Merry Wives of Maggody (35 page)

“How long have you worked at Sunset Valley Manor?”

“Thirty years, give or take. My family lived across the street from the Wickets. Miss Rosalie was always good for a cookie and a glass of cold lemonade on a hot afternoon. Hold on a minute.”

She muffled her receiver and spoke to someone. When she came back on the line, she said, “It’s been real nice talking with you. Yesterday during visiting hours, someone snuck a bottle of scotch to Epiphany T. Jones. He’s hollering at the top of his lungs. You have a nice day, honey.”

I’d hoped to ask her more about the nephew, but I didn’t need to. My theory about how Frederick acquired the Imperial Crown Coupe made sense, although I didn’t know if Miss Rosalie had given it to him or he had simply taken it. He could renew the license plate every year on a Web site. He’d mentioned that his family had moved around a lot while he was a child. He could have been born in a different state, I supposed, but that meant he’d lied. It was challenging to come up with an explanation, especially when the truth was liable to be innocuous, as was his alibi for Saturday night.

I couldn’t construct a motive for him to have killed Tommy.

No one seemed to have a motive to kill Dennis—unless he had seen someone attack Tommy. If he had, then why hadn’t he told me? And according to Amanda, she and Dennis had returned to their motel room after the stoplight shoot-out.

Kathleen Wasson had been on her own at the significant time, I realized. I had no idea how long it actually took to drive to Tibia and back, or if she’d really gone there. Maybe Kale’s sacred blue shirt had been in the bottom of her suitcase. She’d lied to him because she wanted to spy on him. If she was pretending to be meek and drab, she was doing a damn fine job of it. I tried to imagine her face contorted by rage, her teeth bared, her arms wielding the golf club without mercy. She would have had to climb into the boat to attack Tommy, which meant she was packing a stepladder in her trunk. She’d hadn’t been at the wake when Dennis staggered out of the room, but she could have seen him go into Tommy’s. It was a hard sell, even for me.

I called Les again. Ignoring his groan, I said, “Can you get in touch with the police in Tibia and ask them to check with the Wassons’ neighbors? I need to know if anyone saw signs of activity at the house between nine and midnight on Saturday night.”

“You sure you don’t want me to rustle up a herd of singing cows?”

“Oooh, that’d be cool.”

“You were right about the bass boat, by the way. The original buyer was a scumbag who insists on being called ‘Da King.’ He’s doing time at the state prison for drug trafficking. He should be out on parole, but he tried to kill a guard with a broomstick last month. Da King isn’t going to regain his throne any time soon.”

I rewarded myself with a small smile. “Also, see if anyone knows how long it takes to drive between Tibia and Farberville.”

“Did young Kale rush home for a quickie with his girlfriend?”

“You think young Kale has a girlfriend?”

“I’ll get right on those singing cows,” Les said. “Do you want me to keep on Cartier’s birth certificate? The court house staff should be arriving soon.”

“This is more important. Let me know what you find out.” I fiddled with my notes until I could no longer put off the call to McBeen. My stomach began to roil as I dialed the number.

“What?” McBeen barked with his typical charm. “I told you not to call me, Chief Hanks.”

“And good morning to you, too,” I said. “Did you complete the autopsy on Dennis Gilbert?”

“Don’t you think I’d call you if I had?”

“No. You wouldn’t call me to tell me my hair was on fire. What about the autopsy on Dennis Gilbert?”

“I’ve got the preliminary report here somewhere. There were two car wrecks and a suicide over the weekend. Your guy died of blunt force trauma. Low priority, since I’m trying to establish the identity of the passenger in one of the wrecks. Dental records don’t help when the guy had no teeth. What’s more, he was fried to such a crisp that we can’t get a usable print and—”

“The blood work on Dennis Gilbert is all I need. I certainly wouldn’t want to distract you from more important cases.”

“Hold your horses. Here it is.” He cleared his throat to annoy me. “Blood alcohol was two point one. The Dilaudid… hmmm… quite impressive. I rarely see a level like this. Occasionally the police bring in a DOA, usually a filthy addict that smells to high heavens.”

“Please don’t make me drive over there and shake it out of you.”

“His level was extremely high, enough to kill him even without the alcohol. He was alive when he was beaten, but most likely comatose. I’d estimate he ingested a dozen pills.”

