by Nancy Martin
“Yes, a big photo. And lots of flowers, of course.”
“It’s a terrible shame they cremated her. I mean, she just had her hair done! She’d have looked real pretty in a casket.”
I couldn’t come up with a response to that one.
Gracie must have seen me turn pale. “You want to come in out of the sun and cool off? I got a couple of Coronas in the cooler. Just the thing on a hot day like this.”
“No, thanks. They’re reading Honeybelle’s will at the house this afternoon. It’s some kind of party. I need to get back to help out with the refreshments.”
“Knowing that family, they’ll be splitting her assets while they drink her champagne.” Gracie enveloped me in a hug—all bosom and perfume. “Don’t get yourself too upset, okay, Sunny? You go on taking care of Miss Ruffles the best you can, for as long as you can. That’s what would make Honeybelle happy.”
“Thanks, Gracie.”
“Swing by for a drink tonight. I close up at seven. We can give Honeybelle our own send-off.”
“A farewell party for me, too?”
Gracie gave me a comforting pat. “Tonight we’ll brainstorm some ideas for a new job for you. I don’t want you to leave town. Maybe we’ll meet some cute guys, too. I have my eye on one of the bartenders.” She waggled her eyebrows. “You might find somebody worth sticking around for.”
I made no promises. I didn’t feel like celebrating the loss of a second job in just a few months, and although I’d be needing a paycheck, it felt too soon to start hunting up a new position. Gracie gave me another hug anyway and let herself back into Cowgirl Redux. I usually made friends easily, but the thing about growing up on a college campus is that friends tend to last only four years before moving on. I had hoped Gracie might last longer.
Miss Ruffles jumped at my leg and growled with some of her old pizzazz. She spun in a quick circle and pulled me to get going again.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” I said to her.
Ahead on the corner of Jim Bowie Avenue, another local character stood in front of an open banjo case, hammering out a tune, eyes closed, communing with her music. Behind her leaned a ratty old backpack stuffed with belongings—a sign I took to mean she was homeless. A few kindhearted souls had dropped crumpled bills into her case. I’d heard someone call her Crazy Mary. Today she wore a dusty, flamboyant Mexican skirt along with a couple of layers of T-shirts and wraparound sunglasses. Her hair was a mess of dirty blond dreadlocks. She ignored the bustle of people around her, seeming to be immersed in her music.
Miss Ruffles darted close and snatched a dollar bill out of the instrument case.
“Miss Ruffles!” I wrestled it out of her mouth and dropped the bill back where it belonged. The musician never stopped playing. I double-wrapped the leash around my hand and pulled. “Let’s go.”
We had to get back to Honeybelle’s for the reading of the will.
CHAPTER THREE
We don’t dial 911 in Texas.
—PROVERBIAL WISDOM
With her nose tipped up to the wind, Miss Ruffles noticed before I did that the sleepy town of Mule Stop was unusually busy. Today the street was crowded with families, mostly, with children in tow, but students, too, and retirees.
“Here comes the parade!” A young mother tugged her daughter away from Crazy Mary. With ice cream cones in hand, they rushed to the curb and found a spot between other family groups.
Miss Ruffles forgot about licking drips of ice cream from the sidewalk and peered through legs as I peeked over the shoulders of the crowd in front of me to see what the commotion was. Sure enough, it was a parade. Miss Ruffles gave a yip and dragged me for a closer look.
In the lead came a rodeo queen—a smiling teenager in full makeup, riding a palomino and carrying an American flag like an Amazonian spear. Behind her, three men on horseback herded a dozen languid longhorns from the direction of the historic stockyard down toward the campus, probably to drink from the school’s spectacular central water fountain. After that, I figured, the cows moseyed the mile back up the boulevard to the stockyard, where they spent the rest of the week eating and dozing and generally living the good life.
When the cows appeared, Miss Ruffles narrowed her eyes. She strained against the leash, and her body began to quiver with long-lost instinct. I held on tight in case she decided to charge into the herd.
