Guess Who's Coming to Die? Read online

  “We don’t socialize with the Kenans or the Jensens,” I pointed out. The old coot seemed to have the membership list memorized. I gave him a quick glace to see if he had written the names down to prod his memory, but his eyes were peering at me with that earnest expression he gets when he’s trying to convince me do so something he thinks is for my own good.

  “It’s not a social club. You might learn something from these women. Take MayBelle Brandison, for example.”

  “You take her. I don’t want her. She’s a snake.” MayBelle could outtalk and outdeal anybody in three counties when it came to real estate, but that didn’t earn her a place on my favorite-people list. I hadn’t liked her even back when she was a poor, pushy girl in my son Ridd’s class. As far as I was concerned, money had not improved her a whit.

  “It would be a chance for you to get to know that Ford woman better — the lawyer.”

  For the first time, he had my attention. Rachel Ford was the director of our Poverty Law Center and a mystery to me. Striking rather than pretty, she was a tall, rangy woman with olive skin and naturally curly black hair cut to fall above her shoulders from a center part. Her long, intense face was marked by brows like straight dark slashes above eyes that were an unusual shade of blue-gray. I’d deliberately sat by her at a couple of functions to try to get acquainted, but while she would talk about her work, the only personal information I had gleaned was that she was half Jewish and half Catholic, “which is why both my hands move when I talk.” Between her Jewish and Italian ancestors, I wondered who had bequeathed her those eyes. She seemed uninterested in the two important Southern questions: “Who are your people?” and “Where do they come from?” As far as I knew, Meriwether DuBose was the only friend she’d made since she had come down from New York to take the Poverty Law Center job.

  “She can’t earn much,” I pointed out. “How did she get in the club?”

  “Maybe she inherited money, like most of them.”

  “I don’t think so. Money has a way of showing up in clothes, cars, houses, or something. Her clothes are nothing special, and Meriwether says she is doing most of the work herself on that old house she bought, a little at a time.”

  “She drives a BMW.”

  “A very old one.”

  “Maybe she banks it all. Or gets alimony, like Sadie Lowe. She’s in the club, too.”

  “Take that grin off your face. Sadie Lowe is one more reason for me not to join.”

  All you need to know about Sadie Lowe Harnett at this point is that she was thirty-seven years old, a former model and soap opera actress, with several millions from a New York divorce settlement tucked away in her sizable bra—and that men’s faces invariably went goofy when she came into a room or conversation.

  “You are being asked to fill Pooh’s slot.” He picked up his catalog and turned a page like seeds were all he had on his mind. He added casually, “It was one of her last requests.”

  Pooh DuBose had been my old and valued friend as well as the widow of the founder of DuBose Trucking Lines. I would miss her terribly. But I also hoped that once she had arrived in heaven, she had met up with her memory. It had predeceased her by a couple of years.

  “If Pooh expressed any recent opinions about my taking her place,” I pointed out, “she had no idea what she was talking about.”

  “It’s an honor, Little Bit.” Exasperation oozed from each syllable. He knows me well enough to read between my lines.

  “Sure it’s an honor. Cindy made that clear when she was invited. But you and I both know each one of those women — with the probable exception of Rachel Ford — has more money than we’ll ever see. I don’t play in their league, or even want to. Besides, I have enough to do without taking on a new organization.”

  I not only work full-time, belong to a slew of business organizations, and serve on too many church and civic committees, but I am also a county magistrate. Many magistrates in small Georgia counties combine judicial duties with a full-time job. As if to illustrate my point, a deputy stuck his head in our office door. “Judge, do you have time to come down to the sheriff’s detention center and hold a bond hearing for me? And I’d like this search warrant signed.”

  I repressed a sigh and tried not to look at the work piled on my desk. “What you got?”

  “A young man who has been robbing Mexicans while they are at work. We caught him red-handed, rifling one of their houses. My hunch is that if we search his garage before he gets back to it, we’ll find stuff he hasn’t disposed of yet.”

  Joe Riddley chuckled. “Sounds like somebody had better explain to him that ‘Mi casa es su casa’ is not to be taken quite so literally.”

  Every deputy at the detention center wanted to know about my vacation, so it was nearly an hour later before I got back to the office.

  “Joe Riddley has run over to the bank,” Evelyn Pratt, our store manager, informed me.

  Evelyn had been creating a new window display of bedding annuals in a bright blue wheelbarrow. When she was busy or bothered, she ran her hands through her wiry red hair, which changed colors depending on which brand of dye she’d bought at the drugstore. Right now it was carrot orange and stood on end from her exertions.

  “You might check your hair,” I advised as I headed to my office.

  I glared at Joe Riddley’s desk and settled at my own to wait. He’d have to come back sometime.

  I was busy with payroll when I got a call. “Did you have fun in Scotland?” Augusta Wainwright, being a queen, never bothers to say who she is when she calls.

