by Anne George
“You were very brave back there,” I said. Tears ran down her cheeks. I wiped them away.
“It’s all my fault,” she whispered.
“No, it’s not. It’s not your fault at all.”
“But Griffin wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for me.” She sobbed into the wet paper towel.
“That doesn’t make what happened your fault.”
She sighed and wiped her face. “But I feel so guilty.”
“The curse of the Southern woman. I feel guilty when it rains on our picnic.”
Dusk tried to smile. “No, Mrs. Hollowell. I feel that guilt, too. But Griffin is dead because of me. I was married to him.”
“You what?” There was a small bench in the restroom, and I sat down heavily. “What?”
Dusk sat down beside me and held the paper towel to her eyes again. “It’s true. No one knows it but Day and probably the police by now. They’re going to think I killed him, I know.” She leaned over and placed her head against her knees, sobbing.
I was having trouble absorbing this. The red velvet cushion on the bench was worn, and in several places yellowish-brown foam rubber was visible. Bed Bath & Beyond would have some cushions to fit; they were beckoning. But Dusk’s voice brought me back.
“It was so simple,” she said, sitting up and wiping her face. “He wanted to become a United States citizen, and I admired him so much.” She looked at me. “It’s all my fault.”
“Your parents don’t know about this?”
She shook her head. “Day does, but I didn’t think I would ever have to tell Mama and Daddy. As soon as Griffin became a citizen, we were going to get a divorce.” She leaned her head back against the wall. “We never even lived together, Mrs. Hollowell.”
I was trying to put two and two together here. “Is that what he was doing in Birmingham, then? Seeing about a divorce?”
“Oh, Lord, I wish it had been.” Dusk got up, got another paper towel, and wet it. Outside we heard several pairs of footsteps hurrying down the hall. Suddenly I wanted to know if Larry was still alive, what his chances were.
“Wait right here,” I said in my best schoolteacher voice, pointing to the bench. “I want to hear the rest of this, but I want to see how Larry’s doing.”
“Not too good,” Mary Alice said when I asked. She was standing at the end of the hall with Mr. Taylor. “They’ve put his head in one of those foam things, and they’re hooking him up to everything on God’s earth. I called Virgil. He’s going to meet us at UAB with Tammy Sue. They’re trying to stabilize him some before they can move him, though.”
Mr. Taylor was wringing his hands again. “I just can’t believe it. I just can’t.” He looked around me and down the hall. “Where’s Dusk? Is she all right?”
“She’s been better. I’m going to stay in the bathroom with her until she calms down some.”
“I’m going to call Debbie,” Mary Alice said, opening her phone. “Tell her what’s happening.”
Debbie. Griffin Mooncloth had had an appointment with Debbie. I hurried back to the restroom where Dusk was sitting on the bench just as I had ordered. She looked up, waiting for information.
“They’re trying to stabilize him enough to move him,” I said. “That’s all I know.”
She nodded and bit her bottom lip like a child. She looked about ten years old, I realized, tiny and with a tear-stained face.
“Griffin Mooncloth had an appointment with my niece Debbie,” I said. “And it wasn’t about a divorce?”
“Day recommended her. She and Debbie were in school together.”
I nodded that I had known that.
“Anyway, what he wanted was to find out if he could keep me from divorcing him. He said he loved me and wanted us to be married, really married.”
“And what about you?”
“I was fond of him, Mrs. Hollowell. I really was. But I went through the ceremony as a favor to him, not because I wanted to be his wife.” More tears and the wet paper towel. “And when I said I was getting a divorce, he started threatening me, saying that I had broken a federal law by marrying him so he could become a citizen. And I had. Day and I looked it up.” Dusk looked up. “I could have been put in prison, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“But he was still seeing Debbie? He still thought you might divorce him?”
She sighed. “I think he was trying to find out if there was some simple, legal way that he could prevent the divorce. I honestly don’t think he wanted to have me arrested. He wasn’t a vicious man, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“But he wasn’t above threatening you.”
“True.”
