Drop Dead Divas (28 page)

He laughed. “Something like that. She talked about it all the time, about how the senator had promised to put her in his will, and how after the divorce he’d even shown her some papers that said she’d get a couple million dollars if he died.”

“That’s preposterous,” Bitty snapped. “Most of his money was tied up in family holdings. If anyone had been able to get their hands on it, it would have been his sister, not that twit with plastic boobs!”

“Did you read the note?” I asked in the sudden silence that fell in our part of the room. A few people had turned to gawk at us, but it didn’t seem as important as finding out what had been in the note left on Race’s windshield.

Ronny shrugged. “Yeah. It didn’t say much. But it sure spooked Race, I know that.”

“Did he tell you who he thought wrote it?” Rayna asked, and I realized she and Gaynelle had joined us.

Another shrug, and he lifted the beer bottle to his mouth. “Just said it was some crazy chick that wouldn’t leave him alone. Followed him from Biloxi to Oxford and then here.”

That didn’t sound like Naomi. Or either of the Madewell sisters, either. Who else had Race Champion promised to marry?

When I looked away from the beer-guzzling brother, I happened to catch Trina Madewell’s eyes. She had a look on her face as if she was wondering the same thing.

It was Trisha, though, who asked, “Did Naomi promise to invest in Race’s new hot rod so he could get more sponsors?”

Ronny nodded. “She said she’d pay whatever it took to get him back on the track.”

Trisha and Trina exchanged glances. It wasn’t long before they left the wake, and thankfully, we left soon after them.

After we finally left Ashland, we ended up at Rayna's where we rehashed the day’s events. Since Gaynelle had fortified Bitty with beverage at the funeral, she was still going strong, despite nearly getting shot by Naomi’s poor crazed mother.

“Really,” I said, more to myself than to anyone else sitting out in the sunroom, “I feel sorry for Sukey Spencer. I can’t imagine what I’d do if someone hurt my child.”

“I can,” said Bitty. “I’d shoot whoever was responsible.”

“Now see,” Gaynelle chided, “that’s the reason we can’t take you anywhere, Bitty. You keep saying incriminating things.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, I’m among friends, aren’t I? Well? Aren’t I?”

We reassured her she was, but Rayna added the warning, “You aren’t always so sure of other people, though. Keep in mind that not everyone we know wishes us well.”

“I should say not. Miranda Watson is still on my list. Why do you suppose Trina Madewell thought it would help anything to go and talk to that gossipy woman? Did you hear Race’s aunt ask me if it was true that we cast spells and talk to the devil at our Diva meetings? I almost said yes, just so she’d stop asking stupid questions about the Divas.”

Bitty can have a very long memory about some things. Not that I blame her. For a week after Miranda’s nasty column came out in
The South Reporter
, Mama kept asking me questions about what we planned for our next Diva meeting. It was most unsettling.

“That might be a fun theme,” Rayna said after a moment. “Maybe for Halloween we could dress up like witches, create some kind of brew, and get a psychic to come tell all our fortunes.”

“That’s still four months away. We need a psychic now,” Gaynelle said.

Bitty flapped her hand. “I tried that, remember? The woman wasn’t at all helpful. Just said I should carry a flashlight or something like that.”

I started to disagree, then thought better of it. Why go into that again? There are times when explaining things to Bitty can be very wearing on the nerves.

“So where do we go from here?” I asked the group at large. “We have information the police already have, and since they haven’t made any arrests, I’m assuming none of it is very important. Or strong enough evidence against any one person or persons.”

Bitty dug into her purse and brought out her car keys. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have an engagement this evening. So I’m going home to get ready. Trinket? Do you want a ride to your car?”

My car was parked in front of Bitty’s house, so I nodded. All of a sudden I was very tired. The thought of going home sounded wonderful. We left Rayna and Gaynelle still discussing possibilities and walked out to Bitty’s car. It had gotten a lot cooler than it had been earlier, but the leather seats were still hot to the touch.

“You need cloth seat covers,” I remarked, and Bitty blew out a derisive raspberry.

“You’re just spoiled by mediocrity. What are you doing tonight?”

“With any luck, sleeping until tomorrow night. I take it you and Jackson Lee are going out?”

“Why do you think he’s the only man in my life?”

