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“How come?”
“Well, it’s creepy, of course! Just the look of it gives me the heebie jeebies.”
“It’s not so bad.”
I’m hoping prospective buyers don’t feel the same as Rhonda once I’m finished with it.
“And the man who lived there before…“ She makes a face. “He was crazy as a soup sandwich.”
“Ernie was my uncle.” I try not to make it sound like a reproach, but I’m kind of bugged at this lady all the same. Ernie was crazy, but he was also warm and funny and generous. I doubt Rhonda knew him at all.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says in a sweet, high voice that doesn’t approach sorry. “That’s what everybody called him around here—Crazy Ernie.”
I’m torn between the urge to defend my uncle and the desire to get out of here as quickly as possible. I’d like to tell this lady off, but Ernie isn’t here to care, and I’m probably going to have to see Rhonda three times a week until the renovation is done. This is the only hardware store in town.
I satisfy myself by saying, “He was an incredible uncle. And he left me his house.”
Rhonda snorts. “Don’t know if that was a favor—living way up in the woods next to Doctor Death.”
She’s a catty old gossip, but I still catch a chill.
“Why do you call him that?”
“Well…” Rhonda looks around the store to make sure we’re the only people close.
An old man is puttering around the fishing supplies, and Rhonda’s husband is restocking the nails, but neither is paying any attention to us. At least, I’m assuming it’s her husband over by the nails—they look exactly alike, Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head in matching green aprons, except his glasses are square.
Rhonda has abandoned the remaining supplies waiting on her conveyer belt. She peers at me over the top of her glasses and purses her lips, as if deciding how much to tell me.
“Everybody else calls him the Night Doctor, on account of how he handles cases that happen at night. The clinic on Elm closes at six, and it’s more’n an hour’s drive to the hospital for anybody who lives outside of Grimstone. But I wouldn’t let him into my house if he were the last person on earth with a stethoscope.”
She waits for me to ask, “Why not?”
Then, gleefully, she whispers, “Because he killed his wife! And his baby son, too.”
My stomach drops. That is not what I expected.
“Now Rhonda…” Her husband straightens, pressing his hands against the small of his back, like he was waiting for this. “You can’t say that to people.”
Rhonda raises her eyebrows and puckers her lips. “Well…he did.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know it! My cousin Annie works at the morgue, and she told me.”
“She did not tell you that he killed his wife,” Rhonda’s husband repeats patiently. This is clearly a conversation they’ve had many times.
“Well, she told me the coroner’s report was changed, and why do you think Billy changed it? If he didn’t do it for Dane Covett, then he let him do it himself, ‘cause who else would know how to fix it up besides a doctor?”
“You didn’t see any report.” Her husband shakes his head, grabbing another bucket of nails. He gives me an apologetic look. Rhonda sees the look and puffs up like a hen.
“Annie saw it, and she told me! That baby dies and a month later the wife dies, too? He killed the baby, and she knew it, so he killed her, too!”
“You can’t say things like that.” Her husband is shaking his head so hard he looks like a bobble-head turned the wrong way. He stuffs both hands into the nails and busies himself with restocking, like that’s the end of it.
It isn’t close to the end of it for Rhonda. She’s flushed and bright eyed, determined to have her say.
“I’m telling you, he never wanted that baby!” She points her finger at her husband’s back then turns to me. “Everyone knows what he did. And that’s why he lives up there, all alone, only coming out at night. He’s ashamed, as he should be.”
