by Tamar Myers
I drove less than a block before pulling over into the shade of a massive laurel oak that was just beginning to lose its leaves. It was time to think, time to lay out a strategy. Exercising my gray cells gets increasingly difficult with the passing years, and I now had to contend with the distraction of a throbbing ankle. Not to mention—at the risk of being crude—that Bubba’s Chinese buffet was seeking a quick exit.
As I saw it, there were two more visits to be made before I could dine with Greg. But in which order? Although it would probably get me nowhere but deeper in trouble, I felt a need to return to the scene of the crime. Not my crime, but that of whoever killed the Widow Saunders. Perhaps there were clues to be gleaned from her secretary, pretty-boy Caleb. Clues that would exonerate me of any suspicion. I wasn’t really worried that I would be charged in the old woman’s death—I didn’t have a motive as far as I could see—but it would be nice to get that bullying Barb off my back.
The second item on my agenda was far more important. I did have a motive to kill Tweetie—albeit a rather stale motive. Revenge is a dish best served cold, Shakespeare said, but this was ridiculous. No one could eat from a dish more than four years old, no matter how well it had been chilled. Still, the woman had been found dead in my house, under my bed. It behooved me to come up with a suspect other than myself or my best friend Wynnell, for that matter. If indeed Lynne Meredith’s tennis instructor did the dastardly deed, I stood as good a chance as the police of getting him to confess.
I fumbled around in my glove box, found the cassette recorder I take with me to flea markets to help me keep track of bargains, and tucked the tiny machine between my breasts. It was a tight fit. Magdalena Yoder, a friend of mine up in Pennsylvania, has a sister who totes a minuscule mutt around in her bra. In fact, Magdalena sometimes carries a kitten around in hers. Of course, neither of those ladies is as blessed in the mammary department as yours truly. I had to loosen my straps and set the back hooks on the most generous setting, and even then a wrong move might accidentally activate the contraption.
Please believe me when I tell you that I’m not a total fool. Before heading for the Meredith estate I checked my pepper spray. It worked fine. I would have called Greg, or Mama, to tell them of my destination, except that I don’t own a cell phone, and Myers Park is not exactly spilling over with public booths. I know, I should get with it and purchase one of the little contraptions, but until they prove conclusively they don’t cause brain tumors, and until I can master the art of putting on mascara on the move, my petite palms shall remain phoneless while I’m not at home. I’m just not that coordinated.
Fortunately, both the Meredith and Saunders homes are within a five-mile drive from the Larkin house, just in opposite directions. Without my bum ankle I might even have attempted to walk to Lynne’s. I drove, however, and using the caution I pride myself on having, I made sure her neighbors knew I was there. After the third honk, even Lynne got the idea.
“Abby,” she called from her open front door, “what the hell are you doing?”
You see what I mean about Lynne Meredith being from up the road a piece? I stuck my head out the window and hollered back.
“I didn’t mean to do it! My seat belt was stuck, and while I was trying to undo it, I sort of bumped the horn. I’ll be right there!”
She started to come toward me, but I slid out onto my good foot and slammed the door behind me. The retort was almost loud enough to set off her neighbors’ alarms.
Lynne held the door open for me, frowning, as I hobbled up her flagstone walk. Just as I reached the steps, Roderick appeared over her shoulder. His eyes were lit up like a jack-o’-lantern with three candles. If the poor misguided soul was anticipating a ménage à trois, he was out of luck. The temptation to rub one’s hands over a man’s abs is no indicator of promiscuity. Greg is, and will always be, the only man for me.
“Hey y’all,” I said brightly, but loud enough for neighbors to hear two doors down, “mind if I come in?” I suppose a really wise Abby would have planned to conduct the interview on the front porch, but I suspected the brazen Buckeyes were more likely to spill their guts in the privacy of Lynne’s sumptuously appointed home.
“Sure, come on,” Roderick said.
Lynne’s furrowed brows were in need of more cotton seed. “We were just about to go out.”
“No, we weren’t.” Roderick was even denser than I.
