by Peggy Webb
By the time I get to the farm, it’s pouring.
My hair’s the good, thick straight kind I could put through a typhoon and it would still fall back into place. I don’t have to worry about makeup, either. With my brown eyes and olive skin I could go without a smidge and you’d hardly notice. It’s my Juicy Couture sandals with the turquoise and rhinestone straps I’m worried about.
I kick them off in the truck, then race into Mama’s brick bungalow barefoot.
“I doubled your money.” Mama hands me a towel to dry off. “But the roulette wheel double-crossed me.”
“Which means you lost my money.”
“Well, not all of it.”
She fishes in her purse and hands me ten dollars, which I won’t even dignify with a comment. Instead I tell her about Elvis’ disappearance.
“I thought I saw him a little while ago,” she says. “I went out back to pick some fresh basil for soup and I thought that was Elvis and another dog streaking across the pasture.”
I jump up and rummage in Mama’s closet till I find her raincoat and boots.
“Where are you going?”
“To see if that was my dog.”
“You’ll catch cold and die of double pneumonia, and I don’t even have any more Italian marble monuments.”
“Good grief, Mama.”
Thank goodness the rain has slacked. I slosh across the pasture yelling, “Elvis. Come here, boy.”
“He ain’t here.”
Holy cow! At first I think I’m looking at an apparition, and then I realize it’s a strange man wearing a black slicker and rain hat and carrying a fishing pole. He looks shady to me.
I’m torn between running and asking how he knows my dog. Elvis wins.
“You’ve seen Elvis?” I ask.
“No, but my wife did. Over at the Piggly Wiggly in Fulton. She said he’d lost about fifty pounds and was wearing one of them tight blue suits with all them rhinestones on it. Of course, you might not want to believe her. She’s gone mental.”
Maybe he has, too, and maybe I’m fixing to stand here and get my throat cut. What’s he doing in Mama’s pasture, anyhow?
“You’re on Valentine property.”
“Yep, I knew your daddy. He used to let me come here all the time. I guess you don’t remember.”
He’s right about that. But I do remember that Daddy would never say no when a stranger showed up on the farm with his fishing pole and a yen to try for the catfish bottom-feeding in our two-acre lake.
“You’re fishing?”
“Yep. Fish bite in weather like this. Hope you don’t mind. Name’s Buck Witherspoon.”
“You’d better take that up with Uncle Charlie. Charles Sebastian Valentine. He’s listed in the phone book.”
When he leaves I make a mental note to ask Uncle Charlie about him. I believe in fate, not coincidence. You never can tell who might want to steal a body. Maybe he’s checking to see what else he can steal from the Valentines.
Mama would call my encounter in the pasture a brush with death, but I’m not about to tell her and give her one more reason to tell me I should go back to Jack Jones.
“For protection,” she’d say. I know her like a book.
She has hot soup and corn bread waiting, and we have a late lunch before I head back to the beauty parlor. On the way, my cell phone rings.
“I have news,” Lovie says. “Bubbles Malone checked into the Holiday Inn.”
“Great.”
“Not so great. She’s checked out. There’s no telling where she is now.”
“Las Vegas.” I tell her about Fayrene’s Bubble sighting at Gas, Grits, and Guts. “Fayrene even remembers the car she was driving. A ninety-eight Honda hatchback. With Nevada license plates.”
“That still doesn’t mean she’s on the lam with a stolen corpse.”
“I know, but why did she leave Tupelo in such a hurry? If she was close enough to inherit all his money, wouldn’t you think she’d want to stick around for the funeral?”
“Yeah, unless she’s afraid one of the disinherited will do her in. And how would she get a stiff in that little bitty car?”
Good grief. Now that we’re part-time sleuths (more or less), Lovie’s started talking like Humphrey Bogart doing film noir.
“Lovie, she’s the only lead we have.”
“I guess that means we’re taking a road trip out West.”
“Don’t mention Las Vegas to Mama or she’ll want to go. I can’t afford for her to lose another spin of the roulette wheel.”
