Alpaca My Bags

by Violet Patton

  Ann said hey you and added. “They’re remodeling and found a butcher knife in the wall. Maybe Wanda’s mystery will be solved.”

  “Oui.” Minette’s dark brown eyes sparkled. She looked much younger than the ordinary Oasis resident. She wore a precision cut bob speckled with golden gray hairs. Hugo looked Cajun, darkly good-looking and fiery, but they matched.

  Ann whispered in my ear they had inherited their place from Minette’s mother. Minette’s mother, Adeline and Wanda were good friends.

  “Does Lulu know?” Minette asked. “About the knife.”

  “I don’t think so,” Madonna said, shaking her head. “They only just found it this afternoon.”

  “Lulu, Adeline and Wanda went everywhere together... that was until...” Ann bugged out her eyes and nodded toward our carport.

  “Oui. I’ll visit with Lulu. But not until I have my suitcases unpacked.” She spoke perfect English. “Hugo must have air. So, if it isn’t working—Bunny?” Minette asked. “Is that your real name?”

  “On my birth certificate.” I puckered and pursed my lips, holding back a snarl. I didn’t say my sister’s real name was Candy. Mama adored our cutesy names. She hadn’t dreamed they’d cause problems in our old age. Minette wasn’t the first to ask if Bunny was my real name and wouldn’t be the last.

  Hugo yelled in French walking into the furrow. Minette turned and replied, and he stomped off toward their park model. “He will air out the house. Make sure the AC works. If not, we’ll get a hotel room for tonight. Looks like you’re taped off out of your house.”.

  “Yep, where you guys headed?” Philly and I need a hotel room—in another state far away from the Oasis. She turned to go, and I quickly asked. “Did you know Wanda?”

  She paused and looked back. “Oh, yes. I met her. Pretty woman. My mother loved her. After her grisly murder... ah death, my mother, she wasn’t well for a long time. She stayed away from the Oasis for several years. That kind of thing changes a person. Your best friend murdered while you slept.”

  We all nodded agreeing, but my mouth opened and out jumped. “Was she in the park model at the time of the murder?”

  Minette’s chin buckled, but she held it together. “No, my mother lived in our house. Down there.”

  “I’m sorry... sorry. I didn’t mean.” I stumbled over the lamest apology and reached for the album. “I found this in the closet drawer. Can you look at it?”

  She took it from me. “What is it?”

  “I only peeked at the first few pages. I recognized...” I bit my lip and didn’t admit to seeing Wanda. Her visitation must remain a secret. If I blabbed my new neighbor ladies would think me stark raving mad. “It’s a wedding album.”

  Uttering in French, she opened it and gasped. “Oui. It is Wanda. A young bride.”

  We gathered around Minette as she flipped the album pages. It held typical poised snapshots of the bride and groom feeding each other cake and tossing the bouquet. There was nothing ominous or foreboding about the other family snapshots.

  Ann huffed, sounding miffed. “She looks well-endowed. I heard rumors but...”

  “She had big ones.” Madonna chuckled. “Too heavy if you ask me.”

  “Oui, Mother always said they were the biggest she’d ever seen. She had a bigger heart of gold. Who she was, wasn’t the size of her bosoms, though.” Minette chuckled.

  Ann leaned in looking at the next photo. “That groom was a looker.”

  The groom was a dark-headed Tom Selleck lookalike, so good-looking it hurt to look at him.

  Minette tsked. “Mother said he died in Vietnam.”

  “That’s too bad.” I added.

  “After him, Wanda married twice more. She had no babies.”

  I fell quiet with that revelation since I had no babies. Some women were okay with not having children, others couldn’t have them. How did Wanda feel about being childless?

  I had to ask. “Who was she married to when she died?”

  Minette closed the album. “No one. Each marriage ended in divorce. Nothing worked out for her. Her death is truly an unsolved murder. All clues lead only to dead ends.”

  Had Wanda followed Cosmopolitan’s advice about stashing cash in case of the inevitable? Maybe there was a tussle over her getaway money? Murders happen for lessor reasons.

  Across the street the crime scene investigator women were dismantling more of the park model. They used big clippers to cut into the pink insulation. Maybe now Wanda’s luck would change and they would solve her murder.

