Elvis And The Memphis Mambo Murders (4 page)

S
omebody is tugging my sheet. If it's Lovie I'm going to kill her.

“What? What!” I bolt upright, bleary eyed. Lovie is snoring on the other bed, but my dog is dancing around by mine with the edge of my sheet between his teeth. “Good grief, Elvis. Not now.”

Groaning, I lie back down, but I might as well be trying to sleep on the deck of a rolling ship. I don't know how a basset hound, even a portly one, can shake a whole bed along with its hundred-twenty-pound occupant. I guess it's something about the way he leans against the mattress and proceeds to rub his back.

“Stop that. I'm coming.”

I pull on sweats but add my cute Coach Dawnell Patchwork sneakers (I'm not about to take up unstylish shoe habits, even if it is 3
A.M
.). Then I grab his leash and stumble out into the empty hallway.

“You're going to owe me for this, boy.”

This time of night the elevator gives me the creeps. Elvis and I get in, and I scoot to the corner and keep my back against the wall. When it stops on the second floor I panic. Nobody is out this time of night. Unless they happen to be doggie mom to Elvis.

Tomorrow's headline in the Memphis
Commercial Appeal
will read, “Mississippi Hair Stylist and Her Dog, the King, Die Mysterious Death in Elevator.”

The only weapon I have is my dog, and though he growls a good show, I don't know how effective he'd be against a Peabody killer stalking his prey in the middle of the night.

When the door slides open I brace myself to see a suspicious-looking person waiting on the other side. Thank goodness, nobody's there. I let out the breath I've been holding.

Finally the door slides shut again and we swoosh downward. Did I push two buttons? Or was the murderer out there looking for another victim, then at the last minute changed his mind?

I can't get out of this elevator fast enough. When we reach the lobby, I bolt. Elvis has other ideas. Marking the elevator, for one thing.

“No, you don't.” I tug him out in the nick of time. “Hurry, boy. Outside.”

He gives me his stubborn look and tries to drag me toward the fountain. You wouldn't think a dog his size could drag a woman mine, but you don't know Elvis. When he makes up his mind, he's like his namesake. Not much can stop him.

Promises of Milk-Bone and Pup-Peroni usually do the trick. Unfortunately I don't have any doggie treats on me. Call me a wimpy pushover, but when it comes to Elvis, I'm not too proud to beg and plead.

“Listen, Elvis. If you'll behave I'll personally take you to see Ann-Margret and the pups when we get home.”

That does the trick. Who'd ever have believed my opinionated, self-centered basset hound would take to the role of fatherhood? Who wouldn't love them, though? Three darling French poodle-basset hound mixes and two who look suspiciously like the shih tzu down the street. Only don't mention that to Elvis. He hasn't noticed yet.

 

Outside, Union Avenue is practically empty. While Elvis is sniffing every inch of the sidewalk, headlights cut through the gloom and a cab pulls up from the direction of the river to deposit Mr. Whitenton, of all people.

Though it's not that cold, he's wearing an overcoat with the collar pulled high around his neck and a felt hat circa 1942 pulled low over his eyes. Thank goodness Mama is not with him.

It's hard to miss a sassy basset hound sniffing a fire hydrant right in front of your nose, but Thomas acts like he doesn't see us. Suspicious behavior if I ever saw it.

What's he doing out so late? And why is he dressed like Clifton Young in
Dark Passage
? I can imagine Mr. Whitenton saying,
I was a small time crook until this very minute, and now I'm a big time crook.

“Mr. Whitenton,” I call out, but he scuttles off like somebody's following him and he's about to lose his head.

Where was he when Babs was murdered? In disguise pushing her off the roof?

I'd follow him—if nothing else but to make sure he doesn't go into Mama's room—but Elvis has yet to select a place for his business. While he's sniffing the curb, a horse-drawn carriage with a weary-looking driver stops in front of the hotel. Who should climb down but Victor Mabry, Babs Mabry Mims' husband number one.

