Who Let That Killer In The House? (7 page)

When she could stand it no longer, she felt her way down the wide hall toward Garnet. She didn’t see the lightning outside the hall window because her eyes were squeezed shut. Heart pounding, she fumbled for Garnet’s doorknob.

The door was locked.

That was so unexpected, she opened her eyes and stood very still. That’s when, behind the door, she heard Garnet sobbing.

Hollis stood for what seemed a very long time, feeling like she’d stepped to the edge of a bluff and it had slid out from under her.

Hesitantly, she knocked. “Garnet, are you okay?”

Garnet’s voice was muffled. “I—I stubbed my toe on the leg of my bed. It really hurts. But I’ll be okay.”

“Can I come in?” Lightning flashed again in the window at the end of the hall and Hollis panicked. She cried out like she was six, not sixteen, “Please, Garnie! Lemme in!”

The door clicked and swung open. Garnet held out her arms like she used to when they were small. “Oh, honey, don’t be scared.” She stroked Hollis’s hair and murmured over and over, “I’ll take care of you. It’s gonna be all right. It’s gonna be all right.”

Hollis felt her sister’s warmth up and down her body. She had no idea how long they stood there, pressed against each another, mingling their tears.

6

If I’d had any sense Wednesday, I’d have stayed in bed.

The day started all right, with breakfast on our screened side porch. My pink climbing roses were mostly finished, but the scent of the few remaining ones made for a mighty pleasant meal. I was picking up my pocketbook to leave for work when Clarinda arrived. She’s worked for us for over forty years, so I can judge her mood by the way she comes through the door. That morning I took one look and asked, “Who ate your candy?”

Clarinda huffed, to show that working for anybody so insensitive was real hard on her. She thumped her pocketbook on the kitchen closet shelf and tied on her apron before she announced, “You gotta talk some sense into that girl.”

“What girl?” I checked the mirror on the closet door. I like to look nice when I go out.

Clarinda propped fists on her sizeable hips. “That Yasheika. Ronnie says he never gets to see DeWayne anymore. They were supposed to go fishing this comin’ Friday night, but now DeWayne says he can’t go because they’re having practice and then he’s takin’ Yasheika to Augusta for dinner to celebrate her birthday. He invited Ronnie, but Ronnie said he won’t eat with that adder—that’s what he calls her because he says she’s so puffed up with herself. Not that he says that to DeWayne, of course.”

“Of course not.” I fluffed my hair. “Ronnie’s got some sense.”

Clarinda huffed. “He’s got a lot of sense. But he’s all the time moping around the house these days, on account of that girl interferin’ with his fun.”

“She’ll be leaving in a little while.”

Clarinda huffed again. “However long she stays is too long. Ronnie says she is one french fry short of a Happy Meal—all the time talking about getting her daddy out of jail.”

I turned, surprised. “I didn’t know their daddy was in jail. For what?”

“I don’t know, but Yasheika swears he’s innocent and she means to prove it.”

“Everybody in jail is innocent, to hear their family talk.” If I sounded disgusted, I was. “I got hauled out of bed at three this morning to go down to the jail for a bond hearing. Man broke into a dry cleaner’s and stole a whole lot of clothes. Last night, his mama was down there crying and carrying on, claiming he’s a good boy and it’s all his wife’s fault, because she spends too much money. Speaking of money, did Ronnie go see Buddy about a job? I forgot to ask.”

“I noticed. But yeah, Buddy offered him a job. Ronnie’s supposed to start tomorrow. But that ain’t gonna solve my problem. I got to live with Ronnie, and I hate to see him mopin’ around. You got to do something. Talk to her. Tell her to find herself some girlfriends, that menfolks need some time without women around. You’ll know what to say.”

“It’s none of my business,” I pointed out. “Yours, either, if we come right down to it.” The look Clarinda gave me was exactly the look I suspect Mary gave Jesus after he told her the empty wine barrels at that Cana wedding weren’t his business. It had the same effect, too. I knew good and well that before the day was out, I’d have called Yasheika on some pretext or other and tried to tactfully suggest that men need some time together without women around.

First, though, I wanted to arrange some new rosebushes and bedding plants on the sidewalk in front of our store. Hopemore has wide, old-fashioned sidewalks, and colorful plants make our place real pretty.

