Suspicious Mimes
Page 15
By the time Harley found Sam and got him back to her bedroom, she was sweaty, bloody, and panting. As soon as she released the cat, he disappeared under her bed. She knew where he was because of his high-pitched moans. Leaning back against her closed door, she began to think this hadn’t been such a good idea. She should have nailed her doors shut and stayed home.
The unmistakable sounds of Sam hacking up a hairball under her bed confirmed that. When she had enough strength, she’d put him back in the carrier and return to her apartment. It’d be better than watching the door every moment to make sure cat and dog did not meet again.
“You’re making this difficult, you know,” she said to the cat. “You got along just fine with Cami’s dogs. King’s not so bad. Most of the time. Some of the time. You could overlook it. We won’t be here that long. I hope.”
There was no response from Sam, but that wasn’t unusual.
After a moment, Harley got up and opened the door, intending to go to the bathroom to wash her face and scratches. King darted between her legs and into the bedroom, immediately finding Sam under the bed. Shouting for Yogi, Harley grabbed the dog by the tail to keep him from the cat. A scuffle ensued. “This isn’t going to work,” Harley said when Yogi finally got King back into the hallway and Sam was on top of a tall bookshelf spitting globs of saliva at the ceiling fan. “I knew better. I’m going back home.”
Yogi looked worried. “Maybe you could just leave the cat in your apartment with lots of food and water, and I’ll go check on him every day.”
“No way. If this nut job is crazy enough to kill Elvis right in front of a van full of tourists, he’s crazy enough to hurt my cat. And you. I’m not willing to risk it.”
Diva settled it. She called Nana McMullen and asked if Harley and Sam could stay with her for a few days. Nana was delighted. Harley was less so.
“Doesn’t she live in a nursing home?”
“Whispering Pines. It’s assisted living. Very nice. Like condos in a mall setting. Nana has a two bedroom place with a screened porch. Meals are served in the main dining room, there’s a beauty shop, doctors on staff, and buses to all the local stores.”
“Don’t forget three trips a month to the casinos,” Yogi said, and Diva smiled.
“That’s true. Nana does love the slot machines.”
“There’s always someone there,” Yogi added, “and they lock the doors at night and no one goes in or out unless they’re checked first. It’s the perfect place to be safe.”
Even though her parents sounded a lot more enthusiastic than she felt, Harley gave in. She hadn’t seen Nana in a while, and she did enjoy her most of the time. But staying in a community of elderly people didn’t sound like something she’d want to do for long.
“I’ll give it a try,” she said reluctantly. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. After all, she’d get a lot of rest. Older people took plenty of naps.
“About damn time you came to see me,” Nana said, dispensing with any civilities in her usual manner. At nearly eighty-six, Nana McMullen resembled a quintessential elderly Southern lady, small and white-haired, her pale skin thin and soft, and her eyes a bright blue. But there was nothing fragile or prim about her. She’d grown up during the Great Depression, borne her first child at fifteen, outlived three husbands, and lost none of her snap.
Harley grinned. “Glad to see you too, Nana. I’ve missed you and wanted to visit.”
“Bullshit. You’re only here because you’re trying to hide. What, you think I don’t read the newspapers or watch TV? Doesn’t matter why you’re here, I’m just glad to see you. Is that a cat?”
Harley set down the carrier. “His name is Sam. He and King have personality conflicts.”
“That dog is demented. Cute, but crazy. Fits right in. See if Sam likes my screened porch. There are lots of birds flying around the feeder outside that he can watch.”
“Sam is picky, but as long as there’s not a dog trying to wear him as a furry hat, he should be okay.”
Sam was better than okay. Immediately intrigued by the abundance of birds at the feeder, he crouched atop a wicker table to stare at them and make little noises low in his throat. Probably the feline version of “Come into my parlor.”
After Harley set up the litter box and put out his food and water bowls, she went inside to find Nana in front of the TV, swearing at a baseball game.
