by Tonya Kappes
“I don’t know. She won’t answer the question.” Charlotte shifted her weight to one side. She held the phone up to her ear with one hand and looked at her manicure on her other hand. “What do you mean your moped was stolen? She mentioned you had lost your keys. OHMYGOD!” Charlotte yelled. “My office was torn up. Do you think they were trying to find something in there?”
“Here we go,” I whispered, knowing Granny had to be giving Charlotte an earful.
“Yes. Call Jack Henry. I’ll take care of Emma Lee, like always.” She hit a button on her phone and slipped it back in her pocket. She smiled, softening her features. She put her arm around me. “Now, now.” She patted me like I was some teenager who was going to explode on her. “I will call Mary Anna today and let her know what you did to your hair. I’m sure she will have a solution. Have you been taking your meds?” She took her phone out again and tapped the buttons.
“I don’t need meds. Mary Anna is the one who did my hair.” I put my hands on my hips. “And you have never taken care of me. Mom and Dad didn’t leave you in charge.”
“Oh grow up, Emma Lee.” Charlotte flung her beautiful red hair that I was secretly jealous of and trotted back down the hall toward the offices, shaking her butt the entire way. “Jack Henry, can you send an officer over? Someone has broken into the funeral home.”
I glanced over at the clock on my wall and quickly shut the door before I went back into the kitchenette to retrieve my coffee. If I knew Jack Henry, and I did, he wouldn’t send anyone over but himself. He would make sure someone didn’t break in and kill me. I was going to tell him all of that before he went all Robo-cop on me last night, but his behavior had made me forget.
“What were you saying to me?” Chicken wasn’t happy with me. Hell, no one was happy with me. I might as well stick with the plan.
“I’m going to grab my stuff and head on over to Marla Maria’s.” I grabbed the charger on the counter to get my phone, but the end that was supposed to be hooked into the phone was dangling near the ground. “Crap.”
I had forgotten to grab my phone out of the hearse.
“Come on.” I grabbed my purse and keys. I had to get out of there before Jack Henry came. I wasn’t in the mood to hear him yell at me again.
“My pleasure.” Chicken rushed out behind me. We hopped into the hearse with Chicken taking his usual place with his arm draped around my shoulder. “Marla Maria is going to have a fit when she sees you.”
And he was right. I tapped on the door of the double-wide and Marla Maria about had a woman-sized tantrum right there in front of me.
“Look at her!” Chicken was taking too much delight in the hissy fit Marla Maria was having. “She’s shaking like a hound dog trying to shit a peach pit.” He bent over in laughter.
“My reputation is on the line.” She grabbed me. Her long nails dug into the fleshy part of my bicep. “Your hair is fabulous, but your brows are still red and those bags under your eyes are going to require surgery!”
“Surgery?” I shrugged away from her.
“Sit!” She ordered me to sit in the La-Z-Boy. She was all ready for the pageant in her leopard print leggings, tight black V-neck shirt, and black stilettos.
“That’s my chair.” Chicken protested.
“Really?” I questioned him out loud. “Now you question where I can sit?”
“What?” Marla Maria bit back.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. I had to keep my mouth shut or Marla Maria would think I was crazy and not take me to the pageant.
“Good.” Marla Maria turned and made her way into the kitchen. She opened the door of the refrigerator, her butt stuck up in the air as she rooted around. “There you are.” She grabbed something and came back. “Close your eyes,” she demanded and smacked something cold on my face.
“What is that?” I sniffed. “Is that bologna?” I would know the smell of Artie’s Meat and Deli bologna in a minute. My Granny called it the best Kentucky round steak anywhere in the south.
“Don’t you mind what it is.” I heard her heels clicking away. I dared move. “I’ve got to get Lady Cluckington ready.”
“Lady!” Chicken smacked his hands together. “This is a big pageant. She better look good, Marla Maria,” Chicken warned as I lay there with my dignity stuck under a couple of pieces of meat. “Hurry, Emma Lee! Grab the other tape from the cabinet. You forgot one.”
