Mama Gets Hitched (21 page)

Just as Garth Brooks started up on the jukebox with “Friends in Low Places,” the door flung open. It let in a shaft of light, along with the best-looking cowboy I’d ever seen. Black hat, fitted snap-button shirt with most of the snaps unfastened, and leather chaps that showed off exactly what he was packing in those skin-tight Wranglers.

“Here’s our entertainment, girls.” C’ndee’s shout was part sideshow barker, part Jersey turnpike toll-taker. “Now, get those dollar bills ready and crank up the sexy!”

A funeral home hush
fell over the Speckled Perch. Disapproval radiated off most of Mama’s guests. The mouths of the rest of them hung open in shock. On the jukebox, Garth Brooks wound up, leaving the place in complete silence. The sexy cowboy pushed his hat back on his head and frowned.

“This is the place, isn’t it?” he asked C’ndee.

“Surprise, Rosalee!” Aiming for gaiety, C’ndee struck a desperate note instead. “This gorgeous hunk is named Houston.”

Linda-Ann breathed, “Ohmigod! He used to date a girl I went to high school with. He is
so
hot.”

Whispers spread through the room like ripples in a pond. Panic flickered in Mama’s eyes, but she hadn’t lived through three rotten marriages in the gossip capital of Florida for nothing. She clapped her hands together and plastered on a smile. “C’mon, gals. Houston is here all the way from Texas.”

“He’s from Apopka, Florida,” Linda-Ann said in my ear.

“Let’s show him a warm Himmarshee welcome,” Mama chirped.

“I wouldn’t mind giving him a warm something,” Linda-Ann whispered.

My sisters and I were probably the only ones to detect the pleading in Mama’s voice. Houston leaned down and hit the play button on his boom box. “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” issued forth.

“We’ll start out with something safe. Who wants a line dance lesson? Don’t worry, ladies. I don’t bite.”

“I’m in!” Linda-Ann leaped from her chair, hand raised high.

“Me, too!” That voice belonged to Dab. She’d piled her hair into a pouf on top, like a scarlet-colored feather duster. Her painted-on eyebrows were black question marks. Gold lamé hot pants shimmered as she strutted onto the dance floor, fairly drooling at the sight of Houston.

Poor guy. His bite wasn’t the one he should be worried about. True to his word, Houston kept things G-rated as the women got warmed up, drinking cheap pink wine and dancing the Electric Slide.

But before long, whoops and hollers and bumps and grinds came from the dance floor. As the levity—or maybe the lewdness—intensified, Alice quietly made for the door, leaving by herself. Meanwhile, C’ndee basked in the glow of bringing the perfect gift to the party. I sat on the sidelines, nursing a beer.

“Mace, do you have any singles?”

I nearly toppled off my chair. Maddie’s face was flushed; her hair in sweaty wisps.

“Well, we have to support Mama, don’t we?” she asked.

Oh, what an opportunity to rag on my normally prudish older sister. But in a show of solidarity, I rummaged through my purse, found six singles, and divided them evenly among Maddie, Marty, and me. As we elbowed our way through the crowd on the dance floor, we saw Houston sitting shirtless on a chair. Mama perched on his lap, wearing his cowboy hat at a rakish angle.

“You go, Rosalee!” someone yelled.

“A dollar for a kiss!” came another voice.

“A kiss?” Dab shouted. “Hell, I’ll give ten dollars, but I expect a lot more than a kiss!”

Mama slipped a bill into the waistband of Houston’s tight jeans. He’d just leaned in for a smooch when the hollering and whistling suddenly died. A shaft of daylight shone weakly onto the dance floor. The now silent crowd began moving and jostling, this way and that. Oblivious, Mama and Houston locked lips. When they finished, he gave her bottom a little pat.

“Rosalee!” The roar was like a taunted bear at the Bronx Zoo. “I saw that!”

Mama leaped off Houston’s lap so fast, the force sent him and his chair over backwards. He unconsciously brushed his jeans, like he was wiping dust after getting thrown in the rodeo ring.

Sal raised his fists. “You better get up, Cowboy, so I can knock you down again.” Mama’s face was redder than Dab’s duster ’do. She rushed to her groom’s side. But Sal kept stomping toward Houston, as if Mama wasn’t hanging from his arm like a suitcase. Houston got up. He hung his shirt from an elbow, hefted his boom box onto his shoulder, and then headed for the door.

“It’s been fun, ladies, but a fight’s not part of the show,” he said over his shoulder.

“Don’t turn your back when I’m talking to you.”

