Murder Shoots the Bull (14 page)

“But there’s more. A lot more. Sophie left a note saying that she had asked Arthur to help her die.”

“What?”

“That’s what it said.” Mitzi went on sounding as if she were quoting, “‘To whom it may concern: I, Sophie V. Sawyer, have requested that my beloved friend Arthur Phizer assist in my suicide when the time comes. He understands that it is my wish to die while I am still relatively pain-free and of sound mind. He is not to be held responsible in any way since this is my choice. I trust that my family will understand. I love them with all my heart.’”

“I can’t believe that! Where did they find it?”

“Sophie mailed it to her doctor. He got it the day after she died and called the police.”

“But Mitzi,” Sister said, “strychnine at the Hunan Hut isn’t a logical assisted suicide.”

“Which Arthur says she never asked him to do, anyway. Help her die. Maybe she had planned on asking him if she became terminally ill. I don’t know.” She stood up. “We’ve got to go before the traffic gets any heavier.”

We followed her through the apartment, full of questions.

“What do her daughters think about what’s happened?” Sister asked.

“They believe Arthur. They’ve seen the note, and they probably think their mother did ask him to help her die, but they don’t believe he did it.”

“But the police do.”

“Obviously.”

Just as we reached the door, we heard a key in the lock and it opened. We jumped back, startled. A petite redheaded
young woman stood there, apparently as startled as we were.

Mitzi recovered her composure first. “May we help you?” she asked.

“I’m Zoe Batson,” the girl said. “This is my grandmother’s apartment.”

“I’m Mitzi Phizer, Zoe, and these are my friends Mrs. Hollowell and Mrs. Crane.”

Zoe could have been her aunt Arabella’s child. She had the same dark red hair (fuschia, Fred would have called it), the same fair skin. And she was beautiful.

“Oh, Mrs. Phizer, of course.” She rewarded all of us with a bright smile. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

She didn’t question our presence in the apartment, but I felt compelled to explain the sacks in our hands. Clothes for her grandmother’s funeral. (Okay, so funeral wasn’t the right word, but what was?) Her aunt Arabella had sent us.

“That’s what I’m here for, too,” she said. “Mama sent me to get Grandmama some clothes.”

“You want to see what we picked out?” Mitzi asked.

“Sure.”

“We got her gray suit.” We walked back to the sofa and Mitzi pulled the bag up so she could see.

Zoe fingered the material slowly. “Wool and silk.” She took the bag off. “Look at those lapels. What would you say? 1965?”

The three of us who had been wearing suits in 1965 had no idea.

“I know it’s old,” Mary Alice said.

“It’s so beautiful. A classic.” Zoe picked the suit up and held it against her. “Let’s get something else. My whole class will have a fit over this when they see it.”

“Your class?” I asked.

“I’m a style major at the university. Fashion. Design,” she added when the three of us looked blank.

Zoe herself was wearing ragged jeans and a blue denim shirt. So much for style.

She put the suit down and looked into the sack. “Not Ferragamo shoes, y’all. No way.” She pulled out the gray pumps. “And a size five. Umm. My size.”

“Tell you what, Zoe,” Mitzi said. “Why don’t you just go on and pick something out? I’m sure it will be fine with Arabella.”

Zoe nodded. “She and Mama should have gotten together on this, not put you to this trouble.” She picked up the suit again. “I was thinking a nightgown and peignoir might be nice.”

“They’re all silk,” Mary Alice said.

Zoe looked pained.

“You know, I really like that child,” Sister said. We were waiting for the elevator. “So pleasant and sensible. Makes you have hope for the future.”

“And they said the South wouldn’t rise again.” I punched the button again. Someone on the fourth floor was holding the door open.

“I hope she’s still as pleasant when she finds out about her grandmother’s will,” Mitzi said. And while we were waiting for the elevator, she dropped another little bombshell, the fact that Sophie hadn’t made Arthur an ordinary executor. He was to serve in a trustee capacity.

