Doing It at the Dixie Dew Page 15

  After last night, I wouldn’t be surprised at anything anybody would do. Man-made slime pits. I shuddered to think what would have happened if either me or Malinda had gone that way alone.

  Last night after I dropped Malinda off … Malinda who rode home wrapped in our picnic tablecloth saying she’d have to take ten showers to get the stench out and she was headed there straight as her squeaky sneakers would take her … I took a long bath myself. I soaked and read and thought. I’d nearly drowned Malinda in my wild parsley chase and had endangered both our lives. All for what? To find the root of what was going on in this town. Nobody else seemed interested. Ossie DelGardo might consider murder too much to be a part of his job, but when it happened in my house and almost happened again … to me, then somebody had to do something.

  Tea with Miss Tempie? Of course I wasn’t going. I had better things to do. I’d rather scrape ghastly gray paint off the double doors that opened to the dining room. I’d rather paint moldings. I’d rather do anything.

  At ten Scott arrived towing two electricians he introduced as Bob and Bill, the Mitchell brothers. “Bob plays bass and Bill plays fiddle.”

  Scott must have read my look, because he quickly added, “When they’re not stringing hot and cold wire.”

  The brothers—one had a red beard; the other was bald—wore matching dull blue uniforms with ACE embroidered on the backs.

  “They’re bona fide,” Scott added. “In fact”—he laid an arm across Bill’s shoulder—“they’re the best.”

  The three went to the attic. Later I heard them in the basement, yelling things back and forth.

  Just before lunch, Malinda telephoned. “You going to go play tea party?”

  “Not this girl,” I said, wondering why Malinda got an invitation, too.

  “I’m game if you are. Always wanted to put on my hat and gloves, go to the front door of that house. Hell, I always wanted to be invited to that house.”

  “Miss Tempie’s?”

  “Honey,” Malinda said, “that house was the awe of my childhood. My grandmother cooked for them. Once in a while I got to hang around the kitchen and peek through a crack in the door at the goings-on, but that was as far as I got.”

  “What went on?” I scraped paint as I listened.

  “Not that one,” Malinda said in the background. “There.” I could almost see her pointing out an aisle to someone in the drugstore, then turning her attention back to me. “Nothing. That’s just it. That house was so filled with anger and silence, it sulked. Her daddy tippled in a big way, and the mother was just this side of the crazy farm.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said.

  “You ever thought how sudden this tea party is? I mean, what brought this on?”

  “You don’t believe in bolts from the blue?”

  “I believe I know who heard us splashing around in the ooze last night.”

  “And here we go back for more?”

  “Why not? I’m going for my mama, my grandmama and me. It’s time.” Malinda’s voice said she had made up her mind.

  “See you at the front gate at five,” I said, wondering what I’d gotten myself into.

  Back at the Dixie Dew Scott took my scraper and worked on the door. “Don’t eat anything fishy,” he said.

  “You know?” I asked Scott. “About this lovely invitation to what promises to be a lovely tea with Miss Tempie?”

  He must have overheard me on the phone to Ida Plum who said, “You and Malinda are asking for trouble. This whole idea sounds suspicious to me. I think you ought to mind your own business, such as it is, and stay home.” She slammed down the phone. I knew in my heart of hearts she was right, but this “invite” seemed a way to get to the bottom of all this nasty stuff.

  “I heard, and I can guess. Stay way away from the Nine Lives Paté,” he said, paint flakes falling in a shower around him.

  I leaned around the dining room door and poked my tongue at him. “I’ll put it in my napkin and bring it home to you.”

  Sherman rubbed her ankle. “No, not you.” I laughed.

  Guests checked in at two. A retired teacher who had lavender hair. Ms. Joyce Linski. She looked like a stick wearing big glasses. The man with her was round and red and slightly damp all over. He wore an embroidered shirt. Had puffy little hands. “Norman Small.” He took my hand in both of his and patted it warmly.

  “My friend,” Ms. Linski said. “He will take the rear bedroom and a nap.”

  They started up the stairs as one of the electrician brothers came down. Bill or Bob took their bags and said, “Don’t mind us, ma’am; we’re mostly overhead.”

