by Peggy Webb
“I’ve got him, Charlie…No, he’s inside a Jack’s hamburger place east of Hamilton, Alabama…Okay, I’ve got it covered from this end.”
Looks like I’m the point man in a stakeout operation. I might have to back Jack up with a firearm. Contrary to what most folks would imagine, I’m good with guns. Back when I had sideburns and women throwing scarves at me, I had my own shooting range.
Bring on trouble, baby. I’m wild in the country and rarin’ to rumble.
Chapter 11
Killers, Cream Puffs, and Casinos
The dangerous stranger whips out from behind and zooms along beside me, never mind that he’s in the oncoming traffic lane.
“Want to talk,” he yells.
“Calling cops,” I yell back, then proceed to dial 911. By the time I get help out of my mouth, the Ford F-150 has swerved left onto Veterans and disappeared. I blurt out my story till I’m stopped cold with the question, “Did you get his tag number, ma’am?”
“No, I was too busy fighting for bladder control.”
There’s a snicker on the other end, and I watch my chances of collaring the killer plummet to zero. There’s a number for you.
I’d pull over to the side of the road and hang my head out the window, but the killer could be lurking around waiting for his chance to do no telling what all.
I turn around in McDougal Center’s parking lot and head straight to Lovie’s house.
When she doesn’t answer the doorbell on the fourth ring, I let myself in with the spare key she hides under a faux frog on the front porch.
“Lovie?” No answer. I nearly have a coronary. “Lovie, are you home?”
“In here.”
She’s teetering on a four-foot ladder scrubbing globs of goo off the kitchen ceiling.
“Holy cow. What happened?”
She turns toward me and the ladder tilts dangerously toward the left. I grab hold and anchor her.
“I saw somebody at the kitchen window.”
“Who?”
“How do I know? An intruder. I went after him with a meat cleaver. While I was crashing through the bushes, my cream puffs exploded.”
“How did that happen?”
“I accidentally set the platter on a hot eye.”
The ladders lists again, groaning this time, and I have to fight to keep Lovie from crashing into the sink.
“Get down from there. I’ll clean while you hold the ladder.”
“What are you doing here this time of day? I thought you had beauty shop appointments this afternoon.”
“Not till two.” While I scrub I tell her about my brush with death, ending with the conclusion that I think the would-be killer is the man we saw in Las Vegas.
We piece together a timeline and figure the mysterious stranger would have had time to destroy Lovie’s peace of mind plus her culinary creation, then whip over to Cliff Gookin and scare the pants off me.
“Somebody’s trying to kill us, Lovie.”
“But why? We haven’t done anything.”
“Except lie, impersonate the Folies, break and enter, and tote a murder victim across public and private property.”
“You think it’s all tied in with Bubbles?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. It’s not only tied in with Bubbles, it’s somehow tied in with the corpse that won’t stay put.”
“Is Dr. Laton still in his casket?”
“If he’s not, I don’t even want to know.”
“What are we going to do now?” Lovie plops onto a chair, too upset to mention chocolate.
“Search the yard for clues.”
“Not without a weapon.”
Lovie grabs a knife big enough to carve Texas, then hands me a toilet plunger. Armed to the teeth and filled with false bravado, we head outside to search the bushes.
“What are we looking for, Callie?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he snagged his pants on the lantana bush. Or dropped a matchbook cover with a phone number written on the inside.”
“While he was at it, maybe he left his business card.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Lovie.”
“Neither does murder.”
Sobered by that thought, we redouble our search efforts, but turn up nothing except an earring Lovie lost last May.
I ask her how it got in the bushes, but she just shrugs her shoulders and asks, “What are we going to do now?”
“If we’re going to get ourselves killed, we’d better tell Mama and Uncle Charlie.”
After Lovie and I drop off cheese straws and the surviving cream puffs at Calvary Baptist, we convene at Eternal Rest with Mama and Uncle Charlie. He insists on the viewing room so he can keep an eye on the corpse with wanderlust. Fortified on strong coffee and leftover cream puffs, Lovie and I take turns telling our morning’s horrors.
