The Sassy Belles

“Mr. Sonny,” Vivi said, her eyes brimming with tears, “I never meant to hurt Lewis. He is my dear friend. I love him. Please find him. He may be out there confused. Maybe he had a seizure and when he came to, I wasn’t there. Or he could have forgotten who he is. Please…” Tears now spilling down her cheeks, she was like a child that needed to be held through the night after a nightmare.

Harry shoved a hundred-dollar bill at the bartender, stood up and straightened his tie. “Okay,” he announced. “I think my client’s done all she can and, personally, I don’t think she’s physically able to do much more.” He stood up and touched my shoulder. “We need to get her home.”

Harry said he would drive both me and Vivi in my car. We’d leave his vehicle at the Tutwiler. He shook Sonny’s hand and helped Vivi down from the stool.

“Thank you, Miss Vivi, you’ve been very helpful. We’ll be in touch,” Sonny said.

I balanced Vivi on my left side and Sonny leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Good seein’ you, Blake. Take care of yourself. I’ll be in touch.” He turned to walk away and his cell phone began ringing. He kept walking as he answered.

“Officer Bartholomew.”

Silence. Then, “Okay. I’m there in ten.”

He hung up and abruptly turned and looked at all three of us in the twilight of the Tutwiler lobby.

Sonny cleared his throat and looked Vivi in the eyes as he announced, “We’ve got a body.”

4

The chandelier in the Tutwiler lobby could have dropped and none of us would have moved. We were frozen. I looked immediately at Harry. This was possibly his baby brother. And though he and Lewis had not spoken in years, I could see he was visibly shaken.

“Where is it?” Harry said.

“Washed up at the Cypress Inn out at the river,” Sonny answered. “Some girl discovered it while taking a walk at the restaurant.”

The Cypress Inn was a longtime Tuscaloosa mainstay. It was built up high on the banks of the Warrior River, and it had a beautiful walking path that led down from the restaurant to the water.

Vivi started to cry at Sonny’s announcement. I held her still with my arm tightly around her shoulder.

“No, no, no… It isn’t true, is it? It’s not Lewis, is it? I don’t know what could have happened to him. Oh, I think I’m gonna throw up. Am I gonna be charged with murder now, Blake?”

She was breaking down now and crying hard. I held her a little closer and told her we weren’t even sure who the body was. She was shaking and going into shock.

“Vivi.” Harry was trying to help her get hold of herself. “The body has to be identified and the cause of death has to be determined, too. Nothing is gonna happen until we do the ID. Let’s get over to the Cypress Inn and see if we can get some answers. I’ll drive.”

Harry had a way of doing that. Taking charge. He was good at it, especially in a crisis. He could turn off the feelings and purely think—quite easily, actually. Sometimes I hated that.

We rode back over the bridge, back to the river for the third time that day and headed to the restaurant. The drive was a total blur, but ten minutes later we were all in the parking lot of the Cypress Inn.

Dusk is beautiful at the river. The reflection of the sun shimmering on the water can take your breath away. Flaming pinks and soothing turquoise draw blurry patterns across the indigo water. A liquid sunset. The expanse of the river is wide and the bank is thick with trees and snaky roots and kudzu vines that creep and crawl all the way down to the muddy water.

It’s a fast-flowing river, full of waves and ripples. It’s thick with underbrush and debris, making it notoriously one of the hardest areas for police divers to find anything. Or anyone. The Warrior is used for transportation. Time here is marked by the occasional slow-moving barge pushing coal up and down the river. Every so often, a speedboat races past, causing heavy waves to lap against the banks. A beautiful old riverboat called the Bama Belle would paddle down past the restaurant till sunset, when service would stop on the old vessel.

The Bama Belle was a sweet part of the fabric of the river. It was just for show. Tourists and out-of-town family loved it and kept it in business. But it was one of the main reasons I loved to eat at the Cypress Inn, especially at dusk. It was beautiful to see the boat in all her original glory just meandering along the curve of the river, on her way home, straight toward the setting sun, with her paddle wheel churning the muddy, ink-colored water below.

The Cypress Inn is built hanging off the hillside. All glass and old driftwood, it looks like it has been there forever. Two stories and facing the river, it’s built in a triangle shape so everyone can watch the river while they eat their catfish and hush puppies.

Hanging baskets of azalea and begonias drip blossoms over the outdoor porch. And the trees are thick with magnolia blooms big enough to hold the spoonfuls of occasional afternoon rainwater that was a daily, almost unnoticeable part of Southern springtime.

