by Peggy Webb
“Where are you going?”
“I can’t tell you, Mama. Can you keep him or do you and Mr. Whitenton have other plans?”
“For your information, he’s resting, and so am I.”
I hope they’re not planning to rest together, but judging by her sexy silk lounging outfit, I’m not too sure.
“Don’t give me that look, Callie. Of course I can keep him. But I don’t see why you can’t tell me what you’re planning to do.”
“Just trust me. Okay?”
“What’s such a secret you can’t tell your own mother, who gave birth the hard way?”
I’d ask her what that means, but I don’t have time. It could mean I’m facing a tough time if I ever get pregnant, but knowing Mama, it probably means she’s just being dramatic.
“Gotta go, Mama.” I kiss her cheek. “Bye Elvis. Be a good boy.”
Elvis looks none too pleased at being left behind, but I can’t help that. If I’d known this girls’ getaway would turn into murder, I’d have left him home.
When I get back to our room, the TV is running full blast and Lovie is in the shower with the water faucets going wide open. I go into the bathroom and knock on the shower door. She jumps and says a word that causes a sonic boom.
“Hurry up, Lovie. We’ve got to go.”
“Okay, okay. I’m coming.”
Much as I’d love a good long soak in a hot tub, I barely have time for a swipe with a damp washcloth. The only good thing I can say about my spit bath is that at least I’m not planning to get close to anybody. Translated, that’s Champ and Jack, especially Jack.
As a matter of fact, I’ve made up my mind: I’m not having sex with him again even if he sends a year’s supply of chocolates and six dozen of my favorite Gertrude Jekyll roses. The only thing that would make me relent is a certificate of sainthood and an ironclad commitment to fatherhood.
I go back into the bedroom and put on the tailored charcoal gray housekeeping uniform Lovie left on the bed, plus a cute pair of Juicy Couture ballerina flats. Investigative rule number one: always be prepared to run.
So far, that’s my only rule, but if life keeps coating me with tar and tossing me in the briar patch, I’m liable to come up with a whole bunch of them.
On the TV, a perky newswoman who took somebody’s bad advice about blue eye shadow prattles on about a ribbon cutting at the new Starbucks in Germantown.
Who cares about coffee when I’m wondering if I can fasten the buttons on my stolen disguise.
Miss Blue Eye Shadow says, “In apparently unrelated crimes, two women have been found dead at the Peabody.” I listen for new information, but the TV news reporter doesn’t say a thing I don’t already know.
If I want to learn anything, it looks like I’ll have to sneak around in an outfit that was made for somebody six inches shorter. Add a little white apron and I look like the star of a triple-X rated French film. The only good thing I can say about this high-water costume is that the buttons fasten.
Lovie emerges from the bathroom as the most mind-boggling maid in the South.
“I look like a snow-capped mountain.” She twirls around to inspect herself in the mirror. “Of course, more than one lucky man has skied down these slopes.”
Lovie’s eye-popping creamy magnolia flesh reminds me of all my clients who will benefit when I turn Hair.Net into a south-of-Mooreville Riviera. Listen, just because the place where you live is small doesn’t mean you have to think small.
“I don’t care what it costs, Lovie. As soon as we get home, I’m getting a tanning bed for Hair.Net.”
I’ll paint a mural on the wall with a blue wash of ocean and an inviting sweep of sandy beach. Maybe I can get some of those cute faux seagulls to add a touch of authenticity.
“Great, then I can look like a beach in Tahiti.”
She’s incorrigible.
I twist my hair into a tight bun, then perch a pair of reading glasses on my nose. Even my dog wouldn’t know me. “Let’s go, Lovie.”
We race to the elevator, but when we get to the tenth floor we slow down. It won’t do to act like women who have come to pick locks.
“Which way?” Lovie asks.
“1016. I hope.” There is no crime tape. Apparently the cops have already removed it. Not surprising since this is only a secondary crime scene.
