by Ruth Moose
She was still spluttering as they went into the night. Poor Bruce, I thought. You’re going to need that pot of coffee.
Only then, when the door closed behind them, did I relax and introduce Lesley Lynn to Miles, who extended his hand. She accepted it with hers, which was still shaking. He patted her hand.
“She’s our newly crowned Miss Green Bean,” I said.
“And I missed getting her crowning on film. What was I thinking? The grand event of a lifetime.” He laughed and went into the dining room. “Ladies,” he said as he crossed the hall, “I think we all need and deserve a little bit of libation, if Miss Beth doesn’t mind.”
“Please,” I answered.
He returned with two cordial glasses and the decanter of blackberry wine, poured one each for me and Lesley Lynn. “This is the stuff for civilization, for shock to delicate systems.”
I offered a toast to Miss Green Bean and Lesley Lynn smiled. Weakly.
Then Miles produced a shot glass and a dusty bottle of Scotch I thought I recognized. “This”—he held up the bottle—“is my stuff. The kind of stuff with guts. I gotta restore mine.” He poured himself a slug, downed it, poured another. “In the back of the corner cupboard,” he said as if he had read my quizzical look. “That’s where I found it. Good stuff.” Shaking his head side to side as though he’d come upon scenes like this all the time in L.A. where somebody was making a movie on every corner, he said, “I don’t know what all this business was about, but things are better sorted out in the daylight.”
I took Lesley Lynn upstairs, ran her a hot bath in Mama Alice’s big old footed tub, poured in the bath salts, and told her to climb in and soak. That’s my remedy for a bad day and this had been a bad day and a bad night. Then I brought her some of my flannel pajamas (good old L.L.Bean), a robe and slippers, turned down the bed where Miss Lavinia had slept her last sleep and told Lesley Lynn good night and I’d see her in the morning.
Downstairs Miles had swept up the glass. “Somehow hanging up there, that fixture didn’t look like it had this much glass in it.” He emptied the last of it in the metal trash bin, the big one with the Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Thanksgiving cover stamped on it, the grandmother smiling as she served a huge turkey on a platter to her adoring family. What a lot of sweet rot we all tried to live up to every Thanksgiving. The trash bin tinkled as he carried it to the kitchen, then he said good night and headed up the stairs.
I looked up the number for the Presbyterian manse in the well-worn Carelock County phone book and called from my dependable landline telephone. Barbie Pittman answered. I told her Lesley Lynn was spending the night here at Dixie Dew. She thanked me, said she wouldn’t have worried. Would have just assumed Lesley Lynn was staying with her aunt.
“Her aunt?”
“Yes. Her aunt Calista.”
Wow, I thought. There was only one person with that name in Littleboro: our mayor, Miz Honorable Moss. The whole world must be related, and it is a very small world.
I followed my own advice for a good soak in a tub with bath salts, lavender oil and anything else therapeutic I could pour in. I needed it. Afterwards I put on my favorite flannel pajamas and robe and padded in my slippers to check the house for the night.
Sherman was curled in his bed by the back door, Robert Redford beside him. I yawned, so tired I felt limp and my bones were loose. I checked the back and front door locks and fell into bed. Tomorrow had to be a better day.
When I was just about asleep I jerked awake and sat upright in bed. What had happened to Mrs. Rigsbee’s gun? Where was it? Had Bruce taken it? Had he even asked about it? I think he just wanted to get her calmed down and down to the station. Maybe there he could handcuff her to a chair since we didn’t have a jail or even a courthouse anymore. Where would he hold her? Probably run her over to Moore County jail. In the middle of the night? I bet she’d scream and cuss the whole way there. But what had happened to the gun? I couldn’t remember. I was too tired at the moment to remember anything clearly. I went back to sleep.
Chapter Forty-nine
The next morning when I went in the kitchen to start the coffee, there stood Scott holding the gun. Pointed right at me!
“Whoa,” I said, holding up both hands and starting to back out.
“What’s this doing in the wastebasket with all that glass? All those little dead hangy-down things?” he asked.
