Elvis and the Bridegroom Stiffs (A Southern Cousins Mystery)

by Webb, Peggy

  “There’s a hole in your back fence, Cal. I fixed it.”

  “Thanks.” He stands there like he’s expecting more, maybe an invitation to sit down and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate. I’m just on the brink of an invitation when he ruins it all.

  “Callie, I know this is hard for you to be the prime suspect, but I don’t want you getting involved.”

  “Who me?” I bat my eyes, all innocent-like, which doesn’t fool him for one second.

  “If I catch you in the middle of this murder investigation, I’m liable to let Sheriff Trice lock you up so you’ll be safe.”

  “Don’t you tell me what to do, Jack Jones!”

  He throws up his hands and stalks off.

  “That went well,” Lovie says, deadpan.

  “Oh, hush up.”

  “I’ve got to get home, anyhow. You-know-who is coming tonight, hopefully to discover you-know-what.”

  Usually Lovie is just full of bad advice. The fact that she doesn’t even lobby a parting shot about Jack lets me know just how deeply she’s committed to Rocky Malone.

  I sit back down with my chocolate, which has gone cold, but with Jack and Lovie gone and the sheriff fingering me as suspect number one, I don’t even have the heart to warm it up.

  The only good thing I can say about this day is my interrogation of the real murder suspect went well.

  o0o

  That’s not the way Mama sees it. Sitting at her dinner table, which I have done every Sunday after church for my entire life, I suffer in silence while she skewers me with a look that would melt the plating off her bargain silverware.

  “I hear you had a killing at your beauty shop yesterday.” This is an accusation, not a conversational ploy, and I immediately get my hackles up.

  Even Elvis, who usually naps under the table during the entire meal, perks up at the mention of murder. Not only does my dog think of himself as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll reincarnated, but he also considers himself a premiere doggie sleuth. Before you scoff, let me just say one thing: any doggie mom worth her salt knows exactly what her dog is thinking.

  “Well, Mama, there’s not much I can do about that.”

  “I’ve told you and told you about leaving your shop door open. Why, anybody who takes a notion could come in off the street and do no telling what all to you. I’m liable to wake up one morning and find out my one and only offspring has had her throat slit. They’d have to bury me, too.”

  Mama’s partial to dramatics. Just look at the way she dresses. Caftans in African prints and wild colors like cosmic orange and laser green. She goes everywhere in them except to church.

  “Mama, when are you going to let me give you a cute spiky cut? It would look great with that yellow caftan.”

  “For your information, this is daffodil. And don’t you try to change the subject on me, missy. I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”

  This is not new. Mama has a bone to pick with me every time we see each other. She was born bossy and never saw any reason to change. Sometimes I think Daddy deliberately drove his tractor into the swollen creek and floated off to Kingdom Come just to get away from Mama’s opinions.

  Immediately, I’m ashamed of myself. Mama might drive me crazy on a regular basis, but she’d fight wildcats for me.

  “The biggest event in Mooreville happens in my own daughter’s beauty shop, and I had to hear it over at Fayrene’s store. ‘Ruby Nell,’ she said to me, ‘I hear your daughter’s had some excitement over at the beauty shop,’ and I had to pretend my phone was out of order so she wouldn’t know that my only child never tells me a thing. I’ll never live it down.”

  “Well, Mama, with Sheriff Trice and the entire sheriff’s department at my shop, I was hardly in a position to start calling around with the news.”

  Acting like she is all of a sudden engrossed with her food, Mama cuts her roast beef into six little cubes, and then rolls her eyes back in her head while she chews. This drives me crazy. I know good and well what she is doing: counting to one hundred, but not for the purpose of digestion. Oh no, Mama is planning how to lob her next volley.

  “Are you spending the night?” she finally says.

  “Maybe. Why?” I’m not the wishy washy type except with Mama. Her questions are traps laid to catch the unwary.

  “Because there’s a delicate little matter I’d like to discuss with you.”

  “Here I am, Mama. Discuss it.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t believe in spoiling dinner with unpleasant subjects. Keep everything light and airy, that’s my motto.”

