“Here.” I set it in front of her, and she yanked out several tissues and blew her nose.
Sandy hobbled into the showroom. “What in the world is going on?”
I jerked a come here look at her. “She found a dead body.”
Sandy’s eyes widened; she hadn’t expected that news either. “Where?”
Etta blubbered behind her damp tissues. “At the hotel.”
I introduced them. “Etta, this is Sandy.”
Etta put out her other hand. “Hey. Nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, me too,” Sandy shook the girl’s hand giving me an enquiring glance. I filled in Sandy’s blanks. “Found her in the bathtub. Remember, she works at the Arlington as a housekeeper.”
“That’s right. I do remember.” Sandy couldn’t remember because I hadn’t told her where Etta worked, but stared out the front window, absorbing the news. “That’s terrible.”
“I… I… I know. They questioned me,” Etta stuttered.
“Who did?” I asked.
Etta shuddered. “A fat bald man, wearing a black hat.”
Sandy glanced back at the girl. “I see.”
Behind Etta, we shared a look, knowing she was talking about Dick Strand.
Seeing her first dead body was terrible, but having Dick interrogate her was what nightmares were made of, she’d be scarred for life.
Sandy put a hand on Etta’s shoulder. “Tell us what happened.”
Through a volley of sobs, she told her story.
She had been assigned to the fourth floor to clean. When she said doing the bed and fetching the towels, I knew she meant cleaning. “Eight rooms’ a lot. The last room had a plaque on the door. It’s Al Capone’s suite.”
Years ago, trying to impress my teenage kid, I took Craig to the fourth floor of the Arlington to show him the brass plate affixed to the gangster’s old door. He wasn’t impressed, but I was, since only dead presidents and movie stars have commemorative plaques.
Etta added. “I was scared because I’ve heard it’s haunted... but a ghost would’a been better than a dead girl.”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t blab about seeing a ghost. Now wasn’t the time to reveal the fact that I could see and talk to a ghost, which was much more entertaining than any dead body.
The girl continued. “End room. Bigger than the others. A view of Central Avenue. I knocked like usual.” She rapped on the counter, demonstrating her knocking style. “We’re supposed to count to ten and knock again. If no one opens the door or answers, we can go in saying, housekeeping.”
Pausing, Etta licked her lips.
“Wait a sec!” Sandy went into the stockroom and came back with a cold bottle of water. She cranked off the plastic lid and handed it to Etta. “Drink this. You’re dehydrated.”
Etta gulped water, which only replenished her tears. “It was so awful. I’ve never been to a funeral. My daddy died in a motorcycle accident. But Mama sent him straight from the morgue to the creama… creama…”
“Crematorium?” Sandy asked.
“That’s right. Mama put him in an urn. He’s on her dresser in the bedroom.”
“What happened when you saw the body?” Even though she was shaken, I pried her for more information.
“I screamed.” That was a matter-of-fact answer to my dumb question. Any young inexperienced child like her would scream upon seeing their first dead body, bathtub or not.
If you’re a kid, you aren’t prepared for your first plate of preacher potatoes or dead body. Of course, there was always the proverbial older cousin or sibling who took a great deal of pleasure in telling a child the gruesome truth, often graphically described in detail, of their dead grandfather’s present state of being. It happened. Thank you, Cousin Percy, for initiating me.
In Etta’s case, talking about the event would help clear her mind. With me and Sandy, she was completely safe. Nothing she said or did would pass over the Row’s threshold.
When she stalled into another crying jag, Sandy asked, “Who was she?”
Etta wiped her tears and nose but began again. “I don’t know. All I know is that dick…” She clamped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I mean a policeman asked me if I’d seen her in the bar downstairs.”
She shivered, shaking her ponytail. “I’m a maid. We’re forbidden to come and go by the front entrance. We’re not supposed to go near the staircase. Or use the guest elevators. Or the bar. I’ve followed all the rules.”
“Of course, you didn’t break any rules. It will be all right.” That’s the standard lame statement used by everyone, but for now, it was my best.
“They questioned me like I did something wrong.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sandy said. “It’s a hotel. Not the first time someone has passed away there.”
