When Did We Lose Harriet? Part 26

"I'm sorry. I'm investigating Harriet Lawson's death, and I had a few questions to ask her." I waited a minute, hoping she'd fall for the bait.

Rachel tugged her bathing suit down over her large backside and swung around to sit up on her towel. "That was really awful, wasn't it? I mean, you don't think something like that could happen to anybody you know."

"You knew Harriet, too?" I sat in one of the white plastic chairs that circled the pool.

Rachel brushed back a strand of long lank hair and said doubtfully, "Sort of. I mean, she was a year younger than us, and she hadn't been at Julie's long, but sometimes when we were listening to music, or going to the mall or something, she'd like, you know, be with us."

I nodded. "I understand. She wasn't exactly a friend, but you knew her."

Rachel nodded earnestly.

"Well, I'm trying to get a picture of the last day anybody saw Harriet. Tuesday, June fourth. Was Julie with you that day?"

Rachel's eyes flickered, then she lowered them and reached for a tube of sunscreen. Slowly she started rubbing it into her thick calves.

"Was she?" I prodded.

"That's a long time ago," Rachel muttered without looking up. "I don't know if I can remember that far back."

"It was the first week school was out," I prompted. "That first Tuesday."

Rachel shrugged. "I really can't remember. We probably hung out together."

"Up at the lake," I said, as if reminding her.

"How'd you know?" she demanded. "Who saw us?"

I'd been guessing, but I know guilt when I see it. "Never mind that. Were there boys with you?"

Rachel jumped, then nodded reluctantly. "A couple. From school. Just friends, like."

"Did you go to Julie's grandmother's house?"

"No." Rachel sounded glad to change the subject. "We go up there all the time, but not that day. Have you been there?"

I shook my head. "Just to drive by. Now, Rachel, I have a very serious question."

She went pale and swallowed. Tears filled her eyes. "I can't tell. I promised! Okay? I can't tell!" She leaped to her feet and dove into the pool.

I went to the poolside and knelt to meet her when she surfaced. "Rachel, listen. I-"

She submerged and swam to the deep end with long, sure strokes. I started to head around the poolside to meet her when she needed air, but we could play that game all day.

I cast a quick look at the house. Her mother was not in view. Quickly I kicked off my shoes, knelt on the side of the pool, and toppled in. The water felt so good I could have stayed all day, but I wasn't there for fun. I started toward her with long sure strokes. Rachel watched me with astonishment. I guess it never occurred to her that grandmothers can swim.

As I got closer, she opened her mouth. "Don't you shriek," I told her grimly. "I don't give a darn where you and Julie were that day-although it sounds like it's something you're pretty ashamed of. What I want to know is, did either of you see Harriet that Tuesday?"

"Harriet?" It wasn't at all what she expected. "No, ma'am! I didn't see Harriet after school was out. And I know Julie didn't see her that day. She was with me the whole time."

I heard a sliding door open. "I was on the side of the pool talking to Rachel, and fell in," I explained sheepishly to Rachel's mother as I pulled myself up a ladder. I accepted her offer of a towel, refused an offer of dry clothes, and drove thoughtfully home. On June fourth, Harriet hadn't been the only missing child whom n.o.body knew was gone.

On my way home, I thought over everything I knew. As I put things in order, I saw I might have had something backwards all along. If I turned it around, one thing was frighteningly clear. I knew who could most likely have killed Harriet. And if I was right, given the way she'd been found, I knew how.

"What on earth happened to you?" Glenna exclaimed when I dripped in through the back door.

Joe Riddley heard, and left Jake and ESPN in the den to join us. "Looks like she decided to swim and couldn't wait for her suit. That right, honey?"

I glared at him. "I was talking to a child who kept insisting on swimming away from me. There was nothing to do but follow her. And you had the motel key, so I couldn't get in our room for dry clothes." I held out my palm. He fumbled in his pocket and handed it over.

Glenna fetched me a dry towel. "At least take this. Oh-Carter called. They talked to William, and now they've taken him downtown for questioning."

"What did you find out about Julie?" Jake called as his game broke for a commercial.

