arkansastraveler (19 page)

“Almost there,” a male voice called back.

Out at the long tables covered with white tablecloths,
people were grabbing up the plates of pie faster than they could be laid down.

“Over here, sisters,” a dark copper-colored lady in a cobalt blue dress called to us, pointing to an empty spot on the long table. She grabbed one of my pies and started sliding pieces onto paper plates. “This bunch may not be able to sing or worship in harmony,” she said to me and Elvia, “but they sure can suck up the pie in a right similar manner.”

I laughed and set down my other pie, licking a bit of meringue that had stuck to my thumb. “Guess you gotta start somewhere.”

She winked at us, tucking the white tea towel she had stuck in the V neck of her dress deeper into her cleavage. “Stomachs haven’t got no color.”

“Amen,” I said.

“Speaking of her, is she comin’ tonight?” the lady asked, her face sobering quickly. “We heard about poor Quinton.”

Elvia and I glanced at each other. I should have realized that something like that would never be a secret for long in a town this size.

“She said she was,” I said. “He’s free now. Duck Wakefield’s got him a good lawyer.”

“Praise Jesus,” the woman said, sliding the last piece of lemon pie out of the pan and starting on a cherry. “That Dr. Wakefield’s a good man, a real friend to Amen and her kin. You know, it’s a setup. That boy would no more kill someone than I would.”

I nodded in agreement. Not seeing Dove’s pie, I chose a wedge of pecan pie. After offering Elvia a bite, which she turned down, I shoved a forkful of fresh pecans and gooey sweet filling in my mouth. Of course, right then my name was called out in a shrill Southern whine that brought back childhood memories of a less pleasant nature.

“Benni Ramsey, I swear, you haven’t changed one little bit!”

The tone with which it was said made it clear it wasn’t a compliment. I turned to face Duck’s ex-wife, my ex-nemesis, Gwenette Johnston Wakefield who-knows-what now. The same sentiment could apply to her, and it wouldn’t have necessarily been a compliment. Hadn’t anyone told her that fluffy, platinum-streaked, Farrah Fawcett curls had gone out in the seventies? I had to admit, though, she was in good shape. Her skin-tight, white-as-powdered-sugar suit showed off a body that could not possibly have eaten a Moon Pie or Ho-Ho in twenty years. Maybe that explained the sour cream expression on her smooth face.

“Hey, Gwenette,” I said, swallowing my huge bite of pie. I choked slightly on a pecan, causing Elvia to pound my back gently.

“Goodness, are you all right?” Gwenette asked, though her unnaturally bright blue eyes laughed at me. She looked at Elvia and trilled a high, grating giggle. “She always did like to bite off more than she could chew.”

“Fine,” I said with a gasp, gratefully accepting the glass of sugary red punch from Elvia, who had not smiled back at Gwenette. I gulped it down, trying not to spill any on the front of my dress. “How are you?” I said when the bulk of my pie had been washed down.

“Real fine,” she said, giving a huge, pageant smile. All her teeth were exactly the same color and size. I wondered how much they had cost Duck.

“This is my best friend, Elvia Aragon,” I said.

She gave Elvia a long, interested look, taking in her expensive outfit. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Our Emory’s quite enamored.” She turned her laughing eyes back to me. “Always so open-minded, our Emory.”

Elvia’s face stiffened. I gripped my empty paper cup, telling myself not to buy into her word games, reminding myself I was in church, to turn the other cheek.

“How’s your mama?” I asked, turning to a safe, Southern topic that was always appropriate.

“Ornery as ever,” she said, a pink manicured hand flying up and touching her big curly hair as if to make sure it was still there. She looked directly at Elvia. “That’s a Dana Buchman suit, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Elvia said, her face wary.

“It’s simply precious. I swear, Emory always did have such lovely taste in women’s clothes.”

“Gwenette,” I started, “why don’t you take your chicken-fried comments and . . .”

