Divas Do Tell

Lights! Camera! Murder! Trinket and the gang, beware!

Dead Divas tell no tales.

Sixty years ago a scandal rocked Holly Springs. Now Diva-sister Dixie Lee Forsythe has written DARK SECRETS UNDER THE HOLLY, a juicy tell-all about a historic Mississippi town very much like Holly Springs, and Hollywood’s in town to film it. A lot of people are none too happy about that.

For one, Bitty is in a blond lather over a gossipy story line about a philandering Senator who very much resembles Bitty’s late husband. And even Trinket’s a little miffed at Dixie Lee’s oh-so-recognizable Trinket Truevine character, described as, “built like a girls’ basketball coach—not necessarily a female one.”

Bitty’s neighbor and town matriarch, Ida Tyree, is incensed over Dixie Lee’s portrayal of a torrid romance between Susana Jones, a young black housekeeper, and a seductive white good old boy during the tense times of the nineteen sixties. Ida, who parlayed her years as housekeeper into a lucrative cleaning business, says Dixie Lee played fast and loose with the facts.

Billy Joe Cramer, the man accused of the seducing, swears he’s innocent. He sure doesn’t want the world to see him as a cradle robber who fathered Susana’s child, igniting a firestorm of prejudice that drove her and her family out of town.

No surprise! Dixie Lee starts getting mysterious death threats. Billy Joe turns up dead. The actress hired to play Susana brings Difficult Diva-ness to heights even Bitty can’t match. A production assistant is murdered.

If Trinket, Bitty and the Divas don’t solve this case quick, Oscars season in Tinsel Town will be short a whole bunch of stars.

Virginia Brown’s Novels from Bell Bridge Books

The Dixie Divas Mysteries

Dixie Divas

Drop Dead Divas

Dixie Diva Blues

Divas and Dead Rebels

Divas Do Tell

The Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries

Hound Dog Blues

Harley Rushes In

Suspicious Mimes

Return to Fender (2013)

General Mystery/Fiction

Dark River Road

Historical Romance

Comanche Moon * Capture the Wind

Savage Awakening * Defy The Thunder

Storm of Passion * Wild Heart

Legacy of Shadows * Moonflower

Desert Dreams * Heaven Sent

Wildfire * Renegade Embrace

Emerald Nights * Hidden Touch

Wildflower * Wildest Heart

Jade Moon * Highland Hearts

Divas Do Tell

Book 5 of The Dixie Diva Mysteries

by

Virginia Brown

Bell Bridge Books

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-386-3
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-368-9

Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Copyright © 2013 by Virginia Brown

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.
Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

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Cover design: Debra Dixon
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo/Art credits:
Popcorn and film © Loopall | Dreamstime.com
Clapboards © Jimmyi23 | Dreamstime.com

:Etdd:01:

Dedication

For Laura, Lisa, Gwen, Ginger, TJ, Kathy, Gena, Alexa and Waunell, my real Dixie Divas, with love and appreciation. You ladies rock!

Warning:

Diva books are not to be taken too seriously. Some of the events may be slightly exaggerated. Or not. Being Southern, I freely use my prerogative for embellishment. While public events such as Holly Springs’ annual pilgrimage and Kudzu Festival are real, and general locations set in the town and its surrounding areas are also real, I’ve taken great liberty by altering some details to fit the storylines. Any errors and changes are mine alone.

Chapter 1

IT WAS A BOOK that started all the trouble. A bestselling book, at that. It stirred up more dust and disaster than an F-5 tornado. Holly Springs, Mississippi hadn’t seen so much excitement and mayhem since The War, when General Van Dorn’s troops burned Yankee supplies piled at the railroad terminal, and a few houses caught fire. The fallout from the book was certainly more entertaining than watching your house burn, but just as deadly.

Perhaps I should clarify.

My name is Eureka May Truevine, but I prefer to go by Trinket. I live in a house named Cherryhill that sits just outside the Holly Springs city limits. It’s my ancestral home, and my parents live in the downstairs while I have all the upstairs to myself. They’re in their seventies, so they don’t like climbing the staircase anymore. It works out well for all of us. When I moved back home after my divorce to care for parents I thought were feeble and needed nursing, I discovered they were in great health but had developed a penchant for jetting around the country. I was needed to stay home and take care of their dog and a couple hundred feral cats while they caught up on their youth. The mayhem and mischief caused by the bestselling book took place when they went out of town, and I was stuck with food and doody duty. It was a very inconvenient chapter in my life. Pardon the pun.

At first we were all thrilled that someone we knew had written a book set in our hometown of Holly Springs. Then we read it. It was a good thing the author had used a pen name. Otherwise, she might have been hung from the clock tower in the court square as soon as it came out.

Some of us, however, knew her true identity.

“I can’t believe this,” raged my first cousin and best friend Bitty Hollandale. “How dare this . . . this
woman
go telling the entire world all about Philip’s flings with that home wrecking little slut?” She paused to suck in a deep breath then added, “Bless their hearts.”

If she’d been Catholic, Bitty would have crossed herself. Since she’s not, she just added the last three words in a pious tone suitable for a Methodist. Seeing as how Bitty’s ex, Philip Hollandale, is dead, as well as the “home wrecking little slut,” I pretended the blessing was said on that account.

“Yes,” I said. “Bless their hearts. Don’t you think you’re overreacting a little, Bitty? I mean, it’s just a book, and it’s sold as fiction. That means it’s not real, just fantasy. Made up characters and events.”

Bitty eyed me rather sourly. “Have you read it yet?”

“Well . . . no. Not yet. But I intend to as soon as I have a spare minute or two.”

“Get back to me when you’ve read it. We’ll see how you feel about it then.”

Bitty was so irate she forgot she had enough hair spray on her head to paralyze a goat and put her hand through the carefully coifed blonde nest. I watched with interest as she tried to get her hand back out without dislodging a diamond ring as big as a butter bean.

We sat in her parlor, a small room adjacent to the actual parlor and just off the wide entrance hall. It used to be a butler’s pantry or breakfast room or something like that, but since Bitty doesn’t have any full-time servants she’s put it to better use. It was quite cozy on a cold January day. A small fireplace, shutter-covered window, two big plush chairs that suck you into their depths, a flat screen above the mantel—disguised with an oil painting when not in use—and a couple end tables with lamps furnish it in comfort. Bitty’s house is an antebellum beauty with a sign out front and scrolled lettering that says “Six Chimneys CA 1845.”. In April every year the Holly Springs Garden Club conducts a pilgrimage during which gracious old homes are fancied up and opened to the public for tours. Bitty’s house is one of them.

When she finally got her hand out of her lacquered hairdo without losing her ring or a finger she said, “Cady Lee just better be careful is all I have to say.”

I knew that wasn’t all she had to say, and I was right. Bitty still fumed and sputtered.

“Can you believe her sister has the nerve to show her face in this town after writing that horrible book? She’s just showing off. That’s so tacky.”