Divas Do Tell (17 page)

“Run,” I shouted at her, “Dixie Lee, run!”

Honestly, the woman had no more sense of self-preservation than a goat. She just stood there with her mouth slightly open and her eyes bugging out. Allison Cramer struggled to her feet and grabbed for the bat. I put my foot down on the bat as hard as I could, while Bitty leaped into action.

Yelling, “Stop it,” she swung her heavy Jimmy Choo purse in a wide arc and smacked Allison upside the head with it. Allison staggered sideways, but the bat stayed under my foot. I bent to grab it real quick before the woman recovered. When Allison regained her balance she turned on Bitty. I held up the baseball bat.

“You don’t want to do that,” I warned. My heart pounded in my chest so hard it felt like a whole set of bongo drums. My mouth was dry, my palms sweaty, and I just knew I was going to have to hit that woman with the bat before this was over with.

Fortunately, a crew member working on the set saw what was going on and came running. He took the bat from me, gave Allison a push away when she started toward Bitty, and said he was calling the cops. That seemed to shock Allison to some kind of sense. She sucked in a deep breath and blinked.

The crew member, a huge guy with horn-rimmed glasses and shoulders as wide as Bitty’s car hefted the bat over his shoulder and held up his cell phone. “I know nine-one-one,” he said. That settled Allison’s indecision.

She looked at Dixie Lee, said “This isn’t over,” but walked away.

I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank you. I thought I was going to have to hit her with that thing, and I didn’t want to.”

He grinned. “No problem. Do you want the bat back?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s hers. Don’t give it to her.”

Dixie Lee finally moved from the spot where she’d put down roots and came toward us. “That was so brave,” she said, and looked up at the crew guy with admiration. “Thank you for saving me.”

Bitty, never one to be ignored, said sharply, “You can thank me and Trinket for that, too. Allison would have bashed your head in by now if we hadn’t been here. Honestly, Dixie Lee, you don’t have the sense of a gnat standing there waiting for her to brain you with a bat.”

She looked startled. “Oh. Yes. Thank you. I was scared to death when I saw her coming toward me. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Try running next time,” Bitty said. “Come on, Trinket. We have to go.”

We turned around to get in the car just in time to see two of the photo-journalists clicking away with their cameras pointed in our direction. Then one of them started toward us. We did what any sensible person would do in such a situation: we ran like dogs, leaving Dixie Lee to fend for herself.

By the time the Mercedes was parked in her driveway I had begun to see the humor in the ordeal. I snickered. Bitty looked over at me, and I said, “Did you see her face when Allison came at her with the bat?”

Bitty nodded. “Yes. Her eyes bugged out like a frog’s. I bet her fancy drawers have to be wrung out. And there you were yelling—
‘Run, Forrest, run!’
”

We started to laugh. Once we started we couldn’t stop. By the time I was breathless and wheezing Bitty had tears running down her face. As we sat there it started to rain again. The windows fogged up, and we finally got out of the car and ran for the back door. Bitty’s three-car garage isn’t attached to the house. It was a carriage house in the early part of the last century. Sometimes Bitty leaves the back door unlocked. She has an alarm system that she uses at random moments, although more often since she’s had an intruder or two in the past year.

A screen porch/sunroom that was built as a kitchen back in the days when kitchens weren’t inside houses was open, and we stood there for a few moments shaking rain out of our hair and clothes. Bitty’s hair is like a helmet, impenetrable by anything less than a heat-seeking missile. Mine is more like squirrel fur. It lies flat on my head, and I usually keep it back in a ponytail unless there’s a chance I might run into Kit. Then I leave it loose and brushing my shoulders. Since I’ve been keeping a color on my hair lately, I no longer look so much like I’m wearing a squirrel on my head, but there are still occasions when the resemblance is much too close for comfort.

Bitty had actually remembered to set her alarm so punched in the code on the keypad on the wall just inside the kitchen door from the sunroom. It’s a sunroom in winter. In the summer it’s a screened-in porch. Bitty changes her house to suit the seasons, just like putting her pug in a new outfit.

