When Sugar finished her recitation, Flowers used the butt of her current smoke to light another Lucky, puffing it to a cherry glow before advising, “You girls best mind your own business. Murder’s not something to get involved in.”
“We can’t do that,” Sugar said. “Wanda Jean says she’s innocent and Clara says no member of the Club is going up for murder during her administration.”
Flowers regarded her silently through the blue haze encircling her chair and then seemed to come to a decision. “Well, alright then,” she said. “But you’re aiming your sights too low, Sugar.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve both got full books and a whole day ahead of us,” Flowers said. “The biggest mouths in the county are coming in this place today. Let’s see what we can find out about everybody on your list.”
“You don’t have to do that, Flowers,” Sugar said. “You don’t even belong to the Study Club.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Flowers growled. “You think I’m just gonna sit around and let you girls get yourselves in nine kinds of trouble? The whole bunch of you need a keeper. Looks like I’m appointed. You work on Bitsy while you’re doing her perm and I’ll see what I can get out of my people.”
“Who are you working on first?” Sugar asked.
“Ida Belle Banners,” Flowers said with a grin.
Sugar let out a low whistle. “Dang. I wouldn’t try to get information out of that old biddy with a ten-foot pole. I’d sooner try to pet a rattlesnake.”
“Ida Belle does not impress me,” Flowers said. “We went to school together. She hasn’t changed one damn bit since first grade. Since the paper came out yesterday, Ida Belle’s gonna be on the lookout for material for next week’s column. I can promise you her radar will be set on high looking for fresh dirt.”
At just that moment a flash of light in the front window caught their attention. Both women turned to watch Bitsy Temple maneuver her white Pontiac Bonneville into a parking space under the shade of one of the two big pecan trees that flanked the front of the building. As she glided to a stop, she popped the clutch, sending the big car lurching, an action she stopped by slamming on the brake.
“That’s not good on the dental work,” Flowers observed, lighting a fresh Lucky.
The aptly named and very tiny Bitsy Temple emerged from the car looking even more flustered than usual. She was wearing a sleeveless yellow dress and carrying a massive jeweled canvas bucket bag with hot pink and orange accents. A copy of Life magazine protruded from the top of the purse, along with Bitsy’s omnipresent knitting needles.
Before Bitsy could do more than step onto the sidewalk and smooth the wrinkles out of her skirt, Ida Belle Banners pulled up beside the Pontiac in a two-toned, blue and white 1957 Chevrolet. Ida Belle, who regarded the world with perpetual disapproval, looked Bitsy up and down as the corners of her mouth descended into an even sterner frown.
“Looks like Ida Belle’s loaded for bear,” Sugar said, watching the scene out the window with interest.
“She hates yellow,” Flowers said.
“Who in the world hates yellow?” Sugar asked.
“You didn’t see her in her prom dress junior year,” Flowers said, letting out a harsh chuckle that quickly morphed into a tubercular cough. When she regained her breath she added, “It would be enough to turn any woman off yellow for life.”
The two women outside the salon were now both on the sidewalk, Bitsy’s face frozen in the fearful expression Ida Belle inspired in anyone under the age of 50. As Sugar and Flowers watched, Bitsy mouthed a “good morning” to the staunch matron who barked a clipped reply before stepping past Bitsy and taking the lead as both women headed for the front door.
“Show time,” Sugar said to Flowers, plastering a smile on her face as the bell on the door tinkled, announcing Bitsy and Ida Belle’s arrival.
“Good morning, ladies,” Sugar said, in a tone so sweet butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth. “Can I pour you all a cup of coffee?”
“Hello, Sugar,” Ida Belle said brusquely. “Black. And for God’s sake, don’t give me one of those Styrofoam cups.”
“One real cup coming up,” Sugar said, willing herself to keep her smile in place. “How about you, Bitsy?”
“No, thank you, Sugar,” Bitsy said. “I’ll just sit down in the chair and wait for you,” she added, scurrying into the other room to get as far away from Ida Belle Banners as possible.
