by Peggy Webb
“For Pete’s sake, Callie. If Jackie Nell turns out as charming as her cousin Lovie, what’s the harm?”
“This is not solving my problem.”
“Since when is a kitchen full of wrought iron bars a problem? We’ll load it into the back of your truck and take it back for a refund.”
“I can’t hurt Jack’s feelings like that.”
“Callie, you’ve got two options here. Buck up and tell Jack the truth about how you feel or let him build a mote around your house and fill it with crocodiles.”
“Good grief. I don’t think he’d go that far.”
“How far are you willing to let him go?”
Callie goes into her stealth thinking mode while I give my dog tags a shake, rattle and roll then vocalize a few bars of “Help Me Make It through the Night,” a little Kris Kristofferson song I recorded for RCA up in Studio B in Nashville in 1971. Those were the days. Still, I can’t say I’d rather have women throwing their underwear at me than living the life of a pampered pooch in the Valentine family.
Here comes cousin Lovie with a smackerel of something good. You don’t have to tell her anything but once, and she’s a downright expert at interpreting dog talk. She gives me a pat and a handful of sausage balls, and I chow down while my human mom is trying to get her mojo working.
“You’re right, Lovie. When Jack gets back, I’m going to tell him I’m not the only woman who’s ever been pregnant. And I’m certainly not going to hole up behind bars like I’m in protective custody.”
“Now, we’re talking!” Lovie gives her a high-five. “Let’s get this stuff loaded. Aunt Ruby Nell will have a hissy fit if we don’t show up soon.”
“I know. She called me three times while I was on the way over here.”
I’d help if I had digits, but the best I can do is trot along beside the girls and offer moral support. And nobody does it better than a handsome basset hound dressed up in a pink bow tie for the baby announcement party.
Listen, some folks might think of me as only a dog or even worse, a pet, but I’m here to tell you I’m an important member of the family. This will be my baby, too. Who do you think will be the one who gets his tail pulled when the short-legged little person wants to play? Who do you think will get the spit-up all over his handsome coat when Tiny Baldy has an upset stomach? (That’s right. The one closest to the floor.) And who do you think will be walking the floor singing hit records when Red-faced Urchin breaks the sound barrier with her nightly demands?
So now you know. I’m on Callie’s side about the gender of this baby. Don’t ask me how I know. If you got sent back in a dog suit, you might have mystical powers, too.
Speaking of which, it doesn’t take dog magic to know I’m in for some good eating when Callie and Lovie load me up in the catering van and head out to Ruby Nell’s farm in beautiful downtown Mooreville.
Callie’s mama greets us wearing a wild-looking caftan that features neon blue and hot pink parrots while Fayrene trails along behind wearing so many green sequins I wish I’d worn some aviator sunglasses. I know where Jack keeps his, and I don’t think he’d mind his best dog and most loyal companion borrowing a pair.
“What took you so long?” Ruby Nell says. “I thought I was going to have to throw a party without food. And the guest of honor!”
“Ruby Nell nearly went into Bolivia before you got here.” Fayrene flounces over and grabs herself a sausage ball. “I was just getting ready to give her some artificial perspiration.”
“Flitter, Fayrene. I’m perfectly fine.” Ruby Nell snatches up the platter of petit fours and arranges it on the table. “Callie, did you notice what I’m wearing?” She points to her flashy parrot print. “Blue for boy and pink for girl!”
“You look nice, Mama.”
It’s all that bling that makes Ruby Nell look so glamorous. I ought to know. In my days as a headline entertainer in Las Vegas and anywhere else I wanted to be, I outdid them all. Sequined jump suits and diamond rings as big as baseballs. Still, there’s something to be said for an outdoor party on the farm. I’m just getting ready to find a spot within easy reach of the sausage balls when Ruby Nell gives me the eye.
“Callie, you’d better put Elvis in Michael’s flower garden.”
Michael Valentine had it planted as a wedding gift to Ruby Nell, and though he’s been dead since Callie was a little girl, she still refers to it as his.