“I think it’s all connected, somehow,” I say.
“Lord, I nearly lost you.” Mama falls on me like I’m the fifty-cent table at a yard sale. “I don’t know how I’d survive it.”
“Now, now, Ruby Nell.” Uncle Charlie pats her on the shoulder. “‘Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.’”
He has fallen back on Shakespeare again. Measure for Measure. The funny thing is, it miraculously restores Mama’s equilibrium.
“I haven’t been good in twenty years, Charlie, and I’m damned sure not virtuous.”
She stomps into the kitchen and brings back a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream, which she liberally splashes into her coffee.
“We should all disappear,” she says.
“We have a body to bury, dear heart.”
“Not till Bevvie’s found. Besides, when’s the last time you took a vacation, Charlie?”
“It’s hard to leave here. People are always dying and they count on me.”
“It’s high time to hire that assistant you’re always talking about. Leave that old two-timing turd in his hands and let’s all take a restorative trip to the casinos.”
There go my afternoon’s profits.
“You know, Ruby Nell, one of these days I might just take you up on that.”
Uncle Charlie lifts the coffin’s lid to make sure Dr. Laton is still put, then pours everybody a second round of coffee. We all get up and add Baileys.
Having spiked coffee and crumpets around a coffin is not your everyday sort of social, but the Valentine family takes a more broad-minded view of death. Lovie even goes into Uncle Charlie’s office and puts on a Muddy Waters CD.
“Might as well enjoy some good music while we plot,” she says.
Gutbucket blues and a haunting harmonica blaring over the speakers can make you forget everything. Except murder.
“There’s only one solution I can see,” Uncle Charlie says. “We’ve got to catch the killer. And fast.”
“Lovie and I couldn’t even bring home the body, Uncle Charlie. How do you expect us to find a killer?”
“All of us, dear heart. Let’s figure out the motive and go from there.”
“Money,” Lovie says. “Remember the diamond necklace Marsha mentioned.”
“Marsha who?” Mama asks; then Lovie has to reveal our escapades in Las Vegas. I notice she leaves out the part that featured her in feathers.
“If you’d carried me to Las Vegas, I could have busted this thing wide open. I speak their language.”
I know what Mama would have busted, and that’s my bank account. She’s sitting there puffed up, daring me to explain how I could be such a thoughtless daughter. I kick Lovie’s shin, and she kicks me back.
But she gets the message. “We didn’t want to put you in danger, Aunt Ruby Nell. Come to think of it, the motive could be revenge or love.”
“How do you figure that?” I ask.
“TV reruns of Matlock. I’ve learned a lot about detective work from them.”
“Still, that’s a far cry from apprehending somebody with a gun.”
“Was Bubbles shot?” Uncle Charlie checks the corpse
again, as if Dr. Laton might have pulled a Houdini within the last five minutes.
“I don’t know. There was lots of blood. Coming from the back of the head, I think, but I didn’t look. Did you, Lovie?”
“Do I look like somebody with the red badge of courage tattooed on my butt?”
“Ruby Nell and I will go to the courthouse to check out the written copy of Leonard’s will. While we try to find out who would get the money if Bubbles dies, you and Lovie scout around to see what you can hear. And be careful.”
“Lovie, why don’t you move in with Callie till all this is over? I’ll ask Jack to keep an eye on you.”
I kick Lovie again, and she says, “I’ll be fine, Aunt Ruby Nell. Don’t worry.”
“If we’re not going to do the sensible thing and run to Tunica, then letting Jack move back in is the next best thing.”
“I’d rather take my chances with a cold-blooded killer, thank you very much.”
Mama’s never going to admit defeat. And I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me for depriving her of her son-in-law. She loves Jack as if he’s her own flesh and blood. And I can see why. He’s wonderful to Mama, one of the many reasons I fell in love with him in the first place.
