Divas and Dead Rebels (5 page)

Bitty lifted one eyebrow at me and dropped her cell phone back into her purse. “If you insist, dear. Let’s wait at the bus stop near the student center. It’s probably the quickest.”

Unsuspecting creature that I am, I agreed. “Okay.”

“Where are you going?” I asked when Bitty veered toward the path we had taken earlier with Professor Sturgis in the laundry cart. It occurred to me then what she was doing. As she trotted down the hill in her Prada stilettos, I guess I panicked. “No, Bitty no, don’t even go close! Criminals always return to the scene of the crime, and we don’t want to—Bitty!”

I stopped where I was on the curb, but Bitty steamrolled onward.

“I just want to see if he’s still there,” she called back to me, and I looked around to see if there was anyone close by. Traffic had picked up considerably. Cars decorated in school colors rolled past us, pedestrians strolled sidewalks and waited at red lights, and anyone looking out a window could have seen everything. That thought alone made me shiver. What if we were reported as having been seen stuffing a roll of blankets into the moving van?

I just don’t know how or why I get myself into predicaments like these
, I said to myself, but really—that’s a lie. I do know how and why. I’m a lemming. A rat to Bitty’s Pied Piper call. I seem to follow along with whatever mad scheme she concocts. To be fair, she does the same for me. Not all my schemes have worked out well. But at least I plan mine more carefully. I’m not sure that’s a recommendation in my favor.

I ambled along the sidewalk toward a glass and metal bus stop. White, or blue and white buses with GPS systems powered by solar energy make it convenient to get around the campus and housing areas, and I intended to catch the next one and get myself back to The Inn as quickly as I could. I was tired, my feet hurt, and I had visions of spending years in the same eight-foot-by-eight-foot jail cell as Bitty. I’d probably end up strangling her.

Bitty joined me at the bus stop to report that the moving van was gone. “Now they’ll find him far from Clayton’s closet,” she said with obvious satisfaction.

“And far from the actual murder scene, too,” I pointed out. “How will the police know where to investigate?”

“We could always send them a little note,” Bitty suggested.

I stared at her in disbelief. “That says what? ‘Excuse us, but we moved the body of Professor Sturgis from the dormitory where he was really murdered’?”

“Honestly, Trinket, you’re always so pessimistic. Things will work out. As long as my sons aren’t implicated, it doesn’t really matter to me who the killer is. The police are very good at finding out that kind of thing. We probably need to hurry to get to the dry cleaners before they close, so I hope this bus arrives soon. Sure you don’t want me to call a taxi?”

“Yes,” I said as I saw the bus lumbering toward us. “So I’m just to forget that we ever saw a dead man, that we ever moved his body, and that you’re crazy as a Betsy bug. I’ll erase all those memories from my mind and be a clean slate. Right?”

“You’re so dramatic sometimes. Just try to have a good time tonight and forget all about Professor Sturgis. He’ll be found, and the police will track down his murderer. It’s what they do best. Good lord—how am I supposed to get on this thing?” she ended as the bus wheezed to a stop, and the door swooshed open.

I eyed her snug skirt and high heels with rather petty satisfaction. “Just hike up your skirt and hop on. I’m sure the bus driver’s been flashed before.”

I waited until we were sitting
in her car and driving toward the dry cleaners before I said, “I think we’re becoming too blasé about dead bodies. We’ve seen so many in the past year that we don’t properly appreciate the horror or magnitude of murder.”

“Nonsense. If anything, I appreciate the awfulness of it much more than I would if I was sitting at the breakfast table reading about it in the paper. I just don’t let that cloud my judgment at the moment.”

“Well, isn’t that handy. I haven’t perfected that talent just yet.”

“That’s okay, honey. You’ll get it sooner or later.”

