Ten Little Bloodhounds (11 page)

“I’m Jo Beth Sidden,” I said pleasantly, dividing my glance between them. “You wanted to speak to me?”

The younger man answered.

“Yes, ma’am, I’m Captain Evan Danglish, United States Air Force, and this is Colonel Rupert Hayes of Moody Air Force Base command. We—”

Hayes brushed past him, invading my personal space—putting his nose two feet in front of mine—effectively
cutting off both the captain’s speech and line of sight.

“I was told that you refused to guide us on a search for lost high-priority national defense equipment. Is that correct?”

“Rupert, you have your nose in my face,” I said calmly. “I’d also appreciate you moving your ass back to the acceptable distance for discourse, or my associate and I will forcibly eject you from these premises.”

I shocked the hell out of him. His face first blanched, then started pinking up nicely, especially on his nose and checks.

“You can’t talk to me this way!” he squeaked. “You don’t … have any idea … the trouble I can cause you—”

I stopped him with a raised hand and pointed a finger quite close to his nose, almost touching, in fact. He had forced the words from his throat, and looked ready to kill.

I waited. He didn’t move an inch and didn’t seem capable of further speech.

“You’ve lost track with the real world, Rupert. I’m not under your command and you’re the one in trouble. You’re on my land illegally. After threatening me, I could shoot you where you stand. This is the last time I’ll tell you, MOVE IT OR LOSE IT!”

He turned and stalked back to the car, walking stiff-necked and stiff-legged, ignoring his traveling companion, who was standing with his mouth agape.

I winked at Captain Danglish. “Y’all have a nice day, you hear?”

His gaze focused on me with a bemused expression.

“You too, Ms. Sidden.”

His words were soft and polite. He hustled back to the car, slid into the driver’s seat, and drove the colonel out of the courtyard and out of our sight.

“I think that went well, don’t you?”

Jasmine drew in a ragged breath.

“Quite.”

I
was on my knees on the office carpet astride Bobby Lee, tickling his ribs, when the first gate’s alarm went off and Susan announced herself. She didn’t expect an answer, so I let Bobby Lee push me away, swooped up Rudy, and flopped on the couch. I cradled him like a baby, which he rarely allows, and crooned a lullaby as I scratched his tummy. Both of them were feeling neglected, since I was spending over fifty percent of my time in the birthing room with Judy.

Rudy remembered his dignity when Susan knocked and entered. He extracted himself from my hold and began to groom his pelt back to perfection.

“Welcome to the weekly meeting of the feminist dateless losers who eat pizza and drink beer on Friday nights,” I said, giving her an air-kiss on her cheek and a hug all Southern females ritually bestow on one another.

“Thanks, I love you too. A beer really sounds good.”

“Make mine a glass of red,” Jasmine said, entering on Susan’s heels.

“Coming right up. Get comfortable.”

In the kitchen I looked again at my watch for the umpteenth time in the past thirty minutes. Ten after seven. I really hadn’t expected Rand to land on my roof and whisk me away to dinner in Jacksonville as he had promised on Monday. He hadn’t called all week, and even he wouldn’t be brassy enough to show up unannounced after the way our first and probably only meeting ended. I shrugged and practiced an uncaring look while I watched my reflection in the framed kitchen print that I use as a mirror. Its dark surface showed me a disappointed face trying to appear indifferent. You can’t win ’em all. I returned to the office carrying a tray with two beers, a glass of wine, and cocktail napkins.

I had dimmed the office lights and had six candles lit on the coffee table between facing couches. Susan and Jasmine sat opposite me, while I sprawled in comfort on the other after serving the drinks. Susan was in the middle of one of our schoolday disaster tales, and I sat quietly as she regaled Jasmine with one of our silly exploits.

Susan’s hair is naturally flaming red, but she subdues it with a dark titian rinse. Our birthdays are seven months apart. She is the older. Her hair is shoulder-length and a mass of curls. At five-feet-nine, she’s quite beautiful. She doesn’t think she’s attractive, and covers her insecurity with a bold and sexy voice. She’s been my best friend since the first day of school. She’s divorced from a creep who ran off with a high school cheerleader after seventeen months of marriage almost fourteen
years ago. She claims that she can’t find a man she likes. I think, “Once bitten, twice shy.” We’re a lot alike.

