Hung Out to Die Read online

  “No,” I said again. I pointed to the stack of clean laundry. “I already am making your life easier, anyway.”

  “You’re going to go, Josie,” Sally said.

  “No, I am not.”

  “Josie Toadfern, you’d better get your sorry ass over the river and through the woods to Mamaw’s house for Thanksgiving, or else your ass will really know what sorry is, after I give you a whipping you’ll never forget!”

  Now, that was enough—really it was—for me to just toss Sally out of my laundromat—at least as soon as her last load finished drying—and tell her there was no way I was about to let her bully me into going to Mamaw Toadfern’s house for Thanksgiving.

  In fact, I was just mad enough that I was ready to boycott the Bar-None, at least until after Thanksgiving.

  But I never got a chance to tell Sally off. Just as I opened my mouth to tell her . . . well, I can’t quite remember what I was going to say, but I’m sure it was quite clever . . . there was a tap at the front door of my laundromat.

  It drew my attention from Sally, and then I saw who was standing on the other side of my big pane glass window—just to the left of my logo (a toad on a lily pad bearing the phrase ALWAYS A LEAP AHEAD OF DIRT), and whatever wittily devastating response I had in mind for Sally and why I would not go to Mamaw Toadfern’s for Thanksgiving dissolved to dust.

  And I was left staring, gapmouthed, at the woman standing just outside my laundromat window.

  “My Lord,” said Sally. “I thought she swore thirteen years ago she was going to Massachusetts and never setting foot again in this godforsaken town. At least that’s the phrase I heard she used for her valedictory speech at her high school graduation.”

  “Would you look at that? Her hair . . . it’s so damned perfect. And her figure is so trim,” Cherry said, a pouting note of jealousy in her voice. “You’d think she’d have at least had the decency to have gained ten pounds and gotten split ends.”

  I said, “She’s probably still nice, too. And happily married. With two kids, a dog, and a big old house.”

  Then we all sighed with undisguised envy, while Rachel Burkette—the smartest, prettiest, nicest young lady ever to grow up in and then leave Paradise—stood outside waving at us.

  I started toward the door.

  “Wait, Josie, you’re closed, remember?” said Cherry.

  “Cherry!” Sally and I said in unison.

  Rachel was perfect thirteen years before. She was probably perfect now. We all wanted to hate her for it, but we couldn’t, because she’d be so perfectly understanding about it.

  The only imperfect thing she’d ever done was her outburst at the commencement, which we’d all heard about, even though she was two years older than us and we hadn’t actually been at the event.

  And it gave us all the perfect excuse to heave a sigh of relief when she left town.

  But now she was back and so, of course, I opened my laundromat door to her.

  I swear, if it hadn’t been for her showing up like that, I wouldn’t have gone to Mamaw Toadfern’s for Thanksgiving and the reunion, and then—maybe—the murder and all that followed wouldn’t have happened.

  But I did open the door.

  I was only being polite.

  3

  Half an hour later, we were all across the street at Sandy’s Restaurant, eating our very late breakfasts. No one asks for “brunch” at Sandy’s. “Brunch” is something served at fancy hotel restaurants up in, say, Columbus. At Sandy’s—which is actually a double-wide trailer converted over to a faux-wood-paneled restaurant, with the back half for a kitchen and dining counter, and the front half for booths—only breakfast, lunch, and supper are served. And you can get breakfast anytime you want. But ask Sandy for brunch, and she will cross her arms across her black T-shirt emblazoned with WHO ASKED? across the chest, and glare at you from under the brim of her Nascar ball cap until you apologize and rephrase your request to breakfast.

  Rachel didn’t quite ask what was for brunch, but she came as close as possible, ordering fruit cocktail and toast.

  No wonder she was so slender.

  I, of course, ordered my usual—biscuits and gravy, a side of sausage, and strong, black coffee. Sally had three eggs, over easy, and a stack of pancakes. Cherry just had the pancakes. We chatted as we ate, catching Rachel up on our lives. Which didn’t, I’m sorry to say, take long.

