Elvis and the Pink Cadillac Corpse (A Southern Cousins Mystery, Plus Bonus Recipes)

by Peggy Webb

  Red velvet curtains, chandeliers and fake gold wall sconces surround banks of slot machines, roulette wheels and card tables. This is tacky personified. But what really astonishes me is that the casino is packed.

  I pride myself on an open mind. Studying the crowd, I’m hoping to see why my very own mama occasionally enjoys feeding money into machines and shuffling high-dollar chips on the tables. But as hard as I try, I still don’t get it.

  “What now, Cal?”

  “If Mama knows where she is, she must be in hog heaven.”

  “Cal, snap out of it! If they’ve got Aunt Ruby Nell and Fayrene here, they’re bound to be deep in the bowels of this floating pleasure palace.”

  “You’re right. Otherwise, we’d hear Mama raising Cain.” I almost link arms like we always do, but then I remember that our mustaches peg us as macho males who would never do such a thing. “Come on. Let’s get scouting.”

  Skirting the casino and the gambling crowd we come to another brightly lit public area surrounded by restaurants and bars and gift shops. A sign near the elevators points upward to an observation deck.

  “We’ve got to go down, Lovie.”

  “I’m ahead of you on that.” She elbows me toward a darkened hallway that leads to a flight of an elevator marked private, guests only. We take the nearby stairs and exit one flight down. There’s a long hall, dimply lit and punctuated by a series of closed door with the room numbers in brass.

  “Wait a minute, Lovie.” I snap open the tool box and hand her a hammer and a wrench. Listen, I’ve been educated by Uncle Charlie and Jack. I know what’s in a toolbox, and furthermore, I know how to use most of it. Not that I ever have to. Still, my motto is always be prepared. “Tools of the trade,” I whisper.

  “Weapons, Cal.”

  “I hope not.”

  I don’t know what kind of a match I’d be with my screwdriver against somebody pointing a gun. The only good thing I can say about that is thank goodness, Jack can’t see me.

  Suddenly Lovie pokes me in then ribs.

  “On the left,” she whispers, and there’s a door marked management. Before I can gather my thoughts, she pushes it open and marches in, as big as you please. The only thing I can do is follow her.

  “What the devil?” A swarthy man with an evil-looking handlebar mustache jumps up from behind his mahogany desk while two equally forbidding looking characters reach inside their jackets.

  I get a brief glimpse of shoulder holsters, but that’s enough to make me almost wet my pants. Still, there are two people dead and my family missing. I’m not about to wimp out now.

  Drawing myself up to my full five feet, nine inches, I drawl in my best masculine voice, “Gotta check your electric.”

  “We don’t have any problems and I certainly haven’t called any electricians.”

  “Orders!” Lovie whips a piece of paper out of her coveralls and scowls as if she’s about to rip him from limb to limb if he prevents her from doing her job.

  “Whose orders?”

  This situation is getting out of control fast.

  “You got a fire hazard.” I’ve grabbed his attention and thank goodness, he settles back down. Even better, he nods to the two goons, who remove their hands from their shoulder holsters and settle back into big leather chairs. “We’ll just be a minute. Carl! Check the outlets. I got the switches.”

  ‘Carl’ stomps around the room, turning the air blue with mutterings, and for the first time ever I see how Lovie’s penchant for colorful language has come in handy. Mr. Handlebar mustache settles back into his chair, and one of the goons opens his mouth.

  “Di…”

  Mr. Handlebar Mustaches makes a slicing motion across his throat and there’s dead silence in the room. My hope to hear any illuminating conversation is quickly dashed. But that one little slip, Di, is enough for me. I’d bet my bottom dollar the man behind the desk is none other than Jim “Diamond” Powell.

  If I could figure a way to take his photograph with my cell phone without getting us killed, I would. Instead, I content myself with putting every brain cell I have into remembering exactly what these three hoodlums look like.

  I flip all the light switches in the room, nod my head and mutter, “Hmmm.” Still, the three men don’t utter a word. Furthermore, Diamond is looking like I’ve stomped on his last nerve.

  “Carl,” I yell, and Lovie says a word that lifts the hoodlums’ eyebrows. “All clear here. You find anything?”

