Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Landlord

“Home,” I said.

“Anyone there to take care of you?”

“I am,” rumbled Claude from outside the curtain.

I opened my mouth to protest, but the doctor said, “Well, if you have someone to help… Believe me, you’re not going to be able to get to the bathroom without help for a few days.”

I stared at him, dismayed.

“You have some healing injuries. You seem to be prone to get into trouble,” the doctor observed, sticking his pen behind his ear.

I heard Claude snort.

I had a couple of emergency room pain pills, and Carrie came by and supplemented. Claude proved to be an unexpectedly good nurse. His big hands were gentle. He knew about the scars beforehand from the Memphis police report, which was good, because there was no way I could conceal them from someone who helped me with a sponge bath. He also helped me hobble to the toilet, and he changed my sheets. The food I’d frozen ahead came in very handy, since I couldn’t stand long enough to cook, and when I was by myself, I could take my time getting to the kitchen to heat it up.

A couple of times, Claude brought carryout and we ate together, the first time in my bedroom-he improvised a bed tray-and the second time, I was able to sit at the table, though it exhausted me.

The swelling was almost gone and I had evolved from black and blue to sickly shades of green and yellow when we finally talked about the Yorks.

“How did you come to be watching?” I asked him.

I felt good. I’d just taken a pain pill, I was clean and my sheets were clean, and I’d managed to brush my hair. I lay there neatly, my hands resting by my sides, a little sleepy and relaxed. That was as good as it got, that week.

“I went over everyone’s statement several times. I drew up a timetable, and a list of alibis; it was just like a TV special,” he said, his legs extended comfortably in front of him, his fingers laced across his belly. He’d hauled the armchair into my bedroom.

“Marcus was my hottest suspect for a long time,” he continued. “But he just couldn’t have left work- too many witnesses. Deedra, too. She was gone from work for maybe thirty minutes, and she was out on a date while Pardon’s body was being dumped. After you told me exactly when that was,” and he shot me a mildly reproachful look, “I could eliminate her. Marie Hofstettler is just too old and infirm. Norvel was a possibility, and Tom O’Hagen. But Tom was at work when Pardon was killed, and Jenny was working at the country club on decorations for the spring dance… lots of witnesses. She couldn’t have killed Pardon.

“And I didn’t think it was you, at least not after a few days.”

“Why?” The pill was taking effect, and I was only mildly interested in the answer.

“Maybe because the only secret you’d kill for is what happened to you in Memphis. And when I let it slip, you didn’t try to kill me.”

I was faintly amused. I looked off in a corner.

“So that left Norvel,” I said quietly.

“Unless the Yorks had come home early.”

“I would have picked Norvel.”

“I couldn’t decide. In a way, it seemed too smart for Norvel to think of. But in a way, it seemed exactly like Norvel, drunk. Wavering between one hidey-hole and the next. Moving Pardon here. Moving him there. We looked in every apartment in the building, in one way or another.”

I wasn’t going to ask questions.

“No traces of the body anywhere. He’d bled a little from the mouth. No hairs, and the only fibers on the body were from a cotton blend, deep red and bright gold and blue.”

“Alvah’s curtains,” I murmured.

“I didn’t know about Alvah’s curtains,” Claude rumbled. “But I didn’t see anything in anyone else’s apartment that came close to matching those.”

I remembered him walking through my house the first time he’d come in. He’d been looking for something that would ring a bell.

“We went all over the parking stalls, trying to find one that could have been used for the body. No luck there. I saw you looking that day, and I wondered what you were up to.”

“Saw me from where?”

“Pardon’s apartment. I’d been sitting in it some days and every night, watching people go in and out and do their curious things, and trying to get some idea of where to take this.”

I was definitely feeling dimmer.

“We’d searched the garbage the day Pardon’s body was found.”

I smiled to myself.

“We’d looked in every apartment. We’d kept a watch on the movements of everyone for a day or two, then only on Norvel and the Yorks.”

“Not a close enough watch on Norvel.”

“Goddamn it, Lily, he goes out walking, we don’t know he’s got a ski mask stuffed in his pocket. He must have stuck the broom handle by the fence earlier in the day. I never saw him with it.”

“But that was how you were able to get there so fast. You were awake. Did you pull your shirt off on purpose?”

“Yeah,” he confessed, looking embarrassed. “I thought it would look more like I’d been awakened by you yelling.”

“So, you were watching the Yorks and Norvel.”

“I’d caught Deedra’s reference to the camper, too. She might have gotten confused. She pulls in and out of the parking lot every day. But she sounded sure. I couldn’t grill her without even her getting the drift, but the more I thought about it, the more possible I thought the Yorks’ presence was. I called the Creek County courthouse. Harley Don Murrell’s trial was over in time for the Yorks to have driven home. I checked with their daughter over there, real casually, and she said they’d left at one, right after lunch, too upset to stay any longer. Alvah and T. L. had said they’d stopped at the Hillside flea market and walked around a little to stretch their legs, but if that wasn’t true, they could have gotten here before three.”

“They did. Alvah had watered the plant in the kitchen. It was wet when I went to water it at three,” I said. “Her bedroom blinds were open. Those were the things she did when she first came home. And her living room curtains were down. I didn’t notice that day, but I did notice on Wednesday. I thought Alvah had started spring cleaning, but T. L. wrapped the body in them.” That, I had figured out all by myself.

Claude stretched his long arms above his head and lapsed back into his former position. “Alvah told me today that when they got back to Shakespeare, she went in the apartment with her suitcase and left T. L. unloading the rest of the stuff. She watered the plant and opened the blinds.” He tipped an imaginary hat to me.

“Outside, she could hear voices. Their door was open, and so was Pardon’s; T. L. had stopped by to pay the rent. Pardon had found out about the trial and the verdict from his friend in Creek County, but instead of consoling the Yorks over the difficulty of living through a trial like that, Pardon chose to quote what Murrell’s wife had said about the Yorks’ granddaughter. And after the worst day of his life, T. L. just couldn’t take it. T. L. and Pardon exchanged words, and he hit Pardon in the mouth. Pardon jumped back and bumped into the couch. It was like running from a hostile dog. T. L. went after him. He was going to hit Pardon in the jaw, but Pardon turned and slipped, and he hit Pardon in the neck with his fist, as hard as he could. It crushed Pardon’s throat.”

“And they put him in the camper,” I said.

“Yep. T. L. ran into his apartment, past Alvah, ripped down the curtains without asking her, and ran back in to Pardon’s place. Alvah followed. They loaded Pardon into the camper, wrapped in the curtains-his keys fell out then-and they drove around with him for a little while. They were completely panicked. They couldn’t decide what to do. The Yorks had never broken the law in their lives. They were going to dump him by a back road, to make it seem he hadn’t been killed by an apartment resident. But they realized they could establish an alibi, since no one had seen them return, if Pardon’s body was found closer to the apartments to make that alibi valid.