by Peggy Webb
“No.”
“Well, I sort of stole a car.”
“Holy cow! I would understand if you picked up somebody’s umbrella by mistake, but how can you sort of steal something as big as a car?”
“It looked just like mine, so I was completely innocent of intent.” Ruby Nell sniffs the air like my friend Trey on the scent of rabbits. “Is that coffee I smell? I can’t think without coffee.”
“Oh, good grief.” Callie marches to the kitchen and we all pick our favorite spot while she pours Ruby Nell a cup of coffee. “I know good and well you can’t drive off in a car if you don’t have the keys, so what else did you do, Mama?”
“You know how I am about losing my keys in my purse.”
“They’re not lost. You always get excited and just imagine they are.”
“As I was saying, I lost my keys. So I hot wired the car and drove off.”
Callie throws up her hands. “I don’t even want to know how you can hot wire a car. What I want to know is how come you never told me about this?”
“It was a long time ago. You and Lovie were off at college and Charlie fixed everything.”
“Thank God for Uncle Charlie!”
Lovie’s too busy laughing to say, “Amen.” While she’s getting herself under control, Callie brings her mama up to date on the sheriff’s latest suspicions.
“Marvin Cook’s from Oxford,” Ruby Nell says. “We’ve got to get back over there and get to the bottom of all this before I end up behind bars. I look horrible in orange.”
“You’re not going back to Oxford and you’re not going to jail. You’re going to stay here with Elvis while Lovie and I tend to our clients.”
“I thought you were going to help me.”
“I am, Mama. But after our shenanigans in Joyce’s Books we can’t just go driving over there in broad daylight. We’ll all end up in jail for disturbing the peace.”
Not while this brilliant canine sleuth is on the job. I sidle over, lean against Callie’s legs, twist my handsome head to a flattering angle and howl a few bars of “Night and Day,” though it’s not my song.
She gets the picture. We’ll travel, all right, but we’ll go in disguise under the cloak of night.
Chapter 18
Mayhem, Madness and Death by the Book
After I get out of my bathrobe – finally! – Lovie and I part ways in the front yard. She’s catering a baby shower this afternoon, and I’ve got to make Alice Ann Street beautiful. She has a date with Billy Jessup, of all people. He’s at least fifteen years younger than she is and not half as good looking, though I mean that in the very best of ways. Naturally, I’m going to do everything I can to catch her up to him in the looks department.
By the time I get to Hair.Net, Darlene is already at her manicure station reading the astrology section of the newspaper.
“Alice Ann’s horoscope says today is her day to sparkle so I’m going to add a dash of gold glitter to her nails.”
“Great. But see how she feels about it first. She’s very conservative.”
“Billy’s the exact opposite. And she’s a lot older.”
“Well, not that much.”
“Still, if she wants to keep him interested she’ll take my advice. Most clients do. And look how that always turns out!” She blows an air kiss. “Maleficent!”
Occasionally, a bit of Fayrenese slips into Darlene’s vocabulary, proving that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I wonder which one of my traits little Jackie Nell will inherit.
I don’t have time to think about it because Alice Ann is coming through the door.
“I look like a mouse,” she says. “I don’t know what to do about myself.”
“I know exactly what to do.” I lead her to my beauty station and set to work.
“So do I.” Darlene picks up a file and starts working on her own nails. “You need to get a good pushup bra and a killer perfume. Something with musk.”
“Oh, help.”
Alice Ann is the timid type, and Billy’s middle name is extrovert. Maybe that’s the attraction.
“I’m going to do some more feathering around your face to emphasize your eyes.”
“Wear lots of navy blue mascara,” Darlene adds.
“Plus, I’m going to add some honey gold highlights to your hair. That will really brighten up your features.”
“Have you got some killer high heels?” Darlene says. “Red sling-backs?”
“Maybe I need to take notes?” To my perfect horror, Alice Ann tears up. “I don’t know why I ever said yes to a man who looks like a movie star.”
“Darlene,” I say but she reads my mind. She’s already dashing off to the break room for some Prohibition Punch. “None for me,” I call after her.
