Hey Diddle Diddle, the Corpse and the Fiddle, page 6
part #2 of A Callie Parrish Mystery Series
"I'll remember the name Middleton's," Melena said and turned to Andy, dismissing me. "I caught your act," she said to the young man; then she blinked her eyelashes before purring, "You're even better than the last time I saw you." I swear that's exactly what she did. A widow for less than a day and probably at least twenty years older than Andy, she fluttered her eyelashes at him. I grew up in the South, but I don't think I'll ever be a Southern Belle. I'm not a natural Magnolia Mouth, and I'd probably barf if I ever batted my eyelashes at a man.
"Thanks," Andy responded.
"I was wondering if you have a manager," Melena continued.
"No, I'm just handling bookings myself." Puh-leeze. The man turned to putty and his head swelled up like a basketball right in front of my eyes. I mean that figuratively, of course.
"With Fred gone . . ." She paused to wipe around her eyes again with a napkin. I knew the moisture was perspiration, not tears, but Andy's expression exuded sincere sympathy. "My days are going to be empty and long without all the chores I did for Fred. Not just bookings, but performance clothes and other details. I took care of all of Fred's needs. I'd like to talk to you about managing you."
Well, I never! (Actually, I have, but not recently.) Seemed to me she was acting more concerned with empty nights than empty days. I considered removing myself from this flirtation, but Melena's little act was cut short by Kramer Hair rushing up to us.
"Melena, I've been looking all over for you," he gushed.
"Hey, Bone, I need to talk to you." Melena batted her eyelashes at Andy again and ignored me completely. "Oh, Great Pretender, please excuse us," she said with the emphasis on "Grea-a-a-a-a-t." Melena walked away with Kramer Hair, and Andy turned back to me as though I'd just reappeared.
"Now, where were we?" he asked.
"I'm on my way back to check on my friend Jane," I said, stood, and headed toward the listening arena.
Chapter Eight
Adead fiddle player. An obnoxious water witch. Air tem
perature that felt like ninety degrees long after sunset. Not the least hint of a breeze. Any of those should have been enough to burn out my pleasure jamming with a bunch of pickers in the midst of the campground at almost midnight, but I was happy as a pig wallowing in a mud puddle.
Jane, along with Bone and a few spectators I didn't know, sat in lawn chairs near seven of us standing in a circle, playing old bluegrass tunes, wearing out "Cotton Eyed Joe" along with our callused fingertips.
Parking lot picking is a bluegrass tradition. Also called "jamming," it doesn't have to take place in a parking lot. We stood in a clearing near the center of the campground. I'd brought my banjo but sat by Jane when I came over from the Winnebago. Three members of Broken Fence in the group--Dean, Arnie, and Van--flattered me by inviting me to pick. They didn't have to ask twice.
I glanced behind me at Jane and tried to see through to the motor home. I'd left the door unlocked, thinking I'd be able to see it from the clearing, but Spanish moss on tree branches draped gauzy veils between the clearing and the parked RVs. The good news was, there wasn't a cloud in sight, and the stars and full moon brightened the night, giving me a clear view of the Great Pretender standing right beside me. Thumb-picking, finger-picking, or flat-picking as the song demanded, that stud muffin sounded as hot as he looked.
A fiddler I didn't recognize stood across from Andy and me. Tall, though not nearly so tall as Dean and Andy, he had very black hair and a craggy face. There was something a little spooky about the expression in his eyes, but he was one of the best fiddle players I'd ever heard.
Dean Holdback was singing the last verse of "Little White Washed Chimney" when someone touched my left arm. I shrugged, pulling away to free my hand, to move from a G to a C chord, when I saw Jane had come up behind me using her cane and was trying to get my attention. I leaned my head toward hers but kept playing.
Just as the song ended, Jane said, "I want to go to the camper. Gotta use the bathroom." Everyone in the group heard her, but Jane didn't care. She isn't at all squeamish about bodily functions. Just about touching things.
"Can you wait a few minutes and we'll go in for the night?" I asked as Dean stepped out of the circle and walked around to us.
"Stay and pick a few more, Callie," he said. "I'll escort Jane to the Winnebago and back here."
Jane's face lit up, and a little red flag popped up in my brain. The attraction between those two felt electric. Jane was wise to the ways of the world, and Dean was a grown man, but I'd seen him around for several years and never saw him come on to any woman. He was married, and his mistress was music. If he ever strayed, I figured it would be serious for him. Jane was inclined more toward flings than commitment, but rejection would devastate her. The chemistry between them was strong enough to lead to a big explosion, and I didn't want to be around to pick up the pieces of either of my friends. I wavered for a moment, considering what to say.
It wasn't necessary. Jane took Dean's hand and told me, "Give us the key."
"You don't need it," I answered. "I left the door unlocked in case you wanted to go back early."
"You didn't plan to guide me?"
"Thought you might use your cane."
"Wooded areas aren't exactly like traveling in town. I'm good, but I'm not magic," Jane said.
"I think you are," said Dean, and they walked away.
Arnie Stands called the key for "Blue Moon of Kentucky" and kicked it off. His powerful tenor voice serenaded folks in the next county.
