It's Your Party, Die If You Want To Page 7

  I recounted the previous night’s events to Larry Joe.

  “Wow. Naked moon dancers, a talking ghost, and a dead body. You’ve got yourself a made-for-TV movie there.”

  “I wish it was just a bad movie. My head is killing me. I barely slept last night. I might take some aspirin and lie down for a bit.”

  “Would you rather I didn’t work on the plumbing?”

  I knew better than to give him an excuse to put it off.

  “No. I’m so tired it won’t matter. I’ll stretch out on the sofa in the den.”

  “Okay,” Larry Joe said. “I’ve got to run to the hardware store for a couple things. Maybe you can catch a few winks while I’m gone,” he said before planting a kiss on the top of my head.

  Despite the headache and the copious amounts of coffee I’d consumed, I fell asleep quickly. Visions of Morgan’s contorted face and glassy eyes invaded my dreams. I can honestly say she had never made an appearance in my dreams while she was alive. Our obnoxious little Morgan with the great big mouth had been a party on heels, always looking for some other woman’s man to park next to. Now she was lying all by herself under a sheet at the morgue. No matter how much and how often she had annoyed me, it was still upsetting to think of her lifeless body laid out on a cold slab awaiting an autopsy.

  I was awakened a little over an hour later by the noise and vibrations of what sounded like a jackhammer upstairs. I didn’t want to know, so I decided to seek refuge at Di’s place. I texted Di, who told me to come on over. Too lazy to walk up the stairs and too afraid to see what he was actually doing to the house, I texted Larry Joe to let him know where I was going. I wondered for a moment if I should go ahead and return the Bentley. But since the Robisons had expected it to be gone all weekend and since I didn’t want to face Morgan’s parents just yet, I decided it could wait. Besides, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Lucinda would call up demanding a chauffeur.

  I tapped on the door as I entered Di’s trailer. She was seated at the dining table with her checkbook open, apparently paying some bills.

  “There’s nearly a full pot of coffee if you want some,” she said.

  I opened the cabinet above the coffeemaker and grabbed a mug that read MAIL CARRIERS DO IT FIRST CLASS.

  “So,” Di said, without looking up from her paperwork, “somebody killed Morgan.”

  “Word sure gets around quickly,” I said.

  Di’s knowing smile made me suspect she’d heard about Morgan’s death from Dave, but she didn’t say so.

  “I’m determined to remain hopeful that the autopsy will show she died of a seizure or an allergic reaction—anything other than murder.”

  “Hmm. Hate to undermine your hope, but of all the people I know, Morgan Robison is probably the least likely to die of natural causes. Making enemies was practically a hobby for her.”

  Di scooped up her paperwork and stuffed it in a manila envelope labeled BLOOD-SUCKING LEECHES.

  “I’m going to make some scrambled eggs and toast. Want some?” Di said.

  “Yeah, that sounds good. I had a pretty early breakfast.”

  Di gathered supplies from the fridge and placed bread in the toaster.

  “I’m surprised you’re not all over this murder investigation like fuzz on a peach,” Di said. “If it was murder, it almost certainly was committed by one of the people at the retreat. That gives you a handy list of suspects.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “I know all the people who were there—some of them I know really well. A lot of them didn’t care much for Morgan, including me. But I can’t imagine any of them actually killing her.... I’m leaving this one completely up to Dave.”

  The toast popped up. I buttered the bread while Di scrambled the eggs.

  * * *

  I had hoped Sunday would be a quiet day of rest, but no such luck. My mother insisted Larry Joe and I join her and Earl for lunch at her house. She said she wanted to see with her own eyes that I was all right. I knew what she really wanted was to hear with her own ears every detail about the events surrounding Morgan’s demise.

  Mama’s a good cook, so I didn’t have to talk Larry Joe into going. Of course, it was painless for him. He ate a big meat-and-potatoes meal and then disappeared into the family room with Earl to watch football. Mama’s “good friend” Earl makes repairs around her house, escorts her to events, and takes her grocery shopping. She cooks supper for him most evenings, but his truck is never parked in her driveway overnight. I have my suspicions that there may be more to their relationship, but Mama would certainly never admit it—and frankly, there are some things I’d rather not know.

