The Power of Bacon

by Kim Hunt Harris

  The Trailer Park Princess and the Power of Bacon

  a short story by

  Kim Hunt Harris

  Copyright 2013 Kim Hunt Harris

  “Just because we accidentally solved one murder doesn’t make us private detectives.”

  I looked at the business card my octogenarian friend Viv had just handed me across the counter of Flo’s Bow-Wow Barber, where I worked. “This is not going to happen.”

  The cards were a pale pink, with a pair of handcuffs tossed carelessly across one corner and the company name – Discreet Investigations – written in a font that looked like red lipstick. The words might have said “Private Investigation,” but the whole mood of the card screamed “Weird Kinky Bondage Sex!”

  “Beautiful, aren’t they? Look what else I got.”

  While she rummaged through the Amazon.com box she’d hauled in, I tried to think of a way to derail this whole disaster-waiting-to-happen before it gained any momentum. Viv and I had only been friends a few months, but it had been an intense few weeks. We’d exonerated my not-quite-as-ex-as-I’d-thought-husband who’d been accused of murder, and caught the real killer of a beautiful young woman. In doing so, we’d also come disturbingly close to being the next murder victims, and Viv and I both had spent some time in the hospital. I, for one, was ready to go back to my normal single-woman-in-her-late-twenties life of work, daydreaming about meeting my prince charming, and pretending I was going to seriously buckle down and lose some weight.

  But Viv, all eighty-something years of her, had caught the bug. She now fancied us a crime-solving duo. Viv was bored to tears living in the Bell Tower Independent Living Home and needed some adventure. People trying to kill us? Suddenly she was all, “Bring it on! I probably wasn’t going to live much longer anyway.”

  “Yeah, baby.” Viv read from the flimsy cardboard box she’d pulled out. “Tactical Night Vision Goggles, for the outdoor enthusiast. Hand me some scissors, will you?”

  “We are not outdoor enthusiasts,” I said as I handed her the scissors. “And we’re not private eyes. I’m an overweight dog groomer and you’re –” I didn’t want to say ‘You’re a bored old lady with more money than sense’ because that seemed disrespectful. So I settled on “You’re bored. You just need a new hobby or a new boyfriend or something. “

  But she was too busy trying on her goggles like they were a designer fashion accessory to listen to me. A bunch of straps tangled together were, according to the picture on the box, supposed to form some kind of head mount so the wearer could enjoy hands-free usage, but Viv was having trouble. She stumbled around with the black straps tangled in her white hair, the goggles bouncing off her nose as she fought to adjust them.

  “Where in the world did you get that?” Flo asked as she led Topper, an Old English Sheepdog who’d just been fluff dried into looking like the canine equivalent of a salon shampoo model, into the room.

  “She’s been shopping out of the back of the Soldier of Fortune magazine again, haven’t you, Viv?”

  “I have not,” Viv said calmly, only her mouth visible beneath the black goggles and straps. “I got these on Amazon. You can get anything on Amazon.”

  Tammy, the dog bather at Flo’s, stepped around the counter to help Viv. “Here, I think this is supposed to go like this.” She clicked something and the goggles quit flopping around.

  Viv straightened bolt upright. “Oh, that’s excellent!” She clapped her hands like a little girl who’d just been given a new dolly. “Oh, I have to try them out.”

  Flo motioned toward the back of the shop with her head. “The bathroom gets pitch black,” she offered.

  Viv dashed around the counter and Tammy followed. “Can I try them after you?”

  “Do not encourage her,” I told Flo once they were out of earshot.

  “I know, I know. But I get a kick out of that old lady. She has no clue she’s supposed to be old and frail.”

  “Yes, well, she is old and frail.” Our experience with a family of homicidal maniacs a few weeks ago had left Viv with bumps and bruises but thankfully no permanent injuries. I, on the other hand, felt scarred for life. For a few minutes there, I thought I’d lost both Viv and my beloved dog Stump, and they were almost the only people I had in the world. And one of them wasn’t even a people. “She needs to take up knitting or something.”