“I know!”
I pat Alice Ann’s shoulder and make soothing sounds, much the way I imagine I’ll do when little Jackie Nell is born. Darlene comes back, all smiles, and carrying the pitcher and a stack of Dixie cups. She hands the Valentine’s magical cure-all to Alice Ann then takes hers back to her manicure station.
The brew does the trick in no time flat, and Alice Ann is soon all smiles. I’m happier than I’ve been since Jack left. The phone is quiet, Mama doesn’t drop by to tell me of some big so-called emergency, and the sheriff is nowhere in sight. Murder and mayhem are completely forgotten as I transform this ugly duckling into a swan. And I mean that in the best of ways.
I’m putting on the finishing touch – a new weightless shine spray – when there’s a pounding on the door that makes me jump sky high. Good grief! All my clients know to just come right in.
I give Alice Ann’s hair a final pat and go to the door. There stands Coach Sammy Matthews, his fists balled up and his face scowling like he’s planning to kill somebody. Holy cow! I hope that somebody is not me.
As far as I’m concerned, he’s still high on the suspect list, and I don’t like the idea of being a sitting duck up here with nobody but Alice Ann and Darlene to defend me. Alice Ann is more likely to flee than fight and Darlene’s weapon of choice will probably be the newspaper rolled up to feature the astrology section.
“Coach Matthews. What can I do for you?” I ask. He’s so stirred up, he just stands there fuming. “If you’re here for a haircut, I can fit you right in. I just finished my last client. Come on in.”
“Can I come in, Callie?”
Is he going deaf? I stand aside and motion him into the shop. He tips his baseball cap in Darlene’s direction then does a double take when he sees Alice Ann.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had an out-of-town client or I wouldn’t have come barging in like this.”
Maybe he’s lost his marbles, too. I’ve seen him dozens of times at Mooreville Video checking out Westerns from Alice Ann.
“Coach, you remember Alice Ann?”
He says a word worthy of Lovie. “I thought she was somebody famous. A TV weather girl or something.”
Alice Ann beams, and I mouth, See?
“Thanks, Coach,” Alice Ann says. “You can have my chair. I’m getting my nails done.”
“Wait till you see her then, Coach.” Darlene’s proceeds to line up an array of nail polish colors. I notice she puts the silver sparkles in a prominent place. “You’re going to think she’s just won Miss America.”
He’s still standing in the middle of my beauty shop, dwarfing my pretty pink love seat and matching chairs and looking as if he doesn’t even know why he’s here.
Seized by inspiration I pour him a cup of Prohibition Punch. He drinks it down in one big swig. “Good stuff,” he says, then helps himself to another.
I just sit quietly on my love seat and wait for him to tell me why he’s here. I’m not about to pester a man the size of Coach Matthews.
“I guess I might as well speak freely.” He nods as if he’s agreeing with himself. “The way I figure, the more people who know, the better chance I have of finding her.”
Shivers run all over me.
This sounds so ominous I’ve temporarily lost my ability to speak. And there’s no telling what this kind of tension is doing to little Jackie Nell.
“Find who, Coach?” Darlene says.
I mouth Thank you to her for being brave enough to ask the question, and she goes back to manicuring Alice Ann’s nails.
“My sister.” He swigs his punch and I come out of my stupor.
“Where’d she go?”
“That’s what I’d like to know, Callie. I haven’t heard from her since Glenda Cleveland’s book party over in Oxford.”
“You’ve tried her cell phone?”
“A dozen times. It goes straight to voice mail every time.”
“Maybe she had plans to leave early this morning to see out-of-town friends.”
“Her car’s not home.”
“Maybe she went shopping. Lots of people go on overnight shopping trips to Memphis or Jackson.”
“The thing is, Martha Jo calls me every day. I’m all she’s got, and she checks in with me first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It used to drive my wife crazy. But then, she was half-crazy already. Always spending money like it was oil and we were rich Texans.”