“Come in then,” Lynne snapped. “But the place is a mess and I don’t have a thing on hand to serve you.”
Even a pseudo-Southern woman always has something to serve, if only just a glass of milk past its expiration date. Nevertheless, I was happy to be given entrée. I’d been to the house on several occasions to supervise the placement of pieces purchased from my shop. In all fairness, Lynne has impeccable taste. Her preference is for French Provincial, although she has couple of English Regency pieces tucked in conspicuous places. If her definition of a “mess” is an open magazine on the coffee table and a box of facial tissues in their original cardboard container, then I am doomed to spend eternity wandering through a maze of teenagers’ bedrooms.
“Have a seat,” Lynne directed.
“Mind if I use the bathroom first?”
Lynne shrugged. “But it’s an even bigger mess.”
I took my chances. The Reader’s Digest on the tank lid had a bent cover, and the bottom edge of one of the hand towels was not quite parallel to the floor. I masked my gasp with a flush.
When I returned I chose an armchair that had its own footstool. My ankle was beginning to feel like Wile E. Coyote at the end of a Road Runner cartoon. If my foot took a notion to just fall off before the end of the day, I would not be surprised.
Lynne and Roderick sat on a settee facing me, across the “messy” coffee table. Lynne wore an expression of annoyed wariness, Roderick’s face radiated pure lust.
“So,” she said, “to what do we owe the honor of your visit?”
I jabbed at the on button between my bosoms. It took four tries to get the darn thing to start recording. I’m sure the couple opposite thought I was either nuts, or coming on to them.
“I came to talk about sex, dear,” I finally said.
25
Try that as your opening line sometime. It is a sure way to get folks’ attention.
“Say what?”
“Those rumors you warned me about at lunch today at Bubba’s, they’re true, aren’t they?”
“Why I never!” Lynne practically bellowed. “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What’s offensive is for Lothario there to play footsies with a married woman in front of her husband. You should be ashamed, Roderick.”
He merely winked at my admonition.
Lynne stood angrily. “Who told you this? Who have you been talking to?”
I wasn’t going to reveal my source unless I absolutely had to. “You can’t deny this, Lynne. And you can’t deny that your juvenile joy machine jumped in the sack with Tweetie Timberlake. You caught them yourself.”
She sat heavily. “It was Regina Larkin, wasn’t it?”
I pleaded the Fifth.
“Why, that little bitch! Thinks she’s so high and mighty just because she’s lived here longer than I. Just you wait—” She caught herself. “That was girl talk shared in confidence. It’s really none of your business.”
I shrugged before turning my gaze to Roderick. He squirmed like a worm on a fishhook.
“Wherever did you find such an exquisite cuirass?” I asked.
I might as well have asked him to recite a passage from a poem he’d learned during his recent experience in high school. Any poem that didn’t have the word “Nantucket” in it.
“The armor,” I said patiently. “The one you stuffed Tweetie into.”
An enormous vein popped out on Roderick’s broad forehead. Between it and Lynne’s furrows, the two shared a smooth complexion.
“What the hell are you talking about, Mrs. Timberla
ke?” Lynne felt free to call me Abby, but Roderick knew he was too young.
“What I want to know is,” I said calmly, “didn’t you feel at all foolish leaving my party as Little Bo Peep?”
Roderick leaped to his feet. “Lynne, make this woman leave.”
I pointed a warning finger at the middle-aged Mata Hari. “I’d stay out of this if I were you. He’s the one who killed Tweetie and who’s going to be spending his life behind bars. You are an accessory after the fact, but I know folks in the department, and I’m sure I could talk them into going easy on you. What you still see in this roaming Romeo is beyond me. I’d have dumped him the second I found him trysting with Big Bird’s sister.”
Lynne’s mouth opened wide enough to catch a sparrow. Fortunately there were none loose in the house. For a moment I thought I’d hit paydirt.
“I have to admit,” I said, “that was a quick switcheroo your stud muffin pulled off. Frankly, I don’t know how he did it. I mean, I saw Neptune here arrive carrying you, and at some point I remember seeing the knight in shining armor. Y’all must have had the armor hidden someplace handy. Where was it, in the trunk of your car?”
