The Sassy Belles

“Oh, my goodness, I gotta think of something in case we’re busted,” I said. I was always a lawyer. Even in the fourth grade.

As Sister P. got up to go to the board, a loud ripping noise tore through the silent class. In a split second, the veil full of curly brown hair fell from her head, flopping there over the back of the chair, sliding down into a puddle as Sister Pauline moved toward the chalkboard.

The classroom erupted with laughter and it could be heard all the way to the principal’s office, which is where, of course, we ended up—standing together at the principal’s desk, holding hands just like we were right now.

I was snapped abruptly back to the present when Officer Dooley launched another question at Vivi. “Where’s the body?”

“Shit!” Vivi said.

That was actually Vivi’s favorite word. She used it whether she was happy or sad, surprised or bored. However, this time it was more like an Oh, shit as she began to utter those next few words.

“I left the body…”

“Stop, Vivi,” Harry jumped in. “As your lawyer, I’m advising you not to discuss these details further, not without consultation.”

“Wait, are you my lawyer?” Vivi asked with an excited mix of relief and worry. “Harry, I hate to remind you, but your brother is the…um, dead guy.”

“Well, Vivi, I know you didn’t do anything but screw his brains out,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. It was a familiar tactic—covering up emotion with sarcasm. “Of course, I’ll help you. Besides, there is no case if Lewis died ’cause you wore him out. That’s not murder. For God’s sake, it’s a death pure and simple. But if you were the last one with him when he died, you will still need counsel.”

That vision will remain branded on my brain for all eternity.

Harry helping Vivi. She needed him and, while Harry wasn’t the most cuddly, affectionate guy anymore, he seemed a little like his old self at that moment. Ever since the big family breakup with Lewis years ago, and now even more as he pushed to climb the political ladder, Harry had learned to turn off the emotion and the feeling and keep the business hat on at all times. Even with me—especially with me.

But he was softer with Vivi for the moment. I could see a small glimpse of him, the old Harry, there with Vivi in the musty police station.

Maybe it was because Lewis, for whom he had shown such absolute disdain, could actually be dead. Harry hadn’t always been this cold, but over the past couple of years I had certainly become quite lonely for affection and good conversation. We never talked about anything but work and politics and career climbing. I was lonely, but as I noticed a shadow of the old Harry there in the little room, I began to hope that maybe this drama with his brother might bring the real Harry back. My Harry was at least there in the police station for the moment. And it was good to see him.

Harry and I had a good beginning. Watching him there in that moment took me back to the very first time we met. I had been attracted to him immediately.

We met in law school, but not at a party or the library like most college sweethearts. Harry and I met in New York City in line at the half-price tickets booth in the middle of Times Square. We were in line for a little-known Broadway show called Baby. I had gone to NYC for an internship at Columbia, and Harry was there that summer, working in the city.

I felt him getting close behind me as I stood in line. I was listening to him talk to a buddy and I knew I detected an unmistakable Southern lilt in his deep, sexy voice. I liked feeling him close to me. I could smell his aftershave and then…my turn at the ticket window.

“Two for Baby, please.” I was picking up tickets for me and my roommate, Alexa, for that evening’s show

“Last two for today ma’am, good timing.”

“Noooo,” Harry groaned from behind me.

In a split second, I thought, What do I do? Little did I know my entire future lay in these next few seconds and how I chose to handle this deliciously terrible, heart-­pounding, awkward situation. I hesitated only for a breath, then something else took over. This “something else” spoke for me.

“Oh, I have one extra.” My alter ego sounded just like me. Evidentially the other me decided in that split second, Oh, the hell with Alexa. Alexa who?

“But what about…” Harry was motioning to the spot where his buddy had been standing seconds ago and saw that he was halfway across the street walking backward and nodding with two thumbs up. I giggled and he said, “Are you sure?”

“Sure am.”

He smiled at me.

Harry, ever the curious attorney, furrowed his brow and asked, “Weren’t you originally asking for two tickets?”

“Yes,” I said, feeling cross-examined.

“Well, who was the other ticket for?”

“Alex, my female roommate from New Jersey.”

“Oh,” he said, smiling. “But won’t she be expecting her ticket tonight?”

