The Sassy Belles

As I listened to her choke out her story to the 911 operator, I could tell that this event with Lewis would change her.

* * *

Harry and I left Mother’s with Vivi to go to the police station. I suggested to Harry that he could go on to the Fountain Mist and meet the ambulance, but he insisted he would prefer to stay with us. He didn’t seem to want to see Lewis, dead or alive. I tried my best to persuade him, but he wouldn’t budge. After all the years that had gone by, six, I think, since he and Lewis had even spoken, Harry just didn’t want to be the one to ID the body. If he got there first, it would be just him and poor, dead Lewis. And Harry didn’t want that, not after the way things had been between them. So he led the way to the police station downtown. After that we would all go together to the motel.

My emotions were in overdrive. Vivi was my best friend since third grade, my sister in every way, and Harry was my husband, my college sweetheart, though we had had our share of troubles. Between these relationships, the fact that Lewis was dead and the fact that I’m an attorney, too, well, I’ve never felt so stuck in such a messy fix as this. I didn’t know which feeling to feel, never mind knowing the right thing to say or who to say it to. We were all in shock for different reasons, and the trip to the police station was a silent one.

We arrived at the station in minutes. That’s the good thing about Tuscaloosa—everything is only minutes away. We got out of our cars and walked into the little building. It was on the corner of the street that faced the Warrior River. We stepped inside and I stood next to Vivi and held her hand as she talked to the police. Harry stood on her other side, trying with every fiber in his being to hold it together, to cover his emotions. Luckily for him, it was something he’d being training himself to do for ages now—even with me. A politician should be stoic, composed, unruffled—and I can tell you, he was great at that.

The little balding officer sat in front of us, diligently taking down Vivi’s half sentences and descriptive details of her last breathless moments with Lewis. When she finished, the pudgy officer looked up with his mouth open and eyes bugging through his tiny square glasses and eventually spoke. “Ahem. Anything else, ma’am?”

Officer Dooley knew Vivi. He used to work detail for her mother at the gate of the famous McFadden plantation and had known the family for years. Tuscaloosa is a small college town, where everyone knows everyone and has probably slept with their best friend’s brother. Believe me, I know that one for sure.

This scene at the station reminded me of the principal’s office in the fourth grade. Standing there together with Vivi and Officer Dooley and all his questions took me back. Vivi and I were in Catholic school together and were in Sister Pauline’s class—and she was the meanest old nun in the entire school. One day, Vivi brought a big roll of clear packing tape to school and we carefully devised the plan. At recess we practiced. Sister Pauline went out of class at 1:30 every day to meet with Father Mike about the religion lesson.

On the big day, we waited until she’d left for her meeting, and then Vivi rolled the clear tape all over the back of her chair. When Sister P. came back she sat down in her chair, snapping her ruler sharply on the desk and ordered us into silence. I remember the look Vivi and I passed each other. We were full of the devil, you could say—typical schoolgirls, at least most of the ones I knew.

“Here it comes,” said Vivi with a huge smile on her freckled face.

“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.”