The Sassy Belles

by Beth Albright

  Sometimes we’d go on big outings downtown—which consisted of two whole streets back then—to see my grandmother peddle her cosmetics at Lewis Weasel’s department store, the most expensive shop in town. Then we’d cross the street to Kress’s and eat lunch at their lunch counter. As I enjoyed the delicacy of grilled cheese and fries, I would sit looking at all the busy people rushing to somewhere important. I studied the women and their Southern way of dressing, cotton dresses billowing behind them. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to dress just like them. And to wear the pearls. All the women wore pearls. After lunch, we’d head back across the street to the bank. That’s where the clock stood, like an old sweet guard watching over the rush of cars and people.

  If only now the clock could speak. It saw everything for the last hundred years. It always knew the truth. As I glanced over at it in the morning sprinkling of rain, I saw the old relic as a source of comfort.

  Mine and Harry’s law office was just next door to the bank, so I dipped in to check with Wanda Jo, our secretary. Now, that woman is cranky even on her best days, but she sure knows how to run a law office. She was a good bit older than me and Harry and had known us both since we were children. She was sharp and organized but spoke like a redneck sailor on shore leave. Wanda Jo was a former majorette when she went to Alabama State, aeons ago. She was always a little heavy and a good bit too loud, but I liked her. She tried to mother us and we just let her.

  “Hey, Wanda Jo, any messages?” I asked as Vivi and I stepped inside. “I’m only here for a sec, meeting Harry and Sonny across the street on some business.”

  “Hell, yeah, you’ve got messages! This damn phone’s been ringing off the hook all mornin’. I’ve just been tellin’ everybody you’d call back this afternoon, so you better keep my word.” She laughed and took a drag of her cigarette. “Hey there, Vivi,” she added with a wink.

  “Now you know you can’t smoke in here,” I reminded her. She put the cigarette out, opened the window behind her desk and answered the ringing phone. “Heart and Heart Attorneys. How can we be of service?” she said into the receiver. “Uh-huh…Uh-huh…” She was writing. “Okay. I will pass it along but don’t hold your breath, honey. They are actually working on something important today.” And she hung up, smiling. “I swear, some people in this town are just pure ol’ lunatics.” She looked up at me. “Now what are you doing still standin’ there starin’ at me? You can see I’ve got things under control, so git on outta here and go over to Sonny’s. You gotta lot of calls to return this afternoon. Tell Mr. Heart he has his fair share, too.”

  “Okay, Wanda Jo, let me know if something pressing comes in. I’m expecting that package on the Myrna case.”

  “I know it. I’ll sign for it, as usual. Now go on.”

  Wanda Jo had come to work for us when we first opened. She had been a law office manager most of her life, and at one point had worked for my grandfather. She’d found the Lord and lost him nearly as quick: she’d become a preacher’s wife until she decided she didn’t like the pressure of trying to be holy for the congregation. Wanda Jo had been known to throw back a few and she loved to dance and cuss. Reverend Mayes was always embarrassed by her behavior and lack of culinary skills and eventually they divorced. I mean a preacher’s wife who can’t bake a pound cake for the family of the departed was nearly useless in the South. Wanda Jo never remarried. Kitty says she looks like she’s been “rode hard and put up wet,” meaning she’s lived a hard (wild) life and it showed on her face. And she does look a bit worse for the wear. Her two kids live in Florida and work for one of the horse tracks in Tampa. She’s a good soul. And I trust her. At the end of the day, that’s what counts.

  I grabbed Vivi by the hand and gave it a squeeze. We walked out the door and headed across the street.

  “That Wanda Jo is a sight,” Vivi said as we crossed the downtown street to the police station. “She never changes.”

  Sonny was waiting outside the station. The rain had turned to a sprinkle and he stood in the hazy mist drinking a Mountain Dew. At the sight of him, Vivi started to shake. “Oh, Blake, he’s waitin’ for me. This is it,” Vivi said.

  “No, sweetie, he’s just gonna show you what was found, that’s all. Now let’s go.”

  “Hey,” Sonny announced in his baritone Southern drawl as we approached the old wooden and glass door. “Y’all come on in. Mornin’, Vivi.” Sonny extended his hand and ushered her inside. As he took her hand and then let go, his skin brushed mine. He looked at me, right in my eyes. I smiled at him and immediately felt my cheeks flame.

  “Mornin’, Blake,” he said, all businesslike to break up the awkwardness of the moment.

  Harry had pulled in right behind me and was just getting out of his Mercedes. I heard his door slam. Vivi and I were inside when Harry arrived at the door, Sonny shaking hands with him quickly and patting his back as though they were golf buddies.

  “Y’all have a seat,” Sonny began, just as Bonita entered the room with her hands full of a delicious-smelling little box.

  “Hey, y’all. Sorry to interrupt—” she began, but Vivi cut her off.

  “What in the world is that scrumptious smell? My stomach just rumbled so loud you could hear it across town. All this mess with Lewis has me so worked up, I don’t think I’ve remembered to eat much.”

