“Okay, if you’ll twiddle with my VCR. It’s flashing 12:00 again.”
“Be still, my heart.”
I looked at the glass in his hand. He had switched from beer. “Better go get something to eat before you need CPR.”
“God, I love this dirty talk!”
“Want me to get you some food?”
“Crab claws.” Fred smiled happily.
“Wait right here for me.”
Haley was at the table fixing a plate. “Your papa’s getting smashed,” I told her. “That’s not like him.”
“I think he’s more upset about his business than you realize, Mama. Papa can’t cope with change.”
“True.” I realized guiltily that I hadn’t talked to Fred about the details of the Metal Fab merger. I put some crab claws on a plate and added some cocktail sauce. I considered telling Haley about Lolita and the turtle earring but decided against it. Instead, I told her that Frances was on her way over.
“She’s not going to want to go home tomorrow,” Haley said. “And I’ve got to be at work Monday morning.”
“If she doesn’t, your papa and I will take you to Mobile. You can get a direct flight.” It saddened me to think of Haley leaving. “It hasn’t been much of a vacation, has it? How about we all go to The Flamingo tonight? Eat high on the hog.”
Haley grinned. “Thanks, Mama, but I’ve got a date.”
“Major Bissell? How come I thought you weren’t interested?”
“He’s a nice man.”
I certainly hoped so.
I took the food to Fred and ordered him to eat it. Sister had Berry West cornered, Frances had come in, waved, and was already talking to Jason Marley, and Fairchild was surrounded by women. So much for the departed Millicent and Emily.
But not as departed as I had thought. Jason Marley went over to Fairchild and they talked for a moment. Then Jason
clapped his hands to get our attention and told us to freshen our drinks and come into the media room.
“The media room?” Fred asked.
“He’s going to show us his CD-ROM.”
“Oh, my,” Frances murmured as we followed Jason into a room that seemed to have at least one of everything Circuit City might sell.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” Jason said. Which wasn’t hard to do. Someone had placed folding chairs before a giant TV screen, creating a little theater.
“Now,” he said when we were settled, “Fairchild and I have collaborated on this. I hope it will mean as much to you as it does to us.”
The lights dimmed and we heard Millicent’s voice. “Fairchild Weatherby, act like you’ve got sense!” And then she was on the screen, laughing, holding her hand toward Fairchild’s video camera. “Quit, I say!” She turned and ran down the beach, a pretty gray-haired woman in a flowered bathing suit whose little skirt didn’t hide the fact that she was plump. “I’m going to get you for this,” she shouted back, and we could hear Fairchild chuckling.
None of us had been expecting this.
“Dear God,” Fred muttered.
Someone left the room abruptly, slamming the door.
Emily Peacock looked up from the very place where we were sitting, her smile wide. “Don’t do that, Jason. I’m watching “General Hospital.”
We watched Millicent and Emily check turtle nests, picnic with Laura, go sailing. On New Year’s Eve, they partied, Millicent slimmer, blonde, radiant, being dipped by her partner; Laura, Eddie, and Emily raising champagne glasses.
“This is tacky,” Sister whispered into my ear. “I think I’ll go outside.”
In a few minutes I followed her, shutting the door as quietly as possible. The rain had stopped completely, and she had walked out on the Stampses’ pier and was leaning against the railing looking over the bay just as Sophie had done earlier.
“Give me a Kleenex,” she said when I came up.
I reached in my pocket, found one, and tore it in two. “Here.” I handed her half.
“That was awful,” she said, blowing her nose. “I’ve got movies of all my husbands and I wouldn’t dream of showing them like that. The children get them out and look at them sometimes.”
“Your old eight millimeter projector still works?”
“Sort of jerky, but okay.” Sister had missed the dig. Just as well. “Anyway, there’s no way I’d invite people to a party and sit them down to watch my dead husbands, particularly if they hadn’t been dead long. Would you, Mouse? Don’t you think that’s an invasion of the dead person’s privacy?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And I really didn’t. Jason and Fairchild, and maybe others, had obviously found it comforting.
“Well, I think it’s tacky.”
