Drop Dead Divas, page 6
One of Rayna's extracurricular activities includes the use of her dog as a search and rescue animal. It’s a noble endeavor, and quite useful when someone goes missing in Holly Springs National Forest or over at Lake Chewalla. There are vast stretches of real estate in Mississippi occupied only by deer, rabbits, raccoons, and armadillos. It’s easy enough to get lost if you aren’t familiar with the area. Sometimes, even if you are.
At any rate, when Jinx isn’t searching for a lost child or a drunken hunter, he’s more likely to be looking for a stray hambone or hot dog. Most dogs I’ve known are highly-motivated by food. Which can be a very useful bit of trivia to know, by the way.
So while I played fetch with Jinx, Rayna and Bitty continued proposing various scenarios that involved Trina, Naomi, and Race.
“Race could have made a date with Trina, and Naomi just showed up,” Rayna suggested. “Surely he wouldn’t be dumb enough to take Naomi to Madewell Courts right under Trina’s nose.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” Bitty adjusted Chen Ling in her sling so the sun wouldn’t get in the dog’s eyes. “The man could be absolutely oblivious to anything but what he wanted. He liked to show off, too. He just loved having lots of women flock around him, even when he was on a date with someone else. I wouldn’t stand for that, I’ll tell you that much.”
“So if he did take Naomi to Madewell Courts, and Trina found out and made a scene . . . would she just stand there and let Naomi shoot him?”
“For that matter, if he was with Trina and Naomi found them together and shot him, why hasn’t Naomi told the police who the other woman was?”
“Maybe because then Trina would be an eye-witness against her.”
“Then why hasn’t Trina told the police what she saw? Unless,” Bitty said with a sudden jerk of her hand that made Chen Ling bark, “Race was with a man!”
“Trisha,” I heard myself blurt out, “maybe he was with Trina’s sister Trisha!”
I hadn’t meant to say it, not really, but the back and forth between the two of them had driven me to it. Or maybe just having that choice bit of gossip was more than my resolve could take. Mama would be so disappointed.
Both of them turned to look at me.
“Trinket Truevine, what do you know that we don’t?” Bitty demanded.
I gave up petting Jinx, who seemed to get over my defection quickly, and sat back down at the garden table. Tall glasses of lemonade had been served, and I took a drink of mine before I answered.
“I’m not supposed to pass this on—”
“I hope you don’t think for a minute you’ll get away with that,” said Bitty.
I shook my head. “Of course not. I’m just explaining why I haven’t said anything until now. Mama told me not to.”
“Aunt Anna said he was with Trisha?” Bitty sounded disbelieving and I couldn’t blame her. It’s not like my mother to gossip. Or didn’t used to be.
“Apparently Mama witnessed Trina and Trisha arguing in the church parking lot on Atonement Day. She must have had a ringside seat, because she heard everything they said.”
Bitty rolled her eyes. “That day was a disaster. I think it caused two divorces. But why didn’t I hear about Trina and Trisha’s argument before now? You’d think someone would have heard it besides Aunt Anna.”
“If they did, they’ve kept it to themselves,” I said. “Anyway, Trina and Trisha both found out they were dating Race at the same time, and neither of them were happy about it.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Mama said they went so far as hair-pulling.”
“Was that a wig Trina was wearing?” Bitty wondered, looking from me to Rayna and back. “Maybe that’s why her hair looked so dreadful. And her make-up! She made me think of a circus clown, which was a bit scary. You know I’ve always been afraid of clowns.”
Ignoring Bitty’s sidebar, Rayna said, “This is getting even more complicated. If we go under the assumption Naomi is innocent—which I don’t believe—then we have not one, but two more suspects who may have had reason to kill Race.”
“Heavens,” said Bitty as she unlatched Chitling from her chest and lowered her to the grass, “even I had a reason to kill Race Champion. He was obnoxious. There now, my precious, go over there and poo-poo for Mommy.”
The last was directed to the dog. I hope.
“Bitty,” Rayna reproved, “you shouldn’t say things like that. Which reminds me, did you really tell Naomi Spencer that you want to strangle her?”