  “You know, you could solve the mystery of the kidnapped Bitsy,” Flo laughed. Unfortunately, she said it right as Viv and Tammy were walking back into the room.

  “Those are so cool!” Tammy said. “I wish I had some.”

  “A kidnapping!” Viv rubbed her hands together. “It’s not a murder, but it will do in a pinch. Who’s our kidnappee?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “We are not getting messed up with that crazy lady.”

  Bitsy was a Maltese with a bad personality who visited the Bow Wow Barber once every two weeks. Her owner, Mrs. Braswell, had called that afternoon to say that Bitsy had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom by a disgruntled former housekeeper. The kidnapper wanted ten grand to give the dog back. The thing was, this was Mrs. Braswell, who was basically crazy as a loon, and since crazy people tend to attract more crazy people, I didn’t doubt the story one bit.

  “Of course we are,” Viv said. “This is what we do. We reunite families, we restore hope, we bring daughters back home. Let’s go.”

  “Viv, the owner is crazy, the kidnapper is crazy, and I’ve had enough of crazy for a while.”

  “Owner?” Viv asked.

  “Bitsy is a dog, not a daughter. A nasty dog that bites.” Bitsy was also a dog who, one time, had squatted and peed on my favorite pin brush, and I had never forgiven her.

  “You don’t want that two thousand dollars?”

  “Two thousand dollars?” I hadn’t heard that part.

  “The reward. Mrs.Braswell said she would give two grand to whoever could bring Bitsy home. That’s a pretty sweet reward.”

  “That is sweet. We’ll split it, Salem. I can finally buy those knee-high black patent leather boots I’ve had my eye on.”

  To my credit, I didn’t throw anything at Viv although I was sorely tempted. Viv was loaded. She drove a big fancy gas guzzler of a car, lived in the most expensive section of the most expensive retirement home in town, and could buy a different pair of thigh-high boots for every day of the week. Plus, did I mention she was eighty-something? What did she need with hooker boots?

  The idea of half the reward, though, had given me pause. I could maybe put up with a little crazy to get a thousand bucks. Then I could pay my water bill and have some left over to finally open a savings account. Glory of glories.

  Our part of Texas was eighteen months into a drought, and under Stage 4 water restrictions. All non-essentials, like washing cars and watering the grass, were strictly limited. The water district had developed this public service campaign, pulling up old images of rubber tire drives and meat rationing from World War II, intended to get everyone on board the conservation band wagon. It had worked, too. An ugly brown yard and dusty car had become badges of honor, a symbol of one’s community spirit. Even the yards around the country club looked awful. Of course, the golf course was pristine green, but the houses themselves sported brown yards as a sign of solidarity.

  But my little yard at Trailertopia…my yard boasted a tropical green swath of grass that could be spotted for blocks. People actually drove by and shouted death threats, I kid you not. And it wasn’t even my fault. My neighbor, Frank, was doing me a favor one day and mowing down the Russian thistle (Russian thistle, by the way, is what eventually turns into tumbleweeds. During the dust bowl they were the only thing that grew for thousands of miles, and people got so desperate for food they b
oiled them and ate them, which is kind of horrifying to think of) which grew, no matter hot and dry it was. Except when he pushed the mower back up under the corner of my trailer, he accidentally hit the water faucet and turned it on just a bit. Just enough for it to run out in a thin stream and soak into the parched ground for days. And days. And days. Weeks, actually.

  One would think I would catch on to the fact that my yard had morphed into a lush, green oasis amidst an endless desert of brown, but-- like I’ve said--I’d been through a near-death experience at the hands of the helicopter Mom from hell, and I was kind of preoccupied. Until I got the water bill. I called the city and ranted and shouted. Over $500,for one month? That was insane. It couldn’t possibly be right.

  My water usage, the bored lady at the other end of the phone explained, had put me into a different bracket, and the rate per gallon was higher. I’d actually jumped two brackets, she informed me, with a tone that indicated I could feel proud if I so chose. She wasn’t fazed by my insistence that it was clearly a mistake. I stood at the little rectangular window at my front door, the phone to my ear, fighting for patience as I tried to explain to her that there was no way I had used that much water. And then I noticed.