“He was beaten to death while he was unconscious?” I said.

“Definitely a waste of time and energy. Just like this conversation.”

I was appalled, but not surprised. Both victims were unable to defend themselves, Tommy because of his alcohol consumption and Dennis because of the overdose of Dilaudid. I was beginning to see the link between their deaths. Seeing, however, was not the same thing as proving. I returned to the issue of the bass boat, which was at the core of everything that had happened. Proodle produced the bomb; Tommy’s hole-in-one lit the fuse. The explosion had been fatal.

• • •

Estelle dragged Amanda into the barroom and settled her on a stool. “Order what ever you want. Ruby Bee won’t charge you on account of you being a widow and all. What’s more, I won’t say one word about all the long distance calls you made on my telephone last night and this morning. I don’t mind living on beans for the rest of the month. Just don’t start thinking everybody in the world is as charitable as I am.”

“I’m really, really sorry if I ran up your bill,” Amanda said meekly. “I couldn’t use my cell because there’s no signal out here. Once I get settled, I swear that I’ll reimburse you.”

“Don’t forget you used up a tank of gas.” Estelle folded her arms on the bar and stared in the mirror. Tendrils of hair were already falling loose from her beehive, and her lipstick was smudged.

There’d been no time for her to see to her own personal grooming, not with Amanda sending her to the motel room three times for different outfits and certain cosmetics she’d overlooked the day before. She herself had made less of a fuss on her high school prom night.

“Morning,” Ruby Bee said as she came behind the bar. “What do y’all want? I made blueberry muffins earlier, and they’re downright tasty.”

“Dry toast and black coffee,” Amanda said. “I don’t want to look like a black blimp at the funeral.”

“You’ve made the arrangements?”

“As best I can. Nothing can be finalized until Dennis’s body is released.” She grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and held it to the corner of one eye. “I’m thinking I’ll host a memorial reception at the club for him and Tommy at the same time. I hope the committee will let me scatter their ashes on the course, or at least in a water hazard.” She buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Estelle snorted. “You didn’t sound all broken up when you talked to that lawyer this morning. For a minute, I thought you were applying for a loan to buy a new car.”

Amanda looked up. “This was so unexpected that I’m in a financial pickle until the will is probated. There’s not much in the checking account, and I can’t cash Dennis’s paycheck without the station’s approval. My credit cards are maxed out. The lawyer’s going to call the bank and arrange for a short-term loan until the insurance company comes through. That could take months. In the meantime, I’ve got utility bills, club membership dues, my personal trainer…”

“You might need to get a job,” Ruby Bee said ruthlessly.

Amanda grabbed a fistful of napkins. “What would my friends think? I’d rather die than be caught behind a counter selling perfume. I have no secretarial skills, no computer training. I can’t expect the TV station to hire me out of pity. I’m not about to end up in a menial pink-collar job.”

Estelle glanced at her, then said, “I’ll have sausage and eggs, grits, hash browns, and one of your blueberry muffins.”

“Coming right up,” Ruby Bee said.

• • •

I needed a script that might provoke my suspects into indiscreet admissions. The golf tournament tent would have to serve as my drawing room. Frederick would be offended if I asked him to play the butler, and Mrs. Jim Bob would throw a hissy fit if I suggested that we sip brandy during my grand denouement. I practiced arching an eyebrow as I pointed an accusatory finger, but my eyebrow refused to participate and my finger quivered. My denouement was doomed to be second-rate.

At ten o’clock, I called the sheriff’s office. LaBelle answered crisply, as if she were sitting at the reception desk of a powerful corporation, coordinating calls between foreign dignitaries and high-ranking government officials.

“I thought you were in the throes of post-traumatic stress syndrome,” I said. “Bedridden, on oxygen, sipping broth with a compress on your fevered brow.”

“State your business.”

“For Harve’s ears only,” I said.

“In regard to what?”

“I’m going to be his secret Santa this Christmas. I want to ask him about his tie collection.”

LaBelle paused. “Why doncha call back when you have something significant to report. If you hadn’t staged your little golf tournament, Harve would have been here when the fire broke out. I can still feel the terror when the smoke billowed out the door like an evil demon. It’s a miracle I didn’t faint on the spot. Why, I had the most horrible nightmare Saturday—”

“Please let me speak to Harve before I lose my mind and stuff cotton balls between my toes,” I said. “That would be worse than a nightmare.”

