Murder Boogies with Elvis

by Anne George

  Bernice led us up two flights of stairs. As we paused on the second landing to catch our breath, we could hear Dusk talking to someone. She sounded quite angry.

  Her bedroom door was half open so Bernice stuck her head in. “You okay?”

  “Just trying to get our plane tickets straight, Mama.”

  “You’ll get more done with sugar than vinegar, Dusk.” Bernice closed the door, and we continued on up the steps, leaving, I imagined, a young woman rolling her eyes at her mother’s remark.

  “Mama used to tell us that all the time,” Mary Alice said. “Only I think she said we’d catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. Wasn’t that what she said, Patricia Anne?”

  I nodded.

  “Mine did, too. I remember wondering why we wanted to catch flies.” Bernice opened the attic door and we stepped inside. The house was grander than mine, but the attic was the same. An old sewing machine, a dressmaker’s form, trunks. Bernice walked over and pulled a sheet from over what I knew immediately was the perfect chair. It wasn’t at all what I had expected. I think what I had had in mind was a smaller version of President Kennedy’s rocker. But this was a small, upholstered mahogany rocker. The arms were very low so Haley wouldn’t have to worry about bumping Joanna’s head. The upholstery was a delicate blue brocade patterned with pink and darker blue flowers.

  “Oh, my,” I said, sitting in it. “This is wonderful, Bernice.”

  “I think they call it a ladies’ rocker or a boudoir rocker, something fancy like that,” she said. “I just think it’s a perfect rocking-the-baby chair.”

  “You’re sure you want to part with it?”

  “I’d love to think of Haley with it.”

  “She’ll treasure it.” And she would. I closed my eyes and rocked a minute until Sister said she wanted to try it out. “Test it for sturdiness.”

  I have seen the legs of chairs splay when Sister sat in them. This one didn’t. It passed the sturdiness test.

  “Mama?” Dusk called up the stairs. “I’m going down to the Alabama to pick up my bag I left there the other night. It’s got all my stage makeup in it.”

  “Okay, honey. The keys are in my purse. Be careful.” Bernice turned back to us, smiling at our obvious pleasure. “Do I have a taker here?”

  I nodded and helped pull Sister up. “You have a very grateful taker. But if either Day or Dusk changes her mind and wants it back, just let me know.”

  “Don’t I wish. Well, let’s get it down the stairs.”

  The chair wasn’t large, but maneuvering it down two flights of steps wasn’t easy. I was in front, Sister behind, and Bernice cautioning us to be careful. After the first flight, I had discovered the law of physics that states that the person at the bottom of a load is carrying most of the weight.

  “Maybe it would be better if you put the seat on top of your head and you could go frontward,” Sister suggested.

  I didn’t answer that.

  Dusk was standing in the foyer grinning at us as we tried to avoid banging into the banisters.

  “I thought you’d left,” her mother said, out of breath. Vicariously, I suppose, since her involvement in moving the chair had strictly been giving directions.

  “Your car wouldn’t start.” Dusk reached over, took the chair from Sister and me, and placed it on the floor.

  “Damn. Probably the battery. Or the computer.” Bernice fanned her face with her hand. “I swear, y’all, I was driving down two hundred and eighty one afternoon at four-thirty and the car just went dead. Even the power steering was gone. God only knows how I managed it with all that traffic, but I coasted into a Hardee’s. I figured it was the carburetor, but the woman who fixed me a peach milkshake, so I could take some aspirin, said she bet it was the computer, that they didn’t make carburetors anymore. And sure enough it was. Had to tow me in. I just don’t have any idea what happened to carburetors, do y’all?”

  “They’re gone?” I asked.

  “Maybe not in your car.” Sister turned to Dusk. “We’ll take you to the Alabama. We’ve got to go right through town.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Crane. I’m sure I can get a ride home.”

  “Call your daddy if you can’t,” Bernice said. “And don’t go inside that theater if nobody else is there.”

  “Okay, Mama.”

  “We’ll check it out.” I hugged Bernice, thanked her again, and we took the chair out to Sister’s van. The young man who had been planting begonias was now clipping shrubbery and came over to help us. Mary Alice was right. My car would never have held us and the chair.

