Sweet and Deadly Read online

  The sheriff ’s only response was a small movement of his huge hand. Catherine wondered if he had been listening. Then she thought clearly, He’s trying to decide how to ask me something.

  Catherine grew nervous at this hiatus and lit a cigarette. To break the silence, she asked quietly, “How did she die?”

  “She died in her house,” Galton said heavily. “She was beaten to death. With something rounded and heavy; like a baseball bat.

  Catherine went very still and bit the inside of her mouth. Anything she could say would be inadequate.

  “Catherine.”

  Her eyes were blurry with tears of shock. She blinked and Galton came into focus again. She was warned by the sharpness in his face. Something important was coming up.

  “Did you sell any of your father’s equipment to Leona?”

  If she had formed any idea of what Galton’s question would be, that was not it.

  “What? Why would Leona want anything from the office? I sold almost everything to Jerry.”

  “What didn’t you sell to Jerry?”

  “Besides those filing cabinets in the attic—” Catherine made an effort to concentrate, but she was too confused to remember. “Leona knew. She did all that, made the list for the lawyer. Father’s estate. I was too upset,” Catherine said miserably. She had always felt some guilt for shoving the task off on Leona, though Leona had certainly been more qualified to do it. “Maybe there’s still the list of stuff for the lawyer? That you could check against what Jerry has now?”

  Galton didn’t comment on her weak suggestion, or explain why he had asked her, she noticed uneasily; but the mention of estates had given her something to chew on.

  “Is there anything I ought to do? About Leona’s house? Or about having her buried? She didn’t have any kin, you know.” Catherine hated to offer, but knew she had to. It was the least and last thing she could do for Leona.

  “Her lawyer, John Daniels, will handle all that, Catherine. She left a will. It’s a few years old; and it’s kind of surprising,” Galton said smoothly. “She left everything—house, money—to your father. Now, I guess, it’ll come to you. John Daniels says for you to call him.”

  “Shit,” said Catherine. “Is that what this is all about?” She was angry now, red hot. “Come on, Sheriff! Leona didn’t have doodly-squat. I know Father paid her what he could, but that wasn’t all that much; and she hasn’t worked since he died.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Galton said calmly, “Leona had quite a bit of money. But she was kind of informal about it. She had little wads stashed all over the house. The only thing she bothered to put in her checking account was her social security check and a little income from a pension plan she belonged to through some nurses’ association.

  “And,” Galton continued, his eyes searching Catherine’s face, “someone else besides me knows that. Sometime Friday night, before you found Leona Saturday morning, someone took his time searching Leona’s house: either before or after carrying her out to that shack on your place. Your inheritance is a little depreciated. Mattress slashed, chairs ripped open. But the money, and a few other peculiar things, are still there. Strange kind of thief. Didn’t kill Leona for her money, but he looked mighty hard for something in her house after he—or she—killed her.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know; no, I don’t understand what you mean. If you think”—and her flame of anger flashed through the smoke of bewilderment—“I killed Leona for money, I hate to say this, but you’re crazier than I am. I can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about this. I’ve known you all my life. My father left me lots of money; my mother left me lots of money; there was insurance besides, and we—I—own the land. In fact, I’m a rich woman. I did not bash Leona on the head so I could come into her bits of money. I did not search her house to make her death mysterious. And if you think I”—and the sweep of her hand down her body pointed out its smallness—“could or would pick up a baseball bat or something, and beat a woman twice my size to death with it, you’re just plain damn dumb.”

  She sank back in her chair feeling clean. Something like a flushed toilet, she told herself bluntly and inelegantly.

  Galton was eyeing her with amazement and a reluctant grin.

  “I guess you let me have it with both barrels,” he said.

  Catherine hoped he would add, “Of course I don’t think you had anything to do with Leona’s murder.”

  But he didn’t.

  “Why move the body at all?” she asked out of the blue. It was a point that had been bothering her. Moving Leona seemed an added risk. There was the chance that someone would see the murderer putting the body in his vehicle. And there was the undeniable conspicuousness of anyone at all being around and about in Lowfield in the late hours of the night. Though Friday night was comparatively busy, that didn’t mean much.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” said the sheriff, sounding almost friendly. “And I reckon whoever killed Leona was just trying to delay discovery of her body for as long as possible. She had plenty of neighbors. They would’ve noticed, after a couple of days of this weather, that something was wrong. But since she kept herself apart, they might not think about not seeing her for quite some time, if the body wasn’t there to let them know.”

  “Maybe someone just couldn’t bear to see her lying there after she was dead,” Catherine said quietly, her hands running over the carved rosewood of the chair. “And moved her so he wouldn’t have to look at her while he searched. It had to be someone strong, didn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Sheriff Galton said, recrossing his legs. He shifted on the soft couch, and sighed. “It was probably a man; maybe a woman, a tall woman, from the angle of the blows.”

  She had never before been glad she was short.

  “Or two people,” added the sheriff carefully. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “You think to wonder what the killer was searching for, Catherine?”

  She shook her head.