  “Low sodium!” Ms. Linski called back. “Only fruit for him for breakfast. But I’ll take eggs and a muffin … if it’s homemade. And diet butter!”

  She sounded so immediate, I started to remind her breakfast was usually in the morning, and a good eighteen hours away, but Ms. Linski said, “We’ve brought our own dinner, and we have work to do.”

  “Work?” I asked.

  “Conferences don’t just happen. They have to be planned and somebody has to do it.”

  “I see,” I said. Murders don’t just happen, I thought. They have to be planned, and somebody has to do it. But me? Who planned and murdered Miss Lavinia Lovingood and Father Roderick? Tried to murder me? May have murdered Mama Alice? One busy little person or several working together?

  “Yoo-hoo.” Verna Crowell came from the kitchen. “I came over to see if you wanted some lovely little zucchini squash. They were at the Farmer’s Market and I couldn’t resist them.”

  I knew Verna didn’t buy the zucchini because she couldn’t resist them. They were meant to be a peace offering, and I could sniff, say I never touched the things, or be gracious, rise above the situation and act out Mama Alice’s proverb “pretty is as pretty does.”

  “Thank you, Verna,” I said, and took the green-striped things. “That was thoughtful.”

  “You probably do the little boat things with them, but I don’t go to all the trouble. They’re sweet fried in with broccoli and peppers. Try that.”

  “I’ll make zucchini bread,” I said. “This is still a bed-and-breakfast … not a tearoom yet.”

  Verna giggled. She actually put her bony fingers over her face and giggled. “Tempie’s the one having tea.”

  I stopped putting the zucchini in the refrigerator and turned to Verna. “You’re going, too?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Verna said. “When Tempie calls, you come running or you are through in this town. That’s what Father Roderick found out.”

  “What?” I asked. “What about Father Roderick?”

  Verna started out the door and I wanted to grab her shoulders and stop her, but Verna turned. “Let Tempie tell you. She knows it all,” she said in a snappish voice, then set her lips in a hard line.

  I knew I’d get nothing else. What Verna knew she wouldn’t tell. And maybe Miss Tempie did want to talk. After all, she was honoring herself. Tacky, Mama Alice would have hooted. “Tacky” was giving yourself a bridal shower. “Tacky” was sending printed thank-you notes for gifts instead of handwritten monogrammed ones. So Miss Tempie was being about as tacky as tacky could get. But if she had some answers for me, she could be as tacky as she wanted.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I stood in front of wrought-iron gates with a huge M in the middle. The Merritts never did anything small, and the iron in that gate looked thick enough to keep out anybody, friend or enemy.

  The hot afternoon sun felt like a heavy hand on the top of my head, even through my white lace “picture” hat. I found the hat nestled in tissue paper in a gold and black hatbox in the attic. Mama Alice always said if you keep something and wait twenty-five years it will come back in style. I didn’t know which style was in at the moment and I didn’t care much past blue jeans, but something told me I needed to show up at Miss Tempie’s in a hat that said I could give as well as I got.

  I didn’t even have to dust th
e hat; I just shook it a little, put it on and walked out the door.

  I didn’t see Verna on the way over and I didn’t care. Verna was so nutty, she’d take a light after-lunch nap and sleep through the afternoon, wake just in time for the sherry hours. If I was lucky, that’s what Verna had done today. If I wasn’t, Verna would be there, chattering away about something that didn’t matter. Verna would say anything to keep from saying what you really wanted to know, what you needed and wanted to hear.

  I stared at the tall white house that loomed like a castle at the end of the magnolia-lined driveway. The Merritts had picked the highest hill in town to build on, a town they’d owned most of at one time. Probably they still owned some of the empty buildings downtown that couldn’t be rented, should anybody have a burning desire to start a booming business in a dying, decayed little town. Most of the buildings had leaky roofs, broken windows and weak floors. And low property tax bills. Probably pocket change for people like the Merritts.

  Frankly, I thought, the Merritt house didn’t look much better than half the empty buildings downtown. Windows on the third floor were missing shutters or were broken and boarded up. I admired the beautiful blue balls in the lightning rods on the roof, but even some of the rods were broken, bent and twisted.