“Why, Mama? He loves people and they love him.”
“Glenda Monts Cleveland is coming, and she’s scared to death of dogs. Besides that, her husband Wexford is allergic to dog hair.”
“Good grief, Mama! I thought this was going to be a small gathering of close friends.”
“My grandbaby is going to hobnob with the rich and famous.”
Lovie says a word that fits the occasion, but not so Ruby Nell can hear. Callie gives her the high five then snaps on my leash and I trot off in a manner worthy of a dog who ought to win the Westminster Best-in-Show. I never will, thanks to my mismatched ears. Still, it’s an insult to be penned up just because a New York Times best-selling suspense novelist with three bad facelifts and a henpecked husband is going to be eating Lovie’s petit fours.
Listen, I’ve seen their pictures in All About Mississippi. They don’t hold a candle to this famous dog. They ought to be the ones penned in the garden while I’m entertaining the guests. Still, I trot along with my human mom like the fabulous companion I am.
The flower garden is tucked behind the house, out of sight from the picnic tables and the lights strung among all the trees in the front yard. I won’t even be able to see who else is at the party. Of course, I can pick up scents with my famous nose, but since Ruby Nell’s gone hog wild with the guest list I doubt I’ll be familiar with the scent of everybody who attends.
We go through the garden gate and Callie squats to pat my head.
“I’m sorry, boy. But maybe this is best.” She unhooks my leash and gives me one last cuddle. “I’ll be back soon.”
Then she walks off without even remembering to leave behind something good to snack on. Pregnancy has warped her thinking.
Most dogs would howl at the moon, but I’m not about to be a nuisance that will make folks ask my human mom why she puts up with that racket. I mosey around the garden admiring the flowers then take a turn or two around the willow tree. The old swing is a nice touch. My human mom’s scent is especially strong here. I imagine we’ll have many a fun afternoon on this swing when Loud Shorty arrives.
There’s a bunch of bad music drifting my way, and I can tell the party is suffering without me. I could liven things up with a little bit of “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and a “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.”
The talk is loud enough for me to pick up snatches with my radar ears, but most of it’s not worth listening to, let alone repeating. Out of sheer boredom, I start digging a hole under the hydrangeas. If I’m lucky, I might find a nice ripe ham bone buried by some long-ago dog from Callie’s childhood.
I know she had an Australian Blue Healer she called Mac. She said he was a good dog, too. Loyal. Big hearted. But I can guarantee he didn’t have my way with a song or my winning personality. And definitely not my nose for crime.
Well, bless’a my soul. What’s this I smell?
I begin digging in earnest. There’s such a fog of dirt flying it takes me a while to notice I have an audience. A skinny woman is coming right through the garden gate without asking permission, and she’s talking a mile a minute in a high-pitched girlish voice to a muscled-up man with too much hair. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but that hair screams toupee. He could take a few lessons on handsome from this iconic dog. What he needs is a stylish black wig with some long sideburns.
“Just look at those flowers, Wexford. I wish our garden looked like that for my autograph parties.”
“It will, sugar, as soon as I finish landscaping around the pool.”
The novelist and the hen-pecked husband. I�
��d tell her she’s not nearly as famous as yours truly, nor half as good-looking, but I’m too busy pulling my find out of the hole.
“What does that dog have in his mouth, Wexford?”
Any fool can see. It’s an old bone. And a big one.
I trot over to give her a closer look. Instead of showing her appreciation, she lets out a screech that can be heard clear to Canada then keels over on Ruby Nell’s prize petunias. The henpecked husband goes into hysteria.
I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but his antics are nothing compared to Ruby Nell’s if she finds that silly writer flailing around in her petunias. She’s liable to give her another face lift. The hard way.
“Somebody, call an ambulance,” Wexford screams. “Call the cops!”
The cops? I take a closer look at the bone. It’s big, all right. And it didn’t belong to old Mac the dog.
Chapter 4
Bedlam, Murder and Old Scores
Lovie’s food is cooling on the table, barely touched, and Mama’s guests are huddled outside the circle of patrol cars and flashing blue lights that surround the garden, talking in whispers that carry in the still night.