Still, just because he’s good to Mama doesn’t mean he’s father material. Even if he does have the preliminaries down pat.
I head off toward Mooreville, checking the rearview mirror every three seconds for any signs of the Ford. I can’t wait to get to the relative sanity of Hair.Net.
But first I stop by the house to change shoes. I’m happy to report Janice is not in my porch swing. I sit in it and smell the gardenias awhile. Just because.
Feeling better already, I go inside and listen for the sound of loudmouth Laton/Mims. Blessed silence greets me. This is good and bad. Good because it means my houseguests are not here and bad because I don’t hear the patter of plump Elvis paws.
I search through my closet till I find just the right perky shoes, a pair of Manolo Blahnik leopard-print sling-backs with fake-jewel buckles. Not your typical afternoon-in-the-beauty-shop shoes, but I pride myself that I’ve never aspired to be ordinary.
Add a yellow sundress and a pair of dangling leopard earrings with faux emerald eyes, and I can almost forget history nearly repeated itself this morning on the Cliff Gookin Bridge.
After I put fresh water in the pets’ watering dishes and spread treats all around, I head toward my beauty shop.
Who should be waiting for me but Jack astraddle his Harley?
I’m glad I wore the sundress. Yellow is one of my best colors.
See? This is what he does to me—makes me forget I hate him.
“I see you’ve brought Elvis home.”
“I have.”
I’m afraid to believe my ears. Instead of saying something and giving Jack a reason to change his mind, I act as if I expected Elvis this afternoon, anyhow.
“Since it’s so hot outside, you might as well come in and have a cool Diet Pepsi.”
“I had something more scintillating in mind.”
“Not unless you want to be caught with your pants down. Fayrene will be here in ten minutes for her color touchup.”
He passes me and nabs a Coca-Cola from my refrigerator.
“I meant a cold drink, but I like the way you think, Callie.”
“Did you know that when you lie to me, your eye twitches?”
Jack puts on his sunglasses while Elvis trots past both of us and sinks into his plush doggie bed with a big sigh.
“He acts tired.”
“We’ve had a busy morning.”
“So have I.”
“I heard. Elvis and I are moving back in.”
This is just like Jack to tell instead of asking. Which is one of the things I used to love about him—his take-charge attitude. That just goes to show that if you judge through the eyes of love, you’re bound to miss a few crucial flaws.
But on the flip side, if you err on the side of caution and analyze every little thing, you’d miss an awful lot of pleasure. Though Jack’s moved out and I’m moving on, I’m still not sorry for all those years I spent with him.
“I’m taking Elvis, but if you think I’m going to let you move back in and impersonate a husband, you’re sadly mistaken.” He looks like a mountain standing there, inviting and endurable, something you’d want to crawl next to and curl up in a little ball. “I mean that, Jack.”
“I know you do, Cal.”
He runs his finger around my lips, then leans down and kisses me. And shoot, if I don’t end up kissing him back.
“Later, baby.” He pats me on the butt, then climbs on his Harley and roars off.
I march right into my office and call the locksmith. I’ll be darned if I’ll let a brush with death and a conspiracy between Mama and Jack upset my plans to liberate myself from him while I still have viable eggs.
Fayrene walks in right in the middle of me telling the locksmith this is an emergency. Translation: Jack still has a house key.
“Did somebody break in?” Before I have time to answer she adds, “There’s been a lot of that going around here lately. Somebody tried to break into Bitsy Cleaver’s house last week, and her right in the middle of singing Acapulco.”
A capella. Saints preserve us.
But Fayrene’s gossip does give me a chance to dig for clues. If houses are being robbed, is it possible the theft of Dr. Laton’s body was merely a random act?
But still, how did it end up in Bubbles’ freezer?
“Does the sheriff have any suspects?”
“Bitsy described a tall man.”
“Heavyset? Wearing a baseball cap?”
“Well, Lord, yes. I think so.”
“Do they know who he is?”
