After a long, awkward silence in the warmth of the late morning sun, Vivi spoke. “Well,” she said, as if she had been picked last to play kickball, “since I don’t really have a turkey wishbone handy for y’all, somebody be my damn lawyer already! Do we need to play eeny meeny miny moe or what?”
Harry answered first. “No matter what, not reporting a death in a timely manner is a real crime, so if we don’t call the police and an ambulance, we will all need lawyers.”
I took out my cell.
“Here, honey, let’s get this over with. You need to call the ambulance first, even if you think he’s dead.”
I handed the phone to her as I rubbed her shoulder and then looked over at Harry. He had turned around and was leaning against Vivi’s car, running his fingers through his hair over and over—his nervous tic. He looked lost in thought—as though floods of terrible memories were coming back, like waves crashing a shoreline. I wanted to say something, but had no good words at the moment. My thoughts turned back to Vivi. She was waiting for the 911 operator to answer.
Vivi had been through this before. No, she hadn’t ever killed anyone, but short, steamy love affairs were basically on par for her. At one point, she’d been married to a congressman who lived full-time in Washington. He was twenty years older than Vivi and totally unattractive, but another blue blood just the same. The marriage didn’t last too long, though no one ever thought it would. Vivi would never leave the South. That would be like asking cotton to grow up North. Vivi just couldn’t be planted anywhere else. But the congressman had to live in D.C. With all that time apart everyone knew it would just grow stale. And it did after just a few short years. Besides, Vivi loved to be…well, let’s call it social. Yes, social was a perfect word for Vivi Ann McFadden. I’m not saying that she was a party girl, but she loved, thrived actually, on social interaction. Okay, Vivi was a party girl. She was an only child of wealth and privilege and most of the time she took the privilege part too far.
She never gave anything much thought. She just flew by the seat of her pants, or anyone else’s pants. Her free spirit was enviable. She swore like a sailor, even during high school, and had the reputation as a bit of the wild child of Tuscaloosa. She was popular and, no, not just with the men. Everyone loved her because she was so damn funny. The only little problem was that if Vivi thought it, it popped right out of her mouth before it ever stopped to register at her brain. Vivi never learned that some things should be thought but not actually said. Sometimes that got her into trouble. But she had such a hilarious personality she stayed at the center of the most sought-after social circles.
As I listened to her choke out her story to the 911 operator, I could tell that this event with Lewis would change her.
* * *
Harry and I left Mother’s with Vivi to go to the police station. I suggested to Harry that he could go on to the Fountain Mist and meet the ambulance, but he insisted he would prefer to stay with us. He didn’t seem to want to see Lewis, dead or alive. I tried my best to persuade him, but he wouldn’t budge. After all the years that had gone by, six, I think, since he and Lewis had even spoken, Harry just didn’t want to be the one to ID the body. If he got there first, it would be just him and poor, dead Lewis. And Harry didn’t want that, not after the way things had been between them. So he led the way to the police station downtown. After that we would all go together to the motel.
My emotions were in overdrive. Vivi was my best friend since third grade, my sister in every way, and Harry was my husband, my college sweetheart, though we had had our share of troubles. Between these relationships, the fact that Lewis was dead and the fact that I’m an attorney, too, well, I’ve never felt so stuck in such a messy fix as this. I didn’t know which feeling to feel, never mind knowing the right thing to say or who to say it to. We were all in shock for different reasons, and the trip to the police station was a silent one.
We arrived at the station in minutes. That’s the good thing about Tuscaloosa—everything is only minutes away. We got out of our cars and walked into the little building. It was on the corner of the street that faced the Warrior River. We stepped inside and I stood next to Vivi and held her hand as she talked to the police. Harry stood on her other side, trying with every fiber in his being to hold it together, to cover his emotions. Luckily for him, it was something he’d being training himself to do for ages now—even with me. A politician should be stoic, composed, unruffled—and I can tell you, he was great at that.
The little balding officer sat in front of us, diligently taking down Vivi’s half sentences and descriptive details of her last breathless moments with Lewis. When she finished, the pudgy officer looked up with his mouth open and eyes bugging through his tiny square glasses and eventually spoke. “Ahem. Anything else, ma’am?”
Officer Dooley knew Vivi. He used to work detail for her mother at the gate of the famous McFadden plantation and had known the family for years. Tuscaloosa is a small college town, where everyone knows everyone and has probably slept with their best friend’s brother. Believe me, I know that one for sure.
This scene at the station reminded me of the principal’s office in the fourth grade. Standing there together with Vivi and Officer Dooley and all his questions took me back. Vivi and I were in Catholic school together and were in Sister Pauline’s class—and she was the meanest old nun in the entire school. One day, Vivi brought a big roll of clear packing tape to school and we carefully devised the plan. At recess we practiced. Sister Pauline went out of class at 1:30 every day to meet with Father Mike about the religion lesson.
