“If you ask me,” Miss Ludey interjected, “it was that nutty niece of mine.”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Wanda. The crazy one.” Miss Ludey leaned forward, talking in a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s not quite right in the head. Haven’t you seen her gallivanting around town, dressed like Elvis Presley? It’s downright embarrassing.”
I didn’t think Miss Ludey should be casting fashion stones, but I declined comment. My mind was on the odd interconnections that sew this town together. Miss Ludey was kin to Wanda and Ivalou? I hadn’t known that.
“Wanda’s your niece?” Candace asked, her chastisement of me momentarily suspended.
“Great-niece. I mean that in a genealogical sense. She’s never been that wonderful of a relative.” Miss Ludey picked a fragment of pie crust out from between her teeth.
“Miss Ludey, did you know Rennie Clifton?” I asked. Candace shot me a look (I was, after all, daring to investigate right in front of her), but she remained quiet.
“Well, sure I did. I knew her mama, and I met Rennie when she was in school. I used to substitute-teach sometimes.” This was another unknown episode in Miss Ludey’s history, and I tried not to think of her shaping young minds, even on a transient basis. “She was a very pretty girl. She could have had her pick of any of the colored boys. But she was sweet on Glenn Wilson.”
“And Wanda was dating him?” I prompted.
“Oh, yes. Wanda wasn’t dressing like Elvis then, but she was still a peculiar girl. She told me that she and Glenn were bound to get married after they graduated from school and they’d go off and work at Disneyland. She wanted to be Snow White and greet people in the park.”
It was certainly a fascinating career path that Wanda had planned for herself, but it wasn’t what I was interested in. “And Wanda was aware of the attraction between Glenn and Rennie?”
“Oh, yes. I heard her and her mother talking about it once. Wanda said she wasn’t going to put up with a nigger taking her man away.” Miss Ludey sniffed. “I have always found Wanda to be rather offensive in her choice of language. I should have read to her more when she was little.”
“And how did Ivalou feel about all this? After all, she was Rennie’s boss. She could have fired her.”
“Oh, Wanda insisted on her mother firing Rennie. But Ivalou pointed out that if she kept Rennie busy at the flower shop, then Rennie wouldn’t have time to be out sparking with Glenn. And Ivalou told Wanda she needed to learn how to keep Glenn from straying.”
“Just how’d you know all this, Miss Ludey?” Candace asked, a trace of skepticism coloring her tone.
“I overheard them at Ivalou’s flower shop, not long before Rennie was killed. Wanda and Ivalou were arguing about it in Ivalou’s office on a day Rennie wasn’t working. I’d come in to order flowers. My mama’s birthday was coming up and I always put flowers on my mama’s grave for her birthday and for Christmas.”
“Your memory seems rather keen on the details,” Candace said, not unkindly.
“My dear,” Miss Ludey answered with a dose of asperity, “how many times do you hear two relatives discussing a black girl who is about to steal one’s man? It wasn’t a conversation I was likely to forget.” Candace was quiet, glancing at me.
“You said this was right before your mother’s birthday, Miss Ludey. How long before Hurricane Althea was that?”
“Barely a week.” Miss Ludey answered without hesitation. “I found it a trifle disconcerting that Wanda and Ivalou had that discussion about Rennie and then the poor child ended up dead.”
“You didn’t think one of them-” Candace began.
“When Ivalou said she wasn’t going to fire Rennie, Wanda stormed out of that office and shoved right past me without even saying hello. She had the fire of hell in her eyes. And when I walked into Ivalou’s office, she looked downright icy. I asked her what Wanda had her panties in a wad about, and Ivalou just said it was business she- meaning Ivalou-would have to take care of for Wanda. Ivalou didn’t know I’d heard as much as I had.”
“But Rennie Clifton died in a hurricane, Miss Ludey,” Candace said. I shook my head at her. Some people are still clinging to outmoded notions in Mirabeau.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Miss Ludey said. “Our whole family had decided to wait out the hurricane together at my brother Ralph’s house, and Ivalou and Wanda both didn’t show up until after the storm was over. Ivalou got there about an hour after the storm had passed, and Wanda showed up about three hours later. Ralph was frantic about them both. But all I know is, Rennie Clifton was dead, and Glenn Wilson broke up with Wanda less than a week later. I sometimes wonder if that poor boy didn’t suspect.”
I bit my lip thoughtfully. Candace was not so trusting in Miss Ludey’s veracity.
“And why didn’t you say anything twenty years ago?” she demanded.
“Well, dear, one doesn’t like to think that one’s relatives could be murderers,” Miss Ludey said. I could well understand her attitude, having been caught in that same moral dilemma in recent days. “And everyone said that Rennie’s death was an accident. I didn’t have any proof. I still don’t.”
“Yet you’ve decided to speak up now?” Candace pressed. Note I didn’t intervene in her investigating.
“Well… I don’t want to sound selfish. Ivalou and Wanda are my closest living relatives, and they want to put me in a nursing home. Honestly! Me, and I’m as sharp as the day I was born. They just think I’m nuts ’cause I don’t care if my clothes match and I like to papier-mache my walls.” Miss Ludey snorted derisively at this lack of perception among her kinfolk. “I figure if those two got skeletons in the closet, now’s the time to air ’em out. I don’t think they could put me in a nursing home from prison, do you?”
I stuck my face in my hands. How much of this Ludeyesque tale to believe? She’d just frankly admitted to a strong motive to belittle Wanda and Ivalou and claimed detailed memories of conversations that were two decades old.
“So why don’t you tell this to the police?” Candace demanded.
Miss Ludey gave my beloved a disapproving look. “The police aren’t investigating Rennie Clifton’s death. Jordan is. Do try to keep up, dear.”
“Is there anything else you remember, Miss Ludey?” I asked, not looking toward Candace for fear I’d crack a smile.
She thought. “No, except that Wanda suggested that if Ivalou didn’t fire Rennie, maybe Ivalou could get Hart Quadlander to fire Rennie’s mother to teach ’em a lesson.”
“What sway did Ivalou think she had over Hart?”
“My dear. Ivalou has been chasing unsuccessfully after Hart Quadlander for years. Hart is kind to her but doesn’t encourage Ivalou in her pursuit of him.”
I shuddered. “Yuck. Neither would I.”
“You haven’t painted a very kind picture of Wanda, Miss Ludey.” Candace crossed her arms. “You must not care for her at all.”
Miss Ludey stiffened. “I didn’t choose to be related to Wanda. And I don’t mean to shock. But it’s not a lie to say I consider her and her mother most unlikable.”
The phone rang. I dove for it. A thunder of feet on the stairs told me Mark was coming down. He peered expectantly at me from the staircase.
I listened to my sister’s voice, holding my breath. I told her I’d be right over.
“It’s Junebug,” I told the others. “He’s awake.”
15
He lay in a tangle of wires and tubes. Machines bleeped at his bedside, monitoring vital functions. A massive bandage covered one side of his shaved head. I leaned close to his bristly face, peering down into his angry eyes.
“Shot me,” Junebug whispered at me. “Son of a bitch shot me.”
“Yes, I know.” I leaned closer. “Who?”
“Jordan, don’t tire him,” Barbara Moncrief ordered. “He doesn’t know who it was, and that’s what’s making him mad.”
I’d gotten to the hospital to learn Junebug had been conscious for nearly an hour, had started speaking coherently in short order, and after being repeatedly fussed over by doctors, had seen his officers, his mother, and my sister and had asked for me. (Sister was of the opinion that he wished to make sure I was not in trouble.)