It made a convoluted sort of logic. I nodded. “Go on.”
“So, I’ll get Miranda to write in her column that the rifle in police custody is not my rifle, so police are still searching for the killer, then get her to offer to buy it from Skip.”
I waited. She stared at me with a smile, pug in lap, wine glass in hand, hope in her eyes. I almost hated to point out the obvious flaw. Almost.
“You don’t think Skip might find it odd that Miranda would offer to buy the rifle after printing that police may be looking for it?”
“Well, she won’t say that, of course. She’ll just say she wants to buy an antique rifle so her boyfriend can join the next reenactment.”
“Bitty, what’s to keep Skip from just dumping the rifle in the nearest lake?”
She blanched. “It’s an antique! He wouldn’t do that!”
“It’s easy, and he obviously doesn’t care about antiques. He may have already gotten rid of it anyway, and this is all a moot point.”
“Okay, so I got bogged down in wishful thinking. What would you suggest?”
I actually thought about it. I blame the wine for that. It didn’t seem preposterous to make suggestions for what might work when I had no intention of doing any of it. When will I ever learn?
But I blithely mused aloud, “First, if Skip still has the rifle, which I doubt, I’d think he has it stashed at his house, or garage, or maybe even a rented space. Once he switched it, the sensible thing to do would be get rid of it before police investigated closely enough to realize the murder weapon doesn’t belong to you. That wouldn’t prevent Brandon from having used it, of course, if one follows police logic, but they’d certainly want to know who the owner of it is. So they’ll investigate that. Once the news is known, if Skip hasn’t done the practical thing and disposed of the rifle he took in the switch, he has to get rid of it quickly. So perhaps he breaks it down and disposes of it in several different places, barrel here, stock there, and so on. Or he might panic and bury it. He strikes me as the kind who’d panic and not be smart enough to act in his own best interests. Most murderers are just people too lazy or stupid to think of legal means to get rid of enemies, anyway.”
I paused, sipped my wine, and realized Bitty hadn’t interrupted me. She gave me an encouraging nod. “All that makes sense, Trinket. So what would he do?”
“Well, if he buries it on his property, it would definitely be found once police trace the murder weapon to him. I’m not sure these antique rifles bought and sold at reenactments are that traceable, but police are amazing at tracking down leads and eventually reaching conclusions. So it may happen soon, or it may take them a little bit. Maybe he takes a load of trash to the dump and gets rid of it that way, but police can often trace that, too. So if he’s done any research at all on getting rid of a murder weapon—also doubtful—he goes fishing or hunting and manages to leave it in the lake or woods. Not so easy to find then.”
Bitty said, “If they’re a sports family like Kit said, they have a cabin somewhere.”
That struck me as very possible. Bitty leaned forward. Her eyes glistened.
“We could maybe go hiking, don’t you think? See if we notice anything unusual?”
“Like what, ripples in the water? Disturbed leaves in the forest?”
“Oh, Trinket, you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do, and I don’t want any part of it. You want us to see if they have a camp or cabin somewhere and break into it.”
“Well, not break into it, exactly. I have a key.”
I didn’t know what she meant, and my confusion must have shown. She smiled.
“Do you remember the cabin I bought with Philip? It was supposed to be our little getaway in the woods?” When I nodded, as if I could forget the cabin that had been the scene of a murder, she added, “I sold it, if you recall. Guess who bought it?”
Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, the air smelled like sulfur in her parlor as I waited for the devil to appear in a puff of smoke and brimstone. All imaginary, of course, but there are times Jung really is appropriate.
“Synchronicity,” we chorused.
Chapter 15
“WHY DID YOU keep a key, if you don’t mind me asking?” I inquired as we drove up the narrow, rutted road to Bitty’s former cabin.
“I didn’t mean to. I happened to find it not long ago when I cleaned out a drawer in my front parlor desk.”
“I’m shocked. You cleaned out a drawer?”