The woman with him is wearing a ring, and I assume it's the second Mrs. Mabry. She looks young enough to have a curfew and parents waiting up worrying about her. She's much younger than he, the cheerleader type, cute, petite, blond, and bubbly. That alone is suspicious. Nobody bubbles at the crack of dawn except teenagers and fish.

They wave at Elvis and me, moderating my suspicions, but not entirely, then go into the hotel with their arms wrapped around each other. I'm stabbed by a feeling I'd like to call nostalgia, but to tell the truth, I think it's jealousy. I swear if I had somebody wonderful to put his arms around me on a committed full-time basis, I'd give up designer shoes. At least the more expensive ones.

I stamp around on the sidewalk and beat my arms. “Hurry up, Elvis. It's chilly out.” I'm beginning to think he just wanted to get out of the hotel.

Finally he deigns to pee and we head back inside. I go for the bank of elevators, but Elvis is pulling so hard on the leash I'm dragged along in the opposite direction. I dig in my heels, but skid across the marble floors straight toward the fountain.

I could pull hard enough to stop him, but I'm not about to choke my dog. Finally I give up and barrel along in his wake.

The cherubs on the fountain smile as we approach. They're sitting atop ancient dolphins that in my opinion look more like fish. Each cherub has one arm uplifted, holding aloft a giant urn filled with stargazer lilies.

Jack and I had stargazer lilies at our wedding. The fragrance makes me dizzy. Or maybe it's the memories. Or it could be the ungodly hour. Nobody's out this time of night unless they're holding a dog leash or up to no good.

The closer I get, the dizzier I feel. Something's not right. I feel it in my bones.

And then I see the Technicolor dress. And the bad hairdo.

Gloria Divine is lying face down in the water.

“Help!” I kick off my shoes. “Over here! In the fountain!”

I leap into the fountain and tug Gloria. Waterlogged bodies are heavier than you'd think.

“I need some help!”

If I can get her out of the fountain I might revive her. The cell phone in my pocket rings. I'm up to my knees in water and have my hands full to boot. I can't worry about who's calling this time of night.

“Hey, lady! What are you doing?” The night manager is looming over me wearing a badge, a shocked look, and too much hair gel.

“I'm trying to get her out.”

And why isn't he helping? Gloria Divine weighs as much as a side of beef (no disrespect intended). I'm slender (Lovie calls me
skinny),
but fortunately I work out enough to have more upper body strength than you'd think.

Taking a deep breath, I heave the top half of Gloria Divine over the edge of the travertine marble. Mr. No-help-at-all whips out his cell phone and calls the police. Ignoring him, I struggle with the bottom half of Gloria.

“Are you crazy?” He snaps his phone shut. “Put her back.”

“I know CPR.”

“She's dead.”

“What if she's not?”

I can't believe I'm having this conversation. Then it hits me: Gloria Divine is blue and stiff. That means she's dead (unless I'm fixing to witness a resurrection), and I'll be caught red-handed trying to move the body.

Sirens shrill this way, and sleepy guests roused from their beds straggle into the lobby in pajamas and jeans with their shirttails hanging out. I try to climb from the fountain (unsuccessfully, might I add), but nobody helps me. They're glued to the floor like people seeing an ungodly apparition.

Elvis is the only one offering encouragement. He's sitting there like a gentleman, his tail thumping the floor.

My feet slip on something gooey (I don't even want to know) and I end up hanging on to a pair of icy cold legs. A dead woman's legs.

What was I thinking? For a woman who spent all day trying to keep her distance from murder, I've landed smack dab in the middle of it.

As if things couldn't get any worse, the cops are barreling my way. They see me with the body and jerk their guns out of their holsters.

Holy cow. I'm going to end up shot in the fountain. Probably in the head, too.

“D
on't move. Hands in the air, lady.”

I wish everybody would quit calling me “lady.” “I found her like this.”

It's hard to talk when you're slipping and sliding in duck gunk and your hands are over your head. Besides, I'm wet up to my thighs and shaking with chill.

