For now, it seemed there was no way out of caring for Fluffy. I broke down and decided to pick up a few of her personal items. I’d called Malone, and he’d said the house was no longer a crime scene. He’d also mentioned Camilla, Mona’s housekeeper, was there to inventory Mona’s estate.
During our brief conversation, it had dawned on me, Malone had known all along I was Fluffy’s new guardian, and he hadn’t said a word. He was very good at keeping secrets.
I dropped off the dogs at home, then drove over to Mona’s. I parked the Jeep (I’d switched to the hard top earlier that morning) and skedaddled to the front door.
I rang the bell and cringed. Hopefully the new owner would replace that thing.
The door opened, and there stood Camilla in slacks and blouse. She looked very attractive. I wondered if she’d burned the unflattering black uniform Mona had insisted she wear.
“Hi, Camilla. I came by to pick up some of Fluffy’s things.”
“Miz Melinda. You bring Fluffy?” She stepped back and welcomed me inside.
“I left her at my place. I didn’t think bringing her home was good for her. Did you know Mona named me Fluffy’s guardian?”
“Si. I hear.” She closed the door. “I have Fluffy’s things for you.” Her light accent echoed throughout the palatial foyer.
I followed her to the sunroom. Sure enough, it was packed to the top of the white crown molding with Fluffy’s belongings. The luxurious couches and tables were covered with boxes, crates and leaning stacks of dog stuff. There was more inventory here than I carried during tourist season.
Brushes, combs, hair clips, hair products, dog food, Waterford crystal dog bowls. Blankets, toys, CDS, DVDS, clothing, a dog bed, pillows, pictures. You get the idea.
Lord have mercy, there was no way it would all fit in my Jeep. “I don’t need all of this.” I waved my hand at the mess in front of us.
“These are Fluffy’s belongings. You must take them.”
“I’d have to rent a moving truck to get this back to my place. Even then I wouldn’t have room for everything.”
She nodded. “Miz Mona spoiled Fluffy.”
Or Mona was a hoarder. Either way it was obvious she was two sandwiches short of a picnic.
“Tell me what I absolutely must take.” I refastened my ponytail, securing all the stray hairs around my face and sighed. “Everything else can stay here until I figure out what I’m going to do.”
“You not keep Fluffy?” her accent grew more pronounced. She shook her head and pointed a finger at me. “You have to. Miz Mona trusted you to keep Fluffy safe.”
“What do you mean, safe?”
She crossed herself. “She trusted you.”
“How do you know?”
She just stared at me with that knowing look that said people in her position knew more than they should, but she wasn’t one to gossip.
“You might as well talk. Mona’s dead. She can’t punish you for spillin’ the beans.”
She wrung her hands, obviously nervous to repeat Mona’s words. “She said you were impulsive, had no fashion sense, and sabotaged your one shot at success.”
Mona had a lot to say. Just because I preferred jeans and t-shirts (today’s shirt read, Sit Happens), didn’t mean I wasn’t fashionable. I didn’t argue the other two. They were pretty accurate.
“She also said you wouldn’t ever use her Fluffy.”
Well heck, when did I get so predictable?
“That’s all nice and very Mona-like, but that doesn’t convince me Fluffy’s in danger or why I’m her only option for a well-adjusted life.”
Camilla regarded me with a stubborn set to her mouth and refused to say more.
“I’m not taking all of this home. I came for a brush, food and hair product.”
Camilla was suddenly in motion. “You must take her favorite bowl. And pictures. She can’t forget Miz Mona. Oh, and home movies.”
She was like a wild woman piling Fluffy’s belongings at my feet.
“I have a Jeep not a U-Haul,” I reminded her.
“She likes filtered water and her bathrobe. Nail clippers, toothbrush, breath mints, clean-up bags, vitamins…”
“Whoa. Hold on there.”
Camilla stopped in the middle of tossing the plastic bottle of vitamins.
“Give me the bowl, brush, bathing products and food.”
“No pictures?” she looked pleadingly at me.
“Fine. Pick one,” I relented.
“And a home movie?”
“You’re pushing it.”
She hid a small smile as she gathered the few items I agreed to take, loaded them into a huge designer dog bed.
“You and Fluffy get along. It will be good. You see.” She patted my arm.
“Whatever you say, Camilla. I can see you’re in charge now.”
I pretended not to see her sneak a movie, a large envelope (which was probably full of pictures) and a doggie cookbook on the pile. I didn’t want to break her heart, but I wasn’t cooking for Mona’s dog.