I finished, stepped back to admire my work, and ran smack into somebody. I staggered like a drunk and fell against a big, soft chest. Two large arms steadied me. “Sorry,” said a gruff voice above me. Morning breath overpowered the scent of roses.

I turned and saw I was in the arms of Tyrone Noland. He turned bright red and dropped his arms at once. I stepped away and patted my hair. “Thanks for catching me. I need one of those beeper things for when I’m backing up.”

“It’s okay.” He looked half-asleep. His teeth were yellow and dirty. His dyed hair hung limp beside his face. His black pants were wrinkled and slung low on his hips, and his black T-shirt and khaki jacket looked like they’d been used for dog bedding.

“How’ve you been keeping yourself?” I took a step back so I could breathe fresher air.

“Not real good.” He looked at the ground and shuffled one thick shoe.

I found the way his socks drooped over the high tops of the shoes a bit endearing. Walker’s socks used to droop just like that. “Looks like you could use some sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m headed home to bed. Been playin’ video games with friends all night.” The way he’d said “friends” was boastful, like he wanted to make sure I knew he had some.

On impulse, I said, “I’m not real crazy about that crowd you’re running with these days.”

He shrugged. “They’re all right.”

“They’re trouble, and you know it. Don’t you let them get you into trouble.”

“No, ma’am. I won’t.” He picked up one foot to amble on, then put it down again. “Judge, do you think Hollis—” His voice cracked on her name. He cleared his throat and started over. “Do you think the girls on the team ought to be hugging and kissing Mr. Evans?” His eyes were very blue against his black hair. “You think it means anything, like—you know?”

I did know, and I didn’t think so. “It was just because they won the game. It’s okay, Tyrone,” I said firmly. Unconvinced, he slouched down the street. I went to the office to justify my existence to Clarinda by calling Yasheika.

In the way things happen, the phone rang before I dialed. “This is Yasheika Evans. Could I come by and talk to you for a minute?” Her voice was breathy, with a pleasant rasp.

I couldn’t help picturing an adder speaking with just that voice, but I banished the image and said, “Sure, honey, that would be great. Anytime this morning is all right. I’ll be right here.”

She got there so fast, I suspected she’d called from her cell phone in our parking lot. She tapped at the plate-glass window in our office door and came in looking dainty and pretty in a yellow sundress and yellow and turquoise sandals. Not adder-ish at all.

“Have a seat.” I waved her to the wing chair by the window.

She got right down to business. “I hate to bother you, but I don’t know who else to ask. I need to find some records from a trial that happened in this county twenty years ago. Gerrick Lawton was accused of murder.”

I sure was glad a deputy interrupted us right then with a warrant to be signed. I didn’t know what to say—not because I didn’t remember, but because I did. Right that minute, Gerrick Lawton was serving a life sentence for killing a ten-year-old girl in the Confederate Memorial Cemetery behind her house.

The Lawtons were another old family in Hope County, their lives intertwined with that of the Tanners for many generations. The difference between them was that the Tanners’ ancestors came to Georgia with Oglethorpe as convicts, but later generations had managed to erase that from their memories and prosper. The Lawtons came to Georgia as slaves, and even after emancipation, they never rose above being sharecroppers and domestics. Each generation lived in small unpainted shacks with newspaper stuffed in cracks to keep out the cold. Gerrick’s granddaddy farmed Buddy’s granddaddy’s land. Gerrick’s mother was the Tanners’ maid, until Walter died and Sara Meg couldn’t afford to keep her.

Gerrick had been the first in his family to get a job with decent wages. He had worked as a butcher at the Colders’ meat-packing plant, and he and his family lived in a small brick house on the edge of town. The Colders lived next door to the Tanners, and on Saturdays, Gerrick mowed the Colders’ yard and trimmed their bushes. He’d always seemed fond of Anne—even brought his little boy, who was a year or so younger, to play with Anne and Buddy. That week, though, Gerrick had had an argument with Anne’s father over a raise he’d been promised. The prosecution claimed he killed Anne out of spite. Hopemore was horrified. He’d have gotten the death penalty if the evidence hadn’t been mostly circumstantial. Even the prosecution’s best witness hadn’t actually seen him do it.