Why doesn't the night manager speak up? Ken Peacock, his badge reads. Is everything fowl in this hotel?

“I was trying to save her. Ask him.”

Thankfully a seasoned-looking cop pulls Peacock aside, and I hear the night manager say he didn't see or hear a thing until I yelled for help. A fresh-faced freckled cop helps me from the fountain, and somebody throws a blanket over my shoulders.

The young cop takes my name and asks what I was doing out at this time of night.

“Elvis had to take care of business.”

He looks at me like I've gone crazy. I have tennis shoes older than this cop. No wonder he doesn't understand how people are still naming their dogs and cats and birds and babies after a man who has been dead more than thirty-five years. Listen, Elvis not only changed the face of music but is still beloved the world around.

“He's a basset hound,” I explain.

“Not in this town, lady.” Unsmiling, he jots something in his notebook. Probably,
Get the net.

Leave it to me to get a cop without a sense of humor. If it weren't for the bit of powdered sugar on his shirt, I'd think he wasn't even human. He was probably having doughnuts and coffee when he got the call.

“Where's the dog?”

Good grief. In all the commotion, Elvis has disappeared. I clap my hands and try to whistle, but it comes out more of a squeak. “Here, boy, come here, Elvis.” He's nowhere in sight.

“I thought you had a dog, lady.”

“I do.”

“Maybe he's not Elvis. Maybe he's Houdini.”

Ignoring that crack, I whistle and call some more. When Elvis finally pokes his cold nose between my legs, I scoop him up and hide my face in his fur so this young cop won't see how close I am to tears.

Always attuned to my moods, Elvis turns on the charm. Which is considerable, might I add.

At last I get lucky. This boyish cop is a dog lover. He scratches Elvis' ears while he asks me if I knew the deceased. By the time I tell him about seeing Gloria only briefly on the rooftop and he tells me not to leave town, I'm getting a motherly urge to reach over and brush the sugar off his shirt.

Still, I know this score only too well. I'm on the list now. A witness and possibly a suspect.

For somebody who wanted to avoid murder at all costs, I'm smack dab in the middle of it.

A team from the coroner's office rushes by with the gurney, making this nightmare all too real. I'd like to go to my room and pretend all this has nothing to do with me, but I'm trapped now. I might as well learn what I can.

Keeping Elvis on a short leash and trying to be inconspicuous, I weave through the crowd. Though how I can remain anonymous looking like a rag mop fresh from a dirty kitchen floor, I have no idea. Not to mention the fact that everybody saw the cops grilling me.

Maybe if I slump…I ease as close as I dare to a middle-age woman claiming to be a witness. She's wearing a beige housecoat that washes out her complexion. Somebody ought to steer her toward pink.

“I registered the dancers,” she's telling the cops. I remember her now. She was wearing red lipstick, a much more flattering color for her type. “Gloria Divine was entered in the waltz competition.”

“What do you know about her, ma'am?” Though this cop looks no more than fifty, he's asking questions with the jaded attitude of a man who has been in this business too long and seen too much.

“She's from Tennessee. Nashville to be exact. She was in room 1014, right next to poor Babs Mabry Mims.”

“Did they know each other?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We reserved a block of rooms on the tenth floor. Most of the dancers are there. A few spilled over to the fourth.”

I can tell the woman standing next to them is itching to butt in. She's about seventy and wearing a hairnet over pink foam rollers I wouldn't be caught dead in.

“That Gloria Divine's a mysterious woman,” she chimes in. “Comes to all the dance competitions with a silver-haired partner. But I've never seen her with anybody else except a woman with a strange name—Lalique or something—and a funny-looking man with one blue eye and one green.”

Holy cow. They're going to drag Bobby into this. Should I warn him or keep quiet so he won't worry? I think I'll opt for the latter. No use borrowing trouble before it arrives.

These two women don't offer anything else, so I move on toward another woman talking to the cops. She looks familiar from the back, but I'm too rattled to place her.