“Oh, my goodness,” I said in an overanimated Southern accent. “Didn’t you hear? They just sold out.” A smile crept across his preppy boy face and I knew I was in for something wonderful.

Behind his desk, Officer Dooley cleared his throat, dragging my thoughts away from the once-romantic Harry and back to the police station.

“Where is the body?” he asked again, trying to get an answer.

“I left him when he began turnin’ blue,” Vivi said. “I slapped him a few times. Well, I had slapped him before, but that was durin’ our—well anyway—he asked me to. But after he stopped movin’, I slapped him really hard and when he still didn’t budge an inch, I ran for help.”

“Did you call an ambulance?” The chubby officer continued.

“When he stopped breathin’, I panicked and ran for Blake.”

Vivi looked lost, like Little Orphan Annie. Harry looked exasperated, but there was something else hiding behind his frustration. At that moment, Vivi picked up on it, too. Then, “Oh, Harry! Are you thinkin’ he could have still been alive?”

“My client did not call an ambulance right away,” Harry answered officer Dooley. “Instead, she called my wife, Blake O’Hara Heart.”

Oh, shit, I thought to myself, now using Vivi’s vocabulary. With his statement, I knew that I would definitely be dragged into the investigation. I also knew that I would never forget my tenth anniversary.

I turned to Officer Dooley. “Yes, Vivi was trying to call me. But my husband, Harry Heart, was the first to speak with her.”

“One moment, Officer Dooley, would you, please? All of this is so sudden that we haven’t had a chance to speak with each other,” Harry said.

While Dooley crossed his arms impatiently, we moved to the back of the little office and I leaned in and whispered to Vivi to keep quiet for a second. That would take a miracle all its own! I then looked at Harry and discreetly said, “You remember that you were in fact the first one to speak to our client after the fact? Remember? I was still at the school.”

“Yes,” he said. Well, Vivi tends to rub off on people, and I was sure Harry was the one thinking Oh, shit in his own head now.

* * *

Clearly, we were all still in a mumbo-jumbo state of shock. We continued to whisper while we watched Vivi fidget.

“But I’m her attorney,” he said, looking at me in desperation.

“But you weren’t at the time,” I reminded him.

“It doesn’t look good, Blake.” Harry’s voice had become firm. He didn’t get angry often, but you knew it when it happened. Harry was feeling trapped.

I heard Officer Dooley tapping his pen pointedly against the desk. So did Harry, who didn’t want this next bit to be overheard.

“Excuse us, Officer Dooley, for one moment. I need to confer with my co-counsel,” Harry said.

“Why don’t I just put my pen down for a second,” Officer Dooley said.

Harry took me by the hand and pulled me just outside the door of the musty little office. Vivi stayed up front with Officer Dooley, still fidgeting uncomfortably, shifting from side to side, crossing then uncrossing her legs.

“Blake,” Harry began, “first and foremost, I am Lewis’s brother. Second, I am now Vivi’s attorney. That, in and of itself, is strange, considering my connection to them both. But the idea that, after the…deed…I’m the first one she calls? Me, of all people, who has the worst possible relationship with Lewis? This screams conspiracy! It shouts premeditation if we have a dead body over there. It further implicates her and jeopardizes her. And when it comes out that I haven’t spoken to Lewis in over six years, it begins to implicate me! Blake, this could put my career in question. My eventual run for the Senate will be shrouded in this controversy.”

Harry stopped abruptly. The depth of the situation had overtaken him.

“Harry, snap out of it!” I said, squeezing his arm. “Lewis had been charged with investment fraud and you distanced yourself from him. There’s no crime in that—it just proves how respectable you are, not wanting to associate with such a person, brother or not. But your cell phone will register the call from Vivi and what time it came in. All of her missed calls to me will register, as well, with the times they were missed. The truth will be easy to prove, so there’s just no point trying to cover it up. Now, I have been her best friend since third grade. Harry, we both know she didn’t do anything. This was all just a terrible, unfortunate accident if anything—and, well, a bit disgusting.”

Harry’s face softened and he gave me a little nod. We both hurriedly returned to Vivi’s side.

Harry cleared his throat and began more calmly, “Vivi McFadden did not call an ambulance right away. She tried to call my wife and co-counsel, Blake O’Hara Heart, and when she couldn’t get her, she called me.”