“It’s human bones!”
“Who is it?’
“What’s it doing in Ruby Nell’s garden?”
“Was it murder?”
Once the awful word is spoken, it spreads like wildfire, murder, murder, murder. It’s bad enough to a have a New York Times best-selling author hauled off from the baby announcement party in an ambulance, but hearing murder sends Mama into an epic hissy fit.
“The nerve! I’m marking Glenda and Wexford off my Christmas card list.”
“Shhh, Mama. Somebody will hear you. It’s just panic.”
“If Sheriff Trice hadn’t sent enough patrol cars to quell a breakout at Folsom Prison, we’d all still be enjoying the party.”
“He’s just doing his job, Mama.”
“You’ve got to do something, Callie. You’re the one pregnant.”
“What do you want me to do? Give birth on the spot?”
“Flitter.” Mama waves her hand around like she’s swatting flies. “Elvis finds a few old bones and he pulls every deputy in Lee County off the real criminals and sends them here to ruin my party! I think not!”
Mama roars off in Sheriff Trice’s direction and she’s got that dangerous look that spells trouble. I hurry along behind her to do damage control, while Fayrene and Lovie huff along on my tailwinds so they won’t miss a thing.
”Mama, flirting with the sheriff is not a good idea.”
“Flitter. He’s thirty years younger than I am.”
“Exactly! Let’s just go inside and let him do his job.”
“You tend to your little red wagon, and I’ll tend to mine.”
Holy cow. I might as well be trying to lasso the moon. Everybody in Mooreville knows Mama is the reigning drama queen, including the sheriff. When she taps him on the shoulder and goes into her best imitation of Elizabeth Taylor playing Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sheriff Trice whips his note pad out of his pocket.
“What can I do for you, Miss Ruby Nell?”
Thank goodness, his all-business attitude puts a damper on Mama’s hot cat faster than Elvis can run when I yell, “Treat!”
“I’ll tell you exactly what you can do for me, Sheriff Trice. You take down that tacky yellow tape this minute. It’s ruining my party.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Ruby Nell. I can’t have folks tromping around here, destroying evidence.”
“Evidence of what? Elvis finds old bones on the farm all the time. All sorts of critters live and die here.”
“This is not a critter, Miss Ruby Nell. And until we find out more, I’ve got to treat this like a crime scene.”
“Flitter! Don’t you have some tape in pink or blue? Yellow clashes with my decorations.”
Lovie’s about to wet her pants trying to keep from laughing, and Sheriff Trice covers his grin by pretending to scratch his mustache. Currently, he’s Mooreville’s most desirable eligible bachelor, and he started growing it when my manicurist Darlene pointed out that his horoscope suggested facial hair would enhance his heroic image.
“This is all we’ve got, Miss Ruby Nell. Fighting crime doesn’t give us much time for color coordination.”
“I just might take that up with the Board of Supervisors. There’s no sense in every crime scene looking the same. That’s just plain tacky.”
“While we’re discussing these improvements, Miss Ruby Nell, I’m going to have to ask you not to leave town.”
For the first time in years, Mama’s speechless. While she’s standing there working her mouth, no doubt trying to think up something scathing enough to intimidate the Sheriff of Lee County, the crowd begins to disperse, helped along by a few deputies.
I lead Mama back to the house and she complains every breath, mostly about Sheriff Trice’s high-handed tactics.
Fayrene chimes in with, “It’s a wonder he didn’t bring the entire highway control.”
I send Lovie my distress signal which involves contorted facial muscles, lifted eyebrows and a good punch in the ribs if I’m close enough. Lucky for Lovie, tonight I’m not.
“That’s just standard procedure, Aunt Ruby Nell.”
“Lovie’s right, Mama.”
We finally herd her into the house and she rushes over to the window where she can watch everybody leave the party and pretend she doesn’t hear me. Tonight I’m in no mood to be ignored. Blame hormones. Blame the wrought iron in my kitchen. Blame the moon.
