Who Left that Body in the Rain? Read Free

present.”
    “After forty-three years, we’re into separate-but-equal in the realm of wedding presents?” Even as I asked the question, I was turning my green Nissan toward MacDonald Motors. There was no use trying to reason with him in that mood.
    Hopemore had three car dealers: Hopemore Nissan and Volkswagen, MacDonald Motors for Fords, Mercuries, and Lincolns, and Sky’s the Limit Used Cars. All three were owned and operated by Fergus “Skye” MacDonald and his two grown children, Laura and Skellton. Skye had come to Hopemore straight out of college to marry Gwen Ellen Skellton, whose daddy owned the Ford dealership. In twenty-eight years Skye had built that one dealership into an automobile empire. The MacDonalds were easily one of the richest families in Hope County. They were also one of the closest. When Skye referred to them as the “MacDonald Clan,” he wasn’t joking. Even now that the children were grown, the MacDonalds worked together and vacationed together. Laura lived in an apartment over their four-car garage. When Skell came home from college and rented his own apartment, they were all surprised. Gwen Ellen was especially hurt—she’d talked to an architect about building Skell a small house in their huge backyard.
    Gwen Ellen and Skye were among our best friends. We belonged to the same clubs and business organizations and went to the same church. Skye sold and serviced our cars and business trucks, and they used our lawn service and bought more plants from us than any other family in town. We went out to eat together at least twice a month. Only Clarinda really understood our relationship. To their faces she called them “Miss Gwen Ellen” and “Mr. Skye,” but privately she referred to them as “Miss Gwen Ellen” and “Miss Gwen Ellen’s husband.”
    Gwen Ellen was born when I was fourteen, and I baby-sat her until I went to college. After Joe Riddley and I got married, she used to stay with us when her parents went out of town. Joe Riddley started calling her “Baby Sister” when she was ten, and sometimes he still does. She was a sweet and pretty child who dawdled over her meals and happily put on whatever clothes her mother laid out for her, right through high school. Some people are born dashers and some dancers. Gwen Ellen lived at a slow waltz.
    She grew into a beautiful young woman with soft eyes as dark as her hair. Spiteful people claimed it was her daddy’s contribution to athletic scholarships, not grades, that got her into college, but she didn’t go to college for an education. She was a princess seeking a prince to inherit her daddy’s realm. She was delighted to come home after her sophomore year to marry Skye and settle down as a wife and mother. She told me once, “I am so lucky. I’ve always had everything I wanted.”
    We helped a tad. Joe Riddley got Skye into Jaycees. I sponsored Gwen Ellen for Junior League and the Garden Club. We served as honorary aunt and uncle to both their children. They even named their first child for me—although I persuaded them to call the child Laura instead of MacLaren. I figured MacLaren MacDonald might be too much of a good thing for a Georgia girl.
    Now forty-seven, Gwen Ellen remained beautiful and still moved at a languid pace reminiscent of mythical days when Southern women had scads of servants and hours to dress. But don’t think she was useless. She was as soft and powerful as a gentle flowing stream. She single-handedly got our Junior League to adopt a new literacy program and our Sunday school class to take a mission trip to Africa that resulted in a program to send medicines and medical equipment to a hospital over there. When her son wanted to play cello, she showed up at school board meetings with gentle but firm requests until they voted to put orchestras in each of our middle schools and the two county high schools. Then she got after all her friends—including us—to donate instruments for children who