“Instead of tea, Mrs. Hollandale served whiskey in an elegant antique teapot that had to cost a small fortune. Do not be envious, dear readers, for in the ensuing drunken brawl that erupted between the members of the Dixie Divas, that precious antique teapot was shattered, as were Miss Madewell’s nerves. When she fled Six Chimneys, all the Divas were flinging canapés and mixed nuts at one another, while a terrible shrieking filled that lovely antebellum home. It is with great sadness that I report the mystery that once surrounded what many of us in Holly Springs assumed was a
ladies
club has now been solved. These women are obviously no ladies. I have some advice for the members of this decadent club: Drop dead, Divas!’”
Silence fell as I finished reading. I swear, not even Chitling made a sound. It was eerie. I folded the paper over again and cleared my throat.
“Oh my,” Rayna said faintly behind me.
“At least she didn’t name us,” I pointed out in a lame attempt to put a better face on it.
Gaynelle shook her head. “She didn’t have to. Almost everyone in Holly Springs knows who’s in the Divas and who’s not. Until now, we’ve managed to maintain at least the appearance of gentility.”
While I hardly thought gentility was the right word, it was no time to argue. The column was a disaster. It was insulting. Worse, if viewed from Trina Madewell’s point of view, I could understand that we had probably scared the bejesus out of her. I looked over at Bitty.
She still stood stock still, her eyes glittering, Chen Ling clutched to her chest like some kind of shield. The expression on her face was . . . well, frightening.
“Bitty?” I reached over to touch her arm. “Bitty? Are you . . . are you all right?”
“Of course I am,” she said calmly. “I’m just trying to decide who to shoot first, Trina or that malicious Miranda. Maybe Miranda. She’s fat and not able to run as fast. Yes, I can shoot her first, then drive out to Madewell Courts.”
“Now Bitty,” said Gaynelle, “you know you cannot shoot either one of them.”
“Oh, I’ve been going to the shooting range lately. I can do it. My aim is much better than it used to be.”
As much as the thought of an armed Bitty terrifies me, I found it rather surprising that she’d been spending time at a shooting range.
“You went to a shooting range without telling me?”
“Well, I don’t tell you
every
thing, Trinket. You have a tendency to tattle.”
“Only to keep you safe,” I defended myself. “Besides, you don’t have a permit to carry concealed.”
Bitty smiled. “I do now.”
“Omigod,” Rayna groaned. “Who do you want to hold your bail money?”
“Just call Jackson Lee. He’ll take care of it.”
“Elisabeth Ann Hollandale, stop talking nonsense this minute!” Gaynelle said sternly. Her use of Bitty’s full name got her instant attention. “There are much better ways to deal with this sort of thing than violence. Didn’t we all learn that lesson only a scant few months ago?”
Gaynelle’s reference to the murders that had taken place shocked some sense back into Bitty. She nodded.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, Gaynelle.”
“Very well.” Gaynelle smoothed a wrinkle in her thin, silk-blend skirt and gave a brisk nod of her head. “We will show Holly Springs and Miranda Watson that the Divas are not only ladies, but
smart
ladies.”
“How do you propose to do that?” I wanted to know.
“Simple. Instead of wasting valuable time talking to the suspects,
we
will use our common sense to find out which one of them really killed Race Champion.”
CHAPTER 6
At first I didn’t really take Gaynelle seriously. I mean, how on earth would we be able to either prove Naomi Spencer killed her fiancé, or that Trina Madewell did it? It’s not as if we had access to the same legal avenues as the police. And they have years of experience on their side.
While I understood that Gaynelle feels lingering guilt about one of the murders that occurred a few months back, even though she had no part in it at all, it did seem a bit far-fetched to think we Divas could redeem ourselves by finding out if Naomi or Trina was the one who had killed Race. For one thing, people who wanted to believe Miranda Watson’s vicious innuendoes were going to believe them, and nothing we could do would change that. For another thing, my brush with death and danger had led me to the conclusion that staying out of police business was in my best interests. Yes, I can be quite selfish that way.
And finally, I was encouraged to spend my free time doing far more pleasant things. Like going to a movie with Kit Coltrane.