  I told her I had, not liking to bring up murder and mayhem on the telephone. You never know when the White House may be listening in and get the wrong idea.

  “Have you seen my great-grandson since you got back?” Gusta never misses a chance to bring up little Zachary Garlon DuBose. “He is growing so quickly, he’s almost in nine-months clothes, although he’s not quite six months old. And do you know, the other day he actually said ‘Gamma’ when he saw me?”

  Anybody knows that clothing manufacturers deliberately size infant clothes to give doting relatives cause to brag and that five-month-olds don’t talk, but ever since Zach was born, Gusta had carried on like he’d be ready for a pro sports team or Harvard within the year. I made appropriate sounds and prepared to get off the phone so I could return to work.

  “Did you receive your invitation?” she inquired.

  I was a tad annoyed that she didn’t bother to say which invitation. “I got several,” I replied. “The homeless shelter invited me to send them a check to refurbish their kitchen, the church invited me to the choir’s spring concert—”

  I have known Gusta all my life and consider it is good for her soul for me to heckle her from time to time. She has so few friends still alive who are brave enough to remind her that she lives on the same planet with the rest of us.

  “Your invitation to the Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club.” I could picture her looking down her nose at me through the telephone wires.

  “Oh, yes, but I’m not in that league, Gusta, and we both know it.”

  “Nonsense. You don’t have to invest but a hundred dollars a month. That won’t reduce you to beans and bread. Besides, not all of us are as rich as we used to be.”

  I figured she meant that the Dow Jones was down three points that day. For Gusta, that could mean a significant loss if she sold all her stocks, but she wasn’t selling. Gusta clutched her pennies like a drowning man clutches a life preserver. Besides, most of her income came from Wainwright Textile Mills, plus checks and cash from slum rental properties her husband left her in three counties. No matter what the market did, Gusta would never be reduced to beans and bread. I was fixing to say that I hadn’t made up my mind yet about joining, but she swept on.

  “I told the others what an asset you will be to the club. We are getting too many young women and too much frivolity, froufrou, and fluff. We need an older member who is practical and down-to-earth, not all
wrapped up in clothes and hairdos. You will add maturity and common sense to the group. Well, I need to go now. I don’t have time to talk on the phone all day.”

  I went to the ladies’ room and checked my reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. I saw a woman who had gotten up at dawn to get her hair done before coming to work. Who had recently powdered her nose and refreshed her lipstick. Who was wearing a new peach pantsuit that looked real becoming when she put it on.

  It would never look quite so becoming again.

  As soon as Joe Riddley got back from the bank, I picked up the discussion where we’d left off. “While I am sensible of the honor you and Cindy have bestowed upon me — and don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it, because it wouldn’t have occurred to them to invite me if you hadn’t sneakily connected my name to Pooh’s vacancy — anyway, while I know it’s an honor, you and I both know I don’t belong in that club. And since you got me into this, you need to write the letter turning them down. It should be a real nice letter, since these women are some of our best customers, but I’m not feeling particularly nice at the moment. I’ve got too much else to do to be thinking up sweet phrases for ‘thanks, but no, thanks.’ ”

  He held up one big hand. “Don’t be hasty, now. With that new superstore eating away at our profits, it might be smart for you to make a pile on the stock market so we can retire.”

  “You wanting to retire?” I knew the answer to that, just as he knew we have enough to retire on whenever we want to, including a stock portfolio I’ve been building for years. I’ve done it by buying companies I trust to give me a good product at a good price with good service.

  “Not anytime soon, but a little extra money never hurts.”

  I picked up the creamy envelope and held it between us. “But who knows what that group invests in? You know I never buy stock in companies whose products I do not personally use. How do I know whether the products are any good or the executives honest and intelligent?”

  He settled his cap on his head. “Given the ancestors of some of the members of that club, corporate integrity may not be high on their investment agenda. Maybe that’s why they want a judge in the group. Besides, you aren’t investing our life savings, and the programs ought to be interesting. They’ve got some hotshot Augusta stockbroker who comes out each month to talk about how to invest wisely. Think of all you’ll learn.” He chortled. “Willena may be learning a few things, too. The two of them seem to be dating.”

  That got my attention. “Willena is dating? When did this happen?”

  “While you were away. They played golf together several times and ate at the country club both Friday nights. Had a kid with them last week. His son, I understand. He’s a widower, so Cindy tells me. And has been handling Willena’s portfolio for years. They started going around together back last winter, but they didn’t go public until a couple of weeks ago.”

  “This sounds serious. How old is he? Where’s he from? He’s not after her money, is he?”

  “Hold your horses, and I’ll tell you what I know. He’s a stockbroker, like I said, and he looks like he’s around forty-five. Nice fellow, from what I could tell from meeting him at the club. He grew up in Augusta and still lives there, but went to college somewhere up north. His firm suggested him to Willena when her old stockbroker died. Now you know everything I do.”

