Divas Do Tell (34 page)

I sat like a lump on the flowered sofa and watched Bitty at work. She got right into the reason for our visit. “Mrs. Whitworth, think back to the day Billy Joe was killed. Can you remember anything else about the person you saw go to his front door?”

Mrs. Whitworth, obviously pleased at being the center of attention, furrowed her brow and twisted a lace handkerchief between her arthritic fingers. “Well, let me see . . . I told you and the police about the blonde woman who came to the door. She wore a long coat, like one of those you see men wearing sometimes.”

“A trench coat?” asked Bitty, and Mrs. Whitworth nodded.

“Yes, that’s it. It was a light brown or beige, belted, and she wore men’s boots.”

“You’re sure it was a woman?” Sandra asked.

Mrs. Whitworth’s eyes grew large. “Why, no. No, I’m not at all sure it was a woman. It could have been a man, I suppose, with long hair. Come to think of it, the person did have broad shoulders. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I suppose I thought it was shoulder pads. Like women wore in the eighties.”

Bitty looked at Sandra with a pleased smile. “See? We’re finding out new information. This could have been a man who visited Billy Joe and perhaps killed him. Of course, that lets out Dixie Lee or Mira Waller, but at least we have something new to investigate.”

“It was an excellent question,” I agreed when they both looked at me.

“We need to make a list of all the men who might have a grudge against Billy Joe and go from there,” Bitty said next. “Since he was the first death, if they’re all connected we’re going to have to figure out why and how. I’m sure that these three murders aren’t random. Billy Joe had to be the only one that was intended.”

Sandra lifted her brows, and Mrs. Whitworth looked fascinated.

“While that’s a sensible conclusion,” I said to Bitty, “we’re not sure it’s the right one. There are too many possibilities. Someone could have intended to kill Abby from the beginning, and there are several dozen suspects for her alone. No offense, Sandra, but Hollywood seems to have brought its own share of problems. Abby was a troubled young woman. She definitely wasn’t happy when I talked to her at the Montrose shoot the day Allison attacked Dixie Lee.”

“Did she say why she wasn’t happy?” Sandra asked.

I hesitated. Telling the complete truth could be awkward. So I went with, “She said she was tired and not getting enough sleep. It made her short-tempered.”

“The film industry is definitely exhausting,” Sandra said after a moment. “Early mornings, late nights, the endless retakes—but it’s enormously rewarding in terms of not only professional satisfaction but monetary gain. Perhaps Abby didn’t receive the same satisfaction.”

“Perhaps not,” I agreed. “She did seem stressed a great deal of the time.”

Bitty tilted her head. “She always seemed bubbly and happy to me. She hid her feelings very well, it seems.”

Mrs. Whitworth leaned forward, an eager expression on her face. “Do you think this girl, Abby Bloom, could have killed Billy Joe and then killed herself from the guilt of committing murder?”

Since some of the crime’s details had been kept out of the papers, I just said, “If she killed Billy Joe she may have felt guilty, but she definitely didn’t kill herself. It wasn’t possible, according to the coroner.”

That information didn’t dim Mrs. Whitworth’s enthusiasm one tiny drop. “Maybe Billy Joe was murdered by one of his women. He had all kinds, you know. Poor Allison. She always pretended like she didn’t know, but she had to. If it was me, I might have shot him myself. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear she’s guilty.”

Bitty and I looked at each other, and I’m sure she was remembering the same thing I was about Allison and her eager anticipation of insurance money from Billy Joe’s death.

“Apparently you’ve given this a great deal of thought,” Sandra said to Mrs. Whitworth.

She nodded, her white hair shifting in frail wisps like a transparent halo over her little pink scalp. Light through the big picture window played across her face. “I know there’s another detail that I keep trying to remember, but it hasn’t come to me yet. My memory isn’t what it once was, you know. Sometimes I remember things, sometimes I don’t. Yet it seems that there’s a small detail that’s escaping me. Maybe I’ll remember it soon. Who knows? It could be the one thing that solves the murder.”