The shoes of the horses rang on the asphalt as they moseyed along. The cowboys joked with each other and occasionally whistled or waved their ropes at the cows, although the placid cattle seemed to know the drill. Following the herd rumbled an authentic chuck wagon pulled by mules in harness. A big sign on the wagon advertised a rodeo next week. The driver wore clown makeup, a plaid shirt, red suspenders, and a mashed hat that looked as if it had been stomped by a bucking bull. He tossed candy to the children on the sidewalks and comically waved his elbows as if dancing to Crazy Mary’s banjo music.
Before Miss Ruffles could decide to snatch up some candy for herself, I gave a soft whistle. “C’mon. We have to get home.”
Miss Ruffles twisted and fought at the end of her leash, but reluctantly let herself be pulled along. Her fierce attention didn’t waver from the cattle, though.
One of the cowboys reined his horse closer to the sidewalk. “Need a lift, little lady?”
He was smiling behind sunglasses and under the brim of a dusty black hat. I couldn’t see his face except for a long jaw and a grin. He wore a faded pair of Levi’s and a checkered shirt probably chosen to make the cattle drive look more authentic. He had a lariat in one hand, reins in the other, but seemed to communicate with the horse with his legs. His saddle looked well used, trimmed with silver medallions. The horse was a muscled Appaloosa that gave the dog an intelligent once-over without breaking stride.
“No, thanks.” I kept moving. I was never called “little lady” except as an insult. Barefoot, I stood five ten.
“You look just about broiled.”
I was hot, all right, and since coming to town, I seemed to have a perpetual sunburn, but I said, “I’m fine.”
“You know why this town is called Mule Stop, right?” he said. “It’s a place so hot all the mules died. I’d hate to see you roast to death, too.”
I always figured a town had popped up in this particular sun-baked bit of Texas because a wagon wheel broke and some sensible woman declared she wasn’t traveling another mile. But his story made sense, too.
Being compared to a mule didn’t sound very flattering, though, so I said, “Hit the trail, Roy Rogers.”
“Boy, you know how to hurt a guy’s feelings. Roy Rogers hung up his spurs a long time ago.”
“He knew how to take a hint.”
The cowboy didn’t get offended but nudged his horse to keep up with us. “How about you, Miss Ruffles? Care to jump up here?” He patted the horn of his saddle.
I slowed on the sidewalk. “How do you know who Miss Ruffles is?”
“Everybody knows Miss Ruffles. She’s kind of the town mascot. Tough. Maybe ornery, too. But lovable once you get to know her. Just like Mule Stop. And you’re the one takes her running through town every morning.”
“You get up early if you see us running.”
“You know what they say about the early bird,” the cowboy said.
Despite his friendly tone, my radar switched on. Miss Ruffles was my responsibility now that Honeybelle was gone. “We’re late,” I said to the cowboy, tugging the leash. “And I don’t want her getting kicked by a cow.”
“That dog knows more about cattle than both of us put together. Turn her loose.” He waved his rope to indicate the cows. “Let’s see what she can do.”
Miss Ruffles was rarin’ to go. With her growl rumbling in the deepness of her chest, she told those slow-moving cattle her low opinion of them.
“Sorry.” I used all my body weight to hold her back. “We’ve got places to be.”
“Okay, then. See you around. Come to the rodeo next week,
maybe.”
“Maybe not,” I replied, and he laughed.
I dragged the dog to the corner and turned onto John Wayne Avenue. The cowboy waved good-bye and went back to his cows.
With a resigned sigh, Miss Ruffles stopping fighting the leash and obeyed me. She patrolled alertly for ne’er-do-wells from then on, finally pouncing on a cricket and eating it in one gulp. Half a block later, she choked it up again. She barked at the corpse.
Next she tried to pull me toward the university campus. I knew she had often gone there with Honeybelle to put flowers on the grave of Coach Hut, but today I tugged the dog toward home.
According to Honeybelle, a tornado had blown half of Mule Stop off the map twenty years ago, so most of the residents lived in low, cozy ranch houses that were relatively new. Miss Ruffles took the opportunity to pee on the first yard we reached. Some lawns were grassy and had struggling trees or yucca plants. In other yards, I had been amused to discover, the dirt and weeds were spray-painted green for lack of water. The West Texas scrub was only a quarter mile away and seemed to threaten to take over the town as soon as the well water ran out. The constant breeze tasted gritty, full of dust.
