Drop dead divas, p.20
Drop Dead Divas, page 20
“You have no other choice.”
“I bet Trina and Trisha Madewell will be there,” Rayna mused aloud, and we all looked at each other.
Ever practical, Gaynelle said: “Wear something washable, ladies.”
CHAPTER 14
Funerals are really for the living, I’ve decided over the years. The dead aren’t actually there to appreciate how many people dress up and show up, except maybe in spirit. Nor are they there to hear the eulogies spoken on their behalf.
That can be a good thing.
It turns out that Roland “Race” Champion wasn’t a frequent church-goer. Nor was his family. In fact, it was doubtful any of them had seen the inside of a church except for funerals in their entire lives. So the minister who was drafted to perform the services had to separate gossip from fact and try to come up with a polite, gracious speech about how wonderful a man had been taken away far too young from the bosom of his loving family.
Ministers are probably grossly underpaid.
It would have made more sense to me to just have the funeral home take care of all those details and have the service in their own chapel, but I wasn’t consulted. And apparently there was some kind of scheduling conflict at the Ashland Methodist church, so the services were to be conducted graveside in the Ashland cemetery on School Street.
A long, solemn procession of cars filed behind the black hearse as it rolled up and down the hilly highway between Holly Springs and Ashland. The twenty miles had never seemed quite so far. I sat up front with Bitty—sans pug—and Rayna and Gaynelle sat in the back.
“Where will the wake be held?” Rayna wondered aloud, and I turned to look at her.
“If you’re referring to the gathering after the funeral, I hope you don’t expect me to go there.”
“Why not? If you’re going to the funeral, you might as well get to eat some good food later.”
“That’s only if you know who’s doing the cooking,” I said.
“Trinket, remember where we live. Since the Champions don’t really belong to a church, I can almost guarantee you there will be Baptist and Methodist ladies’ societies trying to outdo each other with covered dishes and desserts.”
I reflected a moment, then nodded. “That’s probably true. Then it depends on where the wake is being held as to whether or not I go.”
Rayna and Gaynelle both nodded understanding. At least once in our lives I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves at someone’s house for an after-funeral gathering that included family pets walking on counters, tables, and the stove, and hosts of insects lined up greedily at food platters. There are bathrooms in this world so dirty that I prefer to go outside behind a bush rather than risk my bare behind on a toilet seat occupied by hordes of bacteria. In fact, I prefer an old-fashioned outhouse to some of the bathrooms I’ve been unfortunate enough to see in my lifetime. It’s enough to scar people forever.
At any rate, with the matter of the wake settled, we discussed odds and ends of gossip rather than what was really on our minds. The motive for Race’s murder still hung in the air like a giant question mark. We’d been back and forth over it a hundred times and none of us had come up with a reason that seemed good enough.
It occurred to me that perhaps we were looking at it the wrong way. For us, there was no good motive for murder. But for the person who had shot him, obviously they thought there was reason enough. Maybe we should stop looking so closely for a clear motive, and look for someone capable of murdering two people in cold blood. It had to be the same person. Nothing else made sense.
But who did we know who would be capable of such a thing?
Anyway, there we all were, Bitty, Rayna, Gaynelle and I, comfortably seated in Bitty’s Franklin Benz and driving slowly over broken asphalt, red rock and loose gravel as we followed the hearse and long line of cars to Ashland. Two motorcycle cops led the procession. When we turned off Highway 4 onto Ripley Street, the line slowed to a crawl.
There are two cemeteries in Ashland. This one is on School Street across from the brick high school and a couple of Headstart metal buildings. Smaller cemeteries sprawl on church grounds throughout Benton county, as well as family cemeteries, but this cemetery has been in use for a century and a half or more. Some of the headstones are moss-covered and leaning and some are brand new, a glistening white that speaks of new grief. A few ancient trees provide some shade here and there, and on the far side could be seen the bright green of a funeral tent erected for those who had come to pay their last respects to Race Champion.
