62
Hearsayist
As I walked up the street to the Rainbow Café, I saw, of all people, Ree-Jane coming down the steps of the courthouse. Upon seeing me, she stopped. She did not cross the street to say anything; she merely stood there, pointing at me and laughing. Even as far away as she was, I could tell it was one of her fake, soundless laughs, but she really acted as if she would split in two with it. She had done this before, of course, but she hadn’t done it coming out of the courthouse. What was going on? Who had she been talking to?
Shirl gave me a blistered look when I walked into the Rainbow (she being another one unaffected by my fame). I made my way to the back booth, slower than usual, as the counter sitters kept stopping me to comment. Mayor Sims enjoyed telling me that maybe I should be sheriff instead of Sam (ha ha ha), whereupon Ulub, sitting next to him, gave him a verbal thrashing, or as near as Ulub could get to it. We were so pleased with ourselves we nearly knocked Ubub off his stool with all of our friendly pats and punches. Patsy Cline was singing “Crazy.”
Maud brought me a Coke. It was nice, always being fed by people. It almost made me want to be a wandering orphan or a matchstick girl, for then I would really have appreciated it.
I hadn’t seen much of Maud in the last several days because the reporters (and the police) had kept me so busy answering questions, and because there’d been this big increase in business at the hotel. Today, I had been let off serving lunch when I’d told my mother I had really important business to attend to. Such are the benefits of being a celebrity that my mother had neither questioned the business nor why it was important.
Will certainly questioned it, since I would be missing another rehearsal. “You’ll never get anywhere in the theater if you can’t be serious about it.”
“Why do I have to rehearse, for heaven’s sake? All I do is come down on that swing thing.”
“It’s the timing, for fuck’s sake.”
I refused to lower myself to tell him he’d just said the f-word. That was really more because I wanted to say it myself and waited for him to pave the way. Yet, he said it so calmly, and without emphasis, that you’d think it was just another old word. Maybe it was.
“What timing? Mill just lowers the contraption with me on it. That’s all.”
Will put his hand to his head and groaned a little as if weary of dealing with amateurs.
“You producers are all alike,” I said. “Temperamental, egotists, rude. Really fucking rude.”
I turned away and marched off, the tart taste of the word on my tongue.
Maud said, putting down my Coke and her cigarettes, “You look as if you’re holding up pretty well.”
“Outside I ran into Ree-Jane.”
“Everyone calls her that, now.” Maud lit up a cigarette. “It’s hysterical.”
“That’s what she was. Hysterical, I mean. She was laughing at me, pointing and laughing. It’s like she knew something. And she was coming out of the courthouse.”
“But she does that—I mean, you’ve said she laughs at you just to make you think the way you’re thinking now: that she knows something, when she doesn’t at all.”
“Still, I’d like to see the Sheriff.”
“Well, honey, your prayers are answered, for here he comes now.” She looked toward the counter, where the Sheriff was stopping to talk to the Mayor.
The Sheriff broke out a smile so beaming it was like my Florida vacation all over again, but I was too suspicious of what Ree-Jane had been doing in the courthouse to appreciate it.
“Why was Ree-Jane in the courthouse? Were you talking to her?”
He frowned. “Nope. All I did was pass her outside, just a minute ago. I’d say she was talking to herself. Laughing to herself. Does she act like that often?”
I could have gone on at length about her actions, but I was focused on the most recent. “Well, if she wasn’t talking to you, was she to Donny?”
“Donny knows better than to discuss police business.” The Sheriff looked a little concerned, now.
Why would he think about “police business” in relation to Ree-Jane’s weird behavior? I didn’t like the sound of this.
Neither, apparently, did Maud. “And just what ‘police business’ does Donny know not to discuss, which he would discuss anyway, if it made him look at all good to discuss it?”
I leaned up against the edge of the table hard enough it dented my chest, waiting to hear him answer.
“Nothing. There’s no new evidence. Nothing.”
“Evidence? Evidence of what?” I demanded. “You know everything, more or less, and I can repeat every single word to you of what Isabel said. She admitted she shot Fern Queen. She admitted they murdered Mary-Evelyn. You said her prints are all over that gun.”
It was rare for the Sheriff to look uncomfortable, but he did now. “That’s right. Of course, so are Ben Queen’s prints. We still haven’t found him, even though—”
Wide-eyed, I literally fell back in the booth with a thud. “Ben Queen’s prints? Why are you concerned about Ben Queen’s prints?”
The Sheriff looked down, frowning, as if he’d expected to see a cup of coffee there.
Maud said, “Sam?”
She knew. So did I. “But it’s over. It’s solved! I told you—” Then it hit me square in the face and I stood up in the booth, jammed between table and seat. “You don’t believe me. I told you everything. You don’t believe me!”
“Listen, Emma—” the Sheriff began.
I said to Maud, “Let me out, please.”
Immediately, she rose and I all but threw myself out of the booth.
The Sheriff looked really unhappy. “Emma. It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s just that in police work there’s something called hearsay—”
Maud shook and shook her head. “Oh, for God’s sake, Sam.”
I glared at him. “You’re telling me about police work?” I turned and walked off.
But I heard Maud say to the Sheriff something I couldn’t imagine her ever saying to him. She said it calmly, without accent, the way Will had said “fuck.”
“Asshole.”
I had a coin out and as I passed the jukebox, now silent, I plugged it in and stabbed a button for Patsy Cline.
Let him fall to pieces for a change.