Elvis And The Memphis Mambo Murders (15 page)

Of course, I have to get out of the stairwell first.

“Let's go, Lovie.”

“Make up your mind. Are we coming or going?”

“Cute, Lovie.” I barrel out and she's right behind me.

“Just when I'm getting to like this place.”

In the hall, I pull down my short skirt and stick out my chin, geared for battle.

Alas, the enemy has left the corridor.

F
ortunately, nobody else is in the corridor, either. We head toward Thomas' room and it takes Lovie less than five seconds to get us in.

“If you ever decide to give up catering, you could make it picking locks.”

“What's got you in such a piss and vinegar mood?”

“I've made up my mind. I'm standing firm with Jack this time. No more pussyfooting around.”

“Great.”

Lovie is a woman of action, let the consequences fall where they may. She would have already decided between Jack and Champ. Since I've been in pre-divorce limbo, I've lost count of the number of times she's said to me, “Quit dillydallying. You never know how something's going to turn out till you try it.”

Now she's standing with her hands on her hips surveying Thomas' room. He brought enough stuff from Mississippi to hold a small garage sale on the Peabody's tenth floor.

“There's no telling what we'll find buried in all this junk,” she says.

“Let's hope it's not another body.”

“Let's ransack this place and find out. I'll start with the bathroom.”

This could take a while. Now that I'm this close, I'm not even sure I want to find evidence that Thomas is the killer. What kind of daughter am I, hoping my mother's dance partner is a murderer? When I get home I'm lighting white candles and burning sacred white sage.

I glance around the room, trying to decide where to start. Obviously Thomas likes to take his treasures with him. In addition to three suitcases, he has shoeboxes stacked three deep on the closet floor. The desk in the corner has so many stacks of fat manila envelopes, you can hardly see the lamp.

“Find anything in the bathroom, Lovie?”

“Relief.”

The toilet flushes and she comes out tugging at her uniform.

“What'd you see in there, Lovie?”

“Thomas pees on the toilet rim.”

“Get serious. Anything of interest?”

“He uses frownies.”

“Oh, good grief, Lovie. You take the desk, I'll take the closet.”

If Lovie gets on her knees, it might be Christmas before I get her back up. Hiking my tight skirt up past decency, I sit cross-legged on the closet floor and open the first of eighteen boxes. Inside are Florsheims. Black patent. Although the soles show lots of wear, on the top you can hardly tell these shoes from brand new.

The next two boxes also hold Florsheims polished to a high shine. I wish I'd known this about Thomas earlier. A man who loves shoes can't be all bad.

I'm reaching for the fourth box when Lovie says, “Callie, you'd better have a look.”

I unfold my long legs, stretch to get the kinks out, then join Lovie at the desk. There's a stack of empty envelopes at her elbow and an array of photographs fanned across the desktop. Even when they are upside down I can see that most of them feature Mama. Who can miss her bright yellow caftan and Queen of England crown jewels?

Going around the desk, I lean over Lovie's shoulder. There's Mama getting out of her red convertible in front of her monument company, Mama on the farm standing at the lake, Mama on her front porch sipping iced tea. I hope. With Mama you never can tell.

“These look candid.”

“Yeah. I wonder if Thomas took them without Aunt Ruby Nell knowing.”

A chilling thought. Even more chilling is the photograph Lovie points out. The beautiful woman playing with her dog in front of a giant magnolia tree is none other than Babs Mabry Mims.

I pick the photograph up to study it more closely. Babs is in severe need of a good haircut.

“Of course,” Lovie says, “we've already established that he knows Babs.”

“Yeah, but this one is just like the ones of Mama. Unposed.”

“How do you know?”

“No woman with any pride is going to let somebody take her picture when her hair looks that bad.”

Lovie takes the picture from me and lines it up beside the ones of Mama. “Look at this, Cal. They're all made from a distance.”

“What does that prove besides Thomas doesn't know how to use a telephoto lens?”

“Maybe he wasn't aiming for art. Maybe he was a murderer stalking his prey with a camera.”

