Murder at Mabel's Motel Read online

  “I don’t expect you to make nothin’ up to me,” she told him. Sliding him a flirty, sideways grin, she added, “Though, if you feel strongly about it, you’re welcome to try.”

  “I’ll try and I’ll succeed. You’ll see.”

  Halfway up her driveway, he stopped the car and turned in his seat to face her. “There’s a bit of business I want to take care of here and now. Before we get up there to the house with the prying eyes . . . and that’s just Elsie’s, not to mention all your grandkids.”

  Stella could feel her heart miss a few beats, then make up for it with double time.

  A good-night kiss?

  Of course, it had occurred to her that he might want one. Several times in the first half hour of their “date” she had weighed her own mixed feelings about the prospect, back and forth, without coming to a final decision.

  But from the moment Dolly had charged through the door of the café and shared her awful news, such romantic notions had been forgotten, eclipsed by far more urgent matters.

  As Manny leaned closer to her, many thoughts flooded her mind and emotions. He had kissed her once before, and the simple memory of it filled her with a longing so strong it was almost overpowering.

  Manny knew how to kiss, she had decided that Christmas Day, there in her kitchen. Boy, did he ever know how!

  She had enjoyed every second of it, and she had enjoyed it many times since, recalling every detail, every nuance of the experience.

  But she also recalled the guilt she had felt afterward. As though she had betrayed her husband and even Manny’s wife, Lucy, who had been her best friend.

  She tensed, unable to decide whether to lift her face and offer her lips. But Manny made the decision for her. He gave her the quickest peck on her cheek, then the other cheek, and then a final, slightly longer one on her forehead.

  “Thank you for the joy of your company tonight, Stella,” he said. His voice and tone were tender and loving, as though they had just shared a great intimacy.

  Brushing a wayward curl out of her eyes, he added, “In spite of all that occurred, I wouldn’t have wanted to experience one moment of what happened this evening without you beside me. You were a great help and comfort to me through it all.”

  Stella didn’t know what to say. So, she sat quietly, nodded her head, and cleared her throat.

  Finally, she recovered herself and was able to croak out a simple, “Me too.”

  She was both relieved and disappointed when he settled back into his seat and continued to drive toward the house.

  When they pulled up in front and stopped, she saw her lace curtains pull aside for a moment, then quickly fall back into place.

  “Elsie,” she said.

  “You’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Not because I’m late,” Stella said, thinking of how patient her friend was, how generous with her time when it came to free babysitting. “But she’s going to want to hear every detail of everything that transpired. Down to the color of Billy Ray Sonner’s underwear.”

  They looked at each other and laughed.

  “I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you tell him that the last time you saw him, he wasn’t wearing any,” Manny said.

  “That’ll be one of the best parts.” Stella saw the curtain move again and realized that poor Elsie was probably dying by degrees. She had to say, “Good night,” and get inside.

  “She’s about to burst at the seams in there with all that curiosity,” she told him. “She’ll have a hundred and one questions, and by the time we’re done, she’ll know more about what happened than I do.”

  “That’s our Elsie,” he said. “Second nosiest woman in the county.”

  Stella shot him a playfully indignant look. “I’m not gonna ask who you think is the nosiest.”

  “Good idea. We want this date-from-hell to end on a good note that doesn’t involve bloodshed.” He gave her a long, sweet smile and said, “Let me walk you to the door.”

  “You don’t need to. You’re tired, and I know where it’s at.”

  “No. You sit right there and let me do my manly man duty.”

  “Oh, well, when you put it like that, heaven forbid I’d get in the way of such a display of audacious gallantry.”

  “Exactly. Sit still and don’t touch that door handle.”

  With far more energy than she would have expected from a man who had endured the evening he had, he hopped out of the cruiser, hurried around, and opened her door for her.

  Though she hardly needed the helping hand he offered as she climbed out, she gratefully took it anyway and held tightly to it, enjoying the friendly contact as they walked to the door.

