Secrets, Lies, and Crawfish Pies Page 17

  “Is this who Rhett was talking about?” I asked. “Grown men not wanting a young girl to show them up?”

  “Yes,” Auntie said. “She plays a funky accordion. Might make them jealous.”

  Amelia blushed and I chuckled. “That’s why he wanted crawfish pies for the sound check?” I asked.

  Amelia’s eyes got big. “You’re making crawfish pies?” she said. “I love crawfish pies. I could eat them every day.”

  “I’d be happy to make them for you, Dr. Amelia.”

  “Thank you!” she said and bounced on her toes.

  “I’m not worried about those guys,” Coach said. “And I’m telling you, Babet. I will pull my baby girl if anyone gives her any problems.”

  “I’m not a baby, Daddy.”

  “You’re my baby,” he said. “My only baby and I’m going to always protect you. Even with my life.”

  “It’s a sound check, Chip. Nothing to get so worked up about. And no one’s going to give her problems,” Auntie Zanne said. “I’ll be there when she meets everyone.”

  “I’ll be there, too,” Coach Williams said. “You can count on it.”

  “We’ll have extra pies for you,” Auntie Zanne said. “Will Taralynn be there?”

  Uh-oh. I knew where that was going...

  “No,” Coach said. “She can’t make it. But I’ll be there. The whole time.”

  “Is she out in Yellowpine?” she asked.

  “Yellowpine? Taralynn?” He had a look of confusion on his face. “Why would she be out there? There’s nothing out there. Why would you think she was out there?”

  “She has an appointment to show a house,” Amelia said. “She’s coming to the show though.”

  “That’ll be nice,” I said. I wanted to try and cut in on the conversation before Auntie started asking crazy questions.

  “Did you hear about the errant body at my funeral home?” she said.

  Too late.

  “Errant?” he said. “Oh.” He nodded. “I did hear about that. Did they find out what happened?”

  Auntie stood on tiptoe, leaned in and said, “He was murdered.”

  Coach looked at his daughter and then back at Auntie Zanne. “I don’t want to talk about that in front of her,” he said.

  “I was just wondering if Taralynn knew him.”

  “The guy they found at your place?” Another confused look.

  “Yes,” Auntie Zanne said.

  “Why would you think she knew him?” he asked. “Wasn’t he unidentified?”

  “Daddy,” Amelia said, “I have to get to practice.”

  “Okay,” he said then turned to Auntie Zanne. “We have to go. We’ll see you tomorrow night at the sound check.”

  “Well,” I said after father and daughter walked away. “I don’t think you found out anything with that line of questioning.”

  “Nothing other than he can’t keep up with his wife,” Auntie Zanne said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  We headed home from the hardware store, six cans of paint loaded into the trunk, and I thought about what I’d had learned today–the dead guy had been staying at the Grandview Motel and left personal items; Josephine Gail knew the dead guy; and a woman that Auntie knew, Taralynn Williams, had gone to visit him several times. All of that information I knew had to be important to Pogue’s investigation.

  And I wonder how much more Josephine Gail knows...

  I had heard Auntie go into Josephine Gail’s room often after she became self-exiled. But from what I’d heard in my eavesdropping, it was Auntie Zanne who did the talking. Josephine Gail didn’t ever seem to utter a word, just like that day Pogue questioned her. I had found out though that she had more to say to Auntie Zanne than I’d imagined.

  Maybe I could get her to talk to me.

  We pulled up in the driveway, I turned off the car but didn’t move. I glanced over at Auntie Zanne.

  “Are we getting out of the car?” she asked.

  “I was thinking,” I said hesitantly. “Maybe...after what you told me today...I should try and talk to Josephine Gail. Just to see what else she knows.”

  “I don’t know that she knows any more than what I told you,” she said. “But if she’s up to it, might be for the best.”

  Well, that shocked me. I just knew I was going to have to put up a fight.

  “Just let me make her some calming tea and we’ll go and talk to her.”

  “I want to talk to her,” I said. “Not I ask her questions and you answer.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But only after I make the tea.”

  “You want to wait until after you’ve made tea?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” she asked.

  I drew in a breath. I knew I should just quit while I was ahead. She wasn’t fighting with me about the talk. I could give her the tea.

  When we got into the house, Rhett was sitting at the kitchen table. He was eating a bowl of something he’d taken out of a pot that was sitting on the stove. From the smell of it, it was probably some of Auntie’s conglomeration, as she called it. She’d throw the week’s leftovers in a pot and serve it with rice. I’d learned long ago not to even take a whiff of the stuff.

  I held my nose. “Don’t you have a home?” I asked Rhett.

  “There you go,” Auntie said. “Of course he has a home.”

  “He’s always here. Hanging out. Eating.”

  “I am not,” he said and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “What? You don’t like seeing me?”

  I ignored that question.

  “What’re you doing day after tomorrow?” Auntie pulled up a chair next to Rhett.

  “I thought you were making tea,” I said. “Not sitting down to have a chitchat.”

