by Peggy Webb
“What a surprise.” She fiddles with the collar of her housecoat.
“Hi, Ms. Malone. We’re the Valentine cousins from Tupelo. Remember us?” Lovie dazzles her with a smile that ought to be bottled and used for world peace. “Callie and I drove west for a little vacation, and we thought we’d drop by to see how you’re doing.” Lovie reaches for her hand. “I know losing the doctor had to be hard for you. Are you okay?”
“I’m flattered. Come on in.” Bubbles swings open the door and Lovie gives me the high five behind her back. “Excuse the mess. I’m getting ready to do a little redecorating.”
The inside of her house looks like a yard sale. Rattan furniture vies for floor space with Early American maple, magazines overflow their baskets, and every conceivable inch of wall space is covered with cheap prints and doodads on whatnot shelves.
She could hide a body in here and it would take a trained police dog seven weeks to find it.
“Sit down. I was just having a spot of lemonade. I’ll get you some.”
She heads toward the back, then returns with a huge pitcher of lemonade that explains her red-rimmed eyes. It’s laced with so much alcohol, one sip nearly knocks me off the couch.
“Um, good,” Lovie says. “Vodka?”
“Just a touch.”
The two of them are going to get along like a house on fire.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t stay for the funeral,” Lovie says.
“My cat’s pregnant. I had to get home.” Bubbles pours herself another glass and takes a slug. “It’s a shame the family insisted on a regular funeral. Leonard wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the Valley of Fire.”
Holy cow. What if she’s already cremated him? I picture Lovie and me combing the entire Valley of Fire, gathering Daddy Laton’s ashes in a Wal-Mart bag.
“Have you known the doctor long?” I ask.
“Since I was eighteen. He was doctor to the showgirls when I was performing.”
Lovie gives me a signal, so I ask for directions to the bathroom and leave her to handle the inquisition. I have some snooping to do.
I’ll have to admit, I’m good at this. When Jack kept vanishing to parts unknown on business he refused to talk about, I started searching for clues to his secret life. The only thing I ever turned up was a plane ticket stub to Brazil, which explained exactly nothing. Still, if I’d kept at it, there’s no telling what I’d have uncovered. But my conscience got the best of me. I was brought up to believe trust is the cornerstone of character and anything less is a crime, so I gave up stealth and settled into worry.
Now here I am, in the middle of Bubbles’ bathroom, back in a life of crime. It’s either leave Uncle Charlie in the lurch or live with a flawed character. Maybe after I find the corpse, I can reform.
A bathtub is an ideal fit for a stolen body, but one quick look behind the shower curtain tells me Bubbles is more creative than that. I sneak down the hall and into the kitchen, then freeze when I see her cat. Animals love me. It’ll be just like that big gray Persian to leap off the table and race toward me, meowing with delight.
“Nice kitty,” I whisper, then make a beeline for Bubbles’ pantry. There’s nothing in here except peaches and pickles.
I tiptoe out and through a door that leads to the utility room. Washer, dryer, clothes rack…and the perfect place to stash a body. A chest freezer. As I inch that way, I hope the sweat running down my legs doesn’t ruin my Steve Madden sandals. Sweat stains on leather are tacky.
I ease open the freezer, and hit pay dirt. If that’s not Dr. Laton under the black tarp, then it’s the biggest side of beef I’ve ever seen.
You wouldn’t think I’d be squeamish peeling back the tarp to make sure, but let me tell you, applying pancake to a nice corpse who’s planning to stay put in the friendly environs of Eternal Rest is entirely different from coming face-to-face with a frozen stiff with frostbite on his nose.
I ease the lid shut and stand there doing deep breathing till I can get enough starch back in my legs to walk to the living room.
“Is everything all right, hon?” Bubbles looks up when I enter the room. She also looks about three sheets to the wind. Thank goodness.
“I must be coming down with something.” I rub my stomach and grimace.
“We’d better get you out of here.” Lovie makes hasty good-byes to Bubbles, then grabs my arm and practically drags me out the door.