We were quiet for a few minutes, each of us lost in our thoughts. Outside there were calls down the hall, and the sounds of people scurrying by, even some equipment being rolled past.
“They’re going to think I killed him, aren’t they? But I didn’t, Mrs. Hollowell,” Dusk finally said. “I don’t know why I didn’t just admit to this to start with.”
“The switchblade knife wasn’t yours, was it?”
“Good heavens, no.” Dusk looked astonished that I had even asked her this. “I didn’t know a thing about it. I didn’t even know Griffin was going to be in the Elvis line. It sounds like something he’d do, though. He’d think it was fun to come out on the stage and improvise.” Dusk began to cry again. “He could be a lot of fun, Mrs. Hollowell. I just wasn’t in love with him. Not like Day was.”
“Day was in love with Griffin Mooncloth?”
The sobs stopped. Dusk realized that she had revealed more than she had meant to.
“She was fond of him,” she said carefully, trying to cover her mistake. “She met him when she came to New York to visit me. That’s what I meant. She admired his dancing.”
The door opened and Sister stuck her head in. “They’ve done all they can. They’ve got him loaded up and are fixing to take him to the ambulance. I’m going to follow them to UAB. Do you want to go, Mouse? Mr. Taylor said he would take you and Dusk home if you don’t.”
“I’ll go with Mr. Taylor unless you want me to go with you.”
“What I want is a Valium and some Maalox, and I know you don’t have any.” The door closed and then reopened immediately. “Oh, I forgot. The police are here. A man named Tim Hawkins said he wanted to talk to you.”
Oh, Lord. We’d be here forever.
But we weren’t. We waited until we heard the gurney being rolled down the hall before we came out of the restroom. Tim Hawkins and Mr. Taylor were standing in the hall talking. Behind them, in the dressing room, several policemen were busy working, measuring, dusting for fingerprints. A lot of good that was going to do them. Sister, Dusk, Mr. Taylor, and I had done a pretty thorough job of trashing the crime scene, including examining the bat and kneeling beside Larry.
“Hello, Mrs. Hollowell. We meet again.” Tim grinned.
I gave him my schoolteacher look. “Hello, Timmy.”
He turned to Dusk. “And you’re Dusk Armstrong. You found Larry Ludmiller.”
“I came to get my makeup bag.” Dusk’s voice was shaking. “When I went in the dressing room, I fell over him.” She pointed to her knees. “Really fell over him. I flipped the light switch and turned around and there he was. I thought he was dead.”
“We all did,” Mr. Taylor said.
“Yes, we did,” I agreed. “And then Dusk saw him move his hand.”
“His finger.” Dusk held her hand up. “He moved his finger like this.”
Tim Hawkins nodded. “Tell you what, Miss Armstrong. I’m going to need to talk to you, but we’ve sort of got our hands full here. Mr. Taylor’s said he’ll take you home.” He turned to me. “You too, Mrs. Hollowell. Then he’s going to come back and help us out some. Show us around. Okay?”
“You don’t want to talk to me again, do you?” I asked.
Tim shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Can I get my makeup bag?” Dusk asked.
“Sorry. Later. We’ve got the room blo
cked off.”
“Well, y’all don’t get near the Wurlitzer, you hear? I just touched it up where that guy fell on it the other night, and the paint’s not dry.” Mr. Taylor looked at the busy policemen. “I swear, eighty years and the most we’ve ever had happen here at the Alabama is an occasional heart attack. And they say that during the opening of Gone With the Wind, somebody threw a stink bomb. Can you believe that? Just goes to show.”
What it went to show wasn’t clear, but none of us questioned him. He told Tim Hawkins that he would be back as soon as he delivered the ladies to their homes. We followed him out to his once-black Chevrolet, which was older than mine, and had been, as Fred would say, rode hard.
“Don’t look down at the floor if you tend to get car-sick,” he said, opening the back door for me. “I ran over a concrete block one day and it came right through. I tried to hammer it down, but it’s too rusty. I’ve been meaning to get a carpet piece, but you might want to put your feet over the hole, so rocks won’t come up and hit you.
“The front’s okay,” he assured Dusk.