It was this gorgeous scene that we all stepped out of the car to see, though the beauty of it was muddied by the dark reason we were all gathered there. Harry left us as he jogged ahead to catch up with Sonny. I knew he needed to see the body for himself. I also knew he wasn’t fully embracing the possibility of what might actually be waiting for him at the bottom of that path. But I was.

Vivi was mumbling to herself, “See what horny can do? You see? If Lewis and I weren’t always so horny, I’d have beautiful roses on my supper table tonight and Lewis would still be here.” She kept walking and mumbling and looking at her feet as she stumbled to the path. She looked up at me. “Okay, I know it’s not possible for us not to be who we really are, but I just cannot believe that my last vision of Lewis alive will be with that holster on and Deputy Dick in his hand.”

Vivi and I linked arms like two old women and walked down the curvy stone walkway to the riverbanks. The footlights along the daffodil-strewn path twinkled in the encroaching darkness. It led us, roaming, down the hill and delivered us to the wooden planked bridge that guided us to the gazebo.

I heard the sounds of the sirens coming in the distance.

We located Sonny and found a small huddle of people standing east of the gazebo and, at the center of the group, with bare shoulders shaking, stood young Mandy Morrison, Tuscaloosa’s Miss Everything. She was head cheerleader, Miss Tuscaloosa High School, Miss West Alabama Fair Queen…. She had plans of moving to New York and launching herself on Broadway.

Seeing how distraught she was, I had a feeling this event might slow things up a little.

Mandy, her mom, dad and younger brother were all at the Cypress Inn celebrating her high school graduation and acceptance into a small liberal arts college in New York when Mandy and her dad went for a little father-daughter stroll along the river. They had stopped to smell the wandering vines of honeysuckle when Mandy spotted the body—well, part of the body.

Right there, bobbing against the bank, was someone’s leg and the lower half of their torso.

Vivi and I pushed into the little crowd of people just as Mandy was recounting her unfortunate vision.

“I was just giving my dad a hug and, like, I looked over his shoulder and I saw a leg! At first I thought it was, like, a log….”

Mandy kept talking…enjoying the attention even though she was somewhat “grossed out.” As she kept up the frenetic, breathless encounter of her graduation dinner surprise, Sonny took notes and the officers collected the evidence.

Vivi and I peeked over the crowd of people now gathering at the banks.

“For God’s sake!” she hollered. “It’s not even the whole entire body! But this is the half I know best. No. No way is this my Lewis.” Vivi could not keep it to herself.

Harry jumped in immediately. “This is not a good time to share your opinions unless someone asks, okay?” He was clearly on edge.

Vivi looked up at me with her half-drunk eyes. She was purely exhausted and it was showing. She pulled me down the bank away from Mandy and the crowd and headed toward the river. “C’mon, Blake, I’ve got to get a better look.”

“Vivi, say nothing unless it is in a whisper directly to me. The last thing we want is to get you any more involved than you need to be. This is critical.”

“I’ve got it, Blake. But if there’s a chance in hell this is my Lewis, don’t you think I ought to at least try to identify the half of the body that just washed up?”

“Honey,” I said, “I’m right behind you.” My curiosity had taken over, too. I just had to see it, not that I would recognize the half that just washed up. But down to the muddy riverbank we went. I knew that with Sonny nearby, he would make sure we were able to slip through the crowd without a problem.

We reached the edge of the river and there it was. Big and hairy, it was definitely the leg of a man. Sonny joined us. We were on the slope, and he was above us in the crest of the bank. At six-three he was a big presence anyway. But up on that riverbank he loomed like a superhero there to save us all. Vivi moved a little closer to him and leaned in as if in secret.

“Sonny, it’s only half a body,” she said quietly.

“Yes, Miss Vivi, we’ve got that part figured out.”

Vivi stood between us, her head moving from side to side in slow motion, in disbelief. Silence fell over us. The three of us stood there on the banks of the muddy Warrior River under a darkening Southern sky.

Vivi broke the silence. “Well, thank God this is the half I know best, huh? This is not my Lewis.”

She leaned in and squeezed Sonny’s arm and tears rolled down her cheeks. We stood on the bank and watched the river roll. I looked at Sonny and noticed his face had softened in the moment. He looked at me full on and gave a little grin. I knew with his help we would all be okay.

Harry walked toward us in his determined, deliberate way. He looked exhausted but still pulled together. His white oxford shirt still looked as starched as it had been that morning, the silver wire frames sitting on his nose sparkled along with the silver hairs sprinkled throughout his dark hair.