Grandmothers expect to be ma’am’d.
“You look like you’re about done with your Christmas shopping,” I said, realizing that the reason this line was shorter than the others was because she had two carts piled high and nobody likes to be behind that much stuff.
One cart was full of newborn-baby goods, the other held toaster oven, microwave, food processor, VCR, a set of dishes and other household items.
“No, ma’am, not really. This is stuff for the baby and for the house that we’re just now able to get. We don’t use credit cards any more since we got out of debt and this is the first chance I’ve had to come shopping since Billy finished selling his corn.”
I’m always amazed by how much some people will tell total strangers. But then I realized she probably felt I was already involved in their personal lives since Billy had aired their financial difficulties in my court.
“I hope Billy took care of Mr. Thornton’s bill?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. First thing Saturday morning, before he went to see Mr. Stancil. And wasn’t it just awful about that poor man? Billy hates it so bad. He won’t even talk about it. It’s like he feels it’s part his fault Mr. Stancil got killed. Because of the money and all. Have you heard when the funeral’s going to be?”
“I just ran into his nephew. He says the visitation’s tonight and burial tomorrow afternoon at Sweetwater Baptist.”
“Poor man,” she said again.
She was carrying the baby so far out in front that I stepped around and helped unload her two carts onto the moving counter.
“When’s the baby due?”
“Middle of December’s what the doctor says, but Mama thinks it’ll be sooner than that. I sure hope it’s before Christmas. I’m getting awfully tired of being pregnant.”
I couldn’t imagine someone that swollen lasting another month and gave her an encouraging smile.
Her total came to over six hundred dollars and she counted out seven bills from a thick wad in her purse.
“Have a nice Thanksgiving,” she said shyly before hurrying after the bag boy who was rolling her carts toward the front entrance.
“Ma’am,” called the checkout clerk, waving a register tape at least two feet long. “You forgot your receipt.”
“I’ll give it to her,” said Jack Jamison, who’d suddenly reappeared at the end of the counter.
It seemed to me that he gave the grand total a good hard look before he caught up to little Jenny Wall.
On my way out of the store, I was stopped first by one of Aunt Zell’s friends who had a message for her, then by a clerk from the Register of Deeds office who wanted me to admire her new baby.
When I finally got outside, I was surprised to see Jenny Wall still standing on the curb.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Billy’s getting tires and shocks on the truck and they told him it’d be ready by—” She brightened. “Yonder he comes now.”
This Kmart was one of the superstores that encompassed a tire and auto repair shop, too. As we watched, Billy’s shabby old truck came rumbling out of the near bay, sporting a glossy black set of brand-new tires.
I smiled at him as he pulled up to the curb and came around to open the door for his wife. “Baby’s got new shoes, hmm?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He seemed uncomfortable meeting my eyes, not an unusual reaction from someone who’s had to stand up and be judged by me.
I didn’t prolong his discomfort, just wished them both a happy Thanksgiving and merry Christmas and went on out to my car.
But after I put my packages in the trunk and drove briskly away from my parking space, I didn’t go very far. Just circled past several rows of parked cars until I was up near the entrance of the crowded parking lot where I slid in beside a dark blue van.
A few minutes later, Billy Wall’s truck lumbered up to the stop sign, then pulled out into the late afternoon traffic.
Detective Jack Jamison was two car lengths behind it.
With heavy heart, I drove back over to the courthouse.
Dwight was still in his office.
“You fixing to pick up Billy Wall?” I asked.
“Now how the hell did you know that?”
“I saw Jamison following Billy and his wife over at the Kmart just now.”
“You don’t miss a damn thing, do you?” He pursed his lips in exasperation, then gave one of his oh-what-the-hell? shrugs. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. It’ll be all over the county by tomorrow morning. Yeah, we shut down Curtis Thornton’s gambling operation this afternoon. Wall’s one of the ones that was in to him pretty heavy. He’s not a bad kid. We’re hoping if we lean on him a little, maybe we can get him to testify against Thornton.”
“What? Curtis Thornton runs a gambling operation?”
Now it was Dwight’s turn to look surprised. “You didn’t know?” He cocked his head at me. “Then why’d you think we were after Billy?”
Dwight’s a smart detective. He connected my dots in half a second. It took me about three seconds longer to do his.
“Well, that bastard!” I said. “Using the courts to collect his gambling debts.”
“Huh?”
“That’s what Thornton’s IOU chits are, aren’t they? He makes the losers sign bad checks for nonexistent goods or services he’s supposed to have provided as the operator of a tire and service business, right?”
“Whoa now, we didn’t get that far.”
But I was on my high horse and riding. “And then if the losers don’t make good before he puts their checks through, he comes to court when they bounce to get us to put the pressure on. Talk about brass balls!”
“Billy,” he reminded me.
That brought me down in a hurry.
“C’mon, Deb’rah. What do you know?”
“Billy Wall was in my court two or three weeks ago,” I said reluctantly. “Curtis Thornton brought charges against him for bouncing checks. About fifteen hundred dollars, if I remember right. They said it was for new tires and some engine work on Billy’s two-ton truck. I knew Billy was going to be selling Mr. Jap’s ornamental corn for several thousand and I told Thornton he could wait till then. He’s always taking bad checks and running to us and I thought maybe he’d start being more careful if I made him wait a little longer for his money. It never occurred to me that those so-called rubber checks were really IOUs.”
“And?” Dwight asked inexorably.
He knows me too well.
“And Billy didn’t buy new tires till this afternoon. At the Kmart. Billy’s wife was there, too, buying out the store. She spent almost seven hundred dollars and it barely made a dent in the stack of bills she was carrying in her purse. And there was Jamison watching them both. What was I supposed to think?”
He nodded grimly. “Just what I’m thinking. He was into Thornton for so much that he couldn’t really afford to give Jap Stancil his half of the money. Now what do you think would happen if he asked Stancil to wait a little longer?”
“Mr. Jap was too fired up about refurbishing that old garage of his,” I said. “He wouldn’t want to wait.”
“So Billy smashes him with a tire iron, keeps the money, and tells everyone he paid the old man and left him well and happy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Dwight. He really seemed to like Mr. Jap and his wife says he’s all torn up about the murder.”
“He wouldn’t be the first killer that wished he could take it back as soon as he’d done it.”
“Besides,” I argued, “why would he break into the safe?”
“Maybe he’d signed chits for the old man.”
“Then all he’d have had to do was hand the money to Mr. Jap, wait till he opened the safe, and then kill him.”
“Maybe he didn’t remember signing anything till it was too late. Maybe he thought there was more money in the safe. Hell, I don’t know, Deb’rah. You want to stay around and ask him?”
“No,” I sighed, even though his question was purely rhetorical.