Elvis and the Buried Brides (A Southern Cousins Mystery, plus bonus short story)

by Webb, Peggy

  “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Praise the lord and pass the PupPeroni. Jack Jones AKA the Black Panther is standing in the doorway with his gun aimed at Linda LeLane’s head. And right beside him is Charlie with his gun pointed at her heart.

  “Jack!” Linda’s radiant smile is macabre. “I didn’t expect you so soon, darling.”

  “Cut the bullshit and drop the knife or I shoot.”

  “You wouldn’t do that. Not to me. Not with my knife at this old busy-body’s neck.”

  “Ha!”This old busy body immediately reacts, and let me tell you, the result is not pretty. One little tip of the skillet toward the front of Linda LeLane’s pants, and more is sizzling in the kitchen than hacked to pieces chicken. Her knife clatters to the floor and Jack cuffs her. Or maybe it went the other way around. That man can move so fast he’s nothing but a blur.

  “Where’s my daughter?” Ruby Nell yells. “Where’s my niece?”

  Jack puts a hand on her shoulder then bends deep so he can look directly into her eyes.

  “I’ll take it from here, Ruby Nell. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  *

  Famous last words, and all that.

  Within twenty minutes, Jack’s interrogation is over, Linda is in cuffs and headed off in a squad car, and yours truly is headed to a cabin in the deep woods with Jack and Charlie.

  We burst through the door like the Three Musketeers on steroids, and what do we find but the Bronson brothers, just as Linda had said. She said they were dangerous, too, but how dangerous can you be if your face is in a plateful of mashed potatoes and your partner is passed out, half naked, on the toilet?

  Jack and Charlie cover their noses with handkerchiefs while this noble basset has to go it without a gas mask. In less than three minutes we’ve cased this joint, and there’s not a sign of Callie or Lovie.

  While Charlie’s on his cell phone with the law, Jack keeps searching for Lovie and Calling, calling their names. I can see how he’s trying to keep panic out of his voice.

  “Get to work, boy,” he finally says, but my noble nose is already to the ground. I follow my human mom’s scent outside to an abandoned well. And there, caught in the metal covering and half buried in the dirt is Callie’s wedding veil.

  Jack slams the covering back and scrambles into the well so fast I’m left up top with my ears flapping.

  “See anything?” Charlie calls down.

  “Nothing.” A grim-faced Jack climbs back out. “Except this.” He’s holding the tattered remains of Lovie’s bridesmaid veil.

  Chapter 7

  Plots, Pie and Jack Jones

  Lovie and I have landed in a deep woods bar decorated with alligator hides. As if that weren’t enough to give us pause, this place has no pay phone and no cell phone service. No food, either, except for pie. Apple pie, peach pie, plum pie, every piece of it deep fried and reeking of grease. Still, I can’t remember the last meal I had, and at this point, I’d eat the doilies underneath the pie plates.

  Yes, I said doiles. Who’d have thought a man the size of a double-door refrigerator who’s been bragging for two hours about how he killed the 8-foot ‘gator on the wall single-handedly would be the type to place frilly things under the pie?

  “I’ll have another piece of that peach pie,” Lovie says, and he obliges by turning to scoop up two pieces.

  “Just in case,” he says, then winks at her. He’s smitten. I know that look.

  But tonight I’m not going to lecture her about playing the field when she has already landed the best man on the planet. Next to Jack, of course.

  I’m not even going to point out that she’s on her sixth piece of pie. Or is it her seventh? After what we’ve been through, who’s counting?

  “Are you sure we can’t walk out of here?” I ask him. I know. I know. It’s the fifth time, but I’m not sure I trust his offer of driving us back to Mooreville as soon as he closes the place. Especially since closing time is not till two o’clock in the morning.

  I’ve already been carted through the woods in the middle of the night, thank you very much, and I’m not anxious for a repeat performance. With or without my hands tied.

