Elvis and the Grateful Dead

by Peggy Webb

  I’ve gone only half a dozen yards when Lovie catches up. I knew she would. We’ve been a team since Lovie beat the tar out of Johnny Lipscomb in the sandbox in Ballard Park for stealing my pail. She was four, I was three.

  “I’m going to sue somebody if I fall,” she says.

  “You’re not going to fall. I’ll go first.”

  I know I sound brave, but believe me, if healthy thirty-seven-year-olds could have heart attacks from fright, I’d already be dead. To say this tree is spindly is putting it mildly. These branches look like they wouldn’t hold a squirrel, let alone a hairstylist with a harebrained scheme and a hundred-and-ninety-pound bombshell. In addition, they’re slick with rain.

  Not to mention that Jack has probably already picked up my scent and is getting ready to do no telling what.

  “Let’s just go home, Callie, and forget it.”

  I almost take her advice. But I’m no quitter. “Shh. We have to be quiet.” In the dead of night in this heavy humidity, there’s no telling how far our voices carry.

  Reaching for a limb, I swing myself upward. My foot slips and I can see the headlines: Death by Tree.

  Silently calling on every deity I know and a few I don’t, I hang on. “Come on up,” I whisper. “It’s fine.”

  Lovie is more athletic than she looks. Though I’m taller and skinnier, she can outrun me by two lengths. And growing up on the farm, she could always outclimb me.

  Tonight she proves she still has what it takes to conquer a tree. In spite of rain, fear, and excess baggage, we gain the uppermost branches, then sit there with the tree swaying.

  “Which window?” she whispers.

  From this perspective, I have no idea. But I’m not about to tell Lovie. She’d say a word that would wake everybody in Magnolia Manor.

  “We’re right under it.” Of course, I could be wrong.

  I swing my leg over the balcony rail and hear a tiny clunk.

  “What was that?” Lovie whispers.

  “My car keys.” Hitting the ground.

  She says a word that perfectly expresses my feelings. I wish it was in my vocabulary.

  There’s no time to climb back down and search for keys. Besides, who’s going to find them? Lovie and I are the only ones breaking and entering in the middle in a rainstorm. Well, it’s not actually a storm, but it’s getting worse.

  I haul myself over the railing, then reach out to help Lovie. The wrought iron creaks alarmingly.

  “Quick, Lovie.”

  Before we fall, is what I’m thinking, but she’s through the window before I can even finish the thought. I follow, then stand there letting my eyes adjust to the dark.

  Suddenly somebody or something moans. Lovie and I grab each other and freeze.

  “What’s that?” she whispers.

  “A cat?”

  The scream we hear next is no cat. It’s a woman. And judging by the sound, she’s being murdered.

  The only good thing I can say is that we’re not in Jack’s apartment.

  Elvis’ Opinion #3 on Cocker Spaniels, Sleeping Arrangements, and Rat Poison

  You’d think after all the excitement around here, a dog could get a decent night’s sleep. But no. I’m having to put up with that upstart cocker spaniel. Just because Callie bought him a personalized doggie bed, he thinks he owns the bedroom.

  Don’t think I didn’t see him nosing it around the end of Callie’s bed trying to get on my side. Next thing you know he’ll be trying to claim credit for my recording career. That’ll be all she wrote.

  With my sophistication and savoir faire, I may look like I breezed to success on the back of somebody’s rich coattails, but let me tell you, I’m a dog who learned the hard way. While I was a skinny teenager gyrating and singing “Keep Your Hands off of It” at the government housing project in Memphis, Tennessee (Lauderdale Courts to be exact), I was learning to back up my actions with my fists.

  I may be a tad paunchy now (if I don’t suck my stomach in), but I can still put Hoyt six feet under.

  I get off my private pillow (guitar shaped and embroidered with my name and a TCB thunderbolt, thank you, thank you very much), prance my ample butt around the corner of the footboard, and growl like I mean business. Hoyt gives me this dumb cocker spaniel look, then tries to lick my face. He’d better learn he’s dealing with a King who grew up the hard way.

