Suspicious Mimes Read online

  Harley’s job as a Memphis tour guide is about to become even stranger than usual...

  She had a bus full of Elvis impersonators. As soon as she dropped the guys off at the hotel for their contest, she intended to go to the nearest drug store and buy ear plugs.

  When she pulled into the covered parking area to unload her passengers, she managed a smile as she told them she’d be back for them at eight, and reminded them that if their schedule changed they were to call her cell phone or the offices at Memphis Tour Tyme.

  A rather portly Elvis paused in the door and said, “Thank you, thank you verra much,” as he got out. If she had a nickel for every time she’d heard that or would hear that in the coming month, she could retire.

  However, she just said, “You’re welcome, Elvis. Good luck.”

  As always, she glanced back to make sure everyone was out before she left, and only one guy remained in the van. He was in the very back on the last seat.

  “Hey,” she called, “last stop for all Elvi. This is it, sir. Sir?”

  He didn’t respond, just remained in his seat staring out the window. Maybe he’d gotten cold feet. She didn’t blame him.

  Grown men dressed up like Elvis and sweating on a stage had to be daunting. She should know. After all, her dad, Yogi, went every year. It was his only brand of religion, other than his government conspiracy theories. The last she understood, but the first she found inexplicable. “Sir? Hey, Elvis?”

  He still sat there staring out the window, and with a sigh, Harley got out of the van and went around. She’d get him out with a can opener if she had to, but dammit, he was getting out. She deserved someplace quiet for a while before she had to deal with the ride back to their hotels.

  “Hey, buddy,” she said when she reached his seat, “we’re here. Time to go on stage and sing your heart out. Knock ’em dead.”

  When he still didn’t respond, Harley put a hand on his shoulder to give him a slight shake out of his trance. He slumped forward, his head hit the back of the seat in front of him, and she jumped into the aisle. The hilt of a knife protruded from his back. She froze. This couldn’t be happening. Not to him, not to her.

  Maybe it was a mistake. A bizarre, cruel joke. She leaned closer, and the rusty smell of blood made her stomach lurch. Backing slowly away, she fumbled at her waist for the cell phone that she now kept tethered to her with a chain, and hit speed dial. The police dispatcher answered quickly.

  “Nine-one-one?” Harley said in a voice that sounded a lot calmer than she felt. “We have another dead Elvis.”

  Other Books from Virginia Brown

  Virginia Brown is the author of more than 50 novels in romance, mystery and general fiction.

  Bell Bridge Books is proud to publish these Virginia Brown titles.

  The Dixie Diva Mysteries

  Dixie Divas

  Drop Dead Divas

  Dixie Diva Blues

  Divas and Dead Rebels

  The Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries

  Hound Dog Blues

  Harley Rushes In

  Suspicious Mimes

  Mystery/Drama

  Dark River Road

  Historical Romance

  Comanche Moon * Capture the Wind

  Also Available

  Savage Awakening * Defy The Thunder

  Storm of Passion * Wild Heart

  Legacy of Shadows * Moonflower

  Desert Dreams * Heaven Sent

  Wildfire * Renegade Embrace

  Emerald Nights * Hidden Touch

  Wildflower * Wildest Heart

  Jade Moon * Highland Hearts

  Suspicious Mimes

  The Blue Suede Memphis Mysteries

  Book Three

  Virginia Brown

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-180-7

  ISBN: 978-1-61194-099-2

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2006 by Virginia Brown

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Originally published in trade paperback as Evil Elvis, by ImaJinn Books, Canon City, CO

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Front cover art and design by Don T.

  :Ems:01:

  Dedication

  To Elvis Presley, the man who changed the direction of music worldwide.

  He’ll not be forgotten, nor should he be. There will never be another like him.

  And to Vivian McMahon, who makes Nana McMullen look slow. I miss seeing her smiling face over my fence, and I expect to be invited to her 100th birthday party!

  Disclaimer

  No animals or Elvises were harmed in the writing of this book.

  A few were terribly annoyed, however.

  “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”

  —Johnny Carson

  One

  “Elvis lives.” Harley Jean Davidson didn’t really mean that, but what else could she say when her father was looking so expectant, waiting for her to comment nicely? “I’m sure he’d be pleased if he could see you dressed up like him,” she added.

  Yogi grinned and twirled so that his jeweled white cape flashed in a glitter of green, red, and blue stones her mother had carefully sewn into what looked like eight yards of satin. Sunlight coming through the front window gleamed off the stones, almost blinding her. Good Lord.

  “This year, I’ve had to turn down gigs. I’ve been practicing.” Yogi struck another pose, this time with one leg behind him, the other bent at the knee in a half-crouch, his arm flung out in front like he was trying to hail a taxi.

