LOVE, HOPES, & MARRIAGE TROPES

by Abby L. Vandiver

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”

  That must be what was in all those boxes, I thought. Doc Westin’s patient files. I’d definitely have to go through them, I wasn’t sure what he’d charted would be in any of their other patient files. Their other doctors should have all of their medical information.

  “Lots of things around here you don’t know about,” Auntie Zanne. “But stick with me and I’ll school you.”

  “Yeah,” Josephine Gail said. “She knows a lot about a lot of things.”

  I saw Auntie squint her eyes and surreptitiously shake her head as if she didn’t want Josephine Gail to mention something.

  “Oh!” Josephine Gail said. “You had two people stop by already this morning looking for you,” she said. “Maybe you’ll have a date for Homecoming.”

  “Who?”

  “Catfish and Rhett,” she said.

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think they were looking for me,” I said. “Or wanting to take me to a high school dance.”

  “They asked about you. Didn’t they, Babet?”

  “They did, but you better watch it,” Auntie said. “She’s got a Yankee who’s come a-courting. We don’t want to start another war.”

  “Where is he? Your friend from Chicago,” Josephine Gail asked. “I wanted to meet him.”

  “He’s a busy man,” Auntie said. “He’s the Chief-of-Staff,” she said. “I believe that might be his name as well.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m just going to grab a bowl of cereal.” It was healthier for me, plus I didn’t want her to start on me about filling Doc Westin’s footsteps, or about my Chief-of-Staff, or whether Catfish or Rhett were pining after me. And I certainly wasn’t going to join the JOY Club or become any of their doctors.

  “Romaine,” Auntie Zanne said. She got up and walked to the stove. “I need you to ride with me over to Angel’s Grace, there’s something there I want to show you.”

  Grace Community Center, nicknamed Angel’s Grace, was the county’s outreach center—soup line, senior center, clothing drive headquarters and office of the Roble Belles, among other things.

  “Are you going to tell her?” Josephine Gail said.

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “Don’t go spilling the beans, Josephine Gail,” Auntie said.

  I looked at the two of them. They were up to something. Leave it to them to try to play matchmaker or something. I wasn’t falling for it.

  “I can’t go,” I said.

  “Why?” Auntie Zanne said. “What do you have to do?” She raised an eyebrow.

  I had an autopsy to do, but I couldn’t tell her that because Pogue didn’t want anyone to know that it might just be murder. The Commissioners hadn’t wasted any time getting back to me telling me to go ahead and proceed with it. They were happy to have me do it. But, if I mentioned to Auntie Zanne that I was doing one, she would keep poking until she figured out who or backed me into a corner and I confessed. For all intents and purposes, the new ME office was finished so I couldn’t use that as an excuse, and Alex still hadn’t made an appearance electronically or in the flesh.

  “Do I have time to eat?” I was going to have to go along with what she wanted in order not to spill the beans, so I conceded. I didn’t want to have to keep up with lies.

  “Of course you do,” she smiled sweetly. “Take as long as you want.”

  I knew that meant for me to hurry up. If I didn’t, she’d start with her nagging.

  “How about if I just grab a piece of fruit.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mysteriously quiet all the way over to Angel’s Grace, Auntie Zanne seemed lost in thought. Usually she was a chatterbox, trying to drag me into some activity she was doing. But not now. She sat calmly and stared out of the window. I didn’t have any idea what she wanted with me. Probably wanting to wrangle me into some homecoming undertaking.

  Whatever she had planned for me, the anticipation of it couldn’t settle the butterflies I had for the secret I was hiding. I couldn’t wait to start on that autopsy, especially in the brand spanking new facility. I kept checking the clock on the dashboard estimating the amount of time it would take me to help Auntie Zanne with whatever she needed, drop her back off at home and get over to the ME facility. The reason for an autopsy is a sad thing, sure enough, but actually performing one was exciting and exhilarating—at least to me. I really was a detective, searching for clues, putting them all together and making the ultimate decision that everyone else had to rely on.

  And then the new facility itself. Even though I figured I’d never work there, I had suggested all the things I had wanted to work with, and lo and behold, they agreed to purchase them. Now, at the request of the sheriff, I was going to get to use them.

  We arrived at the darkened and deserted building of Angel’s Grace Community Center and Auntie Zanne led me to a room near the back door. Turning on only one or two lights as we passed, making it difficult to see as we walked through the rooms and down a long hallway to the rear of the building. She turned to look around several times, seemingly making sure no one was watching us, then once again as we stood in front of a door. She pulled out a key and opened up what looked like a storage closet.

  “This is what I wanted you to see.” She flicked the switch on the wall, illuminating the small space.

  There were brooms, mops, shelves with paper products and in the middle were cases of a blue drink in clear bottles with black tops stacked two deep along the wall. Black wide-font letters printed across the front read: Mighty Max.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “Mighty Max,” she said.

