Wedding Bell Blues

by Ruth Moose

  I went inside. In the dining room I cleared away breakfast things, then carried dirty dishes into the kitchen and loaded the dishwasher.

  I had forgotten to eat breakfast and despite the continued thumping and shuffling of heavy footsteps upstairs, I heated a cranberry muffin and poured myself a mug of the last dregs from the coffeepot, then just sipped and nibbled as I read today’s copy of The Mess. Sure enough, on the front page was a picture of Ossie in all his glory with details of his finding the unidentified John Doe on the Interstate. Moore County Medical still listed him in critical condition. In bad shape, we called it in Littleboro, but hanging on. Was I the only one who knew this John Doe was not the God Reba thought she was marrying? And if this wasn’t her God, who the heck was he? Where was her real fiancé? Wasn’t her fiancé Bruce Rigsbee? Reba’s fabrications could surely get tangled, woven and rewoven. But I had seen her little love nest and the wedding feast and it was real. When she called me on that cell phone, she’d said she killed God. This mystery guy was still alive, so had she killed Butch Rigsbee, the one she had been calling God? I felt as mixed up as if I were Reba.

  I flipped pages over to the society news and there popping off the page was our illustrious Mayor Moss posed ever so prettily with her arm around a few of her luncheon guests. I was not in the picture, nor was Pastor Pittman, but we were mentioned in the “also attendings.” Pearl Buttons gave the menu, the names of the flowers in the table centerpiece, and the names of the china and silver patterns. She described the day as having been “weather perfect with a Carolina-blue sky and multitude of fluffy white cumulous clouds.” I surmised she must be paid by the word, bless her. And she did love her words, whoever she was. And how did she know all these details unless she was at the luncheon in person? Somebody at that luncheon was a paid snoop and gossip.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  I was trying to think of all the names of everyone at that luncheon table when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Heavy, hard-hitting feet. I heard Eikenberry say, “Dead,” as he opened the front door to go out.

  Ossie followed. “Dead,” he said.

  “Chapel Hill,” Eikenberry said. “That’s where she goes.”

  A few minutes later Eikenberry came back in and he and his assistant loaded up poor little Debbie Booth onto their stretcher and carried her lightly out the door of the Dixie Dew. They carried that stretcher so effortlessly it looked as if she weighed little more than a tray of feathers.

  “You’ll hear from us,” Ossie said as he left, tipped his hat. “I’ll want you in for some questions so don’t plan to go anywhere.”

  I think I nodded or swallowed or maybe started to say something and it came out as a weak gurgle.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” Ossie said.

  It sounded like a threat. Then he mumbled something about fingerprints and how things had been speeded up lately, mumble mumble. Something about he’d see me in his office for a “follow-up,” which didn’t sound good. I wanted to avoid Ossie’s office like it had a contagious virus.

  When I went upstairs there was yellow crime scene tape across the bedroom door where Debbie Booth had slept her last sleep. DO NOT ENTER. CRIME SCENE. DO NOT ENTER. There was no way I ever planned to enter that room again. Ever. Except I knew if I stayed in the B and B business I’d have to. But I’d never tell the incoming guest who had last slept in that bed.

  I set about cleaning Miss Isabella’s room, which didn’t take much doing. The whole room was as neat and clean as if she’d never been there. She’d even made the bed. Habit, I supposed, but I’d have to strip all the bedding and wash it for the next guest.

  I thought about Reba’s room at Motel 3, how she and her “man” had made it almost a home: food, champagne, unpacked their clothes and hung them up. I still could see in my mind the suit and shoes and I’d noticed then that they didn’t seem they’d fit the guy on his back on the picnic table. Who was he? All I knew was that he surely wasn’t the “God” who apparently owned the big white truck and made regular stops at Motel 3. Also, where was all that stuff from the motel room now? In Ossie’s crime lab? Did he even have one? And Reba? Was she still hanging out at Verna’s next door or had she gone back to the group home or her good old tree? Reba, Reba, I thought, you and I get in such situations.

  Such messes, Ida Plum would say.

