Murder Gets a Life (17 page)

Everyone, including the two waiters, crowded around to see the atom bomb cake.

“Who made it?” Henry wanted to know. He was looking at the cake with a chef’s eye.

“Some lady in Homewood. She does all kinds of specialty items.”

“Somebody get a picture before we cut it,” Haley said.

“How are we going to cut it?” Philip asked.

Sister handed him a cake knife. “It doesn’t matter. Just dive in. One side doesn’t have coconut because
not everybody likes coconut. I, for one, hate coconut. It keeps getting bigger the more I chew it.”

Fred was laughing so hard he had to sit down. Pretty soon he had his face in his napkin, his elbows propped on the table.

“Is he all right?” Sister asked me as she began to pass out cake. “Fred, you want some atom bomb wedding cake?”

Fred looked up, tears streaming. “I love you, Mary Alice.”

“I love you, too, Fred.” She pulled me aside. “Do you think we ought to call 911?”

Fred giggled all the way home. “An atom bomb wedding cake. Do you know, honey, I think that’s top on my list of Mary Alice stunts.”

“Just because it’s the most recent.” I was thinking about the happy look on Haley’s face as she and Philip got in his car.

“But think about it, honey. The ultimate weapon of destruction with coconut on half of it.” He wiped his eyes.

“She meant well.”

“And the look on Philip’s face. And them trying to cut it.”

“You didn’t have to tell them you wanted half coconut.”

“I couldn’t resist.”

“Well, we’ll always remember Philip’s birthday. And their wedding cake.”

Fred laughed harder. Usually I’m the one who cracks up over black humor, but I was still too distracted by the wedding.

Arthur Phizer was out in his yard picking up a can some litterer had tossed. He had on a white un
dershirt, plaid shorts, dark socks, and wing-tip shoes. Arthur, Mitzi says, isn’t quite ready for the millennium.

“Hey,” he called. “How did it go?”

Fred went to tell him about the atom bomb wedding cake. I walked into a house that seemed strangely empty. I went back to the kitchen to get a drink of water, and Muffin looked up from the table and meowed.

I pulled out a chair, sat down, and stroked her. I told her about the wedding, about the atomic bomb cake, how happy her mama had seemed. She purred. As I heard the back door open, I whispered to her that she didn’t have to get down unless she wanted to, that she was to pay no attention to that cross old man because she was a good pussycat, yes she was.

“Aunt Pat?”

I jumped.

“Sorry.” Ray pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. “Uncle Fred said you were in here.”

“I thought you were him—he
—whatever
coming in.” Sometimes English grammar gets the best of all of us.

“Nope. It’s me. I came by to find out some more about Sunshine.”

“You want a big glass of ice water?”

“That would be great.”

I fixed us both one and sat back down at the kitchen table, pulling off my shoes. “You want me to start at the beginning?”

“Please.”

I started with the doorbell ringing at three o’clock in the morning and didn’t spare any details this time except my suspicion that Sunshine was staying with
Dwayne. I told Ray a friend. I also told him about the windows and doors, or lack of them, in the trailer.

“What do you think?” he asked.

I shrugged. I heard the front door open and Fred head for the bedroom. I drank my water and idly rolled the small pebble that had never gotten thrown away toward Muffin. She slapped it onto the floor and Ray reached down and picked it up.

“My Lord, Aunt Pat.”

“I’m sorry, Ray. I know I ought to be able to tell you more, but I just don’t know her that well.”

Ray looked at me strangely. “Do you know anything about black pearls, Aunt Pat?”

The shift in conversation confused me for a moment. “It’s one of Elizabeth Taylor’s perfumes. Pretty exotic. I tried it down at Rich’s one day, and I really prefer one more citrusy.”

“This, Aunt Pat. You don’t know what this is, do you?”

I leaned over and looked at the rock in the palm of his hand. It had a greenish hue but I guessed, “Black pearl?”

“A beautiful one. Where did it come from?”

“Meemaw and Sunshine were playing Chinese checkers with them.” I took what I had thought was a pretty rock from Ray. “They’re expensive, aren’t they?”

“You better believe it. That baby you’re holding would run at least ten thousand dollars and up.”

And I had almost thrown it away. I had been rolling it around for the cat to play with. “Fred!” I screeched. “Get in here!”

He came to the door zipping his shorts. “What?”

