” Miss Amelia leaned forward and put her arm around Freda’s hunched shoulders. “Bless yer heart, Freda. Of course you need a job. Keep you busy. Off the streets. But maybe you can do me one favor? Think you can do that?”

She narrowed her eyes. Freda Cromwell wasn’t used to doing favors for people.

“All I want is . . .” Miss Amelia bent close to Freda’s ear. “You tell that person with this new job for you, in her new nut store, well, you just go ahead and tell her I’m fine. Just fine. And you tell her Miss Amelia said I thank her for her concern but there’s nothing wrong with me now and never will be, I got anything to say about it.”

Freda nodded her head. “I’ll do that, Miss Amelia. Can’t tell you who it is exactly, but I’ll pass on the word that you are doing just fine.”

• • •

Mama wasn’t home with Justin yet when we got back to
the ranch. Miss Amelia went to the kitchen to whip up some Texas caviar—black-eyed peas and black beans marinated in that spicy mix of hers. She was planning on barbecue, with her Hotter than Hot Pecan Barbecue Sauce.

I knew when to leave her alone in the kitchen and headed out to the greenhouse. There were my trees to plant, which lifted my mood—just the thought of being alone finally, out in my own hallowed test grove, in my greenhouse with five trees back where they belonged, scrawny branches waving in the hot, late afternoon breeze.

José, still guarding the gate, insisted on helping me dig the holes. I took him up on the offer since I figured he had to be bored, a man used to hard, muscle-stretching work, standing at a gate for hours. Other men had already removed the broken trees, filled in the old holes, then dug over and raked the ground so my rows were straight again, and even.

And empty.

While José dug, I mixed my special compound fertilizer, then poured a measured amount down into each of the holes and worked it in. I watered the soil, letting the hole fill up and empty two times. Jose helped me pull each sapling from the pot, then set up the drip irrigation snaking down the rows while I brought five-gallon plastic pails over from the fence and set one next to each tree, dropping a big rock down inside to hold it in place, then filling it with water. I watched to make sure the small holes in the bottom were clear and draining. We staked them then, tied them, and stood back to enjoy the sight: one thing back to normal. I was in business again.

I thanked José and he went back to stand outside the gate, waiting for his replacement guard to come. It seemed like a lot of locking the barn door after the horses were stolen, but I figured it didn’t hurt, someone watching. Anyway, having someone out there made me feel safer. I promised myself I’d come back later, after dinner, to get more files ready. With José, or one of the other men standing guard, darkness wouldn’t seem so filled with things I didn’t dare think about.

I went back up to the house to welcome my brother home from jail and tell myself, one more time, this nightmare had to be close to ending.

• • •

“Missed all you women,” Justin said and put up with a lot
of hugging and a lot of tears when he walked into the kitchen. He took a whiff of the simmering beans and peas and ran to the stove to kiss Miss Amelia on the cheek. “I don’t know who does the cooking at that jail, but I’ll tell you, almost makes you want to confess and get hung rather than eat another one of those macaroni and cheese bake things—or whatever it was.”

We settled into healing by food, a long tradition in our family. First the Texas caviar on tortilla chips, then barbecue that melted when you ate it, mashed potatoes fixed up with lots of butter and corn and carrots mixed in. Salad. And a pecan pie—a very special pecan pie for dessert.

When he’d finished eating, Justin pushed his chair back from the table and stretched.

“Great pie, Meemaw. Over at the jail, they were saying you stopped making them. All the deputies were complaining to me, like I could do anything about it.”

“Only stopped for a decent period. You know, after Amos’s death. A family member, after all. I got the dough done today and let myself make just one. ’Specially for you.”

Pie out of the way and the dishes cleared, we sat thinking and smiling and resting after dinner.

Stretching her arms over her head, Mama finally said to Justin, “We should bring you up to date on what’s been happening these last few days.”

“Need that, Mama. We’ve got to talk about the groves, too. Got the men all coming in tomorrow morning.”

“There’s that. And we gotta think about a funeral.”

“They release Amos’s body yet?”

“Not yet.” Mama bit at her lip. “Think anybody will come if we throw him a big funeral?”

Miss Amelia snorted. “People’ll come to anything, you give ’em enough food and plenty to drink.”