  “I’d invite you inside, but . . .” she said.

  “But you have to regale Elsie with your tales and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s another day. Once you’ve got the kids off to school, you could drop by the station house. If you’ve a mind to, that is.”

  “I will. What’ll you be doin’ now? You headin’ home to catch some shut-eye?”

  “No,” he said, all levity leaving his face, to be replaced by solemn determination. “I’ve got a bad guy to catch. And when I do, I’m going to take him to the station and stick him in a cell. Then I’m gonna rip off his left arm and whack Mervin up one side and down the other with it.”

  * * *

  Stella was right about Elsie pouncing on her with questions the moment she entered the house. But her inquiries were more personal in nature than Stella was expecting.

  “What’d you two do . . . stop down the road a ways to get your good-night kissin’ done?” was the first thing out of Elsie’s mouth before Stella could even get her purse set down and Flo’s miserably uncomfortable high heels off her aching feet.

  Shocked, Stella gave a little gasp that was better than any affirmation to Elsie’s overly inquisitive mind.

  “You did!” Elsie clapped her hands and did a little wiggle-dance of glee. “I knew it!”

  “How did you know it?” Stella shook her head, incredulous. “How on earth could you possibly know that? I do believe, Miss Elsie Jo Dingle, that you have the spiritual gift of knowledge—knowin’ stuff you got no business knowin’, that is.”

  Elsie shuffled over to the couch, where one of Stella’s best quilts was spread, and stretched out on it. “I might never’ve gotten married,” Elsie said with a grin, “but I was young once. I know all about gittin’ that last good-night kiss done and over with before you show up on your doorstep where nosy family members might be peepin’ out the window.”

  “Or nosy best friends.”

  “Eh, stop it. I was more excited about this date than you were, girl. I’ve been proppin’ my eyelids open with toothpicks, tryin’ to stay awake till you got back. I wanna hear all about it.”

  “All about it? It was a long evenin’, Elsie. A lot happened.”

  “All. Ever’ bit.”

  Stella plopped down in her recliner, lifted the footrest, took a deep breath, and said, “Okay. First of all, let it be said that Billy Ray Sonner’s got the scrawniest, most pimple-pocked, and altogether least appealing rear end of any man in this here county, and I’m fixin’ to tell you how I know that for a fact. . . .”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Stella was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to Elsie and her grandson, Waycross, snore. Elsie was winning the contest for sheer volume. Waycross’s little boy noises were cuter. By far.

  As Elsie frequently did after babysitting late hours for Stella, she slept over, rather than make the trip back to the Patterson plantation. As long as she made it back to work the next morning, in time to have Judge Patterson’s and his wife’s late morning breakfast on the table, Elsie was free to do as she pleased.

  What pleased her most was spending time in the home of the people she loved most in the world.

  They were happy to have her, except for Waycross, who loved Elsie dearly, but he also loved his bed—the living room co
uch.

  Some time back he’d decided he was too old to continue sleeping in a bedroom filled with girls, and he’d demanded “couch rights.”

  Understanding his need for privacy and a giggle-free zone to “be a guy” without having to listen to squabbles over hair ribbons and such, Stella had granted his request.

  Come bedtime, the couch was his.

  Unless Elsie was visiting.

  In which case, he had to sleep with Gran.

  The prospect didn’t please him overly, but he admitted it was better than sleeping in the same room with Marietta and Vidalia and being awakened in the middle of the night to Marietta hollering about how Vidalia had reached up from her own bottom bunk to Mari’s top one and stuck her sister with a pin.

  “Granny snores,” Waycross had told his sisters, “but she smells better than y’all—like flowers and bath powder—and she’s a whole heap less quarrelsome.”

  Lying next to her sleeping grandson, Stella reached over and gently touched one of his soft, copper curls. He was the only red-haired child in the family, the only one to inherit his Grandpa Art’s auburn locks.

  Like most gingers, he got teased about it in the small town, but Waycross wouldn’t have traded his distinctive hair color for the world. He considered it a bond between himself and the grandfather he adored, but hardly knew.

