Under the Gun

by Kelsey Browning

  “Dude, this is a free country,” a so-called reporter yelled back. “Maybe I’m here visiting my grandma.”

  “With that camera equipment? What? Were you planning to take family portraits?”

  Sera tried to suppress a smile, because truthfully, those country boys weren’t prepared for the likes of ruthless paparazzi. They had no remorse and no manners. And if a story put them in the position to make a buck, they didn’t care one bit who they hurt.

  Chapter 2

  Hand in hand, Lil and Maggie worked their way through the crowd of chattering people, including locals and some of the biggest movie and television stars in the industry. A strange mix, to say the least. Darrell Holloway was standing next to Sam Elliott, whom Lil still preferred over Sylvester Stallone any day of the week.

  The entire situation was throwing her off balance. Then again, her equilibrium had been helter-skelter since Sera and her husband showed up at Summer Haven dressed like the Kennedys and driving a foreign car Lil was sure Summer Shoals had never seen the likes of.

  A few months ago, just when Lil had begun to become accustomed to the Summer Haven sisterhood, Sera had returned to her real life back in California with her husband. Lil had missed her. It seemed like only yesterday that Teague had threatened to arrest Serendipity Johnson for boondocking at the Walmart. But then his caretaking side emerged, and he brought her over to Summer Haven. Lil had had a good feeling about her that day.

  And although their hippie-type friend hadn’t shared everything about herself, Lil felt certain they knew parts of the real Sera. And all the secrets in the world wouldn’t erase the friendship they’d formed. But now, there was definitely a void at Summer Haven where Sera used to shine.

  Thank goodness Lil and Maggie still had each other, would always have each other.

  “Can you believe we’re this close to Jessie Wyatt?” Maggie said, awe in her low tone. “I mean even if she’s dead, this is still kind of mind-boggling.”

  “She’s a legend.” What an amazing life Jessie had led. The money. The glamour. The legacy. “I swear I might be one of her biggest fans. I can recite all her movie lines.”

  Maggie’s brows rose behind her bangs. “Remember that scene when she shot—”

  “—Johnny Hatcher because she found out he was the one who’d murdered the sheriff so he could rob the bank on the other side of the jail wall.”

  “And she was so in love with Johnny Hatcher. Well, the man he was pretending to be. The ultimate betrayal.” Maggie gulped. “I love that movie.”

  “Me too.” Lil leaned closer to the casket, trailed her fingers over the famous cowgirl skirt and vest. “She wore this very outfit. And the gloves. Those gems glittered when she pulled the trigger.” She shifted one of the gauntlets to the left so it was perfectly aligned with the other. “That fringed glove is heavy.”

  “There used to be a rumor that the stones and gold were real.” Maggie’s eyes danced beneath her dark bangs.

  “Hollywood hype. I remember all the hubbub about it, though. But for fake movie props, they sure look fancy up close.” Then she whispered, “On anyone else it would’ve come off as too much. But not Jessie Wyatt. Can you imagine being that bold and strong? Shedding all those expectations placed on a Southern lady? Only for a little while, of course. What woman wouldn’t want to wear that much gold and sparkles and fringe?”

  “Lil, I don’t see you as the fringe type.”

  Lil laughed. “You might be surprised.”

  “I know what you mean. Years ago, George and I went to a masquerade party, and I dressed up as Jessie Wyatt. Boy, did that cowgirl look turn George on. He didn’t look half bad as an Indian chief either.” The reminiscent smile on Maggie’s lips made Lil think of their sorority-hosted parties back at William and Mary.

  “Those are the memories that keep us old girls going, aren’t they?” Maggie’s husband, George, had passed away a year earlier than Lil’s Harlan.

  “You know that’s true.”

  Maggie pulled her black jacket across her thinning midsection. Beads in the shapes of flowers and leaves shimmered on the lapel. A tiny gold-and-black bumblebee pin was tucked in the center of the flower above her still ample bosom.

  Lil smiled. Maggie was right. The flashy cowgirl outfit was much more Maggie’s style, and with the weight she’d lost recently, she’d look pretty darn good in it. “Speaking of things being out of character. I can’t get used to seeing Sera all dressed to the nines.”

