The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

  She kept talking, but I’d stopped listening. Instead, I focused on one word and one word only.

  Remains.

  But whose remains were they?

  Where, oh, where had my Cissy gone?

  I felt a rising sense of panic. She hadn’t been in the dining room nor in the empty courtyard, so it seemed reasonable to figure she’d be here, at Sarah Lee Sewell’s.

  “. . . won’t need assistance to handle the body . . . the funeral home will be notified . . .”

  I still wasn’t sure exactly who was dead—though I had a pretty good guess—and Annabelle hadn’t told me a thing besides the situation being “sticky.”

  Peanut butter was sticky. Scotch tape was sticky. Chewing gum was sticky.

  A dead body was something else entirely.

  Where the heck was my mother?

  My eyes blurred so that I couldn’t make out one person from another. I heard a jumble of voices, but they were as muffled as if I were underwater.

  Still, I took a few stuttering steps forward, wetting my lips to ask, “Excuse me, Officers, but have you seen a sixty-year-old blond woman in a gray suit?” My voice sounded foreign to my ears, a barely audible croak. “She was wearing black pumps a lot like those and a charcoal gray mourning suit.”

  The police looked at me, then at each other, before shifting their eyes to glance down at the sofa. “Would you call that gray?” one said to the other. “Or is it more of a purple?”

  Oh, God.

  I swayed.

  “Andy, it’s not her.” Annabelle hurried over and caught my elbows to steady me. When I ceased wobbling, she turned her back to make a call on her cell.

  It’s not her, I told myself, and my heart started beating again.

  “Cissy?” I warbled, wandering toward the stairs and hollering upward. I’d check out every room upstairs and down if I had to, then I’d start on the neighbors. “Cissy Blevins Kendricks, are you here?”

  A hand landed squarely on my shoulder.

  “I’m right behind you, sweetie,” the familiar voice drawled in my ear, and I spun on a bare heel to face her. Have you ever wanted to smack someone and hug them at once?

  “My God, Mother, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “I’m sorry, sugar.” She brushed sweat-sticky hair from my face. “I was in the little girls’ room . . . pulling myself together.”

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

  “Use the powder room?”

  “You know what I mean!”

  The breath rushed from my lungs, and my knees sagged inward till they knocked. Cissy’s arms came around me, and I deeply inhaled the scent of Joy on her skin and ozone-killing spray on her hair.

  “I thought that might be you on the sofa, for a moment there,” I admitted. “They looked so much like yours.”

  “The shoes?” she said.

  I nodded, queasy, the taste of bile on my tongue.

  “Sarah Lee did love a classic pump. Though she was more partial to Coach and Cole Haan. I once tried to get her to buy the prettiest pair of Stuart Weitzmans to go with a Dior gown, but she found them too strappy. Said her feet felt naked.”

  Hello, Imelda? I wanted to shake her. “Why didn’t you listen and stick with me like I asked? But, no, you had to wander off, looking for trouble. Did you find her . . . like that?” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.

  “Oh, darlin’, I did.” Her chin vaguely trembled. “Just like that, only a little more upright. She toppled over sideways when I shook her by the shoulder.”

  “So the woman with the shoes is . . .”—I couldn’t get the rest past my lips.

  “Sarah Lee Sewell,” she finished with a sigh, the day so full of sighs that surely the quota had been used up.

  “How did it happen?” I asked, ever the soul of brevity. “Why did you have to wander off?”

  “Because I sensed something wasn’t right with Sarah Lee,” Mother said, keeping her voice hushed. “She wasn’t at church or the reception and her Jag’s in the garage. I could see it through the tiny windows. The bell went unanswered, and the door wasn’t locked. What else was I to do?” Her tone fell further, calm and oddly flat. She could’ve been reciting names from her Pi Phi blue book. “I stepped into the foyer and called out, not wanting to frighten her.”

  She pursed her lips, and I saw the struggle in her eyes, the hesitation before she could finish. “As soon as I entered the living room, there she was. At first, I didn’t realize she was . . . gone. I set a hand on her shoulder and shook gently. I was afraid she’d had a stroke or something.” Her slim shoulders quivered. “But she was cold, Andrea. Her lips were the palest blue. I knew then. I knew. I put the afghan on her, then I phoned them from the kitchen.”