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” he says. “Especially not in the dark. The woods are full of snakes and I’d hate for you two pretty ladies to meet up with a partner to my pal up there.” He nods toward the alligator hide. “Besides that, my nephew spotted a wild hog in the woods. You wouldn’t want to tangle with that.”

  I think I’ve already tangled with two men worse than wild hogs, but I’m not about to give him a blow by blow description of my abduction. I’m not even going to give him a hint. He looks like the kind of man who might just hold me hostage in hopes of getting reward money.

  As far as Dick Shep is concerned – that’s what he said his name was, but it sounds made up to me – we’re just two women whose purses got stolen at the mall, and whose car broke down on the road going home. How on earth did we know we’d wandered so far off the road till we stumbled in here looking like we’d been beat up?

  “No, I wouldn’t want to tangle with a wild hog,” I tell him. I feel myself nodding off, and I jerk awake like somebody on the front seat of church, guilty because the preacher was boring me to death.

  “I’ve got a couple of cots back there,” Dick nods toward a burlap curtain with a creepy red light showing under the frayed hem. “You ladies sure you don’t want to lie down and rest a bit? I’ll wake you up when I close down.”

  Lovie’s tilting sideways on her bar stool, dead for sleep, and I kick her so she won’t say yes.

  “No thanks. I’m good. We’re both good.” I do some math in my head to see if I have enough stolen money to pay this bar bill. “I could use another cup of coffee, though.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He trots to the coffee pot and Lovie punches me on the arm.

  “What’s that for?”

  “That kick to the shins. And a little reminder that you’ve already had four cups. You’re going to be wired, Cal.”

  I point to her beer. Her third, if I’m not mistaken.

  “One of us has to stay awake.”

  “Why do you think I’m eating so much pie?”

  “You’re hungry?”

  “Food soaks up alcohol, Cal. Give me enough pie and I could drink everybody in this room under the table.”

  I’m not about to challenge Lovie to try that trick. We’re in enough trouble as it is. That’s the third time since we got here that Dick has offered us his cots behind the rotten curtain. It sounds more like a plot thickening than the offer of comfort.

  The only thing that gives me any comfort is the fact that I walked out of that cabin with the metal ladder rung. It’s not much of a weapon, but I think it would get the job done.

  Dick sets my coffee in front of me, sloshing some of onto the counter so he can linger there, rubbing at with a dirty cloth while he leers at me. I make up my mind then and there that I’m never going another place without a weapon.

  Suddenly a large hand reaches over my shoulder and clamps down on Dick’s dish cloth.

  “I’ll take it from here.”

  “Jack!” I throw myself at him. Literally. “I’ve never been so glad to see anybody in my life!”

  “You say that now, Cal. But how about fifty years from now?”

  I’m so happy to be rescued that I get my moxie back.

  “I guess you’ll have to marry me and find out, Jack Jones.”

  “Deal!”

  For a minute, I think he might break his own rule about public displays and kiss me right there by the alligator hides, but Elvis noses my leg and Uncle Charlie kisses my cheek and Lovie starts wrapping up pie to take home.

  Thank goodness, my life is back to normal. Or as normal as it will ever get.

  Elvis’ Opinion #8 on Wedding Singers, Wedding Bells and Happily Ever After

  I’ll have to say that I saved the day. If I hadn’t been with Jack and
Charlie when we found Callie and Lovie missing from the kidnapper’s cabin, there’s no telling how long it would have taken to find them. Enter my noble nose and my stellar sense of smell. I tracked my human mom and her cousin straight to the alligator bar.

  After we found them, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. If you ask me, anybody who rips off animal hides and displays them on the wall is a man to be avoided.

  Ruby Nell and Fayrene and Darlene and Bobby were waiting for us with a table full of fried chicken, light golden, just the way Jack likes it, and enough questions to keep all of us up the rest of the night.

  When Jack left with Callie, Ruby Nell didn’t say a word about brides and grooms not seeing each other till the wedding and bad luck. I guess she figured we’d already had all the bad luck the universe allowed.