“Very funny,” Bitty said and focused on getting the Jeep she had borrowed up the incline. It was as steep and narrow as I remembered it. “I don’t know how Cindy drives this thing around. It’s like aiming a dump truck,” she muttered.
“Grinding gears doesn’t help,” I offered, but she didn’t appreciate my critique.
“Do you want to drive this bucket of bolts? ’Cause I’m fine with it if you do.”
“I’m good. You’re doing a great job. Grinding gears is musical in its own way.”
“Can you even drive a straight stick, Trinket?”
“Of course. Maybe. It’s been a while.” I didn’t add that I’d never stripped the gears like she had, as that might have ended with me either driving or walking. So I refrained.
We bucked on up the hill and finally ended in the peaceful front yard of the cabin Bitty had once owned. Crows still nested overhead, noisy and protesting the disturbance. There was no other vehicle in sight. I still shuddered as I recalled our last visit.
“I wonder if the Ashland police ever recovered from our visit to their station?” I mused aloud, and Bitty laughed.
“Probably. They seemed more annoyed than shocked. Very nice people, as it turned out. I think they liked us.”
I recalled our visit a bit differently, but then, I’d been rather shell-shocked at the time. And Cady Lee Kincaid had been tipsy. It had been a memorable moment. I didn’t want another one like it out in the wilderness too far away from civilization to walk. I’m sure the Ashland police felt the same way.
Bitty seemed to have no such reservations. She unfastened her seatbelt and got out of the Jeep—Cindy Nelson’s husband’s hunting vehicle that had absolutely no comforts—and went straight up to the front porch and locked door. I hesitated. I stood on the bottom step while Bitty unlocked the door and went inside. No alarms went off, no one came screaming out at us, and as far as I know, no bodies lay inside. I put a tentative foot on the next step up.
“Trinket!” Bitty shouted, and I froze.
“Is it a body?” My voice quavered a little.
“What? No, you idiot. It’s a mess. I can’t believe they’re so untidy. And I had it all decorated so nicely, too. Looks like all they do is drink cheap beer and microwave pizza.”
“Do you see your rifle?”
“No, but it could be lying under the pizza boxes for all I know. Come on in here.”
I knew it was illegal. The property no longer belonged to Bitty. She shouldn’t even have a key to it. But we didn’t intend to steal anything, after all, so if her rifle was here, we were going to call Jackson Lee or the police immediately. Probably the former. He was much better at explaining our intrusions to the police. Anyway, Bitty had promised me we wouldn’t touch anything if we found it, but take photos and then call authorities. That was the only way I’d agreed to come along on this ride to insanity. Plus, I felt a bit responsible for it since I’d been the one to talk about the possibilities of the rifle being in the woods.
I got to the front door and peered inside. Bitty was right. It was a mess. I’d seen worse in my time, however, so stepped over discarded camouflage overalls lying on the floor to join her.
“Is that it?” I indicated the rifle rack over the fireplace; it held several rifles, and one looked old.
“No. You’ve seen my rifle, Trinket.
Does that look like an antique?”
“Uh, it looks old.”
“It’s not that old. Here. I brought a photo of it.” She took out her cell phone, scrolled through, then held it out to me until I took the phone.
I immediately hit the wrong thing, and it went to a photo of Chitling drooling on her little pink bib. Bitty snatched it away from me and held it under my nose so I had to draw back a bit to see it without crossing my eyes.
“Oh. Yeah, now I remember,” I said. “Okay. I’ll look for one like that.”
After a half hour of cautious searching—although I doubt Skip or his father would have noticed if we did anything other than clean up—we had to admit defeat.
“Maybe it’s buried outside,” Bitty said, and we exited the cabin and looked around in the yard for a while. I had foolishly worn capris although I did wear tennis shoes and ankle socks; apparently ticks and fleas were awake from winter naps. My white socks held black polka dots that bite.