  I chuckled. “Is he the spitting image of Granddaddy Will?”

  He laughed, too. “I can’t rightly say.” He was already halfway out the door.

  “Maybe we can get you into the investment club instead of me,” I called after him. “Threaten them with gender discrimination or something.”

  He turned back. “Face it, Little Bit. As a judge, you need to know the movers and shakers in town. And a monthly lecture on investing and a chance to discuss stocks with smart women who know what they’re doing is a heck of a lot more interesting than most meetings you go to each month.”

  Sometimes it annoys me how well that man knows me.

  Before I could think of another good excuse, he urged, “Give it a try. You’ve been wanting to do something with Cindy. Now you’ve got a chance. Take them up on their invitation. What can it hurt?”

  We would soon find out.

  2

  The next Monday evening I stood, alone and awkward, in the Wainwright Meeting Room of the Hopemore Community Center after handing over my membership dues and first month’s investment check to the Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club. The room was full of big hair and big money, and I had neither.

  What I did have was a cup of punch in my right hand, a plate of brownies balanced on the bandage on my left, and no place to set either down. Given how often people attend stand-up social functions where food is involved, wouldn’t you think evolution or the good Lord would have provided a third hand somewhere along the line? I hovered between the big-hair group and the big-money group, trying to figure out how to eat my refreshments and which group to join.

  A voice murmured at my shoulder, “I haven’t met you yet, Judge Yarbrough.”

  Grover Henderson, the Augusta stockbroker who had given a very interesting talk on current trends in international markets, looked down at me with twinkling blue eyes and a smile that was tentative enough to be charming. I found myself responding with twinkles of my own. Grover, like Joe Riddley, was one of those men who get better-looking as they get older, and the kind of man who makes single women drool and married women sit up a little straighter. He had a nice strong chin, broad shoulders, and graying hair that was receding except for a cute little tuft in front that he combed over to one side. His tan looked like he’d gotten it on a golf course or tennis court rather than under a sunlamp, and he wore his navy blazer and loafers with a casual ease that implied he’d be equally at home in a tux or jeans.

  “Do you already know all these women,” he asked, “or shall I introduce you?”

  “I know most of them. I’ve lived in Hopemore all my life. If it wouldn’t give you a fair estimate of my age, I’d tell you I was a flower girl in Augusta Wainwright’s wedding.”

  We laughed and looked over to where Augusta, possessor of a bank account any Third World country would envy, held court. Her silver head wore an invisible tiara, and her long, aristocratic neck was craned toward Rachel Ford, who stood nearby. Gusta occupied a throne set conveniently near the refreshments table so she wouldn’t have to juggle a plate and cup in her gnarled old hands. That would have been her granddaughter’s doing. Meriwether Wainwright DuBose was both prettier and kinder than her grandmother. She was also possibly richer, now that Pooh had died, for Meriwether’s husband was Pooh’s heir. I suspected that Gusta was campaigning to find out how much Pooh left, and I hoped Jed and Meriwether wouldn’t tell her.

  Currently Meriwether was fetching Gusta a second cup of punch while Gusta told Rachel about Meriwether’s new baby. Gusta invariably referred to the child as “my great-grandson,” as if that defined him. I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t.

  Rachel was nodding in all the right places, but wore that glassy-eyed look single businesswomen tend to get when other people talk about babies.

  “I don’t know much about Rachel,” I told Grover. “She’s not from around here.”

  “No, she grew up in New York and was in a firm that specialized in international law before she moved down.”

  I lifted my punch cup and took a sip while I considered Rachel. Unlike the other women in the club, who had dressed up for the meeting, she wore a white turtleneck and black slacks, but maybe Joe Riddley was right about her having money tucked away. The turtleneck looked like silk, and the slacks were so well cut they had to be expensive. Her earrings were emerald studs, while another emerald sparkled on one long, slender hand, which made me think international law paid well. It seemed to have worn her out early, though. She was as skinny as an underfed pullet and had dark circles under her eyes.

  Grover’s attention was across the room, where the big-hair conti
ngent was having a lively conversation. Nancy Jensen (blond), wife of the CEO of Middle Georgia Kaolin, was telling MayBelle Brandison (a lot redder than she used to be) about how stingy her husband was, while MayBelle, the sharpest real estate developer in three counties, was lamenting that she couldn’t make as much in middle Georgia as she would if she moved up to Atlanta. I considered joining that conversation long enough to point out that some folks — including MayBelle’s long-suffering ex-husband—kept reminding her there was nothing to keep her in Hope County since her divorce. But why bother? MayBelle was one of those women who would rather suffer and think up new ways of inflicting suffering than get on with life. Besides, Hope County still had a lot of trees left standing and a good number of acres that hadn’t been covered with houses, and MayBelle wouldn’t be content until she had bulldozed all the trees and built a Brandison McMansion on every quarter acre in the county.