I march straight over there and shout in her ear, “I’ll pack a bag and you can stay at my house.”
Mama doesn’t even jump. She barely turns her head. It’s easy to see where I got my acting ability. Poor Jack’s in for a long nine months.
“Flitter. If I leave home I’ll look guilty as sin.”
“Good grief, Mama. Nobody’s charged you with anything.”
I punch Lovie and she steps in to rescue me. Again.
“That’s a good idea, Aunt Ruby Nell. Callie will enjoy the company while Jack’s out of town. And I’ll come along so we can make it a pajama party.”
“Not without me, you don’t.” Fayrene whips out her cell phone and calls her husband. “Jarvetis, honey…Everybody’s agag about what happened down on Ruby Nell’s farm and she’s about to be comprehended…What’s that?...No, not yet. There’s just a bunch of public dysentery, but I’ve got to stay with Ruby Nell so Callie can run her beauty saloon.”
Running Fayrene’s infamous Looney Tune Bin is more like it. Mama flits around the house, aided and abetted by Fayrene, packing enough stuff to last her through an around-the-world tour.
“You don’t need all that, Mama.”
“Flitter. I might have to stay till the baby is born.”
I might just have a stroke. Lovie grabs my arm and leads me to the front porch.
“Deep breaths, Cal. She’s just getting back at you.”
“For what?”
“On general principles.”
“Good grief, Lovie. What if she means it?”
“We can always call Daddy.”
Lovie’s right, of course. Uncle Charlie is the stabilizing influence and voice of reason for the entire Valentine family. Except for yours truly, he might just be the only sane one in the bunch.
“Maybe we ought to call him anyway. That was a human bone, and Mama’s going to be the prime suspect.”
“Aunt Ruby Nell would have a hissy fit. You know how she likes Daddy to think she can rule the world without anybody’s help.”
“You’re right. We’ll just wait a while and see what develops.”
“Come on.” Lovie drags me off the porch.
“Where are we going?”
“To pack up all this food. We’re going to need it at your house.”
“This is enough to feed an army.”
“So? What’ve you got in your kitchen?”
“Lettuce and a
tomato.”
“Only one?”
“A half, I think.”
Lovie says words I’m glad she didn’t use when the party broke up in such a spectacular fashion – screams and flashing blue lights and everybody stampeding toward my daddy’s flower garden.
I’m thankful Jack wasn’t here. The way he’s been acting since I got pregnant, he’d have me tucked into bed wearing a strait jacket to keep me out of trouble.
I throw myself into collecting left-over party food. My cousin’s catering business is not called Lovie’s Luscious Eats for no reason. With this delicious bounty, we’ll be eating in style without having to lift a finger.
By the time Mama and Fayrene stagger out with enough bags to fill the storage room at Tupelo’s Hilton Gardens, Lovie and I have the catering van loaded and Elvis is waiting for his chance to jump into the back seat.
“Mama, Lovie and I are going to swing back by her house so I can pick up my truck. Wait at Fayrene’s until I call. I don’t want you two all alone in front of my empty house.”
For once, she doesn’t argue. She just climbs into her flashy pink Cadillac and drives off before I get a chance to tell her to put the top up. Somebody buried a body in Mama’s garden, and I’m guessing they didn’t do it because of their great admiration for Ruby Nell Valentine. Who knows who might be watching her?
I help Elvis into the back seat of Lovie’s van then slide into the passenger side.
“Those bones didn’t accidentally end up in Mama’s garden. Somebody wanted to implicate her in murder.”
“Or your daddy. The bones looked really old.”
Lovie would know. She’s been dating the archeologist, Rocky Malone, long enough to be something of an expert in old bones.
“The murderer got away Scot free and Mama will take the fall unless we find him first.”
“That’ll be hard to do until Sheriff Trice identifies the victim.”
“We can start by trying to find out who holds an old grudge against either one of my parents.”
Lovie gives me a high five, then parks in front of her charming little pink house in Tupelo. While she’s packing, I place a call to Mama.