Death Crashes the Party (2 page)

Chapter 3

After arriving at Di's trailer, I sat in a pink and green lawn chair on the deck that serves as her front porch, a small green awning providing a patch of shade. I had a key Di had given me in case she ever locked herself out. Truth was, I hadn't even checked to see if the door was locked. I would have felt kinda funny about going in without at least calling first, even though Diane Souther and I had been best friends for years.

I watched as a steady stream of Di's neighbors in Sunrise Mobile Village arrived home from work. Weary office types and blue-collar workers emerged from cars, many with young children in tow, presumably just collected from day care. I could hear the squeals and laughter of youngsters playing by the duck pond, which was obscured from my sight by a towering privet hedge badly in need of a trim. A chubby-faced girl wearing a pink gingham sundress hurried toward the entrance to the pond, trailed by an elderly woman toting a Wonder Bread bag, no doubt containing scraps of stale white bread to feed the ducks. Another young girl, who looked to be four or five, skipped past Di's place, pausing just long enough to give me a shy little wave.

Di swung her big old Buick onto the gravel parking pad she shares with her neighbor, Jake Robbins. She juggled a couple of grocery bags, flinging her strawberry-blond hair over her shoulder, as she stepped out of the car. We're both blondes, of sorts. Hers is of the strawberry variety, while mine is more a dishwater shade—or what my mama refers to as cocker spaniel blond.

“If you're trying to evade the police, you'd be safer sitting inside. Although I think even the cops would be smart enough to look for you here.”

She handed me one of the bags and twisted a key in the lock. I followed Di, who stands several inches taller and weighs at least several pounds less than I do, into the open kitchen/dining/living area.

“I hope there's liquor in one of those bags,” I said, dropping the bag on the counter and plopping myself into a faux-suede recliner. “This day's been one long turd.”

“There's some rum in the cabinet and a bag of strawberries in the freezer,” Di said. “If you want, I'll whip up some daiquiris in the blender.”

This was by far the best offer I'd had all day. Di stood on tiptoe to reach the cabinet over the refrigerator. I wondered why people keep their liquor on a high shelf. Maybe the logic is if it's a little harder to reach, they'll drink less, although personally the extra effort just makes me thirstier.

The blender noisily mangling ice was a soothing sound.

Di, still in her mail carrier uniform, handed me a frozen concoction, then stretched out on the couch, her taut and tanned legs extending from Bermuda shorts, and took a sip of her own beverage.

“I heard that the Erdmans' house was infested with dead people.”

“Yeah. As if the Erdmans weren't already spooky enough. Di, you know I rarely complain about paying clients. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I love my job, but . . . ,” I said, my voice trailing off.

“Some clients are just going to be a horse's patootie, no matter what you do,” she said.

“Usually even picky clients don't bother me. I know I'm helping them plan an occasion that's really important to them and they just want it to be right. I guess the thing is, I can almost always exceed even the most difficult clients' expectations. I take pride in that. The chances of my exceeding Mrs. Erdman's expectations are basically diddly-squat.”

Di related how it had taken forever to finish her mail route, what with every busybody along the way talking about the murders.

“Are they positive it was murder?” she asked.

“Seems unlikely Darrell Farrell would just crawl inside a deep freezer and die.”

“It has been awful hot,” Di posited.

I explained how his brother, Duane, had been stuffed inside a big trash can and filled her in on other unpleasant details, including the barrage of phone calls at the office, Mr. Sweet once finding a dead woman in a bathtub, and Sheriff Dave questioning me for what seemed like hours on end.

Di perked up at the mention of Dave's name, then tried to shrug it off. She and the local lawman had been doing an awkward mating dance for the past year or so. If they'd actually consummated their obvious attraction, both had done a good job of keeping it mum.

“Somebody told me one of those Farrell boys worked at McKay Trucking. I suppose the sheriff questioned Larry Joe and your father-in-law about their dead employee?”

