by Peggy Webb
I think I’m going to be sick, and not about the skinny remark. From the looks of things, Lovie’s not doing too well, either.
I scrawl License plate? on the pad and show it to Lovie.
“If you saw their license plate maybe we could track them down. I’d like to get as much detail as possible for my feature.”
“They were driving a pickup. No, I believe it was a van. From Minnesota.”
“You’re certain about the Minnesota plate?”
“Yes. Well, now. Wait a minute. I was busy looking at the sexy one’s hair. I wish I could get mine that shade of red.”
Lovie looks like she’s getting ready to say thank you, and I elbow her. Any major blunders and Marsha will unmask us and call the cops. Fortunately a loud commotion outside saves us.
Marsha hurries to her telescope. Without a word, Lovie and I follow. Whatever is going on in this neighborhood, we need to know.
My nemesis, the big bad red Ford, is parked across the street. Its beefy owner is standing beside it talking to the woman in pearls and Reeboks while a crowd gathers and the Pomeranian barks his head off.
I think I’m going to throw up and Lovie looks like she’s about to faint. I punch her ribs so hard she grunts. Still she doesn’t say a word. I’m getting ready to punch her again when she recovers.
“I think we’ve finished here. Thank you for your time, Marsha.”
“Wait. I wanted to tell you about the time Bubbles and I went backstage to see Elvis.”
I write number? on the pad and hand it to Lovie.
“We’re late for another appointment. Give us your number. We’ll call you.”
I wish we could ask which way is the back door? but that would draw attention to what is already a suspicious interview. Instead we walk out the front while sirens wail in the distance. I silently invoke every deity I know.
“Don’t run, Lovie, and don’t look back.”
“Are the sirens getting closer?”
“Definitely.” Blue lights flash as police cars round the corner. They whiz past while I’m trying to think of new ways to approach the throne of grace. Lovie jerks like a torpedo readying to be shot from the cannon. “Just keep walking…keep walking.”
We reach the end of the street. Round the corner. Vanish from view of the LVPD. We breathe. Then break into a sprint.
Somebody must have moved the park to California. By the time we get there I can hardly hold myself upright, let alone imagine how we’ll get out of this mess alive. Both of us lean against the van, heaving.
Finally Lovie recovers enough to unlock the doors. We leap inside and peel off.
“Slow down. We’ll get a ticket.”
If I repeated what Lovie says, I never would get the black marks erased from my record. She’s sitting over there gripping the wheel with that I told you so look on her face.
We didn’t find the body, or even discover a lead, but we did discover a possible motive for the murder—that diamond necklace that belonged to a queen.
“Which queen do you think Bubbles’ necklace belonged to, Lovie?”
“If you say one more word related to murder I’m going to put your skinny butt out on the side of the road and let you hitchhike back to Mississippi.”
“I wonder—”
“Callie, I’m warning you.”
“—how long it will take my fingernails to grow back.”
“I wonder where we can find a good rib-eye steak.”
“Anywhere but Nevada.”
Except for bathroom breaks and a hasty stop to change out of our disguises at an Exxon service station in Flagstaff, we don’t stop until we get to Texas. Taking turns driving, we count the miles between us and Las Vegas.
When we finally sidle into the Boots A Walkin’ Truck Stop to eat, I try to act as if I’m an ordinary tourist enthralled with cows and cacti.
The only problem is, I can’t keep a nerve under my eye from jumping. And the way Lovie’s scoping out the place, you can spot her a mile away. We might as well have “guilty” tattooed on our foreheads.
I poke her in the ribs. “Act natural.”
“Like who? Your T-shirt’s inside out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“It was dark.”
We slide into the back booth and try to discourage conversation, but just our luck, we get a waitress with more questions than the Gestapo. Lovie tells her we’re FBI on a top-secret mission.
“One little leak could get us all killed.” She gives the woman a dark look, and the poor hapless woman scurries off as if the knife is already in her back.
