Murder At The Buckstaff Bathhouse
The Doreen Sizemore Adventures Book 2
Serena B Miller
Contents
Main Body
Also by Serena B Miller
About the Author
Copyright © 2013 by Serena B Miller
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Published By L J Emory Publishing
ISBN: 978-1-940283-05-0
Murder At The Buckstaff Bathhouse
* * *
My name is Doreen Sizemore. I’m a born and bred Kentuckian and I’m seventy-one years old. I still got tolerable good health, all my own teeth, and no cataracts yet that I know of. I been taking care of my sister-in-law for the past few months way down here in San Antonio, Texas. That’s where she and my baby brother, Ralph, live.
Frankly, right now I’m so mad at my brother for taking my good nature and hard work for granted that I could just spit. In all my years on this earth I have never minded helping a body out, but I do hate feeling like I’m being used by people, and that’s exactly what Ralph’s been doing from the moment I stepped foot in his house until Carla’s hair started coming back in after her chemo treatments.
I don’t mind helping Carla none, poor little thing. She’s one of them women who seem to think that if’n she’s real quiet and mousey nobody will notice her and won’t bother to hurt her or say something mean to her. I suppose that works in the animal kingdom. If you blend in with the foliage, the hawk won’t eat you because it can’t see you. But from what I can see, that kind of thinking don’t work none too good in a marriage.
While I’ve been down here, I’ve been trying to talk to her about standing up for herself a little more. I thought it might help her after I was gone, but it’s hard for a woman to stand up for herself when she feels so bad from the chemo treatments she can’t even keep down more than a spoonful of Doreen’s homemade chicken noodle soup at a time.
So there I was, babying Carla along, cooking one thing after another that might tempt her appetite, when my brother comes home from where he works cleaning out the septic systems of San Antonio, Texas.
“Doreen,” he said. “Fix me one of them grilled peanut butter, brown sugar, and banana sandwiches Mama used to make us. You know, the kind Elvis Pressley liked. And while you’re at it, how about slicing it diagonal? Sandwiches just taste better sliced diagonal. And I want me some sweet iced-tea, too.”
I suppose it weren’t a terrible thing he was asking of me. A sandwich and some tea. I mean, Ralph does work hard and it ain’t like he’s got work that he likes or nothing. He just does whatever he can find that’ll pay him a half-way decent pay check. That’s what happens when a boy runs off and joins the navy before he’s even graduated from high school, and then gets himself kicked out for misconduct. It like to broke me and mama’s heart, both of them things did.
Anyway—where was I?
Oh yes. It was the tone of his voice that set my teeth on edge. There was no “please” or “thank you,” in his asking neither. It sounded to me like Ralph had stopped appreciating the sacrifice I was making for him and Carla by being all the way down there in Texas and he was starting to treat me like I was some kind of cheap, second-hand, major household appliance.
Truth be told, I was starting to feel like a household appliance and a cranky one at that. I’d been working my fingers to the bone trying to keep that big ole house going he and Carla went and bought, and his stinky work clothes washed and ironed, and groceries in the house, and meals fixed, and dishes washed up, and that weird-looking rat-dog of Carla’s fed and let in and out of the door a couple hundred times a day and well, my feet hurt, my back hurt, and I’d just about had it.
Take that dog for instance. Me and him had to come to an understanding early on. He kept out of my way, and I fed and watered him in spite of wishing I’d never laid eyes on the ugly thing. I mean, really. Why would anyone go and breed a dog to look like that? And why would someone actually pay money for him like Carla had?
In my neck of the woods, most people don’t pay good money for dogs—mostly, dogs just show up on your doorstep looking for a home. I’ve had a lot of good porch dogs in my life and not a one of them did I pay for. Of course, they weren’t some fancy breed that you could ever tell of. And some of them weren’t all that smart. And none of them had any of them papers I hear tell about. But they were fine for petting and barking at people and being sappy-glad each time I come home from the grocery store or my hair appointment, but that’s about all I ever needed a dog for anyways.
Thinking of dogs makes me start wondering about how my old tom cat is doing back home in South Shore, Kentucky. Esther, who is married to my second cousin, Bobby Joe, and has a new colicky baby and lives next door is feeding that stray cat for me while I’m down here and I haven’t heard from her for awhile.
Funny thing, I miss that cat—bad attitude, open claws, and all. That tom has some scars and some age on him, but he’s still spitting, fighting, and surviving. Reminds me a little bit of Your’s Truly. I got a few scars of my own and if you try to mess with me, the claws will come out. Guess that’s the reason me and that tom get along so well. Neither one of us is going down without a fight and we recognize the warrior in each other’s eyes.
Right now, my brother Ralph is fixing to see some big-time claws if he don’t figure out his way around a can opener right quick. Goodness! What’s he think I do all day that I got time to be a short-order cook for him?
In my opinion, I been here about one week too long. Carla’s getting stronger, I’m getting nastier-tempered, and that Ralph has done got on my last nerve. He even left cigarette ashes all over the kitchen table last night and didn’t clean them up.
