The four of them barely got in the door before Wanda Jean pulled them into one of the side rooms and closed the door. “Oh, my Lord!” she wailed.
“Lower your voice,” Clara ordered.
Wanda Jean clamped her mouth shut, nodded her head vigorously, and started over in a strained whisper. “Do you think Hilton’s panty hose really did mean something about him after all?”
“Well, Wanda Jean, honey,” Clara said diplomatically, “you’re really the only person who is in a position to know the answer to that question, now aren’t you?”
The four women looked at her expectantly as Wanda Jean seemed to be searching her memory. “I just can’t see how the panty hose could mean anything,” she said finally. “Hilton was real . . . enthusiastic.”
“Can’t a man have more than one hobby?” Mae Ella asked.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Sister,” Clara said. “You’re acting like we’re talking about hunting and fishing.”
Wanda Jean pulled a chair out from the long table in the center of the room and plopped down heavily. “I just don’t know why Millard would put an orchid on Hilton’s casket.” She stared into space with a disconsolate expression, her eyes vaguely focused on a crucifix hanging on the wall. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “But that sure was a pretty purple ribbon, wasn’t it?”
Mae Ella rolled her eyes and started to say something, only to be silenced by the look of warning on Clara’s face. Clara inclined her head toward Wanda Jean a couple of times, and the women took the hint; they all pulled out chairs and joined the widow at the table.
“How are you holding up, honey?” Clara asked, patting Wanda Jean on the arm.
“I just don’t know, Clara,” Wanda Jean said, looking at them with red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t like the way everybody is looking at me and talking about Hilton. I don’t want people to know about him and the women’s clothes, but not because I’m ashamed of him. I loved Hilton. He was a real good husband. I don’t know why he liked to put on my clothes, but he wasn’t hurting anybody when he did it. I always figured that was kind of between us. Hilton never did anything to hurt anybody. Did you know that he didn’t really kill mice in people’s houses when they hired him to? He used these live trap things and then he’d drive way out in the country and let the mice go. Why would somebody want to kill a man who couldn’t even bring himself to hurt a little mouse?”
No one spoke for a minute and then Mae Ella said, “Look at me, Wanda Jean.”
Three heads snapped in Mae Ella’s direction, expecting something acerbic to come out of her mouth, but Mae Ella ignored them, holding the young widow’s gaze as she said, “Honey, you can’t spend your life trying to figure out why bad things happen. You quit thinking about how people are running their mouths. Hilton was your husband. If you say he was a good man, then that’s good enough for me. We’ll figure out who killed him and see to it that that person is brought to justice.”
Wanda Jean looked at her with brimming eyes. “Oh, Mae Ella,” she said, “I just don’t know how I’m going to go on without Hilton. He was my best friend.”
As Wanda Jean collapsed into heaving sobs, the other women watched in astonishment as Mae Ella gathered her into a hug. “There, there now,” she said, patting the crying woman on the back. “Don’t go making yourself sick, honey.”
When the five women emerged from the room, Wanda Jean was dry-eyed and composed. She immediately started fielding condolences, sweetly listening to platitudes about Hilton and making all the right replies.
“Sister,” Clara said quietly to Mae Ella, “you never cease to amaze me.”
“Horsefeathers,” Mae Ella grumbled. “We’re so busy trying to figure out who killed the man we’re forgetting that little girl buried her husband this morning. She just needed somebody to remember that.”
The remainder of the reception went smoothly with the mourners eating their fill of free funeral food. Truth be told, nothing anyone could have done would have topped Millard Philpott’s stunt at the graveside. When Sugar got back to the Style and Set that afternoon, Flowers had already heard all the details, greeting Sugar as she came in the door with, “Was that sissy little Yankee really wearing a seersucker suit?”
The two women had the salon to themselves until Sugar’s three o’clock appointment showed up, so Flowers made a fresh pot of coffee and they both lit cigarettes to settle down and properly dissect and evaluate the funeral. Sugar described Melinda Sue Fairchild’s arrival at the church, Mae Ella’s vocal and unsolicited critique of the sermon, and then ended with her take on Millard Philpott and the orchid, saying, “I’m going to go see him after work today.”