  And if fisticuffs fail, there’s always Ruby Nell’s rat poison.

  Speaking of which, I wonder if that’s what somebody used to knock off the two impersonators. After those sorry performances over in Tupelo, I’d have done it myself if I could have found an escape hole in the fence and Ruby Nell’s stash.

  If I didn’t know her so well, I’d say she killed them. Callie’s mama does not suffer fools, and anybody who puts on my signature jumpsuit and then slaughters my songs falls into that category.

  Anyhow, the rhinestone hairpin I found is not Ruby Nell’s style.

  Okay, so I let Callie think she found it. Listen, anybody suffering a broken heart and a near-terminal case of worry needs all the affirmation she can get. Since Jack left it’s a full-time job around here.

  She puts on a good front and everybody thinks she’s this naturally cheerful spirit, but I can smell blues a mile. I know what I know. A dog’s sacred duty is to make sure his human mom feels well loved and understands her own worth.

  I excel at these things.

  Just as Ruby Nell excels at never growing old. And why should she? Unless, of course, she could be reincarnated as a basset hound.

  Chapter 5

  Sex, Valium, and the Big Bad Wolf

  “Let’s get out of here.” Lovie inches toward the window and I’m right behind her. Two murders in one day are enough.

  “Bill, did you hear something?” It’s a woman’s voice coming from behind a closed door.

  “What’d you say, Gertrude?”

  “I said somebody’s out there.”

  The door pops open and Lovie and I scuttle behind a damask drapery. But not before I get a good look at Bill and Gertrude. If they’re dressed for murder, I’m Jack the Ripper.

  In wire-rim glasses and nightcap (Gertrude) and a mask with wicked fangs and a rubber snout (Bill), they make an unforgettable Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf. Unforgettable because they’re naked as boiled eggs—and judging by the evidence, at least eighty-five.

  Geriatric sex just took on a whole new meaning.

  Lovie’s choking with suppressed laughter and I poke her in the ribs. All we need is to be discovered behind the draperies and pressed into service as Little Red Riding Hood.

  “I don’t see anybody, Gertrude.”

  “You didn’t look, you old fool.”

  “I’m too busy looking at you. Come here, Grandma.” It sounds like he’s chasing her around the room. “Tell me what big teeth I have.”

  There’s a thump, then silence. They’ve either landed in a heap or keeled over dead from excitement.

  “What’s happening?” Lovie whispers.

  I peer around the curtain and see Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf on the sofa doing things I’m too embarrassed to talk about. Ducking back, I stir up dust and a huge sneeze. That’s all I need.

  I pinch my nose to hold it back. Do sneezes implode and blow people’s brains out?

  “Ohhh,” Gertrude is saying. “Big Bad Wolfie, what big teeth you have.”

  “The better to eat you with.”

  There’s a little pause, then that scream again. Only this time I know it’s not murder. Plus, it covers the sneeze I can no longer hold in.

  “Now what?” Lovie whispers.

  “We wait them out.”

  I think about shoes. Any kind of shoes so long as they’re designer, so long as they take my mind off the sounds of Grandma and the Big Bad Wolf. I’m lusting over a pair of Franco Sarto suede ankle boots I saw at the hairdressers’ convention in Atlanta last week when I hear the bedroom door close.

  I guess it’s the bedroom door. Wh
ere else would they be going this time of night?

  Lovie starts toward the window, but I catch her arm and drag her back. We can’t risk showing ourselves until we’re sure the naughty geriatrics have turned in for the night.

  We wait five of the longest minutes in eternity, then hightail it toward the window and freedom.

  “That was close.” Lovie leans against the railing and the balcony lists like the bow of a ship in a heavy storm. “What are we going to do now, Callie?”

  “Regroup.”

  It’s raining harder. Most people would give up and go home, but not us. Lovie and I pride ourselves on being different. When everybody else is going left we go right.

  My strong streak of independence (Jack calls it stubbornness) comes from Mama. She says people who always follow the crowd are lemmings—those little creatures who follow the herd over the cliffs and to their deaths rather than risk behavior that sets them apart.

