Murder Boogies With Elvis (18 page)

The eyes weren’t guileless now. “What makes you think that?”

“He told us. Larry did. He said he turned around and got a glimpse of someone behind the line of Elvises just as Griffin Mooncloth began to sag. It was just a glimpse, mainly because Larry’s blind as a bat without his glasses, but the person back there couldn’t know that. For all she knew, Larry could identify her. Or him.”

Timmy nodded. “Makes sense.” He reached over and patted Woofer again. “Anything else you can tell me, Mrs. Hollowell?”

“I wish you could question Day about the knife without mentioning me. I don’t want her mother to know I’m the one who told you. She’s a friend of mine.”

Timmy stood up. “Now how am I going to do that, Mrs. Hollowell?”

“You’ll figure something out. Just like you figured out how to get someone to write your research paper on Chaucer for you.”

I swear Timmy blanched. “You knew about that?”

“Of course. Just do the best you can, Timmy, to keep me out of it.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will.”

I watched him walk toward his car, his shoulders slumped. “Woofer,” I said, “it’s incredible how often that works.”

Mitzi was spreading bonemeal on her iris bed when we walked past. I opened my gate, gave Woofer a treat, and let him in. Then I walked over to tell Mitzi about Larry Ludmiller.

She was kneeling on a plastic bag and had on gar
dening gloves. Mitzi is in her early sixties but has had gray hair as long as I can remember. More white now than gray, I realized, looking down at her as she pushed her bangs up with her arm. I would never be that lucky. Strawberry-blond hair, streaked with gray, looks orange.

“Your hair is beautiful,” I said.

“Thanks.” She smiled and pulled a plastic bag out of a box for me to sit on. “What’s going on? You look like you’re feeling better this morning.”

“I am. But I just squealed on Day Armstrong, somebody nearly killed Virgil Stuckey’s son-in-law yesterday, and Fred’s mad at me.”

“I believe the first two things. Not the third.” She stuck her trowel into the sack of bonemeal and worked it lightly into the ground around an iris that I knew would be blooming within a month and that I would enjoy from my kitchen window.

“Believe it.”

“Tell me.”

Mitzi worked as I talked. Woofer came over and lay down by the chain-link fence, watching us, half-dozing.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked. “Day did have the opportunity to put the knife in my purse, didn’t she?”

Mitzi nodded. “I guess she did. She wasn’t there but a minute, though, Patricia Anne.”

“That’s all it would take.”

Mitzi pushed herself up from her knees, groaned, and moved the plastic bag farther down the flower bed. “Lord, I’m stiff as a board,” she said, kneeling again. She stuck her trowel into the dirt and frowned. “Tell me again about the divorce bit, about Dusk being in trouble.”

I told her what Debbie had said, that it was illegal to marry someone just so they could become an American citizen.

“But would Day have killed someone to protect her little sister?”

“I don’t know. But I think she may know who did.”

A car pulled into my driveway. I looked up and saw it was Fred.

“I think that’s the end of your third problem,” Mitzi said.

Fred got out of the car and came over to where we were sitting. “I just thought I’d come home for lunch today,” he said.

Mitzi grinned as I got up. “Bon appétit.”

Making up was nice. I explained that I was trying not to worry him, and he explained that it worried him more to know that I was trying not to worry him. I promised not to do it again. At the time I meant it.

Later, we had tuna fish sandwiches for lunch.

E-mail from: Haley

To: Mama and Papa

Subject: Occupant

Guess what! Joanna’s moving. I’ve been feeling some flutters for a few days that I was suspicious of, but today, there was a definite bump. Philip is sitting right by me waiting for me to say, “Now,” so he can feel it. But tonight she’s quiet. We’re starting to read to her, though, and to play music. Tonight he’s going to read
Goodnight Moon
. Isn’t it incredible?

Love from the three of us,

Haley

“Mouse?” Sister called from the kitchen.

“At the computer. Come on back.”

She walked into the room saying, “I’m scared to come into your house anymore since that husband of yours had such a hissy fit about his privacy.”

What she was referring to was a day a couple of months ago. Fred had just gotten out of the shower and, holding a towel around him, walked into the kitchen. Mary Alice and Miss Bessie were sitting at the table eating Keebler chocolate chip cookies and drinking Cokes, very much at home.

Fred, totally startled, dropped the towel and fled. All he remembered, he said later, was the Keebler chocolate chip cookie bag and a pink crocheted hat, and those two images were burned onto his retina. “Take the damn key away from her, Patricia Anne.”

I didn’t, of course, but I did ask her to be a little more discreet.

“I don’t know why,” she said. “Wasn’t like he had anything to hide.”

“Pitiful,” Miss Bessie agreed.

Needless to say, I didn’t pass their opinions on to Fred. No use pouring salt onto wounds. I did, however, remind them that he had just gotten out of the shower and they had scared him.

Both of them said, “Huh.”

“What have you got?” Sister asked now, looking over my shoulder.

I moved so she could sit down. “Look at this. It’s wonderful.”