  “Hey you,” David Bell said, peeking around the corner of Madonna’s house.

  “David,” Minette said, hugging his neck. “Looks like Wanda has sent a message. Thanks to Bunny.”

  David nodded all around. We nodded back. In the light of day, his scars weren’t as ugly as I remembered.

  “Beer?” I asked, trying to distract him and hoping he wouldn’t mention our conversation about Wanda. The less I said about her the better. First impressions weren’t always the worst, but considering he lied... fibbed about when she passed, I shouldn’t offer him a cold one.

  “No thanks. Trying to stay away.” David stood beside Minette. “You guys just get here?”

  “Oui. So hot. I’m thawing.”

  “How cold was it when you left?” he asked.

  “Twenty-two.” Minette pretended to shiver.

  Ann laughed saying, “If you can’t take the cold in the kitchen—get out.”

  “Oui,” she chuckled. “That’s why I’m here. Hugo’s working on the AC.”

  “I told you last year you needed a new unit,” David said.

  “Oui, but Hugo is a... a... how do you say it?”

  “A tightwad,” Madonna said, chuckling. “We all know that.”

  “Where are you and Hugo staying tonight?” David asked. “You could—”

  “No. We’re good.” David offered them a place to stay? Right neighborly of him. Guess loaning a box fan was friendly. Maybe he’s not the ogre I imagined when I first met him.

  “You hear about Dan?” David asked, glancing at Madonna and she didn’t blink.

  “I did,” Minette said. “Bad news. Nice guy.”

  Wayne and Philly drove up in Wayne’s cart. They ducked into the shady carport without looking our way. The two gloved women came out from the shadows, one carried the knife in a plastic bag, holding it way away like it might smell as bad as rotten liver. They opened the trunk, put the knife into a container and those two goatsuckers left without a single grimace or smile.

  Across the street, Philly stepped from the shadows smoking a cigarette. He wanted me to see him and I looked away, glad I wasn’t near enough to snatch the butt away from him and run off smoking. Guilty of smoking out of guilt, he delayed my stacked washer and dryer, maybe indefinitely. My dream of passing wet clothes up to the top dryer had turned into a nightmare.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Night & Day

  The cop guarding the bloody knife got permission to leave and everyone scattered. The fun was over. Blinds flittered open in the evening’s cool. Jealously, I watch Minette and Hugo drive by on their way to a hotel for the night.

  Polka music filtered over from the community center. Ann said it was square dance night. Golf carts whirred going places. Somewhere people sang happy birthday to a lucky recipient. At sunset, the tall tennis court lights lit, and the vampires came out to play.

  “Y’all come stay with us.” Alice suggested coming to my rescue once again.

  I couldn’t turn her down. We had a gaping hole in the wall with strict instructions not to move or touch anything until the sheriff said it was okay. I grabbed a few things from the bathroom and bedroom for our slumber party. Philly locked the door with a gaping hole in the park model’s side. If someone needed what we had, they were welcome to the junk.

  Wayne and Alice’s dreamboat Arizona room felt ginormous compared to the trailer. Her stack washer and dryer had plenty of bells and whistles and I
wanted a pair even more.

  Four Texans under the same roof created a ruckus. Wayne told jokes. I showered. Philly snored on the couch until Alice tapped him on the leg and made him get off the couch. She and I unfolded the foldout couch and put on sheets. Their new AC blasted good and cold.

  I kept the photo album close by. Minette’s glance at its contents hadn’t satisfied my curiosity.

  I wore shorts and a T-shirt to bed since my threadbare nightie was indecent. Philly went native. He has a lot of nerve sleeping naked on a stranger’s foldout couch. Before I turned out the light, I laid his boxers across his bare behind. If Alice happened to peer in at him, she wouldn’t get an eyeful of useless old Texan.

  In the streetlight’s glow, I lay looking at Alice’s ceiling.

  She needs to dust.

  The foldout bed had a rail that caught me in the middle of my back. Wiggling, I snuggled into Philly until I was laying sideways next to him.

