Divas and Dead Rebels (17 page)

“I do have a style. It’s called casual.” I fluffed up the chenille throw and covered my still-damp feet. “How do you sleep in that hair helmet, anyway? I’d be afraid it’d just pop right off one day.”

Really, I know how Bitty sleeps. She wears little pink satin caps and blinders over her eyes. She looks like a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

“I sleep very well, thank you. At least when I get up the next morning I don’t look like rats have chewed on my hair while I slept.”

“Rats? What is this thing you have with rats? You know I don’t like rats.”

“Yes.” Bitty smiled. “I know.”

I made a face at her. “Keep that up, and I’ll change the subject to slithery snakes.” Bitty’s shudder was genuine. “Ouch. So how did you like the Oxford academic society?” she asked in an obvious effort to change the topic of conversation.

“I had no idea I’d know so many of them. I hadn’t seen Candy Lynn Stovall in a coon’s age until the night before the game. She hasn’t changed much since your college days.”

“Well, they were your college days, too, for a little while anyway. Do you ever regret not finishing school?”

I thought about it a moment. “Sometimes. I can’t say I regret meeting Perry, because then I wouldn’t have my wonderful daughter, but I’ve often wondered what I would have done or where I’d be if I’d had sense enough to get a college education.”

“You haven’t done so badly, though. I mean, you had a career in the hospitality industry for a long time.”

“Right,” I said wryly, “and look how far I’ve come. Now I sell underwear, and on occasion, rubber penises for a living.”

We both laughed, then Bitty said more seriously, “Well, I finished school but still did something foolish. As you said, though, I could never regret marrying Frank because I wouldn’t have my boys. And they are good boys, they really are. Don’t you think?”

I realized what she was really asking, so I said firmly, “They are both good boys, and neither one of them would ever do anything to make you less than proud of them. All this worry about the professor’s murder will soon be over when they find the killer, and then you can go back to worrying about whether or not Clayton will graduate and if Brandon will be a lawyer.”

Bitty looked relieved. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the chair. “You’re right. I’m being silly worrying about something that will never happen. I’ll go see if Sharita can make us some coffee. Maybe Irish coffee?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but two things happened simultaneously: Chen Ling barreled into the parlor, and the doorbell rang. Ordinarily, the pug’s entrance would not have created much of a problem. But this time she happened to be pulling something along behind her.

Sharita was in hot pursuit and looked flustered when she came to a halt just inside the parlor door. “There’s something the matter with her,” she said while pointing at the dog. I thought, but didn’t say, that the only thing the matter with the dog was Bitty.

Bitty seemed perplexed at first. Before she could get off the chair, Chen Ling launched her fat little body up onto the white slipcovers next to her. I saw a flash of what looked like a faded red ribbon behind her. While Chitling snuffled and huffed, and turned in a couple of circles atop the cushions, her doting parent let out a scream.

Now, I have been privy to some awful sights in my lifetime, but I cannot think of a more startling sight than a faded tulle ribbon knotted with . . . well, poop, and hanging out of a dog’s rear end. Whenever Chitling turned, the ribboned poo swung behind her and left skid marks across Bitty’s expensive white slipcovers.

The more Bitty shrieked, the faster the pug spun around, until the bothersome extra tail whipped across the chair with a life of its own. Sharita stood just inside the doorway, transfixed by the entire thing, while I burst into rib-bruising laughter.

Since I have the rather embarrassing habit of snorting when I laugh, a sound that Bitty once described as resembling a choking goose, I imagine the noise emanating from the small parlor did sound rather like a confrontation of some sort. That would explain why Marcus Stone, who happens to be Sharita’s brother and an officer on the Holly Springs Police force, swung open the front door and thundered down the hallway with his pistol drawn.