“Because he is. Isn’t he?”

“Yes. Do you think Philip really left that—Naomi—any money?”

“It’s doubtful, Bitty. Besides, you didn’t leave him with any money to give her, did you?”

“Oh, he had money stuck in all kinds of different accounts, the crook. I’ll bet he had money the IRS couldn’t find in a million years. Offshore accounts or something like that.”

“Well, don’t brood about it. Even if he did leave her money, she can’t spend it where she is now.”

For some reason Naomi’s face as I’d last seen it suddenly came to mind, and I winced. Poor girl. No one should have to die like that. Not even Bitty’s mortal enemy.

Not surprisingly, Bitty echoed my thoughts: “Poor girl. I didn’t like her, but it was a horrible way to end.”

Since Brandon and Clayton were obviously having a party when we got to Bitty’s house, I was even happier I was going home to the relative peace and quiet of my parents and their menagerie. At least their neurotic dog and feral cats don’t play loud music and eat all the good food. Yet, anyway.

“Honestly,” Bitty muttered as she pulled into the already crowded driveway, “it’s not like I can afford feeding all these kids anymore. Now that I’m broke and have to beg for food, you’d think the boys would understand.”

I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to beg for food yet, Bitty. Before it gets to that point you can sell a car or two. Or one of your houses.”

She gave me a horrified look. “Sell my house? Then where would I be? A poor widow out on the street with nowhere to live and no one who cares . . . .”

To my consternation she burst into tears. Real tears, too, not just Bitty trying to get sympathy tears. So I refrained from reminding her that she was not technically a widow and gave her an awkward pat on the back.

“Everything will turn out all right, Bitty. Really it will. Jackson Lee will figure it all out, and you won’t have to worry about money or where to live.”

“You really think so, Trinket?”

“I do. Stop worrying so much.”

She sniffed pitifully and used the edge of a tissue to dab at her tears. “I try not to think about it all the time, but you know, it’s always there in the back of my mind. What would I
do
if I had to live like you?”

I knew what she meant so didn’t take any real offense. Bitty has never had to do without money. Her daddy married into a wealthy family and made tons of money on his own, and Bitty married men who had a knack for making money, even if they didn’t quite figure out how to do it legally. I married Perry. He was legally lazy.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You won’t end up like me. It just seems that way now.”

“I hope not. I don’t know how you do it. I go crazy just thinking about having to watch every penny at the grocery store, or not being able to buy things I like . . . I’m really spoiled, I guess.”

“I hope you aren’t expecting me to argue,” I teased, and she smiled.

“That would be too much to expect. Well, Jackson Lee won’t let me starve. He’s smart and he’ll figure out a way around all that legal stuff.”

Bitty really is good at bouncing back.

Brandon appeared at the driver’s side of her car, and his cheerful grin made us both smile. “About time you got back,” he chided. “Chen Ling is wearing me out. Why do you keep spoiling that dog?”

“Because she appreciates it,” Bitty replied with a wag of her finger. “I’m not so sure about you boys.”

“Oh, Brandon appreciates it, Miz Hollandale,” said Heather, who had followed him out to the car. “He’s always saying how much you do for them.”

“He better,” I put my two cents in, “or I’m putting in my application to take his place. I wouldn’t mind being back in school and carefree again.”

Heather looked at me with a faint smile. “It’s not as carefree as some people think it is.”

“Time has a way of erasing the worst memories,” I agreed. “But I do seem to have a good memory for all the wrong things. I’m always amazed at the trivia that sticks in my mind. It does come in useful at the oddest times, though.”

Bitty slanted her eyes at me. “Trinket is much older than me, you know. Don’t be thinking
I’m
getting senile yet.”

Heather laughed. “Don’t worry, Miz Hollandale. I would never make the mistake of underestimating you.”

“Smart girl,” Brandon said, and slid his arm around Heather’s shoulders to give her a squeeze. “See why I hang around her?”

Heather flipped the ends of her long hair and affected a sultry smile. “And here I thought it was my beauty that intrigues you.”

“Oh, that’s just the icing on the cake, sugar,” Brandon returned easily, and I was somehow reminded of his daddy. Frank Caldwell had been just as charming, but not as sincere. Fortunately, their sons seemed to have inherited their father’s charm but their mother’s moral center. Bitty may seem shallow at times, but she’s intrinsically honest, and a generous-hearted, loving person.