Obviously, the Prohibition Punch has loosened his tongue. Or maybe he’s just unhinged by grief. Or it could be that he never recovered from Mama’s and Fayrene’s seduction antics at his house, not to mention the unintentional theft of his lawn chair.
“Maybe she forgot,” I tell him. “Mama sometimes does, and they’re the same age.”
“Martha Jo never forgets anything. Got a mind like a squirrel cage.”
Well, I think he meant steel trap, but maybe he didn’t. Mama would say his description of Martha Jo’s mental capabilities is entirely accurate.
“Was she still at Glenda’s book party when you left?”
“She was. I left before she did. And that’s the last time I ever saw her. Reason I came up here is I thought maybe you’d seen her out and about. Your shop’s got a good view of the four-way stop.”
“It does, but I’m usually too busy to see what’s happening outside. What about her neighbors?” She lives in town, which makes me wonder why Coach Matthews is here questioning me instead of over in Tupelo asking around.
“I already checked. They don’t know a thing.”
“What about her flower shop?”
“I went there, too, but her assistant said she hadn’t come in or called. Then I went over to her house, used my key, searched the house and the entire premises.”
I notice Alice Ann squirming around over at the manicure station and wearing a strange expression I can’t read. She’s too shy to talk if you don’t drag it out of her. I hope she finds her tongue before her date with Billy.
“Is anything wrong, Alice Ann?”
“I was just going to say, Martha Jo drives all the way out here to get her videos because we have a better selection. Two are due back today and she always brings them in at eight o’clock sharp so she can get back to open her flower shop at nine. She didn’t show up this morning.”
“I tell you, Callie,” the Coach says, “with everything that’s going on over at Oxford, I’m worried sick about her. Did you hear on the news about Marvin Cook from over there disappearing?”
“I heard.”
I’m not about to tell him the sheriff personally delivered the news because Mama’s a suspect. In fact, I’m beginning to take back my suspicions of Coach Matthews. I consider myself a very good judge of character, and he’s genuinely concerned about his sister.
“We’ll keep our eyes open and ask everybody we know, Coach. Meantime, if you don’t hear from her by tomorrow, contact Sheriff Trice.”
He leaves shortly before Alice Ann, who declares she has some shopping to do. She fluffs up her new hairdo, proud of herself, then heads out the door.
“I hope she’s going after that push-up bra.” Darlene starts closing up her manicurist’s station. “As a matter of fact, I’m going after one myself. I’ve got a hot date tonight.”
“With Bobby?”
“’Natch.”
I’m glad that Darlene thinks of Bobby as hot. He looks like the illustrations of Ichabod Crane and rarely strings more than five words together. His idea of an exciting evening is watching Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune.
“Where are you going? Somewhere exciting, I hope.”
“We’re driving up to a jazz club on Beale Street in Memphis, and then…ta daa! We’re staying at the Peabody!”
“All right!” I give her a high five. “I’m so happy for you.”
“Don’t tell Mother. She likes Bobby, but not as a future son-in-law. In spite of the fact that she and Ruby Nell run around having séances and native rituals with feathers and I don’t know what else, she thinks anybody with two failed marriages ought to be wearing a nun’s robe and a wimple.”
“Mum’s the word. Bobby is a really good person and both of you deserve to be happy. Who’s keeping David?” Her son is this adorable looking four-year old cherub who will be a great playmate for little Jackie Nell.
“Daddy.” Darlene pulls a compact from her purse and freshens her lipstick. “Oh, lord, here she comes now.”
In that pink Cadillac with Mama driving and the top down big as you please. In spite of the fact that’s somebody tried to kill her this morning and the sheriff’s looking to drag her in for questioning. The only good thing I can say about the situation is that she brought Elvis for protection.
She and Fayrene breeze through the door like it’s any other ordinary day, though I’ll have to admit that lately there’ve been precious few ordinary days in the Valentine family.
“Mama, I thought I told you to stay home where it’s safe.”
“Flitter. I’ve got Elvis.” She spots the Prohibition Punch and pours two cups then hands one to Fayrene. “You won’t be so bossy when you see what we’ve found.”
