Elvis and the Buried Brides (A Southern Cousins Mystery, plus bonus short story)

by Webb, Peggy

  The evening just took a nasty turn. But Lovie’s in the kitchens opening bags of chips and stirring up a cheese dip, so all is not lost. I stick close to Callie as she heads toward the kitchen. I don’t want to miss a minute of this girl talk. Besides, if a dangerous stranger thinks he can get past me, he’d better bring his best game. When I had two legs instead of four and got drafted into the Army and sent to Germany, I learned a thing or two about karate. I haven’t lost my touch either, even if they did strip me of my glamour and send me back in a dog suit.

  “I can’t get a hold of Mama.” Callie sinks into a kitchen chair, and I’m quick to put my handsome head on her knee.

  “Don’t worry. She’ll call.”

  “What if your poison pen pal decided to hurt her, too?”

  “He obviously left her alone, Cal. Aunt Ruby Nell called Fayrene. Remember?

  “Maybe I ought to drive your van down there and check on her.”

  “Sit tight a while, Cal, and quit worrying.” Lovie begins to load the table with chocolate bars, potato chips and cheese dip. “Let’s eat and then we can think straight.”

  Just to remind Lovie that yours truly is part of the party, I do a happy dance that makes my ears whirl and my humans laugh. She fills my bowl with a little something good, and then fills Hoyt’s bowl, too, and calls him to come on in. That silly spaniel comes moping in like he’s heading to the vet. I don’t know if he’s pouting because I’m Top Dog or if he’s too dumb to show his appreciation for forbidden snacks.

  Grab it while you can is my motto. As soon as Lovie leaves, it’ll be back to dog food and PupPeroni only for this handsome scent hound.

  I chow down while Lovie digs into the dip and my human mom picks at her food.

  “Lovie, you’ve got to try and remember which one of your old flames showed a criminal side.”

  This is like asking the CIA to reveal its secrets.

  “I was too busy checking out their romantic side.”

  “Since he knows I’m your cousin, and obviously knows where Mama lives, he must have dated you long enough to find out a good bit about the family. I’d say he was local, but Mama obviously didn’t recognize him.”

  “Aunt Ruby Nell gets around.”

  “Exactly my point. Who did you date from out of town, Lovie?”

  “There was a good-looking ski instructor at that cooking convention in Colorado. He had a hair-trigger temper.”

  “I meant close by, like Pontotoc or Saltillo. I don’t think somebody has come all the way from Colorado to reclaim you, Lovie. Besides, it’s somebody who knows you’re seeing Rocky.”

  “That sounds like somebody local to me.”

  “Me, too. But he’d have to be off Mama’s beaten path.”

  All they have to do is ask Ruby Nell. My radar ears picked up the engine in her Mustang convertible the minute she entered the neighborhood. When she knocks on the front door, Callie jumps like she’s seen her best dog turn back into a world-wide singing sensation.

  “Who could that be?” she says.

  Let me tell you, these humans could learn a few lessons from the canine world. Namely, use all your senses. Use it or lose it, I say. Which is why I howl a few bars of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” before I prance my intelligent self to the front door and sit there wagging my tail.

  Callie doesn’t get the song, but at least she knows a wagging dog tail means friend. Still, I’m proud of her for peering through the peephole first.

  “Mama,” she tells Lovie. “And Fayrene’s with her.”

  The door is no sooner open than Ruby Nell and Fayrene breeze through, talking a mile a minute.

  “Lord help us,” Fayrene says. “We’re all going to be dead in our beds if we don’t call the highway control.”

  “Flitter, Fayrene. I haven’t seen a man Lovie can’t handle. Still, this note is driving me to smoke.” Ruby Nell whips a cigarette holder that looks like it belonged to a movie star from the thirties.

  “Mama, don’t you dare light up in my house. You know I can’t abide smoking. And besides, it’s awful for a fetus.”

  “You’re pregnant! For Pete’s sake, why didn’t you tell me?” Ruby Nell stuffs her cigarette holder back in her purse and hands Fayrene a white envelope. The flap’s already ripped open, which doesn’t surprise me a bit. Ruby Nell is always snooping into Callie’s mail at Hair.Net. “Here, Fayrene, if Callie reads this she might miscarry.”

