Eyes half open, “I need coffee,” came from the back of my scratchy throat.
“I’ve got tea,” she said. “I can brew you up a nice cup with a little something in it that’ll make you attract men like flowers attract bees.” I saw her grab a teapot through the slit of my droopy eyelids. “Find you a man down here that ain’t married,” she continued. “My plan is to put you on a steady diet of it, that way I’ll kill two birds with one stone–get you to move back home with me permanently and get me a couple of grandkids.”
I opened one eye and looked at her. She winked at me.
Even though she’d exchanged Mass for a two-hour sermon at the Baptist church, and speaking French for a Southern drawl, it didn’t stop her from cooking up her “potions and brews.” She swore by them, claiming she could cure whatever ailed a person, bring them true love, or drive away a cheating spouse. A horticulturist, she kept the tools of her trade in her backyard greenhouse. I never let her put any of that stuff in me, though. I bought everything I needed when I was ill at the town drugstore, and just let fate and flirting guide my love life.
“Maybe,” I said, dragging my words out, “I’ll just go down to the Momma Della’s and get me a cup.”
“I love Momma Della, but that coffee at her diner will make you sicker than a coon dog that tried to tangle with a rabid rabbit.” She filled up the teapot at the sink and put it on the stove. “Plus, I was hoping you’d take a ride with me this morning. I may need that forensic eye of yours,” Auntie Zanne said. “I’ve got an idea of who the murderer is.”
“I’ve made my contribution,” I said, and started rummaging through the cabinets with my one opened eye looking for a shot of caffeine. “And I don’t think anything to do with that dead man is any of your business.”
“Death is my business,” she said. “And yours, too.” She filled up a steeper with leaves she pulled from a canister and stuck it down in a cup.
“I’m done with it,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the words. “I’ll just have to go it alone, if you don’t wanna help me.”
I closed the cabinet door. “Nope. I don’t wanna help you.”
“Suit yourself,” she said in a huff. “I’ll pack my gun and go to Julep’s by myself.”
My other eye popped open. “My aunt, Julep?”
“One and the same.”
“Julep Folsom?” I said in disbelief. I plopped down in a chair.
“How many Juleps do you know?” she said, setting the cup with the steeper in front of me.
“Pogue’s mother?”
“Jesus, child. Yes. Your aunt, Julep. Pogue’s momma, Julep. Julep Folsom. How many ways do I need to tell you?”
“And you’re taking a gun?”
“I am.”
“For what?”
“I may have to use it.” She gave a firm nod. She leaned back on the counter and crossed her legs. “You never know what bag she might be coming out of. I may need it to protect myself.” She put the teapot back on the stove.
“Protect yourself from what?”
“Your Aunt Julep has pulled that rifle of hers on me more than once, you know. Plus, now we know she’s committed murder.” Auntie Zanne pointed toward the backstairs. “She’s a hardened criminal. I might have to stop her from making a run for it.” She nodded the resolution.
Julep Folsom was my paternal aunt. She was my father’s only sister, and the only sibling left. She had fought hard with my Auntie Zanne for custody of me after my parents died, and even though I had long since been past the age of maturity, they were still feuding.
But I knew she hadn’t killed anyone.
Aunt Julep and Auntie Zanne hadn’t always been the archrivals she was professing they were today. It was because of Auntie Zanne and her husband that my Aunt Julep and Uncle George moved to Roble to start a funeral home of their own in the first place. Auntie Zanne had helped them find the house she still used and got them both a funeral license. But things started to turn for them after my parents died. Aunt Julep didn’t like that I’d ended up with Auntie Zanne, she wanted to raise me herself. I was, as she so often said, the only Wilder left. And then there were the funeral homes...
Auntie picked up the whistling teapot and poured the hot water in the cup she’d set in front of me. “Why would you think Aunt Julep had anything to do with that man’s death? She didn’t have any reason to kill him.”