Sal’s voice was chilling. Mama let loose his arm and retreated into the safety of the crowd. Houston stopped, put the boom box on a table, and spun slowly toward Sal. His hands flexed into fists. I could almost see the testosterone coursing through his veins.

Linda-Ann breathed in my ear: “Your mama’s beau better watch out. Word is Houston is a bastard in a bar fight.”

I sized up the fighters. Weighing in at well over three hundred pounds and standing six foot four, Sal wore his customary golf duds. Today’s knickers were peach-and-aqua plaid, with a pom-pom beret in matching fabric. I had to wonder where he found peach knee socks to go with the golf shirt.

Houston squinted at Sal like a gunfighter in an old Western. Was it for effect, or had the haze of smoke from the kitchen fryers finally gotten to his eyes? He was a half-foot shorter and at least a hundred pounds lighter than Sal. But there were muscles on top of his muscles in his arms and broad shoulders. And, from all those years of hanging on to bucking broncos, he could squeeze Sal’s neck like a toothpaste tube if he ever got him in a leg hold.

I was still calculating odds when Sal pounced like a panther, fat but still fast. Before the cowboy knew what hit him, Sal had lifted him off the floor. Then he spun him around like a TV wrestler, and sent him flying into the food table. When Houston rolled off, weaving, hot sauce from the platter of wings coated his bare back like bright orange suntan oil. An onion ring hung from one ear.

He’d just lunged at Sal when the manager, fully awake now, stepped in between the two men with a raised baseball bat.

“You gentlemen are gonna have to take this outside or we call the cops. Ladies, if either of them makes a move toward the other, dial 911.”

Suddenly transformed from a hormone-addled audience to a crowd of upstanding citizens, a half-dozen women scrambled through purses and pockets for cell phones. Collecting his hat, the boom box, and some bills scattered on the floor and buffet, Houston made for the door. As light slanted in, and then disappeared with the closing door, Mama rushed to the victor’s side.

“Are you hurt, Sally? Is anything broken?”

“You mean besides my heart? I can’t believe you’d kiss another man like that, Rosie. We’re supposed to walk down the aisle tomorrow.”

Mama traced a pine knot on the dance floor with the toe of her boysenberry pump. To my surprise, Maddie stepped forward. “It was all in fun, Sal. We just got a little carried away. Mama only went along because C’ndee arranged for Houston to come perform. She didn’t want to hurt your cousin’s feelings.”

C’ndee piped up, “That’s right, Sal. I thought I’d ruined the party until Rosalee got everyone involved. It was innocent fun.”

He looked at me. I unrolled the two dollars I’d been clutching in my hand and showed him the crumpled bills. Maddie and Marty did the same. Hitching up his pants, he blew out a mouthful of air.

“Well, I didn’t see nobody else kissing the guy. And I didn’t see his paw on nobody else’s butt.”

“Mama’s the bride, Sal. She had to go first,” Marty said. “We do this at bachelorette parties all the time. It’s traditional.”

Maybe in New Jersey, I thought.

Marty was lying like a car salesman with a quota. But she sounded so sincere, and those blue eyes looked so innocent, that Sal bought it. When his shoulders rose in a
What-are-ya-gonna-do?
shrug, I heard Mama’s relieved sigh all the way across the dance floor.

Since the stripper was gone and the food table was trashed, the party started breaking up. Linda-Ann caught me by the door of the bathroom. “Can I ask you something, Mace?”

I glanced at my watch. One forty-five. I’d promised Rhonda I’d be back to work by two o’clock.

“Sure.” I stepped into the bar, where it was dark and quiet. Linda-Ann followed me.

“I was just wondering if you know what time Ronnie got killed on Monday?”

“Not exactly. In the morning, though, sometime before nine o’clock. We were supposed to meet him at the VFW. I went to look for him when he didn’t show up.”

Linda-Ann tugged at one of her dreadlocks. “I heard you found the body. That must have been weird.”

I nodded, not wanting to relive the experience. “Why’d you want to know about the time?”

Her eyes darted around the bar, like she was afraid someone might be lurking in one of the booths. Finally, her gaze settled on a spot on the wall, somewhere north of my right ear. “No reason, really. I was just curious.”

“C’mon, Linda-Ann.”

She studied the end of her dreadlock. Finally, she raised her eyes to mine. “It’s about Trevor.”

I waited.

“He’s been staying with me, and normally he sleeps really late because he’s up half the night researching animal rights stuff on the Internet.”

“Um-hmm,” I said.

“It’s just that he wasn’t in bed when I woke up for my shift on Monday.”

She had my attention.