Cars snaked around the cemetery toward a distant goal, until finally we got to the gravesite. The awning had been erected over strips of green artificial grass that made a square around the grave. Folding chairs were set up on three sides, some of them in the bright sunlight that beat down mercilessly. Tripods of flower wreaths ringed the entire area, and I could see NHRA on some of the ribbon banners. Apparently the National Hot Rod Association was well-represented. Red carnations, white lilies, gladiolas, red, yellow, and pink roses; even sunny daisies filled the air with scent. As soon as I opened the car door I could smell their fragrance on the hot breeze.
Gaynelle carried an old-fashioned parasol, and popped it open as we gathered by Bitty’s car. I recognized a lot more people than I’d thought I would, seeing as how I had been away from the area for so long, but Bitty quietly pointed out the ones she thought important.
“That’s Ashland’s mayor over there, and see that woman with the frizzy hair? We used to go to school with her. Her name’s Jewell Hopkins. Or was back then. I think it’s Jones now. Or maybe Smith. One of those. And over there is—”
“Trina and Trisha Madewell,” I interrupted. Bitty caught her breath and I gave Rayna a nudge with my elbow and then bent my head in the Madewells’ direction. She in turn nudged Gaynelle, and we all stood gawking from under the scant shadow of a pink polka dot parasol for a moment. We must have looked like idiots.
I broke away from the others before people turned to stare, and started toward the gravesite, angling in the general direction of the Madewell sisters. They both wore black. I mean jet black, too. Even their stockings were black. The thought of wearing pantyhose in this heat made me itch. I don’t know how they did it. I had worn nice cotton slacks so I didn’t have to even think about hose. My mother would be horrified if she knew. She still believes in the old ways of wearing white cotton gloves and hose to any function that is remotely public. Fortunately, though I’d never burned my bra, I had burned all the old-time civilities during my rebellious teenage years and never looked back. I felt no guilt whatsoever.
In the heat of a Mississippi summer, black is not the coolest color to wear. I’d thought ahead, so my light cotton slacks were a tan that matched my short-sleeved black and tan shirt. It was cool and somber at the same time, I’d thought when I looked at my reflection in Bitty’s antique mirror. My sensible black flats matched my cheap pleather purse, and all in all, I thought I represented Southern womanhood respectably.
Trina and Trisha both wore long-sleeved black dresses, black hats with flurries of black netting that half-hid their faces, and carried black handkerchiefs in their hands. I really felt sorry for them, as much because of the heat as their obvious grief. It’s always sad to lose someone you care about, even if that someone cheated on you. There has to be several dozen country songs dedicated to just that very theme.
Behind me I heard Gaynelle whisper, “Is that Sukey Spencer I see over there?” and it was quickly followed with Bitty’s, “Omigod, it is! I just knew she’d show up!”
Rayna caught up with me. “Hold on, Trinket. If there’s going to be trouble, I want to stand by you.” Just as I was feeling flattered, she added, “You’re tall enough to block anything coming my way.”
“Thank you” was all I could think of to reply.
The arrival of Naomi Spencer’s mother portended trouble. This is the woman who is banned from every major store between Holly Springs and Tupelo because she’s a kleptomaniac, so perhaps it’s understandable. I looked around the growing crowd to find her.
“Which one is she?” I finally asked Rayna, and she bent her head in the direction of a line of wreaths set up on tripods. I looked. Searing sunlight was blinding enough, but all the wreaths had banners with messages written in glitter that reflected light in broken refractions. I squinted. “I can’t see anyone.”
“The blond dressed in sequins,” she replied in a loud whisper.
For a moment I had a difficult time telling what was sequins and what was glitter, then I distinguished the wreath banners from the woman when she moved toward the line of chairs set up under the funeral home awning. Sukey Spencer wore a dark navy dress with a flirty chiffon skirt; the bodice was made entirely of blue sequins. Sunlight bounced off her chest in a dozen different Morse Code messages, and I had to really squint to keep looking at her. I should have worn sunglasses.
“She looks like she’s on fire,” I whispered back to Rayna, and she nodded.
“Sukey always looks like that. I heard she even wears nightgowns with glitter and sequins sewn on the front.”
