by Peggy Webb
“They’ll carry my veil.” She winks at Pete. “You can take care of that, right?”
“Sure can!” He trots off with my dog, and I don’t even want to think about the condition of Lovie’s veil after Elvis has wagged it around.
Still, this is the Valentine family, and everybody knows we’re quirky bordering on crazy, so why not? My job is to pave the way for my cousin and then get through the vows before Jackie Nell joins the wedding party.
Uncle Charlie winks at me and gives me the thumbs up sign, and off I go. I try to float instead of waddle. When I pass by Mama’s pew, she adds her V for victory sign, and I remember why I’m here and whose day this is.
I line up across from Rocky, and we both watch Uncle Charlie escort Lovie down the aisle. I couldn’t be happier…unless Jack were here. And Darlene and Bobby Huckabee. Plus Billy Jessup and the mayor of Tupelo and all Lovie’s clients and friends who adore her. The list is a mile long.
When she gets back from her honeymoon and settled in, I’m going to plan a reception, a big affair with tons of white flowers and white doves released into the air.
I’m going to…have this baby at the altar. I bite down on my tongue and try to focus on the wedding vows, but my brain no longer works. Apparently, it’s having a baby, too.
I stare up at Mary the Mother of Jesus because she gave birth under the most frightening circumstances imaginable. Suddenly she explodes. Is she that upset that Lovie wore white and told me she’d be a self-rejuvenating virgin?
“Down!” Uncle Charlie yells while the governor’s men in black swarm the place with their guns pointing in every direction.
Rocky sprints up the aisle with Uncle Charlie racing along behind him.
“That’s it, Charlie,” Mama yells. “You get him. You show him who’s the boss.” Naturally she’s thrown all caution to the wind and is jumping up and down up like a cheer leader at a Friday night football game.
Uncle Charlie pauses long enough to get her hunkered down the between pews. Then he’s up and running again, veering toward the left.
And there, emerging from the shadows are Britt and Holmes, my uncle’s go-to emergency back-up team, dangerous as all Company men are and unmistakable because of Britt’s bald head, as sleek and black as a bowling ball. They pass Otto into Uncle Charlie’s hands and vanish back into the shadows so fast I doubt anybody except me noticed.
Uncle Charlie calls out, “Got him! “
“Somebody call the highway control,” Fayrene yells. “Put that man behind bars!”
There’s an unholy screech from the back followed by a madwoman dashing down the aisle with her antique dagger poised and ready to kill. She’s wearing the Lovie look-alike mask, her red wig is arranged in a towering beehive and she’s trying to run in the same Jimmy Choo heels she had on the day I snooped in her shop.
It’s Cassandra Olsen and she’s heading straight toward me. A contraction hits me like a locomotive and everything goes into soft focus. Pearl is a blur of movement and the next thing I know Cassandra is pinned to the back wall with a knife through her beehive. If I weren’t halfway into La La Land and cut off from the action by Lovie leaping around in front of me, I’d swear Pearl threw the knife.
My cousin is saying words totally inappropriate for a bride and she’s waving around a weapon she snatched from the altar.
Holy cow, I think it’s one of the saints. My last thought as I slowly keel over is that I hope she picked a saint whose specialty is redemption.
Chapter 18
Elvis’ Opinion on Weddings, Babies and Heroic Dogs
This is my kind of wedding! Humans are running around everywhere trying to decide who is boss while yours truly races up the aisle to stand guard over a criminal mastermind before she can get the knife out of her fake hair.
Pearl Delaney is behind me, and she’s wielding another knife. How many has she got in that big purse?
“Don’t move, Cassandra,” Pearl says. “Next time, I’ll aim for your heart.”
Grace sidles up behind her sister. “She can hit it, too.”
That’s nothing compared to what this heroic dog can do. I grab Cassandra’s leg, and it’s crying time for criminals. She begs and whines and does everything short of saying, don’t be cruel. But I hang on until two of the governor’s body guards march her out of the church to the tune of wailing sirens. Charlie’s right behind them with Otto.