So much for age over beauty.
I moved over to the far side of the backseat away from the hole in the floorboard, but a spring that had worked its way through the upholstery looked too threatening for my good gray pants. I moved back to the other side and placed my feet over the hole, which reared up like a tumor.
In the meantime, Mr. Taylor had settled Dusk on the front seat. “Comfortable?” he asked her. If I had been a mean person, I would have reached over and snatched him bald headed, which would have been easy to do. Instead, I sank back among candy bar wrappers and potato chip bags (Mr. Taylor favored sour cream and chives) and forced myself to relax.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, Dusk reached in her purse for a Kleenex.
“Mrs. Hollowell,” Mr. Taylor said, “look on the floor on the other side and hand Dusk her makeup bag.”
Sure enough, there was a black bag that looked like a Norman Rockwell doctor’s bag on the floor. I hadn’t even noticed it. I picked it up and handed it over the seat to Dusk. It was so heavy, Estée Lauder herself could be hiding in there.
“Oh, Mr. Taylor,” Dusk said. “How did you get this out?”
“Just walked out with it before the police came. I figured they’d close everything down.”
“How did you know it was mine?”
“Recognized it from those summers when you did the Summerfest plays. You were so little, that bag was bigger than you were.”
Dusk opened the bag and looked inside. “Everything’s here,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Taylor.”
“You’re welcome, Dusk.” Mr. Taylor cleared his throat. “Where do you live, Mrs. Hollowell?”
I told him, and he turned right onto Twentieth Street. We passed University Hospital. An ambulance was parked at the emergency room and a patient was being unloaded. Larry? I thought of Tammy Sue and felt my chest tighten. The day that Haley had been called to University Hospital when her husband, Tom, had been hit by a drunk driver was still a raw wound. Please, God, let Tammy Sue be luckier.
“Say you’re a retired schoolteacher, Mrs. Hollowell?” Mr. Taylor’s voice startled me.
“Last year,” I said. “I taught English at Robert Alexander.”
“Me, too. I taught music at North Jefferson County. I’ve been filling in down at the Alabama for years, though. They call me the Wurlitzer substitute.” He laughed slightly. “You know, like a teacher substitute.”
“I’d rather substitute at the organ than in a classroom.”
“God’s truth. I love that old organ.”
“You’re good at it, Mr. Taylor.”
Mr. Taylor beamed at Dusk’s compliment.
We went over the mountain, past Vulcan’s empty pedestal, past the entrance to the Club where Mitzi and I had had lunch a few days before, where we had run into Bernice and Day Armstrong.
“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed.
Mr. Taylor and Dusk both jumped.
“What?” Dusk asked, twisting around. “What’s the matter?”
“You gonna throw up?” Mr. Taylor eased the car over to the curb. “I told you not to look at the floorboard.”
“No. I’m not sick. I’m all right.” I had just suddenly remembered my purse hanging on the chair while Mitzi and I had lunch, how Bernice had sat down with us and Day had come to tell her that Dusk was sick. How Day had stood by my chair, by my open purse, leaned over to pat Mitzi’s arm. That’s where the switchblade had come from. I knew it in my bones.
“I’m all right,” I said again. I wasn’t. Pieces of the puzzle were coming together. Terrible pieces. Day in love with Griffin Mooncloth, who was married to Dusk and wanted to stay married to her, who wanted to stay married to her so badly that he was threatening to turn her over to the federal authorities rather than lose her. Day coming up behind the line of dancing Elvises, plunging the switchblade knife into Griffin’s back and turning it, twisting it.
And there was more. Larry Ludmiller had said he had seen someone behind the line. He couldn’t identify her, but how could Day be sure if she saw him glance around. She couldn’t take any chances.
I began to shake. “I need to get home,” I said.
Fortunately it wasn’t far and Mr. Taylor didn’t waste time.
Fifteen
When I got in my kitchen, I sat down at the table without even pulling off my jacket. I was shaking, but I couldn’t tell if I was really chilled or if it was nerves. Or maybe my fever was coming back. God forbid.
