Doing It at the Dixie Dew (16 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Bricks from the low wall pricked the backs of my legs like fear. I had taken the first available seat and now just sat holding my mail and Verna's returned letter. A flock of robins swooped to the lawn where the condominiums were under construction. The birds rustled leaves in the magnolia trees. A car went by. I saw and heard, but it all blurred and one black thought kept beating in my head: Verna was mixed up in a murder. Make that two murders. Almost three. What could I do?

Take the nasty threatening little notes I'd received, and the letter, over to Ossie DelGardo, slap them on his desk and say, “I've found your killer.” The notes didn't say Verna was a killer, but they might point the way to one. Ossie DelGardo would laugh me and the letter out of his pale green, pine-scented office. He would tell me to go tend my muffin making at the Dixie Dew. Isn't that what B and Bs were all about? Renting out spare rooms and calling it a business? And murdering guests as they slept, robbing them of their last possessions? That was how Ossie DelGardo saw me. I was on page 1 in his book of suspects. In fact, the only one, until Father Roderick's housekeeper cleaned out the rectory. That ought to put her somewhere in the running with me. Tied for first place at least.

I let myself in the front door and heard ripping and splitting sounds from the rear of the house. It sounded like somebody was tearing all hell out of something. “Scott!” I called.

“Yo!” he called from the kitchen where he stood on a stool, held a crowbar and pulled cabinets loose from the wall. “Ida Plum stacked the stuff from this cabinet in the pantry so I could start here. I couldn't stand to see you making do in this monstrosity of a kitchen anymore. I'm taking it wall by wall.”

“I thought you were gone,” I said. “Your truck—”

“Around back. So I don't have to haul these babies so far.”

I could have hugged his bare back. Put my arm around his shoulders, pulled him close and just cried. Because he cared. Because I was scared. Because I just plain didn't know what to do, where to go from here … all of it.

“One wall at a time,” he said. “That's how we'll take it. You've got these drawn off … drawers and shelves and all those good things where you want them. I'll do the rest.”

“But the money…” I started.

“What's a charge account for, if not to charge?” He worked nails from a piece of molding. “Solid pine. You don't find wood this good these days. I'll reuse all I can.”

I stared at the stack of splintered boards at his feet.

“Okay, so some of it goes to the fireplace, but think how toasty your toes are going to be next winter. I've started a stack in the garage for you alone.”

“Can you take a break?” I asked, and held up his empty coffee cup. “I can make a fresh pot. I need to talk.”

“Let me get this last cabinet down and I'll give you my undivided attention.”

Carefully I laid the letters on the table, started coffee and pulled carrot pecan muffins from the freezer. I had no new reservations for overnight guests at the Dixie Dew. One did not pay off renovations without income with which to do so. Unless windfalls landed in one's lap, and Miss Lavinia's jewelry didn't count. That's not gains, ill-gotten or otherwise. The jewelry was part of her estate that Mr. Green Polyester Pants Cousin, Lester Moore, would probably get his pinkies on with glee. At least Crazy Reba was out of danger, roaming around town with plastic rings and things from her fingers to her toes, buzzing like a June bug.

Scott stirred sugar and milk in his coffee and took a long, satisfying drink. “That's what I needed. Real coffee.”

“And I need real help,” I said.

“Shoot.” Scott reached over and covered my hand with his rough and tender one.

“I'm into something and I don't know the way out,” I said.

“Road maps free of charge … name your destination.”

“I know who's been leaving those notes.”

He waited.

I shoved Verna's returned letter toward him, then unfolded the notes I'd received over the last few days.

Scott studied them, then let out a little whistle. “Not old Verna. Not Miss Priss and Proper. Goody Blue Hair?”

“It can't be anybody else.”

“So, do you invite her for tea and serve these?”

“I hadn't thought about it, but that's an idea. She's got to be confronted. She's got to know that I know she's mixed up in these murders.”

“What then?” Scott put his empty cup in the dishwasher.

“I don't know. I'll take it one step at a time. Like your cabinets, one section at a time.”

“Meanwhile, it's Can you come to tea, Verna C.?”