  I huffed. “I can see that.”

  “Then why did you ask me?”

  “Why are you showing it to me?”

  “I think it was the reason Bumper was murdered.”

  “What?” My mouth dropped open, and I felt my stomach lurch. “Did you say murdered?”

  “You got cotton in your ears, Sugarplum?”

  I couldn’t believe she’d come to the same conclusion that I had, and she did it without saying one word to me about it. “What makes you think he was murdered?” I asked.

  “Asthma is not contagious.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Whatever caused Bumper’s death, made your Chief-of-Staff sick. Came back to pick you up looking like death warmed over. Cause of death couldn’t have been asthma.”

  “Poison isn’t contagious either,” I said, intrigued at her reasoning.

  “Don’t play dumb with me, darlin’. It might not be contagious but a person can pick up poison from somewhere else, skin contact, ingestion. Don’t you know that?”

  “I do,” I said, enjoying her line of reasoning.

  “I think that’s just what happened.”

  I smiled at her. I always fussed about her nosiness and intrusive nature, but I felt the same way and was itching to look into it. but Pogue was locking me out. It was good to have someone to discuss it with.

  “I think so too,” I said.

  She blew out a breath and then smiled back. “Good. I thought I was going to have to use up all my energy trying to convince you and I wouldn’t have any left to get you to help me.”

  “Help you do what?”

  “Solve it.”

  I chuckled. “You may not believe this is me talking, Auntie, but I am right with you.”

  “You are?”

  “I am. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  She smacked her hands together. “Hot dog!” She shut the door to the closet and locked it. “C’mon,” she said and grabbed hold of my arm. “Let me tell you what I think and you can help me plan the inquest.”

  Uh-oh.

  That’s just what Pogue said would happen. That big ole grin she was sporting was soon to disappe
ar. I hated to do it to her, but I had to tell her she wasn’t going to be the one to get the information to start the criminal investigation.

  I waited until she sat down, then I sat opposite her and leaned in. “You’re not going to do the inquest, Auntie.”

  “What are you talking about?” she said. “I’m the Justice of the Peace and we don’t have an ME. It’s in my job description.”

  “You don’t have a permanent ME.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Pogue asked me to do the autopsy.”

  “He... You... How did... You’re not even... Oh my gosh!” Her little face was turning red as half sentences sputtered out. She wasn’t even able to complete a full thought.

  “Spit it out, Auntie before you have some sort of stroke.”

  She stood up and kicked her foot. “How are you doing the autopsy? You’re not the ME. I am duly elected to do the job when there’s no ME.”

  “He didn’t want you messing in his investigation.”

  “That little buster!” she said.

  “You can be a bit... overbearing,” I said, flinching at the same time, not wanting her to set her wrath on me.

  “I knew you’d take his side.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “He doesn’t want me meddling in his investigation either. Said this time he wanted to solve this one himself. All on his own.”

  “That boy is all day stupid.”

  “All day stupid,” I said at the same time she uttered the words. It was her go to phrase about Pogue.

  “Well, if you’re not helping who is doing the autopsy?”

  “I told you, I am. But that’s all he wants from me.”

  She stared at me for a moment, then a sly smile crossed her face. “But that’s not all you’re going to do, right?”

  “I don’t know, Auntie,” I said, a mischievous look sprouting on my face to match hers. “I think I’m feeling just how you must feel when you’re up to something you shouldn’t be. I just want to poke my nose in it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but as I look back I had such a good time solving that last murder.”

  “Me too,” she said and clapped her hands. She pulled the chair to face me and plopped down. “We can do it together.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “I’d like that.”

  “Good,” she said. “I know just where to start.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Auntie dragged me back to her secreted closet, pulled me inside and shut the door behind us. She flicked on the light.

  “I think Bumper was killed as part of an FBI sting operation.”

  I closed my eyes and tried hard not to chuckle. Maybe I’d spoken too soon about joining forces with her. I should have known she was going to go all motion picture big on me.

  “An FBI sting in Roble?” I asked, disbelief dripping in each word uttered.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Is it that obvious?” I said.

  “Are we working together on this or not?”

  “That isn’t exactly what I thought might’ve happened.”

  “See, that’s how you collaborate on things like this. You’ll get to say what you think happened, I tell you what I think. We compare notes and get this thing solved before Pogue.”

  “Not a race,” I said, “and we can’t get in his way.”

  “Deal,” she said, more easily than I would have bet on.

  “So tell me,” I said, bracing myself so as not to keel over on hearing this hailstorm of a story she had evidently conjured up. “Why is it you think he was killed? Was it because of an FBI sting?”

  “Don’t patronize me,” she said. She pointed her finger and narrowed her eyes. She could tell I was on the brink of breaking out into laughter “I have evidence of my conclusions.”