"Rachel says they didn't see Harriet all day, and I believe her. The two of them were up at the lake that day with some boys from school, doing something they don't want their parents to know about. From the looks of poor Rachel, it was more likely drugs than s.e.x."

"So that's one down and how many to go?" Joe Riddley inquired. "Or have you decided who killed Harriet yet, Little Bit?"

"I'm afraid so. I'm not absolutely positive, however, so I won't tell you yet. And I don't know how to prove it if I'm right. I just have one idea. Let me see what you all think about it, then I'll go change my clothes."

Glenna pulled up another chair, Jake turned off the television, and I told them.

"It might work," Joe Riddley admitted when I was done. "If Carter cooperates."

"Leave Carter to me," Glenna said, a look in her eye I had never seen before.

"We'll tackle Lou Ella, too," Jake offered. "Glenna can call and tell her to get herself over here to see me."

"Do that," I told them. "Meanwhile, I'll go see Eunice, Dee, and Claire Scott."

"I'm going with you," Joe Riddley heaved himself up from the couch. "I don't want you driving my car again. You must've already soaked the driver's seat."

"We haven't even seen mine yet," Jake grumbled. "First it was getting Clara's dents out, then it was hauled down to the police station. Next thing we know they'll be putting it in the Smithsonian."

"You should be honored," I told him. "It's not everybody whose car is chosen for three burglaries."

Eunice Crawley was at work, scowling at a computer screen. "Good afternoon," she greeted us. "I got so far behind being out so much last week, I'll never get caught up. What can I do for you?"

I introduced her to Joe Riddley, then said, "I just wanted to give you the latest news on Harriet."

Eunice sighed. "Seems like I can't stop thinking about her and poor Myrna. Hadn't seen neither one of them for years, then suddenly they're all I think about. It's no wonder I don't get my work done."

"Well, there may be something happening about Harriet this evening or tomorrow. A Biloxi man has come forward who says he was in town and up in the cemetery when Harriet was-and he saw something!" I waited for her to react.

"Do tell," she breathed. "What was it?"

"I don't know, but he's coming back up to Montgomery this evening, and h.e.l.l talk to the police tomorrow. Maybe we'll know something after that."

She leaned forward eagerly. "He saw it? Why didn't he say anything *til now?"

"Maybe he didn't realize what was happening, or maybe finding the body didn't make the Biloxi papers. Anyway, he's coming in late tonight and going straight to the Marriott, but he'll talk with the police in the morning."

I'd told myself and told myself I was making up a story, not lying, but my voice still shook. My son, Walker, who took a lot of drama in high school and college, swears lying is just like pretending you are in a play. Given some of his shenanigans growing up, he ought to know. However, I never was in a play, so I added, "I'm sorry to sound so wobbly this morning, but a good friend of ours went to the hospital yesterday, and he's still unconscious." Forgive me, Lewis, for using you like that.

"I'm real sorry to hear it." Eunice rested on her forearms. "What about Myrna-did this man who's coming kill her, too?"

"He didn't kill anybody," I explained again, exasperated at having to lie some more. "I think he just saw something." I took a sc.r.a.p of paper out of my pocket and laid it down on Eunice's desk so I could see it without my reading gla.s.ses. "All I know about him is his name, Thomas Wilson, and that he'll be staying in room 214 at the Marriott."

Eunice looked at Joe Riddley and said in a voice that, in other circ.u.mstances, would have made me proud, "Your wife sure does beat all. Where does she get the energy to run around in all this heat? It's not like Harriet was her kin or anything." She turned back to me. "But I know how you feel. I keep thinking I ought to be doing something, too, but I wouldn't know where to start."

I stood up. "Well, maybe we'll know something after they've talked to this man."

We conveniently forgot the paper on her desk.

Next we drove up to Claire Scott's. "I don't have to actually see Claire," I told Joe Riddley. "I just need to leave the paper for her."

Claire's mother was watering her black-eyed Susans, wearing the same pink print dress she'd worn the first time I saw her. "Looks like a feed-sack dress," Joe Riddley said out of one side of his mouth as he pulled close to the curb, "just like our mamas wore."

