A Tough Nut to Kill (Nut House Mystery Series) (27 page)

The room was very still, and very white. Martin’s bed was
empty, remade with white sheets folded crisply over a white blanket. The white pillow, undented by any head, was propped against the gray metal bars of the headboard.

Meemaw, Hunter, and I stopped dead. I’d expected uproar. People in the corridors. Doors slamming. Sounds of voices. At least a patient, or a visitor, sticking their head out from a room at all the noise down the hall.

Nothing.

We’d known there wouldn’t be police cars in the parking lot. But something. A warning to Jessie and Juanita that would have had hospital personnel rushing in to stop the Conways.

Nothing.

It was as if we’d walked into the wrong room.

Miss Amelia came trotting along behind me and Hunter. Mama stopped outside to call Bethany then came in to say she was going to pick her up at the store. I could see Mama didn’t want us separated any more. We were all suddenly afraid for everybody we loved. It was real now that we had faces to put on what had happened.

But for being real, we had all the more to fear.

“Where’s everyone?” Hunter asked, turning fully in the empty room.

“I’ll go call . . .” He looked around again, then went out the door, into the corridor.

“They moved Martin.” Miss Amelia summed up what we were looking at. “They were bringing him out of the coma today. They’ve put him somewhere safer. Jessie and Juanita, too. Someplace Harry and Chastity can’t get at any of them.”

She nodded hard. I knew she was right. It was just that when word got out Martin might be awake and talking soon, I’d expected the Conways to make a move—some horrendous plan to fix this, too, the way they’d fixed people before.

I didn’t get a chance to say anything.

“Miss Amelia! Good to see you.” Harry Conway was behind us, framed in the open doorway. “I didn’t expect anybody else to be here. Jessie said she needed help ’cause she had to get back to the house. You know, get things ready to bring Martin home. Chastity’s on her way . . .”

He walked in then stopped, aware of the empty bed. “Lord’s sakes,” Harry exclaimed, pulling his big hat from his head and holding it at his chest. “Where’d Martin get to? Hope nothing happened to the poor—”

“I think he’s with the sheriff, Harry,” Meemaw said, smiling wide. “Seems he woke up sooner than the doctor expected.”

Harry made a face. “With the sheriff? I don’t get what you’re saying, ma’am . . .”

“Think you do, Harry.” Hunter stood in the doorway, Sheriff Higsby behind him, pushing his way into the room.

“What’s this all about?” Harry demanded, his round, red face a mask of irritation. “Just came to do my neighborly duty. Said they’d be bringing him around this afternoon. If the man’s better, why, no use in me stayin’ . . .”

Hunter was the first to lay a hand on Harry’s arm. None too gently.

“I think you’d better hang around, Harry. They brought Martin out of the coma this morning. Fuzzy, but he had a lot to say about who tried to kill him down there at the shed. Guess that was your wife: Chastity, or whatever her real name is. Said, too, he had his suspicions all along. I’d say we’ve got a whole lot of questions for the both of you. Oh, and some people in Terre Haute, Indiana, looking for you, too. You hear about that?”

Harry’s eyes widened. His mouth dropped open with all the anger of the phony innocent.

“Oh, and guess what they found on that belt buckle you stuck under Amos’s body, Harry? Found a perfect fingerprint. Wonder whose it is? Care to venture a guess? Not Justin’s, by the way.”

“I’m arresting you for the murder of Amos Blanchard.” The sheriff spun the confused man around and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Hunter read him his rights and he was gone, swept down the hall and out of sight.

“We’ve got one more,” Hunter came back to warn us, holding up a single finger.

“I’m not going anywhere.” Miss Amelia took a seat at the edge of the empty bed. “How about you, Lindy? Want to wait for Chastity?”

The gleam in her eye was wicked. I gave her the biggest smile I had in me. “Bring ’er on, Meemaw.” I reached out and patted my grandmother on her back.

• • •

Chastity Conway waltzed into the room not five minutes
later, surprised, as Harry had been, to see me and Miss Amelia there and Martin gone. The room filled with the overpowering scent of her perfume—something like long dead flowers. Just the smell of her stirred a memory: that day I found my grove destroyed. Something nauseatingly sweet in the air back then. I’d thought it was blossoms on the trees and spring in general. Now I knew it wasn’t. Maybe Harry’d killed Uncle Amos, but Chastity had been lurking somewhere in the background.

Chastity looked at the empty bed then feigned surprise. “Why? Whatever’s going on here? Jessie asked me and Harry to take over while Martin was coming out of his coma.” She blinked hard a couple of times, then looked around the empty room. “Harry shoulda been here by now. Where’d that man get to? And where’s Martin? Don’t tell me something happened to him. Not after everything he’s been through.” She “tsked-tsked” a few times then shook her head. “Not expired, is he? Hope his poor heart didn’t take ’im.”

“We don’t know anything for certain, Chastity.” Miss Amelia smiled from her place in the catbird’s seat. “Just got here ourselves. Seems something happened. Can’t get anything straight outta anybody. Lindy here says she saw the sheriff taking Harry away. You know what that’s all about?”

“What?” Chastity’s face turned redder than her hair. “Harry? Why on earth . . .”

I watched. It was almost funny, how she tried out one expression after another until she landed on a way out for her.

“I’d better get over there. See what in heck’s goin’ on. Think I’ll just drive by the ranch first . . .”

“Why, I woulda thought you’d want to be with Harry fast as you can.” Miss Amelia clucked at her, moving just a little closer.

