Polished Off (21 page)

I had snagged a bench under a bougainvillea bush in front of the residence and was waiting for Stella to appear. Where had she wandered off to? I had a clear view of the activities in the courtyard and sat up a bit straighter as a Volvo station wagon skidded to a stop just inches from a police car’s bumper and Mrs. Metzger leaped out. The startled officer, having jumped back to avoid being peppered with gravel, advanced on her. At six feet tall and over two hundred pounds, her bulk overwhelmed the officer, a wirylooking five-nine or so. My money was on him, though; he had a gun.

“My baby! Is she okay? Was she poisoned, too?” She tried to brush past the officer blocking her way.

“Settle down, ma’am,” he said. He looked like a grizzled veteran, his hair cropped short and graying, his voice no-nonsense firm. “No one’s in any danger.”

“How do you know? I’ll hold the police department and Happy Meadows and the pageant responsible if any harm has come to her.”

The officer eyed her with distaste. “The young ladies will be out in a moment. You can talk to your daughter then.”

“I’ll sue!” she threatened.

Those seemed to be her favorite words. She looked like she was debating an end-run around the officer when a cream-colored Volkswagen pulled up and the young man I’d seen with Elise at the yacht club got out. He swept his light brown hair off his forehead. Mrs. Metzger whirled to face him, her arms slightly spread as if she’d tackle him if he tried to get by.

“Jason Loudermilk, what are you doing here?”

“Elise called me,” he said calmly. “She wants out of this pageant. I’m here to take her back to the dorm.”

“Out of the pageant!” Mrs. Metzger’s voice startled a flock of starlings that took to the air, cawing. “Don’t think you can make a fool out of me!”

“You don’t appear to need any help,” he responded.

His manner was so quiet that for a moment no one quite grasped what he’d said. When it penetrated, Mrs. Metzger advanced on him, swinging her hefty purse like a mace. “Why you rude, obnoxious, no good—”

“We don’t need any of that,” the policeman said, stepping between them. He got a purse in his midsection for his pains and doubled over. “Ungh!”

Mrs. Metzger made as if to plow through him, but he straightened and caught her arm by the wrist before she could swing the purse again. “That’s assault with a deadly weapon,” he said as another cop hastened to his assistance. Mrs. Metzger pulled away and ran for the door, sprinting pretty good for a woman her size. “Elise,” she called.

By this time, the Happy Meadows residents had gathered at their windows to watch the entertainment in the courtyard. I heard windows sliding up.

“You go, girl,” a woman’s voice called.

“Are they filming that wrestling show?” a man asked. “Is this a smack down? I don’t think much of their costumes. Give me Awesome Kong and her Kongtourage any day. Now, that gal’s got a costume.”

The purse-whacked officer, a determined look on his face—I guess he didn’t want to be the laughingstock of the station house for letting himself get sidelined by an irate mother with a handbag—launched himself through the air and tackled Mrs. Metzger around the ankles. She thudded to the ground two feet in front of my bench. While she was gasping for breath, huffing air on my ankles, he sat on her rear end and pulled her arms behind her back, cuffing them. He was hauling her to her feet when Elise hurried out the main entrance.

“Mom! Oh, Jason.” She threw herself into the young man’s arms and he hugged her. “I don’t want to do this anymore,” she told him.

“Sssh. You don’t have to.” He stroked her hair back from her face. “Look, don’t you think it’s time for the truth?”

She nodded. They turned to face Mrs. Metzger, their fingers entwined. “Mom, I’m the one Ms. Faye was going to disqualify. Jason and I got married a month ago.”

Jodi Keen came through the door in time to hear Elise’s announcement. “Married! Then you’re not eligible to be Miss Magnolia Blossom.” She clutched the clipboard to her chest.

Elise hung her head. “I know. But Mom wanted it so much—”

“It’s not true,” Mrs. Metzger said. Her face was stony. “My daughter is not married. Don’t you think I’d know if my own daughter were married?” She looked at me, then the cop holding her arm, hoping for agreement.