  Harley barely kept from rolling her eyes. She dreaded Elvis Week. It came every year in August, the momentum building up to a climactic frenzy of Elvis-related activities downtown and at Graceland. Perhaps she wouldn’t dread it so badly if Yogi hadn’t made a habit of tugging on a white jumpsuit and impersonating The King, whom he still admired more than twenty years after Elvis’s death. It’d been greatly humiliating when she was younger and more concerned with the opinion of her peers. Now it registered a lesser blip on her radar screen.

  Over the years, she’d learned there were far worse humiliations her parents could generate than an unnatural attachment to a long-dead celebrity.

  When she looked over at Diva, her mother said to Yogi, “This is the year you’ll be famous.”

  Strong accolade, considering Diva’s uncannily accurate predictions. She might miss some of the details, but lately she’d been right more times than not. That should please Yogi.

  “Of course,” her mother added, “it won’t be quite as you expect, but your name will be linked with Elvis’s in a spectacular way.�
��

  That was a little unsettling. In light of the past few months of unwanted publicity, Harley would have preferred anything but spectacular. “Our family has been in the news quite enough, thank you verra much,” she said, her accent on the last phrase a really bad imitation of Elvis. It made Yogi smile, as it always did.

  “This is the year I’ll win first prize,” he said jubilantly. “Always a runner-up, but now I think I have a real shot at it. Preston Hughes dropped out.”

  Preston Hughes was Yogi’s archrival in the Elvis impersonator contests. His rendition of Love Me Tender brought down the house every time. The judges loved him.

  While Yogi could imitate Elvis fairly well, he didn’t have the vocal range Hughes did.

  “I’ll do what I can to be there,” Harley said, “but August is our busiest month, you know. All those tourists wanting to do Graceland means we have every van full. It’s still July, and I did eight runs yesterday in twelve hours. I’d take a load out there, drop them off, go back for another one, bring another group back, take another one. I don’t know how Tootsie kept it all straight, who went where, and when, but he did. He’s amazing.”

  Diva smiled. “The candlelight vigil this year will be interesting. Perhaps you should skip it, Harley.”

  Harley looked at her. “I’d love to, but that’s our busiest night. All drivers are needed. Mr. Penney would fire me if I missed it. And I’m on shaky ground as it is after all that’s happened.”

  “I know. But I have a feeling that you should miss it anyway.”

  “I wish you hadn’t said that. I’m already committed. Tootsie would get into a snit if I tried to change on him now. I’d really like to keep my job.”

  “You seem very content these days. I’m glad.”

  “I am content. While I admit driving a tour bus isn’t the best-paying job around, it does pay my bills. I like doing it. The hours are flexible, the people are usually nice, and when they aren’t, I soon get rid of them and never have to see them again. Look in your crystal ball again. Are you sure that warning isn’t meant for someone else? I’d hate to bail on Tootsie now.”

  “Whatever you think best, Harley.”

  Harley hated it when her mother said things like that. It always felt like she’d made a bad decision when Diva tranquilly agreed with her.

  “Okay. I have to ask. Why do you think I shouldn’t go?” By now Diva was headed to the kitchen and Harley followed along behind her, something she could have done even in the dark since her mother liked wearing tiny bells sewn into her loose, flowing skirts. Diva still dressed much as she had in the late sixties and early seventies, with her pale blonde hair long and down her back, tunic tops and skirts to her ankles, sandals and bracelets and necklaces that she made herself out of crystals and beads and leather. Diva and Yogi lived in their own era, and it didn’t much matter to them that time had moved on.

  Diva’s reply drifted back over her shoulder. “It’s your choice, Harley.”

  “Yes, I know it’s my choice. That doesn’t mean I’ll make the right choice. Come on. Give me a clue here. You know something I don’t, apparently.”

  “Rama and Ovid are concerned.”

  Harley couldn’t help it. She rolled her eyes. “What do Rama and Ovid have to do with me? They’re your spirit guides, not mine.”

  “What you do affects me. You’re my daughter. But perhaps it’s best that you do go. It will help your father feel so much better.”

  “Oh, good lord. That sounds ominous. I’m not going to have to get up on stage at one of his shows and throw my panties or anything like that, am I?”

  Diva laughed. “I’m sure not. Oh, will you let King in? The pet door is broken.”

  Recognizing she wasn’t going to learn anything else until her mother chose to tell her, Harley went to the back door and opened it. King, her father’s black and white Border Collie named for Elvis, trotted inside. His paws were muddy, and seeing as how there’d been no rain lately, that no doubt meant he’d been up to mischief again.

  “I thought the higher fence Yogi put up kept King from getting out,” she said as she gave the dog a pat on the head that promptly elicited an ecstatic wiggle of his entire body.

  “It does. Why?”

  “His feet are wet. I’ll bet he’s been fishing in Mrs. Erland’s pond again.”