Chastity took a step back toward the door.

Miss Amelia turned to me. “Isn’t that what you’d imagine, Lindy? That Charlene here would want to be with her lovin’ husband soon as she can get over there?”

Chastity drew in a breath that stuck her nostrils together.

“What did you call me?” she asked haughtily, cocking her head to one side. I noticed the Texas drawl was missing.

“Oh, sorry.” Miss Amelia threw both hands to her cheeks. “Thought that was your real name. Heard it was something like Charlene Rooksey or Cooksey. Something like that.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about.” Chastity Conway turned fast, heading for the door.

Miss Amelia was there before her, reaching out and grabbing on to Chastity’s shoulders.

“Why, bless yer heart, Charlene.” Miss Amelia turned her, pushing her toward the hall, where Hunter waited. “Bless yer dear little heart. Just look who’s waiting to help you outta here. You see Hunter Austen, do you? A fine policeman, our Hunter. One of the best I’ll bet
you
ever met in yer whole life. Now just you go along with our Hunter, you murderin’ little . . .”

The day of Bethany’s big wedding, the sky turned bloodred
just about seven o’clock in the evening. It was after the beautiful outdoor ceremony and when the rollicking reception was already under way.

The bleeding clouds hung above the pecan trees like licks of fire. None of us could believe in a sky that color, one we’d never seen before, and stood around, outside the rocking tent: me and Hunter, Mama and Ben, and Meemaw, marveling at the sky turning the world red.

And marveling at Bethany’s success.

Especially when the doves got loose ahead of time and flew at people and the people laughed and ducked and shooed birds out of their food, and stayed good-humored and swore they never had a better time.

Especially when the antenna on top of the cake shaped like a radio station began to fall like something out of a King Kong movie and the guests hovered around, putting down bets as to when the antenna was going to take out the groom, Chet Easton’s, office and cheering it on as it toppled, fell, and took most of the next layer of icing with it.

We hung around outside the tent, nodding to overdressed couples who came out for a look at the sky. Hunter said he hoped nobody took that bloody sky as an intimation of trouble ahead for the happy couple.

“Sure not the kind of trouble the Conways found here in Riverville,” Miss Amelia said, smirking around at our group.

I didn’t feel the least bit bad about a little gloating.

There was going to be a trial, right there in Riverville. Another one ahead, Hunter had said. Back in Indiana.

Sheriff Higsby thought the co-op’s books had been destroyed a long time ago. Maybe before Jake even got suspicious. Didn’t matter, though. Not with the fingerprint on the belt buckle. Not with the fingerprint Jake’d checked with the detective belonging to Charlene Cooksey aka Chastity Conway. Sure not with the Conways’ past. And not with a bank deposit of fifty thousand dollars at about the time the money came up missing.

On top of that was Martin’s testimony.

They weren’t going to be tried for my daddy’s murder because there wasn’t any physical evidence the Conways did it, though there was proof enough in my heart. One way or the other, I figured. As long as the pair of murderers spent the rest of their lives in prison.

• • •

The tent couldn’t have been prettier, with swags of white
and silver tulle and big bows on the backs of the chair covers. Crystal chandeliers hung from the peak of our tent, which was really a solid building that only looked like a tent.

There were huge bouquets of white roses and silver-dipped roses standing everywhere around the huge room.

Seemed Bethany’s career path was set. And Meemaw was set, too. Back making her pecan pies.

Bethany came out of the tent to look around for us. Her face lit up with a smile that ran from ear to ear as she almost.skipped over to where we stood.

“Do you believe this wedding?” she asked. “I’ve already got one person wanting to book a party. Isn’t that something?”

We agreed it was and she hurried back inside the tent.

When the food was all served and what was left of the huge radio station wedding cake was cut, Miss Amelia’s “special” pecan pies were brought out to a long drum roll with Miss Amelia watching closely after that to see if people liked her pies the way they should.

Even the standing ovation she got didn’t convince her they were up to her usual standards. Not until the guests ate second helpings and got happier and happier.

I leaned toward her when the music was at its loudest and people were shaking every body part they had. “You make ’em with a double shot of Garrison’s?” I teased.

I got a “Keep your mouth shut” look, followed by a quick nod and a satisfied smile.

With the wedding winding down, Bethany joined us in lawn chairs set out under the trees, a pad of paper in her hands. She turned a worried glance up at the sky, which wasn’t so much red anymore as dark purple.

“Hope it holds off just a little longer,” she said.

“Can’t rain,” I said. “Not supposed to rain, though I’ve been prayin’ hard.”

“Anyway . . .” She flounced back in her chair. “I was thinking about Uncle Amos’s funeral. Maybe I can get some doves dyed black. And I was thinking pecan branches draped across the casket. You know, like the family crest. And, I was thinking, since Uncle Amos had so many friends over at the Barking Coyote, maybe they wouldn’t mind dressing in black and doing a line dance at the dinner after the funeral. You know, a slow line dance . . .”

She yawned as she nodded along with her own ideas.

Mama reached over and put a hand on Bethany’s knee, stopping her in full flight.

“It’s a funeral, Bethany. No dancing. No black doves. No pecan branches. Small. Private. Amos was family, and don’t forget it. A true Blanchard.” She nodded to her words. “Blood wins out in the end.”

And that’s when the sky opened and the rains came, and the wedding guests, realizing the drought was over, ran out of the tent to twirl in the downpour. Good Texans, every one of us, hand in hand out in that storm, moving under swaying pecan trees, doing our own kind of happy, pagan rain dance.