Murder Shoots the Bull (7 page)

“Well, my goodness. I didn’t think of that.” Mitzi stood up and called to the Tripps. “Everything’s fine. Thank you.”

They waved, turned, and went inside. Porch lights down the street were turned off. Even most of the dogs quit barking. I suspected that in my dining room the chairs were being put back under the table.

“Isn’t this the nicest place in the world to live?” Mitzi asked.

Well, of course it is if you’re as sweet as Mitzi Phizer and assume the neighbors are just concerned for your well-being.

She sat back down, and the two of us began to swing slightly. These porch swings on a warm September night are one of the things that make this the nicest place in the world to live.

“The first policemen came to ask Fred some questions about Sophie,” she said. “They were real nice.” She pointed toward the door. “They’re the ones that are still here.”

“What about all the others?”

“They just sort of showed up. I guess they had things to check out with each other. Fortunately, I’d just made a coconut cake. They all seemed to be hungry.”

“I love your coconut cake.”

“They did, too. I was going to take it down to Sophie’s daughter’s house tomorrow, but there’s not much left.” She smiled. “You remember how our mamas used to say that hoboes left marks on houses during the Depression so the ones coming along later would know where they could get food?”

“Sure. Now they use cell phones.”

We creaked back and forth, our feet barely touching the floor.

“Is Arthur okay?”

“I guess so. He knew there would be some questions.”

“How about Sophie’s daughters?”

“Arabella, the one who was staying with her mother, is down at her sister’s. Arthur says they get along like cats and dogs, but I guess she couldn’t stay in the apartment.” Mitzi shivered. “I know I wouldn’t want to.”

“Me neither.”

“I hope Arthur doesn’t have too much trouble with those two. He’s the executor of Sophie’s estate.”

I yawned. The slow movement back and forth was soothing.

“I told him I didn’t think it was a good idea when she asked him,” Mitzi continued. “But Arthur said she was sick and worried, and it seemed like a burden off of her.” Mitzi put her foot down and stopped the swing; my side angled out. “Tomorrow he’s got to tell the girls their mama wanted to be cremated.”

“They didn’t know?”

“He says not. He says Sophie decided when she got back to Birmingham.”

“What about scattering the ashes from Vulcan? Can they do it?”

“Arthur hasn’t found out yet.”

For the first time there was an edge to Mitzi’s voice. Which I could certainly understand. I wouldn’t have much patience with Fred if he were up on Vulcan scattering his first wife’s ashes. And being the executor of her estate. Though it was just the kind of thing Fred would do if he had had a first wife other than me and she had asked him to. It made me mad just thinking of it.

The two young policemen came out, thanked Mitzi for the cake, and headed toward their car. Arthur came out, too.

“Hey, Patricia Anne.”

“Hey, Arthur. I was worried about you. All the police cars.”

“Thanks. We’re fine.”

He didn’t look fine. The man I was looking at looked worn and tired, a good ten years older than the man I had seen the day before at lunch.

Mitzi and I both stood up. The swing bumped gently against the back of our knees.

“Well, I’ve got to get home. Y’all take care.” I wanted to say something about Sophie Sawyer’s death, tell Arthur I was sorry for his loss. The loss of his friend? His ex-wife?

I ended up saying nothing about Sophie, but if they needed us to call. Anytime.

Well, how was I to know how quickly they would take us up on the offer?

On the way back to my house, I was again caught in the glare of headlights, this time a pizza delivery van pulling into my own driveway.

“I think you have the wrong address,” I said.

But of course he didn’t. When I went to bed, Mary Alice, Lisa, and Fred were sitting at the kitchen table scarfing down an extra large, loaded with everything pizza. You’d think they hadn’t had a bite of supper.

“Coconut cake?” Sister had a mouthful of pizza. “They were there for the cake?”

“All but the first group,” I explained.

“I hate coconut,” Sister said. “Gets bigger and bigger the more you chew it.”

“Neither of my boys likes it, either,” Lisa added. “Maybe it’s genetic.”

I expected some tears or at least a stop in chewing when Lisa said this. Instead she reached for another piece of pizza.

“Don’t you want some, Mama?” she asked.

“Here, honey, have a piece.” Fred pushed the box toward me.

“Don’t be silly, Fred.” Sister pulled the box back to the center of the table. “How can you be married to someone who’s anorexic for forty years and not know it?”

That was when I went to bed.

About three o’clock, though, I was awakened by a nightmare. Somehow I had gotten my head stuck in a wooden box. The rest of my body had slid right through the box, but my head wouldn’t make it. Some Jungian psychologist would love to have a dream like that to analyze.