Winter in Holly Springs is usually limited to cold days and rain, with the occasional flurry of snow or ice just to make things interesting. We rarely have snowfall anymore. Global warming can be fickle, however, so there’s always hope.

“Stay for dinner, Trinket,” said Bitty. “We can eat early so you’ll get home in time to take care of Aunt Anna’s dog and cats.”

“Oh, I don’t know. What do you have?”

“Chicken parmigiana. Or pork roast. Whichever one you want. I can pop one in the oven or the microwave.”

“What would you do without Sharita? I swear, you’d starve to death.”

“I know. I’d have to learn to cook or order take-out all the time. Then I’d end up gaining weight and looking just awful. I do think Miranda has lost a lot more weight, don’t you?”

“She has,” I agreed. “I wonder if she knows her teacup pig is going to end up weighing as much as she does?”

Bitty’s eyes got huge. “No! Really?”

I nodded. “Yep. Miranda said she was told Chitling would only weigh around forty or fifty pounds when she reaches adulthood. The reality is closer to a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds. After all, it’s still a pig.”

“Hunh,” Bitty sniffed, “Miranda hasn’t seen a hundred and fifty pounds since she was in third grade.”

I smiled. Trust Bitty to go right to the heart of the matter.

We chattered and gossiped as Bitty took a fully cooked pork roast out of the freezer and slid it into a baking dish. Sharita had put vegetables and new potatoes in another freezer container, and we put that in the microwave once the pork roast was done. After we ate, Bitty lit the fire in her parlor, and we fixed Irish coffee.

Since mine had extra whipped cream with a cherry on top, while Bitty’s had extra whisky with a cherry on top, I was still licking the white stuff off my upper lip when the doorbell rang. Chitling is an excellent guard dog. She immediately began yodeling right along with the doorbell. It reminded me of an episode of
Golden Girls
when Rose installed a doorbell that sounded like a dozen barking dogs to scare off her stalker. Bitty’s one pug sounds like Rose’s doorbell.

In a minute Bitty returned with Jackson Lee trailing behind her. Jackson Lee is tall, dark, very handsome, and Italian. Bitty is short, blonde and voluptuous. I often call her Mississippi’s version of Dolly Parton. She calls me a Delta Burke knock-off. Then we smile at each other.

Jackson Lee, being an attorney, is capable of masking his emotions very well. Except when he’s gazing at my cousin with utter adoration that borders on idiocy; he wasn’t doing that, so I knew something was up.

“Evening, Trinket,” he greeted me. “How are you tonight?”

“I’m fine, Jackson Lee. And you?”

“A little damp from the rain but not too bad. Are your parents doing well?”

“I haven’t heard from them yet, so I’m assuming they’re just fine. And thank you again for being so kind as to track them down. As you know, I was near hysteria.”

“I’m glad I could help. Here, sugar. You sit down. I’ve been sitting all day.”

Bitty sat on the edge of her overstuffed chair and gazed up at him. She knew something was up, too. All the Southern courtesies behind us now, he put a hand on Bitty’s shoulder and glanced over at me.

“You’re going to hear about this soon, so I want you to hear it from me—no, sugar. Your boys are just fine. You know I’d tell you if they weren’t. This isn’t about any of your children.”

As mothers, Bitty and I always fear the worst. Having something happen to your child is the most horrible thing that can happen to a woman. Jackson Lee cleared his throat.

“I’m just going to say it straight out—there’s been another murder.”

Bitty reached for her Irish coffee, and I asked, “Who? And what do you mean—
another
?”

“Her name is Abby Bloom, and she’s an assistant to Simon Donato, the director. Her body was found in a downstairs bathroom at Montrose just a short time ago.”

My head swam. I’d just seen her only a couple of hours before—how could she be dead?

I didn’t ask that. Instead I asked, “Who is the other victim?”

“Billy Joe Cramer.”

After a moment of shocked silence Bitty said, “Billy Joe committed suicide.”

“Not according to the coroner. He couldn’t have fired the fatal shot. Billy Joe was murdered.”