  “Well, here, honey, have a rib! They’re from Arthur’s new place. I told him I would pass samples around the neighborhood for him. We want the whole town talkin’ ’bout these so everybody is excited when we—uh, when he has the grand opening. They are so good…” she said, opening the container and passing them around.

  “You and Arthur seem to be spendin’ a lotta time together since y’all met at church last month,” Vivi said, taking a rib from the box.

  “Yeah, he is a sight and, man, can he cook up some sweet, saucy ribs. He is just so talented in the kitchen.”

  “Uh-huh, and maybe elsewhere….” Count on Vivi to say the thing we were all thinking. She just couldn’t keep even a single thought to herself.

  “Now, Vivi, you know me and you know I don’t fool around, but I do love spendin’ time with Arthur. He is quite the gentleman…and quite the chef. Blake, have a rib, honey…it’ll just melt in your mouth.” I took one, looking at Sonny with my eyebrows up. Was Bonita investigating cases, ribs or Arthur these days?

  “Well, I better get goin’ before I don’t have any ribs to pass out. See y’all later,” Bonita said with a smile as she covered the ribs and turned toward the door. “I got me a list of places to visit with these little delicacies. I just know the courthouse would love a rib or two. And, Sonny, I’m on my lunch break so don’t be thinkin’ I’m shirkin’ my work. You know nothing’s more important to me than this department.” And with a swish of her curvy hips, she stepped outside and shut the old wooden door with a bang.

  “Yeah, nothing except Arthur and his new BBQ business. I do believe he may have himself a new business partner ’fore this is over with,” Vivi said.

  We all chewed our saucy ribs and Sonny grabbed some napkins from his desk drawer. Vivi began to tap her fingers on the table anxiously. You could just tell she’d reached her limit for waiting, and she was quickly running out of patience.

  “Can I get anyone a drink?” Sonny offered as he handed out the napkins.

  “No!” Vivi said, full of exasperation. “For God’s sake! Let’s just get this over with. I swear, if I smoked, I’d be settin’ new records. Besides, I dran
k enough coffee at Mother’s to be wound up tighter than a Bessie bug for a month of Sundays! So, please, just show me the damn clothes!”

  “We’re fixin’ to get right to it.” Sonny motioned to Deputy Officer Dooley with a raised eyebrow and a quick flick of his head to retrieve the evidence. The little officer made his way down the wood-planked floor to a small room at the end of the hallway. We wiped our mouths as Officer Dooley returned with a large plastic Ziploc bag. Sonny passed around a little garbage can and we all dropped the rib bones inside. Vivi sat up in the wooden barrel-backed chair and scooted to the edge of her seat. She removed her oversize round black sunglasses that she used more to hide her worried eyes than shield any sun on this gray morning.

  Sonny stood and pulled on latex gloves from behind the desk and slowly removed each garment from the bag, holding them between his thumb and index finger. The clothes were so muddy, I could barely make out any color or texture. Vivi stood and moved forward one step toward the desk. Her hand was outstretched toward the wet bag but Sonny yanked it back.

  “No, Miss Vivi. You cannot touch this. It’s classified evidence now. Do you recognize anything?” He continued to lay the garments out across the plastic sheeting that covered the desk. He pulled out the trademark khaki polo pants, torn and muddy. And then the sherbet-orange polo shirt. It was almost unrecognizable, the color so destroyed by the rush of the river and all the mud. But Vivi started to shake.

  “Oh, shit. Oh, shit,” she muttered.

  Harry and I stood up slowly. I put my arm on Vivi’s shoulder and glanced at Harry in the sudden sharp silence. For a split second, only the whir and beat of those old overhead fans filled the air. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Miss Vivi,” Sonny broke in, “do you care to, uh, elaborate?”

  Vivi only continued to mutter, her hands trembling. She was shaking her head back and forth as if in disbelief.

  “Okay, Vivi,” I said. “‘Oh, shit’ is not an identification or an elaboration. You’ve got to give us something else.”

  I glanced back over her shoulders at Harry. He looked chalky white. “Harry,” I whispered, “are you okay?”

  He knew he couldn’t identify the clothes, but he obviously recognized Lewis’s style in that wet muddy bag. He squinted, swallowed hard and brushed his hand across his brow. I knew he was not okay. He swallowed hard again, as if trying to suppress the words he had shoved deep down along with his emotions. Several years of wanting to speak to Lewis seemed to regurgitate in his throat. Several years of wishing things hadn’t happened like they did. I felt for him in that moment there in the little office. But Harry had never handled Lewis very well. Watching him now took me back to that awful night six years ago when they’d last spoken.

  I will never forget the way it all unraveled. Nearly seven years ago Harry’s dad died suddenly. He was sixty-two years old and had a stroke in his sleep. He had just quit the law practice his own father had started. He lasted barely six months into retirement when Julia, Harry’s mother, found him cold in the bed one Friday morning over the Fourth of July weekend. She called Harry first and he gathered the rest of the family.

  After the funeral Harry was named executor, as his mother had to go on medication. She became much too fragile to handle the estate. Most of it certainly was going to Harry in any case.