“He's probably already talked to Daddy Wayne, but Larry Joe's at a sales conference in Little Rock until tomorrow. I called to let him know what had happened as soon as Dave let me go. I knew Darrell Farrell worked at McKay's as a mechanic, but Larry Joe told me the younger brother, Duane, had also worked there in maintenance for like a year.”

“I sure feel sorry for their mama,” Di said. “Can't imagine what it's like to lose both your kids like that.”

“Do you know her?”

“Just to speak to. Her name's Tonya. She works as a waitress at that place up on the highway, Rascal's Bar and Grill, which is more bar than grill.”

Di and I drained the remains of our daiquiris with a noisy and nearly simultaneous slurp. I picked up the empty glasses and walked to the blender for refills.

“Oh, Lord,” Di said. “I just remembered. Donna at the Quick Stop was telling me that Tonya Farrell won big just a couple days ago down in Tunica. Won something like ten or fifteen thousand dollars at one of the casinos. What a turn of luck she's had, huh?”

“Yeah. I guess she'll probably have to use her winnings for funeral expenses now.”

After we had finished off a couple of blenders' worth of daiquiris liberally laced with rum, I decided to accept Di's offer to sleep on her sofa instead of driving home. Larry Joe was out of town until tomorrow, anyway.

I dreamed that I opened a deep freezer and hundreds of rats came scrambling out of it. I tried to run, but there was a huge gray snake wrapped around my legs, making it impossible to move. And the snake was whistling “Dixie.”

 

 

I woke up with a cotton mouth and a throbbing head. Di had left me half a pot of coffee and a note saying to help myself to toast or cereal. After sucking down enough coffee to clear the cobwebs, I drove home and took two aspirin and a long hot shower.

I made it to my office a few minutes after nine and returned a couple of phone calls on my answering machine. Some fool had left a message asking if I knew of a deep freezer he could buy cheap.

I called back one of the guests for the Erdmans' party about scheduling a fitting for their costumes, which the Erdmans were picking up the tab for. Most of the women were renting Southern belle dresses and parasols and such. Although, one lady was planning to wear the bridesmaid's dress she had worn for the Erdmans' wedding forty years ago. I surmised she wanted to flaunt the fact that she could still fit into it. And some of the men were actually renting hillbilly outfits, instead of just buying a pair of overalls at the Tractor Supply Company, which seemed more practical to me. But, come to think of it, if the Erdmans' friends were anything like Mrs. Erdman, practicality wouldn't be a likely trait.

As a professional party planner, it's my job to indulge fantasies—to a point. I once backed out of a job that involved planning a bacchanalian orgy because the hosts wanted to get a little too literal with the theme for my comfort.

After checking with the shopkeeper, I gave a call back to Mrs. Lockhart and offered a choice of three different times for fittings with the costume shop in Memphis. Most of the guests lived in the Memphis area, about forty-five miles from Dixie. But I also had to arrange for costumes and fittings for one couple in Little Rock and one in Nashville at costume shops close to them.

Mrs. Lockhart expressed concern that the Erdmans might want to cancel or postpone the party on account of their “recent troubles.” I knew there was no way Mrs. Erdman was going to nix the party. I assured Mrs. Lockhart that the Erdmans wouldn't want to disappoint their guests and that, since the party was still three weeks away, all the unpleasantness should be cleared up by then. I think I convinced her, but I was having trouble convincing myself.

I thought about phoning Mrs. Erdman but couldn't quite muster the courage. I had a feeling that she was still popping Valium at this point and that it might be wise to wait another day or two before risking a conversation.

I tried to concentrate on work, but nothing could take my mind off the horrifying images of the Farrell brothers lying dead in the Erdmans' garage. A little before noon, I finally decided to drive over to McKay Trucking and talk to Ralph Harvey. Maybe he could tell me something about them. After all, I was the one who had had the gruesome pleasure of discovering the bodies—and I figured that at least entitled me to a few answers. Besides, maybe there was something we could do to help their mom.

I don't know what his title is exactly, but basically Ralph Harvey oversees the diesel truck mechanics, along with the maintenance and janitorial staff. My father-in-law manages administrative, freight, and shipping matters. And Larry Joe, who co-owns the company with his dad, mostly handles sales and deals with clients.