Chapter 10

IT WAS ALL OVER Holly Springs like wildfire—Billy Joe Cramer had been murdered, and one of the Hollywood people had been bludgeoned to death in the bathroom at Montrose. All production had come to a halt for the time being. Sandra Brady was pretty shaken by Abby’s murder.

“I’d just talked to her,” she said, her hand trembling as she held on to her coffee cup. We sat in a corner at Budgie’s café. “She was in the kitchen when I went to get a cold drink. All those lights . . . it gets so hot sometimes, even in the winter. Abby was stressed out, as usual. It’s always this way on a shoot. I think she was much too young to be Key PA. There’s so much pressure, and if one thing goes wrong or is forgotten, it can cause a lot more work. Simon’s a great director, but he’s demanding. Most of the good ones are.”

Bitty, Gaynelle, Rayna, and I just let her ramble on. Sometimes the best thing you can do for people in shock or grief is to just listen. Let them talk it out, whether it’s about the person who died or something entirely random. Just—listen.

Sandra put one hand to her brow, looking so distraught I felt very badly for her. “What’ll her family do? Abby helped them so much. She’s the oldest of five kids, the only one with a steady job, and she sent money home every month. Her mother’s in a nursing home . . . it’s so awful. It’s just so awful.”

Tears ran freely down her cheeks. Bitty handed her a tissue. “Oh, Sandra, I didn’t know. Abby was always so busy, and I didn’t get a chance to really talk to her. She seemed very sweet, though.”

Sandra nodded as she wiped her face with the tissue. “She was sweet. Probably too sweet. But young girls can make such bad choices sometimes, you know?”

Rayna and I exchanged glances, and I saw Gaynelle nod understanding. Apparently Abby had a boyfriend. Was he a member of the crew? An actor? Buck Prentiss was close to Abby’s age. Could it be him? The choices were many.

It was Gaynelle who asked delicately, “Was she seeing someone on the crew, and perhaps there was a lover’s quarrel?”

Sandra gazed at her for a moment then looked down at her hands and said softly, “If it’s not common knowledge I don’t want to be the one to say anything.”

In my experience, anyone who says they don’t want to be the one to say anything really does. So I wasn’t surprised when Bitty leaned across the table and said just as softly, “Oh, honey, it’s okay. You’re among friends.” We all nodded agreement, leaning forward eagerly.

Sandra bit her lower lip. Her eyes were red and puffy and her nose red, too. She didn’t look at all like a famous movie star. Maybe that was why we felt so comfortable with her. Sandra was one of us. She could be our neighbor or best friend. She sighed and looked around at us.

“Most of the crew know about it, but of course, since you’re not on the crew you may not have heard the behind-the-scenes gossip. Abby and Simon have been seeing each other for a while. Or
were
seeing each other, I suppose I should say now.” She hiccupped and pressed the tissue to her mouth.

“Didn’t Abby know he’s married?” asked Gaynelle.

“Honey, everyone in the business knows he’s married. I told you how Tasha tracked him down and threw a big fit on the set, accused him of having an affair. He always has affairs with one of his stars. But of course Simon wasn’t even at Montrose when it happened. He was doing a location shoot at Darcy’s old house. He wasn’t anywhere near Abby when she was found.”

“Who found her?” I asked.

“One of the crew. Jason something. They’d finished shooting and everyone left. He went back to get his backpack, decided to use the bathroom, and couldn’t get the door all the way open. From what I understand, he saw her lying on the floor. They had to take the door off the hinges to get to her.”

“So she must have still been alive when the killer left,” said Rayna.

Sandra looked at her with wide eyes. “What do you mean?”

“If she’d been dead and lying on the floor, the killer couldn’t have gotten out. Not if the door had to be taken off the hinges because she’d fallen in front of it. Bathroom doors open inward.”

“I never thought of that. Poor Abby. She must have lain there knowing she was dying and unable to do anything—oh God.” Sandra burst into tears again, and we did our best to comfort her.

When she’d calmed down a bit Gaynelle said, “I’m sure the police will investigate thoroughly. We may not have the sophisticated equipment a lot of bigger cities have, but our police are very good. I know they’ll find Abby’s killer and bring him to justice.”