When Miles Fortune had swept up the glass he probably hadn’t noticed Mrs. Rigsbee’s little silver handgun, the kind you could stash in a pocket or a purse, and he’d dumped it all in the wastebasket. There had been a lot of glass dangles in a heap and scattered, plus the hall was dark without the overhead light.
I nearly fainted. “It’s loaded,” I said.
He took the bullets out and laid them in a saucer on the table, then handed me the gun.
“What do I do with it?”
He grinned. “Put it under your pillow, my love.”
I was in no mood for his humor. I put the gun and bullets in my kitchen junk drawer and started the coffee. Then I sat down and told Scott the whole thing.
“So where’s Lesley Lynn now?” he asked.
The first thing I had done when I woke was go upstairs to take Lesley Lynn some clothes: a pair of my jeans, a T-shirt and some flip-flops, just some stuff to get her decent enough to go back to the Pittmans. I figured she must still have her own underwear and wearing it two days in a row wouldn’t kill her. She wasn’t in the bedroom where I’d left her. The door was open, but the bed was empty.
I stood in the doorway. Disbelieving was the only word that came to mind to describe how I felt. Shock was another, and then some others, none of which I said out loud. Where the hell was she? Had she left and I hadn’t heard her? Had I slept like a rock?
The door to Miles Fortune’s bedroom was closed. I lightly knocked on the door. When I didn’t hear any movement from inside, I very carefully turned the knob. It wasn’t locked. I eased the door open very slowly, peeked my head around and saw Lesley Lynn curled next to Miles Fortune in his bed.
“Shh,” he said with a little smile. He held up a finger. “She got scared in the night and came in here.”
I nodded and gently closed the door. Yeah, I thought. I just bet she did.
“Is she still asleep?” Scott asked. “Up there?”
“I guess,” I said, thinking this bed-hopping was a first time for my B and B and I was willing to bet it wouldn’t be the last. I only hoped it wasn’t going to happen too often or I’d have to change the advertising to “Doing It at the Dixie Dew.”
“Buckets,” said Ida Plum when she came in, taking off her purple raincoat, hanging it on the rack. “It’s raining buckets and not supposed to stop all day.”
Ossie’s wedding day. How appropriate, I thought. The skies are crying because this whole thing is a big mistake. Then a second thought: it’s Juanita’s wedding day, too, and maybe the third time is the charm. And maybe I was just in a gloomy mood, when what was called for was Panic with a capital P.
“I can try to get a tent,” I told Ida Plum, but at the last minute every rental place in Southern Pines was probably already booked.
“Ground’s already saturated,” Ida Plum said. “All those high heels would sink up to their ankles. Not to mention muddy trouser legs, and anybody, especially the bride in a very expensive long dress that cost her half a down payment on a car or house, would ruin their clothes. Of course the bridesmaid’s gown would be ruined, too.”
“I say move it,” Scott said. He took off his wet jacket, ran his hand across his wet head and reached for the coffeepot.
“Where to?” Some church? Somehow I couldn’t see Ossie in his white hat walking down the aisle of First Presbyterian Church even if Pastor Pittman was doing the service. Ossie would probably be packing some firearm even then, though he didn’t strike me as the type of hard-nosed cop who eats, sleeps and breathes the job.
“I’d say somewhere indoors.” Scott l
ooked at an empty muffin warmer basket. “Our Mr. Fortune up and gone?” he asked.
“In and out,” I said. “He just left with Lesley Lynn.” I’d seen them leave as Ida Plum was brushing the rain off her coat with a tea towel. Miles had guided Lesley Lynn gently down the stairs and out the door. I wished he was gone, although he was a paying guest and I seemed to be suffering a dearth of those lately. At least I thought he was a paying guest. We had his credit card number and Ida Plum said it was one of those gold or platinum cards. He had saved my life. Maybe I owed him a free room for that. Or more. How did one ever repay someone for saving your life? I didn’t know.
“I’d say you got space in the living room and front hall. You got the dining room already set up for doing receptions. I say move the furniture to the walls, stand some flowers around and go with it. Necessity is the godmother of making do with what you got. You got indoor space,” Scott said.