By then Lynne had managed to regain control of her lower jaw. “You’re nuts,” she hissed. “You’re as crazy as the Mad Hatter. If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police.”
“Call away,” I said merrily. I squinted, pretending to give her the once-over. “I think you’ll look good in stripes. But ask for vertical, if they give you a choice. With those hips of yours—”
“Roderick!” she screamed.
Loverboy stood. He seemed eager to put his hands on me, if only to give me the old heave-ho.
“Touch me,” I warned, “and I’ll sue the pants off you.”
That brought a grin to Lothario’s lips. “Anything you say, babe.”
I fumbled in my purse, but managed to find the pepper spray before he could reach me. “Back off!” I barked.
The grin broadened. “I’ve always liked a woman with fire. How about you and I making some sweet music together?”
“Roderick!” Lynne’s face was contorted with rage.
He looked first at her, and then at me. She had the bucks, and I had the body, petite as it might be. I’m not bragging, mind you, but that seemed to be what was going on in that undeveloped mind.
Apparently Lynne can read a blank mind as well as I. She wagged a finger with a long, pink nail. At him, not at me.
“This is the last straw,” she hissed. “I put up with those twins in Ohio because I thought you might be trainable. I put up with Tweetie and Regina and—”
“Regina?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Regina Larkin?”
Lynne’s thick torso twisted in my direction. “That woman is not the Southern lady you think she is.”
“Well, I know she wasn’t born here but—”
“Abby, you’re not a very good judge of character, are you?”
I glanced at Romeo. “At least I don’t cavort with murderers.”
The lust left his eyes. “I didn’t kill Tweetie, you little bitch.”
Despite what Lynne had just said, I am a good judge of character. I know someone capable of murder is quite capable of lying, but there was something about Roderick’s voice that made me believe him. He sounded just like my son Charlie had when I falsely accused him of backing my car through the closed garage door. Little did I know at the time that the damage was caused by his sister, Susan, who had sneaked out to go drinking.
At any rate, I backed toward the door. “Well, y’all, this has been a very entertaining visit. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
They simultaneously uttered a two-word phrase, the first word of which I, being a true Southern lady, will not repeat. Suffice it to say, it is an anatomical impossibility.
“Your hand towel in the powder room is crooked,” I said, and then turned tail and ran.
On the short drive to the late Widow Saunders’s mansion, I had a chance to revamp my strategy. Life was not like Matlock. You couldn’t get someone to confess simply by confronting them with their guilt. At least if they weren’t guilty. No, you either had to catch them in the act—with a videotape in hand—or find some other form of hard evidence that would hold up in court.
Unfortunately I didn’t even have any real suspects in the widow’s death. It could have been Caleb, but unless he was in her will, in a major way, he had nothing to gain. As I saw it, the young man had stood a far better chance of profiting by accompanying the wealthy woman to Genoa.
Perhaps it was the chauffeur. The widow had said nothing about taking the staff with her. But was the loss of one’s job sufficient motive to kill? If it was, how many employees did the old bag have?
So there you have it. I had no suspects and didn’t know what I was looking for. All I knew was that I had to find or think of something that proved I didn’t do the widow in. I know, it was more likely that Congress would abolish the current tax code and replace it with something intelligible than I would find what I needed. But sometimes a gal just has to do what a gal has to do. I realize now that is a lame excuse, and probably the same one Tweetie used the first time she jumped Buford’s bones—or he hers—but that’s how it was.
I parked in the same spot I had the previous time. It was as an innocuous a place as any. This time, however, I wasn’t going to charge up to the front door. Or should I? Perhaps the best thing I could do for myself would be to calmly walk up to the officer on duty—surely there was still someone guarding the crime scene from the likes of me—and strike up a casual conversation.
Better yet, I could come right out and announce my intentions. “Hey, I’m Abigail Louise Timberlake and I’m here to prove that I didn’t do the old lady in. I’m not even an official suspect, mind you, but I have too much on my plate right now to even be on anyone’s list of suspects. Especially if that anyone happens to be a tall, leggy, man-eating blond named Barb.”