I shut my mouth so tightly my jaws ached. We turned on to Jackson Avenue right in front of an oncoming car, but my jaws didn’t unclench in time to scream. The car missed us by maybe a foot. I just closed my eyes. There was absolutely no point in trying to get Bitty to see the error of her ways. There never had been, but I still kept on working at it as if somehow I’d get through to her. But then, that would probably change her entire personality, and I didn’t really want to do that. I just wanted her to be a little more wary of getting in trouble with the police. The best way to do that, I’ve found, is to follow the law.

Too bad other people don’t believe in that. Until recently, I’d never thought about murder much. Since returning home to Holly Springs, I’d come into close contact with more murder victims than I had ever dreamed possible. Not that Marshall County has experienced a dramatic rise in number of murders. No, not all the victims were killed in Marshall County.

Divas have branched out to other Mississippi counties with our involvement as well. We are not always appreciated. Law enforcement at the state level has been notified of our efforts, I’m told, so Divas had better have an excellent reason for getting involved in any future murder cases.

Apparently none of that mattered much to Bitty. We were now involved in a murder that hadn’t been discovered yet, and I was pretty sure that when it was—we’d be in it up to our necks.

Chapter 3

Football at Ole Miss is more of a religious experience than a sports game. If football is a religious experience, then the tailgating parties at The Grove are as close to heaven as a person can get without dying. A favorite saying of Ole Miss students is, “We may not win every game, but we ain’t never lost a party.”

Despite the double negative, it’s nice to know some things never change.

Although it had been years since I’d attended the University of Mississippi, there are some rituals and friendships that are never forgotten. Attending tailgate parties is an activity that’s easy to catch up on despite an absence of thirty-odd years.

Bitty has annual reservations at The Inn at Ole Miss on the campus. This makes the trip to and from the Vaught-Hemingway Stadium for the big game feasible, and even easier to get to The Grove for the tailgating parties. Drinking and driving is always a big no-no, and especially so in Oxford. Police there have very strict guidelines and swift consequences for those who flaunt the rules. In the bars, closing hours are much earlier than normal; Monday through Wednesday, they close at midnight. Thursday through Saturday, they close at one AM. On the university campus itself, no beer is allowed except east of Gertrude Ford Boulevard. However, liquor is welcome over the entire campus.

Don’t ask
me
. I didn’t make the rules.

Liquor cannot be seen in bottle form; it must be in a container. Beer is generally overlooked by campus police as long as it isn’t seen. In other words, coolers must remain closed, and beer and liquor must be in a cup. Fairly simple rules for the initiate.

Early that Friday evening we dined at the City Grocery on the Square. While Bitty wanted to eat in the fine dining area, I and my bourgeois taste buds opted for upstairs and maybe a seat on the balcony if we were lucky. The downstairs is incredibly crowded, with tables an arm’s length apart. Normally that convivial atmosphere might be lovely, but I was suffering an immense amount of guilt at my part in our afternoon activities. I ordered a Rebel ale with my cheese grits and shrimp, and Bitty ordered Jack and Coke with her fried pimento cheese salad. An abundance of alcohol should take care of any tendencies toward getting “bound up” as my mama would say about so much cheese.

At any rate, we were fortunate enough to sit out on the small balcony that looks over the Square. Oxford Square is lovely, with old southern architecture and an elegance most often seen in New Orleans. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of that old city to the south. People have been known to call Oxford “The Little Easy” for its ambient lifestyle and laid-back attitude that mimics New Orleans. Of course, the “Big Easy” reputation of New Orleans also includes some pretty high crime statistics.

Although they didn’t know it yet, The Little Easy had just gotten a rise in crime statistics, too.

Leaning forward, I said to Bitty across our table, “How can you sit there as if nothing has happened?”

“What do you want me to do—leap off the balcony? Beat my breast and do a soliloquy of contrition?
I
didn’t kill him.”

“For heaven’s sake, don’t beat your breast. You’d cause a seismic episode,” I said rather crossly. Bitty’s breasts are—in the words of her third husband—“most magnificent mammaries” or some ridiculous thing like that. He just meant she’s well-endowed.

