Miss Ruffles Inherits Everything (15 page)

Sensibly, Gracie said, “Maybe it's a joke. When all the students left the football game, they came straight into town to drown their sorrows. Maybe on their way here, someone saw her and grabbed her. You know how college kids get when they're drunk.”

“I hadn't thought of that.” A fraternity prank. Hope dawned inside me. A freshman stunt, maybe.

“Let's go ask around.” She checked her watch and began pulling the hot rollers from her hair. “Just give me a sec.”

I grabbed her arm. “We can't tell anybody she's gone. We have to keep this a secret.”

“We'll just see if anybody's talking about her.” She found a hairbrush and fixed her hair in a mirror, then lacquered it with spray. She muttered, “If I had better hair, I bet Rico would notice me. My problem is, it's always older guys who like what they see.”

She locked the shop and took me around the corner to a college bar called the Last Chance Saloon. Inside, the jukebox was playing a country song by a singer who yodeled. Maybe a hundred students jammed close to the bar—all in shorts and Alamo T-shirts and yodeling along, their football team's humiliating loss forgotten already.

Gracie dragged me through the mob.

“Hey, Rico!” She planted her bosom on the bar to get the bartender's attention.

Rico Vega glanced her way, but kept his face neutral as he finished filling a pitcher from the tap. So much for good hair and cantaloupes. He plunked the pitcher on a damp tray before pushing it across the bar to the waitress, then wiped his hands on a bar towel and finally headed over to us. Rico had thick, strong shoulders and black curly hair. His face was secretive—dark brows, pug nose, square jaw, hooded eyes. An earring glittered in one lobe.

Gracie smiled brightly. “Anyone mention seeing a loose dog around?”

Rico snapped to attention and turned to me. “You mean Miss Ruffles? She ran off?”

So much for keeping secrets. I reached to shake his hand. “Hi, I'm Sunny. Don't spread it around, okay? Have you seen her? Or heard anybody talking about her?”

“I'm Rico. I've seen you running with Miss Ruffles.” He shook his head, his gaze on mine. “Believe me, if she was running around loose, she'd be the hot topic around here. Everybody knows she bit President Cornfelter.”

Gracie was adjusting her long hair to better showcase her cleavage. “Sunny's afraid she might be—”

I cut Gracie off before she revealed too much more. “I'm just worried she might get injured.”

Rico nodded. “My grandpa had a cattle cur once. It ran off all the time. What's your cell number? If I hear anything, I can call you.” He passed a cocktail napkin and his ballpoint across the bar.

I quickly wrote my number on the napkin. “Thanks. Thanks very much.”

“Sure.”

Gracie grabbed the napkin and scribbled. “Here's mine, too. You know, in case you can't reach Sunny.”

“Yeah, okay.” Rico took the napkin and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. “Good luck.”

A minute later, Gracie and I were out on the sidewalk again, just in time to see a big car stop at the light on the corner. Not the Blues Brothers car, but a red sedan. A group of students eddied around the car, chanting a football cheer that suggested the worst thing an opponent could be was a native of Alabama.

The driver of the red sedan glanced our way, and through the crowd of students, I found myself making eye contact with Posie Hensley behind the wheel. Posie, the lizard.

Posie's gaze widened on mine. A second later, she floored the accelerator, sending students scrambling. Her car screeched around the corner and disappeared in a hurry. The students shouted after her, but she didn't stop.

I realized I was shaking again. My adrenaline was back. Fight or flight.

“Wow.” Gracie stared after the car. “Wasn't that Posie Hensley? She got out of here in a hurry. Does she have an emergency sorority meeting or something?”

I swung on her. “You know Posie? Is she a customer?”

“Her, buy secondhand clothes? No, but she comes to our office now and then. Old Mr. Tennyson is big into fund-raising for the university, so he has committee meetings at the office. She's always standing by my desk to make calls to her kids. She hardly lets them ride a bike for fear they'll break their fingernails.”

For no reason, I said, “She doesn't like me much.”

“How come?”

