by Peggy Webb
Sometime when I despair that Mama and I have permanently reversed roles, she surprises me. That was easy. Maybe too easy. But I can’t worry about that now. I’ve got to catch a killer.
Chapter 19
Elvis’ Opinion on Writing, Canine Intelligence and Short Baldy
This is like the old days, the cousins dressed like cat burglars, Callie at the wheel of her Dodge Ram, Lovie with her baseball bat and me riding shotgun. True to her word, Ruby Nell has been back at the farm for the last three days. Charlie’s down there making sure she doesn’t get attacked again, and Fayrene is back home with Jarvetis and his faithful hound dog Trey.
It was a dark and stormy night… That famous line runs through my magnificent canine brain as Callie’s tires swish on the road to Oxford. Maybe I’ll write a book. It’s bound to be easy. Glenda has the intellect of a turnip, and look what she’s done. If this intelligent canine could spin songs into gold in my other life, I can pen bestsellers in this one. I can picture myself wearing a silk smoking jacket with pink satin lapels and holding a Cuban cigar between my sexy lips. My signature would be in pink, too. I’d have the ink specially made and keep it in a bowl beside copies of my latest bestseller so I could dip my paw in and place my stamp right under my name, Elvis Valentine Jones. It has a nice ring. A NYTimes bestselling author kind of ring.
“Lovie…”
Well, bless’a my soul. My human mom’s worry knocks my literary ambitions right out of my head and puts me in comfort mode. I heft myself up and lick her face. She puts a hand briefly on my head then goes back to driving with two hands. She’d not going to do anything to risk injuring that little Short Bald Person that will soon be part of my household.
“… are you sure Glenda is going to be gone tonight?”
“I checked the book tour itinerary on her website. She and Wexford are in Memphis for a signing at seven followed by a reception. They’ll be in Nashville tomorrow for a noon signing, so it’s only logical they will go straight there. I already told you this, Cal.”
“I know. I know. I’ve just got this funny feeling, that’s all.”
Lovie says a word that makes me wish I was sitting on Beale Street with a cigar and a glass of beer. Temporarily, of course. Taking care of Short Baldy is going to require every minute of my time. I might have to give up my Saturday night fine dining at Mooreville’s Truck Stop. A pity. The last time I was there with Trey, we had leftover meatloaf with potatoes and gravy. There’s no accounting what humans will put in the garbage can.
“You’re pregnant. You’re supposed to have a funny feeling.”
“Jack would die if he knew what I’m up to tonight.”
“Fortunately, he’ll never know.”
Callie makes the turn onto Oxford’s main drag and in short order we’re driving by Glenda’s house. Sure enough it’s dark inside and surprisingly, outside, too. You’d think a writer of Glenda’s wealth and fame would have her grounds lit up like an airport runway. That’s a big red flag to this intelligent canine. My razor sharp detective instincts tell me that only a woman with lots to hide would keep the grounds of her multi-million dollar mansion plunged into darkness.
Although the coast is clear, Callie’s too smart to park her truck near Glenda’s house. We leave it three blocks over on a street so dark and rainy we can barely see each other as we skulk along, keeping to the shadows of the massive oak trees that line these residential streets. I’ll bet these trees are at least a hundred and fifty years old.
We’re in William Faulkner’s territory now, and I feel my creative sap rising. If we weren’t trying to be incognito, I’d burst into one of my platinum hits.
“Up ahead.” Lovie’s whispering, though we’re the only ones foolish enough to be walking at midnight in the rain.
Glenda’s house rises out of the mists, a three-story monument to riches and bad taste. She got some bad press when she bought a house downtown and the vacant lot next door then tore down the existing house to build this monstrosity. The house she razed wasn’t on the historical register, but it fit in with the rest of the antebellum homes along this quiet street. The only thing that saved the neighbors from the tacky view of her new abode was the brick fortress she built around her tasteless mansion.