“What?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“It means he’s in charge of her estate. He’ll run it just like Sophie did. It means her heirs, which includes the two Batson children, won’t be able to get their hands on the estate all at once. It’ll continue just as Sophie had it set up with them getting what amounts to a very generous allowance and dividends. Arthur says he knows she did it because of Arabella, that Sophie knew she didn’t have any money sense and was trying to protect her.” Mitzi shrugged.
“The police caught on to that right away, too. If Arthur were dishonest, he could help himself to the money.”

“Which is how much?” It was none of my business, but, damn, I felt like I’d been hit over the head here.

“A lot. Maybe as much as twenty or thirty million.”

“Good Lord!” I couldn’t imagine that many zeros.

Sister whistled.

The elevator door opened and we stepped in. By the time we reached the lobby, it had dawned on me that Arthur’s being the trustee of Sophie’s estate might well be why Mitzi and Arthur had nearly been cremated before Sophie.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Mitzi said. “Arabella wasn’t here where she said she was, and she can’t get all of her inheritance at one time as long as Arthur is the trustee.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, the police questioned her. They said she had an airtight alibi. Personally, I don’t even think they should have questioned her.”

Well, somebody had tried to do the Phizers in.

By this time we had reached Mitzi’s car. I crawled in the back seat and we all buckled up. But Mitzi hesitated before she started the car, the key in the ignition.

“You know who the police really think started the fire? Arthur.”

We both looked at her, startled. “What?” we asked at the same time.

“God’s truth. They think he did it so it would look like somebody was trying to get rid of him. So he could claim it was the same person who did Sophie in.”

“That’s crazy, Mitzi,” Sister said.

“Tell me about it.” She started the car and waited a moment until she could ease into the traffic which is always heavy around the medical center.

We drove over the mountain, past Vulcan’s bare behind
mooning us in the late afternoon sun, and into our neighborhood which looked deceptively peaceful.

Mary Alice announced that she couldn’t stay for supper, that her writing class was having a spring equinox party.

“You mean a fall equinox party.”

“Nope. Spring. It’s too cold to have it in March. Who wants to go skinny dipping and howl at the moon when it’s forty degrees?”

I hoped she was kidding, but knowing my sister, I wasn’t at all sure.

“Y’all have a good time,” Mitzi said.

“Planning on it.” She backed her Jaguar out and hauled.

The smell of pot roast greeted Mitzi and me when we opened the back door. Bless that Lisa. She was sitting in the den reading and informed us that we had dozens of messages, that she had written them down. Actually there were five of them, four for Mitzi (Arthur had called twice) and one for me.

“Mr. Phizer said to call as soon as you got in,” Lisa said.

“Go ahead,” I told Mitzi. A glance at my message told me there was nothing urgent, just Joy McWain of the investment club.

“I’ll call from the bedroom,” Mitzi said.

“Is she okay?” Lisa asked after Mitzi left.

“A hell of a lot better than I would be.” I sat down, pulled off my shoes, and told her about the apartment as well as what Mitzi had told me about Arthur.

Like me, Lisa was startled. “And Mrs. Sawyer mailed the note to her doctor?”

I nodded. “Saying Arthur was going to help her commit suicide, and that he shouldn’t be held responsible.”

“And she thought that would get him off? Sophie Sawyer didn’t know much about Alabama law, did she?”

“Or any other state’s law. You can’t just go around say
ing ‘So-and-so’s going to kill me, but it’s all right, I asked him to.’ And she wasn’t even terminally ill.”

Lisa shook her head. “And she made him a trustee of her estate, not a regular executor? Lord, the woman practically reserved him a cell in Kilby prison.”

“The last thing she would have wanted to do, I’m sure.” I leaned back in my chair. “That roast smells wonderful. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I figured you’d be tired when you got in.”

“I am.” I closed my eyes and said my mantra. Immediately, I felt myself relaxing. Years ago, Sister dragged me to a Transcendental Meditation class. We were to carry fruit and flowers which Sister forgot, so I had to give her one of my bananas and a zinnia. We were chanted over and then taken into separate rooms where we were given our mantras. We were also told never to tell anyone our mantra.

Sister told me hers on the way home; mine is still a secret. And works. She claims they gave her a bad mantra because all she had was the one banana I gave her that was so old fruit flies followed her into the room.