On the big day, we waited until she’d left for her meeting, and then Vivi rolled the clear tape all over the back of her chair. When Sister P. came back she sat down in her chair, snapping her ruler sharply on the desk and ordered us into silence. I remember the look Vivi and I passed each other. We were full of the devil, you could say—typical schoolgirls, at least most of the ones I knew.
“Here it comes,” said Vivi with a huge smile on her freckled face.
“Oh, my goodness, I gotta think of something in case we’re busted,” I said. I was always a lawyer. Even in the fourth grade.
As Sister P. got up to go to the board, a loud ripping noise tore through the silent class. In a split second, the veil full of curly brown hair fell from her head, flopping there over the back of the chair, sliding down into a puddle as Sister Pauline moved toward the chalkboard.
The classroom erupted with laughter and it could be heard all the way to the principal’s office, which is where, of course, we ended up—standing together at the principal’s desk, holding hands just like we were right now.
I was snapped abruptly back to the present when Officer Dooley launched another question at Vivi. “Where’s the body?”
“Shit!” Vivi said.
That was actually Vivi’s favorite word. She used it whether she was happy or sad, surprised or bored. However, this time it was more like an Oh, shit as she began to utter those next few words.
“I left the body…”
“Stop, Vivi,” Harry jumped in. “As your lawyer, I’m advising you not to discuss these details further, not without consultation.”
“Wait, are you my lawyer?” Vivi asked with an excited mix of relief and worry. “Harry, I hate to remind you, but your brother is the…um, dead guy.”
“Well, Vivi, I know you didn’t do anything but screw his brains out,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. It was a familiar ta
ctic—covering up emotion with sarcasm. “Of course, I’ll help you. Besides, there is no case if Lewis died ’cause you wore him out. That’s not murder. For God’s sake, it’s a death pure and simple. But if you were the last one with him when he died, you will still need counsel.”
That vision will remain branded on my brain for all eternity.
Harry helping Vivi. She needed him and, while Harry wasn’t the most cuddly, affectionate guy anymore, he seemed a little like his old self at that moment. Ever since the big family breakup with Lewis years ago, and now even more as he pushed to climb the political ladder, Harry had learned to turn off the emotion and the feeling and keep the business hat on at all times. Even with me—especially with me.
But he was softer with Vivi for the moment. I could see a small glimpse of him, the old Harry, there with Vivi in the musty police station.
Maybe it was because Lewis, for whom he had shown such absolute disdain, could actually be dead. Harry hadn’t always been this cold, but over the past couple of years I had certainly become quite lonely for affection and good conversation. We never talked about anything but work and politics and career climbing. I was lonely, but as I noticed a shadow of the old Harry there in the little room, I began to hope that maybe this drama with his brother might bring the real Harry back. My Harry was at least there in the police station for the moment. And it was good to see him.
Harry and I had a good beginning. Watching him there in that moment took me back to the very first time we met. I had been attracted to him immediately.
We met in law school, but not at a party or the library like most college sweethearts. Harry and I met in New York City in line at the half-price tickets booth in the middle of Times Square. We were in line for a little-known Broadway show called Baby. I had gone to NYC for an internship at Columbia, and Harry was there that summer, working in the city.
I felt him getting close behind me as I stood in line. I was listening to him talk to a buddy and I knew I detected an unmistakable Southern lilt in his deep, sexy voice. I liked feeling him close to me. I could smell his aftershave and then…my turn at the ticket window.
“Two for Baby, please.” I was picking up tickets for me and my roommate, Alexa, for that evening’s show
“Last two for today ma’am, good timing.”
“Noooo,” Harry groaned from behind me.
In a split second, I thought, What do I do? Little did I know my entire future lay in these next few seconds and how I chose to handle this deliciously terrible, heart-pounding, awkward situation. I hesitated only for a breath, then something else took over. This “something else” spoke for me.
“Oh, I have one extra.” My alter ego sounded just like me. Evidentially the other me decided in that split second, Oh, the hell with Alexa. Alexa who?
“But what about…” Harry was motioning to the spot where his buddy had been standing seconds ago and saw that he was halfway across the street walking backward and nodding with two thumbs up. I giggled and he said, “Are you sure?”
“Sure am.”
He smiled at me.
Harry, ever the curious attorney, furrowed his brow and asked, “Weren’t you originally asking for two tickets?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling cross-examined.
“Well, who was the other ticket for?”
“Alex, my female roommate from New Jersey.”
“Oh,” he said, smiling. “But won’t she be expecting her ticket tonight?”
“Oh, my goodness,” I said in an overanimated Southern accent. “Didn’t you hear? They just sold out.” A smile crept across his preppy boy face and I knew I was in for something wonderful.
Behind his desk, Officer Dooley cleared his throat, dragging my thoughts away from the once-romantic Harry and back to the police station.
“Where is the body?” he asked again, trying to get an answer.
