Trina’s face had flushed to an unflattering crimson. She flapped one of her hands at Cady Lee as if to say
Oh, that
, and remarked, “I hadn’t seen him in ages.”
“But you two were such a hot item. I always thought you’d end up married to him,” said Cady Lee. “Didn’t he give you an engagement ring once?”
Now I was pretty sure Cady Lee meant to needle Trina, or at the very least, get her to say something incriminating. Breathlessly, we all waited for Trina’s answer.
If she said yes, then it gave her a motive for shooting Race, who had, after all, been found by her and/or her sister in her parents’ bed-and-breakfast cottage. We had only their word on that, as did the police, I was pretty sure. Sisters have been known to lie for one another.
Of course, if she said no, it was likely she would still be a “person of interest”, as the police like to say. Oh, this was getting good. It may turn out that Naomi hadn’t shot Race at all.
There are some people who are lucky in life, and others who are not. Today, it was Trina’s turn to get lucky. Or so it seemed at the time.
Just as Trina opened her mouth to say whatever it was we were all dying to hear, Bitty’s expensive Limoges teapot exploded off the matching tray set upon the Turkish ottoman. Lukewarm tea—or Jack Daniel’s—spewed into the air, teacups shot off the tray, pimento cheese triangles launched onto laps, and mixed nuts peppered the antique carpet and guests like small missiles.
Amidst the confusion, I recognized a familiar porcine snort.
Chen Ling!
How on earth had she gotten out of the upstairs bedroom?
It’s amazing what a fifteen pound dog can do to a set of expensive china when it lands right in the middle of it. I suppose we had all been so eager to hear what Trina would say that no one had noticed the pug’s arrival in the living room. Not one to be ignored for long, and probably sniffing out forbidden foods, Chen Ling had taken matters into her own hands . . . er, paws.
Chaos reigned. Squeals of surprise and horror filled the air as guests leaped to their feet. While the dog gobbled up pimento cheese triangles and nuts, Bitty scrambled to save what she could of her Limoges teapot and dinnerware. Divas hastily scraped tempting bits of sandwiches and nuts onto the floor, either to keep from staining clothes or to avoid being viewed as possible food by a determined pug.
Crawling around on her antique carpet, Bitty gathered up pieces of china and held them to her chest with one hand as one would a small child. It was rather sad, really, so I got down on the floor with her to pick up what I could.
By the time we’d picked up what was possible to get without a vacuum, Rayna had Chen Ling firmly in hand and the other Divas were fairly composed. Bitty deposited remnants of teapot and cups on the still intact tray and managed a shaky laugh.
“I apologize for this, ladies. Usually Chen Ling is much better behaved.”
Since all the Divas knew better, I looked around for Trina to see how she was dealing with the unexpected arrival of a fat pug in the middle of our tea tray. About the time I realized she was no longer in the room, I heard the roar of a car starting and tires squeal on the street outside Six Chimneys.
Apparently, Trina Madewell had made her escape.
CHAPTER 5
Holly Springs, Mississippi has a population of less than ten thousand people, and according to statistical records, that population is fairly even in the ratio of male to female. Considering those facts, you would think there would be enough eligible men for eligible women. Apparently, this is not the case.
Or so I have been led to believe by the inexplicable actions of a few citizens.
In my youth, I was admonished on several occasions about the evils of gossip. My admonisher was nearly always my mother. We children received strict lessons on the proprieties and improprieties in social graces. Gossip was then regarded as harmful to not only the person being gossiped about, but the impressionable soul of the person doing the gossiping. I tell you this only because I now regard those lessons with some regret.
Bitty and I were seated in the garden shade of Rayna Blue’s home, the Delta Inn. It’s a lovely historic hotel being considered for registration with the historical society. While Bitty and Rayna theorized about motives for Race’s murder, I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling them what I’d heard only that morning from my own mother.
Sidebar here: As she ages, Mama regards some information about our neighbors as necessary, and some as just gossip. The catch is that I can never tell which is which, so I have to wait until she asks a direct question or chooses to share a juicy tidbit with me. If she shares, she’s quite likely to hang a restriction on it, such as not to pass it on.