  I stripped the bed, put on fresh pink sheets, plumped the pillows, did the bathroom, vacuumed and dusted. Whoever Miles Fortune was bringing from the airport could have this room or the room across from his.

  I didn’t even know if the mystery guest was male or female, not that it mattered. All rooms rented at the same rate and I was glad to have any guest. Even a runaway rabbit who, the last time I looked, was snoozing next to Sherman in the blue living-room chair, Sherman’s favorite napping spot. Cat and rabbit looked content.

  Ida Plum brought a stack of fresh, warm sheets from the ironer to the linen closet.

  “Wait,” I said.

  “What in the world?” she stood holding the stack of pink.

  “I just need one good smell to remind me of Mama Alice and sweet childhood dreams on sun-dried sheets and summer and Littleboro when all was right with the world.”

  Ida Plum waited while I took a deep breath of sunshine and memories then said, “You enjoy your sniffing. I’ve got to leave early.”

  I didn’t ask why or where or what for. Ida Plum had her own life and she sure was closemouthed about it. I knew only as much as she wanted me to know which wasn’t all that much. There was a daughter in California Ida Plum flew out, ever so reluctantly, to visit. She said she could never live in a place where they dried okra instead of frying and eating it, that those people didn’t know good eating when it was set in front of them.

  After lunch I checked the computer to see if any reservations had come in. My website had already brought in a few and I really owed Scott for dragging me into social media, plus he had designed a site that made the Dixie Dew look homey and sparkling fresh.

  Oh, miracles of Photoshop! He put up photos of the porch, boxwood-lined front walk, porch swing, dining room, bedrooms, the biggest and best bathroom. I oohed and awed, clapped my hands when he ran it by me. “Big bucks,” he said. “You owe me big bucks.” I must have grimaced because he leaned over and pulled me in for a long kiss. “Down payment,” he said.

  There were several comments from people who had been guests here, comments like “Soft beds, great breakfast,” “small-town charm” and “Be sure to taste the local barbecue.” No complaints were listed, which made me give a sigh of pure relief. And no mention of a recent “unpleasant situation.” Relief on that one, too, but the last e-mail asked if there had been any “sightings.” I read the word twice. As in ghost? Not here, I thought. I’ve lived in this house all my life and there have not been any unaccountable noises or incidents.

  The writer went on to explain she or he had read that a lot of older houses, especially in the South, were haunted and they were especially interested in staying in a B and B that had its own ghost. I e-mailed the writer back to say I was not aware of any at the Dixie Dew but to please come and stay. Perhaps between the two of us we could scare up, conjure up, a ghost. Miss Lavinia, I wanted to say, you could help me out a little here. Tiptoe in and go through some walls, rearrange some furniture, bang clang some doors or crash some pictures off the wall.

  I went upstairs to “deep clean.” Ida Plum did the daily beds, dusting and general housekeeping but sometimes I liked to go behind her and really clean. Run a dust mop under the beds to make sure all the dust bunnies were rousted out. Under the dressers, nightstands. Wipe down the baseboards and windowsills. Really, really scrub the tubs and sinks. Run my fingers over the top of door facings, wash light fixtures, wipe even the tops of the bulbs in bedside lamps.

  By the time I’d done the first three bedrooms and started across the hall, I thought I heard a door slam downstairs, felt a whoosh of air blow past me. Ida Plum? She’d left b
efore lunch, taking some comp time since both of us would be working our tails off Saturday. Scott? He’d be out at the fairgrounds building booths, probably working in the dark to the pitiful beam of a floodlight until midnight. Malinda? She would have yoo-hooed up the stairs when she came in and noticed nobody in the kitchen.

  At the top of the stairs, I called down, “Hello.” Nothing but silence answered. I called again, “Ida Plum?” Maybe she’d forgotten something? Nothing.

  Cleaning supplies in hand, I opened the door to what had been Miss Lavinia’s room, the room where she died. There was a creak, a sort of wooden floor, old wooden floor kind of creak. I whirled around. There was nothing behind me. Nobody but me, my brushes and pail in the hall. But across the room I saw the white wicker rocking chair by the window. It seemed to be going back and forth. Or did I only imagine it?