So I was slipping into a relaxation mode when Mitzi came back into the den and said the insurance company had an apartment on Valley Avenue where she and Arthur could stay while their house was being fixed, and Arthur wanted her to meet him over there.

“Come back here for supper,” Lisa said.

“We will. We may want to spend the night again.”

“Of course. You know you’re welcome here for as long as you want,” I said. I sat up and stretched. “I need to go take Woofer for his walk.”

“I’ve already taken him,” Lisa said.

“Then I’ll just go check on him.”

I walked out with Mitzi. The pot roast smelled great, Woofer was fine, and I should have been very grateful. But
the time was fast approaching for Lisa to head back to Atlanta and, as Sister so delicately put it, kick butt.

As I went back in, I remembered the e-mail from Haley that I hadn’t read.

Nothing new. She was very happy. Let her know if Muffin was getting along okay. And make it several packages of those Combat roach bait things. Mail them as soon as possible. Lord. The roaches of Warsaw had met their match.

A
rthur and Mitzi came back for supper. The apartment, they said, was fine. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to stay there very long. The contractor had promised to start on their house the next day.

Fred and I glanced at each other. We remembered what it had been like adding on the breakfast room and the bay window. Maybe Mitzi and Arthur would have better luck, though. Lord knows, they were due some.

I had filled Fred in on what Mitzi had told me about Arthur’s problems.

“Damn,” he said. “Doesn’t sound good.”

But in spite of our worry, we had a pleasant evening, deliberately avoiding the subject of Sophie Sawyer. Lisa’s supper was delicious, and after we ate, Fred and Arthur watched the Braves and Mitzi, Lisa, and I played gin.

I had forgotten to return Joy McWain’s call, but she
called me again around nine. My name had been suggested as the financial partner of the investment club (and I knew good and well who had suggested it) and would I be willing to have my name brought up for consideration at the next meeting.

I promised her I would think about it and get back to her. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take on the responsibility. On the other hand, it would be interesting.

We all went to bed early. I fell asleep immediately and deeply and was dreaming of Sister howling at the moon when I awakened enough to realize the noise was real. Woofer wasn’t barking, but making a strange, howling noise.

“Fred,” I said, grabbing for my robe. “Something’s wrong with Woofer.”

“Choo,” he said, which was followed by a snore.

I hurried down the dark hall, through the den and into the kitchen. No one but me seemed to have been awakened by the sounds. I reached up to turn on the back lights and that’s when I saw the light in the Phizers’ house. Someone was over there with a flashlight. Someone walking through their dining rom, hesitatingly, turning the light out. No, I realized. There was still a glow. They had moved into the hall.

I opened the kitchen door quietly and stepped onto the back porch. Woofer ambled up the steps to greet me.

“Who is it, boy?” I whispered. “Is that what you’re fussing about?”

The flashlight next door slid across the inside of the burned kitchen.

“Come on, sweetie.” I pulled Woofer into the house, picked up the phone, and called 911.

“Mrs. Hollowell,” the 911 operator said. “Is that you again? What’s going on tonight?”

Damn.

I told her.

So much for the quiet, sleeping neighborhood and the moonlit late summer night. In about three minutes, two police cars, sirens blaring, came screeching to a halt in front of the Phizers’. All of the lights in all of the houses came on, including ours. Fred, Lisa, Mitzi, and Arthur came staggering out of their beds, and Woofer decided to howl again.

“What’s going on?” Arthur, I noticed, slept in his boxers.

“Somebody’s going through your house.”

“Our house?”

“I called 911.”

“The police are in our house?” Mitzi sounded confused. “Is it another fire?”

“No, it was somebody with a flashlight. I saw them.”

Woofer leaned his head back and howled.

“Hush, Woofer.” Lisa patted his head.

“You called 911?” Fred went to the window and looked out. “Turn the lights out. I can’t see what’s going on.”

“I’m going to go find out.” Arthur opened the back door and started out.

“Not without your pants, Arthur.” Mitzi stopped him. “Go put on some clothes.”

Fred realized he just had on pajamas and rushed down the hall behind Arthur.