Before I could finish the less than Christian comment I was about to make, two voices similar to hers in shrillness and sugary drawl called out, “Gwenette, honey, that suit is just to die for.
To die for
.”

She turned to smile at the two women wearing similar big hairdos and light, summery dresses.

“Who’s that with Benni?” one stage-whispered. “Is
that
Emory’s California girlfriend? The one he’s been braggin’ on all week?”

We could see the back of Gwenette’s head bob up and down in assent.

“Why, she’s real pretty,” one of them said, sounding surprised.

Gwenette shrugged. “I suppose.” Then she moved a step away, but not far enough so we couldn’t hear the second part of her statement. “Though not hardly as white as the rest of us, is she?”

The two women giggled and looked guiltily over at us. I glanced over at my friend, whose face froze in shock. Heat started somewhere deep inside my chest, moving rapidly to my head until it felt like it was going to burst. I started toward the women, not sure what I would do or say when Elvia’s fingers bit into my upper arm, her nails digging into my skin.

“Don’t,” she said. “Please.”

I turned back, her stricken face causing me to want to cry out in despair. “We can’t let them get away with a
comment like that! Elvia, I have to do something.”

“No, please,” she said, her voice so low only I could hear it. “It will bring even more attention to me. I can’t take that right now.” Her eyes begged me. The humiliating place they put her in made me so angry at that moment I could understand why Quinton might kill someone for spitting on his grandma.

“What can I do?” I asked.

“Let me go back to the house. Tell Emory I wasn’t feeling well.”

Before I could argue, she walked away, out of the fellowship hall, out into the darkness. I was tempted to run after her, but I suspected she wanted to be alone now, to think about what just happened, to maybe call back home and talk to her mother or one of her brothers, hear their comforting Spanish words, reestablish her security and identity. I knew that was something I couldn’t do for her.

I glared over at the three women, who watched Elvia walk out the door, satisfied expressions on their priggish faces.

“Don’t worry, honey, they’ll answer for that before the throne of judgment one day,” the lady in the cobalt silk dress said behind me. I turned and faced her. It was obvious by the expression on her own angry face that she’d witnessed the whole scene and had probably experienced similar situations more than once in her life.

“Maybe that’s not soon enough,” I said, frowning.

She shook her head, and the glossy cherries in her tiny round hat trembled. “ ‘Revenge is mine, sayeth the Lord,’ ” she said. She held out a cup of red punch. “Have a drink and a slice of pie and don’t let a sorry piece of work like her royal highness over there ruin your evening.”

I took the cup of punch but passed on the pie, my appetite definitely gone. What I planned to do was wait a half-hour or so and then go see Elvia.

I walked by Gwenette and her two tittering cohorts,
giving her white-suited back a dirty look. At the giggling of her friends, she turned and smiled at me. That last self-satisfied smile did it.

I stepped forward, faked a stumble and tossed my whole glass of red punch across the front of her lily-white suit.

The scream that burst from her pink lips reminded me of a pig being slaughtered.

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried, doing a comical little dance and brushing at the bright red watermelon-sized stain spreading across her chest and lap. Her friends squealed in unison and dabbed at her.

“I am
so, so
sorry,” I exclaimed loud enough so everyone around us would think I was sincere. “Please, let me help.” I grabbed a napkin and joined the dabbing. When I was close enough, I said in a low voice, “Gee, that dress ain’t hardly as
white
as it used to be, is it?”

She slapped my hand away, causing even her girlfriends to gawk in surprise. “Get away from me, you little. . . witch.”

I don’t think witch was actually the first word that came to her mind.

People watched us curiously, waiting to see what would happen.

I backed up, a beseeching smile on my face. “Oh, Gwenette, please forgive my clumsiness. You know how high heels have always been difficult for me.”

We both looked down at my flat sandals. I grinned at her.

“Benni!” Dove called from the kitchen, a witness to the whole incident.