  “And with no bells on her ankles,” Maggie said. “It’s like aliens abducted our old Sera.”

  “That outfit she has on is a Donna Karan. I bet it cost every bit of three thousand dollars.”

  “How do you know?”

  Lil wasn’t about to admit she’d taken a peek at the label when Sera came down asking for Lil’s steamer. “I have an eye for fashion.”

  “Three thousand? But that dress couldn’t be more than two yards of material,” Maggie said, unconvinced.

  “I knew there was more to her from the first time I laid eyes on her. She has real style.”

  Maggie smiled. “I feel awful for judging Serendipity when she first arrived at Summer Haven. Looks can be deceiving.”

  “Yep. Still hard to get my head wrapped around all the changes each of us has been through.” Lil tried to take a step back from the casket, but the crowd had pressed in.

  People walked by, laying more flowers on top of the lush blanket of bluebonnets. A beautiful outpouring of respect and love for the joy this Hollywood star had given the world.

  As onlookers paid their last respects, folks started to wander away from the mausoleum.

  Lil’s shoulder brushed Maggie’s. “Looks like most people don’t plan to stick around and watch the actual interment. But I’ve never seen one and I’m curious. Aren’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Plus, we’re talking Jessie Wyatt. Let’s go inside so we can get a good place.”

  The funeral director and his team wheeled the cart carrying Jessie’s casket toward a pair of open double doors. As they pushed the casket inside the building, a white rose fell to the ground.

  Lil stooped down to pick up the abandoned flower and followed behind. Inside, the mausoleum was a stark expanse of gray granite crypt facings interspersed with small urns of flowers, many of them artificial. Of course, Lil preferred to decorate her loved ones’ resting places with the real thing, even if Harlan only rated carnations most weeks. The huge expanses of stained glass were an attempt to make the mausoleum look more colorful, but the high ceilings seemed to suck away the cheer.

  She twisted the rose in her fingers as two workers in blue coveralls prepared for the interment, moving through their duties as if there was no one else around.

  “It’s like casket condos. Kind of freaks me out.” Maggie craned her neck, looking around the cold space.

  Slowly arranging for the interment, the two workers unscrewed the four rosettes holding the shiny marker in place, and together they lowered it to the ground and laid it aside. Lil rose on tiptoe to get a look inside the crypt. “Apparently, Jessie’s condo already has one resident, probably her husband.”

  One of the workers, the scrawny one, climbed a ladder and crawled into the danged hole to push the other coffin farther into the crypt.

  Maggie covered her mouth with her hand and took a baby step backward. “Now that’s even more unsettling.”

  The fellow scooted back to the crypt’s edge and retrieved his caulk gun. With a couple of quick clicks of the handle, a goopy drip hung from the tip.

  “That’s a regular old caulk gun,” Maggie said, nudging Lil and pointing. “I have one just like it.”

  “We could get you a part-time job here.”

  “Real funny,” Maggie shot back. “I’m not crawling in one of those. No, ma’am. Plus, the outfits they’re wearing aren’t very flattering.”

  Lil whispered, “Does seem like the mausoleum could dress them nicer during a service. Those are plain old c
overalls, like a mechanic wears to change your oil. Just doesn’t seem appropriate.”

  The skinny guy grabbed what looked like a square piece of hard plastic and went headfirst back into the hole while the well-fed worker wheeled a portable forklift toward the casket.

  “Now what’s he doing?”

  “Sealing her husband in. I guess to keep them separate? Why, in heaven’s name, I have no idea.”

  “It seems cold and harsh.” Lil’s gaze wandered across the gigantic stained-glass windows and concrete slabs as big as Stonehenge. No, when her time came, she’d take a grassy spot under a tree, thank you very much. “Give me Gabriel Acres in Summer Shoals any day, even with those new flashy angel-wing gates.”

  “Before today, I didn’t know they built places like this.”

  The smaller guy emerged and shimmied down the ladder. “Out of caulk,” he said to the other worker, then disappeared down the aisle. A quick minute later, he returned with a new tube and climbed back in. He finished up and then tossed what looked like beads into the hole.