“Woofer was howling,” I explained to Mitzi and Lisa, “and I got up to see about him and saw somebody with a flashlight going through your house.”

“A burglar,” Lisa said. “I’ve heard of burglars looking in the paper for fires and finding out that way which houses aren’t occupied. They do it when people are at funerals, too. That’s why you never want to put the address of the person who died in the paper.”

“Oh, my.” Mitzi clutched her robe together. “I wonder what they got.”

“Nothing,” I said, crossing my fingers.

“The silver and my good pearls are still in the fire safe in the hall closet. I should have gotten them out yesterday, shouldn’t I?”

“Probably,” Lisa agreed. “Professional burglars can open up a little safe in a minute.”

She was my daughter-in-law. I couldn’t give her the elbow punch or the slight kick like I can my sister. So I suggested that we go out in the backyard and see what was happening.

As we stepped outside, Joanie Salk, Bo Mitchell’s partner, was coming up the steps.

“Mrs. Hollowell, you’re the one who called 911 again?” She was out of breath.

I nodded. The queen of the 911 system. “There was somebody over there going through the house with a flashlight.”

Arthur and Fred came rushing out nearly knocking Joanie down.

“Wait a minute, y’all,” she called. But they dashed through the gate. She sighed. “They really shouldn’t go over there.”

“I don’t think they noticed you were a policeman,” I said.

“I don’t guess it matters.” She took a small spiral notebook from her pocket. “Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Sure. But I don’t know anything. Just that somebody was over there.”

“We know that. She’s still there. Says her name’s Arabella Hardt and you know her, that she’s been staying there.”

“Arabella?” I think all three of us said it at the same time.

“You know her?”

“Of course we do,” Mitzi said.

“You’re Mrs. Phizer?” Joanie asked.

Mitzi nodded. “And she did spend a night or two with
us. But I can’t imagine what she would be doing over there tonight.”

“She says she came back for some of her things.”

I looked through the window at the kitchen clock. “At two-thirty in the morning?”

Joanie Salk shrugged. “Y’all wait here a minute. I’ll go see what’s going on.”

“Well, damn,” Mitzi said. “Arabella.”

The September night was cool. I suggested that we go back inside.

“What kind of things could she have come back for?” Lisa asked as we sat down at the kitchen table. “Clothes?”

“I suppose,” Mitzi said. “They’ll smell like smoke, though.”

“Whatever she’s after, why didn’t she wait until morning?” I asked. “What kind of sense does it make to go into a house that’s been damaged by fire in the middle of the night? Plus, she knew the police had it cordoned off.”

“Maybe she’s been drinking,” Lisa suggested.

“I guess it’s possible,” Mitzi said. She put her head down on the table. “Lord, I’m tired.”

“Why don’t you go back to bed?” I said. “Now that you know it was Arabella and not a burglar. There’s not a thing you can do.”

Mitzi looked up. “Do you think they’ll arrest her?”

“No. Arthur will vouch for her. It’ll all be ironed out in the morning.”

“Then I think I will.” Mitzi pushed her chair back. “I swear I think those Sawyers are going to do me in.”

“Not if you don’t let them. You want some milk?”

“I just want to sleep.” Pretty, sparkly Mitzi looked like an old, old woman.

Lisa and I looked at each other after Mitzi left.

“What do you think?” she whispered.

I shrugged. I had just thought of something. “You remember when Arabella first came?”

Lisa nodded. “She was in a cab. She had a bunch of stuff.”

“I wonder how she got here tonight.”

“Maybe she’s rented a car.”

“Probably.” It was reasonable. In fact, if she and her mother had been here for some time, they should already have had a car. So why had Arabella arrived in a taxi the first time? And there hadn’t been a car there when I had come home and found her sitting on our back steps. Curiouser and curiouser.

I got up and got each of us a glass of milk. We were sitting at the table playing two-hand bridge when Fred came in.

“That damn fool Arabella Hardt,” he said.

“What did they do to her?” I asked.

“Not a thing. She was crying. Said she had to get some clothes to wear to her mother’s funeral. The police were all but apologizing to her.”

