Doing It at the Dixie Dew Read online

  “Don’t mind Rolfe.” Miss Tempie paused in her pouring. She held the pot aloft and gestured with her other arm. “I simply feel one must return to the soil what one can, when one can.”

  Rolfe was burying something, I realized. But what? Rows of corn nearly hid him. All I could see was a torn black T-shirt that read “Jesus Saves” in large silver letters across the back.

  “We owe a duty to the earth,” Miss Tempie said. “A debt that must be paid.” She looked with milky old eyes toward the ceiling.

  Paid with murder? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Instead, I picked up my napkin … it was pink and faded where it had been folded. There was a rust spot the color of dried blood in one corner.

  I noticed Malinda unfolded her napkin also. Aren’t we the prim and proper ones? I thought. Present at what could be our last meal if we weren’t careful, and we came of our own accord. Curiosity killed the cat. It could kill us.

  Miss Tempie emptied the rest of the tea and said, “I can’t believe we’ve run out already.” She got up and tottered toward the kitchen.

  “Dishwater’s stronger than that stuff,” Malinda said. “It’s so thin I could read a newspaper through it.”

  I choked a nervous giggle, then coughed. There was a dry spot in my throat that tickled. I kept coughing, the man kept digging and Malinda glanced around, pointed to the missing glass overhead, the smudged and dirty windows that were either cracked or half-broken.

  Birds flew in, came and went through the missing windows. They winged and squeaked as they dipped down into the garden.

  “Why are we doing this?” Malinda shivered. “I’ve been in slums I felt safer in.”

  “Because somebody killed Miss Lavinia Lovingood and Father Roderick … but not necessarily both. We’ve got to find out.”

  Verna came back, balancing a huge silver tray so heavy she rocked and swayed carrying it. She thunked it on the table. “Girls, when you get my age, don’t go around thinking you can do anything you used to.”

  On the tray were rows of vanilla wafers and thin lemon cookies arranged on a stained and crumpled paper doily.

  “Can you get salmonella from cookies?” I mumbled to Malinda.

  “Only if they’re filled with warm chicken salad,” she said.

  Miss Tempie tottered in, sandwich tray in one hand, teapot in the other.

  “And speaking of chicken salad…” Malinda whispered.

  “I make my own,” Miss Tempie said. “I always have.” She held the tray toward me and I hesitated. The sandwiches were nestled in parsley and decorated on top with parsley. They probably had parsley in the filling. Or what most people thought was parsley until it was too late. What Miss Lavinia mistook for parsley?

  “I’m allergic,” I said.

  “Now, I’ve never heard that,” Miss Tempie said. “Allergic to what? Certainly not chicken. Not my chicken salad with homemade mayonnaise and a little kiss of curry…” She puckered her mouth. “Oh, it is the best stuff.” She put a sandwich on my plate, then two on Malinda’s, her old bony fingers blue and swift. “You must take at least a bite. That’s only good manners.”

  I ate a cookie that was dry, crumbly, and tasted like mothballs.

  Verna took a sandwich, broke it in half and nibbled like a rabbit.

  “Don’t.” I reached out my hand to stop Verna mid-sandwich.

  “Honey,” she said, holding her sandwich out of my reach. “I helped Tempie make these and this is my lunch. I walked over here.” She finished the sandwich and took another.

  Miss Tempie ate sandwiches, too, her tongue clicking slightly as she chewed. “I think there’s nothing better. And better for you. People today don’t eat right. That’s what’s wrong with half the world.”

  Malinda dipped a cookie in her tea, shrugged and gave me a half smile that said she could dunk and sip with the best of them. She even held out her little finger as she dunked.

  The shoveling stopped and there were muffled sounds, then the shovel again. Another hole being dug? There were two of us and two graves waiting where no one would ever think to look. Certainly not members of our fine local law enforcement. If they ever thought to come looking here, Miss Tempie would give them cookies and tea and they’d bow and scrape to old Southern customs, the mystique of sweet Southern little old ladies.

  Finally, Rolfe packed the earth around the holes, stamping with what sounded like huge feet. I remembered the sound of those feet. How they thumped and bumped down the hall to my bedroom. What did he plan to bury? I’m not sure I wanted to know.