  “Holy cow, Mama. I’m not pregnant. And if you’ll care to remember, I’ve asked you not to read my mail.”

  “It’s not mail,” Fayrene says. “It’s a valentine from that Iris man I told you about.”

  Lovie says a word that would kill fleas, and then she grabs the note and reads it aloud.

  “Callie, your cousin is the love of my life, and I will never let her go. But this is between me and Lovie. If you think four slit tires was bad, wait till you see what I can do to a foolish old woman down on the farm.”

  If that’s a valentine, I’m a Pomeranian. It looks like this is going to be a case for ECDL. In case you don’t know, that’s Elvis and Company, Detectives at Large.

  Chapter Four

  Valentines, Man Traps and Pistol Packing Mama

  Holy cow! I don’t know how Fayrene can call this a valentine. Maybe it’s because the deranged lover has once again decorated his letter with little red hearts. Or maybe it’s because he declared undying love for my cousin.

  This latest note is enough to make me view the situation in a different light. I might overlook slit tires as going a bit over the top, but there’s no way I can ignore the threat to my mama. We’re no longer dealing with a simple jilted lover; we’re dealing with a nut-case who has every intention of harming my family.

  “Mama, you can’t go back to the farm until this man is behind bars.”

  “Flitter! The day I can’t handle a dried-up little fart like that man, is the day I’ll be eight feet under, pushing roses.”

  I don’t bother to tell Mama the correct term is six feet under and daisy is the usual flower of choice. Knowing her, she’ll leave instructions with Uncle Charlie over at Eternal Rest to bury her deeper than anybody else, and then tell me that if I don’t keep her grave covered with roses she’ll be back to haunt Hair.Net.

  Still, I’m more interested in her description of the man who left the note.

  “Tell us about the man who left you the note, Mama. Did you know him?”

  “I thought I’d seen him somewhere before, maybe at one of my Fourth of July barbecues on the farm. You know everybody in Lee County and beyond comes, and half of them, I don’t even know.”

  “What did he look like, Aunt Ruby Nell?”

  “About five feet eight, not much taller than I am. Blond with a skinny butt and a scraggly mustache he kept twirling like a villain on Turner Classic Movies.”

  “You said he spoke with a foreign accent, Ruby Nell,” Fayrene reminds her.

  “He kept calling me Senora, but if he’s Spanish I’m a thirty-year-old bombshell.”

  “Does that ring any bells, Lovie?” I ask.

  “He sounds ugly as sin. I like my men big and brawny and sexy.”

  “Like Rocky Malone.” I never miss an opportunity to remind Lovie that Rocky is the best person she’s ever dated, and it’s time for her to stop thinking of her dates in the plural.

  “He didn’t look like Lovie’s type,” Mama says, then plops down on the sofa and digs some Juicy Fruit chewing gum out of a big old straw purse that’s out of season.

  “Maybe he never dated her,” Fayrene says as she plops down beside Mama. “Maybe he’s like Rock Hudson in that movie, ‘Magnificent Recession.’ You know, he’s just filled with fertile longing.”

  “Fayrene has a point, Lovie,” I tell her, but she’s racing toward the kitchen.

  I know good and well she’s going back there before she bursts out in giggles. As for me, I’m too worried to even crack at smile at Fayrene’s latest slaughter of the English langua
ge.

  Suddenly, Elvis’ hackles go up and he runs to the front then stands there growling deep in his throat. I don’t know how dogs do that, know whether there is friend or foe on the front porch without ever seeing them.

  Mama starts to speak and I shush her with a finger to my lips then tiptoe to the front door and peer through the peephole. There’s nothing out there except a wide expanse of empty front porch. Elvis has stopped growling, but his hackles are still up. I’m not about to open this door.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mama digging around in her purse. Suddenly, she pulls out a gun, and I nearly faint.

  “Holy cow, Mama! What are you doing with a gun in your purse?”

  “I didn’t roll off a watermelon truck. Do you think I’d read a note like that and then sashay off up here without packing some heat?”