“Halt! Police!” he barked as he confronted a hysterical Bitty and twirling pug. His sister grabbed his arm, but had started laughing so hard she couldn’t explain there was no need for gunfire. It’s a good thing Lieutenant Stone is quick on the mark, because once he realized there was no danger, he slid his pistol back into the heavy holster and put his hands on his hips. “What the hell?” he demanded of no one in particular.

At that moment, Chitling must have decided that her mommy was of no help at all in the situation, because she leaped down from the chair and darted toward the parlor door. As she went by, Marcus Stone glanced down, saw the trailing ribbon, and put his black boot right on it. With a muffled pop, the ribbon disengaged from the pug, and Chen Ling went on her merry way. I heard her little toenails click indignantly against the old wood floors in the hallway.

“Well,” I said when I was able to stop laughing, “the mystery of the disappearing bow has been solved at last.”

Bitty did not appreciate my humor. She said something quite pithy. I chose not to take offense. After all, she had quite a mess to clean up, and I had no intention whatsoever of helping. My monthly quota of dog messes that require cleaning up had been reached.

“Do you need help, Miss Bitty?” Sharita asked with a straight face.

“No, I won’t ask you to do that. I’ll get it.” Bitty glanced at the lieutenant. “I think Sharita’s almost through cooking. You can have some coffee if you don’t mind waiting a moment.”

Lieutenant Stone shook his head. “I didn’t come to give Sharita a ride home, Miz Hollandale. I came to talk to you.”

Uh oh.

Chapter 8

Bitty is the mistress of stall tactics. She should have been elected to Congress instead of her late husband. She can talk more and say less than anyone I’ve ever met. Lieutenant Stone, it turned out, was immune to this kind of thing. Maybe because he has three sisters, or maybe because he’s had to deal with Bitty before, but he cut short her circuitous conversation pretty quickly.

After the ribbon incident and clean-up, we had all gathered in Bitty’s kitchen to drink coffee. Mine was flavored with French Vanilla, Bitty’s was flavored with Bailey’s. As far as I know, Sharita and her brother drank their coffee with just sugar.

Just as Bitty started relating a story about Miranda Watson’s pet pig eating all the flower heads off bouquets for sale at the local farmer’s market, Lieutenant Stone cleared his throat.

“Miz Hollandale,” he began, and Bitty looked at him sharply over the rim of her cup. Stone’s voice had an authoritative tone to it that she obviously recognized. She set down her cup.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

Any other time she might have called him by his first name since she’d known him for a long time. But when a police officer addresses you formally, you just know that something’s up.

Marcus Stone rubbed his chin with one hand. “I’ll get right to the point. There’s a police investigation down in Oxford. I’m here to get an official statement from you about what you were doing with a laundry cart.”

My stomach dropped. I think I gulped. I hoped no one noticed.

I think Bitty’s gotten better at keeping her cool than she used to be, because she just lifted a Botoxed brow and said, “Why, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Now, I’ve always considered it rather dangerous to lie to law enforcement for any reason. For one thing, they almost always know when you’re lying, and for another thing, it really does work against you when you need them to believe you. But I had to admire Bitty’s chutzpa in the face of certain disaster. After all, if a policeman is asking questions, he probably already knows the answers.

Lieutenant Stone shook his head. “Now Miz Hollandale, I don’t think that’s quite true. Think about it a minute. Or we can always do this over at the precinct. Or in Oxford. If you won’t talk to me now, I’m sure the Oxford police will arrange to get you down there for a statement. You’ll get a free ride in one of their cruisers.”

Bitty and Lieutenant Stone stared at each other for a moment. He took a casual sip of coffee, his eyes never leaving hers. Sharita and I stood there like statues. The only sound in the kitchen was Chitling snuffling along the floor in search of lost crumbs. She had apparently completely recovered from her earlier trauma.

“A
laundry cart
? Really, I—oh wait. Do you mean a big white tub like motels use sometimes?”

Bitty sounded very convincing. I wondered for a brief moment if she really had managed to forget all about trundling Professor Sturgis around in a laundry cart. See what I mean? She really is good at subterfuge.