Earguhhh!!! A scream blared over Arnie's singing.
For an instant, I thought it was a peacock. When those birds court, their cries sound exactly like a woman being murdered. I know. My daddy used to raise peacocks. Excuuze me. Another unintentional fib. I've heard many a peacock in the throes of passion, but I've never actually listened to a person being murdered.
Aruhhh!!!!
Not a peacock.
Jane.
Bone jumped from his chair and dashed toward the campers. I took off right behind him, banjo flapping against my chest as I ran. Thank heaven for the cushion of my padded, inflated blow-up bra.
What had Dean done to Jane?
Whatever it was, when Bone and I reached them, they stood on the ground just outside the open camper door with Dean patting Jane's back and trying to soothe her with soft words.
"Jane," I called. She stopped shrieking and pointed toward the motor home.
"He's in there," she gasped.
"Did someone attack you?" I asked as Bone bounded up the step and into the Winnebago.
Before either of them had time to answer, Bone barreled out the door, leaped to the path, and collapsed into a heap. There are lots of cute euphemisms for throwing up, but Bone wasn't tossing his cookies. Not hurling. Not barfing. He vomited. Long, loud, retching puke.
"What's wrong?" I said and stepped toward the door.
"Don't think you want to go in," Dean warned. Still patting Jane, now on the shoulder.
"It stinks," Jane said. "I asked Dean to come in and pour more purple stuff in the toilet. I opened the sliding door to sit on my bed while he did it, and . . ." She burst into hysterical sobs.
"And what?"
"I touched it," she howled and collapsed in Dean's arms. While he was busy holding her up, I stepped into the camper.
Buh-leeve me. The stench was unbelievable. Daddy had one great-aunt who lived way out on a sea island and still had an outhouse when I was a little girl. This was a hundred, no, a thousand, a million times worse.
Jane's fussy about touching things. I always figured it was because her fingers are so sensitive from reading braille. That didn't really seem sensible though. Like many other visually handicapped people, Jane only used her right index finger when reading braille. Maybe her fussiness about touching things was because she didn't always know what her fingers were going to find. Then again, it might have been just one of Jane's idiosyncrasies. Whatever the cause, Jane was hysterical about whatever she'd felt. What had she touched? A piece of poop? It smelled like the toilet had overflowed, even backed up from the sewage tank. I expected water and human waste on the floor, but the carpet was dry. I looked toward the rear. The pocket door was open.
I saw what lay on the bunk.
The camper reeked of sewage, all right, but the odor came from the bedroom, not the bathroom. It's not uncommon for the sphincter to let loose at death. I knew this from reading mysteries, even before bodies became my business.
He'd been garroted with what looked like a cut-off piece of a thick E string from a bass fiddle. Twisted tight at his neck, the ends were knotted on capos, which had been used for handles. A prepared weapon like the sharpened prongs of the tuning fork. Premeditation.
The face bulged dark blue. Discoloration occurs as a corpse decomposes, but there was no odor of decomposition seeping through the fecal smell. He couldn't have been dead more than an hour or so anyway because I'd showered and changed my sweaty clothes in the camper while Dean and Jane went to the snack bar between the end of the festival performances and the beginning of parking lot picking.
Ex-cuuze me. Once again, I was getting my exercise jumping to conclusions like a character in a Magdalena mystery. Maybe the victim had been killed somewhere else and moved to the motor home.
At first, I didn't recognize the swollen face and open eyes almost popping from their sockets. His mottled purple tongue protruded between huge, misshapen lips. Not postmortem bloating. The hands were normal in size and color. The swelling and blueness resulted from the manner of death.
The face of brutal strangulation.
The face of a man who'd pranced around the stage packing his equipment during a prayer. He wouldn't be so disrespectful again. I wondered if the bass string around his neck had been one of his own, had once been in the same case where Little Fiddlin' Fred was found.
I backed away, down the narrow hall. Sirens shrilled before I reached the camper door, stepped out, and leaned against the side of the Winnebago for support against the weakness washing over me.
John's beautiful motor home would be impounded by the sheriff 's department. I sometimes bragged that I neither took nor gave guilt trips. Donnie, my ex-husband, would argue that I didn't take them, but I sure gave them. John's my most affectionate brother, but he'd figure out some way to blame me for this happening in his camper. The "some way" would probably be my leaving the door unlocked. Not just foolish, but dangerous on an island with a killer running loose. I'd soon be on a walking guilt trip, because John would hold my Mustang ransom until the sheriff released the Winnebago and I'd paid for enough expensive professional cleaning to make it smell new.
Puh-leeze. Here I was worrying about my brother's motor home when I should have been thinking about poor Kenny Strickland lying dead on Jane's bed and the grief his fellow band members were sure to feel.
Morning had dawned by the time Sheriff Harmon dismissed me. He'd interrogated each of us who'd been in the motor home after Kenny's death several times.
Over and over, he asked, "Callie, did you touch or move the body?"
"No," I repeated and finally shot back a question of my own. "Why is that so important?"