“Maybe she’s kin to Chen Ling,” I murmured, and Rayna giggled. We were both pretty nervous. I could tell she was by the way her bracelet bangles kept clinking together, even though she had her hands clasped in front of her. It’s pretty easy for people to tell when I’m nervous. I say stupid things.
My focus was on Naomi Spencer’s mother as she walked slowly across the uneven ground toward the funeral tent. She wasn’t quite what I’d expected. For some reason I’d envisioned a much older woman, the kind who went out in public with foam rollers in her hair and flip-flops on her feet. I hope I never get to the age when I feel comfortable at the local Wal-Mart or Sears store wearing house slippers, hair rollers and no underwear. Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with people who do feel comfortable doing that, I guess; it’s just that Mama spent far too many years investing her time and advice into me about always wearing clean underwear in case I was involved in a wreck for me to flout her rules on social etiquette at my age.
At any rate, Sukey Spencer didn’t look at all the kind of person to flout etiquette rules, either. While she was rather gaudy in her sequins, satin, and chiffon, I cannot say she looked slovenly. Just the opposite, in fact. Her blond hair had been teased and curled into submission, her navy blue stockings matched her navy blue dress and shoes, and even the huge purse she carried was a dark navy blue. It looked like a diaper bag, with pockets and wide straps, and seemed to weigh her down a bit as she struggled over a rut in the ground.
“I wonder if she could get a microwave into that purse?” I must have said aloud, because Rayna dug her elbow into my ribs and shook her head. I looked around and realized a kind of hush had fallen over the crowd, even though moments before everyone had been talking almost normally.
The black hearse had stopped several yards away, and the doors opened. It was easy to tell the funeral home people from the pall bearers; they all wore dark suits and had stoic faces. The pall bearers were dressed in what was probably their best clothes, but hardly looked like suits. Two wore casual jackets; most wore shirt sleeves and ties. One of them wore a NHRA jersey and blue jeans. Probably a family member. They were all stout young men, with the oldest no more than forty, maybe. The pall bearer wearing the National Hot Rod Association jersey looked grim. He had a buzz cut that showed pink scalp, and big ears like jug handles.
A tall, cadaverous looking man stood beneath the tent, a Bible in his hands. He held his head up, gazing out at the crowd as people trickled into place and a cleared path was made for the pall bearers and casket. The brittle sound of metal on metal cut sharply into the silence as the casket was pulled from the hearse and the men each grabbed hold of the long handles on the two sides. They carried it to the waiting metal frame behind the bright green fake grass and settled it into place. The man with the Bible moved to stand right in front of Race’s casket. Apparently, he was the minister.
He launched into an obviously rehearsed eulogy, listing the virtues of the deceased as a wonderful son, brother, and friend beloved by all who met him. While he listed all the accomplishments of Race’s life, I let my gaze wander. Sukey Spencer stood as rigid as a pole, her eyes fastened on the pallbearers still gathered around the coffin with their heads bent. Not far from her, Trina and Trisha Madewell sobbed softly into their black lace handkerchiefs. Really, I had no place being at this funeral. I felt awkward, and made up my mind to slip away just as soon as I could do so without being noticed.
Finally, the minister asked if anyone else wished to say something. No one spoke. It looked like the funeral was over when the minister bowed his head for the final prayer. A nice service, and blessedly brief, I thought to myself when the minister ended his prayer.
I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until the pallbearers stepped back and I let it out. The cinnamon scent of Big Red chewing gum wafted away on the hot breeze. In stressful situations my throat gets dry. I chew gum to grease my jaws. Or at least, that’s how Daddy puts it when he sees me smacking away on a tasteless wad of gum.
“Greasing those jaws, girl?” he’ll say, and that’s when I realize I’m probably making too much noise.
Since Daddy wasn’t there to make sure I stayed quiet, I decided to tuck the gum up into my cheek until I’d made the ritual progression through the tent to speak to the family seated beneath its green shade. While I worked it up there with the tip of my tongue, my peripheral vision caught a flurry of motion off to the side. Naturally, I turned to look.