“Coming,” I answered, lifting my hand to Gwenette in an apologetic gesture.

“What was that all about?” Dove said, pointing a pie server out at the hall.

I whispered in her ear. “She made a racist remark to Elvia.”

Dove looked at me long and hard, her face severe. Finally she said, “And you only threw one cup of punch?”

I laughed, hugged her, and said, “I’m going to find Elvia. She said she was going back to Aunt Garnet’s. Tell Emory and Gabe what happened, okay?”

“You go on,” Dove said. “I’ll tell them where you went and bring you both a piece of pie.”

“Thanks, Gramma.”

As I weaved through the cars in the crowded parking lot, I thought about what I would say to Elvia. I would definitely tell her about my punch spill all over Mount St. Gwenette and hoped it would cheer her up. But I knew this incident would only add one more reason to her growing list of why she and my cousin shouldn’t make a life together.

Near the pastor’s office, next to a huge magnolia bush planted in front of his small window, Detective Billy Brackman stood smoking a cigarette, holding it behind his back after every puff in a furtive way that told me he’d tried to quit more than once.

“Caught ya,” I said, laughing.

He laughed in reply, took one last puff, and threw the cigarette down on the grass, grinding it out under the toe of his brown boots. “Yeah, guess you did. Awful habit. My wife’s always after me to quit, but I just can’t.”

“Do you belong to Sugartree Baptist?” I asked.

He nodded. “Since I was a teenager. Me and Sandi—she’s my wife—met in Sunday school. My parents moved here from Kentucky when I was fifteen.”

I thought his twangy, hill country accent had sounded just slightly different from the soft, syrupy drawl of a native Arkansan.

“You like it here?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It’s okay. Good as anyplace else, I guess.” His eyebrows lifted in interest. “Where I’d really
like to live is California. But I can’t get my wife to move away from her mama.”

“California’s nice. At least the part where I live.”

“I want to move to Los Angeles. Or San Francisco. I want to work for an agency who’s got somethin’ on the ball, someplace I can learn new things. Not like this place.”

“Frustrated, huh?”

“You said it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, resting his hands underneath his armpits.

“Because of the Hunter investigation?”

“If you want to call it an investigation.”

“I know how it can be,” I said, trying to loosen him up. “Gabe sometimes gets annoyed even where we live because he’d been used to having all the latest equipment and experts when he worked in L.A. In San Celina, we don’t even have a morgue. They just take homicide victims to one of the local mortuaries who are contracted with the city.”

That set him off. “I know what he means! I can’t believe how backward they are here and how they’re just content to stay that way. Really pisses me off sometimes. I mean, would it kill the chief to look through a catalog once in a while and order something new?”

I made a sympathetic noise in my throat.

He tilted his head, his eyes curious. “Your husband talk much to you about his cases?”

I nodded, not wanting to lie much more than that, though I added, “He doesn’t actually investigate cases anymore, being chief and all, but we talk about what’s going on.”

“You like listenin’ to him?”

“Sure. It’s interesting.”

“Wish my wife did. All she cares about is them dang pageants.”

“Pageants? You mean, like beauty pageants?”

He pulled a pack of Marlboro cigarettes out of his front shirt pocket. “Yeah, but for little girls. It’s our daughter she enters. Spends every spare penny we have on spangly
outfits and dance lessons.” His bottom lip grew tight when he stuck another cigarette in his mouth. It took three tries with his Zippo lighter to ignite it.

“You don’t like them?” I asked, trying to figure out a way to get the conversation back to the investigation.

“Between you and me, it gives me the creeps seeing all those sweet baby girls dressed up and struttin’ around like grown-up ladies.”

“I know what you mean. So, do you have a partner you can talk to about your cases?”

He shook his head no. “Chief doesn’t believe in partners. We rotate all the time, even from street to detective duty.”

“So who’s working on Toby Hunter’s case besides you?”