I held up the stone. “This is a black pearl. Ray says it’s worth maybe ten thousand dollars.”

“Are you serious?”

“God’s truth. Ask him.”

“It’s true, Uncle Fred. Black pearls are a big business in Bora Bora. The biggest next to tourism.” Ray took the pearl back. “This is a beautiful one. A touch of polishing and the green color will really show.”

Fred took the pearl from Ray. “And they’re expensive?”

“You better believe it. The whole process takes forever. They grow the oysters for a couple of years, seed them, and then harvest them three years later. That’s five years, and then only a few of the oysters will have made pearls. Especially this size.”

“There were a bunch of them on Meemaw’s table.”

Ray’s face darkened. “I think we’ve just found out what’s caused all the trouble out at the Turketts’.”

“Is it illegal to bring them in?” Fred asked.

“No. They can be shipped in legally. There are a couple of companies that grow most of them and ship them around the world. It’s like farming, Uncle Fred. There are a few small operations, but if they don’t have a good harvest, they can’t weather it. And believe me, the Turketts’ couldn’t have afforded to buy any or pay the import on them.”

“Maybe they didn’t know what they were,” I said. “They were out on the table like they were nothing.”

“I hope so.” Ray got up and went to the phone.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“The sheriff. Whether she knew about them or not, Sunshine’s in big trouble.”

There was a knock on the kitchen door. Fred went to open it.

“I knocked, Fred. Remember that. You’re always fussing when I don’t.” Sister sailed in. “I saw Ray’s
car was here, and I came to have a good postmortem on the wedding.”

“Bad choice of words,” Ray said. Then into the phone, “Yes, I’d like the number of the Blount County sheriff’s office, please.”

Sister clunked her purse down on the counter with such a noise that Muffin ran from the room. “What’s he calling the sheriff for?”

“This.” I held up the stone.

“A rock?”

“It’s a black pearl. It’s the one I picked up in Meemaw’s trailer. Remember? She and Sunshine were playing Chinese checkers with them.”

Mary Alice sat down in the chair Ray had vacated and took the pearl. “It’s green,” she said.

“Ray says it’s a black pearl, though, and worth a lot of money,” Fred said.

“Then what were Meemaw and Sunshine doing with them?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but they obviously didn’t know what they were or they wouldn’t have been playing with them.”

Sister turned the pearl, looking at it from all angles. “Maybe this is what the Indian was after.”

“That’s why Ray’s calling the sheriff.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Black pearls.”

“Let me see it again,” Fred said.

Ray came back to the table. “He’s out fishing or something. They said they’d try to get hold of him and have him call me. I gave him this number and my number at home.”

“How do you know this is a black pearl, Ray?” his mother asked.

“They sell them in all the stores in Bora Bora, Mama. You can buy an imperfect one on a tiny chain
for maybe two thousand dollars. The large, perfect ones are sent to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and sell for God knows how much. But there’s a sizable market for them here in the U.S., too. Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of them.” He sat down and reached for the pearl. “This one is a honey.”

“Then how”—Mary Alice spoke the question that was on all our minds—”did they end up in a trailer in Locust Fork, Alabama?”

“Because someone there had just gotten back from Bora Bora.”

This had to be painful for Ray to say. Fred, Mary Alice, and I looked at each other.

“But maybe she didn’t know what she had. Maybe someone stuck them in her suitcase and she didn’t know anything about it. And that’s what that Dudley Indian guy was doing there. He knew the pearls had come in and he came to get them.” Mary Alice was talking so fast she was almost out of breath.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Ray admitted.

“Of course it’s possible,” I agreed.

“What I want to know is how someone would get them,” Fred said. “You say they’re farmed? I know this is a simplification, but couldn’t you buy some from the farmers?”

“Not as an individual. It’s pretty much a cartel.” Ray rubbed the pearl against his sleeve. “And that suits the French government fine. Bora Bora’s one of the few Polynesian islands that’s paying its way.”

“I keep forgetting Bora Bora is French,” Mary Alice said.

Ray smiled. “Mama, you keep thinking I’m in Pago Pago.”

“Is that French?”

“That’s American.”

“Well, Lord. Those islands are so messed up. Do they have black pearls in Pago Pago?”

Fred tapped his fingernails on the table. We all looked at him. “Ray, how would one go about getting black pearls then?”

