Chapter 4
Four
Donalda had just finished a client’s shampoo and set appointment and was pocketing the cash as her client walked out the door when her phone rang. When she saw Quilla Schultz’s name on Caller ID, she assumed Quilla was back from Dallas and wanting an appointment.
“Hello, Quilla. Back from Dallas, I see.”
“No, Donalda, it’s me, Mayrene. I’m just using Mama’s phone.” Mayrene heard a huge gasp and then heard Donalda shouting aloud. “Mayrene isn’t dead. She wasn’t murdered after all! No! I swear I’m not lying. I’m talking to her right now.”
Mayrene’s heart skipped. “Donalda! Donalda! What the hell’s going on? Of course, I’m not dead! Why would you—”
“Girl . . . I don’t know where you are, but you need to get yourself home.
Your husband had a nervous breakdown. He thought Elvis ate you.
Then when the vet determined it was a hog and not you inside Elvis—and nobody knew where you were—the chief saw Floy covered in cuts and bruises and decided Floy must have killed you and hid the body.
Last I knew, Floy was in jail coming undone, and you’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve not telling him where you went. That’s all I got to say.”
The call ended before Mayrene could answer.
Horror washed over her in waves. She should have left a note.
She should have called two days ago. Nervous breakdown!
In jail! Cuts and bruises! What the hell happened?
What the hell had she done? She put the phone back on the counter and ran out to the garden, yelling as she went.
“Mama! Mama! You have to take me back to Blackjack! Now!”
Quilla’s back protested with a sharp twinge as she straightened up. “Why? What’s the big hurry? Surely that loser you’re married to can wait.”
Mayrene shrieked. “He’s hurt. He’s sick. He’s in jail. Nobody knew where I was. Floy found Elvis, saw a huge bulge in the snake’s body, and thought it ate me. He had a nervous breakdown. He was in the hospital, and now he’s in jail. You either take me home now, or I’m going to start walking.”
Quilla’s eyes widened. “Well, good Lord! All he had to do was just drive up here and . . .”
“Nobody but me knew you came home!” Mayrene screamed, then ran back into the house to start packing.
Quilla grabbed the bowl of lettuce leaves she’d picked and ran after her.
The Chief’s desk phone was ringing.
His cell phone was ringing.
The PD phone was ringing.
Officer Bob’s phone was ringing.
Officer Tex’s phone was ringing.
Officer Fred’s phone was ringing.
Within seconds, everyone in the station was being told that Mayrene Beaudine was alive and well and had just called Donalda Carmichael on Quilla Schultz’s phone.
All this time, and Mayrene hadn’t bothered to let Floy know why she’d left—or that Quilla was back from Dallas—and Mayrene had gone to stay with her.
The Chief sighed. If only he hadn’t locked that cell door on Floy. He was the one who’d decided Mayrene’s absence meant dead. Now he needed to be the one to let Floy know she was alive and well.
“I’ll be at the hospital. I have some crow to eat,” he muttered, as he passed dispatch on his way out.
Floy was flat on his back, staring up at the wall-mounted TV at the foot of his hospital bed. After a few lab tests, the doctor diagnosed Floy’s hallucinations as side effects from his pain meds.
Floy threw them in the trash in front of the doctor and turned his face to the wall, convinced there wasn’t a damn person left alive in this town who he could trust.
The TV screen was as dark and blank as Floy’s thoughts. Everything he thought he’d ever known about himself and the world in which he lived had been eradicated. Life had been so simple until it was not.
When Chief Arnold walked in, he didn’t react. Whatever was coming next, he just hoped it didn’t hurt.
“Floy, I’m sorry,” Arnold said.
“I agree,” Floy muttered.
Arnold’s face flushed. “I was wrong about all of it. Mayrene isn’t dead. Nobody murdered her. She’s been at her mother’s house all this time. I don’t know the details, but we know it’s true. She called the beauty shop. Donalda took the call. We’ll be having ourselves a conversation with your wife.”
Floy blinked. “All this time. She didn’t call. She didn’t care. She just—"
“Like I said . . . I don’t know the details, but I wanted to be the one to tell you, and if you feel like going home, I’ll gladly take you there.”
The dead silence of Floy’s reaction surprised the chief. “I thought you’d be surprised . . . happy to know this,” he said.
Floy would have rolled his eyes, but the act tended to make the room spin, so he channeled the disgust he felt into his voice.