I peeled the edges of bologna back from my eyes and peeked at him.
“I did?” Quickly I jumped up and opened the cabinet. Lady Cluckington’s squawking caught my attention. There was a tape in the far back, so I grabbed it and stuck it in my bag right before Marla Maria came through the door. One problem, the VHS was sticking out a little bit. Please don’t let her see it, I repeated over and over in my brain.
I thrust the bologna in my mouth and threw my body on the floor into the only yoga pose I could remember.
“What are you doing?” Displeasure was all over Marla Maria’s face. “You can’t eat bologna. It adds pounds and rolls to your figure. Spit it out!”
I opened my mouth and let the meat fall on the ground. Lady Cluckington flapped her wings, causing Marla Maria to drop her. She clucked her way over to the meat and gobbled it up.
“No! Lady!” Chicken scolded her. “You can’t eat that.”
It was too late. Lady had eaten it and was in the kitchen looking for more.
“This is not good.” Chicken paced back and forth, running his hands through his black hair. Worry filled his eyes, deepening the lines in his crow’s-feet.
“Oh good!” Marla Maria grabbed the VHS from my bag. “I’m so glad you brought your own music. Are you singing or doing a baton routine?”
My mouth dropped.
“You have to have a talent for the Ms. Orloff pageant,” Chicken informed me.
Great. He had a habit of telling me things after the fact.
“Singing.” I smiled.
“I’ve heard you sing and singing is not going to give you the win,” Chicken said and sat on the floor. Lady Cluckington hopped in his lap, though to the living, it looked like she was just hopping up and down.
“Great. Now let’s get you ready.” Marla Maria helped me off the floor and dragged me back to her lair of makeup.
Chapter 18
I could hardly enjoy the ride to Lexington because Marla Maria had made me shove the passenger seat in the Cadillac completely back and change bologna slices every few minutes.
“I’m going to stink.” The smell was making my stomach curl.
Marla Maria drove with one hand, grabbed the bologna off my face with the other, flinging the meat to the backseat and at Lady Cluckington, who eagerly gobbled it up.
“Tell her to stop that.” Chicken sat next to Lady in the backseat. I was nearly lying in his ghost lap. “She’s going to get sick. Have you ever seen an Orloff get sick?”
Marla Maria was talented. She grabbed a couple more pieces of bologna and slapped them across my eyes, covering the bridge of my nose. “Breathe in and out of your nose. This will help get oxygen to those gnarly bags.”
I took a deep breath. Cough, cough. “I can’t.” I shot up in my seat, sending the bologna in the air, and it splattered on the windshield.
Bock, bock. Lady Cluckington went crazy in her cage, wings flapping, feathers flying.
“Stop.” Chicken tried to soothe the hen, but she wasn’t going to hear of it. “You are going to lose your feathers and you are the prettiest little Orloff entering the pageant.” He made baby talk with the cranky fowl and clung to the cage. “Ouch!” Chicken let go of the cage wire and shook his hand in the air. “Did you just bite me? Bad Lady! Bad girl!”
“Just ignore her.” Marla Maria had me turn back around. “Put that back on your face.”
“I think I’m just going to rest my eyes, b
are, and think about my song.” Please let me figure something out before I have to sing, I said over and over in my head. I couldn’t carry a tune and everyone in town knew it.
“Fine.” Marla Maria reached back around and grabbed a tackle box. “Open it up and get out the number four foundation. We don’t have a lot of time. Those bags took up a lot of time.” She tapped the digital clock on the Cadillac dash. “We are going to make it just in time to register you.”
I opened up the tackle box. There were all sorts of brushes, lipsticks, eyeliner pencils and many more things I didn’t even recognize.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I had to admit. “I don’t wear a lot of makeup.”
“Today you will be.” Marla Maria reached over, and without missing a beat she grabbed a bottle of brown liquid with a red lid. “Shake it, open it, put some on your finger and then dab it on your face with the white sponge.”
