Nancy A. Collins, page 18
“Hope you don’t mind me helping myself, Miz Eddy,” Caroline smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t sleep, what with all the noise-“
“Don’t you never mind, honey. But as long as you’re up, could you do me a favor and reach me down the percolator? Boyd will be needing his coffee soon enough.”
Ten minutes later, the coffee was perking away and Miz Eddy was heating up the griddle while Caroline mixed the batter for flapjacks. Suddenly the thunderous music coming out of Junior’s house stopped in mid-blare.
“Thank heaven for small favors,” Miz Eddy sighed, wiping her hands on a tea towel as she stepped away from the stove. “Sounds like the cavalry has finally arrived.”
Caroline and Miz Eddy put aside what they were doing and hurried to the front parlor in order to look out the window. From where they were standing they could see Royce Boyette’s squad car pulled up in front of the Teeter place. Royce was nowhere to be seen, but the bubble-gum machine on the roof of his car was still slowly flashing red.
As Miz Eddy looked to the house, she noticed that there was a pickup with oversized wheels parked behind Junior’s Camaro in the driveway.
“I should have known Tommy-Lee would be over there,” she sighed, letting the curtain drop back into place.
“Who’s that?” Caroline asked.
“The Shackleford boy,” Miz Eddy answered, heading back to the kitchen. “Talk about trash that won’t burn! I really shouldn’t call him a boy, though. I reckon he must be about thirty-five by now. That’s his mud-buggy parked in the drive. Him and Junior have been friends since junior high. He’s the one that introduced Junior to that Pritchett girl. Lord, Jo-Lynne must be spinning like a 45 rpm record by now.”
Miz Eddy went back to making breakfast without giving a second thought to Junior Teeter. No doubt Royce had pulled the plug on Junior and Tommy-Lee’s little party and was reading them the riot act. While Junior and Tommy-Lee liked to play at being rough and tough, they were pretty much all talk, and Royce Boyette was hardly the type they picked to mouth off to. Leastwise not more than once.
As she was preparing to ladle a second serving of pancake batter onto the griddle, Miz Eddy was surprised to hear what sounded like her porch door slam shut, followed immediately by someone hammering on the front door.
“Caroline,” she said, frowning as she tightened the cinch on her house-robe. “There’s someone at the door. Could you keep an eye on those flapjacks for me and make sure they don’t burn?”
“Sure thing, Miz Eddy.”
Miz Eddy scuffed her way to the foyer in her slippers and peeped through the side-window. She was startled to see the sheriff standing on her porch, looking white as a frog’s belly. She opened the door and waved him in.
“Royce-Lord A’ mighty, boy! What’s wrong-?”
“I-I-need to use your restroom, Miz Eddy,” he said, his voice tight as a drumhead.
“Help yourself,” she said, pointing to the water closet under the staircase.
“Thank you, ma’am.” Royce didn’t waste any time. The moment the door closed behind him, she could hear him getting sick. Miz Eddy headed back into the kitchen to find Caroline was standing in the doorway, looking down the hall.
“Was that Sheriff Boyette I heard talking?”
“Sure was.”
“Where is he?”
“Being sick in the downstairs privy,” she explained. “Caroline, could you do me a favor and reach me down that crystal decanter? The one on the high boy over there? Something tells me Sheriff Boyette’s going to be needin’ a little Irish in his coffee. Thank you, honey.”
A couple of minutes later Royce Boyette emerged from the downstairs bathroom, his hair damp from the water he’d splashed on his face. He stood in the kitchen door, turning his battered Stetson around in his hands and looking somewhat embarrassed. Although Royce was a physically intimidating man, whenever he got around women he became as awkward as a farm boy at high tea.
“Thank you for letting me use your, um, convenience, Miz Eddy,” he said. “If it’s not too much of a imposition, could I borrow your phone? I need to put a call into the Barracks.”
“Help yourself, Royce.” Miz Eddy gestured to the phone resting on its very own little table in the hallway.
“Oh-we took the liberty of fixing you some coffee, sheriff,” Caroline said, stepping forward.
