“It’s not a crime scene, Martina,” Frank said, mild and dismissive. “We don’t know what it is yet.”
“I own almost every season of Law & Order on DVD. I know a crime scene when I see one.” She turned her beady glare on me. “Y’all uppity Birches! I shoulda known. I hope they bring cadaver dogs and dig up the whole yard.” She gave the Barleys a knowing nod and added, “I bet you anything there’s a whole slew of bones and folks and suchlike buried under there.”
The Barleys actually looked alarmed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped.
Martina looked down her nose at me, tilting her head back and flaring her nostrils so wide I could practically see all the way up into the dark cavity where her brains ought to have been. “My daughter took me to see Arsenic and Old Lace over at the Montgomery theater. I know what’s what!”
She’d prepped her grandson about what was what as well, because as Cody bustled up, I saw he’d brought a roll of glaring yellow crime-scene tape with him. It was so old it was dusty.
“What in blue blazes is going on?” he snapped, glaring from Frank to me. “Gran says you’ve got a body in that chest?”
I started to answer, but Frank put one calm hand on my arm.
“We’re not sure what we’ve got here, yet,” Frank said.
“I’m going to need to open it,” Cody said to Frank. “I need to see.”
Frank waved his hand in a be-my-guest gesture. Cody pushed in close and dropped into a crouch.
I turned my face away and looked at the Barleys, huddled close and whispering to each other. I heard the chest’s lid creak, heard Cody grunt. Down the road Della Brody was standing on her porch, peering over at us. Next door to her, the Maxwells had come outside, too, so First Baptist’s super-efficient phone tree was already working. We’d have most of Birchville on our lawn within ten minutes. I kept my face pointed safely at the neighbors, watching them coalesce, until I heard the click and creak of the chest closing again.
Cody was asking Frank about the car with its smashed bumper and how the chest had come to be resting in the grass in the first place.
“It was in the back of the car.”
“Where was it before that?” Cody asked. “Where did it come from?”
That was the real question, wasn’t it?
“The attic,” Frank answered, calm and brief, supplying truthful information, but only the exact things Cody asked for.
While they talked, I picked my way over to Lavender and the boys, the damp cuffs of my pajamas flapping at my bare ankles.
“You kids go make Birchie and Miss Wattie some hot sweet tea, please? Or cocoa. I think they’re in shock.”
“Can we have cocoa, too?” Lavender said, her kidcentric interest lured by chocolate and sugar. Jeffrey’s smile sparked hopeful at the question, but Hugh’s face remained grave, a mirror of his father’s. He was only two and a half years older, but they were big years; I hoped that Lav had picked the safety of a crush on Jeffrey. Lavender wasn’t ready for a high-school boy, minutes from driving, with a full complement of adolescent testosterone thundering through his body. But I looked at how close he stood beside her, so protective, and I knew he was there whether she was ready or not.
“Sure,” I said. They started off.
“I’m going to need to question Miss Birchie,” I heard Cody say behind me, and I whirled back.
Frank said, “I’m her lawyer. You can talk to me.”
“That dog won’t hunt,” Cody said. “I been questioning you. You don’t know jack-all.”
“I’ll have to do. I can’t let you talk to my client. You were at the Fish Fry, so you know very well Miss Birchie is not competent.”
“Bullpucky. Seems to me like Miss Birchie only spoke some true words at the Fry. If what she’d said was craziness, your wife wouldn’t be living at her mama’s right now, would she?” Cody said, and Frank’s lips went white.
Damn, but that was a low blow in a fresh wound. Why hadn’t God made jackass genes recessive?
“Birchie has Lewy bodies.” I stepped in, trying to sound calmer than I felt. “It’s a form of dementia, and you can confirm the diagnosis with her doctor. You absolutely may not question her.” I shot Martina Mack a look of pure venom. I’d seen Law & Order, too, if only once or twice. It wasn’t really my kind of thing. “You talk to Frank and no one else, and you keep a civil tongue in your head while you’re doing it.” It was a line straight out of Birchie’s lexicon.
Now one of our two police cars was driving slowly up from the square. It looked like the chief, Willard Dalton, was behind the wheel. He was a reasonable guy, older and calmer, worth about fifteen Codys. I willed him to drive faster.
Cody glared back and forth between us. “Get me Wattie, then. She hasn’t gone demented, all sudden and convenient, has she?”
“Miss Wattie, you mean. Who raised you?” I was all Birchville in this moment, speaking for my grandmother and doing it well enough to shame him. He was in our own yard. Hell, he was in our own town. He should have called Wattie “Miss,” given his age and hers, especially in front of his own grandma, and he knew it. “I see your boss coming, and he will talk to Frank, and me, and anybody else who might need talking to. You stand out here in the yard like the dog you are. Let human beings pick what happens next.”
I turned smart on my heel and walked off toward the house.
“Wait here,” Frank ordered Cody, and followed me up onto the porch. He leaned in, talking soft. “Don’t you ask Birchie any questions. She might tell you.”
“Tell me? Tell me what?” I said.
“Anything. You need to be careful what you know. Don’t ask, and do not let her explain.”
I was already shaking my head. “Frank, I have to—”
He interrupted me, quiet but urgent. “Hear me on this. These are old, old ladies, and Birchie is sick. I’m not going to let anybody question her. Not if I can help it. But for sure someone is going to question you. If you know the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, you could do a lot more harm than good. Let me protect y’all.”