It’s about time for some amazing grace. I leave Cassandra and her boyfriend to a future behind bars and hustle back toward my human mom. She’s going into full-fledged labor and everybody’s going around the bend. Except, yours truly, of course.
I reverse course and am racing off to get the bridegroom when Lovie yells, “Get Rocky.” My sentiments, exactly. When Rocky’s dearly departed mother, Bubbles Malone, was shaking her feathers on the same Las Vegas stage I used to grace, he did more than hang around backstage. Rocky also watched--and learned from—the physician to the showgirls, the late Dr. Laton.
Rocky hustles to the altar and scoops up my human mom, while he and Lovie issue orders. They’re going to make a great team. Ruby Nell calls for an ambulance and Lovie corrals Fayrene to fetch hot water and plenty of linens while Rocky follows the priest to private quarters.
Wild horses couldn’t keep me out of there. When little short badly is born I want my handsome face to be the first one she sees. I leap onto a chair and the priest says, “Good dog.” He doesn’t have a clue that I’m not getting out of the way: I’m making sure little Jackie Nell sees her loyal protector and famous dog nanny first.
She’s doesn’t lollygag around. She comes into this world fast, and I don’t have to ask her, how’s the world treating you? She’s kicking and screaming and letting everybody in the room know that she’s no dainty little moonbeam.
She spots me right off the bat and can’t help fallin’ in love. I show her my best moves—the smile that used to cause women to faint, the swiveling hips with lots of wagging tail added in for good measure.
It’s you and me, kid.
She gets the picture.
Ruby Nell says, “She just smiled at me!”
I hate to burst her bubble, but little short baldy was aiming her considerable Southern charm toward yours truly.
After all the shouting is over, the ambulance arrives to haul mother and baby off to the hospital. They won’t let me ride, but that’s all right, mama. Ruby Nell goes with them and I trot back to the altar to stand in for Callie while Rocky and Lovie finish saying their vows. All in all, it’s a wedding nobody will ever forget.
*
We’re back in Mooreville now, and I’m up to my mismatched ears in baby diapers and pink teddy bears. Dog heaven, I call it. Everybody knows I’m king of the nursery, including little short baldy.
I’ve got to quit calling her that. She has name, but it’s not little Jackie Nell.
Callie didn’t name her until Jack arrived.
Some folks might say it was a crying shame he missed the birth of his daughter, but when he got to New Orleans, two days after she was born, he was so proud you’d have thought he invented babies.
I was there in the maternity ward, thanks to some intervention from the Delaney sisters. Nobody dares to cross them, particularly Pearl. After she nailed Cassandra Olsen with that well-placed dagger, we all learned that in her heyday as an American Red Cross volunteer, she’d worked undercover for the U.S. Someday I’d love to hear how the woman known in New Orleans as Debbie Delicious became a spy.
I didn’t learn Pearl’s background from that uppity cat, either. He didn’t speak a word the whole time I was there. I can vouch for that. And even if he could talk, it wouldn’t be anything you’d want to hear.
But back to my human dad… He walked in like he owned the earth, all smiles.
Here’s how short baldy got her name:
“I wanted a daughter, Cal. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“She looks just like you.”
“No,
she’s just like her beautiful mother.”
I don’t know how either one of them could tell. At that point, she had no hair and her head still resembled a mushroom.
“I thought we could name her Jackie Nell, after you and Mama.”
“I was thinking Penelope Jane.”
“Penelope Jane? Why one earth would we name her that?”
Jack shrugged. “It’s just a name I picked for my daughter the day we found out we were going to be parents.”
“And you never told me?”
“I didn’t know she’d be a girl. I was hoping…but still…I’ve been thinking of her as PJ this whole time.”
The only time I ever saw Jack this flustered was when we were tying to take care of the rubber baby and he let her catch on fire and melt. I hope he’s learned a lot since then.
