Elvis and the Grateful Dead (12 page)

L
ovie is waiting for me on her front porch, carrying a cake and wearing a skirt so short there’s a bare inch between imagination and the real thing. She’s also wearing a pair of sling black Kate Spade heels I’d envy if I weren’t above it. At least with my cousin.

“Where are your boots, Lovie?”

Instead of answering, she settles into the passenger seat. “Gun it, Callie. Let’s get out of this neighborhood.” She proceeds to stick her foot over on my side of the truck toward the accelerator.

“For Pete’s sake.” I whack her with the only weapon handy, a half-eaten box of Cracker Jack. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothing. As you well know.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“No, it’s not. Rocky and I have been dating long enough to move to the next level. Something must be wrong. I’ve never met a man I couldn’t seduce.”

“And how many of those men ever sent you roses? Or flew all the way across the country just to sit on the sofa and hold your hand? Or bothered to stick around long enough to find out you’re worthy of more than a roll in the hay?”

She’s quiet—thinking it over, I hope, or else admiring the view of her quaint neighborhood. Several years ago it was going to rack and ruin, but new owners came in and started an aggressive campaign of gentrification. Now the neighborhood looks much the same as it did when Elvis (the King, not my dog) attended Milam School two blocks from Lovie’s house.

“What’s the cake for?” I ask her.

“You’ll see.”

We cross Main Street, then head south on Church. When I pull into the parking lot of Trouble-Free Movers, I don’t have a single idea how I’m going to extract private information about Bertha.

“Wait here,” Lovie says, then bails out.

I’m relieved to sit back and let somebody else do the dirty work. If any more intimidating Eric Millers and mouthwatering Ricky Pates are around, let Lovie deal with them for a change. Besides, she needs something to take her mind off Rocky and his stalled libido.

Don’t let it be dead, that’s all I ask. For Lovie’s sake, let him be a normal, red-blooded male who just happens to believe in the old-fashioned ideals of courtship and marriage.

By the time she gets back I’ve solved all her problems (only in my mind, of course) and she’s happily married with three children. If only it were that easy to solve my own.

Lovie climbs into my Dodge Ram, sans cake, and I ask, “Did you find out anything?”

“Bertha’s furniture is on its way to Las Vegas.”

The city where Lovie mooned half its residents and we nearly got caught breaking and entering. I don’t hanker to go there again.

“She’s probably heading that way, too,” I say. “With Thaxton.”

“Which means if she’s going to kill him, she’ll have plenty of time before we catch up with her.”

“Are you suggesting we trail them to Las Vegas?”

Lovie says a word that would embarrass sailors. “Do I look like I rolled off the watermelon truck? If you think I’m fixing to haul across the desert just so I can be near another dead Elvis, you’re not as smart as I give you credit for.”

“Bertha will have to come back sometime,” I say. “Or at least call.”

“Why?”

“They’ve released her husband’s body. It’s at Uncle Charlie’s and Bertha didn’t leave funeral instructions. Poor Dick.”

“Maybe she doesn’t care what we do with him.”

“Shoot. What a mess.”

Now I’m going to have to tell Uncle Charlie about Bertha’s move and he’ll know I went sleuthing against his wishes. Not that he’ll get mad. Or if he does, I’ll never know it. I could probably race to the top of the Statue of Liberty and moon New York and Uncle Charlie would just say
now, now, dear heart
.

Lovie and I sit in my Dodge Ram in ninety-degree heat with the motor idling and the air conditioner running on high while I try to think of a next move that will keep us on the track but out of trouble. Not an easy task.

“How’d you get the movers to give you Bertha’s forwarding address?” I ask her.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Combine chocolate with a few seductive moves and you can get just about anything you want.” Leave it to Lovie. “If Rocky were that easy I’d be sitting in the catbird seat.”

“Don’t give me that. If he were that easy you wouldn’t have him. Not on any permanent basis.”

“Who says I’m thinking about permanence?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

“Maybe.” Lovie fiddles with the radio till she finds a station that plays blues. “With our prime suspect gone, looks like we’re up doodoo creek without a paddle.”

“Not necessarily. We were wrong about George. What if we’re on the wrong track with Bertha?”