I thought about that with one part of my mind while I read and signed a warrant with the other. After the deputy left, I asked, “Why do you want to know?” I was afraid I knew.

Sure enough, Yasheika gave me a stare both proud and defiant. “He’s my daddy, and I don’t think he killed anybody. But I need to read up on the case. I didn’t know it happened here until Monday. Now that I do, I want to find out what I can while I’m down here.”

“What do you know already?”

“Not much. It happened before I was two. Growing up, I didn’t even know Daddy was alive. Mama moved us up to Washington, where her sister lives. When I was real little, I asked where our daddy was, and DeWayne said not to bother Mama, that Daddy died. He started trembling when he said it, which made me think it must have been gory. I was real into gory back then, so I begged him to tell me how it happened. To shut me up, he promised he’d tell me when I turned twenty-one. I think he figured that by then I’d forget.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I found out before, right after DeWayne got his job down here. He went to visit Daddy, and he called Mama afterwards. I heard Mama fussing at somebody on the phone, saying she didn’t want to expose ‘her’ to prison, and ‘she’ didn’t know ‘him’ anyway. I could tell she was talking about me, so I picked up the phone in another room and heard DeWayne saying that Daddy wanted to see me real bad. When I heard that, I jumped right in and made them tell me where Daddy was. Then I said I was going to see him whether Mama liked it or not. Turns out she’d been visiting him two or three times a year—she just never told us. We went together during my next school break.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“Several times. He swears he never killed that little girl, and I believe him. DeWayne and Mama do, too—sort of. They say Daddy isn’t the kind of man to kill anybody, and he knew and liked that child. But it’s different for them. They aren’t the kind to push, like Daddy and me. Daddy has already tried everything he knows to do without money or a law degree, so it’s up to me. I need to find something to persuade a judge to reopen the case.”

Was I ever that young and confident?

“There was an eyewitness,” I reminded her. “The girl’s best friend had gone home to get them a picnic lunch, and when he got back, he saw your daddy bending over Anne with a bloody rock in his hand. Your daddy jumped up and ran. Later that day, Gerrick tried to leave town. The prosecution convinced a jury those were admissions of guilt.”

“Daddy says she was dead when he got there, that he took a shortcut through the cemetery on his way home for dinner, and when he saw her on the ground, he thought she’d gotten hurt. The rock was lying on her head. He was moving it to see how bad she was hurt when the boy found him. The kid started screaming, ‘You killed her, you killed her!’ and Daddy says he was scared to death he’d be accused of the murder, because he’d had an argument the day before with her daddy. That’s why he ran. I don’t excuse that, Judge, but being scared isn’t the same as committing murder. I don’t think his lawyer did a good enough job defending him.”

I had to admire her conviction, and she was right about the lawyer. Gerrick got assigned a fellow right out of law school, who got such a stomachful during that case that he quit law and went to work in his daddy’s real-estate office. But I sat through the trial, and the old judge who ran it made sure it was run to the letter of the law. Yasheika’s chances of getting a new trial on the grounds of a poor trial were about as good as my chances of getting Joe Riddley to coordinate his clothes without my assistance.

I didn’t say that, of course. I said, “I never suspected DeWayne Evans was Gerrick Lawton’s son. He used to be called Little Gerrick back then.”

“DeWayne’s his second name. I guess he started using it when we got to Washington. Mama took back her maiden name and legally changed ours to match. She said since Daddy was in jail for life, they both thought that was the right thing to do.”

“Why on earth did DeWayne come here to teach? Does he want to reopen the case, too?”

Yasheika gave a short, unfunny laugh. “Not DeWayne. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he’s real fragile inside. What happened to Daddy hurt him worse than anybody will ever know. Growing up, he had bad dreams all the time. Even now, if he thinks about what happened he starts to shake. He missed a whole year of school right after it happened, because he was so scared of police and strangers. He still has bad dreams about the police stopping our car and taking Daddy away, or about kids pointing at him and laughing. Trust me, he would never go looking for trouble. He’s not at all in favor of my ‘stirring around in this pot,’ as he puts it. He hadn’t even told me until Monday that Hopemore was where it happened.”