Murder on a Bad Hair Day (15 page)

“I’ll have to think about that one,” Mary Alice said. “By the way, Bubba’s feeling better. James said I could pick him up tomorrow. You want to go?”

“I’ll have to think about it. I’ll call you in the morning.” I hung up the phone and turned to Fred. “It really is all her fault,” I said.

“I know,” he agreed.

A
round ten o’clock, Fred and I went out, untangled the twins, and helped them walk on rubbery legs into our guest bedroom. They collapsed on the bed and went back to sleep immediately.

“Well, we couldn’t leave them in the car all night, Patricia Anne,” Fred said. “They’d catch pneumonia.”

“I don’t think so. They’re well fortified against the cold.” I looked down at Glynn and Lynn. They were lying on their sides facing away from each other. Their black hair curved against their cheeks just as Claire’s had done when she lay on my sofa.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such black hair,” Fred said. “Looks like a crow.”

“The name on the bottle is probably Raven.”

“Patricia Anne!”

“Don’t you Patricia Anne me. Their sister Claire’s got the same black hair and eyelashes and she’s a dishwater blonde. That’s one reason I didn’t recognize her.”

“You’re kidding.” Fred leaned over the nearest twin and looked at her hair. “Are you sure?”

“I could have hair like that tomorrow.”

Fred eyed me speculatively. “You could?”

“A quick trip to Delta Hairlines,” I added.

He shook his head. “Nah. It wouldn’t look the same.”

I stomped into the hall.

“I meant it wouldn’t be the same you, honey,” Fred said, following me. “I love your gray hair, every curl.”

By the time we were ready for bed, Fred had put his foot in his mouth so many times, he was sputtering. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

During the night, I heard one, or both, of the twins being violently sick in the guest bathroom.

“I’m glad we left the light on for them,” I said. But Fred was sleeping. Worn out. I slipped from the bed and went down the hall. I could hear the shower beginning to run.

Their bed was empty, but the bathroom door was wide-open. One of them lay on the bath mat in a fetal position, the other was, apparently, in the shower.

“Are you all right?” Stupid question.

“We are not feeling well,” said the twin on the mat. She opened her eyes, shaded them with her hand, and looked at me. “Mrs. Hollowell?”

“What? You want me to get you something? Some Alka-Seltzer?”

She slapped her hand against the shower door. “Glynnie, we are at Mrs. Hollowell’s.”

“Is that good?” A weak voice from the shower.

“I don’t know. It’s just where we are.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll get each of you a robe and see if I can find something to settle your stomachs.”

By the time I got back with an old robe of mine and one of Fred’s, Lynn had made it into the shower and Glynn sat on the edge of the bed wrapped in a towel, shivering.

I handed her the robes and went to the kitchen to fix some Alka-Seltzer. When I returned, both girls were sitting on the edge of the bed, still shivering in spite of the warm robes.

“Think you can keep this down?” I asked.

“We can or we can’t,” one of them said. They both took the glasses and drained them.

“Thank you,” they said together.

“Try and go back to sleep.”

“Lynnie was the designated driver,” Glynn said.

“Shut up, Glynnie. You’re always whining.”

“Well, you were.”

Sisters. If they felt like fussing, they would be okay. I told them good-night and went back to bed.

“You all right?” Fred murmured.

“I’m fine.” I snuggled against him and put my cold feet against his leg.

“I love you,” he said.

What a man.

I awoke to an empty bed and to the smell of coffee. Fred was going out of the back door as I walked into the kitchen.

“Don’t do anything to your hair today, Patricia Anne. It looks great just like it is, gray and all.”

I promised that I would not be a brunette when he got home.

“And get rid of those twins. Those folks aren’t any of our business. They’re just bad news.”

“But so beautiful.”

Fred’s face softened. “Well, yes, they’re that, all right.” He didn’t say anything else because I threw a spoon at him.

“Men can be such pains in the butt,” Mary Alice said when I called her to tell her I wanted to go get a Christmas tree for the den regardless of what Fred said, that the one in the livingroom could stay, smelling of formaldehyde like it did, and be his. I would just close the door. So if she was going to go get Bubba, I wanted to go to Harpersville.

“Fred thinks the twins are beautiful,” I added.

“Figures.”

“I don’t think they’re going to be beautiful this morning, though, and I’ve got to take them home. I’ll call you when I get back.”

I peeked into the guest room and the sleeping twins didn’t move. I got dressed and went out to walk Woofer. There was fog this morning settling in the valleys. This was the kind of weather I wanted my plant stand for, the one Fred was making me that would roll outside. My ferns would love it.

Lynn and Glynn were sitting at the kitchen table when I
got home. Each was holding a glass filled with a lot of ice and what appeared to be Coke against her forehead.

“Headache,” one whispered. I opened the cabinet and handed them the bottle of aspirin. Each took three and looked at the tablets for a moment before gulping them down.

“Glynn?” I said. The twin in Fred’s robe looked up with bloodshot eyes. “You need to call your aunt Liliane. She’s probably worried to death about you.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t get home last night. That’s why.”

“You brought us here,” Glynn said.

“I thought I could call your aunt Liliane to come get you, but her number’s not listed. And God knows, you were in no condition to drive.”

“Glynnie is always the designated driver,” Lynn said, her forehead propped in her hands.

“Enough of this!” Both twins jumped. “Get up off your butt, one of you, and call Liliane. If she can’t come get you, I’ll take you home.”

“We’re not staying with Liliane,” Lynn said. “We’re staying at the Tutwiler.”

“What?” The Tutwiler Hotel is catty-corner from the downtown library.

“We saw you cross the street and Glynnie said, ‘Let’s go see Mrs. Hollowell,’ only we waited and waited and you didn’t come out.”

