You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) (18 page)

Sugar thought about that prospect for a second and shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “Slim can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. The story would be all over town before I even backed out of the driveway.”

“Exactly,” Flowers said. “Which is why I have an idea about how to handle this.”

Sugar listened as Flowers explained the lay of the land. Maybelline Trinkle’s house sat on the southwest corner of the block. There were no trees in the front yard, but the backyard was liberally shaded and surrounded by a thick boxwood hedge. Flowers’ idea hinged on the fact that Maybelline’s neighbors, the Martins, who lived on the southeast corner of the next block were out of town for a family wedding.

Flowers knew this crucial piece of information to be true because she had done Marcella Martin’s nails Saturday afternoon and listened to the woman complain that the ceremony was set for Wednesday night in Dallas. Marcella spent the whole manicure repeatedly wondering “who has a wedding on a Wednesday night?”

Flowers’ own house sat in the next block up past the Martins. “Nobody between me and the Martins’ has a dog,” she said. “
Gunsmoke
is on tonight and nobody’s gonna be looking at anything but Matt and Miss Kitty for an hour. Me and Wilma will slip down to the Martins’ back yard. They’ve got a hedge, too. We’ll sit on their patio until it gets dark and watch for Hank. As soon as he’s in Maybelline’s house, we’ll go across the street and get under the window so we can listen to what they’re talking about.”

Sugar considered the plan and grudgingly conceded it all sounded good. “We better run it by Clara though,” she said, picking up the phone and starting to dial. “After all, she is the Club president.”

Although Clara herself would have liked to be in on the caper, she wasn’t anxious to announce to Clint that she was going into town to skulk under Maybelline Trinkle’s bedroom windows. And all three women agreed that Mae Ella absolutely could not be involved in this reconnaissance mission. Not after shooting off her mouth at Hilton’s funeral.

“She hears anything coming out of that window that sets her off,” Clara said, “and you all will get caught sure as the world. Flowers is right. She and Wilma need to handle this one. But how are they planning to get back out again?”

“Just a minute. Let me ask her,” Sugar said, holding the receiver away from her mouth. “Clara wants to know how you’re planning to get back out of the yard when you’re done.”

Flowers leaned toward the phone, raising her voice slightly. “I imagine once Maybelline and Hank get their talking done they will be otherwise occupied,” she said. “We’ll go back over to the Martins, wait for Carol Burnett to come on, and then get on back to my house.”

Clara’s voice came out of the receiver thin, but audible. “Good thinking, Flowers,” she said. “That ought to give you enough time.”

After she signed off with Clara, Sugar placed a call to Wilma at Dr. Kitterell’s office. She listened to the whole recitation without comment and then said, “I survived the Korean War and you want me to risk getting shot skulking around people’s back yards?”

“Nobody’s gonna shoot us,” Flowers said into the receiver Sugar held out to her. “If we get caught, we can always just say one of my cats is missing and we’re looking for it.”

“How many cats are you feeding now, Flowers?” Wilma asked.

Flowers scowled at the phone. “Just 32. Why?”

“Oh, nothing,” Wilma said.

Sugar put the receiver back to her ear and listened for a minute, and then said, brightly, “Well, alright then. I’ll tell Flowers you’ll be at her house a few minutes before
Gunsmoke
starts.”

When she hung up, Flowers looked at her suspiciously. “Was Wilma talking bad about my cats?”

“Of course not,” Sugar said, occupying herself with a fresh Camel. “Nobody in their right mind would ever say anything bad about your cats.”

“I should certainly hope not,” Flowers grumbled.

That evening at about a quarter of seven, Wilma picked her way through the felines slumbering in various states of repose on Flowers’ sidewalk and front porch and rang the bell. When Flowers answered, an additional herd of cats milled at her feet.

“How come some of them get to live in the house?” Wilma said without preamble.

“They’ve got better manners than the rest,” Flowers said. “You be nice about my cats, Wilma Schneider, or you may just get to stay out there on the front porch yourself.”

