You Can't Get Blood Out of Shag Carpet: A Study Club Cozy Murder Mystery (The Study Club Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

“But, Clara,” Wanda Jean said, “I didn’t have a reason to kill Hilton.”

“Sure you did, honey,” Clara said, shifting into second. “You were married to the man.”

Chapter 3

Although the Study Club usually met in a member’s home, this month the ladies were availing themselves of the fellowship hall at the Methodist Church. The arrangement made it much easier for Clara, Mae Ella, Sugar, Wilma, and Wanda Jean to linger after the meeting.

By announcing her intention to hold an “executive session,” Clara both forestalled any questions about why they were staying, and put the rest of the membership on a razor’s edge of worry until the next meeting. As a leadership principle, Clara believed in the power of fear.

The club members were remarkably restrained in their interactions with Wanda Jean, keeping the room thick with “bless your hearts,” but refraining from overt prying — in part because Clara kept a hawk eye on the proceedings.

As soon as the last well-dressed woman’s shoes clicked down the front walk, Clara turned the lock on the door and slipped off her own high heels. “Okay,” she said, “we’ve studied. Now we can talk.”

“I assume this is about Hilton’s murder and your rescue of Wanda Jean on the courthouse square this morning?” Wilma asked, removing her own pumps and wiggling her toes.

“How long did it take you to hear about that?” Clara asked, opening the white cardboard box from the bakery and putting the remains of the cookie supply in the center of the table around which the women were seated.

“About ten minutes,” Wilma said. “Sud Fennel’s hernia is acting up again.”

“What does Sud Fennel’s hernia have to do with anything?” Sugar asked, munching on cookie.

“He was driving by the courthouse and pretended to park so he could watch Clara dressing Lester down in public,” Wilma said. “Made him late to his appointment at the doctor’s office and then he couldn’t talk about anything else, that is, until Walter pressed on that hernia and got his attention back on business.”

A chorus of chuckles circled the table ending in a trademark grouse from Mae Ella. “It is a mystery to me how Sud Fennel got a hernia in the first place,” she said. “He hasn’t done a lick of work in twenty years and he owes the county a fortune in back taxes.”

“Well,” Wilma huffed, “Sud claims it was a battlefield injury, but I can tell you it happened at the Bloody Bucket . . .”

“Ladies!” Clara snapped. “I don’t give a rat’s furry backside about Sud Fennel’s hernia. We have a murder to deal with.”

Mae Ella arched an eyebrow at her sister. “What do you mean
we
have a murder to deal with? We do have law in this town, Clara.”

“No,” Clara said, “we have men with fat guts sticking out over their belt buckles who also have badges pinned to their shirts and pistols hanging off their belts. As far as Lester is concerned, he’s caught his murderer, and Wanda Jean says she didn’t do it. I will not have a Club member jailed for murder during my administration. Wanda Jean, tell them what you told me.”

Four heads swiveled toward Wanda Jean Milton, who actually pushed her chair back a bit under the force of their gaze. “Go on, honey,” Sugar purred in encouragement, “tell us what
really
happened. Tell us
everything.
”

Wanda Jean glanced nervously around the table. “I told Clara what happened. I went to the grocery store to get ground round on sale and when I came home I found Hilton laid out dead on my new shag carpet in the middle of an awful stain with my good Old Hickory carving knife sticking out of his chest.”

“That would do it,” Sugar said. “Those are good knives.”

“Was anything else in the house disturbed?” Mae Ella asked. “Did he put up a fight or did he just stand there and let somebody put a pig sticker in his chest?”

“Mae Ella!” Clara scolded. “Show a little sensitivity.”

“Dead is dead,” Mae Ella said, turning back to Wanda Jean. “Well?”

“I was just fixated on that stain on the new carpet,” Wanda Jean said, chewing on her lip as if straining to remember more details of the scene. “I straightened up the living room last night. Hilton was working on a new insect identification lesson from SQUASH and he made an awful mess with his flash cards.”

“What in the hell is SQUASH?” Clara demanded.

“Well, it doesn’t really have a ‘q’ in it,” Wanda Jean explained. “They just put that in with the letters to make the word look right and so they could use the vegetable on the advertisement. You know, they put names like that all in capitals because it’s a synonym. Or maybe a homonym? One of those nym things.”

“Acronym,” Wilma supplied helpfully. “What do the letters stand for?”