It takes Lovie less than two seconds to pick the lock to the wrought iron gate, and we’re inside a garden that would give Bellingrath a run for its money. In spite of Wexford’s obvious faults, he’s an excellent gardener.
All three of us creep through the garden. Well, bless’s my soul. I’m picking up scents that have nothing to do with flowers. Listen, a dog with a nose like mine can smell trouble buried under six feet of earth. I follow my nose to the magnolia tree and lift my leg to mark the spot.
No time for digging now. Callie and Lovie are entering the back door and I’m not about to be left out in the garden again. Besides, my nose is picking up all kinds of trouble inside that house. I hustle my handsome but portly self just in time to slide through the door before Lovie shuts it behind us.
We’re in the kitchen. While Lovie and Callie stand there letting their eyes adjust to the dark, I make out two cereal bowls on the table and spilled milk in front of the refrigerator. There are also three empty bottles of Alexander Valley Chardonnay on the cabinet and a plate half full of cheese straws. Glenda’s not only a bad writer, she’s messy and a heavy drinker.
Callie points and whispers to Lovie, “That way, and be careful.”
They’ve already agreed on the plan, and Lovie heads off to snoop in the front of the house while my human mom pulls a pen light out of her pocket and starts going through kitchen drawers. My expert nose tells me she’s on the wrong trail. I skirt around the spilled milk and go straight to a door beyond the refrigerator.
With my former life always on my mind, I croon a few bars of “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” When that doesn’t get Callie’s attention I have to resort to being a dog. Standing on my hind legs, I start scratching at the door and whining.
“Elvis! Be quiet.”
I could get all shook up, but what good would that do? I just sashay my brilliant self over, grab hold of Callie’s hand and tug.
“What?”
I do believe pregnancy has stolen a few of Callie’s brain cells. If she keeps standing in the middle of the kitchen with the pen light shining, we’re going to end up with the Folsom Prison blues.
I tug again and she finally gets my message. She’s not as good as Lovie at picking locks, but after two bent hairpins, one “Oh, shoot!” and a little bit of amazing grace, we’re through the door.
Chapter 20
Screaming, Nasty Surprises and Rescues
It’s pitch black beyond the door. Instinctively, I stand as still as a held breath, sensing all kinds of danger lurking in the darkness. Elvis is growling low in his throat and I squat down to feel his hackles up. Finally I risk a quick look with my pen light. Stairs. Plunging straight down. The musty smell screams basement. The perfect place for keeping secrets.
Briefly I consider fetching Lovie, but there’s no telling where she is in this monstrously large house. The hands on my watch show it’s already one o’clock in the morning. We’re running out of time.
“Let’s go, Elvis.”
With my light trained on the stairs, I creep downward, my dog close at my heels, the back of my neck prickling with every step. When we reach the bottom I sweep my light around the basement: cobwebs in the ceilings, no windows, dusty chairs stacked in one corner, tools hanging on the wall, the iron legs of a cot and…
“Holy cow!”
There’s a body on the cot, feet bare, legs tied together. I’m about to lose my dinner.
Come on, Callie. You can do this.
I transport my mind to the peaceful makeup room in Eternal Rest where I always say a prayer over the deceased before I prepare them for their final journey. Hopefully to Heaven, but whichever way they’re going I want to give them a good sendoff.
Elvis starts whining, and goe
s over to nose at the body. It rises straight up.
I stifle a scream.
Good grief! It’s Martha Jo Matthews, gagged and trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey. And might I add, looking even worse than she did in that awful gray outfit she wore to Becca’s funeral.
“You’re alive!” I hurry over to her, set my penlight on her cot and untie her gag. “What in the world…”
Her scream cuts me off and ricochets against the walls.
“Stop it!” Thank goodness, nobody is home. Still, she’s making such a ruckus I don’t doubt she’s about to wake the neighbors. I put a hand over her mouth. “Shhh. It’s me. Callie. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She keeps on screaming the sounds only slightly muffled by my hand. And now she’s thrashing, too.
“Martha Jo, you’re okay now. I’m going to rescue you.”