“Who’s your favorite?” she asked in a lull, and Nana looked up with something like surprise on her face.
“Atlanta, of course. Though I like our home team, too. Ever been to a Redbirds game?”
“Uh, no. I’ve been to AutoZone a lot, though. You know, with tourists.”
“Yeah, why the hell did you take that job? You’re smarter than that.”
Harley shrugged. “I hated corporate banking. And they hated me. It wasn’t something I was suited for. It was just the first job I got after leaving Ole Miss, and I was too dumb to move up in the company, anyway.”
“Hah.” Nana poked her with a finger. “You were always the smart one. You just got sick of it.”
“Maybe that too. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Lately I’ve been feeling pretty damn stupid.”
“Well you’re not. You just need direction. Not like Darcy’s two girls. Dumb as sock puppets, and with personalities to match. Ha!” She leaned forward in her rocker. “Brian McCann is pitching. He’s a leftie. Got a pretty good strikeout record. Those Cardinals better watch out.” Nana clicked off the TV. “Come on. Lunchtime. Let’s go eat.”
After sitting in the main dining room where they were served baked chicken, cornbread dressing, and green beans, Nana filched some fresh fruit and they went back to her apartment.
“Still got my own teeth,” she said with a smile of smug satisfaction, and then bit into a pear. “So, how’s it going with that hot cop you’re sleeping with?”
Accustomed to Nana’s bluntness, Harley shook her head.
“Not going at all right now.”
“Did you dump him?”
“No, we’re just taking some time off for a while.”
Nana looked at her shrewdly. “Right. It’s all this murder crap, isn’t it. Doesn’t look too good for a cop’s girlfriend to run around stumbling over corpses. Bet he dumped you, didn’t he.”
“Don’t try to sugarcoat it for me,” Harley said wryly. “You don’t need me to tell you what you already know.”
Nana waved a hand in the air. “It will sort itself out. You’ll see.”
“Now you sound like Diva.”
“That girl has always been sharp. Isabel never could see it. Thought there was something wrong with her.” Nana shook her head. “When Deirdre was just a little girl, I tried to tell Isabel that she had the sight, but Isabel would have none of it. Called it hocus pocus. I can’t say I understand it myself, but my mother always seemed to know things before they happened, too. Spooky at times and downright scary at others, but not to be dismissed. But then, Isabel always wanted things to be just right. It’s not a bad trait, just limited. I don’t think Isabel’s ever quite forgiven me for telling Deirdre to be who she is instead of what someone else wanted her to be.”
Harley thought about Grandmother Eaton wanting her little girl to fit into a preconceived mold and Diva fighting against it, a nonconformist because she couldn’t be anything else. No wonder Diva accepted whatever Harley wanted to do with such equanimity. She’d felt the sting of disapproval too often and didn’t want to pass it along.
“What did Grandmother Eaton want Diva to be?” Harley asked, sitting in a thickly padded chair across from her grandmother.
“Isabel wanted both her girls to marry well. She’d married well, and Paul isn’t a bad sort, even if he does stay gone too much. But Bel has always put too much stock in money and social position. Want a beer?”
Nana laughed. “Yep. Don’t have a washer and dryer here, so I have to keep it in this tiny little ice box. All those years of drinking it warm, now it tastes funny cold.”
Harley got Nana a beer from one of those small apartment-sized refrigerators that saved space but had plenty of room for whatever Nana wanted to put in it. Like beer.
“Why did you drink your beer warm, anyway?” she asked Nana.
“My mother lived with me, and I didn’t want her to know I liked a beer now and then. Of course, she had to know. She always knew things.” Nana chuckled. “Still, it made me feel better, so I kept doing it even after she died.”
“So what’s the reason Grandmother Eaton doesn’t like Yogi? He doesn’t have money?”
“Part of it. Most of it was that Deirdre ran off to marry him even after she was told to have nothing to do with him. Felt like he’d stolen her daughter and brainwashed her in to living in a cult. It was sixteen years before Deidre came back, and Bel never has quite gotten over it.”