Miss Ruffles perked up as we got closer to the oasis in the desert that was Honeybelle’s place. The air temperature dropped a couple of degrees as soon as we reached its shade trees. The house had tall white columns out front with a glassed-in conservatory on one side and a smaller wing on the other side for the spacious living room perfect for big parties. Half plantation house, half New Orleans–style mansion, it provided an elegant backdrop for the masses of rosebushes Honeybelle had collected. The only house with an underground watering system, Honeybelle’s was a southern showplace surrounded by an English garden. In the backyard, a swimming pool shimmered in the middle of another spectacular flower show. The whole property was surrounded by a hedge that required constant trimming by a landscaping crew that turned up every week to manicure the yard.
In other words, the house was ideal for an extravagant wedding. So why hadn’t Honeybelle wanted her family to throw one on her property? Had it all been because Honeybelle resented Posie’s garden club takeover?
We headed around the side of the house to the garage and the back gate. There, I pulled the mail out of the mailbox and found a big envelope from a travel agency, addressed to Honeybelle. I looked at it, thinking maybe she’d been on the brink of taking a trip, finally. Too bad she never got out of Texas.
Once inside the backyard, I turned Miss Ruffles loose, and with some of her old vitality she made a dash for the terrace, where she drank water noisily from her dish, leaving a big wet splotch on the flagstones. Then she ran for the grassy spot where she’d left one of her tennis balls. For the first time since Honeybelle’s death, Miss Ruffles snatched up the ball and raced back to me with it. Wagging her stub, she dropped the ball at my feet and yipped at me, eyes bright.
“This is a big improvement.” I marveled at how the memorial service had made her feel better. “Did you pick out a murderer?”
She tilted her head.
“You heard me. Do you think Honeybelle might have been murdered?”
She yipped again, so I gave up on the question and threw the ball. Maybe Honeybelle hadn’t been serious. But the man at the church had said that a lot of people wanted to bump her off. I tried to put my suspicions down to being a stranger who didn’t understand the local ways. In Texas, were the dead usually rushed off to the grave as Honeybelle seemed to have been? That seemed weird.
My mother used to talk about the rules of scientific research, and I found many of her so-called rules applied to life, too. She always said that just because something was weird didn’t mean it should be ruled out. Skepticism should be paired with open-mindedness.
I decided to be open-minded about Honeybelle’s death.
I got myself a cold cherry Popsicle from the fridge in the outdoor kitchen, and I sucked on it while flinging the ball for Miss Ruffles to chase.
We played until Mae Mae Bellefontaine came out of the kitchen door with a spatula in one hand. Honeybelle’s cook was tight-lipped and frowning—as always. She kept her gray hair raked back from her round face as if cranked by a vise, and today was no different. Her other hand was knotted in a fist and propped on her ample hip. Her apron was starched and immaculate except for the words I’M GRILLING A WITNESS! Mae Mae loved her cop shows on television.
She said, “Is that animal ruining Honeybelle’s roses?”
I slurped my Popsicle before a drip splotched my dress. “The roses are in the front yard, Mae Mae. Miss Ruffles doesn’t go there.”
“Hmph. Well, something’s out here digging.” She pointed beyond the pool to the back of the yard. “Maybe we got prairie dogs back again.”
“Prairie dogs?” I stared back into the rolling curves of the garden to catch a glimpse of such a rare beastie. So far, I had seen one armadillo dead along the highway, and a tarantula in a garbage can at a taco truck, but no prairie dogs.
“We had an infestation a couple of years ago. First just one, then two, then dozens. Why can’t Miss Ruffles make herself useful and chase them off?” Mae Mae glared out into the yard. “If prairie dogs ruin Honeybelle’s roses, she gonna turn over in her grave.”
This was more conversation than I’d had with Mae Mae since my arrival. To keep her going, I pulled the Popsicle from my mouth and asked, “Roses aren’t native to Texas, are they?”