Ida Belle scowled after her and shook her head with disdain before turning her attention toward Flowers. “Petunia Rose Wilkes, are you intending to smoke that foul cigarette the entire time you’re giving me a manicure? Do you have no sense of propriety?”
Flowers, nonplussed by the use of her seldom-heard Christian name or the unsolicited lesson in etiquette, replied with acid sweetness, “I see you’re still buying your girdles too tight, Ida Belle.”
Sugar cringed as the two old adversaries stood their ground, glaring at each other over the manicure table. Ida Belle’s hands were firmly set on her hips. Flowers, holding her Lucky cocked in one hand, smiled and exhaled a blue cloud directly in Ida Belle’s direction.
Quickly setting down the coffee cup in her hand, Sugar excused herself and retreated to the safety of the other room with Bitsy. In a war of battle axes, Sugar’s money was on Flowers, but she had no desire to stick around and witness the bloodbath.
Chapter 7
Clint Wyler scratched his freshly shaven face and stared at the sagging, bountiful rows of tomato plants in his garden, all red and resplendent in the soft light of dawn. “Honey,” he said mournfully, “I’m sorry, but there’s just nothing wrong with them.”
Clara planted her hands on her hips and gave her husband “the look.” Yesterday when she’d come home from Study Club he’d met her at the front door with the question, “You wanna explain to me why you bailed Wanda Jean Milton out of jail for killing her husband?”
She’d given him “the look” then, too, as her hand-tooled leather saddle purse landed on the dining room table with a resounding thud. Like most husbands, Clint knew how to read the subtle nuances of “the look” and breathed a sigh of relief. His wife was annoyed, but not at him, and if he played his cards right, he could keep it that way.
“She’s accused of killing her husband,” Clara said, like a teacher instructing an errant pupil. “She didn’t do it.”
A more foolish man might have pointed out that Clara was not present when Hilton Milton met his demise or that all murderers insist they are innocent. At well over 6’6” tall, Clint Wyler didn’t back down from much, but making his volatile wife mad wasn’t high on his list of fun things to do.
Instead, Clint opted for a more cautiously ambiguous approach. “I was at the warehouse today and I heard that Hilton had an Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest,” he said.
“What does that prove?” Clara demanded hotly as she slipped out of her high heels and kicked them aside.
“Well, honey,” Clint said reasonably, “according to what I heard, Hilton was laying face up. It’s not like he fell on that dang knife. Somebody had to put it in his chest.”
Making an exasperated sound in her throat, Clara stalked off toward the kitchen declaring over her shoulder, “Of course somebody put the knife in his chest, but that somebody wasn’t Wanda Jean.”
Clint followed along behind his wife. While she pulled a mixing bowl out of the cabinet and started to make cornbread, he drew back one of the chairs at the breakfast table, turned it around backwards, and straddled the seat.
He watched as Clara assessed the state of the beans she’d put on that morning, leaving him with stern orders to tend the pot. After giving the steaming contents a forceful stir, Clara pronounced triumphantly, “I got a good scald on these beans.”
“You always do, honey,” he said loyally.
Somewhat mollified, Clara broke an egg on the side of the bowl, not uncharitably, and declared, “I am not going to have a membe
r of the Club go up on murder charges while I’m the president.”
“Clara,” Clint said, a wide grin splitting his face, “I hate to tell you this, but there are plenty of women in that club capable of killing a man.”
In spite of herself, Clara grinned back, “Including me, Clinton Chester Wyler, so I suggest you mind your manners.”
Clint laughed. “Don’t get your tail feathers ruffled at me,” he said. “I’ve seen you shoot and I’m not hankering to be on the business end of your 30-30.”
Pouring sweet milk in a measuring cup, Clara said, “That’s just it. If Hilton had been shot, I could understand it better.”
“A knife will get you just as dead as a bullet, sugar,” Clint pointed out.
“Wanda Jean is a Bodine,” Clara said, wielding her mixing spoon with vigor. “The Bodines don’t do their killing with knives.”
