Murder at Mabel's Motel Page 6

  To Stella he added, “Sorry, Mrs. Reid, but I picked the best of a bunch of hard words I could’ve used there.”

  “I know you did, Mr. Ortez. No offense taken. That ’un’s a lot better than the one I would’ve picked out.”

  Raul looked up at Manny, his eyes sad, more like a defeated man than the one who had just beaten up the town bully. “Can I go now, Sheriff? Please. I’ve got to get to my girl. I know she’s wondering where I’ve been, and I’m not too proud of it.”

  Manny gave him an encouraging pat on the back and said, “I’ll do you one better than that, Mr. Ortez. Get in the back of my vehicle. Miss Stella and I, we’ll take you to her.”

  Chapter 6

  Stella had never liked hospitals. Of course, she was more than grateful for the folks who worked in them. She considered them saints with sacred callings and divine strength that enabled them to do the backbreaking work and perform the heartbreaking tasks their various jobs entailed.

  Those were things she was quite sure she couldn’t have done herself.

  Like police officers, firefighters, soldiers, and teachers, healthcare workers did society’s heavy lifting. Usually, they did so for little money, praise, or even appreciation.

  Stella sincerely hoped there would be a special place inside the Pearly Gates for the likes of them. As far as she was concerned, they sure deserved it, after spending most of their waking hours inside buildings with drab, pale blue walls, worn linoleum floors, and the smell of disinfectant that did little to compete with the less pleasant odors it fought to disguise.

  To be sure, hospitals were necessary and precious babies entered the world inside their walls. So, they weren’t all bad. But every time Stella walked through the automated, sliding doors of one, she was thinking how glad she’d be to pass through those doors again—on her way out.

  Though she did admit, at least to herself, that this particular trip inside this place of sadness, misery, hope, and healing was better than most, simply because she had Manny Gilford walking beside her.

  Manny had a way about him that set her mind at ease. It didn’t seem likely that anything too terrible would happen when he was around. He just wouldn’t let it.

  Of course, she knew no human being possessed such powers. But even if something awful did occur, she believed deep in her soul that Sheriff Gilford would make it better somehow.

  As though reading her mind, he placed his hand on her arm and pulled her a bit closer to him. “Are you hungry, Stella?” he asked. “I don’t think you’d taken more than two bites of that hamburger before we got called away.”

  She thought it over for a moment, then said, “Not really. Can’t say I got much of an appetite at the moment. You?”

  “Naw. But I could sure use a coffee—one big enough to go swimming in. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Now you’re talkin’.” She glanced toward the cafeteria and noticed a phone booth to the right, over near the restrooms. “But first, if you don’t mind, I wanna call home and make sure those little ruffians of mine haven’t tied Elsie to a chair with her own hose, like they did the last time she sat ’em.”

  “They did?”

  She laughed. “She gave them permission, thinkin’ they’d be good about untyin’ her once they’d had their fun.”

  “They did though. Eventually, right?”

  “Once they’d polished off ever’ crumb of the coconut cake she’d brought ’em.”

  Chuckling, he said, “Now that sounds like your brood, and having tasted Elsie’s coconut cake, I can’t blame them one bit.” He released her arm, fished a quarter out of his pocket, gave it to her, then nudged her toward the phone booth. “You go call her and make sure she’s still in once piece. I’ll go get the coffees. Extra cream, one sugar, right?”

  “You know me too well, Sheriff.”

  “Not as well as I’d like to.”

  He’d said it softly, under his breath, but she’d heard him.

  Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she quickly turned her back on him and rushed to the booth.

  Lord’ve mercy, she thought. I swear, with his deep voice, that man could read a grocery list and make it sound sexy as Saturday night sin.

  She could have sworn she heard him laughing as she ducked into the booth and he went into the cafeteria.

  When she dropped the quarter into the phone, she tried to ignore the fact that her hand was shaking.

  Long night already, she told herself, and it ain’t even seven o’clock yet.

  Elsie picked up the phone at Stella’s house before the second ring.

  It’s too early for her to have the young’uns in bed, Stella thought. She ain’t worried about me wakin’ ’em up. She’s heard the news and wants to hear more. That’s why she pounced on that phone like a barnyard cat on a big, lazy rat.