  I quickly closed the door and put away my cleaning stuff. Maybe just thinking about ghosts had got me seeing things. I did not need a ghost in this house. I did not want a ghost in this house. I had all I could do to keep up with, and work with the living, in my life.

  Before I went downstairs, I stood in front of the closed door to my pink Azalea room, said out loud, “Miss Lavinia, honey, you finished your business here in Littleboro, didn’t you? I can’t help you. Go away now.”

  When the day doesn’t go right (and when does one ever?) I find a good soak in almost-too-hot water helps. I called Malinda on her cell phone to see if she was okay and told her briefly about Debbie. She had taken the afternoon off to be with Elvis, who was cranky and running a slight temperature, probably from too much parade excitement, she said, and was already in bed.

  Epsom salts take some of the bruises away, or at least soothes them a bit. And some drops of lavender oil. Then you keep adding hot water as it cools until the tub gets really full and you have to climb out or drown.

  So that’s what I did and wished with all my heart that poor little Debbie Booth was asleep in my nice bed upstairs. Or that she had packed her blue roller bag and waved goodbye to me on the Dixie Dew porch this morning, full of a hale and hearty good breakfast. Instead she was either on a slab in a cold morgue, or on her way to one, and I felt awful about it. And awful about me and my bed-and-breakfast business. Would there be whispers among the bed-and-breakfast crowd? What if this made the headlines in the next issue of The Mess? I might as well put out a “for sale” sign, but who would buy it? Next thing after the gossip could be a tale about the Dixie Dew being haunted and then a team of ghostbusters would descend on me.

  I twisted and turned, a thousand thoughts and worries diving in and through my mind. Near midnight I turned on my light, picked up a book and tried to read when I heard a key in the lock, then the front door open. I waited. The door closed, the lock clicked in place, then I heard one set of footsteps that sounded male. No little spikey heels, no giggles with it. Only one person had come in. Those flat male footsteps went up the stairs.

  I listened hard for a second set and heard only silence. Either Miles Fortune had come back from the airport alone or he was carrying somebody upstairs and the footsteps didn’t sound heavy enough for two. Whatever in the world was going on? Why was he making all these airport runs that didn’t seem to result in bringing anybody back with him?

  What did I know about the man, really? Nothing. Only what I read on his professional website and that he was friendly, very good-looking and dressed like a GQ model. The ultimate Gentleman’s Quarterly model. He seemed to know bits and pieces about the Green Bean Festival and seemed connected somehow to Littleboro, but I didn’t know how or what or who with or when. And what had he been doing spying on the luncheon at Mayor Moss’s on Monday? My mind was still circling with questions when I went to sleep.

  Somewhere in my dreams I saw Ida Plum being crowned Miss Green Bean. She rode on a single float, regal as Cleopatra, held an okra stalk like a spear and waved her other hand that wore Reba’s hunk of a diamond ring. Then she took off the ring, threw it into the crowd and rode on.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Thursday morning Miles Fortune came to breakfast looking rumpled, his hair mussed and his running clothes wrinkled and ratty. This was not the GQ guy I’d seen the past few days.

  I poured him coffee. He grunted. He downed his juice, shook his head as if to clear it, then went to my buffet and ladled his plate with grits and scrambled eggs. Ida Plum brought him whole wheat toast, brown and hot, from the kitchen. He mumbled something that sounded a little bit like “thank you,” picked up his fork and began to eat like he hadn’t seen food in a week.

  So far the morning and the whole house seemed filled with a strange quiet. Maybe a respectful quiet for our dear departed Debbie Booth, except Miles didn’t know about that, he’d left for Raleigh before Ossie arrived and apparently not returned until around midnight. I wondered if he’d even noticed the crime scene tape on the door down the hall from his room. From his foggy state I thought it was safe to assume he hadn’t. I said nothing.

  Ida Plum and I tiptoed from the room, whispered in the kitchen about whether we should offer pleasantries or not. We decided not. When I went in to refill his coffee cup, Miles Fortune had started out, had his hand on the front doorknob when I came in.