Callie was quick to see his discomfort as well as his secret dream.
“PJ. I like it…if you’ll let me name her Penelope Jacqueline, after you.”
What happened next involved a lot of kissing and mushy conversation that I’m not going to share. I’m a dog who knows how to keep the Valentine/Jones household secrets.
The upshot is that we’re home now, safe and sound. And little Jackie Nell is officially named Penelope Jacqueline, PJ for short.
Pearl and Grace are back at the Charmed Cat dispensing potions and playing the part of harmless little old ladies. Rocky and Lovie are in Tupelo with Pete, awaiting final adoption papers. And Cassandra and Otto are awaiting trial for plotting Rocky’s downfall—the theft of the Treasures of Tulum and the murder of Martin Sanders.
Cassandra will get more time than her boyfriend because she masterminded the plot, ingratiated herself to Martin and planted the death camus in the kitchen. Furthermore she didn’t say a word when she saw the switch taking place at the table and knew Martin would die instead of Rocky. It was also her idea to implicate Lovie with the mask, the wig and the blowup doll…then to ditch the jade necklace locally to throw the police off the scent of murder and a much darker intrigue.
Before we left New Orleans, Callie told her mama she was never again going to get up to her neck in trouble, but Ruby Nell just said, ”Ha!”
And then she went off to Hawaii. On Rocky and Lovie’s honeymoon tickets. They insisted she have them. They said their priority was getting Pete used to his new home and they’d honeymoon later.
So Ruby Nell told Callie, “I need a little R and R. Besides, you and Jack need to bond with PJ, so I’m going to get out of your hair for two weeks.”
Ruby Nell has never gotten out of her daughter’s hair. In fact, just the opposite. She meddles in Callie’s business with such regularity she can tell you every item in her daughter’s refrigerator and name the exact shade of hair coloring Callie puts on every one of her customers.
This time, though, Ruby Nell just might be telling the truth.
If you’re thinking she went to Hawaii with Fayrene, think again. She went with none other than Charlie Valentine.
Ruby Nell was loud and clear when she told everybody, even those who didn’t ask, that they’d booked an extra room. But who knows what will happen when the moon is bright, the waves are lapping against the shore and a connecting door beckons?
That’s all I’m saying.
Elvis has left the building.
The End
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed Elvis and the Devil in Disguise, please do leave a review.
Read More
Continue to follow the Delaney sisters in The Charmed Cat Mysteries, a brand new cozy series by USA Today bestselling author Peggy Webb. The series stars the colorful Delaney sisters, their magical cat Houdini and their niece, Olympic sharpshooter, Magnolia Wild. All Peggy’s trademarks will be in this new series: humor, quirky characters and a good solid mystery that will keep you guessing.
Read on for the short story prequel, A Charmed Cat Mystery In Which The Sea Keeps Secrets.
A Charmed Cat Mystery
In which
The Sea Keeps Secrets
(The Prequel)
Peggy Webb
“Clever and wickedly witty…”
Tom Wilson, creator of Ziggy ©
WH
Westmoreland House
A Charmed Cat Mystery In Which The Sea Keeps Secrets, © by Peggy Webb 2019
Published by Westmoreland House/Peggy Webb
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art © 2019 by Cecilia Griffith
Cover Design 2019 by Vicki Hinze
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the written permission of the author and publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
First Printing: April 2019
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Chapter 1
In which Magnolia arrives
Fresh off my latest tour as an Olympic Gold medalist, I was barreling toward home at my top speed—fifty-five miles an hour in my ancient Volkswagen Beetle. I sang a rousing but off-key rendition of “Here Comes the Bride” to keep myself from thinking of the million little ways I was likely to totally wreck my sister’s wedding.
I’m more at home with guns than high heel shoes. The odds of me falling off my shoes were about ninety-five percent. Besides that, I look like a disgruntled giraffe in that bridesmaid dress Lucy calls creampuff rose and I call an unmitigated disaster. I can’t remember the last time I wore a dress. And I most certainly never wore one with rosettes blooming across my bosom.