I never did care much for him.

Bitty knocked back her Jack and Coke and set it on the table so the waiter would see it and bring her another. “Really, Trinket, you have a terrible tendency to dwell on things far too much. No one has said anything, and he’s long gone from the campus, so no one probably will while we’re here. You need to get over this.”

I stared at her. “Get over . . . Bitty, he’s dead. D. E. A. D. Dead. What do you think is going to happen when he doesn’t show up at home for dinner tonight?”

“How on earth should I know? I imagine they’ll call for the police—yes, thank you, another one, please—” That last was said to the waiter who showed up to take away her empty glass. She leaned forward to finish more quietly, “—and the police will realize he’s nowhere to be found, and then they’ll start looking for him.”

“By then someone will probably have found him in the back of a U-Haul.”

“I think it was a Penske,” Bitty corrected me, and I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever. There he’ll be, wrapped up like a burrito in L.L. Bean blankets. What if they trace the blankets to you?”

“What if they don’t? Honestly, Trinket, you’re getting on my nerves. We have a lot of fun to get to tonight, and you’d better not ruin it. I’ve been looking forward to this for ages. Isn’t it just like some nerdy professor to go and get himself killed on the very day I get here to have fun? It’s not like we know who did it, or even need to know. All we have to do is pretend we don’t know anything.”

I gave her a sour look. “That’s usually much easier for you to do than me.”

“Are you saying I don’t know anything?”

“If only it were that simple.”

Truthfully, I didn’t know what to do. Telling the police was obviously out for us now since we’d already committed a crime by moving the body. But I kept looking at the well-lit courthouse across the street and expecting a cop to come out to arrest us at any minute.

When I said, “We’ll probably be arrested before we finish eating,” Bitty flapped a hand at me.

“If it hasn’t already happened, I doubt it will. Now finish your food, and we’ll wander on over to Proud Larry’s to listen to a little music.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any music, but I knew by then that crossing Bitty when she has her mind made up is usually an exercise in futility. Frankly, I thought we should get the hell out of Dodge. If for no other reason than that I had a guilty conscience and was in danger of throwing myself at the feet of the next Oxford cop I saw to beg for mercy. I get like that sometimes.

The band at Proud Larry’s club was a rhythm and blues group, and for a while I was able to just enjoy the music and put everything else to the back of my mind. It wasn’t as easy for me as it is for Bitty, but I’m always grateful for small blessings. Of course, Bitty immediately met up with some alumni and former sorority sisters, and proceeded to have more fun than is legally possible in most places. Oxford is a wonderful place to do this, as long as you can handle your liquor and don’t get out of hand. I freely admit, I had fun just watching Bitty in her element.

My element is more comfortable in jeans and tee shirts rather than stilettos and diamonds, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a good time observing how the other half lives. And I had some lovely conversations with a few people I vaguely remembered from my brief college days.

One of them used to live in the same dormitory as Bitty and I had in our freshman year. Freshmen are required to live on campus and of course, follow the rules, and we had delighted in constant attempts at breaking those rules—within reason. My daddy would have been livid if I’d gotten kicked out for acting up, so I kept it reasonable. Not that we didn’t have loads of fun anyway. Unfortunately for me, I had to really study to keep up my grades, while Bitty seemed to breeze through all her classes, so she had a lot more time for fun than I did.

Bitty has always led a charmed life.

Right before midnight, a small group of ladies came in and made their way to our tables. Introductions were made all around, but one name stuck out in my mind as if put there with a hot iron: Emily Sturgis. Surely, it was a coincidence, I thought. I mean, it’s not as if Sturgis is a terribly common name, but neither is it unusual. There could be two Sturgises living in Oxford, Mississippi, I assured myself, right?

But then Candy Lynn Stovall said to me, “Emily is married to Spencer Sturgis who teaches ancient history, and she hasn’t been here long, so you may not know her.”