  My mother, on the other hand, felt entitled to know every detail of my life and Morgan’s death. She grilled me while we were cleaning up in the kitchen. I wrapped the pot roast in aluminum foil and put it in the fridge while she loaded the dishwasher.

  “It was real nice of Lucinda Grable to agree to speak to your business group,” Mama said. Her dangly purple earrings were the exact color of her plus-size purple pants suit, a striking contrast to her emerald green eyes.

  “Too nice. As far as I know PWAD didn’t pay her a cent to come—or even pay for her airfare.”

  “You’re thinking Morgan blackmailed her into coming?” Mama’s psychic abilities spooked me even more than Lucinda’s.

  “Blackmail certainly wouldn’t be out of character for Morgan,” I said. “And I don’t know Lucinda well, but the little time I’ve spent as her driver hasn’t shown me that she’s a kind and generous soul.”

  “I suppose Lucinda could be the one who killed Morgan,” Mama said. “Lord knows celebrities do crazy stuff all the time—and even get away with it. But my money’s on Nell Tucker. She’s always had a temper. I once saw her fling a hot curling iron at another beautician. Fortunately it was still plugged in, so it didn’t go very far. In fact, it swung back at Nell and she had to jump out of the way to keep it from smacking her. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

  “Anyhow, if she believed Morgan was messing around with her precious Billy, I don’t think she’d be long-suffering about it.”

  “If she believed Billy was fooling around, why wouldn’t she kill him instead of the other woman?”

  “Now, that’s what any reasonable woman would do,” Mama said. “But Nell Tucker isn’t a sensible person like you and me. Besides, she’s got Billy Junior to think about, and that boy worships his daddy.”

  “How old is their son now?”

  “I’m guessing about thirteen. And he looks more like his daddy every day,” Mama said.

  The men were both snoring in front of the TV, with Larry Joe stretched out on the sofa and Earl laid out in a leather recliner. I woke up Larry Joe and told him it was time to go.

  On the drive home, all eight or nine minutes of it, I told Larry Joe how Mama had pegged Nell as Morgan’s killer and how she thought any sensible woman would have killed her husband instead of killing his mistress.

  “I don’t know if I agree with your mama on either point—but don’t tell her I said so,” he said with the wisdom of experience. “Throwing a fit or a hot curling iron, as the case may be, is one thing. But it doesn’t sound like Morgan was killed in a blind rage. Her murder was obviously planned. I’m doubtful Nell has the patience or the smarts to pull that off.

  “By the way, Earl told me your mama asked him to handle disposing of the snake that afternoon after you had taken a hoe to it,” Larry Joe said.

  Apparently Earl found a snake in the bushes. It wasn’t dead, but it also wasn’t poisonous. He told Larry Joe it was a black rat snake, which are good snakes, if there is such a thing. He said they help keep the rodent population in check.

  “They can get to be fifteen or twenty feet long, according to Earl,” Larry Joe said. “But the one in your mama’s yard was bigger than he’s usually seen.”

  “What did Earl do with it?”

  “He tossed it in a box in the back of hi
s truck and let it loose out in the country. But he let your mama go on thinking it was dead.”

  “Earl’s a smart man,” I said.

  * * *

  Late Sunday evening, the Robisons’ housekeeper called me to ask if I would drop off the Bentley and the keys at the hotel for Lucinda’s use. Our star had apparently decided to stay in town until after Morgan’s funeral. So Monday morning, Larry Joe followed me to the hotel to deliver the Bentley and then dropped me back off at the house to pick up my car a little before eight AM. Though I usually don’t go to the office until nine, focusing on work would be a relief. I patently refused to let my mind dwell on Morgan’s death. It was less than two weeks until the Halloween fund-raiser for Residential Rehab, plus I had an engagement party to put on in just five days.

  I hit the phones, or tried to. I kept getting interrupted every few minutes.