“You don’t know that,” Auntie Zanne said, her eyes wide as saucers. She sat the teapot down and put her hands on her hips. “How in the world could you say that? You haven’t been here in years.”
I pushed the cup of “tea” she had fixed for me away and folded my arms on the table in front of me. “Two,” I said.
“What?”
“I haven’t been here in two years.”
“Right. See. So you don’t know if she had a reason to kill anyone or not. Especially since you don’t know who he is. He might’ve been one of her unsatisfied customers that she snuffed out to keep quiet.”
“Snuffed out?” I frowned at her choice of words.
“Her funeral home, Garden of the Dead, ain’t doing so well over there,” Auntie Zanne said.
“Garden Grove. You know her funeral home is called Garden Grove.”
She waved her hand at me. “That woman is jealous of me and my booming business. Always has been. I get four or five bodies a week from all over East Texas. She’s lucky if she bags four a month! She’d go to any length to put me out of business and keep that bad reputation she’s got under wraps.”
“And that’s what gave you the idea that Aunt Julep killed that man?”
“I didn’t come up with it on my own,” she said and nodded. “That’s what that man told me.”
“That man? What man?” I frowned. “The dead man?”
“Yes.” She snorted. “Whaddaya think? I been hearing voices in my head? I ain’t crazy. You know they talk to me.”
“The dead man told you that Aunt Julep killed him?”
“He was practically shouting it. Didn’t you hear him?”
“Uh. No. Can’t say that I did. What exactly did you hear him say, Auntie?”
“He said, ‘I have formaldehyde in me!’” She made her voice sound as if she was yelling from the bottom of a well. “Surely if you didn’t hear him say it, you had to have smelled it.”
“I did smell it,” I said.
“So. There you have it,” she said.
“Have what?”
“Julep Folsom’s Sickly Grove Funeral Home is the only funeral home for miles around that still uses formaldehyde. Ipso facto, she killed him.”
“Garden Grove,” I said. I didn’t know why I continued to correct her, she’d been giving it her own name for years. “So, no one else around here uses formaldehyde in their embalming fluid?”
“You got cotton in your ears this morning, Sugarplum? Because you can’t seem to hear a word I say.” She walked over to the counter, picked up a folded newspaper, and threw it on the table in front of me. “Look at that newspaper article.” Auntie Zanne jabbed the paper with her finger. “It says that they’re arresting Josephine Gail for the murder of that man and that my funeral home is under investigation as a den of criminal activity and will be shut down indefinitely. That’s exactly what Julep Folsom wanted to happen.”
I read the article. It was a one-paragraph blurb that stated, “Josephine Gail Cox of Sabine County found an unidentified body at Ball Funeral Home yesterday. At this time, the cause of death is unknown.”
I pointed to the article. “This doesn’t say anything like what you just said.”
“You better believe that when people read it, that’s what they’ll see. They’ll think that my business is doing so well because I let murderers dispose of their bodies here. Your cousin, the sheriff, is going to p
ut Josephine Gail in jail and run me out of business all to save his momma.”
“I think you’re getting all worked up over nothing, Auntie. I’m sure Pogue will get this figured out.”
“Get what figured out?” An extremely tall, particularly thin woman walked into the kitchen. She was dressed in a plaid blouse that was buttoned all the way to the top and had a bolo tie tucked under the collar. The shirt was tucked tightly into a black pencil skirt. She wore flat black pumps that looked like they must have been a size eleven. “I’ve always been told that I don’t have a head for figuring,” she said. “So, I’m hoping y’all are not talking about me.”
She sat down several bags in the kitchen chair and let out a sigh. “Morning,” she said.
“Oh Lord, forgive me,” Auntie Zanne said. “I forgot all about you coming in this morning.” She turned the eye off under the pot she had on the stove.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I heard voices and just followed them back. I knew it had to be the living back here conversing.”
