Downright Dead Read online

  Holly took another sip. “They’re getting better, but still not right.”

  “Are you going to throw that one down the sink too?” Mackie asked. He shined his headlamp on her like an interrogation light. “Drinkin’ in front of me is one thing. Wastin’ another half-full glass of perfectly drinkable whiskey may drive me to drink.”

  “Not with me standing right here.” Miss Alice planted her feet in her orthopedic shoes at the base of the ladder. “You just earned your one-hundred-day chip.”

  Mackie grumbled. “It feels like a hundred years.”

  “You’ve got to be tested.” Miss Alice’s mouth formed a firm line as she gave him a steady stare. “The nature of man is to want what he can’t have.”

  “Are you sure man needs this much temptation?” Holly asked.

  Miss Alice turned to Holly. “He can’t be coddled, young lady. He must live in the real world where there is and will always be readily available alcohol.”

  “Big Brother tried a little thing called prohibition back in the twenties.” Mackie capped off a few wires. “About as effective as bailing water with a sieve. I don’t like to admit it, but she’s right.”

  “Of course, I’m right.” Miss Alice lifted her chin a fraction. “Have you found the problem with the electricity?”

  “What’s left of this lightbulb is rusted into the socket. The bulb blowing out probably tripped the breaker. I won’t know until I finish and flip the breaker back on.” Mackie shined his headlamp on Miss Alice and she tented her eyes.

  “I’ve got confidence in you.” Miss Alice, like every other widow woman in Delta Ridge, thought Mackie could fix anything. And usually he could, even in his drinking days.

  “Where’s Jake?” Miss Alice asked. “Didn’t you say he was coming today?”

  Holly shook her head. “Something came up with work.”

  A pair of pliers clattered to the ground. Mackie’s shoulders slumped and he just stared at the pliers.

  “He called a little while ago.” Holly had been so wigged out by Sylvia’s call and the contract, she didn’t think to tell Mackie. She picked up the pliers and handed them to him after he took a few steps down the ladder. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

  “Don’t matter.” He wiped his sleeve over his eyes and climbed back up the ladder.

  But it did to her.

  “Not your fault,” he said but didn’t glance her way. His hands shook as he tinkered with the guts of the fixture. “Can’t change someone who don’t want to change.”

  “Whew,” Nelda said as she entered the kitchen. “Good thing I got Miss Alice’s room ready early. I’ve got the carriage house all toasty for ya.”

  “Thank you, Nelda.” Miss Alice hooked her oversized purse over her arm. “I think I’ll get settled in before the show.”

  “If there is a show,” Holly added. She picked up Miss Alice’s suitcase. “I’ll walk you to the carriage house. It’s getting dark.”

  “No need,” Miss Alice said. “You have the outside of this place lit up like a lighthouse.”

  “But there’s a dark patch between here and there.”

  Miss Alice pulled an ancient twenty-inch flashlight from her bottomless purse. “You need to stay here and get ready for your guests. The table isn’t even set.”

  Mackie backed down the ladder. “I’m goin’ outside to turn the breaker back on. I might as well carry your bags to your room.”

  “I don’t need doting on. I’m perfectly capable of carrying my suitcase and a flashlight. I’ll get my knitting and medical bag after dinner.”

  He tapped his headlamp. “My light’s better than yours and I can carry everything at once.”

  Miss Alice huffed. “If you insist.”

  Mackie picked up her bags and walked out the back-porch door. She trailed behind him, industrial flashlight in hand.

  “That woman is a piece of work,” Nelda said as she took a stack of blue willow china out of the cabinet.

  “Yep.” Holly laid eight placemats around the table. “I just hope I have as much spunk when I’m her age.”

  “And not as much pee and vinegar.” Nelda giggled. “But that’s probably what keeps her tickin’ along.”

  “I hope whatever Mackie did fixed the problem and we’re not setting the table for nothing.” Holly opened the silver drawer and counted out eight Gorham Chantilly silver spoons.

  “Don’t use those stingy spoons.” Nelda pointed a finger at Holly. “Use the gumbo spoons.”