Harley thought of her early years in California, moving from commune to commune, free in many ways, but constricted in ways that had meant little to Diva but a lot to her. She hadn’t liked the looks they got in some towns, the derisive stares and comments when they went into stores. Hippies. Trash. Thieves. Gypsies. All those words had hurt. When Yogi had inherited his parents’ house in Memphis, it was Harley’s dream come true. Not that she wanted to be just like everyone else. She didn’t. She liked her individuality, but nothing beat indoor plumbing.
“I don’t think Diva has gotten over it either,” she said after a moment. “She doesn’t say it, but I think she misses Grandmother Eaton.”
“Probably. It doesn’t matter how much you disagree, there’s no bond like that between a mother and daughter. Even when they don’t want to admit it. Foolish stubbornness, I say. I never let Bel try that nonsense with me. Kenneth, neither, though sons are more likely to tell you just how they feel instead of sulk.”
“How is Uncle Ken?”
“Doing really well. Lives up north with the Yankees in Virginia.”
“Last time I heard, Virginia was below the Mason-Dixon line.”
Nana snorted. “Right. You ever been up there? They sound like Yankees and eat like Yankees. Can’t even cook grits properly. I don’t know what they do to their barbecue, but it’s not right, either. Tastes awful. I liked their biscuits, though. Best I ever had, and that’s saying a lot. It’s a pretty place, too, some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen. Rivals the Smokies.”
Nana had been born in west Tennessee nine months after her father had returned from World War I. Her sturdy Irish ancestors had first settled in Memphis in the early 1800s, eventually moving out to the country right before the Civil War. Nana still called it the War of Northern Aggression, as her parents had done, and their parents before them. Stories passed down through generations told of the hard struggle during those war years, and Nana still had a big cardboard photograph of the large house the Jordans had once owned. It had four columns in front like Tara of Gone With the Wind fame, but wasn’t as elegant. A dogtrot right down the center of the house provided cool air during the melting hot summers, with a door open at each end to allow in breezes, and big transoms over the top. Nana’s great-grandparents and grandparents stood in front of the house with big smiles. Next to that framed photograph on her wall hung an after-the-war photo that showed the solemn family group in front of a white picket fence. A small two-room house sat behind the fence—once the overseer’s cabin on their thirty thousand acre Tennessee estate, and after the war, home to three families. Hard times hit when taxes were raised so high only carpetbaggers could pay. As the story went, when the men who came home after the war saw what was left to them, they spent the rest of their days sitting on the front porch talking of how it’d have been if the South had won, while the women took in washing and worked gardens. But of course, that was from the women’s point of view. The men no doubt had their own version.
“No,” Harley said, “I’ve never been to Virginia, but I can tell you a lot about California.”
“Those folks out there are a bit wild, aren’t they? Just do what they want when they want. Must be the heat. Like here. Speaking of crazy, when do we start hunting down that idiot who’s killing all the Elvises?”
“We? Hunt down? Nana, I’m not leaving here, and we certainly aren’t going anywhere.”
“We have to be back before seven-thirty,” Nana said, getting up from her chair and going into her bedroom. Her voice drifted out. “They lock the doors then. I’m changing into my tennis shoes. Be ready in a minute.”
“Nana, we’re staying here. Remember? It’s safe here. There’s a killer loose, and I’m on his short list.”
Appearing back in the doorway, Nana put both hands on her hips. “Don’t be silly. There’s nothing to be gained by being a sitting duck. Time to take the bull by the horns. No time like the present. And any other dumbass saying I can think of that’ll make you see it’s stupid to be the rabbit when you can be the fox.”
Harley stared at her. Nana was a force to be reckoned with. But she’d met her match.