Suddenly the basement is flooded with light.
“And who do you think is going to save you, Callie Valentine Jones?”
Holy cow! The female voice gives me shivers.
That’s definitely not Martha Jo talking and it’s certainly not Lovie. If I had my druthers, I’d cower here until I wake up in my own bed and discover this is a bad dream. But Mama didn’t raise any cowards.
Slowly I pivot and there stands Glenda Cleveland, her sleep mask pushed into her bed-tousled hair and her gaudy purple satin robe hanging open over her equally tacky satin gown. If I weren’t about to pee in my cat burglar suit, I’d offer her my business card.
Her husband Wexford looks more presentable in his stripped cotton pajamas, but he looks scarier, too. The scowl on his face is enough to frighten small children and send Elvis into hiding under the cot.
But it’s the gun in his hand that has me worried.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Wexford. Grab that witch and tie her up.”
Only, Glenda doesn’t say witch. I’d cover little Jackie Nell’s ears with my hands but I’m too busy making a dash for the far wall.
“Get her, Wexford!”
“Don’t you see she’s pregnant! I can’t attack a woman about to have a baby.”
“I don’t care if she’s about to have kittens! Grab her!”
Nobody’s going to grab me and my baby. I snag the hammer off the tool rack and get into a fighting stance. Out of the corner of my eye I see motion on the stairs.
“How many more, Glenda?” Wexford says. “This has to stop somewhere.”
“How about right now!” There’s a blur of movement behind Glenda as Lovie’s baseball bat connects with the back of her knees. She goes down and Elvis leaps onto her chest then stands there with his teeth bared.
Wexford whirls around with his gun trained right at Lovie’s heart. In a split second I realize I can never get there in time. Praying and channeling my cousin as she used to appear on the baseball mound, I wind up and send the hammer flying through the air. It connects with Wexford’s back and the gun flies out of his hand.
Lovie closes in with her baseball bat and I grab blindly for the first weapon I can find. Then I race toward Wexford, a warrior woman yelling and wielding a commode plunger.
Suddenly, there is Jack, taking Wexford down so fast I can’t even see how he does it. The next thing I know Jack’s got one boot planted on Wexford’s chest and his arms crossed in a dangerous X across his chest, a gun in each hand, one pointed at Glenda, the other at her husband.
“It’s over, Cleveland.” Jack turns to wink at me, which is my husband in a nutshell. He’d be doing the same thing if he were surrounded by man-eating tigers with no way out except his bare hands. Which happen to be lethal, any way you look at it.
“I wasn’t going to shoot.” Wexford lifts both hands in the air. “I’m not a killer. I just bury the bodies.”
“Shut your stinking mouth, Wexford,” Glenda shouts.
I lower my commode plunger and smile at my husband. “What took you so long, Jack?”
“I knew you and Lovie could handle it.”
“Mr. Jones, I do believe that deserves a reward.”
He winks again as cops swarm into the basement to free Martha Jo from her bonds and cuff Glenda and Wexford Cleveland. She goes out saying words even Lovie wouldn’t use, but her husband goes out singing like a bird.
Outside the mansion, two crews are excavating the gardens Wexford confessed to using as their burial grounds. Obviously, Glenda’s confessing to nothing.
I don’t wait around to hear the rest of the story. The cops will untangle the web of revenge and murder down at the station, and Mama is in the clear. For now, that’s all I need to know. I toss my truck keys to Lovie then climb into Jack’s silver Jag and head toward home.
*
“Cal, about that reward…”
The sun pinks the edges of the windowsill as Jack and I lie tangled together in our bed.
“First, you have some answering to do.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gives me this crooked, endearing smile that is irresistible. Almost.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“Ruby Nell told Charlie, and he alerted me.”
“And you came to rescue me?”
“If necessary. I’m beginning to learn you can rescue yourself.”
“Oh, right answer, Jack Jones!” I tease his lips with mine. “Now, about that wrought iron in the kitchen…”
“Over the top?”
“Way over!”
