My mouth started to water. Blackberry cobbler sounded delicious, and I’ve always had a weakness for pear preserves. Mama used to put up quarts and quarts of preserves every year, but had slowed down a lot on that kind of thing in the past few years. Not that we did without. There were plenty of Mason jars with fruit preserves down in our basement, just waiting for us to run out upstairs.
To please Mrs. Whitworth, since there’s little Southerners like better than to feed any polite visitor who comes to our door, we all had some blackberry cobbler with a scoop of fresh whipped cream on top, accompanied by cups of hot tea. Sandra just oohed and ahhed over the food, making Mrs. Whitworth’s day, I’m sure. I knew she’d end up at a church social impressing all her contemporaries with details: Not only had a famous movie star come to her house, but she had just loved her homemade cobbler.
Of course, when we left, the usual phalanx of paparazzi followed our car. I’d hate to live like that. No wonder so many movie stars get impatient with the constant barrage of fans and cameras. I’m not sure I could handle it with the same composure as Sandra.
As we headed back to Court Square Inn, we discussed the possibility that a man had been the one to kill Billy Joe.
“All this time,” said Bitty, “we’ve been thinking it was a woman. I never even once thought it might be a man who killed him. There are so many women suspects to choose from that it never occurred to me.”
“Me, either,” I agreed. “Rayna may have to amend her search engine info.”
Sandra looked at me curiously. “Rayna really does use search engines to look up people and their history?”
I nodded. “She does. She’s good at it, too. Rob has a lot of software programs for his insurance investigation and bail bond businesses. Rayna helps him.”
“They work together? I’m not sure I could work with my husband all the time. Not and keep my marriage intact.”
“Rayna works with him when she isn’t commissioned to do a painting. Fortunately, they have it worked out pretty well, but I feel the same way. If I’d had to work with my ex all day I might have been divorced much earlier,” I said, and Sandra laughed.
“It can be quite difficult. I believe our careers probably doomed my relationship with Bruce. When we were together it was always too short, and one of us usually had jet lag. It’s not easy to keep a marriage strong when in the movie business.”
“I can only imagine,” I said honestly.
Since Mrs. Whitworth only lived a couple blocks from Court Square Inn, we arrived in less time than it took to finish our conversation. The gray skies seemed lower, the snow and ice made the streets and buildings look Christmasy, and the world was pretty quiet. Lights gleamed on each side of the inn door. Several men waited out front with cameras. Sandra looked at me and Bitty with a weary smile.
“I don’t suppose you know somewhere I could get away from it all but still be close enough to come into town to film?”
“Not right off the top of my head, but I’ll ask around,” said Bitty. “Sometimes places come up for rent.”
“There’s Snow Lake,” I suggested. “It’s private but accessible to town.”
Bitty nodded. “Yes, that’d be perfect.”
Sandra asked, “Where’s Snow Lake?”
“It’s about fifteen miles from here, a residential area with houses built around a hundred acre lake, very quiet and peaceful.”
Clasping her hands together, Sandra said, “Oh, it sounds lovely.”
Bitty said, “It is. Let me call Laura Grubbs in Ashland and see if she knows of any places you can rent. She’s in real estate and knows a lot of people.”
“That’d be wonderful,” said Sandra. “Maybe only for a week or so. I just need to clear my head and get back in touch with my creative side. That takes peace and quiet.”
“We’ll get you fixed up as soon as possible,” Bitty assured her. “I’ll try to find one with a pontoon boat included. Going out on the lake can be very relaxing.”
“I could use relaxation. If you can find a place with a gate to keep out intruders, that’d be even better than a pontoon.”
“Cindy might know of some rentals available this time of year,” I said. “She’s lived out there for a while now and knows just about everyone. During the winter months it’s a lot easier to find a rental house on the lake.”
“That would be wonderful,” said Sandra. Her driver appeared at the door and opened it for her, and I heard the paparazzi begin to shout questions at her. She shook her head. “I hope you can find a remote house where there’s no place for anyone to hide with cameras.”
We waited in the car until Sandra was inside and the cameras and reporters faded away, then got out and went to Bitty’s car. No ticket waved at us from under the windshield wipers so I knew Bitty had escaped the wrath of Rodney Farrell once more.
“I couldn’t stand all those people intruding on my life,” I said as Bitty searched through her purse for car keys. “I’d go crazy.”
“I’d shoot at them,” said Bitty as she found her keys and beeped the remote to open the car doors.
“Oh, Bitty, you would not.”
“Yes, I would. Maybe not really at them, but over their heads, anyway.”
As we drove away from the inn, Bitty said, “I can call Laura and Cindy and find out if they know of anything. There are a couple more realtors I can call, too.”
“I still think you should use your realtor’s license, Bitty. You need a job. Something to keep you busy.”
“For one thing, my license expired, and for another, I have plenty to keep me busy. There are my club meetings, fundraisers—and this year I’m helping the Garden Club at the pilgrimage. Did you ever go try on your dress?”