  “So you called the police,” I said, understanding why Annabelle wouldn’t answer my question about Cissy’s involvement in this . . . incident.

  “I had to, sugar. You know I did after what went on with Bebe.”

  Me? What the hell did I know, except that Sarah Lee Sewell was the second of my mother’s friends to die in a matter of days?

  Was it fate? God’s plan?

  Or, as Mother seemed to believe, as fishy as mackerel?

  I had no clue about the reason—medical or metaphysical—and I didn’t need an answer, didn’t want one, not when my heart raced so fast I couldn’t breathe fast enough to keep up with its pounding.

  How would my mother deal with two successive blows so close together?

  She was stronger than she looked, I’d discovered that a while back, but it still surprised me, how she seemed so in control. For Pete’s sake, she appeared far steadier than I felt, and it wasn’t me who’d lost another pal.

  “Will you be all right?” I said, as if I hadn’t asked a million times already.

  “I don’t know, Andrea”—her ever-smooth drawl cracked—“I’m not sure that I will. Not until I figure out the truth. Because something’s very, very wrong here.”

  Her grasp loosened, and she shifted away, her attention fixed elsewhere, on Annabelle’s rising voice in response to the clipped tones of the Dallas police officer telling her they’d stick around until the doctor appeared to pronounce Sarah Lee Sewell dead, as they wanted to be sure no further intervention from the authorities was required.

  Annabelle’s face had drained of its earlier flush, and I watched as her shaky hands ended a call and dialed another while she paced the spacious room.

  “Dr. Finch? Where are you?” she cried into the handset, wandering away from the cops and closer to where Mother and I stood. “Didn’t security call you? Please, get over to the Sewell place now. We have a slight issue.”

  A slight issue?

  As in, Mrs. Sewell was stone cold on her sofa?

  Death was a big damn problem, as far as I was concerned.

  My reservoir of calm—if I had such a thing—was seriously depleted after the memorial service that morning, and I wasn’t in the mood to laugh in the face of adversity. Not this time. Which may be why my eyelid started twitching.

  “Sarah Lee makes two,” Cissy murmured, voicing my thoughts exactly. A hand fluttered to her throat. “What if it’s the same man?”

  The same man? A senior serial killer?

  “Don’t talk like that, Mother.” I hushed her. “No one is whacking your friends for the heck of it. Please, cut the paranoia. I can’t take it.”

  I was in no mood for more blather about murder conspiracies. My head whirled, and spots began to dance before my eyes. I shut them and slowly opened them again.

  My gaze fell instantly upon the feet in the black shoes, resting cockeyed on the cushions. Then I saw the afghan, heaped in a sage green puddle on the carpet where it had been tossed aside, likely by the cops.

  I imagined my mother draping it over the lifeless woman before dialing 911, visualized her waiting alone with the deceased, until the cops had appeared on the scene.

  Just thinking about it gave me a serious case of the heebi
e-jeebies.

  I may not have eaten any of Chef Jean’s raw oysters, but the contents of my stomach lurched regardless.

  “Excuse me,” I murmured into my hand, before I ran out the door and lost my lunch behind the azaleas.

  When I stopped heaving and could finally stand up again, I wiped a hand across my mouth and slowly turned to find that a slim crowd had gathered on the sidewalk.

  Terrific.

  Nothing like tossing your cookies in front of a live audience.

  A tall man with black bag in hand slipped through the spectators and barreled forward, brushing past me on his way into the townhouse.

  Dr. Finch, I realized, truly not impressed with his curbside manner.

  “Are you all right, Miss Kendricks? Maybe you should sit down.”

  His better half, Patsy, came up beside me, blond bangs clinging damply to her forehead, as if she’d run from another side of the compound, much as Annabelle and I had minutes earlier.

  I couldn’t admit that I’d rarely been so close to a dead body before. I was a novice at this kind of thing.

  “Must’ve been the pork,” I told her, wetting dry lips. “I’m feeling better now.” Besides, I wasn’t about to stay out here, much as I wanted to, not with Cissy still inside, itching to tell the cops her theory. “I have to go back in.”