  Several people recognized Rachel. A few came over to say hello, politely, but a few pointedly ignored her. The only mean comment came from Bobby John Sellars, whose daughter Prissy had been salutatorian Rachel’s year, and who had been so upset by Rachel’s parting shots in her valedictory speech, she’d run out of the high school auditorium, barely making it to the girls’ bathroom before losing her own late breakfast.

  Now, there were quite a few Paradisites who didn’t particularly like Rachel’s daddy—Rich Burkette, one of only two lawyers in town—but Bobby John was one of the few Paradisites who didn’t make any bones about it. I’d heard it wasn’t just Rachel’s antics making Prissy lose her breakfast at commencement all those years ago. It had something to do with Bobby John having to pay a settlement to a neighbor, represented by Rich, over a broken fence.

  “Sandy, you really oughta be careful about who you let in here!” Bobby John said loudly. “Somehow, I don’t think young women who run down their own home town—”

  The tiny restaurant got quiet. Everyone looked at Rachel—who was turning pink—and then at Bobby John.

  Sally kicked me under the table. “Say something to defend her, Josie!” she whispered.

  “Why me?” I hissed.

  “She invited you to breakfast,” Cherry said. “We just tagged along.”

  “I really am fine,” Rachel said, her flush deepening to red, as Bobby John continued his diatribe. “I don’t need defending.”

  Sandy plunked a bowl of oatmeal in front of Bobby John. “Shut up and eat your oatmeal,” Sandy said.

  There were a few twitters in the restaurant, and I noted at the counter Caleb Loudermilk—the new editor, sole reporter, and advertising executive for the weekly Paradise Advertiser-Gazette—hurriedly taking notes. I frowned at him, but he pretended not to see me. Considering I was late with my Stain-Busters column, I should have been glad for that, but I also knew that Caleb—age thirty, launching a new journalism career after a stint in minor league baseball—was eager to show Arquette Publishing, the owners of numerous tiny newspapers in southern Ohio, that, really, the Paradise Advertiser-Gazette could be more than just the local little source of social news it had been under the previous editor, now retired. Caleb had only had his position since early November, and already he’d stirred up controversy with his “pricing exposé” of the McNally estate auction.

  “I didn’t order oatmeal,” Bobby John protested. “I ordered two eggs over easy and sausage links!”

  “Well, Maxine told me the other day your cholesterol’s kicking up again, so until she tells me otherwise, you’re getting oatmeal,” Sandy said.

  Several people groaned, sympathetically. Sandy was known to sometimes give her customers what she thought would be good for them, rather than what they wanted. I’d once come in yearning for hot fudge cake, and Sandy had instead served me chicken noodle soup because I had the sniffles.

  Annoying and endearing and in this case, thankfully, she’d turned Bobby John’s negative attention away from Rachel. Sandy hustled over to our table and topped off all our coffee mugs.

  “You be careful now, sweetie,” she said to Rachel. “I liked your speech all those years ago—especially the bits about sorry little towns breeding small minds—” she cut Bobby John a narrow-eyed look—“and Lord knows I wouldn’t have minded leaving myself when I was your age—but some folks have long memories. And folks may respect your daddy, but not everyone’s had a good experience with him.”

  Rachel nibbled on her toast—white, instead of the wheat she’d asked for. She hadn’t touched her grapes, cher
ries, and diced peaches floating in heavy syrup. For someone who still looked, acted, and even smelled perfect (she wore just the lightest touch of gardenia perfume, which was somehow perfect with her brown suede suit and cream turtleneck), Rachel looked utterly miserable.

  She shooed a syrupy grape from one side of the green Fiestaware bowl to the other. “I used to tell myself that everyone would eventually forget about my ill-thought-out comments. Deep down, I knew I was wrong. I mean, I still hear myself saying over and over the part about how Mr. Ferguson’s corn silo on the edge of town was a phallic symbol of an ironically named town that gives the finger to progress.”

  Sally and Cherry gasped and I half choked on my swallow of coffee. When I finally got it down, I had to push down a bubble of laughter. But Rachel didn’t look amused by her own wit.

  “People never forget things like that in a small town,” Rachel added.

