The previous night’s dress rehearsal had been a disaster of epic proportion. Think Titanic; think Hindenburg; think Katrina. Think opening night and sell-out crowd. Translated, think laughingstock. There’s good news and bad news about appearing before an auditorium filled with friends and acquaintances, folks you run into in the doctor’s office, library, post office, and the Piggly Wiggly. The good news is they’ll laugh at the jokes and applaud until their hands sting. The bad news is they’ll never let you forget if you make a fool of yourself.
Why had rehearsal been so terrible? Take Gloria, for instance, who was playing the secretary. She kept suffering “senior moments” and exiting stage left instead of stage right and stage right instead of stage left. For my big scene, I accidentally brandished a poker instead of a feather duster and nearly gave Gus a concussion. He was very gracious, considering the amount of bloodshed. He insisted he didn’t need stitches, but I’m not so sure. And last, but by no means least, Bernie kept missing his cues and muffing his lines while his buddy, Mort, snickered backstage. Bernie lost his cool, not that he has much to begin with, and threatened to punch Mort’s lights out. Bill had to physically interject himself between the pair to keep them from coming to blows. Things finally settled down after Eric Olsen reached for his handcuffs and threatened to arrest the two of them.
Krystal Gold, the former Miss Marty Maraschino, was the only one to remain unruffled. She assured us a bad dress rehearsal was a good sign, but I don’t think anyone believed her. Good or bad, the show had to go on.
Tonight Forever, My Darling would play to a packed house.
Seeing as I was out of bagels, I dropped a couple slices of cinnamon bread in the toaster and shoved down the lever. I suppose I should have felt excited-or nervous. But truthfully I felt… depressed. Two viable suspects, and we were still no closer to finding out who wanted Lance dead. I’d tried really hard to persuade myself that Nadine or Krystal could be our perp. But my gut feeling was that while both had fallen prey to Lance’s faux charm, I didn’t believe either of them capable of murder. Of revenge maybe, even blackmail, but not murder in the first degree. And where did that leave me?
Empty-handed without a single person of interest in sight.
No wonder I was feeling a little down, a bit discouraged. At this point, many people would resort to antidepressants. But I was made of sterner stuff.
When the toast popped up, I slathered it with butter. Typically I use low-fat substitutes, but seeing as how I was depressed, I opted for the real deal. If I didn’t watch it, I’d be hauling out rocky road ice cream for breakfast. I poured a second cup of coffee, then went out to collect the morning newspaper-and let out a shriek that could be heard clear across the street.
I’d nearly stepped on a snake. I hate snakes. I loathe and despise snakes. Snakes terrify me. What was the rhyme Rita once told me about how to distinguish poisonous ones from nonpoisonous? It had something to do with colors touching. Red and black or yellow and red? This was one heck of a time to have a senior moment.
As I inched backward, I realized the snake was either dead or sound asleep. Another observation struck me just then. The snake lay perfectly centered on my welcome mat, coiled as neatly as Great-grandma Elsie’s bun; too neatly to be one of Tang’s tokens of affection. It was almost as if someone had deliberately placed it there. A shiver raced down my spine. Could this be another warning for me to mind my own business? I shot a final look at the snake. It hadn’t budged.
Shuddering, I slammed the door and twisted the dead bolt. If the snake was indeed alive and woke up from its nap on my doorstep, it could slither away. In the event it was dead, I’d worry about disposing of it later-much later.
Between bites of toast and gulps of coffee, I answered the phone, which rang incessantly. Polly asked if I had a mink stole for Krystal to wear in the final scene. Connie Sue was rounding up every bit of blue eyeliner she could get her hands on. Who uses blue? I wondered irritably. Didn’t blue eyeliner go out with disco? Pam invited me to go with her and Megan for pedicures. Pedicures were the last thing on my mind. I decided to visit Claudia instead. She could use some cheering up, and maybe in the process, I could cheer myself up as well.
The Plexiglas separating us looked as impenetrable as kryptonite. Claudia, if anything, looked even worse than the last time I’d seen her. When this misunderstanding was resolved once and for all, I was going to urge her to book a week at a spa. She desperately was in need of a little pampering-manicure, pedicure, massage, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, the works.
“Hey,” she said, greeting me with a wan smile.
“Hey, yourself.”
“You didn’t have to come. I know tonight’s the big night.”
“Thought you might like some company.” I mustered a smile of my own. “Besides, it was either visit you or hang around and watch Janine implode.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Actually, it’s worse, so I came here to get away from all that depressing stuff.”
She flung out a hand to encompass the dingy gray-green walls and dung brown floor. “Well, if this place doesn’t cheer you up, nothing will.”
Claudia’s feeble attempt at humor was almost my undoing. We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. I blamed it on the ambiance. The visitors’ room of the county jail was a far cry from the cozy seating arrangement in Claudia’s four-season room. No cushy wicker chairs; no droopy ferns-just a droopy prison guard posted inside the door.
Unable to withstand the silence any longer, I resorted to the old standby, “You’re looking good.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. If anything, Claudia looked used up. Translated, that meant lookin’ tired, lookin’ old, as if all the spark had been snuffed out.
“Has Judge Blanchard set a trial date yet?” I stuck my hands inside my jacket pockets to avoid contact with the sticky, germy countertop.
“BJ expects her to do that next week or so.”
I nodded, unsure if I should rejoice or burst into tears at the news.
