Down Home and Deadly

He bustled her out of her chair to the staff bathroom while I wiped up the mess.
    I went to get a damp rag from the kitchen , and when I came back, the couple was nowhere in sight. Had Harvey take n Alice to the ER for her burn? Or were they hiding out to avoid any further questioning? Maybe the whole town was in on some sort of cover - up about J.D.’s past. Or maybe I’d been watching too many old movies.
    *****
    After Alice ’s strange reaction, if it was a reaction, taking Debbie’s phone back shifted to second on my priority list. First, I had to find out what Marge had been talking about. With that in mind, I looked up her number in my address book. After all, Marge hadn’t said she wouldn’t tell me ; she’d just said the diner wasn’t the place to discuss it. Maybe her house would be. One phone call later, I’d been invited by for a glass of tea.
    Ten minutes later, still smelling like the lunch specials, I walked up to Marge’s door. Had it only been a year ago that I’d stood on this same porch holding a green bean casserole after Hank’s murder? So much had changed. Some for the better, some for the worse. I reached out to ring the doorbell , and the sun glinted off my engagement ring. One change in particular was a definite improvement.
    Marge opened the door and motioned for me to come in. I stepped past her into a house that only remotely resembled the one she and Hank had lived in. Just as she’d done with her personality since she’d become a widow, Marge had opened up the house to sunshine and light. Bright cheery colors replaced the drab beige walls , and as she ushered me into the living room, the plastic - covered couch was nowhere to be found. “I love what you’ve done with the place,” I murmured as I sank onto a n overstuffed red chair.
    Her face lit up. “Really? Tiffany helped me. She and I had so much fun picking everything out. We even did most of the work ourselves. But the ideas and the planning were all hers. She’s a genius with colors.”
    I shook my head as I thought of Tiffany’s drab wardrobe, dull frizzy hair, and scrubbed face. Behind that costume, she hid a flair for colors and design. That girl had learned a long time ago how to choose her weapons in the perpetual battle with her mother. “It’s wonderful, Marge.”
    She beamed and sank down onto the loveseat. “So what are you curious about this time?” She took a sip of her tea.
    “You mentioned J.D.’s ‘trial.’ And I couldn’t ask Mama and Daddy.” I told her quickly about Mama’s warning to me to stay out of the murder investigation.
    She nodded and went to set her tea glass down.
    “So I asked Harvey and Alice.”
    Marge jostled her glass and almost dropped it. Tea splashed onto the coffee table. She jumped up and snatched a tissue from a dispenser on the end table. “Oh, good heavens, Jenna! Why would you ask Harvey and Alice? They were the very reason I didn’t tell you in the diner.” She wiped up the liquid and gave me a measured look. “How’d they react?”
    I nodded toward her tea. “ Alice reacted just like you did , actually. Only hers was hot coffee.”
    “Ouch,” Marge mouthed. “Is she okay?”
    “I think so. When I came back from getting a cloth to wipe up the spill, they were gone.”
    “Of course they were.”
    “Why? What is J.D. to them?”
    She leaned her head back against the chair and stared at the tri-fold screen as if seeing the past unfolding on it. “Harvey and Alice’s only daughter was killed in a car accident.”
    “When?” I’d known they had one child who died young, but I’d never heard details.
    Lost in thought, Marge counted on her fingers then brought her gaze back to me. “Next month, it’ll be thirty years.”
    “What does that have to do with J.D.?”
    “He was the one responsible for her death.”
    And obviously he had a trial. “So he did time?”
    Marge shrugged. “I don’t remember , exactly . I think they put him in some kind of lockup, but he was a minor, so it was probably a place for juvenile delinquents. Believe it or not, we never talked about him again after his trial.”
    “Never?”
    She shrugged. “Hank put a few articles about his case in the paper, even though I begged him not to. Now I can see that he had no choice, but I was younger then and more na i ve.”
    “But the rest of the town just acted as if he didn’t exist?”
    “Everyone thought that the best thing for Harvey and Alice was to just put it