The Sassy Belles

by Beth Albright

  “Ms. Heart, Ms. Crabtree, we don’t want to waste any of your time with chatter so let’s just cut to the chase here,” old Mr. Myrna began. “We understand that you believe it is of the utmost importance to keep that old haunted shack intact for the future generations of Tuscaloosans, but we feel just the opposite. We feel that building a shopping center and parking deck will help bring back a lot of jobs, and Ms. Heart, we all know how bad the economy has been all over the country. Our plan brings in money and your plan costs money.”

  “I don’t believe you have the right at this time to have any say-so whatsoever on the future of the famous Brooks Mansion,” I shot back. “It’s not anywhere close to being yours. So, while I am extremely impressed by your concern over Tuscaloosa’s future generations, we’re not quite ready to hear your thoughts on the matter. Now, let’s proceed with today’s business.” I needed to establish that we were in control and would not be bullied.

  “Suit yourself,” the younger Myrna said. “But, we’ll see about that.”

  “Here is a copy of our petition to have this home put on the National Registry of Historic Places. And here’s a copy of our petition to have it continue to be listed on Alabama’s Places in Peril. As long as those petitions are under review, you can’t budge with your bulldozers. There is no deal on the table.” I passed out the copies of the petitions and glanced confidently at Ms. Crabtree.

  “And we would like to present a little paperwork of our own.” Mr. Myrna Jr. opened his briefcase and passed out a copy of the real estate offer on the home and the date the offer was made had been highlighted for all of us to see. It was dated one week before our petitions. My stomach dropped like it did when Harry told me Lewis was dead and Vivi might be involved. But I didn’t let a beat go by.

  “I will need some time to investigate this. When we filed our petitions we were told that no real estate deal was in play.” I was in shock but hoping those great acting skills would take over any second now. I played it as cool as I could although my nerves were about shot. “Ms. Crabtree, you also checked on the real estate deals and offers on the place, as well, and did you find anything at all like this?”

  “No, I certainly did not.” She held it together.

  “Well, Mr. Mryna, until the deal goes through, the Brooks Mansion is not yours. So you still cannot proceed with any plans. “And—” I looked at Ms. Crabtree “—I heard things can stay tied up in commercial real estate for what seems like an eternity. Didn’t you hear that, too, Ms. Crabtree?”

  “Yes, I most certainly did,” she said. She was quite the team player.

  “I think that will be all for today until I can find out some more details regarding this offer. I’ll get back to you and set up the next meeting. Thank you for coming.” I stood and shook hands and walked them to the front of the office. Ms. Crabtree hung behind.

  “Blake,” she said, “thank you. You were wonderful and we do appreciate it.”

  “Ms. Crabtree, I will get to the bottom of this. Don’t worry. We made a good team in there,” I told her. “I’ll be in touch.”

  She hugged me and walked out the front door. As soon as it closed, I collapsed into one of the chairs in the lobby. I felt like I had been shot out of a cannon, hurtling through the air and having no idea where I was about to crash.

  “You okay?” Wanda Jo asked. “You don’t look so good. Want me to run and get your Diet Coke?”

  “No,” I answered, “but how ’bout a shot of that whisky?”

  “Comin’ right up.” She smiled and jumped up, trotting off to the kitchen, pitching me a Hershey’s Kiss through the air as she went. What in the world would I have done without Wanda Jo? I should have been driving a fire truck that day ’cause all I seemed to be doing was putting out fires.

  * * *

  Vivi and I were already waiting in Meridee’s kitchen when Harry and Sonny pulled up in their separate cars at exactly 3:05 p.m. I had called Meridee to let her know we were coming for a chat, so even though she was on her way out, she had put the coffee on and set the creamers out on the yellow table. The table sat in the center of the kitchen and it held a jar of spoons and an old sugar container in the center. It was perfect for a little private heart-to-heart.

  Meridee was leaving today to go with her younger, party animal, seventy-five-year-old sister from north Alabama on a trip to celebrate Meridee’s upcoming birthday, which was in a couple of weeks. My great-aunt had come down to pick her up because Meridee’s car was in the shop. Meridee insisted on driving my grandfather’s old car and the parts were hard to find when something broke down. The car had been sitting in the shop for a couple of weeks waiting on parts that had to be shipped in, but that wasn’t about to slow down Meridee’s plans. Now the two of them were headed on a gambling adventure in Mississippi. Even at nearly eighty, Meridee was full of life—and sometimes full of the devil. Her constant sarcasm and dirty mind were the source of many side-splitting evenings of laughter in her house. She was a tiny woman, all of about five feet tall and maybe one hundred and ten pounds…soaking wet. But her laughter was large and full and her heart was even larger.

  She had left us a note with the creamers on the kitchen table: Y’all have fun, I know I will. Love you, Nanny. I pressed the note to my chest, wishing for the simpler times when this tiny woman was at the center of my universe and our reason for visiting her house was just so we could spend a little time with her. Just then Harry and Sonny stepped in through the back porch.

