The Sassy Belles

by Beth Albright

  The bar in the Tutwiler was massive, made of deep, rich mahogany wood with intricate carvings. The ceilings were at least twenty feet high and the moldings had the same beautiful etchings. There was a huge mirror over the bar that reflected everything and everyone. It was all done in dark mahogany. The hardwood floors were a throwback to the 1920s. Just entering the bar was an event. You went through time to the elegant era of Bugsy Segal and flapper dancers and it always felt like you needed a long strand of pearls to twirl. They even had music from the 1920s playing, usually by a live band over in the corner. Maybe this location would help to ease the tension of the moment.

  Though Harry and Sonny were both waiting at the bar, neither of them was drinking. Sonny was on duty so he had his usual, a Dr Pepper. Harry had club soda. We all knew this was going to be very uncomfortable, so there was an agitated, prickly uneasiness in the air. Like trying to swallow hot peppers with a whisky chaser followed by dill pickle juice. It was just too much at one time for the tongue.

  Vivi and I stepped up and slid onto our stools. I ordered a seltzer water with lime, and Vivi ordered a Jack Daniel’s straight.

  “Ms. McFadden,” Sonny began, “I’m going to be recording this and taking a few handwritten notes. You are not at this time a suspect of anything. There is no crime at the moment. We are treating this as a missing person case, and we will until such time as it becomes something else. Any details you can provide may go a long way in helping us locate Mr. Heart. But this is informal, so please feel relaxed and try your best to remember everything. Even some things you don’t think are important might become just the details we need later on. You were the last one to see Mr. Lewis Heart. Can you please describe your encounter with him?”

  Oh, Lord, I thought. Here we go.

  “Okay.” Vivi looked over Sonny’s shoulder to where I had positioned myself next to Harry. She grabbed her shot glass and threw her Jack Daniel’s back in one swig, her mop of orange frizz flying.

  “Lewis called me this mornin’. I was out at the Big House.” (That’s what Vivi called her family’s plantation.) “I had been tendin’ the rose gardens with Arthur, my gardener. I love it when I can get my hands in the soil and feel the earth damp and squishy in my palms. Know what I mean, Mr. Sonny?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sonny answered. “But, please, can we jump on over to when you met up with Lewis?”

  “I’m gettin’ there, Mr. Sonny. Another JD straight up, please,” Vivi said to the bartender. “Make it a double. Anyway, when the phone rang, I told Arthur I’d be right back. I ran in the house and grabbed the receiver. It was Lewis.

  “He said, ‘Hey, Red.’ Only Lewis calls me Red.

  “‘Hey, baby,’ I said. ‘Whatcha need?’

  “‘You, baby. Lots of you,’ he said. Lewis sounded, uhh…needy.

  “‘Okay, sweetie. You name the place and I’ll be there,’ I told him.

  “‘Fountain Mist,’ he said. ‘Our room.’ I knew that meant 106—it’s where we always met.”

  “Miss Vivi, you said you always met Mr. Heart there,” Sonny said. “How many times would you say and over what period of time? Were these encounters going on for a while?”

  Vivi stopped him. “What do you mean by a while?” Vivi was being difficult and by this time I had ordered a strong drink. I’m usually a margarita kinda girl but I drink those when I’m celebrating something, not when I’m trying to spring my best friend in a missing persons case. When the bartender served me my Bloody Mary, I looked over my left shoulder at Harry who had ordered his usual dirty martini by now. It was our anniversary, after all. He cocked his eyebrow and toasted me silently. We took a simultaneous “Yeah and happy anniversary” swig, then turned our attention back to Sonny and Vivi. Sonny was explaining what he meant by “a while.”

  “Miss Vivi, how long have your ‘meetings’ with Mr. Heart been going on?”

  “A couple of years,” Vivi answered.

  Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head and I choked on my celery stalk.