  “Negative, Homer.”

  Homer? I may have to kill Lovie.

  When head toward the door I expect Diamond to order us off the boat, or at least give us instructions about where we can and cannot go. Instead, he nods and even attempts a pleasant smile.

  Outside the door, I put my finger over my lips. Lovie nods and we make a bunch of racket as we march off. Halfway down the hall, we flatten against the wall and slip back to press our ears against Diamond’s door.

  “It was all Tulip’s idea.” Tulip LeGrange? If so, we’ve hit the jackpot. “I told him you wouldn’t like it.”

  “Oh, yeah, and who was it let them broads whack him with a skillet? I wouldn’t be too quick to place blame if I was you, Snake Eyes.”

  Holy cow! They’ve got Mama.

  “Shut up, you idiots! What makes you think anybody’s cavorting with a man whose neck is snapped in two?”

  Lovie digs her elbow into me, but I don’t need any alerts that I’ve just heard what amounts to a confession to murder.

  “He was on the beach, I tell you,” Tulips says. “With them broads!”

  “Yeah! Plain as the nose on your face, Diamond.”

  “All I want to know is whether you got everything under control? Is the current package safe?”

  “Safe as Fort Knox,” the one called Tulip says, and Snake Eyes confirms. “Ain’t nobody can get to that package.”

  There are sounds of movement inside, and I nearly pull Lovie’s arm off dragging her down the hall. When all this is over – if we get out alive – I’m going to tell her she needs to get more exercise.

  We hot foot it toward the stairs, and then I hear the sound of doom – the door down the hall opening. If they catch us running, we’re going to die.

  I stop so fast, Lovie crashes into me and I almost fall over. I straighten fast and yell, “Carl, hand me that screwdriver.”

  Thanking my lucky stars for low-hanging ceilings and long legs and arms, I reach for the light fixture with one hand and extend the other toward Lovie. Quick on the uptake, she squats down and buries her nose in the tool box, turning the air blue with words that seasoned sailors don’t even know.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the three men come to a dead halt down the hall. Their icy stares send shivers up my spine.

  “We don’t have all day, Carl,” I say, trying to put a cave-man snarl in my voice.

  The three hoodlums are still planted in the hall, their evil intent so strong it curls the hair under my baseball cap. Even worse, Lovie’s getting nervous, and fumbling around the tool box like a woman who can cook anything under the sun but doesn’t know a wrench from a screwdriver. We’re sunk. Why, oh why, did I ask for anything specific?

  There’s a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. Tulip and Snake Eyes reaching into their shoulder holsters? Any minute we’re going to be cut down in a hail of bullets and my darling little future girl can forget about being born with her daddy’s dark hair and my long legs.

  Right now, I’m wishing my long legs had kept on running. Shoot, I’m wishing they’d stayed in the hotel and turned this search over to Jack and Uncle Charlie.

  Lovie’s still fumbling in the tool box, and Diamond just made a move like he’s fixing to head this way. Even worse, nobody knows where we are. No cavalry will be coming to our rescue.

  “Get a move on, Carl! We gotta find this problem before this boat lights up like a bonfire.”

  Miraculously, Lovie rises like the dead. Even better, she’s holding
a screw driver.

  The hoodlums start walking but, thank goodness, they’re going the other way. I can’t breathe until they’re out of sight.

  “Divine intervention,” I say, and I’m not even going to repeat what my cousin says.

  Suffice it to say, I grab the toolbox and we make tracks to the stairwell.

  “Cal, maybe we ought to call Daddy and Jack.”

  “We don’t have time. Those hoodlums might move Mama and Fayrene.” I’m hoping Elvis is with them, but why would anybody kidnap a dog? If he’s not here, I don’t even want to think about the alternative.

  We wind our way downward to the very bowels of the riverboat – a massive but poorly lit jungle of pumps and engines and what appears to be miles of cables and pipes. It could take hours to search through all this. If we don’t fall and break our necks first.

  “Watch your step, Lovie.”

  “Falling and breaking a leg is tame compared to what could have happened upstairs.”

  Suddenly, I grab Lovie’s arm. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?’