“If I promise to take it back, do I get my reward soon?’
“How about right now?’
For the next little while we pay no attention to the rising sun.
Chapter 21
Elvis’ Opinion on Loving, Fiction and Being a Hero
I’m a hero down here at the Oxford Police Department.
Not only was I the one who subdued Glenda with these jaws of death, but I’m the famous nose who led the digging crew to Marvin Cook’s body under the magnolia tree in her garden. This fabulous nose also led them to the ancient bones of Lettie Hawthorne, a book reviewer from down in the Delta who disappeared fifteen years ago. She panned everything Glenda wrote in mid-career when her sales began to slide.
Turns out, if you said bad things about Glenda, you signed your death warrant. Starting way back in high school when she was the brunt of Evelyn Lawson’s jokes.
Death by hammer was her preferred method, but in a pinch, any heavy object would do. Case in point is Becca Jean Whitwell, the journalist who panned Glenda in View from the Deep South. Hit in the back of the head with Becca’s own brass lamp. She’d be in Glenda’s garden too but for the arrival of the night cleaning lady.
But for the timely intervention of this brilliant canine detective and my human family, Martha Jo Matthews, who turned folks away from Glenda’s book party, would have been the next victim planted six feet under. Probably under the rose bushes. With Marvin and Lettie not three feet from each other, it was getting too crowded under the magnolia tree.
“That’s some mighty fine dog you’ve got there, Miss Lovie.” The chief of police has got me sitting in the chair right next to his, and I’m so happy with his praise I don’t mind being referred to as a dog. “Next time we need a scent hound, we’ll call Elvis.”
No use lying. I’m lapping up the attention. It reminds me of the days when I was center stage in Las Vegas, bringing crowds to a roaring, stomping frenzy.
Lovie’s getting plenty of attention herself. She fills out that cat burglar suit, and a young cop with plenty of muscles is sitting up and taking notice. Still, I’m happy to say that, for once, she’s not flirting. She’s all business as the two of us sit in the briefing room to get the rest of the lowdown on Glenda and Wexford Cleveland.
Listen, this dog knows when to make himself scarce at home. The way my human mom and dad were looking at each other when they left the scene of the crime, I’d say they’re planning to make the world go away.
The sheriff’s rapping his pencil against his coffee cup now, and I get my mind off l
oving and onto murder.
“Glenda’s clammed up,” the sheriff says, “but Wexford’s still singing like a bird. I’ve got everything on tape. Chapter and verse.”
The sheriff tells us the story in a nutshell, but this literary dog thinks it needs a few flourishes.
Ruby Nell’s and Fayrene’s suspicious minds were right on target when they finally put the finger on Glenda. In high school, she was a true devil in disguise, building up resentments that reached the boiling point when she invited Michael Valentine to the senior prom and he rejected her.
She waited nearly two years for the perfect revenge. When Michael gave Ruby Nell a garden, complements of Matthews Flowers, the “poor little rich girl” (Evelyn’s favorite taunt for Glenda), hit Evelyn over the head with her daddy’s hammer then paid Shooter Maxey a handsome sum to bury him on the Valentine farm.. Shooter, who was working for Matthews and in charge of excavating Ruby Nell’s garden, was always in need of extra cash. In spite of rumors, he had no intention of running away with Evelyn, and he was glad to see the problem solved. As an added bonus, Glenda’s hush money gave Shooter a way to escape a place and a life he hated.
The cops will be looking for him now as an accomplice to an old crime, but this smart dog doubts they’ll ever catch up with him. Shooter’s had thirty years to practice hiding, and he’s not likely to slip up now.
For Glenda, the first murder plan seemed flawless. The body would be discovered, one or both of the Valentines would go down for murder, and Glenda would have her revenge on them as well as Evelyn.
But she hadn’t counted on Wexford Cleveland. He was also working for Matthews when Evelyn was buried in Ruby Nell’s garden, and he saw it all. Mousy Gloria with her family’s millions was the perfect target for blackmail.