“I’ve got to call somebody about that cat,” I say.
“The neighbors will find her.”
“What if they don’t?”
Lovie says a word I’m sure is not in the dictionary while I search for a pay phone. It’s the long, dark hallway that leads to the restrooms. Phone books from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada hang from long chains attached to the wall. I call the LVPD to report a yowling cat at 106 Cactus Street.
“Who’s calling, please?”
I tap my fingernails on the receiver and say, “My name…Smm…static…sorry,” then hang up.
I’d feel like a better person except for one thing: I’ve failed Uncle Charlie.
As I slide back into my seat telling Lovie about the phone call, she shushes me and points to the wall-hung TV behind the cash register.
“…discovered in her freezer. No details are being released. Police suspect foul play.”
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Lovie says.
“It’ll look funny if we leave our food. Keep eating.”
“What if we’ve been followed?”
“They’d have caught us before now.”
We’ve lost our appetites so we end up discreetly (I hope) wrapping the steak in our napkins and stuffing it in Lovie’s big purse so we won’t call further attention to ourselves by asking for a doggie bag.
Back on the road, I drive while Lovie finishes her meal.
“I don’t know how we’re going to tell Uncle Charlie the body’s still missing. I don’t have a clue where to look now. And we certainly can’t go back to Las Vegas.”
“No. I’m a household word.”
“As far as we know, only Marsha saw us, and she thinks we’re from Minnesota.”
“Yeah, but I mooned half the population of Las Vegas at Hot Tips.”
“A truly unforgettable performance.”
“Just shut up and keep driving.”
I guess I would have run off the Mississippi River Bridge if my cell phone hadn’t jolted me out of my stupor.
It’s Uncle Charlie, welcoming us home.
“We’re not home yet, Uncle Charlie. We’re just crossing out of Arkansas into Memphis.”
“Then how did the corpse get back in the casket?”
“Holy cow! The doctor’s back?”
“He has a great deal of frostbite on his nose, and we’ll have to retouch him and get him a new suit. Other than that, he survived his travels just fine.”
“That’s a testament to your embalming skills.”
“Thank you, dear heart. But what happened out there?”
I give him a sanitized shorthand version, and I can tell you that unburdening your soul is everything it’s cracked up to be, especially when the one taking charge is Uncle Charlie.
“All is well that ends well. You and Lovie be safe.”
He’s a big believer in the wisdom of great literature. Though I have this itchy feeling that Elvis’ “Long, Lonely Road” best describes my future, I’m hoping Uncle Charlie and Shakespeare are right.
Elvis’ Opinion # 5 on Marriage, Memoirs, and Sideburns
Callie’s home. Don’t ask how I know. I don’t have these ears for nothing.
I may be barking up the wrong tree, but I think Jack should hustle over to her house with some chocolates and a nice box of Milk-Bones. A little show of faith that he’s willing to
do his part to work out this marital rift.
If it were left up to me, I’d have straightened out this mess a long time ago. I wasn’t called the King for nothing. Folks closest to me know I reigned in the bedroom as well as on the stage. Look what I did for my pretty little wife up in Memphis. Put shag carpet everywhere and hung chandeliers. Genuine crystal. When you’ve got a woman worth keeping, you go all out for her. You make sacrifices.
Take Charlie, for instance. He walked on the wild side till he met Minrose singing down in New Orleans. The only thing that got him away from the seamy side of life was the love of a good woman.
Jack’s the same way. If I told you what he does, I’d have to kill you. Suffice it to say when business brought him to northeast Mississippi and he laid eyes on my human mom, he naturally did what a man has to do. Wooed her, won her, and proceeded to settle down. Without a single thought about giving up his freedom or even giving up his job. He adjusted.
Of course, I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ve heard these stories a million times. How he couldn’t keep his eyes off her, how he thought she was the brightest thing in the park. When Jack first laid eyes on her, Callie was sitting in a lawn chair beside the lake at Ballard Park watching Tupelo’s annual display of Fourth of July fireworks. The sky was lit up with a replica of the Stars and Stripes.
