Murder on a Bad Hair Day (14 page)

The first one was from the fifties. It was a picture of Betty and her father, Amos, at the Camellia Ball. There were two other debutantes and their fathers in the picture, but all you saw was the Bedsoles. Almost as tall as her father and dressed in a strapless white sheath, eighteen-year-old Betty flirted with the camera. Or the photographer. Head slightly tilted, lips slightly parted, she seemed much more sophisticated than the other two girls in their frilly dresses who were dutifully saying “Cheese.” Amos Bedsole, a handsome man in his early forties, smiled at his daughter instead of at the camera. His delight in her was so evident, it brought tears to my eyes.

The next clipping was of her marriage to Samuel Armistead. Underneath a picture of the wedding couple taken as they came down the steps of the Independent Presbyterian Church was the caption
MISS AMERICA MARRIES
. Betty was a traditional bride, bouffant everything. I scanned the story. Well-known movie producer. Ten bridesmaids. Blue dotted swiss dresses. Seated dinner. Birmingham Country Club.

The story was so long, it was continued on another page. I removed the gem clip and saw pictures taken at the dinner. One of them was of Ross Perry holding up a champagne glass, giving a toast. And this time, he was identified. It was the same man to whom she had given the rose as she boarded the train for Atlantic City.

“Hmm,” I murmured. I glanced hurriedly through the rest of the clippings. The birth of her daughter, Mercy Louise, was announced. And the birth of her son, Andrew. For a while, Miss Boxx had clipped notices of Betty Bedsole’s
trips home. But not for long. Other people became more newsworthy. The last clipping was dated January 1969 when Betty had been a judge at the Miss America pageant and had posed with a Miss Alabama who didn’t even make the top ten. Well, nobody could accuse Betty of showing partiality.

I rested my elbows on the table and stared up at grim Miss Boxx’s portrait.

“So?” she said.

“I think Ross Perry was in love with Betty Bedsole and she dumped him and that’s why he hated her daughter so.”

“Mary Alice said he was gay.”

“She said ‘maybe’ gay. Maybe he was ‘bi.’”

“I like people who can make up their minds,” Miss Boxx said. “‘Bi’ is so indecisive. You know what I mean?”

“I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. None of this is any of my business.”

“Business is as business does.”

“What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.” Miss Boxx pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “I hope you didn’t have ten bridesmaids dressed in blue dotted swiss in your wedding.”

“Just my sister, and she wore royal blue velvet.”

“Ma’am. Ma’am.” The young librarian tapped me on the shoulder.

“What?” I opened my eyes and raised my head from the table. Dear God, I had drooled on the clippings.

“We close at five on Sundays.”

“What time is it?”

“Quarter till.”

“Good Lord. Okay. Thanks.” I got a Kleenex from my purse, wiped the drool from the clippings and the newsprint from my face.

“Sorry,” I said, putting the damp folder on the librarian’s desk. He was eyeing it with distaste as I left. I didn’t dare look up at Miss Boxx.

I called Fred from the phone downstairs and told him I was running late. I didn’t tell him I had just had an hour’s
nap and felt like hell, groggy and cross. Or that I had missed seeing the Eudora Welty photographs, the reason for my trip. I headed for the parking lot through the same light drizzle that had been falling all day. The coolness on my face made me feel better.

It was almost dark and the lights had been turned on in the parking lot. Several people were coming from the library, and one security guard was at the door and another at the exit from the parking lot. When I heard footsteps behind me, I didn’t even turn, assuming it was a library patron like me who had stayed until the last minute.

I was wrong.

“Mrs. Hollowell had a good nap, didn’t she, Lynnie?”

“She drooled on the folder, Glynnie.”

I turned and saw the Needham twins had come up behind me. So close to me that I backed up.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Research.”

“Yes. Research.”

“Well, I hope you found what you were looking for.”

“We did,” they said together.

“Good. Well, I’ll see you later.” I turned and started toward my car, but they were right beside me, one on each side. They hadn’t said anything threatening or done anything to make me nervous, but I was not at all comfortable with them sandwiching me in this misty, half-empty parking lot, lighted and guarded though it was.

“Betty Bedsole is a slut,” one of them said.

“She doesn’t wear underpants,” the other said.

“Oh? I’m sorry to hear that.” That was a ridiculous answer, but what was I supposed to do? Argue with them? I kept walking toward the car, my keys in my hand.

“Mercy was a slut.”

“She didn’t wear underpants?” I ventured.

“See, Glynnie? Claire said Mrs. Hollowell was smart.”

I slowed down. The drizzling rain that had emphasized smells for Woofer that morning was helping me out now.
Over the odor of exhaust from cars leaving the parking lot, I could clearly smell alcohol.

“Dania was a slut,” one twin said.

The other laughed hysterically. “Dania. Did Liliane tell you about our grandmother? She was a slut.”

I stopped, backed up, and looked at them. They were skunk drunk. Sloshed.

“Did you drive down here?” I asked.

“Our car is here.”

“Our car is somewhere.”

“Well, I don’t think you should drive. I’ll take you home. Just let me tell the security guard we’re leaving your car. What kind is it?”

“A Mustang.”

“No. It’s a Mercedes.”

“Slight difference,” I said. I led them toward my car and unlocked the door. “Here, get in and I’ll go explain to the man he’s going to have a car here all night.”

“Good for you, Mrs. Hollowell. Glynnie is drunk. I am the designated driver.”

“And the designated driver is drunk, which is morally wrong,” Glynn said. “Morally wrong.”

“Get in. There’s a towel back there on the floor. If you think you’re going to throw up, use it.”

