Drop dead divas, p.8
Drop Dead Divas, page 8
While Cady Lee was off in the powder room, Cindy Nelson arrived. I like Cindy. She’s pragmatic and seems much more mature than thirty-one. Maybe it’s because she has three or four kids and a menagerie of dogs, cats, hamsters, and whatever else might have fur or feathers and require lots of feeding and cleaning up after. That tends to age people, I’ve noticed. Or at least, it ages me when I’m left with my parents’ cat colony and neurotic dog to feed and care for.
Cindy is a very attractive young woman. Her light brown hair is cut into a short style that looks tousled and chic at the same time. She always wears casual clothes to our meetings, and looks good in anything from faded jeans to walking shorts. Today she wore a pair of knee-length khaki shorts, a bright red sleeveless blouse, sandals, no makeup, and managed to look cool and pretty. It must be an inherited talent.
Since Cindy and I share a love of books and writing in our personal journals, we get along famously. If anyone ever reads our journals, we both plan to plead dementia. If hers are anything like mine, I’m quite sure we’ll end up with adjoining rooms down at Whitfield, the Mississippi state insane asylum. They call the asylum something else now in this new age of being politically correct, but it means the same thing.
Once Cady Lee got out of the powder room and everyone hugged, Bitty said in a brisk tone, “We can all ride in my car since I know where we’re going.”
“We won’t all fit in your car,” I pointed out. “It’s a two-seater. The back seat is just for insurance purposes.”
“Don’t be silly, Trinket. We’ll take the Franklin Benz.”
In case I haven’t mentioned this, Bitty had gotten very nice settlements in her four divorce cases. With each lump sum, she’d purchased something expensive as a sort of consolation gift to herself. Her divorce from Frank Caldwell had paid for a brand new house. That had been before the pyramid scheme collapsed and Frank was left with nothing but debts and criminal charges against him. Her next divorce, from Delbert Anderson, had paid for a trip around the world. The Mercedes Benz had been from her divorce from Franklin Kirby, III. Philip Hollandale’s settlement had helped purchase the Miata she usually drove.
“Do I have to sit up front with the dog?” I asked as we headed for her garage. “I’d much rather sit in the back.”
Bitty toted Chen Ling sans baby sling for some reason. The dog wore a pink bib that matched her collar, and some kind of garment on her rear that looked suspiciously like a diaper. If Chitling was having digestive troubles, I definitely did not want to sit by her. And there was no way in hell Bitty would ever convince me to change her diaper.
“Just for a few minutes, Trinket. I don’t want to leave her alone, so I’m taking her over to Luann Carey’s while we’re gone.”
Spots danced in front of my eyes. Hope sprang anew. I hardly dared breathe for fear she’d change her mind and we’d end up carting Chitling with us to our mysterious rendezvous location. Then it occurred to me that if we were going to a place so remote or dangerous that Bitty wasn’t willing to risk her dog, I wasn’t willing to go either.
“Bitty Hollandale, you tell me right this minute where we’re going or I won’t get in this car,” I said, and she stopped by the driver’s door of the black Benz and glared at me. I glared back.
“Fine,” she said after a minute of us glaring at each other, “we are going to meet the others at the junction of Liberty Road and Highway Five.”
I blinked. “That’s in the middle of nowhere.”
“Not really. It’s between Ashland and Hickory Flat.”
“Like I said, the middle of nowhere!”
“Don’t worry, Trinket. We’re just meeting the others there so they can follow me. I’m the only one who knows our final destination.”
“If that’s supposed to be reassuring—it’s not.”
“Oh for heaven’s sake, have a little faith. Have I ever gotten you lost?”
While I stood there with my mouth open and a dozen different scenarios zipping through my brain, Bitty got into the car and started the engine. Cady Lee and Cindy got into the back seat rather quickly, I thought, and I was left to either get in or be run down as she backed over me. I almost decided upon the latter, but gave in and got into the roomy passenger seat. Chitling looked up at me with a smirk.
I really hate it when dogs know more than I do.
