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Authors: Delia Rosen

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BOOK: One Foot In The Gravy
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Chapter 8
My next person of interest—and I use that term loosely because I wasn’t the least bit interested in her as a person—saved me the trouble of figuring out a reason to talk to her. She found me.
I had intended to go to the Confederate Hill home of Gary Gold, whose role in the entire matter had not yet been examined much less thought about by me. He was the local mystery author whom Lolo had commissioned to write the scenario for the party. I would get there—but not just yet.
Rhonda Shays was driving her BMW along Korean Veterans Boulevard when she spotted me. It was more like an eagle catching sight of a field mouse, her head rotating as though her sternomastoids were made of putty. We were in the middle of the Cumberland River when it happened. Her reflective sunglasses fixed on me, followed me as I headed away from downtown, and a moment later my cell phone rang.
“Wait for me on the other side,” she growled and hung up.
Ordinarily, I don’t respond well to commands, unless they involve mustard or mayo or some other condiment. But, as I said, I did want to talk to Rhonda. I also had a real good idea why she was so angry, and saw this as a good opportunity to put that behind us. If it was possible to put anything behind an insane person.
There are a series of parking lots on the other side of the river. They service LP Field, home of the football Titans. I know that because Thom’s a big, big fan. Me? I know nothing about sports. I pulled into one of them, got out of the car, and waited.
I don’t know where and how Rhonda turned, but she arrived about a minute after I did. She parked diagonally across two spots—a habit born, no doubt, from years of selfishly protecting BMWs. There was most definitely a Cruella De Vil vibe happening. She was wearing a poufy white blouse, a dark black skirt, stiletto heels, and the smoke from a cigarette curled about her straight black hair. It had the definite aspect of a mushroom cap. But when she yanked off her sunglasses as though she were Clark Kent about to change, those eyes blazed through it as she stalked over.
“Are you in love with my ex-husband?”
If I’m ever asked that question again, I’ll have a better answer. Something like “Why, are his friends asking for me?” or “Yes, and they’re going to be twins!” All I said was, “What?”
She stopped inches from my face. She’s only five-three, but the heels brought her eye level. “Are you. In love with. My ex. Husband?”
“No,” I said. I wonder if she could see me shudder.
“Liar!” she charged. It sounded more like a Katharine Hepburn “Li-ah!” I wondered if the rest of her sounded that way. This was the first time in our lives we’d ever spoken, though I’d heard about her from Royce and at the deli.
“I really did just have sex with him,” I assured her. “But if I did love him, why would it matter? You were already on the way to being divorced, weren’t you, when he tried to buy my property.”

Your
property!”
She did it again: “Your” became “Yoh-ah” and “property”—well, each syllable was accented, the middle one pronounced “puh.”
“You sassy city thing,” she said, no longer an eagle but a hissing snake. “You didn’t earn that place. You
inherited
it!”
I don’t think there’s any need for me to continue parsing her enunciation. You get the idea. Anyway, I admitted she was right about that, then added, “Isn’t that how you got your money?”
“Good God, no! I
divorced
for it!”
“But your former husband was old money. So in a sense you inherited too.” I couldn’t believe I was trying to reason with this lunatic. “Anyway, what’s that got to do with the price of potatoes in Idaho?”
“Oh, listen to you! Listen to you, you witty urban slut.”
I closed the gap between us by an inch or two. The “urban”’ part of me, the “Asshole, the line is over
here
!” part of me, was beginning to boil. “Now look. I didn’t pull off the road to be called names by someone like you—”
“Someone like
me
?”
“A poseur, a society mountebank, a
zoyne
.”
She looked at me blankly. She suspected she’d been insulted, but she didn’t know how. I used the break to regroup.
“Now, was there something else? Because if not, I’ve got a couple of questions for you.”
She folded her arms daringly. “Do you now?”
“I do.”
“Go ahead,
Gossip Girl
. Shoot to kill!”
My insults were vocabulary. Hers were the CW. It figured.
“Actually, it’s funny how this discussion started out, because I wanted to know if you were in love with Hoppy Hopewell.”
Her eyes became shiny plums. “Love?”
“Yeah. Rumor has it you two were tight.”
I swear, it was like I suddenly dropped into
Gone With the Wind
and Scarlett was about to play one of her parts. Or else it was the
Three Faces of Eve
and the woman was truly suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder. She half-turned, her cigarette hand dropped, and up came her other hand
with a handkerchief
! Either she always carried one up her sleeve for effect, or she had mastered sleight of hand, in which case the movie would be
Houdini
.
“Who—who says such things?” she sobbed, touching her eyes in turn.
“All of Nashville, including the surrounding suburbs. Maybe some folks in Charleston.”
She appeared not to hear. “It is true. I loved him, even though he was a decade older than I.” Her eyes and manner became imploring. “Who wouldn’t?”
Me? Thom?
I thought.
And if you’re thirty-eight, I’m a Vernicious Knid.
Rhonda suddenly had a rhapsodic air about her. “Hoppy was funny. He was vivacious in a manly sort of way, he was romantic, he was an amusing lover—”
“Great,” I cut her off. “The question is, were
you
a
jealous
lover?”
The tears stopped. I swear I heard the squeak of a faucet. “What are you implying?”
“I hear he was also close to Hildy Endicott.”
A beat, and then she laughed like Blanche DuBois. “Hildy Endicott! That’s almost comical!”
“They were in business together.”
“Were they now?” That seemed to throw her a little, but she recovered. “People cannot be in business without being lovers? Weren’t you and my husband lovers and yet
not
in business together?”