On a nice Saturday night with a breeze blowing hard enough to keep mosquitoes at bay, but not so hard my hair turned me into a punk rocker, we drove up to Southaven. It’s a Mississippi bedroom community right below the state line from Memphis, and we went to a Malco theater filled with adolescent girls shrieking over a vampire movie. It took me back twenty years. Okay, thirty or thirty-five, but I can remember going to the movies with Bitty and our friends and doing much the same thing.
Kit, however, seemed to have had a completely different childhood. He was a little horrified by the high-pitched squealing in the theater lobby. I saw him wince once or twice, and had to tease him.
“Doesn’t this take you back to your pre-teen years?”
“Actually, yes,” he said, surprising me. “They’re making the same noise my dad’s old Dodge used to make when the fan belt slipped.”
I laughed. It’s easy being with Kit. Not only is he quite easy on the eyes—over six feet which is always a plus for a tall woman—with dark hair lightly brushed with gray and lovely brown eyes, but he has a great sense of humor and doesn’t take life too seriously. I like that. Intense men are nerve-wracking. Maybe it’s because I have enough problems of my own to deal with, or maybe it’s my age, but I could never be interested in a man who came with emotional baggage. It’s rather shocking that I’ve become interested in any man, really, since as I have said before, a relationship was the last thing I wanted.
When I told Bitty that Kit and I were friends, I wasn’t stretching the truth. We are. If we go beyond that, she’ll have to drug me to find out about it. A Bitty armed with that kind of information would be impossible to endure.
After the movie, an action-adventure with a light love interest, Kit and I went to eat at one of the dozens of places near the theater. It was crowded and noisy. Rock music blared from overhead speakers, and there was standing room only at the bar.
When Kit leaned close to say in my ear,” Let’s get out of here,” I was only too ready to agree. I had no desire to show my age by asking for earplugs with my entrée.
Since there was a Sonic drive-in in the same area, we ended up parked in one of the slots while cute young girls on roller skates darted around with heavy trays.
“I’d end up two counties over with onion rings in my hair if I had to deliver food on roller skates,” I mused, and Kit grinned.
“Oh, I doubt that. You’re the kind of woman who can do anything she sets her mind to do.”
That intrigued me. “Really? You think I’m competent? Have you been talking to my mother?”
“Not since she brought Brownie in for his rabies shot.”
“I don’t suppose he gave you a hint as to where he’s hidden my emerald earring,” I said hopefully, and Kit shook his head.
“Not a word.”
“I should just give up on it, I guess. Maybe I missed it in one of his, uh, usual morning deposits. Have you noticed we spend a lot of time talking about dog poop, by the way?”
“It comes with the territory, I’m afraid. We could discuss rabid raccoons if you prefer.”
“I’m good, but thanks for the offer.”
He smiled at me, and reached out to touch a strand of my hair. It was probably frizzed up from the humidity so that I looked like the bride of Frankenstein, but he didn’t seem to notice. It was a really nice moment.
Neon lights flickered across Kit’s car and on our faces. We were in his ’57 Chevy that he’d restored. It felt almost like date night in the seventies again. If he suddenly suggested going to Make-out Point, I’d probably giggle like a sixteen year old girl.
About that time our food arrived, possibly saving both of us from a bumper crop of mosquito bites at Make-out Point. But onion rings have never tasted quite as good as when shared with a charming man on a summer night.
On our way back to Holly Springs, Kit reached over to hold my hand. It felt nice. Very nice. We sat in companionable silence traveling down 78 Highway with the a/c off, the windows down, and the wind making a rushing sound around the car. My hair blew into what I was sure would be a frightening mess, but I didn’t care. Fireflies made sprinkles of light like tiny bobbing lanterns in the darkened cotton and soybean fields we passed, and the sweet scent of honeysuckle filled the car’s interior. I remembered why I loved my home state, and thought about how much I’d missed it in my years away. Now I’d come home and everything had changed but my memories.
Land was slowly being gobbled up by investors, home builders, and corporations intent upon paving every inch of grass within commuting distance to Memphis. It would be sad to see that happen. Progress isn’t always pretty, and isn’t always progressive. In my memories, Mississippi would always be green rolling hills, pine trees, and magnolias. In reality, civilization was making vast inroads on my fondest memories.
