Who Let That Killer In The House? by Patricia Sprinkle Read Free Book Online Page A

until he was past us before he muttered, “Didn’t use to let trash into decent eating places.”
    “Folks had more sense back then,” agreed a kid whose grandmother wasn’t born when the Civil Rights Act was passed. How did a person get so tough in so few years?
    Joe Riddley called after them, “The judge here would love to drive any of you down to the jail who’d like a ride.”
    Smitty swaggered out the door without a word, looking like he owned a sizeable chunk of the world and had his eye on the rest. Tyrone, however, stuffed his hands into the pockets of a big khaki jacket he wore winter and summer and gave our table an embarrassed look over one shoulder. Maybe he was remembering how Ridd used to stay after school to help him with geometry, or how Joe Riddley let him sweep our office and storeroom to earn spending money back when he was in elementary school.
    Tyrone had been an insecure, fat little boy, but he’d been sweet and honest. I wondered how far you’d have to dig to find that child again. Certainly past the dyed black hair parted in the middle and hanging below his round chin. Past the rings of cheap beads worn close to his thick neck and past the silver rings on almost every finger. The only thing I could find in his favor right then was that he hadn’t gone as far as a piercing or a visible tattoo. Yet.
    I also noticed that he stopped by the register and handed Myrtle a bill, unlike his pals.
    “I don’t know what to say,” I apologized to DeWayne, “except that anybody can see they are pure white trash.”
    DeWayne shook his head. “Don’t pay them any mind. They’re little kids trying to act big.”
    “Not Smitty,” Ridd disagreed. “He’s dangerous.”
    “Smitty, yeah. He’s one you gotta watch.”
    “Mean as a snake, and no more sense,” I contributed. “I wish he’d get on his horse and ride out of town.”
    None of us suspected that one of the people at Myrtle’s that day was going to ride out of town real soon. Not on a horse, but in a hearse. And it wouldn’t be Smitty Smith.

5
    A deluge descended Monday about three o’clock, accompanied by lightning that scissored across the sky and thunder like somebody rolling barrels down a bowling alley. Joe Riddley was at our nursery on the edge of town, unloading sod. I was alone in the office with the scarlet macaw we inherited after a dead man turned up at Joe Riddley’s last birthday party. 2 The bird was christened Joe by his former owner, who’d been put out with Joe Riddley for sending him to jail, but we’d recently decided to prevent confusion by renaming him. Cricket chose Rainbow, for the cascade of blue, yellow, purple, white, and red feathers down his back. We’d shortened it to Bo, and I put up with the danged thing because Joe Riddley doted on him. Besides, the bird had been real helpful in making Joe Riddley walk again. Bo slept in our barn and came to work with Joe Riddley every day. He’d been left with me that afternoon because Joe Riddley had a couple of errands to run before he went to the nursery, and Bo was unreliable in nice offices. He tended to leave calling cards on people’s carpets.
    Bo hated storms. As the rain thundered on our store’s tin roof, he paced the curtain rod and muttered, “Not to worry. Not to worry.” After a particularly loud crack of thunder, he flew off his perch near the window and marched up and down the floor at my feet, examining cracks for crumbs and bugs that might be hiding there.
    I turned off both computers and made sure there was oil in the antique lamp on top of my desk, then sat enjoying the light and music show.
    Joe Riddley and I share the same office at the back of our store that his parents and grandparents did. We use their oak rolltop desks, desk chairs, and filing cabinets, but have added computers, a fax machine, and other technology over the years. I also replaced the shade they had on the tall, thin window with a colorful valance and nice oak blinds, but