  Sadly, that relationship, which existed in the child’s own mind, was the closest thing to a loving, attentive male that Waycross had ever known. Thanks to a wayward father who spent as little time as he could raising the children he so frequently brought into the world.

  Stella had spent many nights lying in bed shedding tears and praying about that situation. So far, there hadn’t been a measurable improvement, but that didn’t keep her from asking for one.

  Tonight, she had even more things to think about, worry about, and pray about.

  Someday, she vowed she’d go straight from thinking to praying without that fretting stage in the middle that cost her so much joy and peace.

  But it won’t be tonight, she told herself. I ain’t there yet. I still got a lot of room for improvement in the “Vexation and Botheration Department.”

  She heard a slight movement to her left, turned, and saw Savannah standing next to her bed.

  By the dim glow of the nightlight, Stella could see the child had a troubled look on her face.

  “I can’t sleep,” Stella told her, knowing what the girl wanted but couldn’t bring herself to ask for. “Do you reckon you could cuddle in here and keep me company?”

  She certainly didn’t have to ask twice. Instantly, the girl hopped into the bed. Stella wriggled closer to Waycross to make room.

  With one grandkid on each side of her, all warm and snuggly, Stella felt like a mother hound with puppies. It was a feeling she loved and wouldn’t have traded for the largest, most luxurious but empty bed in a queen’s palace.

  “I keep thinking about Miss Yolanda and what happened to her,” Savannah said, stroking the sleeve of Stella’s flannel nightgown, her head against her grandmother’s shoulder.

  “How do you know about Miss Yolanda’s situation?” Stella asked.

  “Miss Florence heard something about a ruckus at her pool hall and the other gas station. I heard her and Miss Elsie talking about it. Sounded downright awful.”

  “It was, honey. But Miss Ortez is in the hospital now with her head mended, and she’s gonna be fine, thank goodness.”

  “How can she be fine, when all that bad stuff happened to her?”

  Stella hesitated. The thirteen-year-old might be precocious, but Stella felt strongly that there was no need to add to her already overly extensive education of the world and its ills.

  “What bad stuff are you referrin’ to, darlin’?” Stella asked tentatively.

  “Her getting beaten and raped.”

  Stella sat up on one elbow and stared down at her granddaughter, a sick feeling in her soul. “Now hold your horses there,” she told her. “I don’t know what you overheard, but it sounds to me like somebody went and embroidered the truth there. I won’t name names but—”

  “Florence Bagley.”

  “Okay, Flo has a bad habit of exaggerating when she’s passing along a bit of gossip. Somebody can spot a brown bear cub down in the woods by Hooter Holler and by the time Flo gets done tellin’ it, they was ate and spit out in chunks by a rabid, two-ton grizzly.”

  To Stella’s relief, she heard Savannah snicker.

  “Miss Flo doesn’t let the facts get in the way of a good story,” the girl added.

  “That’s exactly right. But she’s wrong to do that in a case like this. The bear cub who was spotted wouldn’t mind bein’ lied about, but that poor girl, Yolanda, she’s got enough to deal with as it is, without the whole town thinking the worst about what happened to her.”

  “Then she wasn’t raped?”

  Stella fought down the revulsion she felt, just knowing her granddaughter knew of such an act and even what to call it. “No, she was not,” Stella told her. “There’s a good chance it might have led to that, if the feller who hurt her—”

  “Billy Ray Sonner.”

  “Yes, him . . . if he hadn’t gotten interrupted by Miss Dolly Browning—”

  “The crazy lady with all the cats who lives in the haunted house.”

  “Yes, but let’s call her, ‘the brave lady who’s now the hero of the day here ’bouts.’ ”

  Savannah thought it over a moment. “That’s kinder.”

  “A heap kinder.”

  “So, what exactly did happen to Miss Yolanda? Miss Florence said she had her clothes all torn off her.”

