1 Bless Her Dead Little Heart

by Miranda James

  She peered around Dickce’s shoulder to see what the cushion had hidden. Her eyes widened when she saw the water pistol. How on earth had it come to be under the cushion of that chair? Where had it come from in the first place?

  One of the guests had to have brought it, An’gel decided after a moment’s reflection. There was no reason she or Dickce would have one in the house—although with Dickce’s occasionally odd sense of humor, she couldn’t be completely sure of that. She would be interested to hear what her sister had to say.

  Kanesha indicated that her deputy should replace the cushion. “Thank you, Miss Dickce,” she said. “I’ll want to talk to you and Miss An’gel about this later, along with everyone else. Deputy Rhodes here is going to remove the chair for a little while to have a little closer look at it. He’ll be really careful with it”—she shot an admonitory look at the deputy—“because he knows it’s a valuable antique. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to Mrs. Sultan.”

  An’gel nodded. She turned back to face the curious glances of her guests as Kanesha and Deputy Rhodes left with the chair. Dickce found another chair farther away from the sofas while An’gel resumed her spot in front of the fireplace.

  “What was so interesting about that chair?” Maudine’s voice was strained. “Was there blood in it?”

  An’gel wanted to snap at the woman for such a ridiculous question. She held on to her temper as she replied, “No, it wasn’t blood. I’m not at liberty to say what it was, because Deputy Berry prefers to examine it first. I’m sure she will talk to each of you about it when it’s your turn with her.”

  She barely registered the frowns of her guests. Her mind was busy grappling with the implications of her sister’s discovery. She realized that one person in the room, other than she herself and Dickce, knew about the water pistol because one of them had hidden it there.

  After using it to squirt water on the stairs.

  In a sense that water pistol was the murder weapon—along with the petroleum jelly on the banister. An’gel marveled at the devious mind that had come up with such a simple yet effective method of killing someone.

  She glanced at each of her guests in turn. Which of them possessed that devious mind? She didn’t think Maudine was smart enough to think up such a plan—but perhaps that stemmed from her dislike of the woman. Maudine could be far more clever than she appeared.

  Bernice didn’t impress her as being any more intelligent than Maudine, but that mousy demeanor could be the perfect cover for a cunning mind. An’gel thought that either Wade or Juanita was a more obvious choice. Junior appeared to be an innocuous young man, about as dim as his mother.

  She also considered Rosabelle, mindful of the discussion last night with Juanita. The girl’s concern that her grandmother had dreamed up the prank in order to dramatize her imagined persecution had stuck with An’gel. She had told Dickce about the conversation this morning before Dickce had gone to set the table for breakfast. Her sister had been as troubled by the idea as An’gel herself was. After Rosabelle’s performance at the breakfast table, An’gel decided, she couldn’t dismiss Juanita’s worries.

  She realized with a start that her guests were staring at her expectantly. Should she continue with her mini dissertation on the house? At the moment she couldn’t think of any other innocuous subject for conversation, and she wanted to forestall further questions about the water pistol.

  “Now, where was I? Oh, yes, the fire of 1893. It started, I believe I told you, because a guest was smoking in bed, despite warnings not to.” An’gel glared for a moment. Thus far she had no evidence that any of Rosabelle’s family smoked, but if one of them did, she wanted it clearly understood that smoking was not allowed inside the house. She resumed her narrative. “Fortunately the fire was quickly contained, and the resulting damage wasn’t extensive.” She went on autopilot from that point.

  During her lecture An’gel had been vaguely aware of the occasional flash of lightning, followed by a boom of thunder, but had paid them little heed since they appeared to be several miles away. Now, however, lightning struck somewhere nearby, and she heard thunder two seconds later. She felt the house shudder and heard the parlor windows rattle. She also noted the alarmed expressions of her guests. “I suggest that we move out of the parlor now, and gather under the back side of the stairs. The area between there and the kitchen. Now, please.”