  “And when you had these, um, meetings…was it always at the Fountain Mist?” Sonny kept a straight face and dove head-on into the questioning.

  “No,” answered Vivi. “Sometimes we ‘conferenced’ in his car. And sometimes we had meetings at the Big House since we moved Mama to that fancy retirement center last year.”

  “Would you say that the Fountain Mist was the main place for your conferences?” Sonny asked.

  “Oh, without a doubt. Room 106 every time.”

  Sonny kept writing. “Okay, back to the events that led up to the disappearance of Mr. Heart.”

  “Well, I said goodbye to Lewis and hung up the phone. Then I went upstairs and sprayed my entire body with rose water and told Arthur Mama needed me at the center and I’d be back in a jiffy. He said, ‘Okay, Miss Vivi, you tell her I say hello.’ I put the top down on my car and flew to my meetin’ with Lewis. When I got there, Lewis’s red ’72 Corvette was parked outside in the back. He had already gone inside. I pulled in next to him. We always parked in the back ’cause both our cars are a dead giveaway. Anyway, I walked to our room about halfway down the sidewalk. When I got there I stopped for a second to catch my breath and straighten my dress. When I reached for the door handle, I realized it was already open.”

  “What time of day was this?” Sonny asked, swigging his Dr Pepper slowly.

  “It was at eleven o’clock this mornin’.” Vivi had obviously returned body and spirit to room 106. Her demeanor had changed. The alcohol had subdued her normally frenetic pace.

  “Go on. What happened next?” Sonny kept up the questioning.

  “Well, my God!” Vivi yelped. “You know what the hell happened next. Dammit, Sonny, just use your imagination!”

  “Miss Vivi,” Sonny said, slow and steady, “we have no choice. The details here are important. It could lead us to Lewis.”

  “Vivi, remember,” I said, “the details are what will clear all of this up and maybe lead us to what happened to Lewis. That has to be your focus.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Lewis was already waitin’ for me in bed. I kicked the door closed and he revealed himself to me. He was deep into a fantasy.”

  “What do you mean?” Sonny said.

  “He had a gun holster on,” Vivi answered directly.

  “He had a gun?” Sonny shot back.

  “No, no!” she said. “He had on a holster. He had no gun. But he did have a little surprise for me where the gun goes.”

  “What was that?” said Sonny.

  “A toy,” Vivi answered, swigging her drink a little faster.

  “What kind of toy?” Sonny was dead serious as he continued taking notes.

  “A sex toy, you idiot! A ginormous blue penis! We named it Deputy Dick.”

  I threw back the rest of my Bloody Mary in one gulp.

  “I’ll have a double scotch on the rocks,” Harry announced once he’d flagged down the cute bartender.

  “It had fiber optic rainbow lighting,” Vivi explained. “Lewis told me to grab it, so I slipped out of my shoes and pulled up my dress. I had no panties on and my thighs were still moist from workin’ in the rose garden. I began to perspire on my neck and the water rolled around and down under my breasts. I unbuttoned my dress just enough so he could see I had no bra on either.”

  Sonny had a bewildered look on his face. He’d asked for the details, but by no means was he expecting a play-by-play account of their sexual escapade.
He looked at me helplessly, and I tried to think of a way to get Vivi to shut up without embarrassing her. But before I’d come up with anything, Vivi continued to reveal her dirty little story.

  “Lewis looked hungrier than ever. He said, ‘Hey, Red, save a horse, ride a cowboy.’ You know like that song says? So I thought, What the hell. I slung my leg over and sat straddling him with Deputy Dick in my hand. ‘Ride it first,’ he said, so I did. Did you know that with each little movement that damn thing turned a different color?”

  “Vivi!” I said with my eyebrows up. There was no time to be polite—I needed to stop her before it got any worse. “Stop! That’s enough. I think that will do. You’ve said plenty.” I was talking with my eyes bugging out, trying desperately to make her stop, but Vivi being Vivi and after a few drinks, she just kept right on talkin’.