When I went with Lucy to the bridal shop in Fairhope to pick out the monstrosity that now shares space on the backset of my car with my personal arsenal, she made a beeline for the most outrageously feminine dress on the racks. I wasn’t about to wipe the smile off her face by telling her I wouldn’t be caught dead in that dress.
So I tried it on. And nearly had a heart attack when I saw myself.
“Come out, Maggie! Let me see.” I sucked up my courage and when I trotted out of the dressing room my sister said, “It’s perfect!”
“I look like I have a flower garden blooming on my chest.”
“You look amazing. The dress brings out the color in your cheeks and the taffeta rosettes add definition to your breasts.”
By definition, Lucy meant I could use all the help I can get because I’m under-endowed, a real advantage when you’re the top shooter on the U.S. Olympic Team. Lucy’s opinion differs from mine, of course. She’s sees my lack of curves as a huge disadvantage to attracting the perfect man. Ever since she fell in love with Steve Sullivan, my sister has been obsessed with me finding the perfect man.
Mom found the only perfect man I know, our dad, Clint Wild, former stand-out running back for Bear Bryant at the University of Alabama. Dad helped lead his team to two national championships in 1978 and ‘79 and won the Heisman Trophy in 1980. His professional career with the Dallas Cowboys was equally outstanding until a knee injury put an end to pig skin glory. Instead of whining about his bad luck, Dad returned home and parlayed his football fame into one of Point Clear, Alabama’s most successful restaurants.
Wild’s attracts folks form all over the U.S., partially for the great food—prime rib cooked to perfection, wet barbecue that’s the best this side of Heaven, and key lime pie that has sent more than a few Southern belles to the fitness center for extra workouts. But it also lures diners who are looking for the chance to rub elbows with a football legend.
I’ve been like Dad in my determination to make the best of my talents, most of which have to do with guns and horses and fast cars---my present personal vehicle the notable exception. I hoped I could be like him in using my
Olympic Gold Medal to build a great future for myself. I already had a few endorsements, but I’ve been overwhelmed with all the other offers coming in. I needed to hole up with Dad in his office and get his advice.
First, though, I had to get through Lucy’s wedding without falling off my four-inch heels, ripping those stupid roses off the front of my dress and intimidating every man at her wedding with my height. In those ridiculous heels I’m six feet and one inch tall.
As I made the turn from Mobile over the Causeway Bridge I picked up a tail, a white van with TV calls letters. That’s another thing. Because of my Olympic medals, the press stalks me everywhere I go. I didn’t want them to make me the center of attention at my own sister’s wedding.
They’d be after Dad, too. I could just see the headlines. Daughter of Former Heisman Trophy Winner and Sister of Olympic Gold Medalist Weds.
After I crossed the causeway, I pulled into the first gas station I spotted then got out, adjusted my sunglasses and waited for the press. They weren’t long coming, a short balding man, forty or so, brandishing a microphone, and a skinny cameraman with a black goatee. The portly reporter panted as he came even with me and handed me his card--Frank Clifton, notorious at the south Alabama TV station for digging up dirt and spewing it forth on the six o’clock news whether or not it was true.
They regularly issued more apologies than the famous sleuthing basset hound up in Tupelo, Mississippi, has fleas. Half a dozen of them to me.
“Maggie! Maggie Wild! Is it true you’re going to upstage your sister’s wedding with an announcement of your engagement to the new young mayor of Fairhope?”
Oh, for Pete’s sake! I wanted to smack his lying mouth.
“Nobody gets to upstage Lucy’s wedding! That rumor is absolutely false. Daniel Langley and I grew up together. We’re friends, that’s all.” His dad’s property adjoins ours in Point Clear, and we spent many summers racing horses and cars all over the vast acreage. For a while, we flirted with the idea that we might end up together in some form of wedded arrangement, but my interest in guns and his interest in other girls quickly put an end to that half-baked notion.