"My mama never wore dresses made from feed sacks," I protested.

"Your mama's husband didn't own a feed store. Howdy, ma'am." He raised his hat. "I'm Mr. Yarbrough, and this is my wife. We came-" He stopped and let me take over.

"We've come about Harriet again."

The old woman tucked a wisp of white hair into her straw hat and contemplated us with her light blue eyes. "I heard she was dead. Will they be having a memorial service, do you know? I feel I kinda owe it to Bertha Lawson to go, being as she left Harriet in Claire's care, so to speak."

"I haven't heard about a memorial service," I told her, "but I did hear that the police have a good lead on the person who killed her."

The woman flung her head up, surprised. "Killed her? I thought she caught flu or something, sleeping out. Ran away from Dixie, I heard."

"Yes, she did run away from home, but we're pretty sure she was killed on purpose."

"Lordy, who'd do a thing like that?"

I shook my head. "The police aren't sure, but they think they have someone who can help them, a witness who was up at the cemetery that afternoon." I fished in my purse for a second sc.r.a.p of paper and held it out far enough to read. "Here's his name, Thomas Wilson, from Biloxi. I think he actually saw or heard something. He's staying at the Marriott tonight in"-I peered at the paper-"room 214, and he'll talk to the police in the morning. I thought Claire might like to know. Would you give her the message?"

"A man's coming up from Biloxi to talk to the police. I surely will. And I hope they catch whoever it was." She splashed water angrily onto a bed of begonias near the walk. "It ain't right to take the life of a child."

As I headed back to the car, I accidentally dropped the paper on the gra.s.s.

"She picked it up and put it in her pocket," Joe Riddley informed me as he got in. "But stick to the nursery business, Little Bit. You'd never make it on Broadway. Where next?"

When we parked on Dee's driveway and crossed William's soft lawn, a curtain moved slightly at the living room window. Dee came to the door as pretty as ever in a blue flowered skirt and white top with a long string of gold add-a-beads around her neck. Her lipstick was blurred, though, and her mascara had run when she cried.

She stood back to let us in without even asking who Joe Riddley was, then quickly shut the door behind us. "Laura, you just won't believe the terrible thing that's happened. They've taken William down to the police station for questioning! They think he's been in touch with Myrna sometime recently, and I'm terrified they..." Her voice broke. She was obviously frantic. Poor William wasn't pretty, and he might not always be strictly honest, but his wife loved him. "And then reporters started calling-even the television people. I'm so glad you're here!" She collapsed on my shoulder.

She wouldn't be so glad later, I thought sadly, giving her an awkward hug. I hoped she'd never learn how many of their notions the police were getting from me.

"How're you holding up?" Joe Riddley bent down and asked kindly.

"Just barely," Dee moaned. "The television reporter was downright rude. Wondered if she could put me on the evening news. When I didn't recognize your car, I almost didn't answer the bell. Are you Laura's brother?"

When I introduced them, her surprise wasn't a bit flattering. Apparently it hadn't occurred to her I was married. Especially not to such a nice, handsome man. And as worried as she was, Dee couldn't help turning on the charm for him. Her blue eyes widened pitifully. "Nothing this awful has ever happened to us. Those reporters are just ghouls!" She led the way to the sunroom. "Thank G.o.d, Julie's over at Rachel's. I can't decide about calling her to come home. I don't like to worry her, but it will be awful if she hears it from somebody else. I don't know what to do."

I was tempted to suggest she call. Miss Slyboots could stand to be found out once in a while. In fact, it would probably be good for her. I felt a twinge of unexpected compa.s.sion. Maybe Julie's main problem was that n.o.body ever told her mother on her. Dee wasn't such a doting parent that she'd refuse to discipline the child, nor was Julie really bad-just used to getting away with things.

However, no matter what Joe Riddley might tell you, I don't always jump into other people's lives with both feet. I knew this was neither the time nor the place to worry Dee with anything else. She had enough on her plate without having to call all over town trying to find her daughter.

For one thing, she had suddenly remembered she was a Montgomery hostess. "Please sit down. Can I get you all a c.o.ke or something?"

