Well Read, Then Dead(59)

            I wavered. I didn’t mind talking to Ryan, but Frank Anthony was bound to be trouble. He’d get all uppity, accuse me of hiding evidence or some such. Still, there was probably no way I could avoid it. We were all crowded in the vestibule, and Bridgy was never going to let me walk through to the parking lot without talking about Skully.

            Ryan asked how Miss Augusta was managing, and that gave me a chance to describe the scene between Augusta and the nephews. In the interest of delay, I was toying with the idea of sharing Judge Harcroft’s third grade misadventure, when Bridgy, totally out of patience, said, “For goodness’ sake, Sassy, tell them about Skully.”

            Was it my imagination or did their ears twitch? I took a deep breath and then charged forward with a jumble of words crossing the stories from both Jocelyn and Blondie.

            An older couple walked into the vestibule from the reception but hesitated when I suddenly stopped talking. Ryan, always the gentleman, opened the door to the parking lot and made a “come right this way” gesture. The man took the door handle from Ryan with a nod of thanks, and they left us to our conversation.

            Frank Anthony decided that we were in the worst possible spot and told Ryan to find us a better one. We stood mutely until Ryan came back with Pastor John, who shook Frank’s hand.

            “Lieutenant Anthony, so nice to finally meet you. Why not use the parsonage? Jocelyn and I will be busy here for at least another hour. The side door is unlocked.”

            Jocelyn! After all her oohing and aahing about the handsome new “sheriff,” I was amused at the thought of her coming home to find him sitting in her own house, albeit with guests. Well, I could always hope that this interview, as the sheriff’s deputies liked to call it, would be quick.

            The side door was indeed unlocked, and we sat in a cozy den adjacent to the kitchen. I wondered if everyone else was as uncomfortable as I was at being in Pastor and Jocelyn’s home without them present. Remembering my foraging through Miss Delia’s house with Ryan, I decided that the deputies were probably used to going wherever their jobs took them.

            And of course there was no host or hostess to offer a glass of sweet tea, or even a sip of water.

            Following the same routine I noticed when they interviewed Miss Augusta, Ryan looked to Frank, who gave a slight nod. Then Ryan asked me to tell them what I had heard about Skully and reminded me to start from the beginning and include what I told them before we were interrupted in the vestibule.

            I had finished recounting my first and second conversations with Jocelyn and was about to say that Blondie told us basically the same thing, when my phone pinged. I glanced down in my lap involuntarily, and when I saw a text message from Maggie I opened it without thinking. Of course I stopped talking as I did so. We were together when we met Blondie, so Bridgy started to fill in, but the lieutenant wasn’t having any of it.

            He shushed her with a curt “We’ll get to you soon enough.”

            Two can play that game. I deliberately leaned over to show Bridgy the text.


OPHIE HOME WE R 2 CYA

            Bridgy, never one to take being silenced lightly, said, “Great news,” and grinned as if she’d won the Florida State Lottery.

            “Can we please get back to Skully?”

            Ryan’s pleading outranked Frank Anthony’s impatience, so I politely repeated what Blondie had told me, including the rotation of her regular Mexican Domino game, which was the reason she frequented Delia’s street.

            And with no discernible signal, Ryan and the lieutenant shifted roles. Frank became the questioner and Ryan the observer. Frank got out of his chair and stood with legs akimbo and arms crossed. By now I knew he liked the height advantage as an interrogation technique, but he looked for all the world like Yul Brynner in The King and I, a movie Bridgy and I watched a gazillion times during our junior year in high school when Bridgy played the role of Lady Thiang, the King’s head wife, in the school drama club. I kept expecting Frank to burst into song. “Shall We Dance?” or, more likely, “A Puzzlement.”