“How can natural causes be bloody?”
“An interesting question. I suggest we ask someone who can answer it.”
After a brief silence, Bitty said, “Since your parents are leaving day after tomorrow, why don’t I just keep their little dog for a few hours when we come home?”
“No.” The possibilities for trouble if Bitty and a neurotic dog like Brownie get together are too much like the possibilities created by splitting the atom.
“Fine then. Luann Carey lives over on Higdon Street. She’s always got extra dogs.”
I rubbed at the recent crease permanently formed between my eyebrows and sighed. “I’m sure Jackson Lee will know about Sanders’ dog. Why not just ask him?”
“At five hundred dollars an hour, I’d just as soon keep our professional conversations at a minimum.”
“Good Lord, Bitty! Is that what it cost for Jackson Lee to pick me up at the jail and—”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Trinket. He did that for free. He does a lot of what he calls pro bono. I think it means legal aid for poor people. Anyway, he’ll be in New Albany most of tomorrow.”
I let her insinuation of me as one of the poor slide, since alas, it’s very close to being true. “Is there really a big hurry to find out if Tuck died of natural causes or not?” I asked.
“I suppose not. But if he did, then why did Sherman Sanders kill Philip?”
“You’re assuming Philip killed the dog, then Sanders killed Philip and ran away?”
“That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
I thought about that for a moment. There are times Bitty sounds very logical. Normally, those times incite caution. Now, however, I had to agree with her. It really was the only thing that made sense.
What I said was, “My head hurts, Bitty. I’m going to bed.”
“We have an appointment with Jackson Lee tomorrow afternoon at four.”
“We can ask him then about the dog.”
“And my rug. Get some sleep, Trinket. You really do sound tired.”
Bitty sounded wired, and I suspected she’d been sampling some of the wine Jackson Lee saved from the locked cellar. “You too,” I said anyway. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
I went back into the living room. Daddy looked up at me. “They made a mistake.” When I looked at him blankly, he said, “On the news. Sherman Sanders isn’t seventy-six. He’s eighty-one, five years older than me. We were drafted together, and he was in my squad in Okinawa right after the war. Stayed after I left, though. He’d met some Japanese girl named Nobi or Sato or something like that. Wanted to marry her, but because he wasn’t discharged yet and some of the states over here didn’t allow Japanese across their borders then, he couldn’t bring her back with him. I remember he talked about desertion, but in the end, he didn’t do it. Wonder what ever happened to that girl? He never did talk about her after he came home, just sat out there in that big empty house and got older every day.”
“I wonder why he never got married,” Mama mused.
Daddy shrugged. “Probably never did find another girl he fancied like he did Nobi. Or Sato. I never can remember which it is. Pretty little thing, though. I met her once when she came out to our base in Tachikawa. I could see why Sherman wanted to marry her.”
After I got into bed and turned out my lights, I lay there with moonlight making oblong patches on my rug atop heart pine floors and thought about Sherman Sanders leaving behind a woman he loved. I guess most people have some tragedy in their lives, whether they talk about it or not.
Chapter Ten
At twenty minutes to four the next day, I showed up at Bitty’s front door. I hadn’t heard from her all day, which I thought unusual, and had left a message on her home answering machine as well as her cell phone, but she hadn’t called back. If I hadn’t gone by Sharita Stone’s shop to buy a basket of muffins and jellies to give Mama and Daddy, and heard that Bitty had been in earlier, I’d have worried that she’d been rearrested, or disappeared into the same black hole that seemed to have swallowed Sherman Sanders.
To my consternation, when I turned the antique doorbell to announce my arrival, I heard the ferocious barking of a dog. It didn’t sound like a large dog, but nonetheless, it was a loud dog. I knew right then that Bitty had done just what she’d said she was going to do: gone out to Willow Bend Animal Clinic with a dog to get information from the new vet, who most likely wouldn’t be familiar with her methods of extracting information. Jackson Lee and Bitty could make a devastating team. Both of them have loads of charm and ulterior motives.