If that’s not destiny, I don’t know what is. Callie’s the most patriotic human being I know—hauls her customers to the voting booths, decorates the little plastic tree in her shop with miniature flags every Fourth of July. And Jack has put his life on the line for his country.
He rescued her and she rescued him. Listen, these are two people who thought they were destined to be alone until that fateful night. He used to call her his angel of mercy and she used to call him her hero. Don’t tell me they can’t fix their marriage.
All they need is to listen to me. If Jack would grow some sideburns, he’d be a shoo-in with Callie. When I wore sideburns women threw their underwear at me.
What I ought to do is write my memoirs. Put my vast experience and good advice in a book. Callie might pay attention then. She’s big on reading. Uses her library card all the time.
Of course, the library staff won’t let me in. I have to sit in the Dodge Ram and amuse myself by guessing how long it will take the silly stray who hangs around Madison Street to figure out he’s never going to catch the cocky jaybird in the magnolia tree by the Episcopal church.
I think I’ll mosey around and see if Jack has a typewriter. Of course I could just march into his office and put the story of my life on his computer, but the romantic in me hankers for a good old-fashioned Remington. Pencils behind my ears. A good Cuban cigar. A splash of bourbon in my dog chow.
Chapter 9
Skullduggery, Moonlight, and Mosquitoes
My empty house hits me right in the heart. Lovie offered to come in when she dropped me off, but I said no, I would be fine. Now I’m not so sure.
I walk to the closet to put away my shoes and get all choked up. There’s still a big empty spot where Jack’s clothes were. I stand there awhile remembering how he used to sit down in the rocking chair and pull me into his lap when I was blue. Then he’d rock me like a baby. Singing. Of all things. And he can barely carry a tune.
If I keep riding this train I’ll turn into a soggy mess. I march right over and spread out the coat hangers so my colored blouses take up the room. A bare spot still eats at me, so I go into the bathroom to get my robe and hang it in the empty place.
Then I get in the Dodge Ram and drive down to see Mama. This is more than a visit to check on her and catch up on the news. This is a pilgrimage. When I feel beleaguered or even when I’m merely blue, I go down to the farm and let the land rescue me. No matter what happens, the land will not only endure, it will triumph.
That’s the lesson I learn. As long as I can plant my feet on the patch of earth the Valentines have husbanded for generations, I will triumph.
Like the Native Americans, the Valentines know they can never own the land. They can merely take care of it so future generations can enjoy its beauty and largesse, can stand among its ancient oaks and listen to the lessons of the earth.
When the lake comes into view, I feel myself starting to relax, to let go, to slide back into my own skin.
Mama’s sitting on the front porch with her feet propped up drinking sweet tea and watching a house wren who built a nest this spring in her hanging fern. When she sees me, she swings her legs to the floor.
“Don’t get up, Mama. I’ll get my own tea.”
She has not only a big pitcher of tea in the refrigerator but also a lemon icebox pie. I cut myself a slice, pour a glass of tea, and join her on the front porch.
This feels like any other Sunday afternoon in August. If I could turn back time, I’d make the last few months disappear, starting with the day before Jack left me.
“What happened to your fingernails?”
“I chopped them off. Long nails get in the way of rolling hair.”
I’m not about to go into details of our skullduggery in Las Vegas. Dr. Laton’s back and we can return to normal.
Except for the tarp still rolled up in the back of Lovie’s van. And the possibility that she and I will be arrested for murder.
“Where’s the Laton crew, Mama? They weren’t at my house.”
“They said something about taking the kids to the Buffalo Park. Good riddance, is what I say. Let Turf and Smurf terrorize the bison instead of me.”
“I hope you didn’t call them that to their faces.”
“Do I look like I rolled off a watermelon truck?”