Susan had Jasmine giggling as she finished her story.

“Don’t believe a word she says,” I admonished Jasmine. “She greatly exaggerates.”

“Don’t you wish,” she retorted. “I still have the scars from old Mr. Hamlick, our esteemed, and recently deceased, principal. They paddled the girls as well as the boys in those days.”

“See what I mean?” I held Jasmine’s eye. “It was a yardstick and it only stung. It couldn’t have left a scar.”

Susan gave me a dark look. “The paddle had holes bored in it. I’ve got two small crescent-shaped scars on my fanny.”

“I rest my case,” I said smugly to Jasmine. “I’ve seen her bare ass, and it’s alabaster-white without a blemish.”

I barely managed to catch the thrown pillow before it smacked me in the face.

“I never know who to believe when you two get started,” Jasmine complained.

“Me, me,” we chorused, laughing.

“I almost had a date tonight,” Susan announced.

“Almost?”

“A new salesman from one of my wholesalers called on me this afternoon. We hadn’t talked ten minutes when he asked me to have dinner with him.”

“What happened?” I asked with caution. You never know with Susan, she could be setting me up to bite on one of her jokes.

“Directly after he left my store he called on that slut that runs the religious book shop over on Fifth, you know
who I mean, Jo Beth, the blond with the big boobs.”

“Peggy?” I was shocked. “But she’s married!”

“That’s the reason I referred to her as a slut,” Susan replied.

“Maybe she’s separated from her husband,” Jasmine offered.

“Nope,” Susan said quickly, adding in triumph, “I saw her and him at Porky’s last night having a gay ol’ time!”

“My, my.” I was smacking my lips over the juicy gossip. “Homer would strip her and stake her out over a bed of fire ants if he knew. How could she be so stupid? Are you one hundred percent, absolutely and positively sure that it was her? I gather he called you back and canceled. Did he mention her name?”

“Yes, yes, yes, and no. You decide. He called less than thirty minutes after leaving the store. He asked for directions to her place before leaving. He mentioned that he had already been to the chain out on the highway, and there are only two bookstores in town. He gave the excuse that he had to call at a store later in Waycross as the reason for canceling our dinner date. He also had the balls to ask me, and I quote, ‘Knew a friendly motel in Davis that didn’t ask questions if he got lucky later on,’ unquote.”

“What a slimeball! What did you tell him?” I was grinning with anticipation.

“I held onto my temper and suggested he try Davis Motor Inn. I told him they were very discreet.”

Susan and I doubled over with mirth.

Jasmine eyed us. “What happens at the Davis Motor Inn?”

“Drums!” Susan howled.

“The Inn is owned by an elderly couple who are devout members of the Salvation Army,” I explained to Jasmine.

“If they even suspect a single check-in has become a double, they will take their position outside the door. She beats the bass drum, and he preaches into a magnified hand-hailer. They’re both hard of hearing and play and shout very loudly. Someone finally complains and the police are called.”

Jasmine had a wide smile of amusement when I finished.

“I have the feeling that you two have experienced the drum beating and sermon firsthand. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Susan was grinning. “You’re correct. In our wilder years after our divorces and before we attained our present sanity, we did on rare occasions kick up our heels. We sneaked in about ten minutes after the guys registered. We had followed them back to the Inn in my car. Our rooms were next door to each other. They were auditors down from South Carolina on a convention. We were no sooner inside when all hell broke loose outside. I heard Jo Beth knock over a large brass floor lamp in her panic to reach the door. It fell across a glass-covered dresser with a horrendous crash.”

I continued the tale. “My guy had opened me a beer and after my first sip, he turned out the light. Patience was not in his dictionary. At almost the same moment Armageddon arrived at the door. The drum was booming like the crack of doom and a magnified voice was shouting incomprehensible gibberish.

“My first silly thought was a brass band was outside,
that me and the auditor were winners of a contest being the millionth couple to occupy the room. I could picture reporters and cameras outside making sure that our reputations were forever branded as sluts. I freely admit to panicking, but I wasn’t the only one. Ms. Susan here could be easily heard screaming over all the noise, ‘Mama, is that you? How did you know I was here?’”

