One thing I didn’t think about was who would be lounging around in the Nut House that time of day. There was Miss Ethelred and Freda Cromwell, big as life and twice as loud. And didn’t Ethelred lean back on the heels of her run-down shoes and squeeze her eyes almost shut when Hunter and I walked in.
“So you got another murder on your hands, Deputy. Telling you, listen to Freda and me here and you’ll have this thing solved. Now some stranger’s dead. Who do you think, but gun runners are doing it? I’ve got something to show you here.” She opened her black bag and pulled out a folded newspaper, thrusting it toward Hunter. “Take a look at that article. Houston Chronicle. Says they caught men in Galveston setting up a gun deal. Bet you didn’t see it. So stands to reason that’s what we’ve got going on in Riverville. Bet anything that man you found dead killed Eugene trying to get the guns out of there and now the other runners got him. Probably kept the money he was supposed to give Eugene. So easy, if you just look at things right.”
“You really think Eugene Wheatley was that kind of man? That he would even know men like that?” I couldn’t keep quiet. Hunter was too polite and it drove me crazy.
“Maybe you should stay out of this, Lindy. Leave it to the professionals.” Ethelred turned away from me, her broad back a wall I wanted to thump as hard as I could thump.
Freda, beside her, elbow high, nodded and grinned at me. Freda had the kind of eyes that light up like little penlights and stay on you until you think you’re going to go blind.
Hunter shook his head and smiled. “Well, ladies, I sure do appreciate all your help, but the thing is, the courts want us to find proof before we go around arresting people.”
“Look for those gun runners, I’m telling you.” Ethelred turned to Hunter. “You’ll find all the proof you want. Bet anything they’ve got messages they’ve been sending between them. Might be in some other language, but I figure you’ll know somebody who can speak Colombian or whatever.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Hunter tipped his head. “I’ll keep all of that in mind.”
“Humph,” Ethelred said and crossed her arms in front of her. “Do as you like, but you’ll be sorry when people keep dying around here.”
Meemaw came from the kitchen and rescued us, inviting us back for coffee and one of her just-out-of-the-oven pecan rolls, which sounded wonderful, but Hunter suggested we go up to my apartment to talk. Somehow the Nut House leaked gossip like a sieve.
Treenie Menendez came from the kitchen to take over for Meemaw with the customers. I saw her eye Ethelred and Freda and purse her lips. “You go on, Miss Amelia,” Treenie said, almost gleefully. “I’ll clean this place out pretty quick.”
And I bet she would—pretty quick, moving Ethelred and Freda to the rocking chairs on the front porch so she could sweep or mop or some excuse to get them out of there.
Meemaw brought the hot pecan rolls up with her. She knew the quickest way to Hunter’s heart was through his love of pecan anything. I could see her watching the two of us in my tiny kitchen, eyes going back and forth until she knew it was real and then her face lit up—at least we were friends again. She set a huge pecan roll—dripping with glaze and tiny bit of pecans running over the cinnamon and sugar, and dough as light as a cloud—on a paper plate for each of us.
“So here’s where we stand,” Hunter started when he could talk again. I had to reach over to pick pecan bits out of his chin whiskers. There was no taking him seriously looking like a kid who got caught stealing from the kitchen.
“You heard that dark man was found dead this morning, over to the Watsons.” He was talking to Meemaw. “Shot once. We got the bullet. I heard from ballistics a little time ago. The bullet’s not from the same gun that killed Eugene.”
“Didn’t expect that,” Meemaw said, a worried look moving over her face. “We don’t usually have a whole lot of killers going around Riverville shooting people. Now we’ve got two.”
“Could be the murderer just used a different gun on Eugene.”
“Could be. But I kind of doubt it. Jobs like that, you’d want a gun you’re familiar with.”
“Then, like I was telling Lindy, I’m looking close at Billy Truly.”
She dropped her head into her hands for a minute, thinking, then thumped her hands on the table, jiggling her cup. “How about Sally’s death? Could Eugene’s and Sally’s deaths be connected?”
“That’s what Lindy was asking. I’ll get on that one, though Sally’s death was ruled an accident at the inquest. Be hard to prove different now. Too many miles and too many years between all of this.”
He looked over at me. “Like I said before. I got two phone calls. We got a hit on the news program. Miss Lydia Hornbecker called the station, said she recognized the man we want information on. He was rooming at her boardinghouse. Said his name is Henry Wade. Wrote on her register he was from El Paso. Been with her a couple of weeks now.”
“Lydia Hornbecker?” Meemaw sat back. “I’ve known Lydia since I first came to live in Riverville. Worked together a hundred times on bake sales for the church. Lydia makes the best apple pie you ever tasted. Almost beat me out in the pie contest at the fair a couple of times. Why, I’d love to go talk to Lydia. Had to take in borders since Sam died a few years ago. But she’s got a flair for takin’ care of people. I’d like to see her, if you’re heading over there and you don’t mind.”
And so the three of us were sitting on Miss Hornbecker’s veranda a half hour later, going over her register of boarders and listening to her description of Henry Wade as a nice man who never caused her the least bit of trouble. “Cleaned his room for himself so all I had to do was change his bed every couple of days and give him fresh towels. You know, Miss Amelia, I found these dryer sheets that puff towels up like brand-new. Be happy to write down the kind, if you want it.”