  “That isn’t true either. Her blouse was ripped—maybe he did it on purpose, might’ve been done durin’ the struggle—but it was still on her. So were her jeans, her socks, and shoes.”

  “Her head was bashed in though? Her brains showing?”

  “Good Lord’ve mercy. That Florence should take up writin’ horror novels for a pastime. Obviously, she needs an outlet for that overactive imagination of hers.”

  Stella wrapped her arm around her granddaughter and pulled her closer. “The truth is, and I should know ’cause I was there and saw the aftereffects, is that Miss Yolanda was attacked by somebody. We’re pretty darned sure it was Billy Ray Weasel-Face Sonner. He attempted to get way too friendly with her, and when she refused his attentions, he hurt her. He cut off her hair and hit her so hard on the head that she needed quite a few stitches and—”

  “Twenty-five pints of blood, Miss Flo said.”

  “Good grief! I’m gonna have to give that girl a serious talkin’ to about her fibbin’. It’s outta control! Twenty-five pints, my foot. That’s more’n twice what a body’s got in ’im in the first place. Miss Yolanda lost one pint, and one transfusion put ’er right as rain. Blood-wise anyhow.”

  “What do you mean?” Stella heard the concern in Savannah’s voice. “How is it that she’s not right?”

  “She’ll recover from her injuries real quick, ’cause she’s young and healthy,” Stella said, kissing the girl’s forehead. “Her beautiful, long, black hair will grow back, you’ll see, and it’ll cover up the scar on her scalp, so’s it won’t show a bit.”

  “But . . . ?”

  “She’s got wounds inside now, not in her body, but in her mind and spirit. Those won’t ever heal completely. She’s never gonna feel quite as safe as she once did. She won’t trust people, especially men, as much as before. She’ll have to do a lot of soul-searching to handle the bad feelings she’s bound to have after this.”

  Savannah was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, Stella could hear the deep sadness in her voice. “I like Miss Yolanda,” she said. “A lot.”

  “We all do. She’s easy to like. She’s kind.”

  “Last week, I took some empty soda bottles in to her, so’s I could get the change and buy Alma a ginger ale. Her tummy was acting up.”

  “It was? Last week, too? Why didn�
��t you tell me?”

  “You’ve got enough to bother with, and the ginger ale sets her right most times.”

  “Oh. Okay. But next time tell me.”

  “I will. Anyway, Miss Yolanda asked me if I like ginger ale, I told her I do, but it was for my little sister, who was griping up a storm, because she had a bellyache. She laughed and handed me two bottles instead of one. Said I should have a soda, too, because I was a good big sister.”

  Stella chuckled and kissed the top of Savannah’s hair. “You are, darlin’. The best ever. Miss Yolanda’s kinda like a big sister herself, lookin’ out for people the way she does.”

  “Then we have to look out for her.”

  “We will, darlin’. We’ll do all we can.”

  As Stella held her granddaughter tightly and stared up at the ceiling, she knew that even with her grandpuppies near, this was one night when sleep wasn’t going to come quickly.

  Even with a cessation of fretting and copious amounts of fervent prayer—considering all that had transpired in the past few hours—Stella knew that precious peace was going to prove elusive.

  Chapter 10

  The next morning, Stella felt a bit like a wet mop that had been used, wrung out, and tossed out onto the porch to dry. She felt stiff, dried out, and in spite of her nightly bath, a bit dirty.

  “Bein’ around scoundrels like Billy Ray Sonner can do that to ya,” she muttered to herself as she dried her cast-iron skillet and placed it in the oven.

  “You’re talkin’ to yourself again, Granny.”

  She turned and saw Waycross standing in the doorway, a smirk on his freckled face.

  “Now I’m talking to you, young man. Do you think you can get your sisters corralled and into the car in two minutes? We piddled around this mornin’ and y’all done missed that bus. If you don’t get in the truck in the next couple of minutes, y’all are gonna be late for school. Think you can light a fire under them and get ’em goin’?”