Dixie Divas

by Virginia Brown

  “With lots of ice cream on top.” Budgie knows what makes unemployment, divorce, and a rainy day better.

  “Why don’t you talk to Carolann Barnett?” she said when she brought back my cobbler with a huge mound of ice cream melting on flaky crust. “She’s looking for someone to help out in her book store and lingerie shop.”

  My spoon hovered over cinnamon and nutmeg spiced cobbler. “Book shop and lingerie? Let me guess. She sells copies of The Kama Sutra and French panties.”

  “Not quite, but close.”

  “Where is it,” I asked just to be polite; though I had no intention of working in a book store that doubles as a Frederick’s of Hollywood.

  Budgie gave me directions and I finished my cobbler. I paid my bill and left a tip in the jar by the cash register. Before I got to the door, Bitty barged in with a look on her face like she’d just seen the Loch Ness monster. Her hair dripped rainwater, and mascara smudged her cheeks. As if that wasn’t startling enough, she was nearly speechless. I knew at once that all was not well.

  “Trinket,” she got out between gasps for air, “something terrible has happened!”

  Since I’d already guessed that, I said, “Here, sit down and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  She grabbed my arm in an iron grip. “No. I can’t. You’ve got to come. I don’t know what to do, and when I saw your car out front it was like an answer to a prayer. Help me. You’ve just got to!”

  I began to get a little alarmed. Even with Bitty’s flair for the dramatic, genuine fear filled her blue eyes and left her skin an uncomplimentary shade of gray. Her smart navy blazer with gold buttons on the cuffs was drenched. She wore navy slacks, sensible low-heeled pumps, and a white silk shirt; a jaunty red triangle of scarf stuck up out of the blazer’s breast pocket. Gold gleamed at her ears and around her throat. She looked like a half-drowned Macy’s mannequin.

  “Over here,” she said, and pulled me back to the table in the corner. She clasped and unclasped her hands a few times. The huge diamond ring on her right hand shot splinters of light across the café. She took a deep breath and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You’re not going to believe this. I went out to The Cedars to take the chicken and dumplings like I promised Sherman Sanders and that’s when I found him . . . he’s dead as dirt, and I don’t know what to do!”

  I whispered back, “Sanders is dead?”

  “No, not Sanders. Philip! What am I going to do?”

  “The Philip who’s your ex-husband? The one who just got reelected senator?”

  She nodded. “That’s the one. The police will never believe I didn’t kill him.”

  Good Lord. “Why on earth was he out at The Cedars? And what did Sanders have to say about him being dead?”

  “Sanders wasn’t there. Just Philip. Laid out in the foyer with his head bashed in. That heavy bronze statue I admired the other day is right next to him. It has blood all over the top of it. Trinket—” She took another deep breath. “It’s bound to have my fingerprints on it. I should have thought of that then, but I was in a hurry to get away. It didn’t occur to me about my fingerprints until I was halfway here.”

  This didn’t look at all good. And Bitty may be rattled, but she still knew that.

  “Did you call the police?” I asked her, and she gave me a horrified look.

  “No! They’ll think I did it. You have to know our divorce was pretty nasty, with both of us saying all kinds of stuff, and Philip so mad because I got so much money in the settlement . . . you know what they’ll think, Trinket.”

  I did. I also thought she should call the police anyway. I just couldn’t figure out a way to convince her of that without our conversation ending in more dramatics.

  “Did Philip know Sanders well?” I asked to occupy her while I mulled over ways to tell the police without upsetting Bitty or incriminating her. “It’s quite probable they had an argument of some kind and it ended badly.”

  Bitty plopped down in one of the chairs. Her hands shook, but she had some color back in her face. “Philip has been trying to talk Sanders out of putting his house on the historic register for some ungodly reason. Probably just to spite me.” Her eyes narrowed, and with all the mascara smudges, she reminded me of a wet raccoon. “That bastard! He probably knew I was going back to see Sanders and went out there and killed himself just so it’d look like I did it.”

  Ah. Now she was doing better.