Sometimes, when Ralph is down here in Texas and I’m up there in Kentucky, I get all homesick for the sweet little boy he used to be. I remember all them wilted dandelions he’d bring me in his chubby little hands.
After the first week of cleaning up after his mess, I didn’t feel homesick for him no more. That sweet little boy is done and gone and a selfish sixty-five year old man has been left in his place.
Anyway, I told him I was going home, and I also told him that considering how much work I’d done for him, he was going to pay for my train ride. There’s only so much my nerves can take. I’ve just about had it with being gone from home so long, even if I was doing the Lord’s work. I mean taking care of Carla is the Lord’s work, that is. The Lord’s work ain’t fixing no Elvis Presley sandwiches for my lazy brother.
“Why not stay awhile longer?” he wheedled. “I’ll take you with me to a wine tasting. You know we got real good wine makers around San Antonio now. It’s a thriving business.”
He said this like I was supposed to be impressed and that made me mad. He knows I’m a teetotaler. Always have been and always will be. Just like my mama. Like my daddy, too, after he got locked away in the county jail that one time for disturbing the peace. That’s why my sister, Janice, took little Mira to go see him in jail when she was only two-years-old and the prettiest little thing you ever saw.
“Imagine!” Daddy said after Janice had bailed him out. “A man’s grandbaby having to see him sitting there in a jail cell!” He never took a drink again after that one incident and a better man never lived.
Nope. I’m not interested in no wine tasting. I got trouble enough keeping myself on the straight and narrow even with all my faculties still intact.
I tell you what I am interested in, though. I wouldn’t mind a’tall seeing the Alamo. We got kin that got killed there. Long way back, of course. At least that’s what mama always said and she was a Bowie. She said she was only a real distant cousin, but we always did claim Jim Bowie as blood. He was a Kentucky boy. I read up on him in a magazine once when I was young. Did you know he was sick the day he and his friends lost the battle? He was so sick, he was bedridden, but he died fighting in his bed. They say he emptied both his revolvers into them Mexicans when they came after him and then took that knife of his they named after him and fought until they killed him.
According to the magazine article, when they told his mama that her Jim was gone, she said, "I'll wager no wounds were found in his back."
I always loved that. She knew her boy. Knew he’d never turn his back on a fight. Maybe it was knowing there was Bowie blood flowing in my veins that made me a little bit feistier than some old women. I decided back when I was still a young’n after I read that magazine article that when it came my time to die, there weren’t gonna be no wounds in my back, either.
When Ralph invited me to stay another day or two after we saw that Carla was doing better, and offered to take me to that wine-tasting, I told him no-thank-you, but that I would like to go see the Alamo while I was still there in Texas.
Ralph said it weren’t nothin’ much to see. Not worth taking his day off to go look at a pile of old rocks.
So we got into a big fuss and I told him what I thought of him and Carla took back to her bed with a sick headache and I decided I was going home the next day even if I never did get to see no Alamo.
That Ralph is just spoiled rotten. Me and Janice and mama are probably to blame. We babied him something awful when he was little. It was hard not to. He was a doll-baby with them brown curls and big brown eyes. Ralphie was the sweetest little boy. Once.
Where was I again?
Oh yes. He was just fixing to buy me a ticket back home when my niece (Janice’s daughter, Mira, who lives in Arkansas) called to check on Carla. Ralph was a-talking to her, and telling her that Carla was better and that I was going home on the Texas Eagle train, when she let out such a squeal that I heard it coming out of the telephone receiver clear over on the other side of the kitchen.
“Oooh!” she squealed. “Tell Aunt Doreen she’s got to come stay with me awhile. The train comes right through Little Rock. I bet it won’t cost one cent more for her to stop for a visit. Tell her I said, pretty please.”
Now, I have to admit. I was torn. On one hand, I couldn’t hardly wait to get back to South Shore, Kentucky and see how my beat-up tom cat and my house plants were faring. (I’d asked Esther to water them, but with that squalling baby, who knows if she remembered a thing I told her about them plants or not.)
On the other hand, I was downright flattered by Mira’s enthusiasm for my presence.
Ralph held his hand over the phone receiver. “What do you want me to tell her, Doreen?”
“Oh,” I said, putting away the mayonnaise jar from where I’d been fixing myself a cheese and tomato sandwich. “Tell her I’ll come for a day or two, but that’s all. I gotta get myself back to South Shore one of these days or my house’ll forget I live there.”
He laughed, but I was serious. I’ve seen houses just kind of give up when their owners go away for a long, long time. Like they start sagging in on their selves all depressed-looking. I know it don’t make no sense. Houses ain’t got thoughts or brains or feelings. I know it’s just a fancy of mine, but still… I miss my little dump. Me and it has been together a long time.
So I pack up my little red suitcase with rollers that my hairdresser back home, Holly, loaned me and Carla said thank-you and hugged my neck and cried, and Ralph put me on that train the next day. Mira promised to be waiting at the train station in Little Rock, Arkansas to pick me up.
I ain’t never been to Little Rock, although I surely did hear enough about it back in the sixties when all that mess happened down there. To tell the truth, I weren’t all that impressed with the place when we pulled into town. Like most cities, looks like it just grew without any thought to trying to being pretty.