Darlene breezes by with her blond hair in a high pony tail and her Kate Spade bag over her shoulder. She blows an air kiss in Fayrene’s direction. “Hi and bye.”
“Wait a minute, ‘Lene. Where are you going?”
“Out and about. See you later.” With that, she’s gone. I wish it could be that easy to get around Mama.
I don’t wish Darlene good luck tonight because Fayrene and Mama would pounce all over it. If you want to keep a secret around them, you’d better batten down tighter than Fort Knox.
After Darlene leaves, they plop down on my love seat and act like they’ve got nothing to do but sit there all day, drinking liquored up punch.
“Well? What was so important it brought you out of hiding, Mama?”
Fayrene opens her gigantic carpetbag of a purse and whips out a copy of Murder Among the Magnolias, which is sprouting yellow sticky notes. She fingers the first one and opens the book.
“Listen to this. Once I made up my mind to kill somebody, I didn’t pussyfoot around about the weapon. I wanted something that would do the job the first time around, and a hammer seemed the perfect choice.”
“See?” Mama smiles at me expectantly.
“See what? Glenda’s a suspense writer. She’s made the New York Times list writing about murdering people.”
“Her daddy owned Monts Construction, and Evelyn was bashed in the back of the head with a hammer.”
“We don’t know it was a hammer, Mama.”
“We don’t know it wasn’t, either.” Mama gestures toward the book. “Read that next part, Fayrene.”
“What better place to bury the body than the Grove at Ole Miss? Clements Landscaping had planted a row of magnolia trees and the ground was still soft, newly turned. I liked to think I was doing the victim a favor. She’d always loved nature and now she would become part of the tree, her arms and legs transforming to tree roots and her heart providing the very life’s blood that would make the magnolias burst into bloom next summer.”
“Holy cow! That’s creepy. But I still say, she writes fiction.”
&nbs
p; “Evelyn loved nature,” Mama says. “She used to talk about it all the time. She and her mama lived off in those woods in that little trailer, and she grew up making play houses among the oak and pine trees. Later, that’s where she lured everybody else’s boyfriends.”
“Okay. I’m beginning to get chills. Let’s think about this logically. Glenda had motive to kill both Evelyn and Becca. She also had motive to get rid of both people who are missing.”
“Who besides the bookseller who panned her?” Mama says.
I tell about the disappearance of Martha Jo Matthews, and Mama says, “Nearly everybody who came to the funeral saw her fight with Glenda at Eternal Rest.”
“That’s right, Mama. Two deaths and two disappearances, and all leading back to her.”
“That’s not all. Show her, Fayrene.”
She reaches into her bag and brings out one of those threatening notes to Mama along with the handwritten invitation to Glenda’s book party at Joyce’s Books.
“Same exact handwriting,” Fayrene says. “I was just agag when I saw it.”
I whip out my cell phone and punch in numbers. “Lovie? Have you finished the baby shower…Good. Get yourself over here….That’s right. And bring your baseball bat.”
“I wonder who buried the body in Ruby Nell’s garden?” Fayrene says. “Glenda’s always been puny. And she’s no bigger than a sneeze now.”
“If Glenda is the killer, maybe Lovie and I can find some evidence of her accomplice.” Wexford is the logical one, but murder is never logical.
“We’ll all need to wear black tonight,” Mama says.
“There’s no we to it. Nobody is going over there tonight and confront Glenda Cleveland, either deliberately or accidentally. If she killed two people, she’s dangerous. Fortunately, she’s traveling with her book tour, so it will be easy to find out her schedule and pick a time when the house is empty. But when we go, you and Fayrene are going to stay home where you’ll be safe.”
“Like I was this morning on your front porch when somebody tried to strangle me?”
Good grief. Why didn’t I think of that? I must be losing a brain cell for every inch my waistband expands.
Mama reaches for my hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Charlie and tell him I’m ready to go back to the farm. He’ll come down and we’ll eat fried chicken and watch a John Wayne movie. He’s crazy about the Duke. Besides, I can’t ask you and Fayrene to baby sit me forever.”