  “Too bad Father Roderick couldn’t be here,” Miss Tempie said. “He liked my chicken salad so much. He even asked me especially to make it for Lavinia that day we had tea.”

  “What day?” I asked.

  “The day she came back. Came back to Littleboro to live.”

  “Ha,” Verna said. “Ha on you. She didn’t come back to Littleboro to live. She came back to die.”

  “But she didn’t plan it that way.” Miss Tempie sniffed.

  “None of us do.” Verna looked at her hands holding another sandwich. “We never do.” Her voice quivered a little. “And you said it would be like old times. Lavinia, you and me, having our little parties, going shopping, doing things together. That’s what I wanted.”

  “That’s not what Lavinia wanted,” Miss Tempie said. Her eyes were black as two burnt coals now. I felt I could feel the heat from them. “She wanted it all and she would have gotten it like she did the first time.”

  “You got the house,” Verna said.

  They seemed to have forgotten Malinda and I were in the room.

  “But that’s all. Not enough to keep it up. Not even enough each month to buy myself a new hat.” She patted her hair. “At least once a season, I went to New York to buy hats. I was known for my hats.” Miss Tempie’s face clouded, darkened and looked hard. Then it softened suddenly as if she remembered she had been speaking and there were other people in the room. She tried to smile, and to keep her voice level, but there was an undercrust of thick ice, hate huge as an iceberg that could sink a battleship. “Until Lavinia’s father took everything away.”

  “Took it?” Verna asked suddenly. “Took it? My foot! From what I heard, your daddy lost everything he had to Tevis Lovingood and didn’t leave you so much as a pot to pee in. Haw.” Verna started laughing. “Haw.” She slapped the table at her own joke and Robert Redford jumped down and ran into the garden. He sat at the edge of a row of beets and cleaned himself like a cat.

  Miss Tempie chose to ignore Verna, lifted her shoulders and went on. “My father was an excellent businessman. He owned half of this county. And horse farms. He had seven. We even went to the Kentucky Derby once. He was a state senator twice … but that was before Tevis Lovingood had to have his turn.”

  “Not what I heard,” Verna said. She shrugged, looked at us and winked. “Of course this was all before my time.”

  “Was not.” Miss Tempie glared at her, widened her nostrils. “You’re a year older than me and you know it.”

  “Younger,” Verna said. “Two years younger.”

  The two women stared at each other like two cats with their backs raised.

  “Lavinia was in the middle,” Verna said. “Till you killed her.” She reached for another sandwich.

  “Stop.” Miss Tempie hit Verna’s hand. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

  Verna held the sandwich tight and twisted out of Miss Tempie’s reach. “Well, you know you did. I said, ‘Tempie, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t.’” She turned to me and Malinda. “But did she listen to me? No.” Verna beat the table with her index finger. “No, she did not.”

  I turned to Malinda and our expressions asked each other, Can we be hearing this? This is not your normal tea party conversation.

  “I had to,” Miss Tempie said. “Besides, it wasn’t like really killing her. At her age it was only a matter of months, a few years anyway, and this way she got it over with. I did her a favor. Lavini
a was always so vain.”

  Tape recorder, I thought suddenly. I wish I had a tape recorder. Will anybody believe this? Ossie DelGardo? Not in a million years. And somehow I couldn’t see Miss Tempie on trial for murder. In jail? Not Miss Tempie. Not Verna either. I glanced at Malinda, who drank tea. At least I’ve got a witness, eye- and ear witness, but doesn’t that make us accessories? Knowing something like this? I almost giggled. Accessories always made me think of scarves and handbags, jewelry. Was the tea getting to me? What was in it? I’d worried about sandwiches, forgotten about tea. Now I could be really poisoned! I felt a little nauseated already.

  “Father Roderick was a different story,” Miss Tempie said, sipping her tea. “I had nothing to do with him.” She set her teacup down and spread both hands in the air. “With the little strength I’ve got left in these hands, I can’t even open a jar of jelly, much less twist some piece of silk around somebody’s neck.” She touched her throat, made a face. “Awful way to die.”

  “Any way is awful,” I said, thinking the tea must be okay after all. We were all drinking it.

  “Not Lavinia.” Miss Tempie played with the diamonds on her fingers. “Weak heart. I knew she’d eat the parsley. She’s always been so picky, picky.”

