Wedding Bell Blues (20 page)

I went upstairs to “deep clean.” Ida Plum did the daily beds, dusting and general housekeeping but sometimes I liked to go behind her and really clean. Run a dust mop under the beds to make sure all the dust bunnies were rousted out. Under the dressers, nightstands. Wipe down the baseboards and windowsills. Really, really scrub the tubs and sinks. Run my fingers over the top of door facings, wash light fixtures, wipe even the tops of the bulbs in bedside lamps.

By the time I'd done the first three bedrooms and started across the hall, I thought I heard a door slam downstairs, felt a whoosh of air blow past me. Ida Plum? She'd left before lunch, taking some comp time since both of us would be working our tails off Saturday. Scott? He'd be out at the fairgrounds building booths, probably working in the dark to the pitiful beam of a floodlight until midnight. Malinda? She would have yoo-hooed up the stairs when she came in and noticed nobody in the kitchen.

At the top of the stairs, I called down, “Hello.” Nothing but silence answered. I called again, “Ida Plum?” Maybe she'd forgotten something? Nothing.

Cleaning supplies in hand, I opened the door to what had been Miss Lavinia's room, the room where she died. There was a creak, a sort of wooden floor,
old
wooden floor kind of creak. I whirled around. There was nothing behind me. Nobody but me, my brushes and pail in the hall. But across the room I saw the white wicker rocking chair by the window. It seemed to be going back and forth. Or did I only imagine it?

I quickly closed the door and put away my cleaning stuff. Maybe just thinking about ghosts had got me seeing things. I did not need a ghost in this house. I did not want a ghost in this house. I had all I could do to keep up with, and work with the living, in my life.

Before I went downstairs, I stood in front of the closed door to my pink Azalea room, said out loud, “Miss Lavinia, honey, you finished your business here in Littleboro, didn't you? I can't help you. Go away now.”

When the day doesn't go right (and when does one ever?) I find a good soak in almost-too-hot water helps. I called Malinda on her cell phone to see if she was okay and told her briefly about Debbie. She had taken the afternoon off to be with Elvis, who was cranky and running a slight temperature, probably from too much parade excitement, she said, and was already in bed.

Epsom salts take some of the bruises away, or at least soothes them a bit. And some drops of lavender oil. Then you keep adding hot water as it cools until the tub gets really full and you have to climb out or drown.

So that's what I did and wished with all my heart that poor little Debbie Booth was asleep in my nice bed upstairs. Or that she had packed her blue roller bag and waved goodbye to me on the Dixie Dew porch this morning, full of a hale and hearty good breakfast. Instead she was either on a slab in a cold morgue, or on her way to one, and I felt awful about it. And awful about me and my bed-and-breakfast business. Would there be whispers among the bed-and-breakfast crowd? What if this made the headlines in the next issue of
The Mess
? I might as well put out a “for sale” sign, but who would buy it? Next thing after the gossip could be a tale about the Dixie Dew being haunted and then a team of ghostbusters would descend on me.

I twisted and turned, a thousand thoughts and worries diving in and through my mind. Near midnight I turned on my light, picked up a book and tried to read when I heard a key in the lock, then the front door open. I waited. The door closed, the lock clicked in place, then I heard one set of footsteps that sounded male. No little spikey heels, no giggles with it. Only one person had come in. Those flat male footsteps went up the stairs.

I listened hard for a second set and heard only silence. Either Miles Fortune had come back from the airport alone or he was carrying somebody upstairs and the footsteps didn't sound heavy enough for two. Whatever in the world was going on? Why was he making all these airport runs that didn't seem to result in bringing anybody back with him?

What did I know about the man, really? Nothing. Only what I read on his professional website and that he was friendly, very good-looking and dressed like a
GQ
model. The ultimate
Gentleman's Quarterly
model. He seemed to know bits and pieces about the Green Bean Festival and seemed connected somehow to Littleboro, but I didn't know how or what or who with or when. And what had he been doing spying on the luncheon at Mayor Moss's on Monday? My mind was still circling with questions when I went to sleep.