  A wooden balcony jutted from a second-floor window. It hung loose with one side askew. Sad, I thought, a house this elegant falling apart.

  To the rear of the house, I saw a structure that had once been a greenhouse. Now only a few panes of glass glinted and weeds tall as trees shot up through the rest.

  Inside this mess, I thought, lives Miss Tempie Merritt, who never lets you forget she was a Juilliard scholar and once played a concert tour. She loved to lavish all that information around. The old frump. And she dressed in clothes so old they were almost back in style again. Thin cottons with square lace collars, tucks, dropped waistlines; Miss Tempie even let her slip show before teens wore slips as dresses. She loved to point out her hand-tatted lace edging.

  The old bird, I thought as I rubbed one of the gate’s iron finials that was old and heavy in my hand. Miss Tempie could hold one hell of a yard sale. Probably every piece of furniture ever bought for the house was still there. She’d hang on to everything until her last breath, then try to take it with her if she could. Tempie had probably left it all to her poodle, but Harold had done some lawyer a big favor and died first. Now Miss Tempie was probably stewing up a new will and driving Ethan Drummond crazy.

  I sighed. A little breeze ran through new maple leaves in the thick forest on each side of the gate. I pictured Miss Tempie sitting up nights clipping newspaper coupons for cat food.

  A Jeep wagon slowed. Malinda honked and waved. “I’m parking here,” she said. “That driveway looks tough on tires.” She hopped out, slammed the door.

  “Where’s your hat?” I asked.

  “You kidding? I may do a lot of things, but wearing hats isn’t one of them.”

  “Gloves either?” I inspected Malinda’s hands. “I thought you said this was a hat and glove occasion.”

  “Mental gloves.” Malinda held both hands out, wiggled her fingers. “I’m careful what I touch and even more careful what I eat.” She opened the gate. Huge hinges gave rusty, deep-throated groans.

  I connected the sound with being trapped in the mausoleum, and it wasn’t a fond memory.

  “If it smells fishy…” Malinda pushed the gate open and left it. “In case we have to leave on the run … If it smells fishy … I’m passing it up.”

  “Just because I’ve been behind her in line at the grocery checkout and know she doesn’t own a cat isn’t proof positive.”

  “It’s proof enough for me.” Malinda locked her car and dropped the keys in her pocket. “That driveway looks rough on panty hose, too. Lucky I’m not wearing any.”

  Grasshoppers leaped and whirred in the weeds and gravel, then sat and buzzed like rattlesnakes.

  “This place is snaky,” I said, eyeing the waist-high weeds.

  “All snakes don’t live in the grass,” Malinda said. “Some dig pits and fill them with goo for little girls to fall into.”

  “No pits here,” I said, picking my way. “Just pitchforks we may be walking into.” I’d worn a blue shirtwaist dress but wished now I’d worn jeans. The dress made me feel vulnerable and less able to move swiftly if I had to.

  Malinda wore a denim shirt that kept getting hooked by briars.

  A flock of crows chased a blue jay that screamed overhead. The crows’ cawing sounded like laughter, cruel and teasing.

  My heels sank in the gravel between briars. Several times briars whipped and scratched my legs.

  “Long drives may be impressive,” Malinda said. “But who cares? I’m so hungry I’ll eat the icing off the pan.”

  “What?” I said. “You mean bowl.”

  “No,” Malinda said, “I mean I’ll eat icing off the pan. It’s an old family story. Remind me to tell you sometime when we aren’t picking our way through briars.”

  The driveway widened and the weeds and briars thinned. My legs still burned from the scratches that felt raw and bleeding.

  “A couple of coats of paint wouldn’t hurt this place,” Malinda said. “My mama would have painted or moved out a long time ago.”

  Behind huge white columns stood a wide concrete porch piled with dead leaves and fallen branches. Shrubbery grew almost as high as the second-story windows.

  “Bet that roof leaks,” I said. “I bet it’s leaked for years.”