“I’d keep it small, Mama,” Bethany put in. “This doesn’t seem to be the time to go all out.”

Mama nodded. “Okay. Soon as we get the word. Think I’ll leave it up to you, Bethany.”

Bethany made a face. “A funeral? How do I make a funeral special?”

“No doves,” Miss Amelia said, hiding a smile. “Though that would be pretty—all those white birds heading toward heaven.”

Bethany rolled her eyes. “But not until after my wedding. It’s next weekend. Please, please, please don’t have a funeral procession going one way and my wedding procession going the other.”

Mama leaned over and smiled at her so pretty youngest. “We’ll do it right after, Baby. Don’t imagine Amos will be complaining.”

She turned back to Justin. “Got something else to tell you.”

“No more bad news tonight, Mama. I’m just so happy to be—”

“It’s about your daddy.”

He sat back in his chair.

“You could’ve been right all along. Amos wrote in a letter that he had proof it wasn’t an accident took Jake.”

Justin buried his face in his clasped hands, but for only a quick minute. “You mean it wasn’t Uncle Amos killed him?” he asked when he looked up again.

She shook her head.

“Then—who?”

Mama looked at me, then Miss Amelia. Very slowly she opened her mouth. “We don’t know for sure—yet. Your daddy hired a private detective to investigate. We’re not sure what the detective found out but Amos got the report. We hope to find it. Miss Amelia and Lindy have been looking into . . . things.”

“So? What’s the sheriff doing about Daddy’s death? Or is he just going to sweep it under the rug?”

I understood Justin’s anger.

“The sheriff called the coroner. He’s looking through the autopsy report, going over the x-rays, seeing if that first doctor missed anything.”

“When will we know?”

“Sometime tomorrow, I hope.”

“That pie of yours is putting me right to sleep, Grandma.” He got up slowly and yawned. “I never doubted I was right, you know. Now, what I gotta do is get some
real
sleep and maybe tomorrow we’ll start hearing some
real
truth.”

Over the next hour, the phone must have rung at least six times. People called to say how happy they were Justin was cleared of this terrible thing. Got one crank call, some nut who raved that God would punish all us sinners. Miss Amelia got that one and set the man straight in a hurry, telling him God may be watching over fools like him but as for her . . . “This is what I think of people who are not only stupid, but cruel.” She slammed the phone down.

One time it was for Mama. Ben Fordyce.

“Knew I had to face it.” She got up and went out into the hall. It didn’t take long and she was back. “Just said he was happy to hear the sheriff let Justin go. Says he got a writ or something to get him out anyway, but glad it was easy, no snags.”

She looked around at all of us. “Don’t say a word. Nobody. I’m not believing anything bad . . .”

Miss Amelia walked from the dishwasher she was filling, over to put her arm around Mama. “We don’t know a single thing for sure, Emma. Not a single thing.”

“Ben said Harry’s on his way over. Got something he thinks we should know.”

I groaned. “You tell him have Harry come around tomorrow?” I asked, impatient to get out to my greenhouse for a couple of hours, make more notes; do more recalling what I could of my grafts and seedlings.

“Ben said it was important.”

“You know.” Miss Amelia dumped soap in the dishwasher, locked the door, and pushed the button, starting it. “We had a friend once, me and Darnell. Good friend of your grandfather’s. Attorney there in Dallas. Somebody got it into their head he cheated them and stole from their parents’ estate. First that man spread stories around. Next he took him to court. I remember Darnell couldn’t believe the judge took the case. No evidence against our friend. Nothing. Books all straight. It was like crazy people were taking over the court system. Then it came out that man filed to run for district attorney. Running on how he was the one stopped corruption in the system. Except things about him started coming out. He’d done the same thing—singled out an attorney to ruin back in Louisiana, where he came from. People in Dallas learned from that. Not to be led around by the nose. Well, learned for a little while anyway. Makes me think of Ben now. Nothing against him but somebody else’s word. Just that one word, Lindy: ‘attorney.’ I think we gotta pull back here, the way your granddaddy did back then. He got people looking deeper and our friend was cleared completely. That other man went to jail. Been buying votes and paying big into the mayor’s coffers. That’s where the corruption was.”