Mama had done that very thing earlier in the day after telling me how Trina Madewell had made a huge scene at church last year when she accused her sister of trying to steal her boyfriend. It had been on a Sunday when the minister had decided to try an innovative approach to the entire “confession is good for the soul” thing. He should have left it to the Catholics. Methodists don’t seem to be as good at it. Or maybe as used to it. My opinion is that confession is only good for the soul when it is not shared with the wronged party. Anyway, Atonement Day was a disaster from start to finish.
There were two fistfights in the pews, a scuffle in the vestibule, and the screaming match between Trina and Trisha in the church parking lot. Mama reported that it may have been just coincidence, but two couples from the congregation filed for divorce the week after the Atonement Day event.
Mama had been an unwilling witness to the Madewell hysteria in the parking lot. It wasn’t a scene she was likely to forget.
“I thought they were going to snatch each other bald the way they kept yanking at each other’s hair,” Mama had mused over a second cup of coffee, while Daddy went out to the barn to feed the furry flocks their morning cat chow. As she was battling the start of a summer cold, Mama stayed in to sit with me while I ate a breakfast of sugary cereal and drank coffee with sweetener. There is no rhyme or reason to my dietary choices most of the time.
At any rate, Mama was in a talkative mood, and after I’d told her about the tea at Bitty’s house and how it ended, it reminded her of Trina and Trisha’s disagreement. That is how I learned they’d both dated Race Champion, and neither of them knew he was still seeing the other one until Atonement Day outed them all.
Mama shook her head and peered at me over the rim of her coffee cup. “None of this should go any further, of course. That would be unkind gossip.”
I was flabbergasted. “But how is it considered gossip if you witnessed it?” I had asked. “You cannot have been the only one to overhear them.”
“Still, under these circumstances it’s best to let them be the ones who tell the police.”
Sometimes Mama operates under the belief that all church-going people are always honest. I could tell her a few things. But I won’t.
That is how I found myself sitting at Rayna’s garden table biting my tongue, while she and Bitty batted around all kind of crazy theories about Race Champion’s murder and Trina Madewell’s possible part in it. Some of their theories really made me squirm.
“Maybe Trina’s pregnant and Race’s engagement to Naomi put her over the edge,” Bitty said, but Rayna shook her head.
“She’s too old to have babies. Besides, she had a partial hysterectomy when she was married to Russell Irons.”
“I remember Rusty. Didn’t he end up dead in some bridge accident?”
Rayna nodded. “He was an ironworker. Rusty’s now part of one of the concrete piers that hold up the bridge over the Tallahatchie. He’s on the Oxford side, closer to Leflore County, I think.”
A cool breeze wafted the sweet, lemony scent of magnolia blossoms toward us. A huge magnolia tree nearly two hundred years old sits square in the middle of the garden. I tried to focus on how much history this old tree must have seen rather than the discussion going on around me. It was too tempting to jump in and tell what I knew.
How could my normally sweet mother have done this to me? It was torture sitting there and not saying anything. So when one of Rayna’s dogs came up to me to be petted, I was delighted to have the distraction.
One of Rayna's extracurricular activities includes the use of her dog as a search and rescue animal. It’s a noble endeavor, and quite useful when someone goes missing in Holly Springs National Forest or over at Lake Chewalla. There are vast stretches of real estate in Mississippi occupied only by deer, rabbits, raccoons, and armadillos. It’s easy enough to get lost if you aren’t familiar with the area. Sometimes, even if you are.
At any rate, when Jinx isn’t searching for a lost child or a drunken hunter, he’s more likely to be looking for a stray hambone or hot dog. Most dogs I’ve known are highly-motivated by food. Which can be a very useful bit of trivia to know, by the way.
So while I played fetch with Jinx, Rayna and Bitty continued proposing various scenarios that involved Trina, Naomi, and Race.
“Race could have made a date with Trina, and Naomi just showed up,” Rayna suggested. “Surely he wouldn’t be dumb enough to take Naomi to Madewell Courts right under Trina’s nose.”
“I wouldn’t count on that.” Bitty adjusted Chen Ling in her sling so the sun wouldn’t get in the dog’s eyes. “The man could be absolutely oblivious to anything but what he wanted. He liked to show off, too. He just loved having lots of women flock around him, even when he was on a date with someone else. I wouldn’t stand for that, I’ll tell you that much.”