“School of Unusual Asp Habitations,” Wanda Jean said. “It’s really a course, from the Texas Academy of Insect and Varmint Exterminators. The T-A-I-V-E.”

“That doesn’t spell anything,” Mae Ella said.

“No,” Wanda Jean said mournfully. “You have to say the letters with that one.”

“That’s not true,” Sugar piped in. “A taive is like a crook in the road. I know because I work crossword puzzles in the morning over my coffee.”

“LADIES!” Clara ordered again. “Could we stay on track here, please?” She turned back to Wanda Jean. “So Hilton was studying snakes?”

“Excuse me?” Wanda Jean asked.

“Snakes. You said he was taking a course on asps. Aren’t those snakes?” Clara said.

“Oh, no,” Wanda Jean said. “They’re stinging caterpillars.”

When she appeared ready to launch into a second-hand entomology lecture, Clara stopped her. “So his stuff was all over your living room and you cleaned it up.”

“Right before we went to bed to watch the Johnny Carson show like usual,” Wanda Jean said. “Everything looked fine in the living room the next morning. Well, except for Hilton laying there dead and all.”

The four Club officers telegraphed each other looks that plainly said, “Somebody needs to ask her.”

Naturally, it was Clara who seized the bull by the horns. “Were you all getting along, honey?” she asked gently, but with a definite gleam in her eye.

“Of course we were getting along!” Wanda Jean cried. “I wouldn’t hurt Hilton!”

“Well, honey,” Clara said sincerely, “we believe you. But when you called me early this morning to tell me what happened, you did say you had thought about killing the man. Why was that exactly, if you don’t mind me asking?”

The women leaned toward her again in sympathetic, but obvious expectation. Wanda Jean’s head swiveled back and forth and she stammered, “Well – well, you know. You said all wives kinda want to kill their husbands sometimes. They are men after all.”

“Was there something in particular this man did you didn’t like?” Mae Ella asked, pinning Wanda Jean with a penetrating stare over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles. “Was he especially irritating as men go?”

They were rewarded with a veritable flood of uncertainty washing over Wanda Jean’s features.

“Come on, honey,” Sugar said, a little too triumphantly. “You can tell us. We’re your friends.”

Wanda Jean looked down at her lap, dithered on an edge of indecision for an instant, and then said, all in a rush, “I really didn’t like it when he stretched out my pantyhose.”

Silence descended on the room. Finally Clara said, as diplomatically as she could muster, “We don’t need to know what you all did in the bedroom, honey.”

“Clara!” Mae Ella hissed. “Don’t bring up the bedroom in the house of the Lord!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Mae Ella,” Clara shot back. “This isn’t the house of the Lord, it’s a fellowship hall.”

Wanda Jean looked about ready to burst into tears. “It wasn’t a bedroom thing,” she wailed.

“We don’t need to know
where
you were doing any
thing
like that any
time
,” Mae Ella snapped. “We all put up with antics in that department.”

Now four heads swiveled in her direction. Mae Ella glared back and said, “Or so I’ve been told.”

“What is it about the pantyhose exactly, honey?” Clara said. “If it didn’t have anything to do with your . . . marital activities . . . was he using your pantyhose for something else? Like maybe to seine for minnows?”

“How in the hell did you come up with that, Clara?” Wilma said. “What’s going on at your house with your pantyhose?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Clara said. “Let the woman answer the question.”

Wanda Jean looked back down at her lap and mumbled something.

“What was that, honey?” Clara pressed, leaning closer. “Hilton liked to do what?”

“He liked to put on my clothes and look at himself in the mirror,” Wanda Jean said, her face turning beet red.

They all sat in thunderstruck silence until Wilma stood up, sagely declaring, “We’re gonna need more coffee for this one.”

“Coffee hell,” Clara said. “I don’t suppose anybody happens to have a bottle in their purse?”

“I am so sorry,” Sugar said. “My good flask sprung a leak and I haven’t had time to replace it.”

Clara fixed Sugar with an incredulous look and said, “You haven’t had
time?
”

While Wilma put on a fresh pot of coffee in the hall’s tiny kitchen, the women dispensed more Kleenex and comfort to the sobbing Wanda Jean Milton.

When Wilma returned with a tray of cups, Clara said, “Alright now, Wanda Jean, you need to get a hold of yourself and tell us everything.”

Although she continued to hiccup and sniffle, Wanda Jean launched into an explanation. The four Study Club officers listened as the younger woman described how, in the first year of her marriage to Hilton Milton, she walked into the bedroom one day to find her husband admiring himself in a pink-and-white polyester sleeveless go-go dress.