“I
am
married,” Elise said.

“We’ll have it annulled. You can still finish the pageant—”

“No.” Elise set her lips firmly. “I should have told you no before, but I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Mrs. Metzger thrust her head toward her daughter, her lips curling back from slightly yellowed teeth. “You’ve been a disappointment since the day you were born. You—”

“That’s enough.” Jason’s voice cracked through her abuse. He put his arms around the weeping Elise’s shoulders. “My wife and I are leaving. If you need to talk to her”—he looked at the cops—“we’ll come to the station later.” He brushed his hair out of his eyes.

He was probably only in his early twenties, but he had the good sense and dignity of an older man. I felt like cheering as he led Elise to the Volkswagen. Several of the watching senior citizens applauded. “Bravo,” called one. “Encore.”

“I wanted to see the Kongtourage,” a disappointed voice muttered before a window slammed down.

 

 

I WENT LOOKING FOR STELLA A FEW MINUTES LATER and couldn’t find her anywhere at Happy Meadows. Perplexed, I wandered out to the parking area and realized her car was gone. Annoyance and worry warred within me. I was about to call her and ask how she expected me to get home when the contestants, Marv, and Jodi trooped tiredly out to the van. Jodi agreed to give me a lift and I sat beside her as Marv gunned the engine.

“Where am I going to find another celebrity judge at this late date?” Jodi Keen asked, slumping back against the plaid cloth seat. “That Ted Gaines absolutely refuses to go on. It doesn’t surprise me—his forecasts are wrong at least seventy percent of the time.”

I wasn’t sure what one thing had to do with the other, but I let it go. “I might know someone,” I said.

“Really?” She brightened.

“A good friend of mine writes for the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
. He’s a pretty famous political reporter. He won a Pulitzer a couple years back.”

“Really?” Jodi sounded less enthused now; clearly she’d rather have someone who had won a reality show or a beauty contest than a writing award.

“Up to you,” I said, leaning back and crossing my arms over my chest.

“What’s his name?”

“Martin Shears.”

“I think I might have heard of him.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Sure, give him a call. At this late date, we can’t afford to be picky.”

Marty agreed to do it, asking hopefully if I thought any of the contestants might try to bribe him.

“It’s certainly possible,” I said. “Several of them lied about their eligibility to compete, so why should they draw the line at bribery?”

He laughed. “Sounds promising. I’m looking forward to seeing you.”

“Me, too. Maybe we can go out with Vonda and Ricky after the pageant.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a quiet dinner for two on the deck at that riverfront seafood place, a bottle of nice wine . . .”

“I’ll make a reservation,” I said. “I don’t think the pageant should take too long—at this rate, there’ll only be two or three contestants by the time we get to Saturday.”

I hung up and told Jodi she had herself a new judge. When the van dropped me at the salon—Jodi said they didn’t need me at the animal rescue since the girls were already coiffed—I called Vonda and made Marty a reservation at her B&B. When I told her about the judges getting sick and about Elise’s revelation, she asked, “Do you think she had anything to do with Audrey’s death?”

“No way. First, she’s so timid she probably doesn’t even squish mosquitoes. Second, she probably would’ve been
elated
if Audrey had kicked her out of the contest.”

“But her mother wouldn’t have been.”

I hadn’t thought about that, but of course it was true. Mrs. Metzger would have frothed at the mouth if Audrey threatened to kick Elise out of the pageant. And she did have anger-control issues, as today’s incident had amply demonstrated. I wondered how much time you got for beaning a policeman with a purse. “But Mrs. Metzger didn’t know about Elise’s marriage,” I said. “So she wouldn’t have thought Audrey was referring to Elise when she talked about disqualifying someone.”

“True enough,” Vonda said.

We said our good-byes and I flipped the phone closed, staring at the pale purple façade of Mom’s house. I’d told her I’d drop by, but I didn’t want to continue this morning’s argument. Maybe I should just walk back to my apartment. As I was debating, Mom appeared at the salon door and beckoned.