I got up, gulped down an antibiotic and an aspirin with a whole glass of water, and sat back down. Muffin jumped up on the table and rubbed against my propped arms.
“A cat on a table is totally unsanitary,” I told her, scratching behind her ears, listening to her purr. “You remember the switchblade knife that I thought one of Virgil’s family had put in my purse at Sister’s dinner party?” Muffin nodded. “Well, I was totally wrong. I know exactly when it was put in there and who did it. She had killed a man with it, and there was my open purse, just a perfect place to dump it.” I looked at Muffin. “Do you understand why women’s purses are such good places to hide things? Stuff gets lost in there with all the lipsticks and loose change and receipts. At the grocery store they hand you your receipt with the change on top of it, and you dump it all in your purse, and you tell yourself that someday you’ll clean it all out, but you never do, and the shelves in your closet get heavier and heavier with different-colored purses.”
Muffin lay down and closed her eyes. If she had been Mary Alice, she would have said, “What the hell are you babbling about?”
What the hell was I babbling about? What proof did I have that Day Armstrong was involved in Griffin Mooncloth’s murder? I could imagine Timmy Hawkins’s reaction if I called him and told him that my purse was open when Day just happened to be standing by the table for a second. And that I knew she had dropped the switchblade in it.
“What makes you think so?” he’d ask.
And I’d have to answer, “I just know.” At least I’d know better than to claim women’s intuition. Men have been known to die laughing over women’s intuition. I mean, really die. My great-aunt Sophie had a feeling one day that the hundred-year-old oak tree in their front yard was going to fall. Uncle Joe and his neighbor were standing in the yard laughing about women’s crazy intuition when the tree smashed them. Aunt Sophie had “Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman” inscribed on his tombstone and moved to the beach where she could fish every day and didn’t have to cut the grass.
Timmy Hawkins wouldn’t believe a word of that.
I put my head on the table, cradling it in my arms. Even with my ears covered, I could still hear Muffin purring. Ice tumbled down in the ice maker in the refrigerator. Outside, Woofer decided to come out and bark at something. Afternoon sun sliced across the white kitchen floor. This was my world, safe, comfortable. In this world, vice presidents of banks didn’t cut out people’s gizz
ards with switchblades or hit people over the head with baseball bats. Especially if their mothers were friends of mine who gave me chairs to rock my granddaughter.
The ringing of the phone brought me straight up. If it was Mary Alice calling this soon, it meant that Larry was dead when they got him to the hospital. I reached for the phone on the counter. My hello came out not much louder than a whisper.
“Aunt Pat? Is that you?”
I was so relieved that for a moment I couldn’t answer Marilyn.
“Aunt Pat?”
I took a couple of deep breaths. “It’s me, honey.”
“Are you all right?”
No way I could go into everything that had happened. “Sinus,” I said.
“Bad?”
“I’ve been to the doctor. I’ve got some antibiotics.”
“Well, my news is going to cheer you up. Charles and I got married this morning. We just went down to the courthouse and did it.”
There was such a long pause here that Marilyn said, “Aunt Pat?” again.
“You and Charles Boudreau got married this morning?”
“We did. At the courthouse.”
“Well, congratulations, honey.” I hoped Marilyn would think my lack of enthusiasm was due to clogged sinuses.
“Thanks, Aunt Pat. I know you’re surprised because I said I couldn’t live with him, but we’ve worked that out. And he does have excellent genes.”
“That’s nice. Excellent genes are important.” If damp dishrags could talk, they would sound like I did. But Marilyn didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m not changing my name, and the children will have hyphenated names. Sullivan-Boudreau or Boudreau-Sullivan. We’ve got a few more details to work out. But the most important thing is that Charlie has bought the condo right next to mine. That way we can live together when we want to and then go home when we want to.”
I wanted to ask, “What about love?” Instead, I said that it sounded practical and asked if she had told her mother yet.
“Left word on her machine.” Marilyn giggled. “Charlie and I have business to attend to, Aunt Pat. He hasn’t signed the papers on his apartment yet. We’ll see you soon.”