“No, Bitty. This is a private matter.”
Before she could offer another protest he moved forward, scooped her up from the chair, and carried her out of the parlor. Apparently surprised by the swift decisiveness of his action, Bitty put her arms around his neck and held on.
Chen Ling, however, barked furiously, jumped down from the chair to the carpet, then chased them down the hallway, her toenails clicking furiously against the bare wood floors. The tone of her shrill barks said there would be hell to pay for this outrage.
Gaynelle and I looked at each other.
“Well,” she said after a moment, “what did you find out at the Madewells?”
It took a moment for me to remember. Time had ceased to exist since the SUV took a dive into kudzu, it seemed.
“For one thing,” I began, “Trina and Trisha were both dating Race. That much is true, although Trina claims to have stopped dating him once she found out he was seeing her sister. Trisha was pretty blunt and honest, and just seemed to want to get this all behind her. Trina, though . . . ” I paused. She hadn’t seemed forthright, just angry. But angry enough to kill Race? I didn’t know that, and didn’t know if I should say it, either.
“Trina is still angry, isn’t she,” Gaynelle stated, and I nodded. That made my head throb, but I still heard her add, “I thought as much. But the question is—is she angry enough to commit murder. We don’t know that. We can only guess. Did you see the murder scene, by chance?”
“Trina took us to the cottage. I stayed in the doorway, but Bitty and Rayna went in to the bedroom. Oh, while I was standing in the doorway, I noticed that it’s in shadow. If the killer stood in that alcove at night, he or she could see straight into the bedroom from that position.”
“And could anyone in the bedroom see into the alcove?”
“Maybe, but not unless they were looking. It would be very easy for someone to sneak in the front door when the living room lights were out and see exactly who and what was going on in the bedroom.”
Gaynelle lifted an eyebrow and nodded. “I see. That means—”
A piercing shriek from somewhere down the hallway penetrated walls and my skull to reach my brain. I recognized it immediately as a Bitty-shriek. An
angry
Bitty-shriek. “
Noooooooo!
” the shriek said.
Since I put up my left hand to prop up my head so it wouldn’t fall off into my lap, I didn’t see Gaynelle jump. I did see her land, however, and she sprawled back into the soft cushions of the sofa with one hand to her chest as if having an attack.
“Are you all right?” I asked, and she gave me a wild look.
“What in God’s name was that?”
“Bitty. I think she got some bad news. We’ll find out soon, I’m sure.” My voice slowed down. How strange. It was an effort to speak, even to focus as Gaynelle faded.
It was the oddest thing, but as I sat there on my couch-bed facing the parlor door, the light coming through wood-shuttered windows took on a fuzzy glow. The parlor walls are painted a deep rose that’s almost maroon, but grew brighter and brighter. I tried to think if the sun rose in the east or west, but the answer escaped me. Since these windows faced east, maybe the sun was setting. Or rising. Really, it ceased to matter. I just felt this tingly warmth spread through me, and closed my eyes and thought of that song by Uncle Kracker about fish swimming through my veins . . . or was that him swimming through veins like a fish in the sea? The melody went round and round in my head, and my ears stopped up as if I had soared to a high altitude. Maybe I was flying. That would explain the light. How nice it was to fly. I just drifted and drifted along on the wind and clouds . . .somewhere, far, far, away, I heard someone talking, but they must have been still on the ground while I was high up in the sky. So high. So very nice and high, just floating . . . floating . . ..
“Up, up, and
awaaaayy
, my beautiful, my beautiful
balloooon
,” someone close by me sang as I drifted on puffy clouds of light and air.
CHAPTER 12
Someone kept calling my name, and it was very annoying. Over and over, like a broken record, “Trinket! Trinket! Trinket!”
Not only that, but my balloon must have landed pretty hard because I felt the ground shaking beneath me. I tried to open my eyes, but not much happened. So I just let myself drift, and the balloon took off again.
The next time I opened my eyes, the light was gone. A fuzzy darkness blanketed the room, and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I was supposed to be. Then it came to me that I hadn’t been in a balloon at all, but in Bitty’s parlor. Thin slits of light made bars across the floor and up the wall. I blinked, the light wavered, then steadied so that I knew it was real.