We stopped in front of Luann Carey’s house. She lives on Higdon, a nice street off Highway 4 that runs to Ashland. She has one of those Tudor style homes that looks like an English cottage, complete with a front garden that billows with roses, lilies, and every kind of blooming or green plant you can name. The garden also teems with pugs. Luann sat in a wooden swing under an arbor festooned with snowy white roses, smiling as peacefully as someone can who has a dozen smush-faced dogs under their feet. I began to suspect she may be another candidate for Whitfield, but she seems fairly sane when you talk to her.
With Chitling safely stowed in the loving arms of her former caretaker—Daddy still says Luann saw a good thing coming when she “loaned” Bitty that dog—we drove off in the Franklin Benz, headed for parts unknown.
Believe it or not, there are parts of Mississippi with mountains, all under a thousand feet. While the flat delta is mainly along the Mississippi River, in Benton County hills run up and down pretty steeply in places, and the Holly Springs National Forest climbs ridges that break off sharply into kudzu-choked ravines and barren red dirt. Liberty Road winds through flat farmland and rolling hills studded with small houses, large houses, and house trailers here and there. It comes out on Highway 5 right above Abel’s Store Road. An old country store used to stand on the side of the highway, gone now since the new fork signals the end of old Highway 5 and the start of the new section. A new bridge has been built over Tippah Creek, too.
I recognized Gaynelle's old blue Cadillac at the side of the road, and right behind her was Rayna's black SUV. I couldn’t see how many passengers each vehicle held, or if all the Divas had reported for active duty. We are three down right now, two having left our membership at the same time, and one inactive for a while.
Bitty’s cell phone rang. I usually recognize her ring tone. It plays a short refrain from Dixieland. Not this time. A theme from the 007 movie franchise lit up her phone. It was all I could do to keep from rolling my eyes and saying something tacky. It would be a waste of my time anyway. Bitty does love her intrigues.
“Yo,” Bitty said crisply into her pink jewel-toned cell phone. “Red Dog here.”
This time I just could not help myself. I rolled my eyes and laughed out loud. As I suspected, it was wasted on her. She didn’t even acknowledge me.
But when she said, “Phase one complete. Phase two initiated,” my hysteria set in.
It was not intentional on my part. For one thing, I have a tendency to snort when hysterically laughing, and it’s a bit embarrassing. For another thing, when Bitty is in one of her role-playing modes, as she obviously was, it only annoys her.
In the midst of my snorting, cackling, and wheezing, I heard Bitty say, “No, I don’t have live chickens with me. That’s Trinket. She’s choking on something. Or will be in a minute.”
I have a healthy respect for personal threats. I did my best to muffle my snorts. In the back seat, however, could be heard giggles. That set me off again. My jaws began to ache from trying to hold in my laughter, and my ribcage hurt. I even pinched myself in an effort to bring it under control, but nothing worked. Tears ran down my cheeks and over the fingers of the hand I clapped over my mouth as I tried to regain composure.
It took Bitty slamming on the brakes so that I lurched forward and cracked my knee on the dashboard before I could finally stop laughing long enough to breathe. Red dust boiled up around the Benz. It hung in the air outside the car for a moment before dissipating back along Liberty Road. Through the haze I saw Rayna's SUV window glide down and her head poke out.
“Are y’all all right?”
“Use your cell phone!” Bitty yelled back, and held up her pink spy phone.
Rayna must have complied. 007 theme music played again a second or two later. This time I was able to maintain. I thought about sad things to keep from laughing again.
While I focused on the huge hole in the ozone layer, the Mid-East situation, the price of a small loaf of bread, and how the price of oil had skyrocketed during vacation months, Bitty finished her code word conversation and took the lead position in what must have been a really strange looking caravan of vehicles. We traveled down the narrow ribbon of Highway 5, then she turned onto Renick Hill Road. It winds up a rather steep grade, and after turning onto Autry Road, she made so many turns I felt like Alice in the Queen of Hearts’ garden maze. If we’d come upon a croquet court, complete with flamingo mallets and hedgehog balls, it would not have surprised me.
Lately, I often feel much like Alice in Through the Looking Glass. Everyday things have a way of turning round about so that they make no sense. I tell you this only because the rest of our day seemed to go that way.
