Mama Gets Hitched (20 page)

I immediately felt a rush of guilt, and tried to make my voice sound normal. Carlos had a lie detector hard-wired into his brain. “Nothing much. Finishing up dinner.”

“Well, I’m thinking of you.”

“Right back at ya.” I imagined Tony listening in. “I know you’re busy; I’ll let you get back to work.”

We said our goodbyes and rang off, and I returned to the living room. Tony sat upright, the defeated posture was gone.

“What was that all about?”

I hesitated for a moment. He’d find out one way or another. “Your aunt,” I said. “She’s down at the police department.”

I repeated what Carlos had told me to say, but Tony seemed to barely hear me. He’d already yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and started punching in numbers. The look on his face was frightening in its intensity.

“Yeah, Arthur. It’s me. We’ve got a little trouble in Himmarshee,” he said into the phone. “Who do you know in Florida who can get here quick?”

His speech was rapid-fire, the cultured cadence slipping into New Jerseyese.

“Goddammit, Arthur! That is not what I want to hear. What do you think I pay you for?”

He stood up and walked to my front door. “That’s unacceptable, Arthur. We’re talking about my family.”

He turned his back and walked outside. But not before I’d seen the hard set to his jaw and the ice in his eyes. I felt like I was watching
The Godfather
, at the moment when a young Michael Corleone makes his transition from nice college boy to cold-blooded killer.

“Mama’s social merry-go-round is
making me motion sick.”

That was the closest Marty would come to a complaint. But as we gathered at the Speckled Perch to decorate for Mama’s party, Maddie ranted enough for the three of us.

“The whole thing is unseemly,” she huffed. “Drinking in the middle of the day. A bachelorette party, at her age! And this
is
marriage No. 5. Mama’s no blushing virgin.”

“Maddie!” Marty looked around to see who might have overheard, but the place was dark, quiet, and empty.

We’d arrived early as the appointed decorating committee. The Perch was normally a dinner and night spot, but the owner agreed to open for the lunch gathering as a favor to Mama. The party would begin at noon.

The manager, dark smudges under his eyes, clip-on tie askew, looked like he climbed off a cot in the back to come let us in. He’d disappeared after unlocking the door, but not before I noticed specks of toilet paper on the spots where he’d cut himself shaving. We waited in the dimly lit dining room, but he hadn’t returned.

“I don’t think that manager’s a morning person,” I said. “I’m going to find him, and see if I can get him to at least turn on some more lights.”

Rising from the table in the dark, I promptly banged my shin on a chair. Just as I let out a curse word, the lights in our half of the dining room came on.

“Timing is everything, Mace,” Maddie said.

We quickly got to work, hanging green garland with white paper roses, and a big sign that said
Best Wishes!
The latter was a bit bedraggled, since Maddie had kept it in her garage since Mama’s last wedding, four years ago. As we strung and taped and hung, we dissected the latest news about C’ndee.

“Carlos might have had her come down there, but she didn’t stay overnight,” Marty said.

“Who told you that?” I was a little miffed she had a better pipeline than I did.

“I stopped at Gladys’ for coffee, saw Donnie Bailey from the jail,” Marty said. “He said Carlos never arrested C’ndee.”

Finger poised at my button, Maddie went ahead and pushed. “Looks like that beau of yours is keeping secrets, Mace.”

“It’s a murder investigation, Maddie. Not pillow talk.” I ratcheted back my snippy tone. “Besides, Carlos already told me she came in voluntarily. He asked her in for a chat.”

Maddie pursed her lips. “And she ran right in, with no lawyer? That’s weird, considering her family’s connections.”

“
If
you can believe what you read in the papers,” Marty said.

I handed her the roll of tape. “Reporters can’t just make things up, Marty.”

Maddie stood back to scrutinize our handiwork. She unfastened Marty’s garland and re-taped it, more to her liking. Marty and I sniggered behind her back.

I thought about filling them in on Tony’s reaction. But I didn’t want to suffer Maddie’s lecture on how he came to be at my house last night when Carlos called with the news.

“Do you think C’ndee will show up to the party?” Marty replaced a bit of the drape Maddie had straightened.