  “Shhh. Listen.”

  There’s a faint scratching sound, and it’s coming from the direction of a very dark corner of the engine room - or whatever they call it.

  “Elvis,” I whisper. Nothing. I risk raising my voice. “Elvis?”

  There’s an answering whine, followed by more frantic scratching. I grab Lovie’s arm and race in the direction of the sound. Elvis leads us right to a section of metal approximately the size of a low-hanging door. And behind it, he’s now doing his growl/talk. I swear it sounds almost like he’s singing Release Me.

  The only problem is, this makeshift door has a mind-boggling number of locks.

  “They weren’t kidding when they said Fort Knox. Can you open it, Lovie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She takes off her cap and starts removing hairpins while I say a little deliverance prayer. I even throw in a promise to stop spending so much money on designer shoes.

  Elvis’ Opinion # 10

  Elvis’ Opinion # 10 on Locks, Ropes and Rescues

  “Hang on, Elvis. We’re coming.”

  Bless’a my soul, if that’s not the sweetest sound in the world, my human mom reassuring me that I’m the number one dog in her life. She’s not about to let two idiots named Tulip and Snake Eyes deprive her and Jack of my excellent companionship, not to mention my handsome face and my many talents.

  Naturally, I knew she was outside our prison door before she ever said a word.

  The magic of knowing such things is one of the compensations of being sent back to earth in this snazzy dog suit. The other one, of course, is having her and Jack as my human parents, but this is luck of the draw.

  Listen, I’d rather have been sent back as a long-eared, cotton-tail bunny as have the human parents some dogs are stuck with. You know the kind I’m talking about – thinks of you as only a dog, chains you to a tree or even worse a post without any shade or shelter no matter what the weather, never wastes money taking you to the vet or buying tick and flea power, and gives you food and water only when they think about it.

  Disgraceful. In the next life I’m coming back as a prosecutor and put the abusive jerks in jail. Of course, I have a few tricks up my sleeve in this incarnation. If I ever catch one of them out in public, I mark their shoes. I can always count on Callie to charm them out of their bad moods – or Jack to squelch any urge to do me bodily harm.

  Listen, maybe I fell from Graceland, but I kept every bit of my brain. I’ll pit myself against any human you know in the matter of devising a devious plan.

  Callie’s still outside our prison door while Lovie tinkers with all those locks. She’s usually quicker at figuring out how to break and enter.

  Still, it’s not in this detective dog’s nature to sit back and wait for somebody else to do all the work. I sashay my portly self over to the shelf where the kidnappers put Ruby Nell’s and Fayrene’s purses, but no matter how high I jump, these basset legs are not long enough to reach them. I even try bumping against the shelves, hoping to jiggle the purses off. Listen, if I could get my mouth on a cell phone, I could get it into Ruby Nell’s hands.

  No such luck. Being a dog who knows when to hold ‘em and knows when to fold ‘em – not my song, but hey, old Kenny’s got some pipes – I prance back to Ruby Nell and Fayrene, who are sitting back to back like bookends. That makes it very hard for me to gnaw at the ropes holding their hands. Freeing their feet would be easier, but then I’d have to chew through four ropes instead of one. If I can free Ruby Nell’s hands, she’ll use her digits for the rest.

  Due to her blindfold, she can’t see me coming.

  When I nose her hands, she says, “Mff mmm boo.”

  There’s tape over her mouth, but I’ve already figured out this language. She just said, “Move your bottom.” This woman is madder than a Billy goat in a head-butting contest and she’s eager to get revenge. I wouldn’t want to be in the kidnappers shoes when she gets loose.

  The rope is already frayed from my work, but I’m not eager to put my mouth on it again. It smells like the bottom of a sewer. And tastes like rotten fish.

  Still, I’m a dog with a cause and I’ve got a one track heart. Anybody who hurts my human mom and her family has me to deal with. All I’ve got to say about that is fool, fool, fool.

  Brave and loyal dog that I am, I set to work on Ruby Nell’s ropes. But if Lovie could bust through that door in the next few minutes, I’d fall down and kiss her blue suede shoes.