  “Since when have you started packing heat?”

  “That’s my business, Cal. Just stand back from the door and let me shoot his balls off.”

  “You can’t shoot through my door, Mama. What if you hit somebody?”

  “I’d be a mighty poor excuse of a sharp shooter if I didn’t!”

  Suddenly, Lovie is standing in the doorway with a tray of food, saying a string of words that could get us all banned from Glory Land.

  “What’s going on here, Cal?” she says.

  I give her a brief recap, and she says another word that would remove all body hair.

  Mama is still hanging onto her gun.

  “If you’ll stand aside, Callie, I’ll teach that cowardly rat a lesson he won’t forget.”

  “Good grief, Mama. Is that thing loaded?”

  To my dismay, my pistol-packing mama tells me that the gun is not only loaded, but she’s toting spare ammunition.

  “Put that thing away, Aunt Ruby Nell.” Lovie says, and wonder of wonders, she does. “You and Fayrene sit tight while Callie and I investigate.”

  “Since when am I going out into the dark to investigate somebody who got Elvis’ hackles up?”

  “Since I said so, Cal. Now haul butt. I have no intention of waiting around here like a sitting duck till the boogey man is in the house with us.”

  That gets my attention fast. Lovie and I open the front door, look both ways, and ease onto the front porch. But not before she grabs her baseball bat and I grab a commode plunger.

  “ ‘High Noon,’ “ she says.

  “What do you mean, ‘ High Noon? ‘ “

  “For Pete’s sake, Callie. Just put your back to mine so we don’t get ambushed.”

  “I think that’s the wrong movie.”

  “Hush up and keep your eyes open.”

  With our backs pressed together, we sidestep onto my old brick floors. The gardenia bush on the east side of the porch rustles and I jump two feet.

  “What is it?” Lovie whispers.

  I peer in the direction of the bush, but there is nothing to be seen, not even a shaking leaf.

  “Nothing.”

  “Then quit being so jumpy. You’re scaring the snot out of me.”

  “If you’ll care to remember, Lovie, this is your lover who is sending poison pen letters.”

  “He’s no lover of mine,” she yells. “If he were, he’d have the balls to show his face.”

  “Holy cow, Lovie. What are you screeching about?”

  “Shh, Cal. Listen.”

  We both lean into the night, but all we hear is the wind moaning around the eaves.

  My cousin heaves a big sigh. “I thought I could provoke him into showing himself.”

  “And then what?”

  “I can convince anybody of just about anything with my baseball bat and a Come to Jesus meeting.”

  Lovie is right. What she can’t accomplish with charm, she can take care of with a little talk that can get you so confused you don’t even know your own name. You’ll admit to anything just to get her to shut up.

  We wait on the porch a while, and finally give up. Whoever this man is, he’s a coward of the first degree, trying to get his way with intimidation and threats.

  “He’s too lily livered to show his face, Lovie,” I shout, and then we turn around and give each other the high five. “Let’s go back inside.”

  We head toward the door, and Lovie stops to fast I smack into her back.

  “Lovie, what the heck?”

  She points to another white envelope, lying in the seat of the rocking chair beside my glass-topped table. Sucking up the shivers that suddenly come over me, I snatch up the envelope and dash back inside with Lovie right behind me.

  Mama and Fayrene stare, bug-eyed, at the envelope.

  “You mean that son-of-a-gun was out there and you didn’t let me shoot him?” Mama’s waves her arms around like a crazy woman. Thank goodness, she’s no longer holding a gun.

  “What does it say?” Fayrene asks, and I open Lovie’s latest message from her cruel valentine.

  This letter has the usual red hearts decorating the border. In addition, it has pink cupids shooting arrows all across the bottom of the page.

  “Dearest darling Lovie,

  I know you want to be with me as much as I long to hold you in my arms. If you’ll leave that bunch of cackling hens...”

  “Cackling hens? Who does he think he is?” Mama’s so mad, she’s sputtering, and Fayrene is not much better. Her face has blanched a pale green that’s almost the color of the pants suit she’s wearing.

  “We need to sacrifice a chicken, Ruby Nell.”