I heard Bitty coming down the hallway into the spacious entrance hall and speak to the dog, but the barking didn’t abate. I braced myself, expecting to find an ankle biter at my feet, but when Bitty opened the door, I saw that she held the animal in her arms. It barked. I blinked.
“What is that?”
Bitty smiled. “A Chinese pug.”
“What’s a pug? Chinese for a cross between a pig and ugly?”
“Don’t be insulting, Trinket. This is Lady O-ya Moon Chen Ling. She’s very exotic. Not at all like other dogs.”
I had to agree with the last. Lady O-ya Moon Chen Ling looks like a cross between a pig and a teddy bear. Cuddly, in a homely kind of way.
“Lady Ling is dribbling snot all over your sleeve,” I said instead, seeing that Bitty meant to defend not only her reason for temporarily possessing the dog, but her choice of breed.
Bitty made some kind of cooing noise and left me to come in and shut the door behind me as she went to what looked like a diaper bag sitting on the table by the telephone. Bemused, I closed the door and watched while she wiped the dog’s nose with a tissue, then tied a bib around its neck. Dark brown bug eyes stared at me over Bitty’s arm, and I swear the animal had a smug smile.
“That wasn’t snot,” she explained, “Chen Ling drools. She can’t help it. She has an awful underbite.”
“I can see that.” Indeed, anyone within a hundred yards can see it. Chen Ling has the underbite of a Louisiana alligator. When Bitty put her on the floor, I also noticed bowed legs and pigeon toes. The back legs turn out. “Are they supposed to have legs like that?” I asked.
“I can see you know absolutely nothing about dogs, Trinket. Luann Carey assured me that Chen Ling has papers a mile long. Her coloring is called fawn and silver, with chocolate something or other. I can’t remember the last.”
“Uh hunh. How long is Chen Ling going to be with you?”
“Oh, I just borrowed her for the day. Luann rescued her from someone who intended to have her put to sleep. Can you imagine? Just because she’s a little past her prime and has a few medical problems. Besides the dental work, and her jaw being a little out of synch so she drools all the time, and her being born with some kind of congenital thing that makes her toes turn in a little bit too much in the front, why, she’s just fine.”
Inhaling deeply, I asked, “Have you talked to Clayton and Brandon lately?”
Bitty looked up in surprise. “Just last night. I called Ole Miss to assure them that I’d be quite all right and not to worry if they heard anything on TV that says different. Why?”
“It seems to me that you’re getting a little broody.”
“Oh Trinket, I’m way past that. I don’t want to mother anyone, I just borrowed Chen Ling for the day. Luann said I can take her back anytime.”
Bitty smiled at Chen Ling and then kissed her right on top of her furry little head. I stared at both of them. Chen Ling obviously had mastered the situation, but I wasn’t at all sure about Bitty.
“Well, put her out in the back yard or wherever you’re going to leave her so we can go,” I said, and Bitty gave me a startled look.
“I’m not leaving Chen Ling here by herself.”
“Good heavens, Bitty, then where does Luann Carey live? We don’t have much time if we have to make too many stops on the way to the law offices, and since Jackson Lee has been kind enough to come back fro
m New Albany just to see us, I’d think you’d want to be prompt.”
“Luann hasn’t answered my calls, and when I tried to leave Chen Ling alone earlier she made such a fuss that I thought it best to take her with me. She does just fine. No car sickness or anything. Stop looking at me like that. I have a little carrier for her, and while we’re on the way to the office, I’ll tell you all about our visit to Dr. Coltrane.”
Since there wasn’t enough room in Bitty’s Miata for us all to ride in the front and I had no intention of holding Chen Ling, we took my car. I threatened Bitty with all kinds of terrible reprisals if that dog threw up, but both she and the dog didn’t seem to be paying any attention.
“About that new vet,” Bitty said as I pulled out of her driveway, “the rumors are true. He is absolutely gorgeous. I’ve thought about it, and decided that he’d be perfect for you, Trinket.”
Still a little miffed that she always gets her way, and that Chen Ling kept staring at me as if to say ha ha while sitting in that ridiculous looking baby sling Bitty had next to her chest, I said quite coolly, “If I decide I want a man, I’ll find one myself, thank you very much.”