For all that the calendar year read 1968, a certain kind of frontier justice mentality prevailed in the county. While locals were being spared much of the upheaval tearing the nation apart, the little rural town was unquestionably a bastion of the white-American establishment the hippies and activists railed against.
Time moved slower here, and opinions changed at a glacial rate. At best, the local mindset might have made it into the early 20th century. Some things were just considered common knowledge, and racist or not, in this part of the world, a knife was a weapon more likely to be pulled in a cantina than in a middle-class living room. Now a gun? That was a different thing entirely.
As for the habit of the Bodines killing people by shooting them, that had mostly quieted down since the 1920s when Earl Bodine’s father, Rabbit Bodine, shot a man dead on Main Street in the intersection in front of the motor company. Nothing came of it since the man was looking to shoot Rabbit for playing around with his wife, but the incident did win a certain reputation for the family.
Then Earl went and married Lorene Lovett, who dealt with her new husband’s genetic tendency to roam by winging bullets past his ear when he came dragging in late with lipstick on his collar. To this good day, the side wall of their garage looked like a shooting gallery, but Lorene forbid the now solidly faithful Earl from mending the holes. She referred to them as “wifely reminders.”
The Bodine children had never gotten into any scrapes, although the girls — Maybelline, Rolene, and Wanda Jean — were all kind of “fast” when they were younger. Brother Earl Dean, however, was the salt of the earth. He found football in the 8th grade and his vision had never wavered from his true calling in life — to be the first coach to lead the high school to a state championship. A man could go easy to his grave if he wore a state football ring on his finger.
Clint was considering all of this as he watched Clara make the cornbread. The pale skin of his forehead was wrinkled with thought. Like most ranchers, Clint’s hair was permanently creased from the weight of his Stetson, and the area north of where the hat sat on his face hadn’t seen the sun in years.
“Wanda Jean is a pretty good shot,” he finally conceded. “That year she and Hilton met at the Welcome the Hunters to the County Ball, she killed the biggest buck in the county.”
“Exactly!” Clara said, pouring the cornbread batter into a newly greased pan. “Why would a little gal who can take down a 12-point with a heart shot at 200 yards using open sights stab her husband? And on her brand new carpet? No man is worth having to try to get blood out of the living room rug.”
“Good to know,” Clint said drily.
Clara put the pan of cornbread in the oven and turned toward her husband. “Don’t think you’re ever gonna get off that easy with me,” she warned. “If you do something to make me that mad, I won’t kill you. I’ll make you listen to me for the rest of your life.”
Now that was a threat to make a man walk the straight and narrow if Clint had ever heard one. “Okay, honey,” he said. “Simmer down. If you don’t think Wanda Jean killed him, that’s good enough for me. But what are you going to do about it?”
A gleam came into Clara’s eye. “I need a rotten tomato.”
And that was the discussion that led to Clint and Clara Wyler standing in the tomato patch at dawn. “Do you mean to tell me,” Clara said crossly, “that you can’t find me one tomato that looks sickly?”
“Not a one,” Clint said proudly. “I’ve used enough DDT on these vines that a bug would die just thinking about chewing on my tomatoes.”
“You know they’re starting to say that maybe that DDT stuff isn’t so good for us,” Clara said.
“Looks like it agrees with the tomatoes,” Clint said happily.
Clara realized she was asking a lot of her husband to present her with a flawed tomato. Ever since it became clear that they weren’t going to have any children, Clint had taken to his garden with a passion, heading out the backdoor to tend his plants the instant supper was over.
Sometimes Clara watched him a little sadly through the kitchen window. If he couldn’t raise children, Clint was determined to raise just about everything else from dogie calves to tomatoes, which is why the Wylers had three heifers that lived in the yard and still demanded bottles, and why Clara had enough tomatoes to feed Coxey’s Army.
She looked at her husband, standing over his plants like a ruler surveying his kingdom, and said diplomatically, “Honey, surely there’s one bad one in the bunch.”
Clint set his jaw at a stubborn angle and said, “You’re just gonna have to stop at Barker’s and buy a sickly tomato.”