“It’s certainly disconcerting,” I agreed.
“Hello, ladies.” Neither of us had heard Eddie Stamps come up behind us, and we both jumped. “Have you seen the key to my boat?”
“No,” we said together. Then Mary Alice added, “Maybe Fairchild has it, Eddie.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Watching a video.”
Eddie looked puzzled.
“In the pink house,” I added.
We watched him walk down the pier.
“Damn,” Sister said.
“Damn,” I echoed. We stood looking at the water, neither of us mentioning what was foremost in our thoughts, that the man on the video dipping a glowing Millicent had been Jack Berliner.
Finally Sister said, “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, Mouse.”
There’s no telling what I would have been accused of if I had said anything.
T
he sun came out during the afternoon and the trek over the stile began for the beach lovers. Fred had gone down for a long summer’s nap when we got back to the condo, and was still asleep. Haley and Frances were at the outlet mall, and Sister was coloring her hair Summer Marigold (“A New You In Twenty Minutes!”).
“You ought to try this, Mouse,” she said, coming into the living room with her hair plastered against her head. “I was looking at your hair this morning at the cemetery and thinking it would look okay if it weren’t so gray. Here,” she handed me a plastic bottle, “there’s plenty left.”
“Gee, thanks for your kind thoughts. But it might turn out like Lolita’s.”
“Don’t be silly. She’s ruined her hair with chlorine. This will just make your gray look a little blonder. It’ll shine more, too.”
“I like my gray.”
“You’re lying.” Sister sat down and checked her watch. “Twenty minutes.”
I was reading
The Destin Log
, the biweekly newspaper that keeps everyone abreast of the local news. In this issue, pictures of Millicent and Emily were on the front page. I laid it on the coffee table so Sister could see the story. “Says right here that Lieutenant Major Bissell says progress is being made in the murder investigations of the two women.”
“Hah. He still thinks he’s going to blame it on that sweet Fairchild.” She picked up the paper and looked at the story.
“Well, he sure had a motive. A million dollars and maybe a Jack Berliner.”
“Nonsense. Fairchild wouldn’t lay a finger on Millicent or anybody else.” She folded the paper. “You know what I wonder? Who are the Berliners, anyway? I mean, face it, Mouse, commuting to Atlanta doesn’t make sense. And, for that matter, who is Jason Marley? We don’t know a hill of beans about him either, except he has money and likes pink.”
“I’m sure the police know.”
“I’m not sure the police know diddly.” Mary Alice pulled a strand of hair out, dried it on the towel and asked how it looked. It looked great, a nice golden blonde.
“There’s plenty left for you. It’ll do wonders.”
God forbid! In sixty years how is it that I haven’t learned a damn thing? The new me turned out as redheaded as Lucille Ball.
“Look at this!” I moaned. “I’m ruined.”
Sister looked over my shoulder into the bathroom mirror. “I don’t understand. It didn’t do my hair that way. Maybe you should have done the patch test.”
A knock on the door prevented a third murder.
“Don’t let anybody in!” I screeched. “Not until I can get to a beauty parlor and get this stuff out.”
“A beauty parlor won’t do any good. It says on the box it won’t come out for twenty-four shampoos.” Mary Alice opened the door for Major Bissell.
“Mrs. Crane, is it okay if I talk to you a few minutes?” he asked. “I’ve just left Mr. Weatherby, and you could save me a trip.”
“Sure,” Sister said. “Come on in.”
I pulled a towel over my head.
“Mrs. Hollowell,” he greeted me. “You okay this afternoon?”
“She’s trying to decide whether or not she likes the color of her hair,” Sister said. “It’s supposed to be Summer Marigold, the same thing I have on mine, but it’s slightly redder.”
Major Bissell looked at me sympathetically. “That happened to my mother. If you decide you don’t like it, she went to a beauty parlor in Shalimar called Curl Up and Dye. They could probably help you.”
“That’s good to know, isn’t it, Patricia Anne? They sound like specialists.” Sister smiled. I might kill her yet. “Sit down, Lieutenant. What can we do for you?”