Bubbles stands in her front door waving while we back out of her driveway. In spite of the anxiety she’s caused Uncle Charlie, I feel sorry for her. There are only two motives powerful enough to make a woman steal the body of a man who wanted his ashes scattered in the Valley of Fire. Love or revenge. Soft touch that I am, I’m betting on love.
“Well?” Lovie says.
“I found him. In the freezer. Uncle Charlie is going to be relieved.”
“We won’t tell him yet.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ve got to get him back, first. And that involves breaking and entering, stealing, and transporting an illegal corpse across state lines.”
“That ought to be a cinch for a Mississippi caterer who showed half of Las Vegas the moon over Miami.”
“At least stealing a body doesn’t involve feathers. I’m hungry. Where do you want to eat?”
“The next restaurant you come to.”
It turns out to be Chinese—not my favorite—but I can overlook MSG in the moo goo gai pan in exchange for relaxing in a little red vinyl booth with Christmas lights strung around the hanging lantern while I listen to Lovie’s take on Bubbles’ relationship with Dr. Laton.
“He was married when Bubbles knew him, but she doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d let a legal document stop her.”
“He’s old enough to be her daddy.”
“So?”
I’m not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
“Did he have kids?” I ask.
“Yeah. Mellie and Janice were teenagers. His wife had her hands full. And I’m guessing they weren’t full of the good doctor.”
“We don’t know that, Lovie. Besides, it doesn’t matter. All we have to do is get the body back and go home.”
It will be good to go back to my normal life. If you call normal worrying about sex with your ex and making fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches for a dog.
Although the restaurant isn’t crowded and our booth is in the back, we wait until we’re in the van before we lay out plan D—steal the body under cover of night.
“But I don’t know how we’re going to get in,” I say.
“One of my many talents is picking locks.”
“Holy cow. How do you know that?”
“The only good thing to come out of my six-week dalliance with Harry ‘Slick Fingers’ Johnson was learning to break and enter.”
Sometimes Lovie scares me.
“I don’t know how you figure that’s helpful knowledge. It’s not as if we’re turning to life on the dark side.”
“If your locked house caught fire and you couldn’t find the dead bolt key, you’d find out. You ought to hear what I learned from Goober Jordan.”
“I don’t even want to think about it, Lovie. Let’s go find a cooler.”
We buy the biggest one Wal-Mart has, but even so, we’re going have to bend Dr. Laton a bit.
Our next stop is the 7-Eleven, where we purchase enough ice to ice down three hundred pounds of shrimp.
“Even in the cooler, it’s going to melt some in this heat,” Lovie says.
“We’ll get some more after we snatch the body.”
I hate to picture the shape Daddy Laton’s going to be in when we get him home. All I can say is Uncle Charlie has his work cut out for him.
Back in the van with the tools of our upcoming crime stashed in the cargo hold behind us, we break into a nervous sweat.
And it’s only 4:00 P.M. By common consent we head to the ritziest mall we can find to shop. Buying sh
oes is the only way I know to keep my mind off my problems.
Well, that and sex. But currently, sex is my problem. Or one of them.
Four hours and three hundred dollars later, we head back to the motel with our packages—Dolce & Gabbana wedge heels for me and a Fredericks of Hollywood black bustier for Lovie.
Back in our room we change into all black suitable for burglary—slacks and long-sleeved T-shirts, never mind the heat.
There’s no way we can return to our room lugging a corpse, even if he is wrapped in a tarp. Besides that, once we’ve got a purloined body in the back of Lovie’s van, we don’t want to hang around to see who gets pissed off.
We check out, and Lovie cranks up and rolls out of the parking lot. “Let’s find a sixteen-ounce rib eye, Callie. We need red meat.”
Wired on coffee and nerves, we head to Bubbles’ house around midnight. Lovie leaves the van in a neighborhood park two blocks down the street, and then we skulk through backyards, darting from bush to tree.
Unfortunately, there’s a full moon tonight, a little setback we hadn’t counted on.