Startled, Bitty looked up from depositing a reluctant pug on the garden lawn. “If you mean at Budgie’s, I didn’t get a chance to say it to her. I said it about her. How did you hear about it?”
“Everyone in the café heard it, no doubt,” I said in annoyance. “I told you that your voice carries.”
“Are you saying I have a big mouth?”
I considered that for a moment, then shook my head. “Not any bigger than normal, I suppose.”
“Somehow, that’s not very comforting. I think I’ve just been insulted.”
I picked up a folded napkin and fanned myself with it. “My, my, it’s so vairy, vairy wahm out heah,” I said in an exaggerated southern drawl, which made Bitty smile in spite of herself. Since we were kids we’d used that trick to change subjects when in tight conversational spots.
Just to keep us even, she said something rude to me, and we both smiled.
Rayna shook her head. “You two are getting scary. Maybe it’s all this talk about murder. Let’s go inside where it’s cooler. I hate to think what the rest of summer will be like if it’s already this hot.”
Summer in Mississippi is always hot. We just have varying degrees of hot. There is warm, such as afternoon temperatures in the eighties; there is hot, such as afternoon temperatures in the nineties; and then there is scorching, such as afternoon temps at the three-digit level. June had already seen an unseasonable scorcher or two. If it kept up, by July 4th Marshall County would be a red sand desert with no green grass in sight. Except for Bitty’s lawn. She has automatic sprinklers.
Rayna's house, the Delta Inn, is a lovely nineteenth century hotel that had fallen into disrepair at one time. As so many buildings and homes, it was scheduled to be torn down and replaced by weeds and forlorn footings, but Rayna and Rob had taken a liking to it and saved it from the wrecking ball. The lobby of the inn still has lots of marble and ornate fireplace mantles, which I’m sure the salvage company still regrets not getting their hands on. Stuff like that sells at flea markets, antique fairs, and on the Internet for incredible prices.
They are slowly refurbishing the interior, and Rayna uses the lobby as her artist’s studio since it has plenty of natural light. It has a unique domed skylight on the roof, and floor to ceiling windows on the north, east, and west sides. Potted tropical plants grow to enormous size, and you can usually find a cat or two sleeping under a gigantic leaf as big as a beach umbrella. The former baggage room makes a discreet cattery, complete with litter trays, food bowls, and small dishes with running water. Rob and Rayna have no children, so the animals receive the benefit of their time and attention.
Behind the lobby is an industrial size kitchen with all the amenities. Rayna cooks gourmet meals when she isn’t busy painting and selling canvases of a wide variety of subjects. A lot of the paintings feature her animals or garden and sell quite well locally and at small gallery showings. She really is a woman of many talents.
“How many of the upstairs rooms do you have done?” Bitty asked when we were all sitting at what used to be the check-in counter but is now a breakfast bar of sorts.
“Just two. Rob has been so busy lately investigating insurance claims, and when he isn’t doing that, he’s busy bailing somebody out of jail. So it’s been difficult to put much time into renovation. We’ll get it done one day.”
“Are you going to do like the Madewells and rent out rooms?”
Rayna shuddered. “Lord, no! Can you imagine me in my painter’s smock trying to change beds for new guests? It’d be a mess.”
“True.” Bitty readjusted Chen Ling in the baby sling she wore across her chest as a constant accessory. I suppose that’s why the slings are always in matching colors and suitably fancied up. “I didn’t mean it when I told Trina that I’ve thought about renting out rooms at Six Chimney’s, you know,” said Bitty as if telling us something we didn’t already know. “I just said that to make her feel comfortable.”
“Have you heard from her since she tore out of your house like a cat with its tail on fire?” asked Rayna.
“Not even a phone call, much less a written note. Really. People have no manners these days, have you noticed? No one observes the social graces anymore.”
“Good god,” I said. “Count yourself lucky she didn’t take home the silver as she left. You’d be amazed at the things people do in hotels.”