I got up, tiptoed down the hall past the guest room, got some milk, and lay down on the den sofa. I was reading the
Vanity Fair
that Lisa had left on the coffee table when Fred came in.

“Maalox,” he muttered on his way to the kitchen. In a moment he was back, wanting to know why I was up.

I told him about the dream, how scary it was, and asked if he thought it meant anything.

He pursed his lips as if he were really thinking. “It means you’re getting the big head about something and your subconscious is saying you shouldn’t.”

Somehow I didn’t think this would have been the Jungian psychologist’s answer. Not if he wanted to keep his practice going.

Fred sat at the end of the sofa and propped his feet on the coffee table. I was about to say something smart aleck when I saw his feet. Fred’s feet are so vulnerable looking. Pitiful, really. Pale, pale white. One little toe that he broke years ago sticking out at an angle.

“Pizza,” he said, rubbing his belly. “How come things you love don’t love you back?”

“I love you back. I love your feet.”

“I’m glad.” He rubbed my leg. “Do you think I ought to go to Atlanta and talk to Alan?”

“I don’t know. It’s the kids I’m worried about.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He gave my leg a pat and stood up. “You coming back to bed?”

“I’m going to read a while.” I caught his pajama bottom as he walked by. “Have you ever looked at another woman? Lusted in your heart?”

He grabbed his pajamas and slapped at my hand.

“The heart’s not the problem.”

It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear.

“But I never did anything about it.”

I knew that.

“You never let me out of your sight long enough.”

I swatted at his rear end with the
Vanity Fair
, and he went back to bed. I woke up several hours later with the light still on and the magazine still in my hand. In the kitchen, someone was making coffee. I could hear the first loud swooshes of the percolator.

“S
orry, Mama,” Lisa said as I stuck my head into the kitchen. “I was hoping I wouldn’t wake you up. What are you doing on the sofa?”

“I had a bad dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. What time is it?”

“About seven-thirty. Pop hasn’t left yet.”

Lisa was looking much better this morning. More rested. And maybe I was getting used to the tufts of white hair. They didn’t seem as startling.

“There’s orange juice in the freezer,” I told her and went to brush my teeth and see if Fred was going to Atlanta today.

“Been thinking about it,” he said, buttoning his shirt. “But I think I’ll call him and go over on the weekend. If I went today, he’d think he had to leave work.”

Well, big deal. Men and their work. We were talking about a marriage here. Our grandchildren’s security.

“Besides, I haven’t figured out what to say to him anyway.”

I’ll bet he hadn’t. Fred adores his two sons, and they love him, but their conversations center around work and sports. A whole weekend can be spent on a Daytona 500 with tidbits left over for the holidays.

“Just let him talk, tell you what’s going on.” I went into the bathroom, but not before I saw a pained expression on Fred’s face. He would do his fatherly duty, but he really didn’t want to know what was wrong in his son’s life. He wanted to believe that Alan’s life was perfect. He’s not that way about Haley. Not only does he want to know what’s going wrong, he wants to fix it. He’s the same way with me. Some kind of macho thing I haven’t totally figured out. Mary Alice calls it the Me Tarzan syndrome. The fact that Jane is perfectly capable of solving her own problems has somehow missed Tarzan. He hasn’t a clue that he’s being patronizing.

The window in our bathroom is high, so high that all anyone on the outside can see is our heads. Consequently, we leave the blinds open most of the time. Every morning the sun announces that Windex is needed here. Dust mites, dirty windows. I felt a couple of twinges of guilt. Twinges, not jolts. I’d get around to the cleaning when it got painful enough.

“I’m gone,” Fred called.

“Get a lunch out of the freezer.”

Something interesting was going on over at the Phizers’. A taxi had pulled up and a redheaded woman was getting out. The taxi driver hopped out, took a fairly sizable suitcase from the trunk, and carried it to the front porch for her. Arthur opened the front door, stepped out and hugged her, picked up the suitcase, and they disappeared inside. The taxi driver was halfway back to his cab when the woman rushed out of the house. She retrieved what looked like a
purse from the back seat and then waved as the cab driver drove away. Arthur came out on the porch again, and they walked into the house, his arm around her waist.

I ran to see if I could catch Fred before he left. He was in the kitchen looking in the freezer.

“I think the redheaded woman you saw Arthur with just went in their house. I’ll bet she’s one of Sophie Sawyer’s daughters. Did she look like she was in her late thirties?”

“I guess so. She was pretty.” Fred came up with a package of macaroni and cheese. “Her hair was sort of a fuchsia red.”