  “Who was the boy you were dancing with the other night, Dusk?” Mary Alice asked as she stopped at a light.

  “His name’s Bobby Miller, and he’s a student at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. He’s wonderful, isn’t he? And he’s only eighteen years old.”

  “Wonderful,” Sister and I both agreed.

  “I’m trying to talk him into coming to New York and putting college off. But he probably won’t. His father doesn’t approve of him being a dancer. Thinks it’s sissy.”

  I remembered how lightly he had lifted Dusk, the unbelievable leaps. Nothing sissy there. I felt the old familiar anger all teachers feel when parents insist that their gifted children follow in the path that they, the parents, have decided is the right one. And for the millionth time, I wished the arts were appreciated more.

  “Y’all can just let me out at the side entrance,” Dusk said, pointing to a door in the side of the Alabama that was almost lost in the shells and curlicues that adorned the outside of the building as well as the inside.

  “We’ll wait and see if anyone’s here,” Mary Alice said.

  “Have you ever been backstage?” Dusk asked. “Would you like to see it? They’ve even got some of Tallulah Bankhead’s old costumes back there. And the most wonderful old movie posters you’ve ever seen.”

  Mary Alice and I looked at each other. “You feel like it, Mouse?”

  If I’d been half dead, I would have jumped at the chance. I’m totally addicted to old movies. And the Alabama has always been the most magical theater in the world.

  “Park the car,” I said.

  This was no problem. As in most American cities, the large department stores and shops that once flourished in the downtown area have moved to the malls. Several plans have been proposed to bring the area back, including Birmingham Green, where a median of one of the principal downtown streets was planted with trees and flowers. Benches were placed strategically to welcome tired shoppers or to draw brown-bag lunchers from the office buildings to sit in the sun. It’s beautiful, but usually deserted. Only recently have a few people begun to move back downtown into the loft apartments that are being created in the historic old buildings.

  We parked across the street, jaywalked safely to the door in the side of the theater, and Dusk knocked on it. There was no answer, so she knocked again, louder. Still no answer. Mary Alice reached over and turned the doorknob. The door opened, and we stepped inside into a narrow hall. Dusk clicked on the light switch, and a couple of sixty-watt bulbs dangling from the ceiling lit the concrete-block wall and the cement floor. All pretensions of grandeur had been left at the door.

  “It gets better,” she promised. She walked to the end of the hall, opened another door, and called, “Hello? Anyone here?”

  “Who is it?” a male voice called back.

  “It’s me, Dusk Armstrong. Is that you, Mr. Taylor?”

  “What are you doing here, Dusk?” Mr. Taylor appeared out of the darkness. His thin, reddish hair was sticking up as if he had been sleeping on it. What riveted our attention, though, was the rag that he clasped in his hand. It looked like an old undershirt; it was covered in blood.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, seeing the three of us as one begin to back up. I can only imagine how frightened we looked. It took him a second to catch on. “Oh, the rag. It’s paint, ladies.” He held it up for our inspection. “Just paint. I’m touching up t
he Wurlitzer, where that unfortunate young man fell on it the other night. Actually he did more than scratch it. He popped a corner right off. But somebody who knows woodwork is going to have to fix that. All I’m doing is fixing the scratches and polishing it.” He stepped back. “Y’all come on in. I’m sorry I scared you.”

  We followed him in nervously. He was older than he had looked rising majestically on the Wurlitzer, makeup in place. Probably in his late sixties.

  Dusk introduced us and said that she was there to get her makeup bag.

  “You go right ahead. I was fixing to make sure the lift is okay on the Wurlitzer.” He turned to Sister and me. “You ladies want to ride up on it?”

  “Lord, yes,” Sister said.

  Dusk grinned at our enthusiasm. She hadn’t spent her childhood at the Alabama watching the miracle of the Wurlitzer rise from the floor. “I’ll go get my case,” she said.

  We were on the level where the orchestra pit was located. We followed Mr. Taylor down a hall that was carpeted in a gray indoor-outdoor carpeting, and which was painted the color I figured my bridesmaid dress was going to be, a magenta. I hoped that it was some paint left over from a production and not some that someone had chosen for the wall.