  “I was hopin’ you’d call!” Elsie exclaimed, sounding positively breathless with excitement. “Flo came by here, askin’ all sorts of questions about the goings-on in town, and I had nothin’ to tell her! Sounds like all tarnation’s done broke loose!”

  “There was trouble at the old service station and the pool hall,” Stella said, glad that the telephone booth was the old-fashioned sort that had a seat in it. She groaned as she sat down on it. All of a sudden, she realized she was quite tired. Drama of the sort they’d experienced this evening took a lot out of a person.

  Manny couldn’t show up quite fast enough with that coffee to suit her.

  “I heard Miss Yolanda got . . . oh . . . I hate to even say it, but—”

  “Whoever told you, they probably exaggerated it.”

  “ ’Twas Flo.”

  “Then you know it was. She’s got many good qualities, that Flo, but stickin’ to the facts of a story ain’t one of ’em.”

  “She does embroider the truth if she thinks it ain’t juicy enough on its own,” Elsie admitted.

  Stella heard Elsie pause in her interrogation long enough to sit down. She could just imagine her friend sinking into her old, but comfortable, avocado-green recliner and taking a breather.

  Like Stella, Elsie’s fiftieth birthday had come and gone, and they were both feeling it.

  Plus, Elsie’s job was a tough one—the chief cook for Judge Patterson at his grand plantation just outside of town.

  Many years ago, Elsie’s ancestors had worked that plantation as slaves, picking cotton and performing other miserable, soul-and-body-crippling labor. But, thankfully, times had changed, and Elsie had worked her way up from washing dishes to head of the judge’s kitchen. Everyone who was anybody in the area had tasted Elsie Dingle’s cooking, and no one disputed her reputation as the finest chef in the county.

  In spite of her illustrious career, Elsie had never married. As a woman with an independent spirit, she didn’t mourn the fact that she had no husband. But she did grieve the fact that she had no children.

  So, Stella was blessed with a best friend who was eager, almost desperate, to babysit for her, for free, any time of the day or night. And the children adored the tiny woman with her coffee-colored skin, silver halo of hair, and dark eyes that sparkled with humor. They loved her warm hugs that set the huggee’s world right in an instant . . . almost as much as they loved her cakes and pies.

  “Tell me all about it,” Stella heard her say with a tired sigh. “The kids are all bathed, they’re gettin’ into their pajamas, and I’m in your chair. I wanna hear it all.”

  Stella glanced toward the cafeteria and saw through the glass partition that Manny was paying for the coffee. “I’m sorry, Elsie. I really am. A full rundown’s the least I owe you for babysittin’ for me all evenin’, but—”

  “Aw, that’s nothin’, and you know it. I’d rather be here anytime than sittin’ on my fanny at home, watchin’ television. Are you still in the midst of it? You and the sheriff workin’ it all out?”

  “He is. I’m just taggin’ along for the ride. I just called to make sure everybody and everything there’s okay.”

/>   “We’re good. Little Alma complained of a tummy ache, but I chalk that up to her chowin’ down a piece o’ cake that was bigger than her. I gave her a spoonful of bakin’ soda in warm water, and a few minutes later, she had herself a good burp. So I reckon she’ll be feelin’ better soon.”

  “Thank you, sugar. That’s what I’d have done, too.”

  She saw Manny coming toward her, a cup in each hand and a smile on his face that she was pretty sure was meant for her.

  “I gotta go now. I can’t hold the sheriff up. Do you mind if I’m out a bit longer?”

  “Not a’tall. You know that. How’s about I just figure on spendin’ the night?”

  “Sure. Crawl into my bed and zonk on out.”

  “I’ll be fine here on the couch. It’s more comfortable than my own bed, and I got one of your quilts here to cover up with.”

  “Bless you, Elsie.”

  “You too, darlin’.”

  As Stella stepped out of the booth, Manny placed a large foam cup of coffee into her hand. She curled her fingers around it, gratefully absorbing its comforting warmth.

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” she said, giving him a playful grin. “I owe ya one.”

