I told you I can be bitchy. I’d like to put it down to pain or exhaustion or some other reason, but that would be dishonest. I confess, it was pure bitchiness that made me be so mean. Fortunately, Bitty didn’t take great offense. Instead, she crossed her legs at the ankles, lifted her sterling silver cup in my direction, and said:
“My, my, it’s so vairy, vairy wahm in heah.”
Since I recognized her ploy immediately, I countered, “Well, turn off the heat” in my thickest Southern drawl so that it came out more like,
Wail, tuhn awf th’ heet
.
Then we both laughed. Thank heavens Bitty is reasonable and forgiving, even if she is a little scatty at times. You can see why I love her, I’m sure.
Gaynelle and Rayna wisely decided to ignore us both.
“Are you going to the funeral?” Rayna asked me, and I blinked at her.
“Whose funeral?”
“Race Champion’s,” said Gaynelle. “His body was sent back from Jackson this week and the funeral is tomorrow.”
“Oh. Well, I never met him, after all. Are you going?”
They both nodded, and Rayna leaned forward a little to peer at Bitty. “We thought the three of us should go and see what happens.”
“What happens?” I echoed while Bitty frowned at them; or tried to frown. Too much Botox can be risky.
“Yes,” Bitty answered me, looking away from Rayna and Gaynelle. “It should be interesting since Race’s father is Naomi’s uncle’s first cousin. I don’t care. I’m not going.”
While I tried to figure that out, ticking through the family relationships to see what that would have made a marriage between Naomi and Race, I heard Rayna say, “But isn’t that just through marriage or something?”
That put a new wrinkle in my deciphering, so I stopped trying to figure it out. It would likely give me a headache.
“Bitty,” said Gaynelle rather sternly, “you must go with us to Race’s funeral. You knew him. It wouldn’t look right if you didn’t go.”
“I knew him, but I didn’t like him. Therefore, I shouldn’t have to go.”
“But no one knows you didn’t like him,” Rayna said. “Besides, we really need a good reason to go, and you’re it. We don’t want to look like ghouls just showing up to gawk.”
“You
are
ghouls just showing up to gawk.”
“Not at all. It’s been my experience that funerals often bring out the worst in the bereaved,” Gaynelle said. “It would be to our advantage if that happens tomorrow, since we would be right there to hear it.”
“Hear what?” Bitty demanded. “How Race drank too much and ran around with any and everything in a skirt? That’s common knowledge. You don’t have to go to his funeral to hear that. Just ask anyone in town. They’ll tell you.”
I decided to intervene. “Bitty, I think what they’re trying to tell you is that it’s not only possible, it’s likely that Naomi’s family and Race’s family will have words if they’re both at the funeral. See? Race’s family probably thinks just like everyone else does, that Naomi killed him. So if—what’s her name?”
“Sukey,” Gaynelle supplied the mother’s name for me.
“If Sukey,” I continued, “shows up at the funeral as family, there may be hard feelings. Loud and hopefully overheard hard feelings.”
“Well.” Bitty flounced around on the longue, took another sip of julep, patted Chen Ling atop her grumpy little head, and then said, “All right. I’ll go. But I’m not happy. And I’m not going to the cemetery, either. I have no desire at all to get pushed into the dirt.”
The last made me reflect on the funerals I’d attended in the past. Oddly enough, the only ones that really stick in my mind are those in the South. Maybe because I hadn’t really known people well enough in other parts of the country to attend their family funerals, but really, it is probably because the Southern funerals seem to come with grand theatrics and high emotions. If not during the funeral itself, at the wake or the gathering of family and friends afterward. Of course, I’ve always assumed it was my family alone that has relatives prone to, shall we say—
awkward
outbursts of emotion at times of great stress.
Although recent events have given me the comforting notion that other families might also be demonstrative in certain situations, I’m still not certain there are many families who can completely qualify as candidates for Whitfield’s caring embrace. Proof remains to be found.
“May I come, too?” I heard myself ask, and before the enormity of what I’d said aloud penetrated my stupefied brain, Bitty looked over at me.
“You have no other choice.”
“I bet Trina and Trisha Madewell will be there,” Rayna mused aloud, and we all looked at each other.
Ever practical, Gaynelle said: “Wear something washable, ladies.”