She tucked a strawberry-blond-gray-at-the-roots strand behind one ear. “Both my boys insist on coming next week. I tried to talk them out of it, but…”
“I’m sure they’re worried sick over you. They’ll rest easier after meeting your attorney and knowing you’re in good hands.”
“Bubba had a lawyer friend run a background check on BJ. Wanted to find out how high up the ladder he finished on the bar exams.”
Background check? I winced, but Claudia didn’t seem to notice.
“Bubba,” she continued, “concluded anyone with the nickname Bad Jack gets it for a damn good reason.”
Bubba, the Babes and I discovered some months back, is her son, Charles, a vascular surgeon in Chicago. Her other son, whom she refers to as Butch, is an engineer in Seattle. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard his given name.
“God, Kate”-she put her head in her hands-“what are my boys going to think seeing their mother behind bars?”
All I wanted to do at that moment was put my arms around her and console her. If anyone was ever in dire need of a hug, it was Claudia. I cast a look in the guard’s direction. No help there. He didn’t look the type to dispense lollipops to curly-haired toddlers, much less hugs to women charged with murder one.
I tried to distract her by relating everything I’d learned about Nadine Peterson and Krystal Gold. She shook her head when I asked if Lance had ever mentioned either woman.
Our time together wound to a close. I left with a promise to return soon.
“Tell everyone I said to break a leg,” she called over her shoulder.
“And if someone actually did, I’d never forgive myself,” I called back.
I left the jail, but I wasn’t ready to return home and field calls from the disgruntled-and frazzled-cast and crew of Forever, My Darling. I had the niggling feeling there was something I’d overlooked, something still buried. Nadine and Krystal were living proof of Lance’s torrid past. Maybe there was more dirt just waiting for the right shovel to come along. Please, Lord, I prayed, make me thy shovel.
I hadn’t paid a recent social call on my favorite law-enforcement nemesis. Maybe time had come to rectify the oversight. We could share. And if that failed, due to his shortcomings in the sharing department-not mine-I could always fall back on the old standbys of begging and groveling.
Since my impending visit to the sheriff was more social than official, it called for a hostess gift of some sort. My mother would be so proud I’d carried out the tradition she’d instilled. Sheriff Wiggins was a difficult man to shop for. To complicate matters further, he didn’t seem to enjoy presents the way most folks did. That man had a suspicious nature, viewing each little gift as a possible bribe. I knew from past experience he didn’t have a sweet tooth, so that ruled out baked goods. The ivy plant I’d once given him had proven a disaster. It had leaked all over his desk, soaking a pile of papers before Tammy Lynn sopped up the mess with a wad of paper towels.
I solved my dilemma with a quick stop at the dollar store. When I first moved to the South, I wouldn’t be caught dead shopping in one of these. Now the clerks know me by name. I’ve added dollar stores to my list of favorites right up there alongside Wal-Mart and Lowe’s. All the basics of life can be found in a dollar store for a pittance of the price you’d pay elsewhere. When you’re a widow on a fixed income, that’s a blessing indeed. There you have it, folks, an unsolicited testimonial from a former disbeliever.
I pawed through a bin of Christmas items marked seventy-five percent off. A Santa windsock, a Frosty the Snowman candle, a pink-haired angel on roller skates. Just as I was diving into the bin headfirst for a snow globe minus its base, I heard a familiar voice.
“Miz McCall, thought that was you.”
I straightened to find May Randolph, proprietor of the Koffee Kup, giving me a broad smile. I waved a wicker basket trimmed with a frayed red ribbon at her. “Never know what you might find here.”
“You can say that again. By the way, shouldn’t you be home getting ready for the big night?” Not waiting for a reply, she continued. “Krystal took off at noon today in order to run through her lines again. Can’t wait to see her up on that stage. I was lucky to get one of the last tickets. They sold like hotcakes.”
“My friend Janine was thrilled because proceeds benefit Pets in Need, the local Humane Society.” I stepped aside to allow a stock boy to pass with a cart loaded with Easter decorations. I absently wondered how Sheriff Wiggins would like a stuffed bunny-no danger of a stuffed bunny springing a leak.
May sorted through the bargain bin, selecting, then discarding various items. “That money oughta put them well on the road toward that new shelter they want to build. Took my grandson out to see the animals at the pens last time he visited. He refused to leave until I said he could have one of those puppies someone abandoned alongside the highway. Let me tell you, my daughter was none too pleased, but she came around after she saw the little bugger. Cutest thing you ever saw with his floppy ears and big brown eyes.” May rejected an antlerless reindeer. “You must be an animal lover, too. Krystal said y’all have a cat.”
“Actually, the cat is more Krystal’s pet than mine.” I felt like such a loser confessing this. I couldn’t even befriend a silly stray. Given its choice, the darn cat had picked Krystal over me, the provider of albacore.
“Well, have a good one. Knock ’ em dead.” She waggled her fingers in what passed for a friendly wave, then wheeled her cart-er, buggy as they’re called in the South-down the aisle and rounded a corner.
Between breaking a leg and knocking ’em dead, we were in for a busy night.
I was all set to leave the dollar store empty-handed, when I spotted the perfect gift for a surly sheriff: a words of wisdom desk calendar. It didn’t matter that this was already February. There was still ten months’ worth of pithy advice. I flipped to a random page and read: Life ain’t no dress rehearsal.
“You got that right, sista,” I muttered aloud, heading for the checkout.