Doing It at the Dixie Dew (21 page)

“But she didn't plan it that way.” Miss Tempie sniffed.

“None of us do.” Verna looked at her hands holding another sandwich. “We never do.” Her voice quivered a little. “And you said it would be like old times. Lavinia, you and me, having our little parties, going shopping, doing things together. That's what I wanted.”

“That's not what Lavinia wanted,” Miss Tempie said. Her eyes were black as two burnt coals now. I felt I could feel the heat from them. “She wanted it all and she would have gotten it like she did the first time.”

“You got the house,” Verna said.

They seemed to have forgotten Malinda and I were in the room.

“But that's all. Not enough to keep it up. Not even enough each month to buy myself a new hat.” She patted her hair. “At least once a season, I went to New York to buy hats. I was known for my hats.” Miss Tempie's face clouded, darkened and looked hard. Then it softened suddenly as if she remembered she had been speaking and there were other people in the room. She tried to smile, and to keep her voice level, but there was an undercrust of thick ice, hate huge as an iceberg that could sink a battleship. “Until Lavinia's father took everything away.”

“Took it?” Verna asked suddenly. “Took it? My foot! From what I heard, your daddy lost everything he had to Tevis Lovingood and didn't leave you so much as a pot to pee in. Haw.” Verna started laughing. “Haw.” She slapped the table at her own joke and Robert Redford jumped down and ran into the garden. He sat at the edge of a row of beets and cleaned himself like a cat.

Miss Tempie chose to ignore Verna, lifted her shoulders and went on. “My father was an excellent businessman. He owned half of this county. And horse farms. He had seven. We even went to the Kentucky Derby once. He was a state senator twice … but that was before Tevis Lovingood had to have his turn.”

“Not what I heard,” Verna said. She shrugged, looked at us and winked. “Of course this was all before my time.”

“Was not.” Miss Tempie glared at her, widened her nostrils. “You're a year older than me and you know it.”

“Younger,” Verna said. “Two years younger.”

The two women stared at each other like two cats with their backs raised.

“Lavinia was in the middle,” Verna said. “Till you killed her.” She reached for another sandwich.

“Stop.” Miss Tempie hit Verna's hand. “You'll make yourself sick.”

Verna held the sandwich tight and twisted out of Miss Tempie's reach. “Well, you know you did. I said, ‘Tempie, you shouldn't. You shouldn't.'” She turned to me and Malinda. “But did she listen to me? No.” Verna beat the table with her index finger. “No, she did not.”

I turned to Malinda and our expressions asked each other, Can we be hearing this? This is not your normal tea party conversation.

“I had to,” Miss Tempie said. “Besides, it wasn't like really killing her. At her age it was only a matter of months, a few years anyway, and this way she got it over with. I did her a favor. Lavinia was always so vain.”

Tape recorder, I thought suddenly. I wish I had a tape recorder. Will anybody believe this? Ossie DelGardo? Not in a million years. And somehow I couldn't see Miss Tempie on trial for murder. In jail? Not Miss Tempie. Not Verna either. I glanced at Malinda, who drank tea. At least I've got a witness, eye- and ear witness, but doesn't that make us accessories? Knowing something like this? I almost giggled. Accessories always made me think of scarves and handbags, jewelry. Was the tea getting to me? What was in it? I'd worried about sandwiches, forgotten about tea. Now I could be really poisoned! I felt a little nauseated already.

“Father Roderick was a different story,” Miss Tempie said, sipping her tea. “I had nothing to do with him.” She set her teacup down and spread both hands in the air. “With the little strength I've got left in these hands, I can't even open a jar of jelly, much less twist some piece of silk around somebody's neck.” She touched her throat, made a face. “Awful way to die.”

“Any way is awful,” I said, thinking the tea must be okay after all. We were all drinking it.

“Not Lavinia.” Miss Tempie played with the diamonds on her fingers. “Weak heart. I knew she'd eat the parsley. She's always been so picky, picky.”

“Didn't she taste that it wasn't parsley?” I asked. The question popped from my mouth before I could stop it.

Miss Tempie looked at me impatiently. She paused before she answered. “Of course I expect it was a little bit bitter, but I knew Lavinia would be too polite to say anything.”