I didn't know why, and I didn't know why I'd brought it up. I could feel my brain starting to dissolve again. I tried to gather my wits. “Gracie, could you take a walk down the street and look for Miss Ruffles for me? I'll go around the corner and look for her on the next couple of blocks. Meet you back here in fifteen minutes? I want to be sure she's not just running free.”

Gracie hesitated. In her face, I could see her concern for me, but she checked her watch before making a decision. “Sure, can't hurt. Make it twenty minutes, okay? I have to turn off the lights in the shop first. I may not have much inventory, but it would be just my luck for a bunch of drunk students to bust in when my back is turned.”

“I'm sorry,” I said with all sincerity. “I shouldn't have bothered you. Especially not on your birthday—”

“Of course you should have. I always wanted to be part of a posse.”

We split up, and I hurried up the street in the gathering darkness.

 

CHAPTER TEN

Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's rainin'.

—SOUTHERN WARNING

I left behind the busy bars full of students and the cacophony of music. This end of town was quieter. I looked under parked cars and into shrubbery, softly calling Miss Ruffles in the faint hope that she'd escaped. Or been taken by students who maybe tied her to a tree somewhere once they sobered up.

I passed the old Victorian house that had been refurbished into law offices. The lighted sign in the front yard said
TENNYSON AND TENNYSON, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.
As I passed by, a light suddenly flashed on in an upstairs window, telling me someone had just come to work on a Saturday evening. Since the senior partners were on vacation, I could guess who. I hurried past the house.

Next to the law office, the Baptist church was blazing with light. From inside I could hear choir practice. I circled behind the church and went through its small picnic grove—a cool, shady place where Miss Ruffles and I had rested on a few of our walks. Maybe she had escaped her captors and come here? But no. Someone had left a beer bottle and a crumpled pack of cigarettes on one of the tables, but there were no other signs that anyone had been here recently. I kept going and soon found myself in the back parking lot of Gamble's funeral home.

The lot was lit by a pair of elegant gas lamps. A bunch of yucca plants ran around the perimeter, so I went poking through them, whispering for the dog.

A few minutes into my search, I heard one of the funeral home's doors open. Instinctively, I faded back to the bushes. That's when I noticed a silver Cadillac parked in the building's portico. It was the same vehicle I had seen Mr. Gamble driving the day he'd stopped to invite Honeybelle to lunch in Dallas. Tonight the car was empty.

I saw a male figure step out of the doorway and move toward the Cadillac. He was lugging something bulky in one hand. With the chirp of a key fob, the Cadillac's trunk popped open, and a light glowed from inside.

The man hoisted his load into the trunk, and I saw it was a suitcase. He raised his hand to close the lid, but first glanced furtively around. A bank robber couldn't have looked more guilty. He almost missed seeing me, but his head swiveled back, and he froze against the side of his car.

It was Mr. Gamble himself. Not on vacation at all, but here in Mule Stop. He spotted me in the shadows. I couldn't pretend I didn't see him.

At my approach, he jumped in fright. Only when he caught sight of the empty leash in my hand did he stop himself from running back into the funeral home for safety. He sagged with relief and managed a smile for me. “Miss McKillip! For a second, I thought you had Miss Ruffles with you.” He made his voice sound friendly.

“I'm so sorry to have startled you,” I said. “Miss Ruffles is … well, you're safe.”

“She makes me a little nervous. I could have been the one she bit, you know.”

“She likes you. Well, tolerates you.” I took a careful look at his suitcase and decided Miss Ruffles couldn't fit inside. It was a garment bag, too thin to hold a dog.

Mr. Gamble had a penguinlike but surprisingly graceful figure that gave him the air of an aging ballroom dance instructor. I was surprised to see him wearing an improbable Hawaiian shirt printed with surfer girls and palm trees. His shorts showed bandy legs and hiking sandals.

Seeing my glance, he self-consciously touched his shirt with one hand, and his fingers wandered nervously upward as if to check that all the buttons were fastened. “Uh, I'm going out of town for a few days. I need to get away. After Honeybelle, you see…”

“It's been a shock for everyone,” I agreed.