“I’m never on the wrong track.” Lovie licks a bit of chocolate icing off her finger. “Sometimes I need to make a little correction, that’s all.”

“Let’s switch our focus from motive to means and see what we can find out.” I back out of the parking lot and head downtown.

“Where are we going?”

“Reed’s Bookstore. While we’re this close we might as well grab everything we can find on exotic poisons.”

“The toxicologists don’t even know what kind it was, Callie.”

“I’m not saying we can pinpoint the poison, but if we have some general idea of what it might be and where it came from, maybe we can work backward and discover who would have access.”

“That’s a lot of big maybes,” she says.

“I can’t just sit by while you’re accused of poisoning Elvises.”

“Lead on, Sherlock. It’s not as if I have anything exciting to occupy me this afternoon.”

Which means she’s not seeing Rocky. I’m not going to ask, but I do strike a little silent bargain with God that if He’ll smooth the romantic path for my cousin, I’ll clean out my closet and give my excess cute designer shoes to deserving people. But only the shoes I’ve already worn at least twice.

At the bookstore, I try to look natural (translation: not up to something) while I browse among the books on poison. I’m standing behind the racks in a semisquat so nobody can see me over the top when Lovie brays, “Come over here and look at this book on gardening, Callie. It has a whole page about poison mushrooms.”

She doesn’t know the meaning of discreet.

Everybody on my side of the stacks turns to stare, including Clytee Estes. Who outranks Fayrene in the gossip department. And she’s an officer of the Tupelo Elvis Fan Club. The only thing worse would have been Jack standing there.

I lurch upright and hurry over to Lovie. “Would you keep it down? What do you want, everybody in Tupelo on the witness stand telling how you were in the bookstore looking for books on poison?”

“Let ’em talk. It won’t be the first time.”

As a matter of fact, it won’t. Lovie’s a colorful character and makes no bones about it. Last Christmas she was at the center of a swirling controversy when she was tapped for the church pageant as the Virgin Mary. Fannie Jo Franks, who has been lobbying for the role all year, started the rumor Lovie got it because she went to the auditions wearing a blouse cut down to her navel. Lovie finally put an end to the rumor by saying she was typecast.

It’s hard to spread vicious gossip when you’re laughing.

Still,
researching poisons
is one bit of gossip I want to keep away from Lovie’s door.

All of a sudden I remember the movie
White Oleander
where Michelle Pfeiffer’s character poisoned her lovers with the beautiful but lethal tropical flower. Maybe Lovie has a point about poison mushrooms.

I snatch up some gardening books without even looking at the titles, add them to the stack I’ve already selected, then hustle over to checkout before I get arrested as an accomplice to murder.

Back at Lovie’s cottage I call to check on Elvis.

“He’s sound asleep.” Mama sounds out of breath.

“What are you doing, Mama?”

“Just whirling around a bit. Practicing my tango steps.”

“By yourself?”

“No, Elvis is here. And Thomas.”

Bound for Mama. She knows good and well I won’t chastise her about not taking Elvis straight home to bed because she’s just dropped a bombshell.

“He wouldn’t be the little
something
that came up over in Tunica, would he, Mama?”

“I don’t recall giving you the third degree when you were dating.”

“You’re
dating?
” Lovie starts laughing and I stick out my tongue. “Mama, why do you keep secrets like this? If you’re seeing somebody I have a right to know.”

“You sound like Charlie. Act your age, Callie. Last time I looked it wasn’t eighty-five. Ta-tah.”

Mama hangs up. I’m in the midst of calling her right back when Lovie says, “For Pete’s sake, Callie. Let Aunt Ruby Nell alone. At least somebody in this family is having fun.”

“You don’t think she’d elope without telling me?”

“I don’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know Aunt Ruby Nell. If she ever walks down the aisle again, she’ll have a brass band and a parade of exotic dancing girls following her to the altar.”

I pick up the first book on our stash from Reed’s, which just happens to be a book on gardening.

“Do I act eighty-five, Lovie?”

“Sometimes.” I’m going to kill her. “But mostly you’re my gorgeous, talented, young-at-heart best friend who just happens to be my cousin.”