“That’s the truth!” I jerked up hearing Fanny’s outburst, and for once, I didn’t blurt a rapid response to her sudden injection into our conversation.
Etta’s eyes widened. “I mean… how could I? I didn’t kill her.”
“You didn’t touch her, did you?” The more details I uncovered, the better. A gamut of questions ran through my mind, remembering the many questions, which filled the sheriff’s reports. Bubba wouldn’t have left a single stone uncovered.
“Uh-uh. No way. Lupe, the shift supervisor, was right next door. She asked me to help on her floor. I’m so new, I fill in here and there. I don’t have a regular floor assigned. She came running. She felt the woman… the girl’s wrist.”
“Checking to see if she was alive?” Sandy asked.
“Yes, Lupe touched her. She radioed from her set. She wears a radio thingy, ‘cause she’s the supervisor.”
Fanny floated up and stood at my shoulder. “Did you hear everything?” She flickered in faded watery colors. “I heard. There’s a dead woman in Al’s bathtub?”
Etta thought I was asking her. Sandy narrowed her eyelids at the oddball question I threw out. To cover my mistake, I asked, “Sorry. I meant. Did you hear or see anything unusual?”
“No. I just walked in. Water all around the bathtub. And… and bath bombs melted all over the floor. They were icky green and brown. Her nose was bleeding. A washcloth was stuffed in her mouth. She looked like this.” She bugged out her eyes and opened her mouth and crammed her fist into it.
Sandy asked the question I was thinking. “Bath bombs? Blood? Do you think... suicide?” Something wasn’t kosher about the combination. In most cases, blood meant foul play, unless a suicide victim used a weapon to kill themselves.
My thoughts scattered. Terrible things crossed my mind. It couldn’t be? She wasn’t the girl from yesterday? She’s supposed to be on a flight to Paris.
“Sugar, did she have dark wavy hair?” I remembered how hostile Spats acted, but why would she kill herself? She could’ve simply left him.
“Yeah, she did. The tub in the suite is freestanding. Both arms dangled over.” Etta acted out how the woman’s arms hung. “Her bloody lips scared me so bad.”
My thoughts raced matching my galloping heart. “I… I’m shocked. I hope those weren’t our bath bombs.”
Sandy’s squeamish expression turned gray. “Good Lord, let’s hope not.”
I envisioned the scene—arms dangling, wet dark hair, head back, bloody lips—an icky brownish green bath bomb slick. It couldn’t be my Woodland bath bomb, could it be?
Etta clipped her hand at her chin. “She had short, dark brownish-black hair, but it was a dye job. I could see her roots.”
We’re doomed.
It was beautiful woman. We hadn’t sold or given away a Woodland bath bomb, other than the one I gave her. We might as well hand Marvell a key to the front door. By the time the Hot Springs’ rumor mill finished grinding our reputations into dust, we won’t a single customer left.
The pain behind my eyes throbbed, and I pinched the bridge of my nose. Ice and ibuprofen wasn’t going to cure this headache. Foreboding trouble bubbled beside the pain in
my head like a herd of stampeding sheriff’s deputies. “My word. It’s the girl I waited on last thing. I just know it.”
“Who? When?” Sandy’s voice quivered.
I took a deep breath. “After you left. I was closing and a woman came in. She bought a few things. Couple of bombs. I gave her a Woodland bath bomb.”
Sandy gasped. “Oh my. Why did you give her one of those awful things?”
She had watched me experiment with melting a Woodland bath bomb. When I dropped one into a bowl of water, it fizzed over the sides and made an oily icky pond scum brownish green slick.
I shook my head, but didn’t say why. I had given her one because Sandy hated them so much, and I was trying to get rid of them. Why hadn’t I just put that bath bomb screwup in the trash?
Don’t panic. Everything’s going to be fine. Stay calm and gather the facts.
That’s what Teddy would do. He would ask questions before making assumptions.
“Maybe she shopped at other stores—Marvell’s shop?” For all I knew, she could’ve bought a Lincoln full of our competition’s bath bombs.