Sukey Spencer had a big old gun pointed right at the NHRA pallbearer’s head. It didn’t waver even though it was a really big gun and she didn’t look strong enough to hold it up that way for too long. Sunlight gleamed along the length of the wicked-looking barrel. She said something to him I couldn’t hear from where I stood, and he slowly turned around to look at her.
By that time, several mourners had moved hastily out of the way so that NHRA stood there virtually alone, only a couple yards from the minister and the coffin. The rest of us stood there as if nailed to the dirt, watching the scene play out like it was on-stage.
“Ohmygod,” I heard Gaynelle say in a shocked whisper, “that’s Race’s brother! Why would Sukey want to shoot him?”
Sukey started yelling at Race’s brother, using the gun to emphasize her points as she jabbed it toward him. People had scattered, but he stood still, just looking at her with a face scrubbed clean of any kind of emotion. She could have been giving him a grocery list for all it seemed like at the moment.
As if drawn by an invisible rope, the four of us moved closer so we could hear what she was saying. If Bitty hadn’t been behind me pushing, I probably would have stayed right where I was, but she somehow managed to herd the three of us toward the danger zone despite our reluctance. Since we were behind and to the left, I felt pretty sure we were out of Sukey’s sight and range. Of course, that was subject to change at any moment.
Still, when we got close enough to hear, I wasn’t that surprised to hear Sukey talking about her daughter. Frankly, I would have been more surprised if she hadn’t been talking about Naomi.
“She was too young . . . and beautiful . . . she didn’t have to die,” Sukey was saying to him, and the young man just kept still and silent, although his eyes were watchful. “It was you, wasn’t it? I know it was. You told Artie that you knew she’d killed your brother and you’d get her if it was the last thing you ever did!”
Safely tucked out of sight behind the three of us, Bitty stood on her tiptoes and whispered in my ear, “Artie is Sukey’s older brother.”
Sukey started poking the pistol toward the NHRA guy a bit erratically. I thought she looked about to completely lose it and braced myself for the sound of a gunshot. She took a step closer to him, wobbled a bit on the uneven ground, then halted.
“I want to hear you say it. I want you to tell everyone here just what you did to my baby!” she shouted.
Finally he spoke, his voice low and his words terse: “No. I never did nothin’ to Naomi.”
“You’re the only one who had a reason!” Sukey screamed at him “Almost every other person ’round here loved her!”
Somehow I knew what would happen next, and I straightened to my full height and squared my shoulders to shield Bitty from sight.
“Not her,” NHRA said, and jabbed a finger in our direction. “Not Miz Hollandale. She hated Naomi and you know it.”
All of a sudden being a human shield got really risky. Sukey Spencer swung her eyes—and gun—toward us as we stood there in a little knot of Divas. She looked really wild. Saliva had gathered at the corners of her mouth so that spit flew when she spoke.
“You’re lyin’! I don’t see her. She ain’t here.”
To forestall the inevitable, Gaynelle took three bold steps toward Sukey. Using her schoolteacher tone, she said sharply, “Sukey Lee Spencer, you know good and well that what you are doing is wrong. Stop it this instant.”
Sukey’s eyes widened slightly. “Miz Bishop,” she started to say, then stopped as she apparently caught sight of Bitty standing behind me and Rayna. Anger replaced the look of surprise on her face and the gun barrel lifted. Hot air shimmered in a haze freighted with apprehension. My heart beat so hard and loud it could have been heard all the way back to Holly Springs. It occurred to me that this crazy woman’s gun could blow a hole the size of a baseball through any one of us.
“You!” she shouted. “Miz High-and-Mighty Bitty Hollandale! Was it you that killed my baby? Did you? Just because of the money? Is that it? Why should you care now if the senator left my girl all that money! You got what you could off him, why begrudge her a little bit?”
An indignant Bitty popped around from behind me before I could stop her. “What do you mean, Philip left her money? Are you crazy? He wouldn’t do that!”
Sukey acted offended. “Well, why shouldn’t he? She spent damn near two years puttin’ up with all his wishy-washy crap. She should’a got something for her trouble!”