“Pay a mint for them or steal them.” Ray looked at the pearl. “And I don’t know anybody who could buy a bunch of these.”

“How would you go about stealing them?” Fred wanted to know.

“The only way I know you could get away with it would be to rob the oyster beds.” He pointed to the three-tiered wire basket I keep potatoes and onions hanging in. “You see Aunt Pat’s basket there? That’s sort of like the contraption they put the oysters in. They seed them and put them in the baskets and lower them into the lagoons. I suppose a diver could snip off a basket, but he’d sure be taking a hell of a chance.” Ray thought for a moment. “Let’s put it this way. He wouldn’t be treated with much compassion by the authorities if he were caught.”

“But if he weren’t caught,” I said, “he’d be sitting on a gold mine.”

“If he were lucky enough to get some good oysters.” Ray thought for a moment. “And then he’d have to smuggle them off the island and into another country.”

Which would be where a cute blonde in a pink sundress would come in handy.

“You say they’re seeded,” Fred said. “What do they seed them with?”

“You’re not going to believe this. They use freshwater mussels from right here in the Tennessee River. Use a little bead of the shell as a nucleus. Practically
every pearl you see a woman wearing had its start right here in Alabama or Tennessee.”

I ran the string of pearls I was wearing through my fingers. From the Tennessee River. “Do you think a person living in Muscle Shoals would know this?”

“They might. It’s a big business. Mostly one big company.”

The telephone rang and all of us jumped.

“I’ll get it,” Fred said. He talked quietly for a moment, then hung up and said, “That was Henry. He’s taking Debbie to the emergency room at University. She’s bleeding.”

“T
hings come in threes,” Sister said as we were on our way to the hospital. “First there was the Indian’s murder, then Sunshine’s kidnapping, then Meemaw’s sunstroke, then Haley’s wedding, and now this.”

“That’s five.”

“I know. That’s what’s worrying me.” She made an illegal U-turn on Nineteenth Street and whirled into the valet parking. A different guy, young, probably a student at UAB, stepped out of the booth to greet us.

“Hot today, ladies,” he said pleasantly.

Mary Alice hopped out of the car, as much as two hundred and fifty pounds can hop, and said, “Put a scratch on my Jaguar and curses will rain on you and your progeny.”

The boy jumped back. “Ma’am?”

“Into perpetuity.” She started across the street.

“What’s that lady talking about?” the boy asked, handing me the parking ticket but keeping a wary eye on the figure dodging traffic.

“She just wants you to be careful with her car.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“It’s what she meant.” I gave him what I hoped was
a reassuring smile and hurried after Mary Alice. Déjà vu all over again, I thought, jaywalking just as I had done the day before. She had already disappeared into the hospital as I started up the steps and nearly ran into a man who was coming out. “Sorry,” I said. And then we went through that embarrassing thing where each of you steps to the same side several times. The man looked familiar, but in a place as small as Birmingham you’re always running into people you’ve met.

“Sorry,” I said again, and this time we got by each other. Mary Alice was at the information desk and the lady there was confirming that Debbie was already in the emergency room.

“Down that long hall over yonder.” She pointed.

“We know,” we both said.

“She’s going to be all right, Sister,” I said as we hurried down the long hall. “Remember I did that with Freddie? The doctor put me to bed for a few days and I was fine. And now they’ve got all sorts of things to keep them from going into labor.”

“I hope so, Mouse.”

So did I. With all my heart.

Henry was sitting in the waiting room. He jumped up when he saw us. “They’ve taken her for a sonogram. She said she knew you’d be coming so I should wait for you.” Tears flooded his eyes. “She’s taking it real good. She’d already called the doctor when I got home, and he said it wasn’t all that unusual. She’s not bleeding much.”

“I did the same thing with Freddie, didn’t I, Sister? And he was a week late and weighed over eight pounds. Debbie’s going to be fine, Henry.”

Henry sat down and we sat on either side of him.

“You know,” he said, “all the way down here I kept
thinking about how complicated women’s reproductive organs are. So easy for things to go awry it’s a wonder anybody gets born.”

Sister patted his hand, comforting him. “Men’s organs are complicated, too.” She paused. “All my husbands’ went awry at times. And you’re right. It doesn’t take much for it to happen.”

I hoped Henry would forget this conversation.