She abruptly put me through to Harve. I told him what I intended to do. He guffawed at first, but quieted down as I went into detail. “Bring a couple of deputies with you,” I concluded.

“The doughnuts will be stale, but the fireworks will not be a disappointment.”

“Unless they fizzle out,” he said. “Oh, and Les has been doing your busywork. He said to tell you that a neighbor saw Mrs. Wasson arrive at her house around ten o’clock Saturday night. Tibia’s about an hour and a half from Farberville. There was something else, but I disremember…” A match scritched, followed by a contented sigh. “Now it’s coming to me. There ain’t no birth certificates for anyone named Cartier in Mississippi. Les said to tell you that you owe him a mai tai, what ever the hell that is.”

With two umbrellas and an extra maraschino cherry. I made a necessary notation, stashed my thick pile of yellow papers, and went over to Ruby Bee’s Bar & Grill. When I got there, I detoured behind the building and noted that Tommy’s battered Mercedes and Amanda’s glistening Jaguar were the only two cars parked in front of the units. Everyone else was at the golf tournament, trudging through the untamed rough or trying to fish golf balls out of bottomless puddles. The snakes and mosquitoes would be invigorated from the heavy rain. Homeless hornets would be buzzing angrily. I hoped Mrs. Jim Bob had designated a first aid committee.

I sat in a booth to avoid the necessity of conversation with my mother. The idea of another muffin made me queasy, and my presence seemed to make her queasy as well. The dance floor looked larger than a basketball court. The neon beer signs reflected red and yellow hues on it, as if it were a desert at sunrise. The trucker Bedouins, exhausted after their trek to the oasis, slurped coffee.

It was more challenging to cast Estelle in the role of a scrawny belly dancer. One of these days, I reminded myself, my belly would be dancing a jig of its own accord.

I finally forced myself to go up to the bar and sit on a stool near Estelle’s roost. “Where’s Amanda?” I asked.

“I’m not her babysitter,” Estelle answered tartly. “You’d think I was her servant from the way she’s been acting. She didn’t want coffee, and then she didn’t want tea. Her split ends looked like straw. She had to try three different shades of fingernail polish before she was satisfied. She’d just die on the spot if she had to drink tap water. Was she getting a blackhead on the side of her nose? Her white skirt was too white, her blue skirt was too short. Did her shorts make her butt look fat? Yammer, yammer, yammer. She spent more time on the phone than I do in a month of Sundays, and then some. I was ready to—”

“She’s at the tournament,” Ruby Bee cut in. “She caught a ride with Kathleen Wasson and Kale. She said she might as well work on her tan as hang around Estelle’s all day.”

“Eating ice cream,” the beleaguered hostess said with a snort.

“She had me go to the SuperSaver and buy her some with exotic names like Mucho Mocha and Creme de Menthe Parfait. Four dollars for a little bitty carton that ain’t more than a couple of spoonfuls.”

I wished I had a gallon of each. It was too early for the final round to be anywhere near completed, but I drove up the road and parked behind Mrs. Jim Bob’s pink Cadillac. The tables beneath the tent were sparsely occupied. None of the previous day’s moochers and spectators had dared to risk another dose of Mrs. Jim Bob’s venom. The buffet table was down to an aluminum coffee urn, a stack of cups, and an empty doughnut box. Roy was reading the
Stump County Courier
, a treasure trove of inane articles and photographs of Little League teams. Darla Jean had stacked her shoe boxes and was sitting with a few of the involuntary volunteers from the high school. Proodle was slumped at one table, his hands clasped as if he were lost in prayer. Lottie Estes was armed with a clipboard, but she didn’t seem to have anything to do. There were fewer than thirty competitors left, and most of them were already on the course. Joyce, Bopeep, Audley, and one of the college boys were on the first tee.

“How’s it going?” I asked Lottie.

“Just fine, thank you. This is the last foursome. Mrs. Jim Bob decided she ought to get an early start so she could be back in time to get ready for the presentation ceremony. I assured her that I was quite capable, since I’ve taught home ec for more than forty years. When I began, the girls were so polite and eager to learn how to become homemakers, but these days they think that all they have to do is operate a micro wave. They don’t even know how to make popcorn on a stove.”