If Lieutenant Stone guessed she was stalling, he didn’t let it show. He just nodded agreement. “Yes, that’s the kind of laundry cart I mean. What can you tell me about the one in your sons’ dormitory basement?”

“What a peculiar question to ask.” Bitty took another swig of her coffee fortified with enough Bailey’s to register her alcohol content at an illegal level. “What do you want to hear about it?”

I recognized that this little play could go south pretty quickly. Before I could stop myself from getting even more involved than I already was, I said, “Oh Bitty, don’t you remember that cart we found in the dorms? It had
Motel Six
printed on the side, I think.”

Bitty nearly choked on her coffee, but managed to say sweetly, “Oh yes, I think I do recall that. It was blocking their doorway, I believe.” She looked over at Stone with eyes wide and guileless. “Is that the one you mean?”

Stone sighed. “Yes ma’am, that’s the one I mean. Exactly where in the dorm did you find it, and what did you do with it?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, I can’t remember
exactly
where it was when we found it. Trinket seems to recall that better than I do.”

This time I nearly choked on my coffee. Bitty, as always, looked completely guileless. I, as usual, probably looked guilty of everything from murder to bank robbery. I cleared my throat and tried to think of an answer near enough to the truth to be plausible, and far enough away from it not to be incriminating.

“It seems to me that it was near Brandon and Clayton’s doorway,” I said when the lieutenant looked at me. “We had to move it, of course.”

All that was true. I just didn’t specify which side of the door it had been on. And we’d had to move it; I just left out the part where we moved it to facilitate the loading of a corpse into its canvas depths.

Marcus Stone set his coffee cup down on the gleaming granite countertop. “Let’s get past this real quick, ladies. You were both seen in an elevator with the laundry cart. I want to hear why you had the cart, where you took it, and what was in it.”

Really, it’s a good thing he was looking at Bitty when he said that, because I was pretty sure I had guilt written all over my face. Bitty, however, said, “Well, we did what one does with a laundry cart. We moved laundry.”

“So this laundry cart that you didn’t remember existed just a few seconds ago, you now remember moving laundry with it? Whose laundry? Where? Why?”

Stone sounded irritated now. Prevarication can only be carried so far before police tend to get cranky. Even Bitty recognized that.

After she set her coffee cup on the counter, she said quite seriously, “I know that you’re a good policeman, Marcus, and a good person. I’ve never held it against you that I was the chief suspect for a while in Philip’s murder. Circumstances were what they were. I ask now that you believe me when I tell you that I have no idea who murdered Spencer Sturgis or why. I may know who
didn’t
do it, but I have no evidence as to who did.”

Lieutenant Stone sighed. “Miz Bitty, I’ve known you most of my life, and for the most part, I always thought you were pretty harmless. But lately, you’ve been involved in some pretty weird stuff, you have to admit. So when I get a call from Oxford police saying there was a murder on campus, the victim was moved, you were seen pushing a laundry cart around the campus, and someone has said you and the victim had a loud argument, I’ve got to come ask you questions. You know that. And believe me, the Oxford police are gonna get an official statement. There’s a witness who says he had a conversation with you in the dorm elevator where your two sons reside, and that later he saw you and Miz Truevine here pushing the cart past The Grove.”

He held up a hand when Bitty opened her mouth. “No, just let me lay this out for you before you come up with some lame excuse.”

Bitty looked slightly indignant, but kept her mouth shut, thank heavens.

“Professor Sturgis was found in the back of a moving truck that had been parked in plain sight in back of a building. How did he get there without someone seeing the murder, we had to ask, and a logical answer would be that he was killed elsewhere and transported to the dump site. But no witnesses. Then came the information that two older ladies were seen pushing a curiously heavy laundry cart around. Fingerprints were found on the cart. AFIS came up with your name.” He looked over at me. “While your fingerprints aren’t on it that we can find, you were seen with Miz Bitty pushing the cart.”