“Yes, a shock. My nephew has come up from Amarillo to take over the business for a while. I'm going … I'm headed to a convention. About disaster preparation.”

“Honeybelle mentioned you helped her with her storm shelter.”

“She should keep more water,” he said, then corrected himself. “Should have kept more water. There's nothing more important than having a substantial water supply in an emergency.”

I should have been worried about Miss Ruffles. But here was the man who could answer the questions that had bothered me ever since Honeybelle passed away. “I'm puzzled about some things, Mr. Gamble.”

“About emergency preparation?”

“No, about Honeybelle's death. It seems—I don't know—odd that she died so suddenly of a heart attack. She seemed very healthy. She never mentioned any heart problem.”

“Heart attacks can come out of nowhere,” he said, assuming his professional demeanor.

“Well, yes, but she was simply sitting in the car, not chopping wood or running a marathon. It just doesn't seem possible … I mean, I wonder if she might have been poisoned, and it just looked like a heart attack.”

“I did not perform an autopsy, if that's what you're asking. That's not my job. If something looks suspicious, I telephone the hospital in Lubbock, and they send an ambulance to transport her for a thorough autopsy. But Honeybelle's passing was perfectly ordinary. She died of natural causes. We should all hope to go as quickly as Honeybelle. No suffering, just a quick end.” He seemed to realize he was babbling. “It was tragic, that's all.”

“Yes, but … Look, is there a chance she could have been—I mean, could there have been foul play?”

“Foul play?' He was astonished.

“Could she have been … murdered?”

“Murdered! Why would you say such a thing? What a terrible idea.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but—”

“Not just crazy. Impossible. She … she had a simple, run-of-the-mill, everyday heart attack.”

“Could she have been poisoned? Or given some kind of drug that caused that sudden heart attack?”

“Of course not!”

“She was cremated so quickly. Maybe too quickly. It seems—”

“What are you suggesting?” He stiffened with increasing anger. “Are you doubting my professional judgment?”

“No, no.” I was too upset to realize my mistake until it was too late. I backpedaled as fast as I could. “You're the only person I could think to ask, that's all. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be insulting.”

“Well,” he said, agitated and sweating profusely. “Well. I have to be going.”

“Sorry. I didn't mean to keep you. I just—”

He closed the trunk. “Good night, Miss McKillip.”

“All right, yes. Enjoy your trip.” I stood back and watched Mr. Gamble climb into his car and start the engine.

People are always getting warned about unscrupulous funeral directors who might try to coerce the grieving into spending extra money on a big casket. Mr. Gamble didn't seem like the shady kind.

Until tonight. As soon as he'd seen me, he'd broken into a sweat. And as Mr. Gamble drove out of his own parking lot—a parking lot he'd been exiting for decades—his front tire hit the curb and jumped onto the sidewalk. He accelerated with a squeal of tires.

I had shaken him up with my questions about Honeybelle. And it wasn't just a matter of doubting his professional opinion. Suddenly I wondered if he had owed money to Honeybelle like so many other local businesses. I didn't remember seeing his name among the checks that came in the mail, but maybe Honeybelle had taken care of those herself.

Tonight, Mr. Gamble sure looked like a man trying to get out of town fast.

 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Speak your mind, but ride a fast horse.

—COWBOY STRATEGY

My fear for Miss Ruffles doubling, I retraced my steps through the grove and past the church, just as a warbling tenor hit a sour note in praise of the spangled heavens. I reached the dark patch of sidewalk in front of the Tennyson and Tennyson office. The front door slammed, and I cursed myself for coming this direction. I was caught under the streetlamp.

But it wasn't Ten who came striding toward me on the sidewalk. Instead, I recognized Hannibal Cornfelter. He spotted me, and his confident step faltered.

Then he put on his most professional smile and kept coming up the sidewalk. When he spotted the leash knotted up in my hand, he caught his toe on the walk.

The manila folder he'd been carrying went flying and landed at my feet, its contents halfway spilling out onto the sidewalk.

Instinctively, I bent to pick up the folder. It was full of legal-looking documents. The top of one sheet read: “How to fill out a
Divorce Petition
.”