Divas and Dead Rebels (2 page)

She looked thoughtful. I hoped she intended to give in and do the rational thing. I should have known better. After a short silence, during which I was sure I smelled smoke and heard the faint crackle and pop of brain waves, she crossed the room and seized a canvas-sided bin like those motels use for dirty laundry. This one had Motel 6 printed on white canvas in bold black letters. It had probably been confiscated from the motel by a student. There could be any number of reasons it had ended up in her sons’ dorm room.

“Here, Trinket,” she said, and rolled it right up to the closet. “Help me get him into this laundry cart. He’s not that tall. He should fit, don’t you think?”

“I’m not doing this,” I said. “This is obstruction and tampering with evidence and disturbing a crime scene and probably a half dozen more charges.”

“Don’t be silly. No one will ever know he was even in here if we move him somewhere else.”

“And where do you suggest? In front of the Lyceum? Out in The Grove?” I said, naming two very public areas of the large campus. “This isn’t
Weekend at Bernie’s
, you know. We can’t haul around a dead man as if he were still alive.”

“This is no time to be talking about movies. Here. You take his legs, and I’ll get his . . . oh, his . . . well, maybe we should just wrap him in a blanket or something before we stuff him in the cart.”

“I . . . am . . . not . . . moving . . . him.”

Bitty ignored my carefully enunciated refusal. She tugged at Professor Sturgis until she managed to get him a few inches out of the closet. I recited one of the police codes I’ve memorized about tampering with evidence. Bitty dropped the professor’s feet to the floor. I quoted police code about disturbing a crime scene. Bitty took the blanket off one of the twin beds and draped it over Sturgis. I mentioned obstruction charges. Bitty rolled Sturgis up in the blanket and tucked in one end like a burrito.

By that time she was panting. Her blonde hair stuck to perspiration at her temples and neck. She straightened up and looked at me where I stood with my arms crossed over my chest and my mouth set in a determined line.

Her eyes narrowed, and I swear they turned as red as her scarlet lipstick. I thought for a second I saw steam come out of her ears. Then she said, “If you don’t help me get him out of here so my son doesn’t get charged with murder, I’ll tell everyone in Holly Springs that in our senior year you got so nervous when Danny Ray Bell tried to give you a hickey on the neck that you threw up on him.”

I shrugged. “So? Do you think anyone will care what happened thirty-five years ago?”

Bitty looked disgusted. “You have no shame. I’d just die if something like that was said about me.”

“No, you wouldn’t. You’d lie your way out of it.”

“True.” She thought a moment, then a smile of pure evil curved her collagen-filled lips. “Help me, or I’ll buy your parents two round trip tickets to Cairo.”

“Illinois or Egypt?”

“What do you think?”

I gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Try me. They’d love riding a camel along the Nile.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, but she didn’t back down a bit. She knows how to get to me, and using my parents—who are reliving their youth and forgetting their bodies are still pretty much in their seventies—was a very effective threat. I went for cajolery: “Bitty—think about it. We aren’t in Marshall County. We’re in Lafayette County. This is Oxford, not Holly Springs. We don’t know the local police here. If you move this body and get caught, you’re liable to end up in jail.”

“I’m less likely to get caught if I have someone helping me,” she said tartly. “And besides, do you really want your nephew to be blamed for something he didn’t do?”

“Of course not. But neither do I want his aunt—me—to go to jail for something she got caught doing.”

Technically, her twin sons are my second cousins. In the South we find it much easier to refer to such close blood relatives as aunt, uncle, niece or nephew rather than go through tortuous explanations. Not that Bitty always observes the finer points.

“Don’t be selfish, Trinket. Here. Grab his feet.”

I looked down at Professor Sturgis. For a smallish man, he had really big feet. Or big shoes, anyway. They stuck out from under the blue plaid blanket, cordovan wingtips with the scuffed soles showing a lot of wear. There was no way I wanted to touch him.