But the living room was not renovated. Walls had peeling wallpaper so old it had lost all color and looked like ancient newsprint. If the pattern had once been huge roses or violets or checks or stripes no one could guess it now. The fireplace mantel was rotten on one side and the mirror over it so old the silvering on the back crackled. Nobody could see anything in it. And the floors! Rugs had dry rot and places so bare you could see the weave of the backing. “Threadbare” was the word. I stood looking at the word made flesh.
“So we roll up the rugs and I toss them in Verna’s overflowing dumpster. Get the Betts Brothers to bring in as many white flowers as they can get their hands on and nobody will notice,” Scott said.
“What about chairs?” I asked.
“What were you going to do outside?”
“Well, stand, I guess. A wedding ceremony doesn’t usually last that long and Juanita said she’s keeping this one simple.”
“So everybody stands for the ten minutes it takes Pittman to read some words and the bride and groom to mumble ‘I something, something, something.’ Soon as the cake is cut and all the food inhaled in the dining room, you clear the table, we take out the leaves and ta da, let the dancing begin.”
“I don’t see a thing wrong with that.” Ida Plum stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Except where do they put all the raincoats and umbrellas? Is there by any chance among all that stuff at Verna’s something such as any sort of coat-rack?”
“I’ll look,” Scott said.
When Ida Plum saw the wastebasket full of glass I told her about last night. She poured herself a second cup of coffee, almost downed it in one gulp, and said, “You gonna bother Ossie with all this on his wedding day?”
“No,” I said. “Besides, Bruce was here. He can tell him if he wants to. Mrs. Rigsbee is under arrest and since we have no jail anymore, he probably carted her over to Pinehurst. Or Vass. If Vass even has a jail. Either way, she shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Probably Pinehurst,” Scott said. “And today, at least today, I’ve got an inside job. No gazebos.” He pronounced it “gaze bows” and winked at me as he left by the front door, minus umbrella. Mr. Macho, taking on the elements with only a windbreaker and nothing on his head.
Miles Fortune had worn a well-seasoned London Fog trench coat plus some type of Sherlock Holmes hat and opened his “brolly” as he escorted Lesley Lynn out into the downpour. Still a mystery man who came and slept, ate and left, taking Lesley Lynn with him. Was he taking her to her aunt Calista’s house? Or L.A.? After all she was a beauty queen. And I still had a niggling suspicion he might have had something to do with the courthouse burning. Was he the kind of documentary maker who’d set a fire just so he could film it? Burn down our town icon and hotfoot it out to wherever he came from in the first place? I confess when I cleaned his room I sniffed extra hard for any evidence he’d been closer to the fire than just a bystander, anything that would confirm my suspicions. So far, nothing.
According to Malinda, who dropped by on her way to work, word was the fire chief had no idea what started the fire that reduced our beautiful courthouse to a blackened Confederate soldier and some empty standing brick walls.
“But,” I said, “sit down and let me tell you my latest. Bigger news. I found Butch Rigsbee.”
I handed her a mug of coffee, indicated a stool at the kitchen island.
“I’m en route.” She took the coffee. “Just stopping in to hear the latest. Spill and don’t leave anything out.”
I told her all, including the details of Allison’s confession, how I found the body, the Old Spice and everything.
“I didn’t know they still made the stuff,” Malinda said. “That must have been the giant-sized bottle. Imagine embalming with Old Spice.”
“Where did he take Allison?” Ida Plum asked. “Police station? Then where? We have no jail,” she said again and clucked her tongue at all this latest Littleboro news.
“The wedding?” Malinda put down her coffee mug, shrugged into her raincoat. “What’s going to happen with that?”
“According to Scott,” Ida Plum said, “we’re taking it inside. Juanita’s garden wedding is going to be dry.”
“I hope you don’t mean sans alcohol.” She laughed. “Weddings are the only time I get champagne. There is going to be champagne, isn’t there?”
“Prosecco,” I said. “That’s what the groom wants. And I’ve ordered some local brews. Scott suggested those.”
“Including some green bean wine?” Ida Plum said.
“Is there really such a thing as green bean wine?” Malinda raised an eyebrow. “Don’t save me any.” She looked as if she’d never put anything green to her lips again in her life. And I wouldn’t blame her.