“Yes,” I said. “I'll bake Littleboro's Cream Cheese Pound Cake. She can't refuse.”

“Feed your enemies,” Scott said, “and they'll follow you everywhere.”

“Verna isn't an enemy. I may be into something bigger than I can handle. I can't … I won't believe she had anything to do with murder.”

“Just don't go for tea at her house, my sweet.” He laid a hand lightly on my shoulder. “Promise me.”

“Don't worry,” I said. “This is my party. And it's going to stay that way.”

Chapter Seventeen

At three o'clock I took the pound cake, all golden brown and crusted on top, from the oven. It filled the kitchen with vanilla and sugar and a hundred days of my childhood. I could have cried if I let myself.

Scott had cleared the kitchen of excess boards. Verna was due at four, and when the doorbell rang I thought at first it was Verna coming early. I almost panicked. Scott had hung a green-striped sheet over the entrance to the pantry. We'd shoved everything from the cupboard into it. When the kitchen was completed the pantry was going to be an office for me, a place to keep Mama Alice's collection of cookbooks and the B-and-B records, to plan menus, to shut the door on the world.

“I'm hanging around for this,” Scott said. “No matter what you say.”

“Did I say anything?” I asked on my way to the hall.

I was relieved to see through the glass the outlines of two people. Just don't let them be Ossie DelGardo or Lester Moore, I thought. Those two I can do without any day of the week. I opened the door.

“Are you open?” a woman in purple slacks asked. “We were driving through and saw your sign, so I said, ‘Harry, let's check. It won't hurt to check.'”

“Here we are,” Harry said with an apologetic little slice of a smile.

“Of course,” I said. I'd forgotten I also ran a bed-and-breakfast. “Come in.” I opened the door, took them to my registration desk. “If you'd like to see the rooms first…” I said, indicating the stairs, “you've got first choice.”

The woman went upstairs while Harry registered them. Mr. and Mrs. A. Harry Harlton of Elmsville, NY. “On our way to Florida,” he said. “Her sister lives there and we go this way twice a year. Usually stay in a motel, but we came to this first and Louise likes to try new things. I'm not much for that myself. All I want is a hard bed and a hot shower.”

I laughed. “Then you want the Periwinkle Room. That has the firmest mattress.”

“Back trouble.” Harry rubbed his lower back. “Had it all my life, and Father before me. ‘The Harlton back,' we say, when it acts up.”

“There's parking in the rear,” I said as Harry Harlton went out for their luggage.

Now I wasn't alone in the house to deal with Verna, but how could you discuss something this serious with some stranger poking his head in to ask where one would find an extra lightbulb, to say the lamp wasn't working … or some such situation?

Louise Harlton called from the top of the stairs, “Put us down for the blue room. I think that bed's better for Harry!”

“Breakfast is anytime before ten,” I told her. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do.” Harry Harlton took an overnight bag and cosmetic case upstairs. “Any place we can get a decent steak around here?”

“Floyd's,” I said. “On Main Street. If you don't mind hush puppies on your plate along with the baked potatoes. Tell him I sent you.”

That took care of the Harltons for dinner … and getting them out of the house for a while. Maybe Verna would be late. Very late.

I lifted the paper doily from atop the cake where I'd sprinkled powdered sugar. Ha. What if I'd sprinkled it with roach poison instead? Would Verna know the difference? I had read somewhere that aging caused people's taste buds to dull, lose sensation. Is that what happened to Miss Lavinia and whatever poisonous thing she'd eaten that killed her? Whatever it was, wasn't in this house, I thought. Verna better have some answers.

“I'm Sheetrocking this wall,” Scott said in the kitchen, “and when I'm not hammering I can hear everything being said.”

“Thanks,” I said as the phone rang. “And this is only powdered sugar … even if the thought is otherwise.” I was ashamed of myself. Verna was an old lady. She didn't want to hurt anyone … ever. Not unless she had to.

“Honey,” Verna said when I picked up the phone, “can we make that dessert? I got into cleaning a closet and I never saw so much stuff in my life. That's what this weather does to me. It'll kill me yet … before I'm through … if this cleaning spell don't let up.”