When I stood there staring, Bitty said, “Oh for heaven’s sake, Trinket. When did you get so squeamish? Here. I’ll cover him up so nothing shows. We’ve got to hurry and get him out of here before someone else shows up. Otherwise, it’ll be a big mess.”

“It’s going to end up in a big mess anyway, Bitty. Trust me. I know these things.”

“As long as it’s a big mess somewhere besides my sons’ dorm room, I don’t care. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

I wanted to say “or not,” but I didn’t. That’s a big character flaw of mine; I don’t always act in my own best interests.

After Bitty had Professor Sturgis completely covered from view, I found myself hefting him off the floor as far as I could get him. Don’t ever wonder if the phrase “dead weight” isn’t realistic. I can relate from my own experience that an inert object such as a corpse is heavy, bulky and troublesome to move around.

Bitty and I huffed, puffed, muttered really ugly words, and finally got the former professor up and over the side of the laundry cart. Then Bitty dropped her end. He didn’t sink down into the cart as we had hoped. Instead, Professor Sturgis contrarily stuck over the side like a tree limb. Apparently, after death the body goes through profound alterations. Like rigor mortis. The professor’s covered head and shoulders caught on one side of the cart while his feet and ankles jutted out on the other side. He’d become a straight, nearly inflexible plank.

Bitty looked exasperated. “Isn’t it too soon for him to be so . . . rigid?”

I counted back the hours since we’d last seen him. Somehow, in the time between our noisy encounter with the professor and our unpleasant discovery of him, he’d been murdered. “Six hours, more or less,” I replied. “Time enough, it seems.”

“Well,” said Bitty. “What do we do now?”

“Call the police,” I suggested again, even though I knew she’d ignore me.

She did. I could almost see the cartoon light bulb go on over her head.

“I know . . . we can pile up laundry all around him so that it looks like we just have a lot of dirty stuff to wash. Help me strip these beds. Oh, and we can use the boys’ clothes as filler if necessary.”

“Why not packing peanuts? Then we can just wrap this entire contraption up in brown paper and mail it to an address in New Guinea.”

I swear, I think Bitty actually considered it for a moment before shaking her blonde head so hard I heard her teeny, tiny little brain rattling around inside all that space.

“Won’t work. Unless we stick him in a freezer, he’s liable to start drawing flies fairly soon.”

“Bitty, really—aren’t you being terribly inconsiderate with Professor Sturgis? I mean, he’s dead, Bitty.
Murdered.
Someone killed him right here in your sons’ dorm room, and you’re acting more like he’s an inconvenience than a victim.”

Busily stripping sheets and blankets off twin beds, Bitty didn’t answer for a minute. She piled the linens atop Sturgis and stuffed what she could down into the cart so that it looked overflowing. Then she leaned so far into the cart that her voice sounded like it came from a deep well: “Yes, Trinket. I
have
thought about the professor’s untimely death. But if I dwell on it, I won’t be able to do what’s necessary to keep my son from being accused of his murder. I have to prevent that first.”

I had to say it. Someone would eventually, and it’d be best coming from me.

“But what if Brandon or Clayton did kill him?”

Bitty never paused in tucking linens around the body. “They didn’t. I’m sure of it. For one thing, I doubt Sturgis was killed in here at all.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Because,” said Bitty as she straightened up and looked at me, “Sturgis has a wire coat hanger tight around his neck, and my boys don’t use those. They have only wooden hangers in their closets. See?”

When she pointed, I looked and saw that she was right. Not a single wire hanger could be seen.

I nodded. “Very good, Holmes. You’re getting better at this deduction stuff.”

“Thank you, Doctor Watson. Now here—help me push this cart out into the hall.”