  “Lewis threw me over on my back and crawled under the covers to the end of the bed and started suckin’ my toes and lickin’ my calves. His body was to die for—he had bulked up a little lately, trimmed down some. He was in amazing shape, and those great big shoulders and that thick black hair… God, I was so into him.”

  “Can’t you stop her?” Harry mumbled to me as he took a big swig of his scotch. “I don’t think she’ll ever get to the finish line. And this is making me queasy.”

  “Miss Vivi, please. That’ll be all for this part. Can we try to skip to the place where he stopped breathin’. Please?” Sonny tried to redirect her, but Vivi didn’t hear anything, she was lost in the story, unfortunately reliving it for all of us like it was a sick skin flick. With all that had happened to her today, none of us felt ready to be harsh with her. There was nothing to do but keep right on listening.

  “Lewis kept licking—all the way up to my thighs, then I felt his mouth on my abdomen, sliding his tongue below my navel. Just as he was on arrival, he slipped the toy out of my hand and flipped me back over on top of him, and said, ‘How ’bout a ride on the real horse, Red? Let’s go for a trot.’ He was full of the devil! And I loved it. I positioned myself just right. He was primed and ready. He started buckin’ like a wild bronco. I was bouncin’ up and down when…when it happened.”

  We all sat up, backs straight on our bar stools, bug-eyed, mouths dropped open. I was afraid to ask, but someone had to do it. “When what happened, honey?”

  “When suddenly, I felt him stop,” Vivi continued. “No sounds. No movement. No nothin’.” Vivi stopped talking. Her face dropped. She took a minute and we were all sitting still in the hushed silence.

  Then she added, “I looked down at him, and he looked a little purple. But his eyes were open. So I…dismounted.”

  By this time we could tell she was feeling her alcohol.

  “I called his name out. ‘Lewis, Lewis!’ I got louder and louder but he just turned bluer and bluer. I slapped his face and nothin’. So I jumped up, and buttoned my dress and kept shoutin’ and shoutin’ the entire time. I shook him and still he didn’t budge. So I reached across his chest to the chair, grabbed my purse and fumbled for my cell phone and called Blake while running out of the room to my car. I just started driving aimlessly. Not sure where I was headed—I just knew I needed to be doin’ something. When I couldn’t get a hold of Blake, I called Harry.”

  “Vivi? You okay?” I said. She looked at me, her eyes drooping. She heaved a big sigh. We all sat quietly. We had been through all of the emotions. No one spoke. I could hear the noise of the bar, but the mood had dropped. We all stared at Vivi. Sadness was hanging in the air like a wet drape. It was a crushing heaviness suffocating us.

  “Okay, Miss Vivi, is that your statement?” Sonny was trying to remain professional, but I could see even he was shaken. “Would you like to add anything else?”

  I motioned to Vivi to say no, but she couldn’t focus anymore. With all the Jack Daniel’s she had, she felt she needed to jabber.

  “Mr. Sonny,” Vivi said, her eyes brimming with tears, “I never meant to hurt Lewis. He is my dear friend. I love him. Please find him. He may be out there confused. Maybe he had a seizure and when he came to, I wasn’t there. Or he could have forgotten who he is. Please…” Tears now spilling down her cheeks, she was like a child that needed to be held through the night after a nightmare.

  Harry shoved a hundred-dollar bill at the bartender, stood up and straightened his tie. “Okay,” he announced. “I think my client’s done all she can and, personally, I don’t think she’s physically able to do much more.” He stood up and touched my shoulder. “We need to get her home.”

  Harry said he would drive both me and Vivi in my car. We’d leave his vehicle at the Tutwiler. He shook Sonny’s hand and helped Vivi down from the stool.

  “Thank you, Miss Vivi, you’ve been very helpful. We’ll be in touch,” Sonny said.

