Chapter Eleven
Sally Ann dropped me off at her house and I drove home. My grandmother was awake, lying in bed with the television on. She was playing along with a favorite game show when I came in.
“That you, baby?” she called, as she heard the front door open.
“Yeah,” I replied. I walked into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. “How’re you doing?” I asked.
“’Bout the same as usual. Where you been?”
I decided to tell her part, but not all, of what had happened. I left out the part about my getting knocked around at the bakery and tried to make the whole thing sound more like a lark than it was.
“Jimmy Martin’s daughter, eh?” was the first thing she said. Murder was one thing, but a new girl on the
scene was quite another. “What’s she look like?” she asked.
I described Sally Ann’s appearance in what must have been glowing terms, because she gave a low whistle and told me to be careful.
“Don’t get hooked too quickly, hon’,” she told me.
I laughed. “No chance of that,” I lied. Truth to tell, Sally Ann Martin interested me more than anyone had in quite some time. I had to change the subject.
“Sheriff Martin suggested I talk to some of the people I know from the other side of town to see if I could find out anything that might help.
“Like who?” she asked, propped up on one bony elbow in bed.
“I was thinking about what you said about Coralee knowing everything,” I replied.
“She sho’ does,” she said. “Let me call her. She’s supposed to come over in the morning to do the cleanin’ and ironin’.”
She dialed the phone by her bed and spoke. “Horace? That you? This is Mary Lovett. Can you find that old woman of yours for me? Uh-huh.” She was quiet for a moment. She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered to me. “Horace is Coralee’s son. He’s getting her.” There must have been a voice on the other end of the line, because she suddenly spoke. “Coralee! You comin’ tomorrow? Good. My grandson here wants to talk to you. Sho’. Around eight. I’ll see you.” She hung up the phone. “She said she’ll be here around eight. You’ll have to talk to her while she works, ‘cause she moves too fast to sit down.”
I laughed. “I hope I can keep up with her.”
She laughed and coughed at the same time. “I don’t know about that,” she chuckled.
She went to sleep a couple of hours later, after getting up to fix me a ham and cheese sandwich. I watched TV for awhile and thought about Sally Ann, but I was too shy to call her. I think she was thinking about me too.
Around nine-thirty I took my harmonica out on the front porch, so as not to bother my grandmother with the noise. The apartment was sealed and the air conditioner blocked out any noise.
There was no one else out on the little street; all the old folks were inside, air conditioners humming, shades pulled. No cars went by. The night had begun to cool things off down to a comfortable level, and it was pretty nice out there on that stone slab, sitting in an aluminum chair, alone with the Texas night.
The sky was full of stars, sparkling white in the way they do only in the southwest, where the pollution is low and the lights aren’t so high at night. I ran through my repertoire of harp numbers, quietly. I played “Amazing Grace,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” and “When the Saints Come Marching In.” I felt pretty comfortable, alone out there, and I soon went inside and went to bed on the pullout couch.
I had no idea I would find a dead body the next day.
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