Polite to the end! I thought. This woman has been a little bit crazy for years and everybody only thought, Eccentric, that's just the way Miss Tempie is. Now she's killed somebody. And she's sitting here calmly talking about it like she's discussing a Sunday school lesson.

But Ossie DelGardo had found traces of hemlock in Miss Lavinia's body.

“Honey, I worried I'd never get her to eat enough parsley. Parsley,” she said, and laughed. “I was doing her a favor, only she didn't know it. Such a clean and neat way to die. I knew Lavinia always dressed so for bed. Particular. She dressed like she was going someplace special … all that lace.” Miss Tempie sighed.

“I sleep in flannel myself,” Verna said. “Year-round.” She smiled wide, her teeth yellow as old ivory.

“I don't believe this,” I muttered. I pushed away the parsley on my plate. Or was it wild hemlock? I wanted to sneak some of it into my purse in case someone needed to identify it later. I could see how
The Mess
would word it now. “And the evidence of the death was found upon the deceased's person.” How much did it take to do in somebody? Miss Tempie had used the wild parsley and somehow gotten Miss Lavinia to eat enough of it to do her in. “Why?” I asked.

“It's such a long story.” Miss Tempie sighed and looked around the room.

Was she looking for Rolfe? Had he gone or was he still standing in the corn rows? I couldn't see. The sky was darkening, the room getting a dusky blue-gray and there were no lights. None I could see. Not overhead, nor on the walls.

“Boring, boring,” said Verna, whose eyes were bright as wine.

“It always makes me cry to talk about it.” Miss Tempie sniffed.

I poked Malinda. She'd not said anything in so long. Was she doing more than listening to these two? “Let's go,” I whispered, low enough surely neither Miss Tempie nor Verna heard.

“Oh, it was some show all right,” Miss Tempie said.

Malinda nudged me, pointed to the glass door behind us, then touched her watch, held up five fingers, whispered, “Five minutes.”

Both of us saw a shadow move outside the door. Rolfe. He carried the shovel like a weapon.

Would we get out of this place alive? And if we didn't, would Miss Tempie get away with killing us like she had Miss Lavinia? If she had indeed killed Miss Lavinia? At this point, with these two crazies, I didn't know who or what to believe.

I tried to remember if anyone knew we were here and would come looking. But would they come looking too late? Scott knew, but would he take these two women seriously? He had joked about the tea party. But this was no joke.

The shadow stopped, stood at the door and waited.

Chapter Twenty-two

Whoever it was—Rolfe, I thought, from the bulk of the shadow—had stood by the door briefly, then left.

Malinda sighed audibly. “At the count of five,” she said, “starting now.”

“Margaret Alice never knew.” Verna drank tea.

“One,” said Malinda.

“Wait.” I put an arm out to stop Malinda, who dodged past it and sprinted for the door, where she rattled the knob frantically.

“Locked,” I said.

“Stuck,” said Miss Tempie, fiddling with another sandwich. “You girls. I'm surprised at both of you. No manners. You don't ever leave until you've told your hostess you had a nice time. I don't know about young people these days. They're so narcissistic.”

“Not like us, our generation,” Verna said. “Why, you take Margaret Alice. She'd give you anything she had.”

“And you killed her,” I blurted to Verna. “You pushed her.”

Verna pushed out her lower lip and looked hurt. “Oh, Bethie honey, I'd never do a thing like that. I told you Margaret Alice was my best friend.”

“Not mine,” Miss Tempie said.

Malinda took her chair again, her face flushed, eyes slightly wider and frightened. Or angry? Some of both, I decided.

“Margaret Alice wouldn't sell that house to the church,” Miss Tempie said.

“I never knew they wanted it,” I said.

“They still do, honey,” Verna said. “And they'll get it.”

“Why? What does that little church want with Mama Alice's house?” I hugged myself for strength and protection. “My house.” Things shifted in place in my mind … the break-in, intruder, trapping me in a mausoleum … all of it.

“The church,” Verna whispered. “Big business. Big bucks.”

Miss Tempie wasn't involved in big business. Not that bat brain. No way. “If you didn't push Mama Alice”—I had to get an answer and now was my chance—“who the hell did?” I stood over Verna and grabbed her shoulder.