  I balanced Vivi on my left side and Sonny leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Good seein’ you, Blake. Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to walk away and his cell phone began ringing. He kept walking as he answered.

  “Officer Bartholomew.”

  Silence. Then, “Okay. I’m there in ten.”

  He hung up and abruptly turned and looked at all three of us in the twilight of the Tutwiler lobby.

  Sonny cleared his throat and looked Vivi in the eyes as he announced, “We’ve got a body.”

  4

  The chandelier in the Tutwiler lobby could have dropped and none of us would have moved. We were frozen. I looked immediately at Harry. This was possibly his baby brother. And though he and Lewis had not spoken in years, I could see he was visibly shaken.

  “Where is it?” Harry said.

  “Washed up at the Cypress Inn out at the river,” Sonny answered. “Some girl discovered it while taking a walk at the restaurant.”

  The Cypress Inn was a longtime Tuscaloosa mainstay. It was built up high on the banks of the Warrior River, and it had a beautiful walking path that led down from the restaurant to the water.

  Vivi started to cry at Sonny’s announcement. I held her still with my arm tightly around her shoulder.

  “No, no, no… It isn’t true, is it? It’s not Lewis, is it? I don’t know what could have happened to him. Oh, I think I’m gonna throw up. Am I gonna be charged with murder now, Blake?”

  She was breaking down now and crying hard. I held her a little closer and told her we weren’t even sure who the body was. She was shaking and going into shock.

  “Vivi.” Harry was trying to help her get hold of herself. “The body has to be identified and the cause of death has to be determined, too. Nothing is gonna happen until we do the ID. Let’s get over to the Cypress Inn and see if we can get some answers. I’ll drive.”

  Harry had a way of doing that. Taking charge. He was good at it, especially in a crisis. He could turn off the feelings and purely think—quite easily, actually. Sometimes I hated that.

  We rode back over the bridge, back to the river for the third time that day and headed to the restaurant. The drive was a total blur, but ten minutes later we were all in the parking lot of the Cypress Inn.

  Dusk is beautiful at the river. The reflection of the sun shimmering on the water can take your breath away. Flaming pinks and soothing turquoise draw blurry patterns across the indigo water. A liquid sunset. The expanse of the river is wide and the bank is thick with trees and snaky roots and kudzu vines that creep and crawl all the way down to the muddy water.

  It’s a fast-flowing river, full of waves and ripples. It’s
thick with underbrush and debris, making it notoriously one of the hardest areas for police divers to find anything. Or anyone. The Warrior is used for transportation. Time here is marked by the occasional slow-moving barge pushing coal up and down the river. Every so often, a speedboat races past, causing heavy waves to lap against the banks. A beautiful old riverboat called the Bama Belle would paddle down past the restaurant till sunset, when service would stop on the old vessel.

  The Bama Belle was a sweet part of the fabric of the river. It was just for show. Tourists and out-of-town family loved it and kept it in business. But it was one of the main reasons I loved to eat at the Cypress Inn, especially at dusk. It was beautiful to see the boat in all her original glory just meandering along the curve of the river, on her way home, straight toward the setting sun, with her paddle wheel churning the muddy, ink-colored water below.

  The Cypress Inn is built hanging off the hillside. All glass and old driftwood, it looks like it has been there forever. Two stories and facing the river, it’s built in a triangle shape so everyone can watch the river while they eat their catfish and hush puppies.

  Hanging baskets of azalea and begonias drip blossoms over the outdoor porch. And the trees are thick with magnolia blooms big enough to hold the spoonfuls of occasional afternoon rainwater that was a daily, almost unnoticeable part of Southern springtime.

  It was this gorgeous scene that we all stepped out of the car to see, though the beauty of it was muddied by the dark reason we were all gathered there. Harry left us as he jogged ahead to catch up with Sonny. I knew he needed to see the body for himself. I also knew he wasn’t fully embracing the possibility of what might actually be waiting for him at the bottom of that path. But I was.