“I’m off,” I said as I got out of Bitty’s car. “Y’all are piling it too high for me.”

I stuck my head back into the passenger side to say to Bitty, “Next time there’s a funeral for someone I don’t know—don’t call me, okay?”

For a minute she didn’t answer, just stared at Brandon and Heather; then she gave a shrug and turned to me and said, “You know you enjoyed it.”

I straightened up. “I enjoyed the barbecue sandwich, not the gunfire. And no,” I held up my hand and said at the question already forming on Brandon’s lips, “I have no desire to rehash it. Ask your mother. She just loves sharing information.”

True to form, as I walked down the driveway to my car, I heard Bitty launching into what promised to be a long retelling of everything that had happened that day. That should keep her busy and her mind off other problems for a while, I thought. And it saved me having to repeat it when I knew I’d have to go home and tell Mama and Daddy about it. They would never forgive me if they heard it from someone else first.

As usual, my mother continuously surprises me. When I went in the kitchen door, she had a frosted pitcher of lemonade and a glass ready. She poured lemonade over ice, while I tried to avoid Brownie’s lukewarm greeting. The dog has finally decided that I’m a permanent resident, I suppose, so treats me as one of his rivals. His greetings now constitute a showing of teeth accompanied by a low growl. Mama shushed him and pointed to an empty kitchen chair.

“Sit. Drink. Then tell me everything.”

“I fondly remember the days when you refused to gossip,” I said as I pulled out the old ladder-back chair. “Now you insist upon knowing all kinds of details.”

“Don’t be too sassy,” Mama said as she sat down. “Or I’ll tell everyone in my Sunday School class about your refusal to wear clothes until you were two. The postman will back me up. He still remembers pulling your training panties out of our mailbox.”

“Blackmailer,” I said. “Besides, he’s retired and in a nursing home carrying on long conversations with doorknobs now. No one would believe him.”

Mama just looked at me, and I knew she wasn’t bluffing.

“Well,” I began, “it was the first funeral I’ve been to where the preacher ends up in the grave before the deceased . . . .”

I finished reciting the day’s events by saying, “So that’s how Race Champion got shot a third time.”

Mama’s eyes were wide. “You’re kidding.”

I shook my head. “Nope. Race’s brother said a bullet went right through the casket.”

By this time Daddy had joined us. He shook his head and continued to stroke Brownie’s head since the dog was sitting in his lap at the table like he belonged there. “It amazes me just how many folks get so riled up about money,” he said. “Especially when it’s not their money in the first place. Why did Sukey think the senator owed her daughter anything?”

“You’ve got me,” I said. “Bitty was fit to be tied, of course. She doesn’t doubt for a moment that Philip promised Naomi money. She just doubts he kept his promise to really put it in his will.”

“I can’t see the senator doing that either,” said Mama. “After all, he carried on so loud and long about having to pay Bitty a settlement as well as alimony, and his mother and sister are still fighting it.”

“They may win,” I said. “Unless Jackson Lee can come up with some legal tactic to override Bitty’s signature on those release papers, she’s liable to lose both alimony checks
and
the rest of her settlement.”

“She’ll still be well off,” Daddy said. “It’s not like she was penniless when she married Hollandale.”

“Tell that to Bitty.”

Daddy looked at me and nodded understanding. While Bitty hadn’t yet sunk to the financial level of Scarlett O’Hara and been reduced to eating raw turnips left in the field, she considered herself penniless. Since I’ve never had more money than what was necessary to pay bills and put some by for the rainy days that were pelting me now, it was difficult for me to comprehend her panic. After all, it’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.

“A shame you had to miss the wake,” Mama said, and I paused.

Should I admit we’d shown up where we weren’t invited, even though Race’s father had welcomed us? Or should I tell the truth and end up going into infinite detail for another thirty minutes?

I did a Bitty: I opted for the coward’s way out and pretended I hadn’t heard my mother’s comment about the wake.

“I’m tuckered out,” I said in as weary a tone as I could muster—which was a lot easier since I really was tired. “I’m going upstairs to take a nice long bath, and then curl up with a book.”