  “Why, Leona was blackmailing people. She had another career going, but her main line was blackmail. We’ll burn what we found so far—after we question the people involved. Just little pieces of nasty evidence she was holding for ransom; none of it criminal material. It’s her other career that concerns us even more.”

  After this revelation, Catherine was literally speechless. She could only wait for Galton to continue. His eyes were resting on her intently, and she felt her hands begin to shake.

  “I have one more question to ask you, then I’ll leave you to your Sunday,” Galton said heavily. “Have you gone to Leona with…any kind of problem? Since your folks died?”

  Catherine felt like a mouse being played with by a big old cat. Her thoughts were slow. She stubbed out her cigarette as she tried to recall, though she was sure she had never taken a problem of any kind to Leona. Her mind wandered. She tried to imagine herself crying on Leona’s shoulder over some girlish difficulty, and decided that tears would have just rolled off that starched white shoulder.

  When she looked at Galton again, she realized her long pause had cost her something. There was once again a look of sternness in his face.

  That’s not fair, she thought despairingly.

  “I would never take a problem to Leona,” she said. Her voice was as weary and watchful as Galton’s. Even to her own ears, she sounded unconvincing.

  “I thought it would be better if you didn’t come down to the station again,” Galton murmured. There was a sadness, a regret, in his voice. He too was remembering the days he had swung her up in the air.

  Catherine gave up trying. She had done her best, had cleared herself as thoroughly as she could. There was something, or perhaps several things, that Galton wouldn’t tell her. He had obviously figured she would be more open in her own home, in a private conversation; he had made a concession to her in that respect. Somehow she had failed to meet his standards.

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I honestly think
”—Do drag in “honestly,” Catherine!—“I have told you what little I know. And I think what happened to Leona is directly related to what happened to my parents. I don’t blame you for never finding out about them,” she added hastily. “I know you were a good friend to my father.”

  She had touched him on the quick. She wondered if she had meant to.

  “I tried,” said Galton bitterly. “You’re damn right I tried! But I know why Leona Gaites was killed: she was a blackmailer, and something else too. And that doesn’t have anything to do with Glenn and Rachel.”

  He sat silent for a moment, visibly collecting himself. He looked so sad and worn that Catherine was unwillingly moved.

  “You need some rest,” she said shortly.

  “It’ll be a while before I get any,” he said.

  He rose, stretched, ambled to the door.

  “Catherine,” he said, one hand on the knob, “Why didn’t you leave town, honey? What’s kept you here?”

  “You know, I’ve asked myself that just recently,” she said. “I only found out yesterday. When I was telling Tom Mascalco what happened to Mother and Father. I want the person who did it to be caught. And I want him to be dead. That’s why I stayed.”

  “That Mascalco’s a pest,” said Galton. “His idea of his job is way too big. About that other, Catherine: it makes me sick to say it—you know how I felt about your folks—but I don’t think we’ll ever catch who did it. There’s nothing for you here. You shouldn’t have stayed—if you want unasked-for advice, too late.”

  The complexity of being sheriff and suspect, family friend and bereaved daughter, tore at them.

  “You be careful,” he said finally. “I don’t know what you’ve done, or what you know. I’ve known you to do some things that people thought were crazy. Well, in the Delta we’ve got a lot of crazies; known for it. Or maybe I should say eccentrics. Okay. But I’ve never known you to be bad or crooked. There’s a lot of crookedness, a lot of badness, mixed up in this mess. So watch yourself, Catherine.”

  He shut the door behind him.

  She didn’t know whether she’d been threatened or warned.

  6

  S HE WAS WATCHING the sheriff ’s car back out into the street when her telephone rang. Maybe that’s Randall, she thought.

  “Catherine?”

  “Sally?” Catherine asked uncertainly. She pulled out one of the bamboo-and-chrome dinette chairs and sat down heavily.

  “Sure is, honey. I’m so sorry for you! You should have come and spent the night with us! I know you were scared out of your wits.”

  How long had it been since she had talked to Sally Barnes? Sally Barnes Boone, Catherine corrected herself.

  “I’m fine,” Catherine said, and made a face into the glass of the table. Once polite lies got into your blood, you never quit telling them, she thought.

  “Well, I heard at church,” Sally was saying, “and I just couldn’t believe it…that poor woman! Daddy was so upset, that she was on that land he rents from you! He’d been riding the place that morning, but not close to that field, so he didn’t see anything. I just can’t imagine who could have done it. Someone from Memphis, I bet. Going through town to the fishing camps at the river.”

  “I guess so,” said Catherine, who didn’t think so at all. “How is Bob?” She remembered, almost too late, that Sally had a child. “And the baby?” A little girl, was it?

  “Oh, they’re fine, just fine. Chrissy’s cutting teeth.”

  “I know she’s fretful,” Catherine said sympathetically. She had heard somewhere that this was the case with teething babies.

  “Oh boy,” Sally answered feelingly. “But I want to know about you. How are you? What have you been doing? I can’t believe I never see you in a town this size!”

