23
“Martina. Martina, dear,” Mom said, shaking my arm. “Wake up.”
I bolted to my feet and staggered around in an off-kilter circle. Where was I? Oh yeah, the park. It was a dream. Just a dream. I stared blankly at Mom, watching her lips move. My head was swimming and my legs were wobbly.
“Are you all right?” Mom asked. She handed me a bottle of water and I gratefully gulped it down.
“I’m fine. Just a little woozy. I dozed off and had a weird dream. I was so tired.”
Mom waved me off. “It’s okay, sweetie. You’ve had a rough week.”
“What were you asking me? When you first woke me up.”
“I asked if you’ve seen Charlene. She was at the silent auction tent and all of the sudden she disappeared, leaving Hazeltine Bolling to handle it all by herself. You know Hazeltine. Charlene might as well have left it totally unmanned. It’s not like your sister to be so irresponsible. I just can’t imagine where she’s gone off to.”
In addition to the auction of the larger items, there was a silent auction of smaller stuff, things like gift baskets, gift certificates, oil and lube jobs. It was set up under a small tent, a canopy really, the sort used over graves at cemeteries. Charli had been in charge of that part of the fundraiser. Mom was right, it wasn’t at all like Charli to have abandoned her duties. The memory of Art and Sam tying us up and holding us captive saturated my mind. Art was still on the loose. What if…
“Did you try her cell?” I asked Mom, trying to keep the dread out of my voice.
Mom shook her head. “No. Remember, it got smashed. She hasn’t had a chance to get a new one yet.”
That really frightened me. Of course, Art was a wanted man and there were too many people at the park for him to risk showing his face. Besides, he was probably a thousand miles away by now. Charli most likely had gone to the bathroom or to the vegetarian restaurant she likes to pick up some of that God-awful health food she’s always eating.
“Did anyone see her leave?” I asked Mom.
“Just Hazeltine. She said that one minute Charlene was writing down a bid and then the next thing she knew your sister was running across the park hollering for you. That’s why I thought maybe you knew where she was.”
“No. I had lunch with Kyle Zagle and then I came back over here to introduce the band. How long ago did Charli leave?”
Mom checked her watch. “About fifteen minutes give or take. Hazeltine wasn’t exactly sure about the time.”
“I wonder why Charli was looking for me? Is Miss Hazeltine over at the auction tent? Maybe if I talk to her she’ll remember something else.”
“She’s at the bidding table,” Mom said.
Miss Hazeltine is eighty-five if she’s a day. She looks like everybody’s favorite aunt, wispy silver curls sprayed into a helmet and held into place with a hairnet, tiny blue eyes with a milky sheen of cataracts over them. She usually wears flowery silk frocks that look like they’re as old as she is, thick support hose, and sensible shoes. She always smells like Lily of the Valley perfume and carries soft peppermints in her purse that she hands out to everyone.
She was at the bidding table daintily dabbing at her face with a crisply ironed lilac hanky. “Blessed Jesus, it’s hot as a jalapeno today,” she said when I slipped into the chair beside her.
“Hello, Miss Hazeltine. I’m trying to find my sister. My mom said that the last time you saw Charli she was racing through the park yelling for me.”
Miss Hazeltine picked up a paper funeral parlor fan with the picture of Jesus the Good Shepherd on it and waved it in front of her face. “Why yes, dear, I certainly did. And I said to myself, now what on God’s green earth has gotten into that child, running off like that. Ladies shouldn’t run, you know, especially in heat like this. It might cause them to come down with the cancer or whatnot.”
I opened my mouth to tell her that was an old wives tale, but promptly shut it since arguing with Miss Hazeltine is sort of like trying to knock down the Empire State building with a feather duster. “You’re probably right, Miss Hazeltine. Charli runs entirely too much. By the way, what was she doing just before she ran off?”
Miss Hazeltine launched into a long-winded, serpentine tale that involved enough switchbacks and superfluous details that within a few minutes I had no earthly idea what she was talking about.
I stuck up my hand. “Whoa. Let’s cut to the chase. You told my mom that Charli was taking a bid when she suddenly jumped up and ran off. Whom did she take the bid from?”
