Ladybird flapped her hand. “You sound like Witt.”
She certainly did. Max sounded exactly like Witt when he was telling her to quit poking around. Of course, she didn’t listen either.
Things, however, were really getting scary with the thought of Ladybird Long on the loose looking for a murderer.
“Oh my goodness,” Ladybird gasped out. “Oh my goodness.”
Max about had a heart attack at the excitement in that breathy sound.
“I have the most wonderfully brilliant idea.”
“No.” The word came out sounding a bit like Witt’s horrified voice when Max had asked him to set her up on the phone sex line.
“Yes.” She leaned forward to put her hand on Max’s knee. “We’re going to take Virginia a casserole. That’s what people always do when there’s a death in the family.”
“But you don’t like Virginia. Yesterday you couldn’t even remember her name.”
“I never admit I remember her name, that’s all. Still, we must be kind to those who are friendliness-challenged.”
Max stared. No two ways about it, she was a candidate for Witt’s wood chipper if she didn’t immediately put a stop to Ladybird’s brilliant idea.
With Ladybird, however, she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The little woman rolled on making plans. “You know you want to talk to her. And to Jada. You have to find out who killed Bethany. At least, that’s what Horace told me.”
Once Witt heard about this, Horace would be glad he was already dead.
Max simply gave in despite the danger to her health. The tiny woman didn’t have such a bad idea. Even in Ladybird’s hands, a simple casserole was harmless. Wasn’t it? “All right.”
Ladybird jumped up, bouncing once again on her toes. “Casserole, casserole. What will we bring?” she sang as if it were a nursery rhyme.
Witt’s mother was certifiable.
Max knew it was the same thing Witt had said about her the first time he’d heard her talking to Cameron.
Chapter Sixteen
In the end, Ladybird decided on lasagna. She had a store-bought one in the freezer. With Max’s help, she took off the brand name cover, then settled a piece of tin foil—unused, thank goodness—over the top. Then Ladybird spritzed hairspray over her blue hair, dabbed on a little lipstick, and away they went.
Neither the Camry nor the Honda had moved. They’d been joined by a white Cadillac—a model Max hated simply because it was the kind Bud Traynor drove—parked along the front sidewalk of the house. Obviously the first of the family friends to offer condolences.
Ladybird’s quick step made up for her short stride, and she actually reached Virginia Spring’s front path ahead of Max. The curtains were pulled across the front window. The porch light was still on. The lawn was made of real grass, and the shrubs and flowers lining the walk proved to be organic, too. Plastic bushes, faded flowers, and Astro Turf had not taken over all of Garden Street, only Ladybird Johnson’s—oops, Long’s—front yard.
Ladybird rang the bell. The door opened moments later, as if the girl, Jada, stood sentinel by it, or was planning her escape. In the brooding dark of the house behind her, she appeared skeletal, her cheeks hollow and eyes sunken in their sockets. The typical Type A personality bags beneath looked like slashes of charcoal on a football player. The fragile Jada Spring—Max assumed the last name was the same—would have died of a heart attack or been crushed to death at a garden party, let alone on a football field.
“Who are you?”
Yesterday’s shock had worn off, and the bitter edge had resurfaced to pepper Jada’s voice and the creases down the side of her mouth. How old had Ladybird said she was? Twenty-nine? Her face looked twice her age while her body resembled that of a twelve-year-old waif. Maybe it was the frown lines marring her forehead, the crow’s feet at her eyes, and the lines around her mouth. Her collar bone sat in relief against her shoulders, mere flesh and nothing else connecting it to the rest of her body. She wore a baggy, long-sleeved, white shirt tied at the waist instead of tucked in, equally baggy jeans, and no shoes. Her toes were long and angular, bones with a little skin stuck to them.
She looked worse than an Auschwitz survivor only because she’d put herself in this condition.
Ladybird did not allow the younger woman’s stare to intimidate her. Or perhaps she simply didn’t notice it. “We’ve come to offer condolences to your mother. And you know perfectly well I live right on the other side of Bethany’s house, Jada.”
“Oh yeah.” Jada’s gum snapped, her jaw working it as if that would somehow assuage the need for real food. “Come in. Mother will be delighted, I’m sure.” The words sounded nice, but she rolled her eyes as she extended her hand in invitation. Well, there certainly weren’t many signs of overwhelming grief there.