  The deputy had already moved away from the front window, and he held the parlor door open as An’gel and Dickce shepherded their guests out into the hall and toward the area An’gel suggested.

  Their mother had been afraid of storms, particularly of violent ones, and she had passed that fear on to An’gel. Dickce was less bothered by them, but even she turned cautious during conditions like they were currently experiencing.

  “Do you think there will be a tornado?” Bernice’s voice trembled. “Don’t you have a storm cellar?”

  “There is a storm cellar,” An’gel said, “but I don’t believe there’s any need for us to get into it.” She worked hard to keep her voice calm. “The storm seems to be moving quickly, and I’m sure it will be out of here in a few minutes.”

  “Thank goodness,” Maudine said with a shudder. “There are bound to be spiders in a storm cellar, and I can’t abide spiders. I’m not going in there no matter what.”

  An’gel didn’t care much for spiders herself, but she’d rather share quarters with a few spiders than end up dead in a tree somewhere from the deadly force of a tornado.

  Thunder rolled again, and it sounded like the storm was right over the house. An’gel felt the vibrations under her feet. Their position under the stairs should be safe enough, An’gel thought. They stood roughly in the center of the ground floor with no windows nearby and were protected by the house around them. She knew Clementine would have taken refuge in the pantry, along with her granddaughter, Benjy, and Diesel. An’gel prayed the storm would pass quickly.

  For now they huddled close together as the thunder sounded loudly yet again.

  CHAPTER 19

  Half an hour after the storm had passed over Riverhill, Kanesha finished with Benjy. Dickce was waiting for him in the hallway when he came out of the library.

  “Ready to go to town?” she asked. He nodded, and she gestured toward the front door. “I’ve got the car out on the drive.”

  She waited until they were settled and seat-belted in the late-model white Lexus before she asked him how the interview with Kanesha had gone.

  “Okay, I guess. I really didn’t know anything about what happened to my mom, but she asked a lot of questions about how my mom got along with the Wart and his family. Fine with the Wart, but not too good with the others, that’s what I told her,” Benjy said as Dickce shifted into drive and hit the accelerator.

  The car jumped forward, and Dickce glanced over to see Benjy gripping the straps of his seat belt. “It’s not far into town. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” She accelerated, and the car sped down the drive toward the highway. An’gel had had the driveway resurfaced back in the spring, and Dickce liked the smoothness of it. She wished the highway into Athena were as nice as this.

  Dickce slowed the car when they reached the highway and flipped the signal for a left turn. She glanced both ways to determine there was nothing coming and hit the gas again. She noticed Benjy was still holding on to his seat belt, and he looked a little pale. The poor boy must not ride in cars very often, she decided. She wondered if he knew how to drive.

  “I’ve got quite a list from Clementine.” Dickce decided to keep the conversation away from what was going on back at Riverhill. “She’s a wonderful cook, good old-fashioned Southern food. It’s a wonder An’gel and I don’t weigh three hundred pounds apiece, the way she feeds us.”

  She was about to launch into a description of the desserts Clementine often prepared when Benjy said, “Miss Dickce, stop the ca
r. Please.”

  Dickce immediately complied, slowing the car until she could safely pull to the side of the road and stop. He looked upset. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?” She hit the button to lower his window. “Just stick your head out the window.”

  Benjy shook his head as he unbuckled his seat belt. “No, I’m not sick. I saw something back there. It looked like a dog. It might be hurt.” He opened the door and hopped out of the car before Dickce had time to respond.

  She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him walking fast back down the road the way they had come. She killed the engine and looked both ways before opening her door and getting out of the car. She started to follow Benjy slowly. If he had seen a dog, she hoped it hadn’t been hit by a car. She wasn’t sure she could handle seeing a badly injured animal.

  About a hundred feet back she watched as Benjy slowed and then sank down on his knees in the grass verge. He held out a hand, and she heard him calling out in a gentle tone, “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. Miss Dickce, don’t come any closer, okay?” He repeated his assurances to the dog, and Dickce stood rooted to the spot as Benjy requested.