Somewhere in my dreams I saw Ida Plum being crowned Miss Green Bean. She rode on a single float, regal as Cleopatra, held an okra stalk like a spear and waved her other hand that wore Reba's hunk of a diamond ring. Then she took off the ring, threw it into the crowd and rode on.

 

Chapter Thirty-two

Thursday morning Miles Fortune came to breakfast looking rumpled, his hair mussed and his running clothes wrinkled and ratty. This was not the
GQ
guy I'd seen the past few days.

I poured him coffee. He grunted. He downed his juice, shook his head as if to clear it, then went to my buffet and ladled his plate with grits and scrambled eggs. Ida Plum brought him whole wheat toast, brown and hot, from the kitchen. He mumbled something that sounded a little bit like “thank you,” picked up his fork and began to eat like he hadn't seen food in a week.

So far the morning and the whole house seemed filled with a strange quiet. Maybe a respectful quiet for our dear departed Debbie Booth, except Miles didn't know about that, he'd left for Raleigh before Ossie arrived and apparently not returned until around midnight. I wondered if he'd even noticed the crime scene tape on the door down the hall from his room. From his foggy state I thought it was safe to assume he hadn't. I said nothing.

Ida Plum and I tiptoed from the room, whispered in the kitchen about whether we should offer pleasantries or not. We decided not. When I went in to refill his coffee cup, Miles Fortune had started out, had his hand on the front doorknob when I came in.

“Wait,” I said. “I have to tell you something.”

He turned around, smiled as though he expected something pleasant, some sort of good news. I thought he must be one of those glass-half-full people. Bless them. We need more of them in the world. Unfortunately, what I had to tell him was not good news. I ushered him into the living room, closed the French door and watched his smile quickly fade and his expression turn to puzzled.

“What?” he asked.

“Debbie Booth is dead,” I said.

“No.” His face darkened. “What? When? How did it happen?”

I told him nobody was sure how it happened. Her body had been taken to Chapel Hill for an autopsy, but my guess was something she ate. Ida Plum had agreed with me and even Miss Isabella said Debbie started feeling sick at the fairgrounds and just got worse.

“My God.” Miles grabbed his throat with both hands. “When? What?” He started to make gagging noises. “I ate green stuff, too. I judged.” He groaned and shook his head. “I must have been crazy to taste all that stuff.”

“Wait,” I said. “Miss Isabella said Debbie started feeling sick
before
the judging.”

Miles put his hands on his flat, trim stomach.

“I didn't come here to die,” he said, and groaned some more. “This sucks. This whole town sucks. My life sucks.”

Well, I thought, so much for my glass-half-full theory. He surely is in a whole lot better than the spot poor Debbie Booth's in right now. He bent over, groaned again. I helped him to a chair.

“I'm sure you're fine,” I said, even though he did look pale.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. I went to the bathroom and brought back a wet washcloth to put on his forehead, then I patted his shoulder. Who knew he was such a baby? A real wuss. “I think if you ate whatever it was that Debbie ate, you would have felt it before now.”

“I feel it,” he said. “I feel it right now.” He grabbed his stomach with both hands, bent over and moaned in agony.

“Relax, take deep breaths,” I said, taking his warm hand. “You haven't been throwing up, have you?”

He closed his eyes. “I can't get sick. I'm a runner. Runners don't get sick. You run in rain, in sleet, in snow, in heat and the deep of night. You run, run, run.”

I felt him relax. After a few minutes he flung the washcloth toward the ceiling, jerked himself up, shook himself all over like a wet cat, and said, “I'll be okay. I'll be okay. I must think positive.”

He patted himself all over as though checking himself for anything out of the ordinary. No bumps, no bruises, nothing broken. He smiled. “Nothing hurts,” he said.

I stood holding the damp cloth I'd managed to catch. I was a bit startled. One minute he's moaning and groaning about dying, the next minute he acts like he's going to bolt out the door.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

He raised both arms in the air and started chanting, “Deep cleansing breaths. Deep cleansing breaths. Deep…” Then he was gone, letting the door slam behind him.

I heard footsteps pound across the porch and he was down the walk, out the front gate, gone. He sure hadn't shown much sympathy or concern for Debbie Booth and certainly not an ounce for me and the Dixie Dew. I guess he just had an L.A. kind of mind. Me, me, me.