“Well,” she said, sighing, “can you at least give me an idea of what I could ask Mike Thornton about if something was wrong with your tomatoes?”
“Tell him you’re worried about the DDT,” Clint said with sudden inspiration. “He’s all het up about this organic nonsense. I’ll bet if you go into his office and tell him I’m using DDT on my tomatoes, he’ll have something to say about it.”
* * *
“Something to say about it” proved to be an understatement. Mike Thornton paled as he listened to Clara describe her husband’s indiscriminate use of DDT, especially when she finished with, “And when he reaches in that big old spray can with his arm to stir up the DDT, well, I’m just not sure it’s good for him to be doing that.”
Mike labored under multiple problems gaining any authority with members of the community, not the least being the matter of his predecessor, who had held the position of County Extension Agent since the Smith-Lever Act created the service in 1914. Four years into his own tenure, Mike was still referred to as “the young feller who got Harry’s job.”
The fact that the venerable Harry Knopf died on the job, smack in the middle of judging the swine at the annual youth show, only conveyed more of an aura of sainthood to the man. At least a dozen times a week, Mike had to grit his teeth as someone politely listened to his advice and then responded with, “That’s not what Harry would have told me.”
Just last week, Mike lost his patience and said to someone invoking the name of Harry Knofp, “What do you want me to do, dig him up and ask his opinion?” The rancher gazed at him inscrutably and replied flatly, “Wish to hell you could.”
But now, Clara Wyler, the wife of one of the most respected ranchers in the community, was sitting beside his desk asking his opinion about the effects of DDT on her husband’s tomato patch and person. It was all Mike could do to contain his professional enthusiasm as he launched into an explanation of the research being conducted on the indiscriminate use of insecticides on food crops. Without thinking, he asked, “And you all don’t have any kids, do you?”
At that, Clara drew herself up stiffly in the chair. “And what, Mike Thornton, does one thing have to do with the other?” she snapped.
Alarm bells began to sound in Thornton’s head. But in for a dime, in for a dollar, he cleared his throat and said, “Well, it has been suggested that DDT has a certain effect on . . . men,” he finished lamely.
For just an instant he saw realization dawn in Clara’s eyes
and then it was gone, replaced by a look that told him he was not going to like what came out of her mouth next. He was right.
“So, Mike, if you’re so worried about what insecticides might do to your manly parts,” she said, fixing him with a triumphant glare, “why were you letting Hilton Milton spray your marijuana plants?”
That caught him so completely off guard, the next words slipped out before Mike could stop them, “I never let him spray my . . .”
“Ah hah!” Clara said, slamming her hand down on his desk. “Got you! You are dealing drugs.”
Mike felt a cold trickle of sweat start down the collar of his shirt. “Please lower your voice,” he said urgently. “I most certainly am not a drug dealer.”
“You can start backing up all you want to, Mike Thornton,” she said, shaking a diamond-bedecked finger in his face, “but you know you’re growing pot, and I know you’re growing it, and Hilton Milton was at your house the day before he wound up dead in his living room.”
A look of horror crossed Mike’s face. “Now wait just a minute!” he said earnestly. “Me growing weed doesn’t have anything to do with Hilton being dead. He was one of my best . . .” The words frittered out into a confused stammer.
“Customer?” Clara supplied helpfully.
Mike gulped and nodded, but said nothing.
“So are you still gonna try to tell me you’re not dealing drugs?” she demanded.
“Pot isn’t a drug,” Mike said defensively. “It’s not like I’m selling heroin. I don’t do drugs.”
“Do you smoke your own pot?” Clara asked.
Mike nodded again.
“Then you do drugs,” she said dismissively. “Now you better start telling me about Hilton and this little private garden of yours, or we’re marching right over to the courthouse and having this conversation in front of the Sheriff.”
Now sweating profusely, Mike described how he grew his plants under special lights in his basement. He’d worked as an electrician’s assistant to help pay his bills in college, so he’d done the rewiring himself, leaving no one the wiser about his covert greenhouse.
You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) Page 5