“I even went out to the porch to look for him. I thought he might have fallen asleep on the couch, where he has his computer set up. But the computer wasn’t on. And when I looked out the window, Trevor’s car was gone.”

Rhonda clamped a manicured
hand over her mouth. “No way, Mace!”

I raised my right hand, courtroom style. “Sal helicoptered the half-naked cowboy right into a platter of hot wings. If I’m lyin’ I’m dyin,’ Boss.”

“What is it with your family’s parties and food fights? Don’t y’all know you’re supposed to eat food, not roll around the floor in it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t blame me. I’ve always believed I was switched at birth from a much classier family.”

The phone rang on Rhonda’s desk. She answered, and raised a pink-nailed index finger for me to wait. But the conversation started veering into budgets and volunteer hours and I knew she’d be a while. I curled my hands into paws and put them up next to my face—our shorthand symbol for critters. Rhonda motioned me toward the door, and I went to check on the animals.

The park was deserted, just as I liked it. On a weekday, parents were at work and their kids were in school. By June, most of the tourists and snowbirds had fled back north for the summer. First stop: Ollie’s pond. The gator lolled on the sandy bank with a cattle egret perched on his back.

“Hey, bird,” I called. “You feeling lucky today?”

Neither member of the unlikely duo paid me any mind.

I continued across the open area between the pond and the animal pens. My eye caught a flurry of movement to the right. A red-tailed hawk flew from a high pine, intent on making something small and furry into supper. I scanned the field, seeing if I could spot what the hawk saw. And there it was: a flash of dark brown against the parched, dun-colored grass. At this distance, I couldn’t tell if it was a mouse or a young rabbit. It made no difference to the hawk, who dove just at the edge of the woods.

Had his prey made it safely into the cover of brush?

In another moment, I had my answer. The bird lifted, and soared overhead, a mouse writhing in its grasp. That was nature—prey or predator. At least the hawk only killed for food. I couldn’t say the same about man. Or woman, for that matter.

Heading for the woods, I started to think about the list of people who might have had reason to kill Ronnie. But no matter where else I looked, I kept returning to the Ciancios, and the family’s ruthlessness with business rivals. I remembered how Tony’s charm disappeared when he was on the phone, how those smooth edges sharpened before my eyes.

Prey or predator?

I entered the deep shade, under a thick canopy of oak and hickory and Southern maple. A cardinal flitted among the green, calling out a sharp
Chip. Chip
. I followed its progress to the ground, where it hopped about in search of berries or bugs. Looking down, I saw the nature path was getting bare in spots. I’d have to make a few calls when I returned to the office, see if I could find some free mulch to spread.

As I studied the patchy spots, I noticed something out of the ordinary at the edge of the path. It looked like fabric of some sort, maybe a discarded towel or a large rag. I got closer, and lifted it with my boot. First a sleeve, and then a pant leg dropped out of the bundle. It was a workman’s jumpsuit, colored beige. Stooping for a closer look, I turned the garment over and opened it to the front. Rusty, brownish stains stiffened the cloth. Dried blood covered the coveralls.

_____

“What did you do then, Mace?”

Marty’s eyes were wide. We’d met at Mama’s after work. For a change, I had everybody’s undivided attention.

“I dropped them where I found them, backed out the way I’d come, and called Carlos. When I left the park, the police were still combing the woods.”

“Do you think they found the knife?” Maddie’s ice cream had melted, forgotten in a bowl on Mama’s kitchen table. “Was there any identification with the clothes?”

“I didn’t hear anyone mention anything about a knife before I left. I didn’t see any ID. And the coveralls looked pretty standard. Could be they aren’t even connected to Ronnie’s murder.”

Mama sipped a cup of strong coffee, antidote to the sweet pink wine she’d overdone at her bachelorette party. “Why else would someone have left them where you’d find them? It must be a message, Mace. Isn’t that right, Sal?”

He nodded, mouth full of a fried baloney sandwich Mama had made him. They were cooing like courting doves again. Mama had managed to convince Sal he was sexier than any dancing cowboy. And Sal had shown her how much he cared by starting a brawl in a bar over her honor. He was beginning to fit in after all in Himmarshee.

“Who do you think left them?” Marty asked.

“The million-dollar question,” Maddie said.

“I saw the label before I dropped them. It said Work Tough. And they were a size Large, which doesn’t narrow it down much. Almost anybody could fit into a man’s large, except maybe Mama and Marty, and you, Sal.”

Mama got up for more coffee. “Anyone else want a cup?”

She held up the pot. Sal, starting in now on a slice of butterscotch pie with whipped cream, raised his hand. It had been a while since Sal wore any size without a couple of XXs.