"He's lying faceup with no signs of a struggle. It's hard to picture someone being strangled that way without putting up a fight unless the killer was behind him, and if he was choked from behind, he should have fallen forward and been found lying on his face. I know you don't have any qualms about touching a corpse. Are you sure you didn't flip him over to be certain he was dead? You can admit it if that's what happened."
"Flip him over? You've gotta be kidding. I can't flip a man his size over by myself."
"You turn them at the mortuary, don't you?"
"Sure, but I have mechanical lifts at work. I can't just grab an adult body by its feet and turn it over."
"Okay." Harmon changed the subject. "You can go now, but don't leave the campground."
"Speaking of leaving," I responded, "when can I have the Winnebago back?"
"I'm not sure. It's a crime scene and I have more technicians coming here tomorrow. After that, we'll take it in and hold it for evidence."
"Evidence of what?" I snorted. "Evidence that Kenny Strickland died? Your forensics technicians have already hauled out sacks and boxes of stuff."
The sheriff gave me a withering look, but didn't say anything.
"And," I continued, "Jane and I need our clothes out of there."
"Nothing comes out."
"Come on, Wayne," I begged, calling him by his first name to remind him that he'd known me all my life. "You don't have to let me go in. Can't you bring our suitcases out to us?"
"Nope. Unless you want to wait and help Otis or Odell when they pick him up, you can go to bed now."
"If I help bag the body, can I bring out my clothes?"
"No way. Go on and get some sleep, Callie." The sheriff smiled.
"Good idea. I'll catch a ride off the island to the nearest motel."
"Afraid not. You won't be allowed to leave the campground."
"Guess you expect me to sleep on one of the picnic tables," I snapped.
Harmon didn't say another word. Just walked away.
Dean and Jane came over when they saw the sheriff move away from me. Andy joined us and said, "You're welcome to sleep in my truck, but I'm embarrassed to offer it. I call it my Silver Pigeon. It's an old gray Toyota with a camper shell on the back, but no air-conditioning."
"Oh, no, thanks," Jane said. "Dean's invited us to sleep in Broken Fence's Golden Eagle."
"Golden Eagle?" I asked.
"That's what they named their new band bus."
"Not really new, but new to us," Dean corrected. After all, Jane couldn't see the wear and tear on the bus, but I'd seen it. "We've got some repairs and decorating to do."
I've known musicians to name their guitars--Randall Hylton called two of his Michelle and Lakeisha. But naming vehicles? Andy's Silver Pigeon and Dean's Golden Eagle. Shades of Stephen King's Christine or flashbacks to adolescence?
"Thanks, Andy," I said, "but air-conditioning wins out." I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.
"You, too, Andy," Dean offered. "I had no idea you didn't have cooling. We've got four bunks in the sleeping area, and you can use the couch up front. I usually sleep in the reclining driver's seat anyway because my legs are too long for the bunks or the couch. The girls can have mine and Kenny's bunks." His eyes glistened. "I wish we could go back upstate and be there for Kenny's wife, but since we have to stay here, please accept the invitation and the airconditioning."
As we walked to the bus, I tried calling Daddy and John on my cell phone. I'd actually remembered to charge it and bring it, but there was no signal. John is my oldest brother, my sweetest brother, my most understanding brother, but he was gonna blame me big time for his motor home being impounded. I felt like crying, but I was too tired.
Chapter Nine
Sun blazing through worn burlap curtains woke me. I
knew from the brilliance that it wasn't early morning. In college, a promiscuous friend complained that she never knew where she was when she awoke. I'd never had that problem. Dated Donnie all through college. After my divorce, I abstained because sleeping around wasn't good for a teacher's reputation. By the time I quit teaching, I realized that relationships need to have meaning for me. Have I ever been intimate with anyone other than Donnie? To paraphrase the military: Don't ask, and I won't tell.
That's a long way around to a short statement. This was my first time waking up with no idea where I was. Confusion and fear blurred in my mind. I looked around. Across a short aisle from me were two empty bunks, one over the other. I was lying on the same level as the top one, so I assumed I was lying above a similar bottom bed. I leaned over and peeked. A lower bunk, but no one there either.
The mental fog cleared and memory kicked in. Kenny Strickland dead in my brother's motor home. The offer to sleep in Broken Fence's band bus. Crawling up to the top bunk wondering if I'd ever get any sleep with Arnie and Van snoring like two freight trains just across the aisle. Must not have been as loud as I thought. I'd dropped out of consciousness from the moment my head hit the pillow. A dead man's pillow. I'd slept in Kenny's bunk while Jane slept in Dean's--without him, I hoped.
"Callie," a voice called from the other side of the worn burgundy velour curtain that partitioned off the sleeping area.
"Right here," I said.
"Are you dressed?"
"Yep, still got on what I wore last night." I did, too. Had on my inflated bra under a wrinkled T-shirt and my new panties with the padded tush under white shorts. The new panties have just a little foam rubber right over the bunky cheeks. The saleslady told me they would "lift" and "define" my somewhat flat derriere. Actually, they were new yesterday afternoon when I put them on. I'd brought four pairs, but they were in my luggage in the Winnebago. Thank heaven for pantiliners!