As Flowers held open the screen door, three outside cats broke the rules and scampered in the house during the time it took Wilma to step over the threshold. “Are they supposed to do that?” she asked.

“You can try to tell them not to,” Flowers said, “but those three are tomcats. In my experience, men of any species don’t listen worth a damn.”

Wilma followed Flowers through the house and out onto the back porch. “How is this going to work?” she asked.

“We’re just gonna walk down the alley like we’re not doing anything wrong,” Flowers said. “There’s a break in the Martins’ hedge where they set the trash cans out. We’ll go through there.”

The two women waited 20 minutes. When they felt certain that everyone on the street was settled in to see if Marshall Dillon would make any headway with Miss Kitty
this
week, Wilma and Flowers set off down the alley. As Flowers predicted, their progress went unnoticed and it was an easy matter to duck into the Martins’ back yard and wait until darkness fell.

When the light really began to fade, they positioned themselves at a thin spot in the hedge and watched the alleyway behind Maybelline’s house. Before long, a dark figure appeared and then disappeared through the bushes.

As soon as Wilma and Flowers heard the backdoor across the street open and close, they crossed the street, went through the same break in Maybelline’s hedge that the dark figure went through, and crept up to the house, following the sound of voices coming from inside.

The window was set high in the wall, which allowed the two women to stand pressed against the house listening to Maybelline and Hank Howard.

“Baby,” Hank said, “you’re worrying for nothing. We’ve been real careful.”

“You weren’t careful that day in the office when Flossie Henderson caught you on the phone talking to me,” Maybelline said in an accusatory tone. “And then she found the business card from the insurance company right there on the floor under your desk. That was stupid, Hank.”

“Don’t say that, baby,” Hank whined. “So what if she did find the card? I told her it was because the insurance adjustor needed my report on the fire. And he did. I just didn’t tell her the rest of the story.”

Flowers and Wilma heard the sound of ice tinkling in a glass. Flowers cupped her hand as if holding an imaginary drink and mimed downing it. Wilma nodded.

“I don’t trust these Study Club women,” Maybelline said. “They’re asking too many questions, trying to make sure one of their precious members doesn’t get hauled in on murder charges.”

“Does Flowers Wilkes belong to the Study Club?” Hank asked.

“No,” Maybelline said, “but she and Sugar Watson are thick as thieves.”

Chair legs scraped across the floor and they heard Hank’s boots as he apparently drew closer to Maybelline. “Aw come on, baby,” he said. “We destroyed all Blake’s notes about the fire. And Hilton sure can’t cause us any trouble now. As much as Lester wants to arrest your sister Wanda Jean, he doesn’t really have any evidence. There weren’t any fingerprints on the knife and nobody saw anything. We’re home free. Loosen up.”

“What if Hilton left some notes or had some pictures or something?” Maybelline asked in a doubtful voice.

“I went all over that house,” Hank said soothingly. “If anything was there, I would have found it. I’m a professional law officer, baby. I know what I’m doing.”

“There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary?” Maybelline asked, the anger in her voice starting to fade. “You’re sure, Hankie?”

Wilma and Flowers exchanged a look and both mouthed, “Hankie?”

“Of course I’m sure, baby.” he said. “The only thing odd was that your sister sure does buy a lot of panty hose. Everything else was perfectly normal. We just need to keep our mouths shut and let all this blow over.”

“Running around buying diamond rings isn’t keeping things quiet, Hank,” Maybelline said.

“I know, sugar,” he said in a wheedling tone. “But I was just excited to get all that money and I’ve wanted me one of those rings for years. Don’t you think it looks nice on my hand? Here, get a better look.”

The sound of Maybelline’s giggling floated outside, and Flowers and Wilma both rolled their eyes.

“I can’t see your hand when you do that, silly,” Maybelline cooed. And then added, “But don’t stop.”

At that, Flowers looked at Wilma and jerked a thumb toward the alley. Wilma nodded, and the two women quietly moved through the yard and back across the street. When they were safely settled on the Martins’ patio, Flowers said in a low whisper, “Well, that was enough to make a body barf. They sound guilty enough to you?”

