Do Unto Others

“Not enough that she tried to ban books. Not enough that she threatened to shut the library down. No, if she couldn’t have her way, she’d just torch it. Even the many books she didn’t object to, just to get rid of the few.” I jumped up from my chair and paced the kitchen madly. “She didn’t threaten to burn the place down to you?” Junebug asked in his relaxed drawl. “Never.” I stopped. “You know I would have reported any such threat to you. I’d have had you and the volunteer fire department on twenty-four-hour alert. And I’d have had Billy Ray throw a book she couldn’t burn at her skinny butt.” “Unless you decided to stop her yourself.” He said it as casually as if he were reading a high-school football score from the paper. I felt my lips tighten. “You know I wouldn’t kill her. There’d be no reason for me to. You’re the law. I would have come to you.” “I think you would have, too,” Junebug said. “But that’s not how Billy Ray sees it. He figures-” “Billy Ray couldn’t figure if you gave him both sides of the flash card,” I interrupted. “-that if you knew she might try something like that; but you didn’t have solid proof, you might just take it into your head to guard the library. Maybe keep a bat handy. A bat that has only your prints on it.” Only my prints. I gulped, but pressed on. “Does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me? Tell Billy Ray to unknot his lariat from around his ankles and try throwing again. Instead of dreaming up little scenarios between me and Beta, why doesn’t he get busy finding out about that money in her account?

Or why Bob Don had such a fight with her last week? Or why she accused Ruth Wills of trying to poison her? Or why Eula Mae was meeting her late at night last week? Or why she bothered to make that list in the first place?” I stopped. “Or why only my prints are on that bat? If some kid just left it in the lot, it’d have to have his prints on it, too. Right?” Junebug’s jaw wavered. “How the hell-” Open mouth, do not insert foot because of torrent of words that pour out in temper. I sat down quickly. A model schoolboy. “I guess you’ve been checking up on folks,” he said sternly. A model principal. “That’s my job, Jordy.

Mine and Billy Ray’s.” “Well, do your job, Hewett.” He’s not real crazy about being called by that name. How inconsiderate of me. “You know in your heart that I didn’t murder anybody. You know I couldn’t.

Get that schnauzer of a lawyer off of me.” The front door creaked and it wasn’t a schnauzer of a lawyer that came in. It was a chihuahua of a lawyer, little and hairless. Bidwell J. Poteet, attorney-at-law. My beloved uncle Bid. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, resplendent in his small-town lawyer’s light gray suit, smoking an obnoxious cigarillo. It fit him. He was short, like my father had been, and he’d lost most of his hair. What little remained was scraggly and white. A soul less charitable than myself would’ve said it looked like cat mange. His eyes were a deep lake blue, but icy and cool. The stub of that cigarillo popped out of his thin lips and his raspy drawl pervaded the room like the nauseating smell of the smoke. “I hope you’re not trying to intimidate my client, Chief,” Uncle Bid wheedled.

“He ought to have my representation if you’re trying to coax a confession out of him.” Junebug frowned. “This isn’t an interrogation, Mr. Poteet. Jordy and I are just talking.” “I’ll be the judge of that, sir.” Uncle Bid sat in the chair. He blinked at me, like a troll at a billy goat gruff. “Aren’t you going to be hospitable and offer your poor old uncle some coffee?” Soon as I find the rat poison for it, I thought, getting up and slopping coffee into a cup. “Your sister-in-law is doing fine, thank you for asking,” I announced. Bid made a hoarse reply that lacked concern. He’d done nothing to try to help Mama, the wife of his older brother. He’d dropped by only once before since I’d moved home, just to explain what an idiot I was to return to Mirabeau-and grieve that Daddy was spinning from his grave all the way to China on account of my giving up my career. Feel the love? “Mr. Poteet, let me assure you that I wasn’t questioning Jordy.

We were simply discussing when he could reopen the library. It is a crime scene, you know, and we can’t run the risk of tampering there,”