  Before all hell breaks loose, I left unsaid. As if it hadn’t already.

  Patsy Finch went in alongside me, and, this time, it was Dr. Finch hovering over poor Sarah Lee Sewell while one of the officers—the stockier of the two with a crew cut—stood nearby, observing.

  Patsy gave my arm a pat and left to join them.

  I found my mother and Annabelle with the second cop in the kitchen, all three talking at once so that I wished I could’ve put my fingers to my lips and whistled. Only I’d never mastered the art, nor had I learned to make farting sounds with my armpit (not that I’d want to).

  So I settled for a subtle cough. It always worked for Mother.

  Not even an eyebrow lifted.

  “. . . Miss Cissy, you’re simply overwrought and don’t know what you’re saying . . .”

  “. . . ma’am, what makes you think it’s foul play . . .”

  “. . . if you’d only looked into Bebe’s death, perhaps the killer would have been captured and this wouldn’t have happened . . .”

  I cleared my throat. Loudly.

  Still, the voices continued to rise, each trying to outtalk the other, with no sign of abating.

  “. . . Dr. Finch called Bebe’s death ‘natural,’ and I’ve no doubt he’ll do the same in this case . . .”

  “. . . if you don’t mind my asking, ma’am, did your friend have any enemies that you’re aware of . . . ?”

  “. . . no, Officer, none at all. Nobody didn’t like Sarah Lee . . .”

  As the verbal battle raged on, I studied my surroundings.

  “. . . please, Miss Cissy, you’re just making this worse for us all . . .”

  “. . . if the doctor doesn’t find the death suspicious, ma’am, and there’s no sign of forced entry or intrusion, then we don’t have cause to call in the medical examiner . . .”

  “. . . what if it’s a very clever killer who knows not to leave behind a trail of evidence . . .”

  An expensive set of copper-bottomed pots dangled from a baker’s rack, and I climbed on a wooden chair, helping myself to one and to a large wooden spoon lying in a spoon rest on the countertop.

  Like a five-year-old who’d forsaken Fisher-Price for the fun stuff hidden in Mother’s cabinets, I wielded the copper pot and banged it with a spoon until the voices stopped and my own ears rang.

  But it was worth it.

  They shut up.

  Three pairs of eyes turned in my direction.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked, speaking far too loudly. “Sarah Lee is lying there in the very next room, and you’re squabbling in her kitchen like a bunch of girls . . . no offense, Officer. If that’s not bad enough, there’s a reception going on in the dining room of Belle Meade to honor Bebe Kent. Can’t we act like grown-ups and at least pretend to have some dignity?”

  Annabelle blushed and hung her head.

  The police officer excused himself, one hand on the baton in his utility belt as he left the kitchen, maybe wishing he could bop me with it for calling him a girl.

  “Speaking of dignity,” my mother said, frowning, “Andrea darling, where on earth are your shoes? Your feet are filthy, and you’re standing on a piece of furniture that doesn’t belong to you. For goodness’ sake, I taught you better than that.”

  With all that was going on, she was worried about my dirty feet?

  Unbelievable.

  I stooped to set the pot and spoon on the counter and carefully stepped down from the chair.

  “Mother, let’s go.” I had a powerful urge to leave this place, sure that hanging around wasn’t helping things. We were only in the way. I made myself face Annabelle. “I’m sorry,” I told her, “for any trouble we may have caused you.”

  “Trouble?” Cissy repeated, incredulous. “Don’t apologize for me, sweetie. Not when I’m the only one who sees the need to investigate. The police are duty-bound to find out why Sarah Lee and Bebe were killed, but instead”—she flicked slender fingers in the air—“you brush the possibility aside in order to pretend nothing’s wrong. These were healthy women, not horses headed to the glue factory. They had plenty of good years left in them, and suddenly they’re gone. It’s not natural, and I’ve seen enough to prove it.”

  “What have you seen, Miss Cissy?” Annabelle asked, her expression bordering on an all-out glare.

  “Oh, geez, not the nightgown again,” I groaned, which only made my mother’s chin nudge higher.