“This is insane,” Harley muttered under her breath as they waited at a red light. Nana sat in the passenger seat looking like a sweet little old lady, when she was really the wolf dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. She wore a flowery dress that hit midway between her knees and ankles, a string of pearls around her neck, a white hat with pink and blue flowers atop her head, and two hundred dollar running shoes on her feet. She held a white wicker purse with wooden handles on her lap. White gloves covered her hands.
Dear Lord. It was the Terminator disguised as Opie’s Aunt Bea.
“Not at all insane,” Nana said calmly. “I can protect you.”
Harley fought the urge to break into hysterical giggles. “Nana, you’re barely five feet tall and weigh maybe eighty-five pounds, though I grant you that your hearing seems to be excellent. You can’t protect butter. How do you expect to protect me?”
Opening her wicker purse, Nana pulled out a .38 Smith and Wesson with pearl handles. “Smitty here beats a fist fight every time.”
The light turned green, but Harley couldn’t summon up the energy to press the gas pedal. She felt faint. Horns honked behind her, and finally she dredged up the will to move forward, but the Toyota bucked and died when she didn’t hit the clutch in time. More honking. She fumbled a moment, and then got everything moving right.
“Do the supervisors at the home know you’ve got that?” she asked when they were a little bit down the road, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “And put it away, please.”
“It’s not a home. It’s a retirement community. And to answer your question, no they don’t and don’t you dare tell them. I’ll know when it’s time to give it up, just like I knew when it was time to give up driving. Of course, I’ve had cataract surgery since then and I see better than ever now, so maybe I’ll get me a car. Something snazzy.” Nana slid the pistol back into her purse and snapped the latch. “I’ve been handling firearms since I was ten years old. Started out with a rifle, but that’s too big to carry in my purse, of course.”
“Of course. So where do you keep your Uzi?”
“Don’t be a smartass. I used a .22 to hunt game back then. Buckshot makes it too hard to clean. Could pick a squirrel off a tree limb at twenty yards without thinking about it. Shot rabbits, possums, and raccoons, too, though I didn’t much care for the meat off the last two. Deer meat now, that’s something I miss. And sassafras tea. Grew wild around our house when I was young, and it smelled so sweet. They used to make root beer out of it, you know, though God only knows what they put in those drinks now. Chemicals, probably. Rot your innards out, not to think about what it does to your brain.”
“I do. Not a damn thing.” Nana looked smug when Harley glanced at her to see if she was having some kind of stroke.
“I’ve got a permit.”
That took Harley aback for only a second. “To carry concealed?”
“Yep. You may not remember, but my second husband, Ed Sheridan—you never met him—was a deputy sheriff. Died of a heart attack when we were having our morning fun on the kitchen table. Try explaining to the medics why your dead husband’s lying on the kitchen table with his bare ass up in the air and his ding-a-ling hard as a brick sometime. I’ve had better moments. Anyway, he got me the permit to carry concealed back when some yahoo was threatening to kill him and his family after Ed arrested him for armed robbery.”
Harley’s head swam. This was more than she wanted to know. Yet it explained so much about her family tree. “Isn’t there an age limit on those permits?” she asked weakly.
“You’d think there’d be, wouldn’t you? But not that I know about. I’ve still got Smitty and I’ve still got my permit. So don’t worry. You’re safe with me.”
That was subjective. Harley slid a nervous glance toward the white wicker purse. “Is that thing loaded?”
“What the hell good would an unloaded pistol be to anyone?”
“Uh hunh. Can you make sure it’s pointed in the other direction? Just in case it goes off by accident.”
Nana snorted. “The only guns that go off by accident are those carried by children or fools, and I’m neither of those. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll put my purse on the floor.”
“It does.”
“So, where are we going first?” Nana asked when her purse was safely between her sneakers.
“I haven’t thought that far yet.” Truth was, she had, but that was before Lydia had been killed and she’d turned chicken.
Cluck cluck.
“I say we find out how all those Elvises got on buses that the killer was on. Couldn’t be by coincidence.”