“Well, once I found out Elvis didn’t eat her, and I for one knew I didn’t kill her, I assumed she was alive somewhere.
If I had known Quilla was back, that would have answered everything, but at the time, I was ready to blow my brains out thinking my python ate my wife.
I nearly had a nervous breakdown before finding out Elvis just ate a hog, and then, to add more shit to my day, I was just informed that the effing LSD hallucinations I have been suffering are from the damn pain pills I was prescribed.
I have had a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting in your jail cell all by myself, and I will accept the ride home.
But you’re not forgiven, and neither is my wife or that evil witch who birthed her. ”
Arnold sighed. “I’ll let Judge Benton know you don’t need a lawyer anymore.”
“I don’t need one to get me out of jail, but I’ll be needing him for the divorce.”
The chief sighed again. “I’ll be right back with a wheelchair.”
The ride in the cop car back through town was anticlimactic. Word travels fast in small towns, and this time, nobody was staring—likely because they were too ashamed to admit they’d assumed the worst.
The Chief started to get out to help Floy to the door, but he was already out of the cruiser and moving on shaky legs to the house by himself. Arnold stood on the grass until Floy was safely inside, then got back in the police cruiser to drive back to the station.
Inside the house, Floy moved on autopilot.
His green, bean-soaked clothes were gone—taken for evidence, he supposed.
He still didn’t have a phone, probably still in evidence.
He stripped the sheets off their bed, carried them to the laundry, and started the washer.
At the least, he would sleep on clean sheets, in his own bed tonight.
Then he took a deep breath and went back down into the basement.
The empty shelves where Elvis’ tank had once sat were the final reminder that the python was no longer a part of his life.
He kept scanning the room, saw the open basement window, and went to close it, when a question arose.
A question he’d never thought needed an answer, until now.
Why was that window even open? He never opened it, and Mayrene was too little to do it without standing on a . . .
He glanced down at the step stool shoved beneath the window.
The skin crawled on the back of his neck as he pivoted abruptly, looking up at the security camera above the door at the foot of the steps.
The one he’d installed after Elvis’ second escape on the off chance that if it ever happened again, it would explain how that damn snake kept escaping.
He’d completely forgotten it was there.
He could hear the washer filling with water in the laundry room as he stumbled his way back up into the kitchen. He went straight to his laptop. The battery was low.
He plugged in the charger cord to boost the power, then opened his desktop, found the Elvis file, and clicked. He knew it recorded two months at a time, then would record new footage over that footage, so he scrolled back to the night before Elvis went missing and started watching.
His heart was pounding—his head throbbing so hard it made his eyes squint. He hit fast forward, looking for a sign of something—someone—that didn’t belong.
He found the answer onscreen at precisely 2:05 a.m. on the day of the escape when he recognized the back of Mayrene’s head as she moved quietly toward the basement window. He watched as she set the stool in place, then climbed up on it and opened the basement window.
The hard thump of his heartbeat made him hiccup. He kept watching as she moved straight to the new tank where Elvis was lying and watched her slide the huge glass panel nearest Elvis’s head all the way open, then turn and run.
He hit Stop, then closed the file and the laptop, leaving it to recharge as he got up and stared out the back windows. His thoughts were in free fall. He felt unable to grasp the brutal intent of her deceit.
A hawk flew past his line of sight, swooping down into the overgrown garden in their backyard, and coming up with a rabbit hanging limp from its talons.
”Hard luck, buddy. I know just how you feel,” Floy muttered, then sat back down at the laptop, opened it to his email account, and began typing.
This is Floy Beaudine. My phone is still in evidence, and so are my clothes—the ones with glass and bean juice. I need my property back. Today.
If my wife shows up there to retrieve her phone that was taken in evidence, fine. But you will bring mine to me. She does not ever touch another thing of mine again.
I am attaching video footage I just found on a security camera in the basement.
It shows my wife letting Elvis out of his tank.
I suspect that’s how he escaped twice before.
You do not confront her with any of this until I have spoken to her face to face.
If her actions have broken any laws . . .
or anything besides my heart, you have my permission to file charges, with prejudice.
Sincerely,
Your ex-wife-killer
He went back to the Elvis file, clipped the footage in question, attached it to the email, and hit Send.
Chief Arnold had barely settled back at his desk when his email dinged a new message arriving. Seeing that it was coming from Floy’s Fix-It, he let out a sigh.