  Holy cow, not the chickens again! Mama and Fayrene went half-way native after they attended that undertakers’ convention with Uncle Charlie in Cozumel. I never know when they will decide a small, everyday crisis is cause for chicken feathers, sacrifices and chicken blood spread across the threshold.

  “Shh,” Lovie says. “Let Callie finish reading.”

  “If you’ll leave that bunch of cackling hens and meet me at your house for a night of magical wonders, I’m willing to forget how they tried to keep us apart. If I don’t see you in your van, leaving that house by midnight, I will exact a revenge so horrible that you will faint at the mere sound of my name.

  Forever Your Honey Bunny”

  Everybody in the room stares at each other, speechless. For once, even Lovie is at a loss for words.

  Chapter Five

  Cackling Hens, Half-baked Plans, and One Surprised Dude

  We’re all still hovering in a tight little circle, staring at the offensive letter. I consider it a tribute to my resilience and unflappable nature that I’m the first to recover.

  “That does it. Everybody is spending the night here.” There is a general hubbub as Fayrene and Mama start talking about night gowns and sleeping arrangements. “I have plenty of night shirts for everybody, and we’re all sleeping upstairs,” I tell them. “That way we’re all together, and if he breaks and enters downstairs, we’ll have time to put our plan in action.”

  “What plan?” Lovie asks.

  “Whatever you can come up with, Lovie.”

  “Weapons,” Mama says, and I picture her shooting up everything in my house.

  “We are not going to use lethal weapons, Mama. Somebody is liable to get killed.”

  “Ha!” she says, but I choose to ignore her.

  “I have it!” We all turn to look at Fayrene. “We’ll set up the downstairs like that little boy in that movie, Home Alone. If that crazy lover tries to break in, he’s going to be knee deep in deadless traps.”

  “That’s a really wonderful idea, Fayrene,” Mama says. “Callie, do you have any rat traps? And maybe some hot tar and boiling oil.”

  “Good grief, Mama!”

  I have a sudden horrible vision of Jack Jones returning home in the dead of night, without notice, which is the way a Company man does things, and then ending up covered in hot tar with his feet in a rat trap. I don’t even want to think what he would do.

  “We can’t even think straight without snacks.” My cousin goes to the kitchen and c
omes back with an armload of junk food.

  “Holy cow, Lovie! That’s enough to feed everybody on the Titanic.”

  “Hush up and eat, Callie. Nobody’s going down with this ship.”

  We spend the next two hours forming a half-baked plan and putting it into action. I don’t claim to have a psychic eye like Bobby Huckabee, but I do have a very strong intuition. Let me tell you, the way my stomach is churning, I figure that before the night is over everyone of us will end up in jail. Or maybe I just ate too much buttered popcorn.

  ~*~

  A loud crash jerks me out of sleep. While I grab a hold of Lovie, who is sleeping with her baseball bat on the other side of my bed, Elvis bolts off his guitar shaped silk pillow and down the stairs.

  “He’s in the kitchen, Lovie.”

  “What?” She sits up, groggy, and begins to grope around for her bat. I could kill her. I told her not to eat so much fudge.

  “He came through the back door, Lovie.” I know because we’d set a barrier of pots and pans at the back. We shoved the sofa against the front door. “Hurry.”

  I grab my weapon of choice, a can of hairspray for each hand, and crash into Fayrene, who is coming out of the guest bedroom across the hall. She’s in my nightshirt that says “Ride a Cowboy, Save a Horse,” and she’s wielding a mop.

  “Is Mama awake?”

  “How could she sleep in all this promotion?”

  It sounds like World War III downstairs. Elvis is barking, pots and pans are still rattling, and the intruder is saying words even Lovie doesn’t know. And speaking of the half-awake, where is she?

  I hear more cursing and footsteps heading this way.

  “Come on, Fayrene. We don’t have time to wait.”

  We hustle down the stairs just at as he intruder emerges from the kitchen. I nearly wet my pants. His face is covered with a stocking and Elvis is hanging onto his pants legs.

  The only good thing I can say about him is that his hands appear to be empty.