By the time I got there, I was real proud of how good I’d gotten at traveling by train. I knew how to pull that little foot rest out and everything. I have to admit, though, I did keep a sharp eye out for anything illegal going on. Discovering a dead body on a train like I did on the way down to San Antonio, tends to make a person a tad suspicious.
Oh shoot. I’ve gone and lost what I was trying to say again. What was I talking about?
Oh yes. Mira. That’s what I was talking about. I was going to tell you about that Mira. She was always such a pretty little girl when her mama used to bring her home to visit us in the summer. Bright blue eyes, curly brown hair, and just as pert as you please. Never saw a stranger, that one. She and Janice stopped coming after mama died. I ain’t seen Mira since she was in her twenties and Janice passed away and ended up being toted home to be buried. It has hurt my heart some, missing my sister and my niece. Kinda surprised me that Mira wants me to come visit her now so bad.
Mira has not exactly lived a moral life. She eloped with a college instructor half-way through her first year in college, three weeks after he divorced his wife. Made a body wonder just what they had been up to before his divorce. Weren’t none of my business, of course. She wouldn’t have listened to me anyway. I do some figuring and decide Mira must be a little over forty now. Twenty years is a long time not to see someone you used to teach how to make a blow-whistle out of a blade of grass—but that’s what happens when family moves far, far away like Janice went and done.
Yeah, I’ve missed her. Still miss my sister, too, but that can’t be helped.
Anyway, I’m a’looking and a’looking and not seeing her. And then this grown woman who is about ten sizes bigger than the girl I remember hits me like a freight train, a’hugging me and a’crying and carrying-on and saying she’s so glad to see me.
I assume this must be Mira but it is a shock. We’re a big-boned people but Mira looks like she’s been feeding way too good for a long time.
Well now, I’m not exactly a hugging person. Never have been. None of our people ever were. Except Mira’s been away a long time and I guess this is one of them habits she’s picked up here in Little Rock. Poor little thing. So I hug her back the best I can considering I’m still holding onto my suitcase and the pretty new pocket book straight out of Carla’s closet that Carla gave me because it has a strap you can sling around your neck and leave both hands free to travel with.
“This will make things easier on the train,” Carla said. “I want you to have it.”
I miss that sweet girl already and I’m starting to feel bad I didn’t stay longer. I hope she can keep herself fed. That Ralph sure won’t help.
After hugging the breath out of me, Mira took me outside and stuffed me into the oddest colored vehicle I ever saw. It reminded me of Pepto-Bismol and made me feel queasy when I looked at it. Mira was proud as punch over it.
“I got this for selling Mary Kay Cosmetics,” she said. “I’ve been the top salesperson in Little Rock now for three straight years in a row.”
Well, that explained some things. Now I understood all the make-up on Mira’s face. She didn’t look bad, exactly. She looked good, but it was easy to see she’d spent an awful lot of time making her face look pretty while the rest of her was hanging out over her skin-tight quintuple X jeans. Poor thing.
“That’s real nice,” I said.
She chatted along, telling me all about living in Little Rock and all the things they got there that we ain’t got in South Shore, Kentucky. Just like her mama, Janice, always did, God rest her soul, who acted like she’d invented living in the big city.
I didn’t think it was necessary for her to brag so much. I know I don’t exactly live in no thriving metropolis. My neck of the woods is struggling something terrible. If it weren’t for gove
rnment checks and free lunches at the schools, we’d probably all be out in the woods hunting ginseng and frying up possums just to keep body and soul together.
I didn’t say anything, though. Just kept nodding and exclaiming over all the wonders of Little Rock she was telling me about. It seemed to me like she was trying a little too hard to convince me how wonderful things were. There was a bright, shiny sound to her voice like it had some fake inside of it.
The minute we walked into her mini-mansion, she broke down crying and I found out why. She’d been just barely holding herself together. Turns out that college instructor who’d swept her off her feet when she was a freshman had decided he needed his space. He told her he needed some time to figure things out and he’d moved his stuff out lock-stock-and barrel to “find himself.”
That had been four months ago and what he’d found weren’t himself. It was another college co-ed he’d shacked up with.
I could have told her he would do that in the very beginning if she’d of asked me. Men don’t leave a decent wife and a nice house unless they got their eye on somebody else. They just don’t. That business of trying to find themselves? That’s just husband-speak for I got my eye on somebody a whole lot better-looking than you.
I know these things. I watch my soaps and a body can also pick up an awful lot of good advice at the beauty shop, too. Plus we had us a deacon once down at church who told his wife he wanted to find himself…..but that’s a whole other story.
She said he’d asked her just that week for a divorce since he wanted to marry his new little lady love. Mira was so broken up about it, she said all she wanted was her mama to tell her it was going to be all right. Unfortunately, I’m the closest thing to a mama right now that Mira’s got.
The girl most definitely needed a shoulder to cry on and my shoulders have sopped up a lot of people’s tears over the years. Like I said before, I never resented helping a body out—especially kin—I just take exception to being taken for granted.
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