I tried to steer the conversation in another direction so she wouldn’t know I hadn’t given it another thought since the last time she’d brought it up. I wasn’t looking forward to wearing hoop skirts and petticoats. Or a hat. I just knew there would be some kind of stupid little hat or big-brimmed bonnet with ties, and I’d look utterly ridiculous. I guess I was born in the right era. I cannot imagine what I’d have worn in the nineteenth century.
“Mama and Daddy will be home day after tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want to go to the airport with me to pick them up?”
“Already? It seems like just yesterday that they left.”
I didn’t agree with that at all. It seemed like it’d been months since they’d been home. And I wasn’t the only one who’d be happy to see them. Brownie would be grateful his enabler was back to cater to his every whim.
“Did you ever pay your fines and get the mower out of the impound lot?” I asked, and for a minute Bitty didn’t say anything as we rode carefully over the ice-slicked highway.
“Well,” she said at last, “Jackson Lee called and said we’d be in to pay any fines and get Uncle Eddie’s tractor out of hock, but we just haven’t done it yet.”
“Better figure out a way to get that mower not only freed from prison, but working again. Daddy will not understand my failure to keep it safe.”
“I’ll call them in the morning and get someone from Valentine’s to go pick it up and get it fixed,” Bitty promised.
“And I’ll remind you,” I promised.
Chapter 18
GETTING IN AND out of the Memphis International Airport isn’t that tricky. There’s a ramp up for departing passengers, and a ramp below for arrivals. The lower area is also where baggage claim is located, so it’s usually a pretty straightforward affair.
Unless you’re dealing with Bitty and my parents. Then it becomes a tangled mess.
No cars are allowed to linger near the exits unless actually loading or unloading. Security carts with uniformed guards make sure that rule is followed. So I ended up making five turns around the airport, in and out, slowl
y dawdling along in hopes that my cousin and parents would show up before I was old enough to collect my Social Security benefits.
I am eternally optimistic.
Despite my pleas to let my parents follow their homing instincts down to the lower level and baggage claim, Bitty had insisted upon going inside to wait for them at the security checkpoint to guide them through the airport maze. It isn’t difficult to find your way out. The signs are in plain English as well as a few other languages, and my parents aren’t so senile they have forgotten how to read. But Bitty was determined they couldn’t find their way to baggage claim on their own so had gotten out on the lower level to go upstairs to the main level where gates fan out for planes to land.
As a result, none of them appeared at the glass doors beneath the airline clearly labeled on signs above the exits. By the sixth circle around I was getting pretty testy. I wanted to pull over to call Bitty’s cell phone, but the vigilant security guards zeroed in on me like magnetic forces. Finally I found a safe spot to stop and dial my clueless cousin on my cell phone.
She answered after only three rings. “Are you sure they’re coming in today?” she asked instead of saying “Hello.” “American Airlines has no record of passengers named Truevine.”
“Perhaps that’s because they’re on Continental,” I replied more calmly than I felt. “Go to one of those kiosks and look at the electronic boards. One of them should list arriving flights.”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, Trinket, don’t you think I’ve done that?”
“It will work better if you look for the correct airline. Try it. It’s much faster.”
After we hung up I started around to make the loop again, going slowly in the hope I’d see my parents waiting at the curb with their luggage. When I reached the Continental door I slowed down to a crawl. Then I saw them wheeling their big suitcases toward the exit. I parked, opened my trunk door, got out and waited. When the security guard slowed down to look at me suspiciously, I pointed to the approaching senior citizens. He cruised slowly past, and I went inside to help my parents.
We hugged, kissed, and then got down to the business of loading suitcases and babbling about their trip. Daddy helped Mama into the back seat, and he got into the front seat. He’s more comfortable when he can stretch out his legs. Despite age he’s still pretty tall. I got behind the wheel and checked to see if any cars were coming, then pulled out into the line of vehicles going slowly past the exits.
I was all the way past the turn onto west Winchester Road before I realized I’d forgotten something. Interrupting Mama’s description of Italy and Pompeii, I said, “We forgot Bitty.”
“Bitty?” Daddy echoed. “We forgot her?”
“Yes, she came with me.” Daddy looked at me, and I explained, “She went inside to find you, against my better judgment, I might add.”
Mama said, “Bitty has such good intentions.”
“And we all know where that road leads,” I muttered as I turned off the interstate loop onto Democrat Road. It would be a lengthy process to get back to the airport. I was surprised I hadn’t heard from Bitty. Surely she realized by now she’d missed greeting them.
It took two more cruises around the airport and a third cell phone call before Bitty came out of the airport terminal. She was on the top level, having somehow missed baggage claim and the arrival of my parents’ plane, but I didn’t ask any questions. It was a forty-five minute drive back to Holly Springs, and I had no intention of listening to her excuses on the way.
Mama and Daddy were just full of stories about their trip; it made me want to go to Italy as well, if nothing else to get away from the madness of movie people and murder.
Then, just as we passed the Byhalia exit, Mama asked, “So what’s this I hear about you two being in all the tabloids?”