“Just like that?” Flower’s asked. “No call beforehand or anything?”
“No,” Sugar said. “I don’t want him having time to figure out what he’s gonna say to me. Everybody in town knows Millard never leaves his house. He’ll be there.”
“What in tarnation does that man do for a living, anyway?” Flowers asked.
“According to Dixie over at the post office, he gets these big heavy manila envelopes from publishing companies in New York City,” Sugar said, “and then he mails them back. She asked him one day if he was a writer or something and he told her he’s an editor.”
“Then why in the world doesn’t he live in New York?” Flowers asked. “Seems like it would be a better place for someone like him.”
“Well,” Sugar said, critically inhaling from her Camel, “maybe I can find out the answer to that, too, when I talk to him.”
“He may just tell you it’s none of your damn business,” Flowers pointed out. “Have you ever even said hello to the man?”
“Not that I can recollect,” Sugar said. “But bashfulness has never been my failing in life.”
“This is true,” Flowers admitted, lighting her second Lucky of the conversation. “That reminds me,” she said, “speaking of folks who aren’t bashful, Ruth Ann King came in to get her nails done while you all were at Rolene’s yesterday. She told me that she saw Leroy Taylor in Kerrville early that morning Hilton was killed, so I guess that means you all can scratch him off the list of suspects.”
“Damn,” Sugar said darkly, smashing out her cigarette in the ashtray. “I wanted to nail that wife-beating son of a bitch for something.”
“I thought Lester Harper had Leroy dead to rights when somebody saw him skulking around the hardware store the night of the fire,” Flowers said with equal malice, “but I’ll just be damned if Leroy didn’t manage to talk his way out of it. Of course, he wouldn’t recognize the truth if it walked up and slapped him in the face.”
Just before Christmas the local hardware store burned to the ground one cold night, leaving nothing but a smoking ruin on Main Street. The fire, which burned hot and fast, was the talk of the town for days. Arson was strongly suspected, especially when several witnesses put Leroy Taylor near the scene that evening, but the investigation ruled the catastrophic event an accident due to negligent maintenance of flammable inventory.
John Powell, the owner of the store, was outraged, insisting that he took the utmost care with all the store’s solvent and paint supplies. His protests were to no avail, and he was dealt an even heavier blow when the insurance company refused to pay him a settlement. For days Powell worked alone, doggedly clearing away the wreckage with a borrowed bulldozer. A new building was going up in place of the wreckage, and rumor had it that Powell had taken out a second mortgage on his house to rebuild and restock.
That drama was soon overshadowed by the discovery of Blake Trinkle dead in the bathroom with the 1967 Gala Christmas edition of Playboy clutched in his fingers, the purple and green cover clashing horribly with Maybelline’s baby blue tile. She assured everyone who would listen that Blake purchased the magazine to read John Kenneth Galbraith’s article about “Resolving Our Vietnam Problem,” and that he was most certainly not interested in the nude centerfold of a woman in high heels reclining on a polar bear rug.
&
nbsp; Of course, that line of defense only got people asking if Blake wasn’t interested in the naked centerfold, what was it that gave him the heart attack in the first place? The depth of his political convictions? Maybelline just let it go after that, stoutly telling her sisters, “People are going to think what they’re going to think.”
“Seems like every time we take somebody off the list,” Sugar said, “there’s another suspect just standing there in line waiting. Now Clara wants to know why Melinda Sue Fairchild was at the funeral.”
“That gal is gonna go anywhere there’s an audience,” Flowers said. “If she thought she could win Miss Embalming Fluid, she’d make every funeral in six counties.”
They both broke out in peals of laughter that ended in spasms of pre-emphysema coughing. “Lord, have mercy,” Sugar said, wiping her eyes. “Somebody should just give that gal a tiara and put her out of her misery before she kills us all!”