  Why had Wanda appeared? Did she need help? If she should reappear, should I tell her to go to the light? Did we need to have a priest bless the park model? I’m not religious, but if Mama were alive, she’d make sure a priest blessed it, twice if need be. Mama wasn’t Catholic, but when it comes to superstition and religion, she had all bases covered.

  Daddy would’ve set fire to our new dump. Destroying evidence suit his personality.

  I woke up with a crick in my neck. Philly wasn’t in the bed, his boxers were missing too, which was a good thing.

  I went to the bathroom and as I flushed the toilet, Alice called, “Coffee.”

  Alice had fixed up her kitchen nice. Wood-like wash and wear floor and the cream-colored walls looked homey. The remodeled kitchen sported space-age cabinets and compact appliances. Their Arizona room looked dreamy, but I coveted her kitchen.

  She set a steaming cup of coffee on the dinette. The coffee worked after my second sip and I woke up enough to talk. “Can you remodel my kitchen? It feels so big in here.”

  “It’s because of the bump-outs.” She pointed at the floor. “They offset the front window and the dining-room windows out. People prized the park models with bump-outs. Hard to come by.”

  I nodded fully understanding how an extra few inches could be more precious than free ice.

  “So, what’s the plan?” It was barely six a.m., and Alice looked ready to rock-and-roll.

  “Geez, I don’t know. Where’s Wayne?” Wherever Wayne was, Philly wasn’t far away.

  “They went to the building department.” She got up to refill our coffee mugs.

  “This early?”

  “Breakfast at Wayne’s favorite joint. Elmer’s. Down on Elm. It’s a stretch to get there, but worth the waffles.”

  “Philly loves waffles.” This morning, I crossed off filling my man-hole. What a relief.

  “I’m thinking...” Alice sat a steamy mug of coffee in front of me, ready to gab. “The Oasis will give you a place to stay until.” The indefinites of until sounded forever.

  “I worked as a paralegal for a couple decades. They’ll have an indemnity clause in the covenants that will provide for cases like this. Insurance will cover it.”

  “Covenants sounds like a dirty word. I’ll ask Philly.”

  “Heck, he’ll be happy. By the time they finished investigating the crime scene... again... you might not have a pot to—”

  I held up a hand. “Right.”

  She stopped mid-sentence and regrouped. “Want me to call Amelia? She’d know about the insurance policies.”

  “Let’s wait.” I hadn’t even brushed my teeth, and at that moment I realized I hadn’t grabbed my toothbrush last night.

  “You going to water aerobics?” I asked, drawing Alice away from the subject of pots.

  “Nope. I don’t do water.” I liked Alice even more.

  “I went. Sorta fun. Good exercise.” I shrugged, acknowledging my need for more exercise. “The water felt cool, so I might take another class.”

  “Did you meet Yonna?” Alice asked over the rim of her mug.

  “Yeah?”

  Alice leaned over, whispering even though we were alone. “The day before Dan died, I was walking past the gym and I saw them together. Chit-chatty and close together. Have you been to the gym yet?”

  “No. I don’t do weights.” Until this week, I wouldn’t have believed I would swim either. Who knows what the future holds—too bad I couldn’t predict my future. It would keep me out of trouble.

  “They were close—too close for just exercising, if you know what I mean. They keep it shut to keep it extra cold in there. But the door was standing wide open. Know what I saw?”

  I didn’t have the faintest idea. “No, what?” If they were exercising with the door open, they must not have been keeping big secrets.

  “Yonna and Dan. They were experimenting with the weights.” Alice widened her eyes and nodded knowingly.

  “You mean like that weight around his neck?” What a sight? That exercise disk coat-hangered around Dan’s bloated neck.

  “Yep. I told the detectives about it. Guess it came to nothing.” She shrugged and sighed, her disappointment showed. “Looks like whoever put Dan in the pool would’ve been caught on camera?”

  “Camera?”

  “Girl, every corner of this place has a camera trained on you. Haven’t you noticed those black dots pointed at everything? Do nothing you don’t want spread about.”

  So, there was no privacy here in the asphalt jungle. That wasn’t surprising, but also wasn’t reassuring. Surely, Security Chief would have found evidence on the tapes by now.