  She waved her hand at me. “I am. I just need a word with Rhett.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Haven’t checked the schedule yet,” Rhett said. “You got something special you want me to do?”

  “I have to go to Houston-”

  I cut my auntie off. “No, you don’t.” I knew what she was up to.

  “Yes. I. Do.” She sat up straight. “Actually, we do,” she said. “We have to pick up the trophies for the dance contest and...well...” She glanced over at me. I didn’t know if she’d already told Rhett what she’d told me at the fairgrounds. “And we may make another stop that I might need your, uh, expertise for.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Rhett,” Auntie said, drawing his name out to show me she was directing her question to him, “we’ve found out a few things. I’ve just told Romaine, maybe I should run them by you, too.”

  “Auntie!” I said. “Don’t share. Wait for Pogue.”

  “Rhett is going to help us.”

  “This is Pogue’s investigation.”

  “And mine,” she said. “Ours.”

  “You don’t know how to investigate,” I said.

  “What is she doing wrong?” Rhett asked.

  “She has a habit of deciding who the killer is and trying to make all the clues fit them,” I said.

  “No, I don’t,” she said.

  Rhett looked at Auntie Zanne and smiled. “You can’t do that, Babet,” he said. “You need to look for a motive.”

  “That’s what Pogue is doing,” Auntie Zanne said. “With Josephine Gail.”

  “It’s what you’re doing, too,” I said. “With Aunt Julep.”

  “Aunt Julep?” Rhett said.

  “Julep Folsom,” Auntie Zanne said.

  “She’s your aunt?” Rhett asked.

  “Yep.”

  “That makes Pogue your...what? Cousin?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Hah. I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “You mean Auntie Zanne didn�
��t tell you?” I said.

  “No. I didn’t,” she said. “But that’s not what this conversation is about. I need us to find out from Rhett what we need to do when we go to Houston.”

  “What he needs to do is teach you how to interrogate people,” I said.

  Rhett started laughing. “It’s true,” I said. “She badgers people.”

  “That’s not true,” she said.

  “Who have you talked to so far?” Rhett asked.

  “Consuela, the maid at the Grandview.” Auntie Zanne pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat down. “Josephine Gail, of course, and Coach Chip Williams.”

  Rhett raised his eyebrows. “Why did you question the Coach?” he asked.

  “Because Herman St. John had his wife’s phone number in his room. On the back of a business card. But Coach Williams had his daughter with him, so we couldn’t really talk. I may try again when he brings Amelia to the sound check.”

  “You should leave that man alone,” I said. “Talk to his wife. She’d know why she was there.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Rhett said. “You need to find out why he was murdered.”

  “The motive,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Well, I can’t find out the motive anyone has if I don’t talk to them,” Auntie Zanne said, pouting.

  “Talk to people, Babet. That’s good,” Rhett said, encouraging her. “You’re on the right track,” he said.

  “But don’t zoom in on one person and badger them,” I said.

  Auntie Zanne waved a hand at me and looked at Rhett. “I think I’m on the right track too,” Auntie Zanne said. “I’ve got a lot of clues to follow.”

  “What other clues do you have?” he asked.

  “Woodchips. A surveyor’s name. An address in Houston. Someone that uses a buckshot rather than a slug.” She looked at me and I nodded. “And the name of the man who came here and got killed maybe out in the woods of Yellowpine.”

  “You don’t have his address in Houston,” I said, going over her list in my head. “Pogue got an address when he ran his prints. But you don’t know it. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s a good address.” Everything else she listed, I agreed with.

  “I’ve got an address for a Jackson Wyncote in Houston. I’m thinking it might be the lawyer he worked for,” Auntie said directing her answer at Rhett.

  “Oh,” Rhett said and perked up. “You know his name? The dead guy? And where he worked?”

  “Yep,” Auntie said. “We know it.”

  Rhett’s eyes got wide as Auntie relayed everything we’d found out about our dead squatter, and the info we’d gleaned on him, including how he was probably from Houston.

  “So,” Rhett said and leaned back in his chair. “That’s why you’re going down to Houston? To follow up on your leads?”

  “I’m going to Houston on festival business,” Auntie said and glanced at me. “But, yes, I thought I’d check out what I could about Mr. Williamson while I was there.” She nodded. “That’s why I would like for you to go with us. You know how to ask questions better than me or Romaine.”

  “Wish I could,” Rhett said. “But you’re doing a good job. You’re on the right track. And it wouldn’t be too farfetched that someone from Houston might have followed him down here.”

  “You think so?” she asked. “We talked about that, too.”

  “Sure, I think so,” Rhett said. “Why would anyone here kill him?” He shrugged. “Especially in Yellowpine. What? The population there is like seventy-five or something, right? Seems unlikely he’d know someone there.”

  “So, you’ll go with us?” Auntie Zanne asked.

  “Uh,” he said and looked at us sheepishly. “I don’t know if I could.”

  “It’s right down in your neck of the woods,” Auntie said.

  I tilted my head to the side. “Yeah. Didn’t you say you were from Houston? Worked there too, right?”