Susan grimaced. “I lived back at home after the divorce until I was almost twenty-one. Mama and daddy treated me like I was sixteen.”

Jasmine looked wistful. “You both had families that loved you. You were very lucky.”

We both knew that Jasmine’s mother had tossed her out of her home at twelve and she was forced to survive by living on the streets until she was nineteen. I quickly changed the subject.

“Susan, I just remembered something you said earlier. You said you saw Peggy and Homer together at Porky’s last night. Just how did you visit Porky’s without me? You obviously had a date last night. Fess up! We want to hear all about him.”

Dismay flashed across her features and then she shrugged with resignation. “Me and my big mouth,” she muttered.

She took a deep breath. “It wasn’t a date. I just met an acquaintance there. Can we drop the inquisition? Please?”

“No.”

“Damn!” Susan suddenly yelled, holding a finger under her eye. “I just smeared my mascara. I’ll be right back.”

She took off in a fast lope for the hall and toward the
bathroom … I hoped. Too late, I remembered what was displayed on my bed. Would she use the bathroom mirror or my makeup mirror in the bedroom? The odds were fifty-fifty, for either location. I decided not to press her about her “acquaintance.”

Jasmine spoke just above a whisper. “Are you going to make her tell you?”

I gnashed my teeth in frustration. “That sleazebag named Brian Colby is back in town, I just know it!” I hissed.

“Do you remember what happened last time, when you and Hank interfered?”

“Yes,” I replied, hating to admit it. “Hank ran a check on him at my request and found out that he scammed women. Then he ran Colby out of town, also at my request. It took a long time for Susan to forgive me, she was furious. She accused me of trying to run her life.”

“Well?”

“I know, I know. You’re right. I won’t mention him to her, all right?”

“Great.” Jasmine looked relieved.

I heard the toilet flush, and felt relieved myself. Susan had used the bathroom to repair her makeup, and not my bedroom. I could now tell the cat story my way.

Susan placed her bag at the foot of the sofa, sank down, folding one leg beneath her, and settled on the couch cushion. She looked at me with apparent calm.

“Where were we?” I could read the storm signals loud and clear.

“I was just about to start my cat story. Let me turn on the oven and warm the pizza.”

On my way back, I replenished our drinks with more
beer and wine. For the next eighteen minutes, I told my tale about the rescue of Miz Alyce Cancannon’s cat, Amelia. I started with the telegram from Celia Cancannon, and finished with me stalking off from the confrontation with Rand, and my mistaken belief that he would follow me, apologize, and reissue the invitation to dinner tonight. We all chuckled about my error in judging the situation correctly.

“I know a true fact when I hear one,” I said as I left the room to fetch the pizza. “Men
are
from Mars.”

I placed the pizza slices on paper plates and passed around plenty of paper napkins. We dine
al picnico,
but drink out of crystal goblets. This way we can pretend we’re both practical and sophisticated.

I was still on my first slice of pizza when the phone rang. I frowned.

“At this hour? Hank knows I won’t take a callout, and Bubba hasn’t called in over a month.”

“I know a quicker way to solve the problem.” Susan spoke with her mouth full. “Answer the dang phone. Hee—hee—hee!”

“Ah, so wise! Such a wit! A veritable sage!” I kissed the tips of my fingers and blew her a raspberry on the way to the phone.

“Hello.”

“May I speak to Ms. Jo Beth Sidden?”

A mature male voice. No one’s speech pattern that I recognized.

“I’m Jo Beth Sidden. How may I help you?”

“My name is John Jason Jackson. I’m an estate attorney from Woodbine, Georgia. I want to apologize for calling this late. For the past several hours I have been
with Sheriff Jeff Beaman of Camden County, and unable to reach a telephone. I will be handling the probate of the late Ms. Alyce Cancannon’s will.”

“Late? She’s dead?” My voice had risen with each word.

“I’m so sorry, I assumed you knew. She died unexpectedly between midnight and nine
A.M.
yesterday morning.”

H
ow did she die?” was my next question.

“This is awkward, Ms. Sidden. I’m sorry you found out this way. I assumed you knew. It was in all the papers, even New York. I do apologize.”