“Where is she now? And where’s Arthur?”

“He’s gone to take her home.” Fred picked up my milk and finished it.

“Back to her mother’s apartment?”

“Hell, Patricia Anne, I don’t know. Come on, let’s go back to bed.”

“How come Arthur’s taking her? Didn’t she have a car?”

“Because she was drunk as a skunk. That’s why.” Fred put the empty glass in the sink.

“Poor thing.” Lisa gathered up the cards.

“Poor thing, my butt,” Fred said. “I’m going to bed. Are y’all coming or are you going to stay up all night? We’ve got to start getting some sleep around here.”

“Lisa,” I asked, “are you familiar with the word curmudgeon?”

“Does it mean grumpy old man?”

“You got it.”

“Not funny,” the old curmudgeon said. We turned out the light and followed him down the hall, grinning.

There was a mass exodus from the house the next morning which surprised me. I woke to the sound of Fred taking a shower and got up to put on some coffee. When I walked into the kitchen, Lisa and Alan were sitting at the table. I caught my breath. A dozen red roses were in a vase on the counter.

“Hey, Mama,” he said, getting up to hug me.

“Hey, sweetheart.” This man is a foot taller than I am and weighs a hundred pounds more, but he’s my baby. I patted him on the back. “I’ll come back in a few minutes. Give you time to talk.”

“We’ve been talking for a couple of hours, Mama,” Lisa said. “I never went back to sleep last night, and I came back to get some more milk, and there was Alan standing at the door. Nearly scared me to death.”

“Well, are you hungry? You want me to fix you some breakfast?”

Alan pulled out a chair for me. “Sit down, Mama. We’ve had some cereal.”

He sat down, too, and leaned forward. “I couldn’t sleep last night, either. All I could think of was what a fool I’d been acting. So I woke the boys up and told them I was coming to Birmingham to apologize to Lisa and the rest of you and ask if their mother would come back. I apologized to them, too.”

“I’m going home, Mama,” Lisa said. “We’ve got a lot of things to work out, but we’ve got fifteen years of our lives invested in this marriage, and we’ve made two wonderful children together. And I told Alan that, by damn, we aren’t going to throw it away, that we’re going to get some help.”

“That’s wonderful.” I felt like a weight had been lifted from me.

“I’m going to go get my stuff together,” Lisa said.

“You need some help?” Alan asked.

Lisa shook her head no. “You sit here and talk to your mama.”

“She’s a wonderful girl, son,” I said as Lisa disappeared down the hall.

“I know.”

I got up and poured each of us a cup of coffee. The roses on the counter were catching the early morning sun. “Where did you get the flowers in the middle of the night?”

He looked sheepish. “The Winn-Dixie. I figured it wouldn’t hurt.” He took the coffee. “How’s Haley?”

I was telling him about Warsaw’s roach problem when his father walked in.

“Well,” Fred said. “About time.”

The two of them hugged and beat each other on the back.

“I apologize, Papa.”

Alan was beginning to sound like one of the steps of AA.

“It’s that sweet girl in yonder who deserves your apology,” Fred said. “They just don’t come any better than Lisa.”

“I know that, Papa.”

I left them and went down the hall to the guest bedroom where Lisa was closing her suitcase.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I will be.” She looked at me. “Won’t I?”

“You will be.”

She hugged me. “Thank you for everything.”

And then they were gone, and the house seemed empty. Lisa had become such an integral part of our lives so quickly, maybe helping to fill the gap left by Haley. Who knows.

“You think they can work it out?” Fred asked as he came
back into the kitchen. He had walked out to the car with Alan. “I told him to act like he’s got some sense.”

Good fatherly advice.

“They’ll work it out.” I poured him some apple juice and stuck two waffles in the toaster. Then I went out to give Woofer his breakfast and tell him he was a good dog.

The Phizers left just as quickly. They came in with their suitcases packed while I was putting the sheets from Lisa’s bed in the washing machine.

“We’re gone,” Mitzi announced. “I’ll call you as soon as I know what our phone number is. And we’ll be over every day seeing about the house, I’m sure.”

“Don’t you want some coffee? Something to eat?”