  “Just give me a piece of Elsie’s cake tomorrow. The one she brought over for your grandkids.”

  “Sorry. You’re outta luck. I hear tell Alma ate nearly all of it herself and has the tummy ache to prove it.”

  They both took long drinks from the cups, closing their eyes and savoring both the flavor and the fortification the beverage gave them.

  “That ain’t half bad . . . for hospital coffee,” Stella pronounced.

  “Not as good as the donut shop’s, but a heck of a lot better than what you get at a service station,” was Manny’s review.

  “Yolanda’s is pretty good, but that stuff they serve at Flo’s garage, I think they make that fresh ever’ mornin’. Ever’ Wednesday mornin’, that is.”

  In a matter of seconds, Manny’s was empty. As he tossed the cup into a nearby trash can, he said, “You take your time with yours, but I’ve gotta check on Billy Ray. I’m not comfortable leaving him with Merv.”

  “You afraid he’ll lose him?”

  “Lose him, accidently shoot him, take him to the school prom . . . you never know with Mervin.”

  Stella grinned. “That boy’s ’bout as useful as a screen door in a submarine.”

  “As effective as a fart in a tornado.”

  “You just gotta overlook the likes of him. He ain’t got no home trainin’.”

  “More dollars than sense, and he’s flat broke.”

  * * *

  After looking for Billy Ray in the emergency room, they located him in a space only slightly larger than a closet that the nurse at the desk had referred to as “the suture room.”

  The room was earning its name, as Billy Ray sat in a chair, grimacing and moaning as he had the twelfth stitch put into his arm. Unfortunately for him, it would take several more before the wound was closed.

  Stella couldn’t help noticing how salty Billy Ray’s language was as he insulted the young nurse practitioner who was inserting his stitches.

  He wasn’t using any words that she hadn’t heard before. But in a town where many people carried handguns on their persons at all time, such insults weren’t uttered very often. For obvious reasons.

  It was frequently observed, “A well-armed community is a courteous one.”

  Stella shook her head, wondering at the wisdom of Billy Ray’s decision to verbally abuse his nurse.

  Surely, there was some sort of life rule about not talking nasty to someone who was poking a sharp needle in and out of your flesh at that moment.

  “Where’d you learn how to sew, girl? Your damned Home Ec class?” he shouted at her, after flinching at the precisely wrong moment and causing her to stick him in a nearby area that hadn’t been anesthetized. “You poke me one more time like that and I’m gonna—”

  “You won’t do anything, Sonner, but sit there and shut up,” Manny told him, walking up behind him, putting his big hands on Billy Ray’s shoulders, and pressing down hard.

  To the nurse, Manny said, “You’re doing a good job there, Miss. Please continue and pay Mr. Sonner here no mind. He won’t hurt you. Not in a well-lit room with witnesses around. Of course, if you’re alone in the dark behind a garage . . .”

  Stella saw Manny’s hands squeeze Billy Ray’s shoulders, probably tightly, she decided, because he flinched.

  “I done told you, I didn’t do that!” Billy Ray said, trying to whip around to face his accuser and getting stuck again in the process.

  Manny’s hands gripped him even harder, bearing down on him, forcing him to stay seated and still.

  “I didn’t!” Billy Ray insisted. “It was Earle that messed her up. Me and Deacon caught him foolin’ around with her back there behind the station, and we told him to bring it to a screechin’ halt, then and there, and he did. We saved her!”

  “Sure you did, Billy Ray,” Stella said, unable to resist jumping in. “You’re one righteous crime-fightin’ caped crusader and a half. That’s you! Slayin’ dragons and rescuin’ fair damsels from fire-breathin’ dragons like Earle Campbell.”

  “Are you intending to bribe ol’ Earle like you did before?” Manny asked. “Reckon he’ll believe the ‘I’ll give you a thousand dollars if you’ll take my rap for me, Earle’ story again?”

  “Somethin’ tells me he won’t do another stretch for you,” Stella told him. “You could’ve at least picked him up from the prison gate when they let him out. I’ve heard he’s still pretty sore at you for that.”

  At that moment, Stella heard a movement behind her. She turned to see that yet another person was attempting to squeeze into the tiny room.