By the time we’d been driving around the wooded hills for a half hour on a gravel road that felt more like a dried up creek bed, I was ready to reach wherever we were going, if only to stop my intestines from being jarred completely out of my body. If the ruts in the road could make a Mercedes Benz feel like riding in a log truck, I could only imagine how the passengers in Gaynelle's old Cadillac must feel.
Finally Bitty stopped the car. Right in front of us on a small rise sat a rather nice-looking cabin. Pine trees clustered around it, and fallen debris and deep green moss made a soft, thick front yard. In that front yard sat a Volkswagen Beetle. I spared a moment’s awe for the power of German engineering that had enabled that tiny yellow car to get up the road we’d just traveled.
Bitty, however, seemed shocked to see it.
She scrambled for her cell phone. Since Rayna and Gaynelle had parked on each side of us, I thought it a waste of battery. But apparently, we were so far back in the boonies no cell tower was close enough to provide service. Bitty cussed and slammed the phone to the leather seat, then opened her car door.
“Did you tell anyone where we were coming?” she demanded of no one in particular as she stomped toward the cabin.
“How could I when I have no idea where we are?” Rayna answered reasonably. She looked around a moment. “Wait. Didn’t there used to be some kind of lodge near here back in the nineteenth century?”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Sandra Dobson, whom I hadn’t seen since our last Diva meeting the month before. “That was over on Beck’s Springs Road, I believe. It was a resort of some kind, wasn’t it? People used to come here all the way from Memphis back before there were cars. Maybe they took the train to the railroad depot, and a horse and buggy from there. I think I saw some old photos in the museum.”
While we leaned up against the cars and chatted about the old resort and whether or not it would really be worth such a long buggy ride up what looked like logging roads and felt like mountain goat tracks, Bitty banged on the cabin door.
“Whoever is in there, you are on private property! You are trespassing! Come out here at once!”
Deelight Tillman looked from the cabin over to me and asked, “Do you know where we are, Trinket?”
I shrugged. “Only Bitty knows, apparently. And she doesn’t sound pleased that someone else beat her here. Whose car is that?”
Rayna looked at it with a slight frown. “I’ve seen that car recently, but for the life of me, I cannot think where.”
Keys rattled, and Bitty shouted that she was coming in and they’d better be getting out. Wherever we were, Bitty had keys to it. The cabin didn’t look old; in fact, it seemed to be fairly new. It had obviously been here a few years, but not so long it would qualify for the historical register or even a new tin roof.
The window glass in the cabin door shuddered when Bitty flung it open, and it banged against the frame with a loud crack. Birds roosting in the pines shrieked and rose up into the air en masse. Crows. They’re terrible scavengers, worse than buzzards in my opinion, because if their chosen meal isn’t dead, they’ll still eat it. At least most buzzards have the decency to wait.
I began to feel a bit uneasy. Bitty had disappeared into the cabin and I could hear her yelling at someone. She sounded furious. Whoever she was yelling at didn’t do much shouting back. At least, I couldn’t hear them. After a moment it got quiet. Too quiet.
Then an unearthly shriek that sounded worse than the crows came from the cabin, and we all burst into action. I started toward the cabin in a gait somewhat similar to that of a crab on a pier, since my knee throbbed from having hit the dashboard earlier. Beside me, Rayna ran much more gracefully—and faster—to leap up on the cabin porch ahead of me. Gaynelle and Cindy weren’t far behind us, while Deelight huddled in a crouch on the ground next to Marcy Porter and Cady Lee. Sandra had disappeared.
Rayna, going into the cabin at a run, met Bitty coming out of the cabin at a run. They collided just inside the doorway. The impact knocked them both backwards. Bitty landed inside on the floor, and Rayna sprawled on the porch.
I had a stitch in my side from trying to run the hundred yards or so to the cabin and arrived out of breath and holding a hand to my ribs. Rayna looked dazed but okay. I lurched toward the still open door. Bitty had landed on her rear end, hard. It had obviously knocked the breath out of her. I hovered over her, hair straggling down in my face and my hand to my side, trying to talk but still struggling for breath. Gasping, I held out my other hand for her to grab.