“No, you won’t. I know you. You’ll just wither away on the vine out there at Cherryhill, and never have a single orgasm before you die.”
“Bitty!”
“You deserve an orgasm, Trinket. I intend to see that you get at least one.”
I almost ran up on the curb at the intersection of College and Randolph. “I’m not going to point out the sound of that, and I do not want to discuss my sex life,” I got out when I managed to get the car straightened up again and headed for Center Street.
“Since you don’t have a sex life, there can’t be any discussion,” Bitty said. “We’d have to sit here without saying a word.”
“An idea I find remarkably attractive right now.” Something in my tone must have gotten through to Bitty, because she changed the subject.
“Anyway, Dr. Coltrane—his first name is Christopher, by the way—said that he did the autopsy on Sanders’ dog, and that it’d died of old age. Something about the liver and a cyst or tumor that was malignant. Said Sanders knew about the tumor, so there wouldn’t be a reason for him to run over the dog since it didn’t have long to live anyway. But maybe that was just to make sure it was really dead.”
“Wait. Was the dog run over after it died?”
“Post-mortem, he said, which is another way of saying Sanders ran over his dog after it’d already died. I just think that’s the strangest thing I ever heard of in my life. Don’t you?”
I certainly did.
The Brunetti law office, or one of them, is located on Center Street not far from the court house. It’s one of those old buildings painted white with black wrought-iron balconies and stairs, and flower boxes that hold bright red geraniums in the summer time. Law offices are mainly on the ground floor, with conference rooms and storage areas upstairs. Parking spaces slant close to the front door. Jackson Lee’s office is painted in dark green and burgundy, his furniture big and masculine. Shelves line one wall all the way to the ceiling, holding law books, and behind his desk is another set of shelves with some glassed-in cabinets in the top middle. We sat in two of the plush chairs arranged in a half-circle in front of his desk.
After we’d discussed with Jackson Lee all the possibilities that might arise from our lunacy, and been given the bad news that participating Divas would have to come forward and answer police questions, I told him what Bitty had learned from the vet.
Jackson Lee sat back in his office chair and linked his hands together behind his head. He had his right ankle balanced on his left knee, but since he was dressed in nice pants and a button-down shirt, there was no danger of muddy boots. His cowboy boots were quite clean.
“Damn strange,” he said after a moment. “Of course, that may well have nothing at all to do with Philip Hollandale. Once Sanders is found, a lot of this can be cleared up.”
“What if he’s never found?” I asked.
In the silence that followed my question, any hope I had that Sanders’ disappearance may positively affect Bitty’s situation faded. Finally, Jackson Lee leaned forward and smiled.
“Whether we ever see or hear from Sherman Sanders again, Bitty didn’t murder Philip Hollandale and won’t be convicted. Especially not in Marshall County.”
That made sense. Bitty grew up here and remained here. She’s deeply entrenched in the community. Even citizens who don’t know her personally have heard of her, and while Bitty may be known as a little flaky at times, there’s not a malicious bone in her body. Everybody knows that. So what Jackson Lee said made me feel a lot better.
Then Bitty ruined it.
“Well, everyone knows if anyone had a reason to kill him, I did, so I hope they don’t hold that against me,” she said, not looking up from wiping drool from Chen Ling’s snout, or mouth, or whatever it’s called. Cradled like a baby in her arms, having been removed from the sling, the dog lay back with half-closed eyes, paws dangling, underbite oozing saliva onto a tiny pink bib with BABY spelled out in embroidered blocks.
I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Bitty had looked up at Jackson Lee, her wide china blue eyes innocent of deception. Jackson Lee sighed. Then he smiled.
“That’s not something you need to mention to anyone else, Bitty,” he said. “Let me do all the talking right now. If anyone asks you questions or mentions anything about the case, tell them that your attorney won’t allow you to discuss even the smallest detail. Think you can do that for me, sugar?”
Bitty smiled back. “Anything you say, Jackson Lee.”