“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to come in?” Her tone and smile seemed to indicate she wanted to make up.

I climbed the stairs and crossed the veranda to where she was standing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About this morning. It wasn’t my place to get huffy with you. You’re thirty years old—you can make your own decisions. I just worry about you.”

I hugged her. “I love you. I hope you’ll always care enough to get huffy when I’m doing something you think is stupid or dangerous.”

“You can count on that,” she said. “Now, tell me you can come for dinner tonight. Althea called to say that tonight works better than Friday for her and Kwasi. I was going to do gumbo, but then I remembered he’s a vegetarian, so I’m making a salad of roast vegetables and barley that I found online. I thought I’d make a peach cobbler for dessert.”

“Sounds delish,” I said. “You haven’t seen Stella, have you?”

“No, why?”

“She ditched me at the old folks’ home.” I told her what had happened at Happy Meadows.

“She probably just forgot she’d given you a lift,” Mom said. “You know Jess calls here a couple times a month when Stella forgets to pick her up after band practice or chess club.”

“True enough.” Still, I wanted to find Stella.

As it happened, it wasn’t hard: Stella appeared two minutes later as I was helping Mom pick out new smocks from a supply catalog. She burst through the door, auburn hair wisping around her face, apologies spilling from her mouth. “Oh, Grace, I am
so
sorry! Darryl called and wanted to talk and I just took off, completely forgetting about you. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Jodi gave me a lift in the van.”

“What did Darryl want to talk about?” Mom asked. “Does he have an alibi for last night?”

“No,” Stella said mournfully, sinking into one of the easy chairs in the waiting area. She folded her arms around a throw pillow and hugged it. “He was home alone. We didn’t even talk on the phone. He wanted to discuss us. You know, where we go from here?”

“And where do you go?” Mom asked.

I tidied the counter, which didn’t need tidying, giving Stella a moment to collect her thoughts without me staring at her. She watched my mom turn down corners in the catalog, then blew her breath out hard.

“I just don’t know,” she said. “The choices seem to be move back into the house, file for divorce, stay with my Mom, find an apartment for me and Jess, go to counseling, or some combination of the above. Darryl wants us to move back in. He says he’s sorrier than sorry about the affair and that it’ll never happen again. He says he’ll go to counseling. But, honestly, Vi, I can’t look at the man without seeing red! And bawling my eyes out. That he could do that—lie to me, sleep with another woman. How do I forgive that?”

“It would take time and counseling and wanting to,” Mom said.

“Well, I guess I’m just not sure I want to,” Stella said. She punched the pillow in her lap.

All this talk of infidelity was making me light-headed; it brought back the arguments Hank and I used to have about his womanizing. I remembered forgiving Hank the first time he cheated on me and apologized, swearing it would never happen again. Well, it had. Again and again until I finally got some self-respect and guts and called it quits. I hoped Stella wasn’t letting herself in for the same grief if she stayed with Darryl. Of course, they’d been married sixteen years and this was apparently the first time he’d strayed. Hank hadn’t made it eight months.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Mom pointed out. “Give it some time.”

See what happens with his trial, I thought but didn’t say. Moving back in together might not be an option if Darryl’s new residence was a state penitentiary.

WITH NO COMMITMENTS FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, I returned to my apartment and changed into scruffy clothes to do some yard work. I also called Kevin Faye and made an appointment to talk about houses with him on Friday morning. Brightened by the prospect of taking the first step toward buying a house, I attacked the overgrown forsythia with gusto. By the time I had a stack of pruned branches on the sidewalk, I was sweating like a horse in the backstretch of the Kentucky Derby. I probably smelled like one, too. I added some oleander branches from the bushes behind my carriage house to the pile, and dug up a few dandelions for good measure. I was folding the branches and pushing them into yard bags when Agent Dillon’s car pulled to the curb. Great. I looked like I’d been doing yard work for two hours on the hottest day of the year. My hair clung in sweaty tendrils to my neck and a fire ant bite had raised an ugly welt on my ankle. I was probably spattered with dirt and sap.