By the time I got back from explaining to the guard, who didn’t seem to understand at all and insisted there was no twenty-four-hour parking here, the twins were both asleep.

I poked the nearest one. “Where are you staying? Your aunt Liliane’s?” My question was answered with a snore. “What am I supposed to do with you?” A snore.

Damn. I hit the steering wheel and accidentally blew the horn. The security guard walked toward us. I started the car, gave him a wave, and drove through the exit that had the arm propped up for all the late leavers. If it had slammed down on my car, I don’t think either of the twins would have known the difference.

I drove them to my house. I would call Liliane from there
and she could come get them. Fortunately, neither of them used the towel on the way over the mountain.

“Who?” Fred said. “Who’s in your car?”

“Claire Moon’s sisters,” I explained again. “They were drunk at the library and I couldn’t let them drive home.”

“Well, why didn’t you take them home?”

“I don’t know where their aunt Liliane lives, Fred. I’m going to look it up and tell her to come get them.”

Fred pushed his glasses up and pinched his nose exactly like Miss Boxx had done in my dream. “I’m going out to get them,” he said. “They can’t stay in the car.”

“Just throw a blanket over them,” I said.

“No. I’m going to tell them to come in the house and have some coffee.” He started toward the door. “I don’t understand, Patricia Anne, why this particular family has latched on to you.”

“They haven’t latched on to me.”

“Well, you could fool me.”

By the time he was back without the twins, I had discovered that Liliane Bedsole had an unlisted number.

“Shit, shit!” I said to the recording.

The expression on Fred’s face had softened. “They look like identical dolls,” he said. “I decided not to wake them up.”

“Identical drunks. Take a blanket out like I told you. I’ve got to find out how to call their aunt.”

“It’s not listed?”

“You got it.”

“Maybe Mary Alice knows it.”

“She wouldn’t have any reason to.”

“The social director of the world? Hah. Give her a call, Patricia Anne.”

I did and got the same “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” message. “She’s not there,” I said to Fred as he came through the den with a blanket.

“Then try somebody else.”

Easier said than done. I tried Bonnie Blue and got Abe,
who said she wasn’t home and he didn’t have the pictures so just get off his ass.

“What?” I asked. “What?”

“Leota?”

“It’s Patricia Anne Hollowell, Mr. Butler.”

The phone went dead.

“So much for Southern gentlemen,” I muttered. I got the phone book and looked up Thurman Beatty. He was listed, but I got an answering machine with Mercy’s voice telling me she couldn’t come to the phone right now, leave a message.

“No kidding,” I said, startled. The sound of her voice reminded me of the grim way she had died. It also reminded me of the way Thurman had rushed off from the clinic when I mentioned the twins. I hung up the phone.

“That was eerie,” I told Fred, who came in from covering the twins. “Mercy’s still on the answering machine at their apartment.”

“You can’t get hold of anybody?”

“I’m not sure that I should. You know?” The shock of hearing Mercy’s voice had nudged me into caution. “I mean, how well do we know any of these people? Even the aunt.”

Fred sat down in his recliner and looked at me in amazement. “You don’t trust Thurman Beatty?”

“I don’t
know
Thurman Beatty, Fred, and I don’t know those girls out in the car. All I know is two people are dead and one is missing and they’re all connected somehow. I say let’s just let the twins sleep.”

Fred nodded.

“Let me try one more time to get Bonnie Blue. She might be down at her brother’s.” I looked James Butler’s number up, dialed it, and a small child answered who assured me she was two years old.

“Where is your daddy?” I asked slowly.

“I’m two years old.”

“Is your mommy there?”

“I’m two.”

I gave up on that one, told the child bye-bye, and hung up. “No luck.”

“Don’t worry about it. They’re fine for the time being. Don’t look real they’re so pretty.”

“Oh, they’re real, all right. Wait until they wake up sick as dogs.”

Fred smiled slightly, but for only a moment. Then he looked worried again. “You think they do this often?”

“What? Get drunk? I hope not. I don’t know.”

“They’re so beautiful.”

“You said that already. You want waffles for supper?”

“Sure.” He pushed up from his chair. “I’m going to take another blanket out. They look so fragile.”

I got the waffles and bacon from the freezer. The bacon is the cardboard kind old folks should eat because of cholesterol. I wrapped the strips in paper towels and slapped them into the microwave. “Nuke ’em,” I said, hitting the start button. The waffles I put into the toaster. Some things, I had to admit, had gotten easier in the last sixty years.

The phone rang just as Fred came back in. He answered it and handed it to me. “It’s Mary Alice.”

“Where have you been all day?” I asked, wiping my hands on a paper towel.

“It’s Christmas, Mouse. I was at parties. A brunch, a lunch, and an open house.”

“My, aren’t we popular.”

“I assume from that tone of voice that you weren’t invited anywhere today to celebrate the season.”

“I went to the library.”

“Whoop-de-doo.”

“And picked up the Needham twins, drunk as coots. They’re out in my car right now, passed out, and I don’t know how to get in touch with their aunt Liliane.”

“Are you serious?”

“Fred threw a blanket over them. They’re dead to the world.”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you the whole story later. Just give me the phone number.”

“I don’t have Liliane Bedsole’s phone number. Why should I have Liliane Bedsole’s phone number? Why don’t you look it up?”

“It’s unlisted. And you have everybody’s phone number.”

“Call Thurman.”

“I did. Mercy answered the phone.”

“Mercy?”

“It’s your fault.”

“It is not!” We were both quiet for a moment. “What’s my fault?” Mary Alice asked.

“That the twins are passed out in my car.”