If I hadn’t already been sitting down, I’d have had to look for a chair. Since she’d reached thirteen years old and found out she has a certain power over most males in her general vicinity, Bitty has never had the least inclination to give ground on anything. In fact, if a man so much as says red, then she’ll say green just to tease him. What’s always been the biggest mystery to me is that men can’t get enough of it. It’s my opinion that if Bitty had set her sights on Rhett Butler, she’d have given Scarlett O’Hara a run for her money. That would have been a dust-up I’d pay good money to see.
Jackson Lee walked us out to my car. He towered over Bitty, and I noticed the protective way he hovered around her. Bitty noticed that Chen Ling didn’t like the baby sling.
“Here, precious,” she said, fussing over the dog, “let me take you out of that ole thing.”
When I looked up over her head at Jackson Lee, he was smiling down at Bitty like she’d been talking to him. He had an expression on his face that said she meant a lot more to him than just as a client. Then he glanced up, saw me looking at him, gave a somewhat sheepish grin, and shrugged. I nodded. Sometimes we just can’t help who we find irresistible. There’s not always a lot of rhyme or reason about it.
“So,” Bitty said once we were safely in the car and Jackson Lee had gone back inside, “I think it’s going to be so nice to go in to Memphis with you tomorrow. Do you want me to come to your house in the morning, or do y’all want to pick me up?”
“It’d be just as easy to pick you up since we’ll be coming this way anyway and it’s not so far out of the way. We’ll pick you up at six-thirty.”
Bitty sucked in a sharp breath. “Six-thirty! I thought they didn’t have to check in for the cruise until eight-thirty. Memphis is only forty-five minutes from here.”
“Barring rush hour traffic, eighteen-wheelers jack-knifed in the middle of the interstate, and Mama forgetting to pack something so we have to stop at a Walgreen’s drug store. Besides, we have to go to downtown Memphis and find a parking place.”
“It’s probably just as well. An early start means more time in Memphis. Do you know if The Peabody allows any kind of animal other than ducks in the lobby?”
“We’re not taking that dog with us, Bitty Hollandale.”
“They must have some kind of accommodations for guests’ pets.”
<
br /> “They do. Guests leave them at home or in kennels.”
“Honestly, Trinket, when did you become anti-animals?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not anti-animals. I used to have dogs, remember? I just didn’t wrap them up in baby blankets and bibs and pass them off as ugly infants.”
Bitty brightened. “I hadn’t even thought of that! You’re absolutely brilliant.”
Sometimes I feel like if I could just inhale deeply enough, the stupid things I say will be sucked back into my mouth and swallowed. However, since I haven’t yet mastered that ability, I contented myself with, “If you insist on taking Chitling, we’re giving up The Peabody.”
“Chen Ling. And I’ve been to The Peabody before so it doesn’t matter if I go again or not. I just want to get out of Holly Springs for a day. I want to go where no one knows me and won’t be looking at me with one of those fake smiles and slopping sugar while they’re really thinking I had something to do with Philip ending up dead in my cellar.”
Technically, we all shared some blame for that, but since Bitty was already under enough stress, so much that she’d started carting around a dog I was nearly sure I’d seen in some movie about space aliens, I just said, “We’ll be in Mama’s car. It’s bigger than mine.”
“See you at six-thirty.”
After I got home the day didn’t much improve. That morning, I’d spent with Mama as she walked me through the schedule of cat-feeding and Brownie care. The evening I devoted to more of the same, but not quite as complicated. A chalkboard on the barn wall details which cat gets which medicine, and thankfully, said cats were in wire cages covered with plastic to prevent the spread of germs, but none of the patients were particularly appreciative of the medical efforts on their behalf. Daddy had welder’s gloves draped on a shelf, and a six-inch plastic tube called a pill shooter, with which I could shoot a pill down the victim’s—I mean patient’s—throat. The trick is apparently getting the patient’s mouth open. That morning it’d been easy enough, but that was because the cat had sunk its front teeth into my left thumb so I was able to wedge the pill shooter between the cat’s teeth and my thumb, push the plunger, and when the cat choked, I extricated my bleeding digit. Very simple. Mama and Daddy have pill splitters, pill crushers, and pill shooters. Everything handy but a gun.
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