  I could say, “Light and airy, as in having my throat slit,” but I don’t. I’m peaceable by nature. Besides, I already know what Mama’s delicate matter is all about. She’s planning to hit me up for a small loan to finance a trip to the casinos over at Tunica.

  The day the Mississippi legislature made gambling legal along the river fronts and coastal waterways was the day my bank account took a nosedive. But what can I say? Ruby Nell Valentine is my mother. She never so much as shuffled a deck of rook until the day my daddy died (according to Uncle Charlie). If a hundred dollars every now and then can make her forget the best man on God’s green earth died too young and left her alone to raise a ten-year-old daughter, then I’m willing to pay the price.

  I push my chair back from the table. “Mama, do you want some more sweet tea?”

  “No thank you, darling. I have plenty.”

  I always become darling when Mama’s getting ready to ask me for money. I am headed to the tea pitcher in the kitchen when the doorbell cuts short my retreat.

  “Now who can that be?” Mama casts a suspicious glance my way as if I’d conspired to break up her Sunday meal. “I’ve always thought it was rude to interrupt dinner.”

  “I’ll get it,” I say, then open the front door to none other than Jack Jones.

  If he hadn’t rescued Elvis at the truck stop and brought him straight home to me so I wouldn’t worry, there’s no telling what kind of cold shoulder I’d give him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Business, Callie. Have you finished lunch?” You can’t do a thing without everybody in Mooreville knowing it. Even your eating habits are topics for the gossips.

  “Yes. I was just having some sweet tea.” Ordinarily I would have offered him some, but on the spot I decide to punish him for letting Sheriff Trice ink my fingers. Don’t tell me a Company man couldn’t have stopped it.

  “Pour me a glass, will you?” He walks right past me leaving a trail of Old Spice. Much to my embarrassment my libido is doing the fandango. He leans down to kiss Mama on the cheek.

  “How’s my favorite mother-in-law?”

  “I can’t complain.”

  Except to me.

  I plop Jack’s glass down so hard I slosh tea on the table cloth, but Mama’s doesn’t say a word. She’s always on her best behavior around a handsome man, and goodness knows, Jack Jones fits that bill to a tee.

  When he lifts his glass, I watch the way his throat works. For a while it’s a nice distraction, and then he tramples my good mood by getting to the point of his visit.

  “Callie, I wonder if you’d mind stepping out on the front porch with me.”

  “How nice,” Mama says, no doubt picturing Jack planting one of those movie-style kisses on me and then me flying back to the altar with what is currently Mooreville’s most eligible bachelor.

  I’ll have to say, though, that if any place in Mooreville could lead to flirtation, it’s Mama’s front porch. Her house is a charming white cottage with a big front porch that features a swing. I used to love sitting in that swing in the early morning watching the sun come up. Still do. That’s the main reason I sometimes spend Sunday nights with Mama – that, plus keeping her company.

  Adding to the mesmerizing power of the porch is the heady scent of the Don Juan rose which is likely to bloom right through Christmas. It’s so hardy it has survived six freezes and nearly thirty years of Mama’s neglect.
They don’t make bushes like that any more. Plant one of the new hybrids, then forget to feed and water it, and it’ll curl up and die every time.

  In spite of the fact that Jack is here on business, I arrange myself in the porch swing with my blue skirt spread out around me like Kim Novak in Picnic. My favorite pastime is watching movie classics with Lovie. Well, almost my favorite pastime.

  I congratulate myself on the picture I make sitting there in my Sunday clothes with my 5-inch Prada heels showing my legs to their best advantage.

  “Callie, I hear you’ve been messing around with Roy Jessup. Is that true?”

  Oh, shoot! For all the good I’ve done, I might as well be wearing a flour sack.

  “That depends on what you call messing around.”

  “Were you over at Farm and Feed asking a bunch of nosy questions.”

  “Since when is it a crime to go to Farm and Feed?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I asked Roy about a cat.”

  “What cat?”

  “No particular cat. Cats in general. Siamese, Persian, you name it. Just cats.”