  “Wait,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

  He turned around, smiled as though he expected something pleasant, some sort of good news. I thought he must be one of those glass-half-full people. Bless them. We need more of them in the world. Unfortunately, what I had to tell him was not good news. I ushered him into the living room, closed the French door and watched his smile quickly fade and his expression turn to puzzled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Debbie Booth is dead,” I said.

  “No.” His face darkened. “What? When? How did it happen?”

  I told him nobody was sure how it happened. Her body had been taken to Chapel Hill for an autopsy, but my guess was something she ate. Ida Plum had agreed with me and even Miss Isabella said Debbie started feeling sick at the fairgrounds and just got worse.

  “My God.” Miles grabbed his throat with both hands. “When? What?” He started to make gagging noises. “I ate green stuff, too. I judged.” He groaned and shook his head. “I must have been crazy to taste all that stuff.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Miss Isabella said Debbie started feeling sick before the judging.”

  Miles put his hands on his flat, trim stomach.

  “I didn’t come here to die,” he said, and groaned some more. “This sucks. This whole town sucks. My life sucks.”

  Well, I thought, so much for my glass-half-full theory. He surely is in a whole lot better than the spot poor Debbie Booth’s in right now. He bent over, groaned again. I helped him to a chair.

  “I’m sure you’re fine,” I said, even though he did look pale.

  He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. I went to the bathroom and brought back a wet washcloth to put on his forehead, then I patted his shoulder. Who knew he was such a baby? A real wuss. “I think if you ate whatever it was that Debbie ate, you would have felt it before now.”

  “I feel it,” he said. “I feel it right now.” He grabbed his stomach with both hands, bent over and moaned in agony.

  “Relax, take deep breaths,” I said, taking his warm hand. “You haven’t been throwing up, have you?”

  He closed his eyes. “I can’t get sick. I’m a runner. Runners don’t get sick. You run in rain, in sleet, in snow, in heat and the deep of night. You run, run, run.”

  I felt him relax. After a few minutes he flung the washcloth toward the ceiling, jerked himself up, shook himself all over like a wet cat, and said, “I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay. I must think positive.”

  He patted himself all over as though checking himself for anything out of the ordinary. No bumps, no bruises, nothing broken. He smiled. “Nothing hurts,” he said.

  I stood holding the damp cloth I’d managed to catch. I was a bit startl
ed. One minute he’s moaning and groaning about dying, the next minute he acts like he’s going to bolt out the door.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  He raised both arms in the air and started chanting, “Deep cleansing breaths. Deep cleansing breaths. Deep…” Then he was gone, letting the door slam behind him.

  I heard footsteps pound across the porch and he was down the walk, out the front gate, gone. He sure hadn’t shown much sympathy or concern for Debbie Booth and certainly not an ounce for me and the Dixie Dew. I guess he just had an L.A. kind of mind. Me, me, me.

  Scott popped in at lunchtime, looking harried and hungry. He went straight to the fridge and started rummaging around. “Ham?” he said. “Swiss?” Then he went to the bread box. “And rye! Who could ask for more?” He waved two slices of bread in the air.

  “Mustard.” Ida Plum handed him the jar, plus one of bitter orange marmalade.

  “Tops it off,” she said.

  He got the last of the coffee and I made more. “Tomorrow night’s the big night.” He winked at me and reached for my hand that held the coffeepot. “We’ll find out who is Miss Green Bean. And the winner of the Green Bean Cook-off, do-off, send-off, end-off business.”

  I thought surely he’d been at the barbershop, service station or Breakfast Nook and heard about the demise of Debbie Booth. I didn’t ask because I really didn’t want to know how far or how fast the bad news might have traveled.

  “Miss Green Bean will be crowned,” he said, chewing.

  Whew. Maybe he’d read my expression about Debbie’s death and decided not to go there. I sat down beside him.

  “Who entered?” I asked. “How many contestants were there?” I couldn’t see many teen girls who would want to wear a crown of green beans or even be willing to let it be known for the rest of her life that she was once a Miss Green Bean.