My throat and mouth were terribly dry, and I pushed myself up on my left arm to peer at the table beside me. My tea glass was still there, though all the ice had melted long ago. I didn’t care. It was wet, and my parched throat soaked it up.
It came to me what had happened. The pain pill, of course. At least I knew it did its job, because I wasn’t hurting anywhere, just a residual ache or two. It also knocked me out. Not that I considered that to be a necessarily bad thing. Maybe being knocked out for a while helped. The house was quiet. Not even an annoyed pug could be heard snorting for her dinner.
Thinking of dinner made my stomach growl. The power of suggestion is an odd thing. Bitty always has lots of food in her refrigerator. Perhaps even some of Aunt Sarah’s pimento cheese.
I sat up, determined that I was still a bit wobbly, and stood very slowly. When I didn’t fall over immediately, I figured I was good to go. So I began my trek to the kitchen. It isn’t too far, out the parlor, across the wide hall and entry, through the living room and past the coat closet, then pass under an arch of white-painted molding, and into the kitchen. I knew the path well. That’s why when I found myself in the downstairs powder room, I had a momentary pause. I’d obviously made a misstep somewhere. But since I was already there . . . .
When I left the powder room, I felt my way along the walls by touching the rail of wainscoting for a guide. It led me straight to the kitchen doorway. Blinding light flooded the kitchen, and I blinked a few times as I moved cautiously forward. Using my left hand to block out the light some, I managed to find the refrigerator. It was already open.
“Are you hungry?” Bitty asked from somewhere behind me.
“Yes. Room service sucks here. Why didn’t you tell me you were in here?”
“Well, for heaven’s sake, can’t you see me?”
I squinted in the direction of the elusive voice. “I can’t see squat. You’ve turned on all the strobe lights.”
“God, Trinket, you really are a wretched patient.” There was the sound of motion, then the lights dimmed so that I could open my eyes without risk of having my retinas burned to a crisp. “Is that better?”
“Yes. What is there to eat?”
“We have enough food for about six days, tops. After that—we’re down to beans and taters.”
Since Bitty sounded glum, I peered in her direction again. “I like beans and taters. Don’t you?”
“Not when that’s all there is to eat day after day.”
I snorted. “Since when have you ever been reduced to eating just beans and taters, may I ask?”
“At your house when we were kids. Don’t you remember? It was when Uncle Eddie had just changed jobs and y’all didn’t have much money, I guess. I stayed with you while Mama and Daddy were on a trip, and all we had to eat every day was grits and gravy for breakfast, and beans and taters for dinner.”
“Hm. I don’t remember that. All I remember is we always had enough to eat.” I looked back at the well-stocked refrigerator, then what she had said soaked into my rather fuzzy brain. “Why do you think you won’t be able to get any more food after six days?” I asked as I found a small plastic container that looked like it might hold pimento cheese. “Did all the stores close down?”
“They might as well have for all the good they’ll do me.”
It wasn’t easy opening the plastic container, and when I got it open with my one good hand, it held what looked like really old lasagna. I put the lid back on it and renewed my search. “Why do you say that?” I asked distractedly, my search for pimento cheese overriding my curiosity.
“Trinket Truevine, pay attention to me instead of food!” Bitty demanded in a tone that got my complete attention. “Did you even hear a word I said earlier?”
“How earlier?” I asked after my brain came up with no instant replay.
Bitty sat at the kitchen counter on one of the bar stools. She looked frazzled. Her hair stuck out at odd angles as if someone had been yanking on it, and her always pressed shirt looked like she’d slept in it, and she had a mysterious stain on the knee of her Capri pants.
“Never mind. You were probably so drugged you didn’t hear a thing. I’m broke. Ruined. Cut off. I have no money. Do you understand any of that?
No money!
My life is over. I have to give up everything. I’ll end up in a gutter somewhere, me and poor little Chen Ling, eking out an existence by begging for bread crusts on corners . . ..” She began to cry then, big tears that slid from her eyes, over her cheeks, and plopped into her lap without her even dabbing at them with an expensive handkerchief.
I tried to absorb what she had just said, but could find no good reason for her to be broke that would happen with such cataclysmic swiftness.
“Did the stock market go bust?” I asked. “Did Wall Street finally steal every bit of money and disappear to some tropical island?”