  Oh.

  I hung up the phone, went outside, and turned off the water.

  My green yard was a badge of shame but one I couldn’t very well do anything about. And now I had a water bill that was almost as much as my rent, and a paycheck that hadn’t gone up at all. I kind of wanted to ask Frank to pay for it, except he had been doing me a favor and it had been an accident, after all. It seemed wrong to even ask. So I silently fumed whenever he was around, which was obviously productive. Thankfully, Frank is basically oblivious to everything except food and MMA fights, and my fuming must have looked like normal everyday behavior to him.

  If I didn’t pay the bill, of course, they’d cut off the water, and I’d have to pay the entire bill plus a new deposit of $250 to get it turned back on. Which made perfect sense, if you think about it. After all, if you don’t have money to pay your bill, you’ll definitely have enough to pay the bill plus a new deposit, right?

  Right.

  I trimmed schnauzer eyebrows and considered the situation. Okay, we did have the crazy-people factor going on. There was Mrs. Braswell, who not only owned a funeral home, but also a funeral home museum, which she frequently declared to be her life’s work. And there was the crazy ex-housekeeper who had carried out the actual kidnapping. All of that seemed bizarre, but not particularly dangerous. Certainly nothing like what we’d already survived. The worst Viv and I would likely face would be Bitsy herself. Bitsy liked me. Bitsy thought I tasted good. The little piranha.

  “Two grand?” I asked again. I could really use fifty percent of that. “Do you think she’d really pay it?”

  “Absolutely,” Flo said. “You know how she is about that dog.”

  I did know how she was about that dog. When she wasn’t able to bring Bitsy to her monthly appointment herself, she let her grandson bring the little Maltese in the funeral home limo.

  “Let’s go over there and talk to her,” Viv said. “Before someone else jumps on it.”

  “I have to finish this dog and sweep up,” I said. One thing I loved about my job – when I was finished with my work, I could leave. That came in handy.

  I dusted the dog hair off my clothes and grabbed Stump from her bed under my table. Of the three of us, Stump had fared worst with our recent brush with death. She still groaned when she stood, and she slept more than normal. The vet insisted she was on the mend, though, so I tried not to worry. But I hadn’t let her out of my sight much in the past weeks.

  Viv and I drove over to the Braswell Funeral Home in Viv’s Cadillac. “Let me do the talking,” she instructed me. “You’re not good with people.”

  That much was true – I wasn’t particularly good with people. Viv could be, sometimes, but not nearly as often-- nor as good-- as she thought she was. “Mrs. Braswell has been bringing Bitsy to me every two weeks for the past year. She’s going to want to talk to me.”

  “Well, okay, but keep it short and simple. Let me close the deal. Good Lord! Would you look at that thing?!”

  The funeral home museum occupied the east wing of a big white Colonial building with white columns and black shutters, and the actual funeral home was in the west half. Outside the museum section, in a gigantic glass box, stood an old horse-drawn hearse. Complete with a stuffed horse that had been badly taxidermied. When I was in high school a bunch of us had gotten drunk and tried to find a way to open the box and get inside so we could pretend to ride the Hell Horse and drive the hearse. I didn’t tell my cool friends, but I’d had nightmares about that horse’s wild crazy bug-eyes for weeks afterward. We called it the hearse-in-the-box.

  When we got inside, Mrs. Braswell wasn’t around. Her grandson Ryan appeared to be manning the place. I wondered morbidly if everyone else was in the basement embalming something, but tried not to think about it.

  Ryan recognized me, so I told him why we were there.

  “Oh, man, that would be great if you could find that dog. Not that I’m anxious to have the thing back. Nasty little thing.”

  Not being able to say what first came to mind (I know, right?) I settled for nodding and giving a sympathetic half-smile.

  “But Gran is wigging completely out. She’s done nothing but cry since she got the ransom note.”

  “I’ll need to see that note,” Viv said. “Has it been dusted for prints?”

