Chapter Four

I glanced through my rearview mirror at Logan to see if she was having as much of a problem with what was being said as I was. She raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and pursed her lips as if to say, “I don’t know, either.” So I shifted in my seat and turned to look at their expressions.

First, I searched Auntie’s face, then our two elderly riders’. Maybe I could get some insight on the meaning of this conversation, because right now I was confused. But just as I was about to speak, sirens attacked my eardrums, and the red glow from the emergency truck’s light flashed across the faces of the van’s occupants assaulting my eyes.

There did seem to be an emergency somewhere…

The driver of the ambulance laid on his horn and blared it at me.

“Alright. I’m moving,” I muttered. I started up the car, jerked it into gear and slammed on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward.

“No need you trying to kill us to get out of their way,” Auntie Zanne said. “Nothing they can do for her.”

“What in the world happened in there?” I asked, putting the car in park but leaving it idling. “You weren’t in there ten minutes.”

“She died,” Miss Vivee said, exasperation in her voice.

“While you were in there?” I asked. I was finally wrapping my head around it, but it just seemed so crazy.

“Is she really a doctor, Babet?” Miss Vivee asked, jerking her thumb toward me.

“Sugarplum,” Auntie Zanne said, turning to me and adopting Mac’s tone. “She was already dead when we got there. She died in her sleep.”

“Her husband said she’d had a heart attack,” Mac said. I turned to him. It was the first I heard his voice take on the mocking tone of the two women’s.

“Was it a heart attack?” I asked.

The three of them looked at each other, then at me, but no one said a word.

“So?” I said, trying to goad someone into answering me. Logan had just filled me in on Miss Vivee and Mac’s power, I was sure, if what she’d shared with me was true, they had the answer.

“I think it was the absinthe,” Auntie Zanne said sheepishly. “It probably wasn’t a good idea to serve it to a room full of septua- and octogenarians.”

“It was the kind that’s legal in the U.S., right?” I asked, worried about my auntie and her tendency to do things her way even if it were not within the bounds of the law.

“Of course it was,” she said. “Just maybe too strong.” She raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “I’m guessing.”

“So what now?” I asked.

“So, no breakfast with Eugenia,” Auntie Zanne said.

“I was looking forward to that,” Miss Vivee said. “Always enjoyed her company.”

“Should I go in?” I asked aloud, even though I was more or less speaking to myself. I watched as the paramedics took the gurney from the back of the van. “I am sort of the coroner around here.”

“Go in for what?” Miss Vivee asked.

“I can pronounce her dead.”

“I already did that,” Auntie Zanne said. “Did you forget that I’m the justice of the peace?”

“Did you forget that you’re not a doctor?” I asked. “You can’t declare someone dead.” I had made sure to keep abreast of all Texas’ laws pertaining to her justice of the peace job. Auntie thought that that little title gave her the power to do just about anything.

“Well, you can go and do it again,” she said waving her hand at me and emphasizing the word “again.” “Won’t make her any deader.”

I shook my head. “Then what are we going to do?” I asked.

“Take us to the Grandview,” Auntie Zanne said.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” Miss Vivee said.

“I’m not either,” Auntie said. “But we’ve got to tell everyone the news. And we’re going to have to vote on another Lesser Mambo since Eugenia can no longer take the position.”

I glanced over at Miss Vivee as I put the gear in drive. She was shaking her head slowly from side to side. “That position is coveted, any member would probably kill for it. But I declare, the position must be jinxed,” she mumbled. “I don’t know how anyone would want it.”

The Mambo positions in the Distinguished Ladies Society I had learned, were coveted and given as lifetime positions. Only death could separate a Mambo from her title. And it took years of membership for one to even be considered for the position. After the vote at the dinner the night before, Eugenia Elder had been elected unanimously and would have been installed as the Lesser High Mambo on Sunday, the last day of the Boule.

“Was picking Miss Eugenia for the position being contested?” I asked wondering why Miss Vivee didn’t seem too excited about a new vote. She had been chosen by everyone and I heard no one grumble about it the night before. All seemed sad that she wasn’t there to accept her nomination.

“Oh no,” Auntie Zanne said. “Although several people may run for it, everyone is always on board with the new Mambo. That is what is expected, and that is always what happens.”

“I was just trying to figure out what Miss Vivee was saying.”

“You’re having a tough time with that today, aren’t you?” Miss Vivee said and raised a wrinkled eyebrow. But before I could answer, she told me what she’d meant. “The last Lesser Mambo was only in office six months. The one before her about eighteen months.”

I nodded a few times. That I understood. Auntie Zanne had been the Most High Mambo for the last ten years at least. I guess a lifetime appointment wasn’t a good thing if you didn’t live long.

“It’s beginning to seem as if being installed in that position may be the cause of your life being shortened,” Miss Vivee said.

“If people believe that,” Logan chimed in for the first time since their return to the car, “how are you going to be able to fill the position?”

“They’ll step up,” Auntie Zanne said with a firm nod. “It’s their duty and they know that I don’t abide by people not doing what they’re called to do.”

I pulled off and for a long while the van was quiet. I noticed that Miss Vivee kept trying to glance back at Mac. He sat in the middle, but with her being only about five feet tall, it didn’t seem easy for her to turn and catch his eye.

I wondered what she was thinking. I glanced in the mirror at Logan, but she wasn’t sending me any signals.

“Is there a diner close by?” Miss Vivee said making me not have to wonder anymore. She was thinking about food.

“I thought you weren’t hungry,” I said.

“I’m not,” she said. “Mac and I need to talk to Babet.”

“Diners are where they do their thing,” Logan said, finally giving me something to help me understand.

I glanced in the mirror at her. She grinned and nodded her head.

“Oh,” I said. Now I understood. Logan was telling me that Miss Vivee was on to something. I thought back over the conversation Logan and I had just had.

Was she saying that perhaps Miss Vivee thought that Miss Eugenia had been murdered?

Oh no. Couldn’t be…