“Mrs. Brown called. Lolita Brown? She said she had talked to you, Mrs. Hollowell.”
“She did. She showed me the earring.”
“Patricia Anne told me about it,” Sister said.
“Well, I know the morning she was killed, Mrs. Weatherby came over to tell you she was okay.”
We both nodded.
“Do you by any chance remember if she was wearing those earrings that morning? I’ve asked Mr. Weatherby and he can’t remember.”
Sister and I looked at each other.
“She had on the same outfit she was wearing the night before at the Redneck,” Sister said. “The same one she had on when she was killed. An off-white jumpsuit.” She turned to me. “Did she have on earrings?”
“I’m trying to think.” I closed my eyes and tried to picture Millicent. “Her makeup was messed up. Mascara smeared. I remember thinking she looked a mess.” I opened my eyes and looked at the lieutenant. “No earrings. I’m sure. At least not those turtles. You couldn’t miss them.”
“Mr. Weatherby said they were a gift from Mrs. Peacock.”
“They were both involved in the turtle watch program,” I said. “The earrings would have been a nice memento of that.”
Lieutenant Bissell got out his notebook and jotted something down. “I know you saw Mrs. Weatherby at the Redneck Riviera the night before her death,” he said. “Can you tell me about the meeting?”
“We’ve already told you,” I said. I didn’t have time for this.
But Sister was cooperative. “We were surprised when we saw her,” Sister said. “She’d lost about fifty pounds and had her hair streaked a nice blonde. And she may have had a face-lift. Anyway, she looked great.”
“She said she was meeting someone for a drink and then the Blue Bay folks were having a birthday party. Mrs. Brown told me it was for her,” I added. “And she had the earrings on. I noticed them.”
“Do you know by any chance who she was meeting?”
“We didn’t see who it was. We were leaving when we saw her,” Sister said.
“Had either of you met Jason Marley before this visit?”
“I may have met him,” Sister said. “But, to tell you the truth, I haven’t paid that much attention to Blue Bay Ranch. It’s like kudzu. It wasn’t there and then it was.”
“I hadn’t met him,” I said.
“How well did you know Emily Peacock?”
“Just as a friend of a friend. We weren’t close, but I knew her and liked her.” Sister ran her hand through her hair.
“And Mr. Weatherby asked you to go check on her and that’s when you found her body?”
Mary Alice said testily, “My sister’s right. We’ve already answered these questions.”
The lieutenant held up his pen. “I’m almost through. What about the Berliners? How long have you known them?”
“We just met them,” I said. “We went to watch turtles with them last night.”
“Did you know that Sophie had Mrs. Weatherby’s other earring?”
“Sophie? Where did she get it?” I asked.
“She says Mrs. Weatherby gave it to her the morning she was killed.”
Something in his tone made me say, “But you don’t believe her.”
“No. I think she found it somewhere. Her father recognized it as Mrs. Weatherby’s earring and gave it back to Fairchild.”
That explained why Sophie was so mad at her father. Millicent’s turtle would have been precious to her.
“She’s sticking to her story, though,” the lieutenant said.
“She’s fourteen. You’re not so old you’ve forgotten fourteen.”
“I guess not.”
“So,” Sister said, “you have a pair of earrings.”
“And a pair of unsolved murders,” I added, slightly angry at Major Bissell for his indictment of Sophie.
“We’ll find out what happened,” he said, closing his notebook and getting up. “Thanks, ladies, for your time. Tell
Haley I’ll pick her up around seven. And, by the way, Mrs. Crane, the phone call that you and Mrs. Stamps believed was a threatening one?”
“Believed? It was.”
“Well, a trace showed it was made from the pay phone in front of Delchamps Super Market.” He started out, paused, and turned around as if something had just occured to him. “And, by the way, Mrs. Stamps didn’t receive the same call.”
“Sure she did,” I exclaimed. “She came running in here scared to death.”
“There’s no record of her getting a call at that time or from that phone.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “She came in here white as a sheet.” I realized “white as a sheet” would never describe Laura. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“So scared she said she was leaving town and I should, too,” Sister added. “Maybe she got the call somewhere else, like in her car.”