  “What nightgown are you talking about?” Annabelle appeared equal parts unnerved and baffled.

  “The one Bebe was wearing when you found her,” I jumped in before Cissy could offer her silver dollar’s worth. “Miss Marple here”—I winged an elbow at Mother—“says that Bebe slept in the buff and that everyone close to her knew it. So she wouldn’t have been caught dead in a nightgown . . . except that she was . . . cripes, you know what I mean.”

  “It’s a fact, Andrea, and worth investigating,” Cissy argued. “Because the circumstances at Bebe’s were as unnatural as what I witnessed here, with Sarah Lee.”

  “And, pray tell, what unnaturalness did you find on these premises?” Annabelle warbled, looking on the verge of tears. “Was she wearing an outfit from last season? Or the wrong color shoes?”

  “No, dear, those black Cole Haan pumps are entirely appropriate for her ensemble. That’s not the problem.” My mother wandered over to the sink and homed in on glassware drying on a dishtowel.

  “Mother?” I called, and she turned around. “What did you see?”

  Calm as she could be, she turned around and replied, “What? Oh, yes, the smoking gun and Sarah Lee.”

  “You found a gun?” Annabelle looked ready to jump out of her skin.

  “No, no,” Mother countered. “It was her lipstick.”

  “Her lipstick?” my old campmate and I echoed in tandem.

  “Obviously, she had plans for last evening, as she’s got on that pretty ensemble from Carolina Herrera’s fall collection and Sarah Lee didn’t get gussied up to stay home and watch TV.” Cissy came back around the granite-topped cooking island. “Only something was off, and I noticed the first moment I laid eyes on her.” She paused and tapped a finger against her painted mouth. “Her lipstick,” she said. “It was rubbed away almost completely.”

  That was the smoking gun?

  Lord have mercy on us all.

  I put my head in my hands.

  Could this be real? Or was I trapped in a horrendous nightmare, like Dorothy in Oz? Was an attack of the flying monkeys soon to come?

  “I’ll get you, my pretties!” echoed through my head.

  Annabelle wasn’t so slow to react.

/>   “So, Miss Cissy, what you’re sayin’ is that you believe Bebe was murdered because she’d gone to bed in a nightgown . . . and Sarah Lee must’ve suffered the same fate because her lip rouge was smeared off and she was dressed for a night on the town? Have I got that down pat?”

  Cissy’s slim shoulders stiffened at Annabelle’s tone. “Sarah Lee was always meticulous with her make-up. She would never leave the house without her lipstick intact. Someone was here when she died, just as I know someone was there with Bebe. Scoff all you want, but it’s the truth . . .”

  “Mother,” I said, more sharply than I should have. The day had begun with a funeral and had only gone downhill from there. My patience had worn thinner than dental floss. “Hush, please.”

  “Ah, so that’s the way it is?” Cissy tossed her head. “I’m the elephant in the room, am I? Just pretend I’m a crazy old lady and disregard what comes out of my mouth? If my own mother had demanded my attention, I’d have given it in an instant. That’s the difference between our generations. Mine respects age and wisdom. I’m sorry to say, I don’t think yours respects much of anything at all except flat tummies.”

  I bit my tongue, so I wouldn’t interrupt her tirade. Better to let her rattle on until she sputtered out.

  She picked up her purse and wagged it at me. “I’ll wait for you in the car, young lady. As for you, Annabelle, I’m sorely disappointed. I thought you had more sense than this, but I guess I was wrong.” She tucked the bag beneath her arm. Her eyes snapped from Annabelle to me, then back to Annabelle. “For now, adieu. But I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  Annabelle’s face clouded up like a thunderstorm.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, waiting until Mother had exited the kitchen before I said again, “I’m really sorry. I had no earthly idea she’d be affected like this. She’s practically hallucinating.”

  “It’s all right, really,” Annabelle said, but I’m not sure she meant it. “Grief does strange things to people, and lashing out is a normal defense mechanism. But I do think you should take her home.” She walked up and caught my hands in hers. “It really was good to see you, Andy, and Cissy again, too, despite everything. Please, don’t be a stranger. I want to finish that tour I promised you. Some other time, then?”