She says words that shake tall buildings. “If we break into the wrong room looking like this, we’re liable to be captured and sold into white slavery.”
“Dream on,” I tell her. “More like a sideshow at the circus.”
She heads off in the opposite direction. That’s not like her, to huff off mad.
“Lovie, wait. Where are you going?”
“Be right back.”
She moves really fast for a woman her size. Before I can work up a nervous sweat, she has raced down the hall and nabbed the cart around the corner.
“Props,” she says. “Besides, we need the rubber gloves.”
She starts picking the lock while I act as lookout.
“Lovie, wait.” I give a sharp knock and assume my best French accent (which has Mooreville written all over it). “Housekeeping!”
Lovie says a word not meant for polite company. “Who do you think is going to be in there? The occupant’s dead and they probably moved her husband to another room.”
“He could be back.”
That takes the starch out of her sails. When there’s no answer, she recovers, then resumes breaking and entering.
“Hurry, Lovie. Somebody’s coming.”
Her hairpin slips and she has to start all over.
“Quick, Cal. Do something.”
What am I supposed to do? Stick a thumb out and pretend to be hitchhiking?
The footsteps get closer, and a gentleman in a dark blue suit rounds the corner. I grab the cart, twist it around to hide Lovie’s nefarious activities, then lean over and pretend to be looking for soap. Anxiety always makes me sweat. I feel damp patches forming on my borrowed finery.
I also feel a hard pinch on my behind. If Jack were here, he’d knock this man into next Sunday. Even easygoing Champ wouldn’t put up with that kind of misbehavior. Of course, I don’t need them. I take pride in my independence.
“Back off, mister.”
I whirl the cart around to block the interesting view caused by my short skirt. And while I’m at it, I make sure to run over his toe.
Mr. No Gentleman lets out a word that is not so nice.
“Oh, I’m sooo sorry.” I can do molasses-through-magnolias Southern as well as the next belle. “Do you need me to call anger management?”
He storms off without a word. While I’m wondering if he’s going to report me, Lovie jerks me into the room, cart and all, and slams the door.
“I thought you were going to get us both landed in the pokey,” she says.
“You told me to do something.”
“I didn’t mean act like the fastest gun in the West.” Lovie starts going through drawers. “Why couldn’t you just say ‘eat your heart out’ and then stand there looking wonderful?”
I could get huffy and argue, but she’s just said I look wonderful. Besides, I’m like a heat-seeking missile. I never let myself get sidetracked. (Well, hardly ever, unless I’m feeling vulnerable and Jack shows up and starts spreading sweet talk like strawberry jam.)
“Make sure you don’t get anything out of its place.”
I stroll across the room to the closet and pull open the door. Jackpot.
“Lovie, you’d better come over here.”
The closet is stuffed with furs, some of them faux, some real. Everything is here, from a full-length mink to a silver fox stole to a faux leopard walking coat. I instantly take umbrage. Listen, if I draped myself in animal skins, Elvis would disown me.
While I’m stewing, Lovie’s looking at tags.
“There’s more than eighty thousand dollars’ worth of fur in this closet,” she says, “and every bit of it is from Go
ldsmith’s.”
“Which means Babs Mims bought them all right here, probably after they arrived. If these are hers.”
“Which means it would take a very rich man to keep up with her spending habits.”
“Keep searching, Lovie. See if you can find a receipt. Anything that will let us know we’re in the right room.”
I head toward the bathroom. Toiletries are piled in an untidy heap on the counter and the usual wet towels are on the floor. The real housekeeping staff could be here any minute to make up this room.
I kick towels out of my way and paw through the mess. If this is Babs’ room, Grayson hasn’t bothered to pack up her stuff. Maybe he’s too grief stricken. Or is he too guilty?
The toiletries tell no stories. I reach for a small pink quilted cosmetic case. Inside is a bottle of sleeping pills. The label says Babs Mabry Mims.
I put the pills back where I found them and call through the door, “She was a pill popper.” There’s no answer. “Lovie? Did you hear me?”