One of the delights of my childhood had been trips to Maywood Swimming Pool. The owners had constructed a huge white sand beach around clear blue water in the shape of a small lake. There was a concession stand, trees to sit under, shallow water for the smaller kids, and a slide and deep water for the bigger kids. People drove down to north Mississippi for the day from Memphis, up from Holly Springs, and from places east and west. You could get sunburned, sand in your bathing suit, and sick from eating too much ice cream all in one great location. A kid’s paradise.
It’s gone now, the lake emptied, the land sold off to build cookie-cutter homes on large lots. In the upstairs closet at Cherryhill there are scrapbooks with black and white and faded color snapshots of me and my sister and brothers at Maywood, moments captured forever by Kodak and Mama’s Brownie camera. There are a few Polaroid shots as well, the sixties version of digital cameras. Those haven’t survived nearly as well as the wonderful memories.
Just as I decided that this particular moment would go into my mental scrapbook of memories as well, Kit asked, “So what really happened at Bitty’s tea party?”
The moment vanished. So far we had carefully skirted the issue that seemed to be on everyone’s mind and tongue these days, and I’d mentally congratulated him on his restraint. I suppose curiosity can only be stalled for so long.
“Chen Ling happened. I’d put her in the upstairs bedroom before Trina ever got there. She must have chewed her way out. Or maybe Bitty has secret passageways in that house only old ghosts and dogs can find. At any rate, we’d run out of Earl Grey tea and so Rayna and I supplemented with a little Jack Daniel’s. That part is true. But there was no
drunken brawl
like Miranda and Trina claim. Chen Ling jumped up onto the hassock with the tea tray, and everything went everywhere. Bitty tried to save her teapot. The rest of us were just trying to save our clothes and fingers. Chitling has a tendency to forget people aren’t edible. Raw, anyway.”
Kit laughed. “I don’t know about that last part. I read in a National Geographic magazine about this native tribe that—”
“Don’t go one word further with that story,” I warned. Kit likes to try and gross me out on occasion. Men never really get over that entire fifth grade boy mentality on some levels. “I’ve had enough traumas this week.”
He squeezed my hand. “I know.”
“All I need now to make my life perfect is for Naomi Spencer to show up dead in Bitty’s coat closet.”
I don’t know why I said that. Maybe because I haven’t quite gotten over the trauma of being the one to discover Bitty’s ex-husband dead in her coat closet.
“Naomi got out on bail, you know,” Kit said, and I nodded.
“So I heard. Rob posted her bond. Rayna said if Naomi tries to leave the state, she’ll go after her with a search dog and a pitchfork.”
“She probably would, too.”
“Oh, I know she would. Naomi was making big eyes at Rob the entire time he was writing out her bond papers. Rayna was ready to strangle her. I guess the poor girl just can’t help herself. Her fiancé isn’t even cold yet and she was flirting with Rob, one of the deputies, and an old dog sitting on the jailhouse steps. Why doesn’t Miranda Watson write about
that?
”
Kit laughed. “Everything will work itself out, Trinket. At least none of the Divas are accused of murdering anyone. People will forget all about this mess soon and be on to a new target for gossip.”
Didn’t I know it. And I had a feeling the new topic would have something to do with Gaynelle’s grand plan to redeem the Divas. Call it a premonition, or call it recent experience, but I just knew that once any kind of plan was enacted, it would not go well.
Maybe I’m psychic.
****
When I arrived at Bitty’s house the next morning she was dressed in white linen capris, a silk blouse, and pug hair. The last she was trying to remove with a brush, but as she wears the dog as an accessory all day, I thought it rather time-consuming and futile.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “Chitling will just deposit more the moment you pick her up again.”
Bitty looked up at me. Her gaze scanned my faded Lee jeans and short-sleeved tee shirt, ending at my rather scuffed white tennis shoes. “I hope you don’t mind if I don’t take fashion advice from you,” she said.
“And if I do mind?”
She looked a little surprised. “Oh. Do you?”
“No. Not today, anyway.”
“Really, Trinket. Sometimes I have to wonder about you.”
I just smiled. Teasing Bitty is always an amusing pastime, though frequently not without its dangers. But since I’d been coerced, nearly blackmailed, and had my arm hypothetically twisted to join this merry little group on their latest excursion into insanity, I was willing to risk it.