  “Ummmm, no,” Ryan said carefully. “We know who has her. Joyce Ewell. She used to work here. Besides, she said that if Gran called the police Bitsy would become a pair of fluffy white slippers that she would wear around the house.”

  Viv grimaced. “That’s gross.”

  “Tell me,” Ryan said. He stepped into the dark room behind him and rifled through a desk.

  “Oh, my gosh,” Viv said, entering the room with the round-eyed wonder of a kid entering Disneyland. “Is this it? The museum?”

  Ryan nodded, looking behind him uneasily. “This is it. The one and only.”

  “I have to see this.” Viv stepped inside the room.

  I had no desire to see it. And yet, I could not seem to stop myself from stepping into the room after Viv.

  Toward the back of the room, a table stood with a white sheet covering a long lump. Viv made toward it eagerly.

  I stared at it. “Is that…?”

  “It’s just a pile of old paper bags under there,” Ryan assured me from his post at the doorway.

  So fixated was I on the fake dead body that I was almost even with the woman in the rocking chair before I even saw her. She was dressed completely in black, and sat frozen in the chair, staring straight ahead.

  I gasped, “Holy crap!” and jumped back. I put my hand over my heart.

  “That’s a dummy,” Ryan said. “It’s supposed to show how people used to sit with the dead until they were buried.”

  “Get a load of this,” Viv said. She stood over a display case on the other side of the fake dead body table.

  I edged up beside her but kept myself turned half toward the center of the room. I did not want to turn my back on either the lump on the table or the woman, dummy or no.

  Viv pointed to a black broach lying on a piece of light blue velvet. “That…is hair!”

  “Get out!” I looked closer. It didn’t look like hair. But the little card beside it said “It was customary to keep locks of hair and teeth from departed loved ones to work into jewelry.”

  I looked uneasily around for little drop earrings made from teeth, but fortunately didn’t find any.

  “No offense, but this place is giving me the creeps,” I said.

  Ryan nodded glumly, looking around at the museum and back into the entryway of the funeral home proper. “One day this is going to all be mine.”

  “Well,” I said, trying to think of something positive to say. Whatever gene that made Mr.
and Mrs. Braswell suited for funeral homing had not been passed down to poor Ryan.

  “Here’s the note,” he said, handing it to Viv. He stepped back into the hallway, where he was clearly more comfortable.

  I looked over Viv’s shoulder and read the note.

  “You owe me mony,” it said. “I should get hazerd pay for putting up with you’re piece a’crap dog. If you wanna see her again, give me ten grand in cash. If not, the little shit will make a good pair of slippers to wear around the house. Witch is what will happen if ya call the cops anyway.”

  “She sounds lovely,” Viv said.

  “And eloquent,” I said. It wasn’t often I got to feel intellectually superior to anyone, so I usually latched on to any opportunity that presented itself. “She can’t spell and she used the wrong “your’.”

  “Okay, I’m going to need her information – name, address, phone number, a description. The whole bit.”

  “Ummm, Viv,” I said. “We don’t have the job yet.” I looked up to see Mrs. Braswell coming down the stairs at the other end of the hallway.

  “Salem!” she said in surprise. She was around sixty, with salt and pepper hair in a stylish cut, and big blingy rings. Her eyes were red and her voice hoarse. “Did you hear? Poor Bitsy! I’m sure you’re as distraught as I am.”

  “Absolutely,” I said, because I was learning the art of the polite lie. “It’s so horrifying.”

  Mrs. Braswell reached out and stroked Stump’s ears. “You brought your own sweet dog to comfort me. That’s so sweet. Treasure these times,” she advised me solemnly. “We are not guaranteed a tomorrow.” She cocked her head and clicked her tongue at Stump. “Of course, Bitsy was so beautiful."

  I hugged Stump to me and covered her ears. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful on the outside (actually, she was a bit strange looking – short-legged and wide-bodied so she was almost a perfect rectangle, with a wide snout and a stumpy tail with exactly three wispy hairs) but she had the most beautiful soul of anyone, man or beast, that I’d ever met.