  Benjy kept talking, and as Dickce watched, she could see the dog slowly coming closer. It wasn’t very big, perhaps about twenty-five pounds, she thought. Its coat was a warm cream color, and the hair looked soft and fleecy, but wet from the recent storm. It didn’t look much like any dog she remembered seeing around the area.

  Dickce wasn’t sure how long she had been standing there when the dog finally came close enough for Benjy to touch it on the head. She held her breath. Would the dog bite? Or turn and run away?

  “What a good puppy you are,” Benjy crooned to the dog. “See, Benjy isn’t going to hurt you. Benjy only wants to be your friend and get you warm and dry, with some food to eat. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  The dog sat in front of the boy and allowed Benjy to rub its head. “He doesn’t have a collar,” Benjy said in the same singsong voice. “I’m going to see if he’ll let me pick him up and put him in the car. Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course,” Dickce said as she started to back away slowly. She was thankful there was no traffic on the road just now. She couldn’t bear the thought of the dog getting excited or upset and dashing out into the road in the path of an oncoming vehicle.

  Benjy put his arms around the dog, and Dickce saw the dog lick the boy’s ear. She smiled and turned toward the car.

  She opened the back hatch and moved out of the way so Benjy could get the dog inside. The rear seats were already down, in anticipation of the large number of groceries she planned to purchase.

  The dog barked several times as Benjy neared the car. It didn’t seem reluctant to get into the car, but there was a certain urgency in the tone of the barking, Dickce thought. She glanced back in the direction from where Benjy first approached the dog. Was there perhaps another dog out there?

  She saw a sudden flash of reddish brown moving in the undergrowth a few feet from the grass verge. Maybe a puppy?

  The dog barked again, and suddenly a small creature streaked out of the undergrowth to jump into the back of the car beside the dog.

  Benjy spoke in singsong again. “Well, hello there, kitty. Where did you come from? Are you and Mr. Dog here buddies?”

  Dickce stayed where she was, afraid that any movement might spook the animals into jumping out of the car. She held her breath again as Benjy talked to the animals while he slowly climbed into the back with them. When he was settled, his arm around the dog and the cat in his lap, he called out to Dickce. “Can you close the door now? I think they’ll be okay until we can get them to a vet.”

  Dickce hit the button on her remote to close the hatch. She waited to be sure nothing jumped out before she got back in the car and started it up. She pulled out onto the highway after checking for traffic, but now she drove a bit more slowly. Her foot, however, itched to mash down on the accelerator. She hated driving at a snail’s pace.

  “I’m sorry to cause all this trouble,” Benjy said, “but when I saw the dog out there, I just couldn’t go by and not try to do something. I didn’t see the cat at all.”

  “Don’t you worry about it,” Dickce said. “I’m glad you spotted the poor dog. I wonder if someone just dumped them by the side of the road. People who do that to animals ought to be flogged. I can’t stand cruelty to the poor things.”

  “I agree with you,” Benjy said. “There are so many animals out there without good homes. If people would only get their pets spayed or neutered, but they’re so irresponsible sometimes.”

  Dickce heard the passion in the boy’s voice, and it made her warm to him all the more. A boy who cared for animals as much as Benjy did was obviously a good person, one who deserved better treatment from his stepfather and his family.

  “There’s a wonderful vet in Athena, Dr. Devon Romano,” Dickce said. “Our friend Charlie Harris takes Diesel to her, and that’s where we’ll take our two new friends. Dr. Romano might know whom they belong to.”

  “Whoever it is shouldn’t get them back,” Benjy said heatedly. “I bet they were abandoned on the road.”

  Dickce thought he was probably right. This cat and dog weren’t the only animals she and An’gel had picked up from the side of the road over the years. They had rescued a number of animals and taken them to the vet’s office, and the veterinarian usually found good homes for them. She and An’gel hadn’t ever had pets, but having Diesel with them made her aware of how nice it was to have one around the house.