  “Of course he is,” Auntie said. She got up, grabbed the teapot, went to the sink washed her hands and then filled it up. “That’s why I thought he might be interested in riding down with us.” She put the teapot on the stove and turned up the flame. “You could help us get around.”

  He turned up his mouth and shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go. But from what you’ve told me, Babet, I think you’ll do fine.”

  “Told you I knew what I was doing,” Auntie said to me. “I can’t wait to get to Houston.”

  Rhett seemed to finish up his meal quickly after he refused to go to Houston, and Auntie Zanne got the tea ready for her friend.

  I knocked on her door and opened it. Auntie went in first with the tea.

  “Hi Josephine Gail,” she said.

  She turned and squinted at us as the light flooded into the room from the hallway. I stepped in behind Auntie and closed the door behind me.

  “I have you some tea,” Auntie said and looked at me. “And Romaine wants to talk to you.”

  Josephine Gail nodded, I could see a weak smile appear in the dim light.

  Auntie sat on the bed next to her. I pulled up a chair and sat across from her.

  Josephine Gail’s yellowed, bad-dye-job hair was stringy. Her skin was dry and the bags under her eyes puffy and dark.

  “C’mon, take a little,” Auntie said and blew on a spoonful of tea. She put it to Josephine Gail’s puckered lips and I heard her slurp it in.

  “Auntie told me what you told her about the dead guy,” I said and leaned in toward her. “I want to help. I don’t want you to have worry about this.”

  “I’m okay,” Josephine Gail said. She put a shaky hand up to her forehead and I knew that wasn’t true.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said. She wanted me to think she was okay, so I went along with it. “Auntie told me that you saw Ragland–uhm, Herman St. John before he, uh, showed up here.”

  “Romaine,” Auntie Zanne said. “Take it slow now.”

  “It’s okay, Babet,” Josephine Gail barely spoke above a whisper. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’m going to ask you a couple questions. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  “When did you first see him? See Herman St. John?” I asked.

  She cleared her throat. “Babet told me his real name is Ragland Williamson, Romaine. I don’t why he thought he had to lie to me.”

  “Why did he want to see you?”

  “It was about my land,” she said. “Seems like somebody died or something and when they read the will, they thought he owned some of my land. I’m not giving up any of my land.”

  “No one wants you to give up any of your land,” Auntie said.

  I looked at Auntie. “So,” I said turning back to Josephine Gail, “it was a boundary dispute?”

  “The problem is,” Josephine Gail said without me prompting her with a question, “it might be his land. I remember my father saying something about it years ago.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “He said he’d kill someone before he gave up land we’d been working for more than a hundred years.”

  My eyes got big, my heart even started to race.

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to tell me any more. But she kept talking.

  “I told that Ragland Williamson the same thing.”

  “Oh,” was all I could muster up to say. I sat back in the chair and let out a groan.

  “Any more questions?” Auntie Zanne asked.

  I sat up and looked at the two of them. “Yes. I do have more.” I said and took a breath. “What else was said when you first met him?” I looked at Auntie. “Other than you telling him what your father said.”

  She hunched a shoulder. “Just that he’d hired a surveyor and he was going out there to my land and he’d come back and talk to me afterwards.”<
br />
  “Did he come back?”

  “No. Never did.”

  “Why didn’t you tell this to Pogue?” I asked.

  “She knew better than to tell Pogue,” Auntie said.

  “I thought she wanted to cooperate with him?” I said.

  “You thought wrong,” Auntie said. “But she’s cooperating with you. That’s good enough.”

  I wobbled my head, trying to clear it. Auntie Zanne’s antics of counseling her friend to be evasive probably weren’t going to help Josephine Gail in the long run, especially if Pogue ever got around to the filing charges against her. It was best he knew everything. I was going to have to tell him.

  “Okay. Tell me about when you found him,” I said.

  “Here?” she asked and rubbed her fingers across her forehead.

  “Yes. Here.” I squinted my eyes. “You didn’t find him anywhere else, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Then here. When you found him here.”

  “He was down in the crematory. Ready to go into the furnace. He would have gone in it too, if I hadn’t have gone down there to retrieve something a family member of another decedent had stuck in their loved one’s casket.”

  “One person in the family hadn’t realized that the decedent and the casket weren’t going into the ground,” Auntie said.

  “That’s right,” Josephine Gail said and nodded. “They called, so I went down to get it. That’s when I noticed the other casket. The one with that Ragland guy in it.”

  “What made you notice it?” I asked.

  “The casket was from the showroom,” she answered.

  “Oh,” I said. I looked at Auntie Zanne. She nodded.

  I knew that Auntie Zanne wouldn’t have prepared a viewing of a person being cremated in one of her sample caskets. She had special ones she used for that. It seemed Josephine Gail knew it too. And, evidently, she was very familiar with the inventory.

  “And that’s when you called Pogue?”

  She gave a curt nod. “After I realized who he was.”

  “You called Pogue?”

  “You asked that question already,” Auntie Zanne said. “And she told you yes. Seems like I’m not the only one that needs to brush up on their interrogation skills.”