“I’m very good at creative truth.”
Of course, this means I’m fixing to have to tell a few lies, myself, because how I can go off on a road trip when I have a house full of Latons who don’t know their daddy’s missing, a missing dog who thinks he’s a rock ’n’ roll legend, and an almost-ex who’s just itching for me to prove myself an unfit pet mother?
Chapter 4
Big City, Big Lies, Big Trouble
Expert sleuths would probably jump into their car and tail Bubbles across the Painted Desert, but Lovie and I are real women with business obligations and real lives (sort of). We have to make plans before we can leave town.
When I leave the beauty parlor I make another circuit of the neighborhood hoping to spot Elvis. No luck. I drag myself home in the rain feeling lower than a fattening hog on butchering day.
The Laton crew is not back at my house, but Jack Jones is. Sitting on my front porch swing bigger than sin. I can’t say, “Get off my property,” because he still owns it.
“Callie, I’m leaving town.”
“As if I want to know. Permanently, I hope.”
“You never could lie.”
“That’s not a lie. It’s wishful thinking.”
I don’t tell him I’m leaving town, too. It’s none of his business.
“I’ll be in the Black Hills.”
“Panning for gold?”
“Cute, Callie.”
All six delicious feet of him unfolds and I prime myself to be backed against the porch railing and seduced in plain view of the neighbors. Instead he rakes me close, gives me a black-eyed stare that nearly sets my hair on fire, then turns me loose so fast I don’t know whether I’ve been almost ravished or run over by a freight train.
“If I get started, I won’t stop.” He strides to his silver Jag and roars off into the sunset. Or what would be the sunset if it weren’t still raining cats and dogs.
Every dog, that is, except Elvis.
After I get my galloping libido under control and stick another Band-Aid on my patched-up heart, I take care of my temporary cats and short-term dog. (I only started collecting strays a year ago when Jack left, and I wonder what that tells me about myself.) Afterward I eat a pimento sandwich standing up, then go into my bedroom to decide what I’m going to take to Las Vegas.
Seized by sudden inspiration, I go into the guest bedroom and search through the Latons’ luggage. I don’t know what I expect to find. Daddy Laton stuffed in the Luis Vuitton?
If Janice catches me, I wonder if she can accuse me of trespassing and have me thrown in jail. Is it trespassing if you’re in your own house?
My cell phone rings and I nearly jump through the ceiling.
“You sound funny,” Lovie says. “What are you up to?”
“I’m up to my elbows in Janice Laton’s Victoria’s Secret underwear.”
“Is there something you haven’t told me?”
“Good grief, Lovie. I’m searching for clues.”
“Find anything?”
“I found out she wears size six.”
“Bikinis or full cut?”
“Full cut.”
“It figures. Listen, Callie, we’d better take my van so we’ll have a place to put the body.”
“It’ll fit in the back of my Dodge Ram.” I hate the way Lovie drives. As if every highway is the Talladega Speedway. “We’ll cover it with a tarp.”
“If we get caught in the middl
e of a summer hailstorm we’ll be hauling the doctor back in pieces. Besides, if we don’t tie him down right he’s liable to blow out somewhere in the desert and we’d never find him.”
A few days ago the most exciting thing in my life was finding Ferragamo shoes on sale. Now I’m discussing the best way to haul a corpse across a desert.
“All right, Lovie. We’ll take your van.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up after lunch tomorrow. I’m catering a bridesmaid’s brunch in the morning.”
“That works. I have to reschedule my appointments, talk to Mama about staying up here so the Latons won’t tear down my house, and see my lawyer.”
“About what?”
“I want to talk to him about taking out an ad to find Elvis.”
“Absolutely not,” Grover Grimsley says.
It’s 10:00 A.M., and I’m sitting in his office bleary-eyed from dreaming about being chased across the desert by corpses, while Janice and crew are sleeping off their ill tempers in my upstairs guest bedrooms. I heard them come in at one o’clock this morning.