Still no answer. A chill spreads through me. Picturing Lovie bound and gagged, I grab the nearest weapon—a ten-ounce can of hairspray. Whoever is out there had better watch out. I’m a whiz with beauty products. If I can’t blind him (temporarily, of course) with hydrofluorocarbons, I can raise a sizable knot on his head with the can.
Easing around the door frame, I spot Lovie sitting on the bed, mesmerized by something in her hand. From across the room it looks like a bill of some kind.
“Lovie?”
She jumps, then whirls around and sees me.
“Shoot, Callie. You scared me to death.”
“What have you got?”
“You don’t want to know.”
She hands it to me anyway, a small photograph featuring two smiling young women—Babs and someone I don’t know—with their arms around a man I know only too well.
“Mr. Whitenton!”
“I warned you.”
“Good grief, Lovie. If he killed Babs, he could be after Mama.”
“Exactly. Let’s go ransack his room.”
“We can’t. He’s there.”
“Doing what? Planning his next murder?”
“Resting, Mama said.”
I stare at the picture to see if I’ve missed something. Mr. Whitenton’s hair is darker and he looks younger, maybe by four or five years. There’s nothing to identify the place except the rose print wallpaper and food-laden antique sideboard behind them. This is an intimate setting, somebody’s house, maybe after a holiday meal.
“I say we roust him out of bed and wring a confession out of him.”
Lovie’s only half kidding. She adores her Valentine kin, particularly Mama, and wouldn’t hesitate to beat somebody up for her.
“This photograph doesn’t prove anything,” I tell her. “Except that Thomas Whitenton knew the first murder victim.”
“Why didn’t he mention it?” Lovie has a point.
“Maybe he’s covering up something, but we have an eyewitness who saw Grayson push Babs.”
“You think he killed his wife over a fur splurge?”
“People have been killed for less, Lovie. Besides, we have no connection between Thomas and Gloria.”
“Then what are we waiting for, Sherlock?” Lovie stands up and tugs her skirt down. Unsuccessfully, I might add. There’s too much Lovie and too little skirt. “Let’s hit Gloria’s room.”
“Wait a minute. Where did you get this picture?”
“Babs’s purse.”
It’s on the bed beside her, wide open. Lovie picks it up and snaps it shut.
At the same time, there’s an ominous click at the door. With my heart in my throat, I turn around just in time to see the handle turning. Holy cow! We’re in deep trouble now. Lovie’s holding a dead woman’s purse and I’m standing here with her picture.
“Quick, Lovie. Do something.”
Chapter 9
Carts, Clues, and Cahoots
I don’t know what I expected Lovie to do, but certainly not this. While I’m watching the door handle turn and calculating how much longer I have to live as a free woman, Lovie hauls off and leaps into the cart. Babs’ purse and all.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says, then pulls the sheets and towels on top of her.
Shoot! Till now Lovie has always taken center stage. Why didn’t I think to jump in the cart and leave her to face the music? She’s much better at lying her way out of a situation than I am.
“Callie?” From all those layers of linens, she sounds like a hissing snake. If she were, I’d be Cleopatra. Rather than die at the hands of enemies, I’d reach in, grab a lethal viper, and hold it to my breast.
Frozen with terror and indecision, I watch the door slowly move inward.
A hand reaches out of the linens and snatches the picture. I look down to see Lovie glaring up at me.
“Move it!”
I do—just as H. Grayson Mims strolls through the door. With none other than Victor Mabry’s wife plastered on his arm.
Just how many women is this man consorting with? First polecat, and now this.
When he sees me, he drops her arm and moves a discreet distance away. Thank goodness, he’s too rattled—probably at being seen with another woman so soon after his wife’s death—to notice that underneath the too-short maid’s uniform, the hasty French twist and the reading glasses is the woman he asked to dance the first night of the competition.
“I didn’t expect housekeeping to get here so soon after the crime tape came down. Did you leave plenty of towels?”