She read the e-mail and said, “How about that. Let’s see. Haley’s four months pregnant now. How big do you suppose Joanna is? Big as a cantaloupe?”

“I doubt it. They do most of their growing in the last two months.”

“You always looked like a stick with a knot on it when you were pregnant, and I looked like I’d swallowed a pumpkin.”

“Mama said you just carried yours high.”

Sister nodded and tapped the screen with her fingernail. “Pregnant’s nice, you know, Mouse? If it hadn’t been for my husbands all dying and stretch marks, I might have had some more. I hope Marilyn gets pregnant soon.”

“So do I. And I wish Freddie would get married and settle down.”

“He’s happy. You want to print this?”

“Absolutely. I’m going to make her a scrapbook.”

Sister clicked the mouse, and the printer came on. “I’m going to the hospital. I thought you might like to go with me.”

“Is there any news?”

“Not really. Virgil’s hoping I can talk Tammy Sue into coming to my house for a while and resting some. He’s worried about her.” She reached over and got the piece of paper that the printer had spit out. “I figured maybe you could help me.”

“Larry’s the same?”

“Hanging in there. Here.” She handed me the letter. “What did your policeman say when you told him about Day Armstrong?”

“My policeman said he would look into it.” I folded the letter and put it into a box in the corner that had “Haley” written on it. “I told him to keep me out of it.”

“That’s going to be hard to do.”

“I know.” I closed the box. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll go with you.”

“Virgil says she hasn’t eaten a bite since yesterday.”

I took a quick shower and slipped on some light gray wool pants and a sweater.

“You look like you’re already in mourning,” Sister said when I came into the den. “You should wear bright clothes to a hospital.”

“You want me to go with you or not?”

Sister nodded and stood up. She was bright enough for the two of us in a flowered broomstick skirt and her purple boots. “It’s just that color cheers people up.”

“You’re right,” I admitted. “And you look very nice.”

“Well, you can’t help it if you don’t have my flair.”

She was telling the truth.

“I left Haley’s chair at their house on my way over here,” she explained as we walked to the car. “Just stuck it in the hall.”

“I didn’t know you had a key.”

Sister patted her purse. “Visa card. It’s a wonder somebody hasn’t robbed them blind. You’d think Philip would have better sense.”

“They have the alarm system.”

“With the code numbers punched so much they’re worn off. Besides, I saw what you hit the other day to set it.”

We climbed up into Sister’s Mercedes. “I miss my Jag,” she said. “I’m going to get me another one, I swear.”

And with that, she backed out of my driveway, and we hauled ass to University Hospital.

“I think I’ve decided on my dress,” she said, nodding toward the books Bonnie Blue had brought, which were bouncing on the backseat as we hit a few potholes.

“Is it one I’d remember? One of the ones you and Fred were looking at?”

“No. It’s farther back in the book. It’s called the Rubenesque design. No frills or froufrou. Princess style. But it’s got a round neckline cut real low.” She drew a circle almost to her waist. “I mean real low.”

“The bridesmaids’ dresses aren’t going to match it, are they?” I asked, alarmed.

“Of course not. You don’t have anything to hold it up.”

I couldn’t argue with her there.

“Look. There’s a woman coming out of a parking place.” Sister crossed two lanes of traffic on Nineteenth Street and grabbed it. A man in a Nissan, who had been slowing down, planning on parking there, shot her a bird.

“Rude,” Sister said. “I swear folks get ruder every day. Don’t make eye contact with him, Mouse. It’s folks like that who cause road rage, and they say not to look them in the eye. You don’t want them to think you’re challenging them.”

There was no way that I was going to look the man in the eye. I was concentrating on catching my breath. I had almost succeeded in breathing normally by the time we got to the hospital elevator.

An attempt had been made to make the intensive care waiting room at University a soothing room. The walls were painted an attractive shade of pink, almost a peach, and a flowered wallpaper border at the top picked up the pink and added several other colors including the dark green of leaves, which a couple of the sofas matched. The other sofa and chairs were an industrial gray. On the TV mounted on the wall, Oprah and Deepak Chopra were discussing how important it was for people to renew the power of spirit in their lives. The message seemed to be missing its target here. Only one woman was looking at the TV, and she didn’t look too hopeful.

Tammy Sue, Olivia, and an older small woman with gray hair, who was introduced to us as Larry’s aunt
Maude were sitting on one of the sofas. Aunt Maude sat between the two girls. I liked her immediately.

“I love your boots,” she told Mary Alice, “and I hope you’ve come to get Tammy Sue out of here some. If she doesn’t get a decent meal in her body and some sleep, she’s going to fall over, and we’re going to have two patients on our hands.”

“That’s what we’ve come for,” Sister said. “Any news?”

Tammy Sue shook her head no. Her eyes were so swollen that I wondered if she were seeing clearly. “They say there’s nothing to do but wait. We get to go in to see him five minutes every hour.” She caught her breath. “He doesn’t even look like himself.”