“Yes,” Auntie said. “This is where the living hang out.” She smiled and walked over to the woman. “First. Welcome. And second. No, we weren’t talking about you.”
“Well, glad to hear it. And forgot about me? Ha! I’d like to see that happen. I don’t think you could. I’ve been told I’m unforgettable,” she said. “And you know why I’m unforgettable?” She didn’t give us time to answer. “Because I’m different. My Aunt Bert said if you act different and think different from everyone else, you’ll be unforgettable. So that’s what I do.” She turned and gave me an exaggerated wink, and a big smile that revealed large horse-like teeth.
It made me wince.
“Romaine, this is Floneva Floyd,” Auntie Zanne said. “She’s my new office manager slash receptionist.”
“Floneva,” I said. “That’s an interesting name. Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”
“Thank you,” she said a big grin spreading across her face. “Don’t believe I’ve ever heard of yours neither. Leastways on a girl.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to take that.
“And Floneva,” Auntie continued her introduction, “this is my niece, Dr. Romaine Wilder.”
“Doctor!” Floneva said. “Are you a real doctor?”
I guessed she meant as opposed to an imaginary one...
“Yes, I am,” I said.
“Howdy!” She stuck out a big hand with very long fingers.
“Hello,” I said and timidly extended my hand. I was nervous about her having a tight grip and crushing the bones in my hand with one squeeze.
“So where do you want me?” she asked Auntie Zanne.
“You are really early,” my auntie said and glanced up at the wall clock.
“I always say if you lose an hour in the morning, you’ll hunt for it all day.”
Auntie and I looked at each other.
“Well, that answers that,” Auntie Zanne said and bugged her eyes at me. “You’ll be in that area up front where I showed you the other week. Come. I’ll show you.” Auntie grabbed a tea towel and wiped her hands.
Floneva signaled “stop” with her hand. “No need. My aunt said excelling in your job is a do-it-yourself project. I can find my own way.” She patted her head of all-white hair. “You showed me once, you don’t need to show me again.”
“Was that your Aunt Bert who said that?” I asked, wondering if we were going to hear a lot about the woman.
“No. That was Aunt Geneva who said that. Aunt Bert’s sister. She lived in Sunrise. I’d go there every summer to visit her. And she’d come to Hemphill to visit us.” She gathered up her bags and headed out of the kitchen. “I am ready to greet the dead. Hello,” she called out as she walked down the hallway. “I have arrived.”
“Looks like Ball Funeral Home’s dearly departed will have another person, other than you, to talk to,” I said.
“She seemed much quieter at the interview,” Auntie said thoughtfully. She turned the fire back on under her pot. “Not quite the character that appeared here today.”
“Everyone has their strengths,” I said. “Maybe her little quips might ameliorate the nervousness of people coming in.”
“I’m not sure if that’s one of her strengths. It makes her seem wacky. Not a good attribute for the receptionist of a funeral home. And Pogue’s strengths don’t include a sharp mind–something important for a sheriff to have.”
Wow, I thought. She turned that conversation right back around.
“There’s nothing wrong with Pogue’s brain,” I said.
“That boy ain’t got the sense God gave a mule, bless his heart. He is all day stupid, and you know it.”
Pogue, as a child, was a bit slow and he had such a huge head that it was easy for people to make fun. And to make matters worse, he’d fall over by just moving it away from center mass–all it took was a slight lean and he’d go tumbling. Auntie Zanne was always trying to get Aunt Julep to take him to a specialist in Houston because she swore it was filled with lead.
Pogue didn’t do anything to discount Auntie’s supposition, either. He’d do one dumb thing after another. And, she’d say, when you try to tell him right, he’d start crying. Auntie said he cried more than it rained in South America.
Pogue must’ve have gotten his head stuck between the spindles of the banister on the back steps inside our house ten times, and each time he’d drop those big old crocodile tears until somebody came to get him out.