She looked up at me and recoiled, then seemed to recognize me and took my hand. As I helped her to her feet, I heard Gaynelle call from outside, “Is it a bear, Bitty?”
Rayna sounded edgy “How many bears do you know that drive a Volkswagen Beetle?”
“It smells funny in here,” Cindy commented as she sidled into the cabin.
I looked around. It was a nice cabin, as cabins in the woods go. It was open plan, with living room and kitchen on opposite sides, and a well-stocked bar dividing the room. Beyond the living area I could see a huge bed in a back room, but no sign of an intruder.
Bitty, still breathless from the impact with Rayna, clutched at me with her other hand. I could see she had smacked her mouth in the collision; blood dripped from her bottom lip. She said something unintelligible, and I shook my head.
“Catch your breath, honey. You’ve just got a split lip. We’ll deal with whoever is trespassing.”
I still sounded a bit wheezy myself, but apparently Bitty understood me because she shook her head vigorously.
“No! Me!”
“No, no, you need to rest and catch your breath,” Gaynelle said in her best teacher voice, but this time it didn’t work on Bitty.
She jerked away from me, but caught my wrist and dragged me toward the room with the bed in it. “No . . . me!” she got out again. “No . . . me!”
It wasn’t until she had me all the way inside the bedroom that I saw what she was really saying.
A body lay lifelessly atop a comforter spread over the bed. Blond hair spilled atop white pillows, and the face turned toward me was purple and contorted. A silk scarf was knotted tightly around the neck.
Someone had strangled Naomi Spencer.
CHAPTER 7
Not all outings with Bitty end this way, though lately her ratio is rising. Sandra, who had gone back to the car to get her first aid kit, something she usually carries with her when traveling with Bitty, checked Naomi’s vital signs and agreed that she was, indeed, dead. Since Sandra is a registered nurse, I tended to believe her.
Unfortunately, none of our cell phones worked on this hilltop thick with pine trees and crows. Rayna offered to drive down the hill until she could get a signal, and we all thought that was the best thing to do. The police would have to be called, of course. Since we were now in Benton County instead of Marshall County, the nearest sheriff would be from the county seat of Ashland.
Dazed, Bitty just nodded to everything that was suggested. That was how I knew she must be in shock.
“Should I make her some coffee?” I asked, but Gaynelle quickly said for me not to touch anything in the cabin.
“Fingerprints or evidence, you know. I don’t have any coffee with me, but I do have something in the car for emergencies.” She headed for her car, picking her way carefully down the rather steep slope covered in pine needles.
We were all out on the front porch, not really knowing where to sit or look or not look—it seemed incredible that Naomi Spencer was dead. Deelight echoed my thoughts.
“It’s a Sunday,” she observed in a soft voice as if afraid to disturb anyone. “It’s not even noon yet. She can’t be dead. Why, she’s . . . she’s so young.”
I don’t know what Cindy must have been thinking, especially with Bitty sitting right there on the porch with us and all, but the moment Cindy started to say, “Well, the good always die young,” Bitty leaped up from the porch with an angry shriek.
“Good? Good?! That little harpy shouldn’t even know about this place, much less come here to be killed! Ohhhhh!”
The last was uttered with a frustrated, furious gritting of her teeth. She looked and sounded like a mad cat. If she had fur, it would be standing straight out. As it was, she stomped a foot and clenched her fists.
“Damn Philip Hollandale! This is all his fault!”
Thankfully, Gaynelle returned about that time with her emergency “coffee” and unscrewed the top. “Here. This should help.”
Bitty took the bottle she held out and downed a healthy swig, then gave it back. I recognized the familiar scent of Jack Daniel’s. Gaynelle took a drink then passed it to the rest of us. It’s amazing what just a tiny bit of whiskey can do to calm the nerves.
Since Bitty seemed much calmer, I couldn’t help asking, “How is this all Philip Hollandale’s fault, Bitty?”
She sat back down on the porch, this time picking a bent-willow rocker despite the cushion being dirty and strewn with leaves. “Philip must have brought her here. She wouldn’t know about it any other way, I’m sure.”
