Charlaine Harris - Sweet and Deadly aka Dead Dog

Catherine had never seen Betty without an apron on.

“Come on in! Come on in!” A chicken ran across the yard, and Betty made an automatic flapping gesture in its direction.

Catherine stepped into the room and looked around her for a place to sit. There was a sack of snap beans and a bowl half-full of prepared ones by a chair, so Catherine chose the sofa, which was covered by an old chenille bedspread, and lowered herself gingerly.

“You seen my boy this morning? He done told you I wanted to talk with you?”

“Yes, he did,” Catherine said. “Thanks for the brownies. They were great. How are you feeling?”

“Getting old, getting old. My bones is hurting. But I reckon I’ll live a while longer, make a few more batches of brownies.”

Betty took up the sack of beans, then put it down when she remembered she had company.

“No, go on,” Catherine said hastily.

Slowly Betty’s hands returned to their work. Her head bent over the bowl. All Catherine could see was white hair braided and pinned in circles.

“Reckon I got to tell you something,” Betty murmured. “You in trouble now…Reckon I got to speak up. I ain’t told nobody, didn’t want any trouble. But you my little girl. You in some kind of mess. I hear people talking.”

The two women sat quietly. Catherine couldn’t think of anything to say, and Betty was thinking about what to say next.

“That boy that got killed last night, was he your beau?”

“No,” she said.

Betty looked up at her, relieved. “You got a beau?”

“Yes. Randall Gerrard,” Catherine said firmly.

“Gerrard. I know Sadie who works for them. His daddy run the paper?”

“He’s dead now. Randall runs it.”

“The Gerrards got money? Is he good to you?”

“Yes.”

“You know his mamma? She like you?”

“I think so.”

“I went to your mamma and daddy’s wedding. Your daddy,” Betty said slowly. “He asked me to come. He said, ‘You got to be there, Betty. It wouldn’t be right without you.’”

Betty was building up to something, rambling around the corners of what she really wanted to say. Suddenly Catherine was curious.

“They’ve been dead about six months now,” Betty said thoughtfully. “Nobody asked me any questions then. I was glad. Percy, he was trying to get on working for the sheriff. Little Betty ran off to Detroit about then. Left me her kids to look after. I had the woes of Job, seemed like. So when your folks died, I just didn’t think about something I should’ve spoken up about. But then, no sheriff come asking me questions. That would’ve brought it to my mind. I would’ve spoken up. But-I just had too many other things worrying me.”

Betty’s fingers were moving steadily, breaking off the ends of the beans, then snapping them into pieces. Catherine watched the bowl fill up.

“But you in trouble now,” Betty muttered. Her fingers stilled as she reached a decision. She looked up into Catherine’s white face.

“You got a little sun on you for once, didn’t you?” Betty observed. She cleared her throat. “Well, it was this way. I never did like Miss Leona. I know”-Betty lifted a dark hand to forestall an admonition Catherine would never dream of giving-“it ain’t up to me to like or not like. God made us all, we all got a place. But I didn’t like her. I saw she didn’t care for you or your mamma. So I watched her close, when she was in you-all’s house. And even after I quit working for your mother, you know, I went and cleaned your daddy’s office when the woman who worked for him got sick-or drunk, most often,” Betty said severely. She frowned over the erring maid for a moment.

“Here I am wandering,” she resumed. “Well. About three days before your folks got taken, I was over to your daddy’s office late in the afternoon. That Callie, she had been on a long one, but you don’t care about that: it ain’t the point of all this.”

Catherine reached up to wipe the sweat from her forehead, and found that her hand was shaking.

“Your daddy and some man was in the examination room.” Betty’s eyes met Catherine’s.

Catherine nodded jerkily.

“They was talking. They was raising their voices. I knew something was wrong. I never heard raised voices in your daddy’s office before. It was late. Wasn’t no one there but me and Miss Leona.” Betty’s face went wry with dislike. She heaved a heavy breath and went on.

“I was mopping the second examination room. My door was open, but the door to the other room, where your daddy and the man was, ’course it was closed. I could hear voices, but not what they were saying.

“I seen Miss Leona come along the hall, you know how quiet she moved in them white shoes. She passed by the door of my room. I wasn’t making no noise; I don’t think she knew I was there. She was ’spose to be gone. I heard your daddy tell her to go on home, he had seen everybody. But then I heard her messing ’round in the medicine room, and I guess she heard the other man come in and was so nosy she had to find out who it was. She didn’t like nothing going on at that office that she didn’t know all about. For that matter, she didn’t like your daddy doing nothing if she didn’t know what it was and why.” And Betty shot Catherine a significant look with her yellowed eyes.

“What happened?” Catherine asked carefully.

“She was listening,” said Betty. “She was listening at the door.” Betty’s voice was flat. “I knew that was wrong, your daddy wouldn’t want that. Why else did he tell her to go home? But I couldn’t say nothing.”

Catherine could understand that. Betty would never have said anything to Leona.

“I put down my mop real quiet, and I went to the door of the room so I could watch her. She was just drinking it in. Her head was so close to that door you couldn’t have got a broomstraw between them.

“Your daddy put his hand on the doorknob and opened it a little to leave, or maybe to tell the other man it was time for him to leave. Miss Leona stepped back right smart then, she sure did. She went and hid in your daddy’s office. She didn’t go by me, you see. She didn’t see me,” Betty emphasized. “I stayed where I was. I was scared, by that time. Your daddy, he wasn’t mad, he was just upset…But that other man, he was mad .

“Your daddy took a step out of the room, but he stood with his back to me and talked some more. He says-I could hear him then-he says, ‘You’re going to have to face it. It’s the law. I’m sorry, more sorry than I can say. But I have to report it. I got to tell…’ This I didn’t understand, Miss Catherine. Something about the government. Then he says, ‘You know things have changed, it’s not like it used to be. After a while, you can come home. No one need know. And you’ll feel a lot better.’

“I didn’t understand that part, either, Miss Catherine. The doctor said something about animals, some kind of animal. I don’t remember the name of it. It was something they got in Texas, I know. I seen it on TV the other day, and when they call it by name, it was the same name. Begin with an A .”

Aardvark? Catherine wondered incredulously. She rummaged in her mind for another animal whose name began with an A . Nothing. She pushed that aside, for Betty was still talking.

“-I stepped back where I was. I didn’t want your daddy thinking I was listening in like Miss Leona. He went out the back of the office, all upset. He wouldn’t have seen me if I’d jumped out in front of him and yelled. The other man, he came out after a minute. I heard him going down the hall and out the front door. So I didn’t see him. I don’t know to this day who it was. But Miss Leona knew, she saw him.”