“White sponge.” That was easy to find. I pulled the visor down and the mirror lit up and I followed Marla Maria’s directions. I used the time to get some information. “So where are you going to open the pageant studio?” I knew she had told me before, but somehow I had to bring it up.
“My dearly departed Chicken has some land in Lexington that is not developed.” She did the sign of the cross with her free hand. “Rest his unrested soul. Do you think he was murdered?”
“I . . .” My mouth dropped. A better question would be, Do you think I killed my beloved Chicken? “I don’t know. I did hear you were going to have O’Dell Burns put him back.”
It probably wasn’t the right time to say something, but I never was good at timing.
“You know about that?” Marla Maria asked. “It was O’Dell Burns’s idea.”
Of course I knew about it. Marla Maria had forgotten she had already told me. A sure sign she wasn’t able to keep her lies and facts straight. “What did you want the police to do? They had to dig up the coffin in order to let him have everlasting peace.” I rubbed the makeup over my bags, which weren’t nearly as dark as they had been.
“Dab. Dab!” Marla Maria grabbed the sponge and showed me what she meant while still being able to maneuver the back roads. “You don’t think he is at peace?”
“I think that if he was murdered, he might be a little restless. Don’t you?” I asked, wondering if she was going to start feeling guilty for killing him.
“He’s dead.” She shrugged. “It’s not like he’s haunting me or trying to contact me from the dead.”
“Speak for yourself,” I muttered while using the eyeliner on my eyelids.
“Use that same pencil to fill in your brows.” She did a sweeping motion with her finger. She put both hands on the wheel and glanced over at me. “Do you think he really was killed? I just don’t know when it would’ve happened. Why would someone want him dead?” she rambled on and on.
“What about the property? Would someone other than you want it?” I asked. Maybe she would give me a little insight to her motives to kill him, not that the money part wouldn’t be enough.
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s nothing special. In the middle of nowhere in the woods. He promised me he would help me open up a pageant school and then he up and died on me.”
“What about Lady?” Somehow, I had to get out the truth about the divorce papers and the agreement. “Did you always take good care of her?”
I knew the truth. Chicken knew the truth. Marla Maria knew the truth. Was she going to tell the truth was the real question.
“I’m not going to say it was easy sharing Chicken’s heart with her.” Marla Maria jerked her head to the backseat of the Cadillac. “How would you feel if that big hunk of a sheriff you have brought his gun to bed with y’all?” She looked over at me. Her mouth dropped. “You haven’t slept with that hunk of man.” That was quite a statement.
“I don’t think that is any of your business.” How did this questioning turn around on me? I hadn’t seen this happen in the TV shows.
“You better do something to keep that man. He is fine and there are plenty of women who will give him what a man needs.” She winked. “If you know what I mean.”
“Jack Henry isn’t like that.” I crossed my arms in front of me. Suddenly she made me feel insecure. I patted my pocket for my phone. Shit! It was still on the passenger seat of the hearse. Dead. “He is caring and sincere. He loves me the way my hair was.”
“He didn’t try to kiss all over you when he saw your new hair color?” She asked and a fire burned on my insides. The more I thought about his lips searing down my neck, the more Marla Maria’s words hurt.
“That is none of your business.” I refused to look at her. I was pissed.
“Honey,” her words were condescending, “if you think that little librarian look you have going is going to keep a man like Jack Henry Ross at home, you have another thing coming.”
The more she yapped, the angrier I got and the more determined I was to see her behind bars.
“Here we are.” Marla Maria pulled the Cadillac over to the entrance of the festival fairgrounds. She dug her hands down her shirt and propped her boobs up to high heaven, creating the deepest cleavage I had ever seen. My eyes about popped out of my head. “Oh honey, these are bought.” She reached over and tapped my chest. “You could use some yourself,” she quipped.
“Hi there,” Marla Maria used her best Southern drawl and puckered her lips, giving the attendant an air kiss. “Is there a way I can pull up and let these beauties out?”