To top it off, we alarm a Pomeranian who sets up a commotion. Fortunately, the breed is too prissy to do more than bark.
I just hope nobody has a dog big enough to chew our legs off. Although I pride myself on being so good with animals I could be a dog whisperer, I’m not sure a Doberman would listen to reason if he caught us lurking in his territory.
All of a sudden, Lovie comes to a halt.
“Shit!” she says.
I bump into her. “What is it?” I whisper.
“I stepped in it.”
“Well, wipe it off and come on.”
I’m glad it’s her shoes and not mine. Although my black Ponies are not pricey designer, they’re cute and sassy and have become my favorite stealing-a-corpse shoes.
Finally we make it to our target. Every light in Bubbles’ house is off. Lovie whips a hairpin out of her pocket and proceeds to break so we can enter. She’s awesome. It’s a pity I can’t tell somebody about her cat burglar talents.
Two minutes later we sneak through the back door. In the path of moonlight coming through the window, we make our way to the freezer without bumping into anything, even the large box where Bubbles’ cat is nursing newborn kittens.
I ease open the freezer’s lid, and then Lovie and I grab the ends of the tarp and heft out the doctor’s body. We’re halfway to the door when my cell phone rings. We freeze, and the heavy body sags and almost hits the floor.
My phone keeps ringing and I’m almost wetting my pants. I’m fixing to be done in by technology.
Any minute now lights will pop on, Bubbles will attack us with a baseball bat, and cops will arrive to cart us off to jail. I can forget my unfortunate attraction to my almost-ex and my diminishing bank account. I’ll have bigger problems—how to share a cell with hardened criminals.
I hold my breath, but nobody comes tearing into the utility room. Thank goodness for vodka-spiked lemonade.
Finally, my phone stops ringing. Leaping into action, Lovie and I sprint for the door and huff across Bubbles’ backyard.
If I’d known a corpse could weigh this much I might have rethought bringing Jack along as an accomplice. If I get through this caper alive, I’m getting into a hot bubble bath and staying a week.
Two years and a ruptured disc later (to say the least), we arrive at the deserted park. Both of us lean against the van, gasping for breath.
When she finds her wind, Lovie says, “Let’s get this body in the cooler and get the hell out of Dodge.”
More huffing and a protruding hemorrhoid later (I’m certain), we have the body in the back of the van.
“Quick, Lovie. Open the cooler.”
She flips the lid and we start stuffing in the stiff when my cell phone rings again. I drop my end of the tarp and check to see who’s calling while Lovie says a word that’s not in my vocabulary.
It’s Mama, so it must be an emergency. Even she doesn’t make social phone calls at two o’clock in the morning.
“Mama? What are you doing up so late?”
“Some fool saw Elvis behind the Mooreville Truck Stop and called your house. I called Charlie and we found him courting a French poodle.”
“Is he all right?”
“I guess so. Jack’s got him.”
“Jack! I thought he was in the Black Hills.”
“Well, he’s back, thank God. I couldn’t deal with a lovesick dog and the Mims hellions, to boot. They’re destroying your roses. Your garden looks like Hiroshima after the atomic bomb.”
If I were the cussing kind, I’d say a word. Maybe three.
“Listen, Mama. We’ve found Dr. Laton’s body and I can’t talk right now. Tell Uncle Charlie, okay?”
I pick up my end of the tarp and we start stuffing again.
“Good grief. He’s not going to fit. Lovie, you may have to sit on the doctor and squash him in.”
“Up yours.”
“Let’s reverse directions and put him in headfirst.”
The corpse bounces against the ice, the tarp parts…and we stare down at the cold, dead face of Bubbles Malone.
Elvis’ Opinion # 4 on Freedom, Bachelor Pads, and Tender Loving Care
Ruby Nell and Charlie think they found me. I go ahead and let them believe their own fiction. It’ll do them good.
Charlie’s showing some stress over losing Dr. Laton’s body, but it’s Ruby Nell who has taken the brunt of it. She’s so freaked out over keeping the Mims’ teenage boys from destroying Callie’s roses that she’s taking her bedtime toddies at 3:00 P.M. and forgoing stylish outfits for blue jeans and baggy old T-shirts. She’s even letting her roots show.