“I had forgotten you used to work in the hospitality industry, Trinket.” Rayna poured me another glass of lemonade. She makes the old-fashioned kind of lemonade with juicy lemon slices crushed in sugar and ice, and fresh mint added to give it a zing. Her garden is overflowing with different kinds of mint and herbs. Rayna has a green thumb, too. As I said before, a woman of many talents. “I suppose there were a lot of things taken when the guests left. Towels, soap, things like that?”
“If we didn’t nail the paintings to the wall, they would be missing. Towels, lamps, shower curtains, silverware, dishes—once a guest took the toilet seat. Don’t ask me how he got it off. He must have checked in a tool box inside his luggage.”
“Was that at The Peabody?” Bitty asked. “It must have been an expensive toilet seat for him to want it.”
“It’s been a while since I worked there,” I said, “but The Peabody didn’t have gold toilet seats or any other reason for a guest to want to take it. Not even a duck motif on it.”
For those unfamiliar with “The South’s Grand Hotel,” The Peabody is a famous hotel in the heart of downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is about forty-five minutes up 78 Highway from Holly Springs. There is a local saying that the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of The Peabody Hotel. It’s also said that if you sit in the lobby long enough, you’ll see everyone you know and a few people you would like to know.
In the hotel lobby is a gorgeous marble fountain with a gigantic fresh flower arrangement atop the exquisite center and wild ducks swimming in the water. Yes, ducks. Mallards, to be precise. Back in the 1920s, when the hotel owner and a few friends returned from duck hunting in Arkansas, one of the inebriated gentlemen released a live duck into the fountain to swim. While it’s normal to bring dead ducks home from hunting, this gentleman apparently got confused. At any rate, the duck in the fountain became a huge tourist attraction, and thus began the practice of live ducks in the hotel lobby. There is a complicated ritual to it now; a red carpet stretches from the fountain to the elevator for the ducks to walk down while the Duck Master accompanies them to the lobby from an elegant and very expensive penthouse suite built especially for ducks. The John Philip Sousa March plays while tourists crowd the strip of red carpet with cameras. The ducks go on duty at eleven in the morning and return to their penthouse at five in the evening, all to great fanfare. While The Peabody has ducks in the lobby, you can rest assured there is no duck on the menus except as photos. It would be just too unsettling for guests to wonder if they were eating a duck they’d seen happily swimming the day before. The Peabody ducks retire to a farm outside Memphis where they live out the remainder of their lives in contented ducky fashion.
So when Bitty asked, “Have they ever served duck on the menu?” I smiled.
“Not officially.”
“What on earth does that mean?”
“Well, there was that time a group of college frat boys got drunk, stole a duck from the fountain, and tried to cook it in their hotel room.”
Bitty looked scandalized. “No! I tell you, some colleges just let their students go wild. It’s terrible. What sleazy college were they from?”
I hesitated, then said: “Ole Miss.”
Nonplussed, Bitty fumbled for a response. I could see she was torn between her distaste for bad manners and loyalty to her alma mater, as well as the fact she pays a great deal of tuition money each semester for her twin boys, Brandon and Clayton, to attend Ole Miss. So I softened the blow:
“The Peabody banned that fraternity from their premises for a while, and the boys responsible were sternly disciplined by the school and made to pay restitution. It was dealt with quite well, I believe.”
That made Bitty feel better.
“Well, I should hope so. Thank heavens not every university condones such behavior. Then I would worry about my boys being off at Ole Miss.”
“When are your boys due back in town?” Rayna asked Bitty.
“This week sometime. They’re still in Miami right now, visiting my aunt. They’re keeping her pretty busy, I imagine. On the way home they intend to stop by and visit Frank.”
While I had my doubts two young, handsome, healthy boys were spending all their time in Miami visiting Bitty’s senior aunt, I was intrigued to learn they kept in touch with their father.
“So,” I asked rather delicately, since Bitty doesn’t always like being reminded of her first husband and the twins’ father, “how is Frank?”
“Still in prison. The idiot. Why I ever thought he was smart is beyond me.”
“Well,” Rayna said, “he was always smart; he just got caught up in something he shouldn’t have.”