CHAPTER 14
Funerals are really for the living, I’ve decided over the years. The dead aren’t actually there to appreciate how many people dress up and show up, except maybe in spirit. Nor are they there to hear the eulogies spoken on their behalf.
That can be a good thing.
It turns out that Roland “Race” Champion wasn’t a frequent church-goer. Nor was his family. In fact, it was doubtful any of them had seen the inside of a church except for funerals in their entire lives. So the minister who was drafted to perform the services had to separate gossip from fact and try to come up with a polite, gracious speech about how wonderful a man had been taken away far too young from the bosom of his loving family.
Ministers are probably grossly underpaid.
It would have made more sense to me to just have the funeral home take care of all those details and have the service in their own chapel, but I wasn’t consulted. And apparently there was some kind of scheduling conflict at the Ashland Methodist church, so the services were to be conducted graveside in the Ashland cemetery on School Street.
A long, solemn procession of cars filed behind the black hearse as it rolled up and down the hilly highway between Holly Springs and Ashland. The twenty miles had never seemed quite so far. I sat up front with Bitty—sans pug—and Rayna and Gaynelle sat in the back.
“Where will the wake be held?” Rayna wondered aloud, and I turned to look at her.
“If you’re referring to the gathering after the funeral, I hope you don’t expect me to go
there
.”
“Why not? If you’re going to the funeral, you might as well get to eat some good food later.”
“That’s only if you know who’s doing the cooking,” I said.
“Trinket, remember where we live. Since the Champions don’t really belong to a church, I can almost guarantee you there will be Baptist and Methodist ladies’ societies trying to outdo each other with covered dishes and desserts.”
I reflected a moment, then nodded. “That’s probably true. Then it depends on where the wake is being held as to whether or not I go.”
Rayna and Gaynelle both nodded understanding. At least once in our lives I’m sure we’ve all found ourselves at someone’s house for an after-funeral gathering that included family pets walking on counters, tables, and the stove, and hosts of insects lined up greedily at food platters. There are bathrooms in this world so dirty that I prefer to go outside behind a bush rather than risk my bare behind on a toilet seat occupied by hordes of bacteria. In fact, I prefer an old-fashioned outhouse to some of the bathrooms I’ve been unfortunate enough to see in my lifetime. It’s enough to scar people forever.
At any rate, with the matter of the wake settled, we discussed odds and ends of gossip rather than what was really on our minds. The motive for Race’s murder still hung in the air like a giant question mark. We’d been back and forth over it a hundred times and none of us had come up with a reason that seemed good enough.
It occurred to me that perhaps we were looking at it the wrong way. For us, there was no good motive for murder. But for the person who had shot him, obviously they thought there was reason enough. Maybe we should stop looking so closely for a clear motive, and look for someone capable of murdering two people in cold blood. It had to be the same person. Nothing else made sense.
But who did we know who would be capable of such a thing?
Anyway, there we all were, Bitty, Rayna, Gaynelle and I, comfortably seated in Bitty’s Franklin Benz and driving slowly over broken asphalt, red rock and loose gravel as we followed the hearse and long line of cars to Ashland. Two motorcycle cops led the procession. When we turned off Highway 4 onto Ripley Street, the line slowed to a crawl.
There are two cemeteries in Ashland. This one is on School Street across from the brick high school and a couple of Headstart metal buildings. Smaller cemeteries sprawl on church grounds throughout Benton county, as well as family cemeteries, but this cemetery has been in use for a century and a half or more. Some of the headstones are moss-covered and leaning and some are brand new, a glistening white that speaks of new grief. A few ancient trees provide some shade here and there, and on the far side could be seen the bright green of a funeral tent erected for those who had come to pay their last respects to Race Champion.
Cars snaked around the cemetery toward a distant goal, until finally we got to the gravesite. The awning had been erected over strips of green artificial grass that made a square around the grave. Folding chairs were set up on three sides, some of them in the bright sunlight that beat down mercilessly. Tripods of flower wreaths ringed the entire area, and I could see NHRA on some of the ribbon banners. Apparently the National Hot Rod Association was well-represented. Red carnations, white lilies, gladiolas, red, yellow, and pink roses; even sunny daisies filled the air with scent. As soon as I opened the car door I could smell their fragrance on the hot breeze.
Gaynelle carried an old-fashioned parasol, and popped it open as we gathered by Bitty’s car. I recognized a lot more people than I’d thought I would, seeing as how I had been away from the area for so long, but Bitty quietly pointed out the ones she thought important.