  Jack ruffled his hair, which doesn’t strike me as the least bit sexy today. Primed by the fingerprinting incident, I’m rapidly losing my charm.

  “I swear, Carolina, you are going to drive me insane. How can I keep you safe if you keep messing around in the sheriff’s business?”

  Nobody calls me Carolina, which is my real name, unless I’ve frustrated them to the point of distraction.

  “Is Roy a suspect?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t say much of anything that interests me, Jack.” I set the swing in motion with my foot and lean back to inhale the scent of roses as if I don’t have a care in the world.

  “You’ve got to stop it, Callie.”

  “I can swing if I want to. It’s Mama’s porch.”

  He leans over and brings the swing to a halt. Let me tell you. that Jack Jones is one sexy man when he’s mad. It’s all I can do to keep my skirt over my knees.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you darn well know it.” His clenched jaw makes him even sexier, but I pretend not to notice. “Stay out of this investigation.”

  “Well, all right. If it’s that important to you, I won’t set foot in Farm and Feed, even if I do need cat food.”

  “Since you found homes for your strays, you don’t have a cat.”

  “That’s beside the point. I’m a model citizen, is what I’m saying. My name is synonymous with pulchritude and discretion.”

  “Don’t you play word games with me, Cal. And don’t you go tromping around that shop of yours, either. If you need something in there, call the sheriff’s office and let one of the deputies get it for you. Do you hear me?”

  “Yes, and so does half the neighborhood. Shouting at innocent people on Sunday is not only unnecessary, it’s very unattractive, Jack.”

  He leaves without saying goodbye. I consider that a tribute to feminine wiles and obfuscation.

  Elvis Opinion #3 on Clues, Midnight Prowls, and Crime Tape

  The loan Ruby Nell wants from Callie sounds more like highway robbery to me. Two hundred dollars she says she needs for a little dental work. Dental work my portly but handsome butt! Still, as long as Ruby Nell keeps her gambling within limits, Callie plays along. It’s a good daughter who lets her mama hang onto her secrets.

  Later that evening the three of us watch a special on Pascagoula’s Singing River on Mississippi Educational TV. If you want to know why I’m such an educated dog, all you have to do is look at me sitting on the couch between Callie and Ruby Nell with my ears perked up, not missing a word.

  Ruby Nell wipes at her eyes, and I know what’s coming next. I’ve got the number of everybody in the Valentine family, including Charlie, who likes to think he’s in charge. Listen, I’ve got news for him. If it weren’t for yours truly, this family would all be going to hell in a hand-basket.

  “Callie,” Ruby Nell slays, “Do you remember when Michael drove us down to the Gulf coast and we took a tour of the Singing River?”

  “Yes, I do. Daddy could name every bird we saw.”

  “Every animal. No matter what kind. He loved the land and its inhabitants more than any man I ever saw.” She blows her nose loud, which is mostly for attention. This woman’s got so much drama in her bones she could have been famous on any Las Vegas stage I graced in my heyday.

  “They say the good die young, Mama.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Jim Boy Sloan was no saint. Mabel was fit to be tied that he was fixing to be her son-in-law, and Hank wasn’t much better. If you ask me, it won’t do to mess with a man like Hank Moffett. He may act like he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but still waters run deep.”

  I watch the wheels turning in Callie. She’s adding another suspect to her list. Furthermore, she’s thinking up devilment, which is right up my alley.

  “Mama, I’m going to call Trixie and see how she’s doing, and then I’ve got to call every one of my customers and tell them not to worry about their hair. While the crime tape’s up around my shop, I’ll make beauty house calls.”

  “If you want me to change channels, just say so. There’s a good John Wayne western on the movie classics.”

  “No, I really have to make phone calls, Mama.”

  “I can pop some popcorn and it’ll be just like we’ve gone to the movies.”

  “No, really, Mama. Not tonight.”

  Callie’s getting in deep doo doo with Ruby Nell, so I sashay my handsome self over and set things right by licking Ruby Nell’s ankles. She laughs.

  “Isn’t that just like a man? They can’t help but worship at my feet.”