“How long has she been gone, honey?” I asked him.

“Just a few minutes. They said it would take about a half hour.”

“Then you know what I think I’ll do? I think I’ll go check on Meemaw Turkett.”

“If you see her, maybe you can bring up the subject of Chinese checkers,” Sister said.

“Those Chinese checkers are none of my business.”

“Of course they are. Especially now that we know Elizabeth Taylor is involved.”

Henry was so sunk in his worries, he didn’t seem to think this was a strange conversation. Or, truth to tell, he’d heard stranger from us.

“I’ll see what the checkerboard looks like.” This was as much promise as I was going to make.

Back to the information desk where I found out that Meemaw had been moved to a private room on the sixth floor. And sure, she could have visitors. Up to 611 where the door was slightly ajar. I knocked and opened it cautiously.

“Come in,” Meemaw said. “I’m awake.” She was propped up in bed watching an old movie on TV. She was still attached to an IV, but her color was good and she smiled when she saw me. “Sit down,” she said, pointing to the brown reclining chair by the window. “Howard just left.”

“You look like you’re feeling much better.”

“Honey, a dead dog would feel better than I felt yesterday. I almost cashed it in.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go out in the heat.”

“I should have had more sense. It’s not your fault.”

“Thanks. I want you to know Sunshine came by my house early this morning, actually in the middle of the night. She heard you were sick and wanted to know how you were.”

Meemaw looked pleased. “Tell me about her. Is my baby all right?”

“She’s fine. Said she was staying with a friend of Dwayne Parker’s.”

“That Dwayne. She hasn’t got a bit of business messing around with him.”

I didn’t have a reply for that so I told her about Haley’s wedding and about the lunch. What I really wanted to do was what Sister had suggested, ask her if she knew what those pebbles were that she and Sunshine had been playing Chinese checkers with. And I was about to get up the nerve to do it when Kerrigan walked in, beautiful in pale lavender walking shorts and a white sleeveless shirt.

“Guess what, Kerrigan,” Meemaw said. “Sunshine was at Patricia Anne’s house during the night.”

“You’re kidding. Tell me about it,” Kerrigan said.

Which I did, and which is why Henry and Mary Alice were gone from the emergency room when I got back.

“They’re up on fifth in maternity,” the nurse told me.

“Oh, God, she’s not—”

“She’s fine. They’re just monitoring her. Got her wired up to see if she has any contractions.”

I rushed back up to the fifth floor. Henry and Mary Alice were standing out in the hall.

“They ran us out,” she said when she saw me. “They’re hooking her up to all sorts of things.”

“Just precautionary,” Henry assured me. “The doctor says everything looks fine. He asked me if I wanted to know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“Which is it?” Sister asked.

“I told him I didn’t want to know.”

“Are you crazy? Of course you do.”

“No, I don’t, Mary Alice.”

“Yes, you do. Where’s that doctor?” Sister stomped toward the nurses’ station.

Henry grinned at me. “It’s a boy. I bet Debbie her mother could find out in under two minutes.”

I looked at the nurse who seemed to be in charge, a Nurse Ratched lookalike who was already eyeing Sister coldly. “You may lose that bet.”

He didn’t, of course. Sister was back immediately.

“It’s a boy. I hope you don’t name him Philip. We’ve already got so many Philips, it’s confusing.”

Henry clasped his hands to his heart. “A boy!”

Sister looked pleased. “I knew you wanted to know.”

A nurse stuck her head out of Debbie’s door. “Mr. Lamont, you can come in now. Ladies, if you could wait for just a few minutes—”

“Why?” Mary Alice asked.

The nurse shut the door in her face.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go sit at the end of the hall.”

Mary Alice surprised me by following without complaint. “A boy,” she said. “A grandson.” We sat down. “You know, Mouse, I think being a man is so much easier than being a woman. Think of the decisions you don’t have to make.”

I could have asked what, but I didn’t. Instead, I told
her that Meemaw seemed to be doing fine and that I had told her about Sunshine’s visit.

“The twins are going to be thrilled to have a little brother,” Sister said.

This woman had just learned she was going to have her first grandson. I might as well forget conversation. While she talked (“Boys’ clothes are cuter than they used to be, Mouse”), I gazed down at the traffic on Nineteenth. A dark-haired woman wearing lavender shorts and a white shirt crossed the street and got into a white van that pulled up beside her.