“That’s Ashland’s mayor over there, and see that woman with the frizzy hair? We used to go to school with her. Her name’s Jewell Hopkins. Or was back then. I think it’s Jones now. Or maybe Smith. One of those. And over there is—”
“Trina and Trisha Madewell,” I interrupted. Bitty caught her breath and I gave Rayna a nudge with my elbow and then bent my head in the Madewells’ direction. She in turn nudged Gaynelle, and we all stood gawking from under the scant shadow of a pink polka dot parasol for a moment. We must have looked like idiots.
I broke away from the others before people turned to stare, and started toward the gravesite, angling in the general direction of the Madewell sisters. They both wore black. I mean jet black, too. Even their stockings were black. The thought of wearing pantyhose in this heat made me itch. I don’t know how they did it. I had worn nice cotton slacks so I didn’t have to even think about hose. My mother would be horrified if she knew. She still believes in the old ways of wearing white cotton gloves and hose to any function that is remotely public. Fortunately, though I’d never burned my bra, I had burned all the old-time civilities during my rebellious teenage years and never looked back. I felt no guilt whatsoever.
In the heat of a Mississippi summer, black is not the coolest color to wear. I’d thought ahead, so my light cotton slacks were a tan that matched my short-sleeved black and tan shirt. It was cool and somber at the same time, I’d thought when I looked at my reflection in Bitty’s antique mirror. My sensible black flats matched my cheap pleather purse, and all in all, I thought I represented Southern womanhood respectably.
Trina and Trisha both wore long-sleeved black dresses, black hats with flurries of black netting that half-hid their faces, and carried black handkerchiefs in their hands. I really felt sorry for them, as much because of the heat as their obvious grief. It’s always sad to lose someone you care about, even if that someone cheated on you. There has to be several dozen country songs dedicated to just that very theme.
Behind me I heard Gaynelle whisper, “
Is that Sukey Spencer I see over there?”
and it was quickly followed with Bitty’s,
“Omigod, it is! I just knew she’d show up!”
Rayna caught up with me. “Hold on, Trinket. If there’s going to be trouble, I want to stand by you.” Just as I was feeling flattered, she added, “You’re tall enough to block anything coming my way.”
“Thank you” was all I could think of to reply.
The arrival of Naomi Spencer’s mother portended trouble. This is the woman who is banned from every major store between Holly Springs and Tupelo because she’s a kleptomaniac, so perhaps it’s understandable. I looked around the growing crowd to find her.
“Which one is she?” I finally asked Rayna, and she bent her head in the direction of a line of wreaths set up on tripods. I looked. Searing sunlight was blinding enough, but all the wreaths had banners with messages written in glitter that reflected light in broken refractions. I squinted. “I can’t see anyone.”
“The blond dressed in sequins,” she replied in a loud whisper.
For a moment I had a difficult time telling what was sequins and what was glitter, then I distinguished the wreath banners from the woman when she moved toward the line of chairs set up under the funeral home awning. Sukey Spencer wore a dark navy dress with a flirty chiffon skirt; the bodice was made entirely of blue sequins. Sunlight bounced off her chest in a dozen different Morse Code messages, and I had to really squint to keep looking at her. I should have worn sunglasses.
“She looks like she’s on fire,” I whispered back to Rayna, and she nodded.
“Sukey always looks like that. I heard she even wears nightgowns with glitter and sequins sewn on the front.”
“Maybe she’s kin to Chen Ling,” I murmured, and Rayna giggled. We were both pretty nervous. I could tell she was by the way her bracelet bangles kept clinking together, even though she had her hands clasped in front of her. It’s pretty easy for people to tell when I’m nervous. I say stupid things.
My focus was on Naomi Spencer’s mother as she walked slowly across the uneven ground toward the funeral tent. She wasn’t quite what I’d expected. For some reason I’d envisioned a much older woman, the kind who went out in public with foam rollers in her hair and flip-flops on her feet. I hope I never get to the age when I feel comfortable at the local Wal-Mart or Sears store wearing house slippers, hair rollers and no underwear. Not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with people who do feel comfortable doing that, I guess; it’s just that Mama spent far too many years investing her time and advice into me about always wearing clean underwear in case I was involved in a wreck for me to flout her rules on social etiquette at my age.