Verna choked on her tea, sputtered and sprayed the tablecloth, my arm. “Nobody,” she said. “Nobody.”

I shook Verna's arm. I'd get the truth out if I had to shake it out. I caught Malinda's eyes and read, I'm with you. We can take them.

Verna collapsed back in her chair. “I found her.”

“Just like you said when you called me?” I let Verna go.

“It was a stroke.”

“All that time in the hospital and nursing home,” Miss Tempie said. “And those things cost you an arm and a leg.” She giggled. “I thought we'd get a lien.”

“And you almost did,” I said bitterly. “The nursing home took everything she had … but the house. That was next.”

“I got lost somewhere in all this. Who took what from whom? As my mama would make me say,” Malinda asked in a voice that sounded like she meant business.

“I thought Verna killed Mama Alice,” I said. “I found a note that said Mama Alice was pushed, and it was Verna's handwriting.”

“Tempie made me do it.” Verna sat straighter in her chair. “It was her idea.”

“Well, now we know she wasn't, so what harm did it do?” Miss Tempie seemed impatient. “Honestly, such a fuss over four words.”

“It isn't the words,” I said. “It's the deeds. And you've done some dirty ones.”

“All in the name of the Lord,” Miss Tempie said. “It's His house … for His glory.”

“Foot,” Verna said. “To cover your tail. That's all.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Back up. I want some answers and I want them here and now and I'm not leaving until I get them.”

“As if we could,” Malinda mumbled.

“It's this way,” Verna said, then stopped. She put her hand to her forehead and slumped to the table, her face falling in her plate.

No one moved for a moment. Then Miss Tempie made a sound of disgust with her lips. “She gets overwrought. Then one little sip of sherry and she's out.” There must have been sherry in Verna's tea. Miss Tempie's, too? I hadn't tasted any in mine.

Someone moved behind the double glass doors and Miss Tempie tapped her saucer with a spoon.

Rolfe came to her elbow.

“Verna has left us,” Miss Tempie said. “Momentarily.” She indicated for Rolfe to remove her. “Let her nap in my bedroom.” She dismissed both of them with a little wave of her hand.

Rolfe slid his large hands under Verna's arms and lifted her carefully from her chair as if she weighed nothing at all.

His right hand was wrapped in a bandage thick as a blanket. I heard Malinda draw in her breath at the sight of the telltale hand. “Easy,” she said. “Easy.”

Rolfe carried Verna from the room.

Miss Tempie rearranged her tea things with a great clinking and clattering of cups, saucers and spoons. “It's really such a simple little story and it's a shame you girls have been so curious to hear it. I fear you'll have to stay here, once you know.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you invite us to come?”

“Why, honey,” Miss Tempie said, “I have to kill you. Absolutely
have
to. Sweet girls, both of you, but you can't go poking around in other people's business.”

“But,” I said, and looked at Malinda, who rolled her eyes.

Miss Tempie kept on, a crazy wide smile across her wrinkle-creviced face. “If you girls hadn't found the hemlock down by my own private little pond. Ha ha. Oh, Rolfe does so love to dig, doesn't he? This whole thing might have been covered up.” Miss Tempie put her hand over her mouth as she laughed at her own little joke. “Covered up.” She slapped both hands on the table, “And now he has to conk you two over the head with his shovel and bury you here. He's so good with that shovel.”

Chapter Twenty-three

Malinda jumped up and flung the table on Miss Tempie, who rolled over in her chair, sputtering and clucking like an upset hen. China broke in a clatter and silver clanged as it hit the flagstone floor. I grabbed the silver teapot and Malinda snatched up a huge footed tray. My hat fell off as we ran. We ran like our lives depended on it.

We ran past the swimming pool, turned into a garden and back the way we'd come. Or we thought it was the way we'd come. All the doors looked alike. We took the first unlocked door, shoving past massive furniture stacked to the ceiling and dark boxes big as refrigerators.
“Oof.”
Malinda bumped into one as we rounded a corner. “The damn thing didn't move an inch.” She stopped to rub her shoulder.

Fast behind her I said, “Look.” The hall ended in stairs that curved up and a door that went down. The door had a padlock big and heavy as a purse.