“So if he did take Naomi to Madewell Courts, and Trina found out and made a scene . . . would she just stand there and let Naomi shoot him?”
“For that matter, if he was with
Trina
and Naomi found them together and shot him, why hasn’t Naomi told the police who the other woman was?”
“Maybe because then Trina would be an eye-witness against her.”
“Then why hasn’t Trina told the police what she saw? Unless,” Bitty said with a sudden jerk of her hand that made Chen Ling bark, “Race was with a
man!
”
“
Trisha
,” I heard myself blurt out, “maybe he was with Trina’s sister Trisha!”
I hadn’t meant to say it, not really, but the back and forth between the two of them had driven me to it. Or maybe just having that choice bit of gossip was more than my resolve could take. Mama would be so disappointed.
Both of them turned to look at me.
“Trinket Truevine, what do you know that we don’t?” Bitty demanded.
I gave up petting Jinx, who seemed to get over my defection quickly, and sat back down at the garden table. Tall glasses of lemonade had been served, and I took a drink of mine before I answered.
“I’m not supposed to pass this on—”
“I hope you don’t think for a minute you’ll get away with that,” said Bitty.
I shook my head. “Of course not. I’m just explaining why I haven’t said anything until now. Mama told me not to.”
“Aunt Anna said he was with Trisha?” Bitty sounded disbelieving and I couldn’t blame her. It’s not like my mother to gossip. Or didn’t used to be.
“Apparently Mama witnessed Trina and Trisha arguing in the church parking lot on Atonement Day. She must have had a ringside seat, because she heard everything they said.”
Bitty rolled her eyes. “That day was a disaster. I think it caused two divorces. But why didn’t I hear about Trina and Trisha’s argument before now? You’d think someone would have heard it besides Aunt Anna.”
“If they did, they’ve kept it to themselves,” I said. “Anyway, Trina and Trisha both found out they were dating Race at the same time, and neither of them were happy about it.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Mama said they went so far as hair-pulling.”
“Was that a wig Trina was wearing?” Bitty wondered, looking from me to Rayna and back. “Maybe that’s why her hair looked so dreadful. And her make-up! She made me think of a circus clown, which was a bit scary. You know I’ve always been afraid of clowns.”
Ignoring Bitty’s sidebar, Rayna said, “This is getting even more complicated. If we go under the assumption Naomi is innocent—which I don’t believe—then we have not one, but two more suspects who may have had reason to kill Race.”
“Heavens,” said Bitty as she unlatched Chitling from her chest and lowered her to the grass, “even I had a reason to kill Race Champion. He was obnoxious. There now, my precious, go over there and poo-poo for Mommy.”
The last was directed to the dog. I hope.
“Bitty,” Rayna reproved, “you shouldn’t say things like that. Which reminds me, did you really tell Naomi Spencer that you want to strangle her?”
Startled, Bitty looked up from depositing a reluctant pug on the garden lawn. “If you mean at Budgie’s, I didn’t get a chance to say it
to
her. I said it
about
her. How did you hear about it?”
“Everyone in the café heard it, no doubt,” I said in annoyance. “I told you that your voice carries.”
“Are you saying I have a big mouth?”
I considered that for a moment, then shook my head. “Not any bigger than normal, I suppose.”
“Somehow, that’s not very comforting. I think I’ve just been insulted.”
I picked up a folded napkin and fanned myself with it. “My, my, it’s so vairy, vairy wahm out heah,” I said in an exaggerated southern drawl, which made Bitty smile in spite of herself. Since we were kids we’d used that trick to change subjects when in tight conversational spots.
Just to keep us even, she said something rude to me, and we both smiled.
Rayna shook her head. “You two are getting scary. Maybe it’s all this talk about murder. Let’s go inside where it’s cooler. I hate to think what the rest of summer will be like if it’s already this hot.”
Summer in Mississippi is always hot. We just have varying degrees of hot. There is warm, such as afternoon temperatures in the eighties; there is hot, such as afternoon temperatures in the nineties; and then there is scorching, such as afternoon temps at the three-digit level. June had already seen an unseasonable scorcher or two. If it kept up, by July 4
th
Marshall County would be a red sand desert with no green grass in sight. Except for Bitty’s lawn. She has automatic sprinklers.