“I think I just saw Kerrigan leaving,” I said. “A white delivery van with writing on the side.”

“Even smocking,” Sister said. “They smock little boats and ducks on them.”

A tall, skinny young man came down the hall and introduced himself as Dr. Lanagan. “Everything looks good,” he explained. “We’re going to keep her here tonight and she may have to stay in bed for a few days, but I think that baby’s going to hang on just fine.”

“Can we go see her now?” Sister asked.

“Sure.” He patted each of us on the shoulder and loped off down the hall. Medical schools, I decided right then, should teach more patting. I felt better.

Henry was sitting by Debbie’s bed holding her hand. She saw us and began to cry.

“You see,” Sister told me. “I told you it’s easier being a man.”

Maybe so.

We didn’t stay long. Debbie and Henry needed to be alone. Even Sister realized that.

The boy at the valet parking booth rushed out to assure Mary Alice that her car was fine. Good as new. Right as rain. Slick as a whistle.

“My God,” she said as he ran to get it. “That boy needs to be on Ritalin.” When he drove up, she gave him a generous tip “to help with his medical expenses.”

“You know what?” I said as we pulled into the traffic. “When we went in the hospital, I almost bumped into a man who looked familiar. I just remembered who he is.”

“Who?” Sister turned the air conditioner on high. “Lord, this car’s hot.”

“That guy from the antique shop.”

“What guy?”

“When you were trying on dresses and I saw Sunshine. Remember I went in the stores up to the corner to see where she had been? One of them was the antique store. That’s the guy.”

“So?”

I hate it when people say “So?” like that.

“So, nothing, I reckon. Only maybe he was driving a white van and picked up Kerrigan.”

“Maybe he was just visiting a sick relative.”

“I guess so.”

“Or he could even be one of Kerrigan’s boyfriends, for all we know. Hand me the phone. I’m going to call Ray.”

I handed her the phone reluctantly. To me, driving and talking on the phone are things that are best not done together. Mary Alice disagrees.

“Hey, honey,” she said, almost running a red light, would have if I hadn’t screamed. “Your sister’s going to be okay. They’re keeping her overnight, but she’s not showing signs of going into labor.” A pause. “He is?” She looked at me. “He does?” She held the phone against her chest and said, “The sheriff’s at my house. He wants to talk to us.”

“To me?”

“Ray says both of us.”

I looked at my watch.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Patricia Anne. Fred’s still stuffed with salmon. Probably asleep or watching a ball game.”

I knew she was right.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“It’ll take your mind off Haley. You need to get the wedding cake to put in your freezer, too.”

Actually my mind hadn’t been on Haley until she reminded me.

Some of the sprinklers had already come on as we drove through Mary Alice’s neighborhood. From the top of the mountain we could see thunderclouds pushing in from the west, though. That was what was needed to break the heat.

Sheriff Reuse was standing on the porch at Sister’s house as we drove up.

“Been out to let up my windows,” he said. “It’s gonna storm in a little while.”

He looked nice today. He was wearing light gray chinos, a faded blue chambray shirt, and Docksiders without socks. He looked like he’d stepped straight from a Lands’ End catalog. Not bad. Not bad at all.

“You look spiffy,” Mary Alice acknowledged.

“I’ve got a date. When Ray told me what had happened, I figured I’d better come by here first, though.”

“Is Ray in the sunroom?”

The sheriff nodded and held the door open for us.

“He told you about the pearls?” I asked.

“He sure did. Smuggling’s a federal offense, of course, but I want to get all the facts straight before I notify the authorities. Make sure that’s what we’re dealing with.”

We walked down the hall toward the sunroom. Ray stuck his head out of the kitchen and asked if we
wanted something to drink. Both of us wanted a big glass of water.

“Okay,” Sheriff Reuse said, “let’s sit at the game table. I can write better there.”

Ray brought us our water and we sat down. I was in the chair facing west. The storm clouds suddenly blocked out the sun.

The sheriff got out his notepad and pen. “How many pearls would you ladies say you saw?”

“I didn’t see any,” Mary Alice said.

I tried to picture the Chinese checker board. “Eight. Maybe nine.”

“On the table in Meemaw’s trailer.”

“Yes. In the commotion, one ended up in my pocket. I thought it was just a pebble.”