Of course, Callie will take care of that the minute she gets back. Which can’t be too soon for me, in spite of the fact that I’m sitting here in the lap of luxury in my human daddy’s apartment. I’m getting T-bone steak and scratched behind the ears every night. Plus, I’m getting to sit on his back porch and howl at the moon while Jack plays one of my biggest hits on his harmonica, “Heartbreak Hotel,” which says it all.
Let me tell you, being a bachelor’s not all it’s hyped up to be. For one thing, Jack’s dirty clothes are piled up high as my ears. Now, I like a good, ripe smell as well as the next hound, but his socks are over the top.
When he was married, he didn’t have this problem. Callie used Bounce sheets in the dryer, but Jack’s beginning to let the niceties slip.
For instance, he’s got milk in his refrigerator as old as the Declaration of Independence and his cheese is growing mold.
Freedom’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Personally I’d prefer to still be shacked up with Ann Margret getting a little tender loving care. And I’d bet the farm Jack feels the same way about Callie.
If he’d take some advice from me and whisk Callie off to some place exotic such as the Mooreville Truck Stop, he might put an end to this unfortunate marital rift. The two of them could be singing “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” that old hit from my Louisiana Hayride days, instead of sleeping in separate beds.
TLC, baby. That’s what counts.
Chapter 7
Bengay, Diet Pepsi, and Murder
With the wrong corpse staring up at us, Lovie and I jump back so fast we crash into each other and land in a heap.
“Holy smoke, Callie. Are you sure that was the doctor’s body you saw in the freezer?”
“It darned sure couldn’t have been Bubbles. She was sitting on her sofa drinking spiked lemonade.”
“If you thought going to jail for illegally transporting a body across state lines was tough, wait till we get the electric chair for murder.”
Elvis will be homeless, not to mention the fact that Mama’s out of Italian marble monuments and I’ll end up six feet under a tacky tombstone.
“We have to put her back.” I untangle myself and ease the tarp back over the wrongful dead. “Up and at ’em, Lovie.”
She sits there like she’s staking out a claim. “Callie, do you believe in bad karma?”
“We don’t have time for religion. We’ve got to get Bubbles back in her freezer before she starts to thaw.”
She’s heavier going back than she was coming, or maybe it’s the added weight of fear and crime. The Pomeranian knows us this time and runs up wagging her tail. But it’s not dogs that subtract ten years from my life; it’s the car pulling into the driveway.
Caught in the headlights, Lovie and I drop to the ground. Car doors slam and snatches of drunken what-I-saw-at-the-party conversation drift toward the backyard.
Oh yeah, I believe in bad karma. I’m probably going to spend the rest of my life paying for this little misadventure.
In the time it takes this couple to get to the front door, I could have built Rome. Finally all is quiet and I nudge Lovie to see if she’s still among the living.
“Let’s go.”
“I can’t get up.”
By the time I’ve tugged Lovie off the ground, the Pomeranian has taken matters into her own paws and has her teeth locked around Bubbles’ wrist.
We try to shoo her off without setting up an alarm, but she won’t let go.
“What’s she doing?” Lovie asks.
“Not checking her pulse. That’s for sure.”
No manner of persuasion will make the little dog turn loose.
“What are we going to do?” Judging by the edge of hysteria in Lovie’s voice, I’m soon going to have two prone bodies to worry about. She’s not used to dealing directly with the dead, and she’s about to crack.
I bend Bubble’s arm so the little dog is now on top of the body, and we set off toward the freezer with the Pomeranian riding shotgun.
I can see the headlines: NATIONAL TREASURE OF FRANCE AND SIDEKICK ICE VICTIMS AND NAB SMALL DOGS.
The persistent Pomeranian doesn’t get off till we’re back inside the house. When she spies Bubbles’ cat, the ensuing chase is enough to wake the dead. Everybody, that is, except our own unfortunate corpse.