Miss Hazeltine looked hurt that I’d cut her off, but she didn’t let on otherwise. She just kept swinging her Jesus fan back and forth, back and forth. “Well, I’m not quite sure, dear. Let’s see. Bertie Dawson bid on the sun tan parlor and I was telling her that she really shouldn’t do that since sun tanning can cause cancer. But you know, like the fool she can be, she just went right on ahead and bid ten dollars on it anyway. I swear to Rudy, I just don’t understand you young folks some times.”
Enough with the cancer already. That’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t. “So,” I said instead, “Charli was taking the bid from Bertie and she suddenly jumped up and ran off, calling for me?”
Miss Hazeltine’s fan stood still. “Why no, dear. I told you, I took the bid from Bertie, although I have to tell you…”
I cut her off before she could get distracted by cancer yet again. “Okay. If you took the bid from Bertie, who was Charli taking a bid from?”
Miss Hazeltine gave a flick of her wrist and Jesus resumed his swaying to and fro. “Let’s see now. Oh, yes. I recall now. Bertie left and a very pretty young woman from Salem asked me a question about the season tickets to the football games. The VPI ones. But they don’t call it that any longer, do they? Now they just call it Virginia Tech. I just don’t understand that at all, do you, Martina? I recall when I was a young woman and my late brother, Samuel, he always took us to the VPI-VMI football game every Thanksgiving. It was so exciting, the cadets all marching so smartly in careful rows. Times were different then.”
“Miss Hazeltine, please!” I tried not to sound snappish, but it came out that way anyway. “I’d love to hear about the football games, but some other time. Right now, though, I really need to know who my sister took the bid from.”
“Well, Martina, dear,” Miss Hazeltine said, “you don’t have to be snippy. All you had to do was ask. Before she ran off Charlene took a bid from a man.”
I refrained from beating my head against the table. So Charli’s bidder was male. That ruled out fifty percent of the population. Now all we had to do was narrow it down a little further. “Good. Now, please think, Miss Hazeltine, which man was it?”
She pondered on that, her lips puckered up like a dried red apple. “I don’t recall that I know him, dear. But he was tall.”
“How tall?”
“Taller than Charlene.”
Great. Charli is only about five foot tall. That meant we could rule out small boys and midgets.
“And he had dark hair and a mustache and glasses.”
Better. Much better. I sucked on my upper lip and thought of all the tall, dark-haired, mustache and glasses wearing men that I knew. There were several, two of whom I’d seen at the event.
“Did you overhear what was said?” I asked.
“Heavens no, dear. It isn’t polite to eavesdrop.”
I felt a tiny little twinge of guilt as I remembered all the eavesdropping I’d done lately. “Well, thanks, anyway, Miss Hazeltine. I really appreciate your help.”
“Martina, dear,” Miss Hazeltine said. “Now that I think about it, I might have overheard, quite by accident, of course, just a tiny snippet of Charlene’s conversation with the gentleman.”
I waited expectantly. She just looked at me, not saying anything.
“Miss Hazeltine, what did you overhear?” I finally asked.
“Well, Charlene asked him if he was enjoying the fundraiser and he said why yes, he was, an
d he was especially excited that he’d bought that trip to Hawaii, that his wife was going to be quite delighted when he told her, and that yes, he was awfully glad taxi season was over. Then they talked about somebody nagging someone and that the caught it hadn’t gone well. He mentioned that he was irregular too, which, I must say, totally shocked me. In my day ladies and gentlemen didn’t discuss such matters in public. I was about to suggest that he try adding fiber to his diet, but then he said that now that Frank Billingham was dead and Art was missing and Sam was in jail that everything was standing still, and that’s when Charlene excused herself and jumped up and ran off. I know she’s your sister, dear, but I must say that I find such behavior scandalous.”
She’d lost me again. I tried to follow the thread but got lost at the taxi season thing. I tried to decide if it was worth it to ask Miss Hazeltine any more questions. Probably not.