  No kidding. I couldn’t look at Sally or Cherry, because I knew I’d start laughing. It was hard to imagine Rachel saying something like that. She was the girl with perfect grades, plus letters in cheerleading and softball, and countless hours of community service at the nursing home, and letters of recommendation from her church’s pastor and our state representative. Which explained why Rachel had won a full scholarship to an East Coast college. Thank goodness the scholarship committee hadn’t seen a transcript of her speech.

  And no wonder Rachel’s mom and dad sent her to college early, to a camp for gifted incoming freshmen. She hadn’t, as far as any of us knew, been back to Paradise since.

  “Oh, don’t worry about Mr. Sellars,” Cherry said. “He’s just a grump. Tell us what you’ve been up to all this time and what brings you back to town.”

  “I’m a real estate broker. Own a brokerage, actually,” she said, with a shrug, as if she found her own career achievements boring. “I live in Atlanta now.”

  “Married?” Cherry asked.

  “Kids?” Sally asked.

  “Neither,” Rachel answered. “Although I just dumped a man who claimed neither, also, and turned out to be the father of four and married to the best friend of one of my clients.”

  Despite sharing this news, Rachel smiled—briefly and sadly, as if at her own folly. It was her first smile, I realized, since she’d tapped on my laundromat door and called, “Hi, Josie. I’m in town for Thanksgiving and hoped you’d be willing to have a cup of coffee with me.”

  Now she went on, “And what brings me to town is that Dad is retiring.”

  Rich Burkette was partner at the one and only law firm in Paradise—Burkette and Trunkel. Rachel was Rich and Effie’s only child, although I vaguely remembered Effie had a son by her first husband, who had left her years ago. Rachel’s half-brother . . . I couldn’t remember his name . . . was quite a bit older than Rachel.

  Another memory teased the edge of my mind. Something about Rachel, from when we were kids, a conversation we’d had. I looked at Rachel, as if staring at her would bring back the memory. She looked away from me quickly, back at her syrupy fruit, and the memory-tease fizzled.

  Truth be told, all I really knew about Rachel and her family was what everyone else knew. Effie and Rich Burkette lived on the farm that had once belonged to Effie’s dad. The farm was between my Mamaw Toadfern’s property and the old Mason County Orphanage—now defunct—where I’d spent a few months after my mama ran off, before Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace took me in as their own.

  Rich was a local attorney—powerful by local standards. Effie’s first husband was all but forgotten. I had a dim memory that they had divorced and he’d run off. Her older son, by the first husband, lived elsewhere and visited now and again.

  And other than Rachel’s strange speech years before, and the fact that several folks found it odd that the Burkettes lived in a modest old farmhouse when they could have easily afforded to build a much finer house on the property, most everyone considered the Burkettes to be the perfect family.

  “I heard about your dad’s retirement party,” Cherry was saying.

  “Yes, it’s quite a big to-do,” Rachel said. “Next weekend. I came into town early to help with the preparations. We’re having a local dinner next Saturday at the Run Deer Run Lodge.”

  We all nodded, knowing, of course, where that was. It was a local hunting lodge for good old boys, and of course Rich Burkette was a member, although he wasn’t quite a good old boy, but definitely liked to hang out with them. Good for business. The lodge also rented out its facilities for wedding receptions and anniversary or birthday parties or in this case, retirement parties.

  And of course, none of us at the table with Rachel had been invited. We’d never generated any money for the law firm of Burkette and Trunkel.

  “Then on Sunday, we’re holding a brunch at the Masonville Country Club for Daddy’s clients and friends up there,” Rachel went on.

  Cherry, Sally, and I exchanged swift glances, then looked away from each other, stifling laughter.

  “But before that, of course, on Thursday, we’re having Thanksgiving, just Mom, Dad, and me, and of course Lenny,” Rachel said.

  We all stared at her. She read the confusion on our faces and smiled. “My older brother. Twenty-two years older, to be precise, so he’s more like a beloved uncle to me than a brother,” she said.

  She sighed. “It’s the first time I’ve been back to town since that awful valedictory speech. I don’t know what I was thinking. Since then, Mom and Dad have come to visit me, insisting it was too much trouble—with college and my career and all—for me to visit them. We never really said the real reason was because of that speech, but . . .”