I got in the Jeep, dangled my legs over the side, and stripped away shoes and socks and gave them a good shake. My ankles looked like I had been attacked by flesh-eating bacteria. I glanced up in time to see a truck on the road below the cabin. The drive up cut back and forth a few times, but it was the only way to the cabin. My stomach dropped.
“Bitty! Someone is coming!”
My shriek startled the nesting crows, and they flapped wings and shrieked louder than I had. Bitty ran over, climbed into the Jeep, and started it. “Seatbelt!” she ordered as she wheeled the vehicle around in a wide circle, backing it up into the mounds of pine straw beneath the towering pines. I buckled in. Bitty gave me a quick look. “I meant buckle me in, Trinket.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I unbuckled and did my best to pull the seatbelt around Bitty’s ample chest but had issues. For one thing, the Jeep was bouncing around, and when the Jeep bounced, so did Bitty’s huge boobs. When Bitty’s boobs bounced, the seatbelt jerked, and a few times my nose came perilously close to her bouncing boobies. I think she bruised my chin. I persisted; however, as women are wont to do in extreme circumstances, and despite my precarious position between being tossed out of the Jeep or smothered by Bitty’s boobs, I managed to buckle it at last.
By then we had reached the bottom of the first curve, and in a moment we would be met by the oncoming truck. The road was too narrow to pass. One of us would have to move over. I put my money on Bitty to force the issue.
I was struggling to buckle my own seatbelt but managed to get out, “What a-are you g-going to d-do?” as we jolted and bobbed like fishing corks.
“Ab-bout what?”
Bitty had a death grip on the steering wheel. I couldn’t find one of my socks, but maybe it was on the floorboard.
“When we m-meet up w-with them?”
We hit a deep rut, and I bit my tongue. It hurt and I yelped. Bitty didn’t even glance at me. She kept that Jeep on the road, riding the middle of the gravel like a demon, barreling on to our fate. A Valkyrie. Boudicca. The warrior queen wrestled that Jeep like her own personal dragon and bore down on the larger truck with spitting gravel and dust billowing behind us like smoke. It was almost thrilling, if I ignored the danger and discomfort.
As luck would have it, we met in a narrow spot that had a small verge on one side, and Bitty didn’t even slow down. The truck quickly pulled over when the driver obviously chose life instead of an ignominious death. We went past too fast, and the dust boiling up around us was so thick, that I barely got a glimpse of the driver.
“Did you see who it is?” Bitty asked as she kept going, taking a curve at a speed that scared the liver out of me. I glanced behind us. The truck sat still on the verge, not having moved. They might not follow. Probably cleaning out their pants.
“I think there were two of them. The driver was bald.”
“Sylvester Whalen.”
I laughed. “He didn’t strike me as a Sylvester. Unless Stallone is the last name.”
“Sly is his nickname, of course—pothole!”
We hit it full on, my side dipping down so sharp and hard that it jarred my teeth. Fortunately I didn’t bite my tongue again. I expected to hear a tire blow, but the Jeep just kept going.
“Nice dragon,” I said in relief as we surged on, and when we finally reached the paved road again, I wanted to get out and kiss the asphalt.
“You’re a strange one,” Bitty said as we rolled up Highway 5 toward Ashland. When we passed Highway 4 back to Snow Lake and toward Holly Springs, I looked at her. She just said, “Gas and car wash.”
Ah. Yes, it’d be best to take Cindy back a clean Jeep full of gas. I was amazed we’d actually made it this far without undue damage. I had no intention of saying that aloud, or we’d end up in the kudzu. The universe has an often perverse sense of humor.
We bought cold drinks at the Citgo, and even though the fried chicken smelled good, I was still too queasy from our roller coaster ride to eat. Since I had lost a sock, I volunteered to take off my shoes and man the water wand in the car wash. I figured Bitty would end up washing the inside of it if I didn’t anyway. It didn’t take me long.