“Gloria Divine was one of the last to leave the Skyway,” she's saying. “Around midnight.”

I edge around the player piano to get a closer look. Lo and behold, this witness is the perky companion of Victor Mabry. Victor is hanging on to her like she's the kewpie doll prize he won at the county fair.

Personally, I don't trust a man who's that possessive. Did he feel the same way about his first wife? Would losing her make him mad enough to kill her?

“Drinking heavily,” Victor confirms. “I saw her have at least five drinks in the Skyway, and the waiter delivered a sixth while we were there. Obviously she got drunk and fell in.”

How would he know? And why is he offering statements to the police on both murders?

“Was Gloria Divine alive when you last saw her?”

The cop's question causes Victor to look uncomfortable. I'm straining to hear, so I try to maneuver closer, but Elvis' leash gets tangled in a chair. It crashes to the floor just as my cell phone rings.

I might as well be in the center ring at a Barnum and Bailey circus. Conversation ceases and every head swivels in my direction. I scoop Elvis up, stick out my chin, and march out of the lobby. It's hard to make a dignified exit when your shoes are leaving duck-doo tracks and your cell phone is playing a raucous electronic version of the “William Tell Overture.”

As soon as I round a marble column, I cast dignity to the winds and dash toward the elevators. Getting my cell phone out of my pocket while running with an armful of wiggling dog is not my idea of a fun-filled weekend.

“What?” I yell into the receiver.

“I've been attacked! In my bed! Somebody tried to kill me!”

I punch the tenth floor button and head straight to Mama's room.

It looks like Logan International. People and suitcases are everywhere. (Mama always travels with enough gear to go on an African safari.) Lovie is pressing a cloth to Mama's head, Fayrene is rubbing her feet, Thomas is urging her to take some Pepto-Bismol for her “upset” and Bobby is passing around breath mints.

For what, I don't know. Maybe they've all been drinking heavily and don't want me to know. I know.
I know.
I'm getting punchy. But considering the kind of night it has been, anything is possible

Thomas has changed from the film noir clothes I saw him wearing earlier to pajamas and robe. This man works fast. The bed clothes transform him from villain to scrawny man who wouldn't say boo if a panther had him by the seven hairs on his head and was dragging him off into the night. I don't trust a man who can alter his appearance that drastically.

“At last.” Mama holds her arms out to me. “There you are.”

For somebody who has just been attacked, she sounds mighty perky. Of course, what would you expect? Nothing intimidates her.

Hurrying over, I squat beside her bed and inspect her from head to toe. While I'm at it, I take a closer look at Thomas. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks nervous.

“Are you all right, Mama?”

“I will be as soon as everybody
quits hovering.
”

Don't let Mama fool you. She loves to be the object of outrageous displays of devotion, and everybody who loves her knows it. Nobody leaves their coveted spot beside the reigning queen.

“Where have you been?” She gives me the once over. “And what's that on your pants?”

“It's water and duck stuff. I was out walking Elvis and found Gloria Divine in the fountain.”

Everybody in the room starts asking questions except Thomas. Did he not hear? Or did he already know?

“Is she okay?” Mama asks.

“No. I tried to save her, but it was too late.”

Bobby makes the sign of the cross in the air over Mama's bed. “There's danger everywhere.”

Fayrene stops rubbing Mama's feet and strikes a dramatic pose. Washington crossing the Delaware.

“This business is starting to irrigate me.”

I'm already
irrigated
and I'd be irritated, too, but I have bigger things on my mind.

“Mama, have you reported the attack?”

“No. I was waiting for you to get here.”

I nod at Lovie, who calls the cops.

This kind of role reversal is not new. Mama bulldozes along telling folks what to do and doing as she pleases until there's a real crisis, then she relies on me to take charge.

While I'm assuring myself Mama is okay, Fayrene climbs into the other side of the bed and pulls up the covers.

“Wild hogs couldn't drag me out of here tonight, and don't you argue, Ruby Nell.”

Mama doesn't. For one thing, the night's almost over.