  Ruby Nell is still laughing when Callie and I escape to my human mom’s room. She’s said it looks exactly the way it did when she was ten years old – her favorite Pooh bear on the bed, posters of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt on the walls, all her books lined up on the bookshelves, the pink rosebud wallpaper faded in a wide streak where the afternoon sun comes through the windows.

  I flop onto the rug while she calls call Trixie and her Monday customers. Then she rummages in her closet till she finds a pair of black stretch pants and a black tee shirt. My tail starts to wag. This looks like breaking and entering to me, my favorite pastime besides conning Lovie out of sugared doughnuts.

  “I wish Lovie was here,” Callie tells me. “When I’m setting out to break the law and make my almost-ex lose his temper, to boot, I like to have backup.”

  Does she think she’s going without me? I heft myself up and walk over to put my paw on the door.

  “Do you have to go outside, Elvis?”

  I wiggle my hips and hum a few bars of “What Now, What Next and Where To.” Callie finally gets the picture, and before you can say “Pass the PupPeroni,” I’m in on the caper. If we run into a short, overweight, out-of-shape criminal, I can take him down.

  Armed with a flashlight, Callie climbs out the window and then reaches back in to heft me through. I’m sorry to report this leaves my human mom winded.

  “You’re a handful, Elvis. I’m going to have to cut back on your doggie treats.”

  Over my dead body. Just let her try. I know how to act pitiful in front of Lovie, who is generous with the doughnuts. And Jack is a pushover. Don’t tell him I said so. He likes to think of himself as bad to the bone. Being the premiere pet I am, I know how to keep my humans’ egos plumped and their property safe.

  There’s a big old moon shining, and it’s a cold, clear night. If I didn’t have other fish to fry, I’d hot foot it the truck stop and try to find that sexy beagle with the bad reputation.

  “Don’t make a sound, Elvis.”

  We climb into Callie’s truck and coast down the driveway with the lights off so Ruby Nell won’t come to the door to investigate. Chances are, though, she’ll never notice. Once she gets into a TV program, she’s completely absorbed.

  Callie p
arks at Fayrene’s convenience store, which is a smart move on her part. Still, she ducks down and puts her hand on my collar.

  “Duck down and be really quiet, Elvis. You never know where Fayrene will be.”

  If she kidding me? If I get any closer to the ground, I’ll be kissing the parking lot. Still, she’s got a point about Fayrene. That woman sees and hears more than yours truly, and I have keen eyes and radar ears.

  Finally we streak across the road and go in the back way to the beauty shop.

  Callie doesn’t turn on any lights, not even her flashlight. Both of us can navigate this shop blindfolded, especially me, Patriotic Dog and Detective at Large. When we get to the wash and rinse sinks, Callie closes the blinds and turns on her flashlight. I make a beeline straight for the yellow tape and put my excellent nose to work. Listen, if they’d leave this investigation to me, we’ve have the criminal by sunup.

  Callie’s just standing there like the clues are going to jump out at her. She has pretty good instincts for a human, but she’s missing these clues by a mile.

  I nudge her, hoping she’ll get the picture, but she just squats down and shines her flashlight on the floor. What does she expect? Footprints in the blood? Fingerprints everywhere?

  Jack said hers are the only fingerprints on the murder weapon, a little fact that would have already landed my human mom in jail if my human dad weren’t all over this case.

  Callie tiptoes into the new spa area, which is complete with massage table, tanning bed and sauna. The lid’s up on the tanning bed. She’s a stickler for putting the lid down, and every one of her customers knows this. They’re rigorous about putting it down. Of course, from what I hear, deputies were swarming all over the shop that day. There’s no telling who left it up.

  I sniff around a bit, file the scents under suspect, and then I nudge Callie’s leg.

  “Get the appointment book,” I tell her, but of course, she doesn’t speak canine.

  “Not now, Elvis. I’m trying to think.”

  “Get the book.”

  She trains her flashlight around the dark room and comes up empty handed. I could have told her nobody was there. Doesn’t she know they’d be missing half a leg by now? I have a low tolerance for criminals.