“Yes sir.” If he wants to look on the floor and doesn’t mind that they’re dirty. By the time he discovers all that, I’ll be long gone.
Calling on acting skills from second grade (I played a petunia), I careen past Grayson, run over his shoes, bump into the doorway, backtrack and call on every deity I know (but only silently). Finally I gain the hallway.
The minute the door closes behind me, I lift the top towel and snarl at Lovie. “Get out of there.”
She climbs out, looking disheveled and not the least bit sorry.
“Do you know how much this cart weighs with you in it?”
“As much as a beached whale?”
“That’s not funny, Lovie. Next time I’ll jump in and you push.”
“It had to be me. I’m memorable.”
I hope she means because of her wild red hair, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
“Ask any of my former lovers,” she says, erasing all doubt. She grabs a glass and presses it to the door. “Let’s see what lover boy’s up to.”
More cautious by nature than my bold cousin, I check the hallway first to make sure we’re in the clear. Then I grab another glass from the cart and use it as a makeshift earphone.
Whatever Grayson and Babs’ first husband’s wife are doing, they’re doing it quietly. I can’t hear a thing except an occasional low hum of voices followed by long silences that make me sweat. What if they’re not having a conversation about murdering Babs? What if they’re having a conversation about snuffing out two nosey women posing as maids?
“Let’s get out of here, Lovie,” I whisper.
“Wait. I think I heard something about Babs’ furs.”
“That’s hearsay. It won’t stand up in a court of law.”
“We’re not testifying in a court of law. We’re just trying to save Aunt Ruby Nell.”
I’d concede the point if she hadn’t jumped into the housekeeping cart and made me push.
“We won’t live long enough to save anybody if Grayson discovers dirty towels on his floor.”
“I didn’t think of that.” She grabs the cart and starts down the hall.
“Leave it here, Lovie.”
“Can’t. Babs’ purse is inside.”
Not to mention her picture. Shoot. If I’m going to keep running into dead bodies everywhere, I’m going to have to quit taking things from the murder scene.
“Where to?” Lovie asks.
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My back is stiff from hunkering down in front of Grayson’s door; my throat is dry from arguing with Lovie in a whisper, and I don’t even want to think about the trouble we’ll be in if we get caught parading around the Peabody in stolen uniforms, breaking into the other guests’ rooms.
But I’m a Valentine through and through. Nothing can stop me now. Unless it’s an act of God.
“Charge forth, Lovie. Gloria’s room. If we can find a connection between her and Mr. Whitenton, I think we’ve found the killer.”
“Which way?”
“Next door. 1014.”
“How do you know?”
“I overheard the woman who registered the dancers talking about it.”
We move a few feet down the hall. With the cart covering her criminal doings and me standing guard, Lovie whisks out the tool of her trade, a bent hairpin, and sets to work. Who should come down the hall by an act of God but Fayrene, in full green splendor.
“Callie? Is that you?”
She’s yelling like I’m at the other end of a football stadium. Is there anybody east of the Mississippi River who didn’t hear her? Any minute I expect doors to pop open and vigilante guests to turn us in.
“Hey, Fayrene,” I say. “I thought you and Bobby were at the duck parade.”
“We already did our pre-parade diversion like Lovie said. I need my scarves for the big performance.”
I don’t think Lovie meant for them to disrupt the parade, but I don’t want to stand in the hall discussing that with Fayrene.
“How’s it going down there? Did you hear anything about the murders?”
“Enough to put me in a state of conservation.”
I hope she means consternation, but with Fayrene you never can tell.
“Somebody at the duck parade said the Peabody murders were so bad they were going to call out the Highway Control. And they’re fixing to test the victims for NBA. No telling who will be next.”
Over the rim of the cart, Lovie shoots me a look and I mouth, “DNA.” She explodes, then tries to cover her laughter with a cough.
Fayrene puts her hand over her heart. “Lord, Lovie, I didn’t see you. You nearly gave me a frustration attack. Are you okay, hon?”