Wilma nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It certainly sounds like Hank did something to falsify the report on the hardware store fire and got paid off to do it.”

“Do you think the two of them killed Blake and Hilton?” Flowers asked. “Sounds to me like the boys found out Hank did something crooked about the fire, and Maybelline and Hank killed them both before they could talk.”

“But why?” Wilma said.

“Money,” Flowers said. “Hank doesn’t want to lose his reputation as a lawman. And with Blake out of the way, he can have Maybelline. God only knows why he’d want her, but there’s no accounting for where a man’s pecker will take him.”

“And Hilton?”

“He must have still been asking too many questions,” Flowers said. “Millard Philpott told Sugar that Hilton talked to him about the fire.”

“Let’s get back to your place and call Clara,” Wilma said.

The return trip was equally uneventful, although Wilma did step on a cat’s tail as they were going in Flowers’ back door touching off an indignant yowl from the cat and a disapproving look from Flowers, who snapped, “Watch where you’re going. This is their house.”

With that, Flowers picked up the kitchen phone and called Clara, but before she could relate the details of their eavesdropping to the Club president, Clara had her own important announcement. “Reschedule your appointments for tomorrow morning,” she said. “Lester is letting Wanda Jean back in the house. We’ve got a carpet to clean.”

Chapter 20

At 9 o’clock Monday morning Wanda Jean stood staring at the knob of her own front door, the key she held in her hand poised just inches from the lock. Behind her on the front porch Clara and Sugar, their arms filled with cleaning supplies, shot each other a “do something” look.

Flowers would be joining them shortly, but Wilma and Mae Ella couldn’t get away from their offices until lunchtime. For now, Clara and Sugar were left alone to navigate Wanda Jean’s emotional waters, and it would appear that her outboard motor had just snagged on a major patch of aquatic weeds.

Finally, Clara cleared her throat and said, “Wanda Jean, honey, would you like me to open the door for you?”

“No,” Wanda Jean said. “I’ll do it.” But even though the words fell automatically out of her mouth, she still stood clutching the key, as frozen in place as Bob, the yard ornament buck standing off to her right.

Across the street Doreen Lufkin swept her front walk for the fourth time, her eyes glued to the scene on Wanda Jean’s porch. All around the neighborhood, kitchen curtains fluttered as their owners drew them back covertly, while fingers pried open Venetian blinds in living rooms. At the end of the block, Mrs. Reeves, who was too far away to get a good view, pulled out her husband’s binoculars, holding them in one hand while she talked to Ida Belle Banners on the phone with the other.

Clara, painfully aware of their growing audience, tried again with more force. “Wanda Jean, the whole neighborhood is watching us standing out here on this porch,” she said. “Open the damn door.”

The last words, issued in a low but commanding tone, seemed to jumpstart Wanda Jean’s stalled propeller. In one smooth motion the key went into the lock, and then Wanda Jean was standing there holding the screen door open and gesturing Clara and Sugar into the house.

But once the three of them were inside and the door was closed, thus depriving the neighbors of their morning’s entertainment, the three women stood rooted in a shocked semi-circle, their eyes cast downward. There it was, the dark stain matting the beige fibers of Wanda Jean’s brand new shag carpet like a strawberry pancake.

Hilton’s body had lain on the floor long enough that there was a vaguely man-shaped indentation in the carpet. But that would come up with a good raking, a fact of shag-carpet maintenance Wanda Jean explained to them in a distracted babble.

“T.J. threw the rake in for free when he installed the carpet,” Wanda Jean said without looking up. “You have to rake shag carpet to make it stand up nice and pretty. Of course, Hilton said the rake wasn’t free because the carpet cost so much, but I still thought it was nice of T.J. all the same.”

No one spoke for a moment, and then Sugar said, in a reverent tone, “Wanda Jean, honey, do you want a minute alone with Hilton’s indentation before we get to work?”