  “What in the world?” Maggie asked.

  Lil shrugged.

  The forklift whirred as it raised the casket to the precise level of the crypt opening, and as they began to slide the copper-trimmed mahogany casket into the vault, someone screamed like a banshee from across the way, “Whoa! Stop. Stop right there.”

  Lil and Maggie spun around. A tall redheaded woman, her face the color of her hair, bounced up and down like someone had dumped fire ants in her pants. “Stop, I said!”

  Maggie stumbled back, but Lil stood frozen. What the heck was going on?

  “It’s gone!” the woman screamed.

  “Ma’am, can I help you?” A Pitts County sheriff’s deputy gently pulled the woman to the side, and someone from the mausoleum stepped forward with a box of tissues.

  A small crowd gathered, and those still remaining outside rushed in to see what all the commotion was about.

  The woman shook off the deputy’s grip. “Unhand me. I am Jessie’s cousin.” She batted the tissue box right out of the mausoleum employee’s hand, sending it flying across the room like a drunken dove. “I do not need your consoling, you nitwit. Can’t you see someone has stolen Jessie’s priceless gauntlets right off the casket!”

  A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. “But we were all standing right here,” a woman said.

  All eyes were on the half-interred casket, but the maintenance guys kept right on working, totally ignoring the kerfuffle around them.

  “People probably flip out during this part all the time,” Maggie whispered to Lil. “It is a bit strange to see your loved one shoved into what’s basically a big safe deposit box.”

  Sam Elliott’s voice thrummed through the crowd. “Maybe the gauntlets went inside the vault already.”

  “They aren’t there!” The cousin raced across the room to the casket. “Look!”

  Sure enough, the skirt was draped on the blanket of bluebonnets across the casket, but those sparkly gauntlets were nowhere to be seen.

  “The gloves are missing?” someone echoed.

  “They were worth a fortune.”

  “They are not. That was an old Hollywood legend. Get real.”

  Snippets of comments speared the air.

  “…solid gold fringe.”

  “Probably fake…what’s the big deal?”

  “…diamonds…rubies…”

  “Americana…”

  The deputy spoke into his radio then announced, “No one is to leave the building. Everyone, please stay where you are.”

  Maggie leaned into Lil. “I didn’t notice anyone near the casket. Did you?”

  Lil shook her head.

  The workers continued to maneuver the casket until the deputy approached them. “My orders apply to you too.”

  Caulk seeped from the end of the smaller guy’s gun. He’d just outlined the hole with a healthy stream of the goop.

  “Look inside there!” Jessie’s cousin demanded.

  The worker held out a protective hand. “Careful. You’ll get caulk on you. This stuff won’t come off.”

  “I don’t care. Do you have any idea what that outfit is worth? Maybe you’ve heard of Dorothy’s ruby slippers? Well, I can promise you Jessie’s outfit would bring way more than whatever Leo DiCaprio paid for those nasty old shoes. Who wants to wear another woman’s shoes, anyway?” The woman scanned the people nearest her, and her attention landed on Lil like a bad spin on a Game of Life board. “You! You were closest to it. What happened?”

  Lil felt as her heart had leaped right into her throat, almost suffocating her. A prison lesson popped into her mind: Never say anything. Innocent or not. Zip it. So she simply stood there.

  The deputy stepped between the redheaded cousin and Lil. “We’ll handle this, ma’am. Be patient and let us secure the area.”

  A group of deputies hustled inside, and one peeled off toward Lil and Maggie and pointed at them. “I need everyone in here to line up behind these ladies.” Once everyone was in a single file line, another deputy walked behind the group, herding them into one of the chapels.

  Lil and Maggie took seats and waited. In short bursts, more people were ushered into the room.

  Then, a dozen women—dressed in white leather skirts and vests so blinged out that the reflection almost blinded Lil—were brought in and placed in the separate family pews, and a security guard was stationed in front of them.

  “Now those gals know how to dress for a funeral,” Maggie said.

