Edna didn’t know it yet, but after his retirement from the police department next month, he was going to buy one and drive her up to the Mall of America and let the old gal shop till she dropped. Ralph was just about to take his first bite of pie when he heard the most god-awful screaming and banging going on at his front door. He jumped up and went to find out what in the hell was going on.
He should have known it. When he opened his door, there stood Debbie, Dwayne Jr.’s fourth or fifth wife—he couldn’t remember which—throwing a fit, screaming, and carrying on and on about how that no-good son of a bitch Dwayne Jr. had just stolen her brand-new Toyota Camry. Ralph listened and calmed her down as best he could. He told her he would meet her over at the station in a half hour, and she could fill out a stolen car report. As far as he was concerned, there was no hurry. He knew Dwayne Jr. hadn’t gone too far. He was too dumb and stoned to find his way out of town.
When Ralph returned to the kitchen and sat back down to eat his piece of pie, his plate was empty. There wasn’t anything left of his pie but a few crumbs and a black feather on the windowsill. “Goddamn it to hell.” He wished people wouldn’t bother him at home. While he’d been at the door dealing with crazy Debbie, some damn crow had flown in the window and made off with his pie. “Goddamn it.” And he’d wanted that pie, too. He knew he should have parked his patrol car in the back.
Ralph picked up his phone, stuck his gun in its holster, and slammed out of the house. He was so sick of dealing with the damn Whootens, he didn’t know what to do. James Whooten in and out of the drunk tank, Tot’s aggravated assault with a cement gnome, the daughter had set fire to one of her boyfriend’s trucks, and now Dwayne Jr. again. Lord. There was a bad gene running around in that family.
The last thing he remembered was stopping at the Quik Mart for a case of beer for the road. When he woke up three days later, James Dwayne Whooten, Jr., quickly realized he was not in Key West. He was up at Still Meadows in the Whooten family plot, deader than dirt and sober for the first time in thirty-five years.
“Hey, Momma,” he said to Tot. “Guess what? I think I just got killed in a car accident.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“You ain’t surprised I’m here?”
“No. I’m just surprised you didn’t come sooner. What I want to know is where did you get a car? I thought they had taken your license away for good.”
Dwayne Jr. opened his mouth to lie (always his first instinct), but strangely enough, he suddenly found himself telling the truth. “I stole Debbie’s car.”
“Oh, Lord…poor Debbie. You didn’t kill anybody else, did you?”
“No, just me. It was a single-car accident. I think I hit a tree.”
“That was just pure luck. I’m sure you were drunk as a coot.”
“Yeah, I guess I was.”
“Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so.”
“Hello, son,” said James, jumping into the conversation.
“Oh…hey, Dad, did you hear what happened to me?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What a bummer, huh?”
“Well, son, as bad as it sounds, it might have been the only way to get you sober.”
—
A MONTH LATER, DWAYNE JR. said, “Momma, I’m sorry I stole all that stuff from you and called you them ugly names.”
“I appreciate you telling me that, son.”
“I didn’t mean none of it.”
“I know you didn’t, honey, and just remember, no matter what, I love you, and you will always be my little boy.”
Hearing that one sentence gave Dwayne Jr. a better high than any drug or booze ever had. He’d had to drive himself into a tree to get here, but at last, he was at a place where he felt happy, joyous, and free and stone-cold sober. How cool was that?
—
LATER, WHEN NORMA WAS CHATTING with her mother, she said, “Mother, you just sound so relaxed.”
“Oh, I am,” Ida said. “Ask your father.”
Herbert said, “She’s right, honey. It took a while, but she’s finally calmed down.”
“You know, Norma, I always thought if I wasn’t running and doing all day and night, I might miss something, but now, just watching the world twirl by without me is so enjoyable. I wish I had known it sooner.”
“Me, too.”
“Honey?”
“Yes?” said Norma.
“Thank you for the roses every Mother’s Day.”
“Oh, you’re so welcome, Mother.”
“By the way…who is that little Chinese person Linda brought out to see me?”
“Oh, that’s Apple. Your great-granddaughter.”
There was a slight pause. “Has Linda married a Communist?”
“No, Mother. She adopted a little girl from China.”
“Oh…I see.”
“And the Chinese aren’t Communists anymore.”
“Really? Well, that’s good to know….There were too many of them.”
The rule of thumb is that when a crime is committed, there is usually someone out there who knows who did it. And no matter how long it takes, either out of guilt or sometimes just plain revenge, they will suddenly decide to tell what they know.
And that is exactly what happened in the Hanna Marie Swensen will-tampering case. One day, out of the blue, Chief of Police Ralph Childress had a strange message on his phone that read Look behind A.S. portrait at dairy.
Ralph had no idea what it meant; the only A.S. he knew was Ander Swensen. There was a painting of the old man down at the dairy. But it could be just some kid playing a prank. He’d gotten a lot of that lately, but he decided to drive over and check it out anyway.
—
WHEN HE GOT THERE, the young man working in the front office was not a lot of help.
“No, sir,” he said. “I’ve been working here six years, and I’ve never seen any portrait of anybody out here.”
“I see.”
“I’d be happy to show you around.”
“No, that’s okay. Thanks anyway.”
Ralph went back to the car and suddenly remembered that Mildred Flowers, a gal he had gone to high school with, had worked at the dairy right after Little Miss Davenport died. He decided to give her a call.
“Hey, Mildred, Ralph Childress.”
“Well, hey there. How are you? We haven’t seen you for a while. You okay? Is Edna still feeding you all those pies?”
“Oh, yeah. Ah, listen, let me ask you something. Didn’t there used to be a portrait of Mr. Swensen down at the dairy?”
“Yeah, it was hanging in the boardroom with all the other awards and things.”
“Whatever happened to it, do you know?”
“Sure. After poor Hanna Marie died, His Royal Horse’s Assness ordered us to take it all down and throw it all out. Why?”
“Did you?”
“Well, hell no…I took them down, but I didn’t get rid of them. I knew the Swensens. That man worked hard to build that business and win those awards. I wasn’t going to sling them all out in the dumpster just because he said so.”
“So what did you do with them?”
“I stuck them in a big box and took ’em home and put it in the garage. Why?”
“Do you still have them?”
“Well, yeah, as far as I know, I do, unless Carl threw them out. But I doubt it.”
“Do you mind if I come over and take a look?”