  “He was that kind of man,” I said. Agreement on character or lack of it is primary in any discussion about an ex-husband. I’d learned that years ago. “But this time, I don’t think he’d go so far as to bash himself in the head just to spite you.”

  Bitty stood up. “Well. I’m not going to let him get away with it. I’m fixing to call over at the Brunettis’ office.”

  The Brunettis are local attorneys with a well-deserved reputation for always earning their money. They aren’t cheap, but they aren’t known for losing, either.

  “Excellent idea,” I said. “A Brunetti will know what to do.”

  “But first,” Bitty said, “you and I are going out there to wipe my fingerprints off that wretched statue before someone else finds Philip.”

  I recoiled. “We can’t do that!”

  “Of course we can. Sanders isn’t there, so we need to hurry before he gets back from wherever he went. It won’t take but a minute to go in and wipe off my prints. Come on.”

  “Bitty no,” I protested, and followed behind as she made for the café door. “I’m not going with you out to Sanders’.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at her. “Has it occurred to you that Sanders may well have been the one who killed Philip? Or that he isn’t really dead? Besides, it’s raining buckets and I have no desire whatsoever to see Philip Hollandale alive, much less dead.”

  “Philip’s nicer when he’s dead.” Bitty said it almost wistfully.

  “Call the police, Bitty.”

  “I wonder if he thought about me before he died.”

  Probably. Not kindly, either.

  “The police station is just a few streets over,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

  Bitty sighed. “You’re not just family, you’re a good friend, Trinket. All these years, and we’re still close as when we were kids. Come on. We’ll take my car.”

  “To the police station, right?”

  Bitty dashed out into the rain with her purse over her head and keys in her hand. The red Miata beeped and lights flashed, indicating she’d started the engine. I sighed. The phrase “in for a dime, in for a dollar” went through my head, but I followed her anyway. What are friends for if they won’t go to the police station with you to report their ex-husband’s murder?

  I should have known Bitty didn’t intend to go to the police.

  Instead of going around the court square to Market Street, she took Old 178 down past the Fred’s Dollar Store to hit Highway 7 through town. I knew better, but I had to ask.

  “Bitty, has the police station already moved?”

  “Good heavens, Trinket, you don’t really think I go there on social calls, I hope. Last time I was there, that cute Sergeant Nestor flirted with me and I got a little giddy and bought up all the rest of the tickets to the policemen’s benefit concert at the Kudzu Festival.”

  The Miata skidded on the wet pavement when she sped up to outrun a yellow light at the intersection of West Chulahoma Avenue. I made sure my seat belt was firmly fastened. HollySprings’ cemetery is just a block or two over, and I wasn’t ready to join family members who’d already homesteaded their last six feet of local real estate. Bitty got the car out of the spin without hitting a curb or ending up in a yard, and headed west on Highway 7 again.

  “So how do you feel about professional calls?” I asked when my fingernails were finally detached from the leather dashboard. “Murder tends to fall under that category instead of social.”

  “Really, Trinket, you’re beginning to make me wish I’d gotten one of the Divas to help me inste
ad of you.”

  The Divas she mentioned are a group of women over thirty and under a hundred. They’re nothing like the Sweet Potato Queens 12992214 or Red Hat Ladies, since none of them are trying to make a statement or glorify Southern ideals. In fact, rumor has it that membership doesn’t require being born in the South, just a sense of humor and high tolerance for chocolate. I don’t know how many of them there are since I haven’t yet been invited to a meeting, but they call themselves the Dixie Divas and often meet at the old Delta Inn that sits across from the railroad depot and next door to Phillips, a nineteenth century saloon-slash-whorehouse-slash-grocery store. The saloon and grocery store part are fact, the whorehouse legend.

  “I take it the Divas are familiar with murder then,” I said, and Bitty didn’t disagree.

  “I trust you most,” she said instead. “You’re my oldest friend, and I don’t mean by age.”

  “Of course not. We’re the same age.”

  “You have two and a half months on me, Trinket.”