I’m not going to dignify that with an answer. Instead I send the universe a little hope that I can stay out of jail and live long enough to take my own children to such wonders as a sacred white buffalo in Tupelo, Mississippi.
“Callie, have you seen Jack?”
“No.” I watch the wren take flight and land on the birdbath beside Mama’s wisteria arbor. “After Daddy died, why didn’t you remarry?”
“After Michael, they broke the mold.”
“I know, but don’t you get lonely? You’re a beautiful woman, Mama. You could have found somebody nice.”
“Who wants nice? I’ll never settle for anything less than over-the-moon wonderful. And you shouldn’t, either, baby girl.” She leans over to pat my hand. “Besides, I have you and Lovie and Fayrene. And Charlie. He’s taking me to dinner and the late show tonight.”
“Have fun, Mama.”
“Don’t I always?”
After I leave Mama’s I call Lovie on my cell phone.
“What did you do with the tarp?”
“Nothing yet. Got any bright ideas?”
“Burn it. We don’t want a shred of evidence linking us to Bubbles Malone.”
“And bring the Tupelo Fire Department to my backyard? No, thanks.”
“How about the farm? Tonight around ten. Mama will be with Uncle Charlie, so she won’t come running to investigate.”
And the neighbors won’t ask questions, either. In Mooreville, you mind your own business unless it involves juicy gossip.
When I get back to my house (which is still empty of Latons, thank goodness), I try to take a nap, but sleep is impossible. Instead I grab gardening gloves and my favorite spade, then head outside to tackle the weeds that are always trying to take over my garden.
The cocker spaniel bounces over to lick my feet and I turn into a big mass of crooning, babbling adoration.
“Hello, Dog. You cute thing. How’s my little spaniel buddy?” I can’t keep calling him Dog. He’s going to get his feelings hurt. “What would you like your name to be?”
He sits on his fat little butt and puts his front paws in the air. Ever the entertainer.
“How about Hoyt?” Short for Hoyt Hawkins, who was one of Elvis’ backup singers (The Jordanaires) in the ’fifties and ’sixties. Of course, my bassett will probably take umbrage. Elvis thinks he’s the on
ly famous entertainer on the block. Shoot, in the world.
Hoyt wags his tail and slathers me with doggie kisses, which I take as a sign he likes his name. Now that I’ve named him, he has probably graduated from stray to one of the household, which is not a bad thing. Maybe he can help take up the empty spaces.
A few minutes before ten Lovie picks me up and we head down to the farm. I have to get the tarp out of the van by myself because she refuses to touch it again. She picks up sticks for kindling while I drag it from the van. Thank goodness, it’s too dark to see the blood.
I squash the tarp in a wad, Lovie throws some sticks on top, and I strike a match. The kindling ignites and we stand back to watch the evidence burn.
The only problem is, the plastic is thick and heavy. Instead of turning into flyaway ashes we can scatter around the pasture, it’s hardening into tight, blackened nuggets.
“Throw on another stick, Callie. That wadded-up spot is fizzling out.”
I stumble around in the dark looking for fallen limbs. If I find a snake I hope he’s the polite kind who believes in live and let live.
After I toss in enough sticks to stoke the fire to inferno proportions, Lovie and I try to cool ourselves with cardboard fans-on-a-stick she’s been hauling around in her van since the last Valentine family reunion at Wildwood Chapel. They feature a picture of the Garden of Gethsemene, where all sorts of skullduggery took place. I just hope they’re not prophetic. I don’t fancy being at the wrong end of mob justice.
“I liked Bubbles,” Lovie says. “We had a lot in common.” I don’t even want to think about what. “Who do you think killed her?”
“It could have been anybody.” I tell Lovie about meeting the creepy Buck Witherspoon in the rain on Mama’s farm and Uncle Charlie’s reaction. “Do you know anything about him?”
“Never heard of him. I could ask Daddy.”
“No. Let it go. Uncle Charlie’s been through enough.”