“Of course,” Maddie said. “That woman has more brass than a lamp factory.”

The restaurant door swung open, sending in a shaft of sunlight and the chatter of women.

“Looks like the guests are starting to arrive. I’m going to duck into the Ladies before the party gets going,” I said.

I was inside a stall when I saw two sets of legs make their way to the bathroom mirror.

“I hope they serve those little fried mushrooms from the menu here. They’re yummy,” the first woman said.

“So is the bartender.” I recognized the sex and smokes sound of that second voice.

The first woman tittered. “It sure was nice of them to open up just for Rosalee’s party. I heard the owner is a former boyfriend of hers.”

“Frankly, who isn’t?” Dab Holt asked. “The woman has more exes than KFC has wings.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. I hid in the stall until I heard them leave, and then rushed back to the table and shared the joke with my sisters.

“At least Mama’s never taken a knife to any of her exes,” Maddie said.

“Dab told me yesterday the wound wasn’t fatal,” I said. “She said she did some time, but her conviction got overturned on appeal. Her attorney claimed she was a battered woman.”

“Humph,” Maddie said. “I can’t imagine anyone pushing that gal around.”

Marty said, “That’s not fair, Maddie. You never know what goes on behind closed doors.”

We were gabbing about whose checkered romantic past was worse, Mama’s or Dab’s, when Mama breezed in, Alice on her heels. Alice turned right, and Mama joined us.

“Well, I’m glad to see you three looking so cheerful. I thought you’d be crabby about having to come to another one of my many, many affairs.”

We burst out laughing. Mama raised an eyebrow, leaned toward us, and sniffed. “You girls haven’t been getting into the liquor already, have you?”

“No, ma’am,” we answered as one.

_____

By half past twelve, the party was in full swing. True to his word, Mama’s ex had arranged for a fried-food extravaganza. There were mushrooms, onion rings, and jalapeno poppers. Another platter held catfish, shrimp, and hush puppies. Celery was the only green thing not battered and fried on the table, and it was drenched in blue cheese dressing to go with the hot wings.

My stomach would be tied in knots right through the wedding.

All of a sudden, light slanted in from the open door and a hush fell over the crowd. Alan Jackson sang “Who’s Cheating Who
?”
on the jukebox. C’ndee stood for a moment in the sunbeam as if basking under a stage light.

When she made a beeline toward the bathroom, my sisters and I rose from the table and followed. We crowded in behind her as she primped at the mirror, outlining that full mouth in fire-engine red.

“Ladies,” she said, with a pop of her lips.

“C’ndee,” we chorused. And then Marty retreated to the wall as Maddie and I stepped all over each other to ask our questions.

“What did Carlos question you about?” I began

Maddie elbowed me aside. “Are you going to jail?”

I nudged her back and stepped to the mirror. “Where’d you disappear to?”

Maddie yanked the collar of my shirt and cut in front. “Is your nephew in the Mafia?”

C’ndee backed against the sink, holding up her hands. “Marty, call your sisters off, would’ya? For Gawd’s sake, I thought you Southerners were supposed to be so polite!”

Maddie crossed her arms and glared. I mumbled an apology. “We just have so many things we want to ask you.”

“I’ll take Maddie’s last question first.” C’ndee held up a finger. “No, Tony is not in the Mafia. And, as a proud Italian-American, I resent your assumption that he is.”

“We read about the family’s criminal enterprise up north,” I said.

She recovered quickly. “Sins of the fathers, ladies. You can’t blame Tony for his dad’s business dealings. Not that I’m saying any of that crap in the papers is true.”

I started to interrupt, but she held up a hand. “I believe I have the floor, Mace. Secondly, I’m not going to jail. Tony was about to call in the legal pit bulls when I phoned him last night to tell him I wasn’t being held, or even formally questioned. That cop, Carlos, was nothing but nice.”

“Really?” I couldn’t help myself.

She nodded. “He was much more interested in Darryl than in me. Now ladies, I don’t believe in regrets when it comes to men. But if I did, I’d regret my … uh, dalliance … with Darryl. That is one nasty
cafone
.”

“Amen.” I wasn’t sure what a
cafone
was, but I figured it wasn’t good. “Does Carlos think Darryl killed Ronnie?”