With Camilla’s help we carried everything to the Jeep and somehow managed to shove it all inside. (At the last minute, she’d insisted I take all of Fluffy’s tiaras and a small safe to store them. The dog actually had a safe.) I left with my Fluffy items and headed home. I couldn’t worry about the mess I was leaving behind. I had a feeling I was driving into an even bigger one.
It had been a long and stressful day. My neck was stiff, and my back was sore. I’d cleaned out the guest room (AKA junk room) and made room for Fluffy and her belongings. I left a number of items in a small box in the closet, planning to get to them later.
So far Fluffy was unimpressed with the setup and continued to nap on my bed. I crossed my fingers that by bedtime she’d prefer her own room.
A long soak in the tub was in order. But first I wanted my special peanut butter cookie and a mug of milk. My mouth watered in anticipation.
Missy and Fluffy staked out the kitchen doorway in a doggie trance waiting for me to drop dough. I’m sure the smell of freshly baked cookies was making their mouths drool. I know mine was.
I’d just pulled the last batch from the oven when my cell phone rang, interrupting my baking party. Mama’s name flashed on the screen. It rang three more times before I picked up.
“Hello, Mama.”
“I can’t believe you let me hear about Mona on the news. You were brought up better than that, Sugar.” Her confident voice and teased, bottle-blond hair carried across the miles.
I pulled out a hands-free ear bud from my junk drawer and continued transferring cookies onto the cooling rack.
“I’ve been a little preoccupied. How’s Daddy?” I asked.
My daddy was a saint. John “Jack” Langston had managed to stay married to Mama for almost thirty-five years. Mama had trapped Daddy when she was nineteen. Daddy didn’t seem to mind. (He said no one ever forced him to do anything he didn’t want to. I believed him.) Mama acted like it hadn’t really happened. But my brother Mitch existed, and at times I believed he paid the price for Mama’s reckless decision.
“He’s fine. What happened to Mona?” she asked. No, demanded.
“She was murdered.”
“Oh, Melinda. Why are you so difficult? You know what I’m talking about. Who did it? Was it an intruder or someone she knew? What happened?”
I dumped the dirty cookie sheets into the sink. I took a deep breath of patience, keeping in mind they were childhood friends. “The police don’t confide in me, Mama.”
“I heard Fluffy was the one to find her and called 9-1-1.”
I smiled. “Ah, no. Fluffy can’t use a phone. That was me.”
“You found her?”
“No, that was Fluffy.”
She was quiet for a second. I took that opportunity to fill the mixing bowl with water.
“Who has the dog, Melinda?” she asked, exasperated.
I looked at Fluffy whose eyes begged for cookies. “Me.”
“You already have a dog.” She didn’t shriek. That wasn’t acceptable from someone with her pedigree. But her normally soft Texas accent thickened.
“A number of people have more than one dog. Mona thought I should be guardian. So Fluffy’s here, either hogging my bed or sleeping on my couch.” I poured myself a mug of milk.
“Why would you ever let her share your bed? Doesn’t she have her own? What if she has fleas? Really, Melinda, don’t you think about these things?”
The vexation in her voice drummed in my ears. It was time to change the subject-or hang up. “What happened between the two of you? You and Mona.”
“Back in the day, Mona was wild and fun. But, if you got on her bad side, she could be very nasty,” she stated, more than a little vinegar in her tone. Then in the next breath, she changed her mind. “That’s all water under the bridge. It’s neither here nor there.”
“Mama-”
“It’s not important, Melinda.”
It was to me. I grabbed a warm cookie and my milk, and sat at the breakfast bar. The dogs followed and staked out the floor next to my stool.
“What did she say when she called you?” I asked.
“Honey, we haven’t talked in years. Why would she call me?”
There was no hesitation in Mama’s voice. A fire burned in my gut. Mona had lied. “She said some horrible things about you at the Fur Ball,” even if they were true, “and I lost my temper.”
“Oh, Melinda Sue. Why must you be so reckless? What have you done now?”
I broke a peanut butter cookie in half and dunked it in the milk. “Nothing you’d approve of, I can promise you that much. The only reason I’m probably not a suspect in her murder is because I have an alibi.”
“Shh. Don’t talk like that.”
“Well, someone hated her so much they killed her.” I popped my pre-bedtime snack into my mouth. Delicious.
“You’re assuming Mona was killed out of hate. It could just as easily been because of jealousy or love or money.”
I tapped the side of the mug. “Which of those would Cliff fall under?”
“All of them. That heathen is as crooked as a snake. You’re not giving him that dog, are you?”
