Dead on the Bayou. June Shaw
exhaled as Eve rang the bell. Who would speak first, her or me? What would I say? Certainly Eve was wrong about thinking we might question him so soon about possible people who might have killed his mother. This was a time of grief, not a time for us to thrust questions at him.
Sorrow shot through me when the wooden door inside opened. Royce stepped closer to the outer storm door that was glass with the bottom half screened, and I waited for him to open it. We could just stay in the doorway to express our sympathy unless he invited us inside.
“You!” Beyond the glass, he thrust a finger at me. “I can’t believe you would come to this house!” His reddening face looked like it might burst into flames.
“Why not?” Eve asked, as I’d thought of doing, although I couldn’t get words to shake out of my mouth.
“Or you either!” He aimed his finger at her.
“Royce, we are so sorry about your mother. She was a kind woman,” I said, although I actually had seen no evidence of her kindness. And I didn’t understand his fury although he was probably experiencing mixed emotions, sadness, and anger. “We wanted to pay our respects.”
“Yes, and ask if there’s anything we can do,” Eve said.
His chest rose. “You’ve done enough. You helped.” He thrust his finger back at me like a weapon. “But you’re the one who killed her!”
Chapter 5
I shook my head, unable to wrap my mind around Royce’s accusation. “What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t do anything,” Eve said.
He thrust his finger at one, then the other of us. “You are both horrible people. Don’t ever set foot on this property again and don’t speak to me.” He leaned close to the glass. His stare speared my eyes. “I hope they give you the death penalty!”
As I muttered incoherent words, he slammed the wooden door. I stood in place trembling. Eve and I gripped each other’s hands as we had done when we were young children, and stepped across the lawns, not saying a word until we entered Eve’s house.
She got us cans of Diet Coke and Sprite, and we sat in her kitchen. “So the police told him we found his mother. Surely he might think we could have killed her,” she said.
I took a big swallow of my soft drink, determined to shake off inner discomfort from the accusation. “Okay, here’s what I’ve got. I went to see Mom, but she and her buddies were all going off in different directions so she didn’t have time to visit with me. Right before they scattered, I asked whether any of them knew Mrs. Wilburn. None did, although I don’t think they all paid attention to my question. But once I got in my truck, a guy came up and said he’d heard me asking about her, and she’s his aunt, and nobody in their family likes her. I’m sure he hadn’t heard that she’d died.”
Eve leaned forward, eyes wider with interest. “So who in their family doesn’t like her? Maybe there’s someone with a motive to kill her.”
“He didn’t say.” My words made her lean back. “But he’d gone there to visit his grandmother, and I found out her name.”
“Maybe we can get information from her,” Eve suggested the same thing I’d considered.
“It shouldn’t be hard to find her in there. First we’ll have to give her time to learn about the death and start to process her grief.”
Eve’s phone rang. She looked at the caller’s name and didn’t change expressions to show whether she was pleased or dissatisfied. “Hello.”
“Isn’t this Twin Sisters?” The man spoke loud enough to be heard in the next town.
“Yes, it is. And I’m Eve Vaughn. May I help you?” A smile came to Eve’s voice.
“Do both of you use sledgehammers and things to knock down walls?” The tone intensified.
Eve and I grinned at each other. “We do,” she said.
“Great. I need y’all to do that by Thursday.”
“Thursday.” She lifted an eyebrow at me, asking if I thought that might be possible.
I answered with a one-shouldered shrug. Maybe my doctor would give me permission to start working again by then, but with the numbness remaining in my shoulder, I doubted whether I could wield a sledgehammer so soon.
Eve opened the door to the cabinet where she kept writing supplies. She took out an order pad and pen. “Would you want to give me your name and the location of the building you’d want work done on? My sister and I can go and check it out.”
“And y’all can start now?”
“We can.” Eve and I shared a look of relief. “We can’t do the actual work with the sledgehammers ourselves right now, but we can use subcontractors who will do that.” She pressed the tip of her pen down, ready to write.
“Wait.” The word spewed through Eve’s phone slammed across the room, making me draw back my head. “You’ve seen that show on TV where that little woman has a work crew, but she rams those big sledgehammers through people’s walls herself?”
“I have seen it.” Eve spoke with a nod. “So your address? And your name?”
Only a second passed. “Lady, I love that show and to see that tiny woman ripping out walls. I wanted to see you and your sister do that.”
Eve and I shared a huff. “I can slam through a wall for you,” Eve said. “But my sister had a little injury. She wouldn’t be able to use both arms, but—”
“Oh, never mind. That was a stupid idea we came up with. We’ll just go on to the Netherlands Friday and leave that wall the way it is.”
Silence when the man hung up spread like a salve to my wounded eardrums and certainly to Eve’s. She put her pen and pad away and sat at the table with me, my expression surely as gloomy as hers. I was to blame for us being unable to take on most jobs at this time. Thinking of that made my shoulders droop. Until I remembered I didn’t cause any of that problem. The person who shot me did.
My mind raced to someone else. “I’d like to know what’s happening with Dave.”
“I know. I wish he’d call and tell me how he is.”
Having her voice the same interest I had in him dulled my spirit, making me determine I needed to pull back from showing how much I cared about him since right now, having him free and not behind bars was our shared concern. We needed to keep the police assured that we weren’t involved in that death either.
Eve checked the clock on her wall. “I sure wish it wasn’t so late. I want to call Nicole and see how the baby is.” Her sad eyes turned to mine. “I want to talk to him.”
“And hold him.” I stood and gathered her in my arms. “I’m holding you.”
She pressed her head against mine, arms staying at her side. A minute later, they came up around me. We held onto each other, sharing inner pain that came from the same source and different sources. Everyone needs at least four hugs a day, I had once heard an expert on behavior say on a talk show. If each person received four hugs, the world would be a much happier place.
“I’m going home to eat,” I said, letting her go.
“I didn’t realize it was so late. You could eat here.”
I grinned at that suggestion. She did the same. She wasn’t the person who cooked in this family. I didn’t fix big meals often since I lived alone and didn’t eat too much, but my fridge always held more choices than Eve’s did with her diet food. In my head, radishes and lettuce did not constitute food. This was the Deep South, by gosh, and I adored all of our southern dishes. Maybe that’s why Eve stayed a bit slimmer than I did. She loved them, too, but didn’t eat rich food as