“Seven?” I asked, and Verna hung up.

It was seven thirty when Verna came in. “That darn rabbit. When he knows I'm in a hurry, he's slow as constipation.”

Any other time I would have laughed. Tonight I almost dropped the cups and saucers. In fact, the cups rattling in the saucers sounded exactly how I felt inside … shaky, my thoughts clattering together.

“Decaf?” Verna asked. “I hope that's decaf.” She pulled out a kitchen chair, waved a finger to Scott and leaned over the pound cake. “You did Miss Alice proud, honey. I bet you couldn't count how many pound cakes that woman made in her lifetime, and never a one that wasn't smooth and creamy enough to melt in your mouth.”

“Let's take our coffee out to the sunporch,” said I. “I want you to see my stenciling.”

Verna poured her cup half full of cream, then let me fill the rest with coffee. “I like a little coffee in my cream.” Verna laughed. “That's what Calbert always said.”

I put cake on plates, carried them on a tray and the coffee out to the sunporch.

“Why, it's just sweet as can be,” Verna said when she stepped onto the sunporch. “Who in the world but you would have ever thought about painting this old floor? You can hardly tell it's paint … it shines so.”

We talked of the bed-and-breakfast, the tearoom. I held up swags of fabric I'd bought for the windows and tablecloths.

“Cute,” Verna said, and clapped her hands. “Just cute as can be. I never thought you could do so much with paint and draping some cloth around.”

I waited until Verna finished her cake down to the last crumb and sat sipping on her second cup of coffee. Then I pulled out the notes, unfolded them.

Verna's eyes grew wide and she choked a little, started to cough. Then she cried. She crumpled and uncrumpled the embroidered napkin, and fat, hot tears big as marbles rolled down her dry old creviced cheeks.

I waited again.

Verna took off her glasses, wiped them with the napkin, then blew her nose.

I winced, still said nothing, but reached behind me in the kitchen for a whole box of tissues and handed them to Verna.

“You weren't afraid, were you?” Verna said at last.

“Wouldn't you be?”

Verna looked up, her triangle of a chin quivering.

“They were threats,” I said. “And notes that said my grandmother was murdered. Did you push her?”

“Lord, Lord, I…” Verna's eyes filled again. “You know better than that. I'd never lift a finger to hurt your grandmother. We'd been friends sixty years.”

“Then why the notes?”

“I can't talk about it.” Verna sniffed.

“You did write them. You don't deny that,” I said.

“I can't talk about it.” Verna looked away, and the hairy mole on her cheek wiggled as if it wanted to crawl off, go somewhere on its own.

“I think you'd better.” I was surprised I could make my voice so firm, unwavering.

“I can't,” Verna said, and choked a little.

“If you can't, who can?” I decided Verna would not leave this house until I had some answers. Some names to put with some deeds.

“You can't make me.” Verna played with the tissues in her lap.

She sounded like a child. Is her mind going? I wondered. Please not now. Don't let her click out on me. “You can tell me,” I almost whispered. “I promise I won't tell anyone.”

“Cross your heart? Hope to die?” Verna asked.

“Well, no,” I said. “You can trust me without that, can't you?”

Verna pushed her hair back from her face with both hands, then leaned forward. “‘I'm nobody!'” Her eyes were bright as feathers.

“Nobody?”

“‘Who are you?'” her eyes looked blank. Was anybody still in there?

“‘Don't tell,'” she said. “‘They'd banish us, you know.'”

Emily Dickinson. She's quoting Emily Dickinson to me. Once an English major, always an English major.

“Who is Nobody?” I asked as gently as I could, reached over to touch Verna on her arm. Bring her back to base maybe?

“Tempie's house is falling down, falling down, falling down,” Verna began to sing. “My fair Lavinia.” She hiccupped, put her hand over her mouth and giggled.

“What's Miss Lavinia got to do with all this?” I asked.

“Why, everything,” Verna said, suddenly lucid. “I got so excited when I heard she was coming back. I wrote her right away and said come for lunch. Not Tempie, just me and Lavinia. Tempie was always so jealous, she'd just snip and snap every time she got around Lavinia.”