Etta stopped blubbering. Sandy stared out the front window. Reality hit home and we were shocked into silence.
Sandy was the first to come around, and she patted Etta’s arm. “Can you call someone? Maybe your mother? We… you need support.”
“Not my mother. No way. I’ll text Willa.” Etta sent a text message and got an instant reply. “She’s coming. Her shift just ended.”
I’m in a heap of trouble.
I didn’t want another wicked bath bomb, lotion or potion to pass over the Row’s threshold before I could make heads or tails of this mess. I took a step forward, but my feet were heavy, like I was suddenly wearing cinder blocks instead of sneakers.
Dragging myself towards the door, I muttered, “Must lock doors.”
My vision telescoped as I saw my hand reaching for the deadbolt, but I was too late, that horrible little bell tinkled happily.
11
Dick Strand
Etta stifled a shriek.
Sandy gasped and pushed Etta off the stool and slumped onto it. If she thought our first customer had been stressful, seeing Dick pass over the Row’s threshold might give her a dreaded coronary. If she died, I would recite her gruesome death throes at her memorial. She would love that better than flowers or preacher potatoes.
I cast Sandy a you better not pass out glare before I uttered, “Dick Strand.”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. To have the sheriff here, with his hand on his pistol and dusty cowboy hat on his head, meant only one thing—it was our bath bomb.
How much I wished Bubba was delivering the bad news.
Bubba Smith, the sheriff I worked for the longest, was a true Southern gentleman; he would’ve smiled and inquired as to my health. Last I heard, Bubba launched a new luxury houseboat onto Lake Ouachita. Lucky devil. Wish I were with him right now instead of mixing deadly bath bombs. He wouldn’t have his fingers draped over the pistol on his hip and would’ve taken off his hat.
Dick was abrupt and too matter of fact. Bubba would’ve eased our fears before slamming the lid on our coffin.
“Pattianna.” He flipped out his calling card like I didn’t know who he was. I looked down my nose at his ridiculous card until he slipped it into his shirt pocket.
“He’s a blue nose!” Fanny squeaked, over my shoulder. I knew blue nose meant killjoy.
Dick could poop a party faster than a skunk swimming in a punchbowl.
Behind him, two young uniformed Hot Springs cops came into the shop, trying hard to look tough. Neither had a mean bone in their bodies, and I recognized one.
“Pauly? How’s your grandmother?” Pauly was the cop’s nickname.
Blushing, he bowed. “Missy Fuqua. She’s good… fine.” He scurried behind the other kid cop to hide from me.
“Sorry to interrupt your cute little scene.” Dick took in Etta’s presence with an evil stare.
Etta whimpered under Dick’s glare, and I moved behind the counter closer to her.
Dick set his jaw, his lips slid over his teeth. “I told you to go home and not talk to a soul.”
“I… I work here,” Etta blubbered, clearly intimidated by his arrival. He hadn’t bothered to remove his daunting black hat either. Not taking off your hat inside and in the presence of ladies was the epitome of bad manners.
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
Rallying somewhat, Sandy stuttered, “This young lady works for us. What do you want?” Her tone lilted in a high note as she winced at Dick’s uppity know-it-all stance.
Along with bad manners, he had his persnickety attitude perfected. Dick’s nostrils flared. “I’m investigating a murder. The girl’s a witness.”
Etta whispered, grabbing my arm, “I am not a witness. Tell them I didn’t do it.”
“She didn’t do it. She didn’t see a thing, other than a woman in a bathtub.”
Whoops! Mistake.
Dick’s eyelids narrowed to a very thin slit. He liked intimidation, but I understood his game. There were rules of law and pushing around an innocent girl was against my first rule—act nice or go home.
Dick snapped at Etta, “I told you not to talk. This is an ongoing investigation.”
I scooted over and made Sandy and Etta move closer together. Standing with the girls made me feel safer, so I quipped, “Right. We don’t have anything to tell you. She has only worked for us for a few days. I guarantee she’s innocent of any wrong doing.”