Chapter 14
Millard Philpott lived in a beautiful old craftsman bungalow in a well-established neighborhood at the edge of town. Sitting serenely in the shadow of one of the hills ringing the valley, the house was painted a modest sage with gleaming white trim. For whatever fault his neighbors might find with Millard regarding other matters, no one complained about how he maintained his property. He swept the walk leading down to the mailbox with mechanical precision, trimmed the hedges surrounding the porch with crisp corners, and allowed no weeds to encroach on the riot of colorful flowers in the front beds.
Although he had few visitors, those who did enter the house found gleaming hardwood floors, dark beams and cabinetry, and a generously welcoming fireplace lit throughout the winter months. In the summer, the white curtains on the front windows often billowed outward on the breeze, carrying with them strains of the classical music Millard played while he worked.
Dixie down at the post office got it right when she told Sugar Watson that Millard was an editor. A solitary and reclusive man by nature, he could pass a day with a pencil in his hand and a manuscript on his knee with perfect satisfaction, which is what he’d tried to do when he came from Hilton Milton’s funeral that morning. For most of the rest of the day, however, Millard had been sitting at his desk staring at nothing in particular across the room and thinking. He was still engaged in deep reverie when a knock at the front door startled him back into the present moment.
Putting his work aside, Millard walked to the front door where, to his astonishment, he found Sugar Watson, proprietress of the local beauty salon eponymously named, Sugar’s Style and Spray. She stood on the front porch waiting patiently for him to answer her knock. The rhinestones in her cat eye glasses were glinting in the late afternoon sun and the smile on her face was both broad and genuine.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Philpott,” she said when she saw him approaching. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Watson,” he said, opening the screen and stepping out to stand beside her. “I don’t think we’ve ever had an opportunity to speak before now. To what do I owe this honor?”
“Mr. Philpott,” Sugar said, “maybe we ought to go inside. There’s something I want to talk to you about and I know for a fact your next-door neighbor Ima Jean Trugood can hear what people are talking about three towns over.”
“Please,” he said, smiling, “call me Millard. And you are quite correct, Mrs. Trugood’s hearing is . . . extraordinary to say the least.” He held the door open and stood to the side. “Please come in, and welcome to my home.”
“Thank you,” she said, stepping over the threshold. “And you can call me Sugar. Everybody does.” She paused just inside the door and gasped in astonishment. “Why, this is beautiful! It looks like it ought to be in one of those magazines about architecture. I’m sorry to say it, but you just don’t expect a bachelor man to keep house this nice.”
Millard looked like he wanted to laugh, but instead he said, “I take that as a great compliment. Would you like a glass of tea or perhaps a cup of coffee?”
Sugar’s eyes lit up. “If you have the coffee pot on, I’d love a cup.”
“I do,” he said. “Please make yourself at home. I’ll be right back.”
He walked out of the room leaving Sugar to inspect her surroundings with interest. It was clear from the room’s decor that Philpott was an educated man. Books filled all the shelves, the real kind with elegant leather spines and gold embossed titles. Something told Sugar that there wasn’t a single Reader’s Digest condensed edition anywhere in the place.
One shelf in particular caught her attention. It was filled with books on growing orchids and there was a framed photograph of a group of men and women standing beside an exquisite display of exotic plants, some displaying blue ribbons. From behind her Millard said, “That was taken at the first World Orchid Conference in 1954 in St. Louis, Missouri.”
Sugar turned around as Millard put a silver tray down on the table. The tray held a complete coffee service and a plate of lovely little iced cakes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be nosy.”
“You’re not,” he said congenially. “As I was preparing our coffee, it occurred to me that you are likely here in regard to the orchid I placed on Hilton’s casket. What do you take in your coffee?”
Sugar walked over and sat down on the sofa. “Black is fine, thank you,” she said, somewhat at a loss of how to move the conversation forward. Fortunately, Millard saved her the trouble.
As he poured a stream of coffee expertly into her cup, he said, “I am a member of the American Orchid Society. Three years ago I was part of the Committee for Endangered Species and did work cataloging orchids native to the Big Thicket in East Texas.”