Mae Mae refused to look at me when she spoke. “How do I know? Honeybelle got hers from abandoned farms and ranches, she said. They’re old kinds of roses from Europe, I think, brought here by pioneers. But prairie dogs’ll ruin them right quick. We’ll have to get Critter Control to come.”
I forgot about roses and started thinking about the animals. “Does Critter Control kill the prairie dogs?”
“No,” Mae Mae snapped, “he traps them in a satin pillowcase and turns them loose in a hotel with featherbeds. What do you think he does with them? This is Texas, not New York Tree-hugger City.”
I had stopped worrying about the way Mae Mae treated me. Maybe she disliked me because I came from Chagrin Falls, a place she’d never heard of, or just on general principle. Or had I done something unintentional that turned her against me?
She finally looked me up and down in a way that registered displeasure with the plain black dress I had worn to the church. “How was the memorial service? Did many people show up?”
“Too many to fit into First Methodist.” I pasted a smile on my face and went up the porch steps to her. “And Miss Ruffles did just fine.”
“You didn’t take that dog to church?” Mae Mae was outraged. “I told you that was the wrong thing to do. Did she chew up anything? Make a mess? Frighten anyone?”
“She was perfect.” Well, maybe not perfect, but good enough. I said, “Honeybelle would have liked to see her there. And Miss Ruffles needed some closure.”
“Closure? Closure! What kind of fool Yankee idea is that?”
“She’s been miserable without Honeybelle. I’ve tried playing with her to cheer her up, but that didn’t work. My mother used to say that if you’re studying something and not learning anything new, it’s dumb to wait for change. You have to be the one to do the changing. So I took Miss Ruffles to church. And just look at her. Isn’t she happier than she’s been all week?”
Mae Mae refused to glance at the dog or remark upon my mother’s scientific wisdom. “What did Hut Junior say? That poor boy has enough on his plate without you making things worse for him.”
“He gave me a seat. Miss Ruffles, too.”
At the sound of her name, Miss Ruffles charged nimbly onto the porch and dashed around us, stub wagging, eyes lively.
Mae Mae glared at Miss Ruffles. “Honeybelle never took that animal into church, so why should anybody start now?”
“Well, I did, and no harm done.” I was determined not to get into another argument with Mae Mae. I tossed the last of my Popsicle to the dog,
and she gulped it in one happy swallow. “What can I do to help you?”
“I don’t need no help today,” Mae Mae shot back. “When Mr. Hut Junior and his family get here, you just keep that dog away from Miss Posie. I’ll be serving punch and sweet tea and some of Honeybelle’s favorites before they read her will.”
“That sounds nice.”
“These are my last refreshments for the Hensleys, and I want to honor Honeybelle’s good taste.” If her lips trembled for an instant at the imminent loss of her longtime job, she quickly pressed them together to avoid showing me any emotion. “So everything’s already ready. Except you forgot to get my silver trays down from the shelf.”
“Did I?” I had no memory of being asked, but I followed Mae Mae into the kitchen.
My height made me useful to Mae Mae and Mr. Carver, Honeybelle’s butler. They were both elderly and had difficulty reaching high shelves. Not to mention carrying heavy objects. And setting the new security system at night, reading fine print, and working anything electronic. So I often stepped in without being asked. I had sensed they both disapproved of Honeybelle hiring me in the first place. Or maybe they suspected—correctly—that Honeybelle had asked me not just to provide secretarial help and to look after Miss Ruffles but to surreptitiously pitch in around the house. She knew her staff was too old to be doing all the manual labor in her home, but she didn’t want to hurt their feelings by bringing in a spry twenty-something to do their jobs.
I agreed to keep her secret.
“These trays?” I asked from the top step of the pantry ladder. Around me, the glass-fronted cupboards glittered with Honeybelle’s fine china and glassware. Her silver candlesticks gleamed. Her Waterford crystal sparkled.
“Hand ’em all down to me,” Mae Mae said. “I’ll go through and pick out the pretty ones.”
“I can pick pretty.” I held up a large, glinting tray. “What about this one with the engraved flowers?”