  “Didn’t she taste that it wasn’t parsley?” I asked. The question popped from my mouth before I could stop it.

  Miss Tempie looked at me impatiently. She paused before she answered. “Of course I expect it was a little bit bitter, but I knew Lavinia would be too polite to say anything.”

  Polite to the end! I thought. This woman has been a little bit crazy for years and everybody only thought, Eccentric, that’s just the way Miss Tempie is. Now she’s killed somebody. And she’s sitting here calmly talking about it like she’s discussing a Sunday school lesson.

  But Ossie DelGardo had found traces of hemlock in Miss Lavinia’s body.

  “Honey, I worried I’d never get her to eat enough parsley. Parsley,” she said, and laughed. “I was doing her a favor, only she didn’t know it. Such a clean and neat way to die. I knew Lavinia always dressed so for bed. Particular. She dressed like she was going someplace special … all that lace.” Miss Tempie sighed.

  “I sleep in flannel myself,” Verna said. “Year-round.” She smiled wide, her teeth yellow as old ivory.

  “I don’t believe this,” I muttered. I pushed away the parsley on my plate. Or was it wild hemlock? I wanted to sneak some of it into my purse in case someone needed to identify it later. I could see how The Mess would word it now. “And the evidence of the death was found upon the deceased’s person.” How much did it take to do in somebody? Miss Tempie had used the wild parsley and somehow gotten Miss Lavinia to eat enough of it to do her in. “Why?” I asked.

  “It’s such a long story.” Miss Tempie sighed and looked around the room.

  Was she looking for Rolfe? Had he gone or was he still standing in the corn rows? I couldn’t see. The sky was darkening, the room getting a dusky blue-gray and there were no lights. None I could see. Not overhead, nor on the walls.

  “Boring, boring,” said Verna, whose eyes were bright as wine.

  “It always makes me cry to talk about it.” Miss Tempie sniffed.

  I poked Malinda. She’d not said anything in so long. Was she doing more than listening to these two? “Let’s go,” I whispered, low enough surely neither Miss Tempie nor Verna heard.

  “Oh, it was some show all right,” Miss Tempie said.

  Malinda nudged me, pointed to the glass door behind us, then touched her watch, held up five fingers, whispered, “Five minutes.”

  Both of us saw a shadow move outside the door. Rolfe. He carried the shovel like a weapon.

  Would we get out of this place alive? And if we didn’t, would Miss Tempie get away with killing us like she had Miss Lavinia? If she had indeed killed Miss Lavinia? At this point, with these two crazies, I didn’t know who or what to believe.

  I tried to remember if anyone knew we were here and would come looking. But would they come looking too late? Scott knew, but would he take these two women seriously? He had joked about the tea party. But this was no joke.

  The shadow stopped, stood at the door and waited.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Whoever it was—Rolfe, I thought, from the bulk of the shadow—had stood by the door briefly, then left.

  Malinda sighed audibly. “At the count of five,” she said, “starting now.”

  “Margaret Alice never knew.” Verna drank tea.

  “One,” said Malinda.

  “Wait.” I put an arm out to stop Malinda, who dodged past it and sprinted for the door, where she rattled the knob frantically.

  “Locked,” I said.

  “Stuck,” said Miss Tempie, fiddling with another sandwich. “You girls. I’m surprised at both of you. No manners. You don’t ever leave until you’ve told your hostess you had a nice time. I don’t know about young people these days. They’re so narcissistic.”

  “Not like us, our generation,” Verna said. “Why, you take Margaret Alice. She’d give you anything she had.”

  “And you killed her,” I blurted to Verna. “You pushed her.”

  Verna pushed out her lower lip and looked hurt. “Oh, Bethie honey, I’d never do a thing like that. I told you Margaret Alice was my best friend.”

  “Not mine,” Miss Tempie said.

  Malinda took her chair again, her face flushed, eyes slightly wider and frightened. Or angry? Some of both, I decided.

  “Margaret Alice wouldn’t sell that house to the church,” Miss Tempie said.

  “I never knew they wanted it,” I said.

  “They still do, honey,” Verna said. “And they’ll get it.”