“Well, Aunt Maude’s right, Tammy Sue,” Olivia said. “You need to get out of here for a while. Larry doesn’t know you’re here anyway.”

Tammy Sue bristled at her sister-in-law. “Yes, he does. He does so know I’m here.”

“No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know a thing.”

“Yes, he does.”

The other people in the waiting room looked up with interest. Aunt Maude turned to Olivia and informed her quietly that she was acting like a Simpson. The Simpsons, I assumed, were the common-as-pig-tracks branch of the Ludmiller family. Every Southern family has one. At any rate, Olivia slid back into her corner of the sofa, thoroughly chastised.

“You go, honey,” Aunt Maude said to Tammy Sue. “I’ll be right here. Get yourself some rest and some food.”

Tammy Sue looked at her watch. “We get to see him in ten more minutes. Then I’ll go.”

So we sat down and waited. And not even the pleas
ant decor of the room could make it anything but depressing.

“What are we going to feed her?” Sister asked while the three women went in to see Larry.

“She needs comfort food. Some homemade vegetable soup maybe, and some cornbread.”

Sister nodded. “That sounds good. Do you have any?”

“In my freezer.”

“Then we’ll take her by your house to eat.” She picked up a
People
magazine and glanced through it. I have no idea what she saw in the magazine that made her inform me and the other people sitting around us that, Lord, she was grateful that she was heterosexual.

An elderly woman got up, poured herself some coffee, and motioned for us to make room for her to sit on the sofa. Sister and I scooted down. The woman looked around the waiting room to make sure everyone had gone back to their sleep or returned to their magazines and then leaned over and whispered, “Elvis was here last night. I know everybody thinks he’s dead, but he’s not.” She paused to see what kind of reaction she was going to get from Sister and me. “He had on his white satin jumpsuit, and he sat right on this couch.”

“That was Buddy Stuckey,” Sister explained. “He’s an Elvis impersonator.”

“No, this was Elvis. He looked good, too. Lost a lot of that puffy weight he’d put on. I just thought I’d tell you so you’d know that your loved one’s going to be all right.”

“Thank you,” we both said.

“You’re welcome.” She glanced at the other occupants of the room again. “There’s some here don’t believe it.”

Sister nodded. “I can understand that.”

“Lost a lot of weight, he had. Wasn’t good for him anyway. Just asking for diabetes, you ask me. That’s what’s wrong with my sister in yonder.”

“I’m sorry,” Sister said.

The woman sipped her coffee. “She’s going to be all right.”

We agreed that we were sure that she was.

Tammy Sue looked more woebegone when she came out than she had when she went in. “He’s so pitiful,” she said. “Black and blue.” She wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Who would have done this?”

“We’ll find out,” Aunt Maude said soothingly. “And he moved his leg. That’s a great sign.”

I caught my breath. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of paralysis, which, of course, existed.

“Come on, Tammy Sue,” Mary Alice said. “We got a great parking place almost at the front door.” She put her arms around the girl’s shoulders. “And how does some homemade vegetable soup sound to you?”

“Okay. And a shower would be wonderful.”

I looked back as we left the waiting room. Olivia Ludmiller was standing by the window, her small face awash with tears.

An hour later, Tammy Sue, Sister, and I were sitting at my kitchen table. Tammy Sue and Sister were eating vegetable soup and corn muffins. I always double the recipe when I make corn muffins and put the extra in the freezer. A minute or less in the microwave, and it’s like fresh-baked muffins. I wasn’t hungry since I had had lunch with Fred, but I couldn’t resist a muffin.

“This is good,” Tammy Sue said, tasting the soup. She had taken a shower, washed her hair, and had on
the navy velour bathrobe I had bought Fred for his birthday, which he didn’t say he didn’t like, but which he’d never worn. Draw your own conclusions.

“Patricia Anne’s a good cook,” Sister said.

I was pleased at the compliment.

“She spends a lot of time in the kitchen.”

I wasn’t as pleased with that remark. It sounded like I didn’t have much of a life. I gave her a little kick on the ankle. “So does Martha Stewart.”

“When Larry gets out of the hospital, I’m going to subscribe to
Martha Stewart Living
and do all of the things she does. Like make my own Christmas decorations instead of buying them at Wal-Mart. And I’m going to bone my own chicken and cook it with rosemary stuffed under the skin. I saw her do that one day on TV.” Tears came into Tammy Sue’s eyes. “Do you know I’ve never boned a chicken, and I don’t even know what rosemary is?”

“It’s an herb like parsley, sage, and thyme,” Sister said. You could hear the three beats between sage and thyme.

“My mother was a wonderful cook. Not fancy food but good stuff like chicken and dumplings. I wish I’d paid more attention to how she did things, gotten her recipe for turkey and dressing, for instance. Things like that.” Tammy Sue sighed. “She kept our house so clean you could eat off the floor.”

“Really?” Sister cut her eyes around at me.

“And she’d even iron Daddy’s underwear.” The tears spilled over. “I’ve never ironed Larry’s underwear.”