“Absolutely,” I said, and shuddered a little. Not on this earth would I ever put a touch of green bean wine to my lips. Ugh. Scott may have been joking. Surely nobody had made a wine out of beans. But then stranger things happened. Look at vodka, made from potatoes! But at least it wasn’t green unless they added a tint.
Malinda stood in the half-open doorway, gave us a two-finger goodbye wave and was gone.
In Littleboro, when you hear the same rumor with most of the same details then you figure you’re getting close to the truth. With the Allison story, everyone would know the truth and it was so awful it probably wouldn’t need to be embellished. I was sure at least some extra details would travel in the area of what really happened though. Put enough versions together and you’re in the ballpark of the truth.
I put an emergency call in to the Betts Brothers for any white flowers they could get their hands on, preferably fresh. The plan had been to use both plastic and silk and mix in a little fresh in pots for the outdoor deal. My grandmother would have been horrified at the idea of plastic flowers, but Bobby Betts said they did it all the time and so far nobody was the wiser, especially for the outdoor weddings. “Fresh just melts,” he said on the phone.
“Plastic,” I said. I was half-horrified.
“These days even some bridal bouquets are plastic,” he said.
I remembered how Reba had stuck her plastic bouquet in a vase of water in the motel room. Poor Reba.
Now I was all the way horrified. Where was the sentiment? The romance of roses and lily of the valley? Orchids? I’d seen Mama Alice cater weddings where the bridal bouquet was one huge white orchid that had been flown in from some exotic island halfway around the world.
“Whatever,” I said. “See you about three this afternoon?” I had final decorating touches, a couple more swags around the top for the wedding cake and a couple mixers full of buttercream icing to make for the cake squares. Thank goodness I wasn’t doing meringue. Not in this weather.
Chapter Fifty
By the time the Betts Brothers van drove up in front of the Dixie Dew, I was covered in buttercream, but the five-tiered cake was a work of art, all scrolls and swags and icing roses. I had not lost my touch. “Yay!” I shouted when I finished and set it on the middle of the dining-room table. Sure Juanita had said seven tiers, but with enough
Prosecco she’d be beyond counting, and of course, I’d lower the price. Today I just couldn’t handle another two layers.
At four o’clock the sky was still pouring buckets. It had not stopped, paused, or slacked a mite all day. Rain fell in silver sheets off the porch roof.
After the Betts Brothers did their do and left, Ida Plum and I stood in the hall, looked into the living room and told ourselves the whole thing was a bower of white. With the candles lit, the effect would be breathtaking. At least we hoped it would.
When the white stretch limo stopped in front of the Dixie Dew, Ida Plum and I totally expected Juanita and her “party” to step out, holding umbrellas of course. The rain had not slacked all day.
We went to the front porch to get close-up looks as the bride arrived.
Instead we saw a little twig of a girl scoot up, hand out, ready to ring the doorbell. She scooted to a stop on the top step, announced, “Miss Deye will be alighting momentarily. Her hair and makeup people are not finished.” Then the pixie person in a black smock asked, “Where are the photographers, the newspaper reporters? Inside? Is someone from People magazine here yet?” Her perky little acorn of a face with half-black hair, half-green, she, or he, looked as if it had never seen a calorie outside a head of lettuce.
“Photographers?” Ida Plum and I looked at each other. “Reporters?”
“They plan to arrive later,” I lied. Something that was getting to be a habit. Had I been hanging around Allison too much and it was rubbing off on me? “But please come in out of the rain.”
“Yes,” Ida Plum said. “Get in out of the wet.”
The elfin of a girl whirled around and sprinted through the puddles back to the limo, slammed shut the car door.
Ida Plum and I stood on the front porch to see who (or what) would pop out of that limo next.
We waited, noted the engine kept running and running the whole time and there seemed to be movement going on inside, but no one came out.
We waited some more, looked at each other, shrugged. “Didn’t she say momentarily? How long exactly is momentarily?” Around here in Littleboro, a person might say, “I’ll be with you directly,” which meant sometime in the near future, after I’m done doing what I’m doing right now. Momentarily was a big-city word.