  While Dickce drove, Benjy continued to talk in a reassuring tone to the two animals. She glanced in the rearview mirror a few times, and each time she saw that the animals appeared content. She was afraid they might be frightened and try to get out, but evidently Benjy knew how to keep them calm. She was grateful he was with her, because she doubted she could have managed on her own. She would have had to find someone to help, and who knows what could have happened to the poor things in the meantime.

  A few minutes later she pulled up in front of Dr. Romano’s clinic, Athena Veterinary Hospital. “Here we are,” she announced.

  “Great,” Benjy said. “Miss Dickce, do you think you could see if the kitty will let you hold her? I don’t think I can get them both inside on my own.”

  “Surely,” Dickce said. She got out and shut her door, stuck the keys in her jacket pocket, then opened the back passenger door. Benjy held tight to the dog and the cat while Dickce reached in to stroke the cat. “Hello, kitty. You sure are a pretty thing. I’ve never seen a kitty your color before.”

  The cat seemed docile and allowed her to stroke its head. Taking this as a good sign, Dickce slipped one hand beneath the cat’s small body and lifted it. The cat didn’t protest. So far so good. Dickce brought the cat to her chest, surprised at how little it weighed—five pounds at the most, she judged. Compared to Diesel, this little girl was a Lilliputian.

  The cat purred when it was completely in her arms, and Dickce looked down into a small, sweet face. “How could anyone ever abandon you? You are the cutest little thing.” Dickce felt her heart melt at the trust the cat displayed. Someone had loved it, she realized. What had happened to that person?

  Dickce moved away to allow Benjy to crawl out and then bring the dog with him. He bumped the door with his body to shut it, then followed Dickce into the clinic.

  The waiting room was empty, and Dickce was glad of that. The last thing they needed was to expose these two rescues to strange animals. Dickce approached the reception desk, the cat nestled contentedly in her arms.

  “Good morning, Wendy,” she said to the young woman behind the desk. “How are you today?”

  “Just fine, Miss Dickce. What are you doing out on a day like this?” Wendy smiled. “And where did you get that beautiful Abyssinian?”

  “Is that what it is?” Dickce glanced at the cat. “I’
ve never seen an Abyssinian before or even a cat this particular color.” She stepped aside to let Benjy come closer. “This is my friend Benjy. We just found these two by the side of the road out near Riverhill.”

  “Hi, Benjy,” Wendy said. “Your friend looks kind of like a labradoodle. They were together, you say?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Benjy said. “I saw the dog and asked Miss Dickce to stop. When I got him in the car, the cat came streaking out of the woods and jumped in the car with us.” He shifted the dog in his arms slightly. “They seem to be friends.”

  “So sweet,” Wendy said. Then her tone turned brisk. “Y’all have a seat in the waiting room there, and I’ll check with Dr. Romano. I’m sure she can see you in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, Wendy,” Dickce said. She found a seat and put the cat in her lap. She stroked its head, and the cat purred. “I can’t get over how calm she is.”

  Benjy sat next to her with the dog. “I guess she knows that good people found her and are going to take care of her. Same thing with this guy here.” The dog licked the side of Benjy’s face, and the boy smiled.

  They sat in silence for a moment. Benjy turned to her, his expression now worried. “I wish I knew what was going to happen to them. If they belong to someone awful, surely the vet won’t let them go back to a bad person.”

  Dickce smiled. “Don’t you worry about that. I’m not about to let that happen.” She had already made up her mind who was going to take these poor animals.

  And if An’gel didn’t like it, well, that was just too bad.

  CHAPTER 20

  An’gel checked her watch again. Quarter to one. Where was Dickce? She should have been home half an hour ago. A run to the grocery store shouldn’t take nearly two hours.

  Plus she had either turned off her cell phone or was simply ignoring it, like she sometimes did, An’gel knew, when she didn’t want to talk.