  Lucinda’s assistant, Mitzi, called me just after nine. I foolishly imagined she might be calling to thank me for delivering the car. Not even close.

  It seemed some local ladies were “stalking” Lucinda and she wanted me to “take care of it.”

  “They’re probably just starstruck fans,” I said. “Surely Lucinda is used to getting this kind of attention.”

  “Miss Grable already graciously talked with these women and gave them free autographed photos. They still won’t go away. They hang around in the lobby. They even followed her yesterday when she went out with the camera crew to shoot some footage around town, distracting her and getting in the way of some of the shots. Would you please talk to them? You really are Miss Grable’s only contact in town besides the Robisons, and I’m sure you understand that she doesn’t want to disturb Morgan’s parents.”

  “Do you know who any of these women are?” I asked.

  “One of them has an accent. I think she’s probably a maid at the hotel. One looks like an aging hippie, and the other one is tall with . . . unusual hair.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I had a pretty good idea who the stalkers were.

  I decided “the maid” who wasn’t really a maid was probably the most sensible one of the threesome, so I rang Sindhu on her cell phone.

  She answered in a whisper. “Yes, Liv, what do you need of me?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I’m keeping my eye on a situation,” she said.

  “Would that situation be named Lucinda Grable?”

  “Why do you ask?” she said nervously.

  “Because her assistant just called and asked me to talk to the women who are, in her words, ‘stalking Lucinda.’”

  “Oh.” She paused. “We have been trying to not be conspicuous.”

  “It’s not working,” I said.

  I tried to imagine in what universe a hippie, a garish hairdresser, and a short Indian woman would be inconspicuous—certainly not in a town as small as Dixie.

  “Are you three really that starstruck over Lucinda?”

  “Oh, we’re not watching her as fans. We’re keeping an eye on her, as I told you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “We think it is too much of a coincidence that Morgan was killed just as Lucinda arrived here and stirred up some ghost,” Sindhu said with all sincerity.

  “Look,” I said. “The sheriff will find out who killed Morgan. Since the three of you were at the retreat when Morgan died, y’all are suspects, too, you know. So you probably shouldn’t be drawing attention to yourselves. The sheriff may decide to haul you in on suspicion. More important, if there’s even a slim chance Lucinda really is a murderer, you, Jasmine, and Nell should try to stay off her radar. So back off, okay?”

  “I will tell the others what you said.” Click.

  About ten AM, I came very close to actually getting some work done when my phone rang again. I feared it was Mitzi or the three stooges, but this time it was Winette. She wanted to know if it was a good time to come up and talk to me. I thought it might make for a nice change to talk to someone who was sane.

  She came in and sat down in a chair facing my desk.

  “Liv, Mayor Haynes has been getting phone calls from folks who think we should cancel, or at least postpone, the Halloween fund-raiser.”

  “Why on earth would we do that?” I asked in disbelief.

  “Apparently some people are saying it would be in poor taste to have a city-wide party, especially one that includes a murder mystery dinner, so soon after Morgan’s death. Dorothy called and asked me to get back to the mayor with my thoughts. What do you think?”

  I took a moment to gather myself.

  “While it is a party and we hope that people will have a good time, it’s also a fund-raiser for a worthy cause. Why would we call that off? Half the people in town are involved in some way, either volunteering or donating services or goods. If we cancelled, I think all those people would be really disappointed—and RR would miss out on badly needed funds. The mayor’s not up for reelection anytime soon. Why do you think he’s worrying over what a few people might think?”

  “I don’t know if it’s a few people or a lot,” Winette said. “I’ve gotten a couple of calls myself—one from Bryn at the chamber and one from Trudy, the loan officer at the bank. That’s two people who think we should at least postpone the fund-raiser. Trudy mentioned that, for one thing, they don’t know yet when Morgan’s funeral is going to be. They don’t even know when the medical examiner will release the body. No one wants to expand Residential Rehab’s work more than I do, but I also want to be sensitive to what Morgan’s family is going through right now. I just don’t know. . . .”

  We sat silent for a moment, lost in our thoughts.

