Max followed the little woman into the house, wended her way through the stacks of newspapers and magazines, the wheels of the cart squeak-squeaking behind her. Ladybird talked incessantly, most of what she said going right through Max’s head as if there was nothing between her ears but air. Not that it mattered, Ladybird didn’t seem to require answers.
The kitchen was ... well, unique seemed perhaps the nicest way to describe it. Knick-knack shelves covered the walls. Cheesy ceramic bric-a-brac from every tourist trap in the country crammed each inch of available space. Mickey and Minnie salt and pepper shakers from Disneyland. A brightly painted cable car from San Francisco. A red and white paddle wheel steamer from the Mississippi. A pink candelabra from the Liberace Museum. An Elvis clock hung over the sink, the King’s blue-clad hips rocking back and forth with each tick and tock. On the window sill over the sink sat a myriad of tiny porcelain creatures, a bird in a nest, a rabbit with a pink nose, a cat on a pillow, a horse pulling a carriage.
On the other side of the fence lay Bethany Spring’s backyard.
Max’s pulse raced. “Did the police ask if you’d seen anything on the night she died?”
Ladybird’s eyes widened as they stared out the window together. Visible above the fence, something yellow fluttered in a slight breeze, as if the end of the police tape on the back door had come loose.
Ladybird’s voice held awe as she spoke softly. “They did ask me. But I didn’t see anything. I didn’t even hear a noise. I’m a very heavy sleeper. Horace always says the house could burn down around me, and I’d never even wake up.”
So much for all those smoke alarms Witt said he’d installed.
“What about before you went to bed? After all, we don’t know what time she was killed, do we?” Well, Max did, actually, but Ladybird didn’t have to know that.
Ladybird warmed to her topic. “She did have that fight.”
Max suspected the little woman, unnaturally hesitant, wanted the pleasure of building her curiosity. “You didn’t tell Witt and me about any fight last night.”
“Well,” she said through pursed lips, “I was saving it for the police.” Logical for Ladybird. She didn’t want anyone stealing her thunder, not even her son. “I believe it could have been that Jada girl again. Although I didn’t see her car out there when I went to water my rose bushes.”
The plastic rose bushes? Max decided not to ask. “Then who could it have been?”
“Virginia maybe. Of course, I’ve never heard Virginia raise her voice. She wasn’t that kind. She usually scolds with a look. You know the type.” Ladybird did her best to look down her nose with disdain. Max almost laughed. The expression certainly wouldn’t have cowed Witt.
So there was a fight the night Bethany died. Ladybird had already said there were often fights over there. “Did you hear what they were arguing about?”
“No.” Ladybird beamed, her smile reminiscent of Witt’s. “But I’m certain Bethany knew the person who killed her.”
Chapter Fifteen
Max pounced on Ladybird’s assertion. “How can you be sure it was someone she knew?”
“Horace told me.”
Witt certainly wouldn’t like Max’s ghostly encouragement. She did it anyway. After all, ghosts weren’t a figment of everyone’s imagination. At least not in all cases. “What did Horace say?”
“He was quite enigmatic actually.”
“Hmmm,” Max prodded with the sound.
“He said Bethany was another victim of the evil that lived in her house. It claimed her father, and now it’s claimed her.”
“I thought she didn’t move into that house until after her father was dead.”
“She brought it with her. Once it’s gotten its teeth into your nape, Max, evil follows you everywhere. Horace’s words, not mine, but I believe him.”
Horace had also said that Witt would have to kill—for the first time in his career, in his life—to save Max. She glanced at the little woman. Ladybird certainly didn’t seem to hold it against her. Who knew how Ladybird would feel when, if, it ever happened.
“Horace has learned quite a lot on the other side, you know,” Ladybird went on. “Especially about the nature of evil.”
Max shivered and thought of Bud Traynor, evil incarnate. What was that Cameron had said not so long ago? Everyone has a Bud Traynor in their life. The question was, who had been Bethany’s?
Ladybird jumped then, her hands flying to her cheeks. “Oh my goodness, sandwiches. I’m forgetting. You did say you only had a few minutes. All this talk of evil will cast a pall over our lunch if we don’t stop it right this minute.”
The subject was dropped with no easy way of resurrecting it.
Ladybird opened the freezer door of her circa 1970s harvest gold refrigerator and pulled out a package of bread. She plopped it down on her matching gold Formica countertop, folded back the plastic bag, and chopped at the pieces of bread with a pointed knife. The hair on Max’s nape rose. What would Witt do to her if his mother cut off one of her own fingers with that knife?
“You want me to do that, Ladybird?”