  The TV blared. The old refrigerator motor cranked out a steady hum. Holly ran to the light switch and flipped it on. Light flooded the room and she squealed. “He did it!”

  Nelda slapped her hands together. “Sure did. TV works too. Looks like the party is on, girl.”

  Mackie stepped into the kitchen from the back porch, and Holly rushed across the room and hugged him. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  He gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah, well, you better get a real electrician in here to check it out. Those wires are older and more worn out than me.”

  “I will after the reservations start pouring in tonight.” She bounced around the room blowing out candles. I’m not going to think past tonight. This show is going to make Holly Grove famous. I’ll worry about keeping her famous tomorrow.

  He gave a nod at the ladder. “I’ll put that away after I collect the tools I left out on the widow’s walk. It’s been a long day. I’m gonna pack it in.”

  “You sure?” Holly asked. “I thought you were staying for the show.”

  He shook his head and pushed through the kitchen door like he had a sack of sorrow on his back.

  “What’s wrong with Mackie?” Nelda asked. “He’s not himself.”

  Holly shrugged. “Jake’s not coming. It didn’t help that I forgot to tell Mackie until just a little while ago. He’s not drinking, but his hands were shaking while he worked on the light. I’m worried about him.”

  “I’m gonna make him a care package of gumbo and bread puddin’ to take home with him.”

  A crash and then another and another rang out from upstairs. In the eerie silence that followed, Holly and Nelda stared at each other.

  Holly gasped. “Mackie!”

  “Lord have mercy.” Nelda’s eyes widened. “What if he fell off the roof?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Holly charged out the kitchen. She should have never hired a man that age to install the safety panels on the widow’s walk. Pounding up the three flights of stairs, she screamed his name.

  All she’d wanted to do was help keep him busy and sober. She’d promised Jake she’d look after his dad. “Mackie! Mackie! Are you all right?”

  Nelda lagged behind, puffing. “You don’t think he was nipping the bottle up there, do you?”

  Holly’s stomach rolled into a tight knot. And if he had and took one drunk stumble . . . it’d be her fault. How would she tell Jake?

  She reached the last step and bounded onto the widow’s walk. Her heart thudded in her ears as she turned in a full circle alone at the highest point of Holly Grove.

  Her mouth went dry. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. There was only one other place he could be.

  Holly held her breath and eased to the low banister around the widow’s walk. The winter wind whipped through her hair. She looked over the railing and down the steep slope of the roof to the ground below. The high view sent a queasy jitter rushing through her gut.

  No body. The air rushed from her lungs, but he could have fallen from any of the four sides.

  “Lord have mercy. Is he down there?” Nelda stood frozen at the door of the small cupola in the center of the widow’s walk.

  “No.” Holly dashed across the decking. “Help me look on the other sides.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Holly glanced back at Nelda.

  “I get dizzy lookin’ down from anythin’ higher than a short stool.” Nelda took a step back.

  Holly reached for her phone to
call 911, but it wasn’t in her pocket. She must have left it in the kitchen. “Then call 911.”

  “But what if Mackie just slipped out and all that banging was somethin’ else? Somethin’ we can’t see.”

  “Nelda, don’t start with the ghost crapola again.” Holly carefully looked over the railing on the river side. He wasn’t there either.

  “You know 911 probably put us on the do-not-come list after what happened with the Deltas and the drug overdose that wasn’t and all.” Nelda cocked an eye at Holly. “Just sayin’.”

  She had a point. They couldn’t even tell the operator if Mackie was alive or dead, much less his injuries. But where else could he be?

  Holly walked behind the cupola to the street side of Holly Grove. Mackie’s toolbox, a pile of lumber, and a couple of sawhorses lay across the decking to her right. He must have been working there when . . . Her heart took a deep dive into her gut. She braced herself for seeing his crumpled body below. The decking squeaked under her weight as she passed his equipment. She took a long breath and inched to the rail.

  A moan came from behind her.

  She wheeled around but no one was there. Then she noticed a jagged hole in the floor in front of Mackie’s toolbox. She rushed to the opening. “Mackie?”