“A few days don’t count.” Dick stalked about eyeballing the shop, until he ended up peering out the display windows. The cops shifted from on foot to the other. Etta cowered behind me, and Sandy breathed so hard and fast, I was sure she would pass out.
No one uttered a peep. Dick stared out the window. “We found objects that came from this shop at the scene of the crime.” He glanced at the boy cops, and without a word, they turned out the door.
“Objects? Belonging to the Row?” I swallowed hard, dreading hearing his answer.
Outside the shop windows, the boy cops strung yellow crime scene tape across the front of the building. Foreboding bold and black words were printed on the tape—CRIME SCENE STAND BACK.
Potion, Lotions & Wicked Bath Bombs sounded a million times better than that message. The Bathhouse Row Soapery’s entire sudsy reputation had just washed into the Ouachita River, crashing downstream into the muddy Mississippi, somewhere just south of Natchez.
“Now, wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute. You can’t do that.” My hands landed on my hips, and I took a brave step toward the window.
“Yep. I can. Until further notice, this joint is closed.” Dick continued his black-hearted stalking and stopped to examine the bath bomb bins. He looked in the bin but didn’t touch the bath bombs.
“Don’t touch another cotton-pickin’ thing.” He mimicked my silly proclamation and added, “We need fingerprints.”
Sandy and I shared a look. There were invisible fingerprints everywhere, especially Sandy’s; she has touched everything half a dozen times if that little. Etta rolled her eyes because she knew her fingerprints were everywhere.
“Oh, good grief. This place is full of fingerprints.”
Sandy sat with her elbow on the counter, mumbling into her palm. “Did you find one of our bath bombs at the crime scene?”
Dick sighed deeply. Answering her question was tedious. “I’m not saying.”
Which meant yes, but he wasn’t going to say so. I knew how the sequence of events would fall. I typed every detail of the sheriff’s reports, from simple stuff like a fender bender to a murder scene. He needed proof before he could make a statement.
I couldn’t keep quiet. “Geez, Dick, we heard she committed suicide.” We had only speculated, but it didn’t hurt to try to sway Dick’s feeble mind.
He didn’t fall for my prompt and cocked his head, his gaze smoldered. His huge cowboy hat saved Sandy and Etta from the ev
il eye he cast. “You know better than to listen to rumors.”
He shot Etta another glare, and she shivered. She was guilty of blabbing, and he knew it.
“Until we find evidence of suicide, all unnatural deaths are considered crime scenes. You know that.” He gave me that look—the you’re smarter than that look.
“Unnatural?” Fanny asked.
“Hush,” I said under my breath. Dying in a tub full of bath bombs was unnatural, but there was no point arguing the facts with Dick.
Dick smirked over me hushing Fanny, but didn’t make a to-do about my undue speech. Sandy didn’t move, my outbursts weren’t as important with the sheriff in the Row. The security door opened and a gush of fresh air washed into the showroom. Teddy was the only other person besides me or Sandy who had a key to the back door.
Teddy jangled his keyring, calling. “Hey, you girls, did you hear? There’s a floater soaking in bath bombs.”
I winced hearing his police slang for a drowning victim as he pushed through the swinging doors. Halfway out, he stopped abruptly and the doors thudded against his chest.
“Theodore Sanderford?” Dick smirked. “What brings you back from the dead?”
Etta gasped over Dick’s choice of words. Teddy swiped off his ball cap as his gaze flashed, assessing the situation. “Dick?” He didn’t offer Dick his hand.
They both bristled with egos bigger than the room. I’ve seen testosterone pumped up stallions at the barns behind Oaklawn Racetrack, but those two old studs wanted to butt heads, and it wasn’t over this morning’s crime.
“Words out. Police scanners are jumping jacks.” Teddy winced, clearly regretting his words.
“Yeah? What’d ya hear?” Dick swiped his nose across the back of his hand.
“Not much.” Teddy admitted, but I bet he’d heard more than not much. He still has his connections at the department, and unfortunately for Dick, horror had a way of making people gossip. We can’t help ourselves; just like Etta... she had to tell someone what happened in Capone’s former private suite… correction, private floor.
“Etta found the victim,” I blurted and instantly regretted it.
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