Scott popped in at lunchtime, looking harried and hungry. He went straight to the fridge and started rummaging around. “Ham?” he said. “Swiss?” Then he went to the bread box. “And rye! Who could ask for more?” He waved two slices of bread in the air.

“Mustard.” Ida Plum handed him the jar, plus one of bitter orange marmalade.

“Tops it off,” she said.

He got the last of the coffee and I made more. “Tomorrow night's the big night.” He winked at me and reached for my hand that held the coffeepot. “We'll find out who is Miss Green Bean. And the winner of the Green Bean Cook-off, do-off, send-off, end-off business.”

I thought surely he'd been at the barbershop, service station or Breakfast Nook and heard about the demise of Debbie Booth. I didn't ask because I really didn't want to know how far or how fast the bad news might have traveled.

“Miss Green Bean will be crowned,” he said, chewing.

Whew. Maybe he'd read my expression about Debbie's death and decided not to go there. I sat down beside him.

“Who entered?” I asked. “How many contestants were there?” I couldn't see many teen girls who would want to wear a crown of green beans or even be willing to let it be known for the rest of her life that she was once a Miss Green Bean.

“Don't know,” Scott said. He cut his eyes toward the cookie jar. He was as bad as Sherman with body language hinting for food. Ida Plum stepped in front of the cookie jar, blocked his view and folded her arms across her chest. “Some of the music and dancing might be pretty good,” he continued.

“Debbie Booth—” I started, then stopped with a knot in my throat big as a coffee mug. I couldn't tell him.

Ida Plum came to stand behind me, put both hands on my shoulders. I needed stability, bless her. Scott ate his sandwich and didn't look up. When he had swallowed a bite, he said, “Heard it at the Breakfast Nook. Too bad.”

“She was wonderful,” I said, and started to cry. “I loved her newspaper columns and cookbooks and the fact that she was willing to come to Littleboro's First Annual Green Bean Festival to be a judge. She's big time. We're little bitty green beans in the gigantic pot of the foodie world. She could have been anywhere, gone anywhere and she came here!” Ida Plum handed me a napkin and I blew my nose.

“It's not your fault.” Scott hugged me.

He didn't know that it might be my fault. That smoothie could have been meant for me and somehow, at the fairgrounds, Debbie had gotten it first. Scott released me and drank a big swallow of coffee.

“I built the flats for the stage,” he said, “decorated them with green bunting our Miz Mayor ordered from some fancy place, beautiful stuff, got about a thousand green balloons all attached.” Then he started laughing as if a sudden thought had flashed across his mind, an image. He waved the hand with the knife that had been in the mustard jar. “Can't you just see it? Enough balloons and that whole auditorium at the high school could be lifted into the sky, Miz Mayor and our beauty queen sailing out into the biosphere.”

“Not possible,” Ida Plum said with a sniff. She was more practiced than me at holding back tears.

“And speaking of possible”—I regained my composure—“how's progress on my gazebo?”

“In good time, my sweet.” He aimed for a kiss on my cheek, missed and hit my ear, eased past Ida Plum to the cookie jar, helped himself and shot out the door.

“Do we know anything yet?” I asked Ida Plum. “Green bean queens? What killed Debbie Booth? We're left out of the loop and speaking of loops, any news on Verna? Does she know Robert Redford is alive and well?”

“I told her”—Ida Plum put Scott's plate in the dishwasher—“when I stopped by last night. She seemed relieved, said she knew she could depend on you to take care of him. But she's worried about coming home. Says The Oaks and even their great physical therapy is just not home.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Too neat. Too clean. Too organized.” The thought of Verna coming back to that house depressed me. But what to do? I wasn't even related to her, just concerned. Plus I was the temporary babysitter of Robert Redford.

“
The Pilot
might have a list of the contestants by now, and the cook-off winners,” I said as I headed out the door to the mailbox. When I brought it in, I raced Ida Plum to see who would unfold it first. And no news about the John Doe that our Ossie had “rescued” from the roadside picnic table. The man always got the front page. In this case, I guess no news was good news.