He bent down and looked in the back of the car at Lady Cluckington. His gaze slid to me and then directly to Marla Maria’s breasts.
“Ma’am, the restricted parking is for patrons of the festival.” The attendant had a hard time keeping his eyes off her chest.
“Tell the guy who you are.” Chicken continued to calm a cranky Lady Cluckington.
“I’m Emma Lee Raines,” I blurted out, trusting Chicken knew what he was talking about.
“Great.” The guy didn’t seem to be too impressed.
“Tell them who I am.” Chicken patted his chest. “Tell them this is Lady Cluckington.”
“We are here for Chicken Teater.” I pointed to Lady. “That’s Lady Cluckington.”
“Hellfire.” The man whipped off his festival hat and smacked it down on his legs. He bent down looking into the passenger window at Lady Cluckington. “I thought we had seen the last of you, beautiful girl.” He dripped the biggest, brightest smile. The man looked at Marla Maria’s boobs again. He darted his eyes back toward Lady. “We heard about Mr. Teater’s body being dug up because they think someone killed him.” He leaned into the car, eyes down on Marla Maria’s boobs again, and whispered, “I bet that no-good wife of his did it.” He dragged his finger across his neck and made a slicing noise. Marla Maria’s nose flared. His lips kept smacking together. “The festival awaits the day she finds out about the monthly donations we still get from his estate. God rest his soul.”
“Donations?” Marla Maria cried out.
“Thank you!” I shouted and gestured for Marla Maria to go.
Go she did. She didn’t wait for the attendant to move. She stepped on the gas and there was no delay. I looked out the back window. The attendant threw his cap down and spit on the ground.
“That sonofabitch,” Marla Maria screamed and continued to hit the steering wheel. “He gave everyone money but me!” She jabbed her fingernail at her chest.
She slammed on the brakes. I threw my hands on the dashboard to keep me, my seat belt and all from being flung through the windshield.
“I swear . . .” She threw the gearshift to PARK and turned around. Chicken hugged Lady’s cage and closed his eyes—tight. “You’d better kick the bucket soon, because I stuck around to get my fair share!”
Oh my! Did she just confess to the murder of Colonel Chicken T
eater?
“If you stick to the agreement, you get your fair share!” Chicken screamed back at her. Too bad she couldn’t hear him.
She jumped out of the Cadillac and slammed the door shut, causing me to jump. I unclipped my seat belt after I heard her tap on the trunk, signaling me to get out.
“Here goes nothing.” I looked in the visor mirror one more time before flipping it up.
“Not one more word about Chicken,” she scolded me like I was their child. “Do you hear me?” She opened the trunk using the key fob and grabbed a clothes hanger that was in a plastic bag. She whipped it in the air, causing the contents to fall to the ground while still holding the hanger. “Go put this on.” She thrust it toward me.
“Oh no.” I shook my head ferociously, catching my reflection in the back window. The blonde was much blonder in the sunlight. “I’m not wearing that.”
The sun also caught the plastic cover, exposing a pink dress. Not just a dress. A spaghetti strapped, laced-up-the-back, ballerina-style dress with all sorts of beads and bling on the bodice leading into a long puffy skirt made out of feathers. Chicken feathers.
“Yes you are.” Marla Maria thrust the plastic at me again. “You are a student of mine that I’m taking on as pro bono. That is, until you get your five-thousand-dollar check today.”
“Five thousand dollars?” I asked.
“Yes. You win today and you win five thousand dollars.” She held the hanger up. I snatched the dress.
“I’ll be right back.” I darted in the direction of the cement block ladies’ room.
Chapter 19
There was little to no room in the concrete-built bathroom. All the pageant contestants had to be in there at once, elbowing their way in front of the only mirror on the wall. And I use the word mirror loosely. It was more like those fun mirrors at the carnival that completely distort your body and face. But these girls didn’t care. They were talented, using one hand to apply mascara while using the other to pin up their hair.