“And, of course,” Miss Hazeltine said, “there is the bid slip. It suppose that it would have the gentleman’s name on it, wouldn’t it?”
I started to throttle her, but, being the polite, well-brought-up southern girl that I am, I managed to restrain myself. Barely. “Why, yes, Miss Hazeltine, I believe that it would.”
She handed me a pad of paper and pointed to the top sheet. “That’s Charlene’s bid log.”
The last bid was for six dozen bagels and I recognized the man’s name who’d placed the bid. He was the dark-haired, mustached, glasses-wearing accountant who does Mom and Dad’s taxes. Tax season, not taxi season. Obviously Miss Hazeltine needed to have her hearing aid checked.
But at least we were finally getting somewhere. Although I wasn’t quite sure exactly where that was. I couldn’t imagine what the man had said to make Charli suddenly run off in search of me. I started to hand the pad back to Miss Hazeltine when I noticed some doodling in Charli’s precise little script in the margin.
The letters ‘nlace’ and the word ‘who’ were written one on top of the other and there were three question marks next to ‘who’.
I thanked Miss Hazeltine and handed her the bid book then headed back toward the stage.
“Martina, Martina, dear,” Miss Hazeltine called yet again.
I almost ignored her but I sighed and went back to the table. “What?” Okay, so that time I didn’t even try to avoid sounding snappy.
“I just recalled something else, dear.” Miss Hazeltine was back to fanning herself.
“What?”
“Well, dear, it seems that Charlene had finished taking the bid from the gentleman and then she borrowed his cellular phone and made a call. You know dear, those things cause brain cancer; you really should talk to your sister about that. Using that thing will kill her.”
“Miss Hazeltine, please, who did Charli call?”
“Well, my dear, I’m not positive, but I believe that it was the country club. She asked to speak to Mr. Riff-Jones and he is the club manager.”
Suddenly, I knew where Charli had run off to and why. Sometimes I just flat out amaze myself. Too bad Kyle had just hired me to be the host of the WRRR Morning Show, because I’d make one heck of a private eye. That’s what I was thinking about when it occurred to me that I’d better hustle over and introduce the last band before a riot broke out or something. I hugged Miss Hazeltine and hustled off.
Since that was my last job for the day, unless Mom put me on clean-up detail, I’d just run on out to the country club after I finished up and see if Charli had solved the murder.
There were tons of people milling around underneath the silent auction tent so I had to barge my way through. I tried to be polite about it, but sometimes I might have seemed just the teensiest bit aggravated. Maybe that’s what led the queens of chaos to call down a bit more bad karma on me; I was almost out from under the tent when I smacked head on into Giselle.
“Get out of my way,” she screamed, shoving me, hard as she could, into a pole, which caused the canopy to shudder and shake. “Get out of my way, you slut!”
I’d had enough, absolutely, positively enough. I poked my finger into her chest. “Don’t you dare push me ever again, Giselle. I’m not going to put up with your bullying anymore. The next time that you even look like you’re going to touch me, I’ll deck you. You got that?”
Before I could blink, she made some sort of martial arts maneuver, balled up her fist, and delivered a wicked crosscut to my right jaw. It knocked me backwards into the tent pole once again. This time I hit it so hard that the pole popped out of the ground and the corner of the tent sagged down. I grabbed hold of it to steady myself and almost caused the whole thing to collapse. I righted myself and let go of the canopy.
“Get back, everyone,” I heard someone shout through all of the commotion. “It’s getting ready to fall.”
As soon as I regained my balance I went after Giselle, wildly throwing punches and missing with most of them. She landed two good uppercuts and kicked me once in the chest, all the while making these ‘hee-ya’ sounds like you hear on bad kung-fu movies. Where the heck had she learned to fight like that?
Well, I’d just show her a thing or two about fighting. None of that sissy Karate junk for me. I crouched, led with my right shoulder like I used to when Tim, Ricky, and I played throwback tackle, and smacked into her as hard as I could. Giselle was smaller than Frank Billingham had been, but she was in better shape. She didn’t fall to the ground, but flew backwards. I kept my body moving, plowing into her, until we landed on the bidding table, clawing and tearing at each other. Fortunately, someone had helped Miss Hazeltine out of harm’s way.