  “Well,” I said. “We can’t realistically postpone a Halloween-themed fund-raiser until Christmas. And I don’t think we can turn around in a couple of months and ask people who have already put a lot of time, effort, and donations into this fund-raiser to start over with a new theme. If we don’t go ahead with it, we probably won’t be able to put it on for another year, if ever.”

  “If that happens, I guess we could ask the local churches to take up a special collection to help fund RR,” Winette said.

  “Most of them already do that periodically anyway.”

  “I know,” she said, then sighed deeply.

  “Look, my opinion is that pulling together for charity is just what the town needs right now, especially after a tragic death. It’ll boost morale,” I said. “Besides, Morgan was a member of the planning committee, so we should soldier on in her memory. I think that’s what you should tell the mayor.”

  “I agree,” she said.

  She got up to leave, but paused in the doorway, turned toward me, and said, “But it certainly wouldn’t hurt matters if the sheriff arrested somebody for Morgan’s murder sooner rather than later. Let’s just pray he’s able to catch a killer this week.”

  By the following evening, it seemed as if Winette’s prayers had been answered.

  Chapter 8

  Tuesday, on my way to the office, I decided to stop by the hotel to see if the stalkers were behaving themselves. That was wishful thinking on my part.

  Jasmine and Nell were across the street, peeping over some shrubbery and wielding binoculars.

  I parked and walked over to their stakeout.

  “What are you two doing?” I asked, taking a seat on the grass next to where they were kneeling.

  “You know good and well what we’re doing,” Nell said.

  Sindhu’s eight-year-old daughter, Darsha, suddenly popped up from behind Jasmine.

  “We’re playing Harriet the Spy, Miss Liv,” she said, her big, brown eyes wide with excitement.

  “And who are you spying on, sweetie?”

  “We’re just watching all the hotel guests come and go, and taking notes,” she said. “It’s my job to count the number of men and women and kids. It’s just for fun. But Mommy says it might help our hotel give better service if we learn more about our g
uests.”

  “I see.”

  Nell stood up and brushed off her pants.

  “Darsha, honey, we’d better go check in with your mama now.”

  Little Darsha skipped across the street holding Nell’s hand. Nell stopped by the columns on the portico of the hotel—no doubt trying to keep out of sight of Lucinda’s entourage and Sindhu’s husband. When she had made sure Darsha was safely inside the hotel lobby, she headed back across the street.

  “I can’t believe y’all are dragging that innocent child into your stakeout,” I said. “Why isn’t she in school today, anyway?”

  “There’s a teachers’ in-service today,” Jasmine said. “And besides, it’s just a game for her. She doesn’t know who we’re really keeping an eye on.”

  Nell rejoined us behind the shrubbery.

  “We’re keeping an eye on Lucinda ‘the killer’ Grable, that’s who. We can see into the sitting room of her suite from here,” Nell said, raising a pair of binoculars to her beady eyes.

  “We don’t know that Lucinda had anything to do with Morgan’s death,” I said. “For that matter, we don’t even know for sure that Morgan was murdered. The medical examiner hasn’t determined the cause of death yet.”

  “Who are you kidding?” Nell said. “Morgan may have been sickening, but one thing she was not was sickly. Somebody whacked her, all right.”

  “I agree,” Jasmine said in her usual placid tone. “You could tell from Morgan’s complexion and healthy pink gums and clear eyes that she was in very good health.”

  “Okay, I agree Morgan’s death is suspicious. Although you do hear about perfectly healthy people, even athletes sometimes, dying unexpectedly of a seizure or some unknown heart defect. At any rate, don’t you think the sheriff is checking up on Lucinda and any other suspects?”

  “That’s just the point, Liv,” Nell said. “All of us who were at the retreat are suspects.”

  “But you’re convinced it was Lucinda who killed Morgan. Why?”

  “It does make sense,” Jasmine said. “If the murderer was someone here in Dixie, they could have killed Morgan anytime. They certainly could have picked a better time—sometime when they wouldn’t automatically make themselves one of a handful of suspects.”