“There,” I said as I got back in the Jeep and buckled up. “All done. We can return it in good shape and get your car back.”
“Yes, so she shouldn’t mind loaning it to us again later.”
A cold chill ran down my spine despite the heat. “Later, as in when?”
“Maybe tonight. You don’t think Sly and Skip went up there to hunt, do you? It’s too late for turkey, too early for squirrels.”
I looked at her. “You frighten me.”
“Why, because I know when hunting seasons are? You forget, Philip liked to pretend he was a hunter. I was expected to keep up so he could do photo ops for the papers. It got him the votes he needed.”
“Politics is a strange business.”
“Indeed.”
“But that’s not what I meant,” I said. “You intend to come back to the cabin later?”
“Trinket, they may be hiding the rifle as we speak.”
“If they recognized us and still have it, they’re dismantling it and dumping it in the Tippah River by now.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Sorry, Bitty, but the likelihood of you getting it back is getting smaller by the hour. I hope for the best, but expect the worst.”
“It does save time, doesn’t it,” she said with a sigh. “But I can’t give up until I’ve done everything I know to clear my son’s name and, if possible, get the rifle back. My mama was so proud we’d saved it all these years. Things so often get sold, or lost, or just fall apart.”
I understood. Having heirlooms, even small things, keep that person’s memory alive. “This was my great-grandmother’s,” people will say with obvious pride, holding up a quilt or hat or book. Most people want that continuity in their lives. It’s a kind of immortality. It’s not just a Southern thing, either. People all over the world hold onto family possessions as if they’re a great treasure. And to that family, they are.
I thought of Faith and Deelight, both crushed at the loss of promised heirlooms. It’s not the value. It’s the connection.
“I’ll help you, Bitty,” I heard myself say and immediately wanted to slap my own mouth shut.
Bitty gave me a surprised look, as if she had never thought I might refuse. It figured.
We swapped vehicles at Cindy’s and went back to Holly Springs in Bitty’s car. I had begun to regret my rash promise to join her insanity, but it wouldn’t have mattered if I had said no anyway.
“We need to wear dark clothes,” Bitty said as we pulled into her driveway and parked. “Just in case they’re still there.”
“If they’re still there, we need to be wearing police uniforms. Better yet, we should tell Jackson Lee and let him send police out
there.”
We went in the back, through her covered porch that used to be the kitchen when the detached kitchen was outside; it’s attached to the house now, accessible through the porch with storm windows in winter, screens in summer. It has lots of green plants and comfortable chairs that beckoned me to linger. Bitty ignored their summons and went up the steps into the new old kitchen, where Chitling greeted us with her customary disdain.
“Police only muddy the water, Trinket, even if they’d go. You know Jackson Lee can’t know what we’re doing. He’d be cranky.”
“More like furious. But whatever.” I followed her into the kitchen and pulled a stool up to the granite counter. Or maybe it’s quartz. Whichever it is, it’s pretty. I watched while Bitty got her little gremlin’s food out and heated it in the microwave, tested it for temperature, then put it in a good china bowl on the floor.
The gremlin gobbled it without tasting. It could have been sawdust for all the notice she took. But it did smell good. It should. Sharita boils chicken, rice, vegetables, and adds vitamins suitable for fifteen-pound gremlins and puts it in freezer containers that Bitty thaws out. Dog kibble is fed twice a day, as Kit told Bitty it has nutrients essential for dogs. I hope when I die I’m reincarnated as Bitty’s dog.
“Tea?” I requested hopefully as she reached back into the refrigerator.
“Of course. You know where the glasses are.”
I did. I put two on the counter, and Bitty added ice, then the tea. Then we trotted from the kitchen through the entrance hall and into the small parlor, our favorite war room, with Chen Ling following right behind us.
“Tell me what you have planned,” I said when I had imbibed about eight ounces of my sixteen-ounce glass of tea. “I need to know when my last stand will be made.”
Divas Are Forever Page 24