“Thankee kindly,” he smiled weakly, taking the proffered mug. Royce sniffed the coffee and glanced at Miz Eddy, but she pretended not to notice. However Miz Eddy couldn’t help but notice how Caroline’s cheeks flushed as she returned Royce’s smile. She had the look on her face of a woman who wished she had the foresight to wake up with her hair done and make-up already applied.
Royce returned to the hall and picked up the phone. He frowned at it for a moment, momentarily baffled by the rotary dial, and then took it back into the privy, closing the door behind him.
“What do you think happened?” Caroline whispered.
“I haven’t the foggiest-but it must be something serious if he’s having to call the State Police Barracks over in Chicot County.”
“Well, I’m going to run back up stairs and get some clothes on,” Caroline stated, trying her best not to sound too excited. As she hurried up the stairs, she nearly collided with Boyd, who was still in his robe and slippers.
“Mind where you’re going, gal!” he snapped. “This ain’t no Stairmaster!”
“Sorry, Mr. Tilberry!”
Whereas Caroline was Miz Eddy’s newest boarder, Boyd was the oldest. He’d been a lodger ever since the early sixties, when she and her sister Mabel first converted the old homestead into a boarding house. Back then Boyd was still working for the railroad, and after he retired in the mid-Eighties he elected to stay on, largely because no one else would have him, and lived off his pension from the Brakeman’s Union. Boyd wasn’t the sweetest of the Lord’s peas, but Miz Eddy had grown accustomed to him over the years. It was her theory Boyd was such a grouch because he was missing fingers-or parts of fingers-on both hands from his years of knocking boxcars in the switching yard.
“If this don’t beat all!” Boyd grumped as he entered the kitchen. “Gettin’ woke up before the chickens and folks runnin’ up and down stairs like th’ damned house was on fire! All account of that worthless Teeter brat!”
“And a bright and cheery good morning to you, too,” Miz Eddy shot back. “Coffee’s ready.”
“Well, praise God for small favors,” Boyd grumbled, making a beeline for the percolator. Just then Royce stepped out of the downstairs privy and replaced the phone on its table in the hall.
“Thank you for the use of the phone, Miz Eddy.”
“What in tarnation is he doin’ here?” Boyd demanded.
“It’s official business, Boyd-now sit down and have your coffee! How about you, Royce? You got time for another cup?”
Royce hesitated, glancing in the direction of the front door, but it was clear he was in no hurry to get back to Junior’s place. “Well, the Smokies will be here in thirty minutes, give-or-take. And it ain’t like anyone’s going anywheres… So, yes, I reckon I got time for another cup.”
Miz Eddy stared at Royce. So did Boyd, who for once didn’t seem to have anything to complain about.
“Heavens, Royce-what’s happened over there?” she asked in a shocked whisper. “Is Junior-?”
“Daid? Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid he couldn’t get much more if he tried.” Royce glanced about the kitchen. “Where’d Miss Dunlevy go?”
“Back upstairs. She’ll be down directly,” Miz Eddy explained as she refilled his coffee cup. “Now what’s this about Junior being daid-?”
“It’s not just Junior, Miz Eddy. There’s three others in there with him.”
“Land’s sake!” Miz Eddy pulled out one of the chairs from the kitchen table and sat down. Four people dead in one house-at least at one time-wasn’t very common in Choctaw County. “Do you know who they are?”
“Yes, ma’am. I know for certain that two of them are Tommy-Lee Shackleford and Merla Pritchett. And I think the third is Lyla Burnette.”
“That lit’l gal that waits tables out at the Dixie Belle?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Tilberry. I believe so.”
“I knew it!” Boyd grunted, shaking his head. “It’s them gang-bangers what did it! It was one of them drive-bys!”
“How can it be a drive-by shooting if they were all in the house, Boyd?” Miz Eddy snorted.
“Miz Eddy’s right, Mr. Tilberry. I don’t think it was a proper killing. From what I seen, it looks to be an accident. I think they were poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” This came from Caroline, who had made her reappearance in the kitchen outfitted in a blue dress, her hair freshly brushed and with just a hint of make-up on her face. Royce made to get up from his chair, but she waved him back down. “Don’t get up on my account, sheriff. Now-what’s this about poison?”