  She smiled and shrugged. “They couldn’t bring Dad’s retirement party to me, of course. So I figured it was time to come back and let people see I’m sorry. In fact, I think I’ll start now.”

  And before we could even discuss the wisdom of her actions, she stood up, took the few steps over to Bobby John Sellars and said—loudly enough for everyone in Sandy’s to hear—“Mr. Sellars, I just want to apologize to you—to everyone—for any embarrassment I might have caused with my valedictory speech thirteen years ago. I was being young and foolish—I’m sure we all know how kids can be—” She spread her hands and smiled sheepishly, as if it was a common occurrence for valedictorians all across the land to make mean comments about their hometowns—“and of course I’m proud to have grown up in Paradise, Ohio. I tell everyone that the good Midwestern values I learned here . . .”

  She glanced at me, as if for guidance. I lifted my eyebrows and did a subtle wrap-it-up gesture by twirling my index fingers around each other, hoping to project the message: stop before you get too corn-pone and cross the line to insulting again.

  “. . . well, they really mean a lot to me,” she said, stumbling to a finish.

  Now all eyes were on poor Mr. Sellars. He swallowed a lump of oatmeal, then mumbled, “That’s real nice. Um, apology accepted.”

  There was a scattering of applause before everyone returned to their breakfasts and conversations.

  Rachel sat back down with us. “There,” she said. “I think that went really well, don’t you?” She sounded relieved, as if she’d just checked off a particularly pesky item from her to-do list.

  Cherry, Sally, and I all looked at each other—our glances communicating, she thinks it’s that simple to set things right? Memories and hurt feelings run deep in a small town. She’d be better off to just let the whole valedictory-speech-gone-bad thing go.

  But before we could point that out, Caleb Louder-milk was at our table.

  He introduced himself, then said to Rachel, “You’re obviously Rich Burkette’s daughter—”

  “Yes,” she said, holding out her hand. Caleb shook it as if he were meeting a dignitary. We all rolled our eyes.

  “Well, Ms. Burkette—”

  “Rachel’s fine,” she said.

  “Rachel. I’d love to interview you and your father about your father’s retirement party and plans
. . .”

  “Be careful, Rachel,” I said. “Caleb thinks he’s a big-time investigative reporter.”

  Cherry giggled. “Yeah. If he can find out anything at all, he’ll print it.”

  “Or if he can imply anything at all—” Sally started.

  Rachel turned red. “I assure you our family has nothing to hide about Dad’s retirement or anything else,” she said to us. Then she looked up at Caleb. “I’d love for you to interview my family and me. I’m sure it would be fine. Say, Friday afternoon?”

  Caleb’s eyebrows shot up. He was so used to most people telling him to bug off, he was flustered at Rachel’s enthusiasm. They arranged the time, exchanged phone numbers, and then Caleb said, “Perfect! In addition, since yours is a leading family in the area, I’d love to get opinions on what’s happening with the old orphanage.”

  “Since my dad is a former county commissioner, I’m not sure it would be appropriate for him to speculate,” Rachel said. “Of course, you can ask him, if you like, but don’t expect a lot of commentary.”

  In recent issues of the Advertiser-Gazette, Caleb had reported that the Mason County commissioners had been actively looking for investors to purchase the county-owned orphanage—provided they had an innovative plan for the land. The orphanage had sat empty for so many years that most folks had forgotten it was for sale. But with state cuts, the county was desperate for additional funding. So far, though, no one had come forth with an offer or plan . . . except one investment firm. On condition of anonymity, one of the commissioners had shared with Caleb that the investor would attend the commissioners’ meeting the fourth Monday in November . . . just a few days after Thanksgiving . . . to share a proposal for “an exciting new plan” for the property.

  Of course, everyone in Paradise and Mason County was chattering with speculation about who the investor was and what the plan might be. Everything from the mundane (apartments) to the fanciful (amusement park) had been suggested.

  Speculation and gossip are favorite Paradise pastimes.

  “Well, our interview will focus mainly on your father’s career and retirement plans,” Caleb said to Rachel. Then he looked at me. “Josie, how’s your column coming?”