  Jack didn’t let Callie out of sight till the wedding. Her bruises healed, she got a new wedding veil and even came to her senses and let me be the wedding singer. Need I say more? Once these famous pipes got to work, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. I can still do Love Me Tender better than anybody, and my human parents know it. Of course, nobody can understand the words now, but when you’ve got every good thing in the world, why should you quibble over small things?

  Jack and Callie renewed vows in front of the biggest wedding crowd Mooreville has ever seen. Ruby Nell squalled like a baby, and so did Fayrene. If you didn’t know how they cry at every happy event, you’d think they were about to die of broken hearts.

  After the ceremony, Callie threw her wedding bouquet straight at Lovie. And Rocky was right there at her side, his eyes twinkling like a man with a plan.

  Jack scooped Callie up, wedding dress and all, and drove off in his silver Jag.

  I wanted to go on the honeymoon, but Jack said I had to stay home and guard Lovie, who is house-sitting till they get back. He didn’t tell anybody where they were going except Charlie Valentine and yours truly. And neither one of us is about to reveal intimate family secrets.

  Suffice it to say, I’m content to sit in the gazebo with my ears blowing and my head full of plans for an immediate future that includes a Christmas tree with lots of packages for this dog extraordinaire.

  As to the distant future, I predict Callie’s dream of fat, happy Jones’ babies will come true.

  And if I can ever catch up with that shapely beagle at the truck stop, I can safely predict a basketful of beagle babies. Last time I spoke to Trey he’d found out her name and said she’s hanging around the gourmet garbage cans, just waiting for the right dog to sweep her off her feet.

  I sashay out of the gazebo, sniff the wind then head to the fence and start digging.

  Watch out, Priscilla. Here I come.

  Elvis has left the building!

  ––The End––

  Elvis and the Deadly Love Letters

  A Southern Cousins Mystery

  by

  Peggy Webb

  First Edition, Copyright 2013 by Peggy Webb

  Second Edition, Copyright 2015 by Peggy Webb

  All rights reserved

  Elvis’ Opinion # 1 on Love, Chocolate and Fleas

  I’m happy to report that love is abloom here in Mooreville, Mississippi, and it’s more than Valentine’s Day fever. Ever since my human dad rescued my human mom from the Christmas bridegroom killer, anyplace is paradise with Jack and Callie. He proposed (again), and she finally said yes. I’m all shook up. But in the best of ways. Now I don’t have to worry about my fabulous self being swapped back and forth between Callie’s little country cottage and Jack’s tacky apartment over in Tupelo at the Magnolia Arms.

  An added benefit is having my human dad around all the time. Callie is a soft touch, but Jack’s the one in charge of the grill. When he’s grilling, all I have to do is sashay through the doggie door, into the backyard, then hang out like guys do, and Jack’s good for a T-bone and sometimes the whole darned steak.

  But back to the marital situation…

  Callie wants to renew vows and Jack wants to just get on with business. But if I know my human mom (and you can bet your PupPeroni I do) there’ll soon be another wedding for those two.

  Callie’s mama, Ruby Nell, has already told everybody not to give her any Valentine chocolates. She wants to lose ten pounds before the nuptials. Naturally, whatever Ruby Nell does, her best friend Fayrene jumps on the band wagon. Just between us, they’d both lose weight if they’d leave off some of that Prohibition punch they’re so fond of drinking when they play cards in Fayrene’s séance room up at Gas, Grits and Guts. It’s the Valentine family cure for everything that ails you.

  And let me tell you, that stuff packs a punch. Pun intended. Not only am I a famous dog of the world; I’m a dog of letters. I’ll put my basset brain up against anybody in Lee County, except maybe Charlie Valentine, Callie’s uncle and the family’s godfather.

  But back to the Prohibition punch…all I have to do is lick Ruby Nell’s ankles, then stand around looking like the handsome basset hound I am, and she pours a little nip into my doggie bowl.

  Naturally, I’m a dog who can hold his liquor and his figure. I’d hold out for a basset-sized tuxedo at Jack and Callie’s wedding, but they don’t have them at Pet Smart. Looks like I’ll have to settle for a bow tie.