I looked to my right at Fluffy. “He doesn’t want her.”
“Of course not.”
“Why did Mona marry him in the first place?”
“Cliff is very charming when he’s not… knee deep in his vices.”
Leave it to Mama to skirt around calling Cliff a drunk. I chowed down the other half of the cookie.
“Enough about Mona and that dreadful topic, have you heard from Mitchell lately?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but anyone who knew my mother would recognize that slight lift of her voice on my brother’s name.
The real reason for her late night call. It was only eight-thirty in California, but back in Dallas, it was ten-thirty. Past former Miss Texas’ bedtime.
“Not recently.”
My brother was an architect working in Las Vegas. He specialized in luxury hotels and was hardly at his Dallas home. Mitch felt like the black sheep of the family. He wasn’t. He just picked up on Mama’s guilt.
To be fair, he was the perfect child. I, on the other hand, was probably why my parents’ hair had turn prematurely grey under that bottle color.
“Your big brother is hiding something.”
I broke a second cookie in half and dunked it in the milk. “Because he hasn’t called?” He’d probably talked to Daddy instead. But if we didn’t talk to Mama once a week, she was convinced we were hiding something. The problem was, we probably were.
“I was just talking to him. He was as chatty as a magpie.”
That was suspicious. Langston men were not talkative. “What did he say?” I asked with my mouthful.
“He was still in Las Vegas working on his hotel. He’s thinking about buying a house there. He wouldn’t be home for a while, but not to worry, he was fine.”
I swallowed. Mitch never shared details about his life. Any details Mama knew, she’d have learned from the media.
“Are you sure he told you this? You’re not assuming? You didn’t read about it somewhere?”
“I know the difference between Mitchell’s voice and mine. Call him and find out what’s going on.”
“Mama, Mitch is a grown man. He doesn’t have to answer to the family every time he does something you don’t like.” But of course I was going to call. He may be hiding something from our mama, but odds were he’d tell me.
“You’ll call him. You know you’d feel terrible if something happened to your only brother, and you didn’t help him.”
I hated it when she played the guilt card.
Missy, who was still under my stool, rolled over and exposed her belly. I continued to rub her. “If he doesn’t want you to know something, I’m not going to tattle on him.”
“You will tell me. Or I’ll call Kat and convince her it’s time to visit y’all.”
Holy crapola. This was serious business. Mama and Aunt Kat, together. Here. Caro would kill me.
For a threat, it worked.
I’d call Mitch. Dependin’ on what he had to say would dictate if I needed to make another exception and call Caro. It was only fair to give my cousin warning her mama was on her way for a visit.
It had been a few of days since Mona’s death. The three of us had settled into somewhat of a routine. There were no leads on Mona’s murderer. At least not that the police were sharing with the rest of the town. But there was plenty of gossip.
I’d called Mitch, and Mama was right, he was chatty. He didn’t spill his dirty little secret, but my sisterly intuition told me he had one. I let it go. If he were really in trouble, he’d have told me. Now it was about letting Mama squirm.
“Let’s go, girl,” I called out to Missy. She happily plodded behind me.
I thought Fluffy might follow. She’d seen the morning routine often enough, but she was hiding out either on my bed or on the couch.
She still wasn’t interested in her own room. I couldn’t figure her out.
I hopped into the shower and sang my favorite Sting song at the top of my lungs. Missy joined in during the chorus. I’m sure our screeching and howling was hard on Fluffy’s ears. We certainly wouldn’t win any singing contests.
Our duet was interrupted by my blaring cell phone. I shut off the water and hopped out of the shower. Rivulets of water dripped on the hardwood floor.
“Ms. Langston. Owen Quinn. I-wanted-to-make-you-aware… Mona-Michael’s-funeral-is-today.”
How could someone talk so fast and not be winded?
Earlier in the week, the rumor of a possible funeral had spread through the community. Since I hadn’t heard it directly from anyone I trusted, I’d dismissed it. I patted my face dry with the corner of the towel. “I didn’t think there’d be one.”
“The body won’t be released in time, but Ms. Michaels had a precise timeline and this is what she wanted.”
Dictating our lives from the grave. No surprise.
“Fluffy’s to attend.”
“O-kay,” I dragged out the word while I contemplated what that meant to me. “So am I supposed to drop her off?” There was silence on the other end. “I’m joking. What time?”
He filled me in on the details at neck-breaking speed (2:00 pm at the Presbyterian Church), then we hung up.
“What does a dog wear to a funeral?”
I knew what I was going to wear.
Grandma Tillie’s brooch.