“I left him when he began turnin’ blue,” Vivi said. “I slapped him a few times. Well, I had slapped him before, but that was durin’ our—well anyway—he asked me to. But after he stopped movin’, I slapped him really hard and when he still didn’t budge an inch, I ran for help.”
“Did you call an ambulance?” The chubby officer continued.
“When he stopped breathin’, I panicked and ran for Blake.”
Vivi looked lost, like Little Orphan Annie. Harry looked exasperated, but there was something else hiding behind his frustration. At that moment, Vivi picked up on it, too. Then, “Oh, Harry! Are you thinkin’ he could have still been alive?”
“My client did not call an ambulance right away,” Harry answered officer Dooley. “Instead, she called my wife, Blake O’Hara Heart.”
Oh, shit, I thought to myself, now using Vivi’s vocabulary. With his statement, I knew that I would definitely be dragged into the investigation. I also knew that I would never forget my tenth anniversary.
I turned to Officer Dooley. “Yes, Vivi was trying to call me. But my husband, Harry Heart, was the first to speak with her.”
“One moment, Officer Dooley, would you, please? All of this is so sudden that we haven’t had a chance to speak with each other,” Harry said.
While Dooley crossed his arms impatiently, we moved to the back of the little office and I leaned in and whispered to Vivi to keep quiet for a second. That would take a miracle all its own! I then looked at Harry and discreetly said, “You remember that you were in fact the first one to speak to our client after the fact? Remember? I was still at the school.”
“Yes,” he said. Well, Vivi tends to rub off on people, and I was sure Harry was the one thinking Oh, shit in his own head now.
* * *
Clearly, we were all still in a mumbo-jumbo state of shock. We continued to whisper while we watched Vivi fidget.
“But I’m her attorney,” he said, looking at me in desperation.
“But you weren’t at the time,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t look good, Blake.” Harry’s voice had become firm. He didn’t get angry often, but you knew it when it happened. Harry was feeling trapped.
I heard Officer Dooley tapping his pen pointedly against the desk. So did Harry, who didn’t want this next bit to be overheard.
“Excuse us, Officer Dooley, for one moment. I need to confer with my co-counsel,” Harry said.
“Why don’t I just put my pen down for a second,” Officer Dooley said.
Harry took me by the hand and pulled me just outside the door of the musty little office. Vivi stayed up front with Officer Dooley, still fidgeting uncomfortably, shifting from side to side, crossing then uncrossing her legs.
“Blake,” Harry began, “first and foremost, I am Lewis’s brother. Second, I am now Vivi’s attorney. That, in and of itself, is strange, considering my connection to them both. But the idea that, after the…deed…I’m the first one she calls? Me, of all people, who has the worst possible relationship with Lewis? This screams conspiracy! It shouts premeditation if we have a dead body over there. It further implicates her and jeopardizes her. And when it comes out that I haven’t spoken to Lewis in over six years, it begins to implicate me! Blake, this could put my career in question. My eventual run for the Senate will be shrouded in this controversy.”
Harry stopped abruptly. The depth of the situation had overtaken him.
“Harry, snap out of it!” I said, squeezing his arm. “Lewis had been charged with investment fraud and you distanced yourself from him.
There’s no crime in that—it just proves how respectable you are, not wanting to associate with such a person, brother or not. But your cell phone will register the call from Vivi and what time it came in. All of her missed calls to me will register, as well, with the times they were missed. The truth will be easy to prove, so there’s just no point trying to cover it up. Now, I have been her best friend since third grade. Harry, we both know she didn’t do anything. This was all just a terrible, unfortunate accident if anything—and, well, a bit disgusting.”
Harry’s face softened and he gave me a little nod. We both hurriedly returned to Vivi’s side.
Harry cleared his throat and began more calmly, “Vivi McFadden did not call an ambulance right away. She tried to call my wife and co-counsel, Blake O’Hara Heart, and when she couldn’t get her, she called me.”
“Well,” Officer Dooley said, “then I go back to my original question: Where is the body?” Officer Dooley pushed his tiny glasses up his tiny nose and looked pointedly at Vivi.
“I left the body at the Fountain Mist motel and that was the last time I saw Lewis. Dead on the bed.”
“An ambulance was called once we’d managed to talk to Vivi and find out what had happened. It should be there right now,” Harry said.
Officer Dooley looked relieved. “Well, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll send an officer and squad cars over now.” Vivi collapsed back into a chair.
I sat with Vivi, holding her hand and looking around at the old room we were in, thinking back to my days as a child and visiting my grandfather in his office just down the block. Nothing changes much in Tuscaloosa. It’s a town that thrives on its rich history. And I loved that. I noticed that the decor at the station hadn’t changed since probably 1945. Cracked leather chairs with cotton seeping from their seats were scattered around the office. Slow-moving, black ceiling fans whirred around the musty, damp air. The large windows were just slightly open and the fragrant late Southern spring floated inside, like slow deep breathing. The room became still. Officer Dooley called in the incident.
The Sassy Belles Page 2