Bitty reached into her purse and took out a small spiral notebook and a pen. She scribbled on a page, then ripped out the sheet and handed it to Mrs. Whitworth. “There’s my phone and my home number. You call me immediately if you remember it, all right? It could end up being very important.”

Mrs. Whitworth nodded, obviously pleased as punch at the thought of being important. “I will,” she promised. “Now, I’ve got some sponge cake that would taste wonderful along with hot tea if you ladies would like a piece. Or maybe some blackberry cobbler? I made it with berries I picked myself last year, and I put up quite a few quarts. I still have some pear preserves left over, too.”

My mouth started to water. Blackberry cobbler sounded delicious, and I’ve always had a weakness for pear preserves. Mama used to put up quarts and quarts of preserves every year, but had slowed down a lot on that kind of thing in the past few years. Not that we did without. There were plenty of Mason jars with fruit preserves down in our basement, just waiting for us to run out upstairs.

To please Mrs. Whitworth, since there’s little Southerners like better than to feed any polite visitor who comes to our door, we all had some blackberry cobbler with a scoop of fresh whipped cream on top, accompanied by cups of hot tea. Sandra just oohed and ahhed over the food, making Mrs. Whitworth’s day, I’m sure. I knew she’d end up at a church social impressing all her contemporaries with details: Not only had a famous movie star come to her house, but she had just
loved
her homemade cobbler.

Of course, when we left, the usual phalanx of paparazzi followed our car. I’d hate to live like that. No wonder so many movie stars get impatient with the constant barrage of fans and cameras. I’m not sure I could handle it with the same composure as Sandra.

As we headed back to Court Square Inn, we discussed the possibility that a man had been the one to kill Billy Joe.

“All this time,” said Bitty, “we’ve been thinking it was a woman. I never even once thought it might be a man who killed him. There are so many women suspects to choose from that it never occurred to me.”

“Me, either,” I agreed. “Rayna may have to amend her search engine info.”

Sandra looked at me curiously. “Rayna really does use search engines to look up people and their history?”

I nodded. “She does. She’s good at it, too. Rob has a lot of software programs for his insurance investigation and bail bond businesses. Rayna helps him.”

“They work together? I’m not sure I could work with my husband all the time. Not and keep my marriage intact.”

“Rayna works with him when she isn’t commissioned to do a painting. Fortunately, they have it worked out pretty well, but I feel the same way. If I’d had to work with my ex all day I might have been divorced much earlier,” I said, and Sandra laughed.

“It can be quite difficult. I believe our careers probably doomed my relationship with Bruce. When we were together it was always too short, and one of us usually had jet lag. It’s not easy to keep a marriage strong when in the movie business.”

“I can only imagine,” I said honestly.

Since Mrs. Whitworth only lived a couple blocks from Court Square Inn, we arrived in less time than it took to finish our conversation. The gray skies seemed lower, the snow and ice made the streets and buildings look Christmasy, and the world was pretty quiet. Lights gleamed on each side of the inn door. Several men waited out front with cameras. Sandra looked at me and Bitty with a weary smile.

“I don’t suppose you know somewhere I could get away from it all but still be close enough to come into town to film?”

“Not right off the top of my head, but I’ll ask around,” said Bitty. “Sometimes places come up for rent.”

“There’s Snow Lake,” I suggested. “It’s private but accessible to town.”

Bitty nodded. “Yes, that’d be perfect.”

Sandra asked, “Where’s Snow Lake?”

“It’s about fifteen miles from here, a residential area with houses built around a hundred acre lake, very quiet and peaceful.”

Clasping her hands together, Sandra said, “Oh, it sounds lovely.”

Bitty said, “It is. Let me call Laura Grubbs in Ashland and see if she knows of any places you can rent. She’s in real estate and knows a lot of people.”

“That’d be wonderful,” said Sandra. “Maybe only for a week or so. I just need to clear my head and get back in touch with my creative side. That takes peace and quiet.”