  I rolled my eyes. “So now I have one foot in the grave? And it won’t do you any good to keep going down this road. I’m not taking part in any desecration of a crime scene. I like being able to see the sky instead of just iron bars and cinder block walls.”

  Bitty sped up a little. We went a mile or so past 78 Highway and turned right onto some road that has no sign post. A blue and white rusted out trailer is parked on a hill overlooking an expanse of pasture, cows, and a few emus. The last gave me a start. Brown, feathery, with long legs like ostriches, the birds stretched up their leathery necks and goggled at us as we went past.

  “I don’t remember those emus from yesterday,” I said, and Bitty nodded.

  “Frank Dunlap bought them as an investment. Then he found out it wasn’t that good of an investment but he couldn’t catch them all. They run wild out there in the trees somewhere, and he just lets them go. They bite.”

  Reason enough to leave them alone.

  The road narrows to a Y flanked by pine trees on one side, hibernating ropes of kudzu on the other. Bitty took the kudzu side to the left. Windshield wipers slapped against glass and metal, and broken asphalt occasionally clacked against the underside of the Miata. Elvis played on the radio, but Bitty had it turned way down. Elvis was singing Kentucky Rain, which I thought pretty appropriate for the weather.

  Bitty turned into Sanders’ rutted drive and stopped just past the cattle gap. It looked silent and deserted. No lights gleamed; no smoke came out of the chimneys. No hound sat on the porch, and no dumpling-festooned mule peered through the rain.

  I took a deep breath. My heart thumped, my pulse raced, and my throat went suddenly dry as the SaharaDesert.

  “I’m not going in there,” I said again.

  “Fine.” Bitty chewed on her bottom lip and looked resolute.

  When the Miata edged forward, I realized I’d been holding my breath and expecting Bitty to back out of the driveway and head back to town. I expelled a long gush of air and futility.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  Bitty’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “Neither can I.”

  We rolled to a stop and sat staring at the house. Rain glistened on wood planks, dripped from the corrugated metal roof, and hissed against the car. The front door was open, the screen door shut, the empty porch ominous.

  “Can you drive a stick shift?” Bitty asked me. “I may need a quick getaway.”

  “I can drive anything but a tank,” I lied.

  Bitty turned off the car, opened the driver’s side door, and I got out and went around. We both looked at the house again, and then I looked at Bitty. She had an expression like a determined rat terrier on her face. Whether it was a good idea or not, this was important to her. I sighed.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

  Holding hands like two frightened schoolgirls, we eased up the first step. Planks creaked beneath our feet. Our combined weight elicited another groan when we got to the second step, then the porch. The overhead lantern swayed in the wind, and the chains that tether it so it won’t hit against the roof or house clanked loudly.

  “Why do I keep thinking of that haunted house at the Halloween carnival when we were eight?” Bitty muttered.

  “If a ghost pops out at us, I’m wetting my pants. Again.”

  “I thought it was a skeleton.”

  “Whatever.”

  We were at the screen door now. Bitty faltered, and I just wanted to get in and out of there as quickly as we could, so I grabbed the handle and opened the door. We stepped just inside and let our eyes adjust to the absence of lamplight.

  The heart pine floors gleamed dully in the dim light, the small Oriental rug with dragon designs lay in the middle, and the heavy bronze statue sat serenely on the parquet table. No body lay in the floor, no blood puddle, and no sign of murder. I looked at Bitty.

  She stared blankly. “He was here. I swear he was . . . I saw him. Philip, laid out like a hog on a butcher’s table. Blood everywhere.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been through a lot of stress lately, Bitty.”

  She looked up at me. “I saw him. You believe me, don’t you?”

  There was such a pleading look on her face I couldn’t have said no if I’d wanted to, so I nodded. “Of course, I do. Maybe he was just knocked out, and he woke up and left. There’s no other car in the driveway.”

  Something flickered in her eyes and she frowned. “Whoever killed him must have taken his car.”

  “Or maybe he’s not dead.”

  Bitty looked doubtfully at the clean floor. “Then who cleaned up the mess? There was a lot of blood. Philip never so much as picked up a dirty sock, much less cleaned up blood.”