Giselle flipped me over and wrapped her hands around my throat. I rolled back and forth as hard as I could, all the while trying to pry her fingers loose. I rolled twice more, hard to the left, and as we struggled to avoid falling off the table, I grabbed the edge of the tent, which was flapping next to me. Giselle spun again, plunging us off the table, and as we smacked into the ground the canopy collapsed over us.
We gyrated around on the ground, the heavy vinyl canopy keeping us pinned down. We both flailed around trying to escape until finally I felt it being dragged off of us. Through it all I kept a tight grip on Giselle, determined not to let her get the best of me again.
When they pulled the tent off of us, I looked up into the disgusted eyes of my mother. My dad and Kyle Zagle pulled Giselle and me apart which was fine with me since I was flat out of gas. I lolled against Dad, the adrenaline I’d felt during the fight long gone. The faces of the people encircling us slipped in and out of focus, but I clearly saw that the new reporter for Channel 42, the one who’d taken Giselle’s place and the cameraman who’d taken Robby’s place were filming us.
“Ms. Sheffield, Ms. St. James, could I have a word with the two of you please?” the beautiful blonde reporter asked. She looked like a prettier, larger-breasted version of Giselle, all capped white teeth and over-done makeup.
I mumbled something to the effect of ‘no comment’ but Giselle went into a tirade about how evil I was, how I’d attacked her for no good reason, that the police were wrong, that I ought to be locked up for the rest of my crummy little life, and that they’d better get that damned camera out of her face NOW if they knew what was good for them, she knew karate and by damned, she wasn’t afraid to use it, just ask that bitch, Marty, she’d tell them.
Since her attention was finally off of me, I shrugged out of Dad’s grip and limped away, nursing my bruised and battered body, knowing that there was nothing I could do for my bruised and battered ego. Mom watched me go, not saying anything, just shaking her head, obviously wondering where on earth she’d gone wrong with me, probably once again blaming it on my Sheffield genes.
I attempted to clean myself up in the ladies room, bagged the idea of introducing the band, and hobbled out to the parking lot and the safety of my Mustang.
The cracked black vinyl seats were hot, so hot that my body shivered. I cranked down the window and lay across the bucket seats, the gearshift digging into my s
ide. I lay as still as I could, fighting off waves of nausea. Giselle’s kicks and punches had really hurt me. My left eye was swelling up and turning purple, my cheekbone ached, and every muscle, bone, and joint in my body screamed out with pain.
“Hi, mind if I join you?”
I pushed to sitting and looked through the window at Kyle. He handed me a bottle of water and a cup of ice.
“I thought you might better put something on that eye.”
I took the stuff from him and stuck the cup against my cheek. “Thanks.”
“Do you want me to drive you somewhere? Doctor’s office, hospital, anywhere?”
I shook my head, which wasn’t a good idea. It felt like a bomb had gone off inside it. “No, thanks anyway. I’m just going to go home, take a cold shower and a couple of pain relievers, then go to bed. For a week or so, I think.”
He brushed my hair back from my face and examined the bruises. “Okay, if you’re sure.”
I tried to smile, but it hurt too badly. “I’m sure. I’ll talk to you later.” I turned the key and the Mustang roared to life. “See you.”
Kyle stepped away from the car and I shifted into drive. Ouch.
“Hey, Marty,” Kyle said, “I almost forgot. I saw Charli after lunch and she said that if I saw you to tell you she was on to something big, that she was going over to the country club to check it out, and that she’d explain it all later. Does that make any sense to you?”
Crap. I’d forgotten all about my sister and her detective work. “Yes, it does. Thanks.” I eased off the clutch and pressed the accelerator. “See you later.”
When I reached the highway I gazed longingly to the left, wishing I really could go on home and lick my wounds, but for some reason I had an overwhelming feeling that Charli was in danger. I flicked the right turn signal and drove toward the country club all the while hoping that the feeling was wrong.
The Doom Diva Mysteries Books 1 Page 41