  “Well, good evening, Deputy Jarvis,” Manny drawled, his tone heavy with sarcasm. “Fancy meeting you here. You know, here . . . in the same place as your prisoner.”

  Stella thought, That boy looks as nervous as a fly in a glue pot, and she couldn’t blame him. Manny was glaring at him in a way that would have made anyone uneasy.

  Manny was a nice guy, but he had his forty-five caliber “Sheriff glare” down pat.

  “I had to go . . . um . . . I needed a bathroom break, Sheriff,” he said. “I figured he was okay here for a minute while I ran down the hall to—”

  Other than a few more seconds added on to the end of the glare, Manny said nothing. Instead, he turned to the nurse, who had just snipped the last thread and said, “If you please, Miss, would you get this patient a hospital gown to wear?”

  “A hospital gown!?” Billy yelled, outraged at the very idea. “I ain’t wearin’ one of those things. They’ve got the whole back outta ’em!”

  She smiled up at Manny sweetly. “Of course, Sheriff. Right away.”

  “And Nurse, Mr. Sonner here’s not half as big a guy as he thinks he is. The gown you get him doesn’t need to be a particularly large one, if you catch my drift.”

  “I understand. Right away, Sheriff.”

  She hurried out the door, the look on her face that of a woman with a mission.

  “But I’m all done here now!” Billy Ray protested. “They told me I could go as soon as I got stitched up.”

  “You can,” Manny told him. “As a matter of fact, I insist upon it. You’re going to be enjoying the hospitality of the fine city of McGill, Georgia. We have a suite all prepared for you. I think you’ll find the accommodations most comfortable.”

  Manny paused, thought a bit, then added, “Well, not exactly comfortable, but newly redecorated. We recently repainted the bars. A nice, neutral, dove gray. It’s all the rage in the home décor magazines these days.”

  “But why’re you takin’ my clothes?” Billy Ray demanded.

  “Because without even trying, I see evidence all over you. There’s long black hair there on your shirt, dirty engine oil and mud on your knees—like back there on the ground behind the garage.”

 
Billy Ray swallowed. Hard. He looked like he might be sick at any moment.

  “Don’t fret so,” Manny told him. “You’ll be getting a nice new orange outfit, and you can wear it for a good many years.”

  “I keep tellin’ you, I didn’t do nothin’ to—”

  “Of course you didn’t.”

  Stella couldn’t recall ever hearing Manny’s voice sound so ominous as when he added, “How much do you want to bet that when we get you undressed, there’ll be some fresh scratches on you? Your neck, your chest. Let’s just say, Yolanda doesn’t strike me as a young lady who’d quietly allow that sort of savagery done to her without fighting back. Hard.”

  Turning to his deputy, Manny said, “Mervin, would you please make yourself useful. Go to my cruiser, look in the trunk, and get my camera and several large evidence bags. We’ll be taking all of Mr. Sonner’s clothing with us, including his white suspenders and his boots with those lovely white laces.”

  “My boots?!” Billy Ray was beside himself with rage. “You’re gonna make me walk into the police station in my bare feet and sportin’ a damned hospital gown?”

  Manny smiled. It was a benevolent smile that would have terrified anyone who looked into his eyes, which were cold as a January morning on a north Georgia mountain slope.

  “Oh, and Deputy,” Manny continued, “there in my trunk, next to the toolbox you’ll find a pair of flip-flops. As I recall, they’re blue. They’ll match Mr. Sonner’s gown. We want him looking fashionable for the town paper reporter.”

  “What?” Billy Ray’s eyes bugged. “The paper’s gonna be there for my perp walk? How’re they gonna know you’re bringin’ me in?”

  “Because I’m going to call and tell them. With any luck, Mr. Sonner, you’ll make tomorrow’s front page.”

  Chapter 7

  Once Stella and Manny had locked Billy Ray’s bagged clothing into the cruiser’s trunk, and Manny had assisted his deputy in putting the prisoner into the rear seat of Merv’s patrol car, they headed back into the hospital. Both were eager to see how Yolanda was faring and to offer emotional support to Raul.