  We stood before huge double doors that had tall leaded fanlights in an arch above them. I twisted the doorbell that felt corroded. The bell gave an ugly rasp that echoed inside as if the house might be empty.

  “What if the whole thing is a hoax,” Malinda asked, “and there’s nobody here? I can’t believe anyone lives like this.” She glanced at the debris on the porch, the cracked windows and bare wood showing where paint had cracked off completely.

  To the rear of the house both of us noticed a freshly mowed area of grass, not weeds, and a planter perky with pansies. There was some new order in all this chaos. Some attempt.

  We started to go around back, toward the mowed area, when one of the front doors opened.

  Verna Crowell stood holding Robert Redford. She wore a faded green cotton housecoat and pearls.

  Malinda poked me in the ribs.

  “They’re in the solarium,” Verna said. She had her eyes made up, and a round red spot of rouge like cartoon characters wore sat high on each cheek. They? I wondered who, besides Miss Tempie, was in the solarium.

  “Kinky,” Malinda whispered behind me. “This is kinky.”

  Verna stiffened, drew herself up and held the rabbit closer. “He’s a rabbit, not a cat.” She glared at Melinda. “His name is Robert Redford.” She turned and we followed her from the foyer with its glass chandelier so dust hung and cobweb woven it would take six men scrubbing and two tubs of water to ever get it to shine, through smeared glass doors into a huge, dark hall that loomed with furniture and heavy oil portraits and was packed high with boxes.

  “Lord,” Malinda muttered under her breath, “is this where dirt goes to die?”

  “Oops.” I bumped a box tall enough to contain a coffin stored on end. Whatever was in the box didn’t shift half an inch, and my thigh ached as if I’d hit a boulder.

  The hall smelled of mildew, rotten fabric, old furniture and filth. We passed several sets of double doors locked with bolts as big as arms.

  Verna put Robert Redford down and the rabbit hopped like he knew where to go. Verna hummed a little tune I tried to recognize until I gave up. Either the tune wasn’t to a song I knew or Verna was making it up as she went along. The rabbit stopped once and scratched under his red halter. Verna waited for him. I saw glass doors ahead and light.

  When Verna opened the doors, sunlight stung my eyes.

  “It is an abrupt change, isn’t it?” Verna asked.

  The solarium was so thick
with plants, my first thought was, A jungle. We’ll need machetes to hack our way through. But Verna went smoothly around a tree and led us down a path. There had once been an indoor pool in the solarium, but over the years someone had filled it with soil, compost, whatever, and Miss Tempie had a regular vegetable garden growing there with cornstalks five feet high, tomato plants, okra and peas. Cucumber and squash plants tumbled from wooden tubs along the walls.

  At a patio table spread with an irregular cloth, Miss Tempie sat wearing a straw hat. She’d tied a scarf over it that she knotted under her chin. On her arms she wore blue lace mitts, probably left from some prom or wedding fifty years ago. They covered liver spots and saggy old arms. There’s no pride like old Southern pride, I thought.

  “Girls,” Miss Tempie said. “Girls, do come sit down.”

  There were five chairs at the table. I saw Malinda count, too. There’s four of us including Miss Tempie, I added in my head, and no one else was in the room. Was this a séance? And the empty chair for a ghost? Would Miss Lavinia reappear in her nightgown? Or her beautiful eel-skin suit, the one she was buried in?

  The cornstalks parted and there stood a man holding a shovel. His right hand wore a thick bandage. “Oh,” I remembered, and my head began to ache. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew his size and shape. Rolfe, the man who had been with Miss Tempie in the cemetery. Her handyman, chauffeur, gardener … whatever dirty thing she needed doing.

  Malinda saw the man and the hand at the same time. She nodded at me. “This isn’t to be an all-female party after all,” she murmured.

  Robert Redford suddenly bumped Miss Tempie’s chair and bounded under the table, rocking it. Dishes clattered and Miss Tempie continued to pour a hot steady stream of tea that missed the cup completely and ran in a little brown stream on the tablecloth.

  The rabbit shot out the other side of the table and Verna darted after him.

  The soft scraping sound of a shovel being sent into the soil and lifted out again made my spine tingle. The man was shoveling a hole.