  “Hey,” I said as I hugged Harry with one arm. I reached behind him and grabbed Sonny’s hand and he squeezed it. Harry let go and moved across to Vivi. Sonny leaned down and kissed my cheek. Harry didn’t even notice. Sonny always seemed to feel my emotions. He just knew the stress I felt. He could see it in my eyes. He was tuned in, definitely more than Harry. But the kiss? It did make me feel better and it stirred something in me that I couldn’t quite understand.

  Vivi sat nervously sipping her over-sugared coffee, looking like she had something to hide. Okay, she did. A baby! But it was not the look we were going for. I looked at her and shook my head.

  “Let’s all have a seat,” Sonny said. The kitchen windows were open and a steady summer rain began. “Vivi, look, we gotta get a few things outta the way. We’ve been at Lewis’s condo all morning. We’ve turned up a few cigarette butts and some bank statements, an extra set of keys identical to the ones found at the Fountain Mist. Except this set from the condo have a few extra,” he said, eyebrows up.

  “Do you know what they might be for?” I asked.

  “They look like they might fit a safety deposit box,” Harry answered. “Do you know about a box, Vivi?”

  “No,” she said. “My relationship with Lewis was never about such private things as what could be in a safety deposit box. Only…other private things.”

  Oh, here we go, I thought. It was obvious that she was just going to be playful. It was her cover. She’d be a broken, nervous wreck on the inside, and outside, she’d be sexy and silly. She’d been using this tactic since the ninth grade.

  “As you know, Vivi, anything you tell us can be used to help us find Lewis and make sense of all of this.” Sonny really had no patience for her this afternoon.

  “Well, if I don’t know, then I just don’t know, Sonny! The only thing I do know is that Lewis is out there somewhere—I can feel it. Maybe he’s got amnesia. Maybe he’s been kidnapped. But we had a connection. I feel him now. I…I…just know. That’s
all.” She subconsciously placed her hand on her tummy. Maybe she did know.

  Vivi started to tremble, but she took a gulp of her coffee and continued. “Sonny, something you said does confuse me, though. You mentioned cigarette butts. Didn’t Lewis quit smoking about ten years ago? I know he did.”

  “Yeah,” Harry answered. “It was a bet, right? With one of his radio buddies. It was for a thousand dollars. He bet Vince Landry over the LSU game. Bama lost that one, so Lewis had to quit cold turkey and pay Vince a thousand dollars.”

  “He did it like he was puttin’ down a glass of water,” Vivi interrupted. “Lewis was like that.”

  “Yeah, not much could shake him,” I said.

  “Or defeat him,” Vivi added.

  “Well,” Sonny said, “the cigarettes weren’t his, unless he was into more than we could imagine.”

  “Like what?” Vivi and I said together.

  “Like cross dressing,” Sonny said in his sober baritone.

  “Oh, what in hell are you talkin’ about?” Vivi seemed almost personally insulted.

  “The cigarettes were stained with lipstick,” Sonny said. “Bonita was with us and she was the one who spotted a few butts stained in pink. She took them to the lab.”

  Dead silence fell over the room. Vivi put down her cup. The look on her face was one of shock and surprise. I could tell this news was like a jab to her soul.

  “We’re having the butts tested now. It would help if we all submit to a DNA test,” Harry said. “I know that seems odd, but for one thing, Vivi, we’ll need it to prove those cigarettes didn’t belong to you.”

  “I don’t even smoke!” Vivi exclaimed as she brushed a tear from her eye.

  “I’m sure there is a good explanation,” I said to Vivi.

  “If he had a woman in his condo the night before he saw me, she could know something. Oh, God! We’ve got to find her.” Vivi was thinking out loud. And amazingly she was thinking of only Lewis’s safety, not the fact that someone with a pair of hot-pink lips had been visiting with her Lewis.

  And at that moment I knew she really loved him. She loved him unconditionally and without hesitation.

  I left the group sitting at the table and headed down the hall to the bathroom. I felt a range of emotions hit me—concern for Lewis, sadness about Harry and excitement over the prospect of the baby, for starters. I passed the living room and the screened front porch beckoned. I never made it to the bathroom. I sat down on the old glider and took a few minutes to let my swirling thoughts form some sort of sense in my head.

  This is where I used to come to talk to my great-grandmother after she died. I know. I said after she died. Mother’s house seemed filled with ghosts. And crazy people. I leaned a little to the crazy side so it was understood that I talked to all the ghosts. It smelled musty out there with the afternoon rain stirring the dust, and I listened to the rain splatter on the broken sidewalk. The sound of the rain helped me clear my head. My thoughts kept returning to Vivi’s news. A baby. Under normal circumstances this would be such a happy time, but with Lewis missing, the news had a bittersweet quality to it. I felt the tears begin and quickly shut them off. Change the topic, I told myself. But the rain kept falling and so did the tears.

  My mind turned back to the information we had all just learned, and as I thought about the lipstick-stained cigarettes, a jolt of realization hit me.