  “I like your outfit,” Mr. Taylor told Sister. “You trying out for The King and I?”

  “Taking a martial arts class.”

  “That’s good. A lady should be able to protect herself. My sister got a gun, but she shot her big toe off while she was taking a class on using it.”

  “Lord, I’ll bet that affects the way she walks,” I said.

  “Not really. She has trouble wearing sandals, though.”

  Sister cut her eyes around at me. We had reached the orchestra pit, which I had never seen from this advantage. It was a mess with chairs turned over and several broken instruments.

  “There’s police tape up all around,” Mr. Taylor said. “We can just duck under it, though. That’s what everybody’s been doing coming in here and getting their musical instruments. The bass fiddle was ruined, though.”

  “We know,” I said. “We were here and sitting in the front row when the guy fell.”

  “Scared the hell out of me. Y’all watch the paint now. It’s just on the very top, but be careful.”

  “You’re grinning like a jackass eating briars,” Mary Alice whispered to me. I didn’t take offense, because she was, too.

  We settled on the bench, two ten-year-olds.

  “You ready? I’m going to push the button.”

  “But we need music and neither of us plays,” Mary Alice said. “Can’t you get on here with us?”

  “Not enough room. How about I whistle ‘How Great Thou Art’ and y’all sing?”

  Not exactly majestic, but still exciting. Mr. Taylor pressed a button and began whistling. Sister and I felt the Wurlitzer leave the ground.

  “Sing,” Mr. Taylor commanded.

  “Oh, Lord, my God,” I began to sing tremulously as we rose past the other instruments, breaking the crime tape.

  “Good.” Mr. Taylor started whistling again.

  I looked over at Sister, which was a mistake. She was twitching.

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked.

  She burst out laughing. “Oh, Mouse, look at us. This is one of the funniest things that I think has ever happened to us.”

  “Y’all sing,” Mr. Taylor called and resumed his whistling.

  But we were holding on to each other, laughing so hard by this time that we were crying. Two old ladies rising up to heaven on a Wurlitzer that reeked of wet paint while an old man whistled a hymn.

  We were laughing so hard that for a moment the screams seemed simply white noise, a creak in the lifting mechanism of the organ.

  The organ stopped its rise with a slight bump. For a second there was silence, and then we heard what we knew were screams. Sister and I both looked over the side of the bench.

  Dusk was clutching Mr. Taylor’s arm and pointing toward the dressing rooms. “Call nine-one-one. He’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  They rushed off leaving us in the air.

  “Larry? You reckon it’s Larry?” In panic, Sister started punching every button on the console. “Damn.”

  Every button that she wasn’t hitting, I was. One of us finally connected with the magic one and the organ began to descend. We were off and running before it even touched the floor.

  “Oh, Lord, I know it’s Larry,” Sister said.

  We ran down the hall in the direction that Dusk and Mr. Taylor had gone. An open door and a light told us where they were. They were kneeling on either side of Larry Ludmiller, who lay crumpled and bloody on the floor. Dusk was wringing her hands and sobbing, and Mr. Taylor was holding up a baseball bat.

  “I think he’s dead,” he said.

  Fourteen

  Oh, Lord.” Dusk moaned, leaning over Larry. “Somebody call nine-one-one.”

  Mary Alice reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and hit the 911 button. Then she handed the phone to me and rushed out of the room. I understood this. Sister’s stomach and the sight of blood have never been compatible.

  Unfortunately we have had so many emergencies since I retired from teaching that, I swear, I’m on a first-name basis with most of the 911 operators. They even recognize my voice, which is embarrassing. Today a new person answered though, for which I was grateful. I explained that there was a badly injured man at the Alabama Theater and that we needed help immediately. No use telling them that he was dead as a doornail.

  I closed the phone, stepped out into the hall, and sat down on the floor. I could hear Dusk and Mr. Taylor talking excitedly. Down the hall I heard a toilet flush. Hopefully Sister was feeling better; I wasn’t.