“Well,” Officer Dooley said, “then I go back to my original question: Where is the body?” Officer Dooley pushed his tiny glasses up his tiny nose and looked pointedly at Vivi.

“I left the body at the Fountain Mist motel and that was the last time I saw Lewis. Dead on the bed.”

“An ambulance was called once we’d managed to talk to Vivi and find out what had happened. It should be there right now,” Harry said.

Officer Dooley looked relieved. “Well, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll send an officer and squad cars over now.” Vivi collapsed back into a chair.

I sat with Vivi, holding her hand and looking around at the old room we were in, thinking back to my days as a child and visiting my grandfather in his office just down the block. Nothing changes much in Tuscaloosa. It’s a town that thrives on its rich history. And I loved that. I noticed that the decor at the station hadn’t changed since probably 1945. Cracked leather chairs with cotton seeping from their seats were scattered around the office. Slow-moving, black ceiling fans whirred around the musty, damp air. The large windows were just slightly open and the fragrant late Southern spring floated inside, like slow deep breathing. The room became still. Officer Dooley called in the incident.

“Which room, Ms. McFadden?” he asked.

“Room 106,” Vivi answered. “It was…our room.” The impact of the moment suddenly strangled her and her voice weakened. Harry squatted down on one knee to face Vivi eye to eye.

I walked over to the old water fountain and grabbed one of those pointy paper cups. I filled three, one for each of us, and walked to Vivi and Harry and handed them the water.

“Shouldn’t we head over there?” I said.

“Yes and no,” Harry said. “Yes, Vivi will need to be there for statements, but no, I’d rather her not talk. But…we don’t have a choice about that.”

We all took a swig of the water as if it were bourbon in a shot glass, throwing it back like it would stop this nightmare.

“C’mon, honey,” I said to Vivi. “I’ll be right there next to you.”

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this over with.”

She grabbed my hand and pushed her red mass of curls from her eyes. I could see Vivi breaking, tears coming quickly now. I squeezed her hand and helped her up.

“It’s okay, honey,” I said. “We all know you did nothing wrong. You are going to be fine. Besides, you’ve got the two best attorneys in the state.”

And I was sure hoping I was right.

2

“Vivi and I will go in my car,” I said.

“Okay,” Harry agreed. “I’ll take mine in case I have to leave.” We heard the sirens of the police and emergency vehicles racing ahead of us as we walked to the parking lot behind the station.

The warmth of the late-spring sun hit my face in the street. God, I so loved this time of year. With the magnolias in full blossom, the smell of the coming Southern summer was overwhelming and transporting. A sweet, pungent aroma lingered in the breeze, reminding me that summer and good watermelon were just around the river bend.

As though a time portal were drawing me in, I was suddenly eight years old and on my grandmother’s screened front porch. I could smell her roses and honeysuckle and the huge magnolia trees in the front yard. I watched the bees on her camellias. I loved Mother’s, every corner of it. I took in a deep whiff and pulled in as much of the fragrance as I could, held my best friend’s hand and put her into the Navigator.

As I walked around to get into the driver’s seat, I felt so protective of Vivi. People could call her a lot of things, but they certainly could never call her a murderer.

As I slid onto the warm leather seat and put my key into the ignition, Vivi looked over at me with her wet green eyes full of insecurity. “Am I goin’ to jail, Blake?”

I answered her without hesitation. “Not on my life, sweetie. Not on my life.”

“Blake,” she said. “Thank you.”

“For what, honey?”

“For always being my Swiss Army knife.”

I smiled at her. I knew what she meant. I also knew how much she was counting on me to get her out of any mess that lay just on the other side of the river.

Vivi would be a person of interest simply because she was the last person to see Lewis alive. She wasn’t guilty of a thing. They were just screwing, for God’s sake. But Vivi is a reactionary. She will think the absolute worst and in the most dramatic way possible. It’s just part of being Vivi. Regardless, I was bound and determined to make sure she would never be charged with anything.

Vivi broke the conversation in my head. “I’m a nervous wreck, Blake.”

“Why, honey?”

“It’s just that, well…uh, we had a little friend with us in the motel room.”