  The only thing Lovie and I have ever been traditional about is weddings and babies. We believe in church christenings and church weddings (for all the good that did me). But I’m sticking by my beliefs, no matter what.

  I climb back into the tree and when Lovie joins me, it shakes like a twig in a monsoon. Grabbing the tree trunk, I hang on.

  “Which window?” she asks. “Right or left?”

  It’s like asking which door hides the prizes. Jack’s in one, Bertha’s in the other. Choose correctly and you get the prize. Choose wrong and you get the consequences. In this case, an almost-ex who may or may not be home…and in a forgiving, nonnosy mood.

  “Let’s use the scientific method and find out,” I tell Lovie.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “Holy cow! I’m in a tree.”

  “Well, so am I.”

  In a huff and getting soaked, I try to figure out how I can blame all this on Jack, but my generous nature prevails. Being up a tree is my own fault. I should have ignored the crime scene tape and minded my own business. I should have climbed into my bed with my two faithful doggie companions keeping watch and let the law handle murder.

  “At least I’m not mooning half of Las Vegas,” Lovies says, reminding me of our Bubbles Caper. We both laugh so hard we nearly fall out of our precarious perch.

  Our good humor and resolve restored, Lovie starts saying, “Eenie, meanie,” and I join in with “Minie, moe.”

  By clever deduction we pinpoint the window on our left as Bertha’s, and I head that way. Sort of. Getting onto a slick balcony from a tree that is slightly off center presents logistical problems.

  “Step on my branch, Lovie, and see if the tree will lean far enough so I can get a foothold on the balcony.”

  “Why don’t I just shimmy down the trunk, uproot the tree, and move it over three feet?”

  “That would work.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  She stomps down on my limb and I fly through the air with the greatest of ease. If I didn’t have the body of an athlete and the tenacity of Elvis insisting he’s an international icon, I’d be flattened on the pavement. Instead, I grab the railing on the upswing and vault over the side on the downswing.

  “You’d better stay in the tree, Lovie. I don’t think you can make it.”

  Saying a word that jeopardizes her chances of prissing through the Pearly Gates, she gets on all fours and wobbles along the limb.

  “Give me a hand, Callie.”

  While I try to maneuver her across five feet of empty space, I petition Mother Earth, Buddha, and the spirit of the late, great Karl Wallenda. Flying acrobat.

  Getting Lovie onto the balcony will be a miracle on the order of the parting of the Red Sea. While I tug, Mother Nature provides the sounds effects. Crashing thunder and lightning bolts followed by a monsoon.

  “Pull, Callie.”

  “I’m pulling.”

  We crash backward onto the balcony. If that didn’t wake Bertha, she’s dead. Which would be just our luck.

  Still, heedless of the deluge and the possibility of getting struck down before my eggs ever have a chance to be fertilized, I sit on the balcony and count my blessings.

  “Am I alive?” Lovie asks.

  “Yes, am I?”

  “You bet your sweet patootie.” Lovie stands up, wrings water out of her shirt, and puts on her gloves (another little trick she learned from “Slick Fingers” Johnson, the black-sheep cousin Jarvetis never claims). “As soon as we get in there and crack this case, I’m going out the front door. I don’t care what Bertha’s doing.”

  It turns out the new widow’s asleep with a night-light glowing beside her bed and an open bottle of Valium on her nightstand. That would explain her sleeping through the noisiest breaking and entering since Fayrene set pots and pans at the entrance of Gas, Grits, and Guts to catch the lawless sportsman who was stealing her fish bait.

  “I guess we don’t have to be quiet.” Leaving a trail of wet footprints on the baby-blue carpet that doesn’t match another single thing in the room, Lovie stomps over to Bertha’s dressing table and proceeds to sack and pillage.

  Meanwhile, I grab the stack of mail on her bedside table and check it by the night-light. You never know. Maybe Bertha’s been corresponding with hit men.

  There’s nothing of interest here. Just an overdue light bill and a recent bill from Deb’s Deep Discounts, a place that sells shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in. What did I expect from somebody with her lack of fashion sense?