“Orchids grow wild in Texas?” Sugar said, accepting the china cup he held out to her on a proper saucer. “I thought orchids grew in the rain forest down in South America.”
“Oh, they do,” Millard said, serving his own coffee and sitting down in an armchair across from Sugar. “But there are 54 species of wild orchids in Texas. Of those, 36 species are found in the woodlands of East Texas. In the United States proper, there are 200 species of wild orchids. Our native orchids grow in soil, you see. The ones in the tropical rain forests are attached to trees and rocks.”
“I didn’t know that,” Sugar said, reaching for one of the little cakes. She bit into the pastry and raised her eyebrows in surprise when the buttery icing rolled over her tongue in a smooth, rich wave. She swallowed with appreciation and said, “You did not get these down at the bakery.”
Millard laughed. “I confess I did not. I find Myra’s pastries a trifle heavy. I made these myself from my great-grandmother’s recipe. But you did not come here today to talk about botany and baking. What may I do for you, Sugar?”
Suddenly ashamed of herself for no reason she could quite fathom, Sugar felt an uncharacteristic flush coloring her features. “Well, you see, Wanda Jean is a member of the Study Club,” she said, “and we . . . the officers . . . well, we’re trying to help her prove she didn’t kill Hilton. And this morning at the funeral . . . when . . . it’s just that the flower . . . ”
“Are you trying to ask me if I am a homosexual?” Millard asked calmly.
Sugar, who at just that moment was swallowing another bite of cake, choked and coughed until tears filled her eyes. Millard, with an alarmed expression said, “Oh, my. I am so sorry.” He started to rise out of his chair, but Sugar waved him back down, clearing her throat and taking a soothing sip of hot coffee.
When she could speak again, she said, “I didn’t think you’d just come right out with it like that. Using the right word and everything.”
“It is a question that has been put to me before,” Millard explained. “I’m very sorry I startled you so badly. I forget sometimes that these things are not spoken aloud down here. And for the record, no, I am not a homosexual, nor was Hilton Milton to my certain knowledge.”
“You’re not one of . . . those?” Sugar said, arching her e
yebrows.
“No,” Millard said with a bemused expression. “But I do understand that a man of my age, living alone, keeping an immaculate home, growing orchids, baking tea cakes, and espousing liberal political views is a figure of some suspicion in our fair community.”
“That’s a pretty big ole understatement,” Sugar said. “You do understand some of that is kind of taking your life in your own hands?”
“I do,” Millard said. “And other than openly campaigning for the Kennedy brothers, which I did because I think all political positions should be represented in a community and no matter that in Texas, liberalism is, frankly, as dead as the Confederacy, I do have a reputation for minding my own business.”
“Don’t let anybody hear you say that about the Confederacy,” Sugar warned. “And it’s true, you do stay off by yourself.”
“I am something of a recluse,” Millard admitted. “And my profession as a freelance editor allows me to work comfortably from my own home. I prefer the company of my flowers and my books over that of my fellow man for the most part. Of that bit of misanthropy, I am admittedly guilty.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, Millard,” Sugar said, “how in the hell did you wind up in a little podunk town in the middle of Texas?”
“Sugar,” he said smiling, “can you possibly imagine where a man like me who wants to be left alone could possibly be more likely to get his wish than a little podunk town in the middle of Texas? So long as I do not cause any trouble, people give me a wide berth.”
Sugar frowned, “If you want folks to leave you alone, then why in the hell did you come to the cemetery and put an orchid tied up with a purple ribbon on Hilton Milton’s casket?”
“Because that was his orchid,” Millard answered sadly, “or at least a single bloom from one of his orchids. I was teaching him the art of cultivating the exquisite blossoms that are my life’s passion. He has, or rather had, a workbench in my greenhouse. I sought his advice on an issue with aphids shortly after I moved here, and he was fascinated by my flowers. We became friends.”
You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) Page 10