Now I'm wishing I hadn't ducked into the stairwell when I saw Jack. I'm wishing I'd asked him to break and enter with us and help us get to the bottom of all this before the next victim turns out to be somebody I can't live without. Mama. Lovie. Uncle Charlie.

Except for one big thing. “Lovie, do you realize not a single one of the murder victims has been a man?”

“You're right.” Suddenly Lovie says a word that peels paint. “Remember what the attacker said to Aunt Ruby Nell? And me? The killer's looking for ‘hoochie mamas.'”

“Keep digging, Lovie. We're going to search every inch of this room.”

I head back to the closet to see if I can find something besides Florsheims. In the next box, I do, but it's only a pair of Air Nikes that could use a good spritz of deodorant foot powder.

I'm about to despair, but on the last box I hit pay dirt.

“Holy cow! Lovie, come quick.”

In my hot little hand is a three-volume set of DVDs: “The fully restored ‘XXX Diaries.'” Starring none other than Gloria Divine and Latoya LaBelle.

“Bingo,” Lovie says. “Victims two and three.”

Which brings another chilling thought: if he really is the killer, we could be next.

“Maybe we ought to call the police, Lovie. Or at least Uncle Charlie.”

“Forget it. Playing safe is no fun.”

She snatches the DVD set from me and shoves the first disc into the player on top of Thomas' TV.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm fixing to view the evidence.”

“We're not the cops, Lovie.”

“First come, first served.”

“We could get in big trouble, here, Lovie.”

“Are you going to sit in the closet all day and argue?”

Lovie has made herself at home on Thomas' bed, and is now leaning against the headboard on both pillows, her feet crossed at the ankles. This is what she does when we watch movies at home. She's settled in for the duration. All she needs is buttered popcorn.

I feel like Custer staging his last stand.

“We can't stay here, Lovie. Thomas is liable to come back.”

“Put the night latch on. I'm not leaving till I see this.”

“The night latch is already on. I did that after we broke in. I also hung up the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign.”

“Well, what are you waiting for? Get your skinny butt over here before you miss the show.”

I do what she says, but I refuse to sit on the bed. Instead, I drag the desk chair closer and plop down.

The names of the dubious “stars” flash across the screen and the camera pans a set that looks like something out of
Arabian Nights.
Amid the crash of cymbals and the twanging of exotic stringed instruments, two women slither onto the set. Gloria Divine and Latoya LaBelle—younger, more voluptuous versions of the woman found floating in the Peabody fountain in a Technicolor dress and the woman strangled with her own scarf at the duck parade.

I wouldn't call what they're doing
a show
. To put a polite spin on it, we've uncovered Thomas' stash of exotic entertainment.

“Where'd they learn to dance like that?” Lovie says.

“Not in Sunday school. I wouldn't even call it dancing.”

“What would you call it?”

“Foreplay.”

“Just because Jack's in the hotel…”

“Jack has nothing to do with it. Besides, he's out of the picture.”

“Good. You'll feel better once you make a complete break.”

Will I? I don't think I have Lovie's capacity to live my life forward, make instant decisions, keep what I want, discard what I don't, and never look back. Never, ever.

I tend to zigzag—live forward a while, then go backward and agonize over what might have been. I dither over whether I should throw everything out and start over or whether I should backtrack and try to glue broken pieces together, tie baling wire around ripped-apart goods I never meant to throw away in the first place.

“Turn it off, Lovie. We've established that Thomas knew all the victims.”

“What about motive? There might be something in these tapes to show why he'd want to kill them.”

“What do you think? Thomas is going to make an appearance as their stud muffin?”

“Aunt Ruby Nell thinks he has the goods.”

Holy cow. I hope not. Though the connecting door sends up all kinds of red flags, I'm still clinging to the hope that all Mama wants from Mr. Whitenton is his dancing feet.

“Lovie, we can't hole up in Thomas' room all day watching porn videos. Somebody's liable to catch us.”

“Relax, Cal. It could enhance your reputation.”

I know good and well what she means, but I choose to pretend otherwise. Everybody in Mooreville thinks I'm demure. Everybody except Jack. And he no longer counts. I think. I hope.