I wasn’t sure that made sense, but the laws of physics didn’t really apply to this woman. “Let me put it another way,” I said. “Did Hoppy ever lead you to believe you were exclusive?”
“Ms. Katz, may I ask
you
another question?”
“Go ahead.” She would have asked it anyway.
“What in the name of the father is this any business of yours? I asked you about Royce because he was my husband. What was Hoppy to you?” The evil Rhonda was back, the handkerchief gone, the cigarette—though now a stub—back between her red lips. “Were you lovers? Did you fancy a man of mine
again
?”
“Rhonda, even if I were a nymphomaniac with a sweet tooth, I would have found some other solution.”
She recoiled as though I’d slapped her. “You rude Northern hussy.”
“Yeah. Well, that still doesn’t tell me whether you were possessive enough to want to terminate your little slice of Heaven.”
“I didn’t kill Royce,” she replied.
“That’s not really a defense. You never loaned Royce money. Did Hoppy borrow? Did he default?”
“That is none of your business,” she said. “Anyway, I wish you would stop being so tawdry. What is all of this to you?”
“I was there.”
“Where?”
“At Lolo’s party.”
Judging from her expression, that may have been the most shocking news yet. “
You
were invited ?”
“No, I was catering.”
“Oh.” She seemed relieved. She
was
relieved. Nashville society was intact. “Still, I don’t understand why you’re so interested—”
“It was our first party. Unless I become the caterer who solved the murder, I’ll always be the caterer who buried Hoppy Hopewell.”
“Yes, I see,” she said. “It’s always business with you people.”
I’m sure she intended that to exonerate me of salacious involvement with Hoppy. With friends like that....
“Getting back to the other business for just a sec, answer me this.”
“Why?”
“Because you have nothing to hide and you want to prove it to me,” I said. That confused her just long enough for me to ask, “How do you feel about imported vegetables?”
“I never eat them,” she huffed. “I don’t feel like living in the water closet!”
That derailed my line of questioning. I thought I had her.
Rhonda moved closer. Our eyelashes could have weaved each other. “What has that got to do with the price of tea in Nepal?”
Aha,
thought I. “What about
exotic
tea?”
Rhonda’s plum eyes had long since shrunk to black olives. Now they became evil, beady things. “What. Do you know. About exotic. Tea?”
“I only know from Lipton,” I said, recovering. “But I’m guessing you know a lot more.”
The fixed-nose wrinkled. This close, she looked like a bat. “Why should I know anything about Ceylon Green, Darjeeling Glenburn White Peony or Bolivian Black that any well-bred woman would not?”
“Because they didn’t give Hoppy Hopewell money to bring them into the United States?” I suggested. “What did he call the company? No, let me guess.
Mr. Tea? Tea for the Seesaw?
Something designed to get sued?”
“Model Tea,”
Rhonda said. “He said the Ford Motor Company shut him down and it cost him everything fighting them. How did you know? Were you balling him too—?”
“God, no.” I shivered. Twice. “Because Hildy Endicott gave Hoppy a whopping bunch of money to develop a healthy eating option called
Hoppy Meals
. A certain fast food chain didn’t like that either.”
The woman looked like she’d walked into a glass door. Her red lips parted, the filter of her cigarette stuck stupidly to the upper lip. I’d never seen that before.
“So he got you too,” I said. “And I’m willing to bet there were other ladies in his development fund.”
“Others?”
“A whole Cozy Foxload, and maybe beyond. I wonder if there are any spinsters in the state legislature ? Or handmade
Kit Kat
-loving spinsterly aides to the senators?”
“So what?” Rhonda said, recovering somewhat. “Hoppy was a businessman.”
“Apparently not a very scrupulous one—”
“Businessmen put together deals.” She ran right over my remark. “Not every investor has to know every other investor in different projects.”
“True, but not every investor is sold a onehundred-percent investment in a fatally flawed corporation,” I pointed out. “You did stake him to the entire claim, didn’t you?”
“It . . . it was a healthier alternative to coffee,” she muttered.
“Not for you. And apparently not for Hoppy.”
Rhonda stepped back. If she had a fan up her sleeve, she’d be batting away the vapors. She leaned heavily against the hood of her car. The impact knocked the cigarette from her lip. She crushed it instinctively as though she’d simply dropped it.
“Are you saying one of those women killed him?” she asked. Her manner had shifted subtly. She was now in personal survival mode.
“I’m saying it’s possible that ‘a’ woman killed him.” I looked at her like a field mouse who had decided “Never Again.”
“I’m sure there’s some other explanation for what happened,” she said, still grinding the butt with her pointed toe.
“I may have to agree with that,” I told her. “Hoppy was a scumbag who was having money problems.”
“That’s silly.”
“Is it?”
“The shop is doing well.”
“How do you know? Did he leave it to you?”
“To me? Heavens, no.”
“Any idea to whom?”
“Not the vaguest.”
“So how do you know it was doing well?” I pressed.
“It was always busy,” she said.
“People browsing, not buying?” I said.
“He
told
me it was doing well,” she insisted.
“Right. Hoppy Hopewell never lied to anyone.”
“No!” she shot back. “There has to be
another
explanation for this . . . this. . . .”
“Subterfuge?” I said. “What, like there was a Hoppy from another dimension? A twin brother who was going around scamming people while kind-hearted, hardworking Hoppy ran a business he really knew very little about?”
BOOK: One Foot In The Gravy
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