  “Down here.” His voice came from the dark hole.

  “Holy moly!” He must have fallen through to the attic. She kneeled and leaned over the hole. “Are you okay?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Don’t move.” She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll be right there.”

  Holly nearly slammed into Nelda on her way down the stairs. “Did you call 911? Mackie fell through the decking into the attic.” Holly pounded down the stairs and flung open the attic door. She felt for the cord that her grandmother had tied to the doorframe years ago and yanked it. The single bulb lit the attic space, which looked like an episode of Hoarders in yellowish light. “Where are you?”

  “Over here.”

  Holly stepped over toppled boxes and their contents as she and Nelda followed his voice. It didn’t matter how many broken bones he had, at least he was alive.

  “Look.” Nelda pointed to the soles of a pair of work boots poking over an oak chifforobe that lie front down in the jumble of attic castaways.

  Holly climbed over a rocking chair with a busted rocker and stooped beside him. A few scratches marked his hands and face. Most of his wiry gray hair had escaped his ponytail. No obvious injuries, but he could have internal injuries. “What hurts, Mackie?”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t notice that rot and stepped right through it.” He lay on his back staring up at the jagged hole in the ceiling. “I’m gonna have to fix that hole before the railing.”

  “You probably ain’t gonna be fixin’ nothin’ for a while.” Nelda stood over him with her hands on her hips. “At least you’re among the livin’, praise Jesus.”

  Amen to that. Holly shuddered to think of how awful it would have been to tell Jake if things had been worse. “Tell me what hurts.”

  “My teeth.” He rubbed his jaw.

  “Is that all?” She scanned his body for signs of injury, but he looked okay except for a few scratches.

  “All I know of.” He propped himself up on one elbow.

  Holly’s eyes watered. “I thought you—

  “Fell off the roof. Nah.” He shrugged. “I caught myself on the edge of that rot I fell through, but the sides kept crumbling.”

  “We heard things crashing,” Holly said.

  He eyed the chifforobe. “I was dancin’ on top of this old chest to keep from fallin’ all the way through that hole. I almost got my footin’, but then it was like someone pushed it right out from under me.”

  Nelda elbowed Holly but she didn’t respond. She couldn’t feed into Nelda’s ghost worries right now.

  “I heard everything fallin’ out of the thing,” Mackie said. “But when it fell, I guess it knocked over all this.”

  Holly glanced around at toppled boxes, birdcages, old lamps, books, and papers scattered across the floor. Well, at least he didn’t knock loose any family skeletons.

  “The chifforobe landed front down, and I landed standin’ up right on top of it. Thought I had it made, until I fell backward and got the wind knocked out of me.” He rubbed his jaw. “Jarred me all the way down to my molars.”

  “Well, you just lay there.” Holly patted his arm. “An ambulance is on the way.”

  “Um,” Nelda said. “It may take a little longer.”

  Holly jerked around to look at Nelda. “You didn’t call?”

  “I’ve been busy helpin’ you find Mackie. I don’t keep a phone pasted to my body like you young folks do, so I’ve gotta go all the way downstairs to the house phone.” Nelda shoved her hands onto her hips. “You know, I was built for comfort, not for speed.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance.” Mackie pushed up on both elbows. “If I can walk, I’ll be long gone before it gets here anyway.”

  Knowing Mackie, he would. Her address was already flagged by EMS for the unfortunate incidents last fall. It didn’t help that the operator knew Holly as Hurricane Holly from high school. “I tell you what, I’ll get Miss Alice to check you out. If she says you’re okay, I won’t call an ambulance.”

  Mackie groaned. “I’d almost rather go to the hospital.”

  “You got that right,” Nelda said.

  “You stay here with Mackie.” She wagged her finger at Nelda. “And don’t let him move.”

  * * *

  Holly raced down three flights of stairs and lost a shoe in the entrance hall. Lordy. She backtracked, then hopped on one foot to put the stiletto back on. If it wasn’t forty degrees outside, she would run barefooted to the carriage house. Maybe she should have called Miss Alice, but Holly couldn’t chance her rushing over and twisting an ankle in the dark by herself.