Major Bissell shrugged. “We’re checking it out.”
The bedroom door opened and Fred came out looking like the wrath of God. “Hey,” he said.
The towel had slipped from my head. He looked at me, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. “Good God, Mary Alice. What have you done to Patricia Anne?”
“She did it to herself, you old fool.”
Somewhere in the ensuing scene, Major Bissell let himself out and I went into the bathroom to assess the damage. Actually, I decided, my hair wasn’t too bad. No color known to man, but as it dried, it was slipping back into its natural curls. I scrunched it up and a new me, as promised, looked back from the mirror.
“I’ll go to the drugstore for you, honey,” Fred said, looking in the door. “Just tell me what to get.”
“Get me a dark brown eyebrow pencil.”
“What?”
“Mauve eyebrows won’t do with this red hair.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. You’re not going to keep that hair color.”
“Just through twenty-four shampoos.”
Mary Alice looked over Fred’s shoulder. “Maybe, Mouse, you ought to let Fred get you some drabber. That’ll tone the color down some.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. I looked in the mirror and grinned. “And don’t call me Mouse.” There was power in that hair.
“Yo! Mama!” Haley said when they came in. “Come out here, Frances. You’ve got to see this.”
“What?” Frances stuck her head out the balcony door. “Wow, Patricia Anne! Is that a wig?”
“It’s Summer Marigold.” I turned so they could get the whole effect.
Haley came over and looked at my hair closely. “What did Papa say?”
“He offered to go to the drugstore for me.”
Frances leaned over for a closer look. “It’ll tone down when the dye wears off your scalp. Especially around your hairline. That’s kind of red.”
“I sort of like it,” I said.
“It gives you a rakish look.” Haley grinned. “Papa blamed Aunt Sister for it, didn’t he?”
“Like I never had a thought of my own.”
“Where are they? Papa and Aunt Sister?”
“Your Papa is walking down the beach trying to get over the shock, and Aunt Sister is over at Fairchild’s.”
“Is he okay?” Frances asked.
“Far as I know. Major Bissell was here asking some more questions.”
“What about?”
I told them about the earrings, how Lolita had found one and been afraid to get involved, and that Sophie had had the other one, claiming Millicent had given it to her.
“I remember those earrings,” Haley said. “I remember wondering if they were real gold and how heavy they were.”
“He wanted to know if Millicent had them on the morning she stopped by here. The morning she was killed. I told him she didn’t.”
“She could have pulled them off because they were bothering her and put them in her purse,” Frances suggested.
“Or her pocket.” Haley leaned forward in her chair. “They could have fallen out of her pocket easily if someone attacked her.”
“But it wouldn’t make sense for her to give one to Sophie. Maybe both of them, but not one. And when would she have done it?”
“Nope,” Frances agreed. “Sophie found that earring.”
I thought about it for a moment. “Maybe she’s scared to tell where. Maybe she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be, sneaking around smoking or something. You remember Laura told us that Sophie popped out from behind the dryer in the laundry room and scared her to death.”
“Or maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.” Haley turned and looked at the beach, but there was no black-clad figure down there.
“That’s scary,” Frances said.
“I’m sure Major has thought of that possibility.”
“I wonder if her parents have,” I added.
“Y’all look mighty serious,” Sister said, coming out on the balcony. “How was your shopping trip?”
“I got a bathing suit at the Adrienne Vittadini outlet,” Haley said. “Bright red.”
“It looks great on her. I got a couple of wedding presents at the Lenox place.”
“How’s Fairchild?” I asked.
Sister sat down beside Haley. “He’s doing okay. Some insurance man is already over there with him. Lord, I remember when Will Alec and Philip and Roger died, what a mess the insurance was. And especially with Philip dying on that plane while we were on vacation.”
“It was Roger,” I said.
“Whichever. They both just went
thump
, right over. Nice men.”
We thought about this for a moment. Then Sister asked Frances if I had told her that Major Bissell didn’t think Laura had gotten the threatening call.