  Shortly after, Lewis and Harry got together to discuss what to do with their widowed mother and that’s when the trouble began. Harry wanted to make sure Julia stayed in her own house. He wanted to take the money they’d inherited, and there was a lot of it, and hire ’round-the-clock care for Julia—a cook, a housekeeper, a driver—all so that Julia could stay in the house she had called home for over forty years.

  Lewis, however, did not want to donate his share of the inheritance for that purpose. Instead, he wanted to invest it, turn it around quickly to make millions and then take Julia to live with him, to finally be the son he had never quite been able to be. He told Harry his investment was a sure thing. It would make them even richer.

  This was typical Lewis. His heart was huge, and it was almost always in the right place. He just didn’t have Harry’s knack for thinking things through. Harry was the tortoise and Lewis was the hare, running fast and furious, throwing caution to the wind, wanting to fill up every second of life with life. His epitaph would probably read: “I never wasted a minute. I never took the safe path. I risked it all and loved every second.”

  Harry was quite the opposite. Slow and steady. He knew what he wanted and he only took the sure bet, the low risk path, trodden by many a Heart man before him.

  Clearly, he and Lewis clashed. Harry needed Lewis’s part of the estate to care for Julia in the way he intended, in the grandest style and opulence. But Lewis refused. They argued for weeks. Then one day, Lewis burst into our house and announced he had done it. Some college buddies of his in Birmingham had a sure thing going. Lewis invested in their new business as a partner. He was so excited. “Full turnaround with massive interest,” he had said, “is guaranteed in six months.”

  Harry and Lewis did more than argue this time. You could’ve heard their shouting two blocks away.

  “I’m sick of you always making all the decisions for this family,” Lewis had hollered. “Dad only ever believed in you because you’re just like him. Always walking the straight and narrow, even when it means losing out on the chance of a lifetime! He always thought I was a joke ’cause I wouldn’t even consider law school.” Lewis paused and shook his head in disgust. “The predictability of it all makes me sick. Another Heart goes to law school. Oh, that’s original. I’d rather die than be another Heart in law school.”

  “Oh, and what have you gone and done instead? Talk on the radio? Selfish, as usual. You know, I have had just about enough of your shit. I’ll take care of Mother my way till the money runs out. And you can go straight to hell.”

  “I’ll be caring for Mother,” Lewis shouted, “and won’t that be just a shock to everyone. You’ll see, Harry. In six months. I guarantee you!” And with that, Lewis slammed the door to the house on his way out.

  “God, he is absolutely ridiculous,” I remember Harry saying after he left. It was true, what Lewis had said, though. Harry always thought of Lewis as a joke.

  Six months passed and Julia was getting better every week. Harry cared for her with an entourage of help and kept her in her Southern mansion on the southeastern edge of town. We didn’t hear from Lewis at all for the entire six months.

  Then, late one soggy November afternoon, Lewis showed up at our door. Soaking wet and reeking of alcohol, he looked as though he hadn’t showered in a week.

  “Lewis! My God, get in here!” Harry said, pulling his brother inside from the storm.

  “Lewis, what happened?” I asked.

  “It’s gone.” He was dripping rainwater all over the wood floor and trying hard to hold himself together. He looked so lost and helpless, it broke my heart. Harry, however, had no pity. He was full of rage.

  “How much did you lose?” he asked, his voice as cold as ice.

  “All of it.”

  “Oh, dear God.” Harry sank down on the couch. “I knew it,” he muttered. “What happened?”

  Lewis explained this new mess he was in. Harry and I had been married about four years at the time, and this was at least the sixth time that I’d seen Lewis in trouble.

  “The investment didn’t work.”

  Harry and I looked at each other as if to s
ay, “Duh.”

  “We got that part,” I said. “What happened?”

  “I’m in trouble.” He kept his head down.

  “What now?” Harry said.

  “This time it’s really bad.”

  “Lewis, what the hell happened?” Harry pushed.

  “The company was illegal.”

  “What?” Harry stepped closer to him. “What company? What do you mean illegal?”

  “It was all fake, Harry, a money-laundering scheme.”

  “How much of it is gone?” Harry asked.

  “All five million. All of mine plus some of Mother’s.”

  Something seemed to break for Harry at that moment. His practiced stoicism, his perfectly calm and always unruffled demeanor suddenly cracked. He grabbed Lewis by the front of his shirt. “Tell me everything, you sorry bastard! Now!”

  “I invested part of Mother’s money and all of mine into a new radio franchise. A new national network.” Lewis was shaking, his usually clear voice nearly inaudible.

  “We sold all of this advertising. They were out of Baltimore. All of the money was coming out of Birmingham. They told us we were on the satellite and soon every station in the country doing talk would be carrying us so we sold the advertising.”

  “You sold advertising on a phony network?” Harry broke in.

  “Now the Baltimore group has shut down and disappeared. No station, no advertising, no money.”

  “That’s an FCC violation, you idiot!”

  “I know, Harry, but eventually the network was going to carry the advertising. We were sold a bill of goods. But now there’s no network and all five of us from the Birmingham group will go to jail. Harry, you’ve got to get us off.”