  “Maybe Security Chief killed him?” He had access to the security network. Whoever killed Dan knocked him cold before he entered the pool, a healthy specimen like him could’ve saved himself.

  Alice grinned. “Oh, that’s funny. Are you talking about Mack Riggs? Heck, he wants to kill us all. You need a change of clothes? We’re about the same size.”

  “No, I’m good. I’m going home. I don’t care what the cops say.”

  “Good for you. You go, girl. Wanna go to the clubhouse later? Check things out? I can introduce you to my quilting buddies. We make baby blankets for St. Jude’s.”

  “Sure.” I sat my dirty coffee mug in the Alice’s nice sink.

  Any plans I had for today vanished with the appearance of the butcher knife. Other than my curiosity about Wanda, I wouldn’t plan anything else.

  “There’s a computer in the library. If you want, we can go there and research Wanda’s death. We don’t have internet here.”

  “I don’t do internet.” I opened the door, ready to leave. Alice grabbed her ID badge and strapped on a fanny pack similar to the one I bought at Dick’s.

  “You’re joking?”

  “That’s Philly’s deal.” I shrugged, wishing Alice wasn’t coming home with me.

  “I’m guessing you don’t have a cell phone either.”

  “Nope.”

  Tsking, Alice stepped out, locking the door. “C’mon, girlfriend. I’m bringing you up to the twenty-first century.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Morrison

  “This is how you do it.” At the Oasis community gate, Alice scanned her photo ID card, and the buzzer tripped allowing our entrance. She nodded up at a black dot camera hidden in the wall’s corner and lifted a brow. I nodded and glared into the tiny camera, but I was undecided if the cameras were good or bad. If I was a victim of a crime, I’d want the culprit caught on camera.

  Alice was right; whoever dropped Dan in the pool should’ve been caught on camera. Whoever killed him had to have access to the cameras. But who would’ve wanted him dead? Being a philanderer wasn’t a good enough reason to kill a fellow.

  There must be more motive than a love-triangle gone bad.

  “Let’s go around that way to the quilting club.” She guided me past several closed activity rooms. A windowed slit in each door allowed a glimpse of the people inside the rooms working on various pro
jects.

  They laid the complex out like a community college or high school with classrooms on one side, an open pool area and more workshops and classrooms on the other side. The whacking volley of tennis balls bouncing against the court carried. Several Oasis golfers leaned on putters on the putting green outside the courtyard. Two ladies passed us on the outside walkways, but Alice only nodded, avoiding introductions or conversations.

  “Quilting Club meets Tuesday afternoons at one. The rest of the time its free sewing. We have very nice machines.”

  I couldn’t sew a button on Philly’s shirt.

  Alice pushed into a brightly lit room. “Hey y’all.” She greeted the two women in the room.

  “Alice,” one said talking over the sewing pins clasped between her lips.

  “Hey y’all?” I said, waving. My Texas twang twanged loudly in the quiet room.

  “The machines are to die for,” Alice said, beaming with pride. Two rows of gleaming new-fangled, high-tech sewing machines with computer screens made me dizzy. I can thread a needle, in an emergency sewing disaster, but those computerized sewing contraptions weren’t Bunny friendly.

  “Pretty.”

  “I’m gonna put you on the list.” She went over to a standing desk and picked up a pen.

  “What list?”

  She wrote on a lined sheet of paper clipped to a clipboard. “To be called when it comes time to make the next round of baby blankets. We usually do spring and fall. You missed this fall’s sewing season. Starts in August.”

  “Delightful.” I love being volunteered.

  Mama used to sew. During the winter, she would hand-piece quilt squares. She never had a proper sewing machine. Daddy watched television—he loved Walter Cronkite and cigars. Had I known how sexy Walter was, I would’ve paid more attention to his nightly news broadcast.

  Eh. Maybe not.

  She couldn’t sit still so the stitching kept her hands busy. Sewing made Daddy crazy. He would laugh at her, saying she was sewing ninety-nine stitches up a bobcat’s tail. He talked crude, but secretly, I thought he sounded funny. I mean, how could you get close enough to a bobcat to sew a single stitch much less ninety-eight more stitches?