  Ruby Nell starts issuing more orders in her duct-tape talk, but I’m too busy chewing to interpret. All I can say about these knots is that once upon a time, Tulip and Snake Eyes must have been boy scouts. I don’t know how they took such a wrong turn, but – to paraphrase one of my heroes, Clark Gable A.K.A. Rhett Butler - frankly, my dear, I don’t care.

  I really admired that man. Too bad he had to go off to the hereafter. In the next life I wouldn’t mind coming back as a movie star if I could be like him. Handsome. Suave. Dashing. Talented. Idolized. All the things I am now.

  Suddenly our prison door swings wide and who should walk through but two men who bear a striking resemblance to Lovie and Callie.

  “Holy cow! Mama!” Callie races over and jerks off the blindfold then starts peeling the tape off Ruby Nell’s mouth. “Lovie, I think there’s a knife in the tool kit.”

  It’s only a small pocket knife, but Lovie sets to work on the ropes with the blade.

  “I can think of a few other uses for this knife,” she says.

  “I can, too, but I don’t want to spend my reproductive years in jail.”

  The last of Ruby Nell’s tape comes off, leaving a big red mark on her face, and Callie sets to work on Fayrene’s blindfold and gag.

  “If I can get my hands on Tulip and Snake Eyes, I’ll make them wish they were in one of Charlie’s coffins.” Ruby Nell says.

  “Yeah, Ruby Nell.” Fayrene rubs at the red marks on her face. “They’ll wish you were writing their eurology for the doom stone.”

  Lovie cuts through the last of the ropes then helps Fayrene up, while Callie supports Ruby Nell. Both of them have been sitting on the floor so long, they are as bent over and creaky as little old ladies.

  “Are you sure Tulip and Snake Eyes were ones who took you, Mama?”

  “Do I look senile to you?” she shouts.

  “Shh, Mama, keep it down. Somebody’s liable to hear.”

  “Well, let the dirty scumbags come. They simply ruined a good day’s shopping! You and Lovie can beat the snot out of them with that hammer I saw in the tool box.”

  “I’m up for that,” Lovie says, and Callie pokes her in the ribs.

  “Nobody’s going to beat anybody up.”

  “Well, then, what are we going to do, Carolina Valentine Jones?” Ruby Nell always uses Callie’s full name when she’s mad. “Sit down and wait to die?”

  “Don’t worry, Mama. I have a plan.�
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  Chapter 10

  Mishaps, Motives and Missing Jewelry

  “I’m not ruining my hair under a sweaty baseball cap. I’ve worked too hard to get it to look like this.”

  “Mama, if you’ll care to remember, I’m the one who styles hair. I can fix it in ten minutes.” Still unconvinced, she just stands in the middle of this boat/prison in my overalls and mustache, with her hands on her hips. I don’t know how she thinks she can pull that off without covering her hair. “Nobody’s going to believe you’re a man with your hair showing.”

  “Who says I have to be a man? Women do these jobs, too.” She grabs her purse and rummages around, moving her lips as she checks to see if everything is there.

  “Holy cow, Mama, you’re wearing a mustache. Hand me that purse and put on the cap so we can get you and Fayrene out of here without being recognized.”

  She grumbles some more, which takes my mind off Fayrene over there with Lovie, complaining that the coveralls are not green.

  “They’re gray,” she says. “I’ll look like death warmed over in them.”

  “It’s only temporary, Fayrene,” Lovie tells her.

  “Yes, but I never wear anything unless it’s green. My horror-scope said it was my density.”

  I might have to scream. If I can ever get these two moving and get back to the hotel, maybe I will.

  “Holy cow! If everybody is not dressed in two minutes, I’m walking out that door. You can deal with Tulip and Snake Eyes, yourself.”

  “Leave the hammer,” Mama says, but thank goodness, she’s kidding. Otherwise she wouldn’t be stuffing her hair under my baseball cap. Thankfully, Fayrene finally dons Lovie’s overalls. I hand the tool box to Mama and a wrench to Fayrene.

  “Hold onto them, and don’t let go.” While Lovie and I dash on some lipstick, I explain how we’re going to walk off this riverboat in plain sight without Diamond and his hoodlums ever guessing their victims have escaped.