Bones of a Feather - Carolyn Haines [25]
“Absolutely not,” Tinkie said. “They thought you might be able to help us. As a member of the Levert family, they knew you’d want to figure out who did this terrible thing.”
Tinkie’s lie smoothed over the moment. Millicent opened the door for us to enter. “Come on to the back porch,” she said. “I was just fixing myself a Bloody Mary. Would you girls care for one?”
“Yes.” We spoke in unison. It was nearly eleven, which was brunch time by anyone’s standards. We hadn’t had much sleep or any breakfast, and a spicy drink would hit the spot. We followed her through the house, and sure enough, I caught a glimpse of a large room filled with mirrors and life-sized replicas of our host in various costumes. There must have been two dozen—Candy Candystriper, Polly Pole Dancer, Bitsy School Girl—all tricked out and dressed to perfection.
While we settled into white wicker porch furniture cushioned in a bright floral print, Millicent made the drinks. She returned with a tray laden with our beverages, cheese straws—a fine Southern delicacy for a ladies’ brunch—cucumber sandwiches, cherry tomatoes, and lemon squares.
“Were you expecting company?” I asked. How in the hell had she whipped up a tray of delicious food so fast?
“Honey, around Natchez it’s a good thing to always be prepared for a visitor. Sometimes neighbors come over to fuss about my paint job or my dog. Ol’ Roscoe tends to paw through their garbage or dig up their flower beds. Once he stole Miss Bigelo’s gigolo’s underpants and took them all over town. Had I not had fresh Gulf shrimp and Mama’s famous comeback sauce, Miss Bigelo would have killed Roscoe.” Her laughter was infectious.
“Your dog really stole someone’s underwear?” Tinkie was appalled.
“Roscoe has a nose for trouble.” Millicent opened the screened door and called for the dog. “Miss Bigelo is principal at the private Catholic school. As you can see, it was awkward for her. Especially since her lover was pastor at the Final Harvest True Church of the Pentecost—a married man, I might add.”
“A conflict of apocalyptic proportions,” Tinkie said.
Millicent tipped her glass at Tinkie in a toast. “You are the cat’s meow,” she said. “Anyway, I served them the shrimp and patched over the whole episode.”
“How did everyone in town recognize the preacher’s underwear?” I asked.
“Because the organist at the Presbyterian church had given them to him as a gift. She was in the post office on a Saturday morning when Roscoe trotted by with them in his mouth. She knew instantly the pastor had dropped them somewhere he shouldn’t. She came to my house to accuse me of having an affair with him. She knew Roscoe was my dog. Everyone in town knows Roscoe. Now where is that darn hound?”
“I gather the underwear was distinctive?” I almost hesitated to ask.
“Oh, dear, they were … one of a kind.” She laughed heartily. “They had a Moses-like figure on them and the saying ‘When God calls, Peter rises to the challenge every time.’”
Tinkie choked on her Bloody Mary and almost spewed. I made no effort to control my laughter. “That’s a most amusing story.”
“Honey, spend an afternoon with Roscoe and you’ll have enough material for a book. That dog finds trouble. I try to keep him home because I know folks who’d gladly kill him. But Roscoe is Roscoe. If I kept him behind a fence he’d just pine away and die.”
“How did you patch this over?” Tinkie asked.
“By saying the underwear accidentally got into my clothes at the dry cleaner’s. I said I’d put them in the trash and Roscoe got them out. Since everyone knows Roscoe’s crazy for digging in the trash, everyone believed it.”
“A clever fabrication,” I said. Millicent was all devilish charm and entertainment—she was also capable of cunning. She might exude magnolia charisma, but there was