“Why does he keep doing that?” Auntie Zanne would screech, her eyes big. “Is he thinking that maybe the space between there is getting wider? Because, I swear his head ain’t getting no smaller!” She’d send him home and tell my Aunt Julep, “The only way we’re gonna get him to stop putting that big ole noggin through holes in the banister is to cut it off!”
By the time Pogue got to high school, his body had caught up with his head, all his tears had dried up, and he was a changed person. He made valedictorian of his class and got a scholarship to college. But by then, Auntie Zanne had stopped paying attention to him. She didn’t know the man he’d grown to be.
“No, I don’t know it,” I said. “And I think he can be a good sheriff and get this thing solved.”
She waved a hand at me. “Oh phooey! Pogue can’t find his way out of cardboard box. How is he gonna solve a murder?” she said. “And with his mother the number one suspect,” Auntie Zanne continued, “he’ll want to dump this whole thing on somebody else.”
“Aunt Julep is not the number one suspect,” I said.
“Yes, she is,” Auntie said. “And I can’t abide by him throwing Josephine Gail or my business under the bus. I won’t sit around and watch that happen.” She looked at me. “You should be worried about this, too. This place is your legacy. You are gonna inherit it one day. Carry on our family business.”
“No thank you,” I said. “I plan on retiring from the practice of medicine and ending up on a sandy beach hundreds of miles away from here.”
“Morning, ladies.” Pogue walked into the kitchen, pulling his hat off of his head.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Auntie crossed her arms across her torso. “Why are you darkening our doorstep so early in the morning?” Auntie asked, not even giving a second thought as to whether Pogue had heard her speaking ill about his mother. “You here to arrest somebody?”
“No, Babet I’m not,” he said. “I’m here because it seems old Doc Westin woke up not feeling so good. He wants Romaine to do the autopsy on the John Doe.”
Chapter Eight
“Oh, good,” Auntie Zanne said as she clapped her hands together. “I want to know exactly what happened. We can get started as soon as I’m finished here.” She pointed to the kitchen counter where she had a bundle of flowers, herbs and a mortar and pestle. “I’ve got a client. Little bitty thin
g, cute as a button. But she thinks her husband’s cheating on her. If I were her, I’d get a new lock instead of some of my staying tea. He wouldn’t be staying with me in my house or my bedroom. Then I’ve got two funerals this morning, and a club meeting, but I’ve got time -”
“I don’t think Pogue meant for ‘us’ to do it,” I said, interrupting the recital of her day’s itinerary. I looked to Pogue to back me up. Standing tall in his uniform, freshly pressed and creased brown pants, his tan-colored short sleeve shirt, even if he felt he was on uneven footing heading a murder investigation, he looked the part.
“I didn’t,” Pogue said and pulled a chair out from under the kitchen table and sat down. “Just Romie.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and twisted his hat around in his hands. “She’s the one with the medical degree.”
After yesterday’s debacle, I could see that it was getting harder for him to stand his ground with Auntie.
“Hogwash.” Auntie Zanne waved her hand. “I’m the one with the funeral license. Somebody embalmed that man, and now, once she’s done, he’s going to have to be readied for burial properly. She,” her finger pointing at me, “can’t do that.”
“And you can’t perform an autopsy,” Pogue said. “I’ve got a murder here that I need forensic information on.”
“Like you know what to do with it,” Auntie said.
“It’s true.” He closed his eyes and took in a breath. “I’ve never investigated a murder before. But I don’t plan on messing this one up.” He turned to me. “You think you can get it done today?”
I nodded. “I can. I should have something for you by mid-morning.” I pulled out a chair, sat across from him and smiled.
“Before you get started on that autopsy...” Auntie Zanne said. Eyeing Pogue, she spoke to me. “I need to talk to you about the help I need on the festival. I’ve got a folder of stuff for you to go over and familiarize yourself with.”
Secrets, Lies, and Crawfish Pies Page 5