“What happened up here?” I ask.

“I heard the commotion in Miss Ruby's room,” Thomas bursts in before Mama can answer. “Of course, I rushed right to her aid.”

Through the connecting door, obviously, which was unlocked and is standing wide open. Did Mama do that, or did he?

I make a mental note to get to the bottom of the unlocked connecting door.

“I was scratching and clawing and kicking like a wildcat.” Mama sounds proud of herself. “I knocked the phone off and kicked my suitcase off the rack at the end of the bed.”

“The minute I walked in, whoever was trying to kill Miss Ruby ran out.”

“What did he look like?” I ask.

“It was a she,” Thomas says. “Medium height. Black pants. Or it could have been blue jeans. Longish hair. Black.”

“I don't think so, Thomas,” Mama says, and he recants.

“Wait a minute. Her hair could have been red.”

“Are you sure it was a woman?” I sound like the young cop, second guessing everybody. All I need is sugar on my sweats.

“It was definitely a woman.” Thomas rams his hands into his pockets and rocks back and forth. “On second thought, it might have been a man. I saw it all and will testify to the fact.”

“Mama? Was your attacker male or female?”

“Male. No doubt about it. When he tried to smother me with my pillow, I smelled his aftershave. Old Spice. No woman in her right mind would wear Old Spice.”

Lovie catches my eye and nods toward Thomas, who is rubbing his chin. What I see gives me chills. If it weren't for my level head, I'd probably accuse him on the spot.

“Mr. Whitenton, you'd better put something on those scratches on your hands.” I'm proud of my even tone. Only Lovie knows I'm barely holding myself together. “How'd you get them?”

“Oh. These?” He sticks his hands in his bathrobe pockets. “The attacker must have scratched me in the scuffle.”

“What scuffle?”

Why didn't he mention it before? Was he lying when he said the attacker ran out when he walked in. Or is he lying now? I don't ask for fear of putting him on the defensive. You learn more if people think you trust them.

“There was so much commotion going on, I guess I forgot.”

“I should call Daddy,” Lovie says.

“Don't you dare call Charlie.” Mama practically leaps out of the bed. “The day I need somebody keeping tabs on me is the day you can put me in a nursing home.”

Mama's performance is interrupted by the arrival of the police. Unfortunately it's the sugar coated baby cop, and his tough as nails partner, who want to know what I'm doing at the scene of another attack.

They look skeptical when I explain, but I'm not about to be intimidated. I stick around for their questions. Unfortunately, I don't learn a new thing.

It's nearly dawn when Lovie and I leave, and my stomach is starting to rumble.

“I can't sleep,” I tell Lovie. “Let's get out of this hotel. Someplace quiet. Besides, Elvis needs some real exercise.”

“The river,” she says.

I don't even take time to change clothes. They're almost dry and who's going to see me anyway? We grab a bag of his dog food, some doughnuts from Lovie's stash, and coffee made in the room, then head to the riverside park.

In the damp chill of dawn, we sit on benches with the rising sun at our backs, loading up on carbs and sugar. The play of color and light across the water is spectacular. Of one accord (Lovie and I can practically read each other's mind), we don't talk. Awe leaves no room for murder.

Until today “the mighty Mississippi” was merely a term I've heard since grade school. Now it's a visceral feeling, a bone-deep affirmation.

“It makes you feel like you ought to sing,” Lovie says.

Why not? Maybe it will bring some sanity into chaos. Lovie and I sing duets at Wildwood Chapel all the time. When I start “How Great Thou Art” in a clear, high soprano, she joins in with a dusky-voiced alto.

Naturally Elvis prances up, throws back his head, and howls. It was one of his alter ego's biggest hits and his favorite song, to boot.

But music can't compete with murder, and the song peters out. My dog trots off to pee on an oak tree, and I start putting two and two together.

“I think Mr. Whitenton might have killed Gloria Divine,” I tell Lovie. “And maybe even Babs Mabry Mims.”

“What makes you think that? The scratches?”