Bitty rolled her eyes. “I know nothing about financial markets, but even I’m not dumb enough to fall for a pyramid scheme. He should have done more research on the men he was working with instead of thinking he was some hotshot investor. Now look. They took off for the Mediterranean with most of the money, and he’s doing twenty in a Federal prison. Like I said: Idiot with a capital I.”
“At least you didn’t spend twenty-odd years following him around the country to different jobs,” I said. “It took me a lot longer than you to figure out my husband had problems with dependable employment.”
“That’s true.” Bitty bent down to let a wriggling pug loose in the lobby. Several of Rayna's cats eyed Chen Ling with flattened ears and twitching tails, not a good sign of impending feline friendship. “I always wondered how you could be so stupid.”
Before I could say what came first to my mind, she added, “For such a smart woman, you sure did overlook a lot,” and I didn’t say it. After all, she was right.
Now, to give Bitty credit, even though she’s been married and divorced four times, there was always an excellent reason for the divorces. Usually a much better reason, in fact, than there was for the marriage, but since I’m obviously not in a position to judge, I try to refrain from pointing out that detail. After all, I got married because he had great abs. Go figure.
If I haven’t mentioned this before, my ex-husband—whom I met at a sit-in for Native American rights—was a jack of all trades. He worked various jobs throughout his career, and still does I imagine, although I haven’t kept up with his whereabouts. I wish him no ill, mind you. We just get on much better a continent apart.
Anyway, all talk about ex-husbands came to a screeching halt as two things happened at once: Chen Ling decided to taste a cat, and the doorbell rang. As the lobby is so huge, sound reverberates off the marble, glass, and wood. Jarring echoes of a yelping pug and a deep, repetitive gong made my head vibrate at warp speed.
Since Rayna was helping Bitty untangle Chen Ling and a rather large cat that had been happily napping under a chair before the introduction, it was left to me to go answer the door. Not that I minded. It was much better than getting scratched or bitten.
“Who rang that bell?” I sang as I marched to the double entry doors, mimicking the tone of the doorman/wizard/professor in the Wizard of Oz movie. In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, I have a habit of quoting from old movies, television shows, and books. I’m not alone in my oddity, as Bitty can match me quote for quote. This talent is a left-over product of our youth. While we were mostly normal children, family rumor has it that we spent a great deal of our time restricted to our respective homes because of some misdeed or other that we had no doubt been unjustly accused of committing, so we used up a lot of time watching television. Don’t listen to my mother if she tells you differently. She has memory lapses.
I repeated my demand even louder as I opened the door. Gaynelle Bishop gave me a sharp rap on the arm with a folded newspaper. “Don’t be rude, dear.”
Rather meekly, I stepped aside to let her into the lobby. It must take a long time to recover from thirty years of teaching bad-mannered children not to shout, swear, or pee their pants in the classroom.
“How are you today?” I asked as I accompanied Gaynelle across the lobby.
“Oh, I am fine, but I’ve been hunting for Bitty to see how she is doing.”
We both looked at Bitty and Rayna as they successfully rescued Chitling from the sharp clutches of a miffed tomcat. The cat went to work cleaning bits of pug fur from his claws, while Bitty held a recovering dog close to her chest.
“Oh my poor baby!” Bitty said as she examined Chen Ling for damage. “Did that mean ole cat hurt you?”
Rayna hovered close. “I am so sorry. Merlin has little tolerance for strange dogs. I should have warned you. I just didn’t think Chen Ling would get too close to him.”
“Well, there’s no blood so I’m sure she’ll be fine eventually. Though I do think she may have been traumatized.”
Safe now in Bitty’s arms, Chen Ling revealed the depth of her trauma by looking down at Merlin and growling. Then she started barking, shrill yaps that billowed around the lobby all the way up to the domed skylight. I touched my ears to see if they were bleeding yet, while Bitty tried to get the dog to hush.
After a moment, Gaynelle intervened. “Do be quiet,” she said to Chen Ling, and the startled pug stopped barking. Not bad, I thought. She could give the Dog Whisperer a run for his money.