"No, thanks." I took a chair, and Joe Riddley sat down gingerly on the love seat, perching on the front of his cus.h.i.+on as if afraid the wicker couldn't stand up to his two hundred pounds.

"How could anybody think William..." Dee's voice trembled and stopped. She settled herself on the chaise, arranged her skirt, and looked at us with eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears.

"Have you talked with a lawyer?" I asked matter-of-factly.

She nodded. "He said he'd go down to the station at once."

"Well, I hate to ask this, but do you think William killed Myrna?"

"Of course not! He didn't even know Myrna. I don't think they'd met more than two or three times. Besides, William wouldn't kill anybody." She fiddled with her beads.

A car roared up the drive. A door slammed, and a key rattled in the kitchen lock. "Dee? Dee! Are you here?" Nora started talking before she reached the sunroom. "What did you mean by that message you left on my machine about William?"

I waited a bit nervously to see what Dee would say, since it had been me who left the message-holding my nose and sniffing to sound like I was crying. However, Nora went right on talking without waiting for a reply. "And why should he-Oh! I didn't realize you had company." She stood in the doorway, slim in pale white slacks and an orange and yellow top. Why hadn't that woman's hips slid south when the rest of ours did?

And whom did she think Joe Riddley's silver Town Car belonged to-the yard man?

"h.e.l.lo, Nora," I said. "I came by to give Dee some news, and she's been giving us some instead. This is my husband, Joe Riddley Yarbrough." I almost said "Judge Yarbrough." There was something about Nora that made me want to impress her. Perhaps those hips, or the way her hair still looked so naturally red. I realized just in time, however, that if I said "judge," Nora and Dee might expect things of Joe Riddley he couldn't deliver, and he'd practically kill himself trying. He can be hard on our boys, but pretty women make putty out of him.

Dee sighed. "I was just telling Laura and her husband, Nora-William's been taken to the police station to answer questions about Myrna, and I've been perfectly besieged by reporters. You can't imagine how tacky some of them were."

Nora sat down suddenly in a straight chair. "What on earth do they think William knows about that woman?"

Dee shook her head. "I have no idea. He didn't call me, his secretary did. She said the police asked him some questions about his trip to New Orleans last spring, then asked him to come downtown with them." Her voice trembled. "You know what that means. It means they think William ki-ki-killed her!" She burst into tears. Joe Riddley reached for a tissue and handed it across to her, although she could easily have gotten it herself.

I thought we'd better get on with our business and leave. I could tell by his expression what he was thinking: Little Bit, how could you even think one of these delightful ladies could kill anybody? I've always said it's a good thing he's a magistrate and not a trial judge. No woman in Hope County would ever get convicted except the loud, the rude, or the ugly.

I reached into my pocketbook, pulled out a sc.r.a.p of paper, and repeated what I'd told Eunice and old Mrs. Scott. Nora, who is no dummy, pooh-poohed the whole idea of somebody coming forward after all this time, but Dee s.n.a.t.c.hed up the paper and looked at it like she'd like to memorize what it said.

She didn't need to do that. I left it on her wicker coffee table.

When we got home, Glenna poured us each a gla.s.s of tea and got us settled in the den, then she and Jake sat down with us to compare stories.

"Carter called," she told us. "William admits running into Myrna down in New Orleans in early May, and telling her that Harriet's grandmother and father had both died and left Harriet-to quote Carter-'a bundle.' William said he figures Myrna came back to get her hands on some of it. He swears he didn't kill her, though, and has employees at his store who can testify he was there the day she got shot. Carter also asked him about why he was paying Harriet, and he says he never touched her-that one day they were in the kitchen and he just b.u.mped into her, but she accused him of trying-you know. Anyway, he says he wasn't, but he gave her an allowance because he felt sorry for her. I was so glad to hear that."

"Yeah, right," Joe Riddley muttered under his breath.

Jake rubbed his hands together, a sure sign he was nervous. "We had a good visit with Lou Ella, too, but we can't tell you everything she said. It boiled down to this: she found out on Monday, June third, how bad William's business is doing, and she got real upset."