“Worse than that. Much, much worse than that.” She sobbed more loudly.
I straightened up, alarmed. “Did Congress sell America to the highest bidder at last? Do we now belong to China? India? Vanuatu?”
Bitty briefly stopped crying to ask, “What does Vanna White have to do with any of that?”
“Vanuatu. It’s an island near Fiji, I think. So answer me. Why are we broke?”
“Oh,
you’re
not broke. Just me. Just me, because . . . because I was in a hurry and did something stupid!” Tears flowed freely again.
I was understandably skeptical. To Bitty, being broke means having less than six figures in her mad money checking account.
“Unh huh,” I said. “How broke?”
“Ruined! I have only a few thousand left after paying the bills, and no telling
how
long that will last, and with nothing else coming in—I’m ruined!”
I sorted through that for a few seconds. “Why won’t you have any money coming in? You always have money coming in: dividends, oil lease payments, alimony, interest on bank accounts—what’s changed?”
Bitty sniffed, coughed, and wiped her wet cheeks with the heels of her hands. It was plain to see she was genuinely distressed, not just being melodramatic for a change. Or not being melodramatic for the sake of drama, I suppose I should say.
“Well,” she said after composing herself, “since Philip is dead, his attorneys said he’s no longer liable for alimony payments every month. Jackson Lee anticipated that he would one day try to get out of paying, and included a clause in our divorce agreement that stipulated that should he die, I would continue to receive a percentage of his estate every month up to but not exceeding our agreed-upon alimony payments. Should I choose to do so, however, I could always accept a lump sum payment in lieu of continued alimony.”
Poor thing. She sounded like a sixth grade student reciting a book report. I nodded at her encouragingly, and she took a deep breath, her voice only slightly quivering when she continued.
“So instead of sending a settlement proposal to Jackson Lee’s office like they’re supposed to do, they sent it directly to me. He didn’t even get a copy of it.”
“And you signed it without reading it,” I said when she gave me a wretched look that spoke volumes.
“Oh no. I didn’t sign the agreement at all. I put it with all the other stuff I save to give Jackson Lee once a month. It was the check I signed. It came in a separate envelope, you see, so when it said it was from the Philip Hollandale Estate, I figured they’d just moved the money into another account. I signed it and deposited it as usual.”
“So if you haven’t signed the agreement, what’s the problem?”
“Well, you know I can pretty well follow all that legalese talk lawyers use, but after I read the first page or two, I put the whole thing into the Jackson Lee basket. Since I didn’t finish reading it, I didn’t get to the part where it said that signing the included check would be construed as signing the agreement, and once the monies were deposited, it would end any further financial obligation on the part of the Hollandale estate. Damn them! You know it was that Patrice and Parrish who put the lawyers up to this trick!”
I didn’t doubt that for an instant. Philip’s mother and sister had always disliked Bitty. Parrish Hollandale had spoiled her son rotten in childhood, and even if all the stuff Bitty said about him and his sister didn’t have an ounce of truth to it, they were really unpleasant people. Parrish Hollandale was rumored to have given a ten thousand dollar garden party in celebration of the event when Philip and Bitty’s divorce became final. I also heard that Naomi Spencer was an honored guest at the affair. Talk about spite.
I closed the refrigerator door and joined Bitty at the breakfast bar. While I had no intention of trying to heft my aching body up onto the kitchen stool, I did lean against the counter right beside it.
“Bitty. Jackson Lee is a really smart attorney. You know he will go through those papers with a fine-tooth comb, and if there is even as much as a suggestion of a loophole, he’ll find it. You still have investments, you still have property, you still have loads of money in savings. There is no need for you to worry about starving to death or ending up homeless. Six Chimneys is paid for, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Well, see then, you’ll be just fine.”
“Taxes. State, city, federal . . . sales taxes, property taxes, all those taxes will eat up every penny I have in a very short time. You know they will.” Bitty sucked in a deep breath. “But I’ll hold on as long as I can. I’ll make up a new budget and get rid of every expense that’s not necessary. I’ll cut coupons. I’ll shop at Wal-Mart. I’ll pump my own gas. I’ll do my own cooking. I can read, so I can figure out a recipe, surely.”