“All I know is what I saw over there, Miss Dunlevy-and what I saw was awful, no two ways about it!” Royce sighed and rubbed his face-he was trying hard to keep his hands from shaking. “When I pulled up in front of the house, the music was so loud I knew there was no point knocking-no one inside would hear it. So I tried the front door, and it was unlocked.
“The moment I set foot in the house I noticed something strange-something beside the music going full blast, I mean. The place smelt like someone was fixin’ barbecue! Then I see this brand spanking new expensive sound system with speakers the side of steamer trunks sitting in the front room. So I go over and turn it off so’s I could hear myself think.
“Now, I fully expected Junior to come reeling downstairs cussin’ a blue streak and wantin’ to know what happened to his music, but instead there’s just silence. I give a shout out for him and Tommy Lee, but don’t hear a peep. Not even a snore. I look around the front room and I can tell that someone had themselves a party no long before. There’s one of Pappy Pritchett’s jars of shine sittin’ on the coffee table in front of the sofa along with a few of them Scooby-Doo jelly jar glasses, not to mention an ashtray full of cigarette butts and marihuana leavings. So I head upstairs, thinking they might be passed out in one of the bedrooms. Well, I was right. Sorta.
“What got my attention when I made the second floor was this godawful stench, although it took a moment for me to catch wind of it, what with the barbecue smell so heavy in the house. There’s three of them in the master bedroom. They’re all naked and piled together on the bed like gators on a riverbank. And daid as doornails. I didn’t need to touch `em to tell that. Lord! There was vomit everywhere-all over the bed, the bedclothes, the floor around the bed!
“I get close enough to see that the bodies were those of’ Tommy Lee and the two girls and that they’re stone cold daid, each and every one of them. But I couldn’t find Junior. I check the second bedroom and the bathroom, but he’s not in either one of them. So I go back to stand on the upstairs landing, trying to figure out where he could have got off to. Then I glance down and see a small pool of vomit that’s soaked its way into the hall runner. I must have walked right through it earlier, but didn’t notice. Then I see some more splotches of puke on the stairs below me.
“I followed the trail back downstairs. I could see it went through the living room and into the kitchen through the dining room. So I push open the swingin’ door that separates the kitchen from the dining room and the smell of roasted meat is so strong it all but knocked me down. It was like someone was roastin’ a pig: hair, guts and all.”
“Royce, remember that time Fanny Stockard borrowed my stove to roast that rabbit her husband shot without gutting it first? Lord, I thought we’d never get the smell out of those drapes!” Miz Eddy interjected.
“Yes, ma’am,” Royce agreed. “It was just like that, only a hundred times worse. Well, the first thing I see in the kitchen is Junior Teeter’s hairy heinie pointed in my direction. The man’s slumped, buck naked, over the top of the kitchen range. It looked to me like Junior was tryin’ to fix some coffee to sober him and his friends up when he succumbed to whatever it was kilt the others. I say that on account of the big old-fashioned coffee pot layin’ on the floor and water and loose grounds spilt all over the linoleum-not to mention more of that nasty-lookin’ vomit. The kind that’s green and yellow with blood mixed in.
“I call out Junior’s name real loud, hopin’ maybe he ain’t as far gone as the others, but he don’t stir. So I step forward and reach out to roll him over, to see if he’s still alive-and-and-” Royce’s face lost what little color it had regained as he replayed the event in his mind. “And his arm come off in my hand.”
Everyone gathered around the table gasped if someone had stolen all the oxygen in the kitchen. Royce took a long swallow of coffee before finally continuing.
“Junior, he must have turned on the range top-it’s electric, you see-and then he blacked out and fell across the eye. He…he was done all the way through, from shoulder to mid-chest. He must have been cookin’ like that for hours. His arm came away as easy as a turkey leg.”
“Lord-how awful!” Miz Eddy said as she patted Royce’s hand. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was best she could do under the circumstances. “If it had been me, I’d have fallen out on Junior’s drive in a dead faint!”