“Why not?” I ask Grover. “I’m desperate to find Elvis.”
“It’s bad enough you called Jack and he knows Elvis vanished under your care. Still, it’s your word against his. An ad would provide him written proof you’re an unfit pet mother.”
“I am not.”
“I’m only playing devil’s advocate, Callie.”
He’s so good at being the devil he scared me. Now if he can just scare Jack Jones into signing divorce papers, I’ll be a free woman. Then I can celebrate. Or cry, which seems more likely at the moment.
“Have you found Bevvie Laton yet?” I ask.
“No. Apparently she’s left Africa. I hate to tell Charlie, but it looks as if the funeral’s on hold indefinitely.”
“I’ll tell him. I’m going over to the funeral home.”
When I get there, Mama’s on the second floor of Eternal Rest with Uncle Charlie, which is where he lives. Personally I think he’d be better off somewhere that didn’t have the deceased waiting around downstairs for their send-off to the hereafter, but that’s just me. I’d hate to think I couldn’t walk out of my house without having to pass through a fog of hair spray, styling mousse, and perm fumes.
It’s bad enough just being a celebrity. I can’t walk into Gas, Grits, and Guts without having somebody walk over and consult me about color and shampoo.
I walk in and sit on Uncle Charlie’s brown leather sofa in front of a wall of books that would be the envy of the Lee County Library.
“I was about to drown tromping around the monuments,” Mama says, “so I shut down for the day and brought Charlie some leftover soup.”
She’s in tangerine today. Head to toe. It’s not her color, but I’m not about to tell her. She doesn’t take criticism well, even when it’s constructive. Unless Uncle Charlie’s the one delivering it.
“If it weren’t for me,” she adds, “Charlie would eat nothing but peanut butter and crackers.”
Uncle Charlie winks at me. We both know this is not true. He’s a better cook than Mama, but he lets her feed him anyway because he knows she likes to be needed. He’s the one who told her not to sell the monument business after Daddy died because he knew she needed something to do.
“But, Charlie,” she told him. “I don’t know beans about running a business.”
“You’ll catch on, Ruby Nell,” he told her, and she did. It took her two years, and he was at her side every time she had a question.
Uncle Charlie is the rock of this family, always fixing what’s wrong. It feels good to be the one to deliver good news about the lead on the missing body and the lack of leads on Bevvie’s whereabouts.
“The bad news is, I’ll need Mama to stay with my houseguests and I haven’t found Elvis yet.”
“How long will I be in prison?” Trust Mama to put herself at the center.
“At least a week.”
That counts driving time to and from Vegas because we certainly don’t want to declare a missing corpse on an airplane. I keep this information to myself. If Mama got wind of our destination, she’d insist on going and we’d never get home. I’d have to become hairdresser to the stars.
I wonder if Wayne Newton is still alive. He could use a new hairdo.
“Don’t worry, dear heart. You find the body. Ruby Nell and I will find your dog.”
“You might want to ask Jack to go along on your trip, Callie,” Mama says.
“Why?”
“You might need his gun. Among other things.”
“This is just a missing corpse case, Mama, not murder.”
When I leave and Uncle Charlie walks me to my Dodge Ram, I tell him about seeing Buck Witherspoon on the farm.
“Don’t worry, dear heart. I’ll take care of him.”
Goodness gracious. That sounds clandestine to me. And slightly dangerous. I wouldn’t want to be in this Witherspoon character’s shoes.
When Uncle Charlie hugs me, he slips a wad of cash into my pocket. “For the trip. If you need more, let me know. You and Lovie be careful, dear heart.”
Does my uncle know something he’s not telling me? Maybe I ought to rethink Jack and his smoking pistol.
Armed with our suitcases and two cans of pepper spray (my idea, though I don’t know who I expect to use it on) plus a hamper filled with Diet Pepsis and enough junk food to feed a third world country (Lovie’s idea), we strike out at the stroke of one with the full intention of driving straight through to Vegas. We figure we can make it in thiry-four hours if we take turns behind the wheel.