“My reputation's just fine, thank you very much. I'm the best hair stylist in northeast Mississippi. And that's not bragging. Everybody says so.”

“Not
that
reputation.”

Ordinarily, we'd engage in this kind of good-natured banter half the day, but I've got to get my crazy cousin moving. Besides, she's hitting a little too close to home for my comfort.

What if I do need to loosen up, roll with the punches, as Lovie is always saying? What if my love of routine and advance planning is one of the reasons Jack left me? As much as I'd like to think it was all his fault, I'm not that kind of one-sided, wrong-headed woman. I pride myself on being fair.

“Come on, Lovie. We'll take the tapes with us.”

“Then what? Turn them over to the cops? Breaking and entering will probably get us thrown into jail. And I don't even want to think what they'll do to us for possession of stolen property.”

“Especially since we still have Babs' purse. Holy cow, Lovie. We could even become suspects for the Peabody murders.”

“Why didn't you say all that before we decided to go snooping?”

“Maybe we can make an anonymous phone call to tip off the cops about this stash.”

“Later. We're just coming to the good part.”

Lovie's so-called good part features scenes that make me want to remove every mirror from my bedroom. If I'd known intimacy could make you look like a contortionist monkey in a G-string, I'd have done it in the dark. Fully clothed. Without sound.

“Fast forward, Lovie. I don't think we're going to learn anything here.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“I mean, about
murder.
”

“Good Lord, Cal. You sound just like Rocky. I'll bet you haven't even let Champ find your national treasure.”

“You're the one with the national treasure. Besides, Champ has lofty motives.”

“There're only two motives worth mentioning, Callie. Chocolate and sex.”

I like to think the human race is more evolved than that, but considering the things I've heard from women sitting in my beauty shop chair, I can see Lovie's point. In fact, I have enough anecdotal evidence to prove her point, but I'm not the kind of woman who goes around letting the sisterhood down by revealing tawdry secrets.

The real issue here is the DVDs. When these get in the hands of the press, sex and the Peabody murders will be spread all over the news. (Who knows? Maybe chocolate, too. We haven't seen all the DVDs yet.)

“Holy cow!” I dive toward the desk and start scooping up Mama's pictures. “Were there any more of these, Lovie?”

“What are you doing?”

“Stealing evidence. When this thing breaks, there's going to be a huge sex scandal, and these pictures put Mama right in the middle of it.”

“None of them show Aunt Ruby Nell in a compromising position.”

“Guilt by association, Lovie. Move your butt!”

She scrambles off the bed and barrels toward the desk. On the TV screen behind us, Gloria Divine and Latoya LaBelle carry on in ways that would send every Baptist in Mooreville into a prayer vigil.

Lovie and I rip into unopened envelopes, scattering pictures everywhere, including onto the floor. We drop to our knees and start snatching them up.

“Just get Mama. Leave the rest.”

I make neat little stacks while Lovie stuffs pictures into the bosom of her uniform. Though how she has any room in there, I don't even want to guess.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Thomas' scream jerks me upright so fast, I bop my head on the underside of the desk.

Holy cow! How'd he get in? I'm sure I fastened the night latch. Is he a Houdini as well as a sex maniac and a killer?

“You!” he screams. “Get out of my room!”

Lovie's still scrambling around trying to get off the floor. Should I help her up or defend her?

I grab the lamp just as she rises to her knees. She takes one look at the madman storming our way and yells, “Balcony!”

The Peabody has no balconies.

By the time I gather enough wits to tell her, she's already halfway out the window. And Thomas is coming at a fast clip, an enraged senior citizen who has already killed three women and seems bent on killing me. I didn't know you could move that fast with a bandaged leg.

“Stay away.” I brandish the lamp. “I'll use this.”

There's a bloodcurdling scream. Is it Lovie, toppling to her death? Is it Thomas, coming in for the kill?

Or is it me?

All I know is that I swing the lamp. Hard. Thomas keels over like a felled giant redwood.

I'm too scared to kneel down and take his pulse. Besides, I don't know the first thing about CPR. All I know is that he's not moving.

I think I've killed him. Which is bad enough. But the worst part is, now my babies will be born in prison.