That’s how I found myself pushing a dead professor in a stolen laundry cart down a hallway to an elevator. As luck would have it, a student caught the elevator doors right before they could close and slipped inside to stand next to us. I focused on shiny walls and what was probably a hidden camera in the ceiling, while Bitty flashed the young man a smile. She can’t help herself. She was born a belle. Belles flirt with any unrelated male of all ages, whether they even mean to or not. Of course, it wasn’t a flirtation of the come-on, sexual type; Bitty may be many things, but she’s not a pervert or deviant. We are in our early,
early
fifties, after all, and the student was around the age of her sons, in his late teens or early twenties.

“Hey there, sugar,” she said to the young man. “Are you doing all right today?”

He smiled back at her. People of the male persuasion tend to do that.

“Yes, ma’am. Doing great, thanks.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Bitty. “It’s too nice a day not to be doing great, don’t you think?”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure do.”

Such a polite, meaningless exchange to have in an elevator while hauling around the body of a dead professor. Who knew it would come back to haunt us?

When the elevator doors opened at the lobby level, Bitty and I shoved the heavy cart forward while the nice young man courteously held the doors open. Sunshine spread light through the lobby windows and backlit ancient trees on the campus as we pushed on through the front door and out onto walkways that dissected the lawns. It was the Friday before Game Day, and expensive motor homes already lined the streets. Nearby, The Grove—a large greensward dotted with huge, ancient oaks—was being sectioned off for the tailgating parties. Spray paint delineated its walkways and roadways for emergency vehicles, and all other areas were open for the array of tents to come. Very shortly, The Grove would look more like a refugee camp for the well-heeled than a peaceful campus lawn. Foot and vehicle traffic had already begun to increase.

“Which way?” I asked my fearless leader. I had no intention of being responsible for any decisions she made one way or the other. I was just an accomplice, not the master mind behind this idiocy. Not that the distinction would prevent me from drawing just as long a prison sentence as it would the master mind, of course. Maybe even longer. After all, I
know
better than to move anything at a crime scene. So does Bitty, but she pretends not to understand the law or recognize that there are penalties for civil disobedience.

My fearless leader looked temporarily indecisive. She gazed across the grounds with a confused expression. By that, I mean her Botox-riddled brow had the merest suggestion of a wrinkle. Then she turned to look at me, and all indecision ceased.

“You’re too noticeable, Trinket. Try to be inconspicuous.”

I lifted my brows. Unlike Bitty, I can’t afford nor do I want Botox, so I have no problem moving my facial muscles.

“Am I on fire or something? Why do you think I’m too noticeable?”

She made an impatient motion with one hand. “Because you’re an Amazon. Can’t you crouch down a little?”

Now, I think I’m fairly normal in the height range. I’m five-nine and still working my way down from being twenty pounds overweight to something more manageable. I’m not exactly King Kong material.

“I’m not that tall,” I said in my defense. “You’re just so short it seems like I’m tall to you.”

“Amazon,” Bitty insisted, and it irritated me.

“Midget,” I shot back.

Bitty’s eyes narrowed slightly. “That’s not politically correct.”

“Excuse me. Vertically challenged, brain cell deficient—uh oh. Is that Brandon and Clayton I see coming this way?”

In the distance two young men in matching hoodies with the school colors of dark blue and red walked with a blonde girl toward Dormitory Row. The tall students each had blond hair as well, and the easy stride of confidence. We’d recognize them anywhere and from any distance.

“Omigod—they can’t see us, Trinket! Push, push!”

The approach of her sons triggered an end to our disagreement. Bitty grabbed one end of the cart and started pushing, and caught up in her panic, I helped.

“Does everything at Ole Miss have to be at the top of a hill?” I muttered as the cart surged forward with a life of its own.

“Always complaining,” Bitty shot back, but I noticed that she was having as much trouble as I was hanging on to the cart. We manhandled the blamed thing down the steep sidewalk at a speed much faster than the rickety little wheels on their four corners could manage, around a bend and out of sight. Just as we got to a curb, one wheel locked up, the cart tilted, and we—and our passenger—hit the pavement. I just knew we were done for.