The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(11)

“What good is free love if nobody showers?” Maryellen asked.

“Can you believe how old we are?” Kitty said. “Everyone thinks of the hippies as being a million years ago, but we all could’ve been hippies.”

“Not all of us,” Grace said.

“They’re still around,” Slick said. “Did you see in the newspaper today? In Waco? They followed that cult leader in Texas the same way all those girls followed Manson. These false prophets come wandering into town, take hold of your mind, and lead you down the primrose path. Without faith, people fall for honeyed words.”

“Wouldn’t happen to me,” Maryellen said. “Anyone new moves into our neighborhood and I do what Grace taught me: I bake them a pie and take it over and by the time I leave I know where they’re from, what their husband does for a living, and how many people live in their house.”

“I did not teach you that,” Grace said.

“I learned by example,” Maryellen said.

“I just want people to feel welcome,” Grace said. “And I ask them about themselves because I’m interested.”

“You spy on them,” Maryellen said.

“You have to,” Kitty said. “So many new people are moving here. It used to be you’d only see bumper stickers for the Gamecocks, or Clemson, or the Citadel. Now you’ve got people driving around with Alabama and UVA stickers. Any one of them could be a serial killer for all we know.”

“What I do,” Grace said, “is if I see an unfamiliar car in the neighborhood, I write down their license plate number.”

“Why?” Patricia asked.

“If something happens later,” Grace said, “I have their license plate number and the date and make of the car so it can be used as evidence.”

“So who does that big van belong to in front of Mrs. Savage’s?” Kitty asked. “It’s been there for three months.”

Old Mrs. Savage lived half a mile away down Middle Street, and even though she was a deeply unpleasant woman, Patricia loved her house. The wooden clapboard sides were painted Easter egg yellow with bright white trim, and a glider hung on her front porch. Whenever she drove past, no matter how horrible Miss Mary was being, or how detached she felt from Korey as she got older, Patricia always looked at that perfectly proportioned little house and imagined herself curled up on a chair inside, reading her way through a stack of mysteries. But she hadn’t noticed any van.

“What van?” she asked.

“It’s a white van with tinted windows,” Maryellen said. “It looks like something a child snatcher would drive.”

“I noticed it because of Ragtag,” Grace said. “He adores it.”

“What?” Patricia asked, overcome by a sinking feeling that one of her shortcomings was about to be exposed.

“He was doing his business on Mrs. Savage’s front yard when I drove by tonight,” Kitty said, and started laughing.

“He’s gotten in her garbage cans,” Grace said. “More than once.”

“I saw him raising his leg on that van’s tires once, too,” Maryellen added. “When he’s not sleeping under it.”

Everyone started to laugh and Patricia felt a hot flush creeping up her neck.

“Y’all, that’s not funny,” she said.

“You need to put Ragtag on a leash,” Slick said.

“But we never used to have to,” Patricia said. “No one in the Old Village ever put their dogs on a leash.”

“It’s the nineties,” Maryellen said. “The new people sue you if your dog so much as barks at them. The Van Dorstens had to put Lady to sleep because she barked at that judge.”

“The Old Village is changing, Patricia,” Grace said. “I know of at least three animals Ann Savage called the dogcatcher on.”

“Putting Ragtag on a leash seems”—Patricia looked for the right word—“cruel. He’s used to running free.”

“The van belongs to her nephew,” Grace said. “Apparently Ann is too sick to get out of bed and the family sent him down to look after her.”

“Of course,” Maryellen said. “What’d you take over? Pecan pie? Key lime?”

Grace didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“Should I go down there and say something about Ragtag?” Patricia asked.

Kitty picked up another cheese straw and snapped it in half.

“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “If Ann Savage has a problem, she’ll come to you.”





CHAPTER 4


Two hours later they bubbled out of Grace’s house, still talking about hidden messages in Beatles albums, and whether Joel Pugh’s suicide in London was an unsolved Manson murder, and blood spatter patterns at the Tate crime scene. As the other women walked across the front yard to their cars, Patricia stopped on Grace’s moss-covered brick steps and inhaled the scent of her camellia bushes, lying in perfect rows on either side of the front door.

“It’s so hard to go home and pack tomorrow’s lunches after all that excitement,” Patricia said.

Grace stepped outside, pulling her front door partially closed behind her in a halfhearted attempt to keep the air conditioning in. Which reminded Patricia. She made a mental note to call the air-conditioning man.