“What? You were in a threesome?”

“Oh, my good God, no, honey. I meant—you know…a sex toy. I named him Deputy Dick.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…I thought you were fixin’ to really shock me. I know you and Lewis can be a bit on the kinky side, no big deal.”

“I just don’t want the police to discover him. It. I will just die of embarrassment. But I have no idea where he got to. I was in such a panic when I ran for help.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you aren’t the only woman in the world to play with toys in the bedroom. I’m sure he will turn up.” I tried to get my thoughts together as we drove, and wondered if Vivi had any other interesting details she needed to divulge.

Though we rode in silence, I never let go of her hand. The emotions were stuck in our mouths. Vivi and I have never really needed words. In moments we had crossed the bridge over the Warrior River to the Fountain Mist motel. We drove in and parked as Harry made his way over to us. He opened Vivi’s door and helped her out.

The Fountain Mist was one of those old, side-of–the-highway kinds of motels. The kind that could charge by the hour. It had a red neon sign out front and a lighted fountain, like one of those old silver Christmas trees from the sixties that had the colored lights spinning underneath. The fountain changed colors and definitely helped to cheapen the motel’s appearance. Inside the lobby, the green carpet was threadbare and fading. The entire place needed painting. And sanitization.

Harry had his legal pad in hand and was standing with the police and the paramedics outside room 106. Everyone was in a panic, and Harry looked like he’d gone into shock.

“Where’s the body?” a paramedic yelled out at us as we approached. “There’s no body here!” Vivi and I walked over to the door at a clip. The dust from the gravel parking lot swirled in the air.

A frenetic chaos filled the room. The motel manager was standing on the dusty carpet, answering questions while a police officer took notes. I couldn’t see for the glare as the sun bounced from the mirror of the cheap dresser. Two officers and two paramedics had turned the room upside down. The frustrated sounds came again from the first paramedic. “Where the hell’s the body? We got a call from someone saying that her boyfriend had stopped breathing.”

“I left him right there, dead on the bed, buck naked and blue as blue blazes,” Vivi said with fear and panic in her eyes. I looked at Harry and he looked at Vivi.

“Vivi!” Harry said. “Where the hell is Lewis?”

In a split second, a breathless silence fell over the room and Vivi fell over backward right onto me. I caught her just as she slumped sideways, and a paramedic rushed to her while a policeman radioed the station.

No body, I thought. Is Lewis possibly alive? Or is someone hiding evidence? I held Vivi up till the paramedics got hold of her.

I looked at my stoic Harry. I knew he was thinking of his public image and trying not to show any emotion. At the same time, I knew he was trying to process and manage this unbelievable situation. But this was typical Harry. Sometimes so closed off he became his own worst enemy. He locked everyone out to make sure his image was so perfect it was almost not even human. It was robotic, with all the right responses, always so prepared with just the right answers. Sometimes he was just exasperating. Feel, I thought. Let me see you. Though he would say that I feel too much. I overfeel, he had said once. Too happy, too sad, too angry.

What was happening to us was much like the story of Scarlett and Rhett. You don’t show me any emotion, so I won’t show you any. Both of us would be independent, spirited people, strong and stubborn, who just didn’t need anyone but ourselves.

And so it had gone for about six years now. Lots of work, lots of career building and even lots of sex. But not much lovemaking.

I wanted him to really see me again. But he was not about to let me see him. In that moment I just felt sad for both of us.

We were still all crowded inside room 106 with the bright sun streaming in like a laser beam through the open door. It made it difficult to see anyone except in silhouette. But the next image I saw coming through that door was a shape that I knew well. At six foot three, he looked ominous in the shadows, even with his slender frame. Shadows or not—I knew that body all too well. I’d know that man anywhere.

Sonny Bartholomew had been all mine at one time. From my first year of high school to my first year of college, Sonny was my on-again, off-again love. Over those years we went from harmless exploration to seriously discussing forever. And now, on the rare occasion that Harry and I had a heated conversation, Harry would say, “Why don’t you just go look up your cop? I’m sure you should have just married him anyway.”

This was my cop. My detective, actually.

Sonny Bartholomew. Homicide Investigations.