“Come to think of it, Bitsy called him weasely. But I don’t think that’s his name. He was wearing a hat. And driving a green pickup.”
Shoot. That lets out the red Ford guy.
I go into the washroom to mix Fayrene’s color and nearly jump out of my skin. There’s a man silhouetted through the glass of my back door. Grabbing the nearest weapon—my haircutting scissors—I head in that direction.
“Who’s there?”
My yell brings Fayrene and Elvis running.
“Good Lord, Callie. What are you doing in here talking to the mop?”
She opens the back door and rehangs the mop that has blown loose from its moorings. Once I settle in to work on her hair, I’m back to myself in no time. Especially with Elvis lying at my feet, scratching his ears.
“Does that dog have fleas? There’s a new vegetarian in town. Jarvetis thinks he’s the next best thing to God. He wouldn’t take his bird dogs anywhere else. He’s kin, too. My cousin June’s nephew’s wife’s first cousin once removed.”
If you’re from the Deep South, you can eventually rake up a family connection with anybody.
Making a mental note to ask Jack if he’s already taken Elvis to a veterinarian, I set about making Fayrene’s hair color the envy of everybody in Mooreville who has the bad judgment to go to another beauty parlor.
Chapter 12
Sweet Tea, Motives, and Ménage à Trois
Home again after my first day back at Hair.Net, I was hoping to find my house empty of guests so I could settle down to some quality time with Elvis, then turn on my computer and Google the Laton offspring. Instead, it’s overrun by Latons. Janice has commandeered my porch swing again, her boys are ripping through my roses, Bradford is in one of my porch rockers, and Kevin has taken up residence in the other.
Taking umbrage at this invasion, Elvis lifts his leg on Kevin’s tires, then sulks off to chase the cats away from his favorite spot in the shade of a large blackjack oak in the backyard. I make sure to shut the gate behind him.
“Boys, please make sure this gate stays shut. I don’t want Elvis to come up missing again.”
Janice’s teenagers look at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language. I am six feet tall in thes
e heels and can look taller if I try. I march straight over to my rosebushes, tower over them, and give them a look that hints of guillotines in their near future.
“He’s a very valuable show dog, and if he gets out I’ll deal with you personally. And stay out of my roses.”
The next thing I do is go onto my front porch and reclaim my swing. When I plop down right in the middle, Janice gets up as if I’m typhoid fever and she’s never been vaccinated. Marching across my porch like the Queen of Sheba, she makes Bradford get up and let her have the rocking chair. He stations himself behind her. By now he’s probably used to this subservient position.
They’ve already helped themselves to my sweet tea, so I don’t offer a drink. As irritated as I am at the loss of privacy, I can’t let this opportunity pass to dig for information that might lead to a cold-blooded killer.
“I’m sorry you’re having to wait so long for the funeral.”
“I could shoot Bevvie,” Janice says. “She ought to be the one having to wait around in this wretched heat.” Bradford tries to moderate her with a hand on her shoulder, but Janice spews on. “And I could kill Bubbles Malone.”
I wonder if that means she did kill her, somehow escaping Mama’s not-so-vigilant eye, or if she doesn’t even know Bubbles is dead.
“She seemed like a nice woman.” I think it’s bad karma to speak ill of the dead, and besides, I want to prod Janice again to see just how far she’ll go.
“That witch took every penny Daddy had. She ought to be shot.”
“I thought she was charming in a quirky sort of way,” Kevin says.
He doesn’t sound like a man who recently stashed a victim in a Frigidaire chest freezer, but maybe he’s just cleverly trying to cover it up.
“Did you know her?” I ask.
“I heard Mother mention her name a time or two.”
“Kevin. Shut up!”
“Janice, I think I heard Uncle Charlie say you used to live in Las Vegas.”
“Oh God, spare me.” Janice shoots out of her chair and storms into my house, slamming my door so hard I’m sure she warped the hinges. It’ll take me a week to get my house back in order after they leave.