Since the question was directed at me, I pretended not to have heard, but Bitty was only too happy to oblige.
“Oh, it’s been terribly exciting and awful at the same time, Aunt Anna. How did you hear about it?”
I heard the rustling of paper, and if I hadn’t been doing seventy miles an hour I would have closed my eyes while I cringed. Mama pulled a tabloid out of her huge purse. “I can’t read Italian,” she said, pronouncing Italian as Eye-talian, “but I can see from the pictures that there’s been more than excitement at home.”
“Three murders,” said Bitty promptly. “The entire town is talking about it. May I see that paper?”
Mama passed it over to her while I tried to avoid my father’s gaze. I felt it focused on my face but kept my eyes on the road. If possible, I intended to stay out of this conversation.
“Well,” said Bitty in the breathless kind of tone suitable for gossip, “it all started out with Dixie Lee’s book, as you know. After y’all left, Billy Joe Cramer stormed into Budgie’s café and yelled at her so loud you could have heard it over in Benton County. Then the next thing you know he turns up dead. The police thought it was suicide at first, but then found out it’s murder. I tell you, Aunt Anna, it’s been a mess here while y’all were gone.”
“Sounds like it,” said my father in a dry tone, while my mother pressed Bitty for more details.
By the time we reached Holly Springs she’d progressed to the last murder and our group suspicion of the murderer’s identity. Finally she finished, “I still think it’s either Dixie Lee or Mira Waller. There’s a possibility it’s a man, though, and that’s what we’re going to try and find out.”
“We?” Mama echoed. “As in you and Trinket?”
“Along with Gaynelle, Rayna, and Sandra,” said Bitty.
“Sandra?”
“Sandra Brady, the movie star.”
Mama was suitably impressed while Daddy just groaned and leaned his head against the window. He’s more adept at recognizing approaching disaster.
When I pulled up in front of Bitty’s house, she said her goodbyes, got out and then leaned back into the car to say, “Oh, did I tell you who I saw in the airport? Bruce Wallace. He had a whole bunch of people around him, so I couldn’t get too close, but I followed them until he got into a black limo. I wonder where he’s staying.”
“If he’s smart, anyplace but Holly Springs,” my daddy said, and I had to agree.
Bitty looked disappointed at even the thought. “Well,” she said, “I’m sure we’ll find out soon. All we have to do is follow the paparazzi. They always seem to know where to find the stars.”
“Apparently you two know where to find the bodies,” Daddy said rather grumpily. “One of these days it’s going to catch up to you. Be careful. Better yet, stop snooping. It’s a lot safer.”
Again, I found myself silently agreeing with my father.
Of course, it went right past Bitty. I’m sure she pretends not to understand just so she can do whatever it is she wants to do. It’s a trick she learned in early childhood: It’s much easier to ask forgiveness than it is permission.
“Oh, we’re perfectly safe,” she assured Daddy. “The police gave me back my pistol, and I promised to stay out of dangerous situations.”
When we pulled away from the curb Mama said, “Who among us believes that she can keep that promise?”
There were no takers. We all pretty much knew that Bitty and dangerous situations are par for the course. The trouble was, I was almost always her sidekick.
As I had predicted, the minute Brownie saw Mama he went into an immediate decline. If he’d been a nineteenth century lady he’d have swooned on the fainting couch. Since he’s just a dog, he lifted one paw, put back his ears, and put on his pitiful face. I could swear he sucked in his gut so he’d look skinny, but maybe it was a trick of light.
Mama instantly fussed him, picking him up and holding him like a baby, cooing to him as if he could understand a word she said, and I rolled my eyes and carried their
suitcases into their bedroom. The house felt full again, and an overwhelming sense of home swamped me. When my parents are there it feels like home. I hadn’t realized it, but when they’re away it felt different, a sense of something missing. Now it felt familiar, comfortable, and welcoming. I was really glad they were back, and not just so they could take over the zoo schedule.
It was while they were showing me all the photos they’d taken, explaining them, adding little details about the day or how they’d come to take that particular photo, that it hit me that I had family, but Bitty had almost none. Except for Jackson Lee, her only close family was her boys, and they were away at college in the winter, traveling in the summers. Her only brother lived down in Jackson and never came back our way. She had me, of course, and my parents, but all her immediate family was gone. Maybe that’s why she found so many different activities, to keep from being lonely.
I resolved to spend more time with her in constructive ways instead of risking our necks irritating policemen and careening from one murder hypothesis to another. It’d be—different.
Before I had a chance to impart my new found compassion to my cousin she called me at five forty-five in the morning. Bleary eyed, fumbling for my cell phone, I finally got it turned in the right direction just in time to hear her say, “And so I invited them to my house for wine. You have to be here by six. Trinket?”
I’d obviously missed something important. I tried to think what it could be.
“Trinket, are you there?”
“Um hm. Who is going to be at your house by six, and why do I have to be there?”
“Honestly, you never listen. Bruce Wallace is coming over this evening for wine. Don’t you remember me telling you I saw him at the airport yesterday?”
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