I fell in love with him back when he was the yearbook photographer during our freshman year of high school. Back then, he was sort of a misfit like me. Sonny had the cutest smile I had ever seen. He would cock his head to one side as he grinned at me. That’s all it took. His smile turned up at both corners of his mouth. He was precious, with his sandy hair and oversize feet and it all came together to make him even cuter. And he sure grew into those feet.

At fifteen we were just the right age for the beginning of the end of our innocence. But we never did go all the way. I was the good girl—at least in that respect. Though, somehow, I have always wished I hadn’t been so good back then. He should have been my first.

It felt really good—and really odd—to see him standing there in the doorway of the motel room. It had been a long time since I had run into him last, at a Bama game a few years back. It was a fall football Saturday, with bright blue skies and a bite in the air. We were in line for a beer at one of the bars along the strip. I’d asked him about his life and prodded him for information about his wife, a wallflower of a girl, Laura Logan. She’d gone to Catholic school with me and Vivi. She was so quiet and certainly was never involved in any of our infamous pranks. Laura was so shy and good that we believed she might actually become a nun.

Obviously, she did not.

Sonny had seemed uncomfortable during our chance encounter in the beer line. I told him I was married.

“I know,” he said. “I saw it in the paper.”

At that moment, standing in line on that football Saturday, I suddenly couldn’t imagine a life without Sonny. We should be friends, I’d thought. At least friends.

I had loved him for as long as I could remember and so I’d grabbed his hand in mine and said, “Look, we’re both married now. Can’t we all get together sometime, all four of us? For a cookout? I know Laura, for heaven’s sake. She was at my birthday parties growin’ up. We made our first communion together. Whatdaya say? I really miss you, Sonny.”

Sonny still had a face full of freckles and the darkest brown eyes. They could always see right through me. And I could still see that fifteen-year-old in him. As he paid for his beer, he looked at me with that smile and his famous one eyebrow up, cocked his head and said, “Blake, we run in different circles now. You’re all elite with your law school buddies and your near-blue-blood husband. My friends are good ol’ boys, rednecks, ya know? On the weekends we got longnecks in one hand and a remote in the other. And I always said, Blake, if I can’t have you in every way, I can’t bear seeing you, knowing somebody else is lovin’ you.”

I had been lost in his words and that curled-up smile when the beer lady’s shrill voice had shattered the moment. “Honey, you want yer change ’er what? C’mon now.”

Sonny tipped his baseball cap to her and shoved his change into his too-tight jeans. He’d looked back at me, leaned in and kissed my cheek. “It was good to see ya, Blake. Hi to Harry.”

With that I had felt a sudden chill in the October air. I’d watched him walk away for only a second, then I turned to the lady with the shrill voice. “I’ll have one of those longnecks, please.”

Room 106 was now filling to capacity. Nobody knew if it was really a crime scene or what. The police took a few notes and never even cordoned off the scene. No one seemed to know how to classify it. Vivi, now revived, sat on the side of the bed sipping water from one of those little square glasses from the motel bathroom. Harry moved toward her and Sonny stepped fully inside the room.

“Hey, Blake. How are ya?” Sonny greeted me with a quick kiss on the cheek. He sounded happy with his deep baritone, honey-dripping, slow Southern drawl. Seriously, he had me at “Hey.”

I swallowed instead of speaking and smiled at him. But I couldn’t stop myself. I stood.

“Hey, Sonny!” I stepped in closer and gave him a hug. That’s how Southerners say hello. We hug everyone, all the time, both hello and goodbye. It’s bad manners not to. In fact, it’s downright hurtful. I heard the heavy Southern drawl in my hello. When I’ve had a few drinks or I’m feeling a little flirtatious, my accent seems to intensify. And Sonny, well, I guess he just brought out a tinge of my inner redneck. We all have some. Inner redneck, I mean. There’s someone in everyone’s family that’s a teeny bit red. Think about it. For me, it came from my dad’s side. Way back in his line were the moonshiners. Yep. I know. Unreal, huh? My mom’s family is a bunch of lawyers. One story has the moonshiners on my dad’s side being defended by the lawyers on my mom’s side. And of course, if you think about it, you can imagine what the payoff was—yep, fresh whisky, right from the backyard! I’m not from stupid lawyers!