“Think about it,” I said. “Darryl’s tall. So is Tony.”

Sal wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I don’t trust that guy. The only reason he hasn’t been arrested yet is that he’s smarter than his father. I wish C’ndee had never married into that family.”

“Speaking of C’ndee,” Maddie said, “there’s a woman with some meat on her bones. She’d wear a man’s large, for sure.”

“You girls have the wrong idea about C’ndee. You’ll see,” Sal said.

At that moment, an image of Ms. Sunglasses popped into my mind. She was also a big gal, and looked as strong as many men. But what was her connection to Ronnie, or to anyone else in Himmarshee? I wanted Sal to give me the scoop on Sunglasses, but I wasn’t about to bring her up in front of Mama.

For the time being, at least, she’d have to remain a mystery.

I said, “Don’t forget Trevor. He’s scrawny, but he’s an inch or two over six feet.” I brought them up-to-date on Linda-Ann’s revelation that he’d been MIA on Monday. “True believers can always find a way to justify violence.”

Marty tucked her hair behind her ears. “I don’t think it was him, Mace. Maybe he carries the animal rights issue too far, but to commit murder?”

Sal snorted. “Some of those nuts have bombed the homes of medical researchers who use animals. Murder’s only a step away.”

We were silent for a moment. Maddie lifted the spoon from her ice cream, and watched the soupy liquid dribble into the bowl. “How come nobody’s mentioned Alice?” she asked. “She’s certainly big enough, both for the coveralls, and to have gone up against her late husband.”

Marty said, “I
was
surprised by that flash of rage when she went after C’ndee at Mama’s shower.”

Mama added more sugar to her coffee. “I don’t buy it. The poor woman is simply under a lot of stress. I’ve known Ronnie and Alice for ten years. Well, just Alice now. She’s in the choir at Abundant Forgiveness.”

Sal dug at an errant piece of pie crust with a toothpick. “Even churchgoers and do-gooders go bad, Rosie. Alice wouldn’t be the first woman, or the last, to carve up a cheating husband with a knife.”

_____

The honeyed scent of Confederate jasmine wafted from a planter on my porch, a gift from Marty. So far, I hadn’t managed to kill it. Wila hadn’t knocked it out of its pot. And some rare bug that only eats jasmine in June hadn’t devoured it. I breathed deeply, enjoying the aroma and the delusion that I was a gardener.

The drive home from Mama’s had passed by rote, I’d been so preoccupied. Now, all I wanted was a beer and my bed. A cousin coming in for the wedding was supposed to bunk with me. But she was delayed, and I was relieved. I did not want to play hostess tonight.

Unlocking the front door, I stepped inside, grateful for the peace and quiet. It took only a moment to register the fact that the house was too quiet. Where was the cat? Where was that reproaching meow as she demanded to be fed?

“Wila?”

A second or two of silence followed my call. And then I heard the distinct sound of someone breathing.

I didn’t switch on the light. I knew my cottage better than anyone. The darkness might give me an advantage. I felt for Maw-Maw’s heavy cane, and then pulled it from the stand at the front door.

A match scratched and lit. The flame revealed the face of “Jane Smith,” cigarette in her mouth, sitting comfortably in my granddad’s old chair. Before she exhaled to blow out the match, I saw a teardrop tattoo high on her cheek, where her sunglasses normally sat.

“You won’t need a weapon, Mace.” The voice was flat and emotionless. No accent. “The two of us are just going to have a little talk.”

I tightened my grip on the cane. “How’d you get in here?”

She turned on a lamp on the table beside Paw-Paw’s chair; held up my key. “You had this hidden on top of the door jamb. Very original.”

I’d left it there for my absent cousin. Stupid.

I stared at the teardrop, trying to remember its significance. Something about prison. Oh, yeah. Convicts add a tattooed drop for each murder they’ve committed. My mouth went dry.

“What do you want?”

“Like I said …” she took a drag from her cigarette, blew the smoke my way, “… a little talk.”

The menace in her voice sent my heart charging into my throat, where it pinned my tongue to the mat. I stood rooted, trying to weigh my options. I could run, but I feared turning my back on her. I could make a move for Paw-Paw’s shotgun in the bedroom closet, but I’d have to get past her to do it. I could jump her, and hope that black motorcycle helmet at her feet wasn’t as lethal as it looked.

She stared at me, as if she were reading my thoughts. Her eyes were bottomless, as dark and unfeeling as the black leather she wore. Her hand moved across her chest and toward the inside of her jacket. Certain it would emerge gripping a gun, I closed my eyes and began to pray.