She shrugged. “Hard to tell.” She opened the lipstick again and re-applied.

“As for where I went …” She blotted her mouth. “I just needed time alone to think. I really did care for Ronnie. More than you might imagine. We planned to go into business, but it was more than that. I thought we’d settle down, maybe even marry, after he and Alice were divorced.”

C’ndee’s voice shook a bit. I looked at Maddie, whose arms were still tightly folded. Marty’s face, though, mirrored the sad expression on C’ndee’s. I came down in the middle: not as skeptical as Maddie; not as trusting as Marty.

C’ndee dropped her lipstick into her big purse and snapped the top with finality.

“Now, I’d like to get a drink and offer your mother my best wishes.” She glanced at her rhinestone-clotted watch. “I have a little surprise for her, too. Should arrive at any minute.”

She pushed through the door and we followed, three little ducklings brought into line.

Spotting Linda-Ann loading up on fried fish, shrimp, and wings at the buffet, I detoured in her direction. My sisters flanked me. After we said our hellos, I pointed to her plate.

“Guess you’re not a strict vegetarian.”

“Don’t tell Trevor.” She popped a shrimp into her mouth, not looking terribly guilty.

“Linda-Ann, didn’t you hear anything I said about being true to yourself?”

Marty chimed in. “Mace gave you good advice, honey. You should do things because you believe in them, not because somebody else forces you.”

“Trevor never forced me.”

On the jukebox, Charlie Daniels launched into the loud fiddle solo on “Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Maddie leaned right into Linda-Ann’s face. “You’re telling us you dressed as a pig and scared those poor folks at the Pork Pit because you wanted to? Linda-Ann, I know you were never a top student, but you couldn’t be that dumb.”

I pinched Maddie’s left arm. Marty tugged on her right to drag her from Linda-Ann’s personal space.

“Let’s find a table,” my little sister said.

The lights were only on in half the dining room; the rest of the room was closed. The only empty seats were at Alice Hodges’ table. I led the way across the dance floor.

“Okay if we sit down?” I asked.

Alice nodded without looking at us.

“Are you getting enough to eat?” Marty said. “Can we get you anything?”

The food on her plate looked untouched. A glass of wine, on the other hand, was nearly gone. A second, full glass, awaited.

Alice glanced up. “I’m fine.” Her gaze rested on Linda-Ann. To the younger woman’s credit, she held out her hand.

“I’m Linda-Ann, Mrs. Hodges. I’m real sorry for your loss. I knew Ronnie from when he worked at the feed store. He used to add in a little something extra once in a while for my horse, Lucky. He sure was a nice man.”

Tears sprang to Marty’s eyes. But Alice kept her composure. “Thank you, dear. That’s kind of you to tell me that.”

We took our seats. An awkward moment passed, when none of us seemed to know what to say. But Maddie has never seen a silence she can’t fill.

“We were just talking to Linda-Ann about how she and her boyfriend dressed up like pigs for a protest.”

Alice raised an eyebrow.

“Trevor says we should love animals, not eat them,” Linda-Ann recited. “Trevor says meat is murder.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, Mrs. Hodges.”

Alice gave her a weak smile.

“Her boyfriend’s beliefs are very passionate,” I explained.

“I’m a vegetarian now, just like Trevor.” Linda-Ann seemed to remember the animal parts crowding her plate. “Well, not a hundred percent.”

Maddie harrumphed. “Trevor sounds like a fanatic, Linda-Ann. How much do you really know about him?”

In her kindest tone, Marty said, “Honey, I’m a vegetarian, too. But it should be enough to do what
you
think is right. You don’t have to bully everybody else into doing the same.”

Linda-Ann tossed another shrimp in her mouth, chewed and swallowed thoughtfully.

“We never do what I want to do. It’s always protest, protest, protest. To tell the truth, I do feel kind of stupid yelling at people in that pig suit. And the plastic head smells nasty inside.”

She made such a face, my sisters and I laughed. Even Alice smiled. “I can’t imagine dressing up in that costume,” she said. “I grew up on a hog farm. I’ve seen pigs enough to last a lifetime.”