  She flung the front door open and smashed into something, bounced off, and stumbled backward.

  A short pudgy guy with a mop of red hair and a beard to match blinked behind Clark Kent glasses, jacked up on one side from the blow. He adjusted the thick frames. “Holly Davis, correct?”

  She nodded.

  He hefted a grungy duffel bag on his shoulder. “I have a reservation.”

  Holly gasped and slapped her palms to her face. The Sinclairs. The reservation for tonight. She was supposed to meet him at the landing strip. “Oh, I’m so, so sorry. Yes, you do.” She grabbed him by the arm and showed him to the parlor. “I have a bit of an emergency. Make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”

  Mercy, I hope my next Sazerac is a good one because I’m going to owe that man a drink, big-time.

  She dashed for the carriage house. Holly’s speed could make up for the slower pace she’d make getting Miss Alice back to check on Mackie. She beat on the carriage house door. “Miss Alice! Miss Alice!”

  Swinging the door open, Miss Alice said, “What in the world?”

  “Mackie fell through the roof. He may be hurt.”

  The old gal’s face tensed like a battle-tested veteran. “I’ll get my bag.” She disappeared and returned with her doctor’s bag and her industrial flashlight.

  Arm in arm, Holly towed Miss Alice across the lawn, ushered her through the house, and up three flights of stairs. When they finally made it to the attic, Holly stood there stupefied.

  No one was there.

  She turned in a circle, then pointed to where she’d left Mackie. “He was right there.”

  “He must not be injured too badly if he walked away on his own.” Miss Alice eyed the toppled furniture and the hole in the ceiling. “He works on old houses with rot all the time. How did Mackie manage not to notice the decking was soft up there? Did you give him any of your Sazeracs?”

  “No ma’am.” Though she could use one right now. Whatever buzz she’d had was long gone.

  “Have you checked the level on your whiskey bottle?” Miss Alice asked, with a pointed stare.


  Holly gulped. She hadn’t.

  “If his blood alcohol level is high enough, he may not notice his injuries immediately.”

  “I swear. I didn’t give him a drop.” But he could have taken a few swigs when I was out of the room. Holly turned and headed back downstairs.

  Miss Alice padded down the stairs behind Holly.

  “The good news is he’s walking.” And not staggering, she hoped “Nelda was packing his dinner to go when we heard the crash. It’d be just like her to feed him to make him feel better. Maybe they’re in the kitchen.”

  They stepped into the kitchen and the swinging door flapped behind them. Mackie was nowhere in sight, and Nelda didn’t seem to notice they’d come in the room. She stood bent over with her elbows on the ceramic tile counter.

  “Where’s Mackie?” Holly couldn’t keep the irritation out of her voice. All she’d asked Nelda to do was keep him put until she got back.

  Nelda whirled around holding a bent-up, rusty biscuit tin. Scraps of aged ocher-colored paper spilled out of the tin and fluttered to the floor. “Good Lord. You ’bout scared the pee-willie out of me.”

  “That can happen as one gets older,” Miss Alice said. “If you’d like, I can share some exercises that help with that.”

  Nelda crinkled up her nose. “It’s just a sayin’ Miss Alice. I’m high and dry.”

  Rhett ambled to the papers scattered on the floor.

  “Doggone it. I dropped it,” Nelda said shooing Rhett away.

  Lord, give me patience. “But where is Mackie?” Holly asked again, this time slow and easy.

  “I heard ya the first time,” Nelda said. “He went home for a tub soak. I sent his to-go dinner with him, too.”

  “But Nelda,” Holly took a breath. “I asked you to stay with him until Miss Alice could check him out.” And relieve Holly’s guilt about having a sixty-five-year-old man working on her roof and possibly injuring himself.

  “He didn’t walk outta here on broken bones carrying his toolbox and my cookin’-to-go.” Nelda put the tin on the counter then squatted to pick up the rest of the bits of paper that had fallen out earlier. “What’d you want me to do? Sit on him? He’s a grown man and gonna do what he’s gonna do.”