  “Why? What does that little church want with Mama Alice’s house?” I hugged myself for strength and protection. “My house.” Things shifted in place in my mind … the break-in, intruder, trapping me in a mausoleum … all of it.

  “The church,” Verna whispered. “Big business. Big bucks.”

  Miss Tempie wasn’t involved in big business. Not that bat brain. No way. “If you didn’t push Mama Alice”—I had to get an answer and now was my chance—“who the hell did?” I stood over Verna and grabbed her shoulder.

  Verna choked on her tea, sputtered and sprayed the tablecloth, my arm. “Nobody,” she said. “Nobody.”

  I shook Verna’s arm. I’d get the truth out if I had to shake it out. I caught Malinda’s eyes and read, I’m with you. We can take them.

  Verna collapsed back in her chair. “I found her.”

  “Just like you said when you called me?” I let Verna go.

  “It was a stroke.”

  “All that time in the hospital and nursing home,” Miss Tempie said. “And those things cost you an arm and a leg.” She giggled. “I thought we’d get a lien.”

  “And you almost did,” I said bitterly. “The nursing home took everything she had … but the house. That was next.”

  “I got lost somewhere in all this. Who took what from whom? As my mama would make me say,” Malinda asked in a voice that sounded like she meant business.

  “I thought Verna killed Mama Alice,” I said. “I found a note that said Mama Alice was pushed, and it was Verna’s handwriting.”

  “Tempie made me do it.” Verna sat straighter in her chair. “It was her idea.”

  “Well, now we know she wasn’t, so what harm did it do?” Miss Tempie seemed impatient. “Honestly, such a fuss over four words.”

  “It isn’t the words,” I said. “It’s the deeds. And you’ve done some dirty ones.”

  “All in the name of the Lord,” Miss Tempie said. “It’s His house … for His glory.”

  “Foot,” Verna said. “To cover your tail. That’s all.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “Back up. I want some answers and I want them here and now and I’m not leaving until I get them.”

  “As if we could,” Malinda mumbled.

  “It’s this way,�
� Verna said, then stopped. She put her hand to her forehead and slumped to the table, her face falling in her plate.

  No one moved for a moment. Then Miss Tempie made a sound of disgust with her lips. “She gets overwrought. Then one little sip of sherry and she’s out.” There must have been sherry in Verna’s tea. Miss Tempie’s, too? I hadn’t tasted any in mine.

  Someone moved behind the double glass doors and Miss Tempie tapped her saucer with a spoon.

  Rolfe came to her elbow.

  “Verna has left us,” Miss Tempie said. “Momentarily.” She indicated for Rolfe to remove her. “Let her nap in my bedroom.” She dismissed both of them with a little wave of her hand.

  Rolfe slid his large hands under Verna’s arms and lifted her carefully from her chair as if she weighed nothing at all.

  His right hand was wrapped in a bandage thick as a blanket. I heard Malinda draw in her breath at the sight of the telltale hand. “Easy,” she said. “Easy.”

  Rolfe carried Verna from the room.

  Miss Tempie rearranged her tea things with a great clinking and clattering of cups, saucers and spoons. “It’s really such a simple little story and it’s a shame you girls have been so curious to hear it. I fear you’ll have to stay here, once you know.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Why did you invite us to come?”

  “Why, honey,” Miss Tempie said, “I have to kill you. Absolutely have to. Sweet girls, both of you, but you can’t go poking around in other people’s business.”

  “But,” I said, and looked at Malinda, who rolled her eyes.

  Miss Tempie kept on, a crazy wide smile across her wrinkle-creviced face. “If you girls hadn’t found the hemlock down by my own private little pond. Ha ha. Oh, Rolfe does so love to dig, doesn’t he? This whole thing might have been covered up.” Miss Tempie put her hand over her mouth as she laughed at her own little joke. “Covered up.” She slapped both hands on the table, “And now he has to conk you two over the head with his shovel and bury you here. He’s so good with that shovel.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Malinda jumped up and flung the table on Miss Tempie, who rolled over in her chair, sputtering and clucking like an upset hen. China broke in a clatter and silver clanged as it hit the flagstone floor. I grabbed the silver teapot and Malinda snatched up a huge footed tray. My hat fell off as we ran. We ran like our lives depended on it.