A Bloodhound to Die for

  
1
“Smile as You’re Being Gutted”

J
asmine Jones halloed from the office and I yelled back that I was in the bedroom. When she entered, I held up a bra that had seen better days.

“Think this will last awhile longer?”

I had upended three drawers from my bureau, making a large messy pile in the middle of my bed. The empties were aligned alongside, waiting to be refilled with meticulously folded and correctly sorted bits of lingerie.

Jasmine fingered the frayed elastic straps and rubbed her long graceful fingers over the small safety pin that secured one strap I had failed to notice. I mentally braced for the lecture on slovenliness that was sure to come. She walked to my small wastebasket and dropped the bra inside without saying a word.

Returning to my side, she put her hands on her hips and studied my expression.

Jasmine is beautiful. Flawless skin a rich shade of chocolate, a regal Nefertiti neck, ebony hair, short and casually curled, and a slender body with all the curves in the right places.

My name is Jo Beth Sidden. Jasmine is my employee and friend and lives just across the driveway in a garage apartment. I’m an inch taller at five-seven and always looked dumpy beside her until recently. The trauma of a murder trial coupled with having to turn my prize bloodhound Bobby Lee against me finally gave me the willowy silhouette I craved, but this still wasn’t enough to make us equal. My mousy, medium-brown hair, short and impossibly curly from birth, and my pale complexion spattered with faint brown freckles across my nose just couldn’t compete when in her presence.

“What happened this morning?” she demanded.

“Nothing much. Went shopping for some new clothes. All of you have been fussing at me to buy some new clothes for weeks. Since most of them have been altered to some degree, they make me look as if I’m wearing a croker sack. So I went to spend some serious money at Estelle’s Boutique out in the South Gate Mall. At least that’s where I was gonna start.”

I saw her quick survey to see if she had missed a pile of plastic bags and candy-apple-red striped boxes.

“No, I didn’t buy anything, because I was shown the front door and told to leave and to never, ever, return.”

I heard her quick intake of breath and saw her bewilderment.

“Why?”

“You’re aware that I know Balsa City citizens’ genealogy better than most. I grew up here. Family connections take a lifetime to study and are taught to the young as if they are school lessons. I just didn’t think. I’ll know better next time. I completely forgot that Estelle is married to my ex Bubba’s second cousin, once removed.”

“Second cousin, once removed?” she marveled. “Give me a break. I’ve never heard of such nonsense!”

“I’m surprised that you’re surprised. You were raised here too. Doesn’t the black community support its relatives the very same way?”

I knew better than to use the term
African American
. She gave me an acrimonious smile.

“Not exactly. Some of us go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging, or even thinking about blood ties.”

My gut clenched. I had struck a nerve. I found out last year purely by chance that Jasmine’s mother was alive and well and resided less than four miles from here. She had never let her mother’s name pass her lips. I had assumed incorrectly that she was dead.

I knew that Jasmine had worked the streets as a prostitute from the time she was twelve until she was nineteen. Hank Cribbs, now sheriff of Dunston
County, was a lieutenant back then. He had arrested her and tried to get her off the streets many times before she changed her occupation. When I met her, she was running a small barbecue joint in Shantytown.

“God, I’m sorry, Jasmine. I spoke without thinking.”

Her smile was fleeting. “I’m glad you didn’t act as if you were unaware of my mother’s existence. I know that Granny Rose would have mentioned my mother when you visited with her a while back. I kept waiting for you to ask me about her, but you never did.”

“I was trying to be tactful, dammit, and I’ll have to admit I was hurt that you hadn’t confided in
me
. I thought we shared secrets. Granny Rose said that you would tell me about her when the time was right.”

“I guess the time is right. I feel like telling you about her. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

“Absolutely. I’m all ears.” I patted the side of the bed across from me and grabbed up the pile of lingerie, moving it between us. “We can sort and fold while we talk.”

“First, I want to hear what Estelle said to you. Finish telling me what happened.”

“I was in a dressing room getting ready to try on a couple of outfits when her salesperson informed her of my presence. Thank God I still had my own clothes on. She came in quickly and manhandled me out into the store, then gave me the bum’s rush to the front door. I bet she would have done the same even if I had been in the altogether.”

“You really think so?”

“You bet. All the way to the front door she was screaming at me that I had murdered a member of her family, she didn’t need any of my blood money, and it made her ill just seeing me walking around free after a jury had found me guilty.”

The member of her family was Bubba, who had beaten me up repeatedly during our ill-fated marriage, then stalked me mercilessly after our divorce.

“What did you do?” Jasmine’s eyes were wide and expectant. She knew my usual response, because of my quick temper, would have been to mop up the floor with Estelle, while I was reading everyone within hearing range the riot act.

“I smiled, wished her a nice day, and came home.”

Frowning, Jasmine leaned forward and placed her hand on my forehead.

“Do you feel feverish? Dizzy? You must be coming down with something.”

“None of the above. I was simply trying to act mature and think before I leap.”

“This doesn’t sound like the Jo Beth I know and serve. I can’t believe you’re gonna let her get away with saying those lies about you to your face in public!”

“Mostly they weren’t lies, Jasmine. I killed Bubba. A jury of my peers in my hometown, where I have lived my entire thirty-three years, found me guilty. It was a technicality that set me free with the help of my lawyer and Judge Dalby pulling strings. The only
statement that I could find fault with was the blood-money crack, which I don’t understand, but obviously she believes every word she said.”

“How can you say that? You know you shot him in self-defense!”

“In a way. Listen, let’s not argue. I’d much rather hear about your mother, okay?”

“There’s not much to tell. My mother is a very religious person, the most religious I have ever met. I believed everything she preached and quoted from the Bible until I turned five. That was when my father went out for cigarettes and never came back.

“I loved him so much. He was a happy-go-lucky soul, and always found time to play and joke with me. I needed his laughter. My mother seldom laughed. To her, being religious meant grim warnings of perdition and iron-willed determination that I would walk the straight and narrow path to redemption.” Jasmine settled back on the bed.

“I really tried until my father left. I was a prim and proper religious little girl. I didn’t laugh and act silly as a child. Rage and sorrow took over when I realized that he was not coming back, and that all the prayers I prayed wouldn’t bring him home. Then I became a rebellious hellion, acting out and acting up. I screamed and threw fits and never flinched or cried when she tried to beat the devil out of my soul by whamming on my posterior.