“We’ll get you fixed up as soon as possible,” Bitty assured her. “I’ll try to find one with a pontoon boat included. Going out on the lake can be very relaxing.”

“I could use relaxation. If you can find a place with a gate to keep out intruders, that’d be even better than a pontoon.”

“Cindy might know of some rentals available this time of year,” I said. “She’s lived out there for a while now and knows just about everyone. During the winter months it’s a lot easier to find a rental house on the lake.”

“That would be wonderful,” said Sandra. Her driver appeared at the door and opened it for her, and I heard the paparazzi begin to shout questions at her. She shook her head. “I hope you can find a remote house where there’s no place for anyone to hide with cameras.”

We waited in the car until Sandra was inside and the cameras and reporters faded away, then got out and went to Bitty’s car. No ticket waved at us from under the windshield wipers so I knew Bitty had escaped the wrath of Rodney Farrell once more.

“I couldn’t stand all those people intruding on my life,” I said as Bitty searched through her purse for car keys. “I’d go crazy.”

“I’d shoot at them,” said Bitty as she found her keys and beeped the remote to open the car doors.

“Oh, Bitty, you would not.”

“Yes, I would. Maybe not really at them, but over their heads, anyway.”

As we drove away from the inn, Bitty said, “I can call Laura and Cindy and find out if they know of anything. There are a couple more realtors I can call, too.”

“I still think you should use your realtor’s license, Bitty. You need a job. Something to keep you busy.”

“For one thing, my license expired, and for another, I have plenty to keep me busy. There are my club meetings, fundraisers—and this year I’m helping the Garden Club at the pilgrimage. Did you ever go try on your dress?”

I tried to steer the conversation in another direction so she wouldn’t know I hadn’t given it another thought since the last time she’d brought it up. I wasn’t looking forward to wearing hoop skirts and petticoats. Or a hat. I just knew there would be some kind of stupid little hat or big-brimmed bonnet with ties, and I’d look utterly ridiculous. I guess I was born in the right era. I cannot imagine what I’d have worn in the nineteenth century.

“Mama and Daddy will be home day after tomorrow,” I said. “Do you want to go to the airport with me to pick them up?”

“Already? It seems like just yesterday that they left.”

I didn’t agree with that at all. It seemed like it’d been months since they’d been home. And I wasn’t the only one who’d be happy to see them. Brownie would be grateful his enabler was back to cater to his every whim.

“Did you ever pay your fines and get the mower out of the impound lot?” I asked, and for a minute Bitty didn’t say anything as we rode carefully over the ice-slicked highway.

“Well,” she said at last, “Jackson Lee called and said we’d be in to pay any fines and get Uncle Eddie’s tractor out of hock, but we just haven’t done it yet.”

“Better figure out a way to get that mower not only freed from prison, but working again. Daddy will
not
understand my failure to keep it safe.”

“I’ll call them in the morning and get someone from Valentine’s to go pick it up and get it fixed,” Bitty promised.

“And I’ll remind you,” I promised.

Chapter 18

GETTING IN AND out of the Memphis International Airport isn’t that tricky. There’s a ramp up for departing passengers, and a ramp below for arrivals. The lower area is also where baggage claim is located, so it’s usually a pretty straightforward affair.

Unless you’re dealing with Bitty and my parents. Then it becomes a tangled mess.

No cars are allowed to linger near the exits unless actually loading or unloading. Security carts with uniformed guards make sure that rule is followed. So I ended up making five turns around the airport, in and out, slowly dawdling along in hopes that my cousin and parents would show up before I was old enough to collect my Social Security benefits.

I am eternally optimistic.

Despite my pleas to let my parents follow their homing instincts down to the lower level and baggage claim, Bitty had insisted upon going inside to wait for them at the security checkpoint to guide them through the airport maze. It isn’t difficult to find your way out. The signs are in plain English as well as a few other languages, and my parents aren’t so senile they have forgotten how to read. But Bitty was determined they couldn’t find their way to baggage claim on their own so had gotten out on the lower level to go upstairs to the main level where gates fan out for planes to land.