Up Jumps the Devil

23

« ^ » The worst growth of Indian corn in good land is 200 bushels for every bushel sown, the best betwixt 4 and 500 for one.“Scotus Americanus,” 1773

As I drove through Dobbs, maintenance workers were maneuvering the town’s cherry picker along Main Street, putting up Christmas decorations in preparation for the Santa Claus parade on Saturday.

After three years and four separate hearings on the matter, the town Board of Commissioners had finally agreed to throw out our ratty old red-and-white candy canes and buy new green tinsel wreaths with big red plastic bows. Each four-foot wreath held a fat red tinsel candle with what looked like a yellow light for the candle flame. One was being attached to each lamppost and it looked as if the commissioners had even sprung for green tinsel swags to loop across the street.

Out at the Kmart, shopping carts were loaded with the schizophrenia of late November: bags of sale-priced Halloween candy were wedged in beside Thanksgiving Pilgrim candles and Christmas lights and wrapping paper. Carols were playing over the intercom and most of the store clerks were wearing red Santa Claus hats.

I ran into three people from church before I was even inside good. Reese and his sister Annie Sue were buying Pepsis at the snack bar by the door.

Reese gave me a sheepish smile that meant he was willing to bury the hatchet if I was. “Ma says we’re getting together out at Granddaddy’s this Saturday?”

“Yeah. You don’t happen to know what shade her blue cups are, do you? I’m supposed to get plates and napkins.”

Reese looked blank but Annie Sue thought they were royal. “More like Duke blue than Carolina.”

When I got to the paper goods aisle, Pete Grimes was there eyeing paper snack plates like a big brown bear who couldn’t decide between acorns or honey.

“We’re having some folks over to watch football Thursday,” he said. “You reckon I ought to get these with the NFL teams or the Thanksgiving ones?”

“Merrilee would probably rather have Thanksgiving ones, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” His big paw scooped up a couple of packs and put them in his cart next to several bags of chips and liter bottles of soft drinks.

“Were you and Merrilee able to make arrangements for Mr. Jap?”

“Yeah. She was talking with Allen this morning. They decided to just have a graveside service. Tomorrow at three. Out at Sweetwater. They’re going to lay him between Aunt Elsie and Dallas.”

“It’s a sad time for Merrilee, losing Dallas and now Mr. Jap.”

“Well, it is,” he agreed, but a nimbly growl escaped him. “I don’t know why he couldn’t have told her while he was alive that he appreciated her. She was always so good to him and he always acted like she didn’t have nothing better to do. It would’ve meant so much to her.”

“Sometimes old men don’t think.”

“Well, I just wish he had’ve. And I been wanting to thank you for telling her about that will he didn’t get to sign. It sure means the world to Merrilee and I don’t believe Mr. Lee would’ve said anything if we didn’t tell him you already told us.”

Uh-oh. I’d be hearing about that slip of the tongue from John Claude.

Pete added some yellow napkins to his cart. As he trundled away, he said, “Visitation’s tonight at Aldcroft’s. Seven till nine.”

Kidd and I were going to spend Thanksgiving together and since I hoped to be halfway to New Bern before this time tomorrow, I told Pete I’d try to make it that night.

I found some blue plaid plates and matching napkins and got enough for fifty people, just to be on the safe side. There were only about thirty-five of us in the area, but some of the kids might bring friends.

Paper plates and napkins were all I was obligated for, but we were going to be eating in the potato house and it wouldn’t matter where the shells flew, so I picked up a ten-pound bag of peanuts roasted in the shell. Herman loves them.

Over the store intercom, announcements of a blue-light special on Halloween costumes (“Stock up for next year at sixty percent off!”) competed with “Joy to the World.” I pushed my cart through aisles crowded with goods and people, adding hairspray, a rawhide chew bone for Hambone, and some other odds and ends until I arrived at the checkout counter with too many items for the express lane.

I cruised the other lanes looking for the shortest line, and nearly ran over Jack Jamison, who seemed to be lurking instead of shopping. The rookie detective gave me an embarrassed smile and melted back into the crowd of shoppers. Eventually I wheeled my cart into line behind a very pregnant young woman with short brown curls whom I recognized a split second before she remembered me.

“Judge Knott, is it?”

I smiled and nodded. “And you’re Mrs. Wall?”

“Yes, ma’am. Jenny Wall.”

It’s no big deal to be called ma’am by receptionists, salesclerks, and men of all ages, but it always comes as a fresh shock when a younger woman does it to me automatically, meaning only respect. (At one time or another, we’ve all done it with bitchy intent to slightly older women.) Makes me feel ancient. On the other hand, if I’d gotten married at sixteen as some of my classmates had, it was quite possible that I could be the mother of an eighteen-year-old like Jenny Wall and nine months on my way to being a grandmother.

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.

Jenny Wall had seemed so happy an hour ago, buying things for their house, thinking they were out of debt, looking forward to their first Christmas together with their first baby. This was going to shatter her.