About a half mile out of town the pavement devolves into a minefield of potholes. I pulled up the gravel driveway, heading through the open gate in the chain-link fence and past the whitewashed concrete-block building that contains my husband's and father-in-law's offices. After circling around to the back, I parked beside the gray metal buildings that house the garage and warehouse.

Ralph's office is upstairs, along one side of the hangar-like building, with a wall of glass and a bird's-eye view of everything going on down below. The din of motors and clanging wrenches, punctuated by staccato bursts of compressed air, was muffled as he closed the door behind us. Ralph Harvey is a barrel-chested man with a face as red as what little hair he has left on top of his head. I accepted Ralph's offer to sit down but declined his offer of coffee after observing a pot that had probably never been washed.

“I hate to bother you when I know you're shorthanded. But with Larry Joe out of town, I just wanted to stop by and see how everyone's holding up after yesterday's tragedy. How are the guys in the shop taking it?”

“It was a shock, ma'am, sure enough. Darrell had worked his way up to lead B mechanic in just a couple of years. The younger one wasn't quite right, you know, a little slow. But he did good work. He was only twenty. . . .” Ralph's voice trailed off.

“It's hard enough to imagine one of them getting murdered, but why in the world would someone kill both of them?”

“All I can say is where one of 'em was, the other one went along. They worked together and shared an apartment. And it seems they got killed together, too.”

We both sat there for a moment, sharing an awkward silence.

“Ralph, I know it's none of my business, but had they gotten into any kind of trouble? You know, with drugs or some girl who had a protective daddy?”

“No, ma'am. They never had any run-ins with the law that I know of. I'm pretty sure they smoked some weed. Most of the young guys here do. But it never interfered with their work, which is all I care about.”

I was a bit taken aback by Ralph's lax attitude toward drug use. It was not what I would have expected from him.

“I thought random drug screenings were performed on the employees?”

“Just the drivers,” he said. “If they all had to pass drug screens, especially the casual labor, I'd never be able to find enough hands to load the trucks.”

“Well, I won't keep you,” I said, grabbing my purse and rising from the chair. “Is there anything we can do for Mrs. Farrell? I don't ever remember hearing of a Mr. Farrell.”

“Their daddy died in the Iraq War, when they were just little kids. But if you don't mind, you could do me a favor. I had Charlene cash out Darrell's and Duane's last checks. If you wouldn't mind taking the envelope by to their mama. I figure she can use the money and . . . ,” Ralph said, stammering a bit. “Well, you could talk to her better, you being a lady.”

Ralph obviously didn't want to get stuck with Mrs. Farrell crying on his shoulder. But at least it gave me a legitimate reason to go by and talk to her.

“Sure, Ralph. I'd be glad to.”

“Thank you, ma'am. Her address is on the envelope. And Mr. Wayne called the funeral director and told him if Mrs. Farrell needs help with expenses to let him know. He also said we could give the employees time off for the funeral, once the arrangements are made.”

Larry Joe's dad is a piece of work. But deep down he's just an old softy.

I headed out to see Tonya Farrell. I continued along a pothole-studded road for a bit before leaving the semi-paved roads of civilization and making a right turn onto a gravel road. I plunged into the recesses of Delbert County, where a soul can drive for miles without seeing a house or another car. Miles of woods and fields and ancient twisted oaks. And the occasional stray dog or chickens in the road.

Spying a mailbox up ahead, I slowed down until I spotted a dirt driveway leading to the Farrell house. The old farmhouse had a broad porch fronted with a tangle of camellia bushes, which were badly in need of pruning. It could use a coat of paint, but the house looked sturdy.

Tonya Farrell appeared on the porch as soon as I stepped out of the car. Whatever I had expected her to look like, she didn't. She was tall, with shoulder-length bleached hair, and a sleeveless T-shirt revealed athletic arms.

Before I could introduce myself, she said, “You're Liv McKay, aren't you?”