  Of course, cousin Lovie never settles for anything. She’s over-the-top and proud to admit it. And speaking of the colorful, she just blew through the door of Callie’s little cottage. From the looks of things, she’s got a bone to pick with somebody. Whoever it is, I’d hate to be in his shoes.

  Sayonara, baby! I’m headed under the sofa so I can eavesdrop without getting in the middle of Lovie’s latest drama.

  Chapter One

  Love Letters, Sugar Plums and Murder

  “Callie, you won’t believe this!”

  That’s Lovie for you, getting right to the point without even saying hello. I make a wide circuit around the sofa so I won’t step on Elvis’ tail, then I grab Lovie’s arm and lead her into the kitchen.

  “What you need is some hot chocolate, Lovie.”

  She says a word that would boil water then sprawls into a kitchen chair and throws a letter onto the table.

  At first I think she wants to share a love letter from Rocky, who left for a dig in Mexico right after Christmas. Might I add, he left without discovering Lovie’s National Treasure. In spite of my reassurances that he loves her and is merely an old-fashioned man conducting an old-fashioned courtship, she insists on viewing his morals as lack of interest.

  “If I had the name of the person who sent this,” Lovie says, “I’d pulverize him with my baseball bat.”

  I pick up the envelope and pull out a handwritten letter.

  My Luscious Sugar Plum,

  Living without you has thrown me into a blue funk. I can’t believe you want to be with that over-grown archeologist instead of me! Say you’ll meet me at the Stables this evening at eight, or I won’t be responsible for what I’ll do. Come alone!

  Your Honey Bunny

  “Holy cow, Lovie! You never told me you called one of your former lovers Honey Bunny.”

  “If I told you everything I do Callie, you’d call for an intervention.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. That’s what good friends are for, to share secrets.”

  “Some secrets are best left buried. Anyhow, it’s been so long since I dated anybody except Rocky, I can’t remember their names.”

  “Well, no wonder. There were so many of them, I don’t know how you kept them all straight.”

  “I can tell you one thing, Cal. I never called anybody Honey Bunny. What kind of stupid name is that? It sounds like something you ought to eat.”

  “Maybe that’s the point, Lovie. Maybe this is just some kind of prank.”

  “If this is a prank, I’m a sugar plum! Look. The postman delivered it directly to my address.”

  I inspect the envelope, which has Lovie’s address printed on a sticky label but no return address.

/>   “Maybe you could call Harold Gibson,” I tell her. “He might have some idea who sent this.”

  “He retired at Thanksgiving and I don’t know the new postman’s name. Anyway, that’s a long shot.”

  “So, what are you going to do about it, Lovie?”

  “We’re going down to the Stables incognito and kick his royal honey bunny!”

  “We?”

  I have a sudden vision of me in one of Lovie’s ridiculous disguises trying to sneak past Jack Jones. When he was my almost-ex and living over at the Magnolia Arms, I could get by with doing anything I pleased – as long as Mama and Fayrene didn’t get wind of it. Now that Jack’s my almost-groom the second time around, I’ve learned the art of little white lies.

  Listen, you can’t live with a man in the house, even one as dangerously delicious as Jack, without an occasional escape plan.

  Still, I have a brand new four carat diamond engagement ring on my finger and plans for a huge second wedding to the same man. I’m not about to jeopardize it by getting mired in trouble up to the top of the cute Taryn Rose boots I got at the after-Christmas sale.

  “Lovie, my advice is to rip the letter up and forget the whole thing.”

  “If you don’t want to help me out, just say so. I’ll prevent my own murder all by myself, thank you very much.”

  “Holy cow! This letter is not a threat, Lovie!”

  “When did you take up psychic predictions?”

  Now, I’ve made my best friend mad, and if she marches off in huff and refuses to speak to me, I might as well just stick my finger in a light socket and frizz my perfectly styled hair. And then where would I be? Folks would take one look at me and stop coming to Hair.Net and I’d have to retire my scissors with the jazzy pink handles.