Good intentions bite the dust in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We hole up in a Comfort Inn for a few hours, then hit the road at the crack of nine thirty the next morning.
In the middle of the night we drag into Vegas, pumped on caffeine and ready to take the city by storm. Vegas is a night city. Lights ablaze. Crowds thronging the casinos. Party-till-you-drop atmosphere.
We check into a cheap, no-tell motel on the edge of the Strip, and Lovie sprawls on the bed while I grab the phone book and start checking under the Ms.
“Good grief, Callie. What are you going to do if you find her? We can’t barge over there in the middle of the night.”
“I just want to see if she’s listed, that’s all. She has a head start. We can’t afford to dally.” I trace my finger down the list of Ms. “Shoot. She’s unlisted. We have work to do. Let’s go get ’em, tiger.”
We shuck our shorts for killer outfits, hail a cab (we’re both too tired to drive), then head into the city that never sleeps. Lovie looks like a firestorm in a flashy red sequined dress and rhinestone earrings as big as Arkansas, and I look about ten feet tall in a brand-new pair of stiletto-heeled, lizard-skin Enzo Angiolini sling-backs.
At Caesar’s Palace where Bubbles last worked, we split up at the roulette wheel and agree to meet there in two hours. I look across the sea of people and see nothing but bad haircuts and split ends.
If I’m ever going to find Dr. Laton’s corpse I’ve got to quit thinking like a hairstylist and start thinking like Humphrey Bogart doing Phillip Marlowe.
I pick out a distinguished-looking gray-haired couple who would have been old enough to afford show tickets around the time Bubbles was probably in her performing prime. Translation: before she started needing a forklift to hold up her breasts.
I head their way and prepare to exaggerate my drawl. A southern accent is a good ice breaker if you’re outside the Deep South.
“Hello, I wonder (pronounced wonnndah) if you nice folks could help me (he’p meee).”
They stare at me as if I’ve landed from another planet and plan to start eating senior citizens first.
“I’m (ahhh’m) from a little ole fan club in Dallas called FTS—that’s Find the Stars—and I was hoping I’d (ahhh’d) find somebody who might know one of my favorites. Bubbles Malone.”
“What’d she say, Gertrude?”
Pointing to his ear, Gertrude yell
s, “Turn on your hearing aide, Hubert.” Hubert complies, then winces when she yells, “She’s from the PTO and wants to know about somebody named Bubble Along.”
He taps me on the shoulder. Hard. “Young lady, I’m from the MYOB club. That’s mind your own business.”
They turn and walk in the opposite direction, but not before he shoots me the bird.
“That didn’t go so well.”
“What didn’t go well?”
I nearly jump through the gaudy two-ton chandelier. If it fell on somebody, it’d kill them.
Lovie has sneaked up behind me, apparently determined to cause my first gray hair.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Two proposals and six indecent propositions. Let’s get out of here. My butt’s black and blue from unsolicited pinchings.”
“Okay. Maybe we’ll have better luck at the MGM Grand.”
We weave our way through the crowd and onto the Strip to hail a cab. There we are, minding our own business (almost), when a young man in torn jeans and a dirty muscle shirt streaks by and grabs my purse.
“What next?” I say.
“We catch his skinny carcass and beat the daylights out of him. Come on.”
Lovie steamrolls down the street with me barreling along right beside her. I’d hate to be in our path.
Elvis’ Opinion # 3 on the Southern Mafia, Rocket Science, and Garbage Cans
My plan was to take a few days off to get to know my little French sweetie, show her the sights, then head on home and introduce her to my human mom.
You know what they say about the best-laid plans of mice and men, and I reckon that includes basset hounds. Callie’s not home.
For one thing, Ruby Nell has moved into our house. That would never happen unless (a) one of them is sick or dying or (b) Callie’s gone. Not that they don’t get along. They do. You just can’t coop two strong-willed women up together for more than twenty-four hours and expect peace in the valley.
For another, I can smell Callie a mile.