  Dallas smokes! To maintain her ultra-trim figure, of course. She smells like an ashtray, but to cover that, she sprays fragrance all over and it wafts through the air every time she makes a move. And, like Dallas herself, there was nothing subtle about it.

  I thought back to the conversation we’d had after the press conference. Dallas had gotten that phone call from an anonymous source once the news had spread about Lewis’s disappearance. Dallas said her source talked about Lewis being at a bank. Could Dallas have met with Lewis the night before he disappeared? If so, then why?

  I wasn’t getting any answers just sitting there, so I reluctantly left the familiar comfort of the screened front porch and returned to the kitchen to find Vivi pacing the green vinyl floor.

  “Blake, who could have been there with Lewis? Who?” Vivi said, talking to me as if I had never left, although I had been gone for at least ten minutes.

  “I have no idea right now, but we’ll figure it out,” I said, just sort of blowing it off. I didn’t want to let on about suspecting Dallas just yet. I needed a little more to go on before getting Vivi all worked up.

  I looked hard at Sonny to try to read his face. He looked at me as if he wanted to believe me, but he and I both knew this case was growing deeper and dirtier by the day. His eyes spoke all I needed to know. After all, this was Lewis Heart we were talking about. The Voice of the Crimson Tide.

  “Let’s go ahead and get these DNA tests ordered,” Harry said as he poured himself another coffee. “I want Vivi cleared of any suspicion ASAP.” We all did.

  Who did that lipstick belong to, hot-pink and imprinted on those cigarettes? One thing was for sure. Lewis had visited with another woman hours before he was on his back, naked, with a cowgirl named Vivi.

  12

  Late afternoon came and dusk settled over my college town like a curtain falling on a summer theatre production. The early evening brought with it a much-needed deep breath. The songs of late spring strummed along outside with a comforting rhythm, like a symphony. Wanda Jo had called to let me know that the most recent package for the Myrna case had arrived.

  “Perfect,” I told her. “I’ll prove those Myrnas wrong once and for all, then the Preservation Society can get to work saving that priceless old place. Did you sign for the package or do I need to come in?”

  “Of course I signed for it. I know what I’m doin’ here, now, don’t I?” she said. “I’m goin’ home early tonight, okay? The championship rounds of Jeopardy! are on and my damn tape player is on the fritz. I’ll turn the answerin’ machine on before I leave.”

  “Okay, Wanda Jo, thanks for everything,” I said. She wasn’t asking me if she could go early, she was merely letting me know of her plans. It was actually a comfort to have someone there at all times keeping our little ship afloat.

  Before I let her go I said, “I’ll swing by the office on my way home and pick up the package. I’ll give you a call tomorrow once I know what we need to do to get another meeting scheduled with the Myrnas.”

  “Sounds fine to me, Blake, but now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to go. My show is on in fifteen minutes.”

  The sun set and the rain returned, this time falling in a sideways downpour. I drove over to the office to pick up the package before I headed home. I parked out front along the sidewalk and ran inside the front door to my office. It was dark and closed for the day. Wanda Jo had left the lamp light on at my desk and the Myrna real estate package was in my chair. The large envelope contained the original real estate offers on the old Brooks Mansion and all the paperwork from the Historical Society and the Preservation Society and even the National Registry of Historic Places. I knew there was a hole in this thing somewhere and I intended to find it. There was no way we could have filed anything with the National Registry if there was a real estate bid on the mansion at the time. I knew the Mrynas were trying to pull something and I was going to call their bluff.

  I put the large envelope in my red Gucci satchel and headed back to the front office and out to my car. The rain was coming down in torrents now and I was
out in it getting soaked. Hurrying around to my car door, my eye caught Sonny standing in the door of the police station. He motioned for me to come over. I reached in the backseat of the Navigator and grabbed my umbrella, but it was no use, I was already drenched. I ran across the street and ducked inside the station, my wet white blouse now clinging to my skin and hiding nothing.

  “Hey, Blake, I’m sorry to make you run through the rain. I thought you’d just do a U-turn and drive up to the curb out there.” I caught his eyes drop to my chest and a shy smile curled his lips as he spoke. “What are you doing at work this late and in this flood?”

  “I had to pick up a package on that real estate case I’m working on—you know, with the old Brooks Mansion?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, going over to a small closet in the hall and grabbing out some hand towels. “I heard about that case. Maybe it was Harry who mentioned it. He’s helping you on this one, right?” he asked, rubbing the towels over my shoulders and down my back.

  “No, he’s so busy with the campaign and, well, I can handle this myself.” I was getting lost in his touch and his height over me and his cologne and…

  “Oh, I have no doubt about that,” he said, smiling. “I’m positive there’s nothing you can’t handle by yourself.” He kept talking and as I took the towels and dabbed my wet face, the rainwater dripping off my hair and running down my neck.

  “I called you over to tell you how much I appreciate your dedication on this case with Lewis. You are my strongest ally on this. Your passion is in the right place and I think we make a good team for Vivi. I wanted to make sure I told you that, I just had no idea you were gonna go for a sprint in the monsoon.”