  Lil sniffed. “This isn’t like a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Costumes at a funeral aren’t appropriate, not even if those women think they’re honoring Jessie by dressing up like her.”

  The deputy gathered together the mausoleum director and his workers. Although he scooted them toward a corner, Lil could hear their hushed conversation.

  “I didn’t notice if the gloves were there when we slid the casket in.” The stout guy nodded in Lil’s direction. “But outside, I did see that woman touch them.”

  Unfortunately, Lil didn’t seem to be the only one who was eavesdropping because Jessie’s cousin screeched at her. “Is that true?”

  “No, I was only—”

  “Officer, someone needs to question that woman now! She stole Jessie Wyatt’s precious gauntlets. They were priceless.”

  Priceless? So the rumors had all been true. Now Lil wanted to deny being anywhere near them, seeing as she could end up in jail again for lifting a fifty-cent pack of gum. But she was unable to get words of denial past her suddenly dry throat. Just when she was starting to get her post-prison life back on track, the last thing she needed was to be a crime suspect.

  Lord knows, at her age, she couldn’t survive another vacation in the slammer.

  Chapter 3

  Lil spotted Sera among the last batch of people ushered into the chapel. “This feels a lot like prison right now,” Lil said, grabbing Maggie’s arm and weaving through the crowd.

  “What’s going on?” Sera said.

  “Apparently someone stole Jessie’s gauntlets.”

  “Who would do such a thing?” Sera’s gaze swept the room and landed on the group of Jessie Wyatt lookalikes. Then she glanced at the Pitts County deputy and back to Teague. “Come with me,” she said to Lil. “Maggie, you run interference for us.”

  “Run interference for wh—”

  “Roll with me, Lil.”

  “Got it.” Maggie assumed an at-ease military stance.

  Lil strolled across the room at Sera’s side. “First I’m going to shake every hand, looking for any clue one of those women is wearing the real gauntlets,” Sera said. “Then…”

  Lil waited, but Sera didn’t continue. “Then?”

  “I’ll bunt.”

  Bunt? That didn’t seem like a particularly well-thought-out plan.

  Sera wiggled her way into the group of Jessie lookalikes. “Hey, girls. I’m Marcus Johannesson’s wife. Jessie a
nd I were dear friends. We met on the set of A Love To Last. I wanted you to know that she would’ve loved you honoring her this way. You all look wonderful.”

  Sera braided herself through the group of women, chatting and smiling, and shaking each hand. She inclined her head in Lil’s direction.

  Lil stepped behind a particularly chunky lookalike. Could she possibly be packing those gauntlets rather than a few extra pounds? Lord, how to frisk a stranger without her realizing she was being frisked? Only one thing to do. Lil meandered over and pretended to stumble into the woman, wrapping her arms around her midsection.

  “Pardon me!” she said, making sure to pat the woman down. Hmm…nothing but love handles. Lil shook her head at Sera.

  Sera whispered something to another of the Jessie lookalikes, who immediately squealed. The others spun in their direction, and once Sera had everyone’s attention, she lowered her voice and cut her eyes toward Lil. “We don’t want this to get out, but this is Jessie’s sister.”

  Lil pushed her breasts forward and leaned her weight on her right leg, doing her best to emulate Jessie Wyatt’s posture and mannerisms.

  A rustle of excitement rose from the group, and Sera put her finger to her lips. “Shh. She wanted to hear your stories about her dear sister. Do you mind sharing?”

  The Jessie lookalikes clamored around Lil, and she improvised. “Which of my sister’s movies did you like best?”

  The women nearly climbed over one another to share their favorites, while Sera maintained eye contact with Lil as she poked into a short Jessie lookalike’s fringed hobo bag, but came up empty.

  The sound of footsteps thudding against the chapel’s short carpet caught Lil’s and Sera’s attention, a clear warning of the Pitts County deputy approaching them. Sera grabbed Lil’s arm. “I’m not feeling well all of a sudden,” she said, placing her hand on her forehead. “Will you take me to get some water?”

  “Of course, dear.” Lil whispered, “Panic attacks” to the women, who all nodded in understanding. Lil smiled and scooted Sera back into the crowd.