  “Perhaps he’s just been in the garden. Yogi hooked up a watering system. King likes to go back there and sample tomatoes on occasion.”

  That explained the glazed look in King’s eyes. Yogi’s illegal tobacco grew right next to the tomato plants, and the crop of both had a relaxing effect on those who indulged. Since King couldn’t roll his own and smoke, he’d obviously found eating the tomatoes a nice substitution. Well, whatever kept him from being the neighborhood scourge had to be an improvement.

  “He seems much better behaved now,” she remarked. “Maybe he’s settling down.”

  “The obedience classes helped, I think. How kind of the Border Collie Rescue to help out.”

  “They just didn’t want to get stuck with him. But I’m grateful for anything that keeps me from having to go looking for him at three in the morning.”

  “You have an affinity for animals, Harley. I don’t know why you resist it. That’s a lovely talent to have.”

  “Right. If you don’t mind pet hair over all your clothes, on the floor, on the furniture, in your food—”

  “So how is Sam?”

  Harley sighed. “He’s fine. I can’t believe I let Cami talk me into keeping that cat. I had to pay Mr. Lancaster a pet deposit. A hundred dollars just so I can clean out a litter box and pay good money for a scratching post and toys that I use more than he does. He looks at me like I’m crazy when I try to get him to play with them. I think I’ve been had.”

  “We don’t often choose animals. They choose us. They’re on a higher spiritual plane than we are and can sense people with good hearts.”

  “Which explains why Sam is so picky about who pets him, I suppose. It’s rather nice having a cat that’s smarter than people.”

  “He’s not necessarily smarter, just isn’t burdened with preconceived ideas about how things are supposed to be. He sees with all his senses. Just like King.”

  While Diva smiled at the dog, who seemed to know good things were being said about him and wagged his tail so hard it should have flown across the room, Harley reflected on the simple truth that animals had some kind of pipeline to objectivity. They never let anything like concern about their next meal interfere with behavior patterns that bordered on criminal. If it wasn’t for the cuteness factor, dogs would never have been allowed into that first cave. And she wasn’t at all sure they were domesticated. Cats were definitely still undomesticated, despite the popular belief that they were house pets. They weren’t. They just had good PR agents.

  “Listen to this,” Yogi said from the kitchen doorway, and Harley turned, wincing a little at the sight of him still in his Elvis getup. At least his pot belly had shrunk, and with his long sideburns, once he got his annual haircut he’d resemble Elvis pretty closely—if closely included cherubic cheeks and a nose that was a bit short, lips that were a little too thin, and height a couple of inches below six feet. The Elvis contest was the only time he ever cut his hair; the rest of the time he kept it in a ponytail.

  “We’re listening,” Harley said as her father hit a few chords on his guitar.

  Yogi launched into a pretty good imitation of Elvis singing.

  Suspicious Minds. He really wasn’t bad. Even his guitar playing had improved.

  “I’ve been taking guitar lessons from Eric,” he said when she complimented him on how good he sounded. “This is the year I’ll win. I just know it.”

  Harley couldn’t help a big smile. Yogi was always so certain he’d win, and when he lost, always s
o determined to win the next time. “I’ll just bet you do win this year.”

  He did another Elvis stance. “Thank you. Thank you verra much.”

  Time to go. Harley left after the usual farewell rituals and stood on the front porch a minute before heading to her car parked at the curb. Huge oaks hung over the street on both sides, shading it save for a few patches of sunlight.

  Her parents’ house was only a few blocks from the University of Memphis—formerly known as Memphis State, and before that, Normal State, the latter no doubt changed when it became obvious it was a more hopeful than realistic name. The Normal neighborhood had gone through many transitions over the years. In the thirties up to the fifties it’d been full of young families, then older families. In the sixties, college kids and hippies painted flowers everywhere, grew pot in closets with sophisticated lighting, then melded like chameleons into yuppies and left it all in a shabby air of neglect.

  In the past decade or so, the transition had started all over again. Some of the older families like hers had stuck it out, but some of the houses were divided into rented rooms for university students. Now younger families had started buying and renovating the older homes in the area. Most of the families at this end of Douglass Street were older. On the other end, swing sets and kids’ toys littered yards like some kind of plastic nuclear blast.

  A wide front porch ran the length of her parents’ bungalow-style house. In summer it held chairs, in winter it held hardy plants. Now it held Harley’s younger brother. Eric was just coming up the steps onto the porch. Tall, thin, and nearly always dressed in black, he smiled when he saw her. “Hey, cool chick.”

  “Hey, dude.” Standard greetings over, she asked him about his art classes the coming year at the University of Memphis, the heavy metal rock band he was in, and if he’d be going to the big Elvis finals competition with their parents. Provided Yogi made it that far.

  He shook his head, and afternoon light glittered off the earring in one ear. “Not this time. We’ve got a gig that night. Thank god.”