“We were in the bar.” Glynn sighed. “For a long time.”

“We even went looking for you and there you were, drooling on newspaper clippings about Betty Bedsole.”

“So we went back to the bar to wait.”

“For a long time.”

I pulled a chair out and sat down at the table. The noise of the chair scraping made the twins cringe. “You mean you didn’t have to drive anywhere? You’re staying at the Tutwiler?”

“Did we say that, Glynnie?”

“Of course, Lynnie. It’s true.”

“So I made you get in my car because I didn’t want you
driving and you were right where you were supposed to be.” I began to grin. “I’ll be damned. I kidnapped you.”

Lynn snickered slightly and then pressed her fingers against her forehead. “We won’t press charges.”

Glynnie also rubbed her forehead. “We just wish you hadn’t stayed in the library so long.”

“Don’t blame me for your drinking,” I said.

“No. It was Betty’s fault.”

“We went in the bar to watch her leave and she looked so sad.”

“You
are
talking about Betty Bedsole, aren’t you? The woman you called a slut?”

Glynn looked at Lynn. “Did you tell Mrs. Hollowell Betty was a slut?”

“Did I?” Lynn asked me.

“The lack of underwear was mentioned,” I said.

Lynn nodded. “True. But she was very sad. We had a drink because Betty looked so sad when she got in the taxi.”

“I’d say you had quite a few drinks because Betty looked so sad. I don’t suppose it occurred to either of you that drinking is one of the reasons she looks so sad.”

“Mrs. Hollowell will preach now, Lynnie.”

The rolled-up newspaper was lying on the table, and I would have loved to have swatted Glynn hard right on her aching head. Instead, I got up, poured myself a cup of coffee, and announced that I would take them back to the hotel in fifteen minutes.

“You made her mad, Glynnie,” I heard Lynn say as I headed down the hall. “Claire will not like that.”

It was almost an hour before we headed downtown. The twins insisted on changing the guest room bed and cleaning the bathroom. Whether it was remorse over making me angry or over their binge, they wouldn’t leave until everything was spotless. When we left the house, sheets and towels were chugging away in the washing machine and the physical effort of the cleaning seemed to have made the twins feel better. Before we went out of the back door, I had one of them write down their aunt Liliane’s phone number and address,
which I stuck up on the refrigerator. I almost asked why they weren’t staying with her but decided it was none of my business.

It was a quiet ride back to the hotel. Glynn sat beside me but closed her eyes and seemed to be dozing. Lynn stretched out on the backseat. They both woke up, though, when I came to the corner of the library and slowed.

“We’ll get out here,” Glynn said. “Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Hollowell,” Lynn echoed.

The light changed just as they got out, so they crossed the street in front of me. Wilted as they were, they turned the head of every man they passed. I wondered, idly, what possessing that kind of power would be like. Or if they would have the same impact away from each other. The person behind me blew his horn and I realized the light was green. I waved an apology and headed home.

It had been the twins who had spirited Claire from the hospital. I was more convinced of that than ever. Lynn’s remark, “Claire will not like that,” sounded as if they were in close touch. A taxi pulled up into the lane beside me, reminding me of what the twins had said about Betty Bedsole. How sad she looked. I thought about the picture of her as a debutante, eighteen, beautiful, with her adoring father looking down at her. Had Claire and the twins’ mother also been beautiful? Probably. For a while. Before abuse and alcohol. Damn. Let the twins’ getting drunk the night before be an isolated incident.

The sheets and towels had finished washing when I got home. I put them in the dryer and checked my messages. Bonnie Blue had called; she was on her way to work but would call later. That was it. No invitations to brunches, lunches, or open houses to celebrate the season.

“It’s because you’re so unsociable, Patricia Anne,” Mary Alice said on the way to Harpersville. We were going to get the tree first and then pick Bubba up on the way home. “When have you had a dinner party?”

I tried to remember. “Last January?”

“There. You see? And that was just some couples from the neighborhood.”

“Frances Zata came. You came.”

“And the memory, pleasant as it is, is becoming dim. Why don’t you do it again?”

“After Christmas. I can’t afford Tiffany and the Magic Maids and caterers like you can.”

“They’re not necessary for a nice party.”

“How come you always have them, then?”

“I said they weren’t
necessary
. I didn’t say they weren’t wonderful.”

We rode in silence for a few minutes. I was tired because of the interrupted sleep of the night before.

“What did the twins have to say?” Sister asked. She had laughed until she cried when I told her they were staying at the Tutwiler, that the whole night had been unnecessary.

“They know where Claire is.”

“They say so?”

“Not exactly. They said they got drunk because they saw Betty Bedsole leaving and she looked sad.”

“That’s a new excuse.”

“Their mother and their aunt are both alcoholics. I hope they remember that.”

“They say anything about Mercy?”

“That she was a slut because she didn’t wear underpants.”

“What?”

“I swear.”

“And these are the sophisticated New York models?”

“Go figure.”

Mary Alice giggled. “Will Alec loved it when I didn’t wear underpants.”

I stuck my fingers in my ears. “I will not listen to this.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mouse,” Mary Alice yelled. “You’re such a prude!”

I removed my fingers. “I am not a prude. I just don’t want to know things like that about poor dead Will Alec.”

“You don’t want to know that he was happy frequently?”

“Happy, yes. Kinky, no.”

“Am I talking to the sister who stole
The Kinsey Report
from the library?”

“Am I talking to the sister who fought me for it?”

“Well, I kept wondering why you were squealing so much.”

“Mama would have died, wouldn’t she?”

“Don’t be silly. She probably read it.” Mary Alice passed a pickup that had a Christmas wreath attached to the back window. It was blinking like Mrs. Santa’s shirt.