  I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  She reached between a row of cases, and pulled a newspaper that had been tucked behind them. “This is why,” she said, and handed it to me.

  I read the headline of the article she pointed to out loud. “Bribery and Kickbacks: The FBI’s Basketball Sting.” I looked at her. “I don’t get it,” I said.

  “If you read the article, you’ll see that financial advisors and tennis shoe companies are paying kickbacks to assistant coaches who get players to go to certain schools or do business with them after they make the NBA.”

  I let my eyes scan the article. Several assistant basketball coaches from Division I schools across the country had been arrested for taking money for recruiting high school players and steering them to certain colleges. Along with the coaches, a shoe manufacturing marketing exec and several financial advisors had been indicted. In addition, the article relayed, the targeted players and their parents were getting money as incentives to sign.

  “This is about basketball,” I said and handed her back the newspaper.

  “I know,” she said and frowned. “I read it.”

  “What does it have to do with Bumper?” Trying to get information from her in one cohesive stream, whether she wanted to share it or not, was like pulling teeth. “Am I supposed to guess?”

  “No. I’ll tell you.” She put the newspaper back in its hiding place and picked up one of the bottles of green liquid. “This is a sports drink that uses NFL players for endorsements.” She handed me the bottle. “And Texas A&M is a Mighty Max endorsed school.”

  “Okay.” I rolled the bottle around in my hand. I wouldn’t ever drink anything green, but according to the label it was an organic sports drink packed with electrolytes.

  “There’s probably other schools, but that’s the only one I know about right now.” She gave me a nod that said she was going to find out more. “Then there’s this Coach Harold ‘Buddy’ Budson.” She did the air quotes thing. “He’s one of the assistant coaches over there.”

  “At A&M?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And he and this Mighty Max marketing guy -”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Shane Blanchard.”

  “Okay.”

  “The two of them were trying to recruit Bumper. I mean really hard. They came down to go to almost every home game, went and had meetings and dinners over at his house, met his parents, the whole nine yards.”

  “But isn’t that what they’re supposed to do? Coaches, recruiters or whomever when they’re recruiting—meet the parents, share what they have to offer?”

  “Yes, but just like Piper said, they’re not supposed to offer money.”

  “Did they offer Bumper money?”

  “That’s what I think happened. They offered him money to get him to go to Texas A&M.”

  “And he turned them down,” I said finishing her little scenario. “So they killed him.”

  “Yes.”

  “That was a couple years ago. Mrs. Hackett said Bumper was a junior. They’re not even here.”

  “They are so here. Came down here on the pretense of watching this year’s football players.”

  “On the pretense?”

  “Yes. A recruiting mission.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah. Again that’s what they do. Don’t they come every year?”

  “Of course they do. They don’t try to keep me off their trail by trying to bribe me with cases of their hormone-filled blue water.”

  “I don’t know, Auntie. That’s pretty far-fetched,” I said. “Only thing we know for sure is that he didn’t pick Texas A&M two or three years ago. You don’t even know if they offered him money, or that perhaps USC offered him more money.”

  “Michael Hackett, Sr. drives a Saturn. They don’t even make those cars anymore. Bumper didn’t take any money to play ball.”

  “Auntie, this is just so out there.” I shook my head. “It would take me some time to wrap my head around th
is. And,” I looked around the closet and placed my hand on the doorknob, “be outside the confines of this small space. Can we talk about this outside of this claustrophobia-inducing cubby?”

  “I have to tell you one more thing.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  She looked around, as if someone might have just snuck inside the closet to spy on us, then she leaned in, licked her lips and whispered. “I think FBI agent, Rhett Remmiere, on an undercover assignment, is in charge of the whole sting operation.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oh brother!” I said. It was too much for me to try and control my reaction to her machinations. I had to laugh.

  Rhett Remmiere had apparently just shown up one day on Auntie Zanne’s door step. According to her, he was not only FBI, but a certified spy. He, when I confronted him about his credentials, wouldn’t ever say for sure. Although he did deny being “certified” verifying that there wasn’t any such thing.

  Now Auntie had the man in charge of a newsworthy, multi-university sting operation. The only thing I knew he did was drive a hearse.

  “Don’t be so surprised,” she said as I laughed. “It happens all the time.”

  “And you know all about that, huh?”

  “Of course I do. Everyone does. You know it’s like in that movie The Godfather,” Auntie said following me out of her closet, shutting off the light and locking the door behind her.

  “I don’t think there were FBI agents in The Godfather.”

  “Sure, the one agent went undercover and got so involved in it that he became one of them.”

  “I think what you’re thinking of the movie Donnie Briscoe,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said, agreeing with me although I was telling her she was wrong. “That’s the one. Don or Donnie if that’s what you want to call him, was the one that was the godfather.”

  “If Rhett’s undercover, why is he using his real name?” I wasn’t going to try to explain to her that Donnie was the guy’s name and not his title.