  I shut my eyes and tried to concentrate on my mantra. Omm. The cute white wicker wastebaskets with pink shells on them at Bed Bath & Beyond. Omm. New shower curtains for the guest bathroom. Omm. White battenburg. Omm. Would probably just wilt in the humidity of a bathroom. Omm. Didn’t want to have to spend time starching and ironing shower curtains. Omm. Omm. Some new towels would be nice. And some of those thin washrags that Fred favored. Felt like almost nothing in your hand. Cheap. Omm.

  “Where are you?” Sister asked. “Bed Bath & Beyond? Rich’s?” I had made the mistake once of telling her about my white-sale fugues.

  “Bed Bath & Beyond,” I answered truthfully. “I got a five dollar coupon yesterday in the mail. They’re having a sale this weekend.”

  She sat down beside me on the floor. No easy feat for a two-hundred-fifty-pound sixty-six-year-old woman. What she did was lean against the wall and just sort of slide down. She was sucking on an Altoid; I could smell peppermint.

  “Lord,” she said. “I just can’t believe this. Hand me the phone. I guess I’d better call Virgil. Poor Tammy Sue. I can’t imagine how she’s going to take this.”

  I really needed some new hot pads, too. I had seen some cute ones, a little muffin man wearing a chef’s hat and holding up a plate. They had some with cows on them, too, sort of like the Gateway cow.

  “The phone?”

  I handed it to Sister. I had never quite understood that Gateway cow.

  There was a shriek from inside the dressing room. “He moved. He moved his hand!”

  Sister dropped the phone. I looked around the door. Dusk had her fingers against the side of Larry’s throat. Mr. Taylor was kneeling, wringing his hands.

  “I feel a pulse,” Dusk exclaimed. “He’s alive. Call nine-one-one!”

  “I just did.” I got up and walked slowly toward the prone figure. “You’re sure he’s alive?”

  “Feel.” I leaned down and Dusk placed my fingertips against Larry’s throat. A slight, thready pulsing. Oh, God.

  “I’ll go meet them at the side door,” Mr. Taylor said. “Lord, I thought he was done for, for sure.” He dashed out, nearly crashing into Sister, who had just appeared in the doorway.

  “He’s reall
y alive?” she asked. “Not just some dead muscles jumping like frog’s legs or a chicken with its head chopped off?”

  I said, “Not very alive, I don’t think. But he’s got a pulse.”

  Sister stepped into the room. “Maybe we should give him CPR or something.”

  Dusk looked up at her and scowled. “We’re leaving him alone until the paramedics get here.”

  “Good idea,” Sister agreed.

  It was only a few minutes before the paramedics arrived, but it seemed forever. The three of us watched Larry, who never moved again. Occasionally Dusk or I would reach over to feel the pulse that was still there but faint. If he was breathing, and he had to be, surely, his breath was so light that there was no discernible movement of his chest.

  “Somebody hit him right above the ear. See?” Dusk said. “Probably with that baseball bat.”

  Sister disappeared down the hall again.

  I took Dusk’s word for it. I picked up Larry’s hand and rubbed it. Surely that wouldn’t hurt anything. The hand was cold. But the pulse beat in his throat.

  And then the room was full of paramedics, of equipment, of commands. We were told to wait in the hall. Mr. Taylor and Sister joined us there.

  “Damn,” he said. “Damn. He was lying back here the whole time I was working on the organ.”

  “He might have been here since last night,” Sister said.

  I noticed her phone lying on the floor and picked it up. “You going to call Virgil?”

  She reached for it hesitantly. “I guess I’d better. Reckon where they’ll take Larry?”

  “University Hospital,” Mr. Taylor said. “It’s the closest trauma center.”

  Dusk suddenly began to cry deep sobs that shook her tiny body. She put her hands to her face, and I saw that they were blood spattered. I looked down. Mine were, too.

  “Come on,” I said, putting my arm around her. “Let’s go get cleaned up.”

  Sister volunteered the information that the restroom was right down the hall on the left.

  Dusk and I washed our hands and arms, and I wet a paper towel and wiped her face, which was as flushed and hot as if she had a fever.