Meemaw was, of course, interested, but a little more interested in Henry Wade.
“Did he say he knew anybody in Riverville?” Meemaw asked as Hunter made notes.
Miss Hornbecker thought awhile. “Henry wasn’t a talkative man, ya know. Kept to himself mostly. I didn’t ask him questions ’cause I thought that would be pryin’.”
“Did you notice anything in his room that wasn’t right, when you did go in there?”
She thought again then shook her head. “He kept his room neat as a pin. Nothing ever layin’ around like some people. You wouldn’t believe how sloppy some are. And not just the men. Why, I’ve had women stay here leavin’ a trail of powder behind them. Lipstick smears on the towels. I asked one to leave after two days because the smell of her perfume went all through my house. You wouldn’t believe how I was sneezin’. Took me days to clear it out.”
“Everything in his room just the way he left it?”
She nodded. “Saw the picture on the TV and knew enough to leave that room locked until you got over here.” She was talking to Hunter.
“You mind if we go up?” he asked.
“Sure. All three of you, if you want. What you’re gonna find is what he brought here with him. One suitcase. A long leather case—think it has to be a shotgun. I asked him and he told me he’d been hunting before he got to Riverville. Oh, and some kind of case I took for one of those computer things. Never asked me about Internet or anything. None of that password stuff. But y’all go on up and take a look. Only thing is, Hunter, you take anything out of there, I need some kind of receipt. There might be relatives coming and I don’t want to be accused of stealing.”
With that agreement, we made our way up a narrow staircase leading from the back of the house. Our weight made the stairs creak. Hunter’s boots landed with heavy thuds that brought other boarders to their doors as we passed. That meant explaining again what we were doing there. A couple of the women seemed struck dumb when they heard a murdered man had been living amongst them.
Curly’s room was bare but serviceable and neat. The bed was covered with a homemade spread made of different-colored quilt squares. I was willing to bet some of them were from collections Miss Hornbecker inherited from long-dead relatives. Next to the bed was a nightstand with a swivel lamp on it. There was a mahogany dresser, a chair and a floor lamp, and a small desk with one of those green bank lights sitting on top. The room was as neat as Miss Hornbecker had said. Nothing out of place. Nothing lying around. Nothing personal anywhere to be seen. I figured the dresser drawers and closet, maybe the bathroom, were the only places we would find anything.
Hunter nodded to Miss Hornbecker and told her we’d be down with a list of things we were taking. He had to back her out of the room. I could see she was reluctant to leave us alone rummaging through things she might be responsible for, but she got a promise from Meemaw not to make a mess and was gone, stopping along the hall, we heard, to reassure the other boarders things were under control.
The closet yielded the most: a suitcase tied with straps, something like a duffel bag. There was a computer case with an Apple computer in it, along with pads of notes and drawings. And there was that gun case, holding a rifle. Hunter didn’t pull it all the way from the case.
“AR15,” Hunter said, holding gun and case in his hands. “The military uses them. SWAT teams. Uses full metal jacket cartridges—like the gun we found in Eugene’s gun room. It’s accurate at a pretty good distance. Could be the one we’re looking for.”
He set the gun against the wall. “Fingerprints first,” he said. “Then we’ll get it to ballistics.”
He wrote the gun down on the list for Miss Hornbecker.
“I’m taking everything,” he said. “The man’s dead. Who knows what we’ll find here? Maybe the names of people he worked for . . .”
“Are you buying into what Ethelred Tomroy and Freda Cromwell are saying?” Meemaw gave him a shocked look.
“’Course not, but I don’t know who he is, where he’s really from, or why he was hanging around town. Didn’t have a driver’s license on him when he died. No Social Security card. Nothing.”
“Then let’s go through everything here,” Meemaw said.
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t let you go through anything, Miss Amelia. I’ll get in a whole heap of trouble with the sheriff if I do that. I’m asking you to just note what I’m taking out and wait to hear what we find. I promise I’ll let you know.”
“I’m standing here now.” Meemaw fixed him with one long look. “One peek isn’t going to mess up anything.”
“It’s not so much me stopping you, Miss Amelia. It’s about the defense attorney when we get whoever killed him. He’ll be throwing fits if he knows you two were even up here.”
She nodded and I agreed. There was the future trial to think of.
“Then you’ll let me know what’s here as soon as you find out yourself?” Meemaw gave in and Hunter agreed, giving his word. “The sheriff knows what a help you’ve been to us in the past. He’s not going to mind—long as we follow procedure when we have to.
“Tell you one thing,” he went on. “I’ll get deputies out talking to the waiters and such from the party. See if any of them know anything about this Henry Wade.”
“Back at the Nut House you said you got two phone calls,” I asked before leaving. “What was the other one?”
Hunter gave me a sheepish grin. “Forgot to tell you. Your mama called, said you weren’t answering your phone. That Dr. Franklin was out to your ranch wanting to talk to you. He was going to wait awhile . . .” Hunter looked at his watch. “That was two hours ago. Guess he’s gone now.”
I could have been mad at him, but I wasn’t. “Let him wait. I don’t much like the man and don’t have a clue why he keeps hanging around me. Seems he’s taken to Elizabeth Wheatley. He’s with her every time I see her now.”
Hunter nodded, both abashed and satisfied at the same time. I guess jealousy isn’t something any of us want to admit about ourselves.