“Doesn’t work It’s just for looks,” said Rosalie, “Nell don’t have a phone.” Hancil was out on the porch blowing smoke rings. Through the screen door I heard him call out a name. Mary.
I glanced at the drawings again. The top one was of a lone, cute dragon with a cloud of thought. Inside the cloud children were holding hands with the dragon, riding on his back laughing. There was no clue as to the identity of the artist. “Was someone else here, a child?” I asked.
Hancil answered through the screen door. “Nell’s niece. She—”
“I’ll tell it, Hancil!” Rosalie was twisting the handkerchief in a tight spiral. “We were goin’ on vacation, just got packed, then she, Nell’s little niece, rode to the trailer on her bike all out of breath. Said Nell was in trouble, said Nell was plumb smashed up under some heavy thing. When we got here, I knew there was no way Hancil and me could lift it, I watched a half dozen men carry it in here months ago. See, Nell lives in the back of the antique shop and she bought that walnut thing to put in her bedroom, but it wouldn’t fit in the back door so she had ’em take it up the stairs through the little hallway that leads to the back. Trouble was, it wouldn’t fit through that door either, so she had to just leave it there at the top of them stairs.” She took a breath and checked her nails. Pink.
“We have to call somebody, report the death,” I said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “And we need to find the girl.”
The handkerchief fluttered. “Hancil!” He hopped out of the way as she shoved through the door. I followed in her wake of dime-store perfume. “You stay here and wait for the girl while I run to the trailer and call somebody. Uh, thank you—” she said to me.
“Marcy Murdock. I live in town, in Deerfoot.”
“You kin to the lawyer?” Rosalie stopped digging around in her purse and made eye contact with me.
“Late husband.”
“Small world, ain’t it?” I felt her sudden twinge, a connection she was making behind her mossy green eyes. “I believe we can take care of everything here.” She rummaged through the purse. “Hancil’ll wait,” she said as if that were my cue to leave, which I had no intention of doing. Not with Nell lying unattended under my drawer full of sacred and undeniable truths and a frightened child on the loose.
Rosalie brandished a pink rabbit’s foot key chain and was headed toward the El Camino. “Tell the sheriff to bring three strong deputies,” I called.
The body had been removed, and he’d heard the whole story from Rosalie Sikes Timmons and her newly wedded husband Hancil. Sheriff Don Earl Keck paced across the wide front porch of Nell’s Elegant Junk, then propped his black shoe on the crate where I sat. And I was ready. Ready for “There’s no murder here, Marcy,” or “You can go on home to your spy novels now, Marcy,” or perhaps “My, my, my, you do get around, don’t you, Marcy.”
But all he said was, “What do you think?” with what sounded vaguely like respect. I could smell the Juicy Fruit gum he was folding into his partial plate while I searched for an answer.
“I’m worried, sheriff,” I said. Not an hour had passed since I’d seen Nell Hopper’s palm and wrist, lifeless, the only visible sign of her body caught beneath Jeb’s humongous piece of walnut.
He nodded thoughtfully, gnawing the gum while I took the privilege of speaking my mind a bit farther. “First, there’s the question of how, Don Earl. How did it happen? How did—”
“Furniture doesn’t move all by itself,” he said. I agreed. Then he stood up and motioned me to the edge of the porch out of earshot from Rosalie, who was telling Hancil how to smush out his cigarette. Don Earl’s voice was as deep as a toad’s. “That’s what I was thinking, Marcy, but it could have been an accident. Nell could have been trying to move the thing herself—”
“Or somebody could’ve pushed it down those stairs on top of her.”
He bristled. Murder was sometimes complicated, and Don Earl was not a complicated man. Also, he hated being interrupted, but I couldn’t help it. “We need to question the girl if she turns up,” I said. Another faux pas. It sounded too much like an order. I couldn’t help that either.
He placed a thumb in his black leather holster and walked over to the squad car with a bothered look. Rosalie and Hancil were rearranging suitcases, a lamp, an ironing board in the back of the El Camino. “She’ll turn up,” said Rosalie to everybody, holding up a can of something perspiry wrapped in the handkerchief. I wondered if they were still going on vacation.
I could barely see the stepback through Nell’s front windows. It was propped at the bottom of the stairs now, an upright angular blob. No one had been allowed in the shop after the sheriff had arrived, and I hadn’t had a chance to tug on my bottom drawer.
I heard the static of the squad car’s radio as the sheriff put out an ABP on Nell’s niece. “No trespassing, Marcy,” he said before I hopped in Jeb’s truck and drove away.
I remembered my date with Clint Knuckles and spotted my stowaway at the same time. Her small sunburned arms and ponytail loomed from the brown canvas in back of my truck like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. I gently hit the brakes and pulled under a shade tree on the side of the road. She dodged my reflection in the rear view mirror.
I got out of the truck, checking off my mental list of what else could go wrong today. “Are you okay under there?” I said. “It’s awfully hot. You can ride with me in the truck if you want to.”
I was drumming my fingers on the side of the cab.
She threw the canvas away and sat up, perspiration dripping from her flushed face. She looked down the road toward Nell’s place. “What about Aunt Nell? They get that thing off her?” Her voice was slightly hoarse.
“Yes, honey. They got it off.” I knew better than to ask all the questions reeling through my head. Why didn’t you come when we called? Don’t you know better than to hide in a stranger’s truck, I could’ve been an axe murderer for heaven’s sake? “By the way, I’m Marcy,” I said.
She ignored my offer of a handshake, squinting from a square of sunlight that fell between the tree limbs. “I don’t wanna go back there. You live in town?” she asked.
I hesitated. Not that I don’t like kids. I do. I used to be one. But I did have that date with Clint, and I wasn’t running a babysitting service, and even if I was, I didn’t see anybody handing out five dollar bills.
“Don’t you know where you live?” she said, shading her face with a little hand.
“I do, um, live in town,” I said out of pure guilt, shifting my feet. “You like ice cream?” I added.
She shed the canvas, climbed over the truck’s gate, and said, “I’ll have a popsicle.”
Her name was America Joyce Brumbeck, but everybody called her Merry, like Merry Christmas. And she had just turned eight years old. Other than that she didn’t say a word the rest of the way back except to tell me Ed’s Dairy Cheer had color-change popsicles in Neon Lime, Tutti Frutti, and something I understood to be Mega Melon Fizz. I watched while she slurped and dripped a Neon Lime all over the seat of my truck, then with her sticky fingers tucked strands of light brown hair behind her ears.
I followed her up my office steps noticing the popsicle smudges on her backside where she’d wiped her hands. She plopped down behind Jeb’s desk, pried a folded-up drawing and a key from her denim shorts pockets, and unwrinkled the drawing, leaving her lime fingerprints around the border. Another dragon, this time with sneakers and an umbrella. She found a pen and started to draw, adding ears and claws. Her ponytail moved from side to side as she concentrated, another claw, another scale. The light brown strands fell around her face.