“Don’t think I didn’t come close,” Royce said with a weak chuckle. “I’ve seen my share of stuff, husin’ off the highway after wrecks-but nothing quite like that! I just let Junior’s arm drop on the floor and stepped away, kinda dazed like. Then I turned round and saw the icebox standin’ open with the jars of shine inside. I figger Junior and them got hold of a bad batch.” He glanced at his watch. “I best get back there. The Smokies are gonna be pullin’ in soon, along with th’ meat wagon. I appreciate the coffee, Miz Eddy and the, um, use of your facilities.”
“Are you sure you’re going to be all right, sheriff?” Caroline asked. Royce actually blushed. He smiled and bobbed his head, and for a moment the horror of what he had just gone through was a thousand miles away. “I’ll be fine, Miz Dunlevy. Although its kind of you to ask. I’ve learned to try and not let these things get to me, if I can.”
Miz Eddy snagged the lawman’s arm as he stepped out of the house and onto the porch, causing him to turn back to look back at her. “Royce—?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If Junior and the others was long daid by the time you got there …who was it that turned on the music?”
“That’s a good question, Miz Eddy,” he replied grimly. “One I’ve been askin’ myself as well.”
000
The rest of that morning was one of the busier ones in the neighborhood’s history. Once the State Troopers and the undertaker’s hearse showed up, the neighbors came out of their houses and stood on their lawns in their robes and slippers, watching from a safe distance as the official types hurried in and out of the Teeter place.
Once Miz Eddy finished with breakfast, she threw on a housedress and a pair of slippers and took up a vigil from her porch. Boyd soon joined her, still in his bathrobe and slippers. Since he was working on his fourth cup of mud, he was half-decent company.
“Lord, wouldn’t Jo-Lynne have a fit if she was here to see them walkin’ through her flowerbeds like that?” Miz Eddy sighed, shaking her head as the umpteenth police officer tramped through what was left of the tulips.
“What do you reckon they’ll do with the bodies?” Boyd asked, craning his neck as best he could as the last of the dead was shoehorned into Josiah Wallace’s hearse. Since Choctaw was such a small county, and without a proper hospital of its own, the funeral parlor served as the county morgue, when need be, with Josiah the coroner of record, although he was without proper forensic schooling. Whenever the sheriff or the state police needed tests done, they usually brought in a pathologist from the university in Monticello.
“They’ll have to autopsy them, I reckon.” Miz Eddy frowned and peered over the top of her spectacles at Boyd. “Funny thing, though. When’s the last time you heard of someone poisoned by shine?”
Boyd sucked on his dentures for a long moment. “Can’t rightly say. It’s been awhile, that’s for certain. I haven’t heard tell of any bad squeeze since the War. Those Pritchetts might eat their peas with a knife, but they sure know their way round a still. Then again, accidents do happen.”
“I reckon so,” Miz Eddy sighed, although something about the way she said it made it clear she wasn’t convinced.
Boyd glanced up in time to see Sheriff Boyette break away from talking to Josiah Wallace and trot towards the boardinghouse. “What’s he want now?” the old man commented sourly.
“Hey, Miz Eddy. Hey, Mr. Tilberry,” Royce said, touching the brim of his Stetson in greeting.
“Hey, Royce,” Miz Eddy replied. “Something wrong?”
“No, ma’am. I was just hopin’ I might impose on you one more time. Since Junior didn’t leave no kin, I was wonderin’ if you would be good enough to pick out something for him to be buried in? Normally, Josiah would handle it, but he’s up to his ass in alligators, what with this being a multiple death and all.”
“Sure thing, Royce. It’s the least I can do for his mama and daddy, rest their souls.”
“Thanks, Miz Eddy. I’ll have my deputy escort you through the house once everyone’s had their fill of fingerprintin’ and photographin’.” As Royce prepared to leave the porch, he paused for a second and looked about. “Um-where’s Miss Dunlevy?”
“Caroline had to go on to work, I’m afraid. She said she had to give evidence in a domestic abuse case being heard over in Monticello.”
“Oh. That a fact?” Royce said, nodding his head so as not to show his disappointment. “Leastwise Choctaw County’s keeping her busy. Well, tell her I asked about her.”