“Maybe she’s another one of Mr. Phizer’s wives.” Lisa was sitting at the kitchen table pouring Frosted Flakes into a bowl.

I ignored this. “Fuchsia red?”

“Sort of mahogany but with some purple in it. Isn’t that fuschia?”

Not to me, it wasn’t.

“Sounds pretty,” Lisa said.

“Bye, y’all. Thanks for the coffee, Lisa.” Fred patted me on the behind, picked up his thermos and package of macaroni and cheese, and went out the back door.

“Pop’s a lot nicer than Alan,” Lisa announced. “Alan would have a fit if I handed him a package of frozen macaroni and cheese for lunch.”

I ignored this, too, but I felt a twinge in my stomach. Being a good mother-in-law might cost me an ulcer. I poured a cup of coffee, put a lot of milk in it, and sat down across from Lisa. I hadn’t taken my first sip when the phone rang.

“Anything going on next door this morning?” Mary Alice asked.

“As a matter of fact there is. A woman with fuchsia hair just arrived with a suitcase. I think maybe it’s Sophie Sawyer’s daughter.”

“Fuchsia?”

“Actually it’s sort of a mahogany. Fred called it fuchsia.”

“Well, the murder made the front page of the
Birmingham News
today. There’s a picture of Sophie, too, probably taken when she graduated from high school. I hate it when they do that.” She paused. “It doesn’t say anything about Arthur.”

“Why should it?”

“Don’t be dense, Mouse. He was the one having lunch with her when she was poisoned. The paper says it was strychnine. Isn’t that rat poison?”

“For heaven’s sake, Sister, I don’t know. And Arthur wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

“You and I know that. But why do you think the police were over there last night?”

Questioning Arthur, of course. I sighed.

“Tell Lisa I’ll pick her up a little before eleven. I’ve got a call waiting.”

Not even a goodbye.

“Honey,” I said to Lisa, “Aunt Sister’s said to tell you she’ll pick you up a little before eleven. Where are y’all going?”

“She’s made an appointment at Delta Hairlines for me. She says I look more like a half-plucked chicken than a Spice Girl.” She ran her hand through her hair. “She’s probably right.”

And Aunt Sister could say it and get away with it; she wasn’t the mother-in-law. If Delta could do anything with Lisa’s hair, she could turn water into wine. But, like Brer Rabbit, I just lay low, reached for the Frosted Flakes and began to eat them like peanuts.

“And then we’re going to have lunch somewhere good. Aunt Sister said to tell you you could come if you wanted to.”

A lovely invitation. “Thanks, but this is the morning I tutor at the middle school.”

“Alan said you were doing that. I didn’t know you knew anything about math.”

I shoved a fistful of Frosted Flakes into my mouth, but it didn’t stop me from saying, “I can even do ratio and percent.”

“That’s nice.”

Actually, it was nice. When I signed up to do tutoring, I had assumed it would be English. A math tutor was needed worse, though, so I took the job. And Lord, middle school math is easier to teach than English. Probably all the math teachers would argue with me about that. But it’s such a relief to have one way to do it and one answer.

“Why don’t you go get the paper?” I suggested. “It’s probably in the shrubbery. Sister said the murder made the front page.”

While Lisa was gone, I headed back to the bedroom. I’d throw on some jeans and take Woofer for a walk. By that time, it would be time to go to school. When I got back from school, Lisa would still be out with Mary Alice. Another twinge of guilt hit me, but so did another twinge in the belly. Come to think of it, I’d been twinging all morning. I took a deep breath. Enough.

I looked over next door. Arthur’s car was still in the driveway, but there was no sign of the woman with fuchsia hair. Fuchsia hair? After I dressed and was walking into the kitchen, though, there was a knock on the back door and Mitzi stuck her head in.

She looked neater than she had the day before. At least she had on clothes and shoes. But her face looked swollen, and the circles under her eyes were an olive green. They almost looked as if they had been painted on.

“I need to borrow some milk,” she said.

This was startling. Mitzi never borrows anything. I’m the borrower, she the lender. This was totally out of character.

“Sure. Come in.”

She stepped into the kitchen and held out a glass. “Can you let me have this much?”

“I’ve got plenty.”

“Hi, Mrs. Phizer,” Lisa said. She was sitting at the table reading the paper.

Mitzi started. “Hey, Lisa. I didn’t see you over there. Are you okay?”

“I’ve left Alan.”

“That’s nice.” Mitzi handed me the glass. “I just need enough for cereal, Patricia Anne. Arabella Hardt, Sophie’s younger daughter came in a while ago. She and her sister got in some kind of a big fight. Arthur says he’s not surprised, that they never agree on anything.”