  Because I have been taking care not to be seen, she thought to herself. I have been waiting.

  She could hear a baby’s wail in the background, on Sally’s end of the line.

  “Sally, thanks for calling, I really appreciate it,” Catherine said hastily. “But really, I’m not scared. I just happened to find…” she trailed off. “But it’s not like it was in my yard or anything. I’ll be fine. Thanks again. I can tell you need to go.”

  The baby’s wails were reaching a crescendo of pique.

  “Chrissy, hush!” Sally said faintly. “Bob, pick her up!” Sally’s voice grew louder. “Oh, Catherine, I better go, but you come see me real soon. I mean it, now!”

  “Sure will. Tell Bob I said hello,” and Catherine hung up.

  She absently noted that the top of the table was smeared. Her fingernails tapped along the glass as she considered what Sally had said. So Martin Barnes had lied to his daughter. He had said he had been out riding his place. Well, that was possible; every planter rode his acres, looking and assessing. But he had been near the shack where Leona’s body was lying. And Catherine had the impression that Mr. Barnes had not been driving from the direction of the shack but had pulled out from one of the houses by the highway. She tried to recall exactly what she had seen. No: she couldn’t picture precisely where the truck had been before she passed it.

  Catherine shook her head. It was a stupid lie that Martin Barnes was telling. She could see no reason for it; he should have known she would report seeing him. Mr. Barnes was a good planter, but definitely not the smartest of men.

  Maybe he was the guilty one. If he was not the guilty man…her mouth twisted. This was loathe-some. She wanted someone to be proved guilty; fast, so no more suspicion would be attached to her. But she couldn’t bear the certain knowledge that the murderer was someone she knew, someone whose face formed a part of her life. She had always known that, but she had never been able to accept it. She couldn’t think of anyone in Lowfield she imagined capable of beating a woman to death. Or of loosening an essential part in the car of the town’s best-known and most-loved doctor and his wife.

  Could it be that Lowfield contained two murderers? That the deaths of her parents and Leona were not related? Sheriff Galton clearly believed the crimes were separate.

  A familiar tension, resulting from the suspense of watching and waiting, caused Catherine’s muscles to tighten. She simply couldn’t picture someone she knew plotting the horrible death Glenn and Rachel Linton had suffered.

  Her hand came down flat and hard on the glass.

  It left a print, and she retreated into wondering for the hundredth time why her mother had bought a glass-topped table. Catherine had gotten out the glass cleaner and a rag, turning with relief to the mundane little task, when she remembered telling Galton she was a rich woman. She shook her head again.

  That was something you just didn’t say.

  The doorbell rang as Catherine was twisting her neck to look through a shaft of sun, checking to see if she had gotten all the marks off the table.

  Does everyone in town want to talk to me? she wondered crossly. For a well-known recluse, I’m having lots of company these days.

  Molly Perkins, the coroner’s wife, was standing with a casserole dish clutched in her hands when Catherine opened the door. Catherine had automatically looked up, and she had to adjust her sights down to meet Miss Molly’s washed-blue eyes.

  Miss Molly began instantly. “I am so sorry you had such a horrible experience. I know you’re upset. I won’t stay but a minute, I just wanted to run this over to you. I knew you wouldn’t feel like cooking.”

  Food, the southern offering on the altar of crisis. Catherine was bemused by its presentation now. Finding a corpse must be close enough to death in the family to qualify.

  “Thanks,” she said faintly. “Please come in.”

  “Well, like I say, I won’t stay but a minute. I know you must be busy with company coming by and all.”

  The plump little woman was trotting through the living room back to the kitchen.

  “Company?” Catherine asked the air behind her.

  But Mrs. Perkins apparently didn’t hear her.

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p; Molly Perkins’s whole body tilted forward when she walked, giving her the effect of charging eagerly forward at life. Her enormous bosom made her appear in danger of falling flat on her face at any moment, which had added a pleasant suspense to her company when Catherine was younger.

  Placing the casserole on the kitchen counter, Mrs. Perkins earnestly continued, “I do hope you like gumbo. All these years up here, and I still cook Cajun. I always fix too much for Carl and myself. I just got used to cooking a lot while Josh was growing up. Can’t change my habits now he’s married and gone, I guess.”

  “Thank you,” Catherine said again, determined to get a word in somewhere. “And how is Josh?”

  “We got a phone call from him and his wife Friday,” said Miss Molly happily. “They’re expecting. Carl is so excited. About that, and Josh is doing well in L.A.”

  “I know Mr. Perkins is proud of him,” Catherine murmured. Her conversation with Perkins at the tenant shack was the only one she could remember that didn’t feature Josh: his job, his wife (beautiful and of good family), and his brilliant prospects.

  “I do wish they were settled here,” Mrs. Perkins said wistfully. “That’s why we built that big house. Not many young people do stay in Lowfield, seems like.”

  Catherine slid the gumbo dish back against the wall. She couldn’t think of anything to say. As she remembered Josh, who was a few years older, the last thing he’d do would be to settle down quietly in Lowfield.