  “Look what we have here.” Lovie tromps over and holds out a rhinestone hairpin. “See, it has the same daisy design as the one behind your tea olive.”

  If it’s not an exact match it’s close enough to fool me. And I’m an expert on fashion and beauty. Still…

  “That’s not proof she killed Dick. Or was hiding behind my tea olive.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the only one on her dresser. Which means she lost the other one somewhere. It’s evidence.” Lovie pockets the hairpin.

  “It’s a start,” I say. “Keep looking.”

  Bertha moans and we jump like the guilty. Peering over Lovie’s shoulder, I hold my breath till she settles back into her pillows and resumes snoring.

  She could use a good haircut. If I weren’t in her apartment illegally, I’d leave a business card.

  When I’m certain she’s down for the count, I whisper to Lovie, “You search the drawers, I’ll take the closet.”

  I don’t know what I expect to find. I’m still new at skullduggery. But since the Bubbles Caper, Lovie and I have started watching detective shows. TV killers keep evidence of their crimes—I guess to prove how powerful they are.

  I can reach the top shelf of Bertha’s closet without a step stool. The usual suspects are there—purses, scarves, gloves. I can tell you one thing: Bertha Gerard could use a personal shopper. Nothing matches. And it’s all jumbled in a heap. I ram my arm under the untidy mess, reach as far back as I can, and pull out a small, spiral-bound book.

  Kneeling beside the night-light, I realize I’ve just hit pay dirt. Keeping my voice low, I call Lovie.

  She hurries over and squats beside me. “What is it?”

  “Bertha’s diary.”

  Thumbing through, I catch glimpses of her life. Trips to the dentist, fried green tomatoes at Romie’s Grocery, a broken toe playing tennis. The daily minutia that makes up her life. I feel like a Peeping Tom.

  I’m about to put it back when I see an entry that could crack this case wide open.

  “Lovie, listen to this. Jilted lovers who are jealous because I have Dick. Leonora M., Josie K., Lovie V.”

  “Let me see that.” Lovie snatches the diary. “It’s all a pack of lies. Leonara M. is bound to be Leonora Moffett, and she’s never been jilted in her life. She does the ditching.”

  “Who do you think Josie K. is?”

  “You remember Josephine Kessler who moved here from Memphis two years ago and stayed only four months?”

  “The one with the bad bleach job?”

>   “That’s the one. She had an affair with Dick, but she didn’t give a flip about him.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I catered her sister Abby’s wedding reception. People talk.”

  Bertha gives a big snort and we freeze. She turns over, fumbles on the bedside table, and knocks off the plastic bottle of valium. It rolls across the carpet and lands at my feet. I see my future unfold—hairdresser to female prisoners.

  If I get out of here without being arrested, I swear to Bloomingdale’s I’ll never play detective again.

  Maybe that’s going too far. My family might need me. I’ll grab the evidence and run, that’s what I’ll do. I won’t stand over somebody’s bed and carry on a whole conversation.

  Two lifetimes later Bertha gurgles, her hand flops off the table, and she settles back into heavy snoring. Somebody up there likes me.

  Adding stealing to our growing list of crimes, Lovie pockets the diary with my hundred percent blessing. No sense leaving incriminating evidence behind even if it is a deliberate, calculated falsehood.

  We tiptoe out of the bedroom and she nods toward the door.

  “Car keys,” I whisper, motioning her to go on. What I’m really thinking is Jack. It would be just like him to divine my presence and waylay me in the hall.

  I wait till Lovie’s out of the door before I climb through the window. Thank goodness, the monsoon has stopped. A few stars are even peeping out.

  With every nerve I have shredded, I don’t have enough resolve left to play Tarzan swinging through the jungle in a rainstorm. If I get off this balcony alive, I swear to give up sex.

  But only with Jack.

  I reach as far as my long arms will allow, grab the end of a branch, and pull it toward the balcony. Sending petitions to the god of second chances, I vault into the tree, then hang there, clinging to the trunk and trying to breathe.

  What’s that sound? I lean down as far as I dare, listening.

  If somebody besides Lovie is under this tree, I’m up to my wet T-shirt in trouble.

  Chapter 6