My reverie was interrupted by someone across the street calling, “Mama!”
I ignored the caller. He was a man, and obviously not calling to me. Funny though, but when the kids were young, and I was in a public place, every time I heard that four letter word, I practically got whiplash. I knew the sound of my children, of course, but I was conditioned. Every mother is. Every father, too.
“Mama!” The voice was closer.
I glanced around and was startled to see my son Charlie headed my way. He’s a full-time student at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, and seldom gets up to Charlotte now that he’s developed a circle of friends down there.
“Charlie!”
He loped across the street in my direction. Loping is something I will never have the privilege of doing. But Charlie inherited Buford’s height, along with Buford’s lighter coloring and regular features. Fortunately, he doesn’t seem to have inherited any of his father’s reptilian tendencies.
“Mama,” he said, not even panting, “I’ve been expecting you.”
“What? But that’s impossible. Nobody knows where I am.”
He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Get real, Mama. Greg knows where you are. Susan knows where you are. Maybe we don’t know exactly where you are at all times, but we know you’re trying to clear yourself of any suspicion in Tweetie’s death. In that old lady’s, too.”
“That ‘old lady’ was Mrs. Saunders,” I said. “Or Widow Saunders, if you prefer.”
“Yeah, well you don’t need to worry about her anymore.”
“Charlie, dear, don’t speak ill of the dead.”
“I’m not, Mama. But Caleb just confessed.”
“He did?”
“Yeah. I was here when he did it. Man, it was something.”
“Charlie, I think I’m missing a few pieces. Do you know Caleb?”
“Mama, can we talk about this someplace else?”
I looked at my son. Besides looking stressed, he looked thinner than I’d remembered.
“When’s
the last time you ate?” I asked.
“Mama, you know I hate dorm food.”
“You don’t hate McDonald’s, dear, and there is one just across Cherry Road from the campus.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not into food right now. Anyway, can’t we go someplace else to talk about this?”
It was a bit of a drive, but I had him follow me down to Carolina Place Mall. After all, he looked like he could use a pair of new jeans as well. Maybe even some shoes.
If indeed my son wasn’t into food, you sure couldn’t tell it by the way he tucked into the pizza he ordered in the food court. I, of course, had to save my appetite for dinner with Greg, but I nibbled slowly on the smallest slice between sips of sweet tea.
“Okay,” I said, “tell me everything, starting with how you know Caleb.”
Charlie, who had made me wait until his order was ready before divulging what he knew, swallowed a bite big enough to feed a small Third World country. He burped loudly before remembering where he was, and with whom.
“Sorry about that, Mama. Anyway, I know Caleb because he has a younger brother, Josh, who’s in my chemistry class. The old lady—I mean, Mrs. Saunders—has a pool table. A swimming pool, too. So, once when she was out someplace, Caleb had us over to mess around.” Charlie grabbed my hand. “Don’t worry, Mama, we didn’t do anything stupid like smoke pot or anything—not that I would anyway—or touch her stuff. Like I said, we were just hanging out.
“Anyhow, this afternoon I was just sitting there in my room studying—I’ve got this big history test tomorrow, and kind of got behind on account of spending too much time thinking about Halloween—when the phone rings and it’s Josh telling me his brother was arrested, and could my dad be his lawyer. I told him Daddy wasn’t that kind of lawyer, and wasn’t even in the country.” He paused. “Is he?”
“He’s on his way back. He should be home late tonight.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Caleb,” I nearly screamed. “Please, dear, get to the part about Caleb killing Widow Saunders.”
Charlie’s young face screwed up in obvious bewilderment. “Man, I didn’t even understand what Caleb saw in that old—I mean, Mrs. Saunders—I sure the hell don’t understand why he killed her. Josh said it had something to do with her going off to Europe, and Caleb not wanting to go. He was afraid she’d dump him for some Italian man and the gig would be over. Something like that. Josh thinks his brother got Mrs. Saunders to write him in her will. Do you think Daddy could find out if that’s true?”