  “Someone did. Probably Mr. Sanders. He does like things tidy.” After a moment I asked, “Where was . . . the senator lying?”

  “There.” Bitty pointed and I took a few steps into the room, half-expecting blood and body to suddenly materialize.

  I knelt down, careful to keep my skirt tucked behind my knees and well off the floor, and gingerly touched the heart pine. It was dry. It couldn’t have already dried in one hundred percent humidity by itself. After all, even on a sunny day, Mississippi’s known for humidity so high your shoes can mildew in the closet.

  “Well?” Bitty asked, sounding nervous, and I shook my head.

  “It’s dry.”

  “I didn’t imagine it. As much as I’d like to see Philip choke and die, I know what I saw.”

  When I started to stand up, I lost my balance, and put my hand behind me to catch myself. It happened to land on the carpet, and wet wool slicked against my palm. I looked up at Bitty.

  “The carpet’s wet.”

  It took me a minute to steel myself, but I sniffed at my fingers and caught the distinct and unmistakable smell of pine cleaner. That didn’t eradicate the faint, rusty scent of blood. I stood up.

  “Come on, Bitty. We need to get out of here.”

  “But what about the statue?”

  I held out my hand. “Give me the scarf from your pocket.”

  After a brief hesitation, she whipped it out and I walked over to the bronze statue, my hand shaking so hard I nearly knocked it off the table as I wiped away any and all prints. Then I scrubbed up my muddy footprints, walking backward.

  “Wipe the door handles, too,” Bitty said as we retraced our steps to the screen door. “Just in case.”

  “Well, we did visit the other day. It’d seem odd not to leave a few prints behind.” Still, I wiped away our prints on the door just in case, and we fled back to Bitty’s car in a half-run, half-stumble.

  Neither of us spoke until we were well down Highway 7 again. I turned to look at Bitty.

  “Something was different in the house. I feel like we missed something.”

  “What we missed,” said Bitty as she slowed down to turn into the Sonic drive-in, “is my ex-husband dead on the floor. I’m
relieved and disappointed at the same time. I knew it was too good to be true.”

  She pulled into a slot and cut the Miata’s engine. I smelled fried onion rings. Bitty looked at me. “Sonic has great chili dogs with cheese.”

  “Order two.”

  “Footlongs?”

  “You bet.”

  When all else fails, Coney dogs provide temporary comfort as well as dimples on the butt and thighs. Not a bad trade-off.

  Chapter Three

  “What are you doing Saturday?” Bitty asked, and I cradled the cordless phone between my ear and shoulder and kept stirring milk gravy in the iron skillet to keep it from lumping.

  “Same thing I did last Saturday, I imagine. Why?”

  “The Divas are having a meeting.”

  “Is this an invitation?”

  “Three of the Divas can’t come. You can be my guest.”

  While I thought over that honor, the gravy got thick too fast. I grabbed the cup of milk, poured some in, added salt and pepper, and then said, “Are you sure?”

  “I’ll pick you up at ten-forty-five. Bring something chocolate.”

  “What?”

  “Believe me, any-thing chocolate works just fine. My end is covered. I’ve bought enough wine to keep California solvent.”

  No one knows what all goes on at these meetings, but there are rumors of Johnny Depp posters being violated in most interesting ways. Men aren’t allowed to attend other than as entertainment.

  “All right,” I said as if uncertain, when I’d been salivating at the idea of seeing for myself what went on at the Diva meetings, “I’ll come to the meeting if you really want me there.”

  When we hung up, I smiled. Bitty obviously feels a sense of responsibility for scaring me with a false murder. Truthfully, I’m glad she didn’t listen to me about going to the police. Not only would we have looked like idiots, but the last I heard, there are penalties for making false reports about dead bodies.

  Not to say we both didn’t wonder why Philip Hollandale hadn’t been making a huge fuss over getting hit in the head and left for dead. He’s the kind of man who thrives on things like that. His silence was unnatural. Bitty had even been talking about calling him to see if he’d pick up his cell phone, but couldn’t think of a good reason for it if he did answer.