Okay, so I’ll let her live.

Still stewing about Mama, I flip through the gardening book without expecting to see a thing. Lovie is digging through
Forensics for Dummies
and a box of chocolate-covered cherries.

She pops two into her mouth and tosses two to me. I nibble the chocolate off one side, then suck out the juice, saving the cherry for last. Sometimes there’s comfort in calories.

“According to this,” she says, “there’s no such thing as an untraceable poison. Which means we’re spinning our wheels over something the toxicologist will eventually find out.”

I’m only half listening because I’ve stumbled over a pure gold mine. Not evidence, exactly, but a lead I would never have dreamed.

“
Eventually
is the key, Lovie. While the experts are still looking, we can nab the killer. Listen to this.
Plants that may cause death
. Creamy poison milk vetch, death camas, mountain laurel, castor bean, common tansy, lily of the valley. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Holy cow!”

If this list is not
exotic poisons,
I don’t know what is. It looks like we’re on to something.

“Lovie, find everything you can about these plants, where they’re grown, how they kill, where you’d get their poison oils, and so forth.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I have to go to Eternal Rest and fix up poor dead Dick. Call me when you find out anything that stands out.”

“I’m not speaking to you again if you don’t stop calling him
poor dead Dick.
”

“Listen, Lovie. I don’t think Rocky’s
you know what
is dead. I just think he’s saving it.”

“For what? The second coming?” Trust Lovie to tangle up sex and religion. And who knows? Maybe they ought to be. There were times when sex with Jack was a religious experience. Sometimes I’d think
if this is not the closest thing to experiencing the wonder of the universe, I don’t know what is.

Let me get out of here before I get converted to hedonism or something. Lovie’s pink house tends to do that to me, work some kind of voodoo magic. Frankly, I don’t see how Rocky can come here and resist.

Uncle Charlie is not at the funeral home. “Gone fishing,” Bobby Huckabee tells me. I’m glad. This lets me off the hook about telling him Bertha’s whereabouts and gives Uncle Charlie a chance to relax. It also gives me an opportunity to get to know his assistant better.

Bobby is painfully homely and shy, especially with me, but he’s very good at his job. Otherwise, Uncle Charlie would never have hired him, let alone left him in charge of Eternal Rest.

“The body’s downstairs,” he says, then scoots back about four feet and stands there jiggling his left leg. This is the equivalent of a schoolboy shuffling his feet, bursting with something else to say but uncertain whether to blurt it out or run.

“Was there something else, Bobby?”

“Well, I thought I’d go down to keep you company. If that’s all right with you. I don’t want to impose.”

“I’m always glad to have company. My clients at Eternal Rest aren’t exactly a barrel of laughs.”

His messy guffaw is all out of proportion to my joke.
Poor Bobby. Trying too hard to please
.

I put my arm through his and let him escort me down the stairs. I’m determined to do everything I can to put him at ease.

“It’s wonderful to have you here, Bobby. After you get to know us better, I hope you’ll think of us as family.”

“Oh, I already do with your mama.”

See, that’s the reason Mama can get away with so much. She’s so charming nobody can resist her. Correct that. She’s charming when she wants to be.

“Most folks don’t take to me right away on account of my psychic eye, but Ruby Nell says it’s one of my biggest assets.”

Psychic eye?
Bobby turns to show me the other side of his face.

“It’s this blue one. It lets me see things.”

Maybe he can
see
who murdered the impersonators. As nervous as he is, I don’t want to scare him away. I’ll have to broach that subject gradually.

Soft pink light spills from the wall sconces with their shell-shaped shades. The dead deserve respect and Uncle Charlie has made sure this room is as uplifting and beautiful as possible.

While I open my makeup kit, Bobby plops onto the end of the sofa where Uncle Charlie usually sits.

When I start with Dick I can’t get the image out of my head of him slumped on my patio with his swivel permanently stilled. This is my first murder victim to prepare for the great heareafter, and let me tell you, there’s a big difference between working on a corpse who died peacefully and one who was murdered. It seems to me Dick’s spirit is not resting easy. It’s almost like he’s vibrating under my touch, trying to rise up and tell me something. Probably who killed him.