“He was so upset the white boots wouldn’t fit him,” Wanda Jean said sadly, her voice breaking again. “His feet were just too big. Not getting to wear the boots ruined the look for him. Now he won’t ever get the chance,” she finished, breaking down all over again.

Sugar patted Wanda Jean on the arm. She hesitated and then cleared her throat. “Uh, honey? I am so sorry to have to ask you this, being as how it’s kind of a private thing, but was Hilton light in his loafers? Because I knew boys like that in beautician school and it doesn’t mean they’re not good people.”

“Oh, no,” Wanda Jean said, looking up with an earnest look on her tear-stained face. “Hilton’s love of women’s fashion didn’t affect his manhood in the slightest.”

Sugar and Clara exchanged glances. Clara, interpreting the signal, took up the line of questioning. “Well, now, honey, you have to admit there aren’t a lot of men who would put on a pink-and-white polyester go-go dress, so you can understand our confusion.”

“Yes,” Wanda Jean said. “It confused me, too, but Hilton said he just liked the clothes and he only did it at home. We were pretty close to the same size because, you know, the women in my family can be a little big through the hips. I think it was probably good he didn’t have to shop for his own stuff.”

“I would imagine that’s true,” Clara agreed.

“How’d he look in that gitty up?” Mae Ella asked abruptly, munching on a sugar cookie.

“He looked really good,” Wanda Jean said. “He didn’t have a lot of body hair, and lifting all those big ole cans of bug spray kept him in good shape. I personally think the go-go dress was a little short on him though. It was a little revealing . . . in the front. In my opinion, he looked better in my canary-yellow terrycloth jumpsuit. You know, the one with the rolled neckline?”

“Oh, I love you in that outfit!” Sugar said. “Specially when you wear those yellow flats and tease your hair up good.”

Clara cleared her throat. “Honey,” she said to Wanda Jean, “you’re telling us you just put up with this . . . habit . . . of Hilton’s?”

“Well, he was my husband and I wanted him to be happy,” Wanda Jean answered. “I just didn’t like it when he stretched out my pantyhose so I ordered him his own from the J.C. Penney catalog. Besides, I prefer nude, but he just loved that shade Hanes introduced in 1965. You know, Little See-gar?”

“That was too dark for me,” Sugar said absently.

“So this . . . thing . . . wasn’t enough to get you upset?” Clara pressed.

“Clara, do you really think I’m shallow enough to kill a man over a pair of pantyhose?” Wanda Jean asked. “That kinda hurts my feelings.”

“I’m sorry, Wanda Jean,” Clara said. “But I have to tell you, if Clint came out wearing one of my dresses, I might contemplate putting him down like Old Yeller.”

“Well, yes,” Wanda Jean said reasonably. “But Clint is better than 6’6”. He wouldn’t ever find anything that would fit him nice. Especially not a go-go dress.”

Clara considered that for a minute and said, “Well, I guess you do have a point there. So, if you were willing to put up with the . . .”

“Cross-dressing,” Wilma supplied. “We had a guy in the Army who did it to try to get a Section 8 to come home.”

“What’s a Section 8?” Sugar asked.

Wilma pointed at her head with one finger and drew circles in the air, mouthing the word “nuts” before she said, “Discharge as unfit for duty.”

“Oh,” Sugar mouthed back, glancing at Wanda Jean who was, thankfully, preoccupied with getting a fresh Kleenex.

“Did anybody else know about this cross-dressing?” Clara asked.

“No,” Wanda Jean said. “Hilton kept it to himself.”

“Understandable,” Clara agreed. “Okay. So, does anyone have any suggestions about where we start?”

Mae Ella, who served as the club secretary, flipped her legal pad to a clean page and clicked her Bic pen. “I do,” she said. “Wanda Jean, you need to tell us every place Hilton worked for the last week or so. Maybe one of his clients did it.”

“Why do you think that?” Wanda Jean asked.

“Because exterminators get to roam around people’s houses,” Mae Ella said. “Maybe Hilton found more than cockroaches in somebody’s cabinets.”

Chapter 4

While Mae Ella Gormley scratched a list of names on her legal pad at the “executive session” of the Study Club at the Methodist Fellowship Hall, Deputy Henry “Hank” Howard sat at his desk in the courthouse filling out paperwork on the Hilton Milton murder case.