Mitzi’s hand was shaking.

“Why don’t you sit down a minute,” I suggested. “Let me get you a cup of coffee.”

She didn’t argue. “That would be nice. They can wait a few minutes.” She pulled out a chair and sank down at the table. “Say you’ve left Alan, Lisa?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lisa folded the newspaper and placed it on the floor beside her. Sophie Sawyer’s picture looked up at her. “He’s been committing adultery with a woman in his office named Coralee Gibbons.”

An office named Coralee Gibbons? The English teacher in me cringed.

Mitzi was quiet for a moment as if Lisa’s words were just sinking in. She took the coffee I handed her and stared into it.

“Well, don’t kill her,” she said.

“No, ma’am. I wasn’t planning on it.”

I looked at the two of them. They appeared normal.

Mitzi reached for the sugar bowl and nodded toward the newspaper. “Last night after the police left our house, I realized they think I killed Sophie Sawyer.”

I handed her a spoon. “Oh, Mitzi, of course they don’t. Why would you think that?”

“They asked questions like where I was the day Sophie died. And the night before.” She picked up her coffee. “What did they think I was going to say, out buying strychnine?” A shrug. “Actually, the night before, Sophie called and Arthur went back over there and I thought, Damn it, I’m tired of sitting here by myself. So I went to a movie.”

Lisa leaned over and patted Mitzi’s hand. “No way anybody would think you killed that lady, Mrs. Phizer.”

Mitzi patted Lisa’s hand. “Thanks, Lisa.” She took a sip of coffee and pointed her head toward the newspaper. “Did you see that big article about Sophie’s death?”

“I’d just started reading it.” Lisa picked the paper up and handed it to Mitzi.

“Well, let me read the highlights to you. They really messed it up.”

I joined them at the table as Mitzi read parts of the article aloud.

“Ha,” she said a couple of times as she read, the kind of “ha” that means, “that’s what
you
think.”

Mitzi put the paper down in disgust. “They didn’t even get her husband’s name right.”

Lisa got up and put her cereal bowl in the dishwasher. “Anybody want any more coffee?”

“What was his name?” I reached for the paper.

“Milton Sawyer. He was an outstanding man, Patricia Anne, some kind of la-de-da financier. One of Ronald Reagan’s advisers. The paper called him Hilton. Said she was the widow of Hilton Sawyer.”

“Anybody?” Lisa asked again, holding up the coffee pot.

Mitzi and I both shook our heads no. I scanned the arti
cle. The only new information which was especially interesting was that Sophie’s son-in-law, Dr. Joseph Batson, was the founder and CEO of Bellemina Health. Bellemina Health is a Birmingham based company which has hospitals all over the south specializing in drug rehabilitation, especially for adolescents. And the company is growing like kudzu.

“You didn’t tell me her son-in-law was Joseph Batson,” I said.

“Who’s Joseph Batson?” Lisa wanted to know.

“One of the richest men in Birmingham. Started Bellemina Health,” I explained.

Mitzi sighed. “It slipped my mind. Arthur says he’s a real nice guy, too. Arthur handles some of the company’s insurance. It’s a shame that Arabella hasn’t had as much luck with husbands as Sue has. Her last one ended up in prison. I think he was a hit man for the mob. Or something.”

“Really?” Lisa and I exclaimed together.

“Something like that.” Mitzi drank the last of her coffee and pushed her chair back. “I’ve got to get home. They need the milk for their cereal.”

I got the milk from the refrigerator. “Do you need more? I’ve got plenty.”

“No, just a glassful is fine. I guess I’ll have to go to the grocery today and do some big-time shopping. I don’t know how long Arabella will be with us.”

“She was staying with her mother?”

Mitzi nodded. “The whole thing was a temporary setup, a rented condo so Sophie could be near the hospital. I guess if Sophie had gotten better, she’d have bought a condo or a town house and Arabella might have gone back to Chicago.” Mitzi took the milk from my outstretched hand. “Anyway, Arabella says she can’t stay in the apartment now, that it’s too lonesome, and I can’t say that I blame her.”

“And her last husband’s in jail because he’s a hit man?” Lisa was still stuck on this bit of information.

“One of them was. I think it’s the last one.”

“How many has she had?”

“I’m not sure. Several.” Mitzi took the glass of milk. “Thanks. I’ll talk to y’all later.”

“Wow,